| Summary: | "This book examines the life of Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, as a High Church parson in the Church of England. It examines a series of crises in Wesley's life: his move from Dissent to the Church of England, his abandonment of James II in 1688, his failed ambitions as a parish priest, the imprisonment for debt in 1705, his problematic relations with his bishop and tumultuous marriage to Susanna Wesley, his support for the Tory Convocation measures in 1713 and the haunting of his rectory in Epworth by a poltergeist. Each of these aspects of Wesley's life showed how awkward his continuing commitment to High Church Toryism was. The book argues that Wesley's life demonstrates that the Revolution of 1688-9 was not a single event, but a long and protracted experience, reaching, in Wesley's case, from 1685-1720. The Tory Crisis of Piety of this period was evidence of the Long Glorious Revolution"--Publisher's description.
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