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Two Biblical Models of Conversion: An Example of Puritan Hermeneutics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Charles L. Cohen
Charles L. Cohen
Affiliation:
Mr. Cohen is associate professor of history inthe University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
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Extract

Puritan religious experience centered around conversion, the soul's new birth in faith. Entry into the realm of the Spirit, the path to salvation, involved a protracted emotional confrontation with grace borne in God's Word. The injunction to begin life anew in grace is as old as John 3:3, which declares that one “cannot see the kingdom of God” without being “born again” but does not associate the event with any particular psychological experience; what one undergoes in becoming a child of the Spirit the gospel does not relate. Into this gap of possibility Puritan preachers insinuated their vision of holy passions; well known as physicians of the soul, they pieced together a compelling model of how the Spirit moves a human being as it translates individuals from the estate of damnation to that of grace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 1989 , pp. 182 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1989

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References

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22. Shepard's contention that certain figures like Lydia were converted before they believed in the Messiah leads to a confusing analysis of her progression to faith. When he alleges that the centurion was a proselyte (like Lydia and the eunuch) “who feared God, and whose prayers were accepted, (ver. 4) (which can not be without faith) yet did not know that this Jesus crucified was the Messiah, until Peter came unto him,” he is saying that the centurion had faith before he believed in Christ (Works, 1:1410). Did Shepard seriously advance a thesis so repugnant to the Puritans' most basic theological instincts? Undoubtedly not, since he always adhered to Reformed conventions. It would seem that in sewing up the argument that all converts undergo compunction whether the Bible illustrates it or not, the orthodox minister left a few heterodox threads unraveled.

23. Ibid., 1:140.

24. Ibid., 1:141.

25. Shepard makes a stronger case when he maintains that “Scripture usually sets down matters very briefly; it oftentimes supposeth many things, and refers us to judge of some by other places.” For instance, although I Timothy 1:13–14 do not mention if Paul had any “castings down,” if one looks to the “fuller example” of Acts 9, “we shall see it otherwise” (ibid.). The practice of trying to understand one biblical passage by referring to another—standard Puritan practice—is reasonable enough, and the essential gospel command “repent and believe” lends some credence to Shepard's view. The point remains, however, that he (and other ministers) read more into Acts 16:14 than it can bear as far as Lydia is concerned.

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