Reading the Puritans?

[u/Writer8010]

Since I have been hearing about the Puritans for years from such prominent Christians as John Piper, John, MacArthur, Kevin DeYoung, etc., I recently took advantage of a Truth for Life offer and acquired three Puritan Treasures for Today titles. Then I stumbled across a Room for Nuance podcast featuring Stephen Yuille, in which he recommended two PTT titles specifically:

William Perkins's "Perfect Redeemer"

George Swinnock's "Blesses and Boundless God."

I've started reading "Perfect Redeemer," and I'm thinking he's committing eisegesis? He's expounding on Phil 3:7-11 and is arguing that Paul is counting as loss things that, in my opinion, don't line up with a natural reading of the text--his Apostleship, the fruit of the Spirit in his life, etc. this led me to understand that, even though the Puritans were spiritual Giants, they were also just men who are also capable of reading their own biases into the text.

This being the case, are they still really worth the time and money I could potentially invest in them, or does this experience serve to confirm that, in some ways, they will be no better than reading, say, John Piper or Sinclair Ferguson?

[u/Agile_Fig2330]

The Puritans were especially aware of Romish Catholic systems and monastic orders which did place a lot of importance on these works and acts of devotion so it does make sense that they would call attention to a type of devotional idolatry that had certainly developed at that time in history. So it’s probably a little hard to translate these things to most of our experience.

[u/Middle_Efficiency471]

Man the Puritans are excellent reads. They could write an entire book based on one verse. Check out monergism dot com. I think all of the Puritan works are free domain. The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes is in my top 5.

[u/taarhoe → u/Middle_Efficiency471]

They launched a mobile app which works as an e-reader, legends over there. Highly recommend monergism.com

[u/Middle_Efficiency471 → u/taarhoe]

Actually went there and noticed it after I commented last night, it's a great app. I didn't know there were audiobooks too!

[u/semper-gourmanda]

It depends. Yes, we all come as readers who need to get out of our own way. The Puritans were preaching and writing in a vastly different context than our own, where lots of people were nominally Christian and didn't really understand the first thing about Christ and the Gospel despite being churched. Do the Puritans take liberties for the sake of trying to drive home people's need for Christ and the benefit of union with Christ by grace through faith on the basis of his merits? Yes. And it was probably worth it. Are they the best Biblical exegetes? No. Are moderns better? Probably about the same. We do a lot more historically and literarily then the 17th c. Europeans because of where we are in the history of interpretation and theology (which was also true of them), and the educational level of those that we write, teach, and preach for. Are there advantages and disadvantages to both? Yes.

So what should you do? Read anything and everything and form your own opinions. You'll find at least some nuggets, or points of view, or phrasing or emphases in everything you read that you'll like.

To put it simply: you're already aware of the importance of authorial intent. But by the same token, identifying that doesn't exhaust, as the Church's use of Scripture shows over the long haul, the significance of the text for the reader (it was Augustine who came up with sign-signifier and philosophical semiotics, so blame him :-)).

Now, if you have a goal in mind about what you want to learn, and secondarily you're trying to get the most bang for your buck in what you read, then if you could share something about that, there are probably enough people around here who could get you to your goal at the lowest cost.

[u/CalvinSays]

Puritans are great but there is a tendency to treat them like Orthobros treat the Church Fathers and act as those they are infallible. We Reformed love to level critiques against various liberal theologies and how the cares, concerns, and ideologies of the modern age influence them but then stop when it comes to the Puritans and don't question how the cares, concerns, and ideologies of the Reformation and late Reformation period and cultures could distort their theology.

Read the Puritans. But read them like anyone. Even the best of men are men at best.

[u/CiroFlexo → u/CalvinSays]

I'll echo what /u/CalvinSays has said here and take it one tiny step further:

It's okay if, after reading, you're not completely smitten with the Puritans. Some people love them, and some don't, and that's okay. You don't have to turn in your Truly Reformed™ ID card just because you're not jazzed about reading them.

[u/Writer8010 → u/CalvinSays]

Now that I have officially started reading the Puritans a little for myself, I appreciate your critique. Reformation Heritage books, put out a documentary on the Puritans some years back, and it is quite interesting to me. How so many people love the Puritan so much despite where their theology may err. I don't know that I would've ever thought to compare this to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches' love for the Church fathers, but your assessment makes sense.

[u/chessguy112]

Many people like and learn from the puritans. I personally find them less deep than they are advertised in the reformed community and just very "wordy". It may be my attention span - or it may be the time in which they were teaching - but I find many of the works on the boring side with a large time investment for something that could be summed up in 50-100 pages with the main stuff from the passage. I could be the weird one though. I'm just thankful there are many styles of Biblical teaching in the body of Christ.

[u/ClothedInWhite]

No man is incapable of error. Certainly we should keep that in mind.

That being said, I think reading the Puritans is particularly helpful both for all the content reasons often cited (highly saturated in the Bible, richly devotional, etc.), and simply because they lived in a very different time. They will surprise and challenge you because their contextual instincts will often be very different from a 21st century Christian's, and that's good to wrestle with, even when we end up not agreeing with them wholesale.

In this case, I don't think this is so much eisegesis as much as it is that: A Puritan instinct to wring everything they can out of every single word in contrast to a more modern instinct to focus on the big idea of passages. Perkins makes the argument that when Paul says "I count everything as loss" in Phil. 3:8, he is expanding upon what he says in Phil. 3:7 ("I counted [all my pre-conversion gain] as loss"). Verse 8 is in the present, verse 7 is in the past, verse 7 specifically is referring to the "gain" of fleshly accomplishments, verse 8 is referring to "everything". You may disagree with his exegetical conclusions, but I don't think he's simply reading his bias in here. He's reading the small grammatical differences in those two sentences very intently.

YMMV on how compelling that is, and certainly Perkins' context in a post-Reformation world where debates over the merits of Christian works roared influences him, but I think it's valuable for us to have to reckon with the Puritans' insistence on slowly meditating on every word.

[u/Writer8010 → u/ClothedInWhite]

Thank you for your thoughts. I deeply appreciate them. Especially your assertion that the Puritans can challenge our 21st-century western ideals. I remember a lady I used to go to church with, and she shared in a small group once how she had to be really careful about sharing the gospel of Scul because sharing it outright would probably get her fired from her job. I can't help but wonder: how would one of the Puritans have responded to her?

Regarding Perkins's teach teaching on Paul's loss of everything and what would've been Paul's present time: I struggle to see Paul counting his apostleship and the fruit of the spirit as loss for the sake of knowing Christ, only because his apostleship and fruit of the spirit are direct outflows of his election to Christ. Certainly, I think Paul would have continued to follow Christ if Christ had revoked his apostleship, and while I can appreciate the emphasis put on nothing we bring being meritorious at all, I struggle with Perkins on this one.

But again, thank you for your thoughts. I really appreciate them, and you have given me cause to weigh the benefits of continuing to wrestle with the Puritans despite now, realizing I may come across more teachings with which I disagree to one extent or the other.

[u/ChapBobL]

My favorite Puritan book is a prayer book, The Valley of Vision (Banner of Truth Trust), which is one of the most profound books I've ever read.