A Recent Read

According to Leland Ryken in Worldly Saints: the Puritans As They Really Were, we have been misled by modern portraits of the Puritans as dour, dark-clothed, money-grubbing, old, intolerant, strict, moralistic enemies of fun, color, art, sex, and emotion.  While the Puritans did sometimes indulge in too much self-loathing and were strict and intolerant compared to contemporary standards, they were hardworking, serious, moderate, well-informed, argumentative, and well-educated.  They sanctioned joy and normal clothing, they were opposed to hypocritical legalism, and, after all, no group at their time was fully tolerant in religious or political spheres.  The following paragraphs gloss certain points that interest me, illumine what I’ve already read, or apply to themes I’m exploring.

Comparison of American and English Puritans. This book encompasses English and American Puritans.  The historical timeline was helpful, for Ryken traces the major points in 16th-17th century England that caused Puritanism to rise.  Compared to English Puritanism, Ryken finds New England Puritanism “a less attractive phenomenon—more prone to intolerance and heavy-handedness, to complacency, to legalism, to inner decay.”  Why? In England, Puritans were the persecuted minority, but in N.E., Puritans were the majority.  They had established churches and political structures, and people could devote themselves to “institutions rather than ideals,” thus corrupting their vision of pure religion. 

Sermons.  I didn’t realize how incredibly popular Puritan preaching was in England and America, a good sermon drawing crowds from miles around.  This wasn’t because of fancy style, for the Puritans used what is called “plain style.”  They rejected the ostentatious, quote-filled sermons of their peers, thinking such words led to self-exaltation.  Besides, pastors were trying to reach all levels of society, even illiterate and poor.  Spiritual edification and intelligibility were more important than aesthetics, content more important than form.  John Flavel said, “Words are but servants to matter.”

Sermons were affective—intended primarily to move the listener toward right Christianity.  Samuel Ward wrote in his diary to “remember always at the hearing of God’s word to be applying the things delivered always to thyself, and so bythoughts will take less place.” [English]  Listening meant active involvement, especially notetaking and post-meeting meditation.  Edmund Calamy wrote, “One sermon well digested, well meditated upon, is better than twenty sermons without meditation.”  Remembering the sermon was essential for meditation, so sermons were very well-organized.  As I mentioned in one of my early posts, families repeated the main points at home.

Role of words.  Besides examining the sermon culture, Ryken makes cogent observations about the general role of words in Puritan life.  They were certainly a highly literate people, who so valued a liberal education that they founded Harvard only six years after settling in America!  Ryken writes, “The acts of worship emphasized by the Reformers and Puritans were overwhelmingly literary acts: reading the Bible, meditating on its meaning, listening to sermons, and talking to others about one’s grasp of doctrine” (124).   They expected the “verbal imagination to do the work” that Anglicans/Catholics had left to the visual senses.  Puritan language was richly reliant on “master images,” figures, and Biblical allusions.  Opposing the accusation that lengthy Puritan discourses are dry and forensic, Ryken writes, “Once we grant the validity of the verbal image, it becomes clear that the Puritan worship service did not starve the imagination or even the senses of the worshiper.  Allusions to the Bible carried immense imaginative and emotional voltage for a person to whom the Patriarchs were like neighbors and Mary and Martha like their own sisters.” (125)  Images, instead of being visually enshrined on altars and in statuary, were “embodied in the sermon.”

Ryken’s volume is an easy-to-read, encouraging, and candid avowal of both Puritan strengths and weaknesses.  It was mainly pleasure reading, yet I have also gleaned reading suggestions from Ryken’s extensive bibliographies and abundant quotations.  My summer study plan is relaxed, since I have other reading requirements, but I’m enjoying slowly perusing a few books!