Church History

W hile his Works fill six large volumes, John Knox wrote only one lengthy explicitly theological work. Its subject is encapsulated in its title, “An Answer to the Cavillations of Adversary Respecting the Doctrine of Predestination” ( The Works of John Knox , 5:7-468). It is, in short, a sustained...

Samuel Sherwood (1730-1783) was a graduate of Yale and Princeton (at the time led by his uncle Aaron Burr), who pastored in Weston (CT) from 1757 to his death in 1783. Next to this sermon, his other published sermon (also of political import) was his sermon, “The Church’s Flight into the Wilderness...

Peter Opitz, ed., The Myth of the Reformation , vol. 9, Refo500 Academic Studies (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck...

Meet the Puritans editor and contributors Joel Beeke, Danny Hyde, and Ryan McGraw will be speaking at the upcoming International Conference on "John Owen: Between Orthodoxy and Modernity." Hosted by the Theological University Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, from August 31–September 2, this conference...

Our presbytery youth camp director this summer assigned Puritan team names for the campers: Watson, Owen, Bunyan, and Perkins. No surprise at an Orthodox Presbyterian Church camp, until the staff and counselors picked a name for their “team.” We chose “Crisp” after the alleged antinomian Tobias...

A lthough the antinomian-neonomian controversy of the 1690’s (see part 1 ) involved godly ministers who were all part of the same but broad Reformed family—most of them had even formally united together on the basis of Reformed confessions—they did not treat one another very well during their...

Our editor, Danny Hyde , recently joined the team at the Reformed Forum for its 450th episode of Christ the Center for a discussion of the issue of the Sabbath/Lord's Day as it was debated and doctrinally delivered at "The Great Synod of Dort" ( De Grote Synode van Dordrecht , 1618-1619). You can...

Another echo of Calvin’s continuing influence can be seen in the works of Benjamin Colman (1673-1747). Colman was an esteemed preacher who was offered the presidency of Harvard in 1724. He declined, however, preferring to devote himself to pastoral ministry. But in a 1730 sermon, Colman preached...

John Knox (1514-1572), perhaps as influential as any in the journey to modern Scotland, is far from loved in his homeland. A BBC news reported a couple of years ago asked the public in Edinburgh who Knox was. Some had no idea, others laid at his door all the faults of modern Scotland. This one...

Aberdeen born and educated Bishop William Smith ((1727–1803) left Scotland for New York City in 1751. His eloquence and brilliance attracted Ben Franklin’s attention, and Franklin brought him to teach in Philadelphia in 1755. For the next several decades Smith received academic accolades, taught...