Light from Old Times by J. C. Ryle

Author:J. C. Ryle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion & Spirituality
Published: 2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

SAMUEL WARD

SAMUEL WARD, an eminent Suffolk divine, and one of the most famous Pu-ritans of the seventeenth century, is a man whose name is comparatively unknown to most readers of English theology. This is easily accounted for. He wrote but little, and what he wrote has never been reprinted till very lately. Owen, Baxter, Gurnal, Charnock, Goodwin, Adams, Brooks, Watson, Greenhill, Sibbes, Jenkyn, Manton, Burroughs, Bolton, and others, have been reprinted, either wholly or partially. Of Samuel Ward, so far as I can ascertain, not a word has been reprinted for more than two hundred years.

How far Samuel Ward's sermons have deserved this neglect, I am con-tent to leave to the judgment of all students of theology into whose hands his sermons may fall. But I venture the opinion, that it reflects little credit on the discretion of republishers of old divinity that such a writer as Samuel Ward has been so long passed over. His case, however, does not stand alone. When such works as those of Swinnock, Arrowsmith on John i., Gouge on Hebrews, Airay on Philippians, John Rogers on 1 Peter, Hardy on 1 John, Daniel Rogers on Naaman the Syrian (to say nothing of some of the best works of Manton and Brooks), have been only recently thought worthy of republication, we must not be surprised at the treatment which Ward has received.

As a Suffolk minister, and a thorough lover of Puritan theology, I desire to supply some information about Ward in this biographical paper. I should have been especially pleased if it had been in my power to write a complete memoir of the man and his ministry. I regret, however, to be obliged to say that the materials from which any account of him can be compiled are exceedingly scanty, and the facts known about him are comparatively few. Nor yet, unhappily, is this difficulty the only one with which I have had to contend. It is a very curious circumstance, that no less than three divines named "S. Ward" lived in the first half of the seventeenth century, and were all members of Sydney College, Cambridge! These three were Dr. Samuel Ward, Master of Sydney College, who was one of the English Commission-ers at the Synod of Dort, and a correspondent of Archbishop Usher; - Seth Ward, who was successively Bishop of Exeter and Salisbury; - and Samuel Ward of Ipswich, whose sermons are now reprinted. Of these three, the two "Samuels" were undoubtedly the most remarkable men; but the similarity of their names has hitherto involved their biographies in much confusion. I can only say that I have done my best, in the face of these accumulated difficul-ties, to unravel a tangled skein, and to supply the reader with accurate in-formation.

The story of Samuel Ward's life is soon told. He was born at Haverhill, in Suffolk, in the year 1577, and was eldest son of the Rev. John Ward, min-ister of the Gospel in that town. John Ward, the father of Samuel Ward, ap-pears to have been a man of considerable eminence as a minister and preacher.

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