None can confine a holy soul;
The street of heaven it walks about,
None can its liberty control."
Such men were not likely to be subdued by persecution; they had caught a spirit which all the violence in the world could not crush; and the only results of that violence were the increase of their own constancy, surrounded by the honours of spiritual heroism, and the infamy which will for ever rest on the memory of their cruel oppressors.
It must not be supposed that their cause was unpatronized by men of influence, or their case unheard in the halls of Parliament. They had friends amongst the noble; and patriotic tongues were eloquent on their behalf in the House of Commons. Though for a while protest did not avail against their persecution, in the end it bore for the persecutors bitter fruit. It made way for the exposure and chastisement of their guilt, and was neither forgotten nor found to be ineffective, when, in the dispensations of a righteous Providence, a day of retribution came.
Puritanism was a reaction against Anglicanism. It was an assertion of the right of private judgment against Church decisions, of the exclusive authority of Scripture against tradition, and of the simplicity of worship against elaborate ceremonialism. The intense horror of Popery felt by the Puritans was deepened by the papistic practices of the Anglicans. The strict observance of the Sabbath was made still more strict by the publication of the "Book of Sports," and by the practical depreciation of the Lord's day through the immense importance attached to Church festivals. The defection of the High Church party from the Evangelical creed, and still more from the evangelical spirit of the Reformers, riveted closely the attachment of the Puritans to the articles and homilies, as distinguished from the liturgy and rubric; and made them more full and earnest in exhibiting the freedom of salvation through the atonement of Jesus Christ, and the new birth of the Spirit of God. Also the working out of Arminian principles in unevangelical ways drove the Puritans into sharper and more rigid forms of Calvinistic speculation. But, happily for the fame of the latter, they were led, by the persecution they suffered, to connect themselves with the friends of political liberty; and thus to share in the honour belonging to the noble band of patriots, who, not without some mistakes but with a wisdom and heroism—which it would be idle to question and unthankful to forget—secured for us those national privileges which distinguish Englishmen from the rest of Europe.
Taking Andrewes and Donne as exponents of Anglican theology, the reader may take Bolton and Sibbs as representatives of Puritan teaching. Their works were exceedingly popular with the Evangelicals of Charles I.'s reign. In rough leather binding they might have been seen on the humble library shelf of the yeoman's house, or in his hands well thumbed, as he sat in his window-seat or walked in his little garden. "The Four Last Things" led many to prepare for the future life; and "The Bruised Reed" became honoured as the chief means of Richard Baxter's conversion. The tone of piety in these men partook of a glow and ardour which made their spiritual life, at times, appear like a rapture, and rendered their death "a perfect euthanasia." "By the wonderful mercies of God," said Bolton, "I am as full of comfort as my heart can hold, and feel nothing in my soul but Christ, with whom I heartily desire to be." Asked by a friend in his last moments on a sharp December day, "Do you feel much pain?" "Truly no," he replied, "the greatest pain I feel is your cold hand." If, to use a figure of Coleridge, the Cross shines dimly in certain Anglican authors, that Cross is all-radiant in Puritan theology. If, in the one case, the cloudy pillar hovers in the neighbourhood of the promised land without entering it, in the other, it conducts those who follow its guidance straight into a land flowing with milk and honey.
Let it not be supposed that the doctrinal Puritans in Stuart times were perpetually preaching, or writing on doctrinal subjects; or that they had the least sympathy with the sectaries. Thomas Adams is an eminent doctrinal Puritan of that age, but no sermons can be more eminently practical than his; they are the furthest removed from Antinomian tendencies. He is ever combating the vices around him, and insisting upon a solid scriptural morality; whilst his allusions to Brownists are caustic enough to have satisfied, in that respect, the taste of the most decided Anglican.
Puritanism was not so much a creed, or a code, as a life. Though a reaction, the movement was no superficial phenomenon thrown up by the chafing together of obstinate minds on opposite sides. The causes were some of them ancient, and all of them deep. It is possible even that peculiarities of race and blood might have somewhat to do with the strong sympathies of the middle and lower classes, in a simple and unostentatious kind of religious worship. The plain and sturdy nature of the Anglo-Saxon was still pure, in a multitude of cases, from Norman admixture in those ranks of society where Puritanism most prevailed; and the Anglo-Saxon had ever shown himself unfriendly to that ecclesiastical pomp of architecture and glittering ritual which delighted the Norman. Traditional opinions and sentiments, opposed to the spirit of Romanism, had been handed down through the middle ages, from one generation to another of the English commonalty in their homesteads and cottages; and, probably, as those opinions and sentiments had contributed to the outbursts of Lollardism, and helped on the cause of the Reformation, so also they ministered to the later development of principles, proceeding further in the same direction. Beyond all doubt, the Puritan under James was the religious son and heir of the reformer under Elizabeth; he inherited, and expressed more boldly and more truly, his father's spirit. Puritanism came only as the second stage in a progress of which the Reformation was the first. Such an impulse as Protestantism could not be resisted—set, as it was from the beginning, decidedly in the direction of change beyond what the compromise under the Tudors allowed. The pent-up waters of Protestantism found a vent through Puritanism. Besides, the persecutions under Mary rendered Rome more hateful to Englishmen during the last half of the sixteenth century than during the first; the children who heard of the Smithfield fires were more exasperated even than the parents who saw them, and they hated with a bitter hatred everything in the Church which, in their opinion, pointed Romewards. The Puritan reaction against Popery is to be regarded as also aided by its alliance with the reactions, moral and political, against despotism; freedom appeared to the Puritan not merely as something expedient, and to be desired for temporal ends, but as a heaven-born right, a gift of God, which it was man's duty to claim and assert, in the face of earth and hell: and thus kindred forces bore toward the same point. Puritanism, moreover, presented a strong attraction to religious minds of a certain class. Multitudes were sinners of a coarse type, and wanted something infinitely stronger than forms, ceremonies, orthodox abstractions, and moral advice to put things right between their souls and God, and to give them holiness and peace. The Puritan exhibition of the love of God in Christ, of the wonders of redemption, and of the abounding mercy of Heaven through the Cross for the chief of sinners, supplied just what such persons required. Nor to these alone, but to numbers beside, not coarse-minded transgressors, the full, clear, and unmixed manifestation of the Gospel plan of saving the lost came as the most blessed and welcome of messages. And finally, in enumerating the causes of Puritanism, devout minds, at all in sympathy with it, will assuredly include that mighty wind which "bloweth where it listeth."
Being in some respects a reaction, I may venture to observe, it had in it what all reactions have—much onesidedness. It betrayed narrow views of many subjects, straining at trifles, magnifying unimportant points, and not seeing that the avoidance of superstition in one quarter is no security against being overtaken by it in another. There also often occurred a want of charity in judging other people, and those who did not adopt the Puritan type were in danger of being put down as publicans and sinners. Puritans were also prone to use irritating language to their opponents, and shewed at times little of that meekness and gentleness, the want of which they bitterly condemned in others.[70] They were intolerant,—with the exception of a few separatists,—and cannot be regarded as having understood the principles of religious liberty. They asserted freedom on their own behalf, but if they could have had the power, they would have imposed their own peculiarities on all their fellow-countrymen. They were too apt to be rigid and precise in their methods of theology, and to take "tithe of mint, anise, and cummin," though not so as to be unmindful of "the weightier matters of the law." Their scruples as to liturgical forms were carried to excess, and they evinced a want of that kind of taste which marked the Anglican churchman by excluding, as Jeremy Taylor says, "the solemn melody of the organ, and the raptures of warbling and sweet voices out of cathedral choirs."[71] And finally, they did not sufficiently recognize the need of providing innocent and healthy recreations for the people. Man was regarded by them as a creature made to work and worship, but hardly to play. Some Anglicans were ascetic, but they were gleesome at times, and conceded, if they did not enjoin, rather uproarious amusement in connection with their festivals. They had their fast-days and lenten seasons, but they had also the merry feasts of Christmas and Easter, Whitsuntide and Michaelmas. They went daily to church, were fond of the Prayer Book and oratory, but they had no objection to revels, masques, May-poles, and village games. These sudden transitions from what was grave to what was gay, and this mixing up of things sacred with things trifling, had a hurtful effect, and the religion thus fostered closely approached that of France and Italy. Hence the Puritans rushed to the extreme of putting down many manly sports, and discouraging national pastimes, which, purified from immorality, were adapted to promote national vigour, cheerfulness, and good fellowship. While, however, they abolished church festivals they appointed holidays of another kind, and had relaxations of their own, hereafter to be recounted. Yet the restraints they placed upon society in the day of their power were such, perhaps, as more than any thing else tended to alienate from them the sympathies of a large portion of their fellow-countrymen. The broken May-pole and deserted village green had no small share in bringing about some of the worst resentments of the Restoration.