As in the histories of the English nation, so in histories of the English Church, the individual, domestic, and social condition of the people has been too much overlooked; public ecclesiastical affairs have been allowed almost completely to overshadow private religious customs and habits. Yet if we would fully understand what our ancestors were, and truly estimate their character under its moral aspect, and in its spiritual relations, we must enter as far as we can within the circle of their inner Church life and their home retirements. Happily, materials exist for the illustration of this important part of the ecclesiastical history of England during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth.
I. Episcopalians were deprived of the privilege of baptism according to their own cherished formularies. Had the law only prohibited the open celebration of that service, the hardship would have been less than it was; inasmuch as christenings in the house had become common in the Stuart period, and the display made on such occasions had been often made the subject of complaint and rebuke. The ordinance of 1645 prohibited the use of Episcopal Church services in private as well as in public. But notwithstanding this circumstance, many a clergyman ran the risk of still wearing a surplice, of still making the sign of the cross, and of still repeating those words which had become dearer to him than ever, from the very fact of the peril which was now connected with their employment.
The Directory described the legalized mode of celebrating the initiatory rite of the Gospel. Private members of the Church were by that authority forbidden to perform it; its administration being lodged, it was said, in "the hands of the Stewards of the mysteries of God." Great importance was attached to the publicity of the ceremony; the law requiring it to be conducted in a place where the whole act of worship could be seen and heard, and not in a dark corner of the church, where—to use the words of the Directory—"fonts in the time of Popery were unfitly and superstitiously placed." The Presbyterians explained baptism as the seal of ingrafting into Christ—the right to which formed the inheritance of the seed of believers, who were pronounced to be "holy before baptism, and therefore are they to be baptized." The inward virtue was not tied in its communication to the time of administering the ordinance. Its fruit and power, it was said, "reacheth to the whole course of our life; and that outward baptism is not so necessary, that through the want thereof the infant is in danger of damnation, or the parents guilty, if they do not contemn or neglect the ordinance of Christ, when and where it may be had." Instruction to that effect was to be given when the service took place; then prayer was to be offered for "sanctifying the water to this spiritual use"—the element being applied by means of pouring or sprinkling.[397] The service was concluded with thanksgiving and supplication, for which suitable topics were suggested by the Directory. The staid Puritan matron, in raiment simple as it was pure, came to church accompanied by her husband—also dressed in Puritan garb—who presented the child to the minister and announced its name. Names savouring of Paganism and Popery were decidedly forbidden, and sometimes, no doubt, peculiar ones taken from Scripture were chosen; yet, in this respect, the Puritans of the Commonwealth only followed a custom which had been common in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Any strange Christian names which might be borne by men and women under the Protectorate must have been given by a parent at that earlier period, and can therefore be no just reason for ridiculing the persons to whom they belonged. Care was taken in the ordinance which established the Directory to require that there should be a book of vellum provided for the registration of baptisms; but the unsettled condition of the times in some cases rendered the provision nugatory. For example, the Vicar of Lowestoft states that, in 1645, he and many others were taken prisoners by Colonel Cromwell, so that, for some time, there existed neither minister nor clerk in the town, and "the inhabitants were obliged to procure one another to baptize their children"—consequently baptisms could not be properly registered.[398]
That baptisms should be in public was required by the Independents no less than by the Presbyterians; nor would the former, in general, object to what the Directory prescribed, except that they disliked set forms, and preferred "the administration of the seals," as they termed them, by the minister in his own way, "according to the occasion." It is mentioned as a practice amongst the Independents, that one minister preached and another performed the rite of baptism after the sermon.[399]
II. The education of the young received much attention in Puritan times. Devout parents were anxious that their children should be well instructed in the truths of Christianity, and for this purpose they used certain approved catechisms. That which was prepared by the Assembly of Divines soon superseded all others. Schools, whether conducted by an Anglican priest or by a Puritan presbyter, were remarkable both for the thorough drilling which the younger pupils received in the rudiments of the dead languages, and for the use of the higher classics by elder boys in the upper forms. Such boys were required to talk during school hours in Latin, "under a penalty if they either spoke English or broke Priscian's head;" but if their Latinity was barbarous and not ungrammatical, they were subject simply to the derision of their juvenile critics. The study of Greek authors was also cultivated, and school exercises in that department took a shape bearing upon the illustration of Scripture, and sometimes presented very amusing examples. A "great anti-Puritan" schoolmaster is mentioned as being particularly careful to observe in profane authors all allusions to the contents of the Bible; and so quick were his eyes in detecting these that he would gravely tell his boys that the words, "ubi nuper arârat," in Ovid's story of Deucalion's flood, had in them a strange allusion, (he would not say whether intended or accidental,) to the Mountain of Ararat on which rested Noah's ark.[400] The tutors of the upper classes were ambitious of improving upon earlier methods, avoiding "the miseducation of the gentry," over which Bishop Hall, in one of his letters, pours out very characteristic lamentations.[401] William Greenhill—the Independent minister of Stepney—in the Dedication prefixed to one of his works, compliments the Princess Elizabeth upon her resolution to write out with her own princely hand the Holy Oracles in the original, thus breeding hopes that she would excel her sex throughout Europe, as Drusius said of his son, who, when five years old, learned Hebrew, and at twelve could write it extempore, both in prose and verse.[402] Discipline seems to have been equally strict at home and at school; and the young Puritan was taught in his earliest days to regard life as a very grave and serious business. He had to pass through long seasons of fasting and prayer, and to listen to sermons of three hours' duration, from which he was required to carry home "the minister's method," duly drawn out in heads and particulars.[403]
III. When Puritan young ladies and gentlemen had reached a fitting age, and began to think of a union for life—after courtship had been commenced in earnest, and the lovers' knot had been tied—there came what was called the handfasting, which was a sort of solemn espousal, and upon this event a day was spent in praying and hearing a sermon, and in forming a contract, which bound the parties to wed each other.
When the Presbyterian minister had received a certificate of the banns having been published, he might solemnize the marriage on any day excepting one of public humiliation; although the Directory advised that it should not be on a Lord's Day.[404] After an address had been delivered, and the usual charge had been given, as to whether the parties were aware of any impediment to their union, the man and woman, taking each other by the hand, promised to be loving and faithful to each other until God should separate them by death. Then, without any further ceremony, the minister pronounced them to be husband and wife, and "concluded the action with prayer." When several persons were present, it was not an uncommon thing for a sermon to be preached.[405]
Old English wedding customs had been rather wild and rude. Amidst plenty of music and dancing, with perhaps a masque and other sports, the bride had appeared adorned with garlands, when her head was touched with the sole of a shoe, in token of subjection to her future lord. Stockings were flung at the fair one; and on the sideboard, in addition to the bride-cake, bays and rosemary (the latter dipped in scented water) played an important part in the marriage feast. Sheffield knives were presented, to be worn, one each in the girdle of bride and bridegroom; gloves, scarfs, points, and laces, were also fashionable offerings on the happy occasion. But Puritans, shocked at the superstition which animated some ancient usages, and at the indelicacy and grossness of others, became sparing in the use of symbols, and contracted the entertainments of the most joyous day of human life so as to bring them within very narrow dimensions. It might indeed be said, in the words of an old play, "We see no ensigns of a wedding here—no character of a bridal; where be our scarfs and gloves?"[406]
John Howe speaks of "Emanuel, God with us," as the motto of a married pair, and as "the posy on their wedding ring;" but with some persons, even the use of that simple and beautiful sign now stood in jeopardy, from the supposed paganism of its remote origin. Whatever might be the speeches made at wedding feasts, no healths would be drunk, for such a practice was distinctly forbidden. Yet innocent mirth, according to the taste of the persons assembled, would not be wanting; nor did they need any commiseration for the absence of what they did not relish, and what it would have been really a sacrifice for them to adopt. Presents of substantial worth sometimes graced these festivals; and a silver bowl, given at Oliver Heywood's nuptials, continued for many years an heirloom in the family.
IV. The ideal of the Puritan woman is one of the fairest types of womanhood—face full of the beautifulness of modesty; eyes lustrous with the calm light of devotion; countenance expressive of firmness and gentleness, meekness and love; dress of subdued colour—of silk, or stuff, according to the wearer's rank; kerchief white as snow; no "plaiting of hair," but locks tucked back, smooth and glossy as a raven's wing. The bashful maiden sat in her garden bower, with lute and psalm-book; the matron, with her waiting women, in the fair oak parlour after morning prayer, her character formed on King Lemuel's model, "seeking wool and flax, and working willingly with her hands;" laying her hands to the spindle, and her hands holding the distaff; stretching forth her hand to the poor, reaching forth her hands to the needy; opening her mouth with wisdom, while on her tongue is the law of kindness; looking well to the ways of her household, and not eating the bread of idleness. This is a lovelier type of female humanity than can be found in any of Lily's pictures of Charles II.'s beauties, with luscious lips and dainty lovelocks—with their outward adorning, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel. Modern painters, with the instinctive insight of genius, see and appreciate the fact, and hence depict, not the Puritan in love with the Cavalier's daughter, but the Cavalier in love with the Puritan girl.
Puritan houses exhibited Scripture texts upon the doors and over the fire-places; also upon the baby's cot, and even upon a wooden skillet or a copper kettle. Godly verses hung on the walls, forming decorations destitute of all beauty, save such as might exist in the meaning of the words printed in rude type and upon coarse paper. The ladies, in fair white stomachers and silken skirts, plied their needles or read their books. A few conned the Greek Testament or spelt out the Hebrew Bible. Lips and the lute yielded fair music; but in some cases a large induction from the study of natural history seems to have been considered necessary to vindicate the recreation, for it was sagely observed: "Of all beasts, saith Ælian, there is not that delighteth not in harmony only the ass; strange would it be for man to love it not." It ought in this connection, however, to be remembered that the songs of the seventeenth century were not generally of a kind to commend themselves to minds distinguished by purity; and therefore, amongst religious and virtuous persons, a prejudice extensively obtained against all music except such as was sacred.
V. Family worship was maintained with conscientious regularity, but was sometimes carried to a most wearisome length. In earlier days, Presbyterians had been cautious in their prolonged devotions, lest they should be interrupted by their neighbours, and had even adopted the very strange expedient of posting a boy by the gate, to sing and shout, for the purpose of deadening the voice of the individual who might be engaged in domestic supplication. When alarming events occurred, persons of this description would spend whole nights in the exercises of devotion; and Oliver Heywood, referring to one of these seasons, remarks: "Such a night of prayers, tears, and groans, I was never present at in all my life."[407] Whilst in the days of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate the Puritans had full liberty of worship, their Episcopalian neighbours were obliged to take the place of those whom they had previously persecuted; and the reader of "Woodstock" will, perhaps, call to mind Sir Henry Lee, in his wicker chair, listening to an old man, in a dilapidated clerical habit, reading prayers, as Alice knelt at her father's feet, uttering "responses with a voice that might have suited a choir of angels." The picture is no doubt over-coloured, and may express a deceptive kind of sentimentalism; yet the circumstances of domestic worship in the dwelling of a High Church family would not be unlike the graphic sketch supplied by the great novelist.
Puritanical servants were ill at ease in houses where young gentlewomen learned to play, and dance, and sing; but they breathed a congenial atmosphere in places where the means of grace were amply enjoyed, and a rigid discipline was firmly maintained. An individual of this class has minutely detailed his own history; and in it he describes himself as receiving hat-bands, doublet, coat, breeches, stockings, shoes, a cloak, and half-a-dozen pairs of cuffs, from his mistress, in the shape of a gratuity, besides some £5 a year wages. He waited—he says—upon her at table, brought the table-cloth and spread it out, laid upon the trenchers salt and bread, set her a chair, brought her the first dish, begged her to sit down, and supplied whatever she asked for. This footman used to write down the sermons which he heard, and repeated them noon and night on Sabbath and other "special days," thanking God, who provided him with "rich and fat ordinances" in the ministry of the Word.[408]
Where some members of a family remained faithful to the Episcopal Church—loving her liturgy, and frequenting the private meetings of her clergy—divisions might naturally be expected to arise; but sometimes also, even where all were under the power of a Puritan spirit, religious discord, contrary to all expectation, might be introduced. For instance, we are informed by Lucy Hutchinson that the home of Sir Thomas Fairfax suffered much disquiet from collisions of sentiment between his lady, a staunch Covenanter and Royalist, and certain Independent ministers holding republican views, who attended upon the General in the capacity of his chaplains.
VI. Scarcely anything more obviously marked out the Puritans as objects for the notice of the world than the manner in which they regarded the Lord's Day. They could not agree with Anglicans even as to its appellation; the word Sabbath, commonly used by the former class, being much disliked by the latter. The Puritans claimed sanctity for all the hours of the day from morning until night; their neighbours accounted the hours spent in Divine service alone as holy.[409] The one party founded the whole observance entirely upon words of Scripture, the other mainly upon ecclesiastical tradition. The difference as to the mode of keeping the first day of the week was still more striking. High Churchmen approved of rural amusements after the celebration of public worship, and vindicated the "Book of Sports" as a wise regulation; an extravagance of opinion which drove their fellow-countrymen to an opposite extreme. Whether it were right even to take a walk on the Sunday became with them a serious question; and Baxter, whose health required that he should do so, remarks that he did it privately, lest he should lead other people into sin.[410] The lower orders would sometimes burst through the trammels of law, and would riotously attempt the revival of ancient sports; and it happened once, that upon Easter Sunday, a number of noisy apprentices met in Finsbury Fields to play at their favourite games, and, when the train bands had been sent to disperse them, the young men said that, since all other holydays had been abolished by law, no time of recreation remained but the Sabbath.
VII. Superstitious beliefs deeply tinged the religious and social life of the seventeenth century. There is in human nature an ineradicable conviction of the presence throughout the universe of invisible and mysterious influences; and this conviction, in certain wild imaginary forms, is found in a number of instances to be a pitiable substitute for religion, and, in a still greater number, to be its unworthy companion, and the corrupter of its purity. One of the worst superstitions of this kind is that belief in witchcraft which, after being widely and fondly cherished in mediæval Christendom, was brought over into Protestant churches at the period of the Reformation.[411] An Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth—the Book on Dæmonology by King James—other works on the subject by less conspicuous authors[412]—articles of visitation issued by Bishops[413]—and even the writings of Lord Bacon and John Selden, bear witness to the existence of this delusion on an extensive scale in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Indeed, it hung at that time like a black cloud over all Europe, terrifying people of all countries, of all ranks, of all degrees of culture, and of all varieties of religious opinion.
The most terrible form of this superstition within the shores of Great Britain was to be found in Scotland. The enormous number of witches executed there proves the intense and general persuasion as to the reality of witchcraft which must at the time have existed in that country; and the vigorous and active faith in such diabolical agency manifested by the northern inhabitants of our island could not fail to influence their southern brethren, with whom they were connected by so many bonds of religious association.[414] The common idea was, that witches possessed all sorts of mischievous power. Diseases, especially such as lay beyond the reach of medical art, mysterious pains and convulsions, even accidents and injuries from lightning, and also murrain amongst cattle, were by all classes of people laid at the doors of unfortunate old women who had wrinkled faces, or furrowed brows, or hairy lips, or a squinting eye, or a squeaking voice, or a hump back. It was, moreover, said, that the bewitched fell into fits when they tried to pronounce the name of "Lord," or Jesus, or Christ; but that they could glibly utter the words "Satan," or "Devil."[415] To check the demoniacal craft, witchfinders were employed, who drove a thriving trade at the expense of an inconceivable amount of suffering. Detectives of this order were busy in England, imported from beyond the Tweed,[416] and there were others of southern origin, possessing a wonderful skill for witch-catching altogether of indigenous growth. A genius of this description, the notorious Hopkins,[417] boasted of having hanged no less than sixty of the infernal sisterhood in the county of Essex alone; and trials for these mysterious offences excited a curiosity, possessed a fascination, and inspired a terror such as, in our time, it is extremely difficult to imagine. The effect of all this upon private life amongst religious people, who had a strong faith in the spiritual world and in the agency of Satan, would be exceedingly great; and mainly for the illustration of this point our cursory notice of the subject has been introduced. Stories of dealers in the black art, and of the spells with which they bound men, women, and children, and how pins were extracted from those suffering under enchantment, would be related by the firesides of religious families throughout England during the Commonwealth; these miserable hallucinations making people tremble who were far too brave to shrink with fear from some other things which were really terrific. Tales of apparitions, dreams, and other mysterious occurrences, were not only mingled largely in the staple of such conversations, but they also formed topics of discussion in the correspondence of Divines.[418]
The belief in witchcraft, although so common in Puritan times, and even culminating in England under the Commonwealth,[419] was not, as already indicated, of Puritan origin; nor was it confined to Puritan religionists. Richard Baxter, indeed, dwelt much upon the subject, and derived from it arguments against the doctrines of materialism and the denial of revelation; but men of another theological school, such as More and Cudworth, were equally believers in this form of the marvellous; and the same faith was held by the scientific Robert Boyle, and by Sir Thomas Brown, notwithstanding his exposure of "Vulgar Errors." Nor did this credulity, after all, produce in England an amount of mischief and suffering, great as it was, to be compared with what it did on the Continent before the Reformation, when as many as 500 people are said to have been executed at Geneva in one year, and the Inquisitor Remigius boasted that he had put 900 to death in the province of Lorraine.[420] Neither were there wanting in this country some who, when the rage for witch-burning was most rampant, protested against the whole system as an impious absurdity. In a curious tract, written by Thomas Adey, in the year 1656, entitled, "A Candle in the Dark; or, a Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft," we meet with the following passage:—"It is reported by travellers that some people in America do worship for a day the first living creature they see in the morning, be it but a bird or a worm. This idolatry is like the idolatry of this part of the world, who, when they are afflicted in body or goods by God's hand, they have an eye to some mouse, or bug, or frog, or other living creature, saying it is some witch's imp that is sent to afflict them; ascribing the work of God to a witch, or any mean creature, rather than God." The writer also alludes to Reginald Scott, who had published a book, called "The Discovery of Witchcraft," in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and describes it as composed for the instruction of all Judges and Justices of that day; which book, he observes, did for a while make great impression on the magistracy, and also on the clergy, "but, since that time, England has shamefully fallen from the truth which they began to receive."
VIII. Clerical costume is worth at least one word. The Seventy-fourth Canon of the Church of England—and this Canon has never been repealed—prescribes very minutely that persons in holy orders shall, in ordinary, wear gowns with standing collars and hoods; and shall, when they are on a journey, be dressed in cloaks with sleeves, without welts, but with long buttons; and shall, when they are taking a walk, appear in doublet and hose, with coat or cassock, but not in light-coloured stockings. This law affords some idea of the garb of ministers in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and, with some little change, their garments would be similar in the days of the Stuarts. Ejected Episcopalians, in places where prejudice against them did not exist, would dress in this fashion. Some teachers belonging to the sects would clothe themselves just like other people; and leathern doublets, nay, even uniforms of buff or scarlet, might be seen in pulpits. But such Puritan instructors of the people as had received a University education retained their academic costume for general use; and, of course eschewing in acts of worship the surplice prescribed in the Fifty-eighth Canon, wore gowns of Genevan form, with bands; which latter appendages—judging from old portraits—varied in dimensions from their present cut to such ample breadths as to fall like a collar across the shoulders. Square caps were signs of Anglicanism; and the advocates of the opposite system rigidly refused to wear any which were not round. The wigs so conspicuous in the portraits of early Nonconformists were the luxurious innovations of the period after the Restoration.[421]
IX. Churches were divested of Catholic adornments, except in the case of certain large and elegant edifices, which, as already remarked, shew in their present state how little injury was done to their sculpture, their carvings, or even their painted windows. Commonly, however, images were torn from their niches, screens were taken down in the Chancel, and plain glass substituted in windows for coloured panes. Walls became whitewashed, and exhibited a framed copy of the Covenant hung up in some conspicuous position. No rails enclosed the uncovered table of plain wood standing in the chancel, then altarless. No organ helped the service of song. Pews in continually-increasing number[422] covered the floor of the nave; galleries in the side aisles also afforded accommodation for the multitudes who, in greater crowds than ever, flocked to hear the sermons of popular Divines. Reading-desks went out of fashion; and a precentor, instead of a clerk, occupied a seat under the pulpit—a heavy sounding-board aiding the preacher's voice, and the sands of the hour-glass measuring out the length of his discourses.[423] The general appearance of Gothic fabrics under Presbyterian rule resembled that of ancient parish churches and cathedrals in Holland, Switzerland, and Scotland. Indeed, St. Lawrence at Rotterdam, the Gross Minster of Zurich, and the Grey Friars in Edinburgh, may be regarded as specimens of the appearance which some of our large religious edifices wore before the Restoration.
X. Presbyterians conducted worship according to the terms of the Directory. The service commenced with prayer; then followed the reading of the Holy Scriptures, with more or less of exposition. The congregation afterwards sung a psalm; subsequently to which the minister offered a long prayer, which embraced a number of prescribed topics. The sermons introduced by these devotional exercises were—according to the admirable advice given in the Directory—to be prepared and delivered painfully, plainly, faithfully, wisely, gravely, lovingly, and as taught of God. Some preachers, it would appear, read their discourses; but it was by far the most general practice amongst Puritan Divines to deliver them without the aid of notes.[424] In the Westminster Assembly there had been a debate respecting a curious practice adopted by the Scotch clergy, of bowing in the pulpit to certain distinguished persons in the audience. Baillie attempted to introduce the custom into England, but the Independents opposed it; and the Presbyterians on this side the Tweed never imitated this peculiar usage of their brethren on the other. Devout behaviour at worship was carefully enjoined in the Directory, which, very properly, interdicted all whispering, sleeping, and looking about. Yet the taking of notes—as observed already in the case of persons in Calamy's congregation—seems to have continued as a common habit. "Almost all people," Baillie remarks, "men, women, and children, write at preaching."
Wearing hats during Divine service had been usual in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At the funeral of Bishop Cox, in Ely Cathedral, the congregation sat in the choir to hear the sermon, "all covered, and having their bonnets on." Archbishop Laud noticed that it was a new thing, and he approved of it, for the Oxford Masters to sit at St. Mary's Church bareheaded. To do so became a sign of Cavaliership; and a Royalist colonel, hanged for burglary, told the crowd what a consolation it was to him to remember "that he had always taken his hat off when he went to church." The Puritans continued the older practice, and a forest of steeple-crowned hats covered the pews as long as the sermon lasted; but they were all doffed again as soon as they began to pray.[425]
During the Civil Wars, very unseemly conduct was witnessed occasionally in places of worship. The inhabitants of a parish in the Isle of Wight being divided into two parties as to the great religious questions of the day, the Puritans went one Sunday to church to hear a minister sent down by Parliament. But the previous Anglican incumbent stood upon his rights, and would not allow the new comer to enter within the sacred edifice. Sending for his surplice, he preached in the porch, whereupon the other party adjourned to the school-room, leaving him where he was, surrounded by a small auditory. The correspondent who communicated to the newspaper this piece of intelligence added to it this congratulatory remark: that the discomfiture of the parson was the more remarkable, because in that rude place, the godly folks had before been scorned and derided—as was the case when a certain Lady Norton, living in that neighbourhood, "had repetitions of sermons in her house."[426]
There was little or no difference between the Presbyterian and Independent methods of worship, except that the latter would not employ any prescribed method of service; insisting very much upon the advantages of free prayer, and upon the doctrine that in such kind of prayer "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities."
XI. Anglicans still knelt in secret, and received the consecrated bread and cup from the hands of one of their own priests; but the Presbyterian incumbent administered the Lord's Supper in the parish church to all parishioners, excepting the ignorant and scandalous. The table, decently covered, was conveniently placed so that the communicants might sit around it. After a short warning against improper communion—called in Scotland fencing the tables—the minister began "the action" by sanctifying the elements; then he read the words of institution, and proceeded to pray; after which the bread and wine were distributed, with solemn words, including those used by our blessed Saviour when He instituted the holy feast. Thanksgiving, with a collection, closed the celebration of the Eucharist.
The Independents sat in their pews during the commemoration, instead of sitting close around the tables, as the Presbyterians did; also, they disapproved of the unfrequency of the service amongst their brethren, and were themselves wont to celebrate it week by week. Generally, they partook of the sacred emblems in silence. Philip Nye, according to the report of Robert Baillie, thought that the minister, in preaching, should "be covered, and the people discovered;" but that, "in the sacrament, the minister should be discovered, as a servant, and the guests all covered."[427] How far this strange practice prevailed we cannot say; but the wearing of hats at the Lord's table was a reproach which we find cast upon the Independents by Edwards, the Presbyterian; and that he did not bring the charge without good reason appears from the reply which was made to him by one Catherine Chidley, who thus attempts to vindicate the practice: "It may be as lawful for one man to sit covered, and another uncovered, as it may be lawful for one man to receive it sitting, and another lying in bed."[428]
XII. A prejudice existed amongst some of the earlier Baptists against the use of psalmody in the worship of the Almighty, but the practice met with decided approval from Ainsworth and Robinson, who were patriarchs of Congregationalism.[429] Also, in "The Apologetical Narration of the Five Brethren," the singing of psalms is mentioned as a part of their worship, from which it follows that any objection to it amongst the Congregationalists must have been quite exceptional. The many versions of the Psalms (forty-three at least) at the commencement of the Civil Wars, bear witness to the extensive delight felt at that time in the exercise of praise. Of the primitive Protestant version of Sternhold and Hopkins, there were then several Genevan editions; and certain other versions—altogether distinct from it—present clear indications of a Puritan, and even of a Nonconformist origin.[430] Rivalry between the two Presbyterian hymnologists, Rouse and Barton, as to the use of their new books, published respectively in 1641 and 1644, has been already noticed. The metrical psalms of King Edward the Sixth's time—which had been enjoined under Queen Elizabeth, and in the reigns of the early Stuarts had been liked by the Puritans—were pronounced by some, after the commencement of the Civil Wars, as "uncouth, and unsuited to the times." But the venerable psalter of the Reformers still, to some extent, held its ground; and Baxter complains that those who laid it by used, "some one, and some another" of the existing versions, so that there could be no uniformity at that time in "the service of song."[431]
XIII. Lenten and other Church fasts savoured of superstition in the esteem of the Puritans; but, by the latter, seasons of national humiliation were as solemnly observed as they were frequently enjoined. The Directory defined a fast as requiring total abstinence, not only from food, but also from worldly labour, discourses, and thoughts, and from all bodily delights and rich apparel; still much more from what is scandalous and offensive, such as "gaudish attire, lascivious habits and gestures, and other vanities of either sex;" but abstinence in the last particulars certainly was not meant to be represented as peculiar to days of public repentance. Much time on these occasions was ordered to be spent in reading, hearing, and singing in such manner so "as to quicken suitable affections, especially in prayer;" for which latter exercise the Assembly of Divines had been careful—as in reference to all other kinds of worship—to provide appropriate subjects. Nor were themes proper for the pulpit at such seasons, left unmentioned by those spiritual counsellors. Similar directions, the difference of the object being taken into account, were also given for public thanksgivings. And, not only when governments ordered fasts for the sins of the people, or festivals for victories and deliverances, but at other times, on account both of private sorrows and private joys, did Puritan households devote whole days to the worship of God. Scattered up and down the quaint biographies of that era are instances of hours spent in solitary devotion; of lengthened preparations for the sacrament; of family groups gathered upon their knees, bewailing lukewarmness, declension and backsliding; of services at home akin to those at church, bewailing the low estate of Christendom; of sorrowful commemorations of public and domestic calamities, and of intense spiritual enjoyments experienced alone in the closet, or shared by all the inmates of a dwelling; whilst texts and psalms, religious anecdotes and pious meditations, set their mark on the anniversaries of births, marriages, and special interventions of providence.
XIV. Certain recreations were rigorously forbidden. No wonder the theatre incurred denunciation, after the character given of it by Ben Jonson. Parliament prohibited stage exhibitions; but, in despite of the law, they were covertly continued in certain private mansions, much to the annoyance of the Puritan class. A company of actors in Golding Lane were frequently complained of, who, notwithstanding all complaints, still persevered in their forbidden art; but they were at length seized in the middle of a performance, when, as it was remarked, comedy was turned into tragedy. They were put under a strong guard of pikes and muskets, "plundered of all the richest of their clothes," and left "nothing but necessaries, now"—adds the newspaper which reports the occurrence—"to act and to learn a better life."[432]
The festivities of New Year and of Shrovetide, of May and Michaelmas, also shared in receiving reprehension;[433] the picturesqueness of ancient customs being overlooked amidst the cruelties and the immoralities, with which they had become associated. Wakes were dropped; maypoles were pulled down; cock-fights and bear-baitings came to an end.[434] No doubt actual wickedness and temptations to vice thus met with a decided check, and a surface morality for a while appeared; but certain other prohibitions of a different nature—for which, however, occasion had been given in part, by the circumstance of such amusements as we have just mentioned having become connected with the observance of the seasons prohibited—shocked the sensibilities of many truly pious people. The Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide festivals, with other holydays, were abolished by the ordinance of 1647.[435] This touched the conscience of devout Episcopalians, who loved to commemorate at special seasons the great events of Christianity, and cut deep into the heart of certain social enjoyments, which had come to depend very much upon the associations formed between them and the festivals of the Church. Such unreasonable interferences produced popular tumults. For example, the Mayor of Canterbury would have a market held on Christmas day; and people who at that season desired to attend divine worship in the Cathedral were roughly handled. The discontent which was thus produced burst out into open revolt, and the military were called in to put an end to the uproar,—in consequence of which several people were committed to prison. Puritans, however, had their periods of rest and amusement. The Ordinance for abolishing holidays provided that there should be allotted to scholars, apprentices, and other servants, for recreation, on every second Tuesday of the month, such time as the masters could conveniently spare. The determination of its length would be a matter of difficulty when servant and master were of different minds; to meet which circumstance, this awkward piece of legislation provided, that the next Justice of the Peace should "have power to order and reconcile the same." "Public holidays," therefore, must be considered as having been entirely suspended during the Commonwealth,—a most injudicious proceeding, which led to the worst results at the Restoration.