the history of Christian spirituality.^93 More specifically contemplative denotes the
attitude and awareness in which a person approaches life. It is based on the grammar
of gazing on the Triune God. Additionally, it communicates a devotional intensity
that reflects the deep desire to live in conscious union and communion with God. The
word mystical used in combination with contemplative seeks to express the outcome
or the subjective experience of being in union with Christ. These experiences are
always a gift of God and not the result of a person’s efforts but those efforts often
prepare the person for God’s presence. Piety is used instead of the more common
contemporary term spirituality for two reasons. Spirituality has become so broadly-
based today that it has lost much of its meaning without some descriptive adjective
placed before it such as Reformed spirituality or Cistercian spirituality. Second, piety
was the preferred word for Reformed believers of the sixteenth and seventeenth-
century and included a broader arena in which the spiritual life was lived unlike the
contemporary usage that frequently privileges the individual.
Jean Williams has produced the most comprehensive research on the topic of
Puritan mysticism. Her vast and far-ranging study focuses upon both clergy and laity,
including the often-neglected study of women and thereby addresses one of the most
under researched areas in Puritan studies. She reverses the commonly held opinion
that if anything resembling mysticism existed within Puritanism that it was abnormal
rather than a common experience.^94 Not only is she comfortable in recognizing and
affirming the reality of Puritan mystics but her primary thesis is that mysticism is not
only present in the radical Puritans but firmly established among the moderate
93
94 de Certeau, Mystic Fable, 94-5. cf. Harmless, Mystics, 261.^
primary conclusions in “Puritanism: Piety of Joy,” 4 Williams, “Puritan Enjoyment of God,” 8-9. Williams briefly summarizes her -14.