influential puritan intellects of the seventeenth century, all of them adept at refined theological reflection and yet all of them pastors who ministered to congregations which were not composed of men and women of the same the-ological acumen as themselves. In the works of all these writers it is possible to trace the impact – sometimes profound – of the scholastic method and the medieval and Renaissance metaphysics of the university culture of their day. Yet they exhibit the same concern for conversion, faith, assurance, day-to-day piety and Christian experience which first marked the reforming work of Luther, Calvin and their colleagues a century earlier.

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-22

Chapter

influential puritan intellects of the seventeenth century, all of them adept at refined theological reflection and yet all of them pastors who ministered to congregations which were not composed of men and women of the same the-ological acumen as themselves. In the works of all these writers it is possible to trace the impact – sometimes profound – of the scholastic method and the medieval and Renaissance metaphysics of the university culture of their day. Yet they exhibit the same concern for conversion, faith, assurance, day-to-day piety and Christian experience which first marked the reforming work of Luther, Calvin and their colleagues a century earlier.

Chapter

influential puritan intellects of the seventeenth century, all of them adept at refined theological reflection and yet all of them pastors who ministered to congregations which were not composed of men and women of the same the-ological acumen as themselves. In the works of all these writers it is possible to trace the impact – sometimes profound – of the scholastic method and the medieval and Renaissance metaphysics of the university culture of their day. Yet they exhibit the same concern for conversion, faith, assurance, day-to-day piety and Christian experience which first marked the reforming work of Luther, Calvin and their colleagues a century earlier.

ABSTRACT

These concerns are reflected in many ways in the practice of the so-called prophesyings which developed in Elizabethan England. A practice initially started in Zürich, the prophesying was a gathering of ministers and ministerial students, some of whom would take it in turn to expound a particular scripture passage in front of the others.28 This placed the practice of homiletic interpretation in a communal setting which both allowed ministerial self-regulation to take place before budding preachers were let loose on unsuspecting congregations and defused the potential dangers of excessive individualism by enabling factors such as homiletic tradition and the opinions of other, more learned ministers to operate. Thus, a method of elite ministerial control was applied to a procedure whose end purpose was the education of the laity.