The year 1780 will always be marked in English history. The nation was steeped in guilt and misery. War was raging on almost every side. Trade was paralysed; and taxes intolerable. Popery had been established in Canada; and, by the repealing of the statutes of the 11th and 12th of King William III., had received great encouragement in England. The Protestant Association sprung into existence; and the Gordon riots followed. The details of these events are full of profound interest and instruction; but our limited space prevents enlargement. Suffice it to say, that, in this serious crisis, Wesley took an active interest. He writes: “1780. January 18—Receiving more and more accounts of the increase of popery, I believed it my duty to write a letter concerning it, which was afterwards inserted in the public papers. Many were grievously offended; but I cannot help it; I must follow my own conscience.”

The following was Wesley’s unanswerable, though obnoxious letter.

Wesley’s arguments are irrefutable; and terrible is England’s danger, at the present day, because such arguments, instead of being answered, have been dexterously, but disastrously, ignored by England’s statesmen. Wesley’s letter will probably be treated, by many, as they would treat an old almanack, out of date; but, on February 17, 1780, it evoked the unanimous thanks of the Protestant Association; and, in the same month, was published in the pages of Wesley’s bitterest antagonist,—the Gospel Magazine,—with an editorial note, that it had “been almost universally approved of,” and that it was a “production of real merit.”

Wesley’s letter was too damaging to the disloyalty and preposterous assumptions of popery, to pass unnoticed. His chief antagonist was the Rev. Arthur O’Leary, the son of peasant parents, and now a popish priest, in the fiftieth year of his age.

O’Leary’s remarks on Wesley’s letter made an octavo pamphlet of 101 pages. The friar tells the Methodist, that the temperature of Ireland’s climate and the quality of its soil had cleansed the veins of its papists “from the sour and acid blood of the Scythians and Saxons.” He writes:

O’Leary’s quaint jocularity and rounded periods are amusing; but they furnish not the slightest answer to Wesley’s allegations. On March 23, Wesley replied to O’Leary, in a letter addressed to the editors of the Freeman’s Journal, and from which the following is extracted.

O’Leary published a “Rejoinder to Mr. Wesley’s Reply,” in which he was less jocular, but not more logical. Of Wesley’s three reasons why it is not safe to tolerate papists, two were left untouched, and one was played with and evaded. Such a controversialist scarcely deserved an answer; and, yet, Wesley supplemented his second letter by a third, dated Chester, March 31, 1780. After recapitulating his three reasons, Wesley writes:

Wesley thus concludes his long letter:

Here the controversy ended.⁠[358] O’Leary was baffled; and, to this day, the arguments in Wesley’s letter of January 21, 1780, remain unanswered. Seven years afterwards; when at Cork, Wesley wrote: “A gentleman invited me to breakfast, with my old antagonist, Father O’Leary. I was not at all displeased at being disappointed. He is not the stiff, queer man that I expected; but of an easy, genteel carriage, and seems not to be wanting either in sense or learning.”

It was during this controversy, and while Wesley was in the north of Ireland, that the fearful riots occurred, which are so unfortunately associated with the name of Lord George Gordon, and which were the cause of that nobleman’s incarceration (rightly or wrongly) in the Tower of London. Here Wesley, after repeated invitations, visited him, and writes: “1780, December 19—I spent an hour with Lord George Gordon, at his apartment in the Tower. Our conversation turned upon popery and religion. He seemed to be well acquainted with the Bible; and had abundance of other books, enough to furnish a study. I was agreeably surprised to find he did not complain of any person or thing; and cannot but hope his confinement will take a right turn, and prove a lasting blessing to him.”

We return to more congenial matters. Wesley spent the first two months of 1780 in London and its vicinity. On February 28, he started on his journey to the north. Among other places, he now, for the first time, preached at Delph. He writes: “April 7—I went to Delph, a little village upon the mountains, where a remarkable work of God is just broke out. I was just set down, when the minister sent me word, I was welcome to preach in his church. On hearing this, many people walked thither immediately, near a mile from the town; but, in ten minutes, he sent me word his mind was changed. We knew not then what to do, till the trustees of the independent meeting offered us the use of their house. It was quickly filled, and truly God bore witness to His word.”

The minister of the parish church was the Rev. Mr. Heginbotham, who had engaged Mr. Stones as his curate. Mr. Stones was a sportsman, fond of his dog and gun. On one occasion, a rough Yorkshireman told him, it would be better if he minded his study more and his gun less. The curate took the hint; his dogs and his guns were given up; he became a thorough Christian; his ministry was greatly blessed; an extensive religious awakening followed; meetings for prayer were convened in private houses; and not a few were scripturally converted. Opposition soon ensued, on the ground that the poor, by spending so much time in prayer, would neglect their work, and become chargeable to the parish. The curate was dismissed; the young converts applied to Joseph Benson, then at Manchester, for help; Methodist preaching was commenced; a room in Millgate hired; and a flourishing society was formed.⁠[359] The case was named to Wesley; and, a fortnight before his visit, he signed the following legal looking document, which to a Methodist antiquarian will be welcome.

This formalised certificate smacks of the office of Joseph Mellor, the Methodist attorney of the town of Delph; and Wesley must have been hard pressed for time when, instead of writing a statement of the case himself, he put his hand to such legal magniloquence. Suffice it to add, the chapel was built, with not more than £100 of debt resting upon the premises.⁠[361]

It was during this northern tour, that Wesley, for the first time, was denied the use of the church at Haworth. He writes: “Sunday, April 23—Mr. Richardson being unwilling that I should preach any more in Haworth church, Providence opened another; I preached in Bingley church, both morning and afternoon. This is considerably larger than the other.”

It was either on this, or some future occasion, when Wesley was preaching in Bingley church, that a rich man in the congregation, who seemed to think that his wealth was a licence to practise bad manners, sneered at the preacher and at his sentiments. Wesley paused, and fixing his keen eye on the Dives sitting in the seat of the scornful, said: “I heed your sneers no more than I heed the fluttering of a butterfly; but I know what good breeding is as well as any gentleman in the land.”

It was now that Wesley preached his first sermon in Blackburn. He writes: “April 27—I preached in Todmorden church with great enlargement of heart. In the afternoon we went on to Blackburn. It seemed the whole town was moved; and the question was where to put the congregation. We could not stand abroad because of the sun; so as many as could squeezed into the preaching house. All the chief men of the town were there.” Mr. Banning was Wesley’s host at Blackburn; and, on one occasion, took his venerable guest to see a neighbouring chapel which was in the course of being built. “Mr. Banning,” said Wesley, “I have a favour to ask. Let there be no pews in the body of this chapel, except one for the leading singers. Be sure to make accommodation for the poor. They are God’s building materials in the erecting of His church. The rich make good scaffolding, but bad materials.”⁠[362] Weighty words! One of Methodism’s evil omens, at the present day, is a disregard of the advice which Wesley gave, namely, that, in building chapels, the Methodists should never fail to provide ample accommodation for the poor.

It was a sign of Wesley’s growing popularity, that, though, forty years before, he had been indignantly expelled from the pulpits of the Established Church, he was now invited, in all parts of the country, by rectors, vicars, curates, and others, to favour them with his services. At Pateley Bridge, in 1752, Thomas Lee, the old itinerant, and his Methodist companions, were subjected to treatment the most barbarous; and, on applying to the Dean of Ripon for protection, were met with a churchman’s scorn rather than a magistrate’s just dealing. Now it was otherwise. Wesley writes: “1780, May 1—At Pateley Bridge, the vicar offered me the use of his church. Though it was more than twice as large as our preaching house, it was not near large enough to contain the congregation. How vast is the increase of the work of God! particularly in the most rugged and uncultivated places. How does He ‘send the springs’ of grace also ‘into the valleys, that run among the hills!’”

Leaving Pateley, Wesley, for the first time, visited Ripon. He writes: “May 2—We came to Ripon, and observed a remarkable turn of providence: the great hindrance of the work of God in this place has suddenly disappeared; and the poor people, being delivered from their fear, gladly flock together, and hear His word. The new preaching house was quickly more than filled.”

Four years previous to this, Thomas Dixon was one of the Ripon preachers, and, in his unpublished autobiography, wrote: “Upon our going to Ripon, we preached in a small room up a flight of stairs, and even this we were to leave at Martinmas. But, just at this time, Mr. T. Dowson, who had suffered much for the gospel’s sake, bought the premises where an old barn and stable stood. He immediately pulled down the barn, and built a decent chapel and a dwelling house upon the site, and, with such expedition, that we were able to get into the shell of the new chapel by the time we had to leave the upstairs room. By this means, God gave the poor persecuted Methodists, in Ripon, a degree of rest they had never known before, and the work, from that time, gradually grew.”

On leaving Ripon, Wesley proceeded “through a delightful country to the immense ruins of Garvaix Abbey,” and thence across the “horrid, dreary, enormous mountains” to Penrith, another place where he now, for the first time, preached. He writes: “May 5—In the evening, a large room, designed for an assembly, was procured for me at Penrith; but several of the poor people were struck with panic, for fear the room should fall. Finding there was no remedy, I went down into the court below, and preached in great peace to a multitude of well behaved people.”

On May 11, Wesley reached Newcastle, and thence proceeded to Scotland. On his return southwards, we find him preaching at Durham, Darlington, Northallerton, Boroughbridge, and York. Making his way through Lincolnshire, he came to Newark, where, twenty years before, the mob had burnt the Methodist pulpit in the market place; and had not only pelted the preacher, Thomas Lee, with all sorts of missiles, and dragged him to the river Trent, where they ducked and dabbled him without mercy, but, to complete the whole, a painter came with his pot and brush, and bedaubed him most ludicrously. Wesley writes: “1780, June 12—Our friends at Newark were divided as to the place where I should preach. At length, they found a convenient place, covered on three sides, and on the fourth open to the street. It contained two or three thousand people well, who appeared to hear as for life. Only one big man, exceeding drunk, was very noisy and turbulent, till his wife (fortissima Tyndaridarum!) seized him by the collar, gave him two or three hearty boxes on the ear, and dragged him away like a calf. But, at length, he got out of her hands, crept in among the people, and stood as quiet as a lamb.”

On June 13, Wesley wrote: “I accepted of an invitation from a gentleman at Lincoln, in which I had not set my foot for upwards of fifty years. At six in the evening, I preached in the castle yard to a large and attentive congregation. They were all as quiet as if I had been at Bristol. Will God have a people here also?” For seven years after this, there was not a Methodist in Lincoln.

After an interval of many years, Wesley preached again at Boston, where, in 1757, Alexander Mather, the first Methodist preacher there, had his face plastered with mire taken from the kennels of the streets, and his head laid open with a stone.

Wesley spent his birthday in Sheffield, and wrote: “June 28—I can hardly think I am entered this day into the seventy-eighth year of my age. By the blessing of God, I am just the same as when I entered the twenty-eighth. This hath God wrought, chiefly by my constant exercise, my rising early, and preaching morning and evening.”

The next day, he preached his first and last sermon at Worksop. He says: “I was desired to preach at Worksop; but when I came, they had not fixed on any place. At length, they chose a lamentable one, full of dirt and dust, but without the least shelter from the scorching sun. This few could bear; so we had only a small company of as stupid people as I ever saw.”

After this, Wesley made his way to London, where he spent a week; and, then, he and his brother set out for Bristol, for the purpose of holding his annual conference. He writes: “August 1—Our conference began. We have been always, hitherto, straitened for time. It was now resolved, ‘For the future, we will allow nine or ten days for each conference; that everything, relative to the carrying on of the work of God, may be maturely considered.’”

The conference, in this instance, lasted from August 1 to August 9, inclusive. Its main business was a revision of the minutes of conferences already held. Several alterations were made, some of the chief being the following. It was no longer to be a rule, that Methodists were to endeavour to preach most where Wesley and his brother clergymen were allowed to preach in parish churches. Classmeetings were to be made more lively and profitable, by removing improper leaders; and care was to be taken, that those appointed were not only men of sound judgment, but truly pious. If a preacher could secure twenty hearers at five o’clock in the morning, he was to preach; if not so many, he was to sing and pray. “Observe,” says Wesley to his preachers, “it is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can, to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and, with all your power, to build them up in that holiness without which they cannot see the Lord. And remember! a Methodist preacher is to mind every point, great and small, in the Methodist discipline! Therefore, you will need all the sense you have, and to have all your wits about you.” It was agreed, that the neglect of fasting was sufficient to account for their feebleness and faintness of spirit. They were continually grieving the Holy Spirit of God, by the habitual neglect of a plain duty. “Let you and I,” says Wesley, “every Friday (beginning on the next), avow this duty throughout the nation, by touching no tea, coffee, or chocolate, in the morning, but, (if we want it,) half-a-pint of milk or water gruel. Let us dine on potatoes, and, (if we need it,) eat three or four ounces of flesh in the evening. At other times, let us eat no flesh suppers. These exceedingly tend to breed nervous disorders.” The rule was rescinded, that no preacher ought to print anything without Wesley’s approbation. The preachers were to join as one man in putting an end to the indecency of the people talking in the preaching houses, before and after service. Complaints having been made, that sluts had spoiled preachers’ houses, Wesley writes: “Let none, that has spoiled one, ever live in another. But what a shame is this! A preacher’s wife should be a pattern of cleanliness, in her person, clothes, and habitation. Let nothing slatternly be seen about her; no rags, no dirt, no litter. And she should be a pattern of industry; always at work, either for herself, her husband, or the poor. I am not willing that any should live in the Orphan House at Newcastle, or any preaching house, who does not conform to this rule.” Complaints were also made, that people crowded into the preachers’ houses as into coffee shops, without invitation; and it was ruled, that no person should, in future, come into a preacher’s house, unless he wanted to ask a question.

Some of these may appear to be minute matters; but they are not without interest as indicative of the defects of Methodists in the days of Wesley.

There is reason to believe, though the fact is not recorded in the minutes, that the Church question was again discussed at the conference of 1780. Hence the following letter, written to Miss Bosanquet.

Charles Wesley was present, and was far from satisfied. He purposed to attend no more of these annual synods, and wrote as follows:

Poor Charles, alarmed lest the Methodists should leave the Church, retired from the conference to weep and die; John to rejoice and work.

Conference statistics have not been given annually; but the following figures will show the progress made during the decade of years ending at the conference of 1780.

To these numbers, however, must be added the Methodists in the West Indies, and also 20 circuits, 42 itinerant preachers, and 8504 members of society in America.⁠[365]

The American conference met at Baltimore on April 24, and agreed to continue in close communion with the Church, and to permit “the friendly clergy” to preach and administer the sacraments in Methodist chapels. Hitherto, neither Asbury, nor any other of the preachers in America, had administered these Christian ordinances to the Methodist people; and, as the number of members was now rapidly increasing, this was becoming a momentous question. The want in England had been met, to some extent, by Wesley and his brother and their clerical assistants; but, in America, the Methodists had no ordained clergyman to render service like this. Besides, there the Methodists were very differently situated from what Methodists were in England. In this country, wherever there was a Methodist society there was a parish church, at which, if they chose, Methodists might attend on sacramental occasions. In America it was otherwise. Clergymen were few; and parish churches far distant from each other; and, in many instances, where Methodist societies had been formed, no church existed. The case was becoming serious. Were these thousands of American Methodists to be left without sacraments? Or were unordained Methodist preachers to administer sacraments? Or was an effort to be made, to send a clergyman of the Church of England to supply this lack of sacred service? Or was Wesley himself to assume episcopal functions, and, by ordination, turn his preachers into priests? These were serious difficulties to be surmounted. To deprive eight thousand converted people of the most sacred ordinances of the church, would have been a sin against the church’s Head. To allow unordained preachers to administer baptism and the Lord’s supper was a thing for which Wesley himself was not prepared; though who can question, that a man like Francis Asbury, whom God had so signally honoured, had as much right to do this as the most renowned priest or prelate in existence? An alternative remained, namely, either to send the American Methodists an ordained clergyman of the Church of England; or that Wesley should take upon himself the office of ordainer, and thus qualify his own itinerants for what was conceived to be a higher function than that of preaching the infinitely great and everlasting truths of Christ’s glorious gospel.

Was Wesley prepared for such a step as this? Fortunately, this is a point on which we are not left to speculate. In a letter to his brother, dated June 8, 1780, he writes: “Read Bishop Stillingfleet’s ‘Irenicon,’ or any impartial history of the ancient church, and I believe you will think as I do. I verily believe, I have as good a right to ordain, as to administer the Lord’s supper. But I see abundance of reasons why I should not use that right, unless I was turned out of the Church. At present, we are just in our place.”⁠[366]

As yet, Wesley, for “abundance of reasons,” hesitated to ordain his preachers; and, hence, the only remaining expedient was to endeavour to secure an ordained clergyman of the Church of England; and this he attempted. The following letter was addressed to Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, two months after the date of his letter to his brother Charles. The reader will perceive, that it was written the day after the close of the Bristol conference. It ought to be premised that, previous to this, Wesley had applied to the bishop for a clerical helper, and had met with a refusal.

Did his lordship ever receive, from any other “dutiful son and servant,” a letter like this? We doubt it. Wesley was foiled in his attempt to obtain episcopal ordination for an American Methodist preacher: no wonder, that, soon after, he administered ordination himself.

Before proceeding with Wesley’s history, the insertion of a selection of his letters, belonging to this period, may be acceptable.

It is a terrible thing to write a dangerous book. When Joseph Benson was a young man, he read Dr. Watts’s “Glory of Christ as God-man,” and became a convert to his doctrine of the pre-existence of our Lord’s human soul. Speaking his mind too freely upon this unscriptural dogma, Benson was suspected to be an Arian, and was represented as such, by Dr. Coke, all over the kingdom.⁠[368] At the conference of 1780, Coke accused him of holding the Arian heresy; the matter was sifted; Benson was acquitted; and Coke offered to ask his pardon. Still, Benson, for years afterwards, held Dr. Watts’s dangerous speculation; and it was not until he undertook the revision of Fletcher’s manuscripts, that he laid aside the expression, “pre-existent soul of Christ;” “an expression,” says he, “which neither reason, nor Scripture, nor antiquity, will warrant our using.”⁠[369]

Dr. Watts’s pernicious book, and also the Gordon riots, (at this time raging,) are referred to in the following extract from a letter to Charles Wesley.

The Mr. Collins, mentioned in the above extract, was Brian Bury Collins, of the university of Cambridge, who, without ever receiving a regular appointment, continued to assist Wesley, in various parts of the kingdom, until Wesley’s death in 1791. A number of his manuscript letters, all written in 1779 and 1780, now lie before us, from which we learn, that he regarded himself as having “an unlimited preaching commission”; and that one of his great objects was to unite Wesley’s and Whitefield’s followers. “I could freely die,” says he, “to see the Tabernacles and Foundery reconciled.” He began the year 1779 in the north of England, where he sometimes preached five or six times a day. He then removed to London, Bristol, and the west, where his health failed. In May, 1780, he was among his relatives at Linwood, and wrote: “I am not yet recovered from my late illness, though I am much better than I have been. My relations here receive me with more cordiality than I expected. I find the Divine presence in the churches where I preach; but what the Lord designs to do with me I cannot tell. Lately, I have thought of spending a few weeks at Cambridge. I have also had fresh desires of being in full orders.” In pursuance of this, Mr. Collins went to St. John’s college, Cambridge, where, in July 1780, he took his master of arts degree. By advice of the two Wesleys, he sought ordination; and the dowager Lady Townsend gave him a recommendatory letter to the Bishop of Chester, requesting that the rite might be administered in private; but the bishop, having heard of his irregular preaching, hesitated until he had time to confer with his brother bishops. Ordination was ultimately obtained; Collins married, and, for a time, was assistant to David Simpson, at Macclesfield; after this, he again became a rover, and preached in Wesley’s and Lady Huntingdon’s chapels, and wherever else he had a chance. He writes: “I wish to do good unto all. I do not love one and dislike another. I can unite with all who are united to Jesus. I care not for names in the least.”⁠[371]

These glimpses of a man whom Wesley, to the end of life, repeatedly mentions in his journals, will not be unwelcome. Of his subsequent career we know nothing; except that its close was not as bright as its beginning. A son of his lies interred in the burial ground of the new chapel in City Road.⁠[372]

One of the legislative acts of the conference of 1780 was to enforce the old rule, that, in Methodist meeting-houses, the men and women should sit apart. In galleries, where they had always sat together, they might do so still; but in all new erected galleries, and in the seats below, the old rule was to be rigidly observed. “If,” said Wesley, “I come into any new house, and see the men and women together, I will immediately go out. I hereby give public notice of this. Pray let it be observed.”⁠[373]

This sounds strangely at the present day; but, for some reason, it was with Wesley a matter of importance. Hence also the following unpublished letter to the leaders at Sheffield.