Gordon Clark: Puritanism (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1958. Puritanism. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. XVI, 6. Feb 26

Puritanism

Puritanism in its broadest aspect was a movement (whether among the Anglicans, Presbyterians, or Independents) dominated by the desire to purify the Church. Today too there are a few people who desire a pure church. Because some of them have used the verse, "Come out from among them and be ye separate," they are often called separatists and sometimes branded as schismatics. But beyond any particular method that this or that group might use in the formation of a pure church, the very idea of a pure church has received quite a little criticism..

A recent article stressed the sins of the Apostle Paul's church in Corinth.  It was not pure, was it? And if the Apostle's work was not pure, can we reasonably expect our work to be so?

This line of argument fails to take into account what the Puritans meant by Puritanism. It does not do justice to the concept of a Reformed church. In the lifetime of John Knox, a minister who had taken an active part in the Reformation of Scotland was found guilty of adultery. First he fled to England; then he came back to submit to church discipline; but the requirements of penitence and confession, publicly to be made in three districts, were so humiliating that he could not bear it; and after the second public confession, he fled again. Further, Knox was keenly conscious that the nobles could be swayed by the blandishments of Queen Mary, and that many of them were not wholly devoted to the Reformed faith. Surely Knox knew that there was no such thing as a church consisting of sinless people on earth.

A century later, after the terrible persecutions inflicted on the Covenanters, there was a desire to restore the purity of worship of the Reformation. But these people, as little as Knox or any other intelligent Christian, had no notion of a completely sinless church. This is not what the purity of the church means.

Purity means first of all that the pure gospel be confessed. That is to say, a pure church is one that has a confession in harmony with Biblical revelation. Its doctrines are those that God has given us. Purity also implies that the church makes continued and serious efforts in proclaiming these doctrines. A printed Confession to which no attention is paid, a creed that may be denied with impunity, a disinclination to administer discipline when offenses are known, are marks of disturbing deterioration. Then too, a pure church will not require its members, for the maintenance of their good and regular standing, to do anything contrary to the commands of God. In fact, if a church organization requires sin as a test of good standing, it is time to come out from among them and be separate. There are churches that require sin. For one thing, that is why there was a Reformation.

The ideal of a pure church is therefore not to be discredited because of the admitted fact that all of its members are sinners. Please consider where the argument leads. If we should not strive for a pure church, on the ground that we ourselves are sinners; does it not follow by the same type of argument that we should not ourselves strive to avoid sin, on the ground that we shall never be completely successful.

If reformation in a church is to be abandoned as an ecclesiastical policy, then should not individual sanctification be neglected as well?

— G.H.C.