Tag Archives: Puritans

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I started reading "Importunity" and realized that the author died at the age of 33 and I wondered why. Oh. My.

Christopher Love, a lesser known Puritan, was born in 1618 in Cardiff, Wales.

Before the age of 15, he had not even heard a sermon, and decided to hear William Erbery in the pulpit, for the fun of it. He was convicted of sin and became a Christian.

Christopher mourned over his sin, which his father saw as "melancholy" and locked him in the house. Christoper climbed out a window and down a rope in order to go hear a sermon by William Erbery.

He was executed by Parliament on Friday, August 22, 1651

By the time he was 15 he became a Christian - his father disapproved and locked him in his bedroom...so he climbed out the window in order to go to church.Love was executed at the age of 33 for speaking out against Parliament over the execution of Charles I and supporting Charles II. (the actual charge was involvement with Scottish Presbyterians who were raising money to restore Charles II to the monarchy, a charge that Love denied)

“There is but two steps between me and glory. It is but lying down upon the block that I shall ascend upon a throne. I am exchanging a pulpit for a scaffold and a scaffold for a throne. I am exchanging a guard of soldiers for a guard of angels, to carry me to Abraham’s bosom."

https://www.apuritansmind.com/puritan-favorites/christopher-love/the-life-and-death-of-christopher-love/

Christopher's wife, Mary wrote a last letter to him:

Be comforted, my dear heart. It is but a little stroke and thou shalt be there where the weary shall be at rest and the wicked shall cease from troubling. Remember that thou mayest eat thy dinner with bitter herbs, yet thou shalt have a sweet supper with Christ that night

https://innocencerestored.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/letter-to-christopher-love/

One stroke of the axe, one heartbeat, one moment and those who are found in Christ will be in His presence.

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So...I've been interested in the Puritans, but not real motivated. Our pastor highly recommended that we read Communion With God by John Owen, so I started doing the book study and was following the text really well, but not retaining.

John Owen Author Biography | Banner of Truth USA

This is going to be tedious, but a good exercise for me. I've taken a student through a segment of "Institutes for Excellence in Writing" and used the concepts with a couple of other students so I'm taking it for a test drive here.

The main idea is to pull key words from the text, step away for a few minutes and then rewrite the sentence using the *three* key words. For students with comprehension issues, this has been a lifesaver!

For the purposes here, with "Communion with God", just highlighting the key words has helped me.

My first issue is that Owen is, let's say...stingy...with paragraph breaks. My brain needs more breaks than that, so I'm taking them in chunks of just a few sentences.

I'm also trying to put the sentences in outline form, just so that I can better organize the thought process.

I'm using a study guide by Ryan McGraw (Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals - Meet the Puritans)

so...here we go.

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From "Puritan Paperbacks"

I've been working through a study on the Lord's Supper - leaving one church, looking for another - I find kinship in those congregations with a rich liturgy, could find a place in a Lutheran church (LCMS), but I cannot and will not be in a church with closed communion.

What does the "Lord's Supper" mean and what is it supposed to represent?

I've just finished reading the "Epistle to the Reader" (the message in the beginning of the book from Watson).

When I contemplate the holiness and solemnity of the blessed sacrament, I cannot but have some ache upon my spirit, and think myself bound to hold this mystery in the highest veneration.  The elements of bread and wine are in themselves common but, under these symbolical representations, lie hid divine excellencies.  Behold here the best of dainties, God is in his cheer.  Here is the apple of the Tree of Life; here is the "banqueting house" where the banner of free grace is gloriously displayed, "He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me is love" (Song of Sol. 2:4)

Watson strove for the "correct middle" - between two extremes that he thought should be avoided - transubstantiation (which he believed was contrary to reason and Scripture and that - he thought - profaned Christ's institution of the supper; and mere symbolism, which aimed short of the mystery and fell short of the comfort.

According to the forward, Watson built on the teachings of Calvin, who believed that this sacrament was a means of grace, through faith - in which Christ works effectually within the believer.