Views
The clerical leaders of the Feoffees, Davenport, Gouge and Sibbes, all adhered to Calvinist covenant theology, as shaped by the English theologians Perkins, Preston, William Ames, and Thomas Taylor. There was a tacit assumption of a state church. Sibbes believed the Second Coming was necessary to complete the work that Christ had begun.
Efforts to define further the Puritanism of Sibbes - which is a term much debated - place him in various groups. Under pious "non-separatists", he is with Preston, Richard Baxter, Robert Bolton, and John Dod. Under those who would conform to set forms of worship, he is with Dod, Nicholas Byfield, Richard Capel, John Downame, Arthur Hildersham, and Richard Stock (another Feoffee). He is also a fully conforming Puritan, with Preston, Samuel Ward, and Robert Hill. With Richard Bernard, he was a moderate Calvinist who promoted religious tolerance. With Perkins, Preston, Baxter and Henry Newcome, he was a moderate and non-Presbyterian Puritan. However one classifies him, it is undeniable that he was a faithful member of the Elizabethan church.
His perspective was European, or even wider, and he saw Catholicism in terms of a repressive conspiracy. With Davenport, Gouge, Taylor, Thomas Gataker, John Stoughton, and Josias Shute, he helped raise money for Protestants of the Electorate of the Palatinate affected by the opening of the Thirty Year's War; and later for John Dury's missions. Laud brought up Sibbes, Davenport, Gouge and Taylor in front of the Court of High Commission for this. The Fountain Opened (1638) advocated mission work.
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Famous quotes containing the word views:
“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)