The mercy of Providence, the truths of Christianity, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, kept him amidst his extensive travels, amidst his intercourse with men of different countries and classes, and especially amidst the temptations of fashionable society at a period when such as frequented courts were commonly addicted to vice. Notwithstanding the great moral peril to which Evelyn stood exposed, he preserved a pure mind and a virtuous reputation. He loved the Episcopal Church of England with a jealous affection,—finding in her liturgy what was congenial with his spiritual taste; deriving nourishment for his spiritual sensibilities from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper administered according to her ritual; and, in short, living in the culture of those habits which are distinctive of Anglican piety. He did not, indeed, refuse to attend his parish church during the Commonwealth, and to hear a Presbyterian or Independent minister; but this proceeded from prudence rather than from sympathy. Evelyn’s Catholic feeling shrank from Puritanism; his charity leaned towards Roman Catholics. It is with regard to such that he says:—“For the rest we must commit to Providence the success of times and mitigation of proselytical fervours, having for my own particular a very great charity for all who sincerely adore the blessed Jesus, our common and dear Saviour, as being full of hope that God (however the present zeal of some, and the scandals taken by others at the instant [present] affliction of the Church of England may transport them), will at last compassionate our infirmities, clarify our judgments, and make abatement for our ignorances, superstructures, passions, and errors of corrupt times and interests, of which the Romish persuasion can no way acquit herself, whatever the present prosperity and secular polity may pretend. But God will make all things manifest in His own time, only let us possess ourselves in patience and charity. This will cover a multitude of imperfections.”[576]
Like other persons of his cast of sentiment, like the nuns at Gidding eulogized by Isaak Walton and condemned by the Puritans, like the Anglican sisterhoods of the present day, Evelyn had a liking for a semi-monastic life; and in the year 1659, when affairs were unsettled in England, he proposed to Robert Boyle, an elaborate plan for an establishment of this description. There was to be a house erected in the midst of a tall wood, and “opposite to the house, towards the wood, should be erected a pretty chapel; and at equal distances, even within the flanking walls of the square, six apartments or cells for the members of the society, and not contiguous to the pavilion; each whereof should contain a small bedchamber, an outward room, a closet, and a private garden, somewhat after the manner of the Carthusians.”[577] There was to be maintained at the public charge a “chaplain well qualified.” There were to be prayers in the chapel morning and evening; and a weekly fast and communion once every fortnight or month at least, with divers arrangements for study and recreations. The scheme came to nothing, but it shows the bent of its author’s inclinations. Whatever may be thought of them, one impression only can be justly derived from reading on the white marble, covering his tomb, in Wotton Church, the record of his death:—“He fell asleep the 27th day of February, 170⅚, being the 86th year of his age, in full hope of a glorious resurrection, through faith in Jesus Christ. Living in an age of extraordinary events and revolutions, he learnt (as himself asserted) this truth—which, pursuant to his intention, is here declared—‘That all is vanity which is not honest, and that there is no solid wisdom but in real piety.’”[578]
JOHN EVELYN.
The cast of Evelyn’s religion is further illustrated in that of his friend Margaret Blagge,[579] afterwards the wife of Sidney Godolphin. When he heard some distinguished persons speaking of her, he fancied she was “some airy thing that had more wit than discretion.” But, making a visit to Whitehall with his wife, he fell in with the youthful maid of honour, and “admired her temperance, and took especial notice, that, however wide or indifferent the subject of their discourse was amongst the rest, she would always direct it to some religious conclusion, and so temper and season her replies, as showed a gracious heart, and that she had a mind wholly taken up with heavenly thoughts.” Their acquaintance was ratified by a quaint solemnity; after a formal solicitation, that he would look upon her thenceforth as his child, she took a sheet of paper, upon which Evelyn had been carelessly sketching the shape of an altar, and wrote these words: “Be this a symbol of inviolable friendship: Margaret Blagge, 16th October, 1672;” and underneath, “For my brother E——.” Something of romance is visible in the singular attachment which this girl formed for her amiable and pious friend; and it issued in his guiding her affairs, in his increasing her wisdom, and in his ripening her piety. Never at home amidst the gaieties of Whitehall, Margaret, after seven years’ experience, felt that she could no longer endure living at Court, and therefore earnestly sought, and at length, with difficulty, obtained Royal permission to retire. On a Sunday night, after most of the company were departed, Evelyn waited on her down to her chamber, which she had no sooner entered, than falling on her knees, she blessed God, as for a signal deliverance: “She was come,” she said, “out of Egypt, and was now in the way to the land of promise.” Tears trickled down her cheeks, “like the dew of flowers, making a lovely grief,” as she parted from one of the ladies who had a spirit kindred to her own. She found a home with Lady Berkeley, and what she especially sought, time for meditation and prayer; indeed the love of seclusion so increased, that she manifested a strong tinge of asceticism. Evelyn, in this respect more sober-minded, availed himself of his influence, and with success, to persuade her to renounce a celibate life, to which she seemed strongly disposed; and she came to see that union with a virtuous and religious person, would tend rather to promote than to retard her spiritual progress. Accordingly, she was married privately in the Temple Church, on the 16th of May, being Ascension Day, “both the blessed pair receiving the Holy Sacrament, and consecrating the solemnity with a double mystery;”[580] but, in a letter written shortly after, she showed what continued to be the main bent of her mind. “I have this day,” she says, addressing Evelyn, “thought your thoughts, wished I dare say your wishes, which were, that I might every day sit looser and looser to the things of this world; discerning as every day I do, the folly and vanity of it; how short all its pleasures, how trifling all its recreations, how false most of its friendships, how transitory everything in it; and on the contrary, how sweet the service of God, how delightful the meditating on His Word, how pleasant the conversation of the faithful, and, above all, how charming prayer, how glorious our hopes, how gracious our God is to all His children, how gentle His corrections, and how frequently, by the first invitations of His Spirit, He calls us from our low designs to those great and noble ones of serving Him, and attaining eternal happiness.”[581]
MARGARET GODOLPHIN.
Margaret Godolphin became an exemplary matron. She instructed her servants, she cultivated domestic religion, she breathed towards everybody a kind considerate spirit, and with all this condescension as a mistress, she blended the utmost devotion and tenderness as a wife. She also assisted the poor, and in the spirit of Elizabeth Fry, visited the hospital and the prison: and Evelyn could produce a list of above thirty, restrained for debts in several prisons, which she paid and compounded for at once; and another list of no fewer than twenty-three poor creatures whom she clad at one time. She employed “most part of Lent in working for poor people, cutting out and making waistcoats and other necessary coverings, which she constantly distributed amongst them, like another Dorcas, spending much of her time, and no little of her money, in relieving, visiting, and inquiring of them out. And whilst she was thus busy with her needle, she would commonly have one or other read by her, through which means and a happy memory, she had almost the whole Scriptures by heart, and was so versed in Dr. Hammond’s Annotations and other practical books, controversies, and cases, as might have stocked some who pass for no small Divines: not to mention sundry Divine penitential and other hymns, breathing of a spirit of holiness, and such as showed the tenderness of her heart, and wonderful love to God.”[582]
Within a few days after the birth of her only child, she expired, September 9, 1678, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, and she lies buried in the church of Breague, in Cornwall: her tomb reminding us of the pillar over Rachel’s grave.
As in the Court of Arcadius, we meet with the pious Olympias in contrast with the Empress Eudoxia, and her ladies,—so, in the Court of Charles II., we discover a Margaret Godolphin in contrast with a Castelmaine and a Gwynn.
SIR MATTHEW HALE.
There are, in every age, Christians whom it would be difficult to connect with one particular school of theological sentiment, because they have sympathies with all good men, and do not adopt the peculiarities of any class. Such a person was Sir Matthew Hale. No ecclesiastical history of the period—unless written upon some miserable sectarian principle—could be considered complete which did not include a reference to so eminently excellent a man. His parents dying when he was very young, he became dependent for his education upon a relative who was a Puritan minister, and this circumstance may account for some points in his character which present a rather Puritanical appearance. After being addicted to the gaieties of youth, he was, whilst at Oxford, converted, in heart and life, as the result, partly at least, of an affecting circumstance which occurred at a convivial meeting when he was present. A boon-companion fell down in a state of death-like insensibility, when Hale, overwhelmed with remorse and pity, retired into another room, and, prostrating himself before God, asked forgiveness for his own sins, and interceded earnestly for the restoration of his friend. A sudden spiritual crisis like that, when the soul is suddenly fused, and poured into a new mould, is sure to be remembered afterwards, and to influence all subsequent religious feeling. As it has been justly said, a man no more forgets the moral deliverance it involves, than he forgets an escape from shipwreck,[583] and therefore Hale’s conversion gave a marked evangelical impress to his subsequent experience. He glorified the riches of Divine grace, and delighted “in studying the Mystery of Christ.” He found in God an overflowing fulness which fills up the intensest gaspings and outgoings of the soul, a fulness which continues to eternity, ever increasing gratitude, adoration, and love. Throughout a course of remarkable diligence in business, this illustrious Judge manifested no less fervour of spirit. Prayer “gave a tincture of devotion” to his secular employments—it was “a Christian chemistry converting those acts which are materially natural and civil, into acts truly and formally religious, whereby all life is rendered interpretatively a service to Almighty God.” It was a sun which “gave light in the midst of darkness, a fortress that kept safe in the greatest danger, that never could be taken unless self-betrayed,”—a “Goshen to, and within itself, when the rest of the world, without and round about a man, is like an Egypt for plagues and darkness.” “To lose this,” Hale went on to say, “is, like Samson, to lose the lock wherein next to God our strength lieth.” Such expressions as these have a Puritanical sound in the ears of many, and there are other things noticeable in his memoirs in harmony with such expressions:—for it is stated, as very probable, that he took the Solemn League and Covenant, it is certain that he did not approve of the rigours of the Act of Uniformity, and he severely condemned the conduct of many of the clergy. He had also the deepest reverence for the Sabbath, he cherished an intense aversion to Romanism, he cultivated, with great respect, a friendship with Richard Baxter—to whom he acknowledged himself under great theological obligations—and, if we may mention so minute a circumstance, which however is significant—“in common prayer, he behaved himself as others, saving that to avoid the differencing of the Gospels from the Epistles, and the bowing at the name of Jesus, from the names Christ, Saviour, God, &c., he would use some equality in his gestures and stand up at the reading of all God’s Word alike.” These facts separate him from the Anglo-Catholic division of the Church of England, yet they are not sufficient to identify him with the fully developed, and sharply defined Puritan party. For he did not use such religious language in conversation, as satisfied them—they considered him too reticent on spiritual subjects;—and, as Baxter says, those that took no men for religious, who frequented not private meetings, regarded him simply, as “an excellently righteous man.” Baxter himself seems to have wished, that Hale had been a little more communicative on spiritual matters, instead of confining himself in conversation to what is philosophical in religion. The Divine remarks, respecting the Judge:—“At last I understood that his averseness to hypocrisy made him purposely conceal the most of such of his practical thoughts and works as the world now findeth by his Contemplations and other writings.” In some respects, Sir Matthew sympathized with the Latitudinarian school—for, like them, he believed, “that true religion consisteth in great plain necessary things, the life of faith and hope, the love of God and man, an humble self-denying mind, with mortification of worldly affection—and that the calamity of the Church, and withering of religion hath come from proud and busy men’s additions, that cannot give peace to themselves and others by living in love and quietness on this Christian simplicity of faith and practice, but vex and turmoil the Church with these needless and hurtful superfluities.”[584] Nor did he believe in any divinely authorized form of ecclesiastical government; although he greatly preferred, on grounds of expediency, the Episcopalian polity to any other. Yet these points of affinity do not justify us in numbering him with the Latitudinarians any more than with the Puritans, because there was in him more of evangelical sentiment, more of attachment to dogmatic truth, and more of spiritual fervour, than belonged to the former description of thinkers. He counted amongst his religious friends, the High Churchman, Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, as well as the Broad Churchman, Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and the Low Churchman, Richard Baxter, who refused to be a Bishop at all. It suggests rebuke to all bigoted partizans, to remember that a layman of the latter half of the seventeenth century most renowned for his wisdom, justice, charity and piety, was one of whom it is equally true that he can be claimed by no particular party, and yet can be claimed by all single-minded Christians.