weather, rather warm than hot, with refreshing winds, and, in short,
very seasonable weather, and also several very great rains.
Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of such books
as terrified the people, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of
whom were taken up; but nothing was done in it, as I am informed,
the Government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were,
as I may say, all out of their wits already.
Neither can I acquit those ministers that in their sermons rather sank
than lifted up the hearts of their hearers. Many of them no doubt did
it for the strengthening the resolution of the people, and especially for
quickening them to repentance, but it certainly answered not their
end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did another way; and
indeed, as God Himself through the whole Scriptures rather draws to
Him by invitations and calls to turn to Him and live, than drives us by
terror and amazement, so I must confess I thought the ministers
should have done also, imitating our blessed Lord and Master in this,
that His whole Gospel is full of declarations from heaven of God’s
mercy, and His readiness to receive penitents and forgive them,
complaining, ‘Ye will not come unto Me that ye may have life’,
and that therefore His Gospel is called the Gospel of Peace and
the Gospel of Grace.
But we had some good men, and that of all persuasions and opinions,
whose discourses were full of terror, who spoke nothing but dismal things;
and as they brought the people together with a kind of horror, sent them
away in tears, prophesying nothing but evil tidings, terrifying the people
with the apprehensions of being utterly destroyed, not guiding them,
at least not enough, to cry to heaven for mercy.
It was, indeed, a time of very unhappy breaches among us in matters
of religion. Innumerable sects and divisions and separate opinions
prevailed among the people. The Church of England was restored,
indeed, with the restoration of the monarchy, about four years before;
but the ministers and preachers of the Presbyterians and Independents,
and of all the other sorts of professions, had begun to gather separate
societies and erect altar against altar, and all those had their meetings
for worship apart, as they have now, but not so many then, the
Dissenters being not thoroughly formed into a body as they are since;
and those congregations which were thus gathered together were yet
but few. And even those that were, the Government did not allow, but
endeavoured to suppress them and shut up their meetings.
But the visitation reconciled them again, at least for a time, and
many of the best and most valuable ministers and preachers of the
Dissenters were suffered to go into the churches where the
incumbents were fled away, as many were, not being able to stand it;
and the people flocked without distinction to hear them preach, not
much inquiring who or what opinion they were of. But after the
sickness was over, that spirit of charity abated; and every church
being again supplied with their own ministers, or others presented
where the minister was dead, things returned to their old channel again.
One mischief always introduces another. These terrors and
apprehensions of the people led them into a thousand weak, foolish,
and wicked things, which they wanted not a sort of people really
wicked to encourage them to: and this was running about to fortune-
tellers, cunning-men, and astrologers to know their fortune, or, as it is
vulgarly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their nativities
calculated, and the like; and this folly presently made the town swarm
with a wicked generation of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as
they called it, and I know not what; nay, to a thousand worse dealings
with the devil than they were really guilty of. And this trade grew so
open and so generally practised that it became common to have signs
and inscriptions set up at doors: ‘Here lives a fortune-teller’, ‘Here lives
an astrologer’, ‘Here you may have your nativity calculated’, and the
like; and Friar Bacon’s brazen-head, which was the usual sign of these