History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

chapel seats. Breaking bread in the love-feasts was discountenanced as "a silly custom invented by
James Wheatley." No preacher was to print anything without Wesley's approbation. Fasting and
family prayer were urged, and economy enjoined in the households. Wesley, the God-fearing man
of ascetic habits, narrowly looked into everything, and one cannot but admire his intense earnestness
for the welfare of both the bodies and souls of his "sons in the Gospel" and the flock over which he
was made a watchman.
1766 was also an eventful year in Methodism. Wesley's plan for a union with the evangelical
clergy of the National Church having failed, he seems to have looked with a more favorable eye upon
the Calvinistic Methodists. A closer union took place with Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon. August
21, 1766, he wrote: "This morning I and my brother spent two blessed hours with George Whitefield.
The threefold cord we trust will never more be broken. On Tuesday next my brother is to preach in
Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Bath. That, and all her chapels, are now put into the hands of us three."
[3]
It was just after the twenty-third Conference, held at Leeds, August 12. In the early part of this
year, when he had reached Liverpool in his annual itinerary, he examined the new trust deed of Pitt
Street chapel, and was much displeased. There is such a charming simplicity and innocence in the
way this "autocrat of the Methodists," as Tyerman titles him, states his objections that they must be
rehearsed in full. "(1) It takes up three large skins of parchment, and so could not cost less than ten
guineas; whereas our own deed, transcribed by a friend, would not cost six shillings. (2) It is verbose
beyond all sense and reason; and withal so ambiguously worded that one passage only might find
matter for a suit of ten or twelve years in chancery. (3) It everywhere calls the house of God a
meeting-house, a name which I particularly object to. (4) It leaves no power either to the assistant
or me, so much as to place or displace a steward. (5) Neither I, nor all the Conference, has power to
send the same preacher two years together. To crown all, (6) If a preacher is not appointed at the
Conference, the trustees and the congregation are to choose one by most votes! Can any one wonder
[4]
I dislike this deed, which tears the Methodist discipline up by the roots? Ah me, empire by
property creates friction. Thoughtful laymen who contributed their money to build chapels, being
loyal to doctrine and discipline, could not see why they must resign all control over it to the
Conference deed. The fact was, as disclosed by this rebellious deed at Leeds and the admission of
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Watson, that "some began to wish a larger share in the government"; the yeast of dissatisfaction
with the paternal system was fermenting in the Methodist mass.
At the Leeds Conference forty circuits were reported, and for the first time the minutes show an
attempt to furnish a census of the societies, but it is too imperfect to give an aggregate of the
members. The debts on the chapels and preachers' houses had increased to 11,383. "We shall be
utterly ruined," said Wesley, "if we go on at this rate." It was found expedient, officially, to assert
that they were not Dissenters, and the preachers were directed not to hold their services so as to
interfere with the Church worship. Separation from the National Church was one of the great topics
discussed and negatively determined. The Wesleys had but one dictum, which John expressed in an
apothegm, "Whoever separate from the Church separate from the Methodists." Tyerman gives
evidence that Charles attended this Conference, and deems it important as a fact by reason of this
discussion and also of John's administrative power, and a "thorough reform of the preachers." It
appears there were Methodist "radicals" in those days, and the murmurings against unamenable
authority, as exercised by Wesley, grew so loud that he felt constrained to make a defense. It is an
[6]
elaborate paper given by Tyerman in full, but not noticed by Moore, though he copied from