Select Page

Joseph Symonds (d.1652)

A Reformed preacher who wrote one of the best expositions on desertion.
Today, many Christians are turning back to the puritans to, “walk in the old paths,” of God’s word, and to continue to proclaim old truth that glorifies Jesus Christ. There is no new theology. In our electronic age, more and more people are looking to add electronic books (ePubs, mobi and PDF formats) to their library – books from the Reformers and Puritans – in order to become a “digital puritan” themselves. Take a moment to visit Puritan Publications (click the banner below) to find the biggest selection of rare puritan works updated in modern English in both print form and in multiple electronic forms. There are new books published every month. All proceeds go to support A Puritan’s Mind.

“RULE. Hold this as a fixed verity, that that is best which God wills. All that have come to God believe this, else they would have not come; for what could draw the heart from all its good but that which is greater than all? But though this is habitually in them, yet they do not always actually believe it; for what should be the cause of their excursions and deviations but because at present they think it better to walk in another way than the way of God.”

His Works:

The works of Joseph Symonds:
The Case and Cure of a Deserted Soul. (305 pages) Book Review of this work…
A Sermon Lately Preached at Westminster. (36 pages)

 

Biography of Joseph Symonds (d.1652):

Joseph Symonds was some time the worthy assistant of Mr. Thomas Gataker, at Rotherhithe, near London; but afterwards he became rector of St. Martin’s, Ironmongers’lane, in the city. Having espoused the sentiments of the independents, he forsook the church of England, left his benefice, and went to Holland. After his departure, Archbishop Laud, in the year 1639, pronounced against him the sentence of deprivation, by which the good man lost his living, after he had given it up4 Mr. Symonds having sacrificed his benefice, to escape the storm of persecution, settled at Rotterdam, where he was chosen pastor to the English church, in the place of Mr. Sydrach Sympson. In this situation, his deportment and his doctrine were particularly conciliatory, and his labours eminently useful. Mr. Edwards, to reproach his sentiments and to cloud his memory, says, “that his independent church at Rotterdam was overgown with anabaptism; and that he wrote to his friends in ngland, saying, he was so pestered with anabaptists, that he knew not what to do.” Mr. Robert Park, afterwards one of the ejected nonconformists, was his assistant in the pastoral office. It appears that he was living in the year 1646, and still pastor of the church at Rotterdam. Though he was an independent, Edwards styles him ” one of the most moderate and modest of that way.” Several pieces, written by a person of the same name, occur in the Sion and Bodleian catalogues. Though pastor of a church in a foreign land, he was sometimes called to preach before the parliament, as appears from one of his sermons afterwards published with this title, “A Sermon lately preached at Westminster, before sundry of the Honourable House of Commons, 1641: By Joseph Symonds, late minister in Ironmongers’-lane, London, now pastor of the Church at Rotterdam.”

[See Edwards’s Gangrsena, part iii. p. 241, 842. Ibid. p. 131, 243. Wharton’s Troubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 559. Bailie’s Dissuasive, p. 84, 175. Ldivardk’s Gangnena, part ii. p. 16.]

 

Offsite Banner Ad:

Help Support APM

Search the Site

Reformed Theology at A Puritan's Mind