WHITEFIELD left England the day before Wesley reached it. He landed in Georgia on the 7th of May, 1738, and remained sixteen weeks; and then set out again for his own country, where he arrived on November 30. A flying visit, but not a fruitless one. Having been ordained by Bishop Benson in June, 1736, he began his unparalleled preaching career with a sermon in the church of St. Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, where he had been baptized, and where he first received the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. Some of his congregation mocked, but most were powerfully impressed. The bishop was informed that the sermon had driven fifteen persons mad; the worthy prelate hoped the madness would be abiding. Whitefield was a stripling of twenty-one; but wherever he went crowds flocked to hear him. At Bristol, the whole city seemed alarmed; Quakers, Baptists, Presbyterians, and sectarians of all kinds, ran after him; and churches were as full on week days as they had used to be on Sundays. Wesley wrote to his Oxford friends, asking help for Georgia. Whitefield was preaching as often as four times a day, and had become so famous that Raikes, of Gloucester, and others, thought it an enrichment of their newspapers to insert accounts of his doings; but his friend Wesley needed help, and that was quite enough to make him treat as trifles the praises of the multitudes who ran after him. Just at the time when Wesley was compelled to leave Georgia, Whitefield repaired to London to embark for it. During his brief detention, in less than three months, he preached in London above a hundred sermons, and collected above a thousand pounds for charity schools and for the poor. When he set sail, he read prayers and preached twice every day; and such was his influence on board, that the very soldiers stood out before him to say their catechism like little children.

The day after his arrival at Savannah, Causton and the magistrates sent word that they would wait upon him; but he chose rather to wait upon them, and was treated with as much deference as Wesley had been treated with disrespect. He began to visit from house to house, catechized, read prayers morning and evening, and expounded the two second lessons every day. He found Tomo-Chichi, the Indian chief, on a blanket, thin and meagre, and evidently dying. At Hampstead and Highgate he followed Wesley’s example, and read prayers once a week, though the population of the former village consisted of only three men, one woman, and seven children. He also visited Thunderbolt, a village of three families consisting of sixteen persons, and preached to them. He likewise opened a girls’ school at Savannah. He paid a few days’ visit to Frederica, where there was now a population of about one hundred and twenty; and read prayers and preached, under a large tree, to more than could have been expected. He also visited the Saltzburghers at Ebenezer, and found two such pious ministers as he had not often seen.

Four months having been thus spent, he set out for England, the Savannah people bidding adieu to him with tearful eyes, and begging that he would soon return. He landed in Ireland in November, where mayors and bishops vied with each other in inviting him to their mansions and palaces, and where he also took the opportunity of visiting the cabins of Irish peasants, in one of which, twenty feet long and twelve broad, there were a man, his wife and three children, two pigs feeding, two dogs, and several geese, a great fire, and the master of the family threshing corn.

On reaching London, he found that those who had been awakened by his preaching a year ago had “grown strong men in Christ, by the ministrations of his dear friends and fellow labourers, John and Charles Wesley.” The old doctrine of justification by faith only had been much revived; societies had been instituted at Fetter Lane and other places; and Whitefield ended the eventful year of 1738 by preaching and expounding, during the last week of it, not fewer than seven-and-twenty times.[228]

Let us now turn to Wesley. He landed at Deal early in the morning of February 1; and at once resumed his work in England, by reading prayers and preaching at the inn. After breakfast, he set out for London, and, reaching Faversham at night, he again read prayers and expounded the second lesson to a few who were called Christians, but who were more savage in their behaviour than the wildest Indians he had ever met. His next halting place was Blendon, where the family of his friend Charles Delamotte gave him a hearty welcome. On the evening of February 3, he arrived in London; and, without delay, visited Oglethorpe, and waited upon the Georgian trustees; gave to them a written account why he had left the colony; and returned to them the instrument whereby they had appointed him minister of Savannah.

Wesley was too earnest to take a holiday. Time with him was too important for any part of it to be spent in idleness. Reaching London on Friday, he resumed preaching on Sunday; and, for the next fifty-three years, never ceased, and never lagged, in this important work, except when serious sickness occasionally laid upon him a brief embargo.

And, certainly, if England ever needed earnest, enthusiastic labourers, it was now. During this very year of 1738, not fewer than fifty-two criminals were hanged at Tyburn; and within the last two years about 12,000 persons had been convicted, within the Bills of Mortality, of smuggling gin, or of selling it without the £50 per annum licence. Sunday traffic had become such a nuisance in London and its suburbs, that even the court of aldermen interfered, and commanded the marshals, and all constables, beadles, and other public officers, to use their best endeavours to suppress it. They were also to apprehend all shoeblacks cleaning shoes in the public streets; and to take notice of all vintners, ale and coffee house keepers, barbers, and others, who exercised their ordinary trades on Sundays. A committee of the House of Lords “to examine into the causes of the present notorious immorality and profaneness,” stated, in their report, that they had sufficient grounds to believe that a number of loose and disorderly persons had of late formed themselves into a club, under the name of Blasters, and were using means to induce the youth of the kingdom to join them. The members of this impious club professed themselves to be votaries of the devil, offered prayers to him, and drank his health. They also had been heard to utter “the most daring and execrable blasphemies against the sacred name and majesty of God; and to use such obscene, blasphemous, and before unheard of expressions as the Lords’ committee think they cannot even mention, and therefore they pass them over in silence.” The same committee further reported, that “of late years there had appeared a greater neglect of religion and of all things sacred—a greater neglect of Divine worship, both public and private, and of the due observance of the sabbath, than had ever before been known in England. There was a want of reverence to the laws and to magistrates, and of a due subordination in the several ranks and degrees of the community. There was an abuse of liberty, a great neglect in education, and a want of care in training children, and in keeping servants in good order; while idleness, luxury, gambling, and an excessive use of spirituous and intoxicating liquors had grown into an alarming magnitude.” The report concludes by recommending that the bishops be desired, at their visitations, to particularly charge the clergy to exhort the people to a more frequent and constant attendance at Divine services; and that visitors of the universities and of schools require the fellows and masters carefully to instruct the youth committed to their care, in the principles of religion and morality; to which recommendation the House of Lords agreed.

One month, in 1738, was spent by Wesley in his homeward voyage from America. Three others were spent in Germany. During the remaining eight he preached in various parts of England, at least, eighty times. One of his sermons was delivered in the cabin of a ship, two were preached in workhouses, eleven in Oxford castle, one in Oxford Bocardo, one in Lincoln College chapel, one in Manchester, one at Windsor, one at Stanton-Harcourt, two in Newgate prison, and the remainder principally in twenty-six different churches in the metropolis. His sermon at St. John the Evangelist’s “offended many of the best in the parish.” His first discourse at St. Lawrence’s was “an open defiance of that mystery of iniquity which the world calls ‘prudence,’” and gave great offence. A sermon at Oxford castle was chiefly addressed to a man condemned to die, and who, on the same day, found the forgiveness of his sins, and shortly after went to the gallows “enjoying perfect peace.” At one of his sermons in Newgate prison, nine persons were present who had recently received sentence of death—two for murdering their wives, one for filing guineas, two for burglary, and four for robberies. These wretched creatures, and two others previously condemned, were all executed at Tyburn, on November 8;[229] and, at their earnest desire, Wesley and his brother, on the day of execution, went to Newgate “to do the last good office” to them. Charles preached; the malefactors wept; and some of them, at least, were filled with “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” Wesley writes: “It was the most glorious instance I ever saw of faith triumphing over sin and death.”

The great event in Wesley’s history, during the year 1738, was his conversion. Something has been said already on this momentous subject; but other facts and explanations must now be given. Let us try to answer the questions following:—

1. What was the religious state, and what were the religious views, of Wesley previous to his conversion? 2. What were the doctrines he was taught by Peter Bohler? 3. When was he converted? and how?

1. Wesley’s religious state and views previous to his conversion.

He was almost a Christian.[230] He most rigorously abstained from everything which the gospel of Christ prohibits, and cheerfully practised everything which it enjoins. He avoided every form of profanity, and every word or look that, directly or indirectly, tended to uncleanness. He equally avoided detraction, backbiting, talebearing, evil speaking, and idle words. He was no railer, brawler, or scoffer at the faults or infirmities of others, but continually endeavoured to live peaceably with all men. He laboured and suffered for the benefit of many. He reproved the wicked, instructed the ignorant, confirmed the wavering, quickened the good, and comforted the afflicted. He used all the means of grace, and at all opportunities: he attended public service every day; he communicated every week; he constantly used family prayer; he had set times daily for private devotions. All this was done from a sincere and hearty desire to serve God and to do His will. In all his conversation and in all his actions—in all he did and in all he left undone, his only motive was a design to please and honour God. He declares that he went thus far for many years, and yet that all this time he was only almost a Christian.[231]

He held no principles but what he believed to be revealed in the word of God; and, in the interpretation of that word he always judged the most literal sense to be the best, unless when the literal sense of one scripture contradicted some other. He firmly believed in a change wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and called a person thus changed “regenerated, born again, and a new creature.” In all other cases, he endeavoured to express spiritual things in spiritual words, though he was not ignorant that such words and their hidden meaning were treated by the unconverted as jargon and cant.[232]

He had many remarkable answers to prayer, especially when he was in trouble; and he had many sensible comforts—short anticipations of the life of faith. He had a Divine conviction of God and of the things of God; and firmly believed in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world.[233] He was, at least, a servant of God, and was accepted of Him;[234] and yet all this while he was beating the air, and was seeking to establish his own righteousness, instead of submitting to the righteousness of Christ which is by faith. He delighted in the law of God, after the inner man; and yet he was carnal, sold under sin. Every day he was constrained to cry out, “What I do I allow not: for what I would I do not; but what I hate that I do. To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not.” He was fighting with sin continually, but not always conquering. Before, he had willingly served sin; now it was unwillingly; but still he served it. He fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes he was overcome, and in heaviness; sometimes he overcame, and was in joy. Once he had foretastes of the terrors of the law; but now he had foretastes of the comforts of the gospel. For above ten years there was in him this struggle between nature and grace; and yet he was still only striving with, not freed from, sin; neither had he the witness of the Spirit with his spirit that he was a child of God; nor indeed could he, for he “sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law.”[235]

Such is Wesley’s description of himself; and this, when added to what has been previously said concerning his religious career at Oxford, will be a sufficient answer to the first of the three questions proposed.

2. The second is, what were the doctrines which Wesley was taught by Peter Bohler?

In the storm which Wesley encountered in his voyage from Georgia, he found himself in fear of death; and was convinced that the cause of it was unbelief; and that the gaining a true living faith was the “one thing needful” for him.

Peter Bohler told him that true faith in Christ was inseparably attended by—(1) dominion over sin; and (2) constant peace, arising from a sense of forgiveness. Wesley was amazed, and regarded this as a new gospel; for if this was so, it was clear that he was without true faith in Christ, because he was without its inseparable fruits. He was not willing to be convinced of this. He disputed with all his strength, and laboured to prove that there might be faith without the two fruits mentioned, and especially the second. Bohler referred him to the Bible and to experience. Wesley consulted the Bible, and when he had set aside the glosses of men he was bound to acknowledge that Bohler was correct. Still he hesitated to believe that any “experience” could be adduced in favour of Bohler’s doctrine. The next day Bohler brought to him three persons, all of whom testified of their own personal experience that a true living faith in Christ is inseparable from a sense of pardon for all past, and freedom from all present, sins. They also added, with one mouth, that this faith is the gift, the free gift of God; and that He will surely give it to every one who earnestly and perseveringly prays for it.

At subsequent interviews with Bohler, another doctrine was forced on Wesley, namely, that this saving faith in Christ is given in a moment; and that in an instant a man is turned from sin and misery to righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost. Wesley kicked against this also; and Bohler again referred him to the Scriptures and to experience. Wesley searched the Scriptures; and, to his utter astonishment, he found there were scarcely any instances of other than instantaneous conversions. Still he had one retreat left, and told Bohler that, though “God wrought thus in the first ages of Christianity, times now were changed.” To meet this objection, Bohler, the day after, turned to his experience test, and brought to Wesley several living witnesses, who testified that God had given them, in a moment, such a faith in Christ as translated them out of darkness into light, out of sin and fear into holiness and happiness. Wesley writes: “Here ended my disputing. I could now only cry out, ‘Lord, help Thou my unbelief.’ I was now thoroughly convinced; and, by the grace of God, I resolved to seek this faith unto the end—(1) By absolutely renouncing all dependence, in whole or in part, upon my own works of righteousness; on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not, from my youth up. (2) By adding to the constant use of all the other means of grace continual prayer for this very thing—justifying, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ shed for me; a trust in Him as my Christ, as my sole justification, sanctification, and redemption.”[236]

These then were the great doctrines which Peter Bohler brought to the hearing of John Wesley. They were new to him; but finding them to be scriptural, and also corroborated by living experience, he at once believed them. He went to the Delamotte family at Blendon, and there spake clearly and fully concerning them. Mr. Broughton and his brother Charles were present. The former objected, and the latter became so much offended, that in anger he left the room, telling his brother that his newfangled doctrines were mischievous.[237] Wesley also wrote to his brother Samuel on the same subject, on the 4th of April, declaring that he had seen, so far as it could be seen, very many persons changed, in a moment, from the spirit of horror, fear, and despair, to the spirit of hope, joy, and peace; and from sinful desires, till then reigning over them, to a pure desire of doing the will of God.[238]

We proceed to the third question,—

3. When and how was Wesley converted? His first interview with Bohler was on February 7, 1738; and, from that time till the 4th of May, when Bohler left London for Carolina, he embraced every opportunity of conversing with him. They went in company to Oxford, and to Mr. Gambold, at Stanton-Harcourt. The man of erudition, and of almost anchorite piety, sat at the feet of this godly German like a little child, and was content to be thought a fool that he might be wise. “My brother, my brother,” said Bohler, “that philosophy of yours must be purged away;” and purged away it was. Wesley thought that, being without faith, he ought to leave off preaching. But Bohler replied: “By no means. Preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach it;” and, on the 6th of March, he began to preach accordingly. Meanwhile several of his friends, as his brother Charles, Mr. Gambold, and Mr. Stonehouse, vicar of Islington, had embraced the doctrine of salvation by faith only; and two, Whitefield, and Mr. Hutchins, of Pembroke College, had experienced it.[239] Charles Wesley also, on Whit-Sunday, May 21, was made a partaker of the same great blessing. At the time, he was ill of pleurisy, and his brother and some other friends came to him, and sang a hymn of praise to the Holy Ghost; and, after they were gone, he was enabled to exercise that faith in Christ of the want of which he had been recently convinced, and was filled with love and peace. Wesley himself was still a mourner. His heart was heavy. He felt that there was no good in him; and that all his works, his righteousness, and his prayers, so far from having merit, needed an atonement for themselves. His mouth was stopped. He knew that he deserved nothing but wrath; and yet he heard a voice, saying, “Believe, and thou shalt be saved;” “he that believeth is passed from death unto life.” Three more days of anguish were thus passed; and then, on May 24, at five in the morning, he opened his Testament on these words: “There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature.” On leaving home, he opened on the text, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.” In the afternoon, he went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the anthem was full of comfort. At night, he went to a society-meeting in Aldersgate Street, where a person read Luther’s preface to the epistle to the Romans, in which Luther teaches what faith is, and also that faith alone justifies. Possessed of it, the heart is “cheered, elevated, excited, and transported with sweet affections towards God.” Receiving the Holy Ghost, through faith, the man “is renewed and made spiritual,” and he is impelled to fulfil the law “by the vital energy in himself.” While this preface was being read, Wesley experienced an amazing change. He writes: “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death; and I then testified openly to all there, what I now first felt in my heart.” Towards ten o’clock, a troop of friends took him to his brother; they sang a hymn with joy; and then parted with a prayer.[240]

To add to this would be folly. The questions proposed have been answered from Wesley’s own writings. For ten years he had believed in Christ, but never believed as he did now. He had been intensely pious; but now he possessed power over himself and sin which he had not possessed before. He had practised religion; but now he experienced its bliss. According to his own sermon, written nearly half a century subsequent to this, he was, as a servant of God, accepted, and was safe; but now he knew it, and was happy as well as safe. There was sunshine in his soul, which lit up his face, and which turned the severe ascetic, for a season at least, into a joyful saint.

Having given, as briefly and as clearly as we can, an account of the way in which Wesley, after ten years of earnest prayer, rigorous fasting, and self-sacrificing piety, was brought into the blissful enjoyment of a conscious salvation, this may be a fitting place to notice the man, by whose instrumentality he was taught the nature and fruits of saving faith.

Peter Bohler was born at Frankfort, on the last day of the year 1712. He was educated in the university of Jena, where he also studied theology. When sixteen years of age, he joined the Moravians; and when twenty-five, he was ordained for the work of the ministry by Count Zinzendorf, this being the first time that the count exercised his episcopal functions. Immediately after his ordination, Bohler set out for London, on his way to Carolina; and here it was that Wesley first met him. Wesley introduced him to James Hutton, and procured him lodgings. Charles Wesley began to teach him English; and a tailor, of the name of Viney, interpreted his Latin addresses in the Moravian meetings. Questions were asked him, and he simply answered them from the Holy Scriptures. His exposition of saving faith was new, even to the London Moravians; and, “to their astonishment, they saw, for the first time, that he who believeth in Jesus hath everlasting life; and it was with indescribable joy that they embraced the doctrine of justification through faith in Christ, and of freedom by it from the dominion and guilt of sin.”[241] Marvellous blessings attended Bohler’s interpreted discourses; and a work was begun, says Wesley, “such as will never come to an end, till heaven and earth pass away.”

“I travelled,” writes Bohler to Zinzendorf, “with the two brothers, John and Charles Wesley, from London to Oxford. The elder, John, is a good-natured man: he knew he did not properly believe on the Saviour, and was willing to be taught. His brother, with whom you often conversed a year ago, is at present very much distressed in his mind, but does not know how he shall begin to be acquainted with the Saviour. Our mode of believing in the Saviour is so easy to Englishmen, that they cannot reconcile themselves to it; if it were a little more artful, they would much sooner find their way into it. Of faith in Jesus they have no other idea than the generality of people have. They justify themselves; and, therefore, they always take it for granted, that they believe already, and try to prove their faith by their works, and thus so plague and torment themselves that they are at heart very miserable.”[242]

These are weighty words on the simplicity of saving faith, and well deserve pondering by both the ministers and members of the church at the present day.

Wesley had found peace with God; but, for the encouragement of new converts, let it be remembered that his joy in the Holy Ghost was not unbroken. The same night, he “was much buffeted with temptations, which returned again and again.” The day after, “the enemy injected a fear” that the change was not great enough, and therefore that his faith was not real. On May 26, his “soul continued in peace, but yet in heaviness because of manifold temptations.” On the 27th, there was a want of joy, which led him to resolve to spend the time of every morning, until he went to church, in unceasing prayer. On the 31st, he “grieved the Spirit of God, not only by not watching unto prayer, but likewise by speaking with sharpness, instead of tender love, of one who was not sound in the faith. Immediately God hid His face, and he was troubled and in heaviness till the next morning.” But, in the midst of all, he kept waiting upon God continually, read the New Testament, conquered temptations, and gained increasing power to trust and to rejoice in God his Saviour. He had to fight; but he was not, as formerly, subdued.

He went to Oxford; but the whole of his old Methodist friends were now dispersed. Here he preached his celebrated sermon in St. Mary’s, before the university, on the text, “By grace are ye saved, through faith;” a sermon which, in November following, was published by James Hutton, pp. 25, price threepence. In this discourse, he showed that the faith through which we are saved is not barely the faith of a heathen, who believes that God is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him; nor, secondly, is it the faith of a devil, who, in addition to the faith of a heathen, believes that Jesus is the Son of God, the Christ, the Saviour of the world; nor, thirdly, is it barely the faith which the apostles had while Christ was yet upon earth, although they so believed in Christ as to leave all and follow Him, had power to work miracles, and were sent to preach; but, fourthly, “it is a full reliance on the blood of Christ,—a trust in the merits of His life, death, and resurrection,—a recumbency upon Him as our atonement and our life, as given for us and living in us; and, in consequence hereof, a closing with Him and cleaving to Him, as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, or, in one word, our salvation.”

The salvation obtained by such a faith is described as being a salvation—(1) From the guilt of all past sin; (2) From servile fear; (3) From the power of sin. The man having it is pardoned; he has the witness of the Spirit that he is a child of God; he is born again; and he lives without sin.

Wesley further answers objections to this doctrine, and shows that to preach salvation by faith only is not to preach against holiness and good works; neither does it lead men into pride, nor drive them to despair. He maintains that never was the preaching of this doctrine more seasonable than now, and that nothing else can effectually prevent the increase of the popish delusion. It was this which drove Popery out of the kingdom, and it is this alone that can keep it out.

This remarkable sermon was preached eighteen days after Wesley’s conversion—not on June 18, as is stated in Wesley’s collected works, but on June 11. Well would it be if, at the present day, the same great doctrine were as plainly preached as Wesley preached it. For want of it, the church is gliding into a sort of religious scepticism; and this, above all things else, would prove a check to the spread of the popish errors and practices, which are too successfully setting at defiance all the wisdom and power of man to prevent their triumph.

In the same year Wesley published another sermon, “On God’s Free Grace,”[243] in which he gave equal prominence to another great Bible truth, namely, that “the grace or love of God, whence cometh our salvation, is free in all, and free for all.” And then, in defence of himself as a good Churchman, he issued a small 12mo pamphlet of sixteen pages, entitled “The Doctrine of Salvation, Faith, and Good Works: extracted from the Homilies of the Church of England.” Here he shows that the doctrine of that Church is, that the sinner is justified by faith only; and yet this faith does not exclude repentance, hope, love, and fear of God; but shuts them out from the office of justifying. “So that, although they be all present together in him that is justified, yet they justify not altogether.” “Neither does faith shut out good works, necessary to be done afterwards; but we are not to do them with the intent of being justified by doing them.” He further shows that “justification is the office of God only,—a blessing which we receive of Him by His free mercy, through the only merits of His beloved Son.” He adds: “the right and true Christian faith is not only to believe that holy Scripture and the articles of our faith are true, but also to have a sure trust and confidence to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ; whereof doth follow a loving heart to obey His commandments.” He maintains further that, without this true saving faith, the works we do cannot be good and acceptable in the sight of God. “Faith giveth life to the soul, and they are as much dead to God who want faith, as they are to the world whose bodies want souls. Without faith all we do is but dead before God, be it ever so glorious before man.”

Such then were the great doctrines which Wesley grasped, and began to preach in 1738. It was the preaching of these doctrines that gave birth to the greatest revival of religion chronicled in the history of the church of Christ. From such doctrines Wesley never wavered; and God forbid that they should ever be abandoned, or even partially neglected, by any of Wesley’s successors. They are not Moravian whims, or the fancies of fanatics. They are a great deal more than even Bible truths of subordinate importance. They are essentially and vitally connected with man’s salvation both here and hereafter, and no church has ever prospered except in proportion as its ministers have prominently and faithfully taught and enforced them in their congregations.

It may reasonably be asked how was it that Wesley—the son of a most able divine of the Church of England, and himself a man of extensive learning, and a devoted student of Christian truth—how was it, that he lived so long without a knowledge of one of the greatest, and yet most clearly taught doctrines of the holy Bible, the doctrine of the sinner’s salvation by faith alone? Wesley himself tells us: from early life he had been warned against the papistical error of laying too much stress on outward works. After this, he read certain Lutheran and Calvinist authors, whose confused and indigested expositions magnified faith to such an amazing size that it quite hid all the rest of the commandments. In this labyrinth he was bewildered. He wished, on the one hand, to avoid the popish doctrine of salvation by works; but, in doing this, he was beset, on the other hand, with an uncouth hypothesis concerning salvation by faith, which he found it impossible to reconcile either with Scripture or common sense. From these well meaning but wrong headed writers, he turned to authors like Beveridge, Nelson, and Jeremy Taylor, by whom his difficulties were, to some extent, relieved; but even these he found interpreting Scripture in different ways, and he was nearly as much confused as ever. After this, he was taught that he ought to interpret the Bible by the general teachings of the ancient church. Adopting this rule, he, for a season, made antiquity a co-ordinate rather than subordinate rule with Scripture, and, by extending his antiquity principle too far, his confusion of mind became greater instead of less. He then became acquainted with the Mystics, whose “noble descriptions of union with God, and internal religion, made everything else appear mean and flat;” yet here again, on reflection, he found that he was wrong. Mysticism was nothing like the religion which Christ and His apostles lived and taught.[244] Thus was this sincere and earnest inquirer after truth led to and fro in a wilderness of perplexing entanglements, until Peter Bohler took him by the hand, and led him as a contrite sinner to the cross of Christ.

Ten days before his conversion, Wesley wrote a somewhat petulant letter to William Law, telling him that he did so in obedience to what he considered the call of God. He informs him that, for two years, he had been preaching after the model of his “Serious Call,” and “Christian Perfection,” and that the result had been to convince the people that the law of God was holy, but that, when they attempted to fulfil it, they found themselves without power. Wesley declares that he himself was in this state, and might have groaned in it till he died if he had not been directed to Peter Bohler. He then proceeds:—

Wesley then adds that Bohler thought the state of Law to be a dangerous one; and intimates that Bohler’s opinion was of great consequence, because he had the Spirit of God; and finally, he concludes his not too courteous epistle with: “Once more, sir, let me beg you to consider whether your extreme roughness, and morose and sour behaviour, at least on many occasions, can possibly be the fruit of a living faith in Christ?”[245]

This was an uncalled for, rough, morose attack upon a man of the greatest ability, of distinguished though mistaken piety, whose works Wesley had read with the highest admiration, whose advice Wesley had sought, and who was nearly old enough to be Wesley’s father. Law replied to it in a letter dated May 19, 1738. After some withering sarcasm, in reference to Wesley having written his letter in obedience to the call of God, Law proceeds to say:—

Law continues: “Let me advise you not to be too hasty in believing that because you have changed your language you have changed your faith. The head can as easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood of Jesus as with any other notion; and the heart which you suppose to be a place of security, as being the seat of self-love, is more deceitful than the head.”

A lengthened correspondence followed, which Mr. Law concluded thus:—“Who made me your teacher? or can make me answerable for any defects in your knowledge? You sought my acquaintance; you came to me as you pleased, and on what occasion you pleased, and to say to me what you pleased. If it was my business to put this question to you, and if you have a right to charge me with guilt for the neglect of it, may you not much more reasonably accuse them who have authoritatively charge over you? Did the Church in which you are educated put this question to you? Did the bishop who ordained you either deacon or priest do this for you? Did the bishop who sent you a missionary to Georgia require this of you? Pray, sir, be at peace with me.”[246]

This was a miserable squabble, into which Wesley foolishly rushed, and out of which he came not victorious, but vanquished. It was an unfortunate commencement of a new Christian life, and led to an estrangement between two great and good men, which ought never to have existed. No doubt, the theology of William Law was defective; but to charge him with the guilt of Wesley’s want of faith, and to accuse him of extremely rough, morose, and sour behaviour, was a deplorable outrage against good manners.

But this was not the only unpleasantness which now sprang up. The Moravian movement and the new conversions began to attract great attention and to create some alarm. As might naturally be expected, amid so much excitement, there was a mixture of extravagance. The sister of Mr. Bray dreamed that at night she heard a knock at her door, and on opening it saw a person dressed in white. She asked him who he was, and he answered, “I am Jesus Christ.” She awoke in a fright, but a day or two after was filled with faith, and was commanded by an unseen power to go to Charles Wesley, who was ill, and assure him from Christ of his recovery of soul and body. In a prayer-meeting a Mr. Verding declared that he had just seen, as it were, a whole army rushing by him and bearing the broken body of Christ; a sight which was overpowering, and cast him into a cold sweat. A young man, as he entered St. Dunstan’s church to receive the sacrament, was met by Christ carrying His cross in His hands: and a woman dreamed that a ball of fire fell upon her, and fired her soul. Samuel Wesley, of Tiverton, to whom these things were related, justly deemed them “downright madness;” and, in his anger, went so far as to wish that those “canting fellows,” as he called the Moravians, “who talked of indwellings, experiences, getting into Christ,” etc., had been somewhere else.[247]

The chief cause of anxiety, however, arose from Mrs. Hutton’s description of her two lodgers. She relates that, when the two Wesleys returned from Georgia, she received and treated them with the utmost love and tenderness; but John was now “turned a wild enthusiast.” While her husband was reading to a number of people in his study a sermon of Bishop Blackall’s, John Wesley stood up and told the company that, five days ago, he was not a Christian. Mr. Hutton was thunderstruck, and said, “Have a care, Mr. Wesley, how you despise the benefits received by the two sacraments;” but Wesley repeated his declaration, upon which Mrs. Hutton answered, “If you have not been a Christian ever since I knew you, you have been a great hypocrite, for you made us all believe that you were one.” To this Wesley replied that, “When we renounce everything but faith and get into Christ, then, and not till then, have we any reason to believe that we are Christians.”

Mrs. Hutton, in writing an account of all this to Samuel Wesley, adds that her two children had so high an opinion of Wesley’s sanctity and judgment that they were in great danger of being drawn into his “wild notions;” that Wesley had “abridged the life of one Halyburton, a Presbyterian teacher in Scotland,” and that her son had designed to print it, but she and her husband had forbidden him to promote such “rank fanaticism;” and that all his converts were “directed to get an assurance of their sins being pardoned,” and to expect this in “an instant.” She acknowledges that the two Wesleys “are men of great parts and learning;” but they were now under a “strange delusion;” and she entreats their brother Samuel to stop this “wildfire,” if he can.

Samuel Wesley’s reply is dated, “Tiverton, June 17, 1738.” He writes:—

Samuel asked his brother what he meant by being made a Christian. John replied:—