Introduction
Part 3
A Goodly Heritage
1958
Introduction
This booklet contains shortened versions of the six papers read at the 1958 Conference of the Puritan and Reformed Studies Group of the Tyndale Fellowship for biblical Research. By way of introduction to them, something may here be said about the convictions which have brought this Group, with its annual “Puritan Conference,” into being. The Group exists because its organisers believe that historic Reformed theology in general, and the teaching of the great Puritans in particular, does justice to certain neglected biblical truths and emphases which the church today urgently needs to re-learn. This is not, of course, to imply that Puritan expositions of Scripture are infallible and final, or that the Puritans always succeeded in balancing truth in exactly the right proportions; nor is it suggested (forsooth!) that the way to solve the problems which face Christians of the twentieth century is to teach them to walk and talk as if they were living in the seventeenth. What is meant is simply that the Puritans were strongest just where Protestants today are weakest, and their writings can give us more real help than those of any other body of Christian teachers, past or present, since the days of the apostles. This is a large claim, but it is not made irresponsibly. A moment’s thought about the facts of the case will show its justification.
Consider the characteristic features of Puritan Christianity. The great Puritans were men of outstanding intellectual power and spiritual insight, in whom the mental habits fostered by sober scholarship were linked with a flaming zeal for God and a minute acquaintance with the human heart. All their work betrays this unique fusion of gifts and graces. They had a radically God-centred outlook. Their appreciation of God’s sovereign majesty was profound; their reverence in handling His word was deep and sustained. They were patient, thorough, and methodical to the last degree in searching the Scriptures; hence their grasp of the various threads and linkages in the web of revealed truth was firm and clear. They understood the ways of God with men, the glory of Christ the Mediator, and the work of the Spirit in the believer and in the church, more richly, fully, and accurately, perhaps, than any since their day. And their knowledge was no mere theoretical orthodoxy. They sought to “reduce to practice” (their own phrase) all that God taught them. They yoked their consciences to His word, disciplining themselves to bring all activities under the scrutiny of Scripture, and to demand a theological, as distinct from a merely pragmatic, justification for everything that they did. They applied their understanding of the mind of God to every branch of life, seeing the church, the family, the state, the arts and sciences, the world of commerce and industry, no less than the devotions of the individual, as so many spheres in which God must be served and glorified. They saw life whole, because they saw its Creator as Lord of it all, every moment, every circumstance, every department; and this gave them a theological world-view, a God-centred ideology, a social, cultural, and ecclesiastical programme, the implications of which have not even yet been fully explored.
Nor is this all. Knowing God, the Puritans also knew man. They saw him as in origin a noble being, made in God’s image, destined to rule God’s earth, but now tragically brutified, as well as brutalized, by sin. They viewed sin in the light of God’s law, lordship, and holiness, and so saw it in its threefold character, as transgression and guilt, as rebellion and usurpation, and as uncleanness, corruption, and inability for good. Seeing these things, and knowing as they did the ways and means whereby the Spirit brings sinners to faith and new life in Christ, and leads saints, on the one hand, to grow up into their Saviour’s image, and, on the other, to learn by experience their own utter nothingness and entire dependence on grace, the Puritans became superb pastors. The depth and unction of their “practical and experimental” expositions in the pulpit was no more outstanding than was their skill in the study in applying spiritual physic to sick souls. By the light of Scripture, they mapped the often bewildering terrain of the life of faith and communion with God as thoroughly and to as large a scale as any evangelical theologians have ever done (see Pilgrim’s Progress for a pictorial gazetteer to the whole), and their acuteness and wisdom in diagnosing spiritual malaise and setting out the appropriate biblical remedies could scarcely be surpassed. The Puritans remain the classic pastors and teachers of Protestantism, just as Whitefield and his friends stand unchallenged as its classic evangelists.
Now, our present point is that on every one of the subjects mentioned, modern evangelicalism urgently needs to learn what the Puritans have to teach. Other Christians of other ages have left us equally classical statements of biblical teaching on other matters, no doubt, and all sufficiently important in their place; but it is here, in the realm in which the Puritans stand supreme, that we most need help today. After nearly a century of bitter conflict and steadily declining influence, there are signs that the tide of evangelical fortunes is turning at last. Numbers of young people are joining evangelical communities, and a new interest in the old paths of evangelical theology has arisen, For this we thank God. But it appears that evangelical zeal today is not wholly according to knowledge. Our understanding of our own faith has become defective at point after point. This seems due partly to the pressure of prolonged controversy, which has had the effect of focusing attention on a few disputed doctrines (biblical inspiration, the atonement, etc.) to the virtual neglect of all others; partly to the jealousy with which we have maintained some questionable nineteenth-century emphases, under the mistaken impression that they formed a part of the authentic evangelical tradition. But, whatever the cause, the fact is undeniable. If we would see how far we have fallen, we have only to contrast the characteristic Puritan outlook with our own.
Comparisons are notoriously odious, and generalisations doubtless more so. However, the following broad statements, by and large, seem to be sufficiently warranted: (1) Whereas the Puritans demanded order, discipline, depth, and thoroughness in every department of the Christian life, the modern evangelical temper is rather one of casual haphazardness and restless impatience. We crave for stunts, novelties, and entertainments; we have lost our taste for solid study, humble self-examination, disciplined meditation, and unspectacular hard work in our callings and in our prayers. Our evangelicalism appears superficial, sophisticated, almost blasé—a sure sign that we have largely lost touch with spiritual reality, and are not in fact close to God. Nor is this surprising, in view of the second fundamental contrast which must be drawn. (2) Whereas the Puritan outlook had God and His glory as its unifying centre, and was in consequence a broad, balanced, biblically proportioned whole, its modern evangelical counterpart has a different centre. It revolves around the individual man, as if he were the real hub of the universe. (How Victorian! and how irreligious!) As a result, it is partial and lop-sided at point after point. The fundamental falseness of our vaunted biblicism becomes apparent as again and again we are found putting asunder things which God has joined. Thus, we concern ourselves about the individual, but not about the church; about witnessing to men, but not about worshipping God; about the “devotional,” “practical” significance of Scripture, but not about its doctrinal teaching (as if the former were not just the application of the latter!). And then we make a virtue of this ungodly one-sidedness, as if it were really a case of putting first things first! Then, in evangelising, we preach the gospel without the law, and faith without repentance; we highlight the gift of salvation, and gloss over the cost of discipleship. And then we wonder that so many who profess conversion fall away entirely, and that so many of those who remain prove shallow, stunted, unstable Christians! Or again, in teaching the Christian life, our habit is to depict it as a life of thrilling feelings rather than of working faith. We stress supernatural experiences at the expense of rational righteousness. And even in dealing with Christian experience we are one-sided, for we dwell continually on the themes of joy, peace, happiness, satisfaction, and rest of soul with no balancing reference to the divine discontent of Romans 7, the fight of faith of Psalm 73, or any of the burdens and strains which the responsibility of living as a child of God brings with it. Thus the spontaneous jollity of the carefree extravert comes to be equated with healthy Christian living, so that jolly extraverts in our churches are encouraged to become complacent hypocrites, while saintly souls of less sanguine temperament are driven almost to distraction because they find themselves unable to bubble over in the prescribed manner. Whereupon they consult their pastor, and he perhaps has no better remedy than to send them off to a psychiatrist!
It is tragically clear that modern evangelicalism needs help. Our thinking is man-centred where it should be God-centred. As a result we have misunderstood our own message; we have lost the balance of truth; pastorally and evangelistically, we have become clumsy and inept. We need to humble ourselves and face this. It is no answer to the above indictment to point to the specialised counseling techniques which we have developed in recent years for pastoral and evangelistic purposes, and of which we tend to be so inordinately proud. Spiritual life is fostered, not by techniques, but by truth, and techniques evolved in terms of a defective notion of the message to be conveyed and the goal to be aimed at cannot make us better pastors than we were before; they can only increase our efficiency at being bad ones. If our message and way of thinking are wrong, the only cure is for them to be corrected. It is here that the Puritans are so uniquely qualified to help us, and the purpose of the “Puritan Conference” is to avail ourselves of the help which they can give.
The interests of the Conference; therefore, are practical and constructive, not merely academic. We look on the Puritans as our fellow-Christians, now enabled to share with us, through the medium of their books, the good things which God gave them three centuries ago. We study their teaching on the topics which took first place in their own thoughts and writings—the doctrines of God, of man, of sin, of grace; of Christ, the covenant, and the Spirit; of the church, the sacraments, and the ministry; of the life of faith, the war with Satan, the pilgrim’s progress from this world to the next. We study the history of their doings as a commentary upon their convictions. And the question which we ask is not simply the historical one: What did they do and teach? (though, of course, that is where we start); our questions are rather these: How far is their exposition of the Scriptures a right one? and What biblical principles does it yield for the guiding of our faith and life today? The second half of each session of the Conference is devoted to discussing the contents of the paper that has been read from the standpoint of these two questions.
Inevitably, the attempt to bring Puritan principles to bear on the present-day Christian situation involves polemics. But note why. These are not the negative, disinterested polemics of pure scholarship, which regard the exposure of inaccuracy as an end in itself, but the positive, pastoral polemics in which all who seek the edification of Christ’s church are sooner or later involved: polemics, that is, whose purpose is to clear away the rubbish of error in order to make room for truth. Polemics of this kind arise in carrying through any teaching programme in the church, for theological error is the natural inhabitant of the fallen human minds to which God’s truth is addressed. In this case, when we seek Puritan help for our correction and direction today, such polemics are quite unavoidable. Indeed, they become our duty; for if Puritan teaching challenges—as it does—things which modern evangelicalism takes for granted, or even views as signs of its own superior enlightenment, and Scripture is found to sustain the Puritan position, then, as an act of Christian duty and loyalty to God, we must say so, and make this fact known to those who are unaware of it. And if some react like querulous invalids, protesting that they are perfectly all right in their present routine and no new treatment can possibly do them any more good, that might well confirm the suspicion that they are in fact theological invalids, whose grousing should not be taken too seriously.
Again let it be said: The aim of the Conference is to make a constructive application of what is learned to our own situation. There is, indeed, nothing more contrary to the Puritan spirit than burking the issue of a positive contemporary application of divine truth. The purpose of such an application is not merely to find out what we should not do; that would be to encourage in ourselves the hyper-Calvinist mentality, which is perpetually discovering that, after all, it is sufficient, and most honouring to God, to do precisely nothing. Our purpose in considering the application is rather to make clear to ourselves what we should do; and if this involves a critique of some common practices, it is only in order that we may learn to eschew the doubtfully good and so set ourselves free for what is certainly better. In the 1958 Conference, for instance, Mr. Cook’s paper led to a lively discussion of what is and is not needed in the way of theological training if ministers of the Puritan stamp are to be made today. Dr. Gruffydd’s paper prompted a heavy barrage of criticism against Morgan Llwyd’s eccentricities, but Llwyd’s story was recognised to be a most instructive cautionary tale, warning against the perils of the mystical mentality. Why, it was asked, should men of vivid interior experiences find it so tempting to go outside Scripture and hitch their theological wagon to the speculative stars of mystical fancy, as Llwyd, and after him, William Law and Alexander Whyte, did by invoking the teaching of Boehme? Llwyd’s history, it was suggested, indicates the answer. Having enjoyed what seemed to him so luminously God-given an experience, he fell into the trap of making the experience itself the subject and source of his subsequent teaching. Wishing to explain and preach his experience, and to see all things in the light of his experience—wishing, that is, to treat his own experience as the sum of divine revelation—he found the Bible insufficient (for the Bible relates everything to God Himself, and gives no help or encouragement to those who would idolise experiences and put them in God’s place); therefore he turned elsewhere, and became captivated by Boehme, whom he rightly recognised as a kindred spirit, having the same aim as himself. The final verdict, however, must be that he was trying to do a fundamentally wrong thing; as so often and so easily happens, the gift had seduced him from the Giver. Mr. Mingard’s paper, on the other hand, led to a discussion of principles for dealing with the modern “gospel hypocrite.” Stress was laid on the dangers of “believism”; of letting kindheartedness lead to the real cruelty of giving immediate comfort and relief to convicted souls of whose change of heart there is still doubt; of cultivating a soothing “professional-pastor” manner, which helps folk to feel better though they are not better; of being too impatient to wait till the “law-work” of conviction is sufficiently done, not realising that by comforting too soon one makes hypocrites. One corollary drawn from this was that the kind of evangelistic mission which seeks to precipitate quick “decisions” is of questionable worth, for it is calculated to produce just this result. We quote these as typical specimens of the kind of discussions to which Conference papers give rise.
The Conference has become, through the blessing of God, a source of inspiration to hundreds during the nine years of its existence; and the mines of Puritan exposition are far from being worked out yet. It is our hope and prayer that this ministry will continue with equal fruitfulness for many years to come.