The life and times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodists. Vol. 1 (of 3)Tyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The life and times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., founder of the Methodists. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Tyerman, L. (Luke)
Methodism; Wesley, John, 1703-1791
About the same time, a pamphlet of ninety-six pages was published,
entitled, “The Life of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, by an Impartial
Hand.” Impartiality is pretended, but hostility is seen. The object
of the Life is evidently to make the subject of it a mark for the
shafts of ridicule. Accounts are given of the fracas in St. Margaret’s
church, Westminster, on Sunday, February 4. There is also “a method of
confession drawn up for the use of the women Methodists,” professedly
taken from the original in Whitefield’s or Wesley’s own handwriting,
and with which, it is alleged, the Deists are delighted. Among other
questions, to be asked, as often as occasion required, were the
following: “Are you in love? Whom do you love just now, better than
any other person in the world? Is not the person an idol? Does any
court you? How do you like him? How do you feel yourself when he comes,
when he stays, and when he goes away?” A full account is, likewise,
furnished of Joseph Periam, a young clerk to an attorney, who had been
converted, partly by reading Whitefield’s sermons on the new birth, and
whom his friends had put into a madhouse—(1) Because he fasted for near
a fortnight. (2) Because he prayed so as to be heard several storeys
high. (3) Because he had sold his clothes and given the money to the
poor. The Methodists are further charged with attempting to take away
the liberty of the press; Wesley is accused of placing his converts,
when delivered from their violent agitations and distortions, on an
eminence, for others to behold them; and Whitefield is charged with
saying, that he could produce two cobblers in Bristol, that knew more
of true Christianity than all the clergy in the city put together. His
Journals are designated rhapsodies and repetitions of spiritual pride,
vanity and nonsense; he is accused of wilful and notorious falsehood,
and of taking pleasure in being abusive and scurrilous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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