Part 18

He was a great observer of Providence, and in the course of his life met with many surprising deliverances. When he was seventeen years of age, riding on an unruly horse, who would often get the bit in his teeth, and run away with his rider, he was run away with in a very dangerous place. He was in a field of high ground, where there was a quick-set hedge on the side of him, that was the only fence; on the other side of which was a deep narrow lane, about a story's height below him. When the horse was running away with him, he turned aside on a sudden, and leaped over the hedge into the lane. He came to the ground before the horse, and yet received no hurt, thought it seemed marvellous how his feet could fall besides him. At another time, being about the same age, and at Ludlow Castle, in company of several idle gentlemen, he was learning to play at tables of the best gamester in the house. When his opposite had once so much the better, that it was a hundred to one, besides the difference of their skill, he still held on, though both he and the standers-by laughed at him for not giving up, and told him the game was lost: he was so confident of it as to offer a hundred to one; and actually did lay down ten shillings to sixpence. When the wager was laid, he told him there was no possibility of the game, but by one cast often: and it so fell out, that he had that same cast for several times successively, so that by that time a man could go four or five times about the room, his game was gone, which caused great admiration. He took the hint, feared that the devil had the ruling of the dice, and did it to entice him to be a gamester, and so gave him his ten shillings again, and resolved never more to play at tables whilst he lived. At another time, travelling from London into the country, about Christmas, in a very deep snow, he met on the road a loaded waggon, where he could not pass by but on the side of a bank: passing over which, all his horse's feet slipped from under him, and all the girts broke, so that he was cast just before the waggon wheel, which had gone over him, but that it pleased God the horses suddenly stopped, without any discernible cause, till he got out of the way. Often was he brought very low while he was at Kidderminster, so as to receive the sentence of death in himself, when his poor honest, praying neighbours there met together, and upon their fasting and earnest prayers, he hath been recovered. Once when he had been very low for three weeks together, and was unable to go abroad, on the very day that they prayed for him, which was on the Friday, he recovered so as to be able to preach to them, and administer the sacrament, on the Lord's day following. Another time he had a tumour rose on one of the tonsils of his throat, white and hard like a bone, above the hardness of any scirrhous tumour. He feared a cancer, and applied such remedies by the advice of the physician as were thought fittest, but without alteration; for it remained hard as at first. At the end of a quarter of a year, he was under some concern, that he had never praised God particularly for any of the deliverances he had formerly afforded him. And thereupon being speaking of God's confirming our belief of his word, by his fulfilling his promises, and hearing prayers, (as it is published in the second part of his "Saints' Rest,") he annexed some thankful hints as to his own experiences; and suddenly the tumour vanished, leaving no sign where it had been remaining; though he neither swallowed it down, nor spit it out, nor could ever tell what became of it. Another time having read in Dr. Gerhard the admirable effects of the swallowing a gold bullet upon his own father, in a case much like his, he got a gold bullet, between twenty and thirty shillings weight; and having taken it, he knew not how to be again delivered of it. He took clysters and purges for about three weeks, but nothing stirred it. And a gentleman having done the like, the bullet never came from him till he died, and it was cut out. But at last his neighbours set apart a day to fast and pray for him, and he was free from his danger in the beginning of that day. And at another time, being in danger of an ægilopse, he had also sudden relief by their prayers. At another time riding upon a great hot, mettled horse, as he stood upon a sloping pavement in Worcester, the horse reared up, and both his hinder feet slipped from under him; so that the full weight of the body of the horse fell upon his leg, which yet was only bruised, and not broken: when considering the place, the stones, and the manner of the fall, it was a wonder his leg was not broken in shivers. Another time as he sat in his study, the weight of his greatest folio books broke down three or four of the highest shelves, when he sat close under them; and they fell down on every side of him, and not one of them hit him, except one upon the arm. Whereas the place, the weight, and greatness of the books was such, and his head just under them, that it was a wonder they had not beaten out his brains, or done him an unspeakable mischief. One of the shelves just over his head having Dr. Walton's Polyglot Bible, all Austin's Works, the Bibliotheca Patrum, Marlorate, &c. At another time, viz. March 26, 1665, as he was preaching in a private house, a bullet came in at the window, and passed by him, but did no hurt. Such things as these he carefully took notice of, and recorded. And indeed his being carried through so much service and suffering too, under so much weakness, was a constant wonder to himself, and all that knew him; and what he used himself often to take notice of, with expressions of great thankfulness.