Pedantic Literalist

Marianne Moore (1887-1972), granddaughter of a Presbyterian minister, is not usually thought of as a Presbyterian poet, yet her religious background and familiarity with Puritan literature is apparent in such works as "Pedantic Literalist," a 1916 poem that first appeared in The Egoist.

Pedantic Literalist

Prince Rupert's drop, paper muslin ghost,
White torch - "with power to say unkind
Things with kindness, and the most
Irritating things in the midst of love and
Tears," you invite destruction.

You are like the meditative man
With the perfunctory heart; its
Carved cordiality ran
To and fro at first like an inlaid and royal
Immutable production;

Then afterward "neglected to be
Painful, deluding him with
Loitering formality,"
"Doing its duty as if it did not,"
Presenting an obstruction

To the motive that it served. What stood
Erect in you has withered. A
Little "palm tree of turned wood"
Informs your once spontaneous core in its
Immutable production.

Moore's note concerning this poem in Observations (1924) ascribes all four quotes -- which comprise eight of the 20 lines of text -- in the poem to Richard Baxter's The Saints' Everlasting Rest. Upon closer examination, however, only two are actually attributable to Baxter. As the poem is a critique of one who is a stickler for the letter of the law rather than its spirit, and because the use of direct quotes in poetry is rather remarkable, the sources and context of the original quotes (where they are known) are a valuable insight to those interested both in the meaning of the poem, and the poet herself.

Stanza 1: "with power to say unkind
Things with kindness, and the most
Irritating things in the midst of love and
Tears," -- source: William Blake, "Milton a Poem," Book the First, p. 10, lines 29-34:

...I form'd the Serpent
...
To do unkind things in kindness! with power arm'd, to say
The most irritating things in the midst of tears and love
These are the stings of the Serpent!

Stanza 3: "neglected to be
Painful, deluding him with
Loitering formality,"
"Doing its duty as if it did not," -- source: Richard Baxter, The Saints' Everlasting Rest, Part IV, chap. XII ("How to Manage and Watch Over the Heart Through the Whole Work"), sect. 2:

When thou hast got thy heart to the work, beware lest delude thee by a loitering formality; lest it say, I go, and go not; lest it trifle out the time, while it should be effectually meditating. Certainly, the heart is as likely to betray thee in this, as in any one particular about the duty; when thou hast perhaps but an hour's time for thy meditation, the time will be spent before thy heart will be serious. This doing of duty as if we did it not, doth undo as many as the flat omission of it. To rub out the hour in a bare, lazy thinking of heaven, is but to lose that hour, and delude thyself.

Stanza 4: "palm tree of turned wood" -- source: unknown. While the phrase seems to allude to the cross of Christ, this last quote does not appear to be from the hand of Richard Baxter.

The identifiable quotes, which are so essential to the poem, even if paraphrased, make clear that the heart and the spirit must be invested in the outward good works of man, without which he is but a cold shell, a whitewashed wall, a Pharisee, a formalist, or a pedantic literalist. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3.6); and in the words of our Lord Jesus, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matt. 23.3; see also Luke 11.42).

Bibliography:

Jenkins, Daniel T., "Marianne Moore: a Presbyterian Poet?", Theology Today, Vol. 41, No. 1 (April 1984), 34-41

Moore, Marianne; ed. Schulze, Robin G., Becoming Marianne Moore: The Early Poems, 1907-1924 (2002)

Rainey, Lawrence S., Modernism: An Anthology (2005)

Paul's Pagan Poets

There are interesting passages in the New Testament that demonstrate the Apostle Paul's willingness to employ verses from pagan poetry to speak Biblical truth. There may be others; some trace 1 Timothy 5.4 to a line from Terence (195/185–159 BC), Andria IV. Be that as it may, it is clear that Paul was learned in pagan poetry, and found good uses for it, even apart from the idolatrous intentions of the poets themselves. Without adopting the whole false system of belief represented by the sources he quoted, Paul with discernment and for godly purposes, was able, because of his familiarity with pagan poems, to find the good within and bring it to light to God's glory.

Acts 17.28:

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

This verse spoken during his famous speech at Mars Hill in Athens shows the apologetic use that such acquaintance with pagan poetry can provide. The first quote seems derived from a work on Crete by Epimenides in which he rebukes the Cretians for building a tomb to Zeus, whom he believed to be immortal.

Epimenides (6th century BC), Cretica:

They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one—
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.

Paul also may have in mind Cleanthes, who said something similar.

Cleanthes (c. 330 BC – c. 230 BC), Hymn to Zeus:

Most glorious of the immortals, invoked by many names, ever all-powerful,
Zeus, the First Cause of Nature, who rules all things with Law,
Hail! It is right for mortals to call upon you,
since from you we have our being, we whose lot it is to be God's image,
we alone of all mortal creatures that live and move upon the earth.

The latter quote seems to come from a work by Aratus again in praise of Zeus.

Aratus (c. 315 BC/310 BC – 240 BC), Phaenomena 1-5:

From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed;
full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men;
full is the sea and the havens thereof;
always we all have need of Zeus.
For we are also his offspring;

It is interesting to see how Paul borrowed expressions intended to glorify a false God, which his hearers would have recognized, and applied them to the true God. Eusebius records (Preparation for the Gospel 13.12) how Aristobulus of Paneas, a Jewish philosopher (c. 160 BC) had similarly quoted from the same beginning lines of Aratus, Phaenomena, but to demonstrate that the praise of Zeus was rightly given to God instead. Aristobulus thus: 'It is clearly shown, I think, that all things are pervaded by the power of God: and this I have properly represented by taking away the name of Zeus which runs through the poems; for it is to God that their thought is sent up, and for that reason I have so expressed it.' The apologetic purpose of Paul -- and Aristobulus -- thus finds truth in a pagan poem and employs it for godly ends.

1 Cor. 15.32-33:

If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die. Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

The phrase "let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die" may be an allusion to both Isa. 22.13 and Eccl. 8.15. However, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Paul may have had in mind the philosophy of Epicurus (341 BC – 270 BC), who put forth a similar view of life.

The phrase "evil communications corrupt good manners" is apparently a direct quote from either Menander or Euripides (John Milton attributes it to Euripides in the preface to his Samson Agonistes). Paul thus bears witness to the maxim of a heathen poet.

Menander (ca. 342–291 BC), Thais:

Bad company corrupts good character.

Euripides (c. 480 BC – 406 BC) (fr. 609):

Evil communications corrupt good manners.

Titus 1.12-13a:

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true.

The quotation here seems to be from Epimenides, cited already above, or perhaps from Callimachus. Again, Paul shows his extensive knowledge of pagan poetry, and selectively quotes as appropriate to demonstrate a true statement found within an idolatrous poem.

Callimachus (310/305–240 BC), Hymn I. To Zeus:

“Cretans are ever liars.”

The Apostle Paul by these examples shows that indeed, as I have noted before, "all truth is God's truth," wherever we may find it. The words of Charles Spurgeon on this point are worth heeding.

Charles Spurgeon, Exposition of 1 Corinthians 15:

"Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die." Oh! wicked Paul! to quote from a heathen poet! How disgraceful. If I were to repeat a verse, and it looked as if Shakespere or any profane author ever wrote such a thing, how criminal! say you. But I like good things wherever I find them. I have often quoted from the devil, and I dare say I shall often quote from his people. Paul quoted this from Meander, and another heathen poet, who wrote far worse things than have been written by modern poets, and if any of us who may have stored our minds with the contents of books we wish we had never read, and if there be some choice gems in them which may be used for the service of God, by his help we will so use them.

Thanks Be To God For Mountains!

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. (Ps. 125.2)

Stonewall Jackson, Letter to his sister, Lexington, Virginia, September 7, 1852:

Of all places which have come under my observation in the United States, this little village is the most beautiful.

Robert Burns, My Heart's in the Highlands:

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.

William Howitt, The Book of Seasons; or, The Calendar of Nature, pp. 262-268:

Mountains! how one's heart leaps up at the very word! There is a charm connected with mountains so powerful, that the merest mention of them, the merest sketch of their magnificent features, kindles the imagination, and carries the spirit at once into the bosom of their enchanted regions. How the mind is filled with their vast solitude! how the inward eye is fixed on their silent, their sublime, their everlasting peaks! How our heart bounds to the music of their solitary cries, to the tinkle of their gushing rills, to the sound of their cataracts! How inspiring are the odours that breathe from the upland turf, from the rock-hung flower, from the hoary and solemn pine! how beautiful are those lights and shadows thrown abroad, and that fine transparent haze which is diffused over the valleys and lower slopes, as over a vast, inimitable picture!
...
We delight to think of the people of mountainous regions; we please our imaginations with their picturesque and quiet abodes; with their peaceful secluded lives, striking and unvarying costumes, and primitive manners. We involuntarily gives to the mountaineer heroic and elevated qualities. He lives amongst the noble objects, and must imbibe some of their nobility; he lives amongst the elements of poetry, and must be poetical; he lives where his fellow-beings are far, far separated from their kind, and surrounded by the sternness and the perils of savage nature; his social affections must therefore be proportionably concentrated, his home-ties lively and strong; but, more than all, he lives within the barriers, the strongholds, the very last refuge which Nature herself has reared to preserve alive liberty in the earth, to preserve to man his highest hopes, his noblest emotions, his dearest treasures, his faith, his freedom, his hearth and his home. How glorious do those mountain-ridges appear when we look upon them as the unconquerable abodes of free hearts; as the stern, heaven-built walls from which the few, the feeble, the persecuted, the despised, the helpless child, the delicate woman, have from age to age, in their last perils, in all their weaknesses and emergencies, when power and cruelty were ready to swallow them up, looked down and beheld the million waves of despotism break at their feet: -- have seen the rage of murderous armies, and tyrants, the blasting spirit of ambition, fanaticism, and crushing domination recoil from the bases in despair! -- "Thanks be to God for mountains!" is often the exclamation of my heart as I trace the History of the World. From age to age, they have been the last friends of man. In a thousand extremities they have saved him. What great hearts have throbbed in their defiles from the days of Leonidas to those of Andreas Hofer! What lofty souls, what tender hearts, what poor and persecuted creatures have they sheltered in their stony bosoms from the weapons and tortures of their fellow-men!

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold!

was the burning exclamation of Milton's agonized and indignant spirit, as he beheld those sacred bulwarks of freedom for once violated by the disturbing demons of the earth; and the sound of his fiery and lamenting appeal to Heaven will be echoed in every generous soul to the end of time.

Thanks be to God for mountains! The variety which they impart to the glorious bosom of our planet were no small advantage; the beauty which they spread out to our vision in their woods and waters, their crags and slopes, their clouds and atmospheric hues, were a splendid gift; the sublimity which they pour into our deepest souls from the majestic aspects; the poetry which breathes from their streams, and dells, and airy heights, from the sweet abodes, the garbs and manners of their inhabitants, the songs and legends which have awoke in them, were a proud heritage to imaginative minds; but what are all these when the thought comes, that without mountains the spirit of man must have bowed to the brutal and the base, and probably have sunk to the monotonous level of the unvaried plain?

When I turn my eyes upon the map of the world, and behold how wonderfully the countries where our faith was nurtured, where our liberties were generated, where our philosophy and literature, the fountains of our intellectual grace and beauty, sprang up, were as distinctly walled out by God's hand with mountain ramparts from the irruptions and interruptions of barbarism, as if at the especial prayer of the early father's of man's destinies, I am lost in an exulting admiration. Look at the bold barriers of Palestine! see how the infant liberties of Greece were sheltered from the vast tribes of the uncivilized North by the heights of Haemus and Rhodope! behold how the Alps describe their magnificent crescent, inclining their opposite extreminities to the Adriactic and Tyrrhene Seas, locking up Italy from the Gallic and Teutonic hordes till the power and spirit of Rome had reached their maturity, and she had opened the wide forest of Europe to the light, spread far her laws and language, and planted the seeds of many mighty nations!

Thanks to God for mountains! Their colossal firmness seems almost to break the current of time itself; the geologist in them searches for traces of the earlier world, and it is there too that man, resisting the revolutions of lower regions, retains through innumerable years his habits and his rights. While a multitude of changes has remoulded the people of Europe, -- while languages, and laws, and dynasties, and creeds, have passed over it like shadows over the landscape, -- the children of the Celt and the Goth, who fled to the mountains a thousand years ago, are found there now, and show us in face and figure, in language and garb, what their fathers were; show us a fine contrast with the modern tribes dwelling below and around them; and show us, moreover, how adverse is the spirit of the mountain to mutability, and that there the fiery heart of Freedom is found for ever.

J.G. Machen, Mountains and Why We Love Them:

Can the love of the mountains be conveyed to those who have it not? I am not sure. Perhaps if a man is not born with that love it is almost as hopeless to try to bring it to him as it would be to explain what color is to a blind man or to try to make President Roosevelt understand the Constitution of the United States. But on the whole I do believe that the love of the mountains can at least be cultivated, and if I can do anything whatever toward getting you to cultivate it, the purpose of this little paper will be amply attained.

One thing is clear—if you are to learn to love the mountains you must go up them by your own power. There is more thrill in the smallest hill in Fairmount Park if you walk up it than there is in the grandest mountain on earth if you go up it in an automobile. There is one curious thing about means of locomotion—the slower and simpler and the closer to nature they are, the more real thrill they give. I have got far more enjoyment out of my two feet than I did out of my bicycle; and I got more enjoyment out of my bicycle than I ever have got out of my motor car; and as for airplanes—well, all I can say is that I wouldn't lower myself by going up in one of the stupid, noisy things! The only way to have the slightest inkling of what a mountain is is to walk or climb up it.

Now I want you to feel something of what I feel when I am with the mountains that I love. To that end I am not going to ask you to go with me to any out-of-the-way place, but I am just going to take you to one of the most familiar tourist's objectives, one of the places to which one goes on every ordinary European tour—namely, to Zermatt—and in Zermatt I am not going to take you on any really difficult climbs but merely up one or two of the peaks by the ordinary routes which modern mountaineers despise. I want you to look at Zermatt for a few minutes not with the eyes of a tourist, and not with the eyes of a devotee of mountaineering in its ultra-modern aspects, but with the eyes of a man who, whatever his limitations, does truly love the mountains.
...
Then there is something else bout that view from the Matterhorn. I felt it partly at least as I stood there, and I wonder whether you can feel it with me. It is this. You are standing there not in any ordinary country, but in the very midst of Europe, looking out from its very centre. Germany just beyond where you can see to the northeast, Italy to the south, France beyond those snows of Mont Blanc. There, in that glorious round spread out before you, that land of Europe, humanity has put forth its best. There it has struggled; there it has fallen; there it has looked upward to God. The history of the race seems to pass before you in an instant of time, concentrated in that fairest of all the lands of the earth. You think of the great men whose memories you love, the men who have struggled there in those countries below you, who have struggled for light and freedom, struggled for beauty, struggled above all for God's Word. And then you think of the present and its decadence and its slavery, and you desire to weep. It is a pathetic thing to contemplate the history of mankind.
...
The alternative is that there is a God—a God who in His own good time will bring forward great men again to do His will, great men to resist the tyranny of experts and lead humanity out again into the realms of light and freedom, great men, above all, who will be messengers of His grace. There is, far above any earthly mountain peak of vision, a God high and lifted up who, though He is infinitely exalted, yet cares for His children among men.

J.A. Wylie, Wanderings and Musings in the Valleys of the Waldenses, pp. 44-45:

We bid the garish plain, with its white towns and glancing spires, farewell, and we enter the sanctuary of the mountains. Ye solemn shadows, hail! Ye peaks that rise to heaven, untrodden by foot of man, welcome! Ye châlets that look out so sweetly from your nests of verdure -- ye frowning rocks -- ye peaks that greet the morning -- ye majestic pines -- ye gleaming snows -- ye herdsmen keeping your watch on the far-off pasture lands, all through the summer's day and star-lit night -- ye mists that now veil, now reveal, the glories amid which you move -- ye clouds, now dark with thunder, now flaming in gold -- ye rivulets, that sing with quiet gladness in the shade -- ye cataracts, that leap, with shouting joy, from cliff to cliff -- ye torrents, that send up to heaven in eternal thunder your hymns of praise, welcome all! welcome! welcome!

Great Lion of God

Pastor Jean Léger (1615-1670), Histoire générale des églises évangéliques des vallées de Piémont ou Vaudoises (1669):

...though [Joshua Gianavel] possessed the courage of a lion, he was as humble as a lamb, always giving to God the glory of his victories; well versed in Scripture, and understanding controversy, and of great natural talent.

Rora (2001) is a fictionalized account by James Byron Huggins of the remarkable true story of Joshua Gianavel (Giosuè Gianavello), a farmer-warrior who led the resistance to the famous 1655 Waldensian Massacre in the Valley of Piedmont at a little place called Rorà, Italy. I have enjoyed reading it and commend it highly.

Gianavel, whose story is told in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, first spied soldiers attempting to attack his valley of Rorà as the Massacre was underway. Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, had given the order for a general massacre of Waldensians to begin at 4:00 am, April 24, 1655. It was an unprovoked attack, the culmination of centuries of hostilities by French Catholics against peaceful Waldensians.

The Waldensians had borne witness to the true gospel for hundreds of years, and when the Reformation began, they sent emissaries to meet with German Reformers in 1526 and 1530. On behalf of the Swiss and German Reformed Churches, William Farel attended the Waldensian Synod of Chanforan in 1532, at which time the Waldensians officially joined the Reformation. That same year, John Calvin's cousin, Pierre Robert Olivétan, was charged with writing a translating of the Bible to be used by the Waldensians, which was published in 1535 as the French Olivétan Bible. King Francis I soon exterminated the Waldensians of France in 1545, but in 1561, the Treaty of Cavour permitted religious liberty to the Waldensians of Piedmont.

A century later, as hatred of the Waldensian "heretics" mounted amongst the Catholics who surrounded their homeland in the Alps, the Duke of Savoy launched his attack on the Valley, intending to wipe them out once and for all. When Gianavel spied the soldiers coming towards his village, he gathered together six other men, and successfully employed guerrilla warfare tactics to repel the invaders. Increasing waves of soldiers attacked the vastly outnumbered men of Rora but were consistently thwarted in their efforts to subdue the inhabitants, often returning to their base with many casualties of their own and no dead Waldensians to show for it. Thousands of Waldensians were slaughtered in other parts of the Valley, to be sure, men, women and children, but Rora was defended by a militia captain who trusted not in weapons or numbers, but in the Lord God. After each victorious skirmish, Gianavel and his men would kneel and worship God, returning thanks to him in prayer and often singing the eleventh Psalm.

The general commanding the Duke's forces, the Marquis de Pianessa, was enraged that his tactics were being thwarted by a handful of farmer peasants.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs 6.3-4:

The marquis of Pianessa was greatly enraged at being so much baffled by the few inhabitants of Roras: he, therefore, determined to attempt their expulsion in such a manner as could hardly fail of success.

With this view he ordered all the Roman, catholic militia of Piedmont to be raised and disciplined. When these orders were completed, he joined to the militia eight thousand regular troops, and dividing the whole into three distinct bodies, he designed that three formidable attacks should be made at the same time, unless the people of Roras, to whom he sent an account of his great preparations, would comply with the following conditions:

1. To ask pardon for taking up arms. 2. To pay the expenses of all the expeditions sent against them. 3. To acknowledge the infallibility of the pope. 4. To go to mass. 5. To pray to the saints. 6. To wear beards. 7. To deliver up their ministers. 8. To deliver up their schoolmasters. 9. To go to confession. 10. To pay loans for the delivery of souls from purgatory. 11. To give up captain Gianavel at discretion. 12. To give up the elders of their church at discretion.

The inhabitants of Roras, on being acquainted with these conditions, were filled with aa honest indignation; and, in answer, sent word to the marquis, that sooner than comply with them they would suffer three things, which, of all others, were the most obnoxious to mankind, viz,

1. Their estates to be seized. 2. Their houses to be burnt.— 3. Themselves to be murdered.

Exasperated at this message, the marquis sent them this laconic epistle.

To the obstinate Heretics inhabiting Roras. You shall have your request, for the troops sent against you have strict injunctions to plunder, burn, and kill.

PIANESSA.

The three armies were then put in motion, and the attacks ordered to be made thus: the first by the rocks of Vilaro; the second by the pass of Bagnol; and the third by the defile of Lucerne.

The troops forced their way by the superiority of numbers, and having gained the rocks, pass, and defile, began to make the most horrid depredations and exercise the greatest cruelties. Men they hanged, burnt, racked to death. or cut to pieces; women they ripped open, crucified, drowned, or threw from the precipices; and children they tossed upon spears, minced, cut their throats, or dashed out their brains. One hundred and twenty-six suffered in this manner, on the first day of their gaining the town.

Agreeable to the marquis of Pianessa's orders, they likewise plundered the estates, and burnt the houses of the people. Several protestants, however, made their escape, under the conduct of Captain Gianavel, whose wife and children were unfortunately made prisoners, and sent under a strong guard to Turin.

The marquis of Pianessa wrote a letter to captain Gianavel, and released a protestant prisoner that he might carry it him. The contents were, that if the captain would embrace the Roman catholic religion, he should be indemnified for all his losses since the commencement of the war; his wife and children should be immediately released, and himself honourably promoted in the duke of Savoy's army; but if he refused to accede to the proposals made him, his wife and children should be to put death; and so large a reward should be given to take him, dead or alive, that even some of his own confidential friends should be tempted to betray him, from the greatness of the sum.

To this epistle, the brave Gianavel sent the following answer.

My Lord Marquis,

There is no torment so great or death so cruel, but what I would prefer to the abjuration of my religion: so that promises lose their effects, and menaces only strengthen me in my faith.

With respect to my wife and children, my lord, nothing can be more afflicting to me than the thoughts of their confinement, or more dreadful to my imagination, that their suffering a violent and cruel death. I keenly feel all the tender sensations of husband and parent; my heart is replete with every sentiment of humanity; I would suffer any torment to rescue them from danger; I would die to preserve them.

But having said thus much, my lord, I assure you that the purchase of their lives must not be the price of my salvation. You have them in your power it is true; but my consolation is, that your power is only a temporary authority over their bodies: you may destroy the mortal part, but their immortal souls are out of your reach, and will live hereafter to bear testimony against you for your cruelties. I therefore recommend them and myself to God, and pray for a reformation in your heart. Joshua Gianavel.

Gianavel was able to save his young son from the ruins of his village, and brought him north to be cared for by relatives, but in fact, his wife and three daughters were burned alive.

Oliver Cromwell and his diplomats, including John Milton, as well as other Protestant nations, pressured the French and Savoy governments to cease persecution of the Waldensians, but the war continued until relative peace was achieved by the Patente de Turin of 1664, which, however, excluded Gianavel from the terms of amnesty. He retired to Geneva, where he served the Waldensian cause in other indirect ways. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy was pressured into violating the peace terms and renewing the effort to exterminate the Waldensians of the Valley. When Waldensian refugees entered Geneva in 1686, the aged militia captain was there to greet them in a memorable, emotional embrace.

One of Milton's most famous sonnets was written in 1655 in response to the Massacre.

John Milton, Sonnet XVIII: On the Late Massacre in Piedmont:

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones;

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubl'd to the hills, and they

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow

O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred-fold, who having learnt thy way

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

Art and Music in Puritan Worship

Horton Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, Appendix B, "Art and Music in Puritan Worship," pp. 268-272:

Macaulay has popularized a grave misrepresentation of the Puritans as fanatical Philistines, apostles of gloom, utterly antagonistic to the arts and music.
...
This charge would make all Puritans tone-deaf and colour-blind iconoclasts. Its untruth has been fully and finally rebutted Dr Percy Scholes in The Puritans and Music (1934).
...
The Puritan did not object to the arts as such: indeed, the Puritans numbered amongst their adherents such poets as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, John Milton and Andrew Marvell. The typical attitude is that of John Cotton, who declares that whilst instrumental music is banned in the worship of the Church,

Nor do we forbid the private use of any instrument of musick there-withal.

The Puritans only objected to elaborate church music which did not edify the congregations and, indeed, the very complexities of such music made it impossible for the common people to sing the praises of God.
...
In conclusion, the Puritans must bear their share of the blame for the wholesale destruction of many beautiful monuments at the hands of such iconoclasts as William Dowsing. But their aim was not Philistinism. It might have been misguided, but it was nevertheless sincere. They thus hoped to uproot all idolatrous practices which God had not required in his worship. Their motto, to which they held inflexibly, was: 'Quod non jubet, vetat'. But if beauty was forced to abdicate from the churches, she was accorded a coronation in their homes. The Puritans objected to Sunday dancing, to the use of instrumental music in the worship of the Church, and to ecclesiastical representations of the Trinity and the Saints. But it is utterly untrue to affirm that therefore music, dancing and art were banished from the Commonwealth. Dancing was encouraged by Cromwell, celebrated by Milton in L'Allegro; it was an essential part of the education of Colonel Hutchinson's family, and it was at the height of the Puritan regime that Playford published his English Dancing Master (1651). As to the private encouragement of music, it will suffice to remember that 'Opera, so far as Britain is concerned, was actually an importation of Puritan times'. A group of people who produced Milton, and who popularized the Psalms, are unfairly described as Philistines. Privately they encouraged the arts and, if they objected to the use of the arts in the service of the Church, their conviction was not aesthetic but religious in basis. It was not that they disliked art, but that they loved religion more.

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God (Part 3)

This is a continuation in a study of sources upon which the U.S. Declaration of Independence was drawn from, extracted for consideration as the Fourth of July commemorations draw near.

* July 26, 1581 - The Act of Abjuration, or Dutch Declaration of Independence, was signed, whereby the Dutch Low Countries declared their independence from Spain (read it online here).

As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view. And particularly when this is done deliberately, unauthorized by the states, they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is the only method left for subjects whose humble petitions and remonstrances could never soften their prince or dissuade him from his tyrannical proceedings; and this is what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives. And this we have seen done frequently in several countries upon the like occasion, whereof there are notorious instances, and more justifiable in our land, which has been always governed according to their ancient privileges, which are expressed in the oath taken by the prince at his admission to the government; for most of the Provinces receive their prince upon certain conditions, which he swears to maintain, which, if the prince violates, he is no longer sovereign.

* 1603 -- Johannes Althusius published Politica.

Chapter XXXVIII - Tyranny and Its Remedies
...
When a ruler has failed only in some part of his office or government, however, he is not immediately to be called a tyrant. Regarding such a person one must consider that even the best at some time or other are weak in the performance of their offices, and are not for this reason to be thought of and treated as tyrants, provided the foundations and bonds of the universal association remain safe and unharmed, and are not shaken, assaulted, or upset by vices or faults of princes. Nor is one to be treated as a tyrant who, having already started on the road to tyranny, nevertheless does not obstinately and insanely persist on it. For the wicked life of a magistrate does not invalidate his royal authority, just as a marriage is not dissolved by every misdeed committed by one mate against another — unless it is the misdeed of adultery, because this is directly contrary to the nature of marriage. So not every misdeed of a magistrate deprives him of his sceptre, but only that in which he, having accepted and then neglected the just rule of administration, acts contrary to the fundamentals and essence of human association, and destroys civil and social life....

* 1613 -- David Pareus' Commentary on Romans (see David Pareus, Operum theologicorum, Vol. II, pp. 246-263) was published, a book that was burned publicly at Oxford and Cambridge in 1622 by order of the British Privy Council because of its exposition of Romans 13, which upholds the Calvinist theory of resistance to tyranny.

* August 4, 1642 - The British Parliament, already engaged in a civil war with King Charles I, issued its Declaration of the Lords and Commons to Justify Their Taking Up Arms (found online in part here, and in full at John Rushworth, ed., Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, Weighty Matters in Law, Remarkable Proceedings in Five Parliaments (1680-1722), vol. 4, pp. 761-768; or online at 'House of Lords Journal Volume 5: 2 August 1642', Journal of the House of Lords: volume 5: 1642-1643 (1802), pp. 256-260). This document, sometimes referred to as the Puritan Declaration of Independence, was directly influential upon the 1775 Second Continental Congress as mentioned below.

We the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled, having taken into serious Consideration, the present State and Condition of imminent Danger in which the Kingdom now stands, by reason of a Malignant Party prevailing with his Majesty, putting him upon violent and perilous Ways, and now in Arms against us, to the hazarding of his Majesty's Person, and for the Oppression of the true Religion, the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom, and the Power and Priviledge of Parliament: all of which every honest Mand is bound to defend, especially those who have taken the late Protestation, by which they are more particularly tied unto it; and the more answerable before God, should they neglect it:

Wherefore we finding ourselves ingaged in a Necessity to take up Arms likewise for the Defense of these, which otherwise might suffer and perish, And having used all the good ways and means to prevent Extremities, and preserve the Peace of the Kingdom (which good endeavors of ours the Malignity of our Enemies hath rendered altogether successless and vain) do now think fit to to give this Account unto the World, to be a Satisfaction unto all Men of the Justice of our Proceedings, and a Warning unto those who are involved in the same Danger with us, to let them see the Necessity and Duty which lies upon them, to save themselves, their Religion and Country, for which purpose we set out this ensuing Declaration.
...
Therefore, we the Lords and Commons, are resolved to expose our Lives and Fortunes for the Defence and Maintenance of the true Religion, the King's Person, Honour and Estate, the Power and Priviledge of Parliament, and the Just Rights and Liberties of the Subjects.
...
And we do here require all those who have any sense of Piety, Honour or Compassion, to help a distressed State, especially such as have taken the Protestation, and are bound in the same Duty with us unto their God, their King and Country, to come into our Aid and Assistance: This being the true cause for which we raise and Army, under the command of the Earl of Essex, which whom in this Quarrel we will live and die.

* 1644 -- Samuel Rutherford published Lex Rex (read it online here) is a major Calvinistic treatise which teaches that the king is under the law, not above it, and that the ruler who becomes a tyrant may lawfully be resisted.

Question XXVIII. Whether or no wars raised by the subjects and estates, for their own just defence against the king's bloody emissaries, be lawful.
...
We hold, that the king using, contrary to the oath of God and his royal office, violence in killing; against law and conscience, his subjects, by bloody emissaries, may be resisted by defensive wars, at the commandment of the estates of the kingdom.

* 1648 -- John Goodwin published Right and Might Well Met to vindicate the British Parliament and its army against charges of rebellion in its resistance to King Charles I.

The first-born of the strength of those who condemn the said act of the Army as unlawful, lieth in this: that the actors had no sufficient authority to do what they did therein, but acted out of their sphere, and so became transgressors of that law which commandeth every man to keep order, and within the compass of his calling.

To this I answer: . . . as our Saviour saith (Matt. 2. 27) that the sabbath was made for man (i.e., for the benefit of man), and not man for the sabbath, so certain it is, that callings were made for men, and not men for callings. Therefore the law of the sabbath, though enacted by God, was of right, and according to the intention of the great Lawgiver himself, to give place to the necessary accommodations of men, and ought not to be pleaded in bar hereunto; in like manner, if the law of callings at any time opposeth, or lieth cross to, the necessary conveniences of men, during the time of this opposition it suffereth a total eclipse of the binding power of it.

* 1649 -- John Milton published The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (read it online here).

For if all human power to execute, not accidentally but intendedly, the wrath of God upon evil doers without exception, be of God; then that power, whether ordinary, or if that faile, extraordinary so executing that intent of God, is lawfull, and not to be resisted. But to unfold more at large this whole Question, though with all expedient brevity, I shall here set downe from first beginning, the original of Kings; how and wherfore exalted to that dignitie above thir Brethren; and from thence shall prove, that turning to Tyranny they may bee as lawfully depos'd and punish'd, as they were at first elected: This I shall doe by autorities and reasons, not learnt in corners among Scisms and Heresies, as our doubling Divines are ready to calumniat, but fetch't out of the midst of choicest and most authentic learning, and no prohibited Authors, nor many Heathen, but Mosaical, Christian, Orthodoxal, and which must needs be more convincing to our Adversaries, Presbyterial.
...
It follows lastly, that since the King or Magistrate holds his autoritie of the people, both originaly and naturally for their good in the first place, and not his own, then may the people as oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject him, retaine him or depose him though no Tyrant, meerly by the liberty and right of free born Men, to be govern'd as seems to them best. This, though it cannot but stand with plain reason, shall be made good also by Scripture. Deut. 17.14. When thou art come into the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt say I will set a King over mee, like as all the Nations about mee. These words confirme us that the right of choosing, yea of changing thir own Goverment is by the grant of God himself in the People.
...
Therfore Saint Paul in the forecited Chapter tells us that such Magistrates he meanes, as are, not a terror to the good but to the evil; such as beare not the sword in vaine, but to punish offenders, and to encourage the good. If such onely be mentiond here as powers to be obeyd, and our submission to them onely requir'd, then doubtless those powers that doe the contrary, are no powers ordain'd of God, and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey or not to resist them.

* January 30, 1750 -- Jonathan Mayhew preached his famous sermon, A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to Higher Powers, credited by John Adams with being greatly influential in leading to the commencement of the War of American Independence.

Let us now trace the apostle's reasoning in favor of submission to the higher powers, a little more particularly and exactly. For by this it will appear, on one hand, how good and conclusive it is, for submission to those rulers who exercise their power in a proper manner: And, on the other, how weak and trifling and unconnected it is, if it be supposed to be meant by the apostle to show the obligation and duty of obedience to tyrannical, oppressive rulers in common with others of a different character.
...
Thus, upon a careful review of the apostle's reasoning in this passage, it appears that his arguments to enforce submission, are of such a nature, as to conclude only in favor of submission to such rulers as he himself describes; i.e., such as rule for the good of society, which is the only end of their institution. Common tyrants, and public oppressors, are not intitled to obedience from their subjects, by virtue of any thing here laid down by the inspired apostle.

I now add, farther, that the apostle's argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary. For, please to observe, that if the end of all civil government, be the good of society; if this be the thing that is aimed at in constituting civil rulers; and if the motive and argument for submission to government, be taken from the apparent usefulness of civil authority; it follows, that when no such good end can be answered by submission, there remains no argument or motive to enforce it; if instead of this good* end's being brought about by submission, a contrary end is brought about, and the ruin and misery of society effected by it, here is a plain and positive reason against submission in all such cases, should they ever happen. And therefore, in such cases, a regard to the public welfare, ought to make us withhold from our rulers, that obedience and subjection which it would, otherwise, be our duty to render to them. If it be our duty, for example, to obey our king, merely for this reason, that he rules for the public welfare, (which is the only argument the apostle makes use of) it follows, by a parity of reason, that when he turns tyrant, and makes his subjects his prey to devour and to destroy, instead of his charge to defend and cherish, we are bound to throw off our allegiance to him, and to resist; and that according to the tenor of the apostle's argument in this passage.

* May 20, 1775 - The Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence (although its authenticity has been questioned by some) was signed by the citizens of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, becoming the first declaration of independence issued within the British colonies (read it online here).

Resolved: That whosoever directly or indirectly abets or in any way way form or manner, covutenances the invasion of our rights, as attempted by the Parliment of Great Britain, is an enemy to his country, to America, and the rights of man.

Resolved: That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg county, do hereby disolve the political bonds which have connected us with the mother country, and absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown, abjuring all political connection with a nation that has wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of Americans at Lexington.

Resolved: That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, that we are and of right to be, a sovereign and self-governing people under the power of God and the general Congress; to the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

* May 31, 1775 - The Charlotte Town Resolves were issued by the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina Committee of Safety (read it online here).

* July 6, 1775 - The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (read it online here), written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, and issued by the Second Continental Congress, was signed. Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography records his study of the historical collections of John Rushworth, personal secretary to Oliver Cromwell, who is the source of record for the British Parliament's August 4, 1642 Declaration of of the Lords and Commons to Justify Their Taking Up Arms, which is the primary model for the 1775 Continental Congress Declaration.

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. -- We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.

Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored. -- Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite any other nation to war against them. -- We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great-Britain, and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder conditions than servitude or death.

In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it -- for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.

With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe, we most devoutly implore his divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war.

Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7:

The next event which excited our sympathies for Massachusetts, was the Boston port bill, by which that port was to be shut up on the 1st of June, 1774. This arrived while we were in session in the spring of that year. The lead in the House, on these subjects, being no longer left to the old members, Mr. [Patrick] Henry, R. H. [Robert Lee, Fr. L. Lee, three or four other members, whom I do not recollect, and myself, agreeing that we must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts, determined to meet and consult on the proper measures, in the council-chamber, for the benefit of the library in that room. We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen, as to passing events ; and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and alarm their attention. No example of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of '55, since which a new generation had grown up. With the help, therefore, of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the revolutionary precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the port-bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas, whose grave and religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolution, and to solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the morning. He moved it the same day; the 1st of June was proposed; and it passed without opposition. The Governor dissolved us, as usual.

* July 4, 1776 - The United States Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress, and signed on August 2, 1776.

Stay tuned tomorrow (DV) for the story of the Patriot Pastor.

All The World's A Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players...

-- Jacques, in William Shakespeare's As You Like It (c. 1599), Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-140

Or as a Huguenot poet, Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544-1590), put it earlier:

The World's a Stage, where God's Omnipotence,
His Justice, Knowledge, Love, and Providence
Do act their Parts; contending (in their kindes)
Above the Heav'ns, to ravish dullest minds.
The World's a Book in Folio, printed all
With God's great Works in letters Capitall:
Each Creature is a Page: and each Effect
A fair Character, void of all defect.

-- La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578), trans. by Joshua Sylvester as Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, First Day

Not only did Du Bartas influence Shakespeare, his epic poem about creation is thought to have been a major influence upon John Milton's Paradise Lost. In the tradition of hexameral literature, Du Bartas' poetry represents a major achievement. He was not the first to see the world as a stage, although his picture of God's attributes manifested in theatrical glory is, to my way of thinking, more spiritually eloquent than Shakespeare's, nor was he the first to be inspired by contemplation of God's work of creation in the first week of the world. But his influence was such that he is considered to be only French poet of the 16th century who could rival Clement Marot as "the poet of princes, and the prince of poets," and as Joseph Hall wrote in poetic praise of Du Bartas and his English translator, he was certainly a chief poet in two languages:

Bartas was some French angel, girt with bays;
And thou a Bartas art, in English lays.
Whether is more? Mee seems (the sooth to sayn)
One Bartas speaks in tongues; in nations, twain.

Although little-known today, his legacy is behind some of the greatest works of English literature, and when one reads the original French or the English translation, though in eloquence he has been superseded, the Huguenot's combination of spiritual grace and poetic expression tunes the believing heart more sweetly, in my opinion, than England's chief muses.

Harvard University Rules of Conduct c. 1643

As the son of a Harvard grad student, I have certain memories associated with the university that has been described as "the oldest, richest, and most famous of American seats of learning." Apart from grad student housing on Park Drive, and visits to the Peabody and The Coop, they mostly center around life at Harvard Square, including the ubiquitous Chessmaster, and the diversity of "expression" to be found at the Pit. Be that as it may -- and no doubt everyone's associations with Harvard University in the 20th and 21st centuries are in some aspects unique and subjective -- historically, life was very different for the earliest Harvard student community.

John Milton in 1644 (Of Education) famously described the purpose of education thus:

The end then of Learning is to repair the ruines of our first Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the neerest by possessing our souls of true vertue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.

The authors of a 1643 tract called New Englands First Fruits, which outlines the rules of conduct for the Harvard student body, were of like mind in this regard, and hence it is worth looking at the standards of America's first institution of higher learning when it was a Puritan institution.

New Englands First Fruits, pp. 26-28 (modernized spelling):

Rules, and Precepts that are Observed at the College:

1. When any scholar is able to understand Tullius [Cicero] or such like classical Latin author extempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose, suo ut aiunt marte ["to stand, as they say, on his own feet"], and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, let him then, and not before, be capable of admission into the College.

2. Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well: the main end of his life and studies is "to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life" (John 17.3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.

And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of Him (Prov. 2.3).

3. Everyone shall so exercise himself in reading the scriptures twice a day that he shall be ready to give such an account of his proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of the language and logic, and in practical and spiritual truths, as his tutor shall require, according to his ability: seeing "the entrance of the word giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple" (Psal. 119.130).

4. That they, eschewing all profanation of God's name, attributes, word, ordinances and times of worship, do study with good conscience carefully to retain God and the love of His truth in their minds. Else, let them know that (notwithstanding their learning) God may give them up "to strong delusions" (II Thess. 2.11, 12), and in the end "to a reprobate mind" (Rom. 1.28).

5. That they studiously redeem the time, observe the general hours appointed for all the students, and the special hours for their own classes; and then diligently attend the lectures, without any disturbance by word or gesture. And if in anything they doubt, they shall inquire as of their fellows, so (in case of "non-satisfaction") modestly of their tutors.

6. None shall, under any pretense whatsoever, frequent the company and society of such men as lead an unfit and dissolute life.

Nor shall any, without his tutor's leave or (in his absence) the call of his parents or guardians, go abroad to other towns.

7. Every scholar shall be present in his tutor's chamber at the seventh hour in the morning, immediately after the sound of the bell, at his opening the scripture and prayer; so also at the fifth hour at night, and then give account of his own private reading (as aforesaid in particular the third), and constantly attend lectures in the hall at the hours appointed. But if any (without necessary impediment) shall absent himself from prayer or lectures, he shall be liable to admonition, if he offend above once a week.

8. If any scholar shall be found to transgress any of the laws of God or the school, after twice admonition, he shall be liable, if not adultus, to correction; if adultus, his name shall be given up to the overseers of the College, that he may be admonished at the public monthly act.

Help-Meet

In the history of English Bibles, John Wycliffe's version (1380's) describes Eve as Adam's "helpere" (helper); but moving forward through history, the 1560 Geneva Bible says that "The man therefore gaue names vnto all cattel, and to the foule of the heauen, and to euerie beaft of the field: but for Adam founde he not an helpe meete for him" (Gen. 2.20). "Helpe" means "aid" and "meete" clearly means "suitable" or "fit." This describes the woman in relation to man as God designed them.

The phrase "help-meet" is one that Christians sometimes use today to describe a wife -- the terminology of "help meet" (two words, lacking the following "for him") is common in Puritan literature, for example -- and came into common parlance in the 19th century (Wordsworth and Tennyson employed "helpmeet"). However, as a single hypenated word, "help-meet" has its origins in a play published by poet and playwright John Dryden in 1673: Marriage a la Mode. In Act 4, Scene 1, the character Rhodophil has this to say of his wife Doralice: "[W]ell, if ever woman was a help-meet for man, my Spouse is so...". The phrase took another turn in 1715 when Myles Davies (Athenae Britannicae) referred to "Helpmates". Soon after (1722), Daniel Defoe helped to define "helpmate" as a term equally applicable to husband or wife: "A woman is to be a helpmate, and a man is to be the same" (Religious Courtship). These words elicit scorn from some, but are memorable for succinctly encapsulating the nature of marriage. Dryden's turn of the phrase made for a special word in the English language. But Milton, a few years before (Paradise Lost, VIII, 449-451, 1667), said it so well too, as only a brilliant poet can:

What next I bring shall please thee, be assured,
Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,
Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire.

Dialogue Between Faith and a Doubting Soul

Samuel Slater was once inspired by John Milton's Paradise Lost to write Poems in two parts first, an interlocutory discourse concerning the creation, fall, and recovery of man : secondly, a dialogue between faith and a doubting soul (1679). He wrote in the preface:

I was much taken with learned Mr. Milton's cast and fancy in his book, Him I have followed much in his method, and have been otherwise beholding to him, how much I leave thee (gentle reader) to judge: but I have used a more plain and familiar style, because I conceive it most proper.

Extract from the Dialogue between faith and a doubting soul:

Doubt 5. From inward Corruptions.

SOUL.
With such as me! believ't who will; I can't,
Whoever enters Heaven, sure I shan't.
Nought that defiles shall thither come; that place
Is fill'd with Glory for Souls fill'd with Grace.
But mine is stuff'd with sin, numberless evils,
Ill thoughts, affections, Legions of Devils,
Haunt and inhabit here. Lord! what a pow'r
Of lusts are crawling in it every hour!
I never set my self to look within,
But I discover filthy heaps of sin.
Did others see what I do, they with shame
And scorn would shun me; I disgrace that name
Which graceth me, Christ's holy name I bear.
Him I profess, his Livery I wear,
With him I live, his word I hear, yet feel
No yielding to him in this heart of Steel.
Filthy I was, and so am still; How can
An holy Christ dwell in so soul a man?
Sure he his habitation sweepeth clean;
There are not in his Temple heaps of sin.
Sin dies in him that liveth; therefore I
Have no true life, not finding sin to die.

FAITH.
Sin is in thee. But is there nothing more?
There may be Grace, though of corruption store.
In midst of enemies thy Saviour reigns,
And of those enemies still ground he gains.
That mighty one hath girt his Sword to's side,
And conquering, to conquer he doth ride.
Thou feelest thy corruptions are rife,
Such feeling is a mercy, sign of life.
Dead men feel nothing, load them, load again,
They do not groan, they do not once complain.
It's well when sin doth trouble and molest,
Which did thee please; for Christ hath promis'd rest
To heavy laden souls; nor is he slack
To take that burden off which galls thy back.
He will not pass thee by, because so ill;
Thou art the fitter for his Sov'reign skill.
A good Phisician overlooks the sound,
And goes where sicknesses do most abound.
Hate and abhor thy sins, thy self bemoan;
If sin lose love, it cannot keep the throne.
Where 'tis endear'd it lives, loathed it dies.
Christ at one time humbles and sanctifies.
As for the stirrings of thy lust, at most,
They'r but death-pangs, it shall give up the ghost.
Sampson did at his death make greatest sport.
The Devils rage grows high, when's time is short.
Be thou so wise in th' case which thou art in,
As to discern 'twixt reign and rage of sin.
What speak thy bleeding heart, & weeping eyes?
Sure this, that sin don't reign but tyrannize.
Danger of death is past, because I see
By these complainings, sin doth die in thee.

Heaven and Hell Contrasted

Satan in John Milton, Paradise Lost, I.263:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

The Psalmist in Psalm 84.10:

For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Daniel Defoe, The True-Born Englishman:

WHEREVER God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there:1
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation:
For ever since he first debauched the mind,
He made a perfect conquest of mankind.
With uniformity of service, he
Reigns with a general aristocracy.
No non-conforming sects disturb his reign,
For of his yoke there's very few complain.
He knows the genius and the inclination,
And matches proper sins for every nation.
He needs no standing-army government;
He always rules us by our own consent:
His laws are easy, and his gentle sway
Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey:
The list of his vicegerents and commanders,
Outdoes your Cæsars or your Alexanders.
They never fail of his infernal aid,
And he's as certain ne'er to be betrayed.
Through all the world they spread his vast command,
And Death's eternal empire is maintained.
They rule so politicly and so well,
As if they were Lords Justices of Hell,
Duly divided to debauch mankind,
And plant infernal dictates in his mind.

James in James 4.7:

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Percy Bysshe Shelly, Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- "two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away." --

Jesus in Matthew 5.5:

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Man in Black in The Princess Bride:

Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

John in Revelation 21.4:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Faust and Helena in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust:

Nor past nor future now the soul employ,
The present only constitutes our joy.

Paul in Hebrews 11.24-26:

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.

William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.

Jesus in Matthew 23.11-12:

But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

Screwtape in C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, XII, p. 56:

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is not better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

John Ray, A Complete Collection of English Proverbs, 1670 [expanded upon an earlier saying by St. Bernard of Clairvaux]:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, III.9:

All hope abandon ye who enter here.

The Psalmist in Psalm 16.10-11:

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Westminster Assembly Portrait

Many who study church history or are acquainted with the Westminster Assembly and its work are familiar with this picture. It is a fine picture in that it brings to life a moment in history that is noteworthy to those who love the Puritans and what they stood for.

This portrait is available for purchase at Reformation Art and looks especially nice when hung over the mantle.

As I often do, I like to research the origin of things, and I had occasion to do so concerning this portrait some time ago. It is an interesting story and I learned the history behind it by reading a review of the painting by The Baptist Magazine for 1849, published by the Baptist Missionary Society, Vol. XLI, pp. 494-498.

The painting is by J.R. Herbert [John Rogers Herbert, 1810 - 1890, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1840] (engraved by Samuel Bellin, published by Thomas Agnew) and was first published on December 16, 1848 (first displayed, perhaps, in 1847). It is entitled "Assertion of Liberty of Conscience by the Independents in the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 1644." It shows Philip Nye arguing against Presbyterianism by claiming that it was unfavorable to civil liberty. The prospectus that accompanied the publication of this painting makes unsubstantianted claims about Philip Nye's specific words, but the gist of it is that the painting purports to show the Independent's argument against Presbyterianism, with a revisionist or poetic attempt to show Oliver Cromwell, John Owen and John Milton in attendance, none of whom are known to have actually been present.

Despite the context (speaking as a Presbyterian) and the historical inaccuracies portrayed (speaking as a lay student of church history), it remains the best and most well-known attempt to show the Assembly in session, and conveys a powerful and enduring image of this great body of divines at work.

And that is, for those who are interested in the background of somewhat obscure things like a painting of the Westminster Assembly, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.