life. "All violent and sudden passions," he said, "dispose to, or actually throw people into acute diseases. The slow and lasting passions, such as grief, and hopeless love, bring on chronical diseases. Till the passion which caused the disease is calmed, medicine is applied in vain. The love of God, as it is the sovereign remedy of all miseries, so, in particular, it effectually prevents all the bodily disorders the passions introduce, by keeping the passions themselves within due bounds; and, by the unspeakable joy, and perfect calm serenity and tranquillity it gives the mind, it becomes the most powerful of all the means of health and long life." In his directions to the sick, he recommends them to "add to the rest (for it is not labour lost) that old unfashionable medicine, prayer; and to have faith in God, who killeth and maketh alive, who bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up.'" The book itself must have done great mischief, and probably may still continue so to do; for it has been most* extensively circulated, and it evinces throughout a lamentable want of judgment, and a perilous rashness, advising sometimes means of ridiculous inefficacy in the most dangerous cases, and sometimes remedies so rude, that it would be marvellous if they did not destroy the patient. He believed, however, that he had cured himself of what was pronounced to be a confirmed consumption, and had every symptom of it, by his favourite prescription for pleurisy, a plaster of brimstone and white of egg, spread upon brown paper.~ Upon applying this, the pain in his side was removed in a few minutes, the fever in half an hour, and, from that hour, he began to recover strength. His death had been so fully expected, that Whitefield wrote him a farewell letter, in the most affectionate terms, and a consolatory one to his brother Charles. And he himself, not knowing, he says, how it might please God to dispose of him, and to prevent vile panegyric, wrote his own epitaph, in these words: HERE LIETH THE BODY OF JOHN WESLEY, A BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE BURNING : WHO DIED OF A CONSUMPTION, IN THE FIFTY-FIRST YEAR OF HIS AGE, NOT LEAVING, AFTER HIS DEBTS ARE PAID, PRAYING GOD BE MERCIFUL TO ME AN UNPROFITABLE SERVANT ! "He ordered that this (if any) inscription should be placed on his tomb-stone." The current edition, which is now before me, is the twenty-eighth. The cold-bath is prescribed for ague, just before the cold fit; for preventing apoplexy; for weak infants, every day; and for cancer. For films in the sight, the eyes are to be touched with lunar caustic every day; or zibethum occidentale, dried slowly, and finely pulverized, is to be blown into them. For siphylis, an ounce of quicksilver every morning; and for the twisting of the intestines, quicksilver, ounce by ounce, to the amount of one, two, or three pounds! Toasted cheese is recommended for a cut; and, for a rupture in children "boil a spoonful of egg-shells, dried in an oven, and powdered, in a pint of milk, and feed the child constantly with bread boiled in this milk.” CHAPTER XXV. PROGRESS OF CALVINISTIC METHODISM.--DEATH OF WHITE FIELD. FINAL BREACH BETWEEN WESLEY AND THE CALVINISTS. WHITEFIELD had not continued long at enmity with Wesley. He was sensible that he had given him great and just offence by publishing the story of the lots, and he acknowledged this, and asked his pardon. Wesley's was a heart in which resentment never could strike root: the difference between them, therefore, as far as it was personal, was made up; but, upon the doctrines in dispute, they remained as widely separate as ever, and their respective followers were less charitable than themselves. Whitefield also had become a married man. He had determined upon this in America, and opened his intentions in a characteristic letter to the parents of the lady whom he was disposed to choose.— He told them that he found a mistress was necessary for the management of his increasing family at the Orphan-house, and it had therefore been much impressed upon his heart that he should marry, in order to have a help meet for him in the work whereunto he was called. This," he proceeded, comes (like Abraham's servant to Rebekah's relations,) to know whether you think your daughter, Miss E., is a proper person to engage in such an undertaking? If so, whether you will be pleased to give me leave to propose marriage unto her ? You need not be afraid of sending me a refusal; for, I bless God, if I know any thing of my own heart, I am free from that foolish passion which the world calls love. I write, only because I believe it is the will of God that I should alter my state ; but your denial will fully convince me, that your daughter is not the person appointed by God for me. But I have sometimes thought Miss E. would be my help-mate, for she has often been impressed upon my heart. After strong crying and tears at the throne of grace for direction, and after unspeakable trouble with my own heart, I write this. Be pleased to spread the letter before the Lord; and if you think this motion to be of Him, be pleased to deliver the enclosed to your daughter. If not, say nothing; only let me know you disapprove of it, and that shall satisfy your obliged friend and servant in Christ." The letter to the lady was written in the same temper. It invited her to partake of a way of life, which nothing but devotion and enthusiasm like his could render endurable. He told her he had great reason to believe it was the divine will that he should alter his condition, and had often thought she was the person appointed for him; but he should still wait on the Lord for direction, and heartily entreat him, that, if this motion were not of Him, it might come to nought. "I much like," said he, "the manner of Isaac's marrying with Rebekah ; and think no marriage can succeed well, unless both parties concerned are like-minded with Tobias and his wife. I make no great profession to you, because I believe you think me sincere. The passionate expressions which carnal courtiers use, I think, ought to be avoided by those that would marry in the Lord. I can only promise, by the help of God, to keep my matrimonial vow, and to do what I can towards helping you forward in the great work of your salvation. If you think marriage will be any way prejudicial to your better part, be so kind as to send me a denial." The Moravian arrangement for pairing their members would have been very convenient for a person of this temper. 66 The reply which he received informed him, that the lady was in a seeking state only, and surely, he said, that would not do ; he must have one that was full of faith and the Holy Ghost. Such an one he thought he had found in a widow at Abergavenny, by name James, who was between thirty and forty, and, by his own account, neither rich nor beautiful, but having once been gay, was now a despised follower of the Lamb." He spoke of his marriage in language which would seem profane, unless large allowances were made for the indiscreet and offensive phraseology of those who call themselves religious professors. The success of his preaching appears at this time to have intoxicated him; he fancied that something like a gift of prophecy had been imparted to him; and, when his wife became pregnant, he announced that the child would be a boy, and become a preacher of the gospel. It proved a boy, and the father publicly baptized him in the Tabernacle, and, in the presence of a crowded congregation, solemnly devoted him to the service of God. At the end of four months the child died, and Whitefield then acknowledged that he had been under a delusion: "Satan," he said, “had been permitted to give him some wrong impressions, whereby he had misapplied several texts of Scripture." The lesson was severe, but not in vain, for it saved him from any future extravagancies of that kind. His marriage was not* a happy one; and the death of his wife is said, by one of his friends, to have "set his mind much at liberty." It is asserted that she did not behave in all respects as she ought; but it is admitted, that their disagreement was increased by some persons who made pretensions to more holiness than they possessed. Whitefield was irritable, and impatient of contradiction; and, even if his temper had been as happily constituted as Wesley's, his habits of life must have made him, like Wesley, a most uncomfortable husband. His popularity, however, was greatly on the increase. So great, indeed, was his confidence in his powers over the rudest of mankind, that he ventured upon preaching to the rabble in Moorfields during the Whitsun holydays, when, as he said, Satan's children kept up their annual rendezvous there. This was a sort of pitched battle with Satan, and Whitefield displayed some generalship upon the occasion. He took the field betimes, with a large congregation of "praying people" to attend him, and began at six in the morning, before the enemy had mustered in strength. Not above ten thousand persons were assembled waiting for the sports: and, having nothing else to do, they, for mere pastime, presently flocked round his field-pulpit. "Glad was I to find," says he, "that I had, for It was not likely to be so, as may be judged from what he says to one of his married friends: "I hope you are not nimis uxorius. Take heed, my dear B. take heed! Time is short. It remains that those who have wives, be as though they had none. Let nothing intercept or interrupt your communion with the bridegroom of the Church." once, as it were, got the start of the devil." Encouraged by the success of his morning preaching, he ventured there again at noon, when, in his own words, "the fields, the whole fields, seemed, in a bad sense of the word, all white, ready, not for the Redeemer's, but Beelzebub's harvest. All his agents were in full motion; drummers, trumpeters, merry-andrews, masters of puppet-shows, exhibiters of wild beasts, players, &c. &c. all busy in entertaining their respective auditories." He estimated the crowd to consist of from twenty to thirty thousand persons; and thinking that, like St. Paul, he should now, in a metaphorical sense, be called to fight with wild beasts, he took for his text," Great is Diana of the Ephesians."-You may easily guess," says he, "that there was some noise among the craftsmen, and that I was honoured with having a few stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me, while engaged in calling them from their favourite but lying vanities. My soul was, indeed, among lions; but far the greatest part of my congregation, which was very large, seemed for a while to be turned into lambs.' He then gave notice that he would preach again at six in the evening. "I came," he says, "I saw,-but what ?--thousands and thousands more than before, if possible, still more deeply engaged in their unhappy diversions, but some thousands amongst them waiting as earnestly to hear the Gospel. This Satan could not brook. One of his choicest servants was exhibiting, trumpeting on a large stage; but, as soon as the people saw me in my black robes, and my pulpit, I think all, to a man, left him and ran to me. For a while I was enabled to lift up my voice like a trumpet, and many heard the joyful sound. God's people kept praying, and the enemy's agents made a kind of roaring at some distance from our camp. At length they approached nearer, and the merry-andrew (attended by others, who complained that they had taken many pounds less that day, on account of my preaching) got upon a man's shoulders, and advancing near the pulpit, attempted to slash me with a long heavy whip several times, but always, with the violence of his motion, tumbled down.” Soon afterwards, they got a recruiting sergeant, with his drums, fifes, and followers, to pass through the congregation. But Whitefield, by his tactics, baffled this manœuvre he ordered them to make way for the king's officers; the ranks opened, and when the party had marched through, closed again. When the uproar became, as it sometimes did, such as to overpower his single voice, he called the voices of all his people to his aid, and began singing; and thus, what with singing, praying, and preaching, he continued, by his own account, three hours upon the ground, till the darkness made it time to break up. So great was the impression which this wonderful man produced in this extraordinary scene, that more than a thousand notes were handed up to him, from persons who, as the phrase is, were brought under concern by his preaching that day, and three hundred and fifty persons joined his congregation. On the Tuesday he removed to Mary-le-bone fields, a place of similar resort. Here a Quaker had prepared a very high pulpit for him, but not having fixed the supports well in the ground, the preacher found himself in some jeopardy, especially when the mob endeavoured to push the circle of his friends against it, and so to throw it down. But he had a narrower escape after he had descended; "for as I was passing," says he, " from the pulpit to the coach, I felt my wig and hat to be almost off: I turned about, and observed a sword just touching my temples. A young rake, as I afterwards found, was determined to stab me; but a gentleman, seeing the sword thrusting near me, struck it up with his cane, and so the destined victim providentially escaped." The man who made this atrocious attempt, probably in a fit of drunken fury, was seized by the people, and would have been handled as severely as he deserved, if one of Whitefield's friends had not sheltered him. The following day Whitefield returned to the attack in Moorfields; and here he gave a striking example of that ready talent which turns every thing to its purpose. A merry-andrew, finding that no common acts of buffoonery were of any avail, got into a tree near the pulpit, and, as much, perhaps, in despite as in insult, exposed his bare posteriors to the preacher, in the sight of all the people. The more brutal mob applauded him with loud laughter, while decent persons were abashed: and Whitefield himself was, for a moment, confounded; but instantly recovering himself, he appealed to all, since now they had such a spectacle before them, whether he had wronged human nature in saying, with Bishop Hall, that man, when left to himself, is half a fiend and half a brute; or, in calling him, with William Law, a motley mixture of the beast and devil! The appeal was not lost upon the crowd, whatever it might be upon the wretch by whom it was occasioned. A circumstance at these adventurous preachings is mentioned, which affected Whitefield himself, and must have produced considerable effect upon others :-several children, of both sexes, used to sit round him, on the pulpit, while he preached, for the purpose of handing to him the notes, which were delivered by persons upon whom his exhortations had acted as he desired.-These poor children were exposed to all the missiles with which he was assailed: however much they were terrified or hurt, they never shrunk, “but, on the contrary," says he, every time I was struck, they turned up their little weeping eyes, and seemed to wish they could receive the blows for me." 66 Shortly after his separation from Wesley, some Calvinistic dissenters built a large shed for him, near the Foundry, upon a piece of ground which was lent for the purpose, till he should return to America. From the temporary nature of the structure, they called it a Tabernacle, in allusion to the moveable place of worship of the Israelites during their journey in the wilderness; and the name being in puritanical taste, became the designation of all the chapels of the Calvinistic Methodists. In this place Whitefield was assisted by Cennick, and others, who sided with him at the division; and he employed lay preachers with less reluctance than Wesley had done, because the liking which he had acquired in America for the old puritans had, in some degree, alienated his feelings from the church, and his predestinarian opinions brought him in contact with the dissenters. But Whitefield had neither the ambition of founding a separate community, nor the talent for it; he would have contented himself with being the founder of the Orphan-house at Savannah, and with the effect which he produced as a roving preacher; and VOL. II. 21 |