Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/313

Wesley , denied that he had administered the sacrament in his societies (‘and I believe I never shall’), claimed to be ‘a priest of the church universal,’ and to Butler's advice ‘to go hence,’ replied, ‘I think I can do most good here; therefore here I stay.’ He does not appear to have read the ‘Analogy’ till 21 Jan. 1746 (again, 20 May 1768). He thought it ‘far too deep’ for its purpose.

On 11 Nov. 1739 Wesley first preached at the Foundery (a long-disused government building for casting brass ordnance) in Windmill Hill (now Tabernacle Street, Finsbury Square), London. He afterwards bought the ruinous structure for 115l., repaired and enlarged it, and for a generation it was the headquarters of methodism in London, till superseded by the opening (2 Nov. 1778) of the City Road chapel (reopened after reconstruction, 1899). A little later, apparently 24 Dec. 1739 (cf. Journal, and Earnest Appeal, 1743), was the origination of the ‘united society,’ specially formed by Wesley himself, consisting first of eight or ten persons, who agreed to meet every Thursday evening. From this date (1739) Wesley usually counts the formation of the methodist societies, though sometimes from the Oxford society (1729), which had been followed by the Savannah society (April 1736) and by the Fetter Lane society (1738) with its offshoots in Bristol and elsewhere. Wesley's severance from this last organisation was due to the rise in it of a spirit of quietism, opposed to outward means of religious advance. He was excluded from the Fetter Lane chapel on 16 July 1740, withdrew from the society on 20 July, and transferred his own society to the Foundery on 23 July. It was not, however, till August 1745 that, by advertisement in the ‘Daily Advertiser,’ Hutton, acting upon Zinzendorf's order, formally declared that the Moravians had nothing to do with Wesley. They made fresh overtures to him in the following year.

Thus severed from his Moravian friends, he proceeded to dissociate himself from Calvinism by the publication this same year of his ‘free grace’ sermon (preached at Bristol); he had drawn lots to determine whether he should publish or not (, iii. 198). Whitefield replied in a ‘Letter,’ written on 24 Dec. 1740, and published in March 1741 in spite of Charles Wesley's remonstrance. Wesley would have been willing to work with Whitefield, but not on terms of silence respecting the points in dispute. ‘So there were now two sorts of methodists’ (, Works, viii. 335). The divergence produced the separate organisation (5 Jan. 1742–3) of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, founded (1738) by Howel Harris [q. v.] (Wesley attended their conference in January 1745–6), and the ‘Connexion,’ founded (about 1756) by Selina Hastings, countess of Huntingdon [q. v.] Wesley and Whitefield became personally reconciled in 1742; in January 1749–50 they conducted services together. Whitefield's funeral sermon, at his own desire, was preached by Wesley. The breach with Hervey did not occur till 1755. The controversy with Calvinism was resumed, in a very acute form, owing to Wesley's biting summary (March 1770) of the positions of Augustus Montague Toplady [q. v.], who had originally sided with him. Toplady's extreme virulence in reply caused Wesley (after 1771) to leave him in the hands of Walter Sellon; but the most powerful writing on Wesley's side was in the ‘Checks to Antinomianism’ (1771–5), by John William Fletcher or de la Flechere [q. v.] The dispute raged, with miserable personality, till Toplady's death, some months before which Wesley established (1 Jan. 1778) the ‘Arminian Magazine’ as an organ of his teaching. Moderate Calvinists, such as Charles Simeon [q. v.], never had any quarrel with Wesley (, iii. 510).

Standing clear of Moravian and Calvinistic allies, Wesley developed by degrees the organisation of his own movement. His first lay preacher was Joseph Humphreys, in 1738 (, Works, iv. 473), who seceded (April 1741) to the Calvinistic side. The next was John Cennick (1718–1755), who led (6 March 1740–1) ‘the first schism in methodist history’ (, i. 345). These failures naturally made Wesley cautious. Of Thomas Maxfield (d. 1783) he writes to his brother Charles (21 April 1741): ‘I am not clear that Brother Maxfield should not expound at Greyhound Lane; nor can I as yet do without him.’ Whitehead (i. 60) has a story of Wesley's acting on his mother's judgment in countenancing a lay-preacher; Moore (i. 506) says this was Maxfield, who left Wesley on 28 April 1763, led away by the millenary fanaticism of George Bell.

In forming by degrees a strong band of missionary preachers from the laity, Wesley was unconsciously working on the lines of Vavasor Powell [q. v.] and George Fox (1624–1691) [q. v.] But his preachers were to be communicants of the Anglican church, and their preachings were not to take the place of church services, but be ‘like the sermons at the university’ (Minutes, 1766). Wesley's own activity in the itinerant ministry would be unexampled were it not for the example of Fox. The class-meetings began in Bristol (15 Feb. 1741–2) on the