Truth Unites - The Puritans: 5 Books to Start With

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Here I offer five recommendations for books to get started engaging with the Puritans.   Links:  1) Samuel Rutherford's Letters: https://www.amazon.com/Loveliness-Christ-Samuel-Rutherford/dp/0851519563/truthunites-20  2) John Owen, The Mortification of Sin: https://www.amazon.com/Mortification-Sin-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/0851518672/truthunites-20  3) Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Christ-Vintage-Puritan/dp/1941129218/truthunites-20  4) Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed: https://www.amazon.com/Bruised-Reed-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/1848718039/truthunites-20  5) Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor: https://www.amazon.com/Reformed-Pastor-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/1848712111/truthunites-20 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey everybody. This video is going to be five recommendations for where to get started if you're interested in reading more from the Puritans. I love the Puritans. I see them as a particularly rich tradition within the historic church, both theologically and spiritually and devotional, especially spiritually and devotional. It's going to go real fast here. Number one is the letters of Samuel Rutherford. Oh man, what do I even say about these? So there's this older edition, four out of five of these are going to be from the Puritan paperbacks that Banner of Truth puts out. They also, Banner of Truth also put out a shorter collection of extracts from his letters called The Loveliness of Christ in 2008.

I don't even know what to say about these except they're, how do you even introduce them? They're just so devotionally rich. This, I'll put it like this. This is the only book I've ever used for my morning devotions other than the Bible. Not that I recommend that. I don't ever want to call people away from scripture, but that's how nourishing they are. Samuel Rutherford, 17th century Scottish Reformed Minister was a participant in the Westminster Confession of Faith, amazingly godly man.

Give a couple of samples here. What you get from his letters is this just rich sense of intimacy with Christ, especially amidst suffering. He says at one point, Christ and his cross together are sweet company and a blessed couple. My poison is my palace. My losses are rich losses. my pain, easy pain, my heavy days are holy and happy days. I may tell a new tale of Christ to my friends. It's almost like Richard Wormbrand where you're reading and you're like,

how can you really be serious that suffering can have that much joy in it? But that's what Christ does, right? And you get a sense from, it's like the testimony of godly people can help us understand this theme in the New Testament, that suffering goes with joy when we are walking with Jesus Christ. Here's another one. I have a lover, Christ, and yet, I want love for him. I have a lovely and desirable Lord who is love worthy and who beggeth my love and heart

and I have nothing to give him. Dear brother, come further in on Christ and see a new treasure in him. Come in and look down and see angels wonder and heaven and earth's wonder of love, sweetness, majesty, and excellency in him. How do you, it gives you a flavor maybe. The idea is like you get this sense of just the absolute beauty of Jesus Christ and of intimacy with him. So that's that. I'll go faster on these others. This is from Christian Focus, unlike the others, which are all from Vanner of Truth. This is an addition or kind of a selection from John Owen's writings that they publish as the mortification of sin. John Owen may be the greatest of the Puritan theologians. Some would see him like that. This book is all about sanctification.

It's drawing from Romans 813, which talks about mortification, meaning putting sin to death. Here's a sample. Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls. Live in this, and thou wilt die a conqueror. Yea, thou wilt, through the good providence of God, live to see thy lust dead at thy feet. For people who are weary with struggling with sin and want to make real spiritual progress, John Owen gives you an approach to sanctification or growth in holiness that actually works. And the best way I could commend this book is it's such a good, I mean, makes me repent every time I read it. But it is so rich for, you know, here's how you can say it. It is actually possible for you to overcome sin in your life. Not that you're going to be perfect, but you can actually make progress because of the blood of Christ. And that's what that book is all about. It's a wonderful resource.

The next one is in the Puritan Paperbacks series, The Heart of Christ by Thomas Goodwin. This is the book that I think had a big influence on my brother Dane that led to his book, Gentle and Lowly. It's an amazing book emphasizing the affection that Jesus has in his current ascended state for struggling believers. If you struggle with feeling like God is disappointed in you, he's kind of weary with you, he's kind of rolling his eyes at you, he's fed up with you, I think we all have that, that's our natural intuition about how God relates to us.

The surprising good news of the gospel, as Goodwin helps us understand, is that God is actually overflowing with mercy and love for you and compassion for you, even you, even in your real struggles. That book will help you feel that more. Oh, so good, so awesome. Number four is The Bruised Read by Richard Sibs. As with so many books from the Puritans, what they'll do is they'll take this tiny little phrase or verse in scripture and write a whole book on it. It's just great.

And in this case, it's from the verse in Isaiah 42 that says, A bruised read, he shall not break. And it's all about the bruising, spiritual bruising, and then the compassion of Christ for us in the context of that. You think, here's the thing, people have this stereotype in their heads of the Puritans as austere and overly rigorous and so forth. Not so. You'll never get more compassion than from the Puritans.

It's amazing. If you struggle with assurance of salvation or having an overly sensitive conscience, I would really recommend this book. Here's a sample. He says, none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope. There's so many other good quotes I can give, but I said I'd go fast. So here's the last one is the Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Baxter's kind of an interesting figure. He's got some theological views that are a little bit different from some of the other Puritans.

By the way, when it says reformed pastor, the word reformed there as an adjective, doesn't refer to the tradition or the theology specifically. It's actually talking about character, spirituality, reformed in your godliness. So in other words, you might say the godly pastor. The whole thesis of the book is basically about godliness in ministry. For those of us like myself who aspire to be ministers to others who want to convey Christ to others, whether you're an ordained minister or you're just a Christian who wants to bless others. This is a great book to read. This is what I want Truth Unites to be about.

I want Truth Unites to be about meeting needs, really helping people. Here's a quote. I'll give you a flavor of it. He says, a minister is not merely to be a public preacher, but to be known as a counselor for their souls, as the physician is for their bodies and the lawyer for their estates, so that each man who is in doubts and straits may be, bring his case to him for resolution as Nicodemus came to Christ, and it was usual with the people

of old to go to the priest. Isn't that great? He's saying, you know, in other words, as a pastor, now there's some stuff where he's pretty intense about this. None of these books are infallible, you know, they're not beyond criticism. But I love this, you know, that the pastor should be the person who's not just a celebrity up there. No, he should be the person like Christ or like the priest that people can come to and unburden their conscience. And, and, and, you know, meet the gospel afresh through them and be counseled and help and so forth, be approachable, you know? And I just love that emphasis in the book, and it's very edifying to read that. And that's what I hope my YouTube channel is like. I literally pray that it would be like this,

that it would be like someone, you know, it eases anxieties and it puts someone's conscience at rest in the gospel. That's the, if I could articulate the heartbeat of what I want Truth Unites to do, that's the spiritual impulse underneath the theological stuff. I'm trying to do. So anyway, hope those resources are great. Links to them all in the video description. Check them out, buy them. I don't think you'll be disappointed. There are there are few things we can do that are more productive than reading classic texts of theology. It will make a difference in your life, I promise. So I hope those are helpful to you. God bless you, everybody.