I must needs say, her mind had a noble prospect; her eye was to a better and more lasting inheritance than can be found below: which made her often to despise the greatness of courts, and learning of the schools, of which she was an extraordinary judge. Being once at Hamburgh, a religious person, whom she went to see for religion's sake, telling her it was too great an honour for him, that he should have a visitant of her quality come under his roof, that was allied to so many great kings and princes of this world, she humbly answered: "If they were godly as well as great, it would be an honour indeed; but if you knew what that greatness was as well as I, you would value less that honour." Being in some agony of spirit, after a religious meeting we had in her own chamber, she said, "It is a hard thing to be faithful to what one knows: Oh, the way is strait! I am afraid I am not weighty enough in my spirit to walk in it." After another meeting, she uttered these words: "I have records in my library, that the Gospel was first brought out of England hither into Germany, by the English, and now it is come again." She once withdrew, on purpose to give her servants the liberty of discoursing with us, that they might the more freely put what questions of conscience they desired to be satisfied in; for they were religious: suffering both them, and the poorest of her town, to sit by her in her own bedchamber, where we had two meetings. I cannot forget her last words, when I took my leave of her: "Let me desire you to remember me, though I live at this distance, and that you should never see me more: I thank you for this good time; and know and be assured, though my condition subjects me to divers temptations, yet my soul hath strong desires after the best things." She lived her single life till about sixty years of age, and then departed at her own house in Herwerden, in the year 1680, as much lamented as she had lived beloved of the people: to whose real worth, I do, with a religious gratitude, for her kind reception, dedicate this memorial.
XXXIII. Bulstrode Whitlock, has left his own character in his "Memoirs of English affairs;" a book that shows both his employments and greater abilities. He was almost ever a commissioner and companion with those great men that the lords and commons of England, at several times, appointed to treat with King Charles I. for a peace. He was commissioner of the great seal, ambassador to the crown of Sweden, and sometimes president to the council: a scholar, a lawyer, a statesman; in short, he was one of the most accomplished men of the age. Being with him sometimes at his own house in Berkshire, where he gave me that account I have related of chancellor Oxenstiern, amongst many serious things he spoke, this was very observable, "I have ever thought," said he, "there has been one true religion in the world, and that is the work of the Spirit of God in the hearts and souls of men. There have been indeed divers forms and shapes of things, through the many dispensations of God to men, answerable to his own wise ends, in reference to the low and uncertain state of man in the world; but the old world had the Spirit of God, for it strove with them; and the new world has had the Spirit of God, both Jew and Gentile, and it strives with all; and they that have been led by it, have been the good people in every dispensation of God to the world. And I myself must say, I have felt it from a child to convince me of my evil and vanity, and it has often given me a true measure of this poor world, and some taste of divine things; and it is my grief I did not more early apply my soul to it. For I can say, since my retirement from the greatness and hurries of the world, I have felt something of the work and comfort of it, and that it is both ready and able to instruct, and lead and preserve those that will humbly and sincerely hearken to it. So that my religion is the good Spirit of God in my heart; I mean, what that has wrought in me and for me." And after a meeting at his house, to which he gave an entire liberty for all that pleased to come, he was so deeply affected with the testimony of the light, spirit, and grace of Christ in man, as the gospel dispensation, that after the meeting closed in prayer, he rose up, and pulled off his hat, and said, "This is the everlasting gospel I have heard this day: and I humbly bless the name of God, that He has let me live to see this day, in which the ancient gospel is again preached to them that dwell upon the earth."