a day that has formerly been much abused to superstition, and profaneness. It is not easy to say, whether the superstition has been greater, or the profaneness. . . .
And truly I think that the superstition and profanation of this day is so rooted into it, as that there is no way to reform it, but by dealing with it as Hezekiah did with the brazen serpent. This year God, by his Providence, has buried this Feast in a Fast, and I hope it will never rise again. . . .
I have known some that have preferred Christmas Day before the Lord’s Day. I have known those that would be sure to receive the Sacrament on Christmas Day though they did not receive it all the year after. This was the superstition of this day, and the profaneness was as great. There were some that did not play cards all the year long, yet they must play at Christmas.51
In 1645 the English Parliament approved the Directory for the Public Worship of God, which stated, “There is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued” (this document is examined in more detail below in the penultimate chapter, “Twelve Reasons Justifying the Endorsement of Christmas”). It was on June 8, 1647, that Christmas, along with all other holy days, was formally banned by an ordinance or Act of Parliament.
Forasmuch as the feast of the nativity of Christ, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other festivals, commonly called holy-days, have been heretofore superstitiously used and observed; be it ordained, that the said feasts, and all other festivals, commonly called holy-days, be no longer observed as festivals; any law, statute, custom, constitution, or canon, to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding.52
The Puritan parliament was concerned, however, that this would deprive many people, especially those employed as servants, of having this as a day off work in accordance with past custom (just as the Genevan Reformers were similarly concerned a hundred years previously). To mitigate the loss of the day, they stipulated in another ordinance three weeks later that all servants were to have “with the leave of their masters, such convenient reasonable recreation, and relaxation from labour, every second Tuesday in the month throughout the year.”53 The ban on Christmas was reiterated in 1652 and 1657, with all shops in London required to remain open as usual for business on December 25. Research based on the records of 367 English parishes reveals that between 1645 and 1649, the vast majority ceased to observe Christmas “festival communion,” but the records do not always represent reality, especially outside London.54
As an aside, it is a complete myth without any documentary evidence that Oliver Cromwell or any of his peers banned the eating of mince pies, even though some pamphleteers of his day on the Christmas topic speak as a matter of fact of Parliament formally banning them.55 The myth has been perpetuated to this day, particularly by those opposed to the godliness reflected in the lives of the Puritans. The myth possibly arose as a consequence of the monthly fast. This was instituted by Act of Parliament in August 1642, due to the perceived low state of true religion in England and Wales. The Act required that on routinely set days, once a month, the public should engage in acts of humiliation and prayer, enjoined with public worship, with abstinence from the normal eating routine. As we noted above, in December 1644 this fast day fell on the twenty-fifth day of the month, so that the normal Christmas Day feasting (which would undoubtedly have included the consumption of minced pies) was forbidden. No legislation was ever passed during the Puritan Interregnum outlawing mince pies or any other particular food!
All these measures were insufficient and celebrations continued, often covertly, despite the penalties of fines and imprisonment. The English people’s love of Christmas could not be destroyed. This is not surprising, given that the Christmas season was traditionally the longest calendar period of celebration and that many felt that this meteorological time of year was when joy was most needed.
A satirical pamphleteer, Josiah King, put it this way in his fictional personification of Christmas:
Christmas is a very kind and loving man; inoffensive to all: a hater of strife, a lover of harmless mirth. . . . He uses all means to bring us together, & to renew friendship: he is a great Peacemaker.
In his account of Christmas’s trial before the Puritan courts, a needy man gives the following evidence:
I dwell at the Town of Want, in the Country of Needs . . . poor in estate: and had it not been for old Christmas I had been poorer. . . . If you take away this merry old Gentlemen from us, you take away all our Joy, and comfort that we have.56
Various protests were made against the suppression of the festival. Although Parliament sat every Christmas Day from 1644 to 1656, the shops in London did not always open and those that did were often roughly harassed. In 1647 evergreen decorations were put up in the city, and the Lord Mayor and City Marshal had to ride about setting fire to them! There were even riots in country places, notably Canterbury, Bury St. Edmunds, and Norwich. The following account from Canterbury, although undoubtedly biased and pro-Christmas, gives a flavor of the unrest:
The mayor, endeavouring to keep the peace, had his head broke by the populace and was dragged about the streets; the mob broke into diverse houses of the most religious in the town, broke their windows, abused their persons, and threw their goods into the streets, because they exposed them to sale on Christmas Day. At length, their numbers being increased to above two thousand, they put themselves into a posture of defence against the magistrates, kept guard, stopped passes, examined passengers, and seized the magazine and arms in the town-hall, and were not dispersed without difficulty.57
A petition with more than ten thousand signatures from the Kent region demanded either the restoration of Christmas or else the king back on the throne. The unpopular laws banning Christmas likely played some part in the English cry for the restoration of the crown.
With the restoration in 1660, Christmas naturally came back to a position of full recognition but most English Calvinist ministers still disapproved of Christmas celebration. Misson, the French traveller, reported as follows:
From Christmas Day till after Twelfth Day is a time of Christian rejoicing; a mixture of devotion and pleasure. They . . . make it their whole business to drive away melancholy.58
Seventeenth Century Baptists
During this period, English Protestants were still working out what practices were acceptable and unacceptable in worship. Take, for example, Benjamin Keach (1640–1704), a Particular Baptist pastor in London. The Child’s Delight was written by Keach as a primer for children and reveals in clear terms Keach’s antagonism to the corruption, as he saw it, of the Roman Catholic Church. First published in 1664 as The Child’s Instructor, this handbook stirred up a controversy and landed Keach at the Assizes in Aylesbury before Lord Chief Justice Hyde, on the charge of violating the 1662 Licensing Act, the law regulating the content of printed books.
Keach eventually served two weeks in prison and saw the primer burned in an effort to purge the land of heresy. Among other things, the Licensing Act forbade the printing of any:
heretical, seditious, schismatical or offensive books or pamphlets, wherein any doctrine or opinion shall be asserted or maintained which is contrary to the Christian faith or the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England.
It is interesting to note which issues Keach chose to be of fundamental importance in writing the primer. He presented lessons on the character of God, the child’s place before God, and a series of Solomon’s proverbs. He also set the Ten Commandments into verse form for ease of learning.
