“Faith without righteousness is presumption; righteousness without truth is hypocrisy.” – William Gouge

“A heart full of grace is better than a head full of notions.” – Thomas Goodwin

“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.” -Richard Sibbes

• I was converted under the preaching of John Preston
• I pastored a newly established congregational church in New England
• I helped establish Harvard College
• Cotton Mather called me “Pastor Evangelicus”

Puritan Two

• I was appointed to the Westminster Assembly, and was the only one who was a member of all three of its major committees
• I was the only member of the Westminster Assembly to become a bishop after the restoration
• I died of kidney stones

Puritan Three

• I immigrated to New England, and enrolled at Harvard
• I had a pastorate in Massachusetts for over 57 years
• I was a doctor, wrote poetry, and interested in botany
• I wrote metrical paraphrases of many Psalms
• My grandson was one of Yale’s earliest presidents

You are not unacquainted with the day of our Communion.

I entreat, therefore, the aid of your prayers for that great work, which is one of our feast days, wherein our well-beloved Jesus rejoiceth and is merry with his friends.

Good cause have we to wonder at his love, since the day of his death was such a sorrowful day to him, even the day when his mother, the kirk [church], crowned him with thorns, and he has many against him, and appeared his lone in the fields against them all; yet he delights with us to remember that day. Let us love him, and be glad and rejoice at his salvation. I am confident that you shall see the Son of God that day, and I dare in his name invite you to his banquet.

- Samuel Rutherford in “A Letter to Marion M’Naught”, May 7, 1631 (from Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Puritan Paperbacks, p.20-21)

• I was expelled from Oxford
• I was born in the same decade as the original publication of the KJV
• I was one of the youngest members of the Westminster Assembly, but not very active in it
• I was beheaded for treason at the age of 33
• 15 volumes of his sermons were published

Puritan Two:

• I was a preacher at Gray’s Inn
• I never married
• John Cotton was converted under my preaching
• I helped Thomas Goodwin in his theology
• My last sermon was on John 14:2

Puritan Three

• I was born in Hetford, England
• I’m said to have memorized the entire New Testament and the book of Psalms
• I catechised John Owen
• I preached during the Great Plague

Puritan Four

• I got my BA at 19, but my Doctorate at 40
• I was one of three clerks at Westminster Assembly
• I counseled Christopher Love before his execution for treason
• I was ejected from the Church of England pulpits in 1662

Take a guess.. If you get one, you will be congratulated and get an honorable mention on this blog

I’ve been reading the Puritan William Bridge and I thought I would share a few good, conscience, and very deep thoughts from him. They are all from A Lifting up for the Downcast from Banner of Truth:

“A praying man can never be very miserable, whatever his condition be, for he has the ear of God, the Spirit within to indite, a friend in heaven present, and God Himself to receive his desires as a Father. It is a mercy to pray, even though I never receive the mercy prayed for.”

(p.55)

“As speech is common to all men, so is prayer unto all Christians. God has none of His children born dumb”

(p.55)

“Christ cures, per modum divertentia, by way of divertency (ie. by turning the thoughts elsewhere)”

(p.45)

“Are all your comforts gone, and would you fain have them restored? Then read and read the Scriptures much. If you cannot read them yourself, get some others to read them to you. When a man’s mind is empty, as in temptation and want of comfort, it is empty of Christ, and full of fear. Then it grinds itself, as in a quern or mill when empty of corn, one stone grinds another. The more full a man’s mind is, the more free from temptations and fears. Now Scripture matter is the most filling matter.”

(p.43)

“Yea, the Lord not only gives encouragement in time of discouragement, and proportions His encouragements unto our discouragements, but He turns our discouragements into encouragements and comforts.”

(p.53)

“Contrary to popular impression, the Puritan was no ascetic…he never praised hair shirts or dry crust. He liked good food, good drink and homely comforts; and while he laughed at mosquitoes, he found it a real hardship to drink water when the beer ran out.” — Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family

“worldly things are good in themselves and given to sweeten our passage to heaven” — Richard Sibbes

“[In] the writings of the Puritans, marriage and the sex act within it are affirmed as gifts from God. This was a progressive view, for it contradicted the prevalent medieval teaching that religious celibacy was more virtuous” — Betsy Hart

“We must picture these Puritans as the very opposite of those who bear that name today: as young, fierce, progressive intellectuals, very fashionable and up-to-date. They were not teetotallers; bishops, not beer, were their special aversion.” — C.S. Lewis

“the typical Puritans were not wild men, fierce and freaky, religious fanatics and social extremists, but sober, conscientious, and cultured citizens, persons of principle, determined and disciplined excelling in the domestic virtues” –  J.I. Packer

“These are things to be gloried in. If we find our sins pardoned, our persons accepted, and our nature renewed; we may comfort ourselves in health, in wealth, in wife, in children, in anything, because all come from the favor of God.” — Richard Sibbes

“It is an honest and a lawful, though it may not be a very desirable employment, that you have undertaken: you may glorify God in your employment, if you will, and benefit the town considerably.”

– Cotton Mather to an Ale House owner

Christ is the Mediator of the covenant. The apostle calls him Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. He hath something of God, as being true God, and something of man, as sharing with us of the nature of man: Hence he is Mediator by office, and layeth his hands on both parties, as a days-man doth; and in this respect he is a Friend, a Reconciler and a Servant.  1. A friend to both parties; he hath God’s heart for man, to be gracious, and he hath man’s heart for God to satisfy justice.   2. A Reconciller of both parties; he brings down God to a treaty of peace, and he brings up man by a ransom paid…  3. He is a Servant to both parties, Behold my Servant, saith God, my righteous Servant. Yea, and our servant, He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

(The Works of Isaac Ambrose — Volume 1, By John Wesley, 1799, p.348)

The Puritans were not unlearned and ignorant men. The great majority of them were Oxford and Cambridge graduates – many of them fellows of colleges, and some of them heads or principals of the best colleges in the two Universities. In knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in power as preachers, expositors, writers, and critics, the Puritans in their day were second to none. Their works still speak for them on the shelves of every well-furnished theological library. Their commentaries, their expositions, their treatises on practical, casuistical, and experimental divinity, are immeasurably superior to those of their adversaries in the seventeenth century. In short, those who hold up the Puritans to scorn as shallow, illiterate men, are only exposing their own lamentable shallowness, their own ignorance of historical facts, and the extremely superficial character of their own reading.”

The Puritans, as a body, have done more to elevate the national character than any class of Englishmen that ever lived. Ardent lovers of civil liberty, and ready to die in its defence – mighty at the council board, and no less mighty in the battlefield – feared abroad throughout Europe, and invincible at home while united, great with their pens, and no less great with their swords – fearing God very much, and fearing man very little, – they were a generation of men who have never received from their country the honour that they deserve

(J.C.  Ryle in his introduction to Thomas Manton’s Works, 2:xi)