{"product_id":"2940013863040","title":"THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND","description":"Contents.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I.  The New England Meeting-House\u003cbr\u003e   II.  The Church Militant\u003cbr\u003e  III.  By Drum and Horn and Shell\u003cbr\u003e   IV.  The Old-Fashioned Pews\u003cbr\u003e    V.  Seating the Meeting\u003cbr\u003e   VI.  The Tithingman and the Sleepers\u003cbr\u003e  VII.  The Length of the Service\u003cbr\u003e VIII.  The Icy Temperature of the Meeting-House\u003cbr\u003e   IX.  The Noon-House\u003cbr\u003e    X.  The Deacon's Office\u003cbr\u003e   XI.  The Psalm-Book of the Pilgrims\u003cbr\u003e  XII.  The Bay Psalm-Book\u003cbr\u003e XIII.  Sternhold and Hopkins' Version of the Psalms\u003cbr\u003e  XIV.  Other Old Psalm-Books\u003cbr\u003e   XV.  The Church Music\u003cbr\u003e  XVI.  The Interruptions of the Services\u003cbr\u003e XVII.  The Observance of the Day\u003cbr\u003eXVIII.  The Authority of the Church and the Ministers\u003cbr\u003e  XIX.  The Ordination of the Minister\u003cbr\u003e   XX.  The Ministers\u003cbr\u003e  XXI.  The Ministers' Pay\u003cbr\u003e XXII.  The Plain-Speaking Puritan Pulpit\u003cbr\u003eXXIII.  The Early Congregations\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Sabbath in Puritan New England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe New England Meeting-House.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth they at once assigned a Lord's\u003cbr\u003eDay meeting-place for the Separatist church,--\"a timber fort both strong\u003cbr\u003eand comely, with flat roof and battlements;\" and to this fort, every\u003cbr\u003eSunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it they\u003cbr\u003eworshipped until they built for themselves a meeting-house in 1648.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs soon as each successive outlying settlement was located and established,\u003cbr\u003ethe new community built a house for the purpose of assembling therein for\u003cbr\u003ethe public worship of God; this house was called a meeting-house. Cotton\u003cbr\u003eMather said distinctly that he \"found no just ground in Scripture to apply\u003cbr\u003esuch a trope as church to a house for public assembly.\" The church, in the\u003cbr\u003ePuritan's way of thinking, worshipped in the meeting-house, and he was as\u003cbr\u003ebitterly opposed to calling this edifice a church as he was to calling the\u003cbr\u003eSabbath Sunday. His favorite term for that day was the Lord's Day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe settlers were eager and glad to build their meeting-houses; for these\u003cbr\u003ehouses of God were to them the visible sign of the establishment of that\u003cbr\u003etheocracy which they had left their fair homes and had come to New England\u003cbr\u003eto create and perpetuate. But lest some future settlements should be slow\u003cbr\u003eor indifferent about doing their duty promptly, it was enacted in 1675 that\u003cbr\u003ea meeting-house should be erected in every town in the colony; and if the\u003cbr\u003epeople failed to do so at once, the magistrates were empowered to build it,\u003cbr\u003eand to charge the cost of its erection to the town. The number of members\u003cbr\u003enecessary to establish a separate church was very distinctly given in the\u003cbr\u003ePlatform of Church Discipline: \"A church ought not to be of greater number\u003cbr\u003ethan can ordinarilie meet convenientlie in one place, nor ordinarilie\u003cbr\u003efewer than may convenientlie carry on church-work.\" Each church was quite\u003cbr\u003eindependent in its work and government, and had absolute power to admit,\u003cbr\u003eexpel, control, and censure its members.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese first meeting-houses were simple buildings enough,--square log-houses\u003cbr\u003ewith clay-filled chinks, surmounted by steep roofs thatched with long\u003cbr\u003estraw or grass, and often with only the beaten earth for a floor. It was\u003cbr\u003econsidered a great advance and a matter of proper pride when the settlers\u003cbr\u003ehad the meeting-house \"lathed on the inside, and so daubed and whitened\u003cbr\u003eover workmanlike.\" The dimensions of many of these first essays at church\u003cbr\u003earchitecture are known to us, and lowly little structures they were. One,\u003cbr\u003eindeed, is preserved for us under cover at Salem. The first meeting-house\u003cbr\u003ein Dedham was thirty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high\u003cbr\u003e\"in the stud;\" the one in Medford was smaller still; and the Haverhill\u003cbr\u003eedifice was only twenty-six feet long and twenty wide, yet \"none other than\u003cbr\u003ethe house of God.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the colonists grew in wealth and numbers, they desired and built better\u003cbr\u003esanctuaries, \"good roomthy meeting-houses\" they were called by Judge\u003cbr\u003eSewall, the most valued and most interesting journal-keeper of the times.\u003cbr\u003eThe rude early buildings were then converted into granaries or storehouses,\u003cbr\u003eor, as was the Pentucket meeting-house, into a \"house of shelter or a house\u003cbr\u003eto sett horses in.\" As these meeting-houses had not been consecrated, and\u003cbr\u003eas they were town-halls, forts, or court-houses as well as meeting-houses,\u003cbr\u003ethe humbler uses to which they were finally put were not regarded as\u003cbr\u003eprofanations of holy places.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe second form or type of American church architecture was a square wooden\u003cbr\u003ebuilding, usually unpainted, crowned with a truncated pyramidal roof, which\u003cbr\u003ewas surmounted (if the church could afford such luxury) with a belfry or\u003cbr\u003eturret containing a bell.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47146192896240,"sku":"2940013863040","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013863040_p0.jpg?v=1763596119","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013863040","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}