"I spent this day chiefly in _private fasting_, prayer, and other
religious exercises. This was the first time that I ever practised
this duty, having always before declined it, by reason of the
papists' superstitious abuses of it. I had partaken formerly of
_public fasts_, but never knew the use and benefit of the same duty
performed alone in secret, or with others of mine own family in
private. In these particulars, I had my knowledge much enlarged by
the religious converse I enjoyed at Albury Lodge, for there also I
shortly after entered upon _framing an evidence of marks and signs
for my assurance of a better life_.
"I found much benefit of my _secret fasting_, from a learned
discourse on fasting by Mr. Henry Mason, and observed his rule, that
Christians ought to sit sometimes apart for their ordinary
humiliation and fasting, and so intend to continue the same course as
long as my health will permit me. Yet did I vary the times and
duration of my fasting. At first, before I had finished _the marks
and signs of my assurance of a better life, which scrutiny and search
cost me some three-score days of fasting_, I performed it sometimes
twice in the space of five weeks, then once each month, or a little
sooner or later, and then also I sometimes ended the duties of the
day, and took some little food about three of the clock in the
afternoon. But for divers years last past, I constantly abstained
from all food the whole day. I fasted till supper-time, about six in
the evening, and spent ordinarily about eight or nine hours in the
performance of religious duties; one part of which was _prayer and
confession of sins_, to which end I wrote down _a catalogue of all my
known sins_, orderly. These were all sins of _infirmity_; for,
through God's grace, I was so far from allowing myself in the
practice and commission of any _actual_ sin, as I durst not take upon
me any _controversial sins_, as usury, carding, dicing, mixt dancing,
and the like, because I was in mine own judgment persuaded they were
unlawful. Till I had finished my _assurance_ first in English and
afterwards in Latin, with a large and an elaborate preface in Latin
also to it; I spent a great part of the day at that work, &c.
"Saturday, December 1, 1627, I devoted to my usual course of _secret
fasting_, and drew divers _signs of my assurance of a better life_
from the _grace_ of repentance, having before gone through the
_graces_ of knowledge, faith, hope, love, zeal, patience, humility,
and joy; and drawing several marks from them on like days of
humiliation for the greater part. My dear wife beginning also to draw
_most certain signs_ of her own future happiness after death from
_several graces_.
"January 19, 1628.--Saturday I spent in secret humiliation and
fastings, and finished _my whole assurance to a better life_,
consisting of THREE SCORE and FOUR SIGNS, or marks drawn from
_several graces_. I made some small alterations in the signs
afterwards; and when I turned them into the Latin tongue, I enriched
the margent with further _proofs and authorities_. I found much
comfort and reposedness of spirit from them, which shows the devilish
sophisms of the papists, anabaptists, and pseudo-Lutherans, and
profane atheistical men, who say that _assurance_ brings forth
presumption, and a careless wicked life. True, when men pretend to
the end, and not use the means.
"My wife joined with me in a private day of _fasting_, and drew
_several signs and marks by_ MY _help and assistance, for her
assurance to a better life_."
This was an era of religious diaries, particularly among the
nonconformists; but they were, as we see, used by others. Of the
Countess of Warwick, who died in 1678, we are told that "she kept a
diary, and took counsel with two persons, whom she called her _soul's
friends_." She called prayers _heart's ease_, for such she found them.
"Her own lord, knowing her _hours of prayers_, once conveyed a godly
minister into _a secret place_ within hearing, who, being a man very
able to judge, much admired her humble fervency; for in praying she
prayed aloud; but when she did not with an audible voice, her sighs and
groans might be heard at a good distance from the closet." We are not
surprised to discover this practice of religious diaries among the more
puritanic sort: what they were we may gather from this description of
one. Mr. John Janeway "kept a diary, in which he wrote down _every
evening_ what the _frame of his spirit_ had been _all that day_; he took
notice what _incomes_ he had, what _profit_ he received in his spiritual
traffic: what _returns_ came from that far country; what _answers_ of
prayer, what deadness and flatness of spirit," &c. And so we find of Mr.
John Carter, that "He kept a _day-book_ and _cast up his accounts_ with
God every day."[277] To such worldly notions had they humiliated the
spirit of religion; and this style, and this mode of religion, has long
been continued among us even among men of superior acquisitions: as
witness the "Spiritual Diary and Soliloquies" of a learned physician
within our own times, Dr. Rutty, which is a great curiosity of the kind.
Such was the domestic state of many well-meaning families: they were
rejecting with the utmost abhorrence every resemblance to what they
called the idolatry of Rome, while, in fact, the gloom of the monastic
cell was settling over the houses of these melancholy puritans. Private
fasts were more than ever practised; and a lady, said to be eminent for
her genius and learning, who outlived this era, declared that she had
nearly lost her life through a prevalent notion that _no fat person
could get to heaven_; and thus spoiled and wasted her body through
excessive fastings. A quaker, to prove the text that "Man shall not live
_by bread alone_, but by the word of God," persisted in refusing his
meals. The literal text proved for him a dead letter, and this practical
commentator died by a metaphor. This quaker, however, was not the only
victim to the letter of the text; for the famous Origen, by interpreting
in too literal a way the 12th verse of the 19th of St. Matthew, which
alludes to those persons who become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,
with his own hands armed himself against himself, as is sufficiently
known. "_Retournons a nos moutons!_" The parliament afterwards had both
periodical and occasional fasts; and Charles the First opposed "the
hypocritical fast of every Wednesday in the month, by appointing one for
the second Friday;" the two unhappy parties, who were hungering and
thirsting for each other's blood, were fasting in spite one against the
other!
Without inquiring into the causes, even if we thought that we could
ascertain them, of that frightful dissolution of religion which so long
prevailed in our country, and of which the very corruption it has left
behind still breeds in monstrous shapes, it will be sufficient to
observe that the destruction of the monarchy and the ecclesiastical
order was a moral earthquake, overturning all minds, and opening all
changes. A theological logomachy was substituted by the sullen and proud
ascetics who ascended into power. These, without wearying themselves,
wearied all others, and triumphed over each other by their mutual
obscurity. The two great giants in this theological war were the famous
Richard Baxter and Dr. Owen. They both wrote a library of books; but the
endless controversy between them was the extraordinary and
incomprehensible subject, whether the death of Christ was _solutio
ejusdem_, or only _tantundem_; that is, whether it was a payment of the
very thing, which by law we ought to have paid, or of something held by
God to be equivalent. Such was the point on which this debate between
Owen and Baxter lasted without end.
Yet these metaphysical absurdities were harmless, compared to what was
passing among the more hot fanatics, who were for acting the wild
fancies which their melancholy brains engendered; men, who from the
places into which they had thrust themselves, might now be called "the
higher orders of society!" These two parties alike sent forth an evil
spirit to walk among the multitude. Every one would become his own
law-maker, and even his own prophet; the meanest aspired to give his
name to his sect. All things were to be put in motion according to the
St. Vitus's dance of the last new saint. "Away with the Law! which cuts
off a man's legs and then bids him walk!" cried one from his pulpit.
"Let believers sin as fast as they will, they have a fountain open to
wash them;" declared another teacher. We had the _Brownists_, from
Robert Brown, the _Vaneists_, from Sir Harry Vane, then we sink down to
Mr. Traske, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Robinson, and H. N., or Henry Nicholas,
of the Family of Love, besides Mrs. Hutchinson, and the Grindletonian
family, who preferred "motions to motives," and conveniently assumed
that "their spirit is not to be tried by the Scripture, but the
Scripture by their spirit." Edwards, the author of "Gangraena," the
adversary of Milton, whose work may still be preserved for its
curiosity, though immortalised by the scourge of genius, has furnished
a list of about two hundred of such sects in these times. A divine of
the Church of England observed to a great sectary, "You talk of the
idolatry of Rome: but each of you, whenever you have made and set up a
calf, will dance about it."[278]
This confusion of religions, if, indeed, these pretended modes of faith
could be classed among religions, disturbed the consciences of good men,
who read themselves in and out of their vacillating creed. It made, at
least, even one of the puritans themselves, who had formerly complained
that they had not enjoyed sufficient freedom under the bishops, cry out
against "this cursed intolerable toleration." And the fact is, that when
the presbyterians had fixed themselves into the government, they
published several treatises against toleration! The parallel between
these wild notions of reform, and those of another character, run
closely together. About this time, well-meaning persons, who were
neither enthusiasts from the ambition of founding sects, nor of covering
their immorality by their impiety, were infected by the _religiosa
insania_. One case may stand for many. A Mr. Greswold, a gentleman of
Warwickshire, whom a Brownist had by degrees enticed from his parish
church, was afterwards persuaded to return to it--but he returned with a
troubled mind, and lost in the prevalent theological contests. A horror
of his future existence shut him out, as it were, from his present one:
retiring into his own house, with his children, he ceased to communicate
with the living world. He had his food put in at the window; and when
his children lay sick, he admitted no one for their relief. His house at
length was forced open, and they found two children dead, and the father
confined to his bed. He had mangled his Bible, and cut out the titles,
contents, and everything but the very text itself; for it seems that he
thought that everything human was sinful, and he conceived that the
titles of the books and the contents of the chapters were to be cut out
of the sacred Scriptures, as having been composed by men.[279]
More terrible it was when the insanity, which had hitherto been more
confined to the better classes, burst forth among the common people.
Were we to dwell minutely on this period, we should start from the
picture with horror: we might, perhaps, console ourselves with a
disbelief of its truth; but the drug, though bitter in the mouth, we
must sometimes digest. To observe the extent to which the populace can
proceed, disfranchised of law and religion, will always leave a
memorable recollection.
What occurred in the French Revolution had happened here--an age of
impiety! Society itself seemed dissolved, for every tie of private
affection and of public duty was unloosened. Even nature was strangely
violated! From the first opposition to the decorous ceremonies of the
national church, by the simple puritans, the next stage was that of
ridicule, and the last of obloquy. They began by calling the surplice a
linen rag on the back; baptism a Christ's cross on a baby's face; and
the organ was likened to the bellow, the grunt, and the barking of the
respective animals. They actually baptized horses in churches at the
fonts; and the jest of that day was, that the Reformation was now a
thorough one in England, since our horses went to church.[280] St.
Paul's cathedral was turned into a market, and the aisles, the
communion-table, and the altar, served for the foulest purposes.[281]
The liberty which every one now assumed of delivering his own opinions,
led to acts so execrable, that I can find no parallel for them except in
the mad times of the French Revolution. Some maintained that there
existed no distinction between moral good and moral evil; and that every
man's actions were prompted by the Creator. Prostitution was professed
as a religious act; a glazier was declared to be a prophet, and the
woman he cohabited with was said to be ready to lie in of the Messiah.
A man married his father's wife. Murders of the most extraordinary
nature were occurring; one woman crucified her mother; another, in
imitation of Abraham, sacrificed her child; we hear, too, of parricides.
Amidst the slaughters of civil wars, spoil and blood had accustomed the
people to contemplate the most horrible scenes. One madman of the many,
we find drinking a health on his knees, in the midst of a town, "to the
devil! that it might be said that his family should not be extinct
without doing some infamous act." A Scotchman, one Alexander Agnew,
commonly called "Jock of broad Scotland," whom one cannot call an
atheist, for he does not seem to deny the existence of the Creator, nor
a future state, had a shrewdness of local humour in his strange notions.
Omitting some offensive things, others as strange may exhibit the state
to which the reaction of an hypocritical system of religion had driven
the common people. "Jock of broad Scotland" said he was nothing in God's
common, for God had given him nothing; he was no more obliged to God
than to the devil; for God was very greedy. Neither God nor the devil
gave the fruits of the ground; the wives of the country gave him his
meat. When asked wherein he believed, he answered, "He believed in white
meal, water, and salt. Christ was not God; for he came into the world
after it was made, and died as other men." He declared that "he did not
know whether God or the devil had the greatest power; but he thought the
devil was the greatest. When I die, let God and the devil strive for my
soul, and let him that is strongest take it." He no doubt had been
taught by the presbytery to mock religious rites; and when desired to
give God thanks for his meat, he said, "Take a sackful of prayers to the
mill and grind them, and take your breakfast of them." To others he
said, "I will give you a two-pence, to pray until a boll of meal, and
one stone of butter, fall from heaven through the house rigging (roof)
to you." When bread and cheese were laid on the ground by him, he said,
"If I leave this, I will long cry to God before he give it me again." To
others he said, "Take a bannock, and break it in two, and lay down one
half thereof, and you will long pray to God before he will put the other
half to it again!" He seems to have been an anti-trinitarian. He said he
received everything from nature, which had ever reigned and ever would.
He would not conform to any religious system, nor name the three
Persons,--"At all these things I have long shaken my cap," he said.
"Jock of broad Scotland" seems to have been one of those who imagine
that God should have furnished them with bannocks ready baked.
The extravagant fervour then working in the minds of the people is
marked by the story told by Clement Walker of the soldier who entered a
church with a lantern and a candle burning in it, and in the other hand
four candles not lighted. He said he came to deliver his message from
God, and show it by these types of candles. Driven into the churchyard,
and the wind blowing strong, he could not kindle his candles, and the
new prophet was awkwardly compelled to conclude his five denouncements,
abolishing the Sabbath, tithes, ministers, magistrates, and, at last,
the Bible itself, without putting out each candle, as he could not
kindle them; observing, however, each time--"And here I should put out
the first light, but the wind is so high that I cannot kindle it."
A perfect scene of the effects which the state of irreligious society
produced among the lower orders I am enabled to give from the manuscript
life of John Shaw, vicar of Rotherham; with a little tediousness, but
with infinite _naivete_, he relates what happened to himself. This
honest divine was puritanically inclined, but there can be no
exaggeration in these unvarnished facts. He tells a remarkable story of
the state of religious knowledge in Lancashire, at a place called
Cartmel: some of the people appeared desirous of religious instruction,
declaring that they were without any minister, and had entirely
neglected every religious rite, and therefore pressed him to quit his
situation at Lymm for a short period. He may now tell his own story.
"I found a very large spacious church, scarce any seats in it; a
people very ignorant, and yet willing to learn; so as I had
frequently some thousands of hearers, I catechised in season and out
of season. The churches were so thronged at nine in the morning, that
I had much ado to get to the pulpit. One day, an old man about sixty,
sensible enough in other things, and living in the parish of Cartmel,
coming to me on some business, I told him that he belonged to my care
and charge, and I desired to be informed of his knowledge in
religion. I asked him how many Gods there were? He said he knew not.
I informing him, asked again how he thought to be saved? He answered
he could not tell. Yet thought that was a harder question than the
other. I told him that the way to salvation was by Jesus Christ,
God-man, who as he was man shed his blood for us on the cross, &c.
Oh, sir, said he, I think I heard of that man you speak of once in a
play at Kendall, called Corpus-Christ's play,[282] where there was a
man on a tree and blood run down, &c. And afterwards he professed he
could not remember that he ever heard of salvation by Jesus, but in
that play."
The scenes passing in the metropolis, as well as in the country, are
opened to us in one of the chronicling poems of George Withers. Our
sensible rhymer wrote in November, 1652, "a Darke Lanthorne" on the
present subject.
After noticing that God, to mortify us, had sent preachers from the
"shop-board and the plough,"
----Such as we seem justly to contemn,
As making truths abhorred, which come from them;
he seems, however, inclined to think that these self-taught "Teachers
and Prophets" in their darkness might hold a certain light within them:
----Children, fools,
Women, and madmen, we do often meet
Preaching, and threatening judgments in the street,
Yea by strange actions, postures, tones, and cries,
Themselves they offer to our ears and eyes
As signs unto this nation.----
They act as men in ecstacies have done----
Striving their cloudy visions to declare,
Till they have lost the notions which they had,
And want but few degrees of being mad.[283]
Such is the picture of the folly and of the wickedness, which, after
having been preceded by the piety of a religious age, were succeeded by
a dominion of hypocritical sanctity, and then closed in all the horrors
of immorality and impiety. The parliament at length issued one of their
ordinances for "punishing blasphemous and execrable opinions," and this
was enforced with greater power than the slighted proclamations of James
and Charles; but the curious wording is a comment on our present
subject. The preamble notices that "men and women had lately discovered
_monstrous opinions_, even such as tended to _the dissolution of human
society, and have abused, and turned into licentiousness, the liberty
given in matters of religion_." It punishes any person not distempered
in his brains, who shall maintain any mere creature to be God; or that
all acts of unrighteousness are not forbidden in the Scriptures; or that
God approves of them; or that there is no real difference between moral
good and evil, &c.
To this disordered state was the public mind reduced, for this
proclamation was only describing what was passing among the people! The
view of this subject embraces more than one point, which I leave for the
meditation of the politician, as well as the religionist.