# The Church of England, Its Catholicity and Continuity/Lecture 4

LECTURE IV
The Puritan Usurpation.
Last week I traced the history of the Reformation in England, and we saw in what way it benefited the English Church. This took us down to the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. To-night I shall continue the history of religious thought in England from Elizabeth's time to the restoration of monarchy under Charles II. The object which I have in view in this Lecture is not so much to speak about the inner working of the Church of England, as to give the history of the principles of a movement quite alien and opposed to episcopacy. I ​refer to Puritanism. I want to show how the Puritans for a time gained the supreme control over ecclesiastical matters in our country. In the first place, then, I will give a general idea of the growth of the movement; then pass on to show what it did when it was raised to the height of its power. In the last place, I will dwell upon some of the consequences of its work, and leave you to gather your own conclusions respecting its value.
The Puritan principles were opposed to nearly every distinct principle of the Church of England. The Puritans denied the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, and opposed our teaching on the Sacraments. Puritans abhorred anything that savoured of prelacy. In theory they opposed a State religion, but when in power they tried all the same to impose, by Act of Parliament, Puritan principles on the State. They especially objected to the wearing of the surplice and all ecclesiastical vestments. They tried to abolish the use of the ring in the performance of our marriage vows. The sign of the Cross should not be used over our infants when brought to Church to receive Holy Baptism. The scruples of the Puritans went so far indeed that they would not allow us to deck our houses at jolly Christmas-tide with the holly and the mistletoe. They deprived us of the innocent pleasure of eating our mince-pies.
The Puritans were especially zealous to establish the supremacy of the Bible. They made our nation a nation of the Bible. Nothing was allowed in public worship which could not be proved or gathered from the sacred pages. They had so much reverence for the Book that they mixed up their ordinary conversation with Biblical phrases. ​Cromwell's soldiers rushed to battle with the words of the old Hebrew prophets on their lips. The Puritans also differed from the standpoint of the Church of England in their view of Holy Scripture. They considered that all men were capable of interpreting it for themselves, and that they had sufficient learning for such a task. The result of this principle was that men drew very different conclusions from the same passages of Scripture, and these differences became so marked as time went on, that the Puritans split up into different parties, each holding dissimilar conceptions of the teaching of our Lord, and they formed separate sects. It was because the Bible was looked upon as the sole authority in religious matters, as interpreted by our individual preferences, that so many dissenting sects have come into existence. Nearly every Christian sect professes to follow the teaching of Scripture, though we know that the sects hold very different opinions.
The Church, of course, also teaches—and it taught the same at the time now under review—that the Bible is our authority for our Christian Faith, but it does not hold that we are all capable of understanding it in all its depth of meaning. There are many parts obscure to us. For the interpretation of the Bible the Church calls in the aid of the early Christian Fathers, several of whom were connected with Apostolic times, and who, therefore, knew more about the original meaning of many parts of Scripture than we know by ourselves to-day.
With these remarks I must proceed to speak about the History of the Puritans. This will lead us back for a short time to the age prior to Elizabeth. John Wycliffe and ​his followers were in a true sense forerunners of the Puritans. His object was to build up a religion, as gathered from the pages of the Bible, to oppose the teaching of Rome. The Lollards and the Wycliffe preachers desired to make every boy at the plough acquainted with the sacred pages. For the true origin of the Puritans, however, we must not look to England but to the Continent. At the beginning of the fifteenth century a great change passed over the history of religion there, especially in Germany and Switzerland. In Germany, Luther, who was born at Eisleben, 1483, began to oppose the claims and teaching of Rome. Tetzel came to Würtemberg to sell indulgences. This led this great reformer to expose their iniquity. His attack on one Roman doctrine led to his denouncing many others, until at last he found himself an excommunicated heretic. But Luther cared little for this as long as he had the Bible to which he could appeal. The movement which Luther started was taken up by other men. In Switzerland, Calvin and Zwingli became heads of parties. They also acknowledged the Bible as the authority of their teaching. These three reformers, however, arrived at very different conclusions respecting the meaning of Holy Scripture. But what have these facts to do with the history of Puritans in England? The answer to this I will give you now. Men who came under the influence of these reformers arrived in England even as early as the reign of Henry VIII., and brought over their teaching with them, and later on became a strong party here. In the reign of Mary, hundreds of our ancestors fled to the Continent to escape persecution, and fell in love with the reformers' teaching; and when peace was restored, and Elizabeth ascended ​the throne, they came home again. They did not forget what they had learned abroad. Some of these men were in sympathy with Lutheran views, many more imbibed the teachings of Calvin. Some of these men managed to obtain important positions in England, so that they could influence our national religious life. It was in this way and through these causes that Puritanism began in our country.
The University of Cambridge became the centre of the movement.
In Elizabeth's time the Puritans were a strong party in the State. Many efforts were made to keep them at bay. The reformers returned from the Continent with a stronger spirit of opposition to the teaching of the Church than was ever shown before. They especially called attention to the subject of vestments in public worship. As they thought these to be relics of popery they succeeded in influencing many of the clergy of the Church to side with them. Ministers, therefore, began to please themselves as to whether they should use the surplice or not. This led the Archbishop to enforce the principle of uniformity.
In the year 1566, Parker published what was called "the Book of Advertisements," to accomplish this object. Many Churchmen refused to obey his orders. They were compelled to resign their livings. Thirty-seven of the clergy in London alone were deprived for disobedience. It was subsequent to this event that the non-subscribers were called Puritans or Precisians.
Another circumstance led the Puritans to form themselves into a separate party in the State. That was the Jesuit Mission to England. The Jesuits, as you know, were ​a new order founded by the Romanists to oppose the principles of the reformers. Many of these came to England for this purpose. There was danger of their undermining the Church's constitution also. It was necessary for Elizabeth to take strong measures to keep them out of the Church. Hence, as we have seen before, Thirty-nine Articles of Religion were drawn up, to which the clergy were compelled to subcribe. These articles not only excluded Romanists from the Church, but they contained many things objectionable to the Puritans as well. As a result of this many more Puritans were forced to leave the Church. The Puritans then became more marked as a separate body, and they formed meeting-houses of their own for public worship.
The chief leader of the Puritans was Thomas Cartwright, a Presbyterian, a very bitter and intolerant man, according to Professor Green; but of this side of his character we shall have occasion to speak later in the evening. He was a Professor at Cambridge, and while there he"took advantage of his position," says Mr. Hore, "as lecturer and a preacher at S. Mary's, to impugn the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England." He was a learned man, as seen from the controversy between him and Whitgift, but because of his teaching he was deprived of his Fellowship and debarred from holding any office in the University. Then he went to Geneva for a couple of years. When he came back to England again he was more than ever indoctrinated with reforming principles, and he became a still more bitter enemy of the Church which had bred him.
​We have to notice that the Church tried to weaken the influence of the party now formed in England. As long as Parker was alive he made strong efforts to keep the Puritans under control. But his successor, Grindal, who was consecrated in 1576, relaxed his predecessor's severity. In fact this Primate had much sympathy with Puritan conceptions. At first he refused the Primacy because he looked upon consecration as being, to use his own word, only "mummery." Much of this man's time had been spent on the Continent, under the influence of the reformers. He was a friend of Bucer, one of the leaders of the reforming movement. Because of his influence over him he did not disapprove of many of the principles of the Puritans. He allowed them to hold what they called their meetings for "prophesying," which were meetings really for Bible reading. Queen Elizabeth ordered the Archbishop to suppress these meetings, but Grindal objected to her dictating to him as to what his spiritual duties should be. Instead of obeying her he told her what her duties were. He first advised her"to refer all those ecclesiastical questions which touch religion or the doctrine and discipline of the Church unto the Bishops or divines of the realm, according to the example of all godly Christian emperors and princes of all ages." He continued: "I have a second petition to make to your Majesty. When you deal in matters of faith and religion, or matters that touch the Church of Christ, which is His Spouse, bought at so dear a price, you will not use to pronounce so peremptorily or resolutely quasi ex auctoritate, as ye may do in civil and external matters, but always remembering that ​in God's causes the will of God and not the will of any earthly creature is to take place. … Remember, Madam …that you are a mortal creature … and although you are a mighty prince, that He which dwelleth in Heaven is mightier." This was stronger speaking than anyone of Elizabeth's disposition could take with patience. Grindal was, therefore, ordered before the Star Chamber, and he was ultimately suspended from his office. The Queen wished to depose him from his episcopal position, but it was due to Earl Leicester that such harsh measures were not taken. This was in the year 1576. Grindal died, totally blind, 1585.
The Puritans increased in Elizabeth's reign, but they were kept well out of ecclesiastical and civil offices by her desire for uniformity. It was when James I. came to the throne that their hopes ran high. They looked forward to the accession of the Scottish king because he was brought up as a Presbyterian, and they thought that be would have sympathies with them. But James hated Presbyterianism.
As soon as it was known that James would be the king of England, Archbishop Whitgift sent a messenger to Scotland to congratulate him on his coming accession, and in reply James said that he determined to uphold the Church of England as it was left by Elizabeth, and that he had great anxiety for its welfare. On his way to London, the Puritans met him with a petition which they called the Millenary Petition. It was not signed by a thousand men. Of the Puritan ministers there were only seven hundred and fifty-three signatures. In this petition they stated their objection ​to the Church of England. They said that they were "groaning under a common burden of human rites and ceremonies." Complaint was made of our Book of Common Prayer. They objected to the word "priest" and disapproved of absolution. They complained of the length of the Church Services, of their having to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles, of the use of the cross in Holy Baptism; they found fault with our beautiful rite of Confirmation. They also disliked the use of the square cap, the surplice, and the marriage ring. Church music was another thing to which they raised objection. They raised scruples against bowing at the mention of the sacred Name of Jesus. They said, too, that the Apocrypha should not be used for public reading in Church. These were some of the practices to which they objected in their petition to the king.
The king did not reject their petition without consideration. A meeting was called to discuss it on January 14th, 1604, at Hampton Court. James was glad of the opportunity of displaying his knowledge on theological matters. He was not altogether ignorant, though most pedantic on this subject. "The wisest fool in Christendom" he has been called by some wag. The leading Puritans of the period were summoned to the Conference, to meet the heads of the English Church. Among the Churchmen present were Archbishop Whitgift, Bishop Bancroft of London, Launcelot Andrewes Dean of Westminster, Barlow Dean of Christ Church, and Overall Dean of S. Paul's.
The king called upon the Puritans to state their grievances. He asked for their opinion on our Prayer Book, on Confirmation, Absolution and Baptism, on those points, in fact, ​on which they most disagreed from the Church. The Puritans stated their objections first by speaking on matters of doctrine, then on their view of the Church's ministry and the desire for a revision of the Prayer Book. Finally, they spoke upon the subject of Church government, and pleaded for the right of holding the meetings, which they named prophesyings. It is only fair to say that the Puritans did not receive a patient hearing. James told Reynolds, one of their number, that they should conform to the Church or else, said he, "I will harrie them out of the land, or hang them." The Conference was a failure, as far as the Puritans were concerned. The chief reforms which they desired were not granted them. James was immovable on the point that it should not be left to the caprice of any clergyman as to whether he should wear the black gown or the surplice in the public services. It should not be left to his will to mar the beauty of the Church's worship. It should not be left to the clergyman's will as to whether the ring should be used in marriage or not, or whether the cross should be used in Baptism.
Gardiner, the historian, says:"It cannot be said that James's decision was entirely unreasonable. If every minister is to be allowed to take his own course he may possibly give offence to his congregation, by omitting some ceremony to which they are accustomed as well as by adopting some ceremony to which they are unaccustomed." We must call to mind in this connection that in the days of King James no one had any idea, as some people have to-day, that separate bodies should exist with different forms of worship. ​The idea of separate sects would then have been repelled by the Puritans as much as by the Church. What the Puritans aimed at was to have public worship carried out only in their own way. They desired to overthrow the customs of all the preceding ages, without considering the reasonableness or necessity of it. James did not feel inclined to adopt their method of worship because he so disliked it, and felt it was not on the side of truth. When the Puritans forced their views, James lost control of himself, and in his outburst of anger he lets us into another reason why he rejected Presbyterianism and Puritanism."A Scottish Presbytery," he said, "agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick shall meet, and, at their pleasures, censure me and my council, and all our proceedings. … Stay, I pray you, for one seven years, before you demand that from me; and if the you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipe stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you. For let this government be once up, I am sure I shall be kept in breath; then shall we all of us have work enough. … Until you find that I grow lazy let that alone."
The form of government to which James here referred was set up in England after the time of Charles I., and we shall see what that did for England; how it did curb the Royal power, and at last temporarily destroyed it. James certainly understood the Puritan movement, seeing that the prophecy was so lamentably fulfilled.
To return to the Hampton Court Conference. It was not without some beneficial results. It led to further legislation ​on the government of the Church of England. A set of canons was drawn up for the Church's benefit. It led to the authorized version of the Scriptures, from which we now read the Gospel in our Churches, and which is dedicated to King James. It was decided that the greater part of the Apocrypha should not be read in Churches. But the Prayer Book was not changed. A form of thanksgiving was added to the Litany, and an addition concerning the Sacraments made to the Catechism. The Puritans were greatly disappointed at the result of the Conference. They left it with more embittered feelings than they entered it, and from that time their hostility to the Church increased. When the canons before alluded to were finally published, the Puritans raised a public cry against them. The canons were drawn up to enforce conformity and to oppose their views. As a result of these canons becoming law, the Puritans say that three hundred more clergy left the Church of England to join them, but we cannot trace more than one-sixth of that number.
During the twenty years of King James' reign the Puritans very much increased in numbers. One of the reasons why they became such a power in the land was that they were foremost in undertaking the people's grievances against the arbitrary government of the king. They took a definite stand in politics, and in this many Churchmen were at one with them. But the Puritan movement to a great extent was a political movement; and, unfortunately, the Church at that time was looked upon as being identified with the cause of the king, whether it was good or bad; and the Puritans were looked upon as the exponents of righteousness and freedom, ​and as inaugurators of the reign of peace. King James was much to blame for this state of things, because of his teaching that if there were no Bishop there could be no king. There was no reason why the troubles of James' time, and those of the early years of the reign of King Charles, should have been mixed up with the religious problems of the day. The early stages of these troubles had nothing to do with the different religious opinions held by Puritans and Churchmen. But so it was that political and religious differences were looked upon as being one and the same thing, and all the disorders of the latter days of Charles I. were wrongly attributed to the Church.
In passing on to speak of the reign of Charles I., I must say that it is not my business to enlarge upon the troubles which brought about the civil wars, or to discuss the king's mistakes. They are interesting and pathetic reading. You all know something about the rule of tyranny, as it was called, when ship money was imposed upon a part of the nation, when taxes were illegally demanded, when the king and his advisers governed without a Parliament. The end of these troubles were the civil wars and the murder of the king. These are not subjects which we must discuss. I will only say this: that the Puritans, during this first twenty years of Charles' reign, became more formidable than they ever were before, They built their meeting-houses and formed new congregations. Many of the Puritans left the country for Holland and America in Charles I.'s early years of rule, that they might enjoy greater freedom in their worship. Ultimately, we must remember, the troubles in England were resolved into religious troubles, and a war in ​1640 was carried on to put these troubles down, called the Bishop's war.
The Puritans managed to be in the majority in the Parliament, when Parliament ruled in defiance of the king and took the law into its own hands. They were the primary movers in the civil wars, with Cromwell at their head.
I must now show what Parliament did when it became the organ of Puritan wishes and principles, and tell you how it governed the Church. The Puritans set about the consideration of the ritual and liturgy of the Church. In 1643 Parliament ordered that an assembly of divines should be held at Westminster. Its object should be, as defined by Parliament,"For the settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing of the doctrines of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations." This assembly was comprised of one hundred and thirty ministers and thirty laymen. But most of them were Presbyterians, and some few were Independents. That is to say, that men bitterly opposed to the Church of England should legislate for the Church, and order its rites and ceremonies and teaching, without Churchmen having a chance of explaining the meaning of their customs. At first, however, a few Episcopal clergymen were present at the meeting, and several of these were Bishops of the Church, but they withdrew when the king issued a proclamation forbidding the assembly. This meeting of divines were so far from considering the liturgy and the doctrines of the Church of England, that they determined to extirpate prelacy and popery, as they called ​the Churchmanship of such men as Laud."They received orders," says Green, "to revise the Articles, to draw up a Confession of Faith, and a Directory for Public Worship; and these, with their scheme of Church government … were accepted by the Houses of Parliament and embodied in a series of ordinances." The Directory of Public Worship was ordered to take the place of our Book of Common Prayer, and on August 23rd, 1645, Parliament passed an ordinance enforcing its use. This said:"It is hereby ordained by the said Lords and Commons that, if any person or persons whatsoever shall at any time or times hereafter cause to be used the aforesaid Book of Common Prayer in any Church, chapel, or place of public worship, or in any private place or family within the Kingdom of England or Dominion of Wales, or post or town of Berwick; then every such person so offending shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds, for the second offence the sum of ten pounds, and for the third offence shall suffer one year's imprisonment without bail or mainprise, and further, every minister who does not strictly keep to the Directory for Public Worship, shall every time he offends forfeit forty shillings." Mr. Hore says that"Any one writing or preaching against the Directory was liable to a fine not less than five pounds nor more than fifty pounds." What do you think of this as a coercive measure? This was one of the laws of the Puritans. This was drawn up without consultation with Churchmen, and it was imposed upon the whole realm. Mr. Lane, in his Church History, tells us what this law means for England. ​It made it"an offence to kneel at the reception of Holy Communion, or to use any kind of symbolism in sacred things, such as the ring in marriage; and when any person departed this life the dead body was to be interred without any kind of religious ceremony, nor were the friends allowed to sing or read or pray or kneel at the grave, although the civil pomp and pageantry in funeral processions of persons of rank or condition were not in any way restricted. Then the holy and beautiful petitions of our liturgy, though sanctified by the devotions of Christians in every clime and by every tongue for fifteen hundred years and more, gave place to long and tedious harangues from illiterate fanatics of two or three hours' duration; and the observance of Church festivals, together with all anniversaries, was strictly forbidden."
The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion were next brought under consideration, and a Confession of Faith was drawn up, consisting of Twenty-three Articles, to take their place. The Feast of Christmas Day was ordered to be observed as a fast day.
In the year 1643 the Puritans in Parliament signed the Solemn League and Covenant for the extirpation of popery and prelacy. Listen to the decision of Parliament on this point. It said:"(1) That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God … endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship, and ​catechising; (2) that we shall in like manner endeavour the extirpation of … Church government by Archbishops, Bishops … and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on their hierarchy; (3) we shall, with the same sincerity … endeavour … to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments and the liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the king's majesty's person and authority … that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty." Here they stated deliberately, you see, two things. First, that they would utterly destroy the Church of England. God did not allow them to succeed. Secondly, that they would preserve the king's person. But they murdered him.
It was from the death of Charles I., 1649, to the year 1660 that the Puritans had full swing in England, and did with it what they willed. But before that time what dissensions there were among them! They had long ago split themselves into two parties, and each one was almost as much opposed to each other as they both were to the Church of England. Their internal discord was only lessened by one of their parties proving the stronger. The Independents governed England and our Church. It was during this reign of the Puritans under Cromwell that we are given an idea of what our land would have been if they had succeeded in destroying the Church of England. There would have been no religion in our land. The nation became heartily sick of the Puritan rule. It longed for the return of the exiled king. It desired with a strong desire the old worship in the Parish Churches, and it rebelled against the desecration to which our Churches had been put by the Puritan leaders. The ​religious sense was wounded, seeing that our sacred buildings were turned into stables and dancing halls. I could relate many arbitrary measures which resulted from this Puritan sway. A committee was appointed to inquire into the fitness of those who offered themselves as candidates for Holy Orders. It was named the Body of Triers. This was in the year 1654. They compelled the faithful clergy of the Church, who yet remained, to take the oath to the Republican Government. This committee was made up of thirty-eight commissioners. But notice this, that most of them were Independents, some few were Baptists, and they were to examine the qualifications of Churchmen.
Evelyn, who has left us a valuable document in his diary, said that in 1655 a sharp persecution commenced against the Church, and it was necessary to confine the Church services to private houses, and this was only done with danger. Clergy were ejected from their positions by scores. Without considering those who were unbeneficed, or those who were masters of hospitals, or schoolmasters, out of the ten thousand clergy in England before the Puritan usurpation, seven thousand were afterwards ejected.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was beheaded without any law for the deed, being on the Puritan side. The Archbishop of York, to save himself, thought it wise to join "the faction which had ruined his brethren." Eighteen of the Bishops died in poverty. Only nine Bishops survived the Commonwealth. Those clergy who were ejected were, however, allowed one-fifth of their benefices as a pension. But how could they live on so small a sum?"As a great ​majority of them were married," says Mr. Hore, "it is clear fully thirty thousand persons were turned out on the world to get their livings in the best way they could."
The religious life of England under the Commonwealth was a miserable picture of wreckage; and Cromwell lived long enough to be embittered by some of his failures. His last days were spent in remorse. After his death there were eighteen months of anarchy. The nation was degraded, and with a great longing it looked for the restoration of Charles II. to the throne. This took place in the year 1660. After his accession the Church was revived. The old Bishops who were living were restored to their old Sees, and the clergy regained their rectories and vicarages. The national Church was put in power again, and the Prayer Book with alterations brought back to use. The Puritans were ejected from the Church by successive Acts of Parliament passed in the early years of Charles; and dissent, as a consequence, became established in our land.
From what I have already said of the Puritans, you must conclude that their work was not worthy of the highest respect. They almost succeeded in destroying the religious sentiment in England. In fact, I consider that they greatly added to the woes of England, for they did not scruple to wound people in the tenderest parts of their nature. They tried to destroy all beauty in our public services. They despised every material aid to devotion. Their movement was essentially a political affair; and it is due to this that dissent to-day, to speak the truth about it, is quite as much, if not more, a political than a religious campaign.
Notice next the intolerance of the Puritans to any form of ​religion differing from their own. They hated the Church of England beyond everything. Cromwell is spoken of as being a tolerant man. It is true that he could hold out the right hand of fellowship to Anabaptists, and even provide a pension in those days for an Unitarian, but for prelacy he had no moderation, no toleration. We should remind ourselves of this side of the Puritan movement, for it is the cry to-day of the followers and representatives of the Puritans that it is the Church of England which is intolerant and bitter against all those who differ from it. But as a matter of fact the Church's intolerance is not one-hundredth part as bitter as that of dissent towards us. Please do not think I am speaking rashly in pointing out this side of Puritanism. Be sure of this from other writers' testimony. Mr. Southey, in his history of the Church, says of Puritans:"The tyrannical disposition of these people, who demanded to be set free from all restraint themselves, was even more intolerable than their presumption. As far as was in their power they separated themselves from the members of the Church, and refused to hold any communion with them. Instances occurred, where they were strong enough, of their thrusting the clergy out of their own Churches if they wore the surplice, and taking away the bread from the Communion Table because it was in the wafer form. Some fanatics spit in the face of their old acquaintance to testify their utter abhorrence of conformity." And again:"The Puritan clergy, to whom every vestige of Catholicism was an abomination, had succeeded to the intolerance of the Catholic priesthood, to their assumed infallibility, and ​were now claiming to inherit their spiritual despotism."
In estimating the character of Cartwright, who, you remember, was the leader of the Puritans, Green, the historian, says that"his bigotry was that of a mediæval inquisitor." …"With the despotism of a Hildebrand," says Green, "Cartwight combined the cruelty of a Torquemada. Not only was Presbyterianism to be established as the one legal form of Church government, but all other forms, Episcopalian and Separatist, were to be ruthlessly put down. For heresy there was the punishment of death. Never had the doctrine of persecution been urged with such a blind and reckless ferocity. 'I deny,' wrote Cartwright, 'that upon repentance there ought to follow any pardon of death. … Heretics ought to be put to death now. If this be bloody and extreme, I am content to be so counted with the Holy Ghost.'" I could give numerous quotations from other writers to illustrate this side of the Puritan character. In the year 1655 the Puritans passed an edict dealing with the subject of the banishment of the clergy of the Church of England. It would be difficult to match this for severity and intolerance. It ran as follows:—"That no person or persons do, from after the first day of January (1656), keep in their houses or families as Chaplains, or Schoolmasters for the education of their children, any sequestered or ejected Minister, Fellow of a College, or Schoolmaster; nor permit any of their children to be taught by such; in pain of being proceeded against in such sort as the said orders do direct in such cases. And that no person who hath been sequestered or ejected out of any benefice, college, or school, for ​delinquency or scandal, shall, from and after the said first day of January, keep any school either public or private; nor shall any person, who after that time shall be ejected for the causes aforesaid, preach in any public place, or at any private meeting of other persons besides his own family, nor administer Baptism or the Lord's Supper, or marry any persons, or use the Book of Common Prayer or the forms therein contained, upon pain that every person so offending shall be proceeded against as by the said orders is provided."
No wonder, then, that at the restoration the methods which the Puritans now used to destroy Churchmen were used in turn to ruin them. Parliament, then, was only following the methods previously laid down by the Puritans.
I must now pass on to speak of another phase of the Puritan movement. Consider, in the next place, how they used our Churches and dealt with their ministers. Certainly they showed no reverence for the sacred buildings in which people had worshipped for generations. The very idea of beauty in worship was quite enough to enrage them. Some of the finest works of art ever possessed by England were destroyed in their fanaticism. Beautiful windows and masterpieces of sculpture were shattered to atoms by their blows. We are reminded by Mr. Southey that some of the Puritans hoped to see the day when the noble building of S. Paul's should be levelled to the ground. A certain faction did demolish with axes and hammers the carved work of that noble structure, and the body of the Church was converted into a stable to shelter the troopers' horses. Old market ​crosses, notable objects in the old towns, were pulled down also in the general havoc. Cheapside cross fell in the demolition. Bishop Andrewes said, "That there had been a good riddance of images by the Puritans "; by which he meant to say that they had been busy at destroying them.
The Puritans had quite a crusade against our Churches. They were guilty of the worst form of sacrilege. Southey says,"In some of them they baptized horses and swine, in profane mockery of baptism; in others they broke open the tombs and scattered about the bones of the dead, or, if the bodies were entire, they defaced and dismembered them. At Sudbury, they made a slaughter-house of the chancel, cut up the carcases upon the Communion Table, and threw the garbage in the vault of the Chandoses, insulting thus the remains of some of the most heroic men, who, in their day, defended and did honour to their country. At Westminster, the soldiers sat smoking and drinking at the Altar, and lived in the Abbey, committing every kind of indecency there, which the Parliament saw and permitted. No Cathedral escaped without some injury; painted windows were broken, statues pulled down and mutilated, carvings demolished, the organs sold piecemeal for the value of the materials, or set up in taverns. At Lambeth, Parker's monument was thrown down, that Scott, to whom the Palace had been allotted for his portion of the spoils, might convert the chapel into a hall. The Archbishop's body was taken, not out of his grave alone, but out of his coffin, and the lead in which it had been enclosed was sold, and the remains were buried in a dunghill." Scores of historians ​give a similar account of these miserable doings. Mr. Lane reminds us that at Hereford Cathedral the Puritans shattered the windows,"tore up the brasses and carried off the ornaments." At Winchester the soldiers broke into the Church as service was going on, marched up the nave with drums beating and banners flying; they destroyed the tombs, and used the bones of the dead as hammers to break up the stained-glass windows. The altar was taken away to an ale-house, and was burnt there with the service books. The soldiers then put on the surplices of the clergy and the choir, and took the crosses and banners of the Church, and, with awful mockery, wended their way in this guise through the streets of the town. The men who did this were Cromwell's soldiers, godly men, as he called them in another connection. Similar scenes happened at Chichester and Norwich."At S. Asaph the Cathedral was used as a stable for the horses of one Miller, a postmaster, who occupied the Bishop's Palace as an inn, fed his calves in the Bishop's throne, and removed the font into his yard for use as a watering trough." In 1653 the Puritans ordered"All the Cathedral Churches in England, where there are other Churches sufficient for the people to meet in for the worship of God," to be to surveyed, pulled down, and the materials sold." Fortunately the order was not carried out. Some of you will think that I have said quite enough to convince you of the sacrilege of the Puritans.
Dissatisfaction was everywhere expressed at their tyrannical rule, and it was not without good reason that the Church people of those days cried out: "O God, the ​heathen are come into Thine inheritance. Thy Holy Temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem an heap of stones."
Notice, in the next place, how they used our pulpits. It seems that everyone was allowed to preach in them. Discipline was a thing unknown to them. Evelyn, in his diary, wrote,"Going this day (December 4th, 1653) to Our Church, I was surprised to see a tradesman—a mechanic—step up" to the pulpit. "I was resolved to stay and see what he would make of it. His text was from 2 Samuel xxiii. 20. 'And Benaiah went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow.' The purport was that no danger was to be thought difficult when God called for shedding of blood, inferring that now the saints were entitled to destroy temporal governments."
Evelyn gives us further important information about these times. On December 25th he wrote,"No Churches or public assembly. I was fain to pass the devotions of that Blessed Day (a Sunday) with my family at home." In 1655 he wrote,"On Sunday afternoon he had frequently to stay at home to catechise and instruct his family," because the clergy were forbidden to catechise the children. On Christmas Day of that year he said,"There was no more notice taken of Christmas Day in Churches." The proclamation had gone forth that it should be observed as a fast day. "The Lord Jesus pity our distressed Church," he wrote, "and bring back the captivity of Zion.""The parish Churches," he writes, "were filled with sectaries of ​all sorts, blasphemous and ignorant mechanics usurping the pulpits everywhere." He tells us that on Christmas Day in 1657 he ventured to go to a Celebration of the Holy Communion, and he found the Church surrounded by soldiers,"who levelled their muskets at the communicants as if they would shoot us at the altar. Afterwards they took all the congregation prisoners."
I have dwelt fully upon this side of the Puritan movement, because the descendants of the Puritans—the Independents and the Baptists of to-day—would not acquaint you with these facts. Perhaps they are ignorant of them, for they read their own history as written by their own partisans, and it is only natural that such facts as these should not be brought into prominence.
Whatever good we may think the Puritans did they certainly did immense harm, and their tyranny was greater than the tyranny which they tried to suppress when they killed the king. Their method was more autocratic than the king's was, and certainly quite as unlawful. The loss which England has sustained through these men in ancient works of art and architecture cannot now be estimated. The nation learned that the last state of the man was worse than the first. Most eagerly did it look forward to the coming back of Charles II. to the throne, and it gave him a hearty welcome when he came.
When Charles II. began his reign a complete reaction set in against Puritan strictness, and many evils grew up alongside of it. The people had been so long kept in restraint by the Puritans, and their most innocent pleasures had been so ​rigorously denied, that they gladly welcomed back their old English games at the Restoration; and licentiousness grew up along with them, now that restraint was removed. At the restoration, says Mr. Green,"all that was noblest and best in Puritanism was whirled away with its pettiness and its tyranny in the current of the nation's hate. Religion had been turned into a political and social tyranny, and it fell with their fall. Godliness became a byword of scorn, sobriety in dress, in speech, in manners, was flouted as a mark of the detested Puritanism." One of the evil results of Puritanism on England, as told us by Mr. Green, was the growth of the freethinking spirit and of indifference to religion."From the social and religious anarchy around them," he says, "from the endless controversies and discussions of the time, they drank in the spirit of scepticism, of doubt, of free inquiry. If religious enthusiasm had broken the spell of ecclesiastical tradition, its own extravagance broke the spell of religious enthusiasm."
It would be foolish and untrue to say that the Puritans had not good men in their ranks, or to say that they had not some right principles upon their side. We must give them praise and honour for this. But it is their assumption and intolerance and desecration of which we so bitterly complain. We complain that they could not enter into the spirit of the Church of England, and that by anarchy and unlawful measures they tried their very best to destroy the Church. But it was not allowed that they should succeed in this, although they tried so hard to get success. This is a reason for holding, I should say, that there is some ​inherent power in the Church which makes it impossible for man to destroy it. Many of the Puritans were godly men, who had righteous principles, who believed first in God and His ways. But they all had strong antipathies, which, in those days, at any rate, disqualified them from being able to tolerate anyone who differed from them or who worshipped in any way other than their own.
Some of you may have wondered why in this Lecture I have not spoken of Archbishop Laud, who had so much to do with the Puritans, and who, by them, was accounted to be the cause of the civil wars. I have reserved the consideration of his position for the next Lecture, when, in conjunction with the life of Bishop Andrewes, I shall speak of his work and character.
* ↑ Short History, p.455.
* ↑ Hore, p.311.
* ↑ Hore, p. 313.
* ↑ The Puritan Revolution, p.14. Epochs of Modern History.
* ↑ Gardiner, Ibid, p.14.
* ↑ Quoted by Hore, p.355.
* ↑ Short History, p.544.
* ↑ Quoted by Hore, p.359.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ Lane's Notes on Church History, Modern Period, pp.140, 141.
* ↑ Quoted by Lane, Ibid, p. 135.
* ↑ Hore, p. 362
* ↑ Book of the Church, p.414.
* ↑ Ibid, p. 454.
* ↑ Short History, p.455.
* ↑ Ibid. p.456.
* ↑ Quoted by Lane, Ibid, p. 157.
* ↑ p.472.
* ↑ p.473.
* ↑ Lane, p.150.
* ↑ Ibid, p.151.
* ↑ Quoted by Lane, p.152.
* ↑ Quoted by Lane, p.147.
* ↑ Quoted by Lane, p.159.
* ↑ Ibid. p.159.
* ↑ Ibid, p.159.
* ↑ Ibid, p.160.
* ↑ See Hore, p.361.
* ↑ Short History, p.589.
* ↑ Ibid, p. 590.