Meet the Puritans

In the context of the English-speaking Atlantic world during the 18th century, many of the oppressed were African enslaved persons. Yet during this time many enslaved Africans became Christians partly because of the Great Awakening. There is evidence from the mouths and pens of enslaved African...

A quest for “Truth According to Scripture” drove the Westminster "divines" (theologians) and should drive us today. Why? Because it’s biblical. When Paul left the church in Ephesus, he warned that false teaching would arise (Acts 20:29-30). Sure enough, it did, and Paul’s beloved congregation soon...

Back in 2005 America’s new “pastor,” Rick Warren, said, “The first Reformation was about doctrine; the second one needs to be about behavior. We need a reformation not of creeds but deeds. It’s time to stop debating the Bible and start doing it . . . This is the new reformation I’m praying for.”...

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...