The papers are edited by Lee Gatiss (currently doing a PhD on John Owen at Cambridge) who also provides a very handy introduction to which I will come in a moment. What is the purpose of the lectures? The book’s subtitle says it all: “Puritan Wisdom for Today’s Church”. Each paper is an attempt to plunder past Puritan wisdom to give us help for today. It is not simply an exercise in historical interest, but a concerted effort to learn lessons in light of our own contemporary blind spots (which every culture has). And I believe the book greatly succeeds in this purpose.

In this first post I want to reflect briefly on the first chapter by Lee Gatiss entitled, “To Satisfy the People’s Hunger for the Word: St. Antholin’s as the Prototype Puritan Lectureship”. In a crisp and entertaining style Lee introduces the phenomenon of Puritan lectureships and the role St Anthonlin’s played in this. I don’t want merely to repeat what Lee says, but rather whet your appetite and then provide some reflections.

Why St Antolin’s? Gatiss takes the reader on a fascinating and clipped history of St Antholins. It was a London church built in medieval times that stands no longer. But during the Elizabethan era when Puritanism was born it played a seminal role in the establishment of Puritan lectureships. What were these lectureships? They were positions created in a local church by Puritan laypeople. These educated pew sitters wanted more feeding from God’s word than what was provided by the Church of England incumbent each Sunday. It may’ve been because the preacher was no good, or that they simply wanted more. Either way, it shows a time when lay people were hungry for God’s word.

Lee proceeds to expound what these lectureships looked like and how they arose. In short, lecturers taught the word during the week and were often pastors themselves who had scruples about being officially tied to the Church of England. Hence they were able to use their gifts without contravening their conscience. Gatiss accounts for how these lectureships multiplied throughout London. Again, I don’t want to steal Lee’s thunder leave it for you to enjoy. But let me offer some reflections.

Firstly, I was struck by ingenuity of the lectureships. The moderate Elizabethan Puritans wanted to see the Church of England further reformed; however, they did not want to create schism. Creating another institution outside the national church at this stage was not an option. This is a sober reminder for our individualistic age in which reformed churches are in places racked by unnecessary division. Elizabethan and Jacobian Puritanism respected the unity of God’s church; schism was serious. A part of the initial solution to reform the English church without schism was the development of these lectureships. It sought to work around an unhelpful ecclesiastical structure without immediately butchering the structure. Preaching of the word would help change hearts and minds and lead to reform. I would guess that lectureships helped create Puritan momentum which burst forth in the seventeenth century with such power. Late in that century it would become too difficult for the Puritans to stay in the Church of England.

The second point I want to mention is that the rise of the Elizabethan Lectureships shows the importance of laypeople needing to be fed God’s word in some depth. There is much talk around about how preachers now have to compete with the Xbox, Internet, Facebook, and all sorts of other modern media. There is no doubt that new technology has developed new habits for contemporary people and that this has influenced attention spans and the like. Moreover, there is nothing worse than a pastor who is invisible during the week and incomprehensible on Sundays. However, it is clear to me that laypeople come alive when they encounter rich biblical teaching, even in a day of spiraling technology. Time and again it has been my experience to see laypeople (from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds) discover a deep hunger for God’s word, when they are given rich fair publicly and privately. Puritanism was rightly devoted not to oratory but to preaching in such a way to move lay people from milk to solid food. It was this devotion that led to the creative instruction of the lectureships. Inspiring stuff indeed. Enough for now. Next time we look at Packer’s lecture on Richard Baxter. But don’t just wait for me, get the book and read it for yourself.

Most of my undergraduate studies focused upon the theology and piety of the English Puritans. In hindsight, I confess that while studying at a secular university, I was suspicious of any works on Puritanism that were not written by Reformed people who sympathized with the theology of the Puritans. At the time, I believed that anyone who was not a true Christian could not understand the Puritans properly due to a failure to recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. I suspect that many lovers of Puritan literature like myself would tend to dismiss anything that could be published by a secular institution such as Cambridge University. Perhaps this is due to the horrific caricature of Puritanism (and “Calvinism” for that matter) that many of us have received in institutions of public education. However, over the years and largely in connection to my PhD project on John Owen, I have discovered a new and rich world of scholarship that has actually helped me in my devotional reading of the Puritans.

I do not intend to provide a review of The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism here. For a useful review and evaluation of its contents, I recommend Randall J. Pederson’s review in the Puritan Reformed Journal 1 2 (July 2009): 282–285. However, I offer the following two reflections that hopefully will assist you in getting more out of your Puritan reading. Some of these reflections, while only indirectly related to the Cambridge Companion yet provide an impetus to read this and other similar works.

First, many of us read the Puritans because we have discovered a rich treasure of heart-warming devotional literature that has been recommended to us by ministers whom we respect. However, most modern readers read the Puritans in a vacuum without understanding who they were or the context in which they wrote. Books such as The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism accurately piece this context together for us. Due to the rigorous standards of scholarship, this book in particular provides an accurate representation of Puritan theology and culture. Moreover, Reformed writers (such as Jeffrey K. Jue of Westminster Theological Seminary) are not necessarily excluded from this level of historical writing if they can demonstrate that they have done their homework and are not pursuing an overt theological agenda. Not that it is bad to have a theological agenda (do not all of us have one in some fashion?), but it is useful to see the Puritan writers whom we love in their context, warts and all. A chronological, theological, and international perspective reveals that not all Puritans were equal. In addition, by reading this volume, you will realize quickly how selective publishers have been in producing modern reprints. For instance, you will not likely see the seventeenth century anti-Baptist tract bearing the title, The Dippers Dipt, reprinted by your favorite publishers any time soon. We may love the flood of books that we currently have access to, but perhaps we will not begin to appreciate these works adequately until we set them in their context and compare and contrast them to other contemporary writers. In some cases, such as with Samuel Rutherford, you will develop a different picture of who he was if you read his (popular) letters in conjunction in conjunction with, say, A Passionate Plea for Paul’s Presbytery. As a professedly “divine right” Presbyterian, even I was surprised at some of the reasons behind the references to persecution that are so prevalent in his letters!

Second, many modern evangelical treatments of the Puritans (as well as 18th and 19th century works that have been reprinted) tend towards hagiography. By hagiography, I mean that the primary purpose of these books is to exemplify some godly characteristics for emulation, or to promote prayer for future revival as we remember the great works of God in history. A little bit of hagiography is not necessarily unhealthy, and we all need to pray more fervently for true revival. The Triune God has done great things in history through raising up great people, and these acts of God ought to inspire and to encourage us as we press onward and upward. However, such works have at least two shortcomings. They tend to undermine the human frailty and the imperfect sanctification of their subjects, and sometimes they leave us with the question, “What actually happened?” Sometimes I have encountered Christians who, after reading a biography of one of the great Puritan or Reformed “saints,” have plunged into depression in light of what seems to be an other-worldly model of near-perfect holiness and superhuman energy. Undoubtedly, God has raised up unusual men to accomplish unusual acts in human history, yet as the biographical introduction to Stephen Charnock’s Existence and Attributes of God illustrates, sometimes the realization that our heroes are ordinary men provides us with the most useful lessons of all.

With respect to the problem of not knowing what actually happened, I can provide a personal illustration. For years I had studied the Westminster Standards and read works written by the Westminster divines without ever understanding the make-up of the Assembly or the progression of the English Civil War. The history provided by books such as the Cambridge Companion has given me more profound insight into and appreciation for the doctrinal formulations of the Westminster Assembly. In addition, older biographies of men such as John Owen illustrate his piety and the depth of his thought (at least in some areas), but neglect questions such as his relationship to the state, his influence in the nation, the manner in which he was regarded by his peers, mistakes that he made, the life of his congregations, etc. Moreover, popular treatments of events such as the Great Ejection (1662) have emphasized that roughly 1000 Puritans ministers were persecuted for their religious beliefs and that they serve as examples to the rest of us. While this is true, the reader is often tempted to assume that persecution was par for the course during this time period. In reality, persecution was largely localized around London with ministers in the remainder of England being largely ignored. For my part, while I seek to benefit and to learn from history, I find that I am better equipped to do this in proportion to my knowledge of what actually happened, rather than viewing events entirely through idealized devotional literature. I do not mean to disparage such literature, but rather to supplement it with a more robust and full view of history.

The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism is a useful place to begin in order to better understand the origins, culture, development, and scope of Puritanism. The better you understand the Puritans and the national and international factors that made them who they were, the more your souls will profit from reading them.

This website is a collaborative effort. You can read about the contributors in the Author Profiles page at the top left of the home page.

The purpose of this website is to promote the seventeenth century English Puritans. We intend to do this by means of original research, theological and devotional commentary upon the writings of the Puritans, reviews of books about the Puritans, recommendations of books about the Puritans, and by providing Recommended Reading of helpful materials in your study of the Puritans.

You’ll notice just below the header image on the home page several categories. These are intended to give you a quick reference to posts we’ve made concerning book reviews, the Puritan’s doctrine as well use of that doctrine, and our favorite Puritans most of all, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and Thomas Manton.

On the right side of the home page you can also search the site by keywords, browse posts by author, view the archives by month, and watch interesting video pertaining to the Puritans.

We hope to hear from you! Please do comment on posts that are interesting to you and if you do have suggestions as to how we can help you “Meet the Puritans” in a more meaningful way, please contact us at the email address at the bottom left of the home page.