Samuel Wesley was the grandson of Bartholomew Wesley, rector of Catherston, in Dorsetshire. Bartholomew Wesley was born about the year 1600; but the place of his nativity is not known. He received a university education, a fact indicating, to some extent, the circumstances and the religious opinions of his parents. Calamy informs us, that, while at the university, Bartholomew Wesley applied himself to the study of physic, as well as of divinity; and the knowledge which he acquired was of great advantage to him in the dark days of his after life. In 1640 he was inducted to the rectory of Charmouth, and in 1650 to that of Catherston; both of which he held until his ejectment in 1662.
Catherston and Charmouth are villages in the south-western extremity of Dorsetshire; the former about a mile distant from the latter. Catherston stands on an eminence, and Charmouth in the valley adjoining it.
Like many others, Bartholomew Wesley was driven from his rectories by the Act of Uniformity. After this, though he preached occasionally, he had to support himself and his family by the practice of physic. Calamy says he used a peculiar plainness of speech, which hindered his being an acceptable, popular preacher.
Nothing more is known of Bartholomew Wesley, except a story related by Lord Clarendon, embellished by Anthony á Wood, and retailed by Rapin and others. Wood calls him “the fanatical minister, sometime of Charmouth, in Dorsetshire,” who, in 1651, had like to have “betrayed Lord Wilmot and King Charles II., when they continued incognito in that county,” but Wood was a man so bitter and intolerant that all he says ought to be received with caution.
The substance of the story, as given by Clarendon and others, is as follows:—After the battle of Worcester, in 1651, Charles II. wished to escape to France, and it was privately arranged that the vessel, in which he was to cross the channel, was to be near Charmouth on the night of September 22d. A man was sent to engage for that night the best rooms at the inn, at Charmouth, for a pretended wedding party, who wished to stop to refresh themselves and horses. All this being arranged, the party arrived at the inn, and were secretly assured that about midnight the long boat, to take them to the vessel, would be at the place appointed. The King and Lord Wilmot waited at the inn; and Colonel Wyndam and his man Peters went to the sea-side to look for the boat; but looked all night in vain. At break of day, they urged the king and Lord Wilmot quickly to escape from Charmouth for fear of treachery. The reason why the boat had not come, as was agreed, was, because the wife of the man who had charge of it suspected what was transpiring, and locked her husband in his chamber, and would on no account permit him egress. While Lord Wilmot was obtaining this information, a blacksmith of the name of Hammet[6] was requested to shoe his lordship’s horse. The smith, from the fashion of the shoes, declared they had been made, not in the west, but in the north. Henry Hull,[7] the hostler, hearing this, stated that the company, of whom Wilmot was one, had sat up all night, and kept their horses saddled. It was at once inferred, that the party who had departed from Charmouth that morning, was either the king and his friends, or some of the king’s distinguished adherents. The hostler ran to Wesley, the minister, to ask his counsel. Wesley was at his morning exercise, and being somewhat long-winded, he wearied the hostler’s patience, who returned to the blacksmith’s shop without telling his suspicions. In the meantime, Lord Wilmot had mounted and was gone. The blacksmith then told Wesley what had happened. Wesley went to the inn to make further inquiries, and then went with the blacksmith to a magistrate, to give him information, that warrants might be issued for the apprehension of the suspected fugitives. No warrants, however, were obtained; but a party pursued the king and his friends as far as Dorchester, where the pursuit was ended.
Such is the story in brief; but Clarendon adds that the day when Charles and his friends were waiting at Charmouth was a day appointed by the Parliament for a solemn fast, and that a fanatical weaver, who had been a soldier in the parliamentary army, was preaching against the king in a little chapel fronting the obscure inn where his Majesty was stopping; that, to avoid suspicion, Charles was among the weaver’s audience; and that this was the man who hastened to make inquiries at the inn, and that applied to a magistrate for a warrant.
John Wesley’s account of this affair is short. Like Clarendon, he states, that the minister was a weaver, but omits to state that he was his own great-grandfather. He writes:—“Pursuing his journey to the sea-side, Charles once more had a very providential escape from a little inn, where he set up for the night. The day had been appointed by parliament a solemn fast; and a weaver, who had been a soldier in the parliament army, was preaching against the king in a little chapel fronting the house. Charles, to avoid suspicion, was himself among the audience. It happened that a smith, of the same principles with the weaver, had been examining the horses belonging to the passengers, and came to assure the preacher that he knew by the fashion of the shoes, that one of the strangers’ horses came from the north. The preacher immediately affirmed that this horse could belong to no other than Charles Stuart, and instantly went with a constable to search the inn. But Charles had left before the constable’s arrival.”[8]
In a book entitled “Miraculum Basilicon,” by A. J., (Abraham Jennings,) and published in 1664, there are a few other particulars, in reference to this occurrence, possessed of some interest. The author calls Wesley “the puny parson of the place, and a most devoted friend to the parricides;” and designates the “morning exercise” in which he was engaged, when the hostler went to him, “his long breathed devotions, and bloody prayers.” Wesley having heard the rumour about the travellers at the inn, went to the innkeeper to make inquiries. The writer says, “Wesley, this pitiful dwindling pastor, posted to the innkeeper, and with most eager blusterations, catechised him concerning what travellers he had lodged that night; from whence they came, and whither they would, and what they did there? His suspicions being increased by the answers he received, he went to Dr Butler, the next justice of the peace, requiring a warrant, by which he would stir up the people and the soldiers to endeavour the apprehending of the king. The justice having refused to grant the warrant, Captain Massey, who was in the neighbourhood, at once gathered as many soldiers as he was able, and followed after the fugitives in the way towards London, until he came to Dorchester; but, by a most divine instinct, the king turned another way, crossing the country a little beyond Bridport, and so escaped from his pursuer Captain Massey!”
Dr A. Clarke has, with great earnestness, endeavoured to make it clear that Bartholomew Wesley was not the man who tried to entrap King Charles; and, if Clarendon’s description was literally correct, that the preacher was a weaver, there would be presumptive evidence in favour of Clarke’s opinion. It is quite possible that Wesley might have been in the parliamentary army; but, remembering that he received his education in the Oxford University, it is hardly probable that he was a weaver previous to his removal there. The only reasonable way to reconcile Wood’s statement that Wesley was the minister who informed, with Clarendon’s assertion that the preacher was a weaver, is to suppose that, on account of the smallness of his income, Bartholomew Wesley, like many others, found it expedient to have a spinning-wheel, and to weave his home-spun yarns into home-made cloths. Admit such a supposition, and all difficulties vanish. Wesley might have been in the army; in such a sense, he might be a weaver; and he might be preaching, and might have King Charles in his Charmouth congregation on the day already mentioned.
Dr A. Clarke seems to be exceedingly unwilling to admit that Bartholomew Wesley was guilty of an act so mean as that of giving information concerning King Charles. As to the meanness or merit of such an act, opinions will differ. We submit, however, that, in such a case, Bartholomew Wesley only did his duty. Probably he had been in the parliamentary army, and had fought for the emancipation of his country from the perfidious thraldom of the Stuart dynasty. He was now, by the authority of the parliamentary government, the appointed clergyman of the two parishes where he lived. Only twelve days before the attempt of Charles to escape to France from Charmouth, the Parliament had issued a proclamation, threatening those who concealed the king, or any of his party; and on the very day when it was arranged for the plan of escape to France to be carried out, that proclamation had been published two miles hence, in the adjacent town of Lyme. Let the reader bear all this in mind, and he will probably conclude that Dr A. Clarke’s earnest attempt to clear Bartholomew Wesley from the charge of giving information concerning the royal fugitive, was a labour of love not needed; and that the whole affair, instead of injuring the rector’s fair fame, is greatly to his credit. He performed a duty, a painful duty; and for that he deserves, not excuses, but thanks.
Bartholomew Wesley, after being ejected from his church at Charmouth, still continued to reside in the same village, and obtained a livelihood by the practice of physic. He made no secret of the fact that it was his intention and wish to capture the king; and he jokingly told a gentleman that he was “confident that, if ever the king came back, he would be certain to love long prayers; for if he (Wesley) had not been at that time longer than ordinary at his devotion, he would have surely snapt him.”[9] His were days of strife, of change, of oppression, and of sorrow. He lived to a good old age, for he survived his son John, whose death, in 1678, greatly affected him. He preached when he could, and administered physic as far as he was able. A local historian writes concerning the persecuted dissenting Christians in the west: “They were rewarded with cruel mockings, bonds, and imprisonments; they wandered in deserts and in mountains; and in dens and caverns they hid themselves. In the solitudes of Pinney they offered up their prayers, in a dell between two high rocks, which have ever since been called the Whitechapel Rocks; and in an old house at Lyme there was recently discovered an ingeniously concealed oak staircase, capable of admitting only one person at a time, which led to a small apartment that had been used as a chapel.” In such places, Bartholomew Wesley joined his fellow-Christians in the worship which they stealthily presented to Almighty God. He and they have long since passed to the place where “the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
Samuel Wesley’s father was John, the son of the ejected rector of Catherston and Charmouth, and was born about the year 1636. Even when a boy at school, he had deep religious convictions and feelings, and began to keep a diary of God’s gracious dealings with him, which, with slight interruptions, was continued to the end of life. That diary is now unfortunately lost, or at all events, if it still exists, no one seems to know where it is.
At the usual age he was entered a student of New Inn Hall, Oxford, and, in due course of time, became M.A. At the period when John Wesley matriculated, Dr John Owen, who was Cromwell’s chaplain, filled the office of vice-chancellor, and treated the young student with marked attention. Wesley was serious and diligent, and applied himself particularly to the study of the Oriental languages, in which he made great proficiency.
Owen was elected vice-chancellor in 1652, when John Wesley was about sixteen years of age, and continued in that high office until 1657, which was a few months before Wesley’s entrance upon the ministry; so that it is not improbable that Wesley was at Oxford during the whole of the administration of this distinguished man. Owen found this ancient seat of learning in an exceedingly disordered state. After withstanding a long siege, it had recently been obliged to surrender to the parliament forces, and was now left so desolate, that men said, in their excitement, it looked like Jerusalem in ruins. Broken trees and trampled gardens were seen on every hand. Sculptured stones and pictured windows lay shattered in the grass. Nettles and brambles were growing round the walls of colleges. The rich wood-work in the quadrangle of Christ Church had been used for fuel. The halls had been turned into granaries, and the colleges into barracks. So long had Mars usurped the place of Minerva, and students been accustomed to exchange cap for helmet, that the scholastic air had almost vanished. “There was little or no education of youth. Poverty, desolation, and plunder,—the sad effects of war,—were to be seen in every corner.” To correct these evils, to curb the licentiousness of the students, to maintain the rights of the university, and to support its character for piety and learning, Owen set himself most vigorously, and he happily succeeded. Anthony Wood describes him as putting down “formalities and all ceremony, and as undervaluing his office by going in quirpo, like a young scholar, with powdered hair, snake-bone band strings, a large set of ribbons pointed at his knees, and Spanish leather boots, with large lawn tops, and his hat mostly cocked.” Be this as it might, among the students Owen acted as a father. While he discountenanced and punished the vicious, he encouraged and rewarded the modest and the indigent; and, under his administration, the whole body was reduced to good order, and contained a great number of excellent scholars, and persons of distinguished piety.
At this period, Dr Thomas Goodwin, distinguished for his piety, learning, and industry, was president of Magdalen College; George Porter, a man of great gravity, integrity, self-denial, and charity, was Proctor of the University; Stephen Charnock was Senior Proctor of New College; Ralph Button, whom Baxter describes as “a most humble, worthy, godly man,” was Canon of Christ Church; Thomas Cole, the tutor of John Locke, was Principal of St Mary’s Hall; John Howe was Fellow of Magdalen College; Dr Edmund Staunton, who was a living concordance to the Bible, was President of Corpus Christi College; Dr Wilkins, who married Cromwell’s sister, and was afterwards Bishop of Chester, was Warden of Wadham College; Dr Pococke, the greatest Oriental scholar of his time, was Professor of Arabic. Such were some of the celebrated men who flourished at Oxford at the time when John Wesley was a student there. And among others who, during the same period, received a part or the whole of their academical education in the same university, may be mentioned:—William Penn, the celebrated Quaker; Philip Henry, the eminent Nonconformist; Dr South, so famed for his pungent sermons; Sir Christopher Wren, the illustrious architect; Dr Whitby, the learned commentator; Launcelot Addison, father to Joseph Addison, the essayist; Bishops Spratt and Compton, who afterwards ordained John Wesley’s son Samuel; Bishops Crewe, Cartwright, Hopkins, Ken, Fowler, Wiseman, Hooper, Marsh, Huntingdon, Cumberland, Turner, and Lloyd; Joseph Alleine, subsequently John Wesley’s companion in tribulation; and Charles Morton, in whose academy Samuel Wesley was afterwards a student. Such were the distinguished contemporaries of Samuel Wesley’s father in Oxford University.
John Wesley first began to preach, among seamen, at Radipole, a village about two miles distant from Weymouth. In the meantime the vicar of Winterborn-Whitchurch died, and the people of that parish wished Wesley to preach to them as a minister on probation. He went; his ministry and life gave satisfaction to those who invited him; he passed his examination before Cromwell’s “Triers;” and, by the trustees, was appointed to the living. This was in May 1658, when he was about twenty-two years of age.
Winterborn-Whitchurch is a village about five miles from Blandford, in Dorsetshire, and in 1851 had a population of 595. The income of the living, when it was presented to John Wesley, was about £30 a year. He was promised an augmentation of £100 a year; but, on account of the many changes in public affairs which soon afterwards took place, the promise failed in its fulfilment.
Oliver Cromwell died four months after John Wesley was inducted into this church benefice, and, as a consequence, the nation became more distracted than ever. There was, in fact, no efficient civil government, and the ruling power fell wholly into the hands of the army. In 1659, what was called “The Committee of Safety” was appointed, consisting of twenty-three persons, who were ordered “to endeavour some settlement of affairs, by preparing such a form of government as might best comport with a free state and commonwealth.” The Committee agreed upon seven articles:—1. That there should be no kingship. 2. That there should be no single person as chief magistrate. 3. That the army should be continued. 4. That there should be no imposition upon conscience. 5. No House of Peers. 6. That the legislative and executive powers should be in distinct hands. 7. That parliament should be elected by the people. Inextricable confusion followed. Plotter plotted against plotter, and the cleverest man was he who could best act the hypocrite. General Monk and his army wished for the restoration of Charles; but parliament and the Committee of Safety seemed to be opposed to this; and there was serious danger of a recurrence of civil wars. John Wesley was a young man, twenty-three years of age, and for a time appears to have sympathised with the party represented by the Committee of Safety, and to have taken up the sword on their behalf; but when Charles was restored to the throne of his fathers, in 1666, the young soldier quietly submitted, and took the oath of allegiance and loyalty.
Some of these facts are referred to in the following conversation, taken from Calamy’s “Nonconformists’ Memorial.” It may be added, that Dr Gilbert Ironside had been rector of Steepleton and Abbas Winterborn, parishes in Dorset, not far from where the Wesleys lived. He was consecrated Bishop of Bristol about the time of Charles’s restoration, and was informed that John Wesley would not read the Liturgy. The bishop expressed a desire to see him. Wesley waited upon his lordship; and the following catechetical interview took place:—
Bishop. What is your name?
Wesley. John Wesley.
Bishop. There are many great matters charged upon you.
Wesley. Mr Horloch 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? or are you ordained?
Wesley. I am sent to preach the gospel.
Bishop. By whom were you sent?
Wesley. By a church of Jesus Christ.
Bishop. What church is that?
Wesley. The church of Christ at Melcombe.
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 Sir Gerrard Napper, Mr Freak, and Mr Tregonnel of your doings. What say you?
Wesley. I have been with those honoured gentlemen, who, being misinformed, proceeded with some heat against me.
Bishop. There are the oaths of several honest men, who have observed you.
Wesley. There was no oath given or taken. Besides, if it be enough to accuse, who shall be innocent? I can appeal to the determination of the great day of judgment, that the large catalogue of matters laid against me are either things invented or mistaken.
Bishop. Did not you ride with your sword in the time of the Committee of Safety, and engage with them?
Wesley. Whatever imprudences in civil matters you may be informed 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 everybody might preach.
Wesley. Not every one. Everybody has not preaching gifts and preaching graces. Besides, that is not all I have to offer to your lordship 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?
Wesley. If you mean that 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 new-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, I am not satisfied in my 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 ability 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! oh, how you are 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 gathered churches in England; and you will see it so. For there must be unity 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 opposed to morosity. However you may be prepossessed by some bitter enemies to my person, yet, there are others, who can and will give you another 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?
Wesley. Oxon.
Bishop. What house?
Wesley. New 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 success, 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 profaneness. 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 commonplace 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 Radipole, Melcombe, Turnworth, 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 apostles’ 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 worship in the New Testament, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles 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, and by threatenings mixed. 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 that place, “This speak I now, by revelation from the Lord”—not the Lord in that text before instanced, when he gave answer concerning divorce. May it please your lordship, 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 facies tibi,” satisfied me that we may not worship God but as commanded.
Bishop. You take discipline, church government, and circumstances 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 further say, that I have conscientiously taken the oath of allegiance, and faithfully kept it hitherto. I appeal to all that are around 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 thereto.
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 those latter proceedings; but you abode even till Haselrig’s coming to Portsmouth.
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 Buchanan in Scotland, and those like them in England.
Wesley. I have read the protestation of owning the king’s supremacy.
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 delivered us their hearts.
Bishop. Well, then, you will justify your preaching, will you, without 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 gifted persons, with such approbation, than has been answered by any one yet.
Bishop. Have you anything more to say to me, Mr Wesley?
Wesley. Nothing. Your lordship sent for me.
Bishop. I am glad I heard this from your 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.
This is a long conversation, but it is instructive and useful, (1.) as casting light upon Church and State affairs, immediately after the restoration of Charles; and (2.) as furnishing several interesting facts in the history of Samuel Wesley’s father. Passing over the first, we learn that John Wesley, like his grandson of the same name, was a man of sound sense and pluck. He adhered to the parliament and to the Commonwealth to the last moment; but when he saw that the Commonwealth was doomed, and that the nation was resolved to restore the Monarchy, like a man of sense, he laid aside his sword and quietly submitted. His continued firm adherence to the cause of the Commonwealth—“to the last gasp,” as the bishop put it—brought him into trouble after the king’s return; but royal clemency was properly exercised towards him, and there was an end of the affair. He had preferred another kind of government; but now that Charles, by the voice of the nation, was seated upon the throne, Wesley took the oath of allegiance, and faithfully kept it.
It is further evident, from the foregoing conversation, that John Wesley was never episcopally ordained. From his infancy, he was devoted, by his God-fearing father, to the work of the ministry, and was educated in reference thereto, both at school and at college. After leaving the university, he became a private member of the church at Melcombe. Authorised by the voice of that church, he began to preach at Melcombe, Radipole, Turnworth, Whitchurch, and other places. By the bishop’s own admission, he was a man of “gifts.” His preaching was the means of converting sinners in every place in which it was exercised. Just at this juncture, Mr Walton, who had been vicar of the parish of Winterborn-Whitchurch for fifty-six years, died. Several able ministers, and judicious Christians, thought young Wesley to be a suitable successor. The trustees, in whom the presentation was vested, offered him the living. Cromwell’s Triers, after having examined him as to his fitness for the ministerial work, gave him their certificate of approval. And then, as the last step previous to his induction—instead of ordination by bishops or by presbyters—the church of which he was a private member set apart a day for fasting and prayer, to seek an abundant blessing on his labours. Thus qualified, called, and commissioned, the young evangelist, at the age of twenty-two, entered upon his ministerial charge; and, laying aside the Liturgy, which had probably been used by the previous vicar during his long ministry of fifty-six years, he introduced the Presbyterian, or the Independent, form of worship, and thereby involved himself in trouble. Some of the parishioners—as Sir Gerrard Napper, Mr Freak, and Mr Tregonnel—disliked the change; and, as soon as a bishop was appointed after the Restoration, they lodged a complaint against their young minister. It is extremely doubtful whether the bishop at that time—1661—had authority to interfere in a case like Wesley’s; but he wished to see him; and, accordingly, knowing that there was no violation of law in his abandonment of the Liturgy during the last three years, Wesley, with a fearless heart and unflinching face, sought the bishop’s presence, and held the characteristic conversation already given.
It is somewhat difficult to determine what Wesley means by his “gathered church,” and by its members not being fit for him “to exercise office-work among them.” The probability is, that at the death of old Mr Walton there were no really converted persons in the parish, and, therefore, none whom Wesley deemed to be fit and proper persons to receive the sacrament. His endeavour, for the past three years, had been to get the people converted, and, to some extent, he had succeeded; but still, he even yet scarce considered his new converts, the members of his gathered church, sufficiently instructed and established to justify him in his exercising “office-work” among them; or, in other words, to justify him in administrating to them the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. If this is not the meaning of this technical and obscure verbiage, the reader, so far as the writer is concerned, must be content to remain in ignorance.
Wesley’s conversation with Bishop Ironside occurred sometime during the year 1661. About the same period he was arrested, on the Lord’s-day, as he was coming out of church, and was carried to Blandford, where he was committed to prison. The reason of this arrest was exactly the same as that which brought him before the Bishop of Bristol. He would not use the Liturgy. His enemies had accused him to the bishop, but without effect, for the bishop as yet was really without jurisdiction. King Charles had appointed bishops to several dioceses, and the Liturgy had been introduced into those churches, where the ministers were avowedly Episcopalians; but it was not until the month of November 1661, that the prayer-book was revised by Convocation; and it was not until August 1662, that the use of it was made binding. It is true that, during the summer of 1660, a bill had been passed by parliament giving power to expel from church livings every incumbent that had not been ordained by an ecclesiastic; and by this act, John Wesley might have been expelled from the living of Winterborn, Whitchurch. But this was not the ground taken by Sir Gerrard Napper and the other parishioners who were inimical to his person and ministry. Probably they were not aware, or were not in a position to prove, that he had not received ordination; and hence their illegal plot to imprison and expel him, because, in conducting divine service in his church, he persisted in his refusal to use the Book of Common Prayer.
It was within two years after the restoration of Charles II. that Wesley was arrested and committed to Blandford gaol on such a charge. Sir Gerrard Napper had been his most furious enemy, and the most forward in committing him; but after Wesley had lain in prison for a length of time, Sir Gerrard broke his collar bone, and, perhaps thinking that the disaster had happened as a judgment upon him for his cruelty to the young minister, he requested some of his friends to bail him, and told them, that if they refused, he would give bail himself. At length, by an order of the Privy Council, dated July 24, 1661, it was directed that he should be discharged from his then imprisonment, upon taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. He was taken accordingly before a magistrate, who, for some reason, declined administering the oaths, but issued a warrant, dated July 29, 1661, commanding him to appear before the judges of the assizes, to be holden at Dorchester, the 1st of August following.
He has recorded in his diary the goodness of God in inclining a solicitor to plead for him, and in restraining the wrath of man, so that even the judge, though a man of sharp temper, spoke not an angry word. The sum of the proceedings, as given 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?
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? Why have you not prepared for a trial?[10]
Solicitor. We thought our prosecutors would not appear.
Judge. Why so, young man? 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. What bishop?
Wesley. The Bishop of Bristol.
Judge. I say, by whom were you ordained? How long is it since?
Wesley. Four or five years since.
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 doctrines, heresy, and schism. Good Lord, deliver us!”
Clerk. Call Mr Meech.
Meech. Here.
Clerk. Does Mr Wesley read the common prayer yet.
Meech. May it please your lordship, he never did, nor he never will.
Judge. Friend, how do you know that? He may bethink himself.
Meech. 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.
The act was handed to the judge, and while he was reading it, another cause was called; and John Wesley was bound over to the next assizes. He came joyfully home, and preached each Lord’s-day, till August 17, 1662, when he delivered his farewell sermon to a weeping audience, from Acts xx. 32; “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and the word of his grace.”
Such is the account given by Dr A. Clarke; an account taken, in substance, from Calamy. Some of the dates are perplexing and doubtful. Clarke states that this odd sort of assize trial took place in August 1661; and yet from the last remark of the Solicitor,—“When we see the new book we will either read it, or leave our place at Bartholomew tide,” it is clear that the “new book” was, to say the least, already sanctioned; and that the Act of Uniformity was already passed, fixing Bartholomew tide as the time when every possessor of a church living must either use the “new Book” of Common Prayer, or be ejected from his church. Admit this, and then it is undeniable that Wesley was tried at the assizes, not in 1661, but in 1662; inasmuch as the “new book” was not prepared by Convocation before November 1661; and the Act of Uniformity, making the use of it binding, was not passed before the 19th of May 1662.[11] John Wesley was kept in prison up to within a month of the mournful 24th of August, when he and two thousand more were ruthlessly ejected from their churches and their homes. At the very utmost, he would not have the opportunity of preaching on more than three Sundays in his church, before Sir Gerrard Napper and his other enemies had their wishes gratified, by seeing him finally expelled. There are some other difficulties in the account given by Calamy and Clarke; but, in a life like this, they are scarcely worth noticing.
Little more remains to be said concerning Samuel Wesley’s father. Where he spent the first six months after his ejectment from his benefice, we have no means of knowing. Probably, however, he remained in the same village, where he had spent the last four years, inasmuch as it was here that his son Samuel was born, only four months after the youthful minister and his wife were cast out of their vicarage.
On February 22, 1663, when Samuel Wesley was only nine weeks old, his father and his mother removed to Melcombe. Before their arrival, their old enemy, Sir Gerrard Napper, and seven other magistrates, by some stretch of authority, had turned out of office the mayor and aldermen of the borough, and had put into their place others more subservient to their will. Accordingly, when young Wesley and his wife, with their infant child, reached Melcombe, they found that the new corporation had made an order against their settlement in the town; and that if they persisted in settling there, a fine of £20 was to be levied upon the owner of the house in which they lived, and five shillings per week upon themselves. Wesley waited upon the mayor and some others, pleading that he had lived in Melcombe previously; and offering to give security for his proper behaviour; but all was of no avail, for, a few days afterwards, another order was drawn up for putting the former one into execution.
These violent proceedings drove John Wesley and his family from the town, where, a few years before, he had lived beloved by all who knew him. He now went to Ilminster, Bridgewater, and Taunton, in all of which places, the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, treated him with great kindness, and where he preached almost every day.
The author of “Joseph Alleine: his Companions and Times,” states that, from the 11th of March 1663 to the beginning of May in that year, John Wesley was the “enthusiastic fellow-labourer” of Joseph Alleine. Mr Sandford adds—“He” (Wesley) “preached almost every day, dividing his time between Mr Alleine’s people at Taunton and Mr Norman’s at Bridgewater; he also occasionally ministered to congregations of Baptists and Independents at both places.”
Alleine was one of the two thousand ministers ejected in 1662; but he, at once, began to preach in his own house, and in surrounding villages and towns, and generally delivered from seven to fourteen sermons every week. He knew that, at any moment, he might be dragged to prison, and this made him all the more diligent and earnest in improving the time he had.
Mr Norman, mentioned above, was another of the ejected ministers. He had good natural abilities, and a considerable stock of learning, and was an acceptable preacher. With Alleine, and many others, he was sent to prison for venturing to preach the gospel of his Lord and Master. “Sirrah,” said Judge Foster, when Norman was arraigned before him in 1663, “Sirrah, do you preach?” “Yes, my lord,” said Norman. “And why so, sirrah?” “Because I was ordained to preach.” “How was you ordained?” “In the same way as Timothy.” “And how was that?” “By the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery.” Norman was sentenced to pay a fine of £100, and to lie in prison till the fine was paid. As he was being taken to Ilchester Gaol, the officers called at the house of the High Sheriff. “Where is now your God?” tauntingly asked the Sheriff’s wife. “Have you a Bible?” asked Norman. “Yes,” said she. “Bring it,” said Norman. Being brought he read Micah vii. 8, 9, 10. The poor woman seemed to be paralysed with fear, and immediately retired; and the dealings of God with the Sheriff’s family, not long after, caused this text to be remembered.
This happened in the very month that John Wesley left his friends Alleine and Norman, for before that month of May in 1663 expired, both Norman and Alleine were confined in Ilchester Gaol. When Alleine started off to prison, both sides of the streets of Taunton were lined with his weeping friends, and many followed him several miles on foot, and made such lamentations after him that they well-nigh broke his heart. Arriving at the prison gates, and finding the gaoler absent, he took the opportunity of preaching before he entered. He was clapped up in the Bridewell chamber, over the common gaol, Where he found his friend Norman, who had been committed a few days before him. In this low, miserable garret, these godly companions of John Wesley spent both day and night for many months. There were imprisoned with them, in the same room, fifty Quakers, seventeen Baptists, and also thirteen other ministers, all arrested, like themselves, for the high crimes of preaching and praying. The atmosphere was stifling. The summer sun struck fiercely on the roof all day, and so low was the covering of the building, that at night, when lying on their mattresses, the prisoners could touch the glowing tiles. Grasping for life, they had sometimes to break the Windows, or to remove a tile for the purpose of obtaining air. Night and day they were compelled to listen to the songs, the curses, and the clanking chains of the felons in the cells below; and if they ventured out of their deadly vapour-bath into the prison court, they were met by the sights of the loathsome and pestilential wretchedness of the criminals that crossed their paths.[12]
It was by a narrow escape that John Wesley was not put into the same prison as his friends Alleine and Norman.
John Wesley having spent about six weeks at Bridgewater, Taunton, and Ilminster, a gentleman who had a house at Preston, near Weymouth, offered to allow him to live in it without paying rent. Thither, therefore, he removed his young wife and their infant child in the beginning of May 1663, and thus avoided imprisonment with his friends whom he left behind. Excepting a temporary absence, shortly to be noticed, he continued to reside at Preston until his death in 1678.
At one time he strongly wished to go as a missionary to Surinam, a settlement in Guiana; and at another time, to Maryland, in America—but in neither instance was his wish accomplished. Probably the advice of his friends, and the expense of such a journey, presented difficulties which he found impossible to surmount.
For awhile he seems to have been obliged to give up preaching; and as there was no public worship except that of the Church of England, in which the Liturgy was used, he was considerably troubled at being debarred from joining in sanctuary service; but, by reading Mr Philip Nye’s “Arguments for the Lawfulness of hearing Ministers of the Church of England,” his scruples concerning the Liturgy were so far removed that he was able, with a safe conscience, to attend the church service.
At length he began to preach in private to a few good people in Preston, and occasionally at Weymouth, and at 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 in that capacity while he lived, administering to them all the ordinances of God as opportunity offered. In consequence, however, of the Oxford Five Mile Act, passed in 1665, he was often put to great inconvenience. Notwithstanding all his prudence in managing his meetings, he was frequently disturbed, several times apprehended, and four times imprisoned—once at Dorchester for three months, and once at Poole for half a year; and once, at least, he was obliged to leave his wife, his family, and his flock, and for a considerable time to hide himself in a place of secrecy. Again and again, the handful of godly people meeting in the house of Henry Saunders, mariner, of Melcombe, were arrested for being present at a conventicle, and were fined, imprisoned, or otherwise punished. Dr Calamy adds, that John Wesley “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; and he died, 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.” Application was made to the vicar of Preston to have him buried in the church; but the application was refused; and, in the churchyard, no stone tells where his ashes lie, nor is there any monument to record his worth.
From the concluding sentence of Dr Calamy, it would seem that John Wesley died about the early age of thirty-three or thirty-four. He left behind him two sons, Samuel and Matthew, and a faithful wife, who remained his widow for about half a century.
Limited space forbids further details concerning Samuel Wesley’s father; in fact, further details do not exist. John Wesley, though young in years, evinced a mind elevated far above the common level, even of those who have had the advantages of a collegiate education. He was no unthinking zealot or timid changeling. He had made himself master of the controverted points between the Established Church and Dissenters, and his opinions, being founded upon conviction, were held with the fidelity of a martyr’s grasp. To say nothing of other facts, his interview with the Bishop of Bristol displays the same sincere and zealous piety, the same manly sense, and the same heroic yet respectful boldness, which distinguished his son Samuel and his grandsons John and Charles in after years. Dr A. Clarke adds, that from the same conversation the reader may learn two important facts:—1. That the grandfather of the founder of Methodism was a lay-preacher. 2. That he was an itinerant evangelist. Indeed we find in John Wesley’s history an epitome of the Methodism which sprang up, through the instrumentality of his grandsons John and Charles; his mode of preaching, matter, manner, and success, bearing a striking resemblance to theirs and to their coadjutors.
We can only add, that a portrait of John Wesley is published in the Methodist Magazine for 1840. The hair is long, and parted in the middle. The forehead is capacious, the nose large, the eyes soft and sweet, the face without whiskers, and the general expression of the countenance highly sad and thoughtful.
Before leaving the parentage of Samuel Wesley, a few words must be said concerning his mother. She was the daughter of one distinguished man and the niece of another. Her father was the Rev. John White, one of the three assessors of the Assembly of Divines, and long known as “the Patriarch of Dorchester;” a man whom Fuller describes as being grave without being morose, and who, in the course of his ministry, “expounded the Scriptures all over and half over again;” a man who had the command of his own passions and of the purses of his parishioners; for he was so much beloved by his people that, “he could wind them up to what height be pleased.”
John White was born at Stanton St John, in December 1574. After two years of probation at Winchester school, he was admitted perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1595. Here he took his degrees in arts, was admitted into holy orders, and became a frequent preacher in and about Oxford. In 1606, he obtained the rectory of Trinity Church, Dorchester. About 1624, he and some of his friends projected the new colony of Massachusetts, in New England, and, after surmounting many obstacles, secured a patent. The object was to provide an asylum for the persecuted fugitives, who were not able to conform to the ceremonies and discipline of the Church of England. White himself had scruples respecting the worship and proceedings of the same church; and, in 1630, was prosecuted by Archbishop Laud, in the High Commission Court, for preaching against Arminianism and the ceremonies. He was also a sufferer during the civil wars, a party of horse in the neighbourhood of Dorchester, under the command of Prince Rupert, having plundered his house and taken away his library. On this occasion, he made his escape to London, and was appointed minister of the Savoy. In 1640, he was one of the learned divines directed to assist in “a committee of religion,” appointed by the House of Lords. In 1643, he was chosen to be one of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. Two years after, he succeeded the ejected Dr Featley as rector of Lambeth, and had assigned to him the use of his predecessor’s library, until his own, carried away by Prince Rupert’s soldiers, should be returned to him. In 1647, he was offered the wardenship of New College but refused it, and, as soon as possible, returned to his old flock at Dorchester, for whom he had the greatest affection, and where he had passed the happiest of his days. He died suddenly at Dorchester, July 21, 1648, when John Wesley, who married his daughter, was only twelve years old. John White was a man of great zeal, activity, and learning; and even Anthony à Wood allows that he was “a most moderate Puritan.” By his wisdom the town of Dorchester was greatly benefited, and, for many years, he exercised a patriarchal influence among the inhabitants; but, towards the end of his days, factions and adverse opinions crept in among his flock, and a new race sprung up, who either knew not or refused to acknowledge the worth of this godly man. “Of such disrespect,” says Fuller, “he was sadly and silently sensible.” He married the sister of Dr Burgess, the great Nonconformist, who afterwards, being reclaimed to the Church of England, wrote in its defence. The works of John White are—1. “A Commentary upon the First Three Chapters in Genesis;” 2. “A Way to the Tree of Life, discovered in sundry Directions for the Profitable Reading of the Scriptures;” 3. “A Digression concerning the Morality of the Fourth Commandment,” printed and published with the preceding; 4. A few sermons.
The mother of Samuel Wesley was the daughter of this distinguished man. Probably she was his youngest child, as there is evidence to show that she survived her father for more than sixty years.
She was the niece of another man of mark, the celebrated Dr Fuller. Thomas Fuller was, in many respects, a remarkable character. At the age of twelve, he was deemed fit for the studies of the university, whither he was sent accordingly. When he was three-and-twenty he was collated to a prebend’s stall in Salisbury Cathedral. Soon after this, he became rector of Broad Windsor, in Dorsetshire. At the age of thirty-three, he removed to London, where he officiated as lecturer in the Savoy Church in the Strand. After this, his life was chequered, but his pen was hardly ever idle. In succession he published his “Pisgah Sight of Palestine,” “Church History of Britain,” “A Defence of it against Dr Heylin,” “History of the Holy War,” “History of the Worthies of England,” all in folio. He was appointed chaplain to Charles II., was created doctor of divinity, and bid fair to become a bishop, when he was seized with fever, of which he died in 1661. His funeral was attended by two hundred of the clergy, showing the high estimation in which he was held. His writings possess much learning, wit, and humour, with an elaborate display of quaint conceit, a quality highly thought of at the time he wrote, and which, in him, appears to have been natural. He was an almost unequalled punster, but sometimes met his match. Once, when attempting to play off a joke upon a gentleman, whose name was Sparrowhawk, he received the following retort:—“What,” said Fuller, who was very corpulent, “what is the difference between an owl and a sparrowhawk?” “It is,” replied the other, “fuller in the head, fuller in the body, and fuller all over.” Thomas Fuller was not only eminent for his learning, his writings, and his wit, but also for his prodigious memory. He could repeat five hundred strange and unconnected words after twice hearing them, and a sermon verbatim after he had heard it once. He undertook, after passing from Temple Bar to the farthest end of Cheapside and back again, to mention all the signs over the shop doors, in regular succession, on both sides of the streets, and to repeat the names both backwards and forwards; and this almost incredible task he performed with the utmost exactness.
Such, then, were the father and the uncle of Samuel Wesley’s mother. Of herself little is known. As already shown, her father died when she was young. Her uncle died when her husband was suffering imprisonment for conscience’ sake. Her husband died about the early age of thirty-four, leaving her nothing but his holy example, his loving prayers, and at least two young children. How she obtained a living, in the early years of her widowhood, there is no evidence to show; but, in her later years, she was obliged to depend on the little help of £10 per annum, which her son Samuel was accustomed to squeeze out of his sadly too small Epworth income. The whole of her married life was one continued scene of persecution; and the forty years of her long and dreary widowhood, was an unceasing struggle with poverty and its attendant pain. She was alive in 1710.—See Clarke’s “Wesley Family,” vol. ii. p. 144. Would that we knew more of her suffering history!
[The facts in this chapter have been collected from Beal’s Fathers of the Wesley Family, Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, Anthony Wood’s Athenæ Oxoniensis, Orme’s Life of Dr John Owen, Chalmers’s General Biographical Dictionary, Fuller’s Worthies of England; and also from other books and tracts mentioned in the chapter itself.]