Another group that Packer quotes extensively from is the Puritans, a movement which emerged within Anglicanism by the late 16th century and which exercised significant influence throughout the 17th as well. Puritans, who drew heavily from the Calvinist side of the Reformation tradition, wanted to purify the Church of England from those elements which they saw as still too Catholic. The English Reformation, in their opinion, had not gone far enough in separating from the Roman Catholic Church, and they would have preferred less influence from formal liturgical rites and sacramental rituals, and more from a simple, faith-oriented practice. The Puritans’ influence in Anglicanism waned quickly in the late 17th century (largely for political reasons, following the fallout from the English Civil War and the Cromwellian protectorate), but much of their theological heritage was picked up by the nascent evangelical movement in the eighteenth century. A few figures beyond the bounds of Anglicanism are thus sometimes referred to as Puritans, including John Bunyan (an early Baptist) and Charles Spurgeon (a later evangelical).

Packer quotes from a wide range of Puritans in Knowing God, beginning with an extensive extract from one of Spurgeon’s sermons and then including references to the works of John Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress), John Owen, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Brooks, Stephen Charnock, and Richard Baxter. Baxter is particularly important to Packer’s life work, having been the subject of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford. Much of Packer’s theological vision, including his Calvinist perspectives, comes through the influence of Puritan writers.

Another distinctive feature of Packer’s Knowing God is its frequent use of hymn texts to illustrate or support a doctrinal point. Of the twenty-two chapters of the book, fifteen include the quotation of at least one full stanza from a hymn-text, with some chapters (like Chapters 13 and 22) making use of multiple stanzas from up to six different hymns. This adds a poetic element to Knowing God and offers yet another link to the major figures in church history from which Packer draws his interpretations.

The hymnographers whom Packer quotes reflect his theological influences: Anglicans, evangelicals, and Calvinists. These include major early figures in the history of English hymnody, like Augustus Toplady (an Anglican Calvinist), Charles Wesley (a leader of the 17th-century Evangelical Revival), and Isaac Watts (a Congregational Calvinist, influenced by the Puritan heritage). Packer’s hymn selections focus mostly on contributions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including other great hymnographers like Fanny Crosby, Philip Bliss, William Cowper, and John Newton, whose contributions formed the sung liturgy of many evangelical churches well into the 20th century. Most of these hymnographers were responsible for the text of their hymns but not for the music, and it is the text with which Packer is mostly concerned, using their stanzas as a poetic representation of robust theology and true devotion.