SCHOOL DAYS—1662–1683.
Samuel Wesley was born at Winterborn-Whitchurch, at the close of the
year 1662. He was educated at the Free School, at Dorchester, by Mr
Henry Dolling, to whom, out of respect, he dedicated the first work that
he published.[13] Dorchester Free School was built by Edward Hardy, of
Wyke, near Weymouth, about the year 1579. Young Wesley remained here
until he was a little more than fifteen years of age, when he was sent
to an academy in London. He continued in London until August 1683, when
he had nearly arrived at the age of twenty-one.
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Footnote 13:
Mr Dolling became master of Dorchester School in 1664, and held the
office until 1675. He was LL.B of Wadham College, Oxford; and
translated “The Whole Duty of Man” into Latin. The work, a copy of
which is in the Dorchester School Library, was licensed in
1678.—HUTCHIN’S _History of Dorsetshire_.
-----
Perhaps there is no period in English history more pregnant with painful
interest than the first twenty-one years of Samuel Wesley’s life. He
came into the world four months after that dark day of St Bartholomew,
when his father, and his grandfather, and more than two thousand other
godly ministers of Christ, were ejected from their churches, and driven
from their homes. When he was yet a child, the great plague of London
swept away one hundred thousand of its inhabitants; and the great fire
made nearly the whole city a sightless heap of cinders, from the Tower
to Temple Bar. Taking advantage of the confusion produced by these
terrible events, the Covenanters in the West of Scotland rose up, and
demanded redress of their grievances, and the removal of Episcopacy.
Archbishop Sharp, exchanging the crosier for the sword, took the field
against them. Forty were killed on Pentland Hills, and one hundred and
thirty taken prisoners. Ten were hanged in Edinburgh upon one gibbet,
and thirty-five more were sent back to the west of Scotland, and there
hanged, in front of their own dwellings, the ministers of the
Established Church declaring them damned to all eternity for their
rebellion, and the archbishop employing his Episcopal genius in the
invention of a new infernal instrument of torture, and spending his
hours out of the sacred pulpit, not so much in sacred exercises as in
studying how to make “the boots” excruciate the surviving associates of
those executed men. Clarendon, who had much to do with the passing of
the Act of Uniformity, was now deprived of the great seal, was accused
of treason, and obliged to flee to France for safety. Sir Matthew Hale,
Bishop Wilkins, and others, made an effort to have the Presbyterians
comprehended in the Established Church, and to secure toleration for all
the other dissenting sects; but the orthodoxy of parliament was as
intolerant as ever, and it was a common saying at the time, that whoever
proposed new laws about religion ought to do it with a rope round his
neck. The bishops and High Churchmen continued to preach the divine
right of kings and passive obedience, and the court plunged more deeply
than ever into debauchery and sin.
In 1668, the Puritans and apprentices about Moorfields took the liberty
to pull down a number of brothels, and then to say, with some
significance, that having demolished the little ones they ought not to
spare the great one at Whitehall. Colonel Blood, the villainous
desperado, after nearly murdering Lord Ormond, and after stealing the
crown of England from the Tower, was not only pardoned, but admitted
into the privacy and intimacy of the court, became a personal favourite
of the king, was constantly seen about the palace, and had granted to
him, for his base and bloody deeds, an estate in Ireland, worth £500
a-year. In 1673 the Test Act was passed, which provided that all who
refused to take the oaths, and to receive the sacrament, according to
the rites of the Church of England, should be debarred from public
employment. In 1677, Charles not only permitted his nephew, the Prince
of Orange, to come to England, but hastily made up a marriage between
the prince and his niece, Mary, the elder daughter of James, the Duke of
York, by Anne Hyde,—Charles alleging that this measure was forced upon
him by the jealous fears of the nation, particularly since the Duke of
York had declared himself a Papist.
In 1678, the year in which Samuel Wesley was sent to school in London,
the popish plot of Titus Oates was developed. Titus was the son of an
Anabaptist ribbon weaver. After acting as chaplain to one of Cromwell’s
regiments in Scotland, he took orders in the Church of England, and
obtained the living of Hastings in Sussex.[14] Whilst discharging his
sacred duties, he was twice convicted of perjury. He was then appointed
chaplain on board a man-of-war, but was dismissed with added infamy. Two
years before the development of his plot, he was admitted into the
service of the popish Duke of Norfolk, and suddenly became a Papist. He
was now sent to a Jesuits’ College in Spain, from which, in a short
time, he was disgracefully expelled. He recrossed the Pyrenees, and
presented himself, as a mendicant, at the gate of the Jesuit College, at
St Omar. Here, for a while, he lived among the students and novices, and
was then cast out with shame, and was obliged to return to England
without cassock and without coat. It so happened that, just at this
juncture, Dr Tonge, rector of St Michael’s, in Wood Street, London, was
a great Protestant alarmist. Titus obtained access to him, worked upon
his fears, and, by his means, was brought before the Privy Council.
Here, in a new suit of clothes and a sacerdotal gown, he alleged that,
by the authority of the pope, a number of Jesuits were plotting the
murder of the king, and of his brother James, the Duke of York; that
these Jesuits had £60,000 a-year at their command, to assist in carrying
out their murderous intentions; that repeated commissions had been given
to shoot the king, and that the queen’s physician had been urged to
poison him; that a wager had been laid that the king should eat no more
Christmas pies, and that if he would not become R. C. (Rex Catholicus)
he should no longer be C. R. (Charles Rex;) that the Jesuits had been
the authors of the great fire in London, and were now concocting a plan
for the burning of Westminster, Wapping, and all the ships upon the
river; and that, with the full expectation that all these things would
be done, the pope had already, by a secret bull, filled up all the
bishoprics, and had made appointments to most of the high offices of
state.
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Footnote 14:
Dryden’s _Miscellaneous Works_, vol. i. notes, p. 54. 1760.
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The Privy Council heard these statements of Titus Oates with
astonishment. Meanwhile, Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, who had taken Oates’
depositions, suddenly disappeared from his house in Westminster, and was
found brutally murdered in a ditch near Primrose Hill. The ghastly body
was exhibited to many thousands, who shuddered and wept at the sight of
one whom they deemed to be a Protestant martyr. The funeral was attended
by an immense procession, having at its head seventy Protestant divines,
in full canonicals. The panic spread, and Protestants, of all classes,
conformists and non-conformists, royalists and republicans, considered
their lives in danger. Titus Oates was summoned before parliament. Lord
Stafford and four other Catholic lords were committed to the Tower.
Common prisons were crammed with Papists. The House declared “that there
hath been, and still is, a damnable and hellish plot, contrived and
carried on by the popish recusants, for assassinating the king, for
subverting the government, and for destroying the Protestant religion.”
Titus Oates was proclaimed the saviour of the nation, and had a pension
awarded of £1200 a-year. Charles yielded to the storm of agitation, and
Catholics were expelled from their seats in both Houses of
Parliament,—seats which were not regained, by their successors, for one
hundred and fifty years afterwards, until 1829. Titus Oates went further
still, and even accused the Queen of England, at the bar of the House of
Commons, of high treason, declaring that he himself had heard her say,
“I will no longer suffer such indignities to my bed; I am content to
join in procuring his death, and in the propagation of the Catholic
faith.” This accusation, however, was allowed to drop; but Stayley, the
banker, Father Ireland, the Jesuit, and five other persons, were tried
and convicted, and then executed at Tyburn for their complicity with the
alleged popish plot.
Space forbids further details, except to add, that as soon as King James
ascended the throne, Titus Oates was thrown into prison, and was tried
for perjury in reference to his assertions respecting the popish
conspiracy. He was found guilty, and was sentenced to be stripped of his
clerical habit, to be pilloried in Palace Yard, to be led round
Westminster Hall, with an inscription over his head declaring his
infamy, to be pilloried again in front of the Royal Exchange, to be
whipped from Aldgate to Newgate, and, after an interval of two days,
from Newgate to Tyburn. If he survived this horrible infliction, he was
to be kept close prisoner for life, and, five times a-year, he was to be
brought forth from his dungeon, and exposed in the pillory in different
parts of London.
The whipping, says Neal, was inflicted with a severity unknown to the
English nation. Dr Calamy tells us that he saw Oates at the cart-tail
from Newgate to Tyburn, and that his back, fearfully swollen with the
first whipping, looked as if it had been flayed. He adds: “Oates was a
man of invincible courage, and endured what would have killed a great
many others; and yet, after all, he was but a sorry, foul-mouthed
wretch.” Macaulay says: “Whilst he was being whipped from Aldgate to
Newgate, the blood ran down in rivulets, and his bellowings were
frightful to hear. When brought out again, to be whipped from Newgate to
Tyburn, it was necessary to drag him to Tyburn on a sledge. A person who
counted the stripes on this second day, said that they were seventeen
hundred.” The whipping was so terribly cruel, that it was evidently the
intention of the court to kill him; but, by the care of his friends, he
recovered. During many months, he remained ironed in the darkest hole in
Newgate, sitting whole days, uttering deep groans, with his arms folded,
and his hat over his eyes. He lived to the reign of King William, when a
pension of about £300 a-year was settled on him,—a sum which he thought
unworthy his acceptance, but which he took with the savage snarl of
disappointed greediness. About the year 1698, he was restored to his
place among the Baptists; but, in a few months, was ejected from their
communion as a disorderly person and a hypocrite. He died in 1705.
But to return. Such was the excitement created by Oates’s allegations,
that, in 1679, one of the first acts of the House of Commons was to pass
a resolution, “that the Duke of York, being a Papist, and the hopes of
his coming such to the crown, had given the greatest countenance to the
present conspiracies and designs against the king and the Protestant
religion.” The House also voted an address to the king, requesting him
to banish all Papists in London twenty miles from its borders, and to
put all sea-ports, fortresses, and ships into trusty hands. In the
meantime, Charles induced his unpopular popish brother to retire to
Brussels; but, before he went, James exacted from the king a formal
declaration that the young Duke of Monmouth was illegitimate. The
Commons, not satisfied with what they had already done, proceeded with
their famous Bill of Exclusion, by which the crown of England was to
pass from Charles to the next _Protestant_ heir, as if the Duke of York
were dead. This bill was read a second time, when Charles suddenly
dissolved parliament.
Whilst all this was going on in England, exciting events were occurring
in Scotland. There, dragoons were dispersing field-meetings, and many a
moor was made wet with the blood of Covenanters. At one field
conventicle, upwards of one hundred men were killed in cold blood.
Balfour had mortally wounded Archbishop Sharp; and Russell had finished
the work by hacking his skull to pieces; while the rest of their
companions retired to a cottage on the moor, and spent the remainder of
the day in thanksgiving to Almighty God for the accomplishment of a work
so glorious. The Duke of Monmouth was sent, with five thousand troops,
to put an end to a state of things like this; and the battle of Bothwell
Bridge was fought. Then James, Duke of York, succeeded him, and
exercised the functions of a Viceroy, under the title of “King’s
Commissioner.”
Shortly after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, a band of the most
enthusiastic of the Covenanters rallied round a man called Cameron, a
preacher, from whom they derived the name of Cameronians. Cameron
affixed to the market-cross of Sanquhar “A Declaration and Testimony of
the true Presbyterian, anti-prelatic, anti-erastian, and persecuted
party of Scotland.” In this document, he renounced and disowned Charles
Stuart, and declared war against him as a tyrant and usurper. Cameron,
with a mere handful of men, was surprised by three troops of dragoons,
and, with his brother and ten of his followers, died fighting. A few
escaped with Cargill, another preacher, who, at Torwood, pronounced
excommunication against Charles II., king of Scotland, for his mocking
of God, his perjury, adultery, incest, drunkenness, and dissembling with
both God and man. Cargill was taken prisoner on July 26, 1681, and, with
four of his followers, was the next day hanged. Farther proceedings
followed. Lord Belhaven was imprisoned; and the Earl of Argyle was
committed on the charge of treason, but escaped from a murderous death
by escaping from his dungeon. Covenanters, Cameronians, and all who were
suspected of associating with them, or of rendering them merciful
assistance in their hour of need, were punished. Courts of judicature,
with their “boots” and other instruments of torture, were set up, both
in the south and west of Scotland. Above two thousand persons were
outlawed; and the soldiers were authorised to shoot all delinquents
refusing to renounce Cameron’s and Cargill’s declarations. Thousands of
Presbyterians, who had taken no part with these desperate enthusiasts,
began to think of emigrating to America.
In June 1683, the famous Rye-House Plot against Charles’s life was
unfolded. The Duke of Monmouth immediately absconded, showing a delicate
regard for his own safety, and a cowardly disregard for the safety of
his friends. William Lord Russell was committed to the Tower. Howard,
his relative, was discovered hidden in a chimney; was taken in his
shirt, and carried before the Council; where the kneeling, puling,
sobbing caitiff made such confessions as led to the immediate arrest of
the Earl of Essex, Algernon Sydney, and Hampden, who were sent to join
Lord Russell in the Tower. Many others, Scots as well as English, were
arrested, and were true, to the edge of the axe, to their friends and
party. When Baillie, of Jerviswoode, was offered his life if he would
turn evidence, the proud Scot smiled, and said, “They who make such a
proposal know neither me nor my country.” The steps taken by the
authorities produced a different effect upon others. The magistrates of
London and of Middlesex were terrified into loyalty, and presented
petitions, praying for the suppression of dissenting conventicles; for
justice upon “atheistical persons, rebellious spirits, infamous
miscreants, and monsters;” and for the condign punishment of those
“execrable villains and traitors” convicted of a design against his
Majesty’s precious life. A month after his arrest, Lord Russell was
brought to trial; and, on the same day, the Earl of Essex either
committed suicide, or was murdered by the procurement of the king and
the Duke of York. The base Howard was the principal witness against
Russell. The Earl of Bedford offered to the king £100,000, if he would
release his son; but Charles replied, “If I do not take his life, he
will soon take mine.” And, accordingly, on July 21, attended by
Tillotson and Burnett, the unfortunate Russell was led to Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, and was beheaded. On the same day, the University of Oxford
published its decree in support of passive obedience, or the right of
kings to govern wrong, without resistance or challenge from their
suffering subjects. Seven weeks after, Algernon Sydney was brought to
trial before Judge Jeffries, the legal bravo, who was as bold with his
law books as Charles’s other personal favourite, Colonel Blood, was with
pistols, daggers, and dark lanterns. Lord Howard was again the chief
witness; and Sydney, on the 8th of December, was decapitated on Tower
Hill.
This brings us down to the time when Samuel Wesley’s school days ended;
and, with this brief survey of the reign of Charles II., we must content
ourselves, only adding a few remarks respecting the morals of this
disgraceful period of English history.
The Restoration brought with it a tide, not only of levity, but of
licentiousness;—an inundation of all the debaucheries of the French
court, in which Charles and his followers had chiefly spent their exile.
The passions and tastes of the people, which, under the rule of the
Puritans, had been sternly repressed, and, if gratified at all, had been
gratified by stealth, now broke forth with ungovernable violence; and,
as soon as the check was withdrawn, men flew to frivolous amusements,
and to criminal pleasures, with the greediness which long and enforced
abstinence naturally produces. Little restraint was imposed by public
opinion; and there was no excess which was not encouraged by the
ostentatious profligacy of Charles, and of his favourite courtiers. It
is an unquestionable, and a most instructive fact, that the years during
which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith,
were precisely the years during which national virtue was at the lowest
point.[15]
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Footnote 15:
Macaulay.
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Swearing and profligate conversation were now so prevalent, that a young
nobleman or man of family, was accounted no gentleman, that allowed two
hours to pass in company without inventing some new modish oath, or
without laughing at the fopperies of priests, or without making lampoons
and drolleries on the Holy Bible. In the highest ranks, talent was
employed in bedizening the carrion carcase, and rouging the yellow
cheeks of the foul goddess of wantonness. Worthless actresses, and royal
and noble concubines, became the patronesses, and even the wives of the
highest nobility. Gaming was a fashionable phrenzy, and a noble house
was incomplete without a basset-table. Court ladies became so equivocal
in character, that few cared to venture the selection of a wife from
among them. Mrs Jenyngs, a maid of honour, afterwards Duchess of
Tyrconnel, dressed herself like an orange wench, and cried oranges about
the streets. Gentlemen arrayed themselves like ladies, and ladies
disguised themselves like gentlemen, Duelling was of daily occurrence.
Members of Parliament adjourned to refresh themselves at taverns, from
which they returned half drunk to finish their senatorial discussions.
Younger sons of good families, heirs of wealthy citizens, and raw young
country squires huzzaed for the king, and then broke the king’s peace,
to show their love for him; scoured the streets in nocturnal bands;
stormed taverns; broke windows; wrenched off door-knockers; daubed and
defaced tradesmen’s signs; routed apple-merchants, fishmongers, and
butter-women; attacked and knocked down all chance passengers; and
generally ended by a conflict with the watch. Gallantry was general,
from the half-fledged stripling fresh from the teacher’s rod, to the
hoary-headed veteran, whose dim eyes could scarcely see the charms with
which his heart was smitten. Foppery in dress resulted, and gallants
endeavoured to make themselves irresistible by the newest cut of a
French suit, or an enormous fleece of periwig.
Still, amid all this profligate frivolity of the higher classes, the
bulk of the community retained much of the old English spirit. Many
still adhered to the primitive hours of their forefathers for going to
bed, getting up, and transacting business. In diet, notwithstanding the
French cookery that had become prevalent, they stoutly stood by old
English fare. The people, also, were intensely musical, and almost every
person of education could sing by the scale, and play upon some kind of
instrument. These were days, when the banks of the Thames were as
melodious as the shores of the Adriatic. In the country, the baronial
table was still heart of oak, and was laden with the old festive
hospitality. Huge sirloins and mighty plum-puddings seemed to laugh to
scorn the continental innovations that had become so fashionable in the
capital. Country squires gave landlord-feasts to their tenants; while
farmers gave harvest-homes and sheep-shearings to their labourers.
Swimming, foot-racing, skating, horse-racing, bear and bull-baiting,
tennis, and bowls were the people’s favourite out-door sports; whilst
cards, billiards, chess, backgammon, cribbage, and ninepins, furnished
amusement within. On Valentine’s day, gentlemen sent presents of gloves,
silk stockings and garters, to their fair valentines; and, on the
morning of May-day, young ladies, and even grave matrons, repaired to
the bright green fields to gather dew to beautify their complexions;
while milk-maids danced in the public streets, their milk-pails wreathed
with garlands, and a fiddler playing tunes before them.
The age was light-hearted, frivolous, and wicked; and yet there
flourished in it some of the greatest men that England has ever had.
Abraham Cowley, replete with learning, was embellishing his poetic pages
with all the ornaments that books could furnish him. Samuel Butler,
marvellously acquainted with human life, was furnishing, in the grossly
familiar versification of his “Hudibras,” sententious distiches and
proverbial axioms for the use of future generations. Edmund Waller was
honoured as the most elegant and harmonious versifier of his time.
Dryden’s prolific, but extremely licentious pen, displayed a versatility
of talent almost without parallel. Otway wrote some of the most pathetic
tragedies in the English language, and terminated a miserable life at
the early age of thirty-four. Ralph Cudworth was employing his extensive
learning and profound philosophy in the production of his “True
Intellectual System of the Universe.” Henry More was weeping over the
miseries of his country, and studying how to check the Atheism of Thomas
Hobbes. Isaac Barrow was labouring for words to express the amplitude
and energy of his thoughts, often preaching sermons three hours long,
and immoderately using tobacco as his “panpharmacon” to compose and
regulate his mind. John Bunyan was preaching his wondrous sermons when
out of prison; and, when in it, making tagged laces for a livelihood,
and writing his “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Peter Lely was commanding
admiration and acquiring a fortune by his portrait-painting; and
Christopher Wren, a great philosopher, and one of the most eminent of
architects, was drawing plans for rebuilding London and St Paul’s
Cathedral.
It was amid such events, in the midst of such profligacy, and surrounded
by such men, that Samuel Wesley spent his school-days’ life.
Young Wesley remained at the Free School, Dorchester, until he was
fifteen years of age. For some time past, his father had been dead. His
mother was a widow, and was poor. The boy, as he himself tells us, “was
almost fit for the university,” but the difficulty was to find means to
send him there. Like his father, and his two grandfathers, he was
evidently intended for the Christian ministry; but, considering the
treatment which all the three had experienced at the hands of the
Episcopal party, it is scarcely probable that their youthful descendant
would, at this early period of, his history, feel a wish to enter the
ministry of the Established Church. His father and his grandfathers,
though they had all been the occupants of Church livings, were, so far
as Episcopacy and the use of the Liturgy are concerned, Dissenters; and
there can be no question, that, as a boy fifteen years of age, his
sympathies were with them.
But, had it been otherwise, there was little prospect of a youth like
him being able to become a minister of the Established Church. To become
such, he must receive Episcopal ordination; and to receive that, he must
go to the university: but to go there was impossible, for he was without
money, and was without Episcopal friends to send him.
His Dissenting friends showed him kindness. Without any application
being made to them, either by his mother or by himself, they sent him,
at their own cost, to London, for the purpose of being entered at one of
their private academies, and of being trained for the Dissenting
ministry. He tells us that Dr G. had the care of one of the most
considerable of these seminaries, and had promised him tuition; but, on
his arrival in London on the 8th of March 1678, he found that Dr G. was
just deceased, and so his hope for a time was thwarted.
He was now sent to a grammar-school, where his progress was such, that
the master wished him to proceed to the university, and actually
promised him a handsome subsistence there. At this crisis, his
Dissenting friends again came forward. He was a youth of promise; and,
for their own sake, as well as out of respect for his dead father, they
were unwilling to have him wrested from them.
At this time, a fund existed, raised by the collections and
subscriptions of a certain Dissenting congregation, for the purpose of
meeting cases like that of young Wesley. Out of this fund, he was
granted an exhibition of £30 a year; and was sent to Mr Veal’s academy
at Stepney. Wesley says that his relatives considered the offer of the
Dissenters to possess greater advantages than the offer which was made
to him by the master of the grammar-school to send him to the
university, but in what respect it was considered more advantageous we
are left to guess.
Edward Veal, the principal of the Stepney Academy, was, in the first
instance, a student of Christ’s Church College, Oxford, and afterwards
of Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained at Winwick, in Lancashire,
August 14, 1657. When he left Ireland, he brought with him a testimonial
of his being “a learned, orthodox minister, of a sober, pious, and
peaceable conversation; who, during his abode in the college, was
eminently useful for the instruction of youth, and whose ministry had
been often exercised in and about the city of Dublin with great
satisfaction to the godly, until he was deprived of his fellowship for
nonconformity to the ceremonies imposed in the Church, and for joining
with other ministers in their endeavours for a reformation.” This
testimonial was signed by seven respectable ministers, one of whom was
the celebrated Stephen Charnock, at that time exercising his ministry in
Dublin, and residing in the house of Sir Harry Cromwell. On leaving
Ireland, Edward Veal became chaplain to Sir William Waller, in
Middlesex, and afterwards settled as a Nonconformist minister at
Wapping, and likewise opened the academy at Stepney. He died June 6,
1708, aged seventy-six. Four of his sermons are published in the
“Morning Exercises.” Dunton says he “was an universal scholar, and a man
of great piety and usefulness. His principles were very moderate. He
assisted in preparing for the press the posthumous works of Stephen
Charnock;” and wrote the annotations on the Epistle to the Ephesians,
published in the Commentary of Matthew Poole.
Samuel Wesley was a student in Mr Veal’s academy for about the space of
two years, during which his tutor read to him a course of lectures on
Logic and Ethics. He was now eighteen years of age; and, as he himself
tells us, “was a dabbler in rhyme and faction, and had already printed
several things with the Party’s” (the Dissenters) “imprimateur.” His
patrons were evidently satisfied with his behaviour and his progress,
for, before the two years spent at Veal’s academy had expired, he
received an additional bonus of £10 per annum from the hands of Dr
O(wen,) who encouraged him in the prosecution of his studies, and
advised him to have a particular regard to critical learning.
Mr Veal was so annoyed and prosecuted by the neighbouring magistrates
that he broke up his academy, and relinquished the office of a tutor. In
consequence of this, young Wesley was again cast afloat, and he was now
recommended to the academy of Mr Charles Morton, of Newington Green,
where he remained until the summer of 1683.
Charles Morton, M.A., of Wadham College, Oxford, was a descendant from
an ancient family at Morton, in Nottinghamshire, the seat of T. Morton,
secretary to King Edward III. He was born about the year 1626. His
father was rector of Pendavy, (Pendene-Vau?) in Cornwall; and his two
brothers, also, were ministers. When about fourteen years of age, his
grandfather, who was a stanch royalist, sent him to Oxford, where he was
exceedingly studious, and, at the same time, zealous for the rites and
ceremonies of the Established Church. He now began, however, to apply
himself seriously to the controversy between the Prelatists and the
Puritans; and, after mature reflection, joined himself to the latter.
While a fellow of the college, he was highly esteemed by Dr Wilkins on
account of his mathematical genius. This was no small honour, for
Wilkins was the brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell, was the warden of
Wadham College, and, in after years, became the founder of the Royal
Society, and, in 1668, was raised to the see of Chester. Morton began
his ministry in Oxford, and here for several years he lived as a
Conformist. After his ejectment by the Act of Uniformity, he resided in
a small tenement of his own in the parish of St Ives, and preached
privately to a few people in a neighbouring village. Having sustained a
large loss by the great fire of London, he removed thither to watch over
his affairs. Several of his friends prevailed with him to open an
academy at Newington Green. Here he had many pupils, who became
exceedingly useful both in Church and State. Scores of young ministers,
as well as many others who were eminent for scholarship, were educated
by him. He was in all respects an excellent man; but this failed to save
him from persecution. During the time that young Wesley was his pupil,
he was obliged to leave his school and to hide himself. Wesley writes:
“He had once before been excommunicated, and a capias issued out against
him, on which he was taken. But while in custody of an officer, in whose
house he was kept previous to being sent to prison, the officer died;
and there being none to detain him, he returned home again. He was now
in danger of a second capias, on which he used the mediation of my Lady
R. to get some respite, and sent his sister several times to London
House on the same errand. My Lord of L. promised him all reasonable
favour if he would leave Newington Green and his employment; but he
could not suffer him to continue in that, because it was so much to the
detriment and prejudice of the Established Church, and so much an
affront to the laws and universities. This threat caused Mr Morton to
abscond some time at a friend’s, absenting himself from us, and leaving
the senior pupils to instruct the junior.” After about twenty years’
continuance in the office of a tutor, he was so harassed with legal
processes from the Bishops’ Court that he was obliged to relinquish his
academy; and, in 1685, two years after Samuel Wesley left him to go to
the Oxford University, he went to America, where he was chosen pastor of
a church at Charleston, and became vice-president of Harvard College.
Here he died in 1697, at the age of about seventy-one. He was a man of a
sweet natural temper, and of a generous public spirit, an indefatigable
friend, pious, learned, ingenious, useful, and beloved by all who knew
him. He published nearly twenty treatises and other works,—all of them,
however, compendious, for he was an enemy to large volumes, and used to
say, “A great book is a great evil.”
Dunton states, that his “high character led many of the persecuted
Nonconformists to join him in America. He was the very soul of
philosophy, the repository of all arts and sciences, and of the Graces
too. His discourses were not stale or studied, but always new; high, but
not soaring; practical, but not low. His memory was as vast as his
knowledge. He was as far from ignorance as from pride; and, if we may
judge of a man’s religion by his charity, he was a sincere Christian.”
Samuel Wesley himself says: “Mr Morton was an ingenious and universally
learned man; but his chiefest excellency lay in mathematics. He had many
gentlemen of estate, who paid him well; but he thought more of the glory
of God than of his own private profit. He only wished to save himself
harmless; and, therefore, if he had little for some, he valued it not,
so as it was barely made up by others, and he could send out new
ministers to be ordained by presbyters.” While, however, Mr Wesley
speaks so commendably of Mr Morton, his language is widely different in
reference to Mr Morton’s pupils. He writes: “The pupils entertained a
mortal aversion to the Episcopal order; and there were but very few but
what abhorred monarchy itself. The king-killing doctrines were generally
received and defended.”
On one occasion some of the students went out at midnight to a little
hill not far from Newington, and, with a speaking trumpet, alarmed the
town, and then, through the trumpet, bellowed scandalous stories
respecting the clergyman of the place, the Rev. Mr S.
Those among them who composed the bitterest and most ill-mannered
sarcasms on the public prayers and liturgy of the Church, were caressed,
hugged, encouraged, and commended by the heads of the Dissenting party,
Wesley himself sharing in the applause awarded.
The students, also, were in the habit of reading “the most lewd,
abominable books that ever blasted Christian eye;” but it is right to
add, that this was done without the knowledge of their tutors.
Mr Morton’s was the principal Dissenting academy in the land, containing
forty or fifty pupils, and having annexed to it “a fine garden, a
bowling-green, a fish-pond, and a laboratory furnished with all sorts of
mathematical instruments.”[16]
-----
Footnote 16:
Wesley’s _Letter from a Country Divine_. Third edit. London: 1706.
-----
The two gentlemen under whose care Samuel Wesley was placed in London
were men of learning, of piety, and of general excellence; and well
would it have been if he had had no worse advisers than these; but he
writes: “Some of their (the Dissenters) gravest, eldest, and most
learned ministers encouraged me in my silly lampoons, both on Church and
State. They gave me subjects, and furnished me with matter; some of them
transcribed my writings, and several of them revised and corrected them
before they were printed.”
Wesley began to write his “silly lampoons” soon after he came to London.
Some of his first squibs were thrown at a worthy man, who deserved more
respectful treatment, both from him and some others. The Rev. Thomas
Doolittle, whom he wantonly attacked, was a man of distinguished merit.
Born at Kidderminster in 1630, and educated in the College of Pembroke
Hall, Cambridge, he was, for nine years, the incumbent of the parish of
St Alphage, London. After being ejected by the Act of Uniformity, he
opened a boarding school, and, though against the law, a meeting-house
in Bunhill Fields. Here he preached to a numerous congregation, and had
many seals to his ministry, until at length, on a Saturday, at midnight,
the train bands came to arrest him; but he managed to escape. Next
morning, while another person was preaching for him, the soldiers rushed
into the chapel, and the officer, addressing the preacher, shouted, “I
command you, in the king’s name, to come down.” The preacher replied, “I
command you, in the name of the King of kings, not to disturb His
worship, but to let me go on.” The officer ordered his men to fire. The
undaunted preacher clapped his hand upon his heart, and said, “Shoot, if
you please; you can only kill the body.” Great confusion followed, in
the midst of which the brave-hearted preacher escaped; but Doolittle’s
pulpit was pulled to pieces, and the doors of his meeting-house were
fastened, and were branded with the king’s broad arrow. After this
Doolittle opened a private academy at Islington, where, among other
distinguished pupils, he had the care of Matthew Henry, the author of
the most practical Commentary on the sacred Scriptures ever published;
and also of Edward Calamy, the well known writer of the “Nonconformists’
Memorials.” It was at this time that Mr Doolittle published his work
entitled, “The Lord’s Last Sufferings,” and prefixed to it a copy of
Greek verses. Doolittle’s academy at Islington, and Veal’s at Stepney,
seem to have been sworn enemies to each other, and eagerly longed for an
opportunity to display their prowess in academic conflict. For want of a
more proper subject, they made the verses, prefixed to Doolittle’s book,
the occasion of the clash of arms; and, as young Wesley was already
“celebrated for his vein at poetry,” he took, as Dunton tells us, a
prominent part in a skirmish, which seems to have been wantonly begun,
and not too honourably carried on. The squibs which Wesley published are
lost—a thing not to be regretted.
Doolittle was far too good a man to be lampooned by the clever,
impertinent striplings belonging to a neighbouring school; but the man
whose goods had been seized and sold, and whose house and person had
been threatened by persecuting foes, was not likely to be crestfallen on
account of the pretentious swagger of young Wesley and his coxcomb
companions.
Another of Wesley’s lampoons, written while he was at Morton’s Academy,
was directed against Dr Williams, Bishop of Chichester, a man whom
Dunton describes as “of solid worth and distinguished goodness.” Wesley
says he was requested to write his satire against Williams by a
Dissenting minister of no mean fame, and that the occasion of it was as
follows:—A man, killed by a mob, had been buried, and Williams had
ordered his body to be taken up, that a coroner’s inquest might be held
upon it. Wesley knew nothing of the affair himself, but obtained full
instructions from a minister near Clapham, who also gave the young
Horace a guinea or two for encouragement. The lampoon was written, and
Dr Williams, together with the whole order of bishops, abused to the
very utmost of the young poet’s power, while his juvenile satirical
performance, as he tells us, “was sufficiently applauded” by the unwise
and dishonourable ministers who had prompted him to undertake such a
work. The bishops of that period might not be as praiseworthy as was
desirable; but it was a mean action for Christian ministers to do dirty
work by proxy, and to employ a young fellow, cleverer than themselves,
to write a pasquinade which, perhaps, they had not the ability to write.
All this was discreditable, both to young Wesley and to his prompters;
but there was something else, which, but for his own good sense, might
have been even worse. In the same year that Samuel Wesley was born,
Biddle, “the father of the English Unitarians,” died. Biddle had been
the master of the Free School of St Mary de Crypt, in Gloucester, and
had adopted the Unitarian doctrines respecting the Trinity. Among other
works embodying his creed, he published a tract, entitled, “Twelve
Arguments, drawn out of the Scriptures, wherein the commonly-received
opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully
refuted.” The House of Parliament ordered this tract to be burnt by the
common hangman, and, for its publication, the writer was doomed to five
years’ imprisonment. Biddle was repeatedly imprisoned after this, and
died September 22, 1662.
He was a man of great ability, and was an unwearied student. It is said
that he retained the whole of the New Testament in his memory
_verbatim_, not only in English, but in Greek, as far as the fourth
chapter of the Revelation. His persecutions made converts to his
principles, particularly in London; and from these he formed a distinct
and separate society, not only for the purpose of divine worship, but
for the free investigation of theological questions. The members of this
society were called, from Biddle, _Bidellians_; and, from their
agreement in opinion with the followers of Socinus, they were
denominated Socinians. The name, however, which most properly
characterised their leading sentiment was that of _Unitarians_; and in
this way the Unitarian sect in England had its origin.[17]
-----
Footnote 17:
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1790, p. 63, &c.
-----
It is a disgraceful fact that the life and works of this archheretic
were in the hands of the pupils of Morton’s academy, and that Wesley was
actually employed to translate some of those pernicious writings, and
was promised a considerable gratuity for doing it. He says, “When I saw
what it was, I proceeded no farther.” He might, however, have proceeded
farther, and, like many other juvenile aspirants, whilst dabbling in
Socinian works, might have become a Socinian himself; and, instead of
becoming an honoured rector of the Established Church, and the father of
the greatest reformer of the age, and of the best uninspired hymnist
since the days of King David, he might have dwindled down into a
cold-hearted sceptic, with a creed composed of negatives, and a life
bereft of blessings to those among whom he moved.
There is no intention, in all this, to censure Mr Morton. Twenty years
after these proceedings, Wesley, in his pamphlet against Dissenting
Academies, does honour both to Mr Morton and himself, by writing thus:
“I must, and ever will, do my tutor the justice to assert that, whenever
the young men had any discourse of the government, and talked
disaffectedly, or disloyally, he never failed to rebuke and admonish
them to the contrary, telling us expressly, more than once, that it was
none of our business to censure such as God had set over us; that small
miscarriages ought not to be magnified, nor severely reflected on, there
never having been a government so exact or perfect but what had some of
those _neavi_ in it. He also cautioned us against writing lampoons and
scandalous libels concerning our superiors, and that, not only because
it was dangerous so to do, but likewise immoral.”
Considering the disgraceful prosecutions to which Mr Morton had been
subjected, such a testimony shows him to have been a man of high
principle and honour; but Mr Morton, perhaps, was unable to prevent less
honourable ministers having access to the students of his academy; or of
his students having access to them. Besides, while the bulk of his
students were without doubt respectable and virtuous young men, it is
not unfair to imagine that, as in other seminaries, so in this, there
might be bad characters, who would try to infect the rest. And, in
addition to all this, while we hesitate in accusing young Wesley of
strictly immoral conduct, we are quite prepared to think, that the
exuberance of spirit, liveliness of wit, and adventurous heroism, which
seem to be characteristics of the Wesley family, would often hurry him
into improprieties, which he doubtless lamented in after life.
Wesley writes, “that some of the gravest, eldest, and most learned of
Dissenting ministers encouraged and pushed him on in his silly lampoons
both on Church and State,” that they “gave him subjects, and furnished
him with matter; that they transcribed, reviewed, and corrected his
writings before they were put to press; and that they taught him to
equivocate, by telling him, that, when he was charged with being the
author of such publications, he might deny that they were his,” because
of the “very weighty and honest reason that there might be _some
literal_ mistakes in the printing.” He also adds, that it was from among
the most famous of the Dissenting ministers that he “learned this way of
writing;” “that it was in their hands he first saw the lampoons which
were then most famous against the Government; and that he had often
heard them repeated by their own lips, oaths and all.”
These are weighty charges against the Dissenting ministers of that
period; and we have no means of refuting them. Still, while the
allegations of Samuel Wesley, in the main, are doubtless true, it is
only common charity to infer that these hot-headed, lampooning ministers
were exceptions to the general rule; and it is only fair, even to them,
to remind the reader that the Government and the age against whom the
lampoons were written, were almost as corrupt and vile as profligate and
abandoned wickedness could make them.
After all, it was a perilous thing for a young, sprightly fellow, like
Samuel Wesley, whose father and grandfather had, by the existing
Government, been ejected from their livings, reduced to beggary, and
hunted to a premature grave, and whose mother, in consequence of such
tyranny, was even now pining in some obscure dwelling, crushed with the
sorrows of a too early widowhood, and compelled to submit to the
humiliation of being, to some extent, dependent upon the charity of her
friends; we say, it was a perilous thing for such a young man to be
brought into close connexion with such political parsons. No wonder that
he acknowledges that, when he came to Mr Morton’s school, “he was
forward enough to write lampoons and pasquils;” “was abundantly zealous
in the cause;” “was fired with hopes of suffering;” “and often wished to
be brought before kings and rulers, because he thought what he did was
done for the sake of Christ.”
Such were the ministerial tempters of this high-spirited and exceedingly
clever youth. In Morton’s academy, there were about fifty pupils, many
of whom were doubtless as headstrong as himself, and at least two of
whom were a great deal worse than this, being not only headstrong, but
lewd and vicious. Would it have been surprising, if, under such
circumstances, Samuel Wesley had fallen into worse errors than what he
did? and is it not owing to the prayers of his dead father, the training
of his widowed mother, and the restraining grace of God’s good Spirit,
that, in after life, he was able to tell his enemies, face to face,
without fear of contradiction, that, though he was not an “exemplary
liver” while at Mr Morton’s academy, he was not a “scandalous one?” He
admits that he was too keen and revengeful, and that if he thought a
person had injured him, he could not forgive such a person, without
receiving something which he thought to be satisfaction. That seems to
have been one of his greatest crimes; but now all such revengeful
feeling was done away; and it was the greatest pleasure of his life to
forgive and to oblige an enemy.
Before quitting the “school days” of Samuel Wesley, perhaps it may be
interesting to add, that, besides himself, several of his school-fellows
rose to great eminence.
For instance, there was Timothy Cruso, “the golden preacher,” as he was
called, and who was so great a textuary, says Dunton, that he could pray
two hours together in Scripture language. Also Obadiah Marriott, who was
Dunton’s uncle, and for many years officiated as minister at Chiswick,
and at Croydon.
John Shower was another of Morton’s pupils. He was born at Exeter, and
was educated, first in his native city, then at a Dissenting academy at
Taunton, and then at Newington Green; was encouraged, by Dr Manton, to
begin preaching before he was twenty, and, at twenty-two, was ordained
assistant to Vincent Alsop, at Tothill Fields; established a successful
lecture against Popery, in Exchange Alley; and, some years afterwards,
went abroad, and became lecturer to the English Church at Utrecht and
Rotterdam. In 1690 he became assistant to the great John Howe, in Silver
Street, London, and finally settled down at the new meeting-house, in
Old Jewry, where he continued to preach, with great popularity, until
his death in 1715. He was the author of—1. “Serious Reflections on Time
and Eternity.” 2. “Practical Reflections on the great Earthquakes in
Jamaica and Italy,” &c. 3. “Family Religion.” 4. “The Life of Henry
Gearing.” 5. “Funeral and Sacramental Discourses.” 6. “Winter
Meditations,” &c. &c. &c. He was a great favourite of John Dunton’s, who
describes him as “a popular preacher, with a small shrill voice, and
noted for his funeral sermons.” In his “Dissenting Doctors,” Dunton
writes in extravagant and doggerel rhyme:—
“Shower—thy name and nature both agree,
For both, (yes both,) refreshing showers be—
You’re Chrysostom, let down from beams on high,
You preach like him, charm with his orat’ry:
So moving are your sermons, that, ’tis clear,
You’ve brought the rhetoric of angels here;
So pious in your life, meek in your place,
We think you brought up in the schools of grace—
Your pulpit’s fragrant, for you preach in flowers,
And when the bearer’s truly blest, it—Showers—
Showers, indeed! for both thy tongue and pen,
Have often made our graces spring again.”
Another of Wesley’s school-fellows was the celebrated Daniel Defoe—the
son of a London butcher, and born the year before Wesley was—the master
of five languages, and a diligent student of mathematics, natural
philosophy, geography, history, and logic; a man who commenced trade as
a horse-dealer; but who paid less attention to trade than to politics;
and hence, at the age of thirty-one, was bankrupt, and had to compound
with his creditors. Trade failing, Defoe turned author, and published
several works, which gained him the confidence of King William, and
excited great attention. In 1703, he issued his publication entitled,
“The Shortest Way with Dissenters,” of which more anon. In 1704, he
commenced the _Review_, a periodical which extended to nine quarto
volumes, and which pointed the way to the _Tatlers_, _Spectators_, and
_Guardians_ that followed. After this, he was, in more instances than
one, employed by the Government, and was granted a Government pension.
By his _Family Instructor_, the family of George I. were instructed; his
“Robinson Crusoe” is too well known to need description; while his
“Captain Singleton,” “Moll Flanders,” “Religious Courtship,” “Cavalier,”
“Colonel Jack,” and “Fortunate Mistress;” his “Journal of the Plague,”
“Political History of the Devil,” and “New Voyage Round the World,” if
not read now, used to be read by admiring myriads. Defoe was a
marvellous man, and something more will have to be said concerning him.
He died in poverty, four years before Samuel Wesley died, and was buried
in Bunhill Fields, in 1731.
Space forbids any further mention of the school-fellows of young Wesley;
and we can only add, that, notwithstanding the dangers to which he was
exposed, and excepting the censurable proceedings already noticed, he
left London with an unblemished character, and considerably advanced in
classical learning, by the instructions of the two pious and eminent men
who acted as his tutors. He had the opportunity of attending the
ministry of Stephen Charnock, John Bunyan, and many other of the most
popular preachers of the day; and, before he went to Oxford, had taken
down many hundreds of their sermons. Though he left the Dissenters, it
would be folly to deny that these dissenting sermons greatly enriched
his mind, and helped to mould his moral character.
[Besides some of the works mentioned at the close of Chapters I and II.,
the following have contributed to the contents of the present chapter,
viz., Clarke’s _Wesley Family_, Dunton’s _Life and Times_, Toulmin’s
_Life of Biddle_, _Gentleman’s Magazine_, the Tracts written during the
controversy between Wesley and Palmer in 1703–1707, the works mentioned
in the course of the chapter, and others.]