cal school, the Church of
the Reformation period. He went back to far earlier times, and took for
his model in doctrine and worship the Primitive Church before its
divisions into East and West. Thus we find him recording with evident
satisfaction at Christmastide, 1774, 'During the twelve festival days we
had the Lord's Supper daily--_a little emblem of the Primitive
Church_.'[715] When he first appointed district visitors he looked with
great satisfaction upon the arrangement, because it reminded him of the
deaconesses of the Primitive Church. In the very act which tended most
of all to the separation of Wesley's followers from the Church he was
still led--or, as some will think, misled--by his desire to follow in
what he conceived to be the steps of the Primitive Church. His ideas of
worship are strictly in accordance with what would now be called High
Church usages. He would have no pews, but open benches alike for all; he
would have the men and the women separated, _as they were in the
Primitive Church_;[716] he would have a hearty congregational service.
When it was seasonable to sing praise to God, they were to do it with
the spirit and the understanding also; 'not in the miserable, scandalous
doggerel of Sternhold and Hopkins, but in psalms and hymns which are
both sense and poetry, such as would sooner provoke a critic to turn
Christian than a Christian to turn critic;' they were to sing 'not
lolling at their ease, or in the indecent posture of sitting, but all
standing before God, praising Him lustily and with a good courage;'
there was to be 'no repetition of words, no dwelling on disjointed
syllables.'[717] Wesley was much struck with the remarkable decorum with
which public worship was conducted by the Scotch Episcopal Church, which
has always been more inclined to High Church usages than her English
sister.[718] The Fasts and Festivals of the Church Wesley desired to
observe most scrupulously: every Friday was to be kept as a day of
abstinence; the very children at Kingswood school were, if healthy, to
fast every Friday till 3 P.M. All Saints' Day was his favourite
festival, and he made it his constant practice on that day to preach on
the Communion of Saints. He distinctly implies that he considers the
celebration of the Holy Communion an essential part of the public
service at least on every Lord's Day, and adduces this as a proof that
the service at his own meetings must necessarily be imperfect. From his