See in this passage the interplay between C and B Influence

From Leland Ryken, Worldy Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were, pp. 168-169:


Believing in God's general revelation in nature as well as his special revelation in the Bible, the Puritans fully embraced the scientific study of the physical world. Whether they actually embraced the rise of modern science is a question of great scholarly debate, but that they were favorable to that movement is indisputable. Richard Baxter wrote:

Our physics, which is a great part of human learning, is but the knowledge of God's admirable works; and hath any man the face to call himself God's creature, and yet to reproach it as vain human learning?

Alexander Richardson wrote that "the world and the creatures therein are like a book wherein God's wisdom is written, and there must we seek it out." For John Cotton, "To study the nature and course and use of all God's works is a duty imposed by God upon all sorts of men."

The Puritans embraced the study of the arts as fully as science. In the Dorchester regulations of 1645 the master was required to instruct his pupils "both in human learning and good literature," which meant the humanities and the classics. Increase Mather went so far as to tell the legislature that "some have well and truly observed that the interest of religion and good literature hath risen and fallen together.

Buttressing the Puritan acceptance of the liberal arts was the doctrine of common grace, which has always been prominent in Calvinism. The doctrine of common grace asserts that God endows all people, believers and unbelievers alike, with a capacity for truth, goodness, and beauty. Calvin describes common grace thus:

In reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful...not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears.

A firm grip on the doctrine of grace allowed most Puritan educators to accept the validity of pagan learning. Increase Mather noted that "some among the heathen have been notable moralists, such as Cato, Seneca, Aristides, etc." Based on such a view of common grace, Mather could encourage people to "find a friend in Plato, a friend in Socrates and...in Aristotle." Charles Chauncy wrote, "Who can deny but that there are many excellent and divine moral truths in Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca, etc.?" The English Puritan Richard Sibbes believed that since "truth comes from God," we "may read heathen authors."