That Wesley should be defamed and denounced by ungodly scoffers or worldly bishops is not surprising, but that he should become the object of the ribaldry and scorn and contumely of men who were undoubtedly the children of God, is amazing. He had for long years been scourged and lampooned in newspapers, magazines, tracts, and pamphlets; Samuel Foote, the buffoon, had ridiculed him; and Lavington, the merry-andrew-bishop of Exeter, had poured out upon him volumes of ribaldry. And well says Mr. Tyerman, 'In turn Mr. Wesley had encountered mobs, and men of letters, drunken, parsons, furious papists, honest infidels, and others; but of all his enemies his last were his bitterest and worst, Calvinistic Christians.' It is a mystery to us now—and that it is so seems to prove that we have made some advances beyond our forefathers in good sense, good taste, and good manners, to say nothing of the higher attainments of Christian moderation and temper—that Christian men could ever have indulged in such envenomed speech, and that the pure air of metaphysical theology should ever have been burdened with such exhalations and such thunders. It is to the honour of Mr. Wesley that he never condescended to stoop from his work to personal recrimination, and scarcely, indeed, to personal explanation. His theology was wanting in those more noble excursions of intelligence and experience which supply strength to the spirit in seasons when a black night of doubt spreads out over the soul. Concerning the ways and means of faith, of revelation, and providence, he never attempted any solution. His mind, in all departments of it, was characterized by a quick apprehension; this was not accompanied by a power of lofty and sustained reflection; the business of his life was to train as many persons as he possibly could to habitual and orderly devotion. He taught the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit, and personal assurance of salvation, with a persistency which surely ought to have satisfied Toplady; but then his teaching had this serious difference, he conditioned assurance in the personal consciousness of the believer, while the school of Toplady fell back more securely upon the purposes, character, and promises of God. This makes the technical difference between the salvation by faith, taught by the one school, and justification by faith, taught by the other. To a profoundly experienced nature we suppose the former is included in the latter, and furnishes sources of satisfaction altogether wanting to the more narrow, plausible, and popular scheme.
Hence, so much was made of the happiness arising from states of feeling, and from the witness of the Spirit; this was to be the aim and object of the life and heart, and was the proof of that growth in the life of perfection which seems to reduce—as Coleridge has well shown in a very able note to Southey—the Christian life to a sensation: sensational assurance became the counterpart of the doctrine of sinless perfection in this life; the one is quite absolutely related to the other. It is not too much to say that Wesley quite misconceived the term 'perfect' (τέλειος) as it was used by Paul; hence it was, no doubt, that Wesley entangled himself in contradictions, and founded the religious life very much upon certain ascetic and sumptuary laws: 'Powder was antichristian; a ribbon became the sign of a carnal nature, and snuff-boxes and tobacco were the very emanations of the bottomless pit; and very innocent things became really Babylonish.' The life prescribed by Wesley was as severe as a monastic rule: his disciples were met every hour by something of which they were to deny themselves, which was to be a contradiction to them, and which they were to overcome. He insisted in the spirit of a monastic legislator, that his preachers should always preach at four or five o'clock in the morning. 'I exhort all those who desire me to watch over their souls, to wear no gold, no pearls or precious stones; use no curling of hair, or costly apparel.' 'Be serious,' was one of his favourite injunctions; 'avoid all lightness as you would hell-fire, and trifling as you would cursing and swearing; touch no woman, be as loving as you will, but the custom of the country is nothing to us.' Sometimes Wesley uses wiser words, but generally he appears to teach that deliverance from sin implies deliverance from human infirmities, and that it is almost inconsistent with temptation; and this arises apparently from an unnatural interpretation of the word 'perfect,' as we have it in the language of our Lord and in the writings of the apostles. 'Truly,' says Coleridge, 'there is no point at which you can arrive in this life, in which the command, "Soar upwards still," ceases in validity or occasion.' And yet such seems to be the doctrine of Wesley: and while in a corrupt and dissolute age his rules fostered and trained innumerable holy and saintly lives, they to a very large degree gave occasion for that satire and ridicule, which indeed is not wonderful, from the scoffing world, but which is shameful when indulged in by the pens and lips of believers. The two great controversialists of Methodism, Calvinistic and Arminian, were Toplady, the vicar of Broad Hembury, and the gentle Swiss, John Fletcher, the vicar of Madely. Both argued within the circle of Scripture. We have outlived all taste for this pamphleteering kind of controversy. Toplady was the more scholarly and logical, his style was the more nervous and terse: he also was not only the more witty but the more wilful, and made his pages sparkle with a lively wickedness which is wonderful in such a writer upon such subjects, and especially in the writer of such transcendent hymns as his. Fletcher was the more sentimental and rhetorical, frequently also more characterized by a plain and earnest common sense; he was more spiritual and devout than Toplady, nor would it be possible, we suppose, to find a sentence in his famous 'Checks' unbecoming the perfect Christian gentleman, and they furnished material and ammunition for all the Wesleyan preachers, not only for that day, but for many years after. The world and the Church, however, now demand something more concise and firmly-textured than the essays of either, Toplady or of Fletcher. It is satisfactory also to feel our way to that higher plain of thought which reconciles the two. If God be infinite consciousness and thought, can the salvation and trials of any child of man be unknown to Him? If He be infinite character and will, can any event happen unpermitted by Him? If He be infinite power, can any circumstance be unordained by Him? Is He not also infinitely amiable? It is singular how combatants fetch their weapons from the same armoury, and tilt Scripture against Scripture; but both are reconciled in consciousness, and the disciples of Wesley and Toplady alike find the same reposing rest and assuring trust in the mercy of God, through faith in the righteousness of Christ.
What shall we say of the Ecclesiastical Polity framed by Wesley? This, first of all, that he never intended that his discipline should be regarded as an ecclesiastical polity. Like so many of the fathers of the Church, he founded an order; he formed a society, not a Church. He cautions his ministers against calling the society either the Church or a Church. He created a broad organization, but not the broadest. He always remembered that he was a minister and an ordained priest of the Church of England; and it was with great reluctance that he permitted himself to yield to those innovations which the polity of the Church of England would have opposed; he always desired to regard his entire fellowship as in communion with the Establishment; his arrangements for his services were, as far as possible, for times and seasons when no services were proceeding in the parish churches of the neighbourhood, and for a long time he attempted to harmonise his method of worship to the liturgic forms and devotions of the Church. Lord King's essay on the Primitive Church made him, theoretically, an Independent; yet, there can be little doubt that had there been a broader, wiser, and more tolerant régime in the Establishment, the whole movement might have been included in the corporation of the National Church; it was surely of God that it was not so. But the Church of Rome would have known how to avail itself of such a sudden burst of energy, as in the cases of St. Francis, of Loyola, and others; the great leader and his disciples would for some time have been kept in a state of ecclesiastical quarantine, but in the course of a few years they would have been received, to pour into the mother Church the fulness of their newly-acquired life. It was a great evangelistic movement that Wesley originated and sustained; he perpetually attempted to limit and curtail the ministerial powers of his preachers; many of them, indeed, became sufficiently restive even beneath his authority, and were quite unable or unwilling to perceive the reason of the ecclesiastical refinements he taught and maintained.
Isaac Taylor has urged against Wesley that he founded an irresponsible hierarchy; he says: 'On the one side stand all Protestant Churches, Episcopal and non-Episcopal, Wesleyanism excepted; on the other side stand the Church of Rome, and the Wesleyan Conference. This position maintained alone by a Protestant body must be regarded as false in principle, and in an extreme degree ominous.' The position is not fairly stated. The polity of Rome is absolutely intolerant; she not merely has laws for conserving her own rights, which she claims as divine, but she treats with perfect contempt and scorn all reference to, or respect for, the rights of others. Even Frederick Faber, in his essay on Philip Neri, in a passage of hearty eulogy on Whitefield, consigns him to hell, notwithstanding all his usefulness, when he says, 'St. Philip would have taught him to preach if he had been an oratorian novice, which, unluckily for his poor soul, George Whitefield never was.' Such is Rome. It was not so with Wesley himself, nor has it been so with his descendants. The rubric—if so we may call it—of Methodist polity has been stringent; too stringently, perhaps, laws have been enacted against those turbulent spirits, certain to emerge in all communities, endowed with a strong desire to take their own way, and to do things merely right in their own eyes; you are free to do so, says Wesley, but not beneath the sanctions of our society, unless we approve the action. There has been a strong desire to gather in and build up, but in a sense in which, perhaps, Wesleyans have not been singular; 'they have dwelt among their own people,' their fellowship, in spite of numerous schisms, has been one of the most perfect, harmonious, and useful in Christendom; but this has existed with entire respect and good-will to other denominations. Wesley himself says, one circumstance is quite peculiar to the Methodists, the terms upon which any person may be admitted into their society, 'they do not impose, in order to their admission, any opinions whatever; one conviction, and one only, is required, a real desire to save their souls; where this is, it is enough, they desire no more, they lay stress upon nothing else, they ask only, "is thy heart herein as my heart? if it be, give me thy hand." Is there any other society in Great Britain and Ireland that is so remote from bigotry? Where is there such another society in Europe—in the habitable world? I know none. Let any man show it me who can; till then, let no one talk of the bigotry of the Methodists.' 'Look to the Lord, and faithfully attend all the means of grace appointed in the society.' Such was, practically, the whole of Methodism. So that famous old lady, whose bright example has so often been held up on Methodists' platforms, when called upon to state the items of her creed, did so very sufficiently when she summed if up in the four particulars of 'Repentance towards God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a penny a week, and a shilling a quarter.' And certainly, beyond any other scheme or system, the organization of Methodism has developed the power of the pence—that is, the power of the people—to provide for and to sustain their religious services. The Rev. Marmaduke Miller, in a letter to the Nonconformist for May 17th, 1871, shows that the various associations in England bearing Wesley's name, and practically working out his ideas, hold and provide sittings for 3,500,000 people; they represent the membership of 624,453 persons; the number of settled ministers is 3,137, and local preachers 41,456, while the Sabbath-schools represent 1,162,423, and the teachers 197,163. What a representation of the amazing numbers of those who call Wesley father! The rules of the Methodist polity, then, were devised in no insolent spirit; wisely, or unwisely, they were framed for the conservation of order. Mr. Wesley's object in them was certainly not ecclesiastical, as he says again, 'I have no more right to object to a man for holding a different opinion from me than I have to differ from a man because he wears a wig and I wear my own hair; but if he takes his wig off, and begins to shake the powder about my eyes, I shall consider it my duty to get quit of him as soon as possible.' One cannot but think what might have been, had Hildebrand been such a man as Wesley; what might the Church of England have been had Whitgift or Laud held views so broad and tolerant as these. In effect, his polity said, 'Come amongst us, and we will seek to do each other good; join some other communion, the Lord be with you; but if you attach yourself voluntarily to our society, you accept the conditions of the society.'
The Wesleyans constitute the largest denomination in the United States, in the form of the Methodist Episcopal Church founded by the venerable Asbury, the friend and early disciple of John Wesley, and a man baptized into a like spirit of indomitable endurance, and ardent, untiring energy. But it may be questioned whether this should be regarded as a development of Wesleyanism, or a departure from Wesley's idea of Church government. Certainly much depends upon what we find implied in the designation of bishop. The Wesleyan bishop in England is called a 'superintendent;' from a Methodist's point of view the terms are almost convertible and synonymous, and we have little doubt that superintendent is the realization of the Scriptural idea of the bishop—a pastor, shepherd, or overseer. More than this Wesley did not desire his ministers to be. Had he great prescience? Was it a far-sighted sagacity which characterized his mind? Acutely he saw the present want, and met it. Probably he never realized the wholly independent attitude his followers would assume in the future; and, like the constitution of England, so the constitution of his society grew beneath his eye; he scarcely, therefore, made provisions to meet the demands of an independent Church, or community. He was perpetually engaged in furnishing expedients; his ideas never seemed to rise beyond, or to sink deeper than the present work of evangelizing the multitude, and keeping them awake, and intent on the desire for salvation. Hence he was utterly opposed to a permanent pastorate; his ministers were to be perpetually moving; to some desires expressed to himself for a longer residence, or more continued ministration of some of his preachers, he gave his most decided negative. It is a matter still of serious dispute between the Wesleyan and other Church polities, whether for the health, growth, and well-being of the individual Church, the permanent pastorate or the itinerant ministry may be regarded as best. There is something to be said on either side. We can have no doubt that the Wesleyan polity, while it may minister something to the life of Churches, and give a pleasant variety, must be a barrier to the accumulation of learning, and what is more precious of pastoral influence; and that it offers a strong inducement to intellectual indolence, to lean upon old resources rather than to go on exploring new and fresh fields. The Wesleyan polity almost denies to the minister the position of the pastor. The true pastor of each separate little cluster in a society is the class leader; he permanently resides in the town or village; he is familiar with the conversions, the experiences, the joys and sorrows of each member of the little flock. Wesley even went so far as to interdict the presence of his ministers in the classes; and the minister is still, we believe, as a rule, only occasionally present for the purpose of distributing the quarterly tickets. But the immediate followers of Wesley have now elaborated what they regard, and even term, an ecclesiastical constitution. Its government is regulated by laws sharply cut and defined for every emergency; they have their Blackstone, and Coke upon Lyttleton, and probably Mr. Wesley himself would be somewhat amazed to find such a framework of polity as the handbook of Methodist ecclesiastical law, in Edmund Grindrod's 'Compendium of the Laws and Regulations of Wesleyan Methodism.' This defines its 'ecclesiastical courts,' 'powers of the Conference,' of 'district meetings,' of 'local courts,' of the 'committee of privileges,' and the nature of all its committees and institutions. Wesleyan Methodism in England, indeed, may be defined as a constitutional republic, but of the oligarchic order of Venice or Florence. Its polity constitutes a civil rather than a spiritual despotism, but it reminds us that men are not much interested in the government of the Church of their adoption, and that Church consciousness is very independent of Ecclesiastical organization.
Yet the entire polity of Wesley was popular, and few religions communities have so successfully cultivated the spirit infused into it; it was intended to meet the religious instincts of the uncared for multitudes. Certain words of Wesley illustrate this;—a new chapel was in the course of erection at Blackburn; Wesley was taken to see it. 'I have a favour to ask,' he said; 'let there be no pews in the body of this chapel, except one for the leading singers; be sure to make accommodation for the poor, they are God's building materials in the erection of His Church; the rich make good scaffolding, but bad materials.' 'Observe,' he said again to his preachers, 'it is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society, but to save as many souls as you can, to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and, with all your power, to build them up in that holiness, without which they cannot see the Lord.' He knew that preaching needs to be succeeded by personal intercourse; hence he says in visiting Colchester;—'By repeated experiments we learn that though a man preach like an angel, he will neither collect, nor preserve a society which is collected, without visiting them from house to house.' And this is the key to that comprehensive and all-permeating spirit which constitutes the idea of Methodism, at once its danger as well as its defence; to become a Methodist of Wesley's order was to be, and is to be, looked up, and looked after, and overlooked. It must be admitted that the system which is so vigorously and watchfully organized, does not leave much opportunity for the mind and soul to grow: the tutoring and training hearts and minds to walk alone is a profound study. Nothing of this is contemplated in the Wesleyan system; freedom of thought has not usually fared well in the society; minds are too closely interlocked and riveted, frequently not only with other, but with inferior minds. It is therefore a community for the poor and the uneducated, or it is nothing; and if it is not like the Romish system, dangerous by the possession of an audacious hierarchy, it must be admitted that it may become so in virtue of a system of spiritual espionage scarcely less effective than the confessional.
Did John Wesley know human nature? Judging from the effects which have followed his marvellous course, it would seem so; and if severe in discipline, and intolerant to human infirmities by his system, he was most tender and merciful, even to the aberrations and stumblings of believers themselves. He insisted on punctilious obedience to his rules, but it was easy to him to forgive all personal injustice to himself; sometimes it seems almost as if he were even unable to feel injuries, and probably this was greatly the case: his 'place was on high, his defence the munition of rocks,' and no soul ever seems to have been more securely shielded in 'the pavilion,' where spirits are kept 'in secret from the strife of tongues.' The wicked woman who was his wife, stole a number of his letters, interpolated parts, and misrendered certain expressions; and, having been guilty at once of theft and forgery, she, in conjunction with some of his enemies, published them. It led to venomous and embittered language in the newspapers concerning them. His brother, Charles Wesley, was in the utmost consternation: he went off to Wesley, imploring him to postpone a journey he was on the eve of taking, that he might stay in London and defend himself against his enemies. He found his brother as calm as he was excited:
'I shall never forget,' says Miss Wesley, the daughter of Charles, 'the manner in which my father accosted my mother on his return home. "My brother," said he, "is, indeed, an extraordinary man; I placed before him the importance of the character of a minister, and the evil consequences which might result from his indifference to it, and urged him by every relative and public motive to answer for himself and stop the publication. His reply was, Brother, when I devoted to God my ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation? No, tell Sally (Charles's wife) I will take her to Canterbury to-morrow."'
Glorious John had to live down many worse persecutions than this. Ordinarily, his calm was imperturbable; and yet, divine as this often seems, it often, too, seems related to a side of character which almost indicates a defect in human nature. It has been alleged against him that he was thoroughly ignorant of the nature of children, 'Break their wills betimes,' he says; 'begin this work before they can run alone, before they can speak plain, perhaps before they can speak at all.' The method he adopted at Kingswood school was an illustration of this entire ignorance of the child's nature. It was not so much a school as a monastery, its rules were more stringent and hard than those of a workhouse. It is no wonder that it did not succeed, and that the whole system of the school had to undergo an entire modification. That Wesley's design and idea in founding the Kingswood school was benevolent, wise, and prescient, there can be no doubt, as also that the diet was sufficient and good; nor can exception be taken to the rule that the children should go to bed at eight, and sleep on hard mattresses; but to rise at four in the morning! and spend their time until five in reading, singing, meditation and prayer! no play-day and no play-hour permitted, on the ground that 'he who plays when he is a child, will play when he becomes a man!' When we read of such an arrangement made for children, the question recurs, did Wesley know human nature? Or if such a constitution might be suitable to the human nature of monks and ascetic saints, what knowledge does it exhibit of the child's heart? We like better to read an anecdote told of him when at the age of seventy-three—about the period when the letters alluded to were published. At Midsomer Norton, when preaching in the parish church he was staying at the house of a Mr. Bush, who kept a boarding-school. While he was there, two of the boys quarrelled, cuffed and kicked each other vigorously. Mrs. Bush brought the pugilists to Wesley. He talked to them and repeated the lines—
'Birds in their little nests agree,