Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. By Dane Ortland. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020. 224 pp. Paper, $19.99.
A friend gave me this book. It examines the writings of several Puritans, including Thomas Goodwin, John Bunyan, and Jonathan Edwards.
It is the bestselling book on Amazon.com in the religious counseling category. Over 11,000 people have rated the book.
This book presents a side of Puritanism—the softer side—that is rarely seen.
Some quotations in the book make the Puritan writers—and Ortland as he summarizes their theology—sound as if they held to Free Grace Theology:
“We are apt to think that he, being so holy, is therefore of a severe and sour disposition against sinners, and not able to bear them. ‘No,’ says he; ‘I am meek; gentleness is my nature and temper’” (Goodwin, p. 23).
“It is impossible for the affectionate heart of Christ to be overcelebrated, made too much of, exaggerated” (Ortland, p. 29).
“Authentic regeneration is the invincibilizing [sic] of our future” (Ortland, p. 193).
“As God did not at first choose you because you were high, he will not now forsake you because you are low” (Flavel, p. 194).
“If you are in Christ…your waywardness does not threaten your place in the love of God any more than history itself can be undone” (Ortland, p. 194).
“Nothing can now un-child you. Not even you. Those in Christ are eternally imprisoned with the tender heart of God” (Ortland, p. 195).
“If you are united to Christ, you are as good as in heaven already” (Ortland, p. 195).
“You have often left him; has he ever left you?” (Spurgeon, p. 195).
It is easy to see why people like this book.
As Paul Harvey used to say, I’m going to share the rest of the story.
David Engelsma, a modified five-point Calvinist, warned about Puritan theology in his booklet, The Gift of Assurance. He wrote:
Do not quench the Spirit of assurance either by listening to Puritan preaching that is forever questioning your assurance, forever challenging your right to assurance, forever sending you on a quest for assurance, and forever instilling doubt. The Spirit does not work assurance by means of a gospel of doubt (p. 53).
While that teaching is not prevalent in Gentle and Lowly, it is present. As the quotations given above show, Ortland often writes about “authentic regeneration,” “those in Christ,” and “if you are united to Christ.” That is the Puritan way of saying that eternal security applies only to the elect.
Ortland wrote, “We are talking about something deeper than the doctrine of eternal security…sometimes called the perseverance of the saints” (p. 65). He added, “Yes, professing Christians can fall away, proving that they were never truly in Christ” (p. 66).
I recommend this book for well-grounded believers. There is much encouraging information here, as long as one can avoid getting pulled into a Puritan view of assurance and regeneration.
Robert N. Wilkin
Associate Editor
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
