Sunday, March 11, 2007

Happy Birthday, Rebecca

Today is Rebecca Stark's birthday. Happy birthday, Rebecca! As a little birthday present, I thought I might point out some things online that I'm sure she'll enjoy.

* The Internet Archive has Jonathan Edwards's unfinished masterpiece, History of Redemption. Just a random sample from the text (p. 82):

We observed before, that the light which the church enjoyed from the fall of man till Christ came, was like the light which we enjoy in the night ; not the light of the sun directly, but as reflecting from the moon and planets ; which light did foreshow Christ, the Sun of righteousness which was afterwards to arise. This light they had chiefly two ways : one was by predictions of Christ, wherein his coming was foretold and promised ; the other by types and shadows, in which his coming and redemption were prefigured.


* Also at the Internet Archive, there's William Wilberforce's A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious Systems of Professed Christians. Another random sample (p. 42):

To any one who is seriously impressed with a sense of the critical state in which we are here placed, a short and uncertain space in which to make our peace with God, and this little span of life followed by the last judgment, and an eternity of unspeakable happiness or misery, it is indeed an awful and an affecting spectacle, to see men thus busying themselves in vain speculations of an arrogant curiosity, and trifling with their dearest, their everlasting interests. It is but a feeble illustration of this exquisite folly to compare it to the conduct of some convicted rebel, who, when brought into the presence of his Sovereign, instead of seizing the occasion to sue for mercy, should even treat with neglect and contempt the pardon which should be offered to him, and insolently employ himself in prying into his Sovereign's designs, and criticising his counsels.


* CCEL has a great collection of works by John Owen, the Welsh Puritan.

* The Doctrine of Baptism, and the Distinction of the Covenants, by Thomas Patient, the most famous Reformed theologian of the early Irish Baptists.