Part 35 (1/2)

[Footnote 732: To the same effect in his _Short History of Methodism_ Wesley wrote, 'Those who remain with Mr. Wesley are mostly Church of England men. They love her articles, her homilies, her liturgy, her discipline, and unwillingly vary from it in any instance.']

[Footnote 733: See also Wesley's _Works_, vol. xii. p. 446, &c.]

[Footnote 734: For this reason, among others, not much has been said in this sketch about Wesley's opinions, because they were different at different stages of his life. Moreover, though Wesley was an able man and a well-read man, and could write in admirably lucid and racy language, he can by no means be ranked among theologians of the first order. He could never, for instance, have met Dr. Clarke, as Waterland did; or, to compare him with one who was brought into contact with him, he could never have written the _Serious Call_, nor have answered Tindal, as Law did.]

[Footnote 735: 'I retract several expressions in our hymns which imply impossibility; of falling from perfection; I do not contend for the term ”sinless,” though I do not object against it.' And in a sermon on the text, 'In many things we offend all,' 'We are all liable to be mistaken, both in speculation and practice,' &c. 'Christian perfection certainly does admit of degrees,' &c.]

[Footnote 736: But, as a staunch Churchman, he agreed with the Baptismal Service. In his _Treatise on Baptism_ he writes, 'Regeneration, which our Church in so many places ascribes to baptism, is more than barely being admitted into the Church. By water we are regenerated or born again; a principle of grace is infused which will not be wholly taken away unless we quench the Spirit of G.o.d by long-continued wickedness.'

The same sentiments are expressed in his sermon on the 'New Birth.']

[Footnote 737: See _inter alia_, T. Somerville's _My Own Life and Times_ (1741-1841). 'He [J. Wesley] had attended, he told me, some of the most interesting debates at the General a.s.sembly, which he liked ”very ill indeed,” saying there was too much heat,' &c., pp. 253-4.]

[Footnote 738: See Tyerman, iii. 278.]

[Footnote 739: Southey, i. 301, &c.]

[Footnote 740: So said Charles (see Jackson's _Life of C. Wesley_).

John, however, gave a different account. 'My brother,' he said to John Pawson, 'suspects everybody, and he is continually imposed upon; but I suspect n.o.body, and I am never imposed upon.']

[Footnote 741: 'I seldom,' he wrote to Fletcher in 1768, 'find it profitable for _me_ to converse with any who are not athirst for perfection and big with the earnest expectation of receiving it every moment.'--Tyerman, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 742: 'With my latest breath will I bear testimony against giving up to infidels one great proof of the unseen world; I mean that of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the testimony of all ages.'--Id. 11. See also T. Somerville's _My own Life and Times_, p.

254. 'On my asking him if he had seen Farmer's _Essays on Demoniacs_, then recently published, I recollect his answer was, ”Nay, sir, I shall never open that book. Why should a man attend to arguments against possessions of the Devil, who has seen so many of them as I have?”']

[Footnote 743: Tyerman, iii. 252. It should not be forgotten that at the beginning as well as at the end of their career the Wesleys met with great consideration from some of the bishops. Charles Wesley speaks in the very highest terms of the 'affectionate' way in which Archbishop Potter treated him and his brother, and John seems never to have forgotten the advice which this 'great and good man' (as he calls him) gave him--'not to spend his time and strength in disputing about things of a disputable nature, but in testifying against open vice and promoting real holiness.']

[Footnote 744: Id. 384.]

[Footnote 745: Id. 411.]

[Footnote 746: Mr. Curteis (_Bampton Lectures_ for 1871, p. 382) calls Wesley 'the purest, n.o.blest, most saintly clergyman of the eighteenth century, whose whole life was pa.s.sed in the sincere and loyal effort to do good.']

[Footnote 747: This pa.s.sage on the contrast between Wesley and Whitefield was written before the author had read Tyerman's _Life of Whitefield_; a similar contrast will be found in that work, vol. i. p.

12.]

[Footnote 748: For some well-selected specimens of Whitefield's sermons see Tyerman's _Life of Whitefield_, vol. i. pp. 297-304, and ii. 567, &c.]

[Footnote 749: _Life and Times of the Rev. G. Whitefield_, by Robert Philip, p. 130, &c.]

[Footnote 750: Whitefield's _Letters_; a Select Collection written to his Intimate Friends and Persons of Distinction in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, from 1734 to 1770, vol. i. p. 277, &c.]

[Footnote 751: See Whitefield's _Letters (ut supra), pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 752: Even Warburton owned, 'of Whitefield's oratorical powers, and their astonis.h.i.+ng influence on the minds of thousands, there can be no doubt. They are of a high order.'--_Life of Lady Huntingdon_, i.

450.]

[Footnote 753: See _Memoirs of the Rev. C. Wesley_, by Thomas Jackson, _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 754: See Tyerman's _Life of John Wesley_, vol. iii. p. 310.]