In 1672, when King Charles, for the sake of the Papists, unconstitutionally suspended for a little while the penal laws in matters of religion, Dr Annesley licensed a meeting-house in St Helen’s Place, Bishopsgate Street, where he raised a large and flourishing church, of which he continued the pastor until his death. He was the main support of the morning lecture, and always laid aside a tenth part of his income for charitable purposes. He had a weekly meeting of ministers in his vestry at St Helen’s Place; and, once a month, there were Latin disputations upon theology; but, as these engendered heated debates among the ministers, they were dropped. In the same meeting-house at St Helen’s Place, Edmund Calamy was ordained in 1694, his being the first _public_ ordination among the Dissenters for more than thirty years. Dr Annesley and five other ministers took part in the ordination service, which lasted nearly nine hours, from before ten o’clock in the morning to past six o’clock at night. During the last thirty years of his life he had uninterrupted peace of spirit, arising from an uninterrupted assurance of God’s forgiving love. He closed his useful ministry, of more than fifty-five years’ continuance, December 31st, 1696. His death occurred in Spittal Yard, and he lies interred in the burial-ground of St Leonard’s, Shoreditch. His funeral sermon was preached by the Rev. Daniel Williams, and, in an enlarged form, was published by Dunton in 1697, making a small volume of one hundred and fifty pages. Williams states in the biography, that Annesley was of so hale and hardy a constitution, as to endure the coldest weather without using hat, gloves, or fire. For many years he seldom drank anything but water, and, to the day of his death, he could read the smallest print without spectacles. He was an eminently useful man, and, in most things, a pattern worthy of imitation. A short time before he died his joy was such that he exclaimed, “I cannot contain it. What manner of love is this to a poor worm! I cannot express the thousandth part of the praise due to Christ. I’ll praise Thee, and rejoice that there are others that can praise Thee better!” The celebrated Richard Baxter, who was no eulogist, remarks:—“Dr Annesley is a most sincere, godly, humble man,—an Israelite indeed: one that may be said to be sanctified from the womb.” Dunton, his son-in-law, says—“He was a man of wonderful piety and humility. The great business and the pleasure of his life was to persuade sinners back to God. His Nonconformity created him many troubles; but they never altered the goodness and cheerfulness of his humour.” Daniel Defoe was one of his congregation, and wrote an elegy respecting him, which Dunton published. Defoe, speaking of his early piety, says:—