“Did not God ordain Adam to rule over his wife without giving her or her children any commission to limit his power? What was given to him in his Person was also given to his Posterity; and the Paternal Government continued Monarchical from him to the Flood, and after that to the Confusion of Babel when Kingdoms were first erected and planted over the face of the Earth? And so what right or Title, the People can have ... to restrain the supremacy which was as untouched in Adam as any act of his will (it being due to the Supreme Fatherhood) or from what time it commenced, the Scripture nowhere tells us. Where is the People’s charter extant in Nature or in Scripture, for invading the Rights of the Crown? Or what authority can they have from either to introduce their Devices of presiding over him whom God and Nature hath set over them?” This was the kind of preaching which was heard from a hundred pulpits in the City of London as well as in country churches and cathedrals during the whole reign of Charles II. and the beginning of his successor’s short period of power. There can be no doubt that it persuaded many, that the preachers themselves were in earnest, and that there were few indeed among the congregation who were able to point to the weakness of a doctrine which rested on an absurdity so great as the parallel between the King of a free people whose liberties had slowly developed from prehistoric customs and an Oriental despotism. Let us note one or two points of custom and popular belief and practice which should be taken into account when we consider the religious spirit of the time. Fasting, for instance, was still practised and enjoined by the Church, as it is to this day. The Puritans, while they rebelled against the observance of days, maintained the duty of occasional fast days. The High Church party insisted vehemently on the duty of fasting, and the Restoration brought back the usage of fasting as part of the Church discipline. By this time, however, the poorer classes had lost the habit of eating fish only on Fridays and in Lent, and it was impossible to enforce the practice.