How would Puritan ministers go about evangelizing?

Joel Beeke explains that there were four distinct characteristics of Puritan evangelism.

First, their evangelism was biblical. They always used biblical texts. They were men of the book. Second, they evangelized doctrinally. They knew how to take biblical truths and use Scripture to convict people of sin.

Third, they evangelized experientially. They taught their congregations how the believer experiences the doctrines of grace and what he should experience if he is a true believer. Fourth, they evangelized symmetrically. They were balanced. They taught the gravity and enormity of sin and the beauty of Christ.

Additionally, Puritan ministers not only taught the Gospel from the pulpit, but they modeled an evangelistic lifestyle in their own lives. A minister was the same in the church as he was at home. There was no disconnect. He prayed for his congregation.

Puritan ministers commonly declared, “Wherever I go, wherever I do, and wherever I visit, I must leave the savor of Christ behind me.”

Titus 2:1 (NKJV) – “[S]peak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.”

Our Lord's last command is our first priority. In the Church, in the family, in the city, to the ends of the earth. Join us in October for White Under Harvest. Now, in the church, the minister would actually catechize and evangelize from the pulpit as well, and he would often preach evangelistic sermons. He wouldn't assume that all his people were saved.

In fact, he actually assumed that some of them weren't saved even if they were confessing faith because people can easily deceive themselves. So they preached very searching sermons. Now when they evangelized their people, they really evangelized in fourfold way. First of all, their evangelization was very biblical. They always used biblical texts.

In fact, they were at home in Nahum and Habakkuk as they were in the Gospel of John or Romans. So they were men of the book and they knew how to evangelize biblically. They also evangelized, secondly, doctrinally. And what they did there is they knew how to take the Bible truths and bring them into a system and They knew how to evangelize through convicting people of sin, showing them deliverance in Jesus Christ, and then teaching them that once they're delivered in Christ, they have to live a lifestyle of gratitude. And then thirdly, they evangelized experientially.

They taught their congregations how the believer experiences the doctrines of grace in his own soul and what he should be experiencing if he's truly a believer. And then finally, I would use the term symmetrically. They evangelized symmetrically. They were balanced. They taught about the gravity and enormity of sin, and then they taught about the glorious beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and his full-orbed deliverance through his active and passive obedience, and they talked about experiencing 100% gratitude.

So it was 100% sin, 100% deliverance, 100% gratitude. And lastly, I would say, they taught all of this not only from the pulpit but they lived it in their lives and perhaps that's the most we can learn from the Puritan minister. He modeled an evangelistic lifestyle when he spoke to people. He was as holy on the church parking lot afterward when he spoke to people as he appeared to be on the pulpit when he preached to people. There wasn't a disconnect between the pulpit and his daily life.

And he then took that evangelistic spirit into the inner closet and prayed for his people and poured out his soul for people and wept for people. He was an evangelist in his closet, an evangelist in his pastoral work, and an evangelist in the pulpit. In fact, the Puritan minister said, wherever I go and whatever I do and wherever I visit, I must leave the Savior of Christ behind me. You