January 26 Today in OPC History

“Puritan Enthusiast” was the name of an article that appeared in the March 1967 issue of the Presbyterian Guardian by Donald M. Poundstone, a first-year student at Westminster Theological Seminary. There he reported on an interview he was privileged to conduct with visiting lecturer Dr. James I. Packer after dinner on the evening of January 26, 1967. The conversation took place in Packer’s library office, which was on loan from Cornelius Van Til.

Dr. Packer was serving at the time as Warden of Latimer House in Oxford (he was eager to explain to American audiences that it was “not a penitentiary“). His six-week appointment at Westminster entailed lectures on four afternoons per week on the English Puritans, an interest of Packer’s that began with his undergraduate days at Oxford. Packer explained his fascination with the subject that Poundstone relayed in this way: “Puritan writers show a man the depths of his sin, but they always provide remedies for the problems they uncover. Obedience to God was the Puritan way of life; their whole being was taken up in the service of God. They emphasized ‘experimental’ or what we would call experiential religion. We mustn’t, however, think of them as pietists. They never fell into the modern error of separating doctrine from Christian living.”

Packer was hard-pressed to answer Poundstone’s query about the greatest influence on his ministry. “That is hard to say,” Packer responded. “I am really an eclectic sort of chap. I suppose I have learned more from Martyn Lloyd Jones than from anyone else.”