INTRODUCTION

As a result of the fall of the Puritan ideals in England at the restoration of Charles II, there was a reaction toward immorality. The country, heartily tired of the iron rule of the Saints, was disposed to give itself over to a reign of license. At the time of the Revolution, however, the higher moral ideals began to prevail, and strenuous efforts were made to reform the standard of life and conduct. Christian laymen like the Hon. Robert Boyle, one of the founders of the Royal Society, who formulated the well known "Boyle's Law", worked actively to promote Christian principles. For twenty-eight years Boyle was governor of the Corporation for the Spread of the Gospel in New England, and when he died, he founded and endowed with fifty pounds a year the "Boyle Lectures," for the defense of Christianity against unbelievers.1 A small company of laymen, led and inspired by Dr. Thomas Bray, an eminent divine of the period, formed themselves into the voluntary "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," in order to educate the poor, and send missionaries to America. A little later, in 1701, the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel" was organized for the more distinct purpose of advancing religion in the plantations.2

The reign of Anne was marked by a distinct revival of interest in religion, though unfortunately accompanied by a recrudescence of the High Church spirit opposed to the principles of the Revolution. After the accession of George I zeal for religion cooled, especially during the long administration of Sir Robert Walpole, whose ruling idea was to leave things as they were and to avoid raising the passion of religious fanaticism. England was occupied with her increasing commercial prosperity, and consequently men desired to maintain the status quo.3 In

'Dictionary of National Biography, vol. vi, p. 121.

2

Allen: History of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London, 1898, p. 15.

Dictionary of National Biography, vol. lix, p. 203.

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deed all religious controversy was avoided as likely to provok disorder.

Under these circumstances the majority in the Church of England were characterized by indifference and lack of energy. Zeal was repressed rather than encouraged by many of the bishops, "safe" men chosen as supporters of the government. The old High Church party were looked on coldly as Jacobites; and as yet there was no evangelical revival to compensate for their + lack of influence.

The Dissenters, recruited from the trading classes, were prospering greatly by the long peace, and were characterizedthough with notable exceptions-by a destructive tendency toward deism in religion. The old Puritan zeal had burne itself out; yet the Dissenters showed no desire to return to the Established Church. Dissent was in fact the expression of the Fellig, of a highly respectable middle class and its minister S under a voluntary system were better paid than the poorer clergy. Ive permet regarded the Church on the whole as useful as a morai police force, encouraging the people to live peacefully under authority. It, however, discouraged manifestations of religious zeal as dangerous to itself and to the nation.

Up to the eighteenth century England had been essentially an agricultural country. Industrialism now began to be a power in the land and with it came the growth of great cities, with the result that the old parochial system collapsed. For the new centers of population no parish was endowed and scarcely a church built. There was no system of public instruction, with the result that a large proportion of the population was in a state of gross ignorance.5

In such an England as this were John Wesley and hifriends born. When they realized how serious were the condi tions, and how supine the Church had become, they became en phatic in expressing their views as to the deplorable condition of the country both in church and state.

Wakeman: History of the Church

chap. 18.

CHAPTER I

THE METHODIST VIEW OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

LIFE

SECTION I. METHODIST DISSATISFACTION WITH THE CUSTOMS AND RELIGION OF THE TIMES

JOHN WESLEY, in a survey of the life round about him, asks: "What is the present characteristic of the English nation?" He answers his own question: "It is ungodliness. This is at present the characteristic of the English nation. Ungodliness is our universal, our constant, our peculiar characteristic.' Indeed, the deist of the time was quite a respectable character in Wesley's estimation when compared with the ungodly man of the day.1 Wesley was very clear in his conviction that no nation had fallen from the first principles of religion quite as low as England. England was contemptuous of all truth, she ad an utter disregard for even "Heathen morality," all that should be dear and honorable to rational creatures she neglected.2

Wesley did not speak of this lack of piety in general terms. He was specific in his charges. He "once believed the body of English merchants to be men of strictest honesty and honor"; but reluctantly declared he had "lately had more experience."3 The peasant too was quite ignorant of faith, repentance, holiness; and of religion he could say nothing intelligently.* Every class in England-lawyers, gentry, and nobility-came in each for its share of his scathing remarks. He admitted that honest lawyers were to be had; then sarcastically objected: “But are they not thinly spread?" He granted that religion was to be found among the gentry and the nobility, but added: "If you think they are all men of religion, you think very differently

1An Estimate of the Manners of the Present Times. Works, vol. vi, p. 349.

2

3

Works, vol. v, p. 142.

Doctrine of Original Sin. Works, vol. v, p. 516.

4 Works, vol. v, p. 514.

5

Ibid., vol. v, p. 516.

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from your Master, who made no exception of time or nation when he uttered that weighty sentence, 'How difficultly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" And very bluntly, in a sermon before the University of Oxford preached at Saint Mary's in the year 1742, he denounced the educated classes in these words: "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that ye may be saved from this overflowing ungodliness, and that here its proud waves may be stayed! . . . Ye have not kept yourselves pure. Corrupt are we and also abominable." Thus the learned gownsmen of Oxford were included in this unhappy picture of the times.

8

The life of the Methodists was a constant protest against that of the age. They disapproved of the gaudy dress then in vogue, and so they adopted drab and somber colors. They advocated self-denial even to the extent of giving up the popular but then expensive luxury of drinking tea." They looked askance at many of the publications of the day, and would have nothing to do with them, as frivolous or obscene.10 Whether Ythe Methodists were entirely correct in their estimate of the customs and habits of their time we cannot at this point determine. Here we wish simply to show that they were dissatisfied with its moral condition. Like all severe moralists they thought their country was on the downward grade.

SECTION II. METHODIST VIEW OF THE CHURCH AND THE CLERGY

The Methodists spared neither Church nor clergy. Wesley himself was always sparing in his criticism, but other Methodists were not so guarded.11 Seward, for example, said that the "scarlet whore of Babylon" was not more corrupt in practice or principle than the Church of England. 12 Not that some mem

10 Vide Methodist and Mimic, 1767.

12 Seward: Journal, p. 71-quoted in Wills, p. 229.

1

bers of the church were not apprehensive as to its condition.13 Others drew attention to the severe judgment of popular opinion regarding the Church.14 Bishop Burnet in 1713 spoke out boldly and said, "I see imminent ruin hanging over the Church, and by consequence, over the whole Reformation. The outward state of things is black enough, God knows; but that which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the inward state into which we are unhappily fallen." The bishop further accused the clergy of being unacquainted with the Bible and maintained that their political interests were a danger to the Church.1

15

The Dissenters were at one as regards the general state of religion. Dr. John Guyse sarcastically remarked that the preachers and the people were content to lay Christ aside. They were in such a state that they needed a mediator no longer.16 Abraham Taylor, an independent minister at Little Moorfields, London, stated that the people had no idea of what the Holy Spirit was. All who professed to rely upon the aid of the Spirit were ridiculed. Isaac Watts claimed that the decline of vital religion within the hearts of men was a matter for mournful observation among all that laid the cause of God to heart.18 His advice for a remedy of conditions was to urge ministers to make it their business to insist upon those subjects which were inward and spiritual, and which went by the name of "experimental religion."19 Churchmen, Dissenters, and Methodists thus united together in their criticism of the Church, as representing the religion of the majority of the nation.

Wesley and others felt that the weakness of the Church lay in the moral and intellectual weakness of the clergy, whom “he describes as "dull, heavy, blockish ministers; men of no life, no spirit, no readiness of thought; who are consequently the jest of every pert fool, every lively, airy coxcomb they meet."20

13

Serious Address to the Members of the Church of England, passim. 14 Ibid., p. 5.

15 Jackson: Centenary of Wesleyan Methodism, pp. 14-15.

18 Ibid., op. cit., p. 19ff.

17 Ibid., p. 23.

A

18 Watts: An Humble Attempt Toward the Revival

19

Ibid., p. 55.