The Great Plague. The Story of London\'s Most Deadly Year

Not by Bread Alone • 235

from visiting their daughter at the boarding home she shared with George’s
sisters. George pressed on and was relieved to be let in for supper with his

sisters. The next Wednesday being a Fast Day, George went to Saint Katha-
rine Creechurch, where the most electrifying preacher of the plague, Thomas
Vincent, was conducting the service. The gentleman he had met on the road
on Friday entered the pew in deep mourning, sitting close to George. In-

quiring about the couple’s health, George was startled to learn that his wife
had died since their last meeting and had been buried the night before.
George was at first “somewhat affrited” and about to flee. “But I remem-
bered my selfe, and attended all day during the service (to my great com-

fort).” Years later Boddington remembered the four ministers who had offi-
ciated and marveled at his escape from the infection despite his staying on
through the long service. God had cast him down, he declared, and then

raised him up. With similar words the Baptist preacher and future author of
The Pilgrim’s Progress,John Bunyan, marveled at God preserving him while
in an infected country jail: “He woundeth and his hands made whole.”^3

Faith and Fear

The Lord doth not afflict and torment them that abide in his Counsell with the

fear and terror of these things, as the unfaithful and unbelieving are tormented

and afflicted.

—William Catonto English Quakers, September 8 , 1665

No doubt George Boddington’s faith carried him through the plague, just as

he claimed. He had followed the rule that God had set down for the ancient
Israelites during their forty years in the desert and that Jesus had repeated
when tempted by the devil during his forty-day fast in the wilderness: “Man
doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the

mouth of the Lord doth man live.”^4 Still, Boddington’s trust in God was
surely made easier by his family’s material security. His father’s office holding
in the neighborhood parish, too, helped assuage any fear he might have har-
bored of being jailed as a secret nonconformist. Many poor dissenters, espe-

cially Quakers, faced greater tests of their faith than this privileged young
man ever did.
A Quaker leader in Holland, William Caton, heard of these London
Friends’ travails. “I know these things are not joyous, but rather grievous,” he