have survived for seven years longer, as her will was proved at London, before Kenelm Digby, LL.D., surrogate of Sir Leoline Jenkins, Knight, LL.D., by her sons Peter and John Delmé, 11th November 1672.
Her sons Elie and Philippe had predeceased her; the latter had died at Canterbury in 1632, aged 5. Pierre was the founder of the English family of Delmé, and he and his descendants shall be treated of in another chapter. It remains to speak of Jean, or John, in whom the spirit of his ancestry eminently survived.
John Delmé was baptized in Canterbury on 27th January 1733 (n.s.). He became a merchant in London, and married in the French Church, Threadneedle Street, on 30th October 1664, Deborah Leadbetter. Their only child Elizabeth was baptized in the same church on 3d January 1673. She was married about 1692 to Gerard Van Heythuyssen, junior, a member of the Dutch Church of London, and four of her children are registered in that church. To that church Mr and Mrs Delmé seem to have been drawn, both their names on a gravestone being still legible there:—
Here lyeth the body of Mrs |
And of |
He died 23d January 1712 (new style), and his will was proved by Peter Delmé and John Gunston on the 13th February following. It was dated 4th December 1707. He styles himself, “John Delmé, of London, merchant,” and says,
“First and principally I bestow my soul into the hands of the one eternall and ever blessed Lord God, one in essence, three in persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, my Creator, my Redeemer and Sanctifyer, trusting alone in free grace and the precious meritts of Jesus Christ for everlasting salvation. I will and desire that my body may be decently buried without pomp and ostentation, according to the discretion of my executors, with the approbation of my dear daughter hereinafter named, in that burying place by me lately purchased, in the church called the Dutch Church, in the parish of St. Peter Poor, in the City of London. . . . I will that my executors, hereinafter named, shall within six months next after my decease pay the summe of £150, to be distributed by my said daughter unto such godly poor persons as I shall in my lifetime give my said daughter directions.”
I have already mentioned his publication of a few of his father’s sermons. The “Spiritual Warning for Times of War,” printed in 1701, had this characteristic letter prefixed to it:—
“To my dear and well-beloved daughter, Mrs Elizabeth Van Heythuysen. — My dearest daughter, — Ever since the Lord was pleas’d to bestow you upon me my paternal affection hath constantly watch’d for, and most cheerfully embraced, all opportunities of doing you good. A most tender love towards you began, grew up with, and, when you were disposed of in marriage 'twas doubled with yourself. Ever since it hath been encreasing and multiplying with that lovely offspring which our good and bountiful God hath given you. But, as there is nothing which I long for so much as your souls, so above all things it fills my heart with the sweetest transports of joy to find an holy work of God conspicuous and thriving in you, and behold such buddings of his grace (as through the tenderness of their age can be expected) in those endearing plants my grandchildren. When it pleased the Lord to take one of them from us, the wound to nature was deep and sharp, but, I can truly say, the hopes I had of its translation to a far better place was heavenly and healing balm. This world may well be called a vale of tears, where exercises and afflictions are connected as if the removal of one were to make room for another, and private troubles are swallow’d up in publick dangers. You know how severely God hath corrected our Protestant Brethren in France and elsewhere, He hath given them water of gall to drink. The nations also by warlike concussions have been put into a bloody sweat and the clouds are returning after the rain; a blacker tempest of desolating war gathers and thickens over this part of the world. Can we — whose sins and provocations have been, and still continue to be, so great — flatter ourselves with dreams of perpetual tranquility? The wise man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the fool goeth on and is punished. My great concern for you and myself is, that we may understand what course to take for allaying our present fears, or preventing, if possible, or (if that cannot be done) preparing ourselves to bear (when they come) impendent judgments.
“I think more plain, more rational and scriptural advice cannot be desired than is contained in the following discourse which I present unto you. It contains the substance of a sermon preached by your reverend and pious grandfather, August 2, 1626, upon a day of solemn humiliation appointed by King Charles I. I shew’d the original, written in French by my dear father’s own hand, to several French ministers who judged it as proper for this time as ever it was for that wherein delivered, and advised me by all means to let it see the light. I have done it into English for more publick service, and have dedicate it to yourself, with your dear and honoured consort, as such a word in season which Solomon compares to