ty in the counting-house, labor in the workshop, everywhere a fixed determi nation to bear all and do all rather than fail in the least injunction of moral jus tice and Bible-law. The stoical energy, the fundamental honesty of the race, were aroused at the appeal of an enthusi astic imagination; and these unbending characteristics were displayed in their entirety in conjunction with abnegation and virtue. * and no establishment in civil society | ble in patience, courage, sacrif ce, en which their efforts could not upset. throning chastity on the domestic Forthwith private life was trans-hearth, truth before the tribunals, hones formed. How could ordinary sentiments, natural and every-day notions of happiness and pleasure, subsist before such a conception? Suppose men condemned to death, not ordinary death, but the rack, torture, an infinitey horrible and infinitely extended torment, waiting for their sentence, and yet knowing that they had one chance in thousand, in a hundred thousand, of pardon could they still go on amusing temselves, taking an interest in the business or pleasure of the time? The azure heaven shines not for them, the sun warms them not, the beauty and sweetness of things have no attraction for them; they have lost the wont of laughter; they fasten inwardly, pale and silent, on their anguish and their expectation; they have but one thought: Will the judge pardon me?" They anxiously probe the involuntary motions of their heart, which alone can reply, and the inner revelation, which alone can render them certain of pardon or ruin. They think that any other condition of mind is unholy, that recklessness and joy are monstrous, that every worldly recreation or preoccupation is an act of paganism, and that the true mark of a Christian is trepidation at the very idea of salvation. Thenceforth rigor and rigidity mark their manners. The Puritan condemns the stage, the assemblies, the world's pomps and gatherings, the court's gallantry and elegance, the poetical and symbolical festivals of the country, the May-poles days, the merry feasts, bell-ringings, all the outlets by which sensuous or instinctive nature endeavored to relieve itself. He gives them up, abandons recreations and ornaments, crops his hair closely, wears a simple sombrehed coat, speaks through his nose, walks stiffly, with his eyes turned up wards, absorbed, indifferent to visible things. The external and natural man is abolished; only the inner and spiritual man survives; there remains of the soul only the ideas of God and conscience, a conscience alarmed and diseased, but strict in every duty, attentive to the least requirements, disdaining the caution of worldly morality, inexhausti 66 Another step, and this great movement passed from within to without, from individual manners to public institutions. Observe these people in their reading of the Bible, they apply to them. selves the commands imposed on the Jews, and the prologues urge them to it At the beginning of their Bibles the translator places a table of the principal words in the Scripture, each with its definition and texts to support it. They read and weigh these words: "Abomi· nation before God are Idoles, Images. Before whom the people do bow them selfes." Is this precept observed? No doubt the images are taken away, but the queen has still a crucifix in her chapel, and is it not a remnant of idol. atry to kneel down when taking the sacrament? Abrogacion, that is to abolyshe, or to make of none effecte And so the lawe of the commande. mentes whiche was in the decrees and ceremonies, is abolished. The sacrifices, festes, meates, and al outwarde ceremonies are abrogated, and all the order of priesthode is abrogated." Is this so, and how does it happen that the bishops still take upon themselves the right of prescribing faith, worship, and of tyrannizing over Christian conscien ces? And have they not preserved in the organ-music, in the surplice of the priests, in the sign of the cross, in a hundred other practices, all these visible rites whic God has declared profane? "Abuses. The abuses that be in the church ought to be corrected by the prynces. The ministers ought to preache against abuses. Any maner The Byble, nowe lately with greate in Becke), Lond., by John Daye and William dustry and Diligèce recognized (by Edm Seres, 1549, with Tyndale's Prologues. of mere tradicions of man are abuses." What, meanwhile, is their prince doing, and why does he leave abuses in the church? The Christian must rise and protest; we must purge the church from the pagan crust with which tradition has covered it.* |isters are dismissed, hunted out, prose cuted.* The law declares that any on. above the age of sixteen who for the space of a month shall refuse to attend the established worship, shall be imprisoned until such time as he shall sub mit; and if he does not submit at the Such are the ideas conceived by end of three months, he shall be Lanis b hese uncultivated minds. Fancy the ed the kingdom; and if he returns, pu Pimple folk, more capable by their sim- to death. They allow this to go on, and plicity of a sturdy faith, these free- show as much firmness in suffering as holders, these big traders, who have scruple in belief; for a tittle about re sat on juries, voted at elections, delib-ceiving of the communion, sitting rather era ed, discussed in common private than kneeling, or standing rather than and public business, used to examine sitting, they give up their livings, their the law, the comparing of precedents, property, their liberty, their country. all the detail of juridical and legal pro- One Dr. Leighton was imprisoned cedure; bringing their lawyer's and fifteen weeks in a dog's kennel, withpleader's training to bear upon the in-out fire, roof, bed, and in irons: his terpretation of Scripture, who, having hair and skin fell off; he was set in once formed a conviction, employ for the pillory during the November frosts, it the cold passion, the intractable ob- then whipt, and branded on the forestinacy, the heroic sternness of the head; his ears were cut off, his nose English character. Their precise and slit; he was shut up eight years in the combative minds take the business in Fleet, and thence cast into the common hand. Every one holds himself bound prison. Many went cheerfully to the to be ready, strong, and well prepared stake. Religion with them was a covto answer all such as shall demand a enant, that is, a treaty made with God, reason of his faith. Each one has his which must be kept in spite of every difficulty and conscientious scruplet thing, as a written engagement, to the about some portion of the liturgy or letter, to the last syllable. An admithe official hierarchy: about the dig-rable and deplorable stiffness of an nities of canons and archdeacons, or certain passages of the funeral service; about the sacramental bread or the reading of the aprocyphal books in church; about plurality of benefices or the ecclesiastical square cap. They each oppose some point, all together the episcopacy and the retention of Romish ceremonies. Then they are imprisoned, fined, put in the pillory; they have their ears cut off; their min over-scrupulous conscience, which made cavillers at the same time with believers, which was to make tyrants after it had made martyrs. Between the two, it made fighting men. These men had become wonderfully wealthy and had increased in numbers in the course of eighty years, as is always the case with men who labor, live honestly, and pass their lives uprightly, sustained by a powerful source of action from with * Examination of Mr. Axton: I can't conin. Thenceforth they are able to re sent to wear the surplice, it is against my conscience; I trust, by the help of God, I shall sist, and they do resist when driven to ever put on that sleeve, which is a mark of extremities; they choose to have reh: beast"-Examination of Mr. White, แ a course to arms rather than be driven stantial citizen of London" (1572), accused back to idolatry and sin. The Long f not going to the parish church: "The Parliament assembles, defeats the king, whole Scriptures are for destroying idolatry, and every thing that belongs to it."- "Where purges religion; the dam is broken, is the place where these are forbidden?"-"In the Independents are hurled above the Deuteronomy and other places; . and God by Isaiah commandeth not to pollute ourselves Presbyterians, the fanatics above the with the garments of the image." mere zealots; irresistible and over ... † One expression continually occurs: "Ten-whelming faith, enthusiasm, grow into derness of conscience"-"a squeamish stom- a torrent, swallow up, or at least disThe separation of the Anglicans and disturb the strongest minds, politicians senters may be dated from 1564. ach"-" our weaker brethren." 1993. a schemer, above all ambitious, yet he was truly fanatical and sincere. His doctor relate i that he had been very melancholy for years at a time, with strange hallucinations, and the frequent fancy that he was at death's door. Two years before the Revolution he wrote to his cousin: "Truly no poor crea ture hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of his God than I lawyers, captains. The Commons occupy a day in every week in deliberating on the progress of religion. As soon as they touch upon doctrines they become furious. A poor man, Paul Best, being accused of denying the I'rinity, they demand the passing of a decree to punish him with death; James Nayler having imagined that he was God, the Commons devote themselves to a trial of eleven days, with a... The Lord accept me in His Son Hebraic animosity and ferocity: "I think him worse than possessed with the devil. Our God is here supplanted. My ears trembled, my heart shuddered, on hearing this report. I will speak no more. Let us all stop our ears and stone him." Before the House of Commons, publicly, the men in authority had ecstasies. After the expulsion f the Presbyterians, the preacher High Peters started up in the middle of a sermon, and cried out: "Now I have it by Revelation, now I shall tell you. This army must root up Monarchy, not only here, but in France and other kingdoms round about; this is to bring you out of Egypt; this Army is that corner-stone cut out of the Mountaine, which must dash the powers of the earth to pieces. But it is objected, the way we walk in is without president (sic); what think you of the Virgin Mary was there ever any president before, that a Woman should conceive a Child without the company of a Man? This is an Age to make examples and presidents in."† Cromwell found prophecies, counsels in the Bible for the present time, positive justifications of his policy. "He looked upon the Design of the Lord in this day to be the freeing of His People from every Burden, and that was now accomplishing what was prophesied in the 110th Psalm: from the Consideration of which he was often encouraged to attend the effecting those Ends, spending at least an hour in the Exposition af tha. Psalm." Granted that he was Burton's Parliamentary Diary, ed. by Ruft, 1828, 4 vols. i. 54. Walker's History of Independency, 1648, part ii. p. 49. This passage may serve as an example of the difficulties and perplexities to which a translator of a History of Literature must always be exposed, and this without any fault of the original author. Ab uno disce omnes. and give me to walk in the light-- tion for his policy in Psalm cxiii., which, on Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, ed Carlyle, 1866, 3 vols. i. 79. ↑ Idem, ii. 273. ... public. In 1644, says Dr. Featly, the Anabaptists rebaptized a hundred men and women together at twilight, in streams, in branches of the Thames, and elsewhere, plunging them in the water over head and ears. One Oates, in the county of Essex, was brought before a jury for the murder of Anne Martin, who died a few days after her baptism of a cold which had seized he George Fox the Quaker spoke wit: God, and witnessed with a loud voice, in the streets and market places, against the sins of the age. William Simpson, one of his disciples, was moved of the Lord to go, at several times, for three years, naked and barefoot before them, as a sign unto them, in the mar sured to learn that it could not, being, | terminable. Women, soldiers, suddenly as he said, certain that he had once got up into the pulpit and preached been in a state of grace. He died with The strangest ceremonies took place in this prayer: "Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in Convenant with Thee through grace. And I may, I will, come to Thee, for Thy People. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service.... Lord, however Thou do dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. . . and go on wh the work of reformation; and make the Name of Christ glorious in the world."* Underneath this practical, prudent, worldly spirit, there was an English element of anxious and powerful imagination, capable of engendering an impassioned Calvinism and mystic fears. † The same contrasts were jumbled together and rec-kets, courts, towns, cities, to priests' onciled in the other Independents. In 1648, after unsuccessful tactics, they were in danger between the king and the Parliament; then they assembled for several days together at Windsor (o confess themselves to God, and seek His assistance; and they discovered that all their evils came from the conferences they had had the weakness to propose to the king. "And in this path the Lord led us," said Adjutant Allen, 'not only to see our sin, but also our duty; and this so unanimously set with weight upon each heart that none was able hardly to speak a word to each other for bitter weeping, partly in the sense and shame of our iniquities; of our unbelief, base fear of men, and carnal consultations (as the fruit thereof) with our own wisdoms, and not with the Word of the Lord." Thereupon they resolved to bring the king to judgment and death, and did as they had resolved. houses, and to great men's houses, telling them, so shall they all be stripped naked, as he was stripped naked. And sometime he was moved to put on hair sackcloth, and to besmear his face, and to tell them, so would the Lord besmear all their religion as he was besmeared.* "A female came into Whitehall Chapel stark naked, in the midst of public worship, the Lord Protector himself being present. A Quaker came to the door of the Parliament House with a drawn sword, and wounded several who were present, saying that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to kill every man that sat in the house." The Fifth Monarchy men believed that Christ was about to descend to reign in per son upon earth for a thousand years, with the saints for His ministers. The Ranters looked upon furious vocifera. tions and contortions as the principal signs of faith. The Seekers thought Around them, fanaticism and folly that religious truth could only be seized gained ground. Independents, Millen- in a sort of mystical fog, with doubt am arians, Antinomians, Anabaptists, Lib- fear. The Muggletonians decided that ertines, Familists, Quakers, Enthusi- "John Reeve and Ludovick Muggleton asts, Seekers, Perfectionists, Socinians, were the two last prophets and messen. Arians, anti-Trinitarians, anti-Scriptu-gers of God; they declared the ralists, Skeptics; the list of sects is in- Quakers possessed of the devil, exor * Cromwell's Letters, ed. Carlyle, iii. 373. cised him, and prophesied that William • See his speeches. The style is disjointed, Penn would be damned. I have before Dbscure, impassioned, out of the common, like that of a man who is not master of his wits, and who yet sees straight by a sort of intuition. ✰ Cromwell's Letters, i. 265. A Journal of the Life, etc., of that Aw cient, Eminent, and Faithful Servant Jesus Christ, George Fox, 6th edit., 1836. mentioned James Nayler, an old quar-assemblies in such appeals was jur termaster of General Lambert, adored divino, and by the will and appointment as a god by his followers. Several of Jesus Christ? and a hundred other women led his horse, others cast before questions of the same kind. Parliahim their kerchiefs and scarves, sing-ment declared that, according to Scriping, Holy, holy, Lord God. They ture, the dignities of priest and bishop called him "lovely among ten thou- were equal; t regulated ordinations, sand, the only Sor. of God, the prophet convocations, excommunications, jurisof the Most High, King of Israel, the dictions, elections; spent half its time eternal Son of Justice, the Prince of and exerted all its power in establish Peace, Jesus, him in whom the hope of ing the Presbyterian Church * So, Israel rests." One of them, Dorcas with the Independents, fervor engen Ei bury, declared that she had lain dead dered courage and discipline. 'Crom. for two whole days in her prison in well's regiment of horse were most of Exeter Gaol, and that Nayler had re- them freeholders' sons, who engaged in stored her to life by laying his hands the war upon principles of conscience; upon her. Sarah Blackbury finding and that being well armed within, by him a prisoner, took him by the hand the satisfaction of their consciences, and said, "Rise up my love, my dove, and without with good iron arms, they my fairest one: why stayest thou would as one man stand firmly and among the pots?" Then she kissed charge desperately." † This army, in his hand and fell down before him. which inspired corporals preached to When he was put in the pillory, some lukewarm colonels, acted with the soof his disciples began to sing, weep, lidity and precision of a Russian regismite their breasts; others kissed his ment: it was a duty, a duty towards hands, rested on his bosom, and kissed God, to fire straight and march in good his wounds.* Bedlam broken loose order; and a perfect Christian made a could not have surpassed them. perfect soldier. There was no separation here between theory and practice, between private and public life, between the spiritual and the temporal. They wished to apply Scripture to "establish the kingdom of heaven upon earth," to institute not only a Christian Church, but a Christian Society, to change the law into a guardian of morals, to compel men to piety and virtue; and for a while they succeeded in it. Though the discipline of the church was at an end, there was nevertheless an uncommon spirit of devotion among people in the parliament quarters; the Lord's day was observed with remarkable strictness, the churches being crowded with numerous and attentive hearers three or four times in the day; the officers of the peace patrolled the streets, and shut up all publick houses; there was no travelling on the road, or walking in the fields, except in cases of absolute necessity. Religious exercises were set up in private families, as reading the Scriptures, family prayer, repeating sermons, and singing of psalms, which was so universal, that you might * See Neal, Hist. of the Puritans, ii. 419 450. + Whitelocke's Memorials, i. 68. Underneath the surface and these disorderly bubbles the wise and deep strata of the nation had settled, and the new faith was doing its work with them, a practical and positive, a political and moral work. Whilst the German Reformation, after the German | wont, resulted in great volumes and a scholastic system, the English Reformation, after the English wont, resulted in action and establishment. "How the Church of Christ shall be governel;" that was the great question which was discussed among the sects. The House of Commons asked the Assembly of Divines: If the classical, provincial, and local assemblies were ure divino, and instituted by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ? If they were all so? If only some were 8c, and which? If appeals carried by the elders of a congregation to provincial, departmental, and national assemblies were jure divino, and according to the will and appointment of Jesus Christ? If some only were jure divino? And which? If the power of the Burton's Parliamentary Diary, i. 46173. Neal, History of the Puritans, iii., Supplt. |