Women of Faith And Courage

Susanna Wesley, Fanny Crosby, Catherine Booth, Mary Slessor and Corrie ten Boom

Vance Christie

• Publisher: Christian Focus Publication
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781845509989

1

Susanna Wesley

ONE

Following the christening service of yet another of the Reverend Samuel Annesley’s numerous children, someone asked, ‘How many olive branches [children] does Doctor Annesley have?’

‘I am not sure,’ came the response of the minister who had officiated the service, ‘but it is either two dozen or a quarter of a hundred.’

The christened infant was Susanna Annesley, born in London on January 20, 1669. She was the twenty-fifth and, as it turned out, final of Doctor Annesley’s children.

Her father, a devout Puritan, attended Queen’s College, Oxford University, and in 1644 graduated with a Master of Arts degree. He was ordained in the Church of England and became the rector of a church in Cliffe, Kent, southeast of London. The young clergyman could not avoid being swept up in the tumultuous religious and political events that engulfed England in the 1640s. For decades the Puritans (so named because of their desire to ‘purify’ the Church of England) had been pressing for reforms in both the church and government. Some thought there were vestiges of Roman Catholicism that needed to be eliminated from Anglican Church practices. Others believed the Church of England’s episcopal form of governance could not be supported by Scripture and ought to be replaced by a presbyterian or congregational polity. The Puritans disapproved of the lax standards Anglicans had concerning acceptable Lord’s Day activities. Other more radical Puritans, known as Separatists, desired to establish their independence from the Church of England and called for a separation of church and state.

Escalating tensions finally erupted in bloody civil war in the 1640s. The Royalist army fought for King Charles I and the Church of England while the forces of the Parliamentarians, led by Oliver Cromwell, demanded a Puritan form of government. The Parliamentarians were victorious and for several years Puritan ideals held sway in England’s church and government. Eventually, however, the majority of the population wearied of the strict Puritan lifestyle and, after the death of Cromwell, recalled Charles II to be their ruler in 1660. The Church of England returned to episcopacy.

By then the capable Annesley was serving as vicar of London’s St Giles Church, Cripplegate. There he received a generous salary of £700 per year. But in 1662 the English parliament passed the Act of Uniformity, requiring all England’s ministers to conform to Anglican beliefs and practices. Samuel Annesley was among the 2,000 ministers who could not in good conscience agree to that condition. In what came to be known as the Great Ejection, these men were removed from their positions in the churches and universities. They and their families were turned out of their parsonages.

These ministers, labeled thereafter as Nonconformists or Dissenters, were not allowed to preach. Their activities were closely monitored by the authorities. Any attempt to hold a religious service could lead to a heavy fine, a jail sentence of several years or even banishment to semi-slavery in a foreign country.

Annesley lost his pastoral position and salary at St Giles. In addition, he lived with the strain of being constantly under surveillance. The threat of being seized and imprisoned always hung over him and was likely a continual strain on his family members.

Such stressful conditions still prevailed when Susanna was born into the Annesley household. But three years after her birth, in 1672, King Charles II relaxed some of the laws restricting the Dissenters. Doctor Annesley immediately returned to active pastoral ministry. He leased a meeting place on Bishopsgate Street in London’s Little St Helen’s district and soon had a flourishing congregation. Nonconformists looked to him as one of their most prominent leaders.

Susanna’s mother, whose name has not been preserved, was said to be a woman of superior understanding and earnest piety who spared no labor in seeking to promote the religious welfare of her children. She was Samuel Annesley’s second wife, his first wife and child having both died while he was pastoring in Cliffe, Kent. The second Mrs Annesley bore twenty-four children. Of that number, Susanna and at least nine of her siblings are known to have reached adulthood.

While pastoring in Little St Helen’s, Doctor Annesley was able to move his family to Spital Yard, one of London’s well-to-do neighborhoods. Susanna’s upbringing there was likely comfortable, though not luxurious.

In an age when many girls and women, even among the upper class, never learned to read and write, Susanna had the blessing of receiving a good education as a child. Since it was not common for girls to receive a formal education, she probably was taught at home, under the supervision of a parent, sibling or private tutor. An avid reader, she spent much time digesting good books. With access to her father’s library, Susanna likely studied a number of theological treatises written by the earlier Reformers or by the Puritans of her own era. Her writings as an adult reveal not only an excellent command of the English language, but also a breadth of biblical and theological knowledge rivaling that of many ministers in that day or this.

She developed a strict religious discipline early in life. Many years later she wrote in a letter to her son John: ‘I will tell you what rule I observed … when I was young, and too much addicted to childish diversions, which was this – never to spend more time in mere recreation in one day than I spent in private religious devotions.’^[1] This became a guiding principle which she followed the rest of her life.

A number of prominent, learned leaders from among the Dissenters were regular guests in the Annesley home. Among them were Richard Baxter, author of such Puritan classics as The Reformed Pastor and The Saint’s Everlasting Rest, as well as John Owen, Vice Chancellor of Oxford University until his expulsion in the Great Ejection. Even today Owen is esteemed as the ‘Prince of Puritans,’ and his voluminous works continue to be studied.

These and other Nonconformist leaders met regularly with Samuel Annesley in his home to discuss a variety of theological and ecclesiological issues. Quite naturally much discussion was devoted to the differences between Anglicanism and Dissent. Young Susanna listened intently to many such conversations and through them gained a clear perspective of the differing convictions that separated the two groups. Even before she became a teenager, she devoted serious thought to the matter. Her contemplations led her to take a stunning step, especially for one so young, as she related in a letter to one of her children years afterward:

Because I was educated among the Dissenters, and there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the main of the controversy between them and the Established Church, as far as it had come to my knowledge.^[2]

Unfortunately the document in which Susanna recorded her reasons for siding with the Church of England was destroyed in a fire that razed the Epworth rectory where she lived as an adult. Just as amazing as young Susanna’s determination to leave her father’s church to join an Anglican congregation was his willingness to allow her to do so. Having suffered so much in order to be true to his Dissenting convictions, he could not have helped but be grieved over his daughter’s contrary conclusions. His treatment of her in this matter shows that he gave his children the freedom to stand on their own convictions.

For her part, this incident showed not only the strength of Susanna’s convictions but also her determination to follow them. Doubtless her decision to join the Anglican Church was a difficult one for her to make. She stood alone in doing so, as none of her family joined her. She had to be somewhat aware, likely more so as time went on, of the disappointment this decision caused her parents. But having made up her mind, she never turned back. To the end of her life she remained loyal to the Church of England.

Among those who attended Samuel Annesley’s church were a number of young men from the Dissenting schools located around London. One such student, John Dunton, married Susanna’s sister, Elizabeth. One of their wedding guests was a friend and fellow student of Dunton’s named Samuel Wesley. As his wedding gift Wesley had composed a romantic poem which he read before the assembled guests as a tribute to the bride and groom.

At the time of this wedding Samuel Wesley was a young man of nineteen while Susanna Annesley was a girl of thirteen. It is not known whether this was the first time they met or if they had been previous acquaintances. What is clear is that a relationship developed between them that resulted in their marriage to each other six years later.

Like Susanna, Samuel Wesley was of staunch Puritan stock. His father, John, studied at Oxford University where he was known for his piety and academic excellence. Following his graduation he returned to his home area of Dorset, along England’s southern coast, where he became the pastor of Winterbourn Whitchurch and was married.

Four years later he and his pregnant wife were turned out of their church and parsonage, victims of the Great Ejection. Not one to allow his convictions to be silenced, John moved around from town to town and continued preaching nearly every day. It was under such trying circumstances, just four months after their dismissal from Winterbourn Whitchurch, that Samuel Wesley was born in November of 1662.

As the ensuing years passed, John was arrested and imprisoned four times. During his final incarceration he became sick and died at age forty-two. Mrs Wesley was left a destitute widow with four young children to care for. Friends from among the Dissenters assisted her by providing funds so that Samuel could pursue an education. He showed excellent academic potential and it was supposed he might well enter the Dissenting ministry. At age fifteen or sixteen he was placed in one of the Nonconformist academies in London. These institutions had been established because while Dissenting students could attend the universities, which were under the auspices of the Church of England, they were not permitted to graduate from them.

During the course of his studies Wesley was required to research all the reasons for supporting Dissent. The assignment left him unsettled, for through it he came to realize he did not share many of the political and religious views of the Nonconformists. Around that same time a close friend supplied him with a number of arguments against Dissent that further troubled him. After a period of intense soul-searching he concluded that he ‘lived in groundless separation from the Established Church.’

It is not known how much influence, if any, Samuel Wesley and Susanna Annesley had on each other’s thinking about Dissent and the Church of England. If Wesley had contact with the Annesley family prior to John and Elizabeth Dunton’s wedding, then he could have played a part in influencing Susanna’s thinking on the issue or vice versa. It is also entirely possible that Susanna and Samuel reached their conclusion in favor of the Church of England completely independently of each other and then discovered that they shared similar convictions. Doubtless they discussed the issue at considerable length during the years of acquaintance that preceded their marriage.

Wesley is known to have played a key role in steering Susanna away from a heresy that threatened her faith some time after she joined the Established Church. For a brief season she was adversely influenced by the teaching of Socinianism (the forerunner of Unitarianism) that was then well established in England. Socinianism denied the doctrines of original sin, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, His atoning death for sin, and predestination. Having been exposed to this teaching, Susanna was shaken in her faith and for a short time she doubted the Gospel.

While still a student at a dissenting academy, Wesley gained a familiarity with Socinian beliefs and doctrines when he was hired to translate the writings of John Biddle, the father of English Socinianism. After realizing the nature of Biddle’s beliefs, he refused to finish the job. But he was later able to use his knowledge of the heresy in guiding Susanna away from its deadly spiritual influence.

In August 1683, at age twenty, Wesley left his mother’s home in London and walked to Oxford where he enrolled in Exeter College. There he quietly joined the membership of an Anglican church. Having done so, he was able to pursue his higher education as a fully-fledged member of the university. He was able to support himself by being a servitor (carrying out various menial tasks for students who were better positioned financially), by tutoring and by doing some important translation work for the university’s Bodleian Library.

In June of 1688 he graduated from Oxford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He immediately returned to London where, a short while later, he was ordained as a minister of the Church of England and was given a curacy. In that position, which paid only £28 per year, he served as the assistant to the rector of a parish.

Nothing is known of Samuel Wesley’s courtship of Susanna Annesley. Probably they corresponded during his years at Oxford and perhaps he was able to visit her occasionally at her parents’ home in London. It is not hard to understand how the couple came to be attracted to each other. They shared not only a common Puritan heritage but also the same strong convictions that led them to join the Church of England. In addition to their deep earnestness about spiritual matters, they both possessed a keen mind, a strong personality and an attractive physical appearance. Susanna was described by her contemporaries as being a very beautiful woman. Considerably taller than the five foot, four inch Wesley, she was slender and carried herself in a dignified fashion.

They were married on November 11, 1688. He had just turned twenty-six and she was nineteen. The exact location of their wedding is unknown, but likely they were married in an Anglican church. Wesley would later confess in a written autobiographical account of his life and ministry that perhaps he should not have married until he had more firmly established his financial fortunes. He divulged of his marriage to Susanna before such time, ‘I have no excuse, unless a most passionate love may be taken for one.’

TWO

After only a few months in his London curacy, Samuel Wesley accepted an offer to serve as chaplain aboard a naval vessel on the Irish Sea, a position that promised him an annual salary of £70. But the new situation proved most unsatisfactory and he left the ship half a year later. Returning to London, he joined Susanna who had been living in a boarding house.

Before long, the couple moved into the home of Susanna’s parents, where she gave birth to their first child on February 10, 1690. The newborn was named Samuel after his father and grandfather. Several weeks later Wesley was offered the position of rector of St Leonard’s Church in South Ormsby, Lincolnshire, and promptly accepted.

By this time he was already in debt, a condition that would plague him and his family throughout his life. Money was owed to the owner of the boarding house, and further finances needed to be borrowed to cover the cost of moving to South Ormsby and furnishing their home there.

The Wesleys began their ministry in South Ormsby, a village of 260 residents located about thirty miles east of Lincoln, in June 1690. Samuel’s salary was a modest £50 per year, and their rectory was a primitive dwelling ‘composed of reeds and clay’. As all but the poorest families of that era did, the Wesleys employed a servant girl to help with the endless household chores, all of which needed to be done by hand.

Seven months after settling in South Ormsby, Susanna gave birth to a daughter. As was fairly common in that day, the baby girl was named Susanna after her mother. Just one year later, in January 1692, another daughter, Emilia, was born. Unfortunately, as would be the case throughout her childbearing years, Susanna often experienced extended periods of weakness and poor health in connection with her pregnancies and deliveries. Not uncommonly she was largely incapacitated for months at a time. Even at this young age she also began to suffer recurring bouts of rheumatism.

Samuel and Susanna cherished the hope that their son, Sammy, would grow up to be a clergyman. But that hope seemed to be dashed when, by the time he was three or four years old, the boy had never spoken a single word, leading his parents to conclude he was a mute. One morning Sammy was nowhere to be found, and Susanna went through the house and out into the yard looking for him. Fearing that some harm might have come to him, she began repeatedly calling his name. Presently she heard a child’s voice clearly state, ‘Here I am, Mamma.’ Looking under a table, she was amazed and overjoyed to find Sammy, the youngster who had spoken, sitting with his favorite cat in his arms. From then on he talked as normally as any other child.

That same year the Wesleys experienced the loss of a child, a sorrowful experience that would be all too common in the years to follow. After a lingering illness of several months, their daughter, Susanna, died at age two or three. Eventually, nine of the nineteen children Susanna bore died in infancy or early childhood.

While ministering at South Ormsby, Wesley was able to continue his university studies and eventually received a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge. After he had been at South Ormsby four years, in hopes of advancing his ministerial career, he requested and gained permission to dedicate a volume of poetry he had recently written to England’s Queen Mary. The book was entitled The life of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, a heroic poem. The dedication addressed the Queen in highly flattering language and declared Wesley’s loyalty both to her and to her husband, William of Orange, as the king. (As will be seen shortly, many Englishmen were not willing to accept William, a member of the Dutch royal family, as their sovereign.) This had the desired result of bringing Wesley to the Queen’s attention and commending him to her. To gain her goodwill was a great benefit, for numerous privileges and positions within the Church of England were under her com...

Table of contents

• Reviews
• Title
• Indicia
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1. Susanna Wesley
• 2. Fanny Crosby
• 3. Catherine Booth
• 4. Mary Slessor
• 5. Corrie ten Boom
• Conclusion
• About The Author
• Other Titles
• Christian Focus