Puritan Spirituality : The Fear of God in the Affective Theology of George Swinnock

Without minimizing the validity of the social, political and ecclesiastical approaches to this field of study, Yuille affirms that the essence of Puritanism is found in its spirituality. He demonstrates this by turning to a relatively unknown Puritan, George Swinnock 1627 73. At the root of Swinnocks spirituality was his concept of the fear of God as the proper ordering of the souls faculties after the image of God. This concept is pivotal to Swinnocks spirituality because he viewed it as the Christians true principle of practice. Yuille shows the prevalence of this paradigm among Swinnocks fellow Puritans and sets it in a historicaltradition extending back through Calvin to Augustine.

J. Stephen Yuille is the preaching elder at Braidwood Bible Chapel. He is also a part-time Professor of Biblical Studies with Toronto Baptist Seminary.