The Life and Death of John Eliot, Conclusion
The Conclusion, or, Eliot Expiring,
BY this time, I have doubtless made my Readers loth to have me tell what now remains of this little History; doubtless they are wishing that this John might have Tarried untill the Second coming of our Lord. But, alas, All devouring Death at last snatch'd him from us, and slighted all those Lamentations of ours, My Father, My Father, the Chariots of Israel, and the Horsemen thereof!
When he was become a sort of Miles Emeritus; and began to draw near his End, he grew still more Heavenly, more Savory, more Divine, and Scented more of the Spicy Country at which he was ready to put ashore. As the Historian observes, of Tiberius; That when his Life and Strength were going from him, his Vice yet remained with him; on the contrary, the Grace of this Excellent Man rather increased than abated, when every thing else was dying with him. 'Tis too usual with Old Men, that when they are past work, they are least sensible of their inabilities and incapacities, and can scarce endure to see another succeeding them in any part of their Office. But our Eliot was of a Temper quite contrary thereunto; for finding many Months before his Expiration, That he had not Strength enough to Edify his Congregation with publick Prayers and Sermons, he importun'd his People with some impatience to call another Minister; professing himself, unable to die with comfort, until he could se a good Successor Ordain'd, Settled and Fixed among them. For this Cause, he also cry'd mightily unto the Lord Jesus, our Ascended Lord, that he would give such a gift unto Roxbury; and he sometimes call'd his whole Town together, to joyn with him in a Fast for such a Blessing. As the return of their Supplications, our Lord quickly bestow'd upon them, a Person young in Years, but old in Discretion, Gravity and Experience; and one whom the Church of Roxbury hopes to find, A Pastor after God's own Heart.
It was Mr. Nehemiah Walter, who being by the unanimous Vote and Choice of the Church there, become the Pastor of Roxbury, immediately found the Venerable Eliot Embracing and Cherishing of him, with the tender Affections of a Father. The good Old Man like Old Aaron as it were disrobed himself, with an unspeakable Satisfaction, when he beheld his Garments put upon a Son so dear unto him. After this, he for a year or two before his Translation, could scarce be perswaded unto any publick Service, but humbly pleaded, what none but he would ever have said, It would be a wrong to the Souls of the people, for him to do any thing among them, when they were supplyed so much to their Advantage otherwise. If I mistake not, the Last that ever he Preached was on a publick Fast; when he fed his People with a very distinct, and useful Exposition upon the Eighty Third Psalm; and he concluded with an Apology, begging his Hearers to pardon the poorness, and meanness and brokenness, (as he called it) of his Meditations, but added he, My dear Brother here, will by and by mend all.
But altho' he thus dismissed himself, as one so near to the Age of Ninety, might well have done from his publick Labours; yet he would not give over his endeavours, in a more private Sphere, to Do good unto all. He had always been an Enemy to Idleness; any one that should look into the little Diary that he kept in his Almanacks would see that there was with him, No day without a Line; he was troubled when he saw how much Time was devoured by the slavery to Tobacco, which too many debase themselves unto; and now he grew old, he was desirous that his Work should hold pace with his Life; the less Time he saw left, the less was he willing to have lost. He imagined that he could now do nothing to any purpose in any Service for God; and sometimes he would say with an Air peculiar to himself, I wonder for what the Lord Jesus Christ lets me live; he knows that now I can do nothing for him! And yet he could not forbear Essaying to do something for his dearest Lord; wherefore, thought he, What shall I do? And he then conceived, that tho' the English could not be benefited by any Gifts which he now fancied himself to have only the Ruines of, yet who can tell but the Negro's might! He had long lamented it with a bleeding and burning passion, that the English used their Negro's but as for Horses for their Oxen, and that so little care was taken about their precious and immortal Souls, he look'd upon it as a Prodigy, that any wearing the Name of Christians, should so much have the Heart of Devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the Instructions of the poor Blackamoores, and confine the Souls of their miserable Slaves to a destroying ignorance, meerly for fear of thereby losing the benefit of their Vassalage; but now he made a motion to the English within two or three miles of him, that at such a time and place they would send their Negro's once a week unto him: For he would then Catechise them, and Enlighten them to the utmost of his power in the things of their Everlasting Peace; however, he did not live to make much progress in this Undertaking.
At length when he was able to do little without doors, he try'd then to do something within; and one thing was this. A young Boy in the Neighbourhood, had in his Infancy fallen into a fire, so as to burn himself into a perfect Blindness; but this Boy being now grown to some bigness, the good old Man took him home to his house, with some intentions to make a Scholar of him. He first informed him of and from the Scripture, in which the Boy so profited, that in a little time he could even Repeat many whole Chapters Verbatim, and if any other in Reading missed a word, he would mind them of it; yea, and an ordinary piece of Latin was become easie to the Lad; but having his own Eyes closed by Death, he could no longer help the poor Child against the want of his.
Thus, as the Aged Polycarp could say, These Eighty Six years have I served my Lord Jesus Christ; and he has been such a good Master to me all this while, that I will not now forsake him. Such a Polycarp was our Eliot; he had been so many years engaged in the sweet service of his dear Jesus, that he could not now give it over: 'Twas his Ambition and his Priviledge, to bring forth Fruit in old Age; and what veneration the Church of Smyrna paid unto that Angel of theirs, we were upon the like Accounts willing to give unto this Man of God.
While he was thus making his Retreat out of this evil World, his Discourses from time to time ran upon, The Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; it was the Theme which he still had Recourse unto, and we were sure to have something of this, whatever other Subject he were upon. On this he talk'd, of this he pray'd, for this he long'd, and especially when any bad News arriv'd, his usual reflection thereupon would be, Behold some of the Clouds in which we must look for the coming of the Son of Man. At last, his Lord, for whom he had been long wishing, Lord come, I have been a great while ready for thy coming! at last, I say, his Lord came, and fetched him away into the Joy of his Lord.
He fell into some Languishments, attended with a Fever, which in a few days brought him into the Pangs (may I say? or Joys) of Death; and while he lay in these, Mr. Walter coming to him, he said unto him, Brother, Thou art welcome to my very Soul. Pray, Retire to my Study for me, and give me leave to be gone; meaning that he should not, by Petitions to Heaven for his Life, detain him here. It was in these Languishments, that speaking about the Work of the Gospel among the Indians, he did after this heavenly manner express himself, There is a Cloud (said he) a dark Cloud upon the Work of the Gospel among the poor Indians. The Lord revive and prosper that Work and grant it may live when I am dead. It is a Work which I have been doing much and long about. But what was the word I spoke last? I recal that word, My Doings: Alas, they have been poor and small and lean Doings, and I'll be the Man that shall throw the first stone at them all.
It has been observed, that they who have spoke many considerable things in their Lives, usually speak few at their Deaths. But it was otherwise with our Eliot, who after much Speech of and for God in his Life-time, uttered some things little short of Oracles on his Death bed; which, 'tis a thousand Pities, they were not more exactly regarded and recorded. Those Authors that have taken the pains to Collect, Apophthegmata Morentium, have not therein been unserviceable to the Living; but the Apophthegms of a Dying Eliot must have had in them a Grace and a Strain truly extraordinary; and indeed the vulgar Error of the signal Sweetness in the Song of a Dying Swan, was a very Truth in our expiring Eliot; his last Breath smelt strong of Heaven, and was Articled into none but very gracious Notes; one of the last whereof, was, welcome Joy! and at last it went away, calling upon the standers by, to Pray, pray, pray! which was the thing in which so vast a Portion of it had been before employ'd.
This was the Peace, in the end of this Perfect and upright Man; thus was there another Star fetched away to be placed among the rest that the third Heaven is now enriched with. He had once, I think, a pleasant Fear, that the old Saints of his Acquaintance, especially those two dearest Neighbours of his, Cotton of Boston, and Mather of Dorchester, which were got safe to Heaven before him, would suspect him to be gone the wrong way because he staid so long behind them. But they are now together with a blessed Jesus, beholding of his Glory, and celebrating the high Praises of Him that has call'd them into his marvellous light. Whether Heaven was any more Heaven to him, because of his finding there so many Saints with whom he once had his Delicious and Celestial Intimacies, yea, and so many Saints which had been the Seals of his own Ministry, in this lower world, I cannot say; but it would be Heaven enough unto him, to go unto that Jesus, whom he had lov'd, preach'd, serv'd, and in whom he had been long assured, there does All fulness dwell. In that Heaven I now leave him: But not without Grynaeus's Pathetical Exclamations [O beatum illum dieum!] Blessed will be the Day, O blessed the Day of our Arrival to the glorious Assembly of Spirits, which this great Saint is now rejoicing with!
Bereaved New-England, where are thy Tears, at this ill boding Funeral? We had a Tradition among us, That the Country could never perish as long as Eliot was alive. But into whose hands must this Hippo fall, now the Austin of it is taken away? Our Elisha is gone, and now who must next year invade the Land? The Jews have a saying, Quando Luminaria paetiuntur Eclipsin, malim signum est mundo: But I am sure, 'tis a dismal Eclipse that has now befallen our New-English World. I confess, many of the Ancients fell into the vanity of esteeming the Reliques of the Dead Saints, to be the Towers and Ramparts of the place that enjoy'd them; and the dead Bodies of two Apostles in the City, made the Poet cry out, A Facie Hostilis duo propugnacula praesunt.
If the Dust of dead Saints could give us any protection, we are not without it; here is a Spot of American Soil that will afford a rich Crop of it, at the Resurrection of the Just. Poor New England has been as Glastenbury of old was called, A Burying Place of Saints, But we cannot see a more terrible Prognostick than Tombs filling apace with such Bones, as those of the Renowned Eliot's: The whole Building of this Country trembles at the fall of such a Pillar.
For many Months before he dy'd, he would often cheerfully tells us, That he was shortly going to Heaven, and that he would carry a deal of good News thither with him; he said, He would carry Tidings to the Old Founders of New England, which were now in Glory, that Church work was yet carried on among us: That the number of our Churches was continually encreasing: and that the Churches were still kept as big as they were, by the daily additions of those that shall be saved. But the going of such as he from us, will apace diminish the occasions of such happy tidings,
What shall we now say? Our Eliot himself used most affectionately to bewail the Death of all useful Men; yet if one brought him the notice of such a thing, with any Dispondencies, or said, O Sir, such a one is Dead, what shall we do? He would answer, Well, but God lives, Christ lives, the Old Saviour of New England yet lives, and he will Reign till all his Enemies are made his Footstool. This and only this consideration have we to relieve us; and let it be accompanied with our addresses to the God of the Spirits of all Flesh, That there may be Timothies raised up in the room of our departed Pauls; and that when our Moses's are gone, the Spirit which was in those brave men, may be put upon the surviving Elders of our Israel.
The last thing, that ever our Eliot put off, was, The care of all the Churches, which with a most Apostolical and Evangelical Temper he was continually solicitous about. When the Churches of New England were under a very uncomfortable prospect, by the advantage which men that sought the Ruine of those Golden and Holy, and Reformed Societies, had obtained against them, God put it into the heart of one well-known in these Churches, to take a Voyage into England, that he might by his Mediations at Whitehall, divert the Storms that were then impending over us. 'Tis not easy to express what Affection our Aged Eliot prosecuted this undertaking with; and what Thanksgiving he rendred unto God for any hopeful Successes of it. But because one of the last Times, and for ought I know, The Last, of his ever setting Pen to Paper in the World, was upon this occasion; I shall transcribe a short Letter, which was written by the shaking hand, that had heretofore by Writing deserved so well from the Church of God, but was now taking its leave of writing for ever. It was written to the Person that was Engaging for us, and thus it ran;
Reverend and Beloved, Mr. Increase Mather.
I cannot write. Read Neh. 2.10. When Sanbalat the Horonite, and Tobijah the Servant, the Ammonite heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, that there was come a Man to seek the Welfare of the Children of Israel.
Let thy blessed Soul feed full and fat upon this and other Scriptures. All other things I leave to other Men; and rest,
Your Loving Brother, John Eliot.
These two or three Lines manifest the Care of the Churches which breath'd in this great old Man, as long as he had a Breath to draw in the World. And since he has left few like him for a comprehensive and universal Regard unto the Prosperity… all the Flocks in this Wilderness, we hav… little now to comfort us in the loss of on… so like a Patriarch among us, but only this; That our poor Churches, it may be hop'd, have still some Interest in the Cares of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who walks in the midst of the Golden Candlesticks. Lord make our Churches and keep them, yet Golden Candlesticks! Amen.
But I have not obtained the end of this History, nor may I let this History come to an end, until I do with some importunity bespeak the Endeavours of good Men every where, to labour in that Harvest which the blessed ELIOT justly counted worthy of his utmost Pains and Cares. It was the Confession of Themistocles, that the Victories of Miltiades would not let him sleep in quietness; may those of our Eliot raise a like Emulation in those that have now seen the Life of this Evangelical Hero! When one Robert Baily many years ago, published a Book, where in several gross Lyes by which the nam… of that JOHN COTTON, who was known to be one of the holiest Men then alive, was most injuriously made odious unto the Churches abroad, were accompanied with some Reflections upon poor New England, whereof this was one, The …y of their Churches hath most exceedingly …ndred the conversion of the poor Pagans; …f all that ever crossed the American Seas, …hey are noted as most neglectful of the work …f Conversion. We have now seen those Aspersions and Calumnies abundantly wip'd away. But let that which has been the Vindication of New-England, be also the Emulation of the World; for shame, let not poor little New-England, …e the only Protestant Country that shall do any notable thing for the Propagation of the Faith, unto those dark Corners of the Earth which are full of Cruel Habitations. But the Addresses of so mean a Person as my self, are like to prevail but little abroad with Men of Learning and Figure in the World. However, I shall presume to utter my Wishes in the sight of my Readers; and it is possible that the Great God, who despises not the Prayer of the Poor, may by the Influences of his Holy Spirit, upon the Hearts of some whose Eyes are upon these Lines, give a blessed Answer thereunto.
Wherefore may the People of New-England, who have seen so sensible a difference between the Estates of those that Sell Drink, and of those that Preach Truth, unto the miserable Salvages among them, as that even this alone might inspire them, yet from a nobler consideration than that of their own outward prosperity thereby advanced, be encouraged still to prosecute, first the Civilizing, and then the Christianizing of the Barbarians in their Neighbourhood; and may the New Englanders be so far Politick as well as Religious, as particularly to make a Mission of the Gospel unto the mighty Nations of the Western Indians, whom the French have been of late so studiously, but so unsuccessfully tampering with; lest those horrid Pagans, who lately (as 'tis credibly affirmed) had such a measure of Devilism and Insolence in them, as to shoot a Volley of great and small shot against the Heavens, in Revenge upon the Man in the Heavens, as they called our Lord, whom they counted the Author of the heavy Calamities which newly have distressed them, be found spared by our long suffering Lord, [who then indeed presently tore the Ground asunder, with immediate and horrible Thunders from Heaven round about them, but kill'd them not!] for a scourge to us, that have not used our advantages to make a vertuous People of them. If a King of the West-Saxons long since ascribed all the Disasters on any of their Affairs, to Negligencies in this Point: Methinks the New-Englanders may not count it unreasonable in this way to seek their own prosperity. Shall we do what we can that our Lord Jesus may bestow upon America, which may more justly be call'd Columba, that Salutation, O my Dove!
May the several Plantations, that live upon the Labours of their Negroes, no more be guilty of such a prodigious wickedness, as to deride, neglect, and oppose all due means of bringing their poor Negroes unto our Lord; but may the Masters, of whom God will one day require the Souls of the Slaves committed unto them, see to it, that like Abraham, they have Catechized Servants; and not imagine that the Almighty God made so many thousands of reasonable Creatur…s for nothing but only to serve the Lusts of Epicures, or the gains of Mammonists, lest the God of Heaven out of meer Pity, if not Justice, unto those unhappy Blacks, be provoked unto a Vengeance which may not without horrour be thought upon: Lord when shall we see Ethiopians read thy Scriptures with Understanding!
May the English Nation do what may be done, that the Welch may not be destroyed for the lack of Knowledge, lest our indisposition to do for their Souls, bring upon us all those Judgments of Heaven, which Gildas their Country-man once told them, that they suffered for their disregards unto ours; and may the nefandous Massacres of the English by the Irish, awaken the English to consider, whether they have done enough to reclaim the Irish from the Popish Bigottries and Abominations, with which they have been intoxicated.
May the several Factories and Companies, whose Concerns lie in Asia, Affrica, or America, be perswaded, as Jacob once, and befo…e him his Grand-Father Abraham was, That they always owe unto God certain Proportions of their Possessions; by the honest payments of which little Quit-rents, they would certainly secure and enlarge their Enjoyment of the Principal; but that they are under a very particular Obligations to Communicate of our Spiritual things unto those Heathen, by whose Carnal things they are enriched: And may they therefore make it their study, to employ some able and pious Ministers, for the Instruction of those Infidels with whom they have to deal, and honourably support such Minsters in that Employment.
May the poor Greeks, Armenians, Muscovites, and others, in the Eastern Countries, wearing the name of Christians, that have little Preaching, and no Printing, and few Bibles, or good Books, now at last be furnished with Bibles, Orthodox Catechisms, and Practical Treatises by the Charity of England; and may our Presses provide good stores of good Books for them, in their own Tongues, to be scattered among them. Who knows what Convulsions might be hastened upon the whole Mahomitan World by such an extensive Charity!
May sufficient Numbers of Great, Wise, Rich, Learned and Godly Men in the Three Kingdoms, procure well-composed Societies, by whose United Counsels the Noble Design of Evangelizing the World, may he more effectually carried on; and if some generous Persons will of their own accord combine for such Consultations, who can tell, but like some other Celebrated Societies heretofore formed from such small beginnings, they may soon have that countenance of Authority which may produce very Glorious Effects, and give Opportunity to gather vast Contributions from all well-disposed People, to Assist and Advance this Progress of Christianity. God forbid, that Popery should expend upon Cheating more then ten times what we do upon Saving the Immortal Souls of Men.
Lastly, May many Worthy Men, who find their Circumstances will allow of it, get the Language of some Nations that are not yet brought home to God, and wait upon the Divine Providence, for God's Leading them to, and Owning them in their Apostolical Undertakings. When they remember what Ruffinus relates concerning the Conversion of the Iberians; and what Socrates, with other Authors relates concerning the Conversson wrought by occasion of Frumentius and Aedesius, in the Inner-India, all as it were by accident, surely 'twill make them try what may be done by design for such things now in our Days! Thus let them see, whither while we at home in the midst of wearisome Temptations, are Angling with Rods, which now and then catch one Soul for our LORD, they shall not be Fishing with Nets, which will bring in many thousands of those, concerning whom with unspeakable Joy in the Day of the LORD, they may say, Behold, I, and the Children which GOD has given me! Let them see, whether, supposing they should prosper no farther than to Preach the Gospel of the Kingdom in all the VVorld, for a VVitness unto all Nations, yet the End which is then to come, will not bring to them the more happy Lot, wherein they shall stand, that are found so doing.
Let no Man be discouraged by the Difficulties which the Devil will be ready to clog such Attempts, against his Kingdom with; for I will take leave so to Translate the Words of the Wise Man, in Prov. 27.4. VVho is able to stand before ZEAL? I am well-satisfied, that if Men had the Wisdom, To descern the Signs of the Times they would be all Hands at work to spread the Name of our JESUS into all the Corners of of the Earth. Grant it, O my GOD; and LORD JESUS come quickly.
FINIS.