ADVERTISEMENT.

VARIOUS Lives, or Memoirs, of the founder of Methodism have already been laid before the public. But it has been frequently remarked that such of these as contain the most approved accounts of Mr. Wesley, have been carried out to a length which obstructs their circulation, by the intermixture of details comparatively-uninteresting beyond the immediate circle of Wesleyan Methodism. The present Life, therefore, without any design to supersede larger publications, has been prepared with more special reference to general readers. But, as it is contracted within moderate limits chiefly by the exclusion of extraneous matter, it will, it is hoped, be found sufficiently comprehensive to give the reader an adequate view of the life, labors and opinions of the eminent individual who is its subject; and to afford the means of correcting the most material errors and misrepresentations which have had currency respecting him. On several points the author has had the advantage of consulting unpublished papers, not known to preceding biographers, and which have enabled him to place some particulars in a more satisfactory light. LONDON, May 10.

LIFE OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY.

CHAPTER 1.

JOHN and CHARLES WESLEY, the chief founders of that religious body now commonly known by the name of the Wesleyan Methodists, were the sons of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire.

Of this clergyman, and his wife, Mrs. Susannah Wesley, who was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Annesley, as well as the ancestors of both, an interesting account will be found in Dr. Adam Clarke's "Memoirs of the Wesley Family," and in the "Life of Mr. John Wesley," by Dr. Whitehead, and in the more recent one by Mr. Moore. They will be noticed here only so far as a general knowledge of their character may be necessary to assist our judgment as to the opinions and conduct of their more celebrated sons.

The rector of Epworth, like his excellent wife, had descended from parents distinguished for learning, piety, and non-conformity. His father dying whilst he was young, he forsook the Dissenters at an early period of life; and his conversion carried him into high church principles, and political toryism. He was not, however, so rigid in the former as to prevent him from encouraging the early zeal of his sons, John and Charles, at Oxford, although it was even then somewhat irregular, when tried by the strictest rules of church order and custom; and his toryism, sufficiently high in theory, was yet of that class which regarded the rights of the subject tenderly in practice. He refused flattering overtures made by the adherents of James II., to induce him to support the measures of the court, and wrote in favor of the revolution of 1688; admiring it, probably, less in a political view, than as rescuing a protestant church from the dangerous influence of a popish head. For this service, he was presented with the living of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, to which, a few years afterwards, was added that of Wroote, in the same county.

He held the living of Epworth upwards of forty years, and was distinguished for the zeal and fidelity with which he discharged his parish duties. Of his talents and learning, his remaining works afford honorable evidence.

the non-conformists, whose views of discipline they had renounced. They had parted with Calvinism; but, like many others, they renounced with it, for want of spiritual discrimination, those truths which were as fully maintained in the theology of Arminius, and in that of their eminent son, who revived, and more fully illustrated it, as in the writings of the most judicious and spiritual Calvinistic divines themselves. Taylor, Tillotson, and Bull, who became their oracles, were Arminians of a different class.

The advantage of such a parentage to the Wes leys was great. From their earliest years they had an example in the father of all that could render a clergyman respectable and influential; and, in the mother there was a sanctified wisdom, a masculine understanding, and an acquired knowledge, which they regarded with just deference after they became men and scholars. The influence of a piety so steadfast and uniform, joined to such qualities, and softened by maternal tenderness, could scarcely fail to produce effect. The firm and manly character, the practical sense, the active and unwearied habits of the father, with the calm, reflecting, and stable qualities of the mother, were in particular inherited by Mr. John Wesley; and in him were most happily blended. A large portion of the ecclesiastical principles and prejudices of the rector of Epworth was also transmitted to his three sons; but whilst Samuel and Charles retained them least impaired, in John, as we shall see, they sustained in future life considerable modifications.

Samuel, the eldest son, was born in 1692; John, in 1703; and Charles, in 1708.

Samuel Wesley, junior, was educated at Westminster School; and in 1711 was elected to Christ Church, Oxford. He was eminent for his learning, and was an excellent poet, with great power of satire, and an elegant wit. He held a considerable rank among the literary men of the day, and finally settled as head master of the free school of Tiverton, in Devonshire, where he died in 1739, in his forty-ninth year.

Mrs. Wesley was the instructress of her children in their early years. "I can find," says Dr. WhiteMrs. Susannah Wesley, the mother of Mr. John head, "no evidence that the boys were ever put to Wesley, was, as might be expected from the emi- any school in the country; their mother having a nent character of Dr. Samuel Annesley, her fa- very bad opinion of the common methods of instructther, educated with great care. Like her husband, ing and governing children." She was particularly she also, at an early period of life, renounced non- led, it would seem, to interest herself in John, who, conformity, and became a member of the established when he was about six years old, had a providential church, after, as her biographers tell us, she had and singular escape from being burned to death, read and mastered the whole controversy on the upon the parsonage house being consumed. There subject of separation; of which, however, great is a striking passage in one of her private meditaas were her natural and acquired talents, she must, tions, which contains a reference to this event;* and at the age of thirteen years, have been a very im- indicates that she considered it as laying her under perfect judge. The serious habits impressed upon a special obligation "to be more particularly careful both by their education, did not forsake them;of the soul of a child whom God had so mercifully "they feared God, and wrought righteousness;" provided for." The effect of this special care on but we may perhaps account for that obscurity in the part of the mother was, that, under the divine the views of each on several great points of evan-blessing, he became early serious; for at the age of gelical religion, and especially on justification by faith, and the offices of the Holy Spirit, which hung over their minds for many years, and indeed, till towards the close of life, from this early change of their religious connections. Their theological reading, according to the fashion of the church people of that day, was now directed rather to the writings preserved in one of his early portraits, which has, be* The memory of his deliverance, on this occasion, is of those divines of the English church who were low the head, the representation of a house in flames, tinctured more or less with a Pelagianized Armini- with the motto, "Is not this a brand plucked from the anism, than to the works of its founders; their suc-burning?" cessors the puritans, or of those eminent men among

eight years, he was admitted by his father to partake of the sacrament. In 1714, he was placed at the Charter House, " where he was noticed for his diligence and progress in learning." "Here, for his quietness, regularity, and application, he became

+Whitehead's Life.

a favorite with the master, Dr. Walker; and
through life he retained so great a predilection for
the place, that on his annual visit to London, he
made it a custom to walk through the scene of his
boyhood. To most men, every year would render
a pilgrimage of this kind more painful than the
last; but Wesley seems never to have looked back
with melancholy upon the days that were gone;
earthly regrets of this kind could find no room in
one who was continually pressing onward to the
goal."
When he had attained his seventeenth
year, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford,
"where he pursued his studies with great advan-
tage, I believe under the direction of Dr. Wigan, a
gentleman eminent for his classical knowledge.
Mr. Wesley's natural temper in his youth was gay
and sprightly, with a turn for wit and humor.-
When he was about twenty-one years of age, "he
appeared," as Mr. Badcock has observed, "the very
sensible and acute collegian; a young fellow of the
finest classical taste, of the most liberal and manly
sentiments." His perfect knowledge of the clas-
sics gave a smooth polish to his wit, and an air of
superior elegance to all his compositions. He had
already begun to amuse himself occasionally with
writing verses, though most of his poetical pieces,
at this period, were, I believe, either imitations or
translations of the Latin. Some time in this year,
however, he wrote an imitation of the sixty-fifth
Psalm, which he sent to his father, who says, "I
like your verses on the sixty-fifth Psalm; and would
not have you bury your talent."

lor's "Rules of Holy Living and Dying;" and his correspondence with his parents respecting these authors shows how carefully he was weighing their merits, and investigating their meaning, as regarding them in the light of spiritual instructers. The letters of his mother on the points offered to her consideration by her son, show, in many respects, a deeply thinking and discriminating mind; but they are also in proof that both she and her husband had given up their acquaintance, if they ever had any, with werks which might have been recommended as much more suitable to the state of their son's mind, and far superior as a directory to true Christianity. This to him would have been infinitely more important than discussing the peculiar views, and adjusting the proportion of excellency and defect, which may be found in such a writer as Kempis, whose "Christian's Pattern" is, where in reality excellent, a manual rather for him who is a Christian already, than for him who is seeking to become one.

A few things are however to be remarked in this correspondence which are of considerable interest, as showing the bearings of Mr. Wesley's views as to those truths of which he afterwards obtained a satisfactory conviction, and then so clearly stated and defended.

The son, in writing to his mother on Bishop Taylor's book, states several particulars which Bishop Taylor makes necessary parts of humility and repentance; one of which, in reference to humility, is, that "we must be sure, in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come." And in treating of repentance he says, "Whether God has forgiven us, or no, we know not; therefore be sorrowful for ever having sinned." "I take the more notice of this last sentence," says Mr. Wesley, "because it seems to contradict his own words in the next section, where he says, that by the Lord's supper all the members are united to one another, and to Christ the head. The Holy Ghost confers on us the graces necessary for, and our souls receive the seeds of, an immortal nature. Now, surely these graces are not of so little force as that we cannot perceive whether we have them, or not: if we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us, which he will not do unless we are regenerate, certainly we must be sensible of it. If we can never have any certainty of our being in a state of salva tion, good reason it is that every moment should be spent, not in joy, but in fear and trembling; and then undoubtedly, in this life, we are of all men most miserable. God deliver us from such a fearful expectation as this! Humility is, undoubtedly, necessary to salvation; and if all these things are essential to humility, who can be humble? who can be saved?"

Some time after this, when purposing to take deacon's orders, he was roused from the religious carelessness into which he had fallen at college, and applied himself diligently to the reading of divinity. This more thoughtful frame appears to have been indicated in his letters to his mother, with whom he kept up a regular correspondence; for she replies, "The alteration of your temper has occasioned me much speculation. I, who am apt to be sanguine, hope it may proceed from the operations of God's Holy Spirit, that, by taking off your relish for earthly enjoyments, he may prepare and dispose your mind for a more serious and close application to things of a more sublime and spiritual nature. If it be so, harpy are you if you cherish those dispositions; and now, in good carnest, resolve to make religion the business of your life; for, after all, that is the one thing which, strictly speaking, is necessary: all things beside are comparatively little to the purposes of life. I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself, that you may know, whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have, the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward your pains; if you have not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in a The mother, in reply, suggests to him some good tragedy. This matter deserves great consideration thoughts and useful distinctions on the subject of huby all, but especially by those designed for the mi-mility; but omits to afford him any assistance on nistry; who ought, above all things, to make their the point of the possibility of obtaining a comfortaown calling and election sure; lest, after they have ble persuasion of being in a state of salvation, through preached to others, they themselves should be cast the influence of the Holy Spirit; which he alaway." ready discerned to be the privilege of a real believer, though as yet he was greatly perplexed as to the means of obtaining it. At this period too he makes the important distinction between assurance of present, and assurance of future, salvation; by confounding which, so many, from their objection to the Calvinistic notion of the infallible perseverance of the saints, have given up the doctrine of assurance altogether. "That we can never be so certain of the pardon of our sins, as to be assured they will never rise up against us, I firmly believe. We know that they will infallibly do so if ever we apostatize; and I am not satisfied what evidence there can be of our final perseverance, till we have finished our course.

This excellent advice was not lost upon him; and indeed his mother's admirable letters were among the principal means, under God, of producing that still more decided change in his views which soon afterwards began to display itself. He was now about twenty-two years of age.

The practical books most read by him at this period, which was probably employed as a course of preparation for holy orders, were, "The Christian's Pattern," by Thomas a Kempis; and Bishop Tay

Southey's Life. # Whitehead's Life.

↑ Westminster Magazine.

But I am persuaded we may know if we are now in | took that opportunity of conversing with them at a state of salvation, since that is expressly promised in the Holy Scriptures to our sincere endeavors; and we are surely able to judge of our own sincerity."

He was ordained deacon in September, 1725, and the year following was elected fellow of Lincoln college. His previous seriousness had been the subject of much banter and ridicule, and appears to have been urged against him, in the election, by his opponents; but his reputation for learning and diligence, and the excellence of his character, triumphed; and, what was probably to him the greatest pleasure, he had the gratification of seeing the joy this event gave to his venerable parents, and which was emphatically expressed in their letters. Several specimens of his poetry, composed about this time, are given by his biographers, which show that, The lively disposition of Charles, although he had he cultivated that department of literature, he pursued his studies diligently, and was unblamewould not have occupied an inferior place among able in his conduct, repelled all those exhortations the tasteful and elegant votaries of verse; but he to a more strictly religious course, which John sesoon found more serious and more useful employ-riously urged upon him, after he was elected to Christ's Church. During his brother's absence, as