Meet the Puritans

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...

Who were the Puritans? Since you are "meeting" them it would be remiss if someone did not at least give a definition of who the Puritans were. Now, one of the problems in defining a "Puritan" has to do with the "canon" that the Banner of Truth Trust set up—a canon that included the solidly Reformed...

In our continuing series on the Puritan vision for Christian zeal ( part 1 , part 2 , part 3 ), we now take up its means. When you look around and see few people who are zealous for the Lord, you may be tempted to dismiss the call to be zealous. Such a response would be grievous because the church...

While denying the Roman Catholic doctrine that love is the life and soul of justifying faith, John Ball (1585-1640) strenuously affirmed that justifying faith cannot be without love. Faith and love are distinct graces which are “infused together” by the Holy Spirt at regeneration and “the exercise...

There once was a popular song in my college years with a blasphemous chorus that went like this: “Tell me all your thoughts on God. Cause I’d really like to meet her; and ask her why we're who we are? Tell me all your thoughts on God. Cause I’m on my way to see her; so tell me am I very far.” The...

As the star pupil of William Perkins at Christ’s College Cambridge, William Ames (1576–1633), followed his mentor’s preaching pattern of explaining, teaching, and applying the text. It may seem strange that in his systematic-theological Marrow of Theology , Ames devoteed a whole chapter to...

Life Lewis Bayly (1575-1631) was born around 1575 at Carmarthen, Wales, where Thomas Bayly, who probably was his father, was serving as curate at that time. Bayly secured the living of Shipston-on-Stour, in Worcestershire, in 1597, and three years later was presented to the crown living of Evesham...

The word "Anglicanism" is a slippery one. In the nineteenth century, the “high church” Oxford Movement tried to invent this idea that the Church of England was a nice middle way (a via media ) between Rome and Geneva. Not Catholicism, not Calvinism, but Anglicanism. A nice, moderate, compromise...