Category Archives: Puritans

Posted on

Who is Isaac Ambrose?

isaacambroseOne of my Endeavors for 2014 is to read Isaac Ambrose’s timeless tome, Looking Unto Jesus: A View of the Everlasting Gospel: Or, the Soul’s Eyeing of Jesus, As Carrying on the Great Work of Man’s Salvation, from First to Last.

If you aren’t familiar with Puritan works just know that title is not particularly long for those 17th century divines.

So just who is Isaac Ambrose? I can’t improve upon the work of Beeke and Pederson in Meet the Puritans. Here’s a short-ish adaptation.

AMBROSE THE MAN

Isaac Ambrose was born in 1604, the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, Lancashire. Entering Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1621, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1624, and was ordained to the ministry. He became vicar of the parish church in Castleton, Derbyshire, in 1627, then served at Clapham, Yorkshire, from 1629 to 1631. The following year he received a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge.

About 1640, Lady Margaret Hoghton selected him as vicar of Preston in Amounderness. As long as Ambrose lived in Preston, he enjoyed the warm friendship of the Hoghton family. It was to their ancestral woods and tower near Blackburn, east of Preston, or Weddicre Woods near Garstang, that Ambrose retired each May to be alone, searching the Scriptures, praying, and meditating upon God. His sermon, “Redeeming the Time,” preached to the large congregation assembled for Lady Hoghton’s funeral, was long remembered in Lancashire.

Presbyterianism in Lancashire was served well by Ambrose in the 1640s and early 1650s, though not without strife. On several occasions he served as moderator of the Lancashire classis, and, in 1648, was a signatory of the harmonious consent of the Lancashire Presbyterian clergy, which expressed solidarity with the Westminster Assembly and opposed calls for toleration. In 1649, the local committee for the relief of plundered ministers ordered him to be briefly imprisoned in London. When Ambrose returned to minister in Preston, he faced ongoing persecution. Finally, in 1654, he gave up his post there, perhaps due in part to illness (Oxford DNB, 1:921).

Ambrose moved north to become minister of Garstang, where he was ejected from his living in 1662 because of non- conformity. He lived in retirement among his friends at Preston, dying suddenly of apoplexy on January 23, 1664. It was said of him: “He was holy in life, happy in his death, honored of God, and held in high estimation by all good men.”

AMBROSE THE AUTHOR

Ambrose was a Christ-centered and warmly experiential author. He spoke of himself as a son of Boanerges and Barnabas, though his writings and ministry appear to have reflected more of the latter than the former. His writings are remarkably free of polemics. “As a religious writer Ambrose has a vividness and freshness of imagination possessed by scarcely any of the Puritan nonconformists. Many who have no love for Puritan doctrine, nor sympathy with Puritan experience, have appreciated the pathos and beauty of his writings, and his Looking unto Jesus long held its own in popular appreciation with the writings of John Bunyan” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1:800). A collection of his works appeared in 1674 and was reprinted at least seven times over the next two centuries.

After a serious illness in the early 1650s, Ambrose wrote a devotional on what the Lord had done for his soul, titled Looking unto Jesus, or the Soul’s Eyeing of Jesus as Carrying on the Great Work of Man’s Salvation (1658). The book, which stresses experiential identification with Jesus in thought and behavior, soon became a classic of Christ-centered divinity. Its readers feel they are standing on holy ground.

The book has been reprinted many times, influencing many Christians over the centuries to pursue a closer walk with God. It equals Samuel Rutherford’s Letters in its Christcenteredness.

Posted on

Diverse Application in Preaching

Preaching Header

One of the most treasured lessons I have gleaned from the old Puritan divines is the practice of “discriminatory application.” This method seeks to apply the sermon’s truth in diverse, yet specific, ways because every audience is the collection of diverse spiritual conditions.

For help in this practice we can turn to William Perkins’ The Art of Prophesying. It is the standard teaching on how the Puritans went about the practice of application.

Perkins defines application as “the skill by which the doctrine which has been properly drawn from Scripture is handled in ways appropriate to the circumstances of the place and time and to the people in the congregation.” You’ll notice this definition presupposes a delineated “doctrine” in every sermon. At the risk of oversimplification, we could say the Puritans viewed a sermon’s “doctrine” much like modern homileticians advocate every sermon have a main point or big idea. Once the main point has been explained and expounded its truth should be applied.

Perkins says “there are basically seven ways in which application should be made, in keeping with seven different spiritual conditions.” Ever true to his Puritan tradition, Perkins is somewhat repetitive in his listing, so I will summarize his seven conditions under the following four.

4 CONDITIONS FOR APPLICATION

  1. The Hard Heart. Those who are unbelievers and are both ignorant and unteachable. To the hard-hearted the law must be stressed, and its curse stated clearly along with its threats.
  2. The Seeker. This category includes those who are teachable, but ignorant, and those who have knowledge of God, but are not yet repentant. The law of God must also be stressed to this group, but when the beginning of genuine sorrow appears they are to be comforted with the gospel.
  3. The Converted. These need to be taught the full-orbed nature of Christ’s blessings and benefits: justification, sanctification, adoption, and perseverance. They also need to be taught the law, not as those under its curse, but as a guide for how to bear the fruit of new obedience in keeping with their repentance.
  4. The Backslider. For those falling in faith the specific doctrine which counter-acts their error should be expounded and taught. We need to stress its importance to them, along with the doctrine of repentance. Let this be done with brotherly affection.

With these four categorical conditions set, we can now move on to the various ways a preacher can apply truth to each condition. Perkins says, “Application is of two kinds, mental and practical.” The mental and practical each have two summary applications, which I combine into the following list.

4 KINDS OF APPLICATION

  1. Doctrinal application. Doctrine applies the main point in such a way to show the hearer what the mind ought to believe.
  2. Reproving application. Reproof is the flip side of doctrine. It applies the main point in such a way to show the hearer what the mind should not believe.
  3. Instructional application. Instruction is the main point applied in a way to enable the hearer to live well in the context of family, the state, and the church. It involves both encouragement and exhortation.
  4. Correctional application. Correction is the application of the main point in a specific way that transforms lives marked by ungodliness and unrighteousness.

A savvy reader would note at this point that my summary of Perkins’ approach would mean a preacher has at least sixteen different, and legitimate, applications at his disposal in any sermon. Do you see it? If a preacher offered all four kinds of application to all four conditions for application, he would have sixteen points of application in one sermon! The preacher would be wise to heed Perkins admonition that applications “must be carefully chosen, and limited to a few, lest those who hear God’s word expounded are overwhelmed by the sheer number of applications.” The point in application is not to overwhelm the congregation, but pierce their hearts and minds in appropriately specific ways.

How about you? Do your sermons regularly and specifically apply the main point to the varied conditions present within the congregation? If so, praise God! If not, see if you can integrate Perkins’ practice into your preparation for this weekend.

Tomorrow I will show you how one modern expositor goes about preparing for “discriminatory application.”

Posted on

Follow Them to Their Family

Jeremiah_BurroughsIn his excellent work on a holy life, Gospel Conversation, Jeremiah Burroughs writes,

There are some who make profession of religion indeed, and, if you come to them before other company, their conversation seems to be very fair and square.  But just follow them to their families and see what they do there.  Will you see their conversation to be holy as becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ?

– Burroughs, Gospel Conversation: Conduct Worthy of the Gospel, 23.

Posted on

The Hardest Study

In volume one of his collected works the forgotten Puritan George Swinnock offers several hopes for his ministry. His ninth hope is that he would be a diligent preacher of God’s word, and he understands the necessity of prayer to the task:

Luther saith, He the prayeth hard, studieth hard. Lord, let all my sermons, as dew be heaven-born, that they may drop down upon my people like rain upon the mown grass. Let prayer be the key to open the mysteries of Christ to me, and let prayer be the turning of the key, to lock them up safe within me. Let prayer open and shut all my books, form and write, begin and conclude every sermon. Ah, now should he pray both for his preaching, and before he preacheth, who, by every sermon, preacheth his beloved neighbors into eternal burning, or eternal pleasures!

– George Swinnock, The Works of George Swinnock Vol:1, 324-325.

Posted on

Reasons and Rules for Preaching Christ

photo(15)Thomas Brooks is probably my favorite Puritan author. There is a warmth, clarity, and verve about his prose few Christian authors have ever been able to match. Spurgeon said he was excessively “sweet and sparkling” in his use of language.

His best known work probably is Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, but The Privy Key to Heaven or Heaven on Earth have also been reprinted for centuries. Tucked away in volume three of his collected works is a masterful meditation on Christian humility from Ephesians 3:8 entitled, “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ.” The majority of Brooks’ work is taken up with the first part of Ephesians 3:8 and Paul’s confession that he “is the least of all the saints.” But patient reading is rewarded for at the end Brooks reaches the topic of humble Christ-centered preaching. And oh how the sparkling doctor shines!

This section on preaching is fueled by Brooks’ belief, “That it is the great duty of preachers to preach Jesus Christ to the people.” He then moves to the “why” and “how” of preaching Christ, by first giving 5 reasons:

  1. It is the only way to save and to win souls to Jesus Christ.
  2. It is the choicest and chiefest way to ingratiate Christ with poor souls.
  3. The preaching of Christ is the only way to preach down anitchrist, or whatever makes against Christ.
  4. The Christ-less preacher contracts the blood of souls.1
  5. The preaching of Christ contributes most to people’s comfort here and to their reward hereafter.

“It is only the preaching of Christ, that allures and draws the souls of men,” Brooks writes. This kind of allurement and drawing of souls to Christ means, according to Brooks, preaching marked by 11 adverbs. The preacher must preach Christ:

  • Plainly
  • Faithfully
  • Humbly
  • Wisely
  • Boldly
  • Consistently
  • Exemplarily
  • Experientially
  • Rightly
  • Acceptably
  • Constantly

Brooks knows that such exhortation might be simultaneously encouraging and discouraging for some. So he goes on to make a “counted presumption” that his readers will allow him to “propound a few rules for such to observe that are willing to preach Christ to poor souls.” He offers three:

  1. If you would preach Christ to the people, according to the rules last mentioned, then you must get Christ within you. “There is nothing that makes a man indeed so able to preach Christ to the people, as the getting Christ within him . . . Nothing will make him so wise, so painful, so watchful, so careful to win souls, as Christ within; nothing will make a man strive with sinners, and weep over sinners, and wait upon sinners for their return, as Christ within.”
  2. They that would preach Christ to the people must study more Scripture truths, Scripture mysteries, than human histories. “They must study God’s book more than all other books . . . Let the word be so concocted an digested by you, as that you turn it into a part of yourselves.”
  3. Such as would preach Christ aright to the people had need to dwell much upon the vanity of human doctrines. “Human doctrines to not discover sin in its ugliness and filthiness as the Scriptures do. Human doctrines have no humbling power in them. Human doctrines are so far from enriching the soul, that they usually impoverish the soul. They make men-pleasers of men rather than pleasers of God; yea, they make men set up themselves and others, sometimes in the room of Christ, and sometimes above Christ.”

5 reasons, 11 adverbs, and 3 rules for preaching Christ. This is Puritan meditation at its finest.

  1. Here he channels what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” ↩
Posted on

13 Ways to Train Yourself for Godliness

91sphgCz8KL._SL1500_One of my favorite Puritan authors is the little known George Swinnock. Stephen Yuille introduced me to this great divine in his academic work The Fear of God in the Affective Theology of George Swinnock. I later bought, with Christmas money, 1 the Works of George Swinnock put out by Banner of Truth and have been feasting ever since.

Few details of Swinnock’s life have survived the centuries. We know his great contemporary Edmund Calamy called him a “serious, warm . . . practical, useful preacher.” Spurgeon said, “George Swinnock had the gift of illustration largely developed, as his works prove.” He died at the tender age of 46 in 1672, ten years after being ejected from The Church of England for Nonconformity. One wonders what works he would have produced if God granted him a few more decades of ministry.

Swinnock’s magnum opus is The Christian Man’s Calling, a 1,252 page work applying 1 Timothy 4:7 – “exercise thyself unto godliness” – to all areas of life. Some people might accuse it of being the epitome of Puritan redundancy, but I like to think of it as the epitome of fruitful Puritan meditation. Of particular help are the thirteen “means whereby Christians may exercise themselves unto godliness” he offers at the book’s end:

  1. Living by faith
  2. Setting God always before our eyes
  3. A constant watchfulness
  4. Frequent meditation of death
  5. Daily communion with God
  6. Frequent meditation on the day of judgment
  7. Daily examination of the heart
  8. Mortification of sin
  9. A humble frame
  10. Increased knowledge of God
  11. A contented spirit
  12. The vanity of all other pursuits
  13. The brevity of man’s life

I wish he had a fourteenth point emphasizing the role of the local church as God’s gymnasium, the ordinary arena in which we train ourselves for godliness. Nevertheless, Swinnock’s list provides thirteen compelling topics for spiritual exercise and meditation. Consistent exercise in each area will put some godly sweat on your spiritual exercise.

  1. My version of a year end bonus. ↩
Posted on

A Man-Fishing Ministry

Thomas Boston2-719007One of my favorite Puritans is named Thomas Boston. Among his most notable works are Human Nature in It’s Fourfold State, The Crook in the Lot, and The Art of Man-Fishing. The latter work was completed when Boston was the age of twenty-two and “has been constantly hailed by evangelicals as a masterpiece on ministry, worthy to stand on the same shelf as Baxter’s Reformed Pastor.” 1 Man-Fishing is a “soliloquy,” or sermonic meditation, on gospel ministry modeled after the word. It houses Boston’s personal thoughts on pastoring with faithfulness, evangelistic purpose, prayerfulness, single-mindedness, and enterprise in usefulness.

It just so happened that I read Man-Fishing earlier this year while preaching through 1 Timothy and I doubt a more pastorally challenging couplet for young pastors can be found. One text is inspired and the other is inspiring; it was a blessed elixir for this young pastor.

I ended up writing my own kind of soliloquy on pastoral ministry this summer in response and thought it could be useful to share with other young pastors and church planters. Thus, starting next week I hope to have a weekly “Pastoral Postcard,” 2 one short sermonic meditation intended to encourage pastors in long-term faithfulness and fruitfulness.

  1. Packer, Puritan Portraits, 96 ↩
  2. Somewhat akin to Joe Thorn’s Note to Self ↩