tion; and showing the power of religion in new circumstances, and as affording him an answer to his enemies, who asserted that his doctrines had the effect of making men dastardly, negligent of duty, and disloyal. In the early part of the year 1747, we find him braving the snows of February in Lincolnshire; and in March he reached Newcastle, to supply the absence of his brother from that important station.

When the drums ceased, a gentleman-barber began to speak; but his voice was quickly drowned in the shouts of the multitude, who grew fiercer and fiercer as their numbers increased. After waiting about a quarter of an hour, perceiving the violence of the rabble still increasing, I walked down into the thickest of them, and took the captain of the will see you safe home. Sir, no man shall touch mob by the hand. He immediately said, 'Sir, I Among other excellencies possessed by this great you. Gentlemen, stand off. Give back. I will man, he was fond of sinoothing the path of know-knock the first man down that touches him.' We ledge, to the diffusion of which he devoted much walked on in great peace; my conductor every attention, and for which end he published several now and then stretching out his neck, (he was a compendiums and brief treatises on its most impor- very tall man,) and looking round, to see if any tant branches. In this respect also he was foremost behaved rudely, till we came to Mr. Hyde's door. to tread in a path, which has been of late years vi- We then parted in much love. I stayed in the gorously pursued, and must be reckoned as one of street near half an hour after he was gone, talking the leaders of that class of wise and benevolent with the people, who had now forgot their anger, In Cornwall we have a specimen of his prompt men, who have exerted themselves to extend the and went away in high good humor." benefits of useful information from the privileged orders of society, into the middle and lower classes. and faithful habits of discipline. "This week," says he, "I read over with some young men, a compendium of rhetoric, and a system of ethics. I see not why a man of tolerable understanding may not in six months' time, learn more of solid philosophy than is commonly learned at Oxford in four (perhaps seven) years."

On his return from his labors in the North of
England, he called at Manchester, which he had
formerly several times visited in order to take
counsel with his college friend Clayton, and Dr.
Byrom, and had preached in the churches. He
was now seen there in a new character. The small
house which was occupied by the society could not
contain a tenth part of the people, and he therefore
A numberless crowd
walked to Salford Cross.
of people partly ran before, partly followed after
me. Ithought it best not to sing, but looking round,
asked abruptly, "Why do you look as if you had
never seen me before? Many of you have seen me
in the neighboring church, both preaching and ad-
ministering the sacrament." I then gave out the
text, 'Seek ye the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near.' None interrupted
at all, or made any disturbance, till, as I was draw-
ing to a conclusion, a big man thrust in, with three
or four more, and bade them 'bring out the engine.'
Our friends desired me to remove into a yard just
by, which I did, and concluded in peace."

From the north he proceeded through Notting-
ham and Staffordshire to London, and from thence
to the West of England. The influence which his
calm courage often gave him over mobs was re-
markably shown on this journey. "Within two
miles of Plymouth, one overtook and informed us,
that the night before, all the Dock was in an up-
roar; and that a constable, endeavoring to keep the
peace, was beaten and much hurt. As we were
entering the Dock, one met us, and desired we would
go the back way. 'For,' said he, there are thou-
sands of people waiting about Mr. Hyde's door.'
We rode up straight into the midst of them. They
saluted us with three huzzas; after which I alight-
ed, took several of them by the hand, and began to
talk with them. I would gladly have passed an
hour among them, and believe if I had, there had
been an end of the riot; but the day being far spent
(for it was past nine o'clock,) I was persuaded to go
in. The mob then recovered their spirits, and
fought valiantly with the doors and windows. But
about ten they were weary, and went every man to
his own home. The next day I preached at four, and
then spoke severally to a part of the society. About
six in the evening I went to the place where I
preached the last year. A little before we had
ended the hymn, came a lieutenant, a famous man,
with his retinue of soldiers, drummers, and mob.

"Wednesday, 8. I preached at St. Ives, then at Sithney. On Thursday, the stewards of all the societies met. I now diligently inquired, what exhorters there were in each society? Whether they were eminently holy? And whether there ap had gifts meet for the work? Whether their lives peared any fruit of their labor? I found upon the whole, 1. That there were no fewer than eighteen exhorters in the county. 2. That three of these had no gifts at all for the work, neither natural nor supernatural. 3. That a fourth had neither gifts nor grace, but was a dull, empty, self-conceited man. 4. That a fifth had considerable gifts, but had evidently made shipwreck of the grace of God. These therefore I determined immediately to set aside, and advise our societies not to hear them. 5. That J. B., A. L., and J. W., had gifts and grace, and had been much blessed in the work. Lastly, That the rest might be helpful when there was no preacher, in their own or the neighboring societies, provided they would take no step without the advice of those who had more experience than themselves."

In August he visited Ireland for the first time. Methodism had been introduced into Dublin by Mr. Williams, one of the preachers, whose ministry siderable society had been already formed. Mr. had been attended with great success, so that a conWesley was allowed to preach once at St. Mary's, "to as gay and senseless a congregation," he observes; "as I ever saw." This was not, however, permitted a second time; and he occupied the spacious yard of the meeting-house, both in the mornings and evenings, preaching to large congregations of both poor and rich. Among his hearers he had also ministers of various denominations. The state of the Catholics excited his peculiar sympathy; and as he could have little access to them by preaching, he published an address specially for their use. In his Journal he makes a remark on the religious neglect of this class of our fellow-subjects by protestants, which contains a reproof, the force of which has, unhappily, extended to our own times:-"Nor is it any wonder, that those who are born papists, generally live and die such; when the protestants can find no better ways to convert them than penal laws and acts of parliament." The chief perplexities which Ireland has occasioned to the empire are to be traced to this neglect; and the dangers which have often sprung up to the state, from that quarter, have been, and continue to be, its appropriate punishment. Mr. Wesley's visit, at this time, to Ireland, was short; but he requested his brother to succeed him. Mr. Charles Wesley, therefore, accompanied by another preacher, Mr. Charles Perronet, one of the sons of the venerable

vicar of Shoreham, arrived there in September. | Others gave themselves up, for a time, to more A persecution had broken out against the infant extended labors, and then settled: but the third society in Dublin, and "the first news," says Mr. class, who had become the regular "assistants" and Charles Wesley, "we heard, was, that the little "helpers" of Mr. Wesley, were devoted wholly to flock stood fast in the storm of persecution, which the work of the ministry; and, after a period of arose as soon as my brother left them. The popish probation, and a scrutiny into their character and mob broke open their room, and destroyed all before talents at the annual conferences, were admitted, by them. Some of them are sent to Newgate, others solemn prayer, into what was called "full connecbailed. What will be the event we know not, till tion," which, as we have stated, was their ordinawe see whether the grand jury will find the bill." tion. No provision was, however, made at this He afterwards states that the grand jury threw out early period for their maintenance. They took the bill, and thus gave up the Methodists to the fury neither "purse nor scrip;" they cast themselves of a licentious mob. "God has called me to suffer upon the providence of God, and the hospitality affliction with his people. I began my ministry and kindness of the societies, and were by them, with 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,' &c. I like the primitive preachers, "helped forward after met the society, and the Lord knit our hearts toge- a godly sort," on their journeys, to oper. new plather in love stronger than death. We both wept ces, and to instruct those for whose souls" no man and rejoiced for the consolation. God hath sent me, cared." It might be as truly said of them as of I trust, to confirm these souls, and to keep them to- the first propagators of Christianity, they had "no gether in the present distress."* certain dwelling place." Under the severity of labor, and the wretched accommodations to which they cheerfully submitted, many a fine constitution was broken, and premature death was often induced.

Mr. Charles Wesley spent the winter in Dublin, being daily employed in preaching, and visiting the people. In February he made an excursion into the country, where a few preachers were already laboring, and, in some places, with great success. Thus was the first active and systematic agency for the conversion of the neglected people of Ireland commenced by the Methodists; and, till of late years, it is greatly to be regretted that they were left to labor almost alone. From that time, however, not only was the spirit of religion revived in many protestant parts of the country, and many papists converted to the truth, but the itinerant plan, which was there adopted as in England, enabled the preachers to visit a great number of places where the protestants were so few in numbers as not to be able to keep up regular worship, or to make head, when left to themselves, against popish influence. A barrier was thus erected against the farther encroachments of popery; and the light was kept burning in districts where it would otherwise have been entirely extinguished. The influence of the Methodist societies would, however, have been much more extensive, had not the large emigrations which have been almost constantly setting in from Ireland to America, borne away a greater number of their members in proportion than those of any other community. Mr. Charles Wesley spent part of the year 1748 in Ireland, and preached in several or the chief towns, and especially at Cork, with great unction and success.

CHAPTER IX.

THE notices of the journeys and labors of these indefatigable ministers of Christ, given in the preceding chapter, afford but a specimen of the manner in which the foundations of the Methodist connection were carried out and firmly laid. Nor were the preachers under their direction, though laboring in more limited districts of country, scarcely less laboriously employed. At this period one of them writes from Lancashire to Mr. Wesley:-"Many doors are opened for preaching in these parts, but cannot be supplied for want of preachers. I think some one should be sent to assist me, otherwise we shall lose ground. My circuit requires me to travel one hundred and fifty miles in two weeks; during which time I preach publicly thirty-four times, besides meeting the societies, visiting the sick, and transacting other affairs."+

Of the preachers, some were engaged in business, and preached at their leisure in their own neighborhoods; but still, zealous for the salvation of men, they often took considerable journeys. + Whitehead's Life.

*Whitehead's Life.

The annual conferences have been mentioned; and that a correct view may be taken of the doctrines, which at those meetings it was agreed should be taught in the societies, it will be necessary to go back to the commencement. At first every doctrine was fully sifted in successive "conversations," and the great principles of godly discipline were drawn out into special regulations, as circumstances appeared to require. After the body had acquired greater maturity, these doctrinal discussions became less frequent; a standard and a test being ultimately established in a select number of Mr. Wesley's doctrinal sermons, and in his "Notes on the New Testament." The free and pious spirit in which these inquiries were entered into, was strikingly marked at the first conferences, in the commencing exhortation:-"Let us all pray for willingness to receive light, to know of every doctrine whether it be of God." The widest principle of Christian liberty was also laid down, as suited to the infant state of a society, which was but just beginning to take its ground, and to assume the appearance of order.

Q3. How far does each of us agree to submit to the judgment of the majority?

"A. In speculative things, each can only submit so far as his judgment shall be convinced; in every practical point, each will submit so far as he can, without wounding his conscience.

'Q. 4. Can a Christian submit any farther than this to any man, or number of men, upon earth?

"A. It is plain he cannot; either to bishop, convocation, or general council. And this is that grand principle of private judgment, on which all the reformers at home and abroad proceeded: 'Every man must judge for himself; because every man must give an account of himself to God.'"+"

Never it may be affirmed, was the formation of any Christian society, marked by the recognition of principles more liberal, or more fully in the spirit of the New Testament.

To some of the doctrinal conversations of the

first conferences, it is necessary to refer, in order to mark those peculiarities of opinion which distinguish the Wesleyan Methodists. It is, however, Proper to observe, that the clergymen and others, who thus assembled, did not meet to draw up formal articles of faith. They admitted those of the

*The want of a provision for their wives and families, in the early periods of Methodism, caused the loss of many eminent preachers, who were obliged to settle in independent congregations.

+ Minutes.

LIFE OF REV. JOHN WESLEY.

church of England; and their principal object was | years, or when he is old and hoary-headed, God
to ascertain how several of the doctrines relative justifieth that ungodly one; God, for the sake of his
to experimental Christianity, which they found
stated in substance in those articles, and farther
illustrated in the homilies, were to be understood
and explained. This light they sought from ruu-
tual discussion, in which every thing was brought
to the standard of the word of inspired truth.

Son, pardoneth and absolve:h him, who had in him,
till then, no good thing. Repentance, indeed, God
had given him before; but that repentance, was
neither more nor less than a deep sense of the want
whatever good he hath or doeth from that hour,
of all good, and the presence of all evil. And
when he first believes in God through Christ, faith
does not find, but bring. This is the fruit of faith.
First, the tree is good, and then the fruit is good
also."

Their first subject was justification, which they describe with great simplicity; not loading it with epithets, as in the systematic schools, nor perplexMr. Wesley's views of repentance in this passage ing it by verbal criticism. It is defined to be "pardon," or "reception into God's favor;" a view which is amply supported by several explicit pas- will also be noted. Here, as at the first conference, sages of Scripture, in which the terms "pardon," he insists that repentance, which is conviction of "forgiveness," and "remission of sins," are used sin, and works meet for repentance, go before justiconvertibly with the term "justification." To be fying faith; but he held, with the church of Eng"received into God's favor," according to these land, that all works, before justification, had "the minutes, is necessarily connected with the act nature of sin;" and that, as they had no root in the of forgiveness, and is the immediate and insepa- love of God, which can only arise from a persuarable consequence of that gracious procedure. The sion of his being reconciled to us, they could not same may be said of adoption; which, in some theo- constitute a moral worthiness preparatory to parlogical schemes, is made to flow from regeneration, don. That a true repentance springs from the grace while the latter is held to commence previously to of God is certain; but whatever fruits it may bring justification. In Mr. Wesley's views, adoption as forth, it changes not man's relation to God. He is sinner that is forgiven, and under the being a relative change, is supposed to be necessa- a sinner, and is justified as such; "for it is not a rily involved in justification, or the pardon of sin; saint but Repentance, according to his and regeneration to flow from both, as an inward notion of a sinner." God justifieth the ungodly, moral change arising from the powerful and effica- not the godly."* cious work of the Holy Spirit, who is in that mo- statement, is necessary to true faith; but faith alone Those views of faith (of that faith by which a ment given to believers. To their definition of is the direct and immediate instrument of pardon. justification, the minutes add, "It is such a state that, if we continue therein, we shall be finally man, thus penitent, comes to God through Christ) saved;" thus making final salvation conditional, which are expressed in the minutes of this first conand justification a state which may be forfeited. All ference, deserve a more particular consideration. wilful sin was held to imply a casting away of vital Here, as in defining justification, the language of faith, and thereby to bring a man under wrath and the schools, and of systematic, philosophizing dicondemnation; "nor is it possible for him to have vines, is laid aside, and a simple enunciation is justifying faith again without previously repenting." made of the doctrine of the New Testament.They also agree that faith is "the condition of jus-"Faith in general is a divine, supernatural elenchos tification;" adding, as the proof, "for every one of things not seen, that is, of past, future, or spiritthat believeth not is condemned, and every one who ual things. It is a spiritual sight of God, and the believes is justified." In Mr. Wesley's sermon on things of God."+ justification by faith, the office of faith in justifying is thus more largely set forth:

"Surely the difficulty of assenting to the propo-
sition, that faith is the only condition of justification,
must arise from not understanding it. We mean
thereby thus much, that it is the only thing, without
which no one is justified; the only thing that is im-
mediately, indispensably, absolutely requisite in
order to pardon. As on the one hand, though a
man should have every thing else, without faith,
yet he cannot be justified; so on the other, though
he be supposed to want every thing else, yet if he
hath faith, he cannot but be justified. For suppose
a sinner of any kind or degree, in a full sense of
his total ungodliness, of his utter inability to think,
speak, or do good, and his absolute meetness for
hell-fire; suppose, I say, this sinner, helpless and
hopeless, casts himself wholly on the mercy of God
in Christ, (which indeed he cannot do but by the
grace of God,) who can doubt but he is forgiven in
that moment? Who will affirm that any more is
indispensably required, before that sinner can be
justified?

"And at what time soever a sinner thus believes,
be it in his early childhood, in the strength of his

The connection of favor and adoption with pardon, arises from the very nature of that act. Pardon, or forgiveness, is release from the penalties and forfeitures incurred by transgression. Of those penalties, the loss of God's favor and of filial relation to him, was among the most weighty; pardon, therefore, in its nature, or at least in its natural consequences, implies a restoration to the blessings forfeited, for else the penalty would in part remain in force.

In this description, faith is distinguished from mere belief, or an intellectual conviction, which the consideration of the evidences of the truth of Scripture may produce, and yet lead to no practical or saving consequence; and that there may be a sincere and undoubting belief of the truth, without producing any saving effect, is a point which our very consciousness may sufficiently assure us of; although in order to support a particular theory on the subject of faith, this has sometimes been denied. Trust is constantly implied in the scriptural accounts of acceptable and saving faith, and this is the sense in which it was evidently taken in the above definition; for its production in the heart is referred to supernatural agency, and it is made to result from, and to be essentially connected with, a demonstration of spiritual things-such a conviction, wrought by the teaching Spirit, as produces not merely a full persuasion but a full reliance. Six years before this time, Mr. Wesley, in a sermon before the university of Oxford, had more at large "Christian faith is not only an assent to the whole expressed the same views as to justifying faith: gospel of Christ, but also a full reliance on the blood resurrection; a recumbency upon him as our atoneof Christ; a trust in the merits of his life, death, and ment and our life, as given for us, and living in us. It is a sure confidence which a man hath in God, that, through the merits of Christ, his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favor of God; and, in consequence hereof, a closing with him, and cleaving to him, as our wisdom, righteousness,

sanctification, and redemption,' or, in one word, our | God. By a sense of pardon I mean a distinct, exsalvation."*

"Is justifying faith a sense of pardon? Negatur."sonal pardon is of the essence of justifying faith is cer