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The Coherent Calvinism of Samuel Willard

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert C. Whittemore
Robert C. Whittemore
Affiliation:
Tulane University
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Extract

Puritan authors as a class are not noted for their economy with words, and in this respect Samuel Willard is no exception. His “works” consist of somewhat more than 6,000 pages of exegetic sermons, catechetic lectures, hermeneutic discourses, and polemic tracts on scriptural topics. He published nothing of a speculative nature, and his expression of church doctrine is—throughout—such as Calvin and his English and American posterity would approve.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 1967 , pp. 284 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1967

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References

1. Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Allen translation), II. xiv. 4.Google Scholar

2. Samuel (called Simon in the Concord records), sixth child and second son of Simon Willard (1605–1676) and Mary Sharpe (Willard) of Horsemonden, was born at Concord, which town his father had helped to found, on January 31st, 1640. Raised in Concord, he entered Harvard in 1655 and graduated in 1659. Willard married Abigail Sherman on August 16th, 1664. She gave him eight children and died. He married Eunice Tyng, by by whom he had twelve children, in 1679. The Reverend Samuel Willard (1705–1741), minister of the Church at Biddeford, Maine, with whom Herbert Schneider, in his study of The Puritan Mind (98f), seems to have confused our Willard, was, in fact, his grandson.

3. The principal of these are (in order of their publication): Useful Instructions for a Professing People, several sermons (1673)Google Scholar, Ne Sutor Ultra Crepidam, anti-Baptist polemic (1681)Google Scholar, Covenant-Keeping the Way to Blessedness, several sermons (1682)Google Scholar, The Child's Portion, sermons (1684)Google Scholar, Mercy Magnified on a Penitent Prodigal, 28 Sunday sermons on Luke 15:11–32 (1684)Google Scholar, Heavenly Merchandise, several sermons on Proverbs 23:23 (1686)Google Scholar, The Barren Fig Tree's Doom, the substance of 16 sermons on Luke 13:6–9 (1691)Google Scholar, Rules for the Discerning of the Present Times, sermon (1692)Google Scholar, The Doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption (1693)Google Scholar, The Truly Blessed Man, the substance of divers sermons on Psalm XXXII (1700)Google Scholar, The Fountain Opened, sermons and lectures (1700)Google Scholar, The Peril of the Times Displayed, the substance of several sermons (1700)Google Scholar, A Brief Reply to Mr. George Kieth, polemic (1703)Google Scholar, and A Compleat Body of Divinity, 250 expository lectures on the Assembly Shorter Catechism (1726). Al of these works are reproduced in Early American Imprints 1693–1800Google Scholar, microprint edition keyed to Evans American Bibliography, edited by Shipton, Clifford K.. Readex Microprint Publications, 1950–63.Google Scholar All subsequent references, other than those to A Compleat Body of Divinity, are to the pagings of the originals as reproduced on these microcards.

4. Covenant-Keeping the Way to Blessedness (Evans 335), 4.

5. A Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly Shorter Catechism (Boston, 1726)Google Scholar, LXXXIX, 326/1. Hereafter cited as CBD. Note: since each page of the text is divided into two columns, I indicate first or second column by the appropriate number after the stroke following the number of the page following the Boman number of the lecture (sermon).

6. Ibid.

7. Heavenly Merchandise (Evans 424), 113. Willard's italics.

8. CBD, LXXXIX, 326/2.

9. Ibid., XII, 37/2.

10. Ibid., 40/2.

11. Ibid., XIII, 40/2.

12. Ibid., XIII, 42/1.

13. Ibid., XV, 46/2.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 48/1.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., XVIII, 56/2.

18. Ibid., XVIII, 56/2.

19. Ibid., XVI, 50/1.

20. Ibid., XXXIII, 106/2.

21. Ibid., XXXIV, 110/1.

22. Ibid., XXXIV, 108/2. The figure is presumably derived from Calvin himself. See Institutes, I, xiv. 1.

23. Ibid., XXXIV, 108/2.

24. Ibid., XL, 124/2.

25. The Child's Portion (Evans 380), 96.

26. CBD, CXII,. 421/2. The complete passage runs thus: “Only this much in general we may know of it, viz, that it will not be long before that day shall come; they are the last days, and the winding up of time that we live in. There are yet some prophecies to be fulfilled, some predictions to be accomplished, some of God's Elect unborn, that are yet to be called, and the world stands in its old posture for the present, on these accounts … meanwhile it is not for us anxiously to inquire into times and seasons, but to use utmost and speedy endeavours, to get ready for the terrible day, that it may not steal upon us unlooked for, or find us unprepared.” See also, The Fountain Opened, (Evans 960), 121.

27. “The Marrow of Puritan Divinity,” originally printed in The Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts for February 1935Google Scholar; reprinted as Chapter III of Miller, Errand into the Wilderness (Cambridge, 1956).Google Scholar Hereafter cited as “Marrow” (Errand).

28. For the burden of the argument of this paragraph I am indebted to Miller's account as given in “The Marrow of Puritan Divinity.” The inferences drawn are, of course, my own.

29. Preston, John, The New Covenant, or the Saint's Portion (London, 1629), 351.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., 38.

31. The Doctrine of the Covenant of Redemption Wherein is laid the Foundation of all our Hopes and Happiness. Briefly Opened and Improved (Boston, 1693).Google ScholarEarly American Imprints (Evans 684). Hereafter cited as DCR.

32. DCR, 3.

33. Ibid., 4.

34. The plural is justified, argues Willard, because “although the Decree of God, be with respect to him Decreeing, but one simple and undivided act; yet, in reference to the things Decreed, it is various, or hath many parts in it: for which reason the scripture speaks of many thoughts and many purposes of his “(DCR, 6). The philosophical justification of such a position is again our recognition that the abstract may be pluralized without detriment to its unieity qua abstract.

35. DCR, 7.

36. Ibid., 8.

37. Ibid., 8–9.

38. Ibid., 9.

39. Ibid., 9–107.

40. Ibid., 107.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid., 11.

43. Ibid., 93. My italics.

44. Ibid., 49.

45. Ibid., 50.

46. Ibid., 51.

47. Ibid., 52.

48. Ibid., 94.

49. Ibid., 94–95.

50. Ibid., 100–101.

51. CBD. LXXXIV, 307/2–308/1.

52. Mercy Magnified on a Penitent Prodigal (Evans 379), 205.

53. Ibid., 254–255.

54. “Marrow” (Errand), 92–93.

55. Ibid., 93.

56. A Brief Reply to Mr. Geordge Kieth (Evans 1150). 18.

57. “Marrow” (Errand), 98.

58. Whittemore, R. C., Makers of the American Mind (New York, 1964), Ch. II.Google Scholar

59. “Marrow” (Errand), 98.

60. For a statement of that solution and an evaluation of its cogency, see Whittemore, R. C., “Jonathan Edwards and the Theology of the Sixth Way,” Church History, XXXV (1966), 60–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar