Meet the Puritans

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...

We are at the second 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 was called “ The Great...

We began last time looking at James Durham’s essay, "Concerning Ministerial Qualifications." The post ended with the thought that “it is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.” Nevertheless gifts are necessary, and Durham in his essay outlined three things that are...

Do you know God? How easy it is for us to profess that we do merely with our lips. The visible church of Christ is full of people who profess to know God, but do we really? To know God is to have knowledge of him, to actually know something about him. But to know God is also to have a deep,...

John Flavel, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011). 124pp. This is easily one of the most important Puritan books that I have read. It is deeply convicting, full of Christ, and loaded with sound pastoral wisdom on a vital, yet neglected topic. Flavel...