Man as Machine – the rise of the Methodists (2)

by Tarquin O’Flaherty continuing on from yesterday

The lower stratas of society, torn from a centuries old, unchanging and (to them) acceptable way of life, sought refuge in the irrational.  They went looking for Messiahs.  They began to believe, as I have said, that the return of the Lord was imminent and that the promised Utopia was at hand.  Little did they suspect how great a force would be ranged against their aspirations in the years to come.  In the meantime, religious lunatics were having a field day.

The spiritual attitude being demonstrated by these poor, uprooted people did not happen spontaneously.  It was a direct result of the massive spiritual revival that took place in England in the 18th century.

Hogarth’s famous drawing from this period entitled ‘Gin Lane’ is closer to reality than one can imagine.  It was generally held that early 18th century England was one vast casino, well lubricated with gin.  Thomas Carlyle, (1795-1881) the Scottish writer and polemicist, described England as being ‘…physically alive, but with a dead soul…’  A land, in fact, absolutely and dangerously wide open to the guilt peddling machinations of dog-collared Bible bashers, craw-thumpers and pulpit-pounders, who had the ear of God and knew what he wanted.

Without going into too great a detail, English 18th century intellectuals believed in Deism, a philosophical product of the Enlightenment, which rejected revelation and organized religion in favour of reason and observation.  They still believed in God, but also believed that God did not interfere with the natural world.

This attitude did not suit George Whitefield (or Whitfield) (1714-1770) an ordained Anglican priest, who had attended Oxford with John Wesley and his brother, James.  Together they believed that doctrine, liberally sprinkled with Calvinism, was everything and that Deism was, to all intents and purposes, heretical.  Ignoring the Established Church, which catered only to the Establishment, yet working from within it, Whitefield and Wesley preached to previously ignored groups, like miners and factory workers, farm hands and labourers who, not surprisingly, reacted positively to this new and welcome attention by gathering in increasingly large numbers at Whitefield’s outdoor revival meetings.

In 1738 Whitefield, the acknowledged founder of Methodism, attracted by the possibilities in the New World, at the age of 24, became a parish priest in Savannah, Georgia.  He met with such success in the US with his preaching that his time there is referred to as ‘The Great Awakening’.  Snowed under, he returned to England in 1740 and, with no time to continue his English work, and at odds with Wesley’s beliefs, he passed over his entire English ministry to Wesley and returned to the New World.

Simply put, early Whitefield Methodism was essentially Evangelical, with concern for the downtrodden, the halt and the lame as its principal reason for existence.  When Wesley took over the English ministry, he, like Whitefield, attracted thousands of people to his outdoor gatherings.  Good works continued at full speed but the emphasis markedly changed.  Wesley was a political Tory and his Toryism put him endlessly at odds with his followers.  Quite a number of 18th century religious movements in England may be traced directly to people who had fallen out with Wesley.  Perhaps this is why Cobbett speaks of Methodists (or at least of Wesley’s Methodists) in such disparaging terms.  The idea that the peasantry should put up with their suffering because they would ‘…get their reward in Heaven…’, obviously struck Cobbett as hypocritical nonsense specifically designed to keep the lower orders in their place and to show that Wesley’s Methodists were not only on the side of the angels but that of the  aristocracy as well.

Interestingly, out of  Whitefield’s Evangelicalism came the belief that society had not only a responsibility towards the poor, but indeed a duty.  This idea of one’s duty towards society is nowadays long out of fashion, but in the 18th and 19th century the very notion of duty was uppermost in many minds to the point (and with such effect) that many long established  inhuman ideas and practices were turned entirely on their heads.

William Wilberforce, (1759-1833) a lifelong reformer and a convinced Evangelical Christian, became the absolute power behind the drive in England to abolish slavery, and was greatly encouraged by Whitefield’s support and encouragement. Wilberforce died in 1833, two days after the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed, which abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

The other remarkable product of Whitefield’s ‘gentle Calvinism’, and there were many, was Anthony Ashley Cooper, (1801-1885)  Lord Shaftesbury, nephew to the Duke of Marlborough, who did remarkable things for both sane people, and lunatics. We shall hear more of Cooper presently.