The Marrow of Theology Paperback - 1997

From the rear cover

From the landing of the Pilgrims through the American Revolution, American religious thought was strongly influenced by the Puritan theologian William Ames. Quoted more often in the New World than either Luther or Calvin, Ames was read in Latin by undergraduates at Harvard and Yale as part of their basic instruction in divinity. Both Thomas Hooker and Increase Mather recommended The Marrow of Theology as the only book beyond the Bible needed to make a student into a sound theologian.

Brief, lucid, and comprehensive, The Marrow of Theology presents the substance of the Puritan understanding of God, the church, and the world. Ames shows Puritanism to be an eminently practical religion that stresses individual experience and feeling. Connections run from Ames in the seventeenth century to Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth and Friedrich Schleiermacher in the nineteenth centuries.

The Marrow of Theology is composed of two books. The first summarizes the Puritan understanding of the traditional doctrinal elements of systematic theology. The second covers the more practical matters of the Christian life. Combined with John Dykstra Eusden's introductory study of Puritan theological method, this volume is an indispensable resource for the study of Puritanism and its influence on later theology.