Resources

The following extract is taken from Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, pages 249–273.  Note to the reader: before this section, Baxter spends time considering how a minister may winsomely prevail upon his people to submit to being catechised. With this treated of, he proceeds to outline how a shepherd of God’s flock can best carry […]

In the recovery of biblical exposition that has marked the church in our own time, it has not always been recognized that in addition to such exposition the Reformers and Puritans placed great stress on catechizing. We tend to think of this as children learning catechetical questions and answers by rote. But what the Puritans […]

The following extract is taken from Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (256 pages, £5.75), pages 168–177. The Duty of Personal Catechising and Instructing the Flock Particularly Recommended Having disclosed and lamented our miscarriages and neglects, our duty for the future lies plain before us. God forbid that we should now go on in the sins […]

Happy in my work as I felt, and successful by the blessing of God, yet I continually heard, and chiefly during my last years in the Divinity Hall, the wail of the perishing Heathen in the South Seas; and I saw that few were caring for them, while I well knew that many would be […]

Above all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, supplications and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and for those appointed to high office, so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, in all godliness and decency. (1 Timothy 2:1-2) As long as we are busy doing good, the devil has less […]

John Calvin is thought of, principally, as a theologian. Of course, he was that. But, as Andrew W. Blackwood once told me, in his day he was first of all considered a preacher. Too few of his sermons have been preserved.1 English translations are mainly in 16th century English!2 Nevertheless, the more I read them, […]

The following testimony is from Near to God: 9 True Stories of a Wonderful Discovery. The love of Christ compels me to give testimony to my conversion from the Roman Catholic priesthood to the born-again life in Jesus Christ. For twenty-five years I was a Roman Catholic priest, strictly following the rituals of a system […]

The following is drawn from the Puritan Paperback Temptation Resisted and Repulsed, an abridged edition of John Owen’s Of Temptation (found in his Works, Volume 6). Having laid the groundwork of the truth to be addressed and improved, I will now make this observation:  It is the great duty of all believers to use all […]

The following is taken from Puritan Portraits by J. I. Packer, published by Christian Focus (192pp, paperback, ISBN 9781845507008). There are seven Puritan leaders who are evaluated and commended by Dr. Packer in this fine book. The notes have been added. I owe more, I think, to John Owen than to any other theologian, ancient or modern, […]

The following is excerpted from ‘Doors of Opportunity’, which constitutes chapter 15 of Faith Cook’s Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. It sketches a period of time in which her patronage of new dissenting chapels and itinerant preachers was beginning to bear fruit. As the Countess’s chapels began to increase, so did the administrative labour of ensuring […]

There be three degrees of discovery of heavenly things: First, in the doctrine of them; and so they are hid to them that are out of the church. And then, secondly, in the spiritual meaning of them; and so they are hid to carnal men in the church. And then, thirdly, in regard of the […]

The concluding piece in Iain H. Murray’s three historical articles on the Great Ejection. EVEN though Farewell Sermons had been preached in many parishes on Sunday, August 17, there was a widespread feeling of uncertainty throughout the nation with regard to the direction and character of coming events. Something of this uncertainty can be detected […]

Iain H. Murray provides an insight into the experience of the Puritan ministers facing expulsion from the Church of England in the portentous summer of 1662. Read the previous post, on the build-up to these events. THOUGH many of the Puritan ministers were far removed from the intrigues and disputations going on in London, they […]

EDITORIAL NOTE. THE ejection of two thousand ministers by the Act of Uniformity in 1662 could not fail to make a great impression on the minds of the people of England, and especially of the ministers who were ejected, and of the people who had enjoyed their ministry. The last utterances of these ministers in […]

On 24 August 1662, the English Parliament passed an Act designed to exclude and ‘utterly disable’ a group of religious ministers within the Established (i.e. Anglican) Church. The immediate effect of the Act of Uniformity of 1662 was the forced departure of over hundreds of gospel ministers from the churches they served. Moreover, it represented […]