The nearest to Oxford was Gambold; and, accordingly, on February 18th, Wesley says:—
“We went to Stanton-Harcourt, to Mr. Gambold, and found my old friend recovered from his mystic delusion, and convinced that St. Paul was a better writer than either Tauler or Jacob Behmen.”
Gambold was already returning to gospel simplicity; and his acquaintance with Böhler rendered him service of the highest importance. Böhler held meetings in Oxford, attended both by members of the university and citizens. He delivered discourses in Latin, and Gambold interpreted them for the benefit of those of his audiences who were unfamiliar with that language. This friendship with the newly arrived German, proved the means, not only of the conversion of the two Wesleys, but, ultimately of Gambold also.
“After many struggles and conflicting thoughts, arising from repeated attempts to combine philosophy with the simplicity of the gospel; he, at length, by the grace of God, yielded to the power of the latter. He saw and lamented his natural depravity and consequent alienation from God, and also the insufficiency of his best works to merit heaven. He rejoiced in the sufficiency of the atonement of Jesus to sanctify and justify every true believer in Him. His former melancholy was dissipated; his spirit was made joyful in God his Saviour; and he became, in the fullest sense of the term, a new man.”[124]
The following letters will show the change which took place in Gambold’s views and feelings. The first was addressed to Wesley, and has never before been published. As will be seen, it was written three days before Wesley’s return from Georgia, and, consequently, before Wesley and Gambold became acquainted with Böhler. It is given here without abridgment, and verbatim.
“January 27, 1737-8.
“Dear Sir,—The point you mention has long been a difficulty to me; of which I could find no end, but that general solution of all doubt, and cure of all anxieties, resignation to eternal Providence. Can I offer a more particular solution now? No; but I will let you see, that I, and doubtless many more, labour under the same perplexity; which will incline one to believe, that, as God has a fire of grace to cleanse us from our common pollutions, so he has also a light in reserve, (and the needs of so many strongly call for it,) that would give a comfortable turn to our common speculations.
“O, what is regeneration? And what doth baptism? How shall we reconcile faith and fact? Is Christianity become effete, and sunk again into the bosom of nature? Was the short triumph of it over flesh and blood designed as the standing enjoyment, or standing humiliation of succeeding ages? Was the Church to condemn the world as God does, in order to meet and embrace it at last?
“What advantage would a deist make of the present appearance of things? He would say, that, when the gospel, by setting up some particular institutions, made a separation from natural religion, it was only an economical enmity;—the new dispensation did operate upon the old, as plaisters do upon the body, which, when they have spent their strength in expelling its diseases, drop off, and leave it sound, clean, and beautiful. That, the distance it stood in from it, was only a means to correct the prejudices, and manage the affections of mankind; and, as these ends were served, Christianity and natural religion were to come closer. That, the former was to lose its name in the latter, when its whole light was kindled up,—when the grace of a Redeemer, the inward touches of divine power, and the obligations of penance and self-denial, which were received for a while as extraneous appendages to natural religion, were found to be involved in the very bowels of it. That, the restitution of all things is the time when they shall fully be reconciled; when nature and grace shall be at their height, and the perfection of both be the same thing. That, this conclusion seems to be nigh us in the present age, when evangelical and moral virtue, which formerly stood in points so remote from each other, are so near falling into coincident lines, that, men have much ado to make any distinction that will hold in fact.
“But to come to the point. That regeneration is the beginning of a life which is not fully enjoyed but in another world, we all know. But how much of it may be enjoyed at present? What degree of it does the experience of mankind encourage us to expect? And by what symptoms shall we know it?