Lady Maxwell, and Rev. John Wesley

I have mentioned in another place my meeting with Lady Maxwell in Bristol, and her engaging me to preach at Hope Chapel, at the Hotwells. (1789.)

This place of worship had been founded, and the cause advanced, by Lady Hope and Lady Glenorchy. The former (whose name it bears) died before its completion. This was also the case with her successor. Lady Glenorchy, on whose death it came into the hands of Lady Maxwell. She finished it, and opened it for the service of God; and had it supplied for some time by a succession of ministers; and managed by a selection of gentlemen from the several congregations in Bristol, two of whom in succession always attended on the Sabbath to arrange the affairs of the infant interest. But this plan was soon found very inconvenient and troublesome. It seemed desirable that the chapel should have a fixed minister. The trial was made, and it commenced with the Reminiscent.

Lady Maxwell was a very holy and pious woman, with a considerable tinge of enthusiasm in her constitution. Her Memoirs have been published in two volumes. Some of her religious views were peculiar, or not easily explained. She had a notion of communing with the Persons in the Divine Nature individually and separately, i. e., one day more particularly, if not exclusively, with the Father, another with the Son, and a third with the Holy Ghost. Has not Dr. Owen a little verged towards this in his work on ‘^ Communion with God.” But here it was not only admitted but pleaded for, as of great importance, and reaching the very acme of Christian experience.

Her ladyship was peculiarly attached to Mr. Wesley. Her doctrines, unless in the above articles, accorded entirely with his; but as these were not precisely the sentiments of the two foundresses of the place, who were Presbyterians, she determined it should not be said that she availed herself of her privilege to introduce them; and, by a very scrupulous delicacy, admitted none of Mr. “Wesley s preachers to officiate there, and not even himself.

The place had not long been opened when I undertook the service. A congregation was to be raised. Though young and immature, my labours were acceptable and useful; and while there the Lord gave me three converts, all of whom entered the ministry and laboured well. Here I remained for nearly twelve months; and, being pressed by her ladyship as well as the congregation, here I should perhaps have continued, but for a dispute with a good female whom her ladyship left to inanage the secular concerns of the place. It regarded her interfering with the ecclesiastical also. In this disagreement we were both to blame. Two things I learned from it, —

First, To prefer the government of females in the family rather than in the church; and.

Secondly, To observe on what slender things often hinge the most important events of our lives. This disagreement determined me to accept the invitation I had just then received from Bath.

During my stay at Hope Chapel, I had the honour and pleasure of dining at her L^dyships house with the venerable Mr. Wesley. He kindly noticed me, and inquired after Mr. Winter, adding, “Cornelius is an excellent man.^^ This was the more candid, as Mr. Winter, in a letter, a copy of which I have, had testified freely against some of Mr. Wesleys lADY MAXWELL AND THE REV. JOHN WESLEY. 413

opinions. At the first interview, there were in the company the Kev. Mr. More, one of Mr. Wesleys biographers, and several other preachers in his connexion; and among these was a Captain Well, deprived of one eye at the battle of Bunkers Hill, who held forth commonly without doors in regimentals. As I wished to hear Mr. “Wesley talk, nothing could be more mortifying than the incessant garrulity of this fanatical rodomontader; and I much wondered Mr. Wesley, who had such influence over his adherents, did not repress, or at least rebuke, some of his spiritual vagaries and supernatural exploits. Did this master in Israel think it harmless to tolerate a kind of visionary agency, and suppose that it was better for the common people to believe too much rather than too little?

At my second interview, among others was the Kev. Mr. Easterhoot, the vicar of Temple parish; one of the best men I ever knew; and at whose death, it is said, some respectful notice was taken of him in every pulpit in the City. He denied himself to an extreme to give to him that needeth, and was always going about doing good. As evidential of his liberality of mind, as well as of heart, when Mr. Hoskins, a dissenting minister, opened a large room for preaching in his extensive parish, he himself attended the opening; and embracing him before the people as he came out of the pulpit, said,” I thank you, my brother, for coming to my aid.^^ This very good man (for so he was) erred a little on the side of credulity and superstition. A few weeks before this, an extraordinary service, with fasting and prayer, had been held in his church, attended by several ministers in the Methodist connexion, to dispossess a supposed demoniac. This was John Lukins, who had exhibited some strange appearances, and uttered some kind of singular sounds, which his friends were unable physically to account for. The man was present at the service, and the spirit supposed to be in him was addressed, and in the name of Christ was ordered to come out of him. After some shrieks and contortions he became gentle, and exhibited nothing more of his former malady. I knew the man afterwards, and more than once relieved him. The case naturally excited even public attention, and gave rise to several pamphlets; the chief of which was written by an eminent surgeon in Bath, in whose native place Lukins was born.

I should not have related this, but it unfortunately engrossed the conversation for nearly the whole of the afternoon, and because, to my great surprise, Mr. Wesley seemed to admit the reality of the possession and dispossession, and to consider it as nothing less than a wonderful work of God. After tea I went with him in his carriage into Bristol, and heard him preach from Ephes. V. 8 — “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.^’ It was the only opportunity I ever had of hearing this truly apostolical man. The whole scene was very picturesque and striking. Several preachers stood in the large pulpit around him: the sermon was short, the language terse and good, but entirely devoid of expansion and imagery, while the delivery was low and unanimated. This surprised me. Was it the influence and effect of age? If it was originally the same, how came he to be so popular among the rude multitudes which always attended him, and so hung upon his lips? Whitfields voice and vehemence, and strong emotions, will in some measure account for the impressions he produced, even regardless of the grace of God which accompanied them. How popular and useful was Berridge! yet he had nothing of the vulgar orator in his manner; it was plain and unimpassioned. This was the case also with many of the original corps of evangelists.