“I think too that many Protestants act as if Solo Scriptura was the rallying cry of the Reformation and not Sola Scriptura. I think the confusion lies with Scripture being given primary authority as the source for all subsequent authority such as confessions, doctrinal teachings and articles of faith and the creeds. “ The primary reason that Solo Scriptura became the evangelical rallying cry was that after the Second Great Awakening and the great revivals that swept the new nation you had a people who were suspicious of clergy who clung to rote and essentially dry doctrine. It seemed to a people eager hear the gospel and to enliven their worship that the educated clergyman had no soul and that he preached prepared sermons to a mostly bored but aristocratic congregation. The creeds and doctrinal elucidations seemed like so much popish embellishment to the simple message of the Bible. Like most things in history, solo scriptura was a reaction to the more academic sola scriptura, and its legacy remains today within the evangelical churches regardless of denomination.It is usually the Reformed or Presbyterian Churches whose histories have always had a highly educated clergy that seek to revive the confessions and the doctrinal purity of their earlier years.
I agree and that does explain a lot.
Indeed. Jonathan Edwards best gave expression to the thrust you describe. It went beyond even what the “separates” taught at that time. A good in depth look at that period and the religious changes can be found in Richard Bushman’s From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765. It was published in 1967, but probably you can get hold of a copy. Very well-documented. A broader name for what was happening was “Enthusiasm,” and it lead to the very “democratic” movement called Methodism, which influenced by German “pietism.” In the Catholic Church, there was an unrelated but parallel movement, Jansenism, which might be called Catholic puritanism. Ronald Knox has a great book called “Enthusiasm.” Knox was an Anglican who became a Catholic priest and apologist, a great friend of Evelyn Waugh, and a translator of the Vulgate into English that is still used by the Roman Catholics in England and Wales. IAC. the powerful social effect of “enthusiasm,” cannot be under estimated.
Sam Adams, for one, was a product of that movement. Even in France the suppression of the Jansenists by their enemies the Jesuits served to undermine Church authority.