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books\adoptionWCF--short--final
Transforming Power and Comfort: The Puritans on Adoption
Joel R. Beeke
"We have enough in us to move God to correct us, but nothing to move him to adopt us,
therefore exalt free grace, begin the work of angels here; bless him with your praises who
hath blessed you in making you his sons and daughters." Thomas Watson
1
The Puritans have gotten a bad press for their supposed lack of teaching on adoption, that
is, the biblical doctrine that every true Christian is God`s adopted child. In his otherwise
excellent chapter titled, Sons of God, in the classic Knowing God, J. I. Packer writes,
The Puritan teaching on the Christian life, so strong in other ways, was notably
deficient on adoption.
2
In his otherwise fine article on adoption, Erroll Hulse asserts
that the Puritans did little in exploring this truth apart from a few paragraphs here and
there?
3
Statements such as these promote the familiar comment that adoption is the
neglected aspect in the Puritan ordo salutis.
The evidence suggests that adoption, though not developed as thoroughly as
several closely knit doctrines such as justification, sanctification, and assurance, was
certainly not a neglected topic among the Puritans. William Ames, Thomas Watson,
Samuel Willard, and Herman Witsius gave it ample treatment in their systematic
theologies--Witsius devoting 28 pages to it in his The Economy of the Covenants
Between God & Man.
4
William Perkins, often denominated the father of Puritanism, addresses various
aspects of adoption at some length in at least nine different places in his works.
5
William
Bates, Hugh Binning, Thomas Brooks, Anthony Burgess, Stephen Charnock, George
Downame, John Flavel, Thomas Goodwin, William Gouge, Ezekiel Hopkins, Edward
Leigh, and John Owen all provide some treatment of the subject.
6
Other Puritans, such as
Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Cole, Roger Drake, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Manton,
Stephen Marshall, Richard Sibbes, John Tennent, and John Waite, preached one or more
sermons on adoption.
7
So significant was the Puritan emphasis on adoption that the Westminster Divines
were the first to include a separate chapter on the subject of adoption in a confessional
statement: the Westminster Confession of Faith (chapter 12). The Larger Catechism (Q.