It can be gathered from her writings, about this time, that the salutary
change proceeded not out of complaisance to the lover, but by reception
of a fulness of light from heaven. Clearness, zeal, and love mark her
_Meditations and Disquisitions on the Holy Trinity; the Godhead and
Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Personality and Work of the
Holy Spirit_.
Another epoch in the girlhood of this remarkable young lady was the
engagement, somewhat previously, of her mind in the controversy between
the Church and Nonconformity. Here she had ample opportunity of being
well-informed, for her father's house was the resort of many able men on
both sides of the question. The result was that, with all due respect
toward her beloved parent, she, renounced his ecclesiastical views and
attached herself to the Established Church. "I was educated among the
Dissenters," she writes, "and because there was something remarkable in
my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn
up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the
main of the controversy between them and the Established Church as far
as it had come to my knowledge." Clearly, Susanna Wesley is not to be
considered as having merely accepted the ecclesiastical situation,
turning "Churchwoman" by marriage.
III.
MARRIAGE.
Dr. Annesley's daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, and
from all accounts it would seem that the subject of this narrative
shared this "dower." She was of average stature and slight frame.
"Some time, late in 1689 or early in 1690," Susanna Annesley was married
to Samuel Wesley. Mr. Wesley was at that time a curate at a salary of
£30 a year, and with his newly-wedded wife, took lodgings in London till
the autumn of 1690, when he received the living of South Ormsby, in
Lincolnshire, through the presentation of the Marquis of Normanby.
While exercising, in his pastoral duties, a diligence and faithfulness
such as to put him for the most part above censure, the young husband
toiled hard in literary work for the support of his household, and by
various publications of a theological character in verse and prose--at
one time a metrical _Life of Christ_, at another a treatise on _The
Hebrew Points_, and chiefly by articles in Dunton's _Athenian
Oracle_--he earned the means of keeping his family at least
above distress.
About the close of 1696 Samuel Wesley was presented to the parish of
Epworth--a place destined to be irrevocably associated with his name.
This promotion is said to have been awarded him by special desire of the
Queen, to whom he had dedicated his _Metrical and Illustrated Life
of Christ_.
IV.
EPWORTH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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