Comments on Puritan humility

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neo-puritan

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Comments on Puritan Humility

I just published an article about humility in Puritanism, and I wonder if it is permissible to post a note asking for comments -- after all, humility was one of the core ideas of Puritanism. The article is titled "Meek Imperialists: Humility in 17th century England" and it can be found at http://www.tiu.edu/divinity/trinityjournal/? (Or just Google "Meek Imperialists")

Two questions in particular:

1) The bibliometric method.
This approach means using the STC to determine who were the most popular writers and what were their most popular books, and then using those books to find ideas that were widely known and well-liked among book-buying 17th century Englishmen. Is this acceptable?

2) Detailed and particular application of sin.
Most people believe they have fairly good knowledge of concepts such as humility and pride. Paradoxically, English practical divines regarded this "folk knowledge" of sins and virtues as the most serious obstacle to true religiosity. This counterintutive view stemmed from the observation that people's knowledge was woefully inadequate, and using this knowledge they concluded there was nothing seriously wrong with them.

Puritans regarded "breaking the false self-confidence" as a key step in making people religious, and they accomplished it by describing humility and pride in great detail and applying these details to people's everyday lives. Unsurprisingly, people hated this. Yet, the "painful cure" was both absolutely necessary and beneficial because it forced people to notice their pride and lack of humility, and this discovery triggered an effort at personal improvement which often led to the conversion process and to true piety.

The article intentionally uses a style close to the "detailed and particular application" to describe humility. Is this effective/acceptable to modern readers?
 
I am not an academic so you can take what I say with a grain of salt.

The way you have examined STC is commendable. That should be emulated. The flow of the work is easy to follow with logical sub-headings.

I note that the paper is not on Puritanism per se, but 17th century England. I probably would have read it anyway, but it shouldn't be advertised as humility in Puritanism. Men like Taylor, Allestree and Horneck shouldn't be lumped in with Burroughs, Love and Watson.

It helps to evaluate the quotation of a primary source if it can be identified with a certain author, so identifying him in the body of the work would be helpful.

Overall I found the article instructive, especially in the light of social context and modern psychological reflection. The footnotes explored depths of this Christian grace which inspire meditation and examination. That alone makes it successful.
 
Thank you, This is a great essay. A lot of what you've written is confirmation of what I've read of and about the Puritans.

How, when and who compiled STC?

Have you heard of the Puritan doctrine of preparation? Many Puritans greatly emphasized that sinners must be convinced of their sinfulness and completely humiliated, that is, divested of all hope in themselves and everything other than Christ, before they can be converted. If you are interested, read this thread on and this article by Ian Murray on Thomas Hooker. Murray makes it clear that this kind of humility was unique to the Puritans and greatly discouraged by high-churchmen.

I offer the following criticisms as a layman who read your paper once yesterday. I think your historical analysis was the weakest part and I think you might be reading your thesis backinto history. I don't consider humility the greatest virtue and I don't think the Puritans would either. I'd reserve that honor for charity and faith. One example of where I think your view of humility's influence is off is that your confusion of self-abhorence and the certitude of belief the Puritans had in the truth which was assured by the Holy Spirit. I think they were unmoveable in their convictions even if they were greatly humble.

I liked especially, as I mentioned before, the discussion of humiliation as necessary to prepare the soul to receive Christ for salvation. I like also how you pointed out in great detail with many quotations the supreme motive for exercising humility is our loathsomeness. The practical advice about calling this truth to mind when we receive a reproach is very good too. Noteably, the quote about the rebuker not telling you anything new about yourself so you have no reason to be upset. The attention you gave to self reflexion is probably one of your most important points. I think just about every puritan work I've read has at least a small section for a self-test if the whole book isn't in some form. Comparing the marks of the person with this or that particular grace to the marks of the person without it. Thanks again for giving us this essay. I think after reading this and Murray's essay God is trying to impress upon me the necessity of humility and humiliation. These writings bring the church sanctification.

[Edited on 7-23-2006 by Peter]

[Edited on 7-24-2006 by Peter]
 
Originally posted by Peter
How, when and who complied STC?
[Edited on 7-23-2006 by Peter]
Alfred William Pollard, 1859-1944 and Gilbert Richard Redgrave, b. 1844. A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475"“1640.. First edition 1926.
Donald Goddard Wing, 1904-1972. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and British America and of English Books Printed in Other Countries, 1640"“1700. First ed., 1945-1951.

As far as how, I may be wrong, but the men's work may be described in the introductions of the respective volumes. These bibliographies are what was followed in making up the Early English Books microfilm and noW digital series available at many universities and online. P&R is complete but Wing may take another 10 or 15 years to get all the titles done, at least those still known to have extant copies. Several of James Durham's works have yet to be filmed, and some editions of his filmed are pretty bad examples.

[Edited on 7-24-2006 by NaphtaliPress]
 
That's helpful. Thanks Chris. What are P&R and Wing (publishers?) and they're creating a database of STC in microfilm too?
 
Peter,
I'm fuzzy but I believe during the second World War a plan was formed to film P&R and some of the earliest films date to late 30s early 40s? The plan was expanded to include Wing but not sure at what date; possibly as early as when Wing began publishing his list in 1945. I think the project began with UMI in charge which was bought out by Proqest some years ago and which now owns the rights to distibute the films and subscriptions to the online digital service. They now have a project to transcribe STC works into fresh etext. So looks like they have work to do for a long long time. Proquest is the service SWRB got into trouble with over using Proquest's digital copies.
In the kind of writing projects I've chosen to undertake, EEB/EEBO has been really indispensable.
 
Peter, thanks for informing me about the Murray article. I was not aware of that.

There may be a simple explanation to the disagreements: a hallmark of early modern English theological writing is a massive confusion about terminology. An example of this chaos can be seen in the variability of terms used to denote the conversion process: some authors coined their own words (Perkins and his "Golden Chain"); some writers followed the example of Calvin and discussed conversion under "repentance" (Dyke, Dent); some used "mortification" (Preston); while still others preferred the plain, ordinary "conversion" (Baxter). The semantic confusion is particularly problematic because many parts of the conversion process are highly personal, subjective experiences and thus difficult to communicate even in the best of circumstances. The most effective way to overcome the semantic chaos seemed to be a look at the context to determine what activity the author referred to when he used the term.

One example of the utility of this approach can be seen in the question of whether people could work on their own salvation. The conversion process was a long development, and in people who had not entered the process (the "worldly" and the "natural men"), "rational thinking" was an apologist for sins, it came up with all possible excuses for sinning. In a person who had "seen his sins" and began to introspect, the mind -- at least part of it -- had turned from an excuser to an accuser. Something in the memory now found, brought up and accused the person of all the sins the flesh tried to defend and hide. The divines emphasized the significance of this change: that the person felt guilt for actions which earlier had not bothered him showed that he was no longer fully worldly. This was not yet saving change, but something had already touched the mind and made it different from those of the worldly. The question thus rather disappears: the fact that a person did preparatory actions showed that he was already being worked on by grace.

The semantic confusion may also explain the disagreement about whether High Church used preparation, because one of the most important parts of preparation, the introspective self-analysis of sins and virtues, was definitely part of Anglican tradition. An example of this can be seen in Jeremy Taylor's hugely popular "The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying", which provides detailed instructions on how to investigate oneself for humility. I used the 1680 edition, and in that the discussion on introspection is on pp. 42 ff. Anglicans may not have talked about "preparation", but the agreement on the activity is important because introspection was thought inevitably to produce a depression, which was the next step of the conversion process.

Early modern theologians believed that introspection was impossible without a thorough knowledge of the nuances of sins and virtues. Yet, to my knowledge these nuances have not been described by historians -- or by modern theologians. (Let me know if I'm wrong.) My article aimed to correct this omission about the virtue of humility, but this only scratched the surface of the details of sins and virtues. For example, there is vastly more material about pride than could fit in the article; Baxter wrote a description of this sin that fills 60 printed pages.

The most unfortunate effect of the failure to discuss the details of pride is the strong evidence showing that the lust for power may indeed be extremely dangerous for the individual and for the society -- Hobbes's 'Leviathan' makes communicating this point easy. The dangers of pride logically make the Christian effort to overcome this sin highly beneficial.

In failing to discuss the nuances of pride modern Christians have abandoned a very powerful argument they could use to defend conservative Christianity to people who are not religious and who thus accept only sociological, "utilitarian" reasoning. The old psychology of the "worldly" dangers of pride and Christianity's ability to overcome those dangers makes it possible to debate secular opponents in their own terms and with an argument which -- at least in my experience -- is very difficult to counter and thus remarkably effective.
 
Mr. (Dr?) Konkola, I'd like to ask you some more questions about Puritan Psychology if it pleases you.
 
Peter

Thanks for your interest and apologies for not answering sooner. I was out of town for a few weeks. I'll be glad to provide whatever additional details you feel are needed. The was a huge problem with the articles in trying to squeze all the material into 30 pages, and a lot of valuable evidence had to be left out. If you are interested in other parts of Puritan psychology, my email is [email protected]
 
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