Getting to know the Puritans

This has been the year I met the Puritans. Not the Puritans of myth and fiction, but the real honest-to-goodness pastors, theologians and laypeople who formed the backbone of the English Reformation from the middle of the 16th century to the late 17th century. They weren't perfect of course, and they had doctrinal and cultural blind spots, but I agree with J.I. Packer that the English Puritans (and Jonathan Edwards) are "the redwoods" of church history. I've been immersing myself in their world thru the writings of such as John Owen and by learning from contemporary authorities like Mark Dever and Packer. Listening to Packer one would think he's read everything the Puritans ever wrote. Ironic, since he's an Anglican!

The biggest obstacles a modern person must overcome in meeting the Puritans are the caricatured, incomplete portraits passed down to us in fiction from Shakespeare to Hawthorne to Arthur Miller. Keep in mind that The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are dealing with Puritanism in America. I believe Packer when he says that the Puritans who came to America were of a generally lesser quality than those who stayed behind and ushered in what is sometimes called the "Puritan Century" in England (roughly 1560 to 1660). The myth of Puritans as fanatical killjoys is hard to shake. What comes to mind when you hear the terms "puritannical" or "puritanism"?

What was a typical Puritan really like? Leland Ryken writes in Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were:

If we had worked beside [the] typical Puritan or been a neighbor, he or she would have impressed us as being religious but not odd. He or she would not have been distinguished by outward appearance… The typical Puritan dressed as other members of the same social class did. Conversation would have turned much of the time to topics of Christian belief and experience. Overall, the typical Puritan would have impressed us as hardworking, thrifty, serious, moderate, practical in outlook, doctrinaire in religious and political matters, well-informed about the latest political and ecclesiastical developments, argumentative, well-educated, and thoroughly familiar with the content of the Bible.

That last characteristic is one of the things that most attracts me to the Puritans, along with their relentless pursuit of personal holiness and commitment to precise truth. In fact they were called derisively "precisionists". Packer tells the story of Puritan pastor Richard Rogers who was chided for the Puritans' penchant for precision, "Mr. Rogers, I like you and your company very well, but you are so precise." Rogers reply was perfect, "O Sir, I serve a precise God." Their doctrinal precision, passion for discipline and commitment to holiness didn't mean an absence of joy and pleasure in the good things of life. I especially like the portrait of Puritan marriage that Mark Dever paints (see below). While Rome saw marriage as a necessary evil for the primary purpose of procreation, the Reformers (led by Luther) took back marriage as a positive good in itself and saw forced priestly celibacy as evil. The Puritans focused especially on the Genesis 2:18 aspect of marriage. Companionship. I love how Thomas Gataker (1574-1654) describes it.

There is no society more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the society of a man and wife, the main root, source, and original of all other societies.

It's amazing how many things that are common in contemporary church and Christian life were originated by the Puritans of England. Here are a few:

- Family devotions

- Journaling as part of private devotions

- Accountability groups (they called it "bosom friendship")

- Evangelistic tracts and booklets

And most importantly, Puritan pastors gave us a model of pastoral ministry that's basically the model we still recognize today. I'm about to start reading Richard Baxter's classic The Reformed Pastor, so I'm sure to learn much more about this. Innovations such as one-on-one counseling, visitation of the sick and small catechism classes all came from them. Incidentally, we might say with truth that Richard Baxter pastored one of the first recognizable "mega-churches". His church in Kidderminster numbered around 1,000. They had to build balconies to accommodate the growth of the congregation. Sound familiar?

The Puritans were not separatists, although they had a remarkable vision of Heaven as their true home. They were fully engaged in the political, intellectual and spiritual life of England. They were advisors to kings and served in Parliament. John Owen was one of the greatest minds England ever produced and John Bunyan wrote one of the best-selling books of all time.

It's a good thing to become acquainted with the Puritans, it's a better thing to be improved by the acquaintance. I give this as an example of how studying the Puritans has caused personal examination of my approach to one aspect of the Christian life. The Puritans had a high view of the Lord's Day. They took the fourth commandment more seriously than the average contemporary Christian does. They didn't have the view that because they were New Covenant/New Testament Christians the Old Testament command to keep the Sabbath holy was no longer applicable. Once the Christian is dismissed from church is he then free to spend the rest of the day doing whatever he wishes? The Puritan would answer no. The Puritan would go on to say that preparation for Sunday morning public worship begins on Saturday evening, especially if one was to attend the Lord's Table. To the Puritan, Sunday was the "market-day of the soul". One spent the entire day taking in spiritual provisions through public worship and private spiritual pursuits. Doing good deeds such as visiting the sick was consistent with keeping the day holy, but spending one's time in unreflective leisure or unspiritual pursuits was not. If this sounds legalistic to modern ears, perhaps it's because we've swung so far in the opposite direction away from a Biblical view of the Sabbath?


FOR FURTHER READING:

Richard Baxter as a Contemporary Model for Local Church Pastors by Reggie Weems (pdf)

The Joy of the Puritans by Alan C. Clifford (pdf)

Christian Hedonists or Religious Prudes? The Puritans on Sex by Mark Dever (pdf 233-258)