The Puritan Thomas Goodwin once remarked that “In Christ are treasures that will require digging to the end of the world.” The riches of Christ pose a paradox to us: they are “unsearchable riches” (Eph. 3:8), and yet those who seek them with diligence will find them (Prov. 8:17). In other words, the digging never ends, but in the digging, we experience the treasure of Christ himself. 

Imagine opening your mailbox tomorrow and finding, tucked within the pile of junk mail and bills, a document with “Open Me” stamped in bold letters on its front.

The mysterious paper is weathered and includes no information about its sender. You dare to carefully unfold the paper. You’re shocked to discover a treasure map staring back at you, with “X” marking the spot.

You might think it’s a practical joke, a cheap scam, and quickly dismiss it. It seems like pure fantasy. 

But what if it was real? What if you held in your hands the promise of real riches that belonged to you, if only you were willing to do the searching and digging?

The Puritans as Map-Makers

The Puritan Thomas Goodwin once remarked that “In Christ are treasures that will require digging to the end of the world.” The riches of Christ pose a paradox to us: they are “unsearchable riches” (Eph. 3:8), and yet those who seek them with diligence will find them (Prov. 8:17).

In other words, the digging never ends, but in the digging, we experience the treasure of Christ himself.

It’s not always easy to mine the riches of Christ. But hunting such treasures proves much easier when we have the right tools and guides to help us find what we’re looking for. Every treasure needs a map. And the Puritans have proved to be expert cartographers in this regard, pointing the way for us to find the glorious treasures awaiting us in Christ.

Puritans—these men and women from the late sixteenth to eighteenth centuries were some of the first baton-carriers of the Protestant Reformation. Puritanism was birthed out of a “protestant” conviction that the Church of England was beyond reform and that sound doctrine needed to be recovered.

Theirs was not a perfect episode in the history of the Church (as if there ever was one), but they did much to advance the true gospel, specifically in Europe and America. There are four themes I find within the writings of the Puritans that I have found myself especially grateful for.

The Seriousness of Sin

Piety might be what the Puritans are best known for, but it’s often meant as a critique. They are sometimes considered overly pious people who had their nose in everyone’s business, constantly dwelling on the badness of man. Their writings, if read in this light, can come across as self-deprecating, judgmental, or even hypocritical.

But here’s one thing we should all be able to agree on about the Puritans: they were not casual about sin. For the Puritans, there was never the impulse to “go on sinning so that grace may increase” (Rom. 6:1). The Puritans were not by any stretch “legalists,” but they were especially not antinomians (those who believe God doesn’t expect Christians to obey moral laws). They were keenly attuned to the total nature of their depravity.

I’m reminded of a story involving the late R.C. Sproul. During a Q&A session once, the moderator presented Sproul with a question to this effect: “Since God is slow to anger, why was his wrath against man in the Garden so severe?” Sproul replied, in his winsome fashion, “Timeout. This creature from the dirt defied the everlasting, holy God . . . and instead of dying that day, [Adam] lived another day, and was clothed in his nakedness, by pure grace . . . and the punishment was too severe? What’s wrong with you people?!”

The audience roared with laughter, but Sproul wasn’t joking. “I’m serious! This is what’s wrong with the Christian church today,” he said. “We don’t know who God is. And we don’t know who we are. The question is, why wasn’t it infinitely more severe?”

When you read the Puritans, it’s humbling to see how honest they are about their shortcomings. We’re usually too shameful to commit such things to writing. But the Puritans treated their sin with the utmost seriousness. In a day where some pastors and churches have turned grace into license, or felt God’s wrath to be too severe, we need a reminder of the weight of our sin.

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