“John Fletcher.”
Rowland Hill has been mentioned. Though not ordained, and still an undergraduate at St. John’s College, Cambridge, he had begun to preach. He had also formed a small Society of his fellow-students, and was infusing into them a portion of his own ardent zeal. For these proceedings he was bitterly assailed. His father and mother were decidedly opposed to the action he had taken. His superiors in the University condemned, in the strongest terms, what they were pleased to call his infringements of discipline; and hints were given him of a refusal of testimonials and his degree, as the probable result of his irregularities. In the midst of all this, Whitefield wrote to him as follows:—
“Haverfordwest, June 4, 1767.
“My dear Professor,—I wish you joy of the late high dignity conferred upon you—higher than if you were made the greatest professor in the University of Cambridge.[569] The honourable degrees you intend giving toyour promising candidates, I trust, will excite a holy ambition, and a holy emulation. Let me know who is first honoured. As I have been admitted to the degree of doctor for near these thirty years, I assure you I like my field preferment, my airy pluralities, exceeding well.
“For these three weeks past, I have been beating up for fresh recruits in Gloucestershire and South Wales. Thousands and thousands attended. Good Lady Huntingdon was present at one of our reviews. Her ladyship’s aide-de-camp preached in Brecknock Street; and Captain Scott, that glorious field-officer, lately fixed his standard upon dear Mr. Fletcher’s horse-block at Madeley. Being invited thither, I have a great inclination to lift up the Redeemer’s ensign, next week, in the same place;—with what success, you and your dearly beloved candidates for good old Methodistical contempt shall know hereafter. God willing, I intend fighting my way up to town. Soon after my arrival thither, I hope thousands and thousands of vollies of prayers—energetic, effectual, fervent, heaven-besieging, heaven-opening, heaven-taking prayers—shall be poured forth for you all.
“Oh, my dearly beloved and longed for in the Lord, my bowels yearn towards you. Fear not to go without the camp. Keep open the correspondence between the two Universities.[570] Remember the praying legions. They were never known to yield. God bless those who are gone to their respective cures! I say not livings,—a term of too modern date. Christ is our life. Christ is the Levite’s inheritance. Greet your dear young companions whom I saw. They are welcome to write to me when they please.
“I am, etc.,
“George Whitefield.”[571]
At this period, there was great excitement in the English colonies of America respecting the proposed introduction of bishops of the Established Church. The Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, D.D., was now in the forty-first year of his age. He had graduated at Yale College, but, in 1751, came to England, and was episcopally ordained. He returned to America as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and became rector of St. John’s Church, at Elizabeth Town, New Jersey, where he long maintained a high character for talent and learning. In the present year, 1767, he published “An Appeal to the Public in Behalf of the Church of England in America,” and dedicated his able performance to Secker,Archbishop of Canterbury. The object of it was to secure the designation of two or more bishops, to reside and to exercise episcopal jurisdiction in the transatlantic settlements.
He alleged that the appointment of commissaries had been a failure, and that, as a consequence, such appointments had ceased for near twenty years. The result of this was, the episcopal clergy in America had no ecclesiastical superiors to unite or to control them; they were independent of each other; and the people were free from all restraints of ecclesiastical authority. For want of bishops, candidates for the ministry had to come to England for ordination, at great hazard and expense; and, because of this, numerous congregations were without ministers. In the province of New Jersey, there were twenty-one churches and congregations, eleven of which were entirely destitute of clergymen, and there were but five to supply the pulpits of the other ten. In Pennsylvania, there were in the city of Philadelphia three churches, and but two ministers; and, in the rest of the province, the number of the churches was twenty-six, and that of the clergy only seven. In North Carolina, there were six clergymen, to supply the wants of twenty-nine parishes, each parish containing a whole county. Another argument adduced by Dr. Chandler was “the impossibility that a bishop residing in England should be sufficiently acquainted with the characters of those coming to them for Holy Orders. To this it was owing, that ordination had been sometimes fraudulently and surreptitiously obtained by such wretches, as were not only a scandal to the Church, but a disgrace to the human species.” Dr. Chandler further stated that the white population of America numbered about three millions; and that, of these, about a third were professed members of the Church of England; “the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists were not so many; and the Germans, Papists, and other denominations, amounted to more.” Besides these three millions, however, there were, in the different colonies, about 840,000 negroes, most of whom “belonged to the professors of the Church of England.” And there were also the native Indians, the conversion of whom had been almost altogether neglected. It was proposedthat the “two or more bishops” to be sent should “have no authority, but purely of a spiritual and ecclesiastical nature; that they should not interfere with the property or privileges, whether civil or religious, of Churchmen or Dissenters; that, in particular, they should have no concern with the Probate of Wills, Letters of Guardianship and Administration, or Marriage Licences, nor be judges of any cases relating thereto; but that they should only ordain and govern the clergy, and administer confirmation to those who might desire it.” It was also proposed that they should be supported, not by tithes, but by “perquisites such as the people might freely grant them;” by the interest arising from a fund already in existence for the purpose, in connection with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and, if need were (which was not likely), by the levying of a tax at the rate of fourpence in £100.