He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will be destroyed.
~ Proverbs 13:20 ~
While the Scriptures are our ultimate authority, there can be no doubt that God has assembled a fellowship of believers throughout time and space in order that they might edify one another (1 Cor. 14:4; Eph. 4:16; 1 Thess. 5:11) on their mutual pilgrimage to glory. There are some men who, by the grace of God, stand out as those who have influenced Christ’s church in profound ways. One of those groups, if not the premier group in this regard (second only to the apostles), would be the puritans.
If there is edification to be found in a source, the Christian ought to take up that source, read it, and heed it. Thankfully, for us, there is much edification to be found in puritan literature, and I think every Christian would do well to take up and read.
These men do not replace the Word of God, nor should they be thought of as those who stand by themselves. The Word of God is supreme, and the puritans can only, therefore, be considered as helpful examples, storehouses of biblical wisdom and knowledge. They themselves freely confessed, everywhere, that they were only unprofitable servants, in desperate need of the grace of God. So too are we. Yet, God works through the communion of the saints to edify His people. Therefore, it should be no surprise there is much to glean and treasure in puritan literature… Perhaps more so than you’ve previously thought.
Below are seven reasons why I believe we would all do well to read more of the puritans:
1. They represent the clearest expression of the Christian faith since the early Church fathers.
This may sound like a bold claim, especially to Roman Catholics who would consider the puritans to be detrimental to the faith of Christianity. However, for those who are not Roman Catholics or Eastern/Russian Orthodox, the puritans most certainly do represent the most developed orthodox Christianity ever seen after the Constantinian Roman Empire, perhaps even since the apostles. During no other period has more ink been spilled in the exaltation, defense, and exposition of Christ and the Scriptures.
The volume of their work alone is enough reason to see the puritans as a unique entity within the history of the church; but when the precision of that work is considered, we’re forced to call the puritan age that age wherein Christianity came to its fullest. From William Perkins to John Owen, the breadth and depth of theology is absolutely astounding. And if you are an English or an American Christian, you have been influenced more than you know by the puritans, like it or not.
This is not to be taken, however, as me implicating the puritans in perfection. They were far from perfection. As with every Christian, they too were pilgrims and sojourners on the earth. But a particular set of circumstances and concerns, in the providence of God, allowed for a particularly clear expression of the Christian faith during their time, and it’s an expression we all ought to desire to see once more in our own land (2 Chron. 7:14).
2. They lived just before and during the advent of rationalism.
Rationalism suggests all human knowledge must be grounded, entirely, in human thought or the rationale. Everything is reason, for the rationalist. This, it should be obvious, excludes faith as any sort of ground for knowledge. The church, up to the point of the late 17th century, by and large rejected such a notion. The puritans, as a movement, straddled the line from a largely non-rationalist religion to a Christianity compromised with rationalism in the early 18th century.
This rationalism affected the way Christians looked at the Bible, how they understood faith and reason, and much, much more. It has led to the notion of a “reasonable faith,” which assumes our faith must be empirically evidenced or demonstrable if it is to be considered true. It has led to critical textual interpretations of the Bible, etc. The puritans did not have to deal with this influence, and when rationalism finally became a tour de force, they responded strongly, writing works such as The Gangrene of the Cartesian Innovations, by Petrus van Mastricht, the dutch puritan.
3. They were not influenced by David Hume or Immanuel Kant.
This may be one of the most important reasons to read the puritans. They are not disciples of Hume or Kant as many of us today unwittingly are. The influence of skepticism and Kantian idealism upon the church has been profound and, for the most part, goes unnoticed today. Skepticism and idealism caused the church to eventually bow out of the intellectual ring, ceding it to the skeptics. In the wake of Hume and Kant, the church gave up a natural theology, and she began to see human reason as something negative. After all, according to Hume and Kant, reason really can’t secure knowledge of the world around us as it really is. Therefore, many Christians thought and still think we should stop using reason and “walk by faith.” All this amounts to is blind faith. But one would be hard pressed to find any such faith in the Scriptures.
In stark contrast, the puritans were staunch defenders of the Christian intellectual tradition and were almost entirely responsible for the prestigious reputations of Oxford and Cambridge. Harvard and Princeton were both founded and led by puritan thinkers, like Jonathan Edwards, who served as president of Princeton during the later years of his life. Sadly, these universities would eventually fall to skepticism in the 19th century during the downgrade saga—a saga the church continues to deal with this very day.
4. They understood theology to be both an art and a science.
They were sharply intellectual; however, no group of Christians took individual and corporate holiness more seriously than the puritans (Matt. 5:48; Rom. 8:6, 13; Heb. 4:11; 2 Pet. 1:10). The reason their intellect and their practice concurred to such a degree is to be found in their definition of theology. It is both an art and a science, according to puritans such as William Ames. Ames’, and other’s, definition of theology came from the very clear biblical teaching that we ought to desire “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Eph. 1:17), and, “that [we] may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (Col. 1:9).”
The puritans were not content with simple intellectual exercises. They believed the depth of the Christian faith enveloped the whole man. This is a far stretch from today’s common-place teaching that “theology is the mere study of God.” Theology is the study of God, but such a study has a goal that involves application of theological studiousness, which brings us to our next point…
5. For them, the glory of God was the goal of creation, and especially of all human life.
The gospel doctrines are meant or purposed, if you will, to mature the believer in holiness, that is, Christ-conformity (Rom. 8:29, 30). A doctrine that is not used toward this end isn’t being used according to the purpose of God. Paul is concerned that the Colossian church be filled with all wisdom and spiritual understanding (Col. 1:9). This comes from a knowledge of the will of God which is revealed sufficiently in the Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16, 17).
Knowledge ought to give way to wisdom, and the purpose of this wisdom, or the application of said knowledge, is to glorify God on earth (Rom. 15:6; 1 Cor. 6:20; 2 Cor. 9:13; 2 Thess. 1:12; 1 Pet. 2:12; 1 Pet. 4:16). The puritans serve as examples of just how such a theological wisdom is to play out experientially, or within our everyday living.
6. Christ was everything to them.
If you don’t love Christ, then you will not enjoy reading the puritans. If it weren’t for the grace of God in Christ, we would all be damned, and this is central in puritan theology. Samuel Rutherford once said, “I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may so speak) of Christ’s spinning…” The Spirit-wrought ability of the puritans to understand and articulate our dependence upon Christ ought to serve as an example to modern pastor’s, who’s tendency is to preach on anything and everything but Christ. Christ, thought the puritans, ought to be the sum and substance of preaching (1 Cor. 1:23; 2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:28).
The puritans always kept the three-fold office of Christ center stage. He was, they thought, to be considered according to His office as prophet, His office as priest, and His office of king. Christ is our prophet in that He fully and sufficiently reveals the Father and the Father’s will (Heb. 1:3; Jn. 17:26). Christ is our priest in that He made the all-sufficient sacrifice of Himself as the atonement for our sin, and He continues to intercede for us (Heb. 9:26; Rom. 8:34). Finally, Christ is our king, who rules us and will rule forevermore in His glorious kingdom, which He purchased with His very own blood (Heb. 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:22; Rev. 19:16).
7. If it weren’t for them, there would be no United States, and Baptists wouldn’t be independent.
I began with a bold claim and I will now end with a bold claim. First, it was puritan politics which most strongly influenced the Constitution of the United States. Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of England from 1653-1658, and was himself a puritan, though not a theologian. However, John Owen was his personal chaplain for a number of years. Owen was perhaps one of the most prolific puritan theologians who ever lived, writing what amounts to upwards of 24 large volumes. It was Cromwell, influenced by men like Owen, who shattered the monarchical government of England, and while the crown was restored after Cromwell’s death, the power of the people in parliament vastly expanded under Cromwell’s leadership. This meant a limited, rather than an absolute monarch.
John Owen himself did not believe in a church government controlled by the state, or in his case, by the parliament or the crown. This set a very important precedent for both America and the Baptists. Even though Owen believed in infant baptism, the Baptists of his day and shortly thereafter, such as Nehemiah Coxe and Benjamin Keach, would often appeal to Owen’s view of the biblical covenants as well as his view of church government. And they would do this in order to assert themselves against the Church of England and the Westminster Presbyterians. Owen was an independent congregationalist and the Baptists followed his lead.
Between Cromwell’s zeal for a free society and Owen’s theology of church government, a vital precedent was formed during the age of the puritans which would make up a very significant portion of the United States’ DNA. Yet, it was more than Cromwell and Owen, it was really the spirit behind puritanism in general that gave us the U. S. as well as Baptist church polity. Owen was an independent congregationalist thanks to John Cotton, and this is the very form of church polity adopted by the Baptists of Owen’s time onward. Even our church owes a tip of the hat to the puritans for the version of church government we currently enjoy.
Puritans desired, almost more than anything, to live in a society where they could freely exercise the means of grace appointed by God in the Scriptures according to a believing conscience. That could only happen in a religious society free from state control, and this is exactly what we have had in America. The pilgrim, William Bradford, governor of Plymouth Plantation, wrote extensively on this in his published diary, Of Plymouth Plantation. It was this very puritan sentiment of religious liberty which formed the contextual backdrop for the first amendment of the United States Constitution, which says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
As was prudently acknowledged by the Netherlands’ prime minister from 1901-1905, Abraham Kuyper, the “American arrangement” is the ideal arrangement for Christ’s church (cf. On the Church). For it is in America, more so than anywhere else in the world, that Christ’s bride has been most free to obey Christ according to a biblically informed conscience. And this, of course, is thanks to God as He worked powerfully through the puritan age.
Victory Baptist Church | A Sovereign Grace Church in Kansas City 