Though this of Jesus—that of Job may sing,

One bawdy play will twice their profits bring.

And, had not both caress’d the flatter’d crown,

This had no knighthood seen, nor that no gown.’”[[118]]

All this is despicable growling. Dunton accuses Wesley that he had ceased to be his friend, or, to use his own word, which twice over he has italicised, because he had dropped him. But what of that? Had Wesley not had cause to drop him? Was it nothing that this man, who for fifteen years had been blessed, in the sister of Susannah Wesley, with one of the best wives that ever lived, began to sweetheart another within two months after she was dead, though all the while he was indulging in noisy grief for his irreparable loss, and was urging Wesley to write both an epitaph and an elegy, for the devoted and exalted woman whose place at his hearth and in his bed he was labouring to fill up with another? Was it surprising that Samuel Wesley should resent this insult to the memory of his wife’s sister, and that he should drop the friendship of a man who was making himself such a fool? Wesley was no longer Dunton’s friend; but there is no evidence that he became Dunton’s enemy. On the contrary, when Dunton was crushed with financial embarrassments, Mr Wesley was not only a creditor, but the chief creditor, and wrote to Dunton assuring him that he should do nothing to his prejudice.[[119]] Dunton himself confesses this; and yet, with consummate and most ungrateful impudence, not only whines about Wesley’s dropped friendship, but malignantly endeavours to injure Wesley’s fair character.

Dunton, in the foregoing extract, insinuates that Wesley had written articles (we presume in the Athenian Gazette) which were discreditable both to him and to his publisher; but, in the absence of something more than insinuation, and taking into account the general character of Wesley’s acknowledged writings, it is not unfair to say that Dunton’s inuendo is as baseless as it is base.

Dunton intimates that Wesley had sought to be made a bishop, and had cast a longing eye on even the dignity of an archbishop. The same thing has been broadly uttered in a life of Defoe, recently written by William Chadwick. This pungent and scurrilous author says:—“Wesley made his way by flattering royalty; he could write either prose or poetry, and dedicate his work to the queen for the time being, and then ask for a living as the reward of his services. The rectory of Epworth was one produce of his pen, Queen Mary being the patron. The neighbouring living of Wroot he obtained for bedaubing with poetic flattery the Duke of Marlborough, after his victory of Blenheim; and his traducing of the Dissenters in the eventful year of 1703, was intended, through the royal patronage, to send this time-serving flatterer into the Archbishopric of Canterbury, upon the back of that unprincipled miscreant, Dr Sacheverell.”[[120]]

The man that wrote this is as unprincipled as he says Sacheverell was. His assertions are a tissue of falsehoods, in support of which he adduces no evidence whatever. Samuel Wesley would have done no dishonour to a bishop’s bench, but we fearlessly deny that there is any proof existing, except such as is found in mean insinuations, like those of John Dunton, that Samuel Wesley ever even “desired a bishop’s office, much less that he wrote his books for the purpose of obtaining it.” The whole thing is an unfounded and slanderous accusation, more disgraceful to the accusers than it is injurious to the accused. Chadwick, no doubt, founds his imputations against Wesley upon casual remarks made by men like Dunton; but when Dunton and others fail to adduce proof, it is only fair to doubt their correctness, inasmuch as they are obviously animated by a malevolence which never scruples to utter falsehoods that are likely to blacken the character of the man it hates.

So far as can be ascertained, the first thing Mr Wesley published, after his removal to Epworth, was a “Sermon preached before the Society for the Reformation of Manners.” This sermon was delivered, first, at St James’s Church, Westminster, Feb. 13, 1698, about twelve months after the settlement at Epworth, and was afterwards repeated at St Bride’s. The text is, “Who will rise up for me against evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?” (Psalm xciv. 16;) and it is a curious fact that, sixty-five years after, John Wesley preached before the same society, from the same text, in West Street Chapel, Seven Dials.[[121]]

The Society for the Reformation of Manners was first instituted about the year 1677, which was just before Samuel Wesley became a student in the Stepney Academy. At that time Dr Anthony Horneck was at the height of his useful popularity. Horneck was educated first at Heidelberg, under the celebrated Spurzheim, and afterwards at Queen’s College, Oxford. After exercising his ministry in Oxford, and at Doulton, in Devonshire, he, in 1671, became preacher at the Savoy in London. At the Revolution he was honoured with the appointment of chaplain to King William and Queen Mary, and in 1693 became prebendary of Westminster. He died in 1696. He was a man of extensive learning; particularly conversant with the Oriental languages, ecclesiastical history, controversial theology, and casuistry, and was the author of several pious and learned works. Dunton says “he was a man of so great usefulness that none saw him without reverence, or heard him without wonder.”