Among them were Thomas Hooker, John Cotton and John Davenport. In fact several of the best known ministers who served in New England became his disciples while living in the Netherlands as refugees. Although Ames died in the Netherlands and never set foot in America, his influence on New England Puritans was enormous. How can anyone be a good man if he is not converted, he reasoned? So ever since his own conversion at Cambridge under the preaching of William Perkins, Ames made conversion the first step in theology, for only then, he insisted, would theology have meaning. It is because he saw very little evidence of such godliness in both ministers and their congregations that Ames stressed the necessity of conversion. This may seem very obvious but Ames feared that many students who aspired to the ministry were sadly deficient when it came to godliness which he rightly regarded as the evidence of the new birth or conversion. Emphasis on Conversion To be or become such a theologian who can influence others, one needs to be converted. He must model the art of living to God by living to God himself, and so lead others to God, devoting himself wholly to the glory of God, and the edification of the church (Ibid., p.145).
In his view, Biblical doctrine is the means a theologian- pastor must use to reach the end or goal of theology which is “to save himself and them that hear him,”(I Tim. Ames who spent many years in the Netherlands and became a professor at the Franeker University in 1623, never tired of reminding his students that theology must be much more than dogmatics or polemics and that men need to hold pure doctrine and practical divinity in proper balance and relationship (Ibid.,p.129). For him to live well is to live a life suitable and fitting to God, and so happily in God (The Learned Doctor William Ames, p.144). In that sense they were all disciples of William Ames who defined theology as the art of living well. They were more concerned with the application of Biblical doctrines than with their theoretical formulation. Their contribution to Reformed theology was that they put a uniquely practical stamp on it. But while Puritan theologians stood firmly in the tradition of Geneva, the theology they developed was more than a footnote to Calvin. It was formed in the context of the Protestant Reformation, particularly the Reformed branch of it with its emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace. Puritan theology, as practiced in England and New England, was no exception. Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill Educational Publishing, p.23). Paul” (Theology in America, The Major Protestant Voices from Puritanism to Neo- Orthodoxy.
THE PERSON WHO SPENT MONEY LIKE WATER SERIES
PRTS CLASSES: NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY Lecture 9 Thomas Hooker and the Doctrine of Conversion Difference between Puritan and Reformed Protestantism The American Church historian Sydney Ahlstrom once remarked that “Christian theology exists in the context of history…Just as European philosophical tradition, in Whiteheads famous phrase, consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, so Christian theology is a series of footnotes to St.
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