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CHAPTER VII.

WESLEY AT BRISTOL.

Ar Bristol the modern practice of field-preaching had begun; and the foundations of Methodism as a substantive and organized sect, existing independently of the Church, were now to be laid at Bristol.These are remarkable events in the history of that city, one of the most ancient, most beautiful, and most interesting in England.

Wesley had never been at Bristol before: Whitefield received him there, and introduced him to persons who were prepared to listen to him with eager and intense belief: "Help him, Lord Jesus," says Whitefield, "to water what thy own right hand hath planted, for thy mercy's sake!" Having thus provided so powerful a successor, he departed. Wherever he took his leave, at their places of meeting, there was loud weeping: "Oh," he exclaims, "these partings!" When he forced himself away, crowds were waiting at the door to give him a last farewell, and near twenty friends accompanied him on horseback. "Blessed be God," says he, "for the marvellous great kindness he hath shown me in this city! Many sinners, I believe, have been effectually converted; numbers of God's children greatly comforted; several thousands of little books have been dispersed among the people; about two hundred pounds collected for the orphan house; and many poor families relieved by the bounty of my friend, Mr. Seward.— Shall not these things be noted in my book? God forbid they should not be written on the tables of my heart. Even so, Lord Jesus!"

His journey lay through Kingswood; and there the colliers, without his knowledge, had prepared an entertainment for him. Having been informed that they were willing to subscribe towards building a Charity School for their children, he had preached to them upon the subject, and he says it was sur

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prising to see with what cheerfulness they parted with their money on this occasion; all seemed willing to assist, either by their money or their labour; and now at this farewell visit they earnestly entreated that he would lay the first stone. The request was somewhat premature, for it was not yet certain whether the site which they desired would be granted them; a person, however, was present who declared he would give a piece of ground in case the lord of the manor should refuse, and Whitefield then laid a stone; after which he knelt, and prayed God that the gates of hell might not prevail against their design; the colliers saying a hearty Amen.

On the day before his departure he set Wesley an example of field-preaching. "I could scarce reconcile myself," says Wesley, "at first to this strange way, having been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church." The next day he observed that our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, was "one pretty remarkable precedent of field-preaching; and," he adds, "I suppose there were churches at that time also;" a remark which first indicates a hostile feeling toward the Establishment, for it has no other meaning. " On the morrow, at four in the afternoon," he says, "I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city to about three thousand people. The Scripture on which I spoke was this, (is it possible any one should be ignorant that it is fulfilled in every true minister of Christ?) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." There is much of the language of humility here, and little of the spirit; but it was scarcely possible that any man should not have been

inflated upon discovering that he possessed a power over the minds of his fellow creatures so strong, so strange, and at that time so little understood.

The paroxysms of the disease which Methodism excited, had not appeared at Bristol under Whitefield's preaching, they became frequent after Wesley's arrival there. One day, after Wesley had expounded the fourth chapter of Acts, the persons present" called upon God to confirm his word." "Immediately," he adds, "one that stood by, to our no small surprise, cried out aloud, with the utmost vehemence, even as in the agonies of death: but we continued in prayer, till a new song was put in her mouth, a thanksgiving unto our God. Soon after, two other persons (well known in this place, as labouring to live in all good conscience towards all men) were seized with strong pain, and constrained to roar for the disquietness of their heart. But it was not long before they likewise burst forth into praise to God their Saviour. The last who called upon God as out of the belly of hell, was a stranger in Bristol; and in a short space he also was overwhelmed with joy and love, knowing that God had healed his backslidings. So many living witnesses hath God given, that his hand is still stretched out to heal, and that signs and wonders are even now wrought by his holy child Jesus." At another place, "a young man was suddenly seized with a violent trembling all over, and in a few minutes, the sorrows of his heart being enlarged, sunk down to the ground; but we ceased not calling upon God, till he raised him up full of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." Preaching at Newgate, Wesley was led insensibly, he says, and without any previous design, to declare strongly and explicitly that God willeth all men to be saved, and to pray that if this were not the truth of God, he would not suffer the blind to go out of the way; but if it were, that he would bear witness to his word. "Immediately one, and another, and another, sunk to the earth; they dropt on every side as thunderstruck." "In the evening I was again prest in spirit to declare

that Christ gave himself a ransom for all. And almost before we called upon him to set to his seal, he answered. One was so wounded by the sword of the spirit, that you would have imagined she could not live a moment. But immediately his abundant kindness was showed, and she loudly sang of his righteousness."

When these things became public, they gave just offence; but they were ascribed to a wrong cause. A physician, who suspected fraud, was led by curiosity to be a spectator of these extraordinary exhibitions, and a person whom he had known many years, was thrown into the fit while he was present. She cried aloud, and wept violently. He who could hardly believe the evidence of his senses, "went and stood close to her, and observed every symptom, till great drops of sweat ran down her face, and all her bones shook. He then," says Wesley, "knew not what to think, being clearly convinced it was not fraud, nor yet any natural disorder. But when both her soul and body were healed in a moment, he acknowledged the finger of God." Whatever this witness's merit may have been as a practitioner, he was but a sorry physiologist. A powerful doctrine preached with passionate sincerity, with fervid zeal, and with vehement eloquence, produced a powerful effect upon weak minds, ardent feelings, and disordered fancies. There are passions which are as infectious as the plague, and fear itself is not more so than fanaticism. When once these bodily affections were declared to be the work of grace, the process of regeneration, the throes of the new birth, a free licence was proclaimed for every kind of extravagance. And when the preacher, instead of exhorting his auditors to commune with their own hearts, and in their chambers, and be still, encouraged them to throw off all restraint, and abandon themselves before the congregation to these mixed sensations of mind and body, the consequences were what might be anticipated. Sometimes he scarcely began to speak, before some of his believers, over

wrought with expectation, fell into the crisis, for so it may be called in Methodism, as properly as in Animal Magnetism. Sometimes his voice could scarcely be heard amid the groans and cries of these suffering and raving enthusiasts. It was not long before men, women, and children, began to act the demoniac as well as the convert. Wesley had seen many hysterical fits, and many fits of epilepsy, but none that were like these, and he confirmed the patients in their belief that they were torn of Satan. One or two indeed perplexed him a little, for they were "tormented in such an unaccountable manner, that they seemed to be lunatic," he says, " as well as sore-vexed." But suspicions of this kind, made little impression upon his intoxicated understanding; the fanaticism which he had excited in others was now re-acting upon himself. How should it have been otherwise? A Quaker who was present at one meeting, and inveighed against what he called the dissimulation of these creatures, caught the contagious emotion himself, and even while he was biting his lips and knitting his brows, dropt down as if he had been struck by lightning. "The agony he was in," says Wesley, "was even terrible to behold; we besought God not to lay folly to his charge, and he soon lifted up his head and cried aloud, Now I know thou art a prophet of the Lord.' ”

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There was a certain weaver, by name John Haydon, who being informed that people fell into strange fits at these societies, went to see and judge for himself. Wesley describes him as a man of regular life and conversation; who constantly attended the public prayers and sacraments, and was zealous for the church, and against dissenters of every denomination. What he saw satisfied him so little, that he went about to see his acquaintance one after another, till one in the morning, labouring to convince them that it was all a delusion of the devil. might induce a reasonable doubt of his sanity at the time; nor is the suspicion lessened by the circumstance, that when he had sat down to dinner the

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