I’m not sure why this hasn’t come to my attention before now but I recently found this absolute goldmine of spiritual treasure on the internet – Puritan Search. In my, and many others’, opinion, the Puritans were unequalled in the quality and depth of their writings and I probably quote them more than any others.
Puritan Search is, in their words, “a fully searchable database of over 980 Puritans and Non-Conformists, containing the full texts of over 6,600 works. That is about 649,000 pages of Puritan and Non-Conformists literature! This software allows one to, within seconds, search this entire corpus for keywords, phrases, authors, dates, or scriptures. This software also allows you to selectively choose whether you want to search all 980 or so authors, or a single author, or any combination in between.
“This software has been made available to the public free of charge, and anybody is free to download it, and duplicate it, though selling for commercial use or profit is strictly prohibited. Our hope in offering this free, is that anybody, anywhere, regardless of income, can mine these treasures without finances potentially being a hindrance. We especially have in mind Pastors who would not only use it for their personal study, but would also like to make copies and hand them out to their congregations without the need to pay for personal licenses for every congregant. The Missionary, who may want a tool to give out to Pastors in developing countries, or those Pastors themselves if they stumble upon this software on the web. Also, the Student or Teacher/Professor, who may not have much money for another specialty software to save themselves the financial burden of obtaining this resource tool and utilizing it for research or studies. Or, the Layman or Laywoman who enjoys Puritan works and would like to have a tool to dig deeper within them for general devotional purposes.
“This software can be run natively on any OS; whether Windows, Mac, or Linux. It can also be simply unzipped and copy and pasted onto a Flash Drive for portability. There are no strings attached, we only ask that if this has blessed you, tell someone about it. Our goal is to see the proliferation of Puritan literature in the world, because we strongly believe that this period in church history, collectively, despite certain nuances, is one of the most blessed ages of doctrinal orthodoxy. Our hope is that this would bless you and help you dig deeper into Puritan thought.”
Apart from anything else, it’s completely FREE, so why wouldn’t you download it?