History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 6
The last score years of Wesley's life — Leeds Conference of 1772 — Accepts a chaise for his
travels — Attacks the principle that the people are "the source of power — Finds irregularities in his
book business, the germ of "Book Concerns" — The Conference of 1774; "concord " by
acquiescence in his will — His change of opinion as to the colonies in America — Dr. Coke comes
upon the scene; divergent estimates of his biographers; pen-portrait; dominating passion, ambition
— City Road chapel — Wesley bends to appointments to save a break with the societies — McNab
and the Bath trouble — The ordination question culminates and Charles Wesley retires —
Whitehead aspersed — Birstal property question.
1771-91. A score of years to Wesley's earthly end. He was rounding out his sixty-ninth year. In
1772 he read a pamphlet on the slave-trade by Anthony Benezet, a French Protestant, who, after an
education in England, became a Quaker in Philadelphia, Penn., U.S.A., and he was so impressed by
it that he concentrated his protest in the words, "that execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called
the slave-trade," a declaration which is often misquoted and sometimes misapplied. Spending most
of the winter, as was his habit, in London, he made an annual tour among the societies. His friends
saw that his amazing physical energy began to fail, and by subscription secured him a carriage and
horses, which he relayed at periods, and which enabled him not only to keep up his practice of
reading while traveling, but of writing as well, to which he inured himself. His northern tour of this
year covered seven months' absence from London. He reached Leeds in time for the annual
Conference, August 4, being the twenty-ninth. The gain of members was 1646. Wesley preached a
sermon to an immense congregation, in a field back of the chapel, on the rise and growth of
Methodism. Taking up his travels again at Bristol, Tyerman writes, "He visited the whole society
from house to house, taking them from west to east." He was indeed a father among his children. He
traveled and preached and wrote incessantly this year, suffering most of the time acutely with a
hydrocele; once, his chaise breaking down, he took to horseback and rode to an appointment
twenty-two miles. Nothing could balk him.
His publications this year were numerous, and among them two political tracts, — "Thoughts
upon Liberty" and "Thoughts upon the Origin of Power." In the latter he combats the theory that the
people of a nation are "the origin of power." In this it is seen how he scouted the democratic doctrine
of the New Testament, the sovereignty of the churches, and it accounts for his method of paternal
control of the societies, as has been shown; the pyramid standing upon its apex. He attacks the origin
of power in the people with taunts and withering sarcasm; these, perhaps, in lieu of argument; for
the only one he offers is the illogical one, that the theory cannot be sound and its practice possible
unless carried to its logical ultimate, and every man, woman, and child be made a voter for
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constituting parliamentary and governmental cabinets. Today, in England, his tract would be
estimated a rank heresy by suffrage-exercising Englishmen, while in America, the people are the very
foundation of the Republic. But Wesley was neither the first nor the last to demonstrate the
unwisdom of political preachers, for he blundered in every instance: his Address to the King during