cious,) Wesley said, in the Conference of 1771, "Take heed to your doctrine! we have leaned too much toward Calvinism. 1. With regard to man's faithfulness: our Lord himself taught us to use the expression, and we ought never to be ashamed of it. 2. With regard to working for life: this also our Lord has expressly commanded us. Labour, Egyαle, literally, work for the meat that endureth to everlasting life. 3. We have received it as a maxim, that a man is to do nothing in order to justification. Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favour with God, should cease from evil, and learn to do well. Whoever repents, should do works meet for repentance. And if this is not in order to find favour, what does he do them for? Is not this salvation by works? Not by the merit of works, but by works as a condition. What have we then been disputing about for these thirty years? I am afraid about words. As to merit itself, of which we have been so dreadfully afraid, we are rewarded according to our works, yea, because of our works. How does this differ from for the sake of our works? And how differs this from secundum merita operum, as our works deserve? Can you split this hair? I doubt I cannot.-Does not talking of a justified or sanctified state tend to mislead men? almost naturally leading them to trust in what was done in one moment; whereas we are every hour, and every moment, pleasing or displeasing to God, according to our works; according to the whole of our inward tempers, and our outward behaviour."

This language, candid, frank, and reasonable as it is, in every way honourable to Mr. Wesley, shocked the high-flying Calvinists. The alarm was taken at Trevecca; and, notwithstanding the specious liberality which had been professed, Lady Huntingdon declared, that whoever did not fully disavow these minutes, must quit the college. The students and masters were called upon to deliver their sentiments in writing, without reserve. The superintendent, in so doing, explained, vindicated, and approved the doctrine of Mr. Wesley, though he considered the wording as unguarded, and not suf

ficiently explicit; and he resigned his appointment accordingly, wishing that the Countess might find a minister to preside there less insufficient than himself, and more willing to go certain lengths in party spirit.

Jean Guillaume de la Flechere, who thus withdrew from Trevecca, was a man of rare talents, and rarer virtue. No age or country has ever produced a man of more fervent piety, or more perfect charity; no church has ever possessed a more apostolic minister. He was born at Nyon, in the Pays de Vaud, of a respectable Bernese family, descended from a noble house in Savoy. Having been educated for the ministry at Geneva, he found himself unable to subscribe to the doctrine of predestination, and resolved to seek preferment as a soldier of fortune. Accordingly he went to Lisbon, obtained a commission in the Portuguese service, and was ordered to Brazil. A lucky accident, which confined him to his bed when the ship sailed, saved him from a situation where his fine intellect would have been lost, and his philanthropic piety would have had no room to display itself. He left Portugal for the prospect of active service in the Low Countries, and that prospect also being disappointed by peace, he came over to England, improved himself in the language, and became tutor in the family of Mr. Hill, of Fern Hall, in Shropshire. The love of God and of man abounded in his heart; and finding, among the Methodists, that sympathy which he desired, he joined them, and, for a time, took to ascetic courses, of which he afterwards acknowledged the error. He lived on vegetables, and, for some time, on milk and water, and bread; he sat up two whole nights in every week, for the purpose of praying, and reading and meditating on religious things; and, on the other nights, never allowed himself to sleep, as long as he could keep his attention to the book before him. At length, by the advice of his friends, Mr. Hill, and of Mr. Wesley, whom he consulted, he took orders in the English church. The ordination took place in the Chapel-Royal, St. James's, and, as soon

as it was over, he went to the Methodist chapel in West-street, where he assisted in administering the Lord's Supper. Wesley had never received so seasonable an assistance. "How wonderful are the ways of God!" said he, in his Journal. When my bodily strength failed, and none in England were able and willing to assist me. He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerlaud, and an help meet for me in every respect. Where could I have found such another!" It proved a more efficient and important help than Mr. Wesley could then have anticipated.

Mr. Fletcher (for so he now called himself, being completely anglicised,) incurred some displeasure, by the decided manner in which he connected himself with the Methodists: neither his talents nor his virtues were yet understood beyond the circle of his friends. By Mr. Hill's means, however, he was presented to the vicarage of Madely, in Shropshire, about three years after his ordination. It is a populous village, in which there were extensive collieries and iron works; and the character of the inhabitants was, in consequence, what, to the reproach and curse of England, it generally is, wherever mines or manufactures of any kind have brought together a crowded population. Mr. Fletcher had, at one time, officiated there as curate; he now entered upon his duty with zeal proportioned to the arduous nature of the service which he had pledged himself to perform. That zeal made him equally disregardful of appearances and of danger. The whole rents of his small patrimonial estate in the Pays de Vaud were set apart for charitable uses, and he drew so liberally from his other funds for the same purpose, that his furniture and wardrobe were not spared. Because some of his remoter parishioners excused themselves for not attending the morning service, by pleading that they did not wake early enough to get their families ready, for some months he set out every Sunday, at five o'clock, with a bell in his hand, and went round the most distant parts of the parish, to call up the people. And wherever hearers could be collect

ed in the surrounding country, within ten or fifteen miles, thither he went to preach to them on week days, though he seldom got home before one or two in the morning. At first, the rabble of his parishioners resented the manner in which he ventured to reprove and exhort them in the midst of their lewd revels and riotous meetings; for he would frequently burst in upon them, without any fear of the consequence to himself. The publicans and maltmen were his especial enemies. A mob of colliers, who were one day baiting a bull, determined to pull him off his horse as he went to preach, set the dogs upon him, and, in their own phrase, bait the parson; but the bull broke loose, and dispersed them before he arrived. In spite, however, of the opposition which his eccentricities excited, not from the ignorant only, but from some of the neighbouring clergy and magistrates, he won upon the people, rude and brutal as they were, by the invincible benevolence which was manifested in his whole manner of life; till at length his church, which at first had been so scantily attended, that he was discouraged as well as mortified by the smallness of the congregation, began to overflow.

Such was the person who, without any emolument, had undertaken the charge of superintending, in occasional visits, the college at Trevecca, and who withdrew from that charge when Lady Huntingdon called upon all persons in that seminary to disavow the doctrines of Mr. Wesley's minutes, or leave the place. He had at that time no intention or apprehension of taking any further part in the dispute. Shortly afterwards the Honourable Walter Shirley, one of her Ladyship's chaplains, and of the Calvinistic clergy who had formed a party under her patronage, sent forth a circular letter, stating, that whereas Mr. Wesley's next Conference was to be held at Bristol, it was proposed by Lady Huntingdon, and many other Christian friends, to have a meeting in that city at the same time, of such principal persons, both clergy and laity, who disapproved of the obnoxious minutes; and, as the doctrines therein avow

ed were thought injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity, it was further proposed, that these persons should go in a body to the Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said minutes, and, in case of a refusal, sign and publish their protest against them. "Your presence, Sir," the letter proceeded, "is particularly requested; but if it should not suit your convenience to be there, it is desired that you will transmit your sentiments on the subject to such person as you think proper to produce them. It is submitted to you, whether it would not be right, in the opposition to be made to such a dreadful heresy, to recommend it to as many of your Christian friends, as well of the Dissenters as of the established Church, as you can prevail on, to be there, the cause being of so public a nature." Lodgings were to be provided for the persons who attended.

The proceedings were not so furious as might have been expected from a declaration of war like this. The heat of the Calvinistic party seemed to have spent itself in the first explosion. Mr. Wesley was truly a man of peace; and when the Conference and the anti-council met, the result, unlike that of most other pitched disputations upon points of theology, was something like an accommodation. The meeting was managed with perfect temper on both sides, and with a conciliatory spirit on the part of Shirley himself; a man whose intentions were better than his judgment. Mr. Wesley and the Conference declared, that, in framing the obnoxious minutes, no such meaning was intended as was imputed to them. "We abhor," they said, "the doctrine of justification by works, as a most perilous and abominable doctrine; and as the said minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we hereby solemnly declare, in the sight of God, that we have no trust or confidence but in the alone merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, for justification or salvation, either in life, death, or the day of judgment; and though no one is a real Christian believer (and consequently cannot be saved) who doth not good works, where