John Wesley says that at this time, and for some years after, Whitelamb did not believe the Christian revelation.[[253]] I can hardly understand this, unless it arose out of Whitelamb stating to Charles Wesley that he looked upon the doctrines preached by himself and his brother “as of ill consequence,” and that he had great reason to think that, what he calls “the seal and testimony of the Spirit was, in the generality of their followers, merely the effect of a heated fancy.”[[254]] In the same letter, however, he speaks of John Wesley in the kindest terms, and says—“He behaved to me truly like himself. I found in him what I have always experienced heretofore, the gentleman, the friend, the brother, the Christian.”
Whitelamb died in July 1769,[[255]] and was succeeded by a member of the Whitelamb family, who was remarkable for his various learning, and especially for his skill in mathematics.[[256]]
In 1844, there was an aged female at Wroote, who remembered John Whitelamb, and had been a scholar in his school. She described him as a person of retiring habits, and fond of solitude. She was present when he was suddenly seized, on his way to perform divine service at the church, with the illness which shortly terminated in his death; and stated that his funeral was attended by a considerable number of clergymen, who thus paid their last tribute of respect to a departed friend.[[257]] On a small stone in the churchyard, about two feet long and one foot broad, is the following inscription:—“In[“In] memory of John Whitelamb, Rector of this Parish thirty-five years. Buried 29th July 1769, aged 62 years. Worthy of imitation. This at the cost of Francis Wood, Esq., 1772.”[[258]]
Dr Adam Clarke says Whitelamb was a Deist; and John Wesley says that for years he did not believe the Christian revelation. As to Dr Clarke’s assertion, I demur to it in toto; and, as to Mr Wesley’s I agree with Southey in regarding it as a hasty and loose expression, only applicable to the peculiar—the great and glorious doctrines—which Wesley and his band of helpers were the means of rescuing from oblivion, and of propagating throughout the land. Still Wesley always regarded him as a backslider, and, after his death, exclaimed—“Oh, why did not he die forty years ago, while he knew in whom he had believed!”[[259]]
As an apology for these lengthened remarks respecting John Whitelamb, the reader is reminded that this able man married one of Mr Wesley’s daughters, and, for four years, acted as his amanuensis in transcribing his “Dissertations on the Book of Job.”
Mr Wesley’s Dissertations are fifty-three in number, (Dr Adam Clarke, in mistake, says thirty-five,) and many of them, besides being immensely learned, are in a high degree interesting and curious. The following is a list of them:—
- 1. Whether the Book of Job be a true history or a poetic parable?
- 2. The Author of the Book.
- 3. The Dramatic Construction of the Book.
- 4. The Pastoral Songs, &c., in the Sacred Scriptures.
- 5. The Elegance and Rhetoric of the Book of Job.
- 6. Parallels from Homer.
- 7. The Name, or Names of Job.
- 8. The Posterity of Joktan.
- 9. The Posterity of Chanaan.
- 10. The Phœnician Shepherds.
- 11. The Nations Overthrown by Chedorlaomer.
- 12. The Children of Abraham by Hagar.
- 13. The Five Cities of the Plain.
- 14. Allusions in the Book of Job to the Fall of Angels and of Man; to the Antediluvians and the Flood; to the Precepts of Noah and the Sabbath; to the Destruction of Sodom, &c.
- 15. The History of Edom.
- 16. The Red Sea.
- 17. The Gulf of Persia.
- 18. Arabia Petræa.
- 19. The Desert of Arabia.
- 20. Arabia Felix.
- 21. The Magi who visited Christ.
- 22. On Chamo, Cush, and their Posterity.
- 23. Idumea.
- 24. The Four Quarters of the Globe.
- 25. The Children of Job.
- 26. The Wife of Job.
- 27. The Friends of Job.
- 28. The Enemies of Job.
- 29. The Country of Job.
- 30. The Time of Job.
- 31. Job’s Knowledge of the Military Art.
- 32. Job’s Jurisprudence.
- 33. Metals, Trees, Herbs, &c.
- 34. Gems.
- 35. Calamities of Job not recited in the Prologue of the Book.
- 36. Constellations and Meteors.
- 37. Phœnicia.
- 38. Behemoth and Leviathan.
- 39. The Origin of Evil.
- 40. On Idolatry.
- 41. Sabians and Sabianism.
- 42. Zoroasteranianism.
- 43. Poetical Description of Animals.
- 44. Serpent-worship.
- 45. Hades.
- 46. The Magi of the Ancients.
- 47 Balaam.
- 48. Parallels from the Sacred Scriptures—the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Saxons.
- 49. The Mode of Writing among the Ancients.
- 50. Death and the Resurrection.
- 51. The Recent Mode of Interpreting Scripture.
- 52. The Faith of Job and Elihu.
- 53. Additions of the Septuagint to the end of Job.
Unhappily the whole of these Dissertations are written in Latin, and, therefore, are never likely to be read except by the lettered few. Who will undertake to furnish a correct translation of some of them for a periodical like the Methodist Magazine?
After the Dissertations, there are nearly two hundred pages occupied with the Hebrew text of the Book of Job, collated with the Chaldee Paraphrase, and with the Septuagint in its best editions; and also with the Syriac and Arabic versions; likewise with the Latin versions of Castellio, Montanus, St. Ambrose, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, and of the Zurich divines, together with the English version of Tindal, and the present authorised version. Every verse of the whole book of Job was collated in all the versions above-mentioned, and all the variations set down. This must have been an immense labour. Dr Adam Clarke says—“It is one of the most complete things of the kind I have ever met with, and must be invaluable to any man who may wish to read the book of Job critically.”
The frontispiece of Mr Wesley’s large folio is a portrait of himself in the character of Job. He is represented as without beard, and without whiskers; as wearing a small cap; as clothed in a long, loose-flowing robe; and as sitting in an antique chair with a sceptre in his hand, two pyramids being placed behind him, and above him the arch and portcullis of an ancient gate.