~ Book Reviews~

I am often asked who I think is best of the Puritans writers. I delight in them all with immense gratitude to God. Inevitably I seek to avoid the question but am usually pinned down to give an answer .

I am not thereby intending to make any distinguishing judgments about the intellectual qualities of either. The truth of the matter is that by and large their works were directed towards different groups; two different class of readers.

Make no mistake, Brooks is a great scholar seeking the spiritual welfare of the people to whom he ministered. Some would say that there are none to compare with his writings, but frankly all that says, is that their reading of the puritans is very limited. For instance: What about Flavel, Burroughs, Reynolds; what about the great Thomas Goodwin, the heavenly Dr Sibbes, Thomas Watson. These men, and many, more, were incomparable in truth and godliness. It is they who laid the foundations of American laws and liberty.

others sought exile the other side of the Atlantic, many trekking through great wildernesses and over mountainous terrains to find a place where they could claim a little land and live as communities in harmony with God.

It is not necessary to agree with everything they write. It is quite transparent that they didn’t always agree among themselves on everything. Just one example of that is the doctrine of Christian assurance. What it meant and how to obtain it depends on who you read.

Coming back to Brooks, he was a great scholars but he left it all behind when he is writing or preaching to the ordinary Christian (although his great knowledge can be seen in his footnotes). His preaching was simple, moving, exhilarating, terrifying. His works abound with the most wonderful metaphors and similes. A professing man must be stone dead not to delight in reading Brooks.

But what of John Owen. He, on the other hand is different. He is difficult, very difficult to read. He is certainly a writer not to give to Christians for the purpose of introducing them to the Puritans.

Reading Owen is a labor. He has no problem at all in managing to make a sentence, a paragraph even, a page long. Such was the precision with which he wrote. His works are mostly polemic; dogmatic apologetics, directed against the great questions of the times. There is no hiding his scholarship. It is there for all to see. In particular, he wrote against Arminianism, and the Nature of the Atonement. He was the great defender of the faith.

It is a great shame that so many pick up a volume of Owen and put it down again, as being too difficult. He is difficult, but for they who persevere the reward will be the sweetest of the sweet. On a personal level, as a new born child of God, John Owens’s sixteen volumes was my only diet. How I thank God for that, as Owen writes of “my lord Christ” with such tenderness and love. In the midst of today’s charismatic writings, if these folk would but read Owen on the Holy Spirit, they would find themselves on the way to glory in chariots of ecstasy. In these respects, there are none like Owen. Read him in the right places, and it will not be long before you feel the tears trickling down your face, your love enlarged, your spiritual desires renewed.

Having written thus of Owen I must make another observation. There are times where Owen reveals more zeal than light. I do not think he can escape the charge of occasionally twisting scripture to his own ends; of finding the texts to support his doctrine rather than finding his doctrine in the texts. He set a trend, which, is all too often followed today. These men were the pioneers. of godliness. They were not faultless. The same conclusions that Owen came to are agreeable to the Faith once delivered to the saints, and can be arrived at, without his dubious exegetical twists and turns. I have in mind his work: “The death of death in the death of Christ” I hold to his conclusions with all my being, but there are times when I take a different pathway to get there.

However, I cannot too strongly urge the writings of Owen. His easier works are now being published as paperbacks in language that any one can follow. The same is true of Brooks. The complete works are also in the shops. Play safe. Buy a couple of paperbacks first and they may well encourage you to buy the complete works as a life time investment for the good of your soul. Try Brooks first. The paperback, precious remedies against Satan’s Devices is the first sermon from the first volume of his complete works available at present. It is valueless.

It is very sad that the Puritans, are so badly misrepresented. The word ‘puritan’ is almost an expletive for many people. People who know nothing at all about them, speak of them as if they were demons who would not allow fun and happiness. To get a proper understanding of who they where and what they are all about I recommend that you read the book: “The Puritans Their origins and Successors” by the late Dr. D.M Lloyd-Jones.

He has been a pastor in his own right, an assistant to Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones whose biography, was written by Mr. Murray is a magnificent piece of historical research. He had, of course, a close relationship with that family and was able to get many of his fact at first hand.

It is as an historian that he will remembered over many many years. This one on Wesley is a must. Theologically, Mr. Murray is at one with George Whitefield and more at odds with Wesley. Nevertheless he manages to absent himself from any partisanship.

It is my conviction that the work of Mr. Murray (along with others) in reviving the Old Paths, did much to revive true Christianity, at least among a ruminant, and to draw the UK back from the brink. His pen has inspired many young ministers to re-examine the true facts of how far the present Church has left its roots.

It would be folly to judge this volume by the number of pages. It is my opinion that Mr. Murray as a talent touching on genius when it comes to finding fresh material and sorting it in chronological order. He is no historical dogmatist and when he finds differing accounts on the same subject matter, he carefully weighs what he has in the balances, draws his own conclusions and makes sure that his readers know that there views other then his own. He leaves the reader to decide which is the most probable, giving his readers the sources of his information they can check for themselves.

He has a further talent, one so lacking in many historians; the ability to get into the mind of his subjects; At times you feel that you are sitting by a nice cozy fire with Wesley, listening to what he has to say.

There can be little doubt the Wesley was a confused man as far as doctrine was concerned, for which he was much abused and he suffered a great deal of criticism. It tells a great deal about his former friend George Whitefield.

Whitfield, in the midst of all the criticism piled upon Wesley was able to defend Wesley when his distracters overstepped the mark . Today he has a great defender in Murray. This is history at its best. Much that led to his loss, were things he had said when he was young. Some of these ideas he sought to. Some of those things he had to abandon for pragmatic and better biblical understanding, and some he sought to explain away.

The book is not expensive. Buy it and it will throw a new light on Wesley. It may even wet your appetite to read more of Mr. Murray's works.

Start with: "The Forgotten Spurgeon".

Rev A J Walker

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The Christian’s Reasonable Service

by Wilhelmus à Brakel

We live in an age when all many Christians want to read is light-hearted, frothy, pop: the sort of reading that would most be at home in the trash bin. Most of it is neither soul building, nor edifying. It is trash. Even the serious minded Christian is so often overwhelmed by books on theology and doctrine. The reason is not difficult to discern; they don’t hear theology and solid doctrine from the pulpit; so many preachers are reading that same trash as their daily diet. It is an ongoing process that seems always to be keeping in step with the world; the way to win the world is to be like the world. The world is setting the agenda for the church. At one time the church was in the world, but alas in these days the world is in the church.

The only glimmer of hope in this situation, certainly in the UK., is a renewed interest in puritan literature, fostered by some of the better publishing houses. Some of these are not interested in profit, but are seeking to reform the church. A great deal of cheap books are being published to this end. It cannot escape notice however that even here editors are feeling the need for the easier reading puritans. That is not a criticism; it makes good sense. The work they are doing is invaluable. Many of the puritans read quite easily, and are tenderly directed to the souls of their congregations and those that cannot benefit from them must surely be dead. They are also producing some of the real heavy weights that end up in the more scholarly ministers’ libraries.

It is just a fact that some of the works are difficult; too profound for the ordinary Christian to struggle with after a hard days work. If the ministry is failing them, where do they get their doctrines and theologies from. As I sat at my desk looking around my study my eyes fell upon a well used work that meets just the need. During the time of the persecutions in Britain many of the puritans sought refuge in Holland, for some, as a stepping stone for the New World. It was not long before, publishers recognizing the inestimable value of the puritans preaching and written works that they began to translate those works into Dutch where they had a great influence. One of those who treasured them was Wilhelmus à Brakel. His own great work, the title of which is above, is magnificent. It has all the marks of a great and profound theologians, but it excels the theologians we are more familiar with, the Hodges, the Berkhofs, the Warfields. He excels them all, in that none that I have ever read, states profound truth so simply; that surely is the mark of a great scholar. Any one with an average intelligence can read them with delight. What makes them so suitable to the man in the street is that whatever his particular subject, he never fails to apply it to the heart of the reader, be it in rebuke, in encouraging, evangelizing. He applies each section to every need of man. Clearly this great work was written for his congregations. It is also very obvious that the puritan influence permeates his soul and his writings. He deals with the Christian life in almost every aspect that can be thought of: joy, peace, grief, conviction, faith, love, friendship. In this he reminds one on Richards Baxter’s works. à Brakel was a Dutch Puritan.

One does not have to agree with every word he says to treasure his work to the full. It is a four volume set, and may perhaps be beyond the limits of many to buy a set. There are several ways round that. Four of you get together and purchase the set between you, each having a different volume in turn. There is also the second hand-market; some of my best beloved volumes I have obtained in that way, although these works may be difficult to find since they were only translated into English in recent years. There is one other way that works in the UK., I don’t know about other countries. It works like this; you join your local lending library, ask if they could get you what you want from another branch, and in most cases they will buy the book in for you to read. Christians should do that much more. Get some good Christian literature on the library shelves. I heartily recommend these volumes to you. If they are still in print, they are published in America by Christian Heritage Books. You could always contact them and ask if they have any damaged volumes to sell off.

Rev A J Walker

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John Bunyan

Many years ago I heard the Rev AL Martin say at a conference I was attending: that there are three books he always keep on his desk: the Bible, the Westminster Confession and Pilgrim’s progress by John Bunyan, the Bedford Tinker. This is a book of an entirely different genre to the one above, yet in its own way it is no less profound. It is said that next to the Bible Pilgrims progress sold mare than any other book . The book was written from the squalor of Bedford Jail which straddles the river that runs through the town. A friendly jailor would often let him out to go out preaching to his people. He was a Baptist Puritan (which is perhaps part of the reason for AL Martin’s love of his work) The story tells the story of a dream through which the whole course of the Christian life is traced. Being Allegorical it is not always appreciated as it should be; but once one makes a start at reading it becomes a ‘can’t put down’ book. It is a book by a poverty stricken tinker that exhibits genius. Ill educated, his book can stand alongside any of the great theologians works without and embarrassment. There are times when you could be forgiven for thinking Pilgrims Progress was truly inspired. I shall for ever be in Al Martin’s debt for introducing Bunyan to me when he spoke those words above, at that conference.

Many folk think that that was the whole of his writings, but the good news is, his complete works have been reproduced by The Banner of Truth Trust in three beautifully presented volumes. There are things in those volumes that having once read can never be forgotten: they will remain a blessing to you all the days of your life. Follow Spurgeon’s advice: ‘sell you shirt and buy a book.’- you will probably have to sell your top coat as well in this case, but the warmth Bunyan will stir in your heart will more than compensate for the loss of a coat. I am loathe to describe it’s contents, lest I rob you of sheer joy, of discovering these wonders for yourself.

May I make a suggestion: put yourself on the Banner of Truth’s mailing list. They will send you a catalogue of the very best of book, at most reasonable prices to feed the soul.