J. I. Packer on the Puritans

To call someone a Puritan is rarely a compliment in modern vernacular. Even in the days that Puritans roamed the earth, the term was intended to be a dismissive insult, designed to marginalize those who were seeking to reform the practices of the Church of England and improve the morality of society in general.

I remember my high school English teacher intentionally skipping the Puritans in American literature because it was “too boring.” Of course, what typically remains when that era gets covered is a sample like Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” That’s a sermon that needs the context of Edwards’ broader works, an understanding of Reformed soteriology, and the Christianized culture of the colonies to understand. Inevitably deprived of that framing, it feeds the continued misunderstanding of the Puritan thinkers and their culture.

What we do learn about the Puritans is typically from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, which emphases the second word of its genre: historical fiction. Or, there is a fascination with the Salem Witch Trials, which occurred in the late 17th century. At one point in our recent materialist history, Witch Trials were to be scorned because they were overly superstitious––“Of course there are no such things as witches.” Now they are to be scorned because witches are real, but good.

In any case, for most of our culture, the word Puritan conjures something more akin to the progressive fever dream from The Handmaid’s Tale than anything representative of an actual Puritan.

J. I. Packer’s book, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, is a recovery of the Puritan tradition from a scholar and one who might be considered a modern Puritan. This book is an edited collection of his papers and essays on Puritans from his productive career—still 30 years before his death.

Awareness of Death

It is clear from the beginning that Packer writes as a fan of the Puritans. For many people, obviously, that’s a non-starter, close to rehabilitating a diminutive German Fuhrer as a humanitarian. They live up to few of our contemporary standards of cultural morality. However, for many Christians that’s what makes them refreshing to study—especially with a critical eye, as Packer does.

According to Packer, a central plank of the Puritan life-platform was an awareness of death. He notes, “Few of us, I think, live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way that the Puritans did, and we lose out as a result” (14). Many women died in childbirth, and many children never made it past infancy. When half of your children die without reaching physical maturity, it tends to keep the brevity of life in constant view.

This constant awareness of death shaped the Puritan mindset. This drove them to be something like monks. Packer writes, “They lived by ‘method’ (we would say, by a rule of life), planning and proportioning their time with care, not so much to keep bad things out as to make sure that they got all the good and important things in––necessary wisdom, then as now, for busy people!” (24).

The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.

Considering the Anthology

In the twenty chapters of A Quest for Godliness, Packer covers a lot of ground. His approach is occasional rather than systematic, though when you put these essays together in one volume, something like a system appears. There is also some repetition of thoughts throughout the books––more than would be present for a single volume on the topic.

For the average reader, Leland Ryken’s book, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were, is an accessible introduction. His approach to the topic is systematic, thorough, and invested in their literature. And yet, it is a thoroughly engaging read. Ryken’s volume, published the same year as Packers, would be a better place for readers to start, but for those already familiar with some Puritan theologians and thinking, Packer’s insights are invaluable.

All the essays in Packer’s volume are interesting and helpful. What is most helpful, though, is the general theme of a life focused on pursuit of Christlikeness that flows through the entire work. In their families, their preaching, their view of Scripture, and their treatment of Sundays, the prevailing focus is learning to experience in this life a greater sense of the grandeur of the glorious God they would see face to face in the next life. As such, they were constantly trying to become what they would day supernaturally be formed to be. That theme rises through Packer’s essays so that The Quest for Godliness serves as much as a source of spiritual refreshment as it does a theological and cultural corrective.

A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life

By Packer, J. I.

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