“April 5. Our new edition goes on at a great rate. They have finished very near half of each volume: and my publisher, presuming that I should have no objection, took the liberty of making the edition consist of 4,000, instead of 3,000, on which we had agreed. I suppose he was prompted to do this, by finding a call for the piece.”[237]
In revising the work for this second edition, he earnestly asked the help, not only of John Ryland, the Baptist minister, but of William Cudworth, the minister of an Independent congregation, in Margaret Street, London. To the latter, he wrote as follows:—
“April 22. The doctrine, which you approve in my essay, and have clearly displayed and fully proved in your own writings, is not relished by everybody; no, not by many pious people. I take the liberty to send you a couple of letters containing objections.[238] I wish you would be so kind as to consider them, and, in your concise way, which I much admire, to make your remarks upon them. I am not shaken in my opinion by these attacks; but I should be glad to deliver it more clearly, and establish it more firmly, in another edition.
“I heartily wish you success in your projected work.[239] I assure you, it is my opinion, that, such a book, if well executed, will be one of the most valuable services to the present age. You will not, I hope, be too hasty. Mr. Wesley has huddled over his performance[240] in a most precipitate, and, therefore, most imperfect manner. One would think, his aim was, not to select the best and noblest passages, but to reprint those which came first to hand.”
Cudworth responded to the request of Hervey; and the two henceforward became ardently attached and confiding friends. This, if it did not actually create, widened the breach between Hervey and his old adviser, Wesley. Ten years before, Wesley and Cudworth had come into collision, by Wesley’s publication of his two Dialogues “between an Antinomian and his friend;” partly written in answer to a “Dialogue” which Cudworth himself had published. Wesley, rightly or wrongly, accounted Cudworth an Antinomian, and spoke of him with a severity which he seldom used. Cudworth resented this; angry feelings were engendered; and, beyond a doubt, Hervey’s affection and respect for Wesley were lamentably abated.
The year 1755 was a crisis in the history of the Societies, which had been founded by the labours of Wesley and his itinerant evangelists. At a Conference, held at Leeds, three days were spent in discussing the momentous question, whether the Methodists should separate from the Established Church. It was on this occasion, that, Charles Wesley composed and published his famous poetical “Epistle” to his brother. Hervey heard of this, and wrote as follows:—
“1755, July 5. I have just now read advertised in the magazine, the following book, ‘An Epistle from Charles Wesley to John Wesley.’ Has your ladyship seen or heard of it? If you have, be so good as to inform me of the design and contents. I hope, there is no hostility commenced between the brothers. I have no connection, nor correspondence with them, but should be sorry for such an event.”[241]
Hervey had ceased to write to Wesley; but Wesley wrote to him. Hence the following:—
“Weston, August, 1755.
“Pray return Mr. Wesley’s letter. I find, by private intelligence, that, he has shown it in London; and has thought proper to animadvert upon me, by name, from his pulpit. I am inclined to take no notice either of his preaching or his writing.