“Christ is lovely, Christ is very lovely, Christ is most lovely, Christ is always lovely, Christ is altogether lovely…” — Thomas Brooks
It’s a shame we only talk about the Puritans around Thanksgiving. All we can think about is how they wouldn’t have let us celebrate Christmas. And that’s definitely not a point in their favor. But Puritanphobia is now endemic, on both sides of the aisle.
Of course, with liberals, it makes sense. It even makes sense for mainstream conservatives, who pride themselves on being completely indifferent to their neighbors’ wellbeing. They hate the Puritans for the same reason they hate liberals: they’re just so earnest.
But there’s also a certain kind of Christian for whom “Puritan” is practically a swear word. They use it the way Marxists use bourgeoise. You have to spit on the floor every time you use it, to exorcise evil buckle-hatted spirits.
These Christian anti-Puritans tend to be middle-brow fogeys. You know who I mean. They wear lots of thrift-store tweed. They smoke pipes. They drink cider. They grow big beards to hide their double chins. They haven’t read anything except Tolkien since high school, and they’re quite proud of the fact.
In other words, folks like me.
Left to themselves, most Christians probably wouldn’t think much of the Puritans one way or the other. I think it’s mostly G. K. Chesterton who keeps the old grudge alive. He once proposed that England should hold its own Thanksgiving Day on September 6—the day the Mayflower set sail—to “celebrate the departure of those dour Puritans, the Pilgrim fathers.”
You all know how devoted I am to St. Gilbert of Beaconsfield. But on this, the old boy is dead wrong. Because, even more than canceling Christmas, the Puritans were interested in practical spirituality. It’s this spirituality we’ll focus on here.
I. The Sanctification of Everything
The English Reformation was hugely discouraging for everyone involved. The “Elizabethan Settlement” was very diplomatic compromise between the Church of England’s Catholic and Protestant factions. The trouble is, it was so obviously a compromise. It was as if they couldn’t decide whether to have ham and cheese or peanut butter and jelly for lunch, so they had peanut butter and bologna.
Nobody could really think this was the one true Faith—this lukewarm creed Elizabeth’s courtiers scribbled on the back of a napkin. Clearly, the C. of E.’s priority was to empower the government, not to save souls.
Many Englishmen simply stopped believing in Christianity. Those who kept the faith absorbed Elizabeth’s unique brand of authoritarian apathy. So England began its long decline into irreligion.
How were faithful Christians supposed to respond to this corruption of English Christianity? How did they deal with an institutional church that promoted religious indifference? Obviously, I’d prefer if they went back to being Catholic. But that’s only half the answer. The other half, the Puritans took up zealously.
They emphasized that being a Christian means sanctifying every single aspect of one’s life. Religion isn’t something you get out of the way on Sunday morning. To become a Christian is to become a new creature. No part of ourselves can remain untouched. Every thought we think, every word we speak, everything we do—it ought to be done as Christianly as possible. As St. Paul said, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed…”
Of course, this isn’t unique to Puritanism. This is Christianity 101. But the greatest spiritual catastrophes arise when we forget (or ignore) the fundamentals of our faith. The Puritan resisted institutional corruption and the rising tide of indifferentism by witnessing the Gospel in every moment of his life.
The Puritans’ iconoclasm was an reaction—I would say an overreaction—to the Elizabethans’ abuse of ceremonials. The Book of Common Prayer, the King James Bible, the Coverdale Psalter… these were like a rich syrup, which the government poured all over the Elizabethan Settlement, making that thin gruel easier to choke down. Those gorgeous rites are antithetical to authentic Christian spirituality.
At least that’s what a Puritan would say. Of course, I don’t agree. But ritualism—i.e., putting the outer forms of worship at the heart of one’s religion—will destroy one’s faith life. It is soul-death. Remember what the Psalm says: “For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
God wants us to worship Him “in the beauty of holiness.” Whatever their faults, the Puritans took that message to heart.
II. Mysticism for Everyone
For the Puritans, lectio divina (Scriptural meditation) was the most important religious discipline. It was the heart of their spirituality. The role it played in the Puritans’ lives dwarfed even preaching. more important even than preaching. Every believer was expected to spend time every single day reading and reflecting on the Word of God.
Of course, like all Protestants, the Puritans believed in sola scriptura. They regarded the Bible as the Christian’s one infallible rule of faith. But for the Puritans, the Bible wasn’t (just) a catechism—a list of acceptable beliefs and practices. If that were its only function, we would be doomed, because it would still fall upon us to apply the Gospel correctly.
Rather, the Scriptures are the means by which we “put on the mind of Christ.” God not only speaks to us through the Bible: the living Word enters into us through His written word. By meditating on the Bible, we achieve a deep and intimate communion with the Trinity. This communion allows us both to know God’s will and to act upon it.
As the Puritan divine Thomas Brooks wrote, “It is not he that reads most; but he that meditates most, that will prove the sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.”
I think they would have agreed with this passage from An Introduction to the Devout Life:
But especially I commend earnest mental prayer to you, more particularly such as bears upon the Life and Passion of our Lord. If you contemplate Him frequently in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with Him, you will grow in His likeness, and your actions will be molded on His. . . . Children learn to speak by hearing their mother talk, and stammering forth their childish sounds in imitation; and so if we cleave to the Savior in meditation, listening to His words, watching His actions and intentions, we shall learn in time, through His Grace, to speak, act and will like Himself. Believe me, my daughter, there is no way to God save through this door.
St. Francis de Sales recommends that we spend an hour in meditation every day. Most Catholics would balk—myself included. For the Puritans, that would sound about right.
Like de Sales, the Puritans believed that every Christian is called to a life of mysticism: an intimate communion with God—a union of mind, body, and soul.
III. Radical Trinitarianism
The Puritans feared that, by relying so heavily on formal prayers and rituals, Anglicans (and Romans) were beginning to forget who God is. The Trinity revealed to man in the New Testament had disappeared. Their deity sounded far more like Plato’s “One”: an inaccessible, impersonal force. It is technically benevolent, but ultimately is indifferent to our ornate hymns.
Once again, I don’t agree. But it’s true that ritualism can’t coexist with Trinitarianism. And the Puritans stand as a powerful reminder that God must be worshipped as Trinity, or He cannot be worshipped at all.
As Beeke and Reeves put it,
[John] Owen was emphatic that it is quite impossible for anyone ever to have anything to do with “God” in general, simply put. There is no undifferentiated Godhead for anyone to deal with. . . . Each person of the Trinity is inseparable from the others, but they are distinct, and Owen wanted to show how we can have distinct communion with each person.
It reminds me of a letter that George MacDonald wrote to his father:
The great thing for understanding what [Jesus] said is to have a living sense of the reality that a young man of poor birth appeared unexpectedly in the country of Judea and uttered the most unwelcome truths, setting at nought all the respectabilities of the time, and calling bad, bad, and good, good. . . . The first thing is to know Jesus as a man, and any theory about Him that makes less of Him as a man—with a foolish notion of exalting His divinity—I refuse at once. Far rather would I be such a Unitarian as Dr. Channing.
Once again, that may be a little too strong. But, as it happens, I came back to Christianity via Dr. Channing and his Unitarianism.
God was very particular about the way He revealed Himself to us: as a man named Jesus. And we cannot know the Father unless we know this Jesus (Jn 14:6). When I stumbled across Dr. Channing’s writings, I encountered Jesus the man for the first time. From there I grew to believe in Jesus the God-Man.
In other words, God wants to be “differentiated.” He wants to be known as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We like to make fun of evangelical Protestants for talking about their “personal relationship with Jesus.” But here’s the thing: Jesus is a person, and God is actually three Persons in one. You can’t have an impersonal relationship with a person (or persons). So, if you want any sort of relationship with God, it has to be a personal relationship. That’s just common sense.
Again, whatever else you want to say about them, this truth wasn’t lost on the Puritans.
We could write a post ten times as long on everything the Puritans got wrong. But by now, I’m sure you’re all being flooded with anti-Puritan propaganda. Some of it might even be true.
In the main, though, Americans should be proud to come from Puritan stock—in spirit, if not in flesh.
Tomorrow, Christians especially should give thanks for the Pilgrim Fathers. And, really, couldn’t we all stand to be a little more puritanical?