One of Jonathan Edwards’ Pneumatological Convictions

The Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards are well-known. They can easily be misconstrued, though. One might think that they were being attempted on the basis of native strength. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is Edwards in his Diary for January 2, 1722 (less than a year after his conversion):

“I find, by experience, that, let me make resolutions, and do what I will, with never so many inventions, it is all nothing, and to no purpose at all, without the motions of the Holy Spirit; for if the Spirit of God should be as much withdrawn from me…, I should not grow, but should languish, and miserably fade away.”[1]

[1] Cited Sereno E. Dwight, “Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, A. M.” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, revised and corr. Edward Hickman (1834 ed.; repr. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 1:xxiv].

Beddome Hymn: “Under Dark Providence”

Here is a good hymn by Beddome (HT: Gray Brady: Hymn Dark Providence)—it well expresses my current feelings:

Under Dark Providence

Great God, how deep thy counsels are, To mortals quite unknown; In vain we search with curious eye, For darkness veils thy throne.

Yet would we wish for grace divine, To guide our mental powers; And midst perplexing scenes of life To know that thou art ours.

‘Let there be light,’ was once the word. Oh be it so again! What thou hast promised, Lord, we seek, Nor let us seek in vain.

Benjamin Beddome Blog

Wow! What a serendipity! I just found the blog entitled Benjamin Beddome, on one of my favourite Baptist forebears. Beddome (1717-1795) was in many ways a remarkable preacher and hymnwriter—one of the two most important Baptist hymnwriters of the “long” eighteenth century, the other being Anne Steele (1717-1778). The writer of the blog is Pastor Gray Brady—many thanks, dear brother for blogging on this forgotten Baptist hero.

By the way, there is a fascinating link between Beddome and Steele, since he once proposed marriage to her, and she refused him! There is a letter from Beddome in this regard in the Archives of the Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, the University of Oxford. An independent scholar, Mr. Stephen Pickles of Oxford, alerted me to this gem a few years ago.

Samuel Pearce: Instructive Views on War

Though Baptists have uniformly deplored war, they have nonetheless recognized that sometimes armed conflict is necessary. In the words of The Second London Confession of Faith, the so-called 1689 Confession of Faith, which functioned as the key Baptist doctrinal standard from Baptist origins in the mid-17th century down to the Victorian era: “New Testament teaching authorizes [kingdoms and states] to wage war when this is found to be just and necessary.” [The 1689 Confession 24.2 [A Faith to Confess : The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 (8th ed,; Leeds: Carey Publications Lrd., 1997), 54]. To be sure, there needs to be determined in every individual case when a war is or it not a just war. But if that can be done, then the Baptists of those eras and succeeding ones have not had problems engaging in war. During the English Civil War (1642-1651), for example, numerous Baptists supported the cause of the Puritan Parliament against the King, Charles I (1600-1649). The London Baptist pastor William Kiffin (1616-1701), one of the key signers of the Second London Confession, contributed horse and riders for the Parliamentary cause in 1642. And documents from the late 1650s speak of Kiffin as a “captain” and “lieutenant-colonel” in the London militia.

A Christian attitude to war

Other examples of Baptist involvement in what were ruled just wars could be cited. But an extremely instructive approach to the whole issue of war can be found in the life of Samuel Pearce (1766-1799), the Calvinistic Baptist minister of Cannon Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, from 1789 to 1799, an anointed preacher, and a zealous advocate of missions. Pearce was a key figure in the early years of the Baptist Missionary Society, which sent William Carey (1761-1834) to India in 1793. In fact, it was on a trip seeking to raise finances for this mission that Pearce contracted tuberculosis in the fall of 1798. By mid-December, 1798, he could not converse for more than a few minutes without losing his breath. Yet, as we shall see, Pearce’s passion for the salvation of the lost gripped him as strongly as the disease that was slowly killing him.

Writing to his close friend William Carey around this time, he told him of a plan to take the gospel to France that he had been mulling over in his mind. Now, at the time of this letter Great Britain and France were locked in a titanic war, what would be known as the Napoleonic War, that would last into the middle of the second decade of the next century and not be brought to a conclusion until 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. This war was the final and climactic episode in a struggle between the French and the British for world hegemony and one that had dominated the history of these nations during the 18th century. Not surprisingly, there was very little love lost between the British and the French. Pearce, though, was gripped by a far different passion than the hatred for the enemy that gripped many in Britain and France—his was the priority of the kingdom of Christ. In one of the last sermons that he ever preached, on a day of public thanksgiving for Horatio Nelson’s victory of annihilation of the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile (1798), Pearce pointedly said:

Should any one expect that I shall introduce the destruction of our foes, by the late victories gained off the coasts of Egypt and Ireland, as the object of pleasure and gratitude, he will be disappointed. The man who can take pleasure at the destruction of his fellow men, is a cannibal at heart;… but to the heart of him who calls himself a disciple of the merciful Jesus, let such pleasure be an everlasting stranger. Since in that sacred volume, which I revere as the fair gift of heaven to man, I am taught, that “of one blood God hath made all nations,” [Acts 17:26] it is impossible for me not to regard every man as my brother, and to consider, that national differences ought not to excite personal animosities. [Motives to Gratitude (Birmingham: James Belcher, 1798), 18-19].

Here Pearce clearly indicates that while war may be a necessity, Christians should never harbour animosity towards their foes of their nation. To do so and to take delight in their deaths and destruction is to show oneself a stranger to the gospel of the Lord Jesus, who died to save his enemies. Moreover, such an attitude runs against the grain of sympathy that Christianity is meant to awaken and perfect, a sympathy that is rooted in the fact that all of mankind are made by the one true God.

The priority of the Kingdom of Christ

A few months later—when Pearce was desperately ill—he wrote a letter to Carey telling him of his plans for a missionary journey to France. “I have been endeavouring for some years,” he told Carey, “to get five of our Ministers to agree that they will apply themselves to the French language, … then we [for he was obviously intending to be one of the five] might spend two months annually in that Country, and at least satisfy ourselves that Christianity was not lost in France for want of a fair experiment in its favour: and who can tell what God might do!” What a remarkable attitude! In the midst of a horrific war with the French, when so many in England were rejoicing in the deaths of their foes, Pearce is longing for their salvation.

While Baptists have historically recognized the right of nations to go to war and for Christians to take up arms in wars that are just, Pearce’s attitude models how Christians should think and act in times of such wars. God would use British evangelicals, notably Pearce’s Baptist contemporary Robert Haldane (1764-1842), to take the gospel to Francophones on the Continent when peace eventually came, but Pearce’s anointed preaching would play no part in that great work. Yet his ardent prayers on behalf of the French could not have been without some effect. As Pearce had once noted on another occasion, “praying breath” is never lost.

More on William Carey

The series that is appearing periodically on this blog entitled “Eminent Christians” began with William Carey. Here is another brief take on his life. When Claudius Buchanan (1766-1815) went out to India in 1796 as an Anglican missionary, he was reluctant at first to have anything to do with William Carey (1761-1834) and the other Baptist missionaries who were already there. But John Newton, upon hearing of his attitude, promptly wrote to Buchanan, who had been converted under his ministry, a gentle letter of reproof in which he stated:

“It is easy for you... to look down upon men who have given themselves to the Lord, and are bearing the burden and heat of the day. I do not look for miracles; but if God were to work one in our day, I should not wonder if it were in favour of Dr. Carey.”

Carey’s early years

The man of whom Newton spoke with such admiration had been born in very humble circumstances in 1761 in a tiny village called Paulerspury in Northamptonshire. His father, Edmund, was the schoolmaster of Paulerspury and the parish clerk of the local Anglican church. As such, Carey was regularly in church week by week and gained what he later described as a “considerable acquaintance” with the Scriptures. But, as he also noted, he knew next to nothing of “real experimental religion” till he was fourteen.

Also living in Paulerspury was William’s uncle, Peter Carey. Peter Carey had served with General James Wolfe in Canada, and, after the capture of Quebec in 1759, had returned to Paulerspury to take up the occupation of gardener. His tales of Canada instilled in William an interest for far-off lands. Moreover, Peter implanted in the young boy a love of gardening. Years later, when Carey was established in India, he was continually asking his friends and correspondents for seeds and roots to plant in his garden at Serampore. For instance, in a letter to his friend John Sutcliff he gently chided his friend for not taking his request for seeds seriously:

“I have written for some works of science, which I hope you will send. I think your best way is to send my list of roots, seeds, etc., to some nurseryman of note in London, with orders to ship them on the Providence, directed to me. Were you to give a penny a day to a boy to gather seeds of cowslips, violets, daisies, crowfoots, etc., and to dig up the roots of bluebells, etc., after they have done flowering, you might fill me a box every quarter of a year; and surely some neighbours would send a few snowdrops, crocuses, etc., and other trifles. All your weeks, even your nettles and thistles, are taken the greatest care of by me here. The American friends are twenty times more communicative than the English in this respect; indeed, though you cannot buy a little cabbage seed here under about £2.2s., yet I have never been able to extort an ounce, or a quart of kidney beans, from all the friends in England. Do try to mend a little.”

As a young boy, Carey eagerly wanted to emulate his uncle and become a gardener. But a painful shin disease prevented him from spending any length of time in the full sun. So his father apprenticed him to a shoemaker in Piddington, a nearby village. This apprenticeship was to have truly significant consequences for William’s future. One of his fellow-apprentices, John Warr, was a Christian. Warr was a Congregationalist and Carey’s upbringing had given him a contempt for Dissenters, but in time, as Warr persistently shared his faith with Carey, Carey was won for Christ.

Becoming Baptist and mission-minded

Carey’s subsequent study of the Scriptures convinced him of the Baptist position, and in 1783 he was baptized by John Ryland, Jr. in the river Nene at Northampton, after the two had walked down from the vestry of Castle hill church, the church which Philip Doddridge had once pastored.

Around the time of his baptism, Carey came across recently published accounts of Captain James Cook’s voyages of discovery in the south Pacific. Many years later, Carey said of his reading of this volume:

“Reading Cook’s Voyages was the first thing that engaged my mind to think of missions.

Through the account of Cook’s Voyages, Carey’s eyes were opened to wider horizons than the fields of Northamptonshire. But it was the Scriptures which taught him of the deep spiritual needs of those who lived far beyond those fields.

Preaching and pastoring

A year or so before his baptism Carey had been preaching regularly at the Congregational Church in Hackleton. In the years immediately following his baptism, Carey also began to preach in other neighbouring villages such as Earls Barton, Moulton, and his own home village, Paulerspury. The Moulton Church eventually called Carey to be their pastor in 1786, and in August of 1787, he was ordained. The three pastors officiating at his ordination were Ryland Jr., Andrew Fuller, and John Sutcliff, who, in the years to come, would become his closest friends.

After two years of pastoring at Moulton, Carey moved to Harvey Lane Baptist Church in Leicester, where he served up until he left for India in 1793. Carey’s pastorates at Moulton and Leicester brought him into close contact with the pastors and churches of the Northamptonshire Association. In this ambit Carey first voiced his convictions regarding the commission given by Christ to the Church in Matthew 28:19-20. Despite some hesitation, and even opposition, on the part of his pastoral colleagues, Carey’s convictions eventually won the day.

The result was the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society, with Carey as its first missionary. Carey’s convictions were crystallized in An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians, to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, which was published in 1792. This treatise is divided into five sections. Section I discusses the implication of Matthew 28:19-20, and convincingly demonstrates that the commission to “make disciples of all nations” was binding on the Church for all time. Section II outlines the history of missions since the Apostolic era, while the third section of the treatise surveys the state of the world in Carey’s own day. Section IV answers objections to sending out of missionaries, and in the fifth and final section Carey indicates some immediate practical steps which could be taken. It is important to note that heading the list of these steps is fervent, united prayer. The book played a key role in the inception of the modern missionary era, and, as Ernest A. Payne has observed, “may rightly be regarded as a landmark in Christian history.” Moreover, Payne goes on to note, the Enquiry has a message for today, for “it presents in terse and unadorned fashion the gist of the unanswerable argument that there still rests upon Christians the obligation to use all the means at their disposal for the conversion of unbelievers, wherever they may be.”

India

Carey left for India in June of 1793; he never returned to his native England. The first six years, largely spent in northern Bengal, were years of both frustration and preparation. There were no genuine conversions among the Indians, and because financial resources were sometimes so meagre, Carey was forced to take the post of a manager of an indigo factory. Furthermore, Carey’s missionary colleague, John Thomas (1757-1801), fell into debt and proved to be more of a hindrance than a help. And on top of all this, Carey’s wife, Dorothy (1756-1807), became wholly insane.

Yet, despite these potentially debilitating events, Carey put his initial years in India to good use, acquiring a substantial grasp of Bengali, learning how to preach to Hindus and Muslims, and making the name of Christ known throughout much of Bengal.

In 1799, Carey was joined by Joshua Marshman (1768-1837) and William Ward (1769-1823). Locating their mission centre at Serampore in southern Bengal, “the Serampore Trio” evangelized, established churches, and in particular, translated the Scriptures. Carey was thoroughly convinced that effective evangelism in India necessitated the translation of the Scriptures into the many languages and dialects of the Indian sub-continent. By the time of Carey’s death in 1834, the Serampore fraternity had been responsible for the translation of the entire Bible and portions of it into thirty-four languages. While the translations were far from perfect, the work done by Carey and his colleagues was, as Stephen Neill has judged, “an astounding achievement.”

Before Carey’s death, he left instructions that there be inscribed on his tombstone the following couplet from Isaac Watts in addition to his name and the dates of his birth and death:

“A wretched, poor and helpless worm, On thy kind arms I fall.”

John Sutcliff, “The Prayer Call of 1784″

Here is the document referred to in the previous blog, John Sutcliff’s “The Prayer Call of 1784.” It is an important text in that it was central to revival coming to the Calvinistic Baptist Churches in the UK during the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. Upon a motion being made to the ministers and messengers of the associate Baptist churches assembled at Nottingham, respecting meetings for prayer, to bewail the low estate of religion, and earnestly implore a revival of our churches, and of the general cause of our Redeemer, and for that end to wrestle with God for the effusion of his Holy Spirit, which alone can produce the blessed effect, it was unanimously RESOLVED, to recommend to all our churches and congregations, the spending of one hour in this important exercise, on the first Monday in every calendar month.

We hereby solemnly exhort all the churches in our connection, to engage heartily and perseveringly in the prosecution of this plan. And as it may be well to endeavour to keep the same hour, as a token of our unity herein, it is supposed the following scheme may suit many congregations, viz. to meet on the first Monday evening in May, June, and July, from 8 to 9. In Aug. from 7 to 8. Sept. and Oct. from 6 to 7. Nov. Dec. Jan. and Feb. from 5 to 6. March, from 6 to 7; and April, from 7 to 8. Nevertheless if this hour, or even the particular evening, should not suit in particular places, we wish our brethren to fix on one more convenient to themselves.

We hope also, that as many of our brethren who live at a distance from our places of worship may not be able to attend there, that as many as are conveniently situated in a village or neighbourhood, will unite in small societies at the same time. And if any single individual should be so situated as not to be able to attend to this duty in society with others, let him retire at the appointed hour, to unite the breath of prayer in private with those who are thus engaged in a more public manner.

The grand object of prayer is to be that the Holy Spirit may be poured down on our ministers and churches, that sinners may be converted, the saints edified, the interest of religion revived, and the name of God glorified. At the same time, remember, we trust you will not confine your requests to your own societies [i.e. churches]; or to your own immediate connection [i.e. denomination]; let the whole interest of the Redeemer be affectionately remembered, and the spread of the gospel to the most distant parts of the habitable globe be the object of your most fervent requests. We shall rejoice if any other Christian societies of our own or other denominations will unite with us, and do now invite them most cordially to join heart and hand in the attempt.

Who can tell what the consequences of such an united effort in prayer may be! Let us plead with God the many gracious promises of His Word, which relate to the future success of His gospel. He has said, “I will yet for this be enquired of by the House of Israel to do it for them, I will increase them with men like a flock.” Ezek. xxxvi.37. Surely we have love enough for Zion to set apart one hour at a time, twelve times in a year, to seek her welfare.

Attached to John Ryland, Jr., The Nature, Evidences, and Advantages, of Humility (Circular Letter of the Northamptonshire Association, 1784), 12.

“I Wish I Had Prayed More”: John Sutcliff and Prayer

In 1842, on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society, the Baptist pastor and writer, F.A. Cox, reflecting on the origins of the Society, stated: “The primary cause of the missionary excitement in [William] Carey’s mind, and its diffusion among the Northamptonshire ministers [was] ... the meeting of the Association in 1784, at Nottingham, [when] it was resolved to set apart an hour on the first Monday evening of every month, “for extraordinary prayer for revival of religion, and for the extending of Christ’s kingdom in the world.” This suggestion proceeded from the venerable [John] Sutcliff. Its simplicity and appropriateness have since recommended it to universal adoption; and copious showers of blessing from on high have been poured forth upon the churches.” [History of the Baptist Missionary Society, From 1792 to 1842 (London: T. Ward & Co./G. & J. Dyer, 1842), 1:10-11].

From the vantage point of the early 1840s, Cox saw the Prayer Call of 1784—proposed by John Sutcliff for adoption by the Northamptonshire Baptist Association and centred on the need to seek revival through prayer—as pivotal in that it focused the prayers of Calvinistic Baptist churches in the Association on the nations of the world. It thus prepared the way for the emergence of the Baptist Missionary Society and the sending of Carey to India.

Yet he also notes that the “universal adoption” of the concert of prayer by churches beyond the ranks of the Calvinistic Baptist denomination had led to rich times of revival, when God poured forth upon these churches “copious showers of blessing.” Later historians would describe this period of blessing as the Second Evangelical Awakening (1790-1830).

Some of them, like J. Edwin Orr and Paul E.G. Cook, would concur with Cox and rightly trace the human origins of this time of revival and spiritual awakening to the adoption of the concert of prayer by the Calvinistic Baptists in 1784 [J. Edwin Orr, The Eager Feet: Evangelical Awakenings 1790-1830 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1975), 95, 191-92, 199; Paul E. G. Cook, “The Forgotten Revival” in Preaching and Revival (London: The Westminster Conference, 1984), 92].

However, in one area Cox’s statement in somewhat misleading. In describing John Sutcliff as “the venerable Sutcliff” he leaves the reader with an idyllic impression of the Baptist pastor. How sobering to find that this man, who was at the heart of a prayer movement that God used to bring so much spiritual blessing to His church, also struggled when it came to prayer.

When Sutcliff lay dying in 1814 he said to Fuller: “I wish I had prayed more.” For some time Fuller ruminated on this statement by his dying friend. Eventually he came to the conviction that Sutcliff did not mean that he “wished he had prayed more frequently, but more spiritually.”

Then Fuller elaborated on this interpretation by applying Sutcliff’s statement to his own life:

“I wish I had prayer more for the influence of the Holy Spirit; I might have enjoyed more of the power of vital godliness. I wish I had prayed more for the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in studying and preaching my sermons; I might have seen more of the blessing of God attending my ministry. I wish I had prayed more for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to attend the labours of our friends in India; I might have witnessed more of the effects of their efforts in the conversion of the heathen. [cited J. W. Morris, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (London, 1816), 443].

Beddome’s “Father of Mercies”

Among the two main vehicles of teaching that have shaped Evangelical theology have been the Scriptures obviously and then the hymns that they have sung. This is why great care must be taken in choosing what a congregation will sing. What it sings sinks deep into the soul and informs the theological perspective of the singer. For example, read the following hymn by Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795), which was entitled “Prayer for Ministers” when it was first published [Hymns adapted to Public Worship, or Family Devotion (London, 1818), #700], and consider what it conveys about the nature of pastoral ministry.

Beddome is one of my favourite hymn-writers. Yes, his hymns are not as consistently good as those of Watts or Wesley or Cowper. But they are solid in their Bible teaching, usually pursuing one main idea. Many of his hymns were written to accompany a specific sermon, thus the single-eyed focus of his hymns.

1 Father of mercies, bow thine ear, Attentive to our earnest prayer; We plead for those who plead for thee, Successful pleaders may they be!

2 How great their work, how vast their charge, Do thou their anxious souls enlarge; Their best acquirements are our gain, We share the blessings they obtain.

3 Clothe thou with energy divine Their words, and let those words be thine; To them thy sacred truth reveal, Suppress their fear, enflame their zeal.

4 Teach them aright to sow the seed, Teach them thy chosen flock to feed Teach them immortal souls to gain, Nor let them labour, Lord, in vain.

5 Let thronging multitudes around, Hear from their lips the joyful sound; In humble strains thy grace adore, And feel thy new-creating power.

6 Let sinners break their massy chains, Distressed souls forget their pains, And light thro’ distant realms be spread, Till Zion rears her drooping head.

Yoking Snails to Elephants!

I must confess that as I grow older and think of what the Lord has done in my life, I am constrained to cry out with Spurgeon “I am become more and more convinced, that to attempt to be saved by a mixed covenant of works and faith is, in the words of [John] Berridge, “to yoke a snail with an elephant”.” That’s John Berridge (1716-1793) of Everton that Spurgeon is quoting. Berridge had some delightful eccentricities, but he knew his Saviour and knew what true gospel salvation is. So did Spurgeon. But we are living in a sad day when professing Evangelicals—who by their very name and heritage should be gospel people—are doing the very thing Berridge and Spurgeon rightly see as folly: yoking snails to elephants!

For a great biography of Berridge, see Nigel Pibworth The Gospel Pedlar: The story of John Berridge and the Eighteenth-Century Revival (Evangelical Press, 1987). Here is a “Short summary of the life of John Berridge.” And here is Spurgeon’s own estimate of Berridge: “A brief summary on Berridge from the Spurgeon archive.” Best of all, though, read Pibworth on Berridge!

Samuel Pearce on the Duty of Churches Towards Their Pastors

Among the shining names from the history of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is that of Samuel Pearce (1766-1799), who was the pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, for the ten years before his death. He was an engaging preacher who had a profound impact on many who heard him. Here is a portion of one of his sermons, The Duty of Churches to regard Ministers as the Gift of Christ, in which he is speaking on Ephesians 4:11-12 at an ordination, that of W. Belsher of Worcester. It is a text that is very relevant for today when pastors can be lightly esteemed. Pearce first emphasizes that pastors are a gift from Christ and why God has given them to the Church.

“None of God’s gifts are bestowed without design—the falling shower, and the clear shining of the sun after rain, the wintry frosts and the summer heats, have their respective uses; nor can you suppose that the great Head of the Church hath called our brother by his grace, put him into the ministry, and given him to you as a pastor, without having in view some important end. It will now be your wisdom, as it is your duty, to consider seriously what that end is, and to be practically concerned to have it answered.

“Plainly is this design unfolded in the words following the text, “for the perfection of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” [Ephesians 4:12,] that is, not for your increase in numbers only, but also for your improvement in wisdom and goodness. Now your duties, my brethren, are consequent on your pastors: if he be a teacher, you must be learners; if he have a building to erect, you must be fellow labourers; and, unless you be wanting in the duties of your stations, you may be assured that the divine blessing will not be withheld.”

He then rightly points out the first and greatest need of pastors is that their people pray for them. This point is very much in line with the great sense of dependence on the Spirit that marked out Pearce and his friends, men like Andrew Fuller and William Carey:

“If you would have the design of the pastoral relation answered, you must be much in prayer for your minister: His work is great, and the necessary qualifications for the discharge of it, are neither unimportant nor few. It requires much wisdom to understand the Scriptures; much fortitude to oppose the errors, the indifference, and the impurities of the times; much zeal to labour extensively and habitually for Christ and souls; much prudence to advise and act in difficult cases, and much personal religion to impart a savor of Christ to all his conversation, his discourses, and his prayers.

“Here then is scope for your petitions; the furniture of a Christian minister must come from above, and from thence it must be sought. “Brethren, pray for us,” said the apostle of the Gentiles. Brethren, pray for us, we also say: Men of like passions with yourselves—exposed to temptation from numerous quarters—as prone naturally to depart from God as you—liable to stupidity, carnality, and vanity—O, if you have any desire to see us holy, spiritual, active, honourable—pray for us.”

Pearce then outlines the key challenges before the preacher of the Word and reiterates the need for the sovereign power of God to accompany the pastor’s labours and as a means to this the faithful praying of God’s people:

“You are not unacquainted, brethren, with the difficulties which lie in the way of our success. …Not merely to inform the judgments—to excite the passions—to conquer the prejudices of education, and to reform the manners of men, are before us—a more arduous talk presents itself. My brethren, our point is not gained without a change of heart! A renovation of the whole soul! A conversion from the power of Satan unto God! But who is sufficient for these things? Can human energy effect them? Nay, my brethren, we are compelled to own that “we are not sufficient of ourselves to do any thing as of ourselves—all our sufficiency is of God.” Were all the moral virtues, and supernatual endowments, which have ever adorned the saint, or distinguished the apostle, concentrated in one Christian pastor, neither will believers be improved, nor sinners converted, without the presence, the power, and the grace of Christ! In vain we enter the pulpit—in vain we persuade, we exhort, we beseech, we reprove, we warn, or we invite—the word will never come with a saving power, unless it “come in the Holy Ghost.” …Our only encouragement to labour, and our only hope of success, arise from the promise of God, and as a mean of enjoying it, the prayers of our people. My dear brethren, you had better dispose of your pastor to some other church, unless you have a heart to pray for him.”

Words for our day indeed.

NOTE: Andrew Fuller would later draw up the life of his friend Pearce. One of the reasons he wrote his life was to illustrate the piety that accompanied genuine Calvinism, as opposed to what Fuller regarded as the “false Calvinism” of certain Antinomians of his day. These Antinomians tended to reject inviting sinners to Christ—or offering Christ indiscriminately to all and sundry. It is noteworthy that Pearce, near the end of the last section of this sermon cited above, describes the work of preaching thus: “we persuade, we exhort, we beseech, we reprove, we warn, or we invite.” This is a fabulous window into his thought about the content of faithful, biblical preaching. Note especially the presence of the phrase “we invite.” Biblical preaching invites sinners to come to the Saviour.

“The Armies of the Lamb”

When the Baptist theologian Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) and his friends recaptured the biblical perspective on the responsibility of both preacher and hearer of the gospel to understand the call to believe in Christ to be a duty of the sinner there also emerged a fresh perspective on the nature of the church. The older Baptist thinking about the church—the church is a place where the Word of God is purely preached, the ordinances rightly carried out and discipline exercised—was, of course, not rejected or abandoned. Listen, for example to Fuller in a tract that he wrote on the meaning of baptism. This ordinance, he maintained, is not designed “merely to separate between believers and unbelievers individually considered; its design is also to draw a line of distinction between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan. Whatever may be said of baptism as it is now generally understood and practised, and of the personal religion of those who practise it, it was originally appointed to be the boundary of visible Christianity. This is a principle which, if properly acted upon, would go far to prevent the confounding of the church and the world… Had the Christian church in all ages admitted none to baptism…but those who professed to repent and believe the gospel, it is scarcely conceivable that any others would have been admitted to the Lord’s supper; and if so, a stream of corruption which has actually deluged it with antichristianism would have been diverted at the spring-head.” [The Practical Uses of Christian Baptism (Works, III, 342)].

Here, Fuller clearly affirms as his own the heritage that had been passed down to him from his 17th century forebears. The church is a body of people who have personally repented and exercised faith in Christ, and borne witness to this inner transformation by baptism. But Fuller is also concerned to emphasize something else about the church.

When Fuller spoke of the local church his emphasis often fell on the church’s responsibility to evangelize and indeed participate in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. As he wrote in 1806:

“The primitive churches were not mere assemblies of men who agreed to meet together once or twice a week, and to subscribe for the support of an accomplished man who should on those occasions deliver lectures on religion. They were men gathered out of the world by the preaching of the cross, and formed into society for the promotion of Christ’s kingdom in their own souls and in the world around them. It was not the concern of the ministers or elders only; the body of the people were interested in all that was done, and, according to their several abilities and stations, took part in it. Neither were they assemblies of heady, high-minded, contentious people, meeting together to argue on points of doctrine or discipline, and converting the worship of God into scenes of strife. They spoke the truth; but it was in love: they observed discipline; but, like an army of chosen men, it was that they might attack the kingdom of Satan to greater advantage. Happy were it for our churches if we could come to a closer imitation of this model!” [The Pastor’s Address to his Christian Hearers, Entreating their Assistance in Promoting the Interest of Christ (Works, III, 346)].

Fuller certainly had no wish to abandon either the stress on doctrinal preaching for the edification of God’s people or that on proper discipline, but he had rightly noted that the pursuit of these concerns to the exclusion of evangelism had produced in all too many 18th century Baptist churches contention, bitter strife and endless disputes. These inward-looking concerns had to be balanced with an outward focus on the extension of Christ’s kingdom. Moreover, evangelism was not simply to be regarded as the work of only “the ministers or elders.” The entire body of God’s people were to be involved.

Retaining the basic structure of 17th century Baptist thinking about the church, Fuller has thus added one critical ingredient drawn from the experience of the Evangelical revival: the vital need for local Baptist churches to be centres of vigorous evangelism. This missionary conception of the church is well summed up in another text, which, like the one cited above, compares the church of Christ to an army. “The true churches of Jesus Christ,” he wrote five years before his death, “travail in birth for the salvation of men. They are the armies of the Lamb, the grand object of whose existence is to extend the Redeemer’s kingdom.” [The Promise of the Spirit, the Grand Encouragement in Promoting the Gospel (Works, III, 359)].

Beddome on Revelation 3:20

On Wednesday past I noted the Puritan emphasis on the balance of divine sovereignty and human responsibility in the matter of conversion. Beddome, the 18th century Baptist minister of Bourton-on-the-Water, had this balance as well. His words quoted below are so similar to those of the Puritan Flavel (see PURITAN BALANCE ABOUT COMING TO CHRIST). He even has the same Scriptural references. In a sermon that he preached on Revelation 3:20, Beddome stated:

“If the heart be opened, it is the Lord’s doing. He alone who made the heart can find his way into it. …Though the Lord opens the heart, yet it is in a way perfectly agreeable to the party himself. We are not the less willing, because we are made so in the day of his power. That which is an act of power with regard to the Holy Spirit, is a voluntary act with regard to the human will.”

[Twenty Short Discourses adapted to Village Worship (London: Burton & Smith/Simpkin and Marshall, 1823), VI, 52].

Rightly is Beddome seen to be representative of a strain of Baptist life in the 18th century that is both evangelical and Calvinistic, and not at all hyper-Calvinistic.

Beddome, Heir to 17th Century Divines

Benjamin Beddome, about whom I blogged a few days ago, had an excellent library, which contained numerous Puritan works, to whom he was deeply indebted. A good portion of that library is housed today as the “Beddome Collection” in the Archives of the Angus Library at Regent’s Park College, the University of Oxford. That indebtedness can be seen in the occasional comments he made in these precious volumes. In his copy of Abraham Cheare’s Words in Season (London, 1668)—on Cheare, the Baptist minister of Plymouth, see my blog for September 26, 2005—for instance, Beddome noted of Cheare’s work:

“Many excellent Things in it especially in 2 first Discourses. The Author seems to have a great Depth & Reach of Understanding—& very pertinent Manner of applying Scriptures.”

Many of the Baptist works of the 17th century, like this one by Cheare, were never reprinted. And yet it is clear that they continued to influence divines in the 18th century.

Reading John Gill

I have long been interested in John Gill (1697-1771). In standard histories of the English Calvinistic Baptists he usually gets blamed for the decline that came upon this community in the 18th century. It’s a judgment that has poisoned many against his very name and they want nothing to do with the man. I think the actual impact of Gill upon the Baptists of his day, though, is far more positive than the usual reading of his life allows and a much more complex story than these histories present. In this vein it was good to find this blog from Kevin T. Bauder, the President of Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Plymouth, Minnesota, about his reading of Gill: Biblical Languages Then and Now (@ Nos Sobrii ). Bauder begins thus:

“I’ve been spending a good bit of time lately in some of John Gill’s commentaries. His treatments are in certain ways typical of the Puritan writers (not that Gill was a Puritan—just that these similarities do exist). He was quite verbose, which does more than his profundity to account for the remarkable length of his volumes. He was skilled with logic and argued well. He was enormously learned by the standards of his day, and mastered the biblical languages to the level at which they were then known.”

He goes on to speak of the deficiencies of Gill’s knowledge by today’s standards. But I am thrilled that Gill is being read.