I was looking through a book this morning which changed my mind! I was going to send out some thoughts in regard to fear and how we can overcome it. But instead, I decided to send out thoughts regarding gladness, cheerfulness, joy, or happiness in the Christian life. Some may be surprised, since it is a book full of quotes by the Puritans! After all, isn't the commonly heard saying by H. L. Mencken: “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be having fun.”
But as one who did my doctoral dissertation on the Puritans, I have to wonder if Mencken ever read anything written by the Puritans, or whether he simply parroted falsehoods which others who have never read the Puritans continue to parrot. Because people who have actually read the Puritan’s will know they nearly uniformly encouraged people not to be judgmental, critical, dour, sullen, gloomy, or mean-spirited. In fact, ALL the following quotes on cheerfulness, and the need for it in the lives of believers, are from Puritans – in their sermons, books, or advice to people under their care. They are found in the book, “Ore from the Puritan’s Mine” by Dale W. Smith. (Some of the antiquated words/phases have been modernized.) Enjoy.
Cheerfulness
“A Christian of correct temper should always be cheerful in God. As Psalm 100:2 states, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” A sign that the oil of grace has been poured into the heart is when the oil of gladness shines in that person’s countenance. Cheerfulness is a credit to their Christian faith.”
Simeon Ashe
“Now they [that is, an unbelieving world] will believe it is good news indeed which the gospel brings when they can read it in your cheerful lives. But when they observe Christians sad, while holding the cup of salvation in their hands, they truly suspect the wine in it is not as good as the preachers say it is. Should man see all who trade in the West Indies come home poorer than they went, it would be hard to persuade others to venture to go there, despite all the stories of golden mountains that are said to be there.”
William Gurnall
“It is required that we suffer for imitating Christ and making Him our example. We are not simply to take up the cross, but also make it our goal to follow Christ. “Take up the cross” is only half the command; “take up the cross and follow me” is the whole command. We are to suffer willingly and cheerfully, because if we don’t, then of all the persons in the world we are the most unlike Jesus Christ in our sufferings. Christ suffered willingly and cheerfully (Heb. 12:2).”
John Owen
“A sense of pardon is the true ground of spiritual joy. Christ’s usual way of working comfort is this: “Be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven” (Matt. 9:2).”
Ralph Robinson
“The heart must be kept courageous and strong and lively, like an instrument which is tuned so as to tune all the rest, otherwise every grief will make you impatient. In Deuteronomy 30:9 it is said that God rejoices to do us good, and therefore in Deuteronomy 28 the Jews are reproved because they did not rejoice in serving God. As God loves a cheerful giver, so He also loves a cheerful server, and a cheerful preacher, and a cheerful hearer, and a cheerful worshiper! Therefore, says David, “Let us sing unto the Lord” (Ps 95.1), showing that cheerfulness is the tune which delights God’s ears.”
Henry Smith
“To suffer as Christians is to suffer with cheerfulness. Patience is bearing the cross, cheerfulness is taking up the cross. Christ suffered for us cheerfully. His death was a freewill offering (Luke 12:50).”
Thomas Watson
“Cheerfulness is like music to the soul. It excites us to duty. It oils the wheels of the affections. Cheerfulness makes our service come off with delight. We are never carried as swiftly in our walk with Jesus as upon the wings of delight. Melancholy takes off our chariot wheels, and then we drive on plowing the dirt.”
Thomas Watson
No group of people has been more unfairly maligned as a whole than the Puritans have been, a misrepresentation that won’t go away until people actually read them, or those who have actually studied them! As every bushel has its bad apples, so the Puritans are no different. But overall, in a meeting with most, you would have found them gracious, pastoral and cheerful.
When one does, they will realize that the Puritans (1520’s–1660’s) are commonly blamed for the attitudes and practices prevalent in the Victorian Age (1837-1901). Should you like to sample some Puritan authors, I suggest Richard Sibbes, Thomas Watson, John Flavel, John Owen, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Brooks, Thomas Manton, William Bridge, Samuel Bolton, William Perkins, Christopher Love, Edward Pearse, Matthew Henry…
And I do need to add that despite common perceptions in America, the Pilgrims themselves were Puritans (separatist Puritans who gave up trying to reform the Church of England from inside it and cut ties with it, as opposed to non-separatist Puritans who decided to stay inside that fold and reform it from the inside). And it is also true that the children of the Puritans (here in America) when they became the ones in power, rather than the ones being persecuted, did change. As Cotton Mather rightly said of the power and prosperity they came to enjoy: "The mother gave birth to the daughter, and the daughter devoured the mother." The Salem Witch Trials were in reality a post-Puritan phenomena, since they took place in the 1690's.
Living in the Joy of Jesus, Pastor Jeff
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