The Prophetic Literature of Colonial America Part 1 -- By: Wilbur M. Smith
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 100:397 (Jan 1943)
Article: The Prophetic Literature of Colonial America Part 1
Author: Wilbur M. Smith
BSac 100:397 (Jan 43) p. 67
The Prophetic Literature of Colonial America
Part 1
The 17th Century in Theology was certainly the most important of all centuries in theological discussion since the council of Nicaea with a single exception of that century which witnessed the mighty work in refraining for a traditionally chained world the great fundamental truths of our faith by those masters of theology, Calvin, Luther and Zwingli. It was this 17th century that saw the greatest assembly of divines that ever was gathered together at one time since the days of the Church Fathers-we refer, of course, to the Westminster Assembly. The great themes discussed among the Protestants in England in this century were, for the most part, related to the subject of the church ecclesiastical order, the sovereignty of God, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures, with, of course, tremendous emphasis upon the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. These were the great themes which were carried by the Puritans, as they crossed the Atlantic from Holland and the shores of England, to Massachusetts, and especially to Boston, Salem, and Plymouth. Virginia, settled long before, had very little interest in theological discussion, devoting herself, for the most part, to the cultivation of great plantations, and a formal attendance of divine worship under the exclusive auspices of the Episcopal Church of England.
In New England it was different. There, with a freer atmosphere and in the midst of men of far greater theological scholarship than those that went into the Southern part of our country in colonial times, themes were fervently debated, and volume after volume poured from the presses, taking sides in these great debates. The Puritans were the greatest theologians, all in all, that our country has ever seen. It probably is not exaggeration to say that they have exerted more influence over the religious and theological thinking
BSac 100:397 (Jan 43) p. 68
of the Republic of the United States than any other single body of men.
The words of Professor Williston Walker, in his fascinating History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, on the quality of our Puritan forefathers are not an exaggeration. “Their membership contained men of humble position, it is true, but their leaders were from good station in England, many of them of the country gentry, men of wealth, character, and education. Their ministers were the peers in learning and ability of any in the Puritan wing of the Church of England; they were men reverenced and admired not only in the colonial hamlets to which they came, but by wide circles in the homeland. Probably no colony in the history of European emigration was superio...
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