Petrus Ramus and the Puritans: The "Logic" of Preparationist Conversion Doctrine

Author(s): David L. Parker

Source: Early American Literature , Fall, 1973, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1973), pp. 140-162
Published by: University of North Carolina Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25070617

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 PETRUS RAMUS AND THE
PURITANS: THE "LOGIC"
OF PREPARATIONIST CONVERSION
DOCTRINE
David L. Parker
BROWN UNIVERSITY

Of all the Puritan ministers who emigrated to New England,

none applied themselves to the project of establishing the absolute ne
cessity of proper "preparation" for salvation more thoroughly or more
specifically than did Thomas Hooker and Thomas Shepard, who be
came the leading authorities of their time on matters relating to con
version. So hungry for Hooker's words were the congregations to
whom he had preached in England that many of his early sermons were
printed from notes taken by admiring auditors long before he could
prepare his major work, The Application of Redemption, for the press.1
Shepard's The Sincere Convert was first printed in a similar fashion,2
and Harvard College was eventually established at Cambridge at least
partly because of Shepard's impressive effectiveness in preserving his
congregation there from any taint of Antinomianism at a time when
many members of the Boston church were inclined to follow Mrs.
Hutchinson and the Reverend John Wheelwright.3
These men did not originate the idea of a period of preparation for
salvation prior to the effectual call,4 but they did endow it with fuller
and more definitive expression than it had thus far received, and with
a basis not only in Scripture, but also in the requirements of human rea
son, through which God was presumed to operate in adapting his pro
gram for salvation to human needs. Like most other Puritans, Hooker
and Shepard were educated at Cambridges at a time when the "logic"
of Petrus Ramus was both attracting many advocates and generating
intense controversy.6 Their writings on conversion reflect both a
Ramist understanding of how human reason operates, and a descrip
tion of preparation that is tailored in several specific ways to require
ments deriving ultimately from the Ramist dialectic. My purpose is
to identify the Ramist elements of the preparationist conversion theories
propounded by Hooker and Shepard by comparing their statements
about faith and election first to those of Calvin, and then to each other.
I would hope, in this process, to suggest that the Ramist influence on

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 Ramus and the Puritans 141
the evolution of preparationist theory was as significant a factor as any
other, though it was surely not the only factor operative.7
Thomas Hooker begins his magnum opus on conversion, The Ap
plication of Redemption (London, I656), in accordance with the best
principles of Ramist "method" by describing the general nature of
both his intentions and his argument before descending to the "par
ticulars" of his presentation.8 His prefatory statements reflect his
sense of the inadequacy of current treatments of conversion, which he
seems to have felt dwelt more on the simple definition of "redemption"
than on the means by which redemption could be specifically "ap
plied" to the relief of the penitent:
. . . what availes it the forlorn Sinner, sitting down under sentence of Condem
nation, and fainting away for mercy and forgiveness, to hear of the rich mercy of a
God, the sufficiency of the merits of a Christ, and the plentiful redemption provided
by both; and yet see no way to attain them or the deliverance of his soul by them?
This knowledge of the mercy adds rather to the increase of his misery and distress, to
think there is so much good to be had, and he hath so much need, and yet apprehends
no way to get it, no well grounded hope to attain it. (A. ofR., p. 2.)
In subsequently specifying the focus of his own argument, Hooker
provides a clearer picture of what he finds amiss in earlier treatments
of his subject. His attitude is most evident in his qualified definition of
the term "Election":
Besides, However Christ died for none but the Elect, and none but they shall re
ceive any benefit from Christ, yet I take it, Election is not that special respect that
Christ looked at in his death and sufferings, it is not low enough, it lies not level to
that relation which Christ and his have towards one another.
But Christ died for a sinner who is of the seed of the Covenant, and shall be
leeve... (A. ofR., p. 12.)
A sinner then under the Covenant of Grace, the seed of the Covenant for whom
he undertakes to make him self denying and beleeving, and so one of the posterity of
Christ, for him Christ dies, and this I chuse rather than that consideration of Elect
as Elect. (A. ofR., p. i3.)
Here Hooker admits that Christ "died for none but the Elect," but
goes on to explain that election refers not to a "special respect" pe
culiar to Christ, but to a condition somehow analogous to the relation
ship between Christ and his followers: "But Christ died for a sinner
who is of the seed of the Covenant, and shall beleeve...." He thus
seems to redefine election as belief in Christ, and shortly confirms his
intention to do exactly this:
Those only have title to Life and Salvation who are under the compass of the
Covenant of Grace.
But (I assume) no man can be under the Covenant of Grace that is not under
the Condition of Faith, for it is that only which brings him unto it, and estates him in
it; and therefore Gal. 3. 9, 20. this is made the proper difference and indeed the full

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I42 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
description of Persons in these estates, they which be of Faith are blessed with faith
ful Abraham... (A. ofR., pp. 25-26.)
This position in effect renders Election conditional upon faith, for
if a man "beleeves," he is then to be numbered among the Elect, who
have title to life and salvation. It is on precisely this point that Hooker
differs most unmistakably from strict Calvinist doctrine, as did most
of the preparationists. Calvin's concept of the relation between faith
and election is the exact reverse of Hooker's: "Others . . . make election
depend on faith, as if it were doubtful and also ineffectual until con
firmed by faith .... But it is false to say that election takes effect only
after we have embraced the gospel, and takes its validity from this." 9
There is thus a substantial difference in focus and emphasis between
Calvin and Hooker. For Calvin, election engenders faith; for Hooker,
faith engenders election. Throughout Book III of the Institutes (en
titled, in short form, "The Way We Receive the Grace of Christ"),
Calvin addresses himself to the elect, to those who have been effec
tually called,10 while Hooker in all his discourses speaks to those who
might believe (and thus achieve election), but as yet know nothing of
their call.
Hooker goes on to describe a preparative process involving suc
cessive stages of "contrition" and "humiliation" through which the
"heart" is fitted for the faith in and union with Christ that represents
its salvation. This preparatory effort is a work of the Holy Spirit and
not of man (A. of R., pp. 353-54), but while it is absolutely necessary
to the attainment of saving grace (A. of R., p. I44), it is by no means
sufficient to that attainment, nor does this work of the Spirit in itself
constitute saving grace (A. of R., Bk. X, p. 413). This description of
a necessary preparation for salvation reflects once again the essential
difference between Hooker's concept of conversion and that of Calvin.
Calvin too speaks of the work of the Spirit (III. ii. 33-37), of contri
tion and humiliation (III. xii. 4-6), but considers this work a conse
quence or an effect of saving grace, rather than a necessary form of
preparation for it (III. iii. I-4). Thus Hooker, while he uses almost
no theological terms or scriptural references that do not appear in Cal
vin, arrives at a very different description of conversion. For Calvin,
the Spirit's work is saving, efficacious, a sign of election; for Hooker it
is necessary but nonefficacious, preliminary to salvation.
Alfred Habegger has accurately described Hooker's "scheme of
preparation" as largely determined by the Ramist practice of dicho
tomization, and has constructed an admirable diagram of this scheme,
one that Hooker would surely approve." There can be no doubt that
Hooker took this practice quite seriously: both his structures and his

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 Ramus and the Puritans I43
own diagrams reflect it. In The Application of Redemption, Hooker
describes the Spirit's preparatory work as consisting of two parts (con
trition and humiliation). His discussion of contrition further provides
for both a "sight of sin" and a "sense of sin," though Hooker himself
did not designate each of these components by a particular individual
term, as later writers would do. Yet this Ramist practice of Hooker's
is not in itself sufficient to explain his revisions of Calvin's theories of
regeneration and election, for Calvin himself depended to no small ex
tent upon an essentially dichotomatic mode of presentation. If Hook
er's modifications of Calvinistic conversion doctrine can in any way
be explained as the result of a Ramist influence, the explanation should
involve the operation of some other Ramist principle or principles not
common to the reasoning of both Calvin and Hooker. A close inspec
tion of the reasons Hooker gives for some of his divergences from Cal
vin will reveal what principles these are.
One variation from Calvin that appears fairly early in The Appli
cation of Redemption is the central role assigned to the "Understand
ing" in Hooker's version of the preparation process:
Upon what ground the Evidence of Science and knowledge of my Justification
and Adoption ariseth according to truth, upon that ground ariseth my assurance of
Faith, for both these (I told you in the Explication) were included; and must be
understood in the work of Evidence; and its as certain out of the Principles of right
Reason, and Experience, and Scriptures also: that alone which my mind judgeth,
my Faith embraceth: there is nothing can come to the Wil, but by the Understand
ing: what the Eye sees not, the Heart affects not. No light comes into this Room, but
by this Window: Look therefore, what the Understanding apprehends, and as it ap
prehends it, so is it presented to the Heart, and so by the Heart is it entertained...
(A. ofR., p. 48.)

Calvin had allowed no such efficacy to the understanding in his dis

cussion of faith, since for him faith was a consequence of election, and
the decree of election a part of the divine mystery which forever trans
cends human knowledge.12 But Hooker cites the understanding as
the means to that very assurance of faith that John Cotton, Anne
Hutchinson, and John Wheelwright had found lacking in the prepara
tionists' doctrine.13 Calvin could no doubt have assented to Hooker's
description of the relationship between understanding and will, but
never to the idea that faith "embraceth" only what the mind "judgeth."
The key term here is "judgeth," since that is what the understanding
does, and it has a Ramist ring to it. Lest his readers be not sufficiently
acquainted with Ramist logic to follow, Hooker provides an "In
stance," the better to illustrate his meaning:
But now, my Knowledge and Science if true and sound, it ever issues out of the
Concurrence and joyning together in my Apprehension, of a gracious qualification re

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I44 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
ceiving the Priviledges, and the Priviledges received thereby: For its a ruled Case in
the common Course of Reason, that Knowledge of Science, (that is) sound judge
ment of a truth, never issues out of a simple term, or one thing as one, in it self con
sidered. Instance: I express in word, or attend in my mind, Pardon; (that word or
term) Adoption; Salvation: take them several and asunder: Here no Judgement can
be passed, nor can any that hear, conceive or conclude touching the having or not
having of any of these. So again, Sin, Faith, Self-Denial: I cannot judge what these
are, or in whom these are, there is neither Knowledge, nor Assurance, nor Comfort
comes hence. But dispose and joyn them together; As,
[An Unbeleever is Pardoned:] I judge this false now, because those things are
joyned together whose natures agree not, and the expression is not as the things be,
therefore is a false Proposition, or sentence cross to the Scripture, He that beleeves not
is condemned, Joh. 3. i8. [A Beleever is Pardoned:] The Expression answers the na
ture of the thing, and so the truth and meaning of the Scripture, and therefore its
true: I so judge it, and so beleeve it, and so only, if I either know it aright or judge it
aright. And (mark) this knowledge issues from the right apprehension of both parts
as they agree together, which cannot be but only by a gracious qualification. (A. of
R., p. 49.)

The terms "judge," "dispose," and "joyned together," as well

as the ideas of"natures" "agree[ing]" and "agree[ing] not" suggest that
Hooker is describing a Ramist function in speaking of the understand
ing, as will appear in a comparison of Hooker's statements to Ong's
explanation of "first judgement" as described by Ramus: "... the
first judgement is a step (Ramus says a 'teaching' ) in which 'one
argument is attached firmly and fixedly to a question so that the ques
tion itself is thereby recognized as true or false.' "14 In the case of
Hooker's "Instance," Ramus' "question" is actually stated as a prop
osition: the actual question (implicit in Hooker's examples) is the
truth or falsity of that proposition.

Hooker elsewhere stresses the importance of the understanding to

faith when he specifies the time of life at which most conversions seem
to occur, and the probable reasons for this timing: "... now because in
a man's middle yeares abilitie of nature comes on, inasmuch that a
man is able to conceive and partake of the things of grace, and fadom
them, and the power of his understanding comes on whereby he is able
to embrace them, therefore this is the fittest time that God should be
stow his grace upon a man." 15 The middle years find the power of
understanding most acute, and thus most effective in presenting sound
ly judged truth to the will. On such Ramist operations doth what
"Faith embraceth" depend.
Despite the essentiality of "judgement" to Hooker's conversion
process, another Ramist concept proves still more useful to Hooker,
and becomes the primary means by which he justifies his deviation
from the Calvinistic model of conversion. A comparison of descrip

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 Ramus and the Puritans I45
tions of faith by Calvin and by Hooker will serve to highlight the
Ramist element in Hooker's concept.
Calvin: Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and
certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the
freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our
hearts through the Holy Spirit. (III. ii. 7, p. 551.)
Hooker:
Hooker Why doth the Lord thus bring the heart under, is this necessary and
requisite? . . . the reason is taken from the nature of the covenant of grace which re
quires this.... For the covenant of grace is this, Beleeve and live. The condition
on our part is faith, and beleeving. Now faith is nothing else, but a going out of
the Soule, to fetch all from another, as having nothing of itself, and therefore this
resting in our selves, will not stand with the nature of this covenant.... To be in
our selves, and out of our selves, to have power in our selves, to dispose of anything
belonging to our spirituall estate, and to fetch all from another; these are two con
traries, and therefore cannot stand together.16
Both writers stress the need to rely absolutely on God's goodness, but
Hooker speaks in terms of a contradiction that does not concern Cal
vin. For Calvin, as we have seen, faith is simply a function of one's
arbitrary election by God, by the fact of which one is endowed with
spiritual powers, including that of faith. Hooker, however, applies
what Perry Miller has called the Ramist "doctrine of contraries" 17 in
describing the place of faith at the end of an ordered sequence of stages
through which the Spirit acts upon fallen natural man to make conver
sion possible.
John Milton's Artis Logicae both describes the Ramist principle
that Hooker uses most frequently, and exemplifies a general Puritan
tendency to view opposition almost exclusively in terms of contra
riety:
This law which springs from the very definition itself and is common to all op
posites, not, as Aristotle teaches, proper to contraries, is as follows: Opposites cannot
be attributed to the same thing if they are supposed to work with respect to the same
thing, under the same relations. and at the same time.... Thus Socrates cannot be
black and white as to the same thing, that is, in the same part of his body; nor can he
be father and son of the same man, or as related to the same person, nor well and sick
at the same time, but he can be white in one part of his body, black in another; father
of one man, son of another; well today, sick tomorrow. 1

What makes Hooker's applications of this principle most interest

ing is that while his conclusions differ from Calvin's statements about
conversion, his premises nonetheless are largely Calvinistic. He agrees
with Calvin that man is altogether fallen. He agrees that redemption
is the work of the Spirit and not of man. He agrees that faith involves
a total reliance upon God's mercy. He agrees that the Covenant of
Grace and the Covenant of Works are mutually exclusive, though he

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146 Early American Literature, VIII, i973
applies the doctrine of contraries in explaining this position, where
Calvin does not.19 While consistent with Calvin in all these im
portant respects, Hooker leaves Calvin behind when he applies the
doctrine of contraries to establish the absolute necessity of a certain
preparatory activity of the Spirit: an activity that must take place be
fore faith (election) can be possible. In fact, he seems to leave Calvin
behind him in applying the doctrine of contraries at any fundamental
level of his argument, for I have been unable to locate any passage of
the Institutes in which Calvin's wording clearly suggests the influence
of this Ramist principle, while Hooker's terminology reflects just such
an influence at many crucial points. An even stronger statement of the
necessity of preparation occurs, for instance, in Book III of The Ap
plication of Redemption, where even Hooker's choice of his scriptural
reference seems dictated by his respect for the doctrine of contraries:
If there be not preparation before Implantation, then the soul is implanted unto
Christ while it is in the state of Nature, under the command of Sin, and Power of
Satan, and settled in it self; for upon this ground, and by this grant to be implant
ed unto Christ, and to be at the same time unprepared do stand together.
But that is utterly impossible as apparently contradicting the Principles of Rea
son, for then it should be under the power of sin and Christ at once, in the Kingdom
of Light and Darkness together; in Hell and Heaven at the same time; a Subject to
our Saviour and a Subject to his Corruption; and so a man might serve two contrary
Masters, fully opposite to the verdict of our Saviour Christ, You cannot serve two
Masters, Mat. 6. 24. Contraries at the same time should be affirmed of the same
thing, If it be light, then it's darkness.20

The doctrine of contraries appears at almost every point of Hook

er's argument, "opening" the same or related doctrines from various
scriptural texts. His definition of "sin," for example, is couched pri
marily in terms not so much of "evil" as of simple opposition to God:
"... Sin is only opposite to God, and cross as much as can be to that
infinite goodness and holiness which is in his blessed majesty; it's not
the miseries or distresses that men undergo, that the Lord distastes them
for, or estrangeth himself from them .. ." (A. of R., Bk. X, pp. 63-64.)
Hooker also uses the doctrine of contraries to establish the neces
sity for each of the two stages into which he divides the preparation pro
cess. In arguing the necessity of contrition (the piercing of the heart),
he simultaneously applies both the doctrine of contraries and the relia
ble Ramist device of the disjunctive syllogism:21
In regard of our selves; Either the heart must be pierced, or else a man without
this in his Natural condition, is capable and disposed to receive Faith and Christ;
either necessary to be thus disposed, or Nature without this is fit to entertaine him;
but that is perfectly contrary to the Truth, 2 Cor. 2.14. The natural man cannot re
ceive the things of the Spirit of God, Rom. 8.7. The carnal mind is not subject to
the Law neither can it be; It's not possible that there should be two suns in the Firm

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 Ramus and the Puritans I47
ament, two Kings in one Throne, two Gods in one heart, to be in Heaven and Hell
at once, to serve God and Mammon.... A subject cannot be capable of contrary
habits at the same time, John 5.45. How can yee beleeve who seek honour from
man? (A. of R., Bk. X, p. 417.)
Similarly, in making his case for the necessity of humiliation,
Hooker depends heavily on the "logic" of the doctrine of contraries:
"... this very resting in a man's self-sufficiency doth marvellously
cross and hinder the work of Faith, for this is the nature of Faith; It
goes out of itselfe, and fetcheth a principall of life, grace, and power
from another." (SH, pp. 6-7.)
Hooker's description of the role of the will in the conversion pro
cess is no less indebted to Ramus than his treatment of the understand
ing. Here the doctrine of contraries becomes intimately bound up
with Calvinistic notions of forceful constraint and coercion as
Hooker constructs an ingenious and elaborate synthesis of apparently
contradictory ideas, simultaneously maintaining that coercion is re
quired in the conversion process, that man's will is nonetheless in a
certain sense "free," but that this freedom notwithstanding, conver
sion is finally determined not by man's will but by God. The com
plexity of such a synthesis would appear formidable, to say the least,
but Hooker proceeds with graceful confidence, wielding the doctrine of
contraries as a sort of logician's balance pole. By the time he is ready
to discuss the role of the will in conversion, Hooker has already estab
lished the need for God to dispose the heart of a "naturall man" for
grace. Book VIII of The Application of Redemption is devoted to the
precise explication of the way in which God effects this disposition.
The text for this entire book is John 6.44: "No man can come to me,
unless my Father which sent Me, Draw him." The doctrine to be
"opened" from this text is that "God the Father by a Holy kind of
violence as it were, plucks his [sic] out of their Corruptions, and draws
them to Beleeve in Christ" (p. 349). Hooker specifies the will as the
subject of either sin or grace (p. 373), and goes on to define this
"Holy kind of violence" in terms of what he sees as the natural repul
sion or antagonism implied by the doctrine of contraries:
Look we at the Opposition between the Spirit of Grace that doth remove the
Corruption, and the Corruption it self that is removed: and we shall have further
Evidence, and that undeniable of the former Conclusion.
One Contrary drives away another out of the subject in which it is by Constraint
and Violence: But the work of the Spirit as contrary to Sin, drives it out of the soul
in which it is seated as in its natural subject, therefore this must be done with vio
lence. The first part is plain by the Principles of reason commonly received, i.e.
That the ground of al Constraint is that crossness and contrariety between the nature
of things, and their actions: every thing is carried to that which is sutable to its own
nature, out of its own proper power and inclination; there needs no constraint to make

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148 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
the Fire burn, the Lion to roar, and heavie things to descend, a Wolfe to prey and
raven: But to make heavie things to ascend, the Lion to be milde as a Lamb, the
Wolfe as harmless as a kid, there must be a strong hand of an almighty power to make
such a change, and by a kind of violence to subdue the crossness and averseness
which carries these in professed opposition. (A. ofR., p. 386.)
"The former Conclusion" was that "though there be no force afforded
to the Faculty of the Will, yet the power of Corruption must by a holy
kind of violence be removed, before any spiritual power can be im
printed upon the soul, whereby it may put forth any spiritual act " (A.
ofR., p. 376).
Since violence consists only of the natural antagonism between
sin and Grace, no violence or constraint is directed against the will,
which Hooker sees as simply the location of the struggle occasioned by
this natural antagonism. His readers are left to discover for them
selves what incidental damages the will sustains in thus serving as a
battlefield, while Hooker goes on to stress again the necessity of this
sort of violent constraint as opposed to a gentler variety of friendly per
suasion: "... where there is Contrariety and Enmity, there is Con
straint and Opposition, not kindness and perswasion only. Such is the
work here" (p. 379). Still, sin, and not the will itself, remains the ob
ject of this violence.
But even this careful a qualification is not enough for Hooker,
who seems so completely committed to the doctrine of contraries that
he tends to view it as the very cornerstone of natural order in the uni
verse, and even has the somewhat self-conscious temerity to suggest
that the Almighty is as bound by Ramist principles as he himself is.
In pressing on to describe a contradictory element in the notion that
the will can be coerced, Hooker writes:

Its impossible that while a thing acts by its own inward inclination, it should
by outward force act against its inclination, though its possible and reasonable that
the Lord cross both, yea, destroy both act, and inclination and al, as he wil. God
(as we may speak with reverence and fear) cannot make nature remaining to act
against nature: for then, when there is greatest Contention, there should be greatest
opposition, and one thing should be opposite to itselfe. The Causes which are the
Principles of Constitution should become the Causes of Destruction, which Reason
abhors, but yet he can destroy nature without any breach of Rule or Reason: So here,
God can destroy the will and power of sinning, according to al the rules of Reason
and Religion, but its against both, That God should compel the will of sinning, to be
willing to destroy it selfe. (A. ofR., p. 386-italics mine.)

In Book X, Hooker anticipates the charges of Pelagianism and

Arminianism which might arise from the importance he attributes to
the free act of the will, and takes measures to head off his potential
accusers. His defense at this point assumes the Ramist form of a com
plex disjunctive syllogism:

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 Ramus and the Puritans 149
Suppose the first Grace offered, or the voyce of God's Call tendered unto the
will that now hath the resistance taken off; the question now grows, How the will
comes to give her consent to this act of first Grace; this consent must come either from
the will only, or partly from the will, and partly from Grace; or from Grace only. To
say the will only is Heretical, and perfect Pelagianism in the highest degree, which
exalts nature above Grace, nay, to make it perfect without it. If from Grace and the
will both, as divers principles, then . . . there is an ability in the will to begin its
work, and to meet and concur with Grace, without Grace so far in a Spiritual Act.
. .. And this also is Heretical and Pelagianism: for thus far, and in that beginning,
the will closeth with Grace without the power of Grace, which is cross to the
Apostle, and to all the former conclusions. (A. of R., Bk. X, pp. 394-95.)

The consummately non-deductive and (to us) apparently illogi

cal quality of this argument is used chiefly to provide a structured form
for the presentation of the "truth" inherent in a body of a priori as
sumptions. Perry Miller's description of the general nature of the
Ramist logic is particularly appropriate to this passage:

The problem for the Ramist . .. was not patient inquiry but rapid survey. His
chief concern was classification, for if the arguments are laid out correctly in dichoto
mies, the proper order among them will appear of itself, as invisible ink emerges be
fore the fire. Truth does not need proof, but only assertion. Hence true doctrine is a
series of axioms, and correct propositions are so self-evident that in almost all cases
doubt can be resolved by the mere statement of alternatives in the disjunctive syllo
gism.22
Hooker's uses of dichotomy and of the disjunctive syllogism do con
form to Miller's evaluation of the Ramist logic as essentially a formal
or structural device. Hooker's use of the doctrine of contraries, how
ever, informs his argument at a much more fundamental ideological
level, so that this rule of reason in fact functions as a primary means
not just of structuring a presentation, but of argumentative demon
stration.

The net effect of Hooker's descriptions of the role of the will in

conversion is to emphasize the importance of the individual's volun
tary assent to God's call, but not at the expense of an essentially Cal
vinistic concept of God's consummate power and authority.23 The
will derives its general power of consent from God, but is itself the
"cause" of individual acts of consent, including that act which is in
volved in the process of conversion (A. of R., Bk. X, pp. 395-96).
This particular act of consent thus becomes one for which the indi
vidual, at least to some extent, can be held responsible: and indeed,
many of Hooker's "Uses of Exhortation" do exhort aspiring con
verts to the exercise of just this responsibility. Thus for Hooker con
version does become more a matter of individual effort and participa
tion, and less simply a matter of God's arbitrary act, than it was for
Calvin and his more literal followers. Yet Hooker applies the doc

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I50 Early American Literature, VIII, I973
trine of contraries in such a way as to establish the necessity for his
preparatory stages on the basis of that same fundamental difference
between sinful man and omnipotent God that was perhaps the most
essential emphasis of Calvin's theology. It is primarily the effective
use to which he puts this Ramist rule that enables Hooker to describe
the "application of redemption" with so little damage to long-cher
ished Calvinist convictions.
Almost as important, however, is Hooker's use of a related tenet
of Ramist opposition theory, a rule which I will call the "principle of
contrast." Milton explains this principle as follows:

The second property which Aristotle assigns to contraries is also common to

all dissentanies, to wit, by their dissent to appear more evidently.... Thus the con
veniences of good health are made more manifest by the inconveniences of bad
health; praises of the virtues are elucidated by censure of the contrary vices.
So these places of dissentanies, as Aristotle (Topics 3.4) says, are useful not
merely for arguing and explaining, but also for persuading and refuting, so that he
who does not wish to be taught by a consentany argument is led back to it by the ab
surd result of a dissentany argument, so that even an unwilling man is unable not to
assent to the truth.24

Given Milton's explication, it is easy to understand the attraction

held by this principle for Puritan divines, who were faced with the
necessity of convincing understandably recalcitrant individuals that
they must be "pierced" and "humiliated." Hooker's applications of
the principle of contrast fall into one of two closely related categories:
either he applies it to explain why man in his natural, sinful state is
"unaffected" by a sense of his own corruption, or he uses it to show
why the applicant must be so affected before he can truly appreciate
the full extent of the Lord's goodness and mercy. In The Application
of Redemption the former use is dominant: "When the soul stands
fully under the power of corruptions possessed with it and acted by it,
it's not possible it should apprehend the evil of sin, nor the nature of
the Soule taste the venome thereof. Sin carries no crossness of opposi
tion of evil to itself, and therefore no disquiet to itself, and so no sep
aration from itself" (Bk. X, p. 382). In earlier treatments, Hooker
appears to have used the latter approach: "If the heart find the greatest
evill to be in horror and vexation, then ease and quietnesse from these
will be the greatest good; but now the soul seeth grace to be truly pre
cious; because it seeth sinne to be truly vile: and this is the end why
the Lord makes the soule see the vileness of sinne; that the heart may
be brought to see the excellency in Christ and prize him above all." 25
The assumption in either case seems to be that neither sin nor grace
can be known in itself, without reference to its opposite. Indeed, the
principle of contrast, together with the doctrine of contraries, enabled

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 Ramus and the Puritans 151
Hooker and other Puritans to define these concepts primarily in terms
of mutual contradiction.
The doctrine of contraries, then, buttresses Hooker's conversion
theory at its very foundations, and with respect to precisely those
points at which he deviates most from Calvin. The conjunction of this
application with related uses of the principle of contrast, the dichotom
ous delineation of the preparatory stages, the description of the under
standing's operation, and the disjunctive syllogism, indicate that the
chief appeal of Hooker's argument is to a distinctly Ramist variety of
human reason. Though he does firmly ground his doctrine in scrip
tural references, Hooker by no means assumes that his texts by them
selves establish the authority of the doctrine he develops. His appeal is
argumentative; he seeks to convince his readers that his doctrine must
be true according to commonly received principles of right reasoning.
It is in the frequency of his invocation of such principles that the
Ramist base of Hooker's preparationism appears most clearly.
There is a singular irony in Hooker's conversion theory, for
while he stressed the vastness of the gulf between man and God much
as Calvin had, Hooker was seeking to render the Calvinist doctrines of
election and predestination both less harsh and less arbitrary by making
the signs of proper preparation for salvation accessible to potential con
verts. The doctrine of contraries provided a means by which he could
describe these signs in terms of the essential Calvinistic distance be
tween man and God. Yet in so describing his preparatory stages,
Hooker built into the process of conversion a psychological strain in
some ways more demanding than the mere passive waiting for vocation
and election that Calvin had required of his followers. For Hooker's
preparationists, the real pain and degradation of contrition and humil
iation were requisite to faith without positively guaranteeing it, and
thus were experienced in the absence of any complete and sufficient effi
cacious spiritual influence which might sustain and uplift one
through these trying processes. Faith, once attained, would provide
"a sure and clear ground," "a special and infallible assurance" aris
ing from "the love and fruitfulness of God in the undoubted perform
ance of the Promises he makes." The best that even the truly contrite
sinner (without faith) could look forward to, however, was an "un
known expectation [that] ariseth from the apprehension of some possibili
ties presented, which because they are unknown what they may be,
therefore the restless contrite sinner puts forth his endeavor to prove
what will be the issue" (A. of R., Bk. X, p. 600). For a strict Calvin
ist, on the other hand, this pain might be more easily borne, since it
was a sign not just that there was hope of faith, but that a genuine, sav

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152 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
ing, efficacious faith in fact was present. In Hooker's theory the indi
vidual, while still subject to the more or less arbitrary whims of an
Absolute Power, was assigned a greater degree of responsibility for his
own salvation than Calvin had been willing to permit him. The fact
that this responsibility specifically involved the negation of his positive
sense of and trust in his own selfhood placed Hooker's penitent in a
precarious predicament, and quite possibly rendered him more desper
ate for relief than any of the non-Elect Calvinist reprobates whom
Hooker had hoped to help.

The applicant seeking sanctions to modify the severe psychological

stresses imposed by Hooker's descriptions of conversion would have
found small satisfaction in the sermons of Thomas Shepard, which
for the most part deliberately intensify those stresses. This intensifica
tion is largely the result of Shepard's different emphasis in the use of
Ramist principles to defend an essentially similar concept of conver
sion, for where Hooker found the doctrine of contraries to be his most
useful tool, Shepard relied most extensively on the principle of con
trast.

Shepard, like Hooker, was concerned with demonstrating that a

series of preparative works of the Spirit was necessary before the heart
could be considered capable of receiving faith and grace. The general
nature and effect of these steps as Shepard describes them in The
Sound Believer26 is virtually the same as in Hooker's two-stage se
quence of contrition and humiliation, though Shepard apparently felt
he had improved upon Hooker's doctrine, much as earlier English
Ramists like MacIlmaine had "improved" upon Ramus himself,27 by
neatly (and alliteratively) sub-dichotomizing Hooker's stage of contri
tion into the two stages of "conviction of sin" (SB, 117-36) and "com
punction of sin" (SB, I36-74).
Shepard's bifurcation of "contrition" into the complementary
stages of conviction and compunction is specifically conditioned by his
assumption of a relationship between understanding and will similar
in some respects to that which characterized Hooker's theory of prepar
ation. Conviction and compunction are initially identified with "sight"
and "sense" of sin respectively: "I shall hereafter prove that there can
be no faith without sense of sin and misery; and now there can be no
sense of sin without a precedent sight or conviction of sin; no man can
feel sin, unless he doth first see it; what the eye sees not, the heart rues
not" (SB, II8). Shepard then associates the work of the Spirit in
conviction with the understanding, and in compunction with the will:
"Compunction, pricking at the heart, or sense and feeling of sin, is dif

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 Ramus and the Puritans I53
ferent from conviction of sin: the latter is the work of the understand
ing, and seated in that principally; the other is in the affections and
will, and seated therein principally: a man may have sight of sin with
out sorrow and sense of it" (SB, I36).
Thus far, though more strictly organized in terms of dichotomous
stages and labels, Shepard's version of the preparatory process corres
ponds to Hooker's. There is, however, a real difference between the
two men's descriptions of the understanding, despite the fact that both
ministers depend ultimately on Ramist terms. Hooker explicitly asso
ciates the basic act of the understanding with the Ramist notion of
"judgement" in a way which allows "judgement" to determine what
faith and the will "embrace." Shepard, on the other hand, provides no
such specific description of "judgement" as the understanding's basic
act, and at first seems to reveal his Ramist inclinations primarily
through the correspondence of his depiction of the steps of conviction
to the Ramist "method" of descent from the general to particulars.
The Spirit first convinces the soul "in general that it is a sinner and
sinful," and then "brings in a convicting evidence of the particulars"
(SB, 119). It is in discussing the question, "How doth the Lord thus
convince sin, and wherein is it expressed?" (SB, I25), however, that
Shepard shows the true colors of his Ramist commitment by disting
uishing between two kinds of conviction (another Ramist dichotomy?),
both of which are involved in the Spirit's work upon the understand
ing: "There is a real light in spiritual conviction. Rational conviction
makes things appear notionally; but spiritual conviction, really. The
Spirit, indeed, useth argumentation in conviction, but it goeth further,
and causeth the soul not only to see sin and death discursively, but also
intuitively and really" (SB, I27).

As he develops the implications of this distinction, Shepard im

plies the probable reason for his de-emphasis of "judgement"-it
smacks too strongly of the purely "rational" aspect of conviction, and
Shepard is most concerned with the spiritual: "And hence many that
know most of sin know least of sin, because, in seeing it notionally,
they see it not really. And therefore happy were it for some men,
scholars and others, that they had no notional knowledge of sin; for
this light is their darkness, and makes them more uncapable of spiritual
conviction" (SB, 128).
Far from occasioning Shepard's complete rejection of Ramist logic
as overly "notional," this distinction enables him to bring forward the
principle of contrast, which he applies in the process of establishing yet
another sub-dichotomy:

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 I54 Early American Literature, VIII, I973
The first act of spiritual conviction is to let a man see clearly that he is sinful
and most miserable. The second act is to let the soul see really what this sin and
death is. ... If you here ask how the Lord makes sin real, I answer, by making God
real; the real greatness of sin is seen by beholding really the greatness of God, who
is smitten by sin; sin is not seen because God is not seen .... the Spirit saith, Lo, this
is that God thy sins have provoked. And now sin appears as it is; and together with
this real sight of sin, the soul doth not see painted fire, but sees the fire of God's
wrath really, whither it now is leading, that never can be quenched but by Christ's
blood. (SB, I28.)
Thus it would seem that the principle of contrast proves most use
ful to Shepard at the very time when he is least concerned with the
strictly "rational" aspect of the Spirit's work in conversion, and that
this principle is in fact exalted above more "rational" means of per
suasion. This impression is borne out by the consistency of Shepard's
emphasis throughout his work, but nowhere more explicitly than in his
chapter on compunction and the will (a unit twice the length of the
preceding chapter on conviction and the understanding), where he uses
the principle of contrast to establish the necessity of compunction:

0, it is sweet, and it only is sweet; for so long as the soul is dead in sin, "plea
sure in sin is death in sin." (i. Tim. v. 6) So long as it is dead in sin, it is impossible
that it should part with sin, no more than a dead man can break the bonds of death.
And therefore it undeniably follows, that the Lord must first put gall and wormwood
to these dugs, before the soul will cease sucking, or be weaned from them; the Lord
must first make sin bitter, before it will part with it; load it with sin, before it will
sit down and desire ease. And look, as the pleasure in sin is exceeding sweet to a
sinner, so the sorrow for it must be exceeding bitter, before the soul will part from
it. (SB, I42.)
The necessity of compunction thus established, Shepard goes on to
describe the particular forms the work of compunction takes: ". . . in
general it is whereby the soul is affected with sin, and made sensible of
sin; but more particularly, compunction is nothing else but a pricking
of the heart, or wounding of the soul with such fear and sorrow for sin
and misery as severs the soul from sin, and from going on toward its
eternal misery; so that it consists in three things:- i. Fear. 2. Sor
row. 3. Separation from sin" (SB, I46). At this point the considera
ble difference in tone and emphasis between Hooker and Shepard be
comes obvious. Hooker relied primarily upon the doctrine of contraries
in establishing the need for both contrition and humiliation, but even
more importantly, in fashioning the intricate synthesis in which he was
able to maintain that no violence was directed against man's will. Yet
Shepard, in his treatment of compunction, uses the principle of contrast
to demonstrate the absolute necessity of violence to the will, in which
he locates the work of compunction. It would therefore seem to be true
that Shepard assigned a greater degree of efficacy to the rigors and

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 Ramus and the Puritans 155
terrors of the Law than Hooker felt was necessary, as Norman Pettit
has observed.28 This efficacy occurs, however, within the governing
framework of the principle of contrast, of which the Law and its
threats are instruments, and to which they are subordinate.
It is the way in which Shepard applies the principle of contrast,
and not merely his more extensive use of it, that helps to distinguish
his severe tone from that of Hooker's milder doctrine. It would, for
example, be possible to use this principle as the means of relating ab
stract concepts of "good" and "evil," much as they are related (inde
pendent of man's faculties) in Hooker's use of the doctrine of contrar
ies to support his notion of the "freedom" of the will in terms of the
natural opposition between the two. Shepard, however, does not do
this. In his applications of the principle of contrast, Shepard identifies
evil or corruption with man, and good or value with God, so that the
ultimate contrast is every bit as much between man and God as be
tween generic good and generic evil. For this reason, God's violence
(for Shepard) must be directed against the will itself as corruption, and
not, as for Hooker, against that evil (distinct from man) which is mere
ly situated in the will.
This difference from Hooker is also evident in Shepard's descrip
tion of the work of the Spirit in humiliation, despite the fact that
Shepard's definition of this stage as that in which the soul is sundered
"... from all high conceits and self-confidence of that good which is
in him, or which he seeks might be in him ..." (SB, I75), is essen
tially the same as Hooker's:
By loading, tiring, and wearying the soul with its own endeavors, until it can
stir no more,-for this is in every man by nature,-when he sees that all he doth is
sinful, and all he hath, his heart and nature, to be most sinful; yet he will not come
out of himself, because he hopes, though he be for the present thus vile, yet he hopes,
for future time, his heart may grow better, and himself do better than now . . . hence
it comes to pass that the soul, seeing itself to labor only in the fire and smoke, and to
be still as miserable and sinful as ever before, hereupon it is quite tired out, and sits
down weary, not only of sin, but of its work; and now cries out, I see what a vile and
undone wretch I am; I can do nothing for God or myself; only I can sin and destroy
myself; all that I am is vile, and all that I do is vile; I now see that I am indeed poor,
and blind, and miserable, and naked.29

Important as the principle of contrast is to Shepard's descriptions

of conviction, compunction, and humiliation, its most novel applica
tion is to be found in his development of the concept of faith as the
object or end of these preparatory phases. Shepard's general definition
of faith is quite similar to Hooker's: "Faith is that gracious work of
the Spirit, whereby a humbled sinner receiveth Christ; or whether
[sic] the whole soul cometh out of itself to Christ, for Christ and all his

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 I56 Early American Literature, VIII, I973
benefits, upon the call of Christ in his word" (SB, I90). Even in
Shepard's discussion of his third "particular," the form of faith, a de
gree of similarity to Hooker is evident in the sequence through which
the soul acts to come to Christ: "All evil is in man's self, and from him
self; all man's good is in Christ and from Christ. The souls of all
God's elect, seeing these things, forsake and renounce themselves, in
whom and from whom is all their good. This motion of the soul be
tween these extremes, throughout that vast and infinite distance that is
between a sinful, wretched man and a blessed Saviour, is faith...."
(SB, 202). This was, however, the very point at which Hooker in
voked the doctrine of contraries to explain both the nature of faith and
the necessity for this sequence. Here once again, Shepard eschews that
Ramist tenet in favor of the principle of contrast. This principle, as
Shepard applies it to the "opening" of the form of faith, utilizes the
contrast between the humbled soul's sense of its own utter helplessness,
and the power of God's grace to remedy the pain of that sense, in such
a way as to call forth the latter through one's experience of the former:
Now, when here you feel a need, know it that you are at the very door of relief.
I conceive this is the great door at which Christ enters into the soul. The root of
faith-i.e., the author, object, and foundation of faith-is out of a man's self; the
door of faith which opens to all treasures is in a man's self. This door is not any
good in us, for then we should have somewhat to boast of; nor sin in us, for that
shuts out God from us; nor knowledge of want, for that the devils have; but sense
of want, which when the saints have, now the door is opened for the Lord Jesus in all
his fullness to come in.30

Shepard describes a contrast between man's need, and the sufficiency of

Christ to fill that need. Until the need itself is starkly realized by the
penitent, he is unprepared to recognize that fullness of Christ which is
the proper object of the need.
An extension of this idea appears in Shepard's brief treatise "Of
Ineffectual Hearing of the Word," where even those few direct though
fleeting glimpses of God's glory that Shepard says the convert may ex
perience are described in such a way as to stress the efficacy not of the
glimpses themselves, but of the contrast between such passing sights of
glory and the more usual empty condition of the soul:
A Christian may have at some time such a glimpse (in hearing the word) of God's
grace, and the love of God to him, that he may be in a little heaven at that time;
ravished in the admiration of that mercy, that ever God should look to him. It is so,
and the word says so, and the soul is ravished with wonderment at it; yet God is
gone again, and the soul loses it. Now, the soul thinks I have lost the efficacy of
God's word, but it is not so, for thus it may be preserved. O that I may see this God
as I have done! And all his lifetime the soul may find the want of this, and yet it
may be preserved in a spirit of prayer. ... I say it may find it thus, when he can not
find the real efficacy of the word as he would do; he may receive the benefit of that

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 Ramus and the Puritans I57
word, if the Lord do but only give him a heart to desire it. O that the Lord would
thus manifest himself to me! the soul may go away poor and hungry from the word,
and the Lord may yet reserve a spirit of thirsting after that good which a man desires
to find; and there is the efficacy of the word there.31

This emphasis upon the essentiality of man's sense of want and

need to the attainment of saving faith is the most consistently recurring
feature of Shepard's writings on conversion. Make the sense of want
strong and urgent enough, Shepard insists time and again, and God's
glory and mercy will appear in their true forms as the only possible
fulfillment of that sense. The principle of contrast thus is used to evoke
the convert's knowledge of God and union with Christ through his
prior (and more immediately accessible) sense of his own need. Value
is defined in terms of and in contrast to man's own complete and utter
lack of value: nor can it ever be finally and completely realized or
achieved, during earthly life, except upon these terms of man's defi
ciency. It is not difficult to imagine the intensity of the psychological
strain attendant upon one's unqualified acceptance of such a doctrine.
Indeed, the adverse reaction of leading women's liberationistseto the
Freudian theory of female psychology as essentially determined by
the debilitating lack of a penis 32 provides a relevant modern analogy
to the difficulties faced by the Puritan penitent who was either willing
or able to take Shepard at his word.

Though Shepard relied primarily upon the principle of contrast,

he found ample opportunity to employ the doctrine of contraries, usu
ally in contexts similar to those of Hooker's applications of this same
Ramist rule. His definition of original sin, for example, is consistent
with Hooker's, and is expressed in terms of the doctrine of contraries:
"... original sin is the contrariety of the whole nature of man to the
law of God, whereby it, being averse from all good, is inclined to all
evil." 33 This definition, moreover, makes it convenient for Shepard
to apply the doctrine of contraries, much as Hooker did, in arguing the
necessity of preparation prior to faith:

For how is it possible to be turned unto Christ, and yet then also to be turned to
sin and Satan? Doth it not imply a contradiction, to be turned toward sin, (which is
ever from Christ,) and yet to be turned toward Christ together? All divines affirm
generally that in the working of faith the Lord makes the soul willing to have Christ,
(Ps. cx 2,3,) but withal they affirm that of unwilling he makes willing; and therefore
it follows that the Lord must first remove that unwillingness before it can be willing,
it being impossible to be both willing and unwilling together.34

Shepard even carries such Hookersque applications of the doctrine

of contraries to a new extreme in using that rule to describe the "full
ness of grace" possessed by those who have actually become believers:

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 I58 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
Quest. What is this fullness?
Ans. When the Spirit comes in the room of those things which a man is full of now.
For fullness or filling implies emptiness and the removal of that.
Now, there are six things every man is full of:
i. Sin; 2. Darkness; 3. Unbelief; 4. Satan; 5. Self; 6. World. So there is answer
ably in every saint,
i. A fullness of humiliation for sin.
2. A fullness of illumination and revelation in the room of darkness.
3. A fullness of faith, in the room of unbelief.
4. A fullness of the Spirit itself, in the room of Satan.
5. A fullness of sanctification in acting for God as their last end, in the room of self
seeking.
6. A fullness of glory and consolation, instead of the world. (TV, 302.)
Despite these obvious similarities to Hooker in his use of the doc
trine of contraries, Shepard sees a different application for it which,
while equally valid in the strictest "logical" sense, is not consistent
with the theological issue at stake in the necessity of preparation as
both Hooker and Shepard himself describe it: ". . . but now he that is
filled with the Spirit, the Lord empties him, and the longer he lives, so
that others think he needs not much grace, yet he accounts himself the
poorest, and feels a need of every truth of God, and ordinance of God;
his sin (it is true) continues, it is not quite abolished, and his sighing
within himself continues also to his grave.... 'Poor,' and yet the
Lord dwells there: how can these stand together? very well in those
who are the Lord's." 35 Shepard realizes that the doctrine of con
traries can as legitimately be applied to call into question the condition
of the humbled sinner after grace is achieved ("poor," yet rich in the
Lord simultaneously) as to spotlight the necessity for separation from
sin, prior to faith, in the work of compunction. Indeed, the force of his
own repetitive stress on the importance of the sense of want, as linked
through the principle of contrast to God's grace, does give the apparent
contradiction Shepard depicts here a distinct prominence in his work.
It would therefore seem that Shepard is faced with an inconsistency
arising from an incompatibility between the terms of the two logical
principles that he himself most frequently employs. His reaction to
this difficulty is revealing. Without denying the validity of the "logi
cal" basis on which the objection is raised, Shepard in an ingenuous
assertion of God's transcendence of the rules of logic36 transforms a
liability into an asset by using it to demonstrate the mystery and omni
potence of the Divinity, thus managing to maintain at once both the
integrity of the Ramist logic and the superiority of the Lord. His suc
cess in this endeavor notwithstanding, Shepard's sensitivity to the
problem he encounters here may well account to some extent for the
relative de-emphasis of the doctrine of contraries in his writings, as
compared to those of Hooker.

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 Ramus and the Puritans 159
Both Thomas Hooker and Thomas Shepard, then, rely primarily
on Ramist ideas not only in demonstrating the necessity of preparation
for salvation, but also in describing the nature of the preparatory stages.
For them, the process of conversion thus becomes less of an enigma,
and more a recognizable sequence of events, than it was for Calvin,
who left it for the most part shrouded in the mystery of the divine de
cree of election. Their use of Ramist opposition theory, in particular,
made it possible for both Hooker and Shepard to describe the prepara
tory stages largely in terms of that very tension and distance between
man and God fundamental not only to Calvinism, but to the Reforma
tion at large. To this extent, the Ramist logic would appear to have
exerted a similar, perhaps even a determining, influence on both writers.
It provided, at the very least, a highly serviceable means to an end,
if not the end itself.

One is finally reluctant, however, to attribute the development of

the idea of preparation for salvation, even as described by Hooker and
Shepard, solely to the influence of Ramus. Norman Pettit has traced
the gradual growth of various non-Ramist ingredients of this idea in
the works of both the Continental reformers and the English Puritans.37
Hooker's preface to The Application of Redemption, furthermore,
would seem to indicate that he saw a clear requirement for the idea of
preparation strictly in terms of practical necessity: without it, how was
the reprobate even to approach the possibility of salvation? "For what
availes it the hungry to hear of fat things ... and not know how to
come at them?" (A. of R., p. 2). Then too, despite the striking simi
larities in their arguments, the differing emphases of Hooker and
Shepard, as related to the different use they make of Ramist principles,
point up the fact that the Ramist "logic," like any other, could be
adapted to the defense of rather different premises. The two men
seem to represent divergent wings of the preparationist movement:
Hooker a brand of liberality which would prove bothersome to Jona
than Edwards even so late as a century later,38 and Shepard a conserv
atism which retained a stricter Calvinistic concept of the corruption of
the will and of the absolute supremacy of God over man.
Nevertheless, the consummately binary form of the preparatory
stages, as well as the contrasts and contrarieties stressed by both writers
throughout their arguments, do seem to derive directly from the influ
ence of Ramist principles. These contrasts and contrarieties, more
over, appear largely responsible for the tremendous psychological
strains imposed upon the hopeful applicant by both of these respected
Puritan divines. At every point of the required preparation process, the
individual was forced to look his own inadequacy squarely in the face:

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I60 Early American Literature, VIII, 1973
and this in the absence of any absolute guarantee that his salvation
necessarily must follow. Such requirements, furthermore, were in fact
imposed, with varying degrees of success, upon New England at large,
in the form of tests for saving faith in which the individual was expect
ed to rehearse, either before the congregation or before the leading
Elder, the progress of the Spirit's work upon his soul. Such tests were
initially required of candidates for church membership in New Eng
land; later, they were frequently applied to half-way members seeking
full communion and admission to the Lord's Supper.39 Hooker and
Shepard were both involved in the early disputes as to what sorts of
tests should be required,4 and the requirements eventually adopted
must have forced large segments of the populace to come to terms
with the Ramist patterns of thinking demanded by the preparationist
program. The Ramist practices of dichotomized structure, contrast,
and contrariety, so well suited to the extension of the basic Calvinistic
contrast between man and God into the conversion theory defended by
two of New England's leading theologians, thus may well have had
still more to do with the evolution of "The New England Mind" than
even Perry Miller has suggested.
NOTES

1Because of these earlier "unauthorized" printings, Goodwin and Nye,

Hooker's editors, take pains to stress the textual authority of The Application of Re
demption in their prefatory comments "To The Reader" (unpaginated): "This is all
truly and purely his own, not as preached only, but as written by himself in order to
the Press."
2John Albro, Life of Thomas Shepard. Bound with The Works of Thomas
Shepard, ed. Albro, 3 vols. (1853; rpt. New York, i967), I, clxxxvi.
3 Ibid., cxix and cxxxiv. For an illuminating contrast between the theology
of Thomas Shepard and John Cotton as related to the Antinomian controversy, see
Jesper Rosenmeier, "New England's Perfection: The Image of Adam and the Image
of Christ in the Antinomian Crisis, 1634-1638," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd
series, 27 (I970), 435-59.
4 Norman Pettit has described the theological origins of the concept of prepara
tion in The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life (New
Haven and London, I966).
5 Hooker received the B.A. and the M.A. degrees from Emmanuel in i608 and
1611 respectively. Shepard received the same degrees, also from Emmanuel, in
1623 and 1627.
6 For a complete history of the Ramist movement in England, see Wilbur S.
Howell, "Ramus's Dialectic in England," Logic and Rhetoric in England, I500
I700 (Princeton, i956), pp. 173-246.
7 Despite a great deal of attention to both Ramism and preparationism separ
ately considered, the possibility of a relationship between the two movements seems
not to have received specific attention. Walter J. Ong, S.J., has provided a definitive

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 Ramus and the Puritans I6i
study of the background and origins of Ramus' ideas in Ramus: Method and the
Decay of Dialogue (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), but does not examine the effect of
Ramist logic on Puritan reforms. Perry Miller notes the frequent incidence of Ramist
constructs and terminology in Puritan writings in The New England Mind. The
Seventeenth Century (1939; rpt. Boston, 1961), but establishes no connections be
tween the idea of preparation for salvation and the Ramist logic either there or in his
subsequent article, "Preparation for Salvation in Seventeenth-Century New England,"
Journal of the History of Ideas, 4 (I943), 253-86. Norman Pettit's study, cited
above, is restricted to a survey of theological writers, and takes no account of Ramus.
For biographical information on Thomas Hooker, see George Williams, "The
Pilgrimage of Thomas Hooker," Bulletin of the Congregational Library, 19 (1967
and I968). A succinct survey of Hooker's theology may be found in Everett Emer
son, "Thomas Hooker: The Puritan as Theologian," Anglican Theological Review,
49 (1967), I90-203.
8" ... I am now only in the general Doctrine, which lies open in a Commun
ity for the nature of it to all that comes after, and therefore nothing is proper to this
place but that which carries that Community with it; the Severals I shall reserve to
their particular places." The Application of Redemption (London, i656), p. 6.
Hereafter cited in text as A. of R. Since pagination begins anew with Book X (pub
lished in i659 but bound with previous Books), all page references to Book X will
be preceded by the Roman numeral Book number.
9John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, tr.
Ford Lewis Battles, 1559 edition, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, i96o), Book III, Chapt.
xxiv, section 3, vol. II, 967-68. See also III. xii. 946. Subsequent Calvin citations
refer to this work by book, chapter, section (if applicable), and page number; all
subsequent citations refer to vol. I, unless otherwise indicated.
10 See Everett H. Emerson, "Calvin and Covenant Theology," Church History,
25 (1956), I42. Emerson applies this observation to Calvin's sermons, but it is no
less true of this book of the Institutes.

11 "Preparing the Soul for Christ: The Contrasting Sermon Forms of John Cot
ton and Thomas Hooker," American Literature, 41, 3 (March, I970), 349. For
discussion of Ramus and dichotomies, see Ong, pp. 182 and 200-02.
12See Institutes, III. xxi, i, vol. II, 922.
13 Pettit, pp. 19-20.
14 Ramus, p. I85.
15 The Unbeliever's Preparing for Christ (London, 1638), pp. 199-200.
16 The Soules Humiliation (London, I638), pp. 127-28. Hereafter cited as
SH.
17"Introduction," The Puritans: A Sourcebook of their Writings, revised edi
tion (New York, I963), p. 33.
18 John Milton, Artis Logicae ..., ed. & tr. Allan H. Gilbert, The Works of
John Milton (New York, I935), XI, iii. See also Rolande Macllmaine, tr., The
Logike of the Moste Excellente Philosopher P. Ramus Martyr, ed. Catherine M.
Dunn (1574 edition; rpt. Northridge, California, 1969), p. 21.
19See SH, p. 128; A. of R., Bk. X, p. 690; and Calvin, Institutes, III. xvii.
I5, vol. II, 81Q-20.
20A. of R., p. 156. Related versions of this statement appear on p. 93, and pp.
162-63.

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162 Early American Literature, VIII, I973
21 See Miller, New England Mind, I, 137-38, for an indication of the degree
to which New England divines relied upon this device, which MacIlmaine exempli
fies as follows:
It is eyther night or daye:
But it is not daye:
It is night therefore.
(Logike, p. 54)
22 New England Mind, I, I5I.
23 Calvin faced many of the same issues to which Hooker addresses himself in
discussing "freedom" of the will: see Institutes, II. ii. i-II. Both the similarities
and the differences in the positions of the two men appear in the contrast between
Hooker's concept as described above, and Calvin's approving citation of Augustine:
"Why, elsewhere he seems to ridicule the use of this word when he says that the
will is indeed free, but not freed: free of righteousness, but enslaved to sin! ... If
anyone, then, can use this word without understanding it in a bad sense, I shall not
trouble him on this account. But I hold that because it cannot be retained without
great peril, it will, on the contrary, be a great boon for the church if it be abolished.
I prefer not to use it myself, and I should like others, if they seek my advice, to avoid
it." (II. ii. 8, p. 266.)
24 Artis Logicae ..., XI, IoI. See also MacIlmaine, pp. 20-21.
25 The Soules Preparationfor Christ (London, 1632), p. 164.
26The Sound Believer, Works, I, 111-284. Hereafter cited as SB.
27 See Howell, p. I86.
28 The Heart Prepared, pp. I07-10.
29 SB, I8I. See also p. 129 and pp. I78-79.
30 The Parable of the Ten Virgins Opened and Applied, Works, II, 65.
Hereafter cited as TV.
31 Works, III, 375.
32See, for example, Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York, I97'), pp. 176
203.
33 "The Sum of Christian Religion, in Way of Question and Answer," Works,
I, 343.
34SB, I64-65; see also 182-83; and TV, I40, 276, and 481.
35TV, 557. See also I57.
36 Shepard's ploy here stands in significant contrast to Hooker's apprehensive
attempt to restrict the Deity to actions not violating the doctrine of contraries. Cf. p.
148 above.
37 See The Heart Prepared, Chapters 1-3.
38 In I754 Edwards' argument against "freedom of the will" was published in
his celebrated essay on that subject.
39 See Edmund S. Morgan, Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea,
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1965), pp. 90-112 and I45-48.
40 Hooker's discussion of these tests will be found in A Survey of the Summe of
Church Discipline (London, 1648), Part 3, pp. 4-6. Shepard treats them in TV,
626-27, and in The Church Membership of Children, Works, III, 531-32.

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