moment to know what the most eminent writers, or teachers, ancient and modern, have thought before us on the same subject; and more especially to observe what they unanimously agreed in. For as they had the same Scriptures before them, and the same common reason to direct them, and used as much care and diligence, and were blessed with as great integrity as any of us can now justly pretend to, their judgment is not to be slighted, nor their instructions to be despised."1 1 Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, Introduction. VII JOHN WESLEY THE EVANGELIST of THE MASSES OHN WESLEY was born at Epworth in J° 1703, in the first year of the reign of Queen Anne, about six years before the completion of St. Paul's Cathedral, and fifty-eight years after the death of Archbishop Laud. He belonged to the same family as the Wesleys of Dangan in Ireland, one of whom, Garret Wesley, left his estate at that place to his first cousin (the son of his maternal uncle), Richard Colley, or Cowley, on condition of his taking the name of Wesley. Richard Colley, or Wesley, created Lord Mornington, was grandfather of the illustrious Duke of Wellington. Thus (after undergoing a slight change in the spelling) the name associated with the apostolical labours of the great preacher became ennobled in the person of the greatest of warriors, although in the Mornington and Wellington families there was not a drop of Wesley blood. The preacher's own branch was settled in Dorsetshire, had affinities with the University of Oxford, and gave many ministers to the Church. Samuel, the father, was a servitor at Exeter College, Oxford, severed himself from the Puritans, to whom his family had belonged for two generations, married Susanna, daughter of Dr. Annesley, an ejected clergyman, and worked as a High Churchman. The mother was a woman of high character, strong will, earnest piety, and great ability, and to her influence her children owed a lasting debt. The children who lived to grow up were three sons-Samuel (master at Westminster School), John, and Charles the hymn-writer—and three daughters. The chief reminiscences of John's childhood are the fire at the vicarage when he was with difficulty saved from the nursery window, and the story of the Epworth ghost. John went to school at Charterhouse, where he was diligent, studious, and well behaved, and in 1720, his eighteenth year, matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford. Having been often obliged to give up some of his food to older boys at school in accordance with the bullying customs then in vogue, he had formed very abstemious habits. At college he studied abstinence as a medical question; it suited his finances, the poverty of the family, and his own love for seclusion, study, and thought. It was the wish of his father and the family that led him first to think of taking Orders; the father was in failing health, and needed help. A difficulty about the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed was surmounted by paternal counsel. An influence was also created by the Imitation of Christ, and by Jeremy Taylor's devotional works. He began to find religious friends. The tendency of his life was altered. In 1725 he was admitted deacon by Potter, Bishop of Oxford, afterwards Primate, whom he calls "a great and good man." Potter's advice he recalled long after: "not to spend his time in contending for or against things of a disputable nature, but in testifying against vice, and in promoting real essential holiness." The pulpit in which he preached his first sermon is preserved at the little church of South Leigh, near Witney. In March 1726, as a native of Lincolnshire, he was elected to a fellowship at Lincoln College, and in November of the same year became Greek Lecturer and "moderator of the classes" in the college. Disputations were held daily, and he acquired great expertness in arguing and exposition. 1727 was a critical year. He read Law's Serious Call and Christian Perfection. Feeling that he had been too much of a mere moralist, depending mainly on forms and observances, he said: "I was convinced more than ever of the impossibility of being half a Christian, and determined to be all devoted to God, and to give Him all my soul, my body, and my substance." More than before he studied the Bible; he longed for the mind that was in Christ, and for the first time understood religion to be "inward and outward conformity to the Master." He now insisted on a high standard of religious consecration and personal holiness, both active and passive. He pre sently united with these views not a little of the High Church doctrine and discipline.' The light flowed in so mightily on his soul that everything appeared in a new view." The same year, in July, he was admitted 1 Rigg's Wesley, p. 22. |