The Puritans, and Online Resources

In 1987 Dr. S. Lewis Johnson observed the negative slant our culture puts on the Puritans, while emphasizing the positive aspect of true Puritanism:

There is a genuine New Testament Puritanism. A separation from sin and evil that a genuine Christian must cultivate. Even Arminians and Calvinists who don’t agree on soteriological truths, do agree here if they’re believers in Christ. Christians are to separate from evil and sin in their Christian life. …. New Testament Puritanism is no harsh, repellant thing eradicating the affections. It’s the opening of the heart to eternal love, to eternal joy, to eternal comfort in rich fruitfulness. There is puritanism in the New Testament. It’s for everyone of us who named Christ. May God help us to illustrate it in our lives.

Yet in recent years within evangelical Christianity, the Puritans have made a “comeback,” with increased popularity as their writings have become more available to our generation. Over the last few years I’ve come to greatly appreciate Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle, both of whom were influenced by the Puritans. So I’ve recently looked more closely at the Puritans, both in the history and literature, and put together this list of resources for introduction:

Introductory articles:

Why You Should Read the Puritans, by Joel Beeke:

He recommends starting with these three works:

• John Bunyan, The Fear of God
• John Flavel, Keeping the Heart
• Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment

then move on to the works of John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, and Jonathan Edwards.

History of the Puritan Era

Overview history:

• The Story of the Puritans, by Errol Hulse (Summary of the history)
• The Story of the Puritans (2), by Errol Hulse (this article includes brief biographies of several Puritans)

The detailed history of the Puritans, over a thousand pages in the details starting with Henry VIII, through the late 17^th century, is available online: Daniel Neal’s History of the Puritans.  The full five volumes are available online, both at Google Play and Archive.org. Here are the two volumes of the abridged set, from Henry VIII to the early 18^th century Queen Anne:

• Volume 1 (Henry VIII to King Charles I)
• Volume 2 (King Charles I to Queen Anne)

Collections of Puritan Writings

• John Bunyan Complete Collection: Bunyan Ministries
• Puritan sermons
• CCEL (Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

Puritan Blogs

• A Puritan’s mind
• The Puritan’s Woodshop (includes many free online PDFs by Puritan and Puritan-influenced writers)

Calvinist Dispensational Study Resources: Bob DeWaay

I’m always interested in finding and exploring good Calvinist Dispensational Resources, and tend to concentrate for a while on certain sites, such as Believer’s Chapel Dallas with its many online sermons.  Another site I’ve known about, but hadn’t explored as much, is Bob DeWaay’s church, Twin City Fellowship.  I’ve now added it to the “Church Listings” page, and have spent more time looking at their Bible Study section.

The sermon and Sunday School recordings are fairly recent, so it doesn’t have as much content from the many years past (Believers Chapel has material going back to the 1960s and 1970s), but what it has is well organized with book names listed along the left side panel, and a good selection including several series through Old Testament books.  Among the minor prophets, which I’ve been studying recently, this site has many good audio files covering Daniel, Joel, Zechariah, Malachi, and Habakkuk (still in progress).    Other offerings include Genesis and Exodus, as well as several of the New Testament books, and a ten-part series on basic Hermeneutics.

I’ve listened to the first few messages in Joel, which was done as a Sunday School class with some classroom  interaction; the sessions are longer, at about 1 1/4 hours.  It provides a good supplement to the S. Lewis Johnson series I recently completed.  Among a few interesting highlights, the teacher of this series holds to a later date for Joel — while admitting that some of the arguments, from silence, are not by themselves the strongest reasons.  After I complete all the SLJ minor prophets sessions, I would like to go back and listen to more of Twin City’s classes.