J. Hampson’s ditto, 457 Adam Clarke’s ditto, 457 Success of Wesley’s Labours, 458 APPENDICES. Titles of Poems in Wesley’s “Maggots,” 461 List of Pamphlets published at the Revolution of 462 1688, List of Books Condensed in “The Young Student’s 464 Library,” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAMUEL WESLEY. -------------- CHAPTER I. TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO—1640–1665. Samuel Wesley was born a little more than two hundred years ago; and a brief review of the state of the nation and of the Church at that period will be useful in illustrating some parts of his history. From March 1629 to April 1640, the houses of legislature had not assembled; never in English history had there been an interval of eleven years between one parliament and another. Charles I. had systematically attempted to make himself a despot, and to reduce the parliament to a nullity. To make bad things worse, Archbishop Laud, in the year 1640, convened Convocation, which ordered that every clergyman should instruct his parishioners once a quarter, in the divine right of kings, and the damnable sin of resistance to authority. By the divine right of kings was meant, that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession, in order of primogeniture, was a divine institution anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature, could deprive the legitimate prince of his rights; and that the laws by which, in England and in other countries, the prerogative was limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions, which the sovereign had freely made, and which he might at his pleasure resume. By the same ecclesiastical parliament, all clergymen and all graduates in the universities were required to take an oath, that everything necessary for salvation was contained in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, as distinguished from Presbyterianism and Papistry; and they were also required to swear that they would not consent to any alteration of the government of the Church, by archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons. Those refusing to take such oaths were threatened with heavy penalties.