This may not interest many, but there is a long-running debate about how we should regard seventeenth century Protestant theology. Martin Downes quotes Richard Gaffin challenging the prevailing negative assessment in a recent post. I have no opinion on the matter, not knowing enough to comment, but thought I would just note down a quotation from Philip Schaff which shows what this negative assessment actually looks like and also shows that it the attitude has been around for a while.
The seventeenth century is the period of Protestant scholasticism. It furnishes a parallel to the Catholic scholasticism of the Middle Ages, but is much richer in biblical learning. Its exegesis bears the same relation to the exegesis of the Reformers (henceforward revered as protestant Fathers) as the medieval exegesis to the patristic. It has the prevailing character of reproduction, compilation, and confessional contraction. It was based on a mechanical theory of verbal inspiration or dictation, which was most minutely formulated, and acted as a check upon independent research. An infallible Book was set over against an infallible Church. The Protestant Confessions of Faith acquired the authority of Catholic tradition. Exegesis was controlled by dogmatic systems and made subservient to polemic confessionalism. The Bible was used as a repository of proof-texts, without discrimination between the Old and New Testaments, and between the different books. A vast amount of patient, pedantic, antiquarian learning was accumulated.
(p.215f, Theological Propaedeutic)
One thing I do wonder a little is whether a difference between the Puritan theology of Britain and the continental Protestant theologians.
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