WILLIAM GURNALL
by J C Ryle
WILLIAM GURNALL, Rector of Lavenham, in Suffolk, and author
of ‘The Christian in Complete Armour,’ is a man about whom the world
possesses singularly little information. Perhaps there is no writer who has
left a name so familiar to all readers of puritan theology, but of whose
personal history so little is known. Except the three facts, that he was a
puritan divine of the seventeenth century,—that he was minister of Lavenham,—and
that he wrote a well-known book of practical divinity, most persons know
nothing of William Gurnall.
This dearth of information about so good a man appears at
first sight extraordinary and unaccountable. Born, as he was, in a seaport
town of no mean importance,—-the son of parents who held a prominent
position in the town,—educated at Cambridge, at one of the best-known
colleges of the day,—the contemporary of leading divines of the commonwealth
times,—minister of the largest church in West Suffolk for the uninterrupted
period of thirty-five years,—author of a work which, from its first
appearance, was eminently popular,—Gurnall was a man, we naturally feel, of
whom more ought to be known. How is it then that more is not known? How shall
we account for the absence of any notice of him in the biographical writings
of his day?
I believe that these questions admit of a very simple
answer. That answer is to be found in the line of conduct which Gurnall
followed in the year 1662, on the passing of the Act of Uniformity. He did not
secede from the Church of England. He was not one of the famous two thousand
ministers who gave up their preferment on St. Bartholomew’s Day, and became
Nonconformists. He retained his position, and continued rector of Lavenham.
Puritan as he undoubtedly was, both in doctrine and practice, he did not do
what many of his brethren did. When Baxter, Manton, Owen, Goodwin, and a host
of other giants in theology, seceded from the Church of England, Gurnall stood
fast, and refused to move. He did not act with the party with which he had
generally acted, and was left behind.
The result of this line of conduct can easily be imagined.
Whatever opinions we may hold about Gurnall’s conformity, we must all allow
that the course he took was not likely to make him a favourite with either of
the two great religious parties into which England was divided. A neutral is
never popular in a season of strife and controversy. Both sides suspect him.
Each party is offended at him for not casting his weight into their scale.
This, I suspect, was precisely Gurnall’s position. He was a Puritan in
doctrine, and yet he steadfastly adhered to the Church of England. He was a
minister of the Church of England, and yet a thorough Puritan both in
preaching and practice. In fact, he was just the man to be disliked and
slighted by both sides.
I throw out the conjecture I have made with considerable
diffidence. It is undoubtedly nothing but a conjecture. But I look at the
broad fact that the biographical writers who have handled Gurnall’s age,
have chronicled scores of names of far less weight than his, and have refused
to say a word about the author of ‘The Christian in Complete Armour.’
Calamy, Clarke, Neal, and Brooke have written hundreds of pages about men for
whom the world cares nothing now, but not a page about Gurnall! I leave it to
others to offer a better explanation of this fact if they can. I must be
allowed to retain my own settled conviction, that we should know far more
about Gurnall if he had not submitted to the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and
retained the pulpit of Lavenham parish church.
Almost the only source of information about Gurnall which
we now possess is a small volume, published in 1830, by a writer named
M’Keon, entitled, ‘An Inquiry into the Birthplace, Parentage, Life, and
Writings of the Rev. William Gurnall, formerly Rector of Lavenham, in Suffolk,
and Author of “The Christian in Complete Armour.” This book was printed
and published for the author at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and not in London. It
is owing to this circumstance, perhaps, that it seems to have attracted little
notice, and to have become comparatively unknown.
Mr. M’Keon was an inhabitant of Lavenham, and likely to
procure information about Gurnall, if any one could. He was undoubtedly a
painstaking man, and an antiquarian of considerable research. His accuracy and
correctness are worthy of all commendation. There is hardly a single date or
fact in his book which I have not taken the trouble to verify by inquiry and
investigation; and there is hardly one, I feel bound to say, in which I have
found him wrong. But it cannot be said that his ‘Inquiry’ is written in a
popular and attractive style. In accumulating facts he was most successful; in
arranging and exhibiting them to the reading public I certainly think he
failed. He seems, in fact, to have been a type of that peculiar class of men
who have the faculty of getting things into their heads, while they are unable
to bring them out again—mighty at heaping up knowledge, but impotent at
spreading it—clever at accumulating literary treasure, but utterly incapable
of spending it.
However, whatever may be the faults of Mr. M’Keon’s
book, it is certainly the only attempt at any account of Gurnall which has
hitherto existed. A funeral sermon, to be sure, was preached by Gurnall’s
friend and neighbour, the well-known commentator Burkitt. But the information
it contains is comparatively very small. I must therefore frankly avow that I
am indebted to Mr. M’Keon’s work for the greater part of the facts about
Gurnall which I have brought together in the following pages. I have tried to
re-arrange these facts. I have endeavoured to present them to the reader in an
attractive form, by illustrating them with some cross lights from the history
of Gurnall’s times. I have added a few facts which Mr. M’Keon was probably
unable to obtain. But I think it only fair to state that Mr. M’Keon’s book
is the principal mine from which the biographical account of Gurnall now
presented to the reader has been drawn. If I have added anything of interest
to his work, it is almost always by following up clues which his volume
indicated or put into my hand.
William Gurnall was born at Lynn, in the county of Norfolk,
in the year 1616, and was baptized at St. Margaret’s Church in that town, on
the 17th of November, 1616. His father and mother were married at St.
Margaret’s Church on the 31st of December, 1615, and the subject of this
memoir was therefore their eldest child. 1
It has often been observed that the mothers of great men,
and especially of great divines, have been remarkable for strong mind and
force of intellect. Mothers have been found, as a general rule, to influence
children’s character far more than fathers. How far this was true in the
case of Gurnall we have unfortunately no means of judging. We only know that
his mother’s maiden name was Catherine Dressit, and that in all probability
she was a native of Lynn.
Gregory, the father of William Gurnall, appears to have
been one of the principal inhabitants of Lynn. At any rate he was an alderman
of his native town in the year when his son was born, and was mayor of the
borough eight years afterwards, in 1624. Nothing is known of his calling or
occupation. The fact that his son died possessed of certain landed property at
Walpole, a country parish not far from Lynn, makes it highly probable that
Gregory Gurnall was a landed proprietor. But on this point nothing certain is
known.
Gurnall had the misfortune to lose his father when he was
only fifteen years old. His death is recorded in the register of St.
Margaret’s, Lynn, as having taken place on the 14th of October, 1631. He was
buried in St. Margaret’s Church, and a tomb was erected to his memory, with
a curious inscription. This tomb is no longer extant, as the spire of St.
Margaret’s Church was blown down in a violent hurricane in the year 1741,
and falling on the body of the church destroyed a large portion of the
building. Mackerell’s History of Lynn, published about four years before the
hurricane, records the inscription. If epitaphs were worth anything, the
language of Gregory Gurnall’s epitaph might lead us to the conclusion that
he was a godly man. But unhappily it is too well known that tombstones are not
always to be trusted.
How long Gurnall’s mother survived his father there is no
evidence to show. M’Keon conjectures that she married again. It is certainly
a curious fact that Burkitt, the commentator, in his funeral sermon following
on William Gurnall, uses the language:—’How great was that tribute of
veneration and respect which he constantly paid to the hoary hairs of his aged
parents.’ Considering that his father died when he was only fifteen years
old, these words can hardly be supposed to apply to Gregory Gurnall. Unless
therefore the word ‘parents’ in Burkitt’s sermon is a printer’s
mistake for ‘parent,’ it seems a very probable idea that Gurnall’s
mother married again, and that he had a kind and loving stepfather. But who he
was, and how long his mother lived, we do not know.
The first fifteen years of Gurnall’s life appear to have
been spent in his native town of Lynn. There is at any rate no doubt that he
was educated at the free grammar-school of that town up to the time when he
went to Cambridge. The fact is recorded in the books of the school.
The first fifteen years of life have often so much weight
in the formation of a man’s character, that it would be very interesting to
find out the influences under which William Gurnall spent his early years.
Unhappily we possess no materials for doing this. Ambrose Fish was appointed
master of Lynn Grammar-school in 1626, in the place of Mr. Robinson, deceased,
and Robert Woodmansea was appointed master in 1627. But we know nothing of
these men. I can only point out two things which appear to me deserving of
attention.
For one thing, we may probably trace up to Lynn,
Gurnall’s puritan predilections and opinions. Lynn was one of the chief
towns of the most thoroughly Protestant district in England in the seventeenth
century. In the days of Queen Mary and Elizabeth the inhabitants of Norfolk
and Suffolk were famous for their deep attachment to the doctrines of the
Reformation. In the days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, they were no
less famous for their steadfast adherence to puritan principles. In no part of
England were high-church opinions so thoroughly disliked as in the diocese of
Norwich, and in no diocese were the minds of people so continually exasperated
by vexatious persecution of Nonconformist ship
Brought up in a large market-town like Lynn, we cannot
doubt that the religious atmosphere in which young Gurnall moved was
essentially puritan. If, as it seems not unlikely, from a comparison of dates,
the famous John Arrowsmith and Samuel Fairclough were ministers at Lynn during
Gurnall’s school-days, we get an additional ray of light thrown on the
source of his doctrinal opinions. To hear men like Arrowsmith and Fairclough
preach every Sunday, and perhaps to be solemnly catechised or examined by
Arrowsmith on stated public occasions, were just the things likely to produce
an indelible impression on a mind like Gurnall’s 3
For another thing, we probably owe to Gurnall’s early
residence at Lynn, his remarkable familiarity with the sea, sailors, and
shipping. I was once puzzled to make out the reason why nautical illustrations
so frequently occur in his writings. It did no surprise me to find an author
like Gurnall who delighted in illustrations, pressing everything in town and
country into his service. I could understand the man who was rector of a
Suffolk town for thirty-five years, drawing comparisons from shops and farms,
and streets, and fields and horses, and cattle and corn, and grass and
flowers. I could understand the minister who lived through the bloody wars of
the commonwealth times using abundant imagery from the habits of soldiers and
from the battle-field. But I never could understand Gurnall’s familiarity
with the sea and shipping until I found out that he was born and bred in Lynn.
He knew well what a sailor’s life was. He had seen the quaint-looking craft
which carried on the coasting trade of Lynn. He had doubtless talked with
sailors who could tell the perils of ‘the Wash,’ the Lincolnshire coast,
the Norfolk Sands, and the voyage to the Humber. Hence came his nautical
illustrations in Lavenham pulpit. How true it is that all knowledge is useful
to a minister of Christ. The man of God makes everything he has seen
serviceable to his Master’s cause.
The next thing that we know about Gurnall is his connection
with Cambridge as a pensioner of Emmanuel College. It appears that Lynn
corporation had two scholarships at Emmanuel in its gift, connected with the
grammar-school of the town. To one of these Gurnall was presented by the
corporation in December, 1631, not long after his father’s death. A
correspondent of M’Keon at Lynn says: ‘I find on reference to the
corporation books, that on the 2d December, 1631, William Gurnall, son of
Gregory Gurnall, alderman there, lately deceased, and one of the scholars of
Lynn school, was nominated to one of the scholarships in Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, called Lynn scholarship, or Mr. Titleys scholarship; and that on
the 11th of June, 1632, the nomination, dated 29th March then last, passed the
corporation seal.
Of Gurnall’s history during his residence at Cambridge we
know literally nothing, with the exception of the following bald facts. The
college books record that William Gurnall, pensioner, of Norfolk, was admitted
March 29, 1632, was B.A., 1635, and M.A., 1639. It is certain that he was
never elected a fellow of his college, and as the Lynn scholarship was only
tenable for seven years, it is highly probable that he ceased to reside at
Cambridge in the year 1639, when he took his degree as M.A., and received no
further assistance from his scholarship.
It would no doubt be highly interesting, if we knew
something of Gurnall’s history during the seven years of his university
life. The character of a young man is generally moulded for life during the
period between sixteen and twenty-three, and our author was probably no
exception to this rule. Who were his friends and companions? Who were his
tutors and lecturers? Was he a reading man? Whom did he walk with and talk
with? What great preacher did he hear in the university pulpit? What were his
habits and ways of employing his time? What side did he espouse in the mighty
controversies of the day? All these are questions which it would be very
pleasant to have answered. The answers would throw great light on many a
passage in his afterlife and writings. But the answers unhappily are not
forthcoming. The only light that we can throw on Gurnall’s university life,
consists of a few facts about his college, and the general state of England
between 1632 and 1639.
The college to which Gurnall belonged was always famous in
the seventeenth century for its theological tendencies. It was eminently a
puritan college.
Sir Walter Mildmay of Chelmsford, in Essex, was the founder
of Emmanuel College, and even from its very foundation in 1585, it seems to
have been notorious for its attachment to puritan principles. Fuller, in his
history of Cambridge, relates that on ‘Sir Walter Mildmay coming to court,
soon after he had founded his college, Queen Elizabeth said to him, “Sir
Walter, I hear you have erected a puritan foundation.” “No, madam” saith
he, “far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established
laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows
what will be the fruit thereof.” Sure I am (adds Fuller, writing about 1650)
at this day it hath overshadowed all the university, more than a moiety of the
present masters of colleges being bred therein.’
The number of leading divines of the seventeenth century
who were educated at Emmanuel is certainly extraordinary. Beside Bishop Hall
and Bishop Bedell, we find in the list of its members the names of Stephen
Marshall, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Sheppard, Thomas Hooker, Ezekiel
Culverwell, Ralph Gudworth, Samuel Crooke, John Cotton, John Stoughton,
Anthony Burgess, Laurence Ghaderton, John Preston, Anthony Tuckney, Lazarus
Seaman, Matthew Poole, Samuel Clarke, Ralph Venning, Thomas Watson, Stephen
Charnock, William Bridge, Peter Sterry, Samuel Cradock. Any one familiar with
puritan divinity will see at a glance that this catalogue embraces the names
of some of the most eminent puritan writers. Some of them no doubt were
cotemporaries and fellow-students of Gurnall himself.
From inquiries which I have made, I have succeeded in
obtaining some information about Emmanuel College between the years 1632 and
1639, which I think will not be devoid of interest to all admirers of Gurnall.
At any rate it will show who were at Emmanuel when he was there, both as an
undergraduate and a graduate, and with what kind of minds he was associated.
The masters at Emmanuel in Gurnall’s time were (1.)
William Sancroft, uncle of the archbishop, who held the office from 1628 to
1637, and (2.) Holdsworth, who held the office from 1637 to 1645, when he was
ejected by the Earl of Manchester. He was a zealous advocate of the king, and
attended him during his confinement in the Isle of Wight, and soon after,
according to Neal, died of grief.
The reason why Gurnall was never elected fellow of his
college appears to have been the high character and attainment of his
competitors. According to the books of Emmanuel, Ralph Cudworth was elected
fellow in 1639, Worthington (afterward master of Jesus) in 1641, and Sancroft
(afterward Archbishop of Canterbury), in 1642.
The fellows of Emmanuel between 1632 and 1639 were the
following:—Walter Foster, Richard Clarke, John Ward, Thomas Ball, Ezekiel
Wright, Thomas Hill, Nicholas Hall, William Bridge, Samuel Bowles, Henry
Salmon, David Ensigne, Anthony Burgess, Thomas Holbeck, Thomas Horton, Malachi
Harris, R. Sorsby, Benjamin Whichcot, John Henderson, John Almond, R. Weller,
Peter Sterry, Laurence Sarson, John Saddler, Ralph Cudworth.
‘All the fellows,’ says a member of Emmanuel, ‘seem
to have been tutors in their day, though some had more pupils than others. As
far as our books lead us to infer, Hill, Hall, Burgess, Holbeck, Ensigne,
Salmon, Whichcot, all seem to have been most popular tutors in their day. We
have no tutors’ books which tell us under whom Gurnall was admitted.’
When I add to the above information the fact that Horrox
the astronomer was admitted at Emmanuel in 1632, the same year as Gurnall, and
that Archbishop Sancroft, the famous non-juror, was admitted in 1633, I shall
have exhausted all the stock of information that I have been able to scrape
together about Gurnall’s college life and his cotemporaries.
Seven years spent at a college like Emmanuel could not fail
to have an effect on Gurnall’s mind. Brought up from his boyhood to honour
and reverence the Puritans as the excellent of the earth, at Lynn, trained
afterwards at a college where the whole atmosphere was peculiarly puritan, it
would have been strange indeed if Gurnall had grown up without decided puritan
opinions.
The state of England during the seven years of Gurnall’s
university life was very peculiar. It was the crisis of the troubled period
between the reformation and the commonwealth times. The suicidal blind
misgovernment of Charles 1. was rapidly paving the way for the destruction of
the throne. The undisguised Romish tendencies and bitter persecutions of
Archbishop Laud, and his fellow-workers, were doing the same for the Church of
England. From one end of the country to the other there were discontent,
murmuring, controversy, bitterness, and party spirit. On every side there were
symptoms of a coming break-up, or a violent conflict both in church and state.
Cambridge, we need not doubt, had its full share of all the
troubles and discomfort of this stormy period. The following passage from
Fuller’s History of Cambridge records things which happened there in
1632—the very year that Gurnall entered Emmanuel—things which no doubt he
saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears:—
‘This year, “says Fuller, “a grave divine preaching
before the university at St. Mary’s, had this passage in his sermon: “That
as at the Olympian games he was counted the conqueror who could drive his
chariot wheels nearest to the mark, yet so as not to hinder his running, or
stick thereon, so he, who in his sermons could preach near Popery, and yet no
Popery, there was your man.” And, indeed, it now began to be the complaint
of most moderate men, that many in the university, both in school and pulpit,
approached the opinion of the Church of Rome more than ever before
‘Mr. Bernard, lecturer of St. Sepulchre’s in London,
preached at St. Mary’s in the afternoon of May 6th, his text, 1 Sam. iv. 21:
“ The glory is departed from Israel,” &c. In handling whereof he let
fall some passages which gave distaste to a prevalent party in the university,
as for saying, (1.) That God’s ordinances, when blended and adulterated with
innovations of men, cease to be God’s ordinances, and he owneth them no
longer. (2.) That it is impossible any should be saved, living and dying
without repentance in the doctrine of Rome, as the Tridentine Council hath
decreed it. (3.) That treason is not limited to the blood royal; but that he
is a traitor against a nation that depriveth it of God’s ordinances. (4.)
That some shamefully symbolize in Pelagian error and superstitious ceremonies
with the Church of Rome.—Let us pray such to their conversion or to their
destruction, &c.
‘Dr. Cumber, vice-chancellor, gave speedy notice hereof
to Dr. Laud, Bishop of London, though he (so quick his university
intelligence) had information thereof before. Therefore he was brought into
the high commission, and a recantation tendered to him, which he refused to
subscribe, though professing his sincere sorrow and penitency, in his petition
and letter to the bishop, for any oversight and unbecoming expression in his
sermon. Hereupon he was sent back to the new prison, where he died. If he was
miserably abused therein by his keepers, as some have reported, to the
shortening of his life, he that maketh inquisition for blood, either hath, or
will be, a revenger thereof.’
This deplorable affair took place, let us remember, in the
year 1632, the very year that Gurnall came up to reside at Emmanuel. How much
stir it would excite among the undergraduates of a thoroughly puritan college
we can easily imagine. All who know anything of an English university, know
how ready the undergraduates are, as a body, to sympathize with the persecuted
and oppressed.
It was during Gurnall’s residence at Cambridge that Dr.
Ward, one of the representatives of the Church of England at the Synod of Dort,
gave the following unsatisfactory description of the state of the university,
in a letter to Archbishop Usher, dated 1634. He says, It may be you are
willing to hear of our university affairs. I may truly say I never knew them
in worse condition since I was a member thereof, which is almost forty-six
years’4
It was during Gurnall’s residence at Cambridge that the
infamous sentence on Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, was passed in the court of
Star Chamber. For publishing certain alleged libels on the Church of England
these unfortunate men were condemned to stand in the pillory, and have their
ears publicly cut off. The sentence was actually carried into effect, June 30,
1637, in Palaceyard. Bastwick was a physician, who had been educated at
Emmanuel College. We can easily imagine the sensation which his punishment
would create within the walls of his old college.
It was during Gurnall’s residence at Cambridge that the
famous disturbances in Scotland arose, out of Archbishop Laud’s attempt to
introduce the notorious Scotch Liturgy, with its popish communion office, into
the churches of Edinburgh. The well-known riot in St. Giles’ Church, when a
stool was thrown at the Bishop of Edinburgh’s head by a zealous woman called
Jenny Geddes, took place on Sunday, July 23, 1637.
It was during Gurnall’s residence at Cambridge that John
Hampden began the unhappy struggle between the king and his subjects by
refusing to pay ship-money. The decision of the chief-justice was given
against him on the 9th of June, 1637.
I mention these facts and dates in order to give the reader
some idea of the times in which Gurnall passed through his university career.
We cannot doubt that his character and opinions must have been strongly
influenced by them. No one could be at Cambridge from 1632 to 1639, without
seeing and hearing things which would leave a mark on his memory for life, and
without coming across a stream of conflicting opinions which he would remember
to his dying day. No doubt Gurnall became acquainted with some of the best
specimens of the puritan divines. No doubt also he saw in the heart of a
puritan college enough to make him feel that all Puritans were not perfect
men. I venture the conjecture that his after-life at every step was greatly
influenced by the recollection of what he saw at Emmanuel, Cambridge.
The five years of Gurnall’s life immediately after he
left Cambridge in 1639, are a period in his history of which nothing whatever
seems to be known. I must honestly confess that I can throw little light upon
it, and can only offer surmises and conjectures. He disappears from our notice
on leaving Emmanuel in 1639. He does not appear again till he is made rector
of Lavenham in 1644. But how, and where, and in what manner, and in what
capacity, he spent the intervening interval of five years, we have no certain
record.
It would be difficult to name five years of English history
in which so many important events occurred, as between 1639 and 1644. Within
these five years the famous Long Parliament commenced its sittings, the no
less famous Westminster Assembly of divines was convened, Lord Strafford was
beheaded, Archbishop Laud committed to prison, and the Courts of High
Commission and Star Chamber abolished. Within these five years the civil war
between the king and the parliament actually broke out, the standard was
raised at Nottingham, the battles of Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor were
fought, and Hampden, Pym, and Lord Falkland were all laid in their graves.
Last, but not least, the ‘Solemn League and Covenant’ was subscribed by
the adherents of the parliament side, in which, among other things, they
pledged themselves to endeavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy, that
is, church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and
commissaries, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical
officers depending on that hierarchy.’
And what was Gurnall doing all these five years? We cannot
tell. Perhaps he was staying quietly with his friends at Lynn. Perhaps he was
hearing and learning what he could in London. Perhaps he was turning to
account his university education by acting as tutor to some noble family, as
many young divines did in that day. These are idle conjectures after all.
There are only two facts that we know about him. One is that he must have been
ordained some time between 1639 and 1644. The other is that he must have
preached at Sudbury within this period. This last point is made clear by his
own words, in a letter addressed to Sir Symond D’Ewes, in which he speaks of
the Sudbury people making difficulties about his removal to Lavenham.
The subject of Gurnall’s entrance into the ministry is
shrouded in complete obscurity. There is no one point in his personal history
about which we know so little. When he was ordained, where he was ordained, to
what cure of souls he was ordained, by whom he was ordained, whether he was
first ordained by episcopal or by presbyterian ordination, are things about
which we are entirely in the dark. After a good deal of troublesome research
and investigation into the subject, I must honestly confess that I can find
out nothing about it. I have only discovered, by the kindness of the present
Bishop of Norwich and the late Bishop of Ely, that his name does not appear in
the ordination registers of Norwich and Ely between 1639 and 1644. It is of
course possible that he was ordained by the bishop of some other diocese,
though even then it is certain that he was only ordained deacon. But it is far
more probable that he entered the ministry without receiving episcopal orders
at all. Most likely he was set apart for the work as a presbyterian minister
with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
I am not disposed to waste the reader’s time by entering
into any discussion of the comparative merits of episcopal and presbyterian
orders, though, of course, I have my own opinions as a conscientious
Episcopalian. I only venture the remark that we have no right to infer
anything as to Gurnall’s opinions about Episcopacy, from his want of
episcopal orders. We must remember the peculiar times in which he entered the
ministry. There was probably no alternative left to him. He must either have
been ordained by presbyterian ordination, or not have been ordained at all.
The plain truth is that the times when Gurnall entered the
ministry were times of disorder and confusion. It was a period of transition.
Everything that had been settled and established in church and state was being
pulled to pieces. They were strange times, and strange things happened in
them. We may well expect to find that there were all sorts of irregularities
and diversities of practice about ordination.
Bishop Hall, in his famous account of himself called ‘
His Hard Measure,’ makes the following statement, which deserves the more
notice because he was Bishop of Norwich, and Lavenham was then in his diocese.
He says, ‘After the covenant was appointed to be taken (September 26, 1643),
and was generally swallowed of both clergy and laity, my power of ordination
was with some violence restrained. For when I was going on in my wonted
course, which no law or ordinance had inhibited, certain forward volunteers in
the city, banding together, stirred up the mayor, and aldermen, and sheriffs
(of Norwich), to call me to an account for an open violation of their
covenant.
‘To this purpose divers of them came to my gate at a very
unseasonable time, and knocking very vehemently, required to speak with the
bishop. Messages were sent to them to know their business; nothing would
satisfy them but the bishop’s presence. At last I came down to them and
demanded what the matter was; they would have the gate opened, and then they
would tell me. I answered that I would know them better first; if they had
anything to say to me I was ready to hear them. They told me they had a
writing for me from the mayor and some other of their magistrates. The paper
contained both a challenge of me for breaking the covenant, in ordaining
ministers, and withal required me to give in the names of those which were
ordained by me both then and formerly since the covenant. My answer was that
the mayor was much abused by those who had misinformed him and drawn that
paper from him; that I would the next day give a full answer to the writing.
They moved that my answer might be by my personal appearance at the guildhall.
I asked them when they ever heard of a Bishop of Norwich appearing before a
mayor. I knew mine own place, and would take that way of answer which I
thought fit, and so dismissed them, who had given out that day, that had they
known before of mine ordaining, they would have pulled me and those whom I
ordained out of the chapel by the ears’ (Hall’s Works, vol. i. p. 54 ; P.
Hall’s edition).
Let us add to this curious testimony the following passage
from Neal, the well-known historian of the Puritans. He says: ‘From the time
of taking the covenant (Sept. 28, 1643), we may date the entire dissolution of
the hierarchy, though it was not as yet abolished by an ordinance of
parliament. There were no ecclesiastical courts, no visitations, no wearing
the habits, no regard paid to the canons or ceremonies, or even to the Common
Prayer. He says immediately afterwards; ‘Upon the sitting of the Assembly of
Divines all church worship went through their hands. The parishes elected
their ministers. The assembly examined and approved of them, and the
parliament confirmed them in their benefices without any regard to the
archbishop or his vicar. Thus the Earl of Manchester filled the vacant pulpits
in the associated counties.’ (Neal’s History, vol. iii. p. 79, 80;
Toulmin’s edition.)
After reading these passages we may well understand why
there is no record of Gurnall’s ordination as deacon in the registers of
Norwich or Ely. He began his ministry in the diocese of Norwich, and was an
inhabitant of one of the most thoroughly puritan districts of the seven
‘associated counties.’ Whether he desired episcopal ordination or not we
do not know, though his subsequent ordination by Bishop Reynolds, at a later
period of his ministry, ought not to be forgotten. But it is highly probable
that at the time when he entered the ministry, he could not have received
episcopal ordination even if he had wished it.
The matter after all is not one of primary importance. The
divine right of Episcopacy, to the exclusion of all other forms of church
government, and the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination to make a right
minister of Christ, are positions that cannot be established from Scripture.
The 23d article of the Church of England has exhibited a wise moderation in
handling the whole question. It says, ‘It is not lawful for any man to take
upon him the office of public preaching or ministering the sacrament in the
congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same.’ But
the article cautiously avoids defining too closely what are valid orders. It
goes on: ‘Those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen
and called to the work by men who have public authority given unto them in the
congregation to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.’ This,
we need not doubt, was Gurnall’s position. Episcopal ordination he probably
did not receive on entering the ministry, and most likely could not have
obtained it. But that he was ‘lawfully called and sent into the Lord’s
vineyard’ we need not doubt, though in all probability it was only ‘ by
laying on of the hands of the presbytery.’
We now come to the most important event in Gurnall’s
life, and the one which fixed him down in one spot for the remaining
thirty-five years of his life. That event was his appointment to be minister
of the parish of Lavenham, in Suffolk. This, it appears, happened about the
month of December, 1644, when he was twenty-eight years old.
The manner of Gurnall’s appointment was somewhat
singular, and curiously illustrative of the strange and troublesome times in
which it took place. Sir Symond D’Ewes, the famous antiquary, was patron of
the living of Lavenham, and chief proprietor in the parish. It appears that he
gave the living to Gurnall at the request of the parishioners, and the
appointment was ratified by order of the House of Commons.
The order of the House of Commons is so peculiar a
document, that I venture to transcribe it whole and entire, as M ‘Keen gives
it, from an extract from the Journals of the House, furnished to him by the
clerk of the journals.
‘16° Decembris, 1644, 20 Car. 1. Lavenham Lavenham
Rectory, WHEREAS the Church of in the county of Suffolk, lately became void by
the decease of Ambrose Coppinger, Doctor of Divinity, and that Sir Symond
D’Ewes, patron of the said church, hath conferred the advowson of the same
upon William Gurnall, Master of Arts, & learned, godly, and orthodox
divine: It is ordered by the House of Commons that the said William Gurnall
shall be, and continue, rector and incumbent of the same church during the
term of his natural life, and shall have, receive, and enjoy all such tithes,
as other rectors and incumbents of same church before him have had, received,
and enjoyed. Provided always that the same William Gurnall do pay upon his
avoidance all such first-fruits and tithes unto his Majesty, as by the laws of
this realm are, and shall be due from time to time’ (vol. iii. p. 725).5
A careful reader can hardly fail to notice some amusing
points in this document. The right of Sir Symond D’Ewes to present is stated
and allowed, and yet the presentation must be ratified by the order of the
House of Commons ! Gurnall’s qualifications are broadly stated. The House
declares him to be ‘ learned, godly, and orthodox!’ The king’s name is
carefully brought in, though the parliament was at open war with him, and
provision is inserted for the payment of first-fruits to his majesty! The
name, office, and authority of the Bishop of Norwich, in whose diocese
Lavenham was, are as utterly ignored as if they had never existed ! Truly we
may say that Gurnall lived in strange times!
What chain of providential circumstances led Gurnall to
a town in the south-west corner of Suffolk, after leaving Cambridge, we do
not know. Why the good man should turn up at Sudbury and Lavenham, five years
after leaving Emmanuel, is a point which must be left to conjecture. We know
nothing certain about it. It is, however, not unworthy of notice, that there
was a certain James Gurnall living at Lavenham in 1644, who had a daughter
baptized there on the 4th of September in that year. It is by no means
improbable, as M ‘Keen suggests, that this James Gurnall was a relative of
the Gurnalls of Lynn, and that the relationship was the cause of William
Gurnall visiting Lavenham, and becoming known in the neighbourhood.
It is also worthy of notice that Henry Coppinger, who died
rector of Lavenham in 1622, and was father of Gurnall’s predecessor, Ambrose
Coppinger, was connected by marriage with Gurnall’s native place, Lynn. It
is stated on a monument erected to his memory in Lavenham church, that he
married Ann daughter of Henry Fisher, of Lynn, in Norfolk. Lynn was not so
large a place that the families of Gurnall and Mr. Coppinger would not be
acquainted with one another, and this may have been another cause of his
settling in Lavenham. These are of course only conjectures, but I think them
worth mentioning, and they must be taken for what they are worth.
How Gurnall became acquainted with Sir Symond D’Ewes, and
whether he was appointed by him to the rectory of Lavenham on public or
private grounds, we have no means of ascertaining. A statement quoted by
M’Keon from a manuscript in Herald’s College, by Mr. Appleton, about
Suffolk, is manifestly a mistake. He says Sir Symond D’Ewes ‘freely and
very willingly gave the rectory of Lavenham unto Mr. William Gurnall, now
incumbent there, although to him then unknown, at the request of the parish,
which hath been much for the benefit of the town in many ways.’ Appleton was
clearly misinformed here. There is a correspondence extant in the Harleian MS.
between Gurnall and Sir Symond D’Ewes, of which the first letter is dated
March, 1644. Beside this, Sir Symond was elected M.P. for Sudbury in 1640, and
resided in the parish of Lavenham, so that he could hardly fail to know
something about Gurnall.
The correspondence between Gurnall and Sir Symond D’Ewes,
to which reference has been made, is a curiosity in its way. It consists of
eight Latin letters, composed in the most approved classical style, and
affording evidence that Gurnall was a tolerably good Latin scholar. Judged by
the standard of modern times the matter of these letters is not much to be
admired. There is a tone of obsequiousness and flattery about them which to
our eyes seems very unworthy of a Christian, and very unlike what we should
have expected from a Puritan. But it is only fair to remember the fashion of
Gurnall’s age. Dedications and letters to public men in the seventeenth
century are often stuffed with high-flown language and hyperbolic compliments.
It was as common to write in such a strain as it is for us to sign ourselves
‘your obedient servant.’ The words meant nothing, and were only used
because it was the custom to use them. If Gurnall had not written his Latin
letters to Sir Symond D’Ewes in a very verbose, extravagant, and
complimentary style, he would probably have been set down as an illiterate and
unpolished man.
Some account of the contents of these eight letters will
perhaps be found interesting. They throw some little light, at any rate, on
Gurnall’s presentation to Lavenham; and if we knew the meaning of the
allusions which they contain, we should understand a good deal better than we
do now, the history of his settlement in the place with which his name is
inseparably connected. 6
The first letter is dated Lavenham, March 26, 1644. It is a
petition on behalf of a man who had been wounded in the service of the state,
and appears to have been bearer of the letter. It contains some general
remarks on the discredit thrown upon religion when wounded soldiers are
neglected, and on the duty of providing them with comfortable maintenance.
Beside this there is nothing worth notice.
The second letter is dated July 24, 1644. It is endorsed
‘to the Right Worthy Sir Symond D’Ewes, at his lodgings in Margaret,
Westminster.’ The place from which it is written is not stated. In this
letter for the first time the subject of Gurnall’s appointment to Lavenham
is mentioned. There seems to have been some difficulty about the matter, which
at this distance of time we cannot of course explain. The letter was evidently
written while the difficulty was pending. It contains the following passage,
which I give in M‘Keen’s translation in its entirety:—
‘I have received your letter breathing nothing but love,
and should immediately have answered it, had I not been called into Norfolk on
public business. On my return I promised myself some certain grounds for a
reply. But alas! the knot which I left to be untied I found still more
perplexed and involved, so that I appeared, like the ship of St. Paul, to have
“fallen into a place where two seas met.” While my mind is fixed on
Lavenham, there threatens a storm at Sudbury, which accuses me of being lured
by a golden bait. But were I to refuse this providence held out to me by your
hands, I might, not unjustly, appear disobedient to God, and ungrateful to you
who offer it to me. In such a storm a skilful pilot (I mean Solomon) suggested
to me, “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Most willingly
therefore did I submit the hearing and determining the whole cause to certain
ministers in my neighbourhood. If I must die, I could wish it should be in the
hands of the most skilful physicians; if I must err, I should wish it to be
among men most famous for their learning and piety. In a short time I hope to
finish this whole business, and then I will write again to your honour.’
This is a curious letter. One would like to know what was
the knotty point which Gurnall could not untie, and who were the ‘certain
ministers’ whom he consulted. One thing at any rate it helps to confirm. It
seems to indicate that Gurnall was a minister at Sudbury before he was rector
of Lavenham. Yet it is a singular fact, that at the present time no inhabitant
of Sudbury, to whom I have applied, seems to know anything about Gurnall’s
connection with the town.
The third letter is dated Sudbury, September 1, 1644. At
the time when it was written it was evidently a settled thing, that Gurnall
should have the living of Lavenham, though the appointment was not yet
completed. Amidst a quantity of verbose and fulsome compliments, which can
only be excused by the customs of Gurnall’s day, the following paragraphs
are worth quoting:—
‘I firmly believe, most worshipful, that the only
happiness which you hope or wish for in this filthy world is that of doing
good. In this humble and grateful disposition therefore, you may triumph that
the numerous population of Lavenham now enjoy under your shadow the gospel.’
‘If God should bless my slender labours, whatever they
may be, as many as may be imbued with divine light, or cherished with its dew,
will be a solace, and even a crown to you, under whose shield I fight. Happy
indeed, still more and more, might we have had the English nation, which we
now see so universally torn by civil wars, if with the same care with which
you have laboured, all our patrons had striven in the propagation of the
gospel. But alas! many make a market of the souls of others, while they peril
their own. This will redound to your great honour. Not less do you strive to
give than others to sell the priesthood.’
The postscript to this letter is curious. Gurnall says,
‘One thing at the end of your letter I had almost forgot. You therein just
mention the bishop. My doubts increase as to the propriety of going to him,
particularly since the opinions both of the clergy and of the people have
become known to me.’
The fourth letter is dated Lavenham, October 26, 1644. It
is a complimentary letter written on the occasion of Sir Symond. D’Ewes
giving Gurnall a copy of some antiquarian work he had lately published. It
contains no allusion to the subject of the living of Lavenham, and there is
nothing in it worth quoting.
The fifth letter is dated Lavenham, November 21, 1644, and
is one of the most important of the whole series. I shall therefore give it
entire.
‘Right worshipful Sir,—At length my frail bark, after a
difficult navigation, has safely reached the port of Lavenham. Nothing now
remains for me but to return my thanks to you, under whose shadow I enjoy this
happiness, and with sound principles to imbue, and with paternal care to
instruct, the numerous people which you have committed to me, particularly in
times like these, fermenting with many errors, when, like Rome of old, who
borrowed gods from all parts of the world, we also borrow errors which have
already been buried, and yet after burial again revive. My only solace in this
world will now be to preserve, by earnest and continued prayer, this my
congregation, pure and unspotted amongst so many corruptions.
‘By your letter to Henry Coppinger, I find that certain
of the Sudbury people, in your hearing, have said that some new agreement had
been entered into between us. I wonder from whence this fable has taken its
origin. I do not admit one atom of it. It is nothing new for the sweetest wine
of love sometimes to degenerate into vinegar. I hope, however, in a short time
that my Sudbury friends will be restored to their former serenity, although
like the troubled sea they are now in a state of considerable agitation. With
respect to the bishop, I hope he will find some other way of instituting me,
or else your most honourable House will do it. And all the inhabitants of
Lavenham most humbly congratulate you, right worshipful, for in this affair
you have left no stone unturned. We also earnestly desire that the matter may,
if possible, be completed within these six months, which are now fast wearing
away. I would willingly go to London in order that whatever remains to be done
may receive the finishing stroke. May the great and good God pour his blessing
on thee and thine, and may he continue to be thy sun and shield. So prays most
earnestly your very humble servant in Christ, WILLIAM GURNALL.’
The matter referred to in the letter can of course only be
explained by conjecture. It certainly seems to indicate that Gurnall was once
a popular minister at Sudbury, and that his removal to the rectory of Lavenham
was not approved by the Sudbury people. The six months mentioned most probably
mean the six months immediately following the last rector’s death. The
precise date of the death of Coppinger, Gurnall’s predecessor, is not known.
The sixth letter is dated Lavenham, January 6, 1645. It is
clear from its contents, that whatever may have been the difficulties which
stood in the way of his appointment to Lavenham, they were now all overcome,
and he was finally settled in possession of the living. He says, ‘Honoured
Sir, most opportunely have I received the order of your honourable House. By
your care and exertion alone has it been obtained; and all your favours toward
me have, by this fresh proof of your kindness, been brought to a
completion—this last having given perfection to the rest What is a
presentation without orders? What are orders without institution?
Successfully, however, have you finished all these things, so that my thanks
are due to you, not only as patron, but as ordainer and institutor, for under
your auspices all these things have been performed. I well know how much of
your time is occupied by public business, while the arduous affairs of the
nation are under consideration, and also with what indefatigable labour you
pursue more severe studies. The weight therefore of this your favour is so
much the more increased, when we see that among matters of greater importance
you still find leisure to attend to these our affairs, trifling indeed in
comparison, but such as would, I believe, from our want of skill, have been a
complete snare to us, had we not been speedily delivered from them by your
prudence.’
About the matters referred to in this letter, we know
nothing more than what Gurnall tells us. His expressions certainly seem to
imply that he owed his ordination, by whatever hands he was ordained, to the
interest of Sir Symond D’Ewes.
The seventh letter is dated Lavenham, March 20, 1647. It
contains nothing worth quoting, and is entirely occupied with lamentations
over the troublous time which the nation was passing through, and words of
devout encouragement to Sir Symond D’Ewes, whose position in parliament was
probably not a very easy one at this period.
The eighth and last letter is dated October 30, 16048, and
was evidently written in reply to an order of the House of Commons, calling on
Gurnall to preach before the House. He says, among other things, ‘Your
letter reached me yesterday as I was descending from the pulpit, thoroughly
fatigued; and today, having finished one sermon, I am preparing another for
to-morrow. You will therefore, I trust, readily pardon both the brevity and
unpolished style of any answer. As to the affair mentioned in your letter to
me that I have been, by an order of the House, appointed to preach before you
on the 29th of November next, it is a burden much too weighty for my
shoulders, particularly at this time, when so many infirmities oppress me,
that I can scarcely, without danger to my health, remain a short time in the
open air. Much less therefore could I undertake so long a journey in so
winterly a season. I am persuaded that the gentlemen who have proposed this,
know not the shattered state of my body, and have scarcely considered the
distance of the place. Most humbly and earnestly therefore I entreat that, by
your persuasion, which I know to be unparalleled, and in that honourable House
most weighty, this burden may be laid on other shoulders; for under it, in any
infirm state of health, I must of necessity sink.’
This letter is interesting on more than one account. It
shows the high esteem in which Gurnall was held as a preacher. None but the
most eminent and gifted divines of the day were summoned to preach before the
House of Commons.. It also shows the weak state of health in which Gurnall was
at a comparatively early period of his ministry at Lavenham. To this state of
health we may perhaps attribute the retired life which he seems to have lived,
and the comparatively small information which we possess about him.
Having now brought Gurnall to the place where he lived and
exercised his ministry for no less than thirty-five years, some information
about Lavenham will probably be interesting to most readers.
Lavenham is a small town in the southwest corner of
Suffolk, lying in a rural parish of about 2800 acres, and containing at this
time about 1800 people. In Gurnall’s time it was in the diocese of Norwich.
It is now in the diocese of Ely. It had once a market; and before the
invention of the steam-engine, was famous for the manufacture of blue cloth
and serge, for the better regulation of which, three guilds, or companies, of
St. Peters, Holy Trinity, and Corpus Christi, were establish. Its manufactures
have now dwindled down into one silk-mill, and its market is no longer held.
The market-place, with an ancient cross in the centre, exists still. The De
Veres, Earls of Oxford, were once the principal proprietors of Lavenham, and
had a large park here, comprising nearly half the parish. In the reign of
Elizabeth, Edward, then Earl of Oxford, sold his property at Lavenham,
together with the advowson of the living, to Paul D’Ewes, Esq., father of
Sir Symond D’Ewes, the patron of William Gurnall, and to this sale therefore
the good man’s connection with Lavenham must be traced.
The living to which Gurnall was appointed was no doubt a
very valuable one. At this day the tithes are commuted at £850 a year, and
there are 140 acres of glebe attached to the rectory. Allowing for the
difference in the value of money two hundred years ago, the rector of Lavenham
must have been comparatively very well off. It is however a curious fact,
recorded by Fuller in his Church History, that in the year 1577, the living of
Lavenham had a narrow escape of being reduced to half its value, and was only
saved by the firmness of the rector. The whole transaction is worth reading,
as illustrating the disorders and irregularities in ecclesiastical matters,
which great laymen too often attempted to perpetrate in the sixteenth century,
and too often with success.
Fuller says, ‘In the year 1622, Henry Coppinger, formerly
fellow of St. John’s College in Cambridge, prebendary of York, once chaplain
to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick (whose funeral sermon he preached), made master of
Magdalene College, Cambridge, by his majesty’s mandates, though afterwards
resigning his right at the queen’s request (shall I call it?), to prevent
trouble, ended his religious life. He was the sixth son of Henry Coppinger,
Esq., of Buxhall, in Suffolk, by Agnes, daughter of Sir Thomas Jermyn. His
father, on his death-bed, asking him what course of life he would embrace, he
answered he intended to be a divine. “I liked it well,” said the old
gentleman, “otherwise what shall I say to Martin Luther when I shall see him
in heaven, and he knows that God gave me eleven sons, and I made not one of
them a minister?” An expression proportionable enough to Luther’s
judgment, who maintained, some hours before his death, that the saints in
heaven shall knowingly converse one with another.
‘Lavenham living fell void, which both deserved a good
minister, being a rich parsonage, and needed one, it being more than suspected
that Dr. Reynolds, late incumbent, who ran away to Rome, had left some
superstitious leaven behind him. The Earl of Oxford being patron, presents Mr.
Coppinger to it, but adding withal, that he would pay no tithes of his park,
being almost half the land of the parish. Coppinger desired to resign it again
to his lordship, rather than by such sinful gratitude to betray the rights of
the church. “Well!” said the earl,” if you be of that mind, then take
the tithes; I scorn that my estate should swell with church goods.” However,
it afterwards cost Mr. Coppinger sixteen hundred pounds in keeping his
questioned—and recovering his detained—right, in suit with the agent for
the next minor Earl of Oxford and others; all which he left to his church’s
quiet possession, being zealous in God’s cause, but remiss in his own.
‘He lived forty and five years the painful parson at
Lavenham, in which market-town there are about nine hundred communicants,
among whom, all this time, no difference did arise which he did not compound.
He had a bountiful hand and plentiful purse (his paternal inheritance by death
of elder brothers and other transactions, descending upon him), bequeathing
twenty pounds in money, and ten pounds per annum, to the poor of the parish;
in the chancel whereof he lieth buried under a fine monument, dying on St.
Thomas’ Day, in the threescore and twelfth year of his age.’
The lawsuit referred to by Fuller seems at any rate not to
have prevented Henry Coppinger being succeeded by his son Ambrose as rector of
Lavenham, at whose death Gurnall was appointed to the living. The Henry
Coppinger referred to by Gurnall in one of his letters to Sir Symond D’Ewes,
was no doubt a member of the family of Gurnall’s predecessor, and a
descendant of the rector whose firmness preserved half the tithes of Lavenham
from the Earl of Oxford’s shameful attempt to deprive the living of them.
The parish church of Lavenham, in which Gurnall preached
for thirty-five years, must naturally possess much interest in the eyes of all
true admirers of his works. The pulpit in which the good man preached the
substance of The Christian in Complete Armour, no longer exists. But the
fabric of the church is in all probability exactly what it was two hundred
years ago.
Lavenham Church is one of the finest and handsomest
ecclesiastical buildings in the county of Suffolk. ‘It stands at the west
end of the town, and was erected on the site of the ancient fabric, in the
15th and early part of the 16th centuries, chiefly at the cost of the Earl of
Oxford, and the wealthy family of Spring, whose arms are to be seen in many
parts of the building. It is in the later style of decorated English
architecture, and is constructed of freestone, curiously ornamented with
flint, a material commonly used in Suffolk churches, from the scarcity of
stone. It is 156 feet long, and 68 broad. The tower, which is of singular
beauty, is 141 feet high, and 42 in diameter, and contains an excellent peal
of eight bells, of which the tenor weighs 23 cwt., and was cast in 1625. In
the interior the roof is richly carved, and two pews, formerly belonging to
the Earls of Oxford and the Springs, though now somewhat decayed, are highly
finished specimens of Gothic work, in the elaborate style of Henry VII’s
Chapel at Westminster. In the windows are considerable remains of ancient
stained glass, and the porch is of highly ornamental architecture, adorned
with armorial bearings.’ The above account is principally extracted from
White’s History of Suffolk, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of
the details it contains.
At the present day there can be no doubt that Lavenham is a
far less important place than it was two hundred years ago. The county in
which it is situated no longer occupies the position it once occupied among
the counties of England. Without mines or manufactures, or large seaport
towns, the eastern counties have stood still in material prosperity, while the
rest of England has moved on. The village towns, with which Suffolk is rather
thickly dotted, are almost all in a decaying or stationary condition. The old
glory of such places as Eye, Framlingham, Bungay, Orford, Southwold, Dunwich,
Aldeburgh, Hadleigh, Bildeston, and Debenham, has clean passed away. Lavenham
has shared the fate of these places. It is now nothing more than a quiet
village in an agricultural district, remarkable only for its beautiful church
and its numerous old charitable institutions.
The thirty-five years during which Gurnall lived at
Lavenham, and filled the pulpit of the old parish church, were years full of
stirring incidents in English history. The final overthrow of the king’s
party in the commonwealth wars, the beheading of Charles I., the establishment
of the protectorate, the death of Oliver Cromwell, the restoration of the
Stuarts to the throne, the passing of the Act of Uniformity, the ejection of
two thousand ministers of the Church of England which followed that act, and
the intolerant persecution of all nonconformists which disgraced this country
for many years after the act was passed, are events with which every student
of English history is familiar. What Gurnall thought of most of these we have
no means of knowing. What part he took, if any, and how he acted amidst the
political and ecclesiastical convulsions which distracted the country, we
cannot say. His health in all probability prevented him from frequently
leaving his own home, or doing much outside his own parish. Be the cause what
it may, I am obliged to confess that the facts on record about the last
thirty-five years of his life are exceedingly few.
It is certainly somewhat remarkable that during the period
of Gurnall’s ministry at Lavenham, that is between 1644 and 1679, some of
the best and holiest puritan divines were at one time or another living within
twenty miles of Gurnall’s home at Lavenham. I will give their names.
The famous John Owen, whose name is familiar to every
reader of pure English theology, began his ministry at Fordham and Goggeshall
in Essex, and only left the latter place when Cromwell made him dean of Christ
Church, and vice-chancellor of Oxford, in 1650, six years after Gurnall became
rector of Lavenham.
Stephen Marshall, one of the most celebrated divines in the
Westminster Assembly, and a prominent character in the commonwealth times, was
minister of Wethersfield and Finchingfield, in Essex, shortly “before
Gurnall came to Lavenham, and spent the last two years of his life at Ipswich,
where he died in 1655.
Matthew Newcomen, another eminent member of the Westminster
Assembly, and an assistant of Arrowsmith and Tuckney in drawing up the
well-known Assembly’s Catechism, was vicar of Dedham in Essex, after the
famous John Rogers was ejected in 1629, until the time of his own ejection by
the Act of Uniformity in 1662.
Thomas Young, another distinguished member of the
Westminster Assembly, and Milton’s tutor, was vicar of Stowmarket, in
Suffolk, for the thirty years before 1643, when he became pastor of a church
in Duke’s Place, London. Afterwards, being ejected in 1650, he retired to
Stowmarket, and died there in 1655. He was one of the five authors of the
famous controversial work, called Smectymnuus, which made a great stir in the
first half of the seventeenth century. It was so called from the initial
letters of the names of its five writers, viz. Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy,
Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. Of these five men, let
us remember, no less than three died within a few hours’ reach of Gurnall.
It would be easy to add other great names to this list,
such as those of Daniel Rogers, who died at Wethersfield in 1652; Blackerby,
who died at Great Thurlow in 1648; Fairclough, who was ejected from Kedington
in 1662, and was succeeded by Tillotson; and Owen Stockton, who was ejected
from St. Andrew’s, Colchester, in 1662. Beside these good men, there were
some who are less well known, such as William Sparrow of Halstead in Essex,
John Fairfax of Barking in Suffolk, Matthias Candler of Coddenham in Suffolk,
Samuel Spring of Greeting St. Mary in Suffolk, Stephen Scanderet of Haverhill
in Suffolk, Tobias Keg of Hemingstone in Suffolk, Brunning and Stonham of
Ipswich, Storer of Stowmarket, all of whom were eminent puritan ministers, and
were ejected in 1662. Their histories will be found in Calamy’s
Nonconformists’ Memorial. All these men, I repeat, lived within twenty miles
of Gurnall, and must have come in contact with him occasionally.
It would be deeply interesting if we knew whether Gurnall
had much communication with these good men. My own private impression is that
he had not. Ill-health in all probability kept him much at home. But I suspect
this was not all. I am inclined to think that Gurnall was a man of retiring
and cautious temperament, and naturally disinclined to go much into society.
Above all, I am strongly inclined to think that he liked the Episcopal Church
and the Prayer Book better than many of his neighbours did, and naturally
withdrew from close intimacy with them. All these, however, are only
conjectures, and I shall therefore pass on to the only remaining facts that
remain to be told about Gurnall’s history.
In the year 1645, the year following his appointment to
Lavenham, Gurnall was married to Sarah Mott, daughter of the Rev. Thomas Mott,
vicar of Stoke by Nayland. By this lady, who survived him some years, he had
ten children, eight of whom were living at his death.
In the year 1662, when no less than two thousand ministers
were ejected from the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity, Gurnall
signed the declaration required by the act on August 20, was ordained priest
by the Bishop of Norwich, the well-known Bishop Reynolds, on August 21, and
went through the forms of episcopal institution to Lavenham on the
presentation of Thomas Bowes, of Bromley Hall, in Essex, a connection of the
D’Ewes family, on August 22. The close proximity of these three dates is
very remarkable! The result was, that while many of his puritan brethren
resigned their preferments, he retained his position as rector of Lavenham
until his death.
This part of Gurnall’s history undoubtedly demands some
consideration? At first sight undeniably there is something curious about it.
That a minister of at least eighteen years’ standing should submit to
receive priest’s orders at a bishop’s hands—that a preacher of
notoriously puritan sentiments should sit still and retain his connection with
the Church of England, while nearly all his puritan brethren around him
seceded—in all this there is something strange. That it really was so is as
certain as possible. A facsimile of his subscription which I have obtained
from the registry of Norwich places the matter beyond doubt. It is a doubly
interesting document, as containing the only specimen I know of Gurnall’s
handwriting.7
That Gurnall’s conformity brought on him great obloquy
and reproach we may well suppose. A libellous attack8 on him was published in
the year 1665, quoted by Bishop Kennett, which contains the following passage.
‘Neither is Mr. Gurnall alone in these horrible defilements, hateful to the
word of God and his saints, but is compassed about with a cloud of witnesses,
even in the same county where himself liveth, men of the same order of
anti-Christian priesthood and brethren in the same iniquity with himself.’
That he brought on himself much private sorrow and
discomfort by his conformity we may easily believe. His own wife’s father,
Mr. Mott, of Stoke by Nayland, was one of the two thousand who went out of the
Church of England for conscience’ sake. Above all, the value of his living
at Lavenham, and the large size of the family dependent on him, would be sure
to cause men to cast suspicion on what he did, and to question the sincerity
of his motives.
But after all, the point remains to be considered, did
Gurnall do anything inconsistent with his character as a minister of Christ?
Was there anything abstractedly wrong in his conformity? Was there anything in
the antecedents of his history to make it base or dishonourable to retain his
post at Lavenham, to subscribe the declaration of the Act of Uniformity, to
assent to the liturgy, and to submit to receive priest’s orders at Bishop
Reynolds’ hands? On these points I have something to say.
I shall clear the way by saying that I thoroughly
disapprove the Act of Uniformity, although personally I feel no difficulty
about its requirements. To show my own feeling about it, I will quote a
passage from a lecture on ‘Baxter and his Times,’ which I delivered in
London ten years ago. I retract nothing contained in that passage,
notwithstanding all that has happened in the last ten years—
‘The crowning piece of folly which the majority in the
Church of England committed under the Stuarts, was procuring the Act of
Uniformity to be enacted in the year 1662. This, you must remember, took place
at the beginning of Charles II’s reign, and shortly after the
re-establishment of the monarchy and the church.
‘This famous act imposed terms and conditions of holding
office on all ministers of the Church of England which had never been imposed
before, from the time of the Reformation. It was notoriously so framed as to
be offensive to the consciences of the Puritans, and to drive them out of the
church. For this purpose it was entirely successful. Within a year no less
than two thousand clergymen resigned their livings rather than accept its
terms. Many of these two thousand were the best, the ablest, and the holiest
ministers of the day. Many a man, who had been regularly ordained by bishops,
and spent twenty or thirty years in the service of the church without
molestation, was suddenly commanded to accept new conditions of holding
preferment, and turned out to starve because he refused. Sixty of the leading
parishes in London were at once deprived of their ministers, and their
congregations left like sheep without a shepherd. Taking all things into
consideration, a more impolitic and disgraceful deed never disfigured the
annals of a Protestant church.
‘It was a disgraceful deed, because it was a flat
contradiction to the king’s own promise at Breda, before he came back from
exile. He was brought back on the distinct understanding that the Church of
England should be re-established on such a broad and liberal basis as to
satisfy the conscientious scruples of the Puritans. Had it not been for the
assistance of the Puritans he would never have got back at all. And yet as
soon as the reins of power were fairly in the king’s Lands, his promise was
deliberately broken.
‘lt was a disgraceful deed, because the great majority of
the ejected ministers might easily have been retained in the church by a few
small concessions. They had no abstract objection to Episcopacy or to a
liturgy. A few alterations in the prayers, and a moderate liberty in the
conduct of divine worship, according to Baxter’s calculation, would have
satisfied sixteen hundred out of the two thousand. But the ruling party were
determined not to make a single concession. They had no wish to keep the
Puritans in. When some one observed to Archbishop Sheldon, the chief mover in
the business, that he thought many of the Puritans would conform, and accept
the Act of Uniformity, the archbishop replied, “I am afraid they will.” To
show the spirit of the ruling party in the church, they actually added to the
number of apocryphal lessons in the Prayer Book calendar at this time. They
made it a matter of congratulation among themselves that they had thrust out
the Puritans, and got in Bel and the Dragon.
‘It was a disgraceful deed, because the ejected ministers
were, many of them, men of such ability and attainments, that great sacrifices
ought to have been made in order to retain them in the church. Baxter, Poole,
Manton, Bates, Calamy, Brooks, Watson, Charnock, Caryl, Howe, Flavel, Bridge,
Jenkyn, Owen, Goodwin, are names whose praise is even now in all the churches.
The men who turned them out were not to be compared to them. The names of the
vast majority of them are hardly known. But they had power on their side, and
they were resolved to use it.
‘lt was a disgraceful deed, because it showed the world
that the leaders of the Church of England, like the Bourbons in modern times,
had learned nothing and forgotten nothing during their exile. They had not
forgotten the old bad ways of Laud, which had brought such misery on England.
They had not learned that conciliation and concession are the most becoming
graces in the rulers of a church, and that persecution, in the long run, is
sure to be a losing game.
‘Against the policy of the ruling party in the Church of
England, under the Stuarts, I always shall protest. I do not feel the scruples
which Baxter and his ejected brethren felt about the Act of Uniformity. Much
as I respect them, I think them wrong and misguided in their judgments. But I
think that Archbishop Sheldon, and the men who refused to go one step to meet
them, were far more wrong and far more misguided. I believe they did an injury
to the cause of true religion in England, which will probably never be
repaired, by sowing the seeds of endless divisions. They were the men who laid
the foundation of English dissent. I believe they recklessly threw away a
golden opportunity of doing good. They might easily have made my own beloved
church far more effective and far more useful than she ever has been by wise
and timely concessions. They refused to do this, and, instead of a healing
measure, brought forward their unhappy Act of Uniformity. I disavow any
sympathy with their proceedings, and can never think of them without the
deepest regret.’
But while I protest against the Act of Uniformity as an
unjust, unwise, impolitic, unstatesmanlike, and hard measure, I do not for a
moment admit that no good man could possibly submit to its requirements. On
the contrary, I can quite understand that many holy and faithful ministers
would do as Gurnall did, and act as he acted. They would argue that we cannot
have everything to our mind in this world below—that the way of patience was
better than the way of secession—that there is nothing abstractedly wrong in
forms of prayer—that it is better to put up with some things we do not like
in a church, than to throw away opportunities of usefulness—that it was
better to accept the Prayer Book with all its blemishes and have liberty to
preach the gospel, than to refuse the Prayer Book and be silenced
altogether—that so long as the thirty-nine articles were sound and
uninjured, they could not be compelled to preach unsound doctrine—and that
so long as they were allowed to preach sound doctrine, they ought not to
refuse the opportunity, but to preach, and stand by their flocks. All this I
can conceive a good man saying to himself Whether Gurnall reasoned in this
manner I cannot pretend to say. But I think be might have done so.
The plain truth is, that before anyone condemns Gurnall for
submitting to the Act of Uniformity, he ought in common justice to remember
the times and circumstances in which Gurnall first entered the ministry. He
became a minister of the gospel at a period in English history when it was
impossible to obtain episcopal ordination, and the use of the Prayer Book was
almost forbidden. I have no doubt he was quite right in accepting the position
of things which he found around him. The imposition of episcopal hands is not
absolutely necessary to make a valid ordination. The use of the Church of
England liturgy is not essential to the being of a church. At the time when
Gurnall entered the ministry he could neither have Episcopacy nor the Prayer
Book, and he entered the ministry without them. Let others say what they will,
I do not think he was wrong. It is better to have the gospel preached without
bishops and prayer books, than not to have any preaching at all.
But after all, there is not the slightest proof that
Gurnall had any conscientious objection either to Episcopacy or the liturgy of
the Church of England. For anything we can discover, he had never committed
himself to any such condemnation of them as to make it inconsistent to approve
and adopt them. What right then have we to find fault with him because he
submitted to the requirements of the act of 1662? He was ordained priest by
Bishop Reynolds, because he could not be an incumbent in the diocese without
priest’s orders. But who shall say that he would not gladly have received
episcopal orders twenty years before if it had been possible to obtain them?
He declared his assent and consent to all things contained in the Prayer Book.
But. Who shall say that he would not have done the same at any period in his
life? He had never been a member of the Westminster Assembly, like many of the
two thousand ejected divines. He had never been mixed up in their public
proceedings, discussions, and controversies, like Owen, Newcomen, Baxter, and
many more. He had been a quiet retired preacher in a country parish, and there
is really no proof whatever that his retention of his position at Lavenham was
inconsistent with anything in his previous life.
One more circumstance ought not to be forgotten in forming
our estimate of Gurnall’s conduct at this crisis of his life. The bishop in
whose diocese he was living, and at whose hands he accepted re-ordination, was
Bishop Reynolds, himself a Puritan in doctrine, and notoriously the most mild
and lenient man on the episcopal bench in dealing with scrupulous clergymen.
We cannot doubt that such a man as Reynolds would use every effort to meet
Gurnall’s scruples, if he had any. We cannot doubt that he would strain
every nerve to retain as many of the clergy as possible within the pale of the
church, and to prevent secession. I confess to a strong suspicion that this
circumstance weighed much in Gurnall’s mind. Few men can do more by
kindness, and less by harshness, in dealing with men, than bishops. If Gurnall
ever had any doubts about remaining in the Church of England in 1662, I think
it very likely that his good bishop’s character turned the scale. In short,
I venture the guess, that he might have gone out of Lavenham rectory, and
followed his father-in-law, Mr. Mott, in secession, if the occupier of Norwich
palace had been any other bishop than Reynolds9
I leave the subject of Gurnall’s conduct in 1662 with the
reader. It is one on which different men will have different opinions,
according to the stand-point which they occupy. Some in the present day would
have thought more highly of Gurnall if he had refused to submit to the Act of
Uniformity, and had gone out with the famous two thousand. I, and many others
perhaps, think more highly of him because he held his ground and did not
secede. Which of us is right will never, probably, be settled in this world. I
only desire to record my own opinion, that Gurnall was probably just as
courageous, conscientious, and high-principled in deciding to stay in, as
hundreds of his two thousand ejected brethren were in deciding to go out. In
movements like that of 1662, the seceding party has not always a monopoly of
grace and courage. There were many cases, I have no doubt, in which it showed
more courage to submit to the Act of Uniformity than to refuse submission, and
in which it cost a man far more to hold his living than to throw it up. I
should not wonder if Gurnall’s was one.
About Gurnall’s life after the year 1662 we know
literally nothing at all. We may well suppose that his latter years were
saddened by the events of the year 1662. Human nature would not be what it is,
if his retention of his position, and subscription to the Act of Uniformity,
did not create some estrangement of feeling between himself and his seceding
brethren. But we really have no right to speak decidedly on the matter. There
are floating traditions in the neighbourhood of Lavenham that he never was the
same man as a minister after 1662, that he had been before—that there was no
power or blessing attending his ministry from that time forward. But I must
plainly say, that I cannot discern any foundation for these traditions. I
regard them as nothing better than lying stories. Such stories are often
current about eminent servants of Christ. His refusal to give up his post at
Lavenham, when many other ministers seceded, would no doubt give great
annoyance to the bitterest and most extreme nonconformists in that part of
Suffolk, since it would weaken their hands and strengthen the Church of
England. I should therefore expect, as a matter of course, that all manner of
false reports would be current about him. Lies are Satan’s chief weapons
against God’s saints.
Gurnall died, October 12th, 1679, and was buried at
Lavenham, in the sixty-third year of his age. There is internal evidence, we
have already seen, in his letters and elsewhere, that he was always a man of
weak health. But we know not whether he died suddenly or of a lingering
illness. The fact, however, that he made his will the day before he died would
rather point to the conclusion that he had been ill some time.
M’Keon has procured a copy of Gurnall’s will, which I
here subjoin, as it may interest many readers.
In the name of God Amen. The Eleventh day of October, in
the year of our Lord, One Thousand Six Hundred and Seventy-nine, I, William
Gurnall of Lavenham, in the county of Suffolk, clerk, weak of body, but thanks
be to God, of sound mind and memory, resigning up my soul in the first place
into the hands of God, my Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour, and yielding my body to
the earth, to be buried at the discretion of my executrix, as concerning that
worldly estate which it has pleased God to bestow upon me, do make and ordain,
this, my last will and testament as followeth:—That is to say, I give and
decree all my free land and tenements, with all their appurtenances
whatsoever, lying and being in Walpole or elsewhere, in Monkland, in the
county of Norfolk, unto Sarah, my well-beloved wife, and her heirs, to hold to
her, the said Sarah, to her own proper use, for, and during the time of her
natural life, and after her decease to some one of my children, as she shall
declare in, and by her last will and testament. And I do give and decree also
all my goods and chattels, debts, and personal estate whatsoever, unto the
said Sarah, my well-beloved wife, as well for her own comfortable subsistence
and maintenance, and the better to enable her for the bringing up of my
younger children, as also in trust and confidence that she will preserve and
dispose of the residue and surplusage thereof amongst my children, respecting
the circumstances of those of them which are not yet provided for, in such
manner, and in such proportion as in her discretion she shall think most meet
and fit; only I decree, if my son John shall be a scholar, that she will give
my books to him. And I do hereby nominate, constitute, and appoint the said
Sarah, my well-beloved wife, to be sole executrix of this my will, which I
have caused to be written and have thereunto set my hand and seal, the day of
grace aforesaid. Subscribed sealed, published, and declared by the said
William Gurnall, to be his last will and testament, in the presence of us,
Thomas Mott, Bezal. Peachie, John Pinchbeck.’
The first of these three witnesses was most probably the
father or brother of Mrs. Gurnall. She was daughter of Thomas Mott. The second
was evidently the husband of his third daughter, Catherine. The third was
perhaps the lawyer who drew up the will The books mentioned in the will are
probably the very books which Gurnall’s son, John, afterwards left by his
will, in 1699, to his brother Joseph, and his nephew Leonard Shaftoe, of
Newcastle. The ‘English books’ were left to Joseph Gurnall, and the
‘rest of the books and manuscripts to Leonard Shaftoe. They are now probably
scattered to the four winds, and dispersed, if not destroyed. The end to which
good men’s libraries finally come, is a melancholy subject. Few things are
so much loved by some, and despised and neglected by others, as books, and
specially theological books.
The precise spot in which Gurnall was buried is not known.
We cannot tell whether his bones are lying in the church or in the churchyard.
No tombstone or monumental slab marks the place of his interment. Nothing,
from some cause or other, seems to have been erected to his memory. ‘The
only sepulchral notice to be found of him,’ says M’Keon, ‘is on a black
marble slab in the chancel, which has this inscription:
“Here lieth the body of Mary, late wife of Mr. Henry
Boughton, of this parish, and daughter of the late Reverend Mr. Samuel
Beachcroft, Rector of Semer, and grand-daughter of the late Reverend Mr.
William Gurnall, who was rector of this parish thirty-five years. She died the
14th of October, 1741, aged 78 years.’
Under this slab in the chancel is a vault, which M’Keon
conjectures is Gurnall’s resting-place, from the fact of Mrs. Boughton
having been buried here instead of being buried with the Boughton family in
the family vault, near the great south door. However, it is only a conjecture.
A funeral sermon was preached in Lavenham Church, in
commemoration of Gurnall, shortly after his funeral, by the well-known
commentator on the New Testament, Burkitt, who was at that time rector of
Milden, near Lavenham. It is still extant, and bears the following title:
‘The people’s zeal provoked to an holy emulation by the pious and
instructive example of their dead minister; as a seasonable memento to the
parishioners of Lavenham in Suffolk.”
Burkitt’s sermon was on Heb. xiii. 7: ‘Remember them
that have the rule over you,” &c. It was both preached and published by
request, and is prefaced by an epistle dedicatory ‘to my honoured friend,
Mrs. Sarah Gurnall, the sorrowful relict of Mr. William Gurnall, late of
Lavenham, deceased, and to the rest of the sorrowing inhabitants of that
town.’ It is a respectable composition, though somewhat quaint, and rather
flowery and high-flown in style. But it is but fair to Burkitt to remember
that he was comparatively young when he preached it, being only twenty-nine
years old. A few extracts from it will probably be found interesting, I shall
select these parts only which refer to Gurnall.
Burkitt’s epistle dedicatory concludes with the following
passage:—‘To inform and convince you how highly accountable you are to
Almighty God, both for the long enjoyment of his ministry, and also for the
happy advantage of his example, is the honest design of the following sermon:
and also to let this censorious age (in which some persons are so overgrown
with the anti-episcopal jaundice, that their eye can see nothing in a
conformist but what is discoloured and of a different tincture), understand
and know that you had a conformist for your minister, who rendered solid
religion amiable, by a conversation in all things worthy of it; who did by a
regular piety, a strict sobriety, a catholic and diffusive charity, render
religion venerable to the world; one whose whole time, strength, and parts,
were piously devoted to God and his sacred service.
‘Moses, I observe, was in one particular privileged by
God above all other holy persons: their souls (in common with his) at death
have angels for their convoy towards the mansions of bliss and glory: but he
had an angel for his sexton, who buried his body in an unknown place, lest the
Israelites should superstitiously idolize and adore it;—there would be no
fear at all of any such offensive adoration on your part, were I able (as
indeed I am not) to draw to the life the fair effigies of your absent
minister, who was, like Moses, faithful in all God’s house whilst he lived,
and not unlike him at his death; his meek soul gliding from him in a fine
imperceptible vehicle; and he dying as the modern Jews by tradition tell us
Moses did, ad nutum Dei, et osculo oris ejus—at God’s beck, and as it were
with a kiss of God’s mouth. It was no more betwixt God and them but this. Go
up and die.
To conclude then, may all your practices appear to the
world in a faithful compliance with what was truly imitable and praiseworthy
in him. May the living example of your dead minister be exemplified in the
lives of you his people. May you daily dress by his glass, and walk in his
pious and devout footsteps. May you all meet him with astonishing joy, and
behold him also with unutterable delight and comfort, in the day of your great
audit,—this is, and ever shall be, the hearty and affectionate supplication
of your sympathizing friend and servant,
WILLIAM BURKITT.
‘Milden, Dec. 10,1679.’
The sermon contains the following sentences which are worth
transcribing: ‘How lovely was that copy of religion which he set before you
in his daily conversation! So forcible was the majesty of that holiness that
shined forth in him, that it did extort a veneration from its most violent
opposers; and so convictive also that it pierced the very consciences of his
enemies, and constrained them whom prejudice only had made his foes, tacitly
to acknowledge that God was in him of a truth.’(p. 9, Baynes’ reprint,
1829.)
Again: ‘He being dead, yet speaketh; yea, dead as well as
living, he is still your preacher, his shroud and coffin are his pulpit—his
grave and tombstone are his temple, and he still preaches to you though he
lies in silence before you and utters never a word, I mean by his pious and
most instructive example left among you, and by that fair character and good
report which he hath so deservedly obtained with you.’(p. 10, 11.) Again:
‘I am sure it did not a little conduce to the support of your dying
minister’s spirit, when he had death before him in immediate prospect, to
hope upon good grounds that he (as a spiritual father) should leave many
children behind him, to carry on the work of Christ in the world, when his
head should be laid among the clods.” (p. 17.)
The last five pages of the sermon are so entirely occupied
with Gurnall’s character, that I think it best to give them unabridged:
‘I infer from hence, in the first place, how signal your
obligations are to Almighty God for the long enjoyment of that exemplary
pattern of all true piety and virtue (your deceased minister, I mean), whom
(for your sins, I fear) he hath lately taken from you. Show now your obedience
to God, your respects to him, your kindness and charity to your own souls, by
a zealous and faithful care to transcribe impartially in your own lives
whatever was truly imitable in your minister’s. And not to carry you beyond
the confines of the text, let me earnestly bespeak your Christian compliance
with a double duty here enjoined.
‘I. To follow his faith.
‘II. To imitate his exemplary conversation.
‘I. Follow his faith, and that in a double respect, in
the soundness of his faith, and in the steadfastness of his faith.
‘I. Follow him in the soundness of his faith. The faith
which he perseveringly professed, and taught, was that doctrine which is
according to godliness; that faith which owns God for its immediate author and
the Scripture for its infallible rule, the faith that was once delivered to
the saints, which is not the result of fancy and imagination, but the product
of an eternal counsel, which was confirmed by the miracles and sealed with the
blood of a Saviour. In a word, that faith which he so zealously taught had
sure footing in the holy Scriptures. Whenever he propounded any truth which
required not only the assent of your understandings, but also the obedience
and adoration of your faith, he constantly showed you the canon of the
Scriptures for its confirmation. If any then (which God forbid) should appear
after him in this place, and attempt the proselyting of you to another gospel,
or to any new doctrine of faith foreign to the Scriptures, should he pretend
to the authority of a commissioned angel from heaven, let him be held
accursed.
‘2. Follow him in the steadfastness of his faith. The
same rule of faith which he laid before you at his first coming amongst you,
he lived and preached by till the day of his death: and this I take the
greater liberty to assert, because some persons have not blushed to tell the
world publicly that since his conformity to the discipline of the church he
had apostatized and revolted from that faith which he had formerly professed
and taught; but be ye all assured, that, as to the great fundamentals of faith
and religion, he was ever the same, and what be taught you to his last breath,
I doubt not but he stood ready to confirm and seal with his blood, even in the
fiercest flames of martyrdom, if God had called him to that fiery trial.
‘II. Imitate his Christian conversation. My meaning is,
exemplify those evangelical graces and Christian virtues in your lives, which
did so oriently shine forth in his. To propound a few:—
‘1. His eminent humility. This was the garment which
covered all his excellent Accomplishments, although indeed their beauty was
rendered more conspicuous and amiable by casting this veil over it. O what
mean thoughts had he of himself! And was not only content, but desirous also,
that others should have so too: no man ever expressed so low a value of his
worth and merits as himself did. Everything in others that was good he admired
as excellent, whilst the same or better in himself he thought not unworthily
contemned: his eyes were full of his own deficiencies and others’
perfections.
In a word, he was a lovely valley, sweetly planted,
well-watered, richly fruitful; imitate him then herein, and by a holy
emulation study to excel him in this adorning grace; and for your help herein
recollect what you heard from him in his elaborate discourses among you upon
Phil. ii. 5, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus,)—this humble mind.
‘ 2. His extensive love: this grace did variously exert
itself.
‘(1.) His love to God: he loved him exceedingly whom he
could not love excessively, having such high and raised apprehensions of his
Makers excellencies, as caused him to judge his prime and best affections
unworthy to be placed on so divine an object.
‘(2.) His love to the holy Jesus: this was such a
seraphic and divine fire in his soul, as did marvellously consume his love to
the world and all sublunary comforts. You are witnesses, and all that knew
him, in how eminent a measure and degree the world was crucified unto him, and
he unto the world by the cross of Christ.
‘ (3.) His love to souls: this was it no doubt that made
him so indefatigable both in his study and in the pulpit; from hence it was,
that the throne of grace, his study, the pulpit, and his sick neighbours, had
the whole of his time divided amongst them, and devoted to them.
‘(4.) HIS UNBOUNDED LOVE TO ALL CHRISTIANS; though they
differed in their sentiments from him: he loved Christians for their
Christianity, and did adore the image of his Saviour wherein he saw it in any
of his members unhappily persecuting one another with hard names and
characters of reproach. How often did he PUBLICLY DEPLORE AND BEWAIL, that the
greatest measure of love that is found at this day amongst the professors of
the cross, was not true Christian love, but only love of a party! Follow him
then in the impartial exercise of this grace, and for your help therein
remember what he taught you from Eph. U. 2, “And walk in love, as Christ
also hath loved us” and as you have any regard for the Author of your
profession, take heed that a spirit of division (now) crowd not in among you:
your unity is your strength as well as your beauty; persist therefore, I
beseech you, in that Christian order amongst yourselves in which it was his
great ambition all his days to preserve and keep you. Timely oppose the crafty
design of the subtle adversary of souls, who will take this occasion (if
possible), now the spiritual parent is out of the way, to set the children
together by the ears.
‘3. His diffusive charity: his alms were as exuberant as
his love: misery and want, wherever he met them, did sufficiently endear their
objects to him; he was none of those that hide their faces from the poor, nor
of the number of them who satisfy their consciences with a single exercise of
their charity once a year, but daily were the emanations of his bounty. Yet
although he cast the seeds of his charity upon all sorts of ground, he sowed
them thickest upon God’s inclosure; my meaning is, he did good unto all,
“but especially to those that were of the household of faith.” Make him
herein, and his example, the pattern of your daily imitation; for the world,
which is chained together by intermingled love, will soon shatter and fall in
pieces if charity shall once fail and die: and for your better help herein,
call over those potent arguments for the exercise of this evangelical duty,
which he urged upon you, from that apostolical injunction, Heb. xiii. 16,
“But to do good, and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices
God is well pleased.”
‘4. His persevering diligence and faithfulness in his
place and station. You could not but observe that his whole disposal of
himself was to perpetual industry and service; he not only avoided idleness,
but seemed to have a forcible antipathy against it, and was often recommending
it to you with great concern and vigour in his public advices, to be always
furnished with somewhat to do; utte inveniat semper diabolus occupatum—that
the devil may never find thee at leisure to listen to his temptations, as St.
Hierom adviseth. The idle man’s brain being, in truth, not only the
devil’s shop, but his kingdom too, a model of and an appendage unto hell; a
plan (like that) given up to torture and mischief. As to himself, his chiefest
recreation was variety of work; for beside those portions of time which the
necessities of nature and of civil life extorted from him, there was not a
minute of the day which he left vacant. Now to stimulate your zeal to a pious
imitation of him herein also, let me admonish you to ruminate upon those
accurate sermons you heard from him upon Mat. xx. 6,”Why stand ye here all
the day idle?”
‘5. His tender sympathy with the afflicted church of
Christ. Like a true son of Zion he could not rejoice when his mother mourned,
he daily felt as much by sympathy as he did by sense; and no wonder, for he
that hath a stock going in the church’s ship, cannot but lament and quake at
every storm. O how frequent were his inquiries after her, how fervent were his
prayers for her, how bowelly and compassionate were his mournings over her!
The deplorable condition of the church and nation lay exceeding near his heart
both living and dying; he preferring their happiness and welfare above his
chief joy. Now in order to your attaining the same Christ-like temper with
him, frequently meditate on what you heard from him upon Neh. i. 4, where the
sympathizing prophet refuseth to drink wine, when the afflicted church drank
water.
‘6. And lastly, to sum up all, imitate him in his daily
care and endeavour to live religion in all his capacities. As a minister, ye
are witnesses, and God also, how faithfully, how conscientiously he discharged
his duty towards you. In the exercise of his ministerial function, if censure
itself be able to tax him for any neglect, it must be in no more frequent
visiting his flock, from which nothing but a weak body kept him, not a proud
or unwilling mind; the obstruction he met with in this part of his duty, from
his tender habit of body (which would not suffer him so frequently to perform
it as he desired), was his great sorrow both living and dying; yet having this
to comfort him, that the frailty of his body was his affliction but not his
sin. Consider him in his next relative capacity, as a child, how dutiful and
obsequious! O how great was that tribute of veneration and respect which he so
constantly paid to the hoary hairs of his aged parents! As a husband, how
tender and compassionate; as a parent, how indulgent and affectionate; as a
minister, how kind and munificent! Thus was he universally good in all
station’s, and lived religion in every capacity. And if you desire to
imitate him herein also, as becomes you, dress then your souls by that glass
daily, which his dying hand last held up before your eyes, I mean by heavenly
meditation, make those useful truths your own, which you last heard from him
upon Tit. ii. 12, “That, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;” which Christian
lesson, if it shall be as practically learned by you, as it was faithfully
taught by him, I will be bold to say thus much in the singular commendation of
you his people, that you will thereby give the world a convictive instance
that this age hath virtues as stupendous as its vices!
‘THE CONCLUSION.—Thus I have given myself the
satisfaction of doing my duty in propounding your ministers example to your
Christian view. Let none censoriously say I have been all this while painting
the prophet’s sepulchre. No, but describing the prophet himself, and with
this single and sincere intention, that you may timely know you have had a
prophet of the Lord among you; a person that had omnia in se sempiterna
praeter corpusculum—all things living and lasting to eternity except his
body, which was the only thing he had subject to mortality, and besides which,
nothing of him doth see corruption. It will be below the merit of his person,
as well as the greatness of our loss, to celebrate his death in womanish
complaints, or indeed by any verbal lamentations; nor can anything beseem his
memory but what is sacred and divine, as his writings are. May his just fame
from them, and from his virtues, be precious to all succeeding ages; and when
elegies committed to the trust of marble shall be as illegible as if they had
been writ in water, when all stately pyramids shall be dissolved in dust, and
all the venerable monuments of antiquity be devoured by the corroding teeth of
time, then let this short character, describing him in his best and fullest
portraiture, remain of him; viz. that he was a CHRISTIAN IN COMPLETE
ARMOUR.’
Gurnall’s widow survived her husband nineteen years, and
seems to have resided at Lavenham. At any rate she was buried at Lavenham on
September 7, 1698, and the grant of administration to her property called her
‘Sarah Gurnall, widow, of Lavenham, deceased.’
Gurnall left at least eight children, according to M’Keon,
two having died young.
1. Sarah, baptized April 2, 1646, married to Mr. Mayor of
Newcastle-on-Tyne.
2. Susannah, baptized April 4, 1650, married the Rev.
Samuel Beachcroft, of Emanuel College, Cambridge, rector of Semer, Suffolk.
3. Catherine, the date of whose baptism we do not know,
married the Rev. Bezaliel Peachie, of Emanuel College, Cambridge, vicar of
Bures St. Mary, near Sudbury, who was one of the witnesses of Gurnall’s
will.
4. Elizabeth, baptized April 25, 1655, married the Rev.
Philip Richardson of Christ’s College, Cambridge, a clergyman of Ipswich.
5. Ann, baptized February 11, 1655, continued to live with
her mother at Lavenham until her decease in 1698, and married in June, 1700,
Mr. William Manthorp of Lowestoft.
6. Another sister, whose name is not known, married a Mr.
Shaftoe of Newcastle-on-Tyne.
7. Thomas, baptized March 13, 1659, settled at Little
Waldingfield, and was buried there in 1723.
8. Joseph, baptized July 23, 1662, was an attorney, and
according to M‘Keon’s belief, resided at Lavenham.
9. John, baptized December 24, 1664, was sent to Christ’s
College, proceeded B.A. in 1685, and afterward became curate of Brockley until
1698. He was buried at Lavenham on February 6,1700.
10. Leonard, baptized May 11, 1669, is one of whom nothing
is known.
I can find no trace of Gurnall’s descendants in the
present day. There is no one, so far as I can learn, of his name at Lavenham.
The rectory house in which he lived is no Longer standing. The living of
Lavenham has passed into the hands of Caius College, Cambridge. Everything
connected with the good man, except his book, seems to have ragged away. By it
alone, ‘he being dead yet speaketh.’
I have now completely exhausted all the information I can
supply about the author of The Christian in Complete Armour, and can only
express my deep regret that I can tell the reader nothing more. It certainly
does seem rather tantalizing that a writer of the seventeenth century,—who
is better known by name than almost any of the Puritans—who lived within
twenty miles of such men as Owen, Marshall, Newcomen, Young, and
Stockton,—who resided for thirty-five years in a town, of some little
importance two hundred years ago, in a county so well known at that time as
Suffolk—that such a man should have passed away and so very little be known
about him. ‘But so it is. Gurnall’s case, perhaps, does not stand alone.
Perhaps the last day will prove that some of the best and holiest men that
ever lived are hardly known.
Nothing now remains for me to do except to say a few words
about Gurnall’s literary works, which are now, for the first time, brought
together in a complete form.
The first of Gurnall’s works, and indeed the one by which
he is commonly known, is his famous book, The Christian in Complete Armour.
This well-known book consists, like many of the theological writings of the
seventeenth century, of sermons or lectures delivered by the author in the
course of his regular ministry, in a consecutive course on Eph. vi. 10-20.
It was originally published in three small 4to volumes, and
in three portions, at three different times. The first volume, containing Eph.
vi. 10-13, was published in 1655. This volume is dedicated to ‘the
inhabitants of Lavenham, my dearly beloved friends and neighbours,’ and the
dedication contains a distinct statement, that the book consists of sermons
preached at Lavenham. ‘What I present you,’ says Gurnall, ‘within this
treatise, is a dish from your own table, and so (I hope) will go down the
better. You cannot despise it, though the fare be mean, except you will blame
yourselves who chose the cook.’ There is a date at the end of the dedication
which happily serves to show when the work was published. It is dated January
1, 1655. My copy is the second edition.
The second volume of the course, containing Eph. vi. 14-16,
was published in 1658. It contains a dedication to Thomas Darcy, Esq., Mrs.
Sisilia Darcy, his religious console, at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, from which
it appears that Mrs. Darcy was daughter of Sir Symond D’Ewes, Gurnall’s
patron. The dedication is dated Lavenham, October, 1657. My copy is the first
edition.
The third volume of the work, containing Eph. vi. 17-20,
was published in 1662. It is dedicated to Lady Mary Vere, Baroness of Tilbury,
a lady well known in the seventeenth century, and daughter of William Tracey,
Esq., of Toddington in Gloucestershire. The dedication is dated August 28,
1661. My copy is the first edition.
Comment, or recommendation, is perhaps needless in speaking
of Gurnall’s great work. The fact that a sixth edition was published in the
year the author died, 1679, is enough to show that its merits were early
recognized. The high reputation it has ‘always borne among lovers of sound
English divinity down to the present day, is another fact which ought not to
be forgotten. Other theological works of the seventeenth century were famous
in their day, but are now seldom read. The Christian in Complete Armour is a
work that is read and enjoyed by thousands up to this time.
One grand peculiarity of The Christian in Complete Armour
is the soundness and scriptural proportion of its doctrinal statements. There
is nothing extravagant and overstretched in Gurnall’s exhibition of any
point, either in faith or practice. Nothing is glaringly over-coloured,
nothing is completely thrown into the shade. In this respect it is eminently
like Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, a work so beautifully proportioned in
doctrine, that Calvinist and Arminian, Churchman and Dissenter, are all alike
agreed in admiring it.
Another striking peculiarity of Gurnall’s book is its
profusion of illustrations and comparisons. You can hardly open a page of the
work without meeting with some vivid image or picture of divine things, which
lights up the whole subject under consideration like a sunbeam. I am not
prepared to say that in this respect Gurnall surpasses Brookes, Watson, or
Swinnock, but I am quite sure that he deserves to be classed with them Happy
would it be for the church if this gift of illustration was more common and
more cultivated by preachers. The man whose sermons are best remembered is the
man who, like his divine Master, ‘uses similitudes.’
One more beautiful feature in Gurnall’s book is its
richness in pithy, pointed, and epigrammatical sayings. Page after page might
be filled, if a collection was made of all the short, golden sentences which
are to be found in The Christian in Complete Armour. You will often find in a
line and a half some great truth, put so concisely, and yet so fully, that you
really marvel how so much thought could be got into so few words.
It would be easy to heap up testimonies to the value of
Gurnall’s Christian in Complete Armour. Baxter and Flavel both thought most
highly of the book. Toplady used to make copious extracts from it in his
common-place book. John Newton said that if he was confined to one book beside
the Bible, he dared say Gurnall’s Christian Armour would be his choice.
Cecil spent many of the last days of his life in reading it, and repeatedly
expressed his admiration of it. But I have said enough already to weary the
reader, and the best advice I can give him is to read the book for himself in
the beautiful edition in which it now appears, and to judge for himself.
Two other books, and two only, are known to have been
published by Gurnall, in addition to his great work The Christian in Complete
Armour. Both of these are single sermons preached on special occasions.
One of these sermons is called ‘The Magistrate’s
Portraiture drawn from the Word’. It was preached at Stowmarket, in Suffolk,
upon August 20,1656, ‘before the election of parliament recurs for the same
county,’ and published the same year. The subject of the sermon is Isaiah i.
26. It is an excellent sermon, and worthy of the author in every way.
The other sermon is called ‘The Christian’s Labour and
Reward.’ It was preached at Castle Hedingham, in Essex, on January 10, 1671,
and published in 1672. It consists chiefly of a discourse preached at the
funeral of Lady Mary Vere, widow of Sir Horace Vere of Tilbury, the lady to
whom the third volume of The Christian in Complete Armour is dedicated. It
contains a dedication to Elizabeth, Countess Dowager of Glare, who was Lady
Mary Vere’s daughter. It is a good sermon undoubtedly, but would have been
better if it had been more compressed. However, the preachers of funeral
sermons are seldom allowed much time for their preparation, and perhaps
Gurnall had no time to make his sermon shorter.
These two sermons are now brought out for the first time in
the same edition, and side by side with The Christian in Complete Armour, and
the reading public will now, at last, possess A COMPLETE EDITION OF
GURNALL’S WORKS.10
I have seen it asserted that Gurnall, in addition to the
works already mentioned, published a volume of sermons in 1660. M’Keon says
that this volume is mentioned in Cooke’s Preacher’s Assistant, published
in 1783, and that a bookseller in London told him that he had himself seen a
copy.
In reply to this I can only say that no such volume of
sermons is to be found in the British Museum, nor in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, nor in the Redcross-street Library” in London. Neither can I hear of
any living man, whether bookseller or collector of old divinity, who ever saw
the volume. I must therefore be allowed to think that M’Keon made a mistake,
and that no such volume was ever published.
I now conclude this preface by expressing my earnest hope
that this new edition of Gurnall’s work may find many readers as well as
purchasers. It is indeed to be desired that solid scriptural theology, like
that contained in these pages, should be valued and studied in the church.
Books in which Scripture is reverently regarded as the only rule of faith and
practice—books in which Christ and the Holy Ghost have their rightful
office—books in which justification, and sanctification, and regeneration,
and faith, and grace, and holiness are clearly, distinctly, and accurately
delineated and exhibited, these are the only books which do real good. Few
things need reviving more than a taste for such books as these among readers.
April 23, 1864
For my own, part, I can only say that I read everything I
can get hold of which professes to throw light on my Master’s business, and
the work of Christ among men. But the more I read, the less I admire modern
theology. The more I study the productions of the new schools of theological
teachers, the more I marvel that men and women can be satisfied with such
writing. There is a vagueness, a mistiness, a shallowness, an indistinctness,
a superficiality, an aimlessness, a hollowness about the literature of the
‘broader and kinder systems,’ as they are called, which, to my mind,
stamps their origin on their face. They are of the earth, earthy. I find more
of definite soul-satisfying thought in one page of Gurnall than in five pages
of such books as the leaders of the so-called ‘Broad Church School’ put
forth. In matters of theology ‘the old is better.
FOOTNOTES
1 Mr. Hankinson, the present rector of St.
Margaret’s, Lynn, informs me that the name ‘Gurnall,’ to the best of his
knowledge, is no longer known in Lynn. But he says that the name Gurling is
not uncommon, and that he has little doubt it was originally ‘Gurnal.’ He
adds, ‘I find an entry of baptism in 1799, where the name is “Gurnell or
Gurling.”
2 Hairsnet, White, Corbet, Wren, and.
Montague were Bishops of Norwich between 1619 and 1641. Three of them, at
least, viz. Harsnet, Wren, and Montague, were notoriously very High Churchmen,
and strongly opposed to the Puritans.
3 John Arrowsmith was born at Gateshead in
1602. He was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and was chosen
fellow of Katherine Hall. He was elected one of the university preachers, was
beneficed at Lynn, and was afterwards preacher at St. Margaret’s,
Ironmonger’s Lane, London. He was a leading member of the Westminster
Assembly, and had a principal share in drawing up the Assembly’s Catechism.
He was elected master of St. John’s College in 1644, and was chosen
vice-chancellor of Cambridge in 1647. In 1651 he was appointed regius
professor of divinity, and rector of Somersham. He was chosen master of
Trinity College in 1653, died in 1659, and was buried in Trinity College
Chapel. His commentary on the first seventeen verses of the first chapter of
St. John’s Gospel, entitled ‘God-Man,’ gives a very favourable
impression of his ability.
Samuel Fairclough was born at Haverhill in
1594, and was educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge. He was appointed
lecturer at Lynn by the mayor and aldermen in 1619, and continued there,
according to Samuel Clarke, who gives a long and most interesting account of
him, ‘for some time.’ The opposition and persecution of Harsnet, Bishop of
Norwich, obliged him to resign this lecture. He was afterwards lecturer at
Clare, in Suffolk, and was then appointed rector of Keddington by Sir N.
Barnardiston. He resigned this living in 1662, on account of the Act of
Uniformity. He died in retirement in 1677, aged 84. Though a retiring man, and
not known by any writings, he seems to have been a man of singular gifts and
graces. There is an interesting tablet in Heveningham Church, erected by his
daughter, wife of Mr. Jones, rector of Heveningham. He lived at Heveningham
for two years, but died at Stowmarket.
4 ‘Usher’s Correspondence, No. 179.
5 The same record of Gurnall’s
presentation, word for word, is to be found in the Norwich Register of
Institutions, No. 24. 1638-1648.
6 As a general rule I have given the letters
as translated by M’Keon. In a few instances I have attempted to mend his
translation.
7 By the kindness of the present Bishop of
Norwich, I have been enabled to verify all the three remarkable dates above
given from the registry at Norwich.
8 The title of this libellous attack is so
curious that I give it entire—Covenant Renouncers Desperate Apostates,
opened in two letters, written by a Christian friend to Mr. W. Gurnall, of
Lavenham in Suffolk, which may indefinitely serve as an admonition to all such
Presbyterian ministers or others, who have forced their conscience, not only
to leap over, but to renounce their solemn covenant obligation to endeavour a
reformation according to God’s word, and the extirpation of all prelatical
superstitions, and contrary thereunto conform to those superstitious vanities
against which they had so solemnly sworn. Printed in Anti-turncoat Street, and
sold at the sign of Truth’s Delight, right opposite to Backsliding Alley,
4to. 1665.’
9 Reynolds was made Bishop of Norwich by
Charles II. in 1661. He was a thorough Puritan and a prominent member of the
famous Westminster Assembly of Divines. When the bishopric of Norwich was
offered to him, the bishopric of Hereford at the same time was offered to
Baxter, the bishopric of Lichfield to Calamy, the deanery of Rochester to
Manton, and the deanery of Coventry to Bates. All these eminent puritan
divines refused preferment when Reynolds accepted. Their refusal, I venture to
think, was the greatest misfortune that ever befell the Church of England, and
the most singular instance of mistaken judgment on record in church history.
If Reynolds, Baxter, and Calamy had all been bishops, and Manton and Bates
been deans, I doubt if the Act of Uniformity, in its present shape, could ever
have passed.
10 These two sermons are omitted from the
present reprint.
will save)
would
affirm today; it's the same truth He
attested to as he walked this earth
some 2000 years ago - an exclusive way to the Father
(John 14:6) and that man,
as a sinful creature, is in need of a
Saviour.(John
3:16-21).
Light From Old Times