Paxton Hood on Puritan Adams 1

This is from Edwin Paxton Hood Lamps, Pitchers, and Trumpets; lectures ... on the vocation of the preacher. Illustrated by anecdotes, ... of every order of pulpit eloquence, from the great Preachers of all ages 1867

THOMAS ADAMS has been called the Shakspeare of the Puritans. In no sense does this convey any idea of the place he occupies; but perhaps he was the Herbert - the George Herbert - of the pulpit. There is scarcely a name the age to which he belonged has preserved which is so surrounded by an atmosphere of oblivion as his. He is now to us a voice out of a cloud - at best a shade, and nothing more: “no man knoweth his sepulchre;” there is no likeness of him; nothing is known of his parentage; nothing can be gathered of his life, or his manner of life; over his grave “the iniquity of oblivion,” as Sir Thomas Browne would say, “ has blindly scattered her poppy.” He is, doubtless, found in the register of God; but all about him, if we may trust the industry of those who have sought to perpetuate his works, has passed from the record of man. Our folio edition of his collected works bears the imprint of the year 1629. He was alive in the year 1658, when the two sermons were published included in Dr. Angus’s edition. He can be traced from pulpit to pulpit, but this is all that can be gathered of him.

In 1612 he was preacher of the Gospel at Willington, in Bedfordshire; in 1614 he was at Wingrave, in Buckinghamshire ; in 1618 he held the preachership of St. Gregory’s, under St. Paul’s Cathedral, and was “observant“ chaplain” to Sir Henry Montague, the Lord Chief Justice of England; in 1629 he published the folio collection of his works, now reprinted; in 1633 he published the well-known Commentary on the Second Epistle of Peter; then he vanishes from sight. Hints there are of his being sequestrated during the period of the Revolution and Protectorate - possible, even probable. In 1653 he was living in a “decrepit and necessitous old age,” and most likely died before the period of the Restoration.

Through what an eventful period he lived we have seen; through what changes of events and princes. His sermons have all the marks of the transition age; they have all the mannerisms of the Puritan theology; while in his ideas of government he had all the traces of absolute Toryism. Like most of the Low Church party of the present day, he held no doubt to Puritanism in doctrine, and Whitgiftism in Prelacy, rubric and general Church symbolism. Hence, he not only indulges in ample eulogy upon Queen Elizabeth and her thrice blessed memory, but floats with almost all the preachers and writers of his age in flattering homage to James, and to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Puritan Adams, no doubt, suffered by being what he must have been, a popular preacher. Had Hooker been under the necessity of delivering his Ecclesiastical Polity in discourses at St. Paul’s Cross, had George Herbert been a city preacher, or Sir Thomas Browne one of the divines of his day, in no instance should we have had the rich, and rare, and peculiar gems they have contributed to our language.

Adams is very popular, but his style is often very rugged. He speaks to the populace, and his fancies and conceits, his anagrams and conundrums of speech, are frequently a snare to him throughout his discourses. He is usually rather pretty than powerful. Instances of bad taste are abundant in his writings; are they not also said to be abundant in the writings of men of his times, far greater than he? Moreover, he was a preacher of an extinct order; for sermons on manners have now gone quite out of date, and his were such. In the pulpit he portrayed character; we cannot say after the manner of Bishop Earle, and Overbury, and Butler, since he preceded these writers. Thus, the portrait of the inconstant and unstable man, like many another such a sketch, justifies this remark :—

He would be a Proteus too, and vary kinds. The reflection of every man’s views melts him; whereof he is as soon glutted. As he is a noun, he is only adjective, depending on every novel persuasion; as a verb he knows only the present tense. To-day he goes to the quay to be shipped for Rome  but before the tides come, his tide is turned. One party thinks him theirs ; the adverse theirs; he is with both—with neither; not an hour with himself. Because the birds and beasts be at controversy, he will be a bat, and get him both wings and teeth. He would come to heaven but for his halting. Two opinions (like two watermen) almost pull him apieces, when he resolves to put his judgment into a boat, and go somewhither: presently he steps back, and goes with neither. It is a wonder if his affections, being but a little lukewarm water, do not make his religion stomach-sick. Indifference is his ballast, and opinion his sail ; he resolves not to resolve. He knows not what he doth hold. He opens his mind to receive notions, as one opens his palm to take a handful of water: he hath very much, if he could hold it. He is sure to die, but not what religion to die in l he demurs like a posed lawyer, as if delay could remove some impediments. He knows not whether he should say his Paternoster in Latin or English; and so leaves it, and his prayers, unsaid. He makes himself ready for an appointed feast; by the way he hears of a sermon; he turns thitherward; and yet, betwixt the church-gate and church-door, he thinks of business and retires home again. He receives many judgments, retains none: embracing so many faiths that he is little better than an infidel. He loathes manna, after two days’ feeding, and is almost weary of the sun for perpetual shining. If the Temple Pavement be ever worn with his visitant feet, he will run far to a new teacher. ... His best dwelling would be his confined chamber, where he would trouble nothing but his pillow. He is full of business at church, a stranger at home, a sceptic abroad, an observer in the street, everywhere a fool. (From The Three Divine Sisters)