whole nation.
But it could not be obtained; and particularly after the ceasing of the
plague in London, when any one that had seen the condition which the
people had been in, and how they caressed one another at that time,
promised to have more charity for the future, and to raise no more
reproaches; I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought
they would have come together with another spirit at last. But, I say,
it could not be obtained. The quarrel remained; the Church and the
Presbyterians were incompatible. As soon as the plague was removed,
the Dissenting ousted ministers who had supplied the pulpits which
were deserted by the incumbents retired; they could expect no other
but that they should immediately fall upon them and harass them with
their penal laws, accept their preaching while they were sick, and
persecute them as soon as they were recovered again; this even we
that were of the Church thought was very hard, and could by no means
approve of it.
But it was the Government, and we could say nothing to hinder it;
we could only say it was not our doing, and we could not answer for it.
On the other hand, the Dissenters reproaching those ministers of the
Church with going away and deserting their charge, abandoning the
people in their danger, and when they had most need of comfort, and
the like: this we could by no means approve, for all men have not the
same faith and the same courage, and the Scripture commands us to
judge the most favourably and according to charity.
A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors that every
man is not sufficiently fortified to resist or prepared to stand the shock
against. It is very certain that a great many of the clergy who were in
circumstances to do it withdrew and fled for the safety of their lives;
but ’tis true also that a great many of them stayed, and many of them
fell in the calamity and in the discharge of their duty.
It is true some of the Dissenting turned-out ministers stayed, and
their courage is to be commended and highly valued – but these were
not abundance; it cannot be said that they all stayed, and that none
retired into the country, any more than it can be said of the Church
clergy that they all went away. Neither did all those that went away go
without substituting curates and others in their places, to do the
offices needful and to visit the sick, as far as it was practicable; so
that, upon the whole, an allowance of charity might have been made
on both sides, and we should have considered that such a time as this
of 1665 is not to be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest
courage that will always support men in such cases. I had not said
this, but had rather chosen to record the courage and religious zeal of
those of both sides, who did hazard themselves for the service of the
poor people in their distress, without remembering that any failed in
their duty on either side. But the want of temper among us has made
the contrary to this necessary: some that stayed not only boasting too
much of themselves, but reviling those that fled, branding them with
cowardice, deserting their flocks, and acting the part of the hireling,
and the like. I recommend it to the charity of all good people to look
back and reflect duly upon the terrors of the time, and whoever does
so well see that it is not an ordinary strength that could support it. It
was not like appearing in the head of an army or charging a body of
horse in the field, but it was charging Death itself on his pale horse; to
stay was indeed to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less,
especially as things appeared at the latter end of August and the
beginning of September, and as there was reason to expect them at
that time; for no man expected, and I dare say believed, that the