ORDINATION AND MARRIAGE—1688–1689.
Mr Wesley took his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Oxford on the 19th of
June 1688. Exactly seven weeks afterwards, he was ordained a deacon of
the Church of England. He writes: “I tarried in Exeter College, though I
met with some hardships I had before been unacquainted with, till I was
of standing sufficient to take my Bachelor’s degree; and not being able
to subsist there afterwards, I came to London during the time of my Lord
Bishop of London’s suspension by the High Commission, and was instituted
into deacon’s orders by my Lord Bishop of Rochester, at his palace at
Bromley, August 7, 1688.” It is an incident worth remembering, that Mr
Wesley left Oxford during the trial of the seven bishops, and was
ordained amid the intense excitement which arose out of that event.
In the above quotation he makes mention of his “hardships” in Exeter
College. We are left to guess what the hardships were; but remembering
that, when he entered, all the money he had was only about forty
shillings—remembering that he remained in the college for nearly five
years,—and remembering that, for that, length of time, he had to support
himself by serving others; and that the only assistance he received from
his friends was a five shillings piece, there can be no difficulty in
perceiving that his collegiate life must have been no ordinary struggle.
Mr Wesley was ordained a deacon at Bromley by the Bishop of Rochester,
the well-known Dr Thomas Sprat. This prelate was a man of considerable
eminence. He began life as a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, where, on
the death of Oliver Cromwell, he gave a specimen of his poetical talents
in an “Ode to the Happy Memory of the late Lord Protector.” He
subsequently became a fellow of the Royal Society, chaplain to George,
Duke of Buckingham, chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II., canon of
Windsor, Dean of Westminster, clerk of the closet to King James II.,
dean of the Chapel Royal, and Bishop of Rochester. He was an intimate
friend of the poet Cowley, who, by his last will, left to his care his
printed works and MSS. His preferment to the bench of bishops was
considered as a reward for the service he rendered in drawing up, at the
command of King Charles II., an account of the Rye House Plot. His known
sympathy for James II. brought upon him a large amount of popular
indignation; so much so that, at the trial of the seven bishops, while
the air rang with loud huzzas for the persecuted prelates, it was also
filled with execrations against Sprat and his fawning associates.
Strangely enough, it was just at this time that Sprat ordained Samuel
Wesley. An odd incident happened four years afterwards. His principles
being so well known, Bishop Sprat was involved with others in an
information laid before the Privy Council of a pretended conspiracy for
restoring James II. Sprat was arrested, and kept under a strict guard
for eleven days, but effectually cleared himself of the accusation. He
was so much affected, however, by the danger to which it had exposed
him, that, to the end of his days, he commemorated his deliverance by an
annual thanksgiving. He died in 1713. Though somewhat of a time-server,
he was a man of great ability. Dunton, in his “Characters of Eminent
Conformists,” is most extravagant in praising him: his style is
matchless, his wit flowing, his thoughts deep, and his poems beautiful.
“Nature rejoiced beneath his charming power;
His lucky hand made everything a flower.
On earth the king of wits, (they are but few,)
And, though a bishop, yet a preacher too.”
Samuel Wesley was ordained a priest of the Church of England, by Dr
Compton, in St Andrew’s Church, Holborn, on February 24, 1689. This was
twelve days after the Prince and Princess of Orange were declared by
parliament to be King and Queen of Great Britain.
Compton was a man even more remarkable than Sprat. He was the youngest
son of Spencer, Earl of Northampton. On leaving the university, he went
to the Continent, for the purpose of perfecting himself in the modern
languages. After the restoration of Charles II., he became cornet of a
regiment of horse; but soon resigned his commission, and devoted himself
to the service of the church. He successively became Canon-commoner of
Christ-Church College, Rector of Cottenham, Master of St Crosse’s
Hospital, Canon of Christ-Church, Bishop of Oxford, Dean of the Royal
Chapel, and finally Bishop of the diocese of London. He was intrusted
with the education of the two princesses, Mary and Anne, whom he also
afterwards married to the Princes of Orange and Denmark; and their
firmness in the Protestant religion was in a great measure owing to his
instructions. For his steadfast opposition to Popery, and for refusing
to become an instrument of ecclesiastical tyranny among the clergy of
his diocese, he was suspended, by James II., from his Episcopal office,
his name was struck from the list of the Privy Council, and he was
deprived of his office as Dean of the Royal Chapel. His suspension was
the reason why Samuel Wesley was ordained a deacon by the chameleon-like
Dr Sprat. On the invasion of the Prince of Orange, he was restored to
his Episcopal functions; he performed the ceremony of crowning King
William and Queen Mary; was appointed one of the Commissioners for
revising the Liturgy; and laboured with much zeal to reconcile
Dissenters to the Established Church. His spirit of moderation made him
unpopular with the clergy, and, in all probability, checked his further
promotion. He died in the same year as Bishop Sprat, at the age of
eighty-one. Through the whole of a long life, he was exemplary in his
moral conduct, and displayed the manners of a gentleman. He was a warm
friend, a generous patron, a respectable writer, a faithful bishop, but
a dull and inanimate preacher. Such were the two prelates who ordained
Samuel Wesley.
At the time that Mr Wesley entered upon his ministerial career, there
were, in the English Church, some of the most distinguished divines that
it has ever had. There was Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, a prelate
of great learning and piety, and whose “Origines Sacræ” and “Origines
Britannicæ” are still held in high esteem. There was Tillotson, the son
of a Yorkshire clothier, who was raised to the see of Canterbury, and
whose sermons, when published, were regarded as a standard of finished
oratory, and still rank among the most popular in the English language.
There was the godly Thomas Kenn, Bishop of Bath and Wells, the
well-known author of the “Morning and Evening Hymns.” There was William
Sancroft, who took an active part in repairing St Paul’s Cathedral after
the dilapidations of the civil wars, and in rebuilding it after the
great fire of London; one of the seven bishops, who, for bearding King
James II., was committed to the Tower; and who, for refusing the oath of
allegiance to King William, lost his archbishopric; a timorous, but
well-meaning man, laborious in his studies, and who is said to have
written more with his own hand than any other person of his time. There
was Robert South, a man of immense talents, though of harsh temper and
ungoverned wit. There was Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, a most
industrious writer, and author of the “History of the Reformation.”
There was John Sharp, Archbishop of York, an able preacher, and the
author of seven volumes of valuable sermons. There was Thomas Tennison,
Archbishop of Canterbury, who had the esteem of King James, attended
Queen Mary during her last moments, faithfully reproved King William for
his immoral practices, and officiated at the coronation of Queen Anne
and of King George I.,—an able opponent of the infidel opinions of
Hobbes; a defender of the Established Church against Popery; though not
a brilliant, yet a clear and argumentative writer; and though a plain
yet a forcible preacher. There was William Beveridge, Bishop of St
Asaph, an eminent Oriental scholar, a distinguished theologian, and a
man of great goodness and simplicity. There was White Kennett, a man of
great literary labours, his judgment solid, his style easy, and who died
Bishop of the diocese of Peterborough. There was Daniel Whitby,
profoundly learned, who, in 1703, published in two volumes folio his
able “Commentary on the New Testament,” the result of fifteen years of
close application. There was George Hooper, Bishop of Bath and Wells,
and greatly distinguished both as a writer and divine. William
Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, an active prelate, an eloquent preacher, and a
learned, industrious, and able writer. William Derham, the able author
of “Physico-Theology.” William Lowth, amiable and erudite, and the
father of the bishop of that name. Thomas Wilson, Bishop of Sodor and
Man, a man of respectable scientific and classical attainments, but
distinguished most for his Christian benevolence. Others might be
mentioned, and, besides these, a large number of other clergy, who,
though not so eminent for their learning and literary productions, were
quite equal for unassuming and zealous piety.
It is scarce credible that, with such bishops at the head of the English
Church, there should not be hundreds of quiet, godly, earnest, useful
ministers, acting under them, all of them of the same sterling character
as Samuel Wesley. It is a great mistake to imagine that, up to the time
of Samuel Wesley’s sons, John and Charles, the English clergy were,
almost without exception, ignorant, indolent, heterodox, worldly, and
wicked. Doubtless there were a large number of such men; but there were
likewise a large number of another and much better class.
At the same period, the Dissenters also had a considerable number of
able and useful preachers. For example, there was Daniel Williams, the
most influential Presbyterian minister of his day; the successor of
Richard Baxter at Pinner’s Hall, the author of six volumes of cumbrous
controversy, and the founder of the magnificent library of Red Cross
Street. There was Daniel Burgess, extremely popular on account of his
quaint and familiar style of pulpit oratory. There was Benjamin Keach,
once sentenced to stand in the pillory for publishing his “Child’s
Instructor,” and whose “Travels of True Godliness” and “Scripture
Metaphors” have been read by myriads; a man whom Dunton represents as
mounted upon an Apocalyptic Beast, with Babylon before him, Zion behind
him, and a hundred thousand bulls and bears roaring and ramping round
about him. There was Vincent Alsop, a man of piety and worth, with a
glowing fancy and a lively wit. There was Matthew Henry, whose labours
as a preacher were almost incessant, and who yet found time to write one
of the largest and most useful Expositions of the Holy Bible ever
published. There was Matthew Sylvester, a man of “godly life and great
ability in the ministerial work,” to whom, as an intimate friend, Baxter
left his “MS. Narrative of his Life and Times.” And there were also
still surviving not a few of the noble Nonconformist ministers ejected
in 1662.
As Samuel Wesley was not only a Christian minister, but likewise an
author of considerable eminence, this attempt at photographing portraits
will scarce be perfect, without a passing glance at the literary and
other celebrities, who were flourishing at the time of Wesley’s
ordination, and with some of whom he ran a literary race.
Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was just rising into fame and power, and
preparing the way for the high position which he occupied during the
reign of Anne. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was just appointed
commander-in-chief of the British forces. George Byng, the celebrated
admiral, was beginning to display the bravery and the naval skill for
which he is still remembered. John Radcliffe, the renowned physician,
had recently removed to London, where he received from King William,
during the first six years of his reign, nearly eight thousand guineas
for his professional assistance. Isaac Newton, the unrivalled
philosopher, was just elected one of the representatives of the
Cambridge University. Sir Hans Sloane was bringing home eight hundred
species of plants from the West Indies. Richard Bentley, the son of a
Yorkshire blacksmith, had just removed with his pupil, Stillingfleet’s
son, to the Oxford University, having already evinced his amazing powers
as a scholar and a critic. Matthew Prior was writing his poem on the
Deity. Jonathan Swift, having lost his uncle, and being almost
penniless, was applying, by the advice of his mother, to the celebrated
Sir William Temple to afford him shelter, and to find him bread. William
Penn was writing his prolix “Maxims and Reflections on Human Life.” Sir
Godfrey Kneller, with King James before him, was painting a portrait of
that monarch at the very moment when the landing of Prince William was
announced. Grinling Gibbons, whom Evelyn considers the greatest of all
sculptors, was at the zenith of his fame. Sir Christopher Wren was
building St Paul’s Cathedral. Dryden, deprived of his official
emoluments by the abdication of King James, was now writing for bread,
and producing some of the finest pieces he ever published. John Locke,
whom Dr Watts describes as having a soul wide as the sea, calm as the
night, and bright as the day, was finishing his immortal “Essay on the
Human Understanding.” And Robert Boyle, not unworthy to be ranked with
Lord Bacon, acquainted with the whole compass of mathematical sciences,
and from whose works may be deduced the whole system of natural
knowledge, was, as usual, regulating, by a thermometer, the quantity of
clothes he ought to wear.
Such were some of the illustrious men flourishing at this period. We
shall meet with others farther on.
Mr Wesley’s first ecclesiastical appointment was a curacy, with an
income of £28 a-year. He was then appointed chaplain on board a
man-of-war, where his salary was at the rate of £70 a-year, and where he
began his poem on the Life of Christ. He then obtained another curacy in
London, his ecclesiastical income during the two years’ service that he
rendered, being £30 per annum, an amount which he doubled by his
industry and writings. It was while he held this appointment that he
married, he and his wife living in lodgings, until after the birth of
their first-born, Samuel.
The young lady, who became Mr Wesley’s wife, was Susanna Annesley, the
daughter of Dr Annesley, one of the leading Nonconformist ministers of
London.
Dr Annesley was born at Haseley in Warwickshire, in the year 1620. His
father was cousin of the Earl of Anglesea, and died when Samuel was but
four years of age. His education devolved on his pious mother, who
brought him up in the fear of God. From his early childhood his heart
was set on preaching; and, to qualify himself for that sacred work, he
began, when he was only five or six years old, seriously to read the
Bible; and such was his ardour that he bound himself to read twenty
chapters daily, a practice which he continued to the end of life. Though
a child, he never varied from his purpose to become a preacher; nor was
he discouraged by a dream, in which “he thought he was a minister, and
was sent for by the Bishop of London to be burnt as a martyr.” At
fifteen years of age, he went to Queen’s College, Oxford, and there took
the degree of LL.D. When he was twenty-four he became chaplain of his
Majesty’s ship _Globe_, under the command of the Earl of Warwick. Not
liking a seafaring life, he left the navy, and settled at Cliff in Kent,
in the place of a minister who had been sequestered for his scandalous
living; but of whom the rude and ignorant parishioners were so extremely
fond, that when Annesley, his successor, first went among them, they
assailed him with spits, forks, and stones, threatening to take away his
life. In a few years his labours had surprising success, and the people
were greatly reformed.
In July 1648, he was called to London to preach the fast sermon before
the House of Commons, which, by imperial order, was printed. In 1652, he
relinquished his living at Cliff, which was worth £400 a year, and
became minister of the Church of St John the Apostle in London. Five
years after he was made lecturer at St Paul’s, and, in 1658, became
vicar and “soul-servant,” as he terms himself, of St Giles’s,
Cripplegate. He now had two of the largest congregations in the city.
The Cripplegate living was worth £700 per annum.
With two thousand other ministers he was ejected by the Act of
Uniformity, and had his fair share of subsequent persecution. One
magistrate, while signing a warrant to apprehend him, dropped down dead.
Samuel Annesley was a large-hearted man, and was extensively useful. He
had the care of all the Nonconformist churches in the capital upon him;
and was the chief instrument in the education and subsistence of several
ministers, of whose useful labours the church would otherwise have been
deprived.
In 1672, when King Charles, for the sake of the Papists,
unconstitutionally suspended for a little while the penal laws in
matters of religion, Dr Annesley licensed a meeting-house in St Helen’s
Place, Bishopsgate Street, where he raised a large and flourishing
church, of which he continued the pastor until his death. He was the
main support of the morning lecture, and always laid aside a tenth part
of his income for charitable purposes. He had a weekly meeting of
ministers in his vestry at St Helen’s Place; and, once a month, there
were Latin disputations upon theology; but, as these engendered heated
debates among the ministers, they were dropped. In the same
meeting-house at St Helen’s Place, Edmund Calamy was ordained in 1694,
his being the first _public_ ordination among the Dissenters for more
than thirty years. Dr Annesley and five other ministers took part in the
ordination service, which lasted nearly nine hours, from before ten
o’clock in the morning to past six o’clock at night. During the last
thirty years of his life he had uninterrupted peace of spirit, arising
from an uninterrupted assurance of God’s forgiving love. He closed his
useful ministry, of more than fifty-five years’ continuance, December
31st, 1696. His death occurred in Spittal Yard, and he lies interred in
the burial-ground of St Leonard’s, Shoreditch. His funeral sermon was
preached by the Rev. Daniel Williams, and, in an enlarged form, was
published by Dunton in 1697, making a small volume of one hundred and
fifty pages. Williams states in the biography, that Annesley was of so
hale and hardy a constitution, as to endure the coldest weather without
using hat, gloves, or fire. For many years he seldom drank anything but
water, and, to the day of his death, he could read the smallest print
without spectacles. He was an eminently useful man, and, in most things,
a pattern worthy of imitation. A short time before he died his joy was
such that he exclaimed, “I cannot contain it. What manner of love is
this to a poor worm! I cannot express the thousandth part of the praise
due to Christ. I’ll praise Thee, and rejoice that there are others that
can praise Thee better!”
The celebrated Richard Baxter, who was no eulogist, remarks:—“Dr
Annesley is a most sincere, godly, humble man,—an Israelite indeed: one
that may be said to be sanctified from the womb.” Dunton, his
son-in-law, says—“He was a man of wonderful piety and humility. The
great business and the pleasure of his life was to persuade sinners back
to God. His Nonconformity created him many troubles; but they never
altered the goodness and cheerfulness of his humour.” Daniel Defoe was
one of his congregation, and wrote an elegy respecting him, which Dunton
published. Defoe, speaking of his early piety, says:—
“His pious course with childhood he began,
And was his Maker’s sooner than his own:
The heavenly book he made his only school—
In youth his study, and in age his rule.
A Moses, for humility and zeal;
For innocence, a true Nathaniel;
Faithful as Abraham, or the truer spies;
No man more honest, and but few so wise:
Humility was his darling grace,
And honesty sat regent in his face.
A heavenly patience did his mind possess—
Cheerful in pain, and thankful in distress.”
Dr Annesley had a large family. Dunton relates that when Dr Manton was
baptizing one of Annesley’s children, he was asked how many more he had?
he replied, he believed it was either two dozen or a quarter of a
hundred. Of these four or five-and-twenty young Annesleys, however, Dr
Clark could find not more than the names of seven—viz, Samuel, Benjamin,
Judith, Sarah, Ann, Elizabeth, and Susanna. Samuel went abroad in the
service of the East India Company, accumulated a considerable fortune,
and intended to return to England; but, all at once, he suddenly
disappeared, and no account was ever received, either of his person or
of his property. The probability is that he was robbed and murdered.[38]
Benjamin Annesley was “an ingenuous youth,” and was appointed an
executor of his father’s will. Judith was eminently pious, and loved
good books more than other young ladies loved fine clothes. She was
exceedingly beautiful; and refused to marry a gentleman of splendid
fortune because he was addicted to his cups. Of Sarah, we find no
information. Ann was a wit, and was as fine a woman as nature and art
ever formed. She married Mr James Fremantle; and Dunton says, she was
the only person he ever knew whom an estate made more humble. Her life
was one continued act of tenderness, wit, and piety. Elizabeth Annesley
will be mentioned hereafter. Susanna became the wife of Samuel Wesley.
-----
Footnote 38:
About the year 1720, Samuel Annesley, strangely enough, employed his
brother-in-law, Samuel Wesley, to act as his agent in England; and the
result was a serious quarrel. Annesley charged him with having
received sums of money for which he had never accounted, and for
having laid out moneys contrary to explicit orders. Mrs Wesley took up
the matter, and, in a long letter, defended her husband against the
attacks of her brother. She says, Mr Wesley has orders for the money
laid out; and that, though his expenses had been great, they were
honest. Mr Wesley, in attending to Mr Annesley’s business, had been
compelled to be much from home, and, therefore, had been compelled to
hire a curate to supply his place. Besides, Annesley had promised him
a commission for business done on his account during the three years
Wesley sat in Convocation, but the commission had not been paid. Mrs
Wesley proposed to refer all their disputes to arbitration; and says,
that if Mr Wesley is found to be in Mr Annesley’s debt, both she and
her husband are quite willing for him to sequester the Epworth living
in payment. Annesley had alleged that the Epworth living was worth
£300 a-year, and that, on account of the difference in the cost of
maintenance, this was equal to a living of £ 1000 a-year in London and
its immediate neighbourhood. Mrs Wesley says, “it may full as truly be
said that the Epworth living is £10,000 as £300; and even were it
£300, there is no such difference in the price of provision as to
justify” Annesley’s computation. In fact, the living did not yield
them, in clear money, more than £130 a-year; and, all things
considered, it was quite as costly to live at Epworth as it was to
live in London. Mrs Wesley then declares that her husband challenges
the whole world to prove him a knave; that she conceals the wants of
her family from him as much as possible, because, if he were made
acquainted with each particular, he would hazard his health, perhaps
his life, in riding to borrow money, rather than his wife and his
children should be so distressed. She adds—“He hath not deceived you;
and, to say the truth, among all his wants sincerity is none. I have
not reason to complain of his being deceitful, but have often blamed
him for speaking his mind too freely. You think him too zealous for
the party he fancies in the right, and that he has unluckily to do
with the opposite faction. Mr Wesley is not factious. He is zealous in
a good cause, as every one ought to be; but the furthest from being a
party man of any man in the world.” The whole of this very long and
painfully-interesting letter may be read in the _Wesleyan Times_ for
January 15, 1866.
-----
Having sketched the life of the father of Susanna Wesley, a few lines
must be devoted to her mother. It is a remarkable fact, that as the
father of Samuel Wesley’s mother was named John White, so the father of
Susanna Wesley’s mother was named John White also. Both of them were men
of mark. John White, “the Patriarch of Dorchester,” is brought before
the reader in Chapter II. The other John White, the grandfather of
Susanna Wesley, is too important a character to be overlooked. He was
the son of Henry White, of Heylan, in Pembrokeshire, where he was born,
June 29, 1590. He entered Jesus College, Oxford, when about seventeen
years of age; and, after completing his studies, was admitted to the
Middle Temple, and, in due time, became a member of the Bar, and a
bencher of that society. While a barrister, he was much employed by the
Puritans in the purchase of impropriations, which were to be given to
those of their own party. In 1640, he was elected Member of Parliament
for the borough of Southwark. He now joined in all the proceedings which
led to the overthrow of the Established Church. He was appointed
chairman of the Committee for Religion, and was also a member of the
Westminster Assembly of Divines. In a speech of his, made in the House
of Commons, and published in 1641, he contends that the office of bishop
and presbyter is the same; and that the offices of deacons, chancellors,
vicars, surrogates, and registrars, are all of human origin, and ought
to be abolished, as being altogether superfluous and of no service to
the Church. He says that Episcopacy had been intrusted with the care of
souls for more than eighty years; and now, as a consequence, nearly
four-fifths of the churches throughout the kingdom were held by idle or
scandalous ministers. He alleges that, even during the present
parliament, the House of Commons and its committees had been furnished
with abundant evidence that it was of no use to report “scandalous
ministers” to their bishops, for they received no censure, save a
harmless admonition; while, on the other hand, if the bishops happened
to discover a godly and learned preacher within the limits of their
diocese, they did their utmost to scatter his congregation, and to expel
him from his church. He admits that some of the bishops are good men;
but the bishops who are good men, are all bad bishops,—a sufficient
proof, in his estimation, that the very office is itself a curse.
The speech, from which the above is taken, fills fourteen small quarto
pages, is full of texts of Scripture, and as dry as a lawyer’s eloquence
could make it.
As already stated, John White was appointed chairman of the Committee
for Religion. It was the duty of that committee to receive all petitions
of parishioners against their pastors, with lists of ministerial
misdemeanours. In 1643, one hundred examples of those _scandalous
clergy_ were drawn up by White, and were published in a book, entitled,
“The First Century of Scandalous, Malignant Priests.” In the preface,
White says, “The ensuing summary declaration of the grounds whereupon
Parliament had proceeded against divers ministers to sequester their
benefices from them, and place in their room godly and learned preachers
of the Word of God, may serve many excellent purposes—as 1, To show that
the Episcopal form of church government is evil, and that parliament had
good cause to abolish it; 2, That the bishops had not only neglected
their duties, but had appointed to benefices drunkards, whoremongers,
and adulterers; 3, The book will show what sort of men the clergy are
who favour the king; and 4, The cause of the general ignorance and
debauchery of the gentry and people of this kingdom.”
White then gives the one hundred examples of scandalous parsons. These
examples now lie before us, but they are too gross and defiling to be
reprinted. The curious reader, anxious to know what they are, may find
them in the British Museum, bound up in a volume, given to the Museum by
George III. The pamphlet is quarto, and contains fifty-seven pages.
White promised to publish a “Second Century” of cases, but he either was
unable to find sufficient materials, or perhaps his intention was
frustrated by his death, which occurred a few months after. Eight
thousand clergy were ejected from their livings during the civil wars,
on the ground of heterodoxy, viciousness of life, superstition, or
malignancy against parliament: but White has given the character of one
hundred only. Clarendon says, that petitions were often presented by a
few of the rabble, and against the general sense and judgment of the
parish. He avers that many were designated “scandalous clergy,” who were
men of great gravity and learning, and who lived the most unblemished
lives. He adds, that White was “a grave lawyer, but notoriously
disaffected to the Church.” Of course Clarendon knew the men, but his
party feeling was such that what he says requires to be received with
caution.
John White died shortly after the publication of his “First Century of
Scandalous, Malignant Priests,” viz., on the 29th of January 1644, and
was buried in the Temple Church, where a marble stone was afterwards
placed upon his grave, with this inscription:—
“Here lyeth a John, a burning, shining light,
His name, life, actions, were all _White_.”
Such was the grandfather of Susanna Wesley. Her mother was one of whom
but very little has been left on record. She was a woman of sincere
piety. She conscientiously endeavoured to bring up her children in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. She was greatly loved by her
husband, and both lie buried in the same sacred grave.
After the faithful and beautiful portraiture of Susanna Wesley, recently
published by the Rev. John Kirk, it would be worse than superfluous to
relate her history here. We wish that her letters were published in a
collected form, not only because of their intrinsic excellence, but also
because they would help to depict her refined intellect and her earnest
piety. She was in all respects a remarkable woman. Like her father, she
was godly from childhood. When she died, in 1742, her sons had four
verses inscribed on her tombstone, teaching, if they teach anything,
that she was not received into the divine favour until she attained the
age of seventy. This is a monstrous perversion of facts, and can only be
accounted for on the ground that John and Charles Wesley were so
enamoured of their blessed and newly-discovered doctrines, that as yet
they felt it difficult to think any one to be scripturally converted
except those who had obtained a sense of pardon, and had experienced an
instantaneous change of heart, under circumstances similar to their own.
If Susanna Wesley was not converted many a long year previous to her
death, and previous to the conversion of her sons, we have yet to learn
what conversion is. Having read her letters and her other literary
productions, we are satisfied that, if there ever was a sincere and
earnest Christian, she was one.
Her intellectual was as remarkable as her Christian character. Let any
one read her writings, and, unless he is blinded with prejudice, he will
willingly acknowledge that, for vigorous thought, mental discipline,
clearness of apprehension, logical acumen, extensive theological
knowledge, purity of style, and force of utterance, Susanna Wesley has
few superiors. She was not a poetess, but, if such language may be used
concerning a lady, she was an accomplished scholar, a learned student, a
correct philosopher, and a profound divine. Dr A. Clarke observes, “She
appears to have had the advantage of a liberal education, as far as
Latin, Greek, and French enter into such an education.” Though her
knowledge of these languages might be far from perfect, yet the fact
itself may be taken as an indication of the mental energy of her
character, for at that period female education was most scandalously
neglected. Macaulay writes, “The literary stores of the lady of the
manor and her daughters generally consisted of a prayer-book and a book
of receipts. The English women of that generation were decidedly worse
educated than they have been at any other time since the revival of
learning. If a damsel had the least smattering of literature she was
regarded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and naturally
quick-witted, were unable to write a line in their mother tongue without
solecisms and faults of spelling, such as a charity girl would now be
ashamed to commit. One instance will suffice. Queen Mary had good
natural abilities, had been educated by a bishop, was fond of history
and poetry, and was regarded by very eminent men as a superior woman,
and yet there is in the library of the Hague a superb English Bible,
which was delivered to her when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey, in
the title page of which are these words, in her own hand, ‘This book was
given the King and _I_ at our _crownation_.—MARIE R.’” In such an age
Susanna Annesley acquired an education embracing in its compass Latin,
Greek, and French.
We pass over the management of her children, and simply add that, as a
wife, she was affectionate and obedient. Writing of her husband, after
they had been more than thirty years married, she says, “Since I have
taken my husband, ‘for better for worse,’ I’ll take my residence with
him; ‘where he lives will I live, and where he dies will I die, and
there will I be buried.’ God do so unto me, and more also if aught but
death part him and me.”
No wonder that Samuel Wesley was passionately attached to such a wife.
She was in her person not only graceful but beautiful. Sir Peter Lely,
the painter of the “beauties” of his age, has left a portrait of her
sister Judith, representing her as a lady of rare charms; and yet one
who knew them both has said, “Beautiful as Miss Annesley appears, she
was far from being as beautiful as Mrs Wesley.” If her husband had not
loved and respected her as much as she loved and respected him, he would
have been unworthy of her. Four years after their marriage, and when
cooped up in the miserable little parsonage at South Ormsby, Mr Wesley
published his “Life of Christ,” in which there is the following poetic
portrait of his noble-hearted wife, and of the sort of life they lived
in their humble hut, near the shores of the German sea:—
“She graced my humble roof, and blest my life,
Blest me by a far greater name than wife;
Yet still I bore an undisputed sway,
Nor was’t her task, but pleasure, to obey;
Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied,
In our low house there was no room for pride;
Nor need I e’er direct what still was right,
She studied my convenience and delight.
Nor did I for her care ungrateful prove,
But only used my power to show my love.
Whate’er she asked I gave, without reproach or grudge,
For still she reason asked, and I was judge.
All my commands, requests at her fair hands,
And her requests to me were all commands.
To others thresholds rarely she’d incline.
Her house her pleasure was, and she was mine;
Rarely abroad, or never, but with me,
Or when by pity called, or charity.”
Such was the nuptial life of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. They were
married about the year 1689, but where and by whom there is no evidence
to show. For about forty-six years they bravely battled with their
domestic trials, and, after a seven years’ separation, were, in 1742,
reunited in that happy world, where “the wicked cease from troubling and
the weary are at rest.” “No man,” says Southey, “was ever more suitably
mated than Samuel Wesley. The wife whom he chose was, like himself, the
child of a man eminent among the Nonconformists, and, like himself, in
early life she had chosen her own path. She had examined the controversy
between the Dissenters and the Church of England with conscientious
diligence, and satisfied herself that the schismatics were in the wrong.
She had reasoned herself into Socinianism, from which her husband
reclaimed her. She was an admirable woman, an obedient wife, an
exemplary mother, and a fervent Christian. The marriage was blest in all
its circumstances; it was contracted in the prime of their youth; it was
fruitful and death did not divide them till they were full of days.”
[The facts contained in this chapter have been gathered from Clarke’s
_Wesley Family_; Dunton’s _Life and Errors_; Defoe’s _Works_; Knight’s
_History of England_; Baxter’s _Life and Times_; Calamy’s _Nonconformist
Memorials_; Calamy’s _Life and Times_; Clarendon’s _History of the
Rebellion_; Williams’s _Funeral Sermon for Annesley_; Chambers’s
_Biographical Dictionary_; John White’s _Speech in the House of Commons
in 1641_; John White’s _Century of Scandalous Priests_, &c., &c.]