Do you consider American churches to be too strict today? Probably not, at least not when you compare expectations churches today have of their members compared with the days of the Puritans. Listen to some of these rules which the leaders of the Puritan churches expected of their members: No one shall travel, cook, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or share on the sabbath day. No one shall walk in his garden or elsewhere except to and from worship. To kiss in public on Sunday is to be fined 75 cents and put in jail for a week.
We could go on but you get the idea of how rigid the rules were at the time. Every church must have standards, of course, but sometimes as in the case of the Puritans they took the rules too far and were too legalistic in enforcing them.
Take the case of a ship’s captain named Kimble. He had been trying to earn a living at sea for some three years. When at last his ship sailed into Boston harbor and was secured, he made his way to his home. When his wife saw who it was on the doorstep, she rushed out and into his arms. Then they kissed in public ... right there on their own property. They were seen. They were reported. And poor Captain Kimble was soon taken by some strict authorities, put in stocks for two long hours and was publicly disgraced.
Someone once said of such legalists, who almost seemed to delight in exercising authority over others on religious grounds, "They were good men in the worst sense of the word." They took laws and fine-tuned them until they became oppressive, cruel, and heartless.<
