Puritan Profile (Page 2)

“Of all preaching in the world, (that speaks not stark lies,) I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh, or to move their mind with tickling levity, and affect them as stage-players use to do, instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God.” ― Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor. Richard Baxter (1615-1691) has been recognized as being gifted with a pastoral heart. He labored for nearly twenty years as a pastor in Kidderminster,…

“Those families wherein this service of God [family worship] is performed, are (as it were) little churches, yea, even a kind of Paradise upon earth.” William Perkins, Household-Government, in Works 3:670. While William Perkins (1558-1602) was an adolescent, his name was the talk of the town. Not in a good sense. Though the details are scarce, his personal life was quite sinful, he was addicted to alcohol, and he was seen as the town drunk. One day while a woman was walking…

“Though Satan has his devices to draw souls to sin, yet we must be careful that we do not lay all our temptations upon Satan, that we do not wrong the devil, and father upon him what is to be fathered upon our own base hearts. Man has such an evil root within him, that were there no devil to tempt him, no wicked men in the world to entice him, yet that cursed sinful nature that is in him…

Ralph Venning wrote in The Sinfulness of Sin, “let me again, then, entreat, beseech and beg you for God’s sake and for your souls’ sake not to sin.”  Ralph Venning (1621-1674) was born in Devon, England, and spent his childhood and young adult life in Tavistock. It was there that Venning met a Puritan preacher, George Hughes, who faithfully ministered to him and two other men who also went on to minister. Historians note that Venning owed a lot of his…

“Contentment is not such a poor business as many make it. They say, ‘you must be content,’ and so on. But Paul needed to learn it, and it is a great art and mystery of godliness to be content in a Christian way, and it will be seen to be even more of a mystery when we come to show what lessons a gracious heart learns when it learns to be contented. Take a scholar who has great learning and…

Many Christians have read, used, or heard of Matthew Henry’s New and Old Testament Biblical Commentary. Many have seen his Commentary online and without much careful consideration never thought much of the man.  Matthew Henry was born in a farmhouse in a border town between Wales and England. It was around the time of his birth that his father, Philip Henry, was ejected from the pastorate for not complying with the Act of Uniformity. During his childhood, his father, Philip,…

John Bunyan is well recognized for his famous book Pilgrim’s Progress, but most do not know his life’s story was filled with many trials, he approached each challenge with courage grounded in his Savior, Jesus Christ.  John Bunyan was born in Elstow, near Bedford, in 1628 and died in 1688 in London. During his childhood and youth, he rebelled against God by living for himself. In his biography Bunyan said, “that from a child I had but few equals, both…

William Gurnall (1617-1679), was born at King’s Lynn, Norfolk about 100 miles from London. As a conformist, Gurnall is a controversial figure in Puritan history, he is well-known to readers of Puritan theology, but his personal details and history are scarce. There are three key overarching themes about Gurnall’s life, he was a Puritan of the seventeenth century, he was an Anglican Minister of Lavenham, and he wrote a well-known book of practical divinity “The Christian in Complete Armour.” Gurnall’s…

Thomas Goodwin was born on October 5, 1600, in Rollesby, Norfolk, England, and died on February 23, 1680, in London. Goodwin was a powerful Puritan who was a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and friends with John Owen. With Owen and with other like-minded separatists, he helped draft the Savoy Declaration, a confession of faith for the Congregationalists, a group of independent Presbyterians. Goodwin was an intellectual, he earned his B.A. from Christ’s College, Cambridge at the age of 16 and…

The preacher whom Cotton Mather called “the Light of the Western Churches” was far from being a man of one subject. Nonetheless, Thomas Hooker’s overriding interest was evangelistic or with what was then called ‘the application of redemption’.  Thomas Hooker was born at Markfield, Leicestershire, on July 7, 1586. When he was nineteen, he went to Queen’s College, where he was older than most new students. That same year, he started going to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, which was known as a…

Robert Traill (1642–1716) was a minister who experienced persecution from a young age and approached each of his trials with grace. Traill was born in Scotland into the family of a Presbyterian minister. Due to his upbringing and convictions, he stood with the Presbyterian cause pushing back against the Church of England. Traill promoted and advanced true Christianity through the regions of Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland. Due to not aligning with Anglicanism, he and many other Scottish ministers suffered…

Edward Dering (1540-1576) was a preacher without compromise, and in 1570 he was invited to speak before Queen Elizabeth I and her royal subjects. Dering did not hold back any punches. Here is part of his message: “Look upon your ministry (clergy), and there are some of one occupation, some of another: some shake bucklers, some ruffians, some hawkers and hunters, some dicers and carders, some blind guides and can not see, some dumb dogs and will not bark. And…