Knowing God
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Knowing God
By Rev Dale Lee
“Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8, KJV)
In his book, A Survey of American History, Alan Brinkley writes: “The first enduring settlement in New England – the second in English America – resulted from the discontent of a congregation of Puritan Separatists in England. For years, Separatists had been periodically imprisoned and even executed for defying the government and the Church of England; some of them began to contemplate leaving England altogether in search of freedom to worship as they wished.” The Puritans and the Separatists within them sought a much more pure and free form of worshipping God than the powers of religion would allow. And they suffered, as Dr. Packer (1926-2020) in his book A Quest for Godliness – The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life describes:
The Puritans have taught me to see and feel the transitoriness of this life, to think of it, with all its richness, as essentially the gymnasium and dressing-room where we are prepared for heaven, and to regard readiness to die as the first step in learning to live. The Puritans experienced systematic persecution for their faith; what we today think of as the comforts of home were unknown to them; their medicine and surgery were rudimentary; they had no aspirins, tranquillizers, sleeping tablets or anti-depressant pills, just as they had no social security or insurance; in a world in which more than half the adult population died young and more than half the children died in infancy, disease, distress, discomfort, pain and death were their constant companions. They would have been lost had they not kept their eyes on heaven and known themselves as pilgrims travelling home to the Celestial City…the Puritans [had] awareness that in the midst of life we are in death, just one step from eternity…The Puritans lived [with] an unflinching, matter-of-fact realism with which they prepared themselves for death, so as always to be found, as it were, packed up and ready to go.”
The Puritans, such as John Owen, Richard Baxter, William Gurnall, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards and many others sought to live life before God in humility, purity and faith. They lived packed up and ready to go, and so should we. They suffered. They died. Right now they are beholding God and they are blessed.