Puritan Research Tools - Free Access

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davejonescue

Puritan Board Junior
Hello everybody. I am new here, and am really just beginning my journey into the fascinating world of Puritan literature. I am personally awed at the way the Puritans can at one moment bring you to a position of tearful repentance, then in the same discourse fill your heart with the joy, of the inexpressible depth of the mercy of God, and his abounding love for his children. With that being said, unfortunately, I will not be able to converse on here as much as would like for a while. And this brings me to my next point.

Before I really wanted to dig deep into the Puritans, I was taken aback by the sheer volume of their collected works. In the beginning, I thought there were only a few of them, since in most places that dont really focus on the Puritans, many are not mentioned. But as I started to see that there were not simply 20, or 30 of them; but hundreds of them something inside of me, by Gods grace, desired to see what the collective Puritan thought would be say for a topic like "faith," or "justification" or "sin." So, after brainstorming I came up with a way that is pretty proficient, but also free.

Basically what I did was created a list of Puritans from several sources; APM's Puritan Bio's, Pedersons & Beekes "Meet the Puritans" and Brook's 3 vol. Lives of the Puritans. That gave me about 650 names to go through, look up and search for. Then, I was able to see some posts from here, doing a simple Google search, and was able to garnish some names. And then I looked on PRDL, under their Puritan heading, and went through their list of names. I also checked the Dictionary of National Biography and got some names from their Puritan headings. Right now, I am slowly going through Lyons "Original records of early nonconformity under persecution and indulgence." This latter resource has given me about 2000 names, and so far, after almost concluding the "G's" I have found 117 works covering 36 authors. The place I am looking for works in is EEBO-TCP, or, the public domain sector of EEBO, which is available for anybody to use, for any purpose; as it states on their site. In total, I have collected about 5,100 works, covering 600 Puritans (& Non-Conformists.)

While I know, the works I have collected are not an extensive or completely exhaustive list of all the authors works; I did, just on the premise of order, want to keep this collection strictly from EEBO-TCP (PD.) The Index that has been, and is in the process of being created, utilizes Logos powerful search engine, and the Personal Book option. It can be used if one owns Logos already, or, the Basic version can be used free of charge. I have gone through the process of creating these personal books, each consisting of around 2,000-3,000 11pt pages. So far, I believe I have done around 169 volumes, consisting of around 360,000 or more pages of text, covering 450 or so Puritans, and including around 4,200 works. As of right now, I still have about 150 authors and 1,000 works to make volumes/Personal Books for; and this is without being even half way done going though Lyon's Non-Conformists.

With that being said, I didnt join this site just to push this on people; I really do see a day where I will be able to have awesome and deep conversations, plus I look forward mostly just to be able to read what you all who are more versed in the Puritans than I am have to say. But I was also thinking this may help someone now. It might be sometime until I am actually "free" lol. As I may try to create a portable version of this resource using Doc Fetcher, for those who do not want to install the Personal Books (because installing almost 200 Personal Books does take patience,) and for missionaries, and for the ability for people to give this to others overseas on something as simple and cost affective as a flash-drive. But that would be after I complete it for use in Logos first; and that would be Lord Willing.

Below will be two links, one to a video on Youtube that explains the resource; because it saves me so much time having to repeat the same instructions by typing it out each time. And, there will be a link included to a Zotero Public Library I created where all of the Puritan books in EEBO-TCP are linked, and neatly listed; as this has been the software I have been using to complete the former. I really hope this doesnt break any rules. I am not trying to advertise anything I would profit from. This whole resource is completely free, with the simple goal to glorify God. Because I am under the firm belief, that if revival is going to come to this nation, it is going to come through the Spirit working in the writings of the Puritans. I hope everybody has a blessed day, and look forward to meeting many of you all.

Puritan Index -

Zotero Complete EEBO-PD (TCP) Puritan Library - https://www.zotero.org/groups/4718955/eebo_-_public_domain_complete_puritan_works/library

 
Wow, this looks like a lot of work, and very useful!
Thank you. It is funny how the Lord has worked when doing this. At first, I only thought I had 250 names to research and link as per APM's "Puritan Bio's." But after I was already into it 20 or 30 volumes, the Lord brought to my attention Brooks 3 vol. "Lives of the Puritans" which put my list of names to 650. Then, after that I became aware of Beekes and Pedersons "Meet the" and more names were added. As I was finishing my 140th 2,000-3,000 page volume, the Lord brought to my attention that the DNB had a host of Puritan names not previously listed, which then led someone to mentioning the Puritan section on PRDL, which gave me more names. Finally, I was made aware of the work by Lyon, which brought my name count to over 2,000.

So, to say the least, God in his wisdom made this a progressive effort; not putting all those names in front of me at first, but first allowing me to see the possibility of its completion before adding the entirety of the names possible.

I am very excited for this as a resource though. I already have a few projects I want to work on, if the Lord permits, when the Index is completed. One, is possibly doing an extensive collection of Puritan prayers. I know there is a few volumes out that cover a few; but when I put in something as simple as "a prayer for" into this Puritan Collection in Logos, I get no less that 1,200 results. While not all of them will be a distinct prayer, many of them will be; and this would make for a more comprehensive collection of such, since with this Index one has the ability to search almost the entire corpus of known Puritan/Non-Conformists works. Another project I would like to do is a Puritan Commentary on the 1689-LBC. Since this Index would not only allow me to search for the topics of each point; but also the scripture references, theoretically once can make a very exhaustive study aid for that work simply linking primary source material apart from personal commentary. And finally, what I dream of, would be to have a Puritan Commentary on Scripture like the ACCS (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture) did utilizing the commentary of the Church Fathers. And this Index, I believe would make something like that possible.

But as a stand alone research tool, I also believe it is powerful; especially for ministers as say they were preaching on a scripture, or topic; they could type that in and see the entirety of Puritan thought on the issue; without having to scour through tons of physical books. Or even for personal devotion; say I wanted to sit down and study what the Puritans thought about faith; I could type that in and research the 1,000's of places it is mentioned within the 1,000's of volumes of Puritan literature, without having to wade through or own 1,000's of books to do so. I know there was something like the Puritan Hard Drive; but of what I heard, most of it was not literature, and it was a mixture of Puritan and post-Puritan Reformation literature. This collection I have been creating is strictly Puritan/Non-Conformist literature, with names taken from reputable sources, with professionally transcribed text from EEBO-TCP. If the Puritan Hard Drive simply OCRed original facsimiles using say Adobe or ABBYY, which I dont know if they did, the search results are going to be limited in comparison to EEBO-TCP, as much of the literature of that day was written in a weird font that is hard to OCR with commercial software, as I have tried. This isnt a bash on them, or in any way say this resource is better or worse, but, just reiterating this is a different type of resource that specifically deals with 16th and 17th century Puritans, as, in reality, that is the limitation of EEBO-TCP.

My ultimate goal is to break down the barrier (if any exist) between the common man, or those without access to seminary or scholarly libraries, researching the Puritans, and the ability for us all to simply go to the source without depending so much on human commentary. While the expertise of scholars cannot be undermined, there is something satisfying and secure with being able to search for ourselves, within the primary sources, if something someone says is so. In the end, I just hope it blesses the body, and personally, I am really excited to see the potential for future Puritan works and publications that may come of it, not only from the most profound scholars in the field of Puritan studies, but of the commoner who would take the time to search the Puritan corpus, and put together a collection or anthology of primary quotes or texts regarding the vast array of theological topics the Puritans dealt with.
 
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I’ve only skimmed, but great work!
 
Hello everybody. I am new here, and am really just beginning my journey into the fascinating world of Puritan literature. I am personally awed at the way the Puritans can at one moment bring you to a position of tearful repentance, then in the same discourse fill your heart with the joy, of the inexpressible depth of the mercy of God, and his abounding love for his children. With that being said, unfortunately, I will not be able to converse on here as much as would like for a while. And this brings me to my next point.

Before I really wanted to dig deep into the Puritans, I was taken aback by the sheer volume of their collected works. In the beginning, I thought there were only a few of them, since in most places that dont really focus on the Puritans, many are not mentioned. But as I started to see that there were not simply 20, or 30 of them; but hundreds of them something inside of me, by Gods grace, desired to see what the collective Puritan thought would be say for a topic like "faith," or "justification" or "sin." So, after brainstorming I came up with a way that is pretty proficient, but also free.

Basically what I did was created a list of Puritans from several sources; APM's Puritan Bio's, Pedersons & Beekes "Meet the Puritans" and Brook's 3 vol. Lives of the Puritans. That gave me about 650 names to go through, look up and search for. Then, I was able to see some posts from here, doing a simple Google search, and was able to garnish some names. And then I looked on PRDL, under their Puritan heading, and went through their list of names. I also checked the Dictionary of National Biography and got some names from their Puritan headings. Right now, I am slowly going through Lyons "Original records of early nonconformity under persecution and indulgence." This latter resource has given me about 2000 names, and so far, after almost concluding the "G's" I have found 117 works covering 36 authors. The place I am looking for works in is EEBO-TCP, or, the public domain sector of EEBO, which is available for anybody to use, for any purpose; as it states on their site. In total, I have collected about 5,100 works, covering 600 Puritans (& Non-Conformists.)

While I know, the works I have collected are not an extensive or completely exhaustive list of all the authors works; I did, just on the premise of order, want to keep this collection strictly from EEBO-TCP (PD.) The Index that has been, and is in the process of being created, utilizes Logos powerful search engine, and the Personal Book option. It can be used if one owns Logos already, or, the Basic version can be used free of charge. I have gone through the process of creating these personal books, each consisting of around 2,000-3,000 11pt pages. So far, I believe I have done around 169 volumes, consisting of around 360,000 or more pages of text, covering 450 or so Puritans, and including around 4,200 works. As of right now, I still have about 150 authors and 1,000 works to make volumes/Personal Books for; and this is without being even half way done going though Lyon's Non-Conformists.

With that being said, I didnt join this site just to push this on people; I really do see a day where I will be able to have awesome and deep conversations, plus I look forward mostly just to be able to read what you all who are more versed in the Puritans than I am have to say. But I was also thinking this may help someone now. It might be sometime until I am actually "free" lol. As I may try to create a portable version of this resource using Doc Fetcher, for those who do not want to install the Personal Books (because installing almost 200 Personal Books does take patience,) and for missionaries, and for the ability for people to give this to others overseas on something as simple and cost affective as a flash-drive. But that would be after I complete it for use in Logos first; and that would be Lord Willing.

Below will be two links, one to a video on Youtube that explains the resource; because it saves me so much time having to repeat the same instructions by typing it out each time. And, there will be a link included to a Zotero Public Library I created where all of the Puritan books in EEBO-TCP are linked, and neatly listed; as this has been the software I have been using to complete the former. I really hope this doesnt break any rules. I am not trying to advertise anything I would profit from. This whole resource is completely free, with the simple goal to glorify God. Because I am under the firm belief, that if revival is going to come to this nation, it is going to come through the Spirit working in the writings of the Puritans. I hope everybody has a blessed day, and look forward to meeting many of you all.

Puritan Index -

Zotero Complete EEBO-PD (TCP) Puritan Library - https://www.zotero.org/groups/4718955/eebo_-_public_domain_complete_puritan_works/library

Nice work! I can't wait to spend some time digging into this collection.
 
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