Not by Bread Alone • 237tered infected dwellings to care for the sick. London’s Quakers followed the
Dutch example. Their severest critics acknowledged them to be among the
bravest souls of the visitation.
George Boddington’s favorite preacher, Thomas Vincent, sought to calm
the fears of other dissenters. Baptists, Presbyterians, a few leftover Seekers
and Ranters from revolutionary days, and probably more than a few Angli-
cans thirsting for spiritual help filled the city churches to overflowing when
he preached. Their anxieties would be lessened, Vincent assured them, by re-
flection on the far greater torment of unbelieving and unrepentant sinners:
“What dreadful fears do there possess the spirits, especially of those whose
consciences are full of guilt and have not made their peace with God!” How
different, Vincent declared, was the inspiring deathbed scene of true believ-
ers. “Let not the father or the mother weep to be in sadness,” he recalled say-
ing to the anguished parents of a dying son. The boy was only seventeen, yet
he had told Vincent that the Lord had enabled him to look beyond this
world: “When he was drawing neer to his end [he] boldly enquired whether
the tokens did yet appear, saying that he was ready for them.” He wanted to
console those left behind, praying that his friends not feel guilty for failing to
persuade him to flee to the country; it had been his choice. As his spiritual
leader looked on, the boy told him where he wished to be buried, asking
Vincent to preach on Psalm 16 : “In thy presence is fullness and joy, and at thy
right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”^6
Many persons must have left Vincent’s services resolved to offer up their
fate to God, only to feel fear well up again, often accompanied with grief.
Reverend Patrick told his congregation that searchers were reporting people
dying of grief. “Every day we hear of some or other that are ready to faint by
reason of the anguish of their spirits,” he acknowledged. Patrick composed
one of his most moving sermons and had it printed for parishioners shut up
in their houses;A Consolatory Discourse persuading to a cheerful Trust in God in
these times of Trouble and Dangerwas remembered two centuries later, ap-
pearing in a collection of sermons entitled Christmas Classics.To families
shut up with the plague and worried worshipers in his pews, he held out the
same hope: God does not give us more than we can bear; He will dispose of
us as He wishes, according to his plans.^7