labours not only to the whole crew collectively, but to every separate individual; and in the performance of this resolution he recovered his former elasticity of spirit, feeling no more of that fearfulness and heaviness which had lately weighed him down. Upon this change he says, 66 one who thinks the being in Orco, as they phrase it, an indispensable preparative for being a Christian, would say I had better have continued in that state; and that this unseasonable relief was a curse, not a blessing. Nay, but who art thou, O man, who in favour of a wretched hypothesis, thus blasphemest the good gift of God? Hath not he himself said, 'This also is the gift of God, if a man have power to rejoice in his labour? Yea, God setteth his own seal to his weak endeavours, while he thus answereth him inʼ the joy of his heart.'"

The state of his mind at this time is peculiarly interesting, while it was thus agitated and impelled toward some vague object, as yet he knew not what, by the sense of duty and of power, and while those visitations of doubt were frequent, which darken the soul when they pass over it. "I went to America," he says, "to convert the Indians; but oh! who shall convert me? Who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion, I can talk well, nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near: but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled; nor can I say to die is gain. I think verily if the Gospel be true, I am safe: for I not only have given and do give all my goods to feed the poor; I not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever else God shall appoint for me, but I follow after charity, (though not as I ought, yet as I can,) if haply I may attain it. I now believe the Gospel is true. I show my faith by my works, by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me, sees I would be a Christian. Therefore, are my ways not like other men's ways: therefore, I have been, I am, I am content to be, a by-word, a proverb of reproach. But in a storm I think, what if the Gospel be not true? then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth? a dream? a cunningly devised fable? Oh, who will deliver me from this fear of death! What shall I do? Where shall I fly from it? Should I fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it? A wise man advised me some time since, Be still, and go on.' Perhaps this is best to look upon it as my cross; when it comes, to let it humble me, and quicken all my good resolutions, especially that of praying without ceasing; and other times to take no thought about it, but quietly to go on in the work of the Lord." It is beautifully said by Sir Thomas Brown, "There is, as in philosophy, so in divinity, sturdy doubts and boisterous objections, wherewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us; more of these no man hath known than myself, which I confess I conquered, not in a martial posture, but on my knees." What is remarkable in Wesley's case is, that these misgivings of faith should have been felt by him chiefly in times of danger, which is directly contrary to general experience.

And now he reviewed the progress of his own religious life. "For many years I have been tossed about by various winds of doctrine. I asked long ago, 'What must I do to be saved?' The Scripture answered, Keep the commandments, believe, hope, love.— I was early warned against laying, as the Papists do, too much stress on outward works, or on a faith without works, which as it does not include, so it will never lead to true hope or charity. Nor am I sensible that to this hour I have laid to much stress on either. But I fell among some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, who magnified faith to such an amazing size, that it hid all the rest of the command. ments. I did not then see that this was the natural effect of their overgrown fear of popery, being so terrified with the cry of merit and good works, that they plunged at once into the other extreme; in this labyrinth I was utterly lost, not being able to find out what the error was, nor yet to reconcile this uncouth hypothesis, either with Scripture or common sense. The English writers, such as Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Taylor, and Mr. Nelson, a little relieved me from these well-meaning wrong-headed Germans. Only when they interpreted Scripture in different ways, I was often much at a loss. And there was one thing much insisted on in Scripture, the unity of the church, which none of them, I thought, clearly explained. But it was not long before Providence brought me to those who showed me a sure rule of interpreting Scripture, consensus veterum: Quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper creditum; at the same time they sufficiently insisted upon a due regard to the one church at all times and in all places. Nor was it long before I bent the bow too far the other way by making antiquity a co-ordinate rather than sub-ordinate rule with Scripture; by admitting several doubtful writings; by extending antiquity too far; by believing more practices to have been universal in the ancient church than ever were so; by not considering that the decrees of a provincial synod could bind only that province, and the decrees of a general synod only those provinces whose representatives met therein; that most of those decrees were adapted to particular times and occasions, and consequently, when those occasions ceased, must cease to bind even those provinces. These considerations insensibly stole upon me as I grew acquainted with the mystic writers, whose noble descriptions of union with God and internal religion, made every thing else appear mean, flat, and insipid. But in truth they made good works appear so too; yea, and faith itself, and what not? They gave me an entire new view of religion, nothing like any I had before. But alas! it was nothing like that religion which Christ and his apostles loved and taught. I had a plenary dispensation from all the commands of God; the form was thus: Love is all all the commands beside are only means of love: you must choose those which you feel are means to you, and use them as long as they are so. Thus were all the bands burst at once; and though I could never fully come into this, nor contentedly omit what God enjoined, yet, I know not how, I fluctuated between obedience and disobedience. I had no heart, no vigour, no zeal in obeying, continually doubting whether I was right or wrong, and never out of perplexities and entanglements. Nor can I at this hour give a distinct account, how or when I came a little

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back toward the right way; only my present sense is this, all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers, the mystics are the most dangerous; they stab it in the vitals, and its most serious professors are most likely to fall by them."

Having landed at Deal, the returning missionary recorded solemnly his own self-condemnation, and sense of his own imperfect faith. "It is now," he said, "two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learnt myself meantime? Why,what I the least of all suspected,—that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God. I am not mad, though I thus speak, but I speak the words of truth and soberness; if, haply, some of those who still dream may awake, and see that as I am, so are they. Are they read in philosophy? So was I. In ancient or modern tongues? So was I also. Are they versed in the science of divinity? I too have studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon spiritual things? The very same could I do. Are they plenteous in alms? Behold, I gave all my goods to feed the poor. Do they give of their labour as well as their substance? I have laboured more abundantly than them all. Are they willing to suffer for their brethren? I have thrown up my friends, reputation, ease, country. I have put my life in my hand wandering into strange lands; I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God shall please to bring upon me. But does all this (be it more or less, it matters not) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did, or can, know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify me in his sight? If the oracles of God are true, if we are still to abide by the Law and Testimony, all these things, though when ennobled by faith in Christ they are holy, and just, and good, yet without it are dung, and dross. Thus then have I learned, in the ends of the earth, that my whole heart is altogether corrupt and abominable, and consequently my whole life-that my own works, my own sufferings, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God, so far from making any atonement for the least of those sins, which are more in number than the hairs of my head, that the most specious of them need an atonement them. selves; that having the sentence of death in my heart, and nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no hope but that of being justified freely through the redemption that is in Jesus, but that if I seek I shall find Christ, and be found in him. If it be said that I have faith, (for many such things have I heard from many miserable comforters,) answer, so have the devils,—a sort of faith; but still they are strangers to the covenant of promise. The faith I want is a sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God. I want that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it; (though many imagine they have it, who have it not ;) for whosoever hath it is freed from sin; the whole body of sin is destroyed in him he is freed from fear, having peace with God through Christ, and rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God. And he is freed from doubt, having the love of God shed abroad in his heart, through the Holy Ghost which is given

unto him, which Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit, that he is a child of God."

Yet on reflecting upon the time which he had spent in Georgia, he saw many reasons to bless God for having carried him into that strange land. There he had been humbled and proved, there he had learned to know what was in his heart: there the passage had been opened for him to the writings of holy men in the German, Spanish, and Italian tongues; for he acquired the Spanish in order to converse with his Jewish parishioners, and read prayers in Italian to a few Vaudois; and there he had been introduced to the church of Herrnhut,—an event of considerable importance to his future lite.

CHAPTER IV.

PROGRESS OF WHITEFIELD DURING WESLEY'S ABSENCE.-
WESLEY A PUPIL OF THE MORAVIANS.

WHITEFIELD sailed from the Downs for Georgia a few hours only before the vessel which brought Wesley back from thence cast anchor there. The ships passed in sight of each other, but neither, of these remarkable men knew that so dear a friend was on the deck at which he was gazing. But when Wesley landed, he learned that his coadjutor was on board the vessel in the offing; it was still possible to communicate with him; and Whitefield was not a little surprised at receiving a letter which contained these words: "When I saw God, by the wind which was carrying you out, brought me in, I asked counsel of God. His answer you have enclosed.' The enclosure was a slip of paper with this sentence, "Let him return to London." Wesley doubting, from his own experience, whether his friend could be so usefully employed in America as in England, had referred the question to chance, in which, at that time, he trusted implicitly, and this was the lot* which he had drawn. But Whitefield, who never seems to have fallen into this superstition, was persuaded that he was called to Georgia; and, even if he had not felt that impression upon his mind, the inconsistency of returning to London in obedience to a lot, which had been drawn without his consent or knowledge, and breaking the engagements which he had formed, would have been glaring, and the inconvenience not inconsiderable. He betook himself to prayer: the story of the prophet, in the book of Kings, came

*This remarkable instance of Wesley's predilection for the practice of sortilege, is not noticed by either of his biographers. Whitefield himself relates it, in a letter published at the time of their se paration. "We sailed immediately," he adds. "Some months after, I received a letter from you at Georgia, wherein you wrote words to this effect: though God never before gave me a wrong lot, yet, perhaps, he suffered me to have such a lot, at that time, to try what was in your heart.' I should never," says Whitefield, "have published this private transaction to the world, did not the glory of God call me to it. It is plain you had a wrong lot given you here, and justly, because you tempted God in drawing one." Whitefield, afterwards, in his remarks upon Bishop Lavington's book, refers to this subject, in a manner which does him honour. "My mentioning," he says," Mr. Wesley's casting a lot on a private occasion, known only to God and ourselves, has put me to great pain. It was wrong in me to publish a private transaction to the world; and very ill-judged to think the glory of God could be promoted by unnecessarily exposing my friend. For this I have asked both God and him pardon years ago. And though I believe both have forgiven me, yet I believe I shall never be able to forgive myself. As it was a public fault, I think it should be publicly acknowledged; and I thank a kind Providence for giving me this opportunity of doing it."

forcibly to his recollection, how he turned back from his appointed course, because another prophet told him it was the will of the Lord that he should do so, and for that reason a lion met him by the way. So he proceeded on his voyage. The previous career of the disciple in England, during the master's absence in America, must now be retraced.

Less clear, less logical, less formed for command and legislation than Wesley, Whitefield was of a more ardent nature, and arrived at the end of his spiritual course, before Wesley had obtained sight of the goal. It was soon after his introduction to the two brothers that he thus outran them. In reading a treatise, entitled "The Life of God in the Soul of Man," wherein he found it asserted, that true religion is a union of the soul with God or Christ, formed within us, a ray of divine light, he says, instantaneously darted in upon him, and from that moment he knew that he must be a new creature. But in seeking to attain that religious state which brings with it the peace that passeth all understanding, the vehemence of his disposition led him into greater excesses than any of his compeers at Oxford. He describes himself as having all sensible comforts withdrawn from him, overwhelmed with a horrible fearfulness and dread, all power of meditation, or even thinking, taken away, his memory gone, his whole soul barren and dry, and his sensations, as he imagined, like those of a man locked up in iron armour. "Whenever I knelt down," he says, "I felt great pressures both on soul and body; and have often prayed under the weight of them till the sweat came through me. God only knows how many nights I have lain upon my bed, groaning under what I felt. Whole days and weeks have I spent in lying prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer." In this state he began to practise austerities, such as the Romish superstition encourages he chose the worst food, and affected mean apparel; he made himself remarkable by leaving off powder in his hair, when every one else was powdered, because he thought it unbecoming a penitent; and he wore woollen gloves, a patched gown, and dirty shoes, as visible signs of humility. Such conduct drew upon him contempt, insult, and the more serious consequence; that part of that pay on which he depended for his support was taken from him by men who did not choose to be served by so slovenly a servitor. Other excesses injured his health: he would kneel under the trees in Christ's church walk, in silent prayer, shivering the while with cold, till the great bell summoned him to his college for the night: he exposed himself to cold in the morning till his hands were quite black he kept Lent so strictly, that, except on Saturdays and Sundays, his only food was coarse bread and sage tea, without sugar. The end of this was, that before the termination of the forty days he had scarcely strength enough left to creep up stairs, and was under a physician for many weeks.

At the close of the severe illness which he had thus brought on himself, a happy change of mind confirmed his returning health ;it may best be related in his own words. He says, "notwithstanding my fit of sickness continued six or seven weeks," I trust I shall have reason to bless God for it through the endless ages of eternity. For about the end of the seventh week, after having undergone innu