Note 435 — Chapter IV

Clarendon, under the year 1640, emphatically says (History of the Rebellion, p. 67), ‘The preacher reprehended the husband, governed the wife, chastised the children, and insulted over the servants, in the houses of the greatest men.’ The theory was, that ‘ministers and elders must be submitted unto us as fathers.’ Shields' Enquiry into Church Communion, 2nd edit., Edinburgh, 1747, p. 66. In the middle of the seventeenth century, one of the most famous of the Scotch preachers openly asserted the right of his profession to interfere in family matters, on the ground that such was the custom in the time of Joshua. ‘The Ministers of God's house have not only the ministry of holy things, as Word and Sacraments, committed to their charge, but also the power of ecclesiastical government to take order with scandalous offences within the familie; both these are here promised to Joshua and the Priests.’ Hutchison's Exposition of the Minor Prophets, vol. iii. p. 72, London, 1654. In 1603, the Presbytery of Aberdeen took upon themselves to order that every master of a house should keep a rod, that his family, including his servants, might be beaten if they used improper language. ‘It is concludit that thair salbe in ewerie houss a palmar.’ Selections from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, printed for the Spalding Club, 4to, Aberdeen, 1846, p. 194. It also appears (p. 303) that, in 1674, the clergyman was expected to exercise supervision over all visitors to private houses; since he ought to be informed, ‘iff ther be anie persone receaved in the familie without testimoniall presented to the minister.’