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‘The Sabbaths …. Spent Before in Idleness & the Neglect of the Word’:1 the Godly and the Use of Time in their Daily Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David L. Wykes*
Affiliation:
Dr Williams’s Trust and Library, London

Extract

Historians have long been aware that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the intensely religious were especially strict in their observance of the Sabbath, in their rejection of amusements and diversions, and their dedication of the day to public duties and religious exercises. The godly did not restrict their religion to the Sabbath nor indeed to public exercises, for they attempted to maintain a daily regime of family worship and private study or devotion. Yet the godly were distinguished not only by the seriousness of their religious observance, but also, out of fear of neglecting their religious duties, by their attempts to discipline their day and regulate their time.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2002

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Footnotes

1

Leicester, Leicestershire Record Office [hereafter LRO], Records of the Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel, Leicester, N/U/179/50, ‘Declaration of Communicants’, 1711–32/3, William Marshall (8 May 1712). I am grateful to the Chairman and Vestry of the Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel for permission to use and quote from the volume. The contractions in the quotations used in this paper have all been silently extended, and in some cases slightly modernized.

References

2 Gilling, Isaac, A Sermon preach’d at the Funeral of Mrs Susanna Reynell, who Departed this Life Novemb. 21. 1703 (Exeter, 1704), p. 48.Google Scholar

3 Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society [hereafter YAS], MS 21, Diary of Ralph Thoresby (2 Sept. 1677–31 May 1683), p. 139 (21-6 June 1680). I wish to express my thanks to the Council of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society for permission to use and quote from the Thoresby correspondence and diaries.

4 Price, Samuel, A Sermon preach’d to the Societies for Reformation of Manners, at Salter’s-Hall, on Monday, June 28, 1725 (London, 1725), p. 11 Google Scholar.

5 Rosewell, Samuel, The Sentence of God, and his Servant’s submission. A Sermon preach’d at Westminster, Nov. the 23d, 1707. Upon Occasion of the Death and Funeral of the Right Honourable the Lady Clinton: who Dyed at Bath the preceding October the 30th (London, 1708), pp. 278 Google Scholar. Rosewell was Lady Clinton’s chaplain.

6 Grosvenor, Benjamin, Dying in Faith. A Discourse upon Occasion of the Death and Funeral of Mr Peter Huson, who Departed this Life December 20. 1711 (London, 1712), p. 34.Google Scholar

7 YAS, MS 21, p. 109 (7 March 1679/80).

8 Gilling, Sermon …. Susanna Reynell, pp. 46–7.

9 YAS, MS 21, p. ss (2s June 1679).

10 YAS, MS 21, p. 104 (16 Feb. 1679/80).

11 Ibid., pp. 118–19 (12, 14 April 1680).

12 Ibid., p. 128 (14 May 1680).

13 Ibid., p. 177 (1 Nov. 1680).

14 YAS, MS 12, Ralph Thoresby to Mr Joseph Hill, minister at Rotterdam, 5 March 1696.

15 YAS, MS 21, p. 186 (3 Dec. 1680).

16 Ibid., pp. 301–2 (1 Oct. 1681).

17 YAS, MS 26, Autobiography of Ralph Thoresby to 1714, p. 1.

18 Ibid., p. 40.

19 Weber’s essay, originally published in two parts in 1904 and 1905, was translated from the German by Parsons, Talcott as The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Captitalism (London, 1930).Google Scholar

20 For a good survey of the inconsistencies in Weber’s argument, see Parkin, F., Key Sociologists: Max Weber (Chichester, London, and New York, 1982), ch. 2 Google Scholar.

21 Cohn, C.L., God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience (New York, 1986), pp. 11233 Google Scholar; Zaret, D., The Heavenly Contract: Ideology and Organisation in Pre-Revolutionary Puritanism (Chicago and London, 1985).Google Scholar

22 Grosvenor, , Dying in Faith, pp. 367, 345 Google Scholar.

23 Grosvenor, B., A Sermon on Occasion of the Death and Funeral of John Deacle, Esq; Who Departed this life, Oct. 2g. Preached at Crosby-Square, Nov. 10, 1723 (London, 1723), p. 16 Google Scholar; The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Sedgwick, R., 2 vols (London, 1970), 1: 6078 Google Scholar.

24 Newman, John, A Sermon Occasioned by the Death of Mr Richard Mount, Who Departed this Life June the 2gth, in the 67th Year of his Age; Preached at Salter’s-Hall, July 8, 1722: to Which is Added, some Advice to his Children (London, 1722), p. 34.Google Scholar

25 Calamy, Edmund, A Funeral Sermon Occasion’d by the Decease of Mr Michael Watts, Citizen and Haberdasher of London; Who Departed this Life on February the Third, 1707/8. Ann. JEtat. 72. Preach’d at the Meeting-House in Silver street the next Lord’s-Day after his Interment (London, 1708), p. 32 Google Scholar.

26 Clarke, Matthew, A Funeral Sermon on The Death of the Late Reverend Mr Thomas Michell. Who Died, Jan. g. 1721 (London, 1721), p. 34.Google Scholar

27 LRO, N/U/179/50, ‘Declaration of Communicants’, 1711–32/3 (unpaginated). For further details, see D. L. Wykes, The autobiographical account of a Leicester apothecary: Samuel Statham, c.1673-1732’, Leicestershire Historian, 3, no. 8 (1990), pp. 6–16.

28 A few individuals gave a second testimony, e.g. Eliza Groce (22 Aug. 1711, 4 May 1721), and Joseph Bentley (2 Nov. 1711, 4 June 1720).

29 See Wykes, D. L., ‘Religious dissent and the trade and industry of Leicester, 1660–1720’ (University of Leicester, Ph.D. thesis, 1987), pp. 84, 11418 Google Scholar.

30 LRO, N/U/179/50, Bethia Belton (23 May 1713).

31 Ibid., William Marshall (8 May 1712). Cf. John Cowdell (6 Sept. 1718); Rebekah Cook (11 Feb. 1711/12); Frances Ward (2 Nov. 1711).

32 LRO, N/U/179/50, Henry Rice (12 Jan. 1715/16); Susannah Richardson (24 April 1714). Cf. Elizabeth Carver (20 Aug. 1717).

33 YAS, MS 26, p. 13.

34 Selement, G. and Wooley, B. C., eds, Thomas Shepard’s Confessions, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts Collections, 58 (1981), p. 4 Google Scholar.

35 For a discussion, see D. L. Wykes, ‘Religious dissent and the penal laws: an explanation of business success?’, History, 75 (1990), pp. 61–2.

36 YAS, MS 21, p. 135 (2 June 1680).