Ward's Last Days

LAST FOUR YEARS OF WARD’S LIFE VERY IMPERFECTLY KNOWN — RETIRES TO ROTTERDAM AFTER BEING SILENCED BY LAUD — RETURNS TO IPSWICH — BURIED IN THE TOWER CHURCH, 1639

NAME OF HIS WIFE — ACCOUNT OF HIS FUNERAL SERMON — DESCRIPTION OF HIS PREACHING — EXTRACTS FROM HIS SERMONS.

THE last four years of Ward’s life are a subject on which I find it very difficult to discover the truth. Brook says that, after his release from prison, he retired to Holland, and became a colleague of William Bridge, the famous Independent minister of Yarmouth, who had settled at Rotterdam. He also mentions a report that he and Mr. Bridge renounced their Episcopal ordination, and were re-ordained: “Mr. Bridge ordaining Mr. Ward, and Mr. Ward returning the compliment.” He adds another report, that Ward was unjustly deposed from his pastoral office at Rotterdam, and after a short interval restored.

I venture to think that this account must be regarded with some suspicion. At any rate, I doubt whether we are in possession of all the facts in the transaction which Brook records. That Ward retired to Holland after his release from prison, is highly probable. It was a step which many were constrained to take for the sake of peace and liberty of conscience, in the days of the Stuarts. That he was Pastor of a Church at Rotterdam, in conjunction with Bridge, — that differences arose between him and his colleague, — that he was temporarily deposed from his office and afterward restored, — are things which I think very likely. His re-ordination is a point which I think questionable. For one thing it seems to me exceedingly improbable, that a man of Ward’s age and standing would first be re-ordained by Bridge, who was twenty-three years younger than himself, and afterward re-ordain Bridge! For another thing, it appears very strange that a man who had renounced his Episcopal orders, should have afterwards received an honourable burial in the aisle of an Ipswich church, in the year 1639. One thing only is clear. Ward’s stay at Rotterdam could not have been very lengthy. He was not committed to prison till 1635 and was buried in 1639. He “lay in prison long,” according to Prynne. At any rate he lay there long enough to write a Latin work, called “A Rapture,” of which it is expressly stated that it was composed during his imprisonment “in the Gate House.” In 1638, we find him buying a house in Ipswich. It is plain, at this rate, that he could not have been very long in Holland. However, the whole of the transactions at Rotterdam,

Sumuel Ward — His Last Days. 139

so far as Ward is concerned, are involved in some obscurity. Stories against eminent Puritans were easily fabricated and greedily swallowed in the seventeeth century. Brook’s assertion that Ward died in Holland, about 1640, is so entirely destitute of foundation, that it rather damages the value of his account of Ward’s latter days.

Granting, however, that after his release from prison Ward retired to Holland, there seems every reason to believe that he returned to Ipswich early in 1638. It appears from the town books of Ipswich (according to Wodderspoon), that, in. April 1638, he purchased the house provided for him by the town for £140, repaying the contributors the sum contributed by them. He died in the month of March, 1639, aged 62; and was buried in St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich, on the 8th of that month. A certified copy of the entry of his burial, in the parish register, is in my possession. On a stone which was laid in his life time in the middle aisle of the church, the following words (according to Clarke’s History of Ipswich) are still extant:

‘Watch, Ward! yet a little while,
And He that shall come, will come.”

Under this stone it is supposed the bones of the good old Puritan preacher were laid; and to this day he is spoken of by those who know his name in Ipswich as

‘‘ Watch Ward.”

It only remains to add, that Ward married, in 1604, a widow named Deborah Bolton, of Isleham, in Cambridge, and had by her a family.“It is an interesting fact, recorded in the town-books of Ipswich, that after his death, as a mark of respect, his widow and his eldest son Samuel were allowed for their lives the stipend enjoyed by their father, viz, £100 annually. It is also worthy of remark, that he had two brothers who were ministers, John and Nathaniel. John Ward lived and died Rector of St. Clement’s, Ipswich; and there is a tablet and short inscription about him in that church. Nathaniel Ward was Minister of Stand on, Herts., went to America in 1634, returned to England in 1646, and died at Shenfield, in Essex, 1653.

There is an excellent portrait of Ward still extant in Ipswich, in the possession of Mr. Hunt, solicitor. He is represented with an open book in his right hand, a ruff round his neck, a peaked beard and moustaches. On one side is a coast beacon lighted; and there is an inscription —

‘¢Watche Ward. Attatis sue 43. 1620.”

The following extract, from a rare volume called “The Tombstone; or, a notice and imperfect monu-

* For this fact, and the facts about Ward’s degrees at Cambridge, I am indebted to a well-informed writer in ‘‘ Notes and Queries” for October, 1861.

ment of that worthy man, Mr. John Carter, Pastor of Bramford and Belstead in Suffolk” (1653), will probably be thought to deserve insertion, as an incidental evidence of the high esteem in which Ward was held in the neighbourhood of Ipswich. The work was written by Mr. Carter’s son; and the extract describes what occured at his father’s funeral. He says (at pages 26, 27), “In the afternoon, February 4th, 1634, at my father’s interring, there was a great confluence of people from all parts thereabout, ministers and others taking up the word of Joash King of Israel, ‘O my father! my father! the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!’ Old Mr. Samuel Ward, that famous dwine, and the glory of Ipswich, came to the funeral, brought a mourning gown with him, and offered very respectfully to preach the funeral sermon, seeing that such a congregation was gathered together, and upon such an occasion. But my sister and I durst not give way to it; for our father had often charged us in his lifetime, and upon his blessing, that no service should be at his burial. ‘For,’ said he, ‘it will give occasion to speak some good things of me that I deserve not, and so false things will be uttered in this pulpit” Mr. Ward rested satisfied, and did forbear. But the next Friday, at Ipswich, he turned his whole lecture into a funeral sermon for my father, in which he did lament and honour him, to the great satisfaction of the whole auditory.”

I have now brought together all that I can discover about Samuel Ward’s history. I heartily regret that the whole amount is so small, and that the facts recorded about him are so few. But we must not forget that the best part of Ward’s life was spent in Suffolk, and that he seldom left his own beloved pulpit in St. Mary-le-Tower, Ipswich.2 That he was well known by reputation beyond the borders of his own county, there can be no doubt. His selection to be a Preacher at St. Paul’s Cross, in 1616, is a proof of this. But it is vain to suppose that the reputation of a preacher, however eminent, who lives and dies in a provincial town, will long survive him. In order to become the subject of biographies, and have the facts of his life continually noted down, a man must live in a metropolis. This was not Ward’s lot; and, consequently, at the end of two hundred years, we seem to know little about him.

It only remains to say something about Ward’s Sermons and Treatises, which have been lately for the first time reprinted, and made accessible to the modern reader of theology.° It must be distinctly understood that these reprints do not comprise the whole of

It seems that he expounded half the Bible during his ministry in Ipswich! See his preface to ‘‘ The Happiness of Practice.”

Ward’s sermons are to be found in Nichol’s valuable series of reprints of Puritan divines, at the end of the third volume of Adams’ works.

Ward’s writings. Beside these Sermons and Treatises, he wrote, in conjuction with Yates, a reply to Montague’s famous book, “Appello Cesarem.” There is also reason to think that he published one or two other detached sermons beside those which are now reprinted. I think, however, there can be little doubt that the nine Sermons and Treatises which have been lately republished by Mr. Nichol, are the only works of Samuel Ward which it would have been worth while to reprint, and in all probability the only works which he would have wished himself to be reproduced.

Of the merits of these sermons, the reading public will now be able to form an opinion. They were thought highly of in time past, and have received the commendation of very competent judges. Fuller testifies that Ward “had’a sanctified fancy, dexterous in designing expressive pictures, representing much matter in a little model.” Doddridge says that Ward’s “writings are worthy to be read through. His language is generally proper, elegant, and nervous. His thoughts are well digested, and happily illustrated. He has many remarkable veins of wit. Many of the boldest figures of speech are to be found in him, beyond any English writer, especially apostrophes, prosopopeeias, dialogisms, and allegories.”¢ This praise may at first sight seem extravagant. I shall, however,

4 How Doddridge could possible have made the mistake of supposing that Ward died at the age of 28, is perfectly inexplicable!

be disappointed if those who take the trouble to read Ward’s writings do not think it well deserved.

It is only fair to Samuel Ward to remind the readers of his works, that at least three of the nine Sermons and Treatises now re-printed, were not originally composed with a view to publication. The sermons entitled “A Coal from the Altar,” “Balm from Gilead to Recover Conscience,” and “Jethro’s Justice of the Peace,” would appear to have been carried through the press by friends and relatives. They have all the characteristics of compositions intended for ears rather than for eyes, for hearers rather than for readers. Yet I venture to say that they are three of the most striking examples of Ward’s gifts and powers, out of the whole nine. The peroration of the sermon on Conscience, in particular, appears to me one of the most powerful and effective conclusions to a sermon which I have ever read in the English language.°

The doctrine of Ward’s sermons is always thoroughly Evangelical. He never falls into the extravagant language about repentance, which disfigures the writings of some of the Puritans. He never wearies us with the long supra-scriptural, systematic statements

The engraved title pages of two of the nine Sermons, in the edition of 1636, are great curiosities in their way. The one which is prefixed to the ‘‘ Woe to Drunkards,” is intended to be a hit at the degeneracy of the times in which Ward lived. If it was really designed by Ward himself, it supplies some foundation for the rumour that he had a genius for caricaturing.

of theology, which darken the pages of others. He is always to the point, always about the main things in Divinity, and generally sticks to his text. To exalt the Lord Jesus Christ as high as possible, to cast down man’s pride, to expose the sinfulness of sin, to spread out broadly and fully the remedy of the Gospel, to awaken the unconverted sinner and alarm him, to build up the true Christian and comfort him, — these seem to have been objects which Ward proposed to himself in every sermon. And was he not right? Well would it be for the churches if we had more preachers like him!

The style of Ward’s sermons is always eminently simple. Singularly rich in illustration, — bringing every day life to bear continually on his subject, — pressing into his Master’s service the whole circle of human learning, — borrowing figures and similes from everything in creation, — not afraid to use familiar language such as all could understand, — framing his sentences in such a way that an ignorant man could easily follow him, — bold, direct, fiery, dramatic, and speaking as if he feared none but God, — he was just the man to arrest attention, and to keep it when arrested, to set men thinking, and to make them anxious to hear him again. Quaint he is undoubtedly in many of his sayings. But he preached in an age when all were quaint, and his quaintness probably struck no one as remarkable. Faulty in taste he is no doubt. But there never was the popular preacher against whom the same charge was not laid. His faults, however, were as nothing compared to his excellencies. Once more I say, Well would it be for the churches if we had more preachers like him!

The language of Ward’s sermons ought not to be passed over without remark. I venture to say, that in few writings of the seventeenth century will there be found so many curious, old-fashioned, and forcible words as in Ward’s sermons. Some of these words are unhappily obsolete, and unintelligible to the multitude, to the grievous loss of English literature.

I cannot help expressing my earnest hope that the scheme of republication, which owes its existence to Mr. Nichol, may meet with the success which it deserves, and that the writings of men like Samuel Ward may be read and circulated throughout the land.

I wish it for the sake of the Puritan divines. We owe them a debt, in Great Britain, which has never yet been fully paid. They are not valued as they deserve, I firmly believe, because they are so little known.!

fTo regard the Puritans of the seventeenth century, as some appear to do, as mere ranting enthusiasts, is nothing better than melancholy ignorance. Fellows and Heads of Colleges, as many of them were, they were equal, in point of learning, to any divines of their day. To say that they were mistaken in some of their Opinions, is one thing; to speak of them as ‘‘ unlearned and ignorant men,” is simply absurd, and flatly contrary to facts.

I wish it for the sake of the Protestant Churches of my own country, of every name and denomination. It is vain to deny that we have fallen on trying times for Christianity. Heresies of the most appalling kind are broached in quarters where they might have been least expected. Principles in theology which were once regarded as thoroughly established, are now spoken of as doubtful matters. In a time like this, I believe that the study of some of the great Puritan divines is eminently calculated, under God, to do good and stay the plague. I commend the study especially to all young ministers. If they want to know how powerful minds and mighty intellects can think out deep theological subjects, arrive at decided conclusions, and yet give implicit reverence to the Bible, let them read Puritan divinity.

I fear it is not a reading age. Large books, especially, have but little chance of perusal. Hurry, superficiality, and bustle are the characteristics of our times. Meagreness, leanness, and shallowness are too often the main features of modern sermons. Nevertheless, something must be attempted in order to check existing evils. The Churches must be reminded that there can be no really powerful preaching without deep thinking, and little deep thinking without hard reading. The republication of our best Puritan divines I regard as a positive boon to the Church and the world, and I heartily wish it God speed.

The following extracts from Ward’s sermons may give some idea of what this famous divine was as a preacher.

The first extract is from a sermon entitled “Christ is all in all.” —

“All let Him be in all our thoughts and speeches. How happy were it if He were never out of our sight and minds, but that our souls were directed towards Him, and fixed on Him, as the sunflower towards the sun, the iron to the loadstone, the loadstone to the polestar. Hath He not for that purpose resembled Himself to all familiar and obvious objects:® to the light, that so often as we open our eyes we might behold Him; to bread, water, and wine, that in all our repasts we might feed on Him;”* to the door, that in all our out and in going we might have Him in remembrance? How happy if our tongues would ever run upon that name, which is honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, jubilee in the heart. Let the mariner prate of the winds, the merchant of his gain, the husbandman of his oxen.‘ Be thou a Pythagorean to all the world, and a Peripatecian to Christ; mute to all vanities, and eloquent only to Christ, that gave man his tongue and his speech. How doth Paul delight to record it, and harp upon it eleven times in ten verses,

Musculus et Brentius in Johannem.

bh Bernard. i Nolanus.

which Chrysostom 3 first took notice of. (1 Cor. i. 10.) And how doth worthy Fox grieve to forsee and foretel that which we hear and see come to pass, that men’s discourses would be taken up about trifles and nifles, as if all religion lay in the flight and pursuit of one circumstance or opinion; how heartily doth he pray, and vehemently wish that men would leave jangling about ceremonies, and spend their talk upon Him that is the substance; that learned men would write of Christ, unlearned men study of Him, preachers make Him the scope and subject of all their preaching. * And what else, indeed, is our office but to elevate, not a piece of bread, as the Romish priests, but Christ in our doctrine; to travail in birth till He be formed in a people, to crucify Him in their eyes by lively preaching His death and passion. The old emblem of St. Christopher is good, representing a preacher as one wading through the sea of this world, staying on the staff of faith, and lifting up Christ aloft to be seen of men. What else gained John the name of the divine, and Paul of a wise master builder, but that he regarded not, as the fashion is now-a-days, to have his reading, memory, and elocution, but Christ known, and Him crucified, and to build the Church skilfully, laying the foundation upon this Rock,! of which; if we hold our peace, the rocks themselves will cry. This being

J In Prefat. ad Concionem de Christo crucifixo. k Philip Melancthon in Rhetor. 1 Lutherus.

the sum of our art and task, by the help of Christ, to preach the Gospel of Christ, to the praise of Christ, without whom a sermon is no sermon, preaching no preaching. ™

“The sum of the sum of all is, that the whole duty of all men is to give themselves wholly to Christ, to sacrifice not a leg, or an arm, or any other piece, but soul, spirit, and body, and all that is within us;* the fat, the inwards, the head and hoof, and all asa holocaust to Him, dedicating, devoting ourselves to His service all the days and hours of our lives, that all our days may be Lord’s days. To whom, when we have so done, yet must we know we have given Him so much less than His due, as we worms and wretched sinners are less than the Son of God, who knew no sin. To Him therefore let us live, to Him therefore let us die. So let us live to Him that we may die in Him, and breathe out our souls most willingly into His hands, with the like affection that John of Alexandria, surnamed the Almoner, for his bounty, is reported to have done, who, when he had distributed all he had to the poor, and made even with his revenues, as his fashion was yearly to do in his best health, thanked God he had now nothing left but his Lord and Master Christ, whom He longed to be with, and would now with unlimed and unen-

™ Perkins in Prophetica. Nazianzenus de Spiritu.

tangled wings fly unto: or as, in fewer words, Peter of old and Lambert of later times, ‘Nothing but Christ, nothing but Christ.’” (Ward’s Sermons, p. 10. Nichol’s edition.)

The second extract is from a sermon on Conscience, entitled “Balm from Gilead.” —

“Hearken, O consciences! hear the word of the Lord. I call‘you to record this day, that it is your office to preach over our sermons again, or else all our sermons and labours are lost. You are the cuds of ° the soul, to chew over again. Against your reproofs, and against your secret and faithful admonitions, what exception can any take? Your balm is precious; your smitings break not the head, nor bring any disgrace. God hath given you a faculty to work wonders in private and solitude. Follow them home, therefore, cry aloud in their ears and bosoms, and apply what hath now and at other times been delivered.

“Conscience, if the house and owner where thou dwellest be a son of peace, let thy peace and thy Master’s peace abide and rest on him; that peace which the world never knows, nor can give, nor take away. Be thou propitious and benign, speak good things, cherish the least sparks and smoke of grace; if thou findest desire in truth, and in all things, bid them not fear and doubt of their election and calling. With those that desire to walk honestly, walk thou comfortably. Handle the tender and fearful gently and sweetly; be not rough and rigorous to them. Bind up the broken-hearted. Say unto them, Why art thou so disquieted and sad? When thou seest them melancholy for losses and crosses, say unto them in cheer, as Elkanah to Hannah, ‘What dost thou want? Am not I a thousand friends, wives, and children unto thee?’

“Clap them on the back, hearten them in well-doing, spur them on to walk forward; yea, wind them up to the highest pitch of excellency, and then applaud them. Delight in the excellent of the earth.

“Be a light to the blind and scrupulous.

“Be a goad in the sides of the dull ones.

“Be an alarm and trumpet of judgment to the sleepers and dreamers.

“But as for the hypocrite, gall him and prick him at the heart. Let him well know that thou art God’s spy in his bosom, a secret intelligencer, and wilt be faithful to God.

“Bid the hypocrite walk ‘in all things.’

“Bid the civil add piety to charity.

“Bid the wavering, inconstant, and licentious ‘ walk constantly.’

“Bid the lukewarm and common: Protestant for shame amend, be zealous, and ‘walk honestly,’

“But with the sons of Belial, the profane scorners, walk frowardly with them, haunt and molest them, give them no rest till they repent, be the gall of bitterness unto them. When they are swilling and drinking, serve them as Absalom’s servants did Amnon, stab him at the heart. Yet remember, so long as there is any hope, that thine office is to be a pedagogue to Christ, to wound and kill, only to the end they may live in Christ, not so much to gaster and affright as to lead to Him ;‘and, to that purpose, to be instant in season and out of season, that they may believe and repent.

“But if they refuse to hear, and sin against thee, and the Holy Ghost also, then shake off the dust of thy feet, and either fall to torment them before their time, and drive them to despair; or if thou give them ease here, tell them thou wilt fly in their throat at the day of hearing, when thou shalt and must speak, and they shall and must hear.

“Conscience, thou hast commission to go into princes’ chambers and council tables; be a faithful man of their counsel. Oh, that they would in all courts of Christendom set policy beneath thee, and make thee president of their councils, and hear thy voice, and not croaking Jesuits, sycophants, and liars. Thou mayest speak to them, subjects must pray for them, and be subject, for thy sake, to honour and obey them in the Lord.

“Charge the courtiers not to trust in uncertain favours of princes, but to be trusty and faithful, as

Nehemiah, Daniel, Joseph; whose histories pray them to read, imitate, and believe above Machiavelli’s oracles.

“Tell the foxes and politicians, that make the main the by, and the by the main, that an ill conscience hanged Ahithopel, overthrew Haman, Shebna, etc. Tell them it is the best policy, and Solomon’s, who knew the best, to get and keep thy favour; to exalt thee, and thou shalt exalt them, be a shield to them, and make them as bold as the lion in the day of trouble, not fearing the envy of all the beasts of the forest, no, nor the roaring of the lion, in righteous causes.

“Conscience, thou art the judge of judges, and shalt one day judge them; in the meanwhile, if they fear neither God nor man, be as the importunate widow, and urge them to do justice. Oh, that thou sattest highest in all courts, especially in such courts as are of thy jurisdiction, and receive their denomination from thee, suffer not thyself to be exiled, make Felix tremble, discourse of judgment to them.

“To the just judges, bid them please God and thee, and fear no other fear; assure them, for whatever they do of partiality or popularity, thou wilt leave them in the lurch; but what upon thy suit and command, thou wilt bear them out in it, and be their exceeding great reward.

“If thou meetest in those courts and findest any such pleaders as are of thine acquaintance and followers, be their fee and their promoter, tell them, if they durst trust thee, and leave Sunday works, bribing on both sides, selling of silence, pleading in ill causes, and making the law a nose of wax, if they durst plead all and only rightful causes, thou hast riches in one - hand, and honour in the other, to bestow on them.

“As for the tribe of Levi, there mayest thou be a little bolder, as being men of God, and men of conscience, by profession. Be earnest with them to add con to their science, as a number to cyphers, that will make it something worth. Desire them to preach, not for filthy lucre or vainglory, but for thy sake; wish them to keep thee pure, and in thee to keep the mystery of faith; assure them thou art the only ship and cabinet of orthodoxal faith, of which, if they make shipwreck by laziness and coveteousness, they shall be given over to Popery and Arminianism, and lose the faith, and then write books of the apostacy, and intercession of faith, and a good conscience, which they never were acquainted withal, nor some drunkards of them ever so much as seemed to have.” (Ward’s Sermons, p. 109. Nichol’s edition.)

I make no comment on the’ extracts I have given. I think they speak for themselves. No doubt tastes and opinions about sermons differ widely. But it is my own deliberate judgment, that a man who preaches in the style of Ward will never lack hearers.