The Gospel According to the Puritans...

The word "puritan" is not held in high esteem by the world and even by some churches today.
"Puritanical" is a term of derision used to describe someone who is lifeless, emotionless, legalistic, proud, and anti-sexual. I'm ashamed to say that before understanding the Puritans and their theology, I was ignorant of who they truly were and shared some of the very same misconceptions about them with the world. I'm convinced that the root of the problem lies in a profound ignorance of who the Puritans were, and a sloppy revisionist history advocated by scholars and ministers alike. I remember reading "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards in my 11th grade English class immediatley after reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne had already poisoned the students' minds about the Puritans, and the unscholarly and revisionist rantings of our teacher didn't help. The teacher would say things like, "Look at Edwards' beautiful metaphor's, his iron sharp logic, and his wonderful use of vocabulary! Yet look at his exlusive and hate filled theology!" Her contention was that the congregational church which Edwards had been apart of had grown much much better by the time Hawthorne wrote the Scarlet Letter. The church in Edwards' day just wasn't practical, wasn't loving, and wasn't inclusive enough. I have to admit, this blatant attack on Edwards and on other Puritans frustrated me much at times. I had read Edwards and other Purtians for myself and knew firsthand that the popular notion that the Puritans were scary, legalistic, and proud was a blatant lie. That's why I chose to do my senior project on Cotton Mather (an American Puritan), clearing up some of the misconceptions about him. Let me say this...I have never been influenced by any writer more than I have been influenced by the Purtians, specifically Jonathan Edwards. After reading the Religious Affections at the end of my 11th grade year in high school, I knew that God had used that particular work to change my life in many ways. After reading this and other works, I came to this realization...the Puritans were not proud, they were some of the most humble and gracious people to ever walk the face of the earth! The Puritans were not legalistic! Their heavy emphasis on the neccessity of "heart religion" and "experiential, Christ centered, affections", permeates their writings. Rather than being like the Pharisees who created an inumberable amount of extra-biblical rules an regulations for daily living, the Puritans cherished the Reformed doctrine of "sola Scriptura", and manifisted in their preaching, a love for expositional preaching and Biblical doctrine. The Puritans were not filled with hatred! After rigorously studying the life and theology of Cotton Mather, it was clearly evident that the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 has a lot to do with the current assumption that the Purtians were hateful and mean-spirited people. Granted, some of the Puritans during that time were overly superstisious...I learned they (specifically Mather) have been vilified and torn apart unjustly. The Puritans loved God and loved their neighbors, reading up to 20 chapters of the Bible every day, living without much sleep, for the sole purpose of enhancing their joy in Christ and their love for mankind. If you're reading this post and have only heard others talk about the Puritans, I would suggest that you read them for yourself. Never will you read a more rich, deep, and joyful piece of literature. I love the Purtians because the Puritans loved Jesus and devoted their lives to loving Him with all of their hearts. Their heartfelt and disciplined devotion is an example to me and an encouragement in times of spiritual laziness. I want to include a quote by Richard Sibbes who was one of the early Puritans. This quote is especially fitting in light of some of the misconceptions of them that abound in today's world and church. Sibbes is describing Christians in all times, but think about the Puritans specifically as you read this quote:

It has been an old imputation to charge distraction upon men of the greatest wisdom and sobriety. John the Baptist was accused of having a devil, and Christ to be beside Himself and the Apostles to be full of new wine, and Paul to be mad. The reason is because as religion is a mystical and spiritual thing, so the tenets of it seem paradoxes to carnal men; as first, that a Christian is the only freeman, and other men are slaves; that he is the only rich man, though never so poor in the world; that he is the only beautiful man, though outwardly never so deformed; that he is the only happy man in the midst of all his miseries. Now these things though true seem strange to natural men, and therefore when they see men earnest against sin, or making conscience of sin, they wonder at this commotion for trifles. But these men go on in a course of their own and make that the measure of all; those that are below them are profane, and those that are above them are indiscreet. By fanciful affections, they create idols, and then cry down spiritual things as folly. They have principles of their own, to love themselves and to love others only for themselves, and to hold on the strongest side and by no means expose themselves to danger. But when men begin to be religious, they deny all their own aims, and that makes their course seem madness to the world, and therefore they labor to breed an ill opinion of them, as if they were madmen and fools.