excommunicated
for refusing to comply with the injunction. A more galling means of
annoyance was found in the different views of the two religious parties
on the subject of Sunday. The Puritans identified the Lord's day with
the Jewish Sabbath, and transferred to the one the strict observances
which were required for the other. The Laudian clergy, on the other
hand, regarded it simply as one among the holidays of the Church, and
encouraged their flocks in the pastimes and recreations after service
which had been common before the Reformation. The Crown under James had
taken part with the latter, and had issued a "Book of Sports" which
recommended certain games as lawful and desirable on the Lord's day. On
the other hand judges of assize and magistrates had issued orders
against Sunday "wakes" and "profanation of God's Sabbath." The general
religious sense of the country was undoubtedly tending to a stricter
observance of the day, when Laud brought the contest to a sudden issue.
He summoned the Chief-Justice, Richardson, who had issued the orders in
the western shires, to the Council-table, and rated him so violently
that the old man came out complaining he had been all but choked by a
pair of lawn sleeves. He then ordered every minister to read the
declaration in favour of Sunday pastimes from the pulpit. One Puritan
minister had the wit to obey, and to close the reading with the
significant hint, "You have heard read, good people, both the
commandment of God and the commandment of man! Obey which you please."
But the bulk refused to comply with the Archbishop's will. The result
followed at which Laud no doubt had aimed. Puritan ministers were cited
before the High Commission, and silenced or deprived. In the diocese of
Norwich alone thirty parochial clergymen were expelled from their cures.

[Sidenote: Laud and the clergy.]

The suppression of Puritanism in the ranks of the clergy was only a
preliminary to the real work on which the Archbishop's mind was set, the
preparation for Catholic reunion by the elevation of the clergy to a
Catholic standard in doctrine and ritual. Laud publicly avowed his
preference of an unmarried to a married priesthood. Some of the bishops,
and a large part of the new clergy who occupied the posts from which the
Puritan ministers had been driven, advocated doctrines and customs which
the Reformers had denounced as sheer Papistry; the practice, for
instance, of auricular confession, a Real