"We all owe a debt to the Puritans" -JC Ryle

[Gallery of famous seventeenth-century Puritan theologians: Thomas Gouge, William Bridge, Thomas Manton, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, William Bates, John Owen, John Howe, Richard Baxter.]

"Let us settle it down in our minds that for sound doctrine, spirituality, and learning combined, the Puritans stand at the head of English divines. With all their faults, weaknesses, and defects, they alone kept the lamp pure, evangelical religion burning in this country in the time of the Stuarts,--they alone prevented Laud's Popish inclinations carrying England back into the arms of Rome. It was they who fought the battle for religious freedom, of which we are reaping such fruits. It was they who crushed the wretched spirit of inquisitorial persecution which misguided high-Churchmen tried to introduce into this land.

Let us give them the honour they deserve. Let us suffer no man to speak lightly of them in our presence.

Let us remember our obligations to them, reverence their memory, stand up boldly for their reputation, and never be afraid to plead their cause. It is the cause of pure evangelical religion. It is the cause of an open Bible and liberty to meet and read and pray together. It is the cause of liberty of conscience."-JC Ryle