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
The Rev. Alexander Garden, the Bishop of London’s commissary at
Charlestown, in America, published a series of six letters on
justification by faith and works, in which he accused Whitefield of
“self contradiction,” of “arrogant and wicked slander,” and of being
“so full of zeal that he had no room for charity.” He contemptuously
speaks of Whitefield’s “apparent shuffles,” “miserable distinctions,”
“mob harangues,” and “false and poisoned insinuations.” Whitefield
“deceives the people, and has no talent at proving anything”; he is “a
hare-brained solifidian, and runs about a mouthing”; he has “kindled
a fire of slander and defamation, which no devil in hell, nor jesuit
on earth, will ever make an effort to extinguish, but will fagot and
foment it with all their might”; “he dispenses to the populace in a
vehicle of cant terms, without sense or meaning”; and “in a mountebank
way, he fancies himself a young David, and that he has slain Goliath.”
Whitefield was again severely handled “by a presbyter of the Church of
England,” in an able pamphlet of forty-four pages, entitled “A modest
and serious Defence of the Author of the Whole Duty of Man, from the
false charges and gross misrepresentations of Mr. Whitefield, and the
Methodists his adherents”; but this was a castigation which Whitefield
merited, for his ill judged and unneeded letter, published in the
_Daily Advertiser_ of July 3, 1740.
The most violent attack of all was in an octavo pamphlet of
eighty-five pages, with the title, “The Expounder Expounded, by R——ph
J——ps——n, of the Inner Temple, Esq.” London. Some parts of this
disgraceful production are too filthy to be noticed; they must be
passed in silence. In other parts, Whitefield, for publishing his
journal, is charged with “saddling the world with one of the grossest
absurdities and impositions, that folly or impudence could invent”;
“his book is nothing but a continued account of his intimate union
and correspondence with the devil”; and he himself may be seen “upon
the hills and house-tops, like another Æolus, belching out his divine
vapours to the multitude, to the great ease of himself, and emolument
of his auditors.” “Charles Wesley lent him books at Oxford, which threw
his understanding off the hinges, and rendered him _enthusiastically_
crazy”; at college he “deemed a lousy pate _humility_, foul linen was
_heavenly contemplation_, woollen gloves were _grace_, a patched gown
was _justification by faith_, and dirty shoes meant a _walk with God_.
In short, with him, religion consisted wholly in _nastiness_, and
heaven was easiest attacked from a _dunghill_.” These are the mildest
specimens we have been able to select from this cesspool of a perverted
intellect and a polluted heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account