Book Excerpts

In this probing article, Spurgeon calls parents to consider whether they may be guilty of ‘soul-murder.’ That is, are we, in pursuit of a worldly goal, actually giving our children over to influences which will tend to their spiritual undoing and eternal ruin? One of the articles included in a new collation of Spurgeon’s writing […]

Faith Cook’s Troubled Journey narrates her early experiences as the daughter of OMF missionaries to China. Honouring the faith, courage, and self-sacrifice of her parents, she also shines a compassionate light on the family deprivations brought about by long periods of separation from them. The excerpt below is Chapter 11 of the book in question, which […]

Iain H. Murray’s Amy Carmichael: Beauty for Ashes is a short retelling of the remarkable life of the Irish missionary to India. What follows is Chapter 4 of that title, ‘Hard Days and Golden Years.’ If there was any pattern to Amy Carmichael’s life it was of times of refreshing then of trials, of exhilarating ‘climbing’ […]

Spurgeon’s Pastoral Wisdom, a selection of C. H. Spurgeon’s articles bearing on church life and pastoral ministry compiled by Geoff Chang, is soon to be released. What follows is a second excerpt from this collection which appeared in the Sword and Trowel magazine in March 1889. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? So say the Latins. Shepherds […]

Spurgeon’s Pastoral Wisdom, a selection of C. H. Spurgeon’s articles bearing on church life and pastoral ministry compiled by Geoff Chang, is soon to be released. Over the next three Mondays we’ll post excerpts which give a flavour of the great biblical and practical wisdom contained in this new volume. The first of these, ‘Against […]

The following is excerpted from ‘A Christian on the Mount, Or, A Treatise Concerning Meditation’ in The Works of Thomas Watson, Volume 3 (forthcoming, May/June 2026). You may also read this section in PDF format to see how it is typeset in the forthcoming volume.   And in his law doth he meditate day and […]

In an appendix to his Thoughts on Religious Experience entitled ‘Counsels to Christian Mothers’, Archibald Alexander makes the following interesting remarks: I take pleasure in saying that in no class of society anywhere have I found examples of more pure and elevated piety than among the ladies of Virginia. And I have reason to believe that these […]

The following is an excerpt from The Works of John Knox, Volume 3, pages 217–226. In a letter from Henry Bullinger, the eminent divine of Zurich, addressed to Calvin on the 26th of March 1554, he says, “I have enclosed in this letter the Answer I made to the Scotsman whom you commended to me. You will […]

The following is our ‘Publisher’s Introduction’ to the Writings of Thomas E. Peck, provided by Iain H. Murray. In the small cemetery of Union Theological Seminary, beside a narrow road in the heart of rural Virginia, the earthly remains of Thomas Ephraim Peck were buried in the first week of October 1893. Two years later the […]

Our latest Puritan Paperback volume is Thomas Watson’s Heaven Taken by Storm or The Christian Soldier, Showing the Holy Violence a Christian is to Put Forth in the Pursuit after Glory. It is an extended meditation on, and application of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 11:12: ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth […]

The thirteenth volume of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ exposition of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Life in Two Kingdoms is a tour de force of Christian teaching on the church, the state, and the individual Christian’s relationship to the ‘higher powers’. One mark of Lloyd-Jones’ treatment is specific, straightforward application. One such application concerns capital punishment—the state’s use […]

Life in Two Kingdoms, volume 13 of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ series of expositions of Romans, covers Romans 13:1–7. This is, as Dr Lloyd-Jones notes, the locus classicus—the classic place—where the Holy Spirit, through Paul, addresses the question of the state: the ‘powers that be’. The following excerpt is taken from pages 51 to 53 of that […]

Hywel R. Jones’ appreciation of Isaiah chapters 24–27, Isaiah’s Oratorio releases today. The following excerpt explains the theme and approach of his volume: Isaiah 24–27 has sometimes been described as his ‘Tale of Two Cities.’ Like Charles Dickens’ well-known novel, they speak of a terrifying urban convulsion which has widespread reverberations. But the difference between […]

The following is from an appendix to Jock Purves, Fair Sunshine: Character Studies of the Scottish Covenanters by S. M. Houghton, former chief literary and editorial advisor to the Banner of Truth Trust. The story of religious covenanting in Scotland covers a long period, beginning in 1557 when certain men did ‘band thame selfis’ to maintain […]

John Howie’s The Scots Worthies offers stirring mini-biographies of the great roll-call of the Christian heroes of Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The following excerpt is the first of these: a short sketch of the life, ministry and death of Scotland’s first Reformation martyr. PATRICK HAMILTON was born about the year of our Lord […]