Beddome on Revelation 3:20

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

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

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

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

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!

Benjamin Beddome: Two Pithy Sayings

It is the Puritans who are often remembered in Evangelical circles for their wisdom encapsulated in pithy sayings. But there is gold in the generation of men who succeeded them in the days of awakening and revival in the 18th century. Here are two gems from Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795), minister for fifty-five years or so of the Baptist work in Bourton-on-the-Water, now sometimes called the Venice of the Cotswolds:

• “If the head be like the summer’s sun, full of light, the heart will not be like the winter’s earth, void of fruit”—very Edwardsean this statement!

• “Love is the sacred fire within, and prayer the rising flame.”

Andrew Fuller & Caring for Widows

One of the marks of true Christianity is to care for widows (see James 1:27; Timothy 5:3-8). Andrew Fuller traced this in part back to the cross. As he wrote in a circular letter sent out to the Northamptonshire Association of Baptist Churches in 1815: “It is one of the most endearing traits in the character of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, while the salvation of the world was pending, he did not neglect to provide for his aged mother. Joseph is thought to have been dead for some years, and Mary seems to have followed Jesus, who, while upon earth, discharged every branch of filial duty and affection towards her. But now that he is going to his Father, who shall provide for her? Looking down from the cross on her, and on his beloved disciple, he saith to the one, ‘Behold thy son!’ and to the other, ‘Behold thy mother!’ What exquisite sensibility do these words convey! To her it was saying, Consider me as living in my beloved disciple; and to him, Consider my mother as your own. It is no wonder that ‘from that time that disciple took her to his own home’.” [The Situation of the Widows and Orphans of Christian Ministers].

Horatius Bonar’s Advice on Reading

Speaking of reading books, here is some great wisdom on reading from the Scottish divine, Horatius Bonar: see Practical Wisdom From Horatius Bonar.

Spurgeon Speaks to Our Day

How I love the bracing way that Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) still speaks across the years. So often it is as if he was living in our day and facing our distinct challenges. See Phil Johnson’s latest Spurgeon selection: “Let’s not lose in truthfulness what we gain in charity.”

A Calvin Quote

John Calvin’s love for the Church made him reluctant at first to embrace the Reformation for fear of involving himself in an unholy schism. But he soon realized, as he put it: “The communion of the Church was not instituted to be a chain to bind us in idolatry, impiety, ignorance of God, and other kinds of evil, but rather to retain us in the fear of God and obedience of the truth.”

Warfield on the Cross

Rightly has one recent observer/participant of Evangelicalism described it as being in a state of “free fall.” Increasingly Evangelicals are committed to fewer and fewer solidities of the faith. One that is being heavily challenged in our day is the doctrine of Christ’s penal, substitutionary atonement. For some this doctrine is only one option among a number when considering the death of Christ. For others, the whole idea of the redemptive violence of the cross is increasingly problematic. See, in this regard, Steve Chalke’s views as detailed here: Steve Chalke and the Atonement - Update and reply by Daniel Strange. For us, though, the words of B. B. Warfield (1851-1921) are still right on:

“Not only is the doctrine of the sacrificial death of Christ embodied in Christianity as an essential element of the system, but in a very real sense it constitutes Christianity. It is this which differentiates Christianity from other religions. Christianity did not come into the world to proclaim a new morality and, sweeping away all the supernatural props by which men were wont to support their trembling, guilt-stricken souls, to throw them back on their own strong right arms to conquer a standing before God for themselves. It came to proclaim the real sacrifice for sin which God had provided in order to supercede all the poor fumbling efforts which men had made and were making to provide a sacrifice for sin for themselves; and, planting men’s feet on this, to bid them go forward. It was in this sign that Christianity conquered, and it is in this sign alone that it continues to conquer.”

For another classical Evangelical statement on the cross, see the recent post “Spurgeon on substitutionary atonement” by Phil Johnson.

George Swinnock on Printing Sermons

This past summer a friend of mine, Stephen Yuille, who is finishing a PhD thesis on the thought of the Puritan George Swinnock (1627-1673), introduced me to the work of this Puritan leader. I really knew little about Swinnock beyond the fact that he was an English Puritan. I relished the thought of learning more about Swinnock since I am always delighted to make the acquaintance of a fellow-traveler on the way to the heavenly kingdom. Of course, in Swinnock’s case he has already arrived! Swinnock’s piety and thinking is well encapsulated in one key thought: his passionate commitment to living life in the fear of God [Stephen Yuille, “The whole duty of man”: The fear of God in the spirituality of George Swinnock”, Eusebeia, 2 (Spring 2004), 43]. In Yuille’s thesis on Swinnock, I came across an intriguing text that fits well with the bookish theme of my last two posts. In his The Christian Man’s Calling [The Works of George Swinnock, M.A. (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1868), I, 57], Swinnock offers this fascinating observation about why “ministers are often more exact in their printing than in their preaching”:

“...men print, in a sense, for eternity. Sermons preached, or men’s words, pass away with many like wind—how soon are they buried in the grave of oblivion! but sermons printed are men’s works, live when they are dead, and become an image of eternity: ‘This shall be written for the generation to come.’ ”

Having just preached three times this Lord’s day I sense something of the truth of Swinnock’s observation.

When one compares, for instance, the printed corpus that we have of the sermons of George Whitefield (1714-1770)—pitifully few compared to the stream of preached speech that poured forth from his anointed lips—with that of the New England preacher Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)—a truly massive amount of sermonic text—one can but confess the rectitude of Swinnock’s remarks.