The life and times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley: Rector of Epworth and father of the Revs. John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the MethodistsTyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The life and times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley: Rector of Epworth and father of the Revs. John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodists
Tyerman, L. (Luke)
Church of England -- Clergy -- Biography; Wesley, Samuel, 1662-1735
It was the intention of the Athenian Society to have followed up the
publication of the “Young Student’s Library” with another work—“A New
System of Experimental Philosophy upon the Four Elements”—and embracing
a description of strange appearances, noises, strange winds,
subterranean steams, waters, their properties and inhabitants, earths of
all sorts, plants and trees, husbandry, animals, insects, birds,
reptiles, fishes, extraordinary buildings and extraordinary persons,
antiquities, &c.;[74] but I am not aware that this was ever issued.
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Footnote 74:
_Athenian Oracle_, vol. iv. p. 65.
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Contemporaneously with the publication of the “Young Student’s Library,”
Mr Wesley was employed upon another work, which has never yet been
noticed by any Wesleyan biographer. In vol. vi. of the _Athenian
Gazette_, it is announced that the Athenian Society have bought the
right to a “Monthly Journal of Books,” and that this journal will now be
carried on by a “London Divine,” under the title of “The Complete
Library; or, News for the Ingenious;” and that it will be issued
monthly, beginning with the month of May 1692.
The work was published accordingly. We have seen and examined three of
the volumes, containing between four and five hundred pages each, and
extending from May 1692 to March 1694. The numbers are divided into
three sections: 1. Original pieces; 2. An account of the choicest books
printed in England and on the Continent of Europe; 3. Notes on current
events.
The first article is entitled, “A Discourse concerning the Integrity and
Purity of the Hebrew Bible; by the Author of a Discourse concerning the
Antiquity of the Hebrew Points, Vowels, and Accents,”—thus plainly
intimating that the “London Divine,” who had the management of the work,
was none other than Samuel Wesley. Besides, no one acquainted with Mr
Wesley’s mode of thinking and style of writing, can have any hesitation
in pronouncing him the author.
He maintains that all religion stands or falls as we can defend and
prove the integrity of the Hebrew copy of the Bible; and his principal
object is to refute the opinions of Capellus, the leader of all those
who say the Hebrew Bible has been corrupted. The article is learned and
able, and fills twenty-four small quarto pages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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