Book Excerpts

What did the Puritans believe about unfulfilled prophecy? Was there a single view, or a range of positions, when it came to the church’s earthly prospects? These and other questions are deftly handled by Iain H. Murray in The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy. The following excerpt, on the future conversion of Israel, […]

The following excerpt is from Frans Bakker’s Praying Always, truly one of the hidden gems of the Banner’s backlist. ‘And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.’ — Luke 18:13 After the Israelites had […]

The following excerpt is from John Calvin’s sermon A Rock of Offence, which is featured in Behold My Servant: Sermons on Isaiah 52:13–53:12, translated from the French by Robert White. Who will believe what we preach? And to whom will the arm of the Lord be revealed? 2 He will grow up before him like a young […]

The following excerpt is from Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (1954; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth 2019, 2020). The unwearied and effective manner in which Machen brought into sharp focus the centrality of the Christian view of history and its decisive significance for the understanding of the gospel must be noted. […]

The following is taken from Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience, page 279. “Let not the infirm and aged say that they can now do nothing for God. They can do much; and for ought they can tell, more than they ever did in the days of their vigour. It is a beautiful sight to see men […]

The Banner of Truth Trust has always been an organization which longs for the true revival of religion. Indeed, in many ways, that desire is the pulse beat of the Banner. But what revival is, and why we long for it, is often misunderstood. Indeed, the original preface to this volume begins by noting, “The […]

The following is taken from our forthcoming title Shapers of Christianity by Nick Needham, which presents brief sketches of twelve men from church history. The book will be released on 19 May and you can sign up for the waitlist here. The following sketch, on J. Gresham Machen, was first published as an article in […]

I Was Envious of the Arrogant Until I Went into the Sanctuary Beginning by extolling God, the author of this psalm contends against the judgment of carnal sense and reason. He confesses that when he compared the prosperity and indulgence of the wicked with the cares and sorrows of the righteous, he was tempted to […]

From time to time we receive questions about the editing of the Banner of Truth edition (first printed 1961) of A. W. Pink’s The Sovereignty of God. Here we reproduce the text of Chapter 16 of Iain H. Murray’s The Life of Arthur Pink, which deals at length with these questions: As we have seen, it […]

This excerpt is taken from Iain H. Murray, Archibald G. Brown: Spurgeon’s Successor (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2011) and constitutes chapter 13 of that volume. BROWN had spoken to the main need of the church in a letter to all the members at the beginning of 1908, headed ‘Remember Jesus Christ’ (2 Tim. 2:8). In it […]

An excerpt from ‘Heart Treasure, or The Furniture of a Holy Soul,’ by Rev. Oliver Heywood, a Presbyterian Pastor in the second half of the 17th century.    Introduction ‘I first came across the book, Heart Treasure by Oliver Heywood, in a box of old books in a furniture barn in the town of Central, South […]

We have heard with our ears, O God, Our fathers have told us, the deeds You did in their days, In days of old. —Psalm 44:1 (NKJV). The early years of the Free Church of Scotland in the mid-nineteenth century produced literature of enduring value for the Christian church. Much of that emanated from the […]

The following constitutes chapter 14 (pages 333–362) in J. C. Ryle’s Knots Untied:  Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion, From the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman   Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.—Exod. 20:8. THERE is a subject in the present day which demands the serious attention of all professing Christians […]

The following is from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1541 ed.), Chapter 3, ‘The Law’, and the section on the Fourth Commandment. Note also the addendum, featuring a selection from Iain H. Murray’s booklet Rest in God: And a Calamity in Contemporary Christianity which notes how Calvin’s thinking on the Sabbath developed from […]

The following is taken from William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour, pages 119–121. There is a law in wrestling which must be observed. If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully, 2 Timothy 2:5. He alludes to the Roman games, to which there were judges appointed […]