Rediscovering the Church Fathers

A few years after I had done my doctoral studies in fourth-century pneumatology and exegesis and had started teaching in the 1980s, I intuited that I would have to develop another area of scholarly expertise, for very few of the Baptist congregations with which I had contact were terribly interested in men like Athanasius (died 373) and Basil of Caesarea (c.330-379). At a much later date, when I had developed a keen interest in British Baptists and Dissenters in the “long” eighteenth century and was giving papers and lectures in this subject, I was increasingly conscious that while fare from this second field was quite acceptable to Evangelical audiences, a cloud of suspicion hung over the whole field of the Ancient Church. Far too many modern-day Evangelicals are either ignorant of or quite uncomfortable with the Church Fathers. No doubt years of their decrying tradition and battling Roman Catholics with their “saints” from the Ancient Church have contributed in part to this state of ignorance and unease. An ardent desire to be “people of the Book”—an eminently worthy desire—has led to a lack of interest in other students of Scripture from that earliest period of the Church’s history after the Apostolic era. This should not be. Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)—a man who certainly could not be accused of elevating tradition to the level of, let alone over, Scripture—once rightly noted: “It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others” [Commenting and Commentaries (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876), 1].

Thankfully, this has begun to change. We who are Evangelicals are beginning to grasp afresh that Evangelicalism is, as Timothy George has put it, “a renewal movement within historic Christian orthodoxy” [Promotional blurb in Williams, D. H. Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 1.]. We have begun to rediscover that which many of our Evangelical and Reformed forebears knew and treasured—the pearls of the Ancient Church.

The French Reformer John Calvin (1509-1564), for example, was a keen student of the Church Fathers. He did not always agree with them, even when it was a case of one of his favourites, like Augustine. But he knew the value of knowing their thought and drawing upon the riches of their written works for elucidating the Faith in his day.

In the following century, the Puritan theologian John Owen (1616-1683), rightly called by some the “Calvin of England” was not slow to turn to the experience of the one he called “holy Austin,” namely Augustine of Hippo (354-430), to provide him with a typology of conversion. See A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (1850-1853 ed.; repr. Edinburgh/Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), III, 337-366.

Yet again, the Particular Baptist John Gill (1697-1771) played a key role in preserving Trinitarianism among his fellow Baptists at a time when other Protestant bodies—for instance, the English Presbyterians, the General Baptists, and large tracts of Anglicanism—were unable to retain a firm grasp on this utterly vital biblical and patristic doctrine. Gill’s The Doctrine of the Trinity Stated and Vindicated was an effective defence of the fact that there is “but one God; that there is a plurality in the Godhead; that there are three divine Persons in it; that the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; that these are distinct in Personality, the same in substance, equal in power and glory” [The Doctrine of the Trinity stated and vindicated (2nd ed.; London: G. Keith and J. Robinson, 1752), 166-167]. But a casual perusal of this volume reveals at once Gill’s indebtedness to patristic Trinitarian thought and exegesis, for he is at home in quoting such authors as Justin Martyr (d. c.165), Tertullian (fl.190-220), and Theophilus of Antioch (fl.180).

One final example of earlier Evangelical appreciation of the Fathers must suffice. John Sutcliff (1752-1814), a late eighteenth-century English Baptist, was so impressed by the Letter to Diognetus, which he wrongly supposed to have been written by Justin Martyr, that he translated it for the The Biblical Magazine, a Calvinistic publication with a small circulation. He sent it to the editor of this periodical with the commendation that this second-century work is “one of the most valuable pieces of ecclesiastical antiquity” [ The Biblical Magazine, 2 (1802), 41-48. The quote is from p.41].

May the Lord enable us to be wise and discerning in our rediscovery of the Fathers.

The Andrew Fuller Works Project

AimThe aim of this project is to publish a modern critical edition of the entire corpus of Andrew Fuller’s published and unpublished works. It is expected that this edition will comprise at least twelve volumes and take eight to ten years to publish. Discussions with possible publishers are currently underway. With an office at Toronto Baptist Seminary, Toronto, and, it is hoped, one in the United States, The Works of Andrew Fuller Project will also sponsor conferences and other educational enterprises, seeking to make the thought of this eighteenth-century Baptist thinker and his contemporaries available to the public.

Mission Statement and the importance of the project The controlling objective of The Works of Andrew Fuller Project is to preserve and accurately transmit the text of Fuller’s writings. The editors are committed to the finest scholarly standards for textual transcription, editing, and annotation. They are convinced that transmitting these texts is a vital task since Fuller is a central figure in Baptist history. His writings, not only for their volume, extent, and scope, but for their enduring importance, are major documents in the Baptist story.

From a merely human perspective, if Fuller’s theological works had not been written, William Carey would not have gone to India. Fuller’s theology was the mainspring behind the formation and early development of the Baptist Missionary Society, the first foreign missionary society created by the Evangelical Revival of the last half of the eighteenth century and the missionary society under whose auspices Carey went to India. Very soon, other missionary societies were established, and a new era in missions had begun as the Christian faith was increasingly spread outside of the West, to the regions of Africa and Asia. Carey was most visible at the fountainhead of this movement. Fuller, though not so visible, was utterly vital to its genesis. Moreover, as a missionary statesman, Fuller is still a valuable mentor.

History of Fuller’s Works Fuller’s writings exist in three states: those published during his lifetime, those issued posthumously, and those still in manuscript (these are mostly letters, a few sermons and a diary). Up until now, scholars and general readers have had to rely generally on a nineteenth-century American edition that has been reprinted by Sprinkle Publications: The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (1845 ed.; repr. Harrisonburg, Virginia: 1988; 3 vols.). The inadequacies of this edition include its incompleteness, the small font size of the text, and the lack of both critical annotation and adequate indices. A much better text to have reprinted would have been The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (London: William Ball, 1837), which was published in 5 volumes and is much easier to read. It too though suffers from not being the complete works of Fuller and the lack of both critical annotation and adequate indices. Finally, there is a very rare 8-volume edition published as The Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (London: B.J. Holdsworth, 1825).

After Fuller’s death, there also appeared two volumes of additional writings, neither of which is readily available today: J. W. Morris, collected, Miscellaneous Pieces on Various Religious Subjects, being the last remains of the Rev. Andrew Fuller and Joseph Belcher, ed.,The Last Remains of the Re. Andrew Fuller (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, [1856]). The editor of this latter piece also brought out a selection of Fuller’s writings entitled The Atonement of Christ, and the Justification of the Sinner (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.).

What is missing from all of these collections is the massive correspondence of Fuller, which reveals the enormous influence that Fuller had in both Baptist circles and other realms of eighteenth-century Evangelicalism. Without the availability of these works, a proper appreciation of Fuller’s impact and achievement cannot be done.

The Works of Andrew Fuller Project will reproduce Fuller’s texts as he wrote them in manuscript or, if he published them himself, as they were printed in the first edition. The annotations that accompany each text will present textual problems and variant readings. In the prefaces and headnotes, the editors will seek to sketch the historical context and intellectual influences.

Participants/editors Revd. Paul Brewster who serves as the pastor of Barlow Vista Baptist Church in Hampstead, North Carlina, and is a Ph.D. student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Dr. Crawford Gribben is a lecturer in the Department of English and American Studies, the University of Manchester, Manchester, and is the author of The Puritan Millennium: Literature & Theology, 1550-1682 (Four Courts Press, 2000); The Irish Puritans: James Ussher and the Reformation of the Church (Evangelical Press, 2003); and his and Timothy C. F. Stunt, eds., Prisoners of Hope? Aspects of Evangelical Millennialism in Britain and Ireland, 1800-1880 (Paternoster, 2004).

Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin is the Principal of the Toronto Baptist Seminary and Bible College and Adjunct Professor of Church History at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of One heart and one soul: John Sutcliff of Olney, his friends, and his times (Evangelical Press, 1994), and The Armies of the Lamb: The spirituality of Andrew Fuller (Joshua Press, 2001).

Dr. Michael M. McMullen is Associate Professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri. He did his doctoral work on Jonathan Edwards at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and at Yale University. He has authored several books, including The Passionate Preacher: Previously Unpublished Sermons by Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Christian Focus) and The Blessing of God: Previously Unpublished Sermons of Jonathan Edwards (Broadman & Holman, 2003). He is also Associate Editor (Church History) for Oxford University Press’ New Dictionary of National Biography (2004).

Revd. Peter J. Morden is the Senior Pastor of Shirley Baptist Church, near Solihull, England. He is the author of Offering Christ to the World: Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) and the Revival of Eighteenth-Century Particular Baptist Life (Paternoster Press, 2003).

Dr. Tom J. Nettles currently serves as Professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He has published several works on the history of Baptist theology, including By His Grace and For His Glory (Baker, 1986).

Dr. Robert W. Oliver is the pastor of a Baptist church in Bradford on Avon, England. His doctoral work was on early English Strict Baptist History. Since 1989 he has also been Lecturer in Church History at the London Theological Seminary and is also currently Adjunct Professor of Church History, Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia (John Owen Centre, London).

Dr. Brian Talbot is the Pastor of Cumbernauld Baptist Church, Scotland. He is the author of The Search for a Common Identity: The Origins of the Baptist Union of Scotland 1800-1870 (Paternoster Press, 2003).

Revd. Nigel Wheeler is a Ph.D. candidate at Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland, where he is doing his doctoral thesis on the ordination sermons of Andrew Fuller.

Reflections on Jaroslav Pelikan’s Magnum Opus, Volume 1

Doing history has been well likened to the construction of a building. To put up a well-constructed edifice one needs both bricklayers and craftsmen skilled in the details of construction, as well as architects to provide the schematic plans and overall guidance for the project. Similarly in the writing of history we need both the quarrying of primary sources and the detailed work of asking what this event or text means, as well as the overall vision of how a multitude of texts or events fit together. And just as it is rare to find one individual today who does both tasks in the building process—the actual building of the edifice and the drawing up of architectural plans—so it is rare to find historians who excel in both areas. Jaroslav Pelikan, though, is undoubtedly such a rarity as his The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1971)—the first volume of his magisterial five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of The Development of Doctrine—demonstrates. Although this work is now nearly 35 years old, it is still a benchmark study in Patristics. Pelikan is quite evidently at home with both the details of patristic scholarship—for example, the critical history of Ignatius of Antioch’s letters or the use of Scripture in the fourth-century Pneumatomachian controversy—and the overall sweep of doctrine in this formative period—for instance, the development of Christology. His perspective is informed by both rigorous, detailed scholarship and an authoritative grasp of the interconnectedness and main lineaments of Christian doctrine. And all of this is executed while being “passionately convinced of the lasting significance of the patristic achievement” [Henry Chadwick, “Book Notes: Pelikan, Jarolsav. The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Christian [sic] Doctrine. Vol. I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition”, The Journal of Religion, 54 (1974), 315].

No doubt Pelikan would agree with Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930)—in his words, the “high priest of Wissenschaft” [The Melody of Theology: A Philosophical Dictionary  (Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Harvard University Press, 1988), 111]—that “the most important period of all [Church History] is the early Church—here are the measuring rods for all the rest… Because the decisive questions in Church history are raised in this first period, so the Church historian needs to be at home here above all” [Letter to Karl Holl, 1859, cited B. Drewery, “History and Doctrine: Heresy and Schism”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 23 (1972), 251-252.].

Pelikan is not only in agreement with this view of Harnack, but his five-volume history of Christian doctrine has been written in conscious response to Harnack’s Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (3vols., 1886-1889), a work that Pelikan notes has been “[s]uperseded but never surpassed,…the one interpretation of early Christian doctrine with which every other scholar in the field must contend” (p.359).

Hellenization

Now, one of the great themes of Harnack’s work is that the deep-seated patristic interest in dogma is actually an alien imposition of Graeco-Roman patterns of thinking upon Christianity, what he calls “Hellenization” (p.45, 55). Pelikan responds to Harnack’s accusation by emphasizing that Hellenization is not as widespread as Harnack believes. Pelikan examples the theological achievement of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, both of whom have been considered “consistent hellenizer[s],” but whose philosophical categories of thought, upon close examination, are seen to be profoundly modified in light of Scripture (p.46-55). Yet, as he also shows from the work of two very different authors like Tertullian and Gregory of Nyssa, early Christians found Graeco-Roman thought very difficult to avoid, especially when it came to the nature of the soul and the impassibility of God (p.49-54). In the final analysis, though, it is the various heretical systems opposed by the Fathers that reveal the deepest impress of Hellenization. In condemning them, the Church was seeking to protect Christian doctrine from the encroachment of secular thought (p.55).

Moreover, what is often considered the supreme symbol of Hellenization is the term homoousios, used, as is well known, by the Council of Nicaea in 325 to describe the ontological relationship between the Father and the Son within the Godhead. Yet, this use of this term actually draws a sharp line between the Christian faith and the philosophical perspective of the surrounding pagan culture of that day, namely Neoplatonism. Whereas third- and fourth-century Neoplatonism postulated “a descending hierarchy of unequal first principles” [R.M. Price, “ ‘Hellenization’ and Logos Doctrine in Justin Martyr”, Vigiliae Christianae, 42 (1988), 21], the homoousios unequivocally affirms the full deity of the Son and leaves absolutely no room for a subordinationist vision of the Godhead. In this respect, the final outcome of the Trinitarian discussion in the fourth century represents a de-Hellenization of dogma and one of the most profound challenges to Graeco-Roman thought in the ancient world.

Personally, I would find myself in broad agreement with Pelikan’s answer to what has been a major approach of numerous late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century students of Patristic thought. Nevertheless, there is room to ask if the very concept of the “Hellenization” of Christianity as enunciated by Harnack, a concept that demands a clear-cut and rigid demarcation between Judaism and Hellenism, is historically accurate. Or is it an explanation that is primarily ideologically motivated? Is it not the case that there was an extensive interpenetration of Jewish and Greek thought before the era of the Fathers, as seen, for instance, in the work of such figures as Aristobulus of Paneas, Philo, and even Josephus? For some of what follows, see Price, “ ‘Hellenization’ ”, 18-23.

Even in the New Testament one needs to take note of the ease with which the Apostle Paul can quote pagan sources in his sermon on the Areopagus and in Titus 1. Are the very sources of the Christian tradition then guilty of “Hellenization”? Or is it the case that the interplay of thought in the world of the New Testament and the Fathers is somewhat more subtle than the idea of “Hellenization” allows? What R. M. Price suggests with reference to the ante-Nicene authors may well be correct as a general principle with regard to this whole debate over “Hellenization” and early Christian thought:

“Grand vistas of hellenization…are a distracting irrelevance that distort the picture and raise the wrong questions. We need to draw a more intricate map of the intellectual world of the pre-Nicene period, with more attention to the subtle and undramatic gradations of the terrain” (“ ‘Hellenization’ ”, 22).

Pelikan’s response to Harnack’s thesis of “Hellenization” could have been strengthened if he had begun his account with the New Testament, thereby showing the strong links between New Testament thought and what followed [Robert L. Wilken, “The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol. I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)”, Saturday Review, (August 7, 1971), 26]. Given Pelikan’s emphasis on the importance of biblical exegesis for the development of doctrine in the Patristic era this omission is strange indeed.

Pelikan on Augustine

Equally strange and startling is the lack of any real discussion of Augustine’s Trinitarian perspective. Augustine’s enormously influential Trinitarianism is summed up and dismissed in one sentence (p.224). This omission is also noticed by Chadwick, “The Christian Tradition”, 316 and Ernest L. Fortin, “Book Reviews: The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). By Jaroslav Pelikan”, Theological Studies, 33 (1972), 331. Pelikan is certainly aware of Augustine’s importance in this regard in Western Christianity (p. 67, 197, 350-351). Elsewhere, Pelikan can actually state that Augustine’s On the Trinity is, for the Latin West, “the classic summation of the central teaching of Christianity” and may rightly be reckoned as Augustine’s “most brilliant intellectual and theological achievement” (Melody of Theology, 16).

One wonders if there is more at stake here than simple oversight. For instance, it is noteworthy that Pelikan’s treatment of Augustine’s defence of the sovereignty of grace in the salvation of sinners is unmistakably critical of the North African theologian (p. 313, 321, 325). This is curious in light of the clear attempt by Pelikan to present the various heretics of the Patristic era—men like Marcion and Arius—in as sympathetic light as possible [I. John Hesselink, “Book Reviews: Jaroslav Pelikan. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)”, Christian Scholar’s Review, 2 (1973), 375]. And even more curious when Pelikan later gave it as his opinion that Augustine is “arguably, the only figure from all of late antiquity…whom we can still read with understanding and empathy” (Melody of Theology, 17-18).

Other lacunas

The omission of Augustine’s Trinitarianism is one of a number of noticeable lacunas. Another is an examination of the Apostles’ Creed, which is without a doubt the most important of Western credal statements. There are a few brief mentions of it, but no real discussion (p.117, 150-151). For this omission, see Robert L. Calhoun, “A New History of Christian Doctrine: A Review Article”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972), 503.

The so-called Apostolic Fathers also receive scant attention, though they are important links between the Apostolic era and second-century Christianity. One thinks of Irenaeus of Lyons’ link with the Apostle John via Polycarp of Smyrna.

These omissions are matched by some odd inclusions. For example, Pelikan notes that among the defenders of the Nicene Creed, obviously Athanasius deserves “pride of place”, but, he continues, two other Eastern theologians deserve to be ranged alongside him, namely, “Amphilochius [of Iconium] and especially Didymus” (p.203). It is certainly curious to see Amphilochius mentioned, who, from a strictly theological perspective, is the least of the Cappadocian Fathers and whose written corpus that has come down to us is ever so slight.

A problem with methodology

But probably my greatest problem with Pelikan’s work has to do with his methodology. While it is encouraging to see him include in this study not merely formal theological works but also material drawn from the worship and liturgy of the church, his attempt to treat the church’s theology in isolation from the social and personal matrix in which it took shape is deeply regrettable. Pelikan states at the beginning of this study his desire to “listen to the chorus more than to the soloists” (p.122). But, as he came to admit in the fifth volume in this history of Christian doctrine, there “have been a few soloists…whose life and teaching have made them…major themes for the chorus, rather than primarily soloists in their own right” [The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine. Vol. 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700) (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 7]. From the early Church Fathers he cites two—Origen and Augustine. If this be the case, then the lives of the theologians who produced the themes for the chorus must be considered.

As R.F. Evans stresses in one of his books on Pelagius: “the comparison of systems of thought involves an abstraction from the actual course of events. In theological controversies it is not in the first instance systems of thought which “confront” each other, but men—men who speak and write on concrete occasions, men whose thought may be in flux and may be bent by the very events of controversy in which they are participating” (cited Drewery, “History and Doctrine: Heresy and Schism”, 252).

Moreover, when we remember that the writings of the early Church were personal works, directed to specific individuals or to particular groups, and caught up in networks of personal relationships, Pelikan’s consideration of the doctrine of these works apart from their personal matrix is inevitably problematic. Consider, for example, Basil of Caearea’s On the Holy Spirit (375).

Basil of Caesarea & Eustathius of Sebaste

This work grew out of Basil’s controversy with Eustathius of Sebaste, one of his closest friends, indeed the man who had been his mentor when he first became a Christian in 356. Eustathius’ interest in the Spirit seems to have been focused on the Spirit’s work, not his person. For him, the Holy Spirit was primarily a divine gift within the Spirit-filled person, One who produced holiness [Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, “Eustathius von Sebaste,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 10 (1982), 548-549]. When, on one occasion at a synod in 364, he was pressed to say what he thought of the Spirit’s nature, he replied: “I neither chose to name the Holy Spirit God nor dare to call him a creature”! [Socrates, Church History 2:45. See Pelikan, Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 212].

For a number of years, Basil sought to win Eustathius over to a confession of the Spirit’s divinity. Finally, in the summer of 373 he met with him for an important two-day colloquy, in which, after discussion—much of which was recorded by two tachygraphers—and prayer, Eustathius eventually acquiesced to Basil’s view of the Spirit’s nature. At a second meeting Eustathius signed a statement of faith that affirmed the Spirit’s indivisible unity with the divine nature (Basil, Letter 125.3).

Another meeting was arranged for the autumn of 373, at which Eustathius would sign this declaration in the presence of a number of Christian leaders. But on the way home from his meeting with Basil, Eustathius was convinced by some of his friends that Basil was theologically in error. For the next two years Eustathius crisscrossed Asia Minor denouncing Basil as a heretic, for he claimed that the bishop of Caesarea was in reality guilty of Modalism.

Basil was so stunned by what had transpired that he kept his peace for close to two years. As he wrote later in 376, he was “astounded at so unexpected and sudden a change” in Eustathius that he was unable to respond. Finally, he simply felt that he had to speak. His words were those of one of the most important books of the entire Patristic period, On the Holy Spirit, written in 375 at the personal request of Basil’s friend, Amphilochius of Iconium. And Basil used as the basis of this work the shorthand record of his colloquy with Eustathius. Can the precise form of Basil’s pneumatology in this work be genuinely appreciated apart from some awareness of the context that drew it forth?

Clearly this work on the Spirit does not belong to the category of purely private and personal correspondence. It was intended to have a wider circulation well beyond its initial recipient. But it shows how Patristic writings and Patristic doctrine were frequently embedded in personal contexts. And for doctrine to be properly understood it must be seen in the matrix out of which it arose.

As Michael Blecker has rightly affirmed: “To do theology without history is to study cut flowers, not living plants.”

Patrick of Ireland

History has been enormously generous to Patrick of Ireland (c.390-c.460). Of the hundred or more saints whose memory was celebrated on a specific day by the mediaeval Roman Catholic Church, St. Patrick’s Day is one of the very few to survive in the modern calendar. The green of Ireland is remembered every year around the world on March 17 and Patrick is everywhere the symbol of Irishness. But, as others have noted, in so elevating Patrick to icon status, the true measure of the man has been obscured. In recent years there have been a number of excellent studies that have sought to illuminate the real Patrick and his world, such works as R.P.C. Hanson’s The Life and Writings of the Historical Saint Patrick (1983) and Máire B. de Paor’s Patrick: The Pilgrim Apostle of Ireland (1998). A more recent study of Patrick’s life is by Philip Freeman, professor of Classics at Washington University, St. Louis: St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). It is an extremely well-told account of the important Romano-British missionary. Freeman rightly assumes that the whole of what we can know about the historical Patrick must begin with his two undoubted writings: The Confession and his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. They reveal a passionate evangelist who willingly sacrificed his ardent desires to stay in Britain with family and friend to go to Ireland so as to take the gospel to the pagan Irish. Despite much opposition and threats on his life, his ministry was powerfully owned by God and the gospel proclaimed in much of the north of Ireland. In so doing Patrick laid the foundations for the Celtic Church, that bright light of early mediaeval Europe.

Freeman includes translations of Patrick’s two works in an epilogue (p.169-193). To someone used to a standard translation of these two works, like that of Ludwig Bieler, Freeman’s translation might seem somewhat loose and too colloquial. On the other hand, his translation does have the advantage of making Patrick and his world come alive.

Freeman knows that fourth- and fifth-century world well enough that he is able to effortlessly place Patrick’s thought and achievement in context. Rarely, in this blogger’s opinion, does his sketch of Patrick’s historical context need serious qualification. One such place, though, is his affirmation that Patrick was “likely baptized as an infant, a standard practice since the mid-third century” (p.13). Hendrick F. Stander, currently head of Greek at the Department of Ancient Languages at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and J.P. Louw, also one-time head of Greek at the University of Pretoria until his retirement, have convincingly shown that infant baptism was not at all common in the Ancient Church until the fifth century [Baptism in the Early Church (Rev. ed.; Carey Publications, 2005)].

Another statement that needs some qualification is the assertion that besides Patrick’s two authentic works “there are simply no other documents from ancient times that give us such a clear and heartfelt view of a person’s thoughts and feelings” (p.xviii). Freeman reiterates this view later on in the book: “in Patrick’s Confession, unlike in any other contemporary letter, we have a window into the soul of a person” (p.143). In the context of this last remark, Freeman does mention Augustine’s Confessions. But Freeman believes Augustine’s work to be “a carefully constructed spiritual biography that still leaves a reader wondering just what kind of man the author was beneath the ornate and exquisitely organized prose” (p.143). Of Augustine’s exquisite Latin there is no doubt, but if any ancient document is revelatory of the author, surely it is this work!

Nor is Augustine’s Confession in a class by itself. Yet another ancient Christian work that open up a window into the affections and thoughts of an author is Gregory of Nazianzus’ On his life (De vita sua). Though highly elaborate in its Greek poetic construction, this is a work that gives the reader rich insights into Gregory’s unforgettable character, with all of its foibles and flaws.

These are quibbles, though, in a well-executed work that will hopefully expose a new generation of readers to the joy of getting to know one of the most extraordinary mission-minded Christians of the Ancient Church, Patrick. Not without reason did William Carey (1761-1834), the so-called “father of the modern missionary movement,” see in Patrick an exemplar.

Two Reasons for Baptists to Read Their History

In Jane Austen’s early novel Northanger Abbey, one of the characters, Catherine Morland, states that history “tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences in every page; the men are all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome” [Northanger Abbey, ed. Claire Grogan (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1994), 122]. How accurately this statement reflects modern Western attitudes towards history! Generally speaking contemporary men and women in the West rarely think of going to history for wisdom. History, at best, contains stuff for entertainment. But wisdom? No, that’s found by looking to the present and to the future. Tragically this modern attitude towards history is also characteristic of all too many 21st century Baptists. We have prided ourselves on being New Testament people who are not weighed down with the freight of church traditions. But we need an intimate knowledge of our history as Baptists. Why?

Well, many reasons could be given, but for starters, the study of Baptist history informs us about our predecessors in the faith—men and women like John Bunyan and Anne Steele, John Gill and Andrew Fuller, C.H. Spurgeon and Henrietta Feller, D.A. McGregor and T.T. Shields—those who have helped shape our Christian communities for both good and ill and thus made us what we are. Such study builds humility into our lives, and so can exercise a sanctifying influence upon us.

Reflecting on their lives and thought can also provide encouragement in being faithful for Christ in our day. To take but one example. In the English-speaking world, Baptists upheld the biblical doctrine of believer’s baptism for at least two and a half centuries before other Christian communities embraced this doctrine. It cost the Baptists much to do so. Since few Baptist churches before the 19th century possessed an indoor baptistery, baptism was usually done outdoors in a pond, stream, or river where all and sundry could come and watch. The Baptists were thus provided with excellent opportunities to bear witness to their distinct convictions and their commitment to Christ.

However, the public nature of the rite also exposed them to ridicule and censure. James Butterworth, who pastored at Bromsgrove near Birmingham from 1755 to 1794, could state at a baptismal service in 1774: “Baptism is a thing so universally despised, that few can submit to it, without apparent danger to their temporal interest; either from relations, friends, masters, or others with whom they have worldly connections” [Repentance and Baptism considered (Coventry, 1774), 36].

Andrew Fuller, the Baptist leader from the same century, found this out when he was baptized in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire. A couple of days after he had been baptized in the spring of 1770 he met a group of young men while he was riding through the fields near his home in Soham. “One of them,” he later recorded, “called after me, in very abusive language, and cursed me for having been ‘dipped’” [cited John Ryland, The Work of Faith, the Labour of Love, and the Patience of Hope, illustrated; in the Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller (2nd ed.; London: Button & Son, 1818), 22].

It was the steel of such men and women, though, that preserved Baptist witness and so passed down a heritage to us. They thought it worth while to be “despised,” as Butterworth puts it. Shall we, their heirs, not seek to be as faithful in our day? And can we not draw courage to do so from meditating on their example?

Jonathan Edwards’ Birthday

Just noticed on Justin Taylor’s blog—Between Two Worlds—that this is Jonathan Edwards’ 302nd birthday. What a happy day that was for God’s people when Esther Stoddard Edwards gave birth to Jonathan!

A Serendipitous Meeting & Robert Murray McCheyne

The word “serendipity” and its adjective “serendipitous” were coined in the mid-18th century by Horace Walpole to describe the happy and beneficial discovery, by “accidents” and sagacity, of things that were not being sought. My research assistant, Ian Clary, had one of these serendipitous meetings this morning that only God could arrange. And central to it was the 19th century Scottish preacher, Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843). Read about it at: “A Little Encouragement from M'Cheyne.”

Introducing “Historia Ecclesiastica”

I have decided to change the name of my blog since I discovered a blog with the identical name this evening. The only difference between this blog and mine is that whereas mine has lege with a lower case ‘l’ it has this letter in upper case. Since this blog is mostly about Church History, it made sense to call it “Historia ecclesiastica.” All of my previous posts have been saved under this new title.

Ben Witherington III on Friendship

I have long appreciated the work of Ben Witherington III, especially his commentary on Acts, which is superb. I just discovered his blog: Ben Witherington. He has this fabulous statement on friendship—a subject about which I have thought long and hard—at the close of a recent entry, “Tis a Gift to be Simple--the story of Kevin”: “Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.”

Recalling Leon Trotsky

For a number of years before I became a Christian in 1974 I was a Marxist. Now Marxists, like Christians, come in a various shapes and sizes and, dare I say, “flavours.” If you had asked me what type of Marxist I was in those days—circa 1967-1972—I would have given one of two answers: a Marxist of the ilk of Che Guevara (1928-1967) or a Trotskyite. Both are passionately committed to perpetual revolution and both are idealists, the latter definitely appealing to a young man like myself in the late sixties. Reading through David Renton’s recent biography of Leon Trotsky (1879-1940)—Trotsky (London: Haus Publishing, 2004)—brought back memories of that youthful idealism. Renton does an excellent job of detailing the career and thought of Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein. The book is very attractively produced and provides an excellent entry into the world of a key figure in the history of Marxism.

What especially struck me as I read the book was the naïve optimism of Trotsky. In his final political Testament, which he drew up not long before his assassination by a Spanish communist, he stated: “I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently an irreconcilable atheist” (p.143). Trotsky had resisted what he saw as the corruption of the Russian Revolution by Stalin and his henchmen. He believed that Stalinism was ultimately an aberration. Yet, he failed to see that the sort of dictatorship it begot in Russia is really endemic to Marxism—witness what we have seen in other countries such as Maoist China, Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime, and North Korea.

He was also convinced that “Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence and enjoy it to the full” (p.143). Here we see a profound optimism in humanity. What a contrast to Christianity, whose profound optimism is rooted in a perfect God, but which is pessimistic—we could equally say truly realistic—about mankind. It is God—not flawed humanity—that will cleanse this world of evil (cp. 2 Peter 3:12-13).

“Orthopathy”

In a recent blog, entitled “The Christian Faith,” Kevin Bauder discusses the relationship between correct doctrine, that is “orthodoxy,” fulfillment of the ethical commands of Scripture or “orthopraxy,” and what he terms “orthopathy.” Of the latter he writes: “The Bible requires not only that we speak truly about God (orthodoxy) and obey Him (orthopraxy), but that we love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. …Doctrine is never…an end in itself. The purpose of doctrine is to teach us to love God aright. Obedience is never an end in itself. Obedience is always the overflow of a heart that finds its satisfaction in God rather than idols. In some senses, orthopathy is even more fundamental than orthodoxy and orthopraxy.”

What Dr. Bauder calls “orthopathy,” I have called “orthokardia”—literally “a right heart”—in the past. But I like Dr. Bauder’s term better since it is a better linguistic parallel to “orthodoxy and “orthopraxy.” I suppose “orthopathy” would literally translate as “right affection.” It is a good term for something that Christians of the past, men like John Calvin, John Owen, and Jonathan Edwards, knew was vital. As Bauder goes on to state:

“Therefore, anything that misdirects our love will do severe damage to our Christianity. If we are taught not to love God, or to love something more than God, or to love God as a means rather than an end, or to love God with the wrong loves, or to love things that God hates, or to hate things that God loves, or to debase what is lovely, or to love what is base—if we are taught any of these things, then we are doomed to a stunted, shriveled version of Christianity, at best.

“That is why we cannot afford to take casually anything that shapes the affections. This is especially true of those works that are intended to reach the affections through the moral imagination. Such media as music, poetry, art, architecture, theater, and dance are enormously important to the Christian. Either they will propel us forward in the life of faith or they will devastate us.”

Livewell Chapman–The Publisher of Abraham Cheare

Livewell Chapman, Abraham Cheare’s London publisher (see previous post but two), had started as an apprentice at the publishing house Crown in Pope’s Head Alley. This publishing house was owned by Benjamin Allen (d.1646) and his wife Hannah. After her husband’s death in 1646, Hannah ran the business by herself till she married Livewell Chapman in 1651. During the early part of her career as a publisher, she published a number of prominent authors, including Jeremiah Burroughes (1601-1646), John Cotton (c.1585-1652), Henry Jessey (1603-1663), and Vavsor Powell (1617-1670). When she married Livewell, the books of Fifth Monarchist authors began to appear on their booklist. Livewell had clear Fifth Monarchist sympathies, which led to plotting and numerous problems with authorities in the 1660s after the restoration of Charles II. Livewell’s eschatological convictions eventually caused the financial ruination of his wife and family, for he spent so much time in prison. It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that a misguided eschatology had such dire results.

Two Men on the Western Frontier: Jonathan Edwards and William Johnson

When Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was ministering at Stockbridge, he encouraged his son, the future theologian-pastor Jonathan Edwards, Jr. (1745-1801), to spend time learning the culture and language of the Oneida. The boy went with a missionary, Gideon Hawley, to an Oneida village at the head of the Susquehanna, about two hundred miles away from his family. The young boy was here from April 1755 to mid-January 1756. What amazing confidence the senior Edwards and his wife Sarah must have had in a sovereign God to send their son into such a potentially dangerous place! In the winter of 1756, the situation did indeed become too dangerous for the young Jonathan and Gideon to stay with the Oneida. War was engulfing the western frontier and  the younger Edwards and Hawley trekked back to Fort Johnson, the fortified mansion of Sir William Johnson (1715-1774), now in present-day Amsterdam, New York. The young Edwards spent most of the winter there. The elder Edwards considered Johnson as “a man of not much religion” [James Thomas Flexner, Mohawk Baronet: A Biography of Sir William Johnson (1959 ed.; repr. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1989), 290]. What a contrast Johnson’s home would have been then to the godly home in which the younger Edwards had been raised.

Johnson was a remarkable Irishman, born and raised not far from Dublin, who had come to America at the age of twenty-two. An extremely tall man, gargantuan in his day, Johnson was a resourceful businessman and went on to create a mini-empire in the Mohawk Valley. Key to this empire were his own brains and his third wife, a Mohawk by the name of Molly Brant (c.1736-1796), or Koñwatsi’ tsiaiéñni as she liked to be known. Her younger brother was Joseph Brant (1742/43-1807), well-known in Ontarian history. But Molly was actually much more powerful than her brother in her day, because Mohawk society was matriarchal and she was the wife of the one of the most powerful British land barons in that area of the new world.

I visited Fort Johnson this past weekend, as well as the larger fortress-mansion that Johnson built nearby and which today is called Johnson Hall. I was reminded again of the turbulence of Jonathan Edwards’ world. Johnson himself was active in the French and Indian War (1755-1760), in which he saw action. He commanded forces at the important Battle of Lake George (1755), in which Edwards’ cousin Ephraim Williams was killed. A display case at Fort Johnson held a book that was open to an account of Ephraim’s death.

Johnson’s empire, though, was not to last. He died in 1774. Two years later, his family, loyal to the British crown like Johnson, took the British side in the civil war which we know as the American Revolution. In the turbulence that followed the entirety of the Johnson estates were confiscated by the American government and all of his labours were brought to naught. Flexner, in his biography of Johnson, indulges in counter-factual history and wonders what would have happened if Johnson had lived. Johnson might have secured the Mohawk Valley for the British and the course of the war might have been quite different (Mohawk Baronet, 352-356).

But Johnson did not have a role to play in the American Revolution, for he died in 1774. What a parable is his life of the folly of building kingdoms in this world. How different the empire-building, if it can be called that, of the two Jonathan Edwards, both father and son. In their books and preaching they sought to spread the rule of the King of kings, the Lord Jesus, and as such they built for eternity.

One wonders if Molly Brant later acquired the faith that was absent in her husband’s life. After the American Revolution she went to live in Kingston. There in the 1790s, possibly not long before her death, an anonymous traveller saw her in the Anglican Church and wrote this account: “in the Church at Kingston we saw an Indian woman, who sat in an honourable place among the English. She appeared very devout during Divine Service and very attentive to the Sermon.”

Hannah Review of a God Entranced Vision of All Things

John D. Hannah, who teaches Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, has written a review of A God Entranced Vision of All Things: The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards, eds. John Piper and Justin Taylor (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), which are the papers of a 2003 conference on Jonathan Edwards held at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis. It has just appeared in the e-zine, Reformation 21.  Read the review and then get the book and savour some very fine studies of the thought and life of this superb American theologian. Hannah concludes the review thus:

“In a world where most celebrated figures are anti-heroes, Edwards is truly remarkable. He was a man, as [Mark] Dever and [Sherard] Burns demonstrate, that at times did not rise above the cultural presuppositions and blinders of his day (e.g., his aristocratic attitudes in a culture rejecting past conventions and his embrace of slavery). Though a genius by any cultural standards, his attempt to defend the Reformed faith with cleverly constructed and novel arguments at times seemed to take him to the edge of Orthodoxy though he was wise enough to know that some answers have not been revealed by the all-wise, incomprehensible God of the Holy Scriptures, as [Paul] Helms and [Sam] Storms ancillarily indicate. As…[John and Noël] Piper…indicate, [J. I.] Packer and [Donald] Whitney collaborate, Edwards’ spirituality is truly exemplary, as is his conception of God; he managed to put life in sync with his lofty encounter with the one whose name is above every name. I can heartily commend this popularly styled volume.”

Abraham Cheare and Panting for the Holy Spirit

Ever since I begin to read Baptist history in the 1980s, I have had a love for the lives and stories of our Baptist forebears. This past weekend I had the privilege of considering again the story of Abraham Cheare (1626-1668), pastor of a Calvinistic Baptist work in Plymouth during the period of the Commonwealth and also during the early years of persecution under the so-called “Merry Monarch,” Charles II (r.1660-1685). The early years of Abraham Cheare are obscure. One recent writer names his father as a John Cheare, who leased a couple of fulling mills built by the Elizabethan naval captain Sir Francis Drake at Plymouth [C. E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660-1688 (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1968), 568-569]. Cheare himself described his parents as “mean,” that is lowly in social standing, “yet honest” [“Post-script” to his Words in Season (London: Nathan Brookes, 1668), 293]. Nathan Brookes, the publisher of one of his books, notes that his parents were also believers who took care to nurture their son in God’s ways [“The Publisher to the Reader” in Words in Season, (6)].

Apart from a journey to London in the 1650s, Cheare appears to have spent the entirety of his life in the vicinity of Plymouth where he was born and raised. During the tumult and turbulence of the civil wars in the British Isles during the 1640s and 1650s he was able to avoid fighting with any of the armies, but he did serve for a time in the local militia at Plymouth (“Post-script” to his Words in Season, 293). This was possibly during the long siege of Plymouth by the Royalist armies in 1643, a siege that failed to drive the Parliamentary troops out of the town or bring about its fall. At one point he also served as an army chaplain, but he was able to obtain a discharge after a few weeks (“Post-script” to his Words in Season, 293-294).

Around 1648, Cheare says that he was convinced “of his Duty to the Lord, by evidence of Scriptural Light” and he “joyned himself in an holy Covenant, to walk in all the Ordinances of the Lord blameless, to the best of his Light and Power, in fellowship with a poor and despised People” (“Post-script” to his Words in Season, 294). This “poor and despised People” were the Plymouth Calvinistic Baptists.

If this congregation had a preacher before Cheare, his name has not come down to us. Cheare is the first known pastor of this congregation. Though Cheare rarely left Plymouth, he was involved in the nation-wide church planting of the Calvinistic Baptists during the 1650s. He was in correspondence, for example, in January 1655 with a certain Robert Bennet about the organization of Calvinistic Baptists in the neighbouring county of Cornwall. And he was present as the pastor of the Plymouth Church at an important meeting of the Western Association of Baptist Churches in May, 1658, in Dorchester. On that memorable occasion some individuals who were sympathetic to the “Fifth Monarchy” movement—these were individuals who believed in using military violence to prepare for the establishment of Christ’s messianic kingdom—failed to convince the representatives of the churches in the Association, including Cheare, to publicly espouse the ideals and goals of this party.

Cheare proved to be a man with a wide knowledge of the Scriptures. This is well seen in Sighs for Sion, a tract that was published in London in 1656 by Livewel Chapman. (By the way, how typically Puritan is this man’s personal name! In other books that he printed, his first name is spelt “Livewell”). A second printing followed in 1657, which was also done by Livewel Chapman. Written mostly by Cheare, but with the help of four other Baptist leaders—Henry Forty, Robert Steed, John Pendarves (1622-1656) and Thomas Glasse—this tract essentially pled with the churches to which it was sent to overlook their differences of opinion regarding eschatology and to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit which the authors deemed vital if they were to see their churches quickened and strengthened (p.10-11).

Cheare and his co-authors cited examples of faithful praying from the Old Testament—such men as Nehemiah, Ezra, and Daniel—to stir up their readers to be fervent in prayer (p.12-13). In fact, the writers felt that God had already given the churches a taste of “this glorious blessing of the Spirit of grace and supplication”—a reference to Zechariah 12:10—and done great works on behalf of his people (p.15-16). But there had been defections from within their churches and “vain men,” in the words of Cheare and his colleagues, had attacked the Baptist position (p.17). Ongoing prayer for Christ’s cause to be honoured among them was thus still needed.

In a powerful exhortation the churches were urged to reflect on what kind of congregations they ought to be like. Were they the sort of people they should be, then, Cheare and his fellow authors wrote,

“the zeal of the Lord’s house would eat us up, and love of it would crucifie us more unto, and wean us from those interests of earth, and men, whereupon we have been apt to lean, and whereunto we have been deeply and dangerously engaged: causing us also to wait to be with Jesus, which is best of all; and in the mean time to pant, and thirst uncessantly, for that holy Spirit of promise, that alone can present us with the ravishing glory of that expected day, and raise up our spirits to a sweet and suitable disposition, according to the will of God, to wait and act aright toward it” (p.18-19).

Though so many things have changed between Cheare’s day and ours, our need is ultimately no different from that of the Baptists being addressed by Cheare and his friends. May the Lord grant us “to pant and thirst” without ceasing for the same Spirit of supplication that we might live for the glory that is to come!

Ecclesioblog

Blogging is undoubtedly bringing a batch of new terms into the English language: blogosphere, blogdom, bloggage are some that I have seen in recent days. One that I have just run across in relation to blogs focused on the Scriptures is “biblioblog,” which biblical scholar Mark Goodacre of Duke University has defined as “Blogs which have a primary focus on academic Biblical Studies” (NT Gateway Weblog). This being so, I suppose that what I am doing here is an ecclesioblog, a “blog that is primarily focused on the history of the church.”

Nehemiah Coxe

Reformed Baptist Academic Press (Palmdale, California) are about to publish Nehemiah Coxe’s A Discourse of the Covenants. Edited by Ron Miller, James M. Renihan and Francisco Orozco, this important work by Calvinistic Baptist Nehemiah Coxe (d.1689), a one-time associate of John Bunyan (1628-1688), has not been reprinted since it first appeared in the 17th century. This is strange, for some of our Calvinistic Baptist forebears—men like John Sutcliff (1752-1814) of Olney—appeared to have deeply appreciated it. Be this as it may, this fresh edition is extremely welcome. It clearly demonstrates that 17th century Calvinistic Baptists like Coxe—and his modern descendants in this century—are fully part of that stream of Reformed theology that has come down from the Reformation work of men like Huldreich Zwingli, John Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, and Théodore de Bèze. More times than I can count—and personally I find it so frustrating—I have heard Reformed theology defined in such a way that it excludes those who hold to believer’s baptism. This valuable work will help set the record straight.

Presbygationalism Affirmed

If you happen to read the post on Gill by President Bauder @ Nos Sobrii (mentioned in my previous entry), also read this earlier blog from him that deals with some recent discussions at John Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist congregation on baptism and church membership: Presbygationalism. A very wise post on a vital issue for Baptists on how biblical church government should work.

Reading John Gill

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

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

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

Learning & the Cross of Christ

In its early years, the College of New Jersey, later known as Princeton, had a number of Presidents whose tenure in office was relatively brief. One thinks, of course, of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), the theologian of the eighteenth century, who was there less than three months. Samuel Davies (1723-1761), who succeeded Edwards, was President for about nineteen months before he died. He was succeeded by Samuel Finley (d.1766), who was president from 1761 to 1766. And the very first president of the school, Jonathan Dickinson (1688-1747), was in office for but five months. The longest serving of these early Presidents was Aaron Burr, Sr. (1716-1757), the son-in-law of Jonathan Edwards. He was in office for nine years. It was Burr who led the school from Newark to the village of Princeton in 1756, only to die the following year.  Only with the coming of John Witherspoon (1723-1794) in 1768 was this line of brief presidencies broken.

But linking together these short presidencies was a shared worldview that esteemed the Scriptures as the supreme source of wisdom and knowledge. It was a worldview that was in hearty agreement with Dickinson’s declaration about the educational ideal of the fledgling school when it first met in the parlour of his home: “Cursed be all learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”

Toronto Baptist Seminary, where I serve as principal, was founded 180 years after the College of New Jersey in very different circumstances. But I hope we, as a school, share Dickinson’s passion for a Christ-centred education.

PS I am thankful to Pastor Ron Shinkle of Lemoyne Baptist Church, Toledo, Ohio, for drawing my attention to Dickinson’s statement.