The materials for forming a judgment of the actual state of religion during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth are manifold. Attention should be directed first to the general accounts of the times which have been handed down to us by contemporaries. Isaak Walton, in his "Life of Dr. Robert Sanderson," declares that "the common people were amazed and grown giddy by the many falsehoods and misapplications of truth frequently vented in sermons, when they wrested the Scripture, by challenging God to be of their party, and called upon Him in their prayers to patronize their sacrilege and zealous frenzies." He also complains of honesty and plain dealing being exchanged for cruelty and cunning, and of the encouragement given to perjury by the violation of one oath through the taking of another. He says that Sanderson lamented much that "in many parishes where the maintenance was not great there was no minister to officiate; and that many of the best sequestered livings were possessed with such rigid Covenanters as denied the sacrament to their parishioners unless upon such conditions, and in such a manner, as they could not take it."[460]

Baxter, however, remarks: "If any shall demand whether the increase of godliness was answerable in all places to what I have mentioned (and none deny that it was with us) I answer, that however men that measure godliness by their gain, and interest, and domination, do go about to persuade the world that godliness then went down, and was almost extinguished, I must bear this faithful witness to those times, that as far as I was acquainted, where before there was one godly profitable preacher, there was then six or ten; and, taking one place with another, I conjecture there is a proportionable increase of truly godly people, not counting heretics, or perfidious rebels, or Church disturbers, as such. But this increase of godliness was not in all places alike; for in some places, where the ministers were formal, or ignorant, or weak and imprudent, contentious or negligent, the parishes were as bad as heretofore. And in some places, where the ministers had excellent parts and holy lives, and thirsted after the good of souls, and wholly devoted themselves, their time, and strength, and estates thereunto, and thought no pains or cost too much, there abundance were converted to serious godliness. And with those of a middle state, usually they had a hidden measure of success. And I must add this to the true information of posterity, that God did so wonderfully bless the labours of His unanimous faithful ministers, that had it not been for the faction of the Prelatists on one side, that drew men off, and the factions of the giddy and turbulent sectaries on the other side (who pulled down all government, cried down the ministers, and broke all into confusion, and made the people at their wits' end, not knowing what religion to be of), together with some laziness and selfishness in many of the ministry, I say, had it not been for these impediments, England had been like, in a quarter of an age, to have become a land of saints, and a pattern of holiness to all the world, and the unmatchable paradise of the earth. Never were such fair opportunities to sanctify a nation lost and trodden under foot as have been in this land of late! Woe be to them that were the causes of it."[461]

The honesty of Isaak Walton is undoubted; yet no one who has read his charming biographies will regard him as free from prejudice in his opinion of the Puritans. But Baxter—though strongly opposed to the course of things after the Restoration, and one who may be regarded as a party man—yet kept himself singularly free from party ties during the Commonwealth; for, whilst he was an enemy to the sectaries, he also exercised the privilege of criticising the Presbyterians. On that account, considerable impartiality must be admitted as characterizing his report; and indeed the discriminating tone of his remarks indicates how carefully he strove to avoid exaggeration and to do justice on all sides.[462]

Next to general statements, we ought to consider the particular results of the Puritan ministry as recorded at the time. Turning to Baxter's account of Kidderminster, and to the life of Wilson at Maidstone (specimens of both have been largely copied in former pages), we discover ample proofs of religious prosperity according to the Puritan type, and much which all Christians, whatever be their opinions, must admire. In Lancashire the Presbyterian system was rather fully carried out, with what success has been described. Certainly, the failure of Presbyterian discipline in London is manifest.

Proceeding to consult biographies, we find that the lives of Hammond, Sanderson, and Bull, bear witness to Episcopalian devotion and constancy under oppression; and on referring to "Clarke's Lives," and other memoirs of the same class, we are made acquainted with a large number of godly Puritans who were living in the days of Oliver Cromwell.

Over against these records of individual excellence, however, must be placed appeals in contemporary sermons, and also treatises, which teem with rebukes and reproof, such as imply very unfavourable impressions of the general religious character of the times. Farindon, in one of his discourses, exclaims: "The Church mourneth, her very face is disfigured. Religion mourneth, being trod underfoot, and only her name held up to keep her down." "Have ye no regard, all ye that pass by the way, to see a troubled State, a disordered Church moulded into sects, and crumbled into conventicles, religion enslaved and dragged to vile offices, true devotion spit at, and hypocrisy crowned, common honesty almost become a reproach, and the upright moral man condemned to hell."[463] Farindon, however, it must be remembered, was a son of the Episcopal Church of England, stung with grief for his mother's sad humiliation; and although he owed something to those who allowed him to preach, and who restored him to his pastoral charge, still he could scarcely avoid regarding with some prejudice what was going on around him. Not only do Episcopal authors speak unfavourably of the times, but Presbyterian and Independents do the same. Dr. Annesley, in a sermon preached at St. Paul's, in the year 1655, thus addressed his congregation:—"When you stood upon lower ground did you not think magistrates might do more than they did? Do you now do what you then thought? If you say you have performed the commandment of the Lord, a bystander will perhaps reply: What mean, then, the blasphemous swearing, the roaring drunkenness, the common whoredoms, the rambling Sabbath breakings, &c.? may these sons of Belial plead liberty of conscience? If you cannot reach those that pull the crown from the head of Christ in way of spirital wickedness, pray hold their hands that would stab the heart of Christ by moral wickedness."[464]

The language of Dr. Owen is very strong. "Whilst all the issues of providential dispensations in reference to the public concernments of these nations are perplexed and entangled, the footsteps of God lying in the deep, where His paths are not known; whilst in particular, unparalleled distresses, and strange prosperities are measured out to men, yea to professors; whilst a spirit of error, giddiness, and delusion goes forth with such strength and efficacy, as it seems to have received a commission to go and prosper; whilst there are such divisions, strifes, emulations, attended with such evil surmises, wrath, and revenge, found amongst brethren; whilst the desperate issues and products of men's temptations are seen daily in partial and total apostasy, in the decay of love, the overthrow of faith, our days being filled with fearful examples of backsliding, such as former ages never knew; whilst there is a visible declension from reformation seizing upon the professing party of these nations, both as to personal holiness, and zeal for the interest of Christ."[465]

In all honesty, we feel bound to give these extracts; but we would remind the reader that passages of this order require qualification. No one can accept literally, and as a whole, what Cyprian wrote about the moral condition of the Church at Carthage; or what Chrysostom declared, or implied, respecting the people of Constantinople; or what Salvian testified relative to Roman society; or what Luther said of Germany; or what Melancthon wrote of the dissensions of the Reformers;[466] or what Becon reported of English morality in Edward the Sixth's reign;[467] or what preachers uttered relative to the state of religion in the times of Queen Elizabeth.[468] We instinctively make some allowance for the impetuosity of indignation betrayed by honest men as they warned their contemporaries. Their strong language, and the respectful manner in which it was listened to, indicated that amidst the existence of the worst evils there also existed what was infinitely different. The words of English authors at the Puritan epoch must be dealt with in a discriminating spirit, such as guides us in the interpretation of Greek and Latin teachers in patristic times, and German and English preachers at the epoch of the Reformation.

Further, the theology of the period should be carefully studied. None of its varieties; none of its excellencies; none of its defects should be overlooked. We ought impartially to aim at finding out exactly what High Churchmen taught, and as a just result, give them credit for catholic orthodoxy, for calm devotion, and for ethical appeals in their writings; and not merely condemn them for what was legal and ritualistic, and for what was ascetic and superstitious in their views and ways. With equal impartiality, also, ought we to survey the doctrinal literature of the Puritan school in its different departments, as found in the works of Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Quakers; marking well the prominence generally assigned in them to the redemption which was wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ, to the work of the Holy Spirit, and to the enforcement of moral duties by motives which had been drawn from the Gospel. And with corresponding fidelity it becomes us to note the narrow conceptions of the atonement, and the high views of predestination which appear in some cases; and also the too minute and metaphysical distinctions common in a large number of Puritan productions; together with the want of sympathy which they indicate with forms of sentiment differing from their own. Habits of theological thinking both expressed and shaped the religious character and experience of the times.

Putting together all these materials for forming an opinion of the spiritual condition of the people during the period embraced in this work, we should say, that what was true of one place might not be true of another; that in cities and larger towns many of the middle classes became sincere Presbyterians and Independents, whilst in small towns and villages Royalism lingered, associated with a strong attachment to Episcopacy; that in both Puritan and Anglican instances, eminent piety existed by the side of hypocrisy and immorality; and that amidst a great deal of formalism, superficial religion, and mere external morality, there flourished a large amount of vital godliness; that spirituality of feeling might be often found apart from wisdom, and coupled with unhealthy excitement; that Puritans were intensely anti-ritualistic, hating "pontifician fooleries," and joining to "hiss them out of the Church"[469]—their English common sense, as well as the spiritual perception of the genius of the Gospel, causing them to revolt from the absurdities of "Catholic" ceremonials; that Anglicans themselves, by the time the Civil Wars were over, had learned a salutary lesson, and were weaned somewhat from the follies of Archbishop Laud, and under the Protectorate passed through a discipline which made them somewhat wiser at the Restoration, in reference to the pomp of worship than they had been twenty years before; that a large proportion of true Christians were then, as ever, of the common mediocre type, described as neither white, nor red, but "good brown ochre;" that the furnace of affliction purified the Episcopal part of the Church from some of the dross which had largely alloyed it at a previous period, and brought out the piety and patience of its confessors in beautiful colours whilst the temporal prosperity of Puritanism proved rather unfavourable to its spiritual character; and that, on the whole, there was a broader surface, and a richer depth of genuine piety during the period we have reviewed, than was the case just before or just afterwards.

Nor can it be doubted that England then could bear comparison with other countries at the same time. For on the Continent, in Roman Catholic lands, though some of the worst ecclesiastical abuses had been reformed, and the morals of the clergy had improved, and the Inquisition had been checked, yet the chief activities of religious thought, and the main business of education, had fallen almost entirely into the hands of Jesuits. From the orthodoxy of Protestant kingdoms and states there had been brushed off very much of the dew of its youth. The Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Germany had lost their "first love," and had become much more the conservators of a cold, dogmatic Christianity than the warm-hearted disciples of the Living Word. They kept their eyes open for the detection of heterodoxy, and they assailed one another sharply for slight deviations from certain standards which had been handed down by their fathers, but they had declined in spirituality and devotion.[470] They guarded the stones of the altar, but they let the fire die down to a few red ashes. Theological learning abounded, pastoral diligence of a certain description extensively obtained, but Evangelical fervour had declined, and the revival of piety under Spener did not commence until after the Restoration in England had taken place. The religion of the Commonwealth found scarcely a parallel at that time in Europe.[471]