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Puritan Conferences

Series Summary

Beginning in 1950, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones hosted an annual conference at Westminster Chapel in London devoted to the study of the Puritans and their continuing relevance to the Christian church. Co-founded with J.I. Packer and …

Sermons


Puritan Perplexities: Some Lessons from 1640-1662

The year 1662 marked a decisive turning point in English church history—the final defeat of Puritan hopes for a truly Reformed Church of England. In this penetrating historical address, Dr. Lloyd-Jones examines why the Commonwealth period's promise collapsed into the Restoration Settlement, when two thousand faithful ministers were ejected from their pulpits for refusing to compromise their convictions. What caused this catastrophic failure? The answer reveals uncomfortable truths: the fatal mixture of religion and politics, devastating divisions among those who agreed on doctrine, and the persistent allure of establishment thinking that preferred state sanction to spiritual purity. <br><br>Yet Dr. Lloyd-Jones does not merely recount history—he applies it with surgical precision to the contemporary church. Standing at a moment when everything seemed "in the melting pot" once more, with denominational barriers weakening and new ecclesiastical arrangements emerging, he warns that the same dangers threaten again. The lesson of 1662 is primarily one of warning: against allowing secondary matters to divide those united on gospel essentials, against seeking worldly methods to advance spiritual ends, against the compromises that flow from desiring state recognition over faithfulness to Scripture. Here is a clarion call to prioritize the purity of the gospel, the freedom of the church, and the authority of conscience above institutional unity or political expedience.