“A second agent, like the first,
Who on demoniac milk was nursed,
Had Moorfields trusted to his care,
For Satan keeps an office there.
Lean is the saint, and lank, to show
That flesh and blood to heaven can’t go;
His hair, like candles, hangs—a sign
How bright his inward candles shine.”

Wesley’s itinerants afford the poetic author wondrous amusement. A very few of his sketchy couplets must suffice.

“Salvation now is all the cant;
Salvation is the only want:
Of the new birth they prate, and prate,
While midwifery is out of date.
Every mechanic will commence
Orator, without mood or tense.
The bricklayer throws his trowel by,
And now builds mansions in the sky.
The cobbler, touched with holy pride,
Flings his old shoes and lasts aside,
And now devoutly sets about
Cobbling of souls that ne’er wear out.
The baker, now a preacher grown,
Finds man lives not by bread alone,
And now his customers he feeds
With prayers, with sermons, groans, and creeds.
Weavers, inspired, their shuttles leave,
Sermons and flimsy hymns to weave.
Barbers unreaped will leave the chin,
To trim and shave the man within.
The gardener, weary of his trade,
Tired of the mattock and the spade,
Changed to Apollo in a trice,
Waters the plants of paradise.
The fishermen no longer set
For fish the meshes of their net;
But catch, like Peter, men of sin,
For catching is to take them in.”

All the rest is in keeping with this, except that some of the lines are not only ribald, but obscene.

This was the sort of jeering which Wesley had to meet,—jeering which he was often powerless to prosecute, and which it was beneath his dignity to answer. Besides this, he was too much occupied with his own great work to turn aside to chastise all the curs that availed themselves of the liberty to snarl and bark at him. His societies were now so numerous and important, that it was a gigantic task to visit them, and regulate their multifarious affairs once a year. In addition, he was bringing out his Notes on the Old Testament, a work, in itself, quite sufficient for the time and energies of any ordinary man; and, further, he had to enforce and to defend his doctrine of Christian perfection, a doctrine imperfectly understood, and bitterly assailed. Hence the publication of a small 12mo volume of 162 pages, entitled, “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, as believed and taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, from the year 1725, to the year 1765.” “What I purpose,” says he, “is to give a plain and distinct account of the steps by which I was led, during a course of many years, to embrace the doctrine of Christian perfection.” The book is really historical, rather than doctrinal, and is intended to show, that Wesley’s present views were substantially the views which he had held for the last forty years. This was unquestionably true, with the one exception of his now teaching, that Christian perfection is attainable in an instant, and by faith only. When did Wesley begin to teach this? He says, in 1741; but the only evidence he adduces, in support of his affirmation, is the hymn, then published, beginning with the line,

“Lord, I believe a rest remains;”

and containing the following stanzas.

“Oh that I now the rest might know,
Believe and enter in!
Now, Saviour, now, the power bestow,
And let me cease from sin!
Remove this hardness from my heart,
This unbelief remove;
To me the rest of faith impart,
The sabbath of Thy love!”

The question here raised is not whether Wesley’s doctrine be true, or whether it be false; but simply when he began to preach it. He says, from the beginning; Dr. Whitehead says otherwise. He writes: “Though Mr. Wesley had so long held the doctrine of Christian perfection, he had not always held, that this state of mind might be attained in one moment; much less, that a person might attain it in his novitiate; nor do I know, that there were any professors of it before 1760, except when death was approaching.”[685]

Who will decide this question? It is full of interest, and is not without importance.