The Whitfield party go a surer way to work. They assert that they hold the articles of the Church of England, which the clergy themselves do not; and therefore they cry out against the clergy as apostates and interlopers. The truth is, that the articles of this Church are Calvinistic, and that, heretical as the clergy are, they are not so heretical as they would be if they adhered to them. The Whitfield Methodists, therefore, aim, step by step, at supplanting the Church. They have funds for educating hopeful subjects and purchasing church-livings for them, simony being practised with little or no disguise in this country, where every thing has its price. Thus have they introduced a clamorous and active party into the Church, who, under the self-assumed title of Evangelical or Gospel Preachers, cry out for reform—for the letter of the articles—and are preparing to eject their supiner colleagues. In parishes where these conforming Calvinists have not got possession of the church, they have their meetings, and they have also their county rovers, who itinerate like their Wesley-brethren. The Calvinistic dissenters are gradually incorporating with them, and will in a few generations disappear.
The rapidity with which both these bodies continue to increase may well alarm the regular clergy; but they having been panic-struck by the French Revolution and Dr Priestley, think of nothing but Atheists and Socinians, and are insensible of the danger arising from this domestic enemy. The Methodists have this also in their favour, that while the end at which they are aiming is not seen, the immediate reformation which they produce is manifest. They do, what the Clergy are equally pledged to do, but neglect doing;—they keep a watchful eye over the morals of their adherents, and introduce habits of sobriety, order, and honesty. The present good, which is very great, is felt by those who do not perceive that these people lay claim to infallibility, and that intolerance is inseparable from that awful attribute which they have usurped.
The Establishment is in danger from another cause. For many years past the farmers have murmured at the payment of tithes;—a sin of old times, which has been greatly aggravated by the consequences of the national schism: since the gentry have turned farmers these murmurs have become louder, and associations have been formed for procuring the abolishment of tithes, on the ground that they impede agricultural improvements. Government has lent ear to these representations, and it is by no means improbable that it will one day avail itself of this pretext, to sell the tithes, as the land-tax has already been sold, and fund the money;—that is, make use of it for its own exigencies, and give the clergy salaries,—thus reducing them to be pensioners of the state. The right of assembling in a house of their own they have suffered to lapse; and they have suffered also without a struggle, a law to be passed declaring them incapable of sitting in the House of Commons;—which law was enacted merely for the sake of excluding an obnoxious individual. There will, therefore, be none but the bishops to defend their rights,—but the bishops look up to the crown for promotion. If such a measure be once proposed, the Dissenters will petition in its favour, and the farmers will all rejoice in it, forgetting that if the tenth is not paid to the priest it must to the landholder, whom they know by experience to be the more rigid collector of the two. When the constitutional foundations of the church are thus shaken, the Methodists, who have already a party in the legislature, will come forward, and offer a national church at a cheaper rate, which they will say is the true Church of England, because it adheres to the letter of the canons. I know not what is to save the heretical establishment, unless government should remember that when the catholic religion was pulled down, it brought down the throne in its fall.
It is not the nature of man to be irreligious; he listens eagerly to those who promise to lead him to salvation, and welcomes those who come in the name of the Lord with a warmth of faith, which makes it the more lamentable that he should so often be deluded. How then is it that the English clergy have so little hold upon the affections of the people? Partly it must be their own fault, partly the effect of that false system upon which they are established. Religion here has been divested both of its spirit and its substance—what is left is neither soul nor body, but the spectral form of what once had both, such as old chemists pretended to raise from the ashes of a flower, or the church-yard apparitions, which Gaffarel explains by this experiment. There is nothing here for the senses, nothing for the imagination,—no visible object of adoration, at which piety shall drink, as at a fountain of living waters. The church service here is not a propitiatory sacrifice, and it is regarded with less reverence for being in the vulgar tongue, being thereby deprived of all that mysteriousness which is always connected with whatever is unknown. When the resident priest is a man of zeal and beneficence, his personal qualities counteract the deadening tendency of the system; these qualities are not often found united; it is true that sometimes they are found, and that then it is scarcely possible to conceive a man more respected or more useful than an English clergyman—(saving always his unhappy heresy)—but it is also true that the clergy are more frequently inactive; that they think more of receiving their dues than of discharging their duty; that the rector is employed in secular business and secular amusements instead of looking into the spiritual concerns of his flock, and that his deputy the curate is too much upon a level with the poor to be respected by them. The consequence is, that they are yielding to the Methodists without a struggle, and that the Methodists are preparing the way for the restoration of the true church. Beelzebub is casting out Beelzebub. They are doing this in many ways: they have taught the people the necessity of being certain of their own salvation, but there is no certainty upon which the mind can rest except it be upon the absolving power of an infallible church; they have reconciled them to a belief that the age of miracles is not past,—no saint has recorded so many of himself as Wesley; and they have broken them in to the yoke of confession, which is what formerly so intolerably galled their rebellious necks. Whatever, in fact, in methodism is different from the established church, is to be found in the practices of the true church; its pretensions to novelty are fallacious; it has only revived what here, unhappily, had become obsolete, and has worsened whatever it has altered. Hence it is that they make converts among every people except the Catholics; which makes them say, in their blindness, that atheism is better than popery, for of an atheist there is hope, but a papist is irreclaimable:—that is, they can overthrow the sandy foundations of human error, but not the rock of truth. Our priests have not found them so invincible; a nephew of Wesley himself, the son of his brother and colleague, was, in his own life-time, reclaimed, and brought within the fold of the Church.
Wesley was often accused of being a Jesuit;—would to Heaven the imputation had been true! but his abominable opinions respecting good works made a gulf between him and the church as wide as that between Dives and Lazarus. Perhaps, if it had not been for this accusation, he would have approached still nearer to it, and enjoined celibacy to his preachers, instead of only recommending it.
The paroxysms and epilepsies of enthusiasm are now no longer heard of among these people,—good proof that they were real in the beginning of the sect. Occasionally an instance happens, and when it begins the disease runs through the particular congregation; this is called a great revival of religion in that place, but there it ends. Such instances are rare, and groaning and sobbing supply the place of fits and convulsions. I know a lady who was one day questioning a beggar woman concerning her way of life, and the woman told her she had been one of my lady's groaners, which she explained by saying that she was hired at so much a week to attend at Lady Huntingdon's chapel, and groan during the sermon. The countess of Huntingdon was the great patroness of Whitfield, and his preachers were usually called by her name,—which they have now dropt for the better title of Evangelicals.
Notwithstanding the precautions which the Methodists have taken to keep their preachers dependent upon the general body, the standard of revolt is sometimes erected; and a successful rebel establishes a little kingdom of his own. One of these independent chieftains has published an account of himself, which he calls God the Guardian of the Poor and the Bank of Faith. His name is William Huntington, and he styles himself S. S. which signifies Sinner Saved.
The tale which this man tells is truly curious. He was originally a coal-heaver, one of those men whose occupation and singular appearance I have noticed in a former letter; but finding praying and preaching a more promising trade, he ventured upon the experiment of living by faith alone, and the experiment has answered. The man had talents, and soon obtained hearers. It was easy to let them know, without asking for either, that he relied upon them for food and clothing. At first supplies came in slowly,—a pound of tea and a pound of sugar at a time, and sometimes an old suit of clothes. As he got more hearers they found out that it was for their credit he should make a better appearance in the world. If at any time things did not come when they were wanted, he prayed for them, knowing well where his prayers would be heard. As a specimen, take a story which I shall annex in his own words, that the original may prove the truth of the translation, which might else not unreasonably be suspected.
"Having now had my horse for some time, and riding a great deal every week, I soon wore my breeches out, as they were not fit to ride in. I hope the reader will excuse my mentioning the word breeches, which I should have avoided, had not this passage of scripture obtruded into my mind, just as I had resolved in my own thoughts not to mention this kind providence of God. 'And thou shalt make linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs shall they reach,' &c. Exod. xxviii. 42, 43. By which and three others, (namely, Ezek. xliv. 18; Lev. vi. 10; and Lev. xvi. 4.) I saw that it was no crime to mention the word breeches, nor the way in which God sent them to me; Aaron and his sons being clothed entirely by Providence; and as God himself condescended to give orders what they should be made of, and how they should be cut, and I believe the same God ordered mine, as I trust it will appear in the following history.
"The scripture tells us to call no man master, for one is our master, even Christ. I therefore told my most bountiful and ever-adored master what I wanted; and he, who stripped Adam and Eve of their fig-leaved aprons, and made coats of skins and clothed them; and who clothes the grass of the field, which to-day is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven; must clothe us, or we shall soon go naked; and so Israel found it when God took away his wool, and his flax, which they prepared for Baal: for which iniquity was their skirts discovered, and their heels made bare. Jer. xiii. 22.