"'Our books may come to be seen where ourselves shall never be heard. These may preach where the author cannot, and (which is more) when he is not."

This prediction by one of the great Puritans has had many fulfillments. An ungodly Welsh clergyman, shopping at a fair in the eighteenth century, bought an article which happened to be wrapped in a page torn from an old Puritan folio. The reading of that one page led to his sound conversion.

As Luther said, 'Satan hates the use of pens,' and never were pens more powerfully wielded in the cause of God than by the Puritan divines of the seventeenth century. Nor have their books outlived their usefulness. Although the original volumes are worn with age, the truths found in them are as fresh as the new formats in which they are now appearing.

There is no better introduction to the Puritans than the writings of Richard Sibbes, who is, in many ways a typical Puritan. 'Sibbes never wastes the student's time,' wrote C.H. Sprugeon, 'he scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands.'

Since its first publication in 1630, The Bruised Reed has been remarkably fruitful as a source of spiritual help and comfort. Richard Baxter records: ' A poor pedlar came to the door... and my father bought of him Sibb's Bruised Reed... It suited my state... and gave me a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ... Without any means but books was God pleased to resolve me to himself.'

Such testimonies could be multiplied. Speaking of the preacher's need to suit his reading to the varying conditions he finds within, Dr. Martyn Llyod-Jones says in his Preaching and Preachers: