3 - Cleanliness and godliness in early modern England

Summary

Wee can suffer no uncleannesse in our bodies, but incontinent we wash it away, neither can abide it in our garments, but without delay, we remedie it: yea, the smallest uncleannesse in the vessells that serve us for meate and drinke makes our very food loathsome unto us.

The Workes of Mr. William Cowper (1529), 732.

Dear Johnny, … Keep thy hands and clothes clean; think of what I have sometimes said to thee, All cleanly people are not good, but there are few good people but are cleanly … Our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, therefore due honour is to be given to them … I would have thee always wear gloves, but [i.e. except] when it is not convenient.

Elizabeth Walker, wife of the rector of Fyfield, Essex, to her grandson, 1689; [Anthony Walker], The Holy Life of Mrs Elizabeth Walker (1690), 291–2.

This world is all over dirty. Everywhere it is covered with that which tends to defile the feet of the traveller. Our streets are dirty and muddy, intimating that the world is full of that which tends to defile the soul, that worldly objects and worldly concerns and worldly company tend to pollute us … We can't go about the world but our feet will grow dirty. So in whatever sort of worldly business men do with their hands, their hands will grow dirty and will need washing from time to time, which is to represent the fulness of the world of pollution.

Jonathan Edwards, Images or Shadows of Divine Things, ed. Perry Miller (New Haven, 1948), 94, 128–9.