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Description
Marriott asks for Chase's opinion of a work he sent him and informs Chase of recent complaints brought against George Montgomery West.
Date
6-28-1827
City
London
Keywords
George Montgomery West, Mark Robinson, Lord Kenyon, Methodists, Episcopal Watchman
Recommended Citation
Marriott, G.W., "Letter to Philander Chase" (1827). Philander Chase Letters. 558.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/chase_letters/558
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Transcript
Queen-Sq
28th June 1827
My dear and venerated Friend
My last was dispatched only a few hours before the arrival of yours of the 23rd May, for which I heartily thank you. You have kindly attached my name to a more dignified subject than that to which it was originally attached. When I first heard of my American immortality, it was as giving name to a Brook. I feel either of the compliments quite undeserved, but do not wish to disguise my gratification in being enlisted with those, who
“sin memores alios fecêre merendo.”
I read your letter to Mr [Startwell] Horne. He expressed feelings which do him infinite credit, and I really think he would have been in your service, had he been a Bachelor, and a free Agent. He said he was particularly glad to read what you said of Bishop Brownell, as he (before he was a Bishop) was an assistant Minister to Bishop Hobart, and the latter had contributed greatly to his being raised to the Episcopate.
You will be amused not a little, if you meet Mr Baury, with his account of Dr Gaskin’s sensibility on hearing from him that you told him Dr Walls had inhabited the Rectory. It was the Manor-House (then owned by a Sir John Hartopp, on whose death and that of his Lady Dr Walls wrote his famous Sermons called Death and Heaven) in which the pious Presbyterian Minister occupied for 45 years a study and bedroom, which to this day are shewn as his, and in the latter of which he died.
I am very curious to know your estimate of a work I sent you in the box from Holland’s by Lewis Way, and a Sermon on the first Resurrection by Mr Hawtrey, one of the Secretaries of the Society for converting the Jews. I did not assent to everything in it—I remember one of my doubts was on his interpretation of “thy Kingdom come.” But in the main I approved it, and very much delighted in it. I think he truly states the generally received view of the future state, and confess it was my own, as derived from all the reputed sources of Orthodoxy in this Country throughout my life. I was led by a very uncommon impulse, derived from my visions during my most frightful illness in 1825, to a study of the Revelations, and so to that of the Millennium, and the first Resurrection, which till then I had supposed to mean only the regenerate state of the soul on earth. I now think that the more perusal, without note or comment, of the 20th and 21st Chapters of Revelations is decisive that the Millennium is a fixed period of one thousand years commencing with the second advent of Christ—that a renovation of the earth will take place, and continue between the first resurrection of the Saints and the final resurrection of all mankind—that the Earth, which fell with man into corruption, shall be stored with him—that the curse shall be entirely reversed, and the earth become the seat of future happiness, before the state of angelical and everlasting happiness takes place.
On the question of the importance of the doctrine, it is impious to doubt, if it be revealed. But it sets many passages, which had previously puzzled me, in a clear light. The event has shewn that the Prophecies concerning the suffering advent of Christ ought to be understood in a literal sense. And why should those, which respect his exaltation and glorious reign, be understood in a figurative one?
I do not know how it has happened, but Lord K. has of late had to pay the ship postage on your letters. If you can correct this in future, I am sure you will do so. I have lately met a Brother of Mrs Stow of Greenwich, Captain Hurdis, who has derived great affection for you, and Ohio, from his Relatives, and declared to me that nothing but his wife’s bad health prevented him from setting out immediately towards you.
30th. Being unable to finish my letter, I have fallen very unexpectedly on a subject, which calls for a confidential communication to you, and gives me great pain. At the same time, I am cheered with a strong hope that all will blow over, seeing, as I clearly do, that a great disposition to excessive vituperation prevails among the Methodists. A Mr Mark Robinson, who has been a local Preacher among (what are called) the Church-Methodists, has printed and published some complaints against Mr West, for his conduct respecting a meeting-house at Hall, ascribing interested views, and fraudulent conduct to him. It is also strongly surmised that he lost the station of Preacher among the Irish Methodists by immorality of conduct. I do not permit these things to shake my mind respecting Mr West, till I know what he says to the charges, but as you have received him very favorably on account of the testimony Lord K. and myself sent of his character, I think it right to give this confidential caution without a moment’s delay, except that which a conference with Lord K. (who entirely concurs in the necessity of our apprising you) has occasioned. Mr M.R. (who has been in Town to solicit money) professes to know much of Mr West, and has referred me to some respectable people at Hull, and Beverley, as to his character. I intend to write to one or more of these gentlemen, and you shall know the result. Mr R. is under some irritation of mind at having lost his Preachership, and trade as a Draper, he says, merely because he advocated a plan for restoring the Methodists as a body to John Wesley’s original system, under which they were to continue as much Churchmen as ever. It is a very strange tale, and he, at present, is the only accuser of Mr West, who, on the other hand, appears to have many friends in Ireland, where he has chiefly lived, of all ranks, and had also most respectable credentials from Canada. I have not yet seen the last Diocesan Journals. Mr Wiggin lent them to Lord K. and his family have taken them to [Cowes], in the [Jule] of [Wight]. I have written there for them. I think the Engraving of the College is doing great good, and that the Journal—Episcopal Watchman—will prove a most desirable vehicle [of] intelligence between the Mother and Daughter Church. More than six copies of all the numbers taken weekly will come monthly to this Country, thro’ Miller the American Bookseller in Pall-Mall. You will be glad to hear that I have been able to remit £321 Sterling to Dr Gaddesden, as the profit on the two first Editions of [Debon]’s Sermons. Another Edition is now on sale, and I shall have a future sum to transmit.
I hope my dear wife and children will be able to meet with a house at Cowes, where the Kenyons are already, and the Parks are going. With our united most cordial love, and constant prayers for the good of you and all yours, I am ever, my dear and venerated friend,
Most devotedly and affectionately yours
G.W. Marriott