The Humble Theologian

On April 15, 1675, Herman Witsius (having recently been offered both the positions of a professorship of theology and a local pastorate in Franeker, Holland) was awarded the degree of Doctor in Divinity at the University of Franeker, which is the second oldest university in the Netherlands (after Leiden University). It was on this occasion that he gave an Inaugural Address, which has since been published under the title “On the Character of a True Theologian.” It is considered one of the most eloquent and Biblical descriptions of true theology and true theologians. I encourage all – layman, church officers, and students alike – to “tolle lege, take up and read.” What strikes me particularly, however, is the humility of the speaker, which to me speaks volumes about what it means to be a true man of God.

Thus, my hearers, I have delineated a true theologian. How little I resemble, how very far I differ from such a one, no one knows better than myself. What groans, what tears, should not the consciousness of my ignorance, sloth, and deficiencies of every kind cause to flow forth while I reiterate on what I have declared!...I tremble and throb with emotion as often as I reflect on the nature and extent of those duties which God now requires at my hand and which you have called me to undertake. Yet ought I to lose courage on these accounts? Or should I lower the exact standard of duty that it may the less strongly condemn my deviations? This, God will never allow. I had rather, in truth, my hearers, that you should all detect how little I am what I ought to be, nay, how absolutely unqualified I am – I had rather blush a hundred times a day for my failures than that I should, by proposing an imperfect standard, displease others less and lay an unction to my own soul as foolish as flattering. (“On the Character of a True Theologian” [1994 ed.], pp. 47-48)

Oratio, Meditatio, Tentatio

Martin Luther, Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of Luther's Works, WA 34:

Moreover, I want to point out to you a correct way of studying theology, for I have had practice in that. If you keep to it, you will become so learned that you yourself could (if it were necessary) write books just as good as those of the fathers and councils, even as I (in God) dare to presume and boast, without arrogance and lying, that in the matter of writing books I do not stand much behind some of the fathers. Of my life I can by no means make the same boast. This is the way taught by holy King David (and doubtlessly used also by all the patriarchs and prophets) in the one hundred nineteenth Psalm. There you will find three rules, amply presented throughout the whole Psalm. They are Oratio [prayer], Meditatio [meditation], Tentatio ["Anfechtung," that is, affliction, confliction, temptation, experience, trial].

Firstly, you should know that the Holy Scriptures constitute a book which turns the wisdom of all other books into foolishness, because not one teaches about eternal life except this one alone. Therefore you should straightway despair of your reason and understanding. With them you will not attain eternal life, but, on the contrary, your presumptuousness will plunge you and others with you out of heaven (as happened to Lucifer) into the abyss of hell. But kneel down in your little room [Matt. 6:6] and pray to God with real humility and earnestness, that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding.

Thus you see how David keeps praying in the above-mentioned Psalm, "Teach me, Lord, instruct me, lead me, show me," [Ps. 119:26] and many more words like these. Although he well knew and daily heard and read the text of Moses and other books besides, still he wants to lay hold of the real teacher of the Scriptures himself, so that he may not seize upon them pell-mell with his reason and become his own teacher. For such practice gives rise to factious spirits who allow themselves to nurture the delusion that the Scriptures are subject to them and can be easily grasped with their reason, as if they were Markolf or Aesop's Fables, for which no Holy Spirit and no prayers are needed.

Secondly, you should meditate, that is, not only in your heart, but also externally, by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so that you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them. And take care that you do not grow weary or think that you have done enough when you have read, heard, and spoken them once or twice, and that you then have complete understanding. You will never be a particularly good theologian if you do that, for you will be like untimely fruit which falls to the ground before it is half ripe.

Thus you see in this same Psalm how David constantly boasts that he will talk, meditate, speak, sing, hear, read, by day and night always, about nothing except God's Word and commandments. For God will not give you his Spirit with the external Word; so take your cue from that. His command to write, preach, read, hear, sing, speak, etc., outwardly was not given in vain.

Thirdly, there is tentatio, Anfechtung. This is the touchstone which teaches you not only to know and understand, but also to experience how right, how true, how sweet, how lovely, how mighty, how comforting God's Word is, wisdom beyond all wisdom.

Thus you see how David, in the Psalm mentioned, complains so often about all kinds of enemies, arrogant princes or tyrants, false spirits and factions, whom he must tolerate because he meditates, that is, because he is occupied with God's Word (as has been said) in all manner of ways. For as soon as God's Word takes root and grows in you, the devil will harry you, and will make a real doctor of you, and by his assaults will teach you to see and love God's Word. I myself (if you will permit me, mere mouse-dirt, to be mingled with pepper) am deeply indebted to my papists that through the devil's raging they have beaten, oppressed, and distressed me so much. That is to say, they have made a fairly good theologian of me, which I would not have become otherwise. And I heartily grant them what they have won in return for making this of me, honor, victory, and triumph, for that's the way they wanted it.

There now, with that you have David's rules. If you study hard in accord with his example, then you will also sing and boast with him in the Psalm, "The law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces" [Ps. 119:72]. Also, "Thy commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep thy precepts," etc. [Ps. 119:98-100]. And it will be your experience that the books of the fathers will taste stale and putrid to you in comparison. You will not only despise the books written by adversaries, but the longer you write and teach the less you will be pleased with yourself. When you have reached this point, then do not be afraid to hope that you have begun to become a real theologian, who can teach not only the young and imperfect Christians, but also the maturing and perfect ones. For indeed, Christ's church has all kinds of Christians in it who are young, old, weak, sick, healthy, strong, energetic, lazy, simple, wise, etc.

If, however, you feel and are inclined to think you have made it, flattering yourself with your own little books, teaching, or writing, because you have done it beautifully and preached excellently; if you are highly pleased when someone praises you in the presence of others; if you perhaps look for praise, and would sulk or quit what you are doing if you did not get it-if you are of that stripe, dear friend, then take yourself by the ears, and if you do this in the right way you will find a beautiful pair of big, long, shaggy donkey ears. Then do not spare any expense! Decorate them with golden bells, so that people will be able to hear you wherever you go, point their fingers at you, and say, "See, See! There goes that clever beast, who can write such exquisite books and preach so remarkably well." That very moment you will be blessed and blessed beyond measure in the kingdom of heaven. Yes, in that heaven where hellfire is ready for the devil and his angels. To sum up: Let us be proud and seek honor in the places where we can. But in this book the honor is God's alone, as it is said, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" [I Pet. 5:5]; to whom be glory, world without end, Amen.

MHCC 49: How Little We Know

Matthew Henry on Prov. 30.3:

Some suppose Agur to be asked, as Apollo's oracle was of old, Who was the wisest man? The answer is, He that is sensible of his own ignorance, especially in divine things. Hoc tantum scio, me nihil scire -- All that I know is that I know nothing.

Matthew Henry on Eccl. 1.17-18:

The more we know the more we see of our own ignorance....the more we know the more we see there is to be known...Let us not therefore be driven off from the pursuit of any useful knowledge, but put on patience to break through the sorrow of it; but let us despair of finding true happiness in this knowledge, and expect it only in the knowledge of God and the careful discharge of our duty to him.

Stoop, Stoop!

As a young 11 year-old boy, Benjamin Franklin read Cotton Mather's Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good. In 1721, while Mather was promoting the new-fangled idea of smallpox innoculation, he was opposed publicly by Ben's older brother, James, who was a printer and the publisher of the New-England Courant. In 1722, Franklin's first pen name, Mistress Silence Dogood, appended as the first of fourteen letters to the same newspaper, was used in reference to Matther's Essays and his sermon, "Silentarius: The Silent Sufferer," delivered (and published soon after) in September 1721. Many years later, in a letter dated May 12, 1784 to Cotton Mather's son Samuel, Ben Franklin wrote anecdotally of an incident that he would remember the rest of his life:

When I was a boy, I met with a book, entitled, "Essays to do good," which, I think, was written by your father. It had been so little regarded by a former possessor, that several leaves of it were torn out: but the remainder gave me such a turn, for thinking, as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good, than any other kind of reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book.

The last time I saw your father was in the beginning of 1724, when I visited him after my first trip to Pennsylvania. He received me in his library; and, on my taking leave, showed me a shorter way out of the house, through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam over head. We were still talking as I withdrew; he accompanying me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said hastily, "Stoop! stoop!" I did not understand him, till I felt my head hit against the beam. He was a man who never missed any occasion of giving instruction; and upon this, he said to me, "You are young, and have the world before you. STOOP as you go through it; and you will miss many hard thumps." This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me; and I often think of it, when I see pride mortified; and misfortune brought upon people, by carrying their heads too high.

To See Things As They Really Are

Jonathan Mitchell, "A Letter...to His Friend" (1649), quoted in Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England, p. 91:

And truly when I am most near God,
I have no greater request than this
for my self and you, that God would use
any means to make us see things really as they are,
and pound our hearts all to pieces,
and make indeed sin most bitter,
and Christ most sweet, that we might be
both humbled and Comforted to purpose!

Robert Burns, To a Louse (1786):

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

[O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!]

Meat and Drink for Our Souls

Herman Bavinck, The Sacrifice of Praise: Meditations Before and After Receiving Access to the Table of the Lord, pp. 38-39:

Therefore, that word can be and indeed is the meat and drink of our spiritual lives. It the medium, not the fountain of grace. God is and remains the giver and dispenser of all grace; no man, no priest, no word, no sacrament has been clothed by Him with the treasure of grace or commissioned to dispense her. Servants can give the sign and seal, but God only granted the sealed and signified fact. This only has God done -- and this also is grace -- He has in His free power and pleasure bound Himself under oath to grant with His word, which is administered in full accord with the meaning of the Spirit, unto each and every one, who believingly accepts it, Christ, who is the meat and drink of our souls, the bread that has come down from Heaven, the water of life, drinking of which we shall never again thirst.

But to be thus, that Word must be believed with a child-like faith and accepted in humility. Even as bread, however powerful and nourishing it may be, can only be profitable for the preservation of our natural lives then, when it is eaten with the mouth and received into the body -- even so can the Word of God be food for our souls only then, when it is accepted by faith and is implanted in our hearts.

They Know Themselves Best Who Fear Themselves Most

Patrick Walker, Six Saints of the Covenant, ed. by D. Hay Fleming, Vol. 2, p. 41 ('Donald Cargill's Life'):

He preached upon that word in the forenoon [June 1681, one month before his death], 'Be not high-minded, but fear' [Rom. 11.20]. His first note was, that these who knew themselves best would fear themselves most; and that, as it was to determine what a length a hypocrite may gang in the profession of religion, it was as hard to determine what a length a child of God may go in defection, having grace, but wanting the exercise thereof; and that a Christian might go through nineteen trials, and carry honestly in them, and fall in the twentieth. 'While in the body, be not high-minded, but fear.'

Maurice Grant, No King But Christ: The Story of Donald Cargill, p. 172:

Concluding his exposition, he went on immediately to give the first of his two sermons. It was from Romans 11:20: 'Be not high-minded, but fear,' and was a characteristic study of the Christian life, drawing richly on his own experience. 'Those who know themselves best,' he declared, 'will fear themselves most: and as it is hard to determine what length a hypocrite may go in the profession of religion, so it is hard to determine what length a child of God may go in defection, having grace, but lacking its exercise. A Christian may go through nineteen trials, and carry honestly through them, and fall in the twentieth.' Cargill made it clear to his hearers that he was speaking here of those who were true Christian,...

Exceeding Great Negligence

Do we pray enough? Do we fast...at all? One Puritan wrote many years ago extolling the virtues of these spiritual disciplines, but acknowledging personally that his own practice was deficient. So it is that we know what to do, but too often, the putting into practice of what we know falls woefully short. God grant us the grace to walk according to the light that is given us.

John Yates, "To the Christian Reader," in God's Arraignement of Hypocrites (1616):

Prayer & fasting are of the same nature [as] that [of] preaching and administering the sacraments: they being conscionably used, worke where and whensoever God pleaseth....Fasting and praier are admirable meanes in the Church of God...to fill the soule with the spirit of grace, and goodnes. And here I tremble to speake, and charge mine own heart with exceeding great negligence...

Humility

In one of the earliest Puritan devotional manuals, first published exactly 400 years ago, A Garden of Spirituall Flowers Planted by Ri. Ro. [Richard Rogers], Will. Per. [William Perkins], Ri. Green. [Richard Greenham], M.M. [Miles Mosse] and Geo. Web. [George Webbe] (1610, 1613), Rogers gives us a succinct definition of the virtue of humility, which it is worthwhile to ponder.

Humility is a virtue whereby one man thinks better of another than of himself: for this makes a man think basely of himself, in regard of his own sins and corruptions, whereupon he is contented to give place unto other, and to y[i]eld of his own right, for the maintenance of peace: when as on the othe[r] side, pride causes men to seek for more than their due, & so causes contention.