Meet the Puritans

Imagine your pastor announcing from the pulpit, “I want you to know that I regard myself as a prophet.” Don’t you think this would raise a few eyebrows? In this third of five parts on Puritan preaching ( part 1 , part 2 ), I will discuss l essons on preaching from a book in which William Perkins...

William Ames (1576-1633) Life William Ames was born in 1576 at Ipswich, Suffolk, then a center of the robust Puritanism. Ames’s father was a well-to-do merchant with Puritan sympathies; his mother was related to families that would help to found Plymouth Plantation. Since both parents died when he...

This Monday, February 29, is your final opportunity to download a free .pdf of "The Character of an Old English Puritan" by John Geree. This is a classic text in modernized English, footnotes, and an "Introduction" by Daniel R. Hyde . Free downloadable .pdf ($1 discount applied at checkout)...

Last time I encouraged you (especially my fellow Anglicans!) to join me in 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 approximately two thousand ministers were deposed...

The great Scottish theologian and preacher James Durham (1622-1658) published a monumental Commentarie Upon the Book of Revelation in 1658 extending over 1000 pages. John MacLeod stated that Durham’s work “gives what, in past days, was the accepted Protestant view of that book.” (MacLeod, Some...

Statistics can be misleading if they are abstracted from the moment they are calculated. But in that moment, they reveal a glimpse of reality. The well-known church growth leader, George Barna, provides us an opportunity to glimpse the sad reality of the modern evangelical church as well as our...

William Greenhill, Stop Loving the World , ed. Jay T. Collier (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010). 73pp. Worldliness is an increasing problem in Western Christendom. No one wants to admit that they are worldly, but the tragic fact is that Christians have often lost sight of how the...

Isaac Ambrose (1604–1664) Life Isaac Ambrose was the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, Lancashire. Entering Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1621, he graduated B.A. in 1624, and was ordained to the ministry. He became vicar of the parish church in Castleton, Derbyshire, in 1627, then served...

We all have some idea of what zeal is, for to a certain degree we are all zealots. The question is not whether we are zealous but what we are zealous for. Zeal runs in our veins for what we love and against what we hate. We so passionately love some things, such as family, careers, and houses, that...

Several years ago a controversy erupted concerning the doctrine of sanctification. One of the key participants emphasized that Christian obedience is “faith-fueled.” This important point, of course, was not in itself controversial and was wholeheartedly affirmed by everyone involved as far as I...