"Who then for filthy gain betrayed his trust,

And showed a kinsman's fault in open light?
Let him adorn the monumental bust,-
Th' encomium fair in brass or marble write:
"Or if they need a nobler trophy raise,

As long as Theron and Aspasio live,
Let Madan or Romaine record his praise;

Enough that Wesley's brother can forgive!" * The unfavorable impression made by Hervey's Letters, surcharged by Cudworth's Antinomian venom, was however, quickly effaced from all but the bigots; and with them, judging from Moncrief's Life of Erskine, it remains to this day. In his future visits to Scotland, Mr. Wesley was received with marks of the highest respect, and at Perth he had the freedom of the city handsomely conferred

serves, "a rope of sand, and such they will continue; and he therefore set himself with deep seriousness to perpetuate the union of his preachers. At the conference of 1769, he read a paper, the object of which was to bind the preachers together by a closer tie, and to provide for the continuance of their union after his death. They were to engage solemnly to devote themselves to God, to preach the old Methodist doctrines, and to maintain the whole Methodist discipline; after Mr. Wesley's death they were to repair to London, and those who chose to act in concert were to draw up articles of agreement; whilst such as did not so agree were to be dismissed "in the most friendly way possible." They were then to choose a committee by vote, each of the members of which was to be moderator in his turn, and this committee was to enjoy Mr. Wesley's pow-upon him. er of proposing preachers to be admitted or excluded, of appointing their stations for the ensuing year, and of fixing the time of the next conference. This appears to have been the first sketch of an ecclesiMETHODISM having begun to make some progress astical constitution for the body, and it mainly con- in America, in consequence of the emigration of sisted in the entire delegation of the power which some of the members of the society from England and Mr. Wesley had always exercised, to a committee of Ireland, Mr. Wesley inquired of the preachers at preachers to be chosen by the rest when assembled in the conference of 1769, whether any of them would conference. The form of government he thus pro- embark in that service. Messrs. Boardman and Pilposed was therefore a species of episcopacy to be moor, two excellent men, of good gifts, volunteered exercised by a committee of three, five, or seven, as their services, and were sent to take the charge of the case might be. Another and more eligible pro- the societies. From this time the work spread with vision was subsequently made; but this sufficiently great rapidity; more than twenty preachers had deshows that Mr. Wesley had given up all hope of voted themselves to it previously to the war of indeunion with the church; and his efforts were hence-pendence; and societies were raised up in Maryforth directed merely to prevent any thing like formal separation, and the open renunciation of her communion, during his own life, by allowing his preachers to administer the sacraments.

About this time much prejudice was excited against Mr. Wesley in Scotland, by the republication of Hervey's Eleven Letters. He had three times visited this country; and preaching only upon the fundamental truths of Christianity, had been received with great affection. The societies had increased, and several of his preachers were stationed in different towns. Lady Frances Gardiner, the widow of Col. Gardiner, and other persons eminent for piety and rank, attended the Methodist ministry; but the publication of this wretched work caused a temporary odium. Hervey, who had been one of the little band at Oxford, became a Calvinist; and as his notions grew more rigid with age, so his former feelings of gratitude and friendship to Mr. Wesley were blunted. He had also fallen into the hands of Cudworth, a decided Antinomjan, who " put in and out" of the letters "what he pleased." They were not, however, published until Hervey's death, and against his dying injunction. It is just to so excellent a man to record this fact; but the work was published in England, and republished, with a violent preface by Dr. Erskine, in Scotland; and among the Calvinists it produced the effect of inspiring great horror of Mr. Wesley as a most pestilent heretic, whom it was doing God service to abuse without measure or modesty. The feelings of Mr. Charles Wesley at this treatment of his brother may be gathered from the answer he returned upon being requested to write Hervey's epitaph:

ON BEING DESIRED TO WRITE AN EPITAPH FOR
MR. JAMES HERVEY.

"O'ER-REACHED, impelled by a sly Gnostick's art,
To stab his father, guide, and faithful friend,
Would pioua Hervey act the accuser's part?
And could a life like his in malice end?

"No: by redeeming love the snare is broke
In death his rash ingratitude he blames;
Desires and wills the evil to revoke,

And dooms the unfinished libel to the flames.

CHAPTER XI.

land, Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania. During the war they still prosecuted their labors; though as several of them took the side of the mother country, they were exposed to danger. Others, with more discretion, held on their way in silence, speaking only of the things of God. The warm loyalty of Mr. Wesley led him to publish a pamphlet on the subject of the quarrel, entitled, "A calm address to the American colonies;" but the copies which were shipped for America were laid hold of by a friend, who suppressed them; so that the work remained unknown in the colonies until a considerable time afterwards. This was probably a fortunate incident for the infant cause. After the war had terminated, political views were of course laid aside, and Mr. Wesley made a provision for the government of his American societies, which will be subsequently adverted to. They became, of course, independent of British Methodism, but have most honorably preserved the doctrines, the general discipline, and

published some verses upon Mr. Hervey's death, in Mr. Charles Wesley, however, afterwards wrote and which the kind recollections of old friendship are embodied, and the anticipations of a happy meeting in heaven are sweetly expressed. The following are the con cluding stanzas:

"Father, to us vouchsafe thy grace,

Which brought our friend victorious through,
Let us his shining footsteps trace,

Let us his steadfast faith pursue;
Follow this follower of the Lamb,
And conquer all through Jesus' name.

"Free from the law of sin and death,

Free from the Antinomian leaven,
He led his Master's life beneath;
And, laboring for the rest of heaven,
By active love and watchful prayer,
He showed his heart already there.

"O might we all, Eke him, believe,

And keep the faith, and win the prize!
Father, prepare and then receive
Our hallowed spirits to the skies,
To chant with all our friends above,
Thy glorious everlasting love."

above all the spirit of the body. Great, and even astonishing, has been their success in that new and rising country, to the wide-spread settlements of which their plan of itinerancy was admirably adapted. The Methodists are become, as to numbers, the leading religious body of the union; and their annual increase is very great. In the last year it was thirty six thousand, making a total in their communion of one thousand nine hundred ministers, and four hundred and seventy-six thousand members, having, as stated in a recent statistical account published in the United States, upwards of two millions five hundred thousand or the population under their immediate influence. In the number of their ministers, members, and congregations, the Baptists nearly equal the Methodists; and these two bodies, both itinerant in their labors, have left all the other religious denominations far behind. It is also satisfactory to remark, that the leading preachers and members of the Methodist church in the United States appear to be looking forward with enlarged views, and with prudent regard, to the future, and to aim at the cultivation of learning in conjunction with piety. Several colleges have been from time to time established by divine wisdom, and especially in a slumbered; and recently a university, for the education of the youth of the American connection, has been founded. The work in the United States has been distinguished by frequent and extraordinary revivals of religion, in which a signal effect has been produced upon the moral condition of large districts of country, and great numbers of people have been rapidly brought under a concern for their salvation. In the contemplation of results so vast, and in so few years, we may devoutly exclaim, "What hath God wrought!"

is genuine and divine, if it operates not in a prescribed manner?-that the Holy Spirit shall not avail himself of the variety which exists in the mental constitutions of men, to effect his purposes of mercy by different methods?-and that the operations of grace shall not present, as well as those of nature, that beauteous variety which so much illustrates the glory of Him "who worketh all in all ?* And further, who shall say, that even the peculiarities of men's natures shall not, in some instances, be set aside in the course of a divine and secret operation, which touching the springs of action, and opening the sources of feeling, gives an intensity of energy to the one, and a flow to the other, more eminently indicative of the finger of God in a work which his own glory, and the humility proper to man, require should be known and acknowledged as His work alone?-Assuredly there is nothing in the reason of the case to fix the manner of pruducing such effects to one rule, and nothing in Scripture. Instances of sudden conversion occur in the New Testament in sufficient number to warrant us to conclude, that this may be often the mode adopting age, to arouse attention to long despised and neglected truths. The conversions at the day of Pentecost were sudden, and, for any thing that appears to the contrary, they were real; for the persons so influenced were thought worthy to be "added to the church." Nor was it by the miracle of tongues that the effect was produced. If miracles could have converted them, they had witnessed greater than even that glorious day exhibited. The dead had been raised up in their sight, the earth had quaked beneath their feet, the sun had hid himself and made an untimely night, and Christ himself had arisen from a tomb sealed and watched. It was not by the impression of the miracle of tongues alone, but by that supervenient gracious influence which operated with the demonstrative sermon of Peter, after the miracle had excited the attention of his hearers, that they were "pricked in their hearts, and cried, men and brethren, what shall we do?”

The only true rule of judging of professed con version is its fruits. The modes of it may vary from circumstances of which we are not the fit judges, and never shall be, until we know more of the mystic powers of mind, and of that intercourse which Almighty God, in his goodness, condescends to hold with it.

The mention of what are called revivals of religion in the United States may properly here lead us to notice, that, in Great Britain also, almost every Methodist society has at different times experienced some sudden and extraordinary increase of members, the result of what has been believed to be, and that not without good reason, a special effusion of divine influence upon the minds of men. Sometimes these effects have attended the preaching of eminently energetic preachers, but have often appeared where those stationed in the circuits have hot been remarkably distinguished for energy or pathos. Sometimes they have followed the continued and earnest prayers of the people; at others they have come suddenly and unlooked for. The effects however have been, that the piety of the societies It is granted, however, that in such cases a spuhas been greatly quickened, and rendered more deep rious feeling has been often mixed up with these and active, and that their number has increased; genuine visitations; that some ardent minds, when and of the real conversion of many who have thus even sincere, have not sufficiently respected the been wrought upon, often very suddenly, the best rules of propriety in their acts of worship; that some evidence has been afforded. To sudden conver- religious deception has taken place: that some persions, as such, great objections have been indeed ta- sons have confounded susceptibility of feeling with ken. For these, however, there is but little reason; depth of grace; that censoriousness and spiritual for if we believe the testimony of Scripture, that the pride have displaced that humility and charity which Spirit is not only given to the disciples of Christ, must exist wherever the influence of the Spirit of after they assume that character, but in order to their God is really present; and that, in some cases, a becoming such, that, according to the words of our real fanaticism has sprung up, as in the case of Lord, this Spirit is sent "to convince the world of George Bell and his followers in London, at an sin," to the end that they may believe in Christ; and early period of Methodism. But these are accithat the gospel, faithfully and fully proclaimed by dents-tares sown in the field among the good seed, the ministers of Christ, is "the power of God unto which were never spared by Mr. Wesley or his salvation to every one that believeth," and is made most judicious successors. In the early stages of so by the accompanying influence of the Holy Ghost; their growth indeed, and before they assumed a dewho shall prescribe a mode to divine operation? cided character, they were careful lest, by plucking Who, if he believes in such an influence accompa- them up, they should root out the good seed also, nying the truth, shall presume to say that when that but both in Great Britain and in America, no extruth is proposed, the attention of the careless shall travagance has ever been encouraged by the authobe roused only by a gradual and slow process?-rities of either society, and no importance is attachthat the heart shall not be brought into a state of ed to any thing but the genuine fruits of conversion. right feeling as to eternal concerns, but by a reite- In the early part of 1770, we find Mr. Wesley, as ration of means which we think most adapted to usual, prosecuting his indefatigable labors in differproduce that effect? that no influence on the mindent parts of the kingdom, and every where diffusing

the influence of spirituality and zeal, and the light | means, Is this language for a nobleman or for a porof a "sound doctrine." His journa's present a pic-ter? But let the language be as it may, is the senture of unwearied exertion, such as was perhaps timent just? To say nothing of the Methodists, never before exhibited, and in themselves they form (although some of them too are not quite out of ample volumes, of great interest, not only as a re- their senses,) could his lordship show me in England cord of his astonishing and successful labors, but many more sensible men than Mr. Gambold and Mr. from their miscellaneous and almost uniformly in- Okeley? And yet both of these were called Morastructive character. Now he is seen braving the vians. Or could he point out many men of stronger storms and tempests in his journeys, fearless of the and deeper understanding than Dr. Horne and Mr. snows of winter, and the heats of summer; then, William Jones? (if he could pardon them for bewith a deep susceptibility of all that is beautiful and lieving the Trinity!) And yet both of these are grand in nature, recording the pleasures produced Hutchinsonians. What pity is it, that so ingenious by a smiling landscape, or by mountain scenery:- a man, like many others gone before him, should Here turning aside to view some curious object of pass so peremptory a sentence, in a cause which he nature; there some splendid mansion of the great; does not understand! Indeed, how could he undershowing at the same time in his pious and often ele- stand it? How much has he read upon the quesgant, though brief reflections, with what skill he tion? What sensible Methodist, Moravian, or made all things contribute to devotion and cheer- Hutchinsonian, did he ever calmly converse with? fulness. Again, we trace him into his proper work, What does he know of them, but from the caricapreaching in crowded chapels, or to multitudes col- tures drawn by Bishop Lavington, or Bishop Warfected in the most public resorts in towns, or in the burton? And did he ever give himself the trouble most picturesque places of their vicinity. Now he of reading the answers to those warm, lively men? is seen by the side of the sick and dying, and then, Why should a good-natured and a thinking man surrounded with his societies, uttering his pastoral thus condemn whole bodies of men by the lump? advices. An interesting and instructive letter fre- In this I can neither read the gentleman, the scholar, quently occurs; then a jet of playful and good hu- nor the Christian. mored wit upon his persecutors, or the stupidity of his casual hearers; occasionally, in spite of the philosophers, an apparition story is given as he heard it, and of which his readers are left to judge; and often we meet with a grateful record of providential escapes, from the falls of his horses, or from the violence of mobs. Notices of books also appear, which are often exceedingly just and striking; always short and characteristic; and as he read much on his journeys, they are very frequent. A few of these notices, in his journal of this year, taken without selection, may be given as a specimen :

"I read, with all the attention I was master of, Mr. Hutchinson's Life, and Mr. Spearman's Index to his Works. And I was more convinced than ever, 1. That he had not the least conception, much less experience, of inward religion: 2. That an ingenious man may prove just what he pleases, by well-devised scriptural etymologies: especially if he be in the fashion, if he affect to read the Hebrew without vowels: and, 3. That his whole hypothesis, philosophical and theological, is unsupported by any solid proof.

"I sat down to read and seriously consider some of the writings of Baron Swedenborg. I began with huge prejudice in his favor, knowing him to be a pious man, one of a strong understanding, of much learning, and one who thoroughly believed himself. But I could not hold out long. Any one of his visions puts his real character out of doubt. He is one of the most ingenious, lively, entertaining madmen that ever set pen to paper. But his waking dreams are so wild, so far remote both from Scripture and common sense, that one might as easily swallow the stories of Tom Thumb, or Jack the Giant-killer.

"I set out for London, and read over in the way that celebrated book, Martin Luther's Comment on the Epistle to the Galatians.' I was utterly ashamed. How have I esteemed this book, only because I had heard it so commended by others! or, at best, because I had read some excellent sentences, occasionally quoted from it! But what shall I say, now I judge for myself? now I see with my own eyes? Why, not only that the author makes nothing out, clears up not one considerable difficulty; that he is quite shallow in his remarks on many passages, and muddy and confused almost on all; but that he is deeply tinctured with mysticism throughout, and hence often dangerously wrong. To instance only in one or two points. How does he (almost in the words of Tauler) decry reason, right or wrong, as an irreconcilable enemy to the gospel of Christ? Whereas, what is reason (the faculty so called) but the power of apprehending, judging, and discoursing-which power is no more to be condemned in the gross, than seeing, hearing, or feeling. Again, how blasphemously does he speak of good works and of the law of God; constantly coupling the law with sin, death, hell, or the devil; and teaching, that Christ delivers us from them all alike. Whereas it can no more be proved by Scripture, that Christ delivers us from the law of God, than that he delivers us from holiness or from heaven. Here (I apprehend) is the real spring of the grand error of the Moravians. They follow Luther, for better for worse. Hence their 'No works, no law, no commandment.' But who art thou that 'speakest evil of the law, and judgest the law?'

"I read over, and partly transcribed, Bishop Bull's Harmonia Apostolica.' The position with which he sets out is this, that all good works, and not "I met with an ingenious book, the late Lord faith alone, are the necessarily previous condition Lyttleton's 'Dialogues of the Dead.' A great part of justification,' or the forgiveness of our sins. But of it I could heartily subscribe to, though not to every in the middle of the treatise he asserts, 'that faith word. I believe Madam Guion was in several mis- alone is the condition of justification; for faith,' says takes, speculative and practical too; yet I would no he, 'referred to justification, means all inward and more dare to call her, than her friend Archbishop outward good works.' In the latter end he affirms, Fenelon, 'a distracted enthusiast.' She was un-that there are two justifications: and that only indoubtedly a woman of a very uncommon understanding, and of excellent piety. Nor was she any more 'a lunatic,' than she was a 'heretic.'

"Another of this lively writer's assertions is, 'Martin has spawned a strange brood of fellows, called Methodists, Moravians, Hutchinsonians, who are madder than Jack was in his worst days.' I would ask any one who knows what good breeding NUMBER 3.

ward good works necessarily precede the former, but both inward and outward the latter.""

Mr. Wesley meant this brief but just analysis to be Bishop Bull's refutation, and it is sufficient.

"Looking for a book in our college library, I took down, by mistake, the works of Episcopius; which opening on an account of the Synod of Dort, I believed it might be useful to read it through. But

what a scene is here disclosed! I wonder not at the | conscience, the same phrases in expressing the heavy curse of God, which so soon after fell on the church and nation. What a pity it is, that the holy Synod of Trent, and that of Dort, did not sit at the same time-nearly allied as they were, not only as to the purity of doctrine, which each of them esta-give entire satisfaction. On these articles of peace, blished, but also as to the spirit wherewith they acted; if the latter did not exceed.

Being in the Bodleian library, I lit on Mr. Calvin's account of the case of Michael Servetus; several of whose letters he occasionally inserts: wherein Servetns often declares in terms, I believe the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.' Mr. Calvin, however, paints him such a monster as never was, an Arian, a blasphemer, and what not; besides, strewing over him his flowers of dog, devil, swine, and so on, which are the usual appellations he gives to his opponents. But still he utterly denies his being the cause of Servetus's death. No,' says he: I only advised our magistrates, as having a right to restrain heretics by the sword, to seize upon and try that arch-heretic. But after he was condemned, I said not one word about his execution!'"

The above may be taken as instances of his laconic reviews of books.

points on which they substantially agreed, and to avoid controversy. Such an agreement shows the liberal feeling which existed among the parties; but it was not of a nature to be so rigidly kept as to we find therefore, endorsed, at a subsequent period, in the hand writing of Mr. Charles Wesley, "vain agreement." Mr. Wesley's anxiety to maintain unity of effort as well as affection with Mr. Whitefield, led him also, in 1743, to concede to his Calvinistic views, as far as possible; and he appears not to have been disposed to deny, though he says he could not prove it, that some persons might be unconditionally elected to eternal glory; but not to the necessary exclusion of any other from salvation. And he was then "inclined to believe" that there is a state attainable in this life, "from which a man cannot finally fall." But he was subsequently convinced by the arguments of Mr. Thomas Walsh, that this was an error.* These considerations will account for the existence of what Mr. Wesley called "a leaning to Calvinism," both in himself, and among some of the preachers, and rendered a review of the case necessary. Though the leaders had approached so near "the very edge of Calvinism" on one side, and "of Antinomianism" also, with safety, it was not to be wondered at that others should overstep the line. Besides, circumstances had greatly changed. A strong tide of Antinomianism had set in, and threatened great injury to practical godliness throughout the land. Dr. Southey attributes this to the natural tendency of Methodism; but here he shows himself only partially acquainted with the subject. The decline of religion among many of the dissenting churches had scattered the "What is that power? It is the power of admit-seeds of this heresy all around them, though not ting into and excluding from the societies under my without calling forth a noble testimony against it care; of choosing and removing stewards; of re- from some of their ablest ministers; and when they ceiving or not receiving helpers; of appointing them began to feel the influence of the revival of piety in when, where, and how to help me, and of desiring the last century, the tares sprung up with the plants any of them to confer with me when I see good. of better quality. The Calvinism taught by Mr. And as it was merely in obedience to the Providence Howell Harris, and Mr. Whitefield, was also perof God, and for the good of the people, that I at first verted by many of their hearers to sanction the accepted this power, which I never sought; so it is same error.-Several of the evangelical clergy, on the same consideration, not for profit, honor, or likewise, who had no immediate connection with pleasure, that I use it at this day. Mr. Wesley, were Calvinists of the highest grade; and as their number increased, their incautious statements of the doctrines of grace and faith, carried beyond their own intentions, became more mischievous. To show, however, that Antinomianism can graft itself upon other stocks besides that of the Calvinistic decrees, it was found also among many

Mr. Wesley's defence of the power he exercised in the government of the Methodist societies may also here be given; observing, that it is easier, considering the circumstances in which he was placed, to carp at it, than to find a solid answer. Few men, it is true, have had so much power: but on the other hand, he could not have retained it in a perfectly voluntary society, had he not used it mildly and wisely, and with a perfectly disinterested and public spirit.

"But several gentlemen are offended at your having so much power.' I did not seek any part of it. But when it was come unawares, not daring to bury that talent, I used it to the best of my judgment. Yet I never was fond of it. I always did, and do now, bear it as my burden, the burden which God lays upon me; and therefore I dare not lay it down. "But if you can tell me any one, or any five men, to whom I may transfer this burden, who can and will do just what I do now, I will heartily thank both them and you."*

* Mr. Walsh was received by Mr. Wesley as a preacher in 1750, and died in 1759. The following is Mr. Wesley's character of him:-"That blessed man sometimes preached in Irish, mostly in English; and wherever he This year, 1770, is memorable in the history of preached, whether in English or Irish, the word was Methodism, for having given birth to a long and sharper than a two edged sword. So that I do not remember ever to have known any preacher, who, in so very ardent controversy on the doctrines of Calvin- few years as he remained upon earth, was an instrument ism. It took its rise from the publication of the of converting so many sinners from the error of their minutes of the conference in which it was deter- ways. By violent straining of his voice, he contracted mined, that, in some particulars then pointed out, a true pulmonary consumption, which carried him off. the preachers had "leaned too much to Calvinism." what a man to be snatched away in the strength of This is easily explained. Mr. Whitefield, and his years! Surely thy 'judgments are a great deep!' Howell Harris, the early coadjutors of the Wesleys, that if he was questioned concerning any Hebrew word "He was so thoroughly acquainted with the Bible, became Calvinists; but the affection which existed in the Old, or any Greek word in the New Testament, among this little band, was strong; and as they all he would tell, after a little pause, not only how often agreed in preaching, what was at that time most one or the other occurred in the Bible, but also what it needed, the doctrine of salvation by faith, an meant in every place. Such a master of biblical knowagreement" was made at a very early period, be- ledge I never knew before, and never expect to see tween the Wesleys and Howell Harris, to forget all peculiarities of opinion as much as possible in their sermons, to use as far as they could, with a good * Wesley's works.

again.

an instance of his anxiety to approach his Calvinistic + Mr. Wesley's sermon on imputed righteousness is brethren, in his modes of expression, as far as possible; and in this attempt he sometimes laid himself open to be misunderstood on both sides.