Life Lewis Bayly (1575-1631) was born around 1575 at Carmarthen, Wales, where Thomas Bayly, who probably was his father, was serving as curate at that time. Bayly secured the living of Shipston-on-Stour, in Worcestershire, in 1597, and three years later…
The word “Anglicanism” is a slippery one. In the nineteenth century, the “high church” Oxford Movement tried to invent this idea that the Church of England was a nice middle way (a via media) between Rome and Geneva. Not Catholicism,…
We are at the second of our reading the Puritan Paperback, Sermons of the Great Ejection. This title is a collection of nine sermons recalls one of the great turning points in English Christianity—when two thousand ministers were deposed from…
We began last time looking at James Durham’s essay, “Concerning Ministerial Qualifications.” The post ended with the thought that “it is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.” Nevertheless gifts are necessary, and Durham in…
Do you know God? How easy it is for us to profess that we do merely with our lips. The visible church of Christ is full of people who profess to know God, but do we really? To know God…
John Flavel, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011). 124pp. This is easily one of the most important Puritan books that I have read. It is deeply convicting, full of Christ, and loaded with sound pastoral wisdom…
In relation to this week’s “Meet a Purtian,” you can download a 5-part mid-week teaching series I did through William Bates’ treatise, The Divinity of the Christian Religion. You can download the audio and .pdf outlines here.
William Bates (1625–1699) Life William Bates was one of the most popular and esteemed preachers among the Nonconformists. A master of the Puritan “plain style” of preaching, his stress on piety earned him the name “silver-tongued.” He graduated from…
Thanks to our friends at Crossway, we have one (1) copy of J.I. Packer’s, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. The deadline for entering is three weeks from today, Friday, March 25. The winner will…
In our continuing series on the Puritan vision for Christian zeal (part 1, part 2), we now take up how they described its characteristics. False Zeal First, they described authentic zeal over against false zeal. Oliver Bowles (d. 1674)…
