Sacheverell’s defence lies before us,[[208]] but it is scarce worth quoting. He remarks that the charges against him are very serious; and, for that reason, ought to be sustained by the clearer proofs; whereas all that had been adduced had been “intendments, unnecessary implications, strained constructions, broken sentences, and independent passages.” In reference to the first article of impeachment, that he had reflected upon the late revolution, and suggested that the means to bring it about were odious and unjustifiable, he asserts that he did not apply his doctrine of non-resistance to the Revolution; and then contends that so far as the doctrine itself is concerned, it is in perfect accordance with the teachings of the apostles and of the Christian fathers, with the laws of the kingdom, and with the homilies and articles of the English Church. In answer to the second article, that he had defamed the Dissenters, and cast scurrilous reflections upon those who favoured and defended liberty of conscience, he admits that he had spoken with some warmth against hypocrites, Socinians, and Deists; but he also contends that he had declared his approval of the indulgence granted to the Dissenters by the law of toleration. As to the third article, that he had said the Church was in danger under her Majesty’s administration, he denies it altogether; but, at the same time says, that the Church is in danger from the profaneness and immorality, the heresies and schisms of the kingdom; for “never were the ministers of Christ so abased and vilified, and the Divine authority of the Scriptures so arraigned and ridiculed; never were infidelity and atheism so impudent and barefaced as they are at present.” In reference to the fourth article, that he had reproachfully called those, whom the Queen had promoted to high stations in Church and State, spurious and false brethren, he contends that he was as loyal as any man among them, and that his sermons and his whole behaviour proved it. He concluded by declaring that, “whether he was acquitted or condemned, he should always pray for the Queen his sovereign, their lordships, his judges, and the Commons, his accusers; and he trusted that God would deliver them from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart and contempt of His Word; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness.”
The result of this remarkable trial was, that, on March 20th, sixty-eight members of the House of Lords found Dr Sacheverell guilty of the high crimes and misdemeanours charged against him by the impeachment of the House of Commons; and fifty-two found him not guilty. Three days after, his sentence was pronounced, to the effect that he should not preach during the three years next ensuing; and that his two printed sermons referred to in the impeachment, should be burnt before the Royal Exchange, on March 27th, by the hands of the common hangman, in the presence of the Lord Mayor of London, and of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex.
This mild sentence was looked upon by the friends of Sacheverell rather as an acquittal than as a condemnation; and, on that and the following nights, bonfires illuminated the streets of London and Westminster; there was a deluge of ale and beer, and all who passed were compelled to drink the health of the glorious Sacheverell. As for the doctor himself, he was now a greater man than ever. He returned from Westminster Hall in a grand ecclesiastical triumph. Wherever he went, he was followed by a prodigious train of butchers’ boys, link boys, and the like, who made the welkin ring with their enthusiastic shouts. His health was drunk in bumpers at festive gatherings innumerable; and even handkerchiefs and fans were embellished with his portrait. In the month of May, he began his triumphal progress through the kingdom, and was looked upon as another Hercules of the church militant. Wherever he went, his emissaries were sent before him with his portrait; pompous entertainments were made for him; and a mixed multitude of clergymen and sextons, country singers and fiddlers, a mob of all conditions, male and female, crowded together to meet and welcome him. At Exeter, the rabble made bonfires, and broke the windows of a dissenting meeting-house. At Oxford, Hoadley’s effigy and books were burned. At Sherborne, some of the mob drank Sacheverell’s health, on their knees, in the Town Hall, in the church, and on the church steeple; while others paraded the town, with a drum, cursing the Presbyterians and firing at their houses. At Pontefract, the crowd battered the dissenting chapel, and thought it a high honour to have their children christened Sacheverell. At Gloucester, they kindled bonfires, rang the church bells, and drank Sacheverell’s health, with damnation to Dissenters. At Cirencester, they placed the effigy of King William on a diminutive horse, which they made to throw it, in remembrance of the fate that hastened the king’s death, and then threw the effigy into a fire. They also had a cock-fight, calling one of the fowls Burgess, and the other Sacheverell; but after a lengthened and hard battle, cock Burgess unfortunately killed cock Sacheverell.[[209]] At Bridgenorth, Sacheverell was met by four thousand men on horseback, and as many on foot, wearing white knots, edged with gold. The hedges, for two miles, were dressed with garlands, and the church steeples covered with streamers, flags, and colours.[[210]] This clerical progress was made after the dissolution of the Whig parliament, and during the turbulence of a new election, and hence its motives, successes, and excesses may be imagined. The University of Oxford held a feast to welcome the champion of the Church. The stately mansions of the Tory nobility were thrown open at his approach; and, in several towns, he was received by the mayors and magistrates in their formalities. The avenues to these towns were lined with spectators, the hedges and trees were hung with garlands of flowers; flags were displayed on the church steeples; and the air resounded with cries of “Sacheverell and the Church.” After a few weeks, however, sobriety began to return; the doctor’s picture was frequently torn in pieces, and, in many places, he himself was rudely treated. Sacheverell had done his work, and had, more than any other cause, helped the Tories back to their seats of office. In 1713, the Queen presented him to the valuable rectory of St Andrew’s, Holborn. The first sermon which he preached in the church of that parish, he sold for £100, and forty thousand copies of it were speedily bought by eager purchasers. After this, he gradually dwindled into insignificance, and signalised himself only, during the remainder of his life, by contemptible squabbles with his parishioners. He died at the age of fifty-two, in 1724. “He was,” says Bishop Burnet, “a bold, insolent man, with a very small measure of religion, virtue, learning, or good sense; but he forced himself into popularity and preferment by the most petulant railings at Dissenters and Low Churchmen!” Daniel Defoe says of him, “Bear-garden language is his peculiar talent. He is known in his books as a pulpit incendiary; the Church’s bloody standard-bearer; the trumpeter sent out by High Church authority to preach against union, to proclaim open war between parties, and to hang out flags of defiance.”
“High Church buffoon, and Oxford’s stated jest, A noisy, saucy, swearing, drunken priest.”
Such was the man whom Samuel Wesley helped in an emergency. We are sorry to register such a fact, but truth and honesty compel us. The only excuse which can be suggested is, that during the last few years, the rector of Epworth had been a serious sufferer from dissenting hatred, and that his old dissenting friends were now his bitterest enemies.
The new parliament met on the 25th of November 1710, and the Queen, in her opening speech, showed that she was in the hands of new advisers. She no longer condescended to use the word toleration, but, spoke of indulgence to be allowed “to scrupulous consciences.” This term of indulgence was the more observed, because it was the pet word of Sacheverell, who held, that whatever liberty of conscience Dissenters had, was a matter of indulgence, and not of right. The Whigs were now in a minority, and the Tories were the ruling power.
Convocation, of course, met on the same day as parliament, and of this ecclesiastical synod Samuel Wesley was a member; an honour perhaps awarded him for the service which, at the beginning of the year, he had rendered to Sacheverell. The clergy of the Lower House chose Dr Atterbury, Dean of Carlisle, for their prolocutor; and then came down a royal rescript, very different to that to which they had of late years been accustomed, a licence empowering convocation to enter upon such consultations as the present state of the Church required. The subjects to be discussed were,—1. The late excessive growth of infidelity, heresy, and profaneness; 2. Excommunications, and abuses of commutation money; 3. The visitation of prisoners, and the admission of converts from the Church of Rome; 4. Rural Deans; 5. The glebes and tithes belonging to benefices; 6. Clandestine marriages. As usual, the two houses were at constant variance with each other. Most of the winter was spent in discussing the heresies of Whiston’s “Primitive Christianity Revived.” This learned, ingenious, but eccentric man had succeeded Sir Isaac Newton, in 1703, at Cambridge, as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics; but had recently adopted Arian principles, and published them in the book already mentioned. For this, he was expelled from Cambridge, and was censured by convocation. There was an endless amount of talk; but this was the only business done, when convocation closed on the 12th of June 1711. The House of Commons, however, took into consideration the want of churches in London, and the thanks of the lower house of convocation were presented to them by the prolocutor, who also submitted a scheme for the new churches. On the 7th of May 1711, the Commons resolved to grant to her Majesty £350,000 for the building of fifty new churches, and the purchasing of sites of churches, churchyards, and ministers’ houses, in and about the cities of London and Westminster. This magnificent scheme originated in the convocation of which Samuel Wesley was a member; but, of course, it was carried into effect by parliament.[[211]]
On the 7th of December 1711, parliament re-assembled, and convocation as well. Convocation did nothing, except discuss priestly absolution and lay baptism;[[212]] but parliament signalised itself by passing the notorious “Occasional Conformity Bill,” which had been trying to struggle into life for the last ten years.
Whilst Samuel Wesley was attending these sessions of convocation, his wife was doing her utmost to supply his lack of service among his parishioners. The following facts are taken from a letter, dated “Feb. 6, 1711–12,” and addressed to “the Rev. Mr Wesley, in St Margaret’s Churchyard, Westminster.”[[213]] After giving a detailed account of the manner in which she had been led to adopt the practice of reading to and instructing her family, Mrs Wesley proceeds to state, that the servant lad had told his parents of these family gatherings, and they desired to be admitted. They told others, who begged the same permission, until these domestic congregations amounted to thirty or forty individuals. Mrs Wesley read to them the best and most awakening sermons she could find, and discoursed with them freely and affectionately. The congregation still grew, until now it numbered above two hundred, and on the Sunday before the letter was written, many had been obliged to go away through there not being room for them to stand.
Mrs Wesley had thus, unintentionally, become a sort of female preacher. Why did she begin these services? She says, because she thought the end of the institution of the Sabbath was not fully answered by attending church unless the intermediate spaces of time were filled up by other acts of piety and devotion;[[214]] but we incline to think there was another reason beside this. Mr Wesley, being so much in London, required a curate to supply his place at Epworth, and it so happened that his curate at this period, Mr Inman, was not so efficient as was desirable. On one occasion, when Wesley returned from London, the parishioners complained that the curate had “preached nothing to his congregation, except the duty of paying their debts, and behaving well among their neighbours.” The complainants added, “We think, sir, there is more in religion than this.” Mr Wesley replied, “There certainly is; I will hear him myself.” The curate was sent for, and was told that he must preach next Lord’s-day, the rector at the same time, saying, “I suppose you can prepare a sermon upon any text I give you.” “Yes, sir,” replied the ready curate. “Then,” said Wesley, “prepare a sermon on Heb. xi. 6, ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’” The time arrived, and the text being read with great solemnity, the curate began his brief sermon, by saying—“Friends, faith is a most excellent virtue, and it produces other virtues also. In particular, it makes a man pay his debts;” and thus he proceeded for about fifteen minutes, when the rector clearly saw that paying debts was the alpha and the omega of the curate’s theology. It is scarce likely that the ministry of such a man would satisfy the enlightened mind and religious heart of Susannah Wesley; and it is not to be wondered at that she should try to supply its defects by reading to her children and to two hundred of her neighbours, on Sunday evenings, the best sermons she could find in her husband’s library.