Rev. Samuel Annesley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Annesley

Samuel Annesley (c. 1620 – 1696) was a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor, best known for the sermons he collected as the series of Morning Exercises.

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Rev. Samuel Ansley was the Vicar of St. Giles in London. He had 25 children, with apparently only two of them being sons. One of his daughters was Susannah, who married the Rev. Samuel Wesley and they became the parents of John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism.

Father of Susannah Wesley - and thus grandfather of the Methodism pioneers John and Charles Wesley, Annesley was a Puritan preacher, mostly in the meeting houses around Bishopsgate and Spitalfields. Susannah was a daughter of his second wife Mary White - one of a reputed 25 children! Annesley lost his living at St Giles Cripplegate as a result of the 'Great Ejection', and became itinerant, preaching at small dissenter houses in the Bishopsgate and Spitalfields area.

Dr. Annesley was a man of conscience – a Dissenter who could not sign the Act of Uniformity in 1662 which would have meant agreeing to changes in the Church of England Book of Common Prayer. He left St. Giles Cripplegate in London and founded a new parish, thus setting an example of independent thinking both for his daughter (who later chose to rejoin the Church of England) and ultimately for his grandsons who, although they remained priests in the C of E all their lives, applied their own independent thinking to reform of abuses in church and society.

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Annesley, Samuel (bap. 1620, d. 1696), clergyman and ejected minister, was born at Haseley, Warwickshire, and baptized there on 26 March 1620, the son of John and Judith Annesley (variously also Aneley, Anneley, and Annesly) of that parish. He went to school there and at Coventry grammar school. His funeral preacher, Dr Daniel Williams, claimed that his 'parents dedicated him from the womb' to the ministry (Williams, 134) and that he read twenty chapters in the Bible every day from when he was about six (evidently under his mother's tutelage, as his father died when he was four). He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, in October 1636, graduated BA in 1639, and proceeded doctor of civil law in April 1648. Anglican critics—Thomas Barlow, Anthony Wood—thought he had little learning and was 'dull, yet industrious' (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 4.509), and he may have been somewhat of an autodidact. Wood even churlishly claimed that Annesley had solicited the DCL when he learned that as incumbent at Cliffe in Kent he was required to keep a church court. (Wood made an even more outrageous claim that Annesley changed his name to claim a relationship with Arthur Annesley, first earl of Anglesey, though the earl was, in fact, his father's brother's son.)

Annesley may have been lecturer at Chatham from December 1642. He was incumbent at Cliffe from (probably) 1644 to 1652. There his ejected predecessor's followers reportedly attacked him with sticks and stones, but at his departure many parishioners supported him.

Annesley was ordained by presbyters on 18 December 1644 as chaplain to the earl of Warwick, lord admiral. In August 1648, soon after Annesley delivered a fast sermon to the Commons urging them not to treat with the king any more (Annesley, A Sermon Preached), the Commons desired him to attend the lord admiral at sea (and, indeed, he dedicated the fast sermon 'from abo[a]rd the George riding of[f] Goree in Holland'). He later claimed that he had always 'publicly detested the horrid murder' of Charles I and that his frank words against Cromwell had lost him a living worth £200 to £300 per year (Calamy rev., 13–14). But critics noted how he 'fell in with the rebellious times' (Foster, Alum. Oxon., 27) and that he took the engagement. During the interregnum he perhaps held the London living of St John the Evangelist, Friday Street, and, in 1655, published two sermons preached at St Paul's Cathedral and another preached before a county feast at St Lawrence Jewry. Cromwell does appear to have delayed his preferment but, in July 1657, he did allow Annesley a Sunday afternoon lectureship at St Paul's (admittedly at £120 as opposed to his predecessor's £400 per year).

Annesley's importance in the puritan movement grew. He was lecturer at St Paul's Cathedral from December 1657 to 24 June 1659, and was presented to St Giles Cripplegate first by Richard Cromwell in 1658, then by the second board of triers in April 1660. Richard Baxter recommended Annesley as a contact with the Association movement in 1657. He was appointed a commissioner for approbation of ministers in 1660, and in 1661 he edited a popular sermon collection, The Morning-Exercise at Cripple-Gate (which had gone into four editions by 1677). But the restored church had little room for such an unbending presbyterian and his successor was installed at St Giles on 15 November 1662. Annesley continued to live in London and, by 1664, was holding conventicles in his house. In September 1668 he was one of ten eminent divines, including Baxter and John Owen, nominated to debate whether to seek comprehension or toleration. In Sir Joseph Williamson's memorable terminology, Annesley was a young 'duckling' taking to the 'waters' of separatism, as opposed to the older 'dons' like Baxter (though Baxter was only four years his senior), who sought a wider Church of England (Keeble, 58). He was one of several London presbyterians who began erecting new meeting-houses before the 1672 indulgence. Annesley's Spitalfields meeting-house was constructed 'with pulpit and seats' in 1669, and he was convicted at least three times for preaching there in 1670 (Calamy rev., 13–14). He was licensed as a presbyterian in Spitalfields, 2 April 1672, and preached there until his death.

Annesley constantly preached: 'very oft, before his silencing [1662], thrice a day; in the late Troubles [1662%E2%80%931689] almost every day; since this Liberty [1689] twice every Lord's-Day' (Williams, 138). His sermons, often on cases of conscience, were published in collections by the nonconformists Nathaniel Vincent (1675) and Thomas Case (1676). Annesley himself edited several collections, including A Supplement to the Morning-Exercise at Cripple-Gate (2nd edn, 1676), A Continuation of Morning-Exercise Questions (1683), and Casuistical Morning-Exercises (1690), the last two published by his son-in-law, John Dunton. He was convicted and fined several times for preaching in 1682 and 1683. And he encouraged nonconformity by placing, or providing relief to, impoverished preachers and by backing the 'morning lectures'.

By 1676 Annesley kept a regular private meeting of like-minded (Calvinist) nonconformist ministers at his house. In April 1687 nonconformist ministers at Annesley's house subscribed an address of thanks to James II for his first declaration of indulgence. With the attitude to the future of nonconformity that this implied, Annesley and his friends obviously were pleased by the 'happy union' between presbyterians and congregationalists in 1692. (He was an original manager of the Common Fund in 1690.) But, by 1694, the congregationalists had alienated even sympathetic Calvinist Presbyterians. Annesley's appointment as a lecturer at Salters' Hall symbolized the end of the split between presbyterian dons and ducklings.

Annesley prided himself on fathering 'two dozen, or a quarter of a hundred' children (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 4.514). He married as his second wife, Mary (d. 1693), a daughter of John Century White, the feoffee for impropriations and parliamentarian scourge of scandalous and malignant clergy. One son was tutor and chaplain in the household of Philip Wharton, fourth Baron Wharton. Another, Peter, also preached at St Helen's about 1676. One daughter may have married the notorious fabricator of plots Thomas Dangerfield, about 1683. Another, Elizabeth, married John Dunton, the printer, who published Annesley and Samuel Wesley, and collaborated with a member of Annesley's congregation, Daniel Defoe, on the Athenian Mercury (1691–7). Only one son, Benjamin, and two daughters survived him; but the younger daughter, Susanna [see ], married the Revd Samuel Wesley and was the mother of the famous Wesleys.

Annesley lived a long, abstemious life (Williams claimed that he rarely had need of hat, gloves, or fire, or drank anything but water). At his death, in London on 31 December 1696, was published the funeral sermon by Williams and an elegy written by Defoe. Baxter, who died just months before him, thought Annesley 'a most Sincere, Godly, Humble Man, totally devoted to God' (Williams, 143). Annesley was buried at St Leonard, Shoreditch, London.

Newton E. Key

Sources

· D. Williams, The excellency of a publick spirit: set forth in a sermon preach'd … at the funeral of … Dr Samuel Annesley (1697) · C. G. Bolam and others, The English presbyterians: from Elizabethan puritanism to modern Unitarianism (1968) · , new edn, 4.509 · (1820) · · Calendar of the correspondence of Richard Baxter, ed. N. H. Keeble and G. F. Nuttall, 2 vols. (1991) · N. H. Keeble, The literary culture of nonconformity in later seventeenth-century England (1987) · W. A. Shaw, A history of the English church during the civil wars and under the Commonwealth, 1640–1660, 2 vols. (1900) · S. Anneley [S. Annesley], A sermon preached to the honorable House of Commons, July 26 1648 (1648) · S. Annesley, The first dish at the Wil-shire feast, Novemb. 9. 1654, or, A sermon preached at Laurence Jury (1655) · D. F. [D. Defoe], The character of the late Dr Samuel Annesley, by way of elegy: with a preface, written by one of his hearers (1697) · B. I. Young, 'Sources for the Annesley family', Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, 45 (1985–6), 46–57 ·

Likenesses

oils, c.1692, · A. Fogg, stipple, , ; repro. in E. Calamy, The nonconformist's memorial, ed. S. Palmer, 2nd edn, 3 vols. (1802)

Wealth at death

see will, A. Kippis, Biographia Britannica (1793)

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Samuel Annesley, English Puritan (1620 -- December 31, 1696) was a Presbyterian who was ejected from his pulpit at St. Giles Cripplegate for nonconformity in 1662. He edited and contributed to the Cripplegate Sermons, including The Adherent Vanity of Every Condition is Most Effectually Abated by Serious Godliness. He was among the signers of the Epistle Commending the Westminster Standards. He had 25 children, one of whom was Susanna Wesley, mother of John Wesley. His funeral sermon was preached by Daniel Williams.

Source:http://www.puritanboard.com/f18/samuel-annesley-17883/

Samuel Annesley (c. 1620 – 1696) was a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor, best known for the sermons he collected as the series of Morning Exercises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Annesley

He was born in Haseley, in Warwickshire in 1620, and christened on the 26th March.[1] He was the son of John and Judith Aneley.[2] Betty Young records the surname as Anerlye[3] (not to be confused with John Annesley, the brother of Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Anglesey, a mistake that many historians made[4][5][6]). His father, a wealthy man, died when he was four years old, although this is disputed by Young who notes that John Anerlye was signing the parish registers as church warden as late as 1629[7] He started to read the bible at an early age.

He was buried in St Leonard's churchyard, Shoreditch, in an unmarked plot.

Works

His writings consisted of sermons separately published, and in the various collections under the title Morning Exercises at Cripplegate and biographical works including a life of Thomas Brand.[18] In addition to furnishing the first sermon for these Morning Exercises, Annesley edited this volume of sermons from prominent Puritan ministers considering practical issues of conscience and three sequel volumes, for each of which he provided the first sermon.[19]

Family

He married Mary Hill on the 21st July 1641 in the church of All Hallows, Bread Street, London.[20] A son, Samuel, was baptised in Cliffe (30th November 1645), and there are records of the burial of Mary (2nd December 1646) and Samuel (1st February 1649/50).[21] There is no record of his second marriage but the baptism of their second daughter, Bithia, is recorded at the church of St John the Evangelist, Friday Street, London (near All Hallows), where the surname is recorded as 'Ansloe'[22] He had a large family and Young has identified at least nine who survived to adulthood,[23] of whom one daughter, Elizabeth, married John Dunton, while another daughter, Susanna Wesley, became the wife of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, and the mother of John Wesley and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism. His eldest son, also called Samuel Annesley, obtained a position in the employ of the East India Company in Bombay and is the source of the supposed lost legacy of the Wesleys.[24]