Where some members of a family remained faithful to the Episcopal Church—loving her liturgy, and frequenting the private meetings of her clergy—divisions might naturally be expected to arise; but sometimes also, even where all were under the power of a Puritan spirit, religious discord, contrary to all expectation, might be introduced. For instance, we are informed by Lucy Hutchinson that the home of Sir Thomas Fairfax suffered much disquiet from collisions of sentiment between his lady, a staunch Covenanter and Royalist, and certain Independent ministers holding republican views, who attended upon the General in the capacity of his chaplains.
VI. Scarcely anything more obviously marked out the Puritans as objects for the notice of the world than the manner in which they regarded the Lord's Day. They could not agree with Anglicans even as to its appellation; the word Sabbath, commonly used by the former class, being much disliked by the latter. The Puritans claimed sanctity for all the hours of the day from morning until night; their neighbours accounted the hours spent in Divine service alone as holy.[409] The one party founded the whole observance entirely upon words of Scripture, the other mainly upon ecclesiastical tradition. The difference as to the mode of keeping the first day of the week was still more striking. High Churchmen approved of rural amusements after the celebration of public worship, and vindicated the "Book of Sports" as a wise regulation; an extravagance of opinion which drove their fellow-countrymen to an opposite extreme. Whether it were right even to take a walk on the Sunday became with them a serious question; and Baxter, whose health required that he should do so, remarks that he did it privately, lest he should lead other people into sin.[410] The lower orders would sometimes burst through the trammels of law, and would riotously attempt the revival of ancient sports; and it happened once, that upon Easter Sunday, a number of noisy apprentices met in Finsbury Fields to play at their favourite games, and, when the train bands had been sent to disperse them, the young men said that, since all other holydays had been abolished by law, no time of recreation remained but the Sabbath.
Belief in Witchcraft.
VII. Superstitious beliefs deeply tinged the religious and social life of the seventeenth century. There is in human nature an ineradicable conviction of the presence throughout the universe of invisible and mysterious influences; and this conviction, in certain wild imaginary forms, is found in a number of instances to be a pitiable substitute for religion, and, in a still greater number, to be its unworthy companion, and the corrupter of its purity. One of the worst superstitions of this kind is that belief in witchcraft which, after being widely and fondly cherished in mediæval Christendom, was brought over into Protestant churches at the period of the Reformation.[411] An Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth—the Book on Dæmonology by King James—other works on the subject by less conspicuous authors[412]—articles of visitation issued by Bishops[413]—and even the writings of Lord Bacon and John Selden, bear witness to the existence of this delusion on an extensive scale in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Indeed, it hung at that time like a black cloud over all Europe, terrifying people of all countries, of all ranks, of all degrees of culture, and of all varieties of religious opinion.
Belief in Witchcraft.
The most terrible form of this superstition within the shores of Great Britain was to be found in Scotland. The enormous number of witches executed there proves the intense and general persuasion as to the reality of witchcraft which must at the time have existed in that country; and the vigorous and active faith in such diabolical agency manifested by the northern inhabitants of our island could not fail to influence their southern brethren, with whom they were connected by so many bonds of religious association.[414] The common idea was, that witches possessed all sorts of mischievous power. Diseases, especially such as lay beyond the reach of medical art, mysterious pains and convulsions, even accidents and injuries from lightning, and also murrain amongst cattle, were by all classes of people laid at the doors of unfortunate old women who had wrinkled faces, or furrowed brows, or hairy lips, or a squinting eye, or a squeaking voice, or a hump back. It was, moreover, said, that the bewitched fell into fits when they tried to pronounce the name of "Lord," or Jesus, or Christ; but that they could glibly utter the words "Satan," or "Devil."[415] To check the demoniacal craft, witchfinders were employed, who drove a thriving trade at the expense of an inconceivable amount of suffering. Detectives of this order were busy in England, imported from beyond the Tweed,[416] and there were others of southern origin, possessing a wonderful skill for witch-catching altogether of indigenous growth. A genius of this description, the notorious Hopkins,[417] boasted of having hanged no less than sixty of the infernal sisterhood in the county of Essex alone; and trials for these mysterious offences excited a curiosity, possessed a fascination, and inspired a terror such as, in our time, it is extremely difficult to imagine. The effect of all this upon private life amongst religious people, who had a strong faith in the spiritual world and in the agency of Satan, would be exceedingly great; and mainly for the illustration of this point our cursory notice of the subject has been introduced. Stories of dealers in the black art, and of the spells with which they bound men, women, and children, and how pins were extracted from those suffering under enchantment, would be related by the firesides of religious families throughout England during the Commonwealth; these miserable hallucinations making people tremble who were far too brave to shrink with fear from some other things which were really terrific. Tales of apparitions, dreams, and other mysterious occurrences, were not only mingled largely in the staple of such conversations, but they also formed topics of discussion in the correspondence of Divines.[418]
The belief in witchcraft, although so common in Puritan times, and even culminating in England under the Commonwealth,[419] was not, as already indicated, of Puritan origin; nor was it confined to Puritan religionists. Richard Baxter, indeed, dwelt much upon the subject, and derived from it arguments against the doctrines of materialism and the denial of revelation; but men of another theological school, such as More and Cudworth, were equally believers in this form of the marvellous; and the same faith was held by the scientific Robert Boyle, and by Sir Thomas Brown, notwithstanding his exposure of "Vulgar Errors." Nor did this credulity, after all, produce in England an amount of mischief and suffering, great as it was, to be compared with what it did on the Continent before the Reformation, when as many as 500 people are said to have been executed at Geneva in one year, and the Inquisitor Remigius boasted that he had put 900 to death in the province of Lorraine.[420] Neither were there wanting in this country some who, when the rage for witch-burning was most rampant, protested against the whole system as an impious absurdity. In a curious tract, written by Thomas Adey, in the year 1656, entitled, "A Candle in the Dark; or, a Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft," we meet with the following passage:—"It is reported by travellers that some people in America do worship for a day the first living creature they see in the morning, be it but a bird or a worm. This idolatry is like the idolatry of this part of the world, who, when they are afflicted in body or goods by God's hand, they have an eye to some mouse, or bug, or frog, or other living creature, saying it is some witch's imp that is sent to afflict them; ascribing the work of God to a witch, or any mean creature, rather than God." The writer also alludes to Reginald Scott, who had published a book, called "The Discovery of Witchcraft," in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and describes it as composed for the instruction of all Judges and Justices of that day; which book, he observes, did for a while make great impression on the magistracy, and also on the clergy, "but, since that time, England has shamefully fallen from the truth which they began to receive."
Clerical Costume.
VIII. Clerical costume is worth at least one word. The Seventy-fourth Canon of the Church of England—and this Canon has never been repealed—prescribes very minutely that persons in holy orders shall, in ordinary, wear gowns with standing collars and hoods; and shall, when they are on a journey, be dressed in cloaks with sleeves, without welts, but with long buttons; and shall, when they are taking a walk, appear in doublet and hose, with coat or cassock, but not in light-coloured stockings. This law affords some idea of the garb of ministers in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and, with some little change, their garments would be similar in the days of the Stuarts. Ejected Episcopalians, in places where prejudice against them did not exist, would dress in this fashion. Some teachers belonging to the sects would clothe themselves just like other people; and leathern doublets, nay, even uniforms of buff or scarlet, might be seen in pulpits. But such Puritan instructors of the people as had received a University education retained their academic costume for general use; and, of course eschewing in acts of worship the surplice prescribed in the Fifty-eighth Canon, wore gowns of Genevan form, with bands; which latter appendages—judging from old portraits—varied in dimensions from their present cut to such ample breadths as to fall like a collar across the shoulders. Square caps were signs of Anglicanism; and the advocates of the opposite system rigidly refused to wear any which were not round. The wigs so conspicuous in the portraits of early Nonconformists were the luxurious innovations of the period after the Restoration.[421]
Public Worship.