Puritan Spirituality

Without minimizing the validity of the social, political, and ecclesiastical approaches to this field of study, Yuille affirms that the essence of Puritanism is found in its spirituality. He demonstrates this by turning to a relatively unknown Puritan, George Swinnock (1627-1673). At the root of Swinnock's spirituality was his concept of fear of God as the proper ordering of the soul's faculties after the image of God. This concept is pivotal to Swinnock's spirituality, because he viewed it as the Christian's true principles of practice. Yuille shows the prevalence of this paradigm among Swinnock's fellow Puritans, and sets it in a historical tradition extending back to Augustine through Calvin.
""[H]ere we are reminded of the importance of this great biblical theme of the fear of the Lord. And once again, past wisdom proves richly instructive for present church life.""
--Michael A. G. Haykin, Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
""This is the first, and a first class, major study of the spirituality of a forgotten Puritan, George Swinnock. Yuille is to be congratulated on bringing to light the intrinsic connection between the fear of God and sanctification in Swinnock's theology, the former being the logical cause of the latter.""
--Dennis Ngien, Research Professor of Theology, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Canada
""All who see Puritan piety as an integral element in the church's evangelical heritage will find George Swinnock's teaching, both in his own writings and as set forth here, a rich and reliable resource for practice. . . . For successfully deploying what he has found, Dr Yuille must be profoundly thanked.""
--James I. Packer, Professor of Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, Canada
J. Stephen Yuille (PhD, London School of Theology) is the preaching elder at Braidwood Bible Chapel. He is also part-time Professor of Biblical Studies with Toronto Baptist Seminary. He earned his BA from the University of Toronto, his MTS from Toronto Baptist Seminary, and his MDiv from Tyndale Seminary.