"Some hypocrites and seeming mortified men, that held down their heads, were like the little images that they place in the very bowing of the vaults of churches, that look as if they held up the church, but are but puppets"
About this Quote
Laud is doing something deliciously dangerous for a clergyman: he’s using church architecture to accuse religious performers of being stage props. The image lands because it inverts a familiar comfort. Those carved figures in medieval vaults (the kind you glance at and half-believe are bearing the ceiling) embody stability, tradition, and humble service. Laud says the “mortified” posture some men advertise - downcast eyes, heavy piety, practiced self-abasement - is the same optical trick: it reads as spiritual load-bearing, but it’s just theater.
The intent isn’t mild pastoral correction. It’s a warning shot in an era when outward devotion had become a political language. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, stood for a high-church, ceremonious Anglicanism and distrusted the Calvinist/Puritan style of conspicuous sincerity. His targets are “hypocrites” who weaponize humility to gain moral authority and, by extension, power. “Seeming mortified” is key: not merely mistaken, but strategic. They “held down their heads” to look like they carry the weight of the Church, as if their private holiness is what keeps the institution upright.
The subtext is institutional defensiveness. Laud is arguing that the Church is not upheld by charismatic gloom or performative repentance; it’s held by order, sacrament, and hierarchy. Calling dissenters “puppets” does double work: it mocks their agency (they’re being pulled by factions) while accusing them of pulling the public’s strings. In a culture sliding toward civil war, that’s not metaphor for metaphor’s sake. It’s an attempt to puncture the moral glamour of opposition before it becomes rebellion.
The intent isn’t mild pastoral correction. It’s a warning shot in an era when outward devotion had become a political language. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, stood for a high-church, ceremonious Anglicanism and distrusted the Calvinist/Puritan style of conspicuous sincerity. His targets are “hypocrites” who weaponize humility to gain moral authority and, by extension, power. “Seeming mortified” is key: not merely mistaken, but strategic. They “held down their heads” to look like they carry the weight of the Church, as if their private holiness is what keeps the institution upright.
The subtext is institutional defensiveness. Laud is arguing that the Church is not upheld by charismatic gloom or performative repentance; it’s held by order, sacrament, and hierarchy. Calling dissenters “puppets” does double work: it mocks their agency (they’re being pulled by factions) while accusing them of pulling the public’s strings. In a culture sliding toward civil war, that’s not metaphor for metaphor’s sake. It’s an attempt to puncture the moral glamour of opposition before it becomes rebellion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Honesty & Integrity |
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