Mark Lauterbach (Gospel Driven Life) has recently completed a series of posts timely fashioned during the big discussion of legalism, license, and Christian liberty. Here are his five posts in the series:
- The Liberty of the Christian, 1
- The Liberty of the Christian, 2
- The Liberty of the Christian, 3
- The Liberty of the Christian, 4
- The Liberty of the Christian, 5
I first met Mark at the T4G Band of Bloggers fellowship and have really gleaned a lot of wisdom from him since then. I encourage you to check out his blog on a regular basis for some really solid, God-centered blogging.
HT :: JT
I was also led in my thoughts to a Puritan Paperback called The True Bounds of Christian Freedom by Samuel Bolton. I have not had the time to plunge into this book yet, but I hope to in the near future (the last subsections in his book are entitled “The Duty of the Believer to Maintain Christian Liberty” and “The Duty of the Believer not to Abuse Christian Liberty”). During 17th century English Puritanism, there were real issues that needed to be addressed such as antinomianism, nonconformity, dissent, and the sufficiency of Scripture (in light of the Book of Common Prayer). There is much I would like to expound here as the Puritans were masters in dealing with the Christian conscience. This morning I re-read a chapter in The Reformation of the Church: A Collection of Reformed and Puritan Documents on Church Issues called “The Grounds of Nonconformity of the Ministers who were Ejected” by Edmund Calamy. Furthermore, I came across a book in the bookstore on campus called A Geneology of Dissent: Southern Baptist Protest in the Twentieth Century by David Stricklin. As one will quickly see, dissent is nothing new in the SBC nor in church history.
Finally, let me provide you with some books by the Puritans on the matter of the conscience:
William Ames – Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof
Richard Baxter – A Christian Directory, or A Sum of Practical Theology, and Cases of Conscience
William Fenner – A Treatise of Conscience
John Owen – The True Nature of a Gospel Church
Other Puritans to consider: Richard Sibbes, John Bunyan, William Perkins, and Thomas Goodwin.
True Bounds of Christian Freedom was the first Puritan work I ever read back in 1994. Great stuff man. Since then I have taken a few men though the book as well.
1994?! I envy you Joe! Really, man when I first started reading Christian books, I was reading whatever was on the front shelves of my local Christian bookstore. Those books are not boxed away. I did not meet the Puritans until 2000 when The Reformed Pastor was required reading in one of my classes at the University of Mobile.
This past semester I was really gripped by a couple of Puritan Paperbacks:
John Owen On the Mortification of Sin
Richard Sibbes The Bruised Reed
and John Flavel The Mystery of Providence