Book Description

Nicholas Byfield (1579–1622) was a Calvinistic puritan divine with a sweet preaching style akin to that of Thomas Watson, and a simple writing style with the practicality of Jeremiah Burroughs. He was an extremely popular puritan in his day. The Gospel has certain non-negotiable qualities to it in order to be believed. What are those non-negotiable traits? Byfield demonstrates the necessary Christian truths of the Gospel – what one must believe in order to have true saving faith. He will talk quite a lot about the Old Testament. The Gospel can certainly be found there. He will talk quite a lot about the New Testament. The Gospel can be found there as well, with greater clarity standing in the same substance of the “everlasting covenant” of Christ. In either testament, the substance of the Gospel for all believers remains the same, and focuses on God’s one and only Savior. God has bound himself to save in a specific manner with a specific message. People cannot be saved by general revelation of nature. People are only saved through special revelation, which argues a specific message (otherwise such revelation would not be needed). Byfield is very liberal in using the entire Bible, all of the Word of God, to explain all those necessary truths in order to understand God’s merciful message of salvation, and point men to the Christ. He will show that “faith” is believing and trusting in the divine object (Jesus Christ) of a specific message (the good news) and knowing that such an object of knowledge is good (that it comes from God and is necessary to understand to cultivate saving faith). No one would ever trust in anything they did not know to be good for them in that way, and Byfield will set up these Gospel truths in such a way that you might come to know them in a simple and most plain manner. This work is not a scan or facsimile, and has been updated in modern English for easy reading. It also has an active table of contents for electronic versions.