WM 345: Book Interview: Fraser Jones, Meet the Puritans, Second Edition

JTR

The Vision (1.17.25): Gleanings from Sermons of the Great Ejection

 

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).

The Banner of Truth is a publishing ministry that reproduces various Reformed and Puritan works from the past and present. One of their most popular series is called “Puritan Paperbacks.” This series is a great entry way to reading the classic Puritan authors of the past.

One of the works in that series is titled Sermons of the Great Ejection. In 1662 many of the finest preachers in Britain were turned out of their pulpits after the monarchy was restored.  This book is a collection of some of the final or farewell sermons preached by these men as their pulpits were denied them.  Some were expelled never to preach publicly again.

Here are a few quotes I jotted down as I read this work more than a decade ago:

“There is no way in the world to hold on together like suffering, for the gospel really gets more advantage by the holy, humble sufferings of one gracious saint, simply for the word of righteousness, than by ten thousand arguments used against heretics and false worship” (John Collins, p. 78).

“Do not turn your backs on Christ; the worst of Christ is better than the best of the world” (Thomas Brooks, p. 48).

 

“Should there be a thousand devils, yet all those devils are in one chain, and the end of that chain is in the hand of one God” (Thomas Lye, p. 116).

 

“The man that is most busy in censuring others is always least employed in examining himself” (Thomas Lye, p. 117).

 

“The rod of God upon a saint is only God’s pencil, by which he draws his image in more lively fashion on the soul.  God never strikes the strings of his viol but to make the music sweeter.  Thus it is well with the righteous” (Thomas Watson, p. 144).

 

“Be as much afraid of a painted holiness as you would be afraid of going to a painted heaven” (Thomas Watson, p. 168).

 

“Christ’s doves should flock together….  Conference sometimes may do as much good as preaching” (Thomas Watson, p. 169).

 

“Keep yourselves from idols and take heed of superstition; that is the gentleman-usher to popery” (Thomas Watson, p. 173).

May we learn from these saints when we meet hardship in our day.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Review Article posted: Garnet Howard Milne's "Has the Bible Been Kept Pure?"

My extended review article on Garnet Howard Milne’s Has the Bible Been Kept Pure? The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Providential Preservation of Scripture (2017) appears in the most recent issue of Puritan Reformed Journal, Vol. 11, No. 2 (July 2019): 225-231.

You can read a pdf of the article at my academia.edu page.

You can also listen to an audio reading of the review on sermonaudio.com.

A “rough draft” version of the review was also presented back in WM 93.

Blessings, JTR

Book Note: S. M. Houghton, "My Life and Books"

I just finished reading My Life and Books: Reminiscences of S. M. Houghton (Banner of Truth, 1988): 173 pp. The book has three parts: (1) Houghton’s autobiographical reflections (pp. -139; these ten chapters originally appeared as articles in the Banner of Truth magazine); (2) reflections on Houghton by Iain Murray (pp. 140-162); and (3) a description of Houghton’s final days and death by his pastor at the time, Richard Chester (pp. 163-165).

Who was S. M. Houghton (1899-1987)? Houghton was one of those men who served quietly and mostly behind the scenes in kingdom work, but who had a significant and lasting impact. By profession he was a history teacher and librarian in a Welsh Grammar School. Raised in a Methodist home and even pursuing the Methodist ministry, he did not hear and believe the gospel till he was a young adult through the witness of Strict Baptists (best chapter title: chapter two: “The Early End of Ministerial Career in Methodism”). Houghton was a bibliophile and collector of Puritan works who amassed a personal library that numbered in the tens of thousands of volumes (c. 30,000). At one point he had to store part of his library in two chicken sheds in his yard! When he retired from teaching in 1960 he began work as an editor and proofreader for the Banner of Truth Trust. Among the many Banner works that Houghton helped prepare for publication and (re)introduce to evangelical circles: Merle d’Aubigne’s The Reformation in England, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Arnold Dallimore’s Life of George Whitefield, John Calvin’s Sermons on Ephesians, and D. M. Lloyd-Jones’ Romans commentaries. Houghton also served as editor of the Bible League Quarterly from 1963-1986 and helped re-organize the Bible League Trust in the early 1980s. He was a staunch defender of the Authorized Version of the Bible.

Here are three spiritual gleanings from this work:

1. The power and allure of good books. Houghton was the consummate bibliophile. He worked to collect and preserve the literary labors of some of the great men of the past. Among the best parts of this work are his descriptions of finding rare Puritan works everywhere from second hand bookshops to garbage piles and his reverential descriptions of the personal impact of these books. This memoir shows the power of the written word.

2. The wise use of retirement. In some ways Houghton’s most significant kingdom contributions came in the last 27 years of his life, post-retirement.

3. The influence of thankless “behind the scenes” labor. Houghton did a lot of the grunt work that resulted in the contemporary revival of interest in Puritanism. He did not choose the titles Banner reprinted. He did the detailed work of editing, proofreading, and fact checking these books. He did not speak in large conference and was, by all accounts, a quiet, reserved, and private man. Stop and think, however, of the long time impact of his labors. How many read those books and discovered Reformed theology (the Biblical gospel)? How many pastors, for example, have consulted Lloyd-Jones while preaching through Romans?

JTR

Puritan Parenting

In part of his discussion of "the titled of honor bestowed" upon peacemakers in The Beatitudes (i.e., "they shall be called children of God"), Watson offers an aside on Christian parenting (that I did not include in my message last Sunday).  Those who are God's children should desrie to see their children become God's children.  He notes, in particular, the spiritual responsibilties of parents to train and catechize their children:

How Christians should bring up their children

There are two reasons why a godly parent will endeavour to bring his child into the heavenly kindred:

(i) Out of conscience. A good parent sees the injury he has done to his child. He has conveyed the plague of sin to him, and in conscience he will endeavour to make some recompense. In the old law, he that had smitten and wounded another was bound to see him healed and pay for his cure. Parents have given their children a wound in their souls and therefore must do what in them lies by admonition, prayers, tears, to see the wound healed.

(ii) Out of flaming zeal to the honour of God. He who has tasted God’s love in adoption looks upon himself as engaged to bring God all the glory he can. If he has a child or acquaintance that are strangers to God he would gladly promote the work of grace in their hearts. It is a glory to Christ when multitudes are born to him.

How far are they from being God's children who have no care to bring others into the family of God! To blame are those masters who mind more their servants' work than their souls. To blame are those parents who are regardless of their children. They do not drop in principles of knowledge into them, but suffer them to have their head. They will let them lie and swear, but not ask blessing; read play-books but not Scripture.

But, say some, to catechise and teach our children is to take God's name in vain.

Is the fulfilling God’s command taking his name in vain? 'These words which I command thee this day, thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children' (Deuteronomy 6: 6, 7). 'Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it' (Proverbs 22: 6). 'Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6: 4). This threefold cord of Scripture is not easily broken.

The saints of old were continually grafting principles of holy knowledge in their children. 'I know that Abraham will command his children, and they shall keep the way of the Lord’ (Genesis 18: 19). 'And thou Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve him with a perfect heart’ (1 Chronicles 28:9). Sure Abraham and David did not take God's name in vain! What need is there of instilling holy instructions to overtop the poisonful weeds of sin that grow! As husband-men, when they have planted young trees, they set stays to them to keep them from bending. Children are young plants. The heavenly precepts of their parents are like stays set about them, to keep them from bending to error and profaneness. When can there be a fitter season to disseminate and infuse knowledge into children than in their minority? Now is a time to give them the breast and let them suck in the 'sincere milk of the word’ (1 Peter 2: 2).

But some may object that it is to no purpose to teach our children the knowledge of God. They have no sense of spiritual things, nor are they the better for our instructions. I answer:

We read in Scripture of children who by virtue of instruction have had their tender years sanctified. Timothy’s mother and grandmother taught him the Scriptures from his cradle: 'And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures’ (2 Timothy 3: 15). Timothy sucked in religion as it were with his milk. We read of young children who cried 'Hosanna’ to Christ and trumpeted forth his praises (Matthew 21: 15). And sure those children of Tyre had some seeds of good wrought in them in that they showed their love to Paul and would help him on his way to the seashore. 'They all brought us on our way with wives and children’ (Acts 21: 5). Saint Paul had a convoy of young saints to bring him to take ship.

And again, suppose our counsel and instruction does not at present prevail with our children, it may afterwards take effect. The seed a man sows in his ground does not presently spring up, but in its season it brings forth a crop. He that plants a wood does not see the full growth till many years after. If we must not instruct our children because at present they do not reap the benefit, by the same reason we should not baptise our children, because at present they do not have the sense of baptism. Nay, by the same reason ministers should not preach the Word, because at present many of their hearers have no benefit.

Again, if our counsels and admonitions do not prevail with our children, yet 'we have delivered our own souls'. There is comfort in the discharge of conscience. We must let alone issues and events. Duty is our work; success is God's.

All which considered, should make parents whet holy instructions upon their children. They who are of the family of God and whom he has adopted for children, will endeavour that their children may be more God's children than theirs. They will 'travail in birth till Christ be formed in them’. A true saint is a loadstone that will be still drawing others to God. Let this suffice to have spoken of the signs of adoption. I proceed.

JTR

Matthew Mead: 8 Kinds of Counterfeit Zeal

Matthew Mead’s The Almost Discovered Christian Discovered (first printed 1661; SDG ed., 1993) was written “that the formal, sleepy professor may be awakened and the close hypocrite discovered” (p. xv).

Along the way, Mead notes 8 kinds of “counterfeit zeal” (pp. 55-60):

1. There is a blind zeal, a zeal without knowledge.

This was the zeal Paul had while a Pharisee and persecuting the godly.

2. There is a partial zeal.

It is to be “fire-hot” in one thing but “key-cold” in another. Many are “first-table Christians” yet neglectful of the second. While “others are mindful of the second-table, but neglectful of the first.” “So where zeal reaches to every command of God alike, that is a sign of a sound constitution of the soul.”

3. There is a misplaced zeal fixed upon unsuitable and disproportionate objects.

This is “a superstitious zeal” usually found in unconverted men “in whom grace never was wrought.” This is the zeal Paul had for “the traditions of his fathers” before his conversion.

4. There is a selfish zeal that has a man’s own end for its motive.

“Jehu was very zealous, but it was not so much for God as for the kingdom.”

5. There is an outside zeal.

Such was the zeal of the scribes and Pharisees who “would not eat with unwashed hands, but yet would live in unseen sins.”

6. There is a forensic zeal that runs out upon others.

“Many are hot and high against the sins of others and yet cannot see the same in themselves.” “It is easy to see the faults in others and hard to see them in ourselves.” “This zeal is the true character of a hypocrite. His own garden is overrun with weeds while he is busy in looking over his neighbor’s pale.”

7. There is a sinful zeal.

This is “a zeal against zeal.” It is a “devilish zeal.” It is a zeal against godliness and truth.

8. There is a scripture-less zeal that is not butted and bound by the Word, but by some base and low end.

“Many a man’s zeal is greater then and there, when and where he has the least warrant from God. The true spirit of zeal is bound by the Scripture, for it is for God and the concerns of His glory. God has no glory from that zeal which has not Scripture warrant.”

JTR 

Scougal on Christ's Constant Devotion

Christ's Constant Devotion

"And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray" (Mark 6:46).

Last Sunday I mentioned that I have been reading Henry Scougal’s little devotional classic, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Scougal was one of those men who lived his life well, even though he did not his live life long. He died June 13, 1678 when he was not yet twenty-eight years old.

In the first part of The Life of God in the Soul of Man, Scougal reflects on the life and example of Christ. Here is one his reflections on Christ’s prayer life:

Another instance of his love to God was, his delight in conversing with him by prayer, which made him frequently retire himself from the world, and with great devotion and pleasure spend whole nights in that heavenly exercise, though he had no sins to confess, and but few secular interests to pray for; which alas!, are almost the only things that are wont to drive us to our devotions; nay, we may say his whole life was a kind of prayer; a constant course of communion with God: if the sacrifice was not always offering, yet was the fire alive: nor was ever the blessed Jesus surprised with that dullness, or tepidity of spirit, which we must many times wrestle with, before we can be fit for the exercise of devotion.

May we also learn from Christ how to make our lives one of constant prayer.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Note: I am writing this morning (Wednesday) from Blacksburg, Virginia where I am traveling with Pastor Conrad Mbewe. Last night, he spoke to a group of students at the Graduate Life Center at Virginia Tech at an event sponsored by Ekklesia Church, a sister SBCV congregation. Pray for God to use that message to speak to the hearts of those who received it.

Note: Evangel article 10.7.09.