An Exceptional Read

This poor blog hasn't seen much activity since the first of the year and I don't know that I've been on at all. This is about to be remedied... Predictably, I'm going to say something along literary lines. :) I just finished Makers of Religious Freedom in the 17th Century this evening and found it to be very enjoyable; slightly slow in a few sections but I knew next to nothing about three of the men and it was well written. It gives roughly 50 page biographies on four men--Scottish Covenanters Alexander Hendersen and Saumel Rutherford, and English Puritans John Bunyan and Richard Baxter. One of the things I found most intriguing was the wide and hugely varied kinds of men they were, and how the Lord used them. They were everything from landed gentlemen to men of the lowest social class and they each filled a particular role in the shaping of their national histories. Of particular interest was the fact that, although they all desired to lead lives devoted to their own congregations, they each had to deal heavily in politics and all but Hendersen truly suffered persecution--either in the form of being exiled or suffering imprisonment. I was startled at how much unrest and threat to true Christianity was present, particularly in the life of Baxter.

It was a pleasant surprise to find beautiful and poetic language flowing so freely from their pens. This is a selection from Richard Baxter's Poetical Fragments that closed the book.

Now it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live:
To love and serve Thee is my share:
And this Thy grace must give.

If lie be long, I will be glad,
That I may long obey:
If short: yet why should I be sad,
That shall have the same pay?

Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before:
He that into God's Kingdom comes
Must enter by this door

Come, Lord, when Grace hath made me meet
Thy blessed Face to see:
For if Thy work on earth be sweet,
What will Thy glory be?

My knowledge of that Life is small;
The Eye of Faith is dim:
But it's enough that Christ knows all;
And I shall be with Him.