Departed on Nov. 16th 1761. The Personalia of the Single Brother John Plaisted.

He writes of himself, I was born at West Titherton Wiltshire on February 12th, 1729. My parents were religious people of the Church of England, until when the Methodists came into that country, and then my father joined them, at which time I was about 12 years old. In my 15th year I was in some measure awakened by the preaching of Brother Cennik and grew very uneasy about my salvation, and followed the preachers about the country in order to hear something which might satisfy my heart. My elder brother, not understanding nor liking this course, persuaded me to go to service with a farmer, who lived not far from the Brethren’s Chapel, they having come about this time to Titherton. This he did out of a principle of love to me, thinking thereby my mind would be diverted of from that uneasiness and melancholy which constantly attended me. Here I lived for 2 years. My master, not suffering me to hear the Brethren, but compelled me to pass by the Brethren’s Chapel on Sundays and to go to church. When the distress of my mind on this account often made me weep, the other young men, my fellow servants, being of a wild and worldly turn of mind, laughed me out of it, by which means I forgot and stiffed all conviction, took to the same courses with them, and pursued all sorts of vice and worldly pleasure which that country afforded with all my might till I was about 23 years of age; my father did not fail from time to time to put me in mind of my former grace, and to admonish me in harmony with the dear holy ghost in my heart, to give myself up to our Saviour. But shame and confusion on account of my backsliding and the entanglements of the world so overcame me, that I could not resolve to be entirely by our Saviour until I heard the word of reconciliation and atonement in the blood and sufferings of Jesus Christ by Brother Cennick again, about the beginning of the year 1753. This struck and captivated my heart in such a manner, that I could not resist any longer; the Man of Sorrows in his crosses form drew near my heart and I went and prayed incessantly for the assurance of my Election of Grace, which I also happily obtained, but not withstanding this I could not be entirely at rest and satisfied until I was quite amongst that people to which I knew I belonged and got leave to live with the Single Brethren at Foxham in the year 1755, where Brother Schulze was Labourer and received me into the House according to the entire wish and joy of my heart. Here I prospered in the heart’s acquaintance with our Saviour and had the grace to be received into the congregation on November 13th, 1756. But the Brethren’s economy in Foxham being broke up before my reception into the congregation, I went to live with a married Brother in the same place, where I remained a year and 1/4, and from thence came to live with Brother Samuel Utley at Titherton. Here I had the inexpressible grace in May 1758 to be made a participant of the body and blood of the Lord in the Holy Sacrament with the congregation. Those years that I lived with Brother Samuel Utley proved an unspeakable blessing, and of great reality to my heart, for here it was that I became rightly acquainted both with myself and also with the friend of my soul, who granted me the grace to ground myself and also as a sinner upon his sufferings and merits, and I wanted nothing to render my days quite to my satisfaction but the grace and happiness to live in the Single Brethren’s Choir House at Lambshill. My longing desire after which was so strong, that I oftentimes could scarcely sleep for thinking about it and speaking with our Saviour to make a way for me to go live there, and it was a great joy to me, when I got the promise from our dearest Johannes that I should once go thither, and at last the hour came that I got permession to go to Lambshill, which almost overcame me with joy, and accordingly I got ready and set out for that place in May; I was so transported that as I went along I scarce knew whether I walked, run, or leaped; and indeed I did all of them so that had anybody seen me they might have thought I was not right in my head, and on the 5th of June, I arrived with the dear Single Brethren at Lambshill, where I was at home directly and found this to be the place for me according to the impression I had always had of it, and from the first of my arrival here till this day have always thought I shall never be transplanted any were else till it is my Saviour’s time to take me to the Congregation, which is around him. So far his own account.

The Brethren here soon got a real love to him and he to them, and his genuine simplicity and honesty approved him to all our hearts. In the first weeks he was employed in various matters, and afterwards he became our cook, where he approved himself as an indefatigable and faithful Brother to our great contentment, and we were thankful for him in this place. His character was a truly simple upright Brother, in whom there was nothing crooked or treacherous and withal had a sensible and tender heart, whose only object was the Man of Sorrows, and in his Choir course was steady and happy, and his election was weighty to him. He frequently spoke to his intimate acquaintance even in his healthy days of his longing desire to be at home, with by our Saviour, and particularly some days before his sickness he would often say, it what a happiness will that be, when I once shall be like our Saviour in one point, viz, to be laid out as a corpse as he was. On Thursday, November 5th, he was seized with a violent pain in his head and back, and the next day took to his bed and continued to have great pain. He said directly he was very positive he should go home in this sickness; and when he was lightheaded, which was pretty much the case, his fancies were about nothing but going to our Saviour; and would often call out I must go, he calls me; or he has sent a messenger for me to conduct me home to him, etc.

On the 8th, the smallpox came out and he was exceeding full of a bad heavy kind, but amidst his great pains he spent his time very happily in conversation with our Saviour, wishing the hour would soon come that he might have permission to leave the mortal tent; and thus his days were spent to the blessing and satisfaction of those Brethren about him and those who visited him. On about the 14th and 15th, he was considerably easier than he had been, and many Brethren begun to think he would recover, but he still remained steady with respect to his certainty to that he should go, for said he, our Saviour himself has been with me, and assured me of it. When verses were sung about his bed he always joined in and sung aloud, with a peculiar happy feeling, even if he was lightheaded, and when nobody sung by him, he spent a good deal of time in with singing for himself.

Towards the evening of the 16th, it was clear that his hour was not far off; he was sensible, but could not speak very intelligibly, yet the words “my Saviour come and take me” we could often understand. At 10 o’clock this evening, his departing liturgy was sung, and during the singing, “Go to thy Lord, and blush for shame His torments comfort thee He loves, and calls thee now by name in His arms clasped to thee. Thy dear soul, redeemed with haste, we do now deliver Into Jesus’s pierced heart, there to be for ever. The blessing of his Choir was imparted to him and his soul took flight to his beloved Saviour.