Preparationism

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Preparationism is the view in

Holy Spirit.[1] By making use of these means of grace, a "person seeking conversion might dispose himself toward receiving God's grace."[2]

Adherents and critics

Many

Arminian.[3]

Anne Hutchinson on Trial
by Edwin Austin Abbey.

Martyn McGeown identifies

William Perkins, William Ames, and Richard Sibbes as preparationists.[4] Sibbes, however, warned against excessive preparationism on the basis that some spirits "may die under the wound and burthen, before they be raised up again."[5] In New England, Giles Firmin suggested that preparationists had "misdirected attention from the solace of Christ and had become obsessed with the inadequacy of self."[6]

sanctification being evidence of justification.[7] Harvard University historian Perry Miller views the incident as a "dispute over the place of unregenerate human activity, or 'natural ability', preparatory to saving conversion."[8] Similarly, Rhys Bezzant sees the Antinomian crisis as pitting Hutchinson and others against "the defenders of preparationist piety."[9] Bezzant goes on to argue that Jonathan Edwards distanced himself from his grandfather Solomon Stoddard's "preparationist model of conversion."[9]

Robert Horn notes that Joseph Hart's hymn "Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched" represents a complete disagreement with preparationism:[10]

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Bruised and broken by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all;
Not the righteous, not the righteous,
Sinners Jesus came to call.[11]

Evaluation

Michael McClymond suggests that preparationism "balanced out the stress on God's sovereignty by insisting that there was something that human beings could and should do while they were waiting on God to grant his converting grace."

Westminster Confession, which teaches that 'natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto' (9:3)."[4]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-82048605-5
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19979160-6
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 9780521585712
    .
  4. ^ a b McGeown, Martyn. "The Notion of Preparatory Grace in the Puritans". Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  5. ISBN 900413812-9
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-67474056-3
    .
  7. Church History
    . 59 (4): 483.
  8. Church History
    . 44 (1): 22–23.
  9. ^ a b Bezzant, Rhys Stewart. "Orderly but Not Ordinary: Jonathan Edwards's Evangelical Ecclesiology" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 April 2013. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  10. ^ Horn, Robert M. (1976). "Thomas Hooker – The Soul's Preparation for Christ". The Puritan Experiment in the New World. The Westminster Conference. p. 36.
  11. ^ Hart, Joseph. "Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched". The Cyber Hymnal. Retrieved 9 February 2013.
  12. ISBN 9780802824172
    .
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