“Your lordship will allow that, as a subject of King George, and a minister of Jesus Christ, I have a right to do myself justice; and, therefore, I hope, if the disturbances be continued, that your lordship will not be offended, if I lay a plain narration of the whole affair, together with what has passed between your lordship and myself, before the world. I beg you not to look upon this as a threatening. I scorn any such mean procedure. But, as Providence seems to point out such a method, I hope your lordship will have no just reason to censure me if I do it.”
The bishop replied, and Whitefield wrote to him again, as follows:—
“London, March 25, 1756.
“Your lordship needed not to inform me of the privilege of a peer, to deter me from publishing your lordship’s letters, without first asking leave. Nothing shall be done in that way, which is the least inconsistent with the strictest honour, justice, and simplicity. But, if a public account of the repeated disturbances at Long Acre chapel be rendered necessary,I hope your lordship will not esteem it unreasonable in me, to inform the world what previous steps were taken to prevent and stop them.
“Such a scene, at such a juncture, and under such a government, as has been transacted in your lordship’s parish, in the house or yard of Mr. Cope, who, I hear, is your lordship’s overseer, ever since last Twelfth-day, I believe is not to be met with in English history. It is more than noise. It is premeditated rioting. Drummers, soldiers, and many of the baser sort, have been hired by subscription. A copper furnace, bells, drums, clappers, marrow-bones, and cleavers, and such-like instruments of reformation, have been provided for them, and repeatedly have been used by them, from the moment I have begun preaching, to the end of my sermon. By these horrid noises, many women have been almost frightened to death; and mobbers have, thereby, been encouraged to come and riot at the chapel door during the time of divine service; and, after it has been over, have insulted and abused me and the congregation. Not content with this, the chapel windows, while I have been preaching, have repeatedly been broken by large stones of almost a pound weight, which, though levelled at me, missed me, but sadly wounded some of my hearers. If your lordship will only ride to Mr. Cope’s house, you will see the scaffold, and the costly preparations for such a noise upon it, as must make the ears of all who shall hear it to tingle.
“I am informed that Mr. C—— and Mr. M—— are parties greatly concerned. I know them not, and I pray God never to lay this ill and unmerited treatment to their charge. If no more noise is made, I assure your lordship no further resentment shall be made. But if they persist, I have the authority of an apostle, on a like occasion, to appeal unto Cæsar. I have only one favour to beg of your lordship. As the above-named gentlemen are your lordship’s parishioners, I request that you desire them, henceforward, to desist from such unchristian, such riotous, and dangerous proceedings. Whether, as a chaplain to a most worthy peeress, a presbyter of the Church of England, and a steady disinterested friend to our present happy constitution, I have not a right to ask such a favour, I leave to your lordship’s mature deliberation. Henceforward, I hope to trouble your lordship no more.”
Certainly, it was high time to bring matters to a crisis. The Rev. Zachary Pearce, D.D., though himself the son of a rich distiller in Holborn, and though the husband of a wife, who, as the daughter of another Holborn distiller, brought him a large fortune, was a pluralist. Twenty-three years ago, by the exertions of the Earl of Macclesfield, he had been presented with the fat living of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, even after it had been promised to another man. For seventeen years, he had been dean of Winchester; and, in 1748, had exchanged the deanery for the bishopric of Bangor. And now, in this memorable year of 1756, theDuke of Newcastle conferred upon him the see of Rochester and the deanery of Westminster. No doubt, it was in his capacity of vicar of St. Martin’s, that this wealthy pluralist prohibited Whitefield’s preaching in Long Acre, and, if he did not actually employ, yet connived at the noisy ruffians who disturbed Whitefield’s services. Whitefield’s language to the Bishop of Bangor was too respectful. Such a man deserved rebuke, quite as strong as the liquors, by which his own father and the father of his wife had made their fortunes.
Notwithstanding all the efforts of Whitefield to obtain peace, the disturbances at Long Acre were continued. Besides this, early in the month of April, Whitefield received three anonymous letters, threatening him with “a certain, sudden, and unavoidable stroke,” unless he desisted from preaching, and refrained from prosecuting the rioters of Long Acre. It is impossible to suspect Bishop Pearce of being implicated in the sending of these disgraceful threats; but there can be little doubt that the known animosity of himself and others gave encouragement to the masked assassins. For years past, the bishops and clergy of the Established Church, comparatively speaking, had ceased from their open and violent persecution of the poor itinerant preacher; but their rancorous feelings towards him, perhaps, were not at all abated. Even free-thinking Dr. Herring, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was now within twelve months of his decease, wrote, in the very midst of the Long Acre riots, to William Duncombe, Esq., as follows:—
“Croydon House, January 25, 1756.
“Your judgment is right. Whitefield is Daniel Burgess[384] redivivus; and, to be sure, he finds his account in his joco-serious addresses. Wesley, with good parts and learning, is a most dark and saturnine creature. His pictures may frighten weak people, who, at the same time, are wicked; but, I fear, he will make few converts, except for a day. I have read his ‘Serious Thoughts’;[385] but, for my own part, I think therising and setting of the sun is a more durable argument for religion than all the extraordinary convulsions of nature put together. Let a man be good on right principles, and then impavidum ferient ruinae. So far, Horace was as good a preacher as any of us. I have no constitution for these frights and fervours; and, if I can but keep up to the regular practice of a Christian life, upon Christian reasons, I shall be in no pain for futurity; nor do I think it an essential part of religion, to be pointed at for any foolish singularities. The subjects of the Methodist preaching, you mention, are excellent in the hands of wise men, not enthusiasts. As to their notion that men are by nature devils, I can call it by no other name than wicked and blasphemous, and the highest reproach that man can throw upon his wise and good Creator.