“London, November 19, 1742.
“My Lord,—I received your lordship’s letter this evening. It confirmed me in the character given me of your lordship’s spirit. I verily believe you abhor everything that has a tendency to persecution; and yet, in my humble opinion, if Mr. C—— is not somewhat redressed, he is persecuted.
“My Lord, the whole of the matter seems to be this: In Wales, they have fellowship meetings, where some well-meaning people meet together, simply to tell what God has done for their souls. In some of these meetings, I believe, Mr. C—— used to tell his experience, and to invite hiscompanions to come and be happy in Jesus Christ. He is, therefore, indicted as holding a conventicle; and I find this is the case of one, if not two, more.
“Now, my Lord, as far as I can judge, these persons, thus indicted, are loyal subjects of his Majesty, and true friends of the Church of England service, and attendants upon it. You will see, by the enclosed letters, how unwilling they are to leave the Church; and yet, if the Acts, made against persons meeting together to plot against Church and State, be put in execution against them, what must they do? They must be obliged to declare themselves Dissenters. I assure your lordship, it is a critical time in Wales. Hundreds, if not thousands, will go in a body from the Church, if such proceedings are countenanced. I lately wrote them a letter, dissuading them from separating from the Church; and I write thus to your lordship, because of the excellent spirit of moderation discernible in your lordship, and because I would not have (to use your lordship’s own expression) ‘such a fire kindled in or from your diocese.’”
Whitefield found it necessary to appeal to another bishop of the English Church. John Cennick was one of Whitefield’s preachers in as full a sense as Thomas Maxfield was one of Wesley’s, and had as great a claim upon Whitefield’s sympathy and support, as the itinerants of Wesley had upon him. John Cennick was now in trouble. Though he had occasionally preached in London, Bristol, Kingswood, and elsewhere, his labours had been principally devoted to the county of Wilts. His first sermon, in the county, was preached in the street of Castlecombe, on July 16, 1740; and, before long, he formed himself a preaching circuit, consisting of Lyneham, Chippenham, Avon, Langley, Hullavington, Malmsbury, Littleton-Drew, Foxham, Brinkworth, Stratton, Somerford, Tytherton, Swindon, and other places. He had many adventures, and some of them serious ones. In the month of June, 1741, accompanied by Howell Harris and twenty-four other friends, all on horseback, he went to Swindon, and began to sing and pray; but, before he could begin to preach, the mob, he writes, “fired guns over our heads, holding the muzzles so near our faces, that Howell Harris and myself were both made as black as tinkers with the powder. We were not affrighted, but opened our breasts, telling them we were ready to lay down our lives for our doctrine. They then got dust out of the highway, and covered us all over; and then played an engine upon us, which they filled out of the stinking ditches.While they played upon brother Harris, I preached; and, when they turned the engine upon me, he preached. This continued till they spoiled the engine; and then they threw whole buckets of water and mud over us. Mr. Goddard, a leading gentleman of the town, lent the mob his guns, halberd, and engine, and bade them use us as badly as they could, only not to kill us; and he himself sat on horseback the whole time, laughing to see us thus treated. After we left the town, they dressed up two images, and called one Cennick, and the other Harris, and then burnt them. The next day, they gathered about the house of Mr. Lawrence, who had received us, and broke all his windows with stones, cut and wounded four of his family, and knocked down one of his daughters.”
Within three months after this, Cennick was again in peril. While preaching at Stratton, the Swindon mob arrived, with “swords, staves, and poles.” Cennick writes:—“Without respect to age or sex, they knocked down all who stood in their way, so that some had blood streaming down their faces, and others were taken up almost beaten and trampled to death. Many of our dear friends were cut and bruised sadly; and I got many severe blows myself.”
Notwithstanding, however, this brutal opposition, Cennick’s labours were successful. He formed several Societies. At Brinkworth, in the month of August, 1741, he began to build his first meeting-house. “On Monday, October 25, 1742,” he writes, “I bought the house and land at Tytherton, where now our chapel is built; and, on Sunday, November 14, I preached the first time there,after we had taken down several lofts at one end of the house, in order to make room.”[30]
Cennick continues, “Two days after this, we were sadly misused at Langley-Burrell. The rude people, besides making a noise, cut the clothes of the congregation, threw aquafortis on them, and pelted them with cow-dung.”
In the midst of all this, Cennick wrote to Whitefield, as follows:—
“Last Tuesday, at Langley, several persons came, casting great stones at the windows of the house where we worshipped, and hallooed to eachother to disturb us with their noise. They then blamed each other for not dragging me out of the pulpit, and pulling the house to pieces. At last, they laboured very hard in gathering dirt and filth, which they continued to throw at us till we finished. Not content with this, they laid wait for us in the fields and lanes, and pelted us as we passed on our way. They cut the clothes of some of the Society with scissors, and pushed them into brooks and ditches.