Reflections on the True Church conference 2010 and on Alexander McLaren

This past weekend (February 19–21) I had the distinct privilege of being a speaker at the 2010 True Church Conference held at Grace Life Church, Muscle Shoals, Alabama. What a privilege to meet and hear Jeff Noblit, pastor of the host church, Conrad Mbewe—“the Spurgeon of Africa”—and his wife, Barry King, a church planter in London, Jonathan Sims and David Miller—a really deep privilege. I spoke twice: once on “Defining hyper-Calvinism” and on “Missionary Pioneer Andrew Fuller & hyper-Calvinism.” The first talk was particularly difficult to prepare, since I decided to focus on the soteriology of John Gill (1697–1771) and his teaching on the pactum salutis, eternal justification, and the free offer of the gospel. I do think Gill to be on the hyper-Calvinist side of the equation and thus to have been an innovator, following lesser lights like Joseph Hussey and John Skepp rather than the broad stream of Reformed orthodoxy of the seventeenth century. Although Gill quoted Thomas Goodwin, for instance, in supporting his view of eternal justification, he misunderstood Goodwin. But to present such in a popular format, I felt peculiarly difficult. Then to speak on Fuller and do him justice was a challenge. But I am so thankful for the opportunity to be with those brethren.

Flying back this a.m., I missed worship at the house of God. I therefore “listened”—that is, within my mind as I read it—to a sermon preached over a hundred years ago: “Feeding on ashes” by Alexander McLaren (1826–1910) [in A Rosary of Christian Graces (London: Horace Marshal & Son, 1899)]. What a gem—in many ways he was good as a preacher as his contemporary, C.H. Spurgeon (1834–92). A reminder of what life and true life is all about. I was struck by the way he read that clause, “Take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you” (p.213), which he took spiritually and an offer of Christ of himself. Spurgeon had a richer view of the table of the Lord.

On novelists

Just read J.I. Packer's evaluation of the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky: Who Is the Greatest Novelist of All Time? (HT: Justin Taylor). There must be something wrong with me! I can appreciate the depth of this novelist's faith, but I could never get into or through any of his novels. I really do not like his work! But then I have not been able to read any of the Russians, except for A Solzhenitsyn, whose Red Wheel cycle I loved (but then I cannot read his Gulag series or any of his other novels). But what can you expect from someone who has never been able to make it through Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress ?!!  No, my favourite author in the 19th century is Jane Austen (can anything be more different than Dostoevsky?) and in the 20th J.R.R. Tolkien (now there is an epic writer!).

New Title on Manlys "Soldiers of Christ" Available for Order

Soldiers of Christ:  Selections from the Writings of Basil Manly, Sr. & Basil Manly, Jr. was edited by Southern Seminary professor Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin, in conjunction with Dr. Roger D. Duke and Dr. A. James Fuller.  Soldiers of Christ focuses on the writings on the father and son duo without whom, as current SBTS President R. Albert Mohler, Jr. notes in his Foreward, Southern Seminary would not exist.  This work was published by Founders Press and is available from order now from Reformation Heritage Books. FROM THE BACK COVER:

Basil Manly, Sr. and his son Basil Manly, Jr. played vital roles in shaping a number of the central institutions of the Southern Baptist community in its formative years in the nineteenth century, including the influential Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Undergirding their churchmanship was a vigorous Calvinistic Baptist piety that was expressed in sermons and tracts, hymns and confessional statements, letters and diaries, all of which are represented in this timely volume of selections from their writings. Here we have a wonderful window onto the vista of nineteenth-century Southern Baptist life with all of its glorious strengths as well as its clear failings.

COMMENDATIONS:

"The introductory and biographical essays on the lives of Basil Manly, Sr., and Basil Manly, Jr., as well as the carefully selected collections from their writings found in this volume are wonderful and much-welcomed additions to Baptist studies. I am quite pleased to recommend Soldiers of Christ.” — David S. Dockery, President, Union University

“The publication of these writings is long overdue and is most welcome, and the editors have done their work well.” — Gregory A. Wills, Professor of Church History, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Michael Haykin, James Fuller, and Roger Duke have done us a service by introducing the Manlys to a new generation.” — Nathan Finn, Assistant Professor of Church History, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“A fascinating, moving, and shocking look at piety among Southern Baptists in the middle two-thirds of the nineteenth century.” —Tom J. Nettles, Professor of Historical Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“A superb collection of well-edited primary sources by two of the most formative shapers of Southern Baptist life in the nineteenth century.” —Timothy George, Senior Editor of Christianity Today

FROM THE FOREWARD BY R. ALBERT MOHLER, JR.

"Humanly speaking, the formula is easy: no Manlys, no Southern Seminary. This year, as The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary celebrates its sesquicentennial, our indebtedness to the Manlys of South Carolina is increasingly clear. As an institution, our history is inextricably tied to the lives and ministries of Basil Manly, Sr. and Basil Manly, Jr."

PUBLICATION DETAILS

Published by Founders Press.  240 pages.  Paperback.  2009.

Order here from RHB for $18.00 $12.00 (34% off)

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

Warfield on the utter folly of Darwinian evolution

I would venture to assert that the greatest theologian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is B.B. Warfield. As time goes on, I am more and more impressed by him. Here he is on Darwinian evolution—simply brilliant:

"Aimless movement in time will produce an ordered world! You might as well suppose that if you stir up a mass of type with a stick long enough, the letters will be found to have arranged themselves in the order in which they stand on the printed pages of Dante’s Inferno. It will never happen — though you stir for an eternity. And the reason is that such effects do not happen, but are produced only by a cause adequate to them and directed to the end in view. . . . Assuredly, what chance cannot begin to produce in a moment, chance cannot complete the production of in an eternity. . . . What is needed is not time, but cause.”

HT: Fred Zaspel

Remembering Abraham Lincoln and the Second Inaugural Address

Today is the birthday of two key figures: Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). What follows are some reflections on Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address. I have enormous respect for Lincoln and in what follows I reflect on one of his most profound statements, his reflection on the American Civil War. It is a reflection that reveals Lincoln at his very best. For a reflection on Darwin, see Dr. Albert Mohler’s blog for today, “Charles Darwin and the Modern Mind.” The American Civil War (1861-1865) was the most violent experience in American history. At least 620,000 soldiers were killed in the war—2% of the American population in 1860. If the same percentage of Americans were killed in a war today, the number of American war dead would exceed five million. Moreover, an unknown number of civilians, virtually all of them in the South, died from causes such as disease, hunger or exposure brought about by the war. As a result, more Americans died in the Civil War than in all of America’s other wars combined.

One of the most remarkable statements of what God was doing in the Civil War comes from the pen of Abraham Lincoln, who does not appear to have been a Christian. It was Saturday, March 4, 1865, the day of Lincoln’s second inauguration. Preceding that day there had been weeks of wet weather that had caused Pennsylvania Avenue to become an ocean of mud. So it was that thousands of spectators stood in thick mud at the Capitol grounds to hear the President. In little more than a month, he would be assassinated.

By the date of Lincoln’s second inauguration, the tide of war had turned in favour of the Union, and the end was in sight. “The tone of the address, however, is subdued rather than triumphant, and it rises to a rare pitch of eloquence, marked by a singular combination of tenderness and determination” [“American Historical Documents, 1000–1904. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address” (http://www.bartleby.com/43/41.html)]. It is a theologically intense speech that has been widely acknowledged as one of the most remarkable documents in American history.

A journalist by the name of Noah Brooks, an eyewitness to the speech, said that as Lincoln advanced from his seat, “a roar of applause shook the air, and, again and again repeated, finally died away on the outer fringe of the throng, like a sweeping wave upon the shore. Just at that moment the sun, which had been obscured all day, burst forth in its unclouded meridian splendor, and flooded the spectacle with glory and with light.” Brooks said Lincoln later told him, ‘Did you notice that sunburst? It made my heart jump.” According to Brooks, the audience received the speech in “profound silence,” although some passages provoked cheers and applause.

In this address Lincoln gives one of profoundest theological interpretations of the Civil War:

"One eighth of the whole population were…slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Notice Lincoln’s conviction about the inscrutability of God’s will, a humble agnosticism about the purposes of God. Lincoln declares this in the form of a thesis: “The Almighty has His own purposes.” He then quotes Matthew 18:7 to suggest the moral character of life under God: “Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!” Then he looks squarely into the abyss that almost none of his contemporaries could bear to contemplate: “If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences…” The abyss is the suggestion that responsibility for the war might be shared.

One sees clearly Lincoln’s anti-slavery position, but his final paragraph is astounding. How different from both the Northern and Southern theologians who were quite certain God was on their respective sides!

As Mark Noll, to whom the above commentary is deeply indebted [ “ ‘Both…Pray to the Same God’: The Singularity of Lincoln’s Faith in the Era of the Civil War”, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 18, no.1 (1997).] has rightly said: “The theological puzzle of the Civil War thus reveals a theological tragedy, both for those who retained profundity at the expense of Christianity and those who retained Christianity at the expense of profundity.”

Volume on John Broadus Reviewed

One of Dr. Haykin's many responsibilities is to serve as the series editor for a new series "Studies in Baptist Life and Thought" published by B & H Academic.  The first volume of this series was published this past year and it features a collection of essays on the life and legacy of John A. Broadus.  W. Madison Grace II, a PhD student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, has recently reviewed this volume for their Baptist Theology website.  Be sure and check out the review as well as the many other valuable resources available on this website devoted to the study of issues related to Baptist life.

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

"Dyed with Jesus' blood": the type of men needed in the ministry--the view of Basil Manly, Jr

More from Basil Manly, Jr. This time a portion of one of his best sermons, that on what constitutes a call to the ministry: “Now we need numbers in the Ministry. The plenteous, perishing harvest wails out a despairing cry for more laborers. But we need purity more than numbers; we need intelligence more than numbers; we need zeal more than numbers. Above all, we need consecrated men, men who have stood beneath the Cross, till their very souls are dyed with Jesus’ blood, and a love like his for perishing millions has been kindled within them.”

[A Call to the Ministry (Greenville, South Carolina: G.E. Elford’s Job Press, 1866), 16].

Basil Manly and his love of new books

I have been reading as many of the primary sources from the hand of Basil Manly, Jr. (1825-1892) in recent days as I can, as well as key secondary sources. Manly was a keen reader, like the other founders of Southern Seminary. At one point, just before the Civil War, he became concerned that the coming war might produce a shortage of new books. Some might think this sounds petty in such circumstances—but not me! I love new books and can fully sympathize.

Manly, though, was able to poke fun at his fears. “What shall we do without new books?” he wrote to his parents (his father, Basil Manly, Sr., one of the most significant ante-bellum Southern Baptist pastors, was also a lover of books), and then answered his own question: “Read those we have, I suppose”!

[Basil Manly, Jr., Letter to Parents, March 8, 1861, cited James M. Manley, “The Southern Baptist Mind in Transition: A Life of Basil Manly, Jr., 1825-1892” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1999), 170].

Augustine Birrell and the weakness of Victorian Nonconformity

What kind of historical memory is needed today? Well, we need to know the Fathers, to remind ourselves of the catholicity of our Faith. We cannot forget the great gains made by the Reformers--no, I dare opine, the Reformation is not over. The children of the Reformers, the Puritans, need to be read for their sturdy piety and confessionalism. The eighteenth century--my favourite century, if I were to name one--must be remembered for the Spirit's great works. And then overlaying these last two our Baptist heritage (we cannot know who we are if we not know whence we came--whence our persons indeed if we forget our spiritual kin?). Now, in all of this, it would be easy to overlook the Victorians. But there is much to be learned from them. This one thing, for example: the way in which much of late nineteenth-century Evangelicalism traded in its heritage for a mess of liberal stew! The rot, so evident in the twentieth century, has far deeper roots than we imagine.

These words of the Victorian politician Augustine Birrell (1850-1933), an unbeliever though the son of the Evangelical Baptist minister Charles Mitchell Birrell (d.1880), about the impact of the writings of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)--born in Ecclefechan, what a name that!--and the Roman Catholic John Henry Newman (1801-1890) could have been written today: "these great writers found their most enthusiastic readers among the ranks of youthful Nonconformity" [Things Past Redress (London: Faber and Faber, 1937), 273]. "Youthful Nonconformity"--the heirs of the Puritans and the Evangelicals of the eighteenth century--Birrell continues, found "great solace" in these two authors, one an arch-opponent of all things Evangelical and the other a Roman Catholic author (ibid.).

Little wonder the succeeding weakness of Nonconformity when faced with the behemoth of Liberalism. The abandonment of a rich heritage and for what? And what the end result? Spiritual desolation. 1 Cor 10:6.

A lesson from a Victorian preface

Acquaintances a while ago gave me a Victorian volume that had seen better days. One of the cheap printings that characterized that era, with poor paper and even poorer illustrations, and now with the cover quite dishevelled and the binding coming loose, they could have easily decided to toss the book. But I am glad they did not. Entitled The Four Great Preachers: A Collection of Choice Sermons by Spurgeon, Moody, Talmage and Beecher the book contains a number of sermons by each of these well-known Victorian preachers along with brief biographical sketches of the four. But what I found valuable in the book was not so much the sermons, all of which can be found elsewhere in much sturdier collections. No, what I found quite illuminating was the two-page “Preface,” which was written by an unnamed Canadian editor who lived in Toronto and is dated April 10, 1885. He may well have been J.S. Robertson, the name of the Toronto publisher on the title-page. But whoever he was, his words bear a lesson for contemporary Evangelicalism.

The “Preface” begins by noting that it has been said that ‘nobody reads sermons’ any more. The editor admits that there may be some truth in this statement, but he says, ‘there are sermons and sermons’. Few, he thinks, are interested in the older style of sermons, what he calls ‘the dry type of doctrinal discourses that was once common in the pulpit’. Such sermons have been replaced by ones that are ‘more interesting’ and that contain ‘more enlivening appeals to the human heart and conscience’. There is no doubt that the author of these lines considers himself an Evangelical as the next sentence bears witness. ‘The Church,’ the editor writes, ‘as it has dropped dogma, has in large degree returned to its first work of evangelizing the world by the spirit and power of the Gospel; and in the true missionary spirit, it is going again into the highways and byways to reclaim the world to Christ, and to bring the prodigal back to the Father’.

What should forcefully strike any reader of these lines is that ‘dogma’—Christian doctrine and theology—is set over against evangelism and missions, as if the two were mutually exclusive. That winning the lost can somehow be done without a concern for theology. To be sure, there have been individuals in the history of the church who allowed have themselves to become so wrapped up in theology and its tomes that they gave nary a thought to evangelism. But such are aberrations. More exemplary is Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), the Baptist pastor and theologian, whose wrestling with the theology of the free offer of the gospel was accompanied by a deepening zeal for evangelism. Or, more authoritatively, there is the example of the Apostle Paul. Some of the Apostle’s most powerful statements on evangelism occur in his letter to the Romans (see, e.g. Romans 9:1-3; 10:9-21; 15:18-29) in the midst of some of the richest doctrinal material—‘dogma’—in the New Testament. Theology, if rightly pursued, should issue in a life of concern for the lost.

The dislike for doctrine in this Victorian “Preface” may also help us understand how sectors of late Victorian Evangelicalism helped prepare the way for the coming of Liberalism. The author of this “Preface” is certainly not a liberal. But his easy dismissal of doctrine in favour of evangelism helps explain why certain sectors of Victorian Evangelicalism found themselves without any adequate response in the face of the liberal assault on Christian orthodoxy at the end of nineteenth century and at the start of the twentieth.

One wonders if a copy of the volume was sent to each of the four respective preachers, whose sermons were reprinted in the book. If one did reach the hands of C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), and he did happen to read the “Preface,” he would have been surely struck by the folly of trying to separate a passion for theological truth from Christian missions. As he well knew and affirmed, it is only when the coals of Christian orthodoxy are hot and blazing that a zeal for the conversion of others can be properly sustained.

George Adam Smith: Generous Orthodoxy in the 19th Century!

I have long enjoyed reading the blog Free St. George's. Here is a recent post that is so illuminating about Sir George Adam Smith (1856-1942), whom I would call a liberal, but who regarded himself as an evangelical and who delighted in the ministry of D.L. Moody. How can such things be? Read Book Review: 'Fixing the Indemnity'and take note of these words in the review: "Today we see history repeating itself. We fear that evangelicals who read little, particularly in the realm of history, are ill-equipped to handle the present crisis. Now those who read this blog are not in that category, so we recommend they buy the book, read it, and tell their friends what it contains.”

This is not an idle warning. All around us we see signs of Evangelicalism collapsing--and yet we despair not, for we serve a Sovereign God who can make out of stones voices of praise. And we that happening too--in the most unlikely of places God is raising up living stones for his praise and glory.

The Faithful Preacher: A Book Note

Thabiti M. Anyabwile, The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2007), 191 pages. Like far too many church historians trained in the West in the past thirty to forty years, this book made me realize that I am woefully ignorant of the spiritual experience of African-American pastors and congregants. Rightly does John Piper state in his foreword to this volume by the senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Grand Cayman Islands, that it “mines the unknown riches of the African-American experience” (p.9). Now, I had heard of one of the figures treated in this book, the Edwardsean Lemuel Haynes (1753-1833), but the other two men—Daniel Payne (1811-1893) and Francis Grimké (1850-1937)—were completely unknown to me. And what I knew about Haynes could have been told in less than a minute!

What makes this volume especially useful is that Anyabwile combines his narrative discussion of the lives of these three pastors with three or four of primary sources from each of their writings. This work is ideal as a source-book to be included in any study of American Christianity. But it is also good for the souls of those called to be pastors and leaders in the Church of the living God.

Here, for instance, is a deeply challenging statement from the Methodist Bishop Payne: “…it is not the omnipotence of God that constitutes His glory—it is His immaculate holiness. And such must be the fact in the moral character of the Christian minister—not his talents…not his learning…but his holiness” (p.95).

Thomas Chalmers on the Imputed Righteousness of Christ

The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ is being challenged today by some Evangelicals. They are far are not only from Scriptural truth but also our Evangelical heritage rooted in that truth. Here is Thomas Chalmers, from his introduction to Abraham Booth’s The Reign of Grace from its Rise to its Consummation (1768):

“Had we fulfilled the law of God, heaven would have been ours, and it would have been given to us because of our righteousness. We have broken that law, and yet heaven may be ours, not because of our righteousness, but still because of a righteousness; and the honor of God is deeply involved in the question, What and whose righteousness this is? It is not the righteousness of man, but the righteousness of Christ reckoned unto man. The whole distinction between a covenant that is now exploded, and the covenant that is now in force, hinges upon this alternative. If we make a confidence of the former plea, we shall perish; and if of the latter, we shall have everlasting life.

“The merit of His well-beloved Son is to Him the incense of a sweet-smelling savor, so that the guiltiest creature who takes shelter there, has posted himself on the very avenue, along which there ever rolls the tide of divine complacency. We should invest ourselves then with this merit, and wrap ourselves firmly in it, as in a covering. We should put on Christ, who is offered to us without money and without price. We should present ourselves before God, with His invitation as our alone warrant, and the truth of His promises, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, as our alone confidence. His place in the new covenant is to declare our forgiveness, through the blood of a satisfying atonement. Our place in the covenant, is to give credit to that declaration.”

Reader: is what is delineated in the second paragraph a reality in your life?

Thomas Chalmers Quotes

Here are three great quotes from Thomas Chalmers, whose life was recently remembered by Darrin Brooker.

  • “My God, spiritualise my affection! Give me to know what it is to have the intense and passionate love of Christ.”
  • “We do not steady a ship by fixing the anchor on aught that is within the vessel. The anchorage must be without. And so of the soul, when resting, not on what it sees in itself, but on what it sees in the character of God, the certainty of His truth, the impossibility of His falsehood.”
  • “Only three things are truly necessary in order to make life happy: the blessing of God, the benefit of books, and the benevolence of friends.”

The second one applies to my penultimate post on Holland. The third could well form the three headings of a talk. I would love to see what a Spurgeon would have done with three such headings!

HT: Darrin Brooker: Thomas Chalmers ; Ian Clary: Thomas Chalmers.

The Influence of Francis Wayland (1796-1865)

Francis Wayland has long been remembered as the President of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, a post that he held from 1827 to 1855. As the chief executive officer of what was the third oldest college in New England, the Baptist answer to Congregationalist Harvard and Yale, Wayland exercised an enormous influence on Baptist life and thought in the ante-bellum United States and, as we shall see, down to the present day. That influence is perceptible in a number of spheres. His hearty support of the modern missionary movement—in which fellow Baptist William Carey (1761-1834) was a leading figure—was an important factor in stimulating a missions-mindedness among Baptist churches in America, something that has persisted to the present day in many quarters. As a result of his missionary passion, he was asked to write the authorized biography of the American Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson (1788-1850). The two-volume work sold an amazing 26,000 copies in 1853, its first year of publication, which would be a bestseller even today in the Christian book market.

Then, his rejection of Southern Baptist arguments for the retention of slavery played a key role in bolstering Northern Baptist opposition to that dreadful institution. His correspondence on this issue with the Southern Baptist leader Richard Fuller (1804-1876), found in Domestic Slavery as a Scriptural Institution (1845), capsulized the Northern Baptist perspective on this key ethical and pastoral issue of his day. From Wayland’s point of view, slavery was “repugnant to the scriptures, to conscience, and to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.” [Robert D. Cross, “Wayland, Francis” in American National Biography, eds. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 22:825].

His opposition to slavery led to his support of the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency and his conviction that in the war against the South God was on the side of the North. As he told his son in early 1861, before the onset of war: “God is about to bring slavery forever to an end.” [Francis Wayland [Jr.] and H.L. Wayland, A Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis Wayland, D.D., LL.D. (New York: Sheldon and Co., 1867), II, 263]. There seems little doubt that Wayland played a role in turning Northern Baptist sentiment decisively against slavery.

Wayland’s perspective on the doctrine of salvation also helped mould Baptist thinking in the mid-nineteenth century. The classical Calvinism of eighteenth-century American Baptists like Oliver Hart (1723-1795) and Richard Furman (1755-1825) was falling out of favour, for theological precision was increasingly counting for less than church growth. This was especially so in the Northern United States and Wayland was a key figure in this theological transition. He was prepared to identify himself as a “moderate Calvinist” [Wayland [Jr.] and Wayland, Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis Wayland, D.D., I, 125], but would not affirm particular redemption. In truth, his little regard for either systematic theology or church history contributed significantly to his failure to grasp the full dimensions of biblical soteriology.

In his doctrine of the church there were also some inadequacies. As Norman H. Maring has written, during Wayland’s day, “in place of the early connectionalism which had bound Baptists together in associations, a new interpretation of independence was paving the way for a contention that it was both wrong and dangerous to speak of the “interdependence” of the churches.” [“The Individualism of Francis Wayland” in Winthrop Still Hudson, ed., Baptist Concepts of the Church (Chicago/Philadelphia/Los Angeles: Judson Press, 1959), 136].

In this development Wayland’s thinking played a central role. He argued that “all ecclesiastical relations of every member, are limited to the church to which he belongs” and that even such beneficial organizations as missionary associations could be disbanded so as to make way for that “plan which was the most strongly marked by individualization.” [Cited William Ringenberg, “Wayland, Francis” in Donald M. Lewis, ed., Dictionary of Evangelical Biography 1730-1860 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 2:1165 and Maring, “Individualism of Francis Wayland”, 157].

An excellent example of his stress on independence can be found, interestingly enough, in his “Introductory Essay” to the American edition of Eustace Carey’s Memoir of William Carey (1836), which occupies fourteen pages in the book. Carey was, above all things, a team player. But one would never get that impression from reading Wayland’s essay. For Wayland it is the frequent calling of William Carey “to be a pioneer, and to act alone” that he dominates his view of the Baptist missionary. [Eustace Carey, Memoir of William Carey, D.D. (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1836), xxii].

This stress on individualism in Baptist life would have both positive and glaringly negative effects on Baptist life in the next century and a half. Dependent on the scriptural aspects of the thinking of men like Wayland in this regard, Baptists have rightly stressed the necessity of personally knowing God. On the other hand, the passion for so-called “soul liberty” that has been stressed by some in the Baptist conflicts of the last century can be traced in part to the ideological perspectives of nineteenth-century authors like Wayland.

Chalmers on Reading Biographies

Here is a great quote from Thomas Chalmers that George Grant has noted. Chalmers once asserted, “I am thankful to say that no reading so occupies and engages me as the biography of those who have made it most their business to prosecute the sanctification of their souls.” See Chalmers Conference for details of a conference on Chalmers that George is hosting. Looks great—wish I could go. One of my heroes, Horatius Bonar, believed Chalmers to have been one of the greatest Christians he had ever known. George also mentions that he is writing a biography of Chalmers. This is really good news. It does amaze me sometimes that highly significant figures in the history of the church should be lacking in good biographies. Others would be the Bonar brothers themselves. They are long overdue for a large biographical study that goes all the way back through their remarkable forebears, many of whom were ministers. The bigger the better!

And who has really done justice to Spurgeon as a Calvinist? For that matter, despite the fact that there are tens of biographies of William Carey, none of them really grapples with Carey the Calvinist, apart from that by Timothy George. And what about the Southern Baptists Boyce and Broadus? There are older ones available, but we need new studies that show the value of their lives for the present day. And speaking of Baptists, we surely need a good solid study of that remarkable Irish Baptist, Alexander Carson.

And why have so many of the Puritans been ignored? We have the great study of Sibbes by Dever and much written on Owen and Baxter. But where is a contemporary biography of Thomas Goodwin? Or John Flavel? Or even that latter-day Puritan Matthew Henry? Or what about William Perkins? And then one biography this non-Welsh-speaking lover of Wales would love to get his hands on is a big solidly-researched biography of William Williams Pantycelyn, that “sweet singer of Wales.”

There is enough here for several lifetimes of work. May God raise up historians for the task!

Alexander Whyte, a “Specialist in the Study of Sin”

Although there are certain problem areas about the theological perspective of the Scottish preacher and author Alexander Whyte (1836-1921), he was right on when it came to his emphasis on the pervasiveness and odious deceitfulness of sin. In a very real sense he sought to be what he called a “specialist in the study of sin.” [“Preface” to Lord, Teach Us to Pray. Sermons on Prayer (New York: George H. Doran Co., [1923]), xi.] As he commented on one occasion: “I know quite well that some of you think me little short of a monomaniac about sin. But I am not the first that has been so thought of and so spoken about. I am in good company and I am content to be in it. Yes, you are quite right in that. For I most profoundly feel that I have been separated first to the personal experience of sin, and then to the experimental preaching of sin, above and beyond all my contemporaries in the pulpit of our day.” [Bunyan Characters, Fourth Series (Edinburgh/London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, [1908]), 195].

Late Victorian British society, with its overly romantic view of the Christian life and its faith in a God who was more a doting Father than the awesome Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, presented real temptations to Whyte to focus on things less morbid. Yet he steadfastly refused to change his ways.

Little wonder his assistant John Kelman stated in his funeral sermon that Whyte was “a Puritan risen from the dead, and prophesying in pagan times to a later generation,” who had “no respect whatever for those who thought lightly of sin” [“Whyte of St. George’s” in Ralph G. Turnbull, ed., The Treasury of Alexander Whyte (Westwood, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1953), 25, 26-27.].

On one occasion Whyte was walking with a friend in the Pass of Killiecrankie and the name of Henry Drummond (1851-1897) came up. Drummond was a popular author and essayist, whose thought was an eclectic blend of Darwinism and Christianity. “The trouble with Hen-a-ry,” Whyte told his companion, “is that he doesna ken [know] onything aboot sin.” [Cited Alexander Gammie, Preachers I Have Heard (London: Pickering & Inglis, Ltd., 1945), 12].

Nor was this preoccupation with sin simply a Pharisaic focus on the sins of others. Whyte was very conscious of his own sinfulness, failings, and shortcomings. “Blessed are we…if we know our sin,” he could say honestly (Bunyan Characters, Fourth Series, 124).

As he recalled when fifty years of age: “The first text I ever heard a sermon from was that great text in Zechariah, ‘Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?’ ‘It is I, Lord,’ my young heart answered; and my heart is making the same answer here to-day.” [G. F. Barbour, The Life of Alexander Whyte (7th ed.; New York: George H. Doran Co., 1925), 305].

Whyte told an astonished audience on one occasion that he had discovered the name of the wickedest man in Edinburgh. “His name,” he told them in whispered tones, “is Alexander Whyte” (Kelman, “Whyte of St. George’s”, 29). It was, therefore, in all honesty that he could state, “I would rather take my degree in [sin] than in all the other subjects set for a sinner’s examination on earth or in heaven. For to know myself, and especially, as the wise man says, to know the plague of my own heart, is the true and the only key to all other true knowledge.” [Bunyan Characters, First Series (2nd ed.; Edinburgh/London: Oliphant, Anderson and Ferrier, 1895), 57-58].

This concern to plumb the depths of the human heart is well captured by a Latin phrase that Whyte loved to quote: generalia non pungunt, “generalities do not pierce deep” (Barbour, Alexander Whyte, 305).