One last word from Leland Ryken on the Puritans:
We live at a moment in history when evangelical Protestants are looking for “roots.” One of the foibles that some would foist on them is that the only traditions from the past to which they can return are the Catholic and Anglo-Catholic traditions. Like Nicodemus, who was a teacher in Israel but did not know about the New Birth, evangelical Protestants tend to be strangers to what is best in their own tradition.
Puritanism can give us a place to stand. The Puritans believed that all of life is God’s. This enabled them to combine personal piety with a comprehensive Christian world view. Beginning with the premise that the Bible is a reliable repository of truth, the Puritans had a basis from which to relate their Christian faith to all areas of life — to work, family, marriage, education, politics, economics, and society.
The Puritan’s zestful approach to life and the world was fed by the spiritual springs of the new life — prayer, Christian fellowship, meditation, preaching, and contact with the Bible. In Puritanism, a theology of personal salvation was wedded to an active life in the world.—Leland Ryken, Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Academie Books, 1986), 220–221.
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