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Cambridge, we need not doubt, had its full share of all the troubles and discomfort of this stormy period. The following passage from Fuller's History of Cambridge records things which happened there in 1632—the very year that Gurnall entered Emmanuel—things which no doubt he saw with his own eyes and beard with his own cars:{{br}}
'This year,' says Fuller, 'a grave divine preaching before the university at St. Mary's, had this passage in his sermon: "That as at the Olympian games be was counted the conqueror who could drive his chariot wheels nearest to the mark, yet so as not to hinder his running, or stick thereon, so he, who in his sermons could preach near Popery, and yet no Popery, there was your man." And, indeed, it now began to be the complaint of most moderate men, that many in the university, both in school and pulpit, approached the opinion of the Church of Rome more than ever before.{{br}}
'Mr. Bernard, lecturer of St. Sepulchre's in London, preached at St. Mary's in the afternoon of May 6th, his text, [[1 Samuel 4:21]]: "The glory is departed from Israel," &c. In handling whereof he let fall some passages which gave distaste to a prevalent party in the university, as for saying, {{br}}
1.That God's ordinances, when blended and adulterated with innovations of men, cease to be God's ordinances, and he owneth them no longer. {{br}}
2.That it is impossible any should be saved, living and dying without repentance in the doctrine of Rome, as the Tridentine Council hath decreed it.{{br}}
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'II. Imitate his Christian conversation. My meaning is, exemplify those evangelical graces and Christian virtues in your lives, which did so oriently shine forth in his. To propound a few:—{{br}}
1.'His eminent humility. This was the garment which covered all his excellent accomplishments, although indeed their beauty was rendered more conspicuous and amiable by casting this veil over it. O what mean thoughts bad he of himself! and was not only content, but desirous also, that others should have so too: no man ever expressed so low a value of his worth and merits as himself did. Everything in others that was good he admired as excellent, whilst the same or better in himself he thought not I unworthily contemned: his eyes were full of his own deficiencies and others' perfections.{{br}}
In a word, he was a lovely valley, sweetly planted, well-watered, richly fruitful; imitate him then herein, and by a holy emulation study to excel him in this adorning grace; and for your help herein recollect what you heard from him in his elaborate discourses among you upon Philippians 2:6, "Let this mind 1 be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,"—this humble mind.{{br}}
2.'His extensive love: this grace did variously exert itself.'{{br}}
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a)His love to God: he loved him exceedingly whom he could not love excessively, having such high and raised apprehensions of his Maker's excellencies, as caused him to judge his prime and best affections unworthy to be placed on so divine an object.{{br}}
b)'His love to the holy Jesus: this was such a seraphic and divine fire in his soul, as did marvellously consume his love to the world and all sublunary comforts. You are witnesses, and all that knew him, in bow eminent a measure and degree the world was crucified unto him, and he unto the world by the cross of Christ.{{br}}
c)'His love to souls: this was it no doubt that made him so indefatigable both in his study and in the pulpit; from hence it was, that the throne of grace, his study, the pulpit, and his sick neighbours, had the whole of his time divided amongst them, and devoted to them{{br}}
d)'His UNBOUNDED LOVE TO ALL CHRISTIANS; though they differed in their sentiments from him: he loved Christians for their Christianity, and did adore the image of his Saviour wherein he saw it in any of his members unhappily persecuting one another with hard names and characters of reproach. How often did he PUBLICLY DEPLORE AND BEWAIL, that the greatest measure of love that is found at this day amongst the professors of the cross, was not true Christian love, but only love of a party! Follow him then in the impartial exercise of this grace, and for your help therein remember what he taught you from [[Ephesians 5:2]], "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us;" and as you have any regard for the Author of your profession, take heed that a spirit of division (now) crowd not in among you your unity is your strength as well as your beauty; persist therefore, I beseech you, in that Christian order amongst yourselves in which it was his great ambition all his days to preserve and keep you. Timely oppose the crafty design of the subtle adversary of souls, who will take this-occasion (if possible), now the spiritual parent is out of the way, to set the children together by the ears.{{br}}
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3.'His diffusive charity: his alms were as exuberant as his love: misery and want, wherever be met them, did sufficiently endear their objects to him; he was none of those that hide their faces from the poor, nor of the number of them who satisfy their consciences with a single exercise of their charity once a year, but daily were the emanations of his bounty. Yet although he cast the seeds of his charity upon all sorts of ground, he sowed them thickest upon God's inclosure; my meaning is, he did good unto all, "but especially to those that were of the household of faith." Make him herein, and his example, the pattern of your daily imitation; for the world, which is chained together by intermingled love, will soon shatter and fall in pieces if charity shall once fail and die and for your better help herein, call over those potent arguments for the exercise of this evangelical duty, which he urged upon you, from that apostolical injunction, Hebrews 13:16, "But to do good, and to communicate, forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased."{{br}}
4.'His persevering diligence and faithfulness in his place and station. You could not but observe that his whole disposal of himself was to perpetual industry and service; he not only avoided idleness, but seemed to have a forcible antipathy against it, and was often recommending it to you with great concern and vigour in his public advices, to be always furnished with somewhat to do; ut to inveniat semper diabolus occupatum—that the devil may never find thee at leisure to listen to his temptations, as St. Hierom adviseth. The idle man's brain being, in truth, not only the devil's shop, but his kingdom too, a model of and an appendage unto hell; a plan (like that) given up to torture and mischief As to himself, his chiefest recreation was variety of work; for beside those portions of time which the necessities of nature and of civil life extorted from him, there was not a minute of the day which he left vacant. Now to stimulate your zeal to a pious imitation of him herein also, let me admonish you to ruminate upon those accurate sermons you heard from him upon [[Matthew 20:6]], "Why stand ye here all the day idle?"{{br}}
5.'His tender sympathy with the afflicted church of Christ. Like a true son of Zion he could not rejoice when his mother mourned, he daily felt as much by sympathy as he did by sense; and no wonder, for he that hath a stock going in the church's ship, cannot but lament and quake at every storm. O bow frequent were his inquiries after her, how fervent were his prayers for her, how bowelly and compassionate were his mournings over her! The deplorable condition of the church and nation lay exceeding near his heart both living and dying; he preferring their happiness and welfare above his chief joy. Now in order to your attaining the same Christ-like temper with him, frequently meditate on what you heard from him upon Nehemiah 1:4, where the sympathizing prophet refuseth to drink wine, when the afflicted church drank water.{{br}}
6.And lastly, to sum up all, imitate him in his daily care and endeavour to live religion in all his capacities. As a minister, ye are witnesses, and God also, bow faithfully, how conscientiously he discharged his duty towards you. In the exercise of his ministerial function, if censure itself be able to tax him for any neglect, it must be in no more frequent visiting his flock, from which nothing but a weak body kept him, not a proud or unwilling mind; the obstruction he met with in this part of his duty, from his tender habit of body (which would not suffer him so frequently to perform it as he desired), was his great sorrow both living and dying; yet having this to comfort him, that the frailty of his body was his affliction but not his sin. Consider him in his next relative capacity, as a child, how dutiful and obsequious! O how great was that tribute of veneration and respect which he so constantly paid to the hoary hairs of his aged parents! As a husband, how tender and compassionate; as a parent, how indulgent and affectionate; as a minister, how kind and munificent! Thus was he universally good in all stations, and lived religion in every capacity. And if you desire to imitate him herein also, as becomes you, dress then your souls by that glass daily, which his dying hand last held up before your eyes, I mean by heavenly meditation, make those useful truths your own, which you last heard from him upon [[Titus 2:12]], "That, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;" which Christian lesson, if it shall be as practically learned by you, as it was faithfully taught by him, I will be bold to say thus much in the singular commendation of you his people, that you will thereby give the world a convictive instance that this age bath virtues as stupendous as its vices!
'THE CONCLUSION.—Thus I have given myself the satisfaction of doing my duty in propounding your minister's example to your Christian view. Let none censoriously say I have been all this while painting the prophet's sepulchre. No, but describing the prophet himself, and with this single and sincere intention, that you may timely know you have had a prophet of the Lord among you; a person that had omnia in se sempiterna præter corpusculum—all things living and lasting to eternity except his body, which was the only thing he had subject to mortality, and besides which, nothing of him doth see corruption. It will be below the merit of his person, as well as the greatness of our loss, to celebrate his death in womanish complaints, or indeed by any verbal lamentations; nor can anything beseem his memory but what is sacred and divine, as his writings are. May his just fame from them, and from his virtues, be precious to all succeeding ages; and when elegies committed to the trust of marble shall be as illegible as if they had been writ in water, when all stately pyramids shall be dissolved in dust, and all the venerable monuments of antiquity be devoured by the corroding teeth of time, then let this short character, describing him in his best and fullest portraiture, remain of him; viz. that he was a CHRISTIAN IN COMPLETE ARMOUR.'
Gurnall's widow survived her husband nineteen years, and seems to have resided at Lavenham. At any rate she was buried at Lavenham on 7th, September, 1698, and the grant of administration to her property called her ' Sarah Gurnall, widow, of Lavenham, deceased.'{{br}}
I have now completely exhausted all the information I can supply about the author of The Christian in Complete Armour, and can only express my deep regret that I can tell the reader nothing more. It certainly does seem rather tantalizing that a writer of the seventeenth century,-who is better known by name than almost any of the Puritans-who lived within twenty miles of such men as Owen, Marshall, Newcomen, Young, and Stockton,—who resided for thirty-five years in a town, of some little importance two hundred years ago, in a county so well known at that time as Suffolk—that such a man should have passed away and so very little be known about him. But so it is. Gurnall's case, perhaps, does not standalone. Perhaps the last day will prove that some of the best and holiest men that ever lived are hardly known.{{br}}
Nothing now remains for me to do except to say a few words about Gurnall's literary works, which are now, for the first time, brought together in a complete form.{{br}}
The first of Gurnall's works, and indeed the one by which he is commonly known, is his famous book, The Christian in Complete Armour. This well-known book consists, like many of the theological writings of the seventeenth century, of sermons or lectures delivered by the author in the course of his regular ministry, in a consecutive course on [[Ephesians 6:10-20]].{{br}}It was originally published in three small 4to volumes, and in three portions, at three different times. The first volume, containing [[Ephesians 6:10-13]], was published in 1655. This volume is dedicated to 'the inhabitants of Lavenham, my dearly beloved friends and neighbours,' and the dedication contains a distinct statement, that the book consists of sermons preached at Lavenham. 'What I present you,' says Gurnall, 'within this treatise, is a dish from your own table, and so (I hope) will go down the better. You cannot despise it, though the faro be mean, except you will blame yourselves who chose the cook.' There is a date at the end of the dedication which happily serves to show when the work was published. It is dated 1st, January, 1655. My copy is the second edition,{{br}}The second volume of the course, containing [[Ephesians 6:14-16]], was published in 1658. It contains a dedication to Thomas Darcy, Esq., and Mrs. Sisilia Darcy, his religious consort, at Kentwell Hall in Suffolk, from which it appears that Mrs. Darcy was daughter of Sir Symond D'Ewes, Gurnall's patron. The dedication is dated Lavenham, October, 1657. My copy is the first edition.{{br}}The third volume of the work, containing [[Ephesians 6:17-20]], was published in 1662. It is dedicated to Lady Mary Vere, Baroness of Tilbury, a lady well known in the seventeenth century, and daughter of William Tracey, Esq., of Toddington in Gloucestershire. The dedication is dated 28th, August, 1661. My copy is the first edition.{{br}}
Comment, or recommendation, is perhaps needless in speaking of Gurnall's great work. The fact that a sixth edition was published in the year the author died, 1679, is{{br}}
enough to show that its merits were early recognized. The high reputation it has always borne among lovers of sound English divinity down to the present day, is another fact which ought not to be forgotten. Other theological works of the seventeenth century were famous in their day, but are now seldom read. The Christian in Complete Armour is a work that is read and enjoyed by thousands up to this time.{{br}}
