A Double Portion of the Spirit: Elijah & Elisha – William P. Nicholson

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Rich Moore

A Double Portion of the Spirit: Elijah & Elisha – William P. Nicholson

William P. Nicholson Sermon Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…

2 Kings 2:1 And it came to pass, when the Lord would take up Elijah into heaven by a whirlwind, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal. 2 And Elijah said unto Elisha, Tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Bethel. And Elisha said unto him, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel. 3 And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he said, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. 4 And Elijah said unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jericho. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came to Jericho. 5 And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to day? And he answered, Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace. 6 And Elijah said unto him, Tarry, I pray thee, here; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan. And he said, As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on. 7 And fifty men of the sons of the prophets went, and stood to view afar off: and they two stood by Jordan. 8 And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped it together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. 9 And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

William Patteson Nicholson (1876-1962) was a preacher born in Bangor, County Down, Ireland.

Nicknamed “the Tornado of the Pulpit”, Nicholson spent his early years on his father’s cargo ship. He began to preach Christianity in 1899 at the age of 23 and was known for his “men-only” meetings. Nicholson used straightforward language which communicated to the common man.

In the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff, a shed, named “the Nicholson shed”, was erected to house stolen tools that newly converted workers were returning as a result of Nicholson’s preaching.

William P. Nicholson – Power of Prayer

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_Vl…
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William P. Nicholson Sermon – Blessed Assurance: Are You Really Saved?

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Rich Moore

William P. Nicholson Sermon – Blessed Assurance: Are You Really Saved?

William P. Nicholson Sermon Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2256308956239BB6

Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end

Hebrews 10:22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

William Patteson Nicholson (1876-1962) was a preacher born in Bangor, County Down, Ireland.

Nicknamed “the Tornado of the Pulpit”, Nicholson spent his early years on his father’s cargo ship. He began to preach Christianity in 1899 at the age of 23 and was known for his “men-only” meetings. Nicholson used straightforward language which communicated to the common man.

In the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff, a shed, named “the Nicholson shed”, was erected to house stolen tools that newly converted workers were returning as a result of Nicholson’s preaching.

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_VlgldVpA
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William P. Nicholson – The Sin With No Forgiveness

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Rich Moore

William P. Nicholson – The Sin With No Forgiveness

William P. Nicholson Sermon Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2256308956239BB6

Matthew 12:31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

William Patteson Nicholson (1876-1962) was a preacher born in Bangor, County Down, Ireland.

Nicknamed “the Tornado of the Pulpit”, Nicholson spent his early years on his father’s cargo ship. He began to preach Christianity in 1899 at the age of 23 and was known for his “men-only” meetings. Nicholson used straightforward language which communicated to the common man.

In the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff, a shed, named “the Nicholson shed”, was erected to house stolen tools that newly converted workers were returning as a result of Nicholson’s preaching.

William P. Nicholson – Power of Prayer

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_VlgldVpA
-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-

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John Newton – What a Believer would do, if he Could / Christian Devotional

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Rich Moore

John Newton – What a Believer would do, if he Could / Christian Devotional

http://www.sermonaudio.com

John Newton playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F44544DEAD10B5D2

https://www.facebook.com/ChristianDevotionalReadings

Galatians 5:17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

John Newton – (1725-1807), Evangelical divine and hymn writer

Newton was born in London July 24, 1725, the son of a commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. When John was eleven, he went to sea with his father and made six voyages with him before the elder Newton retired. In 1744 John was impressed into service on a man-of-war, the H. M. S. Harwich. Finding conditions on board intolerable, he deserted but was soon recaptured and publicly flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman.

Although he had had some early religious instruction from his mother, who had died when he was a child, he had long since given up any religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his “great deliverance.” He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him.

For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power. “Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ’tis grace has bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” He continued in the slave trade for a time after his conversion; however, he saw to it that the slaves under his care were treated humanely.

In 1750 he married Mary Catlett, with whom he had been in love for many years. By 1755, after a serious illness, he had given up seafaring forever. During his days as a sailor he had begun to educate himself, teaching himself Latin, among other subjects. From 1755 to 1760 Newton was surveyor of tides at Liverpool, where he came to know George Whitefield, deacon in the Church of England, evangelistic preacher, and leader of the Calvinistic Methodist Church. Newton became Whitefield’s enthusiastic disciple. During this period Newton also met and came to admire John Wesley, founder of Methodism. Newton’s self-education continued, and he learned Greek and Hebrew.

He decided to become a minister and applied to the Archbishop of York for ordination. The Archbishop refused his request, but Newton persisted in his goal, and he was subsequently ordained by the Bishop of Lincoln and accepted the curacy of Olney, Buckinghamshire. Newton’s church became so crowded during services that it had to be enlarged. He preached not only in Olney but in other parts of the country. In 1767 the poet William Cowper settled at Olney, and he and Newton became friends.

Cowper helped Newton with his religious services and on his tours to other places. They held not only a regular weekly church service but also began a series of weekly prayer meetings, for which their goal was to write a new hymn for each one. They collaborated on several editions of Olney Hymns, which achieved lasting popularity. The first edition, published in 1779, contained 68 pieces by Cowper and 280 by Newton.

Among Newton’s contributions which are still loved and sung today are “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” as well as “Amazing Grace.” Composed probably between 1760 and 1770 in Olney, “Amazing Grace” was possibly one of the hymns written for a weekly service. The origin of the melody is unknown. Most hymnals attribute it to an early American folk melody. The Bill Moyers special on “Amazing Grace” speculated that it may have originated as the tune of a song the slaves sang.

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_VlgldVpA
-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-

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Oswald Chambers – Sins and the Surrounding of the Soul (Christian devotional)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Rich Moore

Oswald Chambers – Sins and the Surrounding of the Soul ( Audio Reading )

Oswald Chambers playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…

Sins and Surroundings of the Soul
Psalm 6 refers to the surroundings of the soul in bodily sickness and perplexity and the inward results of these. The Psalmist’s first degree of prayer is, “Heal me; for my bones are vexed”; the second degree is, Heal me, “for my soul is also sore vexed,” and the third degree is, “Save me for Thy mercies’ sake.” These are three degrees of perplexity arising from the soul’s surroundings: because of pain; because the mental outlook is cloudy, and because God has not said a word. When the soul is perplexed—and it certainly will be if we are going on with God, because we are a mark for Satan—and the sudden onslaught comes, as it did in the life of Job, we cry, “Heal me because of my pain,” but there is no answer. Then we cry, “Heal me, not because I am in pain, but because my soul is perplexed; I cannot see any way out of it or why this thing should be”; still no answer; then at last we cry, “Heal me, O Lord, not because of my pain, nor because my soul is sick, but for Thy mercies’ sake.” Then we have the answer, “The Lord hath heard my supplication.” The surroundings of the soul, the scenes which arise from our doings, do produce perplexity in the soul. The soul cannot be separated from the body, and bodily perplexities produce difficulties in the soul, and these difficulties go inward and at times intrude right to the very throne of God in the heart.
“Behold, all souls are Mine; . . . the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). In this passage the soul life and the sin that is punished are connected. The inherited disposition of sin must be cleansed, but for every sin we commit we are punished. “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). “Salvation” refers to the whole gamut of a man, spirit, soul and body; “Christ the firstfruits,” with the ultimate reach in the hereafter of our spirit, soul and body being like His in a totally new relationship. The soul in the present life can be satisfied in all its perplexities, and in all onslaughts and dangers it is kept by the power of God. Sin destroys the power of the soul to know its sin, punishment brings awakening, self-examination brings chastisement and saves the soul from sleeping sickness, and brings it into a healthy satisfaction.
In 1 Corinthians 11:30 (“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep”), Paul alludes to sickness which has a moral and not a physical source. The immediate connection is the obscene conduct at the Lord’s Supper of former heathen converts, and Paul says that that is the cause of their bodily sickness. The truth laid down abides, that certain types of moral disobedience produce sicknesses which physical remedies cannot touch; obedience is the only cure. For instance nothing can touch the sicknesses produced by tampering with spiritualism; there is only one cure—yielding to the Lord Jesus Christ.’

Chambers, Oswald: Biblical Psychology

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_Vl…
-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-

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Puritan John Flavel – The Touchstone of Sincerity (2/2)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Rich Moore

Puritan John Flavel – The Touchstone of Sincerity (2/2)

Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

John Flavel (1628-1691)
Excerpt from Meet the Puritans
by Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall J. Pederson

John Flavel (or Flavell) was born in 1628 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a minister who died of the plague in 1665 while in prison for nonconformity. John Flavel was educated by his father in the ways of religion, then “plied his studies hard” as a commoner at University College, Oxford. In 1650, he was ordained by the presbytery at Salisbury. He settled in Diptford, where he honed his numerous gifts.

He married Joan Randall, a godly woman, who died while giving birth to their first child in 1655. The baby died as well. After a year of mourning, Flavel married Elizabeth Stapell and was again blessed with a close, God-fearing marriage, as well as children.

In 1656, Flavel accepted a call to be minister in the thriving seaport of Dartmouth. He earned a smaller income there, but his work was more profitable; many were converted. One of his parishioners wrote of Flavel, “I could say much, though not enough of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable, and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of Scripture; his talking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected” (Erasmus Middleton, Evangelical Biography, 4:50-51).

Flavel was ejected from the pulpit in 1662 for nonconformity, but he continued to meet secretly with his parishioners in conventicles. On occasion, he would preach for them in the woods, especially on days of fasting and humiliation. Once he even disguised himself as a woman on horseback in order to reach a secret meeting place where he preached and administered baptism. At another time, when pursued by authorities, he plunged his horse into the sea and managed to escape arrest by swimming through a rocky area to reach Slapton Sands.

In 1672, King Charles II issued the Declaration of Indulgence, giving Nonconformists freedom to worship. Flavel returned to Dartmouth, licensed as a Congregationalist. When the indulgence was canceled the following year, Flavel once more resorted to preaching secretly in private homes, secluded neighborhoods, or remote forests. Flavel’s second wife died during this time and he married Ann Downe, a minister’s daughter. They were happily married for eleven years, and had two sons.

In the late 1670s and early 1680s, Flavel carried on his ministry mainly by writing. He published at least nine books in this period. In the summer of 1682, he was forced to seek safety in London, where he joined the congregation of his friend, William Jenkyn, known today for his commentary on Jude. In 1684, soldiers interrupted a prayer service Flavel was conducting with Jenkyn. Flavel narrowly escaped arrest. During his stay in London, Flavel’s third wife died. He married Dorothy, a widowed daughter of George Jefferies, minister of Kingsbridge; she survived him.

Flavel was humble, godly, and learned. He spent much time in study and prayer. One of his children wrote, “He was always full and copious in prayer, seemed constantly to exceed himself, and rarely made use twice of the same expressions.” He was well versed in church discipline, infant baptism, and a number of Oriental languages.

Flavel’s power as a preacher came out of his depth of spiritual experience. He spent many hours in meditation and self-examination. As Middleton writes, “He [Flavel] attained to a well-grounded assurance, the ravishing comforts of which were many times shed abroad in his soul; this made him a powerful and successful preacher, as one who spoke from his own heart to those of others. He preached what he felt, and what he had handled, what he had seen and tasted of the word of life and they felt it also” (ibid., p. 58).

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Andrew Murray – The Priest-King On The Throne In The Heavens – The Holiest of All (58 of 130)

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Rich Moore

Andrew Murray – The Priest-King On The Throne In The Heavens – The Holiest of All (58 of 130)

Andrew Murray – The Holiest of All playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…

The Holiest of All is a devotional exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It was written towards the end of the nineteenth century and has since become a classic. Its pages lead the reader into a practical understanding of who Christ is, the power of his finished work on the Cross and his present intercession for believers. The author demonstrates how it is only a full understanding of who Jesus is and what he does for us that can bring us into a full and complete Christian life. (Summary by Christopher Smith)

Andrew Murray playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list…

Christian Audio book reading.

Andrew Murray – (1828-1917), South-African Dutch Reformed leader, author of devotional writings
Murray was Born in Cape Town, South Africa, Murray became a noted missionary leader. His father was a Scottish Presbyterian serving the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and his mother had connections with both French Huguenots and German Lutherans. This background to some extent explains his ecumenical spirit. He was educated at Aberdeen University, Scotland, and at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. After ordination in 1848 he served pastorates at Bloemfontein, Worcester, Cape Town, and Wellington. He helped to found what are now the University College of the Orange Free State and the Stellenbosch Seminary He served as Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church and was president of both the YMCA (1865) and the South Africa General Mission (1888-1917), now the Africa Evangelical Fellowship.

He was one of the chief promoters of the call to missions in South Africa. This led to the Dutch Reformed Church missions to blacks in the Transvaal and Malawi. Apart from his evangelistic tours in South Africa, he spoke at the Keswick and Northfield Conventions in 1895, making a great impression. upon his British and American audiences. For his contribution to world missions he was given an honorary doctorate by the universities of Aberdeen (1898) and Cape of Good Hope(1907).

Murray is best known today for his devotional writings, which place great emphasis on the need for a rich, personal devotional life. Many of his 240 publications explain in how he saw this devotion and its outworking in the life of the Christian. Several of his books have become devotional classics. Among these are Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender, With Christ in the School of Prayer, The Spirit of Christ and Waiting on God.

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_Vl…
-~-~~-~~~-~~-~-

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Charles Spurgeon Devotional: Faith’s Checkbook – Go; Take Your Property

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Rich Moore

Charles Spurgeon Devotional: Faith’s Checkbook – Go; Take Your Property

Charles Spurgeon Devotional: Faith’s Checkbook Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…

Deuteronomy 1:21

King James Version (KJV)

21Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged.

A PROMISE from God may very instructively be compared to a check payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably, and then have done with it. No, he is to treat the promise as a reality, as a man treats a check.

He is to take the promise, and endorse it with his own name by personally receiving it as true. He is by faith to accept it as his own. He sets to his seal that God is true, and true as to this particular word of promise. He goes further, and believes that he has the blessing in having the sure promise of it and therefore he puts his name to it to testify to the receipt of the blessing.

This done, he must believingly present the promise to the LORD, as a man presents a check at the counter of the Bank. He must plead it by prayer, expecting to have it fulfilled. If he has come to Heaven’s bank at the right date, he will receive the promised amount at once. If the date should happen to be further on, he must patiently wait till its arrival; but meanwhile he may count the promise as money, for the Bank is sure to pay when the due time arrives.

Some fail to place the endorsement of faith upon the check, and so they get nothing; and others are slack in presenting it, and these also receive nothing. This is not the fault of the promise, but of those who do not act with it in a common-sense, business-like manner.

God has given no pledge which He will not redeem, and encouraged no hope which He will not fulfill. To help my brethren to believe this, I have prepared this little volume. The sight of the promises themselves is good for the eyes of faith: the more we study the words of grace, the more grace shall we derive from the words. To the cheering Scriptures I have added testimonies of my own, the fruit of trial and experience. I believe all the promises of God, but many of them I have personally tried and proved. I have seen that they are true, for they have been fulfilled to me. This, I trust, may be cheering to the young; and not without solace to the older sort. One man’s experience may be of the utmost use to another; and this is why the man of God of old wrote, “I sought the LORD, and he heard me”; and again, “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him.”

I commenced these daily portions when I was wading in the surf of controversy. Since then I have been cast into “waters to swim in,” which, but for God’s upholding hand, would have proved waters to drown in. I have endured tribulation from many hails. Sharp bodily pain succeeded mental depression, and this was accompanied both by bereavement and affliction in the person of one dear as life. The waters rolled in continually, wave upon wave. I do not mention this to exact sympathy, but simply to let the reader see that I am no dry-land sailor. I have traversed full many a time those oceans which are not Pacific: I know the roll of the billows, and the rush of the winds. Never were the promises of Jehovah so precious to me as at this hour. Some of them I never understood till now; I had not reached the date at which they matured, for I was not myself mature enough to perceive their meaning.

How much more wonderful is the Bible to me now than it was a few months ago! In obeying the LORD, and bearing His reproach outside the camp, I have not received new promises; but the result to me is much the same as if I had done so, for the old ones have opened up to me with richer stores. Specially has the Word of the LORD to His servant Jeremiah sounded exceedingly sweet in mine ears. His lot it was to speak to those who would not hear, or hearing, would nor believe. His was the sorrow which comes of disappointed love, and resolute loyalty; he would have turned his people from their errors, but he would not himself quit the way of the LORD. For him there were words of deep sustaining power, which kept his mind from failing where nature unaided must have sunk. These and such like golden sentences of grace I have loved more than my necessary food, and with them I have enriched these pages.

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Ashton Oxenden – Oh, This is a Sad Sight (Christian devotional)

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Rich Moore

Ashton Oxenden – Oh, This is a Sad Sight (Christian devotional)

Ecclesiastes 11:9

New International Version (NIV)

9 You who are young, be happy while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you into judgment.

Oxenden was the fifth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, seventh baronet, who died in 1838. His mother was Mary, daughter of Colonel Graham of St. Lawrence, near Canterbury. Oxenden was born at Broome Park, Canterbury, on 20 September 1808.

Educated at Ramsgate and at Harrow School, he matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 9 June 1826, graduated B.A. 1831, M.A. 1859, and was created D.D. 10 July 1869. In December 1833, he was ordained to the curacy of Barham, Kent, where he introduced weekly cottage lectures. In 1838 he resigned his charge, and during the following seven years was incapacitated for work by continuous ill-health. From 1849 to 1869 he was rector of Pluckley with Pevington, Kent, and in 1864 was made an honorary canon of Canterbury Cathedral. That year he also married, on 14 June, Sarah, daughter of banker Joseph Hoare Bradshaw of London. The couple would have a daughter, Mary Ashton Oxenden. At Pluckley he first commenced extemporaneous preaching, and wrote the Barham Tracts. In May 1869, he was elected bishop of Montreal and metropolitan of Canada by the Canadian provincial synod.

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Please watch: “FULL ALBUM Christian Praise Worship Songs 2013 – A Message of Hope”
➨ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb_Vl…
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Puritan John Flavel – The Touchstone of Sincerity

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Rich Moore

Puritan John Flavel – The Touchstone of Sincerity

Revelation 3:17King James Version (KJV)

17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

John Flavel (1628-1691)
Excerpt from Meet the Puritans
by Dr. Joel Beeke and Randall J. Pederson

John Flavel (or Flavell) was born in 1628 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was the son of Richard Flavel, a minister who died of the plague in 1665 while in prison for nonconformity. John Flavel was educated by his father in the ways of religion, then “plied his studies hard” as a commoner at University College, Oxford. In 1650, he was ordained by the presbytery at Salisbury. He settled in Diptford, where he honed his numerous gifts.

He married Joan Randall, a godly woman, who died while giving birth to their first child in 1655. The baby died as well. After a year of mourning, Flavel married Elizabeth Stapell and was again blessed with a close, God-fearing marriage, as well as children.

In 1656, Flavel accepted a call to be minister in the thriving seaport of Dartmouth. He earned a smaller income there, but his work was more profitable; many were converted. One of his parishioners wrote of Flavel, “I could say much, though not enough of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable, and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of Scripture; his talking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could sit under his ministry unaffected” (Erasmus Middleton, Evangelical Biography, 4:50-51).

Flavel was ejected from the pulpit in 1662 for nonconformity, but he continued to meet secretly with his parishioners in conventicles. On occasion, he would preach for them in the woods, especially on days of fasting and humiliation. Once he even disguised himself as a woman on horseback in order to reach a secret meeting place where he preached and administered baptism. At another time, when pursued by authorities, he plunged his horse into the sea and managed to escape arrest by swimming through a rocky area to reach Slapton Sands.

In 1672, King Charles II issued the Declaration of Indulgence, giving Nonconformists freedom to worship. Flavel returned to Dartmouth, licensed as a Congregationalist. When the indulgence was canceled the following year, Flavel once more resorted to preaching secretly in private homes, secluded neighborhoods, or remote forests. Flavel’s second wife died during this time and he married Ann Downe, a minister’s daughter. They were happily married for eleven years, and had two sons.

In the late 1670s and early 1680s, Flavel carried on his ministry mainly by writing. He published at least nine books in this period. In the summer of 1682, he was forced to seek safety in London, where he joined the congregation of his friend, William Jenkyn, known today for his commentary on Jude. In 1684, soldiers interrupted a prayer service Flavel was conducting with Jenkyn. Flavel narrowly escaped arrest. During his stay in London, Flavel’s third wife died. He married Dorothy, a widowed daughter of George Jefferies, minister of Kingsbridge; she survived him.

Flavel was humble, godly, and learned. He spent much time in study and prayer. One of his children wrote, “He was always full and copious in prayer, seemed constantly to exceed himself, and rarely made use twice of the same expressions.” He was well versed in church discipline, infant baptism, and a number of Oriental languages.

Flavel’s power as a preacher came out of his depth of spiritual experience. He spent many hours in meditation and self-examination. As Middleton writes, “He [Flavel] attained to a well-grounded assurance, the ravishing comforts of which were many times shed abroad in his soul; this made him a powerful and successful preacher, as one who spoke from his own heart to those of others. He preached what he felt, and what he had handled, what he had seen and tasted of the word of life and they felt it also” (ibid., p. 58).

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