In 1691 or thereabouts, Mr Wesley was appointed to the parish of South Ormsby, a neat Lincolnshire village, about eight miles north-west of Spilsby. It is pleasantly situated, and, in 1821, the parish, including the adjoining hamlet of Kettlesby, contained thirty-six dwelling-houses, and two hundred and sixty-one inhabitants, a population probably quite equal to what it was in the days of Samuel Wesley. The church consists of a tower, a nave, and a chancel, with a small chapel on the northern side, and is dedicated to St Leonard.[39]
This was no serious charge for a young clergyman of twenty-eight years of age, and possessed of learning and ability like those of Samuel Wesley; yet here, among his flock of two hundred men, women, and children, he resided and faithfully laboured for about the next five years. The living was obtained for him without any solicitation on his part, by the Marquis of Normanby. Its emoluments were £50 a year, and a house to live in.[40] The house was little better than a mud-built hut, and Samuel Wesley in describing it and his own life in it, writes:—
Here, in this miserable hovel, Wesley and his noble young wife resided. Here five of their children were born, and here Wesley wrote some of the most able works he ever published. Samuel Wesley was one of the rural clergy, but differed widely from the great mass of his brethren, who are thus described by Macaulay:—
“The rural clergyman, generally, began life as a young Levite, who every day said grace, at the table of a coarse ignorant squire, in full canonicals; and received, as pay, his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year. In fine weather, he was always ready for bowls; and in rainy weather, for shovelboard. Sometimes he nailed up apricots, and sometimes curried coach horses, and cast up farriers’ bills. He was permitted to dine with the family; but was expected to content himself with the plainest fare. A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable help-meet for him. Quitting his chaplainship for a benefice and a wife, he found he had only exchanged one class of vexations for another. Often it was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dungcarts, that he could obtain daily bread; nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkstand in execution. It was a white day on which he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. His children were brought up like the children of the neighbouring peasants. His boys followed the plough, and his girls were sent out to service. Study he found to be impossible, for the advowson of his living would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to purchase a good theological library; and he might be considered as unusually lucky, if he had ten or twelve dog-cared volumes among the pots and pans on his household shelves. It is true that at that time (1685) there was no lack in the English Church of ministers distinguished by abilities and learning; but these men were to be found, with scarce a single exception, at the universities, at the great cathedrals, or in the capital. Barrow had lately died at Cambridge, and Pearson had gone thence to the Episcopal bench. Cudworth and Henry More were still living there; South and Pococke, Jane and Aldrich were at Oxford. Prideaux was at Norwich, and Whitby at Salisbury. In London were Sherlock, Tillotson, Sprat, Wake, Jeremy Collier, Burnett, Stillingfleet, Fowler, Sharp, Tennison, and Beveridge. Of these, ten became bishops and four archbishops. Thus the Anglican priesthood was divided into two sections—one trained for cities and courts, comprising men familiar with all ancient and modern learning; men able to encounter Hobbes or Bossuet at all the weapons of controversy; men who could, in their sermons, set forth the majesty and beauty of Christianity with such justness of thought, and such energy of language, that the indolent Charles roused himself to listen, and the fastidious Buckingham forgot to sneer; men with whom Halifax loved to discuss the interests of empires, and from whom Dryden was not ashamed to own that he had learned to write. The other section was destined to render humbler service. It was dispersed over the country, and consisted chiefly of persons not at all wealthier, and not much more refined, than small farmers or upper servants. And yet, it was in these rustic priests, who derived their scanty subsistence from their tithe sheaves and tithe pigs, and who had not the smallest chance of ever attaining high professional honours, that the professional spirit was strongest. Among those divines, who were the boast of the universities, and the delight of the capital, a party leaned towards constitutional principles of government, lived on friendly terms with Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, would gladly have seen a full toleration granted to all Protestant sects, and would even have consented to make alterations in the Liturgy, for the purpose of conciliating honest and candid Nonconformists. But such latitudinarianism was held in horror by the country parson. He was, indeed, prouder of his ragged gown than his superiors of their lawn and of their scarlet hoods. The very consciousness that there was little in his worldly circumstances to distinguish him from the villagers to whom he preached, led him to hold immoderately high the dignity of that sacerdotal office, which was his single title to reverence.”
We raise no objection to this graphic description of the country clergy living about the time that Samuel Wesley was appointed to South Ormsby. We believe it to be strictly accurate; and yet to all general rules there are exceptions, and, in this instance, Samuel Wesley was one. It is true that he was poor and pinched. It is quite possible that he sometimes found it necessary to load his dungcart, plough his glebe, and feed his swine; but Samuel Wesley was not the man to waste his time at bowls and shovelboard; or to stoop to the indignity of being regaled, by servants, with cold meat and ale, in the kitchen of the squire’s forbidden hall. His children might be coarsely clad, but his boys never followed the plough, nor did his girls go out to service. His fifty pounds a year might afford him next to nothing to buy books; and yet, somehow he read most of the best books in the English language. He was most faithfully devoted to the service of the Church; but he was far too great a man to think that the mere accidents of the sacerdotal office were sufficient to raise him above his neighbours. He was a country parson; but in learning, mental abilities, and the faithful discharge of ministerial duties, he differed from his country brethren, and was not unworthy to be ranked and associated with the greatest men at that time flourishing in the universities, in cathedrals, and in the capital. He might, like hundreds of others, have spent his time in agricultural toils and village sports, but there was within him the stirring of a high-born genius, which, wherever it exists, invariably impels its possessor to rise above the mediocrity of the common herd, and to attempt something honourable to the man who does it, and of service to those on whose behalf he labours. Human humdrums have always been inconveniently numerous, but Samuel Wesley was not one of them.
As already stated, he was the clergyman of an obscure village, with about two hundred inhabitants. There was plenty of opportunity to live a lazy life. He might have droned away his time, and wasted “the uncomfortable day in sighs;” but, like all men of genius and of mark, he could be happy only by being hard at work. His scanty income, and his increasing family, might be one of the inducements which led him to devote himself to literary labour; but had his income been even larger than his necessities required, it is almost certain that he would have pursued the same course of conduct; for, to a literary man, literary labour is not merely toil, but likewise luxury.
Samuel Wesley’s first publication was the “Maggots,” already noticed. His next undertaking was the Athenian Gazette, projected by his brother-in-law, John Dunton, just before Wesley removed from London to South Ormsby. The title of the new work was the “Athenian Gazette; or, Casuistical Mercury, Resolving all the Nice and Curious Questions Proposed by the Ingenious.” The Gazette was published twice a week, every Tuesday and Saturday, each number consisting of a single folio. The first number made its appearance on Tuesday, March 17, 1691, and the last on June 14, 1697. Each number was sold at one penny, and thirty numbers, that is, sixty pages, made what was called a volume; and which, stitched in marble paper, was sold for half-a-crown. In the first number that was issued, seven questions are answered in the following order, viz.:—1. Whether the torments of the damned are visible to the saints in heaven? 2. Whether the soul is eternal, or pre-existent from the creation, or contemporary with its embryo? 3. Whether every man has a good and bad angel attending him? 4. Where was the soul of Lazarus for the four days he lay in the grave? 5. Whether all souls are alike? 6. Whether it is lawful for a man to beat his wife? 7. How came the spots in the moon?
In an advertisement, at the end of No. 1, correspondents are requested to send their questions, “by a penny post letter, to Mr Smith’s, at his Coffee-house, in Stocks Market, in the Poultry.”
As already stated, thirty numbers made what was called a volume; but to each of the first five volumes was attached a supplement, quite as large as the volume itself, containing “the transactions and experiments of the foreign virtuosos, and also their ingenious conferences upon many nice and curious questions; together with an account of the design and scope of most of the considerable books printed in all languages, and the quality of the author, if known.”
Wesley and his friends were soon inundated with questions; so much so, that in the preface to vol. ii., they say they have nearly four thousand on hand unanswered; they also request that no obscene questions be sent, for they are resolved not to answer them; nor riddles, for riddles are of no use to the general public; nor anything else, the answer to which may be a scandal to the Government, or an abuse to particular persons.
During the publication of the first six volumes, the Athenian Gazette was issued only twice a week; but afterwards the numbers were published every Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday, until the completion of the nineteenth volume, when it was announced that, “as the coffee-houses have the votes every day, and nine newspapers every week, the Athenian Society propose to drop the publication of sheets four days a week, and henceforth to publish the work in volumes quarterly. Thirty numbers, to make volume xx., would be printed all together; but as soon as the glut of news was a little over, the weekly numbers would again commence.”
Eight years after, in 1703, the old Athenian volumes being out of print, “a collection of all the valuable questions and answers” was printed in three volumes; and, in 1710, a fourth volume was added, as a supplement, “being a collection of the remaining questions and answers in the old Athenian Gazettes.” This work had a rapid sale, and, in 1704, a second edition was published, with a dedication to the Earl of Ormond, written by Mr Wesley.
The publication of the Athenian Gazette first occurred to Dunton whilst he was walking in St George’s Fields. The object of the work was to receive and to answer questions in all departments of literature. Finding assistance necessary, Dunton first engaged the services of Richard Sault, a man who “was admirably well skilled in the mathematics.” Then the ingenious Dr Norris generously offered his help gratis; but refused to become a stated member of the Athenian Society. The undertaking grew every week, and hundreds of letters poured in. Dunton writes, “The impatience of our querists, and the curiosity of their questions, obliged us to adopt a third member of Athens; and the Rev. Samuel Wesley being just come to town, all new from the university, and my acquaintance with him being very intimate, I easily prevailed with him to embark himself with us. With this new addition, we found ourselves to be masters of the whole design; and therefore we neither lessened nor increased our number.”
The original “articles of agreement between Samuel Wesley, clerk, Richard Sault, gent., and John Dunton, for the writing of the Athenian Gazette, or Mercury, dated April 10, 1691,” may still be seen among Dunton’s MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
When the Athenian Gazette was fairly and fully launched, a rival paper, entitled the Lacedemonian Mercury, was published by Brown & Pate. This was a trifling and even profane performance. The sole purpose of the writers “seemed to be to laugh and ridicule solidity and seriousness out of the world.”[41] This aroused the ire and energies of Wesley, Sault, and Dunton, and they succeeded in putting down the rival and ungodly upstart. A little later, an attack was made upon their publication, by Elkanah Settle, who brought out a play, entitled “The New Athenian Comedy; containing the Politicks, Oeconomicks, Tacticks, Crypticks, Apocalypticks, Stypticks, Scepticks, Pneumaticks, Theologicks, and Dogmaticks of our most learned Society.” Settle was born at Dunstable, in 1648, and was educated at Trinity College, Oxford. He began life by publishing two political pamphlets, which were publicly burnt, on the accession of James II.[42] After this, he turned Tory, wrote a poem on James’s coronation, and published an essay weekly on behalf of James’s administration. He was called the city poet, because he had a salary for writing a poem annually on the Lord Mayor’s day. Afterwards he was reduced to such extreme poverty, that he was not only obliged to write farces for Bartholomew fair, but to act in them himself. In a farce, called St George and the Dragon, he acted the dragon, a circumstance referred to by Dr Young in the following lines:—
Settle died in 1723, the author of ten tragedies, three operas, a comedy, and a pastoral, all of which are now forgotten. His comedy was written against Wesley, Sault, and Dunton; but Dunton says it “was a poor performance, and failed in its design.”
The place where Wesley, Sault, and Dunton met respecting the affairs of their united publication, was Smith’s Coffee-house, George Yard, adjoining the Mansion House, and here, on one occasion, an incident occurred, illustrative of Samuel Wesley’s character. In a box, at the other end of the room, where Wesley and his two friends were met for business, there were a number of gentlemen, including an officer of the guards, who, in his conversation, swore most dreadfully. Wesley heard the oaths of this foul-mouthed man, and, feeling excessively annoyed at such disgraceful ribaldry, asked the waiter to bring him a glass of water, and then, in a loud voice so as to be heard by every one present, said, “Carry the water to that gentleman in the red coat, and desire him to wash his mouth after his oaths.” No sooner were the words spoken, than the irate officer started to his feet to chastise the bold young parson. His friends, however, possessed of more sense and manners than himself, seized him and said, “Nay, Colonel! you gave the first offence, you know it is an affront to swear in the presence of a clergyman.” And there for the present the matter ended; but, many years afterwards, when Wesley was in London attending convocation, on going through St James’s Park, a gentleman accosted him, and asked if he knew him. Wesley answered in the negative, upon which the gentleman recalled to his remembrance the scene in Smith’s coffee-house, and added, “Since then, sir, I thank God I have feared an oath, and everything that is offensive to the divine Majesty. I rejoice at seeing you, and cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude to God and to you, that we ever met.” A word spoken in season, how good is it!
It has been already stated that Wesley, Sault, and Dunton were the only proprietors of the Athenian Gazette; but it is right to add that they had, among their contributors, some of the distinguished writers of that period.
Sault was, in some respects, a remarkable man. His literary attainments were considerable, and his skill in mathematics great; but he proved unfaithful to his wife, sunk into a state of extreme melancholy, and wrote a paper, which, to a great extent, embodied his own experience, and which he entitled, “The Second Spira, being a fearful example of an Atheist, who had apostatised from the Christian religion, and died in despair at Westminster, Dec. 8, 1692.” In this account, he speaks of himself as having spent five years at the university. He then came to London, and began to study law. He formed an acquaintance with atheistical companions, and drank into their spirit. He was then taken ill, and was visited by his friends. After this, follows an account of his pretended bewailings of his past faithlessness. Once he knew the mercies of God and tasted what they were; but now he had denied Christ, and wished that he was in hell. He refused all sustenance; he groaned and tossed, and said he knew himself sealed unto damnation. “Oh that I was to broil,” he cried, “upon that fire for a thousand years, to purchase the favour of God, and be reconciled to Him again! But it is a fruitless wish! Millions of millions of years will bring me no nearer to the end of my tortures than one poor hour. Oh eternity! eternity!” His last words were, “Oh the insufferable pangs of hell and damnation.” Sault sent this fictitious paper to Dunton, in a disguised hand, and requested him to publish it as a truthful narrative. Dunton did so, and in six weeks sold thirty thousand copies, at sixpence each. Afterwards, it became known that the pamphlet was a piece of fiction, except so far as it was a partial description of Sault’s own experience; for Dunton tells us that a little before he received the narrative, “Sault was under the severest terrors of conscience; and his despair and melancholy made him look like some walking ghost.” Dunton several times heard him muttering to himself, “I am damned! I am damned!” The publication of “The Second Spira” created an immense sensation, and Dunton found it necessary to publish the “Secret History of Mr Sault,” so as to clear himself from the imputation of sham or fraud in giving to the public such a narrative; and yet, it is a singular circumstance, that, nearly a hundred years afterwards, John Wesley republished the greater part of “The Second Spira” in his Arminian Magazine, without a single line of explanation that the piece, though powerfully written, was almost altogether false. Richard Sault ultimately removed to Cambridge, where his ingenuity and his algebraic skill obtained for him a considerable reputation. He died there in 1704, being supported in his last sickness by the charity of the scholars. He was interred in St Andrew’s Church, Cambridge; and a writer, who knew him, says, “his learning was as universal as his sense of things was fine and curious.”
Among the principal contributors to the Athenian Gazette were Daniel Defoe, already sketched, Dr Norris, Nahum Tate, Dean Swift, Sir William Temple, and Mrs Rowe.[43]
John Norris was born at Collingborne-Kingston, in Wiltshire, in 1657, and died at Bemerton, in the same county, in 1711. He was educated first in Winchester School, and afterwards in the same college, at Oxford, as that which Samuel Wesley entered. He was elected Fellow of All Souls’ College, and, shortly after Wesley left Oxford, he was presented to the rectory of Newton St Loe, and, two years later, to that of Bemerton. He was a pious, learned, and ingenious man, but had a tincture of enthusiasmenthusiasm in his nature, which led him to imbibe the principles of the idealists in philosophy and of the mystics in theology. A late writer says of him, “In metaphysical acumen, in theological learning, and in purity of diction, Dr Norris acknowledges no superior. He carries the whole circle of the sciences in his head, and piety and religion illustrate all his actions. Never was any question proposed by ingenious malice or curiosity, but, with the utmost readiness and facility, he gave not only fair and amusing ideas of it, but full and most evident demonstrations. He was good, great, and learned; and a worthy companion of so great a man as Samuel Wesley.”[44] His greatest work is “The Theory of the Ideal World,” but, besides that, he published several others.
Nahum Tate was poet-laureate to King William III. He was born in Dublin in 1655, and educated in the Dublin University. On coming to London, he fell into pecuniary difficulties, from which he was relieved by the Earl of Dorset. He was the author of nine dramatic pieces, and of a variety of miscellaneous poems, now deservedly forgotten. His name is principally known by his version of the Psalms, generally affixed to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and in the composition of which he was assisted by Dr Brady.
Jonathan Swift, another of the Athenian contributors, was a marvellous mortal. One of his earliest poetical productions was a commendatory poem of 307 lines sent to the Athenian Society. Dryden read it, and said, “Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.” Dr Johnson says that this unfortunate remark caused Swift to regard Dryden with malevolence to the end of life. His “Tale of a Tub,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” and other works are too well known to need description. He was a man of amazing genius, but never ought to have been a priest. During his residence in Dublin University, he incurred no less than seventy penalties for irregularities; and, in the last year of his residence, his academical degree was suspended, and he was sentenced to ask public pardon of the junior dean for insolence. In his personal habits he was scrupulously nice; and yet there are passages in his writings almost as gross as his pen could make them. As an author, he is perhaps not surpassed for originality, and it has been said of him that he never borrowed a thought from any man. In some matters he was ludicrously penurious. Once when going from Sir William Temple’s to his mother’s, he travelled the whole distance on foot, except when the violence of the weather drove him into stage waggons; and, at nights, put up at penny lodgings, where, to secure himself from filth, he hired clean sheets for sixpence; and yet with all this he can hardly be called a man of avarice, for he seems to have saved only that he might have the more to give. Three years before his death, he became insane, and sunk into a lethargy, in which he remained speechless for a year. He left the greater part of his fortune to an hospital for lunatics and idiots. He died in 1744. The pranks and puns of Jonathan Swift, Dean Of St Patrick’s, are endless. The common people received him everywhere with profound respect; and upon one occasion, he made a laughable experiment on the public belief in his authority. A number of the people having assembled round the deanery to see an eclipse, Swift became tired of their commotion, and directed the town crier to make proclamation, that the eclipse was postponed, by command of the Dean of St Patrick’s, which had the effect of dispersing the assembled star-gazers.
Sir William Temple was a frequent contributor to the Athenian Gazette. This eminent statesman was a pupil of the learned Dr Hammond, his maternal uncle. As an author, he was pleasing and popular, his style being long regarded as a model of grace and elegance. He died at Moor Park, in 1698, where, in accordance with his will, his heart was buried in a silver box under the sun-dial, opposite to a window where he had been accustomed to contemplate and admire the works of nature; while his body was privately interred in Westminster Abbey.
The last contributor, we mention, was Mrs Rowe, who supplied “a variety of inimitable poems.” “She was,” says Dunton, “the richest genius of her sex. She knew the purity of our tongue, and conversed with as much briskness and gaiety as she wrote. Her style is noble and flowing, and her images vivid and shining.” Mrs Rowe, at this time, was not more than twenty years of age; but she had cultivated music, painting, and poetry from her childhood. She afterwards studied French and Italian, and enjoyed the friendship of some of the most eminent literati of her day. She died in 1737, and, shortly after her death, Dr Isaac Watts published her “Devout Exercises of the Heart.” A year or two afterwards, appeared her miscellaneous works, in prose and verse, in two volumes octavo.
These were the principal writers who assisted Samuel Wesley, Richard Sault, and John Dunton in the publication of their Athenian Gazette. The history of the Athenian Society was afterwards written by Charles Gildon, and published in a folio of thirty-six pages. Gildon was a native of the same county as Samuel Wesley, and about the same age. He was educated at Douay for a popish priest, but, not liking the priestly office, he plunged into dissipation, and added to his financial embarrassments by an imprudent marriage at the age of twenty-three. Necessity obliged him to turn author, and he produced a variety of works in prose and verse. He died in 1723. Pope gave him a place in his “Dunciad;” but Dunton says he was well “acquainted with the languages, and wrote with a peculiar briskness which the common hacks could not boast of.”
Gildon tells us that the whole design of the Athenian Society was “not only to improve knowledge in divinity and philosophy, in all their parts, as well as philosophy in all its latitude, but also to commend this improvement to the public in the best method that can be found out for instruction. In their Gazettes may be found the marrow of what great authors have writ on curious subjects. The society have set learning in so fair a light, that, won with its beauty, every one must with eagerness embrace it. All the knotty points of philosophy, divinity, mathematics, &c., are formed into queries by the inquisitive, and answered by the society, who are not only men of parts, but also industrious to the highest degree. They are men of sense, and piety, and patience. Horace never had half the fatigue with the poetaster, as they must have had with both male and female impertinencies. One correspondent wishes to know whether any two men have the same number of hairs on their heads; another wishes to know whether it be lawful to eat black puddings; and another whether the devil takes a human form in foreign countries. There are hundreds of such questions asked and answered. Indeed queries came in so fast, that in the third number of the Gazette the public were requested to send no more till those already sent had received replies.”
Gildon then proceeds to give an account of the principal contributors. Of Samuel Wesley he says, “He was a man of profound knowledge, not only of the Holy Scriptures, of the councils, and of the fathers, but also of every other Art that comes within the number of the liberal. His zeal and ability in giving spiritual directions were great. With invincible power he confirmed the wavering, and confuted heretics. Beneath the genial warmth of his wit, the most barren subject became fertile and divertive. His style was sweet and manly, soft without satiety, and learned without pedantry. His temper and conversation were affable. His compassion for the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, was as great as his learning and his parts. Were it possible for any man to act the part of a universal priest, he would certainly deem it his duty to take care of the spiritual good of all mankind. In all his writings and actions, he evinced a deep concern for all that bear the glorious image of their Maker; and was so apostolical in his spirit, that pains, labours, watchings, and prayers were far more delightful to him than honours to the ambitious, wealth to the miser, or pleasures to the voluptuous.” Such, in substance, is Gildon’s character of Wesley. He adds, “It were to be wished that a great many of the clergy would have him in view, as a sure direction of their behaviour, since an imitation of his practical virtues would confute the profane enemies of that sacred body, by the most prevalent of arguments, example.”
Gildon was doubtless well acquainted with Wesley; and hence such a testimony is too important to be omitted.
It is impossible, in a work like this, to give a full idea of the vast and varied learning embodied in these old Athenian Gazettes. Error is confuted, and superstitions and follies ridiculed. Many of the most perplexing questions in divinity are discussed with great ability. Philosophy is handled with equal excellence. All sorts of questions relating to metaphysics, astronomy, mathematics, law, anatomy, and, even love and courtship, are answered with consummate care. It cannot be denied, that the work contains things which would now be deemed gross and indelicate; but some allowance must be made, on the ground that the literary tastes of the people were, at that time, widely different from what they are at present; and, it must also be observed further, that, in the articles bearing upon divinity, history, poetry, and natural philosophy, (upon all of which subjects Samuel Wesley may be presumed to have written,) there is not a line offensive to good taste, though, of course, opinions are expressed which may fairly be disputed.
Dr Adam Clarke writes, respecting the Athenian Oracle, “No reader can peruse them, (the volumes,) without profit; for although the authors submitted to answer questions of little or no importance, yet the work at large contains many things of great value. When I was little more than a child, an odd volume of the Athenian Oracle, lent me by a friend, was a source of improvement and delight; and now I consult this work with double interest, knowing the well-nerved hand, by which at least one-third of it was composed.”
We cannot state, with certainty, what articles in the Athenian Gazettes were written by Samuel Wesley; but, as he was the only clergyman in the Athenian Society, it may fairly be presumed that he answered all, or nearly all, the questions relating to divinity and to church history. He was also a poet, and there cannot be a doubt that many of the poetical pieces were likewise the productions of his genius.
In the indices of the Athenian Oracle, there is a list of about 2800 questions, and of these about 900 refer to theology and the history of the Church; so that it is not unreasonable to suppose, that one-third of the Athenian questions were answered by Mr Wesley. The following is a selection, and will tend to show the difficulties with which he courageously grappled:—
“1. Has every man an angel to attend him? 2. What was the cause of the fall of angels? 3. When did angels receive their first existence? 4. On what day did Adam fall? 5. Was Adam a giant? 6. Who was the first founder of Atheism? 7. What became of the ark after the flood? 8. Did the fall of Adam cause any alteration in his body? 9. Did Adam sin more than once? 10. What number of angels fell? 11. In what sense could angels eat? 12. Are there nine orders of angels? 13. How high was Babel’s tower? 14. Of what sort of matter will glorified bodies consist? 15. What language was spoken by Balaam’s ass? 16. Can the day of Christ’s nativity be found out? 17. Who was Cain’s wife? 18. What mark did God fix upon Cain? 19. Why was Christ not baptized till He was thirty years of age? 20. Are the torments of the damned visible to the saints? 21. Is the devil corporeal? 22. Does the devil know our thoughts? 23. Can the devil generate? 24. Why is not the name of God mentioned in the Book of Esther? 25. Have dead friends any concern for those alive? 26. Shall we know friends in heaven? 27. Are the ghosts that appear the souls of men? 28. Are the punishments of hell equal? 29. Who is the author of the Book of Job? 30. What language did our first parents speak in Paradise? 31. Were there any men before Adam? 32. Was Moses the author of the Pentateuch? 33. Why was man not made incapable of sinning? 34. Shall negroes rise at the last day? 35. Whither went the waters of Noah’s flood? 36. Did Peter and Paul use notes when they preached? 37. How is the prescience of God consistent with man’s free agency? 38. Was extempore prayer a primitive custom? 39. Are the marriages of Quakers lawful? 40. Whether would you choose to be a Quaker or a Papist? 41. Is repentance acceptable without sackcloth and ashes? 42. Is the soul of man pre-existent? 43. When was the surplice first instituted? 44. How do spirits speak? 45. Whether is the soul by traduction or infusion? 46. Which was the greatest sin before the flood? 47. Why is sprinkling in baptism more lawful than dipping? 48. Will souls be equally happy in heaven? 49. Was Socinianism in St John’s time? 50. What is the sin against the Holy Ghost? 51. Was there any shipping before the days of Noah? 52. When the soul leaves the body does she not put on another that is more subtle? 53. Whither went the ten tribes? 54. What do the Urim and Thummim signify? 55. Should women sit promiscuously with men at church? 56. Are there any absolute decrees? 57. Was not Abraham the first institutor of public schools? 58. Was not the creation of the world occasioned by the fall of Lucifer? 59. When do children begin to commit actual sin? 60. Do children suffer for the sins of parents? 61. Is dancing lawful? 62. What are Gog and Magog? 63. Are the torments of hell eternal? 64. Where is hell? 65. Was Melchisedec Christ, an angel, or a man? 66. Is it possible to live without the commission of sin? 67. Is the world eternal? 68. How far did the benefits of our Saviour’s death extend? 69. If Christ suffered for all men, how do you expound John xvii. 9? 70. Will the earth be destroyed or refined? 71. Is a Dissenter a schismatic? 72. What is that faith without which there is no salvation? 73. Can faith be attained without the assistance of grace? 74. Does God universally pardon on condition of believing? 75. How shall infants and deformed persons rise at the day of judgment? 76. May a man who has taken holy orders lay aside his calling? 77. Does a regenerate man commit sin? 78. Is it possible to fall finally from a state of grace? 79. Is baptism a means of regeneration? 80. Did Christ actually descend into hell? 81. Do the English come from the seed of Abraham? 82. Is heaven promised to a certain number? 83. Is there any certainty of salvation in this life? 84. Was it the will of God to create the world from all eternity?”
These are about a tenth part of the biblical and theological questions answered by Samuel Wesley in the Athenian Gazette, and are given here for a twofold purpose; first, to suggest to youthful readers topics to think about; and secondly, to show the difficulties courageously encountered by Samuel Wesley, and the curious and daring character of his studies.
It would not be difficult to gather from the answers to the nine hundred biblical and theological questions in the Athenian Gazette, the principal points of Mr Wesley’s creed. The longest theological articles are those levelled against the Baptists and the Quakers. One piece alone, written against the former, fills nearly fifty pages of the Athenian Oracle; and against the latter there are several articles, showing that the Lincolnshire rector was no ardent admirer of the broad-brimmed followers of George Fox. They are charged with intolerance, enthusiasm, silliness, and with holding dangerous opinions and detestable doctrines. A Quaker, in fact, was a mischievous and troublesome compendium of all sorts of heresies. Samuel Wesley, as a rule, was generous and liberal in his sentiments respecting others; but some sects and parties, at the close of the seventeenth century, were so fanatical, bigoted, bitter, and offensive, that he found it difficult to regard them with the same fraternal feelings with which he regarded Christian brotherhoods in general.
With one or two exceptions, the theological and religious views of Samuel Wesley were as Scriptural and as sound as the standard of Methodist teaching contained in the well-known Sermons and Notes of his son John. There may be a difference of phraseology between the father and son, but their doctrines are substantially the same. Our space forbids lengthened quotations; but perhaps the following extracts from the Athenian Oracle will not be unacceptable, as containing statements of Scripture doctrines, and as tending to exhibit the opinions of Mr Wesley on some of the most important verities of the Christian religion, and on some of the most interesting points of ecclesiastical polity.
Samuel Wesley was a firm believer in the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures. He contends that the Bible now used “is the same that was written by the apostles and prophets,” and that, because they were “inspired by the Spirit of God,” the Bible “is the very Word of God.”[45]
He also had an unshaken faith in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. He argues that it “is impossible for a man to invent fuller or clearer expressions for the proof of anything in question than the evangelist St John” employs in favour of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. After adducing evidence of this, he concludes, with an air of conscious triumph, “When I see all this answered, without straining it into perfect incongruous nonsense, I promise to turn Socinian.”[46] “The Arians,” says he,[47] in another place, “in some of their confessions of faith, did grant that the Son was from all eternity, by such an emanation from the Father as that whereby the light proceeds from the sun; but yet contended for a moment’s difference between their existence—the Son receiving His, as they think, from the Father; whereby they unavoidably fell into the same absurdity which other pretenders to reason have since done—that, I mean, of a made God, or a subordinate Supreme.” Language like this is unmistakable. Samuel Wesley was no dubious hesitator between two opinions. While yet a youth in Mr Morton’s academy, he had been disgusted with the Socinian, Biddle; and, a few years later, he was the means of extricating one of the finest of intellects from Socinian meshes; for his own wife, Susanna Wesley, who, while a girl in her father’s house, had reasoned herself into the Socinian creed, acknowledges it as one of the great mercies of her life, that, she was “married to a religious orthodox man, and by him was first drawn off from the Socinian heresy.”
Samuel Wesley, like his son John, was a moderate Arminian. He fearlessly repudiates the doctrines of election and reprobation. “We cannot,” says he, “be satisfied by any of those scriptures which are brought for that purpose, that there is any such election of a determinate number as either puts a force on their natures, and irresistably saves them, or absolutely excludes all the rest of mankind from salvation. We think there is no one place in the Holy Scriptures which proves that so many men, and no more, were irresistably determined to everlasting salvation.”[48] He believed that “God predestinated those to salvation whom He foresaw would make a good use of His grace, resolving to damn only such as He foresaw would continue impenitent.”[49] He maintains that “God made man upright, and a free agent, and that God’s prescience presides over man’s free agency, but doth not overrule it, by saving man whether He will or no, or by damning him undeservedly.”undeservedly.”[50] “God necessitates no evil action, yet He foresees all. If God tempts no man to evil, much less does He necessitate. Indeed, were He to do this, the nature of man would be destroyed, the proposal of rewards and punishments would be ironical, preaching would be vain, and faith also vain. If you ask us to reconcile all the differences arisingarising out of the doctrines of God’s prescience and man’s free agency, we promise to do it when philosophers can solve the incommensurability of matter, and twenty other phenomena, and make them agree with demonstrations which appear diametrically opposite unto them. In the meantime, let us think soberly and modestly, as becomes us in these matters. Let every one enjoy his own sense, so he makes not God the author of sin, and let us all cry out, ‘How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out.’”[51]
Mr Wesley believed in the doctrine of universal redemption; in other words, that Jesus Christ “atoned so far for the sins of all mankind as to make them in a salvable condition, or to repair the ruins which were made by the first Adam, which is plain from Rom. v. 12, 18, &c.”[52] “God really wills the salvation of all men, as far as is consistent with the liberty of man and His own purity and justice;” and He “has also used all the necessary means for our salvation;” “He offers pardon of all sin, and right to life in Christ, to all men without exception, on condition of believing and acceptance.”[53]
He further believed that no man can do an “action properly and perfectly acceptable to God by his own natural abilities, abstracted from the assistance of God’s Spirit, but by His common assistance he may pray, abstain from sin, and practise duty; and, if he continues in these good actions, he will have still more aid, and go on to perfection.”[54]
Respecting the doctrines of justification and justifying faith, Mr Wesley writes: “Forgiveness of sins is, at least, included in justification, nay, is the main part, if not the whole thereof. It may, without violence, be reckoned a convertible term with it. Our sins being pardoned, our being esteemed righteous by God, our justification through our Saviour’s merits, we think are but the same thing in different expressions.”[55] “By God’s justifying a sinner, is meant His looking upon us and treating us as just and innocent persons, although before we stood guilty of heinous sins, and thereupon liable to grievous punishments.”[56] “We“We are saved by the merits of Christ Jesus; for His sake, not our own; and this we look upon to be the same, in other words, as Christ’s imputed righteousness.”[57] “We are justified, or accepted with God, as a means, by faith, or a true belief of what God reveals, and by trusting in His mercy, through His Son.”[58] “But then this very faith must be justified by works, as Abraham’s was, for it would have been in vain for him to have pretended he had believed God’s promise to him, had he not, in obedience to His command, also offered up his son Isaac.”[59] That faith, without which there is no salvation, “is a steady belief of all that God reveals, especially in the gospel, particularly that Jesus is the Messiah, or Saviour of the world, and that He will save me, if I depend on Him, and obey His commands.”[60] No follower of John Wesley holds the doctrine of justification by faith more clearly, or more firmly, than did John Wesley’s noble-minded father.
The new birth, writes the clear-headed and thoroughly orthodox young clergyman, “is that particular aid of God’s Holy Spirit, which works an entire change in the mind, and turns men from evil to good, being a new principle of action in them.”[61]
It is a remarkable fact, not generally known, that Samuel Wesley was a Millenarian. The Rev. William Lindsay Alexander, in an elaborate article in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” gives the following as the chief tenets of the Millenarian creed:—“That Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, the temple to be restored, and sacrifice again offered on the altar; that this city is to form the residence of Christ, who is to reign there in glory with all His saints for a thousand years; that, for this purpose, there shall be a resurrection of all the pious dead, that none of the Saviour’s followers may be absent during His triumph; that, at the close of the thousand years, they shall all return to heaven, and the world be left to Satan and his followers for a season; and that then the general resurrection and last judgment shall take place, and the history of the world be brought to a close.” In vol. iv. of the Athenian Gazette, the No. for October 17, 1691, is entirely occupied by a Millenarian article, which had been specially advertised on the Tuesday previous, and the following extract will show substantially the opinions held by Samuel Wesley:—“We believe, as all Christians of the purest ages did, that the saints shall reign with Christ on earth a thousand years; that this reign shall be immediately before the general resurrection, and after the calling of the Jews, the fulness of the Gentiles, and the destruction of Antichrist, whom our Saviour shall destroy by the brightness of His coming, and appearance in heaven; that at the beginning of this thousand years shall be the first resurrection, wherein martyrs and holy men shall rise and reign here in spiritual delights in the New Jerusalem, in a new heaven and new earth, foretold by the holy prophets.” After this statement of his belief follows an able article on the same subject, but it is scarce within the province which we have prescribed for ourselves, to attempt either to refute or to establish the truth of it.
The following is a somewhat startling opinion respecting the future state of the righteous and wicked:—“They shall both arise equally immortal, and diversified in nothing but their last sentence. We shall then see not by receiving the visible species into the narrow glass of an organised eye; we shall then hear without the distinct and curious contexture of the ear. The body then shall be all eye, all ear, all sense in the whole, and every sense in every part. In a word, it shall be all over a common sensorium; and being made of the purest æther, without the mixture of any lower or grosser element, the soul shall, by one undivided act, at once perceive all that variety of objects which now cannot, without several distinct organs, and successive actions or passions, reach our sense. Every sense shall be perfect; the ear shall hear everything at once throughout the spacious limits both of heaven and hell, with a perfect distinction, and without confounding that anthem with this blasphemy; the eye shall find no matter or substance to fix it; and so of the other senses. The reason of this is plain and convincing; for, if the bodies of the just and unjust were not thus qualified, they could not be proper subjects for the exercise of an eternity, but would consume and be liable to a dissolution, or to new changes. Hence we assert, that every individual person in heaven and hell shall hear and see all that passes in either state; these to a more extensive aggravation of their tortures, by the loss of what the other enjoy; and those to a greater increase of their bliss, in escaping what the others suffer.”[62]
Such are some of the chief theological views that were entertained by Samuel Wesley. Others might be added, but space forbids. He has been almost invariably represented as holding the principles of the High Church party; but nothing can be more unfounded than this. He preferred the Church of England to any other Church, and thought its doctrines, rituals, and devotions the best in existence. But where is the Methodist, or the Independent, or the Baptist, but what thinks and feels exactly the same respecting the ecclesiastical system to which he adheres? The man that does not prefer his own Church to any other Church is a man without principle; yea, a man whose principle is bad; for, in matters of supreme importance, he is adhering to a system of ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline, not because he thinks it the best, but to serve some other purpose—mercenary, mean, and miserable. Samuel Wesley thought the Church of England the best; but he was not the narrow-minded and little-hearted bigot to unchurch other churches, and deny that so far from being equally good, they were not good at all. Hear what he says on both subjects:—
“The doctrine of the Church of England we entirely embrace, otherwise we could not be Christians. We are ready to subscribe to her Articles, taking all of them, as we are verily persuaded, in the same sense which the compilers intended. For her discipline, we believe the essentials of it—Liturgy and Episcopacy—are agreeable to the primitive pattern and the Word of God. For her rituals and devotions—we are sure they are the most perfect and pure that any Church in the world now enjoys, and dare almost add, or ever did. There are not two passages in them, which we would desire to have changed; though, should the authority and wisdom of Church and State think fit to make any alterations as to words and smaller circumstances, for the sake of peace and union, we should think it our duty, modestly and gladly to submit.”[63] Wesley’s opinion of the clergy may be gathered from the following:—“It is not strange that, among so considerable a body of men, there should be found some who extremely disgrace their character, and are highly unworthy; but it is notorious, that all possible care is now taken that the clergy should lead such lives as they are obliged to by solemn vow and promise; and it is known that those who do not, are not so soon preferred as perhaps they might have been in former reigns. With some exceptions, the clergy of England are at this time as considerable a body, both for piety and learning, good preaching and good living, as any in the world, or perhaps, as any that have lived here in any age of the Church since the apostles. Of all those country parishes with which we are acquainted, we cannot, in fifty or threescore parishes, think of above three or four, who disgrace their character. So far from it, the pulpits are filled with sober and ingenious men, good preachers, and good livers.”[64]
So much in reference to his opinion of the Church and its ministers. We add two quotations about dissent:—“A Christian Church becomes not more or less Christian by being national; but if a National Church agrees in doctrine with the doctrine of Christ, and Dissenters agree in doctrine with the National Church, neither of them are schismatics from the Church of Christ.”[65] And again: “There is no real difference betwixt the Church of England and the Presbyterians as to the manner of worship and preaching. They are really one as to fundamentals; and any one so persuaded, may with a safe conscience communicate with either. Let those that keep up the partition wall, take heed lest they are thereby excluded out of the bond of charity, which makes all of one mind, and partakers of the same privileges.”[66]
This is scarce the language of a High Churchman, consigning Dissenters to the uncovenanted mercies of Almighty God. Samuel Wesley was of a temperament too painstaking, too ardent, and too sincere, to be a latitudinarian; but, at the same time, he was too good and too great a man to be a bigot.
Before leaving the Athenian Gazette, it may be added that its writers acted in great harmony, and nothing was published by any one which had not the approval of all. They held meetings regularly at stated times, chose a moderator, and determined controversial points by a majority of votes. If any member happened to be absent, he had to send, except in some particular cases, his papers for the approbation of his friends.[67] The project was a great success. It rose superior to all the opposition of its opponents, Anabaptists, Quakers, Usurers, and Lacedemonians; and gained from the nation increasing, and almost general applause.[68]