Book Excerpts

The following is taken from our forthcoming title Shapers of Christianity by Nick Needham, which presents brief sketches of twelve men from church history. The book will be released on 19 May and you can sign up for the waitlist here. The following sketch, on J. Gresham Machen, was first published as an article in […]

I Was Envious of the Arrogant Until I Went into the Sanctuary Beginning by extolling God, the author of this psalm contends against the judgment of carnal sense and reason. He confesses that when he compared the prosperity and indulgence of the wicked with the cares and sorrows of the righteous, he was tempted to […]

From time to time we receive questions about the editing of the Banner of Truth edition (first printed 1961) of A. W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God. Here we reproduce the text of Chapter 16 of Iain H. Murray’s The Life of Arthur Pink, which deals at length with these questions: As we have seen, it […]

This excerpt is taken from Iain H. Murray, Archibald G. Brown: Spurgeon’s Successor (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2011) and constitutes chapter 13 of that volume. BROWN had spoken to the main need of the church in a letter to all the members at the beginning of 1908, headed ‘Remember Jesus Christ’ (2 Tim. 2:8). In it […]

An excerpt from ‘Heart Treasure, or The Furniture of a Holy Soul,’ by Rev. Oliver Heywood, a Presbyterian Pastor in the second half of the 17th century.    Introduction ‘I first came across the book, Heart Treasure by Oliver Heywood, in a box of old books in a furniture barn in the town of Central, South […]

We have heard with our ears, O God, Our fathers have told us, the deeds You did in their days, In days of old. —Psalm 44:1 (NKJV). The early years of the Free Church of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century produced literature of enduring value for the Christian church. Much of that emanated from the […]

The following constitutes chapter 14 (pages 333–362) in J. C. Ryle’s Knots Untied:  Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion, From the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman   Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.—Exod. 20:8. THERE is a subject in the present day which demands the serious attention of all professing Christians […]

The following is from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541 ed.), Chapter 3, ‘The Law’, and the section on the Fourth Commandment. Note also the addendum, featuring a selection from Iain H. Murray’s booklet Rest in God: And a Calamity in Contemporary Christianity which notes how Calvin’s thinking on the Sabbath developed from […]

The following is taken from William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour, pages 119–121. There is a law in wrestling which must be observed. If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, 2 Timothy 2:5. He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed […]

The following excerpt is from George Newton’s exposition of John 17:24 in the volume George Newton on John 17. DOCTRINE: It is the will of Jesus Christ that all that are his own by the donation of the Father shall be in heaven where he is. There are two things in the doctrine which I […]

The following excerpt is from D. C. Macnicol’s book, Master Robert Bruce: Minister in the Kirk of Edinburgh. THE public life of Master Robert Bruce in the city of Edinburgh was cast in troublous times. His ministry in the Church of St Giles had an influence which was quite unique, and the voice which found […]

The following is the text of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s address at the 1975 Puritan Conference, entitled ‘The Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times’: The French Revolution and After. This address appears in The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors.   Our object in studying this subject of the Christian and the State in Revolutionary Times […]

The following excerpt is taken from Chapter 2 of Iain H. Murray’s The Forgotten Spurgeon (pages 46–64). Mr Spurgeon is a Calvinist, which few of the dissenting ministers in London now are. He preaches salvation, not of man’s free will, but of the Lord’s good will, which few in London, it is to be feared, […]

The following excerpt is from Chapter IV of Robert H. Ireland’s Light from Calvary: The Seven Last Words of Jesus, first published in 1873 and out this summer in a Banner edition.   And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, […]

The following excerpt is from C. H. Spurgeon’s Pictures from Pilgrim’s Progress: A Commentary on Portions of John Bunyan’s Immortal Allegory, forthcoming in summer 2024. WHEN Christian and Hopeful left the Delectable Mountains to pursue their way towards the Celestial City the shepherds bade them ‘Beware of the Flatterer.’ They learned afterwards, by sad experience, […]