November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

Preparatory Grace in the Puritans
led to faith were associated with God’s regeneration and could not be
connected with man’s efforts at salvation. 22
Although it would be unjust to group Ames with the Arminians
(he very clearly opposed them 23 ), Ames’ position is a dangerous
concession to the Arminian errors of resistible grace and partial
depravity. We can be thankful that Ames’ views were not incorporated
into the Canons of Dordt. Sadly, the leaven of Amesian
preparationism would influence generations of theologians as his
Marrow became required reading in the major theological schools
in England, in the European continent, and in America. 24
C. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)
Richard Sibbes, writes Pettit, was much concerned with the
work of the Spirit. He preached much on the subject, but “with a
minimum of concern for the rigors of dogma.” 25 He spoke in the
service of “spiritual warmth.” In his sermons he sought to create
a concern in his hearers for a change of heart. The purpose of
theology is to “warm the heart,” not impart “cold, scholastic, dogmatic”
truth, he maintained. 26 Sibbes, differing from Perkins,
22. Ames, The Marrow, p. 50.
23. Eusden writes, quoting a biographer of Ames, “Ames plainly deserved
our saying in his honor what the mothers of Israel once said in
honor of David: ‘Other theologians have slain their thousands, but Ames
his tens of thousands!’ Ames was thought to be something of a giant
killer in theological debate,” The Marrow, p. 7.
24. Eusden notes, “For a century and a half William Ames’s Marrow
of Theology held sway as a clear, persuasive expression of Puritan belief
and practice. In England, Holland and New England nearly all those
who aspired to the Puritan way read the book. No matter what their
aspirations, undergraduates at Emmanuel College, Leyden, Harvard and
Yale had to read the Marrow in Latin as part of basic instruction in divinity.
In a burst of enthusiasm Thomas Hooker (1586-1647) of Hartford
once recommended the Marrow and another of Ames’s works to
fellow clergymen: ‘They would make him (supposing him versed in the
Scriptures) a good divine, though he had no more books in the world,’”
Ames, The Marrow, p. 1.
25. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
26. Pettit, The Heart, p. 67.
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