Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

JOHN SPURR

‘dumpishnesse, and Darknesse of mind’, which only the company of Locke could dispel, he proposed that Locke should take him on, as he had Caleb Banks, and accompany him to Northumberland. Initially polite but evasive, Locke eventually asked whether it was ‘reasonable’ to expect him to neglect his own business to travel to the far north. 40 However, that winter both men found themselves in London and, finally, after three years of pursuit, Granville met Locke on Friday 7th November 1679. 41 What passed between them then is unknown, but Granville arranged to meet Locke again at 5.00 pm on Sunday 9th November. Strange to tell, after chasing Locke so long and so hard, Archdeacon Granville stood him up that Sunday evening. And we know why. In an apologetic note the next morning Granville told Locke that he had been ‘insnared … by my scrupulous Conscience, which would not give mee leave to depart from Bishop Gunning … and his chapell (where I had Communicated)’ until evening service and exposition of the catechism had finished. 42 This delicacy is only half the story, however, because we also have Granville’s own private note of the sabbath spent in Gunning’s chapel, and it recounts the experience rather differently. Granville had confessed to Bishop Gunning and received absolution before the sacrament. ‘I had much comfort, blessed be His Name, from the daye’s celebration, and was much affected with the greatest part of the whole services,’ especially Gunning’s sermon on the day’s epistle, Ephesians vi, very much, I blesse my God, to my edification, causing in mee a great sense of mine owne weaknesse and failings in using the spirituall armour of a Christian, and I doe now accordingly acknowledge my sin in trifling with God and mine owne soule for these 20 yeares past, since I listed myself anew under Christ’s banner, and doe here record a new my solemne promise and vow to God that I made this day at His Holy Table of endeavouring better things. Granville will trust in God ‘and wait patiently for His strengthening of mee and carrying mee through my spirituall conflicts with flesh and bloud and the powers of darknesse’. That strength came through the church and its liturgy: with diffidence and fear, Granville listened for ‘the voice of Church in the Psalmes, and the voice of God in the Lessons,’ until

40 Locke, Correspondence , ii. 104. 41 Locke, Correspondence , ii. 125: this meeting is inferred from the letter of ‘Saturday’ [8 November 1679] saying ‘I ventured last night out (after you left mee)’. 42 Locke, Correspondence , ii. 126.

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