Why Study the Fathers?

Our generation is afflicted with a kind of historical amnesia, which, unfortunately, has not left the Church untouched. In such an intellectual ambience, the question, “Why study the Fathers?” must be asked again and answered afresh. Listed below are a number of reasons that can be considered an initial step in this direction. First, study of the Fathers, like any historical study, liberates us from the present. [C.S. Lewis, “De descriptione temporum” in Walter Hooper, ed., Selected Literary Essays (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1969), 12]. Every age has a certain outlook, presuppositions which remain unquestioned even by opponents. The examination of another period of thought forces us to confront our innate prejudices which would go unnoticed otherwise. For instance, Gustaf Aulén, in his classic study of the atonement, Christus Victor, argues that an objective study of the Patristic concept of Atonement will reveal a motif which has received little attention in post-Reformation Christianity: the idea of the Atonement as a divine conflict and victory, in which Christ fights and overcomes the evil powers of this world, under whom man has been held in bondage. According to Aulén, what is commonly accepted as the New Testament doctrine of the Atonement, the forensic theory of satisfaction, may in fact be a concept quite foreign to the New Testament. As to whether he is right or not—and I think he is quite wrong—can only come by a fresh examination of the sources, both New Testament and Patristic.

Then, the Fathers can provide us with a map for the Christian life. It is indeed exhilarating to stand on the east coast and watch the Atlantic surf and hear the pound of the waves. But this experience will be of little benefit in sailing to England. For this a map is needed. A map based upon the accumulated experience of thousands of voyagers. Similarly, we need such a map for the Christian life. Experiences are fine and good, but they will not serve as a suitable foundation for our lives in Christ. To be sure, we have the divine Scriptures, an ultimately sufficient foundation for all of our needs (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But the thought of the Fathers can help us enormously in building on this foundation.

A fine example is provided by Athanasius’ doctrine of the Spirit in his letters to Serapion, bishop of Thmuis. The present day has seen a resurgence of interest in the Person of the Holy Spirit. This is admirable, but also fraught with danger if the Spirit is conceived of apart from Christ. Yet, Athanasius’ key insight was that “from our knowledge of the Son we may be able to have true knowledge of the Spirit.” (Letter to Serapion 3.1). The Spirit cannot be divorced from the Son: not only does the Son send and give the Spirit, but the Spirit is the principle of the Christ-life within us. Many have fallen into fanatical enthusiasm because they failed to realize this basic truth: the Spirit cannot be separated from the Son.

Third, the Fathers may also, in some cases, help us to understand the New Testament. We have had too disparaging a view of Patristic exegesis, and have come close to considering the exposition of the Fathers as a consistent failure to understand the New Testament. For instance Cyril of Jerusalem in his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:5, which concerns temporary abstinence of sexual relations between married couples for the sake of prayer, assumes without question that the prayer is liturgical and communal prayer. (Catechesis 4.25). Cyril may be guilty of an anachronism, for he was a leader in “the hallowing of the time,” that is, the observance of holy seasons. Nonetheless, there is good evidence that such communal observances, in some form or other, are quite early. The liturgical life of the Church of Jerusalem in the fourth century was not that of Corinth in the first, but nevertheless there were links. Possibly it is the Protestant commentators who are guilty of anachronism when they assume that Paul meant private prayer; such religious individualism is more conceivable in the Protestant West than in first-century Corinth.

As T.F. Torrance writes:

“[There is a] fundamental coherence between the faith of the New Testament and that of the early Church… The failure to discern this coherence in some quarters evidently has its roots in the strange gulf, imposed by analytical methods, between the faith of the primitive Church and the historical Jesus. In any case I have always found it difficult to believe that we modern scholars understand the Greek of the New Testament better than the early Greek Fathers themselves! [Space, Time and Resurrection (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1976), xii].

These three reasons are only a start towards giving a full answer to the question, “Why study the Fathers?” There are certainly other reasons for studying these ancient authors which may be more obvious or even more important. But these three reasons sufficiently indicate the need for Patristic studies in the ongoing life of the Church: to aid in her liberation for the Zeitgesit of the twenty-first century; to provide a guide in her walk with Christ; to help her understand the basic textbook of her faith, the New Testament.

Eminent Christians: 4. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

My first reading of Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was his book on the sermon on the Mount in the late 1970s. But it was not until I read the first volume of Iain H. Murray’s life of “the Doctor” that I experienced the deep impact of his life and thought [David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The First Forty Years 1899-1939 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982)]. Suffice it to say, that of all the Christian authors and expositors of the twentieth century, none has shaped my thinking as a Christian more than this man and his writing. I believe with all of my heart that what Lloyd-Jones once remarked regarding Jonathan Edwards, that quintessential Evangelical theologian, could be said of Lloyd-Jones himself: “Nothing is more striking than the balance of this man. You must have the theology; but it must be theology on fire. There must be warmth and heat as well as light. In Edwards we find the ideal combination—the great doctrines with the fire of the Spirit upon them.”

Early years

Lloyd-Jones was born in Cardiff, Wales, on December 20, 1899. His earliest experiences of church life were in the Presbyterian Church of Wales, heir to the Evangelical theology and fervent piety of Calvinistic Methodism. The latter was birthed in the fires of the Evangelical revival of the 18th century and nourished on the majestic doctrines of Evangelical Calvinism. Sadly, by Lloyd-Jones’ day, the Evangelical fervour and spirituality of the denomination had largely fallen prey to liberal theology. Instead of Calvinism’s rich and majestic vision of a sovereign God rescuing fallen human beings through the atoning work of his Son, Lloyd-Jones was raised on a tepid diet of faith in social betterment through education and political action.

In his early teens his family moved to London. There, during the momentous days of World War I, he enrolled as a student at the medical school of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, from where he received his M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. degrees in July, 1921, and that October his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (M.B.B.S.). For the next three years, Lloyd-Jones worked closely with the physician to the royal family, Sir Thomas (later Lord) Horder (1871-1955), first as his junior house physician, then as his chief clinical assistant. In 1924 came a further honour when he received an important scholarship to study bacterial endocarditis.

Coming to Christ in the mid-1920s

Despite this dazzling rise to prominence in the medical world, Lloyd-Jones was having serious doubts about continuing in his chosen profession. In the words of his grandson, Christopher Catherwood, Lloyd-Jones was “struck by the ungodliness and moral emptiness of many of Horder’s aristocratic patients.” [“Martyn Lloyd-Jones” in his Five Evangelical Leaders (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), 55].

He became convinced that the root problem of many of his mentor’s patients was ultimately spiritual. They were seeking to live out their lives with no conscious relationship to the One who had created them and sustained them every moment of their lives. Their need, though, highlighted his own personal need for such a relationship. In Lloyd-Jones’ own words:

“I am a Christian solely and entirely because of the grace of God and not because of anything that I have thought or said or done. He brought me to know that I was dead, “dead in trespasses and sins”, a slave to the world, and the flesh, and the devil, that in me “dwelleth no good thing”, and that I was under the wrath of God and heading for eternal punishment. He brought me to see that the real cause of all my troubles and ills, and that of all men, was an evil and fallen nature which hated God and loved sin. My trouble was not only that I did things that were wrong, but that I myself was wrong at the very centre of my being.” (Cited Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1:64).

Lloyd-Jones’ conversion, which he never dated, took place at some point in 1923 or 1924. Attending it was a call and a passion to preach the gospel in his native Wales.

His first talk in Wales was in April, 1925, when he gave an address on “The Problem of Modern Wales” from the pulpit of Pontypridd Baptist Church. He concluded on a note that would be prominent in his preaching throughout his life: “what Wales needs above everything today is…a revival,…a great spiritual awakening such as took place in the eighteenth century under the influence and guidance of the Methodist Fathers.” (Cited Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1:89).

Ministry in Wales, 1927-1938

At the end of 1926, he accepted a call to pastor Bethlehem Forward Movement Mission, a Calvinistic Methodist work in Sandfields, Aberavon. A few weeks later, on January 8, 1927, he married Bethan Phillips, whom he had loved for at least nine years prior to their marriage. Martyn and Bethan had a singularly happy marriage. According to their grandson, Christopher Catherwood, they “complemented each other and were able to strengthen each other” throughout their long lives together.

By the mid-1930s Lloyd-Jones’ preaching, characterized by a vigorous Calvinism, commitment to the vital spirituality of eighteenth-century Methodism, and concern for the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and revival, had made him known throughout England and Wales. So it was that he came to the attention of G. Campbell Morgan (1863-1945), the well-known minister of Westminster Chapel in London. Hearing Lloyd-Jones preach in Philadelphia in 1937, Morgan determined to have the Welsh preacher called as his assistant.

At the time Lloyd-Jones was seriously contemplating leaving Aberavon. By the latter half of that year he had come to the distinct conviction that his work at Sandfields was over. The physical demands on his ministry were also telling on him and he sensed deeply the need for a change. One possibility was the principalship of the Calvinistic Methodist College in Bala, North Wales. But providentially, this offer of an academic position fell through and Lloyd-Jones went to Westminster on the eve of the World War II. As he would tell his biographer Iain Murray not long before his death, his life had witnessed a succession of events that he himself had never expected or planned on. His move to Westminster Chapel was certainly one of them. It turned out to be a crucial move, for being in the heart of London he was placed in a position to exercise an influence on the state of English-speaking Evangelicalism that would not have been possible if he had stayed in Wales. (Catherwood, “Martyn Lloyd-Jones”, 66).

At Westminster Chapel, 1938-1968

Lloyd-Jones served as Morgan’s associate pastor until the latter’s retirement in 1943. Lloyd-Jones then served as the sole pastor until his own retirement in 1968. The war scattered most of the large congregation that had delighted in Morgan’s preaching. Thus, when the war was over Lloyd-Jones had to rebuild the congregation from around one or two hundred. By the 1950s attendance was often close to two thousand. [For a brief discussion of the numbers that regularly attended the services at Westminster Chapel, see Michael A. Eaton, Baptism with the Spirit: The teaching of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1989), 14 and 33, n.2].

What drew these people was the clarity of biblical exposition, the spiritual power, and the doctrinal depth of Lloyd-Jones’ preaching. In the words of John Piper: “Like Jonathan Edwards two hundred years before, he held audiences by the sheer weight and intensity of his vision of truth.” [“A Passion for Christ-Exalting Power: Reflections on the Life and Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones” (Audiotape; The Bethlehem Conference for Pastors, Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 30, 1991)].

When Lloyd-Jones had a bout of cancer in 1968, from which he made a full recovery, he took it nevertheless as a sign to step down from the pastorate of Westminster Chapel. The final years of his life were devoted to guest preaching and in particular to writing, preparing his expository sermons for publication.

The impact of his ministry

The impact of his ministry was felt far beyond the congregations that assembled week by week to hear him preach. For instance, his support of such organizations as The Banner of Truth publishing house and the annual ministers’ conference known as The Puritan Conference (later called the Westminster Conference) was vital in the recovery of biblical Calvinism in the world of western Evangelicalism. He was also an influential figure in the Inter-Varisty Fellowship and a key player in the formation of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

His final days were typical of the man. Dying of cancer, he had lost the power of speech. On Thursday evening, February 26, he wrote a note for his wife Bethan and their family: “Do not pray for healing. Do not hold me back from the glory.” [Iain H. Murray, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones. The Fight of Faith 1939-1981 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990), 747-748]. The following Lord’s Day, March 1, 1981, he entered into that glory, which had been the deepest motivation of his life and ministry.

Further reading

Beyond the books and articles cited above, see also:

  • Leigh Powell, “Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981): A Personal Appreciation”, The Gospel Witness, 60, No.2 (April 9, 1981), 8-11; 60, No.3 (April 23, 1981), 7-11.
  • Frederick and Elizabeth Catherwood, Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Man and His Books (Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan: Evangelical Library of Wales/London: Evangelical Library, 1982).
  • J. I. Packer, “David Martyn Lloyd-Jones” in Charles Turner, ed., Chosen Vessels: Portraits of Ten Outstanding Christian Men (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Servant Publications, 1985), 108-123.
  • D. Eryl Davies, “Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: An Introduction”, Themelios, 25, No.1 (November 1999), 39-53.

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.

Beddome, Heir to 17th Century Divines

Benjamin Beddome, about whom I blogged a few days ago, had an excellent library, which contained numerous Puritan works, to whom he was deeply indebted. A good portion of that library is housed today as the “Beddome Collection” in the Archives of the Angus Library at Regent’s Park College, the University of Oxford. That indebtedness can be seen in the occasional comments he made in these precious volumes. In his copy of Abraham Cheare’s Words in Season (London, 1668)—on Cheare, the Baptist minister of Plymouth, see my blog for September 26, 2005—for instance, Beddome noted of Cheare’s work:

“Many excellent Things in it especially in 2 first Discourses. The Author seems to have a great Depth & Reach of Understanding—& very pertinent Manner of applying Scriptures.”

Many of the Baptist works of the 17th century, like this one by Cheare, were never reprinted. And yet it is clear that they continued to influence divines in the 18th century.

The Use of the Poetic Faculty

What is the use of reading/writing poetry? Well, for one thing reading/writing poetry requires the reader/poet to ponder and meditate. This is one literary genre that slows us down and helps us to truly observe the world. Now, that’s a good thing in our world of instant communication—blogs included!—and fast food.

The Folly of Faculty-Run Schools

The recent debacle at Harvard with the resignation of the President, Lawrence Summers, reveals—as Albert Mohler rightly notes in his blog for February 23, 2006—the folly of faculty-run schools. Given the nature of academia, it is vital that schools have a strong board of governance that is hands-on in the running of the school, setting its vision and direction. Can this be combined with a significant degree of academic freedom? Of course, as many past examples of academia in North America show.

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!

Puritan Balance about Coming to Christ

One of the great dangers of the current recovery of biblical truth, namely evangelical Calvinism—in which I heartily rejoice—is for some to veer too far to the right and end up in genuine hyper-Calvinism. To be sure, some of what is claimed as hyper-Calvinism is not that at all. It is simply that those making the charge of hyper-Calvinism have never really encountered robust Calvinism before. But this not to say that there is no such thing as hyper-Calvinism in which passion for the salvation of the lost is a thing hardly thought about and zeal for the expansion of the Kingdom of God simply something by-the-by. The Puritans—as in many things—can be such great guides here. They knew where to find the balance when it came to divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Listen to this text by John Flavel (c.1630-1691), said to be Spurgeon’s favourite Puritan, on Matthew 11:28—“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Flavel is discussing what it means to come to Christ.

“Coming to Christ shows the voluntariness of the soul in its motion to Christ. True, there is no coming without the Father’s drawing; but that drawing has nothing of compulsion in it; it does not destroy, but powerfully and with an overcoming sweetness persuades the will. It is not forced or driven, but it comes; being made willing in the day of God’s power. Psalm 110:3.” [The Method of Grace (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 201].

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.”

Gender Issues & the Culture of Death

Gender issues, as I blogged yesterday, are one of the key areas where the battle is raging in today’s Western world. For instance, a major issue for the West in the past forty years has been the issue of hegemonic control of the body: do women have rights over their bodies to the point that they violate the rights of others, namely, the unborn that from time to time inhabit their wombs? The answer of the West has been a resounding yes. In making this affirmation, these nations think that they have liberated women from the patriarchal tyranny of past generations when men set the agenda for society without reference to women. To be sure, some of the patriarchy of the past was tyrannical. But the liberty the West is pursuing will prove to be a will-of-the-wisp, for in “freeing” women the West has been brutalizing and tyrannizing the unborn.

Is what the West is doing in this regard really any different from the genocidal “experiments” of the twentieth century carried out by the Turks on the Armenians or the Nazis on the Jews or the Serbs on the Bosnians? For these unborn are human beings and abortion is not about choice but about the snuffing out of tiny, helpless lives!

Here, there is a clear parting of the road. The Church and Western culture cannot walk together on this path, for Western culture has chosen the path of death, while the Church seeks to affirm life.

Gender Issues: Where the Battle Is Raging

Was it Martin Luther who said that if we as Christians are not responding at the very points where the Devil is attacking, then we are failing in our duty? If I understand this thought aright, it is emphasizing that we may be correct and orthodox and say much that is good, but if we fail to emphasize the very areas where the Christian gospel and worldview is under attack in our day, then we are failing as Christians. There are definitely a number of areas where biblical Christianity is being assailed in our day, but prominent among them are gender issues. While I agree fully with James Spurgeon that we Evangelicals are to be known most of all for our commitment to the Gospel (see his Known for the gospel?), yet surely one reason why many Evangelicals are emphasizing family values and heterosexual marriage is that these areas are under heavy attack in our day. This was simply not the case fifty years ago. We need to achieve that elusive balance of the Christian life: keep our eye on the central things of the gospel—but at the same time reply in strength to where the enemy is attacking.

In this regard, here are two thoughtful reflections on marriage and patriarchy respectively: see this quote and article on Canadian Liberal thought about marriage, Paul Martin’s posting: Stanley Kurtz on Marriage in Canada; and this insightful one on the battle in our culture between two forms of patriarchy: Russ Moore’s Vanity Fair Celebrates Patriarchy.

An addendum: in standing firm for the gospel and all of its ancillaries, we must be careful to do so with a right spirit. This blog by Sean Michael Lucas is helpful here: The Calvary Contender.

Eminent Christians: 3. Charles Wesley

It was John Welsey’s heir apparent John Fletcher who once remarked that next to the Bible “one of the greatest blessings that God has bestowed upon the Methodists…is their hymns.” The central figure behind these hymns, of course, was Charles Wesley (1707-1788), the eighteenth child born to Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna (née Annesley). He arrived prematurely on December 10, 1707, and apparently spent his earliest days of life wrapped in wool, neither opening his eyes nor raising his voice. But his voice would not always be silent! For fifty years after his conversion in 1738 it would announce, in sermon and in song, the good news of God’s redemption through faith in Christ. The story is told of how Charles, as a young boy, refused an offer of becoming the heir of a wealthy Anglo-Irish cousin, Garret Wesley, since it would remove him from the bonds of his family and friends. Another cousin, Richard Colley, went in Charles’ stead and became Richard Colley Wesley—the grandfather of Marquis Wellesley, who colonized India, and of the Duke of Wellington, who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. How much history hung on a small boy’s decision! Yet, Charles Wesley also left a heritage, one more permanent than any empire and more powerful than any army: his hymns.

The pathway to conversion

Charles went up to study at Oxford in 1726. Initially he lived a carefree undergraduate life, intent only on having a good time. But by 1729 he had become quite devout and threw all of his energies into seeking to live the Christian life. But he was not converted; and he was seeking to build his Christian faith and hope of salvation on his good works. Nearly ten years were to elapse before Charles came to Christ on May 21, 1738, Pentecost Sunday.

The key figure in his conversion was Peter Böhler (1712-1775), a German Moravian missionary. Early in that year, while living in London, Charles had fallen ill and had actually come close to death. Böhler came to visit him and spoke to him about his need of salvation. Böhler asked him: “Do you hope to be saved?” When Charles assured him that he did, Böhler enquired further: “For what reason do you hope it?” “Because I have used my best endeavours to serve God,” returned Charles. At such an inadequate response Böhler shook his head sadly and said no more. Charles later admitted that he considered Böhler to be most uncharitable and thought to himself, “What are not my endeavours a sufficient ground of hope? Would he rob me of my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to.”

Pentecost Sunday, 1738

It was another Moravian by the name of William Holland (d.1761) who gave Charles a copy of Martin Luther’s commentary on Galatians to read. Holland, in fact, has been identified as the one who was reading this commentary on May 24, 1738, at Aldersgate Street when Charles’ brother John Wesley was converted. On May 17, 1738, Charles noted in his diary: “I spent some hours this evening in private with Luther, who was greatly blessed to me, …I laboured, waited, and prayed to feel ‘Who loved me and gave Himself for me’.”

On May 21, Pentecost Sunday, Charles awoke with great expectation. Still confined to bed because of his sickness, he was visited by his older brother John. After John had left, Charles lay back to sleep.

He awoke to hear the voice of a woman (actually the sister of the man in whose house he was staying) saying: “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of thy infirmities.” The woman, a Mrs. Turner, had been commanded by the Lord in a dream to convey this message. Charles was physically healed and spiritually converted. Three days later, on May 24, his brother John was also converted.

A very good marriage

Up until 1749 Charles, like his brother, was an itinerant evangelist. But on April 8, 1749, he married Sarah (a.k.a. Sally) Gwynne (d.1822), who was 23 at the time, and whom he had known since 1747 when he visited the home of her father Marmaduke Gwynne, a Welsh Methodist.

A gifted singer and accomplished harpsichordist, Sally was gentle and unselfish. In many ways she and Charles had an ideal marriage. Rightly Charles’ itinerant ministry became less and less because of family responsibilities. Of eight children, they lost five as infants!

They settled first at Bristol, and then in London in 1771, where he became a spiritual father to the burgeoning Methodist movement. He died in 1788.

“Where shall my wondering soul begin?”

Immediately after his conversion, Wesley began writing what would be the first of his 6,000 hymns (another 3,000 are classified as poems). His pen would not be silent for the next fifty years. It works out to be about 10 lines a verse a day for fifty years!

Both Charles and John regarded the hymns as central in nurturing and sustaining the revival. Writing the introduction to A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People called Methodists (1780), John Wesley noted that this hymnal is recommended “to every truly pious reader, as a means of raising or quickening the spirit of devotion; of confirming his faith; of enlivening his hope; and of kindling and increasing his love to God and man.”

It is widely thought that Wesley’s first hymn was “Where shall my wondering soul begin?” Charles Wesley’s journal for May 21, 1738, the day of his conversion runs thus:

“At nine, I began an hymn upon my conversion, but I was persuaded to break off for fear of pride. Mr. Bray [a friend], coming encouraged me to proceed in spite of Satan. I prayed Christ to stand by me, and finished the hymn.”

The first two stanzas of ‘Where shall my wondering soul begin?’ well express Wesley’s experience of conversion:

Where shall my wondering soul begin?How shall I all to heaven aspire?A slave redeemed from death and sin,A brand plucked from eternal fire,How shall I equal triumphs raise,Or sing my great Deliverer’s praise?

O how shall I the goodness tell,Father, which Thou to me hast showed?That I, a child of wrath and hell,I should be called a child of God,Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,Blessed with this antepast of heaven!

Characteristics of Wesley’s hymns

Three major characteristics mark Wesley’s hymns.

First, if one studies Charles’ hymns, one is struck first by the fact that a large proportion of the phrases in them come from Scripture or allusions to Scripture texts.

Then, his hymns are suffused with classical Christian dogma and doctrine. They set forth the powerful doctrines of an uncompromising orthodox Christianity. References to the doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation, the cross and the resurrection abound. As Bernard L. Manning once wrote, Wesley had an “obsession with the greatest things.”

Finally Wesley speaks of a present experience of Christian orthodoxy and of its effects in his life. In his hymns we hear the love-songs of a heart aflame with love to Jesus. As J. I. Packer has rightly remarked about Charles: he is “the supreme poet of love to Jesus in a revival context.”

The War of Jenkins’ Ear and the Cartoon Riots

The “long” eighteenth century was a 125 years of warfare between the two European superpowers of the day, Great Britain and France. Spain, who had been reckoned among the superpowers in the sixteenth century, was in decline, yet still able to bite. A good example is the conflict that we know as the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-1742/3). This war would lead into the larger conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession and began when a British naval captain, one Robert Jenkins, claimed that the Spanish had cut off his ear in 1731. He exhibited his loss in the British House of Commons, thereby inflaming public opinion against the Spanish. Somewhat reluctantly but forced to bow to public opinion, the government of the British Prime Minister Robert Walpole, really the first to hold that office, declared war on  October 23,1739. In the last few days we have seen something that has historical parallels—the inflaming of the Muslim public around the world over certain offensive Danish cartoons. In addition to the violence and anger among Muslims, the so-called Cartoon Riots have sparked all kinds of commentary in the West. Two of the most insightful of the latter are here: an article by John Piper on Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ’s Work, Not Muhammad’s and this comment by Russ Moore on Piper’s commentary, Piper on Islamic Cartoon Riots.

For those who have eyes to see, these Cartoon Riots clearly reveal the vast gulf in mindset and praxis between Christianity and Islam!   

On Johnny Cash

One of the great delights of the Christian life is the discovery of books and works by believers that one has never considered before or read before. Up until recently I had never really paid much attention to Johnny Cash. But thanks to my good friend Ian Clary I have been introduced to his music. A few months ago, in the weeks leading up to the appearance of the movie about his early years, Walk the Line, Ian encouraged me to listen to some of his songs and I discovered a brother who used his God-given skills in singing to share the gospel powerfully. Cash was not afraid to confess that his only hope was Christ and his cross and that all that this world longs for is in the end “an empire of dirt”!

Powerful stuff and a good reminder that our God loves diversity.

William Mitchel (1662-1705): The Three Hundredth Anniversary of His Death Last Year

I missed an anniversary last year—the three hundredth anniversary of the death of William Mitchel (1662-1705). For many of my readers the name will be completely unfamiliar. But he is a great hero of my Baptist past. Mitchel was a tireless evangelist in the English Pennines from the Rossendale Valley in Lancashire to Rawdon in neighbouring West Yorkshire. He was born in 1662 at Heptonstall, not far from Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. Nothing is really known about his upbringing. His conversion came at the age of nineteen after the death of a brother. Although he was genuinely converted, Mitchel played what he later regarded as the part of a Jonah as he sought to go into business as a clothier and become wealthy.

But God frustrated his worldly ambitions and drew him out as a preacher of the gospel. Within four years of his conversion, he began to preach as an itinerant evangelist. His cousin, David Crosley (1669-1744), a stonemason turned preacher, tells us that Mitchel’s aim in his preaching was to “chiefly set forth the exceeding rich and free grace of the gospel, which toward him had been made so exceeding abundant.” At the same time, we are told that his Christian life was one of unwearied diligence in “reading, meditation, and prayer.”

Mitchel would travel with Crosley and others over the Pennines, often during the night so as to reach preaching venues in towns and villages by early morning. Crosley remembered the toil it took to walk “many miles in dark nights and over dismal mountains.” But he also never forgot Mitchel’s “savoury and edifying” preaching that took place anywhere Mitchel could get an audience, “on mountains, and in fields and woods.” Though Mitchel was not a polished speaker, crowds would press to hear him. Many merely came out of curiosity, some came to scoff. But, later when their hearts and consciences had been impacted by Mitchel’s gospel preaching, they confessed, “the Lord is with him of a truth.”

According to the Second Conventicle Act (1670), part of the Clarendon Code designed to break the spirit of the Dissenters, what Mitchel was doing was illegal. This act forbade any one over the age of sixteen from taking part in a religious assembly of more than five people, apart from those sanctioned by the Church of England. The act gave wide powers to local magistrates and judges to “suppresse [sic] and disolve” such “unlawfull [sic] meetings” and arrest whomsoever they saw fit to achieve this end.

Mitchel was twice arrested under this law during the reign of James II (r.1685-1688), who succeeded Charles II in 1685. On the first occasion he was treated with deliberate roughness and spent three months in jail at Goodshaw. On the second occasion he was arrested near Bradford and imprisoned for six months in York Castle.

The enemies of the gospel who imprisoned Mitchel might have thought they were shutting him up in a dismal dungeon. To Mitchel, though, as he told his friends in a letter written from York in the spring of 1687, the dungeon was a veritable “paradise, because the glorious presence of God is with me, & the Spirit of glory & of God rests on me.” He is, of course, quoting from 1 Peter 4:14. He had been given such a “glorious sight of [God’s] countenance, [and] bright splendour of his love,” that he was quite willing to “suffer afflictions with the people of God, & for his glorious Truth.”

In another letter, written to a Daniel Moore during this same imprisonment, Mitchel told him he had heard that James II had issued a Declaration of Indulgence, which pardoned all who had been imprisoned under the penal laws of the Clarendon Code. But he had yet to see it. Whatever the outcome, he told Moore, “the Lord’s will be done, let him order things as may stand with his glory.”

This sentence speaks volumes about the frame of mind in which Mitchel had approached his time of imprisonment. He was God’s servant. God would do with him as he sovereignly thought best. And Mitchel was quite content with that, for, in his heart, he longed for his life to reflect above all God’s glory.

For access to these letters of Mitchel, I am indebted to the Local Studies Unit Archives, Manchester Central Library. The letters are kept in the Papers of Dr. William Farrer. Thanks are also due to David J. Woodruff of the Strict Baptist Historical Society who kindly provided me with a copy of the letters.

Eminent Christians: 2. Fanny Crosby

Through such well-known hymns as “Blessed Assurance”, “To God be the glory”, “Jesus, keep me near the cross” and “All the way my Saviour leads me,” Fanny Jane Crosby (1820-1915) has had a profound influence on American Evangelicalism. She was born in the state of New York on March 24, 1820. When she was only six weeks old she was accidentally blinded due to a mistreatment by an ill-qualified doctor. Her father having died when she was but one, she was raised by a godly mother and grandmother. At an early age they encouraged her to memorize Scripture, which would become a rich source of inspiration for her hymns later in her life. It would also help her develop a phenomenal memory. At one point, when she was an adult, she had stored in her mind up to forty poems she had composed before she wrote them down! At the age of fifteen she went to the New York School for the Blind where she lived and later taught till her marriage in 1858 to Alexander van Alstyne (1831-1902). They had one child who died while but an infant. It was also in New York that she found assurance of her salvation while attending an evangelistic meeting at the Methodist Broadway Tabernacle on November 20, 1850.

During the American Civil War, in 1863, Fanny composed her first hymn for a worship service at the Dutch Reformed Church at 23rd Street. The pastor of the church later put her in touch with a composer, William B. Bradbury (1817-1868), with whom she worked for four years. After his death in 1868, she wrote hymns for the largest publishing firm of gospel music of that day, Biglow and Main Company. This proved to be a turning-point in her life. She would later look back and say that it was at that time “the real and most important work of my life” commenced.

During her most productive period of hymn-writing, between 1864 and 1889, she was averaging three or four hymns per week, for which she was paid $2.00 a hymn. Though this remuneration was increased somewhat later in her life, she stayed committed to a frugal lifestyle.

She worked with some of the best tunesmiths of her day, including Robert Lowry, Charles H. Gabriel and D. L. Moody’s co-worker, Ira D. Sankey. There is little doubt that Moody and Sankey’s use of Fanny’s hymns in their evangelistic campaigns were a key reason in the growing popularity of the hymns. Most of her 8,000 or so hymns (estimates of the number of hymns she wrote range up to 9,000) are focused on Christian experience. Today roughly sixty of them are in regular use in hymnals.