Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the Commonwealth

by John Stoughton

CHAPTER XIV.

As in the histories of the English nation, so in histories of the English Church, the individual, domestic, and social condition of the people has been too much overlooked; public ecclesiastical affairs have been allowed almost completely to overshadow private religious customs and habits. Yet if we would fully understand what our ancestors were, and truly estimate their character under its moral aspect, and in its spiritual relations, we must enter as far as we can within the circle of their inner Church life and their home retirements. Happily, materials exist for the illustration of this important part of the ecclesiastical history of England during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth.

Baptism.

I. Episcopalians were deprived of the privilege of baptism according to their own cherished formularies. Had the law only prohibited the open celebration of that service, the hardship would have been less than it was; inasmuch as christenings in the house had become common in the Stuart period, and the display made on such occasions had been often made the subject of complaint and rebuke. The ordinance of 1645 prohibited the use of Episcopal Church services in private as well as in public. But notwithstanding this circumstance, many a clergyman ran the risk of still wearing a surplice, of still making the sign of the cross, and of still repeating those words which had become dearer to him than ever, from the very fact of the peril which was now connected with their employment.

The Directory described the legalized mode of celebrating the initiatory rite of the Gospel. Private members of the Church were by that authority forbidden to perform it; its administration being lodged, it was said, in "the hands of the Stewards of the mysteries of God." Great importance was attached to the publicity of the ceremony; the law requiring it to be conducted in a place where the whole act of worship could be seen and heard, and not in a dark corner of the church, where—to use the words of the Directory—"fonts in the time of Popery were unfitly and superstitiously placed." The Presbyterians explained baptism as the seal of ingrafting into Christ—the right to which formed the inheritance of the seed of believers, who were pronounced to be "holy before baptism, and therefore are they to be baptized." The inward virtue was not tied in its communication to the time of administering the ordinance. Its fruit and power, it was said, "reacheth to the whole course of our life; and that outward baptism is not so necessary, that through the want thereof the infant is in danger of damnation, or the parents guilty, if they do not contemn or neglect the ordinance of Christ, when and where it may be had." Instruction to that effect was to be given when the service took place; then prayer was to be offered for "sanctifying the water to this spiritual use"—the element being applied by means of pouring or sprinkling.[397] The service was concluded with thanksgiving and supplication, for which suitable topics were suggested by the Directory. The staid Puritan matron, in raiment simple as it was pure, came to church accompanied by her husband—also dressed in Puritan garb—who presented the child to the minister and announced its name. Names savouring of Paganism and Popery were decidedly forbidden, and sometimes, no doubt, peculiar ones taken from Scripture were chosen; yet, in this respect, the Puritans of the Commonwealth only followed a custom which had been common in the reigns of James I. and Charles I. Any strange Christian names which might be borne by men and women under the Protectorate must have been given by a parent at that earlier period, and can therefore be no just reason for ridiculing the persons to whom they belonged. Care was taken in the ordinance which established the Directory to require that there should be a book of vellum provided for the registration of baptisms; but the unsettled condition of the times in some cases rendered the provision nugatory. For example, the Vicar of Lowestoft states that, in 1645, he and many others were taken prisoners by Colonel Cromwell, so that, for some time, there existed neither minister nor clerk in the town, and "the inhabitants were obliged to procure one another to baptize their children"—consequently baptisms could not be properly registered.[398]

That baptisms should be in public was required by the Independents no less than by the Presbyterians; nor would the former, in general, object to what the Directory prescribed, except that they disliked set forms, and preferred "the administration of the seals," as they termed them, by the minister in his own way, "according to the occasion." It is mentioned as a practice amongst the Independents, that one minister preached and another performed the rite of baptism after the sermon.[399]

Education.

II. The education of the young received much attention in Puritan times. Devout parents were anxious that their children should be well instructed in the truths of Christianity, and for this purpose they used certain approved catechisms. That which was prepared by the Assembly of Divines soon superseded all others. Schools, whether conducted by an Anglican priest or by a Puritan presbyter, were remarkable both for the thorough drilling which the younger pupils received in the rudiments of the dead languages, and for the use of the higher classics by elder boys in the upper forms. Such boys were required to talk during school hours in Latin, "under a penalty if they either spoke English or broke Priscian's head;" but if their Latinity was barbarous and not ungrammatical, they were subject simply to the derision of their juvenile critics. The study of Greek authors was also cultivated, and school exercises in that department took a shape bearing upon the illustration of Scripture, and sometimes presented very amusing examples. A "great anti-Puritan" schoolmaster is mentioned as being particularly careful to observe in profane authors all allusions to the contents of the Bible; and so quick were his eyes in detecting these that he would gravely tell his boys that the words, "ubi nuper arârat," in Ovid's story of Deucalion's flood, had in them a strange allusion, (he would not say whether intended or accidental,) to the Mountain of Ararat on which rested Noah's ark.[400] The tutors of the upper classes were ambitious of improving upon earlier methods, avoiding "the miseducation of the gentry," over which Bishop Hall, in one of his letters, pours out very characteristic lamentations.[401] William Greenhill—the Independent minister of Stepney—in the Dedication prefixed to one of his works, compliments the Princess Elizabeth upon her resolution to write out with her own princely hand the Holy Oracles in the original, thus breeding hopes that she would excel her sex throughout Europe, as Drusius said of his son, who, when five years old, learned Hebrew, and at twelve could write it extempore, both in prose and verse.[402] Discipline seems to have been equally strict at home and at school; and the young Puritan was taught in his earliest days to regard life as a very grave and serious business. He had to pass through long seasons of fasting and prayer, and to listen to sermons of three hours' duration, from which he was required to carry home "the minister's method," duly drawn out in heads and particulars.[403]

Marriage.