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Sermon 112: On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel

https://wesleyworks.ecdsdev.org/sermons/Sermon112

03:577 An Introductory Comment

Wesley’s home and headquarters for the first four decades after ‘the rise of the United [Methodist] Society’ had been in ‘The Foundery’, a renovated cannon factory on the northern edge of Upper Moorfields, London. Wesley had leased and refurbished it at a total cost of some £800 (£115 for the lease, £685 for repairs and furnishings). This improvisation and its various uses reflected much of the ethos of Methodism in its first generation. But as the Revival flourished and as he looked toward the expiring of his lease, Wesley began to envisage a ‘New Foundery’, that might serve Methodism’s future as well as the old one had done in its day. He broached the idea to his brother in a letter of October 7, 1775, and reported its development some five months later in the Journal for March 1, 1776: ‘As we cannot depend on having the Foundery long, we met to consult about building a new chapel. Our petition to the City for a piece of ground lies before the Committee.’ In due course a lease was granted the Methodists for a piece of land ‘near the City Road’ (across from Bunhill Fields) and a building campaign was begun. Wesley’s circular letter to Methodists throughout the country (October 18, 1776) reflects his presuppositions as to the connexional character of Methodism:

“The Society at London have given assistance to their brethren in various parts of England. They have done this for upwards of thirty years; they have done it cheerfully and liberally…. They now stand in need of assistance themselves. They are under a necessity of building, as the Foundery, with all the adjoining houses, is shortly to be pulled down. And the City of London has granted ground to build on, but on condition of covering it [i.e., screening it from the City Road] with large houses in front, which, together with the New Chapel, will, at a very moderate computation, cost upward of six thousand pounds. I must therefore beg the assistance of all our brethren.”

By the following April, the project was ready for the laying of a ‘foundation stone’ and for the construction to be turned over to a newly affluent Methodist builder, Samuel Tooth of ‘Messrs. Tooth and Co. of Worship Street, Upper Moorfields’.

This move represented a deliberate upward step toward ‘respectability’ 03:578for the Methodists, as is confirmed by the ringing triumphalist tone of the whole occasion in Wesley’s Journal:

“Monday the 21st was the day appointed for the laying the foundation of the New Chapel The rain befriended us much by keeping away thousands who purposed to be there. But there were still such multitudes that it was with great difficulty I got through them to lay the first stone. Upon this was a plate of brass…on which was engraved: ‘This was laid by Mr. John Wesley on April 21, 1777.’ Probably this will be seen no more by any human eye, but will remain there till the earth and the works thereof are burned up.”

This, of course, was in the full knowledge that his lease had been granted for only fifty-nine years.

See George J. Stevenson, City Road Chapel (1872), pp. 67-68; see also John Telford, Wesley’s Chapel and Wesley’s House (1926).

A Sermon on Numbers xxiii.23, preached Monday, April 21, 1777, on Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel, near the City Road, London, provides us with an interesting retrospective on the Revival, together with a few intriguing historical revisions. For example, in his review of Methodist origins Wesley has blotted out all memory of the early influences of the Moravians; moreover, he omits all mention of the Methodist beginnings at Bristol and Kingwood. His special concern, however, was to stress the unique relationship between Methodism and the Church of England; viz., the symbiosis of a connexion of religious societies within a national church. That this particular vision was not as heartily shared by the Methodists generally as by Wesley is suggested by the fact that the sermon had only two editions, both in 1777, and then was not published again until 1809, when it appeared, with its present title, in Joseph Benson’s edition of the Works, VI.106-15. The text here is based on the first edition, with minor corrections taken from the second. For fuller details, see Bibliog, No. 366.

The Calvinists were quick to recognize that the New Chapel signified a new stage in the development of what they had come to regard as a rival movement. Rowland Hill promptly denounced the sermon as ‘a false and libellous harangue’, in Imposture Detected and the Dead [i.e., George Whitefield] Vindicated… (1777). He then went on to identify Wesley as ‘this grey-headed enemy to all righteousness’—and charged him with brazen duplicity in his ‘building dissenting meeting-houses the kingdom over’ even while continuing to protest that these ‘houses’ were only adjuncts to the national church. Professor Frank Baker has pointed out the kernel of truth in Hill’s otherwise unedifying invective:

03:579 “Wesley’s New Chapel was not simply another preaching-house. It was seen by him as a special symbol of connexional unity, meriting universal Methodist support…. This new Methodist headquarters was separatist even in its architecture…. [It] was from the outset a centre for sacramental worship as well as for preaching and fellowship and social service…. These premises, in fact, functioned very much like those of a very active Anglican parish church, though without recognizing any allegiance to diocesan or parochial authorities.

Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England, pp. 213-14.

” On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel

Numbers 23:23

According to this time it shall be said, What hath God wrought!

11. We need not now inquire in what sense this was applicable to the children of Israel. It may be of more use to consider in what sense the words are applicable to ourselves; how far the people of England have reason to say, ‘According to this time, what hath God wrought!’

22. A great man, indeed, who I trust is now in a better world, Dr. Gibson, late Lord Bishop of London, in one of his charges to his clergy flatly denies that God has wrought any ‘extraordinary work’ in our nation; nay, affirms that to imagine any such thing is no better than downright enthusiasm.

Edmund Gibson; see No. 66, ‘The Signs of the Times’, II.2 and n.

It is so if his lordship’s supposition is true, if God has not wrought any extraordinary work. But if he really has, then we may believe and assert it without incurring any such imputation.

33. Yet a still greater man of a neighbouring nation, a burning and a shining light,

John 5:35.

equally eminent in piety and in learning, partly confirmed the bishop’s supposition. For Bengelius,

J. A. Bengel (1687-1752). Bengel’s prophecy of a revival appeared in his Ordo temporum a principio per periedos oeconomiae divinae (1741).

being asked why he placed the grand revival of religion so late as the year 1836, replied: ‘I acknowledge all the prophecies would 03:580incline me to place it a century sooner. But an insurmountable difficulty lies in the way: I cannot reconcile this to matter of fact. For I do not know of any remarkable work of God which has been wrought upon earth between the years 1730 and 1740.’ This is really surprising. It is strange that sensible men should know so little of what is done at so small a distance. How could so great a man be ignorant of what was transacted no farther off than England? Especially considering the accounts then published in Germany, some of which were tolerably impartial; nay, considering the particular account which I had sent as early as the year 1742 to one well known through all the empire, Pastor (afterwards Superintendent) Steinmetz.

Johann Adam Steinmetz (1689-1762), pietistic Lutheran, pastor of Teschen (Silesia), General Superintendent of the duchy of Magdeburg from 1732. Wesley had first heard of him, during his visit to Herrnhut, from Christian David; cf. JWJ, Aug. 10, 1738. In his early career Steinmetz had been on friendly terms with Count von Zinzendorf and the Herrnhuters, but afterwards broke with them. Wesley’s ‘particular account’ of the Revival sent to Steinmetz seems not to have survived; its substance may be seen in Letters, II, 26:49-51 in this edn. There is no evidence of any reaction from Steinmetz or of Steinmetz’s connections with Bengel, if any.

44. ‘But has there indeed been any extraordinary work of God wrought in England during this century?’ This is an important question; it is certainly worthy of our serious consideration. And it is capable of being answered to the full satisfaction of every fair inquirer. He may easily be informed what work it is, and in what manner it has been wrought. It is true I am in one respect an improper person to give this information, as it will oblige me frequently to speak of myself, which may have the appearance of ostentation. But with regard to this I can only cast myself upon the candour of my hearers, being persuaded they will put the most favourable construction upon what is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. For there is no other person, if I decline the task, who can supply my place, who has a perfect knowledge of the work in question from the beginning of it to this day.

For other instances of Methodist triumphalism, see below, II.11; and No. 102, ‘Of Former Times’, §22 and n.

We may consider, first, the rise and progress of this work; secondly, the nature of it.

1I. 1. As to the rise of it. In the year 1725 a young student at Oxford was much affected by reading Kempis’s Christian Pattern, and Bishop Taylor’s Rules of Holy Living and Dying.

Cf. Wesley’s preface to JWJ, §1.

He found an 03:581earnest desire to live according to those rules, and to flee from the wrath to come.

Matt. 3:7.

He sought for some that would be his companions in the way, but could find none; so that for several years he was constrained to travel alone, having no man either to guide or to help him. But in the year 1729 he found one who had the same desire. They then endeavoured to help each other, and in the close of the year were joined by two more. They soon agreed to spend two or three hours together every Sunday evening. Afterwards they sat two evenings together, and in a while six evenings in the week; spending that time in reading the Scriptures, and provoking one another to love and to good works.

See Heb. 10:24.

22. The regularity of their behaviour gave occasion to a young gentleman of the college to say, ‘I think we have got a new set of Methodists’—alluding to a set of physicians who began to flourish at Rome about the time of Nero, and continued for several ages.

Wesley has more than one explanation of the term ‘Methodist’; see his open letter to Dr. Warburton, Nov. 26, 1762 (11:481-82 in this edn.); the Preface to The Character of a Methodist; and his letter to Richard Morgan, Oct. 18, 1732. See also Fred C. Wright, ‘On the Origin of the Name Methodist’, WHS, III.10-13, and T. E. Brigden, ‘Notes and Queries’, in ibid., III.112. The first citation in the OED is from 1593; later usages include ‘a class of Roman Catholic apologists (1686)’. Dr. Johnson refers to ‘a physician who practises by theory’ and yet also to ‘one of a new kind of puritans lately arisen, so called from their profession to live by rules and in constant method’. This latter would correspond to the usage in A War Among the Angels of the Churches Wherein is Shewed the Principles of the New Methodists in the Great Point of Justification (1693), ‘By a Country Professor of Jesus Christ.’ There ‘the New Methodists’ are associated with John Goodwin and accused of ‘tending to set man’s personal inherent righteousness as an element of our justifying righteousness…’ (p. 7), and of designing ‘to promote holiness and…self-righteousness’. There is no record of Wesley having read the War Among the Angels, but the association of ‘Methodists’ with ideas of ‘personal inherent righteousness’ and of ‘holy living’ must already have been familiar.

The name was new and quaint; it clave to them immediately. And from that time both those four young gentlemen, and all that had any religious connection with them, were distinguished by the name of ‘Methodists’.

33. In the four or five years following another and another were added to the number, till in the year 1735 there were fourteen of them who constantly met together. Three of these were tutors in their several colleges; the rest, Bachelors of Arts, or undergraduates.

This account of the Oxford Methodists as of 1735 should be compared with ‘A Short History of the People called Methodists’ (dated Nov. 16, 1781), §§2-3, where Wesley says they were ‘fourteen or fifteen in number’ (Bibliog, No. 420); his letter to Henry Brooke, June 14, 1786, where he says the number was sixteen; and his ‘Thoughts upon Methodism’ (dated Aug. 4, 1786), §3, where he says the number was fifteen (see AM, 1787, X.101); see also A Short History of Methodism, §4. It is almost impossible to arrive at an exact membership list of the Oxford Methodists, since several groups met at several levels in the early 1730s, and membership in each fluctuated widely. Cf. Richard P. Heitzenrater, ‘The Oxford Diaries and the First Rise of Methodism’, A.M.E Zion Quarterly Review/Methodist History (July 1974), pp. 111-35, espec. pp. 126-28. See also No. 53, On the Death of George Whitefield, III.2 and n.; and II.15, below.

They were all precisely of one judgment as well as of one 03:582soul. All tenacious of order to the last degree, and observant, for conscience’ sake, of every rule of the church, and every statute both of the university and of their respective colleges.

See No. 150, ‘Hypocrisy in Oxford’, II.9-10.

They were all orthodox in every point; firmly believing not only the three creeds, but whatsoever they judged to be the doctrine of the Church of England, as contained in her Articles and Homilies. As to that practice of the apostolic church (which continued till the time of Tertullian,

Cf. Tertullian, Apology, espec. ch. 39.

at least in many churches) the ‘having all things in common’,

Cf. Acts 2:44; 4:32.

they had no rule, nor any formed design concerning it. But it was so, in effect, and it could not be otherwise; for none could want anything that another could spare. This was the infancy of the work. They had no conception of anything that would follow. Indeed they took ‘no thought for the morrow’,

Matt. 6:34.

desiring only to live today.

44. Many imagined, that little society would be dispersed, and Methodism (so called) come to an end, when in October 1735 my brother, Mr. Ingham,

Benjamin Ingham (1712-72), an Oxford Methodist from at least the autumn of 1733 (see Heitzenrater, above, n. 10). He was ordained by Bishop Potter in June 1735. After thirteen months in Georgia, he returned to become an Anglican evangelist in Yorkshire and the Midlands. He married Lady Margaret Hastings, sister-in-law to the Countess of Huntingdon, and eventually formed a cluster of religious societies under his own direction. It is odd that Wesley should have omitted the name of a third companion on the voyage, Charles Delamotte, whose service in Georgia outlasted all the others and who continued as a friend long after the Wesleys and Ingham had gone their separate ways; cf. JWJ, May 16, 1782.

and I, were induced by a strange chain of providences to go over to the new colony in Georgia. Our design was to preach to the Indian nations bordering upon that province. But we were detained at Savannah and Frederica by the importunity of the people, who, having no other ministers, earnestly requested that we would not leave them. After a time I desired the most serious of them to meet me once or twice a week at my house. Here were the rudiments of a Methodist Society;

Cf. JWJ, Apr. 1736.

03:583but notwithstanding this, both my brother and I were as vehemently attached to the church as ever, and to every rubric of it: insomuch that I would never admit a Dissenter to the Lord’s Supper unless he would be rebaptized. Nay, when the Lutheran minister of the Saltzburgers at Ebenezer, being at Savannah, desired to receive it, I told him I did not dare to administer it to him, because I looked upon him as unbaptized, as I judged baptism by laymen to be invalid; and such I counted all that were not episcopally ordained.

This was Johann Martin Bolzius (cf. JWJ, July 17, 1737). But see also JWJ, Sept. 30, 1749, for Wesley’s belated apology to Bolzius. Cf. Martin Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, I.169-78, for the important differences between the more moralistic (‘Halle-type’) pietism of Bolzius and the Salzburgers and the more mystical pietism of the Moravians.

55. Full of these sentiments, of this zeal for the Church (from which I bless God he has now delivered me), I returned to England in the beginning of February 1738. I was now in haste to retire to Oxford, and bury myself in my beloved obscurity.

Public figure that he was, Wesley had a strong, lifelong bent to seclusion. Cf. his letter to Prof. John Liden (Lund, Sweden), Nov. 30, 1769 (‘having from my infancy loved silence and obscurity’). See the letter to his brother Charles, Dec. 15, 1772, and Editor’s Intro. (1:1-2 in this edn.). Despite his constant involvements, he arranged for as much privacy as possible for prayer, meditation, and study; cf. his letter to Miss March, Dec. 10, 1777, where he says: ‘It is true I travel four or five thousand miles in a year. But I generally travel alone in my carriage, and consequently am as retired ten hours in a day as if I was in a wilderness.’ This taste for solitude, however personal, was also in accord with the monastic tradition as Wesley had found it in Kempis, Imitation, I.xix, xx (‘On the Love of Solitude and Silence’), or in Richard Lucas, Enquiry After Happiness (1717), I.228-29, or even in John Hughes’s drama, The Siege of Damascus, Act V, sc. 1, ‘Let me wear out my small remains of life,/Obscure, content with humble poverty.’

But I was detained in London week after week by the Trustees for the Colony of Georgia.

He had left Georgia under a cloud of grand jury indictments and his employment by the Georgia Trustees had not yet been formally terminated. It was not until Apr. 26 (nearly three months after his return to England) that the matter was settled. Cf. the Diary of Viscount Percival, Afterwards First Earl of Egmont (London, Historical Manuscript Commission, 1920-23), II.481: ‘Mr. John Wesley, our minister at Savannah, left with us his license for performing ecclesiastical service at Savannah, which we took for a resignation, and therefore resolved to revoke his commission. In truth the Board did it with great pleasure, he appearing to us to be a very odd mixture of a man, an enthusiast and at the same time a hypocrite….’ Egmont was one of the Trustees; cf. some of his other references to Wesley in II.349-50, 370, 449-51, 466-67.

In the meantime I was continually importuned to preach in one and another church, and that not only morning, afternoon, and night, on Sunday, but on weekdays also. As I was lately come from a far country, vast multitudes flocked together. But in a short time, partly because of those unwieldy crowds, partly because of my unfashionable doctrine, I 03:584was excluded from one and another church, and at length shut out of all. Not daring to be silent, after a short struggle between honour and conscience I made a virtue of necessity, and preached in the middle of Moorfields.

But cf. JWJ, Sunday, June 17, 1739: ‘I preached at seven in Upper Moorfields [i.e., very close by the site of this present sermon] to (I believe) six or seven thousand people on “Ho! everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”’ This quietly ignores that his initial venture in field preaching had been near Bristol ten weeks earlier; see JWJ, Apr. 2: ‘At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in the ground adjoining to the city [St. Philip’s Plain] to about three thousand people.’

Here were thousands upon thousands, abundantly more than any church could contain; and numbers among them who never went to any church or place of public worship at all. More and more of them were cut to the heart, and came to me all in tears, inquiring with the utmost eagerness what they must do to be saved.

See Acts 16:30. Cf. the opening sections to the General Rules for an official summary of this telescoped history of Methodist origins.

I said, ‘If all of you will meet on Thursday evening, I will advise you as well as I can.’ The first evening about twelve persons came; the next week, thirty or forty. When they were increased to about an hundred, I took down their names and places of abode, intending, as often as it was convenient, to call upon them at their own houses. Thus, without any previous plan or design, began the Methodist Society in England—a company of people associating together to help each other to work out their own salvation.

66. The next spring we were invited to Bristol and Kingswood, where likewise Societies were quickly formed.

An inversion of the order of events; it was, in fact, the spring just past (cf. JWJ, Mar. 10 to Apr. 4, 1739).

The year following we went to Newcastle upon Tyne, and preached to all the colliers and keelmen round it. In 1744 we went through Cornwall, as far as Sennen,

Wesley’s spelling, ‘Sennan’; see also JWJ, Sept. 10, 1743.

near the Land’s End; and in the compass of two or three years more to almost every part of England. Some time after we were desired to go over to Ireland,

John Wesley’s first visit to Dublin was Aug. 8-20, 1747. In Sept. Charles Wesley followed for a lengthy visit.

and in process of time to every county therein. Last of all we were invited to Musselburgh, Glasgow, and several other parts of Scotland.

In Apr. 1751, by Captain Bartholomew Gallatin, a Methodist whose regiment had been transferred to Musselburgh from Manchester.

But it was in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, 03:585Arbroath, and Aberdeen, that we saw the greatest fruit of our labour.

1II. 1. Such was the rise, and such has been the progress of Methodism from the beginning to the present time. But you will naturally ask, What is Methodism? What does this new word mean? Is it not a new religion? This is a very common, nay, almost an universal supposition. But nothing can be more remote from the truth. It is a mistake all over. Methodism, so called, is the old religion, the religion of the Bible, the religion of the primitive church, the religion of the Church of England. This ‘old religion’ (as I observed in the Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion) is

“no other than love: the love of God and of all mankind; the loving God with all our heart, and soul, and strength, as having first loved us, as the fountain of all the good we have received, and of all we ever hope to enjoy; and the loving every soul which God hath made, every man on earth, as our own soul.

Cf. No. 7, ‘The Way to the Kingdom’, I.8 and n. For the love of God being the substance of inward holiness and the love of neighbour the substance of outward holiness, cf. ibid., I.10 and n.

This love is the great medicine of life, the never-failing remedy for all the evils of a disordered world, for all the miseries and vices of men. Wherever this is, there are virtue and happiness, going hand in hand. There is humbleness of mind, gentleness, long-suffering, the whole image of God, and at the same time a peace that passeth all understanding, with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. This religion of love, and joy, and peace, has its seat in the inmost soul, but is ever showing itself by its fruits, continually springing up, not only in all innocence—for love worketh no ill to his neighbour—but likewise in every kind of beneficence, spreading virtue and happiness all around it.

Cf. An Earnest Appeal, §§2-4 (11:45-46 in this edn.), and note Wesley’s revisions here of that published text.

”

22. This is the religion of the Bible, as no one can deny who reads it with any attention. It is the religion which is continually inculcated therein, which runs through both the Old and New Testament. Moses and the prophets, our Blessed Lord and his apostles, proclaim with one voice, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy neighbour as thyself.’

Cf. Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37, 39, etc.

The Bible declares, ‘Love is the fulfilling of the Law,’

Rom. 13:10.

‘the end of the commandment’,

1 Tim. 1:5.

of all the commandments which are contained in the oracles of God. The inward and outward fruits of this love are also largely described by the inspired writers. So that whoever 03:586allows the Scripture to be the Word of God must allow this to be true religion.

33. This is the religion of the primitive church, of the whole church in the purest ages. It is clearly expressed even in the small remains of Clemens Romanus, Ignatius, and Polycarp. It is seen more at large in the writings of Tertullian, Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Cyprian. And even in the fourth century it was found in the works of Chrysostom, Basil, Ephrem Syrus, and Macarius.

Note the omission here of Irenaeus; otherwise, this is Wesley’s standard roster of ‘the fathers of the church’ who represented, for him, the primitive Christian tradition; it is typical of Anglican patrology in general. See No. 43, The Scripture Way of Salvation, I.7 and n.; also LPT Wesley, p. 9, n. 26.

It would be easy to produce a cloud of witnesses testifying the same thing, were not this a point which no one will contest who has the least acquaintance with Christian antiquity.

44. And this is the religion of the Church of England, as appears from all her authentic records, from the uniform tenor of her liturgy, and from numberless passages in her Homilies. The scriptural primitive religion of love, which is now reviving throughout the three kingdoms, is to be found in her morning and evening service, and in her daily as well as occasional prayers; and the whole of it is beautifully summed up in that one, comprehensive petition, ‘Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name.’

BCP, Communion, Collect for Purity.

55. Permit me to give a little fuller account, both of the progress and nature of this religion, by an extract from a treatise which was published many years ago.

Farther Appeal, Part III [I.4-5, 11:274-75 in this edn. which see for scriptural citations].

“Just at the time when we wanted little of ‘filling up the measure of our iniquities’, two or three clergymen of the Church of England began vehemently to ‘call sinners to repentance’. Many thousands gathered together to hear them; and in every place where they came many began to show such concern for religion as they never had done before. Many were in a short time deeply convinced of the number and heinousness of their sins, of their evil tempers, of their inability to help themselves, and of the insignificancy of their outside religion. And from this repentance sprung ‘fruits meet for repentance’: the whole form of their life was changed. They ‘ceased to do evil, and learned to do well’. Neither was this all; but over and above this outward change they began to experience inward religion. ‘The love of God was shed abroad in their hearts,’ 03:587which they enjoy to this day. They ‘love him, because he first loved us’; and this love constrains them to love all mankind, and inspires them with every holy and heavenly temper, with the mind which was in Christ. Hence it is that they are now uniform in their behaviour, unblameable in all manner of conversation, and in whatsoever state they are, they have learned therewith to be content. Thus they calmly travel on through life, never repining, or murmuring, or dissatisfied, till the hour comes that they shall drop this covering of earth,

Cf. No. 28, ‘Sermon on the Mount, VIII’, §21 and n.

and return to the Father of spirits.

An abridgement and further revision of A Farther Appeal, Pt. III, I.4-5 (11:274-75 in this edn.), continued in sects. 6-11 by revised extracts from I.7-11, 13-14 (11:276-80). (Again it should be noted that in the normal course quotations and allusions within even lengthy passages quoted from some other source are not cited.)

”

66. This revival of religion has spread to ‘such a degree as neither we nor our fathers had known’. How extensive has it been! There is scarce a considerable town in the kingdom where some have not been made witnesses of it. It has spread to every age and sex, to most orders and degrees of men; and even to abundance of those who in time past were accounted monsters of wickedness.

“

Consider the swiftness as well as extent of it. In what age has such a number of sinners been recovered in so short a time from the error of their ways? When has true religion—I will not say since the Reformation, but since the time of Constantine the Great—made so large a progress in any nation within so small a space? I believe, hardly can either ancient or modem history afford a parallel instance.

77. We may likewise observe the depth of the work so extensively and swiftly wrought. Multitudes have been throughly ‘convinced of sin’; and shortly after, so filled with joy and love that whether they were in the body, or out of the body, they could hardly tell. And in the power of this love they have trampled underfoot whatever the world accounts either terrible or desirable, having evidenced in the severest trials an invariable and tender goodwill to mankind, and all the fruits of holiness. Now so deep a repentance, so strong a faith, so fervent love, and so unblemished holiness, wrought in so many persons in so short a time, the world, has not seen for many ages.

88. No less remarkable is the purity of the religion which has extended itself so deeply and swiftly. I speak particularly as to the doctrines held by those who are the subjects of it. Those of the Church of England at least must acknowledge this. For where is there a body of people who, number for number, so closely adhere to the doctrines of the Church?

Nor is their religion more pure from heresy than it is from superstition. In former times, wherever any unusual religious concern has appeared, there has sprung up with it a zeal for things that were no part of religion. But it has not been so in the present case. No stress has been laid on anything as though it was necessary to salvation but what is plainly contained in the Word of God. And of the things contained therein the stress laid on each has been in proportion to the nearness of its relation to what is there laid down as the sum of all—the love of 03:588God and our neighbour. So pure both from superstition and error is the religion which has lately spread in this nation.

99. It is likewise rational. It is as pure from enthusiasm as from superstition. It is true the contrary has been continually affirmed. But to affirm is one thing; to prove is another. Who will prove that it is enthusiasm to love God? Yea, to love him with all our heart? Who is able to make good this charge against the love of all mankind? (I do but just touch on the general heads.) But if you cannot make it good, own this religion to be sober, manly, rational, divine.

1010. It is also pure from bigotry. Those who hold it are not bigoted to opinions. They would hold right opinions; but they are peculiarly cautious not to rest the weight of Christianity there. They have no such overgrown fondness for any opinions as to think those alone will make them Christians, or to confine their affection or esteem to those that agree with them therein. Nor are they bigoted to any particular branch, even of practical religion. They are not attached to one point more than another; they aim at uniform, universal obedience. They contend for nothing circumstantial as if it were essential to religion, but for everything in its own order.

1111. They dread that bitter zeal, that spirit of persecution, which has so often accompanied the spirit of reformation. They do not approve of using any kind of violence, on any pretence, in matters of religion. They allow no method of bringing any to the knowledge of the truth, except the methods of reason and persuasion. And their practice is consistent with their profession. They do not in fact hinder their dependents from worshipping God, in every respect, according to their own conscience.

”

But if these things are so, may we not well say, ‘What hath God wrought!’

See JWJ, Aug. 8, 1779, for Wesley’s account of his last night spent in the Foundery; note his repetition of this text from Num. 23:23.

For such a work, if we consider the extensiveness of it, the swiftness with which it has spread, the depth of the religion so swiftly diffused, and its purity from all corrupt mixtures, we must acknowledge, cannot easily be paralleled in all these concurrent circumstances by anything that is found in the English annals since Christianity was first planted in this island.

See §4, above, and n.

1212. It may throw considerable light upon the nature of this work to mention one circumstance more attending the present revival of religion, which I apprehend is quite peculiar to it. I do not remember to have either seen, heard, or read of anything parallel. It cannot be denied that there have been several considerable revivals of religion in England since the Reformation. But the generality of the English nation were little profited thereby; because they that were the subjects of those revivals, preachers as well as people, soon separated from the Established Church, and formed themselves into a distinct sect. So did the 03:589Presbyterians first, afterwards the Independents, the Anabaptists, and the Quakers. And after this was done they did scarce any good, except to their own little body. As they chose to separate from the Church, so the people remaining therein separated from them, and generally contracted a prejudice against them. But these were immensely the greatest number; so that by that unhappy separation the hope of a general, national reformation was totally cut off.

1313. But it is not so in the present revival of religion. The Methodists (so termed) know their calling. They weighed the matter at first, and upon mature deliberation determined to continue in the Church. Since that time they have not wanted temptations of every kind to alter their resolution. They have heard abundance said upon the subject, perhaps all that can be said. They have read the writings of the most eminent pleaders for separation, both in the last and present century. They have spent several days in a general conference upon this very question, ‘Is it expedient (supposing, not granting, that it is lawful) to separate from the established Church?’

Agitation among the Methodists for a separation from the Church of England had begun early but never reached crisis proportions until the Conference at Leeds in 1755. Wesley anticipated this crisis with a MS tract (still extant) entitled, ‘Ought We to Separate from the Church of England?’; it may actually have been read at the Conference. Shortly thereafter, he revised it for publication as item No. 13 in the collection entitled A Preservative against Unsettled Notions in Religion, 1758.

But still they could see no sufficient cause to depart from their first resolution. So that their fixed purpose is—let the clergy or laity use them well or ill—by the grace of God to endure all things, to hold on their even course, and to continue in the Church, maugre

I.e., ‘despite’ or ‘notwithstanding’; cf. OED.

men or devils, unless God permits them to be thrust out.

1414. Near twenty years ago, immediately after their solemn consultation on the subject, a clergyman who had heard the whole said with great earnestness: ‘In the name of God, let nothing move you to recede from this resolution. God is with you of a truth; and so he will be, while you continue in the Church. But whenever the Methodists leave the Church, God will leave them.’

I.e., Benjamin Ingham, whose separation followed closely on the heels of this warning; the Conference session was in May 1755, and in Leeds rather than London (as scheduled) mainly for the convenience of William Grimshaw of Haworth, Wesley’s chief clerical ally in the north; cf. Baker, William Grimshaw, pp. 234-38. The Inghamite separation began in Dec., but the movement failed to flourish.

Lord, what is man! In a few months after, Mr. Ingham 03:590himself left the Church, and turned all the societies under his care into congregations of Independents. And what was the event? The same that he had foretold. They swiftly mouldered into nothing.

Some years after a person of honour told me: ‘This is the peculiar glory of the Methodists. However convenient it might be, they will not on any account or pretence whatever form a distinct sect or party. Let no one rob you of this glorying.’

Cf. ‘Thoughts upon a Late Phenomenon’, AM (Jan. 1789), XII.47-48: ‘This is a new thing in the world: this is the peculiar glory of the people called Methodists. In spite of all manner of temptations, they will not separate from the Church.’ The ‘person of honour’ mentioned here may have been Henry Venn; cf. Curnock’s note in JWJ, V.279 (Venn’s connection with the founding of the Highfield Independent Chapel in Huddersfield), and Wesley’s letter to Thomas Adam, July 19, 1768.

I trust none will as long as I live. But the giver of this advice entirely forgot it in a very short time, and has almost ever since been labouring to form Independent congregations.

1515. This has occasioned many to ask, ‘Why do you say the Methodists form no distinct party? That they do not leave the Church? Are there not thousands of Methodists who have in fact left the Church? Who never attend the Church service? Never receive the Lord’s Supper there? Nay, who speak against the Church, even with bitterness, both in public and private? Yea, who appoint and frequent meetings for divine service at the same hour? How then can you affirm that the Methodists do not leave the Church?’

I am glad of so public an opportunity of explaining this; in order to which it will be necessary to look back some years. The Methodists at Oxford were all one body,

See above, I.2; also No. 53, On the Death of George Whitefield, III.2 and n.

and as it were one soul, zealous for the religion of the Bible, of the primitive church, and in consequence of the Church of England; as they believed it to come nearer the scriptural and primitive plan than any other national church upon earth.

When my brother and I returned from Georgia we were in the same sentiments. And at that time we and our friends were the only persons to whom that innocent name was affixed. Thus far, therefore, all the Methodists were firm to the Church of England.

1616. But a good man who met with us when we were at Oxford, while he was absent from us, conversed much with Dissenters, and contracted strong prejudices against the Church. I mean Mr. 03:591Whitefield. And not long after he totally separated from us.

Cf. A Short History of Methodism (1765), §11. Whitefield contradicts this charge of initiating the schism. His version is that Wesley’s publication of Free Grace (see No. 110) caused the open break that was never realty healed thereafter. Cf. George Whitefield’s Journals (The Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), Appendix II, pp. 561-88; see also Seymour, Countess of Huntingdon, I.87-88, 118, 474.

In some years William Cudworth

With James Relly, William Cudworth led the antinomian wing of the Revival; they turned Wesley’s doctrine of perfection-in-process into one of guiltless perfection (cf. intro. on the triple essay on Law and Grace, Nos. 34-36). They are the targets of Wesley’s two Dialogues between an Antinomian and his Friend and also his Blow at the Root; Or, Christ Stabbed in the House of his Friends, 1762. See also A Short History of Methodism, §12.

and several others separated from him, and turned Independents; as did Mr. Maxfield

Thomas Maxfield, the first lay preacher accepted by Wesley as an assistant. His first endorsement in this office came to Wesley from the Countess of Huntingdon (cf. Seymour, I.32-35), but it was Susanna Wesley’s direct intervention on Maxfield’s behalf that decided the issue in her son’s mind (cf. Moore, Wesley, I.505-6). Maxfield was later ordained by Dr. William Bernard, Bishop of Derry, and in 1763 (with George Bell) he separated from Wesley in a bitter schism. He died in 1784. See JWJ, Jan. 23-Feb. 7, 1763, for Wesley’s account of the Maxfield schism; cf. A Short History of Methodism, §14; and Charles Atmore, The Methodist Memorial, pp. 266-69.

and a few more after separating from us. Lastly, a school was set up near Trevecka in Wales; and almost all who were educated there (except those that were ordained, and some of them too), as they disclaimed all connection with the Methodists, so they disclaimed the Church also.

For a more sympathetic account of the ‘history of the college at Trevecka’ in South Wales, cf. Seymour, II.78-86. It was ‘founded by the Countess of Huntingdon for the instruction of candidates for the Christian ministry’, and its first principal was John William Fletcher. Its alumni ‘might enter into the ministry either in the Established Church of England or among Protestants of any other denomination’.

Nay, they spoke of it upon all occasions with exquisite bitterness and contempt.

Now let every impartial person judge whether we are accountable for any of these! None of these have any manner of connection with the original Methodists. They are branches broken off from the tree: if they break from the Church also, we are not accountable for it.

These therefore cannot make our glorying void,

See 1 Cor. 9:15.

that we do not, will not, form any separate sect, but from principle remain what we always have been, true members of the Church of England.

1717. Brethren, I presume the greater part of you also are members of the Church of England. So at least you are called; but you are not so indeed unless you are witnesses of the religion above described. And are you really such? Judge not one another; 03:592but every man look into his own bosom. How stands the matter in your own breast? Examine your conscience before God. Are you an happy partaker of this scriptural, this truly primitive religion? Are you a witness of the religion of love? Are you a lover of God and all mankind? Does your heart glow with gratitude to the Giver of every good and perfect gift?

See Jas. 1:17.

The Father of the spirits of all flesh, who giveth you life, and breath, and all things?

See Acts 17:25.

Who hath given you his Son, his only Son, that you ‘might not perish, but have everlasting life’?

Cf. John 3:16.

Is your soul warm with benevolence to all mankind? Do you long to have all men virtuous and happy? And does the constant tenor of your life and conversation bear witness of this? Do you ‘love, not in word only, but in deed and in truth’?

Cf. 1 John 3:18.

Do you persevere in the ‘work of faith, and the labour of love’?

1 Thess. 1:3.

Do you ‘walk in love, as Christ also loved us, and gave himself for us’?

Cf. Eph. 5:2.

Do you, as you have time, ‘do good unto all men’?

Gal. 6:10.

And in as high a degree as you are able? ‘Whosoever’ thus ‘doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.’

Matt. 12:50.

Whosoever thou art whose heart is herein as my heart, give me thine hand.

See 2 Kgs. 10:15.

Come and let us magnify the Lord together,

See Ps. 34:3.

and labour to promote his kingdom upon earth. Let us join hearts and hands in this blessed work, in striving to bring glory to God in the highest, by establishing peace and goodwill among men

See Luke 2:14.

to the uttermost of our power. First let our hearts be joined herein; let us unite our wishes and prayers; let our whole soul pant after a general revival of pure religion and undefiled,

Jas. 1:27.

of the restoration of the image of God, pure love, in every child of man. Then let us endeavour to promote in our several stations this scriptural, primitive religion; let us with all diligence diffuse the religion of love among all we have any intercourse with; let us provoke all men, not to enmity and contention, but to love and to good works;

See Heb. 10:24.

always remembering those deep words (God engrave them on all our hearts!), ‘God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.’

1 John 4:16.

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Entry Title: Sermon 112: On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel

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