How a Puritan Found Christ — E.A. Johnston

Trusting God and Reading the Puritans

In the book of Proverbs, we read in chapter 3, verses 5 -7, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord, and depart from evil. That's vital Christianity, friends. And one of the means to retain a vital walk with God is to read good Christian literature to immerse ourselves in it and the practical application of it in our daily lives.

When I read Christian books written several hundred years ago, I'm challenged by them, and they help me to keep the coals burning on the altar of my life for Christ. I particularly enjoy the Puritans, men like Thomas Watson, John Owen, William Grinnell, Thomas Brooks, Matthew Henry, and Joseph Alene.

The Puritan Gospel Centers on God's Glory

And when I compare how they lived and what they believed against what we call Christianity today, I am solemnized by our lack of vital Christianity in the West today. Even the way we preach and evangelize is so different from preachers of years gone by that our gospel doesn't even resemble their gospel.

Our plan of salvation is sadly deficient compared with how our fathers appointed sinners to their only refuge in Jesus Christ. The gospel of our day is a different gospel than the one the Puritans preached.

Our gospel is a weaker, watered-down, powerless gospel that centers around the happiness of man. The gospel of the Puritans centered around the glory of God. And this is what I'd like to focus on this evening, friends, the gospel of the Puritans.

I have chosen a particular Puritan writer whose name is Joseph Alene to be our study tonight. We can learn much from him, not only from observing his Christian walk, but heeding his Christian writings, which are replete with the gospel of the glory of God.

Joseph Alleyne's Costly Faithfulness

Joseph Alene knew firsthand what persecution of Christians was like. He was one of the victims of the infamous St. Bart's Day, where in England in 1662, the infamous act of uniformity cast 2000 of the best preachers England ever had out of their pulpits and out of their livings.

Joseph Alene knew what the inside of a prison looked like, for he was incarcerated several times for preaching the gospel in his day. The dear man died in the prime of his life at the age of 34 from suffering the hardships of his confinement in those dank, dark prison cells, all for preaching the gospel of the glory of God.

His wife said of him, when the week began, he would say, another week is now before us. Let us spend this week for God. And each morning he would say, now, let us live this one day. Well, she said to him, all the time of his health, he did rise constantly at or before four o 'clock and on the Sabbath sooner.

If he did wake, he would be much troubled if he heard any smiths or shoemakers or such tradesmen at work at their trades before he was in his duties with God, saying to his wife, oh, how this noise shames me, doth not my master deserve more than theirs?

And from four till eight, he spent it in prayer, holy contemplation and the singing of Psalms. Listen, friends, the so-called Christianity of your day and mine is a shadow of what our fathers knew it to be.

We live in a day of such sad spiritual declension in the church that we often do not realize how greatly our brand of Christianity pales in comparison with men of a different stamp like the Puritans of former days.

The Law Awakens Sinners to Their Need of Christ

Basically, the gospel of your day and mine, friend, just declares God loves you. Just accept Jesus as your personal savior and you will go to heaven. Congratulations. You are now a Christian. We offer people to Jesus today without ever first showing them why they need a savior from sin.

Our diluted gospel is not the gospel, friends. It has no saving power. And many stand in our pulpits today who haven't the slightest clue as how to lead a person savingly to Christ Jesus, because many are unconverted men themselves.

But our Puritan fathers knew how to thunder the law about the ears of their hearers until they were awakened to their lost condition and saw their need of Christ. They used the law as a hammer to break up the false foundations and as a sword to cut asunder the self-reliance and self-righteousness of sinful man.

Then after the law work had done its job, they then presented the pearl of great price and all his beauty and all his desirableness. The Puritan preachers knew full well the divine operations of the Holy Spirit in bringing a lost person to Christ through conviction, compunction and conversion.

Joseph Alleyne's Alarm to the Unconverted

My message this evening is entitled How a Puritan Found Christ, and it is a contrast to our brand of evangelism in your day and mine. I want to read us now from Joseph Alleyne, how he points a sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what I'm about to read you has been a Christian classic for centuries. It is Alleyne's Alarm to the Unconverted. Both George Whitfield and Charles Spurgeon greatly benefited from reading this work from Alleyne.

And what I want to read us tonight is a portion from that book whereby we see clearly how a Puritan found Christ, how a Puritan pointed the lost to Christ, how a Puritan preached the gospel of the glory of God, the way we carelessly and casually offer Jesus today to folks without ever first breaking up the fallow ground of their heart, through the preaching of the full counsel of God as a cry in shame.

Men like Alleyne knew the God of their Bible and the gospel of the Bible. They knew the wicked windings of the human heart and knew how to preach convicting sermons to warn men of their danger and awaken them to their lost condition outside of Christ.

They knew how to point men to Christ so they could actually find Christ because a person's not saved unless they find Christ. Too many today have believed in the fact of the death of Christ without ever believing in the Christ who died.

Hopefully, as we listen to the following words of this Puritan writer, we too will have a better understanding of not only what the gospel is and is not, but how to be more effective handlers of the word of God in reaching this generation of hellbound sinners with the gospel of Christ Jesus.

Here now is how a Puritan found Christ from the words of Joseph Alleyne, written from the perspective of how a lost person should understand the gospel and approach the God of the gospel, seeking his favor and mercy in finding the Christ of the gospel.

Here now are his words. Listen to them carefully. O most holy God, for the passion of thy Son, I beseech thee, accept thy poor prodigal now, prostrating himself at thy door. I have fallen from thee by mine iniquity, and am by nature a son of death, and a thousandfold more the child of hell by wicked practice.

But of thine infinite grace thou hast promised mercy to me in Christ, if I will but turn to thee with all my heart. Therefore, upon the call of thy gospel, I am now come in, and throwing down my weapons, submit myself to thy mercy.

And because thou requirest, as the condition of my peace would be, that I should put away my idols, and be at defiance with all thine enemies, which I acknowledge I have wickedly sided with against thee, I here from the bottom of my heart renounce them all, firmly covenanting with thee, not to allow myself in any known sin, but conscientiously to use all the means that I know thou hast prescribed for the death and utter destruction of all my corruptions.

And whereas formerly I have inordinately and idolatrously set my affections upon the world, I do here resign my heart to thee who madest it, humbly declaring before thy glorious majesty that it is the firm resolution of my heart, and that I do unfeignedly desire grace from thee, that, when thou shalt call me hereunto, I may practice this my resolution through thy assistance to forsake all that is dear unto me in this world, rather than turn from thee to the ways of sin, and that I will watch against all its temptations, whether of prosperity or adversity, lest they should withdraw my heart from thee.

Renouncing Self-Righteousness and Sinful Allegiance

I beseech thee also to help me against the temptations of Satan, to whose wicked suggestions I resolve by thy grace never to yield myself a servant, and because my own righteousness is but as filthy rags, I renounce all my confidence therein, and acknowledge that I am of myself a hopeless, helpless, undone creature without righteousness or strength.

And forasmuch as thou hast of thy bottomless mercy offered most graciously to me, a wretched sinner, to be again my God through Christ, if I ever would accept thee, I call upon heaven and earth to record this day, that I do here solemnly vouch thee for the Lord my God, and with all possible veneration, bowing the neck of my soul under the feet of thy most sacred majesty, I do here take thee, the Lord Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for my portion and chief good, and to give myself a body and soul to be thy servant, promising and vowing to serve thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life, and since thou hast appointed the Lord Jesus Christ the only means of coming unto thee, I do here solemnly join myself in a marriage covenant to him.

Entering a Marriage Covenant with Christ

O blessed Jesus, I come to thee hungry and thirsty, poor and wretched, miserable, blind and naked, a most loathsome, polluted wretch, a guilty, condemned malefactor, unworthy to wash the feet of the servants of my Lord, much more to be solemnly married to the King of glory.

But such is thine unparalleled love, I do here with all my power accept thee, and do take thee for my head and husband, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, for all times and conditions, to love, honor, and obey thee before all others, and this to the death.

I embrace thee in all thine offices, I renounce my own worthiness, to do here avow thee to be the Lord my righteousness, I renounce my own wisdom, and do here take thee for my only guide, I renounce my own will, and take thy will for my law.

Bearing Christ's Yoke and Suffering Faithfully

And since thou hast told me that I must suffer if I will reign, I do here covenant with thee to take my lot as it falls with thee, and by thy grace, assisting to run all hazards with thee, verily supposing that neither life nor death shall part between thee and me.

And because thou hast been pleased to give me thy holy laws as the rule of my life, and the way in which I should walk to thy kingdom, I do here willingly put my neck under thy yoke, and set my shoulder to thy burden, and subscribing to all thy laws as holy, just, and good, I solemnly take them as the rule of my words, thoughts, and actions.

Promising that through my flesh, though my flesh contradict and rebel, yet I will endeavor to order and govern my whole life to thy direction, and will not allow myself to neglect anything that I know to be my duty.

Only because through the frailty of my flesh I am subject to many failings, I am bold, humbly to request that unintentional shortcomings, contrary to the settled bent and resolution of my heart, shall not make void this covenant.

Asking God to Search and Ratify the Covenant

For so thou hast said, Now, almighty God, searcher of hearts, thou knowest that I make this covenant with thee this day without any known guile or reservation, beseeching thee that if thou espiseth any flaw or falsehood therein, thou wouldst reveal it to me, and help me to do it aright.

And now, O God the Father, whom I shall be bold from this day forward to look upon as my God and Father, glory be to thee for finding out such a way for the recovery of undone sinners. Glory be to thee, O God the Son, who hast loved me and washed me from my sins in thine own blood, and art now become my Savior and Redeemer.

Glory be to thee, O God the Holy Ghost, who by the finger of thine almighty power hast turned my heart from sin to God. O High and Holy Jehovah, the Lord God, Omnipotent Father, Son and Holy Ghost, thou art now become my covenant friend, and I, through thine infinite grace, am become thy covenant servant.

A Call to Recover Biblical Evangelism

Amen, so be it, and the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Dear friends, the gospel of former days sure looks and sounds different from the gospel of your day and mine.

May we align our hearts to seek the Lord of glory and get deep in his word and get to praying to where the Holy Spirit can guide us in how to reach this world today with the real evangelism of the gospel of the glory of the Son of God preached in its power, in its purity, and in its proper order.

Lord God, help us to do this, is the prayer of this poor servant's heart today.