Well, welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

This is the first episode of a New Year.

And while you are thinking about your New Year's resolutions, maybe you're still making

a few, here's one for you.

How about resolve to read more Puritans?

Remember back in the summer we took the Puritans to the beach with us?

I even believe we bumped into Dr. Sinclair Ferguson while we were there.

Well, there's plenty more that we can say about reading the Puritans and commending

the Puritans to you, but I thought we would take a step back and say, who are these Puritans?

And what is Puritanism?

I frequently get that question, and I think about it a lot, and I want to put a fine point

on this for you.

Puritanism is simply this.

Rhygrist theology graciously applied.

When we think of the Puritans, we can expand on that a bit and say these were people

of keen minds, of impassioned hearts, and of assiduous lives.

Now each of those mattered, and they went together to form a connected whole, but let's go

back and look at each particular one.

The Puritans had keen minds.

These were rational people who loved doctrine, and they always started with doctrine.

And this was doctrine that was rigorously thought through and constructed.

Their sermons were tour de force.

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