The Puritans on Loving One Another

Love is the chief evidence of reconciliation with both God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This collection of Puritan treatises explains the duty and delight of Christian love, how it is rooted in divine grace, and the way it serves as a healing bond of peace.

Works included in this volume:

• The New Commandment Renewed by Ralph Venning
• Love One Another by Thomas Manton
• The Nature and Principles of Love by Joseph Caryl
• The Holy Exercise of Love by John Ball

The Puritans have been unmercifully caricatured as stuffy, legalistic, insensitive, and irrelevant. You will discover nothing could be further from the truth in this collection of writings on Christian love for others.

Ralph Venning was born in Devonshire about 1621. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1646 and 1650. He lectured at St. Olave Jewry in Southwark until he was ejected along with two thousand other Puritans by the Act of Uniformity in 1662. He died in 1674 and was buried at Bunhill Fields, the nonconformists' burial ground.

Thomas Manton was born in 1620 in Somerset and graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, in 1639. Both his father and grandfather were ministers. He succeeded Obadiah Sedgwick at St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Manton died in 1677.

Joseph Caryl was born in London in 1602. He graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, and preached at Lincoln's Inn. After being ejected in 1662, he gathered a congregation by London Bridge. He died February 7, 1673. After his death, his church chose John Owen as his successor.

John Ball was born in 1585 and was educated at Brazenose College, Oxford. Ball was thoroughly learned in the controversies of his day, particularly those concerning Bellarmine and the Papists, the Arminians, and the issue of nonconformity. He ministered at Whitmore in Staffordshire and died in 1640.