Counseled by the Puritans on Providence

Slowly working my way through A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life; I was recently blown away by the tenth chapter, which is entitled “The Puritans on Providence.” I was already tired enough to go to bed, when I decided to read another chapter in this massive volume, so I wondered if there was any practical wisdom in my decision to open any book. However; I found myself being renewed in strength after reading just a few pages, which propelled me to finish the chapter. It was exactly what I needed.

In today’s post, I will attempt to summarize 15 pages of theology into 1500 words.

Puritan Definitions and Teaching on Providence

Puritan Arthur Dent (1553-1607) wrote, ‘For every one of us, when we do confess God to be almighty, do acknowledge that he by his providence rules everything.’

The Heidelberg Catechism asks to what advantage it is to know that God rules and upholds all things and then answers this way: “That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from His love; since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move.”

William Ames (1576-1633) deduced the following lessons from Romans 11:36, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.”    Continue at Paul Tautges

Pastors Leaving Their Flocks

A particularly sensitive subject concerns the issue of pastors leaving their local ministry for another ministry.  In today’s ecclesiastical climate, including confessionally Reformed churches, we are facing a serious problem because of pastors treating the ministry as if they are professionals. The ministry today has more in common with worldly advancement than it does with some of the principles we find in the Scriptures.

This topic is something the Puritans were not silent about. John Owen, the so-called “Prince of the Puritans” – and I happen to think he is rightly called the “Prince” – remarks that the reason the early church had great ‘provisions’ against moving from one congregation to another is due to the practice of ‘professionalism’. Owen writes:

“for when some churches were increased in members, reputation, privileges, and wealth, above others, it grew an ordinary practice for the bishops to design and endeavor their own removal from a less unto a greater benefice” (Works, 16:94).

As we say here in Canada, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The practice of the early church has much to teach us moderns. Owen continues, “[t]his is so severely interdicted in the councils of Nice and Chalcedon as that they would not allow that a man might be a bishop or presbyter in any other place but only in the church wherein he was originally ordained; and, therefore, if any did so remove themselves, decreed that they should be sent home again, and there abide, or cease to be church-officers” (Conc. Nicea. can. 15,16; Chalced., can. 5, 20).

The whole concept of “open contending for ecclesiastical promotions, benefices, and dignities, were then either unknown or openly condemned” (Ibid).   Continue at Mark Jones

Sex In Marriage

As it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, we thought it would be beneficial to highlight marriage, and specifically sex in marriage.

The Intimate Marriage

Dr. R.C. Sproul has taught a series and written book on marriage. In these resources, Dr. Sproul walks through some of the toughest things couples struggle with today: lack of communication, sex, roles, divorce, anger, and more. He shares what the Bible says about each, as well as lessons He has learned from his own marriage of forty years.

Watch: You can watch The Intimate Marriage series online for free.

Read: You can purchase The Intimate Marriage book from the Ligonier store.

The Puritan’s View of Sex in Marriage

There are many caricatures and missinformation when it comes to how Christians through the ages have viewed sex in marriage. In Dr. Joel R. Beeke’s Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, he dedicates a chapter to marriage, in which he discusses the Puritan’s view.

Marital love must be sexual, so that both marital partners can give themselves fully to each other with joy and exuberance in a healthy relationship marked by fidelity. Reformers such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin established this aspect of marriage by abandoning the medieval Roman Catholic attitudes that marriage was inferior to celibacy, that all sexual contact between marital partners was a necessary evil to propagate the human race, and that a procreative act that involved passion was inherently sinful.  Continue at Ligonier

Puritan Evangelism by J.I. Packer

In the report of the Archbishop’s Committee on Evangelism, published in 1945 under the title: Towards the Conversion of England, the work of evangelism is conveniently defined as follows: “so to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that men shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Savior, and serve Him as their King in fellowship of His Church.”

 

Did the Puritans tackle the task of evangelism at all? At first sight, it might seem not. They agreed with Calvin in regarding the “evangelists” mentioned in the New Testament as an order of assistants to the apostles, now extinct; and as for “missions,” “crusades” and “campaigns,” they knew neither the name nor the thing. But we must not be misled into supposing that evangelism was not one of their chief concerns. It was. Many of them were outstandingly successful as preachers to the unconverted. Richard Baxter, the apostle of Kidderminster, is perhaps the only one of these that is widely remembered today; but in contemporary records it is common to read statements like this, of Hugh Clark: “he begat many Sons and Daughters unto God;” or this, of John Cotton, “the presence of the Lord…crowning his labors with the Conversion of many Souls” (S. Clarke, Lives of 52…Divines, pp.131, 222, etc.) Moreover, it was the Puritans who invented evangelistic literature. One has only to think of Baxter’s classic Call to the Unconverted, and Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted, which were pioneer works in this class of writing. And the elaborate practical “handling” of the subject of conversion in Puritan books was regarded by the rest of the seventeenth-century Protestant world as something of unique value. “It hath been one of the glories of the Protestant religion that it revived the doctrine of Saving Conversion, and of the New Creature brought forth thereby…But in a more eminent manner, God hath cast the honor hereof upon the Ministers and Preachers of this Nation, who are renowned abroad for their more accurate search into and discoveries hereof.” (T. Goodwin and P. Nye, Preface to T. Hooker, The Application of Redemption, 1656).

The truth is that two distinct conceptions and types of evangelism have been developed in Protestant Christendom during the course of its history. We may call them the “Puritan” type and the “modern” type. Today we are so accustomed to evangelism of the modern type that we scarcely recognize the other is evangelism at all. In order that we may fully grasp the character of the Puritan type of evangelism, I shall here set it in contrast with the modern type, which has so largely superseded it at the present time.  Continue at Refocusing Our Eyes

Jonathan Edwards and Broken Resolutions

As we discussed last week, the seventy Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards exemplify an eternal and God-glorifying perspective that all believers ought to emulate.

But let’s be honest. A list of spiritual goals compiled by one of church history’s greatest heroes can be a bit intimidating, especially when there are seventy of them. When we make similar resolutions — and later fail to keep them — it can be downright discouraging to compare ourselves to someone like Jonathan Edwards.

Well, here’s a nugget of encouragement for you. Even a notable Puritan theologian like Edwards struggled to keep his resolutions.

As historian George Marsden explains about Edwards:

It was one thing to make such a thorough and impressive list of resolutions; it was another to keep them. This we know from his diary, in which he reported his efforts fairly regularly for the next year or two. Although he noted the spiritual highs that he later recalled, his diary also records many days of lows, “decays,” and lengthy times of inability to focus on spiritual things.  (A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, 24)

Here is one such example from Edwards’s Diary:

The last week I was sunk so low, that I fear it will be a long time before I am recovered. I fell exceedingly low in the weekly account [regarding keeping my resolutions]. I find my heart so deceitful, that I am almost discouraged from making any more resolutions. — Wherein have I been negligent in the week past; and how could I have done better, to help the dreadful low estate in which I am sunk?

Sound familiar?  Keep Reading >>>

The Tragedy of American Compassion

Tragedy and Compassion – two words that we don’t normally associate together. How could compassion be tragic? While we likely have different levels of bad news in mind when think of tragedy, we are all in agreement that tragedy is bad and something ought to be done. Although I think the TV news industry is working hard to widen the definition to include hangnails.

Compassion is a bit more complicated. We tend to think of compassion from the same perspective that we think of love – the unbiblical, Greco-Roman emotional view. Americans view compassion today differently than we did 250 years ago. We want to “relieve suffering” but don’t stop to think about the proper way of doing this, or even if there is such a thing. There are some issues – life threatening, for example – for which rapid elimination of the threat is proper. But there are many life issues that are the accumulation of bad decisions for which there is no proper quick relief. We can look at G.W. Bush’s policy in the Middle East, thinking the solution there was to quickly implant democratic governments. People will not value the liberty a representative government of laws brings until they realize their need of it. Small children will not realize the value of math if mom tells them the answers rather than teaches and asks diagnostic questions.  Keep Reading >>>

Who Is John Bunyan?

The most popular novel in the history of the world was written in prison by a man whose humble beginnings and arduous life reflect the One he lived for—Jesus Christ (The Portable Bunyan). John Bunyan, who never received more than a second grade education, impacted Christian thinking and English literature so profoundly that he was able to transcend the cultural and religious framework from which he wrote and influence a universal audience (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners).

The Drunken Tinsmith

John Bunyan was born in England in 1628, entering into the broader historical context with “the final phases of the Reformation movement still fresh in the minds of the people” and the Puritan pilgrimage to America dawning in the near future. John’s father was a tinker (a tin smith), providing a meager life for his family and training his son to follow in his footsteps. At the age of sixteen Bunyan lost his mother and two sisters, after which his father married for the third time.  Keep Reading >>>

But God Has Deserted Me…

What would you say to a friend who thought that God had deserted them?  Would you tell them that they are wrong and that God would never withdraw himself?  Would you tell them that it is their own fault (albeit in nicer and more pious terms)?  One of the advantages of immersing myself in the writing of a guy who has been dead for 300+ years is that he thinks differently than me.  The advantage is that he reveals my blindspots; that is, the things I have not thought through correctly due how I have been taught and what I have chosen to learn.  The Puritans have a reputation for being masters of soul care.  I do not know exactly how I would have answered before, but I know that I will answer differently now because of Thomas Brooks.

The eighth objection he faces in calling suffering Christians to refrain from complaints is for the person who says “but God has deserted me! He hath forsaken me! and ‘he that should comfort my soul stands afar off!’ how can I be silent?  The Lord hath hid his face from me; clouds are gathered about me; God hath turned his back upon me; how can I hold my peace?” (I-372; all quotations in this post are taken from I-372-379).   Keep Reading >>>

J.C. Ryle on Revivalism

American Christianity in general, and Fundamentalism in particular has been greatly impacted by the Revivalist movement. J.C. Ryle, often hailed as the last of the great British Puritans, is perhaps best known for his book entitled Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots.  In a chapter on “Counting the Cost”, he had some important things to say about the Revivalist movement.  I find Ryle’s words quite helpful on this subject, especially as they are spoken by an orthodox, evangelical churchman looking on as Revivalism was beginning to sweep the known world. Warning: the quote here is a bit long, but many of you will want to read the whole thing, I’m sure. Continue Reading>>>

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