The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1867-05-25
Macnnley's Description Of the
Purit0mS.

They mistook their own indignant feelings for
emotions of piety; encouraged in themselves, by
reading and meditation, a disposition to brood
over their wrongs, and, when they had worked
themselves into hating their enemies, imagined
they were only hitting the enemies OF Heaven.
In the New Testament, there was little indeed
which, even when perverted by the most disin.
genueus exposition, could seem to cOuntenance
the indulgence of malevolent passions. r
But the Old Testament contained the history
of a race selected by God to to be witnesses of his
unity and ministers of his vengeance and speci-
ally commanded by him to do many things. if
done without his special command, would have
been atrocious. In such history it was not diff
ticult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much
that might be restored to suit their wishes The
extreme Pnritans, therefore, began to feel for
the Old Testament preference which, perhaps,
they did not distinctly avow even to themselves,
but which showed itself in all their sentiments
and habits They paid to the Hebrew language
respect which they refused to that tongue in
which the discourse of Jesus and the epistles of
Paul have come down to us. They baptized
their children by the names, not of christian
saints, but OF Hebrew patriarchs and warriors.
In defiance of the express and reiterated decla-
rations of Luther and Calvin, they turned the
weekly festival by which the church had from
the primitive times, commemorated the resurrec-
ton Of her Lord, into Jewish Sabbath. They
fought for principles Of jurisprudence in the Mo-
sale law, and for presidents to guide their ordi-
nary conduct in the books of Judges and Kings
Their thoughts and discourses run much on acts
which were assuredly not recorded as examples
for our imitation. The prophet who hewed in
pieces captive king, the rebel general who gave
the blood of queen to the dogs, the matron who
in defiance of plighted faith and of laws of
eastern hospitality drove the nail into the brain
of the fugitive ally who had just fed at her board
and who was sleeping under the shadow of her
tent--were proposed as models to Christians suf-
fering under the tyranny of princes and prelates
Morals and manners were subjected to code
resembling that of the synagogue when the syna-
gogue was in its worst state. The dress, the lam
guage, the department. the studies, the amuse.
ments of the right sect were regulated on princi-
pies resembling those of the Pharisees, who,
proud of their washed hands and broad phylac.
teries, tainted the Redeemer as Sabbath break
er and wine-bibber. 1t was a sin to hang gar
lands on a May-poe, to drink friends health,
TO fly hawk, to hunt stag, to play at chess, to
wear lovelocks, to put starch into ruff, to
touch the virgins, to road the Fairy Queen
ltulos such as these-rules which would have ap-
peared insupportable to the free and Joyous spirit
OF luther, and contemplate to the serene and
intellect of Zuingle threw over all
life more than monastic gloom.
The learning and eloquence by which the great
Reformers had been eminently distinguished, and
70 which they had been in no small measure IN
dobted TOR their success, were regarded by the
new school of Protestants with suspicion, il not
with aversion. Some precsians scrupled about
teaching the latin grammar because the names
of Mars Bacillus and Apollo occurred in it. The
fine arts were all prescribed. The solemn peal of
the organ was superstitious. The light music of
Ben Johnsons masks was dissolute Half the
fine paintings in England were idolatrous and
the other half indecent.
The Puritan was at once known from other
men by his gait, his garb his lank hair, and the
sour solemnity of his face, the upturned whites
OF his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke
and above all, his peculiar dialect He employed
on every OCCASION, the imagery and style of scrip
tnre. Hcbraisms violently introduced into the
English language, and metaphors borrowed from
tho boldest lyric poetry Of a remote age and
contry, a5l applied to the common concerns of
English life, We're the most striking pecularities
of CHS cant, which moved, not without cause, the
derision both of prelatists and libertines.