CHAPTER XXIII.
JOHN BURNYEAT.
A characteristic specimen of Quakers’ piety is furnished in the following narrative, extracted from a volume of their biographies:—
“John Burnyeat was born in the parish of Lows-water, in the county of Cumberland, about the year 1631. And when it pleased God to send His faithful servant George Fox, with other of the messengers of the Gospel of peace and salvation, to proclaim the day of the Lord in the county of Cumberland and north parts of England, this dear servant of Christ was one that received their testimony, which was in the year 1653, when he was about twenty-two years of age; and through his waiting in the light of Jesus Christ, unto which he was turned, he was brought into deep judgment and great tribulation of soul, such as he had not known in all his profession of religion, and by this light of Christ was manifested all the reproved things, and so he came to see the body of death and power of sin which had reigned in him, and felt the guilt thereof upon his conscience, so that he did possess the sins of his youth. ‘Then,’ said he, ‘I saw that I had need of a Saviour to save from sin, as well as the blood of a sacrificed Christ to blot out sin, and faith in His name for the remission of sins; and so being given up to bear the indignation of the Lord, because of sin, and wait till the indignation should be over, and the Lord in mercy would blot out the guilt that remained (which was the cause of wrath), and sprinkle my heart from an evil conscience, and wash our bodies with pure water, that we might draw near to Him with a true heart in the full assurance of faith, as the Christians of old did (Heb. x. 22).’ Thus did this servant of the Lord, with many more in the beginning, receive the truth (as more at large may be seen in the journal of his life) in much fear and trembling, meeting often together, and seeking the Lord night and day, until the promises of the Lord came to be fulfilled, spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, chap. xlii. 7, and xlix. 9, and lxi. 3; and some taste of the oil of joy came to be witnessed, and a heavenly gladness extended into the hearts of many, who in the joy of their souls broke forth in praises unto the Lord, so that the tongue of the dumb (which Christ, the healer of our infirmities, did unloose) began to speak and utter the wonderful things of God. And great was the dread and glory of that power, that one meeting after another was graciously and richly manifested amongst them, to the breaking and melting many hearts before the Lord. Thus being taught of the Lord, according to Isaiah liv. 13, John vi. 45, they became able ministers of the Gospel, and instructors of the ignorant in the way of truth, as this our friend was one, who after four years’ waiting, mostly in silence, before he did appear in a public testimony, which was in the year 1657, being at first concerned to go to divers public places of worship, reproving both priests and people for their deadness and formality of worship, for which he endured sore beating with their staves and Bibles, &c., and imprisonment also in Carlisle Gaol, where he suffer’d twenty-three weeks’ imprisonment for speaking to one priest Denton, at Briggham. After he was at liberty, he went into Scotland, in the year 1658, where he spent three months, travelling both north and west. His work was to call people to repentance from their lifeless hypocritical profession and dead formalities, and to turn to the true light of Jesus Christ in their hearts, that therein they might come to know the power of God, and the remission of sins, &c. And in the year 1659 he travelled to Ireland, and preached the truth and true faith of Jesus in many parts of that nation.”[601]
Of the piety of Puritan Nonconformists several examples have already appeared; but it is proper to add a few more.
JOSEPH ALLEINE.
Joseph Alleine was born in 1634. As a child, whilst living in Devizes, the sieges and battles of the Civil Wars made him familiar with the question then being fought out, both by the sword and the pen; and as he heard gun answering gun, and saw the flashes “through the chinks of his father’s barred and shuttered windows,” and as he read fly-leaves which were then distributed far and wide, ideas were entering his mind which shaped the Puritanism of his whole after-life. He went to Oxford when that University had fallen into the hands of the Army, and just before the time when Oliver Cromwell became Chancellor. There he distinguished himself by his diligence, often rising at four o’clock in the morning, and prolonging his studies beyond midnight; and he added to the exhaustion of toil, the mortification of fasting; for he often gave away his “commons” at least once a day. In the year 1655 he became minister at Taunton, as assistant to George Newton, the minister of St. Mary’s; and there he married: a long love-letter, which he wrote to the lady of his affections, still remains, as a specimen of the grave courtship of Puritan suitors. Having been ordained according to Presbyterian order, his activity as a pastor rivalled his assiduity as a student. What he did as a catechist long remained amongst the traditions of the town. “In this work, his course was to draw a catalogue of the names of the families in each street, and so to send a day or two before he intended to visit them. Those that sent slight excuses, or did obstinately refuse his message, he would speak some affectionate words to them, or, if he saw cause, denounce the threatenings of God against them that despise His ministers, and so departed; and after would send letters to them so full of love as did overcome their hearts, and they did many of them afterwards receive him into their houses. Herein was his compassion shown to all sorts, both poor and rich.” All this may be regarded as not only characteristic of Alleine, but of the class to which he belonged; for there was nothing about which the Presbyterians were more anxious than the culture of domestic religion. Alleine’s preaching also stood in high repute, the judgment in his discourses being likened to “a pot of manna,”—the fancy to “Aaron’s rod that budded,”—and the fervour to “a live coal from off the altar.” His public career of labour, usefulness, and honour, in the town of Taunton, reached its close at the general ejectment of 1662, to the common grief of himself and his parishioners. Alleine’s habits of indefatigable toil could not be repressed by the Act of Uniformity, and he still preached, ordinarily in some weeks six or seven times, in others ten or fourteen. Such a zealous evangelist could not escape the hand of the law; and in the year 1663 he was sent a prisoner to Ilchester Gaol. He remained in confinement a year all but three days. The vigilance of his gaoler could not have been strict, for he had “very great meetings, week-days and Sabbath-days, and many days of humiliation and thanksgiving. The Lord’s days many hundreds came.” Alleine held conferences, wrote to his old flock, taught children, circulated catechisms, and, during the chaplain’s illness, discharged his duties, exerting himself to such a degree that he would keep on his clothes all night, and allow himself to sleep only one or two hours. After his liberation, his indomitable perseverance in preaching, and in other religious efforts, brought him again into trouble: indeed, it is said, “he was far more earnest than before,” although that appears impossible. A second imprisonment followed in the year 1666. In the June of 1667, he was again liberated; but excessive labour, severe self-mortification, and the vexations and sorrows of imprisonment, had broken down his constitution. “It was impossible,” observed Dr. Annesley, “that anguish like his could continue long, and at last his sufferings for Christ hurried him to heaven in a fiery chariot.” When conveyed in a horse-litter to Bath—then called the “King’s Bathe,” a mere maze of five hundred houses—“the doctors were amazed to behold such a wasted object, professing they never saw the like, much wondering how he was come alive; and, on his appearance at the Bathe, some of the ladies were affrighted, as though death had come amongst them.” The Puritan was much grieved by “the oaths, drinking, and ungodly carriage of the persons of quality there;” and he failed not to reprove them for their misconduct. “His way was first to converse of things that might be taking with them; for, being furnished by his studies for any company, he did use his learning for such ends, and by such means hath caught many souls.” He caused himself to be carried in a chair to visit schools and almshouses; he persuaded teachers to adopt the Assembly’s Catechism as a class-book; and on a Sunday he gathered sixty or seventy children together at his lodgings, and he also paid daily visits to the poor.
The Puritan impress rests on all Alleine’s labours, on all his self-denial, on all his social intercourse, and on much of his suffering. The same may be said of his last moments. We are told that the night before he died, about nine o’clock, he brake out with an audible voice, speaking for sixteen hours together, and did cease but a little space now and then all the afternoon. About three o’clock in the afternoon he had some conflict with Satan, for he uttered these words:—“Away, thou foul fiend, thou enemy of all mankind, thou subtle sophister: art thou come now to molest me—now I am just going—now I am so weak, and death upon me? Trouble me not, for I am none of thine! I am the Lord’s; Christ is mine, and I am His; His by covenant. I have sworn myself to be the Lord’s, and His I will be. Therefore begone!” These last words he repeated often. Thus his covenanting with God was the method he used to expel the devil and all his temptations. In November, 1668, he died, and was buried in the chancel of St. Mary’s, Taunton, under a brass plate with this inscription: Hic jacet Dominus Josephus Alleine holocaustum Tauntonensis et Deo et vobis.[602]
THOMAS EWINS.
Thomas Ewins, a Baptist minister at Bristol, was mentioned in a former volume, as a man of great natural power: the character of his life also deserves commemoration. The records of the Broadmead Church, which have already supplied us with many illustrations, afford us touching memorials of this good man’s piety. When his flock were about to meet for prayer on his behalf, during his final illness, he addressed to them the following letter, which indicates at once the close and confidential religious relations in which he stood to them, and the deep spirituality of the pastor’s character:—“Dear brother,” he says, addressing one of the ruling elders, “understanding that some friends intend to become suitors at the throne of grace this day on my behalf, I think good to send these few lines for information, to acquaint you that being weak, I cannot conveniently be with you, but hope I shall meet you with some few sighs and groans to Him that heareth prayer; first, that the God of all grace and health will command health and cure to the soul and body, chiefly to that soul of all soul maladies, unbelief, and all the fruits thereof; and also to the body, for the cure of those maladies which unfit for work and service, especially melancholy, and the fruits thereof; and that God will, of His infinite riches of grace and mercy, bestow a double portion of His blessed Spirit both upon me and upon the whole congregation, and that we may obtain more of the blessed spirit of adoption, and all the fruits thereof. Amen. Which is all at present from your weak brother, Thomas Ewins. The Lord give you much of His presence, and grant that His ear may be open to your prayers.”