ployed in preaching in the several places to which he went; and got many good acquaintance, and friends, who were afterwards very kind to him and his numerous family. At length a gentleman who had a very good house at Preston, two or three miles from Melcomb, gave him free liberty to live in it without paying any rent. Thither he removed his family in the beginning of May, and there he continued as long as he lived. He records his coming to Preston with great wonder and thankfulness.

Soon after this he had some debates in his mind whether he ought not to remove beyond sea, to Surinam or Maryland; but after much consideration and advice, he determined to take his lot in his native country. He had some scruples also about attending public worship in the Established Church; but by several arguments in Mr. Nye's papers, he determined to do it. After some time he

was called by a number of serious christians at Pool to be their pastor; and in that relation he continued to the day of his death, administering all ordinances to them as opportunity offered. By the Oxford Act he was obliged for a while to withdraw from Preston, and leave his family and people. But he preached wherever he came, if he could but have an audience. Upon his coming to the place of his retirement in March 1666, he put this question to himself, "What dost thou here, at such a distance from church, wife, children?" &c. And in his answer, sets down the oath required by Government, and then adds the reasons why he could not take it as several ministers had done; and particularly, that to do it in his own private sense, would be but juggling with God, with the King, and with Conscience. But after all this and a good deal more against taking the oath, he thankfully mentions the goodness of God in so over-ruling the law-makers, that they did not send the ministers farther from their friends and flocks; and that they had so much time to prepare for their removal, and had liberty to pass on the road to any place. After he had lain hid for some time, he ventured home again, and returned to his labour among his people and among others occasionally. But notwithstanding all his

prudence in managing his meetings, he was often disturbed; several times apprehended, and four times imprisoned; once at Pool, for half a year, and once at Dorchester, for three months: the other confinements were shorter. He was in many straits and difficulties, but wonderfully supported and comforted, and many times very seasonably and surprisingly delivered. The removal of many eminent christians into another world, who were his intimate acquaintance and kind friends; the great decay of serious religion among many that made a profession, and the encreasing rage of the enemies of real godliness, manifestly sunk his spirits. "And "having filled up his part of what is behind of the afflic"tions of Christ in his flesh, for his body's sake, which is "the church, and finished the work given him to do, he was taken * out of this vale of tears to that world where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, "when he had not been much longer an inhabitant here be"low than his blessed Master, whom he served with his "whole heart, according to the best light he had. The vi(6 car of Preston would not suffer him to be buried in the "church. †"

There are several things in this account of Mr. Wesley which deserve the reader's notice. 1. He appears to have made himself master of the controverted points in which he differed from those of the established church, and to have taken up his opinions from a conviction of their truth. 2. He shewed an ingenuous mind, free from low cunning, in an open avowal of his sentiments to the Bishop. 3. He appears to have been remarkably conscientious in all his conduct, and a zealous promoter of genuine piety, both in himself and others. 4. He discovered great firmness of mind, and an unshaken attachment to his principles, in the midst of the most unchristian persecution, and a train of accumulated evils which he suffered on that account. These are prominent features in his character, and which we cannot but admire, however we may differ from him in opinion; they shew a mind elevated far above the common level, even

* It is conjectured that he died about the year 1670.

+ See the Nonconformist's Memorial, Vol. I. p. 478, to 486.

of those who have had the advantages of an academical education.

SAMUEL ANNESLEY, L. L D. grandfather of the late Mr. Wesley, by the mother's side, was born of religious parents, at Killingworth near Warwick, in the year 1620, and was their only child. It has been said, that he was first cousin to the Earl of Anglesey. His grandmother, an eminently pious woman, dying before his birth, desired the child, if a boy, might be called Samuel; assigning as the reason of her request, "I can say I have asked him of the Lord." In his infancy he was strongly impressed with the thoughts of being a minister, for which his parents intended him from his birth; and such was the ardour of his mind in pursuing his design, that when about five or six years old, he began a practice, which he afterwards continued, of reading twenty chapters every day in the Bible. The continuance of this practice laid an excellent foundation of useful knowledge, for the future exercise of his ministry. He who studies the Scriptures well, and believes them to be, not merely a sufficient, but the only safe rule of faith and practice, will generally exhibit a more uniform character as a minister of the Gospel, than he who takes his religious opinions from the subtle reasonings and systems of men. This observation was admirably illustrated and confirmed by the steady uniform conduct of Dr. Annesley, through some of the most trying situations in which his principles were put to the test.

He lost his father when four years old; but his pious mother took great care of his education; nor did he want the means of obtaining the best instruction, as the paternal estate was considerable. Though a child when he first formed his resolution concerning the ministry, yet he never varied from his purpose; nor was he discouraged by an affecting dream, in which he thought that he was a minister, and sent for by the Bishop of London, to be burnt as a martyr. At the age of fifteen he went to the university of Oxford, and took his degrees in the usual course. His piety and diligence at Oxford, were so much out of the common way of the place, that he attracted considerable notice. In 1644 he was or

sea.

dained as chaplain in the ship called the Globe, under the Earl of Warwick, then Lord High Admiral of England. He went to sea with the fleet, and kept a diary of their voyage. But having no great liking to a sea-faring life, he soon quitted it, and settled at Cliff in Kent, where at first he met with a storm more violent than any he had experienced at The minister of this place had been turned out for his barefaced encouragement of licentiousness, as Dr. Williams reports, by attending the meetings of the people for dancing, drinking, and merriment, on the Lord's day. The people on this account were exceedingly fond of him, and greatly prejudiced against his successor, Dr. Annesley, who was a man of a very different character. When he first went among them, they rose upon him with spits, forks, and stones, threatening to destroy him. This was no small trial to a young man of about twenty-five years of age. But he remained firm as a rock in his Master's cause, and as the people were not hardened against the evidence of gospel truth, he had some hopes of doing them good, notwithstanding their profaneness and violence. He therefore told them, that, "Let them use him as they would, he was resolved to continue with them, till God had prepared them by his ministry to entertain a better, who should succeed him: but solemnly declared, that when they became so prepared, he would leave the place." His labours were incessant, and the success of his preaching and engaging behaviour was surprising; so that in a few years the people were greatly reformed, and became exceedingly fond of him. Though he enjoyed here an income of four hundred pounds per annum, yet he paid so conscientious a regard to his first declaration, that he thought himself bound to leave them; which he accordingly did, and the people, who at his coming threatened to stone him, now parted with him with cries and tears, testifying their affection for him.

A very signal providence directed him to a settlement in London in 1652, by the unanimous choice of the inhabitants of the parish of St. John the Apostle. Soon after he was made Lecturer of St. Paul's, and in 1658, Cripplegate was made happy by his settlement there.

He was a man of great uprightness, never regulating his religious profession by his secular interests. He was turned out of his Lecture because he would not comply with some things which he deemed extravagant and wrong: he thought conformity in him would be a sin, and he chose to quit a full maintenance, rather than injure his conscience. He was acknowledged by all parties to be an Israelite indeed, and yet he suffered much for Nonconformity; but such was the spirit of party, that an angel from heaven would have been persecuted and abused, if he had been a Dissenter. In his sufferings God often appeared remarkably for him; one person died while signing a warrant to apprehend him. He afterwards suffered, because he thought it his duty to bear witness for the old truth against Antinomianism. His integrity made him a stranger to all tricks or little artifices to serve his temporal interest; and his charitable and unsuspecting temper sometimes gave those who practised them, an opportunity to impose upon him.

In ministerial labours he was abundant. Before he was silenced, he often preached three times a day; during the troubles almost every day; afterwards twice every Lord's day. His sermons were not raw and uninteresting, but instructive and affecting; and his manner of delivery very peculiarly expressed his heartiness in the things he spoke.

His care and labour extended to every place where he might be useful. In some measure the care of all the churches was upon him. When any place wanted a minister, he used his endeavours to procure one for them: when any minister was oppressed by poverty, he soon employed himself for his relief. "O! how many places," says Dr.. Williams, "had sat in darkness; how many ministers had been starved, if Dr. Annesley had died thirty years since!" He was the chief, often the sole instrument in the education, as well as the subsistence of several ministers. The sick, the widows, he orphans, whom he relieved, were innumerable. As a minister, his usefulness was extensive, and God kept him faithful in his work to the last, for which he thus thanked God on his death-bed: "Blessed be God, I can say, I have been faithful in the ministry above fifty-five years."