The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

10 Puritans who studied at Emmanuel, Cambridge


J C Ryle notes that Sir Walter Mildmay of Chelmsford in Essex was the founder of Emmanuel College and even from its very foundation in 1585 it seems to have been notorious for its attachment to Puritan principles. Fuller in his History of Cambridge relates that on Sir Walter Mildmay coming to court soon after he had founded his college Queen Elizabeth said to him 'Sir Walter I hear you have erected a puritan foundation'. 'No madam' saith he 'far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your established laws but I have set an acorn which when it becomes an oak God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof'. 'Sure I am' adds Fuller writing about 1650 'at this day it hath overshadowed all the university more than a moiety of the present masters of colleges being bred therein.' The number of leading divines of the seventeenth century who were educated at Emmanuel is certainly extraordinary.
  1. William Gurnall
  2. Matthew Poole
  3. John Preston
  4. Ralph Venning
  5. Thomas Watson
  6. Stephen Charnock
  7. William Bridge
  8. Jeremiah Burroughs
  9. John Cotton
  10. Anthony Burgess
(Also Bishop Hall, Bishop Bedell, Stephen Marshall, Thomas Sheppard, Thomas Hooker, Ezekiel Culverwell, Ralph Cudworth, Laurence Chaderton,  Anthony Tuckney, Lazarus Seaman, etc)

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