July 5, 1654.
A solemn thanksgiving for his safe return. By Whitelocke’s appointment, all his company who were with him in Sweden, came this day to his house at Chelsea, where divers others of his good friends met them, to the intent they might all join together in returning humble and hearty thanks to God for his great mercy and goodness to them, in their preservation and wonderful deliverances in their voyage, in blessing them with health and with success in their business, and bringing all of them in safety and comfort to their native country and most dear relations.
Being for this end met together in a large room prepared for them, they began the duty; and first, Mr. Peters acquainted them with the occasion of the meeting, recommending all to the direction and assistance of the Lord. He spoke to them upon the Psalm pertinent to the occasion, and to the mention of the voyage, hardships, dangers, and difficulties, wherein God had delivered them; and what sense these things ought to work upon their hearts, and what thankfulness they ought to return to God for his mercies.
After a psalm sung, Mr. Ingelo, one of Whitelocke’s chaplains, prayed with them, and then amplified the favours and deliverances which God had wrought for them, the great difficulties and dangers wherein He had preserved them, and their unworthiness of any mercy; he exhorted them to all gratitude to the Author of their mercies: in all which he expressed himself with much piety, ingenuity, and with great affection. Mr. George Downing, who had been a chaplain to a regiment in the army, expounded a place of Scripture very suitable to the occasion, and very ingeniously and pertinently. After him, Mr. Stapleton prayed very well, and spake pertinently and feelingly to the rest of the company, his fellow-travellers. Then they sang another psalm; and after that, Mr. Cokaine spake very well and piously, and gave good exhortations on the same subject.
Whitelocke’s address to his company. When all these gentlemen had ended their discourses proper for the occasion, Whitelocke himself spake to the company to this effect:—
“Gentlemen,
“You have heard from our worthy Christian friends many words of precious truth, with which I hope all our souls are refreshed, and do pray that our practice may be conformed. The duty of this day, and of every person, is gratiarum actio: I wish we may all act thankfulness to our God, whereunto we are all obliged who have received so great benefits from Him. In a more peculiar manner than others I hold myself obliged to render thanks—
“1. To our God, who hath preserved us all, and brought us in safety and comfort to our dear country and relations.
“2. To our Christian friends, from whom we have received such powerful instructions this day, and prayers all the days of our absence.
“3. To you, Gentlemen, who have shown so much affection and respect in bearing me company in a journey so full of hardships and dangers.
“I am of the opinion of the Roman soldier who told Cæsar, ‘I have in my own person fought for thee, and therefore that the Emperor ought in his own person to plead for the soldier’ (which he did); and have in your own persons endured all the hardships, difficulties, and dangers with me: and were I as able as Cæsar, I hold myself as much obliged in my own person to serve you, and, to the utmost of my capacity, shall do all good offices for any of you, who have, with so much affection, respect, and hazard, adventured your persons with me.
“I am obliged, and do return my hearty thanks, to our worthy friends who have so excellently performed the work of the day, and shall pray that it may be powerful upon every one of our hearts, to build us up in the knowledge of this duty; and I should be glad to promise, in the name of all my company, that we shall give a ready and constant observance of those pious instructions we have received from you.
“Some here have been actors with us in our story; have gone down to the sea in ships and done business in great waters; have seen the works of God and His wonders in the deep; His commanding and raising the stormy wind, lifting up the waves thereof, which mount up to the heavens and go down again to the deep, whose souls have melted because of trouble, and have been at their wits’ end: then have cried unto the Lord in their distress, and He hath brought them out of trouble. We have seen Him make the storm a calm, and the waves thereof still: then were we glad, and He brought us to our desired harbour. Oh that we would praise the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works! Let us exalt Him in the congregation of the people, and praise Him in the assembly of the elders.
“These my companions, who have been actors, and others, I hope will give me leave to make them auditors of some special providences of the Lord, wherein we may all reap benefit from the relation. The Apostle saith, 2 Pet. i., ‘Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though you know them, and be established in the present truth.’ To all I may say, with the wise man (Prov. viii.), ‘Hear! for I will speak of excellent things,’ free mercies, great deliverances, wonderful preservations: excellent things to those who were sharers of them in action, and for the contemplation of those who are hearers of them; therefore I may shortly recite some of the most eminent of them.
“In the first day of our voyage with a fair wind, at night it changed, and we were stopped till comfortable letters came to me, which otherwise could not have come, and were no sooner answered but the wind came fair again. When we toiled in the open sea with cross winds and tempests, driven near to our own coast back again, God sent us then fair weather and a good gale for our voyage. How was He pleased to bring us so very near great danger on the Riff, and then bring us safe off from it and hold on our course again!
“When we were in no small danger in the tempestuous seas on the back of the Skaw, when the anchors dragged a league in one night with the storm, and every moment we expected to be devoured by the raging waves, there the Lord was also our deliverer; as He also was upon the rocky coast of Norway and in the difficult passage to the harbour of Gothenburg. Throughout our voyage the providence of God watched over us and protected us. Thus did He in our land journey, where the extreme hardships we were put unto are sufficiently known to all of us, and will to our life’s end be felt by some of us.
“My particular preservation was wonderful from an intended assassination by one who thrust himself into my company to have the better opportunity to execute it; but, overcome with kindness, his heart relented, and he forsook his purpose and my company.
“If the snow had fallen (as in other years) in the time of our travel, we could not have passed our journey; but He who rules the heavens and the earth restrained it till we came within half a day of our journey’s end, and in safety He conducted us to Upsal. The same Providence kept us there, and when some of our company were sick and hurt, restored health again.
“It was marvellous and unexpected, that in a foreign country, at such a distance from friends and acquaintance, God should raise us up friends out of strangers, namely the Queen, foreign ministers, and great officers, in whose sight we found wonderful favour, to our preservation under God and a great means of effecting what we came about, maugre the labours and designs of our enemies against it, and their plots and attempts for our destruction, had not our Rock of Defence secured us.
“I should detain you very long, though I hope it would not be thought too long, to recite all our remarkable mercies; and it is an excellent thing that they are so numerous. We are now coming homewards. How did our God preserve us over the Baltic Sea from innumerable dangers of the rocks, sands, coasts, islands, fierce lightnings, storms, and those high-swelling waters! Such was our preservation in the Elbe, when our countrymen leaped into the water to bring us off from danger, and when the tempests hurried us up and down, by Heligoland, then towards Holland, then to the northward, then to the southward, in the open breaking rough seas, when we had lost our course and knew not where we were.
“Above all other was that most eminent deliverance near our own coast, when our ship was stuck upon the sand twelve leagues from any shore, when no help nor human means were left to save us, when pale death faced us so long together, when no hopes remained to escape his fury or the rages of the waves, which we expected every instant to swallow us; even then, to show where our dependence ought to be, our God would make it His own work to deliver us. He it was that raised the wind, and brought it from the higher part of the bank, to shake our fastened ship, and crumble the loose sands; and no sooner had we taken a resolution of praying and resigning our souls to God, but He gave us our lives again, moving our ship by His powerful arm, making it to float again, none knowing how or by what means, but by the free act of His mercy, and not a return of ours, but of the prayers of some here present, and divers others our Christian friends, who at that very time were met together to seek the Lord for us and for our safe return.
“Methinks the hearts of us who were partakers of these mercies should rejoice in the repetition of them, and those that hear them cannot but say they hear excellent things; and certainly never had any men more cause than we have of returning humble and hearty thanks to God who hath thus saved us.
“And having received these mercies, and been delivered out of these distresses, I may say to you, as Jacob said to his household (Gen. xxxv.), ‘Let us arise and go to Bethel;’ let us serve God and praise His name who answered us in the day of our distress, and was with us in the way which we went. Let us also keep Jacob’s vow: ‘The Lord hath been with us and kept us in our way, and brought us again to our fathers’ house in peace; let the Lord be our God.’ Let not any of our former vanities or lusts, or love of the world, be any more our God, but let the Lord be our God; let our thanksgiving appear in owning the Lord for our God, and in walking answerable to our mercies; let our prayers be according to the counsel of the Apostle (Eph. v.), ‘See then that ye walk circumspectly, giving thanks always for all things.’ How much more are we bound to do it from our special mercies!
“Gentlemen, give me leave to conclude with my particular thanks to you who accompanied me in my journey, and have manifested very much respect, care, diligence, courage, and discretion. You have, by your demeanour, done honour to our profession of religion, to our country, to yourselves, to your Ambassador, who will be ready to testify the same on all occasions, and to do you all good offices; chiefly in bearing you company to return praises to our God, whose mercies endure for ever.”
After these exercises performed, wherein Whitelocke was the more large in manifesting the abounding of his sense of the goodness of God towards him, and was willing also to recollect his thoughts for another occasion, the company retired themselves; and Whitelocke complimented his particular friends, giving them many thanks who had shown kindness to his wife and family, and had taken care of his affairs in his absence.
A banquet held in State, as in Sweden. He bid them all welcome, and desired them to accompany company him the next day to his audience before the Protector and Council. Then he led them into a great room, where the table was spread, and all things in the same state and manner as he used to have them in Sweden, that his friends might see the fashion of his being served when he was in that condition, and as his farewell to those pomps and vanities.
The trumpets sounding, meat was brought in, and the mistress of the house made it appear that England had as good and as much plenty of provisions as Sweden, Denmark, or Germany. His friends and company sat down to meat as they used to do in Sweden; the attendants, pages, lacqueys, and others, in their liveries, did their service as they were accustomed abroad. Their discourse was full of cheerfulness and recounting of God’s goodness; and both the time of the meat and the afternoon was spent in rejoicing together for the present mercy, and for the whole series of God’s goodness to them; and in the evening they parted, every one to his own quarters.