Puritan of the Week: Thomas Adams

I want to start a new posting each Tuesday, well at least most Tuesdays. A friend recommended a new book, “Meet the Puritans” by Joel Beeke (thanks Tim) and I have been reading it bit by bit. With the comment in the Miami paper about churches wanting to disconnect themselves with the Puritans in order to be relevant, I hope this will show the great legacy that many of these men left. This week: Thomas Adams.

Although he is not strictly a Puritan, his theology was in vein with the Puritans. When he left his first church his people said the following about him:

He behaved himself soberly in his conversation, painfully in his calling, lovingly amongst his neighbors, conformable to the orders of the church, and in all respects befittingly to his vocation.

Beeke later states, “He was a powerful preacher, a much-quoted writer, and an influential divine. Prominent leaders in the church and state…were among his friends…Like the Puritans he craved careful observance of the Sabbath and was deeply hostile to Rome, the Jesuits, and the papacy, as well as to idleness, over-indulgence in worldly pleasures, and conspicuous consumption in all its forms.”

When you look at the first quote by his church and then the description of his life and practice, it appears he was involved in community, relevant, and at the same time Puritanical, or holy. He held strongly to convictions and theology and yet was loving. He had a standard for holy living and was still influential. The negative about the Puritans appears to be their withdrawal from society and not their piety and holy living. This is a lesson that we must learn, to be in the world and yet not of the world.