Spirituality lies at the very core of English Puritanism, that late 16th- and 17th-century movement that sought to reform the Church of England and, failing to do so, splintered into a variety of denominations, such as English Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Particular (i.e. Calvinistic) and General (i.e. Arminian) Baptist. Whatever else the Puritans may have been—social, political, and ecclesiastical Reformers—they were primarily men and women intensely passionate about piety and Christian experience.
By and large united in their Calvinism, the Puritans believed that every aspect of their spiritual lives came from the work of the Holy Spirit. They had, in fact, inherited from the continental Reformers of the 16th century, and from John Calvin (1509–1564) in particular, what Richard B. Gaffin calls “a constant and even distinctive concern” with the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
Benjamin B. Warfield (1851–1921), the distinguished American Presbyterian theologian, speaks of Calvin as “preeminently the theologian of the Holy Spirit.” And of his Puritan heirs and their interest in the Spirit, Warfield says:
The formulation of the doctrine of the work of the Spirit waited for the Reformation and for Calvin, and … the further working out of the details of this doctrine and its enrichment by the profound study of Christian minds and meditation of Christian hearts has come down from Calvin only to the Puritans … it is only the truth to say that Puritan thought was almost entirely occupied with loving study of the work of the Holy Spirit, and found its highest expression in dogmatico-practical expositions of the several aspects of it.
In this article, I will examine this Puritan interest in the work of the Spirit and spirituality by means of the Puritan focus on the Bible, in keeping with the Reformation assertion of sola Scriptura, which led to an elevation of preaching as the primary means of grace and to a distinct spirituality of space.
A Spirituality of the Word
In 1994, the British Library paid the equivalent, at that time, of well over $2 million for a book which the library administration deemed to be the most important acquisition in the history of the library. The book? A copy of the New Testament. Of course, it was not just any copy. In fact, it turned out that there were only two other New Testaments like this one in existence.
The New Testament that the British Library purchased was lodged for many years in the library of the oldest Baptist seminary in the world, Bristol Baptist College in Bristol, England. It was printed in the German town of Worms (pronounced “warms”) on the press of Peter Schöffer in 1526 and is known as the Tyndale New Testament. The first printed New Testament to be translated into English out of the original Greek, it is indeed an invaluable book. Its translator, after whom it is named, was William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536). Ofhis overall significance in the history of the Church, the article on him in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica rightly states that he was “one of the greatest forces of the English Reformation,” a man whose writings “helped to shape the thought of the Puritan party in England.” Tyndale’s influence on the Puritans is nowhere clearer than in his view of the Scriptures, for he helped to give them a spirituality of the Word.
In strong contrast to medieval Roman Catholicism where piety was focused on the proper performance of certain external rituals, Tyndale, like the rest of the Reformers, emphasized that at the heart of Christianity was faith, which presupposes an understanding of what is believed. Knowledge of the Scriptures was therefore essential to Christian spirituality.
Tyndale’s determination to give the people of England the Word of God so gripped him that from the mid-1520s until his martyrdom in 1536, his life was directed to this sole end. What lay behind his single-minded vision was a particular view of God’s Word. In his “Prologue” to his translation of Genesis, which he wrote in 1530, Tyndale stated, “The Scripture is a light, and sheweth us the true way, both what to do and what to hope for; and a defence from all error, and a comfort in adversity that we despair not, and feareth us in prosperity that we sin not.”
Despite opposition from church authorities and the martyrdom of Tyndale in 1536, the Word of God became absolutely central to the English Reformation. As David Daniell has recently noted in what is the definitive biography of Tyndale, it was Tyndale’s translation that made the English people a “People of the Book.”
The Reformation thus involved a major shift of emphasis in the cultivation of Christian spirituality. Medieval Roman Catholicism had majored on symbols and images as the means for cultivating spirituality. The Reformation, coming as it did hard on the heels of the invention of the printing press, turned to words, both spoken and written, as the primary vehicle of spiritual cultivation. The Puritans were the sons and daughters of the Reformation, and thus not surprisingly, “Puritanism was first and foremost a movement centred in Scripture,” as Richard Land wrote. The London Baptist William Kiffen (1616–1701), writing about a fellow Puritan and Baptist, John Norcott (1621–1676), well captures the heart of this bibliocentric spirituality when he states:
He steered his whole course by the compass of the word, making Scripture precept or example his constant rule in matters of religion. Other men’s opinions or interpretations were not the standard by which he went; but, through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, he laboured to find out what the Lord himself had said in his word.
In other words, the Puritan fascination with, and interest in, the work of the Holy Spirit did not lead them to divorce the Spirit from His inspired Scriptures. As the Puritan Benjamin Keach (1640–1704), the most important Baptist theologian of his generation, pointed out in 1681, “The Spirit always leads and directs according to the written Word: ‘He shall bring my Word,’ saith Christ, ‘to your remembrance’ [cf. John 14:26].”
A Spirituality of Space
Given this focus on the Scriptures, it is not surprising that the preaching of the Word was regarded by the Puritans as utterly vital to spirituality. As Irwony Morgan puts it, “The essential thing in understanding the Puritans is that they were preachers before they were anything else.” One could borrow Michael J. Walker’s description of the 19th-century Baptist pulpit, also true of Puritan preaching, to say the pulpit was, for the Puritans, “a place of nurture, of fire and light,” a place that stirred up hearts to follow after Christ, a place that brought sight to the blind and further enlightenment to believers.
Nicholas Bound, a Suffolk Puritan minister, who published the first major Puritan exposition of Sunday as the Sabbath, A True Doctrine of the Sabbath (1595), declared that preaching the Word of God is “the greatest part of God’s service.” The Elizabethan Puritan Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) was just as enthusiastic about preaching. “It is a gift of all gifts,” he wrote. “God esteems it so, Christ esteems it so, and so should we esteem it.” In the association records of the Northern Baptist Association, which was composed of Baptist churches in the old counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham, we read the following answer to a question posed in 1701 as to whether “any preaching disciple may administer the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper and baptism”: “Those persons that the Church approves of to preach the gospel we think it safe to approve likewise for the administering other ordinances, preaching being the greater work” (italics added).
The architecture of 17th-century Puritan churches also bespoke this emphasis on the preached Word in Worship: The central feature of these simple structures was the pulpit. Early Puritan chapels were “meeting houses designed for preaching,” as one author wrote. These meeting houses were generally square or rectangular structures, some of them from the outside even resembling barns. Inside the meeting house, the pulpit was made prominent and was well within the sight and sound of the entire congregation. Sometimes a sounding board was placed behind the pulpit to help project the preacher’s voice throughout the building. There was a noticeable lack of adornment in Puritan meeting houses, with nothing to distract the attention of the worshipers. It was the Puritan spirituality of the Word that shaped this way of using space for worship and for the cultivation of Christian piety.
A Brief Puritan Admonition
What then would the Puritans say to us? Their insistence that the Spirit’s presence and work are utterly vital for true spirituality would lead them to urge us, first and foremost, to “pray for the Spirit, that is, for more of [him], though God hath endued [us] … with him already,” as John Bunyan said. We need to pray for the Spirit to empower the preaching of the Word in our corporate worship. We need to pray for the Spirit to enable those hearing the Word to take it to heart. And, finally, we need to pray for the Spirit to equip us to engage in the various spiritual disciplines (such as the Lord’s Supper, prayer, and meditation) that are at the heart of walking with Him.
Michael A.G. Haykin | Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, Southern Seminary
