breach may be repaired: you have wronged me much, but not beyond forgiveness. I love you still, and am as clear from all other women as the day I was born." Had Mrs. Wesley been capable of understanding her husband's character, she could not possibly have been jealous; but the spirit of jealousy possessed her, and drove her to the most unwarrantable actions. It is said that she frequently travelled a hundred miles for the purpose of watching, from a window, who was in the carriage with him when he entered a town. She searched his pockets, opened his *letters, put his letters and papers into the hands of his enemies, in hopes that they might be made use of to blast his character; and sometimes laid violent hands upon him, and tore his hair. She frequently left his house, and, upon his earnest entreaties, returned again; till, after having thus disquieted twenty years of his life, as far as it was possible for any domestic vexations to disquiet a man whose life was passed in lo omotion, she seized on part of his Journals, and many other papers, which were never restored, and departed, leaving word that she never intended to return. He simply states the fact in his Journal, saying, that he knew not what the cause had been; and he briefly adds, Non eam reliqui, non dɩmisi, non revocabo; I did not forsake her, I did not dismiss her, I will not recall her. Thus, summarily, was a most injudicious marriage dissolved. Mrs. Wesley lived ten years after the separation, and is described in her epitaph as a woman of exemplary piety, a tender parent, and a sincere friend; the tombstone says nothing of her conjugal virtues. * There is no allusion in Wesley's Journal to his domestic unhappiness, unless it be in Journal xi. p. 9., where, after noticing some difficulties upon the road, he says, "Between nine and ten came to Bristol. Here I met with a trial of another kind; but this also shall be for good." His letters throw some light upon this part of his history, which would not be worth elucidating, if it did not, at the same time, elucidate his character. Writing to Mrs. S. R. (Sarah Ryan, a most enthusiastic woman,) he says, "Last Friday, after many severe words, my wife left me, vowing she would see me no more. As I had wrote to you the same morning, I began to reason with myself, till I almost doubted whether I had done well in writing, or whether I ought to write to you at all. After prayer, that doubt was taken away; yet I was almost sorry that I had written that morning. In the evening, while I was preaching at the chapel, she came into the chamber where I had left my clothes, searched my pockets, and found the letter there which I had finished, but had not sealed. While she read it, God broke her heart; and I afterwards found her in such a temper, as I have not seen her in for several years. She has continued in the same ever since. So I think God has given a sufficient answer with regard to our writing to each other." But he says to the same person, eight years afterwards, " It has frequently been said, and with some appearance of truth, that you endeavour to monopolize the affections of all that fall into your hands; that you destroy the nearest and dearest connexion they had before, and make them quite cool and indifferent to their most intimate friends. I do not at all speak on my own account; I set myself out of the question; but, if there be any thing of the kind with regard to other people, I should be Sorry both for them and you." There is an unction about his correspondence with this person, which must have appeared like strong confirmation to so jealous a woman as Mrs. Wesley. He says to her, "the conversing with you, either by speaking or writing, is an unspeakable blessing to me. I cannot think of you without thinking of God. Others often lead me to him; but it is, as it were, going round about you bring me straight into his presence. You have refreshed my bowels in the Lord: (Wesley is very seldom guilty of this sort of canting and offensive language.) I not only excuse, but love your simplicity; and whatever freedom you use, it will be welcome. I can hardly avoid trembling for you! upon what a pinnacle do you stand! Perhaps, few persons in England have been in so dangerous a situation as you are now. I know not whether any other was ever so regarded, both by my brother and me, at the same time." He questions her, not only about her thoughts, her imaginations, and her reasonings, but even about her dreams. "Is there no vanity or folly in your dreams? no temptation that almost overcomes you? And are you then as sensible of the presence of God, and as full of prayer, as when you are waking?" She replies to this curious interrogation, "As to my dreams, I seldom remember them; but, when I do, I find in general they are harmless.' This Sarah Ryan was at one time housekeeper at the school at Kingswood. Her account of herself, which is printed in the second volume of the Arminian Magazine, is highly enthusiastic, and shows her to have been a woman of heated fancy and strong natural talents. It appears, however, incidentally, in Wesley's letter, that though she professed to have a direct witness" of being saved from sin, she afterwards " fell from that salvation." And, in another place, he notices her "littleness of understanding." VOL. II. 18 D But even if John Wesley's marriage had proved as happy in all other respects as Charles's, it would not have produced upon him the same sedative effect. Entirely as these two brothers agreed in opinions and principles, and cordially as they had acted together during so many years, there was a radical difference in their dispositions. Of Charles it has been said, by those who knew him best, that if ever there was a human being who disliked power, avoided pre-eminence, and shrunk from praise, it was he: whereas no conqueror or poet was ever more ambitious than John Wesley. Charles could forgive an injury; but never again trusted one whom he had found treacherous. John could take men a second time to his confidence, after the greatest wrongs and the basest usage: perhaps, because he had not so keen an insight into the characters of men as his brother; perhaps, because he regarded them as his instruments, and thought that all other considerations must give way to the interests of the spiritual dominion which he had acquired. It may be suspected that Charles, when he saw the mischief and the villany, as well as the follies, to which Methodism gave occasion : and when he perceived its tendency to a separation from the Church, thought that he had gone too far, and looked with sorrow to the consequences which he foresaw. John's was an aspiring and a joyous spirit, free from all regret for the past, or apprehension for the future his anticipations were always hopeful; and, if circumstances arose contrary to his wishes, which he was unable to control, he accommodated himself to them, made what advantage of them he could, and insensibly learnt to expect, with complacency, as the inevitable end of his career, a schism which, at the commencement, he would have regarded with horror, as a dutiful and conscientious 'minister of the Church of England. : In the first Conference it was asked, "Do you not entail a schism on the Church? Is it not probable that your hearers, after your death, will be scattered into all sects and parties? or that they will form themselves into a distinct sect ?” The answer was, "We are persuaded the body of our hearers will, even after death, remain in the Church, unless they be thrust out. We believe notwithstanding, either that they will be thrust out, or that they will leaven the whole Church. We do, and will do, all we can to prevent those consequences which are supposed likely to happen after our death; but we cannot, with a good conscience, neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while we live, for fear of consequences which may possibly or probably happen after we are dead." Five years afterwards the assistants were charged to exhort all those who had been brought up in the church constantly to attend its service, to question them individually concerning this, to set the example themselves, and to alter every plan which interfered with it. "Is there pot," it was said, "a cause for this? Are we not, unawares, by little and little, tending to a separation from the Church? Oh, remove every tendency thereto with all diligence! Let all our preachers go to church. Let all our people go constantly, Receive the sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil.--Warn them likewise against despising the prayers of the Church; against calling our Society a Church, or the Church; against calling our preachers ministers, our houses meeting-houses (call them plain preaching-houses.) Do not license" them as such. The proper form of a petition to the judges is, A. B. desires to have his house in C. licensed for public worship.' Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a Dissenter, but a Methodist preacher. It is time enough when you are prosecuted to take the oaths; thereby you are licensed." The leaven of ill-will towards the Church was introduced among the Methodists by those dissenters who joined them. Wesley saw whence it proceeded, and was prepared to resist its effect by the feelings which he had imbibed from his father, as well as by his sense of duty. But there were other causes which increased and strengthened the tendency that had thus been given. It is likely that, when the Nonjurors disappeared as a separate party, many of them would unite with the Methodists, being a middle course between the Church and the dissenters, which required no sacrifice either of principle or of pride. Having joined them, their leaning would naturally be toward a separation from the establishment. But the main cause is to be found in the temper of the lay preachers, who, by an easy and obvious process, were led to conclude, that they were as much authorized to exercise one part of the ministerial functions as another. They had been taught to consider, and were accustomed to represent the clergy in the most unfavourable light. Wesley sometimes reprehended this in strong terms; but, upon this point, he was not consistent and whenever he had to justify the appointment of lay preachers, he was apt, in self-defence, to commit the fault which, at other times, he condemned. "I am far," says he, in one of his sermons, "from desiring to aggravate the defects of my brethren, or to paint them in the strongest colours. Far be it from me to treat others as I have been treated myself; to return evil for evil, or railing for railing. But, to speak the naked truth, not with anger or contempt, as too many have done, I acknowledge that many, if not most of those that were appointed to minister in holy things, with whom it has been my lot to converse, in almost every part of England or Ireland, for forty or fifty years last past, have not been eminent either for knowledge or piety. It has been loudly affirmed, that most of those persons now in connexion with me, who believe it their duty to call sinners to repentance, having been taken immediately from low trades, tailors, shoemakers, and the like, are a set of poor, stupid, illiterate men, that scarcely know their right hand from their left; yet I cannot but say, that I would sooner cut off my right hand than suffer one of them to speak a word in any of our chapels, if I had not reasonable proof that he had more knowledge in the Holy Scriptures, more knowledge of himself, more knowledge of God, and of the things of God, than nine in ten of the clergymen I have conversed with, either at the universities or elsewhere." The situation in which Wesley stood led him to make this comparison, and not to make it fairly. It induced him also to listen to those who argued in favour of a separation from the Church, and to sum "A thousand times," says he, "have I found my father's words true. You may have peace with the Dissenters, if you do not so humour them as to dispute with them. But if you do, they will out-face and out-lung you; and, at the end, you will be where you were at the beginning"" up their reasonings, with a bias in their favour. "They who plead for it," said he, "have weighed the point long and deeply, and considered it with earnest and continued prayer. They admit, if it be lawful to abide therein, then it is not lawful to separate: but they aver it is not lawful to abide therein; for, though they allow the liturgy to be, in general, one of the most excellent of all human compositions, they yet think it both absurd and sinful to declare such an assent and consent as is required, to any merely human composition. Though they do not object to the use of forms, they dare not confine themselves to them; and, in this form, there are several things which they apprehend to be contrary to Scripture. As to the laws of the Church, if they include the canons and decretal, (both which are received as such in our courts,) they think the latter are the very dregs of popery, and that many of the former (the canons of 1603) are as grossly wicked as absurd; that the spirit which they breathe is, throughout, truly popish and anti-christian; that nothing can be more diabolical than the ipso facto excommunication so often denounced therein; and that the whole method of executing these canons, the process used in our spiritual courts, is too bad to be tolerated, not in a Christian, but in a Mahommedan or Pagan nation. With regard to the ministers, they doubt whether there are not many of them whom God hath not sent, inasmuch as they neither live the Gospel nor teach it; neither, indeed, can they, since they do not know it. They doubt the more, because these ministers themselves disclaim that inward call to the ministry, which is at least as necessary as the outward; and they are not clear whether it be lawful to attend the ministrations of those whom God has not sent to minister. They think also, that the doctrines actually taught, by a great majority of the church ministers, are not only wrong, but fundamentally so, and subversive of the whole Gospel; therefore, they doubt whether it be lawful to bid them God speed, or to have any fellowship with them. "I will freely acknowledge," he adds, "that I cannot answer these arguments to my own satisfaction. As yet," he pursued, we have not taken one step further than we were convinced was our bounden duty. It is from a full conviction of this that we have preached abroad, prayed extempore, formed societies, and permitted preachers who were not episcopally ordained. And were we pushed on this side, were there no alternative allowed, we should judge it our bounden duty, rather wholly to separate from the Church, than to give up any one of these points; therefore, if we cannot stop a separation without stopping lay preachers, the case is clear, we cannot stop it at all. But, if we permit them, should we not do more? Should we not appoint them rather? since the bare permission puts the matter quite out of our hands, and deprives us of all our influence. In great measure, it does; therefore, to appoint them is far more expedient, if it be lawful; but is it lawful for presbyters, circumstanced as we are, to appoint other ministers ? This is the very point wherein we desire advice, being afraid of leaning to our own understanding." An inclination to episcopize was evidently shown in this language; but Wesley did not yet venture upon the act, in deference, perhaps, to his brother's determined and principled opposition. Many of his : preachers, however, were discontented with the rank which they held in public opinion, thinking that they were esteemed inferior to the dissenting ministers, because they did not assume so much; they, therefore, urged him to take upon himself the episcopal office and ordain them, that they might administer the ordinances and, as he could not be persuaded to this, they charged him with inconsistency, for tolerating lay preaching, and not lay administering. This charge he repelled: "My principle," said he, is this; I submit to every ordinance of man, wherever I do not conceive there is an absolute necessity for acting contrary to it. Consistently with this, I do tolerate lay preaching, because I conceive there is an absolute necessity for it, inasmuch as, were it not, thousands of souls would perish everlastingly. Yet I do not tolerate lay administering; because I do not conceive there is any such necessity for it, seeing it does not appear that one soul will perish for want of it." This was, of course, called persecution, by those whom his determination disappointed; and they accused him of injustice in denying them the liberty of acting according to their own conscience. They thought it quite right that they should administer the Lord's Supper, and believed it would do much good: he thought it quite wrong, and believed it would do much hurt. "I have no right over your consciences,' he said, nor you over mine; therefore, both you and I must follow our own conscience. You believe it is a duty to administer : do so, and therein follow your own conscience. I verily believe it is a sin which, consequently, I dare not tolerate, and herein I follow mine." And he argued, that it was no persecution to separate from his society those who practised what he believed was contrary to the will ́and destructive of the word of God. 66 It does not appear that any of his preachers withdrew from him on this account; the question was not one upon which, at that time, a discontented man could hope to divide the society; and, if they did not assent to Mr. Wesley's arguments, they acquiesced in his will. Secessions, however, and expulsions from other causes, not unfrequently took place and once he found it necessary to institute an examination of his preachers, because of certain scandals which had arisen. The person with whom the offence began was one James Wheatley. At first he made himself remarkable, by introducing a luscious manner of preaching, which, as it was new among the Methodists, and at once stimulant and flattering, soon became popular, and obtained imitators. They who adopted it assumed to themselves the appellation of Gospel preachers, and called their brethren, in contempt, legalists, legal wretches, and doctors in divinity. Wesley presently perceived the mischief that was done by these men, whose secret was, to speak much of the promises, and little of the commands. "They corrupt their hearers," said he: "they feed them with sweetmeats, till the genuine wine of the kingdom seems quite insipid to them. They give them cordial upon cordial, which makes them all life and spirits for the present; but, meantime, their appetite is destroyed, so that they can neither retain nor digest the pure milk of the word. As soon as that flow of spirits goes off, they are without life, without power, without any strength or vigour of soul and it is extremely difficult to recover them, because they still cry out |