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A narrative lens can illustrate and illuminate a historical period's unique significance. With deep Puritan roots, Daniel Merrill (1765-1833) and Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) were New Light Congregationalist clergymen born a generation after the Great Awakening, trained at elite theological institutions, who would themselves ignite and experience revival in Maine's Eastern Frontier, early in the19th century.Merrill's decision to become a Baptist in 1804 was both an effect and a cause of tectonic shifts in the young Republic's social and religious landscape, including disestablishment, which toppled the power structures of New England's Standing Order. Disagreement over baptism was a constant source of conflict, yet Merrill and Fisher continued to focus their energies and attention toward familiar endeavors, shared under the broader evangelical umbrella. Both were characteristically active evangelicals, engaged in a wide array of causes from circuit preaching to temperance and the formation of Bible societies. The mistreatment of black slaves and indigenous peoples were evils which they confronted through preaching, in print, and advocacy. Each contributed to the founding of educational institutions, some of which continue to the present. As "Fathers," they shaped the communities they served in ways that would extend past their lifetimes, and to regions far beyond New England.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." So begins J.R.R. Tolkien's marvellous tale of wizards, elves, dragons, and dwarves in the children's book, The Hobbit. Since Bilbo Baggins entered the hearts and minds of readers in 1937, millions of people around the world have gone on to read, watch, and study Tolkien's epic masterpieces The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Yet, in spite of the legacy and the world-wide fame of Tolkien's Middle-earth, many people know more about hobbits, trolls, and magic rings than they do about the man behind it all. So who was J.R.R. Tolkien, the maker of Middle-earth? In his own words, he says, "I am a Christian" and plainly states that he wrote The Lord of the Rings "to be consonant with Christian thought and belief." This is why Tolkien's Christian faith is the linchpin for fully understanding and appreciating his voluminous writings. This biography is intended to show readers that Tolkien's Christian faith was central to his life and work, personally, professionally, and-most importantly-creatively.

This volume presents ¿a fresh study of Andrew Fuller's close friendship with and mentoring of Christopher Anderson through forty letters of correspondence. Fuller's correspondence with Anderson provides a helpful example of what it looks like for an older, more experienced minister to mentor someone early in his ministry. Although Fuller was older in the faith-twenty-eight years older-and it is evident that Anderson looked to him for guidance and wisdom as a mentor, there is still a shared friendship and mutual respect. Fuller treats Anderson as a co-labourer and friend. Much of the content of these letters has to do with providing updates on their everyday lives: everything from travel plans, ministry updates, the state of their souls, news of other ministers, Scripture verses, what they are reading and thinking about, and business updates regarding the ministries they were partnered in (Baptist Missionary Society, the Bible Society, the Baptist Magazine, etc.). They also shared their fears, struggles, and hardships, and gave one another warnings, encouragement, and counsel.

This very welcome account of Philip Doddridge has Alan Clifford's characteristic clarity and forcefulness-that is, commitment-coupled with, again characteristically, an unrivalled familiarity with the primary sources. Its summary of the context and course of Doddridge's life draws out clearly his character and significance. And all this is done with a liveliness and wit too rare in scholarly writing.

This volume of John Gill on the Spiritual Life presents a compilation of characteristics summed up as Christian courage. Such courage, borne out of practical theology, is observed through fortitude, zeal, fear of God, and spiritual wisdom. Taken together, Gill offers the Christian a pattern for life that is given to wisdom, self-examination, and prudence. The believer is here called not to be ignorantly impassioned but courageous, emboldened for the work of ministry, through discernment and reverence. These characteristics are not merely elements within a worldly courage, but biblically saturated Christian virtues grown and invigorated by Jesus Christ.

A lively Christian faith is the result of a heart and mind saturated in Scripture. Through God's gracious revelation of himself to his people, the church learns more of God's mercy, grace, and justice. The Christian has no reason for a cold, lifeless faith. However, religious experiences need not be equated with ecstatic frenzy. Reformed Christians are often charged with holding doctrine that results in a languorous life. Charismatics, on the other hand, are said to possess little doctrine yet have an authentic and experiential faith. Is the Christian faith a choice between truth and experience? Archibald Alexander brings the reasoned mind of a gifted pastor-scholar to the issue of Christian experience. He addresses some of the more complex components of the Christian life, such as the experiences of young children in the faith. Is the faith of a child to be judged on different grounds than the faith of an adult? This perennial question turns Alexander's mind to the general evidence of regeneration in all believers. Alexander naturally turns to spiritual warfare and backsliding, the peaks and valleys that every Christian will inevitably face. And with a pastoral pen, he finally addresses the experience of the death of a Christian and the proper understanding of death as release from the enemy.

Question: "What must I do to be saved?" Answer: "Place your faith in Jesus!" The word faith is such an important word with enormous implication. If we are saved by a sure and lasting faith, then we must be concrete in what the term is-it must be an anchor to hold us fast to our salvation. Through the chapters and discussion questions contained within this little volume, readers will find that true faith isn't a frozen formula or fiery fanaticism. Saving faith is an affectionate knowledge of the true object of faith: Jesus Christ. Studying this historic, theological word should be as edifying as it is practical. The doctrine of faith is for everyone who confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord.

As in other histories, the history of Christianity has certain key turning-points after which the flow of historical events is profoundly transformed. Some of these moments of transition-well expressed by the Greek term kairos-are immediately pellucid to the student of church history: the Constantinian Revolution, the rise of the heresy of Islam, the Reformation, the Great Awakening. While not as immediately obvious as these turning-points, the sailing for America in 1620 of those whom historians have called the Pilgrims needs to be reckoned as a key event in the story of both the American nation and American Christianity. To be sure, there are some today who dispute its central role in the founding of America, yet generations of historians have accorded it a key place in that story, and it is in line with this older interpretation that this book of essays has been written. The various essays in this anniversary volume remember the manifold details of this historic voyage in an attempt to inform and even inspire the modern Christian as he or she seeks to be a faithful pilgrim to that heavenly country that was ever in the mind of the men and women whom these essays recall.

Typical of eighteenth-century thinkers, both Christian and non-Christian, Fuller believed that there was such a thing as truth, and that it could be known. His essay is thus a primer of what he calls "evangelical truth." Here he lays out, with copious biblical support, what is the truth about the present state of humanity, that is, their fallenness, and the sole remedy for that state, namely, faith in the crucified and risen Christ as Lord.This is updated and freshly formatted edition by H&E Publishing in partnership with the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.