The Anatomy of Secret Sins, Presumptuous Sins, Sins in Dominion, and Uprightness

Obadiah Sedgwick

Just as it is painful for eyes accustomed to darkness to be exposed to the blazing light of the sun, so it is often painful when the Holy Spirit shines the light of His Word upon the hidden sins of our hearts. In this exposition of Psalm 19:12, the Puritan Obadiah Sedgwick (1600–1658) exposes the nature of secret sins and explains how we can be cleansed from them.He also helps us understand the deceitfulness of sin, diagnose our secret sins, and combat the dominion of sin in our lives. In this treatise, a skilled physician of the soul performs spiritual surgery to show us the roots and the cures of our bosom sins.     

But Now I See: Eye-Opening Light from the Gospel of John

Gerald M. Bilkes

With pastoral warmth, Dr. Bilkes expounds each chapter of the Gospel of John with biblical depth, refreshing simplicity, and practical and spiritual application. As the author confronts us with the astounding claims of Christ, he presents Christ to us with the same names, titles, and symbols as the apostle John—Word, Lamb, ladder, bread, harvest, temple, feast, fountain, shepherd, resurrection, life, servant, way, truth, and life. Find in this devotional manual on John’s majestic Gospel such glorious themes as the new birth, the living water that Christ offers, the necessity of spiritual sight, the power of the cross, and the ultimate miracle of the resurrection. Savory, comforting, and gospel-centered, here is a smorgasbord for the spiritually sensitive palate.

Confession of the Christian Religion

Girolamo Zanchi

Girolamo Zanchi (1516–1590), an Italian contemporary of John Calvin and a protégé of Peter Martyr Vermigli, is perhaps one of the most overlooked Reformed theologians of the early Protestant orthodox period, especially considering the influence of his profound and prolific writings (his entire theological corpus exceeds five million words!). In this fresh translation of his classic and relatively little-known confession of faith, Zanchi walks through the loci of systematic theology with the precision of a scholastic theologian and the piety of a Reformed pastor, defining and defending such doctrines as the Trinity, the relationship between the law and the gospel, providence, the sacraments, justification, and the church with the full weight of biblical authority. This work is valuable not only as a significant document of historical theology, but also as a manual for devotional and meditative piety. To a degree that surpassed even many of his Reformed contemporaries, Zanchi was intimately familiar with the early church fathers as well as the medieval scholastic theologians. Both rich in soul-nourishment and robust in doctrine, this confession should be treasured as one of the choicest crystallizations of the Reformed tradition.  

Hope

Jeremiah Burroughs

Almost everyone senses a deep need for hope. Yet the value of hope is not in the subject of hope (the strength of one’s subjective feeling), but in the object of hope. For that reason, Christian hope is of a different quality than the hope of the world, for it is rooted in the One who is unchanging and unchangeable, and it looks to Him for salvation and eternal life with quiet waiting and confident expectation. In this exposition of 1 John 3:3, Jeremiah Burroughs answers questions such as these: What is the nature of Spirit-worked hope in the life of the Christian? What is the object of Christian hope? And what is the foundation of Christian hope? In his large appendix on Psalm 17:14, Burroughs contrasts Christian hope with those whose hope is in this world. In this work, it is evident that the Puritans taught a profound confidence that the world cannot give in the midst of the storms of life, the inevitability of death, and the onslaught of sorrow and anguish in life. The people of God always have a rock upon which they can base their confidence.

The Wrath of Almighty God: Sermons on God’s Judgment Against Sinners

Jonathan Edwards

The bold preaching of both law and gospel is not much in vogue today. Yet Jonathan Edwards, one of the foremost leaders of the First Great Awakening, understood that sinners will rarely flee to Christ for deliverance until they have seen the misery of their sin, the danger of their spiritual state, and the peril of eternal judgment that awaits them if they remain impenitent and unbelieving. In eleven sermons, including “Wrath to the Uttermost,” “The End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous,” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards considers such topics as the wrath of God, the justice of God, the portion of the wicked, the punishment of the wicked, the eternity of hell, and the decisiveness of eternal judgment. As you sit under Edwards’s pulpit, you will find this collection of sermons to be both sobering and awakening.

God’s Way, Not Ours: Isaiah 1

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

In nine sermons which he preached at the Westminster Chapel in 1963, Martyn Lloyd-Jones here expounds the first chapter of Isaiah (who Augustine aptly called the fifth Gospel writer). In this series, the Doctor expounds for us the themes that defined Isaiah’s ministry—the majesty of God, the grace of divine revelation, the sinfulness of sin, the folly of backsliding, the hope of the gospel, and the necessity of repentance and faith. In awakening, practical, and plain language, Lloyd-Jones dashes to the ground every human substitute for salvation, including the idols of the world, the righteousness of the law, and even religious sacrifice. Here is vintage Lloyd-Jones, masterful as always in exposition, explanation, and illustration. This soul-searching collection of sermons makes for ideal devotional reading.

The History of the Puritans: From the Reformation in 1517 to the Revolution in 1688

Daniel Neal

Nearly unrivaled in church history for their combination of theological precision with personal piety, the Puritans continued the legacy of the Reformation by applying the full force of biblical truth rediscovered in the Reformation to the life of the individual, the family, the church, and the nation—all within a thoroughly Reformed framework. They were likewise spiritual physicians who excelled in experiential preaching, doctrinal formulation, and skilled casuistry (the precursor to modern-day biblical counseling). Our understanding of the works of the Puritans, as well as our appreciation of them, will be greatly enriched if we better understand the background in which they lived and ministered—particularly the background of their sufferings. Once an immensely popular four-volume set (twenty-one editions were produced by 1863), David Neal’s work has since fallen out of print and largely out of use. Not so much a collection of individual biographies, such as The Nonconformist’s Memorial by Edmund Calamy (1671–1732), this work is more a biography of the political and ecclesiastical life of the English nation in relation to the Puritans. Here you will find eyewitness accounts about the Puritans and their contemporaries that are found in few (if any) other places. Here you will also meet an assortment of kings, queens, pastors, bishops, and archbishops from the reign of Henry VIII until the Toleration Act of 1689. Ambitious in scope but tastefully abridged by Geoffrey Main, this is a wonderful companion to your collection of Puritan biography, history, and theology, such as Meet the Puritans or A Puritan Theology.

The Shorter Catechism Illustrated: From Church History and Biography

John Whitecross   

Stories have the power to capture our imaginations and to embed eternal truths upon our hearts for a lifetime. Through His parables, the Lord Jesus Himself used stories to communicate divine truths. In the early nineteenth century, John Whitecross, the father-in-law of the Scottish missionary John Paton (1824–1907), compiled hundreds of stories to illustrate the truths of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Many of these stories come from the lives and ministries of prominent Puritans and Nonconformists. Reprinted and lightly modernized for modern readers, this work provides a wealth of material for personal enjoyment, finding sermon illustrations, or enriching Sunday School lessons.