Why Baptist history is so vital for modern-day violations of freedom of conscience

One of our precious freedoms, won in part by Baptists, is freedom of conscience. Recently, the Hamilton Wentworth School Board here in southern Ontario has ruled that alternative lifestyles are to be taught in public schools and that parents will not be allowed to withdraw their children from classes when this issue is taught. The argument that I saw promoting this likened the issue to racism. Children are not exempt from classes dealing with the latter and therefore ipso facto should not be exempt from the former. This is all very interesting and confirms my own conviction formed over the past few years that one of the greatest challenges to the Church in the West is going to be obedience to state matters that violate our conscience as Christians. 

In brief: this is not like racism at all. That is like comparing apples and oranges. I have known racism firsthand becuase of my Kurdish background in the UK--was regularly called Arab in High School and even called by the N-word. I loathe racism. But I do not believe sexual preference is in the same category. Nor do I believe the state has the right to dictate ethical values to myself or my children. Everyone has an ethical position and the state is hardly neutral.

Being a Baptist and having a rich heritage to draw upon I now see as so vital for the modern-day. We need to revisit the lives and thinking of Baptists from the 17 and 18th centuries.

Baptist catholicity

Why do I love Andrew Fuller and his circle of friends? There are many reasons. One of them is this: their profound sense of belonging to a catholic body. Lest some of you think I think they were Roman Catholics, that is definitely not what I am saying. What I am saying is this: through friendships with men like John Newton, John Berridge, Thomas Scott--all of them Anglicans--Thomas Chalmers and John Erskine--Scottish Presbyterians--the New divinity heirs of Edwards in New England--all of them Congregationalists--and even Hyper-Calvinists, like William Button and Arminian Baptists like Dan Taylor--these men had a balance in their Christian lives that is enviable. They knew they were Baptists and gloried in that heritage. They were Calvinistic and would not surrender these truths for the world. But their goal in life was not to make men and women Baptists or even Calvinists--it was to make them first of all Christians.

Honestly, it scares me today to see men building little fiefdoms based on secondary issues or even tertiary issues. And whose basic raison d'etre is not the great orthodox, catholic Faith. Oh that the biblical catholocity of Fuller and his friends might be more in evidence!

Addendum (written four hours later): I am a Baptist through and through (even closed communion). I am an unashamed Calvinist (certainly not hyper, nor committed to double predestination--here I follow the 1689). But I am first and foremost a follower of the Lamb. I want him, and his Father and Spirit, to be my all in all.

Addendum 2 (written a day or so later): That is why I am a Baptist, though. I am seeking to follow Jesus in all that he commanded (Matt 28:19-20). But I recognize and love brothers dearly who see things differently. For my position see John Sutcliff's preface to his 1789 edition of Jonathan Edwards; Humble Attempt. It cannot be said better than he says it there.

John Sutcliff and Walter Wilson

Walter Wilson’s The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses (London, 1808–14, 4 vols.) is one of the gems that anyone researching seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dissent needs to know. Going through vol. 1 just now, I noticed that among those whom Wilson consulted for help in his researches was “J. Sutcliff, of Olney.” Sutcliff, the Baptist pastor of Olney, was an ardent bibliophile and helping Wilson would have been right up his alley!

Samuel Pearce: a one-line potted bio

I was recently asked by a good friend, Hélène Grondines, one of the finest artists I know and who is working on a portrait of Samuel Pearce (1766–1799), the Baptist leader of the eighteenth century, how I would explain who Pearce was in one line to non-Christians. Here is an initial go at it:

 

Samuel Pearce was a Baptist minister in England at the close of the eighteenth century whose preaching and walk with God, despite an early death at the age of thirty-three, made him an influential figure at the beginning of the modern worldwide expansion of Christianity.

The Wirkungsgeschichte of the Patristic literature

What we also need is a study or better yet studies of the reception history (Wirkungsgeschichte) of the Patristic literature on the Puritans and Evangelicals of the 18th century. There have been a number of studies of the influence of Macarius-Symeon (that Augustinian-like shadowy figure) on John Wesley. But we need a lot more of this. The translation of the Letter to Diognetus into English, for example, sparked deep interest among the 18th century Calvinistic Baptists and I know of two translations by that community, one of them by John Sutcliff (1752-1814), the friend of Andrew Fuller.

Doctoral thesis on Abraham Booth by Ray Coppenger to be published by Joshua Press

I have been working on a new book on Abraham Booth—helping edit the doctoral thesis of Ray Coppenger for publication by Joshua Press. What a privilege! I met Dr Coppenger through his son, Dr Mark Coppenger, a colleague at Southern—and to whom I feel deeply indebted in a number of ways, not the least certain kindnesses he showed me over ten years ago when I applied to teach at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The title of the new book—to be shortly released—is “A messenger of grace”: A study of the life and thought of Abraham Booth (1734–1806). Inspiration for the title—so apt for Booth—comes from these lines of William Cowper’s The Task, Book II, lines 395–407:

“Would I describe a preacher, such as Paul, Were he on earth, would hear, approve, and own, Paul should himself direct me. I would trace His master strokes, and draw from his design. I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste And natural in gesture; much impressed Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.”

The solution to the human dilemma according to Samuel Pearce

"If the gospel of Christ be true, it should be heartily embraced. We should yield ourselves to its influence without reserve. We must come to a point, and resolve to be either infidels or Christians. To know the power of the sun we should expose ourselves to his rays: to know the sweetness of honey we must bring it to our palates. Speculations will not do in either of these cases, much less will it in matters of religion. 'My son,' saith God, 'give me thine heart!' "

Samuel Pearce on the human state

Samuel Pearce on the human state: "I consider man as a depraved creature, so depraved, that his judgment is as dark as his appetites are sensual; wholly dependent on God, therefore, for religious light as well as true devotion: yet such a dupe to pride as to reject every thing which the narrow limits of his comprehension cannot embrace; and such a slave to his passions as to admit no law but self- interest for his government. With these views of human nature, I am persuaded we ought to suspect our own decisions, whenever they oppose truths too sublime for our understandings, or too pure for our lusts."

On Abraham Booth: new sermon discovered and a pungent quote

Working yesterday on a title for the forthcoming book by Dr. Raymond A. Coppenger, the father of Dr. Mark Coppenger, on Abraham Booth—it will be entitled “A messenger of grace”: A study of the life and thought of Abraham Booth (1734–1806) (Joshua Press, 2009)—I found a hitherto unknown sermon by Booth, an ordination sermon for Dr. John Stanford, who eventually came to the United States. It is a meditation on 2 Corinthians 4:2, and quintessential Booth. He argues that Paul, as one who sought to make known the truth, is a pattern for imitation. There is hope that this new sermon will be included in a future volume of the collected works of Booth, currently being published by Particular Baptist Press—see The Works of Abraham Booth, Volume I. (Springfield, Missouri: Particular Baptist Press, 2006). In the course of this discovery I also came across a remark Booth makes vis-à-vis a quote from his favourite author, John Owen (1616-1683). Booth is speaking about his dislike of the use of the title “Reverend,” a disapprobation common to Baptists of his day, and he quotes Owen quoting Martin Luther (1483-1546): Nunquam periclitatur religio nisi inter Reverendissimos (“Religion is never in any danger except among the most Reverend gentlemen”!). Of course, dangers have arisen from other quarters, but how often in the history of the church has it been ordained ministers who have sought to destroy the very faith they were commissioned to protect. May God enable all who have pledged themselves to be servants of the Word to be faithful to that trust.

A little more on Maria Hope

A quick check has revealed that Maria Hope (1789-1866) was associated with Byrom Street Chapel in Liverpool and among a number of her nephews, there were two called Samuel Pearce Hope and William Carey Hope. She was only 26 when Fuller wrote to her. She must have met Fuller on a trip he took to Liverpool, probably on one of his fund-raising trips for the BMS that kept him away from home for up to a quarter of the year.

Maria Hope--Andrew Fuller's correspondent in his final days

In January 1815, only a few months before the death of Andrew Fuller—when Britain was gearing up for its decisive showdown with the French dictator Napoleon—the Baptist leader decided to answer an enquiry about his life, his early religious impressions and conversion, from “a friend in Liverpool.” That was the very way that I described his correspondent in my The Armies of the Lamb: The spirituality of Andrew Fuller (Joshua Press, 2001), p.75. I had no more information, though, about the person in question. Imagine my delight and amazement when this afternoon—through the help of my good friend Dr Grant Gordon—I was able to identify this correspondent as “Miss Maria Hope” of “Hope Street, Liverpool.” Grant alerted me to a letter of Fuller’s best friend John Ryland Jr., in which Ryland talks about his writing of his friend’s memoir after Fuller’s death. The letter is written to Maria and Ryland talks about the letters that Fuller had written to her.

Wowsers! What a find! I must say: it was incredible to read the letter.

John Newton on Entering Pastoral Ministry

A newly transcribed and published excerpt from John Newton's diary provides a understanding of his view on the ministry. Dr. Haykin has reviewed the booklet, Ministry on my mind: John Newton on entering pastoral ministry by John Newton, transcribed by Marylynn Rouse. Dr. Haykin believes that this work deserves to go on the short list of books which every man aspiring to pastoral ministry needs to read. Read the review here. Other reviews are available here. Check back regularly as new reviews are usually added on a weekly basis.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

Did the Puritans dislike Christmas pudding?

Last fall while speaking at Hespeler Baptist Church on the Puritans a friend gave me a page she had found in the catalogue of a British firm that shipped various British foods overseas. This particular page advertised Christmas pudding.

 

Part of the ad ran thus: “Christmas pudding should be so wickedly good it makes you feel like repenting. That’s the effect it had on the Puritans, who, back in Britain in 1664, banned the rich dessert as a lewd tradition. Thankfully, King George gave in to temptation and removed the ban in 1714.”

 

Pasing by the incredible statement of the first line, it seems as if this ad derived its historical data from this webpage of BBC2: “Traditional Christmas Pudding” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A660836), where we are further informed that the Puritans' argument against the pudding was that “mainly due to its rich ingredients” they deemed it “unfit for God-fearing people.” When George reintroduced it, according to this web page, the Quakers objected, calling it “the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon.” Doing a quick check, it appears that a number of places on the Web have similar information and the same dates.

 

There are some obvious problems here. First, the Puritans, if we mean the English Puritans, had no power to be banning anything in 1664 since the Restoration in 1660 had led to their complete removal from the halls of power. Then, the Quakers are not to be confused with the Puritans. King George of the ad is presumably George I (r.1714-1727). George, who spoke virtually not a word of English—he was a Hanoverian from Germany—became king in August of 1714. And it was that December he reinstated the Christmas pudding.

 

Well, someone who loves the Puritans needs to research this and find out the truth. This would make a very good term paper!

Tea and the Glory of God

I was in a Barnes and Noble tonight and dipped into a book by Rebecca St. James—Sister freaks: Stories of Women who gave up everything for God (New York: Warner Faith, 2005). I didn’t get beyond the first page, where I read this quote from Watchman Nee: “Everywhere Jesus went, there was revolution. Everywhere I go, they serve tea” (p.xi). She didn’t footnote it, so I am not sure where she got this from. But two thoughts immediately came to mind. First, what a way to express the difference between us and our Lord: even as committed a disciple as Watchman Nee (though I would dissent from some of his views about discipleship) knew well the difference. The presence of Jesus was true revolution, beside which the French and Russian Revolutions, American and Industrial Revolutions, and all of the political hype of the last few weeks, pale into insignificance. Second, I thought of a remark I read this week in the Miscellaneous Works of Rev. Charles Buck (New Haven: Whitmore and Minor, 1833), which I found in the library of Knox Theological Seminary, Fort Lauderdale. I had never heard of Buck (1771-1815), who was a Congregationalist minister and who once served as the amanuensis of John Ryland, Sr (p.16-17). When I read about Buck’s connection with Ryland I was hooked and went through the entire book. Among other things, Buck published two collections of anecdotes. One of these books contained the following story—and tea is the link with the Watchman Nee quote.

According to the London Anglican evangelical William Romaine (1714-1795), the “glory of God is very seldom promoted at the tea-table” (p.486). Watchman Nee would definitely have agreed! But not so, Romaine averred, when one drank tea with fellow-Anglican James Hervey (1714-1758), who was also a close friend of both John Wesley and John Ryland. “Drinking tea with him,” Romaine observed, “was like being at an ordinance; for it was sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (p.486).

So drinking tea could be revolutionary!

The Spirit of Truth, traditionalism and tradition

When revival comes, the Spirit who brings it also—and always—comes as a Spirit of Truth. He brings heart renewal to God’s people—their eyes sparkle with fire and light—and he reforms theological thinking. Semper reformanda, the Spirit reforming us ongoingly, do we not confess that? Take the revival among English and Welsh Calvinistic Baptists at the close of the “long” eighteenth century. In the wake of this dramatic renewal came a fresh evaluation of what constituted the parameters of the Calvinistic Baptist community. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries these parameters had been oriented around the concept of the church as a congregation of baptized believers and any missional component largely lost. Revival came to be linked to Baptist polity. This focus among Calvinistic Baptists on ecclesiological issues and their linking of spiritual vitality to church order, however, received a direct challenge from the Evangelical Revival. The participants of this revival, who knew themselves to be part of a genuine movement of the Spirit of God, were mainly interested in issues relating to salvation. Ecclesial matters often engendered unnecessary strife and, in the eyes of key individuals like George Whitefield, robbed those who disputed about them of God’s blessing.

By the end of the century many Calvinistic Baptists agreed. While they were not at all prepared to deny their commitment to Baptist polity, they were not willing to remain fettered by traditional patterns of Baptist thought about their identity. Retaining the basic structure of Baptist thinking about the church they 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. There is no doubt that this amounted to a re-thinking of Baptist identity. From the perspective of these Baptists, Baptist congregations and their pastors were first of all Christians who needed to be concerned about the spread of the Gospel at home and abroad.

May we, the spiritual descendants of those brethren—oh what a joy to have men and women like Andrew Fuller and John Sutcliff, Samuel Pearce and Anne Steele, Benjamin Beddome and Benjamin Francis as our forebears!—not fail to learn the lessons they learned so well!

Oh to treasure the traditions these brothers and sisters have handed on to us, but a pox on traditionalism! This is not a contradiction: to love our traditions, but to want nothing to do with traditionalism. The latter loves the past becuase it is simply the past and thinks that things were always done better then. The former loves the traditions of the past for they are bearers of truth and we dare not lose that treasure.

Oh to be found faithful to the end of our days to the faith once for all delivered to the saints and which these brethren have handed on to us. But oh to avoid like the plague the aridity of traditionalism in second- and third-order theological truth, not daring to think new thoughts in these areas. Fuller and his friends were not so fearful.

May we be found faithful to their heritage. May we, like them, be found utterly passionate in our love for the Lord Jesus and his great kingdom—the only community of good and blessing that will last for all eternity—but God help us to know what must be done to be true to this passion in our day!

Jonathan Edwards on Christ and Lucifer: a misunderstanding making the rounds

There is a charge that is making the rounds on the web that Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758) believed that Satan was initially a superior being to Jesus and that Jesus was an exalted man. The text of Edwards cited in relation to this charge is the following from “Fall of the Angels,” in “Miscellaneous Observations on Important Theological Subjects,” Chapter XI, of The Works of Jonathan Edwards (Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), II, 609. The charge is an utterly silly one based on a failure to read the text closely. Here is the text. My comment follows.

“Corol. I. Hence learn that Satan before his fall was the Messiah or Christ, as he was the anointed. The word anointed is radically the same in Hebrew as the word Messiah: so that in this respect our Jesus is exalted into his [Satan’s] place in heaven.

“Corol. II. These things show another thing, wherein Jesus is exalted into the place of Lucifer; that whereas he had the honour to dwell in the holy of holies continually, so Jesus is there entered, not as the high priests of old, but to be there continually, but in this respect is exalted higher than Lucifer ever was; that whereas Lucifer was only near the throne, or kneeling on the mercy-seat in humble posture, covering it with his wings, Jesus is admitted to sit down for ever with God on the throne.

“Corol. IV. In another respect also Jesus succeeds Lucifer, viz. in being the covering cherub. The word translated cover, often and commonly signifies to protect. It was committed to this archangel especially, to have the care of protecting the beloved race, elect man, that was God’s jewel, his first-fruits, his precious treasure, laid up in God’s ark, or cabinet, hid in the secret of his presence. That was the great business the angels were made for, and therefore was especially committed to the head of the angels. But he fell from his innocency and dignity, and Jesus in his stead becomes the Cherub that covereth, the great Protector and Saviour of elect man, that gathereth them as a hen her chickens under his wings.

“Corol. V. Lucifer, while a holy angel, in having the excellency of all those glorious things that were about him, all summed up in him, was a type of Christ, in whom all the glory and excellency of all elect creatures is more properly summed, as the head and foundation of all, just as the brightness of all, that reflects the light of the sun, is summed up in the sun.

“… Therefore, seeing Lucifer was the head, and captain, and prince of all, and the highest creature in the whole universe, we may suppose that he had, as God’s chief servant, and the grand minister of his providence, and the top of the creation, in some respect committed to him power, dominion, and principality over the whole creation, and all the kingdom of providence; and as all the angels are called the sons of God, Lucifer was his [God’s] first-born, and was the firstborn of every creature. But when it was revealed to him, high and glorious as he was, that he must be a ministering spirit to the race of mankind which he had seen newly created, which appeared so feeble, mean, and despicable, so vastly inferior, not only to him, the prince of the angels, and head of the created universe, but also to the inferior angels, and that he must be subject to one of that race that should hereafter be born, he could not bear it. This occasioned his fall; and now he, with the other angels whom he drew away with him, are fallen, and elect men are translated to supply their places, and are exalted vastly higher in heaven than they. And the Man Jesus Christ, the Chief, and Prince, and Captain of all elect men, is translated and set in the throne that Lucifer, the chief and prince of the angels, left, to be the head of the angels in his stead, the head of principality and power, that all the angels might do obeisance to him; for God said “Let all the angels of God worship him;” and God made him his first-born instead of Lucifer, higher than all those thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, and made him, yea, made him in his stead the first-born of every creature, or of the whole creation, and made him also in his stead the bright and morning star, and head and prince of the universe; yea, gave this honour, dignity, and power unto him, in an unspeakably higher and more glorious manner than ever he had done to Lucifer, and appointed him to conquer, subdue, and execute vengeance upon that great rebel.”

My comment: A close and careful reading of the text reveals simply this: Edwards is arguing that the unfallen Lucifer is a type of glorified humanity of Christ—the chief responsibilities of Lucifer before his fall have now been given to the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ. There is nothing heretical in this, though, in true Edwards style, this is something I had never thought of before. But the latter is of no import, there is so much in Edwards that we lesser minds would never have thought of if we did not read it in Edwards. As a theologian, he was stellar. Is he right: that is another question. Again, Edwards is not exalting Lucifer over our Lord. He is simply arguing that the unfallen Lucifer has typological aspects to his character when it comes to his relationship to the glorified humanity of Christ.

John Newton on the vocation of a gospel minister

Before John Newton (1725-1807) was called to the Anglican ministry he described what he understood his calling to be to a friend, Harry Crooke of Hunslett, Leeds, in these words:

"The message I would bear is Jesus Christ and him crucified and from the consideration of the great things he has done, to recommend and enforce Gospel holiness and Gospel love, and to take as little notice of our fierce contests, controversies and divisions as possible. My desire is to lift up the banner of the Lord, and to draw the sword of the Spirit not against names, parties and opinions, but against the world, the flesh and the devil; and to invite poor perishing sinners not to espouse a system of my own or any man’s, but to fly to the Lord Jesus, the sure and only city of refuge and the ready, compassionate and all sufficient Saviour of those that trust in him."

[Cited Marylynn Rouse, “An important turn to my future life”, The John Newton Project Prayer Letter(October/November 2008), p.1].

In some ways, a better description of the vocation of a Gospel minister would be hard to find.

Samuel Pearce: a call to submission to the will of God

I have spent most of this week working on the critical edition of Andrew Fuller's life of his dear friend Samuel Pearce (1766-1799). There is so much instruction in the life of that dear man. Like this one line when he was dying, from a letter to Fuller: "how can I be a Christian, and not submit to God?" (April 18, 1799) Think: a seemingly random line written by a dying man over two hundred years ago has such profound meaning for us today. In one line he captures a key aspect of the heart of our faith.