Many of the clergymen likewise were dead,and others gone into the country;for it really required a steady courage and a strong faith for a man not only to venture being in town at such a time as this,but likewise to venture to come to church and perform the office of a minister to a congregation,of whom he had reason to believe many of them were actually infected with the plague,and to do this every day,or twice a day,as in some places was done.
It is true the people showed an extraordinary zeal in these religious exercises,and as the church-doors were always open,people would go in single at all times,whether the minister was officiating or no,and locking themselves into separate pews,would be praying to God with great fervency and devotion.
Others assembled at meeting-houses,every one as their different opinions in such things guided,but all were promiscuously the subject of these men's drollery,especially at the beginning of the visitation.
It seems they had been checked for their open insulting religion in this manner by several good people of every persuasion,and that,and the violent raging of the infection,I suppose,was the occasion that they had abated much of their rudeness for some time before,and were only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and atheism at the clamour which was made when the gentleman was first brought in there,and perhaps were agitated by the same devil,when I took upon me to reprove them;though I did it at first with all the calmness,temper,and good manners that I could,which for a while they insulted me the more for thinking it had been in fear of their resentment,though afterwards they found the contrary.
I went home,indeed,grieved and afflicted in my mind at the abominable wickedness of those men,not doubting,however,that they would be made dreadful examples of God's justice;for I looked upon this dismal time to be a particular season of Divine vengeance,and that God would on this occasion single out the proper objects of His displeasure in a more especial and remarkable manner than at another time;and that though I did believe that many good people would,and did,fall in the common calamity,and that it was no certain rule to 'judge of the eternal state of any one by their being distinguished in such a time of general destruction neither one way or other;yet,I say,it could not but seem reasonable to believe that God would not think fit to spare by His mercy such open declared enemies,that should insult His name and Being,defy His vengeance,and mock at His worship and worshippers at such a time;no,not though His mercy had thought fit to bear with and spare them at other times;that this was a day of visitation,a day of God's anger,and those words came into my thought,Jer.v.9:'Shall I not visit for these things?saith the Lord:and shall not My soul be avenged of such a nation as this?'
These things,I say,lay upon my mind,and I went home very much grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men's wickedness,and to think that anything could be so vile,so hardened,and notoriously wicked as to insult God,and His servants,and His worship in such a manner,and at such a time as this was,when He had,as it were,His sword drawn in His hand on purpose to take vengeance not on them only,but on the whole nation.
I had,indeed,been in some passion at first with them -though it was really raised,not by any affront they had offered me personally,but by the horror their blaspheming tongues filled me with.However,I was doubtful in my thoughts whether the resentment I retained was not all upon my own private account,for they had given me a great deal of ill language too -I mean personally;but after some pause,and having a weight of grief upon my mind,I retired myself as soon as Icame home,for I slept not that night;and giving God most humble thanks for my preservation in the eminent danger I had been in,I set my mind seriously and with the utmost earnestness to pray for those desperate wretches,that God would pardon them,open their eyes,and effectually humble them.
By this I not only did my duty,namely,to pray for those who despitefully used me,but I fully tried my own heart,to my fun satisfaction,that it was not filled with any spirit of resentment as they had offended me in particular;and I humbly recommend the method to all those that would know,or be certain,how to distinguish between their zeal for the honour of God and the effects of their private passions and resentment.
But I must go back here to the particular incidents which occur to my thoughts of the time of the visitation,and particularly to the time of their shutting up houses in the first part of their sickness;for before the sickness was come to its height people had more room to make their observations than they had afterward;but when it was in the extremity there was no such thing as communication with one another,as before.
During the shutting up of houses,as I have said,some violence was offered to the watchmen.As to soldiers,there were none to be found.-the few guards which the king then had,which were nothing like the number entertained since,were dispersed,either at Oxford with the Court,or in quarters in the remoter parts of the country,small detachments excepted,who did duty at the Tower and at Whitehall,and these but very few.Neither am I positive that there was any other guard at the Tower than the warders,as they called them,who stand at the gate with gowns and caps,the same as the yeomen of the guard,except the ordinary gunners,who were twenty-four,and the officers appointed to look after the magazine,who were called armourers.As to trained bands,there was no possibility of raising any;neither,if the Lieutenancy,either of London or Middlesex,had ordered the drums to beat for the militia,would any of the companies,I believe,have drawn together,whatever risk they had run.