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to deviate from the principles of the first Reformers, but to attempt. a coalition with the Church of Rome; while most of the country clergy, being stiff in their old opinions (though otherwise well enough affected to the discipline and circumstances of the Church), were in a manner shut out from all preferment, and branded with the name of Doctrinal Puritans.

"Thirdly, to their pious and severe manner of life, which was at this time very extraordinary. If a man kept the Sabbath and frequented sermons, if he maintained family religion, and would neither swear nor be drunk, nor comply with the fashionable vices of the times, he was called a Puritan. This by degrees procured them the compassion of the sober part of the nation, who began to think it very hard that a number of sober, industrious, and conscientious people should be harassed out of the land for scrupling to comply with a few indifferent ceremonies which had no relation to the favour of God or the practice of virtue."

The last description is the one which has survived. In this sense it is used by Shakespeare—

"She would make a Puritan of the devil."

"In my conscience it was a shame to be a Christian within these fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years in this nation! Whether in Cæsar's house' or elsewhere! It was a shame, it was a reproach to a man; and the badge of 'Puritan' was put upon it" (Cromwell's Speeches).

"Richard Baxter belonged to what was known as a Puritan family, though they were Episcopalians and strict Conformists, and this solely on account of their religious habits and pious manner of life." -Calamy's Life of Baxter, p. 48.

"It is the artifice of the favourers of the Catholic and of the prelatical party to call all who are sticklers for the Constitution in Church or State, or would square their actions by any rule human or divine, Puritans."-Rushworth, vol. ii. 1355.

See the account of the Puritan party in Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, pp. 79–82 :

"If any out of mere morality and civil honesty discountenanced the abominations of those days, he was a Puritan. . . . If any showed favour to any godly, honest persons, kept them company, relieved them in want, or protected them against violent or unjust oppression. . . . Whoever was zealous for God's glory or worship, could not endure blasphemous oaths, ribald conversation, profane

scoffs, derision of the word of God, and the like-whoever could endure a sermon, modest habit or conversation, or anything good,— all these were Puritans; and if Puritans, then enemies to the King and his government, seditious, factious hypocrites, ambitious disturbers of the public peace, and, finally, the pest of the kingdom."

NOTE ON NEAL

As we shall have occasion to cite the testimony of Neal, the wellknown historian of the Puritans, pretty frequently in the following pages, it may be well to state at the beginning that so far from "pinning our faith" to everything which Neal says, we have relied on his authority only in those instances where we had independent reasons for regarding it as in the main trustworthy. Mr. Green, speaking of the "inaccuracies" of Neal's History, says it contains little concerning the Puritan period which is not taken from the "more colourless Strype." "He (Neal) blanches them into a sweet and almond whiteness." We are bound to say that there is less persistent glorification of the Puritans in the pages of Neal than we expected to find; nor have we discovered that he is more inaccurate than other previous or contemporary writers. In this respect he certainly compares favourably with Strype, whom we have not found so "colourless" (unless the word is intended to describe, not his opinions but his style) as Mr. Green led us to expect.

PART I

PURITANISM IN THE

OLD WORLD

The Creative Causes of Puritanism

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