Tobias Crisp presented a sophisticated, if highly tendentious, critique of the Puritan way to salvation. Having taken the view that the Puritan ordo salutis required of its practitioners a works-based devotion that sprang from a principal commitment to ‘law’ rather than ‘grace’, Crisp attacked both the theological and pastoral shortcomings of Puritanism. He then proceeded to develop a counter-theology of his own that promised a pastoral direction very different from that presided over by Puritan divines. This article addresses these dimensions of Crisp's discourse, and also assesses the self-defence mounted by Puritan respondents to Crisp.