A Puritan Theology

As if I didn't have enough of fat theology books with John Frame's Systematic Theology, I've decided to read through A Puritan Theology by Beeke and Jones this year.

With Frame I'm mainly summarizing his work.  Here I'll give more thoughts of my own in response to what I read.

Introduction - The authors summarize Puritanism in a mere seven pages!
They were reformed and Calvinist in theology, rejecting Catholic, Arminian and Lutheran thought.
They had a dynamic fellowship with God that shaped their affections and worldview.
They sought to apply the word of God to every area of life.
It ended as a movement around 1689 with freedom of worship granted to Protestant non-Anglicans.
This study focuses on puritans in "England from the 1560s to the 1660s." (Pg 5)

This definition makes sense pragmatically, to narrow the scope of such a book to a mere thousand pages.  But theologically it seems odd to leave out Jonathan Edwards.  They take a more historically oriented definition of Puritan, than a theological orientation, perhaps.

There is little to no defense of the Puritans.  I guess if you open such a book, the author can assume already that you're not prejudiced against Puritans!  I would just say briefly that the public school characterization of the Puritans that I got was woefully inadequate.  The Enlightenment has taught us to view any reverence or seriousness toward God that goes beyond one's private thoughts, as fanaticism or grouchiness.

 Too bad.

It's like the lost texts of Gondor have been not destroyed but despised.  We don't burn books anymore, we just so revise and distort the good ones that no one wants to read them.

Be a Gandalf.  Go probe the depths of long ages past.  Much was lost that should not have been forgotten.