110 WHITFIELD'S DEFINITIONS OF METHODIST AND METHODISM.

made to honour. Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be justified freely, they be made the sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only begotten son Jesus Christ they walk religiously in good works; and at length by God's mercy, they attain everlasting felicity!' This is the true portraiture of a Methodist, drawn at full length, drawn to the very life, and that, too, not by an ignorant modern dauber, but by those good old skilful Scriptural limners, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, in the seventeenth Article of our Church." To this he adds, "If you should desire, Reverend Sir, a definition of Methodism itself, as well as of a Methodist, you may easily be gratified. It is no more nor less than faith working by love-a holy method of living and dying to the glory of God. It is a universal morality, founded upon the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost: or, to keep the exact terms made use of in the last collect of our excellent Liturgy, it is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, which we cannot go to church or chapel on Sundays, holidays, or other common days without praying, not that it may be driven from, but be with us all evermore." With peculiar acuteness he also argued, “If such proceedings be continued, which God forbid, what little credit may we suppose will hereafter be given to future University testimonials, namely, that the bearers of them have behaved studiously, soberly, and piously; and how must we in time be put under a disagreeable necessity of having a new, or at least altering some part of our most excellent ordination office? As it now stands, one of the questions proposed to every

candidate for holy orders runs thus, 'Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost?'--but if all students are to be expelled that sing hymns, pray extempore, attend upon, or expound a verse now and then in, a religious Church of England Society, should it not rather, Reverend Sir, be worded thus, namely, ‘Do ye trust that ye are not inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you the office and administration of the Church? You will excuse this freedom, Reverend Sir,

Agitur de vitâ et sanguine Turni.

Love to God, love to mankind in general, and love to that University, that Alma Mater where I had the honor of being educated, and, what is infinitely more, where I had the happiness of receiving the Spirit of God in my heart, altogether constrain me." This expostulation is as a whole one of the ablest declamatory productions of its celebrated author; and nothing can be well more severe than his inquiry, why, if some were to be expelled for extempore praying, some few others were not expelled for extempore swearing!" Powerful as this letter is, it does not enter into the history of the case, a deficiency supplied by the Pietas Oxoniensis, which was dedicated in very gentlemanlike terms to the chancellor of the University, the Earl of Lichfield, who had testified his approbation of the readmission of Mr. Grove to his college, but was actually opposed by the vice-chancellor and his assessors. Mr. Richard Hill gave, as far as he was able, a narrative of the entire proceedings, and examined the nature of the articles of accusation, exposing their unfairness, as well as the undue severity of the sentence of expulsion for acts of piety, when it was well known that the grossest immorality, instead of being punished, formed the frequent subject of indecent.

mirth. He particularly remarked upon the character of a witness named Welling, who was reported to have made some flippant and sneering observations respecting the credibility of the miracles of the Old and New Testament, and who was known in the Hall by the name of "the Infidel." It was denied, however, that such was his true character, and an apology was made for him, Mr. Hill asserts, to the vice-chancellor, that when he called believers in miracles either "knaves or fools," he was unfortunately overcome with wine at the feast called "St. John's Gaudy." He was afterwards, it is admitted, convened before the vice-chancellor and others, and "after going through the farce of asking pardon in Latin' for what he had said, was dismissed with a gentle reprimand!" After canvassing the accusations brought against the expelled students, and giving an explanation of their proceedings, Mr. Hill proceeded in his pamphlet to examine at some length, the doctrines for which they were condemned, with a view to prove that "they were the very fundamental doctrines of the Church of England, and what they who passed the sentence, had in the most sacred manner bound themselves to defend." I confess that though he proves that the Reformation truths opposed are contained in the pandect of our Church's doctrine, he would have written much more effectively if he had taken them simply on their own broad scriptural basis, instead of calling them by any other name in order that he might attack the notions of Arminians. He weakened his cause and prejudiced many of his readers by this course, as well as by the levity he mingled with his gravest arguments—a fault both he and his brother Mr. Rowland Hill were too apt

:

1 This was not correct his apology and confession of intoxication were made in English, as will be shortly seen.

DR. NOWELL'S REPLY TO MR. HILL.

113

to commit. It was, however, not peculiar to them alone; for almost every author who wrote against the errors and prejudices of those times, has fallen into it. It disfigures throughout, a work of great acuteness, -Berridge's Christian World Unmasked. Mr. Richard Hill, however, fairly admitted that the Arminians against whom he wrote, were not so much of the school of Arminius himself, as of Bishop Laud; and declares, that if he was asked what they held, the only answer he could make, must be that made to the same question when they first began to get footing in the country, "they hold many good livings among us, and it is likely they will soon hold all the fat benefices in the kingdom." Upon the vantage ground where Mr. Hill stood, he had no need of any other weapon but the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. His mode of arguing unhappily roused many hostile feelings, in persons who would otherwise have been wholly on his side, some of whom, while they admitted the excellent intention and force of his pamphlet,' actually replied to his opinions on religious topics, and caused a controversy which exceedingly weakened the impression that might have been most extensively made upon the public mind, in favour of the young sufferers in the cause of piety.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Mr. Hill's appeal in behalf of the expelled students was so effective, that it called forth an answer from Dr. Nowell, one of their judges, principal of St. Mary's Hall, and public orator of the University. He commenced with assuming that because Mr. Whitfield was their first champion," the complexion and characters" of those young men were so" strongly marked" thereby, that a conviction from

1 Pietas Oxoniensis.

I

114

MR. HIGSON'S COPY OF THE ACCUSATIONS.

this very circumstance must take place upon "the sober part of mankind, of the propriety and expedience of that censure which they had incurred." The spirit of his judgment, and the logic of his reasoning, seem pretty much upon a par here, though he declared that his conclusions were derived solely from the evidence which came before him. He warmly vindicated Mr. Higson, who had received the thanks of the Vice-Chancellor and his Assessors; he also defended the refusal to allow the young men a copy of the articles of accusation. These he gave in his pamphlet, with minutes of the evidence that convicted them, in his view, of crimes worthy of the punishment inflicted.

I have been favoured with Mr. Higson's' own manuscript, of the charges brought against the six students of his College, from which it appears they were as follows:

1. That James Matthews, Thomas Jones, and Joseph Shipman were bred to trades; and that the three last mentioned persons, and also Erasmus Middleton, and Benjamin Blatch were, at the respective times of their entrance in the said Hall, and at present are, destitute of such a knowledge in the learned languages as is necessary for performing the usual exercises of the said Hall, and of the University.

2. That Benjamin Kay, James Matthews, Thomas Jones, Thomas Grove, Erasmus Middleton, and Joseph Shipman are enemies to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, which appeareth either by their preaching or expounding in, or frequenting, illicit conventicles, and by several other actions and expressions contrary to the statutes of the University and the laws of this realm.

1 This favour was obligingly conferred on me by the gentleman to whom they belong.