THE PURITAN’S MISSION THEOLOGY OF PREACHING
The Puritan preachers preached
their sermons to reach even the
hearts of the unconverted or of
those who were still outside the
church and convert them. They
made their preaching missionary
proclamation of redemption to
the lost. They reached the
hearts of their audience by
being understood by their
audience.
Trinitarian Redemption and
Proclamation
As Paul Pierson indicates it in
the previous chapter, with
Puritans Christians are in
partnership with God in
redemption. Richard Baxter set
forth Trinitarian work of
redemption on God’s part and
proclamation of the redemption
on man’s part. The
missiological implication we
find here is that God sends
the Son to redeem us; and
likewise, the human preachers as
the ones sent by God
proclaim the gospel in order to
fulfill His Work of Redemption.
Sidney H. Rooy quotes from
Richard Baxter saying:
The Father sendeth the Son;
the Son redeemeth us, and
maketh the promise of grace;
the Holy Ghost inditeth and
sealth this gospel;the
apostles are the secretaries
of the Spirit, to write it;
the preachers of the gospel
to proclaim it, and persuade
men to obey it; and the Holy
Ghost doth make their
preaching effectual, by
opening the hearts of men to
entertain it (1965:76).
The soteriological consideration
that men must be brought to
personal conversion dominates
the Puritan message. The
practical use of doctrine was at
the heart of Puritan preaching.
The direct application of
spiritual truth to men’s
situation was the Puritan
purpose in preaching.
The Simplicity of Preaching
Lloyd-Jones remarks that
Puritans reprobated and avoided
that which was the
chief-characteristic of Anglican
preaching. They believed in
‘plain, direct, experimental,
saving preaching.’ Preaching
was to be simple, earnest, and
faithful. They were called to
preach salvation through grace
by faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ (1987:384).
What distinguished the Puritan
preachers even more than their
doctrinal position was the
manner and purpose of their
preaching. They asserted, as
did others, that man could be
saved by faith alone. They
endeavored to do this, however,
in terms that common men might
understand, in expressive images
that would move men to repent,
believe and begin the new life
at once under the leadership of
the preacher (Haller 1957:19).
Preaching the Word in Plain
Language
Retaining the profundity of the
gospel message, yet the Puritan
preachers strove for simplicity
in their sermon delivery. As
James I. Packer quotes from the
Westminster Directory for the
Public Worship of God:
Plainly that the meanest may
understand; delivering the
truth not
in the enticing words of
man’s wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit
and power, lest the Truth of
Christ should be made of
none effects; abstaining
also from an unprofitable
use of unknown tongues,
Strange phrases, and
cadences of sounds and
words…(1994:278).
William Haller also argues that
the Puritan preachers themselves
asserted again and again that
only so much doctrine was
important to be understood by
men of least knowledge and
capacity, What is important for
us is, then, not what the
learned doctor’s doctrine
was—not how they argued among
themselves—but what it meant and
did to the common public’
(1957:86).
D. M. Lloyd-Jones disputes the
idea that their preaching was
dull or pedestrian because they
were opposed to ornate,
artificial, oratorical kind of
preaching. On the contrary they
were very learned men. What
they insisted on was that human
wisdom should be concealed
because the preacher is
declaring a divine and not a
human message (1987:85).
Plainness and Powerfulness
For the Puritans the end of
preaching is to make manifest to
the unlearned stranger the
things of his own heart. As
William Perkins puts it, it is
to obtain “an admirable
plainness and an admirable
powerfulness.” That must be
plain by which an unlearned man
is enabled to perceive his own
faults. That must be powerful
which moves the unregenerate
conscience to exclaim,
‘Certainly God speaks in this
man!’ (1957:130).[1]
Reaction against the style of
the orthodox Anglicans was an
important element in the
preacher’s conversion, and the
account of his plainness and
powerfulness became almost as
conventional a part of the
legend of him as conversion
itself. The Puritan preachers
labored earnestly to make
themselves understood by their
audience. Richard Stoke spoke
so ‘that both the learnedest
might receive satisfaction from
him, and the very meanest and
dullest might also reap benefit
by him (Haller 1957:131).
Robert Harries ‘could so cook
his meat that he could make it
relish to every palate: He could
dress a plain discourse, so as
that all sorts should be
delighted with it. He could
preach with a learned plainness,
and had learned to conceal his
Art’ (:132). Richard Baxter was
a powerful Puritan preacher who
saw in his lifetime that almost
all people in his parish
converted. He believes in using
plainest words for powerful and
effective pulpit communication.
Baxter clearly sets forth it in
his Reformed Pastor.
Albert H. Currier quotes him,
saying:
The
plainest words are the most
profitable oratory in the
weightiest matters.
Fineness is for ornament and
delicacy for delight, but
they answer not necessity.
Yea, it is hard for the
heart to observe the matter
of ornament and delicacy,
and not be carried from the
matter of necessity: for it
usually hindereth the due
operation of the matter,
keeps it from the heart….
All our teaching must be as
plain and evident as we can
make it. If you would not
teach men, what do you do in
the pulpit? If you would,
why do you not speak so as
to be understood (118)?
Explication and Application in
Plain Speech
The calculated effort to appeal
to the popular audience affected
the structure as well as the
style of the sermon. The
preacher carried into the
pulpit, as a rule, little more
than the heads of the discourse
he was to deliver. This method
of preaching, as prescribed by
Perkins, required first that the
preacher read the text out of
Scripture and then explain or
‘open’ it in its context. He
should then proceed to collect a
few and profitable points of
doctrine out of the natural
sense. Finally he must apply
the doctrines rightly collected,
to the life and manners of men
in a simple, plain speech.
These were called ‘the uses’
(Haller 1957:134).
Of the supreme value in the
Puritan preaching is the unity
of ‘exposition’ and
‘application’ they retained in
their preaching. As Packer
remarks it: “Puritans preached
the Bible systematically and
thoroughly, with sustained
application to personal life,
preaching it as those who
believed it, and who sought by
their manner to make their
matter credible and convincing
and converting (1994:280).
The Type of Puritan Preaching
There are predominately five
types of Puritan preaching.
They include application,
profundity and simplicity,
exposition, doctrinal. And
evangelism. Commonly this five
genre appear together in a
Puritan preaching.
Applicative
Puritan preaching was piercing
in its application. The Puritan
preachers trained their
homiletical searchlights on
specific states of spiritual
need, and spoke to these in
a precise and detailed way.
Puritan pastoral preachers would
speak half or more of their
preaching time developing
applications. Packer comments,
“Strength of application was,
from one standpoint, the most
striking feature of Puritan
preaching, and it is arguable
that the theory of
discriminating application is
the most valuable legacy that
Puritan preaching have left to
those who would preach the Bible
and its gospel effectively
today” (1994:286-87).
Thomas Cartwright, Puritan and
the real father of
Presbyterianism in England, said
that the Word of God is vital in
its operation only when applied
to hearts and consciences of
believers by way of consolation
and rebuke. He illustrates it
by saying, ‘As the fire stirred
giveth more heat, so the word,
as it were blown by preaching
flameth more in the hearts than
when it is read’ (Lloyd-Jones
1987:376).
Profound, Yet Simple
Puritan preaching, though
profound in its content, was
popular in its style. Baxter
expresses it in his homiletic
idiom: ‘the plainest words are
the profitablest oratory in the
weightiest matters’ (1888:II,
399). They talked to their
congregations in plain,
straightforward, homely English.
Dignified simplicity—‘studied
plainness’—was their ideal.
In fact, the ‘studied plainness’
of Puritan preaching often
possesses a striking eloquence
of its own—the natural eloquence
that results when words are
treated not at all as the
orator’s playthings, but
entirely as the servant of a
notable meaning (Packer
1994:285-86)
Expository
The Puritan preacher regarded
himself as the mouthpiece of God
and the servant of His words.
He must speak ‘as the oracle of
God.’ His task, therefore, was
not information, fastening on to
Scripture text meanings they do
not bear, nor was it
juxtaposition, using his text as
a peg on which to hang some
homily unrelated to it. The
preacher’s task was precisely,
exposition, extracting from his
texts what God had encased
within them (Packer 1994:284).
The Puritan method of ‘opening’
a text was first to explain it
in its context; next, to extract
from the text one or more
doctrinal observations embodying
its substances, and then to
amplify, illustrate, and conform
form other Scriptures the truths
thus derived; and finally, to
draw out their practical
implications for the hearers
(284).
Doctrinal
Packer makes a point that
Puritan preaching was doctrinal
in its content: “Puritan
preachers were not afraid to
bring the profound theology into
the pulpit if it bore on their
hearers’ salvation, nor to
demand that men and women apply
themselves to mastering
unwillingness to do so as a sign
of insincerity” (1994:284-85).
The case of Thomas Goodwin
supplies an excellent example of
the way in which the Puritan
sermon commonly labored to
escape from abstract to
imagistic methods of presenting
doctrine. The preachers saw
and generally recorded, his own
life as an image of the truth.
In his sermons too he was
impelled to present truth in
images—images which tended to
fall into allegory (Haller
1957:143).
Evangelistic
Packer discusses the Puritan
perspective of evangelistic
preaching:
The
Puritans did not regard
evangelistic sermons as a
special class of sermons,
having their own preaching
style and conventions; the
Puritan position was rather,
that since all Scripture
bears witness to Christ, and
all sermons should aim to
expound and apply what is in
the Bible, all proper
sermons would of necessity
declare Christ and so be to
some extent evangelistic
(1994:165-166).
Packer again indicates that
there is a significant
implication in the Puritan
evangelism for modern
evangelism:
Modern evangelism will
always depend for its
fruitfulness under
ordinary circumstances, on
the prior exposure of the
audience it
gathers to evangelism of the
Puritan type—longer-term ,
broader-based,
deeper-digging, church-,
community- and
friendship-centered,
oriented more to worship and
less to
entertainment. Modern
evangelism is only likely to
reap
where Puritan evangelism has
first sowed (1994:301).
Recently, a group of
missiologists such as Charles
Kraft have noted the powerful
effects person-to-person
communication can have on
evangelism.[2]<![endif]>
In fact, this is exactly what
the Puritan preachers learned
and practiced long ago. Baxter
illustrates this insights for
evangelistic address:
I
have found by experience,
that some important persons,
who have been so long
unprofitable hearers, have
got more knowledge and
remorse in half an hour’s
close discourse, than they
did from ten year’s public
preaching. I know that
preaching the gospel
publicly is the most
excellent mean, because we
speak to many at once. But
it is usually far more
effectual to preach it
privately to particular
sinner” (Packer 1994:307).[3]
The Priority of Preaching to
the Unconverted
Compassion for the misery of the
unconverted had been, from the
beginning to the end of Baxter’s
life, a compelling motive to
most ardent preaching (Rooy
1965:154).
In Baxter's fifteen duties of
the minister, the first four
carry missiological motifs:
Preaching to the unconverted,
entreating repentance, receiving
and baptizing believers, and
gathering converts into churches
(1888:I, 908). Preaching to the
unconverted comes first. The
work of faithful ministers is to
save men’s souls. True pastors
and bishops thirst after the
conversion and winning of men to
Christ (II, 157).[4]
Sermons
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This manuscript was Dae Ryeong Kim's study note toward a paper.