The State of Religion. Relics. Indulgences. Tetzel. Progress of the Controversy with the Court of Rome. Melancthon's Narrative of Lu- ther. Public Disputation at Leipsic. Its Effects. Paper war between Melancthon and Eckius. Melancthon's marriage. His domestic charac- ter. His exemplary virtues. His boundless li- berality. Account of his favorite servant John. Epitaph on his tomb stone. Candor of Melanc- thon. His meekness. Sympathy. Interesting Letter written to a friend, who had sustained a painful family bereavement. His Piety. Sin- cerity. Wit. Memory. Temperance. Modesty. Humility. Parental conduct. His value for Time. Marriage and settlement of his two daughters. Character of his sons-in-law, George The Pope's Bull against Luther. His retalia- tion. Diet at Worms. Luther's seizure and im- prisonment at the Castle of Wartenberg. Feel- ings of Melancthon. Condemnation of Luther by the Sorbonne. Melancthon's satirical re- joinder. His publication under the feigned name of Didymus Faventinus. His declamation on the study of Paul. Extracts from his Loci Com- The Anabaptists. Disturbances of Carlostadt. Luther's return to Wittemberg. Account of his German version of the Scriptures, with the as- sistance of Melancthon and others. Luther's conference with Stubner. His letter of apology for stealing Melancthon's MS. copy of his Com- mentary on the Romans. Extracts from that Commentary. Progress of the Reformation. Rise of the Sacramental Controversy. Death of Muncer. Melancthon's excursion in Germany. Death of Mosellanus. His Epitaph. Melanc- thon's introduction to the Landgrave of Hesse. Death of Nesenus. His Epitaph. Death of Fre- deric the Wise. Translated extracts from Me- lancthon's Funeral Oration. His Epitaph. Lu- ther's marriage. Controversy with Erasmus. Melancthon's visits to Nuremberg to found an Academy. Translated extracts from his oration at the opening of the Institution. Publications. 309 John succeeds his brother Frederic in the Elec- torate. Changes. Diet of Spires. Melancthon's Memorial. The Landgrave of Hesse promotes the Reformation in his dominions. Melancthon's "Libellus Visitorius." Commissioners appoint- ed to inspect the Reformed Churches. Second Diet of Spires. Anecdote of the Landgrave of Hesse. Remarkable story of Grynæus. Me- lancthon's visit to his mother. Continuance of the Sacramental Controversy. Conference at Augsburg Confession. Popish Confutation. Subsequent proceedings. Melancthon's Apolo- gy. Decree of the Diet. Deliberation of the Smalcald. Unfavorable circumstances an- nounced. The Emperor retracts at Ratisbon and agrees to the suspension of all legal processes against the Protestants. Death of the Elector John. Melancthon's Funeral Oration. His Epi- taph. Succeeded by John Frederic. The Em- peror urges on the Pope a general Council. Con- tinuance of the Sacramental Controversy. Me- lanethon and Bucer confer with the Landgrave. A vain attempt at Leipsic to restore union between contending parties. Francis I. urges Melancthou Entreaties of the Langoan family to the same purpose. Bellay goes into Germany and invites Melancthon into France. The Elector interposes to prevent the journey. Henry VIII. invites Melancthon into England. Their correspond- ence. The King of England's eagerness in des- patching messengers to France, to prevent Me- lancthon's continuance there if he were arrived, or otherwise to dissuade him from going. Curi- ous original documents on the subject. A larger commission sent into Germany. Melancthon's communication with Archbishop Cranmer. State of his health. Takes a journey. Injurious re- A General Council proposed. Meeting at Smalcald. Melancthon writes on the Pope's Su- premacy, and against the manner of appointing the Council. Communications with Francis I. Passage from the Recess of Smalcald. Melanc- thon is solicited to visit Augsburg respecting the institution of a Public Library. Letter of Car- dinal Sadolet. A second commission from Hen- ry VIII. Persons sent into England. Melanc- thon's letter to the king. Second letter against the Anabaptists. Another deputation from Frank- Melancthon's third and fourth letters to the king. Death of George of Saxony. Progress of the Reformation. Diet held at Haguenaw. Melancthon's dangerous illness on the way. In- teresting account of Luther's visit to him. An- other Diet at Worms. Referred to Ratisbon. Melancthon meets with an accident on the road. OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, A. M. SOMETIME FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND FOUNDER OF THE METHODIST SOCIETIES. BY RICHARD WATSON. Εν κόποις περισσοτέρως.-CORINTHIANS, WITH NOTES AND TRANSLATIONS, BY THE AUTHOR. CHRISTIAN LIBRARY EDITION. NEW YORK: THOMAS GEORGE, JR. 162 NASSAU STREET. *****............ 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. 1 1 CHAPTER I. 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 the non-conformists, whose views of discipline they account will be found in Dr. Adam Clarke's 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. 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 both by their education, did not forsake them; "they feared God, and wrought righteousness;" but we may perhaps account for that obscurity in the views of each on several great points of evangelical 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 The memory of his deliverance, on this occasion, is of that day, was now directed rather to the writings preserved in one of his early portraits, which has, beof 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 a special obligation "to be more particularly careful +Whitehead's Life. |