Samuel Wesley

Life

Wesley was born in 1662 at Winterborne Whitechurch in Dorset, in southwestern England, and was baptized on December 17 of that year. His father, John Wesley, was a minister ejected from his parish in 1662 for refusing to use the Book of Common Prayer of the established church. Samuel likewise first intended to become a Nonconformist (a Protestant who did not conform to the Church of England) minister and studied at Charles Morton's academy in London, among other institutions. He later returned to the established church, however, and entered Exeter College, Oxford, as a poor scholar, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1688. In the same year he married Susanna.

After becoming an Anglican priest, he served as a naval chaplain. Around 1690 he became rector of South Ormsby in Lincolnshire, and in 1694 he received a master's degree from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He then became rector of Epworth, a parish he held until his death. Sources differ on whether he took up the Epworth living in 1695 or 1697. From 1722 he also held the neighboring parish of Wroot. He and Susanna had nineteen children, several of whom died in childhood. His eldest son, Samuel, along with John Wesley and Charles Wesley, became Anglican clergymen. He died at Epworth on April 25, 1735.

Ministry and Work

His ministry at Epworth was not an easy one. His High Church style of worship, with its emphasis on liturgy (fixed forms of worship), his scholarly temperament, and his political leanings, including his support for the Tories, are said to have been ill-suited to Epworth, where many parishioners were illiterate. Some residents damaged his crops and livestock and refused to pay their tithes. At one point he was even confined in a debtors' prison.

On the night of February 9, 1709, fire broke out in the rectory, and five-year-old John was rescued only with difficulty. His mother, Susanna, is said to have regarded John thereafter as "a brand plucked out of the fire" (Zechariah 3:2). Rumors circulated that parishioners had set the fire, but this was never confirmed. That same year Wesley rebuilt the rectory in brick, and the debt he incurred in doing so had still not been fully repaid at his death. He is also known for the so-called "Old Jeffrey" incident, in which unexplained noises were reported in the rectory from December 1716 through the following January.

Wesley was a prolific writer. He published a collection of verse, Maggots, in 1685, and in 1693 he dedicated a long heroic poem, The Life of Christ, to Queen Mary II. The queen's patronage is believed to have played a role in his appointment as rector of Epworth. From 1691 to 1697 he served as a co-editor of the London periodical The Athenian Gazette. Many of his manuscripts were destroyed in the 1709 fire. His poem "Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator" was published in The Arminian Magazine in 1778.

Influence on the Korean Church

Wesley had no direct connection with the Korean church. In denominations that carry on the Wesleyan tradition, such as the Korean Methodist Church, he is introduced chiefly as the father of John and Charles Wesley and the husband of Susanna. The story of the Epworth rectory fire is a standard episode in biographies of John Wesley and is commonly mentioned in accounts of Wesley's life.

Assessment

Wesley is regarded as a learned clergyman who remained in a single parish for many years despite the hostility of his parishioners. Other assessments, however, note that he managed money poorly and was burdened by debt throughout his life, that he frequently clashed with his parishioners, and that his ministry was not particularly well received. Epworth Old Rectory describes him as an author who wrote a great deal but whose work was of limited literary merit. The rectory was purchased from the Church of England by the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1954 and is now run as a museum.