Why I Love the Puritans

Why I Love the Puritans

Carl Shank



For my devotions this year, I am moving through the prayers of the Puritans, wonderfully brought together in The Valley of Vision, edited by Arthur Bennett (Banner of Truth, 1975). I began reading the English Puritans in earnest while being mentored in college by a Reformed Baptist pastor in the town. He and a Banner of Truth USA salesman gave me loads of reading material from their rich heritage. The works of John Owen, Thomas Boston, Thomas Manton, John Flavel, and their American counterparts like Jonathan Edwards and David Brainerd and others have graced my library shelves.

We often hear the Puritans smeared. They are blamed for the Salem witch trials, the banishment of men and women from their towns, and general harshness with those who disagreed with their very Calvinistic doctrinal stances. However, to conclude they were at best a weary and morose bunch full of legalistic do’s and don’t’s is a misreading of them and what most of them taught and preached and enforced. 

Why do I love to read the Puritans? First, they held to the glory and majesty of God above all else. They knew the biblical God. They wrote volumes on the character, or attributes, of God. They were consumed with God’s glory. Some see this as an absence of the love of God, but their writings are full of God’s love. However, it is not a modern-day, shallow, human-centered, subjectivistic characteristic, but rather a love borne out of God’s sovereign character and glorious radiance. They knew the love of Jesus, as their prayers and writings attest. 

They resolutely believed and practiced the sovereignty of Almighty God. Such belief was not a mere glance at this attribute, but rather a whole-hearted, whole-souled commitment to and exposition of the sovereignty of God over everything. Justice was sovereign justice. Grace was sovereign grace. Love was sovereign love. This view of sovereignty governed their understanding of the Bible and our world. Man is not the measure of all things. God alone is. We live under the loving shadow of God’s sovereignty and blessing. Many see this as constraining and even debilitating to human creativity and achievement. However, the Puritans believed and practiced that indeed all things fall under God’s sovereign control. Nothing was left to chance or luck or man’s ingenuity. Such sovereignty gives us comfort in the midst of crises and difficulties. We can count on this God.

Second, they believed in what is theologically called total depravity. Humankind, apart from the working of God’s grace and love in the heart, are intensely and extensively lost in sin and shame. Humans are not good by nature or choice. They need redeemed by Christ. They need delivered from the throes of sin and corruption. God has to convict them, change them, transform them and save them from a certain hell. God is not the author of sin, but He controls and governs its effects. We do not deserve God’s love and grace. The fact that He grants such blessings should move us to wonder, love and awe at his goodness and kindness. Instead, in today’s thinking, we blame God, even hate God, for our lot in life. The Puritans saw this and extensively wrote about the state of humankind. They used the word “sin” instead of “mistake” or “flaw.” Sin is an offense against a holy and righteous God and therefore needs God to come in and through Jesus Christ to deliver us from such great sinfulness.

Third, they knew their Bible. They were wedded to the words of Scripture for learning, teaching and living. They were masters of the inspired Word of the Living God. They wrote volumes on words and phrases from the Bible. Consider John Owen’s treatise on the Book of Hebrews as an example. They were not content with a few cursory remarks on passages of Scripture but wrote page after page on the meaning, context and whole Bible usage of a passage, using the best commentaries and helps of their day. Most of them studied Latin and could read it and incorporate it into their understanding. While their writings here seem heavy and deep and much too boring to wade through for the modern reader, they offered a feast of biblical explanation and inquiry we do not find in very many quarters today. It is ironic that with all our technological prowess and advantages they never had, we offer a meager biblical diet compared to them.

Fourth, they knew how to pray. This was not a few-minute-table-grace type of praying, but rather a whole-hearted, deep and earnest seeking the Lord through intercession, adoration, confession and contrition. They knew how to repent. They knew how to grieve over what we would call “little” or insignificant wrongs and sins. They believed we in our natures were really depraved, mind and heart and body, and apart from the grace of God to us, were irreparably doomed and in despair. Whole days and nights of prayer attended special meetings, not merely for spiritual health, but also for national health under God.

Fifth, they knew and practiced holy living. They practiced holiness of life and thought, of words and acts, of desires and passions. One might think their view of the sovereignty of God would dampen or lessen their commitment to holy living. Nothing could be further from the truth. Because God is God and demands we live holy lives, they were committed to detailed accounts of what such a holy life evidenced. 

These are the reasons why I read and love to read the Puritans. Dive into them for your own life. Hear their words once again to a shallow and surfacy Christianity of our day.