The following is a somewhat startling opinion respecting the future state of the righteous and wicked:—“They shall both arise equally immortal, and diversified in nothing but their last sentence. We shall then see not by receiving the visible species into the narrow glass of an organised eye; we shall then hear without the distinct and curious contexture of the ear. The body then shall be all eye, all ear, all sense in the whole, and every sense in every part. In a word, it shall be all over a common sensorium; and being made of the purest æther, without the mixture of any lower or grosser element, the soul shall, by one undivided act, at once perceive all that variety of objects which now cannot, without several distinct organs, and successive actions or passions, reach our sense. Every sense shall be perfect; the ear shall hear everything at once throughout the spacious limits both of heaven and hell, with a perfect distinction, and without confounding that anthem with this blasphemy; the eye shall find no matter or substance to fix it; and so of the other senses. The reason of this is plain and convincing; for, if the bodies of the just and unjust were not thus qualified, they could not be proper subjects for the exercise of an eternity, but would consume and be liable to a dissolution, or to new changes. Hence we assert, that every individual person in heaven and hell shall hear and see all that passes in either state; these to a more extensive aggravation of their tortures, by the loss of what the other enjoy; and those to a greater increase of their bliss, in escaping what the others suffer.”[[62]]
Such are some of the chief theological views that were entertained by Samuel Wesley. Others might be added, but space forbids. He has been almost invariably represented as holding the principles of the High Church party; but nothing can be more unfounded than this. He preferred the Church of England to any other Church, and thought its doctrines, rituals, and devotions the best in existence. But where is the Methodist, or the Independent, or the Baptist, but what thinks and feels exactly the same respecting the ecclesiastical system to which he adheres? The man that does not prefer his own Church to any other Church is a man without principle; yea, a man whose principle is bad; for, in matters of supreme importance, he is adhering to a system of ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline, not because he thinks it the best, but to serve some other purpose—mercenary, mean, and miserable. Samuel Wesley thought the Church of England the best; but he was not the narrow-minded and little-hearted bigot to unchurch other churches, and deny that so far from being equally good, they were not good at all. Hear what he says on both subjects:—
“The doctrine of the Church of England we entirely embrace, otherwise we could not be Christians. We are ready to subscribe to her Articles, taking all of them, as we are verily persuaded, in the same sense which the compilers intended. For her discipline, we believe the essentials of it—Liturgy and Episcopacy—are agreeable to the primitive pattern and the Word of God. For her rituals and devotions—we are sure they are the most perfect and pure that any Church in the world now enjoys, and dare almost add, or ever did. There are not two passages in them, which we would desire to have changed; though, should the authority and wisdom of Church and State think fit to make any alterations as to words and smaller circumstances, for the sake of peace and union, we should think it our duty, modestly and gladly to submit.”[[63]] Wesley’s opinion of the clergy may be gathered from the following:—“It is not strange that, among so considerable a body of men, there should be found some who extremely disgrace their character, and are highly unworthy; but it is notorious, that all possible care is now taken that the clergy should lead such lives as they are obliged to by solemn vow and promise; and it is known that those who do not, are not so soon preferred as perhaps they might have been in former reigns. With some exceptions, the clergy of England are at this time as considerable a body, both for piety and learning, good preaching and good living, as any in the world, or perhaps, as any that have lived here in any age of the Church since the apostles. Of all those country parishes with which we are acquainted, we cannot, in fifty or threescore parishes, think of above three or four, who disgrace their character. So far from it, the pulpits are filled with sober and ingenious men, good preachers, and good livers.”[[64]]
So much in reference to his opinion of the Church and its ministers. We add two quotations about dissent:—“A Christian Church becomes not more or less Christian by being national; but if a National Church agrees in doctrine with the doctrine of Christ, and Dissenters agree in doctrine with the National Church, neither of them are schismatics from the Church of Christ.”[[65]] And again: “There is no real difference betwixt the Church of England and the Presbyterians as to the manner of worship and preaching. They are really one as to fundamentals; and any one so persuaded, may with a safe conscience communicate with either. Let those that keep up the partition wall, take heed lest they are thereby excluded out of the bond of charity, which makes all of one mind, and partakers of the same privileges.”[[66]]
This is scarce the language of a High Churchman, consigning Dissenters to the uncovenanted mercies of Almighty God. Samuel Wesley was of a temperament too painstaking, too ardent, and too sincere, to be a latitudinarian; but, at the same time, he was too good and too great a man to be a bigot.
Before leaving the Athenian Gazette, it may be added that its writers acted in great harmony, and nothing was published by any one which had not the approval of all. They held meetings regularly at stated times, chose a moderator, and determined controversial points by a majority of votes. If any member happened to be absent, he had to send, except in some particular cases, his papers for the approbation of his friends.[[67]] The project was a great success. It rose superior to all the opposition of its opponents, Anabaptists, Quakers, Usurers, and Lacedemonians; and gained from the nation increasing, and almost general applause.[[68]]
CHAPTER VIII.
MORE LITERARY WORK—1692–1693.
The publication of the Athenian Gazette was begun March 17, 1691, and was closed June 14, 1697. In itself, it was a formidable undertaking. The questions sent to the writers were so many, so diversified, so curious, and so difficult, that to answer them required immense reading and research. And yet, in the midst of the publication of this work, the Athenian Society courageously began another, even more extensive and more arduous; the proposals for printing which were issued, in the preface to the third volume of the Athenian Gazette, October 17, 1691. The work was to consist of 120 sheets; it was to contain nothing but what had the approbation of the whole Athenian Society; and the price per copy, unbound, was to be ten shillings. To some extent, it was similar in plan to the supplements attached to the first volumes of the Athenian Gazette; and probably this was the reason why the supplements were dropped a few months before the new work was issued. At length, on the 6th of June 1692, which was shortly after Samuel Wesley’s removal to South Ormsby, the work was published in a folio volume of more than five hundred pages, and was entitled, “The Young Student’s Library: containing Extracts and Abridgments of the most valuable Books, printed in England and in the Foreign Journals, from the Year Sixty-five to this time;”—to which is added, “A new Essay upon all sorts of Learning; wherein the Use of the Sciences is distinctly treated on, by the Athenian Society. London: Printed for John Dunton, 1692.”
Prefixed to this volume is a curious and fantastic frontispiece, strikingly characteristic of Dunton’s genius. At the four corners are representations of Athens, Rome, Oxford, and Cambridge. At a long table are seated the members of the Athenian Society, twelve in number, Dunton evidently in the middle, and Samuel Wesley, the only clergyman, at his side. Before the table are all sorts of characters presenting their enigmas for solution. One is a faithless lady in a mask, come to inquire how she may convert her faithless husband to a sense of propriety. Another, as a fashionable coquette, with a spaniel in her lap, presents to the learned Athenians her square-sized billet, and awaits with self-complacent impudence an answer. A moon-struck lawyer and an honest Jack Tar eagerly ask for counsel; while a disciple of Euclid, compasses in hand, and studying a globe, longs for a mathematical solution. A poor parson inquires how he is to get a living; and a whole rout of fishwives, thieves, and bad characters clamour for advice; while, before a tripod, filled with burning chestnuts, is a monkey, with a cat in his paws, making her pick out the nuts on his behalf, and thereby showing the cautiousness of the Athenians in answering questions likely to burn their own fingers.
“The Young Student’s Library” contains the substance of above one hundred volumes, many of them folio in size. The extracting and condensing of the contents of such a mass of books must have been a work of enormous labour. Very able synopses are given of above eighty different works.[[69]] And, in addition to these reviews, there are two most elaborate articles written by Samuel Wesley—one, entitled “An Essay upon all sorts of Learning,” and the other, “A Discourse concerning the Antiquity, Divine Original, and Authority of the Points, Vowels, and Accents that are placed to the Hebrew Bible;” and, in close connexion with the latter, are six Critical Disquisitions upon the various editions of the Scriptures, the Polyglot Bible, Hebrew Grammars, Hebrew Lexicons, and Hebrew Poetry, all of which are probably the productions of Mr Wesley’s pen.