The Plain-Speaking Puritan Pulpit.
One thing which always interests and can but amuse every reader of the
old Puritan sermons is the astonishingly familiar way in which these New
England divines publicly shared their domestic joys and sorrows with
the members of their congregations; and we are equally surprised at the
ingenuity which they displayed in finding texts that were suitable for
the various occasions and events. The Reverend Mr. Turell was specially
ingenious. Of him Dr. Holmes wrote,--
"You've heard, no doubt, of Parson Turell;
Over at Medford he used to dwell,--
Married one of the Mathers' folks."
His wife, Jane Coleman, was a handsome brunette. The bridegroom preached
his first sermon after his wedding on this text, "I am black but comely, O
ye daughters of Jerusalem." When he married a second time he chose as his
text, "He is altogether lovely, this is my beloved, and this my friend, O
daughters of Jerusalem!" It is possible that each of Parson Turell's brides
may have chosen the text from which he preached her honeymoon sermon. It
was the universal custom for many years thoughout New England to allow a
bride the privilege of selecting for the parson who had solemnized her
marriage, or at whose church she first appeared after the wedding, the text
from which he should preach on the bridal Sabbath. Thus when John Physick
and Mary Prescott were married in Portland, on July 4, 1770, the bride gave
to Rev. Mr. Deane this text: "Mary hath chosen that good part;" and from it
Parson Deane preached the "wedding sermon." When Abby Smith, daughter of
Parson Smith, married 'Squire John Adams, whom her father disliked and
would not invite home to dinner, she chose this text for her wedding
sermon: "John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he
hath a devil." The high-spirited bride had the honor of living to be the
wife of one President of the United States, and mother of another.
Another ingenious clergyman gave out one morning as his text, "Unto us a
son is born;" and thus notified the surprised congregation of an event
which they had been awaiting for some weeks. Another preached on the text,
"My servant lieth at home sick," which was literally true. Another, a
bachelor, dared to announce this abbreviated text: "A wonder was seen in
heaven--a woman." Dr. Mather Byles, of Boston, being disappointed through
the non-appearance of a minister named Prince, who had been expected to
deliver the sermon, preached himself upon the text, "Put not your trust
in princes." But Dr. Byles was one who would always "court a grin when he
should win a soul."
One minister felt it necessary to reprove a money-making parishioner who
had stored and was holding in reserve (with the hope of higher prices) a
large quantity of corn which was sadly needed for consumption in the town.
The parson preached from this appropriate text, Proverbs xi. 26. "He that
withholdeth his corn, the people shall curse him; but blessings shall be
upon the head of him that selleth it." As the minister grew warmer in his
explanation and application of the text, the money-seeking corn-storer
defiantly and unregenerately sat up stiff and unmoved, until at last the
preacher, provoked out of prudence and patience, roared out, "Colonel
Ingraham, Colonel Ingraham! you know I mean you; why don't you hang down
your head?" In a similar case another stern parson employed the text,
"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone;" though the personalities
of the sermon made unnecessary the open reference in the text to the
offender's name.
The ministers were such autocrats in the Puritan community that they never
hesitated to show their authority in any manner in the pulpit. Judge Sewall
records with much bitterness a libel which his pastor, Mr. Pemberton,
launched at him in the meeting through the medium of the psalm which
he gave out to be sung. They had differed over the adjustment of some
church-matter and on the following Sunday the clergyman assigned to be sung
the libellous and significant psalm. Such lines as these must have been
hard indeed for Judge Sewall to endure:--
"Speak, oh ye Judges of the Earth
if just your Sentence be
Or must not Innocence appeal
to Heav'n from your decree
"Your Wicked Hearts and Judgments are
alike by Malice sway'd
Your griping Hands by mighty Bribes
to violence betrayed.
"No Serpent of parch'd Afric's breed
doth Ranker poison bear
The drowsy Adder will as soon
unlock his Sullen Ear
"Unmov'd by good Advice, and dead
As Adders they remain
From whom the skilful Charmer's voice
can no attention gain."
Small wonder that Judge Sewall writhed under the infliction of these lines
as they were doubly thrust upon him by the deacon's "lining" and the
singing of the congregation; and the words, "The drowsy Adder will as soon
unlock his Sullen Ear" seemed to particularly irritate him; doubtless he
felt sure that no one could doubt his integrity, but feared that some might
think him stupid and obstinate.
Another arbitrary clergyman, having had an altercation with some unruly
singers in the choir, gave out with much vehemence on the following Sunday
the hymn beginning,--
"And are you wretches yet alive
And do you yet rebel?"
with a very significant glower towards the singers' gallery. In a similar
situation another minister gave out to the rebellious choir the hymn
commencing,--
"Let those refuse to sing
Who never knew our God."
A visiting clergyman, preaching in a small and shabby church built in a
parish of barren and stony farm-land, very spitefully and sneeringly read
out to be sung the hymn of Watts' beginning,--
"Lord, what a wretched land is this,
That yields us no supplies!"
But his malicious intent was frustrated and the tables were adroitly turned
by the quick-witted choir-master, who bawled out in a loud voice as if
in answer, "Northfield,"--the name of the minister's own home and
parish,--while he was really giving out to the choir, as was his wont, the
name of the tune to which the hymn was to be sung.
Nor did the parsons hesitate to be personal even in their prayers. Rev. Mr.
Moody, who was ordained pastor at York in the year 1700, reproved in an
extraordinary manner a young man who had called attention to some fine new
clothing which he wore by coming in during prayer time and thus attracting
the notice of the congregation. Mr. Moody, in an elevated tone of voice,
at once exclaimed, "And O Lord! we pray Thee, cure Ned Ingraham of that
ungodly strut," etc. Another time he prayed for a young lady in the
congregation and ended his invocation thus, "She asked me not to pray for
her in public, but I told her I would, and so I have, Amen."
Rev. Mr. Miles, while praying for rain, is said to have used this
extraordinary phraseology: "O Lord, Thou knowest we do not want Thee to
send us a rain which shall pour down in fury and swell our streams and
carry away our hay-cocks, fences, and bridges; but, Lord, we want it to
come drizzle-drozzle, drizzle-drozzle, for about a week, Amen."
They did not think it necessary always to give their congregations novel
thoughts and ideas nor fresh sermons. One minister, after being newly
ordained in his parish, preached the same sermon three Sundays in
succession; and a deacon was sent to him mildly to suggest a change. "Why,
no," he answered, "I can see no evidence yet that this one has produced any
effect."
Rev. Mr. Daggett, of Yale College, had an entire system of sermons which
took him four years to preach throughout. And for three successive years he
delivered once a year a sermon on the text, "Is Thy servant a dog that he
should do this thing?" And the fourth year he varied it with, "And the dog
did it."
Dr. Coggswell, of Canterbury, Connecticut, had a sermon which he thrust
upon his people every spring for many years as being suitable to the time
when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love. In it he soberly
reproved the young church attendants for gazing so much at each other in
the meeting. This annual anti-amatory advice never failed to raise a smile
on the face of each father and son in the congregation as he listened to
the familiar and oft-repeated words.
The Puritan ministers gave advice in their sermons upon most personal and
worldly matters. Roger Williams instructed the women of his parish to wear
veils when they appeared in public; but John Cotton preached to them
one Sunday morning and proved to them that veils were a sign of undue
subjection to their husbands; and in the afternoon the fair Puritans
appeared with bare faces and showed that women had even at that early day
"rights."
How the varieties of headgear did torment the parsons! They denounced
from many a pulpit the wearing of wigs. Mr. Noyes preached long and often
against the fashion. Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the
Indians, found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties
to deliver many a blast against "prolix locks,"--"with boiling zeal," as
Cotton Mather said,--and he labelled them a "luxurious feminine protexity;"
but lamented late in life that "the lust for wigs is become insuperable."
He thought the horrors in King Philip's War were a direct punishment from
God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly against wigs, saying
that "such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature and to express
Scripture," and that "Monstrous Perriwigs such as some of our church
members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye
Bottomless Pit." To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" were
despised by a real live Puritan wig-hater one needs only to read the
many disparaging, regretful, and bitter references to wig-wearing and
wig-wearers in Judge Sewall's diary, which reached a culmination when a
widow whom he was courting suggested most warmly that he ought to wear,
what his very soul abominated, a periwig.
Eliot had also a strong aversion to tobacco, and denounced its use in
severe terms; but his opposition in this case was as ineffectual as it was
against wigs. Allen said, "In contempt of all his admonitions the head
would be adorned with curls of foreign growth, and the pipe would send up
volumes of smoke."
Rev. Mr. Rogers preached against long natural hair,--the "disguisement of
long ruffianly hair,"--as did also President Chauncey of Harvard College;
while Mr. Wigglesworth's sermon on the subject has often been reprinted,
and is full of logical arguments. This offence was named on the list of
existing evils which was made by the General Court: that "the men wore long
hair like women's hair," while the women were complained of for "cutting
and curling and laying out of hair, especially among the younger sort."
Still, the Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were, did not dare to
force the be-curled citizens to cut their long love-locks, though they
instructed and bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in 1687, fined ten
shillings for a misdemeanor, but "in case he shall cutt off his long har of
his head into a sevill (civil?) frame in the mean time shall have abated
five shillings of his fine." John Eliot hated long natural hair as well
as false hair. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very unpleasant figure of
speech, "The hair of them that professed religion grew too long for him to
swallow." Other fashions and habits brought forth denunciations from the
pulpit,--hooped petticoats, gold-laced coats (unless worn by gentlemen),
pointed shoes, chaise-owning, health-drinking, tavern-visiting, gossiping,
meddling, tale-bearing, and lying.
Political and business and even medical and sanitary subjects were popular
in the early New England pulpit. Mr. Peters preached many a long sermon
to urge the formation of a stock company for fishing, and canvassed all
through the commonwealth for the same purpose. Cotton Mather said plainly
that ministers ought to instruct themselves and their congregations in
politics; and in Connecticut it was ordered by law that each minister
should give sound and orthodox advice to his congregation at the time of
civil elections.
Every natural phenomenon, every unusual event called forth a sermon, and
the minister could find even in the common events of every-day life plain
manifestations of Divine wrath and judgment. He preached with solemn
delight upon comets, and earthquakes, and northern lights, and great storms
and droughts, on deaths and diseases, and wonders and scandals (for there
were scandals even in puritanical New England), on wars both at home and
abroad, on shipwrecks, on safe voyages, on distinguished visitors, on noted
criminals and crimes,--in fact, upon every subject that was of spiritual or
temporal interest to his congregation or himself. And his people looked
for his religious comment upon passing events just as now-a-days we read
articles upon like subjects in the newspaper. Thus was the Puritan minister
not only a preacher, but a teacher, adviser, and friend, and a pretty
plain-spoken one too.