The Almost Christian
Puritan Book Reviews
How do you know you are really and
truly a Christian?
The Almost Christian Discovered
by Matthew Mead
Soli Deo Gloria Publications, Pittsburgh, PA: 1993.
166 Pages, Hardback.
This work is Matthew
Mead’s (1629-1699) most popular and well-received work, both in his
day and in ours. It ranks among the top 10 books on the Soli Deo Gloria
website for all-time best sellers.
Tis’ no wonder why.
Not only was Mead effective in his preaching in Stepney, London,
but his aptness to teach and preach is clearly seen in this polemic work
even for the Christian of our own day.
The work is divided
into 5 questions. Question
1 is dealt with under 20 main sections of thought, with the remaining 4
questions answered at the end of the book.
The first question which is most thoroughly explained is this:
How far may a man go in the way to heaven and be almost a Christian?
This question is a reformulation of Acts 26:28, “Almost thou
persuadest me to be a Christian.”
The damning heresy of
easy believism is a stench in the nostrils of God in the “Christian”
pulpit today. The Puritans in no way accepted the common ideas of “easy
believism” and “cheap grace.”
Men do not simply walk the isle and become Christians. They must be born again of the living Branch and abide in
Him, lest they miscarry unto damnation.
But it is with this who think they are saved and are not that
Mead is dealing with in this work.
He describes how much and how far a man may go, even to the
point of having some affects of the Spirit in his life, and still
miscarry to hell. The
Puritans, like Christ, made a great distinction between real faith which
is planted in the “good soil” and the spurious faith of those that
spring up for a time, no matter how long that time may be.
Many who have read this
book do not come away with a “warm fuzzy feeling.”
They read this book then sit in contemplation as to whether they
are truly saved or not. Mead
is not trying, though, to pull grace from the true believer’s heart,
but he is weeding out those problematic ideologies which cause men to
think they are saved when in fact they may not be.
I enjoyed this work especially for that practical reason: it is
not a book to read and put on the shelf.
It impels you to reflect on your own life and examine your
Christian walk before God.
This work comes highly
recommended by all neo-Puritans who love the Christ of the Bible.
Some Quotes:
A Christian is a disciple of
Jesus Christ, one who believes in and follows Christ.
Now a man may have his
understanding enlightened and yet his will not at all sanctified.
Common knowledge is
that which floats in the head but does not influence the heart.
It is a great deceit to
measure the substance of our religion by the bulk of our profession, and
to judge of the strength of our graces by the length of our duties.
No man was ever kept
out of heaven for his confessed badness, though many are kept out of
heaven for their supposed goodness.
The ground of many a
man’s engaging in religion is the trouble of his conscience, and the
end of his continuing in religion is the quieting of conscience.
There are two things
very hard: one is to take the shame of our sins to ourselves, the other
is to give the glory of our services to Christ. |
