The Puritan movement was highly marked by the
renewal of preaching. The Puritans had brought
a new, fresh understanding of preaching to the
English pulpit of the sixteenth and the
seventeenth centuries. They preached not only
for the reformation of the Church of England but
also for effective communication of the gospel.
The Puritan movement marked the age of
perplexing change when many men and women,
especially those of lowly position and simple
understanding, were racked by anxiety for their
future here and hereafter. It was a period of
storm and stress. A group of Puritan preachers
laid their learning aside in order to win the
ear and confidence of all men. Their function
was to probe the conscience of the downhearted
sinner, to name and cure the malady of his soul,
and then to send him out strengthened for the
continuance of his lifelong battle (Haller
1957:27).
The Puritans preached large numbers of sermons.
Some preached every day of the week, and on
Sundays more than once. People would travel
considerable distances in order to hear such
preaching. Nothing was so characteristic of the
Puritan preaching as their belief in preaching
and their delight in listening to preaching.
They printed remarkable number of sermons. So
much of the theological teaching of the Puritans
was given in the form of preaching and sermons
(Lloyd-Jones 1987:379).
Pierson comments that The Puritans wanted godly,
learned pastors who are able to expound the
Scripture, and who were resident in every
parish.[1]
In the Anglican Church, there were priests who
were appointed, but uneducated and even did not
know where his parish was. The Puritan ideal
was the godly, well-trained preachers resident
in the parish.[2]
The Puritan View of Preaching
The Anglican and the Puritan views were
different in that to the Puritans preaching was
central, and the most important thing of all.
Lloyd-Jones quotes from the Elizabethan
Archbishop saying:
With regard to preaching, nothing is more
evident from Scripture than that it was a
great blessing to have the gospel preached,
and to have plenty of laborer sent into the
Lord’s harvest. That this was the ordinary
means of salvation…that through reading
homilies was good, yet it was not comparable
to preaching, which might be suited to the
diversity of time, plays, and hearers, and
be delivered with more efficacy and
affection (Lloyd-Jones 1987:375-76).
William Haller observes that the difference
between the preaching of the Anglicans and that
of the Puritans, between witty and spiritual
preaching so-called, between the Wisdom of Words
and ‘the Word of Wisdom,’ was not merely one of
style. As a matter of conviction and of
convention, the Puritans professed to disapprove
the citation of human authors and to depend
solely upon Scripture (1957:23).
The Centrality of Preaching
Jams I. Packer discusses that preaching takes
the supreme importance in the ministries of the
Puritans. To them, the sermon was the
liturgical climax of public worship.
“Preaching, under any circumstances, is an act
of worship.” Nothing, they said, honors God
more than the faithful declaration and obedient
hearing of his truth (1994:281-82).
Preaching, the Puritans said, is the exposition
of the Word of God. They even said that, in
faithful preaching, God himself is preaching,
and that if a man is giving a true exposition of
Scripture, God is speaking because it is God’s
Word, and not the word of man. The Puritans
also asserted that the sermon is more important
than the sacraments or any ceremonies. They
claimed that it is as much an act of worship as
the Eucharist and more central in the church
service (Lloyd-Jones 1987:379-380).
The Human Needs in the Puritan Preaching
What was the human need to which they preached?
The Puritan’s anthropology accented man’s total
depravity. Ever since Adam, all the Puritans
proclaimed, man has been a slave to sin. Not
only ignorance of the divine will, but also
obstinate perversion from the divine way makes
up the human character. Adam's sin left man’s
nature died. This, however, did not destroy
man’s rational and volitional faculties. In
these God’s image remains imprinted. To men’s
natural faculty God addresses himself in the
book of nature and of Scripture (Rooy
1965:310-311).
|