The Logic of Assurance in English Puritan Theology -- By: R. M. Hawkes

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 52:2 (Fall 1990)
Article: The Logic of Assurance in English Puritan Theology
Author: R. M. Hawkes


The Logic of Assurance in English Puritan Theology

R. M. Hawkes

What was it that defined English Puritanism? Was it essentially a theological movement, emphasizing covenant theology, predestination, and a reformed church service? Or was the heart of the matter political, asserting the inalienable rights of conscience before God, the rule of natural law over arbitrary prerogative courts, the dependency of the king in parliament, the foundation of state authority in the people? Some modern research has pointed to a third possibility, that the essence of Puritanism was its piety, a stress on conversion, on existential, heartfelt religion.

Indeed, a steady stream of works exploring Puritan contributions in these three areas continues to be produced some three hundred years after the Puritan day has faded. That this is so is no slight testimony to the prodigious creativity and far-reaching influence of these people. Because the English Puritans engaged in such a diversity of efforts, it is inevitable that scholarship would tend to present a fragmented picture of them, for no one work can overarch the labyrinth of Puritanism. If Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan, then it must have been a political movement. If John Owen was a Puritan, then it must have been a theological movement. If John Bunyan was a Puritan, then it must have been a pietistic movement. It is almost beyond credit that three such disparate people should be identified with one movement, that they were, in some way, fellow laborers.

In order to counter this tendency toward disintegration in Puritan scholarship, it is useful to examine not only the various fields of impact, but, in a distinct effort, to pick out the logical threads that bind together the Puritans’ approach to these various fields. This study is intended to be such a thread-picking.1 English Puritanism could, arguably, be taken to span from Wycliffe to Wesley in length, from Coke to Fox in breadth. In order to identify a defining core of Puritanism, we need to trace a strain of logic, a way of thinking, which brings to mind parallels in a wide variety of Puritan writers. Though no definition can stretch to cover all of Puritanism, it should be possible to label various characteristic logical patterns which are at least fairly common.

In English Puritan theology, the doctrine of assurance is of abiding importance. Any description of the aims of Puritanism must include the twin objectives of reforming the hearts of men along with the reform of external structures. As the external reform of the church consisted of a thorough restructuring according to the blueprint of Scripture, so the internal reformation of the Purit...

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