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Charles Wesley , that his father was on such terms vvith Dr . Sacheverel as to have drawn up for him , or at least materially assisted him in preparing ^ his defences , A father who had thus outgrown the effects of his own education
of the brothers , and maintained & friendship with them through life . He was informed by Mr .
among the nonconformists ; whom indeed , according to Wood ( Ath . Oxori . ) he quitted at the age of 18 , Would most conscientiously
inculcate high-church principles upon his rising family . To this influence should be added that of his elder Son Samuel , vrho ^ though he failed to restrain ^ the clerical
irregularities of his brothers in fheir manly age , may be fairly supposed to riave Communicated his own prejudices to their youthful minds .
Samuel Wesloy ^ who died in 1739 , at ^ e age of 48 , soon after his more Jealous brothers had commenced their methodistlc care ' er , appears to have been a respectable scholar and a pious tegular clergyman . He is now Chiefly known as the author of a Volume of poems , published by
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a subscription to which his cof ] 4 tracted circumstances , as he modestly confesses , constrained him to resort . Of these poems several have been much admired and
have found their way into a varji ety of selections , ^ mong others ^ Mr . John Wesley published maiiy of his brother ' s pieces in the third volume of his cc Collection of
Moral and Sacred Poems . " The following lines ' ^ quoted from th&t collection , rather ludicrously display the high-church spirit of their authors In an
elegy on the death of his father be thus expresses the circumstance that y there was neither a papist nor diSSe jiter in his parish i tr " Around his fence » o Rbmish wolf e ' er
prowPd , Nor fox-disseiiter earthed within hisfolcL " Another elegy , on the death of a lady who was a dissenter , opens with a complaint that «* Cromwell afid treton long had fcicav ' n possess ed , Ensnrin'd in Baxter ' s Everlasting Rest . **
I am not aware to what passage in the " Saint ' s Everlasting Rest /' this couplet couid refer , if any thing were designed beyond . an episcopalian ' s sneer at the famous work of a presbyterian divine * .
? I know not where Baxter mentions General freton . He has ofun mentioned Cromwell , but with no apparent design of a canonization . His praise scarcely exceeds that of Ldrd Clarendon , who determined that Groin well "forould ' be looked upon by posterity as a brave wicked man . " Hist . iii . 353 . Baxter thu *
concludes his account of the £ rotec £ dr . " In a word , he did as our prelates have done , begin low and rise higher in his resolutions as his condition rose , and the promises which he made in his lower condition , he used as the interest of his . higher following condition did require , and kept as much honesty and godliness in the main , as his cause and interest would allow , but there they left him . And . his name standcth as a monitory monument or pillar to posterity to tell them , the instability of man , in strong temptations , if God leave him to himself : what great success and victories can do , to lift up a mind that once seemed humble 2 what pride c&n do to make man selfish , and corrupt the heart with ill designs :
what selfishness and ill designs can do , to bribe the conscience , and corrupt the judgment , and make man justify the greatest errors and sins , and set against the clearest truth and duty : what bloodshed and great enormities of life , an erring deluded judgment may draw men to , and patronize t arid that when God hath dreadful judgment to execute , an erroneous sectary , or a proud self-seejter , i » oftener his instrument , than an humble lamb-like innocent saint . " Baxter '» JLifc and Times , p . xoo * Csdamy ' s Ab * i . 72 .
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1808, page 374, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2394/page/22/
