FAMILY OF WESLEY. O ACCOUNT of the Parish of Epworth would be complete without some biographical notice of the remarkable family of Wesley, one member of which held the Rectory thirty-nine years, and which was the birth place of both John and Charles Wesley, the celebrated founders of Methodism. In the year 1650*, Bartholomew Wesley+, grandfather to * A family of this name has existed in Dorsetshire from very early times. Dr. A. Clarke informs us that he met with some persons in Ireland of the name of Postly or Posly, who, many generations before, came from England, and who said their family name was Wesley. In the county of Dorset are certain portions of land, once known as hides, vills, manors, some of which were distinguished by the terms Wanteslegh, Wyneslegh, Wansley, and Westley. They appear to have given names to many persons; among others to the following clergymen, John de Wyntereslegh, who A. D. 1497, was Rector of Bettiscombe; to John Wennesley, who A. D. 1508, was Rector of Phillesdon. In the records of Dorset, it is also found that Isabel Westleigh was a nun at Shaftesbury Abbey; that in the beginning of the 15th century, John Wesley, a prebendary, was Vicar of Sturminster Newton; and that, at the conclusion of the same century, John Wesley was Rector of Langdon Maltravers. Differences in the orthography of names in ancient documents, written at distant periods, afford no just grounds to doubt of the identity of particular persons or families. See Fathers of the Wesley Family, page 7. † Dr. Calamy states that when Bartholomew Wesley was at Oxford, he applied himself to the study to the Rector of Epworth, was Rector of Catherston, in Dorsetshire; and in 1662 was ejected from the living at Charmouth, by the Act of Uniformity. John Wesley, son of the former, was also ejected from the Vicarage of Winterborn Whitchurch, in the county of Devon, for refusing to read the Common Prayer. He had been educated at Oxford, but never having been ordained assumed the character of a lay preacher and itinerant evangelist. He laid great stress on the distinction between vocatio ad munus, and the vocatio ad opus, i. e. between a call to preach the gospel, and a call to preside over any particular congregation; a distinction which was afterwards adopted by the Methodists, and acted upon in the most marked manner. This John Wesley had two sons, Matthew a physician of eminence, and Samuel, who became rector of Epworth. Samuel was born at Whitchurch in 1662, and was educated at the free school at Dorchester; afterwards he became a pupil in Mr. Moreton's academy, amongst the dissenters, and was carefully educated in their principles. The change which took place in his religious sentiments, and caused him to become a zealous churchman, is related by his son, John Wesley, as follows. "Some severe invectives having been written against the dissenters, Mr. study of physic as well as divinity. In the former science he appears to have acquired some celebrity'; for while he resided on his living at Charmouth he was often consulted as a physician, and after his ejectment, he applied himself chiefly to this profession for a livelihood, though he continued, as times would permit, to preach occasionally. It appears from the History of the Non-Conformists that many of the ministers when ejected had recourse to the practice of physics for a maintenance, as there were no other means left them by which they might gain their bread. They were proscribed and incapacitated as preachers both in public and private by the Act of Uniformity; and though their learned education had qualified them to be instructors of youth, yet this was also on grievous penalties proscribed by the act: thence they had no alternative but to study and practice medicine. For this some had received previous qualifications at the University, as was the case of Mr. Wesley, but others had no advantages of this kind, and were obliged to practice at hazard. This caused one of them to say to the persons by whom the ejectment was put in force against him: "I perceive this is likely to prove the death of many." The Commissioners, supposing these words to savour of contumacy and rebellion, questioned him severely on the subject, to whom he replied, that being deprived by the act of other means of getting his bread, he must have recourse to the practice of medicine, which he did not understand, and thereby the lives of his patients would be endangered. Mr. Samuel Wesley, being a young man of considerable talents, was selected to answer them. This set him on a course of reading which soon produced an effect very different from what had been intended. Instead of writing the wished for answer, he himself conceived he saw reasons to change his opinions, and actually formed a resolution to renounce the dissenters, and attach himself to the established church. He lived at that time with his mother and an old aunt, both of whom were too strongly attached to the dissenting doctrines to have borne with any patience the disclosure of his design; he, therefore, got up one morning at a very early hour, and not acquainting any one with his purpose, set out on foot to Oxford, and entered himself of Exeter College. On his arrival at the University he had only two pounds five shillings, and no prospect of future supplies, except from his own exertions; however he supported himself by publishing, and probably by assisting the younger students, till he took his bachelor's degree, without any preferment from his friends beyond the sum of five shillings. After taking his degree he came to London, having increased his little stock to ten pounds fifteen shillings, when he was ordained deacon, having obtained a curacy of twenty-eight pounds per annum, which he held one year; then he was appointed a chaplain on board the fleet, at a salary of seventy pounds. This appointment he held for only one year, and then returned to London, and obtained another curacy of thirty pounds per annum, which he held two years. He then married Miss Susannah Annesley, the daughter of an eminent non-conformist divine. For any clergyman she was an help-meet indeed; and to her care and instruction, under the divine blessing, the subsequent celebrity of the family is in a great measure to be attributed. They had nineteen children, ten of whom grew up to maturity-three sons, Samuel, Charles, and John; and seven daughters Emilia, Mary, Ann, Susannah, Mehetable, Martha, and Kezziah. His first preferment was South Ormsby, in Lincolnshire, given him by the Marquis of Normanby, which he resigned owing to a quarrel with the patron, from very properly refusing to suffer his wife to associate with a female under that nobleman's protection. After After resigning the living of South Ormsby he resided in London, and engaged in several literary undertakings with that famous eccentric bookseller, John Dunton, well known in the typographical history of England. He was one of the three original contributors to the Athenian Mercury*, projected by Dunton, and founded as he himself tells us on the xvII Acts, verse 21, "for all the Athenians and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else but either to hear or tell some new thing :" the object of the work being to receive and answer all questions, in all faculties and departments of literature. It contained many things of great value and importance * The Athenian Mercuries were published to the extent of twenty vols. and contain a “world of curious enquiries in every faculty and science." The most valuable matter was afterwards published in three vols. octavo, under the title of the Athenian Oracle. The questions pere into all sorts of subjects, divine, moral, and natural; but many of the answers are far from doing what the authors proposed, "to satisfy all ingenious and curious enquiries." This is the case with regard to many of the questions in divinity, which it was impossible to answer satisfactorily, inasmuch as the proposers seem anxious to be made wise above what is written; and as these were probably answered by Wesley, I shall give one or two examples. Q. Where was the soul of Lazarus for the four days he lay in the grave? A. It was neither in heaven nor hell. If it had been in heaven, it had been a great cruelty to have deprived it of the beatific vision, and sent it again into its body, to hazard another possibility of damnation :-if it had been in hell, then that doctrine falls to the ground, that there is no redemption from thence. But we are assured that hell was not its mansion,-Lazarus being a friend, a disciple, a believer of the Messias, so that we conclude that those angels who had commission for the reception of the souls of Lazarus, the Shunamite's child, &c. &c. had also taken an extraordinary order to retain them in their custody till the time limited for their re-entry into their respective bodies, as an extraordinary translation was to Enoch, Moses, and Elias, both being particular exceptions from the general rule, "it is appointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment, which judgment or entrance into a future or irrevocable state, is immediately upon the death of other persons, as is evident from the parable of Dives and Lazarus." Q. What was the mark God set upon Cain? A. The Rabbins say his flesh was crusted and made invulnerable; and that Lamech when he killed him wounded him in the eye. I know a gentleman who had the misfortune to kill his friend in a duel; and though upon his trial he came off with his life, yet the action made such an impression on his spirits that he carries a visible mark of horror and disturbance in his countenance to this day; and such an one that causes many thinking persons that are strangers to him to take a particular notice of him when they meet him. One amongst the rest, meeting him in my company, pulled me by the arm to take notice of him, and when he was passed by, told me that gentleman has the character of Cain legibly written in his face. I told my friend he had unfortunately killed a man; my friend replied, he did not know it before I told him. I am persuaded this was Cain's mark. portance, and amongst the contributors to the undertaking were some of the first scholars of the age, Dr. Morris, Daniel de Foe, Mr. Richardson, Nahum Tate, Dean Swift, the Marquis of Halifax, Sir William Temple, Sir Thomas Pope, Blount, Sir William Hedges, Sir Peter Pett, Mr. Motteaux. Whatever might have been the profits of this work, Wesley seems to have laboured Q. Whether in St. Paul's rapture into the third heaven the soul remained in the body? Q. Whether the Devil knows inward thoughts? And whether it be true that he can't say verbum caro factum ? A. To search hearts, or which is the same, to know thoughts, is God's sole prerogative. The Devil can but guess from outward signs, which being equivocal may perhaps sometimes deceive even the great deceiver. Whether he can pronounce the words "verbum caro factum,”—the word was made flesh,—we ingeniously confess we have not sufficient acquaintance with him to know; but we are to believe 'tis only an old wife's tale, or a sort of charm, since we are thus far sure that some other Scriptures he could and did pronounce in his disputation with our Saviour. Q. Why one hour's sermon seems longer than two hours' conversation? A. For several very unlucky reasons. Sometimes because the sermon may be duller than the conversation; at others because the hearer is dull himself, and ha'nt the wit to like it; sometimes because those in the pulpit talk all, and talk sense; when in conversation, those who love it may hear their own dear selves talk as much and as impertinently as they please, and besides have the liberty of contradiction, the very life and soul of some people. But the most general reason for this sad truth is a very sad one; and that is the almost universal decay of piety, added to the natural aversion which the best men find in their minds towards acts of devotion, till conquered by industry and pains, which by the assistance of God's grace in time produce contrary habits. Q. There was lately a young man who would have sold himself to the Devil, to have some of his extravagancies supplyed, but was disappointed against his will; and being now troubled about it he desires your advice what he should do, and how he should behave himself under the commission of so great a sin? A. All that he has to do, and what is really necessary to be done, is, that in the first place he heartily beg God Almighty's pardon for such a wickedness, as rather desiring to have a dependance on the Devil, and to be disposed of by him to eternity, than to be under the protection of him to whom he owes his being, a manifest breach of the first commandment. Next, he is obliged, in the greatest gratitude imaginable, to praise God Almighty for not suffering him to fall into the misery he sought after; and lastly, he ought to let so great goodness produce in him the fruits of a better life; in so doing he may assure himself of a reconciliation with heaven, having such a promise as cannot deceive. These learned Athenians "were now and then very luxuriant on the affairs of love;" and indeed those who consulted the Oracle gave abundant opportunity for indulging in such speculations: wit ness |