Daily Life Among the Puritans
6
Daily Life Among
the Puritans
“The nature of man is more apt to be guided by example than by precept,” wrote the elder Edmund Calamy in his preface to a book containing a number of Puritan biographies. And undoubtedly one of the main reasons for such accounts being issued was that while honouring the memory of the people concerned, they should also provide examples for other Christians in their daily living.
It is the purpose of this paper to try to show something of what a number of these early biographies, together with autobiographical writings, reveal of the way their subjects were striving to live, and through their example to see how men and women among the Puritans in England were exhorted to conduct themselves day by day. First, however, it is necessary to define more precisely both the sources from which information is drawn and who among the Puritans are being considered. For this is by no means an attempt to make a general survey of how all Puritans lived in this country during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but has in view simply a number of accounts which are, I believe, representative of a distinctive body of Puritan biographies and autobiographical writings.
These works began to appear before the end of the sixteenth century, and continued to be issued in greater numbers during the following century. They include lives of the earlier Puritans, those who had sought for further reform within the established church of England, but most of those belonging to the later period and included here were Presbyterians. In using the term “the Puritans” in future, therefore, it is to such people that we are referring.
The biographies under consideration are by no means limited to ministers, and they afford an eloquent testimony to the fact that the Puritan movement touched all strata of society in this country. They were, however, written about people regarded by their contemporaries as outstanding Christians and, with the purpose of example in mind, authors tended to concentrate on the particular excellencies of their subjects’ daily lives. On the other hand, the autobiographies and diaries of the people themselves provide searching records of their knowledge of their own hearts and of their failures, and it is from such X-rays of the soul, as well as from the accounts of others, that we shall try to glimpse men and women among the Puritans as they lived day by day, often in the midst of difficulty and suffering. In so doing we may perhaps also see the outworking of revival reaching through their individual lives into many varied spheres in this country, and being a means leading to profound changes in our national life.
Accounts of the Puritans at once reveal a basic pattern of daily living to have been followed by men and women irrespective of their place in society or their age. Their lives, too, in their varying circumstances, were dominated by the same fundamental characteristics. We see them above all as people consumed by the consciousness of being in the hand of Almighty God; and such knowledge, together with an awareness of the corruption of their own hearts, made them walk with sobriety. But they were also characterised by the totality with which they tried to live every part of their lives to the glory of God, and indeed a note of urgency runs through many accounts. Yet theirs was no mere activism, and in all that befell them they endeavoured not only to be resigned to God’s will but to be thankful. Moreover, their lives were marked by the strict emphasis they placed on observing public and family worship, and on their own private duties day by day. But more than that, they exercised intense discipline with themselves, seeking to bring their every thought and action into accordance with God’s word, and to this end some among them wrote down principles, drawn from the Scriptures, as daily rules by which to walk.
We shall follow the ways whereby the Puritans tried to regulate their daily lives to God’s glory, by looking at their conduct at home in their households, and then by tracing their private duties throughout the day. First, however a brief mention of their various professions and interests—for unless called to the ministry, the Puritans did not neglect secular work, and a life of idleness was strongly deprecated. They also engaged in intellectual pursuits, music, and certain recreations. But they were careful not to let these activities interfere with Christian duties and sought to conduct their businesses in conformity with scriptural principles, their attitude towards their work being summed up by Lord Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale, who reminded himself in his own daily resolutions that the chief end of his ordinary calling was to serve God in it.
Coming now to daily life in the Puritan home, the authority and serious responsibilities of the master of the house were stressed. But his wife was no mere cipher and shared with her husband in the material and spiritual care of those in their house, for all of whom they regarded themselves as accountable to God. In discharging these responsibilities and ordering their own lives day by day, great importance was attached to Sabbath observance, and biographies give a picture of the way that the Lord’s Day was spent in many households.
Preparation for it took place regularly on Saturday evenings, when men and women examined themselves and their conduct during the past week. Indeed, the whole of the day before taking the Lord’s Supper was often set apart for prayer, fasting, and self-examination. On the morning of the Lord’s Day many were up at least as early as on weekdays for further preparation before going to church, and the joy with which such people looked forward to the day is noteworthy. Heads of families were not only strict in their own attendance at public worship, but made it their duty to ensure their household’s presence too, and the following account describes a Cheshire squire, in the late sixteenth century, on his way to church. Setting out on foot, we read that he called “all his family about him, leaving neither cook nor butler behind him, nor any of his servants but two or three to make the doors and tend the house. And taking then his tenants and neighbours, as they lay in the way, along with him, he marched on with a joyful and cheerful heart, as a leader of the Lord’s host toward the house of God.”
After public worship in the morning the exact procedure for the rest of the day might vary between households, but in all the whole day was observed as to the Lord and heads of families instructed their children and servants. It was their invariable custom either to repeat the sermon from the notes they had taken, and which they also used for private meditation, or to require each member of the household to give an account of what he or she remembered. In this respect, the method of John Rowe, a Devonshire man, is typical. It is said of him that “as soon as dinner was ended he would repeat the sermon to his family: after that was done, the times of public worship in the afternoon drew on, then he would hasten to the congregation. When public worship was ended, he would first spend a considerable time in secret, then in the repetition of the sermon that was preached in the afternoon and calling his family to an account of the things they had learnt.” Psalms were often sung after supper, while in certain households the mistresses examined and prayed with their maids before finally the Lord’s Day ended with men and women resorting to further private prayer when they retired for the night.
From the Lord’s Day we come to the ways the Puritans led their ordinary day to day lives. There were, however, certain days on which particular events took place. People are described as travelling miles to attend weekly lectures, which were commonly preached on market days in the various centres. Days of thanksgiving and fast days were also held, when services went on “with great strictness and solemnity from eight in the morning till four in the evening.” And at home, too, blessings were marked by days given up by the entire household to thanksgiving, while not only were family fast days observed, but men and women kept private fasts either at stated intervals or for some specific reason, as when a diarist records, “being under the rebukes of God’s chastising providence, I set apart a day to humble my soul with fasting and prayer, that I might obtain from God a sanctified use of my afflictions.”
But important as were these fast days and days of thanksgiving in the lives of the Puritans, they were additional to the ordinary daily routine of their homes which will be summarised here under three headings.
First: Family worship. This was regarded as a vital daily duty by people of all ranks in society and took place morning and evening, everyone in the house being required to attend. In the morning it was held before worldly business crowded in and, except in households of the Puritan nobility where there was a chaplain, the head of the family conducted it himself. After opening with prayer (and on account of the weakness of servants and children Paul Baines advised heads of households not to pray for more than a quarter of an hour at a time), there followed Bible readings often accompanied by brief comments on the passage which had been carefully prepared from sermon notes or books. The singing of a psalm was also frequently included in morning worship, and Philip Henry declared, “Those do well that pray morning and evening in their families, those do better that pray and read the Scriptures, but those do best that pray and read and sing the psalms.”
When evening came the whole household, with any visitors present, assembled again. The form of worship was sometimes identical with that in the morning, but frequently more time was given in the evening to exposition of the Scriptures and possibly to questioning members of the household as to what had been read that night or during the preceding week.
Second: The conduct of Puritan households during the rest of the day, and the further care given by masters and mistresses to the religious instruction of their servants.
Although no longer specifically engaged in an act of worship, biographies reveal the Puritans endeavouring throughout the course of the day, by example and exhortation, to live and conduct their households as in the sight of God.
In their own personal lives the discipline to which reference has already been made is seen being worked out, and a young woman in her early twenties is described as ordering “her soul first, and then all other things were set in the exactest order . . . She had digested her hours into methods for affairs, repasts, reading of books.” Idleness, vain conversations, and unnecessary visits were all avoided, and when in company with Christians, people took seriously their duty of edifying and exhorting one another. Meal-times also provided occasions for spiritual discourse and instruction in Puritan homes. But heads of families were at the same time mindful of setting an example by the very way they ate, and among a list of questions for daily self-examination, the following occur: “Did I eat, drink, for the glory of God? Did not I mock with God when I pretended to crave a blessing and return thanks?”
In some households the servants had a portion of Scripture or of a religious treatise read aloud to them after every meal, and during the rest of the day mistresses—including those among the aristocracy—took every opportunity of examining and talking with their maids on spiritual subjects, and possibly of reading books aloud to them. Added to this, once or twice a week the servants were catechised together in the evenings by the head of the house who regarded this as a necessary duty to be strictly carried out, while also on occasions taking them apart to question them separately about their souls.
In these ways, therefore, accounts of the Puritans show what they regarded as their responsibility in the spiritual care of their servants, and how in fact they tried to fulfil it. But no picture of daily life in their households would be complete with reference at least to our third heading, namely:
The importance attached by husbands to the spiritual care of their wives, and that of parents for the instruction of their children.
Most biographies dwell upon the wife’s recognition of her husband’s authority and her duty of submission to him, but at the same time the husband’s responsibility for looking after her spiritually as well as materially is made clear.
With regard to their children, parents took secular education seriously but their first concern was to bring up children in a knowledge of the truth. In so doing, they recognised the importance of example as well as instruction, and while exercising firmness many fathers ruled their families with love. Of Samuel Fairclough it was said that “as a father he maintained his authority, and as a good father he did exercise great clemency,” and Fairclough was not alone in this.
Parents began teaching their children from the word of God when they were still very young and were concerned to do so in such a way as, like Philip Henry, “to bring them to understand and love it.” The children were also taught strictly to observe public and family worship, and were catechised regularly with the servants. As they grew up and left home, too, their parents sent them letters of spiritual advice, and among such we find a Puritan mother writing to her undergraduate son in terms which not only show her concern for him but also something of her own spiritual life, as she says, “In some proportion it is, with the soul, as with the body, there must be a good diet, we must feed upon the Word of God, which when we have done we must not let it lie idle, but we must be diligent in exercising of what we know, and the more we practise, the more we shall know. Dear Ned, let nothing hinder you from performing constant private duties of praying and reading. Experimentally, I may say that private prayer is one of the best means to keep the heart close with God . . . it is a sweet thing to open our hearts to God. . . .”
Thus, by example and instruction, the Puritans brought up their children and conducted the life of their households. But within this ordered round, they performed their own private duties and tried to keep their hearts in a spiritual frame throughout the day. Avoiding too much sleep, the nobility as well as those in humbler positions rose early, often between four and five o’clock. On waking it was their deliberate endeavour to set their thoughts on God, and the following description is typical of the importance men and women placed on the ordering of waking thoughts. “When he first waked,” we read, “his constant care was to set his heart in order, and to fit it for holiness all the day after, offering the first fruits of the day and of his thoughts unto God.”
As soon as men and women were up, they usually spent a time of private prayer which, united with Bible study and meditation, might last anything up to four hours before family worship took place. After that, definite periods were set apart during the day when people stopped their ordinary activities to pray by themselves, some doing so as often as seven times each day. Nor were these brief telegraphic prayers, and a mother writing directions for her children warned them “to set out a due proportion of time for the duty of prayer: a slightly, huddled prayer is a blind sacrifice . . .” Finally, on retiring to bed at night there followed further prayer.
A period was also set aside each day for private Bible reading with prayer, while women as well as men consulted commentaries and spent time regularly in reading expository works. Books were found helpful, too, in the duty of meditation which many performed daily, testifying to the great blessing they derived from disciplined thinking on great scriptural truths, and in advising people as to their subjects for meditation, Baxter declared, “Great Truths will do great works upon the heart. Meditation on great and weighty truths make great and weighty Christians.”
Those truths to which people very often appear to have directed their thoughts were of God Himself and the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But death was also a subject on which the Puritans meditated much, some doing so daily, and we find the Countess of Warwick noting in her diary that such thoughts “had this effect upon me, to make me in an extraordinary awakened frame, in which the things of another life were much realised to me, and did make very deep impressions upon me. And my soul did follow hard after God, for grace to serve Him better than ever yet I had done.”
Apart from these set periods of prayer, meditation, and Bible study, the Puritans tried at all times to keep a close watch on their own spirits and actions, and every evening would give themselves to self-examination which, again, was regarded as a vital duty. “Go down into the secrets of your hearts, try and fear, fear and try,” wrote one young man, and men and women made no mistake in imagining self-examination to be an easy task, or in under-estimating the deceitfulness of their own hearts. To help them in this duty, many kept diaries in which they inexorably recorded all their daily failings alongside God’s mercies to them. From these diaries we see that, ever fearful lest they should be deceived into resting upon a false assurance, they periodically tried themselves by the Scriptures with regard to the very foundations of their faith and evidences of their state. In their nightly self-examination, too, men and women not only recalled every action of the day but, reaching down further, searched into the motives from which actions had sprung and questioned their feelings as to what they rested on. “I am jealous of myself,” sighed one, “lest the fear of the rod do trouble me more than my grief for sin.” And Owen Stockton, probing his heart for its motives, confessed, “When I have been disquieted by the actings of my sin, that which hath recovered me to my former peace, hath not been (that I could find) God speaking peace through the Blood of Christ, but rather from the intermission of temptation and the cessation of those sins.”
But while accounts of the Puritans reveal them constantly to have been examining and disciplining themselves and their households, they also show that they were intensely and actively concerned in their daily lives on behalf of fellow Christians and unbelievers. This is seen first in their prayer life, when they are described as wrestling with God for the souls of others and spending whole days in prayer for the nation and church. But their concern did not stop with fervent prayer, and extended to practical care for other Christians. In particular they helped and supported ministers, but they also gave money to causes aiding Christians in distress both at home and abroad, while day by day they tried to seek out and help individuals who were in trouble, or who were sick and aged.
The Puritans we are considering did not preach unless called to the ministry, but a number were instrumental in bringing faithful ministries to their own, and other, neighbourhoods. Moreover, they were importunate in private conversations with unbelievers, and it would seem that urgent concern sometimes led them to accost strangers on the roads or in the fields and to talk with them of eternal issues. Nor did they neglect the material needs of others, and although fellow Christians were the first objects of their charity, both men and women regarded it as part of their Christian duty to give alms to the poor and to relieve want and suffering where they could. Indeed, their active concern for social conditions and for the public good reached out to affect many and varied spheres of the nation’s life.
In tracing the daily lives of the Puritans, as they emerge from their biographies, we have therefore seen that while they attached great importance to public and family worship, to the ordering and instruction of their households and to their own private duties, yet active care for others and acts of charity also played a vital part in their conception of Christian living. In closing, it remains only to mention their spiritual experience as it is revealed through their writings.
It must be said at once that many knew doubts and conflicts, and all were well aware of the plague of their own hearts. But while disclosing heart-searchings, diaries, and letters also reveal deep soul-joys and longings after Christ, and the following short extracts from among the writings of men and women who were neither ministers nor leaders, speak for themselves:
First, a young man in his early twenties, John Janeway, could exclaim, “Oh, let our souls be overcome with the thoughts of this love of Christ . . . When shall it have its proper effect upon us, to make us to desire more earnestly to be like our beloved! . . . If we have at any time experienced the more lively and full incomes of this Spirit of Christ, how did it set the heart on fire! . . . Did we never experience what this meaneth? Then let the remembrance of the sweetness of it, renew it in us.”
Second, a Mrs. Clarke, writing after the death of her youngest child, testified, “Though I lay long under the burden of that loss, yet in this time did the Lord sweetly manifest His special love to my soul, assuring me that He was my gracious and reconciled Father in Christ, whereby my love to Him was much increased and even inflamed, so that by His grace it wraught in me more diligence and carefulness to maintain and preserve these evidences of His love.”
Third, in recording the mercies of God on his fiftieth birthday, Sir Edward Harley, wrote, “How precious are all thy thoughts of love unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! . . . Oh Lord, I am the clay, be Thou my potter. Fashion this house of clay to be Thy temple. Make me a vessel of praise and service to Thy Majesty. Be not ashamed to be my God.”
While deriving their assurance and evidences for their state from the written word of God, there was another assurance which men and women are described as knowing, as in the case of a certain alderman of Exeter of whom it was said, “God gave to him the testimony and seal of His Spirit and so assured him of his eternal love in Christ, and of his adoption and eternal happiness of heaven.” People having this assurance urged others to seek it by prayer, diligent use of the means of grace, and by self-examination, while so far from making those to whom it had been given careless in their duties. John Rowe echoed the experience of others also when he observed, “This testimony doth always when it comes, raise the soul to more desires after more intimate union and communion with God, works more self-abhorrency and more care to please God and fear to displease Him and (in a word) drives me nearer to God, whereas false-flashes leave the soul loose.”
Finally, there are instances of men and women being given extraordinary spiritual experiences in such measure that they could scarcely contain themselves for the glory and joy that was theirs, but could declare with the Cheshire squire, John Bruen, “They were so wonderful and unspeakable that whether I was in the body or out of the body, with Paul I cannot tell.” Not infrequently such experiences are recorded of people on their death-beds, and it was said of Dr. Samuel Winter that the night before he died he was given such a glimpse of the glory of heaven that although previously he had thought he had studied and knew as much of it as any man, he then “saw that all the divines on earth were but children in the knowledge of the great mystery of heavenly glory which the Lord that night had given him a clearer sight of than ever formerly he had.”
Such accounts make it clear that there were men and women among the Puritans who were given deep experimental knowledge of the love of God in Christ. We have already seen they were people who walked with a sense of the majesty of God and the corruption of their own hearts, and that such knowledge made them stir themselves up to thankfulness to God in all circumstances. It may be that, as we look at them living by rule and disciplining their days as intensely as they did, the questions will occur, Were there tendencies in their way of living which provokes reaction and an opposite emphasis? And can this be traced in the history of the mid-seventeenth century? But if there were any such tendencies and if there were those who, as biographers point out, were guilty of formalism, yet the desire of the class of Puritans whose daily living we have traced, may undoubtedly be summed up by Joseph Alleine when, in speaking of his own daily rules, he declared, “I cannot say I have already attained, but this is that my heart is set to learn, that in all that I do, whether sacred or civil actions, still I may be doing but one work, driving on one design, that God may be pleased by me and glorified in me.”
The chairman, summing up, pointed out that there is no justification whatever for the difference that undoubtedly exists between Puritan daily life and that of Christians today. We desire to have the Christian life made easy, and to take it easily, but only spurious Christianity comes easily; true godliness demands self-
discipline, self-examination, and a serious single-mindedness, and is unattainable without them. The paper summons us to question ourselves as to our practice and to learn afresh to walk in the old paths.