The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1905-09-08

The principles of the PuritanS were
as high as Heaven and as broad as
eternity, for they were founded on
tans, however, was not so much
Father as a Sovereign, the King of
Kings and Lord Of Lords. Their view
point was Sinai rather than Calvary,
their watchword duty rather than love.
In an age of tradition, they denied its
sanctity and rebelled against the dark
ness of the middle age and it's imperious
dOmineering forms in church and state.
The Puritan as his name indicates,
stood for purity when RIGHTEOUSNESS
was fostered in palaces and rioted in
novels. He stood, too, for individual
conscience, the right of soul made by
God to worship God as Gods word
taught, not as ghostly tradition de-
manded under penalty of imprison-
ment and death. In our free air,
where license grows like an excrescence
on the tree of liberty, it is difficult to
realize those stern days when the law
imprisoned such men of God as John
Bunyan for preaching the Gospel out
side of a State church and burned
others at the stake. The Puritan died
like hero, not only to free himself,
but to free his prosecutors as we'll from
the shackles of superstition and priest
craft. Great Britain and the United
States are to-day in the forefront of
] f<,1o ho mi
tans, and others like him, we're men
in advance of their age. God, as re-
vealed in His Word, as worshipped on
His day, was their ruler and their in
spiration and with such divine prin-
ciples leavening their souls, what
wonder that even the infdel English
historian Hume generously confesses
that the precious spark of English
liberty was kindled by the Puritans
alone and that to them the English
tuition. Lord Brougham's testimony
is no less hearty that, with the zeal of
martyrs, with the purity OF early
Christians, with the skill and courage
of the most renowned warriors, they
obtained for England the free consti-
tuition which she enjoys.
| Whence did the Puritan catch this
light from heaven that irradiated his
soul and made him sucn an embodi-
ment of courage that, not only was
Cromwell's Puritan army never beaten
in England, Scotland, Ireland and
Flanders, but it miserably destroyed
and broke in pieces whatever force
opposed it. Who first pointed the
Puritan to Gods word as the best
model and inspiration of personal
are famous for austere morality and
fear of nothing but God. 1t is
acknowledged by the most jealous
royalists, says Macauley, "that, in that
singular camp, no oath was heard. no
drunkenness or gambling was seen, and
during the whole dominion of the
soldiery the property of the peaceable
citizen and the honor of women were
held sacred" History has given Calvin
the credit for the Puritan, but Calvin
ism only famed into fame embers
kindled century and half before by
Wickliffe and his "poor priests as his
disciples called themselves, as they
went preaching up and down the length
of England in the open air. Wickliffe
first gave us the Bible in our own
tongue, though we can hardly master
the English of that day of Chaucer,
father Of our English poetry. Print
ing was yet to be invented, and Wick
liffe'S Bible was slowly and laboriOusly
copied for it's limited circulation. The
Bible as the only rule of faith and
duty was Wickliffe's keynote and, like
Luther after him, he found there JUS
LITIGATION by faith alone and not by
priestly intervention, with no human
traditions as tests in matters of faith
and no human inventions as essential
in divine worship. Our own Bancroft
says that these principles of the Puri-
tans made the English nation Protest.
ant. But, if Wickliffe sowed the seed,
Calvin inspired the sprouting germ to
new life, after it had languiShed under
generations Of repression. Calvinism
was flaming sword. God. the ALSO
lutte sovereign, could brook no divided
allegiance. 1t overthrow priestcraft
as usurping divine prerogatives. Cal
vinism, says Bancroft, saw in goodness
infinite joy, in evil infinite woe, and,
recognizing no other abiding distinc-
ton, opposed secretly but surely
hereditary monarchy, aristocracy and
bondage. Go to the death bed of
Hooker, Connecticut's constitutional
father, if you would see Calvinism at
its best. "You go to receive your re-
ward" some one remarked to the
dying man. 81 60 to receive mercy"
Hooker replied. Listen to the cove
nant by which men of Hooker's day
bound themselves to God and to one
another. 1--WE avouch the Lord to be
our God, and ourselves to be His
people, in the truth and simplicity of
our spirits. We give ourselves to the
Lord Jesus Christ and the word of His
grace, for the teaching, ruling and
US in matters OF worship
and conversation, resolving to cleave
unto Him alone for life and glory |
and to reject all contrary ways.
canons and constitutions of