The History of Thomas Ellwood Written By Himself Part 15

When Guli had finished the business she went upon, we returned home, and I delivered her safe to her glad mother. From that time forward I continued my visits to my best beloved Friend until we married, which was on the 28th day of the eighth month, called October, in the year 1669. We took each other in a select meeting of the ancient and grave Friends of that country, holden in a Friend's house, where in those times not only the monthly meeting for business but the public meeting for worship was sometimes kept. A very solemn meeting it was, and in a weighty frame of spirit we were, in which we sensibly felt the Lord with us, and joining us; the sense whereof remained with us all our lifetime, and was of good service and very comfortable to us on all occasions.

My next care after marriage was to secure my wife what moneys she had, and with herself bestowed upon me; for I held it would be an abominable crime in me, and savour of the highest ingrat.i.tude, if I, though but through negligence, should leave room for my father, in case I should be taken away suddenly, to break in upon her estate, and deprive her of any part of that which had been and ought to be her own. Wherefore with the first opportunity--as I remember, the very next day, and before I knew particularly what she had--I made my will, and thereby secured to her whatever I was possessed of as well all that which she brought, either in moneys or in goods, as that little which I had before I married her; which indeed was but little, yet more by all that little than I had ever given her ground to expect with me.

She had indeed been advised by some of her relations to secure before marriage some part at least of what she had, to be at her own disposal; which, though perhaps not wholly free from some tincture of self-interest in the proposer, was not in itself the worst of counsel. But the worthiness of her mind, and the sense of the ground on which she received me, would not suffer her to entertain any suspicion of me; and this laid on me the greater obligation, in point of grat.i.tude as well as of justice, to regard and secure her; which I did.

I had not been long married before I was solicited by my dear friends Isaac and Mary Penington, and her daughter Guli, to take a journey into Kent and Suss.e.x to account with their tenants and overlook their estates in those counties, which before I was married I had had the care of; and accordingly the journey I undertook, though in the depth of winter.

My travels into those parts were the more irksome to me from the solitariness I underwent, and want of suitable society. For my business lying among the tenants, who were a rustic sort of people of various persuasions and humours, but not Friends, I had little opportunity of conversing with Friends, though I contrived to be with them as much as I could, especially on the first day of the week.

But that which made my present journey more heavy to me was a sorrowful exercise which was newly fallen upon me from my father.

He had, upon my first acquainting him with my inclination to marry, and to whom, not only very much approved the match, and voluntarily offered, without my either asking or expecting, to give me a handsome portion at present, with a.s.surance of an addition to it hereafter. And he not only made this offer to me in private, but came down from London into the country on purpose, to be better acquainted with my friend, and did there make the same proposal to her; offering also to give security to any friend or relation of hers for the performance. Which offer she most generously declined, leaving him as free as she found him. But after we were married, notwithstanding such his promise, he wholly declined the performance of it, under pretence of our not being married by the priest and liturgy. This usage and evil treatment of us thereupon was a great trouble to me; and when I endeavoured to soften him in the matter, he forbade my speaking to him of it any more, and removed his lodging that I might not find him.

The grief I conceived on this occasion was not for any disappointment to myself or to my wife, for neither she nor I had any strict or necessary dependence upon that promise; but my grief was for the cause a.s.signed by him as the ground of it, which was that our marriage was not by priest or liturgy.

And surely hard would it have been for my spirit to have borne up under the weight of this exercise, had not the Lord been exceeding gracious to me, and supported me with the inflowings of his love and life, wherewith he visited my soul in my travail. The sense whereof raised in my heart a thankful remembrance of his manifold kindnesses in his former dealings with me; and in the evening, when I came to my inn, while supper was getting ready, I took my pen and put into words what had in the day revolved in my thoughts. And thus it was

A SONG OF PRAISE.

Thy love, dear Father, and thy tender care, Have in my heart begot a strong desire To celebrate Thy Name with praises rare, That others too Thy goodness may admire, And learn to yield to what Thou dost require.

Many have been the trials of my mind, My exercises great, great my distress; Full oft my ruin hath my foe designed, My sorrows then my pen cannot express, Nor could the best of men afford redress.

When thus beset to Thee I lift mine eye, And with a mournful heart my moan did make; How oft with eyes o'erflowing did I cry, "My G.o.d, my G.o.d, oh do me not forsake!

Regard my tears! Some pity on me take!"

And to the glory of Thy holy name, Eternal G.o.d, whom I both love and fear, I hereby do declare I never came Before Thy throne, and found Thee loth to hear, But always ready, with an open ear.

And though sometimes Thou seem'st Thy face to hide, As one that had withdrawn Thy love from me, 'Tis that my faith may to the full be tried, And that I thereby may the better see How weak I am when not upheld by Thee.

For underneath Thy holy arm I feel, Encompa.s.sing with strength as with a wall, That, if the enemy trip up my heel, Thou ready art to save me from a fall: To Thee belong thanksgivings over all.

And for Thy tender love, my G.o.d, my King, My heart shall magnify Thee all my days, My tongue of Thy renown shall daily sing, My pen shall also grateful trophies raise, As monuments to Thy eternal praise.

T. E.

KENT, the Eleventh Month, 1669.

Having finished my business in Kent, I struck off into Suss.e.x, and finding the enemy endeavouring still more strongly to beset me, I betook myself to the Lord for safety, in whom I knew all help and strength was, and thus poured forth my supplication, directed

TO THE HOLY ONE.

Eternal G.o.d! preserver of all those (Without respect of person or degree) Who in Thy faithfulness their trust repose, And place their confidence alone in Thee; Be Thou my succour; for Thou know'st that I On Thy protection, Lord, alone rely.

Surround me, Father, with Thy mighty power, Support me daily by Thine holy arm, Preserve me faithful in the evil hour, Stretch forth Thine hand to save me from all harm.

Be Thou my helmet, breast-plate, sword, and shield, And make my foes before Thy power yield.

Teach me the spiritual battle so to fight, That when the enemy shall me beset, Armed cap-a-pie with the armour of Thy light, A perfect conquest o'er him I may get; And with Thy battle-axe may cleave the head Of him who bites that part whereon I tread.

Then being from domestic foes set free, The cruelties of men I shall not fear; But in Thy quarrel, Lord, undaunted be, And for Thy sake the loss of all things bear; Yea, though in dungeon locked, with joy will sing An ode of praise to Thee, my G.o.d, my King.

T. E.

SUSs.e.x, the Eleventh Month, 1669.

As soon as I had dispatched the business I went about, I returned home without delay, and to my great comfort found my wife well, and myself very welcome to her; both which I esteemed as great favours.

Towards the latter part of the summer following I went into Kent again, and in my pa.s.sage through London received the unwelcome news of the loss of a very hopeful youth who had formerly been under my care for education. It was Isaac Penington, the second son of my worthy friends Isaac and Mary Penington, a child of excellent natural parts, whose great abilities bespoke him likely to be a great man, had he lived to be a man. He was designed to be bred a merchant, and before he was thought ripe enough to be entered thereunto, his parents, at somebody's request, gave leave that he might go a voyage to Barbadoes, only to spend a little time, see the place, and be somewhat acquainted with the sea, under the care and conduct of a choice friend and sailor, John Grove, of London, who was master of a vessel, and traded to that island; and a little venture he had with him, made up by divers of his friends and by me among the rest. He made the voyage thither very well, found the watery element agreeable, had his health there, liked the place, was much pleased with his entertainment there, and was returning home with his little cargo, in return for the goods he carried out, when on a sudden, through unwariness, he dropped overboard, and, the vessel being under sail with a brisk gale, was irrecoverably lost, notwithstanding the utmost labour, care, and diligence of the master and sailors to have saved him.

This unhappy accident took from the afflicted master all the pleasure of his voyage, and he mourned for the loss of this youth as if it had been his own, yea only, son; for as he was in himself a man of a worthy mind, so the boy, by his witty and handsome behaviour in general, and obsequious carriage towards him in particular, had very much wrought himself into his favour.

As for me, I thought it one of the sharpest strokes I had met with, for I both loved the child very well and had conceived great hopes of general good from him; and it pierced me the deeper to think how deeply it would pierce his afflicted parents.

Sorrow for this disaster was my companion in this journey, and I travelled the roads under great exercise of mind, revolving in my thoughts the manifold accidents which the life of man was attended with and subject to, and the great uncertainty of all human things; I could find no centre, no firm basis, for the mind of man to fix upon but the divine power and will of the Almighty. This consideration wrought in my spirit a sort of contempt of what supposed happiness or pleasure this world, or the things that are in and of it, can of themselves yield, and raised my contemplation higher; which, as it ripened and came to some degree of digestion, I breathed forth in mournful accents thus:-

SOLITARY THOUGHTS ON THE UNCERTAINTY OF HUMAN THINGS.

OCCASIONED BY THE SUDDEN LOSS OF A HOPEFUL YOUTH.

Transibunt cito, quae vos mansura putatis.

Those things soon will pa.s.s away Which ye think will always stay.

What ground, alas! has any man To set his heart on things below, Which, when they seem most like to stand, Fly like an arrow from a bow?

Things subject to exterior sense Are to mutation most propense.

If stately houses we erect, And therein think to take delight, On what a sudden are we checked, And all our hopes made groundless quite!

One little spark in ashes lays What we were building half our days.

If on estate an eye we cast, And pleasure there expect to find, A secret providential blast Gives disappointment to our mind: Who now's on top ere long may feel The circling motion of the wheel.

If we our tender babes embrace, And comfort hope in them to have, Alas! in what a little s.p.a.ce Is hope, with them, laid in the grave!

Whatever promiseth content Is in a moment from us rent.

This world cannot afford a thing Which, to a well-composed mind, Can any lasting pleasure bring, But in its womb its grave will find.

All things unto their centre tend; What had {230} beginning will have end.

But is there nothing then that's sure For man to fix his heart upon - Nothing that always will endure, When all these transient things are gone?

Sad state! where man, with grief oppressed Finds nought whereon his mind may rest.

O yes; there is a G.o.d above, Who unto men is also nigh, On whose unalterable love We may with confidence rely, No disappointment can befall Us, having him that's All in All.

If unto Him we faithful be, It is impossible to miss Of whatsoever He shall see Conducible unto our bliss.

What can of pleasure him prevent Who hath the fountain of content?

In Him alone if we delight, And in His precepts pleasure take, We shall be sure to do aright - 'Tis not His nature to forsake.

A proper object's He alone, For man to set his heart upon.

Domino mens nixa quieta est.

The mind which upon G.o.d is stayed Shall with no trouble be dismayed.

T. E.

KENT, the 4th of the Seventh Month, 1650.

A copy of the foregoing lines, enclosed in a letter of condolence, I sent by the first post into Buckinghamshire, to my dear friends the afflicted parents; and upon my return home, going to visit them, we sat down, and solemnly mixed our sorrows and tears together.

About this time, as I remember, it was that some bickerings happening between some Baptists and some of the people called Quakers, in or about High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, occasioned by some reflecting words a Baptist preacher had publicly uttered in one of their meetings there, against the Quakers in general, and William Penn in particular, it came at length to this issue, that a meeting for a public dispute was appointed, to be holden at West Wycombe, between Jeremy Ives, who espoused his brother's cause, and William Penn.

To this meeting, it being so near me, I went, rather to countenance the cause than for any delight I took in such work; for indeed I have rarely found the advantage equivalent to the trouble and danger arising from those contests; for which cause I would not choose them, as, being justly engaged, I would not refuse them.

The issue of this proved better than I expected; for Ives, having undertaken an ill cause, to argue against the Divine light and universal grace conferred by G.o.d on all men, when he had spent his stock of arguments which he brought with him on that subject, finding his work go on heavily and the auditory not well satisfied, stepped down from his seat and departed, with purpose to have broken up the a.s.sembly. But, except some few of his party who followed him, the people generally stayed, and were the more attentive to what was afterwards delivered amongst them; which Ives understanding, came in again, and in an angry, railing manner, expressing his dislike that we went not all away when he did, gave more disgust to the people.