We've come to the end of June and we are almost finished with Puritans at the beach.

We've got one more book from this 10 volume box set and it is by William Bridge.

William Bridge was born in 1600 and he died in 1670.

Can you guess where William Bridge went to college?

Well, if you said, Emmanuel College Cambridge, you'd be right.

I know that you've been listening to five minutes in tertiary this month because it seemed

like all of these folks have gone to Emmanuel College Cambridge because they did.

Well, after college and getting his bachelors in his master's degree, he was ordained in 1627.

In 1636, under Charles I, he was exiled to Rotterdam and Holland,

then during the English Civil War and his Parliament gained control of London he returned.

He was a member of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s.

And for 20 years, he pastored a Puritan independent church until 1662

and like the others we've been visiting with this month, he too was ejected.

He died in 1670.

Back in 1648, he preached a three sermon series on Psalm 42 11.

That verse reads, Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.

These sermons that he preached were published as a book under the title, A Lifting Up for the Downcast.

In this book, he explores all those reasons and all those things that happen to cause one to be discouraged or to be downcast.

And as he says in this book, the best answer, the lifting up for one who is downcast or discouraged, is sound doctrine.

Knowing and believing who God is, knowing and believing who Christ is, knowing and believing what the gospel is,

all of these bridge tells us, bring hope, all of these bring joy and all of these bring encouragement to our discouragement.

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