ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



Symondsbury, who preached in Westminster Abbey on the Day of Thanks- 

 giving for the Restoration ; ^^ Mr. Timothy Sacheverel of Tarrant Hinton, 

 great-uncle to the famous Doctor Sacheverel of Queen Anne's time/"* 

 who, with three other ministers, Mr. Ince, Mr. Hallet of Shaftesbury, and 

 Mr. Bampfield, was arrested for preaching publicly, and indicted at the assizes 

 7 August, 1663, for 'a riotous and unlawful assembly held at Shaftesbury 

 23 July ; ' they were all found guilty and fined 40 marks each.'°^ 



But the most interesting of the sufferers of ' the fatal Bartholomew ' ^"^ 

 are the Wesleys, Bartholomew and John, great-grandfather and grandfather 

 respectively of the eighteenth-century Reformer. The former, who had been 

 ' intruded ' by Parliament in the place of Mr. Norrington, ' outed ' minister at 

 Charmouth, was in his turn ejected from his cure there. He continued to 

 reside at Charmouth until driven away by the passing of the Five Mile Act, 

 as his abode lay within two miles of the town.'" The final record of him 

 states that ' he lived several years after he was silenced, but the death of his son 

 made a very sensible alteration in the father, so that he declined apace and did 

 not long survive him.''"' John Wesley, his son, sent in 1658 to preach at 

 Winterborne Whitchurch on leaving Oxford, appears to have become early a 

 marked man in the county. It was reported to the bishop of Bristol, 

 Gilbert Ironside, when visiting the diocese on his appointment in 1661, that 

 Mr. Wesley refused to read the Book of Common Prayer after the passing of 

 the Act of Uniformity, and the bishop sent for him to question him as to his 

 views and the legality of his orders. At the close of an interview, which in 

 its real kindness and consideration on the part of the bishop is in marked con- 

 trast to the one held by his successor, James Butler, in 1739, with the great 

 revivalist,"" Ironside, finding the preacher deaf to all arguments, dismissed 

 liim with the words ' I will not meddle with you, and will do you all the good 

 I can.''^" But John Wesley was evidently a man to inspire animosity in 

 those who differed from him and were not, like Bishop Ironside, able to 

 appreciate the rigid honesty and sincerity of purpose that underlay his 

 obstinacy. At the instigation, it is said, of some ' persons of Figure ' in the 

 neighbourhood, he was seized on the Lord's Day as he was coming out of 

 church early in 1662 before the Act had come into effect, carried off to 

 Blandford, and committed to prison.'" He was afterwards released, but bound 

 over to appear at the assizes, where he triumphantly asserted himself, and 



'"' Continuation, 414. "' Nonconformist Memorial, ii, 157. 



'"^ Continuation, \, 449. 



'* The 24 Aug. was St. Bartholomew's Day, and the date fixed for the Act of Uniformity to take effect is 

 often alluded to as ' the second Bartholomew.' 



™' Beal, Biog. Notices of the Wesley Family, 13. ' Forbidden by law,' says Calamy, ' the Nonconformists 

 ■of the south-west of Dorset stole away to the solitudes of Pinney, and there in a dell between rocks like the 

 Covenanters elsewhere they worshipped their God. The place has ever since been known as Whitechapel Rocks.' 

 Continuation, i, 429. ™* Ibid. 



'"" The bishop of Bristol in his famous interview with John Wesley charged the Methodists with ' a horrid 

 thing, a very horrid thing,' namely, with pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Spirit 

 and concluded by telling the reformer he had no business in the diocese, and advising him ' to go hence. 

 Wesley's Works, xiii, 470. 



"° Calamy, Continuation, i, 439. Kennett in his account of the interview says ' the bishop was more civil 

 to him (Wesley) than he to the bishop.' A son of Ironside succeeded his father as rector of Long Bredy in 

 Dorset ; he is said to have been ejected from his benefice by the Long Parliament, and reduced to the utmost 

 poverty ; Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, ii, 149. 



'" An entry in the Cal.S.P.Dom. (1660-1, p. 504), under date 5 Feb. 1661, records information laid 

 against John Wesley, vicar of Winterborne Whitchurch, ' for diabolically railing in the pulpit against the late 

 iing and his posterity, and praising Cromwell.' 



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