8: Of Her Mental Qualifications and Her Infirmities
8
OF HER MENTAL QUALIFICATIONS
AND HER INFIRMITIES
[Richard celebrates Margaret’s quick intelligence; competence in business; brilliance with moral dilemmas; joy in the Gospel, in God, in godliness, and in being a despised Nonconformist; excellence as a homemaker; gentle patience with people of all sorts; faithfulness in chiding her husband as necessary; desire for fullest spiritual intimacy with him at all times; and great love for her mother—despite battles with nightmarish fears that threatened her sanity.]
I doubt not but some of these accusers will say, why open you all this? Were not you the master? And do you not hereby praise yourself, or else confess that she was your governess?
Perhaps love and grief may make me speak more than many will think fit. But though some passion blind the judgment, some doth but suscitate it to duty, and God made it to that end; and I will not be judged by any that never felt the like.
Did not Christ say of Mary’s box of ointment, that it should be remembered wherever the gospel was preached? And was it not Judas that said, What need of this waste? And were not the poor’s clothing made by Dorcas, showed to move Peter? The poor we have always with us. Do the covetous believe that what we do to his people, we do to Christ?
It was not mine that she gave, but her own, that I am now mentioning, and what she procured.
But I am not ashamed to have been much ruled by her prudent love in many things. And you will the less wonder when I have told you what she and I were.
For myself, my constant pains and weakness and ministerial labors forbade me the care of outward things. I had never much known worldly cares. Before I was married I had no need; afterward she took the care on her, and disuse had made it intolerable to me. I feel now more of it than ever I did, when yet I have so little a way to go.
And as for her (I speak the truth), her apprehension of such things was so much quicker and more discerning than mine, that though I was naturally somewhat tenacious of my own conceptions, her reasons and my experience usually told me that she was in the right and knew more than I. She would at the first hearing understand the matter better than I could do by many and long thoughts.
And the excellency of her reason lay not so much in the speculative as the prudential practical part. I must say that in this I never knew her equal. In very hard cases about what was to be done, she would suddenly open all the way what was to be opened, in the things of the family, estate, or any civil business. And to confess the truth, experience acquainted her that I knew less in such things than she, and therefore was willing she should take it all upon her.
Yes, I will say that (which they that believe me to be no liar will wonder at), except in cases that required learning and skill in theological difficulties, she was better at resolving a case of conscience than most divines that ever I knew in all my life. I often put cases to her which she suddenly so resolved as to convince me of some degree of oversight in my own resolution. Insomuch that of late years, I confess, that I was used to put all, save secret cases, to her and hear what she could say. Abundance of difficulties were brought me, some about restitution, some about injuries, some about references, some about vows, some about marriage promises, and many such like; and she would lay all the circumstances presently together, compare them, and give me a more exact resolution than I could do.
As to religion, we were so perfectly of one mind that I know not that she differed from me in any one point or scarce a circumstance, except in the prudential management of what we were agreed in. She was for universal love of all true Christians, and against appropriating the church to a party, and against censoriousness and partiality in religion. She was for acknowledging all that is of God in Conformists and Nonconformists. But she had much more reverence for the elder Conformists than for most of the young ones, who ventured upon things which Dissenters had so much to say against, without weighing or understanding the reasons on both sides, merely following others for worldly ends without a tender fear of sinning. Especially if any young men of her own friends were inclined merely to swim with the stream, without due trial of the case, it greatly displeased her and she thought hardly of them.
She had in her youth been tempted to doubt of the life to come and of the truth of the Scripture. But she was so resolved and settled therein that her confident assurance of it was the life of all her life and practice.
After all the doubts of her sincerity and salvation and all the fears and sadness thereupon, which cast her into melancholy, she so far overcame them all, that for near these nineteen years that I have lived with her, I think I never heard her thrice speak a doubting word of her salvation, but oft of her hopeful persuasions that we should live together in heaven; it being my judgment and constant practice to make those that I teach understand that the gospel is glad tidings of great joy; and that holiness lies especially in delighting in God, his Word and works, and in his joyful praise and hopes of glory, and in longing for and seeking the heavenly Jerusalem, and in living as fruitfully to the church and others as we can do in the world; and that this must be wrought by the most believing apprehensions of God’s goodness as equal to his greatness, and of his great love to mankind manifested in our redemption, and by believing the grace and riches of Christ and the comforting office of the Holy Ghost, and studying daily God’s promises and mercies and our everlasting joys; and that religion consists in doing God’s commanding will and quietly and joyfully trusting in his promising and disposing will; and that fear and sorrow are but to remove impediments and further all this.
And this doctrine by degrees she drank in and so fully consented to it that (though timorousness was her disease) her judgment was quieted and settled therein.
The nature of true religion, holiness, obedience, and all duty to God and man was printed in her conceptions, in so distinct and clear a character as made her endeavors and expectations constantly look at greater exactness than I and such as I could reach. She was very desirous that we should all have lived in a constancy of devotion and a blameless innocency. And in this respect she was the meetest helper that I could have had in the world (that ever I was acquainted with); for I was apt to be over-careless in my speech and too backward to my duty, and she was always endeavoring to bring me to greater wariness and strictness in both. If I spoke rashly or sharply, it offended her; if I behaved (as I was apt) with too much neglect of ceremony or humble compliment to any, she would modestly tell me of it; if my very looks seemed not pleasant, she would have me amend them (which my weak pained state of body undisposed me to do); if I forgot any week to catechize my servants and familiarly instruct them personally (besides my ordinary family duties), she was troubled at my remissness. And whereas of late years my declining vitality and diseased heaviness and pain made me much more seldom and cold in profitable conference and discourse in my house than I had been when I was younger and had more ease and spirits and natural vigor, she much blamed me and was troubled at it, as a wrong to herself and others; though yet her judgment agreed with mine, that too much and often table talk of the best things doth but tend to dull the common hearers and harden them under it as a customary thing, and that too much good talk may bring it into contempt or make it ineffectual.
And of late years, my constant weakness and pain made me unable to speak much in my ordinary course of duty; and my writings, preachings, and other public duty (which I ever thought I was bound to prefer before lesser) did so wholly take up those few hours of the day which I had out of my bed that I was seldomer in secret prayer with my wife than she desired.
Indeed, it troubleth me to think how oft I told her that I never understood Solomon’s words, Ecclesiastes 7:16, but by the exposition of her case—Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise: why shouldst thou destroy thyself? I doubt not but Solomon spake of humane, civil righteousness and wisdom, as a means respecting temporal prosperity or adversity, rather than spiritual holy righteousness, respecting God’s everlasting reward; or if it were extended to religious righteousness, it can be but against superstition, falsely called righteousness.
But as to our present case, I must thus resolve the question, Whether one can be religiously wise and righteous overmuch? And I answer, that we must distinguish 1. material and formal righteousness, 2. between objective and subjective measures of it, 3. of the good and bad consequents and effects.
And 1. no man can be formally and properly too wise or too righteous. Else it would charge God with error, for formal proper righteousness is nothing but our conformity to God’s governing will. And if our obedience were too much, and to be blamed, God’s commands were to be blamed that required it. But very strict actions are commonly called righteousness, as a written prayer or words are commonly called prayer, though properly wanting the form,37 it is not so. And not only a good object, but a right end, principle and mode and circumstances, go to make an action righteous.
2. That action which compared with the object cannot possibly be overwise and righteous, yet as compared with the agent or subject may be too much. No man can know, believe, or love God too much, answerable to his perfections; but one may possibly be transported with so earnest a desire of God, Christ, Christian society, holiness, and heaven as may be more than head and health can bear, and so it may be too much for the subject.
3. Therefore the probable effects must be weighed. He that should meditate, read, yea, love God so intensely as to distract him, would do it overmuch. He that would do a good work precisely, when the exactness would hinder the substance of another, perhaps a better work, would be righteous overmuch. And I thought this the case sometime of my dear wife. She set her head and heart so intensely upon doing good that her head and body would hardly bear it. As holy set [i.e., topical and systematic] meditation is no duty to a melancholy person that cannot do it without confusion and danger of distraction, so many other duties are no duties when they will do more harm than good. And a man is limited in his capacity and his time. No man can do all the good he would, and to omit a greater for the better doing of a lesser, or to omit the substance of the one for exacter doing of another, I thought was to be unrighteous by being righteous overmuch.
She (and some others) thought I had done better to have written fewer books, and to have done those few better. I thought while I wrote not needlessly, the modal imperfection of two was less evil than the total omission of one. She thought I should have spent more time in religious exercise with her, my family, and my neighbors, though I had written less. I thought there were many to do such work that would not do mine, and that I chose the greatest, which I durst not omit, and could not do both in the measure that I desired else to have done.
As she saith (before cited) herself, that if she was but in a condition in which God’s service was costly to her, it would make her know whether she were sincere or not; so she had her wish and proved her sincerity by her costliest obedience. It cost her not only her labor and estate, but somewhat of her trouble of body and mind; for her knife was too keen and cut the sheath. Her desires were more earnestly set on doing good than her tender mind and head could well bear; for indeed her great infirmity was the four passions of love, desire, fear, and trouble of mind. Anger she either had very little next none, or little made it known. She rarely ever spoke in an angry manner. She could not well bear to hear one speak loudly or hastily or eagerly or angrily, even to those that deserved it. My temper in this she blamed as too quick and earnest. When her servants did any fault unwillingly she scarce ever told them of it; when one lost ten pounds’ worth of linen in carriage carelessly, and another ten pounds’ worth of plate by negligence, she showed no anger at any such thing. If servants had done amiss and we could not prove it or knew not which did it, she would never ask them herself nor suffer others to do so, lest it should tempt them to hide it by a lie (unless it were a servant that feared God and would not lie).
I took her deep and long sense of the faults of over-loved persons to be one of her greatest faults. But no one was ever readier to forgive a fault confessed, or which weakness and religious differences caused. I will give but one instance.
The good woman whom she used to hire the rooms over St. James’ Market House was greatly against the Book of Common Prayer, and first made my wife feel whether I meant to use it before she would take it. I told her I intended not to use it but would not promise her. Upon that my wife told her that I would not. After this I caused the reader to read the Psalms, Chapters, Creed, and Decalogue, and I used the Lord’s Prayer;38 and I openly told them that we met not as a separate distinct church, but for the time to supply the notorious necessities of the people and as helpers of the allowed ministry. The good woman thought this had been reading the Common Prayer, and in a letter which I now find, accused my wife with five or six vehement charges for telling her I would not read the Common Prayer. My wife was of my mind for the matter, but greatly offended with me for seeming to do it for the avoiding of danger; and was so far from not pardoning these false, smart accusations that she never once blamed the good woman, but loved her, cared for her, and relieved her in sickness to the death, but hardly forgave me. And yet she discouraged me from attending all other places, if the ministers were not of my mind (by prudent diversity).
Much less did her sufferings from the times distemper her. She hath blamed me for naming in print my losses, imprisonment, and other sufferings by the Bishops as being over-selfish querulousness when I should rather with wonder be thankful for the great mercy we yet enjoyed. Though I think I never mentioned them as overconcerned about the sufferings but as a necessary evincing of the nature of the cause and as part of the necessary history or matter of fact in order to decide it. She as much disliked the silencing of the ministers as any; but she did not love to hear it much complained of, save as the public loss, nor to hear Conformists talked against as a party, nor the faults of the conscientious sort of them aggravated in a siding, factious manner.
But she was prone to over-love her relations and those good people (poor as much as rich) whom she thought the most upright. The love was good, but the degree was too passionate.
She over-earnestly desired their spiritual welfare. If these whom she over-loved had not been as good and done as well as she would have them, in innocent behavior, in piety, and (if rich) in liberality, it over-troubled her, and she could not bear it.
She was apt, when she set her mind and heart upon some good work which she counted great for the welfare of some dear friend, to be too much pleased in her expectations and self-made promises of the success, and then almost overturned with trouble when they disappointed her. And she too impatiently bore unkindnesses from the friends that were most dear to her or whom she had much obliged. Her will was set upon good, but her weakness could not bear the crossing and frustration of it.
But the great infirmity which tyrannized over her was a diseased fearfulness against which she had little more free will or power than a man in an ague or frost against shaking cold. Her nature was prone to it; and I said before, abundance of sad accidents made that, and trouble of mind, her malady. Besides (as she said) four times in danger of death; and the storming of her mother’s house by soldiers, firing part, killing, plundering, and threatening the rest; the awakenings of her conversion; the sentence of death by sickness presently, before her peace was settled; the fire next her lodgings in Sweeting’s Alley; the burning of a merchant, his wife and family, in Lothbury over against her brother Upton’s door; the common terror and confusion at Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street, when they thought the church was falling on their heads while I was preaching, and the people cast themselves down from the galleries; her mother’s death; the friendless state she thought she was then left in; the great plague; the burning of London; the crack and danger of her chamber in Aldersgate Street; the crack and confusion at St. James’ Market House; the many fires and talk of firing since; the common rumors of murders and massacres; the death and dangers of many of her friends, and my own illness. More than all these concurred to make fear and aptness to be troubled to be her disease, so that she much dreamed of fire and murderers; and her own dreams worked half as dangerously on her as realities, so that she could not bear the clapping of a door or anything that had suddenness, noise, or fierceness in it. But all this was more the malady of her body than of her soul, and I accounted had little moral guilt; and I took it for an evidence of the power of grace that so timorous a person had overcome most of her fears of hell and God’s desertion and was more fearless of persecution, imprisonment, or losses and poverty thereby, than I or any that I remember to have known.
And though her spirits were so quick, and she so apt to be troubled at men’s sin whom she much loved, she greatly differed from me in her bearing with them and behavior toward them. My temper and judgment much led me to use my dependents, servants, and friends according to the rules of church discipline; and if they heard not loving, private admonitions once, twice, and thrice, to speak to them more sharply, and then before others, and to turn them off if yet they would not amend. But her way was to oblige them all by the love, kindness, and bounty that she was able, and to bear with them year after year while there was hope, and at last not to desert them but still to use them so as she thought was likest at least to keep them in a state of hope from the badness which expressed displeasure might cause. I could not have borne with a son, I think, as she could do where her kindness was at her own choice; and yet she more disliked the least fault than I did, and was more desirous of their greatest innocency and exactness.
Indeed, she was so much for calmness, deliberation, and doing nothing rashly and in haste, and my condition and business as well as temper made me do and speak much so suddenly, that she principally differed from me and blamed me in this: Every considerable case and business she would have me take time to think much of before I did it or spoke or resolved of anything. I knew the counsel was good for one that could stay, but not for one that must ride post: I thought still I had but a little time to live; I thought some considerable work still called for haste. I have these forty years been constantly conscious of the sin of losing time: I could not spare an hour; I thought I could understand the matters in question as well at a few thoughts as in many days. And yet she (that had less work and more leisure, but a far quicker apprehension than mine) was all for staying to consider, and against haste and eagerness in almost everything, and not withstanding her over-quick and feeling temper, was all for mildness, calmness, gentleness, pleasingness, and serenity.
She had an earnest desire of the conversion and salvation of her servants and was greatly troubled that so many of them (though tolerable in their work) went away ignorant or strangers to true godliness, as they came; and such as were truly converted with us she loved as children.
One infirmity made her faulty in the omission of her duty. She was wont to say that she had from her childhood imprinted a deep fear and hatred of hypocrisy on her mind, that she could never do the outside of her duty, as to the speaking part, for fear of hypocrisy. I scarce ever met with a person that was abler to speak long, for matter and good language, without repetitions, even about religious things; and few that had more desire that it were well done; and yet she could not do it herself for fear of seeming to be guilty of ostentation. In good company she would speak little of that which she most desired to hear. When I was at any time from home, she would not pray in the family, though she could not endure to be without it. She would privately talk to the servants and read good books to them. Most of the open speaking part of religion she omitted, through a diseased enmity to ostentation and hypocrisy. But of late years, when she saw me and others too sparing in profitable speech to young and ignorant people, she confessed that she saw her error, and that even an hypocrite, using but the words and outside of religion, was better to others than silence and unprofitable omission was.
Her household affairs she ordered with so great skill and decency as that others much praised that which I was no fit judge of. I had been bred among plain, lower-class people, and I thought that so much washing of stairs and rooms, to keep them as clean as their trenchers and dishes, and so much ado about cleanliness and trifles, was a sinful eccentricity and expense of servants’ time, who might that while have been reading some good book. But she that was otherwise bred had somewhat other thoughts.
Her great tender impatience lay much in her ears. She could not bear (without great reason) a disputing contradiction, nor yet to hear sad tidings, nor any hard prognostic; and it was because she felt the weakness of her own head, and for twenty years lived in too great fears of the overthrow of her understanding. And I was apt to think it was but a passionate fanciful fear, and was too apt to be impatient with her impatience, and with every trouble of her mind, not enough considering how great tenderness in all her discourse she needed; though I remember nothing else that ever I showed impatience to her in; but ever since her first danger and strong affection, I could hardly bear any signification of her displeasure and discontent. And she was wont oft to say, it is a great mercy of God not to know what will befall us in this world, nor how we shall be sick, or suffer, or die, that our foreknowledge may not anticipate our sorrows, though in the general we should always be ready.
She was the greatest honorer of her mother, and most sincerely loved her, that ever I knew a child to do her parent. She believed the promise of the fifth commandment, and believed that it did imply an answerable curse to them that broke it. And that as honoring parents hath even the promise of blessings on earth, so the dishonoring them is like to bring a curse upon the person or family that is guilty of it; and that how great soever their present prosperity may seem, it is coming and will overtake them either in their bodies, children, or estates. Proverbs 30:17, The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. And such by Moses’ law were to be put to death, Deuteronomy 27:16, Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother; and let all the people say Amen. And will God suspend it till the sinner saith, Amen? Oh no. And what is that person’s case that liveth under this curse of God? If the body escape it, and posterity escape it, and the estate escape it, yea, and a seared conscience escape it a few years, the soul will not escape it forever without deep and thorough repentance, for Christ hath redeemed none but sincere penitents from the curse; yea, even such seldom escape the temporal sharp chastisement.
And very worthy was her mother of her love and honor. All her letters to her when she was from home I find now laid up by her as a treasure. I will transcribe one of them, that you may perceive her plain and honest care of her children’s souls.
In 1659, she writes thus:
My dear child,
My greatest trouble is that I can have no better account of your health of body, yet surely the cure of the soul is of far more worth. Therefore I faint not, else I should not submit under the heavy stroke which I have justly deserved. Who knows but my sins may be some cause of thy distress of soul? However let us return to the Lord, and he will heal all our breaches, and will bind up all our sores, and will give us a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; here we shall never be forced asunder, and all infirmities shall be left behind; and we shall take up all pleasure in the enjoyment of our heavenly Redeemer. In the meantime let us with courage and patience and confidence press hard toward the mark, for the prize of that calling which was set before us. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. I can go no further, but cannot forget to be
Thy truly loving mother,
M[ary]. H[anmer].
This was written to her [i.e., Margaret] in her sickness, when, for better air, she lay at old Mr. Richard Foley’s house at Stourbridge.39
I have transcribed this to show the mind and care of the good gentlewoman, and what cause I and my neighbors had of compassion to her in her sorrows when she was separated from an only son, whose welfare she had prosecuted with so strong affection and long labor and patience,40 and began to have much comfort in this daughter whom she had formerly least valued, and thought she must so suddenly leave her.
I will add that, though because for nineteen years I was so seldom from her, she had few letters of mine, yet those papers which she had I find now among her reserved papers. And that you may see what it was that I thought she most desired, and what she herself most valued, I will here add one of them (not venturing to trouble such with more, as are affected little with any matters but their own, which is the case of most). I reproduce this rather than others, partly also as an act of repentance for those failings of her just expectations by the neglect of such helps as I should have given her, which I had here mentioned. For though she oft said that before she married me she expected more sourness and unsuitableness than she found; yet I am sure that she found less zeal and holiness and strictness in all words and looks and duties, and less help for her soul, than she expected. And her temper was to aggravate a fault much more in her nearest and dearest friends than in any others, and to be far more troubled at them. But this use [i.e., applicatory inference] she made of my too cold and careless converse and of all my impatiency with her impatience, and of all my hasty words, that she had long thought she had no grace because she reached not higher than almost any reach on earth, and because she had many passions and infirmities perceived by me and many other esteemed teachers, that were all as bad as she; and now she saw that grace doth stand with more faultiness than she had imagined, and that all our teaching much excelled the frame of our souls and lives, and was much more worthy to be followed; and therefore that God would also pardon such failings as her own.
Though I have received none from you but one by Mr. H., I will not be avenged on you by the like. I have nothing of news or business to communicate but to tell you that we are all yet as well as you left us, excepting what your absence causeth. And yet I must confess that I find it is easier to be oft speaking to God when I have nobody else to speak to, than when there are other competitors, expectants, or interpolators. Just as I can easier now fill my paper to thee with some speech of God, when I have nothing else to put into it, than I can when many other matters are craving every one a place. It is our shame that the love and glory of God doth not silence every other suitor, and even in the midst of crowds and business take us up and press every creature and occasion for their service. But while we are weak and compassed with flesh, we must not only consider what we should do but what we can do. It is our great fault that we are no skilfuller and faithfuller in helping one another, that we might miss each other on better reasons than merely from the inclinations of love. I hope God will make us better hereafter, that when we are asunder each of us may say, I miss the help for watchfulness and heavenliness, for true love and thankfulness to God, which I was wont to have. But O! what an enemy is a naughty heart! which maketh us unable for our duty alone, and makes us need the help of others, and yet will not suffer us to use it when we have it. When we are alone it maketh us impediments to ourselves, and when we are in company it maketh us impediments to others. Yet there is none, no, not the weakest of Christians, but there is much in them that we might improve. But we are so bad and backward at it, that Satan too commonly hath his end in making us unprofitable to each other. If a good horse or a good house be a valuable mercy, how much more is a good friend? But art and industry are necessary to the improvement. And no wonder when we fetch not the help and comfort which we might have from God, from Christ himself, from heaven, from Scripture, for want of improving skill and industry. O how easy it is, when our friends are taken from us, to say: Thus I might and should have used them, rather than so to use them while we have them. I hope God will help me to make some better use of thee while we are together and at a distance. O let not a hearty request to God for each other be any day wanting! Dear heart, the time of our mutual help is short (O let us use it accordingly); but the time of our reaping the fruit of this and all holy endeavors and preparatory mercies will be endless. Yet a little while and we shall both be with Christ. He is willing of us, and I hope we are willing of him and of his grace, though the flesh be weak. I am absent, but God is still with you, your daily Guide and Keeper; and I hope you will labor to make him your daily comfort. And now you have none to divert and hinder you, to say: When I awake I am still with thee. And when you are up: I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. And when thoughts would trouble and perplex you: My meditation of him shall be sweet, and I will delight in the Lord. And when your wants and duty call you to him: It is good for me to draw nigh to God.
All other comforts will be, as the things are which we take comfort in; that is, helpful if the things be helpful and used but as helps, hurtful if the things be hurtful or hurtfully used, vain if the things be vain, short if the things be transitory, and durable if the things are durable to us. And this is the chief comfort which you and I must have in one another, that is, as helpful toward God, and as our converse with him will be durable. The Lord forgive my great unprofitableness and the sin that brought me under any disabilities to answer your earnest and honest desires of greater helps than I afford you, and help me yet to amend it toward you. But though my soul be faulty and my strength of nature fail, be sure that he will be a thousandfold better to thee, even here, than such crooked, feeble, useless things, as is
Thy R. B.
From Hampden.41