Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T19:36:36.853Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Covenant and Assurance in Early English Puritanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John von Rohr
Affiliation:
Professor of Historical Theology and History of Christianity, Pacific School of Religion

Extract

This paper deals with the nature of the idea of “covenant” in English Puritan writings of the first half of the seventeenth century, and particularly as this bears upon the question of the assurance of salvation.

That this assurance could be obtained was a commonly accepted axiom and, indeed, the actual striving for such awareness was a commonly recognized obligation. When William Ames wrote, “The assurance of our calling and election is a thing greatly to be desired”, he also added the statement that this certainty “is not only possible for us to attaine unto, but also … it belongs to our duty to make this our calling and election sure”. There may well be many difficulties along the way, with serious agonies and doubtings. But excessive fearfulness is as great a sin as presumption, denying as it does the power of God's mercy. And so William Perkins could say, “we doe not teach that all and every man living within the precincts of the Church, professing the name of Christ is certen of his salvation, … but that he ought so to be, and must indeavor to attaine thereto”.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1965

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Ames, William, An Analytical Exposition of both the Epistles of the Apostle Peter…, (1641) pp. 162f.Google Scholar

2. Perkins, William, A Reformed Catholike … in Works (1608) I, 606.Google Scholar

3. Ball, John, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace… (1645) “To the Reader” By Simeon Ash.Google Scholar

4. Sutton, Thomas, Lectures on the 11th Chapter of Romans (1632) 401, 403.Google Scholar

5. Perkins, William, A Commentarie, Or, Exposition upon the five first Chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians… (1617) 186.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., 502.

7. John Ball, op. cit., 199.

8. Harris, Robert, A Treatise of the New Covenant … (1632) I, 32f.Google Scholar

9. Ball, John, A Treatise of Faith … (1632) 413.Google Scholar

10. Robert Harris, op. cit., II, 171.

11. Preston, John, The Saints Qualification … (1637, 3rd edition) 489.Google Scholar

12. Ames, William, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity … (1642) 132.Google Scholar

13. Preston, John, The New Covenant, or The Saints Portion … (1629) II, 144f.Google Scholar

14. Preston, John, The Breast-Plate of Faith and Love … (1630) II, 84f.Google Scholar

15. Preston, John, The New Covenant, or The Saints Portion … (1629) II, 154.Google Scholar

16. Bayne, Paul. A Commentary Upon The whole Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephevians … (1658, 5th edtion) 121.Google Scholar

17. Perkins, William, A Treatise Tending unto a Declaration, Whether a Man be in the Estate of Damnation, or in the Estate of Grace …, in Works (1608) I, 413.Google Scholar

18. Preston, John, The Breast-Plate of Faith and Love … (1630) III, 147.Google Scholar

19. Preston, John, The New Covenant, or The Saints Portion … (1629) II, 224233.Google Scholar

20. Robert Harris, op. cit., II, 195, 163.

21. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954) p. 389.Google Scholar

22. Jenison, Robert, Two Treatises, The First Concerning Gods Certaine performance of his conditional Promises, as touching the Elect … (1642), 117.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., 120.

24. Culverwell, Ezekiel, A Treatise of Faith … (1633) 151, 149.Google Scholar

25. Bacon, Robert, The Spirit of Prelacie Yet Working … (1646) 18.Google Scholar

26. Rutherfurd, Samuel, The Covenant of Life Opened:Or, A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace … (1655) 233.Google Scholar

27. Preston, John, The Breast Plate of Faith and Love … (1630) I, 38.Google Scholar

28. Robert Jenison, op. cit., 50.

29. Samuel Rutherfurd, op. cit., 343f.

30. Quoted in The Covenant of Grace, not Absolute, but Conditional, Modestly Asserted … (1692) 63.Google Scholar

31. Ames, William, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity … (1642) 102.Google Scholar

32. Sibbes, Richard, The Faithful Covenanter, in Works (1863 edition) VI, 4.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., 19.

34. Preston, John, Life Eternall … (1631) 86f.Google Scholar

35. Robert Bacon, op. cit., 18.

36. Samuel Rutherfurd, op. cit., 17.

37. Perkins, William, A Golden Chaine …, in Works (1608) I, 115.Google Scholar

38. Sibbes, Richard, The Bride's Longing for her Bridegroom's Second Coming, in Works (1863 edition) VI, 541f.Google Scholar