Here he associated with Wesley and his brother, and, like them, was soon involved in the Moravian squabbles. A “famous French Prophetess,” of the name of Lavington, sprang up among them, who, at one of their meetings, on June 7, 1739, asked, “Can a man attain perfection here?” Charles Wesley answered, “No.” The Prophetess began groaning. Charles turned and said, “If you have anything to speak, speak it.” She lifted up her voice, like the lady on the tripod, and cried out vehemently, “Look for perfection; I say, absolute perfection!” Charles writes:—
“I was minded to rebuke her; but God gave me uncommon recollection, and command of spirit, so that, I sat quiet, and replied not. I offered, at last, to sing, which she allowed, but did not join. Bray pressed me to stay, and hear her pray. They knelt; I stood. She prayed most pompously. I durst not say, Amen. She concluded with a horrible, hellish laugh; and showed violent displeasure against our baptized Quaker, saying, ‘God had showed her, He would destroy all outward things.’”
On the three following days, Charles Wesley took the depositions of certain parties, “concerning her lewd life and conversation;” read the account to the Society; and warned his friends against her. On June 12th, at another of their meetings, she again appeared. Charles remarks:—
“She flew upon us like a tigress; tried to outface me; and insisted, that, she was immediately inspired. I prayed. She cried, ‘The devil was in me. I was a fool, a blockhead, a blind leader of the blind.’ She roared outrageously; said, it was the lion in her. (True; but not the Lion of Judah.) She would come to the Society in spite of me: if not, they would all go down. I asked, ‘Who is on God’s side? Who for the old Prophets rather than the new? Let them follow me.’ They followed me into the preaching room. I prayed, and expounded the lesson with extraordinary power.”
The next day, the two Wesleys, with their brother-in-law, Westley Hall, met the Society, and discussed “the Prophetess’s affair.” Charles Wesley says,—
“Bray and Bowers were much humbled. All agreed to disown the prophetess. Brother Hall proposed expelling Shaw and Wolf. We consented, nem. con., that, their names should be erased out of the Society-book, because they disowned themselves members of the Church of England.”
Thus we find Westley Hall employed in silencing the profanities of a half-crazed woman, and expelling men from a religious society, because they would not acknowledge themselves to be members of the Established Church.
It is not known in what church Hall officiated during his residence in London; but there is one circumstance connected with his ministry while here, too interesting to be omitted. At this period, the great themes of the preaching and of the conversation of Wesley and his brother were their newly found doctrines of Justification by Faith only, the Witness of the Spirit, and the New Birth. For many a long year, Susannah Wesley had been one of the most Christian women then living; but her sons’ doctrine of the Witness of the Spirit was one of which she had scarcely ever heard. Now, however, at the age of seventy, and only three years before her death, she obtained the blessing for herself, and obtained it under the ministry of Westley Hall. Wesley writes:—
“1739, September 3. I talked largely with my mother, who told me, that, till a short time since, she had scarce heard such a thing mentioned as the having God’s Spirit bearing witness with our spirit: much less did she imagine, that, this was the common privilege of all true believers. ‘Therefore,’ said she, ‘I never durst ask it for myself. But two or three weeks ago, while my son Hall was pronouncing those words, in delivering the cup to me,—The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee,—the words struck my heart, and I knew, God, for Christ’s sake, had forgiven me all my sins.’”