THE LIFE

OF

THOMAS ELLWOOD.

ALTHOUGH my station, from not being so eminent either in the church of Christ or in the world, as that of others who have moved in higher orbs, may not afford such considerable remarks as theirs; yet, inasmuch as in the course of my travels through this vale of tears, I have passed through various, and some uncommon exercises, which the Lord hath been graciously pleased to support me under, and conduct me through, I hold it a matter excusable at least, if not commendable, to give the world some little account of my life, that, in recounting the many deliverances and preservations, which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work for me, both I, by a grateful acknowledgment thereof, and return thanksgivings unto Him therefor, may in some measure set forth his abundant goodness to me; and others, whose lot it may be to tread the same path, and fall into the same or like exercises, may be encouraged to persevere in the way of holiness, and, with full assurance of mind, to trust in the Lord, whatsoever trials may befall them.

To begin therefore with mine own beginning, I was born in the year of our Lord 1639, about the beginning of the eighth month, so far as I have been able

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to inform myself; for the parish register, which relates to the time, not of birth, but of baptism, as they call it, is not to be relied on.

The place of my birth was a little country town called Crowell, situate in the upper side of Oxfordshire, three miles eastward from Thame, the nearest market town. My father's name was Walter Ellwood, and my mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Potman; they were both well descended, but of declining families. So that what my father possessed, which was a pretty estate in lands, and more as I have heard in monies, he received, as he had done his name Walter, from his grandfather Walter Gray, whose daughter and only child was his mother.

In my very infancy, when I was but about two years old, I was carried to London. For the civil war between the king and parliament then breaking forth, my father, who favoured the parliament side, though he took not arms, not holding himself safe at his country habitation, which lay too near some garrisons of the king's, betook himself to London, that city then holding for the parliament. There was I bred up, though not without much difficulty, the city air not agreeing with my tender constitution; and there I continued until Oxford was surrendered, and the war in appearance ended.

In this time my parents contracted an acquaintance and intimate friendship with the lady Springett, then the widow of sir William Springett, who died in the parliament service, and afterwards the wife of Isaac Penington, eldest son of alderman Penington, of London. And this friendship devolving from the parents to the children, I became an early and particular playfellow to her daughter Gulielma; being admitted as such to ride with her in her little coach, drawn by her footman about Lincoln's-inn-fields. I mention this in this place, because the continuation of that acquaintance and friendship having been an occasional means of my being afterwards brought to the knowledge of

the blessed Truth, I shall have frequent cause, in the course of the following discourse, to make honourable mention of that family, to which I am under so many and great obligations.

Soon after the surrender of Oxford, my father returned to his estate at Crowell; which by that time he might have need to look after, having spent, I sup. pose, the greatest part of the monies which had been left him by his grandfather, in maintaining himself and his family at a high rate in London.

My elder brother (for I had one brother and two sisters, all elder than myself) was, while we lived in London, boarded at a private school, in the house of one Francis Atkinson, at a place called Hadley, near Barnet, in Hertfordshire, where he had made some good proficiency in the Latin and French tongues. But after we had left the city, and were re-settled in the country, he was taken from that private school, and sent to the free-school at Thame in Oxfordshire. Thither also was I sent, as soon as my tender age would permit; for I was indeed but young when I went, and yet seemed younger than I was, by reason of my low and little stature. For it was held, for some years, a doubtful point, whether I should not have proved a dwarf but after I was arrived to the fifteenth year of my age, or thereabouts, I began to shoot up, and gave not up growing till I had attained the middle size and stature of men.

At this school, which at that time was in good reputation, I profited apace, having then a natural propensity to learning; so that at the first reading over of my lession, I commonly made myself master of it and yet, which is strange to think of, few boys in the school wore out more birch than I. For though I was never, that I remember, whipped upon the score of not having my lesson ready, or of not saying it well, yet being a little busy boy, full of spirit, of a working head and active hand, I could not easily conform myself to the grave and sober rules,

and, as I then thought, severe orders of the school; but was often playing one waggish prank or other among my school-fellows, which subjected me to correction, so that I have come under the discipline of the rod twice in a forenoon; which yet brake no bones.

Had I been continued at this school, and in due time preferred to a higher, I might in likelihood have been a scholar; for I was observed to have a genius apt to learn. But my father having, so soon as the republican government began to settle, accepted the office of a justice of the peace, (which was no way beneficial, but merely honorary, and every way expensive,) and put himself into a port and course of living agreeable thereunto; and having also removed my brother from Thame school to Merton College in Oxford, and entered him there in the highest and most chargeable condition of a fellow-commoner, he found it needful to retrench his expenses elsewhere, the hurt of which fell upon me. For he thereupon took me from school, to save the charge of maintaining me there; which was somewhat like plucking green fruit from the tree, and laying it by before it was come to its due ripeness, which will thenceforth shrink and wither, and lose that little juice and relish which it began to have.

Even so it fared with me: for being taken home when I was but young, and before I was well settled in my studies, (though I had made a good progress in the Latin tongue, and was entered on the Greek,) being left too much to myself, to ply or play with my books, or without them, as I pleased, I soon shook hands with my books, by shaking my books out of my hands, and laying them, by degrees, quite aside; and addicted myself to such youthful sports and pleasures as the place afforded, and my condition could reachi unto. By this means, in a little time, I began to lose that little learning I had acquired at school; and, by a continued disuse of my books, became at length so utterly a stranger to learning, that I could not have read,

far less have understood, a sentence in Latin: which I was so sensible of, that I warily avoided reading to others, even in an English book, lest, if I should meet with a Latin word, I should shame myself by mispronouncing it.

Thus I went on, taking my swing in such vain courses as were accounted harmless recreations, entertaining my companions and familiar acquaintance with pleasant discourses in our conversations, by the mere force of mother-wit and natural parts, without the help of school cultivation; and was accounted good company too.

But I always sorted myself with persons of ingenuity, temperance, and sobriety; for I loathed scurrilities in conversation, and had a natural aversion to immoderate drinking. So that, in the time of my greatest vanity, I was preserved from profaneness, and the grosser evils of the world; which rendered me acceptable to persons of the best note in that country then. I often waited on the lord Wenman, at his house, Thame park, about two miles from Crowell, where I lived; to whose favour I held myself entitled in a twofold respect, both as my mother was nearly related to his lady, and as he had been pleased to bestow his name upon me, when he made large promises for me at the font. He was a person of great honour and virtue, and always gave me a kind reception at his table, how often soever I came. And I have cause to think, I should have received from this lord some advantageous preferment in this world, as soon as he had found me capable of it, (though betwixt him and my father there was not then so good an understanding as might have been wished) had I not been in a little time after called into the service of the best and highest Lord; and thereby lost the favour of all my friends, relations, and acquaintance of this world. To the account of which most happy exchange I hasten, and therefore willingly pass over many particulars of my youthful life. Yet one passage I am