Puritans and Revival IV: Understanding Knowledge

In this series, we are looking at the influence of the Puritans on the Great Awakening (US) and the Evangelical Revival (UK). This week, we’re focusing on the evangelical epistemology or, how we know what we know.

What did the evangelicals—those involved with the Great Awakening and Evangelical Revival—believe? How did they come to know the truth?

Were the men of the Great Awakening and Evangelical Revival theological? Not many of them wrote systematic theology. There were theological works, but mostly there were letters and journals written by theological men. They read many good theological works and didn’t feel the need re-write or reinvent the wheel in many ways. Rather, they pointed others back to the Puritans.

Many of them were young men who sometimes overreacted to men who had right doctrine but seemed to live no differently. Nevertheless, right thinking ought to lead to right living. For love of the King, we love His truth.

The Bible is our guide, authority, and if our reason conflicts—our reason is wrong, not the Word. Richard Baxter wrote, “He that will walk uprightly must have a certain, just, infallible rule; and must hold to that, and try all by it; and this is only the Word of God ... Neither the learned, nor the godly, nor the good must be our rule.”

A highly educated, good, or godly man is not our guide. Scripture alone is our guide. Test everything with the Word, for it is the final authority. Richard Sibbes wrote, “The Word is nothing without the Spirit; it is animated and quickened by the Spirit.” Sibbes did not have a lack of confidence in the Word, but a lack of confidence in us. 

All early evangelicals would have agreed with this trio:

  • Scripture

  • Illuminated reason

  • Experience

The opponents of the evangelicals might have given a different trio for right knowledge. Theophilus Evans, an early opponent of the revival, gave his three:

  • the Scriptures

  • the law of nature

  • and right reason

The evangelical is distinguished by an emphasis on the need of the Word and the Spirit to be working together. We ought to tremble before the Word, asking God to stoop down and teach us like children. Ask Him to help us to understand His Word and to fill us with His Spirit so that we can live out the truths of the Word.

 

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Show Notes

Podcast Resources

Anglican and Puritan, J. F. H. New

 
Behold Your God PodcastCourtney Brewer