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'''William Gurnall''', author of 'The Christian in Complete Armour,' is a man about whom the world possesses singularly little information. Perhaps there is no writer who has left a name so familiar to all readers of puritan theology, but of whose personal history so little is known. Except the three facts, that he was a puritan divine of the seventeenth century,—that he was minister of Lavenham,—and that he wrote a well-known book of practical divinity, most persons know nothing of William Gurnall.{{br}}

This dearth of information about so good a man appears at first sight extraordinary and unaccountable. Born, as he was, in a seaport town of no mean importance,—the son of parents who held a prominent position in the town,—educated at Cambridge, at one of the best-known colleges of the day,—the co-temporary of leading divines of the commonwealth times,—minister of the largest church in West Suffolk for the uninterrupted period of thirty-five years,—author of a work which, from its first appearance, was eminently popular,—Gurnall was a man, we naturally feel, of whom more ought to be known. How is it then that more is not known? How shall we account for the absence of any notice of him in the biographical writings of his day?

I believe that these questions admit of a very simple answer. That answer is to be found in the line of conduct which Gurnall followed in the year 1662, on the passing of the Act of Uniformity. He did not secede from the Church of England. He was not one of the famous two thousand ministers who gave up their preferment on St. Bartholomew's Day, and became Nonconformists. He retained his position, and continued rector of Lavenham. Puritan as he undoubtedly was, both in doctrine and practice, he did not do what many of his brethren did. When Baxter, Manton, Owen, Goodwin, and a host of other giants in theology, seceded from the Church of England, Gurnall stood fast, and refused to move. He did not act with the party with which he had generally acted, and was left behind.{{br}}