A touching instance of early piety occurred in the family of John Evelyn, described by the bereaved father in the following terms: "Illuminations, far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettiness of his address and behaviour, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many days a Quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder, for Christ had said that man should not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God. He would of himself select the most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job to read to his maid during his sickness, telling her, when she pitied him, that all God's children must suffer affliction. He declaimed against the vanities of the world before he had seen any. Often he would desire those who came to see him to pray by him, and a year before he fell sick, to kneel and pray with him alone in some corner. How thankfully would he receive admonition! how soon be reconciled! how indifferent, yet continually cheerful! He would give grave advice to his brother John, bear with his impertinences, and say he was but a child. If he heard of or saw any new thing he was unquiet till he was told how it was made; he brought to us all such difficulties as he found in books, to be expounded. He had learned by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greek, which, on occasion, he would produce even to wonder. He was all life, all prettiness, far from morose, sullen, or childish, in anything he said or did. The last time he had been at church (which was at Greenwich), I asked him, according to custom, what he remembered of the sermon; 'Two good things, father,' said he, 'bonum gratiæ, and bonum gloriæ!' with a just account of what the preacher said. The day before he died he called to me, and in a more serious manner than usual told me that for all I loved him so dearly, I should give my house, land, and all my fine things to his brother Jack, he should have none of them; and, the next morning, when he found himself ill, and that I persuaded him to keep his hands in bed, he demanded whether he might pray to God with his hands unjoined; and a little after, whilst in great agony, whether he should not offend God by using His holy name so often calling for ease. What shall I say of his frequent pathetical ejaculations uttered of himself: 'Sweet Jesus, save me, deliver me, pardon my sins, let Thine angels receive me!' So early knowledge, so much piety and perfection! But thus God, having dressed up a saint fit for Himself, would not longer permit him with us, unworthy of the future fruits of this incomparable hopeful blossom. Such a child I never saw; for such a child I bless God, in whose bosom he is! May I and mine become as this little child, who now follows the child Jesus, that Lamb of God, in a white robe, whithersoever He goes; even so, Lord Jesus, fiat voluntas tua! Thou gavest him to us, Thou hast taken him from us, blessed be the name of the Lord! That I had anything acceptable to Thee was from Thy grace alone, seeing from me he had nothing but sin, but that Thou hast pardoned! Blessed be my God for ever. Amen."[452]
We have already presented several examples of eminent piety in the lives of Puritan clergymen. To these may be added one more in a passage from a sermon preached by John Howe on the death of "that faithful and laborious servant of Christ, Mr. Richard Fairclough."[453]
"The bent of his soul was towards God; I never knew any man under the more constant governing power of religion, which made it to be his business both to exercise and diffuse it to his uttermost; he was a mighty lover of God and men, and being of a lively, active spirit, that love was his facile, potent mover to the doing even of all the good that could be thought in an ordinary way, possible to him, and more than was possible to most other men. To give a true succinct account of the complexion of his soul—he was even made up of life and love. Such was the clearness and sincerity of his spirit, his constant uprightness and integrity, so little darkened by an evil conscience—and indeed little ever clouded with melancholy fumes—that he seemed to live in the constant sense of God's favour and acceptance, and had nothing to do but to serve Him with his might; when his spirit was formed to an habitual cheerfulness and seemed to feel within itself a continual calm. So undisturbed a serenity hath, to my observation, rarely been discernible in any man; nor was his a dull sluggish peace, but vital and joyous; seldom hath that been more exemplified in any man. 'To be spiritually minded is life and peace.' Seldom have any lived more under the government of that kingdom, which stands in 'righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' His reverence of the Divine Majesty was most profound, his thoughts of God high and great, that seemed totally to have composed him to adoration and even made him live a worshipping life; he was not wont to speak to God, or of Him, at a vulgar rate; he was most absolutely resigned and given up to Him; devotedness to His interest, acquiescence in His wisdom and will, were not mere precepts with him, but habits. No man could be more deeply concerned about the affairs of religion and God's interest in the world; yet his solicitude was tempered with that steadfast trust, that it might be seen the acknowledged verities of God's governing the world, superintending and ordering all human affairs by wise and steady counsel and almighty power—which in most others are but faint notions—were with him turned into, living sense and vital principles which governed his soul! Whereupon his great reverence of the Majesty of God, falling into a conjunction with an assured trust and sense of His love and goodness, made that rare and happy temperament with him, which I cannot better express than by a pleasant seriousness. What friend of his did ever, at the first congress, see his face but with a grave smile? When unexpectedly and by surprise he came in among his familiar friends, it seemed as if he had blessed the room; as if a new soul or some good genius were come among them."
Lamot.
Puritan gentlemen manifested in their own way virtues of a kind similar to those which adorned their Anglican neighbours. The biographer of Alderman John Lamot, who died in 1655, eulogizes the "holy carriage of his youth," his industry, thanksgiving, prudence, integrity, zeal, charity, sympathy, bounty, and patience. Mention is made especially of his religious duties—he was a member and elder of the Dutch Church—of his devoutly attending public lectures, and of his reading the Holy Scriptures in private. Every year, upon the 17th of November, he made a feast to commemorate the end of Queen Mary's persecution, and the commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign. Upon these occasions he would deliver a hearty Protestant speech, and bless God for the quenching of the Smithfield fires. At other times he invited friends "to eat bread with him before the Lord, as Jethro and Moses did," when, with singular fulness—for his memory is called a living library—he traced those Divine deliverances which had been wrought out for the Church in England and in the Netherlands, ending his conversation, as it regards the latter, with the words: "Their case might have been ours, and who knows but it may yet be?"[454]
Sir Nathaniel Barnardston may be mentioned as a person of the same order. The time of his conversion is specified, and the foundation of his faith is recorded by his biographer; who also draws a full length portrait of him as a man and a magistrate—and as belonging both to his own family and to God's Church. He rarely met his pastor but they prayed together. "His tongue dropped honey, and his breath was as sweet and fragrant as the roses in spring." He sanctified the Sabbath, and diligently attended the preaching of the word. He prepared for the sacrament, and loved the Christian ministry—and fasted and prayed before exercising his right as a patron of Church livings, and sought to draw his neighbours to a religious life. He also celebrated, like the London alderman we have just mentioned, "The thrice happy day of Elizabeth's inauguration," and forgot not the Fifth of November, and the gunpowder treason, which last plot he was wont to pronounce "black as hell."
He welcomed "the messenger of death, when it drew near. He did not then, according to the usual method of most, seem shy and averse to be gone, as if so be he were not ready, but was heartily ready; for as soon as ever there appeared on his side a small swelling in which none but himself conceived any danger, he being then at Hackney, did send fifty miles for Mr. Fairclough, his minister, to discourse with him; and taking him to walk with him, presently fell into conference of the worth and immortality of the soul, of the manner of its subsistence and actings when it was separated, of the joys of the other world, and the vanity and emptiness of all things in this, as being most suitable to his present condition, and herewith he was so deeply and spiritually affected, that at their parting he expressed himself in the following manner to Mr. Fairclough:[455]—'Sir, I now much wonder that any man that fully believes these things to be realities, and not mere notions (being in my condition) should be unwilling to die. For my own part, I will not be so flattered with any carnal content as to be desirous to live longer in this world, where there is little hope left that the Lord hath any more work or service for me to do, except it be to suffer for keeping a good conscience, in witnessing against the apostasies and impieties of the times; and now it is a great favour of God to be sent for speedily.' After this, he being removed to London for greater conveniency of physicians, he there made the same profession of his desire to be dissolved and be with Christ, unto several friends and visitors."[456]
Choice examples of Christian character abound in the lives of the women of that day.
Lady Carbary.
Again we refer to the pages of Jeremy Taylor, and extract the following passage from his sketch of the character of Lady Carbary:[457]—"In all her religion, and in all her actions of relations towards God, she had a strange evenness and untroubled passage, sliding toward her ocean of God and of infinity, with a certain and silent motion. So have I seen a river, deep and smooth, passing with a still foot and a sober face, and paying to the 'fiscus,' the great 'exchequer' of the sea, and prince of all the watery bodies, a tribute large and full; and hard by it, a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbour bottom; and after all its talking and bragged motion, it paid to its common audit no more than the revenues of a little cloud, or a contemptible vessel; so have I sometimes compared the issues of her religion to the solemnities and famed outsides of another's piety. It dwelt upon her spirit, and was incorporated with the periodical work of every day. She did not believe that religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation, but to pardon of sins, to the pleasure of God, and the salvation of souls. For religion is like the breath of heaven; if it goes abroad into the open air, it scatters and dissolves like camphire; but if it enters into a secret hollowness, into a close conveyance, it is strong and mighty, and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end, at the other side of this life, in the days of death and judgment."