{"id":479,"date":"2007-04-23T11:27:30","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T15:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drslewis.org\/camille\/?p=479"},"modified":"2007-04-23T11:27:30","modified_gmt":"2007-04-23T15:27:30","slug":"puritan-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drslewis.org\/camille\/2007\/04\/23\/puritan-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Puritan Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"David Calhoun\" href=\"http:\/\/www.covenantseminary.edu\/attending\/faculty.asp#calhoun\" target=\"_blank\">David Calhoun<\/a> remarks in <a title=\"Puritans\" href=\"http:\/\/covenantseminary.inmotionhosting.com\/CH320_Lecture_15.mp3\" target=\"_blank\">his lecture on the Puritans<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In their preaching, the Puritans were champions of grace. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccel.org\/b\/bunyan\/abounding\/grace01.htm\">Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners<\/a> is the name of Bunyan&#8217;s book, and it could stand for the whole period. And they were very concerned to teach the law. To set forth the Ten Commandments. And God&#8217;s requirements for Christian living. Sometimes it&#8217;s thought that the Puritans fell into legalism, and they probably did. We know <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Baxter\">Baxter<\/a> did in his <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Richard_Baxter#Theology\">neo-nomianism<\/a>. And even in John Bunyan&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccel.org\/ccel\/bunyan\/pilgrim.html\">Pilgrim&#8217;s Progress<\/a>, Charles Spurgeon is disappointed when in the beginning of the story Evangelist sends poor Christian &#8212; not really yet a Christian although that&#8217;s his name already &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ccel.org\/ccel\/bunyan\/pilgrim.v.i.html\">sends him to the wicket gate and not directly to the Cross<\/a>. Well, Bunyan doesn&#8217;t often get it wrong, but there he perhaps did. The way of preaching of the gospel is an indirect way, not a direct way to the Cross. And the Puritans do stress that law work; they preach the law. It&#8217;s important, I think, and they do it well and they do it right. But you can preach the law so long. You should not wait too long to get to the Gospel. And I think the Puritans kept people often marinating in the law too long. They need to let them go on to the Gospel and be forgiven when the conviction was there.<\/p>\n<p>But by and large, the Puritans were, as J. I. Packer put it, law-oriented without lapsing into legalism. I would agree with that by saying that the Puritans were usually law-oriented and did not usually lapse into legalism. But I think there are places where we can see that. But there is much good in what the Puritans do with the law, great stress on <a title=\"The Third Use of the Law\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?sourceid=navclient&#038;ie=UTF-8&#038;rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-24,GGLD:en&#038;q=%22third+use+of+the+law%22\" target=\"_blank\">the third use of the law<\/a> and careful teaching of what God requires. But it can produce books that seem beyond us. As you read the Puritans, don&#8217;t allow Puritan writing to discourage you as sometimes it can. There are many great encouraging things in the Puritans too. But the standards are so high that we can feel like we can never make it. Of course, the standards in the Bible are so high that we can feel like we can never make it. But remember reading once that John Duncan, the 19th-century Scottish theologian was reading the Puritan, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thomas_Shepard\">Thomas Shepard<\/a>. And he said Shepard is fine, but the problem with Shepard is that I wish I was as good as one of his hypocrites. And you kind get that feeling occasionally. We have a right to criticize some of the Puritans perhaps many of the Puritans for pruning the tree too closely. But it&#8217;s wrong to suppose that there should be no pruning. Whether we look at worship or Christian conduct &#8212; something corresponding to the Puritan criticism is always needed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Calhoun remarks in his lecture on the Puritans: In their preaching, the Puritans were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Puritan Grace - A Time To Laugh<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.drslewis.org\/camille\/2007\/04\/23\/puritan-grace\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Camille Lewis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Camille Lewis\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e93a8c9ec8fb8b926471114158437f82\"},\"headline\":\"Puritan Grace\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-04-23T15:27:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":492,\"commentCount\":3,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e93a8c9ec8fb8b926471114158437f82\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Grace\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.drslewis.org\\\/camille\\\/2007\\\/04\\\/23\\\/puritan-grace\\\/\",\"name\":\"Puritan Grace - 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