Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/29

Rh But above all else, the theological thinking of the times was suffused, as perhaps has never been equally true, with the breath of vital piety. Great as it was in theology, this was the age of great preachers, even more than of great theologians. "We fall very far short," says Dr. A. F. Mitchell, very justly, "of the true conception of that time, unless we remember that it was a season of spiritual revival, as deep and extensive as any that has since occurred in the history of the British churches." Or if we prefer to hear a secular historian: "The distinctive feature of Puritanism," says Mr. S. R. Gardiner, "was not to be found in its logical severity of doctrine, or in its peculiar forms of worship, but in its clear conception of the immediate relation existing between every individual soul and its God, and in its firm persuasion that every man was intrusted with a work, which he was bound to carry out for the benefit of his fellow-creatures." The sermons of the day are still looked back to as among the most godly and powerful ever preached, and as Dr. Mitchell reminds us, "No writings in practical divinity have been so extensively read, none have so long maintained their hold on the minds of the religiously disposed in Britain and America, as those of the great Puritan divines of the seventeenth century." Thus, while the theology of the Reformed churches was being matured, and the course of controversy was bringing it about that the deepest and broadest lines of thought, which run through all the Christian ages, were engrossing the minds of men, a body of pious and devoted preachers of the word was being prepared, who could not state the precious truths of the Gospel without suffusing their statement with the breath of true godliness. As Dr. Mitchell eloquently sums up: "The Assembly of divines which framed the Confession, may be said, humanly speaking, to have come just at the last moment of time when such an