Best Puritan Books for Beginners: 15 Classics to Read Free
Christian LifeTheologyChurch History
If you have never read a Puritan, start with John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. It is a story, it is short, and it carries nearly everything the Puritans believed about the Christian life. Then read Richard Sibbes's The Soul's Conflict or Thomas Brooks's The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod. Both are warm, practical and easy to pick up. When you are ready for something weightier, go to John Owen on temptation and sin.
The Puritans were English and Scottish pastors of the late 1500s and 1600s who wanted the church reformed by Scripture and the heart reformed by grace. Many of them were thrown out of their pulpits in 1662, and some went to prison. What they left behind is a huge body of preaching about real Christian experience: conversion, assurance, temptation, suffering, prayer, heaven. People still call them "physicians of the soul," because they wrote for troubled consciences and did not leave readers where they found them.
Their books can look hard at first. The sentences are long and the outlines go on forever: heads, sub-heads, uses and motives. But the ideas are plain and the warmth is real. Read slowly, a chapter at a time. Here are fifteen to begin with, all free in TheWay Library.
Start here
1. The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Bunyan's allegory of a man named Christian who flees the City of Destruction with a burden on his back and travels to the Celestial City. On the way he meets the Slough of Despond, the cross, Apollyon, Vanity Fair and Giant Despair. It is about five hours of reading and still the best door into Puritan thinking.
I have a Key in my bosom called Promise, that will, I am persuaded, open any Lock in Doubting Castle.
The Pilgrim's Progress
See our Pilgrim's Progress summary and the main characters, or read The Pilgrim's Progress.
2. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, by John Bunyan
Bunyan's own story, written from Bedford jail. He tells of his careless youth, years of terror over his sins, and how certain verses finally brought him to rest in Christ. It is honest about doubt in a way few books are, and it shows you the man behind The Pilgrim's Progress. More in Who Was John Bunyan? Read Grace Abounding.
3. The Soul's Conflict and Victory over Itself by Faith, by Richard Sibbes
Built on Psalm 42:11, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" Sibbes writes for the tender believer who is discouraged and can't shake it. He teaches you to question your own soul, to tell right sorrow from wrong, and to quiet your heart by trusting God and praising Him even in your worst condition.
It is no less power to settle a peace in the soul, than to command the seas to be quiet.
The Soul's Conflict, chapter 5
4. The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod, by Thomas Brooks
On Psalm 39:9, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it." Brooks teaches the holy silence a believer keeps under God's hand: not silence from prayer, but silence from murmuring. He answers ten objections from the suffering, from losing the nearest and dearest to unanswered prayer. If you are going through something hard, read this one first. Read The Mute Christian.
5. Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks, compiled by C. H. Spurgeon
Spurgeon loved the Puritans and gathered hundreds of short sayings from Thomas Brooks into one small book. It is the easiest way to taste the Puritan style, a paragraph at a time.
God loves adverbs better than nouns; not praying only, but praying well; not doing good, but doing it well.
Smooth Stones Taken from Ancient Brooks
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6. Divine Conduct; or, The Mystery of Providence, by John Flavel
Flavel teaches you to look back over your own life and see God's hand in it: where you were born, your family, how you came to Christ, your work, your marriage, the times you were kept from sin. Then he shows how to meditate on it with trust and praise. Few books will make you more thankful. Read Divine Conduct.
7. The Saint Indeed, by John Flavel
On Proverbs 4:23, "Keep thy heart with all diligence." Flavel works through twelve seasons that test the heart, among them prosperity, affliction, want, injuries, temptation and sickness. The same volume holds The Touchstone of Sincerity, on telling true grace from false.
The greatest difficulty in conversion, is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is to keep the heart with God.
The Saint Indeed
8. On Temptation and the Mortification of Sin in Believers, by John Owen
Two of Owen's best-known short works in one volume. Of Temptation explains what it means to "enter into temptation" and how to watch. Of the Mortification of Sin argues that even the holiest Christian must put sin to death every day, by the Spirit and by faith in Christ.
be killing sin or it will be killing you.
Of the Mortification of Sin, chapter 2
Owen is harder going than Bunyan or Brooks, but this is where most readers meet him. Read On Temptation and the Mortification of Sin.
9. The Forgiveness of Sin, by John Owen
A practical exposition of Psalm 130, especially verse 4: "But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." Owen starts with the soul in the depths and spends most of the book proving that forgiveness really is with God, then answers the doubts that keep people from believing it. Many have judged it his best book. Read The Forgiveness of Sin.
10. The Saint's Everlasting Rest, by Richard Baxter
Baxter's classic on heaven, first preached to his people at Kidderminster. It describes the rest that remains for God's people and then teaches a way of meditating on heaven so that it changes how you live now. This edition is abridged, which makes it far easier to finish.
A heart therefore set upon heaven, is no more but a heart set upon God
The Saint's Everlasting Rest, chapter XI
Read The Saint's Everlasting Rest.
11. Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Over three hundred letters from a Scottish minister, many written while he was banished to Aberdeen. They are full of love for Christ and counsel for friends in sickness, grief and persecution. Don't read them straight through. Open them anywhere and read a few.
Christ and His cross are not separable in this life; howbeit Christ and His cross part at heaven's door
Letters of Samuel Rutherford
Read the Letters of Samuel Rutherford.
12. The Christian's Great Interest, by William Guthrie
A short Scottish classic on assurance: how a person can know he truly belongs to Christ, and how someone who can't yet say so may come to Him. Guthrie is careful to show the difference between real faith and the look-alike experiences of a hypocrite. Read The Christian's Great Interest.
For study and for pastors
13. The Select Works of Thomas Watson
Watson was one of the clearest Puritan writers. This large volume holds his sermons on the Westminster Shorter Catechism (later printed as A Body of Divinity, The Ten Commandments and The Lord's Prayer), plus The Art of Divine Contentment. It is a full course in Christian doctrine written for ordinary people. Start with contentment or the opening sermons on man's chief end. Read Watson's Select Works.
14. The Glories of Christ, by Thomas Goodwin
Three treatises on Christ as Mediator. Goodwin wrote for believers who look too much at their own graces and feelings, and points them to Christ's death, resurrection, ascension and intercession. The last part, on the tenderness of Christ's heart in heaven toward sinners, is the most loved. Read The Glories of Christ.
15. The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter
Baxter's call to ministers, from Acts 20:28: take heed first to yourselves, then to all the flock. Every pastor should read it once.
Take heed to yourselves, lest you should be void of that saving grace of God which you offer to others
The Reformed Pastor, chapter 1
A simple reading order
- The Pilgrim's Progress
- The Soul's Conflict or The Mute Christian
- Divine Conduct or The Saint Indeed
- The Saint's Everlasting Rest
- Owen on temptation and sin, then The Forgiveness of Sin
- Rutherford's Letters and Watson's Select Works alongside, a little at a time
For grieving readers, John Flavel's A Token for Mourners and Baxter's Dying Thoughts are in our guide to Christian books on death and grief. The library also has longer works by these same writers, such as Stephen Charnock on the attributes of God and Bunyan's The Holy War, once you have your footing. You can find each writer's books on their author pages: Bunyan, Owen, Baxter, Flavel and Rutherford.