It was a few years ago that we were properly introduced to the Puritans. Before that, I just thought they ate turkey and wore capotains and were a grumpy, adventurous sort. Thank you, American public schools, for granting us the yearly joy of choosing between wearing paper feathers or paper collars and getting to sit cross-legged on the gym floor with a paper plate of food all while remembering that the puritan pilgrim fathers were exactly who you wanted us to think they were.

Except the pilgrims, as they became known for their journey, were not the only Puritans and they most certainly were not the first Puritans, nor were they the most puritan of the puritans, at least as time went on.

The story starts farther back, long before even Raleigh’s Land had been reached, but after Columbus had landed on Dominica. Martin Luther had nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and the flames of the Protestant Reformation were licking every corner of Europe. Seventeen years later, on a capricious whim, King Henry the VIII created the Church of England, splitting officially from the Roman Catholic Church. England was now officially a protestant land. On paper, anyway. Much of the old practices and traditions and teachings remained in place. Henry’s son Edward further encouraged the growth of protestantism. Upon his early death, his sister Mary, a devout Catholic, became the queen and reversed all of Edward’s advances. Her religious zeal sent many faithful men to their death, men like Ridley and Latimer who were burnt at the stake. Many others like John Foxe (author of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs) were exiled. Mary died and her half sister Elizabeth I became the queen and once again, protestantism was accepted and encouraged and Catholicism persecuted to some extent. The exiles returned and the Church of England began again to move away from Catholicism. But for many, the political climate change and the slight religious movement was not enough. They wanted a deeper reform. A purification of the church. They wanted churches that resembled the churches in the New Testament. They wanted a presbytery, a proper view of the Lord’s Supper, a simplifying of rituals. They wanted no idols, no ruling bishops, no determined and required book of common prayer. Slowly this movement grew through Elizabeth’s reign, King James’ reign and reaching its peak with the deposition of Charles I and the English Civil War. It was during these years that America began to be settled by the pilgrims, or, the puritans.

So there were Puritans in England, purifying the church and there were Puritans in America who, seeing the political unrest in England due to religion, had decided to, in the words of John Winthrop, “establish a city set upon a hill.” America was to be the stronghold of Puritanism, a theocracy whose government and civil establishments would be based wholly upon scripture and the spiritual life of the citizens. All of the world was to see in America what a country could be whose governance was dictated by the God of Heaven. Of course, this was a great idea, but reality became otherwise. Eventually there were many among the colonists who were unbelievers or not reformed in their theology. The wilderness demanded more than mere hypothesizing. Market creation and defense from their enemies furthered alienated the growing colonies from their original purpose. Men like Cotton Mather cried to the American populace to return to their humble beginnings but the Hydra of the Americas had begun sprouting its many heads and it was far too late. By the time Jonathan Edwards came along, his fiery sermon was more than needed. America, just 120 years later, was ripe for a Great Awakening.

The Puritans back in England were of course not liked by the Catholics, but neither were they liked by the Church of England. They were outliers, outcasts, and outspoken. They were, like the reformers and like the Marian martyrs before them, willing to give up everything….their parishes, their homes, their families, their very lives for their consuming love of the God of Heaven. For to them, God was not just any god, some god of their well-intentioned imagination. He was not a deistic being–there but uninterested. He was not a petty being–dependent on man and his whims. He was not a manipulative nor manipulatable being, navigating some twisted relationship with his creatures. No. The God of the Puritans was the God of the Bible, the God of the apostles, the God of the martyrs and of the Reformers. He is like no other, uninventable, uncomprehensible, unchanging. He is supreme, filled with glory and majesty, whose name is Holy, who is all love, all light, all mercy, all justice. He is eternity, He is sovereign, He is altogether lovely. He is the Atoner, the Redeemer, the Savior.

This God and Savior consumed the Puritans. He was their all. In an essay by Kenneth Murdock he writes:

“John Bunyan said: “No sin against God can be little, because it is against the great God of heaven and earth; but if the sinner can find out a little god, it may be easy to find out little sins.”… other puritans would have agreed. Their God was a great God; the labors required of His servants onerous. Any lapse from His laws, however trivial, could not seem trivial to men who passionately loved and feared Him. The magnitude of their conception of God and of their role as His servants eclipsed everything else…”

Maybe that is why some christians and the world at large ostracize those supposedly stern, austere figures from the not too distant past. Their love of God created a hatred of sin, a zeal for a holy life. His greatness infiltrated their every thought and motive and action. “To know Christ!!” was the rallying cry of their hearts. If they were demanding of others, they were more of themselves, constantly prostrating themselves like Isaiah before the vision of the Holy, holy, holy God, discovering again and again that we are undone creatures in need of God’s amazing grace. God’s sovereignty dominated their wills, their griefs, their futures. The Providential guiding of the eternal God gave them rest and peace as they cast their every care upon him.

In a time of political and spiritual unrest, the Puritans, especially in England, were faithful beacons pointing a confused populace to God and His Word. In many ways they didn’t even know they were “The Puritans.” They were individuals who just wanted to make a difference. They wrote copiously, preached faithfully, lived sacrificially. They were incredibly learned and intelligent men, many trained in a classical education and well-versed in the tools of rhetoric and logic. Their writings are simple yet profound, expositing the word of God a verse at a time, meticulously explaining and developing each word and phrase to its ultimate potential.

It was the Puritans who really have taught me God. It has been the Puritans who have taught me to love books about the Bible. They have satisfied my soul, filling in holes no one else knew to fill. For so much of my christian life, I have been hungry. Starving, really. I didn’t have the words or the understanding to approach God as I knew He was worthy. I feel now like there was a whole table piled high of festive delights just out of my sight and reach but not out of my smell. I knew it was there and I wanted it and longed after it but could never find it. Oh, thank God! It is with immense worship and humility and joy that I pen these words. Thank God for the writings of the Puritans who have brought me before the feast, have pulled out my chair, and bid me sup and drink and live.

The Puritans’ legacy lives on, not only in their devotion to the triune God, but redundantly in their efforts at purification. I would be remiss to not point out that every generation requires men and women eaten up by the zeal for the house of God. The church at large and the church local must be refined and purified even today. How we have slid into lethargy, complacency, poor teaching, faulty service! We must repent, we must confess, we must bear whatever butting from the goats among the sheep, leading out the true flock of God into purer, more sublime worship.

Often Spurgeon is considered the last of the Puritans. I beg to differ with those lofty scholars. I love Spurgeon as much as anyone, but I dare say no one can rightfully hold that title. There are Puritans among us today: may we follow them with holy joy as they teach our generation to know God like never before.

Have I convinced you to read the Puritans? I hope so. Their abundant writings are available in many places, although the main publishers selling their works are Banner of Truth, Reformation Heritage Books and Crossway. Monergism has an immense electronic library available for free. I especially recommend Banner of Truth’s Puritan Paperbacks, a series of paperbacks (of course) by all different authors, each around 2-300 pages. They have done an amazing job of modernizing some of the writing and annotating mentions and words with which our highly uneducated society is no longer familiar. While all have been a blessing, The Incomparableness of God by George Swinnock holds a very, very special place in my heart. Crossway has a series called Short Classics which have been wonderful for introducing our children to Puritan writings. Thomas Watson’s work A Body of Divinity which purpose is to exegete the Westminster Shorter Catechism is a delightful, wonderful work. A few pages read aloud as a family each day is also a great way to wade into these deep waters.

So the Puritans didn’t just eat turkey. They revolutionized their own country and established another. They suffered for their beliefs, but kept on believing, writing and sharing their convictions not only with their world, but with you and me. They knew God and loved Him before and beyond anything else.