William Ames’s Holy Logic

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

One of the few things I remember from my freshman philosophy class is learning about the syllogism. The syllogism is a logical tool used to deduce a conclusion from a major and minor premise (for example: A: All students wear red. B: John is a student. C: Therefore, John wears red). You’ve probably seen it before, but have you seen it used as a formula for holy living?

The Puritan theologian William Ames (1576–1633) believed that the syllogism—when used rightly—offered considerable moral guidance, for it contained the “force and nature of conscience (I.3).”[1] Ames defined the human conscience as “man’s judgment of himself, according to the judgment of God of him (I.1).” The syllogism provided the means for the conscience’s operation of accusing, excusing, and comforting the moral agent. It consists of three elements:

1. The Proposition: The proposition fulfills the role of the major premise. The Latin term Ames employed is synteresis, meaning a source for principles of moral action.Ames also referred to the proposition as a “light” and a “law.” God’s will and commandments furnish this “storehouse of principles.” While nature can often lead men and women in moral living, God’s revealed will is the only perfect rule of conscience, illuminating mankind’s moral duty (I.4–7).

2. The Witness: the witness, which Ames also termed the “index,” “book,” “review,” or “assumption,” functions as the minor proposition. The witness is a subjective statement about the self for the purpose of considering one’s moral condition in reference to the proposition. It measures the moral agent alongside the law. The moral state of the human will is compared with the standard of God’s will (I.21–25).

3. The Conclusion: the conclusion, also referred to as the “judgment,” derives partly from the proposition and partly from the witness. In the conclusion, “God’s commandment and man’s fact are mutually joined together.” The conclusion passes the sentence, or “application,” of either comfort or condemnation for the man or woman in light of the major and minor premises (I.28–32).

In sum, “in the Proposition God’s Law is declared, and in the Assumption, the fact or condition of man is examined, according to that Law; so in the Conclusion, the sentence concerning man is pronounced according to his fact…by virtue of the Law that hath been declared” (I.28).

Ames provides two examples. The first delivers accusation but the second comfort:

1. [A] “He that lives in sin, shall die” [B] “I live in sin” [C] “Therefore, I shall die”

2. [A] “Whoever believes in Christ, shall not die but live” [B] “I believe in Christ” [C] “Therefore, I shall not die but live (I.3)”

For Ames, the objective of the syllogism was to assist men and women in assessing their moral condition in light of God’s commandments and in conforming their wills to God’s will. Ultimately, it shows us how desperately short we fall, pointing to our need to rest faith in the Christ who followed God’s will perfectly.

[1] William Ames, Conscience with the Power and Cases Thereof (London, 1639). You can access the text at this link.

Ryan Patrick Hoseltonis pursuing a ThM at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY with his wife Jaclyn, and they are the parents of one child.

“We Reap on Zion’s Hill”

By Evan D. Burns

After a life consumed in service to Christ, on April 12, 1850, Adoniram Judson entered his heavenly rest.  Judson’s eminent biographer, Francis Wayland, comments on the effect of Judson’s heavenly-minded piety on his life and virtue.

In treating of his religious character, it would be an omission not to refer to his habitual heavenly mindedness. In his letters, I know of no topic that is so frequently referred to as the nearness of the heavenly glory.  If his loved ones died, his consolation was that they should all so soon meet in paradise.  If an untoward event occurred, it was of no great consequence, for soon we should be in heaven, where all such trials would either be forgotten, or where the recollection of them would render our bliss the more intense.  Thither his social feelings pointed, and he was ever thinking of the meeting that awaited him with those who with him had fought the good fight, and were now wearing the crown of victory. So habitual were these trains of thought, that a person well acquainted with him remarks, that “meditation on death was his common solace in all the troubles of life.”  I do not know that the habitual temper of his mind can in any words be so well expressed as in the following lines, which he wrote in pencil on the inner cover of a book that he was using in the compilation of his dictionary:

“—In joy or sorrow, health or pain, Our course be onward still; We sow on Burmah’s barren plain, We reap on Zion’s hill.”[1]

[1]Wayland, Memoir, 2:381-382.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Audio of Conference on Adoniram Judson Now Online

By Steve Weaver

We have posted the audio of our recent mini-conference with Dr. Jason Duesing (Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) on the conference page (see left hand column). There are two lectures on the life and ministry of Judson and a Q&A session with Dr. Duesing.

The audio of the lectures are below:

Lecture 1: The Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson, Part 1:  Conversion, Consecration, & Commission, 1788-1812 (MP3)

Lecture 2: The Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson, Part 2:  Baptism, Burma, & the Bible, 1812-1850 (MP3)

Q&A: Q&A on the Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson(MP3)

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Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children.

Preaching from the “Spiritual Sense”

By Evan D. Burns

The Puritan John Owen argued that preachers must have “experience of the power of the truth which they preach in and upon their own souls....  A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul.”[1]  So his resolution was: “I hold myself bound in conscience and in honour, not even to imagine that I have attained a proper knowledge of any one article of truth, much less to publish it, unless through the Holy Spirit I have had such a taste of it, in its spiritual sense, that I may be able, from the heart, to say with the psalmist, ‘I have believed, and therefore I have spoken.’”[2]

Would that the Holy Spirit raise up more preachers who would resolve never to preach a text unless they have already tasted its spiritual sense.

[1] Owen, Works, XVI: 76.

[2] Works, X: 488.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Samuel Davies on Meditation

By Joe Harrod

Samuel Davies (1723­–1761) expected Christians to meditate. He included meditation among various “duties of religion” and encouraged his hearers to make meditation a habitual practice.[1] By meditating, believers were following Christ’s own practice of devotion.[2] Davies never defined “meditation” or offered specific details on its mechanics, nor did he describe his own practice of this discipline; rather he expected that his hearers were acquainted with this practice. For him, meditation was an act of the mind that involved sustained, attentive reflection on God, his attributes, works, creation, and word, for the purpose of stirring one’s affections toward God.

Davies proposed several subjects upon which his hearers could affix their thoughts: God’s infinite and saving love[3]; heaven and hell[4]; “the glories of God displayed in a crucified Jesus . . . the scheme of salvation through his blood”[5]; as well as God’s glory and kindness.[6] He also encouraged meditation upon Scripture: “Read, and hear, and meditate upon his word, till you know your danger and remedy.”[7] Davies mentioned his own deliberate, meditative study of Romans.[8] By citing these objects, Davies placed himself within the Puritan tradition of meditation. Yet Davies believed that even unbelievers who were spiritually dead could “meditate upon divine things,” warning his hearers against adherence to spiritual disciplines as a sure indication of genuine faith.[9] Believers ought to meditate before taking the Lord’s Supper.[10] Davies believed that meditation afforded the believer delight and helped one to grow in holiness, which fueled happiness.[11]

[1]Samuel Davies, “Sinners Entreated,” in Sermons by the Rev. Samuel Davies, A.M. President of the College of New Jersey, vol. 1 (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1854, repr. 1993), 148. Cited henceforth as Sermons. See also idem., “Present Holiness and Future Felicity,” in Sermons, 1:281, and idem., “A Sermon on the New Year,” in Sermons, 2:207.

[2]Samuel Davies, “The Sacred Import of the Christian Name,” in Sermons, 1:348.

[3]Samuel Davies, “The Method of Salvation through Jesus Christ,” in Sermons, 1:130–31.

[4]Samuel Davies, “The Nature and Process of Spiritual Life,” in Sermons, 1:194. Here Davies suggested subjects upon which believers ought to meditate by mentioning subjects upon which unbelievers may ponder without affect.

[5]Samuel Davies, “The Divine Perfections Illustrated in the Method of Salvation, through the Sufferings of Christ,” in Sermons, 2:273.

[6] Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:480.

[7]Samuel Davies, “The Christian Feast,” in Sermons, 2:167–68.

[8]Samuel Davies, “The Nature of Justification, and the Nature and Concern of Faith in it,” in Sermons, 2:663.

[9]Samuel Davies, “The Nature and Universality of Spiritual Death,” in Sermons, 1:166.

[10]Davies, “The Christian Feast,” in Sermons, 2:167.

[11]Samuel Davies, “Present Holiness and Future Felicity,” in Sermons, 1:278. See also Samuel Davies, “The One Thing Needful,” in Sermons, 1:556.

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Joe Harrod serves as Director for Institutional Assessment at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is a doctoral candidate in the areas of Biblical Spirituality and Church History. He and his wife, Tracy, have three sons.

Samuel Davies on Reading Scripture

By Joe Harrod

Although Samuel Davies (1723­–1761) defended Scripture’s divine authority from various eighteenth century detractors, notably the Deists, his devotion to Scripture as God’s word was greater than a series of doctrinal propositions and interpretive strategies. He found Scripture of matchless spiritual value: “The word of Christ has been the treasure, the support, and the joy of believers in all ages.”[1] When instructing congregants in using various means to pursue holiness, Davies’ frequently mentioned personal disciplines which involved Scripture.[2]

Hearing the Bible read and proclaimed was part of congregational spiritual exercises and domestic responsibilities, but public piety was only part of the Christian’s duty, for genuine spirituality thrived in a believer’s “secret” or personal duties. For Davies, reading the Bible was a necessary and vital way of pursuing personal holiness.[3] He exhorted congregants to “read the word of God and other good books, with diligence, attention, and self-application.”[4] As his people read Scripture, God would meet with them.[5] Reading might also stir the affections, as Davies recalled from his own reading of 1 Thessalonians 2: “I can remember the time, when the reading of [this chapter] has drawn tears even from [a] heart so hard as mine.”[6] On the other hand, the neglect of reading Scripture often contributes to “cooling in religion.”[7] The diligent reading of Scripture may also convince the unsaved sinner of their need for Christ.[8] Hearing and reading Scripture are a delight for Christians, because through these disciplines they enjoy filial and communal fellowship with God.[9]

[1]Samuel Davies, “Christ Precious to all True Believers,” in Sermons by the Rev. Samuel Davies, A.M. President of the College of New Jersey, vol. 1 (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1854, repr. 1993), 384. Cited henceforth as Sermons.

[2]See Samuel Davies, “A Sermon on the New Year,” in Sermons, 2:207; idem., “Tender Anxieties,” in Sermons, 2:424; idem., “The Nature of Love to God and Christ Opened and Enforced,” in Sermons, 2:464–65; and idem., “Christians Solemnly Reminded,” in Sermons, 3:608.

[3]Samuel Davies, “A Sermon on the New Year,” in Sermons, 2:207.

[4]Samuel Davies, “The Connection between Present Holiness and Future Felicity,” in Sermons, 1:281.

[5]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:464–65.

[6]Davies, “Love of Souls,” in Sermons, 3:501.

[7]Davies, “Christians Solemnly Reminded,” in Sermons, 3:608.

[8]Davies, “Tender Anxieties,” in Sermons, 2:424.

[9]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:464–65.

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Joe Harrod serves as Director for Institutional Assessment at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is a doctoral candidate in the areas of Biblical Spirituality and Church History. He and his wife, Tracy, have three sons.

Reclaiming St. Patrick's Day

By Steve Weaver

Patrick Cover

We are blessed in our society today to have holidays such as Easter, Christmas, St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day which are filled with Christian significance. Unfortunately, almost all of the Christian meaning for these important markers on the Christian calendar has been forgotten. As much as we Christians like to blame the nebulous society around us, I don't think it is the "world's" fault that these holidays have not retained their Christian meaning. Instead, I fault Christians who are either unaware of their heritage or just plain derelict in their duty to educate their children. We shouldn't expect unbelievers to celebrate Christianity, but we should expect Christians to seek to pass their heritage on to the next generation.

Hopefully you do use the holidays of Christmas and Easter as opportunities to talk to your children about the birth and resurrection of Christ respectively. However, days like St. Valentine's Day and especially St. Patrick's Day are often missed opportunities in evangelical homes. Perhaps we're frightened away by the fact that these individuals are often associated with the Roman Catholic Church. But there is no need to fear Patrick for in him evangelicals have not a foe but a friend.

Patrick was a courageous Christian missionary to Ireland in the 5th century. His story of being kidnapped as a boy in Britain to become a slave in Ireland, his escape back to Britain, and his call as a missionary to return is a fascinating tale of God's providence and grace. His dedication to the doctrine of the Trinity is both admirable and worthy of emulation. Talking to your children about how Patrick taught the Trinity to the pagans of his day provides a tremendous opportunity to explain this difficult biblical teaching to them. This is an opportunity that should not be missed. Likewise, Patrick's commitment to take the gospel to unreached peoples (Ireland at the time would have been considered the "end of the world.") is another important teachable aspect of this remarkable life for our children. Read, in Patrick's own words, his commitment to take the gospel to Ireland:

I came to the people of Ireland to preach the Gospel, and to suffer insult from the unbelievers, bearing the reproach of my going abroad and many persecutions even unto bonds, and to give my free birth for the benefit of others; and, should I be worthy, I am prepared to give even my life without hesitation and most gladly for his name, and it is there that I wish to spend it until I die, if the Lord would grant it to me. (Confession 37)

In short, St. Patrick should be introduced to our children as a courageous missionary hero who believed and taught the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.

Many legends are attached to the story of Patrick and though I believe most are grounded in some true events, the discerning reader must be aware of the mixture of legend and history on this early Christian figure. However, we are not dependent merely on legends to know about the life of Patrick. His autobiographical Confession has survived the centuries and is a fascinating recounting of his life.

For those interested in learning more, there is a helpful modern biography of Patrick by Philip Freeman. For parents wanting a good introduction that can be ready by or to their children, I highly recommend Patrick: Saint of Ireland by Joyce Denham. In addition, a new biography of Patrick has been penned by Michael Haykin, which is already available in the UK and is available for pre-order in the US. We are going to give away a free copy of this book today. Enter the contest below!

A few short, but very helpful articles about Patrick's modern-day relevance are available online.

• Nathan Finn: St. Patrick and the Great Commission

• Michael Haykin: Patrick: Inspiration for the Mission of William Carey and his Friends

• Russell Moore: An Evangelical Looks at Saint Patrick

This post originally appeared on March 17, 2012 on pastorhistorian.com. It has been lightly edited and reposted today on that blog in honor of St. Patrick's Day 2014.

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Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children.

New Series on Early Church Fathers Edited by Michael Haykin

By Steve Weaver

A new series of books featuring biographies of the early church fathers is being published by Christian Focus Publications of the United Kingdom. Noted Patristic scholar Michael A.G. Haykin is serving as the series editor. According to the publisher's website:  "this series relates the magnificent impact that these fathers of the early church made for our world today. They encountered challenges similar to ones that we face in our postmodern world, and they met them with extraordinary values that will encourage and inspire us today."

Basil Cover

The first volume, authored by Marvin Jones, focuses on Basil of Caesarea. The publisher's website provides the following description:

Basil of Caesarea (329-379 AD) was a Greek Bishop in what is now Turkey. A thoughtful theologian, he was instrumental in the formation of the Nicene Creed. He fought a growing heresy, Arianism, that had found converts, including those in high positions of state. In the face of such a threat he showed courage, wisdom and complete confidence in God that we would do well to emulate today.

Patrick Cover

The second volume in the series was authored by Haykin and is an exploration of the life and impact of Patrick of Ireland. The publisher's website provides this description:

Patrick ministered to kings and slaves alike in the culture that had enslaved him. Patrick's faith and his commitment to the Word of God through hard times is a true example of the way that God calls us to grow and to bless those around us through our suffering. Michael Haykin's masterful biography of Patrick's life and faith will show you how you can follow God's call in your life.

Both these books are available in the UK. They will not be available in the US until May, but are available for pre-order now on Amazon:

• Basil of Caesarea: His Life and Impact by Marvin Jones

• Patrick of Ireland: His Life and Impact by Michael A.G. Haykin

Other books scheduled in the series include:

• Athanasius by Carl Trueman

• Cyril of Alexandria by Steve McKinion

• Augustine by Brad Green

• Irenaeus of Lyons by Ligon Duncan

• Tertullian by David Robinson

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Steve Weaver serves as a research assistant to the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a fellow of the Center. He also serves as senior pastor of Farmdale Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY. Steve and his wife Gretta have six children.

Spurgeon’s Missiology: “Go and Teach Them”

By Evan D. Burns

Charles Spurgeon equally upheld a passion for converting lost souls and for making disciples of all nations.  In his sermon, “The Missionaries’ Charge and Charter,” on April 21, 1861, Spurgeon unpacked the role of teaching disciples in missions, as commanded in the Great Commission:

First, my Brethren and very briefly, indeed, a few things about the COMMAND.  And we must remark, first, what a singularly loving one it is….  It is the voice of love, not of wrath. “Go and teach them the power of My blood to cleanse, the willingness of My arms to embrace, the yearning of My heart to save! Go and teach them. Teach them no more to despise Me, no more to think My Father an angry and implacable Deity. Teach them to bow the knee, and kiss the Son, and find peace in Me for all their troubles, and a balm for all their woes. Go—speak as I have spoken—weep as I have wept; invite as I have invited; exhort, entreat, beseech and pray, as I have done before you. Tell them to come unto Me, if they are weary and heavy laden, and I will give them rest….

Note, too, how exceedingly plain is the command, “Go you, teach all nations.”…  Why, it is the mother’s work with her child! It is the tutor’s work with the boy and with the girl—“go you and teach.” How simple! Illustrate; explain; expound; tell; inform; narrate! Take from them the darkness of ignorance; reveal to them the light of Revelation. Teach! Be content to sit down, and tell them the very plainest and most common things. It is not your eloquence that shall convert them; it is not your gaudy language or your polished periods that shall sway their intellects….  Go you and teach them first the very simplicities of the Cross of Christ!...

There has been heroism in every land for Christ—men of every color and of every race have died for Him; upon His altar has been found the blood of all kindreds who are upon the face of the earth. Oh, tell me not they cannot be taught! Sirs, they can be taught to die for Christ; and this is more than some of you have learned. They can rehearse the very highest lesson of the Christian religion—that self-sacrifice which knows not itself, but gives up all for Him. At this day there are Karen missionaries preaching among the Karens with as fervid an eloquence as ever was known by Whitefield! There are Chinese teaching in Borneo, Sumatra, and Australia, with as much earnestness as Morison or Milne first taught in China. There are Hindu Evangelists who are not ashamed to have given up the Brahmian thread, and to eat with the Pariah, and to preach with him the riches of Christ!... Well was that command warranted by future facts, when Christ said, “Go you, teach all nations.”

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Judson’s Farewell Hymn

By Evan D. Burns

Yesterday, at the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, a mini-conference was held on Adoniram Judson (1788-1850).  In honor of Judson, below is a portion of the farewell hymn written by Mrs. A. M. O. Edmond in 1846 for his final commissioning back to Burma.  Here is part of the hymn sung by the assembly in Boston:[1]

Fare ye well, O friends beloved! Speed ye on your mission high; Give to lands of gloomy error Living truths that never die. Tell, O tell them, Their redemption draweth nigh.

Bear abroad the gospel standard, Till its folds triumphant wave, And the hosts of sin and darkness Find forevermore a grave: Till, victorious, Jesus reigns, who died to save.

Fearless ride the stormy billows, Fearless every danger dare; Onward! in your steadfast purpose, We will follow you with prayer. Glorious mission! ‘Tis the Cross of Christ ye bear.

Though our parting waken sadness, ‘Tis not all the grief of woe; There are tears of Christian gladness Mingling with the drops that flow. ‘Tis for Jesus That we freely bid you go.

 Man of God! once more departing Hence, to preach a Saviour slain, With a full, warm heart we give thee To the glorious work again. Faithful servant, Thou with Christ shall rest and reign.

[1]John Dowling, The Judson Offering, 287-288;  Robert T. Middleditch, Burmah’s Great Missionary, 400-401.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Samuel Davies on the Nature of the Spiritual Life

By Joe Harrod

Samuel Davies (1723–1761) used the language of communion or fellowship when describing the nature of spiritual life: “If you love God and the Lord Jesus Christ, you delight in communion with them.”[1] True friends seized every opportunity for fellowship and a dear companion’s “absence is tedious and painful to them.”[2] God was such a friend to believers. Davies balanced God’s transcendence and immanence:

Though God be a spirit, and infinitely above all sensible converse with the sons of men, yet he does not keep himself at a distance from his people. He has access to their spirits, and allows them to carry on a spiritual commerce with him, which is the greatest happiness of their lives.[3]

Jesus had promised this communion (c.f. John 14:21–23) and it was a “mystical fellowship” that believers enjoyed, which sinners knew not.[4] Just as friends experienced communion through mutual exchanges, so God drew near to his people as a father might approach his child, showering grace, kindling love, and fostering assurance of his closeness. For their part, Christians had freedom to approach God through acts of devotion, especially prayer:

And oh! how divinely sweet in some happy hours of sacred intimacy! This indeed is heaven upon earth: and, might it but continue without interruption, the life of a lover of God would be a constant series of pure, unmingled happiness.[5]

Contrary to the opinion of some detractors, religion provided “a happiness more pure, more noble, and more durable than all the world can give.”[6] Such happiness was the believer’s present joy, and consisted of “the pleasures of a peaceful, approving conscience, of communion with God, the supreme good, of the most noble dispositions and most delightful contemplations.”[7] These blessings were gospel fruits and it was through Christ that believers had “sweet communion” with God, “the reviving communications of divine love, to sweeten the affections of life; and the constant assistance of divine grace to bear us up under every burden, and to enable us to persevere in the midst of many temptations to apostacy [sic], deliverance from hell, and all the consequences of sin.”[8]

Occasionally the believer’s experience of God did not seem so intimate, for “at times their Beloved withdraws himself, and goes from them, and then they languish, and pine away, and mourn.”[9] He recognized that the deep communion with God that he described was foreign to many, and he anticipated objections that such talk was “enthusiasm, fanaticism, or heated imagination.”[10] He appealed to more than a  half-dozen passages of Scripture (James 4:8; Hebrews 7:19 and 10:22; Psalms 69:18 and 73:28; Lamentations 3:57; and 1 John 1:3) which promised such intimacy, but replied that such communion was indeed true of God’s friends and if some critics questioned the possibility of such a close relationship, then their distance from God testified to their alienation.[11]

[1]Davies, “Nature of Love to God and Christ Opened and Enforced,” in Sermons by the Rev. Samuel Davies, A.M. President of the College of New Jersey, vol. 2 (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1854, repr. 1993), 463. Cited henceforth as Sermons.

[2]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:463.

[3]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:463.

[4]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:463.

[5]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:464.

[6]Samuel Davies, “The Ways of Sin Hard and Difficult,” in Sermons, 2:549.

[7]Davies, “Ways of Sin,” in Sermons, 2:549.

[8]Samuel Davies, “The Gospel Invitation,” in Sermons, 2:631.

[9]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:464.

[10]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:464.

[11]Davies, “Nature of Love to God,” in Sermons, 2:463–64.

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Joe Harrod serves as Director for Institutional Assessment at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is a doctoral candidate in the areas of Biblical Spirituality and Church History. He and his wife, Tracy, have three sons.

Fuller on Reading the Scriptures

By Evan D. Burns

Andrew Fuller carefully explained the usefulness and spiritual benefit of prayerfully reading the Scriptures, as opposed to reading commentaries in substitution of meditation.  He said that reading assists prayer, and prayer assists reading.  Here are some suggestions he gives for reading the Bible prayerfully:[1]

• Read Scripture prayerfully at set times each day, preferably in the mornings.

• Let reading the Scriptures precede prayer, and then let prayer spur on more reading.

• Maintain a tender, humble, holy frame of mind.

• Pause, think, pray, and apply to your meditations to your daily life.

• Only use commentators/expositors when you cannot resolve a difficult issue, and that only after thinking hard by yourself.

• Writing down interesting thoughts fixes them to memory.

[1] Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller, Volume 3: Expositions—Miscellaneous, ed. Joseph Belcher (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 788.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Introducing Samuel Davies

By Joe Harrod

In November, 1752, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) wrote a Scottish correspondent describing a young minister with whom he had recently spent an afternoon’s conversation: “He seems to be very solid and discreet, and of a very civil, genteel behavior, as well as fervent and zealous in religion.”[1] Nearly four years before the aforementioned meeting, Edwards had called the same young preacher “a very ingenious and pious young man.”[2] For all that he knew of this godly young man in 1752, Jonathan Edwards could never have known that within a decade their bodies would be buried just yards apart, about a half mile north of the yellow clapboard house in which both men had lived and died. Samuel Davies (1723­–1761), the minister whose character Edwards described, was the reluctant fourth president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), a champion for religious toleration and civil rights for dissenters in Virginia, and a poet whose verses constitute some of the earliest North American hymnody. Davies was a husband and father who had lost both wife and children, a pioneer missionary to African slaves, and a New Side Presbyterian revivalist whom D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones has described as "the greatest preacher" America ever produced. Yet a decade into the twenty-first century, Davies remains relatively unnoticed among American Evangelicals.[3]

Moreover, for all of his remarkable public accomplishments, those who knew Davies most closely esteemed his personal holiness. Upon learning of Samuel Davies’ death, his long-time friend and London correspondent Thomas Gibbons (d. 1785) remarked,

what crowned all, or advanced his distinction as a man and a scholar into the highest value and lustre, was, that his pious character appeared not at all inferior to his great intellect and acquired accomplishments…His pious character as much surpassed all else that was remarkable in him, as the sparkling eye in the countenance of a great genius does all the other features of the face.[4]

Samuel Finley (1715–1766), Davies’ successor as president at the college, noted that “from twelve or fourteen years of age, [Davies] had continually maintained the strictest watch over his thoughts and actions, and daily lived under a deep sense of his own unworthiness,” and “of the transcendent excellency of the Christian religion.”[5] In reading Davies’ sermons, treatises, hymns, correspondence, and diary, one gains a sense of what his friends knew personally: Samuel Davies articulated a warm and Evangelical piety, rooted in theological reflection upon Scripture.

For the past two and a half years, I have become increasingly familiar with Davies’ works during my doctoral thesis research. In the weeks ahead, I hope to share a portion of the fruit of this research with readers of this blog. Though I don’t follow Davies’ theology on every point, I think his reflections on divinity and piety commend wider appreciation among contemporary Evangelicals.

[1]Jonathan Edwards, letter to William McCulloch, November 24, 1752, in Letters and Personal Writings, ed. George S. Claghorn, in TheWorks of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 16 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 544.

[2]Jonathan Edwards, letter to James Robe, May 23, 1749, in Letters and Personal Writings, ed. Claghorn, Works 16:276.

[3]D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Knowing the Times: Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions 1942–1977 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1989), 263.

[4]Thomas Gibbons, “A Portion of Two Discourses, Preached at Haberdashers-Hall, London, March 29, A.D. 1761, occasioned by the Decease of the Rev. Samuel Davies, A. M., Late President of the College of Nassau Hall, in New Jersey,” in Sermons by the Rev. Samuel Davies, A.M. President of the College of New Jersey, vol. 1 (New York: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1854; repr., Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1993), 56.

[5]Samuel Finley, “The Disinterested Christian: A Sermon, Preached at Nassau-Hall, Princeton, May 28, 1761. Occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Samuel Davies, A. M. Late President of the College of New Jersey,” Sermons, 1:53.

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Joe Harrod serves as Director for Institutional Assessment at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he is a doctoral candidate in the areas of Biblical Spirituality and Church History. He and his wife, Tracy, have three sons.

Answering My Great Question about “The Great Question Answered”

By Nathan A. Finn

You may or may not know that Andrew Fuller wrote a wildly popular gospel tract titled The Great Question Answered. It was republished numerous times by multiple publishers and remained enormously popular in both Britain and the USA into the mid-nineteenth century. It is available in volume three of the “Sprinkle Edition” of The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller (pp. 540–549). The tract is also available on several websites on the internet, but be careful not to confuse it with the pro-slavery treatise by James Sloan, which was published in 1857 and is also widely available online.

I am editing the volume on Strictures on Sandemanianism for the forthcoming critical edition of The Works of Andrew Fuller. Several months ago, I began trying to locate the first publication of The Great Question Answered because it briefly references the Sandemanian view of faith. I knew it was published during the decade between 1801, when Fuller included an appendix on Sandemanianism in the revised edition of The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, and before the publication of Strictures on Sandemanianism in 1810. But the tract “went viral” so quickly and was republished so often it was difficult to find the original publication. I talked to Michael Haykin about my quest, and though he did not know the answer to my query, he helped me think through ways to track down the first publication. Last week, my quest came to an end. I have found the Holy Grail. Let me tell you how it happened.

In his memoir of his father, found in volume one of the Sprinkle Edition, Andrew Gunton Fuller suggested the tract was first published in 1806 (p. 91). But I knew that could not be the case because an extensive library holdings search last fall revealed that several libraries in both England and North America owned copies of the tract from multiple publishers dating to 1805. In his book The Forgotten Heritage: The Great Lineage of Baptist Preaching (Mercer University Press, 1986), Thomas McKibben cited an edition of The Great Question Answered published in London by William Button and Sons in 1803 (p. 49). That was the earliest date I could find.

In 1818, John Ryland Jr. published a biography of his close friend Fuller titled The Work of Faith, the Labour of Love, and the Patience of Hope, illustrated; In the Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller. In the biography, Ryland provided a list of Fuller’s published works, including magazine articles. Ryland dated the initial publication of The Great Question Answered to 1803 in TheMissionary Magazine (p. 133). I had previously seen one reference to the tract appearing in the “Edinburgh Missionary Magazine,” but could not find anything. Ryland was a great help because the periodical, though published in Edinburgh, was simply titled The Missionary Magazine—I had been sniffing down the wrong trail. In God’s providence, some volumes of The Missionary Magazine are available via Google Books—including the 1803 volume.

As it turns out, The Great Question Answered was indeed published first in The Missionary Magazine in two parts. Part One appeared in the February 21, 1803 issue, on pages 59–65. Part Two was published the following month in the March 21, 1803 issue, on pages 110–16. The two parts were then combined into a single tract that was likely first published in one part by William Button and Sons in London later in 1803. From there, it was first published in America in both Boston and Maine as early as 1805.

I do know a bit about the reception history after 1805, though there are many stones left to un-turn. As early as 1811, a Gaelic edition was published in Edinburgh. The Great Question Answered was included in the different collected editions of Fuller’s published works that began appearing as early as 1820. Also by 1820, The Great Question Answered was being published by the Baptist General Tract Society in England. In 1821, a certain Dr. Henderson translated the tract into Swedish and Russian and began distributing it through tract societies formed for those nations. In 1838, the tract was included in The Baptist Manual published by the American Baptist Publication Society. The American Tract Society was publishing the tract by 1850. Throughout the American Civil War, The Great Question Answered was distributed to Confederate soldiers by a publisher in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As this brief survey makes clear, The Great Question Answered was a popular gospel tract during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. During the years between 1803 and 1865, it was published on at least two different continents in at least four different languages—probably more. But the initial publication was in two parts in The Missionary Magazine in February and March of 1803. While there is still much I do not know about the reception history of this tract, my great question has been answered about The Great Question Answered. All is now right with the world.

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Nathan A. Finn is associate professor of historical theology and Baptist Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an elder at First Baptist Church of Durham, NC and a fellow of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.

Why Read Andrew Fuller?

By Evan D. Burns

A number of years ago I started reading Andrew Fuller’s writings.  I have come to admire and respect this great man of God who has not shared the same spotlight as other famous theologians.  But, thanks to the upcoming critical edition of Fuller’s published and unpublished works, Fuller’s theology and spirituality will hopefully continue to gain more influence.  I have discussed my appreciation of Fuller here, and in honor of Fuller’s 260th birthday last week, below are a few reasons (and suggested reading) that I commend his evangelical piety:

• His cross-centered instinct (e.g., God’s Approbation of Labours Necessary for the Hope of Success;  The Common Salvation)

• His Scripture-saturation (e.g., The Nature and Importance of an Intimate Knowledge of Divine Truth;  On an Intimate and Practical Acquaintance with the Word of God)

• His missionary spirituality (e.g., The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation;  The Promise of the Spirit)

• His prayerfulness and hunger for revival (e.g., Causes and Declension of Religion and Means of Revival)

• His heavenly-mindedness (e.g., “The Blessedness of the Dead Who Die in the Lord”)

• His Trinitarianism (e.g., “On the Trinity,” Letters of Systematic Divinity)

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Happy Andrew Fuller Day! Celebrating Andrew Fuller’s 260th birthday

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Last year, Bryntirion Press published my Ardent love to Jesus: English Baptists and the experience of revival in the long eighteenth century. The title comes from a phrase in one of the writings of Benjamin Francis, the friend of Andrew Fuller. Imagine my surprise recently when, reading a section of Fuller’s rebuttal of Joseph Priestley, I came across his statement that “the whole Epistle to the Hebrews breathes an ardent love to Christ” (Works, II, 190). I dearly wish I would have remembered this passage as I could have cited this statement in my book as further evidence of the Christocentric piety of the 18th century Baptists.

This is one of the key reasons I love Fuller and read him and recommend him: his writings are full of an ardent love to our Lord Christ. If you would see this in a very short compass: read his sermon on “The Choice of Moses” (Works, I, 426–428) today, a sermon preached on one of my favorite texts, Hebrews 11:24–26. And so, today, on Fuller’s 260th birthday, we thank God for the gift of this pastor-theologian to the Church.

PS Last year, The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies also began a tradition of a few friends of the Center celebrating Fuller’s birthday by having a dinner and birthday cake on February 6 (we had it at the Bristol Bar & Grille on Bardstown Road and Steve Weaver brought the cake) in honor of Fuller. Because I cannot travel at present, we are going to postpone our celebration till Friday, April 25 (which is actually the birthday of Oliver Cromwell! a fellow East Anglian to Fuller): more details to follow!

____________________ Michael A.G. Haykin is the director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies. He also serves as Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Haykin and his wife Alison have two grown children, Victoria and Nigel.

Puritan Manliness

By Evan D. Burns

John Owen has been called the John Calvin of England, and he is arguably the greatest of all the Puritan writers.  Summarizing Owen’s spirituality, J.I. Packer compares contemporary evangelicalism to Puritan spirituality with three points:

Anyone who knows anything at all about Puritan Christianity knows that at its best it had a vigour, a manliness, and a depth which modern evangelical piety largely lacks.  This is because Puritanism was essentially an experimental faith, a religion of ‘heart-work’, a sustained practice of seeking the face of God, in a way that our own Christianity too often is not.  The Puritans were manlier Christians just because they were godlier Christians.  It is worth noting three particular points of contrast between them and ourselves.

First, we cannot but conclude that whereas to the Puritans communion with God was a great thing, to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing.…  We do not spend much time, alone or together, in dwelling on the wonder of the fact that God and sinners have communion at all; no, we just take that for granted, and give our minds to other matters.  Thus we make it plain that communion with God is a small thing to us….

Then, second, we observe that whereas the experimental piety of the Puritans was natural and unselfconscious, because it was so utterly God-centred, our own (such as it is) is too often artificial and boastful, because it is so largely concerned with ourselves….  The difference of interest comes out clearly when we compare Puritan spiritual autobiography… with similar works our own day.  In modern spiritual autobiography, the hero and chief actor is usually the writer himself; he is the centre of interest, and God comes in only as a part of his story….

Third, it seems undeniable that the Puritans’ passion for spiritual integrity and moral honesty before God… has no counterpart in the modern-day evangelical ethos.  They were characteristically cautious, serious, realistic, steady, patient, persistent in well-doing and avid for holiness of heart; we, by contrast, too often show ourselves to be characteristically brash, euphoric, frivolous, superficial, naïve, hollow and shallow….[1]

[1] J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 215-218.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

Missionary Biographies

By Evan D. Burns

“Only eternity will reveal how many fires of evangelistic zeal have been lit by the perusal of the account of [David Brainerd’s] short but powerful ministry.”[1]  The role of spiritual biography in arousing Christ-pursuing passion is incalculable.  Consider all the great missionaries, such as William Carey (1761-1834), Adoniram Judson (1788-1850), Henry Martyn (1781-1812), and Jim Elliot (1927-1956), who claimed they were fortified and encouraged with hopeful perspective by reading of God’s mysterious providence and Christ’s abiding presence in the life, labors, and suffering of David Brainerd (1718-1747).  Imagine how many unknown missionaries there have been who likewise found strength from Jonathan Edwards’ biography of Brainerd.  For young men and women, reading evangelical biography is enduringly formational.  In addition to pointing the rising generation to timeless spiritual biographies, ministers and scholars should also consider writing new biographies of nameless, faceless servants whose lives and labors testify to the grace of the gospel of God.

Here is a great list of free ebooks of missionary biographies.  It includes biographies of missionaries such as: Brainerd, Carey, Chalmers, Geddie, Gilmour, Ginsburg, Grenfell, Judson, Livingstone, Mackay, Marsden, Moffat, Paton, Slessor, Taylor, and other collections.  Here also is another more extensive list of shorter biographies of many other great evangelical missionaries.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

[1]John Thornbury, David Brainerd: Pioneer Missionary to the American Indians. (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1996) 298.

“Christ Was All His Theme”

By Evan D. Burns

Having been trained in the New Divinity movement, Adoniram Judson’s hunger for eternity reflected an Edwardsean tenor.  In an ordination sermon he preached in 1836 for S.M. Osgood from John 10:1-18 (his only English sermon in Burma), Judson spoke of heaven’s eternal increase of joy and delight in the happy countenance of God.  God loves himself above all, and our happiness is wrapped up in his happiness in his own glory forever.  Throughout Judson’s journals, letters, and sermons, he never ceased to speak of his longing for heaven and the reward that awaited Christ’s faithful witnesses, those who loved not their lives even unto death.  After his death, his widow, Emily C. Judson, recorded how heavenly-minded his spirituality was.  She said that he could turn any conversation, observation, book, and anything trivial or important, into a spiritual train of thought.  She claimed that “Christ was all his theme.”[1]  Judson spoke often and with warm affection of seeing his Savior someday and being welcomed in to his eternal rest.  He longed for heaven because his Redeemer was there.  Judson’s prominent biographer, Francis Wayland, commented on the effect of Judson’s heavenly-minded piety on his life and virtue:

In treating of his religious character, it would be an omission not to refer to his habitual heavenly mindedness. In his letters, I know of no topic that is so frequently referred to as the nearness of the heavenly glory.  If his loved ones died, his consolation was, that they should all so soon meet in paradise.  If an untoward event occurred, it was of no great consequence, for soon we should be in heaven, where all such trials would either be forgotten, or where the recollection of them would render our bliss the more intense.  Thither his social feelings pointed, and he was ever thinking of the meeting that awaited him with those who with him had fought the good fight, and were now wearing the crown of victory. So habitual were these trains of thought, that a person well acquainted with him remarks, that “meditation on death was his common solace in all the troubles of life.”  I do not know that the habitual temper of his mind can in any words be so well expressed as in the following lines, which he wrote in pencil on the inner cover of a book that he was using in the compilation of his dictionary:

“—In joy or sorrow, health or pain, Our course be onward still; We sow on Burmah’s barren plain, We reap on Zion’s hill.”[2]

[1]Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson (New York: Anson D. F. Randolf & Company, 1883), 530.

[2]Francis Wayland, A Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Adoniram Judson, D.D. (Boston: Phillips, Samson, and Company, 1853), 2:381-382.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.

“Every Cup Stirred by the Finger of God”

By Evan D. Burns

Adoniram Judson wrote an afflicted fellow-missionary, Mr. Osgood.  His encouraging words demonstrate that he himself had choked down the bitterness of suffering and had savored the sweetness of heavenly promises.  Judson’s way of ministering to this grief-stricken brother grew out of trusting in God’s heavenly promises in spite of his own bitter trials.

So the light in your dwelling has gone out, my poor brother, and it is all darkness there, only as you draw down by faith some faint gleams of the light of heaven; and coldness has gathered round your hearth-stone; your house is probably desolate, your children scattered, and you a homeless wanderer over the face of the land.  We have both tasted of these bitter cups once and again; we have found them bitter, and we have found them sweet too.  Every cup stirred by the finger of God becomes sweet to the humble believer.  Do you remember how our late wives, and sister Stevens, and perhaps some others, used to cluster around the well-curb in the mission compound at the close of day?  I can almost see them sitting there, with their smiling faces, as I look out of the window at which I am now writing.  Where are ours now?  Clustering around the well-curb of the fountain of living water, to which the Lamb of heaven shows them the way—reposing in the arms of infinite love, who wipes away all their tears with His own hand.

Let us travel on and look up.  We shall soon be there. As sure as I write or you read these lines, we shall soon be there.  Many a weary step we may yet have to take, but we shall surely get there at last.  And the longer and more tedious the way, the sweeter will be our repose.[1]

 [1]Edward Judson, The Life,521-522;  Wayland, Memoir, 2:328-329.

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Evan D. Burns (Ph.D. Candidate, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is on faculty at Asia Biblical Theological Seminary, and he lives in Southeast Asia with his wife and twin sons.  They are missionaries with Training Leaders International.