Providence and the Pilgrim

Among the records published by Nathaniel Morton in his New-England's Memorial (1669, considered the first history book published in the United States), is a poem by his uncle, the Pilgrim Father William Bradford, about his conversion and life. Morton prefaced the poem thus:

Certain verses left by the honored William Bradford, Esq. governor of the jurisdiction of Plimouth, penned by his own hand, declaring the gracious dispensations of God's providence towards him in the time of his life, and his preparation and fittedness for death.

From my years young in days of youth,
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace.
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, through weal and woe,
A pilgrim, passed I to and fro :
Oft left of them whom I did trust;
How vain it is to rest on dust!
A man of sorrows I have been,
And many changes have I seen.
Wars, wants, peace, plenty, have I known;
And some advanc'd, others thrown down.
The humble poor, cheerful and glad;
Rich, discontent, sower and sad :

When fears and sorrow have been mixt,
Consolations came betwixt.
Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth chastise,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.
Farewell, dear children, whom I love,
Your better Father is above:
When I am gone, he can supply;
To him I leave you when I die.
Fear him in truth, walk in his ways,
And he will bless you all your days.
My days are spent, old age is come,
My strength it fails, my glass near run.
Now I will wait, when work is done,
Until my happy change shall come,
When from my labors I shall rest,
With Christ above for to be blest.

Geneva Gin

Some have wondered if Gin got its name somehow from Geneva. In fact, the name of this alcoholic beverage is derived from the French word for juniper, the key ingredient - genévrier. The Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius (1614-1672) is credited with the invention of Gin or Jenever. In 19th century Holland, it was referred to as "Holland Gin" or "Geneva Gin." Though it may have been appreciated in Swiss Geneva, its origin as a beverage is Dutch and its etymological origin is French.

Validity of Roman Catholic Baptism

The question of the validity of Roman Catholic baptism has been a thorn in the American Presbyterian Church since

James Henley Thornwell in the 19th Century squared off against Charles Hodge in an extensive debate that started on the floor of the Presbyterian (Old School) General Assembly and spilled over later into the Princeton Review, the Watchman and Observer, and the Southern Presbyterian Review. Thornwell rejected Roman Baptism, while Charles Hodge accepted its validity.

Before that time, the general consensus of the Reformed Church was that the Roman Catholic Church had indeed become apostate, but was in some sense still a church. Antichrist was correctly identified as the Papacy by the Reformed Church, in part because the man of sin "sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God" (2 Thess. 2.4).

(Both Thornwell and Hodge agreed that the Roman Papacy was Antichrist. The Westminster Confession's affirmation of this doctrine was not removed until 1903, when the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (the Northern Presbyterian Church, or PCUSA) did so.)

Peru Mission was forced to address this issue because of its missionary efforts in Roman Catholic territories, and having investigated the question of whether re-baptism is required of converts from Catholicism, is to be commended for publishing the fruits of its research as The Reformed Churches and Roman Catholic Baptism: an Anthology of Principle Texts. I commend this work as a valuable resource for those who may wish to study the issue for themselves. It cites both pre- and post-Council of Trent Reformed writers who addressed and affirmed the validity of Roman baptism, addressing also the subject of the Roman mass, and Roman ordination, in the context of Rome as an apostate church which is yet a church materially considered. Those who wish to delve into these questions will do well to study this anthology.

The Huguenots

There is a rock band from my hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, that caught my eye and ear some time ago. The Huguenots are now residents of Carrboro; their domicile is called "Château Huguenot." They are different than the punk rock band from Boston in the 1990's by the same name. I have not been to any of their concerts; but I like their song "Julia," in particular.

The Daily Tar Heel interviewed them in 2008 and the question was asked about their name.

Newspaper: Is the band’s naming a historical reference or does it have personal meaning?

William Moose: That’s funny; someone from another band asked us if we were a Christian band. And no, we are not expressly a Christian band....

Sam Logan: We had a couple names we were going through. I’m from Charleston and there are a lot of the Huguenots there.

Caspar Olevianus on the Apostles Creed

On the heels of the first volume of the Classic Reformed Theology series, published earlier this year -- sermons by William Ames based on the Heidelberg Catechism -- comes volume 2, the first-ever English translation of Caspar Olevianus' exposition of the Apostles' Creed, which is available for pre-order now and is expected to be released in January 2010. Thanks to editor R. Scott Clark, translator Lyle D. Bierma and publisher Reformation Heritage Books for making possible this valuable translation. For more information, visit The Heidelblog.

Synodicon in Gallia Reformata

Like a kid in a candy store, I am pleased to report that Google Books has recently digitized and made available from the University of Lausanne a rare book by an English Puritan that is a treasure for students of French Huguenot history. The title is worth citing in full:

Synodicon In Gallia Reformata: or the Acts, Decisions, Decrees, and Canons of those famous National Councils of the Reformed Churches in France. Being I. A most faithful and impartial history of the rise, growth, perfection and decay of the Reformation in that kingdom, with its fatal catastrophe upon the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the year 1685. II. The Confession of Faith and Discipline of those Churches. III. A Collection of Speeches, Letters, Sacred Politics, Cases of Conscience, and Controversies in Divinity, determined and resolved by those grave Assemblies. IV. Many excellent Expedients for preventing and healing Schisms in the Churches, and for re-uniting the dismembered Body of divided Protestants. V. The Laws, Government, and Maintenance of their Colleges, Universities and Ministers, together with their Exercise of Discipline upon delinquent Ministers and Church-members. VI. A record of very many illustrious events of divine providence relating to those churches. The whole collected and composed out of original manuscript acts of those renowned Synods. A work never before extant in any language. In Two Volumes. By John Quick, Minister of the Gospel in London (1692)

Volume 1
Volume 2

For background on the author, here is a helpful extract from an article by Alan Clifford.

Alan C. Clifford, "Reformed Pastoral Theology Under the Cross: John Quick and Claude Brousson," WRS Journal 5/1 (February 1998) 21-35:

The author of these fascinating folios was a little-known Presbyterian minister from the west of England. John Quick2 was born at Plymouth in 1636. After graduating at Oxford in 1657 he was ordained at Ermington in Devon in 1659. Along with his illustrious Puritan brethren—a more famous contemporary John Flavel (1628-91) ministered at nearby Dartmouth—Quick exercised a faithful and courageous ministry. He served at Kingsbridge with Churchstow and then at Brixton near Plymouth.

Undeterred by the Act of Uniformity (1662), he continued to preach. He was arrested during the Lord’s Day morning worship on 13 December 1663 and imprisoned at Exeter. At his trial, he was nearly acquitted on a technicality. However, since he refused to give up preaching, he was sent to prison. After suffering for a further eight weeks, he was liberated by Sir Matthew Hale. The Bishop of Exeter, Seth Ward, then prosecuted Quick for preaching to the prisoners but the Lord’s servant was acquitted, his unashamed ‘guilt’ notwithstanding!

Charles II’s Indulgence of 1672 brought a brief respite for the persecuted Puritan brotherhood. Quick was licensed to preach at Plymouth. When restrictions were imposed again the following year, he was imprisoned for three months with other nonconformists at the Marshalsea prison in Plymouth. On his release, Quick left the west of England for London. He then traveled to Holland where he became a minister to the English church at Middleburg in 1679. Returning to London two years later, Quick gathered a Presbyterian congregation in a small meeting house in Middlesex Court, Bartholomew Close, Smithfield. On the eve of easier times, his London ministry—“successful to the conversion of many,” says Dr. Edmund Calamy3—was relatively undisturbed; the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the Toleration Act of 1688-89 eventually brought persecution to an end. Known as “a serious, good preacher” with a “great facility and freedom in prayer,”4 John Quick continued to serve his people faithfully until his death on 29 April 1706. His wife Elizabeth died in 1708. Their only daughter became the wife of Dr. John Evans (1680?-1730) who completed the commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in Matthew Henry’s immortal Exposition.5

Consistent with his personal courage and pastoral gifts, John Quick combined scholarship with zeal for the truth. The blending of these qualities explains his authorship of the Synodicon in Gallia Reformata. During his early ministry and subsequently, he became acquainted with the Huguenot refugees, some of whom landed at his native Plymouth from La Rochelle in 1681—the year the dreadful “dragonnades” began. Accordingly, writes Calamy, Quick “was very compassionate to those in distress; at a great deal of pains and expense for the relief of the poor French Protestants, and his house and purse were almost ever open to them. He was a perfect master of their language, and had a peculiar respect for their churches, upon the account of their sound doctrine and useful discipline, and the noble testimony which they bore to religion by their sufferings.”6

Quick’s interest in the Huguenots did not end with the Synodicon. Besides a few published sermons of his own, he also prepared for publication a selection of fifty brief biographies of eminent pastors, theologians, and martyrs of the French Reformed Church, the Icones Sacrae Gallicanae.7 He also produced a similar selection of twenty Puritans, the Icones Sacrae Anglicanae.8 These ambitious ventures failed with the death in 1700 of William Russell, Duke of Bedford (the dedicatee of the Synodicon) who had offered to assist with the cost. Advancing illness also prevented Quick from collecting subscriptions for the work.9 Following the author’s death, the manuscript volumes were eventually deposited at Dr. Williams’ Library in London.10

2 For Quick, see Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1885-1900).
3 An Account of the Ministers...Ejected or Silenced after the Restoration in 1660, 2nd edition (London, 1713), ii. 333.
4 Ibid. 333.
5 J. B. Williams, Memoirs of..the Revd. Matthew Henry (London, 1828; fac. rep. Edinburgh, 1974), 308.
6 Calamy, op. cit., 333-4. “He was...exceeding compassionate to the distressed and laid out his pains and estate too very largely, especially to the banished French, for which nation he had a peculiar respect on the account of their sound doctrine, gospel-discipline, fixed adherence to Christ, and the kindness he had found among them in former times...” (Daniel Williams, A Funeral Sermon... of the Reverend Mr John Quick [London, 1706], p. 36).
7 For the complete list, see Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 2 (London, 1887-88), 257-9.
8 See A. H. Drysdale, History of the Presbyterians in England (London, 1889), 468. In June 1694, Quick approached Matthew Henry for biographical material for his project. In a letter to his “venerable father,” dated 26 June, Henry wrote: “Last Friday, Mr Quick, of London, Minister, author of the Synodicon, came to my house, recommended to me by Sir Henry Ashurst. He tells me he hath now under hand a book which he calls Icones, intending an account of the lives of eminent ministers, our own and foreigners, never yet written: he casts for four volumes in folio, and obligeth me to furnish him with what memoirs I can get concerning any in this country. I refer further talk of it till I can see you” (J. B.Williams, op. cit. 238).
9 See “Translated Abstracts from the Act Book of the Consistory of the Threadneedle Street [French] Church, 1693-1708,” entry for 6 March 1702-3: “M. Quick returned the 25s paid him as subscription for the book called Icones which he proposed to give to the public, his indisposition compelling him to refrain from printing it” (Proceedings 7 [1901-4], 40.)
10 Due to the decayed condition of the originals, a two-volume 19th century transcription of the Icones is accessible to readers at the library. The transcriber was the Revd Hugh Hutton, MA (d. 1871), minister of Churchgate Street Presbyterian Church, Bury St Edmunds (see John Browne, History of Congregationalism...in Norfolk and Suffolk [London, 1877], 421). The work occupied 3 years (1862-5) for which the princely sum of £150 was paid. I am grateful to the Librarian, Mr John Creasey for permission to quote from the Quick MSS, DWL 6:38-39 (50), hereafter given as ISG.

Kindred Spirits

Two faithful saints of old, who made brief but profound impressions upon the sands of time, are the Marquis Olivier de la Musse (Muce) and his sister Marguerite. Theirs was a family known as one of the first of French nobility to embrace the Protestant religion. Their grandfather, Marquis David de la Musse, presided over the 1621 political assembly of Huguenots at La Rochelle.

In 1681, young Marguerite died of illness. She must have been young in the body but wise in the ways of the Lord. Her death-bed sayings were recorded and later published and translated: More edifiante, ou Recits des dernieres heures de Mademoiselle (1684); translated as The Triumphs of Grace, or The Last Words and Edifying Death of the Lady Margaret de la Musse, a noble French lady aged but sixteen years in May 1681 (1687). Her final words comprised the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2.29): "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy Word."

Jonathan Edwards had a "Catalogue of Reading," or "a notebook he kept of books of interest, especially titles he hoped to acquire, and entries from his “Account Book,” a ledger in which he noted books loaned to family, parishioners, and fellow clergy," both of which together have been published by Yale University as the final volume (#26) of The Works of Jonathan Edwards. In it, Marguerite's book of death-bed sayings is listed as item #36 in Edwards' "Catalogue of Reading." It was a popular devotional work in its day, though harder to come by today.

Marguerite's mother, however, renounced Protestantism at the 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, though some Catholics complained that her "conversion" was questionable. There was no questioning her son Olivier's convictions; he would not renounce his faith, though his lost his estate and title. An elder in the Reformed Church of Nantes, Olivier attempted to flee France, but was arrested on the Île de Ré before he could cross over to England. He was imprisoned for two years, first in La Rochelle, then at the Castle of Nantes, where every unsuccessful effort was made to force him to recant. Finally, the order was given to expel him from France as an "obstinate heretic," but in a further act of cruelty, when he was put aboard the ship that would take him to England, he was not told of his destination until the last moment, leaving him in suspense as to whether he faced slavery in the West Indies or some other terrible end.

He made friends in London during the receptive reign of King William III, whose army in Ireland had included many Huguenots. John Quick (1636-1706), the famous nonconformist historian, would write: "Here [in London] is a Marquis de La Musse, a faithful confessor for Christ, having forsaken his estate and embraced the cross, rather than part with his religion." One of those friends was Daniel Coxe, who had a plan to facilitate the settlement of a Huguenot colony in America. After initially proposing a site on the Gulf of Mexico, it was finally decided that a group of Huguenot refugees would be settled near Norfolk, Virginia. With his partner Charles de Sailly, and pastor Claude Philippe de Richebourg, Olivier led the Huguenot party of over 200 souls (a large number of these were Waldensians, including Pastor Benjamin De Joux) to Hampton, Virginia in 1700, by way of the British vessel Mary Ann, where the ship docked in Hampton, Virginia. There, William Byrd directed them, not to Norfolk, but up the James River, to the frontier, where he owned lands adjacent to an abandoned Monacan Indian settlement, where the Huguenots established their own colony called Manakin-towne (west of present-day Richmond, where the French Huguenot church still exists in Episcopal form, and so does the French Huguenot Society of Virginia, which tells the story of the colony's founding much better here). Three additional shiploads of Huguenot and Waldensian settlers followed, comprising over 700 Manakin colonists in the aggregate.

Charles Baird says of this Huguenot colonial expedition that "[i]t may be safely said that no more interesting body of colonists than that conducted by Oliver de la Muce, had crossed the ocean within the last half of the century then coming to a close" (History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, Vol. 2, p. 178).

Olivier helped the colonists through a difficult first winter but he must have returned to England and his footsteps, though faintly evident to us, were lost in the sands of time. It is not known (to me, at any rate) what became of Olivier after this expedition. But to him, and other brave kindred spirits, we are indebted to the witness of the French Huguenot faithful on both shores of the Atlantic.

Calvin's Academy in Virginia?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. -- Inscribed on the library of the Academy of Geneva

Although Thomas Jefferson's hatred of John Calvin and Calvin's God is well-known,* it is less well-known that he once viewed with great favor a proposal put forward by François D'Ivernois (1757-1842) to transplant Calvin's Academy from Geneva to Northern Virginia. A 1794 attempt by revolutionaries to overthrow Geneva's government which targeted the faculty and ministers with imprisonment led D'Ivernois to reach out to American contacts later that year, including both Jefferson and John Adams, to negotiate for the school's relocation to the States. The plan fell apart due to a return to the status quo in Geneva as well as a lack of support from the Virginia legislature, which never voted on the proposal but conveyed in back channels to Wilson Nicholas, a confidante and go-between of Jefferson, its reasons, which in turn Jefferson reported to D'Ivernois.

In a letter to D'Ivernois dated February 6, 1795, Jefferson wrote:

Your proposition, however, for transplanting the college of Geneva to my own country, was too analogous to all my attachments to science, & freedom, the first-born daughter of science, not to excite a lively interest in my mind, and the essays which were necessary to try it's practicability.

He then listed the reasons for the lack of support from the Virginia legislature:

The reasons which they thought would with certainty prevail against it, were 1. that our youth, not familiarized but with their mother tongue, were not prepared to receive instructions in any other; 2d. that the expence of the institution would excite uneasiness in their constituents, & endanger it's permanence; & 3. that it's extent was disproportioned to the narrow state of the population with us.

George Washington later wrote to Jefferson (March 15, 1795) about the matter and listed further reasons for the lack of support:

Hence you will perceive that I have, in a degree, anticipated your proposition. I was restrained from going the whole length of the suggestion, by the following considerations: 1st, I did not know to what extent, or when any plan would be so matured for the establishment of an University, as would enable any assurance to be given to the application of Mr. D'Ivernois. 2d, the propriety of transplanting the Professors in a body, might be questioned for several reasons; among others, because they might not be all good characters; nor all sufficiently acquainted with our language; and again, having been at variance with the levelling party of their own country, the measure might be considered as an aristocratical movement by more than those who, without any just cause that I have been able to discover, are continually sounding the alarm bell of aristocracy. and 3d, because it might preclude some of the first Professors in other countries from a participation; among whom some of the most celebrated characters in Scotland, in this line, I am told might be obtained.

It was not Reformed orthodoxy that appealed to Jefferson; the Genevan Academy by that time had forsaken theological orthodoxy for "enlightenment" and devoted itself to the pursuit of science instead. There was no plan to establish a bastion of Calvinism in Virginia, but Jefferson did earnestly desire to build public education in the young United States, and just as he appreciated Calvin's political theories of resistance, he appreciated the Academy of Calvin as it existed in 1795, if not 1559. He went on to establish the University of Virginia in Charlottesville some years later, which was ahead of its time in banning the teaching of theology altogether.**

As a Virginian, I hope that one day a home-grown institution along the lines of Calvin's vision more than Jefferson's will be planted "over the river and under the shade of the trees."

*Jefferson letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823:

I can never join Calvin in addressing his God. He was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be; or rather his religion was Daemonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5. points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore; but a daemon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.

Jefferson letter to William Short, April 13, 1820:

The Presbyterian clergy are the loudest, the most intolerant of all sects; the most tyrannical and ambitious, ready at the word of the law-giver, if such a word could now be obtained, to put their torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere the flame in which their oracle, Calvin, consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one, and one is three, nor subscribe to the proposition of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to the Calvinistic creed. They pant to re-establish by law that holy inquisition which they can now only infuse into public opinion.

**Jefferson letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814:

I agree with yours of the 22d, that a professorship of Theology should have no place in our institution.

Jefferson letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, November 2, 1822:

The atmosphere of our country is unquestionably charged with a threatening cloud of fanaticism, lighter in some parts, denser in others, but too heavy in all. I had no idea, however, that in Pennsylvania, the cradle of toleration and freedom of religion, it could have arisen to the height you describe. This must be owing to the growth of Presbyterianism. The blasphemy of the five points of Calvin, and the impossibility of defending them, render their advocates impatient of reasoning, irritable, and prone to denunciation....

In our university you know there is no Professorship of Divinity. A handle has been made of this, to disseminate an idea that this is an institution, not merely of no religion, but against all religion. Occasion was taken at the last meeting of the Visitors, to bring forward an idea that might silence this calumny, which weighed on the minds of some honest friends to the institution. In our annual report to the legislature, after stating the constitutional reasons against a public establishment of any religious instruction, we suggest the expediency of encouraging the different religious sects to establish, each for itself, a professorship of their own tenets, on the confines of the university, so near as that their students may attend the lectures there, and have the free use of our library, and every other accommodation we can give them; preserving, however, their independence of us and of each other. This fills the chasm objected to ours, as a defect in an institution professing to give instruction in all useful sciences. I think the invitation will be accepted, by some sects from candid intentions, and by others from jealousy and rivalship. And by bringing the sects together, and mixing them with the mass of other students, we shall soften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and make the general religion a religion of peace, reason, and morality.

Matthew Poole at RHB

Master Poole Publishing is pleased to announce that Matthew Poole's Synopsis (which is a combination of the first-ever English translation of the Synopsis Criticorum and his English Annotations, or Commentary) is now available for purchase (paperback editions of Volumes 1-5, covering Genesis and Exodus) at Reformation Heritage Books. Order your copy today!

Order and Disorder

Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681) was the first to translate the complete text into English of De Rerum Natura, an epic poem by Lucretius (which she later regretted because it was a pagan work; thus, it was not published until 1996), and she was perhaps the first woman to write an epic poem herself in the English language: Order and Disorder: or, The World Made and Undone, Being Meditations Upon the Creation and Fall; As It is Recorded in the Beginning of Genesis (1679), described by her modern editor (David Norbrook) as a "militantly Trinitarian and Calvinist epic."

Her husband Sir John Hutchinson (1615-1664) served as a military leader of Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and, later, was among the commissioners who signed the death warrant of King Charles I. After the Restoration, a measure of leniency was shown towards him because of Royalist connections on his wife's side of the family, but he died in prison. Lucy wrote a memorable biography of her husband to vindicate his name. She and her husband were devout Puritans, and the book does much to dispel "many false impressions about the narrowness and austerity of the educated Puritans."

Order and Disorder, Canto 1:

My ravished soul a pious ardour fires
To sing those mystic wonders it admires,
Contemplating the rise of everything
That with Time's birth flowed from th'eternal spring:
And the no less stupendous Providence
By which discording natures ever since
Have kept up universal harmony,
While in one joint obedience all agree,
Performing that to which they were designed
With ready inclination; but Mankind
Alone rebels against his Maker's will,
Which, though opposing, he must yet fulfil.
And so that wise power who each crooked stream
Most rightly guides becomes the glorious theme
Of endless admiration, while we see,
Whatever mortals' vain endeavours be,
They must be broken who with power contend,
And cannot frustrate their Creator's end,
Whose wisdom, goodness, might and glory shines
In guiding men's unto his own designs.

In these outgoings would I sing his praise,
But my weak sense with the too glorious rays
Is struck with such confusion that I find
Only the world's first Chaos in my mind,
Where light and beauty lie wrapped up in seed
And cannot be from the dark prison freed
Except that Power by whom the world was made
My soul in her imperfect strugglings aid,
Her rude conceptions into forms dispose,
And words impart which may those forms disclose.

O thou eternal spring of glory, whence
All other streams derive their excellence,
From whose love issues every good desire,
Quicken my dull earth with celestial fire,
And let the sacred theme that is my choice
Give utterance and music to my voice,
Singing the works by which thou art revealed.
What dark Eternity hath kept concealed
From mortals apprehensions, what hath been
Before the race of time did first begin,
It were presumptuous folly to inquire.
Let not my thoughts beyond their bounds aspire:
Time limits mortals, and Time had its birth,
In whose Beginning God made Heaven and Earth.

Dissension in a Monastery

Jim West, Drinking With Calvin and Luther, p. 136:

There were some medieval monks who vowed a vow of silence. They were allowed to speak but once a year and that only for a short moment. One monk said, "I think the wine in our monastery is too sweet."

One year later a second monk quietly responded, "I like the sweet wine."

Another year passed and a third monk arbitrated, "This incessant bickering must stop."

Matthew Henry Commentary Challenge

Perhaps the most famous and beloved of any Reformed Bible commentary is that of Matthew Henry. Elsewhere, I have written about the background to its production. Today I write to encourage others to take up the "Matthew Henry Commentary Challenge." Prayerfully consider reading the whole of this devotional and practical commentary beginning at the first of the new year. That is what I plan to do, if the Lord wills.

David Bogue and James Bennett, History of the Dissenters, Vol. 3, pp. 17-18:

[George Whitefield] is said to have studied this book [Matthew Henry's commentary] literally on his knees, to have read it through four times, and to the end of his life, to have spoken of the author with the most profound veneration, ever calling him the great Mr. Henry.

There are many different editions: concise, abridged, study Bible and unabridged, single or multi-volume, online or hardcopy. The unabridged edition will, I think, provide the most spiritual benefit to the diligent student of God's Word, but I would encourage anyone who is willing to take up whichever edition is most feasible for them.

Philip Doddridge, Lectures on Preaching, in Works, Vol. 5, p. 474:

Henry is perhaps the only commentator so large that deserves to be entirely and attentively read through. -- The remarkable passages, I think, should be marked.

Other saints from the past have taken up and highly commended this exercise. To do so once in your life, if not more, I believe, will deepen one's understanding of the Word and provide the means for much rich meditation and spiritual fruit.

It is a challenge for many to read through the Bible in one year, let alone a large companion commentary. It is not a light thing to take up such a project, and perhaps some will do so only to discover that this project wasn't for them, or distractions will overtake them in their noble effort (it is worth pondering Luke 14.28 as you consider this challenge). Yet, I think there is benefit for all to be had here, whether or not one finishes (and I expect it to take more than a year, especially as one meditates upon this spiritual feast, which requires "digestion" not speed reading). I am not setting benchmarks or deadlines, but I do plan to post devotional gems as I read through the commentary, as well as encouragements along the way.

Letter from Charles Spurgeon to his son Charles, quoted in The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon: 1856-1878, p. 296:

Read Matthew Henry right through, if you can, before you are married; for, after that event, I fear that Jacob may supplant him.

Join with me, if you, dear Reader, are willing, and take up your commentary on the whole Bible by Matthew Henry, and begin reading it daily starting on January 1, 2010.

May God richly bless our studies of his Word and this devotional commentary.

Puritan One-Year Bible Reading Plan

If anyone is preparing to read the Bible through in 2010, here is a help from one famous Puritan devotional manual.

Lewis Bayly, The Practice of Piety, pp. 105-108:

BRIEF DIRECTIONS HOW TO READ THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ONCE EVERY YEAR OVER, WITH EASE, PROFIT, AND REVERENCE.

But forasmuch, that as faith is the soul, so reading and meditating on the word of God, are the parent’s of prayer, therefore, before thou prayest in the morning, first read a chapter in the word of God; then meditate awhile with thyself, how many excellent things thou canst remember out of it.

As—First, what good counsels or exhortations to good works and to holy life.

Secondly, what threatenings of judgments against such and such a sin; and what fearful examples of God’s punishment or vengeance upon such and such sinners.

Thirdly, what blessings God promiseth to patience, chastity, mercy, alms-deeds, zeal in his service, charity, faith and trust in God, and such like Christian virtues.

Fourthly, what gracious deliverance God hath wrought, and what special blessings he hath bestowed upon them who were his true and zealous servants.

Fifthly, apply these things to thine own heart, and read not these chapters as matter of historical discourse, but as if they were so many letters or epistles sent down from God out of heaven to thee; for whatsoever is written, is written for our learning (Rom. xv. 4.)

Sixthly, read them, therefore, with that reverence as if God himself stood by, and spake these words to thee, to excite thee to those virtues, to dissuade thee from those vices: assuring thyself that if such sins (as thou readest there) be found in thee, without repentance, the like plagues will fall upon thee; but if thou dost practise the like piety and virtuous deeds, the like blessings shall come to thee and thine.

In a word; apply all that thou readest in holy Scripture, to one of these two heads chiefly; either to confirm thy faith, or to increase thy repentance: for, as sustine et abstine, bear and forbear, was the epitome of a good philosopher’s life;42 so crede et resipisce, believe and repent, is the whole sum of a true Christian’s profession, One chapter thus read with understanding, and meditated with application, will better feed and comfort thy soul than five read and run over without marking their scope or sense, or making any use of them to thine ownself. If in this manner thou shalt read three chapters every day—one in the morning, another at noon, and the third at night (reading so many psalms instead of a chapter), thou shall read overall the canonical scriptures in a year, except six chapters, which thou mayest add to the duties of the last day of the year.43 The reading of the Bible in order, will help thee better to understand both the history and scope of the holy Scripture. And as for the Apocrypha, being but penned by man’s spirit, thou mayest read them at thy pleasure; but believe, them so far only as they agree with the canonical Scripture, which is endited by the Holy Ghost.

But it may be thou wilt say, that thy business will not permit thee so much time, as to read every morning a chapter, &c. O man, remember that thy life is but short, and that all this business is but for the use of this short life; but salvation or damnation is everlasting! Rise up, therefore, every morning by so much time the earlier: defraud thy foggy flesh of so much sleep; but rob not thy soul of her food, nor God of his service; and serve the Almighty duly whilst thou hast time and health.

Having thus read thy chapter, as thou art about to pray, remember that God is a God of holiness (Exod. xxvi. 36; ) whereof he warns us by repeating so often, “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” (Levit. xxi. 44; xix. 2; xx. 7.) And when he devoured with a sudden fire Nadab and Abihu, for offering to him incense with strange fire (Lev. x. 2),—like these now a-days, who offer prayers from hearts fraught with the fire of lust and malice,—would give no other reason of his judgment but this, “I will be sanctified in them that come near me.” (Lev. x. 3.) As if he should have said, If I cannot be sanctified by them who are my servants, in serving me with that holiness that they should, I will be sanctified on them, by confounding them with my just judgments, which their lewdness deserves. God cannot abide any wilful uncleanness or sin in them who serve him: “For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp to deliver thee, and to give thee thine enemies before thee: therefore the host shall be holy.” (Deut. xxiii. 13, 4.)

Zophar in Job saith, “If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hand towards God to pray; if iniquity be in thy hand, put it far away, and let no wickedness dwell in thy tabernacle.” (Job xi. 13, 14.) For, as Esai saith, “If there be any uncleanness in our hands” (that is, any sin whereof we have not repented) “though we stretch out our hands unto him, and. make many prayers, the Lord will hide his eyes from us, and will not hear our prayers.” (Isai. i. 15.) Therefore, before thou prayest, let God see that thy heart is sorrowful for thy sin, and that thy mind is resolved (through the assistance of his grace) to amend thy faults. And then, having washed thyself, and adorned thy body with apparel which beseemeth thy calling, and the image of God, which thou bearest, shut thy chamber-door, and kneel down at thy bedside, or some other convenient place; and in reverent manner lifting up thy heart, together with thy hands and eyes, as in the presence of God who seeth the inward intention of thy soul, offer up to God from the altar of a contrite heart, thy prayer, as a morning sacrifice, through the mediation of Christ, in these or the like words:—

42 Epicteti dict.
43 In the canonical books of the Old Testament there are 931 chapters: but distributing the 150 Psalms into 60 parts, thou shalt find but 841; which being added to 260, the number of the chapters in the New Testament, will amount to 1101; dividing which by three into 365, the number of the days of the year, there will remain but six, which thou mayest dispose of as is prescribed.

A Covenanter's 200th Birthday

James M. Willson, American Reformed Presbyterian Covenanter, was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania on November 17, 1809 -- the son of another influential Covenanter minister, James R. Willson (1780-1853) -- and died there on August 31, 1866.

He graduated Union College in 1829; served as principal of a high school in Troy, New York; pastored the First Congregation of Philadelphia from 1834 to 1862; served as Professor of Theology at Allegheny Theological Seminary from 1859 onward; and edited both the The Covenanter starting in 1845 and the (joint) Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter magazines starting in 1863 until his death. He wrote treatises on the diaconate, psalmody, social covenanting, civil government and a variety of other subjects. He was awarded a doctorate of divinity by Westminster College in 1865. He was influential in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America for three decades while he lived, and his writings have continued to bear witness to the Crown and Covenant of Christ, and the distinctives of his church. See W.M. Glasgow, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, pp. 723-727, for more detailed biographical information.

Earlier this year, Crown & Covenant Publications published a collection of essays by the senior Willson on subjects ranging from slavery to the doctrine of the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ and its implications for American society entitled Political Danger.

350 Years of South African Viniculture

Earlier this year, the South African wine industry celebrated its 350th anniversary. It owes much to the contributions of the French Huguenots skilled in winemaking who arrived on the Cape of Good Hope in 1688, but it began with vines first planted by Jan Van Riebeeck, who came to the Cape in 1652 to establish a trading station to support the Dutch East India Company, and is credited with founding the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk, or Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, that same year. In 1655, vines were shipped to the Cape from France, the Rhineland and Spain. Van Riebeeck planted 1,000 vines on his own farm in 1658 and, the following year, he recorded a famous entry in his journal, which, it is said, "placed South Africa as the 11th country to cultivate the vine, following just behind California’s initial grape crops in 1600."

Jan Van Riebeeck, Diary, 2 February 1659:

Today -- glory be to God -- wine was pressed for the first time from the Cape grapes...it consisted mostly of the Muscadel and other white round grapes, of fine flavour and taste. The Spanish grapes are still green; many stocks are quite full with them, and it is expected that they will yield abundantly....The return fleet will arrive just in time for the young wine and old beer, when all the kinds of fruit will be ripe...

Hugenots

The earliest published instance of the term Huguenot is found, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Thomas Stapleton's A Fortresse of the Faith (1565) in which he (a Roman Catholic writer) refers to them as "rebellious hugenots."

Taking Heed to the Flock

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. (Acts 20.28)

One particular generally-neglected spiritual service in our day is that of family visitation. If not neglected, it is often caricatured, but the Biblical duty of undershepherds, pastors and ruling elders, to provide spiritual oversight, encouragement and admonition to the flock under their care.

Derrick J. Vander Meulen, "Shepherding the Flock Through Family Visitation," in Called to Serve: Essays For Elders and Deacons, p. 214:

Put simply, family visitation is the practice of elders and ministers officially and regularly visiting the members of the congregation in their homes.

John S. Watkins, A Hand-Book For Ruling Elders, p. 30:

It is the duty of the elder to visit the members of his church. It is impossible for him to take proper oversight over them, look after their spiritual interests, and give them due attention, without coming in personal contact with them in their homes.

David Dickson (1821-1885) writes in The Elder and His Work, p. 45:

If the great ends of our office are, by God's blessing, to be attained, it is plain, in the first place, that the elder must know the people in his district. He must be acquainted with them all, old and young, their history, their occupations, their habits, their ways of thinking. They and their children should be his personal friends, so that they naturally turn to him as to one on whom they can depend as a kind and sympathizing friend and a faithful counselor. He must know them as they are at home, at their own fireside. As Dr. [Thomas] Chalmers said, "The way into a man's heart is in at the door of his house." And he must keep up this knowledge by visiting them from time to time.

The practice, rooted in the "house to house" ministry of Paul (Acts 20.20), is articulated officially in the 1618-1619 Church Order of the Synod of Dordt:

Article 23

The office of the Elders, in addition to what was said in Article 16 to be their duty in common with the Ministers of the Word, is to take heed that the Ministers, together with their other Fellow-helpers and the Deacons, faithfully discharge their office; - and, insofar as circumstances of time and place permit, to do house visitation both before and after the Lord's Supper for the edification of the congregation, in order particularly to comfort and instruct the members of the congregation, and also to exhort others in respect to the Christian Religion.

Peter De Jong (1915-2005) wrote a book designed to encourage both undershepherds as well as parishioners in this edifying spiritual exercise: Taking Heed to the Flock: A Study of the Principles and Practice of Family Visitation. I have found it to be very helpful personally and I commend it highly to those interested in better understanding what it means to shepherd the flock of Christ.

Fading of the Flesh and the Flourishing of Faith

Stephen Yuille -- himself the author of two books about the theology of Puritan George Swinnock: Puritan Spirituality: the Fear of God in the Affective Theology of George Swinnock and Trading and Thriving in Godliness:The Piety of George Swinnock -- notes that Reformation Heritage Books is publishing a new edition of Swinnock's The Fading of the Flesh and the Flourishing of Faith.

RHB says:

In this book, George Swinnock presents modern readers with valuable food for thought as he expounds Psalm 73:26, “My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.” Swinnock combines careful explanation with vivid illustration to reveal the futility of earthly comforts and highlight the inestimable comfort, satisfaction, and joy afforded us in Christ. Displaying the relevance of the Puritans for today, you will find this sorely neglected and sobering topic an easy, thought-provoking, and compelling read.

Nadere Reformatie Contra Christmas

While the Dutch Reformed Church expressed opposition early on to the keeping of extra-Biblical religious holidays, gradually the practice became acceptable and commended. However, the Dutch Further Reformation (Nadere Reformatie) is noted for returning to the earlier Reformers' position on the lawfulness of celebrating religious holidays without warrant from Scripture.

David D. Demarest traces this history from the 1574 Synod of Dordt to the 1618-1619 Synod of Dordt, History and Characteristics of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church (1856), pp. 173-175:

The churches in the Netherlands, and also for a long time in this country, observed the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday, commemorative of the birth and resurrection of the Saviour, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In addition to these, the circumcision and ascension of Christ were commemorated in many churches, and it was. customary to celebrate the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on Christmas day and Easter Sunday. But the action of the various synods clearly shows that these days were not regarded as of Divine institution, but that since they were commonly observed by the people, it was thought best to turn them to edification, and make them promotive of good instead of evil. Thus the first Synod held at Dordrecht, in 1574, decreed (article 53), "concerning the feast-days on which, beside the Sunday, it has been customary to abstain from labor, and assemble in the church, it is resolved that we must be satisfied with the Sunday alone. However, the usual subjects on the birth of Christ may be handled in the churches on the Sunday before Christmas, and the people be admonished of the abolition of the feast-days. The same subjects may also be handled on Christmas, when it fells on a preaching-day. It is also left to the discretion of the ministers to preach on the subjects of the Resurrection of Christ, and the Sending of the Spirit on Easter and Whitsunday."

The Synod held at Middleburg, 1581, decreed (article 50), "The congregations shall petition their magistrates, that the feast-days, excepting Sunday, Christmas, and Ascension, may be abolished. But in places where by order of the magistracy, more feast days shall continue to be observed, the ministers shall endeavor by preaching, to change unprofitable and hurtful idleness into holy and edifying exercise."

The Synod held at the Hague, 1586, decreed (article 60), " The congregations shall, beside the Sunday, observe Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday, and in places where most of the feastdays, in commemoration of the benefits of Christ (as the Circumcision and Ascension), are by order of the magistrates observed, the ministers shall endeavor by preaching to change the idleness of the people into holy and edifying exercise."

The Synod of Dort (1618), decreed (article 67), "The congregations shall besides Sunday observe Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and the day following; and since in most of the towns and provinces of the Netherlands, the feasts of Circumcision and Ascension are also observed, the ministers in all places, where this is not customary, shall labor with the magistrates for the establishment of conformity with the others."

We have quoted these successive decrees in order to show the history of ecclesiastical action on this subject. At first it was clearly the intention to abolish these days entirely. Then it was deemed better (as the people continued to take them for holidays), to turn them to a good account by the holding of religious services, and finally their observance was enjoined, doubtless on the ground of edification. Probably the magistrates, who are continually referred to as having authority in the matter, did not, for reasons springing out of the circumstances of the times, and the genius and habits of the people, deem it expedient to abolish, them. While they continued by authority, the Church, rightly aimed to make them promotive of piety. She brought them to this country as parts of her institutions, and the memory of many, now in middle life, can easily go back to the days in which they were wont on Christmas to accompany their parents to the house of God, and when on Easter and Whitsunday the subjects appropriate to those days were always handled by the preacher.

The conclusion that the toleration and promotion of the man-made ecclesiastical calendar (including even Saint Nicholas Day) is good for piety was not shared, however, by the Nadere Reformatie, which sought to limit the observation of such holidays to that alone which had warrant from Scripture -- the Lord's Day, and occasional extraordinary days of fasting and thanksgiving -- as will be seen by these quotes from leading representatives of the movement.

Willem Teelinck, The Path of True Godliness, p. 101:

[Rules that help distinguish between truth and lies, walking in divine truth promotes godliness] For example when debating whether to maintain Lenten Eve (Fat Tuesday), Epiphany (when the wiseman saw Christ), and other Roman Catholic holidays or to radically abolish them, some people may say yes and others no. However, the godly immediately know the right way, for they understand that Roman Catholic holidays have no basis in Holy Scripture and that regular observance of them offers occasion for much sin. The celebrations cause great disorder in the places or homes where they are observed and become a stumbling block to real holiness as they strengthen the old man. The godly swiftly conclude that Reformed Christians who would gladly abolish or ignore the feast days have the truth on their side.

Jacobus Koelman (who, it is reported, coined the term 'Nadere Reformatie'), The Duties of Parents, p. 73:

100. Do not allow your children to celebrate the days on which unbelief and superstition are being catered to. They are admittedly inclined to want this because they see that the children of Roman Catholic parents observe those days. Do not let them attend carnivals, observe Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), see Santa Claus, or observe Twelfth Night, because they are all remnants of an idolatrous papacy. You must not keep your children out of school or from work on those days nor let them play outside or join in the amusement. The Lord has said, "After the doings of the land of Egypt, where you lived, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, where I bring you, you shall not do: neither shall you walk in their ordinances" (Lev. 18:3). The Lord will punish the Reformed on account of the days of Baal (Hosea 2:12-13), and he also observes what the children do on the occasion of such idolatry (Jer. 17:18). Therefore, do not let your children receive presents on Santa Claus day, nor let them draw tickets in a raffle and such things. Pick other days on which to give them the things that amuse them, and because the days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost have the same character, Reformed people must keep their children away from these so-called holy days and feast days.

Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian's Reasonable Service, Vol. I, pp. 38-39:

Objection #4:

The Jewish church also instituted various practices passing them on to subsequent generations which nevertheless were not commanded, such as fasting in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth month (Zec. 7:5 and 8:19); the days of Purim (Est. 9:21-26); the feast of the dedication (John 10:22). In similar fashion the Reformed Church also has her traditions, which implies that also now we may and must uphold tradition.

Answer:

The practice of fasting was commanded by God; the determination of necessity, time, and circumstances was left to the church (Joel 2). Special days of thanksgiving are also commanded, the occurrence and frequency of which are to be determined by the church. There is no basis in the Word, however, upon which the church may legislate the observation of such days for subsequent generations. Such practices should be denounced and the church should not observe them. This is true also for our so-called feast days which ought to be eliminated. Regarding feast days consult Res Judicata by [Jacobus] Koelman, as well as his other scholarly and devotional writings. Other external religious ordinances and circumstances are principally commanded in the Word of God, the stipulations of which are left to each individual church, and consequently are alterable according to time and place. In doing so, however, all superstition must be avoided and such practices must not have an adverse effect upon doctrine and practice. Thus, the perfection of the rule of Scripture will not be violated, nor will the use of unwritten traditions be advocated.

Dem Barebones

Puritan names are a subject of great fascination, and much could (and, Lord willing, will) be said here at this blog about the thinking behind the names Puritan parents chose for their children, along with examples, but one family -- which is described here as 'Puritan' only very loosely -- surpasses all others, I think, for uniqueness and creativity: the Barebones family.

The surname is described as 'Barbon' or 'Barebone.' The patriarch may have had a common name: John. Little is known about him, and in fact, much of the family information that we have is sketchy. It is thought that he came from the town of Barbon, England.

He had one son known as Praise-God Barebone (c. 1596-1679). He was a leather-seller, and a lay preacher. He has variously been described as a "Baptist," "Anabaptist," "Brownist" and "Fifth Monarchist." Actually, he wrote a tract on behalf of paedo-baptism in 1642, though -- oddly -- in the 1630s, two men were chosen to jointly pastor a baptist congregation -- Henry Jessey and Praise-God Barebone. In 1653, he was elected to the Nominated Assembly, also known as the "Little Parliament" and "Parliament of Saints," but more commonly named for Praise-God himself, as the "Barebones Parliament," which lasted just five months. He was zealous in the cause of the Commonwealth and actively opposed the Restoration of Charles II.

It is said that he had two brothers with even more striking names: Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save Barebone and If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone, the latter of which was abridged to 'Damned Barebone.' There is no documented proof of these brothers' existence, yet there are also various reports which speak of them as sons of Praise-God, rather than brothers; the details are so fuzzy, it seems to me, that there is not enough solid information to say much at all about them, but the names are famous nevertheless.

It is believed by many that Praise-God Barebone had at least one son, Nicholas Barebone (c. 1640-1698). Much more is known about him. A member of the College of Physicians, he had a major role in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666, and is credited as being the founder of modern fire insurance, also writing much as an economic theorist.

The Barebones are a memorable curiosity, even if their factual history is fuzzy. The names have inspired ridicule, poetry and a great deal of research, with little to show for it. But their fifteen minutes of fame has been extended through the centuries to reach this little blog because today is 'Funny Friday' and dem Barebones fit the bill.

The Eleventh Commandment

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. (John 13.34)

Here are two accounts of a story which has legendary status in the lives of two great divines: Samuel Rutherford and James Ussher.

Andrew Thomson, Samuel Rutherford (1884), pp. 31-33:

An incident is recorded as having taken place at a somewhat earlier period in his pastorate, the truth of which has been questioned by some, but which is at least not so very improbable as they have represented it, and which is so beautiful in itself, as to make us wish that it were true.

The story, as it has been narrated by different writers, varies in some of its details, but it is substantially the same in all. We are told that the devout and learned Archbishop Usher was on his way from England to his diocese in Armagh, and that passing near Anwoth on a Saturday afternoon, anxious to listen to the preaching of one of whose piety and eloquence he had heard much, he assumed the disguise of a wayfaring man, or mendicant, and turning aside to Anwoth manse, asked lodging for the night. According to the custom and law of the good pastor's house, not to be "forgetful to entertain strangers," he was readily received. It was the practice of Mrs. Rutherford, while her husband was engaged in finishing his preparations for the coming Lord's Day, to gather together her servants and the "strangers within her gate," for the purpose of catechizing them on some religious subject; and on this occasion the stranger in lowly garb readily joined the little circle of catechumens. Probably for the purpose of testing the knowledge of the wayfarer, Mrs. Rutherford asked him how many commandments there were? To which he answered, " Eleven." Regarding this as evidence of unusual ignorance, she expressed to her husband, at a later period in the evening, her fears that the stranger was very ill-instructed in religion, and mentioned as evidence of the fact that he did not even know the number of the commandments.

Rising early on the Sabbath morning, and retiring for prolonged devotion to his sanctuary not far off among the trees, Rutherford was astonished to find that there was one there already engaged in solitary worship. It was the stranger who had been welcomed the night before to his hospitality. Listening, he was struck with the evidence which his words afforded of the religious knowledge and the depth of devotion of the suppliant; and as soon as the prayer was ended he accosted him, and told him that he was certain that he was not the mendicant that he appeared to be. Disguise was no longer necessary or possible, and Usher, not unwillingly, revealed himself.

The scene ended in Rutherford's urging him to preach for him, to which Usher assented, not averse to conform for the day to the simpler forms of Presbyterian worship. He read out as his text those words of the Master: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." This explained all. "There," whispered Rutherford to his wife, "is the eleventh commandment."

Those who have denied the reality of this beautiful incident should remember that Archbishop Usher was pre-eminently a lover of all good men, that he never sympathized with that ecclesiastical assumption and exclusiveness which did so much to produce and embitter the controversies of the age, and that he was even the author of a scheme of comprehension by which he hoped that Episcopalians and Presbyterians would one day be included in one common pale. Let the further fact be added that the military road by which Usher must have passed from England to Portpatrick, on his way to Ireland, passed by the gate of the Anwoth manse, and that, within the memory of old men, the daily post to Ireland passed by the same gate; and when facts like these are remembered, is not the unlikelihood greatly diminished? What a Sabbath evening must that have been which was spent by the two men of God! The points of ecclesiastical difference were no doubt, for the time, forgotten, in their conscious unity, produced by their common faith, and hope, and life. They ascended together in thought from the valley of conflict to the "delectable mountains," and obtained blessed glimpses and foretastes of the land of love.

Charles Buck, Anecdotes, Religious, Moral and Entertaining (1841), pp. 54-56:

The eminent Archbishop Usher, being once on a visit in Scotland, heard a great deal of the piety and devotion of the famous Mr. Samuel Rutherford, who, he understood, spent whole nights in prayer, especially before the Sabbath. The bishop wished much to witness such extraordinary down-pouring of the Spirit; but was utterly at a loss how to accomplish his design. At length it came into his mind to dress himself like a pauper; and on a Saturday evening, when it was turning dark, he called at Mr. Rutherford's house, and asked if he could get quarters for a night, since he could go to no other house at so late an hour for that purpose. Mr. Rutherford consented to give the poor man a bed for the night, and desired him to sit down in the kitchen, which he did cheerfully. Mrs. Rutherford, according to custom on Saturday evening, that her servants might be prepared for the Sabbath, called them together and examined them. In the course of examination that evening, she asked the stranger how. many commandments there were? To which he answered eleven. Upon receiving this answer, she replied, 'What a shame it is for you! a man with gray hairs, living in a Christian country, not to know how many commandments there are! There is not a child of six years old in this parish hut could answer this question properly.' She troubled the poor man no more, thinking him so very ignorant! but lamented his condition to her servants; and after giving him some supper, desired a servant to show him up stairs to a bed in a garret. This was the very situation in which he desired to he placed, that he might hear Mr. Rutherford at his secret devotion. However, he was disappointed; for that night that good man went to bed, but did not fall asleep for some hours. The stranger did not go to bed, but sat listening, always hoping to hear Mr. Rutherford at prayer; and at length concluding that all the family were asleep, the bishop thought if he had been disappointed of hearing another offering up his desire to God at the throne of grace, he would embrace the opportunity himself, and poured out his heart to God with so much liberty and enlargement, that Mr. Rutherford, immediately below, overheard; and getting up put on his clothes. Should this have awakened Mrs. Rutherford, she could have suspected nothing of his design, seeing he rose commonly every day at three o'clock in the morning; and if she could have heard one at prayer afterwards, she would naturally have concluded it was her husband. Mr. Rutherford went up stairs, and stood waiting at the garret door till the bishop concluded his devotion; upon which he knocked gently at the door, and the other opened it with surprise, thinking none were witness to his devotion. Mr. Rutherford took him by the hand, saying, 'Sir, I am persuaded you can be none other than Archbishop Usher; and you must certainly preach for me to-day, being now Sabbath morning.' The bishop confessed who he was; and after telling Mr. Rutherford what induced him to take such a step, said he would preach for him, on condition that he would not discover who he was. Happy union of souls, although of different persuasions! yet not marvellous; God makes but two distinctions among mankind, the righteous and the wicked.

Mr. Rutherford furnished the bishop with a suit of his own clothes, and early in the morning he went out to the fields; the other followed him, and brought him in as a strange minister passing by, who had promised to preach for him. Mrs. Rutherford found that the poor man had gone away before any of the family were out of bed. After domestic worship and breakfast, the family went to the kirk, and the bishop had for his text, (John xiii. 34,) 'A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another;' a suitable subject for the occasion. In the course of his sermon, he observed that this might be reckoned the eleventh commandment: upon which Mrs. Rutherford said to herself, 'That is the answer the poor man gave me last night;' and looking up to the pulpit, said, 'It cannot be possible that this is he!' After public worship, the strange minister and Mr. Rutherford spent the evening in mutual satisfaction; and early on Monday morning the former went away in the dress he came in, and was not discovered.

Puritan Begats

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. (1 Cor. 3.5-9)

The faithful preaching of the Word of God in the Age of the Puritans resulted, by the powerful and effectual working of the Holy Spirit, in a remarkable "apostolic" succession of conversions, a genealogy of Puritan "who's who's," as it were. It is a striking illustration of how the faithfulness of one man's ministry in God's providence plays a role in the lives of so many others. Or, as Clarence the Angel said in It's a Wonderful Life:

Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?

Darrett Rutman, American Puritanism, p. 7:

The generation of ministers of this sort approaches something of the quality of the opening chapter of Chronicles: "Richard Rogers begat (in a spiritual sense) Paul Baynes, who begat Richard Sibbes, who begat John Cotton, who begat John Preston, who begat Thomas Shepard.

To expand on this, Paul Baynes (1560-1617) was converted under the ministry of William Perkins (1558-1602), himself convicted of his sin after a woman in the street spoke of him as "drunken Perkins," and Richard Rogers (1550?-1618). William Ames (1576-1633) and Richard Blackerby (1574-1648) were likewise converted under the preaching of William Perkins. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was converted under the preaching of Paul Baynes. John Cotton (1595-1652) was converted under the preaching of Richard Sibbes. John Preston (1587-1628) was converted under the preaching of John Cotton. The preaching of Richard Sibbes and John Preston was influential in the spiritual awakening of Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680). Thomas Shepard (1605-1649) was converted under the preaching of John Preston. Shepard himself was known as "Pastor Evangelicus," who was "as great a converter of souls as has ordinarily been known in our days" (Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 380), and Jonathan Mitchell (1624-1668) traced his spiritual awakening to the ministry of Thomas Shepard.

We see how souls were converted on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean by means of such a golden chain. The ministries of these men have led to many conversions and influenced many millions more through their literature, even to the present day. Thank the Lord for these men who have planted and watered; to God be the glory for giving the increase.

More Indebted to Thomas Than Peter

Daniel Featley has the distinction of serving both as one of the translators of the 1611 King James Bible and as a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

Daniel Featley, Καταβαπτισταὶ καταπτυσταί. The Dippers dipt: or, the Anabaptists duck’d and plung'd over head and ears, at a Disputation in Southwark. Together with a large and full Discourse of their (1) Originall, (2) Severall sorts, (3) Peculiar Errours, (4) High Attempts against the State, (5) Capital punishments: with an application to these times (1645), p. 199:

As S. Gregorie said, plus debeo Thomae, quam Petro, I am more indebted to Thomas then [sic] Peter (see Gregory, In Evangelia Homilae, Hom. 26 in Opera (1615), tom. 3, cols. 83-84 (PL 76: 1201-1202 [sects. 7-9]), because his doubting of Christ's resurrection occasioned a more sensible demonstration thereof then otherwise we should have had: so truly I may say, we are much beholding to him, who first moved the scruple concerning the imputation of Christ's sole satisfaction, for it hath occasioned the resolution, not onely of that doubt, but of many other concerning the communicatio idiomatum, the effects of the hypostaticall union, the nature of the law, and the faithful title to heaven.

Of the Sight of Rain, In the Sunshine

When I was a boy, I spent a summer living in Jamaica, where I had the privilege once of swimming at the pool adjacent to the famous Trident Castle, near Port Antonio. The pool is situated between a beautiful castle -- a luxurious hotel and legendary Jamaican landmark -- and cliffs at the edge of the sea. The view either way is spectacular. On the day my family and I took a swim there, we noticed clouds on the horizon. Tropical storm clouds are often punctuated with rays of sunshine, and as we watched from the comfort of the cliffside pool, we saw bands of rain passing over the sea, and along with whitecaps in the water, glimmering blue fields of shiny white diamonds sparkling in the sun's rays. From our vantage point, we could see both sun and rain. It was breathtaking, and reassuring to see the sun above the clouds. It was a moment that I will never forget.

Have you ever seen the rain falling in the sunshine? That is the perfect moment to witness a rainbow, the sign of God's promise of faithfulness to us. It is also a wonderful reminder of how the rain may fall into our lives, but the Son of God is shining above whatever dark clouds may be passing by.

Joseph Hall, Occasional Meditations, p. 21:

16. Of the Sight of a Rain, in the Sunshine.

Such is my best condition in this life. If the sun of God's countenance shine upon me, I may well be content to be wet with some rain of affliction. How oft have I seen the heaven overcast with clouds and tempest; no sun appearing to comfort me! yet even those gloomy and stormy seasons have I rid out patiently, only with the help of the common light of the day: at last, those beams have broken forth happily, and cheered my soul. It is well for my ordinary state, if, through the mists of mine own dulness and Satan's temptations, I can descry some glimpse of heavenly comfort: let me never hope, while I am in this vale, to see the clear face of that sun, without a shower. Such happiness is reserved for above: that upper region of glory is free from these doubtful and miserable vicissitudes.

There, O God, we shall see as we are seen. Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.

Upon A Lamp and A Star

William Spurstowe, The Spiritual Chymist: or, Six Decades of Divine Meditations on several Subjects, Meditation XVI, pp. 24-26:

Upon a Lamp and a Star

Such is the disparity between a Lamp and a Star, as that happily it may not a little be wondered at, as to why I should make a joint meditation of them which are so greatly distant in respect of place, and far more in respect of quality, the one being an earthly, and the other a heavenly body.

What is a Lamp to a Star in regard of influence, duration, or beauty? Hath it any quickening rays flowing from it? Or is its light immortal, so as not to become despised by expiring? Can it dazzle the beholder with its serene luster, and leave such impressions of itself upon the eye, as may render it for a time blind to any other objects?

Alas! These are too high and noble effects for such a feeble and uncertain light to produce, and proper only to those glorious bodies that shine in the firmament.

But yet this great inequality between the one and the other serves to make them both more meet emblems of the differing estate of believers in this and the other life, who in Scripture, while they are on this side heaven, are compared to wife virgins with Lamps burning, and when they come to heaven, to Stars shining, which endure forever and ever.

Grace in the best of saints is not perfect, but must, like a lamp, be fed with new supplies that it go not out, and be often trimmed that it be not dim. Ordinances are as necessary to Christians in this life as manna to the Israelites in the wilderness though in Canaan it ceased.

And therefore, God hath appointed His Word and Sacraments to drop continually upon the hearts of His children, as the two olive trees upon the golden candlestick.

What mean then those fond conceits of perfectionists, who dream of living above all subsidiary helps, and judge ordinances as useless to them, as oil for a Star, or a snuffing of the Sun to make it shine more bright?

It is true, when we come to heaven such things will be of no more use to our souls,than meat or drink will be to our bodies; but yet while we are on the earth,the body cannot live without the one, nor the soul without the other.

Do thou therefore, holy God, preserve in me a due sense of my impotency and wants, whose light is fading, as well as borrowed, that so I may daily suck supplies from Thee, and acknowledge that I live not only by grace received, but by grace renewed, and while I am in this life, have light only as a Lamp in the Temple, which must be fed and trimmed, and not as a Star in heaven.

Finding TULIPs

Some time ago, I blogged about the Five Points of Calvinism, commonly referred to today as TULIP. At the time, I wrote that:

It is generally believed that Loraine Boettner was the first to coin the TULIP acrostic as a mnemonic device for easier memorization in his 1932 book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

Recently, however, Wayne Sparkman, Director of the PCA Historical Center, has uncovered documentation which shows that the mnemonic device was used before Boettner, although in a slightly different form.

William H. Vail, "The Five Points of Calvinism Historically Considered," The New Outlook, Vol. 104 (May-August 1913), p. 394:

Some eight years ago [ie., 1905] I had the privilege of hearing a popular lecture, by Dr. [Cleland Boyd] McAfee (1866-1944), of Brooklyn, upon the Five Points of Calvinism, given before the Presbyterian Union of Newark, New Jersey, which was most interesting as well as instructive. To aid the mind in remembering the Five Points, Dr. McAfee made use of the word Tulip, which, possessing five letters, lends itself nicely to the subject in hand, especially as it ends with the letter P, as will be seen later.

Taking the five letters, Dr. McAfee used them as follows:

1st, T stands for Total Depravity.
2d, U " " Universal Sovereignty.
3d, L " " Limited Atonement.
4th, I " " Irresistable Grace.
5th, P " " Perseverance of the Saints.

It will be noticed that McAfee's acrostic employs "U" to represent "Universal Sovereignty," while Loraine Boetter's "U" represents "Unconditional Election." Boetter also refers to "Total Inability" rather than "Total Depravity." Nevertheless, it appears, based on this research, that credit should go to Dr. McAfee for the earliest usage of the TULIP acrostic to convey the Five Points of Calvinism, and to Mr. Sparkman for bringing this fascinating bit of history to our attention.

Credenda and Agenda

Long before there was a magazine called Credenda Agenda, divines spoke of what a Christian is to believe (credenda) and how to live (agenda). Orthodoxy and orthopraxy, summed up as "experimental piety," are the two essential elements of the complete Christian life. It is worthwhile to consider these fundamentals as articulated by some of those divines.

William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way of Salvation (1637), p. 71:

16. To the third : "Whether it be not impertinent to allege the Creed as containing all fundamental points of faith, as if believing it alone we were at liberty to deny all other points of Scripture?" I answer—It was never alleged to any such purpose; but only as a sufficient, or rather more than a sufficient, summary of those points of faith, which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitly; and that only of such which were merely and purely credenda, and not agenda.

Nathaniel Hardy, The first General Epistle of St. John the Apostle, unfolded and applied (1656-1659), p. 6:

The globe of divinity parts itself into two hemispheres, to wit, credenda et agenda, the things we are to know and believe, and the things we are to do and perform....

Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (1673, 1846, 2000), p. 713:

6. The baptismal covenant of grace therefore is the essential part of the gospel, and of the Christian religion ; and all the rest are the integrals, and accidents or adjuncts.

7. This covenant containeth,

I. Objectively, 1. Things true as such; 2. Things good as such; 3. Things practicable or to be done, as such: the credenda, diligenda, (et eligenda,) et agenda; as the objects of man's intellect, will, and practical power.

The credenda, or things to be known and believed, are, 1. God as God, and our God and Father. 2. Christ as the Saviour, and our Saviour. 3. The Holy Ghost as such, and as the Sanctifier, and our Sanctifier (as to the offer of these relations in the covenant).

The diligenda are the same three Persons in these three relations as good in themselves and unto us, which includeth the grand benefits of reconciliation and adoption, justification, and sanctification, and salvation.

The agenda in the time of baptism that make us Christians, are, 1. The actual dedition, resignation, or dedication of ourselves, to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in these relations. 2. A promise or vow to endeavour faithfully to live according to our undertaken relations (though not in perfection); that is, as creatures to their Creator, and their reconciled God and Father; as Christians to their Redeemer, their Teacher, their Ruler, and their Saviour; and as willing receivers of the sanctifying and comforting operations of the Holy Spirit.

II. The objects tell you what the acts must be on our part; 1. With the understanding, to know and believe; 2. With the will to love, choose, desire, and resolve; and, 3. Practically to deliver up ourselves for the present, and to promise for the time to come. These are the essentials of the Christian religion.

8. The creed is a larger explication of the credenda, and the Lord's prayer of the diligenda, or things to be willed, desired, and hoped for; and the decalogue of the natural part of the agenda.

John Howe, The Vanity of a Formal Profession of Religion, Considered in Eight Sermons, on Titus 1.16 (Sermon 4, 1680), in The Whole Works of the Rev. John Howe, M.A., Vol. 5, p. 479:

What a poor pretence is it when one has nothing to trust to and rely upon, as the ground of his eternal hope, but only that he is an orthodox man! An orthodox son of this or that church! So far it is well. But what does it signify to be an orthodox drunkard, an orthodox swearer, an orthodox sabbath-breaker? If such would but admit one to reason soberly with them, I would ask them, "What! do you not believe, that holiness is as essential to Christianity, as truth? Do you not think that the decalogue is of as good authority, as the articles of your creed? is there not the same authority for the agenda, as there is for the credenda of a christian? Has not any man, that owns the Christian name, as great obligations to be pious, sober, and chaste; as he has to be true, or right in his principles?" There is certainly the same authority for the one as for the other. What does a man hope he shall gain, by tearing the essential parts of the Christian religion asunder, as much as, in him lies; or by dividing Christianity from itself?

Thomas Goodwin, The Work of the Holy Ghost in Our Salvation (1681), in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. 6, p. 232:

Now as the sum of our religion is reduced by the apostle to these two, 'Faith, and a good conscience,' 1 Tim. i.19, faith, which is principium credendorum, the principle of things to be believed; and conscience, which is principium agendorum, the principle of things to be done by us; for as the object matter of all religion is reduced to credenda and agenda, so the principles within us are answerably thus generally expressed by these two, faith and conscience. Faith looks upward to the things of the gospel, and takes in all supernatural truths, with application to a man's soul. Conscience looks both inward, to our own actings within; and outward, to the law or rule which is to guide us. And it also is the spring to all the wheels, and the mover in all provocations to duties, or avocations from sins.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations Online

Although it does not appear to be one of the many resources available at the newly-launched Post-Reformation Digital Library, I have recently discovered that Matthew Poole's English Annotations (his English Commentary, as opposed to his Latin Synopsis Criticorum, which is being translated into English by the Matthew Poole Project) is available to read online at Google Books. The three-volume edition now available online was published in 1853.

Vol. 1 (Genesis-Job)
Vol. 2 (Psalms-Malachi)
Vol. 3 (Matthew-Revelation)

Note: Matthew Poole authored these annotations through Isaiah 58. His continuators are listed here.

Puritan-Knaves and Knave-Puritans

In 1619, James Ussher traveled to England for the first time and met with King James I. The king's reception for the scholar was cool, based on reports from his enemies which painted him as a Puritan, because of his relationship to the 1615 Irish Articles, but after their first conference, the king is reported to have said, "Usher was a bishop of his own making; and that, although indeed the knave puritan was a bad man, the knave's puritan was an honest man." In other words, according to the king, reports of Ussher's Puritanism, which would be bad if true, were exaggerated; that is, "Puritans are knaves, and therefore bad. Ussher is only a Puritan according to some knaves, in actual fact he is honest" (Jack Cunningham, James Ussher and John Bramhall: The Theology and Politics of Two Irish Ecclesiastics of the Seventeenth Century, p. 12). The king soon afterwards nominated him as Bishop of Meath, and he would go on to serve as Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland. Puritan or not, regardless of the king's assessment, Ussher is remembered today as a godly bishop from an age of corrupt and ungodly prelacy.

Among the poetic works of John Taylor (1578/1580-1653) -- who called himself the "the king's water-poet and the queen's water-man," on account of his labors as a waterman on the River Thames, and was evangelically-minded though a Royalist devoted to the Established Church -- is a clever poem which takes up this expression of King James and distinguishes more properly between Puritan-Knaves ("the pious man or woman mocked by the profane") and Knave-Puritans (the "hypocritical rogue," B.S. Capp, The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578-1653, p. 138), A Swarm of Sectaries and Schismatics (1641), in Works of John Taylor, The Water Poet, Vol. 4, p. 33:

The ods or difference betwixt the Knaves Puritan, and the Knave

And first of the Knaves Puritan.

HE that resists the world, the flesh, and Fiend,
And makes a conscience how his days he spend
Who hates excessive drinking, Drabs and Dice,
And (in his heart) hath God in highest price;
That lives conformable to Law, and State,
Nor from the Truth will fly or separate:
That will not swear, or couzen, cogge, or lie,
But strives (in Gods fear) how to live and die :
He that seeks thus to do the best he can,
He is the Knaves abused Puritan.

The Knave Puritan.

HE whose best good, is only good to seem,
And seeming holy, gets some false esteem:
Who makes Religion hide Hypocrisy,
And zeal to cover cheating villany;
Whose purity (much like the devils Ape)
Can shift himself into an Angels shape,
And play the Rascal most devoutly trim,
Not caring who sinks, so himself may swim:
He's the Knave Puritan, and only He,
Makes the Knaves Puritan abus'd to be.

For (in this life) each man his lot must take,
Good men must suffer wrong for bad mens' sake.

Hidden in the Heart

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Ps. 119.11)

The Puritans were "people of the Book," to whom the Word of God was central in their life. They took to heart the teaching that "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Deut. 8.3; Matt. 4.4). A striking example of this comes in the person of Thomas Vincent (1634-1678), of whom it is said that he 'had the whole New Testament and Psalms by Heart. He took this Pains, (as he has often said), "not knowing but they who took from him his Pulpit and his Cushion, might in time demand his Bible also"' (Edmund Calamy the Historian, The Nonconformists' Memorial (abridged by Samuel Palmer), Vol. 1, p. 155).

All for the Kirk and Something Less for the State

One of the "world's most famous orations" is that by John Hamilton, Lord Belhaven, who, in 1706, gave a speech against the impending 1707 Union of Scotland and England, which gave birth to Great Britain. Daniel Defoe, a supporter of said Union, reprinted the text in his History of the Union. In Lord Belhaven's speech, he said:

Whig, in Scotland, is a true blue Presbyterian, who, without considering time or power, will venture his all for the Kirk, but something less for the State.

Both magistrate and ministry are servants of the Lord, in their respective, connected but distinct, spheres. However, Great Britain's tendency has been towards Erastianism, though this maxim is equally important to heed in a time and place where statism runs rampant.

George Smeaton carried the phrase forward in his The Scottish Theory of Ecclesiastical Establishments, and How Far the Theory is Realised, p. 3:

"All for the Kirk and something less for the State," is an old Scottish watchword with which I have much in common.

Living Libraries

Harry Emerson Fosdick:

Life is like a library owned by an author. In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.

Have you ever known anyone who is a "walking encyclopedia" or a "living library"? Well, I have come across similar expressions a few times in my studies of the Puritans (and the Puritan-minded), so often known not only for their piety but their scholarship and intellectual acumen.

Andrew Willet (1562-1621), the great English Puritan Biblical commentator is described as a "living library." Thomas Fuller, Abel Redevivus, or, The Dead Yet Speaking: The Lives and Deaths of Modern Divines, Vol. 2, pp. 317-318:

...yet I am well assured that he had learned over and to good purpose many learned authors ancient and modern, till he [Andrew Willet] became himself [Gk.], "a living library."

In fact, Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), the famous English Church historian, earned a similar nickname as well. Life of Thomas Fuller, p. 69:

He was a perfect walking library...

John Quarles (1624-1665), son of Francis Quarles (1592-1644) -- both notable British poets -- wrote an elegy upon the death of a dear friend of the family, James Ussher (1581-1656), Irish Anglican bishop, in which the younger Quarles described him as a "living library." John Quarles, An Elegie on the Most Reverend and Learned James Usher, L. Archbishop of Armagh (1656), p. 4:

He was a living Library, in whom
A man might read things past and things to come.

Miles Smith (1554-1624), British bishop and Biblical scholar, was a one of the translators of the King James Bible and the author of its famous Preface. Another bishop described him as "a very walking library."

John Rainolds (or Reynolds) (1549-1607), English Puritan who helped to initiate and translate the King James Bible, is described by Daniel Neal as a "living library." Daniel Neal, History of the Puritans, Vol. 1, p. 440:

He [John Rainolds] was a prodigy for reading, his memory being a living library.

George Hakewill, An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, states that Rainolds had memorized the entire corpus of Augustine, and indeed all classical authors, becoming "a living librarie" and "a third university."

Edmund Staunton (1600-1671), Westminster Divine, was known as a "walking concordance." John Stoughton, Ecclesiastical History of England, Vol. 2, p. 256:

Dr. Edmund Staunton, President of Corpus, has been called a Walking Concordance, on account of his minute knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.

Another Westminster Divine, Richard Capel (1586-1656) was styled a "living library." Samuel Clarke, Lives of Thirty-Two English Divines, p. 311:

He [Richard Capel] was a living library, a full storehouse of all good literature, a judicious preacher, and a sound orthodox divine.

Cotton Mather (1663-1728), American Puritan and historian, wrote of his grandfather English-American Puritan John Cotton (1595-1652), Magnalia Christi Americana, Vol. 1, p. 273, that:

Mr. Cotton was indeed a most universal scholar, and a living system of the liberal arts, and a walking library.

Matthew Slade (1569-1628), English divine who took up academic duties in Holland, was also said to be a "walking library." Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, Vol. 2, p. 154:

...he [Matthew Slade] was esteemed, by all that knew him, an excellent Latinist, a good Grecian, one well read in profound authors, a stiff enemy to the Socinians, and a walking library.

Wise-Heart

The first of the Reformers profiled in Julia McNair Wright's collection of biographies for young people, recently republished by Master Poole Publishing as A Children's Lives of the Reformers, is George Wishart (c. 1513-1546).

She writes (p. 8) that he "has been remembered for his goodness...It is a very beautiful thing to be remembered for goodness. In those days he was called GEORGE WISE-HEART, and he had indeed a wise heart -- a heart that was wise to choose the love and service of God before anything else."

Although there is uncertainty about the origin of his surname, he was certainly called Wise-heart by contemporaries, and the name fits the man. John Knox referred to him as "that notable Instrument of God, Mr. George Wiseheart" (Historie of the Reformatioun Within the Realm of Scotland (1732), p. 65); George Buchanan called him "Doctor Sophocardius."

He lived and died boldly for Christ. Mrs. Wright takes us through the trials, adversities and adventures of a man who "dared to tell the truth" (p. 15). From how he dressed to what he preached, we learn of a man who dedicated his life to living for God no matter what the cost.

The lesson she imparts to readers young and old (p. 41) is that:

From George Wishart we can learn to fear nothing but sin, to return good for evil, and to be faithful to truth even unto death, when we shall have crown of everlasting life.

Duties are Ours, Events are God's - Part 2

In a previous blog post, I aimed to identify the originator of the famous saying "Duties are ours, events are God's." It was a maxim of Matthew Henry, Stonewall Jackson, and others. I traced it back to a similar saying of Pierre Corneille, the French playwright, as used in a play that was produced in 1639.

Since then, I have done a little more research and found that besides Matthew Henry, it was a saying of his father Philip Henry. Philip, moreover, read the Letters of Samuel Rutherford, and in fact, Rutherford articulated this very expression in a letter dated March 7, 1637, to David Dickson.

Letter CX (March 7, 1637), Letters of Samuel Rutherford (1891 ed.), p. 226:

Now for my case: I think that the council should be essayed, and the event referred to God; -- duties are ours, and events are God's.

The Pilgrims' First Sabbath on Shore

J.S. Clark, "The Pilgrims' First Sabbath on Shore," in The Illustrated Pilgrim Memorial (1872), p. 8:

Why has no painter immortalized his name by transferring to canvass this Sabbath scene [on Clark's Island], the first ever witnessed on the shores of New England? As an illustration of the true Pilgrim spirit, nothing can exceed it. We see them now, in imagination, grouped in devout posture around a forest fire, while "Deacon Carver," the newly elected governor, reads from his pocket Bible an appropriate chapter, and "lines" a favorite psalm, which gives vent to full-hearted and high-sounding praise. We hear the fervent prayers and earnest prophesyings of Bradford and Winslow, who, though yet young, are much experienced in these exercises. We behold the solemnity that rests even on the sailor's countenance, as, silently musing on perils recently passed, he participates in the service, while not a rising cloud, nor breaking wave, nor frightened sea-gull escapes his ever watchful eye.

But why are they there, under the open canopy of heaven, on that raw December day? Because it was just there that the Sabbath overtook them, while searching to find a place of settlement for themselves and their little ones, whom they left four days ago at the end of Cape Cod, on board the May-Flower, in charge of a captain who begins to talk of setting them all ashore on the sand, unless they find a place soon.* But how is it that, under such a pressing necessity they can spare the time for so much psalm-singing, and prayer, and prophesying? Do they not know that works of "necessity and mercy" are lawful on that day? Yes, but they do not believe that their present necessities are sufficient to justify a suspense of the Sabbath law in the sight of God. They are even more scrupulous than that; rather than approach the Lord's Day under such bodily exhaustion as will unfit them for religious worship (an essential part of their Sabbath observance), they would spend the whole of Saturday in recovering tired nature from extra fatigue, and in preparing for the Sabbath, — as they actually did.

Here we have the Pilgrim Sabbath, not as discussed in a learned treatise, not as explained in a catechism; not as enforced in a sermon, but as actually kept, and that, too, under circumstances which exclude all suspicion of any sham observance — any mere pretence of religious strictness.

* In Bradford's Journal, lately discovered in the Fallhane library, England, and printed by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the account is given thus, immediately after the record of their perilous escape to Clark's Island on that stormy Friday night. "But though this had been a day and night of much trouble and danger unto them, yet God gave them a morning of comfort and refreshing (as usually he doth to his children), for the next day was a fair sunshining day, and they found themselves to be on an island secure from the Indians, where they might dry their stuff, fix their pieces and rest themselves, and give God thanks for his mercies m their manifold deliverances. And this being the last day of the week, they prepared to keep the Sabbath."

Leadbeater's Rules for the Christian Life

When Puritan Edward Taylor was still in England (before he emigrated to New England), he was a member of Thomas Leadbeater's congregation at Hinckley, who was among those ejected for nonconformity in 1662. In Taylor's unpublished "Commonplace Book" he wrote down three sets of rules given Leadbeater for the direction of godly living. The first was 21 "commanding rules" (one of which is unaccounted for), followed by nine additional "commanding rules," then five "disposing rules".

1. Do not content yourselves with a name to bee Religious, but labour to be Religious indeed.
2. Studie well the nature of those great Gospel Duties of Faith & Repentance.
3. Labour to get the power of everie publique Ordinance upon your hearts.
4. Prize a Soule-Searching Ministrie, & if the Lord shall blesse you to this mercie, do the utmost to encourage it.
5. Performe familie Duties with all diligence, do not denie God the morning & the evening Sacrifices.
6. Be Conscientious in a strict observation of the Sabbath our Lords Day.
7. Redeem that time you can for reading, meditating & Prayer in secret.
8. Strive to perform everie Dutie, publick private & secret, as the Lord hath Commanded it to be done.
9. Studie therefore well the great Mysterie of Justification through Faith in the blood of Christ.
10. Be much in studying your own hearts, especially as to your growth in Grace & Mortification.
11. Account the maine of Religion to consist in a steadie walking with God continuallie.
12. Be communicative of those abilities that God hath given you (as you have oppertunities) for the good of others.
13. In every Spirituall Worke improve the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ.
15. Choose Suffering before Sin.
16. Labour for an assurance of the Love of God, & intrest in Christ, & Adoption.
17. Get acquainted with the Promises of God & live on them when you have nothing else to live upon.
18. Be carefull of the discharge of the Duties of the Second Table.
19. Let the glorie of God bee the ultimate End of all your life and Actions.
20. Be often meditating upon the four last things, viz, Death, Judgment, Heaven, & Hell.
21. Be dying dailie whilst you live.

1. That true Religion is the great Intrest of your Lives.
2. Consider the vanities of all earthy things.
3. Heaven, Hell & Eternitie are the greatest realities in the world.
4. That the Gate is straite & the way narrow to heaven.
5. That this life is given us to make provision for life eternall.
6. That meere Customarinesse in Religion will not serve Your turn.
7. That you can never be happie but in an absolute freedome from Sin & participation of the Divine nature.
8. That you are engaged to no lesse than this in your Covenant with God.
9. That Heaven obtained will make amends for all the pains & labour you are, or shall be at in the businesse of your Salvation.

1. In every thing resolve Providence into the best.
2. Studie & admire the wisdome, the goodnesse & the justice of God in every dispensation.
3. Be content & patient in everie Condition.
4. Be thankfull for your Mercies, & accept[a]ble of your Punishments.
5. Conclude by Faith that all events shall be directed to the glorie of God & the eternall well faire of his people.

Beautiful Captive

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. (Deut. 21.10-13)

Origen, Hom. Lev. VII.6, quoted by Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, Vol. 1, p. 213:

...I too have often gone forth to war against my enemies, and I have found among my spoils a beautiful woman. For even among our enemies we find things that are good and proper. If, therefore, we read wise and knowledgeable words in one of them, we must purify them, we must remove and cut away everything in this knowledge that is deadly and vain. This is just like the hair and nails of this woman who was taken when the enemy was plundered. Thus we shall make her our wife, when she no longer has anything that has the appearance of infidelity, anything that smacks of death on her head or on her hands, so that she no longer bears anything impure or deathful either in her sentiments or in her actions. For the women of our enemies have no purity about them, seeing that there is no wisdom in them that is not mingled with some impurity...As for ourselves, we who are engaged in a spiritual war and who, to destroy the power of the enemy, use not carnal arms, but the power of God, if we find a beautiful woman in the camp of our adversary, that is to say, some rational discipline, in that case we shall purify her, as has just been recounted.

Richard Sibbes, A Christian's Portion; or, The Christian's Charter, in Works, Vol. 4, p. 18:

Again, 'all things are ours.' Therefore truth, wheresoever we find it, is ours. We may read [a] heathen author. Truth comes from God, wheresoever we find it, and it is ours, it is the church's. We may take it from them as a just possession. Those truths they have, there may be good use of those truths; but we must not use them for ostentation. For that is to do as the Israelites; when they had gotten treasure out of Egypt, they made a calf, an idol of them. So we must not make an idol of these things. But truth, wheresoever we find it, is the church's. Therefore with a good conscience we may make use of any human author. I thought good to touch this, because some make a scruple of it.

Dawning of the Reformation

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church of Wittenburg; many mark this as the dawning of the Reformation. Master Poole Publishing is celebrating the anniversary of this important event with a special one-day sale on October 31.

Julia McNair Wright's A Children's Lives of the Reformers is on sale for $23.99 (20% off of the $29.99 retail). This collection includes biographies of Martin Luther and John Calvin. To purchase, visit http://stores.lulu.com/dildaysc.

Also, Matthew Poole's three-volume commentary on Genesis is available at a sale price of $60 (30% off of retail). Poole's Synopsis presents the very best of Reformation-era exegesis. To purchase, visit http://stores.lulu.com/dildaysc.

For October 31, 2009 only, take an additional 20% off your entire order by entering the coupon code "FALLBACK" (case-sensitive).

Essential Truths in the Heart of a Christian

Thanks once again to the Dutch Reformed Translation Society, which has added another volume to its list of translated "Classics of Reformed Spirituality." The newest contribution is a translation of William Schortinghuis' (1700-1750) Essential Truths in the Heart of a Christian.

It is a catechism covering in 40 chapters the main points of Christian life and theology as taught by Scripture. Written as an introduction to the Reformed Faith, it was popular in its time and place. Schortinghuis was a leader of the later Dutch Further Reformation, or Nadere Reformatie, and not without controversy within the movement, but this work gained the approval of the Dutch orthodox in the 18th century, and should be well received by the orthodox English-speaking world of the 21st century. I have read it, and am grateful for the labors of the DTRS in making this volume available to us today.

Six Degrees of Alexander Comrie

As in the parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I like to find connections between select Puritans, such as Richard Rogers. Today's "Six Degrees" centers on the Scottish-Dutch Puritan Alexander Comrie (1706-1774). He was an interesting figure because of he was both Scottish-born and educated, and also ministered in the Netherlands, where he was one of the last leaders of the Nadere Reformatie, or Dutch Further Reformation. He is the author of the well-beloved book entitled The ABC of Faith.

In his family tree, he counted the Scottish Covenanter/Puritan minister Andrew Gray (1633-1656) as a great-grandfather on his mother's side; Scottish Biblical commentator George Hutcheson (d. 1678) was his mother's step-father; Scottish Covenanter James Fraser of Brea (1639-1698) was his great-uncle; and Scottish Anglican Bishop and church historian Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715) was also a relative (who himself was a cousin of Scottish Covenanter Robert Baillie (1602-1662), who was brother-in-law to Scottish Covenanter Archibald Johnston, Lord Warriston (1611-1663)).

As a young man, he was catechized by Ralph (1685-1752) and Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1754).

Later in life, he translated into Dutch Hutcheson on the Minor Prophets; Thomas Shepard's (1605-1649) The Parable of the Ten Virgins; Walter Marshall's (1628-1680) The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification; Thomas Boston's (1676-1732) The Covenant of Grace; John Owen's (1616-1683) treatise on Indwelling Sin in Believers; Stephen Charnock's (1628-1680) treatise on the Atonement; Gisbertus Voetius' (1589-1676) treatise on the Experience of the Power of Godliness; and Isaac Chauncy's (1632-1712) exposition of the Westminster Shorter Catechism entitled The Doctrine Which is According to Godliness.

Story of Matthew Henry's Commentary

Matthew Henry writes in the Preface of his famous Commentary on the Whole Bible how he came to take up this great work of his life, his magnum opus:

If any desire to know how so mean and obscure a person as I am, who in learning, judgment, felicity of expression, and all advantages for such a service, am less than the least of all my Master's servants, came to venture upon so great a work, I can give no other account of it than this: It has long been my practice, what little time I had to spare in my study from the constant preparations for the pulpit, to spend it in drawing up expositions upon some parts of the New Testament, not so much for my own use as purely for my entertainment, because I knew not now to employ my thoughts and time more to my satisfaction. Trahit sua quemque voluptas—Every man that studies hath some beloved study, which is his delight above any other; and this is mine. It is that learning which it was my happiness from a child to be trained up in, by my ever honoured father, whose memory must always be very dear and precious to me: he often reminded me that a good textuary is a good divine; and that I should read other books with this in my eye, that I might be the better able to understand and apply the scripture. While I was thus employing myself came out Mr. Burkitt's Exposition, of the Gospels first, and afterwards of the Act and the Epistles, which met with very good acceptance among serious people, and no doubt, by the blessing of God, will continue to do great service to the church. Soon after he had finished that work, it pleased God to call him to his rest, upon which I was urged, by some of my friends, and was myself inclined, to attempt the like upon the Old Testament, in the strength of the grace of Christ.

In fact, his father Philip Henry had exposited a portion of Genesis, the transcript we have for the first eleven chapters from Matthew's own hand (dated 1682) (there is a separate exposition by Philip Henry of Gen. 22 dated October 1658, also written in Matthew's hand, included in Matthew's biography of his father, as edited by J.B. Williams). It was published in 1839 and is available to read online here. The editor of this work, John Lee, writes:

In Matthew Henry's interesting life of his father, it is stated that the latter always expounded the portion of scripture which he read in his family, and made it a part of the employment of his children, while they were with him, to write those expositions. And it is added, that the collections thus formed by the children of that good man in their younger days, were afterwards of great use to them and their families.

There are very satisfactory reasons for believing that the manuscript from which the following pages are taken, forms one of the expositions of Philip Henry, written by his son under these circumstances.

...Independent of its intrinsic excellence, it cannot but be regarded with interest, from the consideration that by this and other similar productions of Philip Henry, was probably first suggested to his son the idea of writing the Commentary which bears his name; a Commentary, -- to say the least of it, -- as useful as any which has yet been submitted to the Christian world.

J.B. Williams, in his memoir of Matthew Henry (3rd ed., 1829), has provided fascinating background to and extracted edifying notes from his diary, to enlighten the reader on how Henry's commentary came to be and how it progressed from day to day and year to year. I have abridged some of the diary entries, but the whole of Williams' work is worth reading. It is particularly noteworthy that 1) Henry wrote an exposition of Revelation which has never seen the light of day (Williams' memoir references an exposition of the Gospel of John written some years before he started writing his Commentary as well); and 2) "Henry devoutly acted upon the maxim of [John Wycliff], that the interpreter of Scripture 'must be a man of prayer'" (William Lindsay Alexander).

Some years before Mr. Henry commenced his general Exposition of the Bible for the press, he had, as we have seen, employed himself in the "pleasant work" of commentating. Upon the Apocalypse he appears to have bestowed particular attention: the circumstance is the rather noticed because it has not been mentioned by Mr. [William] Tong, either in his life of Mr. Henry, or in his prefatory remarks to that portion: of the Exposition which, it will be observed, he completed after Mr. Henry's decease.

Noticing his labours in the difficult part of scripture just mentioned, and mentioning Dr. [John] Lightfoot, and Mr. [Richard] Baxter, he says, "I am far from taking them to be the best interpreters of the Apocalypse, and greatly prefer [James] Durham; when I have sometimes had occasion to expound the Revelation, with all tenderness to the application of it to particular events which I doubt not of, its pointing to, I have attempted a moral or practical exposition of it; using it as a general key to God's providences concerning the church, and suppossing by way of accommodation, that it hath many fulfillings, (as Hos. xi. I .)

The foregoing extract will explain the reason why, in Mr. Henry's Exposition, there is no attempt to fix the definite sense of prophecy. Mr. [Edward] Bickersteth, in his introductory remarks, (ut supra, p. 239,) has noticed the circumstance; and in connexion with it, accurately states, that every commentator must fail of giving a sure view of the full meaning till events furnish the only certain exposition. "There is, however," he adds, "in Mr. Henry the edification and comfort of a spiritual lesson, if there be not with that the high advantage of an exact elucidation of the prophecy." And this, evidently, is what Mr. Henry intended.

In the year 1700, four years before the commencement of the Exposition, many of those commentaries were submitted to the perusal of his friend, the Reverend Samuel Clark, who seems in rather strong terms to hare advised the publication. Why it was that the counsel was not followed is uncertain. Mr. Henry, in a letter to that gentleman, dated Chester, 4th of December, 1700, says, "I leave it [the publishing] to you, and resolve to follow Providence, having often reflected with most comfort upon that which has been least my own doings. The work has been, and still is, to me its own wages, and the pleasure recompence enough for all the pains." He adds, "You will please to let me know, as there is occasion, what is done concerning them; if they return to the place from whence they came, they shall be heartily welcome. I shall not repent my writing of them, and I hope you will not repent the reading of them, though they go no further."

The probability, therefore, is, that the booksellers shrunk from the risk.

Many of those manuscripts are now in the possession of Mr. Joshua Wilson, of Highbury Place.

In the year 1704, the work was renewed upon a more extended scale, and in 1706, the design was announced to the public, in an advertisement, prefixed to Mr. Henry's funeral sermon for the Rev. James Owen. It is as follows, — " There is now in the press, and will shortly be published, an Exposition, with Practical Observations, on the Five Books of Moses, by the same author."

The following selections, almost entirely compiled from the Orig. MSS. of Mr. Henry's diary, will detail the progress, and illustrate the spirit, of the undertaking.

Vol. I. 1704. Nov. 12. This night, after many thoughts of heart, and many prayers concerning it, I began my Notes on the Old Testament. It is not likely I should live to finish it, or if I should, that it should be of publick service, for I am not par negotio; yet in the strength of God, and I hope with a single eye to his glory, I set about it; that I may endeavour something, and spend my time to some good purpose; and let the Lord make what use he pleaseth of me. I go about it with fear and trembling, lest I exercise myself in things too high for me, &c. The Lord help me to set about it with great humility.

January 17, 1705. Studied in Gen. xiv.
July 19. Through the good hand of my God upon me, I finished Genesis. The Lord still go on with me.
22. I began Exodus.
September 14. Studied in Exodus xxi. I am now come to the less pleasant part of the Mosaick writings; but thanks be to God all scripture is profitable.
November 7. I finished Exodus, and entered on Leviticus.
30. Leviticus xvi. O that I may find Christ in the Old Testament, and may be led into the mystery of godliness. God was manifested by degrees.
December 7. Finished Leviticus xix. The Lord make me learned in his laws.
December 31. I have pleasure in my study; for which I praise my God. Having obtained help from him I go on with much comfort to myself in my Notes on the Pentateuch. Whether ever they will be of use to any other and be accepted, He only knows who knows the hearts of all the children of men.

[1706.] January 2. Wrote Numbers ii. for a specimen of my Exposition, and sent it to Mr. Parkhurst, he desiring it, that if any thing be amiss in the model I may be advertised of it.
15. Numbers viii. and ix. Mr. Parkhurst writes to me that he will undertake the printing of the Exposition of the Pentateuch. The Lord direct in it.
March 8. Numbers 24. I had letters from the booksellers, and my friends at London, to urge me to send up what I have done of the Pentateuch.
1706. April 15. I finished Numbers through the good hand of my God.
August 18. Lord's-day. I almost finished Deuteronomy xxxiv. It is about a year and nine months since I began with Genesis. Blessed be God who has helped me. I have written it with a great deal of pleasure, but my thoughts of publishing it have been with fear and trembling.
20. I finished the review of Deuteronomy, and thanked God for his assistance; ashamed of my own defects and follies. The Lord grant they may not be a prejudice to my design, which is, to contribute something to that great divine intention -- to magnify the law and make it honourable.
September 9. Read eighteen or twenty sheets on Genesis to mark the errata. I have reason to be ashamed of my own errata.
24. Went on with the preface, in which I desired that every word may be a true copy of my heart.
27. Studied, preparing to begin Joshua in the strength of God.
Vol. II. 1706. October 4. I began Joshua i.
[December] 31. I who am unworthy to be employed for God at all, have been enabled by his free grace, to finish and publish, this year, the Exposition of the Pentateuch, with some hope of its being serviceable to the church of God. The glory of which I desire to give entirely to God. I have nothing in it to boast of.

[1707.] August 21. Finished 2 Sam. Blessed be God who has carried me on thus far, and makes my work a delight.
November 17. 2 Kings xi. to v. 16. I find that just here Peter Martyr was in his learned Expositions when he fell sick and died; Lord my times are in thy hand.

[1708]. [February] 9. Finished 2 Chron. In reading I meet with much that I have reason to be ashamed of, yet some which I hope I may give God thanks for, and recommend to him.
Vol. III. 1708. June 1. After earnest prayers to God for his presence, I this morning began the 3rd volume of Expositions: did the argument of the Book of Job.

[1709.] January 25. Psalm xxvi. and xxvii: a letter from one Mr Samuel Bere, unknown, dated from Exeter, owning good got by my Exposition, and encouraging me to proceed, for which I praise my God. It is an encouragement to me to continue here, for what reason have I to think that I should be more useful than I am, when God has been pleased to make me so much more useful than I worthy to be.
September 23. I finished the Book of Psalms, for which I bless the Lord. I computed when I began, it would be eighty sheets, and so it is, and not half a sheet more. Through God's goodness I have done just one hundred and four sheets in fifty-two weeks. Not unto me, O Lord.
30. I have reason to be ashamed in reviewing what I have written, that I have not myself been affected with these great things.
[December] 27. Finished the review of Proverbs. The Lord write in my heart all these lessons of wisdom.

[1710.] February 16. Canticles viii. ad finem. This day through the good hand of my God upon me, I finished the 3rd volume. Hitherto the Lord has helped me.
[Vol. IV.] December 31. And now through the good hand of my God upon me, I am brought to the end of another year. It has been a year of much mercy; the coming out of the 3rd volume, and the method for prayer, for which I desire to bless God, and give him all the glory of both; for what am I? I have reason to be ashamed of myself that I have not done my work better.

1711. January 1. What work I have to do for thee, O God, this year, I depend upon thy grace thoroughly to furnish me for it, and to work all my works in me; particularly to assist me in the great work of my Expositions, that I may write nothing that is frivolous, or foreign, or foolish, or flat, that may give just offence, or lead any into mistakes; but that all may be clear, and pertinent, and affecting: that I may find out genuine expositions; useful observations; profitable matter; and acceptable words; if it shall please God to spare me to go on with it.
6. Finished Isaiah through God's goodness. O that I might retain the tincture of it.
September 29. Ezekiel xxi. The excellent [John] Calvin died at the end of his expounding Ezekiel xx.

[1712.] [May] 29. Malachi iv. Through the good hand of God I have this day finished the Exposition of the Old Testament. Blessed be God.

Vol. VI. 1713. December 12. Began Acts, having first made an errand to the throne of grace for assistance.

1714. April 17. Finished Acts, and with it the 5th volume. Blessed be God that has helped me, and spared me. All the praise be to God.
19. Reviewed some sheets of the Acts.
April 21. Began the Preface, but did little in it.
23. Studied in the Preface.
24. Went on in the Preface.

Matthew Henry died on June 22, 1714, having completed his Commentary through Acts. He had begun work on Romans, which was completed by Dr. John Evans, and the rest of the (ultimately) six-volume work was completed by other friends. For more information on his continuators, see here.

Post-Reformation Digital Library

A new valuable resource for post-Reformation studies has been launched. Check out the Post-Reformation Digital Library.

The Post-Reformation Digital Library is a collection of resources relating to the development of theology during the Post-Reformation / Early Modern era (ca. 16th-18th c.), hosted by the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies of Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary.

HT: Ligon Duncan

Dear Pair

The following is a poem written by Philip Henry upon the occasion of his son Matthew's wedding.

Philip Henry, "Advice to the Rev. Matthew Henry, and Mrs. Henry, newly married, 1687."

Dear pair, whom God hath now of two made one,
Suffer a father's exhortation.
In the first place see, that with joint endeavour,
You set yourselves to serve the Lord together.
You are yok'd to work, but for work, wages write,
His yoke is easy, and his burden light.
Love one another, pray oft together, and see
You never both together angry be.
If one speak fire; t'other with water come;
Is one provok'd? be t'other soft or dumb.
Walk low, but aim high, spotless be your life,
You are a minister, and a minister's wife.
Therefore as beacons, set upon a hill,
To angels and to men a spectacle.
Your slips will falls be call'd, your falls, each one
Will be a blemish to religion.
Do good to all, be affable and meek,
Your converse must be preaching all the week.
Your garb and dress must not be vain and gay;
Reckon good works your richest, best array.
Your house must be a Bethel, and your door
Always stand open to relieve the poor.
Call your estate God's, not your own, engrave
Holiness to the Lord on all you have.
Count upon suffering, or you count amiss,
Sufficient to each day its evil is;
All are born once to trouble, but saints twice,
And, as experience shows, ministers thrice.
But if you suffer with and for your Lord,
You'll reign with him according to his word.

A Tale of Two Families

In 1874, Richard Dugdale, on behalf of the New York Prison Commission began to visit state prison facilities and, in doing so, discovered a particular family connection between some of the incarcerated guests in Ulster County. Interestingly, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards was president of this commission, but we will get to the Edwards connection soon enough. This lead to further research and, in 1877, the publication of a study entitled The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity. "Jukes" is a last name made up to represent people living and deceased whose identity he did not wish to disclose. He traced the lineage of this family tree to a man of Dutch ancestory named "Max," born in 1720 in the Hudson Valley. Dugdale estimated that there were 1,200 members of this family tree and was able to report on the details of 540 of these descendants, plus another 169 who married into the family line. One member of the family tree was said by Dugdale to be "Ada Juke," who married one of Max's sons, and was nicknamed "Margaret, Mother of Criminals." Of the total group of related individuals, Dugdale found that:

• 310 were paupers who spent a combined 2,300 years in poorhouses;

• 130 were convicted criminals;

• 50 women were prostitutes;

• 7 were were murders; and

• these paupers and criminals cost the state of New York $1.5 million to pay for their incarcerations and $1.25 million in public welfare and other costs to society apart from incarceration.

The lack of documentation supporting Dugdale's research, specifically the identities of the subjects concerned and the incompleteness of the family study, and the research methology (for example, the financial calculations), has given rise to criticism of this study, notably by Dr. Robert Frick, but it has gained enough credence in popular lore that the name "Jukes" is a by-word for "bad seed." His study provided ammunition in his day for the Eugenics movement, although Dugdale ascribed this remarkable family connection to both genetics and environment.

Scott Christianson, "Bad Seed or Bad Science? The Story of the Notorious Jukes Family," New York Times (February 8, 2003):

In 1911, some eugenicists discovered Dugdale's original charts and notes, including the actual names of the Jukeses. They rushed the records to the Eugenics Record Office in Cold Spring Harbor, the leading eugenics research facility operated by the Carnegie Institution, where a field worker, Arthur H. Estabrook, was assigned the task of reviewing the records and updating the study.

The family's real names were kept hidden, but Estabrook said he had confirmed Dugdale's study and used the records to trace 2,111 Jukeses in addition to the 709 that Dugdale had described, bringing the total number of people studied to 2,820. His book, "The Jukes in 1915," reported that 1,258 Jukeses were still alive and reproducing — at a cost to the public of at least $2 million (about $35.2 million today).

In 1900, Albert Edward Winship published another supplemental study, Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity, this time tracing the descendants of America's leading theologian, Jonathan Edwards to compare them with the Jukes family. The results are generally non-controversial but fascinating. He reported that out of approximately 1,400 known descendants:

• "practically no lawbreakers";

• more than 100 lawyers and 30 judges;

• 13 college presidents, 100+ professors;

• 100 clergymen, missionaries and theological professors;

• 62 physicians;

• 80 elected public officials, including 3 mayors, 3 governors, several congressmen, 3 senators and 1 vice-president (Aaron Burr);

• 60 authors or editors with 135 books to their credit; and

• 75 army or navy officers.

In more recent times, this godly lineage was marred by one descendant of Jonathan Edwards, Janet Edwards, a, uh, minister, in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who officiated at a 2005 lesbian "wedding" ceremony, and was later acquitted at her church trial.

Moreover, the two churches that Edwards pastored in Northampton and Stockbridge are both now liberal.

Meanwhile, back to Max Juke, researchers discovered a poorhouse graveyard in 2001 located in New Paltz, New York, and additional records led them to conclude that one particular graveyard is that of the real Max in question -- whose true name is, apparently, Max Keyser.

There is a great deal of misinformation about the comparison of these two families that Christians and others would do well to keep in mind when considering these facts. Statistics can be used and they can be misused, and facts can be blurred, intentionally or unintentionally. It does not help the cause of Christ to misuse statistics or blur facts. It is always good to verify one's sources as much as possible. The two studies, it seems to me, serve best as a talking point for discussion, but I would not press the reported facts too far to make a point that Scripture makes on a more solid foundation.

God has promised blessings to godly families (Ex. 20.3-6, 12; Deut. 6; Ps. 112.1-2; Ps. 115.14; Ps. 128; Mal. 2.15; Eph. 6.1-3; etc.) and wrath to families who break his covenant and rebel against him (Ex. 20.5; 34.7; Num. 14.18; Deut. 5.9; Ps. 79.6; Jer. 10.25; etc.). But these promises and threatenings are general and not directed to particular generations within particular family lines. Godly families are known to have ungodly children and the Lord has been pleased to save many out of ungodly families so that the children no longer walk in the sins of their fathers. Trust not in (Matt. 3.9) nor blame (Deut. 24.16; Ezekiel 18) your parentage, but rather to each of us the word is: "Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:" (Isa. 55.6). The meek shall indeed inherit the earth (Ps. 25.13; Matt. 5.5), but not by virtue of their physical lineage. God builds his church not only through families but also by breaking generational curses and delivering those whom the world despises. Each of us is responsible to God for our own life and shall have to give account for himself or herself, and not plead or blame his or her physical lineage in support of his or her case. This is a truth that many of us already know, but since it is human nature to tend this way, we must be on guard against this tendency when we speak of multi-generational blessings and curses.

Certain points to bear in mind:

• The sources and methodology of Richard Dugdale are not known for certain, so his study, while it has stood up to some follow up research and scrutiny, may not be completely sound. What about the 500 or so descendants of Max who Dugdale could not report on?

• The name of the anti-hero was ascribed by Dugdale as "Max Juke," though it has been reported by others as "Max Dukes" or "Max Jukes". Max Juke is a pseudonym, not a real name. More recently, researchers have come to believe that his real name is Max Keyser. Much has been said about his notorious life, but little is actually known.

• Some have reported that the Max Jukes study was performed by Princeton professor Benjamin B. Warfield, which is incorrect; it was performed by Richard Dugdale.

• Facts, figures and inferences about these two have been reported by many, and much has been written about the multigenerational consequences of righteousness and sin. The Bible does teach that covenant-faithfulness and covenant-breaking does have consequences from one generation to the next. But we must be on guard not to give people the impression that godliness is a purely genetic quality. And there are certainly exceptions to the honorable Edwards legacy, such as Janet Edwards and the two churches that Edwards pastored in Northampton and Stockbridge are both liberal. Moreover, statistics do not tell the complete story. The fact that certain Edwards descendants were elected officials or professionals does not necessarily speak to their virtue or godliness. Statistics give us a snapshot but how does one really quantify godliness?
  

• Who knows about the descendants of Max Juke/Keyser today? Perhaps the Lord would be pleased to "bind the strong man" in that family and save some of those descendants. It is a dangerous thing to put trust in one's ancestry or to dismiss others because of their own reputed ancestry. While the comparison of the Edwards/Juke-Keyser family trees makes for a good story and there is a Scriptural principle about covenant fidelity that can be legitimately spoken of in connection with this story, Christians would do well to bear in mind the caveats, the exceptions, the uncertainties, about these studies and stand first and foremost upon the word of God over and above the potentially flawed scientific studies to make their point.