Today I finished reading Robert Letham’s recently published book The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context. While I didn’t agree with all of Letham’s conclusions, I was nonetheless greatly helped in better understanding the doctrines I confess and the tradition with which I’m identified. I’m very thankful for his work.

Here is his summary of Puritanism:

The chief point at issue for the Puritans was whether the church has the right to bind consciences with anything other than the declarations of the Bible (18).

I’m about half way through Robert Letham’s recently published book The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context. This is the third book in The Westminster Assembly and the Reformed Faith series edited by Carl Trueman. It is so good! This should be required reading for every officer in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. On the catholicity of the divines Letham writes:

All the Reformers, including Calvin, and the later Reformed orthodox operated in the context of their inheritance from the late Middle Ages. To understand them, it is necessary to have a grasp of the scholastic method, and of the history of medieval exegesis. The Assembly’s Reformed context establishes its Catholic credentials, for the Reformers were at odds, not with the Catholic tradition, but with its immediate representatives. Evidence abounds from Luther, Calvin, and their contemporaries. This is abundantly demonstrated from the minutes [of the Westminster Assembly], where the records we have show beyond the slightest doubt that every theological question was debated from the foundation of biblical exegesis, in dialogue with the history of exegesis reaching back to the early days of the church. So pervasive is the focus on biblical exegesis that it would be futile here to list the texts on which the debate turned–the evidence is literally overwhelming. However, it was not carried on in isolation; it took place self-consciously as part of the great tradition of the church (96-97, emphasis added).

The Arminian doctrine of conditional election includes the understanding that God elects to save those whom he foresees will believe in him. In other words, our faith in some sense causes our election, hence conditional election.

In his work A Body of Divinity English Puritan theologian Thomas Watson offers a rather insightful argument against this doctrine writing:

If we are not justified for our faith, much less are we elected for our faith; but we are not justified for it. We are said to be justified through faith as an instrument in Eph. 2:8, but not for faith as a cause; and, if not justified for faith, then much less elected (70).

A few days ago I read James T. Dennison, Jr.’s fine book The Market Day of the Soul: The Doctrine of the Sabbath in England 1532-1700. It is an excellent historical theological work on, what has become in our hyper-recreational age, the dying practice of Sabbath observance. Anyone unsure of exactly what the Westminster divines meant when they wrote . . .

As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.

This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their wordly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy (Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. 21, Sect. 7-8).

. . . should read Dennison’s work for immediate remedy. Dennison offers this rich quote from the 17th century Puritan Lewes Bayly:

The Sabbath day is God’s market-day for the week’s provision, wherein He will have us to come unto him, and buy of him without silver or Money, the Bread of Angels, and Water of life, the Wine of the Sacraments, and Milk of the Word to feed our souls: tried Gold, to enrich our Faith: precious Eyesalve, to heal our spiritual blindness: and the white Raiment of Christ’s Righteousness, to cover our filthy nakedness (63-64).

Don’t miss James T. O’Brien’s new blog on reformed spirituality called J.O.B.’s Journal. Jim is currently posting a series on Puritan preaching. From the about page:

[HT: Nick Batzig]