A Beginners List for Reading Old Writers | The Whole Counsel

Well, Jeremy, we're kind of needing to bring this down to a close, so why don't you give us kind of a sampler list, if you were to recommend some of the older riders, and you could just give a few.

Who would you mention? Well, I always hate that question, John, because I'm stuck with this embarrassment of riches.

I think in terms of some of the men who've been a particular blessing to me, and I feel awkward because it's like telling some of your friends that they're not part of a gang anymore, but Spurgeon I love for his

Christ -centeredness, and there's a beautiful collection of sermons or treatments,

The Saint and His Saviour, which is a wonderful study of the believer's relationship to the

Lord Jesus Christ, absolutely fantastic. John Bunyan, he's vivid, he's accessible, again, he's taken up with the

Lord Jesus Christ. I might mention, I'm going to mention the Holy War, in fact, I love the

Holy War. I really think that he's got this penetrating insight into the inner spiritual life, and it's so practical, and then other favorites, some of the 18th century particular

Baptists, men like Andrew Fuller, Samuel Pierce, John Ryland, there's a recent

Andrew Fuller reader that's come out that could be a really good introduction, and there's a couple of lovely little studies of Samuel Pierce that include some of his sermons or writings, absolutely beautiful.

But those, again, start there, and think about the people that they talk about.

How about you? Where would you go? Yeah, well, you know, when we were talking about this earlier, I wrote a list, and then

I wrote another list, so it's like you said, you know. You're cheating! Yeah, yeah, so different guys crowd in and kick the door in and say, you're not leaving me out.

All right, so I would say one of the early, most significant older writers that I read would have been

John Flavel, and it was that book, The Fountain of Life, where, as you mentioned, it's really a

Christology, but it's a collection of sermons. So each one is kind of an individual unit, so as you mentioned, different than reading a long, kind of complicated, maybe a little more difficult work on Christ.

So just all those heartwarming looks at Christ, but laid out in a very logical order.

So I found that very helpful. For letters, you know, we're gonna have a tie in the letter category.

Rutherford's letters, as I mentioned, I had read a lot of guys who mentioned

Rutherford's letters, so Spurgeon, I think Spurgeon must have given a blurb for more books than any human on the earth, you know?

And so he says, you know, aside from Scripture, this is one of the greatest books, you know, and even

Rutherford's enemy, theologically. Richard Baxter said one of Rutherford's books was the worst book ever written in the

English language, and then the letters was the best book written in the English language by man. So, but Rutherford's letters, but I do say that with a kind of a little caveat.

I do encourage people to start when he finds out he's going to be arrested for preaching the gospel and standing against the tyranny of the kings, and start there when he starts traveling north in Scotland where he's going to be under house arrest, because then he starts to speak of Christ in a way that just finds a new gear.

That experience of drawing near to God and God drawing near to him then starts to bleed out, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. He describes prison as being living in the suburbs of heaven. He says, you know, I'm almost seeing, it's not even faith anymore, it's almost sight.

And you know, and he was having such experiences of the nearness of God that he had to guard himself from two

Christs, the Christ of Scripture, and then he had to guard himself from making an idol of the nearness of Christ, the experience, you know.

So what wonderful. Yeah, just not a problem most of us struggle with, sadly. And then the other letter writers,

John Newton, I've read Newton's sermons and they're fine, but he's not my favorite sermon writer, but his pastoral letters,

I read a little each night of those, and to me those are just so down -to -earth practical.

I am ashamed at how he, I am ashamed at how easily as a pastor or as an individual

I get stuck with these, you know, I don't know, all this circumstantial stuff, and Newton just goes right to Christ, and everything then sinks into its right proportion, you know, its right size compared to Christ.

And my last one I'll throw in there is Thomas Vincent's little book, The True Christian's Love to the

Unseen Christ. And that was a book that helped me, you mentioned that it helped you during one of those times of coldness.

I remember a quote by Rutherford who said that we dwell far from the well and complain dryly of our dryness, but we are dry, not thirsty.

So the point he was making was go to the well, if you're thirsty, go to the well, quit complaining you're dry.

So Vincent to me was like one of those wells where I ran to him and he gave me a cup of Christ and, you know, really reignited things that had become cold.

Yeah, yeah, well if you're getting four, I'm going to add John Fawcett's Christ Precious to Those Who Believe, which does just that same thing.

Why do we delight in Christ? And he just has this beautiful, warm, stately tread around the

Lord Jesus, and he's just, you come away thinking, that's it, that's what it means, that's who this is all about.