1 
 
 ( ~ 
 
 n 
 i-t 
 
 #* I 
 
 *. , ' lb - 
 
 /
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 or THE 
 
 f^.- "* r
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 or THE 
 
 WESLEY FAMILY; 
 
 
 COLLECTED PRINCIPALLY 
 
 - 
 
 FROM ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. 
 
 * 
 BY ADAM CLARKE, LL. D., F. A. S. 
 
 NEW-YORK, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY J. EMORY AND B. WAUGH, FOR THE METHODIST 
 
 EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE CONFERENCE OFFirK, 
 
 NO. 14 CROSBY-STREET. 
 
 J. Collord, Printer. 
 1933, 


 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DURING the time in which men, eminent for their 
 literary, diplomatic, or military talents flourish, the 
 public is rarely led to examine by what slow grada- 
 tions their powers became matured ; or what evidence 
 their infancy and youth afforded of that high celebrity 
 which they afterward attained. 
 
 The great utility of their literary labours, or the 
 splendour of their public services, occupies and dazzles 
 the mind, so that all minor considerations become 
 absorbed ; and it is only when the public is deprived 
 by death of such illustrious characters, that posterity 
 feel disposed to trace them up to their earliest period ; 
 and inquire by what means these luminaries, so small 
 at their rising, attained to such a meridian of usefulness 
 and glory, and appeared so broad and resplendent at 
 their setting. 
 
 This is equally the case both with states and men : 
 hence the historian as well as the biographer, influ- 
 enced by the maxim, Felix qui potuit rerum cognos- 
 cere causas, endeavours to investigate those philosophic 
 and intellectual principles which gave birth and being 
 to such physical, political, and mental energies. 
 
 THAT Divine providence, which arranges and con- 
 ducts the whole, and under whose especial guidance 
 and control the course of the present state is ordered, 
 so that all operations in the natural, civil, and moral 
 world issue in manifesting the glory, justice, and 
 mercy, of the Supreme Being, lies farther out of the view 
 of men, and by most is little regarded : hence a multi- 
 tude of events appear to have either no intelligent cause, 
 or none adequate to their production ; and because the 
 operations of the Divine hand are not regarded, histo. 
 
 2052059
 
 'INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rians and biographers often disquiet themselves in vain 
 to find out the causes and reasons of the circumstances 
 and transactions which they record. 
 
 In the dispensations of mercy to the world, and the 
 effects produced by them, the principles from which all 
 originated, the agencies employed, and the mode of 
 working, are still more difficult of apprehension, par- 
 ticularly to those minds which regard earthly things, 
 and see nothing in the natural and moral world but 
 general laws, of which they do not appear to have any 
 very distinct view ; and which never can account for 
 the endlessly varied occurrences in a single human life, 
 much less in a state, and still less in the government 
 of the Church. By the government of the Church, I 
 mean the continuation of that energetic and superna- 
 tural principle by which pure and undefiled religion, 
 consisting in piety to God and benevolence to man, is 
 maintained in the earth. There has been an unhappy 
 propensity in all times to deny the existence of this 
 principle, and its operations on the minds and hearts of 
 men ; and this has been the fruitful source both of irre- 
 ligion and false doctrine: and hence the Church of God 
 often feels the necessity of contending earnestly for 
 the faith once delivered to the saints. 
 
 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 
 This has a greater extension of meaning than is gene- 
 rally allowed : it does not merely apply to the denial of 
 the existence of one Supreme Being, but also to his in- 
 fluences and operations, even where his being is allowed. 
 When moral effects, the purest, the most distinguished, 
 and the most beneficial to society, are attributed to 
 natural causes, human passions, and the inquietudes of 
 vanity, and not to the Jluthor of all good, the Father of 
 lights, then 'we may safely assert, that the person who 
 so views them is one of those unwise men of whom the
 
 IXTRODUCTIOX. 
 
 psalmist speaks. He excludes God from his own 
 peculiar work ; gives to nature what belongs to grace ; 
 to human passions, what belongs to the Divine Spirit ; 
 and to secondary causes what must necessarily spring 
 from the First Cause of all things. 
 
 Were not the subject too grave, it would be sufficient 
 to excite something more than a smile to see men both 
 of abilities and learning, in their discussion of spiritual 
 subjects which they have never thoroughly examined, 
 because they have never experimentally felt them, 
 labour to account for all the phenomena of repentance, 
 faith, and holiness, by excluding the Spirit of God from 
 his own proper work ; and, to the discredit of their 
 understanding and the dishonour of religion and sound 
 philosophy, search for the principle that produces love 
 to God and all mankind, with all the fruits of a holy 
 life, in some of the worst passions of the human heart. 
 
 In reference to a great and manifest revival of religion 
 in the land we have heard the following concessions : 
 
 " It is granted, (say such men,) that multitudes of the 
 most profligate of the people have been morally changed ; 
 and, from being a curse to their respective neighbour- 
 hoods, have become a blessing to the whole circle of 
 their acquaintance ; the best of servants, sons, and 
 husbands ; obedient subjects to the state, and a credit 
 to humanity." But how was this change effected ? 
 "Why," say they, " by the persuasive arguments of a 
 powerful orator ; who, to the love of power and the 
 lust of ambition, added extraordinary address and gene- 
 ral benevolence. With a strong tincture of enthusiasm 
 in himself, which found a tractable disposition in the 
 fanaticism of the age, and the credulity of the common 
 people ; he succeeded in raising, organizing, and 
 rendering permanent, a society of increasing influence 
 and importance ; the pfinciples of which deserve the
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 investigation of the statesman and the philosopher, and 
 their economy and progress the pen of the historian." 
 
 Thus the good done is reluctantly acknowledged ; 
 while the cause of it is either entirely unnoticed, or un- 
 known. A fountain is pointed out which produces sweet 
 waters and bitter ; brambles which produce figs, and 
 thorns which produce grapes ; or in other words, that 
 work which neither might nor power, but the Spirit of 
 the Lord of hosts alone can effect, is attributed to a 
 certain mechanical operation on the minds of the multi- 
 tude by the agency of worldly ambition, lust of power, 
 self-interest, and hypocrisy ! 
 
 Thus has the world been often abused in reference 
 to the work of God by ignorant, irreligious, and preju- 
 diced men, from the foundation of Christianity to the 
 present time : but never more, and never more grossly, 
 than in relation to the Rev. John Wesley and that great 
 revival of Scriptural Christianity which it has pleased 
 the world to call Methodism, and the subjects of which 
 it terms Methodists, appellatives which the members 
 of that religious society bear, not because they have 
 either chosen or approved of them, but because the 
 public will have it so. 
 
 The fame of Mr. Wesley's labours, writings, and 
 success in the ministry, has reached most parts of the 
 habitable globe ; and wherever his name has been 
 heard, a desire has very naturally been excited to know 
 something of his origin and personal history, and of the 
 rise and progress of that work of which he was, under 
 God, the author, and for more than half a century the 
 great superintendent and conductor. To meet this^ 
 desire, various lives and memoirs, possessing different 
 degrees of merit and accuracy, have been published : 
 but in most cases by authors either ill-informed or pre- 
 judiced. To some of those writers Mr. Wesley was
 
 V, 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 never personally known : and they were obliged to 
 collect their information from such quarters as were 
 but ill-calculated to give what was correct : by others 
 the whole system of Methodism was misunderstood ; 
 and no wonder if by them it were misrepresented. 
 Most of the narratives referred to were published shortly 
 after Mr. Wesley's death, before the great principles, 
 both religious and economical, of Methodism could 
 have been put to that full and extensive test to which 
 they have since been subjected ; and hence the Metho- 
 dists' conference have been led to determine that the 
 present matured state of this great work, and the bene- 
 ficent operation of those principles, should be brought 
 before the public, exhibited in their own light ; and 
 that a new history of the founder of Methodism should 
 be compiled from original documents, many of which 
 had not been seen by his previous biographers ; the 
 whole being intended to give a correct view of his 
 character and labours in connection with the present 
 matured state of that work of which the Most High 
 God had made him the chief instrument. The com- 
 piler of the present work was requested by the con- 
 ference in 1821 to undertake this task. With oppress- 
 ive feelings, from a deep sense of his own unfitness, 
 he reluctantly acceded, and began to collect and arrange 
 his materials. While thus employed, a number of 
 documents relative to the Wesley Family presented 
 themselves to view ; and as some hinderances were un* 
 expectedly found to exist, which prevented the writer 
 from proceeding with the Life of Mr. John Wesley, 
 and that of his brother Charles, the companion of his 
 early labours, he was induced to turn his attention to the 
 few remaining memorials of the Wesley Family, princi- 
 pally in his own possession, which time was every mo- 
 ment rendering less and less perfect and legible ; many
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of which had been badly kept while passing through 
 hands that had little interest in their preservation. To 
 render these as complete as the circumstances of the 
 case would admit, great pains were taken to collect 
 from the few remaining contemporaries of the Wesley 
 Family, and their immediate descendants, every authen- 
 tic anecdote that had been preserved of the original 
 stock and collateral branches of this wondrous tree, 
 whose shade has been extended over various parts of 
 the four quarters of the globe, and under which fowl 
 of every wing have been collected, and found shelter. 
 Had this work been undertaken even thirty years ago, 
 the result would have been much more satisfactory ; 
 as at that time many were alive who had seen the cloud, 
 arise, and could have supplied the most useful infor- 
 mation. But regrets relative to this are vain these 
 are all dead : fourscore and eight years were sufficient 
 to have swept off all those who had entered into life, 
 when God began to pour out his Spirit to produce 
 that reformation in the land which has been since term- 
 ed Methodism ; and more than sufficient to gather into 
 eternal habitations those who had been the original 
 subjects and witnesses of this blessed work. 
 
 As to the original family, it is most probable that all 
 memorials are lost, except those preserved in the fok 
 lowing sheets. These cannot be unacceptable to the 
 Methodists, nor uninteresting to the religious public ; 
 and both will possibly join in thankfulness for what 
 has been done, and in candidly passing over any inad- 
 vertencies or mistakes which they may discover in the 
 work. 
 
 If it bear the marks of haste and carelessness, the 
 reader may rest assured thatnone of these either prevail- 
 ed or existed in the course of this undertaking ; long 
 continued labour precluded haste, and deep anxiety to
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 be accurate and useful precluded carelessness. But 
 whoever considers the difficulty of not only collecting, 
 but of arranging, bits and scraps, verbal communications 
 and items, from a thousand different quarters, will not 
 wonder should they find a few mistakes ; and in va- 
 rious parts an inadequacy of composition, should that 
 approach even to a flatness of diction and poverty of 
 language. 
 
 To those for whose use these Memoirs were chiefly 
 intended, it will be no matter of surprise that the writer 
 should appear the constant advocate of Methodism, the 
 admirer of its doctrines and discipline, and also of the 
 means employed in its propagation. 
 
 But while he adores the grace of God which has 
 produced those wondrous and beneficent results which 
 have fallen under his own notice for nearly fifty years, 
 he hopes that it will not be supposed that he is hostile 
 to any person who thinks differently from himself on 
 this subject; and much less to any body of Christians 
 whose creed may be in any respect different from his 
 own. He sincerely wishes them all God's speed ; and 
 is thankful to God when he sees the interests of genu- 
 ine Christianity promoted, though by persons who fol- 
 low not with him. 
 
 To all those who have contributed original docu- 
 ments and other information for the use of these 
 Memoirs, he returns his best thanks : but here he should 
 acknowledge that he stands chiefly indebted to his ex- 
 cellent friend, Miss Sarah Wesley, for her continual 
 assistance ; to the venerable and reverend Thomas 
 Steadman, rector of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury ; to Tho- 
 mas Marrioft, Esq., London; and to the honourable 
 person from whom he received those important letters, 
 that have thrown so. much light on the early history of 
 the rector of Epworth. 
 
 2
 
 FACSIMILES OF THE WESLEY FAMILY, ETC. 
 
 At the desire of several particular friends, I have added a plate of Fac-similes of 
 the Wesley Family, and of some of Mr. J. Wesley's early friends among the Mo- 
 ravians and others. The following explanatory list refers to the numbers and sig- 
 natures on the plate. A. C. 
 
 * The Rev. Samuel Annesley, LL. D. 
 No. 1. Mr. Samuel Annesley, eldest son of Dr. Samuel Annesley. 
 
 2. The Rev. Samuel Wesley, sen., rector of Epworth. 
 
 3. Mrs. Susanna Wesley, mother of the Rev. J. Wesley. 
 
 4. The Rev. Samuel Wesley, jun., master of the Free School, 
 
 Tiverton. 
 
 5. The Rev. John Wesley, founder of the Methodists' Societies. 
 
 6. The Rev. Charles Wesley, brother to the above. 
 
 7. Mehetabel, alias Hetty Wesley, afterward Mrs. Wright. 
 
 8. Martha, alias Patty Wesley, afterward Mrs. Hall. 
 
 9. Kezia W r esley. 
 
 10. Emelia Wesley, afterward Mrs. Harper. 
 
 11. The Rev. John Wesley's last entry in his private Journal. 
 
 As the writing is not easy to be read, I give it here : 
 " JV. B. For upu'ards of eighty-six years (qu. sixty-eight?) 
 / have kept my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any 
 longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction, that 
 J save all I can, and give all I can, that is, all 1 have. John 
 Wesley. July 16, 1790. 
 
 12. The Rev. John Wesley's last Signature in the Journal of the 
 
 Conference. 
 
 13. The Rev. George Whitefield. 
 
 14. The Rev. John Fletcher, vicar of Madeley. 
 
 15. Mr. John Cennick, afterward one of the Unitas Fratrum. 
 
 16. The Rev. Thomas Coke, LL. D. 
 
 17. Mr. Benjamin Ingham. 
 
 18. P. H. Molther, one of the Unitas Fratrum. , 
 
 19. The Rev. Wm. Delamotte. 
 
 20. General James Oglethorpe, with whom Messrs. J. and C. 
 
 Wesley sailed to Savannah, in Georgia. 
 
 21. The Rev. John Gillies, D. D. 
 
 22. The Rev. Walter Shirley.
 
 HISTORY OF THE ACT OF UHIFORMlTt., 15 
 
 Dr. -EeTe, dean of Westminster ; Peter Heylin, D. D. ; John 
 Hackett, D. D. ; John Bencick, D. D. ; Peter Gunning, D. D. ; John 
 Pearson, D. D. ; Thomas Pierce ; Anthony Sparrow ; Herbert Thorn- 
 dyke, D. D. 
 
 Thomas Horton, D. D. ; Thomas Jacomb, D. D. ; William Bale, 
 John Raiclinson, clerks ; William Cooper, clerk ; Dr. John Lightfoot ; 
 Dr. John Collings ; Dr. Benjamin Woodbridg ; and William Drake, 
 clerk. 
 
 The first list, containing eleven BISHOPS, with the ARCHBISHOP of 
 York ; and the second list containing eleven DISSENTERS, are properly 
 the commissioners to try this cause. The third list, beginning with Dr. 
 Earles and ending with Dr. Thorndyke, was a list of reserve, to supply 
 the place of any of the bishops, absent or ill. And the fourth list, begin- 
 ning with Dr. Thomas Horton, and ending with William Drake, was a 
 similar list to supply the place of any absent Dissenters. Thus we 
 find the commissioners were fairly divided, ELEVEN bishops, and 
 ELEVEN dissenting ministers; each party having NINE substitutes, in 
 case of necessity : the archbishop of York was the president. Among 
 these commissioners on both sides were some of the most learned and 
 eminent men in the kingdom. 
 
 As this arrangement was made by the king and his privy council, 
 and the parties on each side were made equal in number, with an equal 
 number of proxies for each, it is most evident that the king expected 
 the matters in dispute to be settled by a majority of votes, in conse- 
 quence of each article being fully and fairly discussed. But this was 
 the fartherest thing from the minds of the bishops ; they were deter- 
 mined to yield nothing, but carry every thing their own way . and the 
 easy king, intent on nothing but his sinful pleasures, made no remon- 
 strance, but permitted them to act as they pleased. The consequence 
 was, the^true pastors of the flock were expelled from the fold ; and 
 hirelings, who cared more for the fleece and the fat, than for the sheep, 
 climbed over the wall, and seized on flocks to which they had no right, 
 either divine or human ; and the people of God were either starved or 
 scattered. The Act of Uniformity soon followed, and became the act 
 of disorganization of the spiritual interests of the kingdom. 
 
 To the above-named commissioners a paper was presented, August 
 30, intituled, The exceptions of the Presbyterian brethren against some 
 passages in the Liturgy : accompanied by a very humble address, to 
 the most Rev. Archbishop and Bishops, and the Reverend their Assist- 
 ants, commissioned by his Majesty to treat about the alteration of the. 
 Common Prayer. 
 
 These exceptions at various sessions were taken into consideration : 
 but scarcely any concessions of moment were made by the episcopal 
 party. And the Presbyterians, in the answers given to their exceptions, 
 were often treated with great disrespect, and generally in a manner 
 little calculated to conciliate or bring about unanimity. 
 
 These several proceedings were delivered to the king by the bishop*, 
 and form one hundred and twenty-eight closely printed quarto pages. 
 
 It need scarcely be added that no agreement took place between the 
 parties ; and the Presbyterians judging themselves not fairly represent-
 
 16 HISTORY OF THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 
 
 ed, delivered a very moving petition to the king ; modestly stating their 
 grievances, and imploring his protection, reminding him of his promise, 
 that none should be punished or troubled for not using the Common 
 Prayer, till it should be effectually reformed. And foreseeing that a 
 rigorous Jlci of Uniformity was about to be made, they conclude thus : 
 We crave your majesty's pardon for the tediousness of this address, and 
 shall wait in hope that so great a calamity of your people, as will follow 
 the loss of so many able faithful ministers, as the rigorous imposition 
 would cast out, shall never be recorded in the history of your reign : but 
 that these impediments of concord being forborne, your kingdom may 
 flourish in piety and peace. That this may be the signal honour of 
 your happy reign, and your joy in the day of your account, is the prayer 
 of your majestifs faithful and obedient subjects. 
 
 Whether the king were disposed to favour them, or had forgotten his 
 promises, is, at this time, a matter of little importance. Every thing 
 was carried with a high and inconsiderate hand ; and the ACT OF UNI- 
 FORMITY was constructed on the grounds proposed by the bishops, and 
 passed into a LAW. 
 
 To save the reader the trouble of going elsewhere to consult this act, 
 as tedious and monotonous as it was oppressive, I shall here present 
 him with the sum and substance of it, as far as it affected the con- 
 sciences and privileges of the opposite party. 
 
 " Be it enacted, That all and singular ministers in any cathedral, 
 collegiate, or parish church or chapel, or other place of public worship, 
 Within this realm of England, dominion of Wales, and town of Berwick- 
 upon-Tweed, shall be bound to say and use the morning prayer, 
 evening prayer, celebration and administration of both the sacraments ; 
 and all other the public and common prayer, in such order and form, 
 as it is rnentioned in the said book annexed and joined to this present 
 act and intituled 
 
 " The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacra- 
 ments, and other rites and ceremonies of the Church, according to the 
 use of the Church of England : together with the Psalter or Psalms of 
 David, pointed as they a*e to be sung or said in churches : and the 
 form or manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, 
 priests, and deacons. 
 
 " And the morning and evening prayers therein contained shall upon 
 every Lord's day, and upon all other days and occasions, and at the 
 time therein appointed, be openly and solemnly read, by all and every 
 minister or curate, in every church or chapel, or other place of public 
 worship, within this realm of England and places aforesaid. 
 
 " Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that every parson, 
 vicar, or other minister whatsoever, who now hath and enjoyeth any 
 ecclesiastical benefice or promotion within this realm of England, or 
 places aforesaid, shall in the church, chapel, or place of public worship, 
 belonging to the said benefice or promotion, upon some day before the 
 Feast of Saint Bartholomew, (August 24,) which shall be in the year 
 of our Lord God 1662, openly, publicly, and solemnly read the morning 
 and evening prayer appointed to be read by, and according to the said 
 Book of Common Prayer, at the times thereby appointed : and aftei
 
 HISTORY OF THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 17 
 
 such reading thereof shall openly, and publicly, before the congrega- 
 tion there assembled, declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the 
 use, and all things in the said book contained and prescribed, in these 
 words and no other ; 
 
 "I, A. B., do hereby declare my unfeigned assent to all and 
 every thing contained and prescribed in and by the book, intituled, 
 The Book of Common Prayer and administration of the Sacra- 
 ments, and other rites and ceremonies of the Church of England ; 
 together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David, pointed as they are 
 to be sung or said in churches : and the form and manner of making, 
 ordaining, and consecrating of bishops, priests, and deacons. 
 " And that all and every such person who shall neglect or refuse to 
 do the same within the time aforesaid, shall ipso facto, be deprived of all 
 his spiritual promotions : and that from thenceforth it shall be lawful to 
 and for all patrons and donors of all and singular the said spiritual 
 promotions, or of any of them, according to their respective rights and 
 titles, to present or collate to the same, as though the person or persons 
 so offending or neglecting were dead. 
 
 " That no person shall be capable of being admitted to any parson- 
 age, &c, or to consecrate and administer the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper before such time as he shall be ordained priest by episcopal 
 ordination, upon pain to forfeit for every offence the sum of one hun- 
 dred pounds. 
 
 " That if any person who is by this act disabled to preach any lecture 
 or sermon shall, during the time that he shall continue and remain so 
 disabled, preach any sermon or lecture, that then for every stifh offence 
 the person and persons so offending shall suffer three months 1 imprison- 
 ment in the common jail, without bail or mainprise." 
 
 The same act required " every schoolmaster and private tutor to be 
 licensed by the archbishop or ordinary of the diocess, on the penalty, 
 for the first offence of three months' imprisonment ; and for every repeti- 
 tion of the offence, three months' imprisonment and five pounds to the 
 king." 
 
 I shall here beg leave to make a few remarks upon this act in reference 
 to the case of the persons shortly to be introduced to the reader's notice. 
 
 1. The act, whether considered good or bad politically, was an 
 absolute breach of the king's solemn declaration and engagement to 
 the Dissenters, and indeed to the nation, while he was at Breda, ns we 
 have already seen ; and argues that either he was a man of no moral 
 principle, had no regard to his honour nor to his promise, or that his 
 ministers were cruel and malicious men, who well knew the religious 
 scruples of many of his best friends, and how they must be in every 
 way injured by the passing of such an act. 
 
 2. The breach of promise made to the Dissenters was a most dan- 
 gerous measure, as it put to too severe a test the loyalty of a great part 
 of the nation, and served to widen the breach between them and the 
 Established Church; the rulers of which, they had too much reason to 
 believe, were the principal promoters of this measure. 
 
 3. The act required from every minister a solemn declaration, while 
 ministering in the presence of Almighty God, (more solemn, if possible, 
 
 3
 
 18 HISTORY OF THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 
 
 than any oath,) of his unfeigned assent to ALL and EVERY thing contained 
 in, and prescribed by, the Book of Common Prayer, the Psalter, as 
 there printed and pointed, and to all the rites and ceremonies therein 
 enjoined. Now this is more than any man can with a pure conscience 
 say of any human composition of devotion. The Bible alone, as it 
 came from God, can be thus safely acknowledged ; and not even a 
 translation of that most sacred book, nor any of the ancient Versions 
 in which it has been handed down to posterity. Though I regard the 
 Liturgy of the Church of England as the purest form of devotion ever 
 composed by man, and next in excellence to the inspired volume, yet 
 there are words and phrases in it to which I could not declare my assent ; 
 and as to the Psalter contained in that book, it is in many places a. false 
 and inefficient translation, foreign from the Hebrew verity, with the 
 insertion of a multitude of words which have nothing corresponding to 
 them in the original; while printed as if they were the words of the Holy 
 Spirit! And as to the pointing, it is generally barbarous, and often 
 destructive of the sense. What divine, who ever read a Psalm of 
 David in the original, could give his solemn assent to this composition 
 as it now stands ( 
 
 4. This act was intended as a snare to catch many upright men. 
 Many of the clergy of those times doubted greatly whether the hierachy 
 were exactly conformable to Scripture. Lord King's position that 
 bishops and presbyters were the same order was a very general opinion 
 among those afterward called Nonconformists ; and was the opinion of 
 the late Mr. John Wesley. These were fully convinced that ordination 
 by presbyters was a valid and Scriptural ordination ; and many of the 
 clergy at that time had none other. But the act, without Scripture or 
 reason, annuls and sweeps this away at a stroke ; and none is permitted 
 to minister in holy things unless episcopally ordained; an ordination 
 which not one of them could procure, unless he had been in every sense 
 a thorough conformist. 
 
 5. The act took upon it to restrain and destroy, as far as it could, 
 the spirit of prophecy, or the gift of Christian preaching. Many of 
 those excellent men believed themselves fully called of God to the work 
 of the ministry. But this act forbade them to preach unless they had 
 episcopal ordination ; and although a dispensation of the Gospel was 
 committed unto them, and God pronounced a wo on such as preached it 
 not ; yet one sermon or lecture of the person who did not, because he 
 could not, conform as above, was punished by three months 1 imprisonment 
 in the common jail ; and those who had the word of the Lord, and could 
 not be silent, were thus treated ; and with circumstances of relentless 
 rigour. 
 
 6. The act was not only persecuting, but unjust, as it deprived of the 
 means of subsistence men who were educated for this function ; who 
 had been regularly, according to the custom of the times, inducted and 
 employed in it, and had the subsistence of themselves and their families 
 from it. But in one day upward of two thousand of them were left 
 without a morsel of bread, because they would not defile their con- 
 sciences by solemnly affirming what they did not believe. 
 
 7. The act was cruel ; as it endeavoured to prevent them from getting
 
 HISTORY OP THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY. 19 
 
 their bread by public or private teaching, as schoolmasters and tutors, 
 unless licensed by the archbishop or ordinary of the diocess, under the 
 penalty of three montlis' imprisonment ; and for every repetition of this 
 offence, so called, three months' imprisonment and five pounds to the 
 king. And the reader may rest assured that the minister who could 
 not conscientiously assent to EVERY thing in the Prayer Book was not 
 likely to be licensed by a bishop as a teacher of youth. 
 
 8. The act had as much respect to rites and ceremonies as to prayert 
 and preaching ; hence it required every minister " openly and publicly 
 before the congregation to declare his unfeigned assent and consent to 
 the USE of all things in the said book contained and prescribed." But 
 notwithstanding the general excellence of this book, it would puzzle the 
 first casuist in the Church to show the moral or spiritual use of several 
 things therein contained and prescribed. 
 
 I have made these remarks to show the nature and operations of this, 
 at that time the most illiberal and malicious act, in order to vindicate 
 the persons who were its victims ; who because of their conscientious 
 steadiness, have been represented as foolish, fanatical, and obstinate 
 men ; because they would not solemnly affirm what they did not believe. 
 And for my own part, far from being surprised that so great a number 
 as two thousand and twenty-fine according to Mr. Palmer's reckoning, 
 were cast out of the Church in one day, I am rather surprised that one 
 learned or conscientious minister was found, on the requisitions of the 
 act, to retain his living. 
 
 High churchmen may " extol the authors and framers of this act as 
 deserving the everlasting praises and blessings of the Church." But 
 while honesty, or rendering to every man his due, can be considered a 
 blessing in society, and the steady attendant upon justice while 
 humanity and mercy are esteemed the choicest characteristics of man, 
 and while sound learning is valued as the ornament and handmaid of 
 religion, this act, in its operation on St. Bartholomew's day, (August 
 24, 1662) must be regarded as a scandal to the State, and a reproach 
 to the Church. 
 
 No doubt the reader has already considered me as a rigid Dissenter, 
 because of the above review of the Act of Uniformity, in its predisposing 
 causes, and subsequent effects : but he is highly mistaken. Bred up 
 in the bosom of the Church, I am strongly attached to it from principle 
 and conscience ; and notwithstanding the blots, the existence of which 
 in the Liturgy I cannot deny, I would not change that form of sound 
 words for any thing that dissent could offer me as a substitute. But I 
 abominate the Act of Uniformity, for ils oppression, injustice, and cruelty; 
 and because it gave a blow to the piety of the National Church, from 
 which it is still but slowly recovering. It deprived her of multitudes 
 of her brightest ornaments, whose works have been a credit and a 
 bulwark to the Reformation, and still praise them in the gates. Neither 
 interest nor disaffection prompts this eulogium ! Fiat justitia ; ruat 
 ccelum !
 
 20 
 
 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 The Rei\ Bartholomeiv Wesley, Mr. J. Wesley's Great Grandfather. 
 
 FROM whatever part of the world the family of the Wesleys may 
 have originally come, whether from Asiatic, Spanish, or Saxon pro- 
 genitors ; or whether indigenous in Britain, through a long train of 
 ancestry ; posterity can mount no higher in tracing it than to about 
 the middle of the seventeenth century : but so far as we can trace it 
 back, to use the words of one of Mr. J. Wesley's biographers, " his 
 ancestors appear respectable for learning, conspicuous for piety, and 
 firmly attached to those views of Christianity which they had formed 
 from the sacred Scriptures." 
 
 The Rev. Bartholomew Wesley, great grandfather to the founder 
 of the Methodists, is mentioned by Hitchins among the rectors of 
 Cathtrston, in Dorsetshire, in the year 1650. And in the year 1662 
 we find him among those who sufferedby the aforesaid Act of Uniformity; 
 being ejected from his living of Charmouth, a village in the same place, 
 remarkable for its singular situation at the foot of a hill which is one 
 thousand and five feet high, and opposite to another which is nine 
 hundred and seventy feet. His own name was to him ominous, as he 
 was deprived of every earthly good, and suspended from his ministerial 
 functions on the festival of the saint after whom he was called. He 
 was succeeded in his living of Charmouth by a person of the name of 
 Burd, or Bird, October 14, 1662. See the Nonconformist's Memorial, 
 by Palmer, vol. ii, p. 125. 
 
 I cannot find of what university or college he was : but most probably 
 of Oxford. Dr. Calamy states, that when he was at the university he 
 applied himself to the study of physic as well as divinity. In the former 
 practice he appears to have acquired some celebrity ; for while he wa 
 in his living of Charmouth, he was often consulted as a physician ; and 
 after his ejectment he applied himself chiefly to this profession, and 
 gained a livelihood by it ; though he continued as the times would 
 permit, to preach occasionally. 
 
 It appears from the history of the Nonconformists, that many of the 
 ministers when ejected had recourse to the practice of physic for a 
 subsistence ; as there were no other means left in their power by which 
 they might gain their bread. They were proscribed and incapacitated 
 as preachers, both in public and private, by the Act of Uniformity ; and 
 though their learned education had qualified them to be instructers of 
 youth as public schoolmasters, or to give private tuition in the families 
 of the nobility and gentry ; yet, this also was on grievous penalties 
 proscribed by the act : hence they had no alternative but to study and 
 practise medicine. For this, some had received previous qualifications 
 at the university, as was the case of Mr. Bartholomew Wesley. But 
 others had no advantage of this kind ; and, therefore, practised at great 
 hazard. This caused one of them to say to the persons by whom the 
 ejectment was put in force against him, " I perceive that this is like to 
 occasion the death of many." The commissioners, supposing these 
 words to savour of contumacy and rebellion, questioned him severely
 
 BARTHOLOMEW WESLEY. 21 
 
 on the subject. To whom he replied, " that being deprived by the act 
 of every means of getting his bread in those ways for which he was 
 qualified, he must have recourse to the practice of medicine, which he 
 did not properly understand ; and thereby the lives of many of his 
 patients would most probably be endangered." 
 
 This was no doubt the case in very many instances. They acted 
 according to the best they knew, in order to help their neighbours and 
 gain an honest livelihood : but like many, even to the present day, 
 though useful where disease bore no uncommon type, were often de- 
 ceived by fallacious appearances, and took the more prominent symp- 
 toms, which were only indications of complication, or of spurious morbid 
 action, as the immediate cause of the disorder; prescribed accordingly; 
 and thereby formed a new disease, which not unfrequently terminated 
 the life of the unhappy patient. 
 
 If regular and well educated practitioners be liable to make such 
 mistakes, and nothing is more certain ; what must it be with the un- 
 skilful, and the immense colluvies of quack doctors, who now vend 
 medicines for the infallible cure of every disorder, under authority of 
 indisputable patents ! 
 
 Dr. Garth nervously describes the ruin spread through society by 
 licensed and unlicensed empirics : JVow tamen tells Mineral ista agyr- 
 tarum colluvies, sed theriaca quadam magii perniciosa : non pyris sed 
 pulvere necio quo exotica certat ; non globulis plumbeis, sed pilulisque 
 lethalibus interficit. 
 
 " This herd of vermin inflict no wound by daggers ; but by a certain 
 mithridate much more pernicious. They arm not themselves with 
 cataplasms ; but with a species of unknown exotic powder. They kill 
 not with leaden bullets ; but with pills equally lethal." 
 
 From Dr. Calamy's account, it appears that Mr. Wesley's preach- 
 ing was not very popular ; owing, he says, to a peculiar plainness of 
 speech. In what this consisted we are not told : but this we well know, 
 that plainness of speech, while the sense is good, and the doctrine sound 
 would not prevent the popularity of any preacher in the present day. 
 His great grandson studied the utmost plainness of speech in all his 
 ministrations, yet who more popular ! who more successful ! 
 
 Mr. Bartholomew Wesley does not appear to have lived long after 
 his ejectment : but when he died is uncertain. All that we know. is 
 this, that he was so affected by the premature death of his excellent son 
 John, who was also a minister, that his health rapidly declined, and he 
 did not long survive him. This must have been some time after 1670. 
 See the succeeding account of his son John. 
 
 There is a story told of Mr. B. Wesley by Anthony a Wood, in the 
 Jlthf.na- Oionienses, vol. ii, col. 963, which requires examination. 
 
 Speaking of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, sen. rector of Epworth, he says, 
 
 " The said Samuel Wesley is grandson to Wesley, the fanatical 
 
 ministar, sometime of Charmouth, in Dorsetshire, at what time [1651] 
 the Lord Wilmot and King Charles II. had like to have been by him 
 betrayed, when they continued incognito in that country." 
 
 Though a good sire may have a bad son, and a good son a bad sire ; 
 and the delinquency of ancestors should not be imputed to their poste-
 
 22 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 rity ; yet I own I should feel grieved could a charge of treachery be 
 fairly proved against the Wesley family ; or that it could be made to 
 appear that it had ever produced a person disaffected to the state. 
 
 I have taken some pains to inquire into the authenticity of this story 
 so confidently related by Wood. 
 
 In the wonderful adventures of Charles II., in his attempts to recover 
 his paternal kingdom, the story of his nanow escape at Charmouth is 
 told by most of our historians and annalists. . 
 
 It appears that Lord JVilmot and Colonel Wyndham, who had ac- 
 companied the king in disguise, aflerhis unfortunate defeat at Worcester, 
 September 3d, 1651, wishing to escape to the continent, came to Lyme 
 in Dorsetshire ; and agreed with one Limbry, master of a small sloop 
 of thirty tons, then bound to St. Malo, to take over two gentlemen, and 
 land them on any part of the French coast. The vessel then lay at the 
 Cable in Lyme ; and the owner having agreed to bring it out to a little 
 creek near Charmouth, his majesty and his party, deeply disguised, 
 waited for its arrival. 
 
 Lord Clarendon states, that while they were waiting, the day having 
 been appointed by the parliament for a solemn fast, a fanatical weaver, 
 who had been a soldier in the parliament army, was preaching against 
 the king, in a little chapel fronting the obscure inn where his majesty 
 had stopped. Charles, to avoid suspicion, was among the audience. It 
 happened that a smith of the same principles with the weaver, who had 
 been called to fasten on a shoe belonging to the king's horse, came to 
 inform the preacher, that he knew from the fashion of the shoes that the 
 horse had come from the north. The preacher immediately affirmed 
 that this horse could belong to no other than Charles Stuart ; and in- 
 stantly went with a constable to search the inn. But the king being 
 disappointed of the vessel that was to come out for him in the night, 
 and take him to the French coast, had left the inn, and was gone with 
 Colonel Wyndham to Bridport, and thus escaped. 
 
 This is the substance of the relation given by Lord Clarendon, who 
 does not mention the name of the preacher ; but merely tells us that he 
 was a fanatical weaver, and had been a soldier in the parliament army. 
 
 Here we might rest, and safely affirm that the story of Anthony a 
 Wood is confuted, as far as it relates to Bartholomew Wesley ; as none 
 of these characters belong to him. There is no evidence that while he 
 enjoyed the living of Charmouth, (which he did at this time, 1651, and 
 continued to do till ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662,) he had 
 been a weaver, or had ever served in the parliament army. He appears 
 to have been regularly bred at the university for a minister, and never 
 to any handicraft business. He is reckoned among the rectors of 
 Catherston, and had the living of Charmouth, and consequently would 
 not be reputed & fanatical preacher. 
 
 The story therefore to which Anthony a Wood alludes, as told by 
 Lord Clarendon, is wholly inapplicable to Bartholomew Wesley. 
 
 But it may be asked, where did Wood get the name of Wesley, that 
 he so circumstantially appropriates to the rector of Epworth's grand- 
 father? I answer, He got it partly by mistaking a name, and partly 
 from his own invention. I shall produce the proof.
 
 BARTHOLOMEW XVESLET. 23 
 
 We have a very circumstantial relation of the king's escape from 
 Worcester, taken from his own mouth by Mr. Pepys, Secretary to the 
 Admiralty, in several days attendance for that purpose. In that 
 authentic relation, the story as inserted by Mr. Carte, (in his General 
 History of England,) no friend to Nonconformists, is as follows : 
 
 " The king with his company sat up all night, expecting the ship to 
 come out, (t. e. out of the Cable, to come to the creek near Charmouth, 
 according to agreement, see before,) and upon her failure, Wilmot was 
 sent with Peters, a servant of Colonel Wyndham's, to Lyme the next 
 morning, to know the reason. Being troubled how to spend the day, 
 the horses were ordered to be got ready, and the king's which carried 
 double, (for he rode before Mrs. Judith Conisby, as a servant, by the 
 name of William Jackson,} having a shoe loose, a smith was sent for, 
 who looking over the shoes of the other horses, he said he knew that 
 some of them had been shod near Worcester. When he had fastened 
 the shoes, he went presently to consult Westby, a rigid foolish Pres- 
 byterian minister of Charmouth, who was then in a Ion g-windcd prayer ; 
 and before he had done, the king was gone on with Mrs. Conisby and 
 Mr. Wyndham to Bridport." 
 
 Now, it may be allowed that Westby may be a mistake for Weslley, 
 or Westley for Westby ; and therefore there is no evidence here that 
 Bartholomew Wesley is intended : but were there even no doubt 
 concerning the name, yet the pretended fact, so positively affirmed by 
 the author of the Jlthcnce, that Lord Wilmot and King Charles II. had 
 like to have been by him betrayed, when they continued incognito in that 
 country, is wholly unsubstantiated ; for there is not a word said by 
 Mr. Pepys, who took the relation from the king's own mouth, of any 
 attempt, secret or outward, on the part of this Westby to betray the king : 
 for the account only states that the smith went to consult this Westby , 
 who was then in a long-winded prayer; and before he had done the 
 king had departed for Bridport. Nor is there any hint that this so 
 called rigid, foolish, Presbyterian minister took any steps to discover 
 the king. Betray him he could not, because he was not in his confi- 
 dence, nor is it hinted that the smith communicated his supposed 
 discovery to the preacher, or that he even waited till he had finished 
 his long-winded prayer. 
 
 Lord Clarendon does state that the fanatical weaver, who had been 
 a soldier, did get a constable, and went to detect the king, but he gives 
 no name ; thd by the preacher having been a soldier, and then a weaver, 
 it must be evident for the reasons above assigned that Bartholomew 
 Wesley could not be intended. 
 
 There might have been a preacher at Charmouth of the name of 
 Westby, who had been a soldier in the parliament army and then a 
 weaver ; and as Anthony a Wood must have known that Mr. Bartholo- 
 mew Wesley had the living of Charmouth, for he was contemporary, he 
 applied to the regular divine what was only true of him whom he calls 
 the /ana/tea/ minister. But Wood's evidence is little worth, for he was 
 a man of a bitter and intolerant spirit, much more inclined to the Church 
 of Rome than to the Protestant Church of England. Bishop Burnet, 
 who lived at the same time, and was well acquainted with the virulence
 
 24 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 of his spirit, gives him the following character in a letter to the bishop 
 of Litchfield and Coventry : 
 
 " That poor writer has thrown together such a tumultuary mixture 
 of stuff' and tattle, and has been so visibly a tool of some of the Church 
 of Rome to reproach all the greatest men of our Church, that no man 
 who takes care of his own reputation will take any thing upon trust 
 that is said by one who has no reputation to lose." 
 
 I contend, therefore, that the tale of Jlnthony d Wood is unlikely, 
 inconsistent, -and absurd, as it relates to Mr. B. Wesley ; and we need 
 not wonder that th man who was capable of styling the celebrated 
 John Locke a prating troublesome fellow, should call Mr. B. Wesley 
 the fanatical minister of Charmouth. 
 
 To conclude, as far as I have been able to search into the political 
 principles of this family, especially from the days of the rector of 
 Epworth, I have found their sentiments of loyalty among the strongest 
 and purest I have ever known. 
 
 As this principle has descended to the last branches of the family, 
 (for it is now nearly extinct,) each appears to have possessed it as a 
 kind of heirloom that has been handed down from the lemotest ancestry. 
 John, Mr. Wesley's grandfather, appears to have been shaken for a 
 time in his attachment to the house of Stuart, from the conviction that 
 was very common in the country, that Charles I. was endeavouring to 
 alter the constitution of the kingdom, establish an arbitrary government, 
 and bring back Popery : but on the restoration of Charles II. he 
 cheerfully took the oath of allegiance, and faithfully kept it to the end 
 of his life. 
 
 Doubts also relative to the legitimacy of the Orange succession, in 
 prejudice of James II. and his heirs, were entertained by some of the 
 collateral branches of the family: but their principles of loyalty could 
 never be successfully impeached ; and these very scruples arose from 
 their high sense of duty and loyalty, which this history will show was 
 carried to as great lengths as moderation could at all justify. And it 
 should not escape the notice of the historian, as it cannot the attention 
 of the politician and philosopher, that the immense body of Methodists, 
 who may be properly called the spiritual progeny of the last great men 
 of this family, have imbibed the same spirit, and have been as remark- 
 able for their loyalty, as they have been for the simplicity of their 
 manners, the purity of their doctrine, and their zeal for the best interests 
 of their fellow creatures. 
 
 THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, A. M. 
 Vicar of Winierborn, Dorsetshire, Mr. Wesley's Grandfather. 
 
 THIS gentleman, who was the ?on of the Rev. Bartholomew Wesley 
 mentioned above, was very religiously brought up, and dedicated by 
 his pious father to the work of the ministry from his earliest youth ; 
 the consequence was what might have been expected, he remembered 
 bis Creator in, and indeed from, the days of his youth. He was deeply
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 25 
 
 convinced of sin, and had a serious concern for his salvation, when a 
 lad at school ; and soon after God began to work upon his soul he 
 kept a diary, in which he recorded not only the most remarkable events 
 of God's providence in his behalf, but more especially the operations 
 of the Divine Spirit upon his heart, and how he felt himself affected by 
 the various means which his heavenly Father used for his salvation, 
 whether in the way of afflictive providences or gracious visitations. 
 
 This course he continued with little intermission to the end of his 
 life ; and it was probably his example, which he must have known, that 
 led his grandson, the founder of the Methodists, to follow the same 
 practice ; and whose journals are an uncommon treasury of sound 
 learning and just criticism, and of records concerning the gracious 
 influence of God on ministerial labours, unprecedented and unparalleled. 
 
 At a proper age he was entered of JVew Inn Hall, Oxford ; and in 
 due course proceeded A. M. During his stay at the university he was 
 noticed for his seriousness and diligence. He applied himself particu- 
 larly to the study of the Oriental languages, in which he is said to have 
 made great proficiency. 
 
 Dr. John Owen, who was then vice-chancellor of the university, 
 tihowed him great kindness. 
 
 He began to preach occasionally at the age of twenty-two ; and 
 in May, 1658, he was sent to preach at tVhitchurch, (Winterborn) 
 a vicarage, the income of which was about thirty pounds per annum. 
 He was promised an augmentation of one hundred pounds a year ; but 
 the many changes in public affairs which took place soon after, prevented 
 him from ever receiving any part of it. 
 
 Mr. Wesley was respectable in his matrimonial connections. He 
 married a niece of Dr. Thomas Fuller, prebend of Salisbury, rector 
 of Broad Windsor, and chaplain extraordinary to Charles II. This 
 divine was not only eminent for his learning and writings, but for his 
 prodigious memory. He could repeat a sermon verbatim from once 
 hearing it ; and undertook in passing to and from Temple Bar to the 
 Poultry to tell every sign as it stood in order, on both sides of the way, 
 and to repeat them either backward or forward ; and this task he actu- 
 ally performed I 
 
 Dr. Fuller in all his works affects a very quaint style, though it is 
 always terse and nervous. He was fond of PUNNING on others, and 
 was sometimes paid in his own coin. Being in company with a 
 gentleman whose name was SPARROWHAWK, the doctor, who was very 
 corpulent, facetiously said, " Pray, sir, what is the difference between 
 an owl and a sparrowhawk ?" The gentleman immediately answered, 
 "It is fuller in the head,/u//cr in the body, and fuller all over." 
 
 He waa author of the Church History of Britain, folio ; A De- 
 fence of it against Dr. Peter Heylin, folio ; The History of the Holy 
 War, folio ; A Pisgah't Sight of Palestine, folio; A History of the 
 Worthies of England, folio ; Jldronicus, or the unfortunate Politician, 
 octavo ; Introductio ad Prudentiam, or Directions, Counsels, and 
 Cautions, tending to the prudent Management of Affairs in common life ; 
 composed for his only son, duodecimo, 1726 : a very excellent and 
 useful work. 
 
 1
 
 26 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 By this lady Mr. Wesley had two sons, Matthew and Samuel, of whom 
 hereafter. He is said by Dr. Calamy to have had a numerous family: 
 but the names of none but the above are come down to posterity. 
 
 The same author informs us that because of this growing family 
 he was obliged to set up a school in order to maintain it. 
 
 It appears that, like his father, he had serious scruples to using the 
 Common Prayer as it then stood; and, soon after the Restoration some 
 of his neighbours gave him a great deal of trouble on this account. 
 
 Dr. Gilbert Ironside, bishop of Bristol, was informed by some 
 persons of distinction that Mr. Wesley would not use the Liturgy ; 
 and beside, they stated their opinion that his title to Whitchurch waa 
 not valid ; and that for some other parts of his conduct he might be 
 prosecuted in a court of justice. The bishop expressing a desire to 
 see and converse with him, he took the first opportunity to wait upon 
 his lordship ; and had the following interesting conversation with him, 
 which he entered into his journal ; and from which it was transcribed 
 by Dr. Calamy. Though this journal is unfortunately lost, we may 
 be thankful for the extracts which the indefatigable Calamy has pre- 
 served : 
 
 Bishop. What is your name ? 
 
 Wesley. John Wesley. 
 
 Bishop. There are many great matters charged upon you. 
 
 Wesley. May it please your lordship, Mr. Herlock was at my house 
 on Tuesday last, and acquainted me that it was your lordship's desire 
 that I should come to you ; and on that account I am here to wait 
 upon you. 
 
 Bishop. By whom were you ordained 1 Or, are you ordained ? 
 
 Wesley. I am sent to preach the Gospel. 
 
 Bishop. By whom were you sent 1 
 
 Wesley. By a Church of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Bishop. What Church is that? 
 
 Wesley. The Church of Christ at JWelcomb. 
 
 Bishop. That factious and heretical Church ! 
 
 Wesley. May it please you, sir, I know no faction or heresy that 
 that Church is guilty of. 
 
 Bishop. No ! Did not you preach such things as tend to faction 
 and heresy ] 
 
 Wesley. I am not conscious to myself of any such preaching. 
 
 Bishop. I am informed by sufficient men, gentlemen of honour of 
 this county, viz. Sir Gerrard Napper, Mr. Freak, and Mr. Tregonnel, 
 of your doings. What say you ? 
 
 Wesley. Those honoured gentlemen I have been with, who, being 
 by others misinformed, proceeded with some heat against me. 
 
 Bishop. There are the oaths of several honest men who have 
 observed you, and shall we take your word for it that all is but mis- 
 information 1 
 
 Wesley. There was no oath given or taken. Beside, if it be 
 enough to accuse, who shall be innocent 1 I can appeal to the deter- 
 mination of the great day of judgment, that the large catalogue of 
 matter laid against me are either things invented or mistaken.
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 27 
 
 Bishop. Did not you ride with your sicord in the time of the com- 
 mittee of safety, and engage with them 1 
 
 Wesley. Whatever imprudences in matters civil you may be in- 
 formed I am guilty of, I shall crave leave to acquaint your lordship 
 that his majesty having pardoned them fully, and I having suffered on 
 account of them since the pardon, I shall put in no other plea, and 
 waive any other answer. 
 
 Bishop. In what manner did the Church you speak of send you to 
 preach ? At this rate every body might preach. 
 
 Wesley. Not every one. Every body has not preaching gifts and 
 preaching graces. Beside, that is not all I have to offer to your lord- 
 ship to justify my preaching. 
 
 Bishop. If you preach it must be according to order; the order of 
 the Church of England upon an ordination. 
 
 Wesley. What does your lordship mean by an ordination ? 
 
 Bishop. Do not you know what I mean 1 
 
 Wesley. If you mean that sending spoken of Rom. x, I had it. 
 
 Bishop. I mean that. What mission had you ? 
 
 Wesley. I had a mission from God and man. 
 
 Bishop. You must have it according to law, and the order of the 
 Church of England. 
 
 Wesley. I am not satisfied in my spirit therein. 
 
 Bishop. Not satisfied in your spirit ! You have more neto coined 
 phrases than ever were heard of! You mean your conscience, do you not? 
 
 Wesley. Spirit is no new phrase. We read of being sanctified in 
 body, soul, and spirit : but if your lordship like it not so, then I say / 
 am not satisfied in conscience, touching the ordination you speak of. 
 
 Bishop. Conscience argues science, science supposes judgment, 
 and judgment reason. What reason have you that you will not be 
 thus ordained ? 
 
 Wesley. I came not this day to dispute with your lordship ; my own 
 inability would forbid me to do so. 
 
 Bishop. No, no : but give me your reason. 
 
 Wesley. I am not called to office, and therefore cannot be ordained. 
 
 Bishop. Why then have you preached all this while ? 
 
 Wesley. I was called to the WORK of the ministry, though not to 
 the office. There is, as we believe, vocatio ad OPUS, et ad MUNUS. 
 
 Bishop. Why may you not have the office of the ministry ? You 
 have so many new distinctions ! O, how are you deluded ! 
 
 Wesley. May it please your lordship, because they are not a people 
 that are fit objects for me to exercise office-work among them. 
 
 Bishop. You mean a gathered Church : but we must have no ga- 
 thered Churches in England ; and you will see it so. For there must 
 be vnity without divisions among us ; and there can be no unity without 
 uniformity. Well, then, we must send you to your Church that they 
 may dispose of you, if you were ordained by them. 
 
 Wesley. I have been informed by my cousin Pitfield and others 
 concerning your lordship, that you have a disposition inclined against 
 morosity. However, you may be prepossessed by some bitter enemies 
 to my person, yet there are others who can and will give you another
 
 28 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 character of me. Mr. Glisson hath done it ; and Sir Francis Fulford 
 desired me to present his service to you, and being my hearer, is ready 
 to acquaint you concerning me. 
 
 Bishop. I asked Sir Francis Fulford whether the presentation to 
 Whitchurch was his. Whose is it? He told me it was not his. 
 
 Wesley. There was none presented to it these sixty years ; Mr. 
 Walton lived there. At his departure the people desired me to preach 
 to them ; and when there was a way of settlement appointed, I was by 
 the trustees appointed, and by the triers approved. 
 
 Bishop. They would approve any that would come to them, and 
 close with them. I know they approved those who could not read 
 twelve lines of English. 
 
 Wesley. All that they did I know not : but I was examined touching 
 gifts and graces. 
 
 Bishop. I question not your gifts, Mr. Wesley. I will do you any 
 good I can : but you will not long be suffered to preach, unless you do 
 it according to order. 
 
 Wesley. I shall submit to any trial you shall please to make. I 
 shall present your lordship with a confession of my faith; or take what 
 other way you please to insist on. 
 
 Bishop. No. We are not come to that yet. 
 
 Wesley. I shall desire several things may be laid together which I 
 look on as justifying my preaching. 1. I was devoted to the service 
 from my infancy. 2. I was educated thereto, at school and in the 
 university. 
 
 Bishop. What university were you of 1 
 
 Wesley. Oxon. 
 
 Bishop. What house ? 
 
 Wesley. JVcto Inn Hall. 
 
 Bishop. What age are you ? 
 
 Wesley. Twenty-five. 
 
 Bishop. No sure, you are not ! 
 
 Wesley. 3. As a son of the prophets, after I had taken my degrees, I 
 preached in the country, being approved of by judicious able Christians, 
 ministers, and others. 4. It pleased God to seal my labour with suc- 
 cess, in the apparent conversion of several souls. 
 
 Bishop. Yea, that is, it may be, to your own way. 
 
 Wesley. Yea, to the power of godliness, from ignorance and profane- 
 ness. If it please your lordship to lay down any evidences of godliness 
 agreeing with the Scriptures, and if they be not found in those persons 
 intended, I am content to be discharged from my ministry ; I will stand 
 or fall by the issue thereof. 
 
 Bishop. You talk of the power of godliness such as you fancy. 
 
 Wesley. Yea, the reality of religion. Let us appeal to any common 
 place book for evidences of grace, and they are found in and upon these 
 converts. 
 
 Bishop. How many are there of them ? 
 
 Wesley. I number not the people. 
 
 Bishop. Where are they? 
 
 Wesley. Wherever I have been called to preach. At Radpole,
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WH1TCHURCH. 29 
 
 JWelcomb, Turnwood, Whitchurch, and at sea. I shall add another 
 ingredient of my mission. 5. When the Church saw the presence of 
 God going along with me, they did by fasting and prayer, in a day set 
 apart for that end, seek an abundant blessing on my endeavours. 
 
 Bishop. A particular Church ? 
 
 Wesley. Yes, my lord. I am not ashamed to own myself a member 
 of one. 
 
 Bishop. Why, you mistake the apostle's intent. They went about 
 to convert Heathens, and so did what they did. You have no warrant 
 for your particular Churches. 
 
 Wesley. We have a plain, full, and sufficient rule for Gospel wor- 
 ship in the New Testament, recorded in the Acts of the Jlpostles and 
 in the epistles. 
 
 Bishop. We have not. 
 
 Wesley. The practice of the apostles is a standing rule in those 
 cases which were not extraordinary. 
 
 Bishop. Not their practice, but their precepts. 
 
 Wesley. Both precepts and practice. Our duty is not delivered to 
 us in Scripture only by precepts ; but by precedents, by promises, by 
 threatenings mixed ; not common-place wise. We are to follow them, 
 as they followed Christ. 
 
 Bishop. But the apostle said, This speak I, not the Lord ; that is, 
 by revelation. 
 
 Wesley. Some interpret tlmt place, This speak I now, by revelation 
 /f cm the Lord ; not the Lord in that text before instanced, when he 
 gave answer to the case concerning divorce. May it please your lord- 
 ship, we believe that cultus non institutus est indebitus. 
 
 Bishop. It is false. 
 
 Wesley. The second commandment speaks the same, Thou shalt 
 not make unto thyself any graven image. 
 
 Bishop. That is, forms of your own invention. 
 
 Wesley. Bishop Andrews, taking notice of non fades tibi, satisfied 
 me that we may not worship God but as commanded. 
 
 Bishop. You take discipline, church government, and circumstance*, 
 for worship. 
 
 Wesley. You account ceremonies a part of worship. 
 
 Bishop. But what say you ? Did you not wear a sword in the time 
 of the committee of safety, with Demy and the rest of them? 
 
 Wesley. My lord, I have given you my answer therein : and I far- 
 ther say, that I have conscientiously taken the oath of allegiance, and 
 faithfully kept it hitherto. I appeal to all that are round about me. 
 
 Bishop. But nobody will trust you. You stood it out to the last gasp. 
 
 Wesley. I know not what you mean by the last gasp. When I saw 
 the pleasure of Providence to turn the order of things, I did submit 
 quietly thereunto. 
 
 Bishop. That was at last. 
 
 Wesley. Yet many such men are trusted, and now about the king. 
 
 Bishop. They are such as though on the parliament side during 
 the war, yet disown these latter proceedings : but you abode even till 
 s coming to Portsmouth
 
 30 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Wesley. His majesty has pardoned whatever you may be informed 
 of concerning me of that nature. I am not here on that account. 
 
 Bishop. I expected you not. 
 
 Wesley. Your lordship sent your desire by two or three messengers. 
 Had I been refractory, I need not have come : but I would give no 
 just cause of offence. I think the old Nonconformists were none of 
 his majesty's enemies. 
 
 Bishop. They were traitors. They began the war. Knox and 
 Bmhanan in Scotland, and those like them in England. 
 
 Wesley. I have read the protestation, of owning the king's su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Bishop. They did it in hypocrisy. 
 
 Wesley. You used to tax the poor Independents for judging folks' 
 hearts. Who doth it now ? 
 
 Bishop. I did not ; for they pretended one thing and acted another. 
 Do not I know them better than you ? 
 
 Wesley. I know them by their works ; as they have therein deli- 
 vered us their hearts. 
 
 Bishop. Well, then, you will justify your preaching, will you, with- 
 out ordination according to the law ? 
 
 Wesley. All these things laid together, are satisfactory to me for 
 my procedure therein. 
 
 Bishop. They are not enough. 
 
 Wesley. There has been more written in proof of preaching of gift- 
 ed persons with such approbation, than has been answered by any one 
 yet. 
 
 Bishop. Have you any thing more to say to me, Mr. Wesley ? 
 
 Wesley. Nothing. Your lordship sent for me. 
 
 Bishop. I am glad I heard this from youv own mouth. You will 
 stand to your principles, you say? 
 
 Wesley. I intend it,. through the grace of God ; and to be faithful to 
 the king's majesty, however you deal with me. 
 
 Bishop. I will not meddle with you. 
 
 Wesley. Farewell to you, sir. 
 
 Bishop. Farewell, good Mr. Wesley. 
 
 Calamy's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. ii, p. 165. 
 
 There is no evidence that the bishop forfeited his word by giving 
 Mr. Wesley any disturbance. How he was treated by others we shall 
 see shortly. But before I proceed further in his history, I think it 
 necessary to make some remarks on the preceding dialogue ; as there 
 are some things in it which require explanation. 
 
 I. The conversation mentioned here must have taken place after 
 the year 1660. For on Jan. 13 of that year, was Dr. Gilbert Ironside 
 consecrated bishop of Bristol ; the see having been vacant, through the 
 calamities of the times, from the death of Dr. Thomas Howell, in the 
 year 1646, to the year above mentioned, (vide DC Prtzsulibus Anglic, 
 566.) 
 
 There was another Dr. Gilbert Ironside, son of the preceding, who 
 was bishop of Bristol in 1685. But this could not be the prelate in 
 question. The preceding held the see from 1660 to 1671, so that the
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 31 
 
 conversation took place some time in that period ; and certainly before 
 the passing the Act of Uniformity in 1662, as that event is here alluded 
 to as shortly to take place. 
 
 II. The committee of safety, mentioned by the bishop, was formed 
 Oct. 26, 1659, by the great officers of the army. It consisted of 
 twenty-three persons, who were ordered " to endeavour some settle- 
 ment of the government;" for after the death of Cromwell, on Sept. 3, 
 of the preceding year, the nation was greatly distracted ; there was 
 no efficient civil government, and the power fell wholly into the hands 
 of the army. 
 
 This committee was invested with the full power of the council of 
 state ; and were to " prepare such a form of government as might best 
 comport with a free state and commonwealth, without a single person, 
 kingship, or house of lords." See Rapin. 
 
 It was at this time, 1659, that Sir Arthur Haselrig was sent to 
 Portsmouth by the parliament, the town and garrison of which declared 
 for them, against the orders of the committee of safety. 
 
 The bishop accuses Mr. Wesley that he continued till tht last gasp ; 
 . e. that he held with the parliament against the restoration of the king 
 till the time that Haselrig came to Portsmouth ; soon after which he 
 and all the army joined with MONK ; and the king was invited over, 
 proclaimed in London, May 8, 1660, and landed at Dover on the 25th. 
 
 The declaration of Portsmouth for the parliament was one of the last 
 public acts against the restoration of the king ; and might be fitly deno- 
 minated, as here by the bishop, the last gasp, i. e. of the republican 
 government in England. 
 
 III. What is implied in his wearing a sword at that time I cannot 
 tell : whether it was for personal safety, or as a soldier, or as an ensign 
 of some office. During the existence of the committee of safety the 
 whole nation was under military law ; for this committee was created, 
 and the members appointed, by the great officers of the army. 
 
 The parliament and the army had now separate interests, and sepa- 
 rate views. Every person saw that there must soon be a stupendous 
 issue : but of what kind none could tell. 
 
 Mr. Wesley, it appears, was undecided : but he was a man of a 
 reflecting mind, careful to mark the workings of Providence ; and 
 when he saiu that it was the pleasure of Providence to turn the order 
 of things, t. e. to restore the monarchy in the family of the Stuarts, 
 he quietly submitted, read the protestation owning the king's supremacy, 
 and cheerfully took the oath of allegiance. His indecision was no blot 
 on his character ; and his subsequent conduct much to his credit. 
 
 IV. Had we more particulars of the family of Mr. Bartholomew 
 Wesley, we should, no doubt, find something peculiarly interesting 
 relative to his son John, of whom we are speaking. 
 
 That he had a truly religious education there can be no doubt ; and 
 from his own account to the bishop of Bristol it appears that he was 
 devoted to the sacred service from his infancy ; and educated in order 
 thereto, both at school and at the university. And it was evident from 
 the manner in which God wrought upon his mind, and the gifts and 
 graces with which he hud endued him, that he had accepted the gift
 
 32 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 which his parents had offered, and given him those qualifications for 
 the work of the ministry which neither schools nor universities can 
 supply, and which the imposition of the hands of the holiest bishop 
 cannot confer. His conversation with the bishop shows that he pos- 
 sessed manly sense, unaffected piety, and religious knowledge far 
 beyond his years. 
 
 V. From this conversation we learn two important facts : 1 . That 
 he was a lay-preacher. 2. That he was an itinerant evangelist. 
 
 1. That he was not ordained, either by bishop or presbyters, by the 
 imposition of hands, is fully evident. He had authority from GOD ; 
 this he conscientiously believed was sufficient, and he does not appear 
 to have wished to have the authority of man superadded. However, 
 he submitted all his own views and feelings to the examination and 
 judgment of such persons as from their knowledge, piety, and expe- 
 rience, were capable of discerning the grace of God that was in him, 
 and whether his talents were such as the people of God might profit by. 
 
 2. He went to proclaim Christ crucified icherever he had an invita- 
 tion, and probably where he had none. It appears also that he had 
 religious societies at several places ; himself mentions Radpole, Mel- 
 comb, Turnwood, fVhitchurch, and at sea. What he means by his 
 converts at sea I cannot learn ; whether he served aboard the fleet, or 
 whether he only occasionally visited the ships at Bridport, Weymouth, 
 Lyme, Radpole, &c, I know not. From his own account we find that 
 he exercised his ministry both by sea and land, in what would be called 
 an irregular way, without any kind of human ordination, as " a son of 
 the prophets," to use his own words ; nearly in the same way, from 
 similar motives, and in reference to the same end, as those whom his 
 grandson long afterward associated with himself in the Christian 
 ministry. Indeed we find in this man's conduct a kind of epitome of 
 Methodism; his mode of preaching, matter, manner, and success, 
 being most strikingly similar. 
 
 VI. Mr. Wesley tells the bishop that he was appointed to preach at 
 Whitchurch by the trustees, and approved by the triers.* 
 
 Of these persons we have a sufficient account in a little scarce 
 duodecimo work, printed in 1658, intituled, The examination ofTilenus 
 before the Triers, in order to his intended settlement in the office of a 
 public Preacher in the Commonwealth of Utopia. The chairman opens 
 the meeting thus : " The great prudence and piety of the governors 
 of this commonwealth, considering how apt the people are to be 
 influenced by the principles and example of their constant teachers, 
 have been pleased, out of an ardent zeal to God's glory, and a tender 
 .care of men's precious souls, to think upon a course how their domi- 
 nions may be made happy in the settlement of an able and godly 
 ministry among them ; for which purpose they have appointed com- 
 missioners to examine the gifts of all such as shall be employed in the 
 office of public preaching." 
 
 * The Ordinance for the trying of Ministers, Elders, or Presbyters, referred to in 
 these pages, was passed August 29, 1648; and may be found in SCOBELL'S 2cfa, 
 cap. xviii, p. 165. In that place the names of all the trifrs, and the points on which 
 the candidates were examined, are specified in detail.
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 33 
 
 The committee of /Hers appears to have been appointed about 1652. 
 It certainly existed in that year, if not before. 
 
 It is to such commissioners Mr. Wesley refers : and that they 
 were generally Calcinists may be gathered from the fictitious names 
 given to them in the above tract, viz. Dr. ABSOLUTE, chairman ; 
 Mr. Fatalitie ; Mr. Pratterition ; Mr. Fri-babe ; Mr. Dam-man ; 
 Mr. Narrow-grace, alias Stint-grace ; Mr. Efficax ; Mr. Indefectible ; 
 Dr. Confidence ; Mr. Dubious ; Mr. Meanwell ; Mr. Simulans ; Mr. 
 Take-o-trust ; Mr. Know-little ; and Mr. Impertinent. This trial was 
 inserted by the late Mr. Wesley in the first volume of the Arminian 
 Magazine. 
 
 At such times as these it was certainly necessary to examine those 
 who were candidates for the sacred ministry ; as from the best accounts 
 we learn there were great numbers then in the Church who had neither 
 gifts nor grace for the work ; and who were beside scandalous in their 
 lives. It is a trite saying, but it is true, that " we must not argue 
 against the use of a thing from its abuse." 
 
 VII. Mr. Wesley in defending his call to the ministry, makes a 
 distinction between the vocatio ad opus, " a call to the work," and 
 vocatio ad munus, " a call to the office," of the ministry ; and tells the 
 bishop that " he did not do office work among the people, because they 
 were not proper objects for office work." 
 
 By this distinction, which as I apprehend it is of some importance, 
 he must mean, and so the bishop understood him, that the people who 
 sat under his ministry were gathered from different parts, did not belong 
 to any parish church, and were not as yet a consolidated society ; that 
 he had not instituted any code of discipline for their regulation ; and 
 probably did not administer the sacraments among them, especially 
 the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. He was called to preach to them, 
 but not to preside over them ; they were not as yet Jit for such office 
 work. 
 
 It may not be thought unworthy of remark, that this was the plan 
 followed by his grandson in respect to the lay preachers so called, 
 whom he associated with himself in that great work to which God had 
 especially appointed him. He believed they all had from God himself 
 the vocatio ad opus, an extraordinary call to the work of the ministry : 
 but he did not believe that they all had the vocatio ad munus, the call 
 to the office ; and therefore he did not trust them to govern the societies, 
 nor permit them to administer the sacraments. He kept the ecclesi- 
 astical government of all the societies in his own hands ; appointed 
 one preacher in each circuit whom he called the assistant, i. e. one who 
 assisted him in governing the 'societies ; but he seldom suffered any of 
 them to administer the sacraments unless they bad been ordained by 
 himself. I need scarcely state here that all the other preachers in the 
 different circuits were called helpers, that is, they helped the assiitant 
 in his work in the circuit, as he assisted Mr. Wesley in his general 
 government of the whole connection. 
 
 VIII. Taking the vocatio ad munus in the above sense, it may be 
 safely said that there are multitudes who appear to have the vocatio ad 
 opus, the gift of preaching, with every qualification necessary to mako 
 
 5
 
 34 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 that gift powerfully and extensively useful, who at the same time have 
 no gifts for Church government, and consequently no vocatio ad munus, 
 no call to that part of the work. Nor are any persons, to use the 
 words of old Mr. Wesley, fit objects of office work till they are truly 
 awakened to a sense of their sin and danger ; till they are gathered 
 out of the world, and solemnly determined to seek the salvation of their 
 souls ; abstaining from every appearance of evil, and using all the 
 means of grace. This is the sum of the conditions on which, from 
 the beginning until now, members have been admitted into the 
 Methodist societies. 
 
 No people have ever made a wiser, more marked, and more salu- 
 tary distinction between the vocatio ad opus and the vocatio ad munus 
 than the Methodists have done. And to them GOD, in his great mercy, 
 has NOW given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangel- 
 ists, and some pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of the saints, 
 for the icork of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ; till 
 we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of 
 God unto a perfect man ; unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
 of Christ, Eph. iv, 11-13. 
 
 It cannot escape the notice and reflection of the reader that JVfe- 
 ihodism, in its grand principles of economy, and the means by which 
 they have been brought into action, has had its specific, healthy, though 
 slowly vegetating, seeds in the original members of the Wesley family. 
 We have an additional proof of this, 
 
 IX. In what Mr. Wesley tells the bishop he considered a sufficient 
 evidence of his call to the ministry. 1. Grace. 2. Gifts. 3. Fruit. 
 To show that he had the two former, he offers to the bishop to submit 
 to any kind of trial or examination ; and that he had fruit of his labours 
 in every place where he had preached, in the conversion of souls from 
 gross ignorance and profaneness to the power of godliness, yea, the 
 reality of religion, he strongly asserts ; and offers to prove to the 
 bishop that those his converts had in and upon them, i. e. in their reli- 
 gious experience and outward conduct, all the evidences of grace which 
 are enumerated in common-place books, or can be laid down from the 
 Scriptures. And so confident was he of all these things, and conse- 
 quently of his genuine call to the ministry, that he was willing to stand 
 or fall by the proofs, and to be discharged from the ministry if these 
 things were not so ! 
 
 How exactly do all these things tally in reference to the Methodist 
 Discipline on this great point. No man is admitted to be a preacher 
 among them unless he be thus qualified and approved of God. 
 Grace, gifts, and fruit, are the grand requisites. Where these 
 unequivocally meet in any person who offers himself to take a part 
 in the great work to which God has called them, they without hesi- 
 tation take for granted that the man is called of God. And it is 
 because the ranks of the Methodist preachers continue to be filled up 
 by such persons and such only, that the great work is still carried on, 
 and that their religious societies, constituted of such converts, are a 
 blessing to the nations, and a praise in the earth. 
 
 Though Mr. Wesley were thus instrumental in converting the
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 35 
 
 ignorant and profligate, and consequently in bettering the state of 
 society, yet he was not permitted to proceed unmolested in his work. 
 Luther somewhere observes, Evangelium predicare eat furorem 
 mundi in se derivare, " He who faithfully preaches the Gospel is sure 
 to bring down the rage of the world upon himself." The laws of Christ 
 condemn a vicious world and gall it to revenge. As religion gives no 
 quarter to vice, so the vicious will give no quarter to religion. 
 
 Mr. Wesley was not permitted to preach quietly at Whitchurch, 
 even till ejected by the Act of Uniformity. In the beginning of the 
 year 1662 he was seized upon the Lord's day, as he was coming out 
 of the church ; and carried to Blandford, where he was committed 
 to prison. After he had been sometime confined, Sir Gerrard 
 Napper, who had been the most furious of all his enemies and the 
 most forward in committing him, was so softened by a sad disaster 
 he met with (the breaking of his collar-bone) that he applied to some 
 persons to bail Mr. Wesley, and told them that if they would not he 
 would do it himself. He was therefore set at liberty, but bound over 
 to appear at the assizes, where he came off much better than he 
 expected. 
 
 He has recorded in his diary the particular mercy of God to him 
 in raising up several friends to own him; inclining a solicitor to plead 
 for him ; and restraining the wrath of man, so that even the judge, 
 though a very choleric man, spoke not one angry word. The sum of 
 the proceedings, as it stands in his diary, is as follows : 
 
 Clerk. Call Mr. Wesley of Whitchurch, 
 
 Wesley. Here. 
 
 Clerk. You were indicted for not reading the Common Prayer. 
 Will you traverse it ? 
 
 A Solicitor. May it please your lordship, we desire this business 
 may be deferred till next assizes. 
 
 Judge. Why till then ? 
 
 Solicitor. Our witnesses are not ready at present. 
 
 Judge. Why not ready now ? W'hy have you not prepared for a trial ? 
 
 Solicitor. We thought our prosecutors would not appear. 
 
 Judge. Why so, young man 1 Why should you think so ? Why 
 did you not provide them ? 
 
 Wesley. May it please your lordship, I understand not the 
 question. 
 
 Judge. Why will you not read the Book of Common Prayer? 
 
 Wesley. The book was never tendered to me. 
 
 Judge. Must the book be tendered to you ? 
 
 Wesley. So I conceive by the act. 
 
 Judge. Are you ordained? 
 
 Wesley. I am ordained to preach the Gospel. 
 
 Judge. From whom? 
 
 Wesley. I have given an account thereof already to the bishop. 
 
 Judge. W T hat bishop ? 
 
 Wesley. The bishop of Bristol. 
 
 Judge. I say by whom were you ordained ? How long is it since ? 
 
 Wetley. Four or five years since.
 
 36 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Judge. By whom then ? 
 
 Wesley. By those who were" then empowered. 
 
 Judge. I thought so. Have you a presentation to your place ? 
 Wesley. I have. 
 
 Judge. From whom? 
 
 Wesley. May it please your lordship, it'is a legal presentation. 
 
 Judge. By whom was it? 
 
 Wesley. By the trustees. 
 
 Judge. Have you brought it ? 
 
 Wesley. I have not. 
 
 Judge. Why not ? 
 
 Wesley. Because I did not think I should be asked any such 
 questions here. 
 
 Judge. I would wish you to read the Common Prayer at your 
 peril. You will not say, " From all sedition and privy conspiracy ; 
 from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism, good Lord, deliver us !" 
 
 Clerk. Call Mr. JVLeech : [he was called and appeared] Does Mr. 
 Wesley read the Common Prayer yet? 
 
 JUeech. May it please your lordship, he never did, nor he never will. 
 
 Judge. Friend, how do you know that ? He may bethink himself. 
 
 J\feech. He never did ; he never will. 
 
 Solicitor. We will, when we see the new book, either read it, or 
 leave our place at Bartholomew tide. 
 
 Judge. Are you not bound to read the old book till then ? Let us 
 see the act. 
 
 While the judge was reading to himself another cause was called; 
 and Mr. Wesley was bound over to the next assizes. He came joy- 
 fully home; and preached constantly every Lord's day till August 
 17th, when he delivered his farewell sermon to a weeping audience, 
 from Acts xx, 32 : Jind noiv, brethren, I commend you to God and the 
 word of his grace. 
 
 On the 26th of October the place was, by an apparitor, declared 
 vacant ; and orders were given to sequester the profits ; but his people 
 had already given him what was his due. 
 
 On the 22nd of February following he removed with his family to 
 Melcomb : but the corporation made an order against his settlement 
 there, imposing a fine of 201. upon his landlady, and Jive shillings per 
 week on himself, to be levied by distress ! He waited upon the mayor 
 and some others, pleading that he had lived in the town formerly, 
 and had given notice of his design of coming thither again. He also 
 offered to give security, which was all that their order required. But 
 all was in vain; for on the llth of the following month (March) an- 
 other order was drawn up for putting the former in execution. 
 
 These violent proceedings forced him out of the town ; and he 
 went to Ilminster, Bridgewater, and Taunton ; in all which places he 
 met with great kindness and friendship from the three denominations of 
 Dissenters, and was almost every day employed in preaching in those 
 several places ; where he also got some good acquaintance and 
 friends, who were afterward very kind to him and his numerous family. 
 
 At length a gentleman, who had a very good house at Preston, two
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 37 
 
 or three miles from Melcomb, permitted him to live in it without paying 
 any rent. Thither he removed his family in the beginning of May, 
 1663; and there he continued while he lived, excepting a temporary 
 absence shortly to be noticed. He records his coming to Preston, and 
 his comfortable accommodation there, with great admiration and 
 thankfulness to God. 
 
 We must now follow him in his further projects and designs. 
 
 When the great Head of the Church calls a man to preach the 
 Gospel, he in effect says, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel 
 to every creature. He never '-confines his own gift and call absolutely 
 to any particular place ; but leaves them under the direction and man- 
 agement of his own providence. The call of God to preach is a mis- 
 rionary call ; and they who have it know that they are not their own, and 
 must do the Master's work in the Master's own way, place, and time. 
 Hence all the ministers of his Gospel have a missionary spirit ; let 
 Providence direct, as it chooses, their way. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that this excellent man, like his grandson 
 long after him, felt a strong desire to visit the continent of America. 
 Surinam, a settlement of South America, in Guianna, was the first 
 object in the contemplation of his missionary zeal. 
 
 This settlement was visited in 1 579 by Sir Walter Raleigh, but not 
 colonized. In 1634 David Piterse de Vries, a Dutchman, found there 
 a Captain Marshal, with about sixty English. In 1650 Francis Lord 
 Willoughby, of Parham, by permission of Charles II. sent thither some 
 vessels to take possession of the settlement in the name of his royal 
 master; and in 1662 this settlement was granted by Charles to Lord 
 Willoughby and Lawrence Hyde, second son of the earl of Clarendon, 
 to them and their descendants for ever. 
 
 Mr. Wesley no doubt thought that the desolate state of this colony, 
 in respect to spiritual things, might afford a fair and undisturbed field 
 of usefulness. This purpose, however, was abandoned ; as was also 
 another of going to Mary land. The advice of friends prevailed ; and 
 probably the difficulty and expense of removing a numerous family so 
 far were the chief impediments. Indeed, such a removal in his 
 circumstances, must have been all but impossible. He therefore 
 made up his mind to abide in the land of his nativity ; to be at the 
 disposal of Divine Providence, relying on the promise, Verily, thou 
 shall be fed. 
 
 Being often out of employ, and not willing to be without public 
 worship, he would gladly have attended the Church service : but there 
 were several things in the Liturgy to which he could not give a 
 conscientious assent. However, by reading Mr. Philip A*i/e' " Ar- 
 guments for the Lawfulness of Hearing Ministers of the Church of 
 England," his scruples were so far removed that he found he could do 
 it with a safe conscience ; and doubtless to his edification. 
 
 At this same time Mr. Wesley was not a little troubled about his 
 own preaching ; whether it should be carried on openly, or in private. 
 Some of the neighbouring ministers, particularly Messrs. Bamfield, 
 /nee, Halltl of Shaston, and John Sacheverel, were for preaching 
 publicly, with open doors. But Mr. Wesley thought it was his duty to
 
 38 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 beware of men ; and that he was bound in prudence to keep himself at 
 liberty as long as he could. Accordingly, by preaching only in private, 
 he was kept longer out of the hands of his enemies than the ministers 
 above mentioned, all of whom were indicted at the next assizes " for a 
 riotous and unlawful assembly held at Shaston ; and were found guilty 
 by a jury of gentlemen, fined forty marks each, and were bound to find 
 security for their good behaviour." Or, in other words, that they would 
 not speak any more in the blessed name of Jesus ; but be unfaithful 
 to their heavenly calling, and permit the devil unmolested to destroy 
 the souls of the people. 
 
 The stopping of the mouths of these faithful men was a general 
 curse to the nation. A torrent of iniquity, deep, rapid, and strong, 
 deluged the whole land, and swept away godliness and vital religion 
 from the kingdom. The king had no religion, either in power or in 
 form. Though a Papist in his heart, he was the most worthless that 
 ever sat on the British throne, and profligate beyond all measure ; 
 without a single good quality to redeem his numerous bad ones : and 
 the Church and the State joined hand in hand in persecution and 
 intolerance. Since those barbarous and iniquitous times what hath 
 God wrought ? 
 
 There was now no open vision, and the pure word of the Lord was 
 scarce in those days. Most of the faithful of the land were either 
 silenced as to public preaching, or shut up in prison ; and the rest were 
 hidden in corners. Mr. Wesley in a private manner preached frequently 
 to a few good people at Preston, and occasionally at Weymouth and 
 other places contiguous. After some time he had a call from a number 
 of serious Christians at Poole to become their pastor. He consented ; 
 and continued with them while he lived, administering to them all the 
 ordinances of God as opportunity offered. 
 
 In the parliament held at Oxford, (17 Car. ii, 1665) a severe act 
 was passed against the dissenting teachers, prohibiting them from 
 dwelling or coming (except in travelling on the road) within five miles 
 of any corporation or borough town, or any other place where they 
 had been ministers, or preached after the act of oblivion, on the penalty 
 of forty pounds for each offence ; unless they first took the following 
 oath : 
 
 "I, A. B., do solemnly declare that it is not lawful on any 
 
 pretence whatsoever to take up arms against the king ; and that 
 
 I do abhor the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority, 
 
 against his person, or against those that are commissioned by 
 
 him, in pursuance of such commission. And I do swear that I 
 
 will not, at any time to come, endeavour the alteration of the 
 
 government, either in Church or State. So help me God." 
 
 Archbishop Sheldon, and Ward, bishop of Salisbury, were the chief 
 
 promoters of this act. When it came out, those ministers who had 
 
 any property of their own, retired to obscure villages or to market towns, 
 
 that were not corporations. And some, who had nothing, were obliged 
 
 to leave their wives and children and hide themselves abroad, sometimes 
 
 coming secretly to them after night. 
 
 Both Preston and Poole being corporation towns, in the first of
 
 JOHN WESLEY OF WHITCHURCH. 39 
 
 which Mr. Wesley resided, in the second exercised his ministry ; he 
 was obliged to leave his wife, his family, and his flock, and secrete 
 himself in various places. He could not conscientiously take the above 
 oath, because of the last clause, / do swear that I will not at any time 
 to come endeavour the alteration of the government either in Church 
 or State. 
 
 All the Dissenters had strenuously endeavoured to alter the govern- 
 ment in the Church, or rather to reform it ; as they considered several 
 parts as savouring of superstition, and tending to Popery ; and on this 
 the dissent of many of them was founded. Every thing they might 
 say against those points of Popery which seemed to be countenanced 
 in any part of the Liturgy might be considered by their adversaries as 
 an endeavouring to alter the government of the Church, and consequently 
 expose them to prosecution, persecution, and the alleged infamy of 
 perjury. 
 
 Under the date of 1666, Mr. Wesley entered in his Diary some of 
 the reasons why he could not safely take this oath ; particularly that 
 to do it in his own private sense, would be juggling with God, with 
 the king, and with conscience ; especially as some magistrates had 
 declared they had no right to admit of such a private sense. He was 
 therefore obliged to leave home for a considerable time. He at length 
 ventured to return to his family and flock : but notwithstanding all the 
 prudent precaution with which he conducted his meetings, he was often 
 disturbed ; several times apprehended ; and four times imprisoned ; 
 once at Poole for six months, and once at Dorchester for three montlis. 
 The other confinements were shorter : but how long their duration 
 was we are not told. 
 
 Dr. Calamy adds " that he was in many straits and difficulties ; but 
 was wonderfully supported and comforted ; and was many times very 
 seasonably and surprisingly relieved and delivered. Nevertheless, the 
 removal of many eminent Christians into another world, who had been 
 his intimate acquaintance and kind friends, the great decay of serious 
 religion among many professors, and the increasing rage of the enemies 
 of real godliness, manifestly seized on and sunk his spirits. At length 
 ' having filled up his part of what is behind of the afflictions of Christ 
 in his flesh, for his body's sake, which is the Church, and finished the 
 work given him to do,' he was taken out of this vale of tears to that 
 world where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at 
 rest; when he had not been much longer an inhabitant here below 
 than his blessed Master was, whom he served with his whole heart, 
 according to the best light he had." JV. M. vol. ii, p. 164, &c. 
 
 It appears that application was made to have him buried in the 
 church at Preston ; but the vicar would not suffer it. 
 
 It is to be regretted that Dr. Calamy, who had the Journal of this 
 excellent man, gives so few dates, and particularly in those places 
 where they were especially needful. He neither mentions the year 
 of his birth, nor that of his dr.ulh. He tells us only, " that he began 
 preaching when he was twenty-two, and in May 1658, was sent to 
 preach at Whitchurch." Now, if this means May of the year 1658, 
 in which he was twenty-two years of age, then he must have been born
 
 40 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 about A. D. 1636. When he had the conversation with the bishop of 
 Bristol, related above, he states that he was twenty-five years of age. 
 From internal evidence, I think the Act of Uniformity had not passed 
 previously to that conversation, which must have taken place in 1661, 
 as Dr. Gilbert Ironside, the bishop, came to that see in 1660 ; and the 
 Act of Uniformity passed in 1662. These dates thus collated will 
 make him precisely twenty-Jive, the age which himself mentions, when 
 he had the above conversation with the bishop. 
 
 The Oxford Act, called also the Corporation Jlct, and Five Mile 
 Act, was passed in 1665. In 1666, he was obliged to retire from his 
 family and flock, and hide himself for some time. The last date we 
 have in Dr. Calamy's account is March 1666, when by the above 
 collation of dates he must have been thirty years of age. Of the year 
 of his death we are left to conjecture from the words, " He was taken 
 out of the vale of tears when he had not been much longer an inhabitant 
 here below than his blessed Master was." 
 
 Now as it is generally allowed that our Lord was crucified in the 
 thirty-fourth year of his age, suppose we add another year to Mr. 
 Wesley's life, for the " not much longer," used by Dr. Calamy above, 
 this will bring down his death to about the year 1670, when he must 
 have been in the thirty-fifth year of his age. And as his father 
 Bartholomew survived him some short lime, he must have lived after 
 the year 1670 to have outlived his son. 
 
 Dr. W'hitehead, who gives an abstract of Dr. Calamy's account of 
 this good man, concludes it with the following reflections : " 1. Mr. 
 Wesley appears to have made himself master of the controverted 
 points in which he differed from the Established Church ; and to have 
 made up his opinions from a conviction of their truth. 2. He shows 
 an ingenuous mind, free from low cunning, in the open avowal of his 
 sentiments to the bishop. 3. He appears to have been remarkably 
 conscientious in all his conduct, and a zealous promoter of genuine- 
 piety both in himself and others. 4. He discovered great firmness of 
 mind, and an unshaken attachment to his principles in the midst of the 
 most unchristian persecution, and a train of accumulated evils which 
 he suffered on that account. 
 
 " These are prominent features in his character which we cannot 
 but admire, however we may differ from him in opinion : they show a 
 mind elevated far above the common level, even of those who have 
 had the advantages of an academical education." 
 
 Mrs. Wesley long survived her husband ; but how long we cannot 
 exactly tell. In a letter of Mr. Samuel W T esley jun. in 1710 he speaks 
 of having " visited his grandmother Wesley, then a widow of almost 
 forty-eight years." But as Mr. John Wesley, her husband, must have 
 died about 1670, she could not have been a widow more than forty 
 years in 1710 ; and, therefore, I suppose forty-eight is a mistake in 
 the copy of Mr. Samuel Wesley's letter for forty, an error which might 
 very easily take place from the similarity of the latter figures. 
 
 It does not appear that this venerable widow had any help from her 
 own family ; and there is reason to believe that she was entirely d^end- 
 cnt on and supported by her sons Matthew and Samuel. Howwr the
 
 MATTHEW WESLEY. 41 
 
 former may have contributed to her support it is not easy to say : but 
 that she was deeply indebted to the latter I learn from one of his letters 
 to Archbishop Sharpe, dated Ep worth, December 30th, 1700. 
 
 " The next year my barn fell, which cost me forty pounds in re- 
 building, (thanks to your grace for a part of it ;) and having an aged 
 mother, (who must have gone to prison if I had not assisted her,) she 
 cost me upward of forty pounds more. Ten pounds a year I allow 
 my mother to keep her from starving." 
 
 How doleful was the lot of this poor woman ! persecuted with her 
 husband during the whole of her married life, and abandoned to 
 poverty during a long and dreary widowhood. 
 
 MATTHEW WESLEY, SURGEON. 
 
 WE have already seen that the Rev. John Wesley, ejected from the 
 vicarage of Whitchurch, in Dorsetshire, of whom I have lately spoken, 
 is said to 4iave had a numerous family. But the names of Matthew 
 and Samuel only are come down to us. Whether the others died 
 young, or survived their father, we are not informed : but it is most 
 likely that the rest died in infancy ; as not even the name of any of them 
 is ever mentioned. 
 
 Matthew, after the example of his grandfather Bartholomew, studied 
 physic, and settled in London ; after having travelled over the greatest 
 part of Europe for his improvement. He is reported to have been 
 eminent and singularly useful, and is said to have made a large fortune 
 by his medical practice. 
 
 It is not likely that his father could have given him an academic 
 education. But as he taught a school for the support of his family, for 
 which he appears to have been well qualified, no doubt his sons, par- 
 ticularly Matthew, who was the eldest, had the rudiments of a classical 
 education from himself, as he was at the death of his father about ten 
 or twelve years of age. And it is very likely that he might have 
 obtained additional instruction at the free school in Dorchester, and 
 in some of the Dissenting academies, as we know his brother Samuel 
 did. 
 
 Though Matthew be generally styled a physician, yet we do not 
 know that he ever graduated, or studied in any university, unless it 
 were in a foreign one ; and this is not improbable, as, from a passage 
 in the following letter from Mrs. Wesley, it appears that Mr. M. Wes- 
 ley had tried all the spas in Europe, both in Gennany and elsewhere. 
 Former times were not so nice in distinctions as the present ; sur- 
 geons, apothecaries, and medical practitioners of all sorts, were gene- 
 rally termed physicians or doctors : the latter was the most usual title ; 
 and this Matthew Wesley might have had by common courtesy, or 
 he might have had it by right. But it is most likely that he had it by 
 courtesy, as he is not styled physician, M. D., nor even doctor, in the 
 verses addressed to his memory by the person who signs himself Syl- 
 vius, in the very year in which he died. Beside, he is not termed 
 doctor in uny of the /amity letters which have come under my notice. 
 
 6
 
 42 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 This at present is a matter of little consequence, and cannot now be 
 determined. The whole family of the Wesley s were blest with a genius 
 that surmounted all difficulties : opposition and unfavourable circum- 
 stances only served as a stimulus to industry and enterprise ; and they 
 ever rose the higher in proportion to the causes which tended to de- 
 press them. This is the grand characteristic of all the branches of this 
 family with whom we are acquainted ; and we may safely infer it was 
 the case with the rest. 
 
 Mr. M. Wesley resided and practised chiefly in London. In the 
 year 1731 he visited his brother's family at Epworth. This visit is 
 described by Mrs. Wesley in a letter to her son John, who was then at 
 Oxford ; and as it contains some curious particulars, I shall lay it be- 
 fore the reader : 
 
 "My brother Wesley had designed to have surprised us, and had 
 travelled under a feigned name from London to Gainsborough : but 
 there sending his man out for a guide into the Isle the next day, the 
 man told one that keeps our market his master's name, and that he 
 was going to see his brother, which was minister of Epwotth. The 
 man he informed met with Molly in the market about an hour before 
 my brother got thither. She, full of the news, hastened home, and told 
 us her uncle Wesley was coming to see us : but we could hardly 
 believe her. 'Twas odd to observe how all the town took the alarm, 
 and were upon the gaze, as if some great prince had been about to 
 make his entry. He rode directly to John Dawson's ; (the inn ;) but 
 we had soon notice of his arrival, and sent John Brown with an 
 invitation to our house. He expressed some displeasure at his servant 
 for letting us know of his coming, for he intended to have sent for Mr. 
 Wesley to dine with him at Dawson's, and then come to visit us in the 
 afternoon. However, he soon followed John home, where we were all 
 ready to receive him with great satisfaction. 
 
 " His behaviour among us was perfectly civil and obliging. He 
 spake little to the children the first day, being employed (as he after- 
 ward told them) in observing their carriage, and seeing how he liked 
 them ; afterward he was very free, and expressed great kindness to 
 them all. 
 
 " He was strangely .scandalized at the poverty of our furniture ; 
 and much more at the meanness of the children^ habit. He always 
 talked more freely with your sisters of our circumstances than to me ; 
 and told them he wondered what his brother had done with his income, 
 for 'twas visible he had not spsnt it in furnishing his house, or clothing 
 his family. 
 
 " We had a little talk together sometimes, but it was not often we 
 could hold a private conference ; and he was very shy of speaking any 
 thing relating to the children before your father, or indeed of any other 
 matter. I informed him, as far as I handsomely could, of our losses, 
 &c, for I was afraid that he should think I was about to beg of him : 
 but the girls (with whom he had many private discourses) I believe told 
 him every thing they could think on. 
 
 " He was particularly pleased with Patty ; and one morning before 
 Mr. Wesley came down he asked me if I was willing to let Patty go
 
 MATTHEW WESLEY. 43 
 
 and stay a year or two with him at London ! Sister,' says he, ' I 
 have endeavoured already to make one of your children easy while she 
 lives ; and if you please to trust Patty with me, I will endeavour to 
 make her so too.' Whatever others may think, I thought this a 
 generous offer ; and the more so, because he had done so much for 
 Sukey and Hetty. I expressed my gratitude as well as I could ; and 
 would have had him speak to your father, but he would not himself, 
 he left that to me ; nor did he ever mention it to Mr. Wesley till the 
 evening before he left us. 
 
 " He always behaved himself very decently at family prayers, and 
 in your father's absence said grace for us before and after meat. Nor 
 did he ever interrupt our privacy : but went into his own chamber 
 when we went into ours. 
 
 " He stayed from Thursday to the Wednesday after ; then he left us 
 to go to Scarborough ; from whence he returned the Saturday se'nnight 
 after, intending to stay with us a few days ; but finding your sisters 
 gone the day before to Lincoln, he would leave us on Sunday morning, 
 for he said he might see the girls before they set forward for London. 
 He overtook them at Lincoln ; and had Mrs. Taylor, Emily, Kezzy, 
 with the rest, to supper with him at the Angel. On Monday they 
 breakfasted with him ; then they parted expecting to see him no more 
 till they came to London : but on Wednesday he sent his man to invite 
 them to supper at night. On Thursday he invited them to dinner, at 
 night to supper, and on Friday morning to breakfast ; when he took his 
 leave of them and rode for London. They got into town on Saturday 
 about noon ; and that evening Patty writ me an account of her journey. 
 
 " Before Mr. Wesley went to Scarborough I informed him of what 
 I knew of Mr. Morgan's case. When he came back he told me that 
 ' he had tried the spa at Scarborough, and could assure me that it far 
 excelled all the spas in Europe, for he had been at them all, both in 
 Germany and elsewhere ; that at Scarborough there were two springs, 
 as he was informed, close together, which flowed into one basin ; the 
 one a chalybeate, the other a purging water; and he did not believe 
 there was the like in any part of the world.' Says he, ' If that gentle- 
 man you told me of could by any means be gotten thither, though his 
 age is the most dangerous time in life for his distemper, yet I am of 
 opinion those waters would cure him.' I thought good to tell you this, 
 that you might if you please inform Mr. Morgan of it, if it is proper. 
 
 " Dear Jackey, I can't stay now to talk about Hetty and Patty ; 
 but this- 7 hope better of both than some others do. I pray God to 
 bless you. Adieu. 
 
 "J/y 12, 1731. S. W." 
 
 There does not appear to have been much intimacy between Mat- 
 thew Wesley and his brother Samuel. Though Mr. Matthew Wesley 
 was no zealot, yet the religious change of his brother did not, I am led 
 to think, please him ; and hence a distance was naturally occasioned 
 between the two brothers. Mr. Matthew Wesley was also a careful econ- 
 omist, got his wealth with difficulty, and knowing little of the troubles of 
 a family, could ill judge of domestic expenses upon a large scale. 
 
 It was most probably just after the visit mentioned above that he
 
 44 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 wrote a severe and caustic letter to his brother, accusing him of bad 
 economy, and of not making provision for his Mrge family ; and in- 
 directly blaming him for having become a married man. 
 
 This severe letter Mr. S. Wesley answers in a sort of serio-jocose 
 style, and amply vindicates the whole of his conduct against what he 
 calls the imputation of his ill husbandry. 
 
 Of the letter of Mr. Matthew only an extract remains in the hand- 
 writing of his brother Samuel. I shall give it here, and refer the reader 
 for Mr. S. Wesley's defence to the memoirs which I have collected of 
 his life. The letter, which is without date, begins thus : 
 
 " The same record which assures us an infidel cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of heaven, also asserts in the consequence that a worse than 
 an infidel can never do it. It likewise describes the character of such 
 a one, He provides not for his own, especially those of his own house. 
 
 " You have a numerous offspring ; you have had a long time, a plen- 
 tiful estate ; great and generous benefactions ; and have made no provi- 
 sion for those of your own house, who can have nothing in view at your 
 exit but distress. This I think a black account ; let the cause be folly, 
 or vanity, or ungovernable appetites. I hope Providence has restored 
 you again to give you time to settle this balance, which shocks me to 
 think of. To this end I must advise you to be frequent in your perusal 
 of father Beveridge on repentance, and Dr. Tillolson on Restitution : 
 for it is not saying, Lord, Lord ! will bring us to the kingdom of hea- 
 ven, 1 but doing justice to all our fellow creatures; and not a poetical 
 imagination that we do so. A serious consideration of these things, 
 and suitable actions, I doubt not, will qualify you to meet me where 
 sorrow shall be no more, which is the highest hope and expectation 
 of yours, &c." 
 
 This language is too severe, even had the occasion generally justified 
 the critique. Had Mr. S. Wesley imitated the conduct of his brother 
 Matthew, John and Charles Wesley had probably never been born ; 
 and who can say that the great light which they were the -instruments 
 in the hand of God of pouring out upon the land and spreading among 
 the nations of the earth had ever been diffused by any other means ? 
 The straits and difficulties of the other branch of this family were cir- 
 cumstances which, in the order of God, helped to turn the minds of 
 those eminent reformers to that economy and discipline which in pro- 
 cess of time they introduced into the Methodist societies, for which 
 those societies are remarkable, and by which they are distinguished to 
 the present day. 
 
 Men should be aware how they arraign the dispensations and ordi- 
 nances of Divine Providence. It is not good for man to be alone 
 therefore God instituted marriage. He who marries docs well : and it 
 is only in the case of a general persecution of the Church that he who 
 does not marry does better. 
 
 Surgeon Wesley is extinct ! Samuel, his brother, still lives in his 
 natural and spiritual progeny. God has crowned him with honour; 
 and it is with difficulty that the name of his brother has been rescued 
 from oblivion. 
 
 Mr. M. Wesley was, however, a good and excellent man in his way :
 
 MATTHEW WESLEY. 45 
 
 but appears to have been little acquainted with the heart, the feelings, 
 the joys, and sorrows, of a parent. 
 
 We know more of the character of Surgeon Wesley from some lines 
 to his memory written by Mrs. Wright, than from any other source. 
 
 From these we learn that he was a man of a truly benevolent mind, 
 had much learning and information, greatly excelled in his own pro- 
 fession, particularly in all feminine cases, was a good judge and lover 
 of poetry, was useful to his brother Samuel's large family, was the 
 particular patron, friend, and support of his niece Mehctabel, and that 
 he was adorned with every art and grace, and saved from the fear of 
 death. He breathed his last, leaning on her bosom, some time in the 
 year 1737. 
 
 I shall insert the verses so honourable both to the wide and his 
 niece. They are written in the purest spirit of poetry, friendship, and 
 feeling ; and appeared first in the Christian Magazine, vol. iii, p. 284. 
 Clio is her assumed poetic name ; Varro that of her uncle. 
 
 How can the muse attempt the string, 
 
 Forsaken by her guardian power ? 
 Ah me ! that she survives to sing 
 
 Her friend and patron now no more ! 
 Yet private grief she might suppress, 
 
 Since Clio bears no selfish mind ; 
 But oh ! she mourns to wild excess, 
 
 The friend and patron of mankind. 
 
 Alas ! the sovereign healing art, 
 
 Which rescued thousands from the grave, 
 Unaided left the gentlest heart, 
 
 Nor could its skilful master save. 
 Who shall the helpless sex sustain, 
 
 Now Varro's lenient hand is gone T 
 Which knew so well to soften pain, 
 
 And ward all dangers but its own. 
 
 His darling muse, his Clio dear, 
 &9 Whom first his favour raised to fame ; 
 His gentle voice vouchsaf'd to cheer, 
 
 His art upheld her tender frame : 
 Pale envy durst not show her teeth, 
 
 Above contempt she gaily shone, 
 Chief favourite ! till the hand of death 
 
 Endanger'd both, by striking one. 
 
 Perceiving well, devoid of fear, 
 
 His latest fatal conflict nigh ; 
 Reclined on her he held most dear, 
 
 Whose breast received his parting sigh ; 
 With every art and grace adorn'd, 
 
 By man admired, by Heaven approved 
 Good Varro died, applauded, mourn'd, 
 
 And honoured by the Muse he loved. 
 
 In the last line Mrs. Wright seems to refer to some verses on the 
 death of her uncle, written by other hands. 
 
 I have met with one copy, which was published in June, 1737, in 
 vol. vii, of the Gentleman's Magazine. And as that work is very scarce, 
 and the verses known to few persons, I shall insert them aa a testimony
 
 46 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 to the worth of a man who appears from all accounts to have been learn- 
 ed, skilful, humane, modest, and pious. 
 
 Verses on the Death of Mr. Maithevs Wesley. 
 
 When vulgar funerals trail their pomp along, 
 We idly stand amidst the gazing throng. 
 Perhaps such trite reflections rise, " Alas ! 
 How weak the human frame ! all flesh is grass, 
 A bubble frail ! a shade that swiftly flies ; 
 A flower that opes at morn, at evening dies!" 
 No farther we the serious thought pursue, 
 Than the slight inf 'rence, " We must follow too !" 
 
 But if the fatal final hour remove 
 To death's black shades a relative we love, 
 Or chosen friend, in pressures fully tried, 
 A faithful guardian, counsellor, and guide ; 
 More awful thoughts are by the stroke imprest ; 
 And the wise aims of Providence confest. 
 
 "Can righteous Heaven" (thus right we argue then,) 
 Regardless view such signal worth in men ? 
 Their virtue and their piety disown ? 
 And shall they be to dark oblivion thrown ? 
 O, no ! most truly Scripture strains attest, ^ 
 
 For such remains an everlasting rest." 
 Undoubted, in the sacred books appears 
 A future state assigned through endless years. 
 And still we find, to what these lights reveal 
 Our calm unbiass'd reason sets her seal. 
 
 As here the sun with his prolific rays, 
 The blooms and verdures of the globe displays ; 
 So GOD, the Sun, that heavenly region gilds, 
 Spreads endless riches o'er its blissful fields. 
 And surely as that Sun shall ever shine, 
 Those endless treasures, Wesley, all are thine ! 
 
 Whate'er with lavish fancy poets feign 
 Of bowery scenes and an Elysian plain, 
 Where everlasting zephyrs waft perfume, 
 Fruits ever ripen, flowers for ever bloom ; 
 Those fruits and flowers which on the borders grow 
 Of living streams, where waves of nectar flow ; 
 Where happy guests on rosy beds recline, 
 .- And press from heavenly grapes immortal wine ; 
 
 Whate'er the surer Scripture page displays 
 Of golden wreaths, inchas'd with starry rays, 
 Which crown the blest ; the shining robes they wear, 
 The shouts they utter, and the palms they bear, 
 The angel songs which swell the concert high, 
 And all the immortal music of the sky ! 
 These strong, these bright ideas are too faint 
 The joys ineffable of heaven to paint. 
 
 Thus while thy drooping friends surround thy urn, 
 We meditate thy bliss, and cease to mourn ; 
 Recite the virtues of thy life below, 
 Till we with zealous emulation glow : 
 Resolve like thine our future life to frame, 
 To make each social, useful grace our aim ; 
 To propagate true knowledge, void of guile, 
 To combat craft, whose schemes the truth defiie: 
 To cheer the afflicted, the deprest to raise, 
 And modest worth to fortify with praise. 
 
 'Twas thus, if small to match with great we dare, 
 A mortal's virtue with a GOD'S compare;
 
 MATTHEW WESLEY. 47 
 
 'Twas thus the Saviour of the world exprest 
 The life Divine, in human semblance drest ; 
 Spotless in act, unwearied ILL to chase, 
 And arduous for the weal of human race. 
 
 SYLVIUS. 
 
 We shall meet with this author again, when we come to the account 
 of Mrs. Wright, the Clio of her uncle Matthew. I cannot find that 
 Mr. Matthew Wesley left any papers behind him. He must have died 
 when far advanced in life. It appears that his father was a married 
 man, and had a family in 1662 ; and it is probable that Matthew, who 
 was his eldest son, might have been born about the year 1660, and as 
 the verses on his death were inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine in 
 the month of June, 1737, in which year he certainly died, he must have 
 been, at his death, about seventy-six or seventy-seven years of age. 
 
 I have before supposed that both he and his brother Samuel might 
 have had the rudiments of a classical education from their father, 
 though they were both young at the time of his death, the former 
 probably ten, or twelve, the latter eight or nine years of age. But there 
 was such an aptitude to learn, and such a jyou-er of comprehension in 
 all the Wesley family, that at ten or twelve years of age they had 
 acquired as much as most others have done when they have arrived at 
 sixteen. We shall meet proofs of this as we proceed in the history of 
 this family. 
 
 It is most likely that Matthew continued with the Nonconformists 
 till his death ; as we find no intimation that he left their communion. 
 But as he seems to have taken no part in the political and polemical 
 disputes which divided and tortured the people of that day, he was 
 thought by several to be indifferent to all forms of religion. " Had 
 this been so," says Miss Wesley, in a letter now before me, " I should 
 hardly have supposed that such good parents as my grandfather, and 
 grandmother would have entrusted him with their darling daughter, 
 [Martha.] He had Hetty before. Martha often told me she never 
 had reason to believe it, as he approved her habit of going regularly to 
 morning prayers at Church, and was exemplarily moral in his words 
 and actions, esteeming religion, but never talking of its mysteries. 
 Silence on the subject in that age, where controversy was frequent, 
 might give rise to the suspicion that he was skeptically inclined, 
 especially in a family jealous for its spirituality." 
 
 Patty lived long with him, and was used by him with the greatest 
 tenderness : but she complained that he was not decidedly religious* 
 though he was strictly moral in his conduct, and highly esteemed piety 
 in others. See a letter of hers to her brother John, in the Memoirs of 
 her Life. 
 
 There is an excellent saying of his recorded by Mrs. S. Wesley in 
 a letter to her son John in 1735, which should not be omitted: 
 " Never let any man know that you have heard what he has said against 
 you. It may be he spake on misinformation, or was in a passion, or 
 did it in a weak compliance with the company ; perhaps he has changed 
 his mind, and is sorry for having done it, and may continue friendly to 
 you. But if he finds that you are acquainted with what he has said.
 
 48 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 he will conclude you cannot forgive him, and upon that supposition 
 will become your enemy." 
 
 I have heard that Mr. Surgeon Wesley had a son who was educated 
 at Oxford, but shortened his life by intemperance : but of any other 
 part of his famiK I have heard nothing; nor do I know whether the 
 above inform. he correct, as he appears rather as a bachelor in the 
 scanty memou. : K ave been able to glean up of his life. 
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPVVORTH, 
 Father of Hie Rev. John Wesley, Founder of the J\lethodists. 
 
 WE have already seen that John Wesley, vicar of IVhitchurch, 
 Dorsetshire, left two sons, Matthew and Samuel. Of the former we 
 have spoken according to the scanty documents which remain. Of 
 the latter we have more copious materials, with some original informa- 
 tion which has never yet been laid before the public. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley appears to have been born at Whitchurch in 
 the year 1662. He was educated at the free school at Dorchester, 
 and afterward he became a pupil in Mr. Morton's academy, among the 
 Dissenters ; and in both places he appears to have profited much in 
 classical learning ; though there were many things in the private acade- 
 mies of the Dissenters with which he found fault, and which, from one 
 of his publications on the subject, we learn were very reprehensible : 
 but they appear *o ; un t been chiefly of a political nature. His objec- 
 tions to the mannc : m which the Dissenting academies were conducted 
 he stated in a private I'-tter to a friend ; who, several years after, without 
 Mr. Wesley's consent or knowledge, published the letter, which pro- 
 duced a controversy that shall be noticed in its proper place. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley was designed for the ministry among the Non- 
 conformists ; and in their principles he had been carefully educated. 
 How he came to change his views, and become a zealous Churchman, 
 his son, the late Mr. John Wesley, stated as follows : 
 
 " Some severe invectives being written against the Dissenters, Mr. 
 S. Wesley being a young man of considerable talents, was pitched 
 upon to answer it. This set him on a course of reading which soon 
 produced an effect very different from what had been intended. Instead 
 of writing the wished-for answer, he himself conceived he saw reason 
 to change his opinions ; and actually formed a resolution to renounce 
 the Dissenters, and attach himself to the Established Church. 
 
 " He lived at that time with his mother and an old aunt, both of 
 whom were too strongly attached to the Dissenting doctrines to have 
 borne with any patience the disclosure of his design. He, therefore, 
 got up one morning at a very early hour, and, without acquainting any 
 one with his purpose, set out on foot to Oxford, and entered himself 
 of Exeter College." 
 
 Mr. Wesley has been accused by Mr. Palmer and others, that 
 " when he resolved to go to the Church of England, he took twenty 
 pounds of the Dissenters' money, and then left them." Palmer's

 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 49 
 
 Defence, p. 20. This charge is most disingenuously produced; as 
 it seems to insinuate that he had purloined so much of their property, 
 and then decamped. Whereas the truth is, he had received twenty 
 pounds of a legacy, part of which he immediately paid Mr. JVforfcm, 
 at whose academy he was ; with the rest he discharged some debts 
 which he owed to the Dissenters, and took not one farthing of it to 
 Oxford ; the money necessary for his footing it thither being otherwise 
 supplied. Jlnswer, p. 57. 
 
 Mr. S. Wesley was at this time about twenty-two years of age ; for 
 from the registers of Exeter College it appears that his caution money 
 was paid to Mr. Richard Hutchins, Bursar, by Mr. William Cra66, 
 then dean of that college, on September 26, 1684, which was returned 
 December 22, 1686. 
 
 The whole entry as obtained from Exeter College, and given by 
 Mr. Southey, is as follows : 
 
 Deposit of Caution Money. 
 
 Sept. 26,1084. 
 
 Mro. Hutchins pro Snmuele Westley, 
 paup. Schol. de Dorchester, 31. 
 
 Ric. Hutchins. 
 GuiL Crabb. 
 
 Feb. 9, 1686. 
 
 Mro. Paynter, pro. Samuele Westley, 
 p. schol. oliin adimsso. 31. 
 
 Guil. Paynter. 
 Ric. Hutchins. 
 
 Return of Caution Money. 
 
 Dec. 22, 1636. [5?] ' 
 Samueli Westley, pro seipso, 31. 
 
 Ric. Hutchins. 
 Samuel Westley. 
 
 Jan 10, 1687 
 
 Mihi ipsi pro impensis Coll. debitis ad 
 fest Nat. 87. 31. 
 
 Jo. Harris. 
 
 From this entry it would- appear that Dean Crabb laid down the first 
 caution money for Mr. S. Wesley. There is a note on these entries 
 as given by Mr. Southey, which 1 shall copy. 
 
 "The pauper scholaris was the lowest of the four conditions of 
 members not on the foundation, as the annexed table, copied from one 
 prefixed to the Caution Book, shows : 
 
 Summae 
 
 tradcndcc 
 
 Bursario pro 
 
 ratione 
 
 diversarum 
 
 conditionum 
 
 scire. 
 
 1. Commensalium } 1. Sociorum 6'. 
 
 admissorum ad > 
 
 mensam ) 2. Propriam 51. 
 
 2. Battallariorium . <tf. 
 
 3. Paupcrum Scholarium 31. 
 
 "There seems reason to suspect that December 22, 1686, in the 
 first entry of return should be 1685 ; for otherwise Samuel Westley 
 will appear to have two cautions in at once ; and from the state of his 
 finances, this is peculiarly improbable." 
 
 I do not see any difficulty here. The entry is most probably correct ; 
 for, in two years after his admission, so fertile a genius and so diligent 
 a man might be well supposed to be capable of raising such requisite 
 small sums : for in the preceding year, 1685, he had published his first 
 work, intituled Maggots^ for which his brother-in-law, J. Dunlon, the 
 
 7
 
 SO OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 publisher, gave him as much as he could afford. He took his bachelor's 
 degree in 1688. 
 
 Though Mr. Wesley's opinions might on this occasion have been 
 much shaken, yet he was not wholly detached from the Dissenters 
 either in affection or religious fellowship till after his return from the 
 university. I shall give the relation in his own words, which must be 
 considered as the only true account. 
 
 [Mr. Wesley states that he left the Dissenters in 1693 ; and in that 
 same year it appears he entered into the Church, and got either a 
 curacy or a living. I dare not vouch for. the correctness of this state- 
 ment. It is possible that both events took place in the same year.] 
 
 " When I came from the university, my acquaintance lay chiefly 
 among the Dissenters ; having scarce any intimacy before I went thither 
 from London with any of the Church of England, unless with two Rev. 
 and icorthy persons, my relations, who lived at a great distance ; one of 
 whom coming to London, was so kind as to see me while I was at 
 Mr. Morton's ; and gave me such arguments against that schism which 
 I was then embarked with, as added weight to my resolutions when I 
 began to think of leaving it. But after my return to London I con- 
 tracted an acquaintance with a gentleman of the Church of England, 
 who, knowing my former way of life, did often importune me to give 
 him an account in writing of the Dissenters' methods of education in 
 their private academies ; concerning which he had heard several pas- 
 sages from me in conversation, though for some time I did not satisfy 
 him therein ; and it was the following remarkable occurrence which 
 altered my inclinations as to that affair. I happened to be with some 
 of my fowier acquaintance at a house in Leadenhall-street, or there- 
 abouts, in the year 1693. All of them I remember were then Dissenters, 
 except one, and he has since left the Church of England. Their dis- 
 course was so fulsomely lewd and profane, that I could not endure it ; 
 but went to the other side of the room with a doctor of physic ; who 
 had been my fellow pupil at JVfr. Morton's ; and to whom I owe that 
 justice to declare that he likewise disliked the conversation. 
 
 "A little after we went to supper : but then the scene was changed ; 
 and they all fell a railing at monarchy, and blaspheming the memory 
 of King Charles the martyr, discoursing of their calves-head club, and 
 producing or repeating some verses on that subject. I remember one 
 of the company told us of a design that they had at their next calves- 
 head feast, to have a cold pie served on the table, with either a live cat 
 or hare, I have forgot whether, enclosed ; and they contrived to put 
 one of their company who loved monarchy, and knew nothing of the 
 matter to cut it up ; whereupon, and on the leaping out of the cat or 
 hare they were all to set up a shout, and cry, Halloo old puss ! to the 
 honour of the good old cause, and to show their affection to a common- 
 wealth. Since I wrote this, I got a sight of the calves-head anthems ; 
 and in that for the year 1694 I find these verses, 
 
 " Then to puss, boys ; to puss, boys ! 
 Let us drink it off thus, boys !" 
 
 on which, if I mistake not, this story will be a good comment.
 
 SAMUEL WE3LEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 51 
 
 *' By this as well as by several other discourses which I heard among 
 them, I found that their principles were not at all altered : and these 
 conversations so turned my stomach against them, and gave me such a 
 just indignation against such villainous principles and practices, that I 
 returned to my lodgings, and resolved to draw up what the gentleman 
 desired, &c." Defence of Letter, &c, p. 4 
 
 This is his own account of his utterly separating himself from the 
 communion of the Dissenters ; though his mind appears to have had a 
 predisposing bias to that separation for some time. 
 
 But, though neither a Dissenter, nor their apologist, I must observe 
 that the conclusions which Mr. S. Wesley drew were not entirely sup- 
 ported by the premises. Perhaps a more barbarous, abominable, and 
 sickening institution than the calves-head club never disgraced the 
 convivial assemblies of a Christian country; and those who were capa- 
 ble of sitting down to such a repast, with its concomitant representations 
 and recollections, could not, I imagine, hesitate, if among our antipodes 
 in New Zealand, to sit down to have their share of a roasted human 
 victim. But still the calves-head club was not the body of the Dissent- 
 ers ; nor was it ever approved by that body ; therefore its proceedings 
 are not fairly chargeable upon the Dissenters; some classes of whom 
 were cordially averse from the death of the king, though they had a 
 deep conviction that his aim was to establish an arbitrary power in the 
 state, and Popery in the Church : and let me add, that they were among 
 the foremost to restore the monarchy. 
 
 Mr. S. Wesley's ancestors were all Dissenters. They had many 
 conscientious scruples against joining in the communion of the Church, 
 and admitting its hierarchy ; yet it does not appear that there was one 
 disloyal man among them : and in the heat of his zeal for the Church, 
 after his conversion from Dissenting principles, Mr. S. Wesley in his 
 controversial writings often overstepped the bounds of Christian mode- 
 ration. But in those unhappy times all parties ran into extremes. 
 
 When Mr. S. Wesley entered himself at Oxford, he had only two 
 pounds five shillings ; and no prospect of future supplies, except from 
 his own exertions. However, he supported himself by publishing, and 
 probably by assisting the younger students, till he took his bachelor's 
 degree, without any preferment or assistance from his friends, but only 
 five shillings. See his letter to his brother Matthew. 
 
 He now came to London, having increased his little stock to ten 
 pounds fifteen shillings. He was ordained deacon, and obtained a 
 curacy of twenty-eight pounds per annum, which he held one year; 
 and was then appointed a chaplain aboard the fleet, where he had se- 
 venty pounds per annum. This appointment he held for only one year; 
 and then came to London, and obtained another curacy of thirty pounds 
 per annum, (see the above letter to his brother Matthew,) which he held 
 two years ; and which income by his industry and writings he raised to 
 sirlij pounds per annum. 
 
 He then married ; had a son ; (Samuel ;) and he, his wife, and child, 
 lived in lodgings ; till some years after, in 1693, he had the living of 
 South Ormsby in the county of Lincoln given to him, worth about fifty 
 pounds per annum.
 
 52 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 This I believe was the place of which Mr. John Wesley gave the 
 following account : 
 
 " My father's first preferment in the Church was a small parish 
 (South Ormsby) given him by a nobleman, (marquis of Normanby.) 
 This nobleman had a house in the parish, where a woman who lived 
 with him usually resided. This lady toould be intimate with my mother 
 whether she would or not. To such an intercourse my father would 
 not submit. Coming in one day, and finding this intrusive visitant 
 sitting with my mother, he went up to her, took her by the hand, and 
 very fairly handed her out. The nobleman resented the affront so 
 outrageously as to make it necessary for my father to resign the living." 
 While he possessed the living of South Ormsby he had five children. 
 I have already hinted that while at college Mr. Wesley supported 
 himself partly by publishing. As this circumstance is but little 
 known, I shall be more particular in my statement of it. 
 
 Mr. Wesley's intimacy in the family of Dr. Annesley was most 
 likely brought about by his acquaintance with the famous eccentric 
 bookseller, John Dunton, well known in the typographical history of 
 England. 
 
 On the 3d August, 1682, this gentleman espoused Elizabeth, one of 
 the daughters of Dr. Samuel Annesley. Another of whom, Susannah, 
 the youngest, Mr. Wesley afterward married. See above. Mr. 
 Dunton has been called Mr. Samuel Wesley's near relative. But there 
 was no other relationship between them but what was consequent on 
 marrying two sisters. 
 
 Mr. Dunton being an adventurous publisher, Mr. W r esley employed 
 him to print and publish his first work, the title of which is as fol- 
 lows, " MAGGOTS, or Poems on several subjects never before han- 
 dled." Octavo, London, 1685. John Dunton 
 
 To this work Mr. Wesley did not put his name. But there was 
 prefixed a portrait, to the knees, of a man (the author) crowned with 
 laurel, writing at a table ; on his forehead a maggot, and underneath 
 these verses, 
 
 In his own defence the author writes, 
 Because when this foul maggot bites 
 
 He ne'er can rest in quiet : 
 Which makes him make so sad a face, 
 He'd beg your worship or your grace 
 Unsight, unseen, to buy it. 
 
 " It is to be regretted," says Mr. Grainger, who describes this por- 
 trait, vol. iv, p. 329, " that Mr. Samuel, Wesley's vein of poetry was 
 not exhausted when he published his Maggots ; as he incurred the 
 censure of Garth in his ' Dispensary)' who severely lashes him in these 
 lines : 
 
 " Had Wesley never aim'd in verse to please, 
 He had not ranked with our Ogilbys. 
 Still censures will on dull pretenders fall ; 
 A Codrus should expect a Juvenal /" 
 
 This is as splenetic as it is unjust, and Mr. Wesley in two lines 
 most amply turned the scorpion's sting upon its own head, 
 
 What wonder he should Wesley Codrus call, 
 Who dares surname himself a Juvenal !
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTM. 53 
 
 The learned reader will at once recollect that Garth alludes to 
 Juv. Sat. iii, ver. 203. 
 
 l.tctus erat Codro, 4"*. 
 
 Nil habuit Codrus ; quis enim negat ? et lumen illud 
 Perdidit infelix totum nil : ullimus autem 
 tErumnce cumulus, quod nitdum, et fnistra roganiem, 
 AVmo cibo, nemo hospitio, tectoque juvabit. 
 
 Codrus had but one bed, &c. 
 'Tis true, poor Codrus nothing had to boast, 
 And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost ; 
 Begged naked thro' the streets of wealthy Rome, 
 And found not one to feed or take him home. 
 
 DRTDEN. 
 
 I see no lashing here : the fact of the poverty of Codws, and the 
 public neglect of him, is stated by Juvenal. If misfortune and public 
 neglect of the merits of a poet be fit subjects for satire, not only Cod- 
 rus, but Milton, who pot but five pounds for his Paradise Lost, the 
 best poem ever written,* and Edmund Spencer, (who is said to have 
 died in a garret,) whose works are as far beyond every thing that Garth 
 wrote as the Peak of Teneriffe is beyond a molehill, may all come 
 in for a very large share. Beside, Juvenal appears more to lament 
 the misfortune of Codrus than to find fault with him. 
 
 The judgment of the author of a poem intituled, " The Reformation 
 of Manners" was more candid to the man, while he justly lashed the 
 profligacy of the times. 
 
 " Wesley with pen and poverty beset, 
 And Blackmore vers'd in physic as in wit, 
 Though this of JESUS, that of JOB may sing, 
 One bawdy play will t\v ice their profits bring." 
 
 Mr. Wesley's poetic talents, of whatever order, were always em* 
 ployed in the cause of truth and moral purity. Garth, whose muse 
 had a strong pinion, prostituted his talents in publishing versions of the 
 most abominable parts of the vilest productions of Ovid But he is 
 gone to another tribunal. 
 
 The worst that his brother-in-law, Dunton, could say of Mr. Wesley, 
 when he quarrelled with him, was this : 
 
 " He loves too much the Heliconian strand, 
 Whose stream's unfurnished with the golden sand" 
 
 By this first publication, Maggots, he probably gained little. But 
 he wrote* many poetical pieces for Dunton while he was at college, for 
 which he was liberally rewarded. This he in effect acknowledges 
 in a letter to Mr. Dunton, apologizing for a long silence. 
 
 * Mr. John Millon sold his copy of Paradise Lost, April 27, 1G67, to Mr. Samuel 
 Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five 
 pounds more when thirteen hundred should be sold of the first edition ; and again _/ip 
 pounds after the sale of the same number of the second edition, and another/ire ;MWH</S 
 afur the same sale of the third. None of the three editions was to extend beyond 
 thirteen hundred copies. The third edition was published in 167S ; and Milton's 
 widow, to whom the copyright then devolved, sold all her claims to Mr. Simmons 
 for eight pounds ! and Simmons transferred his whole right to Jlrabazon Jlylmtr for 
 twenty-five pounds. Only three thousand copies of this incomparable work were sold 
 in eleven years.
 
 54 or* MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " Epworth, July 24, 1697. 
 
 u DEARBROTHER, It has been neither unkindnessto you,with whom 
 1 have traded, and been justly used for many years, which has made me 
 so long neglect answering your several letters ; but the hurry of a re- 
 moval, and my extraordinary business ; being obliged to preach the 
 visitation sermon at Gainsborough, at the bishop's coming thither, 
 which is but just over. Beside I would fain have sent you an elegy, as 
 well as an epitaph, but cannot get one to my mind ; and therefore you 
 must be content with half your desire. And if you please to accept 
 this epitaph, it is at your service; and I hope it will come before you 
 will need another epithalamium. 
 
 " I am your obliged friend and brother, 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 JVte/io/s' Literary Anecdotes, vol. v, p. 213. 
 
 In a note on this letter Mr. Nichols observes, " that elegies, 
 epitaphs, and epithalamiums, were articles in which Dunton traded ; and 
 regularly sold them ready made." This, therefore, was one source 
 from which Mr. Wesley derived subsistence both while at college, and 
 after he left it. But another source, less precarious and more regular, 
 was the following : 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1691 John Dunton projected a paper 
 which was at first intituled, " The Athenian Gazette or Casuistical 
 Mercury, resolving all the nice and curious questions proposed by the 
 ingenious :" but which in a little time, " to oblige authority," he altered 
 to the Athenian Mercury. And the project was founded, as himself 
 tells us, on Acts xvii, 21 : "For all the ATHENIANS, and strangers 
 which were there, spent their time in nothing else but either to TELL or to 
 HEAR some new thing." The object of the work was to receive and 
 answer all questions in all faculties and departments of literature. Mr. 
 Dunton's account of this undertaking, and the persons employed in it, 
 which were denominated The Athenian Society, will not be unaccepta- 
 ble to the reader, as particularly connected with the subject of these 
 pages. 
 
 " When I had thus formed the design," says he, " I found that some 
 assistance was absolutely necessary to carry it on ; in regard the project 
 took in the whoh compass of learning, and the nature of it required 
 despatch. I had then some acquaintance with the ingenious Mr. 
 Richard Sault, who turned Malebranche into English for me, and was 
 admirably well skilled in the Mathematics. To him I unbosomed 
 myself, and he very freely offered to become concerned. So soon as 
 the design was well advertised, Mr. Sault and myself, without any 
 more assistance, settled to it with great diligence ; and Nos. 1, and 2, 
 were entirely of Mr. Sault's composure and mine. The project being 
 surprising and unthought of, we were immediately overloaded with 
 letters. The Athenian Gazette made now such a noise in the world, 
 and was so universally received, that we were obliged to look out after 
 more members. The ingenious Dr. Norris very generously offered 
 his assistance gratis ; but refused to become a stated member of 
 Athena. He was wondrously useful in supplying hints.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 55 
 
 " The undertaking growing every week upon our hands, the impa- 
 tience of our querists, and the curiosity of their questions, which 
 required a great deal of accuracy and care, did oblige us to adopt a 
 third member of Athens ; and the Rev. Samuel Wesley being just 
 come to town, all new from the university, and my acquaintance with 
 him being very intimate, I easily prevailed with him to embark himself 
 upon the same bottom, and in the same cause. With this new addition, 
 we found ourselves to be masters of the whole design; and thereupon 
 we neither lessened nor increased our number." 
 
 In this work no names were given to the public. It was published 
 every Tuesday and Saturday; consisted of a single folio; and the first 
 number made its appearance Tuesday, March 17, 1691. Each number 
 was one penny. Thirty numbers, that is, sixty pages, made what was 
 called a volume ; and stitched in marble paper was sold for two shil- 
 lings and sixpence ; and the work was continued to the twentieth vo- 
 lume, " when," says Mr. Dunton, " we took up, to give ourselves a 
 little ease and refreshment ; for the labours and travels of the mind are 
 as expensive, and wear the spirits off as fast, as those of the body." 
 
 The society was never composed of more than three members: 
 Mr. John Dunton, the projector; Mr. Richard Sault, and the Rev. 
 Samuel Wesley. Among the contributors to this undertaking were 
 some of the first men of the nation, viz. Dr. Norris, Daniel De Foe, 
 J\lr. Richardson, Nahum Tate, poet laureate, Dean Swift, the Marquis 
 of Halifax, Sir William Temple, Sir Thomas Pope, Blount, Sir Wil- 
 liam Hedges, Sir Peter Pett, Mr. Motteaux, &c. Occasionally they 
 published supplements to the volumes relating to foreign literature, of 
 which they were a sort of general review. 
 
 Though there were never more than three members in this society, 
 yet in the advertisement to the thirteenth number it is stated, "We 
 have now taken into our society a civilian, a doctor of physic, and a 
 chirurgeon," [quere, Matthew Wesley?] and they therefore proposed 
 answering all questions in those sciences. Those, whoever they were, 
 could be only assistants ; for Messrs. Dunton, Sault, and Wesley, were 
 the proprietors, and no doubt divided the profits, which must have been, 
 . considerable for the time. Their names were never disclosed till Dun- 
 ton published his Memoirs ; and their profound secrecy contributed 
 much both to their credit and emolument. 
 
 In mentioning the name of Mr. Richard Sault, I am necessarily led 
 to notice a work which then made a great deal of noise in the world, 
 and since that time both noise and mischief. I mean a pamphlet in- 
 tituled, " The Second Spira, or a Narrative of the Death of the Hon. Fr. 
 
 N 1, son of the late ," published by John Dunton ; and 
 
 republished by the late Mr. J. Wesley, in the Arminian Magazine 
 for 1783, p. 24, &c. 
 
 When I first saw this account, I believed it to be, what I ever thought 
 and still think, the FIRST Francis Spira to be, a forgery ; and a forgery 
 of the most dangerous tendency, calculated only to drive weak persons, 
 and those especially who are afflicted with morbid melancholy, into 
 utter despair. I was ready however to grant, that if the stories were 
 founded on any fact, the persons who were the subjects, must have
 
 56 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 been in a state of derangement; as both accounts flatly contradict Our 
 Lord's assertion, " EVERY one that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seek- 
 eth, findeth; and to him that knocketh, IT SHALL be opened," Matt, vii, 8. 
 
 That my judgment concerning the Second Spira was not wrong I 
 learn from John Dunton himself; who, in the work he intitules John 
 Dunton's Life and Errors, published by him in 1705, and since repub- 
 lished by Mr. Nichols, vol. i, p. 154, gives us the history of this work ; 
 for which it appears he had been frequently called to an account. He 
 tells us that he received the account from the above Mr. Richard 
 Sault, who told him that he " had received the memoirs out of which 
 he had formed the copy, from a divine of the Church of England ;" and 
 he pretended to confirm the truth of it, by " a letter and a preface from 
 the same gentleman." Several clergymen, who came to examine Mr. 
 Dunton on the truth of the story, he introduced to Mr. Sault, who gave 
 them the same relation ; but took care not to commit himself by refer- 
 ring to names or places. 
 
 When this matter was sifted to the bottom, it was found that the story 
 could be traced to no authentic source ; and that it was wholly the con- 
 trivance of Mr. Sault; who being a man often afllicted with morbid 
 melancholy, and its insupportable companion despair of God's mercy, 
 wrote it as a picture of his own mind. 
 
 When the original Memoirs came to be examined, which Mr. Sault 
 pretended to have received from a divine of the Church of England, 
 they were found to be in Mr. 'SauW s own handwriting, but disguised. 
 Mr. Dunton therefore declared his conviction that it was a forgery of 
 Mr. Sault ; and that he had not the slightest suspicion of the imposture 
 till after the book was printed. And this he sets down as the first of 
 the seven articles out of six hundred, which he heartily wished he Had 
 never committed to the press : and advises all who had purchased any 
 of them, to commit them to the fire : p. 159. 
 
 I wish this fact to be known to all religious people, and particularly 
 to the Methodists. 
 
 Had Mr. Wesley been acquainted with John Dunton's account of 
 the matter, most undoubtedly he never would have given the Narrative 
 of the Second Spira a place in the Arminian Magazine. 
 
 In the supplement to the fifth volume there -is a letter to the Athe- 
 nian Society from Dean Swift, dated Moor Park, February 14, 1691, 
 accompanied with an ode, of the amazing length of 307 lines. The 
 high sense which he entertained of the wJcnown conductors of this un- 
 dertaking will appear from the two last verses : 
 
 Alas, how fleeting and how vain 
 Is e'en the nobler man, oifr learning, and our wit ! 
 
 I sigh whene'er I think of it, 
 As at the closing and unhappy scene 
 
 Of some great, king and conqueror's death, 
 
 When the sad melancholy muse 
 
 Stays but to catch his utmost breath. 
 I grieve this noble w<rrk, so happily begun, 
 So quickly and so wonderfully carried on, 
 Must fall at last to interest, folly, and abuse. 
 
 There is a noon tide in pur live?, 
 
 Which still the sooner it arrives,
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OT EFWORTH. 57 
 
 Although we boast our winter-sun looks bright, 
 And foolishly are glad to see it at its height, 
 Yet so much sooner comes the long and gloomy night 
 
 No conquest ever yet begun, 
 And by one mighty hero carried to its height, 
 E'er flourish'd under a successor or a son ; 
 It lost some mighty pieces, through all hands it past, 
 And vanish'd to an empty title in the last. 
 For when the animating mind is fled, 
 Which nature never can retain, 
 Nor e'er call back again, 
 The body, though gigantic, lies all cold and dtnd. 
 
 And thus undoubtedly 'twill fare, 
 With what unhappy men shall dare, 
 To be successors to these great unknown, 
 On learning's high establish'd throne. 
 Censure, and pedantry, and pride, 
 Numberless nations stretching far and wide, 
 Shall (I foresee it) soon with Gothic swarms come forth 
 
 From ignorance's universal north, 
 
 And with blind rage break all this peaceful government ; 
 Yet shall these traces of your wit remain 
 Like a just map, to tell the vast extent 
 Of conquest in your short and happy reign ; 
 And to all future mankind show 
 How strange a paradox is true, 
 That men who lived and died without a name 
 Art the chief heroes in the sacred list of fame. 
 
 JONATHAN SWIFT. 
 
 I cannot exactly tell what part Mr. Wesley had in this work : but after 
 carefully examining jive of the original volumes, with their supplements, 
 I- have been led to conclude that all the questions in divinity and an- 
 cient ecclesiastical history, most of those in poetry, with many of those 
 in natural philosophy, were answered by him. The mathematical 
 questions were, I suppose, all answered by Mr. Sault. 
 
 These facts account for the way and means by which Mr. Wesley 
 sustained himself both in the university, and for some time after he left 
 it ; probably to the time in which he got the small rectory of South 
 Ormsby, already mentioned. By his pen and genius he profited him- 
 self and society ; and had he not written too fast, and too much, it would 
 not be difficult to prove that he would not only have enriched, but 
 adorned, all the ^>aths of literature in which he walked. Of this wo 
 shall have ample evidences when we come to examine other productions 
 of his pen. 
 
 It may be just necessary to inform the curious reader that the old 
 Athenian volumes being out of print, and becoming very scarce and 
 dear, a selection of the most valuable questions and answers was printed 
 in three volumes, octavo, under the title of the Athenian Oracle : to 
 these was afterward added a fourth volume. The abridgment, as 
 well as the original, must have had a considerable sale, as the copy 
 before me, printed iti 1727, is the third edition of this work. 
 
 No reader can peruse these volumes without profit. They contain 
 many things of great importance and value. When I was little more 
 than a child, an odd volume of the Athenian Oracle, lent me by a friend, 
 was a source of improvement and delight ; and I now consult it with 
 
 8
 
 58 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 double interest, knowing the well-nerved hand by which at least one- 
 third of it was composed. 
 
 Mr. Wesley's other works shall be all examined in their order. We 
 have already seen that Mr. Wesley had embroiled himself with the 
 Dissenters ; partly by bis separating from them, and partly by the pub- 
 lication of a letter relative to their mode of education in their private 
 academies. Their opposition was a source of calamity to him and his 
 family for several years, and shall be noticed in its chronological 
 occurrence. 
 
 The life of a learned man may be found in the history of his works. 
 Mr. Wesley's pen was seldom idle ; and being a rapid writer, and sel- 
 dom waiting to polish or refine, his works became numerous. His 
 brother-in-law, J. Dunton, said " he used to write two hundred couplets 
 a day ; which were too many by two-thirds to be well furnished with all 
 the beauties and graces of that art!" and to this opinion every judge of 
 poetry must subscribe. 
 
 We have seen him at college in 1685, issuing his juvenile poems, 
 under the title of Maggots ; and in- 1691, &c, engaged with his brother- 
 in-law, Dunton, and others, in the Athenian Mercury. 
 
 In 1693 he published " The Life of our blessed Lord and Saviour 
 Jesus Christ ; a heroic poem, in ten books : dedicated to her most sacred 
 majesty, (Queen Mary;) attemptedby SAMUEL WESLEY, rector of South 
 Ormsby, in the county of Lincoln. Each book illustrated by necessary 
 notes, explaining all the more difficult matters in the whole history. Also 
 a Prefatory Discourse concerning Heroic Poetry. With sixty copper- 
 plates." London, printed for Charles Harper, &c, 1693, fol. 
 
 This work went through a second edition in 1697, "revised and 
 improved, with the addition of a large map of the Holy Land, and a 
 table of the principal matters." The plates, though anonymous, are 
 said in the advertisement to be done " by the celebrated hand of W. 
 Faithhorn." The work is preceded by commendatory verses from 
 Nahum Tate, poet laureate, L. Milbourne, T. Taylor, W. Pittis, H. 
 Cults, and P. Motteaux. 
 
 When a poet, no matter of what abilities, takes for the subject of his 
 verse the sayings or acts of the Almighty, as recorded in Divine 
 revelation, he must of necessity fail, speak untruths, and sink below 
 himself. Who can add to the dignity, importance, or majesty, of the 
 words of God by any poetical clothing I The attempt to do it is almost 
 impious ; and in the execution how many words are attributed to God 
 which he never spoke, and acts which he never did ! Even the prose 
 writers of the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ have all failed, 
 misrepresented facts and sayings, and (undesignedly) spoke many 
 falsities. The life of our Lord was never found, arMfc never will be 
 found, but in the four evangelists; and the utmost that can be done 
 in this way is, merely to harmonize their accounts. That as a theo- 
 logical arid poetical production Mr. Wesley's Life of Christ has 
 considerable merit, the sale of two editions of a large folio volume, in 
 three or four years, is ample proof. And if we can give credit to the 
 judgment and sincerity of his poetical recommenders, the work has 
 scarcely its fellow ! The poet laureate JV. Tate, praises the work and
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 59 
 
 the author to the utmost stretch of eulogium ; and seems to lay his 
 own ground work of the version of the Psalms at Mr. Wesley's feet, 
 and views him as the completer of the task which Milton left unfinished! 
 1 shall extract a few of his verses, as the book will rarely be found 
 in the hands of those who are most concerned in what relates to this 
 singular family : 
 
 To Mr. Samuel Wesley, on his Divine Poem ofihe Life of Chriat. 
 
 As when some prophet, who had long retir'd, 
 Returns from solitude with rapture nVd, 
 With full credentials made securely bold, 
 To list'ning crowds does charmingly unfold 
 What angels hymn, in awful visions told ; 
 With wond'rous truths surprising every breast, 
 His sacred mission is by all confest : 
 So you, great bard, who lay till now concealed, 
 Compiling what your heavenly muse reveal'd, 
 No sooner quit the shade, but strike our eyes 
 With wonder, and our minds with ecstacies. * ' 
 
 E'en we, the tribe who thought ourselves inspir'd, 
 
 Like glimmering stars in night's dull reign admir'd ; 
 
 Like stars, a numerous but a. feeble host, 
 
 Are gladly in your morning lustre lost. 
 
 When we, (and few have been so well inclin'd,) 
 
 In songs attempted to instruct mankind, 
 
 From nature's law we all our precepts drew, 
 
 And e'en her sanctions oft perverted too ; 
 
 Your sacred muse does revelation trace, 
 
 And nature is by you improv'd to grace. 
 
 What just encomiums, sir, must you receive, 
 Who wit and piety together weave. 
 No altar your oblation can refuse, 
 Who to the temple bring a spotless muse : 
 You with fresh laurels from Parnassus borne, 
 Plant Ziori's hill, and Salem's lowers adorn ; 
 You break the charms, and from profane retreats 
 Restore the muses to their native seats. 
 Our leading Moses* did this task pursue, 
 And liv'd to have the Holy Land in view ; 
 Wilh vig'rous youth to finish the success, 
 Like Joshua, you succeed, and all possess. 
 
 Here pious souls, what they did long desire, 
 Possess their dear Redeemer's Life entire : 
 Here, with whole Paradise Regained they meet, 
 And Milton's noble work is NOW complete. 
 
 The rest of the poem is in the same style of eulogium ; and I have 
 quoted so much to show what was thought of the Life of Christ by no 
 mean judges, when it first appeared. Posterity has not been so partial 
 to the bard of Ernoorlh. 
 
 It is said that Mr. Pope had such a despicable opinion of this poem 
 and the other poetical works of Mr. Wesley, that in one of the earlier 
 editions of the Dunciad he honoured him with a niche in the temple of 
 the "Mighty Mother," (Dulness.) He was placed by the side of a 
 respectable companion, Dr. Watts : 
 
 * Mr. John Milton.
 
 60 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 "Now all the suffering brotherhood retire, 
 And 'scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire: 
 A Gothic library of Greece and Rome, 
 Well purg'd, and worthy Wesley, Watts, and Brome." 
 
 It is a fact that in no edition published by Mr. Pope did these names 
 ever occur. In one surreptitious edition they were printed thus, 
 W 1 y W s in book i, 1. 126. But in the genuine editions of that 
 work the line stood thus, as it does at present : 
 
 M Well purg'd, and worthy Withers, GLuarles, and Blome." 
 
 And this, in the London edition of 1729, is said to be the line as it 
 stood in the original. 
 
 That Mr. Pope had too high an opinion of Mr. Samuel Wesley to 
 make such a dishonourable insertion of his name in the Dunciad there 
 can be no doubt : he revered him for his piety, learning, and industry. 
 There was even an intimacy between them ; and Mr. Pope had such 
 a high opinion of his learning and moral worth that he earnestly 
 endeavoured to serve him. This will be particularly evident from a 
 letter which he wrote to Dean Swift, entreating him to use his influence 
 with the clergy of his acquaintance to get subscriptions for Mr. Wesley's 
 Dissertations on the Book of Job. I shall give an extract of this epistle, 
 which cannot fail to set the matter in the clearest point of view. 
 
 "This is a letter extraordinary, to do and to say nothing, but 
 
 to recommend to you (as a clergyman and a charitable one) a pious 
 and a good work, and for a good and honest man. Moreover he is 
 about seventy, and poor, which you might think included in the word 
 honest. I shall think it a kindness done to myself if you can propagate 
 Mr. Wesley's subscription for his Commentary on Job, among your 
 divines, (bishops excepted, of whom there is no hope,) and among such 
 as are believers or readers of the Scriptures. Even the curious may find 
 something to please them, if they scorn to be edified. It has been the 
 labour of eight years of this learned man's life ; I call him what he 
 is, a learned man; and I engage you will approve his prose more than 
 you formerly did his poetry. Lord Bolingbroke is a favourer of it, and 
 allows you to do your best to serve an old tory, and a sufferer for the 
 Church of England, though you are a whig as I am." April 12, 1730. 
 
 In the above words, " I engage you will approve his prose more 
 than you formerly did his poetry," Mr. Pope refers to Dean Swift's 
 Battle of the Books, in which are these words : " Then Homer slew 
 Sam. Wesley with a kick of his horse's heel." But this can be no 
 discredit to Mr. Wesley ; for many of our best English writers have 
 been mentioned with disrespect in that work. Mr. Wesley spoke of 
 his own performance with much modesty : " The cuts are good, the 
 notes pretty good, the verses so so." And of it his eldest son Samuel 
 spoke with sober commendation : 
 
 Whate'er his strains, still glorious was his end, 
 Faith to assert, and virtue to defend. 
 He sung how God the Saviour deigned to expire,* 
 With "V ida's piety, though not his fire ; 
 Deduced his Maker's praise from page to page, 
 Through the long annals of tho sacred page.f 
 * Life of Christ. f History of the Old and New Testaments.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EFWORTH. 61 
 
 \Vhat was of most consequence to him, it was highly approved of 
 by Quten Mary, to whom it was dedicated ; who in the same year 
 conferred on him the living of Epworth in Lincolnshire, which he says 
 was " proffered and given, as well as that of Wroote afterward, without 
 his ever having solicited any person ; without his ever expecting, or 
 even once thinking, of such a favour." Answer to Palmer, p. 3. 
 ^.nd speaking again on the same subject, in defence of his poem, he 
 adds, " I can assure him I agree so far with those best judges he 
 mentions, that I know it is very faulty : but whether it be in itself so 
 absolutely contemptible as he represents it, I desire may be left to more 
 impartial judges. All I can say is, it was the best I had. I ran as 
 the peasant did, with my hands full of water, and offered it to my prince, 
 because I had no better present ; and if it was not so clear as it should 
 have been, I hope that the haste will in some measure excuse it. 
 Though there may be some parts of that poem, of which I hope I might 
 say without vanity, neither myself nor my country have reason to be 
 ashamed, yet I am as ready to acknowledge, as he and his friends are 
 to assert, that the favours which our late blessed queen was pleased to 
 bestow on me after she had read my book were as far beyond my 
 expectation as my desert. They will not however envy me the honour 
 of having scattered a few verses, and more tears, over her grave." 
 Ib. p. 56. 
 
 In 1695 he published Elegies on Queen Mary, and on Archbishop 
 Tillotson, folio, of which I can say nothing, as 1 have not seen them. 
 
 In 1698 he published A Sermon preached before the Society for the 
 Reformation of Manners, octavo. This also I have not seen. 
 
 The next in point of time is, " The Pious Communicant rightly 
 prepared ; or a Discourse concerning the Blessed Sacrament : wherein 
 the nature of it is described, our obligation to frequent communion 
 enforced, and directions given for due preparation for it, behaviour at 
 and after it, and profiting by it. With prayers and hymns suited to the 
 several parts of that holy office. To which is added, a short Discourse 
 of Baptism. By SAMUEL WESLEY, A. M. chaplain to the most 
 honourable JOHN Lord Marquis of Normanby, and rector of Epworth, 
 in the diocess of Lincoln." London, printed for Charles Harper, 
 1700, duodecimo, upward of two hundred pages. 
 
 The copy before me unfortunately wants the double Appendix, (nor 
 does it appear ever to have had it ;) of which in the preface he speaks 
 thus : " The former relating to our religious societies, whose rules 
 und orders have been published and defended by Dr. Woodward in his 
 late book upon the subject, and my lord bishop of Bath and Wells in 
 the Life of Dr. Horneck. Their whole design appeared to me to be so 
 highly serviceable to Christianity, that I could not but take this oppor- 
 tunity to recommend them ; and the latter (appendix) which relates to 
 baptism, will be granted not unnecessary, when several (I hope) well- 
 meaning persons, especially in those parts where I live, are unsatisfied 
 about it. Likewise, I have added the great Hallel or paschal hymn, 
 which was usually sung by the Jews at their passover, and by our 
 Saviour and his apostles at the institution of this sacrament." 
 
 In this work I find very little to praise beside the piotu intention.
 
 62 OF MK. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 It has the general character, and indeed the faults, of those works 
 generally termed The Week's Preparation before the Sacrament, which 
 are all infinitely below what any one may find in the communion service, 
 in the Book of Common Prayer. The arguments in this work are 
 neither happily chosen, nor conclusive, and the objections not well 
 answered. It is the most imperfect of all the literary works of the 
 rector of Epworth which I have seen. 
 
 The great Hallel of which Mr. Wesley speaks had its name from 
 the word m^n halleluyah, praise ye Jehovah ; and consisted of the 
 following Psalms, cxiii, cxiv, cxv, cxvi, cxvii, and cxviii. These 
 six psalms were always sung at every paschal solemnity ; and this 
 great Hallel they sung on account of the five great benefits referred to 
 in it. 1. The exodus from Egypt, Psa. cxiv, 1. When Israel went 
 out of Egypt, &c. 2. The miraculous division of the Red Sea, ver. 3. 
 The sea saw it and fled. 3. The promulgation of the law, ver. 4. 
 The mountains skipped like rams. 4. The resurrection of the dead, 
 Psa. cxvi. / will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. 
 5. The passion of the Messiah, Psa. cxv, 1. Not unto us, Lord, 
 not unto us, &c. 
 
 Why should not these psalms be said or sung at every sacramental 
 occasion 1 Is not the example of our Lord and his apostles a sufficient 
 warrant? And would not this circumstance bring us a little nearer to 
 the primitive form of celebration ? The psalms themselves are highly 
 excellent; and many parts of them peculiarly appropriate. 
 
 In the year 1704 he published " The History of the Old and New 
 Testament, attempted in verse, and adorned with three hundred and 
 thirty sculptures, engraved by J. Sturt." 3 vols. duodecimo. 1704. 
 
 This is a useful work for young persons, as the rhyme may assist 
 the memory, particularly in chronological details. Some years ago 
 it was reprinted in Manchester, but without the plates. 
 
 Some time in 1693 his Letter, already mentioned, concerning the 
 Education of the Dissenters in their private Academies, was printed ; 
 but without his consent or knowledge, nearly ten years after it had 
 been written, to oblige a particular friend. 
 
 This Letter gave the Dissenters great offence ; and it was soon 
 answered anonymously in a pamphlet intituled A Defence of the Dis- 
 senters' Education. To answer this pamphlet, in which he was severely 
 handled, and to defend his original Letter, Mr. Wesley published a 
 pamphlet intituled " A Defence of a Letter concerning the Education 
 of Dissenters in their private Academies ; with a more full and satisfac- 
 tory account of the same, and of their morals and behaviour toward the 
 Church of England : being an answer to the Defence oj the Dissenters' 
 Education. By Samuel Wesley ;" with this remarkable motto, 
 
 Noli irrtiare enthrones ! 
 "The Kirk's a vixen ; don't anger her." 
 
 London, quarto, 1704, pp. 64. 
 
 This publication, which I have several times had occasion to quote, 
 only served to widen the breach ; for Mr. Palmer, who appears to have 
 been the aqonymous author of the Defence of the Dissenters' Education,
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 63 
 
 soon published what he termed " A Vindication of (he learning, loyalty, 
 morals, and most Christian behaviour, of the Dissenters toward the 
 Church of England." A man of Mr. Wesley's disposition was not 
 likely to sit quiet under the sever o reflections cast on him by Mr. 
 Palmer in the above pamphlet. 
 
 He immediately meditated an answ; r : but this was delayed for some 
 time. The rage of party took advantage of his narrow circumstances, 
 and he was suddenly thrown into Lincoln castle for a paltry debt. 
 This was petty malice ; and he amply retorted on his persecutors in a 
 pamphlet intituled " Jl Reply to Mr. Palmer's Vindication of the 
 learning, loyalty, morals, and most Christian behaviour of the Dissenters 
 toward the Church of England. By SAMUEL WESLEY." London, 
 1707, quarto, about one hundred and sixty pages ; with a motto taken 
 from John Fox, and one from De Foe ; the latter I shall transcribe : 
 
 u How long must we see the reproaches of our Establishment, and 
 the insults of the laws, and be bound to silence, and to say nothing for 
 peace' sake ? How long must their false prophets and dreamers of 
 dreams abuse us, and we be obliged to hold our peace?" De Foe's 
 Review, vol. iii, No. 43. 
 
 This work appears to have been partly written in Lincoln castle, as 
 the following words in the preface seem to imply : " I am to ask his 
 (Mr. Palmer's) pardon for the delay of my answer, which I hope he 
 will the more easily grant, because he is not ignorant of the occasion. 
 I have often thought of his kind admonition in his first book, p. 20, 
 of what I was like to lose by the Dissenters' resentment of my Letter, &c. 
 Some people have an untoward faculty of keeping their words with the 
 utmost exactness whenever they make a left-hand promise ; and there 
 are some sort of debts they'll never compound for, but be sure to pay 
 them to the uttermost farthing. 
 
 "I shan't trouble him (the reader) with any melancholy stories of 
 the treatment I've lately met with, but shall refer it to a higher tribunal 
 than that of any earthly judicature." And in the beginning of the 
 ninth chapter of the work, p. 144, he says, " I am now come to JVIr. 
 Palmer's last chapter, which I wish I had been at long before ; for I 
 must confess I don't admire this work which I am forced to in my own 
 just defence ; and think if I were at liberty I could employ myself 
 something better." And in p. 68, " Welcome a jayle once more, 
 rather than take their dirty road to preferment." 
 
 As this matter of the imprisonment has been misunderstood, if not 
 misrepresented, I shall soon lay the whole account before the reader. 
 
 Whether this controversy were carried on any farther I know not : 
 as far as I have seen it I must own I have received no edification from it. 
 Mr. Wesley most certainly uses great dexterity in fencing with and 
 foiling his adversary. But on both sides party spirit has a superabun- 
 dant prevalence. Mr. Wesley was ill-used by several of that party, 
 and he appears too often to attribute the unchristian and cruel treatment 
 he received from them as the work of the whole body ; and that dissenting 
 principles must necessarily produce such wicked effects. Beside, he 
 was an unqualified admirer of Charles the First, considered him in the 
 fullest sense a martyr, and was often intolerant to those who differed
 
 64 OF MR. WKSLEY'B ANCESTORS. 
 
 from him in this opinion. He exposed the Dissenters ; and did it the 
 more effectually, because, being bred up among thein, he knew their 
 order, discipline, political opinions, &c. But he always gets too much 
 into generals from particulars, and charges the body with the vices of 
 the few. 
 
 Their mode of defence was not calculated to soften his asperity, or 
 correct his misapprehension ; and they disgracefully stooped to personal 
 injuries that they might avenge themselves on one whom they considered 
 a detracter of the brethren, and an apostate from the true faith. 
 
 The same subjects canvassed then would scarcely admit of discussion 
 now. A spirit of liberality and tolerance now exists, and is happily culti- 
 vated, which in great part of the seventeenth century was little known. 
 Through the mercy of God the nation has now more light and more 
 religion ; though there are still individuals to be found on both sides 
 who, had they the power, would stir up old feuds, and banish sweet 
 repose from the hearts and houses of the pious, the peaceable, and the 
 loyal. Neither the name nor peculiar creed of Churchman nor .Dis- 
 senter is essential to salvation. He alone deserves the title of Christian 
 who wishes well to the human race, and labours to promote, according 
 to his power and influence, the best interests of mankind. No man 
 professing godliness should forget to imitate Him who maketh his sun 
 to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and 
 on the unjust. 
 
 To pursue the literary life of Mr. Wesley any farther at present 
 would take us too far out of the direct line of his domestic relations. 
 
 While Mr. S. Wesley attended his curacy in London, about 1690 or 
 1691, for the date is not exactly known, he contracted an acquaintance, 
 which terminated in marriage, with Miss Susanna Annesley, youngest 
 daughter of Samuel Annesley, LL. D., an eminent Nonconformist 
 divine, nobly related ; for he and Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesy 
 and Lord Privy Seal to Charles the Second, were brothers' children. 
 The excellence of Miss Annesley's mind was equal to the eminence of 
 her birth : but her history is too important to be included even in that 
 of her husband, and requires a separate place. She was such a help- 
 mate as Mr. Wesley required ; and to her, under God, the great emi- 
 nence of the subsequent Wesley family is to be attributed. They had 
 nineteen children, of whom only their eldest son Samuel appears to 
 have been born previously to their removal to South Ormsby, in Lin- 
 colnshire, which was about the year 1693. 
 
 Mr. Wesley began the world under many disadvantages : he had 
 himself no property. And Dr. Annesley's family was probably much 
 reduced, so that he could give little with any of his daughters. Eliza- 
 beth had married John Dunton, so often already mentioned. His 
 eccentricities were such as to bring him into frequent embarrassments. 
 What help his father-in-law's family could afford him I suppose he 
 had ; and beside this he had borrowed considerably from Mr. Wesley, 
 so that when he was thrown into prison for debt by others, Mr. Wesley, 
 he acknowledges, was his chief creditor ; which debt he never repaid. 
 And although Dunton was, at Mr. Wesley's first setting out in the
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 65 
 
 world, one of his principal friends, yet through his generosity in return 
 he suffered much in his circumstances. 
 
 From the year 1693 to 1700 he met with various misfortunes and 
 trials. He had, it is true, expectations of preferment; and had 
 Queen Mary lived, he would certainly have risen in the Church, as 
 it appears she had firmly purposed. 
 
 For a time he had the friendship of the marquis of Normanby, after- 
 ward duke of Buckingham, who made him his chaplain, and is said to 
 have recommended him for an Irish bishopric. The duke of Marlbo- 
 rough was also his friend ; and for his poem on Tht Fate of Europe 
 gave him the chaplaincy of Colonel LepelPs regiment: but the Dissent- 
 ers, his inflexible enemies, had interest enough at court, and with the 
 leading men of the nation, to prevent his preferment, and deprive him 
 of the chaplaincies which he had honestly obtained. 
 
 In the midst of all his troubles he had an invariable friend in the 
 justly celebrated Dr. John Sharp, archbishop of York, and grand- 
 father to the late Granville Sha)-j), Esq., the first man whose call 
 awakened the drowsy and guilty British nation to the wrongs of Africa. 
 
 The archbishop acted to Mr. Wesley the part of a most tender 
 father and beneficent patron. The latter frequently poured his 
 complaints into his bosom ; and they were received with tenderness 
 and affectionate commiseration : and the bounty of the archbishop 
 of York was frequently poured on the necessities of the distressed 
 rector of Epworth. Of these benefits Mr. Wesley had a due and deep 
 sense ; and his manly gratitude kept pace with his obligations. 
 
 By the kindness of J\?Iiss Sharp, the only surviving branch of this 
 ancient and very eminent family, I have been put in possession of 
 letters written by Mr. Wesley to the archbishop from the year 
 1700 to 1707, which fill up a considerable gap in his history, and 
 afford a number of curious particulars, which have never been before 
 the public. These come properly in in this place ; and from the 
 first we shall see the difficulties with which this good man had to 
 struggle, and the cause of his consequent embarrassments. 
 
 " For the most Rev. Father in God, the Lord Archbishop, of York, 
 at Bishop Thorp. 
 
 " MY LORD, I have lived on the thoughts of your grace's gene- 
 rous offer ever since I was at Bishop Thorp ; and the hope I have of 
 seeing some end, or at least mitigation, of my trouble makes me 
 pass through them with much more ease than I should otherwise have 
 done. I can now make a shift to be dunned with some patience ; and 
 to be affronted, because I want the virtue of riches, by those who 
 scarce think there is any other virtue. 
 
 " I must own I was ashamed, when at Bishop TJiorp to confess 
 that I was three hundred pounds in debt, when I have a living of 
 which I have made two hundred pounds per annum, though I could 
 hardly let it now for eightscore. 
 
 " I doubt not but one reason of my being sunk so far is, my not 
 understanding worldly affairs ; and my aversion to law, which my 
 people have always known but too well. But I think I can give a 
 tolerable account of my affairs, and satisfy any equal judge that a 
 
 9
 
 66 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 better husband than myself might have been in debt, though perhaps 
 not so deeply, had he been in the same circumstances, and met with 
 the same misfortunes. 
 
 " 'Twill be no great wonder that when I had but fifty pounds perannum 
 for six or seven years together, nothing to begin the world with, one child 
 at least per annum, and my wife sick for half that time, that I should run 
 one hundred and fifty pounds behind hand ; especially when about a 
 hundred of it had been expended in goods without doors and within. 
 
 " When I had the rectory of Epworth given me, my lord of Szt- 
 rum was so generous as to pass his word to his goldsmith, for one 
 hundred pounds, which I borrowed of him. It cost me very little less 
 than fifty pounds of this in my journey to London, and getting into my 
 living, for the broad seal, &c. And with the other fifty pounds, I 
 stopped the mouths of my most importunate creditors. 
 
 " When I removed to Epworth I was forced to take up fifty 
 pounds more for setting up a little husbandry when I took the tithes 
 into my own hand, and buying some part of what was necessary 
 toward furnishing my house, which was larger, as well as my family, 
 than what I had on the other side the county. 
 
 " The next year my barn fell ; which cost me forty pounds in 
 rebuilding, (thanks.to your grace for part of it;) and having an aged 
 mother [this was the widow of the Rev. John Wesley of New Hall, of 
 whom see before,] who must have gone to prison if I had not assisted 
 her, she cost me upward of forty pounds more, which obliged me to 
 take up another fifty pounds. I have had but three children born since 
 I came hither, about three years since : but another coming, and my 
 wife incapable of any business in my family, as she has been for almost 
 a quarter of a year ; yet we have but one maid-servant, to retrench all 
 possible expenses. 
 
 " My first fruits came to about twenty-eight pounds ; my tenths near 
 three pounds per annum. I pay a yearly pension of three pounds out of 
 my rectory to John of Jerusalem. J\ly taxes came to upward of twenty 
 pounds per annum : but they are now retrenched to about half. My 
 collection to the poor comes to five pounds per annum : beside which 
 they have lately bestowed an apprentice upon me, whom I suppose I 
 must teach to beat rime. Ten pounds a year I allow my mother to help 
 to keep her from starving. I wish I could give as good an account for 
 some charities, which I am now satisfied have been imprudent, consi- 
 dering my circumstances. 
 
 " Fifty pounds interest and principal I have paid my lord of Sarum's 
 goldsmith. All which together keeps me necessitous, especially since 
 interest money begins to pinch me ; and I am always called on for 
 money before I make it, and must buy every thing at the worst hand ; 
 whereas could I be so happy as to get on the right side of my income, 
 I should not fear, by God's help, but to live honestly in the world, and 
 to leave a little to my children after me. I think, as 'tis, I could per- 
 haps work it out in time, in half-a-dozen or half-a-score yeais, if my 
 heart should hold so long : but for that God's will be done ! Hum- 
 bly asking pardon for this tedious trouble, I am your grace's moat 
 obliged and most humble servant, S. WESLEY. 
 
 "Epworth, lOr (.Dec.) 30, 1700."
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 67 
 
 There are a few things in this letter which require explanation, and 
 some of them refer to certain curious facts in ecclesiastical history. 
 
 1. Among Mr. Wesley's expenses we find getting the broad seal 
 was one. This was on his being presented to the rectory of Epworth ; 
 for as that living belongs to the crown, the gift to him required the broad 
 seal affixed as his title : and the fees, &c, of office were even at that 
 time considerable ; but now more so, as in addition to them there is a 
 heavy stamp duty. 
 
 j 2. He mentions removing to Epworth from the other side of the 
 county. This was from South Ormsby, which is in the wapentake of 
 Ladbrough, in the'opposite side of the county from Epworth ; and about 
 eight or ten miles from the Humber. This living he appears to have 
 received from the marquis ofNormanby, afterward duke of Bucking- 
 ham ; and the manner in which he lost it we have already seen. 
 
 3. He speaks of his aged mother. This was the relict of his father, 
 John Wesley, some time vicar of Whitchurch, in Dorsetshire ; from 
 which he was ejected by the cruel Act of Uniformity. Persecuted and 
 driven about from place to place during his life, he could make no pro- 
 vision for his family; and his widow, who survived him at least forty 
 years, was obliged to depend on fortuitous charity ; and in her latter 
 days especially, on the little help, 10/. per annum, yhich she received 
 from her son Samuel ; who according to the above account was in very 
 straitened circumstances himself. 
 
 It must be owned that Mr. Wesley's attachment to the Church must 
 have been strong indeed, and founded on conscientious principles, 
 when he clave to it with all his heart, and at the risk of all he possess- 
 ed ; while he had continually before his eyes the horrible conse- 
 quences of those cruel laws, and relentless High Church bigotry, that 
 deprived his parents of a morsel of bread, brought his father to an 
 untimely grave, and reduced his widowed aged mother to a state of the 
 most abject poverty. 
 
 4. He tells the archbishop that his first fruits came to 28/., that is, 
 he had to pay 28/. in lieu of the first fruits ; which mean the profits of 
 all spiritual promotions for one whole year. These were at first given 
 to the Pope ; but were taken from him by the Statute of Coventry, 
 anno 6 Hen. IV. A. D. 1404, and annexed to the crown anno 25 
 Hen. VIII. A. D. 1533, under which act Mr. Wesley paid them. But 
 they were given from the crown to the poor clergy, anno 2, 3, .Inner, 
 A. D. 1703, about two or three years after the time of which Mr. 
 Wesleyhere speaks ; and still continue to be appropriated in the same way. 
 
 5. His tenths, he tells us, came to 3/. per annum. The tenths were 
 a "yearly rent, or pension, amounting to the value of a tenth part of all 
 the revenues, rents, farms, tithes, offerings, emoluments, and all other 
 profits, as well spiritual as temporal, belonging to any archbishopric, 
 bishopric, parsonage, vicarage, or other benefice, or promotion spi- 
 ritual, to be yearly paid for ever, to the king." These also had been 
 claimed by the Pope : but were annexed to the crown by the statute 
 anno 26 Henry VIII. A. D. 1534. But they were with the first 
 fruits, given by the crown to augment the livings of the poor clergy, by 
 the statute anno 2, 3, ^nna, A. D. 1703.
 
 68 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 6. He also mentions paying a pension of 3/. yearly out of his rectory 
 to John of Jerusalem. This was the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, 
 to which the lands formerly belonging to the Knights Templars had 
 been given by the statute De Juris Templariorum, made anno 17 Ed- 
 ward If. A. D. 1323, when the above order was suppressed in Eng- 
 land. The whole order had been suppressed by Pope Clement V. in a 
 general council at Vienne, A. D. 1312. At the suppression of the 
 monasteries all the possessions of St. John of Jerusalem, in England 
 and Ireland, were given to the king, by the statute anno 32 Henry 
 VIII. A. D. 1541. What therefore each Church, &c, paid to this 
 
 order was after this paid to the king : and as the rectory of Epworth 
 had paid to the value of 3/. to that house, this was the sum which the 
 kings of England continued to receive from that rectory. 
 
 7. What he means by beating rime, unless it be the stalks of dried 
 Jlax, I cannot tell. I believe rime is a provincial term for that article. 
 
 The preceding letter had made a strong impression on the mind of 
 the archbishop in his favour; who, willing to serve him in every possible 
 way, not only spoke to several of the more charitably disposed nobility 
 in his behalf, but had actually endeavoured to get a brief for him, and 
 had made an application to the house of lords to this effect. The 
 countess of Northampton, to whom the archbishop had mentioned Mr. 
 Wesley's case, had generously sent him 20/. For these, and other 
 favours received from and through the archbishop, he expresses himself 
 in a very feeling and energetic manner in the following letter ; which, 
 with that which immediately follows it, I cannot persuade myself to 
 withhold from the reader : 
 
 " Epworth, May 14, 1701. 
 
 " MY LORD, In the first place I do, as I am bound, heartily thank 
 God for raising me so great and generous a benefactor as your grace, 
 when I so little expected or deserved it. 
 
 " And then return my poor thanks to your lordship ; though but a 
 sorry acknowledgment, yet all I have, for the pains and trouble you 
 have been at on my account. I most humbly thank your grace that 
 you did not close with the motion which you mentioned in your grace's 
 first letter; for I should rather choose to remain all my life in my 
 present circumstances than so much as consent that your lordship 
 should do any such thing : nor indeed should I be willing on my own 
 account to trouble the house of lords in the method proposed ; for I 
 believe mine would be the first instance of a brief for losses by child- 
 bearing, that ever came before that honourable house. 
 
 " Had your grace been able to have effected nothing for me, the 
 generosity and goodness had been the same ; and I should have prayed 
 for as great a heap of blessings on your grace and your family. But 
 I can do no more now I have such considerable assistance by your 
 grace's charitable endeavours. When I received your grace's first 
 letter I thanked God upon my knees for't; and have done the same 
 I believe twenty times since as often as I have read it ; and more than 
 once for the other which I received but yesterday. 
 
 " Certainly, never did an archbishop of England write in such a 
 manner to an Isle poet : but it is peculiar to your grace to oblige so as
 
 SAML'EL WI8LEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 69 
 
 none beside can do it. I know your grace will be angry, but I can't 
 help it : truth will out, though in a plain and rough dress ; and I should 
 sin against God, if I now neglected to make all the poor acknowledg- 
 ments I am able." 
 
 After several other matters of a more private nature, he mentions the 
 great kindness of the countess of Northampton; and says he must divide 
 what she has given him, " half to my poor mother, with whom I am 
 now above a year behind hand ; the other ten pounds for my own family. 
 My mother will wait on your grace for her ten pounds : she knows 
 not the particulars of my circumstances, which I keep from her as much 
 as I can that they may not trouble her." 
 
 The following letter written four days after the above is both singular 
 and characteristic : 
 
 " Epworth, May 18, 1701. 
 
 " MY Lo|,p, This comes as a rider to the last, by the same post, to 
 bring such news as I presume will not be unwelcome to a person who 
 has so particular a concern for me. Last night my wife brought me a 
 few children. There are but two yet, a boy and a girl, and I think they 
 are all at present : we have had four in two years and a day, three of 
 which are living. 
 
 *' Never came any thing more like a gift from heaven than what the 
 countess of Northampton sent by your lordship's charitable offices. 
 Wednesday evening my wife and I clubbed and joined stocks, which 
 came but to six shillings, to send for coals. Thursday morning I 
 received the ten pounds ; and at night my wife was delivered. Glory 
 be to God for his unspeakable goodness ! 
 
 " I am your grace's most obliged and most humble servant, 
 
 "S. WESLEY." 
 
 About this time, 1701, a remarkable anecdote occurs in the life of 
 the rector of Epworth. I shall give it in the words of his son, Mr. John 
 Wesley, as I had it from himself. 
 
 " Were I," said he, " to write my own life, I should begin it before I 
 was born, merely for the purpose of mentioning a disagreement between 
 my father and mother. Sukey,' said my father to my mother, one 
 day after family prayer, ' why did you not say amen this morning to the 
 prayer for the king 1' ' Because,' said she, ' I do not believe the prince 
 of Orange to be king.' * If that be the case,' said he, you and I must 
 part ; for if we have two kings, we must have tiro beds.' My mother 
 was inflexible. My father went immediately to his study ; and, after 
 spending some time with himself, set out for London ; where being 
 convocation man for the diocess of Lincoln, he remained without visit- 
 ing his own house for the remainder of the year. On March 8th, in the 
 following year, 1702, King William died ; and as both my father and 
 mother were agreed as to the legitimacy of Queen Jlnne's title, the cause 
 of their misunderstanding ceased ; my father returned to Epworth, and 
 conjugul harmony was restored." 
 
 Mr. Wesley observes, that his father was convocation man that year. 
 To the generality of readers this word requires explanation. 
 
 Convocation, in our Church history, signifies an as$embly of tk
 
 70 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 clergy for a consultation of matters ecclesiastical, m time of parlia- 
 ment. And as the parliament consists of two distinct houses, so does 
 this : the one called the upper house, where the archbishops and hishops 
 sit severally by themselves ; the other the lower house, where all the 
 rest of the clergy are represented by their deputies or proctors, consist- 
 ing of all the deans and archdeacons ; of one proctor for every chapter, 
 and two for the clergy of every diocess ; in all one hundred and forty- 
 three divines, viz. twenty-two deans, fifty-three archdeacons, twenty- 
 four prebendaries, and forty-four proctors of the diocesan clergy. The 
 convocation is summoned by the king's writ directed to the archbishop 
 of each province, requiring him to summon all bishops, deans, arch- 
 deacons, &c. In this convocation the clergy exercise jurisdiction for 
 the Church, in making of canons : but these must have the king's assent. 
 And they have the power of examining and censuring all heretical and 
 schismatical books and persons. But an appeal lies to the king in 
 chancery, or to his delegates ; and the whole powers are limited by 
 statute 25 Henry VIII. cap. 19. 
 
 The clergy in their attendance on the convocation have the same 
 privileges as members of the house of commons, in freedom from 
 arrest. 
 
 Mr. Wesley attended these convocations for three years, at the 
 expense to himself of fifty pounds per annum. It appears that he 
 might have avoided this expense, as he was censured for taking this 
 office upon him, which ill accorded with the narrowness of his domes- 
 tic circumstances. 
 
 I have already observed in the account given of Mr. John Wesley 
 of Whitchurch, Mr. Samuel Wesley's father, that every genuine minis- 
 ter of the Gospel considers himself a missionary ; and that when he 
 receives his commission from the Head of the Church, he knows that 
 it in effect says, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature. About this time Mr. Wesley appears to have had his mind 
 seriously impressed with the miserable state of the Heathen ; and with 
 a strong desire to go to them, and proclaim the unsearchable riches of 
 Christ. He had mentioned his desire in a general way to Archbishop 
 Sharp ; and given him some hints concerning proposals which he had 
 made, probably to the society for the propagation of Christianity in 
 foreign parts, and to some members of the administration. 
 
 It appears that the archbishop had desired an account of the whole 
 scheme ; and he sent him the following paper, which is unfortunately 
 without a date ; but is in his own hand writing, and is subscribed by the 
 archbishop : 
 
 " The scheme I had laid, if I went to the East Indies, and which by 
 God's grace I shall yet prosecute, if I go thither, and am enabled to do 
 it, was not confined to one place or nation, but aimed at a more general 
 service to Christianity. 
 
 " My design consisted of three parts. The first relating to our own 
 people, the native English and their subjects ; which I am told at one 
 of our colonies are numerous ; the second to other Christian Churcheg, 
 whether out of the Roman communion, or members of it ; the third to 
 the Heathen.
 
 SAMUEL WESLET, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 71 
 
 " 1 . As to ottr own. I would make a particular inquiry into the state 
 of Christianity in all our factories and settlements from St. Helena to 
 the farther eastern countries ; travelling where I could myself either by 
 land or sea ; and where that could not be done, fixing a correspond- 
 ence ; which I should have the convenience of doing from Surat, it 
 being a mart for so many nations. I would inquire into the number of 
 our people, their morals, and their ministers. It should be my faithful 
 endeavour to revive the spirit of Christianity among them by spread- 
 ing good books, bringing them to catechising, or any other means, as I 
 should be directed from hence, or as God should enable me. 
 
 2. As to other Christian Churches. First, those who are of the 
 Roman communion. I would endeavour to fix a correspondence with 
 the Church of Abyssinia ; or, if it was thought fit by my superiors, even 
 to try if I could pierce into that country myself. However, in the second 
 place, I could personally inquire into the state of the poor Christians of 
 St. Thomas, who are scattered over the Indies ; and settle a corres- 
 pondence between them and the Church of England. 
 
 " As to the Romanists, I might probably light on some opportunity 
 to convey some of our books among them, translated into the lan- 
 guages of the countries where they are ; and even as far as China, 
 (where we have a considerable factory,) whereby the Jesuits' half con- 
 verts might be better instructed in the principles of our religion, or made 
 more than almost Christians. 
 
 ** 3. For the Gentoos. I would see if I could learn the Hindostan 
 language ; and when I once got master of their notions, and way of 
 reasoning, endeavour to bring over some of their Bromines or Bannians, 
 and common people, to the Christian religion ; the government, I sup- 
 pose, being not very strict as to those matters. 
 
 " I know I am not sufficient for the least of these designs : much less 
 for all together. But as 'twould be well worth dying for to make some 
 progress in any of 'em, so I would expect the same assistance as to kind, 
 though not to degree, which was granted of old to the first planters of 
 the Gospel. Nor would I neglect, but humbly and thankfully receive, 
 any instructions from my superiors or others, my acquaintance and cor- 
 respondents both here and in the Indies, in order to accomplish the end 
 of my mission. 
 
 " This seems to be a different design from settling all together at 
 some one of our particular factories, all of which the East India Com- 
 pany are to provide for. But whether it deserves encouragement from 
 the corporation must be left to their piety and wisdom. As likewise 
 whether her majesty [Queen Anne] might not be prevailed upon to 
 encourage by her royal favour a design of this nature ; the Freneh king 
 sending so many missions into those parts. 
 
 " However, if one hundred pounds per annum might be allowed me, 
 and forty I must pay my curate in my absence, either from the East 
 India Company or otherwhere, I should be ready to venture my life on 
 this occasion, provided any way might be found to secure a subsistence 
 for my family in case of my decease in those countries." 
 
 The event proves that Mr. Wesley's plan was not adopted, at least 
 as far as he himself was personally concerned in it : but perhaps some
 
 72 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 of the subsequent operations of the society for promoting Christian 
 knowledge in the east were not altogether unindebted to the hint thrown 
 out in this paper. 
 
 The plan was such as the British Church and government might 
 have easily put into execution : and for personal courage, spirit, and 
 missionary zeal, probably a fitter instrument than Samuel Wesley could 
 not then have been readily found. One hundred pounds for himself, 
 and forty for a curate, was a very moderate request ; and he no doubt 
 supposed that the income of the rectory might be sufficient to support 
 his family during his absence. 
 
 The same spirit that would have carried the father to Abyssinia, 
 India, and China, afterward carried his son across the Atlantic to 
 preach the Gospel to the different tribes of American Indians ; and has 
 urged his sons and successors in the ministry to carry the glad tidings 
 of Christ crucified to America, the Weal India Islands, West and Soiith 
 Africa, the Island of Ceylon, and the Peninsula of India. In the 
 Wesley family the seeds of missionary zeal were early sown. They 
 vegetated slowly : but are now producing an abundant harvest to the 
 glory of the God of missionaries, whose salvation shall be revealed to 
 the ends of the earth. 
 
 Mr. Wesley not having got on the right side of his income as yet, 
 was grievously troubled with his old creditors, some of whom appear 
 to have been implacable and unmerciful ; he was obliged in consequence 
 to take a journey to London, to endeavour to raise some money among 
 his friends. In a letter to the archbishop, dated August 7, 1702, he 
 mentions several sums which he received from eminent persons : the 
 dean of Exeter, 10/. ; Dr. Stanley, 10/. ; archbishop of Canterbury, 10J. 
 10s. ; " and even my lord marquis of Normanby, by my good lady's 
 solicitations succeeding your grace's, did verily and indeed, with his 
 own hand, give me twenty guineas, and my lady five. With these and 
 other sums I made up about sixty pounds, and came home joyful enough, 
 thanked God, paid as many debts as I could, quieted the rest of my 
 creditors, took the management of my house into my own hands, and 
 had ten guineas left to take my harvest." 
 
 The reader will recollect why Mr. W r esley mentions so particularly, 
 and with surprise the gift of twenty guineas from the marquis of Nor- 
 manby ; the insult offered to his mistress, whom Mr. Wesley handed 
 out of his house ; in consequence of which he was obliged to resign the 
 living of South Ormsby, which had been given him by that nobleman. 
 
 That the marchioness should have used her endeavours with the mar- 
 quis to get Mr. Wesley this donation is not to be wondered at, for the 
 above reason ; and the marquis himself, though highly incensed for the 
 time, had good sense enough to see that the minister of God had done 
 only his duty in the matter which had given his lordship so much dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 In the same letter a very grievous and distressing occurrence is thus 
 related. After mentioning the joy he felt on being enabled to dis- 
 charge so many small debts, in consequence of which he was permitted 
 to take his own harvest, he adds : 
 
 " But he that is born to be a poet must, I am afraid, live and die
 
 SAMUEL WESLEV, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 73 
 
 so, [that is, poor ;] for, on the last of July, [1702,] a fire broke out in 
 my house by some sparks which took hold of the' thatch this dry time, 
 and consumed about two thirds of it before it could be quenched. I was 
 at the lower end of the town to visit a sick person, and thence to R. Co- 
 gan's. As I was returning, they brought me the news : I got one of 
 his horses, rode up, and heard by the way that my wife, children, and 
 books were saved ; for which God be praised, as well as for what he 
 has taken. They were all together in my study, and the fire under 
 them. When it broke out she got two of the children in her arms, and 
 ran through the smoke and fire ; but one of them was left in the hurry 
 till the other cried for her; and the neighbours ran in and got her out 
 through the fire, as they did my books, and most of my goods ; this 
 very paper among the rest, which I afterward found, as I was looking 
 over what was saved. 
 
 " I find 'tis some happiness to have been miserable ; for my mind 
 has been so blunted with former misfortunes, that this scarce made any 
 impression upon me. I shall go on by God's assistance to take my 
 tithe, and when that's in to rebuild my house, having at last crowded 
 my family into what's left, and not missing many of my goods. 
 
 " I humbly ask your grace's pardon for this long melancholy story, 
 and leave to subscribe myself your grace's ever obliged and most 
 humble servant, S. WESLEY." 
 
 It is rather singular that on the quarto sheet of paper on which this 
 letter is written he had begun a letter to the archbishop in the last 
 month, having just written these words : 
 
 " Epworth, July 25, 1702. 
 " MY LORD," 
 
 Not having time then to proceed, this sheet lay ready in his study 
 for his farther entries ; was saved out of the fire with the rest of his 
 books and papers, the fire having consumed about four square inches 
 of the lower corner of the fly leaf. On this burnt paper was the above 
 letter written. It lies before me, a monument of God's mercy in 
 preserving from so near a death his wife and children. The stains of 
 the water that helped to quench the burning are still evident on the paper. 
 It was in the following year that i\ie founder of ike Methodists was born. 
 Mr. Wesley speaks of the fire being occasioned " by some sparks 
 which took hold of the tkatqh." The house was of such materials as ren- 
 dered it exceedingly liable to damage by fire. It was avery humble dwell- 
 ing ; and lam enabled to lay before the readera perfect description of the 
 whole building, from the most authentic source ; a survey taken June 
 19, Anno Regni Jacobi, D. Gr. 4 and 40, A. D. 1607, i. e. in the 
 fourth year of King James' reign in England, and fortieth in Scotland. 
 Kpwortk i A survey or terrier of all the possessions belonging 
 Rectoria. ) to the rectorie of Epworth, made and taken by the 
 viewe perambulation and estimate of the minister, church wardens and 
 sidesmen and others, inhabitants, there being nominated and appointed 
 by William Folkingham gent general surveyor of church gleabs and 
 possessions within the dioccss of Lincoln, by virtue of a commission 
 decreed by the Rev. Father in God, William L. Bishoppe, of Lincoln, in 
 execution, of the canon on that behalf established. 
 
 10
 
 74 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Imprimis. The Home stall, or scite of the parsonage, situate and 
 lyenge betweene the field on the east, and Lancaster lane on the west ; 
 and abuttinge upon the Heigh-street on the south, and of John Maw 
 (sonne of Thomas) his tennement, and a croft on the north : and con- 
 tayns by estimation three acres. 
 
 Hem. One hemp kiln that hath been usealeie occupied for the par- 
 sonage ground, adjoining upon4he south. 
 
 Item. Within the said bounds'are conteined the PARSONAGE HOUSE, 
 consisting of five baies, built all of timber and plaister, and covered 
 with straw thaclie, the whole building being contrived into three sto- 
 ries, and disposed in seven cheife rooms viz : A kitchinge, a hall, a 
 parlour, a butterie, and three large upper rooms ; besydes som others of 
 common use : and also a little garden empailed, betweene the stone wall 
 and the south, on the south. 
 
 Item. One bam of six bales, built all of timber and clay walls, and cover- 
 ed with straw thache; and outshotts about it, and one free house therebye. 
 
 Item. One dovecoatc of timber and plaister, covered with strait) 
 thache, &c. 
 
 As the rest of this terrier refers to the glebe lands belonging to the 
 rectory, it is unnecessary to transcribe it. Only one thing may be 
 noticed, that about twenty-seven acres that originally belonged to this 
 rectory are not now to be found, as the boundaries in the description 
 are no longer capable of being ascertained. 
 
 Such was the parsonage house at Epworth, which by this fire was 
 nearly consumed; and which in a few years afterward was totally 
 burnt down, and rebuilt at Mr. Wesley's own expense ; which house 
 remains to the present day ; in all respects greatly superior to the 
 preceding. 
 
 The archbishop, to whom this account was sent, came forward both 
 with his purse and his influence, as on former occasions ; and this pro- 
 duced the following letter, drawn up in the true spirit of gratitude, and 
 in language at once deeply pious, and highly dignified : 
 
 " Epworth, Mart. 20, 1703. 
 
 " Mv LORD, I have heard that all great men have the art of forget- 
 fulness, but never found it in such perfection as in your lordship : only 
 it is in a different way from others ; for most forget their promises, 
 but your grace those benefits you have conferred. I am pretty confi- 
 dent your grace neither reflects on nor imagines how much you have 
 done for me ; nor what sums I have received by your lordship's 
 bounty and favour ; without which I had been ere this mouldy in a jayl, 
 and sunk a thousand fathom below nothing. 
 
 " Will your grace permit me to show you an account of some of them ? 
 
 L. s. d. 
 
 From the marchioness of Normanby 20 
 
 The lady Northampton (1 think) 20 
 
 Duke of Buckingham and duchess, 2 years since 26 17 6 
 
 The queen 43 
 
 The bishop of Sarum 40 
 
 The archbishop of York, at least 
 Beside lent to (almost) a desperate debtor 25 
 
 184 17 6
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 75 
 
 "A frightful sum, if one saw it all together : but it is beyond thanks, 
 and I must never hope to perform that as I ought till another world ; 
 where, if I get first into the harbour, I hope none shall go before me in 
 welcoming your lordship into everlasting habitations ; where you will 
 be no more tired with my follies, nor concerned at my misfortunes. 
 However I may pray for your grace while I have breath, and that for 
 something nobler than this world can give ; it is for the increase of 
 God's favour, of the light of his countenance, and of the foretastes of 
 those joys, the firm belief whereof can only support us in this weary 
 wilderness. And, if it be not too bold a request, I beg your grace would 
 not forget me, though it be but in your prayer for all sorts and condi- 
 tions of men : among whom, as none has been more obliged to your 
 grace, so I am sure none ought to have a deeper sense of it than your 
 grace's most dutiful, and most humble servant, S. WESLEY." 
 
 In May 1705 there was a contested election for the county of Lin- 
 coln. Sir John Thorold and a person called The Champion, Dymoke, 
 the late members, were opposed by Colonel Whichcott and Mr. Jllb. 
 Bertie. Mr. Wesley supposing there was a design to raise up Presby- 
 terianism over the Church, and that Whichcolt and Bertie were favour- 
 able to it, (in consequence of which the Dissenters were all in their 
 interest,) espoused the other party ; which happening to be unpopular 
 and unsuccessful, he was exposed to great insult and danger ; not only 
 by the mobs, but by some leading men of the successful faction. There 
 is before me a long account of these shameful transactions in two 
 letters written to Archbishop Sharp, from which I shall extract only a 
 few particulars : 
 
 " I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 29th ; and the election 
 began on Wednesday, 30th. A great part of the night our Isle peo- 
 ple kept drumming, shouting, and firing of pistols and guns under the 
 window where my wife lay; who had been brought to bed not three 
 weeks. I had put the child to nurse over against my own house : the 
 noise kept his nurse waking till one or two in the morning. Then they 
 left off; and the nurse being heavy to sleep, overlaid the child. She 
 waked ; and finding it dead, ran over with it to my house, almost dis- 
 tracted ; and calling my servants, threw it into their arms. They, as 
 wise as she, ran up with it to my wife ; and before she was well awake 
 threw it cold and dead into hers. She composed herself as well as she 
 could, and that day got it buried. 
 
 " A clergyman met me in the castle yard ; and told me to withdraw, 
 for the Isle men intended me a mischief. Another told me he had heard 
 near twenty of them say, if they got me in the castle yard, they would 
 squeeze my guts out. My servant had the same advice. I went by 
 Gainsboro', and God preserved me. 
 
 " When they knew I was got home, they sent the drum and mob, 
 with guns, &c, as usual, to compliment me till after midnight. One of 
 them passing by on Friday evening, and seeing my children in the yard, 
 cried out, * O ye devils! we will come and turn ye all out of doors a 
 begging shortly.' God convert them, and forgive them ^ 
 
 "All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife's spirits. 
 For ray own I feel them disturbed and disordered : but for all that, I
 
 76 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 am going on with my reply to Palmer ; which, whether I am in prison 
 or out of it, I hope to get finished by the next sessions of parliament, 
 for I have now no more regiments to lose. 
 
 *' S. \VESLEY. 
 " Epworth, June 7th, -1705." 
 
 As I totally disapprove a minister of the Gospel entering into party 
 politics, and especially into electioneering affairs, I cannot but blame 
 Mr. Wesley for the part he took in these transactions ; for even accord- 
 ing to his own showing, he acted imprudently, and laid himself open to 
 those who waited for his halting, and who seemed to think they did God 
 service by doing him a mischief; because they knew him to be a high 
 Churchman, and consequently an enemy to their religious system. 
 He was in their power, under pecuniary obligations to some principal 
 men among them ; and he was often led to understand, by no obscure 
 intimations, that he must either immediately discharge those obligations, 
 which he required time to enable him to do, or else expect to be shortly 
 lodged in Lincoln Castle. These were not vain threats : they had 
 already contrived to strip him of his chaplaincy to Colonel Lepelle's 
 regiment ; and how much farther they proceeded the following letter to 
 the archbishop of York will tell ; 
 
 "Lincoln Castle, June 25, 1705. 
 
 *' MY LORD, Now I am at rest, for I am come to the haven where 
 I've long expected to be. On Friday last, [June 23,] when I had 
 been in christening a child at Epworth, I was arrested in my church- 
 yard by one who had been my servant, and gathered my tithe last year, 
 at the suit of one of Mr. Whichcolfs relations and zealous friends, 
 [Mr. Finder,] according to their promise, when they were in the Isle 
 before the election. The sum was not thirty pounds : but it was as 
 good as five hundred. Now they knew the burning of my flax, my 
 London journey, and their throwing me out of my regiment, had both 
 sunk my credit and exhausted my money. My adversary was sent to, 
 when I was on the road, to meet me, that I might make some pro- 
 posals to him. But all his answer, (which I have by me,) was, that 
 * I must immediately pay the whole sum, or go to prison.' Thither I 
 went, with no great concern for myself; and find much more civility 
 and satisfaction here than in brevibus gyaris of my own Epworth. I 
 thank God, my wife was pretty well recovered, and churched some 
 days before I was taken from her ; and hope she'll be able to look to 
 my family, if they don't turn them out of doors, as they have often 
 threatened to do. One of my biggest concerns was my being forced 
 to leave my poor lambs in the midst of so many wolves. But the 
 great Shepherd is able to provide for them, and to preserve them. 
 My wife bears it with that courage which becomes her, and which I 
 expected from her. 
 
 " I don't despair of doing some good here, (and so long I shan't 
 quite lose the end of living,) and, it may be, do more in this new parish 
 than in my old one : for I have leave to read prayers every morning 
 and afternoon here in the prison, and to preach once a Sunday, which 
 J choose to do in the afternoon, when there is no sermon at the minster.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 77 
 
 And I'm getting acquainted with my brother jayl-birds as fast as I can ; 
 and shall write to London next post, to the Society for Propagating 
 Christian Knowledge, who I hope will send me some books to distri- 
 bute among them. 
 
 " I should not write these things from a jayl if I thought your grace 
 would believe me ever the less for my being here ; where, if I should 
 lay my bones, I'd bless God, and pray for your grace. 
 
 " Your gjace's very obliged and most humble servant, 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 It was not likely that a tale so afflictive as the preceding should 
 leave the pious heart of the good Archbishop Sharp unaffected. He 
 wrote to Mr. Wesley on the 30th a kind letter, stating his sympathy, 
 and what he had beard against him ; especially as to his great obliga- 
 tion to Colonel Whichcott, &c. This letter he immediately answers, 
 gives a satisfactory expose" of all his affairs, his debts, and how they 
 were contracted ; at the same time showing that the reports which 
 had reached the ears of his grace were perfectly false, and adduces 
 proof; and concludes this part of his letter with pathetically entreating 
 his grace " not to be in haste to credit what they report of me, for 
 really lies are the manufacture of the party ; and they have raised so 
 many against me, and spread them so wide, that I am sometimes 
 tempted to print my case in my own vindication." 
 
 I shall give another extract from this letter which satisfactorily 
 accounts for the way in which his heavy debts were contracted, and 
 how his consequent embarrassments arose : 
 
 "Lincoln Castle, July 10, 1705. 
 
 " MY LORD, Then I am not forgotten, neither by God nor 
 
 your lordship. My debts are about 300/., which I have contracted 
 
 by a series of misfortunes not unknown to your grace. The falling of 
 my parsonage barn, before I had recovered the taking my living ; the 
 burning great part of my dwelling house about two years since, and 
 all my flax last winter ; the fall of my income nearly one half, by the 
 low price of grain ; the almost entire failure of my flax this year, 
 which uses to be the better half of my revenue ; with my numerous 
 family, and the taking this regiment from me, which I had obtained 
 with so much expense and trouble, have at last crushed me, though I 
 struggled as long as I was able. Yet I hope to rise again, as I have 
 always done when at the lowest ; and I think I cannot be much lower 
 now." 
 
 Party cpirit, especially in political matters, is the great disgrace and 
 curse of England. This spirit knows no friend ; feels no obligation ; 
 is unacquainted with all dictates of honesty, charity, and mercy ; and 
 leaves no stone unturned to ruin the object of its hate. We have 
 elections by law no more than once in seven years ; and the mischief 
 that is then done to the moral character of the nation is scarcely repaired 
 in the succeeding seven. All the charities of life are outraged and 
 trampled under foot by it ; common honesty is not heard, and lies and 
 defamation go abroad by wholesale. The rascal many catch the evil
 
 78 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 reports which the opposed candidates and their committees spread of 
 each other, and the characters of the best men in the land are wounded 
 and lie bleeding, till slow-paced oblivion cancels the remembrance of 
 the transactions which gave them birth. Even now, when the nation 
 is improved in its morals to an astonishing degree, these evils live in 
 mighty vigour and gigantic form. What then must they have been 
 more than one hundred years ago, when the nation was torn by civil 
 and religious factions ; and when a man knew not his own kindred but 
 as they were arranged with him under his own creed and the banner of 
 his party. 
 
 Mr. Wesley and his family had already suffered much through the 
 rage, and I may add malice, of the political party, the interests of 
 which his conscience would not permit him to espouse. And he had 
 his reasons ; he knew the party, their views, and their designs ; and 
 he had counted the cost, for he well knew the penalty annexed to his 
 opposition. They were not content with loading him with obloquies, 
 and casting him into prison : but proceeded farther to destroy his 
 family, by drying up the sources whence they derived the necessaries 
 of life ! The following letter to the archbishop gives terrible proof of 
 this implacable malevolence : 
 
 "fyncoln Castle, Sept. 12, 1705. 
 
 " MY LORD, 'Tis happy for me that your grace has entertained 
 no ill opinion of me, and won't alter what you have entertained, without 
 reason. But it is still happier that I serve a Master who cannot be 
 deceived, and who I am sure will never forsake me. A jayl is a 
 paradise in comparison of the life I led before I came hither. No man 
 has worked truer for bread than I have done, and few have lived harder, 
 or their families either. I am grown weary of vindicating myself; not, 
 I thank God, that my spirits sink, or that I have not right of rny side, 
 but because I have almost a whole world against me, and therefore 
 shall in the main leave my cause to the righteous Judge." 
 
 v He goes on to mention two points in which he was cruelly misrepre- 
 sented, as if certain evils done to him had come by accident, or were 
 done by himself. What particularly concerns the present Memoir is 
 the following : 
 
 " The other matter is concerning the stabbing my cows in the night 
 since I came hither, but a few weeks ago ; and endeavouring thereby 
 to starve my forlorn family in my absence ; my cows being all dryed 
 by it, which was their chief subsistence ; though I hope they had not 
 the power to kill any of them outright. 
 
 " They found out a good expedient after it was done to turn it ofT, 
 and divert the cry of the world against them ; and it was to spread a 
 report that my own brawn did this mischief; though at first they said 
 my cows ran against a scythe and wounded themselves. 
 
 " As for the brawn, I think any impartial jury would bring him in 
 not guilty, on hearing the evidence. There were three cows all 
 wounded at the same time, one of them in three places : the biggest 
 was a flesh wound, not slanting, but directly in, toward the heart, which
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 79 
 
 it only missed by glancing'outward on the rib. It was nine inches 
 deep; whereas the brawn's tusks were hardly two inches long. All 
 conclude that the work was done with a sword, by the breadth and 
 shape of the orifice. The same night the iron latch of my door was 
 twined off, and the wood hacked in order to shoot back the lock, which 
 nobody will think was with an intention to rob my family. My house 
 dog, who made a hu^e noise within doors, was sufficiently punished 
 for his want of politics and MODERATION ; for the next day but one his 
 leg was almost chopped off by an unknown hand. 'Tis not every one 
 could bear these things : but I bless God my wife is less concerned 
 with suffering them than I am in the writing ; or than I believe your 
 grace will be in reading them. She is not what she is represented, 
 any more than me. I believe it was this foul beast, of a-worse-than- 
 Erymanthean-boar already mentioned, who fired my flax by rubbing 
 his tusks against the wall ; but that was no great matter, since it is 
 now reported I had but Jive pounds loss. 
 
 " my lord ! I once more repeat it, that I shall some time have a 
 more equal Judge than any in this world. 
 
 " Most of my friends advise me to leave Epworth if e'er I should 
 get from hence. I confess I am not of that mind, because I may yet 
 do good there ; and 'tis like a coward, to desert my post because the 
 enemy fire thick upon me. They have only wounded me yet, and I 
 believe CAN'T kill me. I hope to be at home by Xmas. God help 
 my poor family ! For myself, I have but one life : but while that lasts, 
 shall be, 
 
 " Your grace's ever obliged and most humble servant, 
 
 "S. WESLEY." 
 
 As it was evident his sufferings were occasioned by the malice of 
 those who hated both his ecclesiastical and state politics ; the clergy 
 and several who were well affected to the government, lent him prompt 
 and effectual assistance, so that in a short time more than half of his 
 debts were paid, and all the rest in a train of being liquidated. These 
 things he mentions with the highest gratitude m the following letter to 
 the archbishop of York : 
 
 Lincoln Castle, 7r. [Sep/.] 17, 1705. 
 
 " MY LORD, I am so full of God's mercies that neither my eyes nor 
 heart can hold them. When I came hither, my stock was but little 
 above ten shillings, and my wife's at home scarce so much. She soon 
 sent me her rings, because she had nothing else to relieve me with : but 
 I returned them, and God soon provided for me. The most of those 
 who have been my benefactors keep themselves concealed. But they 
 are all known to him who first put it into their hearts to show me so 
 much kindness ; and I beg your grace to assist me to praise God for it, 
 and to pray for his blessing upon them. 
 
 " This day I have received a letter from Mr. Hoar, that he has paid 
 ninety-five pounds, which he has received from me. He adds that * a 
 very great man has just sent him thirty pounds more ;' he mentions not 
 his name, though surely it must be my patron. 1 find I walk a deal 
 lighter ; aud hope I shall sleep better now these sums are paid, which
 
 80 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 will make almost half my debts. I am a lid beggar, and worse at re- 
 turning formal thanks : but I can pray heartily for my benefactors ; and 
 I hope I shall do it while I live, and so long beg to be esteemed 
 " Your grace's most obliged, and thankful humble servant, 
 
 " SAMUEL WESLEV." 
 
 I find no account of Mr. Wesley's liberation from Lincoln Castle, 
 where he had now been for about three months : but I suppose it took 
 place shortly after this, and that he was with his family by Christmas. 
 He appears to have got on in life much more pleasantly than before ; 
 and the evil which his enemies intended him was turned to his ad- 
 vantage ; the wrath of man praised God, and the remainder of it he 
 restrained. I meet with no more complaints in his correspondence, 
 which with the archbishop of York appears to have been interrupted till 
 the year 1707, when it was resumed on merely clerical business. 
 
 I have already had occasion several times to refer to the poem on 
 the Battle of Blenheim, which was written in 1705, and procured him 
 a chaplainship in the army. This poem I have never seen in print, nor 
 do I know where it thus exists : (though I believe it was printed in a 
 folio pamphlet, about this time :) but a fine copy, undoubtedly the ori- 
 ginal, written out in his best hand, by Mr. Wesley himself, and sent to 
 the archbishop of York, now lies before me, and may be finally lost, if 
 not inserted here. It contains jive hundred and ninety-four lines, and 
 is intituled, 
 
 MARLBOROUGH, OR THE FATE OF EUROPE. 
 
 FAR from the sun and regions bless'd and mild, 
 Almost to utmost Thule here exil'd, 
 Forgetting and forgotten long 1 lay, 
 Nor once wak'd up, nor had one thought of day : 
 
 As Greenland plants which neither breathe nor grow, 5 
 
 When press'd beneath eternal hills of snow; 
 As frozen insects to some crevice fly, 
 From winter's rage, and die or seem to die ; 
 Yet when the sun returns they all revive, 
 
 And taste his genial rays, and wonder how they live. 10 
 
 Such was the change, when fame and conquest joined, 
 And garlands for the hero's temples twin'd. 
 On Rhetian Alps the vocal goddess stood, 
 And ruin saw beneath, and seas of blood. 
 
 She saw the English lion fast advance, 15 
 
 And tear the lyses from the arms of France. 
 Thrice did she Marlborough and conquest sound, 
 And spread the news through all her endless round ; 
 To Asian fields by sanguine Isler borne, 
 
 And regions bordering on the rising morn. 20 
 
 For Gallic fields more slowly moved the Rhone, 
 And fill'd them with a universal groan. 
 The joyful Rhine, a captive now no more, 
 Urg'd on its waves to greet the Belgic shore. 
 
 Fair Thames and Medway hear, nor would they stay, 25 
 
 But to Agusta's walls, with shouts, the news convey. 
 Nor my lov'd Trent unmov'd ; though calm before, 
 She with a double eagre sweeps the shore ; 
 They only echo to the voice of fame, 
 Conquest and Marlbarmie;h they all proclaim.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 81 
 
 Goddess, resume thy long neglected lyre, 
 Once more the vocal strings with soul inspire, 
 The hero sing, and of his fame partake, 
 While his immortal deeds thy song immortal make ! 
 The Father who the fates of empires weighs, 35 
 
 And with impartial eye the world surveys, 
 
 Beheld the Gallic pow'r so haughty grown, 
 
 It dar'd rebel and struggle with his own, 
 
 Snatch at his thunder, and affect his throne. 
 
 They even transcend great nature's steadfast mound, 40 
 
 Reverse her laws, and good and ill confound. 
 
 Force is their right ; their oaths their sacied word, 
 
 Short-lived convenience, and their god their sword. 
 
 Nor this the eternal Sun who shines above, 
 
 Whose essence's truth, whose beauteous rays are love ; 45 
 
 Who will not force the mind, but gently draws, 
 
 And whose wise goodness to his pow'r gives laws ; 
 
 He saw the monster swell to vast excess, 
 
 Her ancient bounds with scornful pride transgress : 
 
 One wing beyond the cloudy Alps was stretch'd, 50 
 
 O'er Pyrenean rocks her other reach'd : 
 
 The volumes of her vast enormous train, 
 
 To worlds unknown beyond the Atlantic main. 
 
 The German Eagle next, the wings t' invade, 
 
 While nations shake beneath her deadly shade ; 55 
 
 The royal bird in vain his thunder bears, 
 
 And oft though struck to earth himself he rears ; 
 Cuff'd and disabled oft, attempts to rise, 
 
 And re-assume his empire in the skies ; 
 
 Wounded and faint, maintains a feeble fight, 60 
 
 With equal valour, but inferior might. 
 
 The Dragon's teeth, fierce new-born armies yield, 
 
 An iron harvest round the moisten'd field ; 
 
 Intestine foes the sacred empire tear, 
 
 And in her bowels urge Hnnatural war. 65 
 
 A prosperous traitor, with invaders join'd, 
 
 To ruin what barbarians spar'd design'd : 
 
 Germany is no more ; the Golds advance, 
 
 O'er captive liter's streams, and all is France. 
 
 Hardly their fam'd metropolis appear'd, 70 
 
 And something now beyond the Turks they fear'd. 
 
 Like some strong town whose walls the foe had gain'd, 
 
 The narrow citadel alone remain'd, 
 
 111 guarded, half deserted, and distressed, 
 
 A panic terror seizing every breast. 75 
 
 A 
 
 Liguria pass'd, again the furious Gaul, 
 Might Rom* have sack'd, and press'd the capilol. 
 But Rome submits, nor boasts her mighty deeds, 
 Infallible, while Gallic pow'r succeeds. 
 
 Yet still more base, perfidious aid she lends, 80 
 
 And with mean arts oetrays her ancient friends ; 
 Retreating slow with rage the floods they crcss>'d ; 
 What they by valour gain'd, by treason lost. 
 
 The while, a joy to madness near allied, 
 
 Lutelia's temples rends, and swells her pride : 85 
 
 The Pagans' sanguine rites reproach no more, 
 Or Scythian altars stain'd With human gore, 
 When mis-nam'd Christians dare affront the skies, 
 And myriads after myriads sacrifice ; 
 
 Rank i. their squadrons every guililcss star, 90 
 
 And make them panic- in tnrir impious war. 
 11
 
 82 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Yet think no grateful incense can aspire, 
 
 Like smoke from towns that shine with hostile fire. 
 
 Couriers on breathless couriers daily sent, 
 
 Fresh laurels bring, and fame itself prevent. 95 
 
 Te Deums now are vulgar anthems grown, 
 
 From matins and from vespers hardly known. 
 
 Those decent thanks for heaven they spare, 'tis true, 
 
 But to their monarch think far more is due. 
 
 New blasphemies, new adorations paid, 100 
 
 They kiss his feet, and still implore his aid. 
 
 If Lewis shine, they laugh at those above ; 
 
 As father Nile alone is Egypt's Jove. 
 
 Elated even beyond their nation's pride, 
 
 Themselves, as well as him, they deified. 105 
 
 While Lewis like the Samian tyrant reigns, 
 
 And fortune by his chariot leads in chains. 
 
 The bounds of human happiness surpass'd, 
 
 To the third heir, he sees his ill got conquest ladt. 
 
 Such was the face of things, such Europe's state, 1 10 
 
 When thus the sovereign arbiter of fate: 
 " Thus far have we the oppressor's fall delay'd : 
 But here shall his insulting waves be stay'd. 
 Worthy our vengeful thunder now he grows ; 
 
 And now 'tis worthy heaven to interpose : 115 
 
 This moment's fixed by our unchang'd decree 
 The utmost verge of prosp'rous tyranny." 
 Then of the powers which near His throne attend, 
 And by the wond'rous golden chain descend, 
 
 He singles these : first prudence, heavenly fair, 120 
 
 Her looks unclouded, yet with thoughtful air. 
 The next was fortitude ; what sprightly grace 
 And promises of conquest in her face ! 
 Celerity was in commission join'd, 
 
 Whose wings outfly the lightning and the wind. 125 
 
 Then secrecy with modest glories crown'd, 
 And rob'dwith awful clouds, which Heaven's bright throne surround. 
 
 " Go to the man," He said, " by us design'd 
 To humble France, and Europe's chains unbind : 
 
 Go, and our seal'd commission with you bear, 130 
 
 His constant guards, and partners of the war." 
 By intuition they his name discern'd ; 
 Yet unpronounc'd lest by some traitor learn'd, 
 Crowding disguis'd among the sons of day, 
 He should th' important truth to hell's allies convey. d35 
 
 They bow'd ; and swerving down the deep descent, 
 Borne on a beauteous lunar rainbow went, ," 
 And Marlborough ! alighted at thy tent ; 
 As on Mosella's streams thy squadrons lay, 
 
 Waiting for thee, and the returning day. 140 
 
 For now the silent noon of night was o'er, 
 And Phoebe hastened to her eastern shore. 
 Thoughtful they found the chief, his head reclin'd, 
 The fate of Europe labouring in his mind. 
 
 His heavenly friends unseen assistance brought, 145 
 
 Mould the great scheme, and polish every thought ; 
 Till ripened with new vigour in his eyes, 
 And waked from deep concern, "It must be thus," he cries: 
 " This saves our friends, and breaks th' united powers 
 Of haughty France and hell, if Heaven be ours :" 150 
 
 Then calls to horse ; his willing troops obey ; 
 Speed marched before, and travell'd all the way ;
 
 SAMUEL WESLET, RECTOR OF EPAVORTH. 83 
 
 While secrecy a cloud around them drew, 
 
 Too thick for subtle spies or traitor's view : 
 
 Such that which round God's favourite armies spread, 155 
 
 And safe thro 1 sandy worlds and trackless deserts led. 
 
 Dazzled at first the foes before lum run, 
 
 Like birds obscene that cannot bear the sun ; 
 
 O'er liter's streams their leader speeds his flight, 
 
 Immers'd in earth, and shuns the conscious light ; 160 
 
 There, meditating mischief, doom'd to wait 
 
 Till France awhile prolongs and shares his fate. 
 
 Once more from earth th' imperial eagle springs, 
 
 And prunes his bolts and shakes his moulted wings : 
 
 Tho' slow with wounds, his fate is pleas'd to try, 165 
 
 And bravely bid for death or victory ; 
 
 Nor needs the heavenly courier, sent to guide 
 
 The British chief, unguarded leave his side : 
 
 The Gennan heroes need not press to join 
 
 And share the glory of the brave design. 170 
 
 As when a matron by fierce ruffians found 
 
 Unguarded and alone isseiz'd and bound ; 
 
 If Heaven to her unhop'd assistance send, 
 
 Some generous warrior or some powerful friend ; 
 
 They need not long her valiant sons persuade, 175 
 
 ('Tis nature's kindly task) to join their aid ; 
 
 They on the wings of love and duty fly, 
 
 Resolv'd to save her, or resolv'd to die. 
 
 Who first, who next, shall of these worthies claim 
 
 A deathless memory in the rolls of fame ! 180 
 
 Eugene the first such faith such valour shown, 
 
 Adopted Germany's and all her own : 
 
 Whose arms too well the Gallic ensigns know, 
 
 Oft met by Mincius, and the royal Po, 
 
 And rolled in blood : nor Baden's sword in vain 185 
 
 On misbelievers drawn, he has his theusands slain. 
 
 Next him undaunted Hesse : how young, how brave 
 
 A German all, he hates the name of slave, 
 
 Triumphant France his arms have taught to yield, 
 
 And trail'd their conqu'ring standards from the field. 190 
 
 More might I sing, in time's fair leaves enroll'd, 
 How prodigal of life, how largely soul'd ! 
 Who when the rally'd foe with cautious fear 
 On Danube's banks strove to secure their rear ; 
 
 When art and nature in their camp unite 195 
 
 Forc'd the strong pass and put 'em both to flight : 
 Earnest of greater sums which fate will pay, 
 A glorious morning to a brighter day. 
 
 See where the French new Hydra armies send 
 
 At once to ruin and assist their friend : 200 
 
 Till when too weak, he not disdains to try 
 Base faith-breach and unprincely treachery. 
 Virtues he copied from his great ally : 
 Obtending treaty would our faith abuse, 
 
 And where he can't resist our arms, amuse. 205 
 
 But prudence, calling diffidence to aid, 
 To the confederate chief the fraud displayed : 
 So may they join in happy hour, said he, 
 Our fi^hl will yield a double victory. 
 
 Devotion which too oft in camps has been 810 
 
 A stranger, nor in temples always seen,
 
 84 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Drawn by his great example and desire, 
 
 Returns, and does his vigorous troops inspire 
 
 With a new warmth, and more than martial fire. 
 
 When Heaven they conquer, how can man withstand, 215 
 
 Or mortal strength resist the Almighty's hand ? 
 
 Secure of fate, they on success rely, 
 
 'Tis with them equal now to sleep or die. 
 
 They with their strong cherubic guards unite, 
 
 And like the Thundering Legion pray and fight ; 220 
 
 For now the long expected morn arose, 
 
 Which showed them their desire, the united foes. 
 
 Not eager lovers with more transport see 
 
 Long absent friends than these their enemy. 
 
 Though all they wished, the numbers and the ground 225 
 
 Was theirs, and hills, and woods, and shades profound ; 
 
 Without such odds we had not fought 'em fair, 
 
 Deep trenches here, and tow'ring ramparts there : 
 
 A wall of cannons, which in fire and smoke 
 
 Their master's last and only reason spoke. 230 
 
 Their flank the Danube fatally secures 
 
 Whose stream a foreign lord ill pleased endures, 
 
 But like the towns whose captive walls he laves, 
 
 Which blush to see their towers reflected from his waves, 
 
 The approaching happy moment waits with pain, 235 
 
 When fate and Marlborough shall break his chain. 
 
 Nor this sufficed. In from a deep morass, 
 
 Denying all that wanted wings to pass ; 
 
 But soon our general's conduct and his care 
 
 Strong flying bridges threw, and marched in air. 240 
 
 When from the bog's abyss a phantom rose, 
 And did his vast tremendous form disclose, 
 All armed in burnished brass : a shield he wore 
 Of polished steel, with lyses powdered o'er, 
 
 Whose drooping heads surcharged with human gore. 245 
 
 Superb his air, as when from bliss he fell ; 
 He was no vulgar potentate in hell. 
 
 " Shall we look on, and no assistance lend 
 Our darling nation, and our bravest friend ? 
 
 Must then a woman crush our rising state ? 250 
 
 O envy! O malignity of fate ! 
 Can Bourbon fall like feeble Austria ! Can 
 A God confessed submit to less than man ? 
 Ye powers J do two Elizas breathe in Anne ! 
 
 Shall partial heavea her arms and counsels guide, 255 
 
 And for her favourite chief such guards provide ! 
 (He saw the shining warriors by his side.) 
 Must nature's self within his ranks take pay, 
 While pushing on the great decisive day ? 
 
 Big with such vast events, bold mortal, stay ! 260 
 
 Though water, earth, and air I must resign, 
 I'll try if all the elements be thine, 
 Turenne and Schomberg ! for a third prepare 
 Your silent shades; this moment sees him there !" 
 He said, then to a murdering cannon pressed, 265 
 
 Traversed the piece, and points it at his breast ; 
 One of his train gives fire, the bullet takes its flight, ' 
 And drew behind a trail of deadly light: 
 But glorious Michael, who attends unseen, 
 
 Steps in and claps his sevenfold targe between : 270 
 
 'Twas he for the red cross adorned his breast, 
 And the old dragon's spoils his dreadful crest.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEV, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 85 
 
 Dropped short the fiery messenger of death, 
 
 As with his journey tired and out of breath. 
 
 The fiend blasphemed his hopeful project crossed, 275 
 
 And thrice renounced what long before he'd lost : 
 
 He thence amid the thickest ranks retires, 
 
 And all with his own desperate rage inspires. 
 
 'Twas well his caitiff body was but air, 
 
 Or Marlborough had found and seized him there, 280 
 
 Who, all things now prepared to strike the blow, 
 
 Thus to his English soldiers, Here's the foe ! 
 
 Like air, like fire, like English swift they ran, 
 
 With well known shouts the bloody toil began. 
 
 Now fight, Philistines, or your Dagon's gone, 285 
 
 The sacrtd nrk prevails, and you're undone. 
 
 They did as Lewis were himself in sight; 
 
 As who for lite, and more for empire fight, 
 
 Forget themselves ; and charge and charge again, 
 
 Nor only in their onset more than men, 290 
 
 Rallied and rallied, till though bored and broke, 
 
 And de^th with death repaid, and stroke with stroke. 
 
 And did we shrink ? Did English troops give way ? 
 Say ye who felt them, brave, though conquered, say ! 
 Pressed by your numbers, did we seem to fly, 295 
 
 Or start? Did any leave his rank to die ! 
 How decently they fell, unknowing none to yield, 
 And with their manly bodies strewed the field ! 
 
 What warriors those, with death encompassed round, 
 It should be Cults, but he's without a wound : 300 
 
 So many a scp.r from former fields he wore, 
 He now escapes, there was no room for more ! 
 Thus stars which in the galaxy combine 
 With numerous beams, yet undistinguished shine. 
 Look down, ye blessed ! O Courcy, Talbot, Vert, 305 
 
 Look down, and know your genuine offspring here ! 
 Glory's too mean a prize, 'tis false, though bright : 
 But these for liberty and Europe fight. 
 Tis fairly thrown, the gains will quit the cost ; 
 This evening sees aworld preserved or lost. 310 
 
 At distance labouring round great Eugene see, 
 And with him the remains of Germany. 
 What life, what spirit, what superior air ? 
 How can such troops be beat when Eugene's there ? 
 Nor were they unemployed ; nor would the foe 315 
 
 Led by Bavaria, yield without a blow. 
 So a fell wolf that long unchecked has prowl'd 
 And scour'd the plains, and stormed the trembling fold ; 
 When him the shepherds to his covert track, 
 
 And aided by their faithful dogs attack ; 320 
 
 Oblique he grins, fierce, though encompassed round, 
 Still fights, and none escapes without a wound. 
 
 Of troops, brigades, and wings, the rest take care, 
 But Marlborough alone is every where ; 
 
 As prudence bids, the various battle views ; 325 
 
 Like nature, what is lost by time and death renews ; 
 Till courage calls, her well known voice he hears, 
 Erect and greater than himself appears. 
 With him the English cavalry advance, 
 
 And charge and mingle with the flower of France. 3JO 
 
 They feeithe odds, their ancient lords they fly, 
 And now had little else to do but die.
 
 86 OP MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Churchill who like his brother look'd and fought, 
 
 One army slew, another captive brought : 
 
 While by Lord Hesse, the Belgic squadrons led, 335 
 
 Like English charg'd ; the French admired and fled. 
 
 For now 'tis done ; the mighty struggle's past ; 
 
 The braver juster side prevails at last. 
 
 France may be beat ; her boasted reign is o'er, 
 
 The scourge and terror of the world's no more. 340 
 
 There, Lewis ! all thy blasted laurels lie ; . 
 
 And there, thy universal monarchy ! 
 
 Thy hoary warriors boast their spoils in vain : 
 
 Th' invincibles are broke ; th' immortal squadron's slain ! 
 
 Let chronicles to future worlds recite 345 
 
 The carnage and the relics of the fight ; 
 What thousands plunge in death their lives to save, 
 And sought glad refuge underneath the wave ; 
 Sinking, a ghastly look behind them threw, 
 
 Lest to the bottom we should them pursue ; 350 
 
 While their more valiant leader dared survive, 
 And to adorn our triumphs deigns to live. 
 What armies we of generals led away, 
 What lumber-captains, and how vast a prey ; 
 
 Troops of noblesse, battoons, and mangled peers, 355 
 
 How many a house in France that mourning wears ; 
 Tho' kind gazettes repair the loss with ease, 
 And raise new paper-squadrons as they please. 
 
 But why so slow? Why does not Lewis stamp, 
 
 Or with a nod recruit Bavaria's camp ? 360 
 
 Must he for nature's tardy methods wait, 
 Th' immortals in an instant can create. 
 Why then delay his succours 'till the spring, 
 Since greater honour to his pow'r 'twould bring 
 
 To make an army than to make a king. 365 
 
 Or did he leave his friend to fall so low, 
 The greater pow'r in his relief to show 7 
 Nor did he at the shadow snatch in vain : 
 See him ambitious regal honours gain, 
 
 E'en in his flight, for thus did France ordain. 370 
 
 'Till the next vacancy preferment brings, 
 And ranks him in the college of his kings. 
 
 Gazettes may fill the triumphs that remain 
 We glean some dukes, and a few towns we gain 
 
 Before, the work of but one large campaign. 375 
 
 We came, we conquered, ev'n before we saw 
 Augsburg and Ulm, and thee regain'd, Landau! 
 
 And now for peace should Europe humbly sue, 
 And gen'rous France the treaty deign renew ; 
 
 Should she the glory of her arms deny, 380 
 
 And condescend to part with Germany, 
 Her righteous cause so must an umpire leave, 
 As cannot be deceived nor can deceive ; 
 The infallible at Rome, the sacred chair, 
 
 Where faith can hardly with her own compare : 385 
 
 What happy halcyon days must needs ensue 
 How just, how firm the alliance, and how true! 
 Next to have ne'er begun the war how bless'd 
 Our land, of peace on such fair terms possess'd. 
 
 Thus soon may Lewis move, and thus may those 390 
 
 Who scarce disguis'd declare for Europe's foes ;
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 87 
 
 And had their sage advice prevaiPd before, 
 
 Marlborough ne'er had left our English shore, 
 
 The mighty work had still been incomplete, 
 
 And heaven in vain had form'd him well and great. 395 
 
 We merit chains if France again*we trust, 
 
 Who will not, cannot, to her oaths be just. 
 
 Her frowns are many, but her smiles are base : 
 
 These fairly kill ; those stab with an embrace. 
 
 Bavaria, Savoy, greater names can say 400 
 
 How dearly for her friendship fond to pay, 
 
 May those be bless'd with such a strong ally, 
 
 Who start at swords, and would by ling'ring poisons die ! 
 
 Let war, and let more hundred millions come, 
 
 And worse perhaps than either feuds at home. 405 
 
 So our loud crimes may not so high ascend, 
 
 As to pull down the curse of having France our friend ! 
 
 The die is cast, and fortune courts the brave ; 
 
 No medium's left, he must be lord or slave. 
 
 Too long, illustrious chief! have we delay'd, 410 
 
 The praise, the triumphs, which can ne'er be paid. 
 We lent thee to th' allies, but never gave, 
 Hast thou another Germany to save? 
 
 At length he comes, and leaves the Belgian shore ; 
 What myriads stretch to meet him half seas o'er ; 415 
 
 While his loved name their hearts and lips employs, 
 Prevents their eyes, and antedates their joys. 
 Some praise his equal conduct in the state, 
 In council calm, unmoved by warm debate, 
 
 Great in the court, yet him the country bless 420 
 
 Great in the camp, now rare a happiness ! 
 Above a narrow faction's mean design, 
 True as the sun to his meridian line. 
 These his dexterity for business made, 
 
 His application these, and timely aid. 425 
 
 Some his humanity ; how easy of access, 
 How prone to save, and pity and redress ; 
 How form'd to help, how made to please and bless ! 
 While others choose his laurels fetch'd from far, 
 Fight o'er his battles, and renew the war. 430 
 
 Like the great Spirit that moves this varied whole 
 Is Marlborough his numerous armies' soul. 
 Tis he informs each part, his looks inspire 
 With vig'rous wisdom and with tempered fire. 
 
 Nothing he leaves to chance's blind pretence, 435 
 
 But all is prudence, all is providence. 
 Firm and intrepid to the last degree, 
 Alike from slowness and from rashness free ; 
 The French and German virtues he unites, 
 
 Like one consults, and like the other fights. 440 
 
 Above mean arts of spinning long campaigns, 
 Where both must lose but neither party gains ; 
 'Twas not for this his English marcn'd so far, 
 He came to end, and not to make a war. 
 
 The torrent of his conquests flows so fast, 445 
 
 Like waves the first is buried in the last ; 
 When Liege tiio deluge of his arms subdued, 
 Bavaria might his gathering fate have view'd. 
 
 One summer's isthmus only did repress, 
 
 The two vast rival seas of his success. 450 
 
 While fate took time to breathe that instant o'er, 
 The waters rend away the narrow shore ;
 
 . 
 
 83 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Both oceans meet, new hills on hills are toss'd 
 
 And mingling waves in friendly waves are lost. 
 
 The Macedonian youth, whose arms subdued 455 
 
 The Roman-Persians and the Indians rude, 
 
 Beyond a mortal lineage strove to rise, 
 
 And claim'd ambitious kindred with the skies : 
 
 But had his phalanx won such fame as ours, 
 
 And routed Bourbon's and Bavaria's powers, 460 
 
 For Mammon's son too great, he'd sar above, 
 
 And filled the car of Mars, or throne of Jove. 
 
 Our conqueror saves more than the Greek o'erran ; 
 
 Yet bows to heaven, and owns himself a man ; 
 
 Forbids those altars we attempt to raise, 465 
 
 At once surmounts both vanity and praise I 
 
 But emperors alike and poets err, 
 Who strive to raise his finished character ; 
 The name of Marlborough such worth proclaims, 
 
 Hero and prince to that are vulgar names : 470 
 
 His sovereign's smiles, and heaven's alone can pay 
 What Europe owes him for so great a day. 
 
 And now her awful head Brittannia rears 
 On Dubrfs cliffs, an azure robe she wears, 
 
 The sword and long contested trident bears ; 475 
 
 While her white rocks the turrets of her court 
 Can scarce th' impatient gazer's weight support; 
 While thither all her subjects turn their eyes, 
 As Persians when their god prepares to rise, 
 
 And thousands after thousands crowding rah ; 480 
 
 Pleas'd with the concourse, thus the nymph began : 
 " If ever joy admitted of excess, 
 It must be now, for mine is hardly less ; 
 Already the lov'd man yon waits in sight, 
 
 The distant skies are fring'd with radiant light ; 485 
 
 The waves can scarce support the weight he brings, 
 As proud as when they brought your captur'd kings : 
 Yet e'er once more his native lands are press'd, 
 And England with his glorious footsteps bless'd, 
 
 With care a mother's kind advice attend : 490 
 
 Brittannia speaks, a mother and a friend. 
 So may you brighter trophies yet obtain, 
 Nor heav'n on favour'd Albion smile in vain. 
 Enough, my sons ! enough of noise and strife, 
 
 And stern debate, the deadliest plagues of life. 495 
 
 Now learn to love ; your arrows close unite, 
 Unbroke and firm as your own ranks in fight. 
 My senates will, I know they will combine 
 To frustrate tottering France's last design : 
 
 If those agree she doubly must despair ; 500 
 
 If not, we lose in peace our gains in war. 
 Contend they may, and warmly will debate, 
 Which most shall guard, and most adorn the stale. 
 Or first my wishes and their own prevent, 
 
 In thanks for those high blessings heaven has sent. 505 
 
 Their only strife, their only grand contest, 
 Which loves their sovereign and their country lest. 
 How weighty falls the curse on those whose pride 
 Or faction would those sacred names divide ! 
 
 Why should they clash who equal good intend, 510 
 
 Or differ in their method more thai, end ! 
 Preserve, my sons, those barriers heaven has made, 
 Let none my ancient landmarks dare invade !
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. ?9 
 
 Uuenvious to yourselves your bliss possess, 
 
 And be for once content with happiness ! 515 
 
 Look round the spacious globe, and find a spot, 
 
 (In vain ye seek it) that excels your lot. 
 
 Fire, rapine, famine, sweep all Europe's plains ; 
 
 Here, tlironed in blood, a moody tyrant reigns: 
 
 Weak councils and contending interests there 520 
 
 With much of pain, expense, intrigue, and care, 
 
 Treasure eternal seeds of strife and war : 
 
 Here a young Phaeton drives furious on, 
 
 With his high seat and fortune giddier grown : 
 
 His hands would Jove's own ponderous bolts retain, 525 
 
 That grasp the unwieldy forces of the main : 
 
 Rashless pursues what valour well began, 
 
 He'd kings unmake, and make, e'er lie's himself a man. 
 
 While sacred Themis in my Albion reigns, 
 
 Whose equal hand my sword and Heaven's sustains ; 530 
 
 Impartial she, how fondly fabled blind, 
 
 Sent to redress the. wrongs of all mankind. 
 
 See her the bright capacious balance hold, 
 
 Like that which shines above, and flames with heavenly gold. 
 
 In vain the Gaul his ancient arts has shown, *35 
 
 And in the lighter scale his sword has thrown ; 
 
 Her temper'd blade to th' adverse scale applied, 
 
 His mounts in air, and feels the juster side : 
 
 Nor will she sheathe it, to the hilt embued 
 
 And drunk with hostile blood, till France and vice subdued ; 540 
 
 Yet calm, as those above, if aught they know 
 
 Aught that concerns their militant friends below 
 
 When tyrants here subdued or monsters slain, 
 
 A sober joy shoots round the eternal plain. 
 
 How firmly wise ! how great her easy state ! $45 
 
 What goodness does majestic power rebate. 
 
 Strong as Hyperion shoots his golden light ; 
 
 Yet mild her rays, as Cynthia's, and as bright. 
 
 Her soul, like the superior orbs serene, 
 
 Which know not what a cloud or tempest mean ; 560 
 
 Though pointed flames are by their influence hurl'd, 
 
 And their unerring thunders awe the subject world, 
 
 If distant regions taste her friendly care, > 
 
 How bless'd, who her maternal goodness share. 
 
 Her bounds beyond Herculean columns known, 555 
 
 And ancient Co/pe's walls her empire own : 
 
 While peace and justice she at home maintains, 
 
 And in her subjects' hearts unrivall'd reigns. 
 
 Whom has she not obliged 1 How wretched those 
 
 Who are their own, and her's, and virtue's foes I 560 
 
 Eliza might have learnt from her to please ; 
 
 Herself she taxes for her people's ease : 
 
 What altars by her gen'rous hand supplied, 
 
 Whose flames nave dimly roll'd, whose fires had died, 
 
 Shall shine with incense which her bounty threw, 566 
 
 And constant intercourse with heaven renew ? 
 
 From thence a full return of blessings gain. 
 
 Nor have her grateful offerings blazed in vain. 
 
 The vested priests the cheerful flame surround, 
 
 Deserted domes are filled and altars crown'd. 570 
 
 For her their vows, for her their viclim*,bleed, ' 
 
 Long, long may ahe herself, herself succeed ! 
 
 Long, e'er from us and her loved prince bhe part, 
 
 'Tis less to share a crown than share her heart." 
 
 She said ; and now the smiling surges bore 574 
 
 Her best loved son safe to herooty shore. 
 
 12
 
 90 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 But sooner may we count the unnumber'd sand* 
 
 Than half the crowd of lifted eyes and hands. 
 
 The mingled smiles with floods of joyous tears ; 
 
 The prayers, the shouts, when Marlborough appears. 580 
 
 She gazed intemperate on the hero's face ; 
 
 He saw and bowed, and ran to her embrace : 
 
 But what she said a mortal strives in vain, 
 
 'Tis past the powers of numbers to explain. 
 
 Such was the moving scene, if not the same, 585 
 
 When love and his illustrious consort came, 
 
 Th' unrivall'd partner of his heart and fame ! 
 
 Blow soft, ye gentle winds ! let storms retire, 
 
 Ye gentle winds ambrosial sweets respire ! 
 
 Soft as chaste lovers' sighs, let nature bring S90 
 
 Th' inverted year, and raise a second spring ! 
 
 On foreign shores let war and winter rest, 
 
 Our happy isle of Marlborough possessed, 
 
 With peace and with eternal verdure blessed. 
 
 This long poem would admit of much illustration : but as the 
 transactions it records are all in common history, the reader can find 
 little difficulty in furnishing himself with the necessary elucidations. 
 Instead therefore of a tissue of notes, I shall give a general account of 
 the battle, which Mr. Wesley has so largely sung : 
 
 The battle is frequently called in our histories the Battle ofHockstet; 
 and also the Battle of Blenheim or Pleytheim. HOCKSTET is a fortified 
 town of Germany, on the north side of the Danube, about twenty-nine 
 miles south-west of Ulm, and ten west by south of Donawert. 
 
 BLENHEIM is only a village in the late circle of Bavaria, on the 
 north of the Danube, about three miles east of Hockstet and thirty 
 north-east of Ulm. 
 
 This famous battle was fought Aug. 13, 1704, between the French 
 and Bavarians on the one side, commanded by Marshal Tallard, and 
 the elector of Bavaria ; and the ALLIES on the other, commanded by 
 the duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. The armies 
 were nearly equal; the French had about sixty thousand veteran troops, 
 and the allies about fifty-two thousand. The English, Imperialists, 
 Dutch, and Danes, of which the allied army was composed, were 
 among the bravest of men, and had been accustomed to conquer. The 
 French troops were those whom their great monarch had led on-,to 
 frequent victory ; and had seldom been broken in the field, or showed 
 their backs to an enemy. 
 
 Owing to some gross errors committed by Marshal Tallard, of 
 which the duke of Marlborough knew well to avail himself, the French 
 and Bavarians were defeated with the loss of nearly forty thousand 
 men. Thirteen thousand were made prisoners, among whom were 
 twelve hundred officers. Ten French battalions were entirely cut to 
 pieces ; thirty squadrons of horse and dragoons were forced into the 
 Danube, most of whom were drowned. Marshal Tallard, owing to 
 his extreme short-sightedness, mistaking a battalion of the Hessians, 
 who fought in the pay of England, for his own troops, rode among 
 them, and was taken prisoner. Among the prisoners were several of 
 the French nobility. The Marquis De Montperaux, general of the 
 horse ; De Seppeville, De Silly, and De la Valiere, major-generals ; 

 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OP EPWORTH. 91 
 
 Monsieur De la Massiliere, St. Pouange, De Legendais, and several 
 others of distinction. 
 
 The ALLIES gained above one hundred pieces of cannon, twenty- 
 four mortars, one hundred and twenty-nine colours, one hundred and 
 seventy-one standards, seventeen pair of kettle drums, three thousand 
 six hundred tents, thirty-four coaches, three hundred laden mules, two 
 bridges of boats, fifteen pontoons, twenty-four barrels, and eight casks 
 of silver. 
 
 They lost four thousand four hundred and eighty-five men killed, 
 seven thousand five hundred and twenty-five wounded, and two 
 hundred and seventy-three lost or made prisoners ; in all twelve 
 thousand two hundred and eightv-three. 
 
 By this battle the elector of Bavaria lost all his dominions, and the 
 king of France the bravest of his armies ; and by it the German empire, 
 previously tottering to its centre, and trembling on the brink of total 
 ruin, was freed from the French, and suddenly restored to its political 
 consequence. It is not to be wondered at that the great hero under 
 whose skill and management this important battle was gained should 
 be loaded with honours and emoluments by those in whose service he 
 had conquered. The emperor of Germany made him a prince of the 
 empire, and assigned him Mindelsheim in Suabia for his principality : 
 this dignity Queen Anne not only permitted him to accept, but gave 
 him the honour and manor of Woodstock, and the hundred of Wootton 
 to him and his heirs for ever ; and caused a palace to be built for him 
 in Woodstock, called Blenheim-house; which stands equally a monument 
 of his victories, of British munificence, and of the skill of the artist by 
 whom it was constructed. 
 
 The poem itself has passed its day of criticism ; to attempt now to 
 review its merits and defects would be lost labour. It abounds in both ; 
 it has many verses which contain beauties of the very first order : -and 
 it has others which are both lame and tame, and even worse than prose. 
 But its principal defects are its great length, which is not sufficiently 
 diversified with either fiction or incident to make it impressive, or even 
 entertaining; and the very inadequate description of the battle which 
 was fought with extraordinary obstinacy on both sides, and especially 
 on the part of thirteen thousand French troops which were posted in 
 Blenheim, and which all the power of the allies could not dislodge, 
 though they returned again and again to the attack, and sacrificed a 
 majority of their infantry before this paltry village. Even when J\larshal 
 Tallard and the elector of Bavaria were defeated, the brave troops 
 which occupied this village kept their ground ; and when after the total 
 route of the French and Bavarian lines, they were left without succour, 
 and there was not a general officer to conduct their retreat, they seemed 
 to capitulate like a strong garrison, rather than surrender themselves 
 prisoners of war. Had not Mr. Wesley's prejudices against the 
 French been carried to the highest pitch, his muse must have found in 
 the conduct of those brave troops a subject equal to the highest flight 
 of her strongest pinion. When the duke of Marlborough visited his 
 illustrious prisoner, Marshal Tallard, after the battle, the marshal paid 
 hjrn the highest compliment by saying, My lord, you have
 
 92 OF MR. VfESLEY'S ANCESTORS, 
 
 the bravest army in the world: which compliment the duke but ill 
 repaid by answering, " I hope your excellency will except those by 
 whom they were vanquished." What a subject for the heroic muse ! 
 An army among the bravest in Europe, led on by commanders worthy 
 of their high trust, who were out-generalled and totally defeated by the 
 only generals and troops in the universe which were capable of the fact. 
 Here British glory might have been relieved and emblazoned by 
 French bravery. 
 
 There is but one. couplet in this poem, on which I shall make any 
 remark ; the poet describing the French park of artillery says, 
 
 ''A wall of cannons, which in fire and smoke 
 Their master's last and only reason spoke." 
 
 Lines 229, 30. 
 
 This is an allusion to the motto which Lewis XJV. placed on his 
 brass ordnance, Ultima ratio Regum, " the last argument of kings ;" 
 or, more compressedly, The logic of kings. Rightly paraphrased 
 thus ; Sic volo ; sic jubeo : stat pro ratione voluntas Thus I will ; 
 thus I command : and my will shall stand in the place of reason x and 
 justice. I have seen some of these very cannon, with this inscription. 
 This was a logic to which the French have often resorted ; and a 
 logic with the rules of which the other powers of Europe are not 
 unacquainted. 
 
 That I may dismiss Mr. Wesley's poetry at once, there is a piece 
 of exquisite merit intituled Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator, which was 
 made either by him or his daughter, .Mrs. Wright, or by both conjointly, 
 which I shall introduce here, after making a few remarks. 
 
 1. The hymn is attributed to Eupolis, an Athenian comic poet, who 
 flourished in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, four hundred and twenty-eight 
 years before the incarnation of our Lord. He was killed in a naval 
 engagement between the Athenians and Lacedemonians ; and his death 
 was so much lamented at Athens, that they made a law that no poet 
 should ever more bear arms. He is said to have written about twenty- 
 four comedies, of which the names only are extant, and may be found 
 in Fabricius' Bibl. Graec. vol. i, p. 761. 
 
 A work called Sententia, printed at Basil, 1560, octavo, has been 
 attributed to him. Of the present poem I shall speak more particularly 
 at the conclusion. 
 
 2. This poem or hymn is preceded by a dialogue between Plato" and 
 Eupolis : but neither it nor the hymn have ever yet been given complete 
 to the public. In the present copy, there are eighty-four whole lines 
 which have never been in print before ; and the dialogue is here, for 
 the first time, given entire. 
 
 3. The original dialogue and hymn now lie before me ; and were 
 written partly by Mr. Samuel Wcslty himself, and partly by his daughter, 
 Mrs. Wright. The dialogue is in the handwriting of Mr. Wesley, and 
 all those lines marked with sections : all the rest is in the handwriting 
 of Mrs. Wright. 
 
 4. In those verses written by Mrs. Wright there are frequent 
 alterations and emendations in her father's hand : but there is nothing
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OP EPWORTH. 93 
 
 of this kind in the verses written by him. Hence, one might be led to 
 conclude that Mrs. Wright was the author of this beautiful hymn ; but 
 that several alterations were miMe in it by her father, who has added 
 to the amount of thirty-four /ine*V\yhich are here marked with sections. 
 Yet the profound and frequent classical allusions argue the hand of a 
 first rate scholar, and seem to be far beyond what might be reasonably 
 expected from any female of that time. 
 
 5. The lines printed here for the first time, and which are eighty- 
 four in number, are distinguished by small asterisks. 
 
 6. I have added a series of notes on the more difficult expressions 
 and allusions, which otherwise might embarrass common readers. 
 
 7. In the critique at the end of the hymn, without noticing Mrs. 
 Wright, I have joined with the general voice in attributing the hymn to 
 the rector of Epworth. 
 
 EUPOLIS HIS HYMN TO THE CREATOR 
 THE (SUPPOSED*) OCCASION. 
 
 Part of a (new*) Dialogue between Plato and Eupolis ; the rest not 
 
 extant. 
 
 EUPOLIS. But, sir, is it not a little hard that you should banish all 
 our fraternity from your new commonwealth ?| As for my own part, 
 every body knows that I am but one of the minorum gentium. But 
 what hurt has father Homer done, that you should dismiss him among 
 the rest, though he has received the veneration of all ages : and Sala- 
 mis was adjudged to us by the Spartans, on the authority of two of his 
 verses 1 J And you know it was in our own times that many of our 
 citizens saved their lives, and met with civil treatment in Sicily, after 
 
 * These words are written above the lines in the original, and at a different time, 
 but in Mr. S. Wesley's hand. 
 
 t Your new commonwealth. This refers to a treatise written by Plato, divided 
 into ten books, and called IToXireio, a republic, or commonwealth ; in the third and 
 tenth, books of which he shows that poets pervert truth, cannot teach what may 
 rendej the people happy, and tell intolerable tales of the gods. 
 
 J Two of his verses. The two verses referred to here are the following: 
 
 5' ex HaXa/xivoff aysv 8wxa.i8sxa 
 6"' aywv, v' A&TJVCUWV irfTccvro 
 
 ILIAD, lib. ii, ver. 557. 
 
 With these appear the Salaminian bands 
 (Whom the gigantic Telamon commands : ) 
 In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course, 
 And with the great Athenians join their force. 
 
 Xlrabo, lib. ix, p. 394, relates that the Mtfarian* having claimed Sdamis as 
 anciently a part of their possessions; the Athenians quoted the above lines to show, 
 that in the time of Homer the island belonged to Athens, and in consequence So/atm'i 
 was adjudged to the Athenians.
 
 94 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 our unfortunate expedition and defeat under Nicias, by repeating some 
 verses of Euripides.* 
 
 PLATO. Much may be done to save one's life. I doubt not I 
 should have done the same, though only to have regained my liberty 
 when Dionysius sold me for a slave. | But those are only occasional 
 accidents, and exempt cases, which are nothing to the first settling 9 f 
 a state, when it is in one's power to mould it as one pleases. As for 
 Homer, to be plain, the better poet, the more danger ; and I agree in 
 this with Aristotle, whose words, to which the poet refers, are, 4/sv<Jjj 
 X^ysiv us Set, that the blind old gentleman certainly lies with the best 
 grace in the world. But a lie, handsomely told, debauches the taste 
 and morals of a people, and fires them into imitation. Beside, his 
 tales of the gods are intolerable, and derogate to the highest degree 
 from the dignity of the Divine nature. 
 
 EUPOLIS. Not to enter at present into the merits of that case, do 
 you really think, sir, that these faults are inseparable from poetry ; and 
 that the praises of the ONE SUPREME may not be sung without any 
 intermixture of them; allowing us only the common benefit of metaphor, 
 and other figures, which you do not blame even in the orators ? 
 
 PLATO. An ill habit is hard to break : and I must own I hardly 
 ever saw any thing of that nature ; and should be glad to see you or 
 any other attempt, and succeed in it: on which condition I would 
 willingly exempt you from the fate of your brother poets. 
 
 EUPOLIS. I am far from pretending to be a standard : how I shall 
 succeed in it I do not know, but am sure I shall attempt it, and wait 
 upon you with it. 
 
 PLATO. You know the academy will be always pleased to see you, 
 and doubly so on this occasion. 
 
 * Defeat under Nicias. This was at Syracuse, where, after doing prodigies of 
 valour, the Athenian army and navy were totally destroyed ; most were slain in 
 battle, and the generals and prisoners put to cruel deaths. Diodorus Siculus says, 
 some were saved who understood literature and arts ; and, perhaps, many of them 
 were those who, from repeating some of the verses of Euripides, were permitted to 
 live. 
 
 f Dionysius sold me for a slave. Plato visited Sicily in the fortieth year of his age, 
 and having got an interview with Dionysius the tyrant, discoursed with him on the 
 security and happiness of virtue, and the miseries attending injustice and oppression. 
 The tyrant perceiving that the philosopher's discourse waslevelled against the vices 
 and cruelties of his reign, dismissed him from his presence with great displeasure ; 
 and formed a design against his life. By the assistance of Dion, the king's brother- 
 in-law, one of Plato's pupils, he was got on board of the vessel that brought over 
 Pollis, a delegate from Sparta, who was then returning into Greece. Dionysius 
 being informed of this, got a promise from Pollis, that he would either take away 
 the philosopher's life, or on the passage sell him for a slave. Pollis accordingly sold 
 him in the island of Egina for twenty mina, equal to 64J. 1 Is. Sd. : but he was soon 
 redeemed by Anicerres, an Athenian philosopher, who paid for his ransom thirty 
 mina, or 84/. 10j. sterling.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OP EPWORTH. 96 
 
 EUPOLIS HIS HYMN TO THE CREATOR. 
 
 AUTHOR of BEING! SOURCE of LIGHT! 
 With unfading beauties bright. 
 Fulness, goodness, rolling round 
 Thy own fair orb, without a bound. 
 
 Whether thee thy suppliants call 5 
 
 TRUTH, or GOOD, or ONE, or ALL, 
 El, or JAO, thee we hail, 
 Essence that can never fail ; 
 Grecian or Barbaric name, 
 
 Thy steadfast being still the same. 10 
 
 Thee, when morning greets the skies 
 With rosy cheeks and humid eyes ; 
 Thee, when sweet declining day 
 Sinks in purple waves away ; 
 
 Thee will I sing, O parent Jove! IS 
 
 And teach the world to praise and love ! 
 
 Yonder azure vault on high, 
 Yonder blue, low, liquid sky ; 
 Earth on its firm basis placed, 
 
 And with circling waves embraced, 20 
 
 All-creating power confess, 
 All their mighty Maker bless. 
 
 Thou shak'st all nature with thy nod ; 
 Sea, earth, and air, confess thee God. 
 
 Yet does thy powerful hand sustain 25 
 
 Both earth and heaven ; both firm and mam. 
 
 Scarce can our daring thought arise 
 To thy pavilion in the skies : 
 
 Lane 1. Source of light. This was the body which the Platonists gave to the 
 Supreme Being. 
 
 Line 6. Or one. Plutarch says, that the ancients termed God Thou who art ONE ; 
 and that it was from this that the term Jipollo came : for AroXXwv, Apollo, signifies 
 He who is not MANY, from a, privative, and iro\v$, many; because God is only ONE, 
 without mixture, and without composition. 
 
 Line 6. Or all. Alluding to the word ITav, Pan. See on line 75. 
 
 Line 7. EL El, Thou art, the famous word that was engraved on the frontispiece 
 of the temple of Apollo at Delphi, on which Plutarch has written an express treatise. 
 There is a consistency here, which is not often met with in Heathenism ; for there 
 was the strictest propriety that El, Thou art, should be engraved on the temple 
 dedicated to the AiroXXwx, A-potton, He whose being is simple, indivisible. Plutarch, 
 who travelled into Egypt, to get information on important subjects, doubtless learned 
 the true meaning of this word there. Moses had long before proclaimed the Supreme 
 Being among that people, by the >-ery expressive word mnN eheyth, I am, or I shall 
 be, Lxod. iii, 14, from which the Greek appellative probably came. 
 
 IAO. The same as mm Yeve, or Jehovah. Among the Greeks, Iij, In, Ie, It, was 
 frequent in their invocations to the gods; which epithet comes manifestly from the 
 Hebrew rp Jah, or Yeh, a name often accompanying mm, Jevf, Yeveh, or Yehovah, 
 in the Sacred Writings. Hence the Jove and Jupiter of the Romans, Jupiter, (q. d. 
 Jmans Pater, "The helping Father.' ) This Jao, or Yeve, mm Jehovah, is here 
 termed, line 9, Barbaric name, because the Hebrews were styled Barbarians by the 
 Greeks. The word lAfl, loo, is frequently found on those Egyptian amulets called 
 abraxas, abrasaxas. 
 
 Lane 12. With rosy cheeks. This and the following lines are highly poetic. 
 
 Line 13. Yondtr blue, low, liquid sky. There is a most happy combination of 
 liquids here, which express the subject of it in a most delicate manner. 
 
 Line 19. Earth on its firm basis placed. It was a general opinion among the 
 ancients that the earth was a vast extended plane, encircled by the ocean.
 
 96 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Nor can Plato's self declare, 
 
 The bliss, the joy, the rapture there. 30 
 
 * This we know ; or if we dream, 
 
 * 'Tis at least a pleasing theme ; 
 Barren above thou dost not reign, 
 But circled with a glorious train ; 
 
 The sons of God, the sons of light, 35 
 
 Ever joying in thy sight: 
 
 (For thee their silver harps are strung,) 
 
 Ever beauteous, ever young : 
 
 Angelic forms their voices raise, 
 
 And thre' heaven's arch resound thy praise ! 40 
 
 The feather'd souls that swiin the air, 
 And bathe hi liquid ether there ; 
 The lark precentor of their choir, 
 Leading them higher still and higher, 
 
 Listen and learn the angelic notes, 45 
 
 Repeating in their warbling throats: 
 And e'er to soft repose they go, 
 Teach themio their lords below. 
 On the green turf their mossy nest, 
 
 The ev'ning anthem swells their breast : 50 
 
 Thus like thy golden chain on high, 
 Thy praise unites the earth and sky. 
 
 Sole from sole thou mak'st the sun 
 On his burning axles run : 
 
 The stars like dust around him fly, 55 
 
 And strew the area of the sky : ' 
 
 * He drives so swift his race above, 
 Mortals can't perceive him move : 
 
 ' So smooth his course, oblique or strait, 
 
 Line 33. Barren above thou dost not reign, Sac. Plato held that there were three 
 hypostases in the Divine nature. The first he termed To Ov, The Being or Self- 
 existent, and To Eu, The One The Jllone. The second he termed vows, mind, or 
 intellect. And the third ^u\n, soul, or ^u^j? TOV Koapov, the soul of the world. The first 
 he oftens terms To Aya6ov, the Good, or Essential goodness ; to which the Apostle 
 seems to refer 1 Pet. iii, 13, Jlnd who shall harm you, cav TOV AyaBov /ipirra< yirtvOt, 
 if ye become imitators of the Good Being. The second he terms Aoyoj, The WORD or 
 Reason, to which St. John certainly refers, John i, 1, In the beginning was the Word, 
 Aoyos, &c, but the Logos of the evangelist is evidently different from that of the 
 philosopher : for Plato does not say as John does, KUI Qeos rjv o Aoyos, and God was 
 the Logos. From this vovs or intellect Plato says the To Ov, Supreme Being, struck 
 out innumerable spirits of inferior order: which is nearly tantamount to God's 
 creating all things by Christ Jesus. 
 
 Line 51. Thus like thy golden chain. The ancients fabled that Jupiter had a 
 cAatn of gold, which he could at any time let down from heaven, and by it draw the 
 earth and all its inhabitants to himself. See a fine passage to this effect in Homer, 
 Iliad viii, 18-27. By thiscAatn the poets pointed out the union between heaven and 
 earth ; or, in other words, the government of the universe, by the extensive chain of 
 causes and effects. It was termed golden, to point out not only the beneficence of the 
 Divine Providence, but also that infinite philanthropy of God by which he influences, 
 and by which he attracts all mankind to himself. See my note on John xii, 32. 
 
 Line 53. Source of light, instead of Sole from sole. (Mr. J. Wesley's alteration.) 
 The sun being sole or alone in the system, as God is in the^universe : but still this 
 beautiful representation of the Deity derives his being and continuance from God ; 
 though he be sole below, he is from him who is sole above. 
 
 Line 55. The stars like dust around himfiy. Some of the ancients and some of the 
 moderns have held the opinion that stars, planets, and comets have been fragments 
 broken off from the solar orb. 
 
 Line 59. So smooth his course, oblique or strait. This is an allusion to the sun's 
 apparent course in the Zodiac, which appears to be oblique between the tropics. 
 But all astronomers know that this is occasioned by the earth's motion in its orbit.
 
 8AMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EFWORTH. 97 
 
 Oly input shakes not with his weight. 60 
 
 As the queen of solemn night, 
 Fills at his vase her orb of light, 
 Imparted lustre: thus we see, 
 The solar virtue shines by thee ! 
 
 * Phoebus borrows from thy beams 65 
 
 * His radiant locks and golden streams, 
 
 * Whence thy warmth and light disperse, 
 
 * To cheer the grateful universe. 
 Eiresione ! we'll no more 
 
 For its fancied aid implore ; 70 
 
 Since bright oil and wool and urine 
 And life-sustaining bread are thine ; 
 
 * Wine that sprightly mirth supplies, 
 
 * Noble wine for sacrifice ! 
 
 Thy herbage, O great Pan, sustains 75 
 
 The flocks that graze our Attic plains. 
 The olive with fresh verdure crown'd 
 Rises pregnant from the ground, 
 
 * Our native plant, our wealth, our pride, 
 
 * To more than half the world denied. 80 
 At Jove's command it shoots and springs, 
 
 And a thousand blessings brings. 
 
 Minerva only is thy mind, 
 Wisdom and bounty to mankind. 
 
 The fragrant thyme, the blooming rose, 85 
 
 Herb, and flow'r, and shrub that grows 
 On Thessalian Trempe's plain, 
 Or where the rich Sabeans reign, 
 That treat the taste, or smell, or sigh^ 
 
 For food, for medicine, or delight ; 90 
 
 Planted by thy guardian care, 
 Spring, and smile, and flourish there. 
 
 * Jllcinoan gardens in their pride, 
 
 * With blushing fruit from thee supplied. 
 
 Line 69. Eiresione ! we'll no more. The Greek word Eipceuuvi? Eiresione, means a 
 kind of telesm used by the Athenians by the command of the Oracle of Apollo, to 
 drive away/amme. It was an olive branch rolled round with wool, on which were 
 hung ripe fruits, a pot of honey, a bottle of oil, &c, in a word, the different species of 
 fruits and necessaries of life peculiar to the four seasons of the year : and one of these 
 was hung up at the door of each house. Suidas gives the derivation of the name 
 thus: Ejptdiwvn it Xeytrai ita. ra tpia, "it was called Eiresione, because' of the wool," 
 which the Greeks call tipiov. See also Plutarch, and a quotation from Potter's 
 Grecian Antiquities, vol. i, p. 395. 
 
 Line 75. Thy herbage, O great Pan. The Mendes of the Egyptians was the Pan 
 of the Greeks and Romans ; and signified him whose nature is infinite, and whose 
 government is universal, from irav, all, because he is the Author and Governor of all 
 things. In process of time the pure ideas which the Greeks had entertained of the 
 Divine nature became obliterated, and the 'O /uyaj Ilav, The great Pan, degenerated 
 among the Romans, &c, into a monster, half man, half goat! 
 
 Line 77. The olive with fresh verdure crowned. Neptune and Minerva, called also 
 Athena, are said to have contended who should give a name to the new city which 
 Cecrops had built It was at last agreed that whoever should produce the most 
 beneficial gift should give the city its name. Neptune struck the earth with liis 
 trident, and a horse sprung up. Minerva caused an olive to spring from the ground : 
 she conquered, and called the city after her own name, . ///K ,i- or Athens. 
 
 Line 83. Minerva only is thy mind. Minerva is fabled to have sprung out of the 
 brain of Jupiter full grown and completely armed. A fine mythologic representation 
 of the nature of icisdom. 
 
 Line 93. Jllcinoan gardens. Alcinous was the sou of JV*ou//*oiw, and king of the Phe- 
 acians, in the island of Corcyra. He was so famous a horticulturist, that his gardens 
 and fruil became proverbial. He is celebrated by Homer, Pire-t/, Ovid, and others. 
 
 13
 
 98 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 O ye nurses of soft dreams ! 96 
 
 Reedy brooks and winding streams 
 
 * By our tuneful race admir'd, 
 
 * Whence we think ourselves inspired : 
 Or murm'ring o'er the pebbles sheen, 
 Or sliding thro' the meadows green; 
 Or where thro' matted sedge ye creep, 
 Travelling to your parent deep, 
 Sound his praise by whom ye rose, 
 That sea which neither ebbs nor flows. 
 
 O ye immortal woods and groves, 105 
 
 Which the enraptured student loves : 
 
 Beneath whose venerable shade, 
 For learned thought, and converse made : 
 
 * Or in the fam'd Lycean walks, 
 
 * Or where my heavenly Master talks: 110 
 Where Hecadem, old hero lies, 
 
 Whose shrine is shaded from the skies, 
 
 And thro' the gloom of silent night, 
 Project from far your trembling light. 
 
 You whose roots descend as low, 115 
 
 As high in air your branches grow, 
 Your leafy arms to heaven extend, 
 Bend your heads ! in homage bend ! 
 Cedars and pines that wave above, 
 And the oak beloved of Jove. 120 
 
 Omen, monster, prodigy ! 
 Or nothing are, or Jove from thee ! 
 Whether various nature's play, 
 Or she renvers'd thy will obey ; 
 
 And to rebel man declare, 125 
 
 Famine, plague, or wasteful war. 
 Atheists laugh, and dare despise, 
 The threatening vengeance of the skies : 
 While the pious on his guard, 
 
 Line 97. By our tuneful race admired. That is, the poets. 
 
 Line 102. Travelling to your parent deep. The rivers are called by the poets the 
 thousand daughters of Oceanus. 
 
 Line 109. Or in the famed Lycean walks. The Lyceum was a celebrated school at 
 Athens, where Aristotle taught and explained his philosophy. It was composed of 
 porticoes and trees planted in the quincunx form, among which the philosophers 
 disputed walking; hence called ntpuranp-ticoi, Peripatetics; from irtpi, about, and 
 xarto, J walk. The followers of Aristotle were called the Peripatetics from this 
 circumstance ; and the followers of Plato were called Academics, from the place 
 called the Academy, where Plato gave his lectures. See the note on ver. 111. 
 
 Line 111. Where Hecadem, old hero lies. Hecademus, or Academus, was a famous 
 hero among the Athenians in the time of Theseus. He had a plot of ground about a 
 thousand paces from the city, which he bequeathed to the public at his death. It 
 was in this place that Plato taught his philosophy ; and as the place .got the name 
 of Academy, from its ancient moner ; so Plato's scholars had the name of Academics 
 from the place. This is the origin of our word academy. The grounds of the Academy 
 formed the burying place of the principal heroes and philosophers of Athens. 
 
 Line 1 1 5. You whose roots, fyc. Virgil speaks this of the oak 
 
 Qu<E quantum vertice ad auras 
 JElhtrias, tantum radice in Tartara tcndit. 
 
 GEOHG. ii, ver. 291. 
 
 High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend, 
 
 So low his roots to hell's dominions tend. DRTDEX.
 
 SAMUEr. WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 99 
 
 Undismay'd is still prepared : 1 30 
 
 Life or death his mind 's at rest, 
 Since what you send must needs be best. 
 
 * What cannot thy almighty wit 
 
 * Effect, or influence, or permit ; 
 
 * Which leaves free causes to their will, 135 
 
 * Yet guides and overrules them still ! 
 
 * The various minds of men can twine, 
 
 * And work them to thy own design : 
 
 * For who can sway what boasts \\afree, 
 
 * Or rule a commonwealth, but thee 1 140 
 
 * Our stubborn will thy word obeys, 
 
 * Our folly shows thy wisdom's praise: 
 
 * As skilful steersmen make the wind, 
 
 * Tho' rough, subservient to mankind. 
 
 * A tempest drives them safe to land ; 1 45 
 
 * With joy they hail and kiss the sand. 
 
 * So when our angry tribes engage, 
 
 * And dash themselves to foam and rage, 
 
 * The demagogues, the winds that blow, 
 
 * Heave and toss them to and fro ; 1 50 
 
 * Silence ! is by thee proclaim'd, 
 
 * The tempest falls, the winds are tam'd : 
 
 * At thy word the tumults cease, 
 
 * And all is calm, and all is peace ! 
 
 * Monsters that obscurely sleep 1 55 
 
 * In the bottom of the deep, 
 
 * Or when for air or food they rise 
 
 * Spout the JEgean to the skies ; 
 
 * Know thy voice, and own thy hand, 
 
 * Obsequious to their lord's command ; !80 
 
 * As the waves forget to roar, 
 
 * And gently kiss the murmuring shore. 
 
 No evil can from thee proceed, 
 'Tis only suffered, not decreed : 
 
 Line 147. So when our angry tribes engage. The ideas in this and the following 
 seven lines are the same with those in the following passage of VIRGIL, .KTID i, 
 ver. 148. 
 
 Jlc veluti magno in populo cum scepe coorta est 
 Seditio, saevitque animis ignobile vulgus ; 
 Janque faces et saxa volant, furor artna ministrat : 
 Turn piftate graven ac merilis si forte virum quern 
 Conspexere, silent : arrectisque auribus atlstant : 
 ttle regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet. 
 
 As when sedition fires, th' ignoble crowd, 
 
 And the wild rabble storms and thirsts for blood ; 
 
 Of stones and brands a mingled tempest flies, 
 
 With all the sudden arms which rage supplies. 
 
 If some grave sire appears amidst the strife, 
 
 In morals strict, and innocence of life, 
 
 All stand attentive ; while the sage controls 
 
 Their wrath, and calms the tumult of their souls. 
 
 PITT. 
 
 Line 158. Spout the JEgean to the skies. The ^Egean sea is properly a part of the 
 Jtiedilerranean near to Greece, parting Europe from Asia. It is commonly called th*
 
 100 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 As darkness is not from the sun 165 
 
 Nor mount the shades till he is gone, 
 
 Then night obscene does straight arise 
 
 From Erebus, and fills the skies ; 
 
 Fantastic forms the air invade, 
 
 Daughters Q{ nothing and of shade. 170 
 
 * When wars and pains afflict mankind, 
 
 * 'Tis for a common good designed, 
 
 * As tempests sweep and clean the air, 
 
 * And all is healthy, all is fair. 
 
 * Good, and true, and fair, and right, 176 
 
 * Are thy choice and thy delight. 
 
 * Government thou didst ordain, 
 
 * Equal justice to maintain : 
 
 * Thus thou reign'st enthron'd in state, 
 
 * Thy -will is just, thy will is fate. 180 
 
 * The good can never be unblest, 
 
 * While impious minds can never rest ; 
 
 * A plague within themselves they find, 
 
 * Each other plague, and all mankind. 
 
 * Can we forget thy guardian care, 185 
 
 * Slow to punish, prone to spare. 
 
 * Or heroes by thy bounty rais'd 
 
 * To eternal ages prais'd ? 
 
 * Codrus, who Athens lov'd so well 
 
 * He for her devoted fell ; 190 
 
 * Theseus who made us madly free, 
 
 * And dearly bought our liberty ; 
 
 * Whom our grateful tribes repaid, 
 
 * With murdering him who brought them aid ; 
 
 Line 165. As darkness is not from the sun. Here is a simple argument taken from 
 an incontestable matter of fact, that most forcibly explodes the horrible doctrine, 
 that God has willed and decreed evil. God is the fountain of good, andj is essentially 
 good ; therefore evil cannot come from him. This is abbolutely impossible, as 
 nothing can give what it does not possess. But evil does exist: then it is suffered, 
 not decreed. There is such a thing as darkness : but this cannot be from the sun ; 
 for he is a body of light, and there is no darkness in him. Darkness is not from the 
 sun ; sin and evil are not from GOD. 
 
 Line 168. From Erebus, and Jills the skies. Erebus in fable is one of the infernal 
 gods ; supposed to be father of Woz, or Night, whom he begot of Chaos or .Vo- 
 thing. The word is evidently corrupted from the Hebiew y\y Ereb,Gen. i, 8, 
 which there signifies the evening, or twilight, from the word arab, 10 mingle, because 
 twilight is a mixture of light and darkness. 
 
 Line ISO. Thy will is fate. The word fate has been grossly misapplied and abused : 
 it comes from the supine fatum, spoken ; of the verb fari, to speak, and signifies in 
 reference to God, what he has spoken ; and when rightly understood, in reference to 
 his government of the world and treatment of man, what he has promised or threatened 
 to do in his revealed word. 
 
 Line 189. Codrus, who Athens loved so wett. Codrus was the last king of Athens. 
 The Peloponnesians being at war with the Athenians, were told by the oracle that 
 they should gain the victory, provided they did not slay the Athenian king. Codrus, 
 hearing this, disguised himself, and went into the Peloponnesian camp ; where, 
 offering some insult to the soldiers, he was slain, and in the battle the Athenians got 
 the victory. Paterculus. 
 
 Line 191. Theseus who made us madly free. Theseus was a famous hero of anti- 
 quity, the son of JEgeus, king of Athens. He is said to have united the twelve cities 
 of Attica, and to have founded a republic there about 1236 years before the Christian 
 era. Being driven from his throne of Athens by the usurper Mnestheus, he fled to 
 Lycomedes, king of Scyros (an island in the -<Egean sea,) for protection ; but the per- 
 fidious king caused him to be thrown from a precipice, and dashed to pieces.^-* 
 Plutarch.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPIVORTH. 101 
 
 * To tyrants made an easy prey, 195 
 
 * Who would not godlike kings obey. 
 
 * Tyrants and kings from God proceed, 
 
 * THOSE permited, THESE decreed. 
 
 Thou break'st the haughty Persian's pride, 
 Which did both sea and land divide. 200 
 
 Their shipwrecks strew'd th' Eubcean wave, 
 At Marathon they found a grave. 
 O ye bless'd Greeks who there expired ! 
 With noble emulation fir'd ! 
 
 * Your trophies will not let me rest, 205 
 
 * Which swell'd, Themistocles, thy breast, 
 What shrines, what altars, shall we raise, 
 To secure your endless praise ? 
 
 Or need we monuments supply, 
 
 To rescue what can never die ? 210 
 
 * Godlike mef\ ! how firm they stood ! 
 
 * Moating their country with their blood. 
 
 And yet a greater hero far, 
 Unless great Socrates could err, 
 
 * (Though whether human or divine, 215 
 
 * Not e'en his genius could define) 
 Shall rise to bless some future day, 
 
 And teach to live, and teach to pray. 
 
 Line 200. Which did both sea and land divide. Xerxes may be said to have 
 divided the sea when he threw a bridge of boats over the Hellespont, now the 
 Dardanelles. He may be said to have divided the land, when, according to some 
 historians, he cut a passage for his fleet through mount Athos. 
 
 Line 202. Jit Marathon they found a grave. The famous battle of Marathon, (a 
 place about ten miles from Athens,) between the Persians and Athenians, was 
 fought in the 490th year before Christ. The Athenians had only 10,000 men, and 
 the Persians 110,000 : yet the Greeks defeated them, and slew 6,400 men, while 
 themselves lost only 190. The Persians fled to their ships: but the conquerers 
 took, burnt, or destroyed the major part of them, the rest having effected their es- 
 cape by dint of rowing. MUtiades that day commanded the Athenian troops. As 
 soon as the memorable battle was ended, Philippidas the courier formed the project 
 of carrying the news to the magistrates of Athens : without quitting his armour, 
 he ran, arrived, announced the glad tidings, and spent with fatigue, he fell dead at 
 their feet! See Herodotus, in Erato and Lucian, Iltpi row Uraia/iaras. 
 
 Line 205. Tour trophies will not let me rest. After the battle of Marathon, men- 
 tioned above, the Athenians raised monuments on the field, to those noble Athenian* 
 who had so bravely defended their country ; and in the spaces between them, tro- 
 phies were erected, composed of the Persian arms. Themislocles, when very young, 
 was observed to be very pensive, and often to deny himself both sleep and necessary 
 food. Being asked the reason, he gave for answer if KaOcvitiv avrov OVK twij TO rov 
 Mt\Ttai<n> rpowcuov. " That the trophies of MUtiades would not suft'er him to sleep ;" 
 thereby intimating, that he had an insatiable desire to imitate the military exploits 
 of that famous Athenian general. See Plutarch, 
 
 Lane 211,212. Godlike men I how firm they stood! How thtse two verses espe- 
 cially, came to be left out of the printed copies of this poem, I cannot conceive ; but 
 any thing more grand or noble on such a subject, never saw the sun. " Moot" sig- 
 nifies a deep ditch, round a castle, &c, and filled with water, in order to render the 
 approach of an enemy more difficult 
 
 Line 2 16. Not e'en his genius. This alludes to the dmnon of Socrates, or attend- 
 ant spirit, which he said attended him always, and advertised him every morning, 
 of the evils to which he should be exposed in the course of the day. The late Pro- 
 ftstor Person showed me a very ancient MS. copy of Plato's works, in which there 
 were marginal scholia : and one on this very subject stated that " what Socrates 
 called his daman was a tingling in the ears. n
 
 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Come, unknown instructor, come, 
 
 Our leaping hearts shall make thee room ; 220 
 
 Thon with Jove our vows shalt share ; 
 
 Of Jove and thee we are the care. 
 
 O Father, King ! whose heavenly face 
 Shines serene on all thy race ; 
 
 We thy magnificence adore, 225 
 
 And thy well-known aid implore : 
 Not vainly for thy help we call ; 
 Nor can we want, for thouartALL ! 
 
 * May thy care preserve our state, 
 
 * Ever virtuous, ever great ! 230 
 
 * Thou our splendour and defence, 
 
 * Wars and factions banish thence ! 
 
 * Thousands of Olympiads pass'd, 
 "May its fame and glory last ! 
 
 FSVOITO, 
 
 After taking so much pains with this poem, apd producing it entire, 
 which was never done before, some of my readers will naturally expect 
 that! should either insert or refer to the Greek original. Could I have 
 
 Line 218. And teach to live, and teach to pray. Here is a reference to the conclu- 
 sion of the dialogue between Socrates and Alcibiades concerning prayer, viz : 
 
 SOCR. You see therefore that it is not safe for you to go and pray to God, lest 
 your addresses should happen to be impious, and God should wholly reject your 
 sacrifice. It is necessary therefore that you should delay till you have learned what 
 disposition you ought to be in both toward God and man. 
 
 ALCIB. But how long will it be, O Socrates ! and who is this instructor ? 
 
 SOCR. It is he who careth for you. But as Minerva removed the mists from the 
 eyes of Diomed, that he might distinguish gods from men ; so must he first remove 
 from your soul the mist that surrounds it ; and then furnish those helps by which 
 you shall be able to distinguish good from evil. 
 
 ALCIB. Let him remove that mist,-or whatever else it be ; for I shall be always 
 ready to follow his command, so that" I may become a better man. 
 
 SOCR. It is wonderful to consider what a providential regard he has toward thee. 
 AXXa pi)v Koxetvoj Sao/ms^y btrtiv atpi at spoSv/iiav e^ti. 
 
 See PLATO. OPER. Mcibiad. sec. vol. v, p. 100, Edit. Bipont. 
 
 Line 222. 0/Jove and thee tee arelhecare. Referring to the words of Socrates in 
 the above extract 'Ouros t$iv </ //eXXa wtpi aov. It is he who careth for thee. 
 
 Line 229. May thy care preserve out state. I believe the last six lines were applied 
 by the poet to the British empire ; to which in the spirit of true patriotism, his heart 
 and hand put ytvoiro ytvotro! so lie it! so be it! and to which the annotator affec- 
 tionately subscribes AMEN and AMEN. 
 
 VARIOUS READINGS. 
 
 Line 70. For Us fancied aid fmplore. Imaginary power adore. Mr. J. Wesley 
 
 Line 71. Since brig lit oil ami wool and wine. Since oil and wool and cheerful 
 wine. J. Wesley. 
 
 Line 31. Jit Jove's command. Jit thy command. Mr. J. Wesley, 
 
 Line 106. Which the enamoured student loves. Which the pensive lover loves. 
 S. W.'s alteration in Mrs. Wright's MS. 
 
 Line 108. For learned thought and converse made. Sacred fanes are frequent made. 
 
 Mrs. W.'s copy. " For thought and friendly converse made." J. W. " For learn- 
 ed thought and converse made." Alteration by Mr. J. W. 
 
 Line 123. Whether rarious nature's play. Whether varied nature play. J. W. 
 Line 127. Atheists laugh, and dare despise. Laugh, ye profane who dare, &c. 
 J.W. 
 
 Line 132. You tend. Thou send'st. J. W. 
 
 Line 167. Thtnnieht obscene does straight arise. Then does night obscene arise. 
 
 J. W. 
 
 Line 204. WM noble nnnltion Wil. For Greece with pious ardour firM. J. W.
 
 SAMUEL WESLET, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 103 
 
 met in Greek with a Hymn ofEupolis to the Creator, and (defragment 
 of an unpublished Dialogue of Plato, I should have inserted both with 
 the greatest cheerfulness, and could have assured myself of the thanks 
 of all the critics in Europe for my pains. That such a Greek original 
 exists, and that the above is a faithful translation from it, is the opinion 
 of most who have seen the poem ; and some of Mr. Wesley's biogra- 
 phers have adduced it, " as being one of the finest pictures extant of 
 Gentile piety ;" and farther tell us, " this hymn may throw light on that 
 passage of St. Paul respecting the Heathen, Rom. i, 21, &c : 'When 
 they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Wherefore God gave 
 them up, &c.' Their polytheism was a punishment consequent upon 
 their apostasy from God." I believe the Gentiles never apostatized 
 from the true God, the knowledge of whom they certainly never had, 
 till they received it by Divine revelation. 
 
 Knowing that the writers from whom I have quoted the above were 
 well educated and learned men, and feeling an intense desire to find out 
 this " finest picture extant of Gentile piety," I have sought occasionally 
 for above thirty years to find this original, but in vain. I have exa- 
 mined every Greek writer within my reach, particularly all the major and 
 minor poets : but no Hymn of Eupolis, or of any other, from which the 
 above might be a translation, has ever occurred to me. I have inquired 
 of learned men whether they had met with such a poem. None had 
 seen it! After many fruitless searches and inquiries, I went to Professor 
 Porson, perhaps the most deeply learned and extensively read Greek 
 scholar in Europe ; and laid the subject and the question before him. 
 He answered, "Eupolis, from the character we have of him, is the last 
 man among the Greek poets from whom we could expect to see any 
 thing pious or sublime concerning the Divine nature : but you may rest 
 assured that no such composition is extant in Greek." Of this I was 
 sufficiently convinced before : but I thought it well to have the testimony 
 of a scholar so eminent, that the question might be set at rest. 
 
 The reader therefore may rest assured that Eupolis his Hymn to the 
 Creator is the production of the head and heart of Samuel Wesley, 
 rector of Epworth ; that it never had any other origin, and never existed 
 in any other language. It may be considered as a fine, and in general 
 very successful, attempt to imitate a Greek poet, who was master of the 
 full power and harmony of his language, and had imbibed from number- 
 less lectures the purest and most sublime ideas in the philosophy of 
 Plato. The character of the Platonist is wonderfully preserved 
 throughout the whole ; the conceptions are all Vorthy of the subject ; 
 the Grecian history and mythology are woven through it with exquisite 
 art ; and it is so like a finished work from the highest cultivated Greek 
 muse, that I receive the evidence of my reason and research with regret, 
 when it assures me that this inimitable hymn was the production of the 
 Isle poet of Axholm. Should any of my readers be dissatisfied with the 
 result of my inquiries, and still think that Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator 
 exists in Greek, and will go in quest of this Sangreal, ho shall have my 
 heartiest wishes for the good speed of his searches, and when successful 
 my heartiest thanks. 
 
 But if the Hymn ofEupolis be * forgery, what becomes of the veracity.
 
 104 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 not to say honesty, of Mr. Samuel Wesley? I answer, it is no forgery; 
 it is no where said by him that it is a translation of a Greek original , 
 nor does it appear that he had any intention to deceive. Two words in 
 the title are proof sufficient. " The (supposed) occasion," and, " Part 
 of (a net*) Dialogue." He covered his design a little to make his 
 readers search and examine. Some of them have not examined ; and 
 therefore said of the poem, that it is a fine specimen of Gentile piety 
 which he never even intended. From the many oblique references to 
 the history of his own times, and from the apparent accommodation of 
 ancient facts to that history, I am led to think the author had a double 
 design : 1. To try how far pure Platonic ideas could be applied in the 
 praises, and in describing the perfections of that God who has revealed 
 himself to mankind ; and, secondly, to give a useful lesson to his own 
 times relative to that restless spirit of republicanism which had leavened 
 a major part of the kingdom. On this second consideration, it would 
 be easy to form a useful critique on the whole poem ; the grand moral 
 of which is, " God is the Fountain and Author of all good : he governs 
 the world by a wise and gracious providence. His wisdom is so 
 perfect, that he cannot err ; his goodness is so great, that he can do 
 nothing evil ; as he is infinitely merciful, he must always be kind. 
 Subjection to his providence under all dispensations is true wisdom ; 
 and to rebel against his government is folly and madness. Kingly 
 government is from himself: but he permits tyrants to become the 
 scourge of an ungrateful and disobedient people ; 
 
 " To tyrants made an easy prey, 
 Who would not godlike icings obey ; 
 Tyrants and kings from Jove proceed ; 
 THOSE permitted, THESE decreed," 
 
 I have spent a long time on this poem, because I believe it to be, 
 without exception, the finest in the English language. It possesses 
 what Racine calls the genie crateur, the genuine spirit of poetry. 
 Pope's Messiah is fine, because Pope had Virgil's Pollio before him, 
 and the Bible. Mr. Wesley takes nothing as a model ; he goes on the 
 ground that the praises of the One Supreme had not been sung ; he 
 attempts what had not been done by any poet before the Platonic age, 
 and he has no other helps than those furnished by his poetic powers 
 and classical knowledge. It is not saying too much to assert, the man 
 who was the author of what is called Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator, 
 had he taken time, care, and pains, arid had not been continually 
 harassed with the Res angusta domi, would have adorned the highest 
 walks of poetry. But to him poverty was the scourge of knowledge ; 
 and he fully experienced the truth of that maxim of the Roman satirist, 
 from which I have quoted the above three words : 
 
 Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat 
 
 Res angusta dorm. JUT. SAT. iii, v. 164. 
 
 Rarely they rise by learning's aid, who lie 
 , Plung'd in the depth of helpless poverty. 
 
 But he spent his time in something better than making verses : he 
 was a laborious and useful parish priest; and educated a numerous
 
 SAMUJCL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 105 
 
 family of males and females* who were a credit to him and to their 
 country. But more of this in its place. 
 
 I have already mentioned a letter written by his brother Matthew to 
 him, from which I have given an extract with some short observations, 
 and promised Mr. S. Wesley's reply. The letter is without a date : 
 but this seems a proper place to introduce it. It contains a connected 
 series of domestic facts, from his own pen, which cast some light upon 
 that part of his history which is past, as well as on that which is yet to 
 be produced. 
 
 It is written in ft serio-jocose style ; and is supposed to be communi- 
 cated by a third person, who having seen the letter of Mr. Matthew 
 Wesley, handed the same to his brother Samuel, " that he might know 
 what the left-handed part of the world said of him." The letter is 
 headed John o' Styles Apology against the imputation of his ill Hus- 
 bandry. The reader will recollect that the main charge, brought by 
 Surgeon Wesley against his brother, was this, that " although he had a 
 plentiful estate, and great and generous benefactions, yet he had made 
 no provision for his numerous progeny ;" " that this was a black 
 account, &c ; and he calls him to repentance, and to study the doctrine 
 of restitution, that from a serious consideration of these things, he 
 might prepare for the kingdom of heaven, &c." The pretended 
 narrator goes on : 
 
 " When I had read this to my friend John o' Styles, I was a little 
 surprised that he did not fall into flouncing and bouncing, as I have 
 too often seen him do on far less provocation; which I ascribed to a 
 fit of sickness which he had lately had, and which I hope may have 
 brought him to something of a better mind. He stood calm and 
 composed for a minute or two ; and then desired he might peruse the 
 letter, adding that if the matter of fact therein were true, and not 
 aggravated or misrepresented, he was obliged in conscience to 
 acknowledge it, and ask pardon at least of his family, if he could make 
 them no other satisfaction. If it were not true, he owed that justice 
 to himself and his family, to clear himself if possible, of so vile an 
 imputation. After he had read it over, he said he did not think it 
 necessary to enter into a detail of the history of his whole life, from 
 sixteen to upward of seventy, in order to the vindication of his conduct 
 in all the particulars of it : but the method he chose, which he hoped 
 would be satisfactory to all unprejudiced persons, would be to make 
 general observations on those general accusations which have been 
 brought forward against him ; and then to add some balance of his 
 incomes and expenses ever since he entered on the stage of life. 
 
 " li .<:s, that almost all his indictment consists of generals, 
 
 wherein Qftud almost always lurks, and it is next to impossible to free 
 itself entirely from it. 
 
 " The sum of the libel may be reduced to the following assertions : 
 1. That John o' Styles is worse than an infidel, and therefore can never 
 go to heaven. 2. He aims at proving this, because he provides not for 
 his own house : as. notorious instances of which he adds, in the 3d 
 place, That he had a numerous offspring ; and has had a long time a 
 plentiful estate, and great and generous benefactors, but yet has made 
 
 14
 
 106 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 no provision for those of his own house ; which he thinks, in the last 
 place, a black account, let the cause be folly or vanity. 
 
 " Answer. If God has blessed him with a numerous offspring, he 
 has no reason to be ashamed of them, nor they of him, unless perhaps 
 one of them ; and if he had but that single one, it might have proved 
 no honour or support to his name and family. Neither does his 
 conscience accuse him that he has made no provision for those of his 
 own house ; which general accusation includes them all. But has he 
 none, nay, not above one, two, or three, to whom he has (and some of 
 them at very considerable expenses) given the best education which 
 England could afford ; by God's blessing on which they live honourably 
 and comfortably in the world ; some of whom have already been a 
 considerable help to the others, as well as to himself; and he has no 
 reason to doubt the same of the rest, as soon as God shall enable them 
 to do it ; and there are many gentlemen's familes in England, who by 
 the same method provide for their younger children. And he hardly 
 thinks that there are many of greater estates, but would be glad to 
 change the best of theirs, or even all their stock, for almost the worst 
 of his. Neither is he ashamed of claiming some merit in his having 
 been so happy .in breeding them up in his own principles and practices ; 
 not only the priests of his family, but all the rest, to a steady opposition 
 and confederacy against all such as are avowed and declared enemies 
 to God and his clergy ; and who deny or disbelieve any articles of 
 natural or revealed religion ; as well as to such as are open or secret 
 friends to the great rebellion ; or any such principles as do but squint 
 toward the same practices ; so that he hopes they are all staunch high- 
 Church, and for inviolable passive obedience ; from which if any of 
 them should be so wicked as to degenerate, he can't tell whether he 
 could prevail with himself to give them his blessing ; though at the 
 same time he almost equally abhors all servile submission to the greatest 
 and most overgrown tool of state, whose avowed design it is to 
 aggrandize his prince at the expense of the liberties and properties of 
 his free-born subjects. Thus much for John o' Styles' ecclesiastical 
 and political creed ; and, as he hopes, for those of his family. And as 
 his adversary adds, that 'at his exit they could have nothing in view 
 but distress ; and that it is a black account, let the cause be folly or 
 vanity;' John o' Styles answered, he has not the least doubt of God's 
 provision for his family after his decease, if they continue in the way 
 of righteousness, as well as for himself while he has been living. As 
 for his folly, he owns he can hardly demur to the charge ; for he fairly 
 acknowledges he never was, and never will be like the children of this 
 world, who are accounted wise in their generation, in doting upon this 
 world, courting this world, and regarding nothing else : not but that he 
 has all his life laboured truly both with his hands, head, and heart, to 
 provide things honest in the sight of all men ; to get his own living, 
 and that of those who have been dependents on him. 
 
 " As for his vanity, he challenges an instance to be given of any 
 extravagance in any single branch of his expenses, through the whole 
 course of his life, either in dress, diet, horses, or recreation or diversion, 
 
 either in himself or family.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 107 
 
 " Now if these, which are the main objections, are wiped off, what 
 becomes of the black account, or of the worse than infidelity which this 
 Scverus Prater et Jlvunculus Puerorum has in the plenitude of his 
 power (as he takes upon himself to have the full power of the keys) to 
 exclude those, who for want of equal illumination, or equal estates, 
 think or act differently from himself, out of the kingdom of heaven? 
 
 " As for the plentiful estate, and great and generous benefactors, 
 which he likewise mentions : as to the latter of them, the person 
 accused answered, that he could never acknowledge as he ought the 
 goodness of God and of his generous benefactors on that occasion ; 
 but hopes he may add, that he had never tasted so much of their 
 kindness if they had not believed him to be an honest man. Thus 
 much he said in general, but added as to particular instances, he should 
 only add a blank balance, and leave it to any after his death, if they 
 should think it worth while, to cast it up according to common equity, 
 and then they would be more proper judges whether he deserved those 
 imputations which are now thrown upon him. 
 
 " Imprimis. Wrfen he first walked to Oxford, he had in cash 21. 5s. 
 
 " He lived there till he took his bachelors' degree, without any 
 preferment or assistance, except one crown 5s. 
 
 " By God's blessing on his own industry, he brought to London 
 10/. 15s. 
 
 " When he came to London, he got deacon's orders, and a cure, for 
 which he had 28/. for one year. 
 
 " In which year for his board, ordination, and habit, he was indebted 
 30/., which he afterward paid. 
 
 " Then he went to sea, where he had for one year 70/., not paid till 
 two years after his return. 
 
 " He then got a curacy at 30/. per annum for two years, and by his 
 own industry he made it 60/. per annum. 120/. 
 
 " He married and had a son ; and he and his wife and child boarded 
 for some years in or near London without running into debt. 
 
 " He had then a living* given him in the country, let for 50/. per 
 annum, where he had five children more ; in which time, and while he 
 Jived in London, he wrote a book,"!" which he dedicated to Queen Mary, 
 who for that reason gave him a living in the country,^ valued at 200/. 
 per annum, where he remained for nearly forty years, and wherein his 
 numerous offspring amounted with the former to eighteen or nineteen 
 children. 
 
 " Half of his parsonage house was first burnt, which he rebuilt : 
 sometime after, the whole was burnt to the ground, which he rebuilt 
 from the foundations ; and it cost him above 400/. beside the furniture, 
 none of which was saved ; and he was forced to renew it. 
 
 " About ten years since he got a little living!) adjoining to his 
 former; the profits of which very little more than defrayed the expense! 
 
 * South Ormsby. f The Life of Christ. f Ep worth. 
 
 J It is said by Dr. Whitehead that he got the living of Wrootr, in 1723. If o, 
 this letter must have been written in 1733. 
 II Wroote.
 
 108 
 
 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 of serving it, and sometimes hardly so much ; his whole tithe having 
 been in a manner swept away by inundations, for which the parishioners 
 had a brief, though he thought it not decent for himself to be joined 
 with them in it. 
 
 " For the greater part of these last ten years he has been closely 
 employed in composing a large book,* whereby he hoped he might 
 have done some benefit to the world, and in some measure amended 
 his own fortunes. By sticking so close to this, he has broke a pretty 
 strong constitution, and fallen into the palsy and gout. Beside this, 
 he has had sickness in his family for most of the years since he was 
 married. 
 
 " His greater living seldom cleared above jive score pounds per 
 annum, out of which he allowed 20/. per annum to a personf who had 
 married one of his daughters. J Could we on the whole fix the balance, 
 it would easily appear whether he had been an ill husband or careless 
 and idle, and taken no care of his family. Let us range on the one 
 side his income, and on the other his expenses, while he has been at the 
 top of his fortunes, taking them at the full extent. 
 
 
 
 Expended in sickness for above 
 
 forty years 
 Expenses in taking his livings, 
 
 repairing the houses, &c. 
 Rebuilding part of his house the 
 
 first time 
 
 Rebuilding the whole house, 
 Furnishing it 
 
 Eight children born and buried 
 
 Tm (thank God!) living,) 
 
 brought up, and educated $ 
 Most of the daughters put out to ) 
 
 a way of living 
 To three sons|| for the best 
 
 education I could get them in 
 
 England 
 Attending the convocation three 
 
 His income about 200J. per ) 
 annum for forty years $ 
 
 160 
 
 60 
 400 
 
 years 
 
 150 
 
 " Let all this be balanced, and then a guess may be easily made of 
 his sorry management. 
 
 " He can struggle with the world, but not with Providence : nor 
 can he resist sicknesses, Jires, and inundations." 
 
 In his family exigencies Mr. Wesley was frequently obliged to 
 borrow money : but such was his character for probity, honour, and 
 punctuality, that he could command it wheresoever it was to be had. 
 There was a man of considerable property in Epworth, who was in 
 the habit of lending out money at 35 and 40/. per cent. Mr. Wesley 
 was obliged sometimes to borrow from this usurer ; and although this 
 man was devoured by the auri sacra fames, yet such was his esteem 
 
 * Dissertationes in librum Jobi. f Mr. Whitelamb. J Mary Wesley. 
 The ten then alive were Samuel, Emily, Mary, /3nn, Susanna, John, JWehetabel, 
 Matthew, Charles, and Kezziah. 
 jl Samuel, John, and Charles, these were the three.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPtVORTH. 109 
 
 for an upright character, that in no case did he ever takeyi-om Mr. W. 
 more than 5 per cent.ybr the use of his money. 
 
 The preceding letter seems to have been written in great haste ; and 
 from his saying he had been in sicknesses for nearly forty years ; and 
 in another place, that these began from his marriage, which probably 
 took place in 1690, the letter must have been written in 1730, (but see 
 note p. 107,) at which time he says he had been employed ten years 
 on the book of Job ; for this is the large work of which he speaks, and 
 which was published a short time after his death, viz. in 1 736. 
 
 I need not tell the reader that the letter is a most complete and 
 happy confutation o r his brother's charges, and of those who have felt 
 inclined to repeal them : and when we consider his expenses and the 
 numerous family he brought up, we may be well surprised how, with so 
 small an annual income, he was a'ole to meet and cover such great de- 
 mands. He had spared neither pains nor cost on the education of his 
 children. I have seen letters from most of them, full of mind and 
 strong sense; and the writing, especially that of the females, remark- 
 ably correct and elegant. As to the three sons, Samue(, John, and 
 Charles, we shall see the men and their education, from iheir works. 
 Some of the daughters were by no means inferior to the sons. 
 
 From the preceding letter we see that his Church and Slate princi- 
 ples were of the highest order; and that he was nevertheless an enemy 
 to arbitrary power. Of the former his whole life gave proof; of the 
 latter we have a remarkable instance in his refusal to read the Declara- 
 tion of King James II. in favour of popery, though strongly solicited 
 by some of the king's friends to do it ; and he not only refused to read 
 the Declaration, but though surrounded with courtiers, soldiers, and 
 informers, preached a bold discourse pointedly against it, from Daniel 
 iii, 17, 18 : If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us 
 from the burning fiery furnace ; and he will deliver us out of thy hand, 
 O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not 
 serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. 
 
 This circumstance is well described by his son Samuel in the fol- 
 lowing lines : 
 
 When zealous James, unhappy sought the way 
 
 To 'stablish Rome by arbitrary sway ; 
 
 In vain were bribes shower'd by the guilty crown, 
 
 He sought no favour, as he fear'd no frown. 
 
 Secure in faith, exempt from worldly views, 
 
 He dared the DECLARATION* to refuse : 
 
 Then from the sacred pulpit boldly show'd 
 
 The dauntless Hebrews true to Israel's God : 
 
 Who spake regardless of their king's commands, 
 
 " The God we serve can save us from thy hands ; 
 
 If not, O monarch, know we choose to die, 
 
 Thy gods alike and threatenings we defy. : -^^ 
 
 No power on earth our faith has e'er controll'd, 
 
 We scorn to worship idols, though of gold." 
 
 * The Declaration was a proclamation by James II., which, under the pretenre of 
 granting liberty of conscience to all his subjects, was intended to take ofl'all fiolmml 
 restraints from the papitts, and admit them into the highest offices both in Church 
 and State. It was issued April 4, 1687, and commanded to be read in all churche* 
 and chnpels, &c, in Great Britain.
 
 110 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Resistless truth damped all the audience round ; 
 The base informer sicken'd at the sound ; 
 Attentive courtiers, conscious, stood amaz'd, 
 And soldiers, silent, trembled as they gaz'd. 
 No smallest murmur of distaste arose, 
 Abash'd and vanquish'd seemed the Church's foes. 
 So when like zeal their bosoms did inspire, 
 The Jeioish martyrs walk'd unhurt in fire." 
 
 His son John has been heard to state, that at first his father was very 
 much attached to the interests of James : " but when," said old Mr. 
 Samuel Wesley, " I heard him say to the master and fellows of Mag- 
 dalen College, lifting up his lean arm, ' if you refuse to obey me, you 
 shall feel the weight of a king's right hand ;' I saw he was a tyrant ; 
 and though I was not inclined to take an active part against him, I was 
 resolved from that time to give him no kind of support." With this 
 anecdote I was favoured by the reverend and venerable Thomas Stead- 
 man, vicar of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury, to whose friendly and important 
 communications these memoirs are in various places much indebted. 
 
 Mr. Wesley fully expected that James would, if possible, introduce 
 arbitrary government into the State ; and popery, its concomitant, into 
 the Church. He saw, therefore, the necessity of the Revolution ; was 
 confirmed in its principles ; and became strongly attached to King 
 William, and was one of his chaplains. " He left a remarkable me- 
 morial of his admiration of King William's character in one of his 
 dissertations on the book of Job ; where in remarking on the descrip- 
 tion of the war .horse, (chap, xxxix,) he introduces the deceased mo- 
 narch as he appeared at the battle of the Boyne, in Ireland, July 1, 
 1690 ; and in both eloquent and affectionate language points him out 
 as the fittest hero to have managed the warlike animal just described. 
 The compliment is the more honourable both to the bestower and the 
 object, as dead monarchs can give no rewards, and as probably his me- 
 mory was not remarkably grateful to those in power." This curious 
 comparison, probably as being deemed useless or irrelevant, was 
 omitted by his son Samuel in passing that sheet through the press. I 
 thus conjecture, because I have not been able to find it in the work. 
 
 It is a curious fact that Mr. Wesley, wishing to have a true repre- 
 sentation of the war horse described by Job, hearing that Lord Ox- 
 ford had one of the finest Arabs then supposed to be in the world, 
 wrote to his lordship for permission to have his likeness taken for the 
 work. That this request was granted there is little room to doubt ; and 
 we may therefore safely conclude that the horse represented, Dissert, 
 p. 338, engraved by Cole, was taken from what was called " Lord Ox- 
 ford's Bloody Arab." The original letter containing the request lies 
 before me ; it is conceived with great delicacy of sentiment, and is ele- 
 gantly expressed : 
 " To my lord of Oxford, 
 
 " MY LORD, Your lordship's accumulated favours on my eldest son 
 of Westminster are so far from discouraging me from asking one for 
 myself of your lordship, that they rather excite me to do it, especially 
 when your lordship has been always so great a patron of learning and 
 all useful undertakings. I hope I may have some pretence to the lot-
 
 - 
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. Ill 
 
 ter, how little soever I may have to the former : and have taken some 
 pains in my Dissertations on Job to illustrate the description of the horse, 
 though it is impossible to add any thing to it. For this reason I would, 
 if it were possible, procure a draft of the finest Jlrab'horst in the world : 
 and having had an account from several hands that your lordship's 
 Bloody Arab answers the character, I have an ambition to get him 
 drawn by the best artist we can find, and place him as the greatest 
 ornament of my work. If your lordship has a picture of him I would 
 beg that my engraver may take a draft from it, or if not, that my son 
 may have the liberty to get one drawn from the life ; either of which 
 will make him if possible, as well as myself, yet more 
 
 " Your lordship's most devoted humble servant, 
 
 " SAMUEL WESLEY, Sen." 
 
 Lord Oxford was the intimate friend of Samuel Wesley, jun., who 
 was a frequent guest at his lordship's house, where he was treated with 
 great distinction, as will appear in these memoirs ; and there is little 
 doubt that the son became the negociator of the father's request. The 
 horse in the Dissertations is evidently designed for an Arabian horse, 
 and no doubt was taken from that of Lord Oxford: but it is neither well 
 drawn nor well engraved ; and this is the more to be regretted, as the 
 model was so perfect in its kind. 
 
 In the end of the year 1715, and the beginning of the year 1716, 
 there were some strange disturbances in the parsonage house at Ep- 
 worth, of such a singular nature as entitles them to a distinct mention. 
 The accounts given of these are so circumstantial and authentic as to 
 entitle them to the most implicit credit. The eye and ear-witnesses were 
 persons of strong understandings, and well cultivated minds, untinc- 
 tured by superstition, and in some instances rather skeptically inclined. 
 Hearing of these things, Mr. Samuel Wesley, jun., then at Westminster 
 School, wrote to his father, mother, and sisters, for the particulars; and 
 proposed such questions to them upon the subject as led them to use 
 the utmost care, scrupulosity, and watchfulness, to prevent them from 
 being imposed on by trick or fraud. Of the proceedings in this strange 
 disturbance, Mr. Wesley, sen. kept a diary or journal ; and Mr. John 
 Wesley had also a detailed account of the whole from the family. 
 Nothing apparently preternatural can lie farther beyond the verge of 
 imposture than these accounts ; and the circumstantial statements 
 contained in them force conviction of their truth, even on the minds of 
 the incredulous. That they were preternatural, the whole stale of the 
 case and supporting evidence, seem to demonstrate. 
 
 The documents to which I refer, and which are inserted in their 
 proper piace, fell some how or other, into the hands of the late I)r. Jo- 
 seph Priestly, who thought proper to publish them in a pamphlet by 
 themselves. He stated that he had received them from ihe late Mr. 
 Badcock, to whom they had been communicated by Mrs. Earle, grand- 
 daughter of Mr. Samuel Wesley, Mr. John Wesley's eldest brother. 
 Mr. Badcock, in a letter to Mr. J. Wesley from South Mollon, Devon* 
 dated April 22, 1780, mentions these MSS., and his hope that he shall In 
 able to procure and send them to Mr. W. Nothing farther concerning 
 these papers was heard till Dr. Priestly laid them before the public.
 
 112 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 How he obtained these MSS. which Mr. Badcock had proposed, should 
 he possess them, to deliver to Mr. John Wesley, is a question which 
 cannot at present be answered, as all the parties are long since dead. 
 This ^however does not affect the authenticity of these documents 
 which are admitted on all hands to be indisputably genuine. 
 
 DISTURBANCES, 
 
 Supposed to be Preternatural, at the Parsonage House, in Epworth. 
 
 MR. SAMUEL WESLEY'S JOURNAL. 
 
 "An Account of Noises and Disturbances in my House at Epworth, Lincolnshire, 
 in December and January, 1716. 
 
 " FROM the first of December, my children and servants heard many 
 strange noises, groans, knockings, c, in every story, and most of the 
 rooms of my house. But I hearing nothing of it myself, they would 
 not tell me for some time, because, according to the vulgar opinion, if 
 it boded any ill to me, I could not hear it. When it increased, and the 
 family could not easily conceal it, they told me of it. 
 
 " My daughters Susanna and Ann were below stairs in the dining 
 room ; and heard first at the doors, then over their heads, and the night 
 after a knocking under their feet, though nobody was in the chambers 
 or below them. The like they and my servants heard in both the 
 kitchens, at the door against the partition, and over them. The maid 
 servant heard groans as of a dying man. My daughter Emilia coming 
 down stairs to draw up the clock, and lock the doors at ten at night, as 
 usual, heard under the staircase a sound among some bottles there, as 
 if they had been all dashed to pieces ; but when she looked all was safe. 
 
 " Something, like the steps of a man, was heard going up and down 
 stairs, at all hours of the night, and vast rumblings below stairs, and in 
 the garrets. My man, who lay in the garret, heard some one come 
 slaring through the garret to his chamber, rattling by his side, as if 
 against his shoes, though he had none there ; at other times walking up 
 and down stairs, when all the house were in bed, and gobling like a 
 turkey cock. Noises were heard in the nursery, and all the other 
 chambers ; knocking first at the feet of the bed and behind it ; and a 
 sound like that of dancing in a matted chamber, next the nursery, when 
 the door was locked, and nobody in it. - 
 
 " My wife would have persuaded them it was rats within dqors, and 
 some unlucky people knocking without ; till at last we heard several 
 loud knocks in our owji chamber, on my side of the bed ; but till, I 
 think, the 21st at night, I heard nothing of it. That night I was waked 
 a little before one by nine distinct very loud knocks, which seemed to 
 be in the next room to ours, with a sort of a pause at every third stroke. 
 I tLought it might be somebody without the house ; and having got a 
 stout mastiff*, hoped he would soon rid me of it. 
 
 " The next night I heard six knocks, but riot so loud as the former.
 
 SAMLEL WESLEY, RECTOR OK EPWORTH. 113 
 
 I know not whether it was in the morning after Sunday the 23d, when 
 about seven my daughter Emily called her mother into the nursery, 
 and told her she might now hear the noises there. >She went in, and 
 heard it at the bedstead, then under the bed, then at the head of it. She 
 knocked, and it answered her. She looked under the bed, and thought 
 something ran from thence, but could not well tell of what shape, but 
 thought it most like a badger. 
 
 " The next night but one we were awaked about one by the noises, 
 which were so violent, it was in vain to think of sleep while they con- 
 tinued. I rose,Vand my wife would rise with me. We went into every 
 chamber, and down stairs ; and generally as we went into one room, 
 we heard it in that behind us, though all the family had been in bed 
 several hours. When we were going down stairs, and at the bottom 
 of them, we heard, as Emily had done before, a clashing among the 
 bottles, as if they had been broke all to pieces, and another jsound dis- 
 tinct from it, as if a peck of money had been thrown down before us. 
 The same three of my daughters heard at another time. 
 
 " We went through the hall into the kitchen, when our mastiff came 
 whining to us, as he did always after the first night of its coming ; for 
 then he barked violently at it, but was silent afterward, and seemed more 
 afraid than any of the children. We still heard it rattle and thunder in 
 every room above or behind us, locked as well as open, except my study, 
 where as yet it never came. After two, we went to bed, and were pretty 
 quiet the rest of the night. 
 
 " Wednesday night, December 26, after or a little before ten, my 
 daughter Emilia heard the signal of its beginning to play, with which 
 she was perfectly acquainted ; it was like the strong winding up of a. 
 jack. She called us ; and I went into the nursery, where it used to be 
 most violent. The rest of the children were asleep. It began with 
 knocking in the kitchen underneath, then seemed to be at the bed's feet, 
 then under the bed, at last at the head of it. I went down stairs, and 
 knocked with my stick against the joists of the kitchen. It answered 
 me as often and as loud as I knocked ; but then I knocked as I usually 
 do at my door, 1 2 345 6 7, but this puzzled it, and it did not 
 answer, or not in the same method ; though the children heard it do the 
 same exactly twice or thrice after. 
 
 4i I went up stairs, and found it still knocking hard, though with some 
 respite, sometimes under the bed, sometimes at the bed's head. I ob- 
 served my children that they were frighted in their sleep, and trembled 
 very much till it waked them. I stayed there alone, bid them go to 
 sleep, and sat at the bed's feet by them, when the noise began again. 
 I asked it what it was, and why it disturbed innocent children, and did 
 not come to me in my study, if it had any thing to say to me. Soon 
 after it gave one knock on the outside of the house. All the rest were 
 within, and knocked off for that night. 
 
 " I went out of doors, sometimes alone, at others with company, and 
 walked round the house, but could see or hear nothing. Several nights 
 the latch of our lodging chamber would be lifted up very often, \\ ;, 
 were in bed. One night, when the noise was great in the kitchen, and 
 0,1 a deal partition, and the door in the yard, the latch whereof was often 
 
 15
 
 114 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 lifted up, my daughter Emilia went and held it fast on the inside : but 
 it was still lifted up, and the door pushed violently against her, though 
 nothing was to be seen on the outside. 
 
 " When we were at prayers, and came to the prayers for King George 
 and the prince, it would make a great noise over our heads constantly, 
 whence some of the family called it a Jacobite. I have been thrice 
 pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of my desk in the 
 study, a second time against the door of the matted chamber, a third 
 time against the right side of the frame of my study door, as I was 
 going in. 
 
 " I followed the noise into almost every room in the house, both by 
 day and by night, with lights and without, and have sat alone for some 
 time, and when I heard the noise, spoke to it to tell me what it was, but 
 never heard any articulate voice, and only once or twice two or three 
 feeble squeaks, a little louder than the chirping of a bird : but not like 
 the noise of rats, which I have often heard. 
 
 " I had designed on Friday, December the 28th, to make a visit to a 
 friend, Mr. Downs, at Normandy, and stay some days with him : but 
 the noises were so boisterous on Thursday night, that I did not care to 
 leave my family. So I went to Mr. Hoole, of Haxey, and desired his 
 company on Friday night. He came ; and it began after ten, a little 
 later than ordinary. The younger children were gone to bed, the rest 
 of the family and Mr. Hoole were together in the matted chamber. I 
 sent the servants down to fetch in some fuel, went with them, and stayed 
 in the kitchen till they came in. When they were gone, I heard loud 
 noises against the doors and partition ; and at length the usual signal, 
 though somewhat after the time. I had never heard it before : but 
 knew it by the description my daughter had given me. It was much 
 like the turning about of a windmill when the wind changes. W hen 
 the servants returned, I went up to the company, who had heard the 
 other noises below, but not the signal. We heard all the knocking 
 as usual, from one chamber to another, but at its going off, like the 
 rubbing of a beast against the wall : but from that time till January the 
 24th, we were quiet. 
 
 " Having received a letter from Samuel the day before relating to it, 
 I read what I had written of it to my family ; and this day at morning 
 prayer the family heard the usual knocks at the prayer for the king. At 
 night they were more distinct, both in the prayer for the king, and that 
 for the prince ; and one very loud knock at the amtn was heard by my 
 wife, and most of my children, at the inside of my bed. I heard nothing 
 myself. After nine, Robert Brown sitting alone by the fire in the back 
 kitchen, something came out of the copper hole like a rabbit, but less, 
 and turned round five times very swiftly. Its ears lay flat upon its 
 neck, and its little scut stood straight up. He ran after it with the 
 tongs in his hands ; but when he could find nothing, he was frighted, 
 and went to the maid in the parlour. 
 
 " On Friday, the 25th, having prayers at Church, I shortened, as 
 usua!, those in the family at morning, omitting the confession, absolution, 
 and prayers for the king and prince. I observed, when this is done, 
 there is no knocking. I therefore used them one morning for a trial ;
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 115 
 
 at the name of King George, it began to knock and did the same when 
 I prayed for the prince. Two knocks I heard, but took no notice after 
 prayers, till after all who were in the room, ten persons beside roe, 
 spoke of it, and said they heard it. No noise at all the rest of the 
 prayers. 
 
 " Sunday, January 27. Two soft strokes at the morning prayers for 
 King George, above stairs. 
 
 " Addenda. 
 
 " Friday, December 21. Knocking I heard first, I think, this night ; 
 to which disturbances, I hope, God will in his good time put an end. 
 
 " Sunday, December 23. Not much disturbed with the noises that 
 are now grown customary to me. 
 
 " Wednesday, December 26. Sat up to hear noises. Strange ! 
 spoke to it, knocked off. 
 
 " Friday 28. The noises very boisterous and disturbing this night. 
 
 " Saturday 29. Not frighted with the continued disturbance of my 
 family. 
 
 " Tuesday, January 1, 1717. My family have had no disturbance 
 since I went." 
 
 NARRATIVE 
 
 Drawn up by JVfr. John Wesley, and published by him in the Jlrmi- 
 nian Magazine. 
 
 WHEN I was very young, I heard several letters read, wrote to my 
 elder brother by my father, giving an account of strange disturbances, 
 which were in his house at Epworth, in Lincolnshire. 
 
 When I went down thither, in the year 1720, I carefully inquired 
 into the particulars. I spoke to each of the persons who were then 
 in the house, and took down what each could testify of his or her own 
 knowledge. The sum of which was this : 
 
 On Dec. 2, 1716, while Robert Brown, my father's servant, was 
 sitting with one of the maids a littlu before ten at night, in the dining 
 room which opened into the garden, they both heard one knocking 
 at the door. Robert rose and opened it, but could see nobody. 
 Quickly it knocked again, and groaned. " It is Mr. Turpine," said 
 Robert : " he has the stone, and uses to groan so." He opened the 
 door again twice or thrice, the knocking being twice or thrice repeated. 
 But still seeing nothing, and being a little startled, they rose and went 
 up to bed. When Robert came to the top of the garret stairs, he saw 
 a handmill which was at a little distance, whirled about very swiftly, 
 When he related this, he said, " Nought vexed me, but that it was 
 empty. I thought, if it had been but full of malt he might have ground his 
 heart out for me." When he was in bed, he heard as it were the gobbling 
 of a turkey-cock, close to the bed-side: and soon after, the sound of 
 one stumbling over bis shoes and boots, but there were none there ; 
 he had them left below. The next day, he and the maid related theso 
 things to the other maid, who laughed heartily, and said, " What a
 
 116 OP MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 couple of fools are you ! I defy any thing to fright me." After churn- 
 ing in the evening, she put the butter in the tray, and had no sooner 
 carried it into the dairy, than she heard a knocking on the shelf where 
 several puncheons of milk stood, first above the shelf, then below. 
 She took the candle, and searched both above and below ; but being 
 able to find nothing, threw down butter, tray, and all, andi run away 
 for life. The next evening between five and six o'clock my sister 
 Molly, then about twenty years of age, sitting' in the dining room, read- 
 ing, heard as if it were the door that led into the hall open, and a per- 
 son walking in, that seemed to have on a silk night-gown, rustling and 
 trailing along. It seemed to walk round her, then to the door, then 
 round again : but she could see nothing. She thought, " it signifies no- 
 thing to run away; for whatever it is, it can run faster than me." So she 
 rose, put her book under her arm, and walked slowly away. After supper, 
 she was sitting with my sister Sukey, (about a year older than her,) in 
 one of the chambers, and telling her what had happened, she quite 
 made light of it; telling her, " I wonder you are so easily frighted ; I 
 would fain see what would fright me." Presently a knocking began 
 under the table. She took the candle and looked, but could find 
 nothing. Then the iron casement began to clatter, and the lid of a 
 warming pan. Next the latch of the door moved up and down without 
 ceasing. She started up, leaped into the bed without undressing, pulled 
 the bed clothes over her head, and never ventured to look up till next 
 morning. A night or two after, my sister Hetty, a year younger than 
 my sister Molly, was waiting as usual between nine and ten, to take 
 away my father's candle, when she heard one coming down the garret 
 stairs, walking slowly by her, then going down the best stairs, then up 
 the back stairs, and up the garret stairs. And at every step it seemed 
 the house shook from top to bottom. Just then my father knocked. 
 She went in, took his candle, and got to bed as fast as possible. In the 
 morning she told this to my eldest sister, who told her, " You know, 
 I believe none of these things. Pray let me take away the candle to- 
 night, and I will find out the trick." She accordingly took my sister 
 Hetty's place ; and had no sooner taken away the candle, than she heard 
 a noise below. She hastenefl down stairs to the hall, where the noise 
 was. But it was then in the kitchen. She ran into the kitchen, where 
 it was drumming on the inside of the screen. When she went round it 
 was drumming on the outside, and so always on the side opposite to her. 
 Then she heard a knocking at the back kitchen door. She ran to it ; 
 unlocked it softly ; and when the knocking was repeated, suddenly 
 opened it : but nothing was to be seen. As soon as she had shut it, the 
 knocking began again. She opened it again, but could see nothing : 
 when she went to shut the door, it was violently thrust against her ; she 
 let it fly open, but nothing appeared. She went again to shut it, and 
 it was again thrust against her ; but she set her knee and her shoulder 
 to the door, forced it too, and turned the key. Then the knocking be- 
 gan again ; but she let it go on, and went up to bed. However, from 
 that time she was thoroughly convinced that there was no imposture in 
 the affair. 
 
 The next morning my sister telling my mother what had happened,
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF F.PWORTH. 117 
 
 she said, " If I hear any thing myself, I shall know how to judge." 
 Soon after, she begged her to come into the nursery. She did, and 
 heard in the corner of the room, as it were the violent rocking of a cra- 
 dle : but no cradle had been there for some years. She was convinced 
 it was preternatural, and earnestly prayed it might not disturb her 
 in her own chamber at the hours of retirement ; and it never did. She 
 now thought it was proper to tell my father. But he was extremely 
 angry, and said, " Sukey, I am ashamed of you : these boys and girls 
 fright one another : but you are a woman of sense and should know 
 better. Let me hear of it no more." 
 
 At six in the evening, he had family prayers as usual. When he 
 began the prayer for the king, a knocking began all round the room ; 
 and a thundering knock attended the amen. The same was heard from 
 this time every morning and evening, while the prayer for the king was 
 repeated. As both my father and mother are now at rest, and incapa- 
 ble of being pained thereby, I think it my duty to furnish the serious 
 reader with a key to this circumstance. 
 
 The year before King William died, my father observed my mother 
 did not say amen to the prayer for the king. She said she could not : 
 for she did not believe the prince of Orange was king. He vowed he 
 never would cohabit with her till she did. He then took his horse, and 
 rode away ; nor did she hear any thing of him for a twelvemonth. He 
 then came back, and lived with her as before. But I fear his vow was 
 not forgotten before God. 
 
 Being informed that Mr. Hoole, the vicar of Haxey (an eminently 
 pious and sensible man) could give me some farther information, I 
 walked over to him. He said, " Robert Brown came over to me, and 
 told me your father desired my company. When I came, he gave me 
 an account of all that had happened ; particularly the knocking during 
 family prtfyer. But that evening (to my great satisfaction) we had no 
 knocking at all. But between nine and ten a servant came in and said, 
 4 Old Jeffries is coming,' (that was the name of one that died Jn the 
 house,) ' for I hear the signal.' This they inform me was heard every 
 night about a quarter before ten. It was toward the top of the house 
 on the outside, at the north-east corner ,'resembling the loud creaking 
 of a saw ; or rather that of a windmill, when the body of it is turned 
 about, in order to shift the sails to the wind. We then heard a knock- 
 ing over our heads; and Mr. Wesley catching up a candle, said, 'Come, 
 sir, now you shall hear for yourself.' We went up stairs ; he with much 
 hope, and I (to say the truth) with much fear. When we came into 
 the nursery, it was knocking in the next room ; when we were there, 
 it vras knocking in the nursery. And there it continued to knock, 
 though we came in, particularly at the head of the bed (which was of 
 wood) in which Miss Hetty and two of her younger sisters lay. Mr. 
 Wesley, observing that they,were much affected though asleep, sweating, 
 and trembling exceedingly, was very nngry ; and pulling out a pistol, 
 was going to fire at the place from whence the sound came. But I 
 catched him by the arm, and said, ' Sir, you are convinced this i-s some- 
 thing preternatural. If so, you cannot hurt it : but you give it p\v. i 
 to hurt you.' He then went close to the place, and said sternly, - Thou
 
 118 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou fright these children, that cannot 
 answer for themselves? Come to me in my study that am a man.' 
 Instantly it knocked his knock (the particular knock which he always 
 used at the gate) as if it would shiver the board in pieces, and we heard 
 nothing more that night." Till this time, my father had never heard 
 the least disturbances in his study. But the next evening, as he at- 
 tempted to go into his study, (of which none had any key but himself,) 
 when he opened the door, it was thrust back with such violence, as 
 had like to have thrown him down. However, he thrust the door 
 open, and went in. Presently there was knocking first on one side, 
 then on the other; and after a time, in the next room wherein my sister 
 Nancy was. He went into that room, and (the noise continuing) ad- 
 jured it to speak; but in vain. He then said, "These spirits love 
 darkness : put out the candle, and perhaps it will speak." She did so: 
 and he repeated his adjuration ; but still there was only knocking, and 
 no articulate sound. Upon this he said, "Nancy, two Christians are 
 an overmatch for the devil. Go all of you down stairs ; it may" be, 
 when I am alone, he wm have courage to speak." When she was gone 
 a thought came in, and he said, " If thou art the spirit of my son Sam- 
 uel, I pray knock three knocks and no more." Immediately all was 
 silence; and there was no more knocking at all that night. I asked my 
 sister Nancy (then about fifteen years old) whether she was not afraid, 
 when my father used that adjuration ? She answered, she was sadly 
 afraid it would speak, when she put out the candle ; but she was not 
 at all afraid in the day-time, when it walked after her, as she swept the 
 chambers, as it constantly did, and seemed to sweep after her. Only 
 she thought he might have done it for her and saved her the trouble. 
 By this time all my sisters were so accustomed to these noises, that 
 they gave them little disturbance. A gentle tapping at their bed-head 
 usually began between nine and ten at night. They then commonly 
 said to each other, " Jeffrey is coming : it is time to go to sleep." 
 And if they heard a noise in the day, and said to my youngest sister, 
 *' Hark, Kezzy, Jeffrey is knocking above," she M'ould run up stairs, 
 and pursue it from room to room, saying, she desired no better diver- 
 sion. 
 
 A few nights after, my father and mother were just gone to bed, and 
 the candle was not taken away, when they heard three blows, and a 
 second, and a third three, as it were with a large oaken staff, struck 
 upon a chest which stood by the bed-side. My father immediately 
 arose, put on his night-gown, and hearing great noises below, took the 
 candle and went down : my mother walked by his side. As they went 
 down the broad stairs, they heard as if a vessel of silver was poured 
 upon rny mother's breast, and ran jingling down to her feet. Quickly 
 after there was a sound, as if a large iron ball was thrown among 
 many bottles under the stairs ; but nothing was hurt. Soon after, our 
 large mastiff dog came and ran to shelter himself between them. 
 While the disturbances continued, he used to bark and leap, and snap 
 on one side and the other ; and that frequently before any person in the 
 room heard any noise' at all. But after two or three days, he used to 
 tremble, and creep away frefore the noise began. And by this the
 
 SAMUEL \\ESLEV, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 119 
 
 family knew it was at hand ; nor did the observation ever fail. A little 
 before my father and mother came into the hall, it seemed as if a very 
 large coal was violently thrown upon the floor ana dashed .all in pieces : 
 but nothing was seen. My father then cried out, " Sukey, do you not 
 hear ? All the pewter is thrown about the kitchen." But when they 
 looked, all the pewter stood in fts place. There/ then was a loud 
 knocking at the back door. My tilths-opened it, but saw nothing. It 
 was then at the fore door. He operfW that, but it was still lost labour. 
 After opening first the one, then-'the other, several times, he turned 
 and went up to bed. But the noises were so violent all over the 
 house, that he could not sleep till four in the morning. 
 
 Several gentlemen and clergymen now earnestly advised my father 
 to quit the house. But he constantly answered, " No ; let the devil 
 flee from me : I will never flee from the devil." But he wrote to my 
 eldest brother at London to come down. He was preparing so to do, 
 when another letter came, informing him the disturbances were over ; 
 after (hey had continued (the latter part of the time day and night) from 
 the second of December to the end of January. 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 CONCERNING SOME SUPERNATURAL DISTURBANCES AT THE PARSONAGE HOUSE 
 AT EPWORTH, IN LINCOLNSHIRE. 
 
 
 LETTER I. To JVfr. Samuel Wesley, from his Mother. 
 
 January 12, 1716-7. 
 
 " DEAR SAM, This evening we were agreeably surprised with your 
 pacquet, which brought the welcome news of your being alive, after we 
 had been in the greatest panic imaginable, almost a month, thinking 
 either you was dead, or one of your brothers by some misfortune been 
 killed. 
 
 " The reason of our fears is as follows : On the first of December 
 our maid heard at the door of the dining room, several dismal groans, 
 like a person in extremes, at the point of death. We gave little heed 
 to her relation, and endeavoured to laugh her out of her fears. Some 
 nights (two or three) after, several of the family heard a strange knock- 
 ing in divers places, usually three or four knocks at a time, and then 
 stayed a little. This continued every night for a fortnight ; sometimes 
 it was in the garret, but most commonly in the nursery, or green cham- 
 ber. We all heard it but your father, and I was not willing he should 
 be informed of it lest he should fancy it was against his own death t 
 which, indeed, we all apprehended. But when it began to be so trou- 
 blesome, both day and night, that few or none of the family durst be 
 alone, I resolved to tell him of it, being minded he should speak to it. 
 At first he would not believe but soinebody did it to alarm us ; but the 
 night after, as soon as he was in bed, it knocked loudly nine times, just 
 by his bed-side. He rose, and went to see if he co Jd find out what it 
 was, but could see nothing. Afterward he heard it as the rest. 
 
 " One night it made such a noise in the room over our heads aa if
 
 120 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 several people were walking^ then run up and down stairs, and was so 
 outrageous that we thought the children would be frighted ; so your 
 father and I rose, and went down in the dark to light a candle. Just 
 as we came to the bottom of the broad stairs, having hold of each other, 
 on my side there seemed as if somebody had emptied a bag of money 
 at my feet ; and on his, as if all the bottles under the stairs (which were 
 many) had been dashed in a thousand pieces. We passed through the 
 hall into the kitchen, and got a candle, and went to see the children, 
 whom we found asleep. 
 
 " The next night your father would get Mr. Hoole to lie at our house, 
 and we all sat together till one or two o'clock in the morning, and heard 
 the knocking as usual. Sometimes it would make a noise like the 
 winding up of a jack, at other times, as that night Mr. Hoole was with 
 us, like a carpenter planing deals ; but most commonly it knocked 
 thrice and stopped, and then thrice again, and so many hours together. 
 We persuaded your father to speak, and try if any voice would be heard. 
 One night about six o'clock he went into the nursery in the dark, and 
 at first heard several deep groans, then knocking. He adjured it to 
 speak if it had power, and tell him why it troubled his house, but no 
 voice was heard, but it knocked thrice aloud. Then he questioned it 
 if it were Sammy ; and bid it, if it were and could not speak, knock 
 again, but it knoqked no more that night, which made us hope it was 
 not against your death. 
 
 " Thus it continued till the 28th of December, when it loudly knock- 
 ed (as your father used to do at the gate) in the nursery, and departed. 
 We have various conjectures what this may mean. For my own part, 
 I fear nothing now you are safe at London hitherto, and I hope God 
 will still preserve you. Though sometimes I am inclined to think my 
 brother is dead. Let me know your thoughts on it. 
 
 "S. W. 
 
 LETTER II. From JVIr. S. JVesey to his Father. 
 
 " January 30, Saturday. 
 
 " HONOURED SIR, My mother tells me a very strange story of dis- 
 turbances in your house. I wish I could have some more particulars 
 from you. I would thank Mr. Hoole if he would favour me with a 
 letter concerning it. Not that I want to be confirmed myself in the 
 belief of it, but for any other person's satisfaction. My mother sends 
 to me to know my thoughts of it, and I cannot think at all of any inter? 
 pretation. Wit, I fancy, might find many, but wisdom none. 
 " Your dutiful and loving son, 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 LETTER III. From Mr. S. Wesley to his Moiher. 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER, Those who are so wise as not to believe any 
 supernatural occurrences, though ever so well attested, could find a 
 hundred questions to ask about those strange noises you wrote mo an 
 account of; but for my part, I know not what question to put, which, 
 if answered, would confirm me more in the belief of what you tell mo.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 121 
 
 Two or three I have heard from others. Was there never a new maid, 
 or man in the house that might play tricks ? Was there nobody above 
 in the garrets when the walking was there ? Did all the family hear it 
 together when they were in one room, or at one time 1 Did it seem to 
 all to be in the same place, at the same time? Could not cats, or rats, 
 or dogs, be the sprights ? Was the whole family asleep when my father 
 and you went down stairs ? Such doubts as these being replied to, though 
 they could not, as God himself assures us, convince them who believe 
 not Moses and the prophets, yet would strengthen such as do believe. 
 As to my particular opinion concerning the events foreboded by these 
 noises, I cannot, I must confess, form any; I think since it was not 
 permitted to speak, all guesses must be vain. The end of spirits' 
 actions is yet more hidden than that of men, and even this latter puzzles 
 the most subtle politicians. That we may be struck so as to prepare 
 seriously for any ill, may, it is possible, be one design of Providence. 
 It is surely our duty and wisdom to do so. 
 
 " Dear mother, I beg your blessing on your dutiful and affectionate 
 son, S. WESLEV. 
 
 "Jan. 19, 1716-7, Saturday, ) 
 Dean'* Yard, Westminster. $ 
 
 " I expect a particular account from every one." 
 
 *' 
 J/BTTER IV. From J\lrs. Wesley to her son Samuel. 
 
 "Jan. 25, or 27, 1716-7. 
 
 " DEAR SAM, Though I am not one of those that will believe 
 nothing supernatural, but I am rather inclined to think there would be 
 frequent intercourse between good spirits and us did not our deep lapse 
 into sensuality prevent it ; yet I was a great while e'er I could credit 
 any thing of what the children and servants reported concerning the 
 noises they heard in several parts of our house. Nay* after I had heard 
 them myself, I was willing to persuade myself and them that it was only 
 rats or weasels that disturbed us ; and having been formerly troubled 
 with rats, which were frighted away by sounding a horn I caused a 
 horn to be procured, and made them blow it all over the house. But 
 from that night they began to blow, the noises were more loud and 
 distinct, both day and night, than before, and that night we rose and 
 went down I was entirely convinced that it was beyond the power of 
 any human creature to make such strange and various noises. 
 
 j ^As to your questions, I will answer them particularly : but withal 
 I desire my answers may satisfy none but yourself; for I would not 
 have the matter imparted to any. We had both man and maid new 
 this last Martinmas, yet I do not believe either of them occasioned the 
 disturbance, both for the reason above mentioned, and because they 
 were more affjrighted than any body else. Beside, we have often heard 
 the noises when they were in the room by us ; and the maid particularly 
 was in such a panic that she was, almost incapable of all business, nor 
 
 ^another, or stay by herself a minute 
 
 durst ever go from one room to ar 
 after it began to be dark. 
 
 16
 
 122 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " The man, Robert Brown, whom you well know, was most visited 
 by it lying in the garret, and has been often frighted down barefoot, 
 and almost naked, not daring to stay alone to put on his clothes ; nor 
 do I think, if he had power, he would be guilty of such villany. When 
 the walking was heard in the garret, Robert was in bed in the next 
 room, in a sleep so sound, that he never heard your father and me walk 
 up and down, though we walked not softly I am sure. All the family 
 has heard it together, in the same room, at the same time, particularly 
 at family prayers. It always seemed to all present in the same place 
 at the same time ; though often before any could say it is here, it 
 would remove to another place. 
 
 " All the family as well as Robin were asleep when your father and 
 I went down stairs, nor did they wake in the nursery when we held the 
 candle close by them ; only we observed that Hetty trembled exceed- 
 ingly in her sleep, as she always did, before the noise awaked her. It 
 commonly was nearer her than the rest, which she took notice of; and 
 was much frightened, because she thought it had a particular spite at 
 her. I could multiply particular instances, but I forbear. I believe 
 your father will write to you about it shortly. Whatever may be the 
 design of Providence in permitting these things, I cannot say. Secret 
 things belojig to God : but I entirely agree with you, that it is our 
 wisdom and duty to prepare seriously for all events. 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 LETTER V. From Miss Susannah Wesley to her brother Samuel. 
 
 Epworth, Jan. 24. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, About the first of December, a most terrible 
 and astonishing noise was heard by a maid-servant, as at the dining 
 room door, which caused the upstarting of her hair, and made herears 
 prick forth at an unusual rate. She said it was like the groans of one 
 expiring. These so frighted her, that for a great while she durst not 
 go out of one room into another, after it began to be dark, without 
 company. But, to lay aside jesting, which should not be done in 
 serious matters, I assure you that from the first to the last of a lunar 
 month, the groans, squeaks, tinglings, and knockings, were frightful 
 enough. 
 
 " Though it is needless for me to send you any account of what we 
 all heard, my father himself having a larger account of the matter than 
 I am able to give, which he designs to send you ; yet, in compliance 
 with your desire, I will tell you as briefly as I can, what I heard of it. 
 The first night I ever heard it, my sister Nancy and I were set in the 
 dining room. We heard something rush on the outside of the doors 
 that opened into the garden ; then three loud knocks, immediately after 
 other three, and in half a minute the same number over our heads. W r e 
 inquired whether any body had been in the garden, or in the room above 
 us : but there was nobody. Soon after my sister Molly and I were up 
 after all the family were a-bed, except my sister Nancy, about some 
 business. W r e heard three bouncing thumps under our feet which soon 
 made us throw away our work, and tumble into bed. Afterward the
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 123 
 
 tingling of the latch and warming pan, and so it took us leave that 
 night. 
 
 " Soon after the above mentioned, we heard a noise as if a great piece 
 of sounding metal was thrown down on" the outside of our chamber. 
 We, lying in the quietest part of the house, heard less than the rest for 
 a pretty while : but the latter end of the night that Mr. Hoole sat up 
 on, I lay in the nursery, where it was very violent. I then heard fre- 
 quent knocks over and under the room where I lay, and at the children's 
 bed head, which was made of boards. It seemed to rap against it 
 very hard and loud, so that the bed shook under them. I heard some- 
 thing walk by my bedside, like a man in a long night gown. The 
 knocks were so loud, that Mr. Hoole came out of their chamber to us* 
 It still continued. My father spoke, but nothing answered. It ended 
 that night with my father's particular knock, very fierce. 
 
 " It is now pretty quiet ; only at our repeating the prayers for the 
 king and prince, when it usually begins, especially when my father says, 
 ' Our most gracious sovereign lord,' &c. This my father is angry 
 at, and designs to say three instead of two for the royal family. We 
 all heard the same noise, and at the same time, and as coming from 
 the same place. To conclude this, it now makqs its personal appear- 
 ance : but of this more hereafter. Do not say one word of this to our 
 folks, nor give the least hint. 
 
 " I am your sincere friend and affectionate sister, 
 
 " SUSANNAH WESLET." 
 
 LETTER VI. Mr. S. Wesley in answer. 
 
 "Dean's Yard, Feb. 9, 1716-7. 
 
 " DEAR SISTER SUKEY, Your telling me the spirit has made its 
 personal appearance, without saying how, or to whom, or when, or how 
 long, has excited my curiosity very much. I long mightily for a farther 
 account of every circumstance by your next letter. Do not keep me 
 any longer in the dark. Why need you write the less, because my 
 father is to send me the whole story 1 Has the disturbance continued 
 since the 28th of December] I understand my father did not hear it 
 all ; but a fortnight after the rest. What did he say remarkable to any 
 of you when he did hear ill As to the devil's being an enemy to King 
 George, were I the king myself, I should rather old Nick should be my 
 enemy, than my friend. I do not like the noise of the night gown 
 sweeping along the ground, nor its knocking like my father. Write 
 when you receive this, though nobody else should, to your loving 
 brother, S. W." 
 
 LETTER VII. Mr. S. Wesley to his Mother. 
 
 " DEAR MOTHER, You say you could multiply particular instances 
 of the spirit's noises : but I want to know whether nothing was ever 
 seen by any. .For though it is hard to conceive, nay, morally impossible, 
 that the hearing of so many people could be deceived, yet the truth will 
 be still more manifest and undeniable, if it is grounded on the testimony 
 of two senses. Has it never at all disturbed you since the 2tl
 
 124 or MR. WESLET'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 December? Did no circumstance give any light into the design of 
 the whole ? 
 
 " Your obedient and loving son, 
 "Feb. 12. S. WESLEY. 
 
 " Have you dug in the place where the money seemed poured at 
 your feet ?" 
 
 LETTER VIII Mr. S, Wesley to his Father. 
 
 *' HONOURED SIR, I have not yet received any answer to the letter 
 I wrote some time ago ; and my mother m her last seems to say, that 
 as yet I know but a very small part of the whole story of strange noises 
 in our house. I shall be exceedingly glad to have the entire account 
 from you. Whatever may be the main design of such wonders, I 
 cannot think they were ever meant to be kept secret. If they bode any 
 thing remarkable to our family, I am sure I am a party concerned. 
 
 " Your dutiful son, 
 
 " Feb. 12. S. WESLEY." 
 
 LETTER IX. From Mr. S. Wesley to his sister Emily. 
 
 " DEAR SISTER EMILY, I wish you would let me have a letter 
 from you about the spirit, as indeed from evesy one of my sisters. I 
 cannot think any of you very superstitious, unless you are much changed 
 since I saw you. My sister Hetty, I find, was more particularly trou- 
 bled. Let me know all. Did any thing appear to her ? 
 " I am your affectionate brother, 
 
 Feb, 12. S, WESLEY," 
 
 LETTER X. From old Mr. Wesley to his son Samuel. 
 
 Feb. 11, 1716-7. 
 
 " DEAR SAM, As for the noises, &c. in our family, I thank God we 
 are now all quiet. There were some surprising circumstances in that 
 affair. Your mother has not written you a third part of it. When i 
 see you here, you shall see the whole account, which I wrote down* 
 It would make a glorious penny book for Jack Dunton : but while I 
 live I am not ambitious for any thing of that nature. I think that's all, 
 but blessings from 
 
 *' Your loving father, 
 
 " SAM. WESLEY." 
 
 [The following letter was received at the same time, though it has 
 no date.] 
 
 
 
 LETTER XI. From Miss Emily Wesley to her brother Samuel. 
 
 "DEAR BROTHER, I thank you for your last- and shall give you what 
 satisfaction is in my power, concerning what has happened in our family. 
 I am so far from being superstitious, that I was too much inclined to> 
 infidelity, so that I heartily rejoice at having such an opportunity of 
 convincing myself, past doubt or scruple, of the existence of some
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 125 
 
 beings beside those we. see. A whole month was sufficient to convince 
 * any body. of the reality of the thing ; and to try all ways of discovering 
 any trick, had it been possible for any such to have been used. I shall 
 only tell you what I myself heard, and leave the rest to others. 
 
 " My "sisters in the paper chamber had heard noises, and told me of 
 them : but I did not much believe, till one night, about a week after 
 the first groans were heard, which was the beginning, just after the 
 clock had struck ten, I went down stairs to lock the doors, which I 
 always do. Scarce had I got up the best stairs, when I heard a noise, 
 like a person throwing down a vast coal in the middle of the fore kitch- 
 en, and all the splinters seemed to fly about from it. I was not much 
 frighted, but went to my sister Sukey, and we together went all over 
 the low rooms, but there was nothing out of order. 
 
 44 Our dog was fast asleep, and our only cat in the other end of the 
 house. No sooner was I got up stairs, and undressing for bed, but I 
 heard a noise among many bottles that stand under the best stairs, just 
 like the throwing of a great stone among them, which had broke them all 
 to pieces. This made me hasten to bed : but my sister Hetty, who 
 sits always to wait on my father going to bed, was still sitting on the 
 lowest step on the garret stairs, the door being shut at her back, when 
 soon after there came down the stairs behind her something like a man, 
 in a loose night gown trailing after him, which made her fly rather than 
 nm to me in the nursery. 
 
 " All this time we never told our father of it : but soon after we did. 
 He smiled, and gave no answer, but was more careful than usual, from 
 that time, to see us in bed, imagining it to be some of us young wo- 
 men, that sat up late and made a noise. His incredulity, and espe- 
 cially his imputing it to us, or our lovers, made me, I own, desirous of 
 its continuance till he was convinced. As for my mother, she firmly 
 believed it to be rats, and sent for a horn to blow them away. I laughed 
 to think how wisely they were employed, who were striving half a day 
 to fright away Jeffrey, for that name I gave it, with a horn. 
 
 But whatever it was, I perceived it could be made angry. For from 
 that time it was so outrageous, there was no quiet for us after ten at 
 night. I heard frequently between ten and eleven something like the 
 quick winding up of a jack, at the corner of the room by my bed's head, 
 just like the running of the wheels and the creaking of the iron work. 
 This was the common signal of its coming. Then it would knock on 
 the floor three times, then at my sister's bed's head in the same room, 
 almost always three together, and then stay. The sound was hollow, 
 and loud, so as none of us could ever imitate. 
 
 41 It would answer to my mother, if she stamped on the floor, and bid 
 it. It would knock when I was putting the children to bed, just under 
 me where I sat. One time little Kezzy, pretending to scare Patty, as I 
 was undressing them, stamped with her foot on the floor, and imme- 
 diately it answered with three knocks, just in the same place. It was 
 more loud and fierce if any one said it was rats, or any thing natural. 
 
 ** I could tell you abundance more of it : but the rest will write, and 
 therefore it would be needless. I was not much frighted at first, and 
 yery little at last : but it was never near me, except two or three time* ;
 
 126 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 and never followed me, as it did my sister Hetty. I have been with 
 her when it has knocked under her, and when she has removed has 
 followed, and still kept just under her feet, which was enough to terrify 
 a -stouter person. 
 
 " If you would know my opinion of the reason of this, I shall briefly 
 tell you. I believe it to be witchcraft, for these reasons : About a year 
 since, there was a disturbance at a town near us, that was undoubtedly 
 witches ; and if so near, why may they not reach us ? Then my father 
 had for several Sundays before its coming preached warmly against 
 consulting those that are called cunning men, which our people are 
 given to ; and it had a particular spite at my father. 
 
 " Beside, something was thrice seen. The first time by my mother, 
 under my sister's bed, like a badger, only without any head that was 
 discernible. The same creature was sat by the dining room fire one 
 evening; when our man went into the room, it run by him, through 
 the hall under the stairs. He followed with a candle, and searched, 
 but it was departed. The last time he saw it in the kitchen, like a 
 white rabbit, which seems likely to be some witch ; and I do so really 
 believe it to be one, that I would venture to fire a pistol at it, if I saw 
 it long enough. It has been heard by me and others since December. 
 I have filled up all my room, and have only time to tell you, 
 
 " I am your loving sister, EMILIA WESLEY." 
 
 LETTER XII. Miss Susannah Wesley to her brother Samuel. 
 
 " March 27. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER WESLEY, I should farther satisfy you concerning 
 the disturbances: but it is rreedless, because my sisters Emilia and Hetty 
 write so particularly about it. One thing I believe you do not know, 
 that is, last Sunday, to my father's no small amazement, his trencher 
 danced upon the table a pretty while, without any body's stirring the 
 table. When, lo ! an adventurous wretch took it up, and spoiled the 
 sport, for it remained still ever after. How glad should I be to talk 
 with you about it. Send me some news, for we are secluded from the 
 sight, or hearing, of any versal thing except Jeffrey. 
 
 " SUSANNAH WESLEY." 
 
 A passage in a letter from my mother to me, dated March 27, 1717.. 
 " I cannot imagine how you should be so curious about our unwel- 
 come guest. For my part, I am quite tired with hearing or speaking 
 of it : but if you come among us, you will find enough to satisfy all 
 your scruples, and perhaps may hear or see it yourself. 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 A passage in a letter from my sister Emily to Mr. JV. Berry, 
 
 dated Jlpril 1. 
 
 " Tell my brother the sprite was with us last night ; and heard by 
 many of our family, especially by our maid and myself. She sat up 
 with drink ; and it came just at one o'clock, and opened the dining 
 room door. After some time it shut again. She saw as well as heard 
 it both shut and open ; then it began to knock as usual. But I dare 
 write no longer, lest I should hear it. EMILIA WESLEY."
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 127 
 
 My mother's account to Jack. 
 
 " Aug. 27, 1726. 
 
 " About ten days after Nanny Marshall had heard unusual groans at 
 the dining room door, Emily came and told me that the servants and 
 children had been several times frighted with strange groans and 
 knockings about the house. I answered, that the rats John Maw had 
 frightened from his house, by blowing a horn there, were come into 
 ours, and ordered that one should be sent for. Molly was much dis- 
 pleased at it;. and said, If it was any thing supernatural, it certainly 
 would be very angry, and more troublesome. However, the horn was 
 blown in the garrets ; and the effect was, that whereas before the 
 noises were always in the night, from this time they were heard at all 
 hours, day and night. 
 
 " Soon after, about seven in the morning, Emily came and desired 
 me to go into the nursery, where I should be convinced they were not 
 startled at nothing. On my coming thither, I heard a knocking at the 
 feet, and quickly after at the head of the bed. I desired if it was a 
 spirit it would answer me ; and knocking several times with my foot 
 on the ground, with several pauses, it repeated under the sole of my 
 fret exactly the same number of strokes, with the very same intervals. 
 Kezzy, then six or seven years old, said, Let it answer me too, if it can, 
 and stamping, the same sounds were returned that she made, many 
 times, successively. 
 
 " Upon my looking under the bed, something ran out pretty much 
 like a badger, and seemed to run directly under Emily's petticoats, 
 who sat opposite to me on the other side. I went out ; and one or two 
 nights after, when we were just got to bed, I heard nine strokes, 
 three by three, on the other side of the bed, as if one had struck vio- 
 lently on a chest with a large stick. Mr. Wesley leapt up, called Het- 
 ty, who alone was up in the house, and searched every room in the 
 house, but to no purpose. It continued from this time to knock and 
 groan frequently at all hours, day and night ; only I earnestly desired it 
 might not disturb me between five and six in the evening, and there 
 never was any noise in my room after during that time. 
 
 " At other times, I have often heard it over my mantle tree ; and 
 once, coming up after dinner, a cradle seemed to be strongly rocked 
 in my chamber. When I went in, the sound seemed to be in the 
 nursery. When I was in the nursery, it seemed in my chamber 
 again. One night Mr. W. and I were waked by some one running 
 down the garret stairs, then down the broad stairs, then up the narrow 
 ones, then up the garret stairs, then down again, and so the same 
 round. The rooms trembled as it passed along, -nd the doors shook 
 exceedingly, so that the clatterring of the latches was very loud. 
 
 " Mr. W. proposing to rise, I rose with him, and went down the 
 broad stairs, hand in hand, to light a candle. Near the fobt of them 
 a large pot of money seemed to be poured at my waist, and to run 
 jingling down my night gown to my feet. Presently after we heard 
 the noise as of a vast stone thrown among several dozen of bottles, 
 which lay under the stairs : but upon our looking no hurt was done. 
 In the hall the mastiff met us, crying and striving to getybetween us.
 
 12& or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 We returned up into the nursery, where the noise was very great. 
 The children were all asleep, but panting, trembling, and sweating 
 extremely. 
 
 " Shortly after, on Mr. Wesley's invitation, Mr. Hoole stayed a night 
 with us. As we were all sitting round the fire in the matted chamber, 
 he asked whether that gentle knocking was it? I told him yes ; and 
 it continued the fjoundj which was much lower than usual. This was 
 observable, that while we were talking loud in the same room, the 
 noise, seemingly lower than any of our voices, was distinctly heard 
 above them all. These were the most remarkable passages 1 remem- 
 ber, except such as were common to all the family." 
 
 J\fy sister Emily's account to Jack* 
 
 " About a fortnight after the time when, as I was told, the noises 
 were heard, I went from my mother's room who was just gone to bed, 
 to the best chamber, to fetch my sister Sukey'.s candle. When I was 
 there, the windows and doors began to jar, apfl ring exceedingly ; and 
 presently after I heard a sound in the kitcljen as if a vast stone coal 
 had been thrown down, and mashed to pieces. I went down thither 
 with my candle, and found nothing more than usual : but as I was going 
 by the screen, something began knocking on the other side just even 
 with my head. When I looked on the inside, the knocking was on the 
 ^itside of it : but as soon as I could get round, it was at the inside 
 again. I followed to and fro several times, till at last, finding it to no 
 purpose, and turning about to go away, before I was out of the room, the 
 latch of the back kitchen door was lifted up many times. I opened the 
 door and looked out, but could see nobody. I triedVo shut the door, 
 but it was thrust against me, and I could feel the latch, which I held in 
 iny hand, moving upward at the same time. I looked out again : but 
 finding it was labour lost, clapped the door to, and locked it. Immedi- 
 ately the latch was moved strongly up and down : but I left it, and went 
 up. the worst stairs, from whence I heard, as if a great stone had been 
 thrown among the bottles, which lay under the best stairs. However 
 I went to bed. 
 
 " From this time, I heard it every night for two or three weeks. It 
 continued a month in its full majesty, night and day. Then it inter- 
 mitted a fortnight, or more, and when it began again, it knocked only 
 on nights, and grew less and less troublesome, till at last it went quite 
 away. Toward the latter end it used to knock on the outside of the 
 house, and seemed farther and farther off, till it ceased to be heard 
 at all." 
 
 J\ly sister Molly's account to JocAr. 
 
 " Aug. 27. 
 
 " I have always thought it was in November, the rest of our family 
 think it was the 1st of December 1716, when Nanny Marshall, who 
 had a bowl of butter in her hand, ran to me, and two or three more of 
 my sisters, in the dining room, and told us she had heard several groans 
 in the hall as of a dying man. We thought it was Mr. Turpine, who 
 had the stone, and used sometimes to come and see us. About a fore-
 
 8AMUEL TVESLET, RECTOR OF KPWORTH. 129 
 
 night after, when my sister Sukey and I were going to bed, she told me 
 how she was frightened in the dining room, the day before, by a noise, 
 first at the folding door, and then over head. I was reading at the 
 table, and had scarce told her I believed nothing of it, when several 
 knocks were given just under my feet. We both made haste into bed ; 
 and just as we laid down, the warming pan by the bedside jarred and 
 rung, as did the latch of the door, which was lifted swiftly up and down. 
 Presently a great chain seemed to fall on the outside of the door, (we 
 were in ihe best chamber,) the door, latch, hinges, the warming pan, and 
 windows jarred, and the house shook from top to bottom. 
 
 " A few days after, between five and six in the evening, I was by 
 myself in the dining room. The door seemed to open, though it was 
 still shut ; and somebody walked in a night gown trailing upon the 
 ground, (nothing appearing,) and seemed to go leisurely round me. I 
 started up, and ran up stairs to my mother's chamber, and told the story 
 to her and my sister Emily. A few nights after, my father ordered me 
 to light him to his study. Just as he had unlocked it, the latch was 
 lifted up for him. The same (after we blew the horn) was often done 
 to me, as well by day as by night. Of many other things all the family 
 as well as me were witnesses. 
 
 " My father went into the nursery from the matted chamber, where 
 we were, by himself in the dark. It knocked very loud on the press 
 bed head. He adjured it to tell him why it came, but it seemed to take 
 no notice ; at which he was very angry, spoke sharply, called it deaj 
 and dumb devil, and repeated his adjuration. My sisters were terribly 
 afraid it would speak. When he had done, it knocked his knock on 
 the bed's head, so exceeding violently, as if it would break it to shivers, 
 and from that time we heard nothing till near a month after." 
 
 JVfj/ sister Sukey's account to Jack. J 
 
 "I believed nothing of it till about a fortnight after the first noises, 
 then one night I sat up on purpose to hear it. While I was working in 
 the best chamber, and earnestly desiring to hear it, a knocking began 
 just under my feet. As I knew the room below was locked, I was 
 frightened, and leapt into bed with all my clothes on. I afterward 
 heard as it were a great chain fall, and after some time the usual noises 
 at all hours of the day and night. One night hearing it was most vio- 
 lent in the nursery, I resolved to lie there. Late at night, several 
 strong knocks were given on the two lowest steps of the garret stairs, 
 which were close to the nursery door. The latch of the door then 
 jarred, and seemed to be swiftly moved to and fro, and presently began 
 knocking about a yard within the room on the floor. It then came 
 gradually to sister Hetty's bed, who trembled strongly in her sleep. It 
 beat very loud three strokes at a time, on the bed's head. My father 
 came, and adjured it to speak : but it knocked on for some time, and 
 then removed to the room over where it knocked my father's knock on 
 the ground, as if it would beat the house down. I had no mind to stay 
 longer, but got up, and went to sister Em and my mother, who were 
 in her room. From thence we heard the noises again from the nursery. 
 
 17
 
 ISO or MR. TTEBLET'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 I proposed playing a game at cards : but we had scarce begun, when 
 a knocking began under our feet. We left off playing, and it removed 
 back again into the nursery, where it continued till toward morning." 
 
 Sister JVancy'* account to Jack. 
 
 " Sept. 10. 
 
 " The first noise my sister Nancy heard was in the best chamber, 
 with my sister Molly and my sister Sukey, soon after my father had 
 ordered her to blow a horn in the garrets, where it was knocking vio- 
 lently. She was terribly afraid, being obliged to go in the dark ; and 
 kneeling down on the stairs, desired that, as she acted not to please 
 herself, it might have no power over her. As soon as she came into 
 the room, the noise ceased, nor did it begin again till near ten : but 
 then and for a good while, it made much greater and more frequent 
 noises than it had done before. When she afterward came into the 
 chamber in the day time, it commonly walked after her from room 
 to room. It followed her from one side of the bed to the other, and 
 back again, as often as she went back ; and whatever she did which 
 made any sort of noise, the same thing seemed just to be done behind her. 
 
 " When five or six were set in the nursery together, a cradle would 
 seem to be strongly rocked in the room over, though no cradle had ever 
 been there. One night she was sitting on the press bed, playing at cards 
 with some of my sisters, when my sisters Molly, Etty, Patty, and 
 Kezzy, were in the room, and Robert Brown. The bed on which my 
 sister Nancy sat was lifted up with her on it. She leapt down and said, 
 4 Surely old Jeffrey would not run away with her.' However, they 
 persuaded her to sit down again, which she had scarce done, when it 
 was again lifted up several times successively a considerable height, 
 upon which she left her seat, and would not be prevailed upon to sit 
 there any more. 
 
 "Whenever they began to mention Mr. S. it presently began to 
 knock and continued to do so till they changed the discourse. All 
 the time my sister Sukey was writing her last letter to him, it made a 
 very great noise all round the room ; and the night after she set out for 
 London, it knocked till morning with scarce any intermission. 
 
 "Mr. Hoole read prayers once: but it knocked as usual at the prayers 
 for the king and prince. The knockings at those prayers were only 
 toward the beginning of the disturbances, for a week or thereabouts." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Hook's account. 
 
 " Sept. 16. 
 
 " As soon as I came to Epworth, Mr. Wesley telling me, he sent 
 for me to conjure, I knew not what he meant, till some of your sisters 
 told me what had happened, and that I was sent for to sit up. I 
 expected every hour, it being then about noon, to hear something 
 extraordinary, but to no purpose. At supper, too, and at prayers, all 
 was silent, contrary to custom : but soon after one of the maids, who 
 went up to sheet a bed, brought the alarm, that Jeffrey was come above 
 stairs. We all went up, and as we were standing round the fire in the 
 east chamber, something began knocking just on the other side of the 
 wall, on the chimney piece., as with a key. Presently the knocking
 
 SAMUEL WESLET, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 131 
 
 was under our feet Mr. Wesley and I went down, he with a great 
 deal of hope, and I with fear. As soon as we were in the kitchen, the 
 sound was above us, in the room we had left. We returned up the 
 narrow stairs, and heard at the broad stairs' head some one slaring 
 with their feet (all the family being now in bed beside us) and then 
 trailing, as it were, and rustling with a silk night gown. Quickly it 
 was in the nursery, at the bed's head, knocking as it had done at first, 
 three by three. Mr. Wesley spoke to it, and said he believed it was 
 the devil ; and soon after it knocked at the window, and changed its 
 sound into one like the planing of boards. From thence it went on the 
 outward south side of the house, sounding fainter and fainter, till it was 
 heard no more. 
 
 ** I was at no other time than this during the noises at Epworth, and 
 do not now remember any more circumstances than these." 
 
 "Epworth, Sept. 1. 
 
 " My sister Kezzy says she remembers nothing else, but that it 
 knocked my father's knock, ready to beat the house down in the nur- 
 sery one night." 
 
 Robin Brown's account to Jack. 
 
 " The first time Robin Brown, my father's man, heard it, was when 
 he was fetching down some corn from the garrets. Somewhat knocked 
 on a door just by him, which made him run away down stairs. From 
 that time it used frequently to visit him in bed, walking up the garret 
 stairs, and in the garrets, like a man in jack boots, with a night gown 
 trailing after him, then lifting up his latch and making it jar, and making 
 presently a noise in his room like the gobbling of a turkey cock, then 
 stumbling over his shoes or boots by the bedside. He was resolved 
 once to be too hard for it, and so took a large mastiff" we had just got 
 to bed with him, and left his shoes and boots below stairs : but he 
 might as well have spared his labour, for it was exactly the same thing, 
 whether any were there or no. The same sound was heard as if there 
 had been forty pairs. The dog indeed was a great comfort to him ; 
 for as soon as the latch began to jar, he crept into bed, made such a 
 howling and barking together, in spite of all the man could do, that he 
 alarmed most of the family. 
 
 " Soon after, being grinding com in the garrets, and happening to 
 stop a little, the handle of the mill was turned round with great swift- 
 ness. He said nothing vexed him, but that the mill was empty. If 
 corn had been in it, old Jeffrey might have ground his heart out for 
 him ; he would never have disturbed him. 
 
 " One night, being ill, he was leaning his head upon the back kitchen 
 chimney (the jam he called it) with the tongs in his hands, when from 
 behind the oven-stop, which lay by the fire, somewhat came out like a 
 white rabbit. It turned round before him several times, and then ran 
 to the same place again. He was frighted, started up, and ran with 
 the tongs into the parlour (dining room.") 
 
 "J9. R. Epworth, Aug. 31. 
 
 " Betty Massy one day came to me in the parlour, and asked me if 
 I had heard old Jeffrey, for she said she thought there was no ucl
 
 132 or MR. WESLEY'B ANCESTORS. 
 
 thing. When we had talked a little about it, I knocked three times 
 with a reel I had in my hand against the dining room ceiling, and the 
 same were presently repeated. She desired me to knock so again, 
 which I did : but they were answered with three more so violently as 
 shook the house, though no one was in the chamber over us. She 
 prayed me to knock no more for fear it should come in to us." 
 
 "Epivorth, Aug. 31, 1726. 
 
 " John and Kitty Maw, who lived over against us, listened several 
 nights in the time of the disturbance, but could never hear any thing." 
 
 Memorandum of Jack's. 
 
 ** The first time my mother ever heard any unusual noise at Epworth 
 was long before the disturbance of old Jeffrey. My brother, lately 
 come from London, had one evening a sharp quarrel with my sister 
 Sukey, at which time, my mother happening to be above in her own 
 chamber, the door and windows rung and jarred very loud, and presently 
 several distinct strokes, three by three, were struck. From that night 
 it never failed to give notice in much the same manner against any 
 signal misfortune, or illness of any belonging to the family." 
 
 Of the general circumstances which follow, most, if not all the family 
 icere frequent witnesses. 
 
 1. Presently after any noise was heard, the wind commonly rose, 
 and whistled very loud round the house, and increased with it. 
 
 2. The signal was given, which my father likens to the turning 
 round of a windmill when the wind changes ; Mr. Hoole (rector of 
 Haxey) to the planing of deal boards ; my sister to the swift winding 
 up of a jack. It commonly began at the corner of the top of the 
 nursery. 
 
 3. Before it came into any room, the latches were frequently lifted 
 up, the windows clattered, and whatever iron or brass was about the 
 chamber rung and jarred exceedingly. 
 
 4. When it was in any room, let them make what noise they would, 
 as they sometimes did on purpose, its dead hollow note would be 
 clearly heard above them all. 
 
 5. It constantly knocked while the prayers for the king and prince 
 were repeating; and was plainly heard by all in the room but my 
 father, and sometimes by him, as were also the thundering knocks at 
 the amen. 
 
 6. The sound very often seemed in the air in the middle of a room, 
 nor could they ever make any such themselves by any contrivance. 
 
 7. Though it seemed to rattle down the pewter, to clap the doors, 
 draw the curtains, kick the man's shoes up and down, &c, yet it never 
 moved any thing except the latches, otherwise than making it tremble ; 
 unless once, when it threw open the nursery door. 
 
 8. The mastiff, though he barked violently at it the first day he 
 came, yet whenever it came after that, nay sometimes before the family 
 perceived it, he ran whining, or quite silent, to shelter himself behind 
 some of the company.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 133 
 
 9. It never came by day, till ray mother ordered the horn to be blown. 
 
 10. After that time scarce any one could go from one room into 
 another, but the latch of the room they went to was lifted up before 
 they touched it. 
 
 11. It never came once into my father's study, till he talked to it 
 sharply, called it deaf and dumb devil, and bid it cease to disturb the 
 innocent children, and come to him in his study, if it had any thing to 
 say to him. 
 
 12. From the time of my mother's desiring it not to disturb her from 
 five to six, it was never heard in her chamber from five till she came 
 down stairs, nor at any other time when she was employed in devotion. 
 
 13. Whether our clock went right or wrong, it always came, as near 
 as could be guessed, when by the night it wanted a quarter to ten. 
 
 The accounts in general agree as to the time of the commencement 
 and cessation of these disturbances. They were first noticed December 
 1 or 2, 1716, and ceased at the end of January, 1717. But there is a 
 fact of which all Mr. Wesley's biographers are ignorant, viz. that 
 Jeffrey, as the spirit was called, continued to molest some branches of 
 the family for many years after. W r e have seen that Miss Emily 
 Wesley was the first who gave it the name Jeffrey, from an old man 
 of that name who had died there ; and that she was more disturbed by 
 it than any other of the family. I have an original letter of hers to her 
 brother John, dated February 16, 1750, thirty-four years after the time, 
 as is generally supposed, that Jeffrey had discontinued his operations. 
 Emily was now Mrs. Harper, having married a person of that name, 
 an apothecary, who at first lived in Epworth, and afterward in London, 
 or near it ; and the letter is addressed to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, 
 Foundry. 
 
 As some account of this lady shall be given in its proper place, I 
 shall insert here only that part of her letter which refers to the above 
 subject. 
 
 "Feb. 16, 1750. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, Lwant most sadly to see you, and talk 
 
 some hours with you, as in lime past! Some things are too hard for 
 me ; these I want you to solve. One doctrine of yours, and of many 
 more, viz. No happiness can be found in any or all things in this 
 world That as I have sixteen years of my own experience which lie 
 flatly against it, I want to talk with you about it. Another thing is, 
 that wonderful thing, called by us, Jeffrey ! You won't laugh at me for 
 being superstitious, if I tell you how certainly that something calls on 
 me against any extraordinary neio affliction : but so little is known of 
 the invisible world that I at least am not able to judge whether it be a 
 friendly or an evil spirit. I shall be glad to know from you where you 
 live, where you may be found. If at the Foundry, assuredly on foot 
 or by coach I shall visit my dear brother, and enjoy the very great 
 blessing of some hours' converse. 
 
 " I am your really obliged friend and affectionate sister, 
 
 'EMILIA HARPER."
 
 134 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 I find by a note on the back that Mr. Wesley answered this letter 
 on the 18th, two days after : but what he said on the subject is not 
 recorded. This is the latest information I have concerning Jeffrey 
 and his operations. It seems he came to Emily to give intimations 
 of approaching afflictions or evils, just as Socrates informs us his 
 demon was accustomed to apprize him of any evils that were about 
 to happen. 
 
 But who was this demon? and what was the cause of his troubling 
 'this family ? 
 
 We find that for a considerable time all the family believed it to be a 
 trick : but at last they were all satisfied it was something supernatural. 
 Some supposed it was a demon, others that the whole was the effect 
 of witchcraft. Mr. John Wesley believed that it was a messenger of 
 Satan sent to buffet his father for his rash promise of leaving his family, 
 and very improper conduct to his wife in consequence of her scruple 
 to pray for the prince of Orange as king of England ; to which title 
 she fully believed he had no legal nor constitutional right. On which 
 we find that he left Jjer for a year, to the neglect both of his family and 
 his Church. That God should have resented this rash conduct is not 
 to be wondered at : but whether Jeffrey was the instrument of chastise- 
 ment will be a question with many. With others, the house was 
 considered as haunted. For this I have heard a reason assigned, 
 which I shall introduce, because it has been stated to me by respectable 
 authority as &fact. 
 
 " The family having retired one evening rather earlier than usual, one 
 of the maids, who was finishing her work in the back kitchen, heard a 
 noise, and presently saw a man working himself through a trough which 
 communicated between the sink stone within, and the cistern on the 
 outside of the house. Astonished and terrified beyond measure, she 
 in a sort of desperation, seized the cleaver, which lay on the sink stone, 
 and gave him a violent, and probably a mortal blow on the head ; she 
 then uttered a dismal shriek, and fell senseless on the floor. Mr. Wes- 
 ley being alarmed by the noise, supposing that the house was beset by 
 robbers, rose up, caught up the fire irons of his study, and began to 
 throw them with violence on the stairs, calling out Tom ! Jack ! 
 Harry, &c, as loud as he could bawl ; designing thus to intimidate the 
 robbers. Who the man was that received the blow (or who were his 
 accomplices) was never discovered. His companions had carried him 
 ofT; footsteps and marks of blood were traced to some distance, but 
 not far enough to find who the villains were, nor from whence they 
 came." 
 
 I give this story just as I received it, which, though respectably re- 
 lated, I have not been able to trace to any authentic source. 
 
 Dr. Priestley thinks the whole trick and imposture. It must be so 
 on his system of Materialism : but this does not solve the difficulty, it 
 only cuts the knot. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley's opinion was different from all the rest, and was pro- 
 bably the most correct : she supposed that " these noises and disturb- 
 ances portended the death of her brother, then abroad in the East India 
 Company's service." This gentleman, who had acquired a large pro-
 
 SAMCEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 135 
 
 perty, suddenly disappeared and was never heard of more ! See some 
 account of him immediately after that of his father Dr. Annesley. 
 
 The story of the disturbances at the parsonage house in Epworth is 
 not unique : I myself, and others of my particular acquaintances, were 
 eye and ear-witnesses of transactions of a similar kind; which could never 
 be traced to any source of trick or imposture ; and appeared to be the 
 forerunners of two very tragical events in the disturbed family ; after 
 which no noise or disturbance ever took place. In the history of my 
 own life I have related this matter in sufficient detail. 
 
 Dr. Priestley, who first published the preceding papers, says of the 
 whole story, that " it is perhaps the best authenticated and the best told 
 story of the kind that is any where extant ; on which account, and to 
 exercise the ingenuity of some speculative persons, he thought it not 
 undeserving of being published." Preface, p. xi. After this concession, 
 he then enters into a train of arguing, to show that there could be 
 nothing supernatural in it ; for Dr. P., as a Materialist, could give no 
 credit to any account of angels, spirits, &c, the existence of which he 
 did not credit ; and because he could see no good end to be answered 
 by them, therefore he thinks he may safely conclude no miracle was 
 wrought. Such argumentation can justify no man in disbelieving a 
 story of this kind, told so circumstantially, and witnessed by such a 
 number of persons whose veracity was beyond doubt ; and whose 
 capability to judge between fact and fiction, trick and genuine operation, 
 was beyond that of most persons, who in any country or age came for- 
 ward to give testimony on a subject of this nature. He at last gets 
 rid of the whole matter thus : " What appears most probable, at this 
 distance of time, in the present case is, that it was a trick of the serv- 
 ants, assisted by some of their neighbours ; and that nothing was meant 
 by it, beside puzzling the family and amusing themselves ; and that 
 such a secret should be kept, so that the matter was never discovered, 
 is not at" all to be wondered at." We can scarcely suppose that this 
 mode of reasoning satisfied the mind of Dr. Priestley ; else he must 
 have been satisfied much more easily on a subject which struck at the 
 vitals of his own system, than he would have been on any doctrine 
 relative to philosophy and chemistry. He had Mrs. Wesley's letter 
 before him, which stated that the servants could not be employed in the 
 work for reasons which she there adduces ; and especially, because 
 those very servants were often in the room with themselves, when the 
 disturbances were most rife. But all suppositions of this kind are 
 completely nullified by the preceding letter of Mrs. /farper, (formerly 
 Einilia tVesley,) which states that even to thirty-four years afterward, 
 Jeffrey continued to molest her. Did her father's servants and the 
 Epworth neighbours pursue her for thirty-four years through her various 
 settlements, from 1716 to 1750; and were even at that time playing 
 their pranks against her in London! How ridiculous and absurd ! and 
 this is the very best solution of these facts that Dr. Priestley could 
 arrive at in deference to his system of Materialism ! The letter of Mrs. 
 Harper I consider of vast importance, as it removes the last subterfuge 
 of determinate incredulity and false philosophy on this subject. 
 
 A philosopher should not be satisfied with reasons advanced by Dr.
 
 136 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Priestley. He who will maintain his creed in opposition to his senses, 
 and the most undisguised testimony of the most respectable witnesses, 
 had better at once, for his own credit's sake, throw the whole story in 
 the region of doubt, where all such relations, no matter how authen- 
 ticated, 
 
 * " UpwhirPd aloft, 
 Fly o'er the backside of xhe world far off, 
 Into a limbus large and broad!" 
 
 And instead of its being called the paradise of fools, it may be styled 
 the limbus of philosophic Materialists ; into which they hurry whatever 
 they cannot comprehend, choose not to believe, or please to call super- 
 stitious and absurd. And they treat such matters so because they 
 quadrate not with principles unfounded on the Divine testimony, feebly 
 supported by true philosophy, and contradictory to the plain unbiassed 
 good common sense of nineteen twentieths of all the inhabitants of 
 the earth. 
 
 But my business is to relate facts, of which the reader is to make 
 what use he chooses. 
 
 It is now time to return more particularly to Mr. Wesley's personal 
 history. 
 
 When Mr. Pope solicited the interest of Dean Swift to procure sub- 
 scribers for Mr. Wesley's Dissertations on the Book of Job, he called 
 him a learned man; and from many evidences before me, I am led 
 unhesitatingly to confirm this character. 
 
 The rector of Epworth was a learned man ; though he thought and 
 spoke meanly of his own literary attainments. Independently of that 
 classical learning, which was common to the clergy of those times, he 
 cultivated other branches with which the great majority of them were 
 unacquainted. One branch in particular, Biblical criticism, which was 
 then but little studied either in England or any other part of Europe ; 
 and which, within a few years only, is become a certain science, formed 
 on just principles, and subjected to consistent and unerring rules. The 
 Holy Scriptures he had read with deep attention in the originals and 
 principal versions. These he had carefully compared by a judicious 
 collation ; and from this labour he drew conclusions at once instructive 
 to others, and creditable to his own understanding. 
 
 In his time that great and important work, the London Polyglott, was 
 published, containing the original texts of the Old and New Testaments, 
 Hebrew and Greek, with all the ancient versions that were then known. 
 The Samaritan on the Pentateuch ; the Syriac, Arabic, Chaldee, 
 JEthiopic, including the Psalms and the New Testament ; the Persian 
 on the four Gospels ; the Septuagint, and the Vulgate. All these, the 
 Vulgate excepted, which is in Latin, are accompanied with a Latin 
 version, correct enough for general use. The text and versions occupy 
 Jive folio volumes. The sixth is a collection of various readings, on the 
 above texts and versions. To these Dr. Edmund Castel added a Lexi- 
 con in two vols. folio, of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, JEthiopic, 
 Samaritan, and Persian; generally called CasteVs Heptaglott Lexicon. 
 
 Of this work Mr. Wesley had a copy, which was unhappily destroyed 
 in the burning of his house in 1709. How diligently he consulted this
 
 SAMl I.I. WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 137 
 
 work, and how much he profited by it, his collation of all the above 
 original texts and versions throughout the book of Job testifies ; of 
 which I shall speak more particularly when I come to that article. He 
 was so satisfied of the great utility of this work to ministers, that we 
 find he had projected an edition of the Holy Scriptures, including the 
 original texts, and principal versions on a more contracted plan, and in 
 a more portable form ; of which we have some account in a letter 
 written to his son John at Oxford, when he had thoughts of entering 
 into the work of the ministry. 
 
 As this letter contains some judicious observations, and much whole- 
 some advice, I will give it entire, as only some parts of it have been 
 published ; first by Mr. Wesley in the Jlrminian Magazine, and 
 secondly by Dr. Whilehead, in his Life of Mr. Wesley. We shall see 
 by it, as by several other evidences, that Mr. S. Wesley was a strict 
 father, not to say rigid, inclining to severity. But if the rein he held 
 was tight, his hand was steady, and the whip not in use. 
 
 " Wroote, Jan. 26, 1724-5. 
 
 " DEAR SON, I am so well pleased with your present behaviour, or 
 at least with your letters, that I hope I shall have no occasion to remem- 
 ber any more some things that are passed. And since you have now 
 for some time bit upon the bridle, I'll take care hereafter to put a little 
 honey upon it as oft as I am able. But then it shall be of my own mero 
 motn, as the last 5 to was ; for I will bear no rivals in my kindness. 
 
 "I did not forget you with Dr. Morley,* but have moved that way 
 as much as possible ; though I must confess, hitherto, with no great 
 prospect or hopes of success. 
 
 " As for what you mention of entering into holy orders, it is indeed 
 a great work : and I am pleased to find you think it so, as well as that 
 you do not admire a callow clergyman any more than I do. 
 
 "As for your motives you take notice of, my thoughts are, 1. It is 
 no harm to desire getting into that office, even as Eli's sons, ' to eat a 
 piece of bread :' for ' the labourer is worthy of his hire.' Though, 2. 
 A desire and intention to lead a stricter life, and a belief one should do 
 so, is a better reason ; though this should by all means be begun 
 before, or else ten to one it will deceive us afterward. 3. If a man be 
 unwilling and undesirous to enter into orders, it is easy to guess 
 whether he can say, so much as with common honesty, ' that he believes 
 he is moved by the Holy Spirit to do it.' But, 4. The principal spring 
 and motive, to which all the former should be only secondary, must 
 certainly be the glory of God, and the service of his Church, in the 
 edification and salvation of our neighbour : and wo to him who, with 
 any meaner leading view, attempts so sacred a work. For which, 5. 
 He should take all the care he possibly can, with the advice of wiser 
 and elder men; especially imploring with all humility, sincerity, and 
 intention of mind, and with fasting and prayer, the direction and assist- 
 ance of Almighty God and his Holy Spirit, to qualify and prepare him- 
 self for it. 
 
 * Dr. Morley was rector of Lincoln College; and as Mr. John Wesley purposed 
 to slar.d for a fellowship, he requested his father to use his interest with the Doctor 
 in reference to that event. The next year he stood, and succeeded. 
 
 18
 
 138 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " The knowledge of the languages is a very considerable help in 
 this matter, which, I thank God, all my three sons have to a very laud- 
 able degree, though God knows I had never more than a smatter- 
 ing of any of them. But then this must be prosecuted to the thorough 
 understanding the original text of the Scriptures, by constant and long 
 conversing with them. 
 
 " You ask me which is the best commentary on the Bible ? I an- 
 swer, the Bible : for the several paraphrases and translations of it in the 
 Polyglott, compared with the original and with one another, are in 
 my opinion, to an honest, devout, industrious, and humble mind, infi- 
 nitely preferable to any commentary I ever saw wrote upon it, though 
 Grotiusis the best, (for the most part,) especially on the Old Testament. 
 
 " And now the providence of God (I hope it was) has engaged me 
 in such a work, wherein you may be very assistant to me, I trust pro- 
 mote his glory, and at the same time notably forward your own studies 
 in the method I have just now proposed. For I have some time since 
 designed an edition of the Holy Bible in octavo in the Hebrew, Chaldee, 
 Seventy, and Vulgar Latin ; and hope made some progress in it. The 
 whole scheme whereof I have not time at present to give you ; of which 
 scarce any soul yet knows except your brother Sam. 
 
 " What I desire of you on this article is T 1. That you would imme- 
 diately fall to work ; read diligently the Hebrew text in the Polyglott, 
 and collate it exactly with the Vulgar Latin, which is in the second 
 column, writing down all (even the least) variations or differences be- 
 tween them. To these I would have you add the Samaritan text, in the 
 last column but one, (do not mind the Latin translation in the very last 
 column) which is the very same with the Hebrew, except in some very 
 few places, only differing in the Samaritan character, (I think the true old 
 Hebrew,) the alphabet whereof you may learn in a day's time, either 
 from the Prolegomena in Walton's Polyglott, or from his Grammar. 
 In a twelvemonth's time, sticking close to it in the forenoons, you will 
 get twice through the Pentateuch ; for I have done it four times the last 
 year, and am going over it the Jifth ; collating the Hebrew and two 
 Crreek, the Alexandrian, and the Vatican, with what I can get of Sym- 
 machus and Theodotion, &c. Nor shall you lose your reward for it, 
 either in this or the other world. Nor are your brothers like to be idle. 
 But I would have nothing said of it to any body, though your brother 
 Sam shall write to you shortly about it. 
 
 " In the afternoon read who.t you will ; and be sure to walk an hour, 
 if fair, in the fields. Get Thirlby's Chrysostom De Sacerdotio, master 
 it, digest it. I took some pains a year or two since in drawing up 
 some advices to Mr. Hoole's brother, then to be my curate at Ep- 
 worth, before his ordination, which may not be unuseful to you ; there- 
 fore 4 will send them shortly to your brother Sam for you : but you 
 must return me them again, I having no copy ; and pray let none but 
 yourself see them. 
 
 " By all this you see I am not for your going over hastily into orders. 
 When I am for your taking them, you shall know it; and it is not im- 
 possible but I may be with you, if God so long spare tfce life and 
 health of your affectionate father, SAM. WESLEY."
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 139 
 
 " I like your verses on the Ixvth Psalm, and would not have you to 
 bury your talent. All are well and send duties. 
 
 " Work and wrile while you can. You see time has shaken me by 
 the hand, and death is but a little behind him. My eyes and heart are 
 now almost all I have left ; and bless God for them." 
 
 What the full nature and extent of the scheme referred to above was 
 I have not been able to find out. It seems he had intended a copious 
 list of various readings ; and intended particularly to show how the 
 Vulgate version (professed by St. Jerom to be taken from the Hebrew 
 text) differed from the original ; and how the Alexandrian and Vatican 
 copies of the Septuagint differed from each other : and also to point 
 out the variations between them and the ancient Greek versions of 
 Symmachus and Theodotion, together with the other existing fragments 
 of the Hexapla of Origen. He appears to have intended also to show 
 the variation between the Hebrew and Samaritan Pentateuch. He 
 tells us he had in the space of one year gone four times through the 
 Pentateuch. By this I suppose he meant, reading 1. The Hebrew 
 text ; 2. The Chaldee paraphrases of Ben Uzziel and Onkelos ; 3. 
 The Septuagint ; and, 4. The Vulgate. And to read each of those 
 critically, and the whole in twelve months, was no mean labour. 
 
 This scheme would have wanted nothing for general utility had it 
 included the Syriac of the Old and New Testaments, and particularly 
 of the latter. A work of this kind., even now, would be of the utmost 
 consequence to Biblical students. What became of the preparations 
 for this promising work I have not been able to learn. He and his 
 three sons were amply qualified for the undertaking. 
 
 Mr. Wesley thought himself at that time near the grave ; his right 
 hand was palsied, and he had other infirmities : but he lived rather 
 more than ten years after the date of this letter. 
 
 To his son Charles, who had in 1729 taken his Bachelor's degree in 
 Christ's Church, Oxford, and had begun to take pupils, he wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 " Epworth, January 29, 1729-30. 
 
 " Dear Charles, I had your last with your brother's, and you may 
 easily guess whether I were not pleased with it, both on your ac- 
 count and on my own. You have a double advantage by your pupils, 
 which will soon bring you more if you will improve it, as I firmly hope 
 you will, in taking the utmost care to form their minds to piety, as well 
 as learning. As for yourself, between logic, grammar, and mathema- 
 tics, be idle if you can ; and I give my blessing to the bishop for having 
 tied you a little faster, by obliging you to rub up your Arabic ; and a 
 fixed and constant method will make all both easy and delightful to 
 you. But for all that you must find time every day for walking ; which 
 you know you may do with advantage to your pupils ; and a little 
 more robust exercise now and then will do you no harm. 
 
 "You are now launched fairly, Charles: hold up your head, and 
 swim like a man ; and when you cuff tho wave beneath you, say to it, 
 much as another hero did, 
 
 Carolum vehis, et Caroli fortunam. 
 Thou earnest Charles, and Charles's fortune,
 
 140 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 But always keep your eye above the pole star ; and so God send you 
 a good voyage through the troublesome sea of life ! which is the hearty 
 prayer of your loving father. 
 
 " SAM. WESLEY." 
 
 In the following year Mr. Wesley met with an accident that was 
 likely to have proved fatal to him. Mr. John Wesley, then at Oxford, 
 having had some account of it, wrote to his mother for the particulars, 
 of which she gave him the following detail : 
 
 " July 12, 1731. 
 
 u Dear Jacky, The particulars of your father' s fall are as 
 
 follows : On Friday before Whitsunday, the 4th of June, I, your sister 
 Martha, and our maid, were going in our wagon to see the ground we 
 hire of JVfrs. Knight at Low Millwood. He sat in a chair at one end 
 of the wagon, I in another at the other end, Matty between us, and the 
 maid behind me. Just before we reached the close, going down a 
 small hill, the horses took into a gallop ; out flies your father and his 
 chair : the maid seeing the horses run, hung all her weight on my chair, 
 and kept me from keeping him company. She cried out to William 
 to stop the horses, and that her master was killed. The fellow leaped 
 out of the seat, and stayed the horses ; then ran to Mr. Wesley, but ere 
 he got to him, two neighbours, who were providentially met together, 
 raised his head, upon which he had pitched, and held him backward, by 
 which means he begun to respire, for, 'tis certain, by the blackness in 
 his face, that he had never drawn breath from the time of his fall till 
 they helped him up. By this time I was got to him, asked him ho\v he 
 did, and persuaded him to drink a little ale, for we had brought a 
 bottle with us ; he looked prodigiously wild, but began to speak, and 
 told me he ailed nothing. I informed him of his fall. He said he 
 ' knew nothing of any fall, he was as well as ever he was in his life.' 
 We bound up his head, which was very much bruised, and helped him 
 into the wagon again, and set him at the bottom of it, while I supported 
 his head between my hands, and the man led the horses softly home. 
 I sent presently for Mr. Harper, who took a good quantity of blood 
 from him ; and then he begun to feel pain in several parts, particularly 
 in his side and shoulder. He had a very ill night : but on Sunday 
 morning Mr. Harper came again to him, dressed his head, and gave him 
 something which much abated the pain in his side. We repeated the 
 dose at bed-time, and on Whitsunday he preached twice, and gave the 
 sacrament, which was too much for him to do, but nobody could dis- 
 suade him from it. On Monday he was ill, slept almost all day. On 
 Tuesday the gout came : but with two or three nights taking bateman 
 it went off again, and he has since been better than could be expected. 
 We thought at first the wagon had gone over him: but it only went 
 over his gown sleeve, and the nails took a little skin off his knuckles, 
 but did him no farther hurt." 
 
 Thus far Mrs. Wesley. It is evident from the manner of his fall, 
 and the state he was in when taken up, that had there not been timely 
 help, he would have never breathed more. Was there not an especial 
 Providence concerned in preserving the life of this good man ?
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 141' 
 
 The generality of English readers will wonder at horses galloping 
 away with a wagon ; and so should I, had I not known those which 
 are used in the Isle of Axholme, and particularly about Epworth. It 
 is a long, light, and very narrow vehicle with four narrow wheels, 
 drawn by two horses a breast ; and it is no unusual thing to drive with 
 these wagons at a very high Irot, and not seldom at a gallop, when 
 going to the harvest fields. 
 
 This letter, the original of which is before me, seems to have been 
 carefully preserved by Mr. John Wesley, as a record ,of God's mercy 
 in the preservation of his father's life. He had endorsed it thus : 
 
 " My Father's Fall" 
 
 Of the settlement of Mr. Wesley's family I find little. But the 
 following letter relative to the person who married his daughter Mary 
 is worthy of insertion : 
 
 " Westminster, Jan. 14, 1733. 
 " To Lord Chancellor York, for John Whitlamb, 
 now Curate of Epworth. 
 
 " MY LORD, The small rectory of Wroote, in the diocess and 
 county of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Jlxholme, is in the gift of 
 the lord chancellor, and more than seven years since was conferred on 
 Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth. It lies in the low levels, and is 
 often overflowed ; four or five years since I have had it ; and the people 
 have lost most, or all the fruits of the earth to that degree that it has 
 hardly brought me in fifty pounds per annum, omnibtis annis ; and 
 some years not enough to pay my curate there his salary of 30/. a 
 year. This living, by your lordship's permission and favour, I would 
 gladly resign to one Mr. John Whitlamb, born in the neighbourhood 
 of Wroote, as his father and grandfather lived in it, when I took him 
 from among the scholars of a charity school founded by one Mr. 
 Tracer*, an attorney brought him to my house, and educated him 
 there, where he was my amanuensis for four years, in transcribing my 
 Dissertations on the Book of Job, now well advanced in the press ; 
 and drawing my maps and figures for it, as well as we could by the 
 light of nature. After this, I sent him to Oxford, to my son John 
 Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, under whom he made such pro- 
 ficiency, that he was the last slimmer admitted by the bishop of Oxford 
 into deacon's orders, and placed my curate in Ejnoorth, while I came 
 up to town, to expedite the printing my book. 
 
 " Since I was here I gave consent to his marrying one of my seven 
 daughters, and they are married accordingly ; and though I can spare 
 little more with her, yet I would gladly give them a little glebe land at 
 Wroote, where I am sure they will not want springs of water. But they 
 love the place, though I can get nobody else to reside on it. If I do 
 not flatter myself, he is indeed a valuable person ; of uncommon 
 brightness, learning, piety, and indefatigable industry: always loyal to 
 the king, zealous for the Church, and friendly to the dissentingr>rethren ; 
 and for the truth of this character I will be answerable to God and
 
 142 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 man. If, therefore, your lordship will grant me the favour to let me 
 resign the living unto him, and please to confer it on him, I shall 
 always remain, your lordship's most bounden, most grateful, and most 
 obedient servant, 
 
 " SAMUEL WESLEY, Sen." 
 
 Mary, the wife of this Mr. John Whitlamb, died of her first child. 
 The lord chancellor transferred the living as requested ; and Mr. 
 Whitlamb was promoted to it in February of the following year. We 
 shall hear again of young Mr. Whitlamb, as Mr. Wesley's assistant 
 on the book of Job. 
 
 We have already seen that Mr. Wesley was long engaged in a work 
 that had for its object the elucidation of the book of Job, proposals for 
 the printing of which were published in 1729. From the preceding 
 letter to the chancellor, we find it was in the press so early as the year 
 1732 : but was not finished before 1736. The title is,Dissertationes 
 in librum Jobi : Jiutore SAMUEL WESLEY, Rectore de Epworth, in 
 DicBcesi Lincolniensi, fol. Lon. typis Gulielmi Boivyer, 1736. 
 
 Dedicated to Queen Caroline in the very short but elegant manner 
 following : 
 
 SERENISSIMJE 
 
 CAROLINA, 
 
 DEI GRATIA 
 
 Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniae, Regins, 
 
 LITERARUM FAUTRICI, 
 
 dui Juvenis, Reginae MARINE, 
 Deinde provectior .^Etate ANN., 
 
 OPERA S0A CONSECRAVIT : 
 
 Idem Senex, plusquam SEPTUAGENARIUS, 
 
 EXTREMOS HOSCE LABORES 
 HUM1LLIME OFFERT 
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY. 
 
 By this we find that Mr. Wesley had the singular honour of dedi- 
 cating different works to three British queens in succession. His 
 History of the Life of Christ he dedicated to Queen Mary; his 
 History of the Old and ACTP Testament to Queen Anne; and his 
 Dissertations on the Book of Job, to Queen Caroline. 
 
 When Mr. Wesley had purposed to dedicate this work to Queen 
 Caroline, he wrote to both his sons, Samuel and John, relative to the 
 proper mode of proceeding : but, on inquiry, they found many obstacles 
 in the way to the royal presence, occasioned, it appears, by some 
 offence given by Mr. Samuel in his Satires on the Ministry and their 
 Friends. How these obstacles were at last removed we are not 
 informed : but the queen received the work, as we have seen above. 
 The following letter, written to Mr. Samuel while this subject was 
 pending, is both curious and important. 
 
 To my Son Samuel. 
 
 " Epworth, Dec. 17, 1730. 
 
 " DEAR SON, On Wednesday last, the 15th instant, I had yours of 
 the llth and 12th, which has made me pretty quiet in reference to my 
 dedication, as indeed my heart was never violently set upon it before,
 
 SAMUEL WE3LET, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 143 
 
 or I hope on any thing else in this world. I find it stuck where I 
 always boded it would, as in the words of your brother in yours, when 
 you waited on him with my letter and addressed him on the occasion. 
 4 The short answer I received was this, it was utterly impossible to 
 obtain leave on my account : you had the misfortune to be my father ; 
 and I had a long bill against M n.' 
 
 " I guess at the particulars, that you have let your wit too loose 
 against some favourites ; which is often more highly resented, and 
 harder to be pardoned, than if you had done it against greater persons. 
 It seems then that original sin goes sometimes upward as well as 
 downward ; and we must suffer for our offspring. Though, notwith- 
 standing this disappointment, owing I doubt not to some misconduct, I 
 shall never think it ' a misfortune to have been your father.' I am 
 sensible it would avail little for me to plead in proof of my loyalty, the 
 having written and printed the first thing that appeared in defence of 
 the government after the accession of King William and Queen J\Iary 
 to the crown, (which was an answer to a speech without doors,) and I 
 wrote a great many little pieces more, both in prose and verse, with 
 the same view ; and that I ever had the most tender affection and 
 deepest veneration for my sovereign and the royal family ; on which 
 account it is no secret to you, though it is to most others, that I have 
 undergone the most sensible pains and inconveniences of my whole 
 life, and that for a great many years together ; and yet have still, I 
 thank God, retained my integrity firm and immovable, till I have 
 conquered at the last. I must confess, I had the (I hope at the least) 
 pardonable vanity (when I had dedicated two books before to two of 
 our English queens, Queen Mary and Queen Anne,) to desire to 
 inscribe a third, which has cost me ten times as much labour as all 
 the rest, to her gracious majesty Queen Caroline ; who, I have heard, 
 is an encourager of learning. And this work, I am sure, needs a royal 
 encouragement, whether or no it may deserve it. Neither would I yet 
 despair of it, had I any friend who would fairly represent that and me 
 to her majesty. Be that as pleaseth Him in whose hands are the hearts 
 of all the princes upon earth ; and he turneth them whithersoever ho 
 pleases. 
 
 44 It' we have not subscriptions enough for the cuts, as proposed, we 
 must be content to lower our sails again, and to have only the maps, 
 the picture of Job, which I must ha ye at the beginning, and some few 
 others. The family, I thank God, is all well, as is your affectionate 
 father, 
 
 " SAM. WESLEY, Sen." 
 
 It is very likely that Mr. Wesley had learnt before he died, that his 
 work when finished would be received by the queen ; and that he had 
 permission to dedicate it to her majesty ; and it must have consoled 
 him ; as it would have pained him most sensibly to have fallen under 
 the displeasure of one whom he most sincerely reverenced. I shall 
 now proceed to a description of the work itself. 
 
 The dissertations are thirty-jive in number, some of which are very 
 curious.
 
 144 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 From the preface we learn the following particulars : 
 
 1. That he had for a long time carefully read over this book, first in 
 Hebrew, and secondly in the Septuagint ; that he collated these toge- 
 ther, and formed the result into notes and observations on the passages 
 which gave them birth ; that having procured Walton's Polyglott, he 
 compared what he had already done with the ancient versions in that 
 work, and greatly increased his notes and observations ; and that the 
 fire in his house in 1709 destroyed all his property, not a leaf either 
 of his Polyglott, or his Collections on Job, escaping the flames. 
 
 2. Having procured another Polyglott, he read over the Hebrew 
 text again and again, diligently compared the Alexandrian and Vatican 
 editions of the Septuagint with all the fragments of Origen's Hexapla, 
 collated all the variations in the Chaldee, Arabic, and Syriac texts, with 
 the principal critics, as exhibited in Pool's Synopsis : but not under- 
 standing the Arabic and Syriac, he was obliged to trust to their Latin 
 versions in the Polyglott. He compared also Tindal's and the Bishop's 
 Bible, of which he says, qua licet non prorsus infaUibili, perfectiorem in 
 ulld lingua me visuram non spero ; " which, although not altogether 
 infallible, any thing more perfect in any language I never expect to see." 
 
 3. Having gone through all this previous labour, he then consulted 
 all the commentators within his reach, principally relying on what he 
 had been able to acquire from the above collation of the original text, 
 and ancient versions in the Polyglott. 
 
 4. As he did not design to write a commentary on the book, he wrote 
 down the titles of subjects on which he designed to write dissertations 
 for the general elucidation of the book. 
 
 5. He then relates the assistance he had from books and mentions 
 with peculiar gratitude and respect the help he received from the 
 library of Lord Malton; without whose kindness, hospitality and 
 munificence, the work, he says, would have come into the world 
 mutilated, or perished as an abortion. 
 
 6. The authors he consulted were principally, Pliny, Bunting's 
 Travels of the Patriarchs, Sahnasius, JMercator, Jerom, Eusebius, 
 Strabo, Diodorus Sictdus, Luitsius, Sanson, Purehas, Hakluyt, De la 
 Valle, and Peutinger's Tables for the geographical part. Bochart, 
 worth all the rest put together, he had, he says, only for a few days. 
 Calmet, Pineda, Spanheim, Dr. Hyde, Bishop Cumberland, Greaves, 
 Sandys, &c, gave him help in the same line. 
 
 7. For the chronology, he consulted Usher, Loyd, Marshal, Ptole- 
 my, Cellarius, Reyland, and Maundrell. 
 
 8. Mr. Rumhy, teacher of the Wroote Charity School ; Maurice 
 Johnson, Esq., founder of the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding ; and 
 his three sons, Samuel, John, and Charles, were those from whom he 
 had his principal assistance. Samuel corrected the press ; and he and 
 his brothers did every thing in the work that dutiful sons should do for 
 an aged and most respectable parent. 
 
 9. By close application to this work for many years, he greatly im- 
 paired his health, and brought on himself both gout and palsy. He 
 died the year before it was finished, and his son Samuel completed and 
 edited the work.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEV, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 145 
 
 1 0. In this work there are a good many engravings, by Vertue, Scale, 
 and Cole ; and there are several plates anonymous. Of the engravings 
 in general, Mr. Badcock says, they seem to be the first rude efforts of 
 an untutored boy; nothing can be conceived more execrable. We 
 must except from this censure those done by Vertue ; the head par- 
 ticularly, which is really fine. The crocodile, hippopotamus, and tear 
 horse by Cole, are tolerable. The rest are very indifferent : and the 
 anonymous, which were the work of Mr. John Whitlamb, who was 
 his amanuensis and pupil for several years, whom he sent to the uni- 
 versity, and who afterward married his daughter Mary, are among the 
 worst that ever saw the sun. Mr. Badcock guessed right that they 
 were the first rude efforts of an untutored hoy. 
 
 The frontispiece by Vertue is well imagined, and well done ; except 
 the portcullis in the ancient gate, under which Mr. Wesley, in the cha- 
 racter of Job dispensing justice, is sitting in an ancient chair, with a 
 sceptre in his hand, and two pyramids in the distance. Over the top of 
 the gate is written JOB PATRIARCHA ; and at the bottom of the 
 leaf are these words upon a label, 
 
 AN. ETAT. CIRCITER LXX. 
 Q.UIS MIHI TRIB0AT 0T SCRIBANTUR 
 SERMONES MEI, UT IN LIBRO EXCULPANTER. 
 
 A correspondent in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1785, p. 758, says 
 that this inscription " marks it out as the quaint device of a man in 
 years, who thought himself neglected." I cannot think there was any 
 such design, or that Mr. Wesley thought himself neglected. In no 
 part of his private correspondence have I found even the shadow of 
 such a complaint. He rather spoke of what he had as something in 
 the way of Providence, beyond any thing he had either sought or ex- 
 pected. The words are taken, with a slight alteration, from Job xix, 
 23, as they stand in the Vulgate. 
 
 Qui* mihi tributtt ut scribantur sermones mei ? 
 Quw mihi del ut exarantur in libra ? 
 
 O that my words were now written ! 
 O that they were printed in a book ! 
 
 Of this work there were 500 copies printed ; and he had a list of 
 343 subscribers. 
 
 The most useful part of this volume, and what must have cost the 
 author incredible pains and trouble, is the last part, intituled, Libri 
 Jobi Textus Hebraicus, cum Paraphrasi Chaldaica et Ver&ionibus 
 plurimis collalus 
 
 " The Hebrew Text of the Book of Job, collated with the Chaldee 
 Paraphrase and numerous Versions." 
 
 The following are the versions : 
 
 The Septuagint, in the Aldine, Grabean, and Bosnian editions, and 
 in the Complutenian Polyglott, with the fragments of Jlquila, Symma- 
 r.hus, and Theodotion. 
 
 The Chaldee Paraphrase, 
 
 The Syriac and Arabic version?. 
 
 The Latin version of Castellio, 
 
 19
 
 146 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS.. 
 
 The Latiii version of Arias JWontanus, 
 
 of St. Ambrose, 
 
 of Junius Tremellius, 
 
 of Piscator, 
 
 of the Zurich divines, 
 
 The English version of Tindal, and 
 
 The present authorized version. 
 
 Every verse of the whole book has been collated as above, and all 
 the variations set down ; and this part of the work occupies no less than 
 184 folio pages. It is one of the completes! things of the kind I have 
 ever met with ; and must be invaluable to any man who may wish to 
 read this book critically. 
 
 The work having been dedicated by permission to the queen, Mr. 
 John Wesley was appointed to present it in the name of his deceased 
 father; which he did on Sunday, October 12, 1735. Himself told 
 me, that " when he was introduced into the royal presence, the queen 
 was romping with her maids of honour. But she suspended her play, 
 heard and received him graciously, took the book from his hand, which 
 he presented to her kneeling on one knee, looked at the outside, said, It 
 is very prettily bound, and then laid it down in a window without open- 
 ing a leaf. He rose up, bowed, walked backward, and withdrew. The 
 queen bowed and smiled, and spoke several kind words, and imme- 
 diately resumed her sport." 
 
 In a letter from Mr. Badcock, published by Mr. Nichols in his Lite- 
 rary Anecdotes, vol. v, p. 219, mention is made of Mr. John Wesley's 
 presenting the book to Queen Caroline. He says, " Mr. John Wes- 
 ley, in a letter to his brother Samuel, acknowledges the very courteous 
 reception he was honoured with from her majesty, who gave him bows, 
 and smiles,- but nothing for his poor father." 
 
 I cannot tell how to understand this. Mr. Samuel W T esley died 
 April 25, 1735, and the work in question bears date 1736. It was in 
 this year it was published ; and it certainly was not finished when he 
 died ; for in the account of his father's death, which Mr. Charles Wes- 
 ley wrote from Epworth to his brother Samuel,, dated April 30, 1735, 
 we find these remarkable words, " The fear of death he had entirely 
 conquered ; and at last gave up his latest human desires of finishing 
 Job, paying his debts, and seeing you." The book could not have 
 been presented before it \vasfinished ; there must therefore be a mis- 
 take in Mr. Badcock's statement, which represents Mr. Samuel Wes- 
 ley, sen., as alive when his son John presented the book to the queen, 
 "Her majesty gave him bows and smiles; but nothing for his poor 
 father." 
 
 But Mr. John Wesley's letter to his brother puts the matter beyond 
 dispute. It is dated, 
 
 " Gravesend, on board the Simmonds,.Oct. 15, 1735. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, I presented Job to the queen on Sunday, and had 
 many good^ words and smiles. Out of what is due to me on that 
 account I beg you first pay yourself what I owe you ; and if I live 
 till -spring, I can then direct what I would have done with the re- 
 mainder."
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 147 
 
 Here is the whole that Mr. J. Wesley says on the subject. And 
 thus we see the book was not presented till more than six months after 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley's death. Mr. J. Wesley embarked on Tuesday 
 14. The book was presented on Sunday 12. 
 
 We have already seen that the infirmities of Mr. Samuel Wesley 
 were greatly increased by his labours on the above work ; from which 
 his advanced age forbad any hopes of recovery. He acted on the 
 maxim, " Rather wear out than rust out ;" and he sunk, fairly worn 
 out with labours, old age, and infirmities, April 25, 1735, in the 
 seventy-second year of his age. 
 
 His two sons John and Charles were present at his death ; and the 
 latter gives an account of this closing scene in the followin^fctter to 
 his brother Samuel. 
 
 " Epieorth, April 30,1735. 
 
 ** DEAR BROTHER, After all your desire of seeing my father alive, 
 you are at last assured you must see his face no more, till raised in 
 incorruption. You have reason to envy us, who could attend him in 
 the last stage of his illness. The few words he uttered I have saved. 
 Some of them were, ' Nothing too much to suffer for heaven. The 
 weaker I am in body, the stronger and more sensible support I feel 
 from God. There is but a step between me and death. To-morrow 
 I would see you all with me round this table, that we may once more 
 drink of the cup of blessing, before we drink of it new in the kingdom 
 of God. With desire have I desired to eat this passover with you 
 before I die.' 
 
 " The morning he was to communicate he was so exceeding weak, 
 and full of pain, that he could not without the utmost difficulty receiva 
 the elements, often repeating, 'Thou shakest me! thou shakest me!' 
 But immediately after receiving, there followed the most visible alter- 
 ation. He appeared full of faith and peace, which extended even to 
 his body ; for he was so much better, that we almost hoped he woul.d 
 have recovered. The fear of death he had entirely conquered ; and at 
 last gave up his latest human desires, of finishing Job, paying his debts, 
 and seeing you. He often laid his hands upor <ny head, and said, ' Be 
 steady. The Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom ; you 
 shall see it, though I shall not.' To my sister Emily he said, * Do not 
 be concerned at my death ; God will then begin to manifest himself to 
 my family.' When we were met about mV his usual expression was, 
 * Now let me hear you talk about heaven.' my asking him, whether 
 he did not find himself worse, he replied, my Charles, I feel a great 
 deal. God chastens me with strong pain : but I praise him for it ; I 
 thank him for it ; I love him for it.' On the 25th his voice failed him, 
 and nature seemed entirely spent, when on my brother's asking, ' whether 
 he was not near heaven V he answered distinctly, and with the most of 
 hope and triumph that could be expressed in sounds, * Yes, I am.' He 
 spoke on9e more; just after my brother had used the commendatory 
 prayer. His last words were, Now you have done all.' This was 
 about half an hour after six : from which time till sunset he made signs 
 of offering up himself, till my brother, having again used the prayer, th 
 very moment it was finished, he expired.
 
 14S OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " His passage was so smooth and insensible, that notwithstanding the 
 stopping of his pulse, and ceasing of all sign of life and motion, we con- 
 tinued over him a good while, in doubt whether the soul was departed 
 or no. My mother who, for several days before he died, hardly ever 
 went into his chamber, but she was carried out again in a fit, was far 
 less shocked at the news than we expected ; and told us, that ' now she 
 was heard in his having so easy a death, and her being strengthened so 
 to bear it.' 
 
 " Though you have lost your chief reason for coming, yet there are 
 others which make your presence more necessary than ever. My 
 mother would be exceedingly glad to see you as soon as can be. 
 
 " We -have computed the debts, and find they amount to above 100/. 
 exclusive of cousin Richardson's. Mrs. Knight, her landlady, seized 
 all her quick stock, valued at above 402. for 15/. my father owed her, 
 on Monday last, the day he was buried. And my brother this afternoon 
 gives a note for the money, in order to get the stock at liberty to sell, 
 for security of which he has the stock made over to him, and will be 
 paid as it can be sold. My father was buried very frugally, yet decently, 
 in the church yard, according to his own desire. 
 
 " It will be highly necessary to bring all accounts of what he owed 
 you that you may mark all the goods in the house as principal creditor, 
 and thereby secure to my mother time and liberty to sell them to the 
 best advantage. Chartas omnes, et Epistolas prcecipuas opposita sera 
 in adventum tuum reservo. [All papers and letters of importance I 
 have sealed up, and keep till you come.] 
 
 " Kezzy and Mr. H. have parted for ever. Your advice in hers and 
 many other cases will be absolutely necessary. If you take London 
 in your way, my mother desires you would remember that she is a 
 clergyman's widow. Let the society give her what they please, she 
 must be still in some degree burthensome to you as she calls it. How 
 do I envy you that glorious burthen, and wish I could share it with you. 
 You must put me in some way of getting a little money, that I may do 
 something in this shipwreck of the family, though it be no more than 
 furnishing a plank. 
 
 " I should be ashamed of having so much business in my lettcv, were 
 it not necessary. I would choose to write and think of nothing but my 
 father. Ere we meet, I hope you will have finished his elegy. 
 " I am your affectionate brother, 
 
 "CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 " To the Rev. Mr. Wesley, at Tiverton, Devon." 
 
 I believe Mr. Samuel had not only a high esteem, but also an ardent 
 affection, for his father ; and therefore to be deprived of the opportunity 
 of witnessing his closing scene must have been to him the cause of deep 
 affliction and regret. When Mr. Charles states in the above letter that 
 his father gave up his last human hopes of seeing his son Samuel, 
 finishing his Dissertations on Job, and paying his debts, the sympa- 
 thetic reader will anxiously inquire What were these debts? They were 
 small ; and more property was left than was necessary to cover them 
 all. For on examination, Mr. Charles tells us they were found to
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 149 
 
 amount only to a little more than one hundred pounds, independently of 
 some pecuniary obligations to some parts of his own family ! Such a 
 debt, when enough was left to pay it, need not have occupied in any 
 serious way his last moments. 
 
 We have seen in the letter of Mrs. Wesley to her son John, giving 
 account of Mr. Wesley's dangerous fall (see page 140) that in 1731 
 they had rented a piece of ground from a Mrs. Knight at Lmc Mill- 
 wood. It is very probable that Mr. Wesley held this ground till he 
 died ; for we find in a part of the preceding letter, that fifteen pounds 
 were owing to this Mrs. Knight at the time of his interment. This 
 inhuman woman, who appears to have been a widow herself, took advan- 
 tage of the family distress ; and not having the fear of God before her 
 eyes, and instigated thereto by the malice of the devil, seized the whole 
 of poor Mr. W esley's cattle on the same day, without giving one hour's 
 grace for the payment ! A more unfeeling, a more abominable, a more 
 inhuman act, I never heard of. I record this action, that I may hand 
 down the name of this Mrs. Knight with deserved infamy while my 
 page shall last ; 
 
 " And time her blacker name shall blurre with blackest ink." 
 
 Mr. Wesley lies buried in Epworth church yard, under a plain grit 
 tombstone, supported by brick work ; on which is engraved the follow- 
 ing inscription. I give it line for line with the original. 
 
 Lyeth all that was 
 Mortal of SAMUEL WESLEY, 
 A. M. He was Rector of EP- 
 WORTH 39 years and departed 
 this Life 25 of April 1735 
 
 Aged 72. 
 
 As he liv'd so he died, 
 
 in the true Catholick Faith 
 
 of the Holy Trinity in Unity, 
 
 And that JESUS CHRIST is God 
 
 incarnate: and the only 
 
 Saviour of Mankind, 
 
 Acts iv, 12. 
 Blessed are the dead 
 Which die in the Lord, yea 
 saith the Spirit that they may 
 rest from their Labours and 
 their works do follow them. 
 Rev. xiv, 13. 
 
 This was the original inscription, cut in the manner above represented; 
 under whose direction and management I cannot tell. Becoming nearly 
 oblitecated, the brick work was repaired in the year 1819, the stone 
 turned and recut, with the same inscription ; only the lines do not all 
 end in the same way as above, but with equal absurdity and unskilful- 
 nesa in the division. 
 
 The whole is utterly unworthy of the man, the Christian, and the 
 minister ; and as the family is now nearly extinct, it is hoped that the 
 Methodist body will erect a decent monument for the father of John 
 Wesley their founder, that may serve to perpetuate the memory of hit 
 excellence ; and their gratitude to God, who from this source raised up
 
 A, 
 
 150 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 e man who has been such a blessing to the British nation, to the isles 
 of the sea, and to the ends of the earth. 
 
 His son Samuel wrote his character in a poem intituled The Parish 
 Priest, which was published the following year 1736, in his Poems on 
 several Occasions. This places the rector of Epworth in & favourable 
 and true light. 
 
 Accept, clear SIRE, this humble tribute paid, 
 
 This small memorial to a parent's shade. 
 
 Tho' fair the hope, thou reign'st enthren'd on high, 
 
 Where sin can never stain, nor sorrow sigh ; 
 
 Yet still a son may duteous mourning wear, 
 
 And nature unreprov'd may drop a tear. 
 
 No glosing falsehood on thy name is thrown, 
 
 Which oft pollutes the monumental stone. 
 
 Plain truth shall speak, which thou thyself might'st hear, 
 
 As far from flatt'ry as it is from fear. 
 
 A PARISH PRIEST, not of the pilgrim kind, 
 But fix'd and faithful to the post assign'd, 
 Through various scenes with equal virtue trod, 
 True to his oath, his order, and his God. 
 Wise without art, he shone in doubtful days 
 Of fear, of shame, of danger, and of praise. 
 When zealous James unhappy sought the way 
 T' establish Rome by arbitrary sway, 
 Whose crime from fondness for religion springs, 
 (A crime ne'er pardon'd in the lives of kings!) 
 'Twas then the Christian priest was nobly try'd, . 
 When hireling slaves embrac'd the stronger side, 
 And saintly sects and sycophants comply'd. 
 In vain were bribes shower'd by the guilty crown ; 
 He sought no favour, as he fear'd no frown. 
 Nor loudest storms his steady purpose broke, 
 Firm as the beaten anvil to the stroke. 
 Secure in faith, exempt from worldly views, 
 He dared the Declaration to refuse : 
 Then from the sacred pulpit boldly show'd 
 The dauntless Hebrews true to Israel's God, 
 Who spake regardless of their king's commands, 
 " The God we serve can save us from thy hands ;* 
 If not, O monarch, know we choose to die, 
 Thy gods alike and threatenings we defy ; 
 No power on earth our faith has e'er controll'd, 
 We scorn to worship idols, though of gold." 
 Resistless truth damp'd all the audience round ; 
 The base informer sicken'd at the sound ; 
 Attentive courtiers, conscious, stood amaz'd, 
 And soldiers, silent, trembled as they gaz'd. 
 No smallest murmur of distaste arose, 
 Abash'd and vanquish'd seemed the Church's foes. 
 So when like zeal their bosoms did inspire, 
 The Jewish martyrs walk'd unhurt in fire. 
 
 Nor yet could Romish faith so dreadful seem, 
 To fright his judgment to a worse extreme ; 
 To throw up creeds for fear of papal pow'r, 
 And blame St. Peter for his successor. 
 For when the Church her danger had subdu'd, 
 And felt on earth the usual gratitude, 
 When favour'd sects o'erspread Britannia's plains, 
 Like frogs, thick swarming, after summer rains ; 
 
 * He preached on Dan. iii, 17, 18.
 
 RiMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPTVORTH. 
 
 Againt far different foes alike prepaid, 
 
 No wild disputer found him off his guard. 
 
 Nor those who following late Socinus' plan, 
 
 Degraded God incarnate to a man ; 
 
 Nor those, who wresting texts with greater sleight, 
 
 With Heav'n, as taught by elder Arms, fight : 
 
 Reasoners, who no absurdity can see 
 
 In a new made dependent Deity. 
 
 Among his corn no tares neglected spring ; 
 
 That free-born subjects ought to rule their king, 
 
 That sense and revelation disagree, 
 
 That zeal is still at war with charity ; 
 
 That dust-born reptiles may their God disown, 
 
 And place their foolish reason in his throne. 
 
 No colours false deceiv'd his wary eye, 
 
 Nor lukewarm peace, nor atheist liberty. 
 
 Scripture and fathers guide his footsteps right ; 
 
 For truth is one, but error infinite. 
 
 With love to souls, and deepest learning fraught, 
 
 His Master's Gospel undisguis'd he taught. 
 
 He show'd the pow'r of kings, the mitre's sway, 
 
 Which earth can neither give nor take away. 
 
 That duty from divine command is known, 
 
 Fix'd on th' Almighty's will, and not our own. 
 
 That unbelievers must receive their hire, 
 
 The sure allotment of eternal fire. 
 
 And God the faithful sower pleas'd to bless, 
 
 And crowned his harvest with a vast success. 
 
 While forty years his heav'nly doctrine charms, 
 
 No single son forsakes the Church's arms: 
 
 No Romish wolf around his fences prowl'd,* 
 
 Nor fox dissenter earth'd within his fold. 
 
 Not but when parties fierce in feuds engage, 
 When moderation spurs her sons to rage, 
 When all elect or reprobate have been, 
 In these no virtue dwells, in those no sin ; 
 Then their low scandals on his head they show'r, 
 As friend to papal and despotic pow'r, 
 E'en those who once were tools to popish aims, 
 The treach'rous darlings of deluded James, 
 Who now the purest reformation boast, 
 Tho' then their tender consciences were lost, 
 E'en those far off with lies his fame assail, 
 And their bad patrons help the wicked tale. 
 'Tis thus the serpent to his cavern glides, 
 And safe his wily head from winter hides ; 
 But when returning seasons warmth inspire, 
 And wake his sleeping poison into fire, 
 With youth renew'd, behold the reptile rise, 
 He waves and glitters in the dog-day skies, 
 Shoots 'cross the road when sounding steps draw near, 
 And springs t' assault the way-beat traveller : 
 Who durst his course in rains and whirlwinds hold, 
 And paas'd unshelter'd through December's cold. 
 
 Griev'd for the Church's shame, with pitying eye, 
 He saw the worthless abjects lifted high ; 
 Empty alike of learning and of brain, 
 As if the pope had reassum'd his reign, 
 And brought our ancient Mumpsimus again. 
 With fruitless toil let midnight scholars pore, 
 And dig the mine, while others gain the ore ; 
 
 * There was not a dissenter or papist in his parish.
 
 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Proud of demerit, claiming as their own 
 
 The stall prebendal, or prelatic throne : 
 
 While Johnson from his Cranbrook ne'er shall part, 
 
 And Fiddes pining sighs with broken heart ; 
 
 While Grabe in vain t' unthankful Britain flies, 
 
 And Wall neglected in a corner lies, 
 
 And poor, and unrewarded Bingham dies ; 
 
 While names obscure undue advancement meet, 
 
 And T could conquer Stillingfleet, 
 
 Nor yet on those preferred he cast the blame, 
 Far more the patrons than the clerks inflame. 
 Patrons afraid of sense, but not of vice, 
 Elate with pride, or sunk with avarice. 
 Patrons by villains sought, by slaves ador'd ; 
 Scorn'd by the gen'rous, by the good abhorr'd. 
 Or private rascals, who from conscience free, 
 Search ev'ry latent nook of simony; 
 Who but on base conditiens ne'er present, 
 And future tithes by present bonds prevent : 
 Or knaves more public, studious to promote 
 Elections, bart'ring benefice for vote. 
 Is he self-will'd, or knows he to obey? 
 Enough ! no farther tittle need you say : 
 A useful man may as he pleases live, 
 But worth 's a crime we never can forgive. 
 So when the Roman Peter wants an heir, 
 If rogues of both religions we compare, 
 Tho' worthy candidates the popedom seek, 
 Expert in Latin, and well read in Greek: 
 The conclave sly, with Machiavilian views, 
 One to be govern'd, not to govern, choose. 
 Like Quakers, human learning they forswear, 
 And ignorance best fills th' unerring chair. 
 The statesmen laugh, let Bellarmine go fume, 
 No fam'd Perron the purple shall assume, 
 No, nor Baronius' self, the Atlas of their Rome. 
 
 When age, not hasten'd on by guilt or cares, 
 Grac'd him with silver crown of hoary hairs, 
 His looks the tenor of his soul express, 
 An easy unaffected cheerfulness ; 
 Steadfast, not stiff; and awful, not austere ; 
 Tho' courteous, rev'rend ; and tho' smooth, sincere : 
 In converse free ; for ev'ry subject fit ; 
 The coolest reason join'd to keenest wit ; 
 Wit, that- with aim resistless knows to fly, 
 Disarms unthought of, and prevents reply: 
 So lightning falls the mountain oaks among, 
 As sure, as quick, as shining, and as strong. 
 Skilful of sportive stories forth to pour, 
 A gay, a humourous, an exhaustless store. 
 With sharpest point and justest force apply'd, 
 The purport never dark and never wide. 
 Not adversaries selves applause forbore, 
 And those who blam'd him most, admir'd him more. 
 Scarcely the Phrygian fam'd for moral tales, 
 Who useful truth in pleasing fiction veils, 
 Who wisdom deep in plants and brutes can find, 
 And makes all creatures tutors to mankind ; 
 In apter fable solid sense convey'd, 
 With sounder substance, or with finer shade. 
 
 He mouni'd with those who pain or want endure, 
 A guardian angel to the sick and poor ;
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 153 
 
 Where the two best of charities he join'd, 
 To cure the body, and to heal the mind. 
 Across his path no wretch expiring lies,* 
 Nor querulous blind bewail their loss of eyes: 
 No mangled cripple there cxpos'd his maim, 
 The shock of nature, and the nation's shame ; 
 The stranger's view no startling object meets, 
 And no complaining griev'd his happy streets. 
 Oft as the year brought back the glorious day 
 When infant JESUS in a manger lay, 
 Or when from death the GOD triumphant came, 
 Or when the HOLT GHOST descends in flame, 
 Around his board the welcome needy sate, 
 And crowd his parlour, not besiege his gate ; 
 T' obey their word his children waited near, 
 And learnt their Saviour's image to revere. 
 This charity perform'd, the wealthier guest 
 Was call'd to share his hospitable feast ; 
 The poor invited first, his table grace, 
 And riches only held the second place. 
 
 While silken courtiers and embroider'd lords, 
 To whom the earth her mines in vain affords, 
 Too oft their need unable to supply, 
 In spite of wealth are pinch'd with poverty: 
 His scanty rent suffic'd for ev'ry call, 
 Large was his plenty, tho' his income small ; 
 Alike in prudence and in bounty skill'd, 
 He never drain'd his purse, nor ever fili'd. 
 None e'er did twice his ready alms desire, 
 Nor lack'd the lab'rer his expected hire : 
 Enrich'd by doing good a thousand-fold, 
 He rarely gain'd, and never wanted gold. 
 Well-stor'd to give, and furnish'd still to lend, 
 To raise the friendless, and support the friend. 
 With ceaseless streams his well plac'd treasure flows, 
 When spent increases, and by less'ning grows. 
 So when Elijah dwelt on earth, (as far 
 As miracle with conduct we compare,) 
 Sarepta's widow, hoping no supply, 
 Thought on her little store to eat and die : 
 Soon as she welcom'd her prophetic guest, 
 The cruse flow'd lib'ral, and the A>rn increas'd ; 
 Th' Almighty pow'r unfailing plenty sent, 
 The oil unwasted, and the meal unspent 
 
 Such was the man by friends and foes confest, 
 Worthy the glorious name of PARISH PRIEST. 
 Had not kind Heav'n some champions pleas'd to show, 
 In merit high, tho' in preferment low ; 
 Whose pray'rs and tears might stop th' Almighty's hand. 
 Protecting angels to a guilty land, 
 From earth's vain hopes and base ambition free, 
 Whose slighted, but effectual piety, 
 Stood like a mound unshaken, to repress 
 Th' o'erbearing floods of prosp'rous wickedness: 
 The Christian faith had left Britannia's coast, 
 Her lamp extinguish'd, and her Gospel lost : 
 Our eyes e'er this had seen religion fall, 
 And black apostasy had delug'd all ; 
 Nor more remains of truth had flourished here, 
 
 * Thre were no begjari in hif town. 
 20
 
 154 or ;MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTOR*. 
 
 Than where poor Asia's ruins scarce appear, 
 And Unitarian Turks their impious crescent rear. 
 O could the PRIEST by God and angels priz'd, 
 By fiends insulted, and by fools despis'd, 
 His fight well fought, when summon'd hence to go, 
 Not then regardless of his charge below, 
 Tho' sudden snatch'd from our desiring eyes, 
 Bequeath his mantle, as he mounts the skies ! 
 
 O may his friends, at the last dreadful day, 
 When all the frail creation fades away, 
 When GOD incarnate fills the judgment throne, 
 Crown'd with his Father's radiance and his own, 
 Arise with gladness, bliss ordain'd to share, 
 And I, transported, meet a father there ! 
 See him lead up his flock with happy boast, 
 " These sheep thou gav'st me, and not one is lost." 
 Exulting hear the final Euge giv'n, 
 "Enter, thou faithful servant, to my heav'n." 
 Glory, which here tho' faith may well believe, 
 No speech can utter, and no thought conceive ; 
 When weary time his utmost race has run, 
 Glory through endless ages but begun, 
 Beyond the glimm'ring spark of our meridian sun. 
 
 To those who believe the character has not been overdrawn, and 
 that the son has not been too partial to the father, nothing need be 
 added. 
 
 I have taken care to inquire upon the spot (where the memory of 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley is still well preserved among the elderly and more 
 respectable inhabitants) concerning the man and his communications ; 
 and I have had in substance the same character which in the above 
 poem was given by his son. 
 
 From some family papers I learn that Mr. Samuel Wesley was of a 
 short stature ; spare, but athletic make ; and, from what I can collect, 
 nearly resembling in person his son John : and it is very likely that the 
 picture engraved by Vertue, and prefixed to his Dissertations on the 
 Book of Job, was a correct resemblance. 
 
 His spirit and temper may "be seen in his writings, and in the pre- 
 ceding account. 
 
 He was earnest, conscientious, and indefatigable in his search after 
 truth. He thought deeply on every subject which was either to form 
 an article in his creed, or a principle for his conduct. And having 
 formed these, he boldly maintained them ; conscious of his own integrity, 
 and zealous for what he conceived to be the orthodox faith. His 
 orthodoxy was pure and solid ; his religious conduct strictly correct in 
 all respects ; his piety toward God ardent ; his loyalty to his king 
 unsullied ; and his love to bis fellow creatures strong and unconfined. 
 Though of high Church principles, and high Church politics, yet he 
 could separate the man from the opinions he held, and the party he had 
 espoused ; and when he found him in distress, knew him only as a man 
 and a brother. He was a rigid disciplinarian both in his Church and 
 bis family. He knew all his parishioners ; and he knew them as the 
 flock over which he believed the Holy Spirit had made him an overseer ; 
 and for whom he must give account to the great Bishop and Shepherd
 
 SAMUEL WESLET, RECTOR OF EPWORTH. 155 
 
 of souls. He visited his parishioners from house to house 5 he sifted 
 their creed, and permitted none to be corrupt in their opinions or in 
 their practices, without instruction or reprooj, 
 
 These things have been attested to me by aged respectable inhabit- 
 ants of Epworth ; to whom the memory of the man and the pastor is 
 still dear. 
 
 His family he kept in the strictest order ; and though authoritative 
 in all his deportment toward them, yet he was ever sufficiently tender ; 
 so that he had entirely secured their affection and respect. It is pleasing 
 to behold this in all the letters that passed between him and hie children. 
 Had not his authority and parental tenderness been duly attempered, 
 his children would have either feared him as their judge, or treated him 
 as their play fellow. 1 have often seen great evils produced by parents 
 acting on one only of these opposite extremes. 
 
 As a controversial writer, he had considerable dexterity in managing 
 an argument, and defending himself. But he sometimes betrays an 
 acrimony of spirit against his opponents, the .common fault of polemic 
 divines. 
 
 To his judicious method of instructing and managing his family we 
 owe, under God, many of those advantages and blessings which as a 
 religious p'eople we possess ; and even on this account, his name among 
 the Methodists should be held in everlasting remembrance. 
 
 Mr. Wesley had a large share of vivacity. In his private conversa- 
 tion he was very entertaining and instructive. He had a large fund of 
 anecdote ; and a profusion both of witty and wise sayings, wliich he 
 knew well how to apply for the instruction or correction of those who 
 were favoured with his company. To this rare and useful talent his 
 son Samuel alludes in the following verses of the ppe.ro called The 
 Parish Priest, 
 
 "In converse free ; for every subject fit; 
 The coolest reason join'd to keenest wit ; 
 Wit, that with aim resistless knows to fly. 
 Disarms untheught of, and prevents reply. 
 Skilful of sportive stories forth to pour, 
 A ?ay, a humourous, an exhaustless store, 
 With sharpest point and justest force applied, 
 The purport never dark and never wide. 
 Scarcely the Phrygian fam'd for moral tales, 
 Who useful truth in pleasing fiction veils, 
 Who wisdom deep in plants and brutes can find, 
 And makes all creatures tutors to mankind ; 
 In apter/oWe solid sense convey'd, 
 With sounder substance, or with finer shade." 
 
 He was accustomed to treat his friends and the poor on the three 
 grand festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. But the poor 
 always sat down first, and were attended by his daughters ; and when 
 they had eaten heartily and departed, the richer guests took the vacant 
 seats. This circumstance has not be-en forgotten in the above poem. 
 
 " Oft as the year brought b'ack the glorious day 
 When infant JESUS in a manger lay, 
 Or when/rom death the GOD triumphant came, 
 Or when the HOLT GHOST descends in flame,
 
 156 OP MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Around his board the welcome needy sate. 
 And crowd his parlour, not besiege his gate ;V- 4 
 T' obey thoir word his children waited near, 
 And learnt their Saviour's image to revere. 
 This charity perform'd, the wealthier guest 
 Was call'd to share his hospitable feast, 
 The poor, invited first, his table grace, 
 And riches only held the second place." 
 
 All this is highly praiseworthy; for a parish priest, who is bishop of 
 his own place, should be given to hospitality; and when he has the 
 means, nothing is more becoming. But it is a truth that many of these 
 have little or nothing to spare ; and Mr. Wesley was always in such 
 circumstances ; and with these his son Samuel does not appear to have 
 been duly acquainted, as the following lines show, which are far from 
 feeing strictly correct, 
 
 u His scanty rent suffic'd for every call ; 
 Large was his plenty though his income small: 
 Alike in prudence and in bounty skill'd ; 
 He never drained his purse, nor ever./Wd." 
 
 The contrary to this has sufficiently appeared. But poetry seldom 
 speaks the strict language of truth ; and while duty binds us to note 
 them, we pardon such oversights in the grateful effusions of an affec- 
 tionate child. 
 
 Mr. Wesley had a clerk, a well-meaning, honest, but weak, and vain 
 man. He believed the rector, his master, to be the greatest man in tiw 
 parish, if not in the county; and himself, as he stood next to him in 
 church ministrations, to be next to him in worth and importance. He 
 had the advantage and privilege ofwearing out Mr. Wesley's cast clothes 
 and wigs, for the latter of which, his head was by far too small ; and the 
 figure he cut in it was most ludicrously grotesque. The rector finding 
 him particularly vain of one of those canonical substitutes for hair which 
 he had lately received, formed the design to mortify him in the presence 
 of that congregation before which John wished to appear in every respect 
 what he thought himself, the next person in importance to his master. 
 One morning before church time Mr. W. said, "John, I shall preach on 
 a particular subject to-day ; and shall choose my own psalm, of which 
 I shall give out the first line, and you shall proceed as usual." John 
 was pleased ; and the service went forward as it was wont to do till 
 they came to the singing, when Mr. Wesley gave out the following 
 line, 
 
 "Like to an owl in ivy bush." 
 
 This was sung ; and the following line, John peeping out of the large 
 canonical wig in which his head was half lost, gave out with an audible 
 voice and appropriate connecting twang, 
 "That rueful thing am I!" 
 
 The whole congregation, struck with John's appearance, saw, and felt 
 the similitude, and burst out into laughter. 
 
 The rector was pleased ; for John was mortified, and his self-con- 
 ceit lowered.
 
 SAMUEL ANNESI.EY, LL. D. 157 
 
 This is the same man who, when King William returned to London 
 ifter some of his expeditions, gave out in Epworth church, " Let us 
 sing to the praise and glory of God, a hymn of my own composing : 
 
 " King William is come home, con.e home, 
 
 King William home is come ; 
 Therefore let us together sing 
 
 The hymn dial's call'd Te Wum." 
 
 I have only to add that a sycamore tree, planted by Mr. Wesley in 
 Epworth church yard, is now (1821) tiro fathoms in girth ; and propor- 
 tionably large in height, boughs, and branches ; but is decaying at the 
 root, where the tree is now becoming hollow : a melancholy emblem 
 of the state of a very eminent family, in which the prophetic office and 
 spirit had flourished for nearly two hundred years, which is now nearly 
 dried up from the earth, and is no more likely to give a messenger to 
 the Churches, or a healer to Israel. 
 
 I have dwelt the longer upon this life, as no adequate justice has 
 ever yet been done to it, though it is of the utmost consequence in the 
 history of Methodism for reasons which have doubtless appeared to the 
 reader in its perusal. 
 
 Onthe/acfcand incidents the most implicit confidence may be safely 
 placed, as they are all taken from authentic documents. 
 
 SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL. D. AND HIS CHILDREN. 
 
 DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY is too nearly connected with the Wesley 
 family, as being the father of Susanna, wife to the rector of Epworth, 
 to be passed by without notice, in any memoirs of this family. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Annesley was born at Kenilworth, near Warwick, in the 
 year 1620. He was descended of a good family ; for his father, and 
 the then earl of Anglesey, were brother's children.* He was the only 
 
 * The family of Annesley, or Annesly, or as it is in Domesday Book Aneslei, is 
 of great antiquity ; deriving its name from the wapentake of Oswardebec or Brox- 
 ton, in the county of Nottingham, of which the family was possessed before the 
 Conquest ; and Richard de Aneslei was proprietor of it in 1086, when the domesday 
 survey was taken by command of the Conqueror. 
 
 To him succeeded Ralph de Aneslei, called Brito de Bret ; who gave to St. Mary, 
 and the house of Felly, in the county of Nottingham, and to the brethren thereof, 
 the domain' and sole right of the patronage of the church of Aneslei, in pure alms for 
 the salvation of himself, bis wife and heirs, and for the relief of his departed friends : 
 which donation was confirmed to the canons by Geoffry, archbishop of York. 
 
 I must pass by the splendid marriages and heraldic honours of this family, con- 
 tinued from the conquest down to the 17th century ; and briefly note, that Francis 
 Annesley, created Baron Mount Norris, and Viscount Valentia, was secretary of 
 slate, and vice- treasurer of Ireland, in the reign of Charles I. 
 , Arthur Annesley, first earl of Anglesea, was his eldest son by his first wife, and 
 succeeded his father in his Irish honours. He was distinguished for his loyalty lo 
 Charles II., lo whom he striclly adhered during his exile ; and advanced his interest 
 at the hazard of his life and property ; for which, after the Restoralion, this Baron 
 Annesley, of Newport Pagnel, and earl of the Isle of Anglesea, was appointed one 
 of the commissioners for sealing the affairs of Ireland, where he was then vice-trea- 
 surer, and receiver-general. In 1673, he was made lord privy seal, and one of the 
 privy council in boih kingdoms. He died in 1696, leaving seven sons, and six 
 daughters. Dr. Samuel Annesley was brother's son to this first earl of Anglesca.
 
 158 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 child of his parents, and had a considerable paternal estate. His father 
 dying when he was but four years of age, his education devolved on his 
 pious mother, who brought him up in the fear of the Lord ; and as he 
 was inclined from his earliest youth to the work of the ministry, she 
 took care to procure him a suitable education. 
 
 His grandmother, who was a very pious woman, dying before he was 
 born, requested that the child, if a boy, should be called Samuel ; for, 
 said she, " I can say, I have asked him of the Lord." He was piously 
 disposed from his earliest years, and his heart set on being a preacher 
 of the Gospel ; and to qualify himself for that sacred work, he began 
 when he was only five or six years old seriously to read the Bible ; and 
 so ardent wa^ he in this study that he bound himself to read twenty 
 chapters every day, a practice which he continued to the end of his 
 life. This made him a good textuary ; and, consequently, an able 
 divine. Though a child when he formed the resolution to be a minister 
 of the Gospel, it is said he never varied from his purpose ; nor was he 
 discouraged by a singular dream, in which " he thought he was a minis- 
 ter, and was sent for by the bishop of London to be burned as a martyr." 
 
 The aforesaid Francis Viscount Valentia had by his second wife, who was daugh- 
 ter to Sir John Stanhope, brother to the first earl of Chesterfield, seven sons, and 
 two daughters. Francis, George, and Samuel, lived ; the other sons died young. 
 George was drowned in the Thames, stepping into a packet boat with despatches for 
 Charles II. Samuel married, and died without issue. Francis Annesley was attainted 
 by King James's parliament, for opposing the arbitrary measures of that prince, by 
 raising some horse and foot in the north of Ireland. He married the daughter of the 
 bishop of Meath, by whom he had Francis his heir, and Arthur and Henry, who 
 died without issue. 
 
 Francis was appointed by act of parliament of King William one of the trustees 
 for the sale of forfeited estates in Ireland ; and in the 9th of dueen Anne, one of the 
 commissioners for public accounts. He was elected member of parliament for 
 Preston in 1705, and for Westbury in six succeeding parliaments. He was the 
 first promoter in the house of commons for building fifty new churches in the city of 
 London ; and one of the commissioners for that purpose. 
 
 He married first in 1695 the daughter of Sir John Martin, of London, by whom he 
 had seven sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Francis, L.L. D., rector of 
 Winwick, in Lancashire, John, the fourth earl of Anglesea, was in the privy 
 council of dueen Anne. Arthur, his brother, was in three parliaments during her 
 reign ; and was one of the privy council to George I. 
 
 On the death of the sixth earl of Anglesea, who was created Lord Altham, and 
 died without issue, the title devolved on Richard Annesley, D. D., prebend of West- 
 minster, and dean of Exeter. 
 
 Dr. Francis Annesley, rector of Winwick, married the daughter of Robert Gager, 
 of Stoke Paget, Bucks, by the Lady Anne, daughter of James, the second earl of 
 Anglesea, his cousin. 
 
 Francis Annesley, Esq. D.C.L. master of Downing College, Cambridge, who sat 
 in six parliaments, -and was in 1805 member for Reading, since dead, was a de- 
 scendant from Dr. Samuel Annesley. He was one of the trustees of the British 
 Museum, representing the family of Sir Robert Cotton. 
 
 We see that the family of Annesley was among the most ancient and respectable 
 in the kingdom, and existed previously to the Norman Conquest. 
 
 The connection of the present Wesley family with the Annesleys stands thus : 
 John Wesley, late fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, was son to Samue/and Susanna 
 Wesley. Susanna was daughter to Dr. Samuel Annesley. Dr. Annesley was son 
 to Annesley, who was brother to Arthur, first earl of Anglesea. 
 
 In some of the original letters of Mrs. Wesley, I find that she sealed with the 
 Annesley arms, which are paly of six pieces, argent and azure ; a bend gules; crest 
 9 blackamoore'shead sidefared, proper, wreathed about the temples, argent and azure,
 
 SAMUEL ANNESLEY, LL. D. 159 
 
 When he was fifteen years of age he went to the university of Ox- 
 ford, and entered of Queen's College ; where he took his degrees at the 
 usual times; and in 1644 was ordained as chaplain of his majesty's 
 ship Globe, under the command of the earl of Warwick, then lord high 
 admiral ; who procured him his diploma of LL. D., having had an 
 honourable certificate of his ordination signed by Mr. Gouge, and six 
 other respectable ministers. 
 
 He spent some time in the fleet, and kept a journal of the voyage ; and 
 is very particular as to what passed when the earl of Warwick went to 
 Holland in pursuit of the ships that had gone over to the prince. But not 
 liking a seafaring life he left the navy, and settled at Cliff, in Kent, in 
 the place of a minister who had been sequestered for scandalous conduct, 
 attending public meetings of the people for dancing, drinking, and mer- 
 riment on the Lord's day. But it was like pastor like people ; for the 
 inhabitants of the place were so attached to their sinful leader, that 
 when his successor came they assailed him with spits, forks, and stones, 
 threatening to take away his life. He told them that " let them use- 
 him as they would, he was determined to stay with them till God 
 should fit them by his ministry to profit by one better, who might suc- 
 ceed him ; and solemnly declared, that when they became so pre- 
 pared, he would leave the place." 
 
 In a few years his labours had surprising success, so that the people 
 became greatly reformed. However, he kept his word, and left them ; 
 lest any seeming inconsistency of his might prove a stumbling block to 
 his young converts ; for though he had 400/. per annum there, it was 
 no temptation to him to induce him to break the promise he had made. 
 
 A veiy signal providence, it is said, directed him to a settlement in 
 London, in 1652, by the unanimous choice of the inhabitants of St. 
 John the Apostle. Soon after he was made lecturer of St. Paul's, and 
 in 1658 became vicar of St. Giles' Cripplegate ; two of the largest con- 
 gregations in the city. 
 
 On the Restoration, he was confirmed in the above vicarage by the 
 king, who presented the living to him Aug. 23, 1660. 
 
 But this did not screen him from the oppressive operation of the Act 
 of Uniformity, by which he was ejected from this vicarage in 1662. 
 After this he met with many troubles for conscience' sake, and many 
 signal deliverances. God was not pleased with his persecutors ; one 
 magistrate, while signing a warrant to apprehend him, dropped down 
 dead ! Might not the hand of God have been seen in this ? and yet 
 the living laid it not to heart. 
 
 Among the Nonconformists, Dr. Jlnnesley was particularly and de- 
 servedly eminent. He had in effect the care of all those churches ; 
 and was the chief, often the sole, instrument in the education and sub- 
 sistence of several ministers, of whose useful labours the Church had 
 otherwise been deprived. 
 
 Of all gifts, salaries, and income, he always laid aside the tenths for 
 chanty, before any part was spent. By this means he had always a 
 fund at hand for charitable uses, beside what he was furnished with by 
 others, for the same purposes. 
 
 He was the main support of the morning lecture, for which so many
 
 160 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 have cause to be thankful to God. And after the death of old Mr. 
 Case, of St. Mary Magdalene, Milk-street, who was the first that set 
 up the morning exercises, Dr. Annesley took the care of this institution 
 upon himself. This morning lecture or exercise, originated in the 
 following way : Most of the citizens in London having some friend 
 or relation in the army of the earl of Essex, so many bills were sent 
 up to the pulpit every Lord's day for their preservation, that the minis- 
 ters had not time to notice them in prayer, or even to read them. It 
 was therefore agreed to set apart an hour every morning at seven o'clock; 
 half of it to be spent in prayer for the welfare of the public, as well as 
 particular cases ; and the other half to be spent in exhortations to the 
 people. Mr. Case began it in his church in Milk-street ; from which 
 it was removed to other remote churches in rotation, a month at each 
 church. A number of the most eminent ministers conducted this 
 service in turn ; and it was attended by great crowds of people. After 
 the heat of the war was over, it became what was called a casuistical 
 lecture, and continued till the Restoration. The sermons delivered at 
 these lectures were collected and published in six vols. quarto. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that the sermon on the question, " Wherein 
 lies that exact righteousness which is required between man and man ?" 
 Matt, vii, 12, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, &c, 
 was preached by Mr. Tillotson, afterward archbishop of Canterbury, 
 who then ranked with the Nonconformists ! See Neal's History of the 
 Puritans, vol. i, p. 797, quarto, and Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. i, 
 p. 125, &c. 
 
 In speaking of Dr. Jlnnesley j s character, Dr. Calamy says, " He was 
 an Israelite indeed ; one that might be said to be sanctified from the 
 womb, for he was early under serious impressions ; so that himself said, 
 he knew not the lime when he was unconverted." 
 
 He was a most sincere, godly, and humble man ; had a large soul, 
 flaming zeal, and was remarkably successful in his ministry. 
 
 He had great courage, as may be seen at his first settlement at Cliff, 
 in Kent. He never feared the utmost malice of any of his enemies ; 
 and nothing that he met with ever abated his cheerfulness. He had 
 uninterrupted peace in his soul, and assurance of God's favour for 
 thirty years before his death ; though for some time before that he had 
 passed through severe mental exercises. 
 
 In his last illness he was full of comfort, and could say, " Blessed be 
 God ! I have been faithful in the work of the ministry for more than 
 fifty-jive years." Some of his last words were the following. Just 
 before his departure he often said, " Come, my dearest Jesus ! the 
 nearer the more precious, the more welcome." Another time his joy 
 was so great, that in an ecstacy he cried out, " I cannot contain it ! 
 What manner of love is this to a poor worm ! I cannot express the 
 thousandth part of what praise is due to thee ! It is but little I can give 
 thee : but, Lord, help me to give thee my all ! I will die praising thee, 
 and rejoice that others can praise thee better. I shall be satisfied with 
 thy likeness. Satisfied ! Satisfied ! O my dearest Jesus ! I come !" 
 
 See the funeral sermon preached for him by Dr. Williams. 
 
 During seventeen weeks' pain, though he had before enjoyed an un-
 
 SAMLKI. ANHESLBY, LL. D. 161 
 
 interrupted course of health, he never discovered the least degree of 
 impatience ; and quietly resigned his soul to God, Dec. 31, 1696, aged 
 77 years. 
 
 Dr. Annesley's figure was fine ; his countenance dignified, highly 
 expressive, and amiable. His constitution, naturally strong and robust, 
 was capable of any kind of fatigue. He was seldom indisposed ; and 
 could endure the coldest weather without hat, gloves, or fire. For 
 many years he scarcely ever drank any thing but water ; and even to 
 his last sickness his sight continued so strong that he could read the 
 smallest print without spectacles. His piety, diligence, and zeal, 
 caused him to be highly esteemed, not only by the Dissenters, but by 
 all who knew him. 
 
 A curious anecdote is entered by his grandson, Mr. J. Wesley, in 
 his Journal : " Monday, Feb. 6, 1769, I spent an hour with a vene- 
 rable woman, nearly ninety years of age, who retains her health, her 
 senses, her understanding, and even her memory to a good degree. In 
 the last century she belonged to my grandfather Annesley's congrega- 
 tion, at whose house her father and she used to dine every Thursday ; 
 and whom she remembers to have seen frequently, in his study at the 
 top of the house, with his window open, and without any fire winter or 
 summer. He lived seventy-seven years ; and would probably have 
 lived longer had he not begun water drinking at seventy." 
 
 His last will and testament is too singular to be omitted. 
 
 " In the name of God ! Amen. 
 
 " I, Doctor Samuel Annesley, of the Liberty of Norton Falgate, in 
 the county of Middlesex, an unworthy minister of Jesus Christ, being, 
 through mercy, in health of body and mind, do make this my last will 
 and testament, concerning my earthly pittance. 
 
 " For my soul, I dare humbly say, it is through grace devoted unto 
 God (otherwise than by legacy) when it may live here no longer. I 
 do believe that my body, after its sleeping awhile in Jesus, shall be 
 reunited *o my soul, that they may both be for ever with the Lord. 
 
 '* Of what I shall leave behind me, I make this short disposal, 
 
 " My just debts being paid, I give to each of my children, one shilling, 
 and all the rest to be equally divided between my son Benjamin Jlnnes- 
 ley, my daughter Judith Jlnnesley, and my daughter Ann Jlnnesley, 
 whom I make my executors of this my last will and testament ; revok- 
 ing all former, and confirming this with my hand and seal this 29th of 
 March, 1693. 
 
 ' SAMUEL ANNESI.EY." 
 . Daw.; i.'. . \;.n n ,}- ',* i. ". . 
 
 Among his works, which are neither numerous nor large are 1. A 
 Funeral Sermon for the Rev. W. Whitaker ; 2. A Funeral Sermon on 
 the Death of the Rev. T. Brand, with an Account of his Life ; 3. A Fast 
 Sermon before the House of Commons, 1648; 4. Two Sermons at 
 St. Paul's on Communion with God; 5. A Sermon at Lawrence 
 Jury, to the Gentlemen of Wilts ; 6. Five Sermons in the Morning 
 Exercises; 7. He edited four of the volumes of those Exercises, to 
 each of which he wrote a Preface. His grandson, Mr. John Wesley, 
 has inserted a Sermon in volume xxxvi, of the Christian Library, o 
 
 21
 
 162 OF MR. VTESLEV'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 1 Tim. v, 22, " How must we reprove, that we may not partake of other 
 men's sins 1" which he attributes to Dr. Annesley : but this is a mis- 
 take, as it appears the Sermon in question was delivered by Mr. Kit- 
 chen, of St. Mary, Abchurch. And in volume xxxviii, he attributes two 
 others to him, 1. On Universal Conscientiousness, Acts xxiv, 16, And 
 herein do I exercise myself, &c. 2. On " how Ministers or Christian 
 Friends may apply themselves to sick persons for their good," &c, Job 
 xxxiii, 23, 24, Jf there be a messenger with him, &c. But both these 
 were written by Mr. Matthew Pool, author of the Synopsis Criticorum. 
 But those in volume xliv, 1. On " God's Sovereignty our Support in 
 all worldly Distractions," Psalm xcvii, 1, 2, The Lord reigneth, let 
 the earth rejoice, &c. 2. " The Hinderances and Helps to a Good 
 Memory in Spiritual Things," 1 Cor. xv, 2, By which also ye are 
 saved, if ye keep in memory, &c, were written by Dr. Annesley. See 
 Palmer's Nonconformists' J\Iemorial, vol. i, p. 127. 
 
 The meeting house in which Dr. Annesley preached was in Little 
 St. Helen's, Bishopsgate-street, where Mr. Woodhouse succeeded him. 
 It was in this place that the first public ordination service among the 
 Dissenters was performed. Dr. Calamy was one of the ministers then 
 ordained. 
 
 Dr. Anncsley was a lively and emphatic writer ; and must have been 
 a very useful preacher. The following extracts, taken at random from 
 his sermon On a Good Memory in Spiritual Things, will prove this : 
 
 *' Violent passions spoil the memory ; such as anger, grief, love, fear. 
 Passions we must have : but constitution and education allay them in 
 some ; reason moderates them in others ; and grace regulates them in 
 all. Where these bridles are wanting, they shake all the faculties as 
 an earthquake doth a country. For example, anger, when it rages, 
 manifestly inflames the blood, and consequently the spirits, and melts 
 off the impression in the brain just as the fire melts the wax and the 
 impressions that were fixed upon it. 
 
 " A multitude of undigested notions hurt the memory. If a man have 
 a stock of methodical and digested knowledge, it is admirable how much 
 the memory will contain ; as you know how many images may be dis- 
 cerned at once in a glass. But when these notions are heaped inco- 
 herently in the memory, without order or dependence, they confound 
 and overthrow the memory. Thus many hear or read much, too much 
 perhaps for their capacities : they have not stowage for it; and so they are 
 ever learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth. Therefore 
 look that you understand and digest things by meditation ; run not on 
 too fast : he that rides post can never draw maps of the country. 
 
 " Custom, or using your memories, is an excellent way of improving 
 them. Thus many wise persons charge their memories at the present, 
 and thereby strengthen them, and then commit what they have remem- 
 bered to writing, when they come home, that no time may wear it 
 away. We say, use legs, and liave legs ; and so use the memory, and 
 have a memory. 
 
 " If you oblige your children and your servants to bring you away an 
 account of a sermon, you will see that use and custom will make it easy. 
 I have seen an old man's girdle, who could not read a word, yet by the
 
 SAMUEL ANNESLEY, JUN. 163 
 
 only help of the girdle which he wore, and which was hung about with 
 some knotted points, he could bring home every particular of a sermon. 
 
 " Due estimation is a help to the memory ; the more we lore and 
 admire any thing, the better we remember it. This is the reason given 
 of children remembering things so well, because they admire every 
 thing as being new to them. And of old people the saying is known, 
 that they remember all such things as they care for : for when we. esteem 
 any thing, the affections work upon the spirits, which are the instruments 
 of the memory, and so seal things upon it. Why is it that a woman 
 cannot forget her sucking child? Because she doth vehemently love it, 
 and the like affection in us to good things would keep us from forget- 
 ting them." 
 
 To this I shall add the first paragi-aph of his sermon on God's sove- 
 reignty, from Psalm xcvii, 1, 2, The Lord reigneth, let the earth 
 rejoice, &c. 
 
 " The state of affairs is often so involved and confused, that we need 
 not wonder if we see men of wisdom greatly perplexed in their spirits, 
 and almost sunk into discouragement. The best of men, whose hearts 
 are most fortified with grace, would be of all others most subject to 
 discomposure, were it not that they feel peace and comfort flowing into 
 them from the remembrance and sweet consideration of a God above. 
 What good man could have any tolerable enjoyment of himself, or pos- 
 sess his soul in patience, while he observes the irregular motions of things 
 below; the restlessness, tumblings, and tossings of the world ; desirable 
 comforts and delights blasted in a moment; afflictions and troubles 
 breaking in with a sudden surprise; order quite subverted ; laws violated, 
 and the edge of them turned against those that are faithful and peace- 
 able in the land ; and all things indeed turned upside down, wickedness 
 rampant, and religion oppressed ! These things would soon break his 
 heart, did he not see Him who is invisible, and firmly believe a wheel 
 within a wheel ; an unseen hand which steadily and prudently guides 
 and directs all things, keeping up a beautiful order, where reason can 
 discern nothing but confusion." 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF DR. ANNESLEY'S CHILDREN. 
 
 Dr. Annesley had several children : no less than twenty-five ! Dr. 
 Menton baptizing one of them, and being asked how many children 
 Dr. Annesley had ? He answered, he " believed it was two dozen or 
 a quarter of a hundred." The reckoning children by dozens is a sin- 
 gular circumstance, an honour to which few persons ever arrive. But 
 of this numerous family, I have met with the names of Samuel, Benja- 
 min, Judith, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Susanna only. 
 
 SAMUEL ANNESLEY, JUN. 
 
 Samuel went abroad in the service of the East India Company, He 
 there accumulated a considerable fortune, and made frequent remit- 
 tances to his family at homfc. He had borne strong testimony against 
 the mismanagement and peculations of certain persona in the Com-
 
 164 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 pany's service, which probably created him mortal enemies. Intending 
 to return home, he wrote to his brother-in-law, Mr. Samuel Wesley, to 
 purchase for him an estate of 200/. or 300/. per annum somewhere be- 
 tween London and Oxford. But it seems he suddenly disappeared, and 
 no account was ever received either of his person or property ! The very 
 time of his coming home, and the ship by which he was to come, were 
 announced ; and his sister Mrs. Susanna Wesley came to London, 
 expecting to meet him : but no brother appeared when the ship arrived ! 
 And all the information that was ever received was to this effect : 
 That he had gone up into the country, and was never heard of more ! 
 (When the noises were heard in the parsonage house at Epworth, Mrs. 
 Wesley supposed they betokened the death of her brother in India : but 
 it is certain that he was alive several years after those noises ceased at 
 Epworth.) There is most certainly a mystery in this transaction, which 
 it is possible a future day may explain. Mr. John Wesley used to say 
 to his nephews, " You are heirs to a large property in India, if you 
 can find it out ; for my uncle is said to have been very prosperous." 
 
 I possess an original letter of this gentleman to his brother-in-law, 
 the rector of Epworth ; which I shall here faithfully transcribe, and add 
 a fac simile of his signature among those of the W'esleyan family, 
 hoping that even this may be a means of casting some light on this 
 dark affair. The letter refers to transactions then in India, which those 
 conversant with India affairs may easily comprehend. 
 
 ^BROTHER WESLEY, Via Grand Caire, und cover of Monsr. Pe- 
 lavoine, the Directore here for the French Company, (as in Feb. last) 
 I wrote you ; which I can't copy, but extract. 
 
 " I have been told 'twas the practice of Sir N. Waite to bribe some 
 of the committee, thereby stifling all complaints against him. If you 
 suspect that, declare to the Company themselves what I have wrote, 
 being of such vast importance at their convention in April to choose new 
 directors. Let them keep my salary, and the wreck's money (some 
 thousands of pounds) till I prove what I write is true, or a great part of 
 it ; if they will give me, as proposed, the power to do it. If you can 
 get 2s. 9d. or 3*. the rupee to be received in England, or interest of 5 
 per cent, (as usual in bills drawn here on the Company) from the time I 
 pay it, to payment to you and Mr. Eaton, I will give from 10 to 
 15,000 rupees to their order in Suratt ; if they'l let me invest it for 'em 
 in diamonds I will faithfully serve 'em. Thus Sir S. Evance and the 
 Jew Alvaro de Costa did to Captain Owen for his son's money. 
 
 " I desired you. to let out to commanders, &c, responsible persons, 
 bound hither, 500/. on each ship, and (if you can) to be invested by me, 
 advising overland how much ; as in what goods. To procure what 
 consignment you can to me, that I may have the laying out of most or 
 part, if not all money brought hither ; which I think I can do cheaper 
 and better than any one on the place. I write not so out of vanity or 
 opinativeness. 
 
 " Sir S. Evance has a large packet enclosing Mr. Pennyng's account 
 by the fleet, which pray desire of Sir Ceasar Child. If I am in the Com- 
 pany's service, pray desire Sir Ceasar Child to let me, alone, have the
 
 SAMUEL AXNESLET, JLN. 6* 165 
 
 adjustment of his accounts with the Parracks, provided they are not to 
 this time finisht. Mr. Aislabie is most unaccountably slow, remiss, and 
 negligent of such an advantage, so deserves to have it slip his hands, as 
 I have wrote him, I believe it wil. Beside, he never did, nor can do 
 any thing to conclude it ; it has and will lye upon me. 
 
 44 If a good purchase offers between London and Oxford of 2 to 300/. 
 a year, I desire you to secure it for me against I come home, if God 
 pleases : I would have it a healthy air, near a market town and river ; 
 somewhat woody ; no religious lands. I will take care to send effects 
 or bils to pay for it. 
 
 " Mr. Wyche's broker told me it was concerted between his master 
 and Rustum not to take my Nunsasee and Broach goods, that dispos- 
 ing of them other ways, I might lose and meddle no more to interrupt 
 'em in his roguerys. A faithful servant of the Company. He tels me 
 he has received a commission to be cherif broker, gave 2600 rupees to 
 the governor to let Mr. Wyche go to Bombay to shew himself obedi- 
 ent to the Company's orders, but will speedily return with a general 
 letter that 'tis necessary to do so. He says the genl. is for paying the 
 old Company's debts, and Mr. Wyche has a mind to pay 'em here, both 
 desiring to squeeze something from the creditors, and to ingratiate 
 themselves with the Company to make them take single (not compound) 
 interest. But that won't do ; for then the Company must take single 
 interest on their demands on the brokers, which wil be a great loss. 
 In the interim, who must pay the Company the interest of their money 
 that lyes dead, a vast sum when it shall be made up ! They owe me 
 about thirty-Jive hundred pounds, beside my salary and the wreck's 
 money : but I cannot get a groat of it til brought about said dishonour- 
 able intentions : therefore, pray address the court of directors for their 
 order to pay off my accounts. I have saved the old Company 36,200 
 rupees in Viltul Parrak's demands on 'em, on which 5 per cent is due 
 to me : but I can't get it paid : the reason is plain, that getting nothing 
 for my trouble, I may leave off. I was nine months contending with 
 him. Pray get an order for it. Said broker says the English credit in 
 these parts daily declines ; and his master by little and little wil venture 
 (as the Dutch) take a part of al goods he buys or sels for the Company, 
 but in a private manner. As, suppose he sels copper at 14 rupees per 
 md. he'l credit 'em perhaps 13^, and so in other merchandise. Already, 
 (as before hinted) they have no regard to the Company's fraights ; pro- 
 vided the commanders will let 'em buy their goods, for which they have 
 5 per cent, commission, they may as usual (as among the Dutch) 
 bring or carry what they please, fraight free. 
 
 44 1 could fil more than a quire of paper with these matters : but 'twil 
 Tie in vain, if what I have wrote be not considered. I hinted to you, 
 Mr. Samuel Sheppard was displeased with Mr. Proby for writing him 
 of the great cheat in sale of the English broadcloth ; concerning which 
 Mr. Proby may be subpoana'd in, and the Company's registry may be ex- 
 amin'd. Some matters may be erroneously inform'd, but I am satisfied 
 as to the main 'tis true. I have heard captn. Beawes gave 500 to com- 
 mand the Albermarle ; and scarce any thing is done without money, 
 #nd every thing almost with it.
 
 166 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " About Abdul Guffere's dispute with the Company, (who seized 
 their goods by a former governor, for those the pirates plundered from 
 him, and restored 'em to the genl.) is according to the best account (as 
 yet I have got) as follows. Ibe sent to Sellimongee (a Moor, one of 
 the greatest merchants in town) to mediate with Mr. Wyche's broker, 
 between the genl (who had seized his ships for payment) and him. He 
 at first offered to pay 450,000 rupees, and Sellimongee sent Mr. Wyche 
 word he'd bring it to rupees 500,000 : but he would not hearken to him, 
 nor Rustum tell him or the genl of it, (as he sent me word) he'l at any 
 time tel him to his face. But they applyed themselves to the governor, 
 gave him of it, as they pretend, 120,000 rupees, the fourth of 480,000, 
 Rustum says, Abdul Guffere gave, (tho' he affirms he gave 482,000) 
 and 63,950 to the officers, which in the end I presume will be proved 
 he, &c, shared among 'em ; so that for the 500,000 rupees, the Com- 
 pany might have had instantly paid down, they have by that villain, and 
 &c's, means reed but 296,950, with large charges beside. I have often 
 wrote the genl for the account, that there is a great cheat iri't, but 
 can get no answer. Pray does he not give sufficient grounds to suspect 
 he has had a part of it 1 I have a hundred times, to no purpose, desired 
 the same of Mr. Wyche. 
 
 " SAM. ANNESLEY." 
 Suratt, March 13, 1712-3. 
 
 Endorsed. " Samuel Annesley, to the Rev. Samuel Wesley, March 
 13, 1712-3." 
 
 In the hands of a good investigator, this letter might lead to some 
 discovery relative to the end of Mr. Annesley ; and where his property 
 has been left, and who has possessed it. That there were nefarious 
 transactions in the management of the Company's concerns at that time 
 the above letter sufficiently states ; and that Mr. Annesley's honesty 
 might have led to his ruin is a possible case. That he should disappear, 
 and never more be heard of, and that his property should all have been 
 lost, are mysteries which probably at this distance of time cannot 
 entirely be cleared up : but some discovery may yet be made. 
 
 From the preceding letter we find that Mr. Annesley wished to 
 employ his brother-in-law, the rector of Epworth, to transact some 
 business in his behalf with the East India Company ; and Mr. Wesley 
 appears to have undertaken the office : but owing to his natural easiness, 
 and too great confidence in the promises of men, the business was 
 neglected, and had no favourable issue ; at which Mr. Annesley was 
 greatly offended ; transferred the agency into another hand ; and wrote 
 a severe letter to his sister, Mrs. Wesley, in which he most liberally 
 blamed the conduct of his brother-in-law. A part only of Mrs. 
 Wesley's answer to her angry brother is preserved. This fragment, 
 which, from the emendations in various places, appears to be the rough 
 copy of her letter, is worthy of insertion ; as it shows her good sense, 
 great modesty, and faithful attachment to her husband. Having stated 
 that in all transactions her husband had acted with a clear conscience, 
 both before God and man, she proceeds to notice the blame cast upon 
 him by her brother, and adds :
 
 SAMUEL ANNE8LEY, JUIf. 
 
 167 
 
 " These things are unkind, very unkind. Add not misery to afflic- 
 tion : if you will not reach out a friendly hand to support, yet I beseech 
 you forbear to throw water on a people already sinking. 
 
 "But I shall go on with your letter to me. You proceed, 4 When I 
 come home' (0, would to God that might ever be!) 'should any of 
 your daughters want me,' (as I think they will not) '/ shall do as 
 God enables me ." I must answer this with a sigh from the bottom of 
 my heart. Sir, you know the proverb, ' While the grass grows, the 
 steed starves.' 
 
 "That passage relating to Ansley, I have formerly replied to; 
 therefore I'll pass it over, together with some hints I am not willing to 
 understand. 
 
 " ' My brother has one invincible obstacle to my business, his distance 
 from London.' Sir, you may please to remember, I put you in mind 
 of this long since. ' Another hinderance, I think he is too zealous for 
 the party he fancies in the right ; and has unluckily to do with the 
 opposite faction.' Whether those you employ are factious or no, I'll 
 not determine ; but very sure I am, Mr. Wesley is not so ; he is zealous 
 in a good cause, as every one ought to be ; but the farthest from being 
 a party man of any man in the world. ' Another remura is, these 
 matters are out of his way.' That is a remora indeed, and ought to 
 have been considered on both sides before he entered on your business: 
 for I am verily persuaded that that, and that alone, has been the cause 
 of any mistakes or inadvertency he has been guilty of; and the true 
 reason why God has not blessed him with desired success. * He is 
 apt to rest upon deceitful promises.' Would to Heaven that neither he, 
 nor 1, nor any of our children, had ever trusted to deceitful promises. 
 But it is a right hand error, and I hope God will forgive us all. ' He 
 wants Mr. Eaton's thrift' This I can readily believe. ' He is not Jit 
 for worldly business' This I likewise assent to ; and must own I was 
 mistaken when I did think him fit for it: my own experience hath 
 since convinced me that he is one of those whom our Saviour saith is 
 not so wise in their generation as the children of this world. And did I 
 not know that almighty Wisdom hath views and ends in fixing the 
 bounds of our habitation, which are out of our ken, I should think it a 
 thousand pities that a man of his brightness, and rare endowments of 
 learning and useful knowledge in relation to the Church of God, should 
 be confined to an obscure corner of the country, where his talents are 
 buried ; and he, determined to a way of life for which he is not so well 
 qualified as I could wish ; and it is with pleasure that I behold in my 
 eldest son an aversion from accepting a small country cure ; since, 
 blessed be God! he has a fair reputation for learning and piety, preaches 
 well, and is capable of doing more good where he is. You conclude, 
 * My wife will make my cousin Emily.' It was a small and insignificant 
 present, to my sister, indeed : but, poor girl, it was her whole estate ; 
 and if it had been received as kindly as it was meant, she would have 
 been highly pleased. 
 
 " I shall not detain you any longer, not so much as to apologize for 
 the tedious length of this letter. 
 
 " I should be glad if my service could be made acceptable to my
 
 168 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 sister ; to whom, with yourself, the children tender their humblest duty. 
 We all join in wishing you a happy new year, and very many of them. 
 I am your obliged and most obedient servant and sister, 
 
 " SUSANNA WESLEY." 
 Epworth, Jan. 20, 1721-2. 
 My birth day. 
 
 From the above letter we find that Mr. Samuel Annesley was alive 
 at Surat in 1722, seven years after the noises had ceased at the par- 
 sonage house at Ep worth; which Mrs. Wesley had supposed portended 
 his death. In the year 1724 it was reported that Mr. Annesley was 
 coming home in one of the Company's ships. Mrs. Wesley, hearing 
 the news, came up from Epworth to London, to meet him : but the 
 report was incorrect. This is the last mention I h'nd of Mr. Samuel 
 Annesley in any of the family papers which have come under my notice. 
 Nor is there any certainty when he died. We know he was alive in 
 1712, and possibly in 1720 or 1721. Mrs. Wesley's letter to him is 
 dated Jan. 20, 1722 ; his, to which it is an answer, was most probably 
 written in 1720. It is likely that his wife died before him, and that 
 there were no children: hence the Wesley family always supposed 
 they were his heirs. 
 
 Of BENJAMIN ANNESLEY I have not been able to collect any par- 
 ticulars. He was supposed by the remains of the Wesley family to 
 have been the person who went to the East Indies : but the preceding 
 letter shows it was Samuel. 
 
 Of Miss SARAH ANNESLEY I find nothing on record. 
 
 Of Miss JUDITH there is a painting in the family of Mr. Charles 
 Wesley, probably painted by Sir Peter Lely, where she is represented 
 as a very beautiful woman. A gentleman of splendid fortune paid his 
 addresses to her; and the attachment was mutual: but when she 
 perceived that he was addicted to much wine, she utterly refused to 
 marry him, and died single. 
 
 Of Miss Judith ANNESLEY, Mr. Dunton, her brother-in-law, gives 
 the following character : " She is a virgin of eminent piety. Good 
 books (above all, the Book of books,) are her sweetest entertainment; 
 and she finds more comfort there than others do in their wardrobe. In 
 a word, she keeps a constant watch over the frame of her soul and the 
 course of her actions by daily and strict examination of both." 
 
 Of Miss ANN ANNESLEY, Mr. Dunton, her brother-in-law, gives the 
 following character : " To drop her pious character would be ungrate- 
 ful. She is a wit for certain ; and however time may have dealt by 
 her, art never feigned, nor nature formed, a finer woman." 
 
 We have already seen that Miss ELIZABETH ANNESLEY was married 
 to Mr. John Dunton, the eccentric bookseller. She appears to have 
 been very eminent, both for piety and good sense. Dunton has shown 
 his attachment to her by the account he published of her death, and 
 some extracts which he gives from her papers found after her death.
 
 Dft. ANKESLEf's CHILDREN. 169 
 
 That Elizabeth Dunton was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley 
 was not less her honour than her happiness ; and of this care of Provi- 
 dence she discovers in her private papers a very grateful sense. 
 
 Religion had made early impressions on her mind. The new life 
 had sprung up by such- insensible degrees, that, like her noble and 
 reverend father, she knew not the time of her being turned to the 
 wisdom of the just. 
 
 Her Bible was the great companion and pleasure of her life ; and 
 she was so well acquainted with it that no portion of it could be 
 mentioned which she could not refer to the book, chapter, and verse, 
 in which it might be found. 
 
 She had an amiable disposition, and a heart full of charity to all who 
 differed from her in their religious opinions. She was a considerable 
 proficient even in polemical divinity, and had acquainted herself well 
 with the controversy on original sin, and the effects of it on the faculties 
 of the soul : on free-will, foreknowledge, grace, the revealed and secret 
 will of God, &c. Upon this last subject she writes, " I will obey 
 God's revealed will, and adore his secret will ; rest upon his promises, 
 and cast myself at the feet of Christ, attentive to my present duty. The 
 belief of God's foreknowledge, or his decreeing whatsoever comes to 
 pass, should not hinder me from duty, but render me diligent in it. I 
 ought to do more for my soul than my body ; and respecting the latter, 
 though I know not what food may nourish it, or what medicines relieve, 
 I will not neglect the means." 
 
 She owned that repentance is the gift of God, and that sin cannot 
 be pardoned but through the blood, the merits, and intercession of 
 Christ Jesus ; and that no spiritual act can be performed without divine 
 assistance. 
 
 She had kept a diary for twenty years, in which the gracious state of 
 her mind was particularly pointed out : but so far was she from vain 
 glory, that in her last illness she entreated her husband to burn those 
 large collections ; and it was with difficulty he obtained her permission, 
 for Mr. Rogers, who preached her funeral sermon, to extract those 
 passages which he has inserted in the discourse intituled, " The cha- 
 racter of a good woman, preached on the death of Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Dunton." Her reflections on a bed of sickness her husband published 
 in the Post Angel, for Feb. 1701, which 1 have not seen. 
 
 She was a great lover of solitude, because it gave her the oppor- 
 tunity of conversing with God and her own heart. But this did not 
 extend to the public means of grace, nor to public duties* Public wor- 
 ship, sermons, Sabbaths, and sacraments, were her refreshments on her 
 way to glory. On one of these occasions she wrote, " O how should 
 the thought of free unmerited grace fill us with love to God ! I am 
 filled with joy inexpressible, and with hope full of glory! What amaz- 
 ing love, that God should give his Son to die for sinners ! That he 
 should become man, and not have inhere to lay his head, when he came 
 to enrich the world ! Blessed God ! at this sacrament I cannot take a 
 denial of thy presence : I come to meet my God ; I cannot be com- 
 forted without him." 
 
 Her husband observes, " Her conjugal affection was a& remarka- 
 
 22
 
 170 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 ble as the rest of her character. Her happiness seemed wrapped up 
 in mine ; our interest and our inclinations were the same. When 
 affairs were perplexing, she never discovered uneasiness ; she made 
 use of means, and left the issue to Providence. When I happened to 
 be ill, she was much concerned ; and would impair her own health 
 rather than permit any one else to wait on me. I never went home, 
 and found her out of temper. But Heaven had a greater interest in her 
 than I could have : she was my better half ; but I knew my property 
 in her was not absolute. 
 
 " In her last illness, which continued seven months, she never uttered 
 one repining word; and was always willing to depart and to be with God. 
 Through the whole of her sickness she declared she had no doubt 
 upon her mind as to her eternal happiness. When near death she said 
 to one who stood by, ' Heaven will make amends for all. In a short 
 time I shall be happy. I have good ground to hope that when I die, I 
 shall through Christ, be blessed, for I dedicated my youth to God.' 
 
 " When I saw her departing, and was overwhelmed with sorrow, she 
 said with sweetness, ' Do not be so concerned at parting, for I trust 
 we shall meet where we shall part no more. Yet it is a solemn thing to 
 die ; whatever men may think of it. O this eternity ! There is no 
 time for preparing for heaven like the time of youth. Though death 
 be near, I can look back with joy on some of the early years 1 sweetly 
 spent in my father's house ; and think how comfortably I lived there. 
 What a mercy to be dedicated to God betimes.' 
 
 4t When her soul was just fluttering on her lips, she exclaimed, 
 * Lord, pardon my sins, and perfect me in holiness ! Accept of praises 
 for the mercies I have received, and fit me for whatsoever thou wilt do 
 with me, for Christ's sake !' 
 
 " A little after this she fell asleep in Jesus, on the 26th May, 1697." 
 
 In all the Annesley family of which we have any particulars, we see 
 the truth of that word, " Train up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from it." A pious education is next 
 in efficiency to the all-powerful grace of Christ. 
 
 The Annesley and Wesley families are striking proofs of this ! How 
 many thousands perish for want of a pious example and religious in- 
 struction in the house of their parents ! 
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 ' Miss Susanna Jlnnesley, afterward Susanna Wesley, was the youngest 
 daughter of Dr. Samuel Jlnnesley, already mentioned. She was born 
 on the 20th of January in the year 1669 or 1670. She was endowed 
 with a fine natural understanding, which was advanced to a very high 
 pitch of perfection by an education at once religious and literary. A 
 mind such as hers, nurtured under the roof and parental cares of Dr. 
 Annesley, had the highest advantages, and must have greatly profited 
 by them. Though her father was a conscientious Nonconformist, he 
 had too much dignity of mind, leading his religion out of the question,
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLET. 171 
 
 to he a bigot. Under the parental roof, and before she was thirteen 
 years of age, she examined without restraint the whole controversy 
 between the Established Church and the Dissenters. The issue of 
 which was, she renounced her religious fellowship with the latter, 
 and adopted the creed and forms of the Church of England ; to which 
 she faithfully and zealously adhered as long as she lived. It does not 
 appear that her father threw any obstacles in her way ; or that he after- 
 ward disapproved of her marrying a rigid orthodox Churchman ; who, 
 from a similar process, became a convert from the peculiar tenets of 
 his Nonconformist ancestors, to the ecclesiastical Establishment of the 
 kingdom. Nor have I learned after the most extensive search, and the 
 closest inquiry, that the slightest difference ever existed between him, 
 his son-in-law, and daughter, upon the subject. " I do not find," says 
 Miss Wesley, in a letter before me, " that Dr. Aunesley, or any of his 
 family were prejudiced against my grandfather for leaving the Dissent- 
 ers : but his mind was too enlarged to be prejudiced, whatever prefer- 
 ence he had to his own community." 
 
 It was about the year 1690 that she became the wife of Mr. Samuel 
 Wesley, when she was in the twentieth or twenty-first year of her age. 
 As Mr. Wesley was born in 1662, he was then in his twenty-eighth 
 year ; and she six or seven years younger than he. It is something 
 remarkable, that she survived him about the same number of years ; so 
 that their pilgrimage through life was nearly of the same duration. Her 
 youth, and having children in quick succession, and at different times 
 two at a birth, will account for the numerous family with which they 
 were blessed. 
 
 ' As their circumstances were narrow and confined, the education of their 
 progeny fell particularly upon themselves ; and especially on Mrs. Wes- 
 ley, who seems to have possessed every qualification requisite for either 
 a public or private teacher. Her manner was peculiar to herself, and de- 
 serves a distinct mention. She has detailed it in a letter to her son John, 
 (July 24, 1732,) where, speaking of the children, she says, " None of 
 them were taught to read till Jive years old, except Kezzy, in whose case 
 I was overruled, and she was more years in learning than any of the 
 rest had been months. The way of teaching was this : The day 
 before a child began to learn, the house was set in order, every one's 
 work appointed them, and a charge given that none should come into 
 the room from nine to twelve, or from two till five, which were our 
 school hours. 
 
 " One day was allowed the child wherein to learn its letters ; and 
 each of them did in that time know all its letters, great and smajl, 
 except J\Iolly and Nancy, who were a day and a half before they knew 
 them perfectly, for which I then thought them very dull ; but the reason 
 why I thought so was, because the rest learned them so readily ; and 
 your brother Samuel, who was the first child I ever taught, learnt the 
 alphabet in a few hours. He was^/iwe years old on the tenth of February ; 
 the next day he began 4o learn ; and as soon as he knew the letters, 
 began at the fir.st chapter of Genesis. He was taught to spell the first 
 verse, then to read it over and over, till he could read it oft hand with- 
 out any hesitation, and so on to the necond, &c, till ho took ten verses
 
 172 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 for a lesson, which he quickly did. Easter fell low that year, and by 
 Whitsuntide he could read a chapter very well ; for he read continually, 
 and had such a prodigious memory, that I cannot remember ever to have 
 told him the same word twice. What was yet stranger, any word he 
 had learnt in his lesson, he knew whenever he saw it, either in his 
 Bible or any other book, by which means he learnt very soon to read 
 an English author well. 
 
 " The same method was observed by them all. As soon as they 
 knew the letters, they were first put to spell, and read one line, and then 
 a verse ; never leaving till perfect in their lesson, were it shorter or 
 longer. So one or other continued reading at school time without any 
 intermission ; and before we left school, each child read what he had 
 learnt that morning ; and ere we parted in the afternoon, what they 
 had learnt that day." 
 
 I consider the above as positive facts, and have no doubt concerning 
 any of them : and take it for granted that almost any children may be 
 taught in the same way, and with similar success. But should it be 
 copied, and generally recommended ? I think not. A child should be 
 taught what it is necessary for it to know, as soon as that necessity 
 exists, and the child is capable of learning. Among children there is 
 a great disparity of intellect, and in the power of apprehension and 
 comprehension. Many children have such a precocity of intellect, as 
 to be more capable of learning to read at hco than others are at Jive years 
 of age : and it would be high injustice indeed to prevent them from 
 acquiring much useful knowledge, and some hundreds, if not thousands 
 of ideas, by waiting for a prescribed term of fire years. When a child 
 is capable of learning any thing, give that teaching ; but let the teach- 
 ing be regularly graduated ; let it go on from step to step, never oblig- 
 ing it to learn what it cannot yet comprehend. We begin very pro- 
 perly with letters, or the elementary signs of language ; teach the child 
 to distinguish them from each other, and give them in their names some 
 notion of their power. We then teach them to combine them into 
 simple SYLLABLES ; syllables into WORDS ; words into SENTENCES ; 
 sentences into SPEECHES, or regular discourse. This process is as 
 philosophic as it is natural: -but who follows it through the successive 
 steps of education ? Scarcely any. Because a child can understand a 
 little, and shows aptness in learning, parental fondness, or the teacher's 
 ignorance, come into powerful operation ; and the child is pushed un- 
 naturally forward to departments of learning to which it has not been 
 gradually inducted. The mind is puzzled and bewildered ; a great 
 gulf is left behind which cuts off all connection with what has been 
 already learned, and what is now proposed to the understanding ; and 
 the issue is, the child is confounded and discouraged ; and falls either 
 under the power of hebitude, or learns superficially, and never becomes 
 a correct scholar. A child must understand what it is doing, before it 
 can do what it ought. 
 
 Few are taught to spell their mother tongue correctly. They are 
 hurried on from reading to reading and prating, and never learn to spell 
 a sentence with propriety. Thus mothers, in general, teach their 
 children their mother's tongue.
 
 MRS. SU8ANNA WESLEY. 173 
 
 I have before me original letters of lords and ladies who were 
 correspondents of the Wesley family, where the writing is elegant, and 
 the spelling execrable. The learned languages cannot be acquired in 
 this way ; and hence they are more correctly learned in England than 
 English itself. Dr. Edmund Castel, (author of the Heptaglott Lexicon 
 that usually goes with Walton's Polyglott Bible,) was in Latin, Greek, 
 Hebrew, Samaritan, Chaldee, Syriac, JEthiopic, Arabic, and Persian, 
 the most learned man of his day in Great Britain : yet this same 
 eminent scholar could not write one sentence in English, correct in its 
 orthography. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley says nothing of teaching the children to spell : but her 
 plan in this must have been excellent, as all the family wrote in this 
 respect with the greatest accuracy. 
 
 " But why did Mrs. Wesley postpone the teaching her children their 
 letters till they were five years of age ? If this were not the best plan, 
 so very sensible a woman would never have adopted it." There is 
 perhaps a little mystery here, that may easily be explained. Samuel 
 was the eldest of Mrs. W.'s children : he was the first on which she 
 tried this method of instruction. " But why did she not begin with 
 him sooner]" 
 
 For this plain reason ; he could not speak ! Mr. Wesley himself 
 told me the following anecdote : 
 
 " My brother Samuel did not attempt to speak till he was between 
 four and five years old ; nor did the family know whether he would 
 ever be able to speak. To their surprise he began at once. There 
 was a cat in the house which was a great favourite with him ; he would 
 frequently carry it about, and retire with it into private places. One 
 day he disappeared ; the family sought up and down for him to no 
 purpose ; my mother got alarmed for his safety, and went through the 
 house loudly calling him by his name. At last she heard a voice from 
 under a table saying, Here am I, mother! Looking down, she to her 
 surprise saw Sammy and his cat. From this time he spoke regularly, 
 and without any kind of hesitation." 
 
 Had this story come to me by tradition, I should have found it 
 difficult of credit. 
 
 It was probably this circumstance that induced Mrs. W r esley to 
 adopt the five years' plan. W T ith Sam she could not begin sooner. 
 Mary and Anne she found it difficult to forward in the same way. 
 Kezzy she was persuaded to try before the time, and was unsuccessful. 
 She appears therefore to have fixed the term of five years partly from 
 necessity, and partly from experience. I have no doubt she might 
 have begun much sooner with most of them, with equal advantage to 
 herself, and much more to them. I do not hesitate therefore to 
 transcribe my own maxim : A child should be taught what is necessary 
 for it to know, as soon 03 that necessity exists, and the child is capable 
 oj learning. 
 
 Such was Mrs. Wesley's method of teaching her children to read ; 
 and she was equally assiduous in teaching them their duty to God, and 
 to their parents. She had nineteen children, most of whom lived to be 
 educated ; and ten came to man and woman's estate. Her son John
 
 174 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 mentions " the calm serenity with which his mother transacted business, 
 wrote letters, and conversed, surrounded by her thirteen children." 
 All these were educated by herself. And as she was a woman that 
 lived by rule, she methodized and arranged every thing so exactly, that 
 to each operation she had a time ; and time sufficient to transact all the 
 business of the family. It appears also from several of the private 
 papers, that she had no small share in managing the secular concerns 
 of the rectory. The tithes and glebe were much under her inspection. 
 As to the children, their times of going to rest, rising in the morning, 
 dressing, eating, learning, and exercise, she managed by rule ; which 
 was never suffered to be broken, unless in case of sickness. From 
 her Mr. John Wesley derived all that knowledge in the education of 
 children, which he has detailed so amply, and so successfully enforced. 
 It has been wondered at that a man who had no children of his own 
 could have known so well how they should be managed and educated : 
 but that wonder will at once cease, when it is recollected by whom he 
 was himself educated ; and who was his instructress in all things, 
 during his infancy and youth. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley taught her children from their earliest age their duty to 
 their parents. She had little difficulty in breaking their leills, or 
 reducing them to absolute subjection. They were early brought by 
 rational means under a mild yoke : they were perfectly obsequious to 
 their parents ; and were taught to wait their decision in every thing 
 they were to have, and in every thing they were to perform. 
 
 They were taught also to ask a blessing upon their food, to behave 
 quietly at family prayers, and to reverence the Sabbath. They were 
 never permitted to command the servants, or to use any words of autho- 
 rity in their addresses to them. Mrs. Wesley charged the servants to 
 do nothing for any of the children unless they asked it with humility 
 and respect ; and the children were duly informed that the servants 
 had such orders. This is the foundation, and indeed the essence, of 
 good breeding. Insolent, impudent, and disagreeable children are to 
 be met with every where ; because this simple, but important, mode of 
 bi-inging up is neglected. " Molly, Robert, be pleased to do so and 
 so," was the usual method of request both from the sons and the daugh- 
 ters ; and because the children behaved thus decently, the domestics 
 reverenced and loved them ; were strictly attentive to, and felt it a 
 privilege to serve them. 
 
 They were never permitted to contend with each other ; whatever 
 differences arose, the parents were the umpires, and their decision was 
 never disputed. The consequence was, there were few misunder- 
 standings among them, and no unbrotherly or vindictive passions : and 
 they had the common fame of being the mott loving family in the county 
 of Lincoln ! How much evil may be prevented, and how much good 
 may be done, by judicious management in the education of children ? 
 
 But Mrs. Wesley's whole method in bringing up and managing her 
 family is so amply detailed in the letter from which I have made the 
 extract relative to the mode of teaching them to read, that it would bo 
 as great an injustice to her to omit it, as it will be profitable to every 
 reader to see it.
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 175 
 
 " Epworth, July 24, 1732. 
 
 u DEAR SON, According to your desire I have collected the principal 
 rules I observed in educating my family. 
 
 " The children were always put into a regular method of living, in 
 such things as they were capable of, from their birth ; as in dressing 
 and undressing, changing their linen, Sic. The first quarter commonly 
 passes in sleep. After that they were, if possible, laid into their cradle 
 awake, and rocked to sleep ; and so they were kept rocking till it was 
 time for them to awake. This was done to bring them to a regular 
 course of sleeping, which at first was three hours in the morning, and 
 three in the afternoon ; afterward two hours, till they needed none at 
 all. When turned a year old, (and some before) they were taught to 
 fear the rod, and to cry softly, by which means they escaped abundance 
 of correction which they might otherwise have had ; and that most 
 odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house : 
 but the family usually lived in as much quietness as if there had not 
 been a child among them. 
 
 " As soon as they were grown pretty strong, they were confined to 
 three meals a day. At dinner their little table and chairs were set by 
 ours, where they could be overlooked ; and they were suffered to eat 
 and drink (small beer) as much as they would, but not to call for any 
 thing. If they wanted aught, they used to whisper to the maid that 
 attended them, who came and spake to me ; and as soon as they could 
 handle a knife and fork, they were set to our table. They were never 
 suffered to choose their meat : but always made to eat such things as 
 were provided for the family. Mornings they always had spoonmeat ; 
 sometimes at nights. But whatever they had, they were never permit- 
 ted at those meals to eat of more than one thing, and of that sparingly 
 enough. Drinking or eating between meals was never allowed unless 
 in case of sickness, which seldom happened. Nor were they suffered 
 to go into the kitchen to ask any thing of the servants, when they were 
 at meat : if it was known they did so, they were certainly beat, and the 
 servants severely reprimanded. 
 
 " At *, as soon as family prayer was over, they had their supper ; 
 at seven the maid washed them, and beginning at the youngest, she 
 undressed and got them all to bed by eight; at which time she left 
 them in their several rooms awake, for there was no such thing allowed 
 of, in our house, as sitting by a child till it fell asleep. 
 
 " They were so constantly used to eat and drink what was given 
 them, that when any of them was ill, there was no difficulty in making 
 them take the most unpleasant medicine, for they durst not refuse it, 
 though some of them would presently throw it up. This I mention to 
 show that a person may be taught to take any thing, though it be never 
 so much against his stomach. 
 
 " In order to form the minds of the children, the first thing tq be 
 done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper. 
 To inform the Understanding is a work of time ; and must with children 
 proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it : but the subjecting 
 the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the 
 better ; for by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stub-
 
 176 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 bornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever after conquered, and 
 never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to 
 the child. In the esteem of the world, they pass for kind and indulgent, 
 whom I call cruel, parents ; who permit their children to get habits 
 which they know must be afterward broken. Nay, some are so 
 stupidly fond, as in sport to teach their children to do things, which in 
 a while after they have severely beaten them for doing. \Vhen a child 
 is corrected it must be conquered, and this Will be no hard matter to 
 do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when 
 the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and 
 stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and 
 inadvertencies may be passed by. Some should be overlooked and 
 taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved ; but no wilful trans- 
 gressions ought ever to be forgiven children, without chastisement less 
 or more, as the nature and circumstances of the offence may require. 
 I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes, because this is 
 the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without 
 which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is 
 thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the 
 reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to 
 maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind. 
 
 I cannot yet dismiss this subject. As self-will is the root of all sin 
 and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after 
 wretchedness and irreligion: whatever checks and mortifies it, promotes 
 their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident if we farther 
 consider that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, 
 and not our own ; that the one grand impediment to our temporal and 
 eternal happiness being this self-will, no indulgences of it can be trivial, 
 no denial unprofitable. Heaven or hell depends on this alone. So 
 that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child, works together 
 with God in the renewing and saving a soul. The parent who indulges 
 it does the devil's work ; makes religion impracticable, salvation unat- 
 tainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child soul arid body 
 for ever. 
 
 " Our children were taught, as soon as they could speak, the Lord's 
 prayer, which they were made to say at rising and bed-time constantly ; 
 to which, as they grew bigger were added a short prayer for their 
 parents, and some collects, a short catechism, and some portion of 
 Scripture, as their memories could bear. They were very early made 
 to distinguish the Sabbath from other days before they could well speak 
 or go*. They were as soon taught to be still at family prayers, and to 
 ask a blessing immediately after, which they used to do by signs, before 
 they could kneel or speak, 
 
 " They were quickly made to understand they might have nothing 
 they cried for, and instructed to speak handsomely for what they wanted. 
 They were not suffered to ask even the lowest servant for aught, without 
 saying, Pray, give me such a thing ; and the servant was chid if she 
 ever let them omit that word. 
 
 "Taking God's name in vain, cursing and swearing, profaneness, 
 obscenity, rude ill-bred names, were never heard among them ; nor
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY, 177 
 
 were they ever permitted to call each other by their proper names 
 without the addition of brother or sister. 
 
 " There was no such thing as loud talking or playing allowed of: but 
 every one was kept close to business for the six hours of school. And 
 it is almost incredible what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year 
 by a vigorous application, if it have but a tolerable capacity and good 
 health. Kezzy excepted, all could read better in that time, than the 
 most of women can do as long as they live. Rising out of their places, 
 or going out of the room, was not permitted except for good cause ; 
 and running into the yard, garden, or street, without leave, was always 
 esteemed a capital offence. 
 
 " For some years we went on very well. Never were children in 
 better order. Never were children better disposed to piety, or in more 
 subjection to their parents, till that fatal dispersion of them after the fire, 
 into several families. In those they were left at full liberty to converse 
 with servants, which before they had always been restrained from ; and 
 to run abroad to play with any children good or bad. They soon learn- 
 ed to neglect a strict observance of the Sabbath ; and got knowledge 
 of several songs and bad things, which before they had no notion of. 
 That civil behaviour, which made them admired, when they were at 
 home, by all who saw them, was in a great measure lost ; and a clown- 
 ish accent and many rude ways were learnt, which were not reformed 
 without some difficulty. 
 
 " When the house was rebuilt, and the children all brought home, 
 we entered on a strict reform ; and then was begun the custom of 
 singing psalms at beginning and leaving school morning and evening. 
 Then also that of a general retirement at five o'clock was entered upon. 
 When the oldest took the youngest that could speak, and the second 
 the next, to whom they read the psalms for the day, and a chapter in 
 the New Testament : as in the morning they were directed to read the 
 psalms, and a chapter in the Old ; after which, they went to their private 
 prayers, before they got their breakfast, or came into the family. 
 
 " There were several by-laws observed among us. I mention them 
 here because I think them useful. 
 
 " 1. It had been observed that cowardice and fear of punishment 
 often lead children into lying ; till they get a custom of it which they 
 cannot leave. To prevent this, a law was made that whoever was 
 charged with a fault, of which thsy were guilty, if they would ingenu- 
 ously confess it, and promise to amend, should not be beaten. This 
 rule prevented a great deal of lying ; and would have done more, if 
 one in the family would have observed it. But he could not be pre- 
 vailed on, and therefore was often imposed upon by false colours and 
 equivocations, which none would have used but one had they been kindly 
 dealt with ; and some in spite of all would always speak truth plainly. 
 
 " 2. That no sinful action, as lying, pilfering, playing at Church or 
 on the Lord's day, disobedience, quarelling, &c, should ever pass 
 unpunished. 
 
 " 3. That no child should ever be chid, or beat twice for the sam 
 fault ; and that if they amended, they should never be upbraided with 
 it afterward. 
 
 23
 
 178 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 ** 4. That every signal act of obedience, especially when it crossed 
 upon their own inclinations, should be always commended, and fre- 
 quently rewarded, according to the merits of the case. 
 
 " 5. That if ever any child performed an act of obedience, or did 
 any thing with an intention to please, though the performance was not 
 well, yet the obedience and intention should be kindly accepted, and 
 the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future. 
 
 "6. That propriety be inviolably preserved; and none suffered to 
 invade the property of another in the smallest matter, though it were 
 but of the value of a farthing, or a pin ; which they might not take 
 from the owner without, much less against, his consent. This rule 
 can never be too much inculcated on the minds of children ; and from 
 the want of parents or governors doing it as they ought, proceeds that 
 shameful neglect of justice which we may observe in the world. 
 
 " 7. That promises be strictly observed ; and a gift once bestowed, 
 and so the right passed away from the donor, be not resumed, but left 
 to the disposal of him to whom it was given ; unless it were conditional, 
 and the condition of the obligation not performed. 
 
 " 8. That no girl be taught to work till she can read very well ; and 
 then that she be kept to her work with the same application, and for 
 the same time, that she was held to in reading. This rule also is much 
 to be observed ; for the putting children to learn sewing before they 
 can read perfectly is the very reason why so few women can read fit to 
 be heard, and never to be well understood." 
 
 After such management, who need wonder at the rare excellence of 
 the Wesley family ! 
 
 Mrs. Wesley never considered herself discharged from the care of 
 her children. Into all situations she followed them with her prayers 
 and counsels : and her sons, even when at the university, found the 
 utility of her wise and parental instructions. They proposed to her all 
 their doubts, and consulted her in all difficulties. The following letter 
 to her son John, in answer to queries proposed concerning some 
 authors, and their opinions, will show how able she was to instruct, 
 and what her opinion was relative to the doctrine of predestination 
 especially. 
 
 " JVroote, Jan. 8, 172$. 
 
 " DEAR SON, I cannot recollect the passages you mention : but 
 believing you do the author, I positively aver that he is extremely in 
 the wrong in that impious, not to say blasphemous, assertion, That 
 God by an irresistible decree hath determined any man to be miserable, 
 even in this life. His intentions, as himself, are holy, and just, and 
 good ; and all the miseries incident to men here or hereafter spring 
 from themselves. The case stands thus : This life is a state of 
 probation, wherein eternal happiness or misery is proposed to our 
 choice ; the one as the reward of a virtuous, the other as a consequence 
 of a vicious, life. Man is a compound being, a strange mixture of 
 spirit and matter; or rather a creature, wherein those opposite principles 
 are united without mixture, yet each principle, after an incomprehensible 
 manner, subject to the influence of the other. The true happiness of 
 man, under this consideration, consists in a due subordination of the
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 179 
 
 inferior to the superior powers ; of the animal to the rational nature ; 
 and of bolh to GOD. 
 
 44 This was his original righteousness and happiness that was lost 
 in Adam : and to restore man to this happiness, by the recovery of his 
 original righteousness, was certainly God's design in admitting him to 
 the state of trial on the world, and of our redemption by Jesus Christ. 
 And surely this was a design truly worthy of God ! and the greatest 
 instance of mercy that even Omnipotent goodness could exhibit to us. 
 
 44 As the happiness of man consists in a due subordination of the 
 inferior to the superior powers, &c, so the inversion of this order is 
 the true source of human misery. There is in us all a natural propen- 
 sion toward the body and the world. The beauty, pleasures, and ease, 
 of the body strangely charm us ; the wealth and honours of the world 
 allure us : and all, under the manage of a subtle malicious adversary, 
 give a prodigious force to present things ; and if the animal life once 
 get the ascendant of our reason, it utterly deprives us of our moral 
 liberty, and by consequence makes us wretched. Therefore for any 
 man to endeavour after happiness, in gratifying all his bodily appetites 
 in opposition to his reason, is the greatest folly imaginable : because 
 he seeks it where God has not designed he shall ever find it. But this 
 is the case of the generality of men : they live as mere animals, wholly 
 given up to the interests and pleasures of the body ; and all the use of 
 their understanding is, to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts 
 thereof, without the least regard to future happiness or misery. 
 
 44 It is true, our eternal state lies under a vast disadvantage to us in 
 this life, in that, that it is future and invisible : and it requires great 
 attention and application of mind, frequent retirement, and intense think- 
 ing, to excite our affections, and beget such an habitual sense of it as is 
 requisite to enable us to walk steadily in the paths of virtue, in opposi- 
 tion to our corrupt nature, and all the vicious customs and maxims of 
 the world. Our blessed Lord who came from heaven to save us from 
 our sins, as well as the punishment of them, as knowing that it was 
 impossible for us to be happy in either world, unless we were holy, did 
 not intend by commanding us to take up the cross, that we should bid 
 adieu to all joy and satisfaction indefinitely : but he opens and extends 
 our views beyond time to eternity. He directs us where to place our 
 joys ; how to seek satisfaction durable as our being ; which is not to 
 be found in gratifying, but in retrenching our sensual appetites ; not in 
 obeying the dictates of our irregular passions, but in correcting their 
 exorbitancy, bringing every appetite of the body and power of the soul 
 under subjection to his laws, if we would follow him to heaven. And 
 because he knew we could not do this without great contradiction to 
 our corrupt animality, therefore he enjoins us to take up this cross, and 
 to fight under his banner against the flesh, the world, and the devil. 
 And when, by the grace of God's Holy Spirit, we are so far conquerors, 
 as that we never willingly offend, but still press after greater degrees of 
 Christian perfection, sincerely endeavouring to plant each virtue in our 
 minds, that may through Christ render us pleasing to God ; we shall 
 then experience the truth of Solomon's assertion, The ways of virtue 
 are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.'
 
 180 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " I take Kempis to have been an honest weak man, who had more 
 zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful 
 or useless, in opposition to so many direct and plain texts of Scripture. 
 Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasure ; of the 
 innocence or malignity of actions ; take this rule, Whatever weakens 
 your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your 
 sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things : in short, what- 
 ever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, 
 that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself. And so 
 -on the contrary. 
 
 " 'Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a good man. That is 
 an affliction that makes an affliction either to good or bad. Nor do I 
 understand how any man can thank God for present misery ; yet do I 
 very well know what it is to rejoice in the midst of deep afflictions ; not 
 in the affliction itself, for then it would necessarily cease to be one : 
 but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a God who never 
 did, and never can, exert his power in any act of injustice, oppression, 
 or cruelty ; in the power of that superior wisdom which disposes all 
 events, and has promised that all things shall work together for good 
 (for the spiritual and eternal good) of those that love him. We may 
 rejoice in hope that Almighty goodness will not suffer us to be tempted 
 above that we are able ; but will with the temptation make a way to 
 escape, that we may be able to bear it. In a word, we may and ought 
 to rejoice that God has assured us he will never leave or forsake us : 
 but if we continue faithful to him, he will take care to conduct us safely, 
 through all the changes and chances of this mortal life, to those blessed 
 regions of joy and immortality, where sin and sorrow can never enter." 
 
 There are many excellent sentiments and observations in the preced- 
 ing letter ; and the whole proves a capacious and well disciplined mind, 
 that tried itself to the bottom, and saw how little it could depend on its 
 own exertions without the especial help of the grace and Spirit of Christ. 
 
 In the following month she wrote a more direct answer to the ques- 
 tion concerning election and predestination ; and especially the seven- 
 teenth article of the Church, on which her son appears to have been 
 not a little puzzled. 
 
 To many these points will appear to be clearly stated, and satisfac- 
 torily discussed, in this letter. 
 
 " Wroote, July 18, 1725. 
 
 M I have often wondered that men should be so vain to amuse 
 themselves by searching into the decrees of God, which no human wit 
 can fathom ; and do not rather employ their time and powers in work- 
 ing out their salvation^ and making their own calling and election sure. 
 Such studies tend more to confound than inform the understanding ; 
 and young people had best let them alone. But since I find you have 
 some scruples concerning our article of predestination, I will tell you 
 my thoughts of the matter ; and if they satisfy not, you may desire your 
 father's direction, who is surely better qualified for a casuist than me. 
 
 " The doctrine of predestination, as maintained by rigid Calvinists, 
 >s very shocking ; and ought utterly to be abhorred, because it charges
 
 MRS. 8U3ANXA WESLET. 181 
 
 the most holy God with being the author of sin. And I think you 
 reason very well and justly against it ; for it is certainly inconsistent 
 with the justice and goodness of God to lay any man under either a 
 physical or moral necessity of committing sin, and then punish him for 
 doing it. Far be this from the Lord ! Shall not the Judge of all the 
 earth do right ? 
 
 " I do firmly believe that God from all eternity hath elected some to 
 everlasting life : but then I humbly conceive, that this election is found- 
 ed in his foreknowledge, according to that in the eighth of Romans, 
 ver. 29, 30, Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be 
 conformed to the image of his Son : Moreover whom he did predesti- 
 date, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; 
 and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 
 
 " Whom, in his eternal prescience, God saw would make a right use 
 of their powers and accept of offered mercy, he did predestinate, adopt 
 for his children, his peculiar treasure. And that they might be con- 
 formed to the image of his only Son, he called them to himself by his 
 eternal word, through the preaching of the Gospel ; and internally by 
 his Holy Spirit : which call they obeying, repenting of their sins, and 
 believing in the Lord Jesus, he justifies them, absolves them from 
 the guilt of all their sins, and acknowledges them as just and righteous 
 persons, through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ. And hav- 
 ing thus justified, he receives them to glory, to heaven. 
 
 " This is the sum of what I believe concerning predestination, which 
 I think is agreeable to the analogy of faith ; since it does in no wise 
 derogate from the glory of God's free grace, nor impair the liberty of 
 man. Nor can it with more reason be supposed that the prescience of 
 God is the cause that so many finally perish, than that our knowing the 
 sun will rise to-morrow is the cause of its rising." 
 
 Mr. Wesley found it difficult to reconcile the seventeenth article of 
 the Church, concerning predestination, to the general doctrines of the 
 Church, and to the Holy Scriptures. He knew, and has often demon- 
 strated, that the Calvinistic doctrines of reprobation and election are 
 false : but still there appeared to be something to support them in the 
 above article, and it was in reference to this that he wished to have his 
 mother's views of the subject. 
 
 The following letter, written to him nearly two years after, will show 
 what care this excellent mother took of her son's spiritual progress, and 
 of his regular deportment through life. 
 
 "Jan. 31, 1727. 
 
 " I am heartily persuaded, that the reason why so many seek 
 
 to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but are not able, is, there is some 
 Delilah, some one beloved vice they will not part with ; hoping that by 
 a strict observance of their duty in other things, that particular fault 
 will be dispensed with. But, alas ! they miserably deceive themselves. 
 The way which leads to heaven is so narrow, the gate we must enter in 
 so strait, that it will not permit a man to pass with one known unmorti- 
 fied sin about him. Therefore let every one in the beginning of their 
 Christian course seriously weigh what our Lord says in St. Luke xiv,
 
 182 OF MU. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 27-34, ' For whosoever having put his hand to the plough, looketh 
 back, is not fit for the kingdom of God.' 
 
 " I am nothing pleased we advised you to have your plaid ; though 
 I am that you think it too dear ; because I take it to be an indication 
 that you are disposed to thrift, which is a rare qualification in a young 
 man, who has his fortune to make. Indeed such a one can hardly be 
 too wary, or too careful. I would not recommend taking thought for 
 the morrow any farther than is needful for our improvement of present 
 opportunities, in a prudent manage of those talents God has committed 
 to our trust. And so far I think it is the duty of all to take thought for 
 the morrow. And I heartily wish you may be well apprized of this 
 while life is young. For, 
 
 Believe me, youth ; (for I am read in cares, 
 
 And bend beneath the weight of more than fifty years.) 
 
 Believe me, dear son, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend 
 either our lives or our fortunes. If the foundations of solid piety are 
 not laid betimes in sound principles and virtuous dispositions ; and if 
 we neglect, while strength and vigour lasts, to lay up something ere the 
 infirmities of age overtake us, it is a hundred to one odds that we shall 
 die both poor and wicked. 
 
 " Ah ! my dear son, did you with me stand on the verge of life, and 
 saw before your eyes a vast expanse, an unlimited duration of being, 
 which you might shortly enter upon, you can't conceive how all the 
 inadvertencies, mistakes, and sins, of youth would rise to your view ! 
 and how different the sentiments of sensitive pleasures, the desire of 
 sexes, and pernicious friendships of the world, would be then, from 
 what they are now, while health is entire, and seems to promise many 
 years of life." 
 
 The following letter on the nature and properties of love would be a 
 gem even in the best written treatise on the powers and passions of the 
 human mind. The concluding advice relative to the mode of treating 
 such matters in public preaching must interest all those who minister 
 at the altar of the Lord. 
 
 " Wroote, May 14, 1727. 
 
 " DEAR SON, The difficulty there is in separating the ideas of 
 things that nearly resemble each other, and whose properties and effects 
 are much the same, has, I believe, induced some to think that the 
 human soul has no passion but LOVE ; and that all those passions or 
 affections which we distinguish by the names of hope, fear, joy, &c, are 
 no more than various modes of love. This notion carries some show 
 of reason, though I can't acquiesce in it. I must confess I never yet 
 met with such an accurate definition of the passion of love, as fully 
 satisfied me. It is indeed commonly defined a desire of union with a 
 known or apprehended good. But this directly makes love and desire 
 the same thing ; which on a close inspection I conceive they are not, 
 for this reason, desire is strongest, and acts most vigorously, when 
 the beloved object is distant, absent, or apprehended unkind or dis- 
 pleased ; whereas when the union is attained, and fruition perfect, com- 
 placency, delight, and joy, fill the soul of the lover, while desire lies
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 183 
 
 quiescent ; which plainly shows (at least to me) that desire of union is 
 an effect of love, and not love itself. 
 
 " What then is love ? or how shall we describe its strange myste- 
 rious essence ? It is I do not know what ! A powerful something ! 
 source of our joy and grief! Felt and experienced by every one, and 
 yet unknown to all ! Nor shall we ever comprehend what it is, till we 
 are united to our first principle, and there read its wondrous nature in 
 the clear mirror of uncreated Love ! till which time it is best to rest 
 satisfied with such apprehensions of its essence as we can collect from 
 our observations of its effects and properties ; for other knowledge of 
 it in our present state is too high and too wonderful for us ; neither 
 can we attain unto it. 
 
 " Suffer now a word of advice. However curious you may be in 
 searching into the nature, or in distinguishing the properties, of the 
 passions or virtues of human kind, for your own private satisfaction ; 
 be very cautious in giving nice distinctions in public assemblies, for it 
 does not answer the true end of preaching, which is to mend men's 
 lives, and not fill their heads with unprofitable speculations. And 
 after all that can be said, every affection of the soul is better known 
 by experience than by any description that can be given of it. An 
 honest man will more easily apprehend what is meant by being zealous 
 for God, and against sin, when he hears what are the properties and 
 effects of true zeal, than the most accurate definition of its essence. 
 
 " Dear son, the conclusion of your letter is very kind. That you 
 were ever dutiful, I very well know. But I know myself enough to 
 rest satisfied with a moderate degree of your affection. Indeed it 
 would be unjust in me to desire the love of any one. Your prayers I 
 want and wish ; nor shall I cease while I live to beseech almighty God 
 to bless you. Adieu." 
 
 It appears that about this time Mr. J. Wesley had written to his 
 mother concerning afflictions, and what was the best method of profit- 
 ing by them ; also expressing a wish that he might not survive so kind 
 and good a parent ; and stating his conviction how happy she, who 
 had lived so much devoted to God, must be in her last hours. To all 
 of which she answers with her usual good sense, strong judgment, and 
 deep piety. 
 
 " Wroote, July 26, 1727. 
 
 " It is certainly true that I have had large experience of what the 
 world calls adverse fortune. But I have not made those improvements 
 in piety and virtue, under the discipline of Providence, that I ought to 
 have done ; therefore I humbly conceive myself to be unfit for an 
 assistant to another in affliction, since I have so ill performed my own 
 duty. But, blessed be God ! you are at present in pretty easy cir- 
 cumstances ; which I thankfully acknowledge is a great mercy to me 
 as well as you. Yet if hereafter you should meet with troubles of 
 various sorts, as it is probable you will in the course of your life, be 
 it of short or long continuance ; the best preparation I know of for 
 sufferings is a regular and exact performance of present duty ; for this 
 will surely render a man pleasing to God, and put him directly under
 
 184 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 the protection of his good providence, so that no evil shall befall him, 
 but what he will certainly be the better for it. 
 
 " It is incident to all men to regard the past and the future while the 
 present moments pass unheeded ; whereas, in truth, neither the one nor 
 the other is of use to us any farther than they put us upon improving 
 the present time. 
 
 " You did well to correct that fond desire of dying before me ; since 
 you do not know what work God may have for you to do ere you 
 leave the world. And beside, I ought surely to have the pre-eminence 
 in point of time, and go to rest before you. Whether you could see 
 me die without any emotions of grief I know not ; perhaps you could : 
 it is what I have often desired of the children, that they would not 
 weep at our parting, and so make death more uncomfortable than it 
 would otherwise be to me. If you or any other of my children were 
 like to reap any spiritual advantage by being with me at my exit, I 
 should be glad to have you with me. But as I have been an unprofit- 
 able servant, during the course of a long life, I have no reason to hope 
 for so great an honour, so high a favour, as to be employed in doing 
 our Lord any service in the article of death. It were well if you spake 
 prophetically, and that joy and hope might have the ascendant over the 
 other passions of my soul in that important hour. Yet I dare not presume, 
 nor do I despair, but rather leave it to our almighty Saviour, to do with 
 me both in life and death just what he pleases, for I have no choice !" 
 
 The following letter, on the absolute necessity of a Redeemer to 
 save fallen man, and of faith in him in order to salvation, will doubtless 
 meet with the full approbation of every pious reader. 
 
 " Epivorth, Feb. 14, 1735. 
 
 " DEAR SON, Since God is altogether inaccessible to us but by Jesus 
 Christ, and since none ever was or ever will be saved but by him, is 
 it not absolutely necessary for all people, young and old, to be well 
 grounded in the knowledge and faith of Jesus Christ ? By faith, I do 
 not mean an assent only to the truths of the Gospel concerning him ; 
 but such an assent as influences our practice, as makes us heartily 
 and thankfully accept him for our God and Saviour upon his own con- 
 ditions. No faith below this can be saving. And since this faith is 
 necessary to salvation, can it be too frequently, or too explicitly, dis- 
 coursed on to young people ? I think not. 
 
 " But since the natural pride of man is wont to suggest to him that 
 he is self-sufficient, and has no need of a Saviour ; may it not be pro- 
 per to show (the young especially) that without the great atonement, 
 there could be no remission of sin ? And that in the present state of 
 human nature no man can qualify himself for heaven, without the Holy 
 Spirit which is given by God incarnate ? To convince them of this 
 truth, might it not be needful to inform them, that since God is infi- 
 nitely just, or rather that he is justice itself, it necessarily follows that 
 vindictive justice is an essential property in the divine nature ; and if so, 
 one of these two things seems to have been absolutely necessary ; 
 either, that there must be an adequate satisfaction made to the divine 
 justice for the violation of God's law by mankind, or else that the whole
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 185 
 
 human species should have perished in Adam, (which would have 
 afforded too great matter of triumph to the apostate angels ;) other- 
 wise how could God have been just to himself? Would not some 
 mention of the necessity of revealed religion be proper here ? since, 
 without it, all the wit of man could never have found out how human 
 nature was corrupted in its fountain ; neither had it been possible for us 
 to have discovered any way or means whereby it might have been restored 
 to its primitive purity. Nay, had it been possible for the brighest an- 
 gels in heaven to have found out such a way to redeem and restore 
 mankind as God hath appointed ; yet, durst any of them have proposed 
 it to the uncreated Godhead ? No ; surely the offended must ap- 
 point the way to save the offender, or man must be lost for ever. O 
 the depth of the riches of the wisdom, and knowledge, and goodness, of 
 God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding 
 out ! As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his thoughts 
 higher than our thoughts, and his ways than our ways ! 
 
 " Here, surely, you may give free scope to your spirits. Here you 
 may freely use your Christian liberty ; and discourse without reserve 
 of the excellency of the knowledge and love of Christ, as his Spirit 
 gives you utterance. 
 
 " What, my son, did the pure and holy Person of the Son of God 
 pass by tjie fallen angels, who were far superior, of greater dignity, and 
 of a higher order in the scale of existence, and choose to unite himself 
 to the human nature ! And shall we soften, as you call it, these glo- 
 rious truths ? Rather let us speak boldly, without fear. These truths 
 ought to be frequently inculcated, and pressed home upon the con- 
 sciences of men ; and when once men are affected with a sense of 
 redeeming love, that sense will powerfully convince them of the van- 
 ity of the world ; and make them esteem the honour, wealth, and 
 pleasures of it as dross or dung so that they may win Christ. 
 
 " As for moral subjects they are necessary to be discoursed on : but 
 then I humbly conceive we are to speak of moral virtues as Christians, 
 and not like Heathens. And if we would indeed do honour to our 
 Saviour, we should take all fitting occasions to make men observe the 
 essence and perfection of the moral virtues taught by Christ and his 
 apostles, far surpassing all that was pretended to by the very best of the 
 Heathen philosophers. All their morality was defective in principle and 
 direction ; was intended only to regulate the outward actions, but 
 never reached the heart ; or, at the highest, it looked no farther than 
 the temporal happiness of mankind. ' But moral virtues, evangelized 
 or improved into Christian duties, have partly a view to promote the 
 good of human society here, but chiefly to qualify the observers of them 
 for a much more blessed and more enduring society hereafter.' I cannot 
 stay to enlarge on this vast subject ; nor indeed (considering whom I 
 write to) is it needful : yet one thing I cannot forbear adding, which 
 may carry some weight with his admirers ; and that is, the very wise 
 and just reply which Mr. Locke made to one that desired him to draw 
 up a system of morals. Did the world,' said he, * want a rule, I con- 
 fess there could be no work so necessary, nor so commendable : but 
 the Gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics, that reason may be 
 
 24
 
 186 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 excused from the inquiry, since she may find man's duty clearer and 
 easier in Revelation than in herself.' 
 
 " That you may continue steadfast in the faith, and increase more 
 and more in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus 
 Christ ! that holiness, simplicity, and purity, (which are different words 
 signifying the same thing) may recommend you to the favour of God 
 incarnate ! that his Spirit may dwell in you, and keep you still (as now,) 
 under a sense of God's blissful presence ! is the hearty prayer of, dear 
 son, your affectionate mother and most faithful friend, 
 
 " S. W." 
 
 With respect to the angelic nature my creed is different from that of 
 Mrs. Wesley. I believe man, as he came from the hands of God, was 
 much higher in the excellence and perfection of his nature than angels. 
 JVfau teas created in the image and likeness of God. This is not said 
 of angels nor archangels ; and it appears to me that it was the superior 
 excellence of this nature that caused Jesus Christ to take upon him the 
 nature of man, and not the nature of angels. 
 
 The last of her letters I shall give the reader in this place. It is 
 one written to her son John near the close of this year, on the happi- 
 ness resulting from a close and constant communion with God. She 
 had a few months before buried the husband of her youth ; and was now, 
 as I collect, on a visit to her daughter Emily, who had taken up a school 
 at Gainsborough, about twelve miles from Epworth. 
 
 " Gainsborough, JVbu. 27, 1735. 
 
 u God is Being itself! the I Am ! and therefore must ne- 
 cessarily be the Supreme Good ! He is so infinitely blessed, that every 
 perception of his blissful presence imparts a vital gladness to the heart. 
 Every degree of approach toward him is, in the same proportion, a 
 degree of happiness. And I often think that were he always present 
 to our mind, as we are present to him, there would be no pain, nor sense 
 of misery. I have long since chose him for my only good ! my all ! 
 my pleasure, my happiness in this world, as well as in the world to 
 come ! And although I have not been so faithful to his grace as I ought 
 to have been ; yet I feel my spirit adheres to its choice, and aims daily 
 at cleaving steadfast unto God. Yet one thing often troubles me, that 
 notwithstanding I know that while we are present with the body we are 
 absent from the Lord ; notwithstanding I have no taste, no relish, left 
 for any thing the world calls pleasure, yet I do not long to go home as 
 in reason I ought to do. This often shocks me : and as I constantly 
 pray (almost without ceasing) for thee, my son ; so I beg you likewise 
 to pray for me, that God would make me better, and take me at the 
 best ! Your loving mother, 
 
 " SUSANNA WESLEY." 
 
 We have now seen, 1. The plan this extraordinary woman adopted 
 in the nursing and bringing up of her children ; and, 2. The pains she 
 took with her son John, when at the university, to instil into him those 
 heavenly truths which he afterward with such clearness, strength, and 
 effect, declared to the world. 3. We shall find from what follows, that
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 187 
 
 she endeavoured to embody all her knowledge and experience, and 
 form them into a regular system for the future edification of her family. 
 Mrs. Wesley not only examined the grounds of the controversy be- 
 tween the Church and the Dissenters with conscientious carefulness, 
 but she examined in a similar way the evidences of natural and revealed 
 religion; and under every article set down the reasons which deter- 
 mined her to receive the Bible as a revelation from God. On these 
 subjects I have several things in her own hand writing, which shall be 
 introduced in their proper place : but her master piece is entirely lost. 
 A letter of her's to her son Samuel, dated Oct. 11, 1709, will illustrate 
 the above particulars : 
 
 " There is nothing I now desire to live for but to do some 
 
 small service to my children ; that as I have brought them into the 
 world, I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their 
 souls. I had been for several years collecting from my little reading, 
 but chiefly from my own observation and experience, some things which 
 I hoped might be useful to you all. I had begun to correct and form 
 all into a little manual, wherein I designed you should have seen what 
 were the particular reasons which prevailed on me to believe the being 
 of a God, and the grounds of natural religion ; together with the mo- 
 tives that induced me to embrace the faith of Jesus Christ, under which 
 was comprehended my own private reasons for the truth of revealed 
 religion. And because I was educated among the Dissenters, and 
 there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, 
 not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole trans- 
 action, under which I had included the main of the controversy between 
 them and the Established Church, as far as it had come to my know- 
 ledge ; and then followed the reasons which had determined my judg- 
 ment to the preference of the Church of England. I had fairly tran- 
 scribed a great part of it, when you, writing to me for some directions 
 about receiving the sacrament, I began a short discourse on that sub- 
 ject, intending to send them all together : but before I could finish my 
 design, the flames consumed both this and all my other writings. I 
 would have you at your leisure to do something like this for yourself, 
 and write down what are the principles on which you build your faith : 
 and though I cannot possibly recover all I formerly wrote, yet I will 
 gladly assist you what I can in explaining any difficulty that may occur." 
 
 We have already seen that the parsonage house at Epworth was 
 three parts consumed July 31, 1702. But a more severe conflagration 
 too"k place on the 9th Feb. 1709, by which the whole house and the 
 property were totally destroyed, the family escaping with their lives, 
 almost by miracle ; the particulars of which calamity shall be detailed 
 in the life of Mr. J. Wesley. 
 
 But the severest loss, at least to posterity, then sustained, was the 
 destruction of all the family papers. All Mr. Wesley's writings and 
 correspondence, and the still more important writings of Mrs. Wesley, 
 such as those mentioned above, beside many papers and other matters 
 relative to the Annesley family, and particularly Dr. Annesley himself; 
 for as Mrs. Susanna Wesley was his most beloved child, he had en-
 
 183 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 trusted to her many invaluable documents. This information I have 
 received from a particular and learned friend, who received it from Mr. 
 John Wesley himself. 
 
 After the last fire the family were scattered to different parts ; the 
 children were divided among neighbours, relatives, and friends, till the 
 house could be rebuilt. Mr. Matthew Wesley, the surgeon, took hoo, 
 Susan and JWehetabel, with whom their mother corresponded, in order 
 to instruct them in divine matters, and to confirm them in the truths they 
 had already received. Having lost the fruits of her former labour on 
 the evidences of revealed religion, Sic, she began her work de novo ; 
 and in a long letter to her daughter Susan went over the most impor- 
 tant parts of the same ground, and produced a treatise on the chief 
 articles of the Christian faith, taking for her groundwork the Apostles' 
 Creed. 
 
 This invaluable paper I rejoice to be able to lay before the reader, 
 as one of the most precious relics of this extraordinary woman. And 
 it will be considered the more important, as itself was saved from a 
 fire, not less ruinous than that in which its predecessor was consumed. 
 It was written but a few months after that to Samuel, already men- 
 tioned : 
 
 " Epioorth, Jan. 13, 1709-10. 
 
 " DEAR SUKEY, Since our misfortunes have separated us from each 
 other, and we can no longer enjoy the opportunities we once had of 
 conversing together, I can no other way discharge the duty of a parent, 
 or comply with my inclination of doing you all the good I can, but by 
 writing. 
 
 " You know very well how I love you. I love your body ; and do 
 earnestly beseech almighty God to bless it with health, and all things 
 necessary for its comfort and support in this world. But my tenderest 
 regard is for your immortal soul, and for its spiritual happiness ; which 
 regard I cannot better express, than by endeavouring to instil into your 
 mind those principles of knowledge and virtue that are_ absolutely ne- 
 cessary in order to your leading a good life here, which is the only thing 
 that can infallibly secure your happiness hereafter. 
 
 " The main thing which is now to be done is, to lay a good founda- 
 tion, that you may act upon principles, and be always able to satisfy 
 yourself, and give a reason to others of the faith that is in you : for any 
 one who makes a profession of religion, only because it is the custom 
 of the country in which they live, or because their parents do so, or 
 their worldly interest is thereby secured or advanced, will never be able 
 to stand in the day of temptation ; nor shall they ever enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven. And though perhaps you cannot at present fully 
 comprehend all I shall say ; yet keep this letter by you, and as you 
 grow in years, your reason and judgment will improve, and you will 
 obtain a more clear understanding in all things. 
 
 " You have already been instructed in some of the first principles of 
 religion : that there is one, and but one God ; that in the unity of the 
 Godhead there are three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; 
 that this God ought to be worshipped. You have learned some prayers,
 
 MRS. SUSANNA ^TESCET. 189 
 
 your Creed and Catechism, in which is briefly comprehended your 
 duty to God, yourself, and your neighbour. But, Sukey, it is not 
 learning these things by heart, nor your saying a few prayers morning 
 and night, that will bring you to heaven ; you must understand what 
 you say, and you must practise what you know : and since knowledge 
 is requisite in order to practise, I shall endeavour (after as plain a man- 
 ner as I can) to instruct you in some of those fundamental points, 
 which are most necessary to be known, and most easy to be understood. 
 And I earnestly beseech the great Father of spirits to guide your mind 
 into the way of truth. 
 
 " Though it has been generally acknowledged, that the being and 
 perfections of God, and a great part of man's duty toward him, as that 
 we should love him, and pray to him for .what we want, and praise him 
 for what we enjoy ; as likewise much of our duty toward ourselves and 
 neighbour are discoverable by the light of nature ; that is, by that under- 
 standing and reason which are natural to man : yet considering the 
 present state of mankind ; it was absolutely necessary that we should 
 have some revelation from God to make known to us those truths upon 
 the knowledge of which our salvation depends, and which unassisted 
 reason could never have discovered. For all the duties of natural 
 religion, and all the hopes of happiness which result from the perform- 
 ance of them, are all concluded within the present life : nor could we 
 have had any certainty of the FUTURE STATE, of the being of SPIRITS, 
 of the immortality of the soul, or of a judgment to come. 
 
 " And though we may perceive that all these have by nature a strong 
 bent or bias toward evil, and a great averseness from good and good- 
 ness ; that our understandings, wills, and affections, &c, are extremely 
 corrupted and depraved ; yet how could we have known by what means 
 we became so, or how sin and death entered into the world 1 Since we 
 are assured that whatever as absolutely perfect as God is could never 
 be the author of evil ; and we are as sure that whatever is corrupt or 
 impure must necessarily be offensive and displeasing to the most holy 
 God, there being nothing more opposite than good and evil. Nay, 
 farther, sin is not only displeasing to God, as it is contrary to the purity 
 of his divine nature ; but it is the highest affront and indignity to his 
 sacred majesty imaginable. 
 
 " By it his most wise and holy laws are contemned and violated, and 
 his honour most impiously treated ; and therefore he is in justice obliged 
 to punish such contempt, and to vindicate the honour of his own laws : 
 nor can he, without derogating from his infinite perfections, pardon 
 such offenders, or remit the punishment they deserve, without full satis- 
 faction made to his justice. 
 
 " Now I would fain know which way his justice could be satisfied, 
 since it is impossible for & finite being like man to do it; or how the 
 nature of man should be renewed, or he again be admitted into the fa- 
 vour of God ; or how reason could suggest that our weak endeavours 
 and petitions should be acceptable instead of perfect obedience, unless 
 some others were substituted in our stead, that would undergo the 
 punishment we have deserved, and thereby satisfy divine justice, and 
 purchase pardon and favour with God, the merit of whose perfect obe-
 
 190 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 dience should atone for the imperfection of ours, and so obtain for us a 
 title to those glorious rewards, to that eternal happiness to which we 
 must acknowledge ourselves utterly unworthy, and of which we must 
 have despaired without such a Saviour. 
 
 " Or how should we have had any certainty of our salvation unless 
 God had revealed these things unto usl The soul is immortal, and 
 must survive all time, even to eternity ; and consequently it must have 
 been miserable to the utmost extent of its duration, had we not had that 
 sacred treasure of knowledge which is contained in the books of the 
 Old and New Testament ; a treasure infinitely more valuable than the 
 whole world, because therein we find all things necessary for our salva- 
 tion. There also we find many truths, which though we cannot say it 
 is absolutely necessary that we should know them, (since it is possible 
 to be saved without that knowledge,) yet it is highly convenient that we 
 should ; because they give us great light into those things which are 
 necessary to be known, and solve many doubts which could not other- 
 wise be cleared. 
 
 " Thus we collect from many passages of Scripture, that before God 
 created the visible world, or ever he made man, he created a higher 
 rank of intellectual beings, which we call angels or spirits ; and these 
 were those bright morning stars mentioned in Job, which sang together ; 
 those sons of God which shouted for joy when the foundations of the 
 earth were laid. To these he gave a law or rule of action, as he did 
 afterward to the rest of his creation ; and they being free agents, having 
 a principle of liberty, of choosing or refusing, and of acting accordingly, 
 as they must have, or they could not properly be called either good or 
 evil ; for upon this principle of freedom or liberty the principle of election 
 or choice is founded ; and upon the choosing good or evil depends the 
 being virtuous or vicious, since liberty is the formal essence of moral 
 virtue, that is, it is the free choice of a rational being that makes them 
 either good or bad : nor could any one that acts by necessity be ever 
 capable of rewards or punishments. 
 
 " The angels, I say, being free agents, must, I think, necessarily, be 
 put on some trial of their obedience ; and so consequently were at first 
 only placed in a state of probation or trial. Those who made a good 
 use of their liberty, and chose to obey the law of their Creator, and 
 acquiesced in the order of the Divine wisdom, which had disposed 
 them in several ranks and orders subservient to each other, were by 
 the Almighty fiat confirmed in their state of blessedness ; nor are they 
 now capable of any defection. 
 
 " But those accursed spirits that rebelled against their Maker, and 
 aspired above the rank in which his providence had placed them, were 
 for their presumption justly excluded the celestial paradise ; and con- 
 demned to perpetual torments, which were the necessary consequences 
 of their apostasy. 
 
 " After the fall of the angels, and perhaps to supply their defects, it 
 pleased the Eternal Goodness to create Jidam, who was the first general 
 head of mankind ; and in him was virtually included the whole species 
 of human nature. He was somewhat inferior to the angels, being 
 composed of two different natures, body and sottl. The former was
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 191 
 
 material, or matter made of the earth ; the latter immaterial, or a spi- 
 ritual substance, created after the image of God. And as man was 
 also a rational free agent like the angels, so it was agreeable to the 
 Eternal Wisdom to place him likewise in a state of probation ; and the 
 trial of his obedience was, not eating of the tree of knowledge of good 
 and evil, and the penalty of his disobedience was death. 
 
 " This trial was suited to the double or mixed nature of man ; the 
 beauty, scent, and taste, of the fruit was the trial of their senses or appe- 
 tites ; and the virtue of it being not only good for food, but also to be 
 desired to make one wise, was the trial of their minds ; and by this God 
 made proof of our first parents, to see whether they would deny their 
 sensual appetites, and keep the body in due subjection to the mind ; or 
 whether they would prefer the pleasures of sense, and thereby dethrone 
 their reason, break the covenant of their obedience, and forfeit the fa- 
 vour of God and eternal happiness ; and whether they would humbly 
 be content with that measure of knowledge and understanding which 
 God thought best for them, or boldly pry into those things which he had 
 forbidden them to search aftert 
 
 " Now the devil envying the happiness of our first parents, being 
 grieved that any less perfect beings should possess the place he had 
 lost, took occasion from the reasonable trial God had proposed to 
 Adam, to attack the woman by a subtle question, Yea, hath God said, 
 that ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden ? Hath he created this 
 beauteous world, this great variety of creatures, for your use and etijoy- 
 ments, and made these delicious fruits which he himself hath pro- 
 nounced good, and yet forbidden you to taste of them ? To which she 
 replied, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden : but of the 
 fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not 
 eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Upon which the mali- 
 cious tempted boldly presumed to give the lie to his Maker. Ye shall 
 not sufely die, for God doth knoiv that in the day ye eat thereof then 
 your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knmoing good and 
 evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and 
 that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one 
 wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also to her hus- 
 band with }ier, and he, did eat, &c. 
 
 i" Thus pride and sensuality ruined our first parents, and brought 
 them and' their posterity into a state of mortality. Thus sin entered 
 into the world, and death by sin, thus was human nature corrupted at 
 its fountain ; and as a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, so of 
 consequence the children of guilty Adam must be corrupt and depraved. 
 Any one who will make the least reflection on his own mind, may soon 
 be convinced of this great truth, that not only the body is weak and 
 infirm, subject to divers diseases, liable to many ill accidents, and even 
 to death itself, but also the superior powers of the soul are weakened ; 
 as the apostle expresses it, at enmity with God. 
 
 "The understanding, which was designed chiefly to be exercised 
 in the knowledge and contemplation of the superior Being, is dark- 
 ened ; nor can it, without the Divine assistance, discern the radiant 
 glories of the Deity. ArurMhough it should naturally press after truth,
 
 192 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 as being its proper object ; yet it seldom, and not without great diffi- 
 culty, attains to the knowledge of it ; but is subject to ignorance, which 
 is the sin of the understanding, because it generally proceeds from our 
 natural indisposition to search after truth. Error is the sin or defect 
 of the judgment, mistaking one thing for another, not having clear and 
 distinct apprehensions of things ; for which reason it is frequently guilty 
 of making wrong determinations. Not choosing or not inclining to 
 good ; or adhering to and preferring evil before it, is the sin of the will. 
 A readiness in receiving vain, impure, corrupt ideas or images, and a 
 backicardness in receiving good and useful ideas, is the sin of the ima- 
 gination or fancy : and a facility in retaining evil and vain ideas, and a 
 neglect of, or a readiness to let slip those which are good, is the sin or 
 defect of the memory. 
 
 " Loving, hating, desiring, fearing, &c, what we should not love, 
 hate, desire, fear, &c, at all in the least degree ; or when the object of 
 such passions are lawful, to love, hate, desire, &c, more than reason 
 requires ; or else not loving, hating, desiring, &c, when we ought to 
 love, hate, desire, &c ; in short, any error either in defect or excess, 
 either too much or too little, is the vice or sin of the passions or affec- 
 tions of the soul. 
 
 " Now if we consider the infinite, boundless, incomprehensible per- 
 fections of the ever-blessed God, we may easily conceive that evil, that 
 sin, is the greatest contradiction imaginable to his most holy nature ; 
 and that no evil, no disease, pain, or natural uncleanness whatever, is 
 so hateful, so loathsome to us, as the corruptions and imperfections of 
 the soul are to him. He is infinite purity absolutely separated from 
 all mortal imperfection. The divine intellect is all brightness, all per- 
 fect ; was never, and can never be capable of the least ignorance. He 
 is TRUTH, nor can he be weary or indisposed in contemplating that 
 great attribute of his most perfect nature : . but has a constant steady 
 view of truth. 
 
 " And as he fully comprehends at once all things past, present, and 
 to come ; so all objects appear to him simple, naked, undisguised in 
 their natures, properties, relations, and ends, truly as they are ; nor is 
 it possible that he should be guilty of error or mistake of making any 
 false judgment or wrong determination. 
 
 *' He is goodness, and his most holy will cannot swerve or decline 
 from what is so. He always wills what is absolutely best ; nor can he 
 possibly be deceived or deceive any one. 
 
 " The ideas of the Divine mind are amiable, clear, holy, just, good, 
 useful ; and he is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. His love, 
 desire, &c, though boundless, immense, and infinite, are yet regular, 
 immutable, always under the direction of his unerring wisdom, his 
 unlimited goodness, and his impartial justice. 
 
 " But who can by searching find out God ? who can find out the 
 Almighty to perfection 1 What angel is worthy to speak his praise, who 
 dwolleth in the inaccessible light, which no man can approach unto ? 
 And though he is always surrounded by thousands, and tens of thou- 
 sands of those pure and happy spirits ; yet are they represented to us 
 as veiling their faces, as if conscious of too much imperfection and
 
 MK8. SUSANNA WESLEY. 193 
 
 weakness to behold his glory. And if he charged hia angels with folly, 
 and those stars are not pure in his sight ; how much less man that is 
 a worm, and the son of man that is a worm ? 
 
 " And as we are thus corrupt and impure by nature ; so are we 
 likewise the children of wrath, and in a state of damnation ; for it was 
 not only a temporal death, with which God threatened our first parents 
 if they were disobedient; but it was also a spiritual death; an eternal 
 separation from Him who is our life ; the consequence of which sepa- 
 ration is our eternal misery. 
 
 " But the infinite goodness of God, who delighteth that his mercy 
 should triumph over his justice, though he provided no remedy for the 
 fallen angels ; yet man being a more simple kind of creature, who 
 perhaps did not sin so maliciously against so much knowledge as those 
 apostate spirits did ; he would not suffer the whole race of mankind to 
 be ruined and destroyed by the fraud and subtilty of Satan : but he laid 
 help upon one that is mighty, that is able and willing to save to the 
 uttermost all such as shall come unto God through him. And this 
 Saviour was that seed of the woman, that was promised should bruise 
 the head of the serpent, break the power of the devil, and bring man- 
 kind again into a salvable condition. And upon a view of that satis- 
 faction which Christ would make for the sins of the whole world was 
 the penalty of Adam's disobedience suspended, and he admitted to a 
 second trial ; and God renewed his covenant with man, not on the 
 former condition of perfect obedience, but on condition of faith in Christ 
 Jesus, and a sincere though imperfect obedience of the laws of God. 
 I will speak something of these two branches of our duty distinctly. 
 
 " By faith in Christ is to be understood an assent to whatever is 
 recorded of him in Holy Scripture ; or is said to be delivered by him, 
 either immediately by himself, or mediately by his prophets and apos- 
 tles ; or whatever may by just inferences, or natural consequences, be 
 collected from their writings. But because the greater part of mankind 
 either want leisure or capacity to collect the several articles of faith, 
 which lie scattered up and down throughout the Sacred Writ, the wisdom 
 of the CHURCH hath thought fit to sum them up in a short form of 
 words, commonly called THE APOSTLES' CREED, which, because it com- 
 prehends the main of what a Christian ought to believe, I shall briefly 
 explain unto you : and though I have not time at present to bring all 
 the arguments I could to prove the being of God, his divine attributes, 
 and the truth of revealed religion ; yet this short paraphrase may 
 inform you what you should intend when you make the solemn con- 
 fession of our most holy faith ; and may withal teach you that it is not to 
 be said after a formal customary manner, but seriously, as in the pre- 
 sence of the almighty God, who observes whether the heart join with 
 the tongue, and whether your mind do truly assent to what you profess 
 when you say, 
 
 I BELIEVE IN GOD. 
 
 ! do truly and heartily assent to the being of a God, one supreme 
 independent power, who is a Spirit infinitely wise, holy, good, just, 
 true, unchangeable.
 
 194 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 " I do believe that this God is a necessary self-existent being ; 
 necessary, in that he could not but be, because he derives his existence 
 from no other than himself, but he always is 
 
 THE FATHER. 
 
 And having all life, all being in himself, all creatures must derive their 
 existence from him ; whence he is properly styled the Father of all 
 things, more especially of all spiritual natures, angels and souls of men ; 
 and since he is the great parent of the universe, it naturally follows 
 that he is 
 
 ALMIGHTY. 
 
 And this glorious attribute of his omnipotence is conspicuous in that 
 he hath a right of making any thing which he willeth, after that manner 
 which best pleaseth him, according to the absolute freedom of his own 
 will ; and a right of possessing all things so made by him as he 
 pleaseth : nor can his almighty infinite power admit of any weakness, 
 dependence, or limitation ; but it extendeth to all things ; is boundless, 
 incomprehensible, and eternal. And though we cannot comprehend, 
 or have any adequate conceptions of what so far surpasseth the reach 
 of human understanding, yet it is plainly demonstrable that he is omni- 
 potent from his being the 
 
 MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, 
 
 Of all things visible : nor could any thing less than almighty power 
 produce the smallest, most inconsiderable thing out of nothing. Not 
 the least spire of grass, or most despicable insect, but bears the divine 
 signature, and carries in its existence a clear demonstration of the 
 Deity. For could we admit of such a wild supposition as that any 
 thing could make itself, it must necessarily follow that a thing had being 
 before it had a being, that it could act before it was, which is a palpa- 
 ble contradiction : from whence among other reasons we conclude, 
 that this beautiful world, that celestial arch over our heads, and all 
 those glorious heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars, &c, in fine, the 
 whole system of the universe, were in the beginning made, or created 
 out of nothing, by the eternal power, wisdom, and goodness of the ever- 
 blessed God, according to the counsel of his own will ; or, as St. Paul 
 better expresses it, Colos. i, 16 : * By him were all things created that 
 are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they 
 be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things were 
 created by him.' 
 
 AND IN JESUS. 
 
 J&fois signifies a Saviour ; and by that name he was called by the an- 
 gel Gabriel before his birth, for to show us that he cume into the world 
 to save us from our sins, and the punishment they justly deserve ; and 
 to repair the damage human nature had sustained by the fall of Adam ; 
 that as in Adam all died, so in Christ all should be made alive ; and so 
 he became the second general head of all mankind. And as he was 
 promised to our parents in paradise ; so was his coming signified by 
 the various types and sacrifices under the law, and foretold by the 
 prophets long before he appeared in the world.
 
 dtas. SUSANNA WESLEY. 195 
 
 " And this Saviour, this Jesus, was the promised Messiah, who was 
 so long the hope and expectation of the Jews, the 
 
 CHRIST, 
 
 which in the original signifies anointed. Now among the Jews it was 
 a custom to anoint three sorts of persons, prophets, priests, and kings ; 
 which anointing did not only show their designation to those offices, 
 but was also usually attended with a special influence, or inspiration of 
 the Holy Spirit, to prepare and qualify them for such offices. Our 
 blessed Lord, who was by his almighty Father sanctified, and sent 
 into the world, was also anointed,, not with material oil, but by the 
 descent of the Holy Ghost upon him, to signify to us that he was our 
 prophet, priest, and king; and that he should first, as our PROPHET, 
 fully, clearly, reveal the will of God for our salvation, which accordingly 
 he did. And though the Jews had long before received the law by 
 Moses ; yet a great part of that law was purely typical and ceremonial ; 
 and all of it that was so was necessarily vacated by the corning of our 
 Saviour : and that part which was moral, and consequently of perpe- 
 tual obligation, they had so corrupted by their misrepresentations and 
 various traditions, that it was not pure and undefiled, as God delivered 
 it on Mount Sinai, which occasioned the words of our Lord, ' Think 
 not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets ; I am not 
 come to destroy, but to fulfil :' to accomplish the predictions of the 
 prophets concerning himself; and to rescue the moral law from those 
 false glosses they had put on it. Though the rest of the world were not 
 altogether without some precepts of morality ; yet they lay scattered 
 up and down, in the writings of a few wiser and better than the rest : 
 but morality was never collected into a complete system, till the coming 
 of our Saviour ; nor was life and immortality brought fully to light till 
 the preaching of the Gospel. 
 
 " He was also our PRIEST, in that he offered up himself a sacrifice 
 (o Divine justice in our stead ; and by the perfect satisfaction he made, 
 he did atone the displeasure of God, and purchase eternal life for us, 
 which was forfeited by the first man's disobedience. 
 
 " And as he is our prophet and priest, so likewise he is our KING, 
 and hath an undoubted right to govern those he hath redeemed by his 
 blood ; and as such he will conquer for us all our spiritual enemies, 
 sin and death, and all the powers of the kingdom of darkness ; and 
 when he hath perfectly subdued them, he will actually confer upon us, 
 eternal happiness. This satisfaction and purchase that Christ hath 
 made for us is a clear proof of his divinity, since no mere man is 
 capable of meriting any thing good from God ; and therefore we are 
 obliged to consider him in a state of equality with the Father, being 
 
 HI8 ONLY SON. 
 
 Though we are all children of the almighty Father, yet hath be one 
 
 of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God ; begotten, not 
 And this only Son of God we acknowledge to be
 
 196 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 OUR LORD ; 
 
 In that he is co-equal and co-essential with the Father, and by him 
 were all things made. Therefore since we are his creatures, we must, 
 with the Apostle St. Thomas, confess him to be our Lord and our God. 
 But beside this right to our allegiance, which he hath by creation, he 
 hath redeemed us from death and hell, and he hath purchased us with 
 his own blood : so that upon a double account, we justly call him Lord, 
 namely, that of creation and purchase. And as the infinite condescen- 
 sion of the eternal Son of God in assuming our nature was mysterious, 
 and incomprehensible, surpassing the wisest of men or angels to con- 
 ceive how such a thing might be ; so it was requisite and agreeable to 
 the majesty of God, that the conception of his sacred person should be 
 after a manner altogether differing from ordinary generations ; accord- 
 ingly it was he 
 
 WHICH WAS CONCEIVED BY THE HOLY GHOST J 
 
 Whose miraculous conception was foretold by the angel, when his 
 blessed mother questioned how she who was a virgin could conceive. 
 The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall 
 overshadow thee ; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of 
 thee shall be called the Son of God. And as all the sacrifices which 
 represented our Saviour under the law, were to be without spot or 
 blemish ; so likewise Christ, the great Christian sacrifice, was not only 
 infinitely pure and holy, not only in his Divine, but also in his human 
 nature, he was perfectly immaculate, having none but God for his Father, 
 being 
 
 BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY, 
 
 Whose spotless purity no age of the catholic Church hath presumed to 
 question. That the promised Messiah should be born of a virgin is 
 plain from Jer. xxxi, 22, ' The Lord hath created a new thing upon 
 the earth ; a woman shall compass a man.' And from Isaiah vii, 14, 
 ' Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name 
 Immanuel.' And this seed of the woman must necessarily have as- 
 sumed our nature, or he could never have been our Jesus, the Saviour 
 of the world ; for the Divine nature of the Son of God is infinitely 
 happy, utterly incapable of any grief, pain, or sense of misery. Nor 
 could its union with humanity any way defile or pollute it or derogate 
 the least from its infinite perfection; so it was only as man that he 
 
 SUFFERED 
 
 those infirmities and calamities incident to human nature. 
 
 "What transactions passed between the almighty Father and his 
 eternal Son concerning the redemption othe world we know not : but 
 we are sure that by an express agreement between them, he was from 
 eternity decreed to suffer for mankind. And in several places of the 
 Old Testament it was written of the Son of man, that he must suffer 
 many things. And the Spirit of Christ that was in the prophets testified 
 before hand the sufferings of Christ ; particularly in Isaiah liii, we have
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLET. 197 
 
 a sad, but clear, description of the sufferings of the Messiah. Indeed, 
 his whole life was one continual scene of misery. No sooner was he 
 born, than he was persecuted by Herod, and forced to flee into Egypt, 
 in the arms of a weak virgin, under the protection of a foster-father. 
 And when he returned into his own country he for thirty years lived in 
 a low condition, probably employed in the mean trade of a carpenter, 
 which made him in the eyes of the world despicable, of no reputation. 
 And when after so long an obscurity he appeared unto men, he entered 
 upon his ministry with the severity of forty days' abstinence. 
 
 " Behold the eternal Lord of nature transported into a wild and 
 desolate wilderness, exposed to the inclemency of the air, and tempted 
 by the apostate spirits ! 
 
 " The almighty Being, who justly claims a right to the whole 
 creation, was himself hungry, and athirst ; often wearied with painful 
 travelling from place to place. And though he went about doing 
 good ; and never sent any one away from him, who wanted relief, 
 without healing their diseases, and casting out those evil spirits which 
 afflicted them ; yet was be despised, and rejected of men ! The 
 possessor of heaven and earth, the sovereign disposer of all things, 
 from whose bounty all creatures receive what they enjoy of the 
 necessary accommodations of life, was reduced to such a mean estate, 
 that the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, yet the 
 Son of man had not where to lay his head ! All his life he was a man of 
 sorrow, and acquainted with grief; yet his greatest sufferings were 
 
 UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, 
 
 Who was at that time the Roman governor of Judea under Tiberius, 
 the emperor of Rome. His office was that of a procurator, whose 
 business it was not only to take an account of the tribute due to the 
 emperor, and to order and dispose of the same to his advantage ; but 
 by means of the seditious and rebellious temper of the Jews, they were 
 farther trusted with some of the supreme power among them ; a power 
 of life and death, which was a signal instance of Divine providence, 
 and a clear proof of the predictions of the prophets, which had long be- 
 fore foretold that the Messiah should suffer after a manner that was not 
 prescribed by the law of Moses : and this circumstance of time is men- 
 tioned, to confirm the truth of our Saviour's history. 
 
 " And now behold a mysterious scene of wonders indeed ! The 
 immaculate Lamb of God, who came to save the world from misery, 
 under the greatest, most amazing apprehensions of his approaching 
 passion, ' He began to be sorrowful,' saith St. Matthew ; ' To be sore 
 amazed, and very heavy,' saith St. Mark. His soul was pressed with 
 fear, horror, and dejection of mind ; tormented with anxiety, and dis- 
 quietude of spirit, which he expressed to his disciples in these sad 
 words, ' My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death !' See him 
 retire to a solitary garden at a still melancholy hour of the night. Be- 
 hold him prostrate on the ground, conflicting with the wrath of his 
 almighty Father. He perfectly knew what God is, the severe purity 
 of the Deity ; and was absolutely conformed to his will. 
 
 ' He knew the evil of sin in its nature and consequences ; the perfect
 
 198 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 justice, wisdom, and goodness, of the Divine laws. He understood 
 the inexpressible misery man had brought upon himself, by the viola- 
 tion of them ; and how intolerable it would be for man to sustain the 
 vengeance of an angry God. And perhaps he was moved with extreme 
 concern and pity, when he foresaw that notwithstanding all he had 
 already done, and was then about to suffer for his salvation, there would 
 be so many that would obstinately perish ! He had a full prospect of all 
 he had yet to undergo ; that the conflict was not yet over, but that the 
 dregs of that bitter cup still remained ; that he must be forsaken of his 
 Father in the midst of his torments, which made him thrice so earnestly 
 repeat his petition, that if it were possible that cup might pass from 
 him. But the full complement of his sufferings we may suppose to be, 
 he did at that time actually sustain the whole weight of that grief and 
 sorrow, which was due to the justice of God for the sins of the whole 
 world. And this we may believe caused that inconceivable agony, 
 when his sweat was as great drops of blood falling to the ground. 
 
 " And though his torments were so inexpressibly great, yet the Son 
 of man must suffer many things. He must be betrayed by one disciple, 
 denied by another, and forsaken by all. That as he had suffered in 
 his soul by the most intense grief and anguish, so he had to suffer in 
 his body the greatest bitterness of corporeal pains, which the malice 
 and rage of his enemies could inflict upon it. And now the sovereign 
 Lord and Judge of all men is haled before the tribunal of his sinful 
 creatures. The pure and unspotted Son of God who could do no 
 wrong, neither could guile be found in his mouth, accused by his pre- 
 sumptuous slaves of no less a crime than blasphemy. And though the 
 witnesses could by no means agree together, and he was so often de- 
 clared innocent by Pilate, an infidel judge ; yet still the rude and bar- 
 barous rabble, being instigated by the envy and malice of the chief 
 priests and elders, persist in demanding that he should be condemned. 
 
 " And when, in compliance with their usual custom of having a 
 malefactor released at their feast, Pilate in order to save him proposed 
 his release instead of Barabbas, who was a seditious murderer, yet 
 they persisted in their fury, and preferred the murderer before the 
 Prince of life and glory ; nor would they be satisfied till he 
 
 WAS CRUCIFIED, 
 
 To which ignominious death the Romans commonly condemned their 
 greatest malefactors ; and it was accounted so vile and so shameful 
 among them, that it was deemed a very high crime to put any freeman 
 to death after such a dishonourable manner : and as the shame was 
 great, so it was usually accompanied with many previous pains. They 
 were first cruelly scourged ; and then compelled to bear their cross on 
 their bleeding wounds, to the place of crucifixion ; all which the meek 
 and patient Jesus underwent cheerfully for his love toward mankind. 
 * The ploughers ploughed on his back, and made long their furrows.' 
 But there were' other painful circumstances which attended and in- 
 creased the sufferings of our Saviour. They had not only accused 
 him of blasphemy, but of treason and sedition : ' We found this fellow 
 perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 199 
 
 that he himself was Christ, a king ;' which, as it moved Pilate to con- 
 temn him, so it moved the rude soldiers to insult him by their mock 
 ensigns of royalty. * They arrayed him in a purple robe, and put a reed 
 in his hand, and they bowed the knee before him, saying, Hail, king of 
 the Jews.' And that crown of thorns, which they platted and put on 
 his head, not only expressed the scorn of his tormentors, but did, by 
 the piercing of his sacred temples, cause exquisite pain. That blessed 
 face, which angels rejoice to behold, they buffetted and spit upon ; nor 
 was any circumstance of cruelty, which their witty malice could suggest 
 to torment him, omitted by those inhuman rebels, till, wearied with their 
 own barbarity, and impatient of his living any longer, they put his own 
 clothes on him again, and led him away to crucifixion. 
 
 " And now let us, by faith, attend our Lord to his last scene of 
 misery. Let us ascend with him to the top of Mount Calvary, and see 
 with what cruel pleasure they nail his hands and feet to the infamous 
 wood ; which, having done, they raise him from the earth, the whole 
 weight of his body being sustained by those four wounds. 
 
 " But though the corporeal pains occasioned by the thorns, the 
 scourging, by the piercing those nervous and most sensible parts of 
 his most sacred body, were wrought up to an inexpressible degree of 
 torture ; yet were they infinitely surpassed by the anguish of his sou! 
 when there was (but after what manner we cannot conceive, but it is 
 certain that there was,) a sensible withdrawing of the comfortable pre- 
 sence of the Deity, which caused that loud and impassioned exclama- 
 tion, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ! And now it is 
 finished : the measure of his sufferings is completed ; and he, who 
 could not die but by his own voluntary act of resigning life, gave up his 
 pure and spotless soul into the hands of his almighty Father. And 
 though stupid man could look insensibly on the mysterious passion of 
 his blessed Redeemer, yet nature could not so behold her dying Lord, 
 but by strong commotions expressed her sympathy. 
 
 " The sun, as if ashamed and astonished at the barbarous inhumanity 
 and ingratitude of man, withdrew his influence ; nor would he display 
 the brightness of his beams when the great Son of God lay under the 
 eclipse of death. The foundations of the solid earth were shaken, the 
 rocks rent, and the^raves were opened ; and the vail of the temple was 
 rent in twain from the top to the bottom ; signifying that all, both Jews 
 and Gentiles, have free admission into the holy of holies, into the haven 
 of presence, through the blood of Jesus ; which extorted a confession of 
 his divinity even from his enemies ; for when the centurion and they that 
 were with him watching Jesus saw the earthquake and those things that 
 were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. 
 
 " Now, though crucifixion does not involve necessarily in it certain 
 death, but that if a person be taken from the cross he may live ; yet, 
 since it is evident that the Messiah was to die, and that for that cause he 
 was born and came into the world that he might, by the grace of God, 
 suffer death for every man, so we are bound to believe that he was truly 
 
 DEAD; 
 
 That there was an actual, real separation of his soul and body. And 
 for a confirmation of this article it is added,
 
 200 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 mi.- 
 
 AND BURIED J 
 
 And as his death was foretold, so likewise his burial was typified by 
 the Prophet Jonah ; for as he was three days and three nights in the 
 belly of the whale, so was the Son of man three days and three nights 
 in the heart of the earth. And though by the Roman law those who 
 were crucified were not allowed the favour of a grave, but were to re- 
 main on the cross, exposed to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the 
 field ; yet it was in the power of the magistrate to permit a burial ; and 
 the providence of God had so ordered it, that those very persons who 
 had caused him to be crucified, should petition for his being taken 
 down from the cross : for the law of Moses required that ' if a man 
 have committed a sin worthy of death, and thou hang him on a tree, 
 his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shall in any 
 wise bury him that night.' And therefore they begged of Pilate that 
 the body should be taken down from the cross ; and this was the first 
 step toward our Saviour's burial. ' And when the even was come, 
 because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 
 Joseph, of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor, which also waited for 
 the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to Pilate,. and craved the 
 body of Jesus. And he gave the body unto Joseph ; and he brought 
 fine linen, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in the sepulchre 
 which was hewn out of a rock, wherein never man before was laid ; 
 and rolled a stone at the door of the sepulchre, and departed.' 
 
 HE DESCENDED INTO HELL. 
 
 That our blessed Lord did actually descend into hell seems very plain 
 from St. Peter's exposition of that text in the Psalms, Thou shalt not 
 leave my soul in hell, neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see cor- 
 ruption ; when, having mentioned this passage, he thus explains it : 
 'He, (that is, David,) seeing this before, (namely, the incarnation of the 
 Son of God,) spake of his resurrection ; that his soul was not left in 
 hell, neither did his flesh see corruption :' which is a clear proof that 
 his soul did really descend into hell, after it was separated from his 
 body. But though he underwent the condition of a sinner in this world, 
 and suffered and died as a sinner ; yet being perfectly holy, and 
 having, by virtue of the union of the Deity to his human nature, fully 
 satisfied the strictest demands of Divine justice, we are not to suppose 
 that he either did or could suffer the torments of the damned ; therefore 
 we may reasonably conclude, that his descent into hell was not to surfer, 
 but to triumph over principalities and powers ; over the rulers of the 
 kingdom of darkness, in their own sad regions of horror and despair : 
 and for this reason, and in this sense, are we to understand his descent 
 into hell. And as his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see 
 corruption ; but having by his own almighty power loosed the pain of 
 death, because it was impossible that he should beholden of it, 
 
 THE THIRD DAY HE ROSE AGAIN FROM THE DEAD. 
 
 Friday, on which he suffered, and the first day of the week, on which 
 be rose, being included in the number of the three days. And this first
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. .. 201 
 
 day of the week the apostles and primitive Christians have ever since 
 observed as the Sabbalh. 
 
 " That as the Jews, who will not believe in any greater deliverance 
 than that out of Egypt, still keep the seventh day, and the Turks Fri- 
 day, in memory of Mohammed's flight from Mecca, whom they esteem 
 a greater prophet than Christ or Moses ; so all Christians are distin- 
 guished from all the rest of the world by their observance of the first 
 day, in commemoration of our Saviour's rising from the dead, and his 
 finishing the great work of man's redemption on that day. 
 
 " Thus, we believe that as Christ died for our sins, was buried, and 
 rose again the third day according to the Scriptures ; so 
 
 HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN. 
 
 " He had for forty days after his resurrection remained upon earth, 
 during whicTi time he appeared frequently to his disciples, ate and 
 drank with them, showed them his hands and his feet, which visibly 
 retained the marks of his crucifixion, to convince them that it was the 
 same body which was nailed to the cross ; that it was the same Jesus 
 which suffered for our offences, that was raised for our justification ; 
 and that by his so doing we might have a sure and certain hope of our 
 own resurrection from the dead. And when he had spoken to his dis- 
 ciples and blessed them, he parted from them and ascended into the 
 highest heaven, where he still remainns, 
 
 AND SITTETH ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY. 
 
 " God is a Spirit ; nor hath he any body, so cannot properly be said 
 to have any parts, such as eyes, ears, hands, &c, as we see bodies 
 have ; therefore we may suppose that the right hand of God signifies 
 his exceeding great and infinite power and glory. 
 
 " And Christ is said to sit down on the right hand of God in regard 
 of that absolute power and dominion which he hath obtained in heaven, 
 according as he told the Jews, ' Hereafter ye shall see the Son of 
 man sitting on the right hand of power.' After all the labour and sor- 
 row, the shame, and contempt, and torments, he suffered in this world, 
 he resteth above in a permanent state of endless glory and unspeakable 
 felicity ; and 
 
 FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD. 
 
 " All that shall be found alive at his coming, as well as those that 
 have died since Adam, shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ, 
 to be by him judged according to what they have done on earth, to be 
 by him determined and sentenced, and finally disposed to their eternal 
 condition. Those that have done well he shall receive into everlasting 
 habitations, to remain for ever with him in eternal blessedness ; and 
 those that have done evil he shall condemn to the kingdom of darkness, 
 there to remain in insupportable misery for ever, with the devil and his 
 angels. 
 
 " " And as we must thus profess to believe in God the Father, and 
 in Jesus Christ his only Son, so we must every one truly and heartily 
 say, 
 
 26
 
 202 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 
 
 1 BELIEVE IN THE HOLY GHOST; 
 
 " That he is a person of a real and true subsistence, neither created 
 nor begotten, but proceeding from the Father and the Son : true and 
 eternal God, who is essentially holy himself, and the author of all holi- 
 ness in us, by sanctifying our natures, illuminating our minds, rectifying 
 our wills and affections : who co-operateth with the word and sacra- 
 ments, and whatever else is a mean of conveying grace into the soul. 
 He it was that spoke by the prophets and apostles, and it is he who 
 leadeth us into all truth. He helpeth our infirmities, assures us of our 
 
 adoption, and will be with 
 
 
 
 THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 
 to the end of the world. The catholic Church is composed of all con- 
 gregations of men whatever, who hold the faith of Jesus Qhrist and are 
 obedient to his laws, wherein the pure word of God is preached, and 
 the sacraments duly delivered by such ministers as are regularly con- 
 secrated and set apart for such ordinances, according to Christ's insti- 
 tution. And as this Church is called holy in respect of its auUior, 
 
 Jesus, end, glory of God, and salvation of souls, institution of 
 
 the ministry, administration of the sacraments, preaching of the pure 
 word of God ; and of the members of this Church, who are renewed 
 and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and united to Christ, the supreme 
 head and governor of the Church. 
 
 " It is styled catholic, because it is not, like that of the Jews, 
 confined to one place and people ; but is disseminated through all 
 nations, extendeth throughout all ages, even to the end of the world. 
 And as there is but one head ; so the members, though many, are one 
 body* united together by the same spirit, principally by the three great 
 Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity. For as we hold the same 
 principles of faith, do all assent to the same truths once delivered to 
 the saints ; so have we the same hopes and expectations of eternal life 
 which are promised to all. And as our Lord gave the same mark of 
 distinction to all his disciples, ' By this shall all men know that ye are 
 my disciples if ye love one another ;' so this universal love which is 
 diffused throughout the whole body of Christ is the union of charity ; 
 and the same ministry and the same orders in the Church make the 
 unity of discipline. But since Christ hath appointed only one way to 
 heaven ; so we are not to expect salvation out of the Church which is 
 called catholic, in opposition to heretics and schismatics. And if an 
 angel from heaven should preach any other doctrine than Christ and his 
 apostles have taught, or appoint any other sacraments than Christ hath 
 already instituted, let him be accursed. 
 
 " And as the mystical union between Christ and the Church, and the 
 spiritual conjunction of the members with the head, is the fountain 
 of that union and communion which the saints have with each other, as 
 being all under the influence of the same head ; so death, which only 
 separates bodies for a time, cannot dissolve the union of minds ; and 
 therefore it is not only in relation to the saints on earth, but including 
 also those in heaven, we profess to hold
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 203 
 
 THE COMMUNION Of SAINTS. 
 
 Accordingly we believe that all saints, as well those on earth as those 
 in heaven, have communion with God, the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost ; with the blessed angels, who not only join in devotion with the 
 Church triumphant above, but are likewise sent forth to minister to 
 those who are the heirs of salvation while they remain in this world. 
 And perhaps we do not consider as we ought to do, how much good 
 we receive by the ministration of the holy angels ; nor are we suffi- 
 ciently grateful to those guardian spirits that so often put by ill acci- 
 dents, watch over us when we sleep, defending us from the assaults of 
 evil men and evil angels. And if they are so mindful of our preserva- 
 tion in this world, we may suppose them much more concerned for 
 our eternal happiness : ' There is joy among the angels in heaven over 
 one sinner that repenteth :' they are present in our public assemblies, 
 where we in a more especial manner hold communion with them ; and 
 it is there we join with all the company of the heavenly host in praising 
 and admiring the supreme Being whom we jointly adore. What 
 knowledge the saints in heaven have of things or persons in this world 
 we cannot determine, nor after what manner we hold communion with 
 them it is not at present easy to conceive. 
 
 " That we are all members of the same mystical body of Christ we 
 are very sure ; and do all partake of the same vital influence from the 
 same head, and so we are united together ; and though we are not 
 actually possessed of the same happiness which they enjoy, yet we have 
 the same Holy Spirit given unto us as an earnest of our eternal felicity 
 with them hereafter. And though their faith is consummated by vision, 
 and their hope by present possession, yet the bond of Christian charity 
 still remains ; and as we have great joy and complacency in their feli- 
 city, so no doubt they desire and pray for us. 
 
 "With the saints on earth we hold communion by the word and 
 sacraments, by praying with and for each other; and in all acts of 
 public or private worship we act upon the same principles and the 
 same motives, having the same promises and hopes of 
 
 THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, 
 
 Through Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, who gave 
 his life a sacrifice by way of compensation and satisfaction to Divine 
 justice, by which God became reconciled to man, and cancelled the 
 obligation which every sinner lay under to suffer eternal punishment ; 
 and he hath appointed in his Church baptism for the first remission, and 
 repentance for the constant forgiveness of all following trespasses. 
 And now have we confidence toward God, that not only our souls shall 
 be freed from the guilt and punishment of sin by faith in Jesus : but 
 also our bodies may rest in hopes of 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY, 
 
 That the same almighty power which raised again our blessed Lord, 
 after he had lien three days in the grave, shall again quicken our mortal 
 bodies ; shall reproduce the same individual body that slept in the dust, 
 and vitally unite it to the same soul which informed it while on earth,
 
 204 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 The hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear his 
 voice, and come forth ; ' they that have done good to the resurrection 
 of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation,' 
 John v, 28, 29. ' And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and 
 death and hell (that is, the grave) delivered up the dead that were in 
 them,' Rev. xx, 13. There shall be a general rendezvous of every 
 particular atom which composed the several bodies of men that ever 
 lived in the world ; and each shall be restored to its proper owner, so 
 as to make the same numerical body, the same flesh and blood, &c, 
 which was dissolved at death. And though the bodies of saints shall 
 be glorified heavenly bodies ; yet they shall be of the same consistence 
 and figure, but only altered and changed in some properties. And 
 though at the first view it may seem hard to conceive how those bodies 
 which have suffered so many various transmutations, have either been 
 buried in the earth, devoured by beasts, consumed by fire, or swallowed 
 up in the sea, have been dissolved into the smallest atoms, and those 
 atoms perhaps scattered throughout the world, have fructified the earth, 
 fed the fishes, and by that means become the food of animals and other 
 men, and a part of their nourishment, till at last the same particles of 
 matter belong to several bodies : how, I say, the same numerical 
 atoms should at last rally and meet again, and be restored to the first 
 owner, make up again the same first body, which so long since was 
 consumed, may seem difficult, if not altogether impossible, to determine. 
 
 But since God hath declared that he will raise the dead, we have no 
 manner of reason to question whether he can do it, since Omnipotence 
 knows no difficulty : and that almighty power which first made us of 
 nothing, out of no pre-existing matter, can easily distinguish, and 
 perceive, and unmix from other bodies, our scattered atoms, and can 
 re-collect and unite them again, how far soever they may be dispersed 
 asunder. He can observe the various changes they undergo in their 
 passages through other bodies ; and can so order it, that they shall 
 never become any part of their nourishment ; or if they should be 
 adopted into other men, he can cause them to yield them up again 
 before they die, that they may be restored to their right owners ; and 
 
 having collected these particles, he can readily dispose them 
 
 into the same order rebuild the same beauteous fabric, consisting of 
 the same flesh and bones, nerves, veins, blood, &c, and all the several 
 parts it had before its dissolution ; and by reuniting it to the same soul, 
 make the same living man. 
 
 " But though the body shall be in substance the same after its resur- 
 rection as it was before its death ; yet it shall greatly differ in its 
 qualities. ' It was sown in corruption, it shall be raised in incorruption ; 
 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, 
 it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual 
 body.' They shall not retain the same principles of corruption and 
 mortality which they had before ; they shafi never die. The bodies of 
 the damned shall eternally remain in the most inconceivable torments ; 
 while those of the blessed shall meet the Lord in the air when he 
 comes to judgment, and afterward: ascend with him into heaven, there 
 to enjoy
 
 MRS. SUSANNA Wr.SI.ET. 
 THE LIFE EVERLASTING. 
 
 By everlasting life is not only meant that we shall die no more ; for in 
 this sense the damned shall have everlasting life as well as the saints : 
 they shall always have a being, though in intolerable torments ; which 
 is infinitely worse than none at all. 
 
 " But we are to understand by the life everlasting a full and perfect 
 enjoyment of solid inexpressible joy and felicity, Eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, 
 what God hath prepared for those that love him. 
 
 " The soul shall be perfectly sanctified, nor shall it be possible to 
 sin any more. All its faculties shall be purified and exalted : the 
 understanding shall be filled with the beatific vision of the adorable 
 Trinity ; shall be illuminated, enlarged, and eternally employed and 
 satisfied in the contemplation of the sublimest truths. Here we see as 
 in a glass, have dark and imperfect perceptions of God : but there 
 we shall behold him as he is, shall know as we are known. Not that 
 we shall fully comprehend the Divine nature, as he doth ours ; that is 
 impossible ; for he is infinite and incomprehensible, and we though in 
 heaven shall be finite still ; but our apprehension of his being and per- 
 fections shall be clear, just, and true. We shall see him as he is : shall 
 never be troubled with misapprehensions or false conceptions of him 
 more : those dark and mysterious methods of Providence which here 
 puzzle and confound the wisest heads to reconcile them with his justice 
 and goodness shall be there unriddled in a moment; and we shall 
 clearly perceive that all the evils which befall good men in this life were 
 the corrections of a merciful Father ; that the furnace of affliction, 
 which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than 
 a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us ; but only to 
 purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode 
 among those blessed ones that passed through the same trials before 
 us into the celestial paradise. And we shall for ever adore and praise 
 that infinite power and goodness which safely conducted the soul 
 through the rough waves of this tempestuous ocean to the calm haven 
 of peace and everlasting tranquillity. Nor shall we have the same 
 sentiments there which we had here : but shall clearly discern that our 
 afflictions here were our choicest mercies. Our wills shall no longer 
 be averse from God's, but shall be for ever lost in that of our blessed 
 Creator's. No conflicts with unruly passions ; no pain or misery shall 
 ever find admittance into that heavenly kingdom. 
 
 " God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes ; and there shall be 
 no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall there be any 
 more pain, for the former things are passed away; when we shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light 
 upon us, nor any heat ; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne 
 shall feed us, and shall lead us unto living fountains of water. Far 
 be from us to think that the grace of God can be purchased with any 
 thing less precioue than the BI.OOD of JESUS : but if it could, who that 
 has the lowest degree of faith would not part with all things in this 
 world to obtain that love for our dear Redeemer which we so long for,
 
 206 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 and sigh after. Here we cannot watch one hour with Jesus, without 
 weariness, failure of spirits, dejection of mind, worldly regards which 
 damp our devotions, and pollute the purity of our sacrifices. 
 
 " What Christian here does not often feel and bewail the weight of 
 corrupt nature ; the many infirmities which molest us in our way to 
 glory ? And how difficult is it to practise as we ought that great duty 
 of self-denial ; to take up our cross, and follow the Captain of our 
 salvation, without ever repining or murmuring 1 If shame or confusion 
 could enter those blessed mansions, how would our souls be ashamed 
 and confounded at the review of our imperfect services, when we see 
 them crowned with such an unproportionable reward? How shall we 
 blush to behold that exceeding and eternal weight of glory, that is 
 conferred upon us for that little, or rather nothing, which we have 
 done or suffered for our Lord ? That God who gave us being, that 
 preserved us, that fed and clothed us in our passage through the 
 world ; and what is infinitely more, that gave his only Son to die for us ; 
 and has by his grace purified and conducted us safe to his glory ! 
 
 " 0, blessed GRACE ! mysterious love ! how shall we then adore and 
 praise what we cannot here apprehend aright ! How will love and joy 
 work in the soul ! But I cannot express it, I cannot conceive it. 
 
 " I have purposely omitted many arguments for the being of God, 
 the Divine authority of Scripture, the irulh of revealed religion, or 
 future judgment. The last article I have left very imperfect, because 
 I intend to write on all these subjects for the use of my children when 
 I have more leisure. I shall only add a few words to prepare your 
 mind for the second part of my discourse, Obedience to the Laws of 
 God, which I shall quickly send you. 
 
 " As the defilement of our natures is the source and original of all 
 our actual iniquities and transgressions of the laws of God ; so the 
 first regular step we can take toward amendment is to be deeply sensible 
 of, grieved and humbled for, our original sin. And though (1 believe) 
 the damning guilt of that sin is washed away by baptism, by those who 
 die before they are capable of known and actual transgressions ; yet 
 experience shows us that the power of it does still survive in such as 
 attain to riper years ; and this is what the apostle complains of in 
 Romans vii. 
 
 " This is the carnal nature ; that law in our members, which wars 
 against the law of the mind, and brings into captivity to the law of sin. 
 
 " And when the work of conversion or regeneration is begun by the 
 Holy Spirit, yet still corrupt nature maintains a conflict with Divine 
 grace : nor shall this enemy be entirely conquered, till death shall be 
 swallowed up of victory ; till this mortal shall have put on immortality. 
 
 " I cannot tell whether you have ever seriously considered the lost 
 and miserable condition you are in by nature : if you have not, it is 
 high time to begin to do it ; and I shall earnestly beseech the Al- 
 mighty to enlighten your mind, to renew and sanctify you by his Holy 
 Spirit, that you may be his child by adoption here, and an heir of his 
 blessed kingdom hereafter ! 
 
 S. W." 
 
 Epworth, Jan. 13, 1709-10.
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEV. 207 
 
 I believe this exposition of the Creed to be entirely original ; arid 
 that it contains many fine passages and just definitions, every careful 
 reader will at once discern. The introduction is excellent ; as is also 
 what she says on Almighty Christ Suffered under Pontius Pilate 
 Crucified Catholic Church Communion of Saints Resurrection 
 and the Life Everlasting. Of our Lord's descent into hell she speaks 
 as commentators in general do. On the doctrine of forgiveness of sins 
 she will be found less satisfactory than on most other points : she was 
 much better acquainted with this doctrine afterward. 
 
 Under the article Holy Ghost she not only shows that it is by his 
 influence that the soul is enlightened, and the heart purified, and that 
 his continual co-operation with the word and sacramtnts is necessary 
 in order to make them effectual ; but she also hints at that doctrine 
 which her sons preached with such great unction and success, and 
 which is a standard article in the creed of every Methodist, viz. The 
 doctrine of the witness of the Spirit in the souls of genuine believers. 
 Her words are strong and pointed. " It is he that leadeth us into all 
 truth. He helpeth our infirmities, assures its of our adoption, and will 
 be with the holy catholic Church to the end of the world." 
 
 Where she touches upon them, she does not make the necessary 
 distinction between justification and sanctification ; but in effect con- 
 founds them, as did most of the writers in that and the preceding age. 
 Nor have I met with the proper definition of each, and its description as 
 a separate independent work, but in the writings of Mr. John Wesley 
 and the Methodists. Justification, as implying an act of God's infinite 
 mercy, blotting out the guilt of sin on account of the sacrificial offer- 
 ing of Jesus Christ ; and sanctification, as implying the purification 
 of the heart by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit ; must necessarily be 
 distinct : and in no case does the pardon of guilt necessarily imply the 
 total, nor indeed partial, destruction of the nature and in-being of sin. 
 From the conclusion of this exposition we find Mrs. Wesley adopt- 
 ing an article not in the crted itself, but which is in most people's creeds 
 at present, viz. " that inward sin will not be destroyed till death." A 
 more popular and a more uncomfortable article never entered into tho 
 composition of any creed. The Methodists believe and teach, that by 
 the power of God sin may be destroyed in a moment : and that there 
 is no need of death to save from sin, when the blood of Jesus Christ our 
 Lord clcansethfrom all unrighteousness. Since the whole salvation of 
 man comes through the blood of the cross, there can be no necessity to 
 wait till death separates soul and body, to have sin separated from tho 
 soul. It is the duty of every man at all times " perfectly to love God, 
 and worthily to magnify his name :" but this can never be done till the 
 very thoughts of the heart are cleansed by the inspiration of God's Holy 
 Spirit. God, therefore, who has made it our duty thus to love and 
 magnify him, is every moment willing to confer on the justified soul 
 that grace by which alone it can thus love and magnify him. There is 
 not one text in the Bible, fairly and honestly understood, that says we 
 cannot be cleansed from all sin till we come to die ; and there is not 
 one promise in the Bible that we shall be made holy in the article of 
 death. But this is not the place to discuss doctrines ; yet I thought it
 
 208 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 necessary to make a few remarks on the preceding articles, lest any 
 should suppose that all the sentiments in this (in the main) excellent 
 exposition of the Creed were those of the Methodist body. In this 
 respect also Mrs. Wesley saw clearer before she died. 
 
 In the conclusion, she promises her daughter a. second part, or Obe- 
 dience to the Laios of God ; that a right faith might be accompanied 
 with a suitable holy practice. This part I have not seen : but as it 
 was to contain farther proof of the being of G6d, and the authenticity of 
 Divine revelation, I suppose her meditations and rejections contained 
 the heads of it. Dr. Whitehead has preserved some of these in his 
 Life of Mr. Wesley. I have several others in her own handwriting, in 
 my own collection, which I shall insert as the only substitute for the 
 second part above promised. 
 
 Though Mrs. Wesley had always lived a strictly religious life ; fear- 
 ing God, and, according to her age and light, working righteousness ; 
 yet as she found family cares accumulating, she found also the neces- 
 sity of more grace to enable her to act her part well in those new and 
 trying relations of wife and mother. When she was thirty years of age, 
 or about the year 1700, she formed the resolution to spend an hour 
 morning and evening in private retirement and devotion. In this she 
 acted from a deep sense both of its propriety and necessity ; and was 
 ever after faithful to her engagement ; suffering nothing to break in on 
 those consecrated hours, but what arose from absolute necessity, and 
 was therefore unavoidable. 
 
 Those who imagine they can encounter the cares of life with just the 
 same measure of grace which was sufficient for them in a single state, 
 will find themselves greatly mistaken. For to every situation in life 
 peculiar and suitable grace is requisite. Most new-married people, even 
 among those who are religious, think nothing of this. Hence it is often 
 found that the new-married pair soon decline in the divine life ; and 
 instead of getting forward, either go halting in the heavenly road, or 
 turn back to the world. Mrs. Wesley was fully aware of this, and pro- 
 vided timely against the evil. 
 
 Perhaps the reader, if personally concerned, will also lay the subject 
 to heart. 
 
 From Mrs. Wesley's private papers I find that not only morning and 
 evening, but noonday, had its time of private devotion. In her retire- 
 ment, when the world and worldly cares were shut out, and her mind 
 was at full liberty to converse with itself and with its Maker, she thought 
 deeply on many subjects connected with her spiritual profiting, and 
 often wrote down her thoughts. These, in several cases, she digested 
 into discourses and letters for the benefit of her family. I shall make 
 no apology for laying before the reader several examples taken from her 
 own manual. In the original there are no dates. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " Such a time devoted. Whenever company or business inclines 
 you to quit your retirement, and either to ornit or cursorily perform 
 accustomed exercises ; and you, instead of resisting, comply with such 
 inclinations, you may observe that you are always guilty of some sin 01
 
 MRS. SUdAHflA WESLEY. 209 
 
 trror, that upon reflection gives you more pain than the profit or plea- 
 sure gave you satisfaction. Therefore, make it your care to conquer 
 your inclination to any company at such times : nor let any trivial 
 business divert you ; for na business, unless it cannot be laid aside or 
 suspended, without sin, can be of equal, much less of greater, import- 
 ance, than caring for the soul." 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " That man who will readily believe an ill report of you never was, 
 or at least is not now, your friend. Seneca, a Heathen, could say, ' In 
 some cases I will not believe a man against himself. I will give him, 
 however, time to recollect himself: nay, sometimes, I will allow him 
 counsel too.' But Christians, bad Christians, are rarely so candid. He 
 is a friend indeed, who is proof against calumny : but he is a rare 
 Christian that will not believe a man against himself. 
 
 " This is eternal life to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
 whom thou hast sent. But what is it to know God ? Or, what is that 
 knowledge of God on which eternal life depends ?" 
 
 NOON. 
 
 " What can human reason do, or how far can the light of reason 
 direct us to find out the knowledge of the Most High 1 From the pri- 
 mordials of the universe we collect that there is one supreme, eternal, 
 consequently self-existent, Being, who gave being to all things : since 
 to act presupposes existence ; for nothing can act before it be. That 
 this being must possess, by way of eminence, all the perfections we 
 discern in the creatures, reason tells us : for nothing can impart that to 
 another, which it has not to impart." 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " And as creation demonstrates omnipotence ; so that infers wis- 
 dom, justice, truth, purity, goodness, &c. For all these perfections 
 are intellectual powers ; and were God deficient in one, he could not 
 be omnipotent. That he is a Spirit unbodied, undetermined, immense, 
 filling heaven and earth, all the imaginary spaces beyond them ; most 
 simple, (pure,) uncompounded, and absolutely separated and free from 
 whatever pollution a spirit is capable of being defiled with ; immuta- 
 ble, incapable of change or alteration for the better or worse ; per- 
 fectly free, knowing no superior, no equal, that may impel, allure, or 
 persuade hirn, but acting always spontaneously according to the coun- 
 sel of hia own will, we may discover by the light of nature." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " This is to know God, as a man, as a reasonable creature : but this 
 is not //"// knowledge that leadeth us to eternal life. That is a know- 
 ledge of another kind : the one we attain in a scientifical method, by a 
 long train of arguments, for which the bulk of mankind want either 
 capacity or leisure ; the oilier, by frequent and fervent application to 
 God in prayer. The one \a an effect of reason assisted by human 
 learning, peculiar to a few of the more noble- and refined sense :- 
 
 27
 
 210 OF MR. WESLEY'* ANCESTORS. 
 
 perceived, known to the understanding as the Creator, Preserver, and 
 Governor of the universe. The other is reason acting by the influence 
 and direction of the Holy Spirit : God known to the heart, the will, 
 and its affection, not merely as the author of our being, but as he is ex- 
 hibited to us under the character of the healer and repairer of the lapse 
 and misery of human nature ; a Saviour, him whom our soul loveth." 
 
 NOON. 
 
 " To know God only as a philosopher : to have the most sublime 
 and curious speculations concerning his essence, his attributes, his 
 providence ; to be able to demonstrate his being from all or any of the 
 works of nature ; and to discourse with the greatest elegancy and pro- 
 priety of words, of his existence or operations ; will avail us nothing, 
 unless at the same time we know him experimentally ; unless the heart 
 perceive and know him to be its supreme good, its only happiness : 
 unless the soul feel and acknowledge that she can find no repose, no 
 peace, no joy, but in loving, and being beloved by him ; and does ac- 
 cordingly rest in him as the centre of her being, the fountain of her 
 pleasure ; the origin of all virtue and goodness ; her light, her life, her 
 strength, her all ; every thing she wants or wishes in this world, and for 
 ever ! In a word, HER LORD, HER GOD ! 
 
 f Thus, let me ever know thee, God ! I do not despise nor neglect 
 the light of reason, nor that knowledge of thee which by her conduct 
 may be collected from this goodly system of created beings : but this 
 speculative knowledge is not the knowledge I want and wish for.'* 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 ' It is very likely that your humour last night was rather the effect of 
 fancy and passion than of a clear sound judgment. If otherwise why 
 did you feel uneasiness at another person being out of humour ? Was 
 it not pride made you resent contradiction ? or from what other princi- 
 ple could that reluctance flow, which you felt in obeying a trivial com- 
 mand, which perhaps might proceed from peevishness ; yet the matter 
 being indifferent, obedience was unquestionably your duty. A wise 
 person ought seldom, or indeed never, when authority is not disputed 
 or contemned, do acts of power ; because they are shocking to human 
 nature ; which, if not fortified and strengthened by religion, is apt in 
 such cases to throw off all subjection, and rebel against even lawful 
 government. But though you should meet with high instances, which 
 the pride of man will throw in your way ; yet take care not to swerve 
 from your duty. Look upon every such act as a call of Divine Provi- 
 dence to exercise the virtues of meekness and humility. 
 
 " When you can bear severe reflections, unjust censures, contempt- 
 uous words* and unreasonable actions, without perturbation, without 
 rendering evil for evil ; but with an equal temper can clearly discern, 
 and cheerfully do, your duty ; you may hope that God hath given you 
 some degree of humility and resignation." 
 
 EVENING. 
 w The philosophy of the whole world hath not sufficient force to con-
 
 .MRS. SUSANNA WESLET. 21 1 
 
 quer the propensions of corrupt nature. Appetites and passions vrill 
 bear sway, maugre all our fine speculations ; till our minds are enlight- 
 ened by some higher principle, by virtue of which light it discerns .the 
 moral turpitude of those things in which before it placed its supreme 
 happiness, and the beauty of that virtue and holiness that it was accus* 
 tomed to despise." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " You commit your soul morning and evening to Jesus Christ, as he 
 is the Saviour of the world : then, observe what he saith unto you, reso- 
 lutely obey his precepts, and endeavour to follow his example in those 
 things wherein he is exhibited to us as a pattern for our imitation. No 
 circumstances or time of life can occur, but you may find something 
 either spoken by our Lord himself, or by his Spirit in the prophets or 
 apostles, that will direct your conduct, if you are but faithful to God 
 and your own soul." 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " Two great obstacles in the way of Christian perfection ; the first 
 
 . \yhat says our Lord by his Apostle St. John? Love not 
 
 the world, nor the things that are in the world ; if any man love the 
 world, the love of the Father is not in him. That man will as certainly 
 be damned whose affections are fixed on sensual pleasures, riches, or 
 honours, though he never enjoy any, or a very inconsiderable propor- 
 tion of them, as he that having them all in his power, indulges himself 
 the satisfaction of his most criminal desires. For 'tis the heart God 
 requires ; and he that suffers his heart (his affection) to centre on any 
 thing but God, be the object of his passion innocent or othencise, does 
 actually make that thing HIS God, and in so doing forfeits his title and 
 pretensions to eternal happiness." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 "Another great impediment is deep adversity, which often affects, 
 the mind too much, and disposes to anxious, doubtful, and unbelieving 
 thoughts. Though there be no direct murmurings, no repinings at the 
 prosperity of others ; no harsh reflections on Providence, but a constant 
 acknowledgment of the justice and goodness of God that he punishes 
 less than our iniquities deserve and does always in the midst of judg- 
 ment remember mercy ; yet if you think severely or unjustly of men ; if 
 you are too much dejected, or disposed to peevishness, covetousness, 
 or negligence in affairs ; if you work too much or too Jiitle ; are pre- 
 sumptuous or desponding, wholly omit to implore the Divine blessing 
 and assistance on honest prospects and endeavours ; or are too soli- 
 citous and earnest in prayer for external blessings ; if the thoughts of 
 your circumstances invade your privacies, or disturb your rest; if any 
 little access of trouble have power to ruffle your temper, and indispose 
 or distract your mind in your addresses to Heaven, in reading, medi- 
 tation, or any other spiritual exercise ; you are certainly in the power cf 
 the world, guilty of immoderate anxious care. 
 
 " Then observe what your Lord saith by his apostle, J?< cartful
 
 212 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 (anxiously) for nothing. And what he saith himself, Therefore, I say 
 unto you, take no thought, fyc, and remember that he ranks cares of 
 this life with surf citings and drunkenness, which are mortal, damning 
 sins." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " The great difficulty we find in restraining our appetites and pas- 
 sions from excess often arises from the liberties we take in indulging 
 them in all those instances wherein there does not at first sight appear 
 some moral evil. Occasions of sin frequently take their rise from law- 
 ful enjoyments ; and he that will always venture to go to the utmost 
 bounds of what he may, will not fail to step beyond them sometimes ; 
 and then he uses his liberty for a cloak of his licentiousness. He that 
 habitually knows and abhors the sins of intemperance, will not stay too 
 long in the company of such as are intemperate ; and because God is 
 pleased to indulge us a glass for refreshment, will therefore take it 
 when he really needs none, it is odds but this man will transgress ; and 
 though he should keep on his feet, and in his senses, yet he will perhaps 
 raise more spirits than his reason can command ; will injure his health, 
 his reputation or estate ; discompose his temper, violate his own peace, 
 or that of his family ; all which are evils which ought carefully to be 
 avoided. 
 
 " It holds the same in all other irregular appetites or passions ; and 
 there may be the same temptations in other instances from whence 
 occasions of sin may arise ; therefore be sure to keep a strict guard, 
 and observe well lest you use lawful pleasures unlawfully. 4 Fly from 
 occasions of evil /' " 
 
 NOON. 
 
 * l The Christian religion is of so complicated a nature, that unless 
 we give up ourselves entirely to its discipline, we cannot steadfastly 
 adhere to any of its precepts. All virtues are closely bound together ; 
 and break but one link of the golden chain, you spoil the whole con- 
 texture. As vices are often made necessary supports to each other ; 
 so virtues do mutually strengthen and assist virtues. Thus temperance 
 and chastity, fortitude and truth, humility and patience, divine charity 
 and charity toward man ; all virtues of what denomination soever reci- 
 procally cherish and invigorate one another." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " Philosophy and morality are not sufficient to restrain us from those 
 sins that our constitution of body, circumstances of life, or evil custom, 
 strongly dispose us to. Nature and appetite will be too hard for their 
 precepts, unless a man be determined by o law within himself. They 
 may teach him caution, and give check to his vicious inclinations in 
 public : but will never carry him to an inward and universal purity. 
 This is only to be effected by the power of religion, which will direct us 
 to a serious application to God in fervent prayer. Upon which we 
 shall feel a disengagement from the impressions sensual objects were 
 wont to make on our minds, and an inward strength of disposition to 
 resist them.
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 213 
 
 " Good men who felt, upon their frequent applications to God in 
 prayer, a freedom from those ill impressions that formerly subdued 
 them, an inward love to virtue and true goodness ; an easiness and de- 
 light in all the parts of holiness, which was fed and cherished in them 
 by a seriousness in prayer, and did languish as that went off; had as 
 real a perception of an inward strength in their minds, thai did rise and 
 fall with true devotion, as they perceived the strength of their bodies in- 
 creased or abated according as they had or wanted good nourishment. 
 
 " This replied to Lord R 's objections against answers of prayer, 
 
 which he supposes s. fancy, and an effect of a heat in nature; that it 
 had effect only by diverting the thoughts." 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " The mind of man is naturally so corrupted, and all the powers 
 thereof so weakened, that we cannot possibly aspire vigorously toward 
 God, or have any clear perception of spiritual things without his assist- 
 ance. Nothing less than the same almighty power that raised Jesus 
 Christ from the dead can raise our souls from the death of sin to a life 
 of holiness. To know God experimentally, is altogether supernatural, 
 and what we can never attain to but by the merits and intercession of 
 Jesus Christ. By virtue of what he has done and suffered, and is now 
 doing in heaven for us, we obtain the Holy Spirit, who is the best 
 instructor, the most powerful teacher, we can possibly have ; without 
 whose agency all other means of grace would be ineffectual. How 
 evidently does the Holy Spirit concur with the means of grace! And 
 how certainly does he assist and strengthen the soul, if it be but sincere 
 and hearty in its endeavours to avoid any evil or perform any good ! To 
 have a good desire, a fervent aspiration toward God, shall not pass 
 unregarded. 
 
 " I have found by long experience that it is of great use to accustom 
 one's self to enter into solemn engagements with God against any parti- 
 cular sin : but then I would have them never made for a longer time 
 than from morning till night, and from night till morning ; that so the 
 impression they make on the mind may be always fresh and lively. 
 
 This was many years tried with good success in the case of . 
 
 Glory be to thee, O Lord !" 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " Give God the praise for any well spent day. But I am yet unsatis- 
 fied, because I do not enjoy enough of God : I apprehend myself at 
 too great a distance from him ; I would have my soul more closely 
 united to him by faith and love. I can appeal to his omniscience, that 1 
 would love him above all things. He that made me knows my desires, 
 my expectations. My joys all centre in him, and that it is he himself 
 that I desire ; it is his favour, it is his acceptance, the communications 
 of his grace, that I earnestly wish for more than any thing in the world ; 
 and that I have no relish or delight in any thing when under apprehen- 
 sions of his displeasure. I rejoice in his essential glory and blessed- 
 ness : I rejoice in my relation to him, that he is my Father, my Lord, 
 and my Cod. I rejoice that he has power over me, and desire to live
 
 214 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 in subjection to him : that he condescends to punish me when I trans- 
 gress his laws, as a father chasteneth the son whom he loveth. I thank 
 him that he has brought me so far ; and will beware of despairing of 
 his mercy for the time which is yet to come, but will give God the glory 
 of his free grace." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 41 It is too common with me upon receiving any light, or new supply 
 of grace, to think, Now I have gained my point, and may say, Soul, 
 take thine ease. By which means I think not of going any farther : or 
 else fall into dejection of spirit upon a groundless fear that I shall soon 
 lose what I have gained, and in a little time be never the better for it. 
 Both these are sins. The first proceeds from immoderate love of pre- 
 sent ease and spiritual sloth : the other from want of faith in the all- 
 sufficiency of my Saviour. 
 
 " We must never take up our rest on this side of heaven, nor think 
 we have enough of God, till we are perfectly renewed and sanctified in 
 body, soul, and spirit ; till we are admitted into that blessed region of 
 pure and happy spirits, where we shall enjoy the beatific vision accord- 
 ing to the measure of our capacities ! Nor must we out of a pretended 
 humility, because we are unworthy of the least mercy, dare to dispute 
 or question the sufficiency of the merits of Jesus Christ. It was 
 impossible for God incarnate to undertake more than he was able to 
 perform." 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 " Though man is born to trouble, yet I believe there is scarce a man 
 to be found upon earth, but, take the whole course of his life, hath 
 more mercies than afflictions, and much more pleasure than pain. I am 
 sure it has been so in my case. I have many years suffered much pain, 
 and great bodily infirmities : but I have likewise enjoyed great intervals 
 of rest and ease. And those very sufferings have, by the blessing of 
 God, been of excellent use, and proved the most proper means of 
 reclaiming me from a vain and sinful conversation ; insomuch that I 
 cannot say, I had better have been without this affliction, this disease, 
 this loss, want, contempt, or reproach. All my sufferings, by the 
 admirable management of omnipotent goodness, have concurred to 
 promote my spiritual and eternal good. And if I have not reaped that 
 advantage by them which I might have done, it is merely owing to the 
 perverseness of my own will, and frequent lapses into present things, 
 and unfaithfulness to the good Spirit of God ; who, notwithstanding all 
 my prevarications, all the stupid opposition I have made, has never 
 totally abandoned me. Glory be to thee, Lord !" 
 
 EVENING. 
 
 " If to esteem and have the highest reverence for THEE ; if constantly 
 and sincerely to acknowledge THEE the^upreme, the only desirable 
 good, be to love thee, 1 DO love THEE !>^ 
 
 " If comparatively to despise and undervalue all the world contains, 
 which is esteemed great, fair, or good ; if earnestly and constantly to
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESI.Ef. 215 
 
 desire thee, thy favour, thy acceptance, thyself, rather than any or all 
 things thou hast created, be to love, thee, 1 DO love thee ! 
 
 * 4 If to rejoice in thy essential majesty and glory ! if to feel a vital 
 joy overspread and cheer the heart at each perception of thy blessed- 
 ness, at every thought that thou art God, and that all things are in thy 
 power, that there is none superior or equal to thee, be to love thee, I 
 
 do LOVE THEE." 
 
 In these reflections and meditations the reader will see something of 
 the mind, the spirit, the heart, and the piety, of Mrs. Susanna Wesley. 
 
 In another of her meditations she mentions the following among the 
 many mercies which God had bestowed upon her : 
 
 " Born in a Christian country ; early initiated and instructed in the 
 first principles of the Christian religion ; good example in parents, and 
 in several of the family ; good books and ingenuous conversation ; pre- 
 served from ill accidents, once from violent death ; married to a reli- 
 gious, orthodox man ; by him first drawn off from the Socinian heresy, 
 
 and afterward confirmed and strengthened by B. B ." Probably 
 
 Bishop Bull. 
 
 When Mr. Wesley was from home, Mrs. Wesley felt it her duty to 
 keep up the worship of God in her own house. She not only prayed for, 
 but with, her family. At such times she took the spiritual direction 
 and care of the children and servants on herself; and sometimes even 
 the neighbours shared the benefit of her instructions. This in one 
 case led to consequences little expected, which form a remarkable trait 
 in the character of this extraordinary and excellent woman. Thrf ac- 
 count was first published by Mr. John Wesley, who remarks that " his 
 mother, as well as her father and grandfather, her husband, and her 
 three sons, had been in her measure a preacher of righteousness." The 
 whole account, as transcribed by Dr. Whitehead from the original let- 
 ters, I shall give below. 
 
 Her husband sometimes attended the sittings of convocation ; and 
 on these occasions was obliged to reside in London for a length of time 
 that was often injurious to his parish, and at an expense that was incon- 
 venient to his family. From his own account we find that three years' 
 attendance cost him 150/. ; and as a curate cost him from 30/. to 40/., 
 and the rectory was worth but about fourscore, the family in such years 
 must have been greatly distressed, as the whole proceeds of the rectory 
 must have been thus unnecessarily and unprofitably consumed. They 
 had the living of Wroole at this time ; but that seldom paid more than 
 its own expenses. As there was no absolute necessity that Mr. W. 
 should attend those convocations, his doing it in such circumstances was 
 far from being prudent, as it was the cause of much family embarrass- 
 ment. About the end of 1711, or the beginning of 1712, Mr. W. 
 appears to have spent a considerable time in London on this business ; 
 and the care of the parish devolved on a person of the name of Inman, 
 the curate, who appears to have been but indifferently qualified for his 
 charge. 
 
 During her husband's absence, Mrs. Wesley felt it her duty to pay 
 more particular attention to her children, especially on the Lord's day
 
 216 OF MII. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 in the evening, as there was then no service in the afternoon at the 
 Church. She read prayers to them, and also a sermon, and conversed 
 with them on religious and devotional subjects. Some neighbours hap- 
 pening to come in during these exercises, being permitted to stay, were 
 so pleased and profitted as to desire permission to come again. This 
 was granted : a good report of the meeting became general ; many 
 requested leave to attend ; and the house was soon filled, more than 
 two hundred at last attending ; and many were obliged to go away for 
 want of room. As she wished to do nothing without her husband's 
 knowledge and approbation, she acquainted him with their meeting, 
 and the circumstances out of which it arose. While he approved of 
 her zeal and good sense, he stated several objections to the continuance 
 of the meeting which will be best seen in her answer, dated Epworth, 
 Feb. 6, 1712, in which she says : 
 
 ' I heartily thank you for dealing so plainly and faithfully with me in 
 a matter of no common concern. The main of your objections against 
 our Sunday evening meetings are, first, that it will look particular ; 
 secondly, my sex ; and lastly, your being at present in a. public station 
 and character. To all which I shall answer briefly. 
 
 " As to its looking particular, I grant it does : and so does almost 
 every thing that is serious, or that may any way advance the glory of 
 God, or the salvation of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit, or in 
 the way of common conversation ; because in our corrupt age the utmost 
 care and diligence have been used to banish all discourse of God or 
 spiritual concerns out of society, as if religion were never to appear out 
 of the closet, and we were to be ashamed of nothing so much as of 
 professing ourselves to be Christians. 
 
 " To your second, I reply, that as I am a woman, so I am also mis- 
 tress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls 
 contained in it lies upon you as head of the family, and as their minis- 
 ter ; yet in your absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave 
 under my care, as a talent committed to me under a trust by the great 
 Lord of all the families of heaven and earth. And if I am unfaithful to 
 him, or to you, in neglecting to improve these talents, how shall I answer 
 unto him, when he shall command me to render an account of my 
 stewardship ? 
 
 " As these and other such like thoughts made me at first take a more 
 than ordinary care of the souls of my children and servants ; so know- 
 ing that our most holy religion requires a strict observation of the Lord's 
 day, and not thinking that we fully answered the end of the institution 
 by only going to Church, but that likewise we are obliged to fill up the 
 intermediate spaces of that sacred time by other acts of piety and devo- 
 tion ; I thought it my duty to spend some part of the day in reading to 
 and instructing my family, especially in your absence, when having no 
 afternodn's service, we have so much leisure for such exercises ; and 
 such time I esteemed spent in a way more acceptable to God, than if I 
 had retired to my own private devotions. 
 
 " This was the beginning of my present practice : other people coming 
 in and joining with us was purely accidental. Our lad told his parents 
 they first desired to be admitted ; then others who heard of it, begged
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 217 
 
 leave also ; so our eornpany increased to about thirty, and seldom ex- 
 ceeded forty last winter ; and why it increased since, I leave you to 
 judge after you have read what follows. 
 
 " Soon after you went to London, Emily found in your study the 
 account of the Danish missionaries, which having never seen, I ordered 
 her to read it to me. I was never, I think, more affected with any 
 thing than with the relation of their travels ; and was exceeding pleased 
 with the noble design they were engaged in. Their labours refreshed 
 my soul beyond measure ; and I could not forbear spending good part 
 of that evening in praising and adoring the Divine goodness for inspiring 
 those good men with such an ardent zeal for his glory ; that they were 
 willing to hazard their lives, and all that is esteemed dear to men in this 
 world to advance the honour of their master, Jesus. For several days 
 I could think or speak of little else. At last it came into my mind ; 
 though I am not a man nor a minister of the Gospel, and so cannot be 
 employed in such a worthy employment as they were ; yet if my heart 
 were sincerely devoted to God, and if I were inspired with a true zeal 
 for his glory, and did really desire the salvation of souls, I might do 
 somewhat more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary 
 manner in some things ; I might pray more for the people, and speak 
 with more warmth to those with whom I have an opportunity of con- 
 versing. However, I resolved to begin with my own children ; and 
 accordingly I proposed and observed the following method. I take 
 such a proportion of time as I can best spare every night to discourse 
 with each child by itself, on something that relates to its principal 
 concerns. On J\Ionday I talk with Molly ; on Tuesday with Hetty ; 
 Wednesday with JV*aci/ ; Thursday with Jacky ; Friday with Patty ; 
 Saturday with Charles; and with Emily and Sukey together, on 
 Sunday. 
 
 " With those few neighbours who then came to me I discoursed more 
 freely and affectionately than before. I chose the best and most 
 awakening sermons we had, and I spent more time with them in such 
 exercises. Since this our company has increased every night ; for I 
 dare deny none that asks admittance. Last Sunday, I believe we had 
 above two hundred, and yet many went away for want of room. 
 
 *' But I never durst positively presume to hope that God would make 
 use of me as an instrument in doing good ; the farthest I ever durst go 
 was, It may be ; who can tell 1 With God all things are possible. I 
 will resign myself to him : or, as Herbert better expresses it, 
 
 Only since God doth often make 
 Of lowly matter for hi^h use* meet, 
 
 I throw me at his feet ; 
 There 'will I lie until my Maker seek 
 For some mean stuff, whereon to show his skill 
 
 Then is my time. 
 
 " And thus I rested, without passing any reflection on myself, or 
 forming any judgment about the success* or event of this undertaking. 
 
 " Your third objection I leave to be answered by your own judgment. 
 We meet not on any worldly ilrxign. We banish all temporal concerns 
 from our society : none is suffered to mingle any discourse about them 
 
 28
 
 213 OF MR* WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 with our reading or singing : we keep close to the business of the day ; 
 and as soon as it is over, they all go home. And where is the harm of 
 this ? If I and my children went a visiting on Sunday nights, or if we 
 admitted of impertinent visits, as too many do, who think themselves 
 good Christians, perhaps it would be thought no scandalous practice, 
 though in truth it would be so. Therefore why any should reflect upon 
 you, let your station be what it will, because your wife endeavours to 
 draw people to the Church, and to restrain them by reading and other 
 persuasions, from their profanation of God's most holy day, I cannot 
 conceive. But if any should be so mad as to do it, I wish you would 
 not regard it. For my part, I value no censure on this account. I 
 have long since shook hands with the world, and I heartily wish I had 
 never given them more reason to speak against me. 
 
 " As for your proposal of letting some other person read. Alas ! 
 you do not consider what a people these are. I do not think one man 
 among them could read a sermon, without spelling a good part of it ; 
 and Jiow would that edify the rest? Nor has any of our family a voice 
 strong enough to be heard by such a number of people. 
 
 " But there is one thing about which I am much dissatisfied ; that is, 
 their being present at family prayers. I do not speak of any concern I 
 am under, barely because so many are present : for those who have the 
 honour of speaking to the great and holy God, need not be ashamed to 
 speak before the whole world, but because of my sex. I doifbt if it be 
 proper for me to present the prayers of the people to God. 
 
 " Last Sunday, I fain would have dismissed them before prayers 
 but they begged so earnestly to stay, that I durst not deny them." 
 
 How forcible are right ivords ! Who could overthrow or withstand 
 this reasoning ? The people were perishing for lack of knowledge ; 
 and it is most evident from the circumstances that a dispensation of the 
 Gospel was given to this eminent woman, to teach and instruct them ia 
 the absence of their legal pastor. She was faithful ; and the conse- 
 quence was, a number of people were edified, and perhaps not a feyr 
 reclaimed, that long ere this have welcomed her into everlasting habita- 
 tions, and will be her crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus. 
 
 Mr. Wesley felt the power of the wisdom by which she spoke ; and 
 cordially gave his approbation to her conduct : she went on her way 
 rejoicing, and great good was done. But a worthless man, Inman, 
 who was curate of the parish, and a few like himself, filled with envy, 
 and perhaps even a worse principle, wrote to Mr. Wesley, highly com- 
 plaining of these transactions, and stating that Mrs. Wesley had turned 
 the parsonage house into a conventicle, &c ; that the Church was 
 likely to receive great scandal by these irregular proceedings ; and th'at 
 they ought not to be tolerated any longer. Mr. Wesley was alarmed ; 
 his high Church principles rose up against his better judgment, and he 
 wrote to his wife desiring her to discontinue the meetings. She received 
 this high testimony of disapprobation with that firmness which belongs 
 alone to conscious rectitude ; and returned an answer to her husband, 
 which bears all the marks of her energetic mind, deep piety, ardent zeal f 
 and submissive respect to the authority of her spouse.
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 219 
 
 " Epworlh, Feb. 25, 1712. 
 
 ** Some days since I received a letter from you, I suppose dated the 
 16th instant, which I made no great haste to answer, because I judged 
 it necessary for both of us to take some time to consider before you 
 determine in a matter of such great importance. 
 
 " I shall not inquire how it was possible that you should be prevailed 
 on by the senseless clamours of two or three of the icorst of your pa*- 
 risk to condemn what you so lately approved. But I shall tell you my 
 thoughts in as few words as possible. I do not hear of more than 
 three or four persons who are against our meeting, of whom Inman 
 is the chief. He and Whitely I believe may call it a conventicle. : but 
 we hear no outcry here, nor has any one said a word against it to me. 
 And what does their calling it a conventicle signify ? Does it alter the 
 nature of the thing 1 or do you think that what they say is a sufficient 
 reason to forbear a thing that has already done much good, and by the 
 blessing of God may do much morel If its being called a conventicle, 
 by those who know in their conscience they misrepresent it, did really 
 make it one, what you say would be somewhat to the purpose : but it is 
 plain in fact that this one thing has brought more people to Church, than 
 ever any thing did, in so short a time. We used not to have above ticenty 
 or twenty-Jive at evening service, whereas we have now between two 
 and three hundred: which are more than ever came before to hear 
 Inman in the morning. 
 
 " Beside the constant attendance on the public worship of God, our 
 meeting has wonderfully conciliated the minds of this people toward us, 
 so that we now live in the greatest amity imaginable ; and what is still 
 better, they are very much reformed in their behaviour on the Lord's 
 day ; and those who used to be playing in the streets now come to hear 
 a good sermon read, which is surely more acceptable to almighty God. 
 
 ** Another reason for what I do is, that I have no other way of con- 
 versing with this people, and therefore have no other way of doing them 
 good : but by this I have an opportunity of exercising the greatest 
 and noblest charity, that is, charity to their souls. 
 
 " Some families who seldom went to Church, now go constantly ; 
 and one person who had not been there for seven years, is now prevailed 
 upon to go with the rest. 
 
 " There are many other good consequences of this meeting which I 
 have not time to mention. Now I beseech you weigh all these things 
 in an impartial balance : on the one side, the honour of almighty God, 
 the doing much good to many souls, and the friendship of the best 
 among whom we live ; on the other, (if folly, impiety, and vanity may 
 abide in the scale against so ponderous a weight) the senseless objec- 
 tions of a few scandalous persons laughing at us, and censuring us as 
 precise and hypocritical ; and when you have duly considered all things, 
 let me have your positive determination. 
 
 " I need not tell you the consequences, if you determine to put an 
 end to our meeting. You may easily perceive what prejudice it may 
 raise in the minds of these people against Inman especially, who has 
 had so little wit as to speak publicly against it. I can now keep them 
 to the Church : but if it be laid aside, Fdoubt they will never go to hear 
 

 
 220 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 him more, at least those who come from the lower end of the town. 
 But if this be continued till you return, which now will not be long, it 
 may please God that their hearts may be so changed by that time that 
 they may love and delight in his public worship, so as never to neglect 
 it more, 
 
 " If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell 
 me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience. 
 But send me your positive command, in such full and express terms, 
 as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment, for neglecting this 
 opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the 
 great and awful tribunal of our LORD JESUS CHRIST." 
 
 Though I find no farther record of these transactions yet I take it 
 for granted that this letter was decisive, and Mrs. Wesley's meetings 
 continued till her husband returned to Epworth. They would then be 
 given up in course ; and when discontinued it could be little cause of 
 rejoicing to any serious mind ; as it is most evident that God had done 
 more in a few months by this irregular ministry than he had done by 
 that of the rector and his curates for eighteen years before ! 
 
 It is worthy of remark that Mrs. Wesley terms the people that com- 
 posed these meetings our SOCIETY ; and the meetings were conducted 
 much after the manner of the Methodists' society meetings at this day ; 
 especially those of the Sabbath evenings ; when, after the preaching, 
 the society, and often any other serious person, is permitted to stay to a 
 second meeting, in which such exhortations are given relative to per- 
 sonal and family religion, as could not with propriety be brought before 
 a mixed congregation, where perhaps the bulk of the people are una- 
 wakened, and consequently incapable of profiting by instructions rela- 
 tive to the life and power of godliness. 
 
 This is not the first instance in which the seeds of that great work, 
 since Called Methodism, were sown in and by the original members of 
 this remarkable family. 
 
 For my own part I should ever feel myself disposed to bow with 
 profound respect to that rare dispensation of Providence and grace 
 which should, in similar circumstances, with as clear and distinct a call, 
 raise up a woman of such talents and piety to labour in the Gospel, 
 where the people were perishing for lack of knowledge, and so snatch 
 the brands from eternal burning. 
 
 Who so prejudiced as not to see that God put no honour on Inman 
 the curate ; but chose Susanna Wesley to do the work of the evan- 
 gelist? The abundance of gracious fruit which sprang from this seed 
 proved that the master sower was JESUS, the Lord of the harvest. 
 Lord, thou wilt send by whomsoever thou pleasest ; and wilt hide 
 pride from man, in order to prove that the excellency of the power is of 
 thee ! 
 
 By these very means all those persons who had been soured 
 against Mr. Wesley for the part that he had taken in an unpopular 
 election, now became the friends of his family ; so that, to use Mrs. 
 Wesley's words, they lived together in the greatest amity imaginable. 
 
 The good sense, piety, observation, and experience of Mrs. Wesley,
 
 MRf. SUSANNA WESLEY. 221 
 
 qualified her to be a wise counsellor in almost every affair in life, and 
 a sound spiritual director in most things that concerned the salvation of 
 the soul. Her sons, while at Oxford, continued to profit by her ad- 
 vices and directions, as they had done while more immediately under 
 her care. They sought and had, not only her advice and counsel, but 
 also her approbation in the little society they had formed at the univer- 
 sity, and that moral strictness of life which they had adopted. While 
 she excited them to proceed and persevere, she taught them prudence 
 and caution. The following letter to her son John, at Oxford, some 
 time after he had paid them a visit at Epworth, cannot be read by any 
 pei son without profit : 
 
 " Epworth, Oct. 25, 1732. 
 
 " DEAR JACKY, I was glad to hear you got safe to Oxford ; and 
 would have told you so sooner had I been at liberty, from pain of body 
 and other severer trials not convenient to mention. Let every one 
 enjoy the present hour : age and successive troubles are sufficient to 
 convince any reasonable man that it is a much wiser and safer way to 
 deprecate great afflictions, than to pray for them ; and that our Lord 
 well knew what was in man when he directed us to pray, Lead us not 
 into temptation. I think Heretic Clark, in an exposition on the Lord's 
 prayer, is more in the right than Castaniza, concerning temptations. 
 His words are as follow : ' We are encouraged to glory in tribula- 
 tion, and to count it all joy when we fall into divers temptations, &c.' 
 Nevertheless, it is to be carefully observed, that when the Scripture 
 speaks on this manner concerning rejoicing in temptations, it always 
 considers them under this view, as being experienced, and already in 
 great measure overcome. For otherwise, as to temptations in general, 
 temptations unexperienced, of which we know the danger but not the 
 success, our Saviour teaches us to pray, Lead us not into temptation : 
 and again, fVatch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. Our nature 
 is frail ; our passions strong ; our wills biassed ; and our security, 
 generally speaking, consists much more certainly in avoiding great 
 temptations, than in conquering them. W'herefore we ought contin- 
 ually to pray that God would be pleased to order and direct things in this 
 probation state, as not to suffer us to be tempted above what we are able ; 
 but that he would with the temptation also make a way to escape, that 
 we may be able to bear it. Our Lord directed his disciples when they 
 were persecuted in one city to flee into another ; and they who refuse to 
 do it when it is in their power, lead themselves into temptation, and 
 tempt God." 
 
 At this time both the brothers, John and Charles, were in a bad state 
 of health, owing to excessive study, and extraordinary abstinence. 
 They had consulted Dr. Huntington on the subject, and transmitted 
 his opinion to their mother. To this she refers in the following part of 
 the above letter : 
 
 * [ don't know how you may have represented your case to Dr. 
 Huntington ; I have had occasion to make some observation in con- 
 sumptions, and am pretty certain that several symptoms of that distem- 
 per are beginning upon you ; and thai unless you take more care than
 
 222 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 you do, you will put the matter past dispute in a little time. But take 
 your own way ; I have already given you up, as I have some before, 
 which once were very dear to me. Charles, tho' I believe not in a con- 
 sumption, is in a fine state of health for a man of two or three-and- 
 twenty, that can't eat a full meal, but he must presently throw it up 
 again ! It is a great pity that folks should be no wiser, and that they 
 can't fit the mean in a case where it is so obvious to view that none can 
 mistake it that do not do it on purpose." 
 
 They had also given their mother an account of their religious meet- 
 ings, and of the society known afterward by the name of Methodists ; 
 and that it had from the beginning her cordial approbation will appear 
 by the following extract from the same letter : 
 
 " I heartily join with your small society in all their pious and chari- 
 table actions, which are intended for God's glory ; and am glad to hear 
 that Mr. Clayton and Mr. Hall have met with desired success. May 
 you still in such good works go on and prosper. Tho' absent in body, 
 I am present with you in spirit ; and daily recommend and commit you 
 all to Divine Providence. You do well to wait on the bishop, because 
 it is a point of prudence and civility ; tho' (if he be a good man) I can- 
 not think it in the power of any one to prejudice him against you. 
 
 " Your arguments against horse races do certainly conclude against 
 masquerades, balls, plays, operas, and all such light and vain diversions, 
 which, wfiether the gay people of the world will own it or no, do strong- 
 ly confirm and strengthen the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and 
 the pride of life ; all which we must renounce, or renounce our God 
 and hope of eternal salvation. I will not say it is impossible for a per- 
 son to have any sense of religion, who frequents those vile assemblies : 
 but I never, throughout the course of my long life, knew so much as 
 one serious Christian that did ; nor can I see how a lover of God can 
 have any relish for such vain amusements. 
 
 " ' The Life of God in the Soul of Man' is an excellent good book, 
 and was an acquaintance of mine many years ago : but I have unfor- 
 tunately lost it. There are many good things in Castaniza, more in 
 Baxter ; yet are neither without faults, which I overlook for the sake 
 of their virtues. Nor can I say of all the books of divinity I have read, 
 which is the best ; one is best at one time, one at another, according 
 to the temper and disposition of the mind. 
 
 " Your father is in a very bad state of health ; he sleeps little, and 
 eats less. He seems not to have any apprehension of his approaching 
 exit : but I fear he has but a short time to live. It is with much pain 
 and difficulty that he performs Divine service on the Lord's day, which 
 sometimes he is obliged to contract very much. Every body observes 
 his decay but himself; and people really seem much concerned for 
 him and his family. 
 
 " The two girls being uneasy in the present situations, do not 
 apprehend the sad consequences which in all appearance must attend 
 his death, so much as I think they ought to do ; for, as bad as they 
 think their condition now, I doubt it will be far worse when his head is 
 laid. Your sisters send their love to you and Charles, and my love 
 and blessing to you both. Adieu."
 
 MRS. SUSANNA \VE8LET. 223 
 
 Letters from Mrs. Wesley to others of her children will be noticed 
 in their proper places. 
 
 Mr. Wesley, though he had lately sunk much, was not so near death, 
 as Mrs. Wesley dreaded. He lived about three years after this. 
 
 It will be necessary to introduce some other letters of Mrs. Wesley 
 on the subject of the doctrines and conduct of her sons John and 
 Charles, because the late Rev. Samuel Badcock, in a letter to Mr. 
 John Nichols, dated South Moulton, Dec. 5, 1782, and published by 
 Mr. N. first in No. xx, of the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 
 and afterward in his Literary Jlnecdotes of Ike Eighteenth Century, 
 vol. v, p. 217, &c, and since copied by others, speaking of Mrs. Wesley, 
 says, " She lived long enough to deplore the extravagancies of her two 
 sons John and Charles. She considered them as under strong delu- 
 sions to believe a lie ; and states her objections to their enthusiastic 
 principles (particularly in the matter of assurance) with great strength 
 of argument, in a correspondence with their brother Samuel." This 
 calumny, for it is one, may be easily rebutted. Mr. John Wesley 
 answers it thus, quoting the first paragraph about deploring their 
 extravagancies, &c, " By vile misrepresentations she was deceived 
 for a time, but she no sooner heard them speak for themselves, than 
 she was thoroughly convinced they were in no delusion, but spoke the 
 words of truth and soberness. She afterward lived with me several 
 years, and died rejoicing and praising God." 
 
 That what Mr. Wesley states here of his mother is true, I can prove 
 by the most unexceptionable testimonies from under her own hand. 
 Dr. Whitehead has treated the subject well. I shall give some extracts 
 in his own words. 
 
 " When her two sons Mr. John and Charles Wesley began to preach 
 the doctrine of justification by faith, in 1738, and many professed to be 
 so justified, and to know the time when this change in their state took 
 place ; she mentions their notions as new, in a letter she wrote to her 
 son Samuel, in March this year ; (1738 ;) though it must be acknow- 
 ledged that she had not then conversed with them on the subject, and 
 therefore did not know what doctrines they taught, but by report. It 
 has indeed been said that ' she lived long enough to deplore the 
 extravagancies of her sons ;' and this assertion was founded on the 
 letter above mentioned. But what she says on this subject has only 
 a reference to dreams, visions, or some extraordinary revelation, which 
 some persons pretended to have had ; and in which they had received 
 the knowledge of their justification ; at least this was reported of 
 several : but she no where charges her sons with teaching this as tho 
 way of justification. 
 
 ' But as this letter has been both misrepresented and misunderstood, 
 and it might be thought Mr. Wesley's friends wished to conceal it, 
 because it speaks so pointedly against the conduct of her sons, I shall 
 give the whole of it, and subjoin a few remarks. 
 
 Thursday, March 8, 1738-9. 
 
 ' DEAR SON, Your two double letters came safe to me last Friday. 
 1 thank you for them, and have received much satisfaction in reading
 
 224 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 them. They are written with good spirit and judgment, sufficient I 
 should think 16 satisfy any unprejudiced mind, that the reviving these 
 pretensions to dreams, visions, &c, is not only vain and frivolous as to 
 the matter of them, but also of dangerous consequence to the weaker 
 sort of Christians. You have well observed, ' that it is not the method 
 of Providence to use extraordinary means to bring about that for which 
 ordinary ones are sufficient.' Therefore the very end for which they 
 pretend that these new revelations are sent seems to me one of the 
 best arguments against the truth of them. As far as I can see, they 
 plead that these visions, &c, are given to assure some particular 
 persons of their adoption and salvation. But this end is abundantly 
 provided for in the Holy Scriptures ; wherein all may find the rules by 
 which we must live here and be judged hereafter so plainly laid down< 
 1 that he who runs may read ;' and it is by these laws we should 
 examine ourselves, which is a way of God's appointment, and therefore 
 we may hope for his direction and assistance in such examination. 
 And if, upon a serious review of our state, we find that in the tenor of 
 our lives we have or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform 
 the conditions of the Gospel covenant required on our parts, then we 
 may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good founda- 
 tion of a strong reasonable and lively hope of God's mercy through 
 Christ. 
 
 4 This is the assurance we ought to aim at, which the apostle calls, 
 the full assurance of hope, which he admonishes us to hold fast unto 
 the end. And the consequence of encouraging fanciful people in this 
 new way of seeking assurance, (as all do that hear them tell their silly 
 stories, without rebuke*) I think must be turning them out of God's 
 way into one of their own devising. You have plainly proved that the 
 Scripture examples, and that text in Joel, which they urge in their 
 defence, will not answer their purpose, so that they are unsupported by 
 any authority human or Divine ; (which you have well observed ;) and 
 the credit of their relations must therefore depend on their own single 
 affirmation, which surely will not weigh much with the sober, judicious 
 part of mankind. 
 
 ' I began to write to Charles before I last wrote to you, but could 
 not proceed ; for my chimney smoked so exceedingly, that I almost 
 lost my sight, and remained well nigh blind a considerable time. 
 God's blessing on eye water I make cured me of the soreness : but 
 the weakness long remained. Since, I have been informed that Mr. 
 Hall intends to remove his family to London, hath taken a house ; 
 and I must (if it please God I live) go with them, where I hope to see 
 Charles : and then I can fully speak my sentiments of their new notions^ 
 more than I can do by writing ; therefore I shall not finish my letter 
 to him. 
 
 * You have heard, I suppose, that Mr. Whitejield is taking a progress 
 through these parts to make a collection for a house in Georgia for 
 orphans, and such of the natives' children as they will part with to 
 learn our language and religion- He came hither to see me, and we 
 talked about your brothers. I told him I did not like their way of 
 living, wished them in some place of their own, wherein they might
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 225 
 
 regularly preach, &c. He replied, I could not conceive the good they 
 did in London ; that the greatest part of our clergy wave asleep, and 
 that there never was a greater need of itinerant preachers than now. 
 Upon which a gentleman that came with him said, that my son Charles 
 had converted him, and that my sons spent all their time in doing good. 
 I then asked Mr. Whitefield if my sons were not for making some 
 innovations in the Church ; which I much feared. He assured me 
 they were so far from it, that they endeavoured all they could to recon- 
 cile Dissenters to our communion ; that my son John had baptized 
 five adult Presbyterians in our own way on St. Paul's day, and he 
 believed would bring over many to our communion. His stay was short, 
 so I could not talk with him so much as I desired. He seems to be a 
 very good man, and one who truly desires the salvation of mankind. 
 God grant that the wisdom of the serpent may be joined to the inno- 
 cence of the dove! 
 
 * My paper and sight are almost at an end ; therefore I shall only 
 add, that I send you and yours my hearty love and blessing. 
 
 4 Service to Mrs. Berry. I had not an opportunity to send this till 
 Saturday the 17th ult. Love and blessing to Jacky Ellison. 
 
 4 Pray let me hear from you soon. We go in April. 
 
 From Mrs. WESLEY, Epwotth. 
 
 4 For the Rev. Mr. Wesley, 
 Tiverton, Devon.' 
 
 44 1. I have now laid before the reader every word of this so celebrated 
 letter ; and beg him carefully to observe, that it is not against her sons, 
 properly speaking, but against the persons who in dreams and visions 
 professed to have received an assurance of God's love to their souls. 
 Such are the persons whom she means when she says, they pretend 
 they plead -fanciful people who tell their silly stories and whose 
 relations must depend on their mon single affirmation, &c, &c. In 
 none of these does she refer to her sons at all : but she refers to them, 
 when she blames those for not rebuking them, iclw hear them tell such 
 stories. 
 
 " 2. When Mrs. Wesley wrote this letter she had had no interview 
 with her sons, and had only heard of what were called extravagancies 
 which were produced under their preaching ; and this she had from her 
 prejudiced son Samuel, who had his information from the letter of a 
 Mrs. Hulton, at whose house they had lodged at Westminster; and 
 this letter is so perfectly weak and nonsensical, that it would be an 
 insult to the reader to lay it seriously before him. 
 
 44 On this most stupid and foolish letter Mr. Samuel founded all the 
 philippics on the conduct of his brothers, which he detailed in his letter 
 to his mother ; and I am sorry to say, after looking over the whole of 
 the evidence, that so bigoted was Mr. Samuel, that he readily caught 
 at any thing that appeared to vilify that part of the conduct of his 
 brothers, because they preached extempore, and because when excluded 
 from the churches in London, they would dare to preach in any part of 
 that diocess ; which he roundly asserts was downright schism , and he 
 might with as much reason have called it downright burglary. Hia 
 
 29
 
 226 OF MR. WESLET'a ANCESTORS. 
 
 prejudiced representations and misrepresentations should weigh nothing 
 on the questi&n. Beside, his expositions of the texts he quotes as the 
 scriptures adduced by his brothers to vindicate their ministry, and 
 account for their effects, are far from being legitimate. 
 
 " 3. At this time Mrs. Wesley's knowledge of the plan of salvation 
 was by no means clear and distinct ; of this one passage in her letter is 
 a sufficient proof. In the place where she shows the mode people 
 should adopt in order to find a rational assurance of their salvation, she 
 says, ' If upon a serious review of our state we find in the tenor of our 
 lives, we have, or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform 
 the conditions of the Gospel covenant required on our parts, then we 
 may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good found- 
 ation of a strong, reasonable., and lively hope of God's mercy through 
 Christ.' " 
 
 Now, who that knows properly the way in which a sinner is to come 
 to God through Christ for the remission of his sins, can suppose that 
 Mrs. W. was acquainted with that way when she wrote this 1 It simply 
 amounts to salvation by works, through the merits of Christ. But sup- 
 pose any man examining the tenor of his life by Mrs. Wesley's rule in 
 order to infer salvation from it, finds that HE has NOT fulfilled the con- 
 ditions of the Gospel covenant, (and every man that makes the inquiry 
 with an honest mind in the fear of God will find this ;) what is he then 
 to do 1 His condition on this ground is hopeless. He has fulfilled no 
 conditions ; for he is and has been a sinner, and is under the curse of 
 God's law. Where shall his trembling soul fly for mercy ? To the 
 blood of the covenant to him who justifies the ungodly ; and he is to 
 seek for mercy through that blood alone. And what peace can his con- 
 science feel, or what assurance can he have that his sins are blotted 
 out that he is passed from death unto life till God adopts him into 
 the heavenly family ; and because he is then a son, God sends forth the 
 Spirit of his Son into his heart, crying, Abba, Father ! No salvation 
 by induction or inference can satisfy a guilty conscience, which feels 
 the wrath of God abiding on it ; nothing but the witness from God's 
 Spirit in our own spirit, that we are the children of God, can appease 
 the terrors of an awakened sinner, give rest to a troubled heart, or be 
 a foundation on which the soul can build a rational and Scriptural hope 
 of eternal life. Mrs. Wesley herself was obliged to come at last simply 
 to the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for her ; and then she re- 
 ceived without any reference to her past righteousness, the full witness 
 of God's Spirit that she was born from above. And though I conceive 
 her to have been long before this in a state of favour with God, on the 
 broad ground that he who feareth God and worketh righteousness, 
 according to his light, is accepted of him ; yet she had not the satisfying 
 evidence of her own salvation, till she came, as above stated, to that 
 sacrificial death by which pardon was purchased for a guilty world. As 
 soon as she conversed with her sons, and heard them speak for them- 
 selves, she was convinced that their doctrine was both rational and 
 Scriptural, and saw the wickedness of the charges that were brought 
 against them. At this very time in which she wrote the letter she
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLET. 227 
 
 heard Mr. George JVhiteJield speak for himstlf; and though he was 
 much less argumentative than her son John, and couljknot give that 
 clear description of the hope that was in him as her stfft could have 
 done, yet she was fully convinced that he was right that he was a very 
 good man one >/io truly desired the salvation of mankind ; and satis- 
 fied of his dovelike innocence, prayed that he might have wisdom suffi- 
 cient to guard it. 
 
 She had doubted and feared concerning her sons, because she was 
 misled by her son Samuel, who was misled by Mrs. Button, who was 
 misled by her total want of capacity to judge of such matters ; and who 
 was horribly offended with Mr. John Wesley, because she said he had 
 converted two of her children. That is, he had become the instrument 
 in the hand of God of awakening their conscience, and leading them to 
 " the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." 
 
 In reference to Mrs. Hutlon, who wrote so virulently against his con- 
 duct, to Mr. Samuel, representing him as little less than a maniac, 
 
 " The very head and front of his offending 
 Had this extent, no more. " 
 
 We shall probably see more on this subject when we come to the life 
 of Mr. John Wesley. 
 
 " The following extracts from three of her letters to Mr. Charles 
 Wesley will show us her opinion of the doctrine and conduct of her son* 
 more clearly than any thing which has yet appeared in print : 
 
 Oct. 19, 1738. 
 
 1 It is with much pleasure I find your mind is somewhat easier than 
 formerly, and I heartily thank God for it. The spirit of man may sus- 
 tain his infirmity : but a wounded spirit who can bear ? If this hath 
 been your case, it has been sad indeed. But blessed be God who gave 
 you convictions of the evil of sin, as contrary to the purity of the Divine 
 nature, and the perfect goodness of his law. Blessed be God, who 
 showed you the necessity you were in of a Saviour to deliver you from 
 the power of sin and Satan, (for Christ will be no Saviour to such as 
 see not their need of one,) and directed you by faith to lay hold of that 
 stupendous mercy offered us by redeeming love. Jesus is the only 
 physician of souls : his blood the only salve that can heal a wounded 
 conscience. 
 
 * It is not in wealth, or honour, or sensual pleasure, to relieve a spirit 
 heavy laden and weary of the burthen of sin. These things have power 
 to increase our guilt, by alienating our hearts from God : but none to 
 make our peace with him ; to reconcile God to man, and man to God ; 
 and to renew the union between the Divine and human nature. 
 
 * No, there is none but Christ, none but Christ, who is sufficient for 
 these things. But, blessed be God, he is an all-sufficient Saviour ! 
 and blessed be his holy name, that thou hast found him a Saviour to 
 thee, my son ! let ua love him much, for we have much to be forgiven. 
 
 ' I would gladly know what your notion is of justifying faith, because 
 you speak of it as a thing you have hut lately received.'
 
 OF MK. LESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 ' The second letter is dated Dec. 6, 1738. In it she says : 
 
 I think ydB*are fallen into an odd way of thinking. You say that 
 till within a few months you had no spiritual life, nor any justifying 
 faith. 
 
 * Now this is as if a man should affirm he was not alive in his infancy, 
 because, when an infant, he did not know he was alive. All then that 
 I can gather from your letter is, that till a little while ago, you were not 
 so well satisfied of your being a Christian as you are now. I heartily 
 rejoice that you have now attained to a strong and lively hope in God's 
 mercy through Christ. Not that I can think that you were totally 
 without saving faith before : but it is one thing to have faith, and an- 
 other thing to be sensible we have it. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit, 
 and the gift of God : but to feel or be inwardly sensible that we have 
 true faith, requires a farther operation of God's Holy Spirit. You say 
 you have peace, but not joy in believing : Blessed be God for peace ! 
 May this peace rest with you! Joy will follow, perhaps not very closely : 
 but it will follow faith and love. God's promises are sealed to us, but 
 not dated : therefore patiently attend his pleasure ; he will give you joy 
 in believing. Amen.' 
 
 " From these letters we see that Mrs. Wesley was so far from de- 
 ploring the extravagance of her sons, that she rejoiced in their Christian 
 experience, and praised God for it. She thought them mistaken in 
 judging of their former state, but not in their notions of justifying faith 
 itself; for she says in the letter last mentioned, 
 
 4 My notion of justifying faith is the same with yours ; for that trust- 
 ing in Jesus Christ, or the promises made in him, is that special act of 
 faith to which our justification or acceptance is so frequently ascribed 
 iu the Gospel. This faith is certainly the gift of God, wrought in the 
 mind of man by the Holy Spirit.' 
 
 " The two Mr. Wesleys professed to know the time when they re- 
 ceived justifying faith ; and they taught that others might know the 
 time of their justification. On this head she observes : 
 
 ' I do not judge it necessary to know the exact time of our conversion.' 
 
 " From which it appears that she did not think this part of their doc- 
 trine erroneous or extravagant : she was only afraid lest this circum- 
 stance should be made a necessary criterion of conversion, which she 
 thought might hurt the minds of weaker Christians. 
 
 " These letters, therefore, are a full confutation of Mr. Badcock's 
 assertion. 
 
 "The third letter is dated Dec. 27, 1739, after she had come to 
 reside chiefly in London. Here she enjoyed the conversation of her 
 sons alternately ; the one being always in town, while the other was in 
 the country. She now attended on their ministry, conversed with the 
 people of the society, and became more perfectly acquainted with their 
 whole doctrine, and seems heartily to have embraced it. Charles was 
 in Bristol when she wrote this letter to him. She observes : 
 
 ' You cannot more desire to see me, than I do to see you. Your 
 brother, whom I shall henceforth call son Wesley, since my dear .Sam 
 is gone home, has just been with me, and much revived my spirits.
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 229 
 
 Indeed I have often found that he never speaks in my hearing without 
 my receiving some spiritual benefit. But his visits pjre seldom and 
 short ; for which I never blame him, because 1 know he is well em- 
 ployed ; and, blessed be God ! hath great success in his ministry. But, 
 my dear Charles, still I want either him or you. For indeed, in the 
 most literal sense, I am become a little child, and want continual suc- 
 cour. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a man his 
 friend." I feel much comfort and support from religious conversation 
 when I can obtain it. Formerly I rejoiced in the absence of company ; 
 and found the less I had of creature comforts, the more I had from 
 God. But, alas ! I am fallen from that spiritual converse I once en- 
 joyed. And why is it so ? Because I want faith. God is an omnipre- 
 sent, unchangeable Good, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow 
 of turning: the fault is in myself; and I attribute all mistakes in judg- 
 ment, and all errors in practice, to want of faith in the blessed Jesus. 
 O, my dear, when I consider the dignity of his person, the perfection 
 of his purity, the greatness of his sufferings, but above all his boundless 
 love, I am astonished and utterly confounded ; I am lost in thought. I 
 fall into nothing before him ! O how inexcusable is that person who 
 has knowledge of these things, and yet remains poor and low in faith 
 and love ! I speak as one guilty in this matter. 
 
 1 1 have been prevented from finishing my letter. I complained I 
 had none to converse with me on spiritual things ; but for these several 
 days I have had the conversation of many good Christians, who have 
 refreshed in some measure my fainting spirits ; and though they hin- 
 dered my writing, yet it was a pleasing, and I hope not an unprofitable 
 interruption they gave me. I hope we shall shortly speak face to face ; 
 and I shall then, if God permit, impart my thoughts more fully. But 
 then, alas ! when you come, your brother leaves me ! yet that is the 
 will of God, in \vhose blessed service you are engaged ; who has 
 hitherto blessed your labours, and preserved your persons. That he 
 may continue so to prosper your work, and protect you both from evil, 
 and give you strength and courage to preach the true Gospel in oppo- 
 sition to the united powers of evil men and evil angels, is the hearty 
 prayer of, dear Charles, your loving mother, 
 
 4 SUSANNA WESLEY.' 
 
 " This letter gives full evidence that Mrs. Wesley cordially approved 
 of the conduct of her sons ; and was animated with zeal for the success 
 of their labours. She continued in the most perfect harmony with 
 them till her death : attending on their ministry, and walking in the light 
 of God's countenance, she rejoiced in the happy experience of the truths 
 she heard them preach." Dr. Whitehead's Life, vol. i, pp. 49-54. 
 
 It appears from all we have seen of Mrs. Wesley that she was a 
 woman of real experience in the things of God. But it does not appear 
 that she had a clear notion of justification as distinct from sanctifica- 
 tion ; on the contrary she seems to have confounded them together. 
 The consequence was, that her knowledge of the doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith alone, without the deeds of the law, was not so clear as 
 it might have been; and this hindered her from enjoying that full
 
 230 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 assurance of her state, and the peace and joy consequent upon it, 
 which otherwise she would have had. 
 
 To have denied the witness of God's Spirit, or the assurance of our 
 adoption, Mrs. Wesley must have strangely forgotten herself; for it 
 was one part of her creed, and one point in the Apostles' Creed, accord- 
 ing to her own exposition, that believing in the Holy Ghost implies 
 believing that he assures * of our adoption. See her letter to her 
 daughter Susan, already inserted. 
 
 As to the doctrine of assurance, (or the knowledge of our salvation 
 by the remission of sins ; or, in other words, that a man who is justified 
 by faith in Christ Jesus knows that he is so, the Spirit bearing witness 
 with his spirit that he is a child of God,) against which such a terrible 
 outcry has been made, I would beg leave to ask, What is Christianity 
 without it 1 A mere system of ethics ; an authentic history ; a dead let- 
 ter. It is by the operations of the Holy Spirit in the souls of believers 
 that the connection is kept up between heaven and earth. The grand 
 principle of the Christian religion is, to reconcile men to God by Christ 
 Jesus ; to bring them from a state of wrath to reconciliation and favour 
 with God ; to break the poicer, cancel the guilt, and destroy the very 
 being of sin ; for Christ was manifested that he might destroy the 
 work of the devil. And can this be done in any human soul, and it 
 know nothing about it, except by inference and conjecture ? Miserable 
 state of Christianity indeed, where no man knows that he is born of 
 God. This assurance of God's love is the birthright and common pri- 
 vilege of all his children. It is a general experience among truly reli- 
 gious people : they take rest, rise up, work, and live under its influence. 
 By it they are carried comfortably through all the ills of life, bring forth 
 the fruits of the Spirit, triumph in redeeming grace, and die exulting in 
 Him whom they know and feel to be the God of their salvation. 
 
 Nor is this confined to superannuated women, as Mr. Southey (vol. 
 i, p. 291) charitably hopes Mrs. Wesley was, when she professed to 
 receive the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Men also 
 as learned as Mr. Badcock, as philosophical as Mr. Southey, as deeply 
 read in men and things as Bishop Lavington, and as sound divines at 
 least as the rector of J\lanaccan, have exulted in the same testimony, 
 walked in all good conscience before God, illustrated the doctrine by ti{ 
 nuitable deportment, and died full of joyful anticipation of an eternal 
 glory ! Alas, what a dismal tale do those men tell, who not only strive 
 to argue against the doctrine, but endeavour to turn it into ridicule. 
 They tell us, that they are not reconciled to God ! 
 
 Mr. Badcock's sneers at the matter of assurance as he calls it, and 
 the extravagancies of Mr. John and Charles W'esley, were little in cha- 
 racter. He was a learned man, an able critic, and generally allowed 
 to be mild and liberal. But who can reconcile this general, and pro- 
 bably well deserved character, with the concluding part of the paragraph 
 above referred to? " Their brother Samuel exerted his best powers to 
 reclaim them from their wanderings, but in vain ! The extravagant 
 and erring spirit could not be reduced to its own confine. It had burst 
 its bonds asunder, and ran violently down the steep." 
 
 This was still less in character, when we consider Mr. Badcork a
 
 MRS. SUSANNA WESLET. 231 
 
 Dissenting minister, for such he was in 1782, when he wrote the above 
 letter, and for many years before ; though he afterward conformed, 
 and entered the Church, in the year 1786 ; and his creed with respect 
 to the- doctrine of assurance, as existing in the Assembly's Catechism, 
 must have been the same, in words at least, with that of Mr. Wesley. 
 
 For the reader's amusement I shall note the place. 
 
 " Quest. 31. What are the benefits which in this life do either 
 accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification ? 
 
 " Answer. Assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the 
 Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein unto the end." 
 
 And the following scriptures are quoted to establish these assertions : 
 Being justified by faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. By whom also ice have ACCESS by faith into this grace, 
 wherein we stand, and REJOICE in HOPE of the glory of God. And hope 
 makelh not ashamed, because THE LOVE OF GOD' is SHED ABROAD m 
 
 OUR HEARTS BY THE HoLY GHOST WHICH IS GIVEN UNTO US, Rom. 
 
 xiv, 1, 2, 5. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink ; but right- 
 eousness, PEACE and JOY in the HOLY GHOST, Rom. xiv, 17. These 
 things have 1 written unto you thai believe on the name of the Son of 
 
 God, THAT YE MAY KNOW YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, 1 John V, 13. 
 
 Here then is the " matter of assurance," which the Methodists have 
 preached, do preach, and I hope will preach, as long as they have a 
 name to live upon the earth. And these scriptures are full to the point ; 
 and fully prove that every sinner, who by hearty repentance and true 
 faith returns unto the Lord, through Christ Jesus, receives remission of 
 sins, and has the witness in himself. 
 
 Perhaps the most irregular part of Mr. Wesley's conduct was his 
 employing lay preachers, persons without any ordination by the impo- 
 sition of hands ; and the fullest proof that we can have of Mrs. Wes- 
 ley's approving most heartily every thing in doctrine and discipline of 
 her sons, was her approval of lay preaching, or, to use the words of her 
 father-in-law, John Wesley of Whitchurch, " the preaching of gifted 
 men, without episcopal ordination." This began in her time ; and she 
 repeatedly sat under the ministry of the first man, Mr. Thomas Jtfoz- 
 field, who attempted to officiate among the Methodists in this hitherto 
 unprecedented way. 
 
 It was in Mr. Wesley's absence that Mr. Maxfield began to preach. 
 Being informed of this new and extraordinary thing, he hastened back 
 to London to put a stop to it. Before he took any decisive step, he 
 spoke to his mother on the subject, and informed her of his intention. 
 She said, (I have had the account from Mr. Wesley himself,) " My 
 son, I charge you before God, beware what you do ; for Thomas Max- 
 field is as much called to preach the Gospel as ever you were !" The 
 unction of God that attended the preaching convinced her that the 
 preacher's call was from Heaven. This was one of the last things that 
 a person of such high Church principles might be expected to accede 
 to. And this fact, with what is related above, will for ever obliterate 
 the calumny cast upon tliis blessed woman, that she lived long enough 
 in deplore tlie extravagancies of her sons. 
 
 Nor will the great body of the Methodist preachers forget that Mrs.
 
 232 OF MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 Wesley, the mother of their founder, was the patroness and first encou- 
 rager of the lay preachers ! 
 
 Mr. Thomas Maxfield was the first lay preacher ; Mr. Thomas 
 Richards, the second ; and Mr. Thomas Westall the third. The for- 
 mer and latter I knew : but who will be the last, who without any 
 ordination by the imposition of hands, shall officiate as an itinerant 
 preacher in the Methodist connection ? That they will soon have re- 
 course to this Scriptural rite may be safely conjectured ; and that they 
 should never have been without it may be successfully argued. Their 
 mode of admission into the ministry, it must be granted, is sufficiently 
 solemn and efficient : but they have no authority to dispense with a 
 Scriptural and apostolic rite. 
 
 After the death of Mr. Samuel Wesley, in 1735, the family were all 
 scattered, and the household goods and property sold, as the premises 
 must be cleared for a new incumbent ; a heavy and distressing inconve- 
 nience in the discipline of the Church of England, which extends from 
 the lowest vicar to the metropolitan of the whole empire. 
 
 Previously to this, some of the sisters had been married ; two were 
 with their uncle Matthew ; others were settled as governesses and teach- 
 ers of youth, for which they appear to have been well qualified ; and 
 one (Emily) had taken up a school at Gainsborough. With her Mrs. 
 Wesley appears to have sojourned awhile, before she went to live with 
 her sons John and Charles ; where, free from cares and worldly anxie- 
 ties, with which she had long been unavoidably encumbered, she spent 
 the evening of her life in comparative ease and comfort. 
 
 Of her last moments her son John gives the following account : 
 
 " I left Bristol on the evening of Sunday, July 18, (1742,) and on 
 Tuesday came to London. I found my mother on the borders of eter- 
 nity : but she had no doubts nor fear ; nor any desire, but as soon aa 
 God should call, to depart and be ivith Christ. 
 
 " Friday 23. About three in the afternoon I went to see my mo- 
 ther, and found her change was near. I sat down on the bedside : she 
 was in her last conflict, unable to speak, but I believe quite sensible. 
 Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward, while we 
 commended her soul to God. From three to four the silver cord was 
 loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern ; and then, without any 
 struggle, or sigh, or groan, the soul was set at liberty. We stood 
 round the bed, and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she 
 lost her speech, ' Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of 
 praise to God.' 
 
 "Sunday, August 1. Almost an innumerable company of people 
 being gathered together, about five in the afternoon, I committed to the 
 earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion 
 of Scripture from which I afterward spoke was, / saw a great while 
 throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven 
 fled away, and there was found no place for them. Jlnd I saw the dead 
 small and great stand before God, and the books were opened. -And the 
 dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books 
 according to their works. It was one of the most solemn assemblies 
 1 ever saw, or expect to see, on this side eternity.
 
 MllS. SUSANNA WESLEY. 233 
 
 u \Ve set up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the 
 following words : 
 
 Here lies the body of Mrs. SUSANNA WESLEY, the youngest and last 
 surviving daughter of Dr. SAMUEL ANNESLEY 
 
 In sure and steadfast hope to rise, 
 And claim her mansion in the skies : 
 A Christian here her flesh laid down, 
 The cross exchanging for a croum. 
 
 Trite daughter of affliction she, 
 Inured to pain and misery, 
 Mourn'd a long night of griefs and fears, 
 A legal night of seventy years. 
 
 The Father then reveal'd his Son, 
 Him in the broken bread made known. 
 She knew and felt her sins forgiven, 
 And found the earnest of her heaven. 
 
 Meet for the fellowship above, 
 She heard the call, ' Arise, my love.' 
 ' I come!' her dying looks replied, 
 And lamblike, as her Lord, she died." 
 
 The reader, who has carefully considered the preceding memoirs, is 
 most certainly prepared for a widely different epitaph from the preced- 
 ing. It is trite, bald, and inexpressive. Her passive character may 
 be said to be given : she was a daughter of affliction ; and suffered 
 with the highest resignation to the will of God, and the dispensation of 
 his providence. But, as she says herself, if she had much affliction and 
 pain, she had still more intervals of ease and health ; and she even 
 adduces her own case, where afflictions and trials abounded, as a 
 proof that the blessings of life are more numerous than its ills and dis- 
 advantages ; and calculates that on a fair estimate this will be found to 
 be the case with every individual. 
 
 The second and third stanzas are incautiously expressed : they seem 
 to intimate that she was not received into the Divine favour till she was 
 seventy years of age ! For my own part, after having traced her 
 through all the known periods of her life, and taking her spiritual state 
 from her own nervous and honest pen, I can scarcely doubt that she 
 was in the Divine favour long before that time ; according to that text, 
 lie that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. 
 And though she lived in a time when the spiritual privileges of the peo- 
 ple of God were not so clearly defined, nor so well understood as they 
 are at present ; yet she was not without large communications of the 
 Divine Spirit, heavenly light, and heavenly ardours, which often caused 
 her to sit " like cherub bright, some moments on a throne of love." She 
 had the faith of God's elect ; she acknowledged the truth which is ac- 
 cording to godliness. Her spirit and life were conformed to this truth ; 
 and she was not, as she could not be, without the favour and approba- 
 tion of God. 
 
 But there is -.ifuct that seems to stand against this, which is alluded 
 to in the .second and third stanzas, viz. that " in receiving the sacra- 
 ment of the Lord's Supper, when her son-in-law, Mr. Hall, presented 
 
 30
 
 OF MR. WESLEY 8 ANCESTORS. 
 
 her the cup with these words, The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 which was shed for THEE, she felt them strike through her heart ; and 
 she then knew that God, for Christ's sake, had forgiven her all her sins." 
 That Mrs. Wesley did then receive a powerful influence from the Holy 
 Spirit I can readily believe, by which she was mightily confirmed and 
 strengthened, and had from it the clearest evidence of her reconciliation 
 to God ; but that she had been in a legal state, or, as some have un- 
 derstood that expression, was seeking justification by the works of the 
 law until then, I have the most positive facts to disprove. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley's ministry was strong and faithful : but it was 
 not clear on the point of justification by faith, and the witness of the 
 Spirit. I can say this from the most direct evidence, several of his 
 own MS. sermons now before me. To know that we are of God, by the 
 Spirit which he has given us, he, and most in his time, believed to be the 
 privilege of a few, and but of a. few : hence the people were not exhorted 
 to follow on to know the Lord ; and although several, and among them 
 most undoubtedly Mrs. Wesley, had a measure of the thing, felt its 
 effects, and brought forth the fruits of it, yet they knew not its name. 
 Mrs. Wesley had long before laid her burthen at the foot of the cross ; 
 she had received Christ crucified as her only Saviour ; she herself 
 shows she had trusted in nothing but the infinite merit of his sacrificial 
 death and intercession ; she teas justified by faith, for she had peace with 
 God through our Lord Jesus Christ, gloried even in tribulation, and 
 rejoiced in hope of the glory of God ; for the love of God was shed 
 abroad in her heart by the Holy Ghost that was given to her : but 
 having little or no acquaintance with deeply religious people, and her 
 husband not holding out this blessing as the privilege of all true be- 
 lievers, she knew not precisely her own state ; and because she did not 
 know how to hold fast the consolations which she had received, she 
 often, like many others, fell into doubts and fears which brought her into 
 temporary bondage. But, in general, her mountain stood strong. 
 
 After her husband's death, when she came to sit under the clear 
 ministry of her sons John and Charles, and to converse with many 
 pious and sensible members of the society, her mind became more 
 enlightened in spiritual things ; she saw the privileges of the people 
 of God, expected much in the means of grace, and received a fresh, 
 full, and clear evidence of her acceptance at the time mentioned above. 
 
 She had then what the Methodists rightly call the abiding witness of 
 the Spirit, and very probably an application of that blood which cleanses 
 from all unrighteousness. That she had long served God as a master 
 under the spirit of fear, without that love which springs from a con- 
 sciousness of his love, ( We love him because he first loved us,) I am 
 ready enough to grant. This is, less or more, the lot and experience 
 of all : but that legal night did not last to her seventieth year. She was 
 long before that in the Divine favour, and felt her blessedness, though 
 she could not give it its appropriate name ; nor did she feel its fulness 
 because she had not the advantage of a clear ministry on the subject 
 of salvation by faith. 
 
 I do not argue that a person may be justified and not know it, or feel 
 the alteration in his state. I think this is a dangerous doctrine ; because
 
 MRS. SUSANNA \\ESLET. 235 
 
 I am satisfied that it is the privilege of every believer to know he is in 
 the Divine favour. But I contend, a person may be justified, have 
 peace and joy in believing, and feel the burthen of guilt taken away 
 from the conscience, and for a time not know the precise name of that 
 state of grace in which he stands. I have known a very striking case 
 of this kind, where the person, having little acquaintance with religious 
 people, after a long night of grief, darkness, and distress, felt and was 
 astonished at the moral change which had taken place in his mind, but 
 knew not by what name to call it. His burthen of guilt, and he had 
 felt it very heavy, was taken away : he felt no condemnation, he re- 
 joiced in Christ Jesus, and had no confidence in the flesh, and brought 
 forth all the fruits of faith ; and it was a considerable time after this 
 change had taken place before he knew what God had done for his 
 soul ; though he felt and exulted in the blessedness he had received. 
 
 But to return. What is an epitaph ? or what should an epitaph be ? 
 A strongly condensed abridgment of the life of the deceased ; and if a 
 pious person be the subject, the epitaph should be a pointed exhibition 
 of the grace that was in him, and his faithfulness to that grace ; and all 
 this so recommended that the living might lay it to heart, and be excit- 
 ed to a practical emulation. But how little of this is found in the above 
 epitaph ! We are not even told that she was the wife of Samuel Wesley, 
 rector of Epworth ! Perhaps modesty in the sons prevented them from 
 speaking in her praise : if so, it was very ill-judged. Had I a muse of 
 the strongest pinion, I should not fear to indulge it in its highest flights 
 in sketching out the character of this superexcellent woman. Mr. 
 Southey has very properly criticised this epitaph : but he mistakes when 
 he says that " her sons represent her as if she had lived in ignorance of 
 real Christianity during the life of her excellent husband." They do 
 not, they could not, do it. They well knew she had a profound know- 
 ledge of Christianity, nor was she indebted to her husband's teaching 
 for this : but the epitaph represents her as being to that time destitute 
 of the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. A man may 
 have a full knowledge of real Christianity without this : but he cannot 
 without it have an experimental knowledge of its saving power. How- 
 ever, she had both, long before that time. And so fully acquainted was 
 she with the Christian system, and the evidences of its Divine origin, 
 that she even taught wisdom among those that were perfect, those that 
 were deeply instructed in all human learning. How Mr. John Wesley 
 could consent to permit such an epitaph to be inscribed on her head- 
 stone, (for he certainly never composed it,) I cannot comprehend. In 
 the late edition of Mr. Wesley's works the whole account is very repre- 
 hensibly omitted in the Journal, and only referred to as being entered 
 in vol. i, p. 41, and in this place only the first verse of the epitaph is 
 given. Probably the editor was as much displeased with it as either 
 Mr. Southey or myself. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley's character will be best seen in the preceding memoirs. 
 She appears to have had the advantage of a liberal education, as far as 
 Latin, Greek, and French enter into such an education. She had read 
 much, and thought much ; and thus her mind was cultivated. Both 
 logic and metaphysics had formed a part of her studies ; and these
 
 236 or MR. WESLEY'S ANCESTORS. 
 
 acquisitions without appearing, for she studiously endeavours to con- 
 ceal them, are/e/f to great advantage in all her writings. 
 
 Sh*e had a strong and vigorous mind, and an undaunted courage. 
 She feared no difficulty ; and in search of truth, at once looked the 
 most formidable objections full in the face ; and never hesitated to give 
 any enemy all the vantage ground he could gain, when she rose up to 
 defend either the doctrines or precepts of the religion of the Bible. She 
 was not only graceful, but beautiful, in her person. Her sister Judith, 
 painted by Sir Peter Lely, is represented as a very beautiful looman. 
 One who well knew both said, " Beautiful as Miss Annesley appears, 
 she was far from being so beautiful as Mrs. Wesley." 
 
 As a loife she was affectionate and obedient, having a sacred respect 
 for authority wherever lodged. As the mistress of a large family, her 
 management was exquisite in all its parts ; and its success beyond 
 comparison or former example. As a Christian she was modest, hum- 
 ble, and pious. Her religion was as rational as it was Scriptural and 
 profound. In forming her creed she dug deep, and laid her foundation 
 upon a rock ; and the storms and adversities of life never shook it. 
 Her faith carried her through life, and it was unimpaired in death. She 
 was a tender mother, a wise and invaluable friend. Several of her 
 children were eminent ; and HE, who excelled all the rest, owed, under 
 God, at least one half of his excellencies to the instructions of his mother. 
 If it were not unusual to apply such an epithet to a woman, I would not 
 hesitate to say she was an able divine ! 
 
 I have traced her life with much pleasure, and received from it much 
 instruction ; and when I have seen her repeatedly grappling with 
 gigantic adversities, I have adored the grace of God that was in her, 
 and have not been able to repress my tears. I have been acquainted 
 with many pious females, I have read the lives of several others, and 
 composed memoirs of a few : but such a woman lake her for all in all, 
 I have not heard of, I have not read of, nor with her equal have I been 
 acquainted. Such a one Solomon has described in the last chapter of 
 his Proverbs ; and to her I can apply the summed-up character of his 
 accomplished housewife, Many daughters have done virtuously : but 
 SUSANNA WESLEY has excelled them all. 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE REVEREND SAMUEL WESLEY. 
 
 WHERE the male issue fails, the records of any private family may 
 soon be lost ; in most cases, neither public nor private interest is pro- 
 moted by keeping up the memorial. 
 
 Though it is little more than thirty years since the founder of the 
 Methodists died, all knowledge of that part of the family that had no 
 public eminence is almost completely obliterated. Out of the nineteen 
 children of Mr. Samuel Wesley, the names of only eleven can be re- 
 covered ; and of most even of these little or nothing is known. 
 
 It is customary in many country parishes to keep the registers at the 
 parsonage ftotwc, because of the damp of the church and vestry. This
 
 SAMUEL WESI.ET, JUN. 237 
 
 was the case at the parsonage .house at Epworth; and when it was 
 burned down in 1709, all these records perished in the flames ; so that the 
 genealogy of all the children born in Epworth previously to this catas- 
 trophe is lost. I have inquired upon the spot, and also extended those 
 inquiries to South Ormsby and Wroole; and all that I can collect will 
 be given under each name. 
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUNIOR. 
 
 Of the eighteen or nineteen children which Mrs. Wesley had, Samuel 
 was undoubtedly the eldest, as he was born in London or its vicinity 
 before his father's removal to South Ormsby, which was probably in the 
 beginning of 1693. Mr. Wesley appears to have married Miss S. 
 Annesley in 1690 ; and his son Samuel was born either near the close 
 of that year or the beginning of the next. This date may be collected 
 from his epitaph, which states his death to have taken place, " Nov. 6, 
 1739, in the 49th year of his age." He must therefore have been born 
 in 1690, or in the beginning of 1691. Whether he was baptized among 
 the Dissenters, or in some parochial Church in London, I cannot 
 Jearn : the probability is, that he was thus dedicated to God by his 
 grandfather, Dr. Annesley. 
 
 I have already mentioned, in the memoirs of Mrs. Wesley, that 
 Samuel did not speak till he was between four and five years of age, 
 which was a great grief to the family, as they feared he was born 
 dumb. But one day having retired out of sight, as was his frequent 
 custom, to amuse himself with a favourite cat, hearing his mother 
 anxiously calling him, he crept out from under a table, and said, 
 " Here I am, mother," to the great surprise and comfort of all the 
 family. 
 
 In 1704, when about fourteen years of age, he was sent to West- 
 minster school ; and was admitted king's scholar in 1707. 
 
 This school through the extraordinary abilities of Dr. Busby, its late 
 master, then only a few years dead, had acquired the highest celebrity 
 of any school in Europe. In it Dr. Busby had his education ; and, 
 after completing his studies at Oxford, he became its head master in 
 1640. He superintended it for fifty-five years ; during which time, by 
 his skill, diligence, deep learning, and exact discipline, he bred up the 
 greatest number of eminent men in Church and state, that ever at one 
 time adorned any age or nation. He died in 1695, when almost ninety 
 years of age. 
 
 Where Dr. Busby found animation, he knew there was brain; and 
 proper cultivation would produce and extend intellect; and the apparent 
 stupidity or dullness of the subject was neither a bar to his expectations, 
 or a hinderance to his ultimate success. He had to operate on minds 
 of various descriptions, from that of the flippant witling, down to tbat of 
 the heavy lumpish lad, whose intellect seemed irrecoverably enveloped 
 in hebitude. To Dr. Busby's plans, science, and discipline, every 
 thing yielded : and no dunce nor unlearned man was ever turned out 
 of Westminster school during his incumbency. 
 
 When Mr. Wesley entered this school, all Dr. Busby's plans wen- 
 in full operation ; and the elementary books which this great master
 
 238 SAMUEL WESLEY, JfX. 
 
 had composed for this institution were of such a character as at once 
 to smooth the path of learning, till then sufficiently rugged, and lay the 
 foundation of a correct classical taste and profound literature. In the 
 present age humane and learned men have been endeavouring, so to 
 speak, to find out a royal road to geometry : difficulties have been 
 professedly lessened, till at last the foundations of science have been 
 laid upon the sands. Profound literature is rarely to be met with. 
 We have still, it is true, the splendour and brilliancy of gold ; but on 
 examination we frequently find a mass of inferior metal ; and even the 
 surface, though completely covered, yet not deeply gilt. 
 
 Mr. Wesley availed himself of the valuable advantages put within 
 his reach, and became a thorough scholar. He had naturally a strong 
 and discerning mind, which soon shone conspicuous for its correct 
 classical taste. Of this these memoirs shall exhibit ample proof. 
 
 We have already seen what care Mrs. Wesley took to cultivate the 
 minds of her children ; and form them, as far as human influence and 
 teaching can extend, to religion and piety. As the blessing of God 
 will never be wanting to render such parental cares efficient, she saw 
 in every case that her labour was not in vain. As Samuel was her 
 first-born, she felt it her duty in a peculiar manner to dedicate him to 
 the Lord. Hence she was especially concerned for his highest interest; 
 and her anxious cares were not lessened on his removal to Westminster. 
 Thoroughly apprehensive of the dangers to which he would be exposed 
 in a public school, far removed from the eye of his parents, she endea- 
 voured by a very judicious and pious correspondence to maintain the 
 good impressions which had been made on his mind ; and to show 
 him that the new engagements into which he was proposing to enter 
 required such a steadiness and purity of conduct as could not be 
 obtained but by a heart decidedly fixed on God, and making him the 
 end of all its operations and designs. As his parents had dedicated 
 him to the work of the ministry, so it became the object of his own 
 choice ; and his literary pursuits were in the main directed to this 
 end. 
 
 A letter, written to him by his mother in October, 1709, refers to all 
 these circumstances; and contains such excellent counsels and advices, 
 conceived with so much piety and judgment, and expressed with so 
 much energy and dignity of language, as could not fail to make them 
 profitable to the son ; and must render them useful to all in similar 
 circumstances, who may have the opportunity to read them. 
 
 " I hope that you retain the impressions of your education, nor have 
 forgot that the vows of God are upon you. You know that the first 
 fruits are Heaven's by an unalienable right ; and that as your parents 
 devoted you to the service of the altar, so you yourself made it your 
 choice when your father was offered another way of life for you. But 
 have you duly considered what such a choice and such a dedication 
 imports ? Consider well, what separation from the world ! what purity ! 
 what devotion ! what exemplary virtue ! are required in those who are 
 to guide others to glory. I say exemplary ; for low common degrees 
 of piety are not sufficient for those of the sacred function. You must 
 not think to live like the rest of-the world ; your light must so shine
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 239 
 
 before men, that they may see your good works, and thereby be led to 
 glorify your Father which is in heaven. For my part, I cannot see 
 with what face clergymen can reprove sinners, or exhort men to lead 
 a good life, when they themselves indulge their own corrupt inclina- 
 tions, and by their practice contradict their doctrine. If the holy Jesus 
 be indeed their Master, and they are really his ambassadors, surely it 
 becomes them to live like his disciples ; and if they do not, what a sad 
 account must they give of their stewardship. 
 
 " I would advise you, as much as possible, in your present circum- 
 stances, to throw your business into a certain method, by which means 
 you will learn to improve every precious moment, and find an unspeak- 
 able facility in the performance of your respective duties. Begin and 
 end the day with him who is the Alpha and Omega ; and if you really 
 experience what it is to love God, you will redeem all the time you can 
 for his more immediate service. I will tell you what rule I used to 
 observe when I was in my father's house, and had as little, if not less, 
 liberty than you have now. I used to allow myself as much time for 
 recreation as I spent in private devotion : not that I always spent so 
 much ; but I gave myself leave to go so far, but no farther. So in all 
 things else ; appoint so much time for sleep, eating, company, &c. 
 But above all things, my dear Sammy, I command you, I beg, I beseech 
 you, to be very strict in observing the Lord's day. In all things 
 endeavour to act upon principle, and do not live like the rest of man- 
 kind, who pass through the world like straws upon a river, which are 
 carried which way the stream or wind drives them. Often put this 
 question to yourself, Why do I this or that? Why do I pray, read, 
 study, or use devotion, &c? By which means you will come to such a 
 steadiness and consistency in your words and actions as becomes a 
 reasonable creature, and a good Christian." 
 
 Such a mother at the head of a numerous family was a public 
 blessing. I have before observed that Methodism is under the highest 
 obligations to this excellent woman ; and the extent of the obligations 
 to the mother has not yet been duly estimated by the followers of the son. 
 
 About this time an accident occurred, which, with the total destruc- 
 tion of the parsonage house at Epworth, and all the family property, 
 had nearly proved fatal to the family itself, the whole of which had 
 been saved almost by miracle. The fire (of which we shall see a 
 particular account when we come to the life of Mr. John Wesley) took 
 place on February 9, 1709. Samuel, who was then at Westminster 
 school, had received only a confused account of this catastrophe ; and, 
 among other inaccurate intelligence, had heard that one of the children 
 was either lost or had perished in the flames. On this occasion he 
 wrote the following letter to his mother, which marks much solicitude 
 and dutiful affection. 
 
 " MADAM, Had not my grandmother told me, the last time I was 
 there, that you was near lying-in, at which time I thought it would be 
 in vain to write what you would not be able to read, I had sent you 
 letters over and over again before this. I beg therefore you would 
 not impute it to any negligence, which sure I never can be guilty of
 
 240 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 while I enjoy what you gave me life. My father lets me be in pro- 
 found ignorance as to your circumstances at Epworth ; and I have 
 not heard a word from the country since the first letter you sent me 
 after the fire, so that I am quite ashamed to go to any of my relations 
 for fear of being jeered out of my life. They ask me whether my 
 father intends to leave Epworth ? whether he is rebuilding his house ? 
 whether any contributions are to be expected 1 what was the lost child, 
 a boy or a girl? what was its name? whether my father has lost all 
 his books and papers ? if nothing was saved ? To all which I am forced 
 to answer I can't tell I don't know I have not heard. I have 
 asked my father some of these questions, but am still an ignoramus. 
 If you think my Cowley and Hudibras worth accepting, I shall be very 
 glad to send them to my mother, who gave them me. I hope you are 
 all well, as all are in town. 
 
 " Your most affectionate son, 
 
 " SAM. WESLEY. 
 " June 9, St. Peter's Coll. Westmr." 
 
 As he had the reputation of being a good and accurate scholar, he 
 was taken occasionally by Dr. Thomas Sprat, bishop of Rochester, 
 and one of the prebends of Westminster, to read to him in the evenings 
 at his seat at Bromley, in Kent. Bishop Sprat had at that time the 
 reputation of being one of the first scholars in England, learned in 
 almost all arts and sciences, and a poet of the first order. To almost 
 any young man of learning and genius the friendship and conversation 
 of such a person as Bishop Sprat would have been invaluable. But 
 Mr. Wesley was so intent on his own classical studies, and withal 
 short-sighted, and of a feeble voice, that he esteemed this service 
 rather as a bondage than a privilege. The bishop's studies were 
 nothing similar to his own ; and he considered the time he was obliged 
 to spend at Bromley as totally lost. From this place he wrote a Latin 
 letter to his father, Aug. 1710, full of complaints, but ill justified by 
 their cause. Dr. Whitchead has preserved a fragment, which I shall 
 transcribe. Speaking of the bishop, he says : 
 
 " Ille mihi et in sacris, et in profanis rebus semper erit infcslissimus : 
 studio, enim intermilti cogit, quibus pro virili incubueram. Ultimo anno 
 in collegia agenda, ubi non mihi seniori opus est amicorum hospitio, a 
 sludiis et a sclwld me detraxil, non modo nullam ad utililalem sed ne ad 
 minimum quidem vd utililalls vel voluptatis speciem me vocavil. Ipse 
 hodieforas est, aliter vix otiumforct quo has scriberem. JWe ex omnibim 
 discipulis elegit ut perlegerem ei noctu libros : me raucum, me pv&ira. 
 Gaudeo vos valetudine bond frui. Tuam et maternam benediclionem 
 oro. Episcopus jussit me illius in literis menlioncmfacerc. Da veniam 
 subitis. Aviam ultimus festis vidi ; his venientibus non possum, quia 
 ab inimico amico detincor." 
 
 " He (the bishop) will always be exceedingly troublesome to me 
 both in sacred and profane learning ; for he obliges me to interrupt 
 those studies to which I had applied myself with all my might. Spend- 
 ing my last year in this college, where being a senior, I do not need 
 the hospitality of friends, he has taken me away both from my studies
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JCN. 241 
 
 and from school* not only without any benefit, but without even the ap- 
 pearance either of utility or pleasure. To-day he is from home, else I 
 should not have had time to write this letter. He chose me from all 
 the scholars ; me, who am both hoarse and short-sighted, to read books 
 to him by night ! I am glad that you enjoy good health. I beg yours 
 find my mother's blessing. I saw my grandmother* in the last holi- 
 days : in those that are approaching I cannot, because I am detained 
 by an unfriendly friend." 
 
 Mr. Wesley was but young at this time ; and might be said to have 
 scarcely finished his common school exercises. He had hitherto con- 
 versed merely with school books ; and had not read those authors by 
 whose assistance he might have formed and ornamented his style : 
 hence his Latinity in the preceding letter, though grammatically correct, 
 is that of a school boy who translates Latin into English, being govern- 
 ed simply by the idiom and phraseology of his mother tongue. He 
 was now about twenty years of age; and was only beginning to study 
 the Greek and Latin authors critically, and to relish their beauties. 
 His Latin compositions both in prose and verse, which were the fruits 
 of his maturer age, show how solidly he had built on the good founda- 
 tion which was laid at Westminster school. 
 
 That he retained both at Westminster and Oxford the good impres- 
 sions he had received from his religious education there is abundant 
 proof. In December, 1710, he wrote to his mother. The following 
 extract from his letter gives, as Dr. Whitehead justly observes, a pleas- 
 ing view of his simplicity, and of his seridus attention to the state of his 
 own heart, and the first motions of evil : 
 
 *' I received the sacrament (says he) the first Sunday of this month. 
 1 am unstable as water : I frequently make good resolutions, and keep 
 them for a time ; and then grow weary of restraint. I have one grand 
 failing, which is, that having done my duty, I undervalue others ; and 
 think what wretches the rest of the college are, compared with me ! 
 Sometimes in my relapses I cry out, Can the ^Ethiopian change hit 
 skin, and the leopard his spots ? then may you also do good who are 
 accustomed to do evil. But I answer again, With mtn this is impot' 
 sible : but with God all things are possible. Amen" 
 
 Mrs. Wesley answered this letter in the game month. I shall lay 
 the whole of her excellent letter before the reader. 
 
 " Thursday, Dec. 28, [1710.] 
 
 " DEAR SAMMY, I am much better pleased with the beginning of 
 your letter than with what you used to send me : for I do not love dis- 
 tance or ceremony ; there is more of love and tenderness in the name of 
 mother than in all the complimenlal titles in the world. 
 
 " I intend to write to your father about your coming down : but yet 
 it would not be amiss for you to speak of it too. Perhaps our united 
 desires may sooner prevail upon him to grant our request ; though I do 
 not think he will be averse from it at all. 
 
 * The grandmother whom he mentions here was the widow of John Wesley, A. 
 M., of Whitchurch, and niece of Dr. Thos. Fuller. See some account of this emi- 
 nent historian and divine, in the Life of the Rev. J. Wes>lcy, vicar of Whitchurch*
 
 248 SAMUEL WESLET, JUN. 
 
 " I am heartily glad that you have already received, and that you 
 design again to receive, the holy sacrament ; for there is nothing more 
 proper or effectual for the strengthening and refreshing the mind than 
 the frequent partaking of that blessed ordinance. 
 
 " You complain that you are unstable and inconstant in the ways of 
 virtue. Alas! what Christian is not so too? I am sure that I, above 
 all others, am most unfit to advise in such a case ; yet since I cannot 
 but speak something, since I love you as my own soul, I will endeavour 
 to do as well as I can ; and perhaps while I write I may learn, and by 
 instructing you I may teach myself. 
 
 " First. Endeavour to get as deep an impression on your mind as 
 is possible, of the awful and constant presence of the great and holy 
 God. Consider frequently, that wherever you are, or whatever you 
 are about, he always adverts to your thoughts and actions, in order to a 
 future retribution. He is about our beds and about our paths, and spies 
 out all our ways ; and whenever you are tempted to the commission of 
 any sin, or the omission of any duty, make a pause and say to yourself, 
 What am I about to do? God sees me. Is this my avowed faith- 
 fulness to my Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier? Have I so soon 
 forgot that the vows of God are upon me? Was it easier for the eter- 
 nal Son of God to die for me, than it is for me to remember him ? For 
 what end came he into the world, but to satisfy the justice of God for 
 us, and to reconcile us to God, and to plant good life among men in 
 order to their eternal salvation. What, cannot I watch one hour with 
 that Jesus that veiled his native glory with our nature, and condescend- 
 ed so low as to make himself of no reputation, by putting on the form 
 of a servant, that he might be capable of conferring the greatest benefit 
 upon us that man could receive, by his suffering such a shameful and 
 cursed death upon the cross for our redemption? O, Sammy, think but 
 often and seriously on Jesus Christ ; and you will experience what it is 
 to have the heart purified by faith. 
 
 " Secondly. Consider often of that exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory that is prepared for those who persevere in the paths of virtue. 
 Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
 man to conceive, what God hath prepared for such as love and serve 
 him faithfully.' And when you have so long thought on this that you 
 find your mind affected with it, then turn your view upon this present 
 world, and see what vain inconsiderable trifles you practically prefer 
 before a solid, rational, permanent state of everlasting tranquillity. 
 Could we but once attain to a strong and lively sense of spiritual things ; 
 could we often abstract our minds from corporeal objects, and fix them 
 on heaven ; we should not waver and be so inconstant as we are in 
 matters of the greatest moment : but the soul would be naturally as- 
 piring toward a union with God, as the flame ascends ; for he is alone 
 the proper centre of the mind, and it is only the weight of our corrupt 
 nature that retards its motions toward him. 
 
 " Thirdly. Meditate often and seriously on the shortness, uncer- 
 tainty, and vanity, of this present state of things. Alas ! had we all 
 that the most ambitious craving souls can desire ; were we actually 
 possessed of all the honour, wealth, strength, beauty, &c, that our car-
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 243 
 
 nal minds can fancy or delight in ; what would it signify if God should 
 say unto us, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee. 
 Look back upon your past hours, and tell me which of them afford you 
 the most pleasing prospect ; whether those spent in play or vanity, or 
 those few that were employed in the service of God? Have you not in 
 your short experience often found Solomon's observations on the world 
 very true? Has not a great part of your little life proved, on reflection, 
 nothing but vanity and vexation of spirit? How many persons on a 
 death bed have bitterly bewailed the sins of their past life ; and made 
 large promises of amendment if it would have pleased God to have 
 spared them : but none that ever lived, or died, repented of a course of 
 piety and virtue. Then why should you not improve the experience of 
 those who have gone before you, and your own also, to your advantage ? 
 And since it is past dispute that the ways of virtue are infinitely better 
 than the practice of vice, and that life is only short at best and uncer- 
 tain, and that this little portion of time is all we have for working out 
 our salvation ; for as the tree falls, so it must lie ; as death leaves us, 
 judgment will certainly find us ; have a good courage, eternity is at 
 hand. Lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset 
 you ; and run with patience and vigour the race which is set before you : 
 and if at any time present objects should make so great an impression 
 on your senses as to endanger the alienating your mind from the spi- 
 ritual life, then look up to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, 
 and humbly beseech him, that since he for our sake suffered himself to 
 be under the state of temptation, he would please to succour you when 
 you are tempted ; and in his strength you will find yourself enabled to 
 encounter your spiritual enemies ; nay, you will be more than a con- 
 queror through HIM who hath loved us. 
 
 " I am sorry that you lie under a necessity of conversing with those 
 that are none of the best : but we must take the world as we find it, since 
 it is a happiness permitted to very few to ehoose their company. Yet, 
 lest the comparing yourself with others that are worse may be an occa- 
 sion of your falling into too much vanity, you would do well sometimes 
 to entertain such thoughts as these : 
 
 " Though I know my own birth and education, and am conscious of 
 having had great advantages, yet how little do I know of the circum- 
 stances of others? Perhaps their parents were vicious, or did not 
 take early care of their minds, to instil the principles of virtue into their 
 tender years, but suffered them to follow their own inclinations till it 
 was too late to reclaim them. Am I sure that they have had as many 
 offers of grace, as many and strong impulses of the Holy Spirit, as I 
 have had ? Do they sin against as clear conviction as I do ? Or are 
 the vows of God upon them as upon me ? Were they so solemnly 
 devoted to him at their birth as I was ? You have had the example of 
 a father who served God from his youth ; and though I cannot com- 
 mend my own to you, for it is too bad to be imitated, yet surely earnest 
 prayers for many years, and some little good advice, have not been 
 wanting. 
 
 " But if, after all, self-love should incline you to partiality in your 
 own case, seriously consider your own many failings which the world
 
 244 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 cannot take notice of, because they were so private ; and if still, upon 
 comparison, you seem better than others are, then ask yourself, Who is 
 it that makes you to differ ? and let God have all the praise, since of 
 ourselves we can do nothing. It is he that worketh in us both to will 
 and to do of his own good pleasure ; and if at any time you have vainly 
 ascribed the glory of any good performance to yourself, humble your- 
 self for it before God, and give him the glory of his grace for the 
 future. , 
 
 " I am straitened for paper and time, therefore must conclude 
 God Almighty bless you, and preserve you from all evil. Adieu." 
 
 The next year, 1711, he was elected to Christ's Church, Oxford ; 
 where his diligence was exemplary, and his profiting great. 
 
 The anonymous author of his Life, prefixed to the duodecimo edition 
 of his poems, 1743, says, " In both these places (Westminster and 
 Oxford) by the sprightliness of his compositions, and his remarkable 
 industry, he gained a reputation beyond most of his contemporaries, 
 being thoroughly and critically skilled in the learned languages, and 
 master of the classics to a degree of perfection perhaps not very com- 
 mon in this last mentioned society, so justly famous for polite learn- 
 ing." W r ith these qualifications he was sent for, from the university, 
 to officiate as one of the ushers in Westminster school ; and soon 
 after, under the direction of Bishop Atterbury, then dean of Westmin- 
 ster, entered into holy orders. His attachment to this unfortunate pre- 
 late (who by his continual opposition to Sir Robert Walpole's measures 
 became obnoxious to the government ; and was at last on frivolous 
 pretences, whether true or false, banished for life) prevented his pre- 
 ferment in the Church. And it proceeded farther ; for through this 
 same attachment he was prevented from obtaining the vacant chair of 
 under-master in Westminster school ; for which he was eminently quali- 
 fied by learning, judgment, habit, and experience, after he had offi- 
 ciated as head usher for about twenty years. It was denied him on the 
 frivolous pretence, that he was a married man ! This was to him a 
 severe disappointment, as he fully expected the place. But though he 
 .quitted the school in disgust, he made a very pious use of this dispensa- 
 tion of Divine Providence, as may be seen by the following verses, 
 written on this occasion, dated January 22, 1732, and which I believe 
 have never been published. 
 
 Oppress'd, O Lord, in thee I trust, 
 
 To thee insulted flee : 
 Howe'er in mortals 'tis unjust, 
 
 'Tis righteousness in thee. 
 
 To God why should the thankless call 
 
 His blessings to repeat ? 
 Why should the unthankful for the small, 
 
 Be trusted with the great. 
 
 To thee my soul for mercy flies, 
 
 And pardon seeks on high : 
 For earth, its mercy I despise, 
 
 And justice I defy. 
 
 4
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 24 & 
 
 Grant me, O Lord, with holier care, 
 
 And worthier thee, to live ! 
 Forgive my foes, and let them dare 
 
 The injured to forgive. 
 
 Thy grace, in death's decisive hour, 
 
 Though undeserved, bestow ! 
 O, then, on me thy mercy shower, 
 
 And welcome judgment now. 
 
 These verses fully express the disappointment, its injustice, and the 
 feelings it produced. As he had reason to believe that the ministry 
 was at the bottom of this transaction, we need not wonder at the severe 
 epigrams with which he assailed the Walpolian administration. 
 
 We shall have occasion to refer to these afterward. 
 
 While at Oxford, he appears to have entered a good deal into Bibli- 
 cal criticism ; and particularly into the controversy excited by Mr. 
 IVhiston, who, having laboured himself into the Socinian scheme, en- 
 deavoured by writing and publishing to support it to the uttermost of 
 his power. 
 
 Mr. S. Wesley had written a discourse on the larger epistle of Ig- 
 natius. This epistle Mr. Whiston had attacked as interpolated by the 
 Jlthanasians; and in his Primitive Christianity Revived, (4vols. 8vo.,) 
 had endeavoured not only to weaken the evidence of our Lord's divi- 
 nity, but to inundate the Church with spurious writings which he wished 
 to prove of equal authority with those of the New Testament, and 
 necessary to complete the canon of the Christian revelation. 
 
 How these things affected the mind of Mr. Wesley may be seen in a 
 letter sent to Robert Nelson, Esq., author of the Fasts and Festivals of 
 the English Church, dated Oxford, June 3d, 1713, when he had been 
 about two years at the university. He says : 
 
 " I hoped long ere this to have perfected, as well as I could, my 
 Dissertation on Ignatius, and gotten it ready for the press, when I 
 came to town this year. But I found myself disappointed ; at first for 
 some months by my affairs in the East India House ; and since by my 
 charily hymns, and other matters. I think I told you some time since, 
 that I had laid materials together for a second discourse on that subject, 
 directly against Mr. Whiston's objections to the shorter and genuine 
 copy of Ignatius ; whereas my former was chiefly against the larger ; 
 because I then thought, if that were proved interpolated, it would be 
 readily granted that the other was the genuine. But having found, 
 when Mr. Whiston's four volumes came out, that he had in the first of 
 them laid together many objections against the shorter epistles, I set 
 myself to consider them ; and having now got Archbishop Usher, 
 Bishop Pearson, and Dr. Smith, on that subject, and as carefully as I 
 could perused them, I found that many of Mr. Whiston's objections 
 were taken from Daille, a few from the writings of the Socinian* and 
 modern Jlrians, though most of them from his own observations. These 
 latter being new, and having not appeared when Bishop Pearson and 
 the others wrote, could not be taken notice of then ; and being now 
 published in the English language, may seduce some well meaning
 
 246 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN'. 
 
 persons, and persuade them that the true Ignatius was of the same 
 opinion with the Brians, (whereas I am sure he was as far from it as 
 light is from darkness,) and that the rather, because there has been no 
 answer, that I know of, published to them, though they were printed in 
 the year 171 1. I know many are of opinion that it is best still to slight 
 him, and take no notice of him. This, I confess, is the most easy way ; 
 but cannot tell whether it will be safe in respect to the common people, 
 or will tend so much to the honour of our Church and nation. Of this 
 however I am pretty confident, that I can prove all his objections, 
 whether general or particular, against the shorter copy, to be notorious- 
 ly false. Such as that, pp. 86, 87, that the smaller so frequently calls 
 Christ God ; which he says was done to serve the turn of the Jltha- 
 iiasians, and cannot in reason be supposed to be an omission in the 
 larger, but must be an interpolation in the smaller ; whereas I find that 
 the smaller calls him God but fifteen times, the larger, eighteen ; 
 and if we take in those to Jintioch, and Tarsus, twenty-two times, for 
 an obvious reason. 
 
 " Again, he says, p. 64, ' That serious exhortations to practical, 
 especially domestic duties, are in the larger only, being to a surprising 
 degree omitted in the small.' But I have collected above one hundred 
 instances wherein these duties are most pressingly recommended 
 in the smaller. But what he labours for most, is to prove that the first 
 quotations in Eusebius and others of the ancients are agreeable to the 
 larger, not the smaller. Whereas on my tracing and comparing them 
 all, as far as I have had opportunity, I have found this assertion to be 
 a palpable mistake, unless in one quotation from the Chronicon Mtx- 
 andrinum, or Paschale. I would glady see JVLontfaucon, Causa JVfar- 
 celli, St. Basil contra Jdarcellum, Observations on Pearson's Vindiciw, 
 and some good account of the Jewish Sephiroth ; because I think the 
 Gnostics, Basilidians, and Valentinians, borrowed many of their JEons 
 from them, since they have the same names ; and this might perhaps 
 give farther light to the famous 2irH of Ignatius ; for the clearing 
 whereof Bishop Pearson, Dr. Bull, and Grotius, have so well la- 
 boured." 
 
 Mr. Wesley mentions two dissertations here which he had drawn 
 up and at least made ready for publication on the authenticity of the 
 smaller, and interpolations of the larger epistles attributed to Ignatius. 
 Whether these were ever put to press, I have not been able to learn. 
 
 He speaks also of charity hymns, which I have not seen ; and of his 
 business at the East India House, which I suppose was in the affairs 
 of his uncle, Samuel Jlnnesley, who was then in the Company's service 
 at Suratt, as we have already seen in the short memoir of his life. 
 
 If Mr. Wesley had any patron, it was Dr. Francis Jltterbury, dean 
 of Westminster, and bishop of Rochester; who succeeded Doctor Tho- 
 mas Sprat in that see, in the year 1713. The disgrace of this prelate' 
 blasted all Mr. Wesley's prospects of preferment in the Church. His 
 history is so nearly connected with that of Mr. Wesley as to render it 
 necessary to say a few words of a man whose quarrel with the ministry 
 Jed to his own banishment, and agitated the whole nation.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 247 
 
 Bishop Atterbury was a very high Churchman ; he was prolocutor 
 in the upper house of convocation, and determined in the support of the 
 highest privileges of his order. During the rebellion in Scotland, 
 when the pretender's declaration was dispersed in England, the arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and the bishops in and near London, published 
 " A declaration of their abhorrence of the rebellion ; and an exhort- 
 ation to be zealous in the discharge of their duties to King George." 
 This Bishop Atterbury refused to sign, because of certain reflections 
 cast on the high Church party in it. This, together with his general 
 opposition to the measures of ministry, served to lay him under suspi- 
 cion. In August, 1722, he was apprehended under an accusation of 
 being concerned in a plot in favour of the pretender, and committed to 
 the tower. A paper which one of the messengers who arrested him 
 pretended to have found concealed in the bishop's premises, and which, 
 the bishop protested against as being forged, was the principal 
 evidence against him. On the 23d March, 1723, a bill was 
 brought into the house of commons, " for inflicting certain pains and 
 penalties on Francis, lord bishop of Rochester." As he reserved his 
 opposition to the bill till it should come before the upper house, of which 
 he was a member, it easily passed the commons ; and on the 9th of 
 April it was sent up to the house of lords, and on May the llth he was 
 permitted to plead for himself. This he did in a mastertly speech, in 
 which he demonstrated the utter improbability and falsity of the accu- 
 sation. It was in vain. The king did not like him, and the ministry 
 were determined on his downfall : he was therefore condemned ; for 
 the bill was passed on the 16th by a majority of eighty-three to forty- 
 three. On the 27th the king confirmed it ; and on the 18th of June 
 he was put on board of the Aldborough man of war, and conveyed to 
 Calais under the sentence of perpetual banishment. He went after- 
 ward to Paris, where he was obliged to live very privately, no English- 
 man being permitted to associate or converse with him without a special 
 license from the secretary of state, the fees of whose office were op- 
 pressively high ! He died at Paris, February 15, 1732 ; and his body 
 was brought over to England on May 12th following, and interred in 
 Westminster abbey. 
 
 Thus Mr. Wesley lost his chief friend and patron ; whose cause, 
 because he considered it the cause of truth, he continued invariably to 
 support and vindicate, though he was satisfied from the complexion of 
 the times, that this would be an insuperable bar to his promotion. 
 
 The following extracts of letters from the bishop during his exile will 
 show in what light he was viewed by his patron, now no longer able to 
 do him service. They were occasioned by that fine poem which Mr. 
 Wesley wrote and printed in his collection, on the death of JVJrs. Mo- 
 rice, his lordship's daughter : 
 
 " April 24, 1730. 
 
 " I have received a poem from Mr. Morice, which I must be insen- 
 sible not to thank you for your Elegy upon the Death of Mrs. Morice. 
 It is what I cannot help, an impulse upon me to thank you under my 
 own hand, the satisfaction I feel, the approbation I give, the envy I bear
 
 248 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 you, for this good deed and good work. As a poet and as a man I 
 thank you, I esteem you." 
 
 " Paris, May 27, 1730. 
 
 " I am obliged to Wesley for what he has written on my dear child ; 
 and take it the more kindly, because he could not hope for my being 
 ever in a condition to reward him. Though if ever I am, I will ; for 
 he has shown an invariable regard for me all along, in all circumstances ; 
 and much more than some of his acquaintances, who had ten times 
 greater obligations." 
 
 " Paris, June 30, 1730. 
 
 " The verses you sent me touched me very nearly ; and the Latin 
 in the front of them as much as the English that followed.* 
 
 " There are a great many good lines in them ; and they are writ 
 with as mnch affection as poetry. They came from the heart of the 
 author, and he has a share of mine in return ; and if ever I come back 
 to my country with honour, he shall find it." 
 
 This was no mean praise from so great a man, and so good a judge. 
 The reflection made by the anonymous author of a Sketch of his Life, 
 prefixed to the duodecimo edition of his poems, is worthy to be pre- 
 served here. 
 
 " It may be thought, (says he,) and perhaps truly enough, that his 
 attachment to this great unfortunate prelate hindered him from rising 
 higher in the world : but as it was what he always gloried in ; so, it is 
 obvious to remark, that it would be for the credit of human nature, if 
 such examples were more frequent ; and that great men did oftener 
 find upon the vicissitudes of fortune such firmness and fidelity from 
 those they had obliged." 
 
 Mrs. Morice, on whom this elegy was written, was so affected at her 
 father's troubles and disgrace, that she sunk into a lingering disorder, 
 from which she never recovered. As she found her end approaching, 
 she earnestly desired to be taken to France, to have one interview with 
 her father before she died : she had her desire, and survived the inter- 
 view only a few hours ! The sorrowful tale is thus pathetically related 
 by Bishop Atterbury, in a letter to Mr. Pope : 
 
 " The earnest desire (says he) of meeting one I dearly loved called 
 me to Montpelier ; where, after continuing two months under the cruel 
 torture of a sad and fruitless expectation, I was forced at last to take a 
 long journey to Tholouse ; and even there I had missed the person I 
 sought, had she not with great spirit and courage ventured all night up the 
 Garonne to see me, which she had above all things desired to do before 
 she died. By that means she was brought where I was, between seven 
 and eight in the morning, and lived twenty hours afterward ; which 
 time was not lost on either side, but passed in such a manner as gave 
 great satisfaction to both ; and such as on her part every way became 
 her circumstances and character ; for she had her senses to the very 
 last gasp, and exerted them to give me in those few hours greater marks 
 
 1 1 m ! mine miscro miki demum 
 
 Exiliwn inftlix ! nunc alte vidnus adadum.
 
 SAMUEL WKSI.KY, JVN. 249 
 
 of duty and love than she had done in all her lifetime, though she had 
 never been wanting in either. The last words she said to me were the 
 kindest of all : a reflection on ' the goodness of God, which had allowed 
 us in this manner to meet once more before we parted for ever. 1 Not 
 many minutes after that, she laid her head on her pillow in a sleeping 
 posture 
 
 Placidaque ibi demum marie quinit. 
 
 Judge you, sir, what I felt, and still feel, on this occasion ! and spare 
 me the trouble of describing it. At my age, under my infirmities, among 
 utter strangers, how shall I find out proper reliefs and supports ? I can 
 have none but those which reason and religion furnish me ; and those 
 I lay hold on as fast as I can. I hope that He who laid the burthen 
 upon me (for wise and good purposes no doubt) will enable me to 
 bear it" 
 
 Mrs. JVfort'ce died in 1729 ; and it was supposed that her dissolution 
 hastened that of her persecuted father. All the preceding circumstances 
 are admirably wrought up in the elegy mentioned above. 
 
 When all things are considered, we need not wonder at the severity 
 of the following epigrams, with which Mr. Wesley assailed Sir Robert 
 Walpole and his friends : 
 
 When patriots sent a bishop 'cross the seas, 
 
 They met to fix the pains and penalties : 
 
 While true blue blood-hgunds on his death ware bent. 
 
 Thy mercy, Walpole, voted banishment ! 
 
 Or forced thy sov'reign's orders to perform, 
 
 Or, proud to govern, as to raise the storm. 
 
 Thy goodness shown in such a dangerous day, 
 
 He only who receiv'd it can repay : 
 
 Thou never justly recompens'd canst be, 
 
 Till banish'd .Francis do the same for thee. 
 
 Tho' some would give Sir Bob no quarter, 
 
 But long to hang him in his garter ; 
 
 Yet sure he will deserve to have 
 
 Such mercy as in power he gave: 
 
 Send him abroad to take his ease, 
 
 By act of pains and penalties : 
 
 But if he e'er comes here again, 
 
 Law, take thy course, and hang him then. 
 
 four shillings in the pound we see 
 And well may rest contented, 
 
 Since war, Bob swore 't should never be. 
 Is happily prevented. 
 
 But he, now absolute become, 
 
 May plunder every penny ; 
 Then blame him not for taking tome, 
 
 But thank for leaving any. 
 
 Let H hie treasure now confeu, 
 
 Display'^ to every eye: 
 32
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JtJN. 
 
 ' T was base in H lo sell a peace, 
 
 But great in Bob to buy. 
 
 Which most promotes Great Britain's gam 
 
 To all mankind is clear ; 
 One sends our treasure 'cross the main, 
 
 One brings the foreign here. 
 
 But if 'tis fit to give rewards 
 
 Or punishments to either, 
 Why make them both together lords, 
 
 Or hang them both together. 
 
 At scribblers poor, who rail to eat, 
 
 Ye wags give over jeering ; 
 Since gall'd By Harry, Bob the Great 
 
 Has stoop'd to pamphleteering. 
 
 Would not one champion on his side 
 
 For love or money venture ? 
 Must knighthood's mirror, spite of pride, 
 
 So mean a combat enter ? 
 
 ' : 
 
 To take the field his weakness shows, 
 Tho' well he could maintain it ; 
 
 Since H no honour has to lose, 
 
 Pray how can Robin gain it? 
 
 Worthy each other are the two : 
 Halloo ! Boys, fairly start ye ; 
 
 Let those be hated worse than yoa. 
 Whoever strive to part ye. 
 
 A steward once, the Scripture says, 
 When ordered his accounts to pass, 
 To gain his master's debtors o'er, 
 Cried, for a hundred write fourscore. 
 
 Near as he could Sir Robert, bent 
 To follow Gospel precedent, 
 When told a hundred late would do, 
 Cried, I beseech you, sir, take two. 
 J[n merit which should we prefer, 
 *The steward or the treasurer 1 
 Neither for justice car'd a fig : 
 Too proud to beg, too old to dig ; 
 Both bountiful themselves have shown, 
 In things that never were their own : 
 But here a difference we must grant, 
 One robbed the rich to keep off want j 
 T* other, vast treasures to secure, 
 Stole from the public and the poor. 
 
 Among the family papers a Latin ode has been found, with its trans- 
 lation, both by Mr. Wesley, and on the same subject. As I believe 
 these have never been published, I shall insert them also : 
 
 EPITAPHIUM VIVI. 
 
 Juxta quiescit, credite Posteri! 
 Cvntcmptor auri, propositi tenax
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUST. 251 
 
 Jtiifisque, vir menu, ctqui 
 
 Dedecoris, Decorisque ritor. 
 
 Quern nee Popelli nee Procerum favor 
 Perstrinrit unquam, quern neqne percuiit 
 
 Famctre mendacis susurrus,- 
 
 Velfremitvs minitantii cndce. 
 
 Curd solutus, Rege beatior ; 
 Mohu per omnes invariabilit ; 
 Amicus Harlai cadentii, 
 
 W 1 dominantis hostis. 
 
 ANN AM parentem qui patriot raius, 
 Semperque eandem, semper amabilem ; 
 Solvebit extinctcz perennem, 
 
 Porra lictt pia dona, laudem. 
 
 Won exulantis Prasulis immemar, 
 Qui lege lat&fugerat Jingliam, 
 UUraque for tuna probati 
 
 Patris amans, et amatus Hit. 
 
 Quos sprevit omnet, tutus ab hostibus, 
 Hie dormit infra, nee eineri nocet, 
 Sett Lector irridere malit 
 
 Seu tetricam caperare firm tern. 
 
 S. WESLKT. 
 
 Englished by the Same. 
 
 A man who slighted gold, lies here ; 
 True to his laughter and his aim ; 
 Yet even in his mirth severe, 
 
 He laughed at glory and at shame. 
 
 Who counted vulgar favour light, 
 
 And smiles of lords , who held as sport 
 
 The whispers of defaming spite, 
 The thunder of a threatening court. 
 
 Stranger to care, than kings more blest, 
 
 Unmov'd however parties go; 
 A friend to Harley in distress, 
 
 To Walpole, when in power, a foe. 
 
 Who ANNE (her country's parent) thought 
 Still, lovely princess ! ML the saint , 
 
 And praises to her ashes brought, 
 An humble off'ring to her fame. 
 
 Not mindless of the prelate great, 
 By statute sent across the main , 
 
 A father, tried in either state, 
 
 He loved, and was beloved again. 
 
 Snfe from the foes he ne'er could fear, ' 
 Unhurt in dust he lays him down ; 
 
 Whether you praise him with a sneer, 
 Or sonrly blame him with a frown.
 
 252 SAMUEL WESI.RV, JI'\. 
 
 The fourth stanza relates to Lines on the death of Queen Anne, which 
 will be found at the end of this memoir ; and the fifth to Bishop Atter- 
 bury. Both copies are in Mr. Wesley's own handwriting, and un- 
 doubtedly of his own composing. 
 
 The bishop himself was not less severe on his persecutor, than his 
 friend Mr. S. Wesley was. Witness the following lines On Sir Robert 
 Walpole, by Bishop Jltterbury. 
 
 Three Frenchmen, grateful in their way, 
 Sir Robert's glory would display. 
 Studious by sister arts to advance 
 The honour of a friend to France ; 
 They consecrate to Walpole's fame 
 Picture, and verse, and anagram. 
 With mottos quaint the print they dress, 
 With snakes, with rocks, with goddesses, 
 Their lines beneath, the subject fit 
 As well for quantity as wit. 
 Thy glory, Walpole, thus enroll'd, 
 E'en foes delighted may behold. 
 For ever sacred be to THEE, 
 Such sculpture and such poetry ! 
 
 " It is not a little to Mr. Wesley's honour that he was one of the 
 projectors, and a careful and active promoter, of the first infirmary set 
 up at Westminster, for the relief of the sick and needy, in the year 1719 ; 
 and he had the satisfaction to see it greatly flourish from a very small 
 beginning, and to propagate by its example, under the prudent manage- 
 ment of other good persons, many pious establishments of the same 
 kind in distant parts of the nation." (Account of Mr. S. Wesley, by a 
 friend.) 
 
 Among Mr. S. Wesley's letters I find one to his brother John, which 
 contains some curious family matters ; particularly respecting a project 
 of the latter to draw the character of every branch of the family, the 
 commencement of which he had submitted to his brother for his appro- 
 bation. Whether this project was ever completed I cannot tell ; or if 
 so, whether the document exists ; if it do, it is riot in any place to which 
 I have had access. 
 
 "Dean's Yard, JVbr. 18, 1727. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, I am obliged to you for the beginning of the por- 
 trait of our family ; how I may judge when I see the whole, tho' I may 
 guess nearly within myself, I cannot positively affirm to you. There 
 is, I think, not above one particular in all the character which you have 
 drawn at length that needs farther explanation ; when you say you 
 can bring ear-witnesses to attest, whether that attestation relates only 
 to money sent or to that bed. That bed too 1 Jealousy naturally 
 increases with age, of which I think one of the best uses we can make 
 is, to guard against it betimes, before the habit grows strong. 
 
 " I hope your being in the country, as it is some inconvenience to 
 you, so it will be a considerable help one way or other to friends at 
 Wroott, else I shall be tempted to wish you at Oxford ; as I heartily do 
 my brother Charles, though it is too late to tell him so now, since ho 
 cannot possibly save this term, unless he be there already.
 
 SAMI'EI. WE8I.KY, JUX. 253 
 
 ** You send me no account of your negotiation with the dean for his 
 absence ; but I don't blame you since you filled every corner of your 
 own paper with much more important matters than any thing his lord- 
 ship can say or do, even tho' Charles's studentship were to depend upon 
 it, as I hope it will not. 
 
 " I hope I shall send a letter with your receipt and certificate this 
 evening ; and with orders once more to inquire of Mr. Tooke whether 
 he has asked you leave to be absent the greater part of the quarter, or 
 the whole, as it may happen. 
 
 " My wife and I join in love and duty ; and beg my father's and mo- 
 ther's blessing. I would to God they were as easy in one another, and 
 as little uneasy in their fortunes as ice are ! In that sense perhaps you 
 may say I am, Tydides melior patris ; tho' I believe there is scarce 
 more work to be done at Wroote than here, tho' we have fewer debts to 
 discharge. Next Christmas I hope to be as clear as I have hoped to 
 be these seven years. Charles is, I think, in debt for a letter : but I 
 don't desire he should imagine it discharged by setting his name in your 
 letter, or interlining a word or two. I must conclude, because my 
 paper is done, and company come in. 
 
 " I am your affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 "S. WESLEY." 
 
 What all this letter relates to will be best seen by other parts of the 
 general history. 
 
 Mr. Wesley being disappointed of the under-mastership at West- 
 minster, to which he had every kind of title, we need not wonder that 
 Dean's Yard could no longer have attractions for him. His health in 
 it had been greatly impaired by a conscientious and rigorous fulfilment 
 of his duties, and by his close and intense study : he was therefore 
 the more easily persuaded to accept a situation in the country. 
 
 About the year 1732, there happened to be a vacancy in the head- 
 mastership of the free school at Tiverton in Devonshire. Without any 
 solicitation on his part, he was invited thither. He accepted it, and 
 held the situation till his death. 
 
 This school was founded by Mr. Peter Blundell, (a clothier of that 
 town,) in 1619 ; who handsomely endowed it for a master and usher ; 
 and gave two fellowships and two scholarships to Sidney college, Cam- 
 bridge, and one fellowship and two scholarships to Baliol college, 
 Oxford* for scholars here educated. The founder of this institution 
 Mr. Wesley has commemorated in the following lines : 
 
 ON MR. PETER BLUNDELL, 
 
 Founder of the Grammar School in Tiverton, Devon. 
 
 Famam extendere Jactis, 
 Hoe virtutis opus. 
 
 Exempt from sordid and ambitious views, 
 Blest with the art to gain, and heart to use, 
 Not satisfied with life's poor span alone, 
 Klundell through ages sends his blessings down. 
 Since worth to raise, and learning to support 
 A patriarch'* lift-time had appeared too short
 
 254 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 While letters gain esteem in wisdom's eyes, 
 Till justice is extinct, and mercy dies, 
 His alms perpetual not by time confined, 
 Last with the world, and end but with mankind. 
 
 In the year 1733, having solicited his brother John to stand god- 
 father for one of Mrs. Wright's children, and receiving a refusal on the 
 ground that it would be impossible for him to discharge the duties im- 
 posed on him in accepting that office, &c, he wrote again pressing the 
 subject. From this letter I shall make the following extract, as it is 
 highly characteristic of the man, and his summary mode of reasoning: 
 
 " Your reasons for not standing for Hetty's child are good ; 
 
 and yet were they as good again, there is one against them that would 
 make them good for nothing, viz. the child will hardly be christened at 
 ail, unless you and I stand. E malis minimum. 
 
 " The charge need not fright, for I'll lay down. Tell me as soon as 
 you can your answer to this paragraph. Some in Johnson's hold the 
 matter to be indifferent, and so excuse themselves. I'll find a repre- 
 sentative for you as well as pence, if you do but give me my commission. 
 Write soon. I am, dear J., your affectionate, &c, 
 
 "S, WESLEY. 
 
 " June 21, 1733." 
 
 As the affairs of Georgia are in a certain way connected with all the 
 branches of the Wesley family, it will be necessary here to give some 
 account of that settlement. 
 
 Georgia is the most southern of the United States of America ; 
 bounded on the east by the Atlantic ocean, on the south by the Floridas, 
 on the west by the Mississippi, and on the north-east and north by South 
 Carolina and Tennessee. The settlement of a colony there was first 
 proposed in 1732, for the accommodation of poor people in Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland, by several very humane and opulent men ; and King 
 George II. granted them letters patent June 9, 1732, for legally carry- 
 ing into execution their benevolent design ; and the place was called 
 Georgia in honour of the British king. In November, 1732, one hun- 
 dred and sixteen settlers embarked for that colony, under the superin- 
 tendence of Mr. James Oglethorpe, who chose Savannah for the place 
 of settlement, where he built a fort, &c. Three years afterward Mr. 
 Oglethorpe, having returned to England, re-embarked with five hun- 
 dred and seventy adventurers, among whom were one hundred and 
 thirty Highlanders, and one hundred and seventy^ Germans. 
 
 As there was an intimacy between Mr. Oglethorpe and the Wesley 
 family, he proposed to Mr. John Wesley to accompany him as chaplain 
 to the colony, and missionary to the Indians ; and he took Mr. Charles 
 Wesley as his secretary. It was in company with part of the above 
 adventurers that the two brothers, with Mr. Oglethorpe, embarked 
 aboard the Symmonds at Gravesend, Oct. 14, 1735, and sailed for 
 Georgia. See Mr. John Wesley's Journal for the full account. 
 
 While his brothers John and Charles were in Georgia, Mr. Samuel 
 Wesley kept up with them an affectionate and instructive correa- 
 poncfence.
 
 SAMUEL WE8LEV, JON. 255 
 
 To Charles, who began to feel himself out of his place by being in 
 Frederica, where he had some most grievous crosses to bear, of which 
 he bitterly complained to his brother, as well as of that want of regene- 
 ration, of which he was now fully convinced, he wrote the following 
 letter : 
 
 " Tiverton, Devon, Sept. 21, 1736. 
 
 "DEAR CHARLES, To make full amends for my not hearing from 
 you at first, 1 have received four letters from you within this month, of 
 each of which according to their dates. To that of April 8, .Frederica, 
 eight at night, I answer thus : I own the will of Gd in your being in 
 America, that is, the order of his providence : but I do not see that it 
 was the will of God in another sense, as it is the rule of your action. 
 Before I confess that, I must have a text either plainly or probably ap- 
 plied. You seem to be under severe trials ; and I might with full as 
 much justice, quote, Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted 
 of God, as ever you could do, He that loveth father and mother more 
 than me, is not worthy of me. It was God's will too that I should come 
 hither ; how else am 1 here ] For who hath resisted his will in that 
 sense ? I am in a desert as well as you, having no conversable crea- 
 ture but my wife, till my mother came last week ; at which that I am 
 no more grieved is perhaps my fault. Your fearing a cure of souls is 
 no argument against your fitness for it, but the contrary. What 4 in- 
 delible character' means, I do not thoroughly understand : but I plainly 
 know what is said of him who putteth his hand to the plough, and look- 
 eth back. Your wishing yourself out of the reach of temptation is but 
 wishing yourself in heaven. 
 
 *' That you had lived eighteen years without God I either do not un- 
 derstand, or I absolutely deny. My wife loses none of your love, if 
 repaying it in kind be putting it to the right use. 
 
 " To yours of April 28. ' You repent not of obedience to Divine 
 Providence.' I hope not ; and I hope I never persuaded you to diso- 
 bedience. I am sure coming back to England will not be looking back 
 from the plough, while you can exercise your ministry here. Jack's 
 passions, if I know any thing of him, never were of the same kind as 
 yours. I advised him to go not you ; nor will ever consent to your 
 staying. 
 
 " Never spare unburthening yourself to me : why you should have 
 waited even years for that purpose Jack can tell. 
 
 41 That ' sister Emily ever retracted her consent' she utterly denies, 
 for she says she never gave it. By that I see I did no more than was 
 absolutely necessary, when I used the strongest terms to express my 
 meaning ; lest I might have been brought in for being passive at least ; 
 though I never would, should, or could, have consented. 
 
 44 1 own I cannot rejoice in your affliction any more than in my own : 
 it is not for the present joyous but grievous. God grant a happy end 
 and meeting ! I use a holiday, St. Matthew's day, to converse with 
 you. Why may not the same man be both publican and apostle ! 
 
 " However, if you can get hither, you may keep your 
 though not your receipt of customs.
 
 256 SAMUEL WESLEV, JUN. 
 
 " To yours of May 5. I heartily wish you joy of the danger being 
 over. 1 would send what you write for : but your next letter gives 
 me hopes of your being here, before the cargo could come to you. 
 Jlllix I had sent for to London, before your letters reached me, Law- 
 rence I do not altogether approve of, but begin to doubt ; though that 
 should be no reason against my sending it. What the books are, p. 100, 
 I comprehend not: but I suppose they are recommended in some P. 100 
 I have not seen ; perhaps in a journal that was to come to rne by a safe 
 hand, but has never arrived at all. I wish you joy of amor sceleratus 
 habendi. I can say little of Phil, but that she wants you. Br. Hall's 
 is a black story. There was no great likelihood of his being a favourite 
 with me : his tongue is too smooth for my roughness, and rather inclines 
 me to suspect than believe. Indeed I little suspected the horrid truth : 
 but finding him on the reserve, I thought he was something like Riving- 
 ton, and feared me as a jester ; which is a sure sign either of guilt on 
 the one hand, or pride on the other. It is certainly true of that mar- 
 riage ; it will not, and it cannot come to good. He is now at a curacy 
 in Wiltshire, near Marlbro'. I have no correspondence with Kez : I 
 did design it after reading yours ; but the hearing she is gone to live 
 with Patty and her husband made me drop my design. 
 
 " Yours from Savannah, May 15, is your last and best letter, because 
 it brings news that you design to come back as soon as you can. The 
 sooner the better, say I ; for I know Mr. 0. will not leave the place^ 
 till he thinks it for the public good so to do. 
 
 " September 28. So long have I been forced to stay for time to 
 transcribe, (most wretched work,) and to go on, which is pleasant 
 enough. I have had a sort of a ship journal of Jack's, ending at his 
 being upon the coast ; but have had nothing of that kind since his land- 
 ing. Glad shall I be of a full and authentic account, which I begin to 
 perceive I shall hardly have till I see you. 
 
 " If Jack will continue Kezzy's allowance, should she come hither, 
 she might pay me for her board, which I cannot afford to give her, be 
 a great comfort to her mother, and avoid the hazard of strong tempta- 
 tions either to discontent on the one hand, or what is much worse on 
 the other. If this comes to your hand before you sail for England, I 
 wish you would bring Jack's resolution upon that point : but except 
 he will engage to continue the stipend, I must not take her in ; for I can 
 do no more than I can do. Supposing that he intends to spend his life 
 in India, which seems most probable, why or wherefore should he 
 refuse the fifty povnds ? If he is not poor, does he know none that 
 is ? There appears much more danger of pride in refusing it, than there 
 can be of avarice in accepting so small a sum. 
 
 " Michaelmas day. This third time I am come to go on with my 
 writing ; but must be somewhat shorter than my paper would admit, 
 because of going to church. My mother sends her love and blessing 
 to you and Jack ; and bids me to tell you she hopes to see you again 
 in England, without any danger of a second separation. 
 
 " My wife and I join in love ; and Phil, according to her years, in 
 duty. I heartily pray God to prosper you in public and private where 
 you are ; and to give you a safe voyage back, and a long and happy 

 
 WESLEY, JT N. 257 
 
 abode here ! I am, dear Charles, your most affectionate and faithful 
 friend and brother, 
 
 " SAMUEL WESLEY. 
 " Blunders School, Tiverton, Devon, 
 " September 29, 1736. 
 
 " My hearty love and service to Mrs. ." 
 
 Mr. Charles IVesley, according to the purpose referred to in the pre- 
 ceding letter, sailed from Boston, October 25, 1736, and landed at Deal 
 on the 31st of December following. His brother John continued about 
 a year longer ; he arrived in England January 30, 1738. Being both 
 fervent in spirit, they on their return powerfully proclaimed repentance 
 toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ; and strongly in- 
 sisted on the necessity of being born again, and of having the witness 
 of God's Spirit with theirs, that they were thus born of God. At first, 
 all the churches in London were open to them ; and the people flocked 
 together to see and hear two weather-beaten missionaries, whose skin 
 appeared as if tanned by their continual exposure to the suns and winds 
 of summer and winter on the continent of America. God attended 
 their preaching with the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. 
 Multitudes were turned from darkness to light, and from the power of 
 Satan unto God ; and many obtained that faith in Christ by which the 
 guilt of sin was removed, and the fear of death taken away ; and had 
 the Spirit of God witnessing with theirs that they were the sons and 
 daughters of God Almighty. The crowds that attended the churches 
 where they preached were so great that the clergy thought it proper to 
 refuse them any farther use of their pulpits ; and hence, being turned 
 out of these, they went to the highways and hedges to compel sinners 
 to come to the marriage feast. For as they had sufficiently learned that 
 nothing but the Gospel could be the power of God unto salvation to 
 them that believe, they boldly and zealously proclaimed Christ cruci- 
 fied wherever they found a crowd of sinners ; using extempore prayer, 
 and preaching without notes. This seemed a new thing in the earth ; 
 and while multitudes were awakened and turned to God, several who 
 did not think that such extraordinary exertions were necessary, ridi- 
 culed their zeal ; and others who imagined God could not give his 
 approbation to any kind of spiritual service that was not performed 
 within the walls of a church, became greatly offended : and it is a fact 
 that not a few opposed and blasphemed. 
 
 Their eldest brother, Mr. Samuel fVcsley, who was a very high 
 Churchman, considered their conduct as little less than a profanation of 
 the Christian ministry ; and as both the doctrines they preached, and 
 their mode of acting, were grossly misrepresented to him, he conceived 
 a violent prejudice against their proceedings, and went too far with 
 their detractors in condemning them unheard. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley, though a man of sound judgment and prudence, 
 was too apt to conceive prejudice against any thing that appeared con- 
 trary to his notions of the orthodox faith, and any Churchman who in 
 the slightest degree varied from establishing ecclesiastical order. On 
 
 33
 
 258 SAMDEL WKSLEY, JON. 
 
 these grounds the conduct of his brothers was beheld by him with a 
 jealous eye ; and his mind at last became evil affected toward them 
 by the ridiculous tales that some of his correspondents had been indus- 
 trious to glean up ; and especially by those of a Mrs. Hutton, at whose 
 house Mr. Charles Wesley, and afterward Mr. John, lodged after their 
 return from Georgia. 
 
 By this lady's information, who was both weak and unawakened, 
 having no knowledge whatever of experimental religion, he was led 
 to consider his brothers full as erroneous in their doctrines as they 
 were singular and irregular in their ministerial conduct ; and in short, 
 on her authority, to set down his brother John as a lunatic or madman ! 
 
 Many letters passed between these two brothers in consequence of 
 the letters of Mrs. Hutton ; and as a good part of this correspondence 
 has been published by the late Dr. Priestley, who, by some means not 
 well accounted for, got possession of these family documents, on some 
 parts of which, in his Address to the Methodists, he has made very ex- 
 ceptionable comments, I judge it necessary to lay the whole before the 
 reader, supplying the deficiencies in Dr. Priestley's publication from 
 documents in my own possession. 
 
 The points to which Mr. Samuel Wesley chiefly objected, were, the 
 .powerful effects produced under his brother's preaching, the sudden 
 convictions and instantaneous conversions, together with the pro- 
 fessions of those who were thus converted, that they knew they were 
 pardoned, having a clear evidence from the Holy Spirit in their own 
 minds that they were passed from death to life. This experience he 
 held to be utterly impossible ; and all who professed to have it passed 
 with him as hypocrites, enthusiasts, fanatics, shallow-pates and mad- 
 men. Even his own brothers fell under this general censure. Added 
 to this, Mr. Samuel found it difficult to believe that a regular perform- 
 ance of moral duties, attending the ministry of the Church, and duly 
 receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, were not the conditions 
 of our acceptance with God. On some of these points he certainly had 
 not a distinct and clear view of some of the most important doctrines 
 of his own Church. At the time of the controversy with his brother 
 John he most assuredly had not a Scriptural notion of the depth and 
 extent of original corruption, of the necessity of the atonement, of justi- 
 fication by faith, nor of the influences of the Holy Spirit as exerted to 
 convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and to enlight- 
 en, quicken, sanctify, and seal, the souls of believers. All this is so 
 evident from his letters, that there is no room left for the necessity of 
 conjecture or surmise. 
 
 He did not like the singularity of his brothers' conduct when in Ox- 
 ford, before they went to America ; and still less their doctrines, and 
 mode of proceeding, after their return. On all these subjects he 
 expresses his mind in the following controversy with little ceremony ; 
 and often with a magisterial severity that savoured too much of intole- 
 rant principles, of the character of the schoolmaster, and the austerity 
 of thu elder brother. But we should make some allowance for the high 
 notions of Church authority and prerogative in which he was educated. 
 Beside, he was eleven years older than the eldest of his two brothers.
 
 SAMUEL WESI.ET, JUS. 259 
 
 concerned in this correspondence, and he did not like to be taught the 
 first principles of religion by his juniors. 
 
 Mrs. Hutton's first letter is the following : 
 
 " June 6, 1738. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, You will be surprised to see a letter from me : but 
 Mr. Hutton and I are really under a very great concern, and know not 
 whom to apply to if you cannot help us. After you left London, and 
 your brothers had lost the conveniency of your house, believing them 
 good and pious Christians, we invited them to make the same use of 
 ours, and thought such an offer would not be unacceptable to God or 
 to them, which they received with signs of friendship, and took up with 
 such accommodations as our house could afford, from time to time, as 
 they had occasion. Mr. Charles, at his arrival in England, was re- 
 ceived and treated with such tenderness and love as he could have been 
 in your house ; Mr. John the same ; and as occasion has offered, 
 at different times, ten or twelve of their friends. But your brother 
 John seems to be turned a wild enthusiast, or fanatic ; and to our very 
 great affliction is drawing our two children into these wild notions, by 
 their great opinion of Mr. John's sanctity and judgment. It would be 
 a great charity to many other honest, well meaning, simple souls, as 
 well as to my children, if you could either confine or convert Mr. John 
 when he is with you ; for after his behaviour on Sunday the 28th of 
 May, when you hear it, you will think him not a quite right man. 
 
 " Without ever acquainting Mr. Hutton with any of his notions or 
 designs, when Mr. Hutton had ended a sermon of Bishop Blackhall's, 
 which he had been reading in his study to a great number of people, 
 Mr. John got up and told the people that five days before he was not a 
 Christian, and this he was as well assured of as that five days before he 
 was not in that room ; and the way for them all to be Christians was to 
 believe and own that they were not now Christians. Mr. Hutton was 
 much surprised at this unexpected injudicious speech : but only said, 
 Have a care, JVfr. Wesley, how you despise the benefits received by the 
 two sacraments. I not being in the study when this speech was made, 
 had heard nothing of it when he came into the parlour to supper ; 
 where were my two children, two or three of his deluded followers, two 
 or three ladies who board with me, my niece, and two or three gentle- 
 men of Mr. John's acquaintance, though not got into his new notions. 
 He made the same wild speech again ; to which I made answer, * If 
 you was not a Christian ever since I knew you, you was a great hypo- 
 crite ; for you made us all believe you was one.' He said, ' When we 
 had renounced every thing but faith, and then got into Christ, then, and 
 not till then, had we any reason to believe we were Christians ; and 
 when we had so got Christ, we might keep him, and so be kept from 
 sin.' 
 
 " Mr. Hutton said, 'If faith only was necessary to save us, why did 
 our Lord give us that divine sermon V Mr. John said, ' That was the 
 lettei' that killeth.' ' Hold,' says Mr. Hutton, * you seem not to know 
 what you say ; are our Lord's words the letter that killeth ?' Mr. John 
 ald, * Jfwe had nofailh.' Mr. Hutton replied, ' / did not ask you
 
 2GO SAMUEL WESLET, JUN. 
 
 we should receive it ? but why our Lord gave it, as also the account of 
 the judgment in the twenty-fifth of Matthew, if works are not what he 
 expects, but faith only ?' 
 
 *' Now it is a most melancholy thing to have not only our two chil- 
 dren, but many others, to disregard all teaching, but by such a spirit 
 as comes to some in dreams, to others in such visions as will surprise 
 you to hear of. If there cannot be some stop put to this, and unless 
 he can be taught true humility, the mischief he will do wherever he 
 goes among the ignorant but well meaning Christians will be very 
 great. 
 
 " Mr. Charles went from my son's where he lay ill for some time ; 
 and would not come to our house, where I offered him the choice of 
 two of my best rooms ; but he would accept of neither, but chose to 
 go to a poor brazier's in Little Britain, that that brazier might help 
 him forward in his conversion, which was completed on May 22, as his 
 brother John was praying. Mr. John was converted, or I know not 
 what, or how, but made a Christian, May 25. A woman had beside a 
 previous dream : a ball of fire fell upon her and burst, and fired her 
 soul. Another young man, when he was in St. Dunston's Church, just 
 as he was going to receive the sacrament, had God the Father come to 
 him, but did not stay with him : but God the Son did stay, who came 
 with him holding his cross in his hands. 
 
 " I cannot understand the use of these relations : but if you doubt 
 the truth, or your brother denies them, I can produce undeniable proofs 
 of the relation of such facts from the persons who related the facts, that 
 they had received such appearances. 
 
 " Mr. John has abridged the life of one Haliburton, a Presbyterian 
 teacher in Scotland. My son had designed to print it, to show the 
 experiences of that holy man, of indwelling, &c. Mr. Hutton and 1 
 have forbid our son being concerned in handing such books into the 
 world : but if your brother John or Charles think it will tend to promote 
 God's glory, they will soon convince my son God's glory is to be prefer- 
 red to his parents' commands. Then you will see what I never expected, 
 my son promoting rank fanaticism. 
 
 " If you can, dear sir, put a stop to such madness, which will be a 
 work worthy of you, a singular charity, and very much oblige 
 " Your sincere and affectionate servant, 
 
 " E. HUTTON. 
 " To the Rev. Mr. Wesley, 
 Tiverton, Devon." 
 
 Such were the reports and the reporters on which Mr. S. Wesley 
 founded some of his most solemn objections to the doctrines and con- 
 duct of his brothers ! Prejudice and bigotry alone could have recourse 
 to such evidence in a case like this. 
 
 Mrs. Hutton most evidently knew little of the way of salvation. She 
 had heard some idle tales which she received as truth ; and she had 
 heard true accounts, which, through her total ignorance of the work 
 of God in the soul of man, she continually misrepresents. 
 
 Were it not for her ignorance, the serious reader must consider her
 
 S A ML El. WE3LET, JUN. Jd 
 
 as designedly sitting in the seat of the scorner, or wilfully uttering blas- 
 phemies. 
 
 To write a critique on her letter would be useless : it shows itself 
 what it is. Mr. John Wesley, it appears, told them that " they must 
 repent of their sins, and come to Christ crucified, not to their misera- 
 ble works and obedience, for the remission of sins ; and that redemption 
 in his blood was to be received by faith ; and that a conformity in 
 their way to our Lord's sermon on the mount, could not atone for sin 
 that was past, or reconcile them to the offended justice of a holy 
 God." 
 
 This, though the doctrine of their Church, was to them a strange 
 doctrine ; for it seems it|\vas not there duly inculcated. Of experi- 
 mental religion they knew nothing ; did not understand its language ; 
 and as far as they could, turned it into ridicule. 
 
 Under the ministry of Mr. John and Charles Wesley, their children 
 were convinced that they were sinners, and were flying to lay hold on 
 the hope set before them in the Gospel ; and this the poor parents 
 thought to be fanaticism and madness ! 
 
 The truly rational, Scriptural, and deeply impressive experience of 
 Mr. Haliburton was, with Mrs. Hutton, rank fanaticism ; and she was 
 overwhelmed with distress because her children were likely to be made 
 partakers of the same grace ! 
 
 This one circumstance is sufficient to show in what state Mrs. 
 Hutton was ; and how utterly incapable she was of judging rightly in 
 matters pertaining to vital religion. 
 
 That Mr. Samuel Wesley, a man of learning and of a sound judg- 
 ment, could have entertained such representations ; that he could not 
 see, in this tissue of misrepresentations and confusion, the violent 
 prejudice, and total ignorance of his correspondent, is strange indeed 1 
 That he should have given her a serious answer in matters in which the 
 honour and character of his brothers were concerned, whom he knew 
 to be men of common sense and deep piety, is yet more strange ! But 
 he was himself at that time prejudiced and highly bigoted : and preju- 
 dice has neither eyes nor ears. I shall subjoin his answer : 
 
 " Tiverton, Deron, June 17, 1738. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, I am sufficiently sensible of yours and Mr. Hut- 
 ton's kindness to my brothers, and shall always acknowledge it ; and 
 cannot blame you either for your concern, or writing to me about it. 
 
 " Falling into enthusiasm, is being lost with a witness ; and if you 
 are troubled for two of your children, you may be sure I am so for <tr> 
 whom I may in some sense call mine ; who, if once turned that way, 
 will do a world of mischief, much more than even otherwise they would 
 have done good ; since men are much easier to be led into evil, than 
 from it. 
 
 "What Jack means by 'not being a Christian till last month' I 
 understand not. Had he never been in covenant with God ? Then, as 
 Mr. Hutton observed, baptism was nothing. Had he, totally apostatized 
 from it? I dare say not; and yet he must be either unbaptized, or an 
 apostate, to make his words Irve. Perhaps it might come ioto lu*
 
 262 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 crown that he was in a state of mortal sin, unrepented of; and had 
 long lived in such a course. This I do not believe ; however he must 
 answer for himself. But where is the sense of requiring every body 
 else to confess that of themselves in order to commence Christians? 
 Must they confess it, whether it be so or no 1 Beside a sinful course is 
 not an abolition of the covenant, for that very reason because it is a 
 breach of it. If it were not, it would not be broken. 
 
 " Renouncing every thing but faith may be every evil, as the world, 
 the flesh, and the devil : this is a very orthodox sense, but no great 
 discovery. It may mean rejecting all merit of our own good works. 
 What Protestant does not do so 1 Even Bellarmin, on his death bed, 
 is said to have renounced all merits but those of Christ. If this 
 renouncing regards good works in any other sense, as being unneces- 
 sary or the like, it is wretchedly wicked ; and to call our Saviour's 
 words the letter that killeth is no less than blasphemy against the Son 
 of man. // is mere Quakerism, making the outward Christ an enemy 
 to the Christ within. 
 
 "When tJie ball of Jlre fired the woman's soul (an odd sort of fire 
 that) what reference had it to my two brothers? Was the youth that 
 had the Father come to him, told any thing about then ? Did he see 
 any thing, or only hear a voice 1 ? What were the words if any? I sup- 
 pose he will take shelter in their being unspeakable. In short, this 
 looks like downright madness. 1 do not hold it at all unlikely that 
 perpetual intenseness of thought and want of sleep may have disordered 
 my brother. I have been told that the Quakers' introversion of thought 
 has ended in madness. It is a studious stopping of every thought as 
 fast as it arises, in order to receive the Spirit. I wish the canting 
 fellows had never had any followers among us, who talk of indwellings, 
 experiences, getting into Christ, &c, &c. As I remember assurances 
 used to make a great noise, which were carried to such a height, that 
 (as far as nonsense can be understood) they rose to fruition, in utter 
 defiance of Christian hope, since the question is unanswerable, What a 
 man hath why doth he yet hope for ? But I will believe none without a 
 miracle, who shall pretend to be wrapped up into the third heaven. 
 
 " I hope your son does not think it as plainly revealed that he shall 
 print an enthusiastic book, as it is that he shall obey his father and his 
 mother. Suppose it were never so excellent, can that supersede 
 your authority? God deliver us from visions that make the law of 
 God vain. 
 
 " I pleased myself with the expectation of seeing Jack : but that is 
 now over, and I am afraid of it. I know not where to direct to him, 
 or where he is. Charles I will write to as soon as I can, and shall be 
 glad to. hear from you in the mean time. 
 
 " / heartily pray God to stop the progress of this lunacy. 
 
 "We join in service. I am, dear madam,- your sincere and affec- 
 tionate friend and servant, SAMUEL WESLEY." 
 " To Mrs. Hutton, College-street, Westminster." 
 
 I am truly sorry to be obliged to notice these letters; and had 
 passed them by in silence, had they not been twice officiously obtruded
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JL.N. 263 
 
 on the attention of the public by men more eminent for various other 
 excellencies than for candour ; and used as means and arguments to 
 discredit Mr. Wesley, and that great work of pure and undented reli- 
 gion which he was the means in the hands of God of diffusing through- 
 out these lands. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley seems to take almost every thing for granted 
 that this very silly and prejudiced woman related to him, from words 
 ill understood which fhe had heard, and miserable fabrications of 
 misrepresented facts, of which she says, " I can produce undeniable 
 proofs of the relation of such facts from the persons who related the 
 facts, that they had received such appearances!" That is, she can 
 bring proofs that the facts were related by the persons who related 
 them ! But honest truth dwells not in such confusion, nor veils itself 
 with such disguises. 
 
 I need not say what Mr. Samuel Wesley's duty was when he heard 
 such tales against his excellent brothers: men who were not at all 
 inferior to himself in learning ; who were at least his equals in judg- 
 ment; and for the depth of whose piety he himself could vouch. He 
 tells, however, some sad truths in his answer relative to himself. In 
 unqualified terms a man is with him a Christian if he be baptized ! He 
 is in the covenant of God, which even a course of sin cannot annul, 
 though a life of that kind may be a breach of it ! and that he must 
 have entirely apostatized, that is, abjured Christianity and blasphemed 
 Christ, (for that is what is implied in total apostasy,) or have never 
 been baptized, in order not to be a Christian. With him water baptism, 
 and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, are the same thing ; an old and 
 pernicious error, which is deceiving thousands even in the present day. 
 As to his distinction between mortal sin, and what is its opposite, 
 though unmentioned, venial sin, we know from what school it was 
 derived. 
 
 At this time Mr. S. W r esley most undoubtedly knew not the doctrine 
 of faith as laid down in the Articles and Homilies of the Church : and 
 he in his zeal against assurance, of which he had a very inaccurate and 
 confused idea, confounds the hope of everlasting life, with the hope or 
 expectation of the present favour and approbation of God, the conse- 
 quence of being justified by faith! 
 
 The illiberal reflections on the Quakers were not called for. It is 
 not true that they make the outward Christ an enemy to the Christ 
 within ; nor, that their introversion of thought, (what they call their 
 silent waiting upon God,) ends in madness. 
 
 To conclude, taking it for granted from this Huttonian information, 
 that both his brothers were run mad, he finishes with piously praying 
 God to stop the progress of this lunacy ! What a revolution of credulity 
 in a person so difficult to be persuaded to believe any thing of which 
 he could not have the most palpable evidence. 
 
 Mrs. Hutton is now encouraged to proceed with her gleanings ; and 
 in the next letter exceeds her former self. 
 
 "Jttr 20, 1738. 
 
 " I>F.AR SIR, 1 return you thanks for so obligingly answering my 
 letter, for which I ought to beg your pardon, since i am sensible what
 
 264 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 I have related must afflict you, though it might not be in your power to 
 lessen my affliction. For how can I expect more regard will be had 
 to a brother than is had to parents ? Though in reality your brothers 
 are much more obligated to you than many children are to their parents; 
 you doing for them as a most kind and judicious parent, when you had 
 not the same obligation. I was in hopes mine to you would have met 
 your brother John at Tiverton, where he said he was going. If so, he 
 could have explained to you the meaning of the two visions I sent you 
 word of. 
 
 " Every one of his converts are directed to get an assurance of their 
 sins being all pardoned, and they sure of their salvation, which brings 
 all joy and peace. And this is given them in an instant, so that every 
 person so converted is able to describe the manner and time when they 
 get it, as they call it. Your brother John writ his reflections on Mr. 
 Hervey's paper, in these words : ' Remission of sins, and peace with 
 God. The life of God or love in our souls. The evidence of our 
 weakness, and the power of Christ.' 
 
 " My son felt it on the 25th of April at the blessed sacrament, as 
 the minister said, The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. Your 
 brother Charles felt it at Mr. Bray's as your brother John was praying 
 for it for him on the 22nd of May. Your brother John felt it on the 
 25th of May, just as he awaked. 
 
 " These things they make no secrets ; for good Mr. Baldwin told 
 me he heard your brother Charles give a relation of a young man at 
 Oxford, who had lived, as he himself thought, a very good and pious 
 life : but he was first convinced it was nothing, before he could get 
 this faith; upon which he threw himself upon his face, upon his 
 chamber floor, and lay so (I suppose praying) an hour or two, and 
 then rose up with great joy and peace of mind. 
 
 " This affected Mr. Baldwin so much, that the next opportunity he 
 had to talk with my son, he put into his hands a sermon of Bishop 
 Bull's upon the subject of the assistance we may expect from the Holy 
 Spirit. But all authors and writings but the Bible are rejected ; and 
 every man, if he will practise what he knows, shall have all the light 
 necessary for himself, taught him from God. 
 
 " They are, I think, aiming at something more ; for my son told me 
 that a woman, who is a Dissenter, had three years and more, as she 
 fancied, been under the seal of reprobation ; and upon her coming to 
 Mr. Bray's, where your brother Charles, Mr. Bray, and my son, were 
 praying for her, though she went home in the same melancholy, yet in 
 an hour after she sent them word that she was delivered from the 
 power of Satan, and desired them to return public thanks for the same 
 in her behalf. I heard a poor simple barber, whose name is Wolfe, 
 relate such a dream that a blacksmith had, as a sign of his being just 
 getting into Christ, and of his own power, as put me beyond patience. 
 My poor son lay ill of a fever at the same time, with such a number of 
 these fancied saints about him, that I expected nothing but his weak 
 brain would be quite turned. I think it is not far from it, that he will 
 not give any, the most pious or judicious author his father recommends, 
 a reading.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 265 
 
 " Now your brother John is gone, who is my son's pope, it may 
 please God, if you give yourself the trouble to try, he may hear some 
 reason from you. If you could bring your brother Charles back, it 
 would be a great step toward the reconversion of my poor son. Your 
 two brothers are men of great parts and learning ; my son is good- 
 humoured, and very undesigning, and sincerely honest, but of weak 
 judgment so fitted for any delusion. It would be the greatest charity 
 you ever did, and your charity of all kinds is very extensive. If you 
 can undeceive your brother Charles and my son, it would put a stop to 
 this wildfire. 
 
 " I suppose you received a letter from your brother John that he 
 came to London the 12th at night, set forward the 13th without seeing 
 your brother Charles, to make a visit to Count Zinzendorf. I know 
 he looks upon his fancies as directions from the Holy Spirit. What 
 carried him to Georgia I know not : but I can prove he brought that 
 notion with him to Deal, when he landed from Georgia ; and had Mr. 
 fVhitefield believed it, he had not proceeded on his voyage ; John had 
 brought him back by the direction of the Spirit. We do nothing but 
 pray for our children, and all others under this strange delusion ; since 
 arguments from us, which to others seem reasonable, have no effect 
 upon them. I doubt not of your prayers upon the same occasion, and 
 all other means your good judgment shall enable you to use. 
 
 " I have been thus long, to give you all the light I can into this affair, 
 as a help toward your finding out a cure ; being with the greatest value 
 and respect for your real, not imaginary worth, your most sincere, hum- 
 ble servant, ELIZABETH HUTTON. 
 
 " To the Rev. Mr. Samuel Wesley, 
 at Tiverton, Devon." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Hutton appears sadly tried because her sons in the point 
 in question relative to the remission of sins and the witness of the Spirit, 
 will not receive the authority of Bishop Blackball, Bull, and others ; 
 but that of the BIBLE only! Perhaps it will make the reader smile : but 
 this brings to my recollection the case of the poor Roman Catholic 
 woman, who having lost her rosary, cried out, " Lord, have mercy upon 
 me ! Christ, have mercy upon me ! I have lost my crucifix, and now 
 have nothing but God Almighty to trust to !" 
 
 That both the Mr. Wesleys professed to have received the know- 
 ledge of salvation by the remission of sins at the time specified by Mrs. 
 Hutton is a fact which they not only never denied, but exulted in to the 
 day of their death. 
 
 The letter in which Mr. John Wesley defended himself against the 
 misrepresentations of Mrs. Hutton, and his brother's charges founded 
 on them, I cannot find ; it is most probably lost : but that such a letter 
 was written is evident from his brother Samuel's allusions to it in a letter 
 dated December 13th of this year, which shall shortly be introduced. 
 But a letter before me of the 30th of October must be inserted here, as 
 it contains Mr. J. Wesley's explanation at large of his own state, the 
 change that had passed upon his soul, and what he believed relative to 
 such influences of God upon the hearts of men. 
 
 34
 
 266 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 October 30, 1738. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, That you will always receive kindly what is so 
 intended I doubt not. Therefore I again recommend the character of 
 Susurrus. may God deliver both you and me from all bitterness and 
 evil speaking, as well as from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism ! 
 
 " 1. With regard to my own character, and my doctrine likewise, I 
 shall answer you very plainly. By a Christian, I mean one who so 
 believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him ; and in 
 this obvious sense of the word, I was not a Christian till May 24th last 
 past. For till then sin had the dominion over me, although I fought 
 with it continually : but surely then, from that time to this, it hath not ; 
 such is the free grace of God in Christ ! What sins they were which 
 till then reigned over me, and from which by the grace of God I am 
 now free, I am ready to declare on the house-top, if it may be for the 
 glory of God. 
 
 " 2. If you ask by what means I am made free, (though not perfect, 
 neither infallibly sure of my perseverance,) I answer, by faith in Christ: 
 by such a sort or degree of faith as I had not till that day. My want 
 of this faith I knew long before, though not so clearly till Sunday, Jan- 
 uary 8th last, when being in the midst of the great deep, I wrote a few 
 lines in the bitterness of my soul, some of which I have transcribed ; 
 and may the good God sanctify them both to you and me. 
 
 4 By the most infallible of all proofs, inward feeling, I am convinced 
 this day : 
 
 1. Of unbelief; having no such faith in Christ as will prevent my 
 heart from being troubled ; which it could not be if I believed in God, 
 and rightly believed also in him. 
 
 4 2. Of pride, throughout my life past ; inasmuch as I thought I had 
 what I find I have not. Lord, save, or I perish ! Save me, 
 
 4 1st, By such a faith in thee and in thy Christ, as implies trust, confi- 
 dence, peace in life and in death. 
 
 '2nd, By such humility as may fill my heart from this hour for ever 
 with a piercing, uninterrupted sense, Nihil est quod hactenusfeci ; hav- 
 ing evidently built without a foundation. 
 
 4 3rd, By such a recollection as may cry to thee every moment, but 
 more especially when all is calm (if it should so please thee) give me 
 faith or I die ! Give me a lowly spirit, otherwise, Mihi non sit suave 
 vivere. Amen, come, Lord Jesus ! Tie Aa/3i<5, sXgTjgov /xou.' 
 
 44 Some measure of this faith which bringeth salvation, or victory over 
 sin, and which implies peace and trust in God through Christ, I now 
 enjoy through his free mercy, though in very deed it is in me but as a 
 grain of mustard seed; for the *X]po9opia -vi&sus, the seal of the Spirit, 
 the love of God shed abroad in my heart, and producing joy in the Holy 
 Ghost, joy which no man taketh away, joy unspeakable and full of 
 glory ; this witness of the Spirit I have not, but I patiently wait for it. 
 I know many who have already received it ; more than one or two in 
 the very hour we were praying for it. And having seen and spoken 
 with r. cloud of witnesses abroad, as well as in my own country, I cannot 
 doubt that believers who wait and pray for it, will find these scriptures 
 fulfilled in themselves. My hope is, that they will be fulfilled in me.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 267 
 
 I build upon Christ the Rock of ages, on his sure mercies described in 
 his word, and on his promises, all which I know are yea and amen. 
 
 " Those who have not yet received joy in the Holy Ghost, the love 
 of God, and the plerophory of faith, (any or all of which I take to be the 
 witness of the Spirit with our spirit that we are the sons of God,) I 
 believe to be Christians in that imperfect sense, wherein I call myself 
 such ; and I exhort them to pray that God would give them also to 
 rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and to feel his love shed abroad in 
 iheir hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them. 
 
 " On men I build not ; neither on Matilda Chipman's word, whom 
 I have not talked with Jive minutes in my life ; nor on any thing 
 peculiar in the weak, well meant relation of William Herbery, who yet 
 is a serious, humble-acting Christian. But have you been believing 
 on these ? Yes : I find them more or less in almost every letter you 
 have written on the subject. Yet were all that has been said on 
 * visions, dreams, and balls of fire,' to be fairly proposed in syllogisms, 
 I believe it would prove not a jot more on one than on the other side 
 of the question. 
 
 " O brother, would to God you would leave disputing of the things 
 which you know not, (if indeed you know them not,) and beg of God 
 to fill up what is yet wanting in you. Why should not you also seek 
 till you receive that peace of God which passeth all understanding? 
 Who shall hinder you, notwithstanding the manifold temptations, to 
 rejoice with joy unspeakable, by reason of glory? Amen, Lord Jesus ! 
 May you, and all who are near of kin to you, (if you have it not 
 already,) feel his love shed abroad in your hearts by his Spirit which 
 dwelleth in you ; and be sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which 
 is the earnest of your inheritance. 
 
 44 1 am yours and my sister's most affectionate brother, 
 
 44 JOHN WESLET. 
 
 44 To the Rev. Mr. Wesley, 
 Tiverton, Devon." 
 
 To this admirable letter Mr. Samuel thus answered : 
 
 " Tiverlon, Devon, JYor. 15, 1738. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, I have many remarks to make on your letter : but 
 do not care to fight in the dark, or run my head against a stone wall. 
 
 44 You need fear no controversy with me, unless you think it worth 
 while to remove these three doubts : 
 
 44 1. Whether you will own or disown, in terms, the necessity of a 
 sensible information from God of pardon ? If you disown it, the matter 
 is over as to you ; if you own it, then, 
 
 44 2. Whether you will not think me distracted to oppose you with 
 the most infallible of all proofs, inward feeling in yourself, and positive 
 evidence in your friends, while I myself produce neither? 
 
 * 3. Whether you will release me from the horns of your dilemma, 
 that I must either talk without knowledge like a/ooJ, or against it like 
 a l.-ittire ? I conceive neither part strikes. For a man may reasonably 
 argue against what he never felt, and may honestly deny wliat he has 
 felt to be uecessary to others.
 
 268 SAMUEL WESLEV, JUN. 
 
 " You build nothing on tales. But I do. I see what is manifestly 
 built upon them : if you disclaim it, and warn poor shallow pales of their 
 folly and danger, so much the better. They are counted signs or tokens, 
 means or conveyances, proofs or evidences, of the sensible information, 
 &c, calculated to turn fools into madmen; and put them, without a jest, 
 into the condition of Oliver's Pastor. 
 
 " When I hear visions, &c, reproved, discouraged, and ceased among 
 the new brotherhood, I shall then say no more of them : but till then I 
 will use my utmost strength that God shall give me to expose these 
 bad branches of a bad root : and thus 
 
 " Such doctrine as encourages and abets spiritual fire balls, appari- 
 tions of the Father, &c, &c, is delusive and dangerous. But the sensi- 
 ble necessary information, &c, is such ; ergo, 
 
 " I mention not this to enter into any dispute with you, for you seem 
 to disapprove, though not expressly disclaim : but to convince you I 
 am not out of my way, though encountering of windmills. I will do 
 my best to make folks wiser. 
 
 " I will borrow from our Litany a prayer you will join in. 
 
 " ' That it may please Thee to strengthen such as do stand ; to com- 
 fort and help the weak-hearted ; to raise up those that fall ; and, finally, 
 to beat down Satan under our feet ! We beseech thee to hear us, good 
 Lord." 
 
 " My wife joins with love ; we are all pretty well. 
 
 " I am, dear Jack, your sincere and affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 "SAMUEL WESLEY. 
 
 " To the Rev. Mr. John Wesley." 
 
 I was about to make some severe strictures on this letter, because it 
 is exceedingly disingenuous ; and because it has been urged by some 
 of the enemies of Mr. J. Wesley and Methodism as a triumph over 
 their doctrine of assurance, &c. But on having recourse to Dr. White- 
 head, who inserts a part of this letter, I adopt his reflections on it, which 
 are full in point. 
 
 " This letter appears to me full of fallacy. To give one instance : 
 Mr. John Wesley had said, the witness of the Spirit was the common 
 privilege of believers ; that he considered joy in the Holy Ghost the 
 love of God, and the plerophory of faith, as the witness of the Spirit with 
 our spirit that we are the sons of God ; that the whole of what had been 
 said on ' visions, dreams, and balls of fire,' could not in his opinion either 
 prove or disprove the point in question between them ; that is, visions, 
 dreams, and balls of fire, were totally foreign to the witness of the Spirit 
 for which he was contending. But his brother Samuel changes the 
 term witness, and substitutes for it sensible information ; by which he 
 means something visible to the sight, or existing in the fancy ; and then 
 indeed visions, &c, were connected with the question ; and he reasons 
 on this supposition. But this was a mere sophism, of which Mr. J. 
 Wesley would probably have taken notice had he been writing to a 
 stranger, or had he foreseen that any one would print the letters after 
 his death." The doctor refers here to the publication of the original 
 Letters of the Wesley Family, by Dr. Priestly.
 
 SAMUEL WESI.ET, JUN. 269 
 
 To the foregoing letter Mr. J. Wesley replied thus : 
 
 "JVbt?. 30, 1738. 
 
 " 1 believe every Christian who has not yet received it should 
 
 pray for the witness of God's Spirit u-ilh his spirit that he is a child of 
 God. In being a child of God, the pardon of his sins is included ; 
 therefore I believe the Spirit of God will witness this also. That this 
 witness is from God the very terms imply ; and this witness I believe 
 is necessary for my salvation. How far invincible ignorance may 
 excuse others I know not. But this you say is delusive and dangerous, 
 because it encourages and abets idle visions and dreams. It encou- 
 rages : true; accidentally but not essentially. And that it does this 
 accidentally, or that weak minds may pervert it to an idle use, is no 
 objection against it ; for so they may pervert every truth in the oracles 
 of God ; more especially that dangerous doctrine of Joel, cited by St. 
 Peter, It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, 1 will pour out 
 of my Spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall 
 prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall 
 dream dreams. Such visions indeed as you mention are given up ; 
 does it follow that visions and dreams in general ' are bad branches of 
 a bad root V God forbid. This would prove more than you desire." 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley returns once more with objections raised on 
 nearly the same grounds ; changing the terms of the question in debate, 
 and arguing on these changes. 
 
 "Dec. 13, 1738. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, You own abundantly enough to clear Mrs. Hutton 
 from any misrepresentations as to you, and me from any misunderstand- 
 ing her. I was but too right in my judgment. 
 
 * 1. You was not a Christian before JVfay 24 : but are so now, in a 
 sense of the word you call obvious ; which was so far from it, that it 
 astonished all who heard you then, and which I deny to be so much 
 as true. 
 
 " 2. You hold the witness of the Spirit, a clear information of adop- 
 tion, whereof pardon is a part, to be absolutely necessary to your sal- 
 vation, and that of others, unless excused by invincible ignorance. 
 Enough ! Enough ! Yet, 
 
 " 3. You apply Joel amazingly, though you give up such visions as I 
 speak of, yet not allowing me to call such 4 bad branches of a bad root.' 
 That I may not be guilty of putting them more or less into every letter, 
 I'll discuss that matter fully by itself, once for all, desiring you in the 
 mean time to say, what other Scripture dreams or visions you would 
 insist on? Whether all between Genesis and the Revelations? I am 
 afraid Ahab's lying spirits may be too pertinent. 
 
 " That you were not a Christian before May in your sense any one 
 may allow : but have you ever since continued sinless ? Sin has not 
 the dominion. Do you never then/aW ? Or do you mean no more than 
 that you are free from presumptuous sins 1 If the former, I deny it ; if 
 the latter, who disputes ? 
 
 "Your misapplication of the witness of the Spirit is so thoroughly 
 cleared by Bishop Bull, that 1 shall not hold a candle to the sun. What
 
 270 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 portion of love, joy, &c, God may be pleased to bestow on Christians 
 is in his hand, not ours. Those texts you quote no more prove them 
 generally necessary, in what you call your imperfect state, than ' Rejoice 
 in the Lord always' contradicts Blessed are they that mourn. 1 There 
 is a time to weep, and a time to laugh, till that day comes when all tears 
 shall be wiped from our eyes, which I take it will hardly be before 
 death : to which happiness God of his infinite mercy, through Christ, 
 bring us all ! 
 
 " We join in love. As your last is dated from Oxford, I write thither, 
 though you may be gone by this time. 
 
 " I am, dear Jack, your affectionate and sincere friend and brother, 
 
 "S. WESLEY. 
 
 " I had much more to say : but it will keep, if ever it should be 
 proper." 
 
 This letter may be thought proper or passable between brother and 
 brother : but it is inexcusable in a logician, and completely proves that 
 Mr. Samuel had not one show of argument farther to produce. The 
 Jirst part of Mr. J. Wesley's reply is lost ; the following is all that 
 remains : 
 
 " I think Bishop Bull's sermon on the witness of the Spirit, (against 
 the witness of the Spirit it should rather be entitled,) is full of gross 
 perversions of Scripture, and manifest contradictions both to Scripture 
 and experience. I find more persons day by day, who experience a 
 clear evidence of their being in a state of salvation : but I never said 
 this continues equally clear in all, as long as they continue in a state of 
 .salvation. Some indeed have testified, and the whole tenor of their 
 life made their testimony unexceptionable, that from that hour they have 
 felt no agonies at all, no anxious fears, no sense of dereliction, as others 
 have. 
 
 " But much I fear we begin our dispute at the wrong end. I fear you 
 dissent from the fundamental Articles of the Church of England. I 
 know Bishop Bull does. I doubt you do not hold justification by faith 
 alone : if not, then neither do you hold what our Articles teach concern- 
 ing the extent and the guilt of original sin, neither do you/ee/ yourself 
 a lost sinner; and if we begin not here, we are building on the sand. 
 O may the God of love, if my sister or you are otherwise minded, 
 reveal even this unto you !" 
 
 Item acu tetigit. This was most undoubtedly the state and feeling 
 of Mr. Samuel Wesley at this time. That he came to a better state of 
 mind at last his brother fully believed. 
 
 The next year's correspondence is as follows : 
 
 " Tiverlon, March 29, 1738-9. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, I might as well have wrote immediately after your 
 last as now, for any new information I expected from my mother ; I 
 might as well have let it alone at present, for any effect it will have, 
 farther than showing you I neither despise you on the one hand, nor 
 am angry with you on the other. 
 
 " I am hardly persuaded you will see me face to face in this world, 
 though somewhat nearer than Count Zinzendorf. Charles has at last
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 271 
 
 told me in terms, he believes no more of dreams or visions than I do. 
 Had you said so, I believe I should have hardly spent any time upon 
 them ; though I find others credit them, whatever you may do. 
 
 " You make two degrees or kinds of assurance. That neither of them 
 is necessary to a state of salvation I prove thus : 
 
 44 1. Because multitudes are' saved without either. These are of 
 three sorts : 1. All infants baptized, who die before actual sin. 2. All 
 persons of a melancholy and gloomy constitution ; who without a mira- 
 cle, cannot be changed. 3. All penitents [backsliders ?] who live a 
 good life after their recovery, and yet never attain to their first state. 
 
 44 2. The lowest assurance is an impression from God, who is 
 infallible, that heaven shall be actually enjoyed by the person to whom 
 it is made. How is this consistent with fears of miscarriage ; with 
 deep sorrow, and going on the way weeping] How can any doubt 
 after such certificate ? If they can, then there is an assurance whereby 
 the person who has it is not sure. 
 
 44 3. If this be essential to a state of salvation, it is utterly impos- 
 sible any should fall from that state finally ; since, how can any thing 
 be more fixed than what Truth and Power has said he will perform ? 
 Unless you will say of the matter here as I observed of the person, that 
 there may be assurance wherein the thing itself is not certain. 
 44 1 am your affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 44 S. WESLEY." 
 
 The reader will observe, that in this letter Mr. S. Wesley confounds 
 the assurance of being now in the favour of God with that of being 
 infallibly and eternally saved ! The latter doctrine Mr. J. Wesley 
 never taught. 
 
 The following is Mr. J. Wesley's reply : 
 
 44 Bristol, April 4, 1738-9. 
 
 44 DEAR BROTHER, I greatly rejoice at the temper with which you 
 now write ; and trust there is not only mildness, but love also, in your 
 heart : if so, you shall know of this doctrine whether it be of God, 
 though perhaps not by my ministry. 
 
 44 To this hour you have pursued an ignoratio elenchi. Your as- 
 surance and mine are as different as light and darkness. I mean an 
 assurance that I am now in a state of salvation : you an assurance 
 that I shall persevere therein. The very definition of the term cuts off 
 your second and third observation. As to the first I would take 
 notice, 
 
 44 1. No kind of assurance, (that I know,) or of faith, or of repent- 
 ance, is essential to their salvation who die infants. 
 
 44 2. I believe God is ready to give all true penitents who fly to his 
 free grace in Christ a fuller sense of pardon than they had before they 
 fell. I know this to be true of several : whether there are exempt 
 cases I know not. 
 
 4 3. Persons that were of a melancholy and gloomy constitution, 
 even to some degree of madness, I have known in a moment, (let it 
 be called a miracle, I quarrel not,) brought into a state of firm, lasting 
 peace and joy.
 
 272 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 " My dear brother, the whole question turns chiefly, if not wholly, 
 on matter of fact. You deny that God does now work these effects ; 
 at least, that he works them in such a manner. I affirm both ; because 
 I have heard those facts with my ears, and seen them with my eyes. 
 I have seen (as far as it can be seen,) many persons' changed in a mo- 
 ment from the spirit of horror, fear, and despair, to the spirit of hope, joy, 
 and peace ; and from sinful desires, till then reigning over them, to a 
 pure desire of doing the will of God. These are matters of fact 
 whereof I have been, and almost daily am, eye or ear witness. 
 
 " What (upon the same evidence as to the suddenness and reality 
 of the change,) I believe, or know, touching visions or dreams. This 
 I know : several persons in whom this great change from the power 
 of Satan unto God was wrought either in sleep, or during a strong 
 representation to the eye of their minds of Christ, either on the cross, 
 or in glory. This is the fact : let any judge of it as they please. But 
 that such a change was then wrought appears (not from their shedding 
 tears only, or sighing or singing psalms, as your poor correspondent 
 did by the woman at Oxford, but) from the whole tenor of their life, till 
 then many ways wicked ; from that time holy, just, and good. Saw 
 you him who was a lion till then, and is now a lamb ; he that was a 
 drunkard, but now exemplarily sober ; the whoremonger that was, 
 who abhors the very lusts of the flesh ? These are my living argu- 
 ments for what I assert, that God now as aforetime, gives remission of 
 sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost, which may be called visions : if 
 it be not so, I am found a false witness. But, however, I do and will 
 testify the things I have both seen and heard. 
 
 " I do not now expect to see your face in the flesh : not that I be- 
 lieve God will discharge you yet, but I believe I have nearly finished 
 my course.* may I be found in him, not having my own righteous- 
 ness ! 
 
 " When I thy promised Christ have seen, 
 
 And clasp'd him in iny soul's embrace ; 
 
 Possess'd of thy salvation, then, 
 
 Then may I, Lord, depart in peace ! 
 
 The great blessing of God be upon you and yours. I am, dear bro- 
 ther, your ever affectionate and obliged brother, 
 
 " JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 " P. S. I expect to stay here some time ; perhaps as long as I am 
 in the body." 
 
 * Under this mark Dr. Priestly has the following note, "How greatly was Mr. 
 Wesley mistaken in this his full persuasion, when he lived fifty years after this." 
 This very note is introduced designedly to discredit Mr. Wesley's doctrine of as- 
 surance- : but the reflection is unfair and false. Mr. Wesley does not say, nor 'inti- 
 mate, that he had a full persuasion that he had nearly finished his course. He says 
 simply, "I do not expect to see your face in the flesh I believe I have nearly finished 
 my course ;" and at the conclusion of the letter, " I expect to stay here some time ; 
 perhaps as long as I am in the body." Now, do these hypothetic terms expect 
 believe perhaps, amount to a full per 'suasion that he should shortly die ? I trow not. 
 But he had reason to suppose and believe, from the then state of his health, that death 
 was at the door. 
 
 And with respect to the continuance of human life every thing is problematical. In 
 the midst of life we are in death. 
 
 See the conclusion of his next letter, May 10, 1739.
 
 SAMUEL WE8LET, JUN. 273 
 
 This letter Mr. Samuel Wesley answered thus : 
 
 " April 16, 1739. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, I heartily pray God that we may meet each other 
 with joy in the next life ; and beg him to forgive either of us, as far as 
 guilty, for our not meeting in this. I acknowledge his justice in 
 making my friends stand atar off, and hiding my acquaintance out of 
 my sight. 
 
 " I find brevity has made me obscure. I argue against assurance 
 in your or any sense as part of the Gospel covenant, "because many are 
 saved without it. You own you cannot deny exempt cases, which is 
 giving up the dispute. Your assurance being a clear impression of God 
 upon the soul I say must be perpetual, must be irreversible ; else it is 
 not assurance from God, infallible and omnipotent. 
 
 " You say the cross is strongly represented to the eye of the mind. 
 Do these words signify in plain English the fancy ? Inward eyes, ears, 
 and feelings, are nothing to other people. I am heartily sorry such 
 alloy should be found among so much piety." 
 
 In the above letter Mr. S. Wesley lays down premises of his own, 
 which he attributes to his brother ; and which his brother never pro- 
 posed nor maintained. And, strange to tell, from these assumed pre- 
 mises, he draws conclusions which they will not support ! A clear 
 impression of God upon the soul must be irreversible : because God is 
 infallible and omnipotent ! Was there ever such reasoning ? He might 
 as well have maintained, that the Divine image in the soul of man 
 was, in his creation, a char and full impression of God : therefore it 
 was perpetual and irreversible. Consequently Adam never fell, and 
 the history of that event is a fable ! 0, how prejudice and religious 
 bigotry blind the mind, and pervert the heart! Mr. Samuel pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 " The little reflection on my poor correspondent at Oxford is quite 
 groundless. I do not remember he says singing (adding rolling, &c) 
 was the only sign of her new birth ; it is brought as a fruit of it. 
 May we not know the tree by the fruit ? Such visions I think may 
 fairly be concluded fallacious, only for being attended with so ridiculous 
 an effect. 
 
 " My mother tells me she fears a formal schism is already begun 
 among you, though you and Charles are ignorant of it. For 'God's 
 sake take care of that ; and banish extemporary expositions and 
 extemporary prayers. 
 
 " I have got your abridgment of Haliburlon, and have sent for 
 Watt*. If it please God to allow me life and strength, I shall by his 
 help demonstrate that the Scot as little deserves preference to all 
 Christians but our Saviour, as the book all writings but those you men- 
 tion. There are two flagrant falsehoods in the very first chapter. But 
 your eyes are so fixed upon one point, that you overlook every thing 
 else. You overshoot : but Whitejicld raves. 
 
 " I entreat you to let me know what reasons you have to think you 
 shail not live long. I received yours dated the 4th, on Sunday 14. The 
 
 35
 
 274 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 post will reach me much sooner, and I shall want much to know what 
 ails you. I should be very angry with you if you cared for it, should 
 you have broken your iron constitution already ; as I was with the 
 glorious Paschal for losing his health, and living almost twenty years in 
 pain. 
 
 " Dear Jack, your sincere and affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 In answer to Mr. Samuel's argument, or rather assertion, that the 
 assurance in question made no part of the Gospel covenant, Mr. John 
 Wesley says : 
 
 " Bristol, May 10, 1739. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, The having abundance of work upon my hands 
 is only a cause of my not writing sooner. THE cause was rather my 
 unwillingness to continue an unprofitable dispute. 
 
 " The Gospel promises to you, and to me, and to our children, and 
 to all that are afar off, even as many of those as the Lord our God shall 
 call, as are not disobedient to the heavenly vision, the witness of God's 
 Spirit with their spirit that they are the children of God ; that they are 
 now at this hour all accepted in the Beloved : but it witnesses not that 
 they always shall be. It is an assurance of present salvation only ; 
 therefore not necessarily perpetual, neither irreversible. 
 
 " I am one of many witnesses of this matter of fact, that God does 
 now make good this his promise daily, very frequently during a repre- 
 sentation (how made I know not, but not to the outward eye) of Christ, 
 either hanging on the cross, or standing on the right hand of God. 
 This I know to be of God because from that hour, the person so affected 
 is a new creature ; both as to his inward tempers, and outward life. 
 ' Old things are passed away, and all things become new.' 
 
 " A very late instance of this I will give you. While we were praying 
 at a society here on Tuesday the first instant, the power of God (so I 
 call it) came so mightily among us, that one, and another, and another, 
 fell down as thunderstruck. In that hour, many that were in deep 
 anguish of spirit were all filled with peace and joy. Ten persons, till 
 then in sin, doubt, and fear, found such a change that sin had no more 
 dominion over them : and instead of the spirit of fear, they are now 
 filled with that of love, and joy, and a sound mind. A Quaker that 
 stood by was very angry at them ; and was biting his lips, and knitting 
 his brows, when the Spirit of God came upon him also, so that he fell 
 down as one dead. We prayed over him, and he soon lifted up his 
 head with joy, and joined with us in thanksgiving. 
 
 " A byestander, one John Haydon, was quite enraged at this ; and 
 being unable to deny something supernatural in it, laboured beyond 
 measure to convince all his acquaintance that it was a delusion of the 
 devil. I was met in the street next day by one who informed me that 
 John Haydon was fallen raving mad. It seems he had sat down tc 
 dinner, but wanted first to make an end of a sermon he was reading. 
 At the last page he suddenly changed colour ; fell off his chair ; and 
 began screaming terribly, and beating himself against the ground. I 
 found him on the floor, the room being full of people, whom his wife
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 275 
 
 would have kept away : but he cried out, ' No ! let them all come ; let 
 all the world see the just judgment of God.' Two or three were hold- 
 ing him as well as they could. He immediately fixed his eyes on me, 
 and said, * Aye, this is he I said deceived the people : but God hath 
 overtaken me. I said it was a delusion of the devil ; this is no delu- 
 sion !' Then he roared aloud, ' O thou devil ; thou cursed devil ! yea, 
 thou legion of devils ! thou canst not stay in me. Christ will cast thee 
 out ; I know his work is begun. Tear me to pieces if thou wilt : but 
 thou canst not hurt me.' 
 
 " He then beat himself again; and groaning again with violent sweats, 
 and heaving of the breast, we prayed with him, and God put a new song 
 in his mouth. The words were, which he pronounced with a clear 
 strong voice, This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our 
 eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and 
 be glad in it. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from this time forth 
 for evermore. I called again an hour after. We found his body quite 
 worn out, and his voice lost: but his soul was full of joy and love, 
 rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. 
 
 " I am now in as good health (thanks be to God) as I ever was since 
 I remember, and I believe shall be so as long as I live, for I do not 
 expect to have a lingering death. The reasons that induce me to think 
 I shall not live to be old are such as you would not apprehend to be of 
 any weight. I am under no concern on this head : let my Master see 
 to it O may the God of love be with you and my sister more and 
 more ! 
 
 " Dear brother, your ever affectionate brother, 
 
 "JoHN "WESLEY." 
 
 About two months before his death Mr. Samuel Wesley wrote the 
 following letter, which was probably the last he wrote on the subject ; 
 and appears to be an answer to the foregoing : 
 
 " Tiverton, Sept. 3, 1739. 
 
 " DEAR JACK, It has pleased God to visit me with sickness, else I 
 should not have been so backward in writing. Pray to him for us, 
 ' that he would give us patience under our sufferings, and a happy 
 issue out of all our afflictions ; granting us in this world knowledge of 
 his truth, and in the world to come life everlasting.' 
 
 " It is good news that you have built a charity school, and better still 
 that you have got a second almost up, as I find by yours, that Mr. 
 Wigginton brought me.- I wish you could build not only a school, but 
 a church too, for the colliers, if there is not any place at present for 
 worship where they can meet ; and I should heartily rejoice to have it 
 endowed, though Mr. Whitefield were to be the minister of it, provided 
 the bishop fully joined. 
 
 -^"Your distinction between the discipline and the doctrine of the 
 Church is, I think, not quite pertinent ; for surely episcopacy is a mat- 
 ter of doctrine too : but granting it otherwise, you know^there is no fear 
 of being cast out of our synagogue for any tenets whatsoever. Did not 
 Clarke die preferred ? Were not Collins and Coward free from ana-
 
 276 A>IUEL WESI.EV, JUN. 
 
 thema ? Are not Chubb and Gordon now caressed ? My knowledge 
 of this makes me suspect Whitefield, as if he designed to provoke per- 
 secution by his bodings of it. He has already personally disobliged 
 the bishops of Gloucester and London ; and doubtless will do as much 
 by all the rest, if they fall not down before his whimsies, and should 
 offer to stand in his way. Now if he by his madness should lay him- 
 self open to the small remains of discipline among us, as by marrying 
 without license, or any other way, and get excommunicated for his 
 pains, I am very apprehensive you would still stick to him as your dear 
 brother; and so, though the Church would not excommunicate you, 
 you would excommunicate the Church. Then I suppose you would 
 enlarge your censure, which now takes in most of the inferior clergy. 
 But you have taught me to have the worse opinion of no man upon that 
 account, till you have proved your charge against Bishop Bull. At 
 present, I am inclined to think, that being blamed with him is glory. 
 
 " You yourself doubted at first, and inquired and examined about the 
 ecstacies : the matter therefore is not so plain as motion to a man 
 walking. But I have my own reason, as well as your authority, against 
 the exceeding clearness of Divine interposition there. Your followers 
 fall into agonies. I confess it. They are freed from them after you 
 have prayed over them ; granted. They say it is God's doing. I 
 own they say so. Dear brother, where is your ocular demonstration ? 
 Where iadeed is the rational proof ? Their living well afterward, may 
 be a probable and sufficient argument that they believe themselves. 
 But it goes no farther. I must ask a few more questions. Did these 
 agitations ever begin during the use of any collects of the Church ? or 
 during the preaching of any sermon that had been preached within con- 
 secrated walls without that effect, or during the inculcating any other doc- 
 trine beside that of your new birth ? Are the main body of these agents 
 or patients good sort of people beforehand, or loose and immoral? 
 
 " My wife joins in love to you and Charles, if he is with you, or 
 indeed wherever he is ; for you know best his motions, and he is likely 
 to hear from you before me. Phill is very well ; my wife indifferent ; 
 and I am on the mending hand in spite of foul weather. 
 
 " I am. dear Jack, your sincere and affectionate friend and brother, 
 
 " SAMUEL WESLEY." 
 
 The tone of this letter is greatly altered from that of most of the 
 preceding. He no longer disputes against the doctrine of assurance ; 
 but the agitations he cannot conceive to be a work, or effect of the 
 working, of the Divine Spirit. Mr. J. Wesley did not consider them 
 as such : but simply asserted the fact, that many thus seized were deli- 
 vered from them at the earnest prayers of believers, and at the same 
 time received a sense of their acceptance with God ; and this last was 
 proved to be his work by the subsequent holiness of their lives. 
 
 The question, Did any of these agitations take place while any of 
 the collects of the Church were read? might be answered by an^- 
 other, Was Paul reading a rational dissertation on righteousness, 
 temperance, and a judgment to come, when Felix trembled ? Acts xxiv, 
 25. One of our artists, who attempted to paint this scene, did repre-
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JfV. 277 
 
 sent Paul reading out of a book to Felix : but, on being asked the 
 question, Was it likely that Paul read before Felix 1 and if so, was 
 it likely that he trembled at that reading ? was in a moment convinced 
 of the absurdity, struck the book out of the apostle's huntls, and directed 
 both them and his eyes to the Roman governor. 
 
 The collects are for the worship of tht Church, the people of God, 
 who come to perform their devotions to their God and Father ; they 
 were never designed to be instruments of awakening the profligate. 
 That belongs to suitable discourses delivered from the pulpit. It re- 
 quires strong and forcible addresses, varied and suited according to 
 circumstances and occasions, to arrest and awaken the careless, and 
 to cause them to turn their eyes in upon their hearts, and consider their 
 ways. It was a very silly objection which Mr. Samuel made in a letter 
 to his mother, against the field preaching of his two brothers and Mr. 
 fVhitefield. "They leave off (says he) the liturgy in the jields. 
 Though Mr. Whitefield expresses his value for it, he never once read 
 it to his tatterdemalions on a common.'' If he had, who would have 
 attended to him or it? a thing w r hich they could hear in any church, 
 or read themselves on their return home ! No, it was the novelty of the 
 thing that induced them to attend. They saw a man in the garb and 
 attitude of a minister standing on the common, on the highways, or by 
 the hedges ; and they ran together to hear what he had got to say, and 
 he preached unto thtm Jesus, and in such a Scripture way as was then 
 heard in few churches in the land. Thus they were awakened and 
 converted to God. " Upon a review (says Dr. Whitehead) of the 
 whole of this controversy, we may safely pronounce that the doctrine 
 of assurance is in no respect invalidated or rendered doubtful by any 
 thing Mr. Samuel Wesley has said against it." 
 
 On the contrary we may assert, that it shines more illustrious ; and 
 that the very circumstance of such a very wise, learned, and able logi- 
 cian as Mr. Samuel not having been able to bring one argument of any 
 weight against it, though he availed himself, in the straits to which his 
 brother had reduced him, of sophisms to support him, is a strong proof 
 that it is founded on the sacred Scriptures, necessarily belongs to the 
 new covenant, and that there is neither divination nor enchantment 
 against it. As to field preaching, the vast and wondrous moral change 
 that was made in the hearts and lives of the superlative sinners of 
 Kingswood, to which Mr. Samuel Wesley in the letter above turns his 
 attention with delight, was produced under God by out-of-door preach- 
 ing. And yet, with all this evidence before his eyes, so bigoted was 
 he to forms, and ecclesiastical order, that he says in the above letter to 
 his mother, that he " would rather have his brothers picking straws 
 within the walls of the university, than preaching in the area of Moor- 
 fields." Had they been of his mind, how many thousands of souls must 
 in all likelihood have perished, to whom that kind of preaching became 
 the means of salvation ; and who are now exulting in the glory of God, 
 because his faithful servants went out to the highways,and to the hedges, 
 and compelled them to come in, that his house might be filled ! 
 
 For other matters relative to what was called J\Ir. Weslttf* doctrine 
 of assurance ; (or in other and better words, his strongly insisting on,
 
 278 8AMUEL WESLET, JUN. 
 
 and applying to suitable subjects, this apostolic doctrine, " God sent 
 forth his Son to redeem them that were under the law, that we might 
 receive the adoption of sons : and because ye are sons, God hath sent 
 forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father!") 
 see several observations in the close of the memoir of Mrs. Susanna 
 Wesley. 
 
 We find from Mr. SamueJ Wesley's letter of Sept. 3, 1739, that he 
 had been visited with sickness ; from which I believe he did not fully 
 recover, though he then fancied himself " on the mending hand." But 
 the event showed that he was then on the confines of the grave. Ac- 
 cording to the statement of a. friend, who wrote the short memoir pre- 
 fixed to the 12mo edition of his poems, "continual application to various 
 business, and an intense pursuit at the same time of his studies, had 
 well nigh worn him out by the time he had reached little more than 
 half the age of man; so that being advised to retire, for air and gentle 
 exercise, to recruit his constitution, he was easily prevailed upon to 
 accept a country school in the west of England, where he soon fell into 
 a lingering illness, which in a few years brought him to his end." 
 
 Dr. Whitehead observes, " Mr. Wesley had a bad state of health 
 some time before he left Westminster, and his removal to Tiverton did 
 not much mend it. On the night of the 5th of November, 1739, he 
 went to bed seemingly as well as usual, was taken ill about three in the 
 morning, and died at seven, after about four hours' illness." 
 
 The following letter from a particular friend, Mr. Jlmos JVLattheivs, to 
 Mr. Charles Wesley, states the circumstances more explicitly : 
 
 " Tiverton, JYor. 14, 1739. 
 
 " REV. AND DEAR SIR, Your brother, and my dear friend, (for so 
 you are sensible he was to me,) on Monday the 5th of November, 
 went to bed, as he thought, as well as he had been for some time before. 
 He was seized about three o'clock in the morning very ill, when your 
 sister immediately sent for Mr. Norman, and ordered the servant to 
 call we. Mr. Norman came as quick as he possibly could : but said, 
 as soon as he saw him, that he could not get over it, but would die in 
 a few hours. He was not able to take any thing, nor to speak to us ; 
 only yes or no to a question asked him ; and that did not last half an 
 hour. I never went from his bedside till he expired, which was about 
 seven the same morning. With a great deal of difficulty we persuaded 
 your dear sister to leave the room before he died. I trembled to think 
 how she would bear it, knowing the sincere affection and love she had 
 for him. But, blessed be God, he hath heard and answered prayer on 
 her behalf; and in a great measure calmed her spirit, though she has 
 not yet been out of her chamber. Your brother was buried on Monday 
 last, in the afternoon ; and is gone to reap the fruit of his labours. I 
 pray God we may imitate him in all his virtues, and be prepared to fol- 
 low. I should enlarge much more, but have not time ; for which reason 
 I hope you will excuse him, who is under the greatest obligations to 
 be, and really is,'with the greatest sincerity, yours in all things, 
 
 "AMos MATTHEWS."
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUW. 279 
 
 On receiving this intelligence Mr. John and Charles Wesley set off 
 to visit and comfort their widowed sister at Tiverton, which they reached 
 on the 21st ; and under this date Mr. J. Wesley makes the following 
 entry in his Journal : 
 
 " On Wednesday, 21st, (Nov. 1739,) in the afternoon, we came to 
 Tiverton. My poor sister was sorrowing almost as one without hope. 
 Yet we could not but rejoice at hearing, from one who had attended my 
 brother in all his weakness, that several days before he went hence God 
 had given him a calm and full assurance of his interest in Christ. O 
 may every one who opposes it be thus convinced that this doctrine is 
 of God!" 
 
 Pray what does this imply? An earnest desire that the God of all 
 grace may convince all opposers of this doctrine, that it is of God ; by 
 giving them before they go hence a calm and full assurance of their 
 interest in Christ. Can any wish be more humane, more charitable, or 
 more merciful ? But how has this entry been treated by a late biogra- 
 pher of Mr. Wesley? I am sorry to be obliged to mention Mr. Robert 
 Southey, with any thing that seems like disrespect. But on this subject 
 he has been illiberal ; and I think I can set him right. " Wesley (says 
 he) cannot be suspected of intentional deceit : yet who is there who, 
 upon reading this passage, would suppose that Samuel had died after 
 an illness of four hours ? Well might he protest against the apprehen- 
 sion or the charity of those who were so eager to hold him up to the 
 world as their convert." 
 
 None of his brothers, nor of the Methodists of that time, ever was 
 eager to hold up Mr. Samuel , esley as their convert. His brothers 
 laboured to bring him from the errors under which he lay ; and most 
 certainly there were articles in his creed that were neither in his Church 
 nor in his Bible, as the preceding letters prove. That he ceased his 
 opposition to the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit, without which 
 religion is little better than a shadow, is evident from his letter of Sept. 3, 
 which was two months before he died. That Mr. Wesley does not 
 even insinuate that he received a calm and full assurance of his interest 
 in Christ in his last four hours is most evident. He says, it was seve- 
 ral days before he went hence ; and he says this, on the authority of one 
 who had attended him in all his weakness, and he had weakness for seve- 
 ral years as we have seen : but he was particularly weak and afflicted 
 some months before he died ; and surely several days before he died, 
 when his particular weakness must have led him to conclude that death 
 might be at the door, was ample time for the mercy of God in Christ 
 Jesus to be manifested to his soul, that he might not die in the dark. 
 May we not retort, and say, " Southey cannot be suspected of inten- 
 tional deceit ; yet who is there who, upon reading this passage, would 
 not suppose that Mr. J. Wesley states, that his brother Samuel got a 
 calm and full assurance of his interest in Christ in the last four hours 
 of his life?" " But he died (says Mr. Southey) in that essential faith 
 which has been common to all Christians in all ages." I believe he 
 did. But Mr. Southey seems not to understand the distinction between 
 THE FAITH, that is, the system of doctrines, duties, privileges, &c, 
 which constitute the Christian revelation ; and the faith
 
 280 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 the. ungodly. He who does not know this distinction, knows little of 
 Christianity for his own personal salvation. Mr. Southey is also an 
 opposer of the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit. So essential do I 
 think this to Mr. Southey's salvation, that I heartily pray to God that 
 not only several days, but several years, (for I wish him a very long 
 life,) before he goes hence, he may receive from God, a calm and full 
 assurance of his interest in Christ ; and be thus convinced that the doc- 
 trine is of God. In this case, as in many others, relative to Mr. Wes- 
 ley and Methodism, Mr. Southey has spoken against what he does not 
 understand. 1 may tell him, and all who are of his mind, that the Me- 
 thodists never refer to Mr. Samuel Wesley as a proof of the truth of 
 this doctrine. They refer to no man, not to Mr. John Wesley himself: 
 they appeal to none they appeal to the Bible, where this doctrine 
 stands as inexpugnable m the pillars of heaven. Nor do they need 
 solitary instances as facts, to prove that on this point they have not 
 mistaken- the Bible, while they, by the mercy of God, have thousands 
 of testimonies every year of its truth : and they know it to be the com- 
 mon birthright of all the sons and daughters of God. Without it the 
 whole life of faith would be hypothetical. And if a man have not the 
 consolations of the Holy Spirit, and a Scriptural and satisfactory evi- 
 dence of his own interest in Christ, and of his title, through him, to the 
 kingdom of heaven, the Koran, for aught he knows, may be as true as 
 the Bible. No man can inherit unless he be a son ; " for if sons, then 
 heirs ;" and to them that are sons "Goo sends the Spirit of his Son into 
 their hearts, crying, Jlbba, Father." These are the true sayings of 
 God, and all his people know them. 
 
 Before I quit that collection of letters published by Dr. Priestley, 
 where Mr. Samuel Wesley's opposition to his brothers is principally 
 recorded, I must say a word on the gratulatory appeal which the doctor 
 makes to the Methodists, in his address prefixed to those letters. 
 
 " This very publication," says he, " will convince you that you who 
 are now called JWethodists are a very different set of people, and nvich 
 more rational than those who were first distinguished by that name." 
 I answer, we are not a very different people, nor different at all, either 
 in one article of our essential doctrines, or in one tittle of our Church 
 discipline. That our people grow wiser and better, and become more 
 useful, we acknowledge with gratitude to the Author of every good and 
 perfect gift ; and this is naturally to be expected when they have the 
 advantages of a pure and enlightened ministry, where they are in the 
 constant habit of hearing that Gospel trumpet which emits no uncertain 
 sounds. The doctor goes on : " W T e do not now hear of those sudden 
 and miraculous conversions." Whether the doctor did or did not hear 
 of what he calls sudden and miraculous conversions, WE, thank God, do 
 hear of, and see them almost daily in different parts of our connection ; 
 yea, and in several cases, accompanied with what he calls " convul- 
 sions, falling down," &c, though we do not think that these circum- 
 stances are at all essential to the thing, for we find in numerous cases 
 the instantaneous work effected icithout them. They are neither looked 
 for, sought for, nor encouraged. They are adventitious circumstances ; 
 in most cases of their occurrence unavoidable, for the very reasons
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 261 
 
 which Mr. J. Wesley gave at the time they were most frequent, under 
 his own ministry. " For," says he, " how easy is it to suppose that a 
 strong, lively, and sudden apprehension of the heinousness of sin, the 
 wrath of God, and the bitter pains of eternal death, should affect the 
 body as well as the soul, during the present laws of vital union ; should 
 interrupt or disturb the ordinary circulations, and put nature out of its 
 course. Yea, we may question whether, while this union subsists, it 
 be possible for the mind to be affected in so violent a degree, without 
 some or other of those bodily symptoms following. It is also remark- 
 able that there is plain Scripture precedent of every symptom which has 
 lately appeared. So that we cannot allow even the conviction attended 
 with these to be madness, without giving up both reason and Scripture." 
 Dr. Priestley goes on, and says, " Nor will many of you, I presume, 
 at this day pretend to date your new birth with as much precision aa 
 your natural birth." The inaccuracy of these expressions I leave un- 
 disturbed. " But you will here find the day, the hour, and the minute, 
 when both Mr. John and Mr. Charles Wesley first received, or ima- 
 gined they first received, their divine light ; and, as they say, became 
 Christians, from being before that moment no Christians." More in- 
 accuracy ! Hour and minute are added here by Dr. Priestley, none of 
 which appear in the letters in this publication : but I let that pass also, 
 though inexcusable in an experimental philosopher ; for although these 
 things are not mentioned, yet they were doubtless as determinable as 
 the day. I must here also say, that Methodism is in this respect also 
 the same. God does his own work in the same way now that he did 
 then. And there is nothing more usual among even the best educated 
 and enlightened of the members of the Methodists' society than a dis- 
 tinct knowledge of the time, place, and circumstances, when, where, and 
 in which, they were deeply convinced of sin, and afterward had a clear 
 sense of God's mercy to their souls, in forgiving their sins, and giving 
 them the witness in themselves that they were born of God. So that, 
 in this sense also the Methodists not only continue to preach, believe, 
 and be, what they formerly were, but differ toto cotlo from Doctor Priest- 
 ley, and the religious tenets he held. And let this be an answer to his 
 question in p. 25. " In what then, my brethren, do we differ ?" In 
 almost every article of our creed, the being of a God and the Divine 
 authority of the Holy Scriptures excepted. And if we ever change our 
 creed into that to which the doctor wishes to lead us, may our name 
 be blotted out from the earth, and our memorial perish from among the 
 children of men ! Selah. 
 
 1 shall now proceed to take a general view of the writings and cha- 
 racter of this eminent man. 
 
 It is said of Mr. Samuel Wesley by those who knew him well, that 
 " he possessed an open, benevolent temper, which he had from nature, 
 which he had so cultivated on principle, and was so intent upon it as a 
 duty to help every body as he could, that the number and continual 
 success of his good offices was astonishing even to his friends, who 
 saw with what pleasure and zeal he did them : and he was an instance 
 how exceedingly serviceable in life a person of a very inferior station 
 may be, who seta his heart upon it. As his diligence on such occasions 
 
 36
 
 282 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 was never tired out, so he had a singular address and dexterity in 
 soliciting them. His own little income was liberally made use of; 
 and as bis acquaintance whom he applied to were always confident of 
 his care and integrity, he never wanted means to carry on his good 
 purposes ; so that his life was a series of useful charity." 
 
 Mr. Wesley's wit was keen, and his sense strong. As a poet, he 
 stands entitled to a very distinguished niche in the temple of fame ; 
 and it has long appeared to me strange that his poetical works have 
 not found a place either in Johnson's, Anderson's, or Chalmers' collec- 
 tion of the British poets. To say that those collectors did not think 
 them entitled to a place there would be a gross reflection on their 
 judgment ; as in the last and best collection, consisting of one hundred 
 and twenty-seven poets, it would be easy to prove that Samuel Wesley 
 is equal to most, and certainly superior to one half, of that number. 
 But the name ! the name would have scared many superficial and 
 fantastic readers, as they would have been sadly afraid of meeting in 
 some corner or other with Methodism, which is so intimately connected 
 with the name of Wesley. With multitudes a name is the omen of 
 good or bad luck, according to their fancies or prepossessions. 
 
 In 1736 Mr. Samuel Wesley published A collection of Poems on 
 several Occasions, in quarto, for which it appears he got a handsome 
 list of subscribers. Before this, several of them had been published 
 separately, or in other collections, without the name of the author. 
 One of these poems, indeed the largest in the collection, is intituled 
 The Battle of the Sexes. It contains fifty verses, in the stanza of 
 Spencer. It had been published by itself, without the author's know- 
 ledge ; and produced a handsome compliment from Mr. Christopher 
 Pitt, To the unknown Author O/THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES : it is too 
 long to transcribe ; but I cannot withhold the following lines, 
 
 What muse but yours so justly could display 
 
 Th' embattled passions marshall'd in array ? 
 
 To airy notions solid forms dispense, 
 
 And make our thoughts the images of sense ? 
 
 Discover all the rational machine, 
 
 And show the movements, springs, and wheels within. 
 
 His personification and description of religion in this poem has been 
 admired by all readers, 
 
 " Mild, sweet, serene, and cheerful was her mood ; 
 Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free. 
 Against example resolutely good, 
 Fervent in zeal, and warm in charity." 
 
 In this work there are four tales admirable for their humour, and for 
 their appropriate and instructive moral ; though in some instances the 
 descriptions are rather coarse : The Cobbler, The Pig, The J\lastiff r 
 and The Basket. 
 
 As the work is in the hands of few of those under whose notice 
 these memoirs are likely to fall, I shall insert the Pig as a specimen,
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 283 
 
 THE PIG : A TALE. 
 
 SOME husbands on a winter's day 
 Were met to laugh their spleen away. 
 As wine flows in and spirits rise, 
 They praise their consorts to the skies. 
 Obedient wives were seldom known. 
 Yet all could answer for their own : 
 Acknowledged each as sov'reign lord. 
 Abroad, at home, in deed, in word ; 
 In short, as absolute their reign, as 
 Grand seignior's over his sultanas. 
 For pride or shame to be outdone, 
 All join'd in the discourse but one ; 
 Who, vex'd so many lies to hear, 
 Thus stops their arrogant career : 
 'Tis mighty strange, sirs, what you iay ! 
 What ! all so absolutely sway, 
 In England, where Italians wise 
 Have plac'd the woman's paradise ; 
 In London, where the sex's flower 
 Have of that Eden fix'd the bow'r ? 
 Fie, men of sense, to be so vain ! 
 You're not in Turkey or in Spain ; 
 True Britons all, I'll lay my life 
 None here is master of his wife. 
 
 These words the general fury rouse, 
 And all the common cause espouse ; 
 Till one with voice superior said, 
 (Whose lungs were sounder than his head,) 
 I'll send my footmen instant home, 
 To bid his mistress hither come : 
 And if she flies not at my call, 
 To own my power before you all, 
 I'll grant I'm hen-peck'd if you please, 
 As S or as Socrates. 
 
 Hold there, replies th' objector sly, 
 Prove first that matrons never lie ; 
 Else words are wind : to tell you true, 
 I neither credit them nor you ; 
 No, we'll be judg'd a surer way, 
 By what they do, not what they say. 
 1 11 hold you severally, that boast, 
 A supper at the loser's cost, 
 That if you'll but vouchsafe to try 
 A trick I'll tell you by and by, 
 Send straight for every wife quite round, 
 One mother's daughter is not found, 
 But what before her husband's face 
 Point blank his order disobeys. 
 
 To this they one and all consent : 
 The wager laid, the summons went. 
 Meanwhile he this instruction gives, 
 Pray only gravely tell your wives, 
 Your will and pleasure is, t' " 
 
 1 invite 
 
 in M.IIU Sll>dOUJ >. 10| If lli\ILC 
 
 These friends to a BOIL'D PIO to night ; 
 The commoner the trick has been, 
 The better chance you have to win : 
 The treat is mine, if they refuse : 
 But if they boil it, then I lose.
 
 284 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 The first to whom the message came 
 Was a well born and haughty dame : 
 A saucy, independent she, 
 With jointure and with pin money, 
 Secur'd by marriage deeds from wants, 
 Without a sep'rate maintenance. 
 Her loftiness disdain'd to hear 
 Half through her husband's messenger ; 
 But cut him short with How dare he 
 'Mong pot companions send for me 1 
 He knows his way, if sober, home ; 
 And if he wants me, bid him come. 
 This answer, hastily return'd, 
 Pleas'd all but him whom it concern'd. 
 For each man thought, his wife on trial 
 Would brighter shine by this denial. 
 
 The second was a lady gay, 
 Who lov'd to visit, dress, and play, 
 To sparkle in the box, or ring, 
 And dance on birthnights for the king ; 
 Whose head was busy wont to be 
 With something else than cookery. 
 She, hearing ofher husband's name, 
 Tho' much a gentlewoman, came. 
 When half informed of his request, 
 A dish as he desired it tlrest, 
 Quoth madam, with a serious face, 
 Without inquiring what it was, 
 You can't sure for an answer look, 
 Sir, do you take me lor your cook ? 
 But I must haste a friend to see, 
 Who stays my coming for her tea. 
 So said, that minute out she flew : 
 What could the slighted husband do ? 
 His wager lost must needs appear, 
 For none obey that will not hear. 
 
 The next for housewifery renown'd, 
 A woman notable was own'd, 
 Who hated idleness and airs, 
 And minded family affairs. 
 Expert at ev'ry thing was she, 
 At needle-work, or surgery ; 
 Fam'd for her liquors far and near, 
 From richest cordial to small beer. 
 To serve a feast she understood, 
 In English or in foreign mode, 
 What'er the wanton taste could choose 
 In sauces, kickshaws, and ragouts ; 
 She spar'd for neither cost nor pain, 
 Her welcome guests to entertain. 
 Her husband fair accosts her thus : 
 To-night these friends will sup with us. 
 She answer'd with a smile, My dear, 
 Your friends are always welcome there. 
 But we desire a pig, and pray 
 You'd boil it. Boil it, do you say 7 
 I hope you'll give me leave to know 
 My business better, sir, than so. 
 Why ! ne'er in any book was yet 
 Found such a whimsical receipt. 
 My dressing none need be afeard of,
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 285 
 
 But such a dish was never heard of. 
 I'll roast it nice, but shall not 6otf it; 
 Let those that know no better spoil it. 
 Her husband cry'd, For all my boast, 
 I own the wager fairly lost ; 
 And other wives beside my love, 
 Or I'm mistaken much, may prove 
 More chargeable than this to me, 
 To show their pride in housewifery. 
 
 Now the poor wretch who next him sat, 
 Felt his own heart go pit-a-pat ; 
 For well he knew his spouse's way ; 
 Her spirit brook'd not to obey ! 
 She never yet was in the wrong : 
 He told her with a trembling tongue, 
 Where, and on what his friends would feast, 
 And how the dainty should be drest. 
 To-night ? quoth, in a passion, she ; 
 No, sirs, to-night it cannot be. 
 And was it a boiTd pig you said ? 
 You and your friends sure are not mad ! 
 The kitchen is the proper sphere, 
 Where none but females should appear : 
 And cooks their orders, by your leave, 
 Always from mistresses receive. 
 Boil it ! was ever such an ass ! 
 Pray, what would you desire for sauce ? 
 If any servant in my pay 
 Dare dress a pig that silly way, 
 In spite of any whim of yours 
 I'll turn them quickly out of doors : 
 For no such thing, nay, never frown, 
 Where I am mistress, shall be done. 
 Each woman wise her husband rules : 
 Passive obedience is for fools. 
 
 This case was quickly judg'd. Behold, 
 A fair one of a softer mould ; 
 Good humour sparkled in her eye, 
 And unaffected pleasantry. 
 So mild and sweet she enter'd in, 
 Her spouse thought certainly to win. 
 Pity such golden hopes should fail ! 
 Soon as she heard th' appointed tale, 
 My dear, I know not, I protest, 
 Whether in earnest or in jest, 
 So strange a supper you demand ; 
 Howe'erl'll not disputing stand, 
 But do't as freely as you bid it, 
 Prove but that ever woman did it. 
 This cause, by general consent. 
 Was lost for want of precedent. 
 Thus each denied a several way ; 
 But all agreed to disobey. 
 
 One only dame did yet rewiam, 
 Who downright honest was and plain : 
 If now and then her voice she tries, 
 'Tis not for rule but exercise. 
 Unus'd her lord's commands to slight, 
 Yet sometimes pleading for the right,
 
 286 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 She made her little wisdom go 
 
 Farther than wiser women do. 
 
 Her husband tells her, looking grave, 
 
 A roasting pig I boifd would have, 
 
 And to prevent all pro and con, 
 
 I must insist to have it done. 
 
 Says she, My dearest, shall your wife 
 
 Get a nickname to last for life ? 
 
 If you resolve to spoil it, do ; 
 
 But I desire you'll eat it too : 
 
 For though 'tis boifd to hinder squabble, 
 
 I shall not, will not, sit at table. 
 
 She spoke, and her good man alone 
 Found he had neither lost nor won, 
 So fairly parted stakes. The rest 
 Fell on the wag that caus'd the jest 
 Would your wt/e boil it? let us see. 
 Hold there you did not lay with me. 
 You find, in spite of all you boasted, 
 Your pigs are fated to be roasted. 
 The wager 's lost, no more contend, 
 But take this counsel from a friend : 
 Boast not your empire, if you prize it, 
 For happiest he that never tries it. 
 Wives unprovok'd think not of sway ; 
 Without commanding they obey. 
 But if your dear ones take the field, 
 Resolve at once to win or yield : 
 For Heaven no medium ever gave 
 Between a sovereign and a slave. 
 
 Mr. S. Wesley had the highest reverence for Divine revelation : he 
 considered its detractors, whom he generally found to be profligates, 
 unworthy of the name of men ; and they received the severest lashes 
 of his satirical muse. The following specimens will show his mode of 
 thinking and feeling on these subjects. 
 
 ON MR. HOBBES. 
 
 OCCASIONED BY A COPT OF VERSES WRITTEN BY THE EARL OP MDLORATE. 
 
 'Tis justly thought ! to praise is ever hard, 
 When real virtue fires the glowing bard : 
 But harder far, whene'er the poet's mind 
 Lab'ring creates the worth he cannot find. 
 'Twill task aCowley's genius, to commend 
 False Brutus cringing while he stabs his friend ; 
 To make the trifler Hobbes unworthy shine, 
 Will ask the utmost of a wit like thine ! 
 
 The reader's malice makes the satire please: 
 Yet praises void of truth are flatteries, 
 Which steal from genuine worth the honours due ; 
 Romantic heroes thus obscure the true. 
 
 The wise and good morality will guide, 
 
 Jlnd superstition all the world beside. 
 As wise and great no longer then must shine, 
 Good Socrates, or Plato the Divine ; 
 On ancient Greece is pass'd a general doom, 
 And Tully pleading for the gods of Rome. 
 All statues to their fame are overthrown, 
 And Hobbes or Epicurus stands alone !
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUrf. 287 
 
 Shall Christian virtues too the slander share, 
 And wait, as captives, his triumphal car ? 
 As by superior excellence compell'd, 
 Shall Anna bow ? shall Charles the martyr yield ? 
 Hyde, wise in calms, and faithful in the storm, 
 Great to record, but greater to perform ? 
 Wide-conqu'ring Raleigh, and far-searching Boyle, 
 And Newton, glory of our age and isle ? 
 Are these the vulgar superstitious crowd, 
 That own the maxims of th' incarnate God ? 
 Rather than heav'n, let earth be disesteem'd, 
 And Hobbes exploded, than our God blasphem'd. 
 Hobbes ! in whose ev'ry page display'd we see 
 His privilege of man, absurdity ! 
 'Tis hard to point where most his mwits shine, 
 In human learning, or in laws Divine. 
 JUl matter thinks as suck, he gravely says, 
 The smallest grain of sand, and spire of grass ; 
 Only t' express their thoughts they wanted pow'r, 
 'Till he arose their sweet-tongued orator. 
 Rome's wildest legends are excell'd at once, 
 With thinking blocks and philosophic stones. 
 
 Say, whence his far-fam'd politics began, 
 Whence his admir'd and lov'd leviathan : 
 Wearied with exile, basely he comply'd, 
 And, coward, started from the suff'ring side ; 
 With abject lies usurping force ador'd, 
 And measur'd justice by the longest sword. 
 Bless'd moralist ! who taught ev'n good and ill 
 To veer obsequious to the tyrant's will : 
 Prone to renounce his sense at Cromwell's nod, 
 And traitor to his prince, as to his God. 
 
 Hear, all ye wits, his gospel ! Tales receiv'd, 
 In private feign'd and publicly believed : 
 These are religion. He alike esteems 
 The prophet's visions and the rabbi's dreams ; 
 Nor matters who the rising sect begun, 
 Or Mary's offspring or Abdalla's son. 
 No smallest difPrence can his wisdom find ; 
 For colours are all equal to the blind. 
 
 Yet tales, when once establish'd by the state, 
 He holds for sacred, and as fix'd as fate : 
 Nor shall the almighty Lord his pleasure show, 
 Without dependence on the gods below. 
 The civil creed no subject must deny, 
 Or disbelieve it, though 'tis own'd a lie. 
 Hither from farthest east, ye Brahmins, come j 
 Hither, ye western locusts monks of Rome : 
 Behold this frontless, all-imposing man, 
 And match him with your priestcraft, if you can. 
 
 Prodigious sage ! who taught mankind to know 
 The dang'rous cheats of Robin Good/Mow ! 
 Of fairies tripping light a moonshine round, 
 Where rising verdure marks the circled ground 1 
 Charm'd down by him, each airy spirit flies. 
 And grosser witches vanish from our eyes : 
 Crones, untransform'd, their own bad figures keep, 
 And broomstaffs peaceful in their corners sleep ;
 
 288 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 Yet vulgar tales this mighty champion scare, 
 This foe to shades, this conqu'ror of the air ; 
 Ghosts immaterial he as dreams decries, 
 Yet dreads their pow'r, whose being he denies. 
 The noon-day boaster, straight a coward grown, 
 Shudders and trembles in the dark alone : 
 Spectres and phantoms glare before his sight, 
 Which, when the candle enters, cease to fright. 
 Twas thus he liv'd, our nation's boasted pride! 
 And (O ! that truth could hide it!) thus he died. 
 Dreams, whimsies, fancies, nothings, then he fear'd : 
 And leap'd into the dark and disappear'd. 
 
 Not thus his matchless wisdom Bacon show'd, 
 He found in all things and he own'd a God : 
 As farther learn'd, still readier to adore ; 
 And still the more he knew, believ'd the more : 
 Glories to virtue due secure to find, 
 Unbounded and immortal as the mind. 
 Could Hobbes, alas ! an equal prospect see 
 In the sad gloom of dark futurity, 
 Whodream'd that man, once dust, shall never rise ; 
 That when the carcass falls the spirit dies ; 
 If quite extinct, insensible of fame, 
 Yet barr'd the poor reversion of a name. 
 While yet alive by vanity betray'd, 
 He saw his fleeting, groundless honours ,fade ; 
 Nor sacred verse their lustre can prolong : 
 No, not a Cowley's nor a Mulgrave's song. 
 
 ON SOME BLASPHEMOUS DISCOURSES 
 ON OUR SAVIOUR'S MIRACLES. 
 
 HAIL, Christian prelates, for your Master's name 
 Expos'd by fool-born jest to grinning shame! 
 Hail, fathers ! to be envy'd, not deplor'd, 
 Who share the treatment destin'd to your Lord, 
 What time his mortal race on earth began, 
 When first the Son of God was son of man ! 
 
 Behold from night the great accuser rise, 
 Retouching old, and coining modern lies ; 
 No slander unessay'd, no path untrod, 
 To blast the glories of incarnate God ! 
 " An open enemy to Moses' laws ; 
 A secret patron of Samaria's cause ; 
 Who dared at Levi's race his curses send, 
 The sot's companion and the sinner's friend ; 
 Who purpos'd Sion's temple to o'erthrow, 
 Traitor to Caesar, and to God a foe ; 
 Who wonders wrought by force of magic spell, 
 Possest with demons, and in league with hell." 
 Remains there aught, ye pow'rs of darkness, yet ? 
 Yes ; make your ancient blasphemies complete 
 " The sacred leaves no prophecies contain, 
 No miracles, to prove Messiah's reign." 
 To this each sacred leaf aloud replies, 
 Nor need we trust ouv reason, but our eyes.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 289 
 
 'Tis urg'd, his mightiest wonders never show'd 
 Our Saviour nature's Lord, and real God, 
 Whose word commanded earth, and sea, and air, 
 Bid gloomy demons to their hell repair, 
 Spoke all diseases into health and bloom, 
 And call'd the mould'ring carcass from the tomb. 
 O'er tyrant death exerted godlike sway, 
 And op'd the portals of eternal day. 
 
 Here nobler mysteries a sage descries, 
 
 " The letter false or trivial in his eyes." 
 
 Suppose in ev'ry act were understood 
 
 Some future, mystic, and sublimergood ; 
 
 Yet who the letter into air refines, 
 
 Destroys at once the substance and the signs, 
 
 Will find the truth is with the figure flown, 
 
 Because by nothing, nothing is foreshown ; 
 
 Else lunatics might deep divines commence, 
 
 And downright nonsense be the type of sense. 
 
 What wilder dream did ever madman seize, 
 
 Than " Symbols all are mere nonentities." 
 
 This Sion's hill fast by the roots will tear, 
 
 And scatter Sinai's mountain into air: 
 
 No David ever reign'd on Judah's throne, 
 
 For David shadow'd his diviner Son. 
 
 So fair, so glorious light's material ray, 
 
 That heav'n is liken'd to a cloudless day : 
 
 Embodied souls require some outward sign 
 
 To represent and image things divine. 
 
 All objects must we therefore subtilize, 
 
 And raze the face of nature from our eyes 7 
 
 Dispute is over, the creation gone, 
 
 In noon-day splendour we behold no sun. 
 
 Thus, fast as Pow'r almighty can create, 
 
 May frenzy with a nod annihilate. 
 
 No marks of foul imposture then were known, 
 
 The cures were public, to a nation shown : 
 
 And who, the facts expps'd to ev'ry eye, 
 
 If false could credit, or if true deny ? 
 
 While thousands liv'd, by miracle restor'd, 
 
 Hcal'd by a touch, a shadow, or a word ! 
 
 Denial then had shocking prov'd and vain , 
 
 But now the serpent tries another train, 
 
 To turns and doubts and circumstances flies, 
 
 And groundless, endless may-be's multiplies. 
 
 Now ev'ry idle question dark appears, 
 
 Obscure by shade of seventeen hundred years, 
 
 Which then each ignorant and child must know, 
 
 And ev'ry friend resolve, and ev'ry foe. 
 
 No trace of possible deceit was there : 
 
 Would those who spilt his blood his honour spare ? 
 
 When prejudice and int'rest urg'd his fate, 
 
 And superstition cdg'd their keenest hate, 
 
 When ev'ry footstep was beset with spies, 
 
 And restless envy watch'd with all her eyes ; 
 
 When Jewish priests with Herod's courtiers join'd, 
 
 And pow'r, and craft, and earth, and hell combin'd. 
 
 Speak, Caiaphas ! thy prophecy be shown, 
 
 He died for Israel's sake, and not his own. 
 
 Pilate, arise ! His righteous cause maintain, 
 
 And clear the injurM innocent again ! 
 
 Truth fixt, eternal stands, and can defy 
 
 Time's rolling course to turn it to a lie. 
 
 37
 
 290 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 Must ev'ry age the once heard cause recall, 
 
 Replacing Jesus in the judgment hall ; 
 
 Cite living witnesses anew to plead, 
 
 And raise from dust the long sepulchred dead ? 
 
 That fools undue conviction may receive, 
 
 And those who reason slight may sense believe, 
 
 Those, who the test of former ages scorn, 
 
 (For men were idiots all till they were born,) 
 
 Whose strength of argument in this we view, 
 
 J Tis so long since, perhaps it is not true. 
 
 Ye worthies, in the book of life enroll'd, 
 Who nobly fill'd the bishops' thrones of old ; 
 Ye priests, on second thrones, who, true to God, 
 In tortures and in death your priestcraft show'd ; 
 Ye flocks, disdaining from the fold to stray, 
 Still following where your pastors led the way, 
 Whose works thre' length of years transmitted come, 
 Escap'd from Gothic waste and papal Rome, 
 Justly renown'd ! behold, how malice tries 
 To blast your fame, and vex your paradise ! 
 Let heretics each human slip declare, 
 And ridicule the test they cannot bear : 
 To these what modish ignorants succeed, 
 And fops your writings iblame who cannot read. 
 These open enmities to glory tend ; 
 The wound strikes deeper from a seeming friend. 
 Let deist refugees your fame oppose, 
 And Dutch professors list themselves your foes : 
 But all ! let none asperse with vile applause, 
 And quote with praises in the devil's cause ; 
 In gleaning scraps bad diligence employ, 
 The tenor of your doctrines to destroy ; 
 Make you your much-lov'd Lord and God deride, 
 For whom your saints have liv'd, and martyrs died. 
 Yet so pursued by love-dissembling hate, 
 You fill the measure of your Master's fate. 
 Glory to Jesus ! the blasphemer cries ; 
 But glaring malice mocks the thin disguise. 
 Iscariot thus false adoration paid, 
 Hail'd when he seiz'd, saluted and betray'd. i 
 May Jesus' blood discharge ev'n this offence, 
 Whenwash'd with tears of timely penitence! 
 Ere yet experience sad assent create, 
 Convince in earnest, but convince too late ; 
 Ere yet, decended from dissolving skies, 
 To plead his cause himself shall God arise. 
 Then scorn must cease, and laughter must be o'er, 
 And witty fools reluctantly adore. 
 
 So, as authentic old records declare, 
 (If past with future judgment we compare,) 
 Possest with frantic and demoniac spleen, 
 Apostate Julian scoffM the Nazarene ; 
 Has keenest wit th' imperial jester tries ; 
 Sure to his breast the vengeful arrow flies ; 
 He, while his wound with vital crimson streams, 
 Proud in despair, confesses and blasphemes ; 
 Impious, but unbelieving now no more, 
 He owns the Galilean conqueror. 
 
 The verses on setting up Mr. Sutler's monument in Westminster 
 abbey have been attributed to another author : but we have Mr. Wea-
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUtf. 291 
 
 It-v's hand and name claiming them as his own; and though well 
 known, I shall introduce them here because of an important variation 
 in the second line in the MS. from that in the printed copy. 
 
 " While Butler, needy wretch ! was yet alive, 
 No purse-proud printer would a dinner give. 
 See him, when starv'd to death, and turn'd to dust, 
 Presented with a monumental bust ! 
 The poet's fate is here in emblem shown ; 
 He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone." 
 
 In the printed copies " no generous patron" is found instead of 
 " purse-proud printer." 
 
 The Methodists should know that the hymns which begin with the 
 following lines were composed by Mr. Samuel Wesley : 
 
 " The morning flowers display their sweets," &c. 
 " From whence these dire portents around," &c. 
 " The Sun of righteousness appears," &c. 
 " The Lord of Sabbath let us praise," &c. 
 " Hail, Father whose creating call," &c. 
 " Hail, God the Son, in glory crown'd," &c. 
 " Hail, Holy Ghost ! Jehovah ! third," &c. 
 " Hail, holy, holy, holy, Lord," &c. 
 
 I do not recollect to have seen in print the following line* to Mr. 
 Pope : 
 
 " Depend not upon verse for fame ; 
 (Tho' none can equal thine;) 
 Our language never rests the same, 
 'Twill rise, or 'twill decline. 
 
 Thy wreaths, in some few fleeting hours, 
 
 Too soon will be decay'd ; 
 But hist'ry lasts, tho' modern flow'rs 
 
 Of poetry must fade. 
 
 A surer way then would'st thou find, 
 
 Thy glory to prolong ; 
 While there remains among mankind 
 
 A sense of right and wrong ? 
 
 Thy fame with nature's self shall end, 
 
 Let future times but know 
 That Mlerbury was thy friend, 
 
 And Bentley was thy foe." 
 
 His verses on forms oj prayer, against Dr. Watts, who made form* 
 of praise, by turning the Psalms into a sort of Christian hymns, are 
 strong and pointed : 
 
 " Form stints the Spirit, Watts has said, 
 
 And therefore oft ia wrong; 
 At best a crutch the weak to aid, 
 A nmbrance to the strong. 
 
 Of human liturgies the load 
 
 Perfection scorns to bear ; 
 The apostles were but weak, when God 
 
 Prescribed hia/orm of prayer.
 
 292 SAMUEL WEflLEY, JUN, 
 
 Old David both in prayer and praise 
 
 A form for crulcheg brings : 
 But Watts has dignified his lays, 
 
 And furnished him with wings. 
 
 Ev'n Watts a form for praise can choose, 
 
 For prayer who throws it by ; 
 Crutches to walk he can refuse, 
 
 But uses them lojly .'" 
 
 Mr. Wesley was highly esteemed by Lord Oxford, Mr. Pope, and 
 Dean Swift; and indeed by some of the greatest men of his time. 
 With the two former he was in habits of intimate correspondence : of 
 this the following letters are a proof: 
 
 " Dover-street, Aug. 7, 1734. 
 
 " REVEREND SIR, I am sorry and ashamed to say it, but the truth 
 must come out, that I have had a letter of yours dated June 8th, and 
 this is August 7th ; and I have but now set pen to paper to answer it. 
 
 " I assure you I was very glad to hear from you ; and since that 
 you are much mended in your health, change of air will certainly be of 
 great service to you, and I hope you will use some other exercise than 
 that of the school. I hear you have an increase of above forty boys 
 since you have been down there. I am very glad for your sake that 
 you are so well approved of. I hope it will in every respect answer 
 your expectation. If your health be established, I make no doubt that 
 all parts will prove to your mind, which will be a great pleasure to me. 
 
 "There is very little news stirring. They all agree that the bishop 
 of Winchester is dying. They say Hoadley is to succeed him, and 
 Potter Hoadley : but how farther I cannot tell ; nor does the town pre- 
 tend, which is a wonderful thing. I am very glad you was reduced to 
 read over Hudibras three times with care ; and I find you are perfectly 
 of my mind, that it much wants notes, and that it will be a great work. 
 Certainly it will be, to do it as it should be. I do not know one so 
 capable of doing it as yourself. I speak this very sincerely. Lilly's 
 life I have ; and any books that I have you shall see, and have the 
 perusal of them, and any other part that I can assist. I own I am very 
 fond of the work, and it would be of excellent use and entertainment. 
 
 " The news you read in the papers of a match with my daughter 
 and the duke of Portland was completed at Mary-le-bonne chapel. I 
 think there is the greatest prospect of happiness to them both. I think 
 it must be mutual : one part cannot be happy without the other. There 
 is a great harmony of temper, a liking to each other, which I think is a 
 true foundation for happiness. Compliments from all here attend you. 
 
 " I am, sir, your most affectionate, humble servant, 
 
 " OXFORD. 
 
 " The two boys are very well. Pray let me hear from you soon ; 
 and let me know from under your own hand how you do." 
 
 This letter shows that much familiarity and confidence subsisted 
 between his lordship and Mr. Wesley ; and it is most likely that it was 
 by Lord Oxford's influence that he obtained the mastership of Blundell's 
 school ; a place for which he was every way qualified except in health ;
 
 SAMUEL WEBI.EY, JUN. 293 
 
 but, in his infirm state, the most improper situation in which he could 
 have been placed. A Church preferment would have suited his habits 
 much better ; and as he had naturally a robust constitution, he might 
 have lived many years longer, and his latter days might have been 
 more useful than his first. A situation of this kind could not have been 
 out of the power of Lord Oxford. To a person of impaired health, 
 and infirm constitution, the office of public school master is as deleterious 
 as the bottom of a coal mine. 
 
 The following letter from Mr. Pope is without the date of the year . 
 and we scarcely know what it refers to ; but I suppose to the subscrip- 
 tion for Mr. Wesley's collection of poems ; and if so, it must have 
 been written about 1735 : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Your letter had not been so long unanswered, but 
 that I was not returned from a journey of some weeks, when it arrived 
 at this place. You may depend on the money for the earl of Peter- 
 borow, Mr. Bethel, Dr. Swift, and Mr. Eckershall ; which I will pay 
 beforehand to any one you shall direct ; and I think you may set down 
 Dr. Delaney, whom I will write to. I desired my Lord Oxford, some 
 months since, to tell you this. It was just upon my going to take a 
 last leave of Lord Peterborow, in so much hurry, that I had not time 
 to write ; and my Lord Oxford undertook to tell it to you for me. I 
 agree with you in the opinion of Savage's strange performance, which 
 does not deserve the benefit of the clergy. Mrs. Wesley has my 
 sincere thanks for her good wishes in favour of this wretched tabernacle, 
 my body. The soul that is so unhappy as to inhabit it deserves her 
 regard something better, because it harbours much good will for her 
 husband and herself; no man being more truly, 
 
 " Dear sir, your faithful and affectionate servant, 
 
 A. POPE." 
 
 Though both this letter and that of Lord Oxford be in the main 
 excessively fiat, and carelessly composed; yet the last paragraph here 
 contains some fine ideas, expressed with the utmost felicity of language. 
 
 The bislwp of Winchester, mentioned by Lord Oxford, was Richard 
 Willis, formerly of All Soul's College, Oxford, and military chaplain to 
 King William, who raised him first to the bishopric of Salisbury ; after 
 which he was translated in 1723 to the see of Winchester; he died 
 in August 1734 ; and was succeeded by Dr. Benjamin Hoadley in the 
 September following. One thing was peculiarly remarkable in Bishop 
 Willis: he generally preached extempore, with case, correctness, and 
 fluency ; a thing most singular among the clergy in those days ; a 
 thing which Mr. S. Wesley execrated in his brothers ; and which, with 
 extempore prayer, he said, " was enough to bring in all confusion." 
 
 To this extempore preaching Dr. Willis was at first led no doubt by 
 the temper of his master, King William, who was accustomed to hear 
 such kind of preaching in Holland ; and could scarcely have borne to 
 hear doctor or pi-elate read a sermon out of the pulpit at the congrega- 
 t ion. When Willis became a bishop, he continued the practice. Some 
 thought he wrote his sermons first, and then committed them to memory
 
 294T SAMUEL WESLtT, JUN. 
 
 What Bishop Godwin, De Prcesulibus Jlngelice, p. 245, says of Bishop 
 Willis, I shall subjoin : the substance I have given before. 
 
 " Richardus Willis, Collegii Omnium Jtnimarum non item pridem 
 aocius, a rege Gulielmo prcecipue ed de cawd ascitus qui in castris 
 militaribus sibi a sacris adesset, quod singulari quddam facullate 
 extempore concionandi, vel condones memoriter recilandi polleret." 
 
 So, Mr. John Wesley was not the first extempore preacher in the 
 Church ; nor did extempore preaching bring in all or any confusion, 
 as Mr. Samuel Wesley thought it must do. 
 
 Mr. Wesley had not only the friendship of Lord Otford, but his 
 intimacy also ; and frequently dined at his house. But this was an 
 honour for which he was obliged to pay a grievous tax, ill suited to the 
 narrowness of his circumstances. Vales to servants, that sovereign 
 disgrace to their masters, were in those days quite common ; and in 
 some instances, seem to have stood in the place of wages. A whole 
 range of livery men generally stood in the lobby with eager expectation 
 and rapacity, when any gentleman came out from dining at a nobleman's 
 table ; so that no person who was not affluent could afford to enjoy the 
 privilege of a nobleman's entertainment. 
 
 Mr. Wesley, who was a frequent visiter at Lord Oxford's, having 
 paid this tax oftener than well suited his circumstances, thought it high 
 time either to come to some compromise with these cormorants, or else 
 to discontinue his visits. One day on returning from his lordship's 
 table, and seeing the usual range of greedy expectants, he addressed 
 them thus : " My friends, I must make an agreement with you suited 
 to my purse ; and shall distribute so much (naming the sum) once in 
 the month, and no more." This becoming generally known, was not 
 only the means of checking that troublesome importunity, but also of 
 redressing the evil ; for their master, whose honour was concerned, 
 commanded them to "stand back in their ranks when a gentleman 
 retired ;" and prohibited their begging ! Many eminent men have 
 endeavoured to bring this vile custom into deserved disgrace ! Dryden, 
 Addison, Swift, &c : but it still continues, though under another form : 
 leaving taverns out of the question, (where the lowest menial expects 
 to be paid if he condescends to answer a civil question,) cooks, cham- 
 ber maids, waiters, errand boys, &c, &c, all expect money, if you lodge 
 in their master's house but a single night ! And they expect to be paid 
 too in proportion to the treatment you have received from their master, 
 and in proportion to his credit and respectability^ and not to your means 
 or purse. The gentry of the land should rise up as one man against 
 this disgraceful custom, as the board of excise have done against the 
 bribes taken by their officers. Let a servant, on being hired, hear, 
 ** Your wages for which you agree shall be duly and faithfully paid : I 
 shall not require the aid of my friends to make up the deficiencies of 
 my servants. The day on which I am informed you receive any thing 
 from my guests, you shall be dismissed from my service." If all agree 
 to act thus, this grievous tax upon our friends will soon be abolished. 
 There are few cases where the friendly visit does not cost him who 
 pays it five times more than his maintenance would have done at his 
 own house.
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 295 
 
 I have already referred to Mr. Wesley's Lines on the Death of 
 Queen Anne, to which allusion is made in the fourth stanza of his 
 Epilaphium Fir*, p. 310. But I can find none but the following, 
 which he has altered from Prior's Ode, presented to King William on 
 his return from Holland after the queen's death, in 1695. I insert them 
 because of a circumstance that shall be mentioned below. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE. 
 
 1 At ANNA'S tomb (sad, sacred place !) 
 
 The virtues shall their vigils keep, 
 And every muse and every grace 
 In solemn, silent state shall weep. 
 
 2 For her the great, the gooJ, shall mourn, 
 
 When late records her deeds repeat ; 
 Ages to come, and men unborn, 
 
 Shall bless her name, so truly great ! 
 
 3 Fair Jlllrion shall with grateful trust 
 
 Our sacred ANNA'S reliques guard ; 
 'Till Heaven awake the precious dust, 
 And gives the saint her full reward. 
 
 These verses have been set to music by that eminent performer, and 
 honest man, Charles Wesley, Esq., son to the late Rev. Charles Wesley, 
 and nephew to Mr. Samuel Wesley ; and applied to the late Queen 
 Charlotte, changing nothing but the name ; Charlotte for Anna : and if 
 the private and domestic character of both be considered, we shall find 
 them at least as truly applicable to the queen of George III., as to the 
 illustrious spouse of the prince of Denmark. They were certainly very 
 appropriate in their application to the good Queen Mary. 
 
 In his compositions, letters and friendships, we have already seen 
 much of the character of Mr. Samuel Wesley ; and relative to this 
 point little needs be added. A part of his character, of which the 
 world knew nothing, was the brightest and most worthy of the imitation 
 of every son and every brother. From the time he became usher in 
 Westminster school, he divided his income with his parents and family. 
 Through him principally, were his brothers John and Charles main- 
 tained at the university ; and in all straits of the family, his purse was 
 not only opened, but emptied, if found necessary. And all this was done 
 with so much affection and deep sense of duty, that it took off and 
 almost prevented the burthen of gratitude which otherwise must have 
 been felt. These acts of filial kindness were done so secretly, that 
 although they were very numerous, and extended through many years, 
 no note of them is to be found in his correspondence ; his right hand 
 never knew what his left hand did. Those alone knew his bounty who 
 were its principal objects, and they ware not permitted to record it. 
 Indirect hints we frequently find in the letters of old Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wesley, and sometimes in those of his brothers ; and those hints were 
 all they dared mention in their correspondnnce with a man who wished 
 to forget every act of kindness ho had done. His brothers always 
 spoke of him with the highest reverence, respect, and affection.
 
 2J6 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 Mr, Badcock, it seems, possessed a letter of acknowledgment from 
 old Samuel Wesley, written not long before his death, to this dutiful 
 and affectionate son. I have not been so fortunate as to see this letter, 
 and cannot tell whether it now exists : but the reader will be highly 
 pleased at what Mr. Badcock says of it : 
 
 " I have in my possession a letter of this poor and aged parent 
 addressed to his son Samuel, in which he gratefully acknowledges his 
 filial duty, in terms so affecting, that I am at a loss which to admire 
 most, the gratitude of the parent, or the affection and generosity of 
 the child. It was written when the good old man was nearly fourscore, 
 and so weakened by a palsy as to be incapable of directing a pen, unless 
 with his left hand. I preserve it as a curious memorial of what will 
 make Wesley applauded when his wit is forgotten." 
 
 Yes, filial affection is one of the first duties man owes upon earth : 
 only his duty to God is paramount. There cannot be a nearer repre- 
 sentative of an impoverished Christ, to the eye of a child, than a parent 
 in distress : nor will the approbation of God be more strongly expressed 
 in the day of final retribution, than to that child who has honoured the 
 Lord with his substance, in supplying the wants of those from whom, 
 under God, he has derived his being. And those who have ministered 
 to the necessities of their parents will be found at the top of the list of 
 thoseof whom the Fountainof justice and Fatherofmerciesspeaks,whcn 
 he says, " I was hungry, and ye gave me meat ; thirsty, and ye gave 
 me drink ; naked, and ye clothed me ; sick and in prison, and ye minis- 
 tered unto me !" A sound creed is a good thing : but we know that 
 it may be entertained where little of the practice of piety and mercy is to 
 be found. And there may be in some respects a deficient creed, where 
 nevertheless all the great truths of religion are found ; and where it even 
 is not so, there are many cases where the conformity of the life to the 
 purest principles of truth, justice, and mercy, sufficiently evidences the 
 law of God written in the heart by the finger of the Almighty himself. 
 
 The man who acted thus toward his parents, and contributed to the 
 utmost of his power to the support and education of his brothers and 
 sisters, and whose whole conduct was irreproachable, has been styled 
 by certain gentlemen, who ought to have inquired, if they did not know 
 better, " A worldly priest who hated all pretence to more religion than 
 our neighbours, as an infallible mark of a Dissenter." This slander is 
 too thin, too barefaced, and too malevolent, to deserve notice. Mr, 
 Southey has duly exposed it by a fine irony : " The amiable spirit which 
 is displayed in this sentence, its liberality, its charity, and its regard to 
 truth, require no comment." Life of Wesley, vol. i, p. 294. 
 
 I can say, on the best authority, that such was the amiableness, 
 benevolence, and excellence of his public and private character, that 
 during the seven years he resided at Tiverton, where he was best 
 known, he was nearly idolized. His diligence and able method of 
 teaching in his school were so evident and successful, that in the first 
 year upward of forty boys were added to it. And such confidence had 
 the public in him, that children were sent from all quarters to be placed 
 under his tuition. His memory was dear to all who had the privilege 
 of his acquaintance. And while my page shall live, his eminent abili-
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. ' 297 
 
 ties, his steady attachment to his friends, whom he invariably cleaved 
 to in adversity, and his uncommon filial piety, and various other excel- 
 lencies, shall not be forgotten. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley was a member of the Philosophical Society at 
 Spalding ; and gave to their museum an amulet, that had touched the 
 heads of the three kings of Cologne, whose names were in black letters 
 within. 
 
 He married a Miss Berry, or Bury, daughter of a clergyman of the 
 Established Church, and rector of Watton in Norfolk. Her grand- 
 father, John Berry, M. A., fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, was 
 presented to the rectory of East Down, Devonshire, by the Protector 
 Richard Cromwell, in 1658 ; from which he was ejected in 1662 
 by the Act of Uniformity. When ejected, he had ten children, and 
 scarcely any thing for their subsistence ; but God took care of them, 
 and most of them afterward lived in comfortable circumstances. He 
 continued to preach in several places as he had opportunity ; and once, 
 if not oftener, was cast into Exeter common jail, where he lay for 
 several months. Of him Mr. Baxter says, " He was an extraordinary, 
 humble, tender-conscienced, serious, godly, able minister." He died 
 happy in God, December, 1704, aged nearly eighty. With Miss Berry 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley became acquainted at Westminster, where her 
 parents then resided, and boarded young gentlemen belonging to the 
 school.* He was a most indulgent husband, and passionately fond of 
 his wife, which is proved by his frequent poetical addresses to her after 
 marriage. Though he was accustomed to boast of his authority as a 
 husband, yet she had sense enough to rule under the appearance of 
 submission. Mrs. Hall, who knew her, spoke of her as one who was 
 well described in her husband's poetic tale, called " THE PIG." 
 " She made her little wisdom go 
 Farther than wiser women da" 
 
 He had several children : but only one daughter, called Phill in the 
 preceding letters, lived to woman's estate. She married an apothe- 
 cary named Earle, in Barnstaple ; whose chief motive in his marriage 
 with her appeared to have been the expectation of succeeding to the 
 title of earl of Anglesea, which he imagined to be nearly extinct, and 
 only recoverable through his wife, the daughter of Mr. Samuel Wesley ; 
 and this even while John and Charles were alive, the latter having male 
 issue ! This couple have been dead upward of forty years. 
 
 He had an only son Samuel, who died young, but at what age I have 
 not learned. His death appears to have been a heavy stroke to all the 
 family; and was particularly so to his grandfather, ibr the reasons which 
 he alleges in the following consolatory letter, written to his son on the 
 occasion ; and which appears to have been the answer to that in which 
 he received the news of his death. A part of this letter contains some 
 curious particulars relative to his Dissertations on the book of Job, 
 which some of my readers, at least, will be pleased to see. 
 
 * I have the MS. diary of Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, wife of the Rev. Mr. Berry. It 
 commences July 1, 1701, and extends to March 24, 1709, she being then in her 
 fifty-fifth year. It marks every where the strongest workings of a soul devoted to 
 God. 1 have reason to believe that this lady'a husband was either the /altar- t 
 or brother-in-laic of Mr. Samuel Wesley. 
 
 38
 
 298 SAMUEL WESLEY, JON. 
 
 " Letter to my son Sam, on the death of his only son Sam : 
 
 " June 18, 1731. 
 
 " DEAR SON, Yes, this is a thunderbolt indeed to your whole 
 family ; but especially to me, who now am not likely to see any of my 
 name in the third generation (though Job did in the fourth) to stand 
 before God. However, this is a new demonstration to me that there 
 must be a hereafter ; because when the truest piety and filial duty 
 have been shown, it has been followed by the loss of children, which 
 therefore must be restored and met with again, as Job's first ten were, in 
 another world. As I resolve from hence, as he directs, to stir up my- 
 self against the hypocrite, T trust I shall walk on in my way, and grow 
 stronger and stronger, as well as that God will support you both under 
 this heavy and unspeakable affliction. But when and how did he die ? 
 and where is his epitaph ? Though if sending this now, will too much 
 refricare vulnus, I will stay longer for it. And now for the two letters. 
 
 " First, that of May 27, from London : sum is, 1st, as to the placing 
 the dissertations, wherein, as you say, the Prolegomena are something 
 of aguish, though that and all the rest I leave (as often before) to your 
 judgment, for my memory is near gone ; neither have I the papers in 
 any order by me. 
 
 " 2. The Poetica Descriptio Monsiri, I think, would come in most 
 naturally after all the dissertations of the Behemoth and Leviathan : but 
 you, having the whole before you, will be the most proper judge. 
 
 *' 3. Do with the De Carmine Pastoritio as you please. 
 
 " 4. Periplus Rubri JVfam comes with the geography, when Mr. 
 Hoole has finished it. 
 
 " 5. I remember no extracts but that from the Catena, which is 616 
 folio pages : but think I have got the main of it into 30 quartos, which 
 I finished yesterday, though there is no haste in sending it, for I design 
 it for the appendix. This to May 27. 
 
 " Now to yours from the Isle of Ely, June 3d, which relates to the 
 
 children, and my last , I leave to your mother, who writes this 
 
 post if she has time ; though something I have writ you already in my 
 vlt. or penult, on the subject. 
 
 " As for the Testimonia Arianorum, ifspi <rou Aoyou, it happens well 
 that I have a pretty good copy, though not so perfect as that which is 
 lost, and will get Mr. Horberry to transcribe it as soon as he returns 
 from Oxford ; though I think it will not come in till toward the latter 
 end of the work, as must your collation at the very end, only before the 
 appendix ; and I shall begin to revise it to-morrow. 
 
 " Blessing on you and yours from your loving father, 
 
 " S. W." 
 
 I believe the collation mentioned here is that at the end of the disser- 
 tations ; and which I have described in another place. 
 
 The appendix, of which I have a considerable portion in the author's 
 MS. before me, does not appear to have been ever printed. It should 
 have succeeded the collation as stated above. 
 
 It may be seen, from the accounts which have been written of the 
 Rev. John Wesley, how earnestly his father wished him to succeed him
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JfUN. 299 
 
 in the rectory of Epworth ; and how strongly this was pressed upon 
 him by his elder brother Samuel. But it is not so well known>that Mr. 
 Samuel was the first object of his father's choice : however, this is suf- 
 ficiently evident from the following letter, which I transcribe from the 
 original ; and Mr. Samuel had evidently endeavoured to divert his fa- 
 ther's wish, and to cause him to fix it on his brother John. The offer 
 of Epworth to Samuel was made February, 1732 ; the offer of it to 
 John, some time in the end of 1734 : the letter, as referring to several 
 family matters, is interesting and curious : 
 
 Feb. 28, 1732-3. 
 
 " DEAR SON SAMUEL, For several reasons I have earnestly de- 
 sired, especially in and since my last sickness, that you might succeed 
 me in Epworth ; in order to which I am willing and determined to re- 
 sign the living, provided you could make an interest to have it in my 
 room. 
 
 " My first and best reason for it is, because I am persuaded you 
 would serve God and his people here better than I have done. Though, 
 thanks be to God, after near forty years' labour among them, they 
 grow better ; I having had above a hundred at my last sacrament, 
 whereas I have had less than twenty formerly. My second reason 
 relates to yourself, taken from gratitude, or rather from plain honesty. 
 You have been a father to your brothers and sisters ; especially to the 
 former, who have cost you great sums in their education, both before 
 and since they went to the university. Neither have you stopped here ; 
 but have showed your piety to your mother and me in a very liberal man- 
 ner ; wherein your wife joined with you when you did not overmuch 
 abound yourselves ; and have even done noble charities to my chil- 
 dren's children. Now what should I be if I did not endeavour to make 
 you easy to the utmost of my power, especially when I know that nei- 
 ther of you have your health at London. My third is from honest in- 
 terest ; I mean that of our family. You know our circumstances. As 
 for your aged and infirm mother, as soon as I drop she must turn out, 
 unless you succeed me ; which if you do, and she survives me, I know 
 you '11 immedintely take her then to your own house, or rather continue 
 her there ; where your wife and you will nourish her till we meet 
 again in heaven ; and you will be a guide and a stay to the rest of the 
 family. 
 
 " There are a few things more which may seem to be tolerable rea- 
 sons to me for desiring you to be my successor, whatever they may ap- 
 pear to others. I have been at very great and uncommon expense on 
 this living : have rebuilt from the ground the parsonage barn and dove 
 cote ; leaded, and planked, and roofed, a great part of my chancel ; 
 rebuilt the parsonage house twice when it had been burned, the first time 
 one wing, the second down to the ground, wherein I lost all my books 
 and MSS., a considerable sum of money, all our linen, wearing apparel, 
 and household stuff, except a little old iron, my wife and I being scorched 
 with the flames, and all of us very narrowly escaping with life. This, 
 by God's help, I built again, digging np the old foundations, and laying 
 uew ooe ; it cost me above 400/., Tittle or nothing of the old material*
 
 300 SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN. 
 
 being left ; beside new furniture from top to bottom ; for we had now 
 very little more than what Adam and Eve had when they first set up 
 housekeeping. I then planted the two fronts of my house with wall 
 fruit the second time, as I had done the old ; for the former all perished 
 by the fire. I have before set mulberries in my garden, which bear 
 plentifully, as lately, cherries, pears, &c, and in the adjoining croft, 
 walnuts ; and am planting more every day.. And this I solemnly de- 
 clare, not with any manner of view, or so much as hopes, that any of 
 mine should enjoy any of the fruit of my labour, when I have so long 
 since outlived all my friends : but my prospect was for some unknown 
 person, that I might do what became mt, and leave the living better 
 than I found it. 
 
 " And yet I might own I could not help wishing, as 'twas natural, 
 that all my care and charge might not be utterly sunk and lost to my 
 family, but that some of them might be the better for it ; though yet i 
 despaired of it for the reason above mentioned, till some time since the 
 best of my parishioners pressed me earnestly to try if I could do any 
 thing in it : though all I can do is to resign it to you ; which I am ready 
 frankly and gladly to do ; scorning to make any conditions, for I know 
 you better. 
 
 " I commend this affair and you and yours to God, as becomes your 
 affectionate father, 
 
 " S. WESLEY." 
 
 Strong characters will have enemies. Mr. S. Wesley had such ; and 
 that he treated them with contempt, not silent, his works show : but his 
 uprightness, steady friendship, benevolence, and charity, even those 
 enemies confessed. In those times party ran, or rather raged high. 
 Those who loved him were persecuted ; and he manfully espoused 
 their cause, and shared their reproach. 
 
 His high Church principles may have amounted to bigotry, but never 
 to intolerance ; for there were many among the Dissenters whom he 
 cordially esteemed, and with whom he lived in habits of friendship. 
 See his poem on the death of a female friend, a dissenter from the Church 
 of England. By this piece he appears displeased rather with the doc- 
 trines of unconditional reprobation and election; and especially as held 
 by those who considered all others in a state of the utmost danger who 
 did not hold their creed, and who thought sour godliness a test of saving 
 grace. Such persons he certainly met with ; and such he points out 
 in the following lines of the above-mentioned poem : 
 
 Wretches of every glimpse of day afraid, 
 Souls under cloaks, and minds in masquerade : 
 As if each look display'd its owner's fate ; 
 And all that smiTd were seal'd for reprobate : 
 As awkward sourness were a sign of grace ; 
 And sure election blest an ugly face : 
 As if hell fire were always placed in view, 
 Ordain'd for all men but the gloomy few. 
 
 He knew that hypocrisy and fanaticism had mingled themselves with 
 pure religion, in days comparatively recent ; and he was afraid of their
 
 SAMUEL WESLEY, JTN 301 
 
 revival. It was this fear that caused him to oppose his brothers as he 
 did, when he found them going so far out of the beaten path of Church 
 regularity. Had it pleased God to have spared his life but a little longer, 
 the reader may naturally suppose, from the evidence that has been al- 
 ready adduced, that he would have thought and spoken differently both 
 of their manner of preaching, and the success of their ministry. We 
 have already seen from indisputable evidence, that in these respects, 
 as well as in reference to the doctrines they preached, his mind was 
 considerably changed before he died ; and that he died not only in "the 
 faith which had been common to all Christians in all ages," but in that 
 faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which he had, not a hypotheti- 
 cal hops, but an assurance of his personal and eternal salvation. This 
 subject has already been discussed. Several of his poems, written to 
 his sisters, will be found in the memoirs of their lives ; and some more 
 of his letters in the life of his brother John. 
 
 For a due character of his poetic excellence, see Mr. Pitt's ode to 
 the unknown author of the BATTLE OF THE SEXES. 
 
 Mr. Samuel Wesley lies buried in Tiverton church yard, with the 
 following inscription on his grave stone : 
 
 Here lye interred 
 
 The remains of the Rev. MR. SAMCEI/WESI-EY, A. M. 
 
 Some time Student of Christ Church, Oxon : 
 
 A man for his uncommon wit and learning, 
 
 For the benevolence of his temper, 
 
 And simplicity of manners, 
 
 Deservedly beloved and esteemed by all : 
 
 An excellent Preacher: 
 
 But whose best sermon 
 
 Was the constant example of an edifying life : 
 
 So continually and zealously employed 
 
 In acts of beneficence and charity, 
 
 That he truly followed 
 
 His blessed Master's example 
 
 In going about doing good : 
 
 Of such scrupulous integrity, 
 
 That he declined occasions of advancement in the world, 
 
 Through fear of being involved in dangerous compliances ; 
 
 And avoided the usual ways to preferment 
 
 As studiously as many others seek them. 
 
 Therefore, after a life spent 
 In the laborious employment of teaching youth, 
 
 First for near twenty years 
 As one of the ushers in Westminster School, 
 
 Afterwards for seven years 
 As Head Master of the Free School at Tiverton, 
 
 He resigned his soul to God 
 November 6th, 1739, in the 49th year of his age.
 
 302 MISS EMILIA WESLEY, MR8. HARPER. 
 
 DAUGHTERS 
 
 OF THE REV. S. WESLEY, RECTOR OP EP WORTH. 
 
 MISS EMILIA WESLEY, MRS. HARPER. 
 
 OF Emily Wesley little is known : she seems to have been the eldest 
 of the seven daughters of the rector of Epworth, who survived their 
 father, and came to woman's estate. She was probably born either at 
 South Ormsby or Epworth : but most likely at the former place. She 
 is reported to have been the favourite daughter of her mother, (though 
 this has been disputed in favour of Patty,) and to have had strong sense, 
 much wit, a prodigious memory, and a talent for poetry. She was a 
 good classical scholar, and wrote a beautiful hand. I have not been 
 able to ascertain any of her poetical compositions, as no verses remain, 
 to which her name is affixed. 
 
 She married an apothecary at Epworth of the name of Harper, who 
 left her a young widow. What proportion the intellect of Mr. Harper 
 bore to that of his wife we know not : but in politics they were ill suited, 
 as he was a violent whig, and she an unbending lory. 
 
 A letter of. hers to her brother John, dated February 16, 1750, has 
 already been inserted at the conclusion of the account of the disturb- 
 ances in the parsonage house at Epworth : it proves that Jeffrey con- 
 tinued his operations at least thirty-four or thirty-five years after he 
 retired from Epworth. 
 
 It appears from the education given to Miss Emily, and some others 
 of her sisters, that their parents designed them for governesses. About 
 the year 1730, Emily became teacher at the boarding school of a Mrs. 
 Taylor, in Lincoln, where, though she had the whole care of the school, 
 she was not well used, and was worse paid. Having borne this usage as 
 long as reason- would dictate forbearance, she laid the case before her 
 brothers, with a resolution to set up school on her own account at 
 Gainsborough. She had their approbation ; gave Mrs. Taylor warn- 
 ing, and went to Gainsborough ; where she continued at least till 1735, 
 ps she was there at the time of her father's death. 
 
 Several of these particulars we learn from the following letter written 
 to her brother John, when she had made up her mind to leave Lin- 
 coln, and go to Gainsborough : 
 
 " DEAREST BROTHER, Your last letter comforted and settled my 
 mind wonderfully. O'continue to talk to me of the reasonableness of 
 resignation to the Divine will, to enable me to bear cheerfully the ills 
 of life, the lot appointed me ; and never to suffer grief so far to prevail, 
 as to injure my health, or long to cloud the natural cheerfulness of my 
 temper. I had writ long since, but had a mind to see first how my 
 small affairs would be settled ; and now can assure you that at Lady- 
 day I leave Lincoln certainly. You was of opinion, you may remem- 
 ber, that my leaving Mrs. Taylor would not only prove prejudicial to 
 her affairs, (and so far all the town agrees with you,) but would be a 
 great affliction taher. I own J thought so too : but we both were a little
 
 MISS EMILIA WE8LET, MRS. HARPER. 303 
 
 mistaken. She received the news of my going with an indifference I 
 did not expect. Never was such a teacher, as I may justly say I have 
 been, so foolishly lost, so unnecessarily disobliged. Had she paid my 
 last year's wages but the day before Martinmas, I still had stayed ; in- 
 stead of that, she has received one hundred and twenty pounds within 
 these three months, and yet never would spare one six or seven pounds for 
 me, which I am sure no teacher will ever bear. The jest is, she fan- 
 cies I never knew of any money she received ; when, alas, she can 
 never have one Jive pounds but I know of it. I have so satisfied brother 
 Sam, that he wishes me good success at Gainsbro', and says he can no 
 longer oppose my resolution ; which pleases me much, for I would 
 gladly live civilly with him, and friendly with you. 
 
 " I have a fairer prospect at Gainsbro' even than I could hope for ; 
 my greatest difficulty will be want of money at my first entrance. I 
 shall furnish my school with canvass, worsteds, silks,. &c, &c, and am 
 much afraid of being dipt in debt at first : but God's will be done ! 
 Troubles of that kind are what I have been used to. Will you lend me 
 the other 3/. which you designed for me at Lady-day ; it would help 
 me much : you will if you can, I am sure, for so would I do by you. 
 I am half starved with cold, which hinders me from writing longer. 
 Emery is no better. Mrs. Taylor and Kitty give their service. Pray 
 send soon to me. Kez is gone home for good and all. I am knitting 
 brother Charles a fine purse ; pray my love to him. 
 
 "I am, dear brother, your loving sister and constant friend, 
 
 " EMILIA WESLEY." 
 
 As Mrs. Harper makes no mention of her husband in her letter to 
 Mr. Wesley in 1750, it is likely he was dead before that time. She 
 had one child, whom she calls Tetty : but whether she survived her 
 mother we do not know. 
 
 Mrs. Harper is represented as a fine woman ; of a noble, yet affable 
 countenance, and of a kind and affectionate disposition. She was left 
 without property : but in her widowhood, for many years till her death, 
 she was maintained entirely by her brothers, and lived at the preachers' 
 house adjoining to the chapel in West-street, Seven Dials, London. 
 
 Mr. John Wesley has been stated by some of his biographers to have 
 had no family affections. This is any thing but truth : almost the whole 
 family were cast upon his care after his father's death ; and were wholly, 
 kindly, and affectionately, supported by him. A proof of his kindness 
 is seen in the case of Mrs. Harper. She had a maid to whom she was 
 greatly attached. This woman also Mr. Wesley supported, that she 
 might attend upon her mistress, though there was a regular servant 
 whose business it was to wait on the family in that house. 
 
 Before Mrs. Harper became a resident in the preachers' house at 
 West-street, she was a constant attendant on the ministry of her bro- 
 thers at the Old Foundry, by which she considerably profited. Afler 
 she came to West-street her privileges became greater, as her oppor- 
 tunities of attending the means of grace were multiplied; and for this 
 attendance she had every facility, as the apartments of the family opened 
 into the chapel from the first floor ; and by throwing up some sashes
 
 304 MIS8 EMILIA WESLEY, MRS. HARPER. 
 
 that separated the house and the chapel, behind the pulpit, every con- 
 venience was afforded for hearing, without the trouble of ever going out 
 of doors. In this comfortable retreat, in the very bosom of the Church, 
 Mrs. Harper terminated her earthly existence at a very advanced age, 
 some time between the years 1770 and 1772. 
 
 Though she survived the major part of her incomparable memory, 
 which was much impaired previously to her death, yet her peculiarly 
 benevolent and even temper never forsook her. That her mind was 
 highly cultivated, and her taste exquisite, we have some proof in the 
 assertion of her brother, Mr. John Wesley. " My sister Harper was 
 the best reader of Milton I ever heard." The life of such a woman 
 must have furnished innumerable anecdotes of the most instructive 
 kind : but, alas ! for want of a collector, they have been borne away 
 long since on the gale that never returns, and buried in the viewless 
 regions of endless oblivion. 
 
 The following nervous lines, addressed to her some time before her 
 marriage, were written by her sister, Mrs. Wright : 
 
 My fortunes often bid me flee 
 So light a thing as poetry : 
 But stronger inclination draws, 
 To follow wit and nature's laws. 
 Virtue, form, and wit, in thee 
 Move in perfect harmony : 
 For thee my tuneful voice I '11 raise, 
 For thee compose my softest lays ; 
 My youthful muse shall take her flight, 
 And crown thy beauteous head with radiant beams of light. 
 
 True wit and sprightly genius shine 
 In every turn, in every line : 
 To these, O skilful Nine, annex 
 The native sweetness of my sex ; 
 And that peculiar talent let me show, 
 Which Providence Divine doth oft bestow 
 On spirits that are high, with fortunes that are low. 
 
 Thy virtues and thy graces all, 
 How simple, free, and natural ! 
 Thy graceful form with pleasure I survey ; 
 It charms the eye, the heart, away. 
 Malicious fortune did repine, 
 To grant her gifts to worth like thine ! 
 
 To all thy outward majesty and grace, 
 To all the blooming features of thy face, 
 To all the heavenly sweetness of thy mind, 
 A noble, generous, equal soul is joined, 
 By reason polished, and by arts refined. 
 Thy even, steady eye can see 
 Dame fortune smile, or frown, at thee; 
 At every varied change can say, It moves not me ! 
 
 Fortune has fixed thee in a place 
 Debarred of wisdom, wit, and grace. 
 High births and virtue equally they scorn, 
 As asses dull on dunghills born :
 
 MISS MART WESLEY, MRS. WHITELAMB. 305 
 
 Impervious as the stones their heads are found , 
 Their rage and hatred steadfast as the ground. 
 With these unpolished wights thy youthful days 
 Glide .I/me and dull, and nature's lamp decays : 
 O what a lamp is hid, 'midst such a sordid race ! 
 
 But tho' thy brilliant virtues are obscured, 
 And in a noxious irksome dm immur'd ; 
 My numbers shall thy trophies rear, 
 And lovely as she is, my Emily appear. 
 Still thy transcendent praise I will rehearse, 
 And form this faint, description into verse; 
 And when the poet's head lies low in clay, 
 Thy name shall shine in worlds which never can decay. 
 
 Wroote was the place of which Mrs. Wright speaks so degradulgly ; 
 and on which her brother Samuel wrote a mock heroic poem, which he 
 inscribed to his sister Hetty. The parsonage house at that place he 
 thus describes : 
 
 The house is good, and strong, and clean, 
 Tho' there no battlements are seen, 
 But humble roof of thatch, I ween, 
 
 Low rooms from rain to cover. 
 Where safe from poverty, (sore ill !) 
 All may live happy if they will, 
 As any that St. James's fill, 
 
 Th' Escurial, or the Louvre. 
 
 What happiness! then to be driven 
 Where powers of saving may be given ! 
 To hope for unmolested heaven 
 
 While here on earth too soon is : 
 But this is certain, if you 're wise, 
 Wroot* is the seat of paradise, 
 As much as any place that lies 
 
 On earth beside the moon is. 
 
 'Tis true no fairy lands are there ; 
 No spring to flourish all the year ; 
 No bushes that perfumes will bear, 
 
 Flow'rs, fruits, together springing ; 
 Where Phoebus, with perpetual beams, 
 Glitters from gently gliding streams, 
 And nymphs are lull'd to pleasing dreams 
 
 By philomela singing. 
 
 There was scarcely a bush in the place ; for Wroote was situated in 
 the low levels of Lincolnshire, and often covered with water, and the 
 produce of the ground swept away ! 
 
 MISS MARY WESLEY, MRS. WHITELAMB. 
 
 MARY WESLEY stands the third on the list of the grown up children 
 of the Rev. Samuel Wesley. Through affliction, and probably some 
 mismanagement in her nurse, she became considerably deformed in her 
 body ; and her growth in consequence was much stinted, and her health 
 injured : but all written and oral testimony concurs in the statement 
 
 39
 
 306 MISS MARY WESLEY, MRS. WHITELAMB. 
 
 that her face was exquisitely beautiful, and was a fair and very legible 
 index to a mind and disposition almost angelic. Her humble, obliging, 
 even, and amiable disposition made her the favourite and delight of 
 the whole family. Mr. John and Mr. Charles Wesley frequently spoke 
 of her, and ever with the most tender respect ; and her sister Hetty, no 
 mean judge of character, with whom she was an especial favourite, spoke 
 and wrote of her as one of the most exalted of human characters. 
 
 She married, with the high approbation of all the family, Mr. John 
 Whitelamb, of whom some mention has already been made, and whose 
 history it is necessary to pursue a little farther. He was the son of 
 parents at that time in very low circumstances, and was put to a cha- 
 rity school at Wroote, superintended by the Rev. John Romley ; of 
 whom it is worthy of remark, that in the course of a very few months, 
 under the direction of the Rev. S. Wesley, sen., he learned to read, 
 write, and speak the Greek language with facility and considerable 
 elegance. 
 
 I have these particulars in a Greek epistle to Mr. Charles Wesley, 
 now lying before me, written in the year 1732. Mr. Romley studied 
 divinity under S. Wesley, sen. ; graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford ; 
 and was for a time the curate of Mr. S. Wesley, (I believe at Wroote,) 
 who had given him the first part of his education, and to whom he was 
 for some time amanuensis. He was a member of the Gentleman's So- 
 ciety at Spalding ; and in 1730 presented to that society an " account 
 of the manors, villages, seats, and church of Althorp, in Lincolnshire." 
 This society was founded at Spalding, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1710, 
 by .Maurice Johnson, Esq., of the Inner Temple. 
 
 Of this society Mr. Samuel Wesley, sen., became a member, January 
 9, 1723 ; and his son Samuel was elected a member, September 18, 
 1729. See the history of it in Nichol's Literary Anecdotes, vol. vi. 
 
 It is likely that Mr. Romley recommended young Whitelamb to Mr. 
 Wesley's notice, as a lad of promising abilities ; for we find that Mr. 
 Wesley took him to his house ; that he became his amanuensis in the 
 place of Mr. Romley ; designed the plates for Mr. Wesley's Disserta- 
 tions on the Book of Job ; and engraved several of them with his own 
 hand. 
 
 Under the care of the rector of Epworth, he obtained a sufficient 
 knowledge of Latin and Greek to enter the university ; and at the 
 expense, chiefly of Mr. Wesley's family, then indeed in very low cir- 
 cumstances, he was maintained at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he 
 obtained his education gratis under Mr. John Wesley, then a fellow of 
 that college. In the preceding memoirs we have met with this young 
 man frequently ; especially in the letters of the rector of Epworth, and 
 of Mrs. Wesley. 
 
 He suffered great privations in order to acquire a sufficiency of learn- 
 ing to pass through the university, and obtain orders. It is in reference 
 to this, that Mrs. Wesley calls him " poor starveling Johnny." So low 
 were his circumstances that he could not procure himself clothes, and 
 could not purchase a gown when ordained. In every respect the Wes- 
 ley family divided with him according to their power ; and by his humble 
 and upright conduct, he did honour to himself, and repaid their kindness,
 
 MISS MART WESLET, MRS. HARPER. 307 
 
 When he got orders, Mr. Wesley made him his curate in Wroote ; and 
 having engaged Miss Mary Wesley's affections, they were married, and 
 Mr. Wesley gave up to him the living of Wroote,. which he petitioned 
 the lord chancellor to confirm ; as that living, as well as Epworth, was 
 in the gift of the crown ; and he was promoted to it by the chancellor 
 on Feb. 9, 1734. See the petition to the chancellor, and the high 
 character given of this young man, in the life of the rector of Epworth. 
 
 But it appears that he afterward swerved from the simplicity of the 
 Gospel, fell into doubts concerning the truth of Divine revelation, and 
 at last became a deist ! I find no particulars of his reconversion : but 
 that it did take place I infer from a note by Mr. John Wesley, on a 
 letter of his, printed in the first volume of the Arminian Magazine, con- 
 taining the following passage : " To be frank, I cannot but look upon 
 your doctrines as of ill consequence. Consequence I say ; for, take 
 them nakedly in themselves, nothing seems more innocent, nay good 
 and holy. Suppose we grant that in you and the rest of the leaders, 
 who are men of sense and discernment, what is called the seal and 
 testimony of the Spirit is something real; yet I have great reason to 
 think, that in the generality of your followers, it is merely the effect 
 of a heated imagination." September 2, 1742. The note is, " No 
 wonder he should think so ; for at that time, and for some years after, 
 he did not believe the Christian revelation." From which it appears, 
 that some years after he was brought back to the Christian faith. Mr. 
 Southey seems to doubt of his ever having been a deist : but surely 
 Mr. Wesley's testimony is sufficient on this point, to whom, Mr. 
 Whitelamb says he had opened his ivhole mind. 
 
 Mr. Wesley knew him to have been a deist, though in other respects 
 an amiable man ; and he produced his deism as the reason, and at the 
 same time an excuse, for his believing that all pretensions to experi- 
 mental religion were the effect of a heated imagination. 
 
 Mr. Romley was not so mindful of his obligations to the Wesley 
 family. On September 6, 1742, when Mr. Wesley visited Epworth, 
 he offered to assist Mr. Romley, who was then curate, by either preach- 
 ing or reading prayers : but the gentleman refused to let him do either, 
 and went immediately and preached a sermon against enthusiasm ! In 
 the evening Mr. Wesley preached in the church yard, standing on the 
 tomb of his father. Mr. Whitelamb was in the congregation, and wrote 
 to him the following letter a few days after; which, because it is so 
 creditable to his feelings, and to the sense he still retained of the many 
 favours which he had received from him and from his family, I shall 
 insert : 
 
 " June 11, 1742. 
 
 " DEAR BROTHER, I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening. 
 Fain would I have spoken with you, but that I am quite at a loss to 
 know how to address or behave. 
 
 '* Your way of thinking is so extraordinary that your presence creates 
 an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world. God grant you 
 and your followers may always have entire liberty of conscience. Will 
 not you allow others the same ?
 
 308 MISS MARY WHSLEY, MRS. WHITELAMB. 
 
 " Indeed, I cannot think as you do, any more than I can help ho- 
 nouring and loving you. Dear sir, will you credit me ? I retain the 
 highest veneration and affection for you. The sight of you moves me 
 strangely. My heart overflows with gratitude : I feel in a higher 
 degree all that tenderness and yearning of bowels, with which I am 
 affected toward every branch of Mr. Wesley's family. I cannot refrain 
 from tears when I reflect, this is the man, who at Oxford was more 
 than a father to me ; this is he whom I have heard expound, or dispute 
 publicly, or preach at St. Mary's with such applause ; and, O that I 
 should ever add, whom I have lately heard preach at Epworth ! (on 
 his father's tombstone.) 
 
 " I am quite forgot. None of the family ever honour me with a line ! 
 Have I been ungrateful ? I appeal to sister Patty, I appeal to Mr. 
 Ellison, whether I have or no. I have been passionate, fickle, a fool : 
 but I hope I shall never be ungrateful. 
 
 " Dear sir, is it in my power to serve or oblige you any way? Glad 
 I should be that you would make use of me. God open all our eyes, 
 and tead us into truth wherever it be! 
 
 "JoHN WHITELAMB." 
 
 His wife Mary did not long survive her marriage. She died in child- 
 bed of her first child. How all the family could quite have forgotten 
 Mr. Whitelamb I cannot tell. There must have been something im- 
 proper in his conduct : indeed, he seems to hint at this in the above 
 letter, " / have been passionate, fickle, a fool ;" and in one of the 2d 
 Sept. in the same year, 1742, to Charles, he writes, " J. Whitelamb 
 was never either ungrateful, or vicious ; though by the heat of youthful 
 blood, and tvant of experience in the. icorld, he has been betrayed into 
 very great follies." The Mr. Ellison mentioned above was the hus- 
 band of Susanna Wesley ; and Patty was Mrs. Hall, both of whom 
 will be mentioned in their proper places. 
 
 That Mr. Wesley still felt a parental affection and anxiety for his old 
 pupil, Mr. Whitelamb, and especially in reference to his eternal interests, 
 will appear from the following extract of one of his letters to Mrs. 
 Woodhouse of Epworth, in answer to one which that lady had written, 
 giving an account of Mr. Whitelamb's death : 
 
 " Ocl 4, 1769. 
 
 " How long is it since Mr. Whitelamb died ? What disease 
 
 did he die of? Did he lie ill for any time? Do you know any circum- 
 stances preceding or attending his death ? O, why did he not die forty 
 years ago, while he knew in whom he had believed ! Unsearchable are 
 the counsels of God, and his ways past finding out. 
 
 " JOHN WESLEY." 
 
 The Whitelamb family have been long very respectable in Lincoln- 
 shire, and particularly at Wroote, where one of them succeeded to the 
 pastoral charge in that parish ; and was remarkable for his various 
 learning, and especially for his great skill in mathematics. 
 
 As for the husband of Miss Mary Wesley, we may charitably hope 
 from his sound education, and his long-tried piety, that whatever doubts 
 might for a time have obscured his views of the sacred records, and
 
 MISS MARY WESLEY, BIR8. WII1TEJ.AMB. 309 
 
 paralyzed his religious feelings and experience, his former principles 
 regained their influence and ascendency, and that he died in the faith 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 The verses to Mrs. Whitelamb's memory, with her epitaph, com- 
 posed by her sister Wright, I think it proper to subjoin ; from which 
 we learn that she was a most steady and affectionate friend ; was deeply 
 devoted to God ; full of humility and goodness ; and diligent in all the 
 duties of life. 
 
 But she was a Wesley ; and in that singular family excellencies of 
 all kinds were to be found, and the female part were as conspicuous as 
 the in a Ir. 
 
 In the following lines, which are full of mind and feeling, we shall 
 find allusion to the source whence the miseries of Mrs. Wright's life 
 proceeded. These will be considered at large in the account of herself. 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. MARY WHITELAMB. 
 
 BY HER SISTER, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 IP blissful spirits condescend to know, 
 
 And hover round what once they loved below ; 
 
 Maria! gentlest excellence ! attend 
 
 To her, who glories to have called thee friend .' 
 
 Remote in merit, tho' allied in blood, 5 
 
 Unworthy I, and thou divinely good ! 
 
 Accept, blest shade, from me these artless lays, 
 
 Who never could unjustly blame, or praise. 
 
 How thy economy and sense outweighed 
 
 The finest wit in utmost pomp display'd, 10 
 
 Let others sing, while I attempt to paint 
 
 The godlike virtues of the friend and saint. 
 
 With business and devotion never cloy'd, 
 No moment of thy life pass'd unemployed, 
 
 Well natured mirth, matured discretion joined, 15 
 
 Constant attendants of the virtuous mind. 
 From earliest dawn of youth, in thee well known, 
 The saint sublime and finished Christian shone. 
 Yet would not grace one grain of pride allow, 
 
 Or cry, " Stand off, I'm holier than thou." 20 
 
 A worth so singular since time began, 
 But one surpassed, and He was more than man. 
 When deep immers'd in griefs beyond redress, 
 And friends and kindred heightened my distress, 
 And with relentless efforts made me prove 25 
 
 Pain, grief, despair, and wedlock without love ; 
 My soft Maria could alone dissent, 
 O'erlook'd the fatal vow, and mourn'd the punishment ! 
 Condoled the ill, admitting no relief, 
 
 With such infinitude of pitying grief, 30 
 
 That all who could not my demerit see, 
 Mistook her wond'rous lore for worth in me ; 
 No toil, reproach, or sickness could divide 
 The tender mourner from her Stella's side ; 
 
 My fierce inquietude, and madd'ning care, 35 
 
 Skilful to soothe, or resolute to share ! 
 
 Ah me ! that Heaven has from this bosom tore 
 My angel friend, to meet on earth no more . 
 That this indulgent spirit soars away, 
 Leaves but a situ insentient mans of clay ; 40
 
 310 MIS8 MARY WESLEY, MRS. WHITELAMB. 
 
 E'er Stella could discharge the smallest part 
 
 Of all she owed to such immense desert ; 
 
 Or could repay with ought but feeble praise 
 
 The sole companion of her joyless days ! 
 
 Nor was thy form unfair, tho' Heaven confined 45 
 
 To scanty limits thy exalted mind. 
 
 Witness thy brow serene, benignant, clear, 
 
 That none could doubt transcendent truth dwelt there ; 
 
 Witness the taintless whiteness of thy skin, 
 
 Pure emblem of the purer soul within : 50 
 
 That soul, which tender, unassuming, mild, 
 
 Through jetty eyes with tranquil sweetness smil'd. 
 
 But, ah ! could fancy paint, or language speak, 
 
 The roseate beauties of thy lip or cheek, 
 
 Where nature's pencil, leaving art no room, 55 
 
 Touch'd to a miracle the vernal bloom. 
 
 (Lost though thou art) in Stella's deathless line 
 
 Thy face immortal as thy fame should shine. 
 
 To soundest prudence (life's unerring guide) 
 
 To love sincere, religion without pride : 60 
 
 To friendship perfect in a female mind 
 Which I nor hope, nor wish, on earth to find : 
 To mirth, (the balm of care,) from lightness free, 
 Unblemish'd faith, unwearied industry. 
 
 To every charm and grace combin'd in you, 65 
 
 Sister, and friend ! a long, a last adieu ! 
 
 MH. JOHN WESLEY'S ALTERATIONS. 
 
 Line 1. Happy spirits are allowed. Blissful spirits condescend. 
 
 Line 6. The? worthless I. Unworthy I. 
 
 Line 7. Dear. Blest. 
 
 Line 8. Durst. Could. 
 
 Sixteen lines are entirely left out, beginning From earliest dawn, 
 
 Lines 31, 32, 35, and 36, are entirely left out. 
 
 Line 37. Torn. Tore. 
 
 Line 33. The dearest friend whom I must ever mourn. 
 
 Lines 39, 40, left out. 
 
 Line 45. Pleasing thy face and form. Nor was thy form unfair. 
 
 Line 46. Extensive. Exalted. 
 
 Line 49. Lustre. Whiteness. 
 
 Line 50. Bright, brighter. Pure, purer. 
 
 Line 51. Easy and affected. Tender, unassuming. 
 
 Line 52. Cheerful. Tranquil. 
 
 The four next lines are left out, beginning But ah ! could fancy paint. 
 
 Line 60. Void of. Without. 
 
 Line 62. Which I can never hope again. Nor hope, nor wish on earth. 
 
 Line 64. To steadfast truth. Unblemish'd faith. 
 
 Line 66. Long and last adieu. 
 
 A copy of these verses was published in the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for December, 1736, vol. vi, p. 740, with the following inscription : 
 " To the memory of Mrs. MARY WHITELAMB, daughter of the late Rev. 
 Mr. WESLEY, rector of Epworth and Wroote." From it I have reco- 
 vered a few stanzas omitted in the MS. ; otherwise it is very imperfect, 
 
 EPITAPH ON MRS. MARY WHITELAMB. 
 
 BT HR SISTER, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 IF highest worth in beauty's bloom 
 Exempted mortals from the tomb; 
 We had not round this sacred bier 
 Mourned the sweet babe and mother here, 
 
 
 
 v'
 
 MISS ANNE WE8LET, MRS. LAMBERT. 311 
 
 Where innocence from harm is blest, 
 And the meek sufferer is at rest ! 
 Fierce pangs she here without complaint, 
 Till Heaven relieved the finished saint. 
 
 If savage bosoms felt her wo, 
 (Who lived and died without a foe,) 
 How should I mourn, or how commend, 
 My tenderest, dearest, firmest friend? 
 Most pious, meek, resign'd and chaste, 
 With every social virtue graced ! 
 
 If, reader, thou would'st prove, and know, 
 The ease she found not here below ; 
 Her bright example points the way 
 To perfect bliss, and endless day. 
 
 I have not been able to recover any thing written either in prose or 
 verse by Mrs. Whitelamb ; and without this short and imperfect me- 
 moir, her name would have been soon consigned to oblivion. 
 
 MISS ANNE WESLEY, MRS. LAMBERT. 
 
 OF this lady I find no record among the family papers, nor from any 
 of the survivors in any of its branches, buOhat she was married to a 
 gentleman of the name of John Lambert, of whom I know but this ; 
 that he was a land-surveyor in Epworth. Mr. and Mrs. Lambert are 
 the persons probably meant by Mr. Wesley in his Journal, under the 
 date Tuesday, June 8th, 1742, where he says, "I walked to Hibald- 
 stone, about ten miles from Epworth, to see my brother and sister :" 
 but he mentions no name. 
 
 On her marriage her brother Samuel presented to Mr. Lambert and 
 her the following verses : 
 
 TO MRS. LAMBERT, 
 
 ON HER MARRIAGE. 
 
 No fiction fine shall guide my hand, 
 
 But artless truth the verse supply ; 
 Which all with ease may understand, 
 
 But none be able to deny. 
 
 Nor, sister, take the care nmiss 
 y 
 
 To 
 
 Let love your reason never blind, 
 To dream of paradise below ; 
 
 For sorrows must attend mankind, 
 And pain, and weariness, and wo ! 
 
 Though still from mutual love, relief 
 In all conditions may be found, 
 
 It cures at once the common grief, 
 And softens the severest wound.
 
 MISS SUSANNA WESLEV, MRS. ELLISON. 
 
 Thro' diligence and well earned gain, 
 
 In growing plenty may you live! 
 And each in piety obtain 
 
 Repose that riches cannot give ! 
 
 If children e'er should bless the bed, 
 
 O rather let them infants die, 
 Than live to grieve the hoary head, 
 
 And make the aged father sigh ! 
 
 Still duteous, let them ne'er conspire 
 
 To make their parents disagree ; 
 No son be rival to his sire, 
 
 No daughter more beloved than tliee ! 
 
 Let them be humble, pious, wise, 
 
 Nor higher station wish to know ; 
 Since only those deserve to rise, 
 
 Who live contented to be Imo. 
 
 Firm let the husband's empire stand, 
 
 With easy but unquestioned sway ; 
 May HB have kindness to command, 
 
 And THOU the bravery to obey ! 
 
 Long may he give thee comfort, long 
 
 As the frail knot of life shall hold ! 
 More than a father when thou 'rt young, 
 
 More Jfcan a son when waxing old. 
 
 The greatest earthly pleasure try, 
 
 Allowed by Providence Divine ; 
 Be still a husband, blest as I, 
 
 And thou a wife as good as mine / 
 
 There is much good sense, and piety, and suitable advice, in these 
 verses ; and they give an additional testimony to the domestic happi- 
 ness of Mr. Samuel Wesley, their author. 
 
 We have to regret, that of Mrs. Lambert, her husband, and their 
 children, if they had any, we know nothing farther. As every member 
 of this family, of whom we have any memoirs, has afforded us lessons of 
 instruction in some of the weightiest concerns of life ; I wish the above 
 verses in the hands of every new-married couple in the kingdom. 
 
 MISS SUSANNA WESLEY.-MRS. ELLISON. 
 
 I HAVE not been able to ascertain the year in which Susanna Wesley 
 was born : but it was some time between 1700 and 1702, as in the list 
 of the ten children she stands before her brother John, who was born 
 in 1703. Of her youth I find little. She is reported to have been good- 
 natured, very facetious, and a little romantic, but behaved herself with 
 the strictest moral correctness. She married Richard Ellison, Esq., a 
 gentleman of good family, who farmed his own estate, and had a very 
 respectable establishment. But though she bore him several children, 
 the marriage, like some others in the Wesley family, was not a happy 
 one. She had a mind naturally strong and vivacious, and well refined 
 by a good education : his was common, coarse, and uncultivated, mo-
 
 MISS 
 
 WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 315 
 
 rose, and too much incline ABEL WESLEY.-MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 happiness. Unfitness of d also Hetty, and by her brother Samuel 
 general mars the marriage umth child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, 
 happiness and contentment are survivors : but she was probably their 
 
 Susan was much beloved byjral had died in infancy, whose names 
 with her Mr. Ellison, for a time, 
 
 What little domestic happinessuch proofs of strong mental powers 
 but finally destroyed, by a distress with the utmost care and diligence, 
 their dwelling house, by which it anerly directed, and bring forth cor- 
 the family alone escaped with their liv 
 
 scattered among different relations, on were crowned with success ; 
 I cannot learn : but from that time she had made such proficiency in 
 with her husband ! She went tcould read the Greek text. 
 of her children who were esthetic genius, which, though common to the 
 from her brother John, thn in her with peculiar splendour, and was 
 lison usd many means tdge of the fine models of antiquity. 
 either to see him, or to ha* was gay and sprightly ; full of mirth, good 
 
 As he knew her affectirihe indulged this disposition so much, that it 
 to Lincolnshire, he adv great uneasiness to her parents ; because she 
 her ear, she immediately n betrayed into little inadvertencies, which, 
 of respect to his remains : themselves, showed that her mind was not 
 returned ; and no persuasion" that fancy, noypeason, often dictated that 
 
 It does not appea^n she thought proper to pursue. A spirit of this 
 
 of this aversion sous disposition ; and is rarely connected with a sufii- 
 
 pursue it by copice and discretion to prevent it from injuring itself, and 
 
 traced and well s. She appears to have had many suitors ; but they 
 
 . nesley Ellison, jf the airy and thoughtless class, and ill suited to make 
 
 1. John Ellison useful in a matrimonial life. 
 
 excise, or custoirthose proposed matches, in very early life, I believe 
 
 loth Ellison, who s allude, which I find in her father's hand writing, 
 
 Mr. J. Wesley sho. J. Wesley " Hetty's letter to her mother" 
 
 which her impruder.. _ 
 
 ness, and giving her au* , once in ^ ew , n , 
 
 her to true happiness ; ai ; plainly shown, 
 
 was a member of a disst. 'er come after. 
 
 ducted herself as a useful me 1 " 1 ' *" need 
 
 tian. He also left a son name^ k d '^ e e r r ,P lead 
 
 able man in good circumstanc 
 
 Bristol. man > n tne profession of the law paid 
 
 2. Jinn Ellison married Mr. 1 <1 became greatly attached ; and a 
 fugee. He left one son, Peter Lit ' P lace > when her father interfered, 
 school; took orders in the Church Vantage of the gentleman, which 
 living of Lultencorth, in Leicestershu ncipled lawyer." This interfe- 
 religious man, and has left a family in com\ he refused to give him up, 
 son is a clergyman of good character. TfhT nts> consent 5 and had 
 second marriage with a gentleman named Gaunt, wl d in a11 P r o babll 'ty 
 widow. It was in the house of this Mrs. Gaunt, that PP os .# n . h ? 
 formerly Susanna Wesley, died in London. The year of "this second* 
 marriage I have not been able to ascertain. 
 
 3. Deborah Ellison married another French refugee, Mr. Pierre 
 
 40
 
 312 
 
 *. 
 
 MISS SUSANNA WESLEV, SIRS. J 
 
 Thro' diligence and well earned gi 
 
 In growing plenty may you hv e fc yet a lj ve . B otn 
 And each in piety obtain 
 
 Repose that riches cannot f 
 
 .enty-seven, leaving two orphan 
 If children e'er should bIep O ne, an excellent warm-hearted 
 
 O rather let them mfarU minister< This excellent COU- 
 Than live to grieve the IK 6 . _ .. 
 
 And make the aged f' n in the East Indies, another an 
 rs, one of whom is lately married. 
 Still duteous, let them 
 
 No son be riva^o^" 63 ^ 6 )'' 8 grandchildren are alive ; the 
 No daughter mo.Mrs. Biam, and Mr. Collet, brother of 
 tended to traduce the character of Mr. 
 
 n w S d <* ** highest obligations. 
 Since only those deserve U,able to add, that all his forgeries 
 Who live contented to be U repented of those calumnies 
 
 . iy held them in abhorrence. 
 Firm let the husband's empire sU< x ,. . . 
 
 With easy but unquestioned s .> p -vre,) was a fine-looking 
 May HE have kindness to common abundance*;** wit. She 
 
 And THOU the bravery to obey ! latter years by Mr. John 
 
 Long may he give thee comfort, !**" i nr 
 
 As the frail knot of life shall h^ie, Matthew Weslty, after 
 More than a father when thou ' e in Lincoln as a teacher ; 
 
 More J^n a ton when wa: , s h O rough, assisted her in her 
 The greatest earthly pleasure try, ^r sent that beautiful 
 
 Allowed by Providence Divine; will find entered 
 
 Be still a husband, blest as I, 
 
 And thou a wife as good as mine .' 
 
 There is much good sense, and piety, and suitable ? 
 verses ; and they give an additional testimony to the t 
 ness of Mr. Samuel Wesley, their author. 
 
 We have to regret, that of Mrs. Lambert, her hipeople called Me- 
 children, if they had any, we know nothing farther, connected order of 
 of this family, of whom we have any memoirs, has^fe, on the 17th June, 
 instruction in some of the weightiest concerns rjn the City Road, March 
 verses in the hands of every new-married cage, and the sixty-fifth of his 
 
 Rev. Drc Coke, and the Rev. 
 MISS SUSANNA WESLEY,- - ^ 
 
 I HAVE not been able to ascertain the * " 
 was born : but it was some time betw^ 8 ' ** mo - 
 of the ten children she stands beforf oet Laureat, 2 vols. 8vo. 
 in 1703. Of her youth I find little. jve accounts may possess, a proper 
 natured, very facetious, and a litt' a desideratum m the religious world.* 
 the strictest moral correctness^ Ued ^ two biograj > hies> wh ichhave been more 
 gentleman of good fami,Vit.led "The Life of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M., Fellow 
 respectable establish*ord ; in which are included, The Life of his Brother, the Rev. 
 the ma^'affe !" A. M., &c, by the Rev. Henry Moore" the other under the. fpl- 
 .owing tilled The Life of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M., sometime Fellow of Lin- 
 coln College," Oxford, and Founder of the Methodist Societies, by the Rev. Richard 
 Watson," author of Theological Institutes, Theological and Biblical Dictionary, &c i 
 both of which have been repubtished at the Methodist Episcopal Press, and are now 
 on sale at 14 Crosby-street, New-York. ED.]
 
 MISS HRTTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 315 
 
 MISS MEHETABEL WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 JWehctabel Wesley, called also Hetty, and by her brother Samuel 
 sometimes Kitty, is the seventh child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, 
 as they stand on my list of his survivors : but she was probably their 
 tenth or eleventh child ; for several had died in infancy, whose names 
 are now forgotten. 
 
 Hetty gave from her infancy such proofs of strong mental powers 
 as led her parents to cultivate them with the utmost care and diligence, 
 that they might be extended, properly directed, and bring forth cor- 
 responding fruits. 
 
 The pains taken with her education were crowned with success ; 
 for at the early age of eight years she had made such proficiency in 
 the learned languages that she could read the Greek text. 
 
 She had naturally a fine, poetic genius, which, though common to the 
 whole family, shone forth in her with peculiar splendour, and was 
 heightened by her knowledge of the fine models of antiquity. 
 
 From h0r childhood she was gay and sprightly ; full of mirth, good 
 huroour, and keen wit. She indulged this disposition so much, that it 
 was said to have given great uneasiness to her parents ; because she 
 was in consequence often betrayed into little inadvertencies, which, 
 though of small moment in themselves, showed that her mind was not 
 under proper discipline ; and that fancy, noypeason, often dictated that 
 line of conduct which she thought proper to pursue. A spirit of this 
 kind is a dangerous disposition ; and is rarely connected with a suffi- 
 ciency of prudence and discretion to prevent it from injuring itself, and 
 offending others. She appears to have had many suitors; but they 
 were generally of the airy and thoughtless class, and ill suited to make 
 her either happy or useful in a matrimonial life. 
 
 To some of those proposed matches, in very early life, I believe 
 the following lines allude, which I find in her father's hand writing, 
 and marked by Mr. J. Wesley " Hetty's letter to her mother" 
 
 *"DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 "You were once in the ew'n, 
 As by us cakes is plainly shown, 
 
 Who else had ne'er come after. 
 Pray speak a word in time of need, 
 And with my eour-look'd father plead 
 
 For your distressed daughter !" 
 
 About the year 1724 a gentleman in the profession of the law paid 
 his addresses to her : to him she became greatly attached ; and a 
 marriage was on the eve of taking place, when her father interfered, 
 having heard something to the disadvantage of the gentleman, which 
 fed him to pronounce him "an unprincipled lawyer." This interfe- 
 rence, however, did not move Hetty. She refused to give him up, 
 though not inclined to marry without her parents' consent; and had 
 he been equally faithful to her, the connection would in all probability 
 have issued in marriage : but, whether offended with the opposition he 
 met with from the family, or whether through fickleness, he in fact 
 remitted his assiduities, and at last abandoned a woman who would 
 have been an honour to the first man in the land. 
 
 The matter thus terminating, she appears to have done what many
 
 316 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 others in similar circumstances have done, made a rash vow, either 
 never to marry another, or to take the first man that might offer, whose 
 suit her parents might approve. Which of these formed the vow I 
 have not been able to determine. Mr. Wright, a plumber and glazier, 
 in good circumstances, offered, and was recommended by parental 
 authority : and as her parents saw that her mind was strongly attached 
 to the man who had jilted her, in order to prevent the possibility of a 
 union in that quarter, her father urged her to marry Wright. She 
 found him to be a man utterly unsuited to her in mind, education, man- 
 ners, &c; and in consequence expressed her strong disapprobation, 
 and earnestly begged that parental authority might not be used to 
 induce her to adopt a measure that promised no comfort to her, and 
 might prove her ruin. Her father appears to have been inexorable ; 
 she was doubly bound by her filial duty, and her vow. 
 
 Mary, of all her sisters, had the courage to counsel her rather to 
 break that vow than do what she saw would most infallibly produce 
 her misery through life. To this she alludes in her fine lines address- 
 ed to the memory of Mrs. Mary Whitelamb : 
 
 "When deep immersed in griefs beyond redress, 
 And friends and kindred heightened my distress ; 
 And by relentless efforts made me prove 
 Pain, grief, despair, and wedlock without love; 
 My soft Marimtould alone dissent, 
 O'erlook'd the fatal vow, and mourned the punishment." 
 
 But this ill-fated marriage took place ; and if unkiridness of treat- 
 ment had not been added to utter unsuitableness of disposition, her lot 
 would have been less grievous. Mr. Wright did not know the value 
 of the woman he had espoused ! He associated with low dissolute 
 company ; spent his evenings from home ; became a drunkard ; and, by 
 a series of ill management and ill treatment, broke the heart of his wife. 
 
 W r hen this marriage took place I cannot learn. Dr. W r hitehead 
 thinks it was in the end of the year 1725. I think it was not so early, 
 as a letter which I shall subjoin written in 1729, seems to have been 
 sent a little after her marriage. That she was almost compelled to 
 marry Mr. Wright, this letter, written to her father, I think plainly 
 intimates. I cannot suppress it, as it throws the proper light on this 
 hitherto unexplained unfortunate transaction : 
 
 "July 3, 1729. 
 
 " HONOURED SIR, Though I was glad on any terms, of the favour 
 of a line from you : yet I was concerned at your displeasure on account 
 of the unfortunate paragraph, which you are pleased to say waa meant 
 for the flower of my letter, but which was in reality the only thing I 
 disliked in it before it went. I wish it had not gone, since I perceive 
 it gave you some uneasiness. 
 
 " But since what I said occasioned some queries, which I should be 
 glad to speak freely about, were I sure that the least I could say would 
 not grieve or offend you, or were I so happy as to think like you in 
 every thing ; I earnestly beg that the little I shall say may not be 
 offensive to you, since I promise to be as little witty as possible, though 
 I can't help saying, you only accuse me of being too much so ; espe- 
 cially these late years past I have been pretty free from that scandal.
 
 MISS HF.TTV WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 317 
 
 " You ask me, * what hurt matrimony has done me ?' and ' whether 
 I had always so frightful an idea of it as I have now ?' Home questions 
 indeed ! and I once more beg of you not to be offended at the least I 
 can say to them, if I say any thing. 
 
 " I had not always such notions of wedlock as now : but thought 
 that where there was a mutual affection and desire of pleasing, some- 
 thing near an equality of mind and person ; either earthly or heavenly 
 wisdom, and any thing to keep love warm between a young couple, 
 there was a possibility of happiness in a married state : but where all, 
 or most of these, were wanting, I ever thought people could not marry 
 without sinning against God and themselves. 
 
 " I could say much more : but would rather eternally stifle my 
 sentiments than have the torment of thinking they agree not with 
 yours. 
 
 " You are so good to my spouse and me, as to say, ' you shall 
 always think yourself obliged to him for his civilities to me.' I hope 
 he will always continue to use me better than I merit from him in one 
 respect. 
 
 "I think exactly the same of my marriage as I did before it 
 happened : but though I would have given at least one of my eyes for 
 the liberty of throwing myself at your feet before I was married at all; 
 yet since it is past, and matrimonial grievances are usually irreparable, 
 I hope you will condescend to be so far of my opinion, as to own, 
 that since upon some accounts I am happier than I deserve, it is best 
 to say little of things quite past remedy ; and endeavour, as I really 
 do, to make myself more and more contented, though things may not 
 be to my wish. 
 
 " You say, ' you will answer this if you like it.' Now though I am 
 sorry to occasion your writing in the pain I am sensible you do ; yet I 
 must desire you to answer it, whether you like it or not, since if you are 
 displeased, I would willingly know it ; and the only thing that could 
 make me patient to endure your displeasure is your thinking I deserve it. 
 
 " Though I can't justify my late indiscreet letter which made me say 
 so much in this ; yet I need not remind you that I am not more than 
 human ; and if the calamities of life (of which perhaps I have my share,) 
 sometimes wring a complaint from me, I need tell no one, that though 
 / bear I must feel them. And if you cannot forgive what I have said, 
 I sincerely promise never more to offend you by saying too much, 
 which (with begging your blessing) is all from 
 
 " Your most obedient daughter, 
 
 "MEHET. WRIGHT." 
 
 Here we see the impelling cause of this ill-fated match ; and in the 
 following address to her husband, the powerful operating cause of her 
 continual chagrin and wretchedness : 
 
 1 THE ardent lover cannot find 
 A coldness in his fair unkind, 
 But blaming what he cannot hate, 
 He mildly chides the dear ingrate ; 
 And tho' despairing of relief, 
 In soft complaining vents his grief.
 
 318 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT, 
 
 2 Then what should hinder but that I, 
 Impatient of my wrongs, may try, 
 By saddest softest strains, to move 
 My wedded, latest, dearest love. 
 To throw his cold neglect aside, 
 
 And cheer once more his injured bride? 
 
 3 O thou whom sacred rites design'd 
 My guide, and husband ever kind, 
 My sovereign master, best of friends, 
 On whom my earthly bliss depends ; 
 If e'er thou didst in Hetty see 
 Aught fair, or good, or dear to thee, 
 If gentle speech can ever move 
 
 The cold remains of former love, 
 Turn thee at last my bosom ease, 
 Or tell me why I cease to please. 
 
 4 Is it because revolving years, 
 Heart-breaking sighs, and fruitless tears, 
 Have quite deprived this form of mine 
 Of all that once thou fanciedst fine ? 
 
 Ah no ! what once allured thy sight 
 Is still in its meridian height. 
 These eyes their usual lustre show, 
 When uneclipsed by flowing wo. 
 Old age and wrinkles in this face 
 As yet could never find a place : 
 A youthful grace informs these lines, 
 Where still the purple current shines ; 
 Unless, by thy ungentle art, 
 It flies to aid my wretched heart : 
 Nor does this slighted bosom show 
 The thousand hours it spends in wo. 
 
 5 Or is it that, oppressed with care, 
 
 I stun with loud complaints thine ear, 
 And make thy home, for quiet meant, 
 The seat of noise and discontent? 
 Ah no ! those ears were ever free 
 From matrimonial melody : 
 For tho' thine absence I lament 
 When half the lonely night is spent, 
 Yet when the watch or early morn 
 Has brought me hopes of thy return, 
 I oft have wiped these watchful eyes, 
 Concealed my cares, and curbed my sighs, 
 In spite of grief, to let thee see 
 I wore an endless smile for thee. 
 
 6 Had I not practis'd every art 
 
 T' oblige, divert, and cheer thy heart, 
 To make me pleasing in thine eyes, 
 And turn thy house to paradise ; 
 I had not ask'd " Why dost thou shun 
 These faithful arms, and eager run 
 To some obscure, unclean retreat, 
 With_/lend* incarnate glad to meet, 
 The vile companions of thy mirth, 
 The scum and refuse of the earth : 
 Who, when inspired by beer, can grin 
 At witless oaths and jests obscene, 
 Till the most learned of the throng 
 Begins a tale of ten hours long ;
 
 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 319 
 
 While thou in raptures with stretched jaws 
 Crownest each joke with loud applause ?" 
 
 7 Deprived of freedom, health, and ease, 
 And rivall'd by such things as these ; 
 This latest effort will I try, 
 
 Or to regain thy heart, or die. 
 
 Soft as I am, I'll make thee see 
 
 I will not brook contempt from thee ! 
 
 8 Then quit the shuffling doubtful sense, 
 Nor hold me longer in suspense ; 
 Unkind, ungrateful as thou art, 
 
 Say, must I ne'er regain thy heart ? 
 Must all attempts to please thee prove 
 Unable to regain thy lore ? 
 
 9 If so, by truth itself I swear, 
 The sad reverse I cannot bear : 
 No rest, no pleasure will I see ; 
 My whole of bliss is lost with thee ! 
 I'll give all thoughts of patience o'er ; 
 (A gift I never lost before ;) 
 Indulge at once my rage and grief, 
 Mourn obstinate, disdain relief, 
 And call that wretch my mortal foe, 
 Who tries to mitigate my wo ; 
 
 Till life, on terms severe as these, 
 Shall, ebbing, leave my heart at ease ; 
 To thee thy liberty restore 
 To laugh when Hetty is no more. 
 
 )< 
 
 It is not likely that these lines produced any good effect on the untu- 
 tored and sin-hardened heart of Mr. Wright : there is no evidence that 
 he amended ; or that her lot in life was ameliorated, till in her distress 
 she turned her eyes to Him, who is a cover from the storm, and a 
 refuge to the distressed. 
 
 That she was fully awakened to a sense of her need of the Friend of 
 sinners, and sought and found that great salvation which her brothers 
 so powerfully and successfully preached, may be seen by the following 
 letters. 
 
 In 1743, she wrote as follows to her brother, Mr. John Wesley : 
 
 " Some years ago I told my brother Charles, I could not be of his 
 way of thinking then ; but that if ever I was, I would as freely own it. 
 
 " After I was convinced of sin, and of your opinions, as far as I had 
 examined your principles, I still forbore declaring my sentiments as 
 openly as I had an inclination to do, fearing I should relapse into my 
 former state. When I was delivered from this fear, and had a blessed 
 hope that He who had begun would finish his work, I never confessed 
 so powerfully as I ought how entirely I was of your mind ; because I 
 was taxed with insincerity and hypocrisy whenever I opened my mouth 
 in favour of religion, or owned how great things God had done for me. 
 
 " This discouraged me utterly, and prevented me from making my 
 change so public, as my folly and vanity had formerly been. But now 
 my health is gone, I cannot be easy without declaring that I have long 
 desired to know one thing, Jesus Christ and him crucified ; and this 
 desire prevails above all others.
 
 320 MISS HETTT WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 " And though I am cut off from all human help, or ministry, I am 
 not without assistance : though I have no spiritual friend, nor ever had 
 one yet, except perhaps once in a year or two when I have seen one of 
 my brothers, or some other religious person by stealth ; yet (no thanks 
 to me) I am enabled to seek him still, and to be satisfied with nothing 
 less than God, in whose presence I affirm this truth. I dare not desire 
 health ; only patience, resignation, and the spirit of a healthful mind. 
 I have been so long weak, that I know not how long my trial may last : 
 but I have a firm persuasion, and blessed hope, (though no full assur- 
 ance,) that in the country I am going to I shall not sing hallelujah, and 
 holy, holy, holy, without company, as I have done in this. Dear bro- 
 ther, I am unable to speak or write on these things ; I only speak my 
 plain thoughts as they occur. Adieu : if you have time from better 
 business to send a line to Stanmore, so great a comfort would be as 
 welcome as it is wanted." 
 
 The Stanmore here mentioned, was probably that near Edgeware, 
 about ten miles from London. It is near a hill so very high, that the 
 trees on its top are a landmark from the German ocean. 
 
 What an infinite mercy that such a mind, harassed out with distress 
 and anguish, found at last a resting place. This was the means of pre- 
 serving for several years a life that previously stood on the very verge 
 of the grave. In the following year, 1744, she visited Bristol, where 
 she had the opportunity of sitting under the ministry of her brothers, 
 and of being connected with the very holy and sensible members of the 
 Methodist society in that place ! She profited much by their pious con- 
 versation, and their Christian experience. She was led to that light 
 which manifests whatsoever is not wrought of God ; she saw the depth 
 of her natural corruption, and she mourned as in sackcloth and ashes, 
 till she found redemption in the blood of the Lamb. She then went on 
 rejoicing in God her salvation, sustained in all her troubles, strength- 
 ened in all her weakness, growing in grace and in the knowledge of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, till her happy spirit returned to God. Her brother 
 Charles visited her in her last illness. In the month in which she died 
 he thus mentions her : " Prayed by my sister Wright, a gracious, ten- 
 der, trembling soul ; a bruised reed which the Lord will not break." 
 She died March 21, 1751 ; and Mr. Charles Wesley preached her 
 funeral sermon from these words : " Thy sun shall no more go down, 
 neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine ever- 
 lasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." During 
 this solemn service both he and his congregation were deeply affected. 
 
 Mr. W r right had an establishment in Frith-street, Soho, London, 
 where he carried on his business of plumbing and glazing ; and had 
 lead works connected with the others, the former of which injured his 
 own health and very materially that of Mrs. WVight. 
 
 They had several children but all died young ; and it was their mo- 
 ther's opinion that the effluvia from the lead works were the cause of 
 their death. This she told Mr. Duncombe, when he visited her not 
 long before she died. This gentleman wrote a small tract, quarto, 
 price one shilling, called the Feminead, containing the characters and 
 praises of several eminent ladies, of whom Mrs. Wright was one ; and,
 
 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 321 
 
 like many other superficial thinkers and reflectors, who publish their 
 own prejudices instead of facts, he attributed her wo- worn state to false 
 views she had taken of religion, which filled her with a gloomy, and, to 
 her, destructive superstition ! His verses on the subject are not worth 
 repeating : but as they have been produced by others of like opinion, I 
 shall subjoin them ; and the reader will see at once that they are flatly 
 contradicted and nullified by the preceding account. 
 
 " But ah ! why heaves my breast this pensive sigh ? 
 Why starts this tear unbidden from my eye ? 
 What breast from sighs, what eye from tears refrains, 
 When, sweetly mournful, hapless Wright complains? 
 And who but grieves to see her generous mind, 
 Por nobler views and worthier guests design'd, 
 Amidst the hateful form of black despair, 
 Wan with the gloom of superstitious care ? 
 In pity-moving lays, with earnest cries, 
 She called on Heaven to close her weary eyes, 
 And long on earth, by heartfelt woes opprest, 
 Was borne by friendly death to welcome rest." 
 
 Nothing can be more false than this statement ; it was her unsuitable, 
 wretched, ill-fated marriage ; the neglect and unkindness, the unfeel- 
 ingness and profligacy, of a worthless husband, that was the cause of 
 all her distresses ; and these causes of misery continued to prey on her 
 spirits and on her body, till the religion of the God of heaven came to 
 her aid ; which it did many years, at least eight, before her death. 
 
 Had not the wound she had received in her constitution been too 
 deep, the salvation of God which she obtained would have healed her 
 body : It was nevertheless the means of lengthening out her life many 
 years, and giving her to taste that happiness she had before sought in 
 vain, in what Mr. Duncombe calls " nobler views and worthier guests." 
 And the angels of heaven, not " friendly death" or oblivion, bore her 
 soul at last to rest in the bosom of her Father and her God. 
 
 Mr. Duncombe parries all this by representing Mr. Wright as a very 
 decent, respectable man, carrying on business in his own neighbour- 
 hood. How much decency and respectability he had, let the preceding 
 address from his wife tell. He would of course take as much care as 
 possible that the world should not know that his conduct toward her 
 was the occasion of her broken heart ; she was of too noble a spirit to 
 complain; and it is very probable that Mr. Wright might inform Mr. 
 Duncombe that his wife's shattered constitution was owing to the 
 gloomy views she had taken of religion. However Mr. D. came by 
 his information, the preceding account proves that it was false. Dr. 
 Whitehead has observed justly that " it is grievous to see authors, 
 whose works are likely to be read, take every opportunity to dress out 
 religion in the most ugly forms they can invent to deter young people 
 from embracing it ; and attributing to it the calamities of life, which 
 religion alone is able to alleviate and redress." Such persons have no 
 just notion of religion themselves, and feel nothing of its power and 
 nature ; hence they suspect every person who pretends to any, to be 
 either enthusiasts or hypocrites. 
 
 Mrs. Wright died long before I was bum . but from a gentleman still 
 
 41
 
 322 M1S3 HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 living, who knew her in the decline of life, I have had this description : 
 " She was an elegant woman, with great refinement of manners ; and 
 had the traces of beauty in her countenance, with the appearance of 
 being broken-hearted." 
 
 The account given of her mind and person by a writer who calls 
 himself Sylvius, in the sixth volume of the Gentleman's Magazine for 
 1736, p. 155, is by no means exaggerated. 
 
 TO MRS. W T. 
 
 ON READING HER MANUSCRIPT POEMS. 
 
 Fain would my grateful muse a trophy raise 
 
 Devoted to Granvilla's lasting praise. 
 
 But from what topic shall her task begin ? 
 
 From outward charms ? or richer stores within? 
 
 'T were difficult with portrait just to trace . ., 
 
 The blooming beauties of her lovely FACE ; 
 
 The roseate bloom that blushes on her cheek ; 
 
 Her eyes whence rays of pointed lightning break; 
 
 Each brow the bow of Cupid, whence her darts 
 
 With certain arch'ry strike unguarded hearts; 
 
 Her lips, that with a rubied tincture glow, 
 
 Soft as the soothing sounds which from them flow. 
 
 But O! what words, what numbers, shall I find 
 
 T' express the boundless treasures of her MIND, 
 
 Where wit and judgment spread their copious mines, 
 
 And every grace and every virtue shines ? 
 
 O nymph ! when you assume the muses' lyre, 
 What thoughts you quicken, and what joys inspire ! 
 Pale melancholy wears a cheerful mien ; 
 Grief smiles, and raging passions grow serene. 
 If themes sublime, of import grand, you try, 
 You lift the attentive spirit to the sky ; 
 Or change the strain, and sportive subjects choose, 
 Our soft'ning souls obey the powerful muse. 
 Yet 'tis, Granvilla, not thy smallest praise, 
 That no indecent thought profanes thy lays. 
 Like thy own breast, thy style from taint is free ; 
 Censure may pry, but can no blemish see. 
 No longer let thy muse the press decline ; 
 Publish her lays, and prove her race divine. 
 Long has thy tuneful sire been known to fame ; 
 On him Maria smil'd, a royal name. 
 Thy brother's works, received with rapture, tell 
 That on the son the father's spirit fell : 
 To these the daughter's equal flame subjoin, 
 Then boast, O muses, the unrivall'd line ! 
 
 STLVIUS. 
 
 The above verses Mrs. Wright, who is here called Grai'/a, sent 
 to the Gentleman's Magazine : and on them the same author com- 
 posed the following prize epigram : 
 
 Allowed by bright Granvilla to peruse 
 The sprightly labours of her charming muse ; 
 Enraptur'd by her wit's inspiring rays, 
 I chanted ready numbers to her praise. 
 She, pleased, my unpremeditated liiu-s 
 To 4.he recording Magazine consigns : 
 But would you be to best advantage known, 
 not MI VERSES, /aim(, but Tocn owv.
 
 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MR8. WRIGHT. 323 
 
 This epigram has very fine point in it : but Mrs. Wright could never 
 be prevailed on to collect and give her poems to the public. It is said 
 that she gave them at her death to one of her sisters. Many have been 
 published in different collections. Her niece, Miss Wesley, has kindly 
 furnished me with several ; and from the MSS. I have been enabled 
 to correct the printed copies. Some may be found in the Poetical 
 Register, the Christian Magazine, the Arminian Magazine, and in 
 different Lives of her brothers John and Charles Wesley. 
 
 Most of the following were written under strong mental depression, 
 and before she found the consolations of religion. They are excellent 
 of their kind, and cannot be deemed out of their place at the end of 
 these memoirs. 
 
 Mrs. Wright's address to her dying infant, composed during her 
 confinement, written down from her mouth by her husband, and sent 
 by him to Mr. John Wesley, is a piece inimitable for its tenderness and 
 highly polished numbers : but tinged with that gloom which was her 
 constant attendant throughout her unfortunate marriage. 
 
 The original letter sent with these verses lies before me. It is a 
 curiosity of its kind ; antl one proof among many of the total unh'tness 
 of such a slender and uncultivated mind to match with one of the 
 highest ornaments of her sex. I shall give it entire in its own ortho- 
 graphy, in order to vindicate the complaints of this forlorn woman, who 
 was forced to accept in marriage the rude hand which wrote it. 
 
 " To the Revd. Mr. John Wesley, Fellow in Christ Church College 
 Oxon. 
 
 " DEAR BRO : This comes to Let you know that my wife is brought 
 to bed and is in a hopefull way of Doing well but the Dear child Died 
 the Third day after it was born which has been of great concerne 
 to me and my wife She Joyns With me In Love to your Selfe and Bro : 
 Charles From Your Loveing Bro : to Comnd WM. WRIGHT. 
 
 " PS. Ive sen you Sum Verses that my wife maid of Dear Lamb 
 Let me hear from one or both of you as Soon as you Think Con- 
 veniant." 
 
 The verses follow : but I have taken the liberty to correct Mr. 
 Wright's barbarous orthography. 
 
 The original letter and poem are, like the ancient Hebrew, all with- 
 out points. 
 
 A MOTHER'S ADDRESS TO HER DYING INFANT. 
 
 BT MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 Tender softness ! infant mild ! 
 Perfect, purest, brightest child ! 
 Transient lustre ! beauteous clay ! 
 Smiling wonder of a dny ! 
 Ere Uie last convulsive start 
 Rends thy unresisting heart ; 
 Ere the long-enduring swoon 
 Weigh thy precious eye-lids dc<\vn ;
 
 324 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT, 
 
 Ah, regard a mother's moan, 
 Anguish deeper than thy own. 
 
 Fairest eyes, whose dawning light 
 Late with rapture blest my sight, 
 Ere your orbs extinguish'd be, 
 Bend their trembling beams on me ! 
 
 Drooping sweetness ! verdant flower ! 
 Blooming, withering in an hour ! 
 Ere thy gentle breast sustains 
 Latest, fiercest, mortal pains, 
 Hear a suppliant ! let me be 
 Partner in thy destiny ! 
 That whene'er the fatal cloud 
 Must thy radiant temples shroud : 
 When deadly damps, impending now, 
 Shall hover round thy destined brow, 
 Diffusive may their influence be, 
 And with the blossom blast the tree ! 
 
 LINES 
 
 WRITTEN BT MRS. WRIGHT WHEN IN DEEP ANO0ISH OF SPIRIT, 
 
 J Oppressed with utmost weight of wo, 
 
 Debarr'd of freedom, health, and rest ; 
 What human eloquence can show 
 The inward anguish of my breast. ! 
 
 2 The finest periods of discourse, 
 
 (Rhetoric in all her pompous dress 
 Unmoving) lose their pointed force, 
 When griefs are swell'd beyond redress. 
 
 3 Attempt not then with speeches smooth 
 
 My raging conflicts to control ; 
 
 Nor softest sounds again can soothe 
 
 The wild disorder of my soul ! 
 
 4 Such efforts vain to end my fears, 
 
 And long lost happiness restore, 
 May make me melt in fruitless tears, 
 But charm my tortured soul no more, 
 
 5 Enable me to bear my lot, 
 
 O T/wu who only canst redress ! 
 Eternal God ! forsake me not 
 In this extreme of my distress. 
 
 Regard thy humble suppliant's suit ; 
 
 Nor let me long in anguish pine, 
 Dismay'd, abandon'd, destitute 
 Of all support, but only thine! 
 
 7 Nor health, nor life, I ask of thee; 
 
 Nor languid nature to restore : 
 Say but " a speedy period be 
 To thiese thy griefs," I ask no more !
 
 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 325 
 
 These lines seem to have been written about the time of her address 
 to her husband. Despair of all remedy had nearly drunk up her spirit: 
 but she began to seek help where it could be found. 
 
 The last three verses are very fine. 
 
 THE LUCID INTERVAL. 
 
 BY MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 1 Wear pleasure, Stella ! on thy face, 
 
 Nor check the rising joy : 
 Nor canst thou, since the heart displays 
 Its transport through the eye. 
 
 2 Those dearly welcome hours of rest, 
 
 This pleasing truce from care, 
 Removes the mountain from thy breast, 
 Thou hast not learnt to bear. 
 
 3 Though, distant far from what I love, 
 
 My blooming hopes are crost, 
 Yet free as air my thoughts can rove, 
 In silent rapture lost! 
 
 4 Then, Stella, prize thy present ease, 
 
 This interval of wo: 
 Since other moments blest as these 
 Thy life may never know. 
 
 5 Snatch the fleet pleasures ere they part : 
 
 To-morrow (should'st thou say) 
 Tho' pain may rend this tortured heart, 
 I'll smile and live to-day. 
 
 AN EPITAPH ON HERSELF. 
 
 BT MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 Destin'd while living to sustain 
 An equal share of grief and pain ; 
 All various ills of human race 
 Within this breast had once a place. 
 Without complaint she learn'd to bear 
 A living death, a long despair; 
 Till hard oppress'd by adverse fate, 
 O'ercharg'd, she sunk beneath its weight 
 And to this peaceful tomb retired, 
 So much esteem'd, so long desired. 
 The painful mortal conflict's o'er : 
 A broken heart can bleed no more ! 
 
 THE RESIGNATION: 
 
 A PENITENT HEART HOPING IN GOD. 
 BT MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 I Great Power! at whose almighty hand 
 
 Vengeance and comfort ever wait ; 
 Starting to earth at thy command, 
 To execut* thy love or hate
 
 326 MIS8 HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 2 Thy indignation knits thy brow 
 
 On those who dare to sin give way ; 
 But who so perfect, Lord, below 
 As never from thy word to stray ? 
 
 3 But when thy mighty laws we break, 
 
 And after do our guilt deplore ; 
 Thou dost the word of comfort speak, 
 And treasure up our crimes no more. 
 
 4 O thou, thy mighty grace display, 
 
 And thy offending servant spare ; 
 With pain my body wastes away, 
 My weaken'd limbs with constant care. 
 
 5 Grief has my blaod and spirits drunk, 
 
 My tears do like the night-dew fall ; 
 My cheeks are faded, eyes are sunk, 
 And all my draughts are dash'd with gall. 
 
 6 Thou canst the heavy hand withdraw, 
 
 That bends me downward to the grave ; 
 One healing touch my pain can awe, 
 And thy declining servant save./ 
 
 7 But if thy justice has decreed 
 
 I still must languish out my days ; 
 Support me in the time of need, 
 Patient to bear these slow decays. 
 
 9 Lo ! to thy dreadful will I bow, 
 Thy visitations still to prove ; 
 Thy judgments do thy mercy show, 
 Since, Lord, thou chast'nest in thy love. 
 
 The following address contains some fine sentiments and consolatory 
 thoughts : 
 
 TO A MOTHER, 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF HER CHILDREN. 
 BT MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 1 Though sorer sorrows than their birth 
 
 Your children's death has given ; 
 
 Mourn not that others bear for earth, 
 
 While you have peopled heaven ! 
 
 2 If now so painful 'tis to part, 
 
 O think, that when you meet, 
 Well bought with shortly fleeting smart 
 Is never-ending sweet ! 
 
 3 What if those little angels, nigh 
 
 T' assist your latest pain, 
 Should hover round you when you die, 
 And leave you not again ? 
 
 4 Say, shall you then regret your woes, 
 
 Or mourn your teeming years ? 
 One moment will reward your throes, 
 And overpay your tears. .
 
 MIS8 HETTT WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 327 
 
 5 Redoubled thanks will fill your song : 
 
 Transported while you view 
 Th' inclining, happy, infant throng, 
 That owe their bliss to you ! 
 
 6 So moves the common star, tho' bright, 
 
 With simple lustre crown'd ; 
 The planet shines, with guards of light 
 Attending it around. 
 
 A FAREWELL TO THE WORLD. 
 
 BY MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 While sickness rends this tenement of clay, 
 
 Th' approaching change with pleasure I survey ; 
 
 O'erjoy'd to reach the goal, with eager pace, 
 
 Ere my slow life has measur'd half its race. 
 
 No longer shall I bear, my friends to please, 
 
 The hard constraint of seeming much at ease, 
 
 Wearing an outward smile, a look serene, 
 
 While piercing racks and tortures work within. 
 
 Vet let me not, ungrateful to my God, 
 
 Record the evil, and forget the good : 
 
 For both I humble adoration pay, 
 
 And bless the power who gives, and takes away. 
 
 Long shall my faithful memory retain 
 
 And oft recall each interval of pain. 
 
 Nay, to high Heaven for greater gifts I band ; 
 
 Health I've enjoy'd, and I had once & friend ! 
 
 Our labour sweet, if labour it might seem, 
 
 Allow'd the sportive and instructive scene. 
 
 Yet here no lewd or useless wit was found ; 
 
 We pois'd the wav'ring sail with ballast sound. 
 
 Learning here plac'd her richer stores in view., 
 
 Or, wing'd with love, the minutes gaily flew! 
 
 Nay, yet sublimer joy our bosoms prov'd, 
 
 Divine benevolence, by Heaven belov'd. 
 
 Wan meagre forms, torn from impending death, 
 
 Exulting, blest us with reviving breath. 
 
 The shiv'ring wretch we cloth'd, the mourner cheer'd, 
 
 And sickness ceased to groan when we appear'd. 
 
 Unask'd, our care assists with tender art 
 
 Their bodies, nor neglects th' immortal part. 
 
 Sometimes in shades unpierc'd by Cynthia's beam, 
 
 Whose lustre glimmer'd on the dimpled stream, 
 
 We wander'd innocent through sylvan scenes, 
 
 Or tripp'd like fairies o'er the level greens. 
 
 From fragrant herbage deck'd with pearly dews, 
 
 And flow'rets of a thousand diff'rent hues, 
 
 By wafting gales the mingling odours fly, 
 
 And round our heads in whisp'ring breezes sigh. 
 
 Whole nature seems to heighten and improve 
 
 The holier hours of innocence and love. 
 
 Youth, wit, good nature, candour, sense, combin'd 
 
 To serve, delight, and civilize mankind ; 
 
 In wisdom's love we ev'ry heart engage. 
 
 And triumph to restore the golden age! 
 
 Nor close the blissful scene, exhausted mnse. 
 The latest blissful scene that thou shall choose ;
 
 328 MISS HETTT WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 
 
 Satiate with life, what joys for me remain, 
 Save one dear wish to balance ev'ry pain : 
 To bow my head, with grief and toil opprest, 
 Till borne by angel bands to everlasting rest. 
 
 "It is but justice to her memory," says Mr. Wesley, "to observe, 
 that she was at 'rest* before she went hence; being for some years 
 a witness of that rest which remains, even here, for the people of 
 God." In the above verses she refers with exquisite feeling to her 
 beloved sister Mary. 
 
 I know not whether, after her conversion to God, she wrote any 
 verses ; it is most likely that she did not, as for several years before 
 her death she was in a very infirm state of health, and could not use 
 her pen with ease. Of gay, sportive, innocent pieces she no doubt 
 wrote many : but I have not met with any that bear her name, though 
 among many now lying before me in the hand writing of herself, Emily, 
 and Kezzia, there may be some of her composing. When Mr. Dun- 
 combe asked her about her poetical compositions, she told him that 
 " she had none left, having given them to her sister ;" which sister, is 
 not mentioned. 
 
 I have already hazarded a thought that the hymn of Eupolis to the 
 Creator might probably have been written by her, or at least a part of 
 it. I have given some reasons to support this opinion : but as the piece 
 has passed invariably in the family for old Mr. Samuel Wesley's pro- 
 duction, I will not undertake to defend it. Both the father and daugh- 
 ter had great poetical powers ; his, often rugged, but still strong ; hers, 
 highly polished and harmonious, yet full of fire ; and I would conclude 
 on the subject, as the shepherd in Virgil : 
 
 .Won nostrum inter vos tan las componere liles, 
 El vilula tu dignus et hie. 
 
 Eclog. iii, v. 108. 
 
 " So nice a difference in your singing lies, 
 That both have won, or both deserv'd the prize: 
 Rest equal happy both." 
 
 DRTDEN. 
 
 From mature reflection, I believe either of them was capable of the 
 poem : but perhaps it required both to make it that finished, may I not 
 say inimitable, piece which it now appears. 
 
 The following verses I found partly in Mrs. Wright's and partly in 
 her father's hand writing. They seem to have been occasioned by 
 some person, called here, Silky's idol, ludicrously asserting the doctrine 
 of the metempsychosis, or transmigration from body to body : 
 
 THE TRANSMIGRATION. 
 
 1 The period fast comes on when I 
 
 Must to an oyster turn ; 
 (Unless my Suky's idol lie ;) 
 Nor will I grieve or mourn. 
 
 2 Welcome my transmigrated state ! 
 
 I'll for the worst prepare ;
 
 MISS HETTY WESLEY, MRS. WRIGHT. 329 
 
 Think while 'tis given to think by fate ; 
 Theu like a log must bear. 
 
 3 These eyes I feel will soon depart ; 
 
 (Else Hetty should not write ;) 
 Their balls will to such pearls convert, 
 As ladies wont delight. 
 
 4 The pineal gland, from whence some say 
 
 Man thinks, reflects, and knows 
 Whate'er is best, perhaps it may 
 The oyster's head compose. 
 
 5 Or coarse or curious be the mould, 
 
 Whate'er its form contains, 
 That small peninsula may hold 
 My few but working brains. 
 
 6 VAvfingers may the stria make, 
 
 The *hell my parched skin ; 
 My nerve* and bones with palsies shake 
 The white reverse within. 
 
 7 Perhaps at tide-time I may wake, 
 
 And sip a little moisture ; 
 Then to my pillow me betake, 
 And sleep like brother oyster. 
 
 8 What shall I dream ? or what compose 1 
 
 Some harmless rhymes like these ; 
 Below the wits, above the beaus, 
 Which Poll and Kez may please. 
 
 9 A dubious being, hardly life, 
 
 Yet sensible of wo ; 
 
 For when death comes with rusty knife, 
 But few will meet the blow. 
 
 10 Which sure my heart, tho' once 'twas strong, 
 
 Will then nor fly nor choose; 
 The pulpy substance will not long 
 The coup de grace refuse. 
 
 1 1 My loving oyster kins, which sit 
 
 So fast to native shell, 
 Must then some other harbour get, 
 Or in wide ocean dwell. 
 
 12 And since this sensible must fail, 
 
 I feel it bend and sink, 
 Come age, come death ; you'll soon prevail, 
 I'll wait you on the brink. 
 
 13 But is there not a something still 
 
 Sprung from a nobler race, 
 Above the passions and the will, 
 Which lifts to heaven its face ? 
 
 14 There is I feel it upward tend 
 
 While these weak spirits decay, 
 Which sighs to meet its Saviour, Friend, 
 And springs for native day. 
 
 15 When all its organs marr'd and worn. 
 
 Let Locke say what he can, 
 
 - Twill act still round itself turn, 
 
 The mind is still the man. 
 42
 
 330 MI38 MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 16 Which if fair virtue be my choice, 
 
 Above the stars shall shine ; 
 Above want, pain, and death rejoice, 
 Immortal and divine. 
 
 MISS MARTHA WESLEY.-MRS. HALL. 
 
 MARTHA, or, as she is usually termed, Patty or Pat seems to have 
 been born some time between 1703 and 1708. She was younger than 
 her brother John, and older than her brother Charles. She was re- 
 puted by her sisters to be the mother's favourite. Mr. Charles thought 
 the same ; and expressed his " wonder that so wise a woman as his 
 mother could give way to such a partiality, or did not better conceal 
 it." Many years after, when this saying of her brother was mentioned 
 to Mrs. Hall, she replied, " What my sisters call partiality was what 
 they might all have enjoyed if they had wished it ; which was permis- 
 sion to sit in my mother's chamber when disengaged, to listen to her 
 conversation with others, and to hear her remarks on things and books 
 out of school hours." What was called partiality to Patty, was the 
 indulgence of this propensity to store her mind, and enlarge her intel- 
 lect, with the observations of a parent whose mode of thinking was not 
 common, and whose conversation was both peculiarly impressive and 
 instructing : and surely it would have been cruelty to have chased 
 away a little one, who preferred her mother's society to recreation, and 
 delighted to hang upon her words, when the others were intensely 
 engaged in play. The truth appears to be, thai the partiality was on the 
 part of the child. Patty loved her mother more than any of the 
 rest ; and this for the double reason, because she was her mother, 
 which was common to all, and because in listening to her discourses, 
 she increased her little fund of knowledge, which was what her soul 
 thirsted after, a propensity which her mother very properly permitted 
 her to indulge. 
 
 From her infancy, Patty was distinguished for deep thoughtfulness, 
 for grave and serious deportment, and for an equanimity, or evenness 
 of temper, which nothing could discompose. 
 
 Her brothers Samuel and Charles, with all her sisters, strove by all 
 kinds of witty mischief to throw her off her guard, and ruffle her temper ; 
 but in vain. To their jests and playful tricks she opposed solid 
 arguments, and this acquired her the name of Patient Grizzle, among 
 them. Her abhorrence of satire (in which it appeals most of the rest 
 abounded) provoked its attacks in many an epigram while she calmly 
 expostulated on the moral evil of satire, and unprovoked, contended 
 even with her brother Samuel that ridicule never cured any vice. She 
 was so affectionate in her disposition, that they could not quarrel with 
 her, and so completely unassailable thai she foiled her antagonists. 
 
 By the misery of others she was vulnerable jn the very tenderest degree. 
 Though slow and deliberate in all her general movements, she would 
 fly, at the call of want or pain, to succour the distressed. No occu- 
 pation, no indisposition of body, except it confined her to her bed, could
 
 illflS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 331 
 
 prevent her from affording her assistance. In this alone she was en- 
 thusiastic, and the readiness with which she obeyed such calls attended 
 her to old age. 
 
 To her brother John she was uncommonly attached. They had the 
 same features so exactly, as if cast in the same mould, added to an 
 exact similarity of disposition. Had I seen them dressed in the cloth- 
 ing of males, I could not have told which was Mr. Wesley ; and had 
 I seen them in female attire, I could not have distinguished which was 
 Mrs. Hall. Such a similarity of countenance, expression, and manner, 
 I think I never perceived as between these two. Even their hand 
 writing was so much alike, that the one might be easily mistaken for 
 the other. And the internal disposition was the same. Like her, John 
 thought deeply on every subject ; and felt himself answerable to his 
 reason and conscience for every thing he did : in neither of them did 
 passion, or natural appetite, seem to have any peculiar sway. Mr. 
 Wesley has told me, that when he was a child, and was asked at any 
 time, out of the common way of meals, to have for instance a piece of 
 bread and butter, fruit, &c, he has replied with cool unconcern, " I 
 thank you, I will think of it." He would neither touch nor do any 
 thing till he had reflected on its fitness and propriety. This subjection 
 of his mind to deep reflection, which might have appeared, to those 
 who were not acquainted with him, like hesitation, sometimes puzzled 
 the family. In one instance his father said in a pet to Mrs. Wesley, 
 " I profess, sweetheart, I think our Jack would not attend to the most 
 pressing necessities of nature, unless he could give a reason for it." 
 
 His love to Patty was like hers to him ; and he alone never joined 
 in the provoking tricks of the others, when they leagued together to 
 overturn Patty's philosophic steadiness. 
 
 Her attachment to this brother, to whom she bore so strong an affi- 
 nity both in mind and person, seemed to be innate, not acquired. From 
 her earliest infancy when a helpless child in the arms, afflicted and 
 moaning with pain, the sight of this beloved brother immediately calmed 
 and cheered her, causing her to forget her pain and suffering. 
 
 The astonishing similarity in person and feeling between this brother 
 and sister, accompanied by such a singular mutual attachment which 
 lasted through life, has induced me to anticipate a part of the early 
 history of Mr. Wesley, of which his future biographers may make a 
 profitable use. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley's opinion of the strong characteristic steadiness of 
 Patty may appear from the following incident. One day entering 
 the nursery when all the children, Patty excepted, (who was ever 
 sedate and reflecting,) were in high glee and frolic, the mother said, 
 but not rebukingly, " You will all be more serious one day." Martha 
 lifting up her head, immediately said, " Shall I be more serious mam ?" 
 No, replied the mother. 
 
 Her mother was her oracle. She almost idolized her, and would 
 never willingly be from her side ; and it is not to be wondered at, if 
 Mrs. Wesley did feel a partiality for such a child. It is natural for 
 love to beget love ; and where this law of nature seems to be inefficient, 
 eiunity will take the place of love, or love will soon become extinct
 
 332 MISS MARTHA WESLEV, MRS. HALL. 
 
 But there is a part of Martha's character which has been so so- 
 lemnly impeached, and the prejudice against her became in conse- 
 quence so inveterate ; that, unless I can clear up this point, I can 
 scarcely expect credit from my readers who know no more than what 
 is contained in the public outcry : I allude to her conduct in reference 
 to her marriage. 
 
 On the disastrous fire which took place in 1709, in the parsonage 
 house at Epworth, by which it and all Mr. Wesley's property were 
 destroyed, the children were scattered among relatives and friends, till 
 the house could be rebuilt, and till the desolation in the family circum- 
 stances might be in some measure repaired. 
 
 Some time after this, Mr. Matthew Wesley, the surgeon, took to his 
 house Hetty and Susan, and afterward in 1730, Patty. It proves no 
 mean subjection of her will to the obedience due to parental authority, 
 that, notwithstanding her strong attachment to her mother, she consented 
 without murmuring to go with this uncle, who was still till then nearly a 
 stranger to her ; and to sojourn at a great distance from parents whom 
 she dearly loved, and the benefit of whose conversation she could not 
 hope to replace. 
 
 While she stayed with her uncle, she was treated by him with the 
 greatest tenderness : but as he was very unlike all other persons of the 
 family, not having a decisively religious turn, she often found herself in 
 great bondage. Though he did not oppose any obstacles to the grati- 
 fication of her religious feelings, yet she was there without help in 
 sacred things. She had none to encourage her to press forward in the 
 good way, which, in a letter to her brother John, she greatly deplores. 
 While in London with her uncle, she sometimes paid a visit to her bro- 
 ther Samuel at Westminster : but her plain manner did not suit the views 
 of his " lordly dame," and therefore her visits were not very frequent. 
 
 I shall give an extract of the letter to which I have referred in this 
 place, as it may be considered as a prelude to her marriage ; at least 
 it will show that she was not quite satisfied with her situation, and might 
 be the more easily persuaded to change it, when a proper opportunity 
 should present itself. 
 
 "I intended to have wrote sooner to my dear brother, but I have had 
 such an indisposition, as, though it has not made me what one may 
 call sick, it has made me almost incapable of any thing. 
 
 " My uncle is pretty well recovered. I heartily join with you in 
 wishing you may have a conference with him. Who knows but he 
 might be better for it ; at least, it is not impossible. He had several 
 years ago a violent fit of illness ; seemed wondrous serious ; and sent 
 for a clergyman, who stayed with him some hours, and when he came 
 from him told my grandmother, if it pleased God to spare his life, he 
 believed he would be a good man. But when he did recover again, 
 and got among his companions, all his good resolutions vanished im- 
 mediately ! 
 
 " Was almost any body else in my place, they would think them- 
 selves very happy. I want neither money nor clothes ; nay, I have 
 both given me in the most obliging manner ; and yet I am not so. I
 
 MISS MARTHA WBSLHY, MRS. HALL. 333 
 
 not only want the most rational part of friendship ; but I see a person 
 whom I can't help loving very well, (to say nothing of my sister,) going 
 on in a way which I think the wrong way, without being able to per- 
 suade him to turn into the right. I cannot do the good I fain would, 
 and I am continually in danger of doing the evil I would not. 
 
 " might I like the seraph Abdiel, faithful stand among the faith- 
 less ! I am persuaded I shall not want my dear brother's prayers to 
 enable me to do it. 
 
 " I go sometimes to Westminster : but I am afraid it will be impos- 
 sible for me ever to make a. friend of my sister. She fell upon me the 
 last time I was there for * giving myself such an air as to drink water,' 
 though she told me ' she did not expect that I should leave it.' I told 
 her if she could convince me that there was any ill in it, I would, and 
 thank her for telling me of it : but I desired her, in the first place, to 
 tell me what she meant by the word ' air,' which she did not choose to 
 do, I believe for a very good reason ; so our dispute ended. My bro- 
 ther said he would go to Oxford this Easter. I asked him if he would 
 take me with him ? He seemed pretty willing to do it : but I fancy his 
 wife will hardly let him. Indeed, if he should give me twenty shillings, 
 it would be such a thing as he never did yet ; nor indeed did I ever 
 desire it before. I should be pleased if he would, because it would give 
 me the pleasure of seeing my dear brother at his own habitation, and 
 of telling him by word of mouth how much 1 am his faithful friend, and 
 affectionate sister, MARTHA WESLEY. 
 
 "March 10, 1730." 
 
 The poor surgeon, her uncle, was supposed to be careless about reli- 
 gion, because he did not take a heated part in the pro and con polemic 
 divinity of the day. 
 
 While Martha was at her uncle's house, she received the addresses 
 of a gentleman of the name of //a//, who was one of Mr. Wesley's 
 pupils at Lincoln college. He was then, according to every evidence, 
 not hypocritically, but deeply pious ; though not of a strong judgment, 
 and consequently of a fickle mind. His pretensions were all fair, his 
 deportment correct, his education truly pious, his person agreeable, his 
 manners pleasing, and his property good. 
 
 In his addresses to Martha, there is no doubt he was sincere ; and 
 in order to secure her, he took the expedient, common enough in those 
 days to betroth her to himself. All this was without the knowledge of 
 her parents, or her brothers, and was done at her uncle's house in Lon- 
 don. He then accompanied her brothers John and Charles to Epworth , 
 and there he saw her sister Kezzia, grew enamoured of her, courted, ob- 
 tained her consent, and that of the family in general, who knew nothing 
 of his pre-engagement with Martha; and he was on the point of lead- 
 ing poor unconcious Kezzia to the altar, when a sudden qualm of 
 conscience reproached and reminded him of his prior engagement, and 
 he came back to Martha. The family were justly alarmed at his 
 conduct ; in vain they questioned him on the reason of this change. v 
 He had not honour enough, however sore his conscience was, candidly 
 to confess his prior engagements with Patty : but talked of a re vela-
 
 334 MIS3 MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 lion he had from heaven," that he should not marry Kezzia but Martha. 
 As Martha had made the contract with him without consulting her 
 parents, she was afraid to allege it in her own vindication ; and most 
 probably Mr. Hall had bound her not to discover the previous engage- 
 ment. And she was obliged in consequence to suffer the heaviest 
 censures of her brothers, who regarded her as the usurper of her sister's 
 rights ; whereas had she frankly declared that she had been affianced 
 to the man before ever he had even seen her sister Kezzia, they could 
 not have blamed her for redeeming her solemn pledge ; though they 
 might have judged her imprudent in putting herself in the hands of a 
 man, who had shown such a flexibility of affection, and such a versatility 
 of character. But there is no doubt that he used all his artifice to per- 
 suade Patty that his heart stood right, though for a time he had yielded 
 to violent temptation. As the family knew nothing of Patty's prior 
 engagements, it is no wonder that, in their strong method of expressing 
 themselves, especially in poetry, they should consider Patty's marriage 
 as a kind of incest, as they supposed she had in fact the husband of her 
 sister. 
 
 On this occasion her brother Charles sent her the following verses, 
 which most certainly never were designed to be made public ; for he 
 was afterward convinced that he had received a very imperfect account 
 of the transaction, and even justified the conduct of his sister : 
 
 TO MISS MARTHA WESLEY. 
 
 When want, and pain, and death, besiege our gate, 
 And every solemn moment teems with fate ; 
 While cloud and darkness fill the space betwesn, 
 Perplex th' event, and shade the folded scene : 
 In humble silence wait th' unuttered voice, 
 Suspend thy will, and check thy forward choice ; 
 Yet wisely fearful for th' event prepare ; 
 And learn the dictates of a brother's care. 
 How fierce thy conflict, how severe thy flight, 
 When hell assails the foremost sons of light ; 
 When he, who long in virtue's paths had trod, 
 Deaf to the voice of conscience and of God, 
 Drops the fair mask, proves traitor to his vow ; 
 And thou the temptress, and the tempted thou ! 
 Prepare thee then to meet the infernal war, 
 And dare beyond what woman knows to dare : 
 Guard each avenue to thy flutt'ring heart, 
 And act the sister's and the Christian's part. 
 Heaven is the guard of virtue ; scorn to yield, 
 When screened by Heaven's impenetrable shield. 
 Secure in this, defy th' impending storm, 
 Though Satan tempt thee in an angel's form. 
 And, O ! I see the fiery trial near ; 
 I see the saint, in all his forms, appear. 
 By nature, by religion, taught to please, 
 With conquest flush'd, and obstinate to press, 
 He lists his virtues in the cause of hell, 
 Heaven, with celestial arms presumes to assail ; 
 To veil with semblance fair the fiend within, 
 > And make his God subservient to his sin ! 
 
 Trembling I hear his horrid vows renew'd, 
 I see him come hy Delia's groans pursued.
 
 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 Poor injured Delia! all her groans are vain ; 
 
 Or he denies, or listening mocks her pain. 
 
 What though her eyes with ceaseless tears o'erflow, 
 
 Her bosom heave with agonizing wo ; 
 
 What though the horror of his falsehood near 
 
 Tear up her faith, and plunge her in despair ; 
 
 Yet can he think, (so blind to Heaven's decree, 
 
 And the sure fate of curs'd apostasy) 
 
 Soon as he tells the secret of his breast, 
 
 And puts the angel off and stands confess'd ; 
 
 When love, and grief, and shame, and anguish meet 
 
 To make his crimes and Delia's wrongs complete, 
 
 That then the injured maid will cease to grieve ; 
 
 Behold him in a sister's arms, and live ! 
 
 Mistaken wretch by thy unkindness hurl'd 
 
 From ease, from love, from thee, and from the world ; 
 
 Soon must she land on that immortal shore, 
 
 Where falsehood never can torment her more : 
 
 There all her sufferings and her sorrows cease, 
 
 Nor saints turn devils there to vex her peace ! 
 
 Yet hope not then, all specious as thou art, 
 
 To taint with impious vows her sister's heart: 
 
 With proffered worlds her honest soul to move, 
 
 Or tempt her virtue to incestuous love. 
 
 No wert thou as thou wast, did Heaven's first rays 
 
 Beam on thy soul, and all the Godhead blaze, 
 
 Sooner shall sweet oblivion set us free 
 
 From friendship, love, thy perfidy, and thee ; 
 
 Sooner shall light in league with darkness join, 
 
 Virtue and rice, and heaven and hell combine, 
 
 Than her pure soul consent to mix with thine ; 
 
 To share thy sin, adopt thy perjury, 
 
 And damn herself to be revenged on thee ; 
 
 To load her conscience with a sister's blood, 
 
 The guilt of incest, and the curse of God ! 
 
 Perhaps this would have been severe enough, had the case been 
 even so bad as Mr. Charles conjectured. 
 
 He had not examined the business. Poor Patty was in London, 
 completely unconscious of what was going on at Epicorth ; and bore 
 the blame of receiving, for the first time, the addresses of a man who 
 had just jilted her sister. I wish the reader to keep these two facts in 
 view : 1. Patty was addressed by Hall, consented to be his wife, and 
 was betrothed to him before he ever saw Kezzia. She was in London, 
 when Hall went down into Lincolnshire ; and knew nothing of the 
 transaction with Kezzia at Epworth, till a considerable time after it 
 took place : and had Hall then married Kezzia, the world would never 
 have heard Martha's complaint, and Kezzia would have been bound to 
 that miserable and profligate wretch who afterward fell to the lot of her 
 sister. When Martha found how matters stood, she wrote to her mo- 
 ther, and laid open the whole business, who on this explanation wrote 
 her full consent, assuring her " that if she had obtained the consent of 
 her uncle, there was no obstacle." 
 
 Kezzia, on hearing the true relation, cordially renounced all claim to 
 Hail ; and, from every thing 1 have been able to learn, sat as indiffer- 
 ent to him, as if no such transaction had ever existed. Her uncle 
 Matthew, with whom Patty lived, was so satisfied with her conduct, and
 
 336 MISS MARTHA WESLBY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 with the match, that he gave her 500/. on her marriage, and the fullest 
 testimony of " her dutiful and grateful conduct during the whole time 
 she had resided in his house." Kezzia also gave the fullest testimony 
 of her approbation by choosing to go and live with Mr. and Mrs. Hall, 
 though she had a strong invitation to go and live with her brother Sam- 
 uel : and her brother John was to have given 50/. per annum to have 
 covered her expenses. 
 
 The true state of the case was for some years unknown to the 
 brothers ; and Mr. Wesley himself, in his letter to Hall, dated Dec. 2, 
 1747, charges him with having " stolen Kezzia from the god of her 
 youth ; that in consequence she refused to be comforted, and fell into 
 a lingering illness which terminated in her death ; that her blood 
 still cried unto God from the earth against him, and that surely it was 
 upon his head." That this was Mr. Wesley's impression I well know : 
 but it is not strictly correct. I have the almost dying assertions of 
 Mrs. Hall, delivered to her beloved niece Miss Wesley, and by her 
 handed in writing to me, that the facts of the case were as stated 
 above ; that " so little did Kezzia regret her faithless lover, and so 
 fully sensible was she of her sister's prior claim, that she chose to live 
 with them, and lived in perfect harmony and comfort with her sister. 
 And so far from this disappointment shortening her days, she resided 
 between five and six years under the same roof; and had so completely 
 subdued all affection toward Mr. Hall that she had formed an attach- 
 ment to another gentleman, but his death prevented the union." 
 
 This business being afterward laid before Mr. Charles Wesley who 
 had written the preceding severe lines to his sister, and her prior en- 
 gagement to Mr. Hall being pleaded, and the cruel injustice and cen- 
 sures she had suffered, he did not at all dispute the premises ; saw that 
 Martha had fully justified herself on the ground of her prior engage- 
 ments ; but said, " she should not have mismatched herself with so 
 worthless a man." He never liked Hall afterward, though for a con- 
 siderable time he conducted himself with propriety. During her life- 
 time it was proposed that Mrs. Hall should publish the real state of the 
 case, that her character might not continue to lie under such a load of 
 unmerited censure and calumny. To which she answered, " Once 
 I did intend to do so : but I am now so soon removing to another 
 world, where all is known, and will be made known, that it is unimport- 
 ant what mortals may think or say of me." This statement Mrs. Hall 
 took on her conscience into the eternal world, and perhaps a more 
 upright and conscientious woman never drew the breath of life. But. 
 the thing speaks for itself. 1. Can it be supposed that such a woman 
 as Mrs. Wesley, senior, would have unhesitatingly given her consent 
 to her marriage with Hall, had she not been perfectly satisfied with 
 the propriety of her conduct? 2. Can it be imagined that her uncle 
 Matthew, who stood high on his honour, would have given his consent, 
 with the most positive testimony to the excellence of her conduct while 
 in his house, and sealed the whole on her marriage with a present of 
 jive hundred pounds, if he had not been persuaded that she had acted 
 honourably ? 3. Is it at all likely that a woman of Mrs. Hall's tender, 
 exquisitely tender, and compassionate feelings, would have married to
 
 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 337 
 
 break a beloved sister's heart? 4. Or that this sister would have 
 ctwscn to have lived with her, had she had reason to believe her at all 
 culpable ? She found out that Hall had betrothed her sister, but had 
 concealed it, caitiff as he was ! and finding that Patty's affections 
 had been engaged, and her claim prior, she resolved to show the world, 
 by thus being with her, that she had no cause for resentment to the 
 sister. 
 
 That the brothers should think that there was no prospect of happi- 
 ness with such a weathercock, is quite natural and reasonable : and it 
 is most certain that Mr. Charles Wesley's severe verses were written 
 before he was made acquainted with the circumstances of the case. 
 Mrs. Hall always justified her own conduct ; and ever maintained that 
 her marrying Hall gave no umbrage to Kezzia. 
 
 Her composure under suppositions and aspersions so injurious to 
 her fame was astonishing. The selfish principle seemed annihilated in 
 her ; and she bore blame and obloquy, rather than, by vindicating 
 herself, involve others. She has been loaded with invective ; and 
 the biographers of her brothers have added to the number of her 
 detracters. 
 
 Mr. Southey has also been misled ; and his treatment of the 
 character of this excellent woman is far from candid. He not only 
 details all that others have said, who should have informed themselves 
 better : but by his nervous and elegant language he has given a more 
 vivid colouring to mistakes and slanders, of which I readily grant he 
 was not the inventor. But the maxim De mortuis et absentibm nil nisi 
 ii'iHum did not sufficiently govern his pen. It has still been objected 
 " she should not have taken Hall." I have already shown that she was 
 solemnly betrothed to him. He became unfaithful : but he appeared 
 to stop in time, came back to her a penitent, and alleged that God had 
 convinced him of the vice of his conduct, when on the point of sacri- 
 ficing her peace and his own conscience. Could she, or should she as 
 matters then stood, refuse him 1 Would it have been right to have 
 turned him back again to her deceived sister ? Surely not. Nor could 
 Kezzia have wedded him without being guilty of that species of incest of 
 which Mr. Charles charged his innocent sister, at the time he was 
 unacquainted with the true state of the case. 
 
 Mr. Southey says, that " Mrs. Hall bore her fate with resignation, 
 and with an inward consciousness that her punishment was not heavier 
 than her fault." This I totally deny : she had no such consciousness. 
 Here feelings and the dictates of her heart on this subject ever were, 
 
 Hie mums aheneus esto, 
 Nil conscirt ribi mtU& pattaseere cvlp&. 
 
 HOR. EP. Lib. i, E. L ver. 60. 
 This is my brazen bulwark of defence, 
 A consciousness of spotless innocence ; 
 The vile accuser still / dare to meet, 
 Nor e'er turn pale, at what Le dares repeat. 
 
 Mrs. Hall ever vindicated her conduct: to her dying hour she 
 testified the purity and approbation of her conscience in the whole 
 business ; and it was the consciousness of having acted right in the 
 
 43
 
 338 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 sight of God in this matter, that enabled her to bear all his profligacy 
 and unkind treatment with an even mind and unbroken spirit. And 
 suppose that, on the principles which the detracters of this excellent 
 and injured woman hold, he had been permitted to marry Kezzia, 
 would he have been a better husband, or a better man? No. The 
 seeds of all his profligacy were deeply radicated in him ; and they 
 would have produced their correspondent fruits, had he been married 
 to an angel. He was a man of no mind : when even sincere, he acted 
 not by Scripture, or reason, but by impulse. He did not consult his 
 judgment, for he had but little to consult ; and had he been any where 
 out of paradise, he would have been a versatile, shatter-brained, and 
 by turns, a pious and profligate man. Let his natural fickleness of 
 character, and his imbecility of mind, tell, as far as it may, in vindica- 
 tion of his conduct. He is gone to another world and his judgment 
 is with God ! 
 
 I rejoice that it has been in my power to withdraw the thick veil that 
 has been spread over this woman's innocence. I can assure my read- 
 ers, that I have not advanced a single fact that is not founded on 
 unexceptionable documents ; and that I can produce both written and 
 oral testimony to confirm the whole. The farther anecdotes and facts 
 which I shall shortly produce will serve still more particularly to illus- 
 trate the unimpeachable character of this woman, and to confirm the 
 reader in his conviction of her innocence. 
 
 As the circumstances above related were little known to the public, 
 if at all, the marriage of Mr. Wesley Hall and Miss Patty Wesley 
 became the subject of public congratulation. 
 
 I shall subjoin a copy of verses printed in the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for September 1735, p. 551, in which year Miss M. Wesley was 
 married to Mr. W. Hall. 
 
 ON THE MARRIAGE 
 
 OF MR. WESLEY HALL TO MISS PATTT WESLET. 
 
 Hymen, light thy purest flame, 
 
 Every sacred rite prepare ; 
 Never to thy altar came 
 
 A more pious faithful pair. 
 
 Thee, dispensing mighty pleasure, 
 
 Rashly sensual minds invoke ; 
 Only those partake thy treasure 
 
 Paired in virtue's easy yoke. 
 
 Such are Hall and Wesley joining, 
 
 Kindred souls with plighting hands, 
 Each to each entire resigning, 
 
 One become by nuptial bands. 
 
 Happy union, which destroys 
 
 Half the ills of life below ; 
 But the current of our joys 
 
 Makes with double vigour flow. 
 
 Sympathizing friends abate 
 The severer strokes of fate ;
 
 MISS MARTHA WESLKT, MRS HALL. 339 
 
 Happy liours, still happier prove 
 When they smile 011 those we love, 
 
 Joys to vulgar minds unknown 
 
 Shall their daily converse crown ; 
 Easy slumbers, pure delights, i 
 
 Bless their ever peaceful nights. 
 
 O Lucina, sacred power, 
 
 Here employ thy grateful care ; 
 Smiling on the geniaj hour, 
 
 Give an offspring wise and fair! 
 
 That, when the zealous sire shall charm no more 
 
 Th' attentive audience with his sacred lore, 
 
 Those lips in silence closed, whose heavenly skill 
 
 Could raptures with persuasive words instil ; 
 
 A 5<m may in the important work engage, 
 
 And with his precepts mend the future age ; 
 
 That when the accomplished mother, snatch'd by fate, 
 
 No more shall grace the matrimonial state ; 
 
 No more exhibit in her virtuous life 
 
 The bright exemplar of a perfect wife ; 
 
 A daughter, blest with each maternal grace, 
 
 May shine the pattern of the female race ! J- DUICK. 
 
 As to i\ie father and his offspring these prayers were not answered : 
 but the whole conduct of Mrs. Hall, during this unfortunate marriage, 
 lul prove her to be 
 
 "The bright exemplar of a perfect wife." 
 
 Mr. Hall passed from change to change, still in the deteriorating ratio ; 
 and from excess to excess in the ratio of geometrical progression, till 
 he became a proverb of reproach and shame ; 
 
 The vilest husband, and the worst of men. 
 
 And on January 6, 1776, he died at ; Bristol, probably a penitent, 
 exclaiming in his last hours, as Mrs. Hutchins testified, " I have 
 injured an angel ! an angel that never reproached me !" 
 
 Those who wish to see a full account of his delinquencies may con- 
 sult the faithful letter sent to him by Mr. John Wesley, December 22, 
 1747, in his Journals, vol. iii, p. 411. 
 
 Of his death Mr. Wesley speaks thus : 
 
 " I came (to Bristol) just time enough, not to set, but to bury, poor 
 Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died on Wednesday morning, Janu- 
 ary 6, 1776, 1 trust in peace ; for God had given him deep repentance. 
 Such another monument of Divine mercy, considering how low he had 
 (alien, and from what heights of holiness, I have not seen, no not in 
 seventy years. I had designed to have" visited him in the morning : 
 but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough, if after all his wan- 
 derings we meet again in Abraham's bosom." Journal, vol. ir, p. 447. 
 
 I need scarcely say, that Mr. Hall, who was a clergyman of the 
 Church of England, and had a curacy at Salisbury, became a Moravian 
 and Quietest, an Jlntinomian, a Deial, if not an Jitheisl, and a Polyga- 
 t, which last he defended in his teaching, and illustrated by hi*
 
 340 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 practice. He married Miss Patty Wesley in 1735, and died in 1776, 
 being her husband for about forty years. 
 
 Having cleared Mrs. Hall's character and conduct in reference to 
 her marriage, it may be necessary to consider her behaviour as a wife 
 to one of the worst and most unkind of husbands. I will adduce one 
 instance recorded by witnesses on the spot, and corroborated by her- 
 self, on being questioned as to its truth. 
 
 When they lived at Fullerton, near Salisbury, whefe they had a 
 large house and garden, near the church where he ministered, she had 
 taken a young woman into the house as a seamstress, whom Mr. Hall 
 seduced ; these were the beginning of his ways. Mrs. Hall, being 
 quite unsuspicious, was utterly ignorant of any improper attachment 
 between her husband and the girl. 
 
 Finding the time of the young woman's travail drawing near, he 
 feigned a call to London on some important business, and departed. 
 Soon after his departure, the woman fell in labour. Mrs. Hall, one of 
 the most feeling and considerate of women on such occasions, ordered 
 her servants to go instantly for a doctor. They all refused ; and when 
 she had remonstrated with them on their inhumanity, they completed 
 her surprise by informing her that the girl, to whom they gave any 
 thing but her own name, was in labour through her criminal connection 
 with Mr. Hall, and that they all knew her guilt long before. She 
 heard, without betraying any emotion, what she had not before even 
 suspected, and repeated her commands for assistance. They, full of 
 indignation at the unfortunate creature, and strangely inhuman, abso- 
 lutely refused to obey ; on which Mrs. Hall immediately went out 
 herself, and brought in a midwife ; called on a neighbour; divided the 
 only six pounds she had in the house, and deposited jive with her, who 
 was astonished at her conduct ; enjoined kind treatment, and no re- 
 proaches ; and then set o(F for London, found her husband, related in 
 her own mild manner the circumstances, told him what she had done, 
 and prevailed upon him to return to Salisbury as soon as the young 
 woman could be removed from the house. He thought the conduct 
 of his wife not only Christian, but heroic ; and was for a time suitably 
 affected by it : but having embraced the doctrine of polygamy, his 
 reformation was but of a short continuance. Mr. Hall was guilty of 
 many similar infidelities ; and after being the father of ten children by 
 his wife, nine of whom lie buried at Salisbury, he abandoned his family, 
 went off to Ireland with one of his mistresses, and his wife never saw 
 him more. Notwithstanding all this treatment, Mrs. Hall was never 
 heard to speak of him but with kindness. She often expressed wonder 
 that women should profess to love their husbands and yet dwell upon 
 their faults, or indeed upon those of their friends. She was never 
 known to speak evil of any person. 
 
 Give me to feel another's wo ; 
 To hide the faults I see, 
 
 was her maxim : exposure of vice she believed never did any good. 
 *' Tell your neighbour his fault," sard she, " between him and you alone ; 
 when you censure, spare not the vice but the name."
 
 MISS MARTHA WE3I.F.Y, MRS. HAM.. 341 
 
 Her only remaining child, Wesley Hall, was a very promising 
 youth ; he lived till he was fourteen, and then died of the small-pox. 
 He was educated at the expense of his uncles 'John and Charles. 
 When his life was despaired of, his mother was sent for : but she came 
 too late ; the amiable youth had breathed his last before her arrival. 
 Her tenderness as a mother was known to be so great, that they dread- 
 ed the effect this melancholy event might have on her mind when she 
 came to the knowledge of it, especially as there had been a very repre- 
 hensible want of care in the family where he was boarded, which was 
 supposed to have at least accelerated, if jiot caused, his death. But 
 she bowed to this dispensation of Providence, which had deprived her 
 of her last earthly hope and support : she bore the dreadful stroke with 
 humility, meekness, and fortitude. No reflections on second causes, 
 no violence of grief, no complaints of her bitter fate ; all her con- 
 duct evinced the Christian, and the Christian parent. 
 
 Some have supposed that there must have been an apathy in her 
 nature tkus to bear the most grievous wrongs, and the heaviest losses : 
 but such persons have not considered to what heights of excellence the 
 human mind may be exalted by reason and religion. 
 
 When Mr. Charles Wesley asked her " how she could give money," 
 as previously related, "to her husband's concubine?" she answered, 
 44 1 knew I could obtain what I wanted from many : but she, poor, hap- 
 less creature ! could not : many thinking it meritorious to abandon her 
 to the distress which she had brought upon herself. Pity is due to the 
 wicktd; the good claim esteem : beside, I did not act as a woman, but 
 as a Christian." 
 
 There are several still alive who can attest her sensibility : the poor, 
 the sick, the afflicted of all descriptions, excited in her the deepest feel- 
 ings of sympathy. Like her brother John, she was ready to bear the 
 burthen of every sufferer ; to deny herself the necessaries of life in 
 order to relieve the needy; and to be stoical in no sufferings but her own. 
 
 This was the character of the founder of Methodism ; this was that 
 of his excellent sister. Her charity was unbounded ; and the charity 
 of a person reduced to an income so limited was " the munificence of 
 the widow's mite, founded on self-denial." Her brother, Mr. Charles 
 Wesley, has said, " It is in vain to give Pat any thing to add to her 
 comforts ; for she always gives it away to some person poorer than 
 herself." 
 
 Another instance will farther illustrate this part of her character. In 
 proportion as Mr. Hall advanced in profligacy, he lost all sense of 
 decorum, and that shame which in all bad characters, not wholly aban- 
 doned to vice, usually accompanies the exposure of guilt. He had the 
 frontless inhumanity one day to bring in one of his illegitimate infants ; 
 and he ordered his wife to take charge'of it till he could provide it with 
 a suitable situation. She ordered a cradle to be brought, placed the 
 babe in it, and continued to perform for it all requisite acts of humanity. 
 
 While nursing this illegitimate, her only remaining child, Wesley 
 Hall, of whom 1 have already spoken, had by some means displeased 
 his father, who had now as little government of his temper as he had of 
 his passions ; for under a course of such transgressions a man usually
 
 !342 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 becomes a sot or a fury. He rose up in a violent rage, thrust the child 
 into a dark closet, and locked him up. The child was terrified to dis- 
 traction. Mrs. Hall with her usual calmness, desired him to release 
 the child. He refused; she entreated, he was resolute: she as- 
 serted that the punishment was far beyond the fault ; lie still hesitated. 
 She then summoned up the more than female dignity and courage which 
 formed that part of her character that led her to decide on that line of 
 conduct which she ought to pursue, from the evidence brought to her 
 reason and conscience, and thus addressed him, " Sir, thank the grace 
 of God, that while my child is thus cruelly treated, suffering to distrac- 
 tion a punishment he has not merited, I had not turned your babe out of 
 the cradle ; but you must go and unlock the closet, and release the child 
 or / will immediately do it." This tone was too decisive to be treated 
 with either neglect or contempt. Mr. Hall arose, and unlocked the 
 closet and released the child. Even in this trifling case, her cool phi- 
 losophy was as much in action as her piety : she wished the authority 
 of the father to be preserved, that it might appear to the child that the 
 same mouth which had pronounced the sentence might pronounce its 
 repeal ; and that the hand that had committed to prison might effect its 
 discharge. 
 
 It is a hapless case when the parents are not agreed either in the 
 management or correction of their children : from the minds of children 
 thus treated it removes all sense of moral good and evil ; they see their 
 parents are not agreed in their correction, and they are led in conse- 
 quence to consider the punishment to be arbitrary and cruel. They 
 hate the corrector and love the intercessor, or that one who takes their 
 part ; and it is a million to one, humanly speaking, that what is called 
 the moral sense will be, in consequence, utterly obliterated from their 
 minds. 
 
 Mrs. Hall could not endure the sight of misery which she could not 
 relieve ; it quite overwhelmed her. One day she came to the house 
 of her brother Charles, apparently sinking under distress, and looking 
 like a corpse. On inquiry it was found that a hapless . woman had 
 come to her, and related such a tale of real wo, that she took the crea- 
 ture into her own lodging, and had kept her for three days ; and the 
 continual sight of her wretchedness, wretchedness that she could not 
 fully relieve, so affected her, that her own life was sinking to the grave. 
 The case was immediately made known to that son of consolation, her 
 brother John, whose eye and ear never failed to affect his heart at the 
 sight or tale of misery. He took immediate charge of his sister's un- 
 fortunate guest, and had her provided for according to her wants and 
 distresses. 
 
 All Mrs. Hall's movements were deliberate, slow, and steady. In 
 her eye, her step, her speech, there appeared an innate dignity and 
 superiority ; which were so mingled with gentleness and good nature, 
 as ever to excite respect and reverence, but never fear ; for all children 
 loved her, and sought her company. 
 
 Her safety excited much anxiety in the minds of her friends. When 
 at an advanced age, she would take long walks through crowded streets; 
 for she never quickened her pace in crossings, even when carriages
 
 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS HALL. 343 
 
 were in full drive. Her niece Miss Wesley being one day with her in 
 JBloomsbury-square, when a coach was closely following, urged her, but 
 in vain, to quicken her pate. Striving to pull her out of the way of 
 danger, she unluckily pulled her off her feet just before the horses. 
 When she got up, she calmly observed, that " the probability of being 
 injured by a fall, was greater than of being run over by the coachman, 
 who could gain no advantage by it ; on the contrary much disadvantage 
 and expense." These remarks she made to her niece standing in the 
 crossing, with horses trampling before and behind. Fortunately the 
 coachman had pulled up his horses, or they had both been under the 
 wheels long before the speech was finished. 
 
 She spent much time, at his own particular request, with Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson, who was strongly attached to her, and ever treated her with 
 high reverence and respect. The injuries she had sustained, and the 
 manner in which she had borne them, could not but excite the esteem 
 of such a mind as his. 
 
 They often disputed together on matters of theological and moral phi- 
 losophy ; and in their differences of opinion, for they often differed, he 
 never treated her with that asperity with which he often treated those 
 opponents who appeared to plume themselves on their acquirements. 
 He wished her very much to become an inmate in his house ; and she 
 would have done so, had she not feared to provoke the jealousy of the 
 two females already there, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Du Moulin, who 
 had long resided under his roof, and whose queer tempers much embit- 
 tered his social hours and comforts. She ventured to tell him the rea- 
 son ; and he felt its cogency, as no doubt the comparison between the 
 tempers would have created much ill-will. As a frequent visiler, even 
 they, cross-tempered as they were, highly valued Mrs. Hall. 
 
 It is no wonder that Dr. Johnson valued her conversation. In many 
 cases it supplied the absence of books : her memory was a repository 
 of the most striking events of past centuries ; and she had the best 
 parts of all our poets by heart. She delighted in literary discussions^ 
 and moral argumentations, not for the display but the exercise of her 
 mental faculties, and to increase her fund of useful knowledge ; and 
 she bore opposition with the same composure as regulated all the other 
 parts of her conduct. 
 
 The young and experienced, who had promising abilities, she ex- 
 horted to avoid that blind admiration of talents, which is apt to regard 
 temper and the moral virtues as secondary ; and infused an abhorrence 
 of that satire and ridicule which too often accompany wit. Of icil, she 
 used to say, she was the only one of the family who did not possess it ; 
 and Mr. Charles Wesley used to remark, that " sister Patty was always 
 too wise to be witty." Yet she was very capable of acute remark ; and 
 once at Dr. Johnson's house, when she was on a grave discussion, she 
 made one which turned the laugh against him, in which he cordially 
 joined, as he felt its propriety and force. 
 
 In his house at Bolt-Court, one day when Mrs. Hall was pri-smi, 
 the doctor began to expatiate on the unhappincss of human life. Mrs. 
 Hall said, "Doctor, you have always lived among the wit$, not the 
 saints ; and they are a race of people the most unlikely to seek true
 
 344 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 happiness, or find the pearl without price." I have already remarked, 
 that she delighted in theological discussions. It was her frequent cus- 
 tom to dwell on the goodness of God, in giving his creatures LAWS ; 
 observing " that what would have been the inclination of a kind nature, 
 was made a command, that our benevolent Creator might reward it ; he 
 thus condescending to prescribe that as a duty, which, to a regenerate 
 mind, must have been a wish and delight, had it not been prescribed." 
 She loved the name of duties ; and ever blessed her gracious Redeemer, 
 who enabled her to discharge them. In a conversation there was a 
 remark made, that the public voice was the voice of truth, universally 
 recognized ; whence the proverb, Vox populi, vox Dei. This Mrs. 
 Hall strenuously contested; and said the "public voice" in Pilate's 
 hall was, Crucify him ! Crucify him ! 
 
 She had an innate horror of melancholy subjects. " Those persons," 
 she maintained, " could not have real feeling, who could delight to see 
 or to hear details of misery they could not relieve, or descriptions of 
 cruelly which they could not punish. Nor did she like to speak of 
 death : it was heaven, the society of the blessed, and the deliverance 
 of the happy spirit from this tabernacle of clay, not the pang of separa- 
 tion, (of which she always expressed a fear,) on which she delighted to 
 dwell. She could not behold a corpse, " because," said she, " it is 
 beholding sin sitting upon his throne." She objected strongly to those 
 lines in Mr. Charles Wesley's Funeral Hymns : 
 
 "Ah lovely appearance of death ; 
 What sight upon earth is so fair," &c. 
 
 Her favourite hymn among these was, 
 
 " Rejoice for a brother deceased," &c. 
 
 Few persons could be mentioned of whom she had not something 
 good to say; and if their faults were glaring, she would plead the in- 
 fluence of circumstances, education, and sudden temptation, to which all 
 imprisoned in a tenement of clay were liable, and by which their actions 
 were often influenced : yet she was no apologist for bad systems ; for 
 she thought with an old Puritan, that a fault in an individual was like a 
 fever ; but a bad principle resembled a plague, spreading desolation 
 and death over the community. Few persons feel as they should for 
 the transgression, which is the effect of sudden temptation to a well 
 circumstanced sin. 
 
 She did not believe that the soul had its origin ex traduce, but that it 
 was pre-existent ; which she said accounted best for the astonishing 
 difference in human beings from infancy. Soame Jennings has written 
 on this subject, and many of his reasonings on this point are the same 
 with those she was accustomed to use.* 
 
 It excited her surprise that women should dispute the authority which 
 God gave the husband over the wife. -"4t is," said she, " so clearly 
 expressed in Scripture, that one would suppose such wives had never 
 read their Bible." But she allowed that this authority was only given 
 
 * See, on this controversy, Wesley's Works, published at the Methodist Book 
 Room, 14 Crosby-street, New-York, vol. iv, p. 163, date, Oct. 1763: and Fletcher's 
 " Appeal to Matter of Fact," &c.
 
 MISS JVIAKTMA WES1.EV, MRS. HALL. 345 
 
 after the Jail, not before : but " the woman," said she, " who contests 
 this authority should not marry." Vixen and unruly wives did not 
 relish her opinions on this subject ; and her example they could never 
 forgive. 
 
 In all her relations, and in all her concerns, she loved ORDER. " Or- 
 der is Heaven's first law" was a frequent quotation of hers ; it produces, 
 she would say, universal harmony. 
 
 Conversing on the times of Oliver Cromwell, and the conduct of the 
 republicans, she got a little excited, and said, " The devil uas the first 
 Independent." 
 
 The Works of Dean Swift were held in high esteem by all the 
 Wesley family, but herself. She could not endure the description of 
 the Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels ; and considered it as a reflection on 
 the Creator, thus to ridicule the works of his hands. His Tale of a 
 Tub she considered as too irreverent to be atoned for by the it-it. 
 
 Of her sufferings she spake so little, that they could not be learned 
 from herself; I could only get acquainted with those I knew from other 
 branches of the family. Her blessings, and the advantages she enjoyed, 
 she was continually recounting. ".Ein/," she used to say, "was not 
 kept from me : but evil has been kept from harming me." 
 
 Her manner of reproving sin was so gentle, so evidently the effect of 
 love, that no one was ever known to be offended at it. Young people 
 were so certain of her kindness, if they erred, that she was often chosen 
 as a confessor among them. 
 
 Though she abhorred every thing relative to death, considering it as 
 the triumph of sin ; yet she spoke of her own removal with serenity. 
 When her niece Miss Wesley asked her if she would wish that she 
 should attend her in her last moments, she answered, " Yes, if you are 
 able to bear it : but I charge you not to grieve more than half an hour.^' 
 
 Though she had a small pwperty of her own, yet she was princi- 
 pally dependent on the bounty of her brothers, after her husband had 
 deserted her; and here was a striking illustration of the remark, that 
 " in noble natures benefits do not diminish love on either side." She 
 left to her niece, whom she dearly loved, and who well knew how to 
 prize so valuable a woman, the little remains of hef fortune, who in vain 
 urged her to sink it on her own life, in order to procure her a few more 
 comforts. 
 
 Mr. Wesley, at his death, bequeathed her 401. , to be paid out of the 
 proceeds of the sale of his books : This was little ; but he had nothing 
 to leave; this I well know, being one of his seven executors in trust. 
 He had engaged to pay certain sums, which would have been paid out 
 of the produce of his writings had he lived ; to discharge which, the 
 trustees above mentioned were obliged to borrow the money! So much 
 did he acquire by being the head of a large party ; and after preaching 
 the Gospel for sixty years ! Mrs. Hall did not live to enjoy thia 
 legacy, as she died the same year with her brother. 
 Her niece Miss Wesley was with her in her last moments : but thia 
 she permitted on the sole condition that she should not sleep at her 
 'Mrs. Hall's) lodgings, "lest," as she said to her, "you should not 
 sleep, and your anxiety might create mine." 
 
 44
 
 346 MISS MARTHA WESLEY, MRS. HALL. 
 
 She had no disease, but a mere decay of nature. She spoke of her 
 dissolution with the ^same tranquillity with which she spoke of every 
 thing else. A little before her departure she called Miss Wesley to 
 her bed-side, and said, " I have now a sensationjthat convinces me my 
 departure is near; the heart strings seem gently, but entirely, loosened." 
 
 Miss Wesley asked her if she was in pain ? " No," said she, " but a 
 new feeling." Just before she closed her eyes she bade her niece 
 come near she pressed her hand, and said, " I have the assurance 
 which I have long prayed for : Shout!" said she, and expired. Thus 
 her noble and happy spirit passed into the presence of her Redeemer, 
 on the 12th of July, 1791, about four months and nine days after the 
 death of her brother John. 
 
 I shall close this account with a few words extracted from one of 
 Miss Wesley's letters now before me. 
 
 " Mrs. Susanna Wesley was a noble creature : but her trials were 
 not such as Mrs. Hall's. Wounded in her affections in the tenderest 
 part ; deserted by the husband she so much loved : bereaved of her ten 
 children ; falsely accused of taking her sister's lover, whereas, though 
 ignorantly, that sister had taken him, from her; reduced from ample 
 competency to a narrow income ; yet no complaint was heard from 
 her lips ! Her serenity was undisturbed, and her peace beyond the 
 reach of calamity. Active virtues command applause ; they are apparent 
 to every eye : but the passive are only known to Him by whom they are 
 registered on high, where the silent sufferer shall meet the full reward.'* 
 
 So magnanimous a soul, so devoid of self, so unmoved by injury, 
 so steadily religious, so compassionate to her fellow creatures, so tho- 
 roughly devoted to God ; to say nothing of the other, is rarely found 
 among the female sex ! 
 
 Mrs. Hall, who, we have seen, resembled her brother so remarka- 
 bly in her person, and in the qualities of her mind, and between whom 
 and him there was so much intense affection throughout life, was not 
 separated from him in death. She lies in the same vault in which 
 Mr. John Wesley's remains were interred but a few months before. 
 She was the last survivor of the original Wesley family ; her father, 
 mother, brothers, and sisters, having all died before her. 
 
 When I first saw this excellent and interesting woman in 1783, I 
 little thought that forty years after I should be led in the course of 
 Providence to rescue her character from detraction, and erect a mon- 
 ument to her memory. Among those who knew her, she had as many 
 admirers as acquaintances ; her detractors have been few ; and those 
 must be sought among the biographers of her brothers ; some of whom 
 have dealt, in more than her case, in matters too hard for them, and 
 written of those things which they did not understand. 
 
 Ag far as they did this ignorantly , none can be more ready than my- 
 self to plead their excuse !
 
 CHARLES AND KEZZIA. WESLEY. 347 
 
 THE REV. CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 Charles Wesley, A. M., student of Christ Church, Oxford, youngest 
 son of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth, and Susanna his 
 wife, was born at Epworth, December 18, 1708 ; and died in London, 
 March 29, 1788, aged seventy-nine. years and three months. 
 
 He was a good man, a powerful preacher, and the best Christian 
 poet, in reference to hymnoiogy, that has flourished in either ancient or 
 modern times. The hymns used in the religious service of the Me- 
 thodists were composed principally by him; *nd such a collection exists 
 not among any other people. Most collections among other sects of 
 Christians are indebted to his compositions for some of their principal 
 excellencies. 
 
 Mr. Charles Wesley's Life, in connection with that of his brother 
 John, has been written by Ur. Coke and Mr. Moore ; by Dr. White- 
 head ; and lately by Dr. Robert Southey, poet laureat. Of all these 
 Dr. Whitehead's account claims the preference, as formed from Mr. C. 
 Wesley's own diary. 
 
 MISS KEZZIA WESLEY. 
 
 Kezzia, called in the family papers Kezze and Kez, appears to have 
 been the youngest child of the Wesley family. The fact in her history 
 of most importance is that which has been so largely considered in the 
 history of her sister, Martha Hall, to which I must refer the reader., 
 
 About 1730 Miss Kezzy became a teacher in a boarding school in 
 Lincoln, where she did not enjoy good health. Indeed she was much 
 afflicted all through life, in consequence of which she was prevented 
 from improving a mind that seems to have been capable of high culti- 
 vation. She wrote a peculiarly neat and beautiful hand, even more so 
 than that of her sister Emily. 
 
 Her brother Mr. John Wesley, wrote frequently to her ; and gave her 
 directions both for the improvement of her mind, and her increase in 
 true religion. 
 
 To a letter of this description, in which he recommends a regular 
 course of reading, mentions the proper books, &c, and the best manner 
 of using them, she thus replies ; and painfully shows how much she 
 was prevented by the res angusla domi from cultivating her mind as she 
 wished : 
 
 " Lincoln, July 3, 1731. 
 
 ' DEAR BROTHER, I should have writ sooner, had not business 
 and indisposition of body prevented me. Indeed, sister Pat's going to 
 London shocked me a little, because it was unexpected ; and perhaps 
 may have been the cause of my ill health for the last fortnight. It 
 would not have had so great an effect upon my mind if I had known it 
 before : but it is over now 
 
 ' The past a* nothing we esteem ; 
 And pain, like pleasure, ia dream.'
 
 348 M1SB KEZZIA WE8LET. 
 
 " I should be glad to see Nomis's Reflections on the Conduct of 
 Human Understanding, and the book wrote by the female author : but I 
 don't expect so great a satisfaction as the seeing either of them, except 
 you should have the good fortune (for me) as to be at Epworth when I 
 am there, which will be in the latter end of August. I shall stay a 
 fortnight or three weeks, if no unforeseen accident prevent it. 
 
 " I must not expect any thing that will give me so much pleasure as 
 the having your company so long ; because a disappointment would 
 make me very uneasy. Had your supposition been true, and one of your 
 fine ladies had heard your conference, they would have despised you 
 as a mere ill-bred scholar, who could make no better use of such an 
 opportunity than preaching to young women for the improvement of 
 their minds. 
 
 " I am entirely of your opinion, that the pursuit of knowledge and 
 virtue will most improve the mind : but how to pursue these is the 
 question. Cut off indeed I am from all means which most men, and 
 many women, have of attaining them. 
 
 " I have JV*e/so?i's Method of Devotion, and The Whole Duty of Man, 
 which is all my stock. As to history and poetry, I have not so much 
 as one book. 
 
 " I could like to read all the books you mention, if it were in my 
 power to buy them : but as it is not at present, nor have any of my 
 acquaintance I can borrow them of, I must make myself easy without 
 them, if I can ; but I had rather you had not told me of them, because 
 it always occasions me some uneasiness that I have not books and 
 opportunity to improve my mind. Now here I have time, in a morn- 
 ing three or four hours, but want of books : at home I had books, 
 but no time, because constant illness made me incapable of study. I 
 like JVVson's Method of Devotion ; the aiming every day at some par- 
 ticular virtue. I wish you would send me the questions you speak of, 
 relative to each virtue, and I would read them every day. Perhaps they 
 may be of use to me in learning contentment, for I have been long en- 
 deavouring to practise it ; yet every temptation is apt to cause me to 
 fall into the same error. 
 
 " I should be glad if you would say a little to sister Emily on the 
 same subject ; for she is very likely to have a fit of sickness with 
 grieving for the loss of Miss Emery, who went to Wickham last Sa- 
 turday to live. I can't persuade her to the contrary, because I am so 
 much addicted to the same failing myself. Pray desire brother Charles 
 to bring Prior, the second part, when he comes ; or send it, according 
 to promise, for leaving off snuff till next May : or else I shall think 
 myself at liberty to take as soon as I please. Pray let me know in 
 your next letter when you design to come down, and whether brother 
 NVesley and sister will come with you ? If you intend to walk, and 
 brother Charles with you '( 
 
 " I think it is no great matter whether I say any thing relating to 
 the people of Epworth, or no ; for you may be sure he that increaseth 
 knowledge increaseth sorrow. I expect you will come by London ; 
 pray, desire sister Pat to write by you. I have not heard from her
 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATION!. 349 
 
 since she went. You must not measure the length of your next letter 
 by mine : I am ill, and can't write any more. 
 " Your affectionate sister, 
 
 " KEZZIA WESLEY." 
 
 " Miss Kitty went to 6 o'clock prayers till she got the fever ; and I 
 never miss except sickness prevent me." 
 
 Here we find a mind thirsting after the knowledge both Divine and 
 human ; and struggling against many disadvantages, among which 
 comparative poverty and bad health were none of the least. Money 
 was scarce a hundred years ago ; and books not easy to be procured. 
 Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ for a present salvation was little known ; 
 and growth in moral goodness, by a daily reference to, and practice 
 of, some virtue, was a poor substitute for the application of that blood 
 which cleanses from all unrighteousness, and a daily growth in grace, 
 and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God, the 
 trumpet does not now give an uncertain sound. 
 
 We have already seen that Mr. Wesley Hall, after having engaged 
 himself to Miss Martha Wesley, paid his addresses to Miss Kezzy, 
 and, when on the point of leading her to the altar, was struck with 
 remorse of conscience, and returned to Martha ; and that Miss Kezzy 
 went to them on their marriage, and lived with them till her death, 
 which took place March 9, 1741. 
 
 She appears to have had a general state of ill health, and a long life 
 could not well be expected. 
 
 She was to have been married to a gentleman who paid his addresses 
 to her when she resided with her sister Hall at the curacy, near Salis- 
 bury ; but death prevented the match. 
 
 It appears that her brother Charles was present when she died ; of 
 her closing scene he gives the following account in a letter to Mr. John 
 Wesley : 
 
 "Yesterday morning, [March 9, 1741] sister Kezzy died in the 
 Lord Jesus. He finished his work, and cut it short in mercy. Full 
 of thankfulness, resignation, and love without pain or trouble, she 
 commended her spirit into the hands of Jesus, and fell asleep." 
 
 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 How powerful is a religious education ; and how true the saying, 
 Train up a child in th way he should go ; and when he is old, he will 
 not depart from it. 
 
 All this family were brought up in the fear of God ; and that fear 
 continued with them through life. 
 
 We have in the preceding history records of the last hours of most of 
 them, and all those died happy in God. Hetty appears to have been 
 the only one who was not decidedly religious. Brought up from com- 
 parative infancy at a distance from her parents, and indulged by a fond 
 uncle, she was for a time gay and giddy ; but never wicked. 
 
 However, the seed of life which was sown in her heart vegetated 
 surely, though slowly. Unparalleled afflictions became the means of 
 
 * *
 
 350 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 urging her to seek her happiness in God. She sought, found, and 
 lived, several years in the possession of the Divine, favour, and died 
 in the assurance of faith. ^ii 
 
 Such a family I have never read of, heard of, or fflwra ; nor since 
 the days of Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, 
 has there ever been a family to which the human race has been more 
 indebted. 
 
 ADAM CLARKE. 
 
 Milbrook, Feb. 28, 1822.
 
 
 000036075