A Closer Look: Recent Books from the Banner

Jeremy Walker, pastor at Maidenbower Baptist Church, surveys a number of recent Banner titles.

The republication of Puritan volumes has gathered pace in recent decades. That very proliferation brings a challenge: where to begin? Which Puritans wrote about which topics? Where can I at least dip into the writings of such men about pertinent and pressing issues? How might they help me with this sermon or series? While there are, and may yet be, electronic searches and databases which offer some help, this re-issued volume (now in hardback) is an excellent aid. Robert Martin’s A Guide to the Puritans: A Topical and Scriptural Index to the Writings of the Puritans and Their Successors is, of necessity, a snapshot. Since its first publication, many more Puritan writings have seen daylight again, but this is an excellent starting point for discovering what many mainstream Puritans wrote on particular topics. Arranged both by topic and according to Scripture text, this curated collection will guide ministers and others looking for a handle on Puritan thinking and teaching on particular texts or topics. It may even come to feel indispensable.

Jonathan Landry Cruse’s The Character of Christ: The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of our Saviour is a brief but dense volume. The author’s contention is that the life of Christ provides the fullest and sweetest display of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit. With this in mind, he walks us through the fruit of the Spirit as it comes to expression in the life and labour of the Lord Jesus. Rather than an abstract study of the fruit (worthwhile in itself, at least in measure), the goal is to offer the reader a transforming view of our Saviour, so that—gazing at him—we are changed into his likeness. Readers looking for a book full of Christ, both satisfying and sanctifying, will find it here.

In his own day, Richard Sibbes had a reputation as a gospel comforter, a man who left a little heavenly honey behind him wherever he went. David B. MacKinnon’s Refreshment for the Soul: A Year of Daily Devotional Readings from the ‘Heavenly Doctor’ Richard Sibbes brings Sibbes within our grasp. Culled from Sibbes’ seven-volume Works (also available from the Banner of Truth), and largely grouped in accordance with specific books within those works, these page-long excerpts are full of happy and lively truth. Those who have already encountered Dr Sibbes will find here a range of his mellow medicines; those who do not yet know him will find much to strengthen the soul. A year of reviving and restorative reading lies before you!

Another daily devotional to consider is Robert Macdonald’s From Day to Day: Helpful Words for the Christian Life. Macdonald was a nineteenth-century Scots minister from the circle of M‘Cheyne and the Bonars. Because it was written as a series of daily readings, each day’s study has a completeness and coherence of its own. For the same reason, there is a warmth of tone—a kind of gentle familiarity—which characterizes the whole. The consequence is a book that can sometimes feel as if your own pastor has sat down with you for a few minutes to give you the fruits of his meditations, and to succour you spiritually for the day ahead. Full of gentle wisdom, this should be a blessing to many saints.

Two of the most recent additions to the Puritan Paperbacks series are a double-header from John Owen: Gospel Ministry and Gospel Life. Each is a collection of sermons along similar lines, chosen from volume nine of the Banner of Truth edition of Owen’s Works. As so often in the Puritan Paperback series, the language has been modernized for accessibility. Both volumes are very much the productions of Owen the pastor. That is not to say that his theological insight is in any measure diluted, but rather mediated by his affectionate concern to communicate God’s truth to those around him, for their present and lasting blessing. The nine sermons in the collection on Gospel Ministry are delightfully double-edged. They were not preached in a gathering of ministers, but to a gathered congregation. They tell God’s people what to desire and to expect from God’s servants, and in so doing they inform God’s servants of what they ought to be, by God’s grace. The thirteen sermons in the Gospel Life collection carry us through various aspects of Christian experience. Again, the voice we hear is that of the under-shepherd, comforting and consoling, exhorting and encouraging, seeking to stir the saints to faith and hope and love. Anyone who may have been slightly deterred by Owen the penetrating theologian would do well, in sitting under Owen the affectionate pastor, to learn that they are one and the same, and that his prodigious learning is consecrated to the care of Christ’s flock.

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