Character of Whitefield.

513

GRACE-Whitefield's childlike structure of mind compelled him to exult in, and to preach it."-Pp. 101, 102.

"Nor, perhaps, could a paragraph be produced from Whitefield's works, indicative of what might be called a philosophic breadth of view in relation to religion; yet practically, all that such a breadth could imply was his own. His ministerial standing-place was always high raised above middle walls of partition; nor could he, in any instance, be induced to render worship to the idols of intolerance and bigotry. As to those partitionments within which soulless religionists are content to be penfolded, he walked over them unconsciously; nor could he be made to understand how precious' those things were upon which he thus trampled. Gentlemen, I hope you will settle these matters to your own satisfaction,' said he among zealots,' my business is to preach the Gospel.' But this breadth, this greatness, was not with him the product of philosophy, or the prompting of a powerful intellect; nor was it liberalism, nor was it indifference: it was the greatness of the Gospel, well lodged in a large heart.".

P. 105.

"And now is it not time that the world should deal righteously with itself as to its ancient quarrel with one like Whitefield? The world has a long score to settle in this behalf, for it pursued him, from first to last, with a fixed and furious malignity; and even now, where Wesley is spoken of with fairness, and perhaps with commendation, a line of reluctant praise, coupled with some ungracious insinuation, is the best treatment Whitefield can obtain after he has been eighty years in his grave! No one can dare to say that his life was not blameless; and that his intentions were benevolent is manifest. His temper was not arrogant; for meekly he received rebuke, and patiently he endured so many revilings. It was with the courage of a noble nature that he confronted violence; and with the simplicity of a child that he forgave injuries. Yet among those who by their flagitious vices and outrageous crimes have the most deeply sinned against society, it would be difficult to find a wretch upon whose guilty pate has been showered so much rancorous abuse as, year after year, was heaped upon the head of the love-fraught, self-denying, and gentle-natured Whitefield. There is a mystery here which philosophy' should do its best to clear up; or, not succeeding in this endeavour, should ingenuously acknowledge that as, on the one hand, it can give no intelligible account of Whitefield's motives, so neither can it show reason for the world's hatred of him."-Pp. 108, 109.

Mr. Taylor's views of the founders of Methodism, considered collectively, are compendiously exhibited in the two following passages, in the substance of which few fair and competent judges

will refuse to concur :

"But with what order of men is it that we have now to do? Let it be confessed that this company does not include one mind of that amplitude and grandeur, the contemplation of which, as a natural object -a sample of humanity-excites a pleasurable awe, and swells the bosom with a vague ambition, or with a noble emulation. Not one

of the founders of Methodism can claim to stand on any such high level; nor was one of them gifted with the philosophic faculty-the abstractive and analytic power. More than one was a shrewd and exact logician, but none a master of the higher reason. Not one was

erudite in more than an ordinary degree; not one was an accomplished scholar; yet while several were fairly learned, few were illiterate, and none showed themselves to be imbued with the fanaticism of ignorance.

"Powers of popular oratory were among them such as to set them far out of the reach of rivalry with any of their contemporaries, in the pulpit. Not one was a great writer; but several of them knew how to hold the ear of men with an absolute mastery. As to administrative tact and skill in government, the world has given them (or their chief) more praise than they or he deserved, while baffled in its own perplexed endeavour to solve the problem of Methodism, in ignorance of the main cause of its spread and permanence. Apart from the gratuitous supposition of a profound craft, as the intellectual distinction of Wesley, what intelligible account shall we be able to give of Methodism?' No credible account can be given of it by aid of any such supposition, nor until the presence of causes has been recognised, of which the philosophy of such persons knows nothing."Pp. 16, 17.

6

"It would not be easy, or not possible, to name any company of Christian preachers, from the apostolic age downward to our own times, whose proclamation of the Gospel has been in a larger proportion of instances effective, or which has been carried over so large a surface, with so much power, or with so uniform a result. No such harvest of souls is recorded to have been gathered by any body of contemporary men, since the first century. An attempt to compute the converts to Methodistic Christianity would be a fruitless, as well as presumptuous undertaking, from which we draw back; but we must not call in question, what is so variously and fully attested, that an unimpeachable Christian profession was the fruit of the Methodistic preaching in instances that must be computed by hundreds of thousands, throughout Great Britain, and in America.

"Until the contrary can be clearly proved, it may be affirmed that no company of men of whose labours and doctrine we have any sufficient notice, has gone forth with a creed more distinctly orthodox, or more exempt from admixture of the doctrinal feculence of an earlier time. None have stood forward more free than these were from petty solicitudes concerning matters of observance, to which, whether they were to be upheld or to be denounced, an exaggerated importance was attributed. None have confined themselves more closely to those principal subjects which bear directly upon the relationship of man to God-as immortal, accountable, guilty, and redeemed. If we are tempted to complain of the unvaried complexion of the Methodistic teaching, it is the uniformity which results from a close adherence to the very rudiments of the Gospel. Uniformity or sameness of aspect, as it may be the colouring of dulness and of death, so may it spring

from simplicity and power; but can it be a question to which of these sources we should attribute that undiversified breadth which is the characteristic of Methodism?

"To dispute the claims of the Methodistic company to be thus regarded, on the ground of any errors of an incidental kind that may have attended their teaching, or of the follies or delinquencies that may be chargeable upon any of them, individually, would be a frivolous as well as an ungenerous mode of proceeding. Need it be said that these Methodists were men 'of like passions with ourselves?' and such, too, were those who, in the Apostolic age, carried the Gospel throughout the Roman world, and beyond it. Taken in the mass, the one company of men was as wise as the other-not wiseras holy, not more holy. If it be affirmed that the Christian worthies of some remote time were, as a class of men, of a loftier stature in virtue and piety than these with whom we have now to do, let the evidence on which such an assumption could be made to rest be Drought forward: this can never be done; and the supposition itself should be rejected as a puerile superstition."-Pp. 130, 132.

Such were the men who founded Methodism, and they were honoured to do a great and important work. Religion was at a very low ebb in England when Wesley and Whitefield began their labours. Their preaching was made instrumental in converting many thousands in all parts of the country, and in training up a large body of men in the midst of us who have given unequivocal evidence of living under the pervading influence of Christian principle. Methodism was carried to the United States, and has become the largest of the religious denominations of that great and growing country, numbering there now 6000 ministers, and above a million and a quarter of church members. The Methodists, too, have been eminently liberal, active, and successful in the work of Missions to the Heathen, and in every quarter of the globe have been honoured to bring many to the knowledge and belief of the truth as it is in Jesus. Such have been the direct results of the labours of the founders of Methodism; while they have also exerted a most important influence, indirectly, in promoting the advancement of true religion, both in the Church of England, and among the English Non-Conformists. The rise of Methodism in England thus forms a most important era in the history of the Church of Christ, and few who are competent to judge of it, will hesitate to adopt the substance of the views which Mr. Taylor has put forth as to its true standing and influence :

"In attempting to treat a subject such as the one before us, a choice must necessarily be made among the three assumptions following:

"1st, It may be said that Christianity being true in the sense of this or that Church, Methodism ought to be rejected as a spurious

development of it; and that its founders should be solemnly denounced as schismatics and enthusiasts.

"Or, secondly, that neither Christianity nor Methodism being true in its own sense; but both true in the much abated sense of the recent spiritualizing philosophy, therefore while both alike may claim some kindly regard, neither of them is entitled to any submission.

"Or, thirdly, that Christianity being true, without abatement, in its own sense, Methodism, as a genuine development of its principal elements, must be religiously regarded as such; while yet it may be open to exception on many grounds, as the product of minds more good and fervent than always well-ordered.

"This last supposition is then our ground; and in assuming it, while we use the liberty it allows, we yield without fear to the consequences it draws with it, be they what they may.

"These consequences are momentous; for we cannot allow Methodism to have been a genuine development of the principal elements of Christianity, without admitting it to take a prominent place in that providential system which embraces all time, and which, from age to age, has, with increasing clearness, been unfolding itself, and becoming cognizable by the human mind. So far as Methodism truly held forth Christianity, it was a signal holding of it forth; for a more marked utterance of the Gospel has occurred only once before in the lapse of eighteen centuries; and that, at the REFORMATION, was not less disparaged than this is by a large admixture of the errors and inconsistencies of its movers or adherents.

"Christianity, given to the world at once in the ministry and writings of the Apostles, has, from the first moment to this, held its onward course under a system of administration inscrutable indeed as a whole, or as to its reasons, and yet not entirely occult. On the contrary, at moments, Heaven's economy has seemed to receive a bright beam, as through a dense cloud, making conspicuous, if not the motives of the Divine government, yet the fact. The Reformation is held by Protestants to have been such a manifestation of the providence of God in restoring the Gospel, and in proclaiming it anew among the nations; and thus the events of the sixteenth century brought out to view that which is always real, whether visible or not-namely, a divine interposition-maintaining truth in the world, and giving it a fresh expansion from time to time. In perfect analogy with the events of the Reformation were those which attended the rise and progress of Methodism.

"What may be the relative value or importance of these two courses of events is not a question we are now concerned with; and it may easily be allowed that the former surpassed the latter in importance; but that the one, as well as the other, was a marked development of the scheme which is moving forward toward the subjugation of the human family to the Gospel, is here confidently maintained."-Pp. 9-11.

Since methodism has been so highly honoured, and has been the means of accomplishing so much good, it becomes important

to inquire what were the peculiar features or elements of the system to which, under God, its efficacy and success are to be ascribed. These subjects Mr. Taylor discusses in the second and third parts of his work. Methodism may be regarded, 1st, as a mode of preaching the gospel, or of teaching Christianity; and 2d, as a scheme of organization for training men to the successful prosecution of all Christian objects. Its peculiarities, in the first of these aspects, are set forth under the head of " the Substance of Methodism," and in the second, under the head of "the Form of (Wesleyan) Methodism."

"Methodism," as Mr. Taylor says, "was not a new theology or a polemical affirmation of dogmas contravening, or adding to, that system of belief which had been embodied two centuries before, in the articles and confessions of the several Protestant churches." Whitefield was a Calvinist. Wesley was an Arminian, and his followers, comprehending the great majority of those who, down to the present day, have ranked under the name of Methodists, have adhered to his theological system. Mr. Taylor does not enter into any details upon theological subjects, though he indicates plainly enough that he is fully alive to the superficial and inconsistent character of Wesley's theology. In the history of theology as a science, or as a system of doctrines, Methodism does not occupy a place of much importance. The controversies to which in this aspect it gave rise, turned almost wholly upon the questions which had been long discussed between Calvinists and Arminians, and discussed on both sides by far greater men than any whose efforts were called forth upon that occasion. Neither Wesley and Fletcher who defended Arminianism, nor Hill and Toplady who assailed it, were capable of making any valuable additions to what had been produced upon both sides of this controversy by the great divines of the seventeenth century.

In a theological point of view, the only question of much interest raised by the history of Methodism, is this, whether it be possible for a large body of men to maintain for a length of time a profession of Evangelical Arminianism, as distinguished from Calvinism on the one hand, and from Pelagian Arminianism on the other. The Arminianism of Wesley is essentially different in its substance, as well as in its spirit, from that generally professed by the Church of England divines of last century, the divines of the school of Whitby and Tomline. Wesley's theological views coincided in almost every particular with those of Arminius himself. The theological system of these two eminent men comprehended the doctrines which have been usually regarded by Calvinists as taught in Scripture, concerning the entire depravity of man's moral nature, regeneration and sanctifica