Editor’s Note: The following is the complete chapter as it appeared in R. Scott Clark, ed., Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 365-97. In 2021, the publisher returned the publication rights to the copyright holder and the chapter is presented here as a service to the public by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The material is copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to link to this chapter but you are not entitled to reproduce it in any way without permission of the copyright holder.
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Introduction
The twenty-first century is not the first to witness English-speaking theologians in the Reformed tradition expressing dissatisfaction with the Reformation’s doctrine of justification through faith alone on the ground of Christ’s righteousness and sacrifice alone. The seventeenth century, in the aftermath of the Puritan Commonwealth that gave us the Westminster Standards, not only found monarchs returning to the British throne but also—even more significantly, in the long run—the rise of a new direction in homiletics, driven by changing theological convictions and a desire for a civil, moral society. This seventeenth-
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century shift has sobering implications for today’s preachers in the midst of the current justification controversy.1
In 1678 John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress introduced to the English-speaking world an unforgettable allegory that would chronicle the great themes of the Christian religion.2 An early character that emerges in the tale is Mr. Worldly Wiseman, a restful looking gentleman who, upon meeting the protagonist, Christian, offered to him the best solution for removing the burden that was overwhelming his soul. Although his guide, Evangelist, had told Christian to go on a different course on his way to the Celestial City, Christian is invited by this apparent sage to turn aside to a village named Morality. Here he would meet a gentleman by the name of Legality, and his son, Civility, who could help Christian remove his heavy burden through a rational understanding of what brought happiness in this life. Worldly Wiseman thus encourages Christian to forsake the unnecessary suffering that Evangelist had recommended and to pursue happiness through morality and civility. As Evangelist would later explain to Christian, however, Worldly Wiseman represented a religion that would not free him, but ultimately keep him in bondage.3
Thinking lightly of sin, and consequently of the cross, Worldly Wiseman thus represented to the Puritan Bunyan the religion of seventeenth-century Anglican Latitudinarianism, which taught that salvation was found in obedience to the chief commands of the law of God and in living a decent moral life, that is, trusting Legality and Civility to remove any remnant of discomfort in this life and in the life to come. How could so sharp a contrast to the soteriology of the
1. I would like to thank Dennis E. Johnson for reading and editing an earlier draft of this essay.
2. Refusing to submit to the new church laws established at the restoration of the Anglican Church in 1660, John Bunyan was arrested and eventually imprisoned for twelve years. Upon his release, Bunyan began to document the problems, as he saw it, of the theology and practice of the new regime that encompassed both church and state. The result was this allegory in which a dreamer describes a man, Christian, on a pilgrimage searching for an escape from the impending destruction that awaits him and his family. In ten short years, The Pilgrim’s Progress would undergo twelve editions and eventually become so admired that it would be translated into over one hundred languages. See James B. Wharey’s introduction to The Pilgrim’s Progress (ed. James Wharey; 2nd ed. by Roger Sharrock; London: Oxford University Press, 1960), esp. xxv. On the legal penalties against Nonconformist ministers, see Gerald R. Cragg, Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), 50–56.
3. This portion of the tale is found in Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress, 17–25.
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Westminster Assembly achieve ascendancy in the pulpits of England within a generation of the assembly’s work? To understand the driving motivation and appeal of Latitudinarianism, we need to examine its background and its influential proponents.
In the years following the religious and political tumult of the 1640s and 1650s, a group of young pastors and preachers within the Church of England emerged to take leadership during the period known as the Restoration (1660–89)—the years in which Charles II was restored to the monarchy after some twenty years of Puritan rule under the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.4 Known originally for compromising their ecclesiastical status before and after the Restoration, the Latitudinarians—as they came to be known—numbered among them future leaders of the Restoration Church of England such as Edward Stillingfleet and John Tillotson. In a seminal work on the Latitudinarian movement of the Restoration period, Martin Griffin analyzes this group of seventeenth-century English church divines as sharing similar characteristics:
- orthodoxy in the historical sense of acceptance of the contents of the traditional Christian creeds
- conformity to the Church of England as by law established, with its Episcopal government, its Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Book of Common Prayer
- an advocacy of reason in religion
- theological minimalism
- an Arminian scheme of justification
- an emphasis on practical morality above creedal speculation
and precision - a distinctive sermon style
- certain connections with seventeenth-century science and
the Royal Society5
4. For more on the Restoration see I. M. Green, The Restablishment of the Church of England, 1660–1663 (Oxford Historical Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); and J. Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).
5. Martin Griffin, Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England (ed. Lila Freedman; Leiden: Brill, 1992), vii. See also William Spellman, The Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 1660–1700 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1993); John Marshall, “The
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Tillotson became one of the foremost leaders representing this new group of Anglican divines, who became known not only for their political concessions but also for their theological moderation and congenial temperament.
For Latitudinarians like Tillotson, there emerged a growing conviction that the true essence of Christianity consisted of preaching and practicing God’s moral demands and duties. The hallmarks of the Latitudinarian message were the moral prescriptions of religion, the excellence and necessity of moral virtue, and the reasonableness of Christianity. Though much of their influence came through the press, most Latitudinarians utilized their pulpits to endorse and exemplify the theological ideals that motivated this moralistic message—a message that at the end of the day consisted of a series of “dos” and “don’ts.” In doing so, men like Tillotson helped shape the intellectual and ecclesiastical trends of the day. It was primarily through his preaching that Tillotson articulated a clear vision of a religion that possessed the assurance and order that the Restoration mind and soul desired.
Why this analysis of Anglican preaching during the late seventeenth century? The nature and practice of moralistic preaching that occurred during the Restoration seem to have striking similarities to the kind of preaching we often hear today in our pulpits. Though often unintentional, preachers preach messages that implicitly or explicitly state that by practicing virtue, on the one hand, or by avoiding vice, on the other, one can procure divine blessing.6 One author writes: “It is easy to become moralistic when preaching. While there is nothing wrong with preaching morality, in contrast, moralism is legalistic, ignores the grace of God, and replaces the work of Christ with self-help.”7 Bryan Chapell rightly calls this type of preaching “sub-Christian”:
Ecclesiology of the Latitude-men, 1660–1689: Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Hobbism,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985): 407–27; John Spurr, “‘Latitudinarianism’ and the Restoration Church,” Historical Journal 31 (1988): 61–82; and Barbara Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law, and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 74–118.
6. See the following for more on the problem of moralizing in preaching: Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 163–66; and Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 280–86.
7. Jay Adams, Preaching with Purpose (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 146 (emphasis original).
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A message that merely advocates morality and compassion remains sub-Christian even if the preacher can prove that the Bible demands such behaviors. By ignoring the sinfulness of man that makes even our best works tainted before God and by neglecting the grace of God that makes obedience possible and acceptable, such messages necessarily subvert the Christian message.8
This was exactly the type of preaching Latitudinarians like Tillotson epitomized. This moralistic preaching, however, was not produced in a vacuum. It emerged from particular theological convictions— convictions that included a dismissal of key Reformation doctrines such as the sinful depravity of man, justification by faith alone apart from works, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer based on Jesus’s active obedience to the law of God. The moralistic preaching developed primarily by Anglican Latitudinarians during the Restoration period emerged from a deliberate theological shift away from essential Reformation doctrines.
This historical case study should provide a corrective to the inadequate and insufficient preaching that occurs in pulpits today. My analysis will begin by looking at the two major types of preaching in seventeenth-century England, metaphysical preaching and Puritan preaching, which gave rise to the moralistic preaching found during the Restoration. This will be followed by examination of the nature and practice of moralistic preaching best exemplified by the leaders of Restoration Latitudinarian preaching, Benjamin Whichcote and John Tillotson. And I will conclude with the importance of a Christ-centered hermeneutic and homiletic as a corrective to moralistic preaching.
Seventeenth-Century Preaching in England
Though John Tillotson was a tireless defender of the Anglican religion against irreligion, enthusiasm, and superstition, he saw himself first as a preacher and pastor. As one of the foremost preachers during the Restoration, Tillotson emerged a key figure in the new style of
8. Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, 268.
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preaching that developed during the mid- to late seventeenth century. Gilbert Burnet describes Tillotson’s extensive influence:
His notions of Morality were fine and sublime; His thread of Reasoning, was easy, clear, and solid; He was not only the best Preacher of the age, but seemed to have brought Preaching to perfection; His sermons were so well heard and liked, and so much read, that all the Nation proposed him as a Pattern, and studied to copy after him.9
This new “plain style” of preaching, as it came to be known, was part of a larger methodological and stylistic program that included the emergence of the Royal Society and the linguistic contributions of John Wilkins. It was an exposition and rhetoric that eventually dominated late-seventeenth-century Anglican pulpit discourse, though it was also denounced by some High Church Anglicans and exploited by deists.
This new rhetoric of preaching that Tillotson endorsed and exemplified was especially influenced by two elements: the emergence of a new scientific discourse and a reaction to prevailing approaches to preaching.10 Tillotson, along with other Latitudinarian preachers, reacted to the two major styles of preaching that were popular in the first half of the sixteenth century: the metaphysical preaching of Anglican clergy like John Donne and—what he considered to be—the speculative preaching of the Puritans. As such, the Latitudinarian preaching of Tillotson involved a degree of change not only in content but also in style and emphasis—he hoped to replace the ornate and flowery rhetoric of the metaphysical divines as well as the obscure and intangible doctrinal preaching of the Puritans. Central to this
9. Gilbert Burnet, History of His Own Time (2nd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1833), 4.242. See also idem, A Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Most Reverend Father in God John by the Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate, and Metropolitan of All England (London, 1694), 13–14.
10. The scientists affiliated with the Royal Society emphatically denounced the prevailing style of ornate language and endorsed the need for a simpler, more direct manner of expression. This plain style was a characteristic feature of the new science at the Royal Society from its very inception in 1662. Richard Jones demonstrates persuasively that this deliberate shift in rhetoric and prose was initiated and carried out by members of the Royal Society, who in most cases were clerics deeply interested in science; see The Seventeenth Century: Studies in the History of English Thought and Literature from Bacon to Pope (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1951), 75–110.
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shift in religious language and sensibility during the Restoration was an adjustment from the prominence on biblical mystery and metaphysical doctrines to “tangible” moral exhortations and adages in the preaching of the Latitudinarians.11 Tillotson stood at the forefront of this change in rhetoric and reality.
To understand this revision of homiletic theory and practice and the consequential shift in religious sensibility, two questions need to be asked: What was this new plain style and how did it differ from previous styles of preaching? Why did Latitudinarian preachers like Tillotson break from these previous styles?
From the early 1660s, a remarkable change emerged in preaching style and method through the influence of prominent preachers such as Tillotson. Isabel Rivers argues persuasively that this change in preaching method and style was a “planned programme” after the Restoration.12 In the mind of certain Latitudinarian preachers, the elaborate and “witty” preaching of earlier Anglicans like Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, as well as the speculative and enthusiastic preaching of the Puritans, needed be replaced by a simpler style of sermons.13
From the book Ecclesiastes by John Wilkins (1614–72) to the essays by Edward Fowler (1632–1714), Latitudinarians described not only the differences between Puritan and Latitudinarian modes of preaching but also the anticipated success of this type of preaching for audiences.14 To understand this “planned programme” of the
11. It is important to bear in mind that for many Latitudinarians this shift was not a complete abandonment of biblical mysteries; rather, it was a change in the emphasis and degree those topics received. For more, see Julius J. Kim, “The Religion of Reason and the Reason for Religion: John Tillotson and the Latitudinarian Defense of Christianity, 1630–1694” (PhD diss., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2003), esp. chap. 5.
12. See Isabel Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), esp. 37–59.
13. Some useful studies on this change in preaching include Jackson I. Cope, Joseph Glanvill: Anglican Apologist (St. Louis: Committee on Publications, Washington University, 1956), chap. 7; Jones, Seventeenth Century, 111–42; Rolf P. Lessenich, Elements of Pulpit Oratory in Eighteenth-Century England, 1660–1800 (Cologne: Bohlau, 1972); W. Fraser Mitchell, English Pulpit Oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson (London: SPCK, 1932), chaps. 8–9; Irène Simon, Three Restoration Divines: Barrow, South, Tillotson, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1967), chap. 1; and George Williamson, Seventeenth Century Contexts (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), 202–39.
14. John Wilkins, Ecclesiastes; or, A Discourse concerning the Gift of Preaching (rev. ed.; London, 1669); Simon Patrick, A Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Non-Conformist (London, 1669); Edward Fowler, Principles and Practices (London, 1699); idem, Design of Christianity (London, 1668); John Eachard, The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy
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men of “latitude,” two major preaching styles prior to the onset of the Restoration must be explored: the so-called metaphysical preaching exemplified by Anglicans like Donne and the Puritan preaching of men like William Perkins.15
Metaphysical Preaching
For the enigmatic term metaphysical preachers, Horton Davies provides the best definition of a particular group of men who dominated English pulpits during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: “The unfamiliar term describes a large and lively group of at least forty-one Anglican preachers who flourished in the last decade of the sixteenth and the first four decades of the seventeenth century, and who were renowned for their wit, learning, eloquence, and loyalty to the Church and Nation.”16 He continues by noting that the term metaphysical does
and Religion Inquired Into (London, 1670); James Arderne, Directions concerning the Matter and Stile of Sermons (ed. John Mackay; 1671; repr. Oxford: Blackwell, 1952); Joseph Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London, 1676), 41–46 no. 7; and idem, An Essay concerning Preaching and a Sensible Defence of Preaching (London, 1678).
15. J. W. Blench writes that three main styles can be differentiated in English preaching in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: (1) the plain but not colloquial style, using few illustrative material and artificial word patterns; (2) the colloquial style, using “racy and pungent speech idiom” and illustrations, but avoiding word patterns; and (3) the ornate style with highly embellished word patterns and illustrations “aiming directly at oratorical display”; Preaching in England in the late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Study of English Sermons, 1450–c. 1600 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964), 113. The enormous amount of sermons and the length of time covered in the study could weaken Blench’s attempt to categorize. Nonetheless, he persuasively argues for these three general kinds of styles. Since, however, the difference between the first and second type of styles is a matter of degree and not kind, I combine the two styles into one category. Thus, generally speaking, the Puritans can be grouped under the first two styles, while the metaphysical preachers can be classified as the third style. Lisa Gordis’s new work, Opening Scripture: Bible Reading and Interpretive Authority in Puritan New England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), though focusing on the New England context, provides helpful background to the sources and development of Puritan preaching. For further study, see some of the works listed in note 6 above and the following works on Dissent: James E. Bradley, Religion, Revolution, and English Radicalism: Nonconformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Richard L. Greaves, “Enemies under His Feet”: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664–1667 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990); idem, Secrets of the Kingdom: British Radicals from the Popish Plot to the Revolution of 1688–1689 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992); and Michael Watts, The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985).
16. Horton Davies, Like Angels from a Cloud: The English Metaphysical Preachers, 1588– 1645 (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1986), 7.
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not entail the idea that they were merely philosophical preachers who emphasized the role of the rational mind in the acquisition of truth. Rather, it is a reference to “metaphysical poets” like Donne who used their wit, learning, and striking imagery in their sermons as they did in their poetry.17 Davies notes eleven characteristics that distinguished this style of preaching from its major alternative—what Davies calls the “Puritan plain” style:
- wit
- patristic citations and references
- the use of classical literature and history
- illustrations from “unnatural” natural history
- quotations in Greek and Latin, and etymology
- principles of biblical exegesis
- sermon structure and divisions
- the Senecan style
- paradoxes, riddles, and emblems
- speculative doctrines and arcane knowledge
- relating doctrinal and devotional preaching to the liturgy and
the calendar of the Christian year18
From one of the earliest and most influential metaphysical divines, Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626), we have some of these characteristics epitomized in a Christmas-day sermon:
The Word, by whom all things were made, to come to be made it selfe . . . what flesh? The flesh of an infant. What, Verbum Infans, the Word an Infant? The Word and not be able to speake a word? How borne, how entertained? In a stately Palace, Cradle of Ivorie, Robes of estate? No: but a stable for his Palace; a manger for his Cradle; poore clouts for his array. This was His beginning. . . . Is His end any better, (that Maketh up all:) what flesh then? Cujus livore sanati, blacke and blew, bloudie and swolne; rent and torne;
17. Ibid., 7. The term metaphysical was first used by Samuel Johnson (1709–84) in the critical way denouncing the pretentious display of learning, use of artificial images, and cleverness that only obscured the meaning of Scripture’s clear and obvious truths. But many others affirmed the style for the challenge it presented to the prevailing methods of preaching, which were facile and unlearned.
18. Ibid., 49.
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the thornes, and nayles sticking to his flesh: And such flesh He was made. . . . Love respects it not, cares not, what flesh he be made, so the flesh be made by it.19
In sum, the metaphysical preaching of late-sixteenth- and early- seventeenth-century Anglican England represented the pinnacle of an ornate style of preaching that featured such qualities as clever wit and verbal imagery, complicated sermon structure and divisions, excessive amounts of ancient citations and classical literature, and the use of paradoxes and riddles.
Puritan Preaching
According to J. I. Packer, the label Puritan was coined in the early 1560s as a term of derision implying “peevishness, censoriousness, conceit, and a measure of hypocrisy, over and above its basic implication of religiously motivated discontent with what was seen as Elizabeth’s Laodicean and compromising Church of England.”20 Many caricatures and misinterpretations have emerged concerning the religious culture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Puritanism, but historical scholarship has reassessed what exactly Puritanism was and is.21 One
19. Lancelot Andrewes, XCVI Sermons (London, 1629), 47–48. Another accomplished representative of this style was preacher/poet John Donne (1571–1631), who preached the following sermon the Sunday before Good Friday: “That God, this Lord, the Lord of life could dye, is a strange contemplation; That the red Sea could bee drie, That the Sun could stand still, That an Oven could be seaven times heat and not burne, That Lions could be hungry and not bite, is strange, miraculously strange, but supermiraculous that God could dye; but that God would dye is an exaltation of that. But even of that it is a superexaltation, that God shold dye, must dye, and non exitus (said S. Augustin) God the Lord had no issue but by death, oportuit pati (says Christ himself) all this Christ ought to suffer. . . . There we leave you in the blessed dependancy, to hang upon him that hangs upon the Crosse, there bath in his teares, there suck at his woundes, and lye down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that Kingdome, which hee hath purchas’d for you, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. amen”; The Sermons of John Donne (ed. G. R. Potter and E. M. Simpson; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953–62), 10.243, 248 (emphasis original).
20. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 1.
21. On the resurrection of Puritan studies in this century, see the following significant works: William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938); A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty (London: Macmillan, 1938); M. M. Knappen, Tudor Puritanism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1939); Perry Miller, The New England Mind, vol. 1: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939); Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); Peter Lake,
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of these studies, Packer’s Quest for Godliness, describes a group of generally like-minded English Protestants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries leading a spiritual movement that desired to restore to the nation a deeper passion and conviction for God and godliness.22 Central to this passion was the place of preaching. In fact, one scholar notes that “it was through the pulpit that Puritanism made its mark on the English nation in the early seventeenth century.”23
Packer concisely distinguishes Puritan sermons from other forms: they were “textual and expository, practical and applicatory, analytical and thorough. They are uniformly doctrinal—that is to say, their real subject is always God and his ways, even when the formal object of consideration is man. And together they show clearly what the Puritans took to be involved in preaching the gospel.”24 As such, these sermons emphasized the primacy of the intellect. Over against the increasing development of uninformed laity from the mere recitation of prepared homilies by ignorant clergy, the Puritans endorsed intellectual depth and precision in their preaching.25 The primacy of the intellect and the desire for doctrinal comprehensiveness became a hallmark of Puritan preaching.
Despite the emphasis on the intellect and doctrine, Puritan sermons were closely tied to application. Thus, William Ames would say, “First the things contained in the text must be stated. . . . In setting forth the truth in the text the minister should first explain it and then indicate the good which follows from it.”26 Additionally, according to the Directory of Publick Worship of God adopted by the Puritan Westminster Assembly,
Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and Harry Stout, The New England Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
22. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 28.
23. Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 91.
24. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 167.
25. Thus Puritans argued in Parliament for “the necessity of preaching and of a learned ministry,” and thus proposed “that some good course be taken to have a learned ministry”; Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan Movement, 312, 315.
26. William Ames, The Marrow of Theology (trans. and ed. John E. Eusden; Boston: Pilgrim, 1968), 191.
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In raising these doctrines from the text, his care ought to be, First, That the matter be the truth about God. Secondly, That it be a truth contained in, or grounded on, that text that the hearers may discern how God teacheth it from thence. Third, That he chiefly insist upon those doctrines which are principally intended, and make the most for the edification of the hearers.27
The organization of the Puritan sermon was generally uniform. The outline that appears at the end of Perkins’s Art of Prophesying serves as a model:
- To reade the Text distinctly out of the Canonicall Scriptures.
- To give the sense and understanding of it being read, by the scripture it selfe.
- To collect a few and profitable points of doctrine out of the naturall sense.
- To apply (if he have the gift) the doctrines rightly collected, to the life and manners of men, in a simple and plaine speech.28
If we take the first point—the reading of Scripture—as preliminary to the sermon proper, the structure took the form of three parts, “the exposition of a passage of Scripture . . . by collecting lessons (or ‘doctrines’) from each verse and adding the moral applications (or, ‘uses’) of them.”29 Perkins would expand on this in an excursus in his commentary on Galatians:
Know therefore, that the effectuall and powerfull preaching of the word, stands in three things. The first is, true and proper interpretation of the Scripture. . . . The second is, savory and wholesome doctrine. . . . The third is, the Application of the said doctrine, either
27. The Confession of Faith (Inverness, UK: Free Presbyterian Publications, 1983), 379.
28. William Perkins, The Workes of That Famous and Worthy Minister of Christ in the University of Cambridge M. William Perkins (London, 1612–13), 2.673.
29. Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England, 1534–1690 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 304.
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to the information of the judgement, or to the reformation of the life. This is the preaching that is of power.30
The Puritan sermon was also characterized by a simple prose style that attempted to appeal to a cross section of society. Its principal spokesman, Perkins, best expresses this plain style:
Here first wee are to observe the properties of the Ministry of the Word. The first, that it must bee plaine, perspicuous, and evident. . . . Againe, that kinde of preaching is to be blamed in which there is used a mixed kinde of variety of languages, before the unlearned. . . . And in this kinde of preaching wee doe not paint Christ, but . . . our owne selves. It is a by-word among us: It was a very plain Sermon: And I say again, the plainer, the better.31
Puritan preachers wanted the deep and rich truths of Scripture to be understood by all. The Puritan plain style was thus a means to the end of clarity.
In sum, a deep conviction and passion for the knowledge of God and the practice of godliness generally distinguished the character of Puritan preaching. Specifically, this preaching utilized a textual and expository model that also emphasized the practical application of truth to life. In style, it attempted to be plain and clear to all members of English society. Thoroughly doctrinal, Puritan preaching also sought to be meticulous and comprehensive, covering all the major doctrines concerning God and his relation to his creatures.32 One historian sums up the character of Puritan preaching as follows: “It was the genius of the Puritan preaching that in style it was plain without being dull; in emphasis, an admirable balance of doctrine and practice; in character, faithfully devoted to the exposition of the word of Scripture, both letter and spirit, which they loved.”33 By con-
30. Perkins, Workes of That Famous and Worthy Minister, 2.222.
31. Ibid.
32. For more on the development of Puritan preaching, see Joseph A. Pipa Jr., “William Perkins and the Development of Puritan Preaching” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1985).
33. Peter Lewis, The Genius of Puritanism (Haywards Heath, UK: Carey, 1977), 47.
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trast, Latitudinarian preaching was shaped by Tillotson in reaction to Puritan preaching.34
Restoration Latitudinarian Preaching
Leading the development of the plain style of preaching exemplified most clearly during the Restoration was the work and preaching of Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83) and John Tillotson (1630–94).35 If Whichcote was the theoretician, Tillotson was the exemplar par excellence.
Whichcote and “Ingenuity”
Benjamin Whichcote enjoyed a long and influential career in both the university and the church. First as a student and later as a fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Whichcote had a hand in mentoring future leaders such as John Smith, John Wallis, and John Worthington during the 1630s and 1640s. Emmanuel at this time had grown not only in size and influence but also in reputation as an ardent patron of Puritanism.36
In spite of his Puritan experience and environment, Whichcote began to develop a sermonic discourse that challenged the prevailing emphases on Calvinistic doctrine that not only seemed to bog down the sermons of his Puritan colleagues but also seemed to produce nothing but division among fellow Christian leaders. By 1650
34. For more on the Latitudinarian reaction to metaphysical preaching, see my “Religion of Reason,” chap. 5.
35. The influence of John Wilkins must also be noted when discussing the development of Restoration Latitudinarian preaching. As Tillotson’s mentor and father-in-law, Wilkins articulated a new mode of language and communication that would revolutionize not only the way scientific papers were read and published by the Royal Society but the use of language in England.
36. In 1644, when Whichcote was appointed provost at King’s College, no less than eleven Emmanuel graduates occupied the leadership of colleges in Cambridge. During his time at Cambridge, Whichcote also preached extensively as the lecturer at Trinity Church from 1636 to 1656, succeeding the ministries of Puritans Thomas Goodwin and John Preston. Even after his ejection from the post at King’s College in 1660, Whichcote continued his ministry in two London churches: St. Anne’s Blackfriars and St. Lawrence Jewry. See James B. Mullinger, “Benjamin Whichcote,” in Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921), 21.1–3.
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Whichcote began to elaborate on the implications of a concept he called “ingenuity,” which revealed his desire to showcase the virtue of a reasonable Christianity and the benefits of using “right reason” in religious matters. These views were related to his view that man had essentially a “good nature” and could thus reasonably live a virtuous life based upon both the light of nature and the light of Scripture. Not to be confused with the word ingenious, meaning clever, resourceful, or imaginative, ingenuity as used by Whichcote referred to man’s natural ability of critical reasoning that provided the foundation for religion.37 He argued that in contrast to the implicit faith endorsed by Rome, the Christian possesses—by virtue of his being created in the image of God—divine rationality. This is evidenced by man being able to comprehend not only natural religion in an intelligible way but also the truths of revealed religion as found in Scripture.38 Thus, man’s religion, from beginning to end, is rational.39
Unfortunately for Whichcote, this concept of ingenuity unleashed a series of critical letters from Puritan Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670), his former tutor at Emmanuel College. Tuckney was concerned that the term ingenuity carried with it a challenge to the Puritan conviction that grace was necessary for the justification of the helpless sinner. By opposing nature and grace, reason and faith, Whichcote was undermining the Calvinist doctrines of total depravity and imputed righteousness. Tuckney believed that substituting ingenuity and a
37. Robert Greene argues persuasively about the prominence and importance of this word to Whichcote’s thinking; “Whichcote, Wilkins, ‘Ingenuity,’ and the Reasonableness of Christianity,” Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 227–52. He notes that the word ingenuity, in one form or another, appears 107 times in the course of 97 sermons. Furthermore, Whichcote’s contemporaries also noted the importance of this word to his thinking. In fact, the well-known series of letters between Whichcote and Tuckney begins with a sarcastic remark by Tuckney concerning ingenuity: “I doe not fancy as some others, this affected word Ingenuous: and I wish, the thing itself was not idolized; to the prejudice of Saving Grace”; Whichcote, Letters, quoted in Moral and Religious Aphorisms (ed. Samuel Salter; London: Payne, 1753), 1–2.
38. Whichcote, Letters, 239.
39. It is important to note that Whichcote’s optimistic view of man’s rational faculties as an alternative to the Reformation’s emphasis on sovereign grace and trust in Christ’s extrinsic righteousness is different that the alternative to views proposed by Norman Shepherd and those who advocate the federal vision. There is a point of contact, however, in the redirection of the believer back to one’s own resources and efforts (aided, of course, by divine grace) and an opti- mism that these efforts and resources are sufficient to enable the believer to make a significant contribution to the salvation process. I am indebted to Dennis E. Johnson for this insight.
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virtuous morality for the saving grace of Christ was misleading and dangerous.
The Whichcote/Tuckney Correspondence
The eight letters that passed between Tuckney and Whichcote in 1651 highlight the distinctions between Puritan and Latitudinarian convictions, methods, and conclusions in preaching.40 The occasion for Tuckney’s first letter to Whichcote was the concern that Tuckney felt about Whichcote’s endorsement and example of a religious rationalism that seemed to harm an orthodox view of sin, salvation, and sanctification. Tuckney was referring to two commencement sermons that Whichcote gave in 1651 in which his former student seemed to attack his own commencement sermons delivered in 1650.
After preaching in Boston during the 1630s and 1640s, Tuckney returned to England to serve as a member of the Westminster Assembly from 1643 to 1648. In 1645 he was appointed master of Emmanuel College, which at that time enjoyed the reputation of being the bastion of Puritan faith and learning at Cambridge University. Already by 1648, Tuckney began to criticize those in Cambridge who preached the benefits of ingenuity in religious understanding. He felt that there were dangers in substituting the seemingly salvific use of right reason and virtuous morality for the saving grace of Christ.41
40. The letters between Tuckney and Whichcote are found in Whichcote’s Moral and Religious Aphorisms. The letters have also been summarized and interpreted by the following works: John Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1872), 2.45–98; J. B. Mullinger, The University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 3.588–96; H. C. Porter, Reformation and Reaction in Tudor Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 414–29; and J. D. Roberts, From Puritanism to Platonism in Seventeenth Century England (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969), 42–65.
41. That this new ethos was a serious problem in and around Cambridge is evident by Tuckney’s reference to the spirit that his former student seemed to be supporting and stimulating: “Or if any be more ingenuous, and (as you call it) a little better-natured, that with him in the Gospel, they be not far from the Kingdom of Heaven. Mark 12:34 yet even that, rested in, keeps them from ever coming up to Jesus Christ. Pity that Rachel should die, when it was now but a little way to come to Ephrath, that an Almost should altogether keep so many a towardly Man from Heaven: But a thousand pities that my drawing so near the Goal should set me down as having done far enough, and so keep me from ever attaining the Prize, that Ingenuity, because it’s so near akin to Grace, should prove so Disingenuous, as to keep a Man from ever being truly Gracious”; Forty Sermons (London, 1676), 529 (emphasis original).
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Later, in his commencement sermon of 1650, Tuckney continued his condemnation of “our ingenuous loving-hearted Arminian’s charity.”42 As a prominent figure in Cambridge during these years, Tuckney felt the responsibility to defend what he understood to be the middle way of Calvinism between the twin dangers of the Antinomians, whose rejection of the continuing obligation to the moral law under the gospel involved a rejection of the rational tradition of the natural law, and those who exalted right reason and ingenuity at the expense of free grace and faith.
For his part, Whichcote preached a sermon in 1651 that praised ingenuity.43 The day after this sermon, Tuckney wrote to Whichcote and initiated the correspondence that lasted only a few short months. The letters show Tuckney’s concern that Whichcote’s use of the word ingenuity was damaging to the Puritan convictions about man’s depravity and helplessness and the consequent need for salvation solely by the free grace of God through the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith alone. Furthermore, for Tuckney, both the general claims for ingenuity, as well as the apparent opposition of orthodoxy to ingenuity, were nothing but veiled attempts to secure further freedom for a “liberty of speech” that only undercut the solidity of confessional beliefs and of the language of theology, which were essential for maintaining the purity of Christian doctrine.
Whichcote responded by denying that he was attempting to change and harm the doctrines related to salvation by grace: “If I have done prejudice to saving grace, by idolizing natural ingenuity; the Lord reprove it in me.”44 He also reassured Tuckney that he was not elevating nature at the expense of grace: “I abhorre and detest from my
42. Tuckney warned his audience that these are days when “everyone may speake and write the vain Phancies of his own heart, and impune and spread foulest heresies and blasphemies” and when systems, confessions of faith, and forms of belief are rejected in favor of “that Helena of theirs, their libertas prophetandi”; A Good Day Well Improved (London, 1656), 253, 258, 251; quoted in Greene, “Whichcote, Wilkins,” 232–33.
43. Whichcote stated: “The proposal for progress and growth in knowledge—That an ingenuous-spirited Christian, after application to God, and diligent use of meanes to find-out truth; might fairely propose, without offense taken, what upon search he finds cause to beleeve; and whereon he will venture his own soule. This (I said) might be converse to mutual edification; and without disturbance to the world; and so I have long thought; and do continue to think so still” (Letters, 13).
44. Ibid., 8.
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soul all creature-magnifying self-sufficiencie.”45 Though Whichcote’s intent may have been genuine, Tuckney was not convinced. After all, Whichcote would acknowledge Christ “in parts of nature, reason and understanding; as well as in gifts of grace.”46
One can see the trouble that Tuckney had with Whichcote’s convictions, methods, and conclusions. In fact, though the correspondence ended, Tuckney would continue his debate in public. His 1652 commencement sermon includes references to the “Platonick faith (as some call it),” “the sublimated Deists of our Age,” and the “compleat Moralist . . . who looks at faith, but as a notion, and at an imputed righteousnesse, as a putatitous ridiculous absurdity. His rational and virtuous morality is his Religion.”47 Tuckney’s Puritan convictions of man’s sinful state and of his need for alien righteousness are far removed from the language and sentiments of Whichcote’s definition of religion: “Religion produceth a sweet and gracious Temper of Mind; calm in its self, and loving to Men. It causeth a Universal Benevolence and Kindness to Mankind. For, these are the things of which it doth consist; Love, Candour, Ingenuity, Clemency, Patience, Mildness, Gentleness, and all other Instances of good-nature.”48 In Tillotson’s sermons, the repercussions of this shift in religious language and, consequently, Christian doctrine would echo in the years following the Restoration.
Tillotson the Preacher
Though Tillotson’s ministry as a preacher began in humble parishes in the countryside, most of his sermons were usually addressed to learned, wealthy, and politically important audiences in the city of London. In the early 1660s, however, after the ejection of more than two thousand Puritan ministers from their pulpits, Tillotson attempted to introduce this new preaching emphasis to his new congregation in the country, who, according to Thomas Birch, did not receive it favorably. After all, they were used to the Puritan way of doing things.
45. Ibid., 100.
46. Ibid., 126.
47. Anthony Tuckney, None But Christ (London, 1654), 12, 45, 45.
48. Benjamin Whichcote, Select Sermons (London, 1698), 431.
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They “universally complain’d, that Jesus Christ had not been preach’d amongst them, since Mr. Tillotson had been settled in the parish.”49 These early hearers of Tillotson sermons would not be alone in their assessment of Tillotson’s moralistic preaching devoid of the Puritan emphases on redemption and salvation. Later, however, his preaching in the city gained popularity, especially among the clergy.50
Upon hearing his sermons, many Puritans challenged that they were nothing but moral essays. Arguably, many of his extant 254 sermons emphasize not only the rational coherence of the Christian religion but also the practical morality that results from logical scriptural truths. In this, Tillotson continued the thought of one of his mentors, John Wilkins, who wrote in his primer on preaching, Ecclesiastes, that the sermon should be divided into three parts: explication, confirmation, and application.51 Reason plays an important role in confirmation or “proofs.” Wilkins recommends that “the Arguments from Reason, should be rendered so plain and so cogent, as may be sufficient to satisfie any teachable man, concerning the truth, or fitness, or necessity of what we would persuade to.”52 In this, Wilkins continued the tradition of Whichcote, who, while sharing the desire to preach logically and plainly with Puritan preaching, emphasized both the rational truths of the Christian religion and the ability of natural man to receive and assent to these truths.53 Tillotson continued
49. Thomas Birch, “The Life of the Author, Compiled Chiefly from His Original Papers and Letters,” in The Works of John Tillotson (London, 1752), 1.28.
50. John Beardmore wrote “many, that heard him on Sunday at Lincoln’s Inn, went joyfully to St Laurence, on Tuesday, hoping they might hear the same sermon again”; Birch, “Life of the Author,” 1.408.
51. Wilkins wrote: “The great End of Preaching, being either to inform or perswade; This may be most effectually done by such rational wayes of Explication and Confirmation, as are most fit and proper to satisfie mens judgments and consciences. And this will in all times be accounted good sense, as being suitable to the Reason of Mankind; whereas all other ways are, at the best, but particular fashions, which though at one time they may obtain, yet will presently vanish, and grow into disesteem”; Ecclesiastes, preface, A5 (emphasis original).
52. Ibid., 27.
53. There can be no doubt that an important influence upon Tillotson’s preaching was the traditional Puritan sermon style. Not only was he raised in a Puritan home and church, Tillotson was also tutored at Cambridge by David Clarkson, the eventual successor of John Owen’s influential Puritan pulpit in London. Tillotson was also a member of the Presbyterian delegation that attended the Savoy Conference just prior to the restoration of Charles II to the monarchy and Tillotson’s own transfer to the Anglican Church. His first published sermon in 1660, “A Sermon Preached at the Morning Exercises at Cripplegate,” was part of a collection of
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this agenda of preaching individual moralism for the sake of national civility.
In a sermon entitled “Of Justifying Faith,” false speculation, cant terms and phrases, and obscuring the meaning of the gospel are all associated. Tillotson argues that in their attempt to articulate justifying faith, the “enthusiasts” misuse the “resting” metaphor, thereby leading to antinomian tendencies. Restoration historian Rivers states: “For Tillotson (as for all Latitudinarians and almost all Anglicans) active repentance and obedience are conditions of justification: the use of popular non-scriptural metaphors such as ‘resting, and relying, and leaning upon christ, apprehending, and laying hold, and applying christ’ encourages moral passivity.”54 The language of “resting, relying, and leaning,” all come from standard Puritan doctrines found in the Puritan Westminster Confession of Faith (11.1–2). Tillotson’s biographer, Thomas Birch, confirms this by stating that Tillotson disliked the potentially confusing language, “as when they taught men to roll upon Christ, and act faith, and the like; the plain sense of which is, to trust in him and believe in him.”55 This was the main problem Tillotson had with Puritan theology: it was too pessimistic about the capacities of fallen humanity and thus necessitated a view of justification that eliminated man’s response to divine grace.56 Following Whichcote, Tillotson elevated the role of mankind’s rational and moral abilities so that the apparent antinomianism endorsed by the Puritans could be rooted out of English pulpits.
Tillotson’s critique of Puritan preaching continued in his sermon entitled “The Necessity of Repentance and Faith.” In responding to a potential objection that the preaching of faith in Christ is unnecessary to those who are already Christians, Tillotson responded by arguing that the faith he preached was one that included the practice of
sermons preached by Presbyterian ministers. These factors, along with Wilkins’s own affinities with the Puritan plain style, demonstrate how Tillotson was exposed to and influenced by the Puritan sermon style.
54. Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 56. See Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 9.324–27.
55. Birch, “Life of the Author,” 1.cclxxxi.
56. Tillotson’s view—that sola fide disables the motivation to pursue morality—has striking similarities to the views endorsed by critics of the Reformation view of justification.
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holiness that faith requires.57 In this way, Tillotson agreed with other Latitudinarian preachers who emphasized the relationship between faith and works and the importance of conditions for salvation. For disillusioned clergymen like Tillotson who had experienced what he believed to be the antinomian consequences of Puritan theology, religious life was essentially moral and was achieved by active human effort in cooperation with divine grace.58 In a sermon entitled “The Precepts of Christianity not Grievous,” he affirmed that God “hath commanded us nothing in the gospel that is either unsuitable to our reason, or prejudicial to our interest; nay, nothing that is severe and against the grain of our nature, but when either the apparent necessity of our interest does require it, or an extraordinary reward is promised to our obedience.”59 Every law of God was perspicuous, advantageous to our own interest, and able to be kept by the involved believer who utilized the natural and revealed knowledge that was available to every reasonable person. In this way, Tillotson was convinced he was counteracting the precarious notions put forth by Puritan preachers, especially those that were derived from Calvinistic theology.
Tillotson opposed Calvinist doctrines such as irresistible grace and imputed righteousness because they were too God-centered and God-dependent without attributing anything to man. Tillotson, for example, in delineating the four contemporary views on grace, revealed the religious context that influenced his views. The first two opinions he labeled “extreme”: (1) irresistible grace was given only to the elect, and (2) sufficient grace was offered to all. The last two views, which he labeled “middle views,” stated that (3) irresistible grace was given to the elect and sufficient grace to the rest who reject it, and (4) irresistible grace was given to the elect, sufficient grace to the rest, some of whom may accept it while some may reject it.60 After rejecting the first three alternatives, he argued that the last viewpoint was the “most agreeable both to the tenor of Scripture and to the
57. Tillotson stated: “This is the faith we would persuade men to, and there is nothing more necessary to be pressed upon the greatest part of Christians than this; for how few are there among those who profess to believe the gospel who believe it in this effectual manner, so as to conform themselves to it?”; Works of John Tillotson, 7.251.
58. Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 73.
59. Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 1.468.
60. Ibid., 5.393–96.
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best notions which men have concerning the attributes and perfections of God, and gives the greatest encouragement to the endeavors of men.”61 Tillotson articulated here the collective argument of the Latitudinarians: natural and revealed religion demonstrated persuasively what was innately rational, morally acceptable, and ultimately beneficial for man.
Tillotson also repudiated the Puritan idea that faith alone without the “fruits of holiness and obedience” justifies the sinner.62 The idea of God imputing righteousness to the sinner through the instrument of faith alone only yielded a spirit of lawlessness.63 Whichcote summarized their objection to Calvinistic doctrine: “Some men put all upon God, and say when He please to come, with Irresistible Grace, the Work will be done; and the Man shall be Converted; for who hath resisted his Will (Rom 9:19)? And till then, the Work will not be done, for they can do nothing.” Rather, he stated: “Conversion is a mutual act, and so is Faith.”64 After all, to men like Whichcote and Tillotson, history had already demonstrated the perilous antinomian results that these arcane doctrines yielded.
Tillotson expounded these Latitudinarian ideals in a collection of five sermons that he preached under the title “The Nature of Regeneration, and Its Necessity, in Order to Justification and Salvation.”65 In these sermons Tillotson repudiated the notions that described salvation as an immediate act and the believer as a passive recipient of God’s grace unto salvation. Though the importance of grace was never denied,66 grace contained the idea of virtue, just as faith contained the idea of works. Consequently, the proposal of “conditions” for salva-
61. Ibid., 5.395.
62. The whole quotation reads as follows: “For a bare assent to the truth of the gospel, without the fruits of holiness and obedience, is not a living, but a dead faith, and so far from being acceptable to God, that it is an affront to him; and a confident reliance upon Christ for salvation, while we continue in our sins, is not a justifying faith, but a bold and impudent presumption on the mercy of God”; ibid., 5.422.
63. “To forgive men upon other terms, were to give countenance and encouragement to perpetual rebellion and disobedience”; ibid., 5.423.
64. Benjamin Whichcote, Several Discourses (London, 1701–7), 1.314–15 no. 12; 2.137 no.7.
65. These sermons are found in Tillotson’s Works of John Tillotson, 5.354–426.
66. Preaching at Whichcote’s funeral, Tillotson reported that Whichcote on his deathbed “disclaimed all Merit in himself; and declared that whatever he was, he was through the Grace and Goodness of God in Jesus Christ”; Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 1.222.
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tion was not problematic even for these anti-Roman theologians.67 To him, the expression new creature signified the same idea as the expressions faith perfected by charity and keeping the commandments of God.68 Thus he categorically stated at the end of these five sermons: “And our continuance in this state of grace and favour with God, depends upon our perseverance in holiness.”69 Tillotson fused together the source of moral activity and the activity itself into one concept. As a result, grace and virtue were essentially synonymous: “Grace and virtue are but two names that signify the same thing. Virtue signifies the absolute nature and goodness of these things; grace denotes the cause and principle by which these virtues are wrought and produced . . . namely, by the free gift of god’s holy spirit to us.”70 Which word was used depended upon the perspective, whether human or divine, being considered.71
Similarly, faith was usually defined to include works-cooperation with grace. Yet Tillotson refused to be labeled a Pelagian because he did not think that man could act alone without grace. He insisted that man’s cooperation with grace was a necessary condition of salvation.72 In his sermon entitled “Of Justifying Faith,” Tillotson noted that the conditions the gospel requires for the pardon and remission of sins consisted of the following: “(1) An assent to the truth of the gospel.
67. “This condition here mentioned in the text [1 John 3:3], of our being new creatures, is the same in sense and substance with those expressions which we find in the two parallel texts to this, where faith, which is perfected by charity, and keeping the commandments of God, are made the conditions of our justification and acceptance with God”; ibid., 5.419.
68. Ibid., 5.419.
69. Ibid., 5.418. Again, Tillotson’s view here that one remains in favor with God through holy living has striking parallels with those who advocate the views of the federal vision. Tillotson continues: “As to our acceptance with God, and the rewards of another world, it matters not Jew or gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised; that which maketh the difference, is obeying the truth, or obeying unrighteousness; working good, or doing evil; these are the things which avail to our justification, or condemnation, at the great day. . . . To satisfy us that this is the tenor of the Holy Scriptures, and the constant doctrine of it from the beginning to the end (Gen. iv.7). It is God’s speech to Cain, ‘If thou dost well, shalt thou not be accepted?’ And (Rev. xxii.14): ‘Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter it through the gates of the city’”; ibid., 5.421.
70. Ibid., 8.476.
71. See Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 75–76, for this and the following section.
72. Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 5.382. Here we find parallels between Tillotson’s theology and the Council of Trent on the one hand and Norman Shepherd’s The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illumines Salvation and Evangelism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000) on the other.
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(2) A trust and confidence in Christ as our only Saviour. (3) Repentance from dead works. (4) Sincere obedience and holiness of life.”73 Elsewhere, he would expound that in the matter of faith and works the apostles Paul and James were not contradictory. In fact, unless faith included works, the truths that both of these biblical authors represented could not be reconciled. Tillotson’s biographer noted that the archbishop was planning a new book of homilies that would serve to correct some wrongheaded ideas from sixteenth-century theology: “Some expressions in the first book of Homilies, that seemed to carry justification by faith only, to a height that wanted some mitigation, were to be well examined. Furthermore, the apostle Paul’s statements on the subject were to be reconciled with those of James.”74 Tillotson sincerely desired Christianity to be simple, and practical-doctrinal disputes only confused and clouded the important issues.
Tillotson’s arguments concerning a simpler, plainer style of preaching were thus a rejoinder to what they saw as Puritan excesses in doctrine, language, and structure.75 Tillotson, following Whichcote and Wilkins, forged a new paradigm and pattern of preaching that challenged—and eventually displaced in the Church of England—the prevailing approaches of his day: metaphysical and Puritan preaching. In opposition to these styles, Tillotson’s preaching emphasized such elements as the clear and rational exposition of biblical truths, cogent argumentation of these truths to the benefit of mankind, and the concrete moral application of these truths for a civil English society. His desire was to make Christianity rationally understandable and ethically practical, regardless of the charge that his preaching was nothing but pure moralism in the guise of Christianity. Indeed, some thirty years after the initial indictment that “Jesus Christ had not been preached amongst them since Mr. Tillotson had been settled in the parish,”76 Tillotson responded in a sermon on Titus 3:2 by stating
73. Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 9.312–13.
74. Birch, “Life of the Author,” 1.367–68.
75. To some extent Puritan endorsement of a new language was a response to the needs and
assumptions of their politically and socially important audiences in the court and city. As such, Burnet could state that Charles II’s tastes aided the popularity of this plain style of preaching: “This help’d to raise the value of these men, when the King approved of the style their discourses generally ran in; which was clear, plain, and short”; History of His Own Time, 1.91.
76. Birch, “Life of the Author,” 1.xviii.
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that “I foresee what will be said, because I have heard it so often said in the like case, that there is not one word of Jesus Christ in this. No more is there in the text, and yet I hope, that Jesus Christ is truly preached, whenever his will, and laws, and the duties enjoined by the Christian religion, are inculcated among us.”77
There is no doubt, then, that Tillotson’s view of the Christian religion was fundamentally moralistic. His preaching, along with that of other Latitudinarians, represented a deliberate shift not only in preaching style, but also, more importantly, in theological commitment. Central Reformation truths, such as the sinful state of man, justification by faith alone apart from works, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness based upon his active obedience to the law of God, were rejected and redefined. This intentional program was developed and executed through Tillotson’s preaching. George Whitefield would later castigate Tillotson’s five sermons entitled “The Nature of Regeneration” in a series of letters he would write to a friend in London:
[Tillotson] intended to prove, that we must first be regenerated and sanctified, and then on Account of that Regeneration and Sanctification, that God will justify, that is, acquit, accept, and reward us. [But] the Archbishop knew of no other than a bare historical Faith: And as to the Method of our Acceptance with God through Jesus Christ, and our Justification by Faith alone (which is the Doctrine of the Scripture and the Church of England) he certainly was as ignorant thereof as Mahomet himself.78
Whitefield is not alone in his assessment that Tillotson’s moralism emerged from particular theological convictions. Others describe Tillotson’s moralism as one that emphasized a salvation of works over a salvation wrought only by faith—ultimately undermining orthodox English Reformation theology. Tillotson’s moralistic preaching, then, developed from particular theological commitments—a commitment that “had no place for a doctrine of original sin and avoided any emphasis upon an evil inheritance transmitted from Adam” and no
77. Tillotson, Works of John Tillotson, 3.275.
78. George Whitefield, Three Letters from the Reverend Mr. G. Whitefield (Philadelphia: Franklin, 1740), 3.
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place for the justification of the believer by faith alone, through the work of Christ alone.79 As a result of the influence of Tillotson and his fellow Latitudinarians, one scholar writes that “within fifty years Calvinism in England fell from a position of immense authority to obscurity and insignificance.”80 To many historians, the Restoration period was marked by the replacing of Calvinism by Arminianism and perhaps even by outright Pelagianism.81
It should not surprise us that the preaching of the Latitudinarians was moralistic. After all, in Matthew 7:17 Jesus taught this commonsense truth: “A good tree bears good fruit; a bad tree bears bad fruit.” Latitudinarian sermonic fruit developed from the roots of their theological commitments: a semi-Pelagian scheme of justification by faith plus works naturally led to moralistic preaching.82 To Latitudinarians, the Reformation had erred in emphasizing the sovereign work of God alone through the extrinsic merit of Christ alone due to its pessimistic views about fallen humanity. Thus, sola fide justification naturally leads to antinomian moral passivity. This, to Latitudinarians like Tillotson, was the inherent danger of a Puritan church and nation that was influenced by Reformation theology. The Latitudinarians wanted to reestablish the English church and nation upon principles that were rational, ethical, and civil. In this way, the nation would be spared the bloodshed and turmoil that engrossed the English people for over one hundred years.
So, while the rise of moralistic preaching within the seventeenth-century Church of England is understandable given the theological convictions and political goals of groups like the Latitudinarians, what is surprising is when we hear today—from preachers who profess allegiance to key Reformation truths—messages that call on believers to work out their salvation through good works without grounding
79. R. Buick Knox, “Bishops in the Pulpit in the Seventeenth Century: Continuity and Change,” in Reformation, Conformity, and Dissent: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Nuttall (ed. R. B. Knox; London: Epworth, 1977), 101.
80. Gerald R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), 30.
81. J. H. Plumb asserts that “evil and guilt, sin and redemption—the whole personal drama and appeal of religion—was forgotten or rationalized away”; England in the Eighteenth Century (London: Penguin, 1950), 44–45.
82. For a good description of historic semi-Pelagian thought, see J. N. D. Kelly’s Early Christian Doctrines (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 370–72.
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these efforts in the finished work of Christ in their stead. One author writes, “By making our efforts the measure and the cause of godliness evangelicals fall victim to the twin assaults of legalism and liberalism, which make our relationship with God dependent on human goodness.”83 Yet this is precisely what happens when preachers today have doubts about the power of sola fide to produce assurance and holiness. Saved by grace alone, by faith alone, in the work of Christ alone—these were truths that Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin took pains to comprehend and confess. These truths were not developed in a vacuum, however, but were borne out of a faithful reading of Scripture. If sermon titles like “Seven Laws of a Healthy Marriage” or “You Better Be Humble or You Will Stumble” are any indication of the current trends in evangelical preaching today, it seems that a new reformation is needed to recapture the methods and goals of the Reformers in their interpretation of Scripture.
Christ-Centered Hermeneutics and Homiletics
One of the remedies for the lack of Reformation truths heard in preaching today is to be reminded of how to interpret or rightly divide the word of God. It is helpful to recall how the Reformers interpreted the word of God. The Reformers sought to recover the central message of the Bible that Rome had misread and misunderstood. With the apostle Paul, Luther and Calvin believed that the central message of the entire Bible was “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3–4 NIV). They believed that the person and work of Jesus Christ must be central to our hermeneutics and our homiletics.
What is Christ-centered hermeneutics and homiletics? Christ-centered interpretation of Scripture resulting in Christ-centered preaching is just that, centered on Christ—his perfect life, sacrificial death, and vindicating resurrection. Only an understanding that the whole Bible is God’s story of redeeming humanity from the wages of
83. Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, 281.
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their sin through the person and work of his covenant-keeping Son, Jesus Christ, gives us the right start and finish to all of our sermons. Scripture itself teaches us how to interpret Scripture. From the very beginning of our exegesis to the application of Scripture’s truths to the hearts and lives of our hearers, Christ then becomes the alpha and the omega of our sermon preparation and delivery. One author writes:
To preach the passages . . . as they were intended to be preached, Christ must be exalted as the One who not only has effected our justification (the declaration by God that in Him we are counted perfect), but also has made sanctification possible by sending His Spirit to enable us to understand God’s revealed will and to empower us to do it.84
As he correctly states, by focusing our interpretation and proclamation on the telos of Scripture, Jesus Christ, we can guard ourselves from the kind of moralistic preaching that plagued the Latitudinarians and threatens to plague the church today. Some key concepts— the role of biblical theology and the function of the law and gospel distinction in our preaching—aid us in the proper interpretation and proclamation of Scripture as it centers on Christ.85
In the introduction to his Biblical Theology, Geerhardus Vos argues that rather than being a loose collection of unrelated moral stories and religious poems, the Bible itself contains a consistent message.86 He and others correctly argue that the Bible is God’s revelation of his own words and deeds in history to accomplish his redemptive plans for mankind.87 From the beginning of Genesis to the close of the Revelation, God speaks and acts within time, space, and history
84. Adams, Preaching with Purpose, 150.
85. Obviously more than these two themes are important for the proper interpretation of Scripture. Because the law/gospel discussed in chapter 12 below, I will focus on the first of these two.
86. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948).
87. See also the following: Herman Ridderbos, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures (rev. ed.; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1988); Edmund Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961); Derke Bergsma, Redemption: The Triumph of God’s Great Plan (Lansing, IL: Redeemer Books, 1989); and Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000).
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to reveal his saving purposes for the world through his divine agent of salvation, his own Son, Jesus Christ. Thus, God’s word is the Creator’s divine, historical, redemptive revelation to his creatures so that they might know him and glorify him for what he has done through Christ.
This revelation of God’s redemptive plan, however, is also progressive. That is, God’s salvific plan in the Bible is not disclosed all at once, but rather in stages. The Bible unveils God’s redemptive revelation from the Old Testament to the New Testament. It moves from promise to fulfillment, from anticipation to realization. From Old Testament to New, God’s redemptive-historical story moves from the implicit to the explicit message that God ultimately saves his people from the bondage of sin and slavery in the life, death, and resurrection of the sinless God-man Jesus Christ. The study of Scripture through this redemptive-historical perspective is called biblical theology. It studies Scripture by showing the essential unity among all the seemingly disparate stories and poems, reaching a climax in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The Lord Jesus himself gives us the warrant to understand the Scriptures through these lenses. Two texts in the gospel of Luke—one in the beginning and one at the end—demonstrate this redemptive-historical pattern of interpretation. Early in Jesus’s earthly ministry, Jesus made his way on the Sabbath day to the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16–21). The Scriptures were read and expounded. On this particular day, the chosen text to be read was from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, / because he has anointed me / to preach good news to the poor. / He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners / and recovery of sight for the blind, / to release the oppressed, / to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (NIV). After having read this portion of Scripture, he began his sermon of that text with these pregnant words: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (NIV). Jesus reveals that he himself is the fulfillment of the promises made to the prophet Isaiah. Starting with this narrative, Luke then begins to unfold the mystery of Christ’s purposes as he weaves together the greatest story ever told.88
88. As the reader can probably guess, I am indebted to my mentor, Edmund P. Clowney, for this understanding; see especially his Unfolding Mystery: Preaching Christ in the Old Testa-
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Near the end of Luke’s gospel we read a story about Jesus’s encounter with two dejected disciples making their way to the town of Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). Having just explained to this stranger (Jesus) concerning the recent suffering, death, and disappearance of their leader from the tomb, the two disciples hear this: “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” Jesus then begins the greatest sermon never recorded as he revealed “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets” that he had to undergo all the suffering and shame in order to fulfill “what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:25–27 NIV). Jesus continues the same pattern of interpretation as he appears to the eleven disciples: “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. . . . This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (24:44–48 NIV). Jesus thus provides the warrant to understand the Scriptures within this redemptive-historical framework.
Thus, all Scripture must be seen as a testimony to the person and work of Christ. “Biblical theology,” as Edmund Clowney states, “serves to unlock the objective significance of the history of salvation. It focuses on the core of redemptive history in Christ.”89 This is the vital role of biblical theology in our interpretative work. Properly interpreting the many and various characters and epochs contained in Scripture requires this understanding of redemptive history culminating in Christ. Clowney states another benefit of biblical theology: “It also opens up for us the subjective aspect, the religious riches of the experience of God’s people, and its relation to our own.”90 Here Clowney begins to argue against the assumption many have concerning biblical-theological interpretation. That is, some may think that biblical-theological interpretation—and by extension redemptive-
ment (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1988) and Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003).
89. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology, 78.
90. Ibid., 78 (emphasis original).
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historical preaching—precludes ethical demands by the preacher upon the hearer. After all, if, for example, stories about the Old Testament patriarchs focus and culminate in Christ, what does it have to do with me and my life? Again, Clowney is helpful:
The redemptive-historical approach necessarily yields ethical application, which is an essential aspect of the preaching of the word. Whenever we are confronted with the saving work of God culminating in Christ, we are faced with ethical demands. A religious response of faith and obedience are required. But that response must be evoked by the truth of the particular revelation that is before us.91
Several points can be gleaned from this passage. First, ethical applications can never be separated from the exposition of the text. This ethical application, however, must always be based upon the saving work of God in Christ for our sins. Second, the response of faith and obedience are required responses to any text of Scripture. This response, however, must be warranted by a faithful interpretation of that text.
In this way, our preaching will not fall prey to the appeal, for example, of calling God’s people to pattern their lives based on the good or bad deeds of biblical characters. Rather, based upon a biblical-theological interpretation of our passage, we call God’s people to rest and rely upon the work of Christ in their stead and then, and only then, call them to respond, in gratitude for God’s grace in Christ, in faith and obedience. Thus, a clear understanding of the redemptive-historical nature of Scripture will aid us in our desire to preach Christ-centered, nonmoralistic sermons.
Conclusion
In their quest for rational certainty and political stability, Anglican preachers Benjamin Whichcote and John Tillotson modified their former Puritan convictions and adopted a moralistic preaching paradigm that revealed their semi-Pelagian scheme of justification. This rise in
91. Ibid., 80.
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moralistic preaching, however, was a direct result of deliberate and intentional adjustments in their theology. The Puritan emphasis on the gospel of free grace, for example, did not have the power to motivate the rational Englishman toward the pursuit of holiness. Thus, the sinful depravity of man, justification by faith alone apart from works, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer based on Jesus’s active obedience to the law of God were deemphasized, ultimately yielding messages that taught that divine blessing could be procured through human efforts that were assisted by God’s grace. As a result, these Latitudinarian preachers placed their emphasis on practical morality above creedal speculation and precision. It is through these preachers that a rise in the moralistic preaching would emerge in the Anglican Church that both John Wesley and George Whitefield would denounce a century later during the eighteenth-century evangelical awakening. Through this program of preaching plainly the moral and ethical demands of true religion, the Latitudinarians changed the course of English religious communication and confession.
This seventeenth-century distrust and disposal of the doctrine of sola fide parallels those in the twenty-first century caught in the midst of the current justification controversy. Like Tillotson, current critics of the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith alone have produced a theology that not only hopes to provide assurance of salvation but also to motivate ongoing spiritual devotion in the face of apparent antinomianism. What they fail to see, however, is that the assurance of our salvation can be found only in a substitute not only dying in our place but also in this substitute being morally perfect. True assurance of salvation can be found only in placing our faith in Christ alone, who has been raised for our justification (Rom 4:25; 1 Cor 15:20–23). Furthermore, true God-honoring holiness flows out of a gospel of free grace that does not measure our standing before God based upon any degree of moral performance. In fact, the gospel declares that Christ alone fulfilled all the obligations of the covenant on our behalf. Out of gratitude and not fear, then, the Christian, forgiven of sin and declared righteous by faith alone in Christ alone, pursues the kind of holiness that honors and delights God.
These Reformation truths emerged from a reading of Scripture that emphasized the centrality of Christ for the gospel. It behooves
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preachers today who desire to proclaim Christ in all his fullness without falling into any form of moralism to remember two key hermeneutic methods. The study of Scripture through the discipline of biblical theology will assist the preacher in finding the Christ-centered meaning to each passage of Scripture. In this way, they will be able to herald the gospel in clarity, cogency, and compassion, bringing to bear upon every hearer the glorious message that the believer’s status before God has been secured in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Upon this foundation of the grace of God in Christ can the preacher then call the once guilty to a life of holiness out of gratitude for the love of God.
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