We know them by the name of Puritans, a nickname obtained by their affecting superior sanctity; but I find them often distinguished by the more humble appellative of Precisians. As men do not leap up, but climb on rocks, it is probable they were only precise before they were pure. A satirist of their day, in “Rythmes against Martin Marre-Prelate,” melts their attributes into one verse:—
| “The sacred sect, and perfect pure precise.” |
A more laughing satirist, “Pasquill of England to Martin Junior,” persists in calling them Puritans, a pruritu! for their perpetual itching, or a desire to do something. Elizabeth herself only considered them as “a troublesome sort of people:” even that great politician could not detect the political monster in a mere chrysalis of reform. I find, however, in a poet of the Elizabethan age, an evident change in the public feeling respecting the Puritans, who being always most active when the government was most in trouble, their political views were discovered. Warner, in his “Albion’s England,” describes them:—
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“If ever England will in aught prevent her own mishap, Against these Skommes (no terme too gross) let England shut the gap; With giddie heads— Their countrie’s foes they helpt, and most their country harm’d. If Hypocrites why Puritaines we term, be asked, in breefe, ’Tis but an ironised terme: good-fellow so spells theefe!” |
The gentle-humoured Fuller, in his “Church History,” felt a tenderness for the name of Puritan, which, after the mad follies they had played during the Commonwealth, was then held in abhorrence. He could not venture to laud the good men of that party, without employing a new term to conceal the odium. In noticing, under the date of 1563, that the bishops urged the clergy of their dioceses to press uniformity, &c., he adds—“Such as refused were branded with the name of Puritans—a name which in this nation began in this year, subject to several senses, and various in the acceptions. Puritan was taken for the opposers of hierarchy and church service, as resenting of superstition. But the nickname was quickly improved by profane mouths to abuse pious persons. We will decline the word to prevent exceptions, which, if casually slipping from our pen, the reader knoweth that only nonconformists are intended,” lib. ix. p. 76. Fuller, however, divided them into classes—“the mild and moderate, and the fierce and fiery.” Heylin, in his “History of the Presbyterians,” blackens them as so many political devils; and Neale, in his “History of the Puritans,” blanches them into a sweet and almond whiteness.
Let us be thankful to these Puritans for a political lesson. They began their quarrels on the most indifferent matters. They raised disturbances about the “Romish Rags,” by which they described the decent surplice as well as the splendid scarlet chimere[407] thrown over the white linen rochet, with the square cap worn by the bishops. The scarlet robe, to please their sullen fancy, was changed into black satin; but these men soon resolved to deprive the bishops of more than a scarlet robe. The affected niceties of these Precisians, dismembering our images, and scratching at our paintings, disturbed the uniformity of the religious service. A clergyman in a surplice was turned out of the church. Some wore square caps, some round, some abhorred all caps. The communion-table placed in the East was considered as an idolatrous altar, and was now dragged into the middle of the church, where, to show their contempt, it was always made the filthiest seat in the church. They used to kneel at the sacrament; now they would sit, because that was a proper attitude for a supper; then they would not sit, but stand: at length they tossed the elements about, because the bread was wafers, and not from a loaf. Among their preciseness was a qualm at baptism: the water was to be taken from a basin, and not from a fount; then they would not name their children, or if they did, they would neither have Grecian, nor Roman, nor Saxon names, but Hebrew ones, which they ludicrously translated into English, and which, as Heylin observes, “many of them when they came of age were ashamed to own”—such as “Accepted, Ashes, Fight-the-good-Fight-of-Faith, Joy-again, Kill-sin, &c.”
Who could have foreseen that some pious men quarrelling about the square caps and the rochets of bishops should at length attack bishops themselves; and, by an easy transition, passing from bishops to kings, finally close in levellers!
The origin of the controversy may be fixed about 1588. “A far less easy task,” says the Rev. Mr. Maskell, “is it to guess at the authors. The tracts on the Mar-Prelate side have been usually attributed to Penry, Throgmorton, Udal, and Fenner. Very considerable information may be obtained about these writers in Wood’s ‘Athenæ,’ art. Penry; in Collier, Strype, and Herbert’s edition of ‘Arnes,’ to whom I would refer. After a careful examination of these and other authorities on the subject, the question remains, in my judgment, as obscure as before; and I think that it is very far from clear that either one of the three last-named was actually concerned in the authorship of any of the pamphlets.”—Ed.