Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 02:2 (Jul 2010)
Article: A Half Reformation: English Puritanism According To Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
Author: Michael G. Brown

PRJ 2:2 (July 2010) p. 141

A Half Reformation: English Puritanism According To Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)

Michael G. Brown

Ever since its emergence in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a post-Reformation movement to reform the Church of England, Puritanism has been a controversial subject. Indeed, the very terms Puritan and Puritanism often evoke images of rigid legalists in black stockings living with the “haunting fear,” as H. L. Mencken put it, “that someone, somewhere is having a good time.” According to historian C. V. Wedgwood, the term Puritan, originally, “had no definite and no official meaning: it was a term of abuse merely.”1 Prominent figures such as William Shakespeare and King James I used the term pejoratively.2 Carl Trueman points out that much of the secondary scholarship which grew up around the events of the seventeenth century portrayed Puritanism as “a mere embarrassment, a rather crude aberration of personal freedom and the wanton destruction of much beautiful ecclesiastical art.”3 Even Protestant scholars in the twentieth century have demonized Puritanism. In his influential book, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, R. T. Kendall indicts Puritan theologians on charges of hijacking the warm and

PRJ 2:2 (July 2010) p. 142

scriptural theology of John Calvin and other early Reformers with a cold scholasticism, Aristotelianism, and rationalism.4

On the other hand, some have regarded the Puritans as heroes, likening their spiritual stature to California’s giant Redwoods.5 Through their production of sermons, catechisms, confessions of faith, and prolific theological treatises in response to the challenges of Arminianism, Socinianism, and a reinvigorated Roman Catholicism, a large number of the Puritans have been viewed by many scholars as the faithful and legitimate heirs of Calvin and the early Reformation.6

PRJ 2:2 (July 2010) p. 143

With such opposing opinions, how should we then evaluate Puritanism as a movement? In brief, we should not do so simplistically. Puritanism is a broad and variegated movement from history that involves many complex theological, political, and cultural factors. Any serious evaluation of Puritanism, therefore, should involve a thorough study of the primary sources without neglecting secondary source literature. This should include the personal correspondence of primary source ...