What is the relevance of Puritans for the church today? They are relevant because of their preaching. The Puritans were distinguished preachers. What made Puritan preaching so special? There are seven presuppositions that guided their preaching.

Experiential preaching within the context of the Dutch Second Reformation (or “Further Reformation”) seeks to bring the truths of the Word into the believer’s heart and life, stressing not just doctrine but how the triune God works savingly in sinners — especially regarding guilt, grace, sanctification, and gratitude. It urges that faith and sanctification be lived out in everyday life, so that genuine holiness and personal transformation follow doctrinal truth.

For John Calvin, preaching is always “scriptural”: the Word of God itself is alive and powerful, so true preaching never needs an added “experiential supplement.” What later preachers term “experiential preaching” — stressing inner feelings, personal spiritual experience, the believer’s guilt, grace, assurance or comfort — is for Calvin not a separate kind of sermon but implicitly contained in faithful exposition of Scripture and God’s promises.

The article argues that Martin Luther’s preaching was not “experiential” in the sense later associated with Pietism — his index of sermons lacks terms like “experientiality,” “experience of faith,” or “experiential preaching.” Rather, when “experience” appears at all in his preaching it always refers to fides — faith — so that the “experientiality” in his sermons is really just the believer’s experienced faith, not a broader mystical or introspective experience.