Letter from a Hell-hole

This was written by John Hooper after Mary Queen of England had him imprisoned.  I so related to his letter and expereinces he descirbes, as different circumstnaces, different modes, but  it also speaks much to my own expereinces while suffering this illness in alone confinement, even to calling for help when death was near, and the calls being ignored. This is the reason I  relate to the Puritans so much I think.

The first of September, 1553, i was committed to the Fleet from Richmond, to have the liberty of the prison. Six days afterward, I paid the warden five pounds sterling in fees for that liberty. Immediately upon receiving the payment, the warden complained to Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and then  was committed to a close prison, without liberty, for a quarter of a year in the Tower-chamber of the Fleet, where I was treated severely.

Once, by the means of a good and gentle woman, I was given liberty to come down to dinner and supper, but I was not permitted to speak with any of my friends, and had to return to my cell immediately after. Nevertheless, when  I came down for dinner, the warden and his wife picked quarrels with me, and then complained bi tterly bout me to their great friend the bishop of Winchester.

After several months, Babington, the warden, and his wife quarreled with me about the wicked mass, and the warden resorted to the bishop of Winchester and obtained permission to put me into the worst part of the prison, where I have been for a long time in this vile and stinking chamber, with noting for my bed but a little pad of straw for my mattress, a rotten blanket, and a cloth case with a few feathers in it for my pillow—until God provided good people to send me clean and fresh bedding.

Open sewers run on both sides of this prison, and the stench is unbearable. I am sure they are the cause of the various illnesses,  have experienced and am now experiencing.

There are bars and hasps on the door of my cell and chains  upon me. I have mourned, called and cried for help, but even though Warden Babington has known  that several times  was enar death, and when the poor men of the ward have called for help for me, he has commanded that my cell doors stay locked and that none of his men should come to me saying, “Let him alone. If he dies, it will be good riddance.”

I paid that same warden twenty shillings a week for my board, and also paid for my man’s board until I was wrongly deprived of my bishopric and since then I have paid him as the best gentleman does in his own house, but he still uses me worse and meaner than I were the lowest person who ever came here.

My aide, William Downton, has also been imprisoned. The warden stripped him of his clothes to search for letters, but could find none except the names of a few good people who gave me money to relive me in this prison. To cause them trouble, the warden gave their names to Stephen Gardiner, God’s enemy and mine.

I have suffer red imprisonment for almost eighteen months. My goods, my living, family, friends, and comfort have been taken from me. By just account, the queen owes me 80 pounds. She has put me into prison and gives nothing to supply me, and does not allow anyone to come to me with any relief. I am with a wicked man and woman, and  I see no remedy, except God’s help, but that I will die in prison before I am judged. But I commit my cause to God, whose will be done, whether it be by life or death.

 

I am writing this from my bed, as I seem to be in another attack currently.

Epitaph to Joseph Caryl

Westminster divine, and great expositor of Job:

"That famous and laborious minister, Mr. Joseph Caryl, your ancient friend and companion, is departed this life, aged 71 years. His death is greatly lamented by the people of God throughout this city. About the beginning of his sickness I was with him, and he inquired concerning you, as he was wont to do; and perceiving him to be somewhat weak, though he did not then keep his chamber, I desired him, while he was yet alive, to pray for you, which motiona he cheerfully and readily embraced. And coming to him again, about three days before his death, found him very weak and past hope of life. He told me, as well as I could understand him, for his speech was low, that he remembered his promise to me concerning you. I think good to metnion this particular (circusmstance) to provoke you to all seriousness in regard to your own soul, whose eternal welfare lay so much upon the heart of this servant of Christ. His labours were great; his studies incessant; his conversation unspotted; his charity, faith, zeal and wisdom gave a fragrant smell among the churches and servants of Christ. His sickness, though painful, was borne with patience and joy in believing; and so he parted from time to eternity under the full sail of desire and joy in the Holy Spirit. He lived his sermons. He did at last desire his friends to forbear speaking to him, that so he might retire in himself; which time they percieved he spent in prayer; oftentimes lifting up his hands a little; and at last his friends, finding his hands not to move, drew near and percieved he was silently departed from them, leaving many mourning hearts behind.” [A letter written by his friend Mr Henry Dorney after Joseph Caryl's death]

And below part of a eulogy to Joseph Caryl

Room for our tears; for here are thousands come
To vent our founts at his commanding tomb.
But oh! What mortal’s genious can devise
A decent flood for such a sacrifice?-
His pious sermons did declare his worth,
His expositions set his learning forth;
And whilest we lament his being gone,
Angels with anthems, welcome him at home.
Caryl, whose coversation was free from ill,
Can be expressed but by an angels quill:
As in some mirror you might clearly see
In him, a perfect map of piety;
The beauty of whose virtues may incite
The world to imitation and delight.”

Do NOT try this at home!!

The Hole – video powered by Metacafe

Ain't that the truth?

Ain't that the truth?

Ain't that the truth?

Ain't that the truth?

divine words

In the fathomless depths of infinite goodness and wisdom, a design is laid through the clear discoveries of God’s perfections and glory, to complete and accomplish the happiness of his servants. There is not any thing that befalls them in this valley of tears, but by his contrivances, it brings with a secret influence, and activity, to raise them to the mount of joy. I need not tell you how near the dust God’s people of this kingdom were, they yet retain the dints of contempt and scorn: but hath not a strong reflection of God’s power been cast upon us, from that very cloud under which we were? Are there not deliverances created for us, even beyond our hopes? Hath not the Lord raised you up, most Noble Senators, as once he did that pillar to the Israelites, to be a light to us, and darkness to our enemies? [Thomas Carter--Westminster Divine]

Curse God and die

The words uttered by Job’s wife during the most extreme part of his trial. Job’s greatest blessing, his help-meet, what should have been his greatest comfort in the world, turned into his most bitter temptation and seducer.  Sounds familar, much like Eve was used by Satan as the instrument to tempt Adam, to eat the forbidden fruit.

We have no reason to suspect that Job’s wife was a woman generally given to wickedness, or blasphemous speeches. In fact Job’s reply and rebuke to her, clearly points to the fact that she was not, by his saying she was speaking "like" one of the foolish women, rather than she was a foolish or wicked woman.  Job’s wife had also suffered much loss, and now she saw her husband, against all odds trying to hold fast to his integrity yet suffering greatly. If you love someone, you don’t wish to see them suffer, its grievous for us to watch loved ones suffer especially to such a degree as poor Job was suffering.  And I think in her distress she hoped to tempt to him to sin himself to death. 

Suicide is often a controversial subject amongst Christians. And I don’t believe someone who commits suicide is necessarily hell-bound. Some times at the worst of my affliction when darkness has come upon me, I’ve wrestled with thoughts of ending it. The fact I have suicide attempts in my past gives Satan an almost perfect weapon to bring that to my mind. As I was suffering in earlier times when I felt driven to finish this life, yet the degree of suffering then, pales in comparison to even a day of living with the pain and in my body and other things associated with this illness.  People with cancer after just a few months will be so worn down by it, they look for a way out. A release from their suffering. I think you would have to beyond human to not ever  feel tempted in that direction, when living for five years now with an illness said to have more pain with it than cancer does.  So yes I have been tempted. Yet what about the Christian and suicide? Satan is subtle. He tempted Job’s wife to say “Curse God and die” so that if had have been seduced by her words and fell into cursing God, if he had have immediately been struck down dead, he would have died whilst in the committing of a heinous sin.  Satan tempts us it seems to me both from Job’s case and my own  experience to think of suicide or to contemplate it, when we are least fit for heaven.   When our salvation could be dashed or proved void. He makes it seem such a tempting thought. such a pleasing aroma to the senses.  Yet how many who do commit suicide  are unbelievers and Satan tempts them to kill themselves, putting the thought in their head that through their taking of their own lives, they will find relief and release, yet they will suffer far worse by the pains of hell 

Job held fast to his integrity, in the face of the worst temptations.  Sometimes our greatest blessings in life can turn to our biggest afflictions, and Job’s wife, turned to be an additional affliction to him, and a noteworthy one simply because of the marriage covenant.  Satan chooses his instruments well to tempt us.    I think many people alive must have wished for their own deaths at some point in their lives. They were so miserable they felt they had nothing worth living for and as if they would never overcome what they felt at that point.  Yet, Christ drank a cup so bitter, and should we be exempted from seeing it through as He did? Satan used Peter to try and argue Christ out of and disbelieve that He would suffer all He would. Peter too was a holy man, and he had good intent as the thought of Jesus suffering so, appalled him and terrified him for his friend and teacher.  Yet Jesus knew they were the words of Satan, by  saying "Get thee behind me, Satan." Peter’s words to the world, are understandable, full of compassion towards his friend.  And again one  of Christ’s greatest comforts in his earthly life was turned into his temptation.  And when Job’s wife uttered "Curse God and die,"  And Job replied "you speak like one of the foolish women," that was Job’s way of saying, "Get behind me, Satan." Seeing the temptation for what it was, and never wavering from his integrity. Neither wishing for his own death, or thinking ill of God, or  and in steadfastness and patience, held onto his integrity.

Prisoner at the bar

no one can help getting sick, or being afflicted bodily. No one else in the person life can often do a lot to prevent it happening to someone else. Ones body can become a prison in some respects when it is so not working, and often works anything other than normal or what is even considered within the scale of normal. However, my prison has been added to, by at  least in part my doctrine and beliefs. Which I think the desertion and abandonment is more a symptom than anything else of how far away from God this country is, and how True biblical religon is all but nonexistent in England in this day and age. However, I was reading some of the life of Edward Calamny tonightt, the Westminster divine. and t great Puritan preacher, and Covenanter.  And when he was imprisoned in Newgate Prison for holding firm to his beliefs, many people were outraged by his incarceration. And  a Nonconformist poet  who is unnamed of the time, wrote a lengthy poem about Mr Calamny and his imprisonement, of which I won’t quote the entire thing here, but this few stanzas spoke to me too, how even in this calmer, more peaceful and less dangerous times. We can still be thrown into prisons, of other types for holding to the truth:

And may some thief by you converted be,
Like him who suffered in Christ’s company.
Now, would I had a sight of your mittimus;
Fain would I know how you are dealt with thus.
Jaylor, set forth your prisoner at the bar.
Sir, you shall hear what your offences are.
First, its proved, that you being dead in l aw,
(As if you car’d not for that death a straw)
Did walk and haunt your church, as if you’ld scare
Away the reader and his Common prayer.
Nay, ’twill be proved you did not only walk,
But like a Puritan, your Ghost did talk.
Dead, and yet preach! these Presbyterian slaves,
Will not give over preaching in their graves.
Item, you play’d the thief; and if’t be so,
God reason, Sir, to Newgate you should go:
And now you’re there, some dare to to swear you are,

The greatest pick-pocket that e’re came there.
youre wife, no beetter than yourself you make
She’s the reciever of each purse you take.
But your great theft, you acted in your church,
I do not mean you did your sermon lurch,
That’s crime cannonical, but you did pray
And preach, so that you stole men’s hearts away.
So that good man to whom your place doth fall,
Will find they have no heart for him at all.
This felony deserved imprisonment;
What can’t you Noneconformitst be content
Sermons to make, except you preach them too?
They that have your places have, this work ca’t do.