Historiae ecclesiasticae collecta: a weekly roundup of blogs, articles, books, and more

By Dustin Bruce

Blogs

  1. In a helpful post for PhD students on The Anxious Bench, Thomas Kidd offers advice on “What to Publish, and When?”.

  2. Kidd also reviews Marsden’s The Twilight of the American Enlightenment  on The Gospel Coalition. John Fea has done the work of compiling the reviews of Marsden’s latest work.

  3. Brian Renshaw of NT Exegesis pontificates on two surprisingly connected loves in “Baseball and Church History.”

  4. Jason Duesing reflects on “W.O. Carver, Southern Seminary, and the Significance of Adoniram Judson” on his personal blog.

  5. Over at the Founder’s Blog, Jeff Robinson asks, “Is Calvin Guilty of the Popular Charges Against Him?”

  6. Also at Founders, Jon English Lee continues in a series on the Sabbath with, “Where is the Sabbath in the Early Church? (Part 2)”

  7. R. Albert Mohler rolls out his 2014 list of “Ten Books Every Preacher Should Read” in Preaching Magazine. Included in this is Tom Nettles, Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (Mentor, 2013), Michael J. Kruger, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (InterVarsity Press, 2013), and John Elliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven (Knopf, 2013). The SBTS Campus Lifeway has the books from Dr. Mohler’s list on sale at a 40% discount.

  8. On The Anxious Bench, Phillip Jenkins explores “Welsh Roots” in an insightful post for St. David’s Day and then follows up with “Welsh America, American Wales.”

  9. Jenkins also discusses “The 160-Year Christian History Behind What’s Happening in Ukraine” on Christianity Today.

  10. At Between the Times, Nathan Finn looks at historic Baptist roots in “On the Baptist Confession of 1689.”

  11. The Confessing Baptist interviewed the Fuller Center’s own Steve Weaver on his and Michael Haykin's recent release of An Orthodox Catechism by Hercules Collins.

  12. Joel Beeke discusses “The Puritan Art of Godly Meditation” in a brief video on his blog, Doctrine for Life.

Major Discussion: Should Evangelicals Practice Lent?

Debate stirred this week around the practice of Lent and specifically Ash Wednesday, with low-church Evangelicals falling on both sides. Some helpful interlocutors were:

  1. Nathan Finn on Christian Thought and Tradition with “Why One Baptist Chooses to Observe Lent.”

  2. R. Scott Clark with “Lent: Of Good Intentions, Spiritual Disciplines, and Christian Freedom” on the Heidelblog.

  3. Keith Miller calls upon the historical heroes of the Reformed in “Reformed Homeboys on Lenten Fasting” on Mere Orthodoxy.

Recent Book Releases

  1. The Evangelistic Zeal of George Whitefield by Steven Lawson. Reformation Trust Publishing. 9781567693638. Hardback. $16.00.

  2. Gratitude: An Intellectual History byPeter Leithart. Baylor University Press. 9781602584495. $49.95.

  3. John Knox (Christian Biographies for Young Readers) by Simonetta Carr. Reformation Heritage Books. 9781601782892. $18.00.

  4. Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity (3 vols.) edited by Angelo Di Beradino. IVP Academic. 9780830829439. $450.00.

  5. The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World 1830–1930 edited by Stewart Brown and Peter Nockles. Cambridge University Press. 9781107680272. $26.46.

  6. The Urban Pulpit: New York City and the Fate of Liberal Evangelicalism by Matthew Bowman. Oxford University Press. 9780199977604. $62.15.

  7. A People’s History of Christianity, Vol 1: From the Early Church to the Reformation (Student Edition) edited by Dennis R. Janz. Fortress Press. 9781451470246. $39.00.  Volume 2: From the Reformation to the 21st Century.

  8. Abraham in the Works of John Chrysostom (Emerging Scholars) by Demetrios E. Tonias. Fortress Press. 9781451473056. $49.96.

  9. The Life of  Saint Helia: Critical Edition, Translation, Introduction, and Commentary (Oxford Early Christian Texts) edited by Virginia Burrus and Marco Conti. Oxford University Press. 9780199672639. $150.00.

  10. The Search for Authority in Reformation Europe (St Andrews Studies in Reformation History) edited by Helen Parish, Elaine Fulton, and Peter Webster. Ashgate. 9781409408543. $119.95.

From the Fuller Center

  1. Evan Burns posts on “Fuller Reading the Scriptures.”

  2. Joe Harrod discusses “Samuel Davies on the Nature of the Spiritual Life.”

  3. Burns follows up the AFC mini-conference on Adoniram Judson with “Judson’s Farewell Hymn.”

What did I miss this week?  Share in the comments or on Twitter: @AFCBS or @dustinbruce.

Note: Inclusion of an article, book, or any other form of media on the Historiae ecclesiasticae collecta does not constitute a theological endorsement by the compiler, Michael Haykin, the Andrew Fuller Center or Southern Seminary.

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a PhD in Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

Judson’s Farewell Hymn

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Samuel Davies on the Nature of the Spiritual Life

By Joe Harrod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fuller on Reading the Scriptures

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Writing down interesting thoughts fixes them to memory.

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

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

Introducing Samuel Davies

By Joe Harrod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Answering My Great Question about “The Great Question Answered”

By Nathan A. Finn

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Upcoming Mini-Conference on Adoniram Judson

By Dustin Bruce

ST-072-2014 Andrew Fuller Center mini-conference Slide

“Throwing Our Hats Over the Wall: Adoniram Judson and the Global Gospel Call”

March 5th, 2014

The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies would like to invite you to attend the Spring Mini-Conference. This year, the conference focuses on Adoniram Judson and his missionary experience and influence.

The featured speaker will be Dr. Jason Duesing, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Duesing has conducted extensive research on the life and ministry of Judson and is a well-known speaker, author, and editor on the subject.

The mini-conference will take place from 9:00–11:30 AM on Wednesday, March 5th in Heritage Hall on the campus of Southern Seminary. Admission is free to all attendees and refreshments will be provided.

The schedule is as follows:

9:00–10:00 - Lecture 1: The Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson, Part 1:  Conversion, Consecration, & Commission, 1788-1812

10:15–11:15 - Lecture 2: The Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson, Part 2:  Baptism, Burma, & the Bible, 1812-1850

11:15–11:30 - Q&A on the Life and Ministry of Adoniram Judson

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Dustin Bruce lives in Louisville, KY where he is pursuing a PhD in Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary. He is a graduate of Auburn University and Southwestern Seminary. Dustin and his wife, Whitney, originally hail from Alabama.

The death of a friend, Bob Shaker

By Michael A.G. Haykin

I have just learned that an old friend whom I first met in 1983, Bob Shaker, has to gone to be with the Lord. He would have been 100, I believe next year. A Syrian immigrant with four sisters and a couple of brothers raised in the Syrian Orthodox Church, Bob came to faith at Jarvis Street Baptist Church and was discipled under TT Shields—he served as one of his deacons at one point in the 1950s. In later years he attended Knox Presbyterian Church and then most recently Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church.

He had a bookstore in Toronto that served to distribute Reformed literature at a time when few bookstores in the 1960s and 1970s were carrying it. And what gems he had there: The Banner of Truth magazine, books by Lloyd-Jones and Packer, fabulous biographies and rare studies in Scripture and Church History that no other Toronto bookseller would carry since they would not sell. As a sign in his bookstore window put it: “We sell books, not fluff” or something to that effect!

He was a friend and mentor to hundreds of pastors who came to his bookstore not simply to buy books but to spend time with Bob. Here many well-known preachers visiting Toronto would come. I vividly remember him telling me about the visit of Ian Paisley with two bodyguards. In his latter years I went to see him regularly at the bookstore, where he dispensed nuggets of practical Christian wisdom about Reformed theology, how to work with other evangelicals, the need for a solid Canadian evangelical witness, his love for TTS (he never ceased to admire him)—and then after an hour or two we would pray together. What a rich prayer life he had.

In his final days, I saw him irregularly—at his home in the heart of Toronto (one of those beautiful homes from the 1910s or 1920s with rich hardwood). The last time would have been at Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church, I believe, when they celebrated an anniversary and where Lucien Atchale is doing a tremendous ministry. Of course, at a time like this, I regret not having gone to see him more. So I am glad we had a celebration of his life at Mount Pleasant Rd BC a few years ago before his death and rejoiced in what God had accomplished through this humble servant.

It was an honour to have known Bob and to be able call him a friend. And now he is in the presence of the Great King: the delight of his heart!

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

Why Read Andrew Fuller?

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Natural is Your Morality?

By Ryan Patrick Hoselton

How should Christians interact with non-Christian moral reasoning? Christians throughout the centuries have revisited this question, dividing over whether divine revelation exclusively provides our moral guidance or whether we can benefit from “natural” moral philosophy.

I’ve been working through Norman Fiering’s work, Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century Harvard (1981), and he offers helpful categories for working through this question.[1]  Although his points are descriptive rather than prescriptive, believers today can greatly benefit from observing how Christians throughout history have thought through the relationship between Christian theology and natural moral reasoning. It may not necessarily be wrong to incorporate natural moral thought, but we should be aware how and why we’re doing it.

Fiering identifies five general solutions that Christians have devised to reconcile Christian and natural moral thought. The fifth is more of a method than a theory, so I will only summarize the first four:

1)      Christian hegemony: In this model, Christians borrow pagan cultural ideas and resources in “the interest of higher purposes (12).” Christians exploit external thought and sanctify and purpose it for the glory of God and the church.

2)      Common Grace: This position’s greatest defender is Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Catholic theologian. The adherents of this position argue that despite the Fall, human nature maintains remarkable natural abilities in regards to creativity, discovery, knowledge, and even moral reasoning. As Fiering stresses, this doctrine is not necessarily meant to authorize natural moral philosophy but rather to make sense of non-Christian intellectual and moral achievement.

3)      Prisca theologia: followers of this third category espouse that “behind the best pagan writings was the influence of the ‘ancient history’ (prisca theologia) that originated with Moses (14).” In other words, the reason why pagan thinkers have produced sound ideas is because they directly or indirectly borrowed from Christian thought. Thus, they are worthy of study insofar as they reflect Christian teaching.

4)      Disparity: The fourth model for reconciling Christian theology and pagan moral philosophy was to compartmentalize the utility of each for either the outer or inner person. Natural knowledge was sufficient to guide external actions, while spiritual knowledge was necessary to reform the inner and spiritual person. Thus, believers rested on natural moral philosophy for personal, social, and political moral conduct, and they reserved special revelation to guide their spiritual life.

[1] Norman Fiering, Moral Philosophy at Seventeenth-Century Harvard (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1981).

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

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

By Michael A.G. Haykin

9781850492481

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

Andrew Fuller

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

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

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

Puritan Manliness

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Thought on Church Membership

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Baptism: is both a declaration of commitment to following Christ and the doorway as it were to the church (look at Acts 2:41-42). It is unthinkable that in the early church they would have baptized anyone and that person did not join himself to the church that baptized him. Only in a deeply individualistic culture like ours does this idea emerge: I can be baptized but still be a free agent. To join myself to Christ is to join myself to his people.

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

The Fathers—my mentors

By Michael A.G. Haykin

Do the Fathers lead logically to the full-blown theology of the Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodoxy? Not at all: Epiphanius of Salamis condemned the use of icons and pictures; Cyprian described Stephen, the bishop of Rome, as the Antichrist; Augustine’s view of the presence of Christ is much closer to Luther than Trent; and on and on. Read Calvin’s Institutes and see how often he cites the Fathers, esp. Augustine. And why? Because he believed they supported him, not the Roman Church. And he was right. Thomas Cranmer, the theological and liturgical architect of Anglicanism, was one of the leading patristic scholars of his day. No, the Fathers are not necessarily the root of the Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodoxy. They are just as much my Fathers as they are theirs—and I, a full-blown unrepentant Evangelical—am not ashamed to own them as my theological mentors and forebears. This does not mean I believe everything they believed, even as I do not believe everything my great hero Andrew Fuller believed (his view that John Wesley was a crypto-Jesuit is plain ridiculous, e.g.).

If you wish to see how contemporary Evangelicals read the Fathers, check out the series of books beginning to be published this year by Christian Focus and of which I am the series editor: “Early Church Fathers.”

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

Missionary Biographies

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

“Christ Was All His Theme”

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Every Cup Stirred by the Finger of God”

By Evan D. Burns

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

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

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

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

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