Note 114 — Chapter XI · EPWORTH AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETIES—1696–1699.

Timothy Rogers was a Nonconformist preacher; a good man, to whom Samuel Wesley, in a subsequent letter, acknowledges himself greatly indebted. Besides his voluminous funeral sermon for Mrs Dunton, he published a book, entitled, “Fall not out by the Way; or, A Persuasion to a Friendly Correspondence between the Conformists and Nonconformists.” Judging from the funeral sermon now before us, he was a man of great vivacity, wit, and mental vigour. He was also imbued with a thoroughly catholic and Christian spirit. “The way to agreement of all parties,” he writes, “is not to bring men to be of one opinion, but to be of one mind; which we may be, not by thinking the same things, but by thinking well one of another, endeavouring to preserve charity as carefully as to preserve truth. Carnal zeal may put us on disputing, but true zeal will put us upon prayer. For my part, I had rather be a quiet ploughman than a fiery philosopher.”