Meet the Puritans

King James VI of Scotland (1566–1625) recorded his advice to Prince Henry (1594–1612), his son and heir, in a 1599 volume entitled Basilikon Doron , “The Royal Gift” (repr., 1887). Amidst other advice on how to operate effectively as a monarch, James warned his son against presbyterians, who had...

Thomas Manton (1620–1677) was called "the king of preachers" at his funeral. Anyone that has ever used his expositions of James or Jude for their sermon preparation knows this to be true. He is consistently deep, thorough, and memorable in his exposition of Scripture. All told, his Works comprise...

It was the great nineteenth-century evangelical Anglican, bishop J. C. Ryle (1816–1900), who said that Thomas Manton (1620–1677) was “a man who could neither say, nor do, nor write anything without being observed” ( “An Estimate of Manton” ). Yet he is a man about whom hardly anything has been said...

Congratulations to Kasey I. of Solon, OH, who is the winner of our first book giveaway for J.I. Packer's, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Don't forget to enter our new giveaway for one of two copies of Wayne Spear's, Faith of Our Fathers: A Commentary on the...

Thanks to our friends at Crown & Covenant , we have two (2) copies of Dr. Wayne Spear's, Faith of Our Fathers: A Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith . The deadline for entering is two weeks from today, Friday, April 8. The winner will be announced Monday, April 11. Entry Form...

We are at the third (see part 1 and part 2 ) of our reading the Puritan Paperback, Sermons of the Great Ejection . This title is a collection of nine sermons recalls one of the great turning points in English Christianity—when two thousand ministers were deposed from the established Church in what...

In our first and second posts on James Durham’s essay, "Concerning Ministerial Qualifications," we saw that the prerequisites “for the complete qualifying of a Minster” were “Gifts, Learning, and Grace.” And we spent some time looking at Durham’s understanding of ministerial gifts. This short...

A quick web search reveals surveys that show as many as 97% of Americans professing to believe in God. Impressive, isn’t it? But do 97% of Americans actually believe in the God who says, “You shall have no other gods before me?” (Ex. 20:3) What does it mean to say that 97% of Americans believe in “...

Petrus van Mastricht, The Best Method of Preaching . Trans. Todd Rester (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2013). 82pp. Jonathan Edwards once stated that Peter van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia was the best book that he had read apart from the Bible (1). Mastricht was not...

Life Thomas Watson ( 1620–1686 ) was probably born in Yorkshire. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, earning a B.A. in 1639 and a M.A. in 1642. Then he lived for a time with the Puritan family of Lady Mary Vere, the widow of Sir Horace Vere, Baron of Tilbury. In 1646, Watson went to St...