Reading / Reflections
Nathaniel Vincent
A Covert From the Storm, or The Fearful Encourged In Times of Suffering
In 1670, just three months after he was married Vincent was arrested for preaching without license and imprisoned. He was released but he was again imprisoned for preaching and on false charges of sedition. After His last imprisonment he was so weakened he was not able to preach. In 1671, he writes from that prison cell to inform, encourage and comfort those whom he has pastored. His words are worth our attending.
Of his own desire:
He (Vincent) longs to be warning the secure, whodo not see the sword drawn out against them; to be stopping the mad men who are making such haste to eternal destruction; to be inviting the miserable to mercy, and the lost to a Savior."
Of Satan:
"He commands the generality of the world, who are at his service, and are led by him at his peasure, and those whom he cannot rule, he is resilvoed, when he can, to mest and disquiet."
Of Satan's schemes:
"You had better, says Satan, understand when you are well and keep yourselves so; you had better live inoeace and plenty, as do the most of those about you do, than be singular in your way, and by that singularity make so many enemies, and pull down so many troubles on your heads."
Of Satan's servants' schemes:
"They first raise lies of believers, confidently affirming them to be rebelious. Seditious enemies to the kingdoms (thought indeed the pillars of the nations where they live) having lied against them, they endeavor their ruin; having misrepresented them, they fall on them. They lie in saying, the saints are not fit to live, and then they strike to root them out of the land of the living. Thus they make nothing of transgressing at once oth the sixth and ninth commandment."
A "Plug" for reading the Puritans
This was life in England. Life for the Puritans. Life for those who would be called Pilgrims and would journey to the shores of this continant and plant the seeds for what would be come our country.
These are our true fore-fathers. Men and women loving God and hating sin. men and women who would not be conformed to man's dictates concerning the worship and service of God. They did not come seeking "liberty" for they knew the world, the flesh and the devil would always seek to hinder their walk with the Master. For them, "liberty" was somethng only found in Christ and with that liberty they were satisfied.
They sought the honor and glory of God and left life, liberty and the pursuit of anything else to the providential will of God. Let whe world, the flesh and the devil do what they would, these few, these non-comformists sought first to live in obedience and worship of God.
Worship for them was inclusive of all of life. Sundays, or the Sabbath, was "the" one day they set aside for rest and, setting aside all diversions and distractions, they focused on those thing of "spiritual" value. The other six days they were judicious in their avoidance of anything they saw as detrimental to the saints growth and stability. If it had the potential for distracting them from Him, they avoided it not so much as wrong but as dangerous to the health of the believer.
These were not perfect people. They could be just as stumbling as any other believer. But perhaps the difference is that they knew that, accepted that and so structured their lives and habits so that they contributed their weak and faulty efforts to their sanctification and the strength of the whole. Few other identifiable groups of believers can claim such a commitment to be in but not of the world as these.
Refusing to retire from the world to live in isolation as well as refusing to attack the world and conquer it by force, these men and women shouldered the yoke of living among the unredeemed and suffering the vicissitudes attending that commitment. They indeed understood well the obligation and cost of taking up the cross and following Him.
They said, "No," to the state as well as to the state church and with very very few exceptions they suffered willingly and greatly for the sake of Christ and conscience. Though reading their works can be work for their language and grammar are alien to us and they can go on and on, it would behove us all to carry both the Word and one of their works where-ever we go and to attend to them both when-ever we can.
I do recommend the following and, no, I have no "connection" with them. However these folks have done some magnificent work in putting these Puritan classics into a more modern English and are very reasonably priced:
http://www.apuritansmind.com
No comments:
Post a Comment