“Modern man, progressive man, has an insatiable lust to interfere with the ordinary things. He strives to become superman and only succeeds in erasing ordinary men” (Writers to Read, p. 24).
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Theology That Bites Back
Great thought!
Transport that insight back to the 16th century and you have described exactly the problem with the original Puritans.
John, the original puritans did not want to be forced to be Catholics. The pilgrims came to New England to be left alone.
The original puritans did “erase” Charles Stuart, but he was a monarch, not an ordinary man.
Who do you think the original puritans were / are?
The Puritans who came to New England in 1629 were indeed the first American Puritans. C.S. Lewis dates the original Puritans to several generations earlier: Puritanism, as I have defined it, splits off from general Protestantism in the second half of the sixteenth century. Stow traces the word Puritan to about the year 1567. (John Poynet in his Short Treatise of Politic Power (1556) had spoken of ‘Catharistes and newe Puristes’) Originally coined by certain Anabaptists to describe themselves, it came to be used as a hostile term (though they sometimes accepted it) for those Protestants who believed that the… Read more »
The Pilgrams came to New England in 1620 to be left alone. The Puritans came in 1629 because they had lost a political struggle with King Charles I earlier that year. The English Parliment met at the beginning of 1629 and “complained of the rapid increase of Arminianism and Papistry much resenting the fact that of late not one Papist had been hanged for receiving orders in the Church of Rome.” The puritans in that parliment certainly “did not want to be forced to be Catholics” – but that was never a danger. What they did very much want was… Read more »
John Owen didn’t even like the Lord’s Prayer.