Puritan Reformed Journal PRJ 2011.1

Puritan Reformed Journal
JANUARY 2011
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Volume 3 • Number 1
Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

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Grand Rapids, Michigan 49525
Puritan Reformed Journal
Edited for Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary
Joel R. Beeke, Editor

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David Murray, Associate Editor
Michael Haykin, Book Review Editor
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Table of Contents
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Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Biblical Studies
The Importance of the Historicity of Genesis 1–3 for
Theology Proper, Anthropology, and Christology
Micah Everett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Glory of the Cross (1) — Pieter DeVries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Trust in the Incarnate Word — Joel R. Beeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Unique Relationship Between the Father and the Son
in the Gospel of John — Bartel Elshout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A Puritan’s Perspective on Galatians 2:20 — A dam McClendon. . . . 56
SYSTEMATIC AND Historical Theology

Sweet Mystery: John Owen on the Trinity — Paul M. Smalley . . . . . 81
John Flavel: The Lost Puritan — Brian H. Cosby. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Not by Faith Alone: The Neonomianism of Richard Baxter
Michael G. Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
The Guardian of the Gathered: Covenant and Community
in the Career of George Philips — Timothy L. Wood. . . . . . 153
William Bagshawe and the Derbyshire Puritans
Crawford Gribben. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
EXPERIENTIAL THEOLOGY
The “Cream of Creation” and the “Cream of Faith”: The Lord’s
Supper as a Means of Assurance in Puritan Thought
M atthew Westerholm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Piety in the Canons of Dort — M atthew Barrett . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Pastoral theology and missions

How to Evaluate Your Sermons — Joel R. Beeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
Wilhelmus à Brakel’s Spirituality of Virtues and Its Implications
for Soul Care — Lydia K im-van Daalen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
CONTEMPORARY AND CULTURAL ISSUES

Rediscovering the Laity: The Reformation in the Pew
and in the Classroom — Joel R. Beeke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
iv Puritan Reformed Theological Journal
Principles of Sabbath-Keeping: Jesus and Westminster

Ryan M. McGraw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Serious Preaching in a Comedy Culture — David Murray . . . . . . . 328
Van Til and Singer: The Theological Interpretation of History
William VanDoodewaard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Book Reviews
Mark J. Boda, A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament
Gerald M. Bilkes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
Martin Bucer, Concerning the True Care of Souls — Michael Ives. . . . . 368
S. D. Dyer, A Preparatory Grammar for New Testament Greek
Chris Engelsma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
J. Cameron Fraser, Thandabantu: The Man Who Loved the People
Frank J. Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Wilson H. Kimnach, et al., eds. Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God: A Casebook Including the Authoritative
Edition of the Famous Sermon — M aarten Kuivenhoven. . . . 374
Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology
in Historical Context — David G. Whitla. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Gerald R. McDermott, ed., Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An
Introduction to America’s Theologian — R andall Pederson. . . . 385
Jeff Pollard, Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing of America
Ryan M. McGraw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Eckhard J. Schnabel, Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies,
and Methods — Gerald M. Bilkes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
Michael Sudduth, The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology
James E. Dolezal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
William Still, The Work of the Pastor — Ryan M. McGraw . . . . . . . . 394
CONTRIBUTORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
From the Editors
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We live in challenging days, buffeted theologically from without and

from within. Issues we long thought were settled within the Reformed
and evangelical worlds have suddenly re-emerged as matters of doubt
and debate. Consider the issue of the historicity of Genesis 1–3, for
example. In recent years, notable Reformed scholars have come out
and denied the historical facticity of key aspects of these vital chap-
ters. Micah Everett’s study of this issue, appropriately the opening
article in this issue, is a vital read to help orient ourselves in this new
debate. Our second biblical study, from the pen of Pieter de Vries, is
the first installment of an examination of the glory of the cross, God’s
final answer to the problem unleashed on the world in Genesis 3.
It is important to remember that the Man dying on the cross, Jesus
of Nazareth, is also the divine Lord of glory — hence the efficacy of
the cross. Joel Beeke presents us with an excellent overview of the
majesty of this Lord of glory. Bartel Elshout’s article, while meant
to provide scriptural support from John’s Gospel for his study of the
relationship between God the Father and the Son that appeared in
the issue prior to this one, is well placed, providing support for the
arguments of Beeke about the divinity of Christ. A final paper in this
section by Adam McClendon is a study of the Puritan exegesis of a
much-loved text from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
A number of further papers on Puritan authors are also included
in the next section on systematic and historical theology. The opening
studies are of John Owen’s Trinitarianism — the most sublime of all
topics in Christian theology (by Paul Smalley), and the life and minis-
try of John Flavel (by Brian Cosby). Then follows a study of the views
of Richard Baxter regarding justification (by Michael Brown), which
is most helpful, since antinomianism, to which Baxter was reacting, is
ever-present where Calvinism is strong, and also since justification is
also being heavily debated today with the emergence of the so-called
New Perspective. This section concludes with the life of the little-
known American Puritan George Philips (by Timothy Wood), much
2 Puritan Reformed Theological Journal
admired by the later Puritan leader, Cotton Mather; and the minis-
try and thought of William Bagshawe, one of the last of the Puritan
leaders active in Derbyshire (by Crawford Gribben). These studies
carry on a tradition now well established through earlier fascicles of
this journal, namely, of providing fresh and detailed studies of those
remarkable men and women of God, the Puritans.
Puritanism also figures in the section dealing with experiential
theology. Matthew Westerholm guides us through a study of Pu-
ritan views of the Lord’s Table as a means of Christian assurance,
while Matthew Barrett looks at the piety of the Canons of Dort (this
breaks completely fresh ground with regard to English studies of this
landmark document). Two studies comprise the section on pastoral
theology and missions in this issue: a practical way to evaluate one’s
preaching, by Joel Beeke, and Lydia Kim-van Daalen’s study of the
spirituality of the Dutch Reformed theologian Wilhelmus à Brakel,
a fine contribution to a growing body of literature on an extremely
important theologian.
In the final section of articles, dealing with contemporary and
cultural issues, we have a helpful overview by Joel Beeke of the way
the Reformation ought to impact the laity as we approach the 500th
anniversary of its inception — a good reminder of what always needs
to be the heart-longing of the minister of God; a discussion of the
Sabbath in the teaching and ministry of Jesus and the Westminster
Confession (by Ryan McGraw); an exploration of the way preach-
ing must needs be serious in a world that wants comedy and not the
glorious epic of tragedy and joy unspeakable that is in the Bible (by
David Murray); and a treatment of the theologian Cornelius van Til’s
and the historian Gregg Singer’s theological reflection on history (by
William van Doodewaard — needless to say, we look for more fine
studies like this one!).
And make sure not to miss the very last section, the book reviews.
These are extremely helpful in knowing what has been published and
what the contemporary world of Reformed and evangelical scholar-
ship is saying on the important issues of our day. May these bite-sized
reviews and the meatier articles of this issue help us all to be like the
men of Issachar, who knew how to live in response to their times
(1 Chron. 12:32).
Biblical Studies
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PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 5 –17
The Importance of the Historicity of

Genesis Chapters 1–3 for Theology Proper,
Anthropology, and Christology
micah everett
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Perhaps no portion of Scripture is more frequently misunderstood

and reinterpreted than the early chapters of the book of Genesis. The
style and content of these chapters indicate that they are intended
to convey an account of actual historical events and people,1 and
yet many interpreters — including some who claim to hold to the
inspiration and infallibility of the Bible — insist that these chapters
should be read allegorically, if not mythically,2 and that doing so will
not have a negative impact upon one’s view of the rest of Scripture.3
This interpretation defies the plainest reading of Scripture; is con-
trary to the New Testament, which readily refers to Adam (1 Tim.
2:13–14), Enoch (Jude 1:14), and Noah (Matt. 24:37–39) as histori-
cal figures; and lies outside of the mainstream of theological opinion
as held throughout the history of the church.4 With some notable
exceptions,5 theologians throughout the Church Age have agreed that
these chapters neither demand nor even admit an allegorical inter-
pretation, but instead must be interpreted as true history.6 Only in
the past two centuries, in the face not of mounting scientific evidence
but rather of mounting naturalistic and evolutionary interpretations
1. Henry Morris, The Genesis Record (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,
1976), 21–22.
2. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend,
4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 2:490 –95.
3. J. Gresham Machen, Education, Christianity, and the State (Unicoi, Tenn.: The
Trinity Foundation, 2004), 38 – 40.
4. Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer (Wheaton, Ill.:
Crossway Books, 1982), 2:7–14.
5. Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise (Green Forest, Ark.: Master Books,
2004), 56 –58.
6. Schaeffer, Complete Works, 2:7–14.
6 Puritan Reformed Journal
of the available evidence, has a historical reading of these chapters

been abandoned in many sectors of the church.7
This abandonment has brought only catastrophe, including
increasing unbelief, apostasy, and the decimation of churches and
denominations.8 The whole of biblical teaching on the nature of
God; the special creation, nature, and fall of man; and salvation from
and victory over sin through the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, is
built upon a literal, historical understanding of the first three chap-
ters of Genesis.9 When belief in the veracity of this crucial portion of
Scripture is shaken, belief in those Scriptures that build and develop
doctrines upon these early chapters is compromised as well. The
abandonment of much or even the entirety of Scripture and of the
God who reveals Himself therein almost inevitably follows.10
This paper will survey the ways in which a literal, historical
understanding of the first three chapters of Genesis is crucial for
the proper development and understanding of biblical doctrine as
expressed in three of the Reformed loci: Theology Proper, Anthro-
pology, and Christology. While the treatment of these subjects here
will be brief, this paper will demonstrate how such an interpreta-
tion of the early chapters of Genesis leads to a proper understanding
of the whole of scriptural teaching on these subjects, and how the
attempt to reduce these chapters to the level of allegory or myth sets
its adherents upon a path of ever-increasing compromise.
Theology Proper
Of the many roles in which God acts in relation to the world, the
first one revealed in Scripture is that of Creator. The first verse of
Genesis reads, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.” In this sentence alone, God has revealed to mankind that He
is the Creator of all that exists, as well as a number of His attri-
butes. He is preexistent, having been present before “the beginning”
of everything else that is. He is solitary, He alone having existence
independent of all other beings or things.11 He is omnipotent, having
7. Douglas Kelly, foreword to Refuting Compromise, by Jonathan Sarfati.

8. Henry Morris, Defending the Faith (Green Forest, Ark.: Master Books,
1999), 229.
9. Morris, The Genesis Record, 22.
10. Morris, Defending the Faith, 229.
11. Arthur W. Pink, The Attributes of God (Pensacola, Fla.: Chapel Library, n.d.), 3–7.
Importance of the Historicity of Genesis 1–3 7
created all things ex nihilo, requiring no assistance and no preexisting

material in order to bring all that He desires into existence.12 Finally,
the goodness of the world as originally created reflects the inherent
goodness of its Creator.13
That God created all things is confirmed throughout the Scrip-
tures, both Old and New Testament. The Psalms exalt God as
Creator (Pss. 124:8, 146:6, 148). Isaiah repeatedly references His
creation of all things (cf. Isa. 42:5, 45:12–18), and Paul does the
same (Acts 17:24; Col. 1:16). In the opening chapter of the Gospel
of John, Jesus Christ is presented as God the Creator in language
that intentionally mirrors that of Genesis ( John 1:1–3). All of these
references to the creative work of God, and perhaps especially John’s
identification of Jesus Christ with the Creator God introduced in
Genesis 1, indicate the consensus of the biblical writers that God is
indeed the Creator who alone acted with great power to bring all
things into being.
For the person who affirms the literal historicity of the creation
account in the early chapters of Genesis, those Scriptures elsewhere in
the Bible that refer to Genesis will serve to strengthen his faith in the
inspiration and consistency of Scripture. Contrarily, the person who
denies the historicity of the Genesis account of creation will, if he is
consistent, lose faith in these and other passages that, implicitly or
explicitly citing Genesis 1–2, refer to God as Creator.14 If the biblical
creation account is merely an allegory or myth, then the later writers
have erred by citing it as history, and the reader must of necessity call
into question the veracity of the writings of men that could be thus
mistaken in their view of origins. The “slippery slope” begins here.
Because God is Creator, He is sovereign over His creation, par-
ticularly over the lives and actions of men.15 Mark Dever wrote:
Here in these early chapters of Genesis, we also find that God
is a sovereign God. He is, we must remember, the Creator of
everything that is, so we should not be surprised to find him
12. Ibid., 47–53.

13. Ibid., 60–64.
14. Morris, Defending the Faith, 229–30.
15. Pink, 30–35.
sovereign over what he has made. The author of all has author-
ity over all.16
This connection between the doctrines of creation and of God’s sov-
ereignty is expressed throughout the Scriptures. The following are
two such passages:
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he
is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with
hands; neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he
needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and
all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times
before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they
should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find
him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we
live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own
poets have said, For we are also his offspring (Acts 17:24–28).
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and
power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they
are and were created (Rev. 4:11).
In the first passage, Paul grounds his insistence that men “should
seek the Lord” in the fact that He created them for this purpose.
The elders speaking in the second passage speak in more regal terms,
ascribing to God worthiness to receive veneration as Lord because of
having created all things. In both passages, God’s right to rule over
men and to require both praise and fealty from them is established
because He is their Creator and Sustainer.
A god who did not create all things might still exercise sover-
eignty, but upon far different grounds. As human history repeatedly
demonstrates, powerful overlords and dictators can demand obe-
dience and even worship simply because “I am bigger and more
powerful than you,” receiving submission only out of fear of reprisal.
A god who “created,” perhaps using preexisting matter, through a
purposeless process of evolution and natural selection (or, worse, a
god who was, like all other creatures, a product of such a process) has
16. Mark Dever, The Message of the Old Testament (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway
Books, 2006), 71.
no better grounds upon which to exercise sovereignty than a human

dictator that rules through brute force. And yet, if the creation account
of Genesis 1 is abandoned, one is left with such a god, and New Tes-
tament passages such as the two cited above become nonsensical.
God made all that exists for His glory, and specially created man
as His image-bearer.17 God exercises sovereignty over every aspect
of His creation (Heb. 1:3) and every aspect of each person’s life, and
yet this is the sovereignty of a loving, benevolent Creator, one who
“giveth us all things richly to enjoy” (1 Tim. 6:17) and who genu-
inely desires the willingly given worship, companionship, and love
of those He has created as His image-bearers (Acts 17:24 –27; 1 Tim.
2:4). This is the sovereignty of a God who is perfectly good, a trait
also amply revealed in Genesis 1.
Repeatedly in Genesis 1, God refers to the goodness of His
creation, culminating in the comprehensive statement of verse 31:
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was
very good.” That God would create only a “very good” universe is
consistent with His nature; Scripture reveals “that God is light, and
in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5), and “there is none good
but one, that is, God” (Matt. 19:17). This “very good” creation was
idyllic, free of the scourges of pain, toil, loss, and especially death.
Death entered into the world only as a result of sin. God promised
that this would happen if man sinned (Gen. 2:17), visited this curse
upon man because of his sin (Gen. 3:19), and reaffirmed the connec-
tion between sin and death in the New Testament (Rom. 5:12, 6:23).
The world did not come from the hand of God in its present, fallen
state; its present condition is a perversion of the original creation, for
which man has only himself to blame, and which will be corrected
only when creation is purged of all sin (Rev. 21:3 – 4, 27).
How different is this biblical portrayal of creation from those of
evolutionary theories, whether “theistic” or naturalistic! Under such
schemes, the world has reached its present condition only after bil-
lions of years of change, struggle, death, and extinction. “Theistic
evolutionists” must wrestle with the incongruence between the bibli-
cal portrayal of God as perfectly good, and the testimony of nature
that (according to their system) God allowed or even caused billions
17. J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man (Edinburgh: The Banner of
Truth Trust, 1965), 116, 144 – 45.
of years of violent upheaval, destruction, and death to plague the

world before the first man ever walked the earth, much less intro-
duced sin into the world.18 Tennyson recognized this contradiction
between biblical creationism and evolutionary naturalism when he
wrote the following in 1849:
Who trusted God was love indeed,
And love Creation’s final law,—
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravin, shriek’d against his creed,—19
The denial (whether implicit or explicit) of the causal relationship
between sin and death as presented in the Scriptures destroys the
Bible’s presentation of God as perfectly good, for such a God would
never declare a world full of death and suffering to be “good.”20 Any
such evolutionary scheme also causes difficulties for one’s under-
standing of Anthropology, as this system necessitates a denial of the
special creation of man and the existence of a literal Adam. This, in
turn, causes major problems for the doctrine of original sin.
Anthropology
A plain reading of Genesis chapters 1–2 (and of the entire Scrip-
ture) will not admit any evolutionary interpretation for the origins of
creation.21 This is true of the creation of the physical universe, of veg-
etation, and of all animal life, but it is particularly true of the creation
of man. In Genesis 1:26, God discusses within Himself the special
nature of this creature, the one that alone would bear His image (Gen.
1:27), enjoy fellowship with Him,22 and act as His vicegerent on the
earth, exercising dominion over the other creatures.23 The Scripture
elaborates on man’s creation in Genesis 2:7, describing the peculiar
care with which God created the first man and then, in verses 21–22,
18. Morris, The Genesis Record, 79 – 80.

19. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” in The Poetical Works of
Alfred Tennyson (New York: John B. Alden, 1883), 193.
20. Morris, The Genesis Record, 79 – 80.
21. Philip Mauro, Evolution at the Bar (Boston: Hamilton Brothers Scripture
Truth Depot, 1922), 62.
22. “The Westminster Shorter Catechism,” in Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of
Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 3:676.
23. Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1986), 78 –79.
the woman. Unlike the other creatures, which were apparently cre-
ated in sufficient numbers to immediately populate the earth (cf. Gen.
1:21), God created mankind as a single pair, from which the entire
human race descended. That God initially created only one man and
one woman is implicitly taught throughout Genesis 2 and is explicitly
stated in Genesis 3:20, and is also confirmed in the New Testament by
Paul (Acts 17:26). The denial of the historicity of the Genesis account
thus forces one not only to allegorize Genesis, but also to reinterpret
New Testament passages that are built upon this account. Doing this
wreaks havoc upon the doctrine of original sin as presented in the
New Testament.24
Paul’s teaching on man’s inherited sinful nature is grounded in
the truthful account of origins as presented in Genesis 1–3:
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrec-
tion of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall
all be made alive (1 Cor. 15:21–22).
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not
imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him
that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.
For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more
the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man,
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by
one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justifi-
cation. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much
more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) There-
fore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to
condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered,
24. B.H. Carroll, An Interpretation of the English Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1978), 1:63.
that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5:12–21).
The New Testament’s teaching on original sin depends upon the
historicity of the Genesis account of man’s creation and fall. In both
of the above passages, Paul refers to sin (and its consequence, death)
in the world as having been introduced by one man, Adam, who
was specially created by God as His image-bearer and as the federal
head of the human race that would proceed from him.25 If sin did
not enter the world through the real disobedience of this real first
man, leaving all men hopelessly corrupted from the very moment
of conception (Ps. 51:5), then the entirety of the Bible’s teaching on
the origin, nature, and consequences of sin is faulty. Furthermore,
if Adam never existed, or is at best part of a myth or allegory about
human origins, then the credibility of the New Testament references
to Adam such as those just discussed also is called into question; Paul
would then have based his entire theology of sin and its punishment
upon mythical events surrounding a person who never existed. If
there was no literal Adam in whom all mankind sinned, the theo-
logical result can only be the promotion of a shallow Pelagianism, in
which each individual is born “good,” possessing an inherent capacity
for righteousness that might or might not be tarnished by the “acci-
dent” of sin and evil.26 If this is true, then the Bible’s teaching of the
absolute necessity of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
for man to enjoy fellowship with God can be discarded.27
Even worse, without original sin, the God that would visit the
consequence of sin, death, upon those that are unable to willfully
commit acts of sin, such as infants or the unborn, is made into a
monster. This is a serious and even heretical departure from the
God presented in Scripture as a good, loving, and benevolent Lord
who, while exercising unquenchable wrath upon unrepentant sinners
(Matt. 3:12), nevertheless does so with the utmost righteousness and
justice (Rom. 9:14) and furthermore freely offers salvation through
25. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust,
1958), 242–43.
26. R.C. Sproul, What is Reformed Theology? (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 121–22.
His Son Jesus Christ to all who will come to Him in repentance
and by faith ( John 3:16). Like the doctrines discussed previously, the
doctrine of the person and work of Jesus Christ is both established by
and dependent upon the historicity of the first chapters of Genesis.
Christology
Not only does Paul’s explanation of the origin of human sin break
down if the first chapters of Genesis are not literally true, but his
teaching on the atoning work of the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, is
also compromised.28 In 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, Paul dis-
cusses the federal headship of both Adam and Christ. When Adam
sinned, his sin was imputed to all those who are “in Adam” (1 Cor.
15:21–22); in like manner, when Christ perfectly fulfilled the Law
and then died and was raised for His people, their sin was imputed
to Him and His righteousness was imputed to them (cf. Rom.
4:21–25).29 This is the “good news” of Christianity: even though all
mankind has fallen in Adam and therefore stands condemned by God
(John 3:18), those who believe in Christ have been redeemed through
His blood and therefore stand before God in Christ’s righteousness
(2 Cor. 5:21). This comparison is so vital to New Testament theology
that if the literal historicity of Adam is denied, then Paul’s explana-
tion of Christ’s work as compared to that of Adam must be jettisoned
as well. Morris wrote:
It is quite impossible, therefore, for one to reject the historicity
and divine authority of the Book of Genesis without undermin-
ing, and in effect, repudiating, the authority of the entire Bible.
If the first Adam is only an allegory, so is the second Adam. If
man did not really fall into sin from his state of created inno-
cency, there is no reason for him to need a Savior.30
If we deny the historicity of Genesis 1–3, we discard the basis
upon which Paul builds his teaching on the necessity and the nature
of Christ’s work. From that point there is but a short leap intellectu-
ally to constructing a “Jesus” who is not the Savior of the people that
He purchased with His own blood, but is instead merely a “good
28. Ibid.
29. John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian
and Reformed, 1959), 64 –70.
example” or a “moral teacher,” if He existed at all. Such a construc-

tion is biblically, historically, and intellectually unacceptable, as C.S.
Lewis noted in an oft-quoted paragraph:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish
thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept
Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to
be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who
was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would
not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on
a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he
would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either
this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit
at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and
call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronis-
ing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has
not left that open to us. He did not intend to.31
If Christ is no more than “a great moral teacher,” or, even worse, a
literary example that never really existed in history as He is presented
in Scripture, then “we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19),
for “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins”
(1 Cor. 15:17).
The second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ, who came
to earth as a man to live perfectly according to the Law and then suf-
fer and die for the sins of His people only to be raised again the third
day, is the central figure of Scripture. The entire Bible, both Old and
New Testaments, bears witness to Him.32 This Christ is the subject
of numerous Old Testament prophecies, all of which He perfectly
fulfilled. Josh McDowell wrote, “Jesus fulfilled sixty major Old Tes-
tament prophecies (with about 270 additional ramifications) — all of
which were made more than 400 years before his birth.”33 The first
of these prophecies, sometimes called the protoevangelium, occurs in
31. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 52. Though
we do not always concur with C.S. Lewis, in this instance he is a reliable guide.
32. Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ in All of Scripture (Wheaton, Ill.:
Crossway Books, 2003), 9–10.
33. Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Beyond Belief to Convictions (Carol
Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House, 2002), 66–67.
Genesis 3 and was spoken by God Himself. Addressing the serpent

in verse 15, God said, “And I will put enmity between thee and the
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel.” That the serpent of Genesis 3 is Satan
is evident from the immediate context, and is explicitly affirmed in
Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. Most commentators agree that the seed
of the woman in Genesis 3:15 is Christ Himself, although Calvin
notably disagrees with this assessment. 34 John Gill offers a credible
argument that “seed” here indeed refers principally to Christ, though
it can in a secondary way refer to Eve’s descendants more gener-
ally, at least those that are in Christ. Paul wrote to the church in
Romans 16:20, “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your
feet shortly.”35 Still, the final bruising of Satan is accomplished by
Christ Himself, just as promised in Genesis 3:15. Satan’s destruction
is made sure by Christ’s death (Heb. 2:14), and is consummated in
Revelation 20:10 as Christ comes, seated on a great white throne, to
judge all men.
If the events of Genesis 3 never literally took place, then all of
fallen humanity never “sinned in Adam,” and Christ’s work is ren-
dered both theologically unnecessary and historically questionable.
Further, if Genesis 3 is not real history, God never delivered the first
promise in Scripture of the Messiah who, being “bruised” Himself
(cf. Isa. 53:5), would deliver a final defeat to sin and to Satan. Finally,
the denial of the historicity of Genesis 3 would make the New Testa-
ment account of the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 and Satan’s defeat as
prophesied in Revelation 20 nonsensical, since that account harks back
to Satan’s manifesting himself as a serpent in Genesis 3. Just like the
doctrines of God and of man, the complete and consistent biblical
development of the doctrine of Christ depends on a literal, historical
reading of the early chapters of Genesis. Without this, the plain teach-
ing of God’s Word is lost in a sea of inconsistency and doubt.36
34. John Calvin, Commentary upon the Book of Genesis, in Calvin’s Commentaries
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 1:170–71.
35. John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (Paris, Ark.: The Baptist
Standard Bearer, 2006), 27.
36. Morris, Defending the Faith, 229.
Conclusion
Scripture is entirely true, and when doubt is cast upon any portion of
its teaching, the truthfulness of the whole is questioned. When the
historicity of the early chapters of Genesis in particular is denied, the
accuracy of later documents that cite these chapters as true histori-
cal accounts must, logically, also be denied. Because God is Creator,
He has the right to exercise lordship over His creation. Denying the
historicity of Genesis 1–3 weakens or even eliminates God’s role as
Creator, and therefore denies Him the right to legitimately exercise
sovereignty over the universe. Furthermore, if God “created” by
means of millions of years of evolution and natural selection, then
He afflicted the world and its creatures with death even when no sin
had yet occurred. Such an accusation assaults the character of God
and severs the vital scriptural connection between sin and death,
which itself can only be maintained if Adam and Eve were the real
first human beings, specially created in the image of God as reported
in the book of Genesis.
As the first man and the progenitor of the entire human race,
Adam was tested by God on behalf of all of his posterity and failed, 37
plunging the entire human race into sin.38 Adam’s failure is contrasted
in Scripture with the work of Christ, the Second Adam, whose sacri-
ficial death atoned for the sins of all of His people, and whose perfect
righteousness imputed to them makes them worthy of heaven. The
coming of this Christ, who would deliver the final death-blow to sin
and to Satan, was first predicted in Genesis 3. This protoevangelium is
a very important part of biblical prophecy concerning Jesus Christ,
comforting believers by assuring them that God had prepared the
way of salvation for His people even before the world began (cf. Eph.
1:4 – 6) and bringing this hope of final deliverance from sin and from
Satan to mankind almost immediately after the first sin was com-
mitted. If the historicity of Genesis 3 is denied, then this first biblical
prophecy regarding the Messiah is eliminated, robbing believers of
this portion of the great hope of deliverance through Christ.
The denial of the historicity of Genesis 1–3 thus proves catastro
phic for one’s understanding of Theology Proper, Anthropology, and
Christology. The Scriptures are a unit, and each new portion of rev-
37. Machen, The Christian View of Man, 162–63.

38. Schaeffer, Complete Works, 2:60–61.
elation that God gave during the period of its composition was built
upon the revelation already given. When these foundational chapters
are denied, all of the doctrinal material built upon them is compro-
mised. A logically consistent reader that denies or allegorizes Genesis
1–3 will soon find himself denying or reinterpreting other parts of
Scripture as well, until eventually the whole is often discarded and the
reader embraces unbelief.
While there are professing Christians who have accepted alle-
gorical interpretations or other alternative readings of Genesis 1–3
without denying the faith, these are able to do so only by allow-
ing logical inconsistencies in their thinking, refusing to see the
theological implications of their faulty reading of Genesis 1–3 to
their necessary end. In Scripture, God has graciously given man a
thorough and truthful revelation of Himself, one free of the incon-
sistencies and falsehoods that plague even the best of mere human
writings. When God’s people plumb the depths of this Word, taking
at face value all that God has revealed therein, they will find there
an all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful Creator, who made man in
His image and then graciously redeemed fallen man in Christ. These
simple yet profound truths are obscured if not destroyed when the
first three chapters of Genesis are compromised. The church must
therefore accept only a literal, historical reading of these chapters, for
the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 18 –23
The Glory of the Cross (1)

pieter de vries
q
The British philosopher A. J. Ayer once summarized his objections to

the Christian faith by singling out the doctrines of original sin and the
vicarious suffering and death of Christ. There is an intimate connec-
tion between both doctrines. Since man cannot redeem himself, the
Son of God, as man, surrendered Himself unto death. Atonement by
the blood of Jesus Christ belongs to the essence of the Christian faith.
Such is the testimony of the church’s creeds. Can this confession
be substantiated in light of Scripture? What do the Scriptures have
to say about the atonement? Availing myself of a number of works
that have been published during the last few years, I wish to present
some exegetical considerations in this first installment. In the second
installment, I will focus on how the significance of the cross of Christ
has been addressed throughout the history of the Christian church.
Atonement in the Pentateuch

The laws of the Pentateuch do not belong to the most popular por-
tions of Scripture. Many a reader of the Bible does not sufficiently
realize that the cross of Christ, divorced from the legislation of the
Pentateuch, is incomprehensible. It is against the background of this
legislation that the New Testament can speak of Jesus as the Lamb of
God that takes away the sins of the world.
The Old Testament sanctuary was a reflection of the nature, rep-
utation, and authority of the Lord. The sins of the people of Israel
were incompatible with His justice. For the Lord to dwell continually
in the midst of His people, His justice had to be vindicated repeat-
edly. This was particularly the case on the great Day of Atonement,
which provided the people with an affirmation that forgiveness had
been granted them. The fact that the Law of Moses uses various
The Glory of the Cross (1) 19
words to designate sin (e.g., transgression, unrighteousness, unclean-

ness) is one of the indications that Israel (taking her lead from the
Lord Himself) took sin seriously. The Mosaic laws make it clear to
us that atonement and forgiveness of sin will never become a reality
apart from confession of sin and, ultimately, restitution for the trans-
gression committed.
Leviticus 17:11 is a key text in the Pentateuch. Does the atone-
ment referred to there come about by means of the soul (i.e., life), or
for and/or instead of the soul? External to the context of the atone-
ment, the preposition that precedes the nouns life or soul also has the
meaning of instead of or on behalf of. This is evident, for instance, in
Genesis 29:18, where Jacob says that he has worked seven years for
Rachel. Therefore, the notion that blood yields atonement for the
soul is at least a possibility. However, when Leviticus 17:11 states that
blood is the life or soul of the flesh, it would probably be preferable
to interpret Leviticus 17:11 to mean that the shedding of blood yields
atonement because of the life inherent in it.
Whatever the case may be, it is the sacrificial blood of the animal
that serves as a substitute for the one who brings the sacrifice. The
atonement also yields purification, but such purification is only pos-
sible because blood is substituted for the guilty sinner. Regarding the
ritual of the Day of Atonement, it is noteworthy that inanimate objects
are referred to as the objects of atonement without the use of a prepo-
sition, whereas any reference to people is preceded by a preposition.
The verb to atone belongs to the very essence of the cultic leg-
islation of the Old Testament, and it reveals to us that the one who
participated in the service of the Lord felt the necessity to escape
God’s displeasure toward sin. When, for example, we consider this
in light of Numbers 16:46– 47, it will be evident that the quench-
ing of God’s wrath is one of the components of the concept of the
atonement. By dying vicariously, the sacrificial animal endured the
wrath of God toward sin. It was understood that the goat sent into
the wilderness on the Day of Atonement would be sent to a deserted
location; that is, to a place divorced from God’s favor and where it
would be subjected to God’s wrath.
The Atonement in the Synoptic Gospels

Approximately 20 percent of the Gospel of Mark is devoted to the
gospel of Christ’s passion. If, however, we include the journey to
Jerusalem, which was in anticipation of His approaching suffering,

we arrive at approximately 56 percent. It is obvious that the cross is
central in the Gospel of Mark, as well as in the other Gospels. What
is the reason for this? The background of Christ’s death on the cross
is man’s bondage to sin. Man can contribute nothing to the redemp-
tion of his soul. Jesus, as the Son of Man, surrendered Himself
vicariously to death. His suffering and dying must be viewed within
the context of the eschatological and messianic tribulation that will
precede the full deployment of the coming of God’s kingdom, but
His suffering is, however, unique. His substitution is exclusive. He
has emptied the cup of God’s wrath. No one was capable of doing
that. By way of the ransom that Christ paid, many will be delivered
from the wrath of God and all its consequences.
The tribulation referred to in Mark 13, as well as in Matthew 24
and 25, must first of all be viewed in connection to the eve of the
Passover. The “abomination of desolation” refers to the dying on the
cross of the Son of God. The coming of the Son of God that follows
refers in the first place to His ascension. This does not mean that the
description of the great tribulation will not be fulfilled beyond that;
we must think here also of the fall of Jerusalem and ultimately the
perishing of the world itself.
The death of Christ must be viewed as the inauguration of the
new exodus. From that moment forward, the ransomed of Zion will
return. Just as the Passover meal preceded the first exodus, such is
also the case with the second exodus. As the messianic Shepherd,
Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. There He set a process in motion
that would lead to the cross. As the Passover Lamb and the messianic
Shepherd, Christ’s death on the cross resulted in deliverance from
the wrath of God and yielded forgiveness.
Christ died for others. The gospels give us a portrait of who
some of these others are: Levi, who was called away from the receipt
of custom; Bartimaeus, who cried out to Jesus as the Son of David,
asking Him to have mercy upon him; Mary Magdalene, who was
delivered from seven devils; and the thief on the cross.
The Atonement in the Gospel of John

By using the word lamb in the well-known passage from the Gospel
of John (“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world” [John 1:29]), a reference was made to the lamb that was sacri-
ficed daily in the temple as well as to the paschal lamb. As atonement

for guilt was made by the sacrificial lamb in the temple, such is true
in the fullest sense of the word for Christ as the Lamb of God. As
the Passover Lamb, He submitted Himself to the wrath of God that
should have been poured out upon His people. John 1:29 is also an
indirect reference to Isaiah 53, where we read of the Servant of the
Lord being led as a lamb to the slaughter. A connection is already
established between the work of this Servant on the one hand, and
the function of the lamb as a daily sacrifice and as the Passover lamb
on the other hand.
In connection with this, it is noteworthy that, in the Hebrew
text of the Old Testament, a relationship is established between the
glory of the LORD Himself in Isaiah 6 and that of His Servant in Isa-
iah 52:12. In both Scripture passages, we encounter the words exalted
and extolled. Isaiah 6 establishes a relationship between the high and
exalted throne of the LORD and His ‫כּבֹד‬ ָ , that is, His glory. The
Septuagint generally translates the word ‫כּבֹד‬ ָ with doxa. This is also
true for the word ‫דר‬ ָ‫ה‬ָ , which is used in Isaiah 53:2 to refer to the
Servant of the LORD. The relationship between Isaiah 6 and 53 is
defined even more closely than in the Hebrew text: it is the glory of
the LORD Himself that is unveiled in the conduct of His Servant.
Our eyes need to be opened spiritually in order to understand the
glory and the conduct of the LORD’s Servant; such an understanding
is of great importance in order to grasp the message of John’s gospel.
When John begins his Gospel by saying, “We beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”
(John 1:14), he wishes to indicate that he had grasped the glory of the
crucified Christ.
The instruction John gives us in his Gospel is that Jesus, the
exact fulfillment of the sacrificial and Passover lamb, died as the
Good Shepherd for His sheep (cf. John 10). He became their Substi-
tute because, according to John 13:1, He loved them to the end. The
Greek expression eij teloj in this text encompasses both ideas.
The complete love of Christ for His own was demonstrated in His
death on the cross. Therefore, we can speak of Christ’s death as Him
being glorified — a death that may, however, never be divorced from
the exaltation that followed. A true theology of glory will be a the-
ology of the cross. Using words given to John in his Revelation, a
Christian glories in Christ as “a Lamb as it had been slain” (Rev. 5:7).
The Atonement in the Letters of Paul

When considering the significance of Christ’s death on the cross and
the atonement connected with it, the important question that needs to
be answered is whether atonement consists merely in the blotting out
of sin or also in the quenching of God’s wrath. C. H. Dodd emphati-
cally defended the first proposition as being true. However, the only
way he could sustain this argument was by insisting that God’s wrath
was not related to His Person. In the letters of Paul, however, the
wrath of God is a reality that is most intimately connected with God
Himself. Being reconciled with God is not less, but rather more than
the blotting out of sin. Divorced from the wrath of God toward sin,
Christ’s death on the cross becomes incomprehensible. By way of His
death on the cross, Christ delivered from the wrath to come those
who believe in Him. The fact that the death of Christ was necessary
in connection with God’s wrath toward sin does not diminish the
demonstration of the Father’s love in giving His Son.
What sort of atonement does Paul have in mind when he writes
in Romans 3:25 that God has set forth Christ “to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood”? Does this refer to the means whereby
the atonement is secured or to the mercy seat? The first option ought
to be our choice here, even though the second is a possibility. It is,
however, beyond doubt that Israel’s worship in the Old Testament
constitutes the backdrop for Paul speaking of the atonement by way
of Christ’s blood. In order to define the meaning of Christ’s death on
the cross, an occasional reference is made to the atoning significance
of the death of martyrs—such as, for example, in the fourth of the
apocryphal books, the Book of the Maccabees. The atoning value
being ascribed to the death of a martyr can, however, only be under-
stood in light of the cultic system. In the New Testament, there is
a close relationship between the suffering of Christ and the suffer-
ing of those who belong to Him; however, only the suffering and
death of Christ makes atonement for sin. Herein lies the difference
between the suffering of Christ and that of His people.
Paul uses two Greek words for atonement for which there is only
one equivalent in English. It refers to the quenching of God’s wrath
as well as the elimination of the estrangement between God and
man. The latter yields acquittal and forgiveness of sins as well as the
renewal of life.
Conclusion
The reality of the atonement is related to the seriousness of sin. The
Bible speaks of the atonement for sin in various ways. Christ brought
the sacrifice of His very own life; He redeemed His own by taking
their place in God’s tribunal. The vocabulary and metaphors related
to this are derived from the ceremonial law, the slave trade, and the
courtroom. When using the word metaphor, we need to clarify its
meaning, for one might get the impression that we are not dealing
with an objective reality when discussing the atonement. This is not
the case. Guilt and sin are two very real and objective matters which
truly separate us from God and make us objects of His wrath. Being
reconciled with God is also a reality whereby man becomes an object
of God’s favor rather than of His wrath. If Christ, by His suffering
and death, did not truly bring about reconciliation, there would be no
salvation. The medieval theologian Anselm of Canterbury said that
whoever is blind to this has not yet been sufficiently convinced of the
weightiness of sin. Only against the background of the weightiness
of sin will we understand the wonder of the atonement and of grace.
Bibliography
Grayston, Kenneth. Atonement and Martyrdom in Early Christian Thought in
its Jewish Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Bolt, Peter G. The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
Hill, Charles E., and Frank A. James III, eds., The Glory of the Atonement
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004).
Pitre, Brant. Jesus, the Tribulation and the End Exile, WUNT 204, (Tübin-
gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).
Gane, Roy E. Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement and
Theodicy (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005).
Kiuchi, Nobuyoshi. Leviticus, AOCT (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity
Press, 2007).
Jeffery, Steve, Mike Overy, and Andrew Sach. Pierced for Our Transgres-
sions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Leicester: InterVarsity
Press, 2007).
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 24–40
Trust in the Incarnate Word

joel r. beeke
q
Teaching is hard work. When Jesus and His disciples got into a boat
after a full day of teaching, the disciples were not surprised that Jesus
fell asleep. The gently rocking waves of the Sea of Galilee might have
lulled them to sleep, too. But on their way across the big lake, a ter-
rible storm arose.
The southern end of the Sea of Galilee is a deep valley lined by
cliffs. Wind can suddenly come roaring into that valley and whip
the sea into a storm.1 Andrew, Peter, James, and John had seen
many storms in their lifetime of fishing, but this one overwhelmed
them. The wind howled and the waves crashed. The boat began
taking on water. It rode lower in the water so that each wave threat-
ened to fill it. Fear gripped the men. Their boat was sinking; would
they all die?
They turned to Jesus, who was still sleeping, and shouted over
the roaring sea, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” Jesus stood
up and rebuked the wind and the sea. In an instant, wind and sea
were stilled. But the men were still terrified. “What manner of man
is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” they asked (Mark
4:35–41; cf. Pss. 65:7; 89:9).
Why was Jesus asleep in the midst of the storm? Why didn’t the
storm awaken Him? The obvious answer is, His humanity. He was
tired. He was worn out after a long day’s work and needed rest to
renew His strength.
1. The Reformation Study Bible, ed. R. C. Sproul (Orlando: Ligonier, 2005), 1422.
Thanks to Paul Smalley for his assistance on this article, which is slightly enlarged
from an address I gave for a regional conference of the Philadelphia Conference of
Reformed Theology (PCRT) in Quakertown, Pennsylvania on November 12, 2010.
Trust in the Incarnate Word 25
How did Jesus calm the storm? Again, the answer is obvious: His
deity. Jesus had such power over creation that His words instantly
changed the weather. He did not use technology, magic charms, or
rituals. Jesus didn’t even pray. He just said to the storm, “Be silent!”
Christ has the power of God, and His disciples recognized it when
they said, “Even the wind and the sea obey Him.”
But the mystery here is whether Jesus was tired or all-powerful.
Was He drained of energy or full of energy? Was Christ limited so
He needed restoration, or was He infinite in ruling over creation by
His mere word? The answer, according to Scripture, is both. Jesus
is both limited in His humanity and infinite in His deity as Lord
over creation.
Jesus Christ the God-Man

John 1:14 says, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,)
full of grace and truth.” As is typical of him, John uses simple words
to express a very deep truth. Incarnation is a Latin word that means
“becoming flesh.” In the Incarnation, God became human flesh. Con-
trary to the theologian Rudolf Bultmann, this is not “the language of
mythology”; instead, as Robert Reymond says, this testimony of John
is the language of eye-witnesses reporting what they know to be true.
They say, “We beheld his glory” (cf. also 1 John 1:1–3).2
The reality of God made flesh in Jesus was experienced by the
apostles and portrayed in the gospels. This reality is what compelled
the church to affirm Jesus as both God and man. The Bible com-
pelled the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) to state that Christ is one
Person with two distinct natures, human and divine. As the Westmin-
ster Confession (VIII.2) says, “Two whole, perfect, and distinct natures,
the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in
one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which
person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator
between God and man” (cf. Larger Cat., Q. 54).
In the process of grafting, a person cuts a living twig off a tree.
He then cuts into another tree, sometimes of another species, and
presses the twig into the tree. The two are sealed together with wax
2. Robert L. Reymond, John, Beloved Disciple: A Survey of His Theology (Ross-

shire, U.K.: Christian Focus, 2001), 180– 82.
or wrapping. Over time, the twig and the tree grow together into
one unity, one living organism. Both the twig and the tree retain
their unique genetic codes and their own distinct natures. But now
the twig draws its life and bears its fruit from the roots of the tree.3
In a similar but more profound way, God grafted human nature
into His divine Son. The result was not a hybrid demigod like Hercu-
les or some kind of Superman. Rather, both the divine nature and the
human nature retained their individual, essential properties. But now
man was joined to God in one living Person, Jesus Christ. In Him,
believers draw life from the divine root and bear fruit for God’s glory.
In botanical grafting, two plants of the same genus or of like nature
are combined. The miracle of the Incarnation is that God grafted
the finite into the infinite. Thus, the Infinite One became bone of
our bone, flesh of our flesh. The Prince of glory became the Babe
in a manger. The Son of God became the Son of Man. The Creator
came out of the creature. He who made the world and was above the
world came into the world. The Almighty One became a little Child.
The immortal Son was clothed in rags of mortality. The Eternal One
became a Child of time. God, who made man after His image, was
Himself made in man’s image. He whose dwelling is in the heavens
was let down into the hell of this earth. He who thunders in the heav-
ens cried in the manger. The invisible God was made visible. God
took our flesh and dwelt in it with His divine fullness so that our
flesh could become more glorious than the angels — and through that
flesh God opened up His gospel treasures by being Savior, Redeemer,
Kinsman, Elder Brother, and Shepherd of His own. In short, the Son
of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men might become
the sons of God. How unsearchable are His ways!
The sheer magnitude of the Incarnation is so incomprehensible;
we could borrow the language of the Apostle Paul that we see it only
through a glass darkly. Describing the Incarnation in human lan-
guage is like painting a mountain on a grain of sand. We stand before
this abyss of glory and know we can never reach the bottom. There-
fore we must keep our steps on the path of God’s revelation and
follow the Bible closely as we explore the mystery of this Incarnation.
3. Ray R. Rothenbergarand and Christopher J. Starbuck, “Grafting,” http://ex-

tension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6971, accessed 9-4-10.
We also must remember that John wrote his Gospel not merely
for our understanding but for us to trust in Christ (John 20:31). The
purpose of John 1 is that sinners will receive Christ, which means to
believe in His name (John 1:7, 11–12) and to behold His glory (John
1:14; 2:11). We will examine John 1:14 for both those who are unbe-
lievers needing to trust in Jesus for the first time, and those who are
believers who need to grow in faith in their Savior.
John 1:14 says, “And the Word was made flesh.” Let us medi-
tate on this great statement of the Incarnate Word. We will consider,
first, “the Word,” and second, “flesh.” Throughout, we will keep in
mind John’s focus on our need to trust the Word made flesh for our
salvation.
Jesus Christ, the Word of God

“The Word was made flesh,” John tells us. The Father did not become
flesh, nor did the Holy Spirit become flesh. Also, the divine nature
did not become flesh. God’s essence did not change in the Word, as
if He lost His divine attributes; rather, the eternal and only-begotten
Son of God became flesh. The Holy Spirit did not choose to say,
“The Son was made flesh,” although that is true. The Spirit chose to
say, “The Word was made flesh.”
The Spirit uses “the Word” in this text to express the greatest
thought of the Father’s heart. The Word is the great Revealer of God.
God calls us to trust Christ as the Word of God, and we trust Him
by listening to Him. Many of us are not good listeners. When some-
one else is speaking, our minds often race ahead to what we want to
say in response. To our shame we then realize we have missed what
the other person was saying.
So, listen to the Father’s Word. Give Jesus Christ your full atten-
tion. Acknowledge His authority above all others. Cultivate quietness
before Him. When the living Word speaks through the written Word,
let other voices be silent. Even if your traditions, culture, feelings,
and opinions contradict the Holy Scriptures, listen to Christ. Do not
assume that you already know what it says. Let God speak in Christ.
He is God’s Word.
The truth that Christ is God’s Word leads us back to John 1:1,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.” Here are three teachings about the Word
who became flesh that illuminate what it means to trust in Christ.

Remember them with the keywords eternal, beloved, and divine.
1. He is the Eternal Word. “In the beginning was the Word,” says John
1:1. This Word already existed when “in the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). So the Word was not created.4
There was never a time when the Word was not. He is the eternal
Word the Father speaks from everlasting to everlasting. Christ did
not begin in Mary’s womb but existed as the Word prior to creation.
He is not just two thousand years old, for, in John 8:58, He says to
His disciples, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He did not say, “I was,”
though claiming to exist two thousand years before Abraham would
have been incredible enough. But Jesus says, “I am,” meaning He
is the One who said to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I am that I am....
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me
unto you.” Jesus is the eternal Creator.
We must trust in Jesus by being in awe of Him. Psalm 33:6, 8–9
says, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the
host of them by the breath of his mouth.... Let all the earth fear the
Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For
he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” Faith
in Jesus requires fearing God — trembling in reverence that we are
in the presence of the Word of God by whom the mighty mountains
were made. Christ was ancient when the galaxies were born. Yet He
is ever fresh and lively and new, for He is “I am,” not just “I was.” The
stars in the night sky make you feel small and insignificant. Likewise,
the ancient mountains remind you that you were born only yesterday
and will be gone tomorrow. Looking at Jesus should fill you with
trembling, awe, and reverence. He is the eternal Word.
2. He is the Beloved Word. John 1:1 says, “The Word was with God.”
Christ enjoyed personal communion with God the Father and the
Holy Spirit from the beginning. John 1:18 says Christ “is in the
4. Note the contrast between the imperfect of the verb “to be” (John 1:1) and
the aorist of the verb “to become” (John 1:3, 10, 14). The latter term is clearly as-
sociated with creation, including the world and humanity. The former indicates an
already continuing existence apart from the creation of the world and mankind.
When the world began, He already was. “In short, the Word’s pre-existent being is
antecedently set off over against the becoming of all created things” (Reymond, 35).
bosom of the Father,” in the place closest to His heart.5 The Father
sent us His eternal companion and friend. God gave us the Word
whom He delights to hear and to whom He loves to speak.
We see this also in John 1:14 and 18, where Christ is called the
Father’s “only-begotten” which in Greek (μονογενής) refers to a
son or daughter with a unique relationship to his or her father, like
that of an only child.6 Such a child is precious and beloved, as Isaac
was to Abraham. John says in verses 12–13 that every lost sinner who
trusts in Jesus becomes a child of God. But now he says that Jesus,
the Word, is God’s “only begotten” Son. It is as if John is saying,
“God has many children who are born again through faith in Jesus.
But, dear friends, remember that Jesus is God’s Son in a unique way.
He is more precious to the Father than all the angels of heaven. He is
the One whom the Father has sent to you.”
I have been married to my wife for more than twenty years. She
is my dearest friend. As I reflect on our time together, I see how, in
God’s grace, we have grown together. Imagine how close a husband
and wife might become after being married for sixty years! How
close then are the Father and Son, who have been loving companions
from eternity! They have done everything together. Their hearts are
one. They are even one in essence.
No book in the New Testament highlights the love relationship
of the Father and Son as much as the Gospel of John. John includes
more than 120 references to the Father/Son relationship; and eight
times the book says that the Father loves His Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17;
15:9; 15:10; 17:23; 17:24; 17:26). Love, particularly the love of the
Father for the Son, is the preeminent motive for all of God’s divine
activity (John 1:18).7
So trust in the beloved Christ as the gift of God’s love. God so
loves people that He has given them the Word who was with Him
from all eternity. He has given them His Son, who is the supreme
5. Luke 16:22–23; John 13:23–25.

6. Luke 7:12; 8:42; 9:38; John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; Heb. 11:17; 1 John 4:9. Cf. LXX
Judges 11:34; Tobit 3:15; 6:10, 14; 8:17; Aquila Gen. 22:2; Prov. 4:3; Jer. 6:26; Sym-
machus Gen. 22:12; Prov. 4:3; Jer. 6:26. Especially significant in the Greek OT are
the times in Gen. 22 that Isaac is called the “only son” of Abraham. Cf. D. A. Car-
son, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 128, n2.
7. Bartel Elshout, “The Father’s Love for His Son,” Puritan Reformed Journal 2,
2 (July 2010):15–31.
eternal and infinite object of His fatherly love. John 3:16 tells us, “For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.” God loves sinners so much that He gave them the One He loved
most; He gave the best He had for the worst He could find — sinners
like you and me. Are you trusting that love and abandoning yourself
to it? Christ is the beloved Word.
3. He is the Fully Divine Word. John 1:1 goes on to tell us that the
Word who became flesh “was God.” This is not to be translated as “a
god” or “godlike,” but “God” with a capital “G,” as the grammar and
context make clear.8 Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that since the Greek
word for “the” is not present before “God,” this verse should be trans-
lated as Christ being “a god” or “godlike.”9 But this is a misleading
argument. The word God is also used without the Greek word for
“the” in John 1:6, 12, 13, and 18. Not even the Jehovah’s Witnesses
translate those verses as “a god.” So John 1:1 plainly refers to God
Almighty, not a god, even without the word “the.” Greek grammar
teaches us that the absence of the article (or “the”) only intensifies
the noun, making it a categorical assertion. Christ was and is God, as
fully divine as the Father.
Furthermore, as Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God,” John
1:1 also says, “In the beginning was the Word.” This parallel places the
Son at the center of the Father’s work as Creator, as verse 3 affirms:
“all things were made by him.” The plan was the Father’s, but the
voice of command saying, “Let there be...” is the Son’s.
Christ is therefore the full and comprehensive revelation of His
Father. Every attribute we may affirm of the Father is true of the Son.
Jesus lovingly rebuked Philip when Philip asked Him to show him
the Father by saying, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father”
(John 14:9). Isaiah 9:6 says Christ is “the mighty God” (cf. Isa.
10:20–21). Truly, as John says, we behold in Christ “the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14), for in Christ we behold
the very exegesis and exposition of the Father.
8. On the grammar of John 1:1 and Colwell’s rule, cf. Reymond, 36, esp. note 19.
9. The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures (Brooklyn: Watch-
tower Bible and Tract Society of New York, 1985), 401, 1139.
Again, this text calls us to trust Jesus and tells us what it means to
trust Him. Since the Word who became flesh is fully God, we trust
Jesus by worshiping Him as the Son of God. We trust Him in a way
that stirs us to adore Him. People can mean different things when they
say, “I trust you.” They may have historical faith, merely believing that
someone is telling them the truth as if it were a reliable news report.
They may have functional faith, or the confidence that someone will
do a job for them, such as put siding on their house. They may have
relational faith, trusting that someone will be a faithful friend or faith-
ful spouse. Such faith is appropriate with human beings. But none of
these kinds of faith is sufficient when it comes to Christ.
The Lord calls us to trust Christ as fully God. Saving faith in
Christ is an act of worship in which we adore Him with all that we
are, and abandon ourselves totally to Him as our all in all. Thomas
struggled to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. But when he
saw Christ and His wounds, faith broke through doubt and made him
cry out, “My Lord and my God” ( John 20:28). We too must fall down
and worship Christ as our Lord and our God. That is saving faith.10
We have begun our discussion on “the Word became flesh,” by
considering that Jesus is the Word of God. On the basis of the Bible,
we confess with the Westminster Confession (VIII.2) that Jesus is “the
Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal
God, of one substance, and equal with the Father.”
We must give our full attention to this Word. We must sit at His
feet in reverent awe, rejoicing that the loving Father has sent us His
most beloved Son. We must bow down and worship our great God
and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, the Word Become Man

“The Word was made flesh,” John tells us, meaning that He entered
completely into the human condition (John 17:2).11 The Word took
on human nature, taking the nature of a servant (Phil. 2:7). The Son
of God embraced all that it means to be human. Paul says in Colos-
10. Both before and after Thomas’s worship of Christ the context speaks of
believing in Christ (John 20:25, 27, 29, 31), showing that his outburst of worship
expressed saving faith.
11. Christ’s humanity is not fallen humanity, but only finite humanity —
humanity as God created it at the beginning, “without sin.” Sin detracts from our
humanity, making us behave as brute beasts.
sians 2:9, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
Without ceasing to be God, Christ became flesh.
The Incarnation is an act of beautiful and astonishing humility.
When a person who is great and powerful treats you with kindness
and respect, as if you were on the same level with him, you are deeply
touched by his humility. Christ’s Incarnation displays infinitely more
humility than the President of the United States might by taking
the place of a lowly private in the Army. God displayed His greatest
glory with the greatest act of humility. The Incarnation overthrows
all glory-seeking and calls us to be servants (Phil. 2:1–13).
From the outset, John’s statement about the Word becoming flesh
was scandalous. The Greeks resonated with the term Word. In the cul-
ture of their day, the Word (or Logos) was the principle that ruled the
world and brought order out of chaos.12 The Word was somewhat like
logic and the laws of nature viewed as a divine spirit. But the Greeks
would have been shocked to hear that the Word became “flesh,” for
they sharply divided the spiritual world of ideas from the physical
world of things. The two could not mix, like fire and water. In the
Greek order, bodies imprisoned spirits like a bird trapped in a cage.
So to say that the divine Word became flesh was offensive to them.13
Before judging the Greeks, we should realize that our culture
also thinks the world is split into two parts, the subjective and the
objective. On the one hand, we recognize the personal and private
realm of spirit, feelings, values, faith, and religion. On the other hand,
we affirm the public realm of science, facts, measurable results, and
visible things. The debate of evolution versus creation often reveals
that people assume that science and religion cannot mix. They think
spirituality is a matter of personal feelings, not objective truth. As a
result, many people live schizophrenic lives with faith in one com-
partment and daily life and work in another.14
12. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995),
102–103.
13. “If the Evangelist had said only that the eternal Word assumed manhood or
adopted the form of a body, the reader steeped in the popular dualism of the hellen
istic world might have missed the point. But John is unambiguous, almost shocking
in the expressions he uses” (Carson, John, 126). Then, too, it was no less offensive to
Jews, to assert that the infinite God could take on finite flesh.
14. Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2004).
But God does not have a divided mind. God is an infinite Spirit.
He created and rules the finite world, which consists of spirits and
physical matter in close relationship with each other. In the Incar-
nation, the eternal Spirit joined Himself with matter. The Word
became flesh. Flesh in the Bible implies three truths, which can be
summarized in the keywords: body, soul, and death. Let’s look at each
of them.
1. Christ Took on a Human Body. Jesus spoke of His body as “flesh,”

as in flesh and blood (John 6:51–56). When the Word became flesh,
He became physically human with a body. Hebrews 2:14 says, “For-
asmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also
himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might
destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”
One of the first heresies the Christian church faced was Doce-
ticism, which denied Christ’s true physical humanity (1 John 4:3;
2 John 7). This heresy said the body of Christ was only an appearance,
a fantasy. It was not historical, touchable, visible, woundable flesh
and blood. Contrary to this heresy, the Incarnation of Christ brings
together God and the flesh and blood of our humanity.
The Incarnation also challenges our cultural assumptions. The
gospel is not concerned simply with ideas, but with facts and objects.
It enters the world of physics and biology and history. God’s Son
became as physical as you. He took on our feet, our legs, our chest,
our arms, our mouth, our hair, our eyes, our ears. His hands were
roughened by the wood of the carpenter’s shop; His back was torn
by the lash of the scourge. He was truly human. When He died,
He was truly dead. His pulse stopped and His brain activity ceased.
When He rose from the dead, His physical body arose to new life.
He spoke. People touched Him. He ate fish. Jesus was fully human.
Jesus came to “regenerate” all of creation, including our bodies.
Like a diver descending into the depths of a sea to bring up lost trea-
sure, Christ came to earth in a body so that He could raise our bodies
into glory. His resurrection is the beginning of a new creation that
rises like a phoenix from the ashes of the old fallen order. Philippians
3:21 says, “For our conversation [or citizenship] is in heaven; from
whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious
body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all

things unto himself.”
So trust in Christ as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).
Faith in Christ does not just look forward to an afterlife. Paul is insis-
tent in 1 Corinthians 15 that faith in Christ trusts in and looks for
the resurrection of the body. So believers in Christ should not fear
death. They should not fear cancer or a car wreck. The Son of God
has taken your flesh into glory, and He will glorify your flesh with
His one day. Violence, disease, accident, or death can do nothing to
you that Jesus will not restore and make whole again.
As a believer, you have the best of both worlds. You have the best
of this world because you are united to Christ here and now. You have
the best of the world to come because you will be united to Christ
in glory forever with a body that will be radically and comprehen-
sively free of all sin. With that body you will praise Immanuel forever!
Truly, the best is yet to be!
2. Christ Took a Human Soul. Flesh refers to the entire person, includ-
ing the human soul or spirit. The Bible says in Hebrews 2:16 –18,
“For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on
him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him
to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconcili-
ation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to succor [or help] them that are tempted.”
He became like us “in all things” except sin, even like us in our suf-
ferings and temptations of the soul.
Ancient heresy also refuted Christ’s becoming like us in all things.
Apollinarianism denied Christ’s human mind and heart. It said the
Word took over a human body as if an alien force were operating an
android of flesh. But Jesus had real human thoughts, experiences,
and feelings. He was human from the inside out.
In the Bible, the word flesh can refer to the human way of think-
ing (John 8:15). Scripture tells us that Jesus grew intellectually from
a child to an adult (Luke 2:40, 52). It tells us that Jesus in His human
mind did not know the day of His Second Coming (Mark 13:32).
That should not shake our confidence in Christ’s teachings, for the
Holy Spirit filled Christ’s human nature with truth that was with-
out error. But Jesus had a human mind. If you cannot believe that
Christ had some mental limitation in His human nature, how can
you accept that Christ died? God’s nature is immortal. Jesus was
truly God, but He was also truly man.
In Scripture, the word flesh can also refer to human feelings and
desires (John 1:13). Jesus wept, displaying sincere grief, says John
11:35. Jesus also rejoiced (Luke 10:21). As a godly man, Jesus ordinarily
experienced the peace of His Father’s presence and love (John 8:29).
Yet, as Surety of His people, Jesus went further into the black hole
of sorrow and despair than any other human being. At Gethsemane,
He was amazed, weighed down with sorrow, and afraid. These emo-
tions did not lightly touch Him; He experienced them in horrendous
depth. He was terrified of the impending encounter with the wrath of
God. On the cross, He went deeper into darkness than any of us have
ever known. He was no stoic. He had strong human feelings.
Jesus “dwelt among us” (John 1:14); He came to save sinners
(1 Tim. 1:15). He had to experience that “the wages of sin is death”
(Rom. 6:23) to be Savior for His own. He came to deal with cosmic
sin. The only way our sin could be dealt with was by agony and
bloody sweat, by His dying and burial in the grave, by His entering
the lake of fire for us, and by His going into the bottomless pit for us
to suffer the wrath of a sin-hating God. The unthinkable happened
as the God who could not bear the sight of sin looked at Calvary.
There the Son of God hung in the naked flame of God’s holiness as
He bore our sin (Isa. 53).
Have you ever considered what the agony of Golgotha was all
about? What do you see when you look at the cross? You see the
absence of all that is pleasant and beautiful and refreshing, and the
presence of everything that is ugly and atrocious and revolting.
Everything about the place is odious. There is no order or harmony
or decency at Calvary. It is a place of skulls and bones and putrid
flesh. It is a place of crosses stained with blood and victims writhing
in pain, compounded by vile insults from people gathered around to
watch. Only one person speaks on Jesus’ behalf; he is a fellow human
being who is being crucified with Him. He is a thief about to die.
The pure-minded women are silent, the disciples are hiding for fear.
His friends have forsaken Him, and so has God the Father who has
always loved Him. The Father has now turned away from His Son.
Sin is fearful in the face of Sinai’s thunderous lightning, but sin
is most bitter in the torn flesh of Christ’s suffering. Have you real-
ized by faith that Christ has taken your sin upon Himself? That the
bridegroom has taken all the liabilities of His bride to Himself and
is paying the wages of sin for her? He took the sinner’s place, being
separated from all that is good and lovely, even the very light of God’s
countenance.
Do you truly trust in God’s good news as an unworthy sinner? If
you remain as you are in your present condition, despite the gospel,
Christ’s death will do nothing for you. As long as you can live without
Jesus Christ as your first love, your one hope, and your only Savior,
you do not truly know that you are a sinner. Oh, that you would be
pricked in your heart today to know that you are a lost sinner before
a holy God! Then this glorious gospel of our blessed God would be
good news to you today. Then you will know the wonder that sinners
should be the object of God’s eternal love.
Then you will know the wonder of unconditional election.
Without election, our salvation would be hopeless. God knew from
all eternity that not a single sinner would seek after Him. If God had
not taken the initiative to save sinners, the entire human race would
have perished. No human merit of man entered into God’s decision
of sovereign election. Unconditional election is the foundation for an
unconditional gospel that declares to you that salvation is available
without money and without price and without any human merit or
qualifications.
So trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. No matter what you feel
or experience, Jesus understands. Jesus is a Person with fully human
affections. He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15).
Pour out your heart to Him as your best friend (Ps. 62:8). He is the
most compassionate friend a sinner can have.
A man who wanted to improve his relationship with his wife
read in 1 Peter 3:7, “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them accord-
ing to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife.” He wondered what
it meant to live with his wife “according to knowledge.” This man
knew nothing about horses, but his wife loved them, and so the cou-
ple owned some horses. The husband now decided to learn about
horses. He started helping his wife in the barn. She laughed at him
because he had no idea of what he was doing. But he kept helping
because he loved his wife. So he entered her world and the couple
drew closer together in understanding.
The Lord of glory also entered our world. Christ pursues emo-
tional intimacy with us more than any person near to us. Trust Jesus,
then. Walk with Him daily. He has lowered Himself to meet you
where you are. That should fill you with gratitude and joy in His
love. He took a soul so that He could be our soul-mate.
3. Christ Took on Human Death. In the Bible, flesh implies mortality, or

subjection to the power of death.15 Jesus took on every aspect of our
humanity except sin (Heb. 4:15; cf. Rom. 8:3). His humanity there-
fore involved mortality. God became man in mortal misery, which
was the consequence of the sin of the first Adam.
The Son of God became flesh to unite God and man in His
Person, but also to unite God and sinners in His death. He says in
John 6:51, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if
any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I
will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” The
Word became flesh to give His flesh for the world so that He would
give life to the world.
The broken covenant between God and man could not be
restored until the demands of God’s justice were satisfied. The divine
Lawgiver, Jesus, was born under the law to redeem us from the curse
of the law (Gal. 4:4 –6). The incarnate Word willingly became subject
to the curse of the written Word (Gal. 3:13–14). He felt the pangs of
death (Ps. 116:3) in all their bitterness on the cross, even to the point
of being forsaken by God. Through all of His suffering, He was fully
conscious, sensitized with the purity of His own mortal humanity.
What a mystery! But because of Jesus’ suffering and accursed death,
we may now become the recipients of God’s blessing.
A man and his wife flew thousands of miles over land and sea to
get to Russia. They spent tens of thousands of dollars and filled out
complicated legal paperwork through a translator. They did all that to
adopt a child. They wanted to take an orphan into their home so that
they could love the child forever. That is what Christ did for us. He
went the distance. He paid the price. Without the cost of His death,
we would be eternal orphans cut off from God’s family. But He sat-
isfied all the demands of the law so that our sins might be forgiven
and we might be welcomed into the Father’s home.
15. Ps. 73:26, 78:39; Isa. 31:3, 40:6; 1 Cor. 15:50.

No wonder John writes, “Behold, what manner of love the

Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of
God” (1 John 3:1a). “Behold!” is John’s way of saying, “Look at this!”
The apostle is overwhelmed with the wonder of God’s adoption of
believers. He asks us to gaze with him at this wonder. Have you, by
faith, comprehended the magnificent doctrine of adoption?
John’s sense of astonishment is more evident in the original
Greek, which says, “Behold, from what country or realm does such
love as this come?” Matthew 8:27 uses similar words to describe how
astonished the disciples were when Jesus calmed the winds and the
sea, literally saying, “From what realm does this man come that even
the winds and sea obey Him?”
God’s adoption of believers is unparalleled. The world does not
understand such love, for it is beyond the realm of human experience.
John is astonished because God showed such amazing love while
we were still rebelling against Him and His kingdom. God calls us
sons of God; He brings us into His family, giving us the name, privi-
leges, and blessings of His own children. He invites us to know Him
as Father, to dwell under His protection and care, and to come to
Him with all our needs. John is overwhelmed at the thought of being
a full member of God’s family.
Do you stand in awe of the wonderful love of the Father who
gave His own Son for your salvation? I hope you are amazed! You
cannot trust the Incarnate Word unless you trust the crucified Lord.
He was born to die. It was not enough to bridge the gap between the
infinite and the finite. Christ bridged the gap between the Righteous
and the unrighteous. Therefore, trust in Christ as the One who
became flesh to die for our sins. Trust in the infinite value of His
death, for the Person who died was none other than God.
The Synod of Dort (II.3– 4) declared, “This death of God’s Son
is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it
is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the
sins of the whole world.... This death is of such great value and worth
for the reason that the person who suffered it is, in order for Christ to
be our Savior, not only a true and perfectly holy human, but also the
only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence
with the Father and the Holy Spirit.” What more could you ask for as
an atonement for your sins? Guilty sinners need no other mediator.
Put your trust in the Word who became dying flesh for the sake of
dying sinners that they might live in Him.
The Word of God became flesh. On the basis of God’s revela-
tion, we confess with the Westminster Confession (VIII.2), “The Son
of God...did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him
man’s nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmi-
ties thereof; yet without sin.” The Son of God took upon Himself
body, soul, and even death. This invites us to receive Christ and to
trust in Him, for He is the atonement of sins. He is the Friend of sin-
ners. He is the Resurrection and the Life of fallen, frail, dying men.
Rest your heart on Him!
God Offers You the God-Man

John concludes in John 1:14 by telling us that the Word made flesh is
“full of grace and truth.” He who is “the truth” delights to give Him-
self away to sinners in grace — to sinners who have merited only death
and hell. What a wonder that He offers Himself graciously to us!
You remember the story of John 4. Jesus left Judea. On the way
to Galilee, He and His disciples passed through Samaria. While the
disciples went into a village to buy food, Jesus sat down beside a
well. It was about noon, and the hot sun was beating down. When
a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, Jesus asked
her for a drink.
At first she was shocked that He would talk to her; Jews and
Samaritans hated each other. But Jesus then said something that
intrigued her. He offered her living water that would become a
spring or fountain welling up within her soul to forever satisfy her
thirst. She asked Him for this living water. Jesus then exposed her
sins. He told her she had had five husbands and was now living with
a man who was not her husband. Then He told her that He was the
Christ. She was so amazed that she ran off to tell her friends about
the Savior (John 4:1– 42): “Come, see a man, which told me all things
that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (v. 29).
Jesus likewise comes to you, humbly and lowly in heart, in our
very nature. He understands what it means to be weary, hot, thirsty,
and in need of a helping hand. He knows what it is like to be misun-
derstood and criticized and opposed by people. He too has suffered
the miseries of our Fall. Indeed, He suffered more than you can
understand.
He also comes to you as God. He knows you completely. He

knows all about your sins, whether public or private. Yet He offers
you full pardon, the peace of God, and access to the Fountain of liv-
ing waters.
“The Word became flesh.” As a man, Jesus, like us, was an empty
cup that needed to be filled by God. As God, Jesus is the river of liv-
ing water (Ps. 46:4) that can satisfy our souls forever. God took the
cup of Christ’s humanity, filled it with Himself, and now offers this
cup to you. God offers Himself to you in Jesus. By the Spirit’s grace,
receive this cup and drink of God. Trust in Jesus, the Incarnate Word,
who in His passive and active obedience fully pays for sin and obeys
the law, so that God can be fully just in justifying the ungodly who
believe in Jesus. Receive His precious gifts of pardon and eternal life.
Look to Him to support you and save you in the midst of the storms
of life. Submit to His divine authority as He exposes the secrets of
your heart, and calls you to repentance. Then vow, by God’s grace, to
live forever in, by, and for this Incarnate Word.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 41–55
The Unique Relationship between the Father

and the Son in the Gospel of John
bartel elshout
q
In the last issue of PRJ, we printed an article by Bartel Elshout, “The Father’s
Love for His Son.” This article provides the scriptural support for that article
as drawn from the Gospel of John. The passages regarding this special relation-
ship between the Father and the Son are listed in the order in which they occur
in the Gospel of John.
Headings under which the Passages are Organized

1. The Son is the Word (Logos) of the Father
2. The Son is equal to the Father
3. The Son engages in face‑to‑face communion with the Father
4. The Son’s personality is distinct from the Father’s personality
5. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father
6. The Son is the revelation of the Father
7. The Son declares who His Father is (He is the exegesis of the Father)
8. The Son is the Father’s gift to man
9. It is the Father’s will to give eternal life to those who believe on His Son
10. The Son has been sent by the Father
11. The Father loves the Son
12. The Father has committed all things into the hands of His Son
13. The Father’s wrath burns against those who reject His Son
14. It is the Son’s delight to do His Father’s will
15. The Son does His Father’s work
16. The Father fully communicates His heart to His Son
17. Men are duty-bound to honor the Son as they honor the Father
18. To hear the Son is to believe on the Father
19. The Son has life in Himself in the same capacity as the Father has life
in Himself
20. The Father bears witness to His Son
21. The Son represents the Father

22. The Father has sealed the Son
23. It pleases the Father when men believe on His Son
24. The Father has given the elect to His Son
25. The Father draws sinners to His Son
26. Only the Son has truly seen the Father — and knows Him fully
27. The Son lives by the Father
28. The Son communicates the Word of His Father to His people — and
to the world
29. Children of the Father love the Son
30. The Son honors the Father
31. The Father honors the Son
32. The Father and the Son know each other mutually and exhaustively
33. The Father has sanctified the Son — set Him apart for a special purpose
34. The Father and the Son mutually indwell each other
35. The Father always hears the Son
36. The Father is glorified in the Son
37. The Father glorifies the Son
38. The Son is the way to the Father
39. The Father loves those who love His Son
40. The Father and the Son dwell in the believer
41. The Son loves the Father
42. The Spirit of the Father bears witness to the Son
43. The Father loves His people with the same love with which He loves
His Son
1. The Son is the Word (Logos) of the Father

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.
2. The Son is equal to the Father

John 5:18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because
he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his
Father, making himself equal with God.
Unique Relationship between Father and Son 43
John 5:21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them;
even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg-
ment unto the Son.
John 5:23 All men should honour the Son, even as they honour the
Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which
hath sent him.
John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the
Son to have life in himself.
John 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of
God, he hath seen the Father.
John 8:16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone,
but I and the Father that sent me.
John 8:19 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
John 10:15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father.
John 10:30 I and my Father are one.
John 12:45 He that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
John 14:1 Ye believe in God, believe also in me.
John 14:10 I am in the Father, and the Father in me.
John 15:23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
John 16:15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I,
that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.
John 17:10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am
glorified in them.
John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the
world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name
those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
3. The Son engages in face‑to‑face communion with the Father

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
John 8:16 I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
John 11:42 And I knew that thou hearest me always.
4. The Son’s personality is distinct from the Father’s personality

5. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begot-
ten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
John 3:18 He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 8:42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would
love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of
myself, but he sent me.
6. The Son is the revelation of the Father

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and
we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full
of grace and truth.
hath sent him.
John 8:19 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
John 12:45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
John 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also:
and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you,
and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?
John 15:23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
John 16:3 And these things will they do unto you, because they have
not known the Father, nor me.
John 16:25 I shall show you plainly of the Father.
John 17:6 I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest
me out of the world.
7. The Son declares who His Father is (He is the exegesis of

the Father)
John 8:19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus an-
swered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye
should have known my Father also.
John 8:27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
8. The Son is the Father’s gift to man

everlasting life.
John 4:10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of
God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
9. It is the Father’s will to give eternal life to those who believe

on His Son
everlasting life.
John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I
will raise him up at the last day.
10. The Son has been sent by the Father

John 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the
world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that
sent me, and to finish his work.
John 5:23 He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father
which hath sent him.
John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
John 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my
judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which hath sent me.
John 5:36 But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works
which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do,
bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.
John 5:37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne
witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen
his shape.
John 5:38 And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath
sent, him ye believe not.
John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of
God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me.
John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up
again at the last day.
John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which
seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I
will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent
me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father:
so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
John 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but
his that sent me.
John 7:28–29 Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye
both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of my-
self, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know him:
for I am from him, and he hath sent me.
John 7:33 Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you,
and then I go unto him that sent me.
John 8:16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone,
but I and the Father that sent me.
John 8:18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent
me beareth witness of me.
John 8:29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me
alone.
love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of
myself, but he sent me.
John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me.
John 10:36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent
into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
John 11:42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of
the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou
hast sent me.
John 12:44 Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not
on me, but on him that sent me.
John 12:45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which
sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I
should speak.
John 13:3 Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his
hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God.
John 13:20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever
I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
John 14:24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the
word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
John 15:21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s
sake, because they know not him that sent me.
John 16:5 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you
asketh me, Whither goest thou?
John 16:28 I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world:
again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.
John 17:3 Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
John 17:8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me;
and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out
from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.
John 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent
them into the world.
John 17:21 That the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
John 17:23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect
in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast
loved them, as thou hast loved me.
John 17:25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I
have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
John 20:21 Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my
Father hath sent me, even so send I you.
11. The Father loves the Son

John 3:35 The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into
his hand.
John 5:20 For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things
that himself doeth.
John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
life, that I might take it again.
John 15:9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue
ye in my love.
John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;

even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
John 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be
with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast
given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
John 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare
it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I
in them.
12. The Father has committed all things into the hands of His Son
John 3:35 The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into
his hand.
John 5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judg-
ment unto the Son.
John 13:3 Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his
hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God.
John 17:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
John 17:7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast
given me are of thee.
John 17:10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am
glorified in them.
13. The Father’s wrath burns against those who reject His Son
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the
name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God
abideth on him.
14. It is the Son’s delight to do His Father’s will

John 4:34 Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that
sent me, and to finish his work.
John 5:30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my
judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which hath sent me.
John 6:38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me.
John 8:29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me
alone; for I do always those things that please him.
John 8:55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should
say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him,
and keep his saying.
John 9:4 I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the
night cometh, when no man can work.
John 10:18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I
have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This
commandment have I received of my Father.
John 12:27 Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father,
save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;
even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
15. The Son does His Father’s work

John 5:17 My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth
the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son
likewise.
John 5:21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them;
even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
John 5:36 But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works
which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do,
bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.
John 10:32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you
from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the
Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
John 14:31 As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.
John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do.
John 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.
16. The Father fully communicates His heart to His Son

John 5:20 For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things
that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these,
that ye may marvel.
17. Men are duty-bound to honor the Son as they honor the Father
hath sent him.
18. To hear the Son is to believe on the Father

John 5:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come
into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.
19. The Son has life in Himself in the same capacity as the Father
has life in Himself
John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the
Son to have life in himself.
20. The Father bears witness to His Son

John 5:37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne
witness of me.
John 8:18 The Father that sent me beareth witness of me.
21. The Son represents the Father

John 5:43 I am come in my Father’s name.
John 7:16 Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but
his that sent me.
John 10:25 The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear wit-
ness of me.
John 10:32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you
from my Father.
John 12:44 Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not
on me, but on him that sent me.
John 13:20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth whomsoever
I send receiveth me; and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.
me out of the world.
22. The Father has sealed the Son

John 6:27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat
which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give
unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
23. It pleases the Father when men believe on His Son

John 6:29 This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent.
24. The Father has given the elect to His Son

John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.
John 6:39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up
again at the last day.
John 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no
man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
John 17:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and
they have kept thy word.
John 17:9 For them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.
John 17:10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine.
John 17:11 Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
25. The Father draws sinners to His Son

John 6:44–45 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath
sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written
in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man there-
fore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
John 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can
come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
26. Only the Son has truly seen the Father—and knows Him fully
John 6:46 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of
God, he hath seen the Father.
John 7:29 But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.
John 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father.

John 8:55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should
say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him,
and keep his saying.
John 17:25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I
have known thee.
27. The Son lives by the Father

John 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father.
28. The Son communicates the Word of His Father to His people
— and to the world
John 8:26 I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.
John 8:28 As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
John 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father.
John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which
sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I
should speak.
John 12:50 And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: what-
soever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
John 14:10 The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but
the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
John 14:24 The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s
which sent me.
John 15:15 All things that I have heard of my Father I have made
known unto you.
John 17:8 For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.
John 17:14 I have given them thy word.
John 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it.
29. Children of the Father love the Son

love me.
30. The Son honors the Father

John 8:49–50 I honour my Father...and I seek not mine own glory.
John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself.
John 17:1 Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee.
John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do.
31. The Father honors the Son

John 8:54 It is my Father that honoureth me.
John 11:4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto
death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby.
John 12:26 If any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
32. The Father and the Son know each other mutually and
exhaustively
John 10:30 I and my Father are one.
33. The Father has sanctified the Son— set Him apart for a
special purpose
John 10:36 Him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the
world.
34. The Father and the Son mutually indwell each other
John 10:38 The Father is in me, and I in him.
John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me?
John 14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.
John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye
in me, and I in you.
John 17:11 Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
John 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they also may be one in us.
in one.
35. The Father always hears the Son

John 11:41 And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me.
John 11:42 And I knew that thou hearest me always.
36. The Father is glorified in the Son

John 13:31 Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the
Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
John 13:32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in
himself, and shall straightway glorify him.
John 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
37. The Father glorifies the Son

John 13:32 If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in
himself, and shall straightway glorify him.
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.
John 15:16 ...that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name,
he may give it you.
John 16:32 I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
John 17:1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven,
and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also
may glorify thee.
John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self
with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
John 17:22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them.
John 17:24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be
with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast
given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
38. The Son is the way to the Father

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
39. The Father loves those who love His Son

John 14:21 He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he
will keep my words: and my Father will love him.
John 16:27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved
me, and have believed that I came out from God.
John 17:23 That the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast
40. The Father and the Son dwell in the believer

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he
will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come
unto him, and make our abode with him.
41. The Son loves the Father

John 14:31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as
the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence.
42. The Spirit of the Father bears witness to the Son

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto
you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the
Father, he shall testify of me.
43. The Father loves His people with the same love with which
He loves His Son
John 17:26 ...that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 56–77
A Puritan’s Perspective of Galatians 2:20

adam Mcclendon
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Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which
I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved
me, and gave himself for me.1
— Galatians 2:20b
Galatians 2:20 is one of “those” verses, and the Puritans are some of
“those” people. They are both difficult to put in neatly structured
categories and tend to invoke interesting reactions. Galatians 2:20
provides a concise, mysterious, and powerful picture of the Chris-
tian life, incorporating within one small verse elements related to
justification and the spiritual life that flows from one who has been
reconciled with God in redemption. The Puritans, on the other
hand, were a group of religious non-conformists seeking to remove
the remaining elements of Roman Catholicism from the church. As
a group, they loosely began in the mid-1500s and were, as a rec-
ognized group, essentially over by the late 1600s.2 As Thomas Lea
1. While most English translations place “I have been crucified with Christ” at
the beginning of verse 20, most commentators place it at the end of verse 19. Wil-
liam Bridge alludes to the implications of believers having been crucified in Christ
throughout sermons one and two, specifically in his discussion related to justification.
Nevertheless, it seems that he understood this phrase to belong to verse 19, which is
why it is not formally mentioned in relationship to the text of 2:20. As a result, “I have
been crucified with Christ” is not included in this citation. For discussion concerning
whether it should be included with 19 or 20, see Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians,
Word Biblical Commentary (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 41:92.
2. Both a concise definition concerning who the Puritans were and clear dates
concerning when they may have begun or ended are beyond the scope of this paper.
Nonetheless, a few comments seem warranted here. The beginnings and ending of
Puritanism as well as what parameters define the category itself are difficult to de-
A Puritan’s Perspective of Galatians 2:20 57
aptly admits, “Just as it had a vague beginning it gently slides into

obscurity.”3
In light of those observations, the purpose of this article will
be to summarize and critique William Bridge’s (c. 1600 –1671) per-
spective of Galatians 2:204 as presented in a series of five sermons
preached over eight weeks in 1648.5 Before beginning, a couple of
termine. They were a people passionate for purity in the Christian life who regularly
demonstrated a heart devoted to God and His Word. For the Puritan, no authority
equaled that of God’s — not the king’s and certainly not the pope’s.
Two brief complications in providing a specific definition of the group will be
mentioned. First, one has to determine whether Puritanism should be seen fore-
most as a political, theological, or spiritual movement (see Stephen J. Yuille, Puritan
Spirituality: The Fear of God in the Affective Theology of George Swinnock [Colorado
Springs: Paternoster, 2007], 8–17). Certainly components of all three can be seen.
Second, the word “Puritan” was generally not self-descriptive but was used pejora-
tively similar to modern-day terms such as “bigot,” “killjoy,” or “extremist” (John
Coffey, “Puritanism, Evangelicalism and the Evangelical Protestant Tradition,”
in The Advent of Evangelicalism, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin and Kenneth J. Steward
[Nashville: B&H Academics, 2008], 255). Puritans were in a variety of churches
and many, if not most, of their leaders were pastors. There were no “first Puritan
Churches” or “Puritan meetings”; rather, the term described a group of people from
a variety of backgrounds over an extended period of time who were functioning in
various locations and vocations from Old to New England.
Concerning their dates, because of their separatist leanings and the persecution
they endured, some might argue that the Puritans as a group ended in 1689 with the
passage of the Act of Toleration; however, at minimum, it should be acknowledged
that there were a variety of theological elements that brought cohesion to those who
would be within this group that did not immediately dissipate with the passing of
the Act of Toleration. For a basic, but incomplete, list of some of those characteris-
tics, see Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason, eds., The Devoted Life: An Invitation
to the Puritan Classics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 23–32.
For more information concerning these and other difficulties, see “Puritan-
ism: The Problem of Definition,” in Basil Hall, Humanists and Protestants 1500–1900
(Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990), 237–54; Coffey, “Puritanism, Evangelicalism and
the Evangelical Protestant Tradition,” 255–58; Kapic, The Devoted Life: An Invitation
to the Puritan Classics, 16–18; Thomas D. Lea, “The Hermeneutics of the Puritans,”
Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 39 (1996): 271–72; Barrington R. White,
ed., The English Puritan Tradition (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1980), 12.
3. Lea, “The Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” 272.
4. The Works of William Bridge (1649; reprint, Beaver Falls, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria,
1989), 1:297–398. For another extended treatment of this passage by a Puritan, see
Richard Sibbes, “The Life of Faith,” and “Salvation Applied,” in Works of Richard Sibbes,
ed. Alexander B. Grosart (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 5:357–408.
5. See “Bridge’s Background” below for more detailed information concerning
the sermons.
qualifications need to be made. Constructing someone’s exegeti-

cal thoughts from a sermon is generally challenging, and this work
proves to be no exception. Since the Puritans were so keenly focused
on application, care must be taken in this reconstruction, because
their sermons are not intended to be read as exegetical commentar-
ies. This article will seek to focus on those exegetical insights that are
granted to the reader through Bridge’s points of application.6
Background
William Bridge was born in Cambridgeshire in 1600 or 1601.7 He
graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Cambridge in 1623 and
his master’s degree in 1626, after which he became a fellow at the
college. Though he had been ordained into the Church of England,
early on Bridge began to demonstrate signs of contention with some
of the sacramental forms and theology of the instituted church,
which eventually led to his temporary suspension by Corbet in 1634
for “attacking Arminians and espousing a limited atonement.”8
Two years later, in 1636, Bridge’s nonconformity was brought
to full light when he rejected the authority of Matthew Wren, the
bishop of Norwich, and was excommunicated. Later that year, Bridge
arrived at Rotterdam and renounced his ordination. While there, he
was re-ordained by a fellow nonconformist minister and began pas-
toring a congregation.
6. One of the real treasures of Bridge’s sermons are his applications. While
these are not examined in this article, here are a few specifically related to Christ
in the believer. 1. Christ in us results in a deep satisfaction in life. 2. Christ in us
results in an inseparable communion with Christ. 3. Christ in us results in a life
that we proclaim to others. 4. Christ in us results in a forgiven and forgotten past.
5. Christ in us results in finding our identity in Christ. 6. Christ in us results in a
“more blessed and glorious Communion with Christ than the other way. For Union
is the root of Communion” (Bridge, Works, 1:84). 7. Christ in us results in the ability
to “come with boldness unto the throne of grace, and with unlimited expectations
of mercy from God...” (ibid., 1:86). 8. Christ in us results in the experience of “life,
growth, and conviction” (ibid., 1:15–20). 9. Lastly, Christ in us results in the ability
and responsibility to follow God’s law.
7. The information from this section was derived from Richard L. Greaves,
“Bridge, William (1600/01–1671),” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds. H.
C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004),
7:559– 61. See also Paul S. Seaver, The Puritan Lectureships: The Politics of Religious Dis-
sent 1560–1662 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), 97, 256, 281.
8. Greaves, “Bridge, William (1600/01–1671),” 559.
In 1641, Bridge returned to England where he preached against

Catholicism to the House of Commons. Over the next couple of
years, his voice of dissention grew louder. Through sermons and
writings relevant to the times, he consistently addressed the social
woes facing those whom he was called to minister. His works were
applicationally driven and practical, ranging from the issues of gov-
ernment to the rights of the people and even discipline in the army.
As the town pastor, he established an Independent church at Yar-
mouth in 1643. While serving there as pastor for the next eighteen
years, he would tirelessly work with other nonconformists to oppose
and reform the Church of England by meeting, writing, lecturing,
and preaching. His active ministry in Yarmouth came to an end in
1661 after the “Restoration” of Charles II. In 1663, he took on an
Independent church in Clapham in 1663. Though he continued to be
outspoken for the rights of nonconformists, through some financial
assistance he was able to return to Yarmouth around the beginning of
1668. His stay this time only lasted a little over a year, at which time
the Lord Townshend restricted him from coming within five miles
of Yarmouth. Thus, in 1669, Bridge returned to Clapham, where he
died at the age of seventy on March 12, 1671.
The five specific sermons9 that will be examined were preached
in 1648 during Bridge’s pastorate in Yarmouth and later published
in the third volume of a three-volume set of his works in 1649. The
first four sermons were preached in four successive weeks at Stepney,
while sermon five was preached five weeks later at Christ’s Church.
The Puritan Hermeneutic

As a general rule, a consistent hermeneutic can be seen in the Puri-
tan’s approach to interpreting the Scriptures. Lea is helpful at this
point in laying out six interpretative rules that the Puritan pastor
tended to follow in preparing his sermon.10
9. Sermon one (July 2, 1648), sermon two (July 9, 1648), sermon three (July
16, 1648) and sermon four (July 23, 1648) were all preached at Stepney, while ser-
mon five (August 25, 1648) was preached at Christ’s Church.
10. Lea, “The Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” 276–82. Packer also has a helpful
list of six principles, which varies more in wording than in concept to Lea’s work.
(J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life [Wheaton,
Ill.: Crossway Books, 1990], 101–105.) Kapic and Gleason’s comments concerning
the seven characteristics that bind Puritans together also provide helpful glimpses
• The Puritan “emphasized the importance of words in the

text of Scripture.”11
• Understanding the immediate context of any given word
or text was essential.12
• With careful thought and intentionality, they sought to ap-
ply the truths of Scripture.13
• Scripture was used to interpret Scripture. No verse was
given in isolation, but served within the larger framework
of God’s Word.14
• The literal meaning of the text was sought first and fore-
most. This point in no way should imply that they did not
acknowledge typology or mysterious spiritual insights into
certain texts, because they did; however, they did so as the
text directed them and not of their own imagination.15
• They also “recognized the appearance of figures of speech
in Scripture.”16
In addition to these interpretive rules, Packer provides some
additional and helpful insight in exposing two of the presuppositions
which drove these interpretive practices. These two presuppositions
related to the nature and the subject matter of Scripture. Concerning
the nature of Scripture, for the Puritan, the Bible was the Word of
God.17 It is God’s message. It is God’s truth. Concerning the subject
matter of Scripture, the Bible teaches man what to believe and how
into their hermeneutics and the presuppositions that they would have generally held
(Kapic, 23–32). Barry H. Howson also addresses the Puritan hermeneutic; however,
the beginning of his point draws heavily from Packer’s comments and the focus of
the work is too narrow for the scope of the discussion in this paper (Barry H. How-
son, “The Puritan Hermeneutics of John Owen: A Recommendation,” Westminster
Theological Journal 63 [2001]: 351–76).
11. Lea, “Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” 276.
12. Ibid., 278.
13. Ibid., 279.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., 280. See also Greg K. Daniel, “The Puritan Ladder of Meditation: An
Explication of Puritan Meditation and its Compatibility with Catholic Meditation”
(M.A. thesis, Wheaton College, 1993), 95–129. Note specifically the distinction be-
tween the Catholic and Puritan use of imagination.
16. Lea, “Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” 281.
17. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life, 98–99.
to live.18 Thus, the Scriptures are God’s authoritative and inspired

instructions for man, designed to transform his mind and his life.
These principles and presuppositions can be readily seen in Bridge’s
sermons and provide a helpful backdrop for understanding him.
Summary of Sermons
Galatians 2:20 Contextually
The first of Bridge’s five sermons sets the tempo and content of
what can be expected throughout the series. His opening provides
a glimpse into his thoughts concerning the purpose of the epistle to
Galatia and his understanding of the context of 2:20:
In this epistle, the Apostle Paul does industriously prove, That a
man is justified by faith in Christ alone, and not by the works of the law.
Which he plainly affirms at the 16. verse, Knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the
faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the
law shall no flesh be justified.19
These first two sentences reveal four important concepts that
contribute to Bridge’s applicational20 understanding of 2:20: the
theme of the book of Galatians, the centrality of this passage to the
book, the context of 2:20, and the object of faith in salvation.
Justification “by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law”
serves as the theme of the entire book and is most evidently seen
in verse 16, which seems to operate as a thematic or central verse
18. Ibid., 99–100.

19. William Bridge, The Works of William Bridge, sometime fellow of Emmanuel
Colledge in Cambridge, now preacher of the Word of God at Yarmouth, vol. 3 [electronic
resource]: Viz. 1. The spiritual life, and in-being of Christ in all believers. 2. The
woman of Canaan (London: Printed by Peter Cole, at the sign of the Printing-Press
in Cornhil, near the Royal Exchange, 1649), 1 [hereafter, Bridge].
20. Bridge’s sermons, as with other Puritans of his day, are driven by application.
While they are thoughtful and demonstrate intelligent exegesis, the sermons them-
selves spend the majority of the time helping the congregant see how a particular
passage or thought should change one’s life, invoke within him a passion for righ-
teousness and righteous living, convict him of sin, and bring about the conversion
of the lost. This point is important because it will impact the way in which the work
is read. Additionally, more work has to be done to determine the exact exegetical
thought driving each particular point of application.
for the epistle. Though Bridge operates as if his congregation has

a fully functioning definition of justification, near the beginning of
the second sermon he takes time to lay out for them exactly what he
means. For the preacher, justification is the process whereby a person
is forensically declared as righteous before God. He explains, “By
this justification, I mean, That act of Gods grace, wherby through the impu-
tation of our sins to Christ, and Christs righteousness unto us, God the father
doth pronounce us righteous in his sight.”21
Along with this theme of justification, Bridge clearly sets faith in
opposition to works. Now, what will quickly be developed throughout
his first sermon is that these works are not works which flow from
a regenerate heart. Godly (i.e., regenerate) people should live a life
in conformity to God’s will. Such “good” works are most definitely
expected. As a matter of fact, that is part of his point throughout ser-
mon one in establishing that “justification by faith alone, and our being
crucified with Christ; is no enemy but a friend unto this Spiritual
life. Nevertheless, I live.”22 Rather, the condemned works of which he
is speaking are works intended as the basis by which one would seek
to be presented “right” with God. In essence, they are works intended
to serve as the basis for one’s justification: right standing before God.
This passage serves as the preeminent passage in the book for
the articulation and demonstration of justification by faith in Christ
alone. After two introductory sentences, Bridge presents, as he often
does through the sermon, a potential objection that a critic might
make concerning his point. This rhetorical tool allows him to flow
the message directly into verses 17–19. In doing so, he reveals that he
sees the section of verses 15–19 as not only providing the immediate
context but serving centrally to the theme of the entire book. Thus,
for him, this section seems to be the linchpin passage upon which
the entire book turns.
21. Bridge, 26.

22. Ibid., 2. To further illustrate the point that good works flow out of the
spiritual life, immediately after connecting 2:20 with verse 16 at the beginning of
sermon one, Bridge injects a potential objector as a rhetorical device to argue his
point and transition to verses 17–19. “But if a man be not justified by the works of
the law, then a man may live as he likes, may cease from working. Not so (says the
Apostle)...” (ibid., 1). In sermon two, he says, “This very principle of justification by
faith alone, is the fountain, and original of all my spiritual life” (ibid., 25–26). All of
sermon two is devoted to explaining justification and its role.
As a final observation of the two introductory sentences to ser-

mon one, the object of faith for the believer in salvation is Christ and
Christ alone. At first glance, the specific wording Bridge chooses to
use here may seem confusing or misleading to the modern exegete.
He states initially that the theme is justification by faith in Christ, but
then quotes the passage and translates the first part of verse 16 23 as
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by
the faith of Jesus.”24 The key issue concerns whether “'Ihsoà Cris-
toà” is an objective or subjective genitive. In other words, is one
justified by “faith in Christ” (objective) or by the “faithfulness of
Christ” (subjective)? 25 For Bridge, the emphasis is clearly on the per-
sonal expression of faith in Christ. Christ’s faithfulness is not in view,
despite the translation of “the faith of Christ.” All Bridge is doing in
that translation “of Christ” is presenting a simple genitive without any
interpretive influence. Though Bridge is presenting an elementary
translation, he clearly understands the syntactical influence of the
genitive here, which he presents in his interpretation. Later, in relation
to justification, he will say, “’Tis done only by Faith as the Instrumental
cause, so we are said to be justified by Faith alone. Yet not so, as that a
man is justified by faith which hath no works; for all justifying faith
is full of works....”26 Thus, he sees the faith of verse 16 as being that
personal expression which one exercises as the means by which justi-
fication is applied and experienced. It is the believer’s faith in view in
verse 16, which then shapes how faith is understood in verses 17–21.
Galatians 2:20 Specifically
With the theme of justification established, Bridge focuses on the
reality that justification is central to spiritual life as manifested in
Galatians 2:20. For him, justification seems to be encompassed in
crucifixion with Christ: I have been crucified with Christ (2:19b).
In Christ, believers find their new identity and standing before God,
23. e„dόteς [dὲ] ὃti oὐ dikaioàtai ¥nqrwpoς ἐx ἔrgwn nόmou ἐ¦n m¾

di¦ p…stewς 'Ihsoà Cristoà
24. Bridge, 1 (emphasis added).
25. According to BAGD, p…stewς can be translated as either “faithfulness” or
as “faith.” (William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English
Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. [Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2000], s.v. p…stiς).
26. Bridge, 27. Note: two pages are marked back to back as page 26. The next
page is marked as 28. This reference is found on the second page marked as 26.
i.e., they are justified. The law no longer has a condemning author-
ity over them. As a result, Bridge spends little time explaining or
expounding the particular nuances of this crucifixion with Christ;27
rather, the spiritual life that flows out of this relationship with Christ
takes center stage: Nevertheless, I live. He writes:
If a man be not justified by the works of the Law, then is he free
from the Law, then is he dead unto the Law, then may a man live
as he likes? Nay, not so (says the Apostle at the 19. Verse) For I
through the Law, am dead to the Law, that I might live to God: (quite
contrary) That I might live to God, I am dead to the Law. Yea, and
though I am crucified with Christ, yet now I live, and I never did live
till now; but now I live: This very principle of justification by faith
alone, is the fountain, and original of all my spiritual life.28
Bridge seamlessly manages this transition from a focus on jus-
tification to a focus on the believer’s spiritual life based on his view
that the “I”29 in this passage is representative of all believers, not just
Paul.30 He writes, “And when he says, I live: he speaks it in the Per-
son of every Believer: not in his Own Person, but he personates a
Believer all along.”31 Later in his third sermon, Bridge will reiterate
this point: “...in all these I’s: I through the Law; and I am crucified; and,
I live; Paul doth personate a Beleever, one that seeks Justification by
faith alone, according to the tenure of the Gospel.”32
As a result, everyone in Christ now has Christ in them and
Christ should be manifested through their spiritual living. While for
some this notion of “spiritual life” may be interpreted as vague or
27. On page 31, time is taken to talk about the former life “in Adam” in contrast
to the new life found “in Christ.” He explains that all “unholiness” was imputed to
humanity through the sin of Adam. It seems that he is elaborating briefly upon the
need for being “crucified in Christ.” That old man under the condemnation of the
law had to die to the law. Thus, in being crucified with Christ, Christ’s righteous-
ness is imputed to him.
28. Bridge, 26–27.
29. ἐgè
30. Risto Saarinen calls this “I” the “exemplary I” (God and the Gift: An Ecumen-
ical Theology of Giving [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005], 42) and Richard
Longenecker calls it the “gnomic” use of I, “referring to all who by an act of personal
commitment (‘faith’) have based their hopes on Christ (‘the faithfulness of Christ’)
and not on the law (‘the works of the law’)” (Galatians, 91).
31. Bridge, 2.
32. Ibid., 49.
even mystical, the Puritan leaves no room for speculation. As with

many of his finer points, Bridge is careful to provide a detailed defi-
nition of exactly what he means.
For the opening of this Truth unto ye, We must first of all
enquire, What this Spiritual life is. Take therefore this descrip-
tion of it: It is that supernatural perfection of soul, whereby a man being
united unto Christ, by the Spirit, is able to act, move, and work towards
God as his utmost end. 33
His point is that, for believers in Christ, their natural lives according
to the flesh and according to the rule and order of the condemnation
of the law are now over. They are dead. They have been terminated in
and because of the crucified death of Christ. A new order of life now
exists and is accessed through faith. That new life is found in Christ
and is the life of Christ in and through the believer. They can now
serve God; they can now produce “good” fruit — and should produce
such fruit as is in keeping with the reality of the repentance that they
have expressed. This pivotal point is clearly emphasized from the out-
set of the series34 and serves as the basis for his comments encouraging
and providing guidelines for conforming to godly living.
As evidenced from the comments above, this new life is effectual
now. The life a believer has in Christ is not simply forensic (justi-
fication language) or future hope (though that is affirmed); it is a
present reality. In support of this point, John 6:40, 47, 48, and 54 are
all briefly expounded upon35 and shown to be a powerful witness
to Galatians 2:20. Thus, Galatians 2:20 provides a picture of what
the true believer should experience in his present life as a result of
genuine conversion. It is a salvation that brings about current trans-
formation with current promise and hope in the here and now.
Three properties characterize such a spiritual life and will con-
sume the rest of his exposition concerning the text: self-denial (yet
33. Ibid., 3. The same idea of connecting “spiritual,” “supernatural,” or “divine”

life can also readily be seen in Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, ed. John E.
Smith, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale, 1959), 197f.
34. “There is a Natural life: and there is a Spiritual life. He does not here speak
of the Natural life, when he says, Nevertheless I live; because he adds, yet not I but
Christ liveth in me: that is Spiritually” (ibid., 2).
35. Bridge expounds upon these verses by focusing on the fact that the verbs are
present and not future tense verbs. “’Tis not said, He shall have everlasting life, but
he hath everlasting life; everlasting life is begun in him already” (ibid., 3).
not I), Christ advancement (Christ lives in me), and a life of faith
(I live by faith).36 For Bridge, these three properties are key aspects of
the verse which provide insightful instruction concerning the nature
and the manifestations of spiritual life; however, since faith is the
means by which the believer is justified and results in Christ in the
child of God, Bridge focuses primarily on self-denial and the continual
and unceasing indwelling presence of Christ. The life of faith is really
an overarching component shown first near the beginning of his ser-
mons regarding justification and then later as a constant in the life of
the believer. Thus, faith is not simply an instrument in justification,
but in sanctification as well. As a result, only the first two properties
receive pointed discussion and will be examined in this review.37
First, the text explains through the phrase,“yet not I” that the
spiritual life is a self-denying life. “Every true Beleever, that seeks jus-
tification by faith alone, is an Humble, Self-Denying person; denying
himself in Spiritual things. The way of the Gospel is a Self-denying
way.”38 The preacher picks up on something here, specifically, the
idea that salvation is in part birthed in humiliation. In other words, in
order to identify with the death of Jesus, one must understand that he
cannot save himself. Salvation involves humility, whereby the believer
identifies with the death of Christ. To do so, one must acknowledge
the lack of worth in his former life, that is, in himself apart from
Christ. In the same way now, once a person receives Christ, the life
he now has is attributed to Christ; therefore, any worth associated
with him is not credited as his own doing, but a result of his iden-
tification with Christ. This truth applies to his obedience as well.39
For he announces that he, as a believer in Christ, “cannot endure to
write an I, upon his own Performance. Yet not I. He will Obey God:
36. Ibid., 49f. Sermon three (49–72) is devoted to the property of self-denial;
sermons four and five (73–115) are devoted primarily to the property of Christ ad-
vancement. While a life of faith is the third property, this property seems to get
caught up with the discussions concerning Christ in the believer and is not as clearly
distinguished or elaborated upon in the sermon; therefore, it will not be discussed
in detail in this review.
37. It could be argued that the picture of abiding faith can be most readily seen
in his comments concerning inseparable communion with Christ as the result of
Christ in the believer (ibid., 13, 73–74, 85).
38. Ibid., 49.
39. These points are made evident in Bridge’s application throughout his sermons.
but he will not have an I, to be written upon his Obedience.” 40 The

self-denial that Bridge is specifically concerned with is a denial of
one’s religious self whereby he believes that he can obtain favor and a
right standing before God based on his own works. One clarification
is needed here: this denial is not a denial of duty, only of the religious
self. The believer is still responsible, and even more so, he will say, to
follow the law; however, the true believer does not follow the law for
merit (i.e., as a covenant of works), but in obedience and gratitude for
the redemption provided in Christ (i.e., as a rule of life).
For Answer, Ye must know that the word Law, in the new Tes-
tament is taken Two waies: either it is taken for the Covenant of
Works, thus: If you keep the Ten Commandements perfectly,
you shall live for ever; this is the Covenant of Works; Some-
times the Law is taken for the Ten Commandements, the Rule of
mans life. In the first sense a Christian is dead unto the Law,
and is freed from it: but in the second sense, a Beleever, a Justi-
fied person, is more bound to the Law, to observe it as a Rule of
life, than ever he was.41
Thus, anything that I do in obedience to the law, I may do in duty,
but it is done through the empowerment of Christ in me.42
Second, the spiritual life is a Christ-advancing life: Christ lives
in me. “The former words, Yet not I, hold forth a Depression, and anni-
hilation of a mans self in Spiritual things.43 These words, But Christ
liveth in me, hold forth the Advancings of Jesus Christ. He gives the
Power, Strength, and Honor of all unto Jesus Christ, But CHRIST liveth
in me.”44 One of the key ways that this spiritual life is experienced
and expressed is the direct result of Christ living in the believer.
Throughout the entire series, this emphasis on spiritual life will take
center stage; the death of “I” and the “life of Christ” are shown to
be the core of spiritual life. The question that must immediately be
40. Ibid., 50.

41. Ibid., 34.
42. Though the sermon is very thoughtful and logical, he does briefly interject
and acknowledge the element of mystery found within the text (ibid., 56–58).
43. Again, it is important to note that by “spiritual things” he is affirming the
idea that man cannot do anything of spiritual value in and of himself. Any spiritual
life in and through a believer is the result of the life of Christ in him. It is God’s life,
not his own.
44. Ibid., 73.
addressed by the preacher for his people concerns how “I” no longer
live, but Christ lives “in me.” How and to what extent does Christ
live in me? To what extent do I still function as a person?
Christ lives in the believer (John 6:56; 2 Cor. 13:5) by the Spirit of
Christ (the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity) whom Christ
gives to the believer in salvation as a sign and seal of his redemption.
Christians are united with Christ through the Holy Spirit. Bridge
emphatically and repeatedly makes this point.45
And thus, in a Spiritual and Mystical way and manner, Christ
is in all Beleevers by his Spirit, the third Person: not only the
Graces of Christ, but Christ Himself, in and by Spirit, is in the
heart of a Beleever; I say, Christ by his Spirit. And therefore
Chrysostom observes, Whereas it is said, in the 8. of Romans, and
the 9. verse, That, if the Spirit of God dwell in ye: at the 10. verse
following, it is said, If Christ be in you, Those two being made
one, one being put for the other. Now I say, That Christ that is
in a Beleever, is not the Habit of grace only, which the Saints
have in their souls, but Christ Himself by his Spirit. And there-
fore if ye look into that 5. chapter to the Romans, ye shall find,
That beside the Grace of the Spirit, the Spirit it Self is said to be
given unto us. verse the 5. Because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts, by the holy Ghost which is given unto us. Not only the
Grace of the holy Ghost given unto us, and shed abroad in our
hearts: but the Spirit it Self which is given unto us. And so in
that 16. chapter of John, where the Lord promises to send the
Comforter. He shall teach ye (says Christ), and he shall teach ye all
things; and he will shew unto ye things to come, verse the 13.46
Later, he will reference John 7:38 and 14:23, Romans 8:10–11, and 1 Cor-
inthians 3:16, and state, “Where the Spirit of Christ is, there is Christ.”47
The question that remains in relation to Christ in the Christian is
to what extent Christ indwells the person and to what extent do I still
function as a person. If I have been crucified with Christ and then
am indwelt by Christ, where are the dividing lines in relationship to
my person in distinction from the person of Christ? Additionally,
there are implications here concerning the degree of sanctification
45. Ibid., 4, 9, 12, 29, 74–76, 98–99, etc.

46. Ibid., 75–76.
47. Ibid., 98.
in the believer’s life. If I am crucified and Christ is in me, does that

mean that I, who now live this spiritual life, am supposed to be per-
fect and no longer struggling with sin? Bridge anticipates all of these
concerns and seeks to adequately address them for his audience with-
out removing all elements of mystery.
Before Christ, a person has no real life in him. Yes, an unregen-
erate person moves and breathes and acts, but those are mechanics
of humanity without any real life, just like a watch or clock.48 Real
life is spiritual and the product of the life of God in the Christian. In
conversion, that former life, the life dead under the condemnation of
the law, is crucified and new life is brought by the indwelling power
of the Spirit.49 The former mechanical life is still there in terms of
function and being, but not in terms of condemnation or standing
before God. In other words, nothing, in Bridge’s view, changes onto-
logically in the person at conversion, only forensically and spiritually.
The person does not “biologically” change, but a spiritual change
does take place in his person. A different spiritual disposition exists
in the believer, which is evidenced throughout his application regard-
ing conviction of sin, the stirring of the affections in communion,
etc. Thus, for the regenerate, they are “united” with Christ in a
meaningful way.50
This union with Christ is not a mixture where distinct identities
of persons are indistinguishably combined, but it is a union of appli-
cation or addition. This point proves significant for Bridge in helping
clarify how Christ is in the born-again person and yet the person
does not “become” Christ, nor does Christ become the person in an
indistinguishable fashion where it could be said of someone with full
authority, “He is Christ.”51 Bridge provides several helpful contrasts
48. Ibid., 9.
49. Ibid., 4.
50. Ibid., 74–76. To see a fuller picture of the Puritans’ view of union with
Christ which is so critical to Galatians 2:20, see Tudur R. Jones, “Union with
Christ: The Existential Nerve of Puritan Piety,” Tyndale Bulletin 41 (1990): 186–208.
Pages 196–97 speak specifically of Bridge and his understanding of union through
covenant theology. See pages 202–205 for the concept indwelling.
51. Bridge viewed such talk as blasphemous and attributed it to the heresy of
Montanism (Bridge, 77). His teaching here is completely consistent and compat-
ible with other teachings in the Puritan vein. For example, Edwards will make
remarks that at first may seem to be in contradiction with Bridge. In relationship
to Galatians 2:20 and Christ living in us, Edwards writes, “So the saints are said to
at this point.52 He explains that this union was a voluntary act by

Christ so that He may, by His own authority, unite with the believer
so far as it pleases Him, and thus, it is not a natural and indistin-
guishable union. Furthermore, a great difference exists in union by
way of contact and that of composition. Christ’s union to the believer
is one of contact where “Christ [is] touching the soul by his Spirit;
and the soul [is] touching Christ by faith.”53 As another example,
he will share that just as light and air are joined in appearance, a
difference exists between what light is and what air is. But, the one
illustration that seemed to clarify his position best was that of union
through application versus mixture.
Ye see in a heap of Stone and Wheat, they both make but one
heap: and the Stone may say, I am in this heap, and the Wheat
may say, I am in this heap; but the Stone cannot say, I am the
Wheat; nor the Wheat cannot say I am the Stone: Why? Because
though they be united...it is by way of Application of one Essence
unto another.... But now, take Water and Wine, and mingle
them together, and there every part may say, I am Water, and I
am Wine: Why? Because there is an Union by way of Mixture.54
The regenerate person is united with Christ by way of application,
not mixture. Continuing to explain this union, Bridge anticipates
from John 17:20–21 someone challenging him and asking what
the difference is between the believer’s union with Christ and the
hypostatic union at the incarnation.55 Bridge argues that there is a
substantial difference and presents a variety of arguments in order
live by Christ living in them (Gal. 2:20). Christ by his Spirit not only is in them,
but lives in them; and so that they live by his life; so is his Spirit united to them,
as a principle of life in them.... The light of the Sun of Righteousness doesn’t only
shine upon them, but is so communicated to them that they shine also, and become
little images of that Sun which shines upon them” (Edwards, Religious Affections
[New Haven: Yale, 1959], 200–201). Edwards is talking of how, as the lives of
believers are continually conformed to the image of the Son through obedience,
they become a living example of Christ. In a sense, they become a picture of the
incarnate Son; however, he is in no way arguing that they become Christ or are in
some catatonic state where Christ is acting through them apart from any compo-
nent of their own will.
52. Bridge, 78–80.
53. Ibid., 78.
54. Ibid., 79.
55. Ibid., 81–82.
to further clarify how Christ is in the life of the believer. One of

his arguments goes back to a previous contrast of a natural union
versus a voluntary union. “The Spirit doth not Assume the heart of
a Beleever, as the second Person did Assume our flesh.”56 Another
argument made is that, unlike the flesh of the incarnation, a person
had being before the indwelling of the Spirit. The habitation of the
Spirit does not remove the person; rather, He joins to their soul by
way of application as described above.
As a continued point of emphasis, Bridge explains that union
with Christ does not remove the believer from genuine action. In
other words, the believer’s body does not become a shell through
which Christ lives and works. He is not “mixed” with Christ in that
way. His motives and decisions in obedience still matter.
Due to the emphatic nature of the verse, as evidenced above,
questions concerning the degree to which the believer has been cru-
cified with Christ and the extent to which Christ now lives through
the believer inevitably arise. One of the more common questions is,
“Does this verse teach perfectionism?” After all, Bridge affirms that
the spiritual life “is that supernatural perfection of soul, whereby a man being
united unto Christ, by the Spirit, is able to act, move, and work towards God
as his utmost end.”57 For Bridge, this perfection is a perfection of the
soul through the soul’s connection to the life of God in regeneration.
His description in no way denies that one will still struggle with sin.
By the “perfection of the soul,” he is describing the “new birth,”
that a lost person’s soul, which is spiritually dead, is brought to life
when united with the Spirit. “So our Spiritual life, it doth arise from
our union with Christ, and though a man have never so many moral
virtues, and his conversation be never so fair, yet if not united to
Christ by the Spirit, he is but a dead man, spiritually a dead man.”58
Thus, the perfecting of the soul for Bridge is the reality of new life
brought about by a union with Christ. It is not a perfecting of action,
though he would progressively see behavior continually changing to
become more like Christ as a result of this supernatural union. In
the end, Bridge does not hold to perfectionism in this life, yet clearly
sees in this text the need to answer how one who is born again can
56. Ibid., 81.

57. Ibid., 3.
58. Ibid., 4.
account for remaining sin despite having been crucified with Christ.
He argues that though one has been crucified with Christ, an ele-
ment of self remains.
Though every true Beleever, be an Humble, Self-Denying per-
son, and is made partaker of this Gospel-Self-Denial: yet know,
there is something of Self, some remains of Self that still con-
tinues with the best, something still that will taste of the Cask.
Though the Onion that is beaten in the morter, be taken out
of the morter, yet the morter will smell of it. A godly, gracious
man, is sensible of his own Pride, and Self-Advancing in spiri-
tual things, and will cry out and say, Oh! What a Proud heart
have I! A Self-Advancing heart have I! But shew me that man,
that was ever so transformed, melted, changed into the mould
of the Gospel; but still some favor of Self remains.59
Thus, although a believer will always struggle with sin, due to the
indwelling influence of the Spirit, a believer will never be content
with himself and will experience conviction of sin.
Therefore, for Bridge, Galatians 2:20 expounds upon the real-
ity of believers’ union with Christ. They have been crucified with
Christ by faith and justified before the throne of God. As a result,
they no longer live to themselves. Their lives are not their own, but
marked by a new reality and branded by a new brand. The Chris-
tian has a new life, a spiritual life, through union with Christ who
indwells them by the Holy Spirit. In effect, though they will always
struggle with sin, their lives are now to be lived by faith and to be
marked by a tendency towards righteousness.
Critique of Sermons
Bridge’s sermons provide a beautiful picture of Puritan preaching.
They are theologically thoughtful, well-ordered, and logical; derived
from the text set in context; crafted from a view of the totality of
Scripture with no verse in isolation from the canonical context; and
applicationally driven with clarifying illustrations. At the end of the
day, his sermons are crafted to instill an understanding of the text and
an understanding of the implications of the text in the life of the lis-
tener. Though these sermons are an outstanding example of preaching
59. Ibid., 67.

which displays a passion for its people to practice godly living from a
mind of biblical understanding, some comments related to a few of
the stronger and weaker aspects of the sermon series are warranted.
Going back to verse 16 at the beginning of sermon one was a
necessary and helpful step in establishing the context of the verse
and setting a platform to enable him to explain his view of justifica-
tion (crucified with Christ) and the priority of personal faith. Bridge
rightly understood the function of verses 15–19 in relation to verse
20 and the entire book. This passage serves centrally to the theme
and structure of Galatians.
Along those lines, I agree with Bridge that the “faith of Jesus
Christ” (p…stewς 'Ihsoà Cristoà) should be interpreted as an
objective genitive (faith in Jesus Christ) highlighting the faith that
we as believers are to express as the instrument of justification and
not the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. While a compelling case can be
found grammatically for either side,60 the objective genitive seems to
fit the whole flow of Scripture the best.
60. To be sure, there are a variety of scholars with intelligent arguments on both
sides of this debate. Here is a small sampling. For arguments in support of the objec-
tive genitive position see, F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the
Greek Text, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1982), 139; James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, Black’s New
Testament Commentary (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993), 138–39;
Timothy George, Galatians, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broad-
man Press, 1994), 195–96; Arland J. Hultgren, “The Pistis Christou Formulation in
Paul,” Novum Testamentum 22 (1980): 248–63; Barry R. Matlock, “Detheologizing
the PISTIS CHRISOU Debate: Cautionary Remarks from a Lexical Semantic
Perspective,” Novum Testamentum 42 (2000): 11–13; Frederic Rendall, “The Epistle
to the Galatians,” in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. Robertson Nicoll (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 3:164; Thomas R. Schreiner, Galatians (advance copy giv-
en to Galatians class, Fall 2010, PDF), 126–29.
For arguments in support of the subjective genitive position, see Martinus C. de
Boer, “Paul’s Use and Interpretation of a Justification Tradition in Galatians 2.15 –21,”
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 28 (2005): 193f; Hung-Sik Choi, “PISTIS in
Galatians 5:5– 6: Neglected Evidence for the Faithfulness of Christ,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 124 (2005): 467–90; George E. Howard, “On the Faith of Christ,” Harvard
Theological Review 60 (1967): 460; Longenecker, Galatians, 87–88, 93–94; Sam K. Wil-
liams, “Again Pistis Christou,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987): 431–47.
For an argument that sees the issue of objective/subjective genitive as missing
the point, see Mark A. Seifrid, “Paul, Luther, and Justification in Gal 2:15–21,” West-
minster Theological Journal 65 (2003): 218–19, who sees the genitive here as being “a
genitive of quality, source, or possession.”
Also, Bridge’s illustrations and explanation of how Christ indwells

the believer are considerably more detailed and fully developed than
many commentators. This idea is most evident throughout sermon
four. Along these lines, he also provides some helpful comments
concerning how the believer’s identity is now found in Christ.61 The
implications here, of which he expounds some, are well-balanced.
His specific point concerning Christ indwelling the believer through
His Spirit by means of application versus mixture is extremely
insightful and articulate.
Concerning his view of the “I,” Bridge explains that “in all the
I’s: I through the Law; and I am crucified; and, I live; Paul doth person-
ate a Beleever, one that seeks Justification by faith alone, according
to the tenure of the Gospel.”62 I think he is right.63 While an argu-
ment could easily be crafted to declare that Paul is first and foremost
speaking of himself and secondarily to every believer, Paul does not
seem to be doing that. He shifts from the first person plural to the
first person singular in verse 18 as an explanation of what is true
for every believer. Thus, Bridge does well to recognize that Paul is
speaking generally of anyone who would fall into the specific catego-
ries that he is elaborating,64 so that, in verse 20, he is building off of
his point from verse 19 in explaining what it means to live to God.
Additionally, Bridge doesn’t try to diffuse or dismiss the mystery
of the text. He seeks to balance the tension between explanation and
mystery, acknowledging that there are certain aspects of this passage
that may transcend human reason and understanding. He writes:
“In Gospel-Self-denial there is, the Gospel does work Mysteriously
like it self, it is the great Mysterie. Take a Christian, a Beleever &
I pray, do not observe a little, What a great Mysterie there is in all
his Humilitie, and Self-denial, wrought by the Gospel.”65 These
61. Bridge, 14, 37–38, 84.

62. Ibid., 49.
63. That being said, Scot McKnight, in refuting New Perspective teaching,
presents a case worth considering, which argues that “a third option is that the
‘Ego’ of 2:19 is Peter’s and Paul’s Ego as Jewish Christians. It should be observed that
such a view utilizes a consistent first person reference from beginning to end” (Scot
McKnight, “The Ego and ‘I’: Galatians 2:19 in New Perspective,” Word & World 20
[2000]:272–80.)
64. I see this same phenomenon happening in Romans 7:14f.
65. Bridge, 56–57.
mysteries, however, do not exempt us as believers from seeking to

understand the deep truths of Scripture.
But it is a great Mystery. Are ye able to tell me, How the Child
is formed in the Mothers womb? Or, are ye able to tell me,
How the Soul is United to the Body? Who then can tell exactly,
How Christ is United to the soul of a Beleever? ’Tis a great
Mysterie, one of the great Mysteries of the Gospel. But because
our Saviour hath said, unto you it is given to know the Mysteries of
the Kingdom, and to others it is not; Therefore we should all labor
to understand it.66
Now, one of the weaker points of the sermons seems to be
Bridge’s explanation of how sin remains in the life of the believer.
While I affirm his position that the believer will never experience
perfection in this life, he does not adequately explain how Galatians
2:20 should then be understood. Part of the problem lies with his lack
of clarification concerning what aspect of the “I” is crucified with
Christ. He ambiguously focuses on the point that a remnant or resi-
due of self remains and as a result the believer will forever struggle
with sin. This idea, while ambiguous, is helpful because it best har-
monizes with the rest of scriptural testimony concerning a believer’s
battle with sin,67 but he doesn’t do an adequate job in explaining how
the crucified ego (“I”) of Galatians 2:20 should be understood within
the immediate context of Galatians, specifically 5:19–21, 24:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these;
adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,
witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such
like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in
time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God.... And they that are Christ’s have crucified
the flesh with the affections and lusts.
Another less significant area in which Bridge’s sermons may have
better expounded upon the meaning of the text is in his explanation
66. Ibid., 77–78.

67. Here are a few: Rom. 13:12–14; 14:10, 13; 1 Cor. 1:11; 3:1f; 4:21f; 6:8f; 7:2;
10:6f; 14:20; “put off ”—“put on” theme of Ephesians; Col. 3:8; 1 Thess. 4:2–7;
2 Thess. 3:11–12; 1 Tim. 4:7–8; Titus 3:1–2, 9–11; 1 Pet. 2:11; 3:9.
of the tension between being crucified in Christ and the spiritual

life now. While each aspect of death and life is mentioned, the ironic
tenor of the passage is never alluded to. The life the believer now
has in Christ is a life birthed in death; this is a paradoxical fact. That
aspect of the text is unfortunately overlooked.
Admittedly, this next criticism is somewhat unfair; when a pas-
tor is preparing his sermon, he must decide what to include and what
to exclude. Nonetheless, the absence of any talk concerning the love
or the gifting of God, which is so rich in the latter half of the verse,
seems unfortunate and misses a critical component of the verse.68
68. For some philosophical interactions with the idea of the giving of a gift
(“and gave himself for us”), see Oswald Bayer, “Justification: Basis and Boundary
of Theology,” in By Faith Alone: Essays on Justification in Honor of Gerhard O. Forde,
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 67–85; Bayer, “Categorical Imperative or Cat-
egorical Gift?” in Freedom in Response, trans. by Jeffrey F. Cayzer (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 13–20; Todd J. Billings, “John Milbank’s Theology of the
‘Gift’ and Calvin’s Theology of Grace: A Critical Comparison,” Modern Theology
21 (2005): 87–107; Niels Hendrik Gregersen, “Radical Generosity and the Flow
of Grace,” in Word – Gift – Bring: Justification – Economy – Ontology, ed. B. K. Holm
and P. Widmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 117– 44; Marice Godelier, The
Enigma of the Gift, trans. Nora Scott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998);
Jan-Olav Henriksen, Desire, Gift, and Recognition: Christology and Postmodern Philos-
ophy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); Bo Holm, “Justification and Reciprocity,”
in Word – Gift – Bring: Justification – Economy – Ontology, ed. B. K. Holm and P.
Widmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 87–116; Holm, “Luther’s Theology of
the Gift,” in The Gift of Grace: The Future of Lutheran Theology, ed. Niels Henrik
Gregerse, Bo Holm, Ted Peters, and Peter Widmann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2005), 78–86; Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift: Marion, Derrida, and the Limits
of Phenomenology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001); John Milbank, “The
Gift and the Given,” Theory, Culture and Society 23 (2006): 444 – 47; Milbank, “Can
a Gift be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic,” Modern Theol-
ogy 11 (1995): 119–61; Stephen Charles Mott, “The Power of Giving and Receiv-
ing: Reciprocity in Hellenistic Benevolence,” in Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic
Interpretation, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 60–72;
C. F. D. Moule, “Obligation in the Ethic of Paul,” in Christian History and Inter-
pretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and
R. R. Niebuhr (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), 389– 406; Risto Saarinen, God
and the Gift: An Ecumenical Theology of Giving (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press,
2005); Colin J. Sedgwick, “Not as the World Gives,” Expository Times 109 (1997):
55–56; Walter F. Taylor Jr., “Obligation: Paul’s Foundation for Ethics,” Trinity Semi-
nary Review 19 (1997): 91–112; Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in
a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005); Stephen H. Webb, The
Gifting God: A Trinitarian Ethic of Excess (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Conclusion
All things considered, the positives of Bridge’s work on Galatians
2:20 far outweigh any criticism. These sermons present an excellent
picture of Puritan preaching and Puritan commitment to seek to be
faithful to the text while applying it specifically to the lives of the
congregants. The fact that these are sermons and not exegetical com-
mentaries must be remembered. Considering these points, Bridge
does a masterful job presenting deep and relevant truth to his people.
He takes complicated ideas and presents them through simple illus-
trations in such a way that a child in his audience could at least grasp
the main points of the sermons.
For Bridge, Galatians 2:20 unveils a powerful, concise picture
of justification and the resulting spiritual life that flows from it.
This verse typifies the reality of the Christian life. Salvation is a gift.
Believers are justified by grace through the instrument of faith and
given real spiritual life so that they might now serve God in the free-
dom of the Law and not under its condemnation.
In the end, these sermons present a rich theology and practical
application even for today’s reader. Their worth has transcended the
gap of centuries separating us from Bridge. Hopefully, as a result,
you too will have a greater appreciation for this passage and for this
passionate group of believers known as the Puritans.
Systematic and Historical
Theology
q
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 81–112
A Sweet Mystery:
John Owen on the Trinity
Paul smalley
q
The purpose of this article is to summarize John Owen’s teaching

regarding the Trinity. That is a subject worthy of a book by a scholar
after studying Owen for decades. Given that this is a mere article
written by a beginning student of Owen, our goal is to explore but
not in any way exhaust this great subject.
The article is titled “A Sweet Mystery” to indicate the way John
Owen saw the Trinity as a revealed mystery with delightful applica-
tions for the Christian experience of God. It will explore the doctrine,
the nature, the works, and the experience of the triune God.
The Doctrine of the Triune God

The Trinity was foundational for John Owen’s theology, as Richard
Muller observed among the Reformed orthodox generally. Owen
asserted that if you take away the doctrine of the Trinity “the foun-
dation of all fruits of love and goodness is lost to the soul.”1 Sinclair
Ferguson called Owen “a deeply Trinitarian theologian,”2 and Carl
Trueman writes, “Throughout his works — whether those dealing
with God, redemption, or justification — the doctrine of the Trinity
is always foundational.”3
1. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker

Academic, 2003), 4:145, 148.
2. Sinclair Ferguson, “John Owen and the Doctrine of the Person of Christ,”
John Owen: The Man and His Theology, ed. Robert W. Oliver (Phillipsburg, N.J.:
P & R Publishing, 2002), 82.
3. Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Aldershot,
U.K.: Ashgate, 2007), 124.
The Definition of the Doctrine

What did John Owen mean by the Trinity? In his lesser catechism,
Owen queried, “Q. Is there but one God? A. One only, in respect of his
essence and being, but one in three distinct persons, of Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost.”4 In his greater catechism, he elaborated and pro-
vided Scripture references. He defined “person” as “a distinct manner
of subsistence or being, distinguished from the other persons by its
own properties.” These distinguishing properties he delineated as:
• The Father: the “only fountain of the Godhead.
— John v. 26, 27; Eph. i. 3.”5
• The Son: “begotten of his Father from eternity.
— Ps. ii. 7; John i. 14, iii. 16.”
• The Spirit: “to proceed from the Father and the Son.
— John xiv. 17, xvi. 14, xv. 26, xx. 22.”6
In another place Owen summarized the doctrine of the Trinity as
follows:
God is one; — that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;
— that the Father is the Father of the Son; and the Son, the Son
of the Father; and the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father and
the Son; and that, in respect of this their mutual relations, they
are distinct from each other.7
Regarding the distinct divine Persons, he wrote,
they are distinct, living, divine, intelligent, voluntary principles
of operation or working, and that in and by internal acts one
towards another, and in acts that outwardly respect the cre-
ation and the several parts of it. Now, this distinction originally
lieth in this,— that the Father begetteth the Son, and the Son
4. John Owen, The Works of John Owen, 16 volumes, ed. William H. Goold
(Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1965–68), 1:467.
5. Owen often referred to the Father as the “fount” or “fountain” in the God-
head, but not as the “cause” of the other divine Persons. In this regard he stood in the
same tradition as Thomas Aquinas and the Latin fathers as opposed to Athanasius,
Basil, and Theodoret. Aquinas recognized that the language of “cause” could imply
that the Son was created, whereas “fount” indicated identical substance. Muller,
Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4:46.
6. Owen, Works, 1: 472.
7. Ibid., 2:377.
John Owen on the Trinity 83
is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceedeth from

both of them.8
It is immediately evident that Owen stood in the tradition of
Augustine and the great creeds. In fact, Owen quoted Augustine
more than any other author.9 Augustine himself did not aim to be
original, but confessed that all Catholic theologians purpose
to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity
of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and
therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although
the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father
is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He
who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither
the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of
the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son,
and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity.10
The Nicene Creed of A.D. 325 had confessed,
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all
things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God
of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with
the Father; by whom all things were made.... And in the Holy
Ghost.11
8. Ibid., 2:405.
9. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 12. Robert Letham
writes, “[I]n On Communion Owen makes 44 clear citations of church theologians.
Augustine leads with 10, then comes Aquinas 7, Tertullian 5, Gregory of Nazianzus
4, and Beza 3. The West outstrips the East by 39–5. Patristic sources account for
27 citations, the medievals 7, while the Reformation and immediate post-Refor-
mation period has 10. Overwhelmingly, most quotations are from the Bible — to
count them would be a monumental waste of time” (“John Owen’s Doctrine of the
Trinity in Its Catholic Context and Its Significance for Today” [Westminster Con-
ference paper, December 2006], 5, accessed 6-12-09 at www.johnowen.org/media/
letham_owen.pdf).
10. Augustine, “On The Holy Trinity,” trans. Arthur W. Haddan, rev. W. G. T.
Shedd, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Volume 3, ed. Philip Schaff
(Albany: AGES Digital Library, 1997), 32 [book 1 chapter 4].
11. Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993),
1:28–29.
In A.D. 381, the Constantinopolitan Creed expanded the con-

fession regarding the Holy Spirit to say, “And in the Holy Ghost,
the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who
with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who
spake by the prophets.” Later, at the Council of Toledo (A.D. 589),
the idea was formally introduced that the Holy Spirit “proceedeth
from the Father and the Son [Latin, Filioque],” which was accepted in
the Western church but not in Eastern Orthodoxy.12
Owen had received this tradition, embraced it, and, as we will
see, defended it on the authority of the Scriptures. Carl Trueman
writes, “Owen’s clear grasp of the significance of Trinitarianism nat-
urally leads him both to a great respect for the Catholic creeds of the
church and to the patristic authors whose works led to the creedal
formulations and then explicated and defended such.”13
The Mystery of the Doctrine

John Owen viewed the Trinity as a mystery, that is, a secret of God
known to man only by His revelation — the written words of Scrip-
ture. This may explain why he, together with most of the Reformed
orthodox, hesitated to use metaphors drawn from creation or human
nature.14 Owen approached this subject with profound reverence;
Richard Daniels observed, “This conviction that the doctrine of the
Trinity is an ‘awful mystery’ pervades Owen’s thought.”15
This mystery severely limits the role of human reason in evaluat-
ing the doctrine of the Trinity. Human language and thought cannot
determine what is possible for the essence of God. Trueman noted,
“[A]s God is infinite, only he can have perfect knowledge of him-
self.” Apart from what God has revealed, human minds cannot grasp
Him and human logic cannot limit Him. Trueman wrote, “This is
crucial in Owen when it comes to his defence of the Trinity.”16
Owen thought nothing “more absurd, foolish, and contrary to
sound reason” than to draw philosophical principles from “finite,
limited, created things” and force them upon “the infinite, uncre-
12. Ibid., 29, 26.

13. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 124.
14. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4:151, 157–58.
15. Richard Daniels, The Christology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Reformation
Heritage Books, 2004), 95. He is referring to Owen, Works, 2:367.
16. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 34–35.
ated, essence of God.”17 Citing John 1:18 and 1 Corinthians 13:12,

he wrote, “[A]ll our notions of God are but childish in respect to his
infinite perfections. We lisp and babble.” He applied this particularly
to the Trinity, “a mystery, whose every letter is mysterious.”18
John Owen did not fall into agnosticism, however. He affirmed
that we can know the incomprehensible God. Owen was following
a theological distinction between archetypal and ectypal theology,
a distinction rooted in Thomas Aquinas, modified by Scotus, and
mediated through Franciscus Junius. Archetypal theology is God’s
infinite knowledge of Himself by virtue of His infinite essence.
Ectypal theology is the knowledge of God communicated to rational
creatures — true, but analogical, for it is a finite communication of
the infinite. It is possible because of the image of God in man, but
actual only because of God’s initiative to reveal Himself in Christ
through the Word.19
The mystery of the Trinity pressed Owen to stay close to the
words of Scripture. Robert Letham observed, “His trinitarianism is
classic and orthodox in the Western sense but he avoids some of its
problems. One of the ways he achieves this is by his overwhelmingly
biblical approach. There is a remarkable absence of philosophical ter-
minology, a profusion of biblical exegesis.”20
Owen recognized that the super-rational quality of the Trinity
drove the Socinians to reject the Trinity as contrary to reason. But he
said they made the error of assuming “that what is above their rea-
son, is, therefore, contradictory unto true reason.”21 Much of Owen’s
writing on the Trinity was directed against the errors of Socinians
such as John Biddle.22 But Owen wrote primarily with the purpose
of blessing the church.
As we venture onto the holy ground of the nature of the triune
God, we repeat Owen’s requests to his readers prefixed to his shorter
treatise on this subject:
17. Owen, Works, 12:48.

18. Ibid., 6:65–67.
19. Sebastian Rehnman, Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John
Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 57–63.
20. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity in Its Catholic Context and
Its Significance for Today,” 4.
21. Owen, Works, 5:47.
22. Ibid., 2:392–93; 12:3–4, 17–41.
• First, we must not treat this like any ordinary controversy,

but one of those “things which immediately and directly in
themselves concern the eternal salvation of the souls of men,”
deserving a “due sense of their weight and importance.”
• Second, we must have “a due reverence of the majesty, and

infinite, incomprehensible nature of God” which we must
adore, not subject to the fallen human reasoning.
• Third, the reader must “be willing to submit his soul and
conscience to the plain and obvious sense of Scripture propo-
sitions and testimonies.”23
The Nature of the Triune God

The first propositions of the doctrine of the Trinity are that “God
is one” (cf. Deut. 6:4; Isa. 44:6, 8), and that “the Father is God.”24
Since these were not disputed by the Socinians, Owen spent little
time defending them. However, the Socinians disputed the ortho-
dox statement that Christ is God. To this Owen gave a strong,
biblical defense.
The Deity of the Son

John Owen asserted, “Jesus Christ is God, the eternal Son of God.”25
We can only begin to sample Owen’s arguments for the deity of Jesus
Christ;26 he was convinced that the Scriptures plainly revealed this
doctrine. In his shorter work on the Trinity, his first line of defense
was to quote over three dozen Scriptures and let the Bible speak for
itself.27 Six of his examples show New Testament Scriptures quot-
ing Old Testament texts about the Lord God and applying them
23. Ibid., 2:368.

24. Ibid., 2:381.
25. Ibid., 2:382.
26. E.g., Ibid., 2:382–97, 413–19; 12:169–333.
27. Ibid., 2:383–86. Owen quoted Ps. 45:6 with Heb. 1:8; Ps. 68:17–18 with
Eph. 4:8-10; Ps. 110:1; Ps. 102:25–27 with Heb. 1:10–12; Prov. 8:22–31; Isa. 6:1–3
with John 12:41; Isa. 8:13–14 with Luke 2:34 and Rom. 9:33 and 1 Pet. 2:8; Isa.
9:6; Jer. 23:5–6; Hos. 12:3–5; Zech. 2:8–9; Matt. 16:16; Luke 1:35; John 1:1–3, 14;
3:13; 8:57–58; 10:30; 17:5; 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 1:3–4; 9:5; 14:10–12; 1 Cor. 8:6;
10:9 with Num. 21:6; Phil. 2:5–6; Col. 1:15–17; 1 Tim. 3:16; Tit. 2:13–14; Heb. 1
throughout; 3:4; 1 Pet. 1:11; 3:18–20; 1 John 3:16; 5:20; Rev. 1:8, 11–13, 17; 2:23.
to Christ.28 Owen gave special attention to John 1:1–3 as a key text

revealing Christ’s eternal Deity.29
Owen observed that this Scripture and others ascribe to the Son
the titles “God” or “Lord.” The Socinians responded to these texts
by saying that Christ is “God” by office but not by nature, that is, a
god appointed by the Father for our worship. To this Owen said that
(1) these Scriptures also ascribe God’s attributes to Christ, such as
eternity or omnipotence; and (2) there is only one God, and to wor-
ship any other is cursed idolatry.30
Socinians argued that the Scriptures say Christ was given the title
of “Lord” by His Father’s appointment at His resurrection. Owen
replied that Christ may indeed be called Lord “as mediator,” a title of
office. But this does not deny that there may also be another sense in
which Christ has always been Lord, namely, in “the eternal lordship
of Christ, as he is one with his Father, ‘God blessed forever,’ Rom.
ix. 5.” He is the “one Lord” in the sense of “by whom are all things,”
which is only true of God the Creator (1 Cor. 8:6). Christ was the
“Lord” worshiped by angels at His birth (Luke 2:11; Heb. 1:6).31
The English Socinian John Biddle cited John 14:28, Mark 13:32,
Mathew 24:36, and 1 Corinthians 15:24, 28 as evidence that Christ
was inferior in nature to the Father. The first text is Christ’s state-
ment, “the Father is greater than I.” Owen’s response was that such
statements should be understood with respect to Christ’s office as
mediator (the Lord’s servant) or His incarnate nature as man. He
compared it to a king’s son who shared the “same nature” as his
father but could be employed by him in a lesser office as his servant.
He also acknowledged, “It is true, there is an order, yea, a subordina-
tion, in the persons of the Trinity themselves, whereby the Son, as
to his personality, may be said to depend on the Father, being begot-
ten by him.”32 Thus Christ is our God (John 20:28) with respect to
His sharing the divine essence, but the Father is Christ’s God (John
20:17) with respect to eternal sonship and incarnate mediation.33
28. See also ibid., 12:173.

29. Ibid., 2:389–97. Also 12:216–22.
30. Ibid., 2:387–88; 12:86–88, 205, 207–208.
31. Ibid., 12:171–74.
32. Ibid., 12:201–202.
33. Ibid., 12:204.
Owen’s response is very similar to Augustine’s response before

him. Augustine wrote in his famous book on the Trinity that the
Scriptures speak of Christ as equal to the Father in that He exists in
“the form of God” but less than the Father insofar as He took “the
form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6–7). 34 This two-nature view of Christ
was explicitly affirmed by the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451).35
Augustine had also explained some subordinationist texts in Scrip-
ture as referring to the eternal generation of the Son — His eternal
relation to the Father as Son.36
Therefore Owen defended from Scripture the full deity of Christ,
affirming and supporting the Trinitarian tradition of the fathers.
The Deity of the Holy Spirit

Owen also asserted the personal “Deity of the Holy Spirit” against such
opponents as Socinians and Quakers.37 Again Owen felt so confident
in the clarity of Scripture in this matter that he began with twenty
Scripture quotations.38 Then, from the Scriptures Owen made the fol-
lowing arguments that the Holy Spirit is a distinct divine Person:
a) “He is placed in the same rank” as the Father and the Son
(Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:3–6).
b) He is called God (Acts 5:3–4) and “Comforter of all God’s
people” (John 16:7).
c) “He hath personal properties,” will and understanding
(1 Cor. 12:11; 2:10).
d) “He is the voluntary author of divine operations,” such as
creation (Gen. 1:2), speaking by the prophets (2 Pet. 1:21),
and regenerating.
e) “The same regard is had to him in faith, worship, and obedi-
ence, as unto the other persons of the Father and Son” (Matt.
12:31–32; Acts 5:3, 4, 9; 13:2, 4).39
34. Augustine, “On The Trinity,” 38–39, 50 [book 1 chapters 7, 11].

35. See Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 2:62, for the text.
36. Augustine, “On The Trinity,” 64 – 65 [book 2 chapter 1].
37. Owen, Works, 2:398 –99.
38. Ibid., 2:400. Owen quoted Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6; Job 26:13; 33:4; Ps. 104:30;
Matt. 28:19; Acts 1:16; 5:3–4; 28:25–26; 1 Cor. 3:16; 12:6, 11; 2 Cor. 13:14; Acts
20:28; Matt. 12:31; Ps. 139:7; John 14:29; Luke 12:12; Acts 13:2, 4; 2 Pet. 1:21.
39. Ibid., 2:401–403. See also 3:72–92.
Owen recognized that sometimes Scripture uses the term “spirit”

to refer to the gifts, graces, and effects of the Holy Spirit rather than
the Holy Spirit Himself. But the personal and divine properties
repeatedly ascribed to the Spirit in Scripture clearly show that the
Spirit is a Person, not merely the operation of divine power.40
From such Scriptures and arguments Owen confidently asserted
that “it is undeniably evident that he is a divine, self-sufficient, self-
subsisting person, together with the Father and the Son equally
participant of the divine nature.”41
The Unity and Relations in the Godhead

While Owen was cautious about speculation in theology, he affirmed
the value, indeed the necessity, of using extra-biblical language to
explain biblical doctrine. If the church cannot express biblical truth
in its own words, then it cannot interpret or apply Scripture, which
is to make the Bible useless.42 Thus, terms like Trinity, essence, and
generation have their rightful place in the language of faith.
The Unity of the Divine Essence

The Trinitarian tradition has always been careful to avoid tritheism,
but to stand with the Shema that the Lord is one (Deut. 6:4). The
Athanasian Creed affirmed,
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; nei-
ther confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance. For
there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another
of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty
coeternal. Such as the Father is: such is the Son: and such is the
Holy Ghost... uncreated... infinite... eternal... Almighty... God.
And yet they are not three Gods: but one God.43
40. Ibid., 3:69.

41. Ibid., 12:89.
42. Daniels, The Christology of John Owen, 98–99. He cites Owen, Works,
2:378–79.
43. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 2:66–67. The Athanasian Creed is a docu-
ment of uncertain origin and owes less to Athanasius than to Augustine. It gained
great authority in the Western church during the Middle Ages, being recited in daily
devotions. It was affirmed by Lutherans and Reformed alike, though without its
sentences of damnation. Ibid., 1:36.
Similarly, Owen taught that the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit are one (John 10:30; 1 John 5:7), having one name (Matt.
28:19).44 Owen then used the words “essence” and “nature” to
describe this unity, grounding these terms in the Bible:
Now this oneness can respect nothing but the nature, being,
substance, or essence of God.... There is mention in the Scrip-
ture of the Godhead of God, Rom. i. 20, “His eternal power
and Godhead;” and of his nature, by excluding them from being
objects of worship who are not God by nature, Gal. iv. 8. Now
this natural Godhead of God is his substance or essence, with
all the holy, divine excellencies which naturally and necessarily
appertain thereunto. Such are eternity, immensity, omnipo-
tency, life, infinite holiness, goodness, and the like. This...is the
nature, essence, or substance of the Father, Son, and Spirit; one
and the same absolutely in and unto each of them: for none can
be God, as they are revealed to be, but by virtue of this divine
nature or being. Herein consists the unity of the Godhead.45
Owen was careful not to define a “person” as an individual essence
or substance, so as to avoid the implication of three essences or three
substances, and thus three Gods.46 Instead, he used the terms “subsis-
tence” or “hypostasis” for person, employing the phrases “intelligent,
voluntary agent,” “person,” and “intelligent subsistence” interchange-
ably. The three are “distinct, living, divine, intelligent, voluntary
principles of operation or working, and that in and by internal acts
one towards another, and in acts that outwardly respect the creation.”
He wrote, “[A] divine person is nothing but the divine essence, upon
the account of an especial property, subsisting in an especial manner.”47
Thus there is one essence subsisting in three Persons.
44. Owen, Works, 2:405.

45. Ibid., 2:407. Owen made passing references to “the mutual in-being” of the
Father and the Son (John 10:38; 14:10), called by the Greeks emperichoresis, and by
others “mutual circumincession,” the latter of which Owen considered a “barbarous
term.” Works, 2:408, 12:73.
46. The medieval and Reformed theologians struggled to simultaneously
receive and correct Boethius’s classic definition of a person as “an individual sub-
stance of a rational nature,” in light of the ambiguity of meaning in “substance,”
sometimes used by the fathers for “essence” and sometimes for “hypostasis.” Muller,
Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4:34, 47, 177– 82.
47. Owen, Works, 2:399, 405, 407. Cf. Works, 1:472.
Anti-Trinitarians objected that this doctrine of three-and-one is

contrary to reason. Owen responded that it is not contrary to “rea-
son absolutely,” but to “weak, maimed, and imperfect” reason as it
resides in foolish men. He therefore answered their logical objec-
tions by showing that the doctrine is not formally contradictory. The
Trinity is three in Persons but one in infinite Substance — not one
and three in the same respect. Nevertheless, he reminded his readers
that it is absurd that the “finite can perfectly comprehend that which
is infinite.” It is “the highest reason in things of pure revelation to
captivate our understandings to the authority of the Revealer.”48
In the midst of polemics against the Socinians, Owen did not lose
sight of the truly personal oneness of God. The unity of the divine
Persons is both ontological and relational, for “God is love” (1 John
4:8). It is therefore a unity of essential love. Owen wrote, “The person
of Christ is the principal object of the love of God,” explaining,
No small part of the eternal blessedness of the holy God con-
sisteth in the mutual love of the Father and the Son, by the
Spirit. As he is the only begotten of the Father, he is the first,
necessary, adequate, complete object of the whole love of the
Father.... In him was the ineffable, eternal, unchangeable delight
and complacency of the Father, as the full object of his love....
His being the only-begotten Son declares his eternal relation
unto the person of the Father, of whom he was begotten in the
entire communication of the whole divine nature. Hereon he
is in the bosom of the Father — in the eternal embraces of his
love, as his only-begotten Son. The Father loves, and cannot
but love, his own nature and essential image in him.49
The Generation of the Son from the Father

Owen was cautious in his exegesis of Scripture, even in matters he
was eager to affirm. For example, he hesitated to follow the fathers
in their interpretation of Hebrews 1:3 (the Son “is the brightness
of his glory”) to affirm that Christ is “God of God, and Light of
Light.” Instead, he simply took it to teach that the Son “is one distinct
48. Ibid., 2:409–12. Cf. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance
Man, 48–49.
49. Ibid., 1:144. “So the Spirit is the mutual love of the Father and the Son.”
Works, 3:67.
from God the Father, related unto him, and partaker of his glory.”50
Similarly, Owen recognized that Psalm 2:7 (“Thou art my Son; this
day have I begotten thee”) was interpreted by many church fathers
with respect to the Son’s eternal generation. But in his exposition of
Hebrews 1:5, he thought it more likely that the begetting was more
declarative than generative, corresponding to the exaltation of the
king in Psalm 2 and Hebrews 1.51
But he did not hesitate to say that Christ had His “generation”
from the Father on the basis of the Scriptural phrase, “only begot-
ten Son” (e.g., John 3:16). Since Christ is the true, proper Son of
God — in a natural sense, not a metaphorical sense — He is begotten
of the substance of His Father, for that is what it means to be a true
son of a father.52
Owen understood “begotten” and “generation” to be “the very
same things in words of diverse sound.” This generation was not by
adopting grace, for He was the Son before the universe was made
(Heb. 1:2). Therefore, it is an “eternal generation” whereby “the Son
receives his personality, and therein his divine nature, from him who
said unto him, ‘Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee’ [Ps.
2:7; cf. Heb. 1:5].”53 Owen saw this idea taught in the words of Jesus
in John 5:19– 23.54
In another place, Owen explained that Christ’s
distinct personality and subsistence was by an internal and eternal
act of the Divine Being in the person of the Father, or eternal gen-
eration — which is essential unto the divine essence.... He was not,
he is not, in that sense, the effect of the divine wisdom and power
of God, but the essential wisdom and power of God himself.55
50. John Owen, “Exposition on Hebrews Chapter 1,” John Owen Collection
[CD-ROM], Christian Library Series, Volume 9 (Rio: AGES Library, 2007), 103, 105.
51. Owen, “Exposition on Hebrews Chapter 1” (AGES), 157–59.
52. Owen, Works, 10:184–86.
53. We note that Owen did cite Ps. 2:7 here with respect to eternal genera-
tion. See Works, 1:472. It is not clear whether this reflects a change in opinion, an
inconsistency, or a willingness to use that which is “declarative” to imply a deeper
ontological reality. As we will see, Owen similarly believed that the procession texts
refer to the economy of salvation, but also that salvation reveals the eternal Trinity.
54. Owen, Works, 12:73, 213–14. On John 5:17, Owen wrote, “the Son can do
nothing of himself but what the Father doth, seeing he hath his essence, and so,
consequently, will and power, communicated to him by the Father.” Ibid., 187.
55. Owen, Works, 1:45. Cf. 1:69–72.
Biddle objected to the idea that Christ was “the Son of God
because he was eternally begotten out of the divine essence.” In his
answer, Owen first corrected Biddle: “we say not that the Son is
begotten eternally out of the divine essence, but in it, not by an eter-
nal act of the Divine Being, but of the person of the Father.”56
Owen also carefully affirmed the Son’s aseity (like Calvin before
him). Owen wrote, “The Father is of none, is autautos [of himself].
The Son is begotten of the Father, having the glory of the only-begot-
ten Son of the Father, and so is autotheos [God in and of himself] in
respect of his nature, essence, and being, not in respect of his person-
ality, which he hath of the Father.”57
The Procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son
In what sense is the Holy Spirit called the Spirit of God and the Spirit
of Christ? Owen surveyed the semantic domains of the Hebrew ruach
and the Greek pneuma, which can signify “wind,” “vanity,” “any part
or quarter,” “vital breath” of a living creature, “rational soul of man,”
the “affections” or mind of men, “angels,” and “the Spirit of God.”58
Of these various meanings, the one Owen found most illuminating
for the title “the Spirit of God” was the idea of
the breath of man; for as the vital breath of a man hath a contin-
ual emanation from him, and yet is never separated utterly from
his person or forsaketh him, so doth the Spirit of the Father and
the Son proceed from them by a continual divine emanation,
still abiding one with them.59
While Owen admitted that this analogy between the Spirit of
God and the breath of man is very imperfect, nevertheless he found
it in Scripture itself.
• Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made;
and all the host of them by the breath [ruach] of his mouth.”
• Psalm 18:15, “Then the channels of waters were seen, and the
foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O
Lord, at the blast of the breath [ruach] of thy nostrils.”
56. Ibid., 12:177.

57. Daniels, The Christology of John Owen, 104. He cites Owen, Works, 12:392.
58. Owen, Works, 3:47–52.
59. Ibid., 3:55.
• John 20:22, “And when he [Jesus] had said this, he breathed

on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”60
Therefore, Owen saw the very names of the Spirit as the Spirit of
God and the Spirit of Christ as indicating an incomprehensible yet
real procession in the divine being.
The classic Scripture text for the relation of the Spirit to the
Father and the Son is John 14–16. Owen believed that Jesus gradu-
ally introduced to His disciples the procession of the Spirit from the
Son over the course of the discourse.
The mystery of his sending the Spirit, our Saviour instructs his
disciples in by degrees. Chap. xiv. 16, he saith, “I will pray the
Father, and he shall give you another Comforter;” in the prog-
ress of his discourse he gets one step more upon their faith,
verse 26, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom
the Father will send in my name;” but chap. xv. 26, he saith, “I
will send him from my Father;” and here [ John 16:7], abso-
lutely, “I will send him.”61
Owen argued that these verses spoke primarily to the “economi-
cal or dispensatory proceeding of the Spirit, for the carrying on of
the work of grace.” The Spirit is said here to proceed “to testify of
Christ” in His redemptive-historical mission after Christ’s exaltation.
Nevertheless, “this relation ad extra (as they call it) of the Spirit unto
the Father and the Son, in respect of operation, proves his relation ad
intra, in respect to personal procession.” In other words, the Spirit’s
manner of working in redemption reveals His eternal relationship
with the Father and the Son within the Godhead. Thus Owen could
affirm on the basis of John 14:16 that “he is the Spirit of the Father
and the Son, proceeding from both eternally, so receiving his sub-
stance and personality.”62
The Works of the Triune God

Trueman wrote of Owen, “Time and again, he insists that all exter-
nal works of God are to be understood as works of the one God, and
that all such are also to be ascribed in particular and distinct ways to
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., 2:226.
62. Ibid., 2:227. Cf. 3:61, 116–17.
each of the three persons of the Trinity.”63 Richard Daniels saw this
emphasis as a special quality of Owen’s theology.
Owen’s doctrine of the Trinity is noteworthy for the follow-
ing reasons. First, an obvious feature of Owen’s theology is his
emphasis upon the fact that every work of God is a perfect work
of the entire Trinity. This conviction is so strong that it might
fairly be considered a regulative principle in his theological
thinking, often appearing in his exposition. Yet equally obvious
is the great emphasis he places upon the order of subsistence
upon the persons of the ontological Trinity as providing the pat-
tern for their operations. This is, of course, not new in theory,
but Owen’s emphasis upon, and development of, the idea is rare.
Conversely, since God is known only by his works, the works of
the triune God are deliberately designed for the revelation of his
triune nature, particularly the work of redemption.64
Owen thus saw the external works of the Trinity as following
and revealing the pattern of their eternal subsistence.
The Father is the fountain of all, as in being and existence, so
in operation. The Son is of the Father, begotten of him, and
therefore, as unto his work, is sent by him; but his own will is
in and unto what he is sent about. The Holy Spirit proceedeth
from the Father and the Son, and, therefore, is sent and given
by them as to all the works which he immediately effecteth; but
yet his own will is the direct principle of all that he doth,— he
divideth unto every one according to his own will.65
A little later, he returned to this idea: the Father as “fountain”
(Rom. 11:36), the Son as the cause of “subsisting, establishing,” giv-
ing God’s works “a consistency, a permanency” (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3),
and the Spirit as the cause of “the finishing and perfecting of all
these works.”66
Nevertheless, Owen was careful to say that we cannot divide the
works of God among the members of the Trinity. All the works of
God are to be ascribed to “God absolutely...because the several per-

64. Daniels, The Christology of John Owen, 102.
66. Ibid., 3:94. Cf. 1:219 and Owen, “Exposition on Hebrews Chapter 1”
(AGES), 91.
sons are undivided in their operations, acting all by the same will,
the same wisdom, the same power.” But as there are distinctions
among the divine Persons, so “there is no divine work but is dis-
tinctly assigned unto each person, and eminently unto one.” If all
three Persons are always involved, in what sense can any divine work
be “distinctly” assigned to one Person? Owen wrote that is so when
the special property of that Person leaves a distinct impression upon
that work, as the Father’s authority in creating the world, or when
that Person makes a “pecular condescension” in that work, as Christ
did in His incarnation.67
The Trinitarian Work of Creation

After describing the unity and distinctions of the works of the
Trinity, Owen wrote, “Thus, the creation of the world is distinctly
ascribed to the Father as his work, Acts iv. 24; and to the Son as his,
John i. 3; and also to the Holy Spirit, Job xxxiii. 4; but by the way of
eminency to the Father, and absolutely to God, who is Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.”68
Therefore, the Son also participated in the work of creating the
universe (John 1:1–3; Col. 1:16–17).69 In his commentary on Hebrews
1:2b (“by whom [the Son] he also created the world”), Owen wrote in
opposition to the Socinians, “In the creation of the world, the Father
wrought in and by the Son, the same creating act being the act of
both persons, John 5:17, their will, wisdom, and power being essen-
tially the same.” A little later, he elaborated that the Father created the
world by the Son, “not as an instrument, or an inferior, intermediate,
created cause: for then also must he be created by himself, seeing all
things that were made were made by him, John 1:3, but as God’s
own eternal Word, Wisdom, and Power, Proverbs 8:22–24, John 1:1.”
Since Hebrews 3:4 affirms that “He who made all things is God,”
Owen saw Hebrews 1:2 as “an illustrious testimony given to the eter-
67. Ibid., 3:93–94. Owen footnoted his presentation of this doctrine of unity
and distinctions in the works of the Trinity with several quotations in Greek and
Latin from such church fathers as Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine. He
was clearly operating within the Christian Trinitarian tradition and demonstrating
a Renaissance propensity for ancient sources in the original languages.
68. Ibid., 3:93.
69. Ibid., 2:393–94, 12:265–66.
nal Godhead and power of the Son of God.”70 Owen found evidence
that Christ’s participation in the work of creation was rooted in His
own deity in Hebrews 1:10, which says of Christ, “Thou, Lord, in
the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens
are the work of thine hands.” This text identifies Christ as Jehovah,
to whom the quoted Psalm refers — the Creator of all things.71
Owen traced the work of the Holy Spirit in creation as well. The
Spirit’s role is always that of “the concluding, completing, perfecting
acts.” The Spirit made the heavens beautiful (Job 26:13) and cher-
ished the unformed earth like a dove caring for its nest of young until
it reached its maturity and beauty (Gen. 1:2 Hebrew). The Spirit is
specifically credited with the creation of mankind (Job 33:4), and His
work was pictured in God breathing life into the newly formed body
of Adam (Gen. 2:7).72
We now pass by the doctrine of providence to consider Owen’s
doctrine of redemption by the Triune God.
The Trinitarian Work of Redemption

In Owen’s massive rebuttal against the doctrine of universal redemp-
tion, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, he taught:
The agent in, and chief author of, this great work of redemp-
tion is the whole blessed Trinity; for all the works which
outwardly are of the Deity are undivided and belong equally
to each person, their distinct manner of subsistence and order
being observed.... In the several persons of the Trinity, the joint
author of the whole work, the Scripture proposeth distinct and
sundry acts or operations peculiarly assigned unto them; which,
according to our weak manner of apprehension, we are to con-
sider severally and apart....73
Here again we see Owen’s emphasis on the incomprehensibil-
ity of God, together with the Augustinian doctrine that the external
works of the Trinity are indivisible. We also see that, although Owen
laid great stress on the centrality of Christ’s work as Mediator, he still
70. Owen, “Exposition on Hebrews Chapter 1” (AGES), 82, 86, 89. Cf. Owen,
Works, 3:93.
71. Owen, Works, 12:273.
72. Ibid., 3:75, 82, 94, 96–102.
73. Ibid., 10:163.
formulated redemption as a work of the whole Trinity. Therefore, the

doctrine of the Trinity lies at the heart of the gospel. J. I. Packer wrote,
Owen constantly insisted that the doctrine of the Trinity is the
foundation of Christian faith, and that if it falls, everything falls.
The reason for this insistence was that the Christian salvation is a
trinitarian salvation, in which the economic relations of the three
divine Persons as they work out salvation together mirror their
essential and eternal relations in the glorious life of the Godhead.74
Yet Owen’s emphasis on the Son as the only Mediator kept his the-
ology thoroughly Christ-centered. Owen wrote, “Now, because the
several actions of Father and Spirit were all exercised towards Christ,
and terminated in him, as God and man, he only and his perfor-
mances are to be considered as the means in this work.”75 As Richard
Daniels comments, “True Trinitarian thinking, it would seem, must
be Christocentric, and Christocentric thinking, Trinitarian.”76
We shall consider the work of redemption in terms of the eternal
covenant of redemption, the accomplishment of redemption, and the
application of redemption. Redemption began in eternity, so we shall
begin there.
The Trinitarian Covenant of Redemption

“The Father loves the world, and sends his Son to die” (cf. John
3:16 –17). So began Owen’s analysis of the Trinitarian work of
redemption. The Father’s sending of His Son included “an authorita-
tive imposition of the office of Mediator” grounded in “his eternal
counsel.”77 The Father entered “into covenant and compact with his
Son concerning the work to be undertaken and the issue or event
thereof.” This covenant includes “his promise to protect and assist
him” plus His promise “of success, or a good issue out of all his suf-
ferings, and a happy accomplishment and attainment of the end of
his great undertaking.”78 Therefore, there is strict continuity between
74. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life
(Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), 204.
75. Owen, Works, 10:179.
76. Daniels, The Christology of John Owen, 5.
77. Owen, Works, 10:163 –64. Cf. Works, 2:158 and John 10:18.
78. Ibid., 10:168 –71. Owen cited several Scriptures, such as Isa. 49:6–12, 53:10–
12, as evidence of this eternal promise of the Father to the Son.
those whom the Father chose, those whom the Son redeemed, and
those who will be finally saved.
Owen believed that Scripture revealed a “counsel of peace”
(Zech. 6:13) between the Father and Christ, formed in eternity
between God and His personal Wisdom (Prov. 8:25–26, 30–31), a
foreordination of Christ to His work (1 Pet. 1:20) and promise of
the accomplishment of eternal life given to Him by the Father before
time began (Titus 1:2).79 The covenant of redemption was the root
of Christ’s mediatorial work in time.80 As Carl Trueman wrote, “It
is the nexus between eternity and time with respect to salvation.”81
Sinclair Ferguson observed, “The fulfillment of the covenant of
grace by Christ is viewed as the result of a ‘transaction’ in eternity
between the Father and the Son which, according to Owen, was car-
ried on by means of a covenant. This is possible because within the
unity of the Trinity there is the activity of distinct persons.”82
The phrase “covenant of redemption” was a theological innova-
tion of the late 1630s which Owen picked up for the first time in The
Death of Death (1647). In fact, Owen’s work advanced upon previous
treatments of this subject because he gave attention to the role of the
Holy Spirit in the covenant.83
The Trinitarian Accomplishment of Redemption

The Father, having made a covenant with His Son before the ages,
also performed “the actual solemn inauguration or solemn admis-
sion of Christ into his office” in time. Owen unpacked the Father’s
inauguration of the Mediator in terms of a) the angelic proclamations
at Jesus’ birth that He was “Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10–11); b) the
sending of the Spirit visibly on Jesus at His baptism (Matt. 3:16); and
c) the coronation of Jesus with glory and honor at His resurrection,
ascension, and session at God’s right hand. The Father also furnished
His Son “with a fulness of all gifts and graces” to perform the office
79. Ibid., 6:487.

80. Owen explores this concept of an eternal intra-Trinitarian covenant in
depth in his introductory essay to the exposition of Hebrews, “Exercitations Con-
cerning the Sacerdotal Office of Christ” (AGES), 66–111.
82. Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth Trust, 1987), 25.
83. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 8–82, 86.
of Mediator — not the fullness of the divine nature belonging to the

Son by His eternal generation, but “a fulness of grace [cf. John 1:16]...
infused into the humanity” united to His deity as one Person.84
Of course, the Son as the Mediator was directly involved in
accomplishing redemption. Owen wrote, “The Son was an agent
in this great work, concurring by a voluntary susception, or willing
undertaking of the office imposed on him” (cf. Heb. 10:6–7; John
6:38; 4:34; 17:4). Owen analyzed the Son’s work under three head-
ings: a) “His incarnation...assuming not any singular person, but
our human nature, in personal union with himself ” (John 1:14; Gal.
4:4; Heb. 2:14). b) “His oblation, or ‘offering himself up to God for
us’” (Heb. 9:14; Rev. 1:5; Eph. 5:25; etc.). Owen emphasized that this
was “his own voluntary giving up himself” (e.g., John 10:17–18; Gal.
2:20). Owen included under Christ’s “oblation” all of His incarnate
humiliation, not just His crucifixion. c) “His intercession for all and
every one for those whom he gave himself for an oblation” (Ps. 2:8;
Heb. 9:11–12; 1 John 2:1–2; John 17).85
The Trinity of God gives the work of Christ its necessary foun-
dation. Without a divine Father, there would be no one to send the
Son, nor to lay sin upon Him (John 3:16; Isa. 53:6). Without a divine
Son, there would be no one sufficient to satisfy divine justice for sin’s
infinite debt. Without distinct divine Persons, God could not offer a
sacrifice to God, nor could He make the eternal covenant with God,
apart from which covenant the death of Christ has no meaning.86
Owen also wrote of the crucial role of the Holy Spirit in redemp-
tion — not just the application of redemption but its accomplishment.
Again this revolves around the person and work of the Mediator.87
Owen wrote that the Spirit participated in: a) “The incarnation of
the Son” (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35) and in assisting Jesus “so he was
filled with the Spirit” throughout His earthly career. b) “In his obla-
tion” (Heb. 9:14), where Owen likened the Spirit to “the eternal fire
under this sacrifice, which made it acceptable to God.” c) “In his res-
84. Owen, Works, 10:165–68.

85. Ibid., 10:174–77.
86. Ibid., 5:47–48; 10:171–73, 164; 12:431–32. Cf. Trueman, John Owen:
Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 77, 88–90.
87. Carl Trueman, “John Owen as a Theologian,” John Owen: The Man and His
Theology, ed. Robert W. Oliver (Phillipsburg, Pa.: P & R Publishing, 2002), 60.
urrection” (Rom. 8:11).88 From beginning to end, the work of the

Mediator depended on the work of the third Person of the Trinity.89
The Trinitarian Application of Redemption

Owen observed “a distinct communication of grace from the several
persons of the Deity.” This he summarized as follows:
1. “The Father communicates all grace by the way of original
authority.” He gives life and spiritual rebirth to whomever He
wills (John 5:21; James 1:18). The Spirit is sent by the Father
(John 14:26) and by the Son from the Father (John 16:26).
2. “The Son, by the way of making out a purchased treasury.” He
possesses the fullness of grace in Himself at the Father’s will
(John 1:16; Col. 1:19). He obtained this fullness by offering
Himself for sin (Isa. 53:10–11). And He has authority to com-
municate this fullness of grace (John 5:25–27; Matt. 28:18).
3. “The Spirit doth it by the way of immediate efficacy, Rom. viii.
11, ‘But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall
also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in
you.’” In this text Owen saw the Father’s authority, the Son’s
mediation, and the Spirit’s immediate efficacy.90
There is a marvelous cooperation in the Trinity with respect to
applying redemption. The Father gave all spiritual gifts to His Son to
distribute by the Spirit. Thus the Trinity works together in a manner
centering upon the Mediator. Owen wrote,
Christ received all spiritual gifts from His Father in order to
bestow them on men. Christ is the great giver of all spiritual
gifts, for which ministry He was “furnished” at His ascension.
“For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not
yet glorified (John 7:39); that is, they were not poured out in
the special manner spoken of in verse 38.... All spiritual gifts
are bestowed by Christ, with the Holy Spirit acting, as Tertul-
lian says, as Christ’s deputy and on His behalf, and He operates
88. Owen, Works, 10:178 –79.

89. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 93 –98.
90. Owen, Works, 2:16–17, emphasis original. Cf. ibid., 228.
freely and as He pleases. “But all these worketh that one and
selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man as he will” (1 Cor. 12:11).91
The distinct works of the Trinity in redemption are woven
together in patterns set by the covenant of redemption. At the cen-
ter of redemption is Christ’s purchase by His blood: Christ “both
satisfied for sin and procured the promise.” But the ultimate source
of redemption is the Father: “the eternal love of the Father is not
the fruit but the fountain of his purchase.” Christ, then, having
done the work given Him by the loving Father, obtains the fruits of
it from the Father by His intercession in heaven. “Now the Spirit,
as unto us a Spirit of grace, holiness, and consolation, is of the pur-
chase of Christ...the Spirit, that is a fruit” of Christ’s purchase.92
The Spirit now comes to the elect through Christ because “[t]he
Father actually invests him [Christ] with all the grace whereof, by
compact and agreement, he hath made a purchase,” including “the
promise of the Spirit.” Yet all three Persons participate with full
freedom of will.93
The involvement of the whole Trinity is evident in each step of
applying redemption. For example:
• Effectual calling is an act of the Father binding people to
Christ by the Spirit.94
• Forgiveness comes from the merciful heart of the Father,
through the propitiation of Christ, in the application of the
promises to the soul by the Holy Spirit.95
• Sanctification flows from the crucified Christ by the Spirit,
who is the efficient cause of the mortification of sin and the
vivifying grace.96
• Perseverance is guaranteed by the Spirit, whom Christ pur
chased and obtains by His intercession with the Father
91. John Owen, Biblical Theology: The History of Theology from Adam to Christ,
trans. Stephen P. Westcott (Orlando: Soli Deo Gloria, 1994), 637–38. We see again
Owen’s rootedness in the fathers.
92. Owen, Works, 2:198.
93. Ibid., 2:202, 234–35.
94. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 33.
95. Owen, Works, 6:381, 384, 407.
96. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 58, 73, 147. Owen, Works, 3:393, 6:19.
according to their covenant in order to spiritually bond be-

lievers to Christ forever.97
The application of redemption takes place through divine revela-
tion. So we turn now from the work of redemption to the work of
revelation.
The Trinitarian Work of Revelation

Sebastian Rehnman observes that Owen has a “Trinitarian concept
of revelation.” He notes, “This revelation Owen conceives of accord-
ing to a Trinitarian pattern, in which Christ revealed the Father at
sundry times and in divers manners through the Holy Spirit working
in the prophets and apostles.”98
Christ the Mediator is central to all evangelical theology. Christ
was fully qualified to be the Revealer of God because of His one-
ness with the Father in the divine essence. Owen wrote, “The Logos
itself, the eternal Word of God, had always an infinite knowledge of
all things, allied to a perfect concurrence in the Divine will.”99 Owen
quoted John 1:18: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only
begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared
him.” Then he commented,
[These words of Scripture] declare Christ to be of the same
essence as the Father, having the same divine being, and hav-
ing all of the infinitely perfect attributes and comprehensions
of truth which are latent in the Godhead. Therefore, he alone
is equipped to expound God perfectly. He alone has seen God.
He alone dwelt in the bosom of the Father. He shared all of his
thoughts and mysterious secrets, and he was now to carry out the
foreordained proclamation of the Divine will for the accomplish-
ment of which he was endowed with the Holy Spirit, and that
“not by measure” (John 3:34). God declared that the Spirit was
upon Christ without limit, as it were an unfathomable ocean of
spiritual power, especially with regard to wisdom regarding the
worship and knowledge of God (Isaiah 2:3); so that in him were
“all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).100
97. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 266–67.

98. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 94, 67.
99. Owen, Biblical Theology, 591, 593, 600 [VI.i, ii].
100. Ibid., 601 [VI.ii].
Christ has an infinite and direct knowledge of God in His

divine nature. But infinite knowledge cannot be communicated to
His finite, albeit sinless, human nature. In His humanity, Christ
depended on divine revelation to know God and His will in order
to perform the work of the Mediator (cf. Rev. 1:1).101 Here again we
encounter the theological distinction between God’s “archetypal the-
ology” and revealed “ectypal theology.” Christ’s human nature was
positioned to receive an ectypal theology of union (theologia unionis)
by the union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of
the Son. Rehnman writes, “As Christ is the Mediator between God
and man, and the means of redemptive revelation, theologia unionis is
the basis for all human theology.” And this theology of the Mediator
flows to Jesus in the Spirit (John 3:34).102
The role of the Spirit in the Trinitarian work of revelation extends
beyond the incarnate Person of Christ to the church. Owen wrote,
“This revelation of God’s will, gifted to Christ by the Father, commu-
nicated by Christ through the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and others
for the benefit of the entire Church [i.e. in the Scriptures], taken at its
greatest extent, is the divine teaching or theology of the gospel.”103 As
a result, the divine authority of the Scriptures has a Trinitarian form.
The Bible has absolute authority because of “the character of God,”
the work of Christ as “an infallible Prophet,” and the testimony of
the Spirit “by the word, in it, and through it.”104 Furthermore, human
reception of this theology depends on the Holy Spirit. Owen quoted
John 3:3, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God,” and wrote, “no one is reborn except through the power of
the Holy Spirit...the Holy Spirit alone can introduce anyone into a
saving understanding of theology.”105
Therefore we see that for Owen the Trinity was not only involved
in the planning and accomplishment of redemption, but also in the
work of revealing of God’s will to men. This leads us to consider the
human experience of the Trinity.
101. Ibid., 600 [VI.ii].

102. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 59–61, 66–67. Cf. ibid., 15–16, 18 [I.iii].
103. Owen, Biblical Theology, 602 [VI.ii].
104. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 188, 195.
105. Owen, Biblical Theology, 603 [VI.ii]. Owen cited John 16:13; 1 John 2:20;
1 Cor. 2:10–16; 2 Cor. 4:6. See also ibid., 605 – 606 [VI.iii], where Owen repeatedly
emphasizes the need for “the aid of the Holy Spirit.”
The Experience of the Triune God

Carl Trueman writes, “Owen demonstrates that most delightful
aspect of precritical theology: its essentially ecclesiastical and practi-
cal purpose...it was theology done within the church for the benefit
of the church.” Trueman observes that this was especially true of this
doctrine, for “the Trinity stood at the heart of Christian soteriology
and thus must stand at the heart of Christian worship as well.”106
God had revealed Himself as the Trinity so that men might walk
with Him in obedience, love, fear, and happiness as He required of
them.107 Whereas the Remonstrants viewed the Trinity as a doctrine
neither fundamental nor profitable,108 Owen saw it as both funda-
mental to saving faith and very profitable for the spiritual experience
of believers. Owen viewed Christian experience as communion with
the mysterious God, and so his theology was, in Letham’s words, “a
superb example of a synthesis of metatheoretical constructs, cath-
olic exegesis and dogma, and practical pastoral piety.”109 It is likely
that Owen influenced the Savoy Declaration (1658) where it added
to the Westminster Confession this statement, “Which Doctrine of
the Trinity is the foundation of all our Communion with God, and
comfortable Dependence on him.”110
Ferguson wrote that in Owen’s theology “[t]he Christian life is
nothing less than fellowship with God the Trinity, leading to the
full assurance of faith.”111 What did Owen mean by communion or
fellowship with God? It is the mutual enjoyment shared by God and
His people based on the bond between them in Christ. Owen wrote:
Now, communion is the mutual communication of such good
things as wherein the persons holding that communion are
delighted, bottomed upon some union between them.... Our
communion, then, with God consisteth in his communica-
tion of himself to us, with our returnal unto him of that which
106. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, 128, 123.
107. Owen, Works, 2:378, 406.
108. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4:154–55.
109. Letham, “John Owen’s Doctrine of the Trinity in Its Catholic Context
and Its Significance for Today,” 7.
110. Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the
Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 156.
he requireth and accepteth, flowing from that union which in

Jesus Christ we have with him.112
Owen picked up on a theme found in Augustine though perhaps
neglected in later Augustinian theologians: communion with the tri-
une God. In the work of Augustine called “On Christian Doctrine,”
one chapter is titled, “The Trinity the true object of enjoyment.”
There Augustine wrote, “The true objects of enjoyment, then, are
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are at the same time
the Trinity, one Being, supreme above all, and common to all who
enjoy Him.”113
Owen embraced this idea of enjoying the Trinity, and ampli-
fied it through the concept of distinct communion with each divine
Person.114 J. I. Packer explained, “Communion with God is a relation-
ship in which Christians receive love from, and respond in love to,
all three Persons of the Trinity.”115 In this regard Owen avoided the
problematic tendency of Christians especially in the West to stress
the “undifferentiated Godhead” while relatively neglecting relation-
ships with the Persons of the Trinity.116
Communion with the Father

The saints have particular communion with the Father in “his
love — free, undeserved, and eternal love” (1 John 4:8–9; 2 Cor.
13:14; John 16:26–27; Rom. 5:6).117 The Father’s love is “the foun-
tain from whence all other sweetnesses flow,” the source of all grace.
His love is bountiful, eternal, free, unchangeable, distinguishing, and
fruitful in producing loveliness. The Father does not love the saints
out of loneliness or need, but out of His abundant all-sufficiency and
joy in His Son.118

113. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, book 1, chapter 5, accessed 2-18-09 at
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/doctrine.iv.ii.html.
114. Owen, Works, 2:9. Owen carefully guarded the unity of the Godhead by
clarifying that distinct communion is not exclusive communion with any one Per-
son, but communion primarily appropriated by that Person according to His dis-
tinct property and role. Works, 2:18–19.
115. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 204. Cf. Owen, Works, 2:10–16.
116. Kapic, Communion with God, 148.
117. Owen, Works, 2:19.
118. Ibid., 2:21–22, 28, 32–33.
The Father’s love calls for a response in believers “to complete

communion with the Father in love” by receiving His love and mak-
ing “suitable returns unto him.” They receive it “by faith.” Here
Owen carefully qualifies his statement so as not to encourage “an
immediate acting of faith upon the Father, but by the Son,” citing
John 14:6. His Trinitarian theology remains Christ-centered by con-
stantly acknowledging Christ as the only Mediator between God and
man, but looking to the Son we see the Father, as we see the sun by
the beams of light which shine from it. Thus believers are always
to trust the Father as “benign, kind, tender, loving, and unchange-
able therein...as the Father, as the great fountain and spring of all
gracious communications and fruits of love,” and to love Him with
affection and peace.119 Such words contradict the view of some that
Reformed theology is an exercise in Aristotelian logic where God’s
love is marginal.120
Communion with the Son

Owen quoted the words of Christ, “Behold I stand at the door, and
knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in
to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). To sit at
the table with Christ, He enjoying His graces in the saints, and the
saints feasting on Christ’s glory — this for Owen was the height of
spiritual delight, worthy of the most intimate poetic expressions of
the Song of Songs.121
How do the saints enjoy communion with Christ? Owen again
referred to 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with
you all.” Whereas believers commune with the Father in love, they
commune with the Son in “grace,” specifically,
• “personal grace,” focusing on the Person of Christ, and,
• “purchased grace,” focusing on the work of Christ as
Mediator.122
119. Ibid., 2:22–24. The sun and the fountain are rare examples of patristic
Trinitarian metaphors in Owen’s writings. Cf. Kapic, Communion with God, 169–70.
120. Ibid., 168.
121. Owen, Works, 2:40.
122. Ibid., 2:47– 48. Later in this treatise Owen referred back to the “two heads” of
the grace of Christ, namely, “the grace of his person, and of his office and work.” Ibid., 263.
By “personal grace,” Owen did not mean Christ’s deity consid-

ered abstractly, nor the physical appearance of His human body, but
the spiritual beauty of the God-man as our grace-filled Mediator (cf.
Ps. 45:2).123 He then proceeded to illustrate from Canticles Christ’s
incarnation and “fulness to save...by the unction of the Spirit” (cit-
ing John 1:16, 3:34), and “his excellency to endear, from his complete
suitableness to all the wants of the souls of men.”124 The saints enjoy
communion with Christ in His personal grace “by the way of a con-
jugal relation...attended with suitable conjugal affections”— that is,
as spiritual Husband and wife.125 It begins when “Christ gives him-
self to the soul,” and the saints “receive, embrace, and submit unto
the Lord Jesus as their husband, Lord, and Savior.”126 This stirs the
“affections” of mutual “delight,” mutual “valuation” (esteem), Christ’s
“pity, or compassion,” with the church’s answering “chastity,” and
Christ’s “bounty” with the church’s response of “duty” or a life of
holiness.127 Owen’s treatment of communion with Christ in His per-
sonal grace destroys any misconception of Reformed orthodoxy as an
emotionally desiccated, hyper-intellectual endeavor.
Purchased grace for Owen is “all that righteousness and grace
which Christ hath procured...by any thing that he hath done or suf-
fered, or by any thing he continueth to do as mediator.” We have
communion with Christ in His work because “there is almost noth-
ing that Christ hath done, which is a spring of that grace whereof
we speak, but we are said to do it with him”— whether crucifixion,
dying, being made alive, rising, or sitting in the heavenly places.128 In
particular, “purchased grace” consists of the three graces of a) “accep-
tation with God” (justification), b) “sanctification from God,” and
c) “privileges with and before God” (adoption and its benefits).129
With respect to a) acceptation with God, the saints respond by
123. Ibid., 2:48.

124. Ibid., 2:51–52.
125. Ibid., 2:54. Owen cited in this regard Song 2:16; Isa. 54:5; 61:10; 62:5;
Hos. 2:19–20; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25.
126. Ibid., 2:56, 58.
127. Ibid., 2:118. Cf. 2:118–54 for Owen’s full explanation of each element of
affection.
128. Ibid., 2:154–55. He cited Rom. 6:4; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 2:12–13;
3:1, 3; 2 Tim. 2:11.
129. Ibid., 2:169.
grieving over sin, rejoicing in His righteousness, and consciously

exchanging the two;130 b) in “sanctification,” the saints look to Christ
as their “great Joseph,” who dispenses heaven’s food to them;131 and
c) in “privilege” they enjoy the spiritual liberties of the sons of God.132
Two-thirds of Owen’s treatise “Of Communion with God the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” is taken up with distinct commu-
nion with the Son. Though all communion between God and man
involves all three divine Persons, the Son is especially prominent.
This fits with Owen’s understanding of the Son as the appointed
Mediator in the covenant. Christ is the God-Man, and all commu-
nion with God was purchased and is mediated through Him alone.
Communion with the Holy Spirit

Owen wrote, “The foundation of all our communion with the Holy
Ghost [consists] in his mission, or sending to be our comforter, by
Jesus Christ.” Owen understood the title parakletos in John 16:7 to
mean “comforter” in answer to the disciples’ sorrow over Christ’s
imminent departure (John 16:6). Though the elect receive regenera-
tion passively like dry bones (Ezek. 37:1–14), believers actively trust
the promises about comfort of the Spirit and pray for His work (Gal.
3:2, 14; John 7:37–39; Luke 11:13).133
Owen catalogued the effects of the Comforter within believ-
ers, showing repeatedly that the Spirit teaches believers about the
love and grace of God towards them.134 These works of the Holy
Spirit produce consolation, peace, joy, and hope in believers.135 Owen
rejected both the rationalists who dismissed the work of the Spirit
and the fanatics whose “spirit” disregarded the Word and Christ.136
The Spirit centers His work on the Father and the Son. Owen
wrote,
All the consolations of the Holy Ghost consist in his acquaint-
ing us with, and communicating unto us, the love of the Father
130. Ibid., 2:173–75, 187–94.

131. Ibid., 2:197–203, 206.
132. Ibid., 2:207–15. Cf. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, 89–90, 97.
133. Ibid., 2:222, 224, 225, 23–32.
134. Ibid., 2:236–39. He cited Zech. 12:10; John 14:26–27; 16:14–15; Rom. 5:5;
8:15–16, 26–27; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 1:13–14; 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:22; 1 John 2:20, 27.
135. Ibid., 2:250–53. He cited Acts 9:31; Rom. 14:17; 15:13; Gal. 5:22; 1 Thess. 1:6.
136. Ibid., 2:254–58.
and the grace of the Son; nor is there any thing in the one or
the other but he makes it a matter of consolation to us: so that,
indeed, we have our communion with the Father in his love,
and the Son in his grace, by the operation of the Holy Ghost.137
Although Owen does not explicitly say so, this seems to take up
the third element of the Scripture he quoted regarding communion
with the Father and with the Son: 2 Corinthians 13:14, “The grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of
the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Whereas we have communion with
the Father in His “love” and with the Son in His “grace,” commu-
nion with the Spirit is simply called “communion,” for in the Spirit
believers commune with the Father and the Son. Thus the Spirit
enables prayer to the Father by His covenant with the Son.138
Owen presented three general ways the human soul should
respond to the Spirit. He should not “grieve” the Spirit’s Person
(Eph. 4:30; Isa. 63:10), but instead “pursue universal holiness” to
please Him. Neither should he “quench” the Spirit’s gracious opera-
tions in his soul (1 Thess. 5:19), but rather be “careful and watchful to
improve them all to the end aimed at.” Finally, he should not “resist”
(Acts 7:51) the Spirit’s “great ordinance of the word,” but instead
humbly subject himself to the gospel ministry of the church — that
is, “fall low before the word.”139 In this way, the believer offers a depth
of submission to the Holy Spirit which can only be called worship.
Owen called believers to “ask [for the Spirit] daily of the Father
in the name of Jesus Christ...as children do of their parents daily
bread” (cf. Luke 11:11–13). He continued,
And as, in this asking and receiving of the Holy Ghost, we have
communion with the Father in his love, whence he is sent; and
with the Son in his grace, whereby he is obtained for us; so
with himself, on the account of his voluntary condescension to
this dispensation. Every request for the Holy Ghost implies our
closing with all these. O the riches of the grace of God!140
137. Ibid., 2:262.

139. Owen, Works, 2:264–68.
140. Ibid., 2:272.
Conclusion: The Sweet Mystery of the Trinity

Owen well appreciated that the theology of the Trinity is a mystery.
The subtitle of Vindicae Evangelicae, his rebuttal against Socinianism,
began, “The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated.” In it he wrote of
“this great, tremendous mystery of the blessed Trinity.”141 Yet it is not
a mystery to be buried in ancient creeds and long forgotten.
The Trinity is a mystery which shapes all saving faith and doc-
trine. Richard Muller wrote, “[I]f there is a single central dogma in
the Reformed system, not in the sense of a deductive principle, but
in the sense of a foundational premise for the right understanding of
all other doctrine, the Trinity is most surely that central doctrine.”142
The Trinity is therefore a mystery to be savored — a sweet mys-
tery. Owen wrote, “What am I the better if I can dispute that Christ
is God, but have no sense or sweetness in my heart from hence that
he is a God in covenant with my soul?”143
Furthermore, the experience of God as the Trinity confirms and
strengthens faith in the doctrine of the Trinity. Owen wrote,
And this is the nature of all gospel truths —, they are fitted and
suited to be experienced by a believing soul. There is nothing so
sublime and high...but that a gracious soul hath an experience
of an excellency, reality, power, and efficacy in it all.... What is
so high, glorious, and mysterious as the doctrine of the ever-
blessed Trinity? Some wise men have thought meet to keep it
vailed from ordinary Christians, and some have delivered it in
such terms as that they can understand nothing by them. But
take a believer who hath tasted how gracious the Lord is, in the
eternal love of the Father, the great undertaking of the Son in
the work of mediation and redemption, with the almighty work
of the Spirit creating grace and comfort in the soul; and hath
had an experience of the love, holiness, and power of God in
them all; and he will with more firm confidence adhere to this
mysterious truth, being led into it and confirmed in it by some
few plain testimonies of the word, than a thousand disputers
shall do who only have a notion of it in their minds.144
141. Ibid., 12:73.

142. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4:156.
143. Owen, Works, 12:52.
144. Ibid., 6:459.
Therefore the Trinity is indeed a sweet mystery, a mystery

instructive to the church, delightful in personal devotion, and regu-
lative of public worship. As Owen said,
There was no more glorious mystery brought to light in and by
Jesus Christ than that of the holy Trinity, or the subsistence of
the three persons in the unity of the same divine nature.... And
this revelation is made unto us, not that our minds might be
possessed with the notions of it, but that we may know aright
how to place our trust in him, how to obey him and live unto
him, how to obtain and exercise communion with him, until
we come to the enjoyment of him.145
145. Ibid., 3:158.

PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 113–132
John Flavel: The “Lost” Puritan

brian h. cosby
q
Anthony à Wood (1632–1695), the Royalist historian of Oxford and

contemporary of John Flavel, once noted that Flavel had “more dis-
ciples than ever John Owen the independent or Rich. Baxter the
presbyterian.”1 Increase Mather (1639–1723), himself a well-known
New England Puritan and Harvard College president, once wrote
shortly after Flavel died: “[Flavel’s] works, already published, have
made his name precious in both Englands; and it will be so, as long
as the earth shall endure.”2 Unfortunately, Mather’s prophecy has not
come true. Among the annals of Puritan studies, Flavel is often lost in
the corpus of historical studies of the Puritan “greats”: Richard Sibbes,
John Owen, John Bunyan, and Richard Baxter. But if Wood is cor-
rect as a historian and as a contemporary, then Flavel had more of an
influence in the seventeenth century than did either Owen or Baxter.
This present study is an attempt to reveal this “lost Puritan” as both
an important and influential English character and as someone who
deserves a second look in the field of Puritan studies.
Flavel as a “Puritan”
That Flavel is called a “Puritan” is immediately a designation in need
of some qualification. The term held different meanings in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, and those who were labeled as such
often espoused different theological emphases, different ecclesiologi-
1. Anthony à Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses: An Exact History of all the Writers and
Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford (New York: Lackington,
Hughes, Harding, et al., 1820), 4:323.
2. Increase Mather, “To the Reader,” in An Exposition of the Assembly’s Catechism by
John Flavel in The Works of John Flavel (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 6:139.
cal tendentiousness, and even different goals. As historian John Spurr

points out:
Theological innovation reflected pastoral experience; some
groups emphasize[d] one aspect rather than another.... The
term ‘puritan’ was dynamic, changing in response to the world
around it and applying to several denominations...but [it] also
denotes a cluster of ideas, attitudes and habits, all built upon
the experience of justification, election and regeneration, and
this in turn differentiates puritans from other groups such as
conformists or the Quakers.3
Because of the changing milieu surrounding the use of “Puritan” and
“Puritanism” in their contemporary setting, the problem of defining
them was not only one of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
but, even more so, remains a modern historiographical problem.4
Albeit changing emphases, there remained some elements that
were common to most, if not all, Puritans. First, Puritans were reac-
tionaries to the Elizabethan Settlement (1559) in favor of a more
thorough reformation in England. Secondly, they promoted evan-
gelism, catecheses, and spiritual nourishment through the preaching
and teaching of the Bible. Thirdly, they held the views of Luther’s
doctrine of faith (sola fide), Calvin’s doctrine of grace (sola gratia), and
the Reformers’ (as a whole) doctrine of Scripture (sola scriptura). And
finally, the Puritans strove for personal holiness, a practical faith,
communion with God, and the glory of God in all things.5 It is by
these standards that Flavel is rightly considered a “Puritan.”
3. John Spurr, English Puritanism: 1603–1689 (London: Macmillan Press, 1998), 6–8.
4. Peter Lewis notes in his book, The Genius of Puritanism (Morgan, Pa.: Soli
Deo Gloria, 1996): “The definitions of ‘Puritan’ and ‘Puritanism’ have been, since
their earliest use in England, a matter of crowded debate and widespread confusion.
National, political, and social elements which were closely allied with the idea of
Puritanism at various stages of its progress have largely obscured the vital religious
and spiritual meaning of the term[s].” In the same vein, Christopher Durston and
Jacqueline Eales in The Culture of English Puritanism (New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 1996) explain: “Attempts to define early-modern English ‘puritanism’ and to
agree on a common usage for the noun and adjective ‘puritan’ have been going on
for well over 400 years.”
5. These various emphases can be traced throughout Puritan literature and
Puritan historiography. Cf. Joel R. Beeke and Randall Pederson, Meet the Puritans
(Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), xv–xix.
John Flavel: The “Lost” Puritan 115
The Life and Writings of John Flavel

It is beyond the scope and purpose of this article to trace the history of
Puritanism, even as a historical context to Flavel’s life. This has been
masterfully done elsewhere.6 Though certainly not separate from the
historical context, the present task is to trace the story of his life, the
evidence of which is found in various accounts from the seventeenth
century to the modern day. The most well-known account of his life
is found in Volume One of The Works of John Flavel, which has been
published numerous times since its first publication in 1701.7 The
author of this account is anonymous and strongly biased in his praise
of Flavel’s life and influence. Most modern synopses8 of his life have
been taken from this anonymous biographical sketch. Other than an
undergraduate thesis in 19499 and a Ph.D. dissertation on his life in
1952 by Kwai Sing Chang,10 there had been no lengthy study of Fla-
vel until 2007, with the publication of The Inner Sanctum of Puritan
Piety by J. Stephen Yuille.11 The following will seek to incorporate
the various accounts of Flavel’s life into a coherent story in context of
seventeenth-century England.
The Early Years: Preparing for Ministry

John Flavel was born sometime between 1627 and 1630 12 in Broms-
grove, Worcestershire. The Flavels trace their descent from the third
6. See John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689

(London: Logman, 2000); Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (Lon-
don: Jonathan Cape, 1967); William Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York: Harper
Torchbooks, 1957); John Spurr, English Puritanism: 1603–1689; and Leland Ryken,
Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986).
7. London: Tho. Parkhurst. Another edition was published that year in Edin-
burgh with some corrections of this London edition by Andrew Anderson.
8. In various encyclopedias and books.
9. Earl T Farrell, “The doctrine of man and grace as held by the Reverend John
Flavel” (B.D. thesis, Duke University, 1949).
10. Kwai Sing Chang, “John Flavel of Dartmouth, 1630–1691” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Edinburgh), 1952. Chang’s dissertation remains the only full-length
biography of Flavel available.
11. J. Stephen Yuille, The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety: John Flavel’s Doctrine of
Mystical Union with Christ (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2007). Inner
Sanctum of Puritan Piety is a theological explanation of Flavel’s doctrine of union with
Christ. As such, the biographical information is limited.
12. The actual date of his birth is unknown. Some argue that he was born in
1627 such as Stephen Yuille in The Inner Sanctum of Puritan Piety. But a numerical
great officer who came over with William the Conqueror (1028 –
1087). His father, Richard Flavel, was a Presbyterian minister in the
areas of Worcestershire, Hasler, and Gloucestershire. Richard was
ejected from his ministry with the restoration of King Charles II in
1660, and spent the next five years preaching as the occasion arose.
However, he and his wife were arrested in 1665 in Covent Garden
for having an unauthorized worship meeting. They were taken to the
prison in Newgate where they both caught the plague and, though
they were soon released, died shortly thereafter.13
Richard and his wife left behind two sons who both became min-
isters of the gospel, John and Phinehas. Virtually nothing is known of
Flavel’s earliest years except that his father religiously educated him
in the rudiments of literature and Christian religion.14 Flavel seems
to have had a very high esteem for his parents as godly Christians,
though what we know is only from small glimpses of autobiographi-
cal information found in his books The Fountain of Life15 and The
Mystery of Providence.16
In 1646, when he was about eighteen years old, he was sent to Uni-
versity College, Oxford. During his first and second years, Parliament
sent a team of people to inquire into the state of the University and
to examine its spiritual condition as a result of the ongoing Civil War.
backtrack in the anonymous biographical sketch in The Works of John Flavel reveals
that if it was not in 1628, it would have been late 1627. Others lean toward a 1630
date such as Kwai Sing Chang, “John Flavel of Dartmouth, 1630–1691” (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Edinburgh, 1952). The strongest argument for the 1630 date is that Fla-
vel’s baptism is recorded as 26 September 1630, which would most likely fall just days
after his birth (James W. Kelly, “Flavell, John [bap. 1630, d. 1691],” Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online ed, Jan 2008 [http://
www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9678]). Other Puritan scholars, however, lean to-
ward the 1628 date. The best argument for the earlier date(s) is that the anonymous
biographer of “Life of ” in Volume 1 of Flavel’s Works writes that he was sixty-four
years old when he died, which we know was in 1691. However, a monument in
Dartmouth tells us that he was sixty-one years of age when he died. If that is true,
he was born in 1630. Thus, seventeenth-century historical evidence differs one from
another, which makes nailing down a date very difficult.
13. “Life of the Rev. John Flavel of Dartmouth” in Christian Biography (Lon-
don: Religious Tract Society, 1799), 3, 6; “The Life of the late Rev. Mr. John Flavel,
Minister of Dartmouth” in the WJF (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1968), 1:iii.
14. “Life of ” in Christian Biography, 6.
15. WJF, 1:382–392.
16. Ibid., 4:370–375.
This team enforced the faculty and students to submit to the Solemn
League and Covenant (1643), which had united England and Scotland
together both in doctrine and in military power against the King.17
As a result, many professors and tutors of the University, who did
not subscribe to the Covenant, were expelled. Despite these turbulent
times, at no point in Flavel’s writings does he speak with contempt or
disrespect for any of his professors or tutors while at Oxford. After
about two years of study, he decided to become a preacher and min-
ister of the gospel without any orders from a bishop. Following this
pursuit, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and became quite popu-
lar among his fellow classmates and other area ministers.18
The Journey of Ministry

Flavel was immediately invited to become an assistant minister to
Mr. Walplate of Diptford, in the county of Devon. He was officially
settled in this new position on April 27, 1650. About six months after
settling at Diptford, he went to Salisbury, where he was examined for
ordination by presbyters. On October 17, 1650, he was ordained and
set apart for the work of the ministry. He returned to Diptford and
succeeded Mr. Walplate after his death. Around 1651 or early 1652,
he married his first wife, Jane Randal, a woman from a good family.
However, she died in childbirth and he married again soon thereafter
to Elizabeth Morries19 and, as the anonymous author of one biog-
raphy explained, was “again very happy.”20 Sometime around 1655,
the people of the port-town of Dartmouth21 in the county of Devon
unanimously chose Flavel to succeed the Rev. Anthony Hartford,
who had recently passed away.22
17. This Covenant not only allowed for over twenty thousand Scottish troops
to fight with Parliament against the Royalist army, but it also paved the way for Scot-
tish involvement at the Westminster Assembly (1643–47).
18. “Life of ” in Christian Biography, 10–13; “Life of ” in WJF, 1:iv.
19. Sinclair Ferguson, “The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel (1628–1691)”
in The Devoted Life, eds. Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason (Downers Grove,
Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 212; “Life of ” in Christian Biography, 17; Joel Beeke,
“John Flavel (1628–1691),” Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth (January 2006), says that
her name was Elizabeth Stapell.
20. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:v.
21. See Appendix 2. Dartmouth was a great and noted seaport and a very popu-
lous town in the county of Devon.
22. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:v.
Flavel was well known and respected among the people of Dart-
mouth. Indeed, it was observed that he was “acceptable to the whole
town.”23 During a provincial synod in Devon before 1655, Flavel
was asked to be moderator, whereupon he opened the assembly with
a “most devout” and pertinent prayer, examined the candidates of
ministry with insightful questions and good judgment, and on the
whole conducted himself with such piety and seriousness that the
other ministers, including Anthony Hartford, took particular notice
of him as an exceptional minister of the gospel. When Rev. Hartford
died, Flavel was the people of Dartmouth’s first choice.24
Flavel accepted the call to Dartmouth and was settled there by the
election of the people on December 10, 1656. During the following
years, many people were converted under his preaching and teach-
ing. One person, who sat under his preaching, said that a “person
must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both, that could
sit under his [Flavel’s] ministry unaffected.”25 One of Flavel’s good
friends, John Galpine, commented two months after his death (1691)
that Flavel had a “longing desire after the conversion of souls.”26 Fla-
vel was also a man of great learning and had a steady devotion to
personal study. He was well acquainted with Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin27 and understood the controversies of his day between the Jews
and Christians, Papists and Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists,
and the like.28
Two years after the Restoration in 1660, King Charles II issued
an Act of Uniformity that required all ministers to subscribe to the
Book of Common Prayer and to all of the “Catholic aesthetics” that
remained in the Church of England.29 Those who did not subscribe
were duly ejected from the state church on August 24, 1662, St. Bar-
tholomew’s Day. Over 1,700 ministers were officially removed from
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 1:vi.
26. John Galpine, “A Short Life of John Flavel” in Flavel, the Quaker, and the
Crown (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Rhwymbooks, 2000), 16.
27. “Life of ” in Flaveliana, xxvii. This can also clearly be seen by his frequent
use of these languages in his Works.
28. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:vi.
29. These included the wearing of ceremonial vestments, kneeling at Commu-
nion, and prescribed homilies and prayers.
their positions of ministry.30 Among these were notable Puritans

including Richard Baxter, Thomas Watson, John Howe, and John
Flavel. 31 Although the Act had deprived him of the legal title and
temporal support, Flavel still retained his relationship to the people
at Dartmouth. He would, at times, preach and administer the sacra-
ments to them in private. After being ejected, Flavel tried to earn
a living by setting up a small school, or academy, for Dissenters in
Dartmouth.32 However, in 1665, the King issued the Five Mile Act, 33
which banished him from teaching or ministering within five miles
of a chartered town, like Dartmouth. Despite the ramifications of
this Act, many either walked or rode to hear him preach each Lord’s
Day and he would sometimes slip into the town to exhort and cat-
echize his flock and administer the sacraments.34
During the period of the Great Persecution (1662–1689), Fla-
vel was allowed, at times due to certain royal indulgences, to preach
openly in Dartmouth. However, they were usually short lived and
the fires of persecution would send him into hiding again.35 Many
times, he fled persecution and attempted arrest for preaching the
gospel without license. At one point, while holding meetings near
Slapton, 36 he was pursued by those out to arrest him and escaped by
riding his horse into the sea and swimming to safety.37
It should be noted that it was during this time of persecution that
Flavel wrote most of what we have today in his Works.38 Persecution
gave him time away from daily ministry to write. It was a similar sit-
uation for the other more well-known Puritans such as John Owen
and John Bunyan; we have a large corpus of Puritan literature from
30. Gerald Bray, ed., Documents of the English Reformation (Cambridge: James
Clarke & Co., 1994), 546–47.
31. Kelly M. Kapic and Randall C. Gleason, The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the
Puritan Classics (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 155, 201, 211, 227.
32. Ray Freeman, John Flavel: A Famous Dartmouth Puritan (Dartmouth: Dart-
mouth History Research Group, 2001), 5.
33. Also known as the Oxford Act.
34. David Bogue and James Bennett, History of Dissenters, From the Revolution
to the Year 1838 (Stoke-on-Trent, England: Tentmaker Publications, 2000), 1:301.
35. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:viii.
36. Slapton is five miles from Dartmouth and is where Flavel spent much of his
time during the tenure of the Five Mile Act.
37. Freeman, John Flavel, 5.
38. See Appendix.
this time period due to the fact that these men were given time to
write as they were pushed away from their congregations.
During the Indulgence granted by Charles II in 1671, Flavel’s
second wife died. Soon thereafter, he married a third time, this time
to Ann Downs, the daughter of the minister in Exeter. This marriage
lasted for eleven years and he had two sons with her. 39 When perse-
cution came again to Dartmouth, he fled to London. Ann died and,
sometime during the years of 1676–77, he married again, a fourth
time, to a widow named Dorothy and daughter of a minister, Rev.
George Jeffries.40 In 1686, because of rising persecution in London,
he fled back to Dartmouth where he spent some time under house
arrest. The next year, James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence,
which granted religious freedom to many different religious groups,
including the Puritans.41 Flavel was then allowed to preach without
inhibition and he enjoyed a fruitful ministry until his death. He
preached his last sermon on June 21, 1691 and died five days later at
Exeter apparently from a stroke.
Flavel’s Character and Other Reflections

Flavel hated controversy, which made him a popular moderator and
preacher in a nation often torn by internal disagreements.42 Just days
before his death, he was engaged in a movement 43 to unify differences
between Congregationalists, or Independents,44 and Presbyterians.
39. Thomas and Benjamin. See A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised, Being a Revi-
sion of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the Ministers and Others Ejected and Silenced, 1660–
1662 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934), 201.
40. His fourth wife, Dorothy, survived him. See Joseph Banvard, “Memoir
of the Author,” in Golden Gems for the Christian, Selected from the Writings of Rev. John
Flavel (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1848), 13; A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 201.
41. J. R. H. Moorman, A History of the Church in England, 3rd ed. (Harrisburg,
Pa.: Morehouse Publishing, 1980), 262– 63. Because he was a Roman Catholic, his
main objective in issuing this Indulgence was to let Catholics be free to worship. If
he extended freedom of worship for them, then Puritans could take advantage of
the liberty as well.
42. Publisher’s “Introduction” to True Professors and Mourners by John Flavel
(Cambridge, Mass.: WordSpace, 1996), ii.
43. This movement was called the “Happy Union.” See Gerald R. Cragg, Puri-
tanism in the Period of the Great Persecution: 1660–1688 (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1957), 252–53; Michael Boland, “Publisher’s Introduction,” in The
Mystery of Providence by John Flavel (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1963), 10.
44. Though technically all Congregationalists were Independents, all Inde-
This passion to unify differing nonconformists in England has led to

some confusion among historians as to exactly which denomination
he belonged. If he was ordained as a Presbyterian, then why do so
many consider him a Congregationalist? 45 The truth is that he was
both a Presbyterian and a Congregationalist. He was ordained by the
Presbytery as his biographer points out in volume one of his Works.46
But, after 1672, when Charles II issued an Indulgence, which granted
liberty to dissenters, Flavel took advantage of this liberty and was
licensed as a Congregationalist.47 That he at different times in his life
was part of different denominations is possibly why he had such a zeal
for seeing a unified church in England, both Presbyterians and Con-
gregationalists together. This partial ecumenism was quite exceptional
during the seventeenth century when a person could be imprisoned
or fined for belonging to a certain denomination or religious group.
In this sense, he was revolutionary and ahead of his times.
Concerning Flavel’s character, both the unnamed author of the
biographical sketch in volume one of Flavel’s Works and John Gal-
pine, friend of Flavel, paint him as a godly, pious, and wise minister
of the gospel. Both of these men knew him. They show him to be
faithful, hard working, gracious in the way in which he performed
his ministerial duties, and, even to the end of his life, fervent to
preach and convert sinners to the gospel message. Both of these men
provide detailed stories to illustrate these characteristics and to show
the reader his love for Christ and his neighbor.48
The unnamed author of the biographical sketch in Christian Biog-
raphy in 1799 commented on his character:
pendents were not Congregationalists. Flavel became an Independent Congrega-

tionalist.
45. Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant
Theology, 1525–1695 (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1982), 187; Dewey D.
Wallace, Jr., “Flavel (Favell), John (1627–1691),” in Puritans and Puritanism in Europe
and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia, 98; Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 230; A. G. Matthews, Calamy Revised, 200.
46. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:iv.
47. Boland, “Publisher’s Introduction,” 10; he was licensed at his house in
Dartmouth on April 2, 1672. Of his congregation, 163 signed the License. See A. G.
Matthews, Calamy Revised, 200.
48. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:iii-xvi; John Galpine, “A Short Life of John Flavel,”
13–22.
His religion was not theological speculation, nor was it mere

feeling; but that divine all-pervading principle which sanctifies
the heart, elevates the affections, brings into near and delightful
communion with God, constrains to love and to good works,
and which, by its progressive influence, fits a man for the soci-
ety of angels, and the presence of God.49
Flavel traveled frequently, preached as much as possible, performed
private worship services in the woods, and continued to the end of
his life to play an active role in ministry both to his beloved con-
gregation in Dartmouth and in London.50 In the end, we see a man
who was not only incredibly gifted in preaching and speaking, but
who had a minister’s heart and who deeply cared for the souls of his
congregation.
Flavel’s Writings
The Works of John Flavel51 have been published and reprinted numer-
ous times as a collected whole since its first publication in 1701.52 The
six-volume Banner of Truth edition released in 1968 is comprised of
22 books and 116 sermons.53 His writing style may be compared to
Richard Baxter and John Bunyan in both its variations of simplicity
and density. It is not as technical or as “wooden” as that of John Owen,
nor is his content as profound. However, as Iain Murray has said,
“[S]ome Puritans might be more learned than he, and some more
quaint, but for all-around usefulness none was his [Flavel’s] equal.”
Volume 1 includes an anonymous biographical sketch of Flavel
apparently by someone who knew him. It is followed by a 500-page
book, The Fountain of Life, which is a collection of forty-two theologi-
cally based sermons centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Volume 2 is a collection of thirty-eight sermons, thirty-five of
which comprise the book The Method of Grace in the Gospel Redemp-
tion. These thirty-five sermons constitute a series on soteriology and
49. “Life of ” in Christian Biography, 71.

50. “Introduction” to True Professors and Mourners, ii.
51. The WJF contain just about everything that Flavel wrote. He co-authored
one work, The Sinner Directed to the Saviour, with Isaac Watts, published in 1820
(London: Printed by Augustus Applegath and Edward Cowper for the Religious
Tract Society; sold by F. Collins and J. Nisbet), which is not included in the Works.
52. See discussion below under “Eighteenth-Century Influence.”
53. See Appendix 1 for a time line of his major writings.
the ordo salutis with special attention given to the redeeming work of
Christ. However, within these sermons, a host of other general top-
ics are discussed, all of them infused with life application. The last
three sermons, entitled Pneumatologia: A Treatise of the Soul of Man, are
principally about the origin and nature of the soul in relation to the
body and immortality.
Volume 3 is a collection of a number of different writings from
a practical treatise on fear to the importance of unity in the church.
Volume 4 includes eleven sermons delivered in England in the late
1680s, a polemical writing on the Roman Catholic Church and
probably his most well-known work, Divine Conduct or the Mystery
of Providence: A Treatise upon Psalm 57.2. In this book, Flavel not only
discusses the theology of God’s providence, but in typical Puritan
style, explains how God’s providence plays into everyday life.
Volume 5 includes two large books, Husbandry Spiritualized: The
Heavenly Use of Earthly Things54 and Navigation Spiritualized: A New
Compass for Seamen. In Husbandry Spiritualized, he desires “to teach
wisdom spiritually” to those in “civil calling.”55 In other words,
he shows how to think and function by seeing the world through
“spiritual eyes.” In Navigation Spiritualized, he spiritualizes sailing
terminology for the purpose of evangelizing sailors.56 The other
works in Volume 5 cover a variety of subjects from general applica-
tions to the Christian life to a book on how to mourn the loss of a
loved one.
Volume 6 also includes several books. Four noteworthy titles
included in this volume are: An Exposition of the (Westminster) Assembly’s
Shorter Catechism, Twelve Sacramental Meditations, The Reasonableness of
Personal Reformation and the Necessity of Conversion, and The Character
of an Evangelical Pastor drawn by Christ. We can see how diverse and
broad his subject matter is by the sheer number of different topics he
incorporates into his sermons, treatises, and books.
Flavel is certainly one of the most diverse and practical of all of
the Puritans. In a review of his Works, Douglas Vickers notes:
54. Husbandry Spiritualized was in its tenth edition by 1709. See “Introduction” to
True Professors and Mourners by John Flavel (Cambridge, Mass.: WordSpace, 1996), iii.
55. Flavel, Husbandry Spiritualized in WJF, 5:8.
56. Living in the port-town of Dartmouth, Flavel had many encounters with
sailors.
[Flavel] always turns our attention to the greatness and glory of

Christ, and leaves us in no doubt at all about the realities of the
need for redemption and the fact that man is in the estate of sin
and misery in which a biblical anthropology clearly sees him.57
Vickers continues by giving us, in his estimation, the relevance of
Flavel’s writings for today: “In Flavel, we have once again an oppor-
tunity to learn...the sounder answers from a sounder age to problems
of life.”58 Paul Cook, in his review of Flavel’s Works, concludes that
“the main value of Flavel’s works is their spiritual content.”59 The
devotional nature and spiritual unction with which Flavel writes can
easily transfer to the twenty-first-century reader’s life. Indeed, much
of his writing is of timeless value.
Flavel’s Influence
How popular was Flavel in his own lifetime or even shortly after his
death? Is Anthony à Wood’s statement credible that he had more dis-
ciples than either John Owen or Richard Baxter? And if so, why have
they become so popular in the recent explosion of interest60 in the
Puritans rather than Flavel? If his influence can be traced through
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, why and when did
such influence stop?
Seventeenth-Century Influence
In the brief biographical sketches by the unnamed author of the
“Life” in Flavel’s Works and by John Galpine, his good friend and dis-
ciple, we can trace adumbrations that show us that he was quite well
known not just throughout southern England, but beyond its bor-
ders. For example, Galpine wrote that Flavel was “deservedly famous
among the writers of this age.”61 When writing of Flavel’s desire for
the conversion of souls, he writes:
57. Douglas Vickers, review of The Works of John Flavel, Westminster Theological
Journal 32 (Nov. 1969–May 1970): 93.
58. Ibid.
59. Paul E. G. Cook, review of The Works of John Flavel, The Evangelical Quarterly
41 (1969): 178.
60. See Erroll Hulse, Who Are the Puritans? (Darlington, England: Evangelical
Press, 2000), 27.
61. Galpine, “Life,” 13.
God was pleased to crown his labors with great success this
way. Many souls have been given in as the seal of his ministry,
who have owned him to be their spiritual father in Christ, by
whom they have been begotten through the Gospel.62
Flavel’s influence can also be traced from Galpine’s account of his
life by the sheer number of people that attended his funeral and the
many diverse places from which they rode. At the funeral, Galpine
wrote: “I never saw so many weeping eyes, nor heard so much bitter
lamentation in all my life.”63
In a similarly positive outlook, the unnamed author of his “Life”
in the Works shows Flavel to be not only a “powerful and success-
ful preacher,”64 but also an influential writer. He tells a story of how
a certain gentleman came into a bookstore asking for some “play-
books.” Though the bookseller did not have any, he did have Flavel’s
Keeping the Heart. He read the book and came back to the store and
told the bookseller that it had “saved [his] soul.” The author of the
“Life” shows this as but one example of many of how his writings
became the chief catalyst of his influence and fame.65
We can also get a sense of Flavel’s contemporary influence by
how his critics treated his writings. While he was in Dartmouth,
some opposers of the Puritan cause carried through the town an
effigy of Flavel and committed it to flames. His writings, in particu-
lar, were often sought after and gathered together during protests of
the Puritans and later burned. This happened in both England and
New England.66 Despite the hatred, this sheds light historically on
how influential Flavel really was — that he in some way represented
the Puritan cause enough that those who opposed the movement
sought specifically to profane him.
Other contemporary Puritans, such as John Howe (1630–1705)
and Matthew Henry (1662–1714), knew of and appreciated Flavel as
both a pastor and a writer.67 By the end of the seventeenth century,
62. Ibid., 16.

63. Ibid., 21.
64. “Life of ” in WJF, 1:xii.
65. Ibid., 1:xiii-xiv.
66. Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evan-
gelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1980),
2:186; Bogue and Bennett, History of Dissenters, 1:302.
67. A look through The Works of John Howe (Ligonier, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria
Flavel’s writings had circulated in the communities of England and

New England to such an extent that, on both sides of the Atlantic, his
name was known and loved.
Eighteenth-Century Influence
The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of the evangeli-
cal leaders Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, who led what
became known as the First Great Awakening (1730s and 40s).68
Both of these men were heirs of the Puritan tradition in general
and of John Flavel in particular. “Holy Mr. Flavel,” as Edwards calls
him,69 is quoted more than any other person in Edwards’s Religious
Affections (1746) except for Stoddard and Shepherd.70 Moreover,
Edwards’s writing format and style — namely, that he states a par-
ticular doctrine and then gives an explanation — is identical to that of
Flavel.71 James I. Packer, picking up on this, calls Edwards the “spiri-
tual heir” of Flavel.72
George Whitefield was also influenced by Flavel. When making
plans for his ministry in Georgia, he included Flavel’s writings in
his luggage to take along with him on his journey from London.73
At another point, in a letter to John Wesley (1703–1791), Whitefield
defended the doctrine of election using Flavel’s orthodoxy.74 Not
long before his death, Whitefield not only commended the books of
Flavel, but also noted that his works are often “enquired after, and
bought up, more and more every day.”75
Publications, 1990) and J. B. Williams’s The Lives of Philip and Matthew Henry (Edin-
burgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974) will reveal this — e.g., p. 250.
68. See Mark A. Noll, David W. Bebbington, and George A. Rawlyk, eds.,
Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British
Isles, and Beyond, 1700–1990 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 19–23.
69. Jonathan Edwards, On Religious Affections in The Works of Jonathan Edwards
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 1:248.
70. A brief scan through the footnotes will reveal this.
71. Compare Edwards’s History of Redemption and Flavel’s Fountain of Life.
72. James I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books,
1990), 312.
73. Dallimore, George Whitefield, 1:143–45.
74. George Whitefield, “A Letter to the Mr. John Wesley in Answer to His Ser-
mon Entitled ‘Free Grace,’ ” London, 1740 in George Whitefield by Arnold Dallimore
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1980), 2:564.
75. Quoted in Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of
Prophecy (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), 143.
That Flavel’s influence stopped with these men during those

exciting years of revivals is far from true. In fact, Flavel’s literature
often inspired the revivalists in New England. Samuel Davies of
Virginia noted that many were “awakened” by reading Flavel.76 One
pastor, named Nicholas Gilman of New Hampshire, would read Fla-
vel’s writings to crowds during the Awakening and these writings
stimulated his own “appetite” for more of the same.77 Over and over,
Flavel’s tracts, treatises, and books became a top choice among reviv-
alists during the early-to-mid-seventeenth century.78
Flavel’s influence throughout the rest of the seventeenth cen-
tury can also be seen by the sheer amount of printing and publishing
of his works. As a collected whole, The Works of John Flavel went
through nine editions from 1701 to 1770, not including the numerous
reprints.79 Many individual publications were printed and translated
into Dutch, Latin, Welsh, Czech, and other languages before 1800.80
By the end of the eighteenth century, Flavel’s popularity and influ-
ence had not yet begun to fade.
Nineteenth-Century Influence
By the middle of the 1800s, numerous “collections” of Flavel’s most
popular works were being published and printed and given names
like Flaveliana81 and Golden Gems.82 Other popular items in print
were copies of Flavel’s works bound with other notable pastors,
theologians, and missionaries. For example, Flavel’s book A Treatise
on Keeping the Heart was bound together with Jonathan Edwards’s An
Account of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr. David Brainerd in 1820.83 Fla-
vel’s book Touchstone of Sincerity was bound with writings of William
76. Letters from the Rev. Samuel Davies, and Others shewing the State of Religion in
Virginia, South Carolina, etc., particularly Among the Negroes (London, 1761), 4.
77. Noll, Bebbington, and Rawlyk, Evangelicalism, 38.
78. Ibid., 43, 44, 54.
79. 1701 (London), 1701 (Edinburgh), 1716 (London), 1731 (Edinburgh), 1740
(London), 1750 (unknown location), 1754 (Glasgow), 1762 (Edinburgh), 1770 (un-
known location). There were further editions in 1797 (Newcastle) and 1799 (Lon-
don) before the edition that we have today from 1820 (London: W. Baynes and Son).
80. A brief scan on ATLA or WorldCat will illustrate this. His Token for Mourn-
ers was even translated into Scottish Gaelic (Duneidin: Thornton agus Collie, 1849).
81. Edinburgh: John Menzies, 1859.
82. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1848.
83. New York: American Tract Society.
Wilberforce in 1833.84 During the first half of the nineteenth cen-

tury, there appeared also several expanded accounts of Flavel’s life,
which were compiled with other notable Christians. These included
Christian Biography in 1799 85 and Authentic Extracts from the Lives of
John Flavel and Rev. William Tennent in 1807 by Benjamin Cole.86
Through these publications and reprints, his influence can be traced
in the lives and writings of nineteenth-century Scottish evangeli-
cals, like Robert Murray M‘Cheyne (1813–1843) and Andrew Bonar
(1810–1892).87
Like England, Flavel’s influence can also be traced in America
during the nineteenth century. His writings, for example, caught
the attention of a young man who would one day begin Princeton
Theological Seminary, Archibald Alexander. On one particular Sun-
day night when Alexander was a young man, he was asked to be a
“reader” to the congregation. He had been reading Flavel’s Method of
Grace, but, “by some means, [he] was led to select one of the sermons
[by Flavel] on Revelation iii. 20, ‘Behold I stand at the door and
knock.’”88 Alexander goes on to describe his intense feeling of sin
and grace and of being “overwhelmed with a flood of joy.” He said of
this experience that it “soon occurred to me that possibly I had expe-
rienced the change called the new birth.”89 Ultimately, Alexander
was deeply indebted to Flavel not only for doctrinal education, but
for spiritual nourishment. He explained: “To John Flavel I certainly
owe more than to any uninspired author.”90
The Twentieth Century and Beyond

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, we begin to see some
clear signs of a decline in Flavel’s influence and popularity. By the
latter 1800s, there was very little publishing and printing of anything
84. Ibid.
85. London: Religious Tract Society.
86. Brattleborough: Printed for the Author.
87. Joel Beeke, “John Flavel (1628–1691)” in Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth,
January 2006. In this article, Beeke also summarizes a story told by M‘Cheyne
about the impact of Flavel’s preaching and writing ministry. Flavel’s name comes up
throughout M‘Cheyne’s diary and sermons.
88. James W. Alexander, The Life of Archibald Alexander, D.D. (Harrisonburg,
Virg.: Sprinkle Publications, 1991), 44.
89. Ibid., 46.
90. Ibid., 47.
related to Flavel. There are no major stories of converted lives or

influential collections of his “finest” work. In fact, his own Works,
published in 1820,91 do not even get a reprint until Banner of Truth’s
edition in 1968. He became a “lost Puritan”! What happened?
Even when Puritan studies began to be published and printed
again in the late 1930s with works by William Haller,92 A. S. P. Wood-
house,93 M. M. Knappen,94 and Perry Miller,95 his name still did not
rise to the level he was known at in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
early nineteenth centuries. Thanks to Banner of Truth Trust, his
Works have been preserved, but even this initial reprint in 1968 did
little to encourage further study of Flavel. Other than the 1952 disser-
tation by Kwai Sing Chang, no other substantive study of Flavel’s life
can be found until Yuille’s Inner Sanctum in 2007. Since then, several
academic projects have examined various aspects of Flavel’s theology
and ministry, but he nevertheless remains unknown among the Puri-
tan “greats.”
Despite his loss in popularity and influence, it is quite fascinating
to see the legacy that Flavel has left behind, which can be found in a
sort of memorial fashion in the county of Devon, England where he
spent most of his life. A quick look at a directory for the county in
general and Dartmouth in particular will reveal several churches and
social venues dedicated to the memory of John Flavel. For example,
you can find the Flavel United Reformed Church,96 the Flavel Centre,97
the Flavel Church,98 and the Torbay Methodist Churches, which trace
their heritage to Flavel.99
91. By W. Baynes and Son.

92. The Rise of Puritanism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938).
93. Puritanism and Liberty (London: Macmillan, 1938).
94. Tudor Puritanism (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1939).
95. The New England Mind, Vol. 1: The Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1939).
96. Information can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.nation-
alarchives.gov.uk.
97. The Flavel Centre is also called “The Flavel.” It is a multipurposed arts and
entertainment venue in Dartmouth. It can be accessed at http://www.theflavel.org.uk.
98. A history of this church can be found at http://www.dartmouth-history.
org.uk.
99. A brief history of these churches can be accessed at http://www.torbay-
methodists.org.uk.
Conclusion
To validate Wood’s claim, there is substantial evidence that John Fla-
vel was at least as influential during the seventeenth century as was
John Owen or Richard Baxter. His influence may be traced through
the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, but by 1900,
Flavel virtually disappears from the printing presses and personal
memoirs. If the recent interest in the Puritans has led to the rediscov-
ery of the so-called Puritan “greats”— such as John Owen, Richard
Baxter, John Bunyan, and Richard Sibbes — should Flavel not also
be included among their ranks? Given the fact that he was both an
influential Puritan during his own life and during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, has he not earned the respect of attention
among modern-day Puritan studies? I believe that the answer to both
of these questions is affirmative. Though Increase Mather’s prophecy
has failed during the last century, it may still be revived yet. May this
“lost Puritan” be found and be seen as both an influential English
character and someone who deserves a second look in the field of
Puritan studies.
APPENDIX
Timeline of the Life of John Flavel and His Major Writings
1628 born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire

c. 1646 entered Oxford
c. 1649 graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree
1650 (4/27) became assistant minister to Mr. Walplate
in Diptford
1650 (10/17) was ordained at Salisbury into the
Presbyterian Church
c. 1651 married 1st wife: Jane Randal (she later died
while pregnant)
c. 1654 married 2nd wife: name unknown
c. 1655 people of Dartmouth chose Flavel to
succeed Anthony Hartford
1656 (12/10) became assistant minister to Allein Geere in
Dartmouth and took post at Townstall, a larger
church on the edge of town.
1662 Act of Uniformity — evicted from official
ministerial position
1662 Allein Geere died and whole flock in
Dartmouth devolved upon Flavel
1665 Oxford Act/Five Mile Act: removed to Slapton
(5 miles away from Dartmouth)
1665 parents died from plague in Newgate after
being released from prison.
1665–71 preached in Slapton and in Exeter
1669 Husbandry Spiritualized published
1671 Indulgence granted by King Charles II;
A Saint Indeed published
c. 1671 2nd wife died
c. 1672 married 3rd wife, Ann Downs, who was the
daughter of Thomas Downs, minister at
Exeter
c. 1672–3 (3rd wife died?)
1673 because of persecution, fled to London;
Fountain of Life Opened published
1674 A Token for Mourners published
c. 1676 –7 married 4th wife in London, daughter of

George Jeffries, minister of King’s Bridge;
A Sea-Man’s Companion published
1679 back to Dartmouth; Divine Conduct, or the
Mystery of Providence published
1681 Method of Grace published
1682 fled to London again (10 July); Navigation
Spiritualized and Two Treatises on Fear and
Judgment published
1685 Pneumatologia: A Treatise on the Soul of Man
published
1686 fled London back to Dartmouth because of
persecution
1687 King James II dispensed penal laws —
Flavel able to preach at will
1687–91 preached in Dartmouth to his flock, especially
preached sermons on Rev. 3:20
1688 An Exposition of the (Westminster) Assemblies
catechism published
1689 England’s duty under the present Gospel liberty
published
1691 preached last sermon (21 June) (1 Cor. 10:12)
at Ashburton; also met with a group of
ministers in Exeter to settle union between
Independents and Presbyterians; Planeologia
and The reasonableness of personal reformation
published; sudden and surprising death
(26 June) in Exeter at age 64; corpse carried
to Dartmouth; next day, funeral sermon
preached by George Trosse
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 133–152
Not by Faith Alone:

The Neonomianism of Richard Baxter
MICHAEL G. BROWN
q
During its so-called Counter-Reformation of the mid-sixteenth

century, Rome sharply criticized the Protestant doctrine of justi-
fication for being a teaching that inevitably led to antinomianism,
that is, a belief that rejects the moral law of God as the rule of
life for believers in the new covenant.1 Understanding Protestants
to teach that good works are an evidence but not the ground or
instrument of one’s justification and that a sinner is justified “by
the sole imputation of the justice of Christ” apart from all good
works, Rome declared in its Council of Trent (1546) that anyone
teaching such things was anathema.2 Their concern was that such
a doctrine would result in moral laxity. Protestants, on the other
hand, insisted that Rome’s fears were unfounded. As they codified
their doctrine in confessions and catechisms, they contended that
it did not make Christians careless and profane, for, as the Heidel-
berg Catechism (1563) states, “it is impossible that those who are
implanted into Christ by true faith should not bring forth fruits of
thankfulness.”3
Rome’s denouncement of the Protestant doctrine of justification
continued into the seventeenth century, spearheaded by Catholic apol-
ogists such as the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621). Yet, Rome
was not the only critic of this doctrine. Arminians, such as Hugo
Grotius (1583–1645) and Socinians, such as Jonas Schlichtingius
1. From the Greek anti (“against”) and nomos (“law”).

2. Council of Trent, session 6, canon 24, as quoted in Philip Schaff, ed., The
Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 2:115. See also canon 11
in Schaff, 2:112–13.
3. HC Q. 64.
(1592–1661), opposed it as well.4 For the heirs of Calvin, a defense

of the Protestant doctrine of justification became significantly more
complex than it had been for the early Reformers.5 Moreover, there
arose an internal challenge for the Reformed orthodox, particularly
those in Britain, in the teachings of Richard Baxter (1615–1691), a
minister in Kidderminster, England, who sought to revise the Prot-
estant doctrine of justification.
In recent decades, scholars have assessed Baxter’s treatment of
justification and come to different conclusions as to what Baxter
taught. C. Fitzsimons Allison, for example, has argued that Baxter’s
doctrine of justification is difficult to distinguish from that of the
Council of Trent.6 Hans Boersma, on the other hand, has sought to
exonerate Baxter of these charges and claims that Allison makes “an
unfair criticism, based on a misunderstanding of what Baxter actu-
ally taught.”7 In his 1993 study, A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter’s
Doctrine of Justification in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy,
Boersma challenges Allison’s argument that Baxter substituted faith
in place of Christ’s righteousness as the formal cause of justification.
Is Allison correct in his assessment of Baxter, or has he, as
Boersma claims, made an unwarranted accusation about his teaching
and unfairly painted him in Roman Catholic colors? The purpose of
this paper is not to make or support any particular dogmatic construc-
tion concerning justification, whether Baxterian, Roman Catholic,
antinomian, or that of the Reformed orthodox. Rather, it pursues
the question of what Baxter believed with regard to the doctrine of
4. See John Owen’s arguments against these thinkers in his The Doctrine of Justi-
fication by Faith though the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ; Explained, Confirmed,
and Vindicated (1677), in The Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth,
1998), 5:183ff.
5. On Reformed orthodoxy, see Richard Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the De-
velopment of a Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); idem,
Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to
Perkins (1986; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008); idem, Post-Reformation Dogmatics:
The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2003).
6. See C.F. Allison, The Rise of Moralism: The Proclamation of the Gospel from
Hooker to Baxter (London: SPCK, 1966), 154–77, esp. 163.
7. See Hans Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn: Richard Baxter’s Doctrine of Justification
in Its Seventeenth-Century Context of Controversy (Zoetermeer: Uitgeverij Boekencen-
trum, 1993), 15–16.
Not by Faith Alone 135
justification in his historical context. It argues that Allison’s thesis

holds up under Boersma’s criticism by showing that Baxter held a
view of justification that was difficult to distinguish from that of the
Council of Trent, and that he did so in order to safeguard against his
perceived threat of antinomianism.8
In order to prove this thesis, this study makes three observa-
tions. First, it deals with Baxter’s perceived threat of antinomianism;
second, it considers briefly Rome’s doctrine of justification; third, it
examines Baxter’s doctrine of justification.
Baxter’s Perceived Threat of Antinomianism

In the summer of 1645, during the struggle of the English Civil
War, Baxter accepted an invitation to become a chaplain in the New
Model Army of Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658).9 While his military
service amounted to a stint of less than two years (his health failed in
February of 1647), it proved to be formative for his theology, espe-
cially his doctrine of justification. He became deeply disturbed by the
antinomianism he saw among the soldiers in Cromwell’s army. That
antinomianism, according to E. F. Kevan, had as its main object the
glory of Christ; “but, failing to understand the true relation between
‘law’ and ‘grace’, they extolled the latter at the expense of the former.”10
For Baxter, antinomianism was more than a misunderstanding about
the role of the law in the life of the believer; it amounted to a denial
of the gospel, “subverting the very substance of Christian religion....
I think it fitter to call them Antigospellers, or Antichristian, or Liber-
tines, than Antinomians.”11 According to Baxter, antinomianism was
rife in the New Model Army, its soldiers “falling in with Saltmarsh,
8. R. Scott Clark briefly makes this same point in a footnote in his “How We
Got Here: The Roots of the Current Controversy over Justification,” in Covenant,
Justification, and Pastoral Ministry; Essays By the Faculty of Westminster Seminary Califor-
nia, ed. R. Scott Clark (Phillipsburg, Pa.: P & R, 2007), 15, n27.
9. See Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 31; and Watts, Dissenters, 106–11. On the
English Civil War, see C.V. Wedgwood, The King’s War 1641–1647 (New York: Mac-
Millan, 1959).
10. E.F. Kevan, The Grace of Law: A Study of Puritan Theology (1964; reprint,
Ligonier: Soli Deo Gloria, 1993), 24.
11. Richard Baxter, “Rich. Baxter’s Admonition to Mr William Eyre of Salis-
bury,” in Richard. Baxters Apology Against the Modest Exceptions of Mr. Thomas Blake
(London, 1654), 6. See also Packer, Redemption, 352.
[who said] that Christ hath repented and believed for us, and that
we must no more question our faith and Repentance than Christ.”12
Baxter referred to John Saltmarsh (d. 1647), a preacher, writer,
and chaplain in General Fairfax’s army, who was accused of antinomi-
anism13 by the staunch Presbyterian leader of the Scottish delegation
to the Westminster Assembly, Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661).14 In
1645, he published Free-Grace: or, the Flowings of Christs Blood Freely to
Sinners, a book which Baxter believed was rapidly becoming popular
in England yet was full of antinomian error.15
Saltmarsh’s views on justification, which Baxter considered to
be antinomian, can be summarized in the following points. First,
he held to a view of “eternal justification,” that is, the idea that the
elect were not only elect in eternity, but also justified in Christ in
eternity.16 Chad Van Dixhoorn has rightly noted that the “idea of
an eternal justification is the intellectual starting point for a number
of key tenets of antinomianism.”17 Second, the difference between
the old and new covenants is that under the old a believer obtained
12. Richard Baxter, A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness (London, 1676), 1:22. See
also Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 32–33, 68–69; Watts, Dissenters, 109–10, 293–94;
Allison, Rise of Moralism, 155–56; Carl Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Re-
naissance Man (Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007), 106–107, 111; J. I. Packer, The
Redemption & Restoration of Man in the Thought of Richard Baxter (Vancouver: Regent
College Publishing, 2003), 202–208.
13. On Saltmarsh, see H.C.G. Matthew, Brian Howard Harrison, eds., Ox-
ford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000 (Oxford:
OUP, 2004), 770; Watts, Dissenters, 110, 112, 122, 181–83, 192; Boersma, A Hot Pep-
per Corn, 26, 68–69, 119, 214; Kevan, The Grace of Law, 28; Packer, Redemption, 27,
202–205, 248–56, 274, 352–61; Allison, Rise of Moralism, 170–71.
14. Samuel Rutherford, A Survey of the Spirituall Antichrist, Part I and Part II
(London, 1648), 1:193. On Rutherford’s life and theology, see his Joshua Redivinus
or Mr. Rutherfoord’s Letters (Rotterdam, 1664), reprinted as Letters of Samuel Ruth-
erford (1664), ed. Andrew Bonar (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2006); and
John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
15. See Richard Baxter, Rich: Baxter’s Confession of his Fatih, Especially concerning
the Interest of Repentance and sincere Obedience to Christ, in our Justification & Salvation
(London, 1655), preface.
16. John Saltmarsh, Free-Grace: or, the Flowings of Christs Blood Freely to Sinners
(London, 1645), 125.
17. Chad Van Dixhoorn, “Reforming the Reformation: Theological Debate
at the Westminster Assembly 1643–1652,” 7 vols. (Ph.D. diss., University of Cam-
bridge, 2004), 1:277.
salvation upon performing certain conditions, but in the new, such

conditions are abrogated by virtue of the finished work of Christ.18
Third, the new covenant is not, properly speaking, with the elect,
but with Christ, who fulfilled the necessary conditions of the old
covenant for the elect. The elect are in the new covenant in the sense
that they are in Christ.19 Fourth, while the law continues to com-
mand obedience in the new covenant and still reveals sin in the life
of the believer, it “cannot tax him with damnation,” for it has been
fully satisfied by Christ.20 Saltmarsh wrote, “Christ hath believed
perfectly, he hath repented perfectly, he hath sorrowed for sin per-
fectly, he hath obeyed perfectly...we are to believe that repentance is
true in him, who hath repented for us.”21 Fifth, a justified person may
fall back into sin, but this does not change the justified person’s sta-
tus with God. While Christians should flee from sin and continually
repent of it, such sin, though it “grieves the Spirit of God...cannot
alter the love of God” toward the justified.22
Another writer charged with antinomianism by Rutherford and
Baxter, as well as a petition sent to the House of Commons by the
Westminster Assembly on August 10, 1643, was John Eaton (c. 1575–
1641).23 From his posthumous and highly influential Honey-combe of
Free Justification by Christ Alone (1642), it is clear that his views on justifi-
cation were similar to those of Saltmarsh. There were some additional
points he emphasized which Baxter also found objectionable. First,
believers are perfect and sinless in God’s sight by virtue of Christ’s per-
fect righteousness imputed to them, even though, as justified sinners,
they still feel the imperfections of their sanctification throughout their
lives.24 This was similar to Luther’s dictum simul iustus et peccator (“at
once righteous and a sinner”). Second, good works flow out and are
the fruit of justification. It is therefore pointless to call people to good
works without grounding them in justification. Eaton said, “If we call
18. Saltmarsh, Free-Grace, 142–45.

19. Ibid., 161–63.
20. Ibid., 143.
21. Ibid., 84.
22. Ibid., 145. Cf. 76.
23. On John Eaton, see Watts, Dissenters, 180; Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 68;
Kevan, The Grace of Law, 25–27; Packer, Redemption, 248–56, 352-63; Allison, Rise
of Moralism, 169–70.
24. John Eaton, Honey-Combe of Free Justification (London, 1642), 87.
unto people for Sanctification, zeale and works, the fruits of the same,
only with legal terrours, not putting under the fire of justification, we
shall either but little move them, or else, with a constrained sanctity,
make them worse hypocrites, twofold more the children of hell than
they were before.”25 Third, the double imputation of the elect’s sin to
Christ and Christ’s righteousness to the elect meant that, upon the
cross, Christ was “made a sinner.”26 Likewise, the person in Christ is
no longer “an idolater, a persecutor, a thief, a murderer, an adulterer, or
a sinful person...you are all that he was, and he is all that you were.”27
A third writer accused of antinomianism, and perhaps the most
well known in the seventeenth century, was Tobias Crisp (1600–
1643).28 His collection of sermons, titled Christ Alone Exalted, was
reprinted in 1690 and sparked fierce debates. His views regarding
justification were on many points similar to those of Saltmarsh and
Eaton. Prominent in his thought are the following. First, Crisp firmly
held to the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience to the
believer. Believers are in Christ in such a way that God accounts them
as being as perfectly obedient to the law as was Christ.29 While this
view was not distinct to so-called antinomian teaching (e.g., Heidel-
berg Catechism, Q. 60), it was nevertheless a view Baxter associated
with antinomianism, as we shall see below. Second, due to his belief
in eternal justification, Crisp believed that justification precedes faith.
This seems to be a position he held out of his concern to guard faith
from being construed as a condition of the new covenant or, more
specifically, a work.30 This point in particular allegedly earned him
the acrimonious title from Baxter, “Jezebel.”31 Third, sanctification,
25. Ibid., 476.

26. Ibid., 363.
27. Ibid., 273.
28. On Tobias Crisp see Watts, Dissenters, 180–81, 293–95; Boersma, A Hot
Pepper Corn, 61–68, 214, 238, 255, 303, 329; Kevan, The Grace of Law, 25–27; Packer,
Redemption, 248–50, 352–61, 409–13; Allison, Rise of Moralism, 171–72; Joel R. Beeke
and Randall J. Pederson, eds., Meet the Puritans (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heri-
tage Books, 2006), 164–68.
29. See his sermon on Isaiah 53:6, “Sin Transacted Really Upon Christ,” in
Christ Alone Exalted, 178–310.
30. See his sermon on Isaiah 42:6-7, “The New Covenant of Free Grace,” in
Christ Alone Exalted, 74–92.
31. As reported by Crisp’s son, Samuel, in the Preface to Tobias Crisp, Christ
Made Sin (London, 1691).
while inseparable from justification, is not guided by the law, but by

Christ; He alone is the way to salvation. Crisp wrote, “There is never
a School-Master in the World can teach the perfect Trade of walk-
ing Uprightly, but Christ alone.”32 Crisp was adamant that the only
effective way to motivate people to holiness is by preaching the grace
and forgiveness freely given in Christ.33
It should be noted, however, that, whatever his views on justi-
fication, Crisp did in fact hold to the moral law as the Christian’s
rule of life. He made this unequivocally clear in a sermon on John
8:36, “Christian Liberty no Licentious Doctrine.”34 After emphasiz-
ing that the believer is righteous before God only by virtue of the
alien righteousness of Christ and not by any inherent righteousness
in the believer himself, Crisp went on to explain that this did not
preclude the believer’s obligation of obedience to God’s commands:
But this doth not take away our Obedience, nor our Services in
respect of those ends for which such Services are now required
of Believers. We have yet several ends for Duties and Obedi-
ence; namely, that our Services may glorifie God, and evidence
our thankfulness; and that they may be profitable to Men, that
they may be Ordinances wherein to meet with God, to make
good what he hath promised; so far we are called out to Ser-
vices, and walking Uprightly, Sincerely, Exactly, and Strictly. 35
Good works, according to Crisp, bring glory to God and evidence
one’s justification.
To combat antinomianism, Baxter wrote on the doctrine of justi-
fication. His first work, Aphorismes of Justification with Their Explication
Annexed (1649), revealed a significant revision of the Protestant doc-
trine of justification. As Allison notes, this book “elicited a storm
of protest, and Baxter found himself involved for the rest of his life
32. Christ Alone Exalted, 49. From his sermon on John 14:6, “Christ the Onely
Way,” in Christ Alone Exalted, 14–58.
33. See his sermon on Isaiah 43:25, “God Remembers Not Our Sins” in Christ
Alone Exalted, 159–74.
34. Christ Alone Exalted: Being the Compleat Works of Tobias Crisp, D.D. containing
XLII. Sermons (London, 1690), 110–28.
35. Christ Alone Exalted, 125–26. See also Crisp’s sermon on Isaiah 41:10, titled,
“God’s Covenant with His People, The Ground of their Security,” in Christ Alone
Exalted, 526–47.
in controversies about justification.”36 As we will see below, Baxter

modified his view of justification in order to refute antinomianism.
Despite the controversies that resulted from his revisions, controver-
sies primarily with the Reformed orthodox, he became convinced
over time that his polemical writings on justification had successfully
silenced antinomianism. By 1664, he concluded that this “Sect” had
been extinct for many years.37
It was therefore much to his vexation to discover almost thirty
years later that antinomianism was still alive and kicking. In 1690,
the sermons of Tobias Crisp were reprinted by Crisp’s son Samuel,
indicating a rising interest in the teachings Baxter had spent most
of his life refuting. What is more is that the preface to the published
sermons contained a rebuttal of Baxter’s view of imputation. This
was enough to move the aging Baxter to attack Crisp’s views in a
lecture given in the joint Presbyterian-Congregationalist lectures at
Pinner’s Hall, and to continue writing on the subject, even up to his
death.38 In 1690, he published The Scripture Gospel defended, and Christ,
Grace and Free Justification Vindicated Against the Libertines, Who use the
names of Christ, Free Grace and Justification, to subvert the Gospel, and
Christianity, etc., and in 1691 he published An End of Doctrinal Contro-
36. Allison, Rise of Moralism, 154.

37. Richard Baxter, Reliquiae Baxterianae: Or, Mr. Richard Baxter’s Narrative of The
most Memorable Passages of His Life and Times (London, 1696), 1:111.
38. Baxter was not the only one involved in refuting antinomianism. Daniel
Williams (c. 1643–1715/6) took up Baxter’s mantle and wrote Gospel-Truth Stated
and Vindicated, Wherein some of Dr. Crisp’s Opinions Are Considered; And The Opposite
Truths Are Plainly Stated and Confirmed (London, 1692). Williams was opposed by
Isaac Chauncey (1632–1712), who published, Neonomianism Unmask’d: Or, The An-
cient Gospel Pleaded, Against the Other, Called a New Law Or Gospel (1692) in which
he defended Crisp’s views. The debates between Williams and Chauncey led to
some division between English Presbyterians and Congregationalists who had,
for years, met at Pinners Hall for joint lectures and, since March of 1691, partici-
pated in the so-called Happy Union. Things turned unhappy, however, when Wil-
liams was ousted and a rival lectureship at Salter’s Hall was formed by disgruntled
Presbyterians. These events led the divided Nonconformists to ask the Dutchman
Herman Witsius (1636–1708) to mediate between the parties. Witsius agreed and
subsequently produced his Conciliatory, or Irenical Animadversions on the Controversies
Agitated in Britain, under the unhappy names of Antinomians and Neonomians (1696). For
more on this, see Watts, Dissenters, 290–97; and D. Patrick Ramsey, “Meet Me in the
Middle: Herman Witsius and the English Dissenters,” Mid-America Journal of Theol-
ogy 19 (2008): 143–64.
versies Which have Lately Troubled the Churches by Reconciling Explication,

without Much Disputing.39
Antinomianism, as J.I. Packer put it, would be “Baxter’s lifelong
bogey.... [H]e attacked their positions as bound to prove libertine
in effect. This was the whole point and purpose of his onslaught.”40
Before examining Baxter’s view of justification, however, it is neces-
sary for us to look at several features of Rome’s interpretation of the
same doctrine.
Rome’s Doctrine of Justification

While it is beyond the scope of this essay to engage in a full-scale
analysis of Rome’s doctrine of justification, we will focus briefly on
three points within her doctrine as stated in the Council of Trent.
The first is Rome’s denial of the imputed obedience of Christ as the
ground of the believer’s justification. According to Trent, justification
is not a one-time forensic act in which Christ’s obedience and righ-
teousness is imputed to the believer (e.g., HC 60; BC 22; WCF 11.1;
WLC 70–73), but a gradual process of moral change in the believer’s
life, wrought by grace. This was a rejection of the sharp distinction
Protestants made between justification and sanctification. Chapter 7
of Session 6 states that justification “is not the remission of sins merely
but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through
the voluntary reception of the grace and of the gifts, whereby man
of unjust becomes just, and of an enemy a friend, that so he may
be an heir according to the hope of life everlasting.”41 Whereas the
Reformed orthodox insisted that Christ’s righteousness is the formal
cause of justification, Rome contended otherwise:
[T]he alone formal cause is the justice of God, not that whereby
he himself is just, but that whereby he maketh us just, that, to
wit, with which we, being endowed by him, are renewed in the
spirit of our mind, and we are not only reputed, but are truly
called, and are just, receiving justice within us, each one accord-
ing to his own measure, which the Holy Ghost distributes to
39. The title page of Scripture Gospel defended, notes the “sudden reviving of
Antinomianism, which seemed almost extinct near thirty-four years.”
40. Packer, Redemption, 351–52.
41. Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 7, as quoted in Schaff, 2:94.
every one as he wills, and according to each one’s proper dispo-

sition and co-operation.42
In other words, justification for Rome is the Holy Spirit’s process of
inward, moral renewal, since one is justified only if one is actually
and truly just.
This ontological understanding of justification arose in large part
from the distinction made by late medieval scholastic theologians
between meritum de congruo and meritum de condigno. The former was
a half-merit not truly deserving of God’s grace; it received grace pro-
portionate to and congruent with a believer’s good works on the basis
of divine generosity. The latter, on the other hand, was a full merit
truly deserving of God’s grace. Connected to this was the Francis-
can teaching that God’s covenant was facientibus quod in se est, Deus
non denegat gratiam (“To those who do what is in them, God will not
deny grace”).43 The Reformers and their orthodox heirs, on the other
hand, rejected the medieval notion of congruent merit and instead
embraced a doctrine of imputed condign merit — merit which the
first Adam failed to achieve but which the second Adam attained
through his active obedience — to the sinner who received it through
faith alone.44
Thus, for Rome, justification excluded the Protestant notion of the
imputed obedience of Christ as the ground of justification. Righteous-
ness is not imputed, but infused. “Whence man, through Jesus Christ, in
whom he is ingrafted, receives, in the said justification, together with
the remission of sins, all these [gifts] infused at once, faith, hope, and
charity.”45 Session 6, Canon 11, made this even more clear:
If anyone saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputa-
tion of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to
the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth
in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or
42. Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 7, as quoted in Schaaf, 2:95.

43. See Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn
Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 113, 191–
92; Clark, “How We Got Here,” in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, 12–13;
and Fesko, Justification, 17–18.
44. See, for example, Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between
God & Man (1677) (reprint, Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010),
1:90–92.
45. Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 7, as quoted in Scaff, 2:96.
even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favor
of God: let him be anathema.46
Contrary to Protestant and Reformed orthodox thought, Rome
denied the imputed obedience of Christ as the ground of the believ-
er’s justification.
The second point we must consider in the Tridentine doctrine
of justification is the matter of faith. Trent officially adopted the
medieval understanding of faith taught clearly by Thomas Aquinas
(c. 1224 –1274). Faith, for Aquinas, was first a habitus mentis, a habit
of the mind, in which eternal life was begun, causing the intellect to
assent to doctrinal truth.47 To this “unformed faith,” however, must
be added hope and love, that is, acts of obedience, which causes the
faith to be fides formata, “formed faith.”48 This was codified by Trent
in Session 6, Canon 11, as quoted above, and in Canon 12, which
declared: “If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but
confidence in divine mercy which remits sins for Christ’s sake; or,
that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified: let him be
anathema.”49 For Rome, saving faith was not, as the Reformed held,
notitia (“knowledge”), assensus (“assent”), and fiducia (“trust”) in the
gospel (e.g., HC 21), but a faith that obeys.
Rome viewed this obedience as possible for believers under
the new covenant largely because of a distinction made by Aquinas
between old law (lex vetus) and new law (lex nova). Under the new
covenant and new law, which was inaugurated by Christ, more grace
is available to the believer than was previously available under the old
covenant and old law.50 It is important to understand that, for Rome,
this obedience under the new covenant was not, as the Reformed
had claimed, merely the fruit of justification, but actually part of the
cause and increase of justification. “If anyone saith, that the justice
46. Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 11, as quoted in Schaff, 2:112–13.

47. See Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (Westminster: Christian Classics,
1989), II–II Q. 4.1. See also W. Robert Godfrey, “Faith Formed by Love or Faith
Alone?” in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, 269–70.
48. See Aquinas, Summa, I–II Q. 4.4.
49. Council of Trent, Session 6, Canon 12, as quoted in Schaff, 2:113.
50. See Aquinas, Summa, I–II Q. 112.1; II–II Q. 4.3. See Clark’s summary of
Aquinas’s position and influence upon later Roman Catholic thought in “Letter and
Spirit: Law and Gospel in Reformed Preaching,” in Covenant, Justification, and Pasto-
ral Ministry, 336–37.
received is not preserved and also increased before God through

good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs
of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof: let
him be anathema.”51
Lastly, we must note that Rome formulated, at least implicitly, a
type of “final justification” in Trent. In Session 6, Chapter 10, Trent
declared that justification advances “from virtue to virtue...through
the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church,
faith co-operating with works” so that there is a gradual “increase
in that justice which [believers] have received through the grace of
Christ, and are still further justified.”52 In other words, complete jus-
tification is never attained in this life by a believer; it only comes at
the conclusion of a lifetime of obedience and good works.
Having considered briefly Rome’s doctrine of justification, we
are now prepared to look more closely at Baxter’s.
Baxter’s Doctrine of Justification

Baxter’s treatment of justification was vast and his works on the sub-
ject spanned more than four decades.53 As Packer has noted, “it was
here [i.e., the doctrine of justification] that he supposed himself to be
making his most valuable contribution to theology.”54 While a com-
prehensive study of Baxter’s doctrine of justification is beyond the
scope of this paper, we will, for the purpose of defending our thesis,
examine four aspects of his doctrine of justification.
51. Session 6, Canon 24, as quoted in Schaff, 2:115.

52. Session 6, Chapter 10, as quoted in Schaff, 2:99.
53. Some of his most important works on justification from which we gain
a clear picture of what he believed are: Aphorismes of Justification (London, 1649),
Rich: Baxter’s Confession of his Faith, Especially concerning the Interest of Repentance and
sincere Obedience to Christ, in our Justification & Salvation. Written for the satisfaction of the
misinformed, the conviction of Calumniators, and the Explication and Vindication of some
weighty Truths (London, 1655); Of Justification: Four Disputations Clearing and amicably
Defending the Truth, against the unnecessary Oppositions of divers Learned and Reverend
Brethren (London, 1658), A Treatise of Justifying Righteousness, In Two Books (London,
1676), and An End of Doctrinal Controversies Which have Lately Troubled the Churches by
Reconciling Explication, without Much Disputing (London, 1691).
54. Packer, Redemption, 241. For a fuller treatment of Baxter’s doctrine of justi-
fication, see Boersma’s dissertation, A Hot Pepper Corn, and Chapter 10 of Packer’s
Redemption, 241–69.
The first is Baxter’s denial of the imputed obedience of Christ as

the ground of justification. He admitted that for about ten years he
rejected the belief commonly held by the Reformed orthodox that
both the active and passive obedience of Christ were imputed to the
believer in favor of a view that held only Christ’s passive obedience
to be imputed.55 This was a position similar to that of William Twisse
(1578–1646) and Thomas Gataker (1574 –1654).56 After ten years,
however, Baxter embraced a different view of imputation, one which
adapted the legal views of Hugo Grotius and essentially reckoned
the traditional distinctions of Christ’s active and passive obedience
unnecessary.57 Grotius outlined this view in his 1617 treatise, A
Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ against
Faustus Socinus, in which he borrowed from Roman law a distinction
between identical satisfaction (solutio eiusdem) and equivalent satisfac-
tion (solutio tantidem) in order to combat the Socinian objection that
the Protestant doctrine of a vicarious atonement makes salvation a
matter of right and justice rather than forgiveness and mercy.58 Gro-
tius, and subsequently Baxter, held the position that Christ’s death
was not an identical satisfaction for sins, but an equivalent one.
According to Packer, Baxter’s study of Saltmarsh “revolution-
ized his own thought; for he began to see that Saltmarsh’s gospel
was an inescapable deduction from two doctrines he held himself —
limited atonement and justification before faith.”59 Adapting the Gro-
tian position allowed Baxter to thwart the antinomian teaching of
eternal justification. Carl Trueman offers this helpful summary of
how this played out in Baxter’s thought:
[T]he Grotian distinction in this regard allows Baxter to avoid
what he sees as the implication of eternal justification which the
55. Baxter, Aphorismes, 44–54.

56. See ibid., 44–52. On the views of Twisse and Gataker, see Chad Van Dix-
hoorn, “Reforming the Reformation,” 1:324–30.
57. Baxter, Aphorismes, 54.
58. Hugo Grotius, A Defence of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of
Christ against Faustus Socinus (1617), trans. by Frank Hugh Foster (London: War-
ren F. Draper, 1889), 3:319–20. For an excellent summary of Baxter’s adaption of
Grotius’s view, see Carl Trueman, The Claims of Truth (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998),
210–11; and idem, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Hampshire: Ash-
gate, 2007), 106–107.
59. Packer, Redemption, 204.
solutio eiusdem concept implies: if the actual sins of a particular

sinner are really imputed to Christ and punished on the cross,
then that sinner is, from that moment onwards, really justi-
fied, regardless of when they come to exercise faith. In other
words, for Baxter the problem with Reformed Orthodox views
of imputation is not simply that what is imputed to the believer
subverts the need for good works; it is also that what is imputed
to Christ subverts the need for good works as well.60
Thus, Baxter, in his effort to refute antinomianism, rejected the
Reformed orthodox teaching of double imputation, that is, the great
exchange between the sins of the elect and the obedience of Christ by
imputation (cf. HC 60; BC 22–23; WCF 11; WLC 70–73). “Take heed
of the Errors of the Antinomians,” warned Baxter, “[errors which
teach] that Christ’s satisfaction is ours...before the Application.”61
What then was the ground of justification in Baxter’s mind if
it was not the imputed obedience of Christ? He held that Christ’s
righteousness caused a change in the demands of the law. Packer
observes that the difference between orthodox Calvinism and Bax-
ter has to do with the law of God and how it is satisfied in Christ
for the believer. Packer observes: “Where orthodox Calvinism taught
that Christ satisfied the law in the sinner’s place, Baxter held that
Christ satisfied the Lawgiver and so procured a change in the law.
Here Baxter aligns himself with Arminian thought rather than with
orthodox Calvinism.”62
Yet, on this point, Baxter also appears to have aligned himself to
some degree with Roman Catholic thought. Not only did he, like
Rome, reject the imputation of Christ’s obedience as the ground of
justification, but he also seems to have suggested a scheme similar to
Rome’s old law/new law distinction: Christ’s work makes the terms
of the new covenant more lenient than the old, procuring a change
in the law that makes obedience possible.
This leads us to the second point we must consider in Baxter’s
doctrine of justification, namely, his notion of a twofold righteous-
ness. “[A]s there are two Covenants, with their distinct Conditions:
so there is a twofold Righteousness, and both of them absolutely
60. Trueman, John Owen, 107.

61. Baxter, Apology, 13.
62. Packer, Redemption, 262.
necessary to Salvation.”63 The first of these two is what he called

legal righteousness, that is, the righteousness earned under the law
of works. This righteousness is not personal to the believer, “for we
never fulfilled, nor personally satisfied the law,” but is “wholly with-
out us in Christ.”64 He claimed this to be the type of righteousness of
which Paul spoke in Philippians 3, juxtaposing it to the righteousness
that comes by faith in Christ.
The second type of righteousness, however, is evangelical righ-
teousness, which, according to Baxter, does belong to the believer,
and consists of the believer’s faith. Says Baxter, “faith is imputed for
Righteousness...because it is an Act of Obedience to God...it is the
performance of the Condition of the Justifying Covenant.” 65 Allison
seems correct in his charge that “justifying faith, for Baxter, is that
which is imputed and reckoned for righteousness as a condition of
the new covenant.”66 Packer does not contest this point; he fully rec-
ognizes that, for Baxter, a believer’s faith “constitutes him righteous.
This is evangelical righteousness.”67 He clearly believed that one’s faith,
rather than the active and passive obedience of Christ, is the ground
of and condition for one’s justification. As Allison summarizes,
Baxter takes the position that Christ himself fulfilled the condi-
tions of the old covenant, and thereby purchased for us easier
terms within the new covenant. On account of Christ’s righ-
teousness, our own righteousness (faith and repentance) is
accounted, or imputed, as acceptable righteousness. We are, in
other words, justified by our own righteousness on account of the
righteousness of Christ.68
In other words, Christ’s righteousness makes justification by a believ-
er’s righteousness (i.e., his faith) possible.
That the Reformed orthodox found this formulation upsetting
comes as no surprise, for their confessional standards taught the very
opposite about faith, namely, that it was not the ground of justifica-
tion, but the instrument (i.e., HC 60–61; BC 22; WCF 11.1–2; WLC
63. Baxter, Aphorismes, 102.

64. Ibid., 103.
65. Baxter, Treatise, 178.
67. See Packer, Redemption, 258.
68. Allison, Rise of Moralism, 156–57.
70–73). Yet, what they found even more provocative in Baxter’s posi-
tion was his insistence that justifying faith contained works, which is
the third point we must consider in Baxter’s doctrine of justification.
For Baxter, faith itself is not the sole ground of a believer’s jus-
tification; rather, faith must be joined to works: “Both justifie in
the same kinde of causality, viz. as Causae sine quibus non.... Faith as
the principal part; Obedience as the less principall. The like may be
said of Love, which at least is a secondary part of the Condition.”69
The evangelical righteousness of which Baxter spoke — that is, the
righteousness apart from which one cannot be justified — contained
the believer’s obedience. Boersma does not dispute this point in
Baxter’s thinking. He fully concedes that Baxter made evangelical
obedience “a secondary part of the condition of the continuation of
justification.”70 Using the analogy of an insignificant amount of rent
paid by a tenant, rent costing only a “pepper corn,” Baxter said this is
what the believer’s obedience contributes to salvation.71
A Tenant forfeiteth his Lease to his Landlord, by not paying his
rent; he runs deep in debt to him, and is disabled to pay him
any more rent for the future, whereupon he is put out of his
house, and cast into prison till he pay his debt. His Landlord’s
son payeth it for him, taketh him out of prison, and putteth him
in his house again, as his Tenant, having purchased house and
all to himself; he maketh him a new Lease in this Tenor, that
paying but a pepper corn yearly to him, he shall be acquit both
from his debt, and from all other rent from the future, which by
his old lease was to be paid; yet doth he not cancel the old Lease,
but keepeth it in his hands to put in suite against the Tenant,
if he should be so foolish as to deny the payment of the pepper
corn. In this case the payment of the grain of pepper is imputed
to the Tenant, as if he had paid the rent of the old Lease: Yet this
imputation doth not extoll the pepper corn, nor vilifie the ben-
efit of his Benefactor, who redeemed him: nor can it be said that
the purchase did only serve to advance the value and efficacy of
that grain of pepper. But thus; a personall rent must be paid for
the testification of his homage.72
69. Baxter, Aphorismes, 290. See also his Confession, 297, and his Of Justification, 220.
70. Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 167.
71. Baxter, Aphorismes, 110; Boersma, A Hot Pepper Corn, 24.
In other words, Christ, like the landlord’s son in this analogy, has
paid the cost (the lease) of what the sinner (the tenant) owed God
(the landlord). The new covenant is like a new lease which only
demands a small payment (a pepper corn), namely, obedient faith.73
For Baxter, a denial of this pepper corn of obedience contributed
to salvation made one an antinomian. “The ignorant Antinomians
think, it cannot be a Free Act of Grace, if there be any Condition
on our part for enjoying it. As if...the Tenants redemption were the
less free because his new Lease requires the Rent of a pepper corn in
token of homage!”74
The similarities of this point of Baxter’s to Rome’s doctrine
are obvious. Whereas Trent requires obedience for justification, so
does Baxter, a point not lost on the Reformed orthodox. John Owen
(1616–83), for example, responded to Baxter in his 1677 treatise on
justification, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith though the Imputation of
the Righteousness of Christ; Explained, Confirmed, and Vindicated. While
Owen wrote this treatise primarily against “the two grand parties by
whom the doctrine of justification by the imputation of the righteous-
ness of Christ is opposed; namely the Papists and the Socinians,” he
also aimed his guns at neonomians such as Johannes Piscator (1546–
1625), Gataker, and Baxter, to whom he clearly refers as the “many
interlopers, who, coming in on their hand, do make bold to borrow
from both as they see occasion.”75 Preceding Owen was Samuel Petto
(c. 1624–1711), who, in his 1674 treatise on covenant theology, The
Difference Between the Old and New Covenant, refuted Baxter’s anal-
ogy of a “pepper corn” payment of rent: “We claim Salvation not
in the right of any act of ours, not upon the Rent of Faith (as men
hold Tenements by the payment of a Penny, a Rose, or such like) no
such thing here; all is paid to the utmost Farthing by our Surety, and
we hold and claim upon the obedience of Jesus Christ alone.”76 For
73. See Samuel Petto’s rebuttal of this very point in his The Difference Between
the Old and New Covenant Stated and Explained: With an Exposition of the Covenant of
Grace in the Principal Concernments of It (London, 1674), 199–200.
75. John Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith though the Imputation of the
Righteousness of Christ; Explained, Confirmed, and Vindicated (1677) in The Works of John
Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1998), 5:165.
76. Samuel Petto, The Difference Between the Old and New Covenants (London,
1674), 200. Interestingly, Owen wrote the foreword to this book.
the Reformed orthodox, faith is a gift that bestows a title upon the
believer because of the obedience of Christ alone.
Lastly, we must briefly consider Baxter’s view of “final justifica-
tion.” For the pastor from Kidderminster, continuance of justification
depends not on faith alone, but also upon the believer’s personal
faithfulness and covenant-keeping:77
In our first Believing we take Christ in the Relation of a Sav-
iour, and Teacher, and Lord, to save us from all sin, and to lead
us to glory. This therefore importeth that we accordingly sub-
mit unto him, in those his Relations, as a necessary means to
the obtaining of the benefits of the Relations. Our first faith is
our Contract with Christ.... And all Contracts of such nature,
do impose a necessity of performing what we consent to and
promise, in order to the benefits.... And in humane contracts
it is so. Barely to take a Prince for her husband may entitle a
woman to his honours and lands; but conjugal fidelity is also
necessary for the continuance of them; for Adultery would
cause a divorce.... Covenant-making may admit you, but its the
Covenant-keeping that must continue you in your priviledges.78
In other words, a believer enters the salvific relationship with God
by faith, but must remain in that relationship by his own faithful-
ness. Notice what Baxter says: “Our first faith is our Contract with
Christ,” but, as in human contracts, in order to obtain the benefits of
that contract, we must perform “what we consent to and promise.”
Christ may be our faithful Husband, but we must be His faithful
bride if want to continue in the privileges of salvation and reach final
justification. “Faith, Repentance, Love, Thankfulness, sincere Obedi-
ence, together with finall Perseverance, do make up the Condition of
our final Absolution in Iudgement, and our eternal Glorification.”79
In one of his most lucid statements on this point, Baxter said:
And that the Law of Grace being that which we are to be judged
by, we shall at the last Judgment also be judged (and so justi-
fied) thus far by or according to our sincere Love, Obedience,
77. See Packer, Redemption, 257ff.

78. Baxter, Of Justification: Four Disputations Clearing and amicably Defending the
Truth, against the unnecessary Oppositions of divers Learned and Reverend Brethren (Lon-
don, 1658), 123–24. See also his End of Doctrinal Controversies, 252ff.
79. Baxter, Confession, 56.
or Evangelical Works, as the Conditions of the Law or Cov-

enant of free Grace, which justifieth and glorifieth freely in
all that are thus Evangelically qualified, by and for the Merits,
perfect Righteousness and Sacrifice of Christ, which procured
the Covenant or free Gift of Universal Conditional Justification
and Adoption, before and without any Works or Conditions
done by Man Whatsoever. Reader forgive me this troublesome
oft repeating of the state of the controversy; I meddle with no
other. If this be Justification by Works, I am for it.80
In other words, the “perfect righteousness and sacrifice of Christ”
secured more lenient terms for believers than previously enjoyed
under the old covenant so that a believer’s faith (which must include
“sincere love, obedience, or evangelical works”) is imputed for righ-
teousness “as the condition of the law.”
Because Baxter’s construction of justification bore striking simi-
larities to the Roman Catholic position that Christ obeyed the law in
order to make it possible for sinners to cooperate with grace toward
future justification, it elicited intense responses from Reformed
orthodox writers. John Owen, for example, wrote The Doctrine of
Justification by Faith through the Imputation of the Righteousness of Christ
in 1677. In it he lamented, “In my judgment Luther spake the truth
when he said, ‘Amisso articulo justificationis, simul amissa est tota
doctrina Christiana.’ And I wish he had not been a true prophet,
when he foretold that in the following ages the doctrine hereof would
be again obscured.”81
Conclusion
We conclude that, at least in three aspects, namely, a denial of the
imputation of Christ’s obedience as the ground of justification, a
80. Baxter, Treatise, 163.

81. “When the article of justification is lost, at the same time the whole Chris-
tian doctrine is lost.” Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith through the Imputa-
tion of the Righteousness of Christ; Explained, Confirmed, and Vindicated, Works (1677)
in Works, 5:67. For more on Owen’s doctrine of justification and the imputation of
Christ’s active obedience, see Trueman, John Owen, 101–21; R. Scott Clark, “Do
This and Live: Christ’s Active Obedience as the Ground of Justification,” in Cov-
enant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, 236; and Michael Brown, “John Owen on
the Imputation of Christ’s Active Obedience,” in The Outlook 58, no. 9 (October
2008), 22–27.
faith that obeys as the ground of righteousness, and final justifica-

tion, it is, as Allison rightly pointed out, “difficult to distinguish...
from that of the Council of Trent.”82 Baxter’s views on justification
accurately earn him the title, “neonomian,” for they restate the gospel
as merely a “new law.”

PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 153–176
The Guardian of the Gathered:

Covenant and Community in the
Career of George Philips
timothy l. wood
q
“Not only the Common Sign-Posts of every Town, but also some
famous Orders of Knighthood in the most famous Nations of
Europe, have entertained us with Traditions of a certain Champion,
by the Name of St. GEORGE, dignified and distinguished,” wrote
the Congregationalist minister Cotton Mather in 1702. However,
Mather’s tribute was not ultimately directed at the legendary slayer
of dragons; instead, the Boston minister believed he had found a
greater and more worthy hero within the annals of Massachusetts’s
own history. Thus, Mather sought to honor the “one George who
was indeed among the first Saints of New-England! And that Excel-
lent Man of our Land was Mr. George Philips.”1
George Philips served as pastor of the Puritan church at Water-
town, Massachusetts, from 1630 until his death in 1644. But while
Mather would have later generations believe that Philips was a stal-
wart defender of Puritan orthodoxy, in reality Philips’s tenure at
Watertown was far more controversial. Indeed, the most puzzling
aspect of Philips’s career is how easily he moved between the role of
dissenter and respected authority figure. On two separate occasions
during the early 1630s, Philips shocked the leaders of Massachusetts
by engaging in religious dissent and staunchly criticizing the Bay
colony’s government. In 1631, Philips declared Roman Catholicism
to be a true form of Christianity. The following year, he attacked
the Massachusetts General Court’s taxation policy. In both cases, the
colonial leadership rebuked him. However, unlike his contempo-
raries Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, he never faced formal
1. Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana: or, the Ecclesiastical History of New-
England (London: Thomas Parkhurst, 1702), 3:82.
charges or the threat of banishment. In fact, Philips remained con-

cerned enough about the colony’s social cohesion and the proper
exercise of authority within Massachusetts Bay that, despite his own
history of dissent, in 1637, he joined the prosecution against fellow
dissident Anne Hutchinson. Even in death, Philips lashed out against
doctrines he considered heretical. In 1645, a manuscript by Philips
was posthumously published wherein the Watertown pastor attacked
a number of Baptist doctrines then current in England — a debate
which in many ways anticipated the coming antagonism between
Puritans and Baptists in New England during the 1650s. And three
generations after his death, his reputation remained so strongly intact
that Mather could still lionize him as one of the larger-than-life
heroes of the Bay colony.
However, the paradoxes that surround Philips’s career can be
resolved. For Philips, the reality of community lived out on a day-to-
day basis, rather than a body of doctrine, defined the Puritan mission
in America. The Puritan theological insight that Philips found most
compelling was that of the covenant, since it embodied in theory
the actual human community that surrounded Philips. From that
perspective, the Watertown pastor’s activities both as a leader and
as a dissident can be seen as Philips upholding and defending the
Christian ideal of community, as he understood it. When Puritan
doctrine or colonial policy weakened the concept of the covenant,
threatened the rights of the community, or undermined its cohe-
sion, Philips consistently rose in opposition to it. Those values are
evident not only in Philips’s everyday life as a pastor, but also when
one examines the dispute over the place of the Catholic church in the
Puritan worldview and the Watertown taxation controversy. How-
ever, when dissent itself threatened to disrupt the community, the
Watertown pastor allied himself with the leadership of the colony in
order to eliminate it. Thus, Philips could participate in the proceed-
ings against Anne Hutchinson and critique the seemingly chaotic
theology and church polity of the Baptists while remaining faithful
to his core values.
Piecing together the life and career of George Philips is an
endeavor fraught with difficulties. Unlike his contemporary, John
Winthrop, Philips was not a devoted diarist and did not leave histori-
ans a detailed journal of his daily activities. Nor was Philips a prolific
writer. Unlike his more famous colleagues, Roger Williams and John
The Guardian of the Gathered 155
Cotton, who left volume after volume recording their thoughts on

politics and theology, only one book by Philips survives (and even its
date of composition is the subject of much controversy), alongside a
mere handful of letters and sermon notes. Barring the discovery of
new sources in the future, Philips seems destined to remain a shad-
owy figure in the history of New England, with little in the way of
certainty available to scholars.
However, although he continues to be an obscure name in the
history of colonial Massachusetts, the fact that Philips found him-
self involved in several of the major controversies of his day where
he alternated between the role of dissident and champion of the
established order, and often advocated positions that the majority of
the ministers and magistrates in the colony found to be erroneous
or unorthodox, suggests that his life and career still offer valuable
insights into the larger history of early Massachusetts.2 Thus, recon-
structing the surviving remnants of Philips’s thought remains a
worthwhile endeavor.
The roots of Philips’s dedication to the idea of community can be
found within the concept of a covenanted church. As David A. Weir
remarked, one of the most important aspects of a church covenant in
colonial New England was
the “holy watch” or the guarding of souls, an activity the whole
congregation engaged in rather than simply the elders and the
clergy. This section of the covenant established...a foundation
for mutual exhortation and admonition of one another.... [I]n
the system of gathered Congregationalism church discipline
was the responsibility of the entire gathered church.
Thus, Congregationalist leaders in early Massachusetts adhered to
the concept of a
communal commitment to holiness that did not allow for indi-
vidual privacy or secret sin. Nevertheless, those who did place
themselves under “holy watch” did so voluntarily. Once they
volunteered, however, it was very hard to get out from under
2. For more on Philips as a Puritan dissenter, see Roger Thompson, Divided We

Stand: Watertown, Massachusetts, 1630–1680 (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massa-
chusetts Press, 2001), 72–73; Timothy L. Wood, Agents of Wrath, Sowers of Discord: Au-
thority and Dissent in Puritan Massachusetts, 1630–1655 (New York: Routledge, 2006).
these covenant obligations without some form of ecclesiastical

censure or communal pressure. 3
Certainly, those communal tendencies can be seen in the cov-
enant Philips helped draft at Watertown. After their arrival in
Massachusetts, Philips and his congregation signed and entered into
a formal church covenant in July of 1630. As the document begins, it
recounts the struggles the congregation shared in during the danger-
ous journey across the Atlantic.
We whose names are hereto subscribed, having through God’s
mercy, escaped out of Pollutions of the World, and been taken
into the society of his People...acknowledge, That his Gra-
cious Goodness and fatherly Care towards us: and for further
and more full Declaration thereof, to the present and future
Ages, have undertaken (for the promoting of his Glory and the
Churches Good, and the Honour of our Blessed Jesus, in our
more full and free subjecting ourselves and ours, under his Gra-
cious Government, in the Practice of, and Obedience unto all
his Holy Ordinances and Orders, which he hath pleased to pre-
scribe and impose upon us) a long and hazardous Voyage...from
Old England in Europe, to New-England in America; that we
may walk before him, and serve him without Fear in Holiness
and Righteousness.... And being safely arrived here...we may
bring forth our Intentions into Actions, and perfect our Resolu-
tions, in the Beginnings of some Just and Meet Executions....
The future church members then vowed that
...we do all...solemnly and with all our Hearts, personally, Man
by Man for our selves and ours (...even them that are not here
with us this Day, or are yet unborn, That they keep the Prom-
ise unblameably and faithfully unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus) promise and enter into a sure Covenant with the Lord
our God, and before him with one another, by Oath and seri-
ous Protestation made, to...give ourselves wholly unto the Lord
Jesus, to do him faithful Service, observing and keeping all his
Statutes, Commands, and Ordinances, in all Matters concern-
ing our Reformation; his Worship, Administrations, Ministry,
3. David A. Weir, Early New England: A Covenanted Society (Grand Rapids: Eerd
mans, 2005), 160–61.
and Government; and in the Carriage of our selves among our

selves, and one toward another, as he hath prescribed in his
Holy Word.4
Thus, the building of a Christian community based upon godly rela-
tionships became one of the explicitly stated goals of Philips and the
other members of his congregation when they settled in Watertown.
All surviving sources suggest that Philips took that idea of com-
munity quite seriously. In April 1630, just before embarking from
England to America, Philips was one of seven signers of a document
known as The Humble Request. This letter to fellow Christians back in
England repelled any hint of separatism that might attach itself to the
Puritan migration. The letter states:
We beseech you by the mercies of the Lord Jesus to consider us
as your Brethren.... And howsoever your charitie may have met
with some occasion of discouragement through the misreport
of our intentions, or through the disaffection, or indiscretion, of
some of us...; for wee are not of those who dream of perfection
in this world; yet we...esteeme it our honor, to call the Church
of England, from whince we rise, our deare Mother, and can-
not part from our native Country, where she specially resideth,
without much sadness of heart..., ever acknowledging that such
hope and part as wee have obtained in the common salvation,
we have received in her bosome.... [W]ee leave it not therefore,
as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there, but
blessing God for the parentage and education, as members of
the same body shall always rejoice in her good, and...syncerely
desire and indeavor the continuance and abundance of her wel-
fare, with the inlargement of her bounds in the kingdome of
Christ Jesus.5
Thus, even before arriving in Massachusetts, Philips concerned him-
self with strengthening the bonds of community between fellow
Christians.
Although Philips remained hostile to outright separatism (and
the second-guessing of other churches’ covenants that it implied), he
continued to believe the primary arena for God’s work stood within
4. Mather, Magnalia, 3:83.

5. John Winthrop, Winthrop Papers, 1623–1630 (Boston: The Plimpton Press,
1931), 2:231–33.
the local congregation. Thus, throughout his career, Philips demon-

strated a pronounced suspicion of outside power, whether it be civil
or religious. Concerning ministerial authority within the church,
Philips believed that “the manner of calling is not the Bishops ordi-
nation...that makes it not a calling, but marres the goodnesse of it,
addes nothing unto it, but derogates from the purity of it.” However,
Philips did believe that a vertical authority structure could coex-
ist — albeit uneasily — with a largely congregational church polity. As
Philips contended:
But the people receiving a man, sent unto them in a corrupt
way, and not exercising their power in refusing him (though
they doe not explicitly exercise their power in chusing)...they
doe virtually and really give him all the just calling that he hath,
which is a true Ministerial calling, and so all the ordinances,
administered by him there, which God hath prescribed...are
really Gods ordinances, and of divine authority, and validity.6
Just as The Humble Request had stated, fellowship existed between
the Congregationalists in New England and their fellow Christians
back in the Old World. But no amount of posturing by the hierarchy
of the established church could camouflage the fact that divine power
and authority could not be channeled through bishops and archbish-
ops. Although power struggles over church government must not be
allowed to emerge and escalate into a divisive force within the Chris-
tian community, Philips remained convinced that true ecclesiastical
power was exercised at the local, congregational level.
The few remaining personal details known about Philips also
suggest a man who valued community. A widower by the time he
arrived in Watertown, he no doubt depended heavily upon his neigh-
bors for emotional support and social interaction, at least until his
subsequent remarriage. As an individual who often suffered from ill
health, he may have been acutely aware of his own physical weakness
and his dependence upon other people. Certainly, he was remem-
bered after his death as a man who had forged close relationships
with those in his congregation. Anecdotal evidence handed down
by Cotton Mather indicates that many of the residents of Watertown
6. George Philips, A Reply to a Confutation of Some Grounds for Infants Baptisme:

as Also Concerning the Form of a Church, Put Forth Against Mee By One Thomas Lamb
(London: Matthew Simmons, 1645), 153–54.
retired to Philips’s home between church services on Sunday in order

to socialize and discuss the morning’s sermon.7
Philips’s sense of responsibility for the well-being of his neigh-
bors was reflected in a minor incident that occurred in 1643. That
year, the General Court fined a Watertown resident named John
Stowes for being in possession of Baptist literature deemed hereti-
cal by the religious leaders of the colony. Philips later recalled that
“John Stowes was heretofore by the honoured Court fined for some
miscarriage of his appearing to ye Court.” As the pastor of the Water-
town church, Philips would have been expected to act as a character
reference for Stowes, intervening when and if he felt one of his parish-
ioners was being unjustly accused. In this case, Philips assumed the
role of advocate, writing the General Court that “upon his [Stowes]
earnest request I make bold to entreat thy favor for him at your hands
that whatsoever was laid against him...there in the Court may be
remitted him.” Philips contended that Stowes should not be pun-
ished for having unorthodox books in his possession, since he “fecht
the book at my request.” However, Philips did not stop after present-
ing the facts of the case. Instead, he continued with an evaluation of
Stowes’s character, stating that “the man hath been a member with us
a long time though he be not free from human frailtie, yet I am per-
suaded he is free from all Anabaptistical opinions neither have I ever
observed in him any carriage towards God’s ordinances but such as
well becometh his place.”8 Apparently Philips’s plea was successful;
on October 17, 1643, the General Court relented and proclaimed
that “John Stowes fine of 40 s[hillings] upon Mr. Philips his petition
is remitted.”9
That commitment to the idea of community first revealed in the
Watertown church covenant and later on in Philips’s intervention on
behalf of Stowes is also evident in the way that he handled the larger
controversies that marked his career. The earliest of those disputes
7. Mather, Magnalia, 3:82, 84. Mather reports that Philips “laboured under
many Bodily Infirmities: But was especially liable unto the Cholick.”
8. John C. Phillips, ed., “Phillips Family Genealogy and Notes” (Boston: Mas-
sachusetts Historical Society, photocopies), 11–12. Roger Thompson suggested that
Stowes’s later relocation to Rhode Island indicated that (at least in this case), Philips
was a poor judge of character. Thompson, Divided We Stand, 222.
9. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Governor and Company of the Massa-
chusetts Bay in New England (Boston: The Press of William White, 1853), 2:52.
occurred in 1631 and involved the consequences of Philips’s going

public with his opinion that the Roman Catholic Church represented
a “true church” in the theological sense — a position certain to cause
an uproar in such a militantly Protestant colony. Most of what can be
reconstructed about this event comes from the journal of Governor
John Winthrop. Alarmed by the implications of Philips’s charitable
opinion of Catholicism, Winthrop, along with Deputy Governor
Thomas Dudley and Boston church elder Increase Nowell,
went to Waterton, to conferre with mr Phillips the paster and mr
Browne the elder aboute an opinion which they had published:
that the churches of Rome were true churches, the matter was
debated before many of both Congregations, & by the approba-
tion of all the Assembly except 3: was concluded an error.10
The precise contents of this meeting were either never recorded
or have not survived, although Philips himself discreetly revisited
the subject of Catholicism and its status as a true church later on
in his career. However, following the conference at Watertown, the
authorities of the Bay colony became much more interested in the
case of Richard Browne, a lay elder at the Watertown church and a
passionate and defiantly vocal supporter of the pro-Catholic faction.
Because Browne continued to press the issue, Winthrop urged the
Court of Assistants into action:
The Congregation at Waterton (whereof mr Geo: Phillipes was
pastor) had chosen one Rich: Browne for their elder...who per-
sisting in his opinion of the truthe of the Rom[ish] Churche,
& maintayninge other errors withal, & being a man of a very
violente spirit, the Court wrote a Lettre to the Congregation
directed to the Pastor & brethren, to advise them to take into
Consideration whither mr Browne were fit to be continued
their elder or not. To which after some weekes, they returned
answer, to this effect that if we would take the paynes to prove
suche things as were objected against him, they would endeavor
to redresse them.
This confrontation between the governor and the Watertown
church provides the first glimpse into Philips’s determination to
defend the independence of his local congregation. Philips recog-
10. Winthrop, Journal, 54.

nized Winthrop’s political pressure as a threat to the autonomy of his

church. Although the Watertown pastor valued the advice of their
neighbors from Boston, he preferred to keep decision-making power
localized in Watertown. In Winthrop’s view, the process of dispute
resolution could move forward either by having the magistrates from
Boston assert their power, or by establishing a footing of equality
between both parties. As the governor recalled in his journal:
The said Congregation beinge muche devided aboute their
elder, bothe partes repayered to the Governor for assistance...
whereupon he went to waterton with the deputy Governor &
mr Noell & the congregation being Assembled, the Governor
tould them that beinge come to settle peace...they might pro-
ceed in 3: distinct respects: 1: as the magistrates (their assistance
being desired) 2: as members of a neighbor Congregation: 3:
upon the Answer which we received of our Lettre, which did
no waye satisfy us, but the pastor mr Ph[ilips] desired us to
sitt with them as members of a neighbor Congregation onely
whereto the Governor...consented.11
Thus, when Winthrop arrived and laid out three possible models
for the meeting, Philips seized the opportunity to restrict the visitors
to an advisory capacity only. Although Watertown did not exist in
isolation from the other communities of Massachusetts Bay, it would
not become Boston’s political and intellectual vassal either. By han-
dling that encounter as a dispute among equals, Philips safeguarded
Watertown’s independence in religious and theological matters.
Of course, the actual content of Philips’s argument concerning
the Catholic Church is also important in gaining a greater insight
into his worldview.12 Although Winthrop wrote much about the
political maneuvering that occurred as both sides addressed the
Catholicism controversy, nothing remains that would indicate why
in 1631 George Philips felt that Catholics belonged to a true church.
Instead, the only available glimpse into Philips’s mind comes fourteen
years later in a posthumous book by the Watertown pastor entitled
11. Ibid., 60–61.

12. For a more in-depth look at Philips’s theology regarding the Roman Catho-
lic Church, see Timothy L. Wood, “‘A Church Still by Her First Covenant’: George
Philips and a Puritan View of Roman Catholicism,” The New England Quarterly 72
(March 1999): 28–41.
A Reply to a Confutation of Some Grounds for Infants Baptisme (1645).

Initially written as an anti-Baptist tract, the Reply represents Phil-
ips’s most comprehensive statement on the centrality of the covenant
throughout the history of the Christian church.13 Indeed, it would be
13. It seems likely that Philips participated intermittently in this particular

controversy from about 1631 until shortly before his death in 1644. However, re-
constructing the sequence of events in between has proven to be a vexing task and
raises several important questions. The first is factual in nature. Since the Reply
was published in 1645, and Philips died in 1644, when was the book actually writ-
ten? The remaining questions then follow closely: Since both documents took up
the question of the nature of the Catholic Church, what exactly is the relationship
between the “published opinion” of 1631 and the Reply? Was the Reply essentially a
final draft of the 1631 manuscript, reworked and expanded in order to address the
controversy with Lamb and the Baptists? Was the Reply an entirely separate docu-
ment that nevertheless presented the same rationale for Catholicism’s legitimacy as
its 1631 predecessor? Or were they two completely unrelated documents in which
Philips arrived at a similar conclusion for entirely different reasons?
Here is what we know with certainty: 1) In 1631, Winthrop made two trips to
Watertown to challenge a “published opinion” issued by Philips and elder Richard
Browne that Roman Catholic churches were true churches. Browne never recanted,
although it is implied that Philips may have backed down. Their reasoning for this
position in 1631 remains unknown. 2) In 1645, a year after his death, Philips’s book
A Reply to a Confutation of Some Grounds for Infants Baptisme was published. In those
pages, Philips offers an in-depth explanation of why God’s covenant with the Ro-
man Catholic Church remains valid. 3) According to the Reply, the chain of events
that led Philips to write the book was set in motion when Nathaniel Biscoe arrived
in Watertown and questioned Philips on the subject of infant baptism. Biscoe does
not begin to appear in the colonial records until the early 1640s (a fire on Biscoe’s
property is mentioned in a 1642 entry in Winthrop’s journal, and his 46-acre farm
is listed in the Watertown Records in a land inventory conducted between 1643 and
1644). Thus both Philip F. Gura and Roger Thompson argue that the Reply was
most likely written in 1643–1644.
Thomas Shepard, the influential minister of Newtown (later Cambridge),
composed a preface that was published with Philips’s Reply in 1645. In his preface,
Shepard praised Philips’s character, lauding him for his “learning, godliness, and
peaceablenesse of disposition.” Shepard then remarked that “a sober strong defence
of the baptism of Infants, may be very profitable & useful against an unprofitable
questioning of it now” before launching into his own brief attack on Baptist doc-
trine. However, the Newtown minister never commented on Philips’s theory on
Roman Catholicism. On the one hand, Shepard’s endorsement of Philips’s Reply
may be seen as an indication that the Watertown pastor had moved away from the
“heretical” thinking that had landed him in hot water with Winthrop in 1631, and
had instead adopted a new line of thinking that earned him Shepard’s seal of approv-
al. On the other hand, if Philips’s views on Catholicism remained largely unchanged
between 1631 and his death, this episode reveals an intriguing chasm between the
that high view of the divine covenant that, in time, led Philips into
affirming Rome’s status as a true church.
At its heart, Philips’s Reply was an examination of the indispens-
able role of the covenant in identifying God’s authentic church in the
world. By the early seventeenth century, numerous Christian sects
in England (such as the Baptists) contended that spiritual regenera-
tion on the personal level was all that was necessary to mark a group
of believers as a genuine church. Philips quotes the English Baptist
Thomas Lamb as stating that
as it is in natural birth, so it is in spirituall; but in naturall birth
we have the beginning of our natural being among the world...;
therefore wee have the beginning of our spiritual and visible
being among the church, as in the affairs of life eternal by our
spiritual birth: and this spiritual birth is baptisme.... therefore
by the administration of true baptisme, the church is truly
stated and continued in her true being.14
However, to Philips such doctrine undercut the idea of the
church as a divinely commissioned institution that owed its existence
to God rather than to the spiritual fervor of its members. As Philips
contended:
way theological orthodoxy was viewed in Massachusetts between educated laity

(such as Winthrop) and the clergy (such as Shepard). To Winthrop, any conclusion
which seemed to vindicate the Catholic Church might have seemed to be irretriev-
ably at loggerheads with Protestant doctrine, while Shepard recognized Philips’s
thought was in line with that of other thinkers within the Church of England and
served a logical purpose. This would not be the first time such a division had re-
vealed itself — during the Antinomian controversy, Winthrop composed a theologi-
cal treatise which Shepard urged him not to publish due to its theological errors.
Ultimately, when working with subjects such as George Philips, historians may
have to accept the reality that the available facts are insufficient to retire alternate
explanations of his significance. This will require a certain humility on the part of
scholars who must then draw their larger conclusions around a range of possible
interpretations. See Francis J. Bremer, John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding
Father (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 289; Philip F. Gura, “A Glimpse of
Sion’s Glory”: Puritan Radicalism in New England, 1620 –1660 (Middletown, Conn.:
Wesleyan University Press, 1984), 110 –111; Thompson, Divided We Stand, 69–73;
Philips, Reply; Watertown Records (Watertown, Massachusetts: Fred G. Barker, 1894),
1:46, 5:i–ii; Winthrop, Journal, 54, 60–61, 421; Wood, New England Quarterly, 28–41.
14. Philips, Reply, 76.
First, the relation that each member possesseth from Christ

the head, and each the other, is either internall (as Spirit, Faith,
Love) or externall, the manifestation of these: as they are inter-
nall, they cannot be the form of an externall visible church: as
they are manifested outwardly, they cannot make the churches
form, because they may manifest these graces, and yet be no
church, nor members of a visible and this particular church.
And indeed they are neither matter nor form...but the manifes-
tation of these maketh them to be fit matter for a church, which
yet cannot be a church without the form added to the matter,
and that is a covenant...by which alone every Law and Service
is communicable and executed.15
It was his belief in the irrevocable nature of the covenant that
led Philips to challenge prevailing Protestant beliefs that the Roman
Catholic Church had been entirely severed from its divine origins.
Although many Reformed theologians during the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries believed the Catholic Church to be completely
apostate, utterly corrupt, and anti-Christian in nature, Philips con-
tended that
Such a church or churches, so remain still true churches, so
long as God continues his dispensation towards them, and no
longer: but when God forsakes them, and gives them a bill of
divorce, then they leave off to be a church, and not before, nor
is it in the power of any other church or churches, to unchurch
any one such church, but Christ himself must do that.16
Philips realized that this doctrine had profound implications for
the way that Protestants viewed Catholicism. If the denunciations of
Philips’s contemporaries were correct, it could only mean that “the
saints in Rome” were never “graffed branches into the true Olive, but
only were esteemed so to be; and the cutting, breaking off, dissolving
of all those and the like, is but a declaration, and manifest discovery
that they were never in covenant.”17
However, Philips proposed a different solution. Even if the Cath-
olic Church had been overtaken and dominated by the Antichrist,
15. Ibid., 75.

16. Ibid., 143.
17. Ibid., 110.
then there was a true church estate where he [the Antichrist]

sate, and whilst he sate there, and the true measured Temple,
whose courts he treads under foot; nor can there be Antichrist,
unlesse there be the Temple and courts therefore where he is....
The Temple or church is the subject wherein hee must sit. The
Antichristian seat is not the subject nor constitutes it, but is an
accident, vitiating the subject, the removing thereof Antichris-
tianity doth not destroy the subject, or make it cease to be, but
changeth it into a better state.18
According to Philips, no power except God Himself could rescind
a divine covenant. Several times in the Reply, Philips indicated that
the termination of a covenanted church would require Christ to
“come Himself” and decommission them in some “manifest act.”19
Philips’s defense of the covenant fell considerably short of
endorsing Catholic theology or practice. Like almost all Reformed
Protestants in the seventeenth century, Philips believed Catholic
doctrine to be deeply flawed and the church itself to be compro-
mised and corrupt. Instead, the Watertown pastor’s concept of a “true
church” primarily addressed the potential and metaphysical form of
a given ecclesiastical body, rather than its current spiritual health. As
Philips remarked:
First, a calling may be lawfull, and of God, and yet corrupted
many ways; as first, by unfitness of persons in regard of their
qualifications: for the Pharisees sate in Moses chair.... Secondly,
by the manner of entrance into the calling: so the high Priest-
hood administered by them who took upon them the Kingly
honors, many of them also purchasing the Priesthood by money
given to the heathen Kings.... Thirdly, by their ungodly and
wicked acts, as in Elies sonnes, Aaron yeelded to the people to
make a Calfe, and kept a festivall day: yet these things did not
18. Ibid., 144 – 45. For more on the complex ways in which Protestants viewed
the Roman Catholic church during this period, see Anthony Milton, Catholic and
Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
19. Philips, Reply, 143– 45. One of Philips’s failures is that he does not address
in any depth how one might go about identifying a fallen church — or even if any
such institutions actually exist. Rather, his main concern is to encourage his read-
ers to hold a higher view of the covenant and to guard against the idea that church
covenants could be easily overturned by the actions of human beings.
nullifie the calling of the Priesthood, nor did their administra-

tions prove null thereby, and invalid.20
The covenant constituted a charter that brought a true church
into existence, but it could offer no guarantee concerning that
church’s future. Philips drew a careful distinction between a church’s
form and matter. The visible life and ministry of the church repre-
sented the latter, while Philips conceptualized “form” as the divine
ideal that undergirded an earthly reality. Thus, faith, sound doctrine,
and good works were the “matter” that ought to be poured into the
abstract “form” of the church. But even if the church’s membership
failed to be spiritually fruitful and to provide that necessary matter,
the form still existed, since it emanated from the mind of God. Con-
sequently, an authentically covenanted church retained the potential
for redemption and rehabilitation. The empty vessel might still be
filled. Even fallen churches might rise again to fulfill their divine
commission. For instance, while discussing the corruptions that had
intruded into the Church of England, Philips argued:
As it pleased God more fully to cleer up the light, and caused
his truth to prevail, so as many thousands were redeemed...; nor
was the church estate altered essentially all this time, nor are
these first fruits unto God, new constituted churches, but mem-
bers of some churches, clearing themselves from corruption, and
by reformation recovering themselves out of a desperate diseased
condition, into a more healthful and sound estate.21
Although not all true churches bore the same spiritual fruit,
through the covenant God had granted to each of them the authen-
tic form of His church. And wherever that form existed, so did the
potential for restoration and renewal.
Ultimately, Philips believed that no human being or earthly insti-
tution had the power to undermine the foundation of a true church
established by God. In fact, he even reserved judgment on the Cath-
olic Church by refusing to rule out the possibility that its original
covenant was still intact, rather than validate the schismatic tenden-
cies of those who, in his mind, seemed to downplay the importance
of the covenant. By affirming the immutable power of the covenant,
20. Ibid., 142.

21. Ibid., 147.
Philips once again demonstrated his commitment to the idea of a

cohesive Christian community chartered directly by God.
In 1632, the second major controversy of Philips’s career emerged
when the Watertown pastor once again confronted an issue that pitted
local autonomy against the power of the colonial government. That
year, the Court of Assistants declared that “there should be three score
pounds levied out of the sevall plantacons within the lymitts of this
patent towards the making of a pallysadoe [palisade] about the newe
towne [Newtown].”22 Again, such an intrusion into the affairs of the
community offended Philips’s sense of local autonomy. In February,
1632, Winthrop reported that “the pastor & elder [of Watertown]...
assembled the people and delivered their opinions that it was not
safe to paye monyes after that sorte for feare of bringinge themselves
& posteryty into bondage.” Winthrop’s response was swift. The
governor recalled that after “being come before the Governor and
Councill, after much debate, they [Philips, Browne, and their sup-
porters] acknowledged their fault confessing freely that they were in
an error, & made a retraction & submission under their handes & were
enjoyned to reade it in the Assembly the next Lordes day.” Winthrop
later explained the source of the Watertown faction’s misgivings:
The gronde of their error was, for that they tooke this Govern-
ment to be no other but as of a maior & Aldermen, who have not
power to make lawes or rayse taxations withoute the people: but
understanding that this Government was rather in the nature
of a Parliament, & that no assistant could be chosen but by the
freemen, who had power likewise to remove the Assistants &
putt in others, & therefore at every general Court (which was
to be helde once every yeare) they had free liberty to confer
& proponde any thing concerning the same, & to declare their
grievances with out being subject to Question.23
Although Philips eventually backed down, he and his supporters
had raised an important issue. As Edmund S. Morgan explained:
If Phillips and Brown thought the government of Massachu-
setts was merely that of an English borough, they did well to
protest, for the mayor and aldermen who governed most Eng-
22. Massachusetts Bay Records, 1:92–93.

23. Winthrop, 63.
lish boroughs were self-perpetuating corporations, in which the

people usually had no share. Aldermen were elected by other
aldermen whenever a death occurred in their own ranks. They
also chose the mayor, usually for a one-year term, but they
themselves held office for life. These petty oligarchies did not
usually have the power to tax, but otherwise they enjoyed an
almost absolute power within their boroughs.24
However, Winthrop argued that the government of Massachu-
setts had evolved into a form similar to the English Parliament, where
taxes were levied through the consent of elected representatives.
Those reassurances must have been enough to convince Philips that
the rights of the community were still to be protected under the gov-
ernment of Massachusetts. Despite Philips’s eventual retreat on the
issue, many scholars believe his complaint was not in vain. Quickly
thereafter, the Watertown taxation protest served as an impetus for
further political reform in the Bay colony. As Roger Thompson has
contended:
Although [Watertown’s] stand against the Newtown levy
proved...faulty..., nonetheless, their objections — along with the
growth of population and settlements due to the second surge
of immigration — did have long term constitutional effects....
By 1634 the freemen, or male church members, of established
towns could elect deputies to represent them at general court
meetings, and local business was devolved to the individual
towns.25
Thus, Philips once again championed the rights of the community
against intrusive outside powers.
Although Philips’s commitment to the community and his desire
to see it free of unreasonable outside control often cast him as the
dissenter, he was more than willing to ally himself with the colony’s
leadership when he felt a genuine threat existed. Such was the case
when the Anne Hutchinson maelstrom broke loose in 1636–1637,
allowing Philips to play a minor role in what would be the third
known controversy of his career. Hutchinson, an influential Boston
24. Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop (Long-
man: New York, 1999), 95–97.
25. Thompson, Divided We Stand, 41–42.
midwife and unofficial Bible teacher, had run afoul of the colony’s
clergy in a couple of respects. First, she suggested that only the Bos-
ton minister John Cotton and her brother-in-law John Wheelwright
truly taught a covenant of grace. The other ministers of the colony
were branded as apostles of a covenant of works, a stinging insult to
Calvinists who believed that God’s grace alone made salvation pos-
sible. Secondly, Hutchinson displayed a predilection for “immediate
revelations” that most Massachusetts ministers found disturbing. In
fact, at her trial, she claimed that God spoke to her by “the voice
of his own spirit to my soul,” in pointing out the errors of the Bay
colony’s churches and promising to deliver her out of the clutches of
colonial authorities. As historian Michael P. Winship explained:
...Hutchinson did not dig a pit for herself simply because she
prophesied from scripture verses. The legitimacy of revelations
about the future, however, was contested in puritan circles, with
their acceptability at best being dependent on who had them,
what context they had them in, and whose interests they served.
Ministers always cited scripture verses while warning their audi-
ences of God’s impending wrath, but Hutchinson’s judges took
for granted that scripture verses could not possibly be correctly
interpreted to mean that someone like Hutchinson was under
divine protection and that God would destroy them....
Moreover, Hutchinson made her case even worse by claim-
ing her revelations were immediate.... It was via scripture that
Hutchinson seems to have experienced her revelations. But
“immediate” could mean without the medium of scriptures
altogether.... It could signal the end of the Bible as the founda-
tional source of religious truth.... It could also signal the end of
all moral restraint, as well as for ministers or authorities of any
kind, as people did whatever their divine voices told them to do.26
Although Philips only played a very small role in Hutchinson’s
prosecution, he was called upon to offer a brief testimony against her.
Thus, during her civil trial in November, 1637, Philips stated that
[f]or my own part I have had little to do in these things only
at the time I was there and yet not being privy to the ground
26. David D. Hall, ed. The Antinomian Controversy, 1636–1638 (Durham, C.: Duke
University Press, 1990), 337; Michael P. Winship, The Times and Trials of Anne Hutchin-
son: Puritans Divided (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 112.
of that which our brother Peters hath mentioned but they pro-
curing me to go along with them telling me that they were to
deal with her; at first she was unwilling to answer but at length
she said there was a great deal of difference between Mr. Cot-
ton and we. Upon this Mr. Cotton did say that he could have
wished that she had not put that in. Being asked of particu-
lars she did instance in Mr. Shephard that he did not preach a
covenant of grace clearly, and she instanced our brother Weld.
Then I asked her of myself (being she spake rashly of them all)
because she never heard me at all. She likewise said that we
were not able ministers of the new testament and her reason
was because we were not sealed.27
Although this exchange offers only vague hints about Philips’s
inner thoughts and motivations, its tone is consistent with what is
known about the Watertown pastor. First of all, it reaffirms Philips’s
willingness to work alongside his ministerial colleagues and cooperate
with colonial authorities. Even though the Catholicism dispute and
the taxation controversy placed Philips in the role of dissident, it was
never a role he relished for its own sake. In fact, throughout both of
those episodes, he was careful to keep the lines of communication
with his adversaries open, and in both cases he made considerable
concessions to his opponents’ position in order to bring the disputes
to resolution. For Philips, effective ministry demanded that he balance
the rights of his own church and community with a sense of charity
and fellowship with Christians outside of his own congregation.
Secondly, Philips’s comments at Hutchinson’s trial highlight his
persistent localism. Certainly, on the doctrinal level Philips would
have been disturbed by the specter of a religious movement that
threatened to replace the hermeneutic authority of the local church
with spontaneous and individual revelation. However, Philips also
went out of his way to gauge the actual threat to his own community.
Although he testified that he heard Hutchinson say that “there was a
great deal of difference between Mr. Cotton and we” and observed
that she seemed to be drawing a rash conclusion about the quality of
the colony’s clergy, the Watertown minister took the next step and
“asked her of myself.”28 With Philips, the heart of the issue always
27. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy, 321–22.

28. Ibid.
lay within his own church. By inquiring about how Hutchinson per-
ceived him and his ministry, Philips made the controversy real and
relevant to his role as pastor at Watertown. If Hutchinson were in fact
a disruptive force in the colony, Philips could know with certainty
that Watertown would be affected also. If Hutchinson had issued a
blanket condemnation of all the ministers in the colony (save Cot-
ton and Wheelwright), then Philips now understood that his work at
Watertown stood specifically condemned in her sight as well. Thus,
within the context of his own worldview, participation in the prose-
cution against Hutchinson could be justified. Although he had often
engaged in dissent himself, he felt no special kinship with dissenters.
Rather, he sought merely to protect the community he ministered to,
whether that required challenging authority or cooperating with it.
Finally, in the last controversy of his career, Philips turned his
attention to an up-and-coming religious movement whose doctrine
posed a direct threat to the covenant theology so treasured by the
Watertown pastor and his Puritan colleagues — the Baptists. Cer-
tainly, the possibility that other Christian groups and sects might
make inroads into Massachusetts was a cause of deep concern for
Congregationalist ministers such as Philips. Such splintering of
Watertown’s religious unity would have a corrosive effect on the
community Philips so treasured. Thus, one of the most significant
controversies that Philips became involved with was the Congrega-
tionalist effort to discredit Baptists, whose influence in colonial New
England was steadily growing and would culminate in the resigna-
tion of Henry Dunster as the president of Harvard College in 1654,
after his conversion to Baptist principles.
Once again, the only surviving document to offer historians a
glimpse of Philips’s positions on these issues is the 1645 book, pub-
lished a year after Philips’s death, entitled A Reply to a Confutation
of Some Grounds for Infants Baptism. Philips was drawn into this war
of words by a seemingly innocuous encounter with Nathaniel Bis-
coe, a local resident with pro-Baptist leanings. Biscoe claimed that he
had questions about the Puritan doctrine of infant baptism and their
theory on the constitution of the church, and was hoping that Philips
might offer him some guidance. Philips, “judging he did intend no
more then he pretended (a private conference about those particu-
lars for further light, being not well resolved on either side),” agreed
to counsel Biscoe on the subject. During their conference, Biscoe
requested that Philips might “pen down those arguments that had
passed between us on my part.” Pleased by Biscoe’s interest, Phil-
ips jotted down some thoughts on the subject. Somehow, the notes
from that meeting were later passed from Biscoe to Thomas Lamb, a
prominent English Baptist.
In 1643, Lamb utilized Biscoe’s notes by publishing a book
directly attacking Philips’s position on the subject of baptism.29 In
his response to Philips, Lamb reiterated the Baptist critique of infant
baptism, reminding the Watertown pastor that, according to Scrip-
ture, only those who have received the saving grace of God should
go on to receive baptism. As Lamb remarked:
because Baptisme being an action of Religion to be exercised
by the ministry of men, it is required that they administer the
same upon believers, which if they appeare, so they are to judge,
and who can judge otherwise but by appearance, it being Gods
Prerogative to search the heart; but when there is no externall
manifestation appearing from the subject, then if Baptisme be
administered, it is meer humane invention because there is no
authority of God for such an Administration: now, it is the
Authority or command of God which gives a being to every
administration in Religion; and whatsoever hath not a being
from God cannot be called his Ordinance; hereupon it fol-
loweth that whensoever Baptisme is administered upon such a
subject as maketh no externall manifestation of faith, this Bap-
tisme hath no being from God, but is a humane device.30
Since young children could not testify to having experienced salva-
tion, it would be improper to confer the rite of baptism upon them.
Needless to say, Philips was stunned to find himself targeted in
print by a stranger who lived thousands of miles away. As Philips
later remarked:
it put me into kinde of wonderment, to see my name put forth
in print, and as Author of a Treatise, who never writ any such
Treatise, nor ever desired or intended the publication of any
Discourse upon that, or any other subject. 31
29. Philips, Reply, 2; Thomas Lamb, A Confutation of Infants Baptisme, or an An-

swer to a Treatise Written by Georg Phillips of Wattertowne in New England (1643).
30. Ibid., 7.
31. Philips, Reply, 1.
However, Philips felt bound to formally and publicly respond to

Lamb. As he prepared the Reply, Philips focused on two points of
Baptist doctrine that he found particularly troublesome. First, the
Watertown minister sought to refute the Baptist position that infant
baptism was an institution of human, rather than divine, origin. For
Philips and many other Congregationalist leaders, infant baptism was
a sign of the continuity of God’s grace from generation to genera-
tion, analogous to the practice of circumcision in ancient Israel. As
Philips expressed it in the Reply, the baptism of newborn children
represented “the continuance of the dispensation of Gods offer of
righteousness with which their fathers first closed.”32
However, Philips’s biggest concern with Baptist theology was the
way in which he believed it diminished the concept of the covenant.
By embracing the doctrine that “by the administration of true bap-
tisme, the church is...truly stated and constituted in her true being,”
Lamb and his followers implied that no divine commission was nec-
essary for a church to be legitimate. Rather, the Baptists contended
that the “covenant which makes a Church now, is Gods admitting
men to be baptized, making profession of faith in Christ.”33 On the
other hand, for the Watertown pastor, the covenant was the central
feature of the visible church and indispensable to their identity as the
body of Christ. As he put it in the Reply:
though by faith professed a man is visibly united to Christ,
and may be so acknowledged; yet this doth not unite him or
make him a member of this or that particular church, but there
must be something whereby he may be united to this or that
church, and make him a member thereof...; baptisme does not
so make him...; nor can they be any other things then mutuall
agreement, or covenant acted, as we know it to be certain in
all consociations, a mutuall covenant is the bond and form of
them, as in marriage, common-wealths...and so of other soci-
eties and bodies incorporate: so also in this mysticall body of
Christ, a church visible being an Ecclesiastical body politike,
consisting of many members consociated, it must needs be by
covenant acted mutually.34
32. Ibid., 9.
33. Ibid., 20, 76.
34. Ibid., 107.
Philips further contended that “baptisme is not, the covenant,

but [a] sign...and seal...of the covenant.”35 By denying infant bap-
tism, Lamb denied that God extended His grace to communities of
His chosen people across the generations.
Because Philips believed that the defining trait of a true visible
church was its covenant with God, he felt that it was important to
emphasize the permanent nature of such covenants. Since the Baptists
believed that any church that featured godly preaching and the sacra-
ments was a true church, Philips reminded them that if no preexisting
covenant with God existed, then neither preaching nor the adminis-
tration of communion or baptism could transform that assembly into
a church in the eyes of God. As Philips argued, the sacraments
are necessary for her [the church’s] well-being, not her being.
And if thee should neglect the administration of the Gospel,
and administer the contrary, yet she should be a church still by
her first covenant, till God cast her off, which without question
in time hee will doe, though she doe but neglect his.36
Worship, preaching, baptism, and communion were vital to the
health of a church, but they must not be mistaken for a divine com-
mission. In fact, in the absence of a covenant, those same ecclesiastical
activities were rendered powerless and ineffectual. The activities of
a given church were sanctified by its initial covenant. Consequently,
if “any company set up preaching, and administer the sacraments...,
that will not make a church, [and] therefore they are not Gods
ordinances.”37 As Philips explained:
a Church becomes a Church, or a company of men and women
become a Church, not by usurping the things of God of them-
selves, nor by imitating others in their Church practices..., but
by Gods dispensation, and that performed by these two acts:
First, on Gods part, sending the word of his grace, offering it
unto a people, thereby opening their eyes, and turning them
from darknesse to light, and taketh hold of them by some effect
of his power; so that he turns them from Idols to God: Sec-
ondly, from that act he produceth another, by that effect of his
35. Ibid., 20.

36. Ibid., 87.
37. Ibid., 144.
power, whereby such people takes hold on Gods offer, and tak-
ing him and his Christ to be theirs, and submitting themselves
up together in joynt and publike visible profession, according to
his laws and ordinances.38
Only when performed within the context of the covenant did divine
ordinances such as baptism and communion have any meaning.
Conclusion
Comprehending Philips’s idealistic view of the covenant is key to
understanding his life and ministry. In summarizing the life and
career of George Philips, Cotton Mather heralded him as a man
“made Wise unto salvation” and “a man of God, throughly furnished
unto all good Works.”39 Indeed, when one reflects on episodes in the
Watertown pastor’s career when he assisted in the prosecution of Anne
Hutchinson and joined in the polemical battle against the Baptists, it
is easy to paint him as a champion of the powers-that-be in early Mas-
sachusetts. However, during his own lifetime, Philips was not always
a reliable ally of those who wielded religious and political authority in
the Bay colony. His remarks defending the Roman Catholic Church
as a true church and challenging the right of the colonial government
to levy taxes on Watertown marked him as an individual willing to
engage in dissent when certain principles were at stake.
In Philips’s eyes, that central principle was an all-encompassing
emphasis on the divine covenant. Those holy contracts between God
and His people served as the foundation for the many godly commu-
nities that Puritans sought to build in the New World. Throughout
his life, Philips made little distinction between theory and practice
when it came to the concept of the covenant. For the Watertown
minister, the everyday experience of life in a New England village
was both an embodiment of the covenant and a testimony to its
importance. The theology of the covenant was inseparable from its
human dimensions. Consequently, Philips’s activities both as a sup-
porter of the colony’s leadership and as a dissident can be understood
as upholding and defending his vision of the Christian community.
Whenever Puritan doctrine or colonial policy weakened the concept
of the covenant, threatened the rights of the community, or under-
38. Ibid., 142–43.

39. Mather, Magnalia, 3:84.
mined its cohesion, Philips stood in opposition to it. In such cases,

Philips presented the radical and provocative idea to his fellow set-
tlers that they should not undervalue God’s covenant even with the
apostate Church of Rome because that same covenant served as the
anchor of their society as well. He also challenged the right of the
central government to levy taxes on communities such as Watertown
because those individual communities were the arenas in which the
covenant played out in everyday life, and therefore their rights and
independence must be defended.
On the other hand, the authorities of the Bay colony often took
positions that Philips could easily support. The potential for Anne
Hutchinson and her followers to fragment these covenanted com-
munities was too great for Philips to ignore, so he assisted in her
prosecution without betraying his ideals. In much the same way,
Baptists advocated a church polity that diminished the importance of
the covenant, so Philips once again closed ranks with his fellow Puri-
tans in waging theological war against Baptist doctrine. For Philips,
whether he found himself as an ally or an opponent of the tradi-
tional Puritans who were in power was a trivial matter — even beside
the point. Ultimately, only the covenant — and the people whom it
cemented together before God — truly mattered.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 177–202
William Bagshawe and the

Derbyshire Puritans
crawford gribben
q
In 1702, William Bagshawe, the “Apostle of the Peak,” one of the

most significant of the English Puritan pastors, was looking back on
a long life of Christian usefulness.1 One of the fruits of this medita-
tion was his extended recollection of the men who had done most to
influence his life and career, “some of those who have been Work-
ers together with God, in...the High Peak in Derbyshire.”2 The title
page of this book, De Spiritualibus Pecci (1702), indicated its historical
contents and its concern to be immediately relevant to its readers. Its
motto text was “2 Cor. 6. 1. We then as Workers together with him, beseech
you also, that ye receive not the Grace of God in vain.” This choice of text
indicates that Bagshawe understood the task of the historian to have
contemporary spiritual significance, but also that those who would
listen to and benefit from the historian’s accounts of the gracious
activity of God in the High Peak could nevertheless receive these
accounts “in vain.”
I want to emphasize that I share that sense of purpose. My task
fits within Bagshawe’s paradigm of the proper reading of history, a
paradigm which is also outlined in Zechariah 1:1–6. I want to encour-
age you to remember your fathers and the “prophets” sent to them by
the Lord. I want to encourage you to remember that your fathers, by
and large, failed to pay attention to the words of God’s messengers,
including the words of William Bagshawe. I want to encourage you
to remember the motto that will one day be stamped over all human
history: “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they
1. This lecture was originally given in Charlesworth Particular Baptist Chapel,

Derbyshire, England, in November 2009.
2. William Bagshawe, De Spiritualibus Pecci (London, 1702), title page.
live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my

servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?” (Zech.
1:5–6). And I want to do all that as I describe for you the life and
career of the “Apostle of the Peak.”
I want to first say a word about books. William Bagshawe has not
received a great deal of historical attention. He has been the subject of
two biographies, written almost 300 years apart, by John Ashe (1704)
and John M. Brentnall (1970). Ashe’s biography is the major source
upon which all subsequent accounts of Bagshawe’s life have been
based. Brentnall noted in addition that he had access to unpublished
manuscripts, sermon notes, biblical commentaries, and life writings
then owned by Major F. E. G. Bagshawe of Ford Hall. 3 I should
explain that I have not had access to those records, but I have been
able to read one book that Brentnall noted as being “lost”— Living
Water: Or Waters for a Thirsty Soul (1653).4 This book dates from the
period of Bagshawe’s ministry in Glossop and gives us a good indi-
cation of the style and content of his preaching in the parish church
during the 1650s, the Cromwellian period. Living Water was also by
far the earliest of Bagshawe’s publications in a literary career which
would stretch for almost fifty years.
So let’s think now about the life and ministry of the “Apostle of
the Peak.” William Bagshawe was born in January 1628 in Litton
Hall and was baptized two days later at Tideswell. The family was
prosperous and owned extensive property in the parishes of Glossop
and Chapel-en-le-Frith, including several lead mines which became
the basis of their later fortune. Bagshawe lived in Litton Hall for the
first fifteen years of his life, but it was not a life of selfish acquisition.
His father had been orphaned in his youth, and his experiences of
deprivation had encouraged him to care deeply about the fortunes
of the miners employed in his works, as Bagshawe’s first biographer
recorded: “The Rememberance of his early afflictions, and a thankful
Sense of God towards him, fill’d his Soul with such a Tenderness for
the Fatherless and the Widows, that he wou’d always heartily espouse
and assert their righteous, but oppressed Cause.”5 Thus, in 1634,
3. John M. Brentnall, William Bagshawe: The Apostle of the Peak (London: Banner
of Truth, 1970), ix.
4. Ibid., 120.
5. John Ashe, A Short Account of the Life & Character of the Reverend Mr. William
Bagshawe (London, 1704), 2.
William Bagshawe and the Derbyshire Puritans 179
when King Charles I imposed a special tax called “Ship Money” on

the locality, a tax which many working men found particularly unjust,
Bagshawe’s father led the local resistance — to the brink of a riot. Bag-
shawe’s father was arrested and imprisoned in Derby for an unknown
duration. William, his son, would have been only six years old.
But when William Bagshawe came to write his recollections of
his childhood, it was not his family’s wealth or his father’s political
concerns upon which he focused. Instead, he emphasized his spiritual
history: “Poor I,” as he often referred to himself, “can readily own
it as a Favor from God, that I was brought forth, (and very much
brought up) in the High-Peak.”6 He was a local boy, and could hardly
be blamed for believing that the geographical features of the area had
their own unique charms: “Though the Peak...be accounted a less
fertil part of the Countrey, if not of the Land, yet...more Authors
than one or two have taken and given notice of some Wonders in it,”
he explained. “And blessed be God! there have been in it Wonders of
Grace, and not of Nature only.”7
But this had not always been the case. Bagshawe’s spiritual his-
tory of the High Peak noted the difficulties of an earlier age, when
“preaching was a more rare Commodity than now it is in other parts
of England.”8 “Mine Ears have heard my Father (and others of his
time) tell, that...the Word of the Lord (as opened and applied in Ser-
mons) was, as to the rarity of it, precious, and there was in the Peak
less open vision.” But it was in that situation that local believers took
initiatives in developing a gospel work: “the truly noble Lady Bowes
maintained several worthy Preachers, and sent ’em thither,” Bagshawe
explained, into some of the most challenging parts of the district.9
Bagshawe himself appears to have benefitted enormously from
some of the gospel workers who were active in the area. He left
little record of his own early spiritual experiences, but his biogra-
phers agree that he came to saving faith — or, as one biographer put
it, “received a deep Tincture of Religion”— under the ministry of
a minister and school master who were “godly conformists”— that
is, Puritans or evangelicals who were active in the ministry of the
6. Bagshawe, De Spiritualibus Pecci, 4.

7. Ibid., 4.
8. Ibid., 5.
9. Ibid., 6.
Church of England.10 It was through their influence that Bagshawe

enjoyed the “privilege” of an “early conversion to God.”11
Bagshawe was not the only one to benefit from the ministry of
these godly conformists. In his later writing, he was especially con-
cerned to relate the spiritual history of what he called “my beloved
Glossop.”12 In the northeast of the county, during the period of Bag-
shawe’s youth, Glossop was enjoying the ministry of Robert Cryer,
who, Bagshawe explained, “had been a Labourer indeed, more than
twenty Years, spending and being spent in a diligent Instruction,
of an exemplary Conversation, before the beloved People there...
he was the Man, by whose hands the Lord laid, if not the first (the
fairest) Foundation for a Successor to build on.”13 Cryer seems to
have been a model minister. He took every opportunity he could,
Bagshawe explained: “he was loath, when an Assembly was before
him, to dismiss it till he had spoken a word from (and for) God in
(and to) it.”14 “He was a careful and compassionate Visiter of the
Sick,” Bagshawe continued, though it was his dealings with the sick
that became his undoing: “upon visiting one that was visited with
the Fever, he himself was seized with that Distemper, which proved
to be the Messenger of death to him.”15 And yet, Bagshawe recalled,
Cryer was also an unusual minister. His preaching had been “some-
what singular”:16
He not seldom spoke in a sort of Metre, I believe that after some
time he could not avoid (tho’ I cannot say) (or think) that he did
at any time affect this Mode, seeing his ordinary discourse had
a strain (or Vein) of this nature. I beg leave to relate one Passage,
as he was in bearing Witness against Sin, particularly that too
common Sin of excessive Drinking, the words that come next
fell from him,—
10. Ashe, A Short Account of...William Bagshawe, 2.

11. Ibid., 21.
13. Ibid., 18 –19.
14. Ibid., 19.
15. Ibid., 20.
16. Ibid.
They go from one, to two;

from two to four,
and from four,
to fourteen and more.17
It was a curious pulpit habit — but not one which appeared to hin-
der Robert Cryer’s spiritual usefulness. Bagshawe drew upon his
eccentricity to observe that God was prepared to use men with only
moderate preaching abilities: “the ablest Preachers are not always
the most effectual Prevailers. The most skilful Seeds-men have not
alwayes the largest crops...though our Saviour Christ spoke as never
man spoke, yet there were far more converted by the Ministry of the
Apostles than by Christ himself.”18 Whatever Cryer’s pulpit habits,
however, it was clear that his ministry sustained a clear evange
listic edge in an age in which preaching was an unusual pursuit for
a clergyman.
Perhaps it was the example of Robert Cryer that encouraged
Bagshawe to believe that God could use men like him in the work
of gospel ministry. His father was keen that Bagshawe should enter
the family business and act as a custodian of the family fortune, just
as he had earlier done, and there were “several Attempts to have fix’d
him in other Employments.”19 But Bagshawe felt compelled to pre-
pare for a life of Christian ministry, and it was to that end that he
entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1643, in one of the
most tumultuous years of English history.
England, in 1643, was in the grip of civil war, and to go up to
Cambridge was to identify very publicly with the revolutionary side in
that conflict. The town’s MP was Oliver Cromwell, after all, and the
area was identified as a Parliamentary stronghold. It was most likely
while he was studying in Cambridge that Bagshawe signed the Sol-
emn League and Covenant — a religious and political statement that
was required of public figures of all kinds, as well as ordinary people
in religious and educational callings, which agreed that the Scottish
army would come to the aid of the English Parliament if Parliament
would agree to remodel the English church “according to the example
of the best Reformed churches.” The covenant meant very different
17. Ibid., 21.

18. Bagshawe, Living Water, 156 –57.
things to different people, and it could not sustain the initial unity it
created. But in the mid-1640s, the covenant lay behind the drafting of
the Westminster Confession of Faith, the most important statement of
Reformed orthodoxy in the seventeenth century, a statement of theo-
logical convictions which in its various adaptations came to undergird
Puritanism in mid-century and far beyond. Many — including Bag-
shawe — believed that the covenant required the reformation of the
national church along strictly Presbyterian lines.
In Cambridge, Bagshawe studied with and listened to the
preaching of the “burning and shining Lights” of English Puritan-
ism.20 Their teaching provided students with a firm foundation of
doctrinal orthodoxy, from which Bagshawe appears never to have
departed. He “retain’d to the last many Notions he had learnt from
those eminent Divines,” his first biographer recorded.21 And those
“notions” would have been consonant with those of the Westminster
Confession. We know that because one of Bagshawe’s lecturers was
John Arrowsmith, a theologian who became the Regius Professor of
Divinity in 1644, and who was also a member of the Westminster
Assembly. Bagshawe’s biographers emphasize the extent to which he
prized the notes he took in lectures and his continually meditating
upon them in the later stages of his life.
But Bagshawe could not study forever in the seclusion of the uni-
versity. He left Cambridge in 1646 and returned to his home county
of Derbyshire. He was now a probationer, someone who had trained
for and been set aside for the gospel ministry, but who had not yet
received a call to a local congregation. And congregations appeared
reluctant to call him; he was, after all, only eighteen years old. But
Bagshawe was given preaching opportunities and began his career in
the pulpit in the chapel at Warmhill, in his native parish of Tideswell,
where he spent three months as a probationary minister. Thereaf-
ter he moved to Attercliffe, two miles outside Sheffield, where he
was employed to assist James Fisher, the minister of St. Peter’s, while
also serving as chaplain for and boarding with the family of Colo-
nel John Bright.22 There it was Bagshawe’s good fortune to inherit
a pulpit whose ministry anticipated his own. The church in Atter-
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 3.
22. Ibid.
cliffe had been led by Stanley Gower, who, like Bagshawe’s tutor in
Cambridge, was a member of the Westminster Assembly and a spon-
sor of John Owen’s Death of Death. But the Attercliffe church had
been “vacant” since 1642, and had depended for weekly preaching on
the abilities of local elders. It was Bagshawe’s duty to reorganize the
church as best he could. But he did so even as he served in the house-
hold of Colonel Bright, leading morning and evening prayers and
catechizing the children and servants. We have some records from
this period of Bagshawe’s table talk, and it is astonishing to see the
theological maturity and appropriately stated biblical convictions of
this lad in his later teens.
Others must have noticed his gifts. After just under three years in
Attercliffe, while still in his very early 20s, Bagshawe was examined
in proper Presbyterian fashion and ordained into the gospel ministry
in Chesterfield on January 1, 1651. He would have been very strictly
examined. The elders would have questioned his adherence to the
Solemn League and Covenant, the evidences of his education, and
would have tested his godly character. Their decision to ordain him
signaled their approval of his life and doctrine. Bagshawe remained
in Attercliffe for six months after his ordination, until a momentous
day when he received a call from a church on the “remotest Corner
of his native County.”23 Bagshawe had also been making calls of his
own. On June 11, 1651, he married Agnes Barker, whom he had met
through the church in Attercliffe. Two weeks later, he was installed
as minister in Glossop.
These new arrangements — settled within a fortnight of each
other — would do much to determine the future shape of Bagshawe’s
life and Christian ministry. His new parish was “one of the most
extensive in the north of England. The people under Bagshawe’s
charge lived as far apart as Salter’s Bridge, near the Yorkshire border,
and Marple Bridge, on the Cheshire boundary, while from north to
south the parish extended from Woodhead to Chapel-en-le-Frith. All
told, the area embraced by the parish boundary was approximately
fifty thousand acres.”24 The parish contained several congregations,
with chapels in Charlesworth, Mellor, and Hayfield, and it was Bag-
23. Ibid., 4.
24. Brentnall, William Bagshawe, 23.
shawe’s responsibility to look after them all. It was a daunting task for
someone with his relatively limited experience.
But, as at Attercliffe, Bagshawe was fortunate to enter into the
labors of godly men who had gone before him in Glossop. This was
especially the case with Robert Cryer, whose ministry had done so
much to establish biblical Christianity in the town. But Cryer’s min-
istry had been followed by that of several other incumbents — their
ministries were so short that Bagshawe could not even remember
their names — and they had done little to maintain Cryer’s empha-
ses. By 1651, the parish was not in a healthy spiritual state. Bagshawe
noted that believers were dismissed in the town as “a Set (or Sect)
of silly Persons; a sort of some weak-headed, feeble-minded Men
and Women, that understand not what is their real and main Inter-
est, according to a modern Phrase (I doubt) they are Phanaticks...
the very Off-scowering of the Earth...unfit to live and breathe in the
common Air.”25 Believers in Glossop were being despised by their
neighbors. Many of the townspeople appeared to understand little
of the basic truths of the Christian religion, so Bagshawe began to
preach on the fundamental doctrines of the faith.26
Bagshawe remained in Glossop for around eleven years and was
remembered as being “very diligent and faithful in fulfilling all the
Parts of his Ministry.... His Conversation was with such Meekness,
inoffensiveness, and undissembled Affection, as gain’d him an uni-
versal Esteem.”27 Something of the flavor of that ministry can be
gained from the contents of his earliest publication, Living Water: Or
Waters for a Thirsty Soul (1653). This book, which Bagshawe dedicated
to Colonel John Bright, in whose home he had resided in Attercliffe,
recorded a series of sermons preached on Revelation 21:6. Bagshawe
realized how dangerous it was to preach on an apocalyptic passage
in the immediate aftermath of civil war, regicide, and constitutional
revolution, when passages like this had been used so fancifully to sup-
port all kinds of radical agendas. Instead, he took care to distinguish
his approach to apocalyptic interpretation from that of the political
and religious radicals, but argued that it was “safe to say that those
(who yet are no Millenaries)...may hope for the enjoyment of special

and evident manifestations of God to his people in the state of grace,

though the compleat and full discovery be reserved for the state of
glory.”28 And in Living Water, Bagshawe set out the basic truths of
Christianity.
First, Bagshawe insisted, “all men be lost in Adam, yet they are
not all lost irrecoverably.”29 He took a very biblical view of the ter-
rible condition in which the people of Glossop found themselves. He
spoke freely about the reality of sin and the lost condition of those
townspeople who had no saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. They
had broken God’s law, and they deserved the punishment of eter-
nal death. But their position was not irrecoverable. Bagshawe also
argued that “you who are dead, may be alive; you who are lost, may
be found. There’s ground of hope for such souls, if we look, 1. To
the spring of this water of life, viz., God’s eternall love.”30 It was only
God’s mercy that could make any difference to these lost sinners, and
so it was that Bagshawe delighted in preaching about God’s love. It is,
he said, “the attribute which God most delights to magnifie.... God
is not only loving, but love it self. And (one observes) that though we
cannot say so of Gods power, or of other Attributes, yet of his love,
of this Attribute; he hath extended it to the utmost. Greater love hath
none.”31 It was significant, he argued, that “God is nowhere called the
Father of Judgements,” though he is called the “Father of mercies.”32
Mercy and love were linked in that God’s love was being extended
to those who did nothing to deserve it — those who had nothing to
recommend themselves even to a God who was full of love and kind-
ness. For this God of love brought new life to the spiritually dead.
Bagshawe’s descriptions of that new life drew upon the world he
saw around him in the High Peak. He recognized that there was often
an awareness of God even among those who lived as his enemies:
“there are some remains of light, some glimmerings of man since the
Fall...there is some twilight in the Sons of Adam,” he explained. 33 He
noted that “our Naturall estate is a Winter state, dead and fruitless,
but when the Sun of Righteousness darts forth the warmth of his
28. Bagshawe, Living Water, 5.

29. Ibid., 18.
30. Ibid., 19.
31. Ibid., 104.
32. Ibid., 189.
33. Ibid., 148.
grace, the roots in our hearts are loosened, the fruits of holiness in
our lives are produced.”34 All this was possible, he continued, because
Christ brought “his alsufficiency to our all-necessity: we cannot want
that which Christ cannot supply, not beg that which Christ cannot
bestow.”35 And Bagshawe was urgent in his appeals for sinners to
come to Christ for salvation. He begged his listeners to believe the
things he told them from the Bible. They could be saved from their
lost condition, but only if they came to Christ for salvation: “We may
come, it is our privilege; we must come, it is our duty.”36
Bagshawe was equally urgent in his exhortation of Christians. He
called believers to a normal Christian life. He urged them to be single-
minded in their pursuit of heaven. “Too many never set forth in earnest
for Heaven, because they are loth to leave the earth behinde them,” he
noted.37 The high degree of sanctification he expected of Christians in
Glossop called for significant sacrifice, but he was unembarrassed to ask
for it. The Christian life required total commitment. Preaching on the
parable of Jesus, he explained that “most would sell some; many would
sell much,” but “the wise Merchant sold all.”38 The Christians in Glos-
sop were therefore to be ruthless in rooting out of their lives whatever
grieved the Spirit. “Christ died that he might destroy the works of
the devil, and shall we build what he destroyed?” he enquired.39 And
he encouraged believers to take this action knowing that they were
working in accordance with God’s Word and in cooperation with His
Spirit: “Christ redeemed men not onely from sins Condemning, but
also from sins Commanding power,” he stated.40 “Christs love was a
Purging as well as a Pardoning love, Renewing as well as Redeeming,”
he continued.41 Therefore, “the Spirit comes to them as a Reformer, for
whom the Son came as a Redeemer.”42
It was on that basis that Bagshawe urged the Christians in Glos-
sop to let the Word of Christ dwell in them richly: “Exercise thy self
34. Ibid., 86– 87.

35. Ibid., 22.
36. Ibid., 24 – 25.
37. Ibid., 32– 33.
38. Ibid., 92.
39. Ibid., 135.
40. Ibid., 135 –36.
41. Ibid., 137– 38.
42. Ibid., 140.
unto Meditation. Though the Water of life descend plentifully into

the publique Ordinances, yet it is but usually like a landflood, some
flashes whereof are upon...the soul for the present, whiles for want of
Meditation it soaks not into the heart for suture.”43 Christians had to
take time to let the Word do its work. Furthermore, he insisted that
the believers should also be “diligent in the use of secret prayer. When
thou prayest (though not always) enter into thy closet. Self-love & the
wind of spiritual pride may carry men to pray with others; but that
wind doth not usually arise from this point of the compasse, which
carries men constantly to pray alone. The more secresie, usually the
more sincerity.”44 The Christians in the church in Glossop were to be
active in living for God.
Like many other Puritans, Bagshawe linked his exhortations to
Christian living to promises as to the benefits that strict kind of life-
style would bring. A life of holiness would bring enormous benefits,
he continued, and a principle benefit was the enjoyment of assurance
of salvation. Believers in Glossop in the mid-seventeenth century
probably struggled with the question of assurance of salvation more
than modern Christians do today. Bagshawe wisely and biblically
encouraged believers to expect a level of assurance commensurate
with their pursuit of the life of holiness: “the waters of our sanctifica-
tion, and the waters of our consolation are usually at the same ebbe.
Though the smallest waters of grace will carry thee to Heaven, yet
they will not carry thee comfortably through earth.” 45 It was a timely
reminder — a reminder that any individual who has given up on the
pursuit of holiness can have no assurance that he or she is in fact
saved by grace or bound for heaven.
Thus Bagshawe urged the people of Glossop to pursue diligence
and discipline in the Christian life, and drove home the need for
personal and family piety. He realized the busyness of the lives of so
many of his parishioners, but insisted that things below should not
take up too much of our time. He wrote: “Earth should not justle
Heaven. There is a time for every thing (saith the Wise man) yet ’tis
to bee feared, that many who finde a time for other things, scarce
ever finde a time for prayer.... I might here seasonably advise men
43. Ibid., 175.

44. Ibid., 176.
45. Ibid., 65.
to beware lest earthly employments should occasion their neglect of,

or in a family, or closet prayers; and especially in reference to morn-
ing exercises.”46 And yet the duties of the day still had to be fulfilled.
Bagshawe had very specific advice for those who sought to balance
their duties to their Savior and to their employer: get out of bed ear-
lier; use time more efficiently; and work much, much harder.47
It seems that Bagshawe was following his own advice, for these
were years of enormous activity. His ministry in Glossop appears
to have been blessed with a large number of conversions. As a true
spiritual father, he appears to have loved his people as much as he
was loved by them, and his first biographer records that “no Offers
of greater Preferment cou’d draw him away” from the congregation
that met in the parish church.48 But Bagshawe had wider concerns as
well, and was also active in the affairs of the churches of the district.
While he lived in Glossop, he attended the meetings of the Lan-
cashire Presbyterian ministers, which met in Manchester, and took
an active role in the production of their polemical publications.49 He
also attended the meetings of Presbyterian ministers which met in
Wirksworth, Derbyshire.50 And he took care to continue correspon-
dence with other ministers throughout the country.51
These were also years of family joys and sorrows. William and
Agnes recorded the birth of a stillborn child in 1653, as well as the
safe deliveries of two sons, John in 1654 and Samuel in 1656.52 So
the 1650s continued with Bagshawe busy in his preaching in Glos-
sop and the chapels associated with the parish, busy in the life of the
Presbyterian churches throughout the north-western counties, and
busy at home with Agnes and his happily expanding family.
But then sadness struck. Bagshawe was to be parted from his peo-
ple — and not by his choice or theirs. In the late summer of 1662, two
years after the end of the Cromwellian revolution and the restoration
of the English monarchy and its religious and political establishment,
on that “fatal Bartholomew Day,” those ministers who refused to con-
46. Ibid., 162 – 63.

47. Ibid., 165 – 67.
49. Ibid., 19.
50. Ibid., 19.
51. Ibid., 20.
52. Brentnall, William Bagshawe, 28, 31.
duct worship according to the new standards of the Church of England

were expelled from their pulpits and driven into dissent.53 Bagshawe
was one of the thousands of preachers who preferred to maintain a
good conscience, with all of the social and political uncertainties that
would attend it, than to embrace in a pragmatic and opportunistic
manner a career in the new Church of England.
For Bagshawe, the issue was quite simple — it boiled down to
whether anyone other than Jesus Christ could rule in His church.
The debates were not merely about whether pastors and their people
liked the newly imposed set forms of prayer, or the more elaborate
liturgy, or the more sumptuous variety of worship. The issue was
whether anyone other than Jesus Christ could command the con-
sciences of His people. Bagshawe understood quite clearly that this
right was reserved for Jesus Christ, and argued that case on the basis
of Deuteronomy 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 11:2.54 The implications
of his argument were simple. It meant that Christians should only
employ in their worship those elements which had been clearly com-
manded by Jesus Christ — singing, praying, preaching, giving, and
the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. But the new rites of
the Church of England added all kinds of other elements of worship.
The king, Charles II, may have believed he had the power to autho-
rize these new rituals. But Bagshawe was quite clear that his claiming
of that right was identifying his power as antichristian.55
So Bagshawe, together with thousands of Puritan pastors, was
expelled from the national church and driven into dissent. Up and
down the land, congregations were broken up and pastors were
driven into silence. Many of these believers and pastors suffered
immeasurably, such as the Covenanters in Scotland, many of whose
leaders suffered horrific deaths and many of whose members were
shipped abroad into slavery in the Caribbean; or the Baptists in Eng-
land, with leaders like John Bunyan who spent more than a decade
in prison. But things were different in the remote High Peak. Bag-
shawe’s “sufferings were few and inconsiderable compar’d with those
of many of his ejected Brethren,” his earliest biographer recorded.56

55. Ibid., 40.
“When he was turned out of his Benefice, he felt not the straits of an
indigent condition, but had a good estate of his own, and an Heart to
honour God with it.”57
Unlike many believers, Bagshawe enjoyed the relative security
of earthly wealth, but like many believers, he used whatever wealth
he had to advance the glory of God. Leaving Glossop, no doubt with
a broken heart, Bagshawe returned with his family to his father’s
new home, Ford Hall, near Chapel-en-le-Frith.58 His ejection from
the parish church must have been devastating. How could he have
responded to the sudden forced ending of a long ministry which had
borne such good fruit? How did he explain to his young sons, then
only eight and six years old, that it was now a crime for them to
worship God in the only manner which they had known? But God
was working amid all that tragedy and heartbreak to begin a new
movement of grace in which Bagshawe’s ministry would be extended
far beyond what he might have imagined as the preacher in Glossop
parish church. In the providence of God, Brentnall has noted, “Bag-
shawe’s ejection from Glossop marks the beginning of a ministry
which for its integrity, tenacity and usefulness has rarely been sur-
passed in the history of English pastoral work.”59
Bagshawe was ejected in August 1662, and returning to Ford,
attended Sunday worship every morning and evening in the parish
church of Chapel-en-le-Frith. But he also immediately set about an
itinerant ministry that would range across the High Peak region and
would be maintained until his death forty years later. He let noth-
ing — not even the law — separate him from his former parishioners.
Brentnall concludes: “Apart from occasional trips to Manchester,
where he engaged in informal discussion with other ejected minis-
ters respecting the lamentable change in the destiny of the Church,
Bagshawe never left his ‘beloved people.’”60 But now his ministry
was beginning to extend far beyond them.
It is clear that Bagshawe loved his people. Later in life, he wrote
very movingly of the believers for whom he had maintained such
devoted pastoral care. Their number included the socially elevated,
57. Ibid., 29.

59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., 43.
like Sir John Gell and his wife, Lady Catherine. “The Lord only
knew, (though his Servants guessed at it) how sweet and satiating the
Communion was, which she had with the Lord in secret, where the
choicest books were read, and meditated on,” Bagshawe remembered.
“Might she not say, she was never less alone, then when alone?”61 The
Gells were “a Blessed Couple; and did as did Zechariah and Eliza-
beth, walk Hand in Hand in heavens way.”62 Other of Bagshawe’s
parishioners were of more humble circumstances, like Francis Gee,
whose “House in Kyndar, was to me and divars (who loved the
Truth) a little Sanctuary,” Bagshawe reported, “when his Infirmities
detain’d him, and some Laws gave some of us less Liberty, in greater
Sanctuaries; whose Dear Wife Sarah, was a hearty Friend to all that
loved the Truth for the Truths sake.”63 Preaching wherever he could
find a venue, in stately house or cottage, Bagshawe loved and was
loved by the very rich and the very poor.
Bagshawe was preaching everywhere, and gathering believers
into little groups for the purposes of fellowship wherever he could.
But these new conditions called for new forms of church organi-
zation. Presbyterianism, with its complex system of church courts,
was no longer possible in a climate where secrecy was everything.
The legal environment which made it illegal to worship as dissent-
ers made it impossible to maintain a Presbyterian system. Out of the
ruins of High Peak Presbyterianism there emerged a “loosely-organ-
ised nonconformity.”64 Bagshawe was a principal leader, of course,
and he engaged in extensive tours of secret preaching to sustain these
scattered groups of Christians. The chapel in Charlesworth became a
focus for these secret gatherings during this period. But other oppor-
tunities presented themselves which saw Bagshawe move far beyond
the series of chapels in which he had ministered for the previous
decade. At “Gospel Brow,” now on Owlgreave Farm, near Chapel-
en-le-Frith, Bagshawe would preach under a tree to large crowds of
local farm workers. In Bradwell, in 1662, the immediate impact of
Bagshawe’s preaching resulted in the erection of a chapel building
in a village which had never had any support for dissenting worship.
61. Bagshawe, De Spiritualibus Pecci, 58 –59.

62. Ibid., 59.
63. Ibid., 93.
The impact of that secret preaching was even felt in Marple Bridge,
a village which Bagshawe had unsuccessfully attempted to evange-
lize during his ministry in Glossop. The townspeople really only
became receptive to the gospel after 1662. Perhaps they understood
the importance of the message when they saw Bagshawe running the
terrible risk of imprisonment to bring it to them.
The opportunities immediately following the great ejection of
1662 were brought to a sudden end with the First Conventicle Act
(1664). The Act punished anyone over the age of sixteen attending
a service of divine worship that was not conducted according to the
Book of Common Prayer. The Act was followed by the Five Mile Act
(1665), which forbade ejected ministers from living within five miles
of any corporation town — and therefore well out of reach of the dis-
senting community which might remain within them. These harsh
measures were designed to isolate dissenting communities from their
leaders, evidently in the hope that these communities would settle
down and conform to the Church of England. If that was the goal of
the framers of the legislation, it failed to account for the dissenters in
the High Peak. Bagshawe knew that each of his older preaching ven-
ues were within five miles of corporation towns, Chapel-en-le-Frith
or Tideswell — so he found new places to preach outside their five
mile boundaries. And he was extremely active in these new endeav-
ors. He preached every Sunday night to one of his congregations; he
visited homes during the week; and he spent every Thursday night
with two other local ministers, John Jones of Charlesworth and Rob-
ert Porter of Pentrich. These men certainly felt the lash of the law.
John Jones, for example, had gathered his congregation in his home
in Charlesworth, but was discovered and was imprisoned in Chester
on account of his illegal preaching. Bagshawe not only paid his fine,
he also preached in his place. Brentnall imagines the scene:
After nightfall, when the howling of the wind over Charles-
worth Hill and the bleating of sheep were the only sounds
which broke the stillness of the scene, men and women would
furtively leave their cottages in the hamlet below and ascend
the hill to the ancient stone chapel. There they would await the
arrival of the minister after a hazardous ten-mile journey across
the moors from Ford. Numerous were the occasions when the
singing of psalms and the gracious promises of the Gospel min-
gled with the voice of nature outside. Frequent, too, were the
emergencies when the most athletic men of the village, strategi-
cally posted around the foot of the hill with lanterns, burst in
on the services to give warnings of the approach of the consta-
ble’s lackeys, enabling Bagshawe to escape into the darkness.65
Throughout the period, Bagshawe was never convicted of illegal
preaching.
These were difficult years, preaching on the edge of legality and
with the constant threat of betrayal, conviction, and imprisonment.
Bagshawe certainly knew what it was to be the target of informers,
but also witnessed remarkable divine interposition. Ashe wrote, “Two
Informers that once came to disturb him, ingeniously acknowledged,
that his very Countenance struck a Terror into them; and one of
them before he died, sent often to beg his Prayers and Pardon.”66 But
Bagshawe pressed on with his mission.
These were also years of significant advance for the gospel.
When Bagshawe was denied the opportunity of preaching in the
established chapels he sought out other opportunities of taking the
gospel to those places where it had never borne fruit. Tintwhistle
was one of several communities that had its first encounter with
the gospel through Bagshawe’s preaching the 1660s. The undertak-
ing was significant: “The whole valley was, in the mid-seventeenth
century, thickly studded with farmsteads. Bridle bridges were few
and roads non-existent. Sheep-walks and footpaths provided the
main routes from one farm to another. A dense undergrowth of
bushes and trees extended over almost the entire area from Mot-
tram to Woodhead, a distance of ten miles. The local inhabitants
maintained their existence in virtual independence of the outside
world, growing their own food and weaving their own clothing.
Few places in England were so remote from the national scene.”67
Bagshawe first preached there in 1668: he visited every farm and
cottage, speaking to the inhabitants about the gospel, and saw such
success that he gathered a church in a barn. These difficult years
were years of extraordinary expansion. Throughout the 1660s,
65. Ibid., 50.

67. Brentnall, William Bagshawe, 50 – 51.
Bagshawe’s illegal preaching ministry was the means by which a

dozen new congregations were formed in the High Peak.68
But this period of extraordinary expansion came to a sudden
end with the imposition of the Second Conventicle Act (1670). The
Act was much harsher than the earlier version, and imposed massive
financial penalties on anyone caught attending or hosting a religious
meeting conducted on any lines other than those of the Church of
England. Bagshawe understood the danger this represented to the
ordinary people who were attending his meetings, and turned instead
to support their faith through the production of helpful literature.
The first fruit of his new occupation was Principiis Obsta, The
Readie Way to Prevent Sin (1671), an extended exposition of two
texts, Proverbs 30:32 (“if thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thy-
self, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth”)
and Matthew 12:36 (“But I say unto you, That every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg-
ment”). These sermons were quite different from those recorded in
his Glossop ministry in Living Water. The earlier sermons were more
evidently evangelistic, while the sermons recorded in Principiis Obsta,
The Readie Way to Prevent Sin focused quite specifically on the needs
of believers. And he was only too aware of the problems of sustaining
a godly thought life in the midst of persecution. Bagshawe’s exposi-
tion began as might be expected: “The worst of other sins are the
issues of thought-sins. When evil thoughts have proceeded out of
the heart, then from them do proceed murders, adulteries, yea, and
blasphemies.”69 But he went on to apply this observation in insightful
ways. He was particularly concerned that believers should concentrate
in worship: “Have not the services which we have performed to God
been attended with much distraction? Have we not sung one thing,
and thought another thing?”70 It was a point worth making; even as
believers gathered for worship in secret, they should not let the condi-
tions of their meeting or the terrible dangers of discovery tempt their
minds to wander from the greatest of all human occupations. But
Bagshawe pressed the point even further. What about sins of thought
against the persecutors? “Are we all clean from seditious thoughts
68. Ibid., 53.

69. Bagshawe, Principiis Obsta, “The ready way to prevent sin,” 11.
70. Ibid., 19.
against our Rulers, when they have (as we judged) held an hard hand
over us?”71 His discussion was particularly searching, for Bagshawe
was only too aware of the ease with which sins of thought could be
indulged: “Thought-sins may be speedily and frequently repeated. He
that never hath his hand in his Neighbours blood, may hate him, and
so murder him many times over.”72 Christians should take care how
they used their minds: “It may not prove so easie as most imagine to
obtain the pardon of thought-sins.”73 And “dare you give way to those
thoughts, against which the wrath of God is revealed?”74
Bagshawe was also concerned that believers should be holy in
their speech. It was not that Christians should never be jolly: “I am
clear that it is for the honour of Christianity, when Christians are
not morose and austere, but of affable inviting obliging carriage.”75
Nevertheless, he insisted, Christians should never forget that they
will be held to account for every word they utter. And “if that word
that startled them do not stir us, we may fear it is because our hearts
are more hard, or less under a firm belief of the future state, that
state to come, which shall begin, but shall never end.”76 Words were
to be used wisely: “We should learn of our blessed Master to raise
heavenly conference out of earthly occasions.”77 And we should listen
to our own words, and the words of others, to ascertain our spiritual
condition: “Words are truly said to be to the heart, what an Index is
to a Book, they shew the principal things that are contained in it.”78
This was the kind of preaching Bagshawe hoped would help the
believers as they continued to meet in secret despite the intentions of
a brutal and repressive government. But the High Peak Christians
were allowed another brief glimpse of liberty with the Royal Decla-
ration of Indulgence in March of 1672, when Charles II suspended
the penal laws against protestant nonconformists. Fifty-four Presby-
terian chapels were licensed in Derbyshire alone. Bagshawe seized
the opportunity. He returned to his old round of public preaching.
71. Ibid., 20.

72. Ibid., 31.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid., 44.
75. Bagshawe, Principiis Obsta, “A Bridle for the Tongue,” 9.
76. Ibid., 3.
77. Ibid., 8.
78. Ibid., 13.
Brentnall writes: “Fortnightly engagements were commenced at

Saddleworth, Charlesworth, Malcoff, Hucklow, Bradwell, Ashford,
Middleton, Chelmorton, Bank End, Marple Bridge, Edale, and other
centres of Nonconformity in the north-west of the county. At [Dint-
ing] he preached at the newly licensed home of William Garlicke,
and on three Sundays of each month he ministered in the rapidly
expanding congregation of Dissenters at Chapel-en-le-Frith.”79 He
also returned to Glossop, preaching a monthly sermon on the Lord’s
Day and a monthly lecture on a week day. People “flock’d to his
Sermons, as Doves to the Windows,” according to his first biogra-
pher. The other Sundays Bagshawe filled with visits to “several other
places,” including a fortnightly visit to Ashford.80
But these conditions were rapidly reversed when Parliament,
fearing that the King secretly intended to extend toleration to Roman
Catholics, suspended the Indulgence and imposed the first Test Act
in 1673. The Act restricted public office to adherents of the Church
of England, but it also served to unnerve dissenters, who could
clearly see the direction of government policy. Bagshawe continued
this pattern of preaching after the Indulgence had been called in, but
“privately, and with great Care, prudently changing the Place almost
every Lord’s-Day, that he might not expose his Hearers to the Lash of
the severe Laws in force against him.”81 “The comparative freedom of
the previous year was now exchanged for fifteen years of strenuous,
wary living for Bagshawe and his scattered congregations.... Dur-
ing the day the artisans, cobblers, miners and shopkeepers who had
received their spiritual and moral liberty through the preaching of
the Word of God, worked at their respective occupations, but as soon
as night shrouded the surrounding hills they would steal along the
narrow country lanes and slip into some rough stone cottage, there
to read the Scriptures, and pray.”82 Bagshawe returned to writing,
publishing the first volume of a massive project entitled The Riches of
Grace Displayed in 1674.
The liberty of dissenters was “enlarged” after the discovery of
the Popish Plot in 1678 only to be withdrawn again towards the

81. Ibid.
end of the reign of Charles II in the early 1680s. These were unset-
tling times, as believers sought to make full use of their liberties
even as they realized that those liberties could be rapidly removed,
and that those who had taken greatest advantage for the spreading
of the gospel during times when liberty was offered would be all
too exposed when that liberty was lost. But some dissenters were
tempted not only to have hard thoughts about their persecuting rul-
ers, but to actively seek to remove them. Bagshawe dismissed those
who sought by revolutionary methods to enlarge the rights of Eng-
land’s substantial dissenting population, and his first biographer
records that Bagshawe had “an ill Opinion” of the attempt by the
Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, to depose his
Catholic uncle, James II, in 1685.83 Bagshawe understood that there
were times when Christians simply had to suffer.
But they were suffering as their enemies were appearing to pros-
per. It was in this period that a Jesuit seminary was organized at
Spinkhill, near Sheffield, still a center of Catholic education. Highly
trained Catholic missionaries were beginning to circulate among the
people Bagshawe had evangelized. Others were being harassed by
Quakers, who were disturbing the secret meetings for worship and
reporting them to the authorities. With threats like these, it was essen-
tial that the High Peak Puritans should be grounded in their faith.
Bagshawe therefore developed new methods of Bible teaching
in addition to the preaching for which his ministry had become well
known. First, in public worship, like other dissenters in the period,
he began to offer brief but not insubstantial comments on the bibli-
cal passages he read during divine worship.84 Bagshawe shared this
method with other dissenting pastors in the northwest. Matthew
Henry, for example, collected his public comments on Bible readings
in his famous commentary. But while Henry used his comments to
range throughout the body of divinity, Bagshawe used them to con-
centrate the minds of his listeners upon the most significant dangers
that they faced, intending to “confirm his Hearers in the Protestant
Religion, and to arm them against Popery.”85 Secondly, in the pri-
vacy of his own home, Bagshawe organized an annual conference for

84. Ibid.
85. Ibid.
young men. These conferences were designed to offer basic training

for those young men who might be interested in entering the Chris-
tian ministry. These were often remarkable occasions.86 Bagshawe set
aside three weeks every summer for these conferences, which rotated
around other venues, including Charlesworth.87
And his writing continued. Bagshawe published the second part
of The Riches of Grace Displayed in 1685. It was a good example of
his doctrinal concern, expressing the old orthodoxy, but also call-
ing believers to embrace their “grand Duty, Love to God. Should not
their Love to Him be without end, whose Love to them was before
times beginning?”88 But Bagshawe was careful to balance God’s love
for His people against God’s hatred of sin. He hoped, he wrote, “that
they who make light of sin (which alas! most do!) would open their
eyes (O that God would open ’em) that they might see God’s anger
smoaking against it, as an evil and bitter thing; and that every Sinner
must inevitably have dyed for ever, if the Lord of Life had not in Mans
nature dyed, (and suffer’d beyond what can be thought) for it.”89
But the condition of believers altered again in 1687, when James II
issued his new Declaration of Indulgence. The High Peak dissenters
found themselves with opportunities far in excess of their ability to
meet them. The Christians needed more leaders, more preachers,
more evangelists of the type that Bagshawe had modeled. “Presby-
terianism...was clearly impossible to apply, owing to the shortage of
trained ministers and the enforced autonomy of each local worship-
ping group. Bagshawe sought to remedy these defects by making
his home a kind of Presbyterian Academy. Early in 1688, he invited
Samuel Ogden, the highly respected High Master of Wirksworth
Grammar School, to take up residence at Ford Hall and to bring with
him a number of young ministerial candidates. Ogden accepted the
invitation, boarded the students nearby for convenience, and shared
with Bagshawe the task of preparing them for ordination.”90 It must
have been an exceptional experience for these young men from the
High Peak with aspirations after Christian ministry: to be tutored by
the best-known and best-loved pastor in the county; to be tutored
86. Brentnall, William Bagshawe, 76 –77.

87. Ibid., 78.
88. Bagshawe, The Riches of Grace Displayed: The Second Part, 20.
89. Ibid., 30.
amid the grandeur of his country home; and to be tutored in the ele-
ments that had made his ministry so successful.
Despite its extraordinary success, Bagshawe’s ministry does
appear quite ordinary. It was conservative, emphasizing the value of
orthodoxy, as Bagshawe’s first biographer recalled: “He had (to use
his own Worlds) a special Eye for the Footsteps of Christ’s Flock,
and would not willingly turn aside either to new Opinions or new
Expressions...not departing from the doctrine of the Thirty Nine
Articles, and of the Reformed Churches.”91 Ashe’s reference was to
the terms of indulgence, which required preachers to sign up to
major sections of the Anglican articles of faith, but also hinted that
Bagshawe kept another eye on the theology of the earlier century
which he had learned in Cambridge, which had been codified in
the Westminster Confession of Faith, and which he preached until
the day of his death. But this orthodox preaching was anything but
scholastic. “The great truths and Precepts of the Gospel were the
Subjects he chose to insist upon,” in his preaching, in his house-
to-house visitation, and in his catechizing of the children of his
congregations.92 It was a polemical ministry: “He was not asham’d of
those Doctrines of the Gospel, that in a loose and skeptical Age are
most vehemently decry’d, nor wanting in his Endeavours to suppress
growing Immorality and Prophaness.”93 But it was also a ministry
that emphasized spirituality. Bagshawe’s “Love to God & Christ was
a bright and constant Flame. His Desires after nearer Communion
with him were very earnest, and all the Means appointed for main-
taining and improving it highly priz’d.”94 Bagshawe emphasized this
theme in his public preaching, and in the manner of his leading fam-
ily worship: “The Word of Christ dwelt richly in him; he continually
consulted and advis’d with it and serious and profitable Remarks of
those Parts of it that he [read] in private, or at Family-Worship.”95
And it was an expectant ministry: “he would sometimes express his
hope, that a Time was coming when Practical Religion wou’d be in
greater esteem, tho’ he might not live to see it.”

92. Ibid., 13 –15.
93. Ibid., 23.
94. Ibid., 22.
95. Ibid.
Bagshawe did live to see the Glorious Revolution, the ending

of the Stuart dynasty and the beginnings of that official toleration
that English dissenters have enjoyed to the present day, in 1688 –1689.
Despite his experience — which had seen every opening for freedom
rapidly close — Bagshawe sprang back into action, obtaining licenses
for the meeting places where his congregations had gathered briefly
in 1672, and returned to a life of itinerant preaching. He appears to
have abandoned the strict ecclesiology of his youth, and worked hard
for cooperation between Presbyterians and Congregationalists in
1691, when London ministers proposed the union of the denomi-
nations.96 Bagshawe signed the statement of the “United Brethren”
alongside Matthew Henry, his ministerial colleague in Chester.97 It
seems that pastoral emphases of his care for his people had overtaken
any concern to see them organized according to the Presbyterian
pattern. It was enough that they were evangelical dissenters, worship-
ping according to the Word of God.
Almost forty years after the ejection and the ending of his pas-
torate in the parish church in Glossop, Bagshawe threw himself
again into itinerant ministry: “he was constantly at work at home or
abroad, till his growing Infirmities constrain’d him to shorten his
Journeys and lessen his Labours. He was confin’d first to his own
publick Meeting-Place, and the last Winter to his Dwelling House,”
but managed to preach every Lord’s Day without fail until his even-
tual death in 1702.98 His last sermon was on Romans 8:31 (“If God
be for us, who can be against us?”). And it seems Bagshawe knew
even as he concluded the sermon that he was concluding a lifetime
of preaching ministry. “After this he grew every Day weaker, and the
next Lord’s-Day he was confin’d to his Bed.”99
As Bagshawe lay dying, his thoughts turned to two great themes
that had dominated his preaching career. The first, he declared,
was the doctrine of imputed righteousness, the foundation of the
Reformed theology of justification by grace alone through faith alone
in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. The second, he continued,
was his decision not to conform to the new Church of England upon

97. Ibid.
99. Ibid., 9.
its organization in 1662. “He declared his Satisfaction in his Non-

Conformity, and blessed God who had kept him from acting against
his Conscience in that Affair.”100 He “had the privilege of an easy
death.”101 On April 1, 1702, his spirit returned to God who made
it (Eccl. 12:7), and on April 4, 1702, his friends laid his body in the
chancel of the parish church in Chapel-en-le-Frith. “He Liv’d to Die,
and Died that he might Live.”102
So what can we learn from the life and career of the “Apostle of
the Peak”? Bagshawe’s reflections on life and death help us to con-
sider the direction and purpose of our lives. That was the purpose
of biography, Bagshawe believed: “The honouring of the Dead, shall
be a Blessing to the Living, they (being dead) yet speak, and bespeak
imitation.”103 Bagshawe believed that “People should prize the Lives
and Labours, and take to Heart the Death of the faithful Preachers.”104
But he did not expect that death would be the end of their ministry.
As he himself put it, “when Preachers die, may their Doctrines live in
many.”105 He hoped that “when we have buried our precious Minis-
ters, their Instructions may live in us, and to Eternity may live with
us.”106 He knew that men would be remembered when their memo-
rial stones had disappeared — and that this was especially true of the
righteous. “Would Absolom’s Pillar answer his Expectations? Will
stately Buildings (and Tombs) attain the best end? Is it not Righteous-
ness which exalteth (as a Nation so) particular Persons in it?”107 But
Bagshawe also knew that all biography serves another purpose. All
biographies end in death — with one exception. Bagshawe wrote that
the death of the servants of Jesus Christ served merely to reinforce
the fact that “the great Pastor (and Shepherd) dies not, but lives for
ever.”108 And that is the key to our understanding Bagshawe’s life. For
he knew, when all is said and done, that he achieved nothing but by
the grace of God. That’s why he began his history of God’s work in
100. Ibid.
101. Ibid., 32.
103. Ibid., 81.
104. Ibid., 67.
105. Ibid., 56.
106. Ibid., 102.
107. Ibid., 82.
108. Ibid., 68.
the High Peak by quoting “2 Cor. 6. 1. We then as Workers together with

him, beseech you also, that ye receive not the Grace of God in vain.”
Bagshawe was a worker together with God. God was active in his
activity. It was Jesus Christ who planted the congregations to whom
Bagshawe preached. In fact, it was Jesus Christ who was preaching
to those congregations through Bagshawe’s faithful ministry. And
the danger that faced the inhabitants of the High Peak in the middle
and later parts of the seventeenth century are the same dangers that
face us today. The danger is not just that we disregard those who are
the workers together with God today; it is also that we will “receive
the grace of God in vain”— that we will hear the gospel, but never
believe it, and instead commit ourselves to hell. Do not receive the
grace of God in vain, Bagshawe is still urging us. This lies in the
passage of Scripture with which we began: “Your fathers, where are
they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my
statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they
not overtake your fathers?” (Zech. 1:5 – 6). William Bagshawe, being
dead, yet speaks: do not receive the grace of God in vain.
Experiential Theology
q
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 205–222
The “Cream of Creation” and the “Cream of

Faith”: The Lord’s Supper as a Means of
Assurance in Puritan Thought
matthew westerholm
q
Assurance is the subjective sense a believer possesses of the certainty

of his or her own salvation — a personalizing of God’s promises.1 All
believers have some degree of assurance (Rom. 8:16 –17), but some
believers have a stronger sense of it than others. Because of the decep-
tive human heart, “false assurance” is possible and must be avoided.
“True assurance,” on the other hand, is to be pursued by all believers,2
with “full assurance” possible for some believers. The Puritans
believed, following Calvin, that faith is “a firm and certain knowledge
of God’s benevolence toward us, founded on the truth of the freely
given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds, and sealed upon
our hearts, through the Holy Spirit.”3 Consisting of the same essence
as faith, assurance is then the “cream of faith,” 4 an increase in the
amount and richness of faith, but not a change to its substance.
This essay traces a line of reasoning, advanced by a number of
Puritan authors, that one of the chief ends of participating in the
Lord’s Supper is assurance.5 To demonstrate this, five questions will
be investigated. (1) Who is to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper? Since
1. This summary is based on Joel R. Beeke, “Assurance of Faith,” in Puritan

Reformed Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), 294 –99.
2. “It is a duty in all to make after assurance” (Edward Taylor, Edward Taylor’s
Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper [Boston: Twain Publisher, 1988], 156).
3. Calvin, Institutes, ed. John T. McNeill, 3.2.7.
4. Attributed to William Gurnall in C. H. Spurgeon, The Salt-Cellars: Being a
Collection of Proverbs, (New York: A. C. Armstrong and Son, 1889), 58. See also Joel
R. Beeke, The Quest for Full Assurance: The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors (Edin-
burgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999), 114.
5. For a discussion of the term “Lord’s Supper” as preferred by the Puritans
over “Communion,” or “Eucharist,” see Horton Davies, The Worship of the English
Puritans (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997), 204.
only believers have genuine faith and the possibility of assurance,

the Lord’s Supper could not provide genuine assurance to all of its
participants if unbelievers were invited to the sacrament.6 Relatedly,
the degree of faith a participant must possess will be investigated.
(2) How does one participate in the Lord’s Supper? Are the practi-
cal methods of participation intended to grow the believer’s faith?
(3) Does the Lord’s Supper oppose hindrances of assurance, that
is, elements that undermine the believer’s faith? (4) How is Christ
present in the Lord’s Supper, and does that type of presence grow
the believer’s faith? (5) Do participants in the Lord’s Supper actually
grow in assurance, and do those who neglect this ordinance suffer?
Who Is to Be Admitted to the Lord’s Supper?

Puritan writers paid close attention to the circumstances surrounding
admission to the Lord’s Supper. While a few considered it a “convert-
ing ordinance,” most Puritans followed Calvin’s teaching that “if the
Spirit be lacking, the sacraments can accomplish nothing more in
our minds than the splendor of the sun shining upon blind eyes, or a
voice sounding in deaf ears.”7 Jonathan Edwards saw the Lord’s Sup-
per as a sacrament reserved for believers, celebrating the unity that
they have in Christ. He writes in a sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:17,
“The Lord’s Supper was instituted as a solemn representation and
seal of the holy and spiritual union Christ’s people have with...one
another.”8 Puritans believed a high threshold applied to participation
in the sacrament, apparent in the extensive discussion surrounding
whether youth should properly be admitted to the table.9
Other Puritans, notably Solomon Stoddard and William Prynne,
did see the Lord’s Supper as a converting sacrament.10 This minor-
6. Jonathan Edwards rhetorically asks, “Will any be so absurd as to say that God
has appointed a holy ordinance of His worship for His honor and glory that on pur-
pose that men might openly and on deliberation and design and most expressly and
with the greatest solemnity perjure themselves after this manner?” (Sermons on the
Lord’s Supper [Orlando, Fla.: The Northampton Press, 2007], 76).
7. Institutes, ed. John T. McNeill, 4.14.9.
8. Edwards, Sermons on the Lord’s Supper, 70, emphasis added.
9. Cg. Edmund Morgan, Visible Saints (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1965), 45– 46.
10. The most famous Puritan to hold this view is Solomon Stoddard. A mod-
ern-day proponent of this theology is William L. De Arteaga (Forgotten Power: The
Significance of the Lord’s Supper in Revival [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002]).
The Lord’s Supper as a Means of Assurance 207
ity saw the sacrament as intended also for unbelievers who had basic
knowledge of Christian beliefs as a means of their eventual conver-
sion by “evoking their internal assent to the Gospel.”11 This was a
minority view, defended against ably in Puritan times by George Gil-
lespie and Samuel Rutherford.12 E. Brooks Holifield summarizes:
Neither Rutherford nor Gillespie intended to rob the sacrament
of efficacy. The Lord’s Supper was still “the nourishment of
those in whom Christ liveth,” increasing “the conversion which
was before” by adding “a new degree of faith.”13 Like Calvin,
they linked sacramental efficacy with the doctrine of sancti-
fication, which described the Christian’s growth in faith and
holiness. Moreover, the sacrament sealed God’s promises to the
elect.14 Since the seal applied to the worthy communicant “in
particular, the very promise that in general is made to him,” he
could leave the table with assurance of God’s mercy.15
In Holifield’s description, we find an abundance of “assurance”
language, especially when viewing assurance as “the cream of faith”:
the Lord’s Supper “increases the conversion,” adds “a new degree
of faith,” and provides the communicant “with assurance of God’s
mercy.” The partaker of the sacrament, however, must be one “in
whom Christ liveth,” that is, a believer.
The Puritans, who distrusted state-ordained clergy, clarified that
the efficacy of the sacraments did not come through ecclesiastical
authority;16 they insisted with Calvin that the elements are signs and
seals of God’s saving grace. This protected the sacrament from the
11. E. Brooks Holifield, The Covenant Sealed (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1974), 109–110.
12. George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming (Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Pub-
lications, 1985); Samuel Rutherford, The Divine Right of Church-Government and
Excommunication (London: Printed by John Field for Christopher Meredith, 1646).
These references appear in Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 115.
13. Rutherford, Divine Right, 340, 523.
14. Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod, 500.
15. Rutherford, Divine Right, 253. The quote and footnotes are from Holifield,
The Covenant Sealed, 115.
16. “All the spiritual change is wrought by the faith of the receiver, not the words
of the giver” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William Goold [London, Ed-
inburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991], 1:492). In contrast to Catholicism, the major-
ity of Puritans “scaled down the definition of the efficacy of the sacraments” (Leland
Ryken, Worldly Saints, [Grand Rapids: Academie Books, 1986], 122).
debilitating views of Roman Catholicism, which rendered assurance

minimally abnormal and even practically impossible.17
Further, the Puritan writers held that only certain believers,
namely, those who come to the table in a certain assurance-seeking
state, would receive the benefits of assurance; therefore, perfect faith
was not required. Here, again, there is widespread agreement: assur-
ance is desirable,18 but not necessary.19 “It’s not the faith of assurance
that is necessary to this ordinance,” Edward Taylor writes, “but of
affiance and trust.”20 Nor is moral perfection required, as Jonathan
Edwards writes: “Your sins need to be no hindrance. Christ pro-
cured those benefits for such. He gave Himself for such.”21 Thomas
Doolittle goes further, saying a person may come to the Lord’s Table
“if a man cannot say he loves God, and cannot say he has faith, but
yet finds he hungers and thirsts for Christ.”22 Thomas Watson sum-
marizes this line of thinking well when he writes, “A weak faith
can lay hold on a strong Christ. A palsied hand may tie the knot
in marriage.”23 Matthew Henry makes this practical appeal: “If thou
doubt, therefore, whether Christ be thine, put the matter out of
doubt by a present consent to him: I take Christ to be mine, wholly,
only, and forever mine.”24
17. See Beeke, The Quest for Full Assurance, 12–15, 51, 63, 270.
18. “Hildersham described the worthy communicant as one who possessed a ‘true
justifying faith’ and was ‘undoubtedly assured’ that Christ belongs to him, but he too
urged ‘weak Christians’ to receive the sacrament” (Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 56).
19. Thomas Doolittle, A Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper (Morgan, Pa.: Soli
Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), 137. “It [i.e., assurance] is not that which anyone is to
wait for in order to his coming to the Lord’s Supper” (Edward Taylor, Edward Taylor’s
Treatise, 121).
20. Ibid., 189.
21. Edwards, Sermons on the Lord’s Supper, 156.
22. Doolittle, A Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Glo-
ria Publications, 1998), 137. Holifield notes, “The Puritans hoped that the Lord’s
Supper would provide the occasion for the extension of faith and holiness among
the weak and indifferent as well as the saints” (The Covenant Sealed, 57). Cf. also
Edwards’s sermon “The Lord’s Supper Ought to Be Kept Up and Attended in Re-
membrance of Christ,” in Sermons on the Lord’s Supper, 54 – 69.
23. Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Supper (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust,
2004), 73.
24. Matthew Henry, The Communicant’s Companion (Philadelphia: Presbyte-
rian Board of Publication, 1843), 73. Henry writes, “You think you are not serious
enough, nor devout enough, nor regular enough, in your conversations, to come to
the sacrament; and perhaps you are not: but why are you not? What hinders you?
John Owen also preached that the Lord’s Supper was for believ-
ers, but called attention to the state in which believers must find
themselves in order to receive the full benefit of assurance, say-
ing that “a special end of [the Supper] was, for the confirming and
strengthening of our faith. God gives out unto us the object of our
faith in parcels. We are not able to take this great mysterious fruit of
God’s love in gross, in the lump; and therefore he gives it out, I say,
in parcels.”25
How Does One Participate in the Lord’s Supper?

The Lord’s Supper was be taken seriously,26 and much preparation
and care went into its observation. Jonathan Edwards writes, “’Tis
the most solemn confirmation that can be conceived of.... It is more
solemn than a mere oath.”27 Elsewhere Edwards writes, “Those who
contemptuously treat those symbols of the body of Christ slain and
His blood shed, why, they make themselves guilty of the body and
blood of the Lord, that is, of murdering Him.”28 This solemnity is
in keeping with the magnitude of the sacrament. Edwards, usually
measured with his words, holds no superlatives back, saying, “Christ
is the greatest Friend of His church, and that which is commemo-
rated in the Lord’s Supper is the greatest manifestation of His love,
the greatest act of kindness that ever was in any instance, infinitely
exceeding all acts of kindness done by man one to another. It was the
greatest display of divine goodness and grace that ever was.”29
John Payne describes Owen’s view of the Lord’s Supper as “a
sanctified dramatization of the love of God for His people,” where
“those who exercise faith in Christ experience and partake of Him in
the Supper.”30 The elements themselves Owen calls the “cream of the
Is any more required to fit you for the sacrament, than is necessary to fit you for
heaven?” (ibid., 70).
25. John Owen, Works, 9:527.
26. On the frequency of celebration of the Lord’s Supper, see Davies, The Wor-
ship of the English Puritans, 205–207 for the discussion of Baptists and Independents,
and 213–216 for the discussion of Presbyterians.
27. Edwards, Sermons, 76.
28. Ibid., 107.
29. Ibid., 86. In his sermon “Christians Have Communion with Christ,” Ed-
wards writes, “I would exhort you to...a serious and careful and joyful attendance
on the Lord’s Supper” (Sermons, 150).
30. Payne, John Owen on the Lord’s Supper, 64.
creation: which is an endless storehouse, if pursued, of representing

the mysteries of Christ.”31
The Puritans noted that participants should prepare for the
Lord’s Supper with quantitatively large as well as qualitatively rich
periods of time in meditation. “God has taught us,” Owen says, that
“the using of an ordinance will not be of advantage to us, unless we
understand the institution, and the nature and the ends of it.”32 More
than mere understanding is required, since “God’s covenant prom-
ises are not ‘spiritually sealed’ by the sacraments unless received by
faith and an obedient heart.”33
This meditation does not cease once the sacrament itself begins;
rather, it intensifies. Owen preached “Twenty-Five Discourses Suitable
to the Lord’s Supper” between 1669 and 1682. Here we find Owen
at his most practical, instructing the congregation under his care to
receive the most benefit from participating in the sacrament. In these
discourses, Owen urged his congregation to first meditate on “the
horrible guilt and provocation that is in sin.”34 Next he urged the con-
gregation “to meditate on God’s purity and holiness, that is, that holiness
that would not ‘pass by sin, when it was charged upon his Son.’”35
This leads to what Owen deems to be the focal point of the Lord’s
Supper: the person and work of Jesus Christ. These are “together
received through the exercising of sincere faith.”36 This outworking
of faith is the attempt to see the Son with spiritual eyes. Owen says to
his congregation, “That which we are to endeavour in this ordinance
is, to get...a view of Christ as lifted up; that is bearing our iniquities
in his own body on the tree.... O that God in this ordinance would
give our souls a view of him!”37
One of the results of this spiritual sight is the mortification of sin.
Owen says that “we labour by faith so to behold a dying Christ, that
31. Owen, Works, 9:540.

32. Ibid., 9:583.
33. Payne, John Owen on the Lord’s Supper, 34. For the fullest discussion of Ow-
en’s view of assurance, see Beeke, The Quest for Full Assurance, 165–213. Especially
pertinent is the discussion of the Lord’s Supper on p. 211.
34. Owen, Works, 9:559.
35. Ibid., emphasis in original.
37. Owen, Works, 9:582.
strength may thence issue forth for the death of sin in our souls.”38
Conversely, another result is the vivification of faith. Here, Owen
says, “God hath appointed him to be crucified evidentially before our
eyes, that every poor soul that is stung with sin, ready to die by sin,
should look up unto him, and be healed.”39
This is not the pursuit of some mystical experience, but the result
of the cooperative work of the Spirit along with the believer’s person-
alization of objective truth. Owen believed that at the Lord’s Supper
“Christ and His benefits are objectively offered, and received through
the exercising of faith and the sovereign agency of the Holy Spirit.” 40
Thomas Doolittle writes, “Let faith make particular application of
this blood in all its virtues and efficacies, and say, ‘Here, O my soul,
here is pardoning blood, and it is yours. Here is quickening, soften-
ing blood, and it is yours. Here is justifying, sanctifying, pleading
blood, and this belongs to you.’ This will draw forth faith to do its
work at the Lord’s Supper.”41
Goodwin compares the sacrament with the sermon and writes,
“Of sermons, some are for comfort, some to inform, some to excite;
but here in the Sacrament is all thou canst expect. Christ is here
light, and wisdom, and comfort, and all to thee. He is here an eye to
the blind, a foot to the lame; yea, everything to everyone.”42
And just as careful meditation and thought were used before the
sacrament, the believer continues meditating and thinking afterward.
As a believer, says Doolittle, I must:
consider with myself if I have received any benefit thereby....
[I will know this] by the increase of my faith in Christ and love
for God; by my greater hatred of sin and power against it; by my
longing after the enjoyment of God in heaven; by my prizing
this ordinance above my necessary food; and by my resolutions,
in the strength of Christ, to suffer for Him who died for me.43
38. Ibid., 582.

39. Ibid., 571.
40. Payne, John Owen on the Lord’s Supper, 75, emphasis added.
41. Doolittle, A Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper, 96.
42. Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin, ed. Thomas Smith
(Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 11:408.
It is apparent that this is no mere mental assent to the doctrinal

accuracy of the cross, but instead a heartfelt engagement. Emotional
engagement is so integral to the sacrament that multiple emotions are
to be expected. If these emotions conflict, then the believer should
be encouraged, for sorrow (because the believer’s sins put Christ to
death) will not prevent joy (at Christ’s death for those sins). As Doo-
little writes, “This mixture of affection well becomes a believer at the
Lord’s Table.”44
This self-examination, this focused biblical meditation, this
heartfelt engagement and personalization of objective truth, and this
following reflection were all means of increasing a believer’s faith and
giving a stronger sense of assurance.
Are the Hindrances of Assurance Opposed by

the Lord’s Supper?
While the Lord’s Supper was open to all believers, not all believers
were drawn to participate fully and regularly. There were several
hindrances that Puritan ministers labored to address — hindrances
that prevented believers from receiving all the benefits of the
sacrament.
The first hindrance is the devil. Thomas Doolittle writes that the
devil “will be with you at the sacrament to rob you of the comfort
and hinder you from that joy that there you might be filled with.” 45
Thomas Watson writes, “Satan would hinder from the sacrament, as
Saul did the people from the honey (1 Samuel 14:26).” 46 However,
careful observance of the Lord’s Supper opposes his work. Owen
says, “In our celebration of the death of Christ, we do profess against
Satan, that his power is broken, that he is conquered,— tied to the
chariot wheels of Christ, who has disarmed him.” 47 Matthew Henry
goes further, stating, “Christ having thus trodden Satan under our
44. A believer asks, “‘But must I both rejoice and sorrow too? Will not either
sorrow keep me from rejoicing, or rejoicing prevent my sorrowing?’ No, both these
may be; both these must be. This mixture of affection well becomes a believer at the
Lord’s Table. You may mourn that your sins put Christ to death, and yet you may
rejoice that Christ would die for your sins” (ibid., 100).
45. Ibid., 94–95.
46. Watson, The Lord’s Supper, 60.
47. Owen, Works, 9:548.
feet, he calls to us, as Joshua to the captains of Israel, ‘Come near, put
your feet upon the necks of these kings.’”48
The second hindrance is forgetfulness. God’s children have always
battled spiritual amnesia.49 “None can be ignorant,” writes Edmund
Calamy, “of how apt our hearts are to turn aside like a deceitful bow,
and to lose the sense of those things which ought continually to
influence and govern us.”50 Doolittle observes, “What is most to be
wondered at is that we are too prone to forget God our Savior, to for-
get Him who delivered us from the curse of the law by being made
a curse for us; who delivered us from the wrath of God by bearing
it Himself; who delivered us from the sting of death by dying for
us.”51 Similarly, Matthew Henry writes, “Remember him! Is there
any danger of our forgetting him? If we were not wretchedly taken
up with the world and the flesh, and strangely careless in the con-
cerns of our souls, we could not forget him. But, in consideration of
the treachery of our memories, this ordinance is appointed to remind
us of Christ.”52 Opposing forgetfulness is one of the main designs
of the Lord’s Supper, whose words of institution famously refrain,
“Remember me.”
The third hindrance is simple neglect. The Puritans give several
reasons for the neglect of the sacrament, ranging from a sense of
personal unworthiness to a sense of personal pride. Either way, the
Puritans warn, neglect is hypocrisy. Again Thomas Doolittle writes
of the dangers while pointing to the remedy: “It is hypocrisy to com-
plain of the hardness of your heart and yet not use the means to
have it softened, to complain of the power of your sin and not use
the means to have it weakened.”53 Against a more hardened neglec-
tor, Matthew Henry offers this warning: “Thou hast no desire to
48. Henry, The Communicant’s Companion, 175.

49. “Bless the L ord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103:2);
“Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgat his works;
they waited not for his counsel” (Ps. 106:12–13).
50. Edmund Calamy, “The Express Renewal of Our Christian Vows,” in The
Puritans on The Lord’s Supper, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publica-
tions, 1997), 39.
52. Henry, The Communicant’s Companion, 44. Later Henry adds, “Ought we
not to remember, and can we ever forget a friend, who though he be absent from us,
is negotiating our affairs, and is really absent for us?”
the wine of the love of God, but rather choosest the puddle water of
sensual pleasures; but canst thou ‘drink of the wine of the wrath of
God,’ which shall be poured out without mixture in the presence of
the Lamb?”54
By identifying these hindrances to assurance at the time of par-
ticipation in the Lord’s Supper, Puritan writers believed that the very
participation itself assisted the believer in overcoming these hin-
drances and growing in assurance.
How Is Christ Present in the Lord’s Supper?

“One reason why we so little value the ordinance [of the Lord’s Sup-
per],” said John Owen, “and profit so little by it, may be, because we
understand so little of the nature of that special communion with
Christ which we have therein.”55
Reformed thought generally assumes three categories when
contemplating the nature of “that special communion with Christ.”
First, the Puritans rejected unilaterally the positions of Lutherans and
Roman Catholics,56 believing that the elements of the Lord’s Supper
could not ontologically be the physical blood and body of Christ.
Jonathan Edwards writes, “The end of the sacrament is not that we
may eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ without a metaphor.
And if we should suggest a thing so horrid and so monstrous as the
papists do in their doctrine of transubstantiation, would that be any
benefit to us?”57
Second, Zwinglian Anabaptists emphasized the spiritual reality
of the elements, often de-emphasizing and occasionally eliminat-
ing the sacraments altogether.58 While some Puritans had some

55. Owen, Works, 9:523.
56. Owen writes, “This is one of the greatest mysteries of the Roman magic
and juggling, that corporeal elements should have a power to forgive sins, and confer
spiritual grace.... No part of Christian religion was ever so vilely contaminated and
abused by profane wretches, as this pure, holy, plain action and institution of our
Savior: witness the Popish horrid monster of transubstantiation, and their idolatrous
mass” (ibid., 1:490 – 91). Holifield summarizes, “In their opposition to Lutheran and
Roman Catholic doctrine, the Puritans were unambiguous, and the sacramental
arguments often illuminated broader intellectual presuppositions” (The Covenant
Sealed, 59). For a primary source discussion, see Watson, The Lord’s Supper, 17–19.
57. Edwards, Sermons of the Lord’s Supper, 5.
58. “The Separatists’ repudiation of the Anglican sacraments was accompa-
Zwinglian tendencies,59 most Puritans belonged to a third, more

Calvinistic, group.60
“The key to understanding Calvin’s teaching on the presence of
Christ in the Supper,” writes Payne, “is to see that ‘the signs and the
things signified must be distinguished without being separated.’”61
Later he writes, “When the bread and wine are received through
the exercising of God-given faith, the body and blood of Christ are
simultaneously received really and truly, albeit spiritually.”62 Jonathan
Edwards demonstrates this view in his sermon entitled “All Divine
Blessings Are as Much in and through Christ as If They Were a Feast
Provided of His Flesh That Was Given for Us.”63 Similarly, Matthew
Poole writes, “When he saith, Take, eat, he means no more than that
true believers should by the hand of their body take the bread, and
with their bodily mouths eat it, and at the same time, by the hand
and mouth of faith, receive and apply all the benefits of his blessed
death and passion to their souls.”64 Doolittle agrees, writing that the
believer eats the bread and drinks the wine to signify “my union with
Christ and enjoyment of Him; my feeding upon Christ by faith for
the strengthening of the graces of God’s Spirit in my soul.”65
Some argue that Puritans became overly scholastic in their view
of the Lord’s Supper. Holifield, for example, says that Puritan pastors
performed the sacramental actions “hoping that the service would
nied by a tendency to de-emphasize baptism and the Lord’s Supper in their own
churches” (Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 64). “It has become a commonplace, and
it is largely correct, to say that the Puritan impulse led to a gradual disinterest in the
sacraments” (ibid., 73).
59. See the discussion in Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 59.
60. The commonality of service orders between Puritan liturgies is remark-
able. See Davies, The Worship of the English Puritans, 264 –65, for orders of service
from six different liturgies, including Calvin 1542 and Savoy 1661.
62. Ibid., 25.
63. Edwards, Sermons on the Lord’s Supper, 151–57, emphasis added.
64. Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, (reprint, London: Banner
of Truth Trust, 1969), 3:127. Matthew Henry explains: “We live in a world of sense,
not yet in the world of spirits; and, because we therefore find it hard to look above
the things that are seen, we are directed, in a sacrament, to look through them, to
those things not seen, which are represented by them” (The Communicant’s Com-
panion, 32).
thus convey doctrinal information.”66 Contrasting the Puritan approach

with Calvin’s approach, he observes that “Calvin had been wary of
overemphasizing the merely didactic possibilities of sacramental worship,
but in Puritan circles the Lord’s Supper was unreservedly a vivid
spectacle calling to mind the saving truths of the gospel.”67 The result of this
distortion was that “Calvinist mystery collapsed under the weight of
[the Puritans’] psychological explanation.”68 In taking this position,
Holifield underestimates the role that truth played for the Puri-
tan heart and invents a dichotomy that Puritans would have found
unbiblical. For the Puritans, doctrinal information is not the antith-
esis of emotional engagement and Spirit-led worship. As Edwards
wrote about his own preaching, “I should think...my duty to raise
the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that
they are affected with nothing but truth, and with affections that are
not disagreeable to the nature of what they are affected with.”69 The
Father is seeking worshipers who worship in spirit and truth, and
the third Person of the Trinity is in fact the Spirit of truth who guides
believers into truth ( John 16:13).
Do Participants Grow in Assurance?

Assurance is a main goal of almost every aspect of the Lord’s Supper.
Thomas Watson writes, “Let not Christians rest in lower measures
of grace, but aspire after higher degrees. The stronger our faith, the
firmer is our union with Christ, and the more sweet influence we
draw from him.”70 Similarly, Matthew Henry writes, “If thou didst
duly attend on this ordinance, and improve it aright, thou wouldst
find it of unspeakable use to thee for the strengthening of thy faith,
the exciting of holy affections in thee, and thy furtherance in every
good word and work.”71 The initial self-examination, so important to
Puritans, is itself a means of assurance.72 This must be seen as quanti-
66. Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 54.

67. Ibid., 54, emphasis added.
68. Ibid., 61.
69. Select Works of Jonathan Edwards (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1965), 391.
72. “The Holy Spirit applies Christ and His benefits to the hearts and lives of
guilty, elect sinners, through which they are assured by saving faith that Christ
belongs to them and they to Him. The Holy Spirit confirms within them God’s prom-
tatively different from mere “psychological inwardness” or subjective

conviction believed by Holifield and certain other scholars to be at
the center of Puritan participation in the Lord’s Supper.73 To the con-
trary, “in the sacraments, according to Owen’s view, Christ and His
benefits are objectively offered, and received through the exercising of
faith and the sovereign agency of the Holy Spirit.”74
As Thomas Doolittle writes, every believer pursues assurance
when going to the Lord’s Table. They come to the table for the fol-
lowing reasons: “To have communion with God. To increase my faith
in Christ and love for God. To further my joy in the Holy Ghost.
My peace of conscience and hope of eternal life.... To make me thankful
to God for His mercy bestowed upon me in Christ. To get power
against my sins. And especially to remember and show forth the death
of Christ.”75
Strong believers, according to Doolittle, demonstrate this pur-
suit more evidently. They come to the table intending “to have my
heart inflamed with love for God and desires after Christ, to have
my Savior more endeared to my soul, my heart softened, my sin
subdued, my faith strengthened, my evidences cleared, and my soul
assured of eternal life.” 76
Doolittle counsels weak believers to “draw near unto this Table
of the Lord, and have a share of these gospel benefits and be assured
ises in Christ. Thus, personal assurance is never divorced from the election of the
Father, the redemption of the Son, the application of the Spirit, and the instrumental
means of saving faith” (Beeke, Assurance, 60), emphasis original. Meditations on
self-examination include Edwards, “Persons Ought to Examine Themselves of their
Fitness Before They Presume to Partake of the Lord’s Supper,” in Sermons, 97–109;
Joseph Alleine, “Self Examination,” in The Puritans on the Lord’s Supper, 85–109; and
Watson, The Lord’s Supper, 39– 47.
73. “The sacrament was a seal with which God bound himself to stand to his
word, but it worked by evoking a subjective sense of assurance in the mind of the
communicant. The emphasis fell on psychological inwardness” (Holifield, The Cov-
enant Sealed, 53).
74. Payne, John Owen on the Lord’s Supper, 75, emphasis added. Payne contin-
ues, “As a result, the elect are filled with exuberant thankfulness, nourished and
strengthened in faith, assured of God’s infinite love, renewed in obedience, remind-
ed of God’s covenant promises, and given a clearer understanding and experience of
union with Christ and the community of believers.”
75. Doolittle, A Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper, 139, emphasis added.
76. Ibid., 153, emphasis added.
of them.”77 “I am persuaded that if you would go unto this ordinance,

you would in time hear God speaking peace and comfort to your
soul.”78 The believer with strong assurance finds complete joy in par-
ticipating in the sacrament. When I as a believer apprehend “the truth
of my faith in Christ, love for God, and hatred of sin, and the prom-
ise that God has made to such in Christ,” so surely that “as surely as I
ate the bread and drank the wine, so sure has God pardoned my sins
and will save my soul.”79 Additionally, the assured believer finds “the
Spirit, God bearing witness to and with my spirit that it was thus
with me, and, oh, how sweet was Christ then to my soul!”80
The Puritans believed the Lord’s Supper, properly received by
faith, “would provide the occasion for the extension of faith.”81 Watson
writes, “Christ gives us his body and blood for the augmenting of
faith; he expects that we should reap some profit and income, and
that our weak, minute faith should flourish into a great faith.”82 Owen
draws helpful parallels between physical eating and spiritual eating
when he preaches that there is “an increase and quickening of the
vital principles, there is growth, and there is satisfaction.”83 Similarly,
Edwards writes, “You have been hungry and thirsty in times past, but
if you come to this gospel feast you shall hunger and thirst no more.”84
Indeed, some come to the Lord’s Table with an inappropriate
hunger and thirst, seeking inappropriate “blessings.” This has been
a problem for the church since believers in Corinth warranted the
Apostle’s letter. As Richard Vines writes, immature believers “look
for gifts of prayer, of memory, freedom from passions, some parts or
endowments which they see others excel in, and if they do not gain
these, they think they gain nothing, as if they were unworthy. Alas,
that you should so err!”85
77. Ibid., 154.

78. Ibid., 156.
79. Ibid., 175.
80. Ibid.
81. Holifield, The Covenant Sealed, 57.
83. Owen, Works, 9:592.
84. Edwards, “The Spiritual Blessings of the Gospel are Fitly Represented By
a Feast,” in Sermons on the Lord’s Supper, 126.
85. Richard Vines, “The Fruit and Benefit of Worthy Receiving,” in The Puri-
tans on the Lord’s Supper, ed. Don Kistler (Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications,
1997), 116.
Similarly, the neglect of the sacrament when it is available has

detrimental consequences. Thomas Doolittle writes that those who
neglect the ordinance “will not be so fully, well-groundedly, comfort-
ably sure of heaven.”86 Those who are able to participate must do so,
or their faith will suffer. In this, the Puritan writers’ understanding
of the role of the Lord’s Supper is clear: not only does failure to par-
ticipate lessen the “subjective certainty” of salvation,87 but the believer
sins in failing to appropriate available means for growth in godliness.
Thomas Wadsworth, in a sermon entitled “It Is Every Christian’s
Indispensable Duty to Partake of the Lord’s Supper,” writes, “Here
is a duty, my brethren, so plain, so easy, of whose obscurity or dif-
ficulty certainly we have no cause to complain. For what can be...
easier than to eat and drink and call to mind the greatest and best of
friends?”88 Later, he writes, “think how unmerciful you are to your
own souls in denying them this ordinance. What do you but with-
hold their proper and necessary food from them?”89 Doolittle writes,
“You are bound to use all means to increase your grace, to enflame
your love, to strengthen your faith, to renew your repentance, and to
subdue your sin; and you sin if you do not.”90 Edward Taylor is even
stronger: “You greatly sin in not coming to this holy ordinance. You
sin against the invitation; you sin against the wedden garment; you
sin against the solemnity, you let it fall; you sin against your own
souls, and against your own comfort, for you abstain from that which
is your duty wherein spiritual advantage lies.”91
As believers appropriately meditate on the cross of Christ, they
are reminded of several things. First, they are reminded that God
keeps His promises. Owen believed the sacraments are “instituted of
Christ to be visible seals and pledges whereby God in him confirmeth
the promises of the covenant to all believers, re-stipulating of them

87. “[W]here there is faith in Christ, love for God, and real implacable hatred
of sin, there is at least an objective certainty of salvation. There may be a subjective
certainty without it, though not so usual, nor so full and constant, if it is willfully
neglected where opportunity of receiving it is afforded” (ibid., 43).
88. Thomas Wadsworth, “It Is Every Christian’s Indispensable Duty to Partake
of the Lord’s Supper,” in The Puritans on the Lord’s Supper, 54.
89. Ibid., 77–78.
91. Taylor, Edward Taylor’s Treatise, 186.
growth in faith and obedience.”92 Similarly, Matthew Henry writes,

“Give up thyself in sincerity to Jesus Christ, and then come and feast
with him: thou shalt then have in this ordinance the pledges of his
favour, assurances of thy reconciliation to him, and acceptance with
him, and all shall be well, for it shall end everlastingly well.”93
Believers are also reminded that they are partakers of His body
and blood. Calvin writes that “our Lord...instituted the Supper...to
sign and seal in our consciences the promises contained in his gospel
concerning our being made partakers of his body and blood, and to
give us certainty and assurance that therein lies our true spiritual
nourishment, and that having such an earnest, we may entertain a
right reliance on salvation.”94
The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, evidenced by the Lord’s
Supper, further reminds believers that they no longer face divine
condemnation. Those who fear the wrath of God can find reassur-
ance in the sacrament. Owen says, “Look, whatever the justice of
God, the law of God, whatever the threatening of God did require to
be inflicted as punishment for sin, Christ underwent it all.”95 Richard
Vines writes that the sacrament “is needful for relief of our doubts,
fears, and waverings; for this is the great question of anxiety which
troubles the soul: Are my sins pardoned? Are my sins blotted out?
And God has...instituted this sacrament to resolve this question for
the weak in faith.”96
Because of this, finally, believers are reminded that they have
peace with God. “What is the issue of all this? It is to bring us unto
God,— to peace with God, and acquitment from all our sins; and
to make us acceptable with the righteous, holy, and faithful God; to
give us boldness before him; — this is the issue.”97
92. Owen, Works, 1:490.

93. Henry, The Communicant’s Companion, 62–63.
94. John Calvin, “Short Treatise on the Holy Supper of our Lord Jesus Christ”
in Treatises on the Sacraments: Catechism of the Church of Geneva, Forms of Prayer, and
Confessions of Faith, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage
Books, 2002), 167.
95. Owen, Works, 9:522.
96. Richard Vines, “The Fruit and Benefit of Worthy Receiving,” in The Puri-
tans on the Lord’s Supper, 124.
97. Owen, Works, 9:569.
While Puritan pastors gave believers further meditations and

considerations to help them evaluate whether their participation in
the Lord’s Supper was sufficient, it should not be assumed that Puri-
tan believers approached the table fearing their participation might
be insincere. Rather, Puritan believers generally walked away from
the table comforted. A role must also be reserved for the Person of
the Holy Spirit, who blows wherever He wishes. Since assurance
is ultimately His work, believers must not press for a formulaic or
mechanical view.98 And yet Owen uses extravagant language while
preaching that “the whole of our comfort depends on our particular
receiving of Christ by faith, and carrying him away by believing.”99
The visual symbols provide assurance. Payne writes, “This visual
representation of Christ crucified, that is, the bread broken and the
wine poured out, is meant to move the believer to greater measures
of worship, faith, assurance, and obedience.”100
How do these sacraments give grace to participants? Owen’s
Greater Catechism answers, “Not by any real essential conveying of
spiritual grace by corporeal means, but by the way of promise, obsig-
nation, and covenant, confirming the grace wrought in us by the
Word and Spirit.”101 Gerrish summarizes this well when he writes,
“What [the sacrament] gives is not some mysterious power, but the
increase of faith.”102 That increase of faith is assurance.
Conclusion
The Puritans viewed the Lord’s Supper as a means for growing in
faith and providing assurance to the believer. They demonstrate this
by the standards they set for participation in the Lord’s Table, by the
specific practices they promote for those participating in the ordi-
nance, by using the sacrament to oppose the hindrances of assurance,
and by their nuanced belief in the objective reality of Christ’s spiri-
tual presence in the sacrament. And they defend this belief by the
98. For a nuanced discussion of the Holy Spirit’s role in assurance, see Beeke,
The Quest for Full Assurance. In particular, see Beeke’s discussion of the Westminster
Assembly (pp. 142 –147) and John Owen’s Pneumatologia (pp. 200 – 208).
99. Owen, Works, 9:618.
101. Owen, Works, 1:490.
102. Gerrish, Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin (Eu-
gene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2002), 161.
differing experiences between those who participate in the Lord’s

Supper and those who neglect its observance.
Contemporary congregations have much to learn from this
emphasis among their spiritual forefathers. If church members came
to our churches with spiritual doubts, wavering in their certainty
of God’s promises and wondering if they are personally meant for
them, they would receive various types of counsel. Well-meaning
friends might begin by inquiring after stressful circumstances in their
homes and vocational situations. Well-meaning pastors may ask about
the frequency of their Bible reading or the fervency and frequency
of their prayers — and appropriately so. Physicians and psychologists
may ask about diet and sleep. They may inquire about mental illness,
or perhaps prescribe medication to help the believer deal with anxiety.
However, the Puritans would remind the contemporary church
of the special role that the Lord’s Supper plays in building the faith
of the genuine believer. They join Christ in inviting believers to the
great feast of communion with their crucified Lord. They remind
believers that they neglect this ordinance from Christ at their peril,
and should find delight in His command to “Do this in remem-
brance of me.”
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 223–252
Piety in the Canons of Dort

matthew barrett
q
Edwin H. Palmer was unmistakably accurate when he said that, for

the “uninformed pastor, the ‘Five Points of Calvinism’ seem harsh,
cold and spiritually deadening.”1 The terms Calvinism, total depravity,
election, reprobation, limited atonement, and irresistible grace give him the
shivers. As he views it, the God of Calvinism is arbitrary and His
decree of reprobation is “horrible.” Such “fatalistic” teachings, he
believes, make men morally lazy, give a false sense of security, hinder
missions, and deaden human responsibility. Therefore, instead of uti-
lizing these teachings in his pastoral work, he may oppose them or at
least ignore them.2
In light of Calvinism’s faithfulness to Scripture and biblical
accuracy, such nausea to the doctrines of grace is tragic.3 Moreover,
as Palmer observes, such a knee-jerk reaction to Calvinism results
1. Edwin H. Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” in

Crisis in the Reformed Churches: Essays in commemoration of the great Synod of Dort, 1618–
1619, ed. Peter Y. De Jong (Grand Rapids: Reformed Fellowship, 1968), 137.
2. Ibid. Similarly, Steven Cowan states, “In the minds of many people the word
[Calvinism] itself conjures up the image of a cruel God who determines the fate of
each human in an arbitrary and capricious manner, or perhaps the image of a cold,
dead Church, unconcerned with discipleship or spiritual purity.” Steven B. Cowan,
“Common Misconceptions of Evangelicals Regarding Calvinism,” Journal of Evan-
gelical Theological Society 33, no. 2 ( June 1990): 189.
3. It is not my purpose here to defend the five points of Calvinism biblically.
For such a defense, see Joel R. Beeke, Living For God’s Glory: An Introduction to Cal-
vinism (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2008); David N. Steele, Curtis C. Thomas,
and S. Lance Quinn, The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented,
2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 2004); Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Wil-
liams, Why I Am Not An Arminian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004); Edwin
H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010); Loraine
Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 1932).
in caricatures, chief among them being the claims that Calvinism

is responsible for spiritual laziness 4 and a false sense of assurance.5
Consequently, Calvinism’s influence in pastoral ministry and the
spiritual life of the believer is seen as damaging, destructive, and
counter-productive to true spiritual grace and humility.6
4. As Cowan observes, “Perhaps the worst accusation leveled at Calvinism is

that its doctrines of predestination and unconditional grace provide license to sin.
This is the dangerous heresy of antinomianism, which even many of the NT writ-
ers had to confront. Again, though many hyper-Calvinists teach this heresy...this
is not the view of John Calvin and other orthodox Calvinists. Calvin made it clear
that ‘we never dream of a faith destitute of good works’ and that ‘you cannot possess
Him [Christ] without becoming a partaker of His sanctification.’” And again, “Cal-
vinism teaches that when God elects someone to salvation he works progressively
in that person’s life to make him more and more Christ-like. This is a key aspect of
Calvinism’s fifth point (perseverance of the saints). A person that claims to be con-
verted but never grows in spiritual maturity is not truly born again.... [I]t becomes
quite irresponsible to charge Calvinism with antinomianism. To be sure, some
Calvinists have lapsed into this heresy, but Calvin and the best of the Reformed
theologians have explicitly spoken against it.” Cowan’s claim is further substantiated
in this article as we look at the Canons of Dort. Cowan, “Common Misconceptions
of Evangelicals Regarding Calvinism,” 192. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 1960), 3.16.1.
5. Venema acutely states, “A common prejudice against the biblical and Reformed
teaching concerning election claims that it undermines the assurance of salvation.
If the salvation of believers depends ultimately upon God’s sovereign choice to save
some of the fallen race of Adam and not others, a kind of fatalism is introduced
into the order of salvation. Who, after all, can withstand the will of God (cf. Rom.
9:19)? It is alleged that the specter of uncertainty begins to overshadow what we can
know of God’s grace and favor toward us in Jesus Christ. Since no creature is privy
to the ‘secret things’ of God, including the specifics of his sovereign choice to save
some and not others, there is no avenue for believers to be confident of God’s good
will toward them in Christ. Consequently, the teaching of sovereign and gracious
election undermines assurance or certainty of salvation. According to this prejudice,
the awesome reality of God’s foreordination of the salvation of some and the non-
salvation of others reduces everything to arbitrariness and uncertainty.” This essay
will demonstrate that for Dort such an accusation was illegitimate for the doctrine
of election actually serves as the very grounds for biblical assurance. Venema also
argues against such an accusation, though doing so by examining Dort’s brief refer-
ence to infant baptism. This essay will not comment on Dort’s views on infants as it
would take us beyond the parameters of the topic at hand. See Cornelis P. Venema,
“The Election and Salvation of the Children of Believers Who Die in Infancy: A
Study of Article I/17 of the Canons of Dort,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 17
(2006): 57–100.
6. In church history, Calvinists who receive the most blame are the Puritans.
In popular opinion, the word Puritan, as Kelly Kapic and Randall Gleason observe,
Piety in the Canons of Dort 225
To the contrary, this essay will demonstrate that, for the Calvin-
ist, the doctrines of grace do not serve to hinder but actually promote
true, genuine, evangelical piety.7 Nowhere is this so obvious than
in the very core of Calvinistic theology: the Canons of the Synod
of Dort (1619). It is Dort which is the hallmark of five-point Cal-
vinism, an expansive and rigorous defense of God’s sovereign grace
against the synergism of the Arminian Remonstrants, which came to
be definitive for so many sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century
Puritans.8 And yet, these same Canons which expound high Calvin-
“typically conjures up images representing the worst sort of religious hypocrite”

(Kapic and Gleason, “Who Were the Puritans?” 15). On the origins as well as the
use of the term “Puritan,” see John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, “Introduction,”
in The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, eds. John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1; Patrick Collinson, “Antipuri-
tanism,” The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, 19–33. Likewise, as David Hall
observes, many view the Puritan divines as “machine-tooled, robo-theologians, be-
reft of heart, passion, emotion, and maybe even soul.” However, such a stereotype
is far from the truth. “That is a caricature underivable from the best of histori-
cal review.” And again, “It simply is not the case that these divines were spiritual
dwarves.” David W. Hall, “Westminster Spirituality,” in The Westminster Confes-
sion into the 21st Century, ed. J. Ligon Duncan, III (Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian
Focus, 2004), 2:119. To the contrary, the Puritans were spiritual giants, or, as J. I.
Packer pictures them, enormous redwoods with deep roots. As James Reid states,
“There were never, perhaps, men of holier lives than the generality of the Puri-
tans and Nonconformists of this period [of the Westminster Assembly]. Their
piety and devotedness to God were very remarkable. Their ministers made con-
siderable sacrifices for God and religion. They spent their lives in sufferings, in
fastings, in prayers, in walking closely with God in their families, and among their
people who were under their pastoral care, in a firm adherence to their principles,
and in a series of unremitted labors for the good of mankind. They were indefatiga-
bly zealous in their Master’s service.” James Reid, Memoirs of the Westminster Assembly
of Divines (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1986), 130.
7. By “piety” I am not referring to the movement called “Pietism” but simply
to piety as godliness. On the difference between “piety” and “Pietism,” see R. Scott
Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confessions: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice (Phillips-
burg, N.J.: P & R, 2008), 74 –75, 77.
8. I am of course assuming that a majority of Puritans were Calvinists persuad-
ed by Dort’s Canons. Packer seems to do the same when he describes Puritanism:
“Puritanism was an evangelical movement shaped by the gospel as the Reformers
had proclaimed it. That gospel, Bible as it was, is best understood as Augustinian-
ism adjusted. With great energy Augustine had echoed the biblical insistence on our
natural inability in our fallenness to love God, or turn to him in repentance, or do
anything meritorious in his sight, and had insisted that the faith, love and obedience
he commands only ever appear when he himself works them in us. It follows that
ism are also the same Canons which see Calvinism as the very spring
of evangelical piety and spirituality. While it is not the intention or
purpose of this essay to defend the five points of Dort per se or to
extensively explain the historical background that gave rise to the
Synod of Dort, the Canons themselves will be examined one by one
in order to identify how exactly the doctrines of grace serve as the
very foundation for true, authentic piety in the believer.
Short Background to the Synod of Dort

Arminianism bears the name of Jacob Arminius (1559–1609), a
student in the Genevan academy in 1581, under the teaching of The-
odore Beza.9 While Arminius learned under the best of the Reformed
we who believe should praise God for the gift of our conversion no less than for the
gift of the Savior himself. The Puritans agreed.” J. I. Packer, “Pilgrim’s Progress,”
in The Devoted Life, 190. Likewise, see Coffey and Lim, “Introduction,” 2–3. Kapic
and Gleason do the same when out of the seven qualities they believe define Puri-
tanism they list an Augustinian emphasis on sinfulness and grace as one of them:
“Puritans followed Luther and Calvin’s emphasis on an Augustinian view of human
depravity that requires God’s gracious initiative to work out salvation in the human
heart.” Perkins, Westminster, Cotton, Goodwin, and Owen are listed as examples.
However, it is important to qualify, as Kapic and Gleason do, that not all Puritans
were Calvinists. They could not “agree on such doctrines as the eternal decrees of
predestination, for they included Dortian Calvinists (e.g., John Owen and Thomas
Goodwin), moderate Calvinists (e.g., Richard Baxter), and even a few Arminians
(e.g., John Goodwin).” Kapic and Gleason, “Who Were the Puritans?” in The De-
voted Life, 27, 23–24. Other Arminian Puritans could include William Laud and
John Milton. See Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English
Protestant Theology 1525–1695 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press,
1982), 130 –132.
9. On the life, writings, and theology of Arminius and seventeenth-century
Arminianism, see The Writings of James Arminius, 3 vols., trans. James Nichols (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1956); Carl Bangs, Arminius: A Study in the Dutch Reformation (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1985); A. W. Harrison, The Beginnings of Arminianism to the Synod
of Dort (London: University of London Press, 1926); idem, Arminianism (London:
Duckworth, 1937); F. Stuart Clarke, The Ground of Election: Jacobus Arminius’ Doc-
trine of the Work and Person of Christ (Waynesboro, Ga.: Paternoster, 2006); Arminius,
Arminianism, and Europe: Jacobus Arminius (1559/60–1609), eds. Marius van Leeuwen,
Keith D. Stanglin, and Marijke Tolsma, vol. 39 of Brill’s Series in Church His-
tory (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Socinianism and Arminianism: Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and
Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe, eds. Martin Mulsow and Jan Rohls
(Leiden: Brill, 2005). For the events surrounding the controversy Arminius had
with Franciscus Gomarus, William Perkins, and others in the Reformed tradition
see the following: Simon Kistemaker, “Leading Figures at the Synod of Dort,” in
tradition, he diverted from Reformed theology by conditioning elec-

tion on foreseen faith, advocating a universal atonement, developing
a synergistic view of grace, and believing that it is possible for one to
fall from grace, forfeiting salvation. In short, Arminius conditioned
the divine decree upon the will of man. Arminius’s theology would
be taught by his successors Conrad Vorstius (1569–1622) and Simon
Episcopius (1583–1643), who also taught at the University of Leiden.10
While Arminius died in 1609, his theology filled many churches in
Amsterdam so that, by 1610, there were many Arminian pastors.
Consequently, forty-six Arminians, led by Johannes Uytenbogaert
(1557–1644) and Simon Episcopius, being accused of heresy, wrote
a remonstrance which included five canons defending their beliefs.
The confession is consistent with the writings of Arminius, teaching
among other things that God’s election is conditioned upon foreseen
faith, Christ’s atonement is universal, and grace is resistible.11
Crisis in the Reformed Churches, 42 – 44; Richard A. Muller, “Arminius and the Re-
formed Tradition,” Westminster Theological Journal 70 (2008): 45 – 47; idem, “Grace,
Election, and Contingent Choice: Arminius’s Gambit and the Reformed Response,”
in The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce
A. Ware (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 2:255; idem, God, Creation, and Providence in
the Thought of Jacob Arminius (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991); Robert A. Peterson and
Michael D. Williams, Why I Am Not An Arminian, 98–111; Louis Praamsma, “Back-
ground of Arminian Controversy,” in Crisis in the Reformed Churches, 22–38; Roger
Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Down-
ers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1999), 467; Peter J. Thuesen, Predestination: The American
Career of a Contentious Doctrine (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2009), 37–39.
10. Simon Kistemaker, “Leading Figures at the Synod of Dort,” in Crisis in the
Reformed Churches, 41– 42, 46– 48. On the influence of Arminianism in the sixteenth
through seventeenth centuries, see Robert Godfrey, “Calvin and Calvinism in the
Netherlands,” in John Calvin, His Influence in the Western World, ed. W. Stanford Reid
and Paul Woolley (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 104 –105; Thuesen, Predestina-
tion, 42; John R. De Witt, “The Arminian Conflict,” in Puritian Papers, vol. 5, ed.
J. I. Packer (Phillipsburgh, N.J.: P & R, 2005), 5–6; J. I. Packer, “Arminianisms,” in
Puritan Papers, 5:3–24; Wallace, Puritans and Predestination, 98–99; idem, “Arminian-
ism,” in Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia,
ed. Francis J. Bremer and Tom Webster, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO,
2006), 2:312–13.
11. Regarding whether or not a believer can lose his salvation, the Remon-
strants state that they remain undecided and must inquire more into the Scriptures
before they can decide with full confidence. However, it was not long until Armin-
ians did affirm that believers could forfeit their salvation, as was consistent with the
teachings of Arminius himself. See Article 5 of “The Remonstrance, or The Arminian
Prompted by the Calvinist Prince Maurice of Orange, six repre-

sentatives of each side met in Hague (the Collatio Hagiensis) in 1611 to
discuss their differences but the meeting was of no success.12 By 1618,
a Counter-Remonstrance was formed by the Calvinists in Dordrecht,
presided over by Johannes Bogerman (1576–1637), which sought not
only to correct the Remonstrants’ views as well as their caricatures of
the Calvinist position but also to set forth the “biblical” view. Dort
(1618–1619) was an international synod, as representatives from all
over Europe gathered to discuss and finally refute the Remonstrant
doctrines.13 The focus of the Canons is on the major difference
between the two parties: conditionality vs. unconditionality in salva-
Articles, 1610,” in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, vol. 2 of Creeds and Con-
fessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 2:550.
12. Uytenbogaert drew up the five articles that composed the Arminian Re-
monstrance in 1610. In 1611, a Counter-Remonstrance was written by Festus Hom-
mius for a conference at the Hague but again no agreement was reached. Once
more, controversy ensued in 1613 in Delft and, in 1614, the States of Holland pre-
sented an edict of peace from the hand of Hugo Grotius; this too was to no avail.
13. Delegates were sent from Great Britain, Palatinate, Hesse, Switzerland,
Wetteraw, Geneva, Bremen, Emden, Duchy of Gelderland, Zutphen, Northern and
Southern Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Friesland, Transisalania, Groningen, Om-
land, and Drent. As Godfrey remarks, “Dutch theologians also realized that the im-
pact of the Arminian controversy was not limited to the Netherlands. They realized
the importance of an international Reformed consensus on the issues involved.”
W. Robert Godfrey, Reformation Sketches: Insights into Luther, Calvin, and the Confes-
sions (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R, 2003), 125–26. Dort gathered some of the greatest
and brightest Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century, including Goma-
rus, Bogerman (who presided as president at Dort), Diodati, Boetius, and behind
the scenes William Ames as well. Though not exhaustive, others include Sceltetus,
Polyander, Lydius, Alting, Hommius, Triglandius, Meyer, Carleton, Davenant, and
Hall. Ames was assigned to assist Bogerman, the president, and his influence was
substantial. Unfortunately, Pierre du Moulin and Andre Rivet from France, two
of the most famous Protestant theologians of their time, were forbidden to attend
by the king of France. Despite this, the French Reformed Church approved the
Canons of Dort and two different synods (1620 and 1623) made them binding upon
their ministers. As for Scotland, they also were not allowed to take part for political
reasons, despite the obvious allegiance of Scottish theologians in the tradition of
Reformers like John Knox. However, Reformed theology would later make its pres-
ence known in Scotland with the adoption of the Westminster Confession ( John
R. De Witt, “The Arminian Conflict,” 12–13). For a more detailed history of Dort
and its influence see Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall
1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 450 – 77; Homer C. Hoeksema, The Voice of
our Fathers (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free, 1980); W. Robert Godfrey, “Calvin and
tion.14 According to the Calvinists, man is pervasively depraved and

spiritually unable to choose God, election is unconditional, Christ’s
atonement is efficient only for the elect, the Spirit’s grace in call-
ing and regenerating the elect is effectual and irresistible, and God
always preserves His elect unto glory.15 Dort is clear: no aspect of
God’s eternal choice is conditioned upon man’s free will for its effi-
cacy or success. As John R. De Witt states, “Arminianism meant
synergism: that is, in however evangelical a form in some of its early
proponents, it introduced a cooperate element into the effecting of
salvation. And each of the doctrines delineated at Dort was directed
against the notion of any cooperation, any grounding of God’s favor
upon something acceptable in the creature, in the extending of grace
to sinners.”16
Before Dort pronounced its verdict, it was requested that the
Remonstrants, led by Episcopius, set forth their views with greater
detail than they had in the Five Articles originally presented. The
Remonstrants wrote a confession of their beliefs that more fully
presented their views and it came to be called the Opinions of the
Remonstrants (Sententiae Remonstrantium).17 When Dort pronounced its
verdict, condemning the Remonstrant views and declaring the bibli-
cal view, such a pronouncement was based upon the Five Articles and
Calvinism in the Netherlands,” in John Calvin, 95–120; Philip Schaff, The History of
Creeds, vol. 1 of The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 1:508–23.
14. Klaas Runia, “Recent Reformed Criticisms of the Canons,” Crisis in the Re-
formed Churches, 174; Peterson and Willliams, Why I Am Not An Arminian, 122. Also
see Fred H. Klooster, “Doctrinal Deliverances of Dort,” in Crisis in the Reformed
Churches, 57.
15. Later Calvinists would utilize the acronym T.U.L.I.P. to convey the doc-
trines affirmed by Dort. On the use of T.U.L.I.P. in Reformed theology, see Ken-
neth J. Stewart, “The Points of Calvinism: Retrospect and Prospect,” Scottish Bulletin
of Evangelical Theology 26, no. 2 (Autumn 2008): 187–203.
16. John R. De Witt, “The Arminian Conflict,” 20. On the synergism of Armin-
ius, see the following: Arminius, “A Letter Addressed to Hippolytus a Collibus,” in
Writings, 2:470 –72; idem, “Declaration of Sentiments,” in Writings, 1:252–53, 363–68,
523 –26, 570 –74; idem, “Examination of a treatise concerning the Order and Mode
of Predestination, and the Amplitude of Divine Grace, by William Perkins,” in Writ-
ings, 3:279–526; idem, “Certain Articles to be Diligently Examined and Weighed,” in
Writings, 2:501. See Bangs, Arminius, 342, 358; Olson, Story of Christian Theology, 470.
17. For the entirety of the Sententiae Remonstrantium, see Appendix H of Crisis
in the Reformed Churches, 229.
the Opinions of the Remonstrants.18 However, Dort not only rejected the
views of the Remonstrants (as demonstrated in Dort’s Rejections), but
positively put forth five canons articulating the theology of Calvin-
ism. It is to this theology that we now turn.
Calvinism and Puritan Piety in the Canons of Dort

Predestination: Source of Assurance, Humility, and Holiness
The Canons of Dort begin with the doctrine of unconditional elec-
tion.19 Contrary to the Remonstrants, who argued that God elects on
the basis of foreseen faith in man, Dort argued that Scripture teaches
that election is unconditional, not based on anything in man, but
purely due to the good pleasure and mercy of God (Eph. 1:4 –6).20
“Before the foundation of the world, by sheer grace, according to
the free good pleasure of his will, he chose in Christ to salvation a
definite number of particular people out of the entire human race,
which had fallen by its own fault from its original innocence into sin
and ruin.”21 Those who are chosen by God are not chosen because
18. Though the Arminian Remonstrants were ejected (many were exiled to
Antwerp where the Remonstrant Brotherhood was formed) and condemned by
Dort by 1619, their theology would nevertheless continue. Shortly after Dort, Epis-
copius took on a lead role in drafting a confession, which was published as the Con-
fession or Declaration of the Remonstrant Pastors in Dutch in 1621 (and in 1622 in Latin).
Episcopius took on the role of the new leader of the Remonstrants. Exiled from
1619 to 1626, he formed the Remonstrant Brotherhood and founded a Remonstrant
seminary in 1632. For a list of works written by Episcopius as well as a brief account
of his life, see Mark A. Ellis, “Introduction,” in The Arminian Confession of 1621, ed.
Mark A. Ellis, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and
Stock, 2005), viii–ix. For the confession itself, see pages 1–137. The Confession is
an expansion and elaboration upon the doctrine already presented before Dort and
synergism is once again affirmed. For the development of Arminianism after Ar-
minius, see Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove,
Ill.: InterVarsity, 2006).
19. For the development of the doctrine of predestination among the Puritans,
see Wallace, Puritans and Predestination; Peter Toon, Puritans and Calvinism (Swengel,
Pa.: Reiner, 1973); Alan P. F. Sell, The Great Debate: Calvinism, Arminianism, and Sal-
vation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982).
20. On the issue of infra- versus supra-lapsarianism at Dort, see J. V. Fesko,
Diversity Within the Reformed Tradition: Supra- and Infralapsarianism in Calvin, Dort, and
Westminster (Greenville, S.C.: Reformed Academic, 2001), 179–218.
21. “Canons of Dort,” I.7, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:572. For
an alternative translation drawn from the Latin, see Anthony A. Hoekema, “A New
Translation of the Canons of Dort,” Calvin Theological Journal 3, no. 2 (1968): 133–61.
they are better or more deserving, for the only thing within them is a
“common misery.”22 Election took place “not on the basis of foreseen
faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, or of any other good qual-
ity and disposition, as though it were based on a prerequisite cause or
condition in the person to be chosen, but rather for the purpose of
faith, of the obedience of faith, of holiness, and so on.”23 Dort appeals
to Romans 9:11–13, Acts 13:48, and Ephesians 1:4 to demonstrate
that “the cause of this underserved election is exclusively the good
pleasure of God.”24
Moreover, when asked why some believe and others do not, Dort
refuses to resort, as the Remonstrants do, to the will of man, as if
God’s sovereign grace is dependent upon man’s choice. Rather, on
the basis of Acts 15:18 and Ephesians 1:11, the “fact that some receive
from God the gift of faith within time, and that others do not, stems
from his eternal decision.” Dort continues,
In accordance with this decision he graciously softens the
hearts, however hard, of his chosen ones and inclines them to
believe, but by his just judgment he leaves in their wickedness
and hardness of heart those who have not been chosen. And in
this especially is disclosed to us his act — unfathomable, and as
merciful as it is just — of distinguishing between people equally
lost. This is the well-known decision of election and repro-
bation revealed in God’s word. This decision the wicked and
impure, and unstable distort to their own ruin, but it provides
holy and godly souls with comfort beyond words.25
It is here, in canon I.6, that we first see a glimpse of how Calvin-
ism has massive implications for personal piety and spirituality. The
wicked deserve reprobation and God’s decision to leave them in their
“wickedness and hardness of heart” the impure and unstable “dis-
tort to their own ruin.”26 However, for the elect, predestination is the
cause of great comfort, so great a comfort that words are insufficient
22. Ibid.
23. “Canons of Dort,” I.9, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:573.
26. On Dort’s understanding of reprobation, see Donald Sinnema, “The
Issue of Reprobation at the Synod of Dort (1618 –9) in Light of the History of this
Doctrine” (Ph.D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 1985), 136–213.
for the holy and godly soul. Exactly what type of comfort Dort has
in mind is seen in canon I.12:
Assurance of this their eternal and unchangeable election to
salvation is given to the chosen in due time, though by various
stages and in differing measure. Such assurance comes not by
inquisitive searching into the hidden and deep things of God,
but by noticing within themselves, with spiritual joy and holy
delight, the unmistakable fruits of election pointed out in God’s
word — such as a true faith in Christ, a child-like fear of God,
a godly sorrow for their sins, a hunger and thirst for righteous-
ness, and so on.27
Assurance of salvation in Christ is the great comfort that comes in
affirming the doctrine of unconditional election.28 Election is to
remind the believer that he is safe in the arms of God, for God has
chosen him before the foundation of the world.29 However, Dort is
28. Assurance is defined by Beeke as follows: “Assurance of faith is the believ-
er’s conviction that, by God’s grace, he belongs to Christ, has received full pardon
for all sins, and will inherit eternal life. Someone who has true assurance not only
believes in Christ for salvation but also knows that he believes and is graciously
loved by God. Such assurance includes freedom from guilt, joy in God, and a sense
of belonging to the family of God.” Beeke continues, “Assurance is dynamic; it var-
ies according to conditions and is capable of growing in force and fruitfulness.”
Beeke, Living for God’s Glory, 119. It is not the purpose of this essay to explore defini-
tions of assurance or the debate over where there is continuity or discontinuity be-
tween Calvin and the later Calvinists in their understanding of assurance. However,
I am in agreement with Beeke (contra R. T. Kendall and Basil Hall) in his thesis that
“Calvinism’s wrestlings with assurance were quantitatively beyond, but not qualita-
tively contradictory to, that of Calvin.” I would argue that the same is true of the
Puritan divines at Dort. On this issue, see Joel R. Beeke, The Quest for Full Assurance:
The Legacy of Calvin and His Successors (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1999), 3. For the
case for continuity on other Reformed issues, see Richard A. Muller, Christ and the
Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1988); idem, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols. (Grand Rap-
ids: Baker, 2003); idem, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradi-
tion (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Paul Helm, Calvin and
the Calvinists (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982).
29. Puritanism as a whole grounded the believer’s assurance in election. “Eng-
lish Puritan divines like...William Perkins and Richard Sibbes...took the Reformed
doctrine of election to heart, fostering an ‘experimental predestinarianism’ that en-
couraged the believer to seek assurance that they were chosen by God for salvation.”
Coffey and Lim, “Introduction,” 4.
quick to qualify the serenity of the comfort that comes with assur-
ance. Not all receive assurance in equal measure nor do all receive
assurance all at once. Rather assurance comes “by various stages and
in differing measure.” Such a qualification is key, lest a saint despair
because he does not feel the assurance he previously delighted in.
Nevertheless, though assurance may come in differing stages and
measures, it is to be found in the believer by noticing the “unmistak-
able fruits of election” which include true faith in Christ, child-like
fear of God, godly sorrow for sin, and a hunger and thirst for righ-
teousness. When the believer recognizes the presence of these fruits
of election, he will undoubtedly be moved to “spiritual joy” and
“holy delight,” as he is assured of his salvation in Christ.
However, as if to guard the Christian from becoming arrogant in
recognizing his own election and fruitfulness, Dort explains the type
of attitude assurance should lead to:
In their awareness and assurance of this election God’s children
daily find greater cause to humble themselves before God, to
adore the fathomless depth of his mercies, to cleanse themselves,
and to give fervent love in return to him who first so greatly
loved them. This is far from saying that this teaching concern-
ing election, and reflection upon it, make God’s children lax
in observing his commandments or carnally self-assured. By
God’s just judgment this does usually happen to those who
casually take for granted the grace of election or engage in idle
and brazen talk about it but are unwilling to walk in the ways
of the chosen.30
The child of God, aware and confident of his election, is moved
by such assurance on a daily basis to “find greater cause to humble
themselves before God” because he recognizes that his election and
even the assurance of his election are not due to his own righteous-
ness but due entirely to the sovereign grace and mercy of God. If
election were conditional, the child of God would find reason in
himself to boast and humility would be lost. However, since God’s
election is not based on anything foreseen within man and man’s
assurance is a gift from God, there is no response fitting except that
of Christian humility and thanksgiving. Children of God, therefore,
have every reason to “adore the fathomless depth of his mercies, to

cleanse themselves, and to give fervent love in return to him who
first so greatly loved them.” Once again, unconditional election is
the very basis not only for comfort and assurance but for humility,
praise, worship, and love, as the believer fathoms God’s mercy, loves
his Savior, and seeks to rid himself of sin. Furthermore, Dort antici-
pates the objection that unconditional election leads the elect to be
“lax in observing his commandments or carnally self-assured.” Dort
counters that by “God’s just judgment this does usually happen to
those who casually take for granted the grace of election or engage
in idle and brazen talk about it but are unwilling to walk in the ways
of the chosen.” In other words, if one does become lax, fostering
a carnal self-assurance, he is living inconsistently with the doctrine
of unconditional election itself. Election, in Scripture, is never an
excuse for lax carnality but pro-active deeds in holiness.31 It is only
when the elect seek daily obedience to Christ that they can have a
proper assurance of their election.
31. Palmer, reflecting on Dort, rightly notes, “Clarification: It is true that if one
is elected, he can never be lost; and that once saved, always saved. But how does a
person know whether or not he is elected? He has no secret access into the hidden
counsel of God. There is, however, a divinely ordained way for everyone to know:
his present possession of faith. If one believes, such faith is an infallible sign that
God loved and chose him, for faith is the gift of God’s electing love.” Palmer con-
tinues, “If anyone should think that he was elected and should reason that it makes
no difference whether or not he continues to believe, he would be rationalizing
and departing from the clear teaching of Scripture. For although the Bible teaches
eternal security, it never proclaims carnal security.” Palmer points to 1 Peter 1:1–5
and 2 Peter 1:10. Elsewhere Palmer states, “Moreover, when correctly understood,
the teachings of the Canons of Dort do not feed the flames of indolence and sin,
but, on the contrary, induce one to be a better Christian. It is precisely the Calvinist
who, knowing that by nature he has not an iota of a good thought, desire or deed;
and realizing that he has been saved by grace all the way through, even to the extent
of receiving the ability to believe on Christ — it is exactly such a Christian who will
become more humble, increasingly filled with praise and more determined to live
a holier life out of thankfulness. For he has more to be thankful for than one who
thinks he is only partially bad.” And again, “Strikingly — contrary to popular opin-
ion — the Bible reasons in the exact opposite way for those who think that the teach-
ing of election leads to moral indifference. Paul appeals to election as a motivation
for greater exertion!” Palmer points to Colossians 3:12 and 1 Thessalonians 5:8–9.
Edwin H. Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” in Crisis in
the Reformed Churches, 144, 146.
Nonetheless, Dort is not so naïve to believe that all the elect expe-
rience assurance in the same measure. For many, assurance is lacking.
Those who do not yet actively experience within themselves a
living faith in Christ or an assured confidence of heart, peace of
conscience, a zeal for childlike obedience, and a glorying in God
through Christ, but who nevertheless use the means by which
God has promised to work these things in us — such people
ought not to be alarmed at the mention of reprobation, nor to
count themselves among the reprobate; rather they ought to
continue diligently in the use of the means, to desire fervently a
time of more abundant grace, and to wait for it in reverence and
humility. On the other hand, those who seriously desire to turn
to God, to be pleasing to him alone, and to be delivered from
the body of death, but are not yet able to make such progress
along the way of godliness and faith as they would like — such
people ought much less to stand in fear of the teaching concern-
ing reprobation, since our merciful God has promised that he
will not snuff out a smoldering wick and that he will not break a
bruised reed [Matt 12:20]. However, those who have forgotten
God and their Savior Jesus Christ and have abandoned them-
selves wholly to the cares of the world and the pleasures of the
flesh — such people have every reason to stand in fear of this
teaching, as long as they do not seriously turn to God.32
Dort identifies and addresses three types of people in canon I.16.
First, there are those who “do not yet actively experience within
themselves a living faith in Christ or an assured confidence of heart.”
These lack a peace of conscience, a zeal for childlike obedience, and a
“glorying in God through Christ.” Despite all this, they nevertheless
use “the means by which God has promised to work these things
in us.” Dort’s counsel to such Christians is that they should not
be “alarmed at the mention of reprobation” nor “count themselves
among the reprobate.” In other words, though they lack peace, zeal,
and passion, they should not despair, contemplating whether they
should be counted among the wicked. Rather, Dort advises them to
press on, persistently using the means God has promised to use to
work spiritual fruit within. By doing so, they should fervently desire
for a time to come when they will experience God’s grace in fuller
measure. Moreover, while waiting for such grace they should do so

in “reverence and humility” knowing that the God who predestines
is the same God who will provide a time of assurance.33
The second group of people Dort identifies are those who desire
to turn to God, please Him, and be delivered from sin, but are “not
yet able to make such progress along the way of godliness and faith as
they would like.” This second group of believers seem to possess the
desire and zeal that the first group lacked. Nevertheless, due to the
constant struggle with sin, they often fail to turn to God and find their
satisfaction in Him alone. They want to “be delivered from the body
of death” but are impeded in making progress in godliness and faith as
they desire. Should such a person fear that he is one of the reprobate
rather than the elect? No, they should not fear the teaching of reproba-
tion for God is merciful and has promised to be faithful to His elect,
not snuffing them out but advancing them in godliness in due time.
The third group, unlike the first two, receives no assurance or
comfort for they have forgotten God and Jesus Christ the Savior,
abandoning themselves to the “pleasures of the flesh” and the “cares
of the world.” They have every reason to fear the teaching of repro-
bation “as long as they do not seriously turn to God.” Indeed, the
teaching of reprobation serves as a warning to turn to God lest they
perish in their sins.
Moreover, the teacher of such hard doctrines as predestination
and reprobation must keep these three types of people in mind, set-
ting forth his teaching “with a spirit of discretion, in a godly and holy
manner, at the appropriate time and place, without inquisitive searching
into the ways of the Most High.”34 Additionally, he must utilize a mind
33. Venema observes, “A fair-minded reader of the Canons could scour every
nook and cranny of the five heads of doctrine, contemplating every article in turn,
and discover an absence of any evidence for the kind of fatalism or uncertainty of sal-
vation that they allegedly encourage. Because salvation does not hang upon the thin
thread of their own initiative and perseverance, but upon the solid chain of God’s
electing purpose in Christ, believers may be assured of their salvation. Sovereign and
merciful election furnishes believers with the occasion to give thanks to God on the
one hand, and rest confidently in his gracious favor in Christ on the other.” Venema
points to Kaajan, who argues that Dort had this pastoral emphasis by design. H. Kaa-
jan, De Groote Synode van Dordrecht in 1618–1619 (Amersterdam: De Standaard, n. d.),
175. See Venema, “A Study of Article I/17 of the Canons of Dort,” 58.
The fact that Dort turns to address the teacher and how he should instruct his
of humility in order “to deal with this teaching in a godly and rever-
ent manner, in the academic institutions as well as in the churches; to
do so, both in their speaking and writing, with a view to the glory of
God’s name, holiness of life, and the comfort of anxious souls.”35 The
teaching of election and reprobation “must be done for the glory of
God’s most holy name, and for the lively comfort of his people.”36 In
fact, to agree with the Arminians that “not every election to salvation
is unchangeable, but that some of the chosen can perish and do in fact
perish eternally, with no decision of God to prevent it” is not only a
“gross error” that robs God of His glory in preserving His elect, but it
is to “destroy the comfort of the godly concerning the steadfastness of
their election,” which is contrary to the Scriptures (cf. Matt. 24:24; John
6:39; Rom. 8:30).37 Therefore, the synod rejects the errors of those
Who teach that in this life there is no fruit, no awareness, and
no assurance of one’s unchangeable election to glory, except as
conditional upon something changeable and contingent. For
not only is it absurd to speak of an uncertain assurance, but
these things also militate against the experience of the saints,
who with the apostle rejoice from an awareness of their election
and sing the praises of this gift of God; who, as Christ urged,
rejoice with his disciples that “their names have been written
in heaven” [Luke 10:20]; and finally who hold up against the
flaming arrows of the devil’s temptations the awareness of their
election, with the question, “Who will bring any charge against
those whom God has chosen? [Rom 8:33]”38
students on these issues reveals the ecclesiological method Dort took in writing the
Canons. As Godfrey states, “When the time came to write the canons, the synod
had to choose between these two methods of presentation: between the scholastic
mode, that is, the technical form of a theological school lecture, and a more popular
manner, addressed to the church as a whole for its edification. Delegates decided
that it would be most fruitful to frame the canons so that they might be easily un-
derstood by and edifying to the churches. Hence the canons are not scholastic but
simple and straightforward in format.” Godfrey, Reformation Sketches, 131.
35. See the concluding statement of the “Canons of Dort,” in Creeds and Confes-
sions of the Reformation Era, 2:599.
37. “Canons of Dort,” Rejection I.6, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation
Era, 2:578.
38. “Canons of Dort,” Rejection I.7, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation
Era, 2:578.
It is the last line that is of particular importance, namely, that believ-

ers are able to hold up their awareness of election “against the flaming
arrows of the devil’s temptations.” One’s awareness of his election is a
two-edged sword: (1) it is reason to rejoice and (2) it is to be shoved
in the face of Satan, as a shield against his fiery arrows that seek to
tempt and destroy faith.
Particular Atonement: Cause for Personal and Corporate Thanksgiving

In Dort’s exposition of election and reprobation, the implications for
individual piety and holiness are abundant. However, in Dort’s artic-
ulation of limited (sometimes called particular or definite) atonement
the implications for piety are more subtle, yet still apparent. Follow-
ing Arminius, the Remonstrants argued for a universal atonement,
meaning that Christ died for all people without exception. Dort
strongly disagreed for such a death actually saves no one but merely
makes everyone savable.39 For Dort, while Christ’s death in and of
itself is of “infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for
the sins of the whole world,” 40 God designed and intended Christ’s
death to efficaciously save and atone only for the sins of those whom
39. The synod rejects the errors of those “[w]ho teach that God the Father
appointed his Son to death on the cross without a fixed and definite plan to save
anyone by name, so that the necessity, usefulness, and worth of what Christ’s death
obtained could have stood intact and altogether perfect, complete, and whole, even
if the redemption that was obtained had never in actual fact been applied to any
individual.” “Canons of Dort,” Rejection II.1, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reforma-
tion Era, 2:581. See Packer on the articulation of limited atonement by later Puritans,
especially John Owen. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the
Christian Life (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1990), 125 – 48.
40. “Canons of Dort,” II.3 in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:580.
On the infinite worth of Christ’s death, see II.4 also. Accordingly, Jan Rohls, com-
menting on Dort, states, “God’s saving intention is thus not universal, but particu-
lar, so that Christ’s sacrifice, although in itself it is sufficient to save all sinners, is
only the means to save some sinners.” Jan Rohls, Reformed Confessions: Theology from
Zurich to Barmen, trans. John Hoffmeyer, Columbia Series in Reformed Theology
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 162. For a more detailed analysis of
Dort, both historical and theological, on limited atonement, see Robert W. Godfrey,
“Reformed Thought on the Extent of the Atonement to 1618,” Westminster Theo-
logical Journal 37, no. 2 (Winter 1975):133–71; Stephen Strehle, “The Extent of the
Atonement and the Synod of Dort,” Westminster Theological Journal 51 no. 1 (Spring
1989): 1–23; idem, “Universal Grace and Amyraldianism,” Westminster Theological
Journal 51, no. 2 (Fall 1989): 345–57.
He unconditionally elected.41 Dort’s emphasis on the particularity of

Christ’s atonement comes from its understanding that in Scripture
while God has a general love for all people (e.g., His gospel is freely
preached and offered to all),42 He has a special, definite, and saving
love meant only for His elect, who in Scripture are called His sheep
( John 10:15, 27; cf. 15:12–13) and offspring (Isa. 53:10).
This plan, arising out of God’s eternal love for his chosen ones,
from the beginning of the world to the present time has been
powerfully carried out and will also be carried out in the future,
the gates of hell seeking vainly to prevail against it. As a result the
chosen are gathered into one, all in their own time, and there is
always a church of believers founded on Christ’s blood, a church
which steadfastly loves, persistently worships, and — here and in
all eternity — praises him as her Savior who laid down his life
for her on the cross, as a bridegroom for his bride.43
These elect children are purchased by the blood of the Lamb,
and it is their sins that are paid for in full at the cross. Dort is explicit
that the response from the church, both here and in eternity, is praise
and worship because the Savior has laid down His life for her on the
cross, “as a bridegroom for his bride.” Therefore, it is the doctrine of
limited atonement which sweetly reminds us that the church, and
41. “In other words, it was God’s will that Christ through the blood of the cross
(by which he confirmed the new covenant) should effectively redeem from every
people, tribe, nation, and language all those and only those who were chosen from
eternity to salvation and given to him by the Father.” Dort goes on to say, “that he
should grant them faith (which, like the Holy Spirit’s other saving gifts, he acquired
for them by his death); that he should cleanse them by his blood from all their sins,
both original and actual, whether committed before or after their coming to faith;
that he should faithfully preserve them to the very end; and that he should finally
present them to himself, a glorious people without spot or wrinkle.” “Canons of
Dort,” II.8, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:581.
42. “Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ cru-
cified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command
to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or
discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the
gospel.” “Canons of Dort,” II.5, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:580.
Statements like these highlight Dort’s emphasis on the necessity of missions. See An-
thony A. Hoekema, “The Missionary Focus of the Canons of Dort,” Calvin Theological
Journal 7, no. 2 (1972): 209–20. Also see Kenneth J. Stewart, “Calvinism and Missions:
The Contested Relationship Revisited,” Themelios 34, no. 1 (2009): 63 –78.
43. “Canons of Dort,” II.9, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:581.
only the church, is the bride of Christ, for He has paid for her with
His blood. It is this doctrine which Dort believes should elicit per-
sistent love and worship of Christ, both here and in eternity.44 While
the first canon showed us how the doctrine of election was a great
cause for personal comfort, assurance, humility, and godliness, this
second canon has demonstrated that for Dort the doctrine of limited
atonement is a cause for corporate spirituality as the body of Christ
extols her Savior for laying down His life and securing redemption.
Total Depravity and Effectual Grace: Humble

Gratitude and the Death of Pride
Dort begins canons three and four by describing the pervasiveness
of man’s corruption and depravity. Sin has corrupted every aspect of
man, including his will, mind, and affections.45 Consequently, every
man after the Fall is a slave to sin, and yet such slavery is a will-
ful slavery as man’s will is necessarily inclined towards evil.46 The
depravity that pervades is due to the corruption man has inherited
from Adam due to the Fall. Consequently, man cannot in any way
will that which is needed to inherit eternal life but is in desperate
need of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jer. 17:9; Eph.
2:1–5; Gen. 6:5; 8:21; Ps. 51:17; Matt. 5:6).47 Such a work of God, not
upon all but only upon His elect, is irresistible, effectual, invincible,
and always successful, bringing the sinner from death to new life.48
God’s work is not by mere moral persuasion nor conditioned upon
44. Therefore, Venema is right when he states that the key notes throughout
the canons are “praise toward the Triune God for his amazing, undeserved grace in
Christ, and a remarkable confidence in his invincible favor.” Venema, “Article I/17
of the Canons of Dort,” 58.
45. This is the Reformed doctrine of total depravity, which does not mean man
is as evil as he could possibly be, but simply that sin has penetrated every aspect of
man’s being (mind, will, affections, etc.). See I. John Hesselink’s chapter “Misun-
derstanding Seven: That the doctrine of total depravity means that man is worthless
and capable of no good,” in On Being Reformed: Distinctive Characteristics and Common
Misunderstandings (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant, 1983), 45–50.
46. “Canons of Dort,” III–IV.1–3, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era,
2:583–84. Original sin is also addressed in Rejection III–IV.2–5.
47. “Canons of Dort,” Rejection III–IV.3 – 4 in Creeds and Confessions of the Ref-
ormation Era, 2:580.
48. “The Canons of the Synod of Dort,” Rejection III–IV.5, in Creeds and Con-
fessions of the Reformation Era, 2: 589–90.
“man’s power whether or not to be reborn or converted.” 49 Rather, it

is a work equivalent to raising the dead.50 Accordingly, it is God, not
man, who receives all of the glory (1 Cor. 1:31).
Dort, however, is aware of the Arminian objection, namely, that
if it is only God who can do this effectual and irresistible work so
that without it no man can believe, then God is unjust and unfair to
limit His saving work to only some rather than all. Dort responds:
49. “The Canons of the Synod of Dort,” Rejection III–IV.7, in Creeds and Con-
fessions of the Reformation Era, 2:590. Bavinck summarizes Dort well: “God is the pri-
mary actor in the work of redemption. He gives a new heart, apart from any merit
or condition having been achieved from our side, merely and only according to His
good pleasure. He enlightens the understanding, bends the will, governs the im-
pulses, regenerates, awakens, vivifies, and He does that within us quite apart from
our doing.... No consent of our intellect, no decision of our will, no desire of our
heart comes in between. God accomplishes this work within our hearts through His
Spirit, and He does this directly, internally, invincibly.” Herman Bavinck, Saved by
Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration, ed. J. Mark Beach, trans. Nel-
son D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2008), 29. For a detailed
description of Dort’s articulation of grace against the Remonstrants, see pp. 41– 65.
50. For several strong statements affirming monergistic regeneration, see ar-
ticles III–IV.10–12. Rejection III–IV.8–9 states, “Having set forth the orthodox
teaching, the synod rejects the errors of those... 8. Who teach that God in regener-
ating man does not bring to bear that power of his omnipotence whereby he may
powerfully and unfailingly bend man’s will to faith and conversion, but that even
when God has accomplished all the works of grace which he uses for man’s con-
version, man nevertheless can, and in actual fact often does, so resist God and the
Spirit in their intent and will to regenerate him, that man completely thwarts his
own rebirth; and, indeed, that it remains in his own power whether or not to be
reborn. For this does away with all effective functioning of God’s grace in our con-
version and subjects the activity of Almighty God to the will of man; it is contrary
to the apostles, who teach that we believe by virtue of the effective working of God’s
mighty strength, and that God fulfills the undeserved good will of his kindness and
the work of faith in us with power, and likewise that his divine power has given us
everything we need for life and godliness.” Here Dort is drawing from Ephesians
1:19, 2 Thessalonians 1:11, and 2 Peter 1:3. Dort also states in rejection nine, “Hav-
ing set forth the orthodox teaching, the synod rejects the errors of those... 9. Who
teach that grace and free choice are concurrent partial causes which cooperate to
initiate conversion, and that grace does not precede — in the order of causality — the
effective influence of the will; that is to say, that God does not effectively help man’s
will to come to conversion before man’s will itself motivates and determines itself.”
Dort goes on to argue that the church condemned the Pelagians for such an error.
Dort cites Romans 9:16, 1 Corinthians 4:7, and Philippians 2:13 in support. “The
Canons of the Synod of Dort,” Rejection III–IV.8–9, in Creeds and Confessions of the
Reformation Era, 2:590 –91.
God does not owe this grace to anyone. For what could God owe
to one who has nothing to give that can be paid back? Indeed,
what could God owe to one who has nothing of his own to give
but sin and falsehood? Therefore the person who receives this
grace owes and gives eternal thanks to God alone; the person
who does not receive it either does not care at all about these
spiritual things and is satisfied with himself in his condition,
or else in self-assurance foolishly boasts about having some-
thing which he lacks. Furthermore, following the example of
the apostles, we are to think and to speak in the most favorable
way about those who outwardly profess their faith and better
their lives, for the inner chambers of the heart are unknown to
us. But for others who have not yet been called, we are to pray
to God who calls things that do not exist as though they did. In
no way, however, are we to pride ourselves as better than they,
as though we had distinguished ourselves from them.51
The divide then between the believer saved by grace and the unbe-
liever justly condemned shows itself in external manifestations. The
believer has nothing to say but thanksgiving and praise to his Savior,
while the unbeliever either cares nothing for the things of God or, in
a haughty and boastful spirit, is under a false assurance of salvation.
Dort is not silent on how Christians should approach these two types
of people. First, Dort states that since we do not know the “inner
chambers of the heart” we must “speak in the most favorable way”
about those who outwardly confess Christ and seek to grow in sancti-
fication. Second, concerning those who have not yet been effectually
called, we are to pray earnestly to God on their behalf, for God and
God alone is the One “who calls things that do not exist as though
they did.” Here we see the connection between divine sovereignty
and evangelism. God alone can call and change a heart of stone to a
heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:25 – 27). However, the Christian is to pray for
these unbelievers and ask God to call them to Himself. Just as God
calls light out of darkness, so He can call a dead, depraved sinner into
the light of the life of Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Yet, God instructs us to pray
for unbelievers, for our prayers are means to this salvific end.
Moreover, Dort not only reminds the believer to pray fervently
for the unbeliever but warns the believer that in no way should we
51. “Canons of Dort,” II–IV.15, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:587.
“pride ourselves as better than they, as though we had distinguished

ourselves from them.” Such a warning can only be truly practiced by
the Calvinist. As seen above, for the Calvinist, man contributes abso-
lutely nothing to his salvation, not even the slightest cooperation of
his free will. It is God alone who works to effectually call and regen-
erate the dead and depraved sinner, bringing life out of death (cf.
John 3:5–8). Consequently, the believer has no right whatsoever to
then, out of a proud heart, turn with contempt upon an unbeliever.
To do so, as Dort says, is to act as if something in us distinguished
us from them, but no such thing can be found. The saved sinner,
as Palmer remarks, is left to say, “Truly, Lord, except for thy grace,
I would have done the same evil.” Consequently, “Calvinism pro-
duces humility.”52 Such humility is accompanied by sheer gratitude
to God and a life of obedience.53 Additionally, the Christian’s interac-
tion with unbelievers must be characterized by meekness, for only
then is he consistent with the doctrine of sovereign grace. True piety
and holiness, as well as a love for the lost soul, comes from the heart
that realizes that it was nothing within that moved God to save, but
wholly and completely the grace and mercy of God through Christ.
Finally, Dort’s biblical affirmation of irresistible grace is a moti-
vator of pastoral hope in hopeless cases. Whereas Arminianism
advocates a God whose saving grace is contingent upon man’s will
to save, Dort’s Calvinism looks to a God whose will to save a dead
sinner cannot be thwarted (e.g., John 6:44). Irresistible grace is a
reminder that no human method or strategy can save a sinner. It is
not the case that the lost simply need more convincing due to their
indifference. It is not as if one must simply be persuasive enough to
get the sinner to react. As Palmer states,
For the man is spiritually dead. He cannot say Yes while he does
not have life. He is totally depraved, that is, utterly unable to
desire salvation unless the Spirit first of all makes him alive. The
man must be born from above, born a second time, spiritually
resurrected, made alive again in Christ Jesus. And how else can
52. “Again and again, the biblical truth of man’s total depravity induces humil-
ity in both the pastor and his flock by the consideration: Truly, Lord, except for thy
grace, I would have done the same evil. Calvinism produces humility.” Edwin H.
Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” 140.
53. Henry Petersen, The Canons of Dort (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 73.
that be done except that God does it? The pastor knows he has
tried every human means to no avail. But when he remembers
that God in his electing love works irresistibly, then he can take
hope. Although the pastor cannot touch the lost man’s life, God
can. If he could regenerate Paul, the Christ-hater, then he can
touch today’s hardened or indifferent man. God’s election and
the irresistible grace bring hope as the minister deals with the
“hopeless” cases.54
Dort provides hope to the tired and wearied pastor by reminding
him that it is not his own human efforts, whatever they may be,
but the power of God to work irresistibly within a dead man’s heart
that saves. Irresistible grace gives the pastor confidence to preach the
word and evangelize, knowing that God will save His elect. If any-
thing, the pastor is “made to depend upon God more.”55
The Preservation of the Saints and the Incentive to Holy Living

Out of the five canons articulated by Dort, it is the fifth and final
canon which has the most to say about Christian piety. Dort begins
canon five by describing the regenerate believer’s situation, namely,
as one who is simultaneously righteous and a sinner (simul iustus et
peccator). Those whom God has called to Christ and the Spirit has
regenerated, God has also set free from the “reign and slavery of sin,
though in this life not entirely from the flesh and from the body of
sin.”56 In other words, sin’s grip has been broken, having no con-
demning power over the justified believer, but this side of heaven
the regenerate man continues to struggle against sin. “Hence daily
sins of weakness arise, and blemishes cling to even the best works
of God’s people, giving them continual cause to humble themselves
before God, to flee for refuge to Christ crucified, to put the flesh to
death more and more by the Spirit of supplication and by holy exer-
cises of godliness, and to strain toward the goal of perfection, until
they are freed from this body of death and reign with the Lamb of
God in heaven.”57 There is not a hint of perfectionism in these words.
Dort, realizing the believer’s ongoing war with sin, reminds the
54. Edwin H. Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” 139.
55. Ibid., 140.
56. “Canons of Dort,” V.1, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:591.
57. “Canons of Dort,” V.2, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:591–92.
Christian that blemishes are a continual cause of godly humiliation

before a holy God. However, it is not condemnation that awaits the
believer but forgiveness at the cross of Christ, for Dort exhorts the
believer to “flee for refuge to Christ crucified.” Notice, Dort’s first
reaction for the Christian sinner is to look upon the objective work of
Christ, where redemption has been accomplished and secured and
where forgiveness flows for all eternity for those for whom Christ
died. However, Dort does not stay there, but secondarily turns to the
subjective, namely, the sin within the believer himself, encouraging
him to mortify the flesh by putting it to death “more and more by
the Spirit of supplication and by holy exercises of godliness.” By the
negative practice of mortification and the positive practice of putting
on godliness, the believer is able to “strain toward the goal of per-
fection” which is finally acquired when the believer reigns with the
Lamb of God in heaven. Here is a clear reference to Paul’s words in
Philippians 3:14, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Nevertheless, unlike the Arminian, the Calvinist is not left with-
out the promise that those whom the Father has called, Christ will
indeed keep to the end.
Because of these remnants of sin dwelling in them and also
because of the temptations of the world and Satan, those who
have been converted could not remain standing in this grace
if left to their own resources. But God is faithful, mercifully
strengthening them in the grace once conferred on them and
powerfully preserving them in it to the end.58
Dort does not believe that simply because God has promised to keep
those whom He has chosen, man is perfectly motivated and excited
at all times in treasuring Christ. Rather, though secure in Christ,
believers can and do fall into sin, failing to trust in Christ when
temptation comes.
Although that power of God strengthening and preserving true
believers in grace is more than a match for the flesh, yet those
converted are not always so activated and motivated by God
that in certain specific actions they cannot by their own fault
depart from the leading of grace, be led astray by the desires
of the flesh, and give in to them. For this reason they must
constantly watch and pray that they may not be led into tempta-
tions [Matt 26:41]. When they fail to do this, not only can they
be carried away by the flesh, the world, and Satan into sins,
even serious and outrageous ones, but also by God’s just per-
mission they sometimes are so carried away — witness the sad
cases, described in Scripture, of David, Peter, and other saints
falling into sins.59
According to Dort, sin is a real threat, so that believers, by no
fault but their own, “depart from the leading grace,” being led astray
by the sinful pleasures of the flesh. Dort’s solution is biblical, turning
to Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tempta-
tion: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, the
instruction is both negative (watch; be on guard against sin) and pos-
itive (seek God’s help daily through prayer). If the Christian fails to
“watch and pray,” he can very well be seduced by the flesh, the world,
or Satan, committing not only minor sins but “serious and outra-
geous ones.” However, the believer falls into no such sin, minuscule
or serious, apart from “God’s just permission.” Just as it is God who
preserves the believer to glory, so also is it God who controls and
permits the believer’s fall into sin. Here again is an example of how
Calvinism at Dort is inseparable from the Christian’s progression in
sanctification or his digression from holiness. God is in sovereign
control and He will not fail to preserve every sinner His Son has died
for. Yet, such divine sovereignty is not a general sovereignty as the
Remonstrants believed, conditioning God’s providence upon man’s
free will. Rather, God’s sovereign control is both exhaustive and
meticulous. With regard to the believer’s sanctification, this means
that God is in control not only of the believer’s success in holiness
but also his lapse into sin and temptation. Nevertheless, Dort is care-
ful, refusing to fall prey to the Arminian accusation that such a view
of God’s sovereignty makes God guilty of sin. Dort frames its discus-
sion by the word “permission.” When the Christian is “carried away”
into sin, he does so by “God’s just permission.” Dort is not without
biblical justification, for as Dort observes, Scripture is very clear in
For a very similar statement, see Chapters 17.3 and 18.4 of the Westminster Confes-
sion of Faith.
affirming such a just permission as evidenced in the lives of David

(2 Sam. 11–12), Peter (Matt. 26:34, 74), and many other saints who
fell into sin.
Nonetheless, though God permits a Christian’s lapse into sin,
God takes the believer’s fault very seriously and the consequences
are costly.
By such monstrous sins, however, they greatly offend God,
deserve the sentence of death, grieve the Holy Spirit, suspend
the exercise of faith, severely wound the conscience, and some-
times lose the awareness of grace for a time — until, after they
have returned to the way of genuine repentance, God’s fatherly
face again shines upon them.60
Dort’s list of deadly consequences (offend God, deserve death,
grieve the Spirit, suspend the exercise of faith, severely wound the
conscience, and temporarily lose an awareness of grace) is not to be
taken lightly. These consequences will increase until the Christian
turns in “genuine repentance.” Yet, even though the Christian has
committed such sins and is in danger of God’s discipline, when he
repents he finds “God’s fatherly face” shining upon him. Moreover,
in the Christian’s turning from sin to the Father, who receives the
credit and praise for such a recovery and continuance in the faith?
Dort is emphatic that it is God who is to be praised and recognized
for His preservation of the believers, working within them once
again “heartfelt and godly sorrow for the sins they have committed”
and renewing them to repentance.61 Furthermore, Dort assures the
believer that when the Christian falls into sin, God never takes away
His Holy Spirit from His own completely, for if He did, He would
forfeit His rich mercy and unchangeable purpose of election.62 Not
only is the Spirit’s presence not compromised, but so also God does
not “let them fall down so far that they forfeit the grace of adoption
and the state of justification, or commit the sin which leads to death
(the sin against the Holy Spirit), and plunge themselves, entirely for-
saken by him, into eternal ruin.”63 Rather, God, by His Word and
Spirit, keeps them in His hand and at the proper time restores them
63. Ibid.
so that they “seek and obtain, through faith and with a contrite heart,
forgiveness in the blood of the Mediator.”64 It is then that they expe-
rience the “grace of a reconciled God” and through faith “adore his
mercies” so that they “eagerly work out their salvation with fear and
trembling” (cf. Phil. 2:12).65
Dort also provides hope for the Christian of a troubled con-
science.66 Dort recognizes that some Christians face “doubts of the
flesh” and when under “severe temptation they do not always expe-
rience this full assurance of faith and certainty of perseverance.”67
However, due to God’s preservation, assurance is obtained “accord-
ing to the measure of their faith whereby they arrive at the certain
persuasion that they ever will continue true and living members of
the church; and that they experience forgiveness of sin, and will at
last inherit eternal life.”68 Joel Beeke comments, “Take away God’s
preservation, and every conscientious believer would despair; our
failures would overwhelm whatever fruits we discover and destroy
all assurance. By speaking first of God’s election and preservation,
the canons show us that assurance is rooted in God’s sovereign grace
65. Ibid.
66. Palmer, commenting on Dort, also recognizes the massive implications
Dort’s doctrine of perseverance and assurance has for pastoral ministry. “The pas-
tor, however, is able to show the timid that salvation depends ultimately not upon
man’s perseverance but upon God’s love toward man. He can go on to demon-
strate that this God is not chameleon-like, changing with man’s varying moods.
But rather, as he wrote, ‘I, the Lord, change not’ (Mal. 3:6). Once the all-knowing
God has sovereignly and lovingly determined to save a person, he will not change —
Arminian-wise — because of an unforeseen wickedness in man. For he never chose
a person in the first place because of any foreseen faith. And what God begins, God
finishes. ‘I am persuaded of this one thing: he who started a good work in you will
complete it by the day of Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 1:6). If a person believes, the Bible says
he has eternal life — eternal, that is, not temporary.” Palmer concludes, “Therefore,
a pastor can give real encouragement to his parishioners who worry continually
about their future salvation. Such knowledge is of practical importance. Otherwise,
fearful ones will concentrate so much on ‘laying again a foundation of repentance
from dead works and of faith toward God’ that they will not be able to go on to
perfection (Heb. 6:1, 2). Such meek ones must be taught to rely on God’s eternal,
unchanging love and then to press on toward the goal of their high calling in Christ
Jesus.” Edwin H. Palmer, “The Significance of the Canons for Pastoral Work,” 142.
and promises — yes, in God Himself.”69 Pointing to 1 Corinthians

10:13, Dort reminds believers once again of God’s sweet and Fatherly
sovereignty in not allowing Christians to be tempted beyond what
they can bear, but providing a way of escape; in due time, by the Holy
Spirit, He “revives in them the assurance of their perseverance.” 70
When the Christian receives such assurance, humility, not pride, is
to be the result.
This assurance of perseverance, however, so far from making true
believers proud and carnally self-assured, is rather the true root of
humility, of childlike respect, of genuine godliness, of endurance
in every conflict, of fervent prayers, of steadfastness in crossbear-
ing and in confessing the truth, and of well-founded joy in God.
Reflecting on this benefit provides an incentive to a serious and
continual practice of thanksgiving and good works, as is evident
from the testimonies of Scripture and the examples of saints.71
Dort further explains how this Christian godliness takes form:
Neither does the renewed confidence of perseverance produce
immorality or lack of concern for godliness in those put back
on their feet after a fall, but it produces a much greater concern
to observe carefully the ways of the Lord which he prepared in
advance. They observe these ways in order that by walking in
them they may maintain the assurance of their perseverance,
lest, by their abuse of his fatherly goodness, the face of the
gracious God (for the godly, looking upon his face is sweeter
than life, but its withdrawal is more bitter than death) turn
away from them again, with the result that they fall into greater
anguish of spirit.72
According to Dort, humility, godliness, endurance, fervent prayer,
steadfastness in persecution and suffering, unwavering profession of
69. As Beeke observes, V.10 draws the connection between assurance and sanc-
tification. “Assurance further serves perseverance through sanctification. The Can-
ons of Dort affirm this in Head V, Article 10, saying that assurance is fostered not
only by faith in God’s promises and the witnessing testimony of the Holy Spirit, but
also ‘from a serious and holy desire to preserve a good conscience and to perform
good works.’” Beeke, Living for God’s Glory, 120.
the truth, and joy in God all result from the assurance that God pro-
vides through perseverance. Moreover, when the Christian reflects on
all these benefits that flow from assurance, he should be further moved
to perpetual thanksgiving and good works. However, a redeemed
assurance does not lead to lax licentiousness or disinterest in godli-
ness, but instead is to create a far deeper concern to guard oneself from
again giving way to temptation by observing the ways of the Lord. The
motivation in observing the ways of the Lord is to gain a deeper assur-
ance yet. The Christian, says Dort, must guard himself from taking
God’s grace for granted lest he once again abuse “his fatherly good-
ness” and grace. Dort reminds the Christian that looking upon the
Father’s face is “sweeter than life” but withdrawing “is more bitter than
death.” If the Christian should withdraw again, he may fall into yet a
greater “anguish of spirit” than was experienced before.
Dort concludes canon five in the most practical manner. After
reminding the Christian that it is God who is pleased to preserve
him, Dort lists several ways perseverance is accomplished and joy in
God is attained:
And, just as it has pleased God to begin this work of grace in
us by the proclamation of the gospel, so he preserves, contin-
ues, and completes his work by the hearing and reading of the
gospel, by meditation on it, by its exhortations, threats, and
promises, and also by the use of the sacraments.73
Hearing and reading the gospel, meditating on the gospel, listening to
the gospel’s exhortations, threats, and promises, and taking the sacra-
ments obediently are all ways in which God preserves his children,
forming within them a greater joy and love for Christ. Dort’s list of
practical vices for greater piety in the faith are not arbitrary nor without
cause. Dort is carefully demonstrating and arguing that God’s sover-
eign preservation of the Christian and gift of assurance are actually
the cause and root of the Christian’s growth in holiness and godliness.
The Arminian Remonstrants did not view assurance the same way:
[The synod rejects the errors of those] [w]ho teach that the
teaching of the assurance of perseverance and of salvation is by
its very nature and character an opiate of the flesh and is harmful
to godliness, good morals, prayer, and other holy exercises, but
that, on the contrary, to have doubt about this is praiseworthy.

For these people show that they do not know the effective oper-
ation of God’s grace and the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit,
and they contradict the apostle John, who asserts the opposite in
plain words [cf. 1 John 3:2–3].... Moreover, they are refuted by
the examples of the saints in both the Old and the New Testa-
ment, who though assured of their perseverance and salvation
yet were constant in prayer and other exercises of godliness.74
For the Calvinist, Scripture is clear that perseverance and assurance
of salvation are not a hindrance to but a supplement of “constant
prayer and other exercises of godliness.” Assurance that the God who
sovereignly saves will also sovereignly preserve does not lead to a
license to immorality nor a lax approach to godliness, but rather is
a pure and true incentive to see God’s grace effectively worked out
through the indwelling and fruit of the Spirit.75
Conclusion: Calvinism Inspires Piety

In conclusion, Dort is an excellent example of how Calvinism does
not hinder but actually inspires sincere, genuine piety in the believer.
74. “Canons of Dort,” Rejection V.6, in Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation
Era, 2:597. Dort also had in mind the Catholics, “[The synod rejects the errors of
those] [w]ho teach that apart from a special revelation no one can have the assurance
of future perseverance in this life. For by this teaching the well-founded consola-
tion of true believers in this life is taken away and the doubting of the Romanists is
reintroduced into the church. Holy Scripture, however, in many places derives the
assurance not from a special and extraordinary revelation but from the marks pe-
culiar to God’s children and from God’s completely reliable promises. So especially
the apostle Paul: ‘Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ [Rom. 8:39]; and John: ‘They who obey his commands
remain in him and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us:
by the Spirit he gave us’ [1 John 3:24].” “Canons of Dort,” Rejection V.5, in Creeds
and Confessions of the Reformation Era, 2:596 –97. On Catholic responses to Dort and
Dort’s relevance for Catholic theology today, see Cornelius Van Til, “The Signifi-
cance of Dort for Today,” in Crisis in the Reformed Churches, 181–96.
75. In the “Rejections of False Accusations,” Dort rejects those who would
argue “that this teaching makes people carnally self-assured, since it persuades them
that nothing endangers the salvation of the chosen, no matter how they live, so that
they may commit the most outrageous crimes with self-assurance; and that on the
other hand nothing is of use to the reprobate for salvation even if they have truly
performed all the works of the saints.” “Canons of Dort,” in Creeds and Confessions of
the Reformation Era, 2:598.
The doctrines of grace serve as the very bedrock to Christian assur-

ance, humility, holiness, and delight in God. No one has described
such a connection as well as W. Robert Godfrey when he states,
The canons [of Dort] called Christians to humility before God as
they realized their complete bondage to sin. The canons inspired
gratitude for God’s electing love and for the complete redemp-
tion accomplished in Christ and sovereignly applied by the Holy
Spirit. The canons spoke comfort to Christian hearts, casting out
fear and declaring God’s love that would never let them go. The
canons called people of God to be liberated from morbid self-
concern and to serve God in the world with love and joy.76
Godfrey rightly concludes,
The theology of the canons did not bludgeon the Reformed
community into inaction but rather armed the Reformed church
with the whole counsel of God. Strengthened with a confidence
in God taught in the canons, Reformed Christians became the
most dynamic and effective witnesses to Christ in Europe.77
Dort demonstrates not only that the doctrines of grace are faithful to
Scripture, but that sovereign grace itself is the very vehicle by which
the Christian progresses in godliness and evangelical piety.
76. Godfrey, Reformation Sketches, 132.

77. Ibid.
Pastoral Theology and Missions
q
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 255–278
How to Evaluate Your Sermons

Joel R. Beeke
q
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 labour-
ers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-
builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But
let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other founda-
tion can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if
any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall
declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every
man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath
built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be
burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
— 1 Corinthians 3:5 –15
In the 2010 Winter Olympics, speed-skater Sven Kramer was poised
to win a second gold medal. He pressed forward in the last eight of
twenty-five laps in the grueling 10,000-meter race. He had a six-
second lead on the men behind him, and victory seemed sure. But
then Kramer’s coach shouted, “Inner lane!” Kramer hesitated, then
changed lanes, finishing the race for what he believed was a sure win.
His race earned him nothing, as Olympic officials ruled that
Kramer’s cross into the wrong lane disqualified him from the race.
The loss was far worse for his coach. “This is the worst moment of
my career,” he said.1 What a tragedy for those highly skilled men after
years of training!
It is far worse for a servant of the Lord to cross the boundaries
of his calling, thereby losing some of the heavenly reward that might
have been his. The Bible reminds us that an athlete does not receive
the victor’s crown unless he competes according to the rules (2 Tim.
2:5). This tragedy is not limited to scandalous falls and apostasies
that bring open shame to ministers of the gospel. It is also evident in
the quiet lane changes by which godly preachers of the Word oper-
ate outside their Lord’s will. These errors do not disqualify a man’s
pastoral ministry, but they do compromise his calling and will ulti-
mately cost him some reward.
As preachers, we are like spiritual athletes who need to keep
growing and developing our skills. We also function as spiritual
coaches to Christ’s church. Our sermons seriously affect those under
our care; our responsibility is great. It is especially frightening for a
preacher to press forward with energy and satisfaction, realizing how
he erred only after reaching the finish line.
We must regularly evaluate our preaching to know if we are
growing as preachers. Charles Spurgeon (1834 –1892) said to his
ministerial students, “I give you the motto, ‘Go forward.’ Go for-
ward in personal attainments, forward in gifts and in grace, forward
in fitness for the work, and forward in conformity to the image of
Jesus.” Spurgeon went on to say, “If there be any brother here who
thinks he can preach as well as he should, I would advise him to leave
off altogether.”2
How do you evaluate yourself as a preacher? A preacher’s view
of his own messages can be an emotional roller-coaster ride driven
by his moods and the responses of the congregation. We dare not
evaluate ourselves by measurable results such as increased attendance
or new members joining the church, for people often flock to false
teachers like flies to manure. Nor can we gauge our effectiveness by a
brother who shoots out of a worship service like a bullet out of a rifle
1. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/olympics/2010/writers/alexander_
wolff/02/23/kramer.netherlands/index.html, accessed 11-10-10. I thank Paul Smalley
for his assistance on this address, which I gave in Homiletics I at Puritan Reformed
Theological Seminary, November 16, 2010.
2. C. H. Spurgeon, “The Necessity of Ministerial Progress,” in Lectures to My
Students (1881; reprint, Pasadena: Pilgrim Publications, 1990), 2.23, 28.
How to Evaluate Your Sermons 257
while a woman gets misty-eyed and emotional in shaking your hand

after a sermon. For all you know, the brother was suddenly taken ill,
and the sister received bad news yesterday about a distant relative.
Neither response necessarily has anything to do with your preaching.
My father was once so moved by a child’s intense listening that he
questioned her about what she found so important. She responded,
“I was trying to figure out if you had shaved this morning.”
This does not mean we should plow forward without reflec-
tion, however. We need standards for self-evaluation. Our habitual
standard should be to evaluate our preaching as a servant anticipating our
Master’s evaluation. In 1 Corinthians 1, the apostle Paul addresses the
issue of division within the church, specifically in people’s prefer-
ence for one teacher over another, such as Paul or Apollos or Peter
(1 Cor. 1:10–12). Chapter 3 opens with Paul accusing the Corinthians
of petty, childish bickering. He says in 1 Corinthians 3:4, “For while
one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not car-
nal?” This sets the stage for 1 Corinthians 3:5–15, in which Paul tells
the church how to evaluate teachers of the Word. The text has huge
implications for how pastors and Bible teachers should view their
own ministry. In telling us that we must each evaluate our preaching
as a servant anticipating his master’s evaluation, this text suggests five
questions to ask ourselves about our preaching. Each question pro-
vides both a motivation and a method for evaluating your sermons.
1. Did I preach as God’s servant? The apostle says in 1 Corin-

thians 3:5 – 8, “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.”
The word ministers (in Greek, diakonoi) refers to household ser-
vants under the authority of a master or Lord (kurios, cf. Luke 12:37).
No matter what their tax forms say, ministers are not self-employed.
We are not independent agents free to do as we please; we are servants
of the King. The Lord assigns to us our vocation and He rewards us
accordingly. Though the Lord gives us different gifts, different place-
ments, and different degrees of fruitfulness, we are one in our calling
as His servants. Instead of evaluating our work by comparing it to

other preachers, we should evaluate it in comparison to the Lord’s
commands.
We are also farmers who plant and irrigate our fields but cannot
make the seeds grow. Cornfields often have signs posting what kind
of seed the farmer planted, such as Pioneer, Agrigold, or DeKalb.
The signs remind us that much depends upon the life within the
seed, not the farmer. A thousand factors determine the yield of a
crop, almost all of which God directly controls. How much more
then are ministers dependent upon the work of God the Holy Ghost
to save and sanctify people by the life-giving seed of His Word? We
can do nothing by ourselves. Charles Hodge (1797–1878) said in his
commentary on this text, “Ministers are mere instruments in the
hands of God. The doctrines which they preach are not their own
discoveries, and the power which renders their preaching successful
is not in them.”3
As a servant under the Lord’s authority, a preacher should evaluate
his sermons based upon their fidelity to Holy Scripture. First Corin-
thians 4:1 tells us that we are “stewards of the mysteries of God.” You
are God’s delivery-man to bring His message to others; you are not
the author of the message. A messenger who rushes off without first
listening to his Master’s words exposes himself to great shame.
So evaluate your sermons with what I am calling humble exegesis,
with the criteria of a humble servant, asking if you:
• Approached the Scripture with a willingness to be taught
and corrected by God, or assumed that you already knew
what the Scripture said;
• Spent enough time and energy to study that Scripture text
and let God speak to you through it;
• Read the commentaries of godly and wise teachers to
check your interpretation;
• Derived the main idea and points from the clear statement
of a Scripture text;
3. Charles Hodge, A Commentary on 1&2 Corinthians (1857–1859; reprint, Edin-

burgh: Banner of Truth, 1994), 51.
• Spent time explaining what the text meant so your listen-

ers could better understand it;
• Based applications of your sermon on the Scriptures, not
just on your vision for the church.
• Preached a message that was faithful to the text’s meaning
in its context;
• Demonstrated to your hearers that your sermon came
from God’s Word instead of your own ideas, thoughts, or
opinions.
Since your ministry depends on God’s power, you should also
evaluate your preaching in prayers of humble dependence. Without the
Holy Spirit you are no more useful than an unplugged power saw.
So ask yourself as a servant of the Savior if you:
• Planned this series and this specific sermon, prayerfully
asking God for wisdom;
• Enlisted your congregation to pray for your preaching;
• Studied the Scripture text on your knees, with fervent
pleas for illumination;
• Prepared the sermon in the context of regular, private
prayers for the church;
• Cried out to God prior to the worship services for the
Spirit’s anointing;
• Cried out to God after the services for divine application;
• Gave God all the glory for any good that resulted from
your efforts.
Do you feel an urgent need for the anointing of the Holy Spirit?
One of the greatest preachers of the last century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones
(1899–1981), wrote,
Do you always look for and seek this unction, this anointing
before preaching? Has this been your greatest concern?... It
is God giving power, and enabling, through the Spirit, to the
preacher in order that he may do this work in a manner that
lifts it up beyond the efforts and endeavors of man to a position
in which the preacher is being used by the Spirit and becomes a

channel through which the Spirit works.4
You must ask yourself, “Did I preach as God’s servant?” Evaluate
your sermons for any hint that you stood in the pulpit as a lord and
savior instead of a humble servant and messenger whose authority
comes solely from God.
2. Did I preach to build God’s church? Paul goes on to say in

1 Corinthians 3:9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are
God’s husbandry [farm], ye are God’s building.” The Greek text
stresses that this entire project belongs to God when it says: “God’s
workers...God’s field...and God’s building.”5 The metaphor shifts
from agriculture to construction as God tells His servants to build
the people of the church, which verse 16 says is “the temple of God.”
God is the architect of His temple. He is also the general con-
tractor and the glorious Being who inhabits this house. Ministers are
laborers whom God hires to build His house, a building not made of
wood, brick, stone, or steel, but of “living stones,” the people of God.
“Ye are God’s building,” our text says. Therefore the construction
metaphor communicates the love of our covenant God who wants to
dwell in eternal intimacy with His people. The Lord aims not only to
make His home among us but also to make us His home.
The purpose of preaching, then, is not to produce a work of theo-
logical or rhetorical art abstracted from human need. It is to build
up God’s living and holy temple — men, women, and children — in
Christ. Preaching the Word is the divinely appointed means to bring
God and His people together in eternal, mutual love. J. I. Packer
writes, “Christianity, on earth as in heaven, is...fellowship with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and the preaching of God’s
Word in the power of God’s Spirit is the activity that...brings the
Father and the Son down from heaven to dwell with men.”6
4. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching & Preachers (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,

1971), 305.
5. In each of the three clauses of 1 Cor. 3:9, the word “God’s” (theou) is pushed
to the beginning. See Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 1987), 134.
6. J. I. Packer, “Introduction: Why Preach?” in The Preacher and Preaching: Reviv-
ing the Art in the Twentieth Century, ed. Samuel T. Logan, Jr. (Phillipsburg: Presbyte-
rian & Reformed, 1986), 2.
This means your preaching must be helpful to people. So ask in

preparing your sermons, did you:
• Write your sermon with an eye to your flock and their
needs?
• Labor hard and long on this sermon out of love, or were
you lazy?
• Organize the message to make listening easier for people?
• Begin with an introduction (either before or after giving
out your text) to engage people’s minds and lead them to
the main idea?
• Clearly state the main idea of the message?
• Highlight the main points so that listeners recognized
them?
• State your main idea and points so succinctly that a twelve-
year-old boy and a seventy-year-old woman could write
them in their notes?
• Help people understand ancient culture and customs for-
eign to their world?
• Limit your time and content to what your hearers can
profitably absorb?
• Illustrate each major point to engage their imagination and
affections?
• Craft your illustrations to make them helpful for under-
standing and applying the gospel?
• Make specific applications throughout the sermon rel-
evant to people’s lives?
• Conclude the sermon by pressing the main idea home to
listeners?
• Express the loving heart of the Father who calls prodigals
home?
• Call the unsaved to repentance and faith in Christ?
Love for the congregation must also motivate us to consider the

spiritual variety of our listeners. William Perkins reminds us that our
people have different spiritual capacities and needs. The preacher is
like a housewife preparing a meal for a family ranging from a diabetic
grandpa to voracious teenagers to a toddler. You must preach law
and gospel in the right proportion to a group of people with various
needs. Ask yourself, did you:
• Rebuke unbelievers who are ignorant and unteachable?
• Offer basic catechetical truths to unbelievers who are ig-
norant but teachable?
• State the terms of the law to people with knowledge but
who are not yet believers?
• Offer the gospel call and comfort of Christ to unbelievers
humbled by sin?
• Explain the doctrines of grace and the rule of life to
believers?
• Stress the doctrines of repentance and hope to backsliding
believers?7
No sermon can do everything, but if your sermons consistently
address only some people or certain topics, you may be neglecting
the spiritual needs of a significant number of your hearers.
Nothing can replace a burning love in the heart when we actually
deliver the sermon. A match cannot start a fire until it is flaming. So,
ask yourself, did I preach with warm love, affection, and kindness to
my hearers? Thomas Murphy (1823 –1900) wrote, “Preaching should
be with tenderness.”8 The wife of Jonathan Edwards said to her
brother after George Whitefield (1714 –1770) preached in Northamp-
ton, Massachusetts, “It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over
an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible.... He
speaks from a heart all aglow with love.”9 When evaluating your
7. William Perkins, The Art of Prophecying, ch. 7, in The Workes of...William Per-
kins (London: John Legatt, 1612–1613), 2:752 –56.
8. Thomas Murphy, Pastoral Theology (1877; reprint Audubon: Old Paths,
1996), 194.
9. Iain H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1987), 162.
preaching, ask yourself whether you preached with a burning love

for God which made you long to see His church built up on earth.
God loves His church with an everlasting love. If you love God,
your preaching must be full of love for God’s church. If you serve
God, your preaching must serve His church. Did you preach to build
God’s church?
3. Did I preach Christ as the only foundation? Paul says in

1 Corinthians 3:10 –11, “According to the grace of God which is given
unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and an-
other buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth
thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ.” Without a solid foundation, a building cannot
withstand harsh winds and rain. Over time, or perhaps in a single
climactic storm, it will collapse (Matt. 7:24 –27). A compromised
foundation will cause the building’s walls to shift, crack, and ulti-
mately to fall. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) experienced this when
a spring thaw shifted his old church meeting house in 1737. A gallery
full of people fell upon those sitting in the pews below. By God’s re-
markable grace, no one was killed.10
The context of our text makes it clear that Christ is the church’s
only sure foundation, so we must preach Christ crucified for the
faith of His called ones (1 Cor. 1:18, 22–24). Verse 10 says that Paul
laid this foundation in Corinth in his preaching.11 Paul writes in
1 Corinthians 2:2, 5, “For I determined not to know any thing among
you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified...that your faith should not
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” By God’s
sovereign will, Christ is everything to the believer: our wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ is
not only the door into salvation; He is the entire road on which we
must travel to glory.
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) wrote, “The doctrine of our Sav-
iour and his mediation is the principal doctrine of Christianity. It lies
at the bottom, and is the foundation of all the rest. Leave out this, and
10. Murray, Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, 148 – 49.

11. If the laying of the foundation in this context referred to the Person and
atoning work of Christ, then only God could be said to have laid the foundation (Isa.
28:6; 1 Pet. 2:6). Since Paul laid the foundation, then Christ must function as the
foundation through the preaching the gospel of Christ. Hodge, 1&2 Corinthians, 55.
you lay waste all our comforts, and leave no foundation for our hopes
as sinners.”12 Ministers must therefore ask themselves whether they
are preaching Christ crucified, Christ risen, and Christ all-sufficient
for His people. If you fail in this, you fail to feed people the Bread
of life. Their souls will starve without Christ. So ask yourself, did I:
• Write this sermon in the confidence that Christ, in His
offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, has in Himself the
fullness of wisdom, grace, and power that everyone needs?
• Write this knowing that Christ is the Bible’s main charac-
ter and fulfillment of its every theme?
• Connect this text to Christ so that people will be encour-
aged to lean on Him in trust?
• Thoughtfully consider how this text points to Christ?
• Seek to display men’s need for grace and Christ’s full pro-
vision of grace?
• Press upon hearers their obligation to keep God’s law
as well as seek justification before God by faith alone in
Christ alone?
• Direct people to obey by faith out of the sanctifying grace
of Jesus Christ?
• Explain that the gospel is both for the salvation of the lost
and for the lives of the saved?
• Preach Christ not only as useful to us but as gloriously
beautiful and worthy of our worship?
• Preach with an eye on Christ, depending upon Him to
grant me the wisdom, grace, and power I need as a Chris-
tian and as a preacher?
The last question deserves special attention. While evaluating
your preaching, you will soon find yourself convicted of many sins.
This is humbling and can be terrifying. How dreadful are the words
of James 3:1–2a, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that
12. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition (Pea-
body, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 6:418.
we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we

offend all.”13 Lest your conscience overwhelm you, you must always
evaluate your preaching in the presence of the Lamb who was slain.
Depend upon His illumination so that you can rightly evaluate your
ministry. Rely upon His atonement to cover your shortcomings.
Lean upon His sovereign power to overcome your sins and change
you. Evaluate your sermons, not as a condemned sinner who is under
law, but as God’s child who is under the grace of Christ.
Christ is the only foundation for preaching the Word. He is
the foundation of eternal life, the church, and Christian ministry.
William Perkins said the “sum of the sum” of his instructions for
preachers is, “Preach one Christ by Christ to the praise of Christ.”14
4. Did I build my sermons with the precious materials of

Reformed experiential preaching? Paul says in 1 Corinthians
3:12–13, “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver,
precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made
manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” Ear-
lier, Paul warned us to be careful how we build upon the foundation
(v. 10). Now he elaborates this point by telling us what materials we
are to use. The contrast between them is not one of strength, like
steel versus paper, but of value and beauty, as marble and gold differ
from wood and straw; the building under construction is the Lord’s
glorious temple, not a man’s wooden house.15 The Lord will test our
materials by fire on the last day. Fire often symbolizes the presence
and glory of the Lord, who dwelled in His temple in a pillar of fire
and will come again in fire “on the day of the Lord.”
13. Or as the ESV puts it, “Not many of you should become teachers, my broth-
ers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all
stumble in many ways” ( James 3:1–2a).
14. Perkins, Workes, 2:762.
15. “Precious stones here mean stones valuable for building, such as granite and
marble. Gold and silver were extensively employed in adorning ancient temples, and
are therefore appropriately used as the symbols of pure doctrine. Wood, hay, and
stubble are the perishable materials out of which ordinary houses were built, but not
temples. Wood for the doors and posts; hay [chortos], dried grass mixed with mud for
the walls; and straw [kalame], for the roof. These materials, unsuitable for the temple
of God, are appropriate symbols of false doctrines.” Hodge, 1&2 Corinthians, 56.
Paul speaks here about the day when our Lord Jesus will come
with flaming fire to judge each person’s works and glorify His saints.16
These verses have been taken out of context to support the Roman
Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which is an imaginary place where
fire burns sin out of Christians before they can enter heaven, a place
of temporal punishment for sin and purification from sin.17 But this
concept is not found in Scripture and counters the full forgiveness
that Christ’s finished work grants believers.
Note that this text speaks of testing, not punishment. Materials,
not people, are placed in the fire. Within its context, this verse speaks
of Christ’s judgment of His servants’ teaching ministry. Christ will
evaluate the materials they used in ministering to the church.
The gold, silver, and precious stones as well as wood, hay, and
stubble represent the efforts of preachers such as Paul, Apollos, and
others. The contrast between gold and hay does not symbolize the
difference between gospel and heresy, for Paul says in verse 12 that
men “build upon this foundation,” that is, they all preach Christ and
not some false gospel.
Rather, the contrast between gold and straw symbolizes God’s
wisdom versus man’s wisdom. Paul begins describing this difference
in 1 Corinthians 1:17 and develops it through 1 Corinthians 3. Thus,
God’s wisdom is the precious treasure by which the preacher builds and
adorns God’s temple. Paul calls himself a “wise master-builder” (v. 10),
who builds the church by laying its foundation of the gospel of Christ,
then adding the gold, silver, and precious stones of divine wisdom.18
John Gill said that Paul uses the metaphors of wood, hay, and
stubble to describe, “not heretical doctrines, damnable heresies, such
as are diametrically opposite to, and overturn the foundation...but
empty, trifling, useless things are meant; such as fables, endless gene-
alogies, human traditions, Jewish rites and ceremonies...the wisdom
of the world, the philosophy of the Gentiles.”19
16. Rom. 2:5, 16; 13:12–13; 1 Cor. 1:8; 5:5; 2 Cor. 1:14; Eph. 4:30; Phil. 1:6, 10;
2:16; 1 Thess. 5:2, 5, 8; 2 Thess. 2:2.
17. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1994), 268 – 69,
370 –72 [sec. 1030 –1032, 1472, 1479].
18. Hodge, 1&2 Corinthians, 56; Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 136 – 42.
19. John Gill, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1809; reprint, Paris, Ark:
Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 8:617.
Divine wisdom is thus the only acceptable building material that

preachers can use. The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians explain that
God’s wisdom is biblical, coming only from words of divine revela-
tion, not from fallen human reasoning (1 Cor. 2:10 –13). His wisdom
is also doctrinal, granting a definite knowledge of God’s graces, such
as justification and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30; 2:9 –10). This wisdom
is Christ-centered (1 Cor. 1:17, 22–24; 2:2), going beyond the founda-
tion of the gospel to build up the church’s faith and life. The wisdom
of God is experiential, granted by the Holy Spirit to work in our inner
person to overcome the spirit of the world and create in us the mind
of Christ (1 Cor. 2:12, 14 –16). And this wisdom is eminently practical,
for in it we encounter the power of God that changes how we live
(1 Cor. 1:18, 24; 2:4, 5; 4:19 –20; cf. 6:9 –11). These are the hallmarks
of Reformed experiential preaching, which is biblical, doctrinal,
experiential, and practical.20
So before Christ evaluates your sermons, take time to throw out
the straw or stubble in them and replace them with nuggets of gold. A
temple worthy of God must be built of the sturdiest, purest, and most
precious material. Test your sermons by asking, “Did I build these
with the precious materials of Reformed experiential preaching?”
We have already considered questions that evaluate how biblical
your sermon was. You must also test your sermon to see how doctrinal
it was. Thomas Murphy wrote,
It is taken for granted that the sermon in which there is much
doctrine must necessarily be dry, unspiritual, full of sectarian-
ism and almost necessarily incomprehensible.... In fact there
can be no preaching without doctrine.... The attributes of God,
the mysteries of the Trinity, the fall of our race, the incarnation,
life, death, and ascension of Christ, salvation by his blood, faith,
conversion, the Church, the resurrection, judgment, heaven
and hell,— what are all these but doctrines?21
When asking yourself whether you built your sermons with the
precious materials of Reformed experiential preaching with respect
to doctrine, ask specifically, did I:
20. See “Applying the Word,” in Joel R. Beeke, Living for God’s Glory: An Intro-
duction to Calvinism (Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2008), 255 –74.
21. Murphy, Pastoral Theology, 175–76.
• Approach the Bible to find directions for success, or to lis-

ten and learn the truth?
• Refer to the confessions, catechisms, and theology of the
church?
• Present clear teaching about God that flowed naturally
from the biblical text?
• Show how that same doctrine is taught in other parts of
the Bible?
• Express the truths of theology in terms that are clear to
ordinary believers?
• Help people to understand classic doctrinal terms such as
justification?
• Connect the doctrine of your Scripture text to related bib-
lical doctrines?
• Base every application upon doctrinal truths drawn from a
specific text of Scripture?
In addition, ask yourself how experiential your sermon was. Did
your sermon communicate to people that Christianity must be expe-
rienced, tasted, enjoyed, and lived in the power of the Holy Spirit?
In its three main divisions, the Heidelberg Catechism suggests three
dimensions of Christian experience. Ask yourself, did I:
• Speak of the experience of the misery of sin due to its great
evil in God’s eyes?
• Speak of the experience of deliverance, our glad confi-
dence in Christ’s salvation and sufficiency?
• Speak of the experience of gratitude, stirred in our re-
newed hearts by God’s love, to love and obey Him?
Experiential preaching is like a sergeant on the battlefield who
sets tactical goals, recognizing that war is a mess yet offers hope
through strategic victory. Did I:
• Talk about how the Christian life ought to go — a lofty ideal
for a life-long pursuit?
• Talk about how the Christian life does go in reality —

encouraging them in their defeats to look to Christ?
• Talk about how the Christian life will ultimately go —
pointing them to hope in the final victory in glory?
Experiential preaching also uses the keys of the kingdom to draw
lines of demarcation so that each listener can evaluate his spiritual
position. Did I:
• Distinguish between the children of God and children of
the world?
• Distinguish between Christian experience and the coun-
terfeit graces of hypocrites?
• Distinguish among the different levels of Christian
maturity?
Furthermore, you should ask how practical your sermon was.
Application should not be given like a big bang at the end of the mes-
sage. Each point of the sermon should be applied. The Westminster
Directory for the Public Worship of God includes a chapter titled “Of
the Preaching of the Word,” which presents several kinds of applica-
tion. So ask yourself, did I use a variety of applications such as:
• Instruction — to shape the mind and worldview with
God’s truth?
• Confutation — to expose and refute the doctrinal errors of
our day?
• Exhortation — to press God’s people to obey God’s laws
by the means He provides?
• Dehortation — to rebuke sin and stir up hatred for it?
• Comfort — to encourage believers to press forward in the
fight of faith?
• Trial — to present the marks of a true believer for
self-examination?22
22. The Westminster Directory of Public Worship, discussed by Mark Dever and
Sinclair Ferguson (Ross-Shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2008), 95–96.
• Exultation — to help people see the beauty and glory of

God so that they might love Him, fear Him, and praise
Him with affection?
God’s wisdom is worth more than gold, silver, and precious
stones. It brings all of life under the counsel of God for our whole-
hearted happiness. The wisdom of the Scriptures is the only material
worthy of use in God’s holy temple. Therefore, do not build your
sermons with the materials of man which will perish in God’s flam-
ing glory. Give your listeners golden words.
5. Did I preach for the Master’s reward? The apostle says in

1 Corinthians 3:14 –15, “If any man’s work abide which he hath built
thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be
burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by
fire.” Though you and your hearers may have long forgotten the spe-
cifics of what you preached, the Lord will judge every sermon. Every
sermon will have one of two outcomes on Judgment Day: it may be
found precious in God’s sight and receive His approbation, or it will
be judged unworthy and the fire of God’s glory will consume it.
What a waste it is to build a sermon, not of the eternal materials
of God’s wisdom in Christ, but on man’s flimsy, cheap wisdom. If
you build your sermons in part on your own wisdom, you will lose
some of your reward, but not your salvation, for that is built upon the
foundation of the gospel of Christ. Nevertheless, you will forfeit the
reward that you might have enjoyed for all eternity. As Gordon Fee
writes in his commentary,
Paul’s point is unquestionably warning. It is unfortunately
possible for people to attempt to build a church out of every
imaginable human system predicated on merely worldly
wisdom, be it philosophy, “pop” psychology, managerial tech-
niques, relational “good feelings,” or what have you. But at the
final judgment, all such building...will be shown for what it is:
something merely human, with no character of Christ or his
gospel in it.23
A servant must work for his Master’s reward by doing his Master’s
will. Jesus did not think it wrong to seek a reward but encouraged His
23. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 145.

disciples to live daily with an eye on the Father’s reward (Matt. 6:1–21).
We must labor to express our love for God and to please Him. The
anticipation of Judgment Day should motivate us to evaluate our
ministries today out of the glad hope of hearing the Lord say, “Well
done, good and faithful servant!” You cannot undo the errors of the
past, but you can find forgiveness with God and grow in faithfulness
for the future.
Hoping for the positive evaluation of our Master will release us
from catering to the tastes of people. How many sermons have been
corrupted by people-pleasing! After denouncing the preacher of a
false gospel as under God’s curse, Paul asks in Galatians 1:10b, “Do
I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the
servant of Christ.” Which master are you trying to please, the harsh
slave-master of popular opinion, or the gracious Master who died for
your sins? To help find out, ask yourself some more questions about
your sermons. Did I:
• Add or subtract anything from my sermon to win the ap-
proval of people?
• Preach with the boldness of a clear conscience before God,
or in fear of my listeners?
• Preach with a profound sense of reverence, fear, and awe
of God?
• Preach with gladness that the Lord will honor me if I
honor Him, or with the frustration of wanting more honor
among people?
• Preach ultimately for the pleasure of the audience of One?
Regarding the teaching office of the Old Testament priest, Mala-
chi 2:5 –7 says, “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I
gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid
before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity
was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and
did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep
knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the
messenger of the Lord of hosts.” Pastors, as messengers of the Lord
of hosts, speak with holy fear. Do not be a court jester but a herald
of the King.
Preach with your eyes upon Jesus, who is seated at the right
hand of God and will come with glory. Remember what Paul says
to Timothy, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and
his kingdom; preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:1–2a).
Preach Toward the Finish Line

Until four young American skiers went to the 2010 Winter Olympics,
the United States had never won a medal in the Nordic Combined.
The Nordic Combined involves individual ski-jumping and cross-
country skiing for six miles, and team competition in a ski relay race
for twelve miles. The American team won one gold and three silver
medals in three Nordic Combined events.24 After winning the gold
medal, one team member gave a gold ring to his girlfriend, asking
her to marry him. She said, “Yes!”25 What a way to celebrate!
How much greater will be the joy of the faithful preacher when
his Master rewards him in the everlasting kingdom! He will look
into the smiling face of the Lord Jesus, the great Bridegroom who
loved His church and laid down His life for her. He will receive
honor and commendation from the King of kings. He will look
upon the men, women, and children whom he served from the pul-
pit, many of whom will now be clothed with the glory that shines
brighter than any earthly gold. Surely that will be worth every drop
of energy we put into preaching the Word. If our Lord will reward
us for offering a cup of water to people in His name, how much
more He will reward us for the hours we spend preparing, preach-
ing, and evaluating our sermons.
So evaluate your preaching as a servant anticipating his mas-
ter’s evaluation. Regularly ask yourself these five questions: Did I
preach as God’s servant? Did I preach to build God’s church? Did I
preach Christ as the only foundation? Did I build with the precious
materials of Reformed experiential preaching? Did I preach for my
Master’s reward?
Make every effort to grow as a preacher. Eternity will prove it
time well spent.
24. http://vancouver2010.com/olympic-nordic-combined, accessed 11-10-10.

25. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35600802/ns/today-today_in_vancouver,
accessed 11-10-10.
Sermon Evaluation Chart
[Copy for repeated use.]
Evaluate your preaching as a servant anticipating his
master’s evaluation (1 Cor. 3:5 –15).
1. Did I preach as God’s servant?

a. The test of humble exegesis. Ask, did I:
• Approach the Scripture with a willingness to be taught
and corrected by God, or did I assume that I already
knew what the Scripture said?
• Spend enough time and energy to study that Scripture
text and let God speak to me through it?
• Read the commentaries of godly and wise teachers to
check my interpretation?
• Derive the main idea and points from the clear state-
ment of a Scripture text?
• Spend time explaining what the text meant so my lis-
teners could better understand it?
• Base applications of my sermon on the Scriptures, not
just on my vision for the church?
• Preach a message that was faithful to the text’s meaning
in its context?
• Demonstrate to my hearers that the sermon came from
God’s Word and not my ideas?
b. The test of humble dependence. Did I:

• Plan this series and this specific sermon, prayerfully
asking God for wisdom?
• Enlist my congregation to pray for my preaching?
• Study the Scripture text on my knees, with fervent pleas
for illumination?
• Prepare the sermon in the context of regular, private
prayers for the church?
• Cry out to God prior to the worship services for the

Spirit’s anointing?
• Cry out to God after the services for divine application?
• Give all the glory to God for any good that resulted
from my efforts?
2. Did I preach to build God’s church?

a. The test of helpfulness. Ask yourself, did I:
• Write my sermon with an eye to my flock and their
needs?
• Labor hard and long on this sermon out of love, or was
I lazy?
• Organize the message to make listening easier for people?
• Begin with an introduction to engage their minds and
lead them to the main idea?
• Clearly state the main idea of the message?
• Highlight the main points so that listeners recognized
them?
• State my main idea and points so succinctly that a
twelve-year-old boy and a seventy-year-old woman
could write them in their notes?
• Help people understand ancient culture and customs
foreign to their world?
• Limit my time and amount of content to what my hear-
ers can absorb profitably?
• Illustrate each major point to engage their imagination
and affections?
• Craft my illustrations so as to make them helpful for
understanding and applying the gospel?
• Make specific applications throughout the sermon rel-
evant to people’s lives?
• Conclude the sermon by pressing the main idea home

to my hearers?
• Express the loving heart of the Father who calls the
prodigal to come home?
• Call the unsaved to repentance and faith in Christ?
b. The test of spiritual needs. Ask, did I:

• Rebuke unbelievers who are ignorant and unteachable?
• Offer basic catechetical truths to unbelievers who are
ignorant but teachable?
• State the terms of the law to unbelievers with knowl-
edge but who are not yet believers?
• Offer the gospel call of Christ to unbelievers humbled
by sin?
• Explain the doctrines of grace and the rule of life to
believers?
• Stress the doctrines of repentance and hope to backslid-
ing believers?
c. The test of love. Did I preach with affection and kindness to

my hearers?
3. Did I preach Christ as the only foundation?

a. The test of the Bread of life. Ask yourself, did I:
• Write this sermon in the confidence that Christ, in His
offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, has in Himself the
fullness of wisdom, grace, and power that everyone needs?
• Write this knowing that Christ is the Bible’s main char-
acter and fulfillment of its every theme?
• Connect this text to Christ so that people will be en-
couraged to lean upon Him in trust?
• Thoughtfully consider how this text points to Christ?
• Seek to display men’s need for grace and Christ’s full

provision of grace?
• Press upon hearers their obligation to keep God’s law as
well as to seek justification before God by faith alone in
Christ alone?
• Direct people to obey by faith out of the sanctifying
grace of Jesus Christ?
• Explain that the gospel is both for the salvation of the
lost and the lives of the saved?
• Preach Christ not only as useful to us but as gloriously
beautiful and worthy of our worship?
• Preach with an eye on Christ, depending confidently
upon Him to grant me the wisdom, grace, and power I
needed as a Christian and as a preacher?
b. The test of preaching under grace. Am I evaluating my preaching

trusting in the Lamb who was slain?
4. Did I build with the precious materials of Reformed

experiential preaching?
a. The test of biblical preaching. (See #1 above)
b. The test of doctrinal preaching. Ask, did I:
• Approach the Bible to find directions for success, or to
listen and learn the truth?
• Refer to the confessions, catechisms, and theology of
the church?
• Present clear teaching about God that flowed naturally
from the biblical text?
• Show how that same doctrine is taught in other parts of
the Bible?
• Express the truths of theology in terms that are clear to
ordinary believers?
• Help people to understand classic doctrinal terminol-
ogy like justification?
• Connect the doctrine of my Scripture text to related

biblical doctrines?
• Base every application upon doctrinal truth drawn from
a specific text of Scripture?
c. The test of experiential preaching.

i. The three dimensions of Christian experience (Heidel-
berg Catechism). Did I:
• Speak of the experience of the misery of sin due to its
great evil in God’s eyes?
• Speak of the experience of deliverance, our glad confi-
dence in Christ’s salvation and sufficiency?
• Speak of the experience of gratitude, stirred in our re-
newed hearts by God’s love, to love and obey Him?
ii. The battlefield mentality. Did I:

• Talk about how the Christian life ought to go — a lofty
ideal for life-long pursuit?
• Talk about how the Christian life does go in reality —
encouraging them in their defeats to look to Christ?
• Talk about how the Christian life will go ultimately —
pointing them to hope in the final victory in glory?
iii. The keys of the kingdom. Did I:

• Distinguish between the children of God and children
of the world?
• Distinguish between Christian experience and the
counterfeit graces of hypocrites?
• Distinguish among the different levels of Christian
maturity?
d. The test of practical preaching. Did I use a variety of applica-

tions like:
• Instruction — to shape the mind and worldview with
God’s truth?
• Confutation — to expose and refute the doctrinal errors

of our day?
• Exhortation — to press God’s people to obey God’s laws
by the means He provides?
• Dehortation — to rebuke sin and stir up hatred for it?
• Comfort — to encourage believers to press forward in
the fight of faith?
• Trial — to present the marks of a true believer for self-
examination?
• Exultation — to help people see the beauty and glory of
God so that they might love Him, fear Him, and praise
Him with affection?
5. Did I preach for my Master’s reward? Did I:

• Add or subtract anything from my sermon in order to
win the approval of people?
• Preach with the boldness of a clear conscience before
God, or in fear of my listeners?
• Preach with a profound sense of reverence, fear, and
awe toward God?
• Preach with gladness that the Lord will honor me if I
honor Him, or with the frustration of wanting more
honor among people?
• Preach ultimately for the pleasure of the audience of One?
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 279–303
Wilhelmus à Brakel’s Spirituality of Virtues

and its Implications for Soul Care
Lydia Kim-Van daalen
q
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God,
and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him
that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceed-
ing great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue....
— 2 Peter 1:2 – 5a
Although this is not the verse1 that served as the basis for Wilhel-
mus à Brakel’s magnum opus The Christian’s Reasonable Service,2 this
may well have been on à Brakel’s mind as he sought to explain to
normal Christians the necessity and beauty of serving God with all
of their intellect, will, and affections. While on earth, people give
expression to their service of God in the cultivation of godly virtues.3
à Brakel, as a caring father, provides guidance to those who desire to
grow in holiness and urges others who, for whatever reason, do not
1. Romans 12:1 formed the basis for the title.

2. Wilhelmus à Brakel, Logika latreia, dat is, redelijke godsdienst, in welken de god-
delijke waarheden des genade-verbonds worden verklaard, tegen partijen beschermd,... Open-
baring van Johannes. 3 delen; ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, under the title The
Christian’s Reasonable Service: in which Divine Truths concerning the Covenant of Grace are
Expounded, Defended against Opposing Parties, and their Pactice Advocated, as well as the
Administration of this Covenant in the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids: Reforma-
tion Heritage Books, 1999).
3. T. Brienen, “Eschatologie,” in Theologische aspecten van de Nadere Reformatie, ed.
T. Brienen (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1993), 298 [online], accessed 12-18-09,
http://www.ssnr.nl/lib/bibliopac/bin/wxis.exe/lib/bibliopac/?IsisScript=bibliopac.xic
&db=BPN&lang=N&start=bpn&expression=TTL%20theologische%20aspecten
%20van&action=SEARCH.htm.
have this desire to change. à Brakel (1635–1711), who was born in

the Netherlands, is just being discovered by Christians in America,
which in the future will hopefully lead to a wonderful contribution
to evangelical spirituality. In his own time and in his own country,
à Brakel had great spiritual influence, and his influence rightly con-
tinues until today. His experiential theology is a treasure because of
the excellence with which he not only clarifies doctrines, but also
presents them in such a way that they can become a lived reality in
the lives of believers.
This article will highlight one of the key components of his spiri-
tuality as he discusses it in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, namely,
his emphasis on virtues. à Brakel’s exposition of virtues is unique and
of great value for Christian soul care.4 In order to demonstrate this,
an introduction to à Brakel’s life and his major work, The Christian’s
Reasonable Service (hereafter CRS), will be provided, followed by an
analysis of his treatment of the virtues. The article will conclude with
observations regarding the uniqueness of his spirituality of virtues
and make comments and suggestions regarding the implications of it
for Christian soul care.
à Brakel’s Life
Wilhelmus à Brakel was born on January 2, 1635, in Leeuwarden,
the Netherlands. He was one of six children. His five sisters all died
before they were married (except one).5 From a very early age, he
devoted his life to God, for which his father, Theodorus à Brakel,
who himself was a respected pastor, and his God-fearing mother
were very thankful.6 At the age of twenty-four, after a thorough edu-
cation, he became a minister, a task he took very seriously. In March
4. The link to soul care is made because of a personal interest to contribute to

this field. I believe it is also in line with à Brakel, who desired his work to be practi-
cal and applicable and to assist people in spiritual well-being that can lead to greater
relational, emotional, and psychological health. In this paper, I take soul care in the
broadest sense possible, meaning anything from personal devotion to preaching and
from informal counseling (through accountability partners or friendships) to formal
and professional counseling.
5. Frans Johannes Los, “Wilhelmus à Brakel” (Ph.D. diss., Rijksuniversiteit
Leiden, 1892), 24 [online], accessed 12-17-09, http://www.archive.org/details/wil-
helmusbrakel00losgoog/.htm.
6. W. Fieret, “Wilhelmus à Brakel,” in Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Rea-
sonable Service, xxxi–xxxii.
Wilhelmus à Brakel’s Spirituality of Virtues 281
of 1664, he married Sara Nevius.7 They had four daughters and one
son. Mournfully, all but one daughter died soon after their birth.8 He
was a pastor for forty-nine years, serving several congregations until
his death on October 30, 1711.9
Considering the sociopolitical and religious context, à Brakel
lived during a time of political, commercial, societal, financial, edu-
cational, and artistic flourishing.10 However, for all those reasons,
the church had become increasingly less powerful, and many in the
church began to long for a moral reform of the church.11 The Dutch
Further Reformation,12 of which à Brakel was one of the divines,
was born as a result. Willem Teellinck (1579–1629) is considered the
father of this primarily seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century
movement.13 The movement was, as Joel Beeke describes, a reac-
7. Sara was a godly woman with great intellect. She was a widow; her previous
husband died after three years of marriage. She wrote poetry and a little book titled
Een aandachtig Leerling van den Heere Jezus, door Hem zelf geleert, zonder hulp van Men-
schen. See Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 35–37.
8. W. Fieret and A. Ros, Theodorus à Brakel, Wilhelmus à Brakel en Sara Nevius
(Houten: Den Hertog, 1988), 137–38.
9. Fieret, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, xlvi–lxxix. These congregations
were in Exmorra, Stavoren, Harlingen, Leeuwarden, and lastly, Rotterdam, where
he served from 1683 until his death in 1711.
10. Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 1– 8. Los describes four time periods in the Neth-
erlands that are related to the faithfulness or faithlessness of the Dutch people: A
time of suffering (1517–1568), a time of battle (1568 –1648), a time of flourishing
(1648 –1713), and a time of tergiversation and decay (1713 –1795).
11. Ibid., 13.
12. Joel Beeke explains that the Dutch term “Nadere Reformatie” is hard to
translate. The most common alternate translations are the Dutch Further Reforma-
tion or Dutch Second Reformation. The intent of this Reformation was to work out
“the initial Reformation more intimately in personal lives, in the church’s worship,
and in society as a whole. Joel R. Beeke, “The Dutch Second Reformation,” in Wil-
helmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, lxxxv–lxxxvi.
13. Joel R. Beeke, Puritan Reformed Spirituality (Grand Rapids: Reformation
Heritage Books, 2004), 309, 370. Other important figures in this movement are
Taffin, Udemans, Voetius, Smytegelt, Comrie, and Van der Groe. Goeters (quoted
in Carl J. Schroeder, In Quest of Pentecost: Jodocus van Lodenstein and the Dutch Second
Reformation [Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2001], 36), argues that this
movement can be separated into three distinct phases; namely, a stage in which
all emphasis was placed upon subjective feelings, with Teelinck and Theodorus
à Brakel; a stage in which reformation of the church as congregation was empha-
sized, with Voetius and van Lodenstein; and a final, more legalistic stage with an
emphasis on heavenly yearning and separation.
tion to an increasing Rationalism, and a decline in godliness, and

was influenced by movements such as “English Puritanism, German
Pietism, the Genevan Reform, and native Dutch influences (e.g.,
medieval mysticism, the Devotio Moderna, and Anabaptism — each of
which emphasized sanctification).”14 Simon van der Linde indicates
that the goal of the movement was to apply the Reformation fully
to reign in the soul and in the world, on Sundays and workdays, in
doctrine and in life.15
In the centuries following the Further Reformation, the move-
ment was evaluated positively by some and negatively by others. The
most frequently occurring criticism is that the movement became
too introspective, leading to pietism, or too legalistic, leading to a
disengagement from society.16 à Brakel may be considered one of its
better representatives, whose “experiential theology sought a healthy
balance between mysticism and precisionism.”17 Furthermore, as
de Reuver points out, à Brakel’s CRS is evidence of the fact that
“Reformed orthodoxy should not be contrasted with Reformed piety,
but that the two can coexist harmoniously.”18
The reputation of à Brakel during these times was such that he
gained the respect and sympathy of many as he held high virtuous
living in his preaching, his writing, and in his personal life.19 He stood
strong for the truth that he believed in. He spoke out polemically
14. Beeke, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, xc. For a discussion regarding the
influence of mysticism, see J. van Genderen, “Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711),” in
De Nadere Reformatie. Beschrijving van haar voornaamste vertegenwoordigers, ed. T. Brienen
(’s-Gravenhage: Boekencentrum, 1986), 165, 188 [online], accessed 12-18-09, http://
www.ssnr.nl/site/pagina.php?pagina_id=13.html; and regarding the Devotio Moder-
na, see C. Graafland, “De invloed van de Moderne Devotie in de Nadere Reforma-
tie, ±1650 – ±1750,” in De doorwerking van de Moderne Devotie: Windesheim 1387–1987.
Voordrachten, ed. P. Bange [et al.] (Hilversum: Verloren, 1988), 64, fn. 26 [online],
accessed 12-18-09, http://www.ssnr.nl/site/pagina.php?pagina_id=13.html.
15. Simon van der Linde, “De betekenis van de Nadere Reformatie voor kerk
en theologie,” in Opgang en voortgang der Reformatie, ed. S. van der Linde (Amster-
dam: Bolland, 1976), 140 [online], accessed 12-18-09, http://www.ssnr.nl/site/meta-
pagina.php?voltekst_id=B98000720.html.
16. Beeke, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, xcvi–ic.
17. Ibid., ic. Precisionism refers to the legalistic aspects of the movement.
18. Arie de Reuver, Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle
Ages through the Further Reformation, trans. James A. De Jong (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2007), 256.
19. Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 17.
against Cocceianism,20 Labadism,21 pietism,22 and Roman Catholi-

cism.23 Furthermore, even though he respected the government and
saw its task as supporting the church, he was not afraid to confront
the government when he thought that the government inappropri-
ately exercised influence in ecclesiastical matters.24 Due to his great
influence and the esteem and affection that he evoked, he was, and
still is, often fondly called “Vader Brakel,” that is, Father Brakel by
those who treasure his writings.25
20. Ibid., 10 –11. Johannes van den Berg, et al. explain that the “Voetians com-
bined a scholastic-aristotelian theology with a more Puritan way of life.... Like the
Puritans they were precisionists; their Sunday observance was very strict, and as
far as possible they held aloof from worldly pomp and pleasures.... [S]ocially, they
found their stronghold in the lower middle class.... With at least some Coccejans
their sympathy for Cartesian thinking led to a greater appreciation of the possibili-
ties of human reason.... In practical affairs, such as Sunday observance and matters
of dress and fashion the Coccejans were less strict than the Voetians,” in Johannes
van den Berg and Jan de Bruijn, Religious Currents and Cross-Currents: Essays on Early
Modern Protestantism and the Protestant Enlightenment, Studies in the History of Christian
Thought, 95 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 215–16. Another characteristic of the Cocceians
was that they “believed that prophetical types of the Lord Jesus could be found
throughout the Old Testament.” In response to such an exposition of Scripture,
à Brakel wrote Davids Hallelu-Jah, ofte lof des Heeren in den achtste Psalm, verklaret, tot
navolginge voorgestelt, ende verdedicht. See Fieret, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, lx.
21. Labadists believed in the need of having a pure church consisting only
of true believers. The church was not of this world, which was expressed in their
clothing, conversations, and in their separatism. Ecstatic spiritual experiences were
sometimes part of their communion services. Against them, à Brakel wrote Leer en
Leydinge der Labadisten. See Fieret, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, lviii.
22. According to Jonathan Gerstner, some of the core tenets of pietism are that
it is about the Lord and not about the doctrine, more about one’s inner life than
about society. Jonathan Neil Gerstner, The Thousand Generation Covenant: Dutch Re-
formed Covenant Theology and Group Identity in Colonial South Africa, 1652–1814, vol. 4
of Studies in the History of Christian Thought (New York: Brill, 1991), 76.
23. Bartel Elshout, The Pastoral and Practical Theology of Wilhelmus à Brakel, ed.
Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 1997), 24.
24. His sermon De Heere Jezus Christus Voor de Alleene ende Souveraine Koninck
Over Sijne Kercke Uytgeroepen [The Lord Jesus Declared to be the Only Sovereign
King of His Church] is evidence of this attitude. See Fieret, The Christian’s Reason-
able Service, lxxi–lxxiv.
25. Auke Jelsma and G. Brinkman, Wie is wie in de mystiek (Kampen: Ten Have,
2006), 56; Elshout, The Pastoral and Practical Theology of Wilhelmus à Brakel, 6; and de
Reuver, Sweet Communion, 232.
à Brakel’s The Christian’s Reasonable Service26

à Brakel wrote extensively, addressing doctrinal error, church-state
discussions, Christian edification, doctrines, and more,27 but CRS has
been the most influential of his works. Already in his time, CRS was
read by many Christians of the Dutch Further Reformation. How-
ever, its influence reached much further as the book was translated
and distributed in different countries and for subsequent generations.
The secret of its success is found in its practical nature.28 à Brakel
wrote this book with a sincere desire for people to find and live in the
grace of God, hoping that it would benefit people of his time as well
as later generations, his own country as well as the whole world.29
His objective was that it would provide direction to theological stu-
dents, student preachers, and young ministers, but, mainly, that it
would lead “to the conversion of the unconverted, the instruction of
the ignorant, the restoration of backsliders, the encouragement of the
discouraged, as well as to the growth of faith, hope, and love in all
who have become partakers of a measure of grace.”30
The structure of the book is in line with the six loci of Reformed
doctrine, 31 namely, the doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, the doc-
trine of Christ, the doctrine of the church, the doctrine of salvation,
and the doctrine of the last things. Though at first sight it looks like
a classic work on systematic theology, Bartel Elshout rightly notes,
“It is more than a systematic treatment of theology: It is experiential
systematic theology.”32 He says, “In a masterful way he [à Brakel]
establishes the crucial relationship between objective truth and the
subjective experience of that truth.”33 This is especially evident from
26. Hereafter, when reference is made to a certain page in The Christian’s Rea-
sonable Service, this will be done in the following format within the main text of
the paper, for example, (1:25), which means volume 1, page 25. Furthermore, the
references given in the text of this paper are most often one of many examples that
demonstrate the specific statement. This will help the reader to find at least one or
two examples, since references to all the evidence would become bulky and tedious.
27. See Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 134 – 63, for an extensive list and explanation
of all his writings.
28. Ibid., 258 – 67.
29. Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, cxiv.
30. Ibid., cxiv–xv.
31. Elshout, The Pastoral and Practical Theology of Wilhelmus à Brakel, 23.
32. Ibid., 20.
33. Ibid., 22.
the introductions that à Brakel gives to each of the volumes.34 The

result is that this work has great potential for soul healing, as is accu-
rately described by Ewaldus Kist: “One will find in it a presentation
of his own situation, and, because of this, one will feel for the author
the same trust that a patient will have towards his physician when
he describes for him in detail the nature of his illness and what he
suffers and observes as a result.”35 There is much that can be focused
on in examining CSR; yet, the remainder of this article will focus
on the virtue spirituality that à Brakel displays, 36 a spirituality that is
thoroughly biblical and Reformed in its doctrine, and practical and
inspirational in its effect.
Virtues
In order to obtain a right appreciation of à Brakel’s spirituality of
virtues, it is important to understand several things; namely, the
34. This comes out more clearly in the Dutch titles of the three, rather than the
English four, volumes.
Dutch (titles mine, based on

English
à Brakel’s introductions)
Volume 1: Appropriating of salvation Volume 1: Doctrines of God, of man,
and the application of it for the elect of Christ
Volume 2: Doctrines of the Church, of
Salvation
Volume 2: The nature of the life of
Volume 3, 4a: Doctrine of Salvation
covenant partners and what may befall
Continued
them (also sanctification)
Volume 4b: Eschatology; The Doctrine
of the Last Things
Volume 3: Of the Administration of
the Covenant and The acts of God
Appendix: Of the Administration of
with His church in the OT under
the Covenant of Grace in the Old and
shadows, and in the NT under the
New Testament
fulfillment as shown in an exposition
of the Revelations of John
35. Ewaldus Kist, Beoefeningsleer (Dordrecht: Blussé en Van Braam, 1808), Deel 1,
Stuk 1, 4; quoted in Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 266.
36. It needs to be borne in mind that à Brakel’s major purpose in writing CRS
was not to provide a treatise on virtues. His purpose, as stated above, was to help peo-
ple enter into and grow in a life of faith, in which virtuous living plays a central role.
theological context of which the virtues are a component; the way

he defines virtues, that is what they are and what he considers to be
their goal; and the means whereby virtues can be cultivated. There-
fore, the following four topics will be addressed: the wellspring of the
virtues, a definition of the virtues, the virtues themselves, and the
means by which they can be promoted.
The Wellspring of Virtues

The one virtue that makes all other virtues true virtues is “upright-
ness.” Only the regenerate, however, possess uprightness — which
refers to doing everything, whether it be expressed in the mind, the
heart, the mouth, through works, or objectives, with regard to the
truthfulness of God, Jesus, and Scripture (2:245) — with which they
engage in the sanctification process. That process consists of both
mortification of the old nature and vivification of the new (3:6, 11–16;
4:147, 157), 37 a view in line with Calvin and the Reformers.38 Since
unbelievers lack this necessary virtue, they are, therefore, unable to
37. In comparison to many other writers, though, he accentuates vivification

in greater detail than mortification, which is evident in CRS because of the
heavy emphasis on virtues. For example, John Owen, one representative of
the Puritans, points out that virtue is a grace that assists in the mortification of
sin. See The Works of John Owen, D.D. (London: Johnstone and Hunter, 1850),
6:32. Richard Baxter also mentions virtues but without the in-depth descrip-
tion that à Brakel offers; Baxter merely holds them forth as the ideal. See Rich-
ard Baxter, Directions for Weak Christians; And the Character of a Confirmed Chris-
tian: In Two Parts (London: Holdsworth and Ball, Amen Corner, Pater Noster
Row, 1835) [online], accessed 18 December 2009, available from http://books.
google.com/books?id=mf JT0AnCYmgC&pg=PA42&dq=20+directions+on+
how+to+grow+in+grace+richard+baxter&cd=8#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
htm. Furthermore, Jonathan Edwards, who lived half a century later than à
Brakel, wrote The Nature of True Virtue (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1960), but, though a valuable work, he does not deal with many specific virtues in
detail; it is rather a more philosophical work on describing the true nature of love.
For a short overview of the contents of Edwards’s book, see John Edwin Smith,
Jonathan Edwards, Harry S. Stout, and Kenneth P. Minkema, A Jonathan Edwards
Reader (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Nota Bene, 2003), xxx, which seems to be in
agreement with à Brakel’s understanding of virtue’s true nature. More research
needs to be done in this area to verify my tentative conclusion regarding à Brakel’s
uniqueness compared to his contemporaries.
38. J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life
(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994), 201.
attain to true virtue (3:16, 428 –29).39 And, thus, virtues can only be
understood for what they truly are, when placed in a soteriological
framework as follows.40
Following the classical understanding of the ordo salutis (order of
salvation),41 à Brakel explains how salvation leads to the exercise of
virtue. People are first regenerated by the Holy Spirit. This happens
when God, because of His eternal love and election, extends an exter-
nal call by means of the gospel revealed in Scripture, combined with
an internal call, which is His effectual call that results in the change
and sanctification of a person’s intellect, will, and inclinations (2:192–
95, 241, 250, 259). In regeneration, God gives faith.42 And while the
objective of faith is to glorify God (2:290), faith itself is necessary for
39. à Brakel does acknowledge that unbelievers can appear to be more virtuous
than believers (4:144). Nevertheless, this virtuousness is not the result of habitual grace
and therefore misses the defining quality of true virtuousness. (à Brakel’s use of ha-
bitual grace does not seem to be Thomistic in the sense of men having something that
makes them acceptable to God, but more in the sense of a “habit” of grace received
at regeneration which is an enabling power, a kind of sanctifying grace that leads to
actual graces [4:147], that is, the mortification of sins and growth in virtues. For these
concepts, see Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Black-
well, 2001), 451; and Mary C. Hilkert, “Habitual Grace; Sanctifying Grace,” in The
HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, 1st ed. [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994]).
40. This is further evident in the fact that the most important sections on vir-
tues are described in the volume dealing with soteriology.
41. The traditional Reformed Ordo Salutis consists of “Election, predestina-
tion, gospel call, effectual call, regeneration, repentance and faith, Justification,
perseverance and glorification,” Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Ordo Salutis,” in Global
Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church, ed. William A Dyrness and
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008).
42. à Brakel’s view of faith deserves some attention. He says that the essence of
faith does not consist in love or in obedience to and observance of God’s command-
ments, nor even in trusting in Christ as Savior or in assenting to the truth of the
gospel, but rather in a heartfelt trust to be brought to salvation by Christ (2:275–78).
His definition of faith is “a heartfelt trust in Christ — and through Him in God — in
order to be justified, sanctified, and glorified, leaning upon Christ’s voluntary offer
of Himself and upon His promises that He will perform this to all who receive Him
and rely upon Him to that end” (2:295). The characteristics of faith are holiness,
sincerity, activity, durability, and salvific (2:291). Faith is primarily an aspect of the
will (2:278), although the three aspects of the soul — intellect (consisting of com-
prehension, judgment, and conscience/joint knowledge), will (the faculty by which
we choose right or wrong), and affections — that refer to the three aspects of the
essence of the image of God — knowledge, righteousness, holiness — are necessarily
interrelated (1:307–30).
man, because it is the means by which justification — that is, God’s

acquitting people from guilt and punishment, adorning them with
Christ’s righteousness, and declaring them to be His children43 and
heirs of eternal life on the basis of Christ’s merits imputed to them
(2:347–51) — is received (2:356, 373 –76).
Justification44 is of crucial importance, because it is “the soul of
Christianity and the fountainhead of all true comfort45 and sancti-
fication” (2:341). True sanctification can only proceed from being
justified, which produces a great love and reverence for God (2:405).
à Brakel distinguishes between sanctification — which is God’s work
in believers that purifies them and causes them to live according to
His will46 (2:4) — and holiness, which, being the fruit of sanctifica-
tion (3:16), is the holy disposition of the heart of a saint. Holiness,
therefore, is more than just an external matter or merely consisting in
abstaining from evil and in doing good (3:17); rather, holy deeds and
virtues flow forth from this holy disposition of the heart: “a regener-
ate person has the principle of life in Christ and thus also a virtuous
heart — the fountain of virtues” (4:67). Thus à Brakel can summarize
the soteriological nature of virtues as follows:
A soul, whom God in his eternal purpose has appointed to be
a recipient of salvation, whom the Lord Jesus has loved and
cleansed from all her sins in His blood, whom he has endowed
with his glory and holiness, and who has been regenerated by
the Holy Spirit of God, having become spiritually alive (thus
pursuing sanctification), will exercise many virtues (3:19).
43. To read more about à Brakel’s delight in the riches of being God’s child,
see 2:415–33.
44. According to à Brakel, justification, that is, receiving God’s declaration of
forgiveness and the right of being eternal heirs, is pronounced upon the first act
of faith, but then continues to be a daily occurrence as Christians exercise faith in
Christ unto justification (2:358, 381–91, 615) in contrast to reconciliation, which is a
once for all event (2:382).
45. There is comfort because justification engenders spiritual peace with God
and, to a certain extent, peace with all that is created, visible and invisible. This
peace expresses itself in hope, quietness, delight, satisfaction, fellowship with God,
and inner peace (2:439– 48).
46. Knowing what pleases God is, first and foremost, expressed in the Ten
Commandments (3:4).
The desire for and exercise of virtues are not ends in and of them-
selves. Virtues are a sign of spiritual growth,47 the goal of which is the
increase of spiritual light,48 a more persistent and steadfast fellowship
with God,49 the ability to make use of Christ with more understand-
ing and a greater measure of faith,50 and an increased manifestation
of grace (4:145 – 47).
Defining Virtue
In summary of the above, the result of the appropriation of salva-
tion is holiness, which is an all-encompassing virtue; that is, it is
“not a single virtue, but rather, the shining forth of the image of
God — being a combination of many virtues” (3:19). Important to
note is that a virtue does not consist in a single act; it is “a propensity
and disposition of the heart.... In their essence they [virtues] have
been infused [when the soul was made spiritually alive] by God and
are strengthened by way of much exercise” (3:398). As such, they
are different from acquired propensities, which are complements to
the natural intellect, the will, or actions, and enable someone to be
engaged in artistic activity (3:317). à Brakel can thus argue that if a
person has one virtue he has them all because in each virtue many
others merge together (3:243). However, the degree to which the
virtues are manifested varies depending on the situation and on the
measure of the individual’s virtuous disposition (3:244) since virtues,
also called “spiritual competencies” (3:318), need to be expressed and
developed. With this nature of the virtues in mind, à Brakel defines
virtue as “that within man which perfectly harmonizes with the will
of God as presented in the law” (3:243).
As is evident from this definition, à Brakel considers the Law of
God as the standard for discerning what is virtuous and what is not.
The Law or the will of God is expressed in the Ten Commandments
(3:21), which basically covers all possible virtues (3:86, 243). In his
47. Spiritual growth is defined as “a gracious work of God in the regenerate

whereby they increase in both habitual and actual grace” (4:141).
48. “This light has an inherent warmth and ignites the soul in love, renders
one fruitful, and brings spiritual truths into the soul, so that whatever is true in the
Word also becomes true within” (4:145).
49. “Union with God constitutes the life, joy, and salvation of the soul” (4:145).
50. This means that Christ becomes the means and the end to God and to life
(4:146).
treatment of the Ten Commandments, à Brakel mentions over fifty

virtues that issue forth from the prohibitions and commands. How-
ever, he gives a detailed discussion in specific chapters of only several
of the virtues. The reason why he highlights only certain virtues can
only be speculated. Time and space may have been determinative in
his choice. On the other hand, the nature of the virtues may have
played a role; it seems that the virtues that he has chosen are charac-
terized more by a certain attitude in life, that is, a certain state of heart,
rather than by the exercise of certain deeds, which is often the nature
of the virtues he has left out. Yet another possibility is that, while
acknowledging that all virtues are equal and no one virtue is superior
to another, he may have found these virtues to be most conducive to
stirring up one’s soul to delight in and practice holiness (3:242).
The virtues in CRS are divided into two categories based on the
summary of the Decalogue, namely, to love God above all and one’s
neighbor as oneself. à Brakel structures the parts of his work relating
to virtues as follows: first, the nature of sanctification and holiness
(ch. 44); second, the Ten Commandments (ch. 45–55); third, vir-
tues originating from the First Great Commandment (glorification
of God, love toward God, love toward Jesus Christ, fear of God,
obedience toward God, hope in God, spiritual strength or courage,
the profession of Christ and His truth, contentment, self-denial,
patience, and uprightness [ch. 56–67]); fourth, means to grow in
faith/virtues (ch. 68 – 81); fifth, virtues originating from the Second
Great Commandment (love for one’s neighbor, humility, meekness,
peaceableness, diligence, compassion, prudence [ch. 82– 88]); sixth, a
discussion of spiritual growth and of seasons and reasons regarding
a standstill or backsliding in spiritual growth (ch. 89 –98), followed
by a chapter on the perseverance of the saints (ch. 99). Due to space
limitations, this paper will not provide an in-depth treatment of the
virtues; rather, an analysis will be given concerning à Brakel’s general
manner of discussing the virtues.
à Brakel’s Treatment of the Virtues

As mentioned before, all virtues are equal, and certain virtues require
special attention and labeling (see diagram 1).
Wilhelmus à Brakel
SS’EHOLINESS
sNIS H
LOpirituality of Virtues 291
Holiness
doGGlorification
fo noitacifirooflGGod
Glorification of God
ssentUprightness
hgirpU
Uprightness
s'enGod
gien for
robhLove L
f evoChrist
o roand ecnedPrudence
urP
Prudence tsirhLove
C dnafor
doone's
G rof neighbor
ev oL
Fear
Love ytilimuH
of God
for God and Christ Love for one’sHumility
d oG f o rae F
neighbor
ssenkeeM Meekness
Obedience ecneidebO
ssenelbaecaeP— Fear of God — Humility Peaceableness
Hope in God doG ni epoH
— egiliD
ecnObedience Diligence
— Meekness
Spiritual Strength/Courage egaruoC/htgnertS lautiripS
pmoC in God
issaHope
no— Compassion
— Peaceableness
Profession of Christ and His Truth hturT siH dna tsirhC fo noisseforP
— Spiritual Strength/Courage
Contentment — Diligence tnemtnetnoC
— Profession of Christ and His Truth
Self-denial — Compassion
lained-fleS
—Patience
Contentment ecneitaP
— Self-denial
— Patience
Diagram 1
This applies, first of all, to the virtue of glorifying God. This is the
primary virtue and goal of all other virtues (3:244). Yet, this virtue, as
well as all the others, cannot exist without two other special virtues,
namely, uprightness and prudence. Uprightness, as discussed earlier,
refers to doing the will of God in truth (3:428), which makes any
virtue a true virtue. Prudence, on the other hand, is to the exercise of
virtues what a rudder is to a ship (4:131). It is the exerting of the intel-
lect, “which governs him in accomplishing his intended objective by
the premeditated use of suitable means” and consists of wisdom and
discretion (4:129). In other words, it is a God-given ability to devise
a good strategy in view of a worthy vision they want to pursue. The
last virtue that merits special mentioning is love. All virtues being
equal, this virtue would rank the top of the virtues. It is “the purest
of all virtues and no virtue is comparable to it — yes, a virtue is no
virtue if it does not derive its luster from this virtue” (3:272). These
four virtues — the glorification of God, uprightness, prudence, and
love — are thus central to the exercise of all other virtues.
à Brakel has a rather systematic way of dealing with the virtues.
In the introduction, he will often point out how the specific virtue
might relate to other virtues. Next, he defines the virtue. In order to
do so, he will frequently discuss the Greek and Hebrew meanings of
the word as they are found in the Bible. This may sound distant and
academic but is actually insightful and enriching. Because à Brakel
truly wants people to understand the nature of the virtue, he not
only provides a definition of the virtue but breaks it down phrase by
phrase. In this manner, insight is gained into issues related to the vir-
tue, such as its essence, its object and subjects, its causes and means,
its goal, and its fruits. His treatment of these issues is telling of his
deep belief in the sovereignty, love, and power of God, as well as
of his reverence for and knowledge of Scripture. Furthermore, his
discussions reveal a balanced view of the tension between what God
does in salvation and what man is responsible for.
The theoretical descriptions of the virtue are followed by a call to
self-examination. This call is first directed to unbelievers who may
have excuses or questions that prevent them from having the specific
virtue. In each discussion of a virtue, à Brakel dives into the specifics
of these objections, demonstrating that he is aware of and under-
stands the reasoning of unbelievers. In order to stir the unbeliever
up to faith, he points out the ways they deprive themselves of God’s
blessings and endanger themselves to the natural consequences of
not exercising this virtue,51 God’s earthly judgments, and eternal
damnation. He does so in a very personal and bold (to the point of
offensiveness) manner.52 Nevertheless, his love is apparent as demon-
strated by his desire for them to receive God’s blessings.
After speaking to unbelievers, he addresses believers. First of all,
he admonishes those who have not practiced the particular virtue by
explaining to them how they deceive themselves, how they disobey
God, and how they deprive themselves of the advantageous effects
of the virtue. Secondly, he seeks to motivate all to the exercise of
the virtue. He demonstrates from Scripture that the virtue is com-
manded, that it makes the Christian attractive, that biblical figures
have exhibited the virtue, that it glorifies God, and that it benefits the
believer’s soul. à Brakel describes the benefits and blessings of a cer-
51. An example of a natural consequence of the absence of the virtue of dili-

gence is laziness which leads to poverty (4:109). An example of the earthly judgment
of God in the absence of the virtue of peaceableness is God’s abhorrence and with-
holding of grace (4:96 –97).
52. For example, “What is to become of you who are lazy, fearful, hotheaded,
foolish, reckless, brazen and bold?” (3:339), and “cruel wolves and tigers; who are as
turbulent as the sea which cannot be at rest” (4:96).
tain virtue extensively and attractively so that people will desire and
practice the virtue. These benefits are spiritual, practical, emotional,
and relational, and paint a picture of a desirable and attractive life.53
In order to demonstrate the benefits, he does not only use reason
and experience; he seeks to point people to the manifold and rich
promises of God54 in the Bible55 to which a believer has access. These
promises are, in the first place and ultimately, other-worldly in that
they are reserved for eternity; nonetheless, many of them are also
very practical and can be received in this earthly life.56 The promises
of God are enjoyed by virtue of communion with Christ and lead to
a life filled with much desired possessions such as pure, holy, liber-
ated, contented, delightful satisfaction and joy in life (2:602). à Brakel,
most likely as the result of the experiences in his own life, is fully
aware that a life of holiness and spiritual growth does not come easily.57
53. Spiritual benefits are, for example, that God is pleased, that He is glorified
(4:123), and that His love is experienced more fully (4:23). Personal benefits can be
practical, for example, one’s speech, conduct, and silence are enhanced (4:136); there
is liberty in doing one’s daily work (3:440); emotionally, inner joy, peace, and com-
fort are experienced (4:76); and relationally, the ability to avoid unnecessary conflict
(4:101), to be able to help others grow and encourage them (4:64), to be loved by
many, and to be easy to interact with (4:83).
54. Besides references to the promises throughout CRS, à Brakel devotes all
of chapter 42, “The Life of Faith in Reference to the Promises,” to these promises.
55. à Brakel’s description of the importance of the Word for the obtaining of
promises is this: “In the Word, God presents the matter in its beauty and precious-
ness. In the Word, he presents the Mediator by whom the promised matters have
been merited, and by the Word God works faith in the Savior.... All blessings con-
tained in the promises are founded upon and confirmed in Christ, who, by His
blood, has removed the partition between God and man, and who, by His merits,
had merited salvation for the elect. ‘For all the promises of God in him are yea, and
in him Amen’ (2 Cor. 1:20)” (3:322–23).
56. Examples of promises for life on earth include immediate deliverance
(2:617), answered prayers (4:88), experience of joy (4:88), and material provision
(4:110). Promises must be used in the right way, however; the Christian must have
firm faith in God who makes the promises; he must ensure that the promise de-
scribed in Scripture applies to him and to his situation, which implies that he has to
know God’s Word well; and lastly, besides these human efforts, he must know that,
ultimately, only the Holy Spirit can apply the promise in a very personal way so that
it has the desired effect (2:618–20). à Brakel walks people step by step through the
process of finding promises that will benefit (2:620–29). He provides examples of
specific promises for specific circumstances.
57. à Brakel’s understanding of the human nature of people — their self-cen-
teredness (4:118, 119) as well as their abilities and limitations — is remarkable. He
Exercising virtues is often done in the context of various God-

ordained bodily and spiritual trials and sorrows through which He
wants to lead people to eternal felicity (2:615, 618). Only when God’s
people find strength and comfort in the promises of God will they be
able to persevere and not be grieved by evil, overwhelmed by despair,
or deeply discouraged (2:617, 619). These promises ensure that a per-
son is motivated to progress in the exercise of virtues, which can be
done by means of many religious exercises.
Means to Obtaining Virtues

à Brakel’s passionate desire for people to grow in faith and holiness
is evident from the fact that he not only describes virtues and dem-
onstrates how they are of tremendous value, he also provides specific
directions for acquiring them. Several chapters are thus especially
devoted to particular religious exercises.58 However, all throughout
CRS and especially in the chapters on virtues à Brakel gives practical
advice wanting to assist people in the obtaining of and progressing in
a certain virtue. These religious exercises are of important value for
Christians today, since many are not used anymore, with the result
that faith is often experienced and practiced superficially.
As with the virtues, à Brakel does not merely set the means
forth as a moral and spiritual duty; his excellence is demonstrated
in how he presents the means in such a way that people see their
beauty and may be motivated to make use of them, which reduces
the risk of legalism. In addition, à Brakel gives simple suggestions
and instructions regarding the exercise of the spiritual means, for
example, where, when, how, and to what end they can be practiced.
He devotes specific chapters to some of these religious exercises:
prayer (the Lord’s Prayer being a rule and example, 3:483), fasting,
helps people realize that despite the need to give all one can, one needs to be realistic
and does not have to be disappointed or discouraged when sincere efforts fail (4:21,
24, 42, 136). His grasp of the human heart is also evident from chapters on spiritual
illnesses such as backsliding in the spiritual life of the godly (ch. 90), spiritual deser-
tion (ch. 91), temptation toward atheism or the denial of God’s existence (ch. 92),
the temptation to question whether God’s Word is true (ch. 93), unbelief concerning
one’s spiritual state (ch. 94), the assaults of Satan (ch. 95), the power of indwelling
corruption (ch. 96), spiritual darkness (ch. 97), spiritual deadness (ch. 98), and the
perseverance of the saints (ch. 99).
58. à Brakel also calls these “sanctifying duties” (3:443) or “religious exercises”
(4:3, 25).
watchfulness, solitude, spiritual meditation, singing, vows, and expe-

rience. Since these spiritual exercises receive special treatment, they
were most likely of great value to à Brakel. The reader can read about
these sanctifying duties in CRS. However, throughout CRS, à Brakel
brings up several other means that deserve attention, and those will
now be briefly mentioned.
First, à Brakel considers Bible reading to be a very foundational
means to grow in holiness.59 “The Word of God is the only means
instituted by God to faith and conversion...it provides spiritual food...
[and] comfort” (1:73). Reading Scripture is necessary in order to know
what God requires concerning a specific virtue (3:255). Furthermore,
the Bible presents examples of people who were characterized by a
certain virtue, which may lead to motivation and guidance to follow
in their footsteps (3:255, 368).
Second, reflection60 is a very important means for spiritual
growth. Reflection is necessary to transform a topic from mere
head knowledge into experiential knowledge (1:417). Reflection has
many different applications. People can reflect on the attributes of
God (1:133); on their sinfulness (1:417; 4:77); on punishment (1:420);
on human impotency (1:424); on a person; on the life, death, resur-
rection, ascension, and session of Jesus Christ (1:510ff); on spiritual
benefits (3:273; 4:77) and promises (3:320–21); and on their identity
in Christ (3:343).
Self-examination is a third, very broad category mentioned with
every virtue. Self-examination is crucial because the motives of the
heart can be deceptive, keeping people from the way of truth and life
(3:436). Through self-examination on the topics of reflection men-
tioned above, a person will realize his own spiritual state and will
accordingly know whether and how to make action towards progress
on the spiritual journey.
A fourth religious exercise is the abstaining from and under-
mining (3:412; 4:89, 100) of practices that hinder a certain virtue
59. Chapter 2 offers a practical theology of the Word of God, including direc-
tions how to read it profitably (1:77–81).
60. à Brakel seems to use the terms reflection, meditation, contemplation, and
consideration interchangeably. This religious exercise involves things such as at-
tentive and believing observation (1:349), letting the mind be led by the Spirit in a
rather passive way (1:137), or actively making rational deductions based on a spiri-
tual topic or Bible verse with which the person is familiar (4:27).
(3:275).61 This embraces the familiar concept of mortification. The

practical follow-up of mortification is being intentional about putting
things into practice that will be conducive to effective mortification.62
à Brakel, as mentioned before, knows that practicing holiness is not
easy. Therefore, applying the will, making a strong resolution, and
being determined (3:412, 437; 4:90) are important means to be suc-
cessful in the attempts to mortify the old and vivify the new nature.
A fifth spiritual exercise necessary in the cultivation of virtues is
confession (3:312). Confession includes acknowledging what is wrong
with regards to the individual’s exercise, or lack thereof, of a particu-
lar virtue, mourning over it, confessing it, and restoring the situation
through faith. Confession can also be understood in the sense of an
acknowledgment of one’s limitations and impotency (3:441).
Finally, à Brakel encourages engaging the affections in spiri-
tual exercises. Emotions should not be suppressed (3:319), but they
should be experienced fully in order to understand them and to sur-
render them to God so that He, as a Father, can have His way with
the resistance, struggles, pains, and tears of His children, whether it
be purifying or comforting (4:423).
In the specific chapters on religious exercises and in the discussion
throughout of those mentioned above, à Brakel greatly encourages
and helps people to grow in faith and to serve God. His way of doing
this is unique for several reasons and of great importance for soul
care, as will be evident in the following section.
Observations and Evaluation of à Brakel

in Light of Soul Care
As promised at the beginning, this article will now present some
observations regarding the uniqueness of à Brakel’s work as it per-
tains to his spirituality of virtues. This will be combined with an
evaluation of the value of his work for soul care.
à Brakel is unique because he stresses the virtues in a way that
others have not done. Four groups will be briefly mentioned in this
61. Examples of these are ignorance, partial love, infrequent communion with
God, unbelief, fearfulness (1:275–76), carelessness, despondency, pride (3:346), de-
sire for money, honor, and love (4:100).
62. Examples are having fellowship with those who love God (3:276), engaging in
spiritual battle whether one feels like it or not (3:342), taking initiative to love regard-
less of whether a person is loveable or whether your heart is feeling the love (4:64 – 65).
regard, namely, his contemporary Puritans, modern day biblical

counselors, classical Greek authors, and the modern Positive Psy-
chology movement. First, as mentioned earlier, à Brakel’s Puritan
contemporaries seem to have been more concerned with mortifica-
tion than with vivification. While they considered virtues to be of
great importance they, with notable exceptions, did not focus their
attention on them nor did they define, explain, or apply them for
believers to the extent that à Brakel did.63
Since some biblical counselors today are becoming interested in
Puritan resources for counseling,64 this emphasis by à Brakel may
serve as an aid in countering an approach to counseling that has the
potential to become more moralistic and superficial in its application
of mortification. This tendency is seen in a heavy emphasis on put-
ting off the old man, whereas putting on the new is often not stressed
as much.65
63. William Perkins is an exception to this statement, though not fully. à

Brakel may have been familiar with Perkins’s works, since many were trans-
lated into Dutch (see Edgar de Bruyne, “Perkins, William,” in Winkler Prins
Encyclopaedie, 6th ed., eds. E. de Bruyne, G. B. J. Hiltermann, H. R. Hoetink
(Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1947). One book that is of particular interest is William
Perkins and Thomas F. Merrill, William Perkins, 1558–1602, English Puritanist:
His Pioneer Works on Casuistry: “A Discourse of Conscience” and “The Whole Trea-
tise of Cases of Conscience,” with an introduction by Thomas F. Merrill (Nieuw
koop: B. De Graaf, 1966). Perkins’s emphasis is on a good conscience, whereas
à Brakel emphasizes holiness, but the similarities between Perkins’s work and that of
à Brakel regarding virtue are apparent in that they both focus on the Law as the rule
for virtues and on the need of examination and confession if a virtue is not displayed
(Perkins, 70). It can also be seen in the way both Perkins and à Brakel try to motivate
people to exercise virtue by stating that Scripture requires it and that there are ben-
efits to be gained (77). However, à Brakel is unique in that he deals with many more
virtues (Perkins deals with clemency, temperance, liberality, and justice [see 223]),
and whereas Perkins talks more about the rule of the virtue, the detailed applica-
tions of it in life (e.g., temperance leads to a discussion regarding riches, apparel, or
food), and obedience, à Brakel delves deeper into the human heart as it does or does
not exercise the virtue and seeks to motivate people more from within. Similar re-
marks could be made of other Puritans, such as William Ames and Richard Baxter.
64. Timothy J. Keller, “Puritan Resources for Biblical Counseling,” Journal of
Pastoral Practice 9 (1988): 11–44.
65. Two examples of biblical counseling books with a heavy emphasis on sim-
ply putting off (mortification) and putting on are Adam Pulaski, Biblical Counseling
Manual: A Self Help Counseling Program Guide (Victoria, B.C.: Trafford, 2004); and
Jay E. Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual: the Practice of Nouthetic Counseling
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973).
à Brakel’s description of virtues is also unique as compared

to classic writers such as Plato and Aristotle. For them the goal of
virtues was human happiness or flourishing.66 Though à Brakel con-
sidered this a fortunate and desirable byproduct, it was definitely not
the ultimate goal. The virtues that à Brakel describes are unquestion-
ably biblical and, as such, are often not found in the classic canon
of virtues;67 vice versa, some virtues that were part of classic lists of
virtues, such as pride,68 would never make it into à Brakel’s work.
Today, Positive Psychology, which partly bases virtue theories
on classic lists,69 is finding its inroads into mainstream psychothera-
py.70 Although this is an interesting movement deserving attention,
the goal of virtuous living is again defined in terms of personal ful-
fillment.71 While its list of virtues is admirable, it lacks a distinct
Christ-centered orientation as the compilers of this list seek to be
cross-cultural, cross-religion, and cross-time in their cataloguing of
the virtues.72 The positive psychotherapy that has emerged as a result
of the Positive Psychology — even if interesting and potentially help-
ful in the advice and scientific support they provide regarding the
implementation of virtues73 — is seemingly more behavioral in its
interventions, and consequently misses the holistic dimension that à
Brakel provides.
à Brakel is, secondly, unique in that he knows how to bring bal-
ance in certain theologically important areas. For example, à Brakel
deals carefully with the seriousness of sin as well as with human abil-
ities and limitations. He calls sin for what it is and confronts people
with the gravity of their sinfulness. Yet, at the same time, his ability
66. Thomas, and R. E. Houser Thomas, The Cardinal Virtues: Aquinas, Albert,
and Philip the Chancellor (Toronto: Pontificial Inst. of Mediaeval Studies, 2004), 13.
Plato, and Robin Waterfield, Gorgias (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), xxxii.
67. Walter T. Wilson, The Mysteries of Righteousness: The Literary Composition and
Genre of the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994), 42 – 46.
68. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy (London: Routledge, 2004), 170.
69. Christopher Peterson and Martin E. P. Seligman, Character, Strengths and
Virtues (Oxford: University Press, 2004), 46.
70. Wayne Weiten, Psychology: Themes & Variations (Belmont, Calif.: Wads
worth/Cengage Learning, 2010), 630.
71. Peterson and Seligman, Character, Strengths and Virtues, 18.
72. Ibid., 28–30.
73. See for example, Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Ap-
proach to Getting the Life You Want (New York: Penguin Press, 2008).
to comprehend human nature, its thoughts, actions, and emotions,

leads to the communication of compassion, understanding, and care.
à Brakel contributes to Christian counseling by demonstrating that
sins are of great importance and need to be addressed, while simul-
taneously being fully aware of and compassionately addressing the
weaknesses of human life. A healthy balance between admonishing
and comforting/encouraging is thus established.
Another area where à Brakel demonstrates balance is in his expe-
riential theology. The danger of an experiential theology is that it
can become either abstract and legalistic as it describes laws for godly
life based on scriptural truth, or it can become the opposite, namely,
subjective and mystical as it is focused on union with God and what
He through His Spirit does in the soul.74 à Brakel demonstrates the
importance of both, explaining that the basis of and progress in the
spiritual life is union with God, which is, nevertheless, only to be
understood and obtained by understanding the truths of God’s Word
rightly. Virtues thus have both a doctrinal component in that the
definitions and objectives are only to be found in Scripture, and an
experiential component in that the virtues bring about a desirable
inner transformation. Learning to focus on both aspects is important
for any type of counseling that wants to call itself Christian.
Another closely related issue is the balance between an inward,
introspective focus and an outgoing, practical focus. God’s truths
and blessings are never meant to be kept to oneself; they are meant
to be shared. Christian counseling can be informed by these nec-
essary two sides of the coin: an emphasis on both inner personal
change and outward practical results. When these two components
are kept in balance, the greatest measure of transformation is likely
to be achieved.
Thirdly, à Brakel’s work on virtues is unique because of its
holistic approach. à Brakel, as well as the Puritans and Further
Reformation divines, lived at a time when there was no official “psy-
chology.” His approach to dealing with people’s spiritual health is
not tainted by the unnatural division of modern secular psychology
74. Regarding the former, à Brakel demonstrates that rules are good as long as
the gospel is viewed as the only way to salvation (2:293). Regarding the latter, he is
certainly opposed to pure subjectivism, as is evident from the chapter titled “A Warn-
ing Exhortation Against Pietists, Quietists, and all Who in a Similar Manner have
Deviated to a Natural and Spiritless Religion under the Guise of Spirituality” (ch. 43).
with its myriad of counseling approaches, such as experiential, cog-

nitive, behavioral, existential, or other kinds.75 With Scripture as the
basis, à Brakel suggests different kinds of “interventions,” addressing
many things that belong to those being made in the image of God,
such as behavior, thoughts, emotions, and meaning76 — anything that
might be helpful for people to grow in Christian virtuous living. His
approach is, therefore, enlightening for those who seek to counsel
more holistically.
A fourth area that demonstrates à Brakel’s unique treatment of
the virtues is that it differs from many other systems in their attempts
to diagnose people. Both in evangelical and secular resources, diag-
nostic systems focus mainly on the problems of a person. According
to Timothy Keller, the Puritans are to be treasured for their “sophis-
ticated diagnostic casebooks containing scores and even hundreds of
different personal problems and spiritual conditions.”77 Concerning
a secular diagnostic system, the most widely used diagnostic manual
in the world of psychology today, the DSM,78 lacks the teleologi-
cal and ideological perspective that à Brakel’s work has; it merely
describes the symptoms of a disorder with no mentioning at all of
a spiritual ideal. To a certain degree, this is also the case with the
attempt of a “translation” of the DSM categories into a biblically cor-
rect understanding of symptoms (The Christian’s Guide to Psychological
Terms).79 Although this book is certainly more explicit in the goals of
counseling, the focus is still on transforming negative/sinful symp-
toms. à Brakel arrives at the problems from a different angle in that
he holds out the beauty of an ideal rather than describing, first and
75. These specific areas are worthy of exploration, however, as together they
may contribute to greater effectiveness in counseling.
76. Two important aspects of human life that à Brakel does not mention are
the importance of family history and biology. These aspects contribute to an un-
derstanding of the abilities and limitations of a person in his Spirit-led attempt to
grow in holiness, an understanding which can aid in giving even more specific and
applicable advice.
77. Keller, “Puritan Resources,” 12.
78. The newest DSM, the DSM-V, is projected to be released in May 2013 by
the American Psychiatric Association, “DSM-V: The Future Manual,” APA, 2009,
accessed 16 December 2009, http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Research/DSMIV/
DSMV.aspx/.htm.
79. Marshall Asher and Mary Asher, The Christian’s Guide to Psychological Terms
(Bemidji, Minn.: Focus Publishers, 2004).
foremost, the problem. He does mention some of the problems in

passing and, additionally, people may diagnose their issues by reading
his work, but his main focus is on the virtues. It can be speculated
that describing praiseworthy and desirable characteristics can create
in people a greater motivation to change80 than can a straightforward
description of what is wrong.81 Though fighting symptoms is an
important aspect of any therapy, especially a Christian one — people
being called to crucify their flesh — this may become a one-sided and
therefore limited effort if there are no worthy spiritual ideals to strive
for. à Brakel not only describes these ideals, he also provides practical,
step-by-step guidance towards implementation of these ideals.
In conclusion, this article will present a few practical suggestions
concerning the use of à Brakel in counseling. à Brakel intended his
work to be read by everyday Christians, which was, in fact, done
with the most beautiful results ensuing.82 To make CRS even more
usable for counseling than it already is right now, certain thorough-
going actions can be undertaken. First, while there is an index with
topics in à Brakel’s CRS, which is even further developed by the
translator (4:539), it would be desirable to have an additional, more
detailed index that is solely counseling focused, indicating problems
and solutions that bring people into counseling. In this way, people
will be able to read and practice those parts of the book that pertain
to their situation.
Secondly, though initially more designed as a “self-help” book,
if it may be called so, the religious exercises that are meant to help
people in their growth in holiness (i.e., virtues) can be reflected upon
and rewritten in such a way that counselors can effectively use them
with their counselees. Research could then be done in the area of
the virtues and “interventions” that à Brakel suggests, resulting in
potentially even greater effectiveness. In addition, this might provide
a platform on which to dialogue with secular psychology research-
ers, especially now that Positive Psychology has come on the scene,
thereby witnessing to the Christian faith, contributing to mainstream
80. Peterson and Seligman, Character, Strengths and Virtues, 21.

81. Nevertheless, this aspect is certainly also of great importance in helping
people change.
82. Los, Wilhelmus à Brakel, 278, 281.
psychology, and so making leeway for Christians to rightfully prac-

tice in their distinctly biblical way.
Lastly, as mentioned before, à Brakel discusses only a certain
number of virtues. One could only imagine the positive results for
Christian living and counseling when someone would take all the
virtues83 that à Brakel mentions as issuing from the Ten Command-
ments, and develop them in the same detailed manner84 as the virtues
that are already assigned a specific chapter.85
Conclusion
In America, à Brakel has influenced the spiritual life of many Chris-
tians until the present day. His magnum opus is a wonderful example
of experiential theology. This article highlights the uniqueness of
à Brakel’s treatment of virtues described in this major work. His
spirituality of virtues is unique for several reasons. His choice of
emphasizing virtues, given their definition and goals, differs from
that of à Brakel’s contemporaries as well as other theories regarding
virtues. Secondly, à Brakel brings a much needed balance in areas like
objective truth versus subjective experience, sin versus worthy ideals,
high standards versus man’s limitations, and inwardness versus out-
wardness. Third, à Brakel is holistic in providing detailed suggestions
that help to cultivate virtues. These suggestions address the intellect,
the will, the actions, and the affections, and are, therefore, effective
in guiding people towards spiritual growth and well-being. Lastly,
though à Brakel is definitely aware of spiritual problems and issues of
the flesh that people need to mortify, he approaches this in a unique
way, focusing on the desirability and necessity of godly virtues.
à Brakel’s writings, therefore, do not only have a diagnostic effect
in describing what is wrong, but they are theologically ideological
and teleological in holding out a vision of the beauty of a life lived in
service of God. Furthermore, believers are not only left with a high
ideal, but à Brakel provides compassionate and practical guidance for
83. Especially those that indicate a certain state of the heart or a certain attitude in
life towards God and others, rather than those that are more specific and rule-oriented.
84. These discussions might be even more detailed by providing biological, so-
ciohistorical, and other factors that might be of importance to the virtue.
85. This could result in one of the most comprehensive diagnostic and treatment
manuals ever, which could be used by professionals as well as by everyday Christians.
those who seek to grow in their journey of faith and well-being. As

such, à Brakel’s spirituality of virtues is of great value to Christian
soul care. It can be used “as is,” but there is great potential for even
greater effectiveness when his work is developed in more specific
ways for Christian soul care. The CRS with its spirituality of virtues
is a treasure for all who want to live their lives in the service of God.
Contemporary and Cultural Issues
q
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 307–315
Rediscovering the Laity: The Reformation

in the Pew and in the Classroom1
Joel R. Beeke
q
Read 2 Timothy 3:1– 4:51

The Reformation revived the role of the laity. Prior to the Reforma-
tion, church members were reduced to an audience watching a priest
do a mass and listening to choirs of monks sing in Latin. But the
Reformation revived the priesthood of the laity as commanded in
the Scriptures. Peasants learned from the gospel to draw near to the
holy God through faith in Christ’s blood and intercession. Soldiers
and printers participated in worship by singing the Scriptures back
to God. Bakers, carpenters, and milkmaids took up their work as
sacred ministries through which they served God according to His
Word. None of this undermined the pastoral ministry but exalted it
as spreading the Word to equip the saints.
The Reformers dreamed of Word- and Spirit-filled men, women,
and children of all social and educational levels. William Tyndale
devoted himself to translating the Scriptures into the vernacular of
the English people. Tyndale once told a priest, “If God spare my life,
ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to
know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.” His dream came true
as his translation paved the way for every parish church in England
to offer an English Bible to all of its members. Tyndale paid for that
Bible with his life.2
1. This article was delivered as a paper for the first North American Confer-
ence of REFO500, held at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,
Kentucky, on September 28, 2010.
2. John D. Woodbridge, ed., Great Leaders of the Christian Church (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1988), 202–203, 205.
I praise God that the Holy Spirit is stirring a renewed interest

in the Reformation today. This, then, is the topic before us now:
“Rediscovering the Laity: The Reformation in the Pew and in the
Classroom.” The question we must answer is: How may we bring
the Reformation to people in the pews today?
Our rule for reformation, as well as for all matters of faith and
obedience, is the Holy Scriptures. In 2 Timothy, the apostle Paul
warns his young friend, Timothy, of present and future perils that
besiege the church. False teachers are already spreading errors like
a deadly disease among believers (2 Tim. 2:16 –18; 3:6 –9; 4:3). The
church is swimming in a rising tide of wickedness (3:1– 4). And peo-
ple are embracing external religion without true spirituality, “having
a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (3:5). Such peo-
ple have no appetite for sound doctrine but seek teachers who will
scratch them where they itch (4:3 – 4). How should Christian leaders
respond to these problems in the church? Let us examine three sug-
gestions Paul offers in 2 Timothy 3 and 4.
Remember the Fathers of the Church

We read in 2 Timothy 3:10 –11: “But thou hast fully known my doc-
trine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,
persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Ico-
nium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all
the Lord delivered me.” In this passage, Paul is urging Timothy to
remember the Christ-shaped pattern in Paul. Paul is not boasting of
his own merits but reminding Timothy of how God uses one part of
the Body to strengthen the rest. Paul is a spiritual father to Timothy,
so Timothy is called to meditate on his example and teachings.
This principle is expanded in Hebrews 13:7– 8, which says,
“Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken
unto you the word of God: whose faith follows, considering the end
of their conversation. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today,
and forever.” Christ shines in the conversation of the church fathers,
that is, in their lives. Remembering the fathers was a conviction of
the Reformers, who sought to return to the biblical, Christ-centered
simplicity of the church fathers. How should we introduce the laity
to the fathers of the Reformation?
Rediscovering the Laity 309
Teach Them about the Reformers

Whenever you preach or teach, speak to the church about the
Reformers, great and small. Do not offer an academic lecture on
these fathers; tell their stories. Summarize their teachings in contem-
porary language. Beware of using long quotes in outdated language.
Help people to see Christ in these men and in their teachings.
Take advantage of historic dates to do this. For example, October
31 is the date on which Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses
to the Wittenberg church door. I use this date as an opportunity to
preach on the life of a Reformer or principles of the Reformation,
grounding it in a scriptural text that best exemplifies God’s work of
grace. For example, I have preached about God’s grace in the lives of
Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, and
William Tyndale.
You might also offer a class for adults on Reformed doctrine. I
taught a class of about two hundred people over a period of five years,
moving from prolegomena to eschatology, covering the whole field
of systematic theology from a Reformed perspective. 3 I was amazed
at how eager people were to learn.
Encourage People to Read about the Reformers

Introduce believers to great Christian leaders through books about
the Reformers. For example, Reformation Heritage Books is pub-
lishing a series of books titled Profiles in Reformed Spirituality. Each
book profiles a significant Reformed leader, such as John Calvin,
George Swinnock, Thomas Goodwin, or Jonathan Edwards. After a
brief sketch of each man’s life and spirituality, each book offers selec-
tions of the person’s writings or letters. The books offer easy-to-read,
devotional writing broken into selections that are only a few pages
long. Hopefully, these short books will encourage people to go on to
read larger works written by the Reformers and Puritans themselves.
People welcome such books if they are hungry for the Word. For
example, a pastor received a free copy of John Calvin: A Heart for Devo-
tion, Doctrine, & Doxology, edited by Burk Parsons. The pastor gave it
to a factory worker who had a love for Christ. The factory worker
later brought the book to his Bible study group to share with others.
3. The workbook used for the class is now published as Bible Doctrine Student
Workbook (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 1993).
If you are a pastor, you might encourage your congregation to

read the works of Reformers or books about them. I did that for
years when I taught a mid-week adult class. I would suggest some
material on the life of a Reformer or Puritan, then invite people to
sign up to buy a book or two. Often I sold up to two hundred copies
of a particular book to our local church. I followed up these sales by
talking to the people about these books when I came to their homes
for a pastoral visit.
Promote God Glorifying Websites on the Reformation

The worldwide web has revolutionized the way we receive infor-
mation. We should not reject the internet, but we do need great
discernment in mining the valuable things found on it. Promote a
wide range of useful websites among your congregants. Directory
sites like Google Books, Monergism, A Puritan’s Mind, Christian
Classics Ethereal Library, Puritan Library, and many more can be
useful for devotional and/or theological study. There are tens of thou-
sands of articles, journals, magazines, and books available at these
sites. YouTube can be used, with a lot of caution, to view videos,
debates, forums, or brief biographies about Reformation people and
theology. Blogs such as Desiring God ( John Piper), Between Two
Worlds ( Justin Taylor), reformation21 (Derek Thomas), the Heidel-
blog (R. Scott Clark), along with hundreds more from churches and
other ministries, can be utilized to better understand how and where
the Lord is promoting the Reformed faith throughout the world.
iTunes continues to shape the way we receive audio output;
iTunes-U offers lectures from many universities, including several
Reformed universities, with free downloads for laypeople to listen
and learn from. Puritan Theological Seminary has a vast collection
of their classes online that can be listened to via mp3s. Facebook
offers users opportunities to plug into different groups from their
favorite Reformed authors, to publishing companies, to their favorite
Reformed or Puritan theologians, where they are socially connected
with like-minded people throughout the world. Promote good and
God-glorifying uses of the internet among your people.
Instruct Children in the Church

Second Timothy 3:15 says, “And that from a child thou hast known
the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Instructing little ones in the

Scriptures lays a foundation for reformation in troubled times.
Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, says
Hebrews 3:1. No seminary professor or author or pastor has had a
higher calling than our Lord. Yet, contrary to the culture of His day,
Jesus invited small children to come to Him (Matt. 19:13–15). He
gave them His precious time. Should not we also serve our children?
Use the Catechisms

In his preface to the Catechism of the Church of Geneva (1545),
John Calvin writes, “It has always been a matter which the Church
has held in singular commendation, to see that little children should
be instructed in Christian doctrine.” His catechism begins by stating,
“What is the chief end of human life? To know God. Why do you say
that? Because He created us and placed us in this world to be glori-
fied in us.... What is the sovereign good [or chief happiness] of man?
The same thing.”4
Churches of the Reformation produced many beautiful cat-
echisms for the church. Find a catechism that reflects the richest
biblical truths of your theological stream and teach it to your chil-
dren. Turn off the TV, let the computer hibernate, and teach the
catechism. Be creative when you do so. Jim Scott Orrick composed
The Baptist Catechism Set to Music so that preschoolers can sing by
heart such truths as, “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchange-
able, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and
truth.” Music is a wonderful way to catechize children.
Promote the Writing of Sound Books for Children

R. C. Sproul has written several gripping children’s books, some of
which are now available as audio books. For example, The King with-
out a Shadow is a delightful tale about a king and a little boy who
are both learning about God. He also wrote The Prince’s Poison Cup,
a moving parable for children about substitutionary atonement.
4. James T. Dennison, Jr., ed., Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries
in English Translation: Volume I, 1523–1552 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage
Books, 2008), 468. Where the French reads, “the sovereign good” (le souverain bien),
the Latin reads summum bonum. An old English translation renders it, “the chief fe-
licitie.” Benjamin. B. Warfield, The Westminster Assembly and Its Work (Grand Rapids:
Baker Book House, 1991), 382.
Christian Focus Publications has published many short biographies

on Christians, such as Robert Murray M‘Cheyne, written by Irene
Howat. What a joy it is to introduce such a godly man to a grade-
school child!
Check out Sinclair Ferguson’s efforts in writing books on
Reformed truth for children, such as Big Book of Bible Truths, Books 1
and 2; The Plan: How God got the world ready for Jesus; and Jesus Teaches
Us How to Pray. Or read James W. Beeke’s seven-volume series on
Reformed Theology, which includes Bible Doctrine for Younger Chil-
dren, Books A and B (for Grades 4 –5), Bible Doctrine for Older Children,
Books A and B (for Grades 6 –7), and Bible Doctrine for Teens and Young
Adults, Books 1–3. Teacher workbooks are provided for this unique
set of books.
Reformation Heritage Books offers a coffee-table style book that
is beautifully illustrated for children ten years old and up, titled Ref-
ormation Heroes, which presents illustrated stories of forty Reformers.
The goal of this book is to teach young people about real Reformation
heroes rather than Hollywood or sport heroes. It is also suitable for
use in Christian schools or home education. Many adults are reading
the book to learn more about men such as Henry Bullinger, Peter
Martyr Vermigli, and Martin Bucer. The book offers a detailed bibli-
ography on each hero in the back of the book to help people who wish
to read more about the Reformers.
Reformation Heritage Books is also working with Simonetta
Carr to produce a series of books about John Calvin, John Owen,
and other Reformers. The series is for children, ages seven through
ten, and includes many beautiful illustrations.
Preach the Scriptures to the Church

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 – 4:2, “All scripture is given by inspira-
tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect,
thoroughly furnished unto all good works. I charge thee therefore
before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick
and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word;
be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all
longsuffering and doctrine.”
The Bible is the key to the sixteenth-century Reformation and to
reformation in the church today. More and more the church seems
to be moving back to its pre-Reformation condition. The royal

priesthood of the laity is being reduced to observation rather than
participation. Biblical ignorance abounds. The church needs men
who will preach the Word as the Reformers did centuries ago.
Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 3:15 that Scripture is the means
through which we must preach Christ. We need preachers who will
powerfully and winsomely set forth Christ’s beauties and fullness of
grace as our Prophet, Priest, and King. Nothing will move Christ’s
people further towards biblical reformation than helping them taste
the sovereign sweetness of their Savior. Expository, doctrinal, expe-
riential preaching on God’s Word is the greatest means for biblical
reformation and spiritual revival.
Promote Books That Preach the Bible

Some of the best books of all time are compilations of sermons. Wil-
helmus à Brakel, a Dutch pastor and theologian, wrote:
[The preacher’s] life generally is of short duration, during which
his preaching reaches but a few and he himself is consumed
while illuminating others.... God has wonderfully compensated
for both the brevity of the minister’s life as well as the lim-
ited scope of his audience, by having given man the wisdom
to become acquainted with the art of printing.... Now a single
minister, even centuries after his death, is capable of preaching
to an entire nation, yes, even to the entire world.5
Brakel’s great work is still preaching the Bible more than three hundred
years after he wrote it. How can we measure the value of such Bible-
saturated books and their usefulness in the hands of the Holy Spirit?
A truck driver was asked to teach a Sunday school class on the
topic of sanctification. He noticed a book in the church library titled
The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, written by Walter Marshall, a
Puritan, and put into modern language. The truck driver’s Sunday
school class was treated to a wonderfully sweet exploration of our
union with Jesus Christ, who is our sanctification.
5. Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, trans. Bartel Elshout,

ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 1999), 1:cxiv.
Sing Songs That Preach the Bible

One of the most powerful means to train laypeople in biblical truth is
through singing. Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your
hearts to the Lord.” Poorly chosen songs in worship will negatively
impact the theology of the laity, no matter how good the preaching
is. But solid, biblical worship fortified by Scripture-based singing can
enrich biblical faith and godliness for many generations.
Sing the Scriptures; what better way is there to bring reforma-
tion to the heart? Sing the Psalms. God did not give us the Book of
Psalms just to study them. Psalms are to be sung! Much of the Ref-
ormation revolved around worship, and Reformed worship revolves
around the Psalms. Calvin said,
That which St. Augustine has said is true, that no one is able to
sing things worthy of God except that which he has received
from him. Therefore, when we have looked thoroughly, and
searched here and there, we shall not find better songs nor
more fitting for the purpose, than the Psalms of David, which
the Holy Spirit spoke and made through him. And moreover,
when we sing them, we are certain that God puts in our mouths
these, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory.6
If you want children to memorize Scriptures, why not teach them to
sing Bible passages? Many CDs have been made of Bible songs. So
urge parents to sing the Scriptures in their family devotions and at
the bedsides of their beloved children. If you teach someone to sing
the Bible, they will remember God’s Word every time they hear or
sing verses of the Word of God set to music.
So, to reform the laity, teach them to remember the fathers of the
church. Teach the children in the church. And preach the Scriptures
to the church. Preach God’s Word with your mouth, with books, and
with spiritual songs. Preach the Word.
6. John Calvin, “Preface” to the Genevan Psalter, quoted by W. Robert Godfrey

in The Worship of God (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2005), 45.
Conclusion: Prayerful Patience in Reformation

Two words in 2 Timothy 4:2 are a fitting conclusion to this teaching
on reforming the laity. Those words are “all longsuffering.” Patience
is a key element in the education of the laity. In 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25
Paul exhorts Timothy, “The servant of the Lord must not strive; but
be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them
repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.”
Do not rush at the laity with Reformation truth to trample them
underfoot. Impatience will discredit our ministry, for it savors of pride
rather than the meekness of Christ. Reformation is a spiritual work,
requiring God’s supernatural gifts of enlightenment and repentance.
It summons us to labor on our knees, praying for laypeople. If only
God can bring reformation, then men of prayer are true reformers.
But reformation also summons us to be patient, for God works
in His time. Luther did not quickly learn to say, “Doctrine is heaven.”
He learned it by living the truths of Scripture. He learned it through
meditation, affliction, and prayer. We, too, must not expect our
churches to become thoroughly reformed overnight.
We should also be wary of forcing people into a mold. We are
to be the mouth of Jesus Christ whereby the sheep hear the voice
of their Shepherd calling them forward. This is indeed a work of
long-suffering. This work takes a long time, and may mean suffering
along the way. It may even cost us our lives, as it did with William
Tyndale. But in our suffering we can show the laity the love of the
Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for the sheep.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 316–327
Principles of Sabbath-Keeping:
Jesus and Westminster1
ryan m. mcgraw
q
Not all corrective lenses help all people see clearly. A prescription that
helps one person see may blur the vision of another person. The truths
of Scripture are similar in some respects. Biblical truths do not change
regardless of whether people understand them properly or not, yet one
person may come to understand what the Scriptures say on a subject
through one set of arguments, while another person finds an entirely
different set of arguments convincing. Isaiah 58:13 –14 is all that is
needed to convince some people that “the Sabbath is to be sanctified
by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and
recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time
in the public and private exercises of God’s worship, except so much as
is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy” (Westminster
Shorter Catechism, Q. 60 – 61). However, even though some do not
believe that the Catechism’s answer reflects a proper interpretation of
Isaiah 58 (which is perhaps the locus classicus of debates over Sabbath
keeping), it is possible to come to the same conclusion regarding the
purpose of the Sabbath from other biblical principles.1
The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the princi-
ples of Sabbath keeping set forth in the Westminster Standards are
demanded by the principles upon which Jesus and His apostles inter-
preted and applied the Law of God. These principles demonstrate
that the entire Sabbath should be set apart for the purposes of public
and private worship in thought, word, and deed. The general char-
acteristics of the Law of God combined with the New Testament
1. Most of this material has been adapted from chapter 7 of my The Day of Wor-
ship: Reassessing the Christian Life in Light of the Sabbath (Grand Rapids: Reformation
Heritage Books, forthcoming 2011).
Principles of Sabbath-Keeping 317
application of the sixth commandment will serve as a “template” for

how to apply the fourth commandment. This approach to establish-
ing biblical principles of Sabbath keeping will help bring clarity to
the issue by placing it within the broader context of the biblical and
Reformed model of the relationship the attitude that those who love
the Lord Jesus Christ should have towards the Law of God.2
Biblical Rules for Interpreting the Law

General Considerations
There are both general and specific considerations that are important
in order to interpret the Law of God properly.3 Generally speaking,
the Law of God is a reflection of the character of God Himself. The
Law is holy, just, and good (Rom. 7:12). It is a mirror that reveals the
glory of God and of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the righteous require-
ment of the Law on behalf of His people (Rom. 8:3 – 4). When we sin
against the Law, we do not sin against an impersonal list of abstract
principles, but we sin personally against God Himself by violating
the reflection of His own holy character. Thus loving the Law of
God and loving God are inseparable. This is a vital point because it
means that the moral Law is an eternal and immutable standard. Most
people do not realize that they are sinners and that their carnal or
unconverted minds are at enmity with God (Rom. 8:7) until they are
confronted with the Law of God.4 To despise God’s Law is to despise
God. Moreover, Jesus Christ was born of a woman and made under
2. Some of the most helpful recent works on Sabbath keeping are Robert L.
Reymond, “Lord’s Day Observance,” in Contending for the Faith: Lines in the Sand that
Strengthen the Church (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 2005), 165– 86; Joseph A. Pipa,
The Lord’s Day (Ross-shire: Christian Focus, 1997); Iain D. Campbell, On the First
Day of the Week: God, the Christian, and the Sabbath (Leominster: Day One, 2005);
and Rowland S. Ward, “The Lord’s Day and the Westminster Confession,” in ed.
Anthony T. Selvagio, The Faith Once Delivered: Essays in Honor of Wayne R. Spear
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2007).
3. For an excellent treatment of the interpretation of the Law, see the introduc-
tory chapters of William S. Plumer, The Law of God (reprint, Harrisonburg, Va.:
Sprinkle, 1996). I am greatly indebted to the Larger Catechism, Q. 99, throughout
this article.
4. Jonathan Edwards wrote: “The strictness of God’s law is a principle cause
of man’s enmity against him.” Jonathan Edwards, “Men Naturally God’s Enemies,”
in The Works of Jonathan Edwards (reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust,
1997), 2:133.
the Law so that He might redeem those who were under the curse of
the Law (Gal. 4:4 –5). Therefore, the Law is not only a reflection of
the character of the God who is the Creator, but it is a reflection of the
God who took on human flesh and obeyed the Law on behalf of His
chosen people. As Walter Chantry observed, “The life of our Lord
Jesus Christ was the first biographical inscription of the Moral Law.”5
Those who love God because Christ first loved them and gave Him-
self for them cannot help but love His Law because the Law bears the
imprint and image of the God and Savior whom they love.
The fact that the Law is a reflection of the character of God also
means that it is as perfect as the Lord of the Law (Ps. 19:7). God
demands allegiance from man in every respect: in body, in soul, and
in all of his faculties. There is no aspect of life — whether outward
actions; words; gestures; or “the understanding, will, affections, and
all other powers of the soul” (Larger Catechism, Q. 99.2) — that the
Law of God does not address. This is why the Psalmist, meditating
on the nature of the Law of God, wrote, “I have seen an end of all
perfection: but thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Ps. 119:96).
No one shall ever be able to say in this life that they have ceased
from sin (1 Kings 8:46; Prov. 20:9; Eccl. 7:20; 1 John 1:8–10). This
applies even to those who have been redeemed from the power of sin
by Jesus Christ. Until believers enter into the presence of the Lord
in heaven, the holy and perfect Law of God is the path that has been
paved for them to express their love to God through Jesus Christ.
God has no other standard than His own holy character, which is
reflected by His Law. The rule for God’s children is that they must
be imitators of God (Eph. 5:1). Although they are neither condemned
nor justified by the Law, and though they keep it imperfectly, they, by
definition, delight in the Law of God according to the inward man
(Rom. 7:22). Additionally, because Christ has taken away the con-
demnation of the Law, the Law of God is the “perfect Law of liberty”
( James 1:25) and has become “the Law of Christ” (Rom. 3:30).
A Specific Example
In general, the commandments of God reflect the character of the
God who gave them, and the obedience demanded by those com-
5. Walter Chantry, God’s Righteous Kingdom (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth

Trust, 1980), 78.
mandments reaches man’s inmost being as well as all of his actions.

This has important implications for understanding and applying
each commandment in particular. The best place to learn how to
understand and apply the commandments of God is from the teach-
ing and example of Jesus Christ and His apostles. Jesus Christ has
given a useful pattern for interpreting and applying the Ten Com-
mandments in His exposition of the sixth commandment, which is,
“Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13).6 Each commandment is designed
to serve as a “subject heading” or category, [t]hat,” as the Westmin-
ster Larger Catechism summarizes, “under one sin or duty, all of the
same kind are forbidden or commanded; together with all the causes,
means, occasions, and appearances thereof, and provocations there-
unto” (Q. 99.6). For this reason, Jesus contradicted the traditional
Jewish interpretation of the sixth commandment, which relegated its
observance to the outward act of murder (Matt. 5:21). Jesus added
several qualifications, demonstrating that the meaning of the Law of
God stretched far beyond the common understanding of His Jewish
contemporaries. First, He demonstrated that this commandment for-
bade unjustified anger in the heart just as much as murder with the
hand: “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother
without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment” (v. 22). Not only
does God take seriously the breach of the sixth commandment in the
heart, but He regards our speech in this commandment, for, as Jesus
added, “whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger
of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger
of hell fire” (v. 22b).
The significance of the next scenario to which Jesus applied the
sixth commandment may not be immediately apparent. In verses
23 –24, He said, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave
there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy
brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” The word “therefore” not
only demonstrates that these verses are connected with the preceding
6. Since my purpose in this article is not to give a full defense of the Reformed
view of the Law but simply to establish principles that should be used in interpret-
ing and applying the fourth commandment, space does not permit a full defense of
these principles. For the most part, I am only able to identity and describe them. For
a detailed and powerful exposition of the principles set forth here, see John Murray,
Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 157–67.
teaching about the sixth commandment, but that they are legitimately
concluded from that teaching.7 In other words, reconciliation with a
brother is a necessary part of keeping the sixth commandment. What
is in view here is a man going to the temple with his gift in order to
worship God. At the very foot of the altar, he remembers that he has
a brother who is holding something against him. Reconciliation with
his brother is so urgent that the man must temporarily delay worship
in order to be reconciled to his brother first. The text does not say
whether or not the complaint of the brother is legitimate; apparently
it does not matter. The truth implied in these verses is that the sixth
commandment demands appropriate actions towards others when
they violate the commandment. Jesus did not teach anything new
or surprising here. This concern had already been expressed in the
Old Testament: “If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto
death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, Behold, we
knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he
that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to
every man according to his works?” (Prov. 24:11–12). This example
reveals an important key to understanding the commandment: it is
not good enough to be concerned with keeping the commandments
of God without respect to how one’s neighbor keeps it. The negative
commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” implies a positive requirement
to preserve the lives of others, and to do all that is in one’s power to
prevent anything that may cause them harm.
Building upon these principles, the Westminster Shorter Catechism
summarizes the teaching of Scripture on the sixth commandment
by stating that this commandment requires “all lawful endeavors to
preserve our own life, and the life of others,” and that it forbids “the
taking away of our own life, or the life of our neighbor unjustly, or
whatsoever tendeth thereunto” (Q. 68 – 69). Those who are tempted
to object that this conclusion stretches the intent of the command-
ment must recognize that Jesus Christ expected His contemporaries
to apply the Law in light of similar principles. Outward acts of mur-
der are the highest expression of violating the sixth commandment.
Unjustified anger is murder in the heart because it is out of the heart
that murders, adulteries, and other abominable crimes proceed (Matt.
15:19). Malicious speech harms a neighbor and belongs to the same
7. Ibid., 162.
genre of crimes. That the positive duty of the commandment is to

pursue the things that tend to preserve the lives of others is reflected
by the fact that believers must seek to remove all participation in the
sins of others against the sixth commandment, even when it involves
sins of the heart. James went so far as to accuse some of violating the
sixth commandment by showing favoritism to the rich and despising
the poor ( James 2:5–13). These are only a few examples of how peo-
ple may keep or break one commandment of God in varying degrees.
Truly, the commandments are exceedingly broad! Jesus’ use of the
sixth commandment treats the Ten Commandments as a system of
classification, under which every application of the Law of God should
be placed. As Calvin noted, “In each commandment we must inves-
tigate what it is concerned with; then we must seek out its purpose.”8
Plugging the Fourth Commandment into the Equation

If Jesus and His inspired apostles serve as a model for how the Law
of God should be interpreted and applied (and if the church cannot
appeal to their example, to what example can she appeal?), the fourth
commandment must be understood and applied in a manner that is
in harmony with this model. First, the Sabbath is both positive and
negative in scope; it contains requirements as well as prohibitions.
Second, the Sabbath must be observed and can be broken by outward
actions in respect to both requirements and prohibitions. Third, the
Sabbath must be observed and can be broken in the heart. Fourth,
the Sabbath must be observed and can be broken through speech.
Fifth, the Sabbath must be observed and can be broken by actions
towards and relationships with other people. If the first two of these
categories are combined, then the principles of biblical Sabbath keep-
ing can be summarized under four headings.
What are the Basic Commands and Prohibitions of the Fourth Commandment?
The first thing to observe about the fourth commandment is that
keeping it is primarily concerned with direct acts of love towards
God. It is not that the first four commandments of the Law have
nothing to do with man’s relation to his neighbors, but rather that
these four commandments deal most directly with man’s relationship
8. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, ed.
John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 2.8.8.
with God. No one can keep the Sabbath, therefore, unless he loves
God through Jesus Christ. Only then can he exercise that love by
keeping the Sabbath accordingly. This is not the same thing as simply
acknowledging God in thoughts and prayers while engaging in the
daily business of life; in that sense, the saints can love God by lov-
ing their neighbors and by going to work. As John Murray astutely
observed, “While it is true that we ought to serve the Lord every
day and in all things we must not forget that there are different ways
of serving God. We do not serve him by doing the same thing all
the time. If we do that, we are either insane or notoriously perverse.
There is a great variety in human vocation. If we neglect to observe
that variation, we shall soon pay the cost.”9 The first four command-
ments address the love that people must have for God Himself,
which is the foundation of their relationship to anyone or anything
else in the world. This is brought out clearly by what is required in
the fourth commandment.
It has become common to treat cessation from labor or rest as the
positive and summary requirement of the fourth commandment.10
However, “in it thou shalt not do any work,” is the prohibition of
the fourth commandment rather than requirement. The positive and
summary requirement is to “[r]emember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy.” For this reason, Robert L. Reymond has observed, “‘Rest’
cannot mean mere cessation from labor, much less recovery from
fatigue.... ‘Rest’ then means involvement in new, in the sense of dif-
ferent, activity. It means cessation of the labor of the six days and the
taking up of different labors appropriate to the Lord’s Day. What
these labors of the Sabbath rest are is circumscribed by the accom-
panying phrase, ‘of the Lord.’ They certainly include both corporate
and private acts of worship and the contemplation of the glory of
God.”11 Just as dedicating an object or person as holy to the Lord set
apart that object or person exclusively for the worship of God, so the
Sabbath, as a holy day, must be set apart for the purposes of wor-
9. John Murray, “The Sabbath Institution,” in The Collected Writings of John Mur-
ray (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 1: 209.
10. For example, see Robert Vasholz, Leviticus: A Mentor Commentary (Ross-
shire, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2007), 284, n. 4, who wrote: “The sole goal of the
weekly Sabbath is rest.”
11. Reymond, Contending for the Faith, 181.
ship.12 “In it thou shalt not do any work,” is a prohibition added by

God as a necessary prerequisite to keeping the day holy. No one can
love someone else unless he first stops hating him in his heart. Simi-
larly, no one is able to keep the Sabbath until he ceases from ordinary
labor. Thomas Shepard, who founded Harvard University, wrote,
The word Sabbath properly signifies, not common, but sacred
or holy rest. The Lord, therefore, enjoins this rest from labor
upon this day, not so much for the rest’s sake, but because it is
a medium, or means of that holiness which the Lord requires
upon this day; otherwise the Sabbath is a day of idleness, not of
holiness; our cattle rest but a common rest from labor as well
as we; and therefore it is man’s sin and shame if he improve the
day no better than the beasts that perish.13
The word order in the title of John Owen’s work on the Sabbath
reflects this in a significant manner. The abbreviated title is “A Day
of Sacred Rest,” as opposed to “A Sacred Day of Rest.”14 The Sabbath
is not a sacred day that is observed by resting; it is a day on which the
characteristics or quality of the rest is sacred.
Any interpretation of the fourth commandment that makes ces-
sation from labor the sum and substance of the commandment is
not in harmony with Jesus’ manner of applying the Decalogue. No
commandment of God contains a prohibition only. If a require-
ment is not stated in any commandment, it is always implied. Those
who interpret the fourth commandment purely in terms of avoid-
ing weekly employments end up with only a mutilated half-Sabbath;
they are like a man who clears land to prepare to build a house and
thinks that his work is done without laying the foundation. The out-
ward actions required by the fourth commandment are attending the
public and private exercises of God’s worship. People cannot keep the
Sabbath unless they “keep it holy.” The positive requirements of the
Ten Commandments must always govern the church’s understand-
12. See chapter 1 of my Sabbath Keeping. Contra Jay E. Adams, Keeping the Sab-
bath Today? (Stanley, N.C.: Timeless Texts, 2008), 89, 91. See Vasholz, Leviticus,
278–81 for a useful treatment of holiness.
13. Thomas Shepard, Theses Sabbaticae (1649; reprint, Dahlonega, Ga.: Crown
Rights Book Company, 2002), 254.
14. John Owen, A Day of Sacred Rest, in, An Exposition to the Epistle to the Hebrews
(reprint, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 2:263– 460. This is an out-
standing and powerfully argued work that has not been outdated.
ing of the prohibitions, not vice versa. The only reason why labor, or
any activity, is prohibited on the Sabbath day is because it contradicts
the positive purposes of the day. Labor is the greatest example of
what is prohibited in the fourth commandment, but labor is not the
only example. The command to keep the Sabbath day holy excludes
“worldly recreations” as much as “worldly employments” because the
holiness of the day does not consist in recreations. This does not
mean that recreation cannot be “holy” on other days in the broad
sense of the term, but the holiness required in keeping the Sabbath
requires setting the day apart from common uses to holy uses. If
we must observe a prohibition and a requirement in the sixth com-
mandment, then we must observe a prohibition and a requirement
in the fourth commandment. “Rest” and cessation from labor are
synonymous expressions. If we rest on the Sabbath day, then we have
obeyed part of the prohibition of the commandment, but how do we
“keep it holy?”
How Should Christians Observe the Fourth Commandment in their Hearts?

Just as the sixth commandment is violated by unjustified anger in the
heart, so the Sabbath can be violated in the heart. It must be sancti-
fied in the heart by calling the Sabbath a delight (Isa. 58:13) through
loving the day and the activities of the day. For a believer, the highest
delight of the Sabbath should be celebrating the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who inaugurated the New Testament Sabbath on
the day He rose from the dead. What is more conducive to worship
and joy? If the duties of the day become a burden, we are guilty of
Sabbath breaking. The Israelites committed this sin in the days of
the prophet Amos. They said, “When will the new moon be gone,
that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat?”
(Amos 8:5). If we cannot wait for the Sabbath to be over in anticipa-
tion of any activities that we prefer, then we are violating the Sabbath
day. Should believers not love the one day that is specially designed
for worshiping their God and Redeemer?
Sadly, few people are willing to give much attention to the dis-
position of the heart in keeping the Sabbath. But if our hearts do not
rest upon the glory of God and His worship, then the praise of our
mouths on the Lord’s Day has become forced hypocrisy. Like the
depiction of the “worshiping” Jews in the last book of the Old Tes-
tament, we effectually say, “O what a weariness!” (Mal. 1:13). Even
from the standpoint of ceasing from weekly labors, can we genuinely

say that we are resting from our labor when we do so with our bodies
only on the Sabbath, but not with our hearts? If we must keep the
sixth commandment in our hearts, then we must keep the fourth
commandment in our hearts.
How Should Christians Observe the Fourth Commandment in their Speech?

The Sabbath must be kept in word as well as in the heart and in
outward actions. The more God’s people grow to love the Sabbath
day and its purposes, the more naturally this will come to them. If
believers occupy their time with the worship of God in the corpo-
rate assembly, in the family, and in private, as well as with edifying
conversation with God’s people, their speech will correspond to what
is in their hearts. They rejoice in their hearts that they have nothing
else to concern them on the Lord’s Day! Our speech often betrays
us. If we attend church, enjoying fellowship with our brethren in
Christ, but speak predominantly about what is happening at the office
or about our favorite sporting events, how can our hearts be in our
Sabbath keeping? If a Christian’s body is where it should be on the
Sabbath, but his mind and mouth travel abroad, his bodily presence is
more like that of a corpse than of a living, worshipping soul. On the
contrary, the speech of God’s people on the Sabbath should be filled
with the glories of their God and His worship.
Some things that are lawful and appropriate topics of conversation
on other days of the week become signs of apathy and disregard for
God’s glorious presence on the Lord’s Day. If spiritual conversation
proves difficult even for genuine Christians, the Sabbath is the best
occasion for them to grow in this area. If you object that you struggle
with material for conversation, then consider what materials you have
to glean from the preaching of the Word in corporate worship. Is it
not part of our calling as believers to seek the profit of others in all
that we say and do? If we must keep the sixth commandment in our
speech, then we must keep the fourth commandment in our speech.
How Does our Sabbath Keeping Relate to Other People?

In what respect must God’s people exercise care and concern for oth-
ers in their Sabbath keeping? If all people must keep the Sabbath,
they must not encourage their neighbors to violate the Sabbath.15

According to Jesus, if a brother has something against you, you must
do all that is in your power to be reconciled to him so that neither
of you are guilty of violating the commandment not to murder. In
a similar manner, if your neighbor is working on the Sabbath, then
the least you can do out of love to his soul is to avoid giving him
business to be done on the Sabbath. If you hire others to break the
commandments of God for you, you have still broken them; if you
hire someone to kill another person, you are guilty of murder; if you
hire someone to steal something, you are guilty of theft; if you bribe
someone to act as a false witness in a courtroom, you are guilty of
perjury. This principle of keeping the law in relation to others is not
required by Scripture alone; even the laws of modern secular society
recognize that this is a necessary moral implication of law. Is it not
strange when the church does not apply this to Sabbath keeping? Is
it not strange when Christians do not hesitate to hire pilots, or wait-
ers, or cashiers to break the Sabbath for their convenience? Can we
in good conscience invite these people to attend church to hear the
gospel when perhaps we have skipped worship in order to hire them
to help us travel that day, or when we rush from worship in order
to beat the line at the lunch buffet? Can we call them to repentance
and to sincere faith in Jesus Christ while we are in the act of hir-
ing them to break one of the King’s laws? If we must keep the sixth
commandment in relation to others, then we must keep the fourth
commandment in relation to others.
Summary Observations
The pattern that the Son of God has provided in order to interpret
the commandments of God demands that the Sabbath requires much
more than cessation from labor. Too often, the fourth command-
ment has been interpreted in such a manner that it can be kept in
perfection with relative ease. Is it not easy to think of the fourth com-
mandment with regard to outward actions only, with little regard to
keeping the day holy in heart, speech, and with respect to others? Yet
this is the very problem Jesus was confronting when he expounded
the sixth commandment in the Sermon on the Mount. Any interpre-
15. There is an excellent example of this in Nehemiah 13, which I have treated
at greater length in chapter 1 of my Sabbath Keeping.
tation of any of the commandments of God that gives the impression

that it is possible for sinners to keep them is suspect at best. It has
become common in Reformed churches to interpret the fourth com-
mandment in a manner that is out of accord with the way in which
all of the rest of the commandments have been interpreted.
In light of Jesus’ principles of interpreting and applying the Law
of God, believers must come to terms with several questions. If
you say that the prohibition is, “You shall do no work,” and that the
requirement is, “rest,” then what kind of “rest” does God require?
It cannot be inactivity, so what does it mean to keep the Sabbath
holy? If you do not break or keep the Sabbath by thoughts about
your employments and recreations, then how else can you apply this
commandment to your thoughts? If you cannot break the Sabbath by
speaking about labor and recreation, then how is it possible to break
it in speech at all? Yet if you do not speak about these things, then
which subjects of conversation do you replace them with? If you do
not believe it is a sin to support the labor of others on the Sabbath
day, then how does your Sabbath keeping relate to your neighbor?
These are questions that we must come to terms with. Unless other
viable answers are supplied from Scripture, what better conclusion is
there than this: “The Sabbath is to be sanctified by an holy resting all
that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are
lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in the public and
private exercises of God’s worship, except so far as is to be taken up
in works of necessity and mercy,” as well as by avoiding “unneces-
sary thoughts, words, or works about our worldly employments or
recreations”? (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 60–61). Can this
conclusion be averted without implying that Jesus misinterpreted the
sixth commandment? May the church reassess how she interprets
and lives according to the Law of God, and may she love the Law out
of love to her Savior.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 328–338
Serious Preaching in a Comedy Culture

David P. Murray
q
Since coming to North America, I’ve preached in a number of dif-

ferent churches. A few times I’ve been taken aback by laughter in
response to something I’ve said in my sermon. The first time it hap-
pened, I froze on the spot. I could hardly go on. I was stunned. In
Scotland, I never cracked a joke in the pulpit; it would not even cross
my mind to try to make people laugh. That was just not done in
most Reformed churches. Yet, now, the same words, said in the same
way, create laughter!
A few months ago, I heard a well-known preacher give an address
on a very serious subject at a large conference. He started by speaking
of his own sinful inadequacy. But as he confessed his sinfulness, laugh-
ter erupted. The speaker was startled. He tried again. The result was
the same. He eventually said that he could not understand the reaction,
abandoned his introduction, and just got started on his address.
In some ways, none of this should surprise us. We live in a com-
edy-saturated culture. Evening television pumps out a steady diet
of comedy programming night after night. Sitcoms dominate the
ratings. The big TV names are comedians like Jay Leno, David Let-
terman, and Conan O’Brien, who take the daily news and turn it
into a series of jokes.
But we don’t need to go to the world to find a comedy culture.
I’m afraid this culture has influenced the church. If we tune in to
some of the most popular preachers, even Reformed preachers, we
find their sermons peppered with jokes. Many preachers now seem
to think that they cannot begin to preach without “softening up”
their hearers with a little bit of stand-up comedy. So, in many ways,
we cannot blame just the hearers. Preachers mix the most solemn
of subjects with silly asides so that people do not know whether to
Serious Preaching in a Comedy Culture 329
laugh or cry. I heard one famous preacher asking for prayer about a
particular weakness in his life. He then said a couple of funny things
about this weakness. Eventually, no one knew if he was seriously ask-
ing for prayer or just making a joke.
A Plea for Serious Preaching

This article is a plea — a plea for serious preaching in a comedy culture.
Notice that I am talking about serious preaching, not life in general.
Laughter is a gift of God and is good for us. There is “a time to laugh”
(Eccl. 3:4). There are known health benefits of having a good laugh: it
reduces stress and blood pressure, helps the digestive system, etc. But
I am speaking here about preaching, not life in general. The appropri-
ate subjects and degrees of laughter in everyday life is another topic.
I’m also going to exclude theological lectures and seminars from
this address. These are gray areas and deserve separate treatment. I
want to keep our focus on preaching: the public, authoritative decla-
ration of God’s Word to needy sinners.
Notice also that this is a plea for serious preaching. This is not an
argument for dull, boring, predictable, unimaginative, or lethargic
preaching. Preaching should be energetic, lively, interesting, creative,
and joyful. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that “a dull preacher is a contra-
diction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a
pulpit and talk, but he is certainly not a preacher.” I will support my
plea for serious preaching in a comedy culture with seven arguments.
Then I will briefly consider four arguments that are often made in
support of humor in preaching.
The Preacher’s Examples

My first argument for serious preaching in a comedy culture is the
preacher’s examples. What words come to mind when you think of
Old Testament preachers like Enoch, Noah, Moses, Samuel, Elijah,
and Jeremiah? Funny? Light-hearted? Humorous? Or, sober...sol-
emn...grave? What about the New Testament apostles? Are there any
jokes in the apostolic sermons of the Acts of the Apostles? At one
point, Paul was accused of being mad. His reply? “I am not mad, most
noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness” (Acts
26:25). What was Paul’s description of his ministry? “And I was with
you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech
and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but
in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. 2:3– 4).
And what about the Lord Jesus Himself? Can you imagine the
Sermon on the Mount producing the kind of laughter we find in
some churches today? If we took our models of preaching from the
Bible, we would have more sober pulpits.
The Preacher’s Office

Second, serious preaching is demanded by the preacher’s office. The
preacher is an ambassador of Christ (2 Cor. 5:20), speaking to sinners
in His name and in His place. Our message and manner should be
such that Christ can say of us: “He that heareth you, heareth me” (Luke
10:16). When we speak in Christ’s name, we are not just saying, “This is
what Christ says”; we are saying, “This is what Christ is like.”
Let’s take our ambassadorial models from Christ’s day, not ours.
Unlike today’s ambassadors, who are often men of high society, wit,
and repartee, the ambassador of Paul’s day was usually on a life-or-
death mission. Upon his words hung the fate of thousands. How
much more serious is our mission, upon which hangs heaven or hell.
William Perkins wrote: “Filled with a reverent sense of the majesty of
God, we will speak soberly and with moderation. The minister must
also be worthy of respect for his constancy, integrity, seriousness and
truthfulness.”1
The Preacher’s Message

The third argument for serious preaching is the preacher’s message.
There is no more serious message in the world than “we are sinners
on the way to divine judgment and eternal damnation in hell.”
Is there not good news, though? Yes, but even the divine rem-
edy to our desperate plight demands awe and reverence. We preach
Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God. But who can stand
in the shadow of that God-forsaken, cursed tree and tell a joke? Even
hardened soldiers changed their tune there (Matt. 27:54).
Is there not joy in believing? Yes, but it is joy in believing, not
joy in jokes. It is spiritual joy, not carnal. Even when we believe and
rejoice, it is always tempered by the new perspective we have on
those who are still perishing. Richard Baxter said, “Let the awful
1. William Perkins. The Art of Prophesying (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1996), 74.
and important thoughts of souls being saved by my preaching, or left

to perish and be condemned to hell by my negligence, I say, let this
awful and tremendous thought dwell ever upon your spirit.”2 In the
light of this, should we not join with Solomon who “said of laughter,
It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?” (Eccl. 2:2).
The Preacher’s Fruit

Fourth, consider the preacher’s fruit. What was the effect of New Tes-
tament sermons? The first post-resurrection sermon had this effect:
“And fear came upon every soul” (Acts 2:43). Paul describes the impact
the Word of God should have on a visitor to our church services upon
hearing God’s Word: “...he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: and
thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down
on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a
truth” (1 Cor. 14:24 –25). Though we don’t see much of that today, it
was certainly present in times of revival through church history.
“But if I stop making people laugh, people will stop coming to
church.” Yes, some may stop attending. But what is more important,
having more people in our churches or doing more good? Here is
wise Solomon’s answer: “It is better to go to the house of mourning,
than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and
the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by
the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of
the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the
house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a
man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under
a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity” (Eccl. 7:2–6).
The Preacher’s World

Fifth, there is the preacher’s world. On the one hand, we are living
in a world full of suffering, sorrow, and pain. Is comedy appropriate
when there are deeply wounded and hurting souls in our congre-
gation? On the other hand, we are living in a world full of vanity,
frivolity, and superficiality. Is more comedy really what’s needed to
make people think more deeply and carefully? James says the way
to truly heal and help people is to aim at conviction and repen-
tance: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse
2. Cited in The Works of Isaac Watts (London: J. Barfield, 1810), 3:31.

your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to
mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight
of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:8 –10). Paul also says
that, in light of sin, inappropriate foolish talking and jesting should
be replaced with giving of thanks (Eph. 5:3 – 4).
The preacher, Conrad Murrell, used to lace his sermons with
comedy. However, God convicted him that, in light of the world we
live in, it was completely out of place. He writes:
Evil is upon us. We are under sentence of death. Our children
are being lost to drugs, immorality, drunkenness, despair, law-
lessness and suicide. Our parents grow older and are slipping
into hell. Our brothers and sisters carelessly let their lives slip
by oblivious to their eternal destruction. Churches decay. False
prophets deceive the people. Lies prevail. Truth is trodden under
foot. The saints cry for bread. Add to this all the physical suf-
fering, torment, starvation, political and social oppression in this
world. What is funny? Where is the humor in all this reality? Is
there anything any more incongruous than dying humanity hee-
hawing itself to hell? How much laughter do you hear in a funeral
parlor where a child lies after being run down by a drunk driver?
How many comedians perform on death row in a prison house?
If the world may laugh while it goes to hell, certainly Christians
may not. They may be blind, but we are not. Distress may drive a
fool to jesting, but it drives a Christian to his knees.3
John Angell James wrote a book arguing for a more “earnest”
ministry. He holds up a high standard:
It is hard to conceive how earnestness and spirituality can be
maintained by those whose tables are covered, and whose lei-
sure time is consumed, by the bewitching inspirations of the
god of laughter. There is little hope of our arresting the evil
except we make it our great business to raise up a ministry who
shall not themselves be carried away with the torrent; who shall
be grave, without being gloomy; serious, without being melan-
choly; and who, on the other hand, shall be cheerful without
being frivolous, and whose chastened mirthfulness shall check,
3. Conrad Murrell. What is the place of true laughter? http://www.eternallifemin-

istries.org/laughter.htm Accessed 4-12-10.
or at any rate reprove, the excesses of their companions. What a

demand does this state of things prefer for the most intense ear-
nestness in our Sabbath day exercises, both our prayers and our
sermons! In this modern taste we have a new obstacle to our
usefulness of a most formidable kind, which can be subdued
only by God’s blessing upon our fidelity and zeal.4
It might also help us to remember suffering parts of the body of
Christ. I spent some time with the church in Eastern Europe in the
late 1980s. The Hungarian and Romanian churches were just emerg-
ing from decades of persecution. I don’t recall one joke in any of these
sober gatherings. Though our part of Christ’s body presently enjoys
times of unprecedented prosperity and comfort, let’s remember that
other parts of the same body — in North Korea, China, the Sudan — are
being attacked, wounded, tortured, and even “amputated.”
The Preacher’s Bible

My sixth argument against comedy in preaching is the preacher’s
Bible. The Bible never uses “laughter” in the sense of comedy. Yes,
there is some irony, satire, ridicule, and derision. There are a few
word-plays and puns. But, of the thirty-three times “laugh” and
“laughter” occur in the Old Testament, they are used in a good
and positive sense only four times, and then to describe joy rather
than laughter. The other twenty-nine times usually speak of scorn
or unbelieving derision. They are never used to describe anything
funny. In the New Testament, we find “laugh” and “laughter” only
five times, only one of which is in a positive sense (Luke 6:2). Three
of these times, the laughter is in scorning Christ. The nearest we
find to “joke, fun, funny, humor, or amuse” in the Bible is “foolish
talking, jesting, fool, foolishness, merry, or merriment.” Only the last
two of these are ever used in any good and positive sense, and that is
in reference to joy and rejoicing in the blessings of the Lord.
The Preacher’s God

Seventh, and last, think about the preacher’s God. The third com-
mandment requires that we use anything associated with God
carefully and reverently. The Westminster Larger Catechism puts it like
4. John Angell James. An Earnest Ministry: The Want of the Times (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 1993), 198–99.
this: “The third commandment requires, That the name of God,

his titles, attributes, ordinances, the Word, sacraments, prayer, oaths,
vows, lots, his works, and whatsoever else there is whereby he makes
himself known, be holily and reverently used in thought, medita-
tion, word, and writing....” 5 And no wonder! Consider the reactions
of Job, Isaiah, and Daniel when they came face-to-face with God
( Job 42:5 – 6; Isa. 6:5; Dan. 10:17). Even Christ’s most intimate friend
almost died when he met the glorified Christ on Patmos (Rev. 1:17).
Perhaps none of these arguments taken apart are fully convinc-
ing. But taken together the cumulative effect surely persuades us to
more serious preaching in our comedy culture.
Arguments for Comedy

Let me now briefly deal with certain arguments that have been made
for using comedy in preaching.
“I’m a funny person”

“I’m a funny person, so it would be unnatural for me to be serious.”
As Stuart Briscoe put it, “if Philips Brooks’s definition of preaching
is right — that preaching is truth communicated through personal-
ity — then I need to communicate through humor, because I enjoy
humor.”6 In the introduction to some of his earlier sermons Charles
Spurgeon wrote:
There are also many expressions which may provoke a smile:
but let it be remembered that every man has his moments when
his lighter feelings indulge themselves, and the preacher must
be allowed to have the same passions as his fellow-men; and
since he lives in the pulpit more than anywhere else, it is but
natural that his whole man should be there developed; besides,
he is not quite sure about a smile being a sin, and, at any rate,
he thinks it less a crime to cause a momentary laughter than a
half-hour’s profound slumber.7
I support being natural in the pulpit. However, there are certain
elements of our nature that we have to control when we are repre-
5. Larger Catechism, Q. 112.

6. Stuart Briscoe, “Interesting Preaching,” in The Art & Craft of Biblical Preaching,
eds. Haddon Robinson and Craig Larson (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 387.
7. Charles H. Spurgeon. Preface to The New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 1.
senting Christ. One of the repeated qualifications for an elder is to

be “sober.” That means to be “self-controlled,” to be able to restrain
and curb some elements of our nature, character, and personality. In
the light of the seven reasons for seriousness, I would suggest that the
natural ability to make people laugh is something we should leave at
the bottom of the pulpit steps.
“But it works!”
The pragmatic argument takes different forms: “It captures attention...
overcomes defenses...drives truth home...matches our culture...
releases stress, etc.” Here is an example:
Humor also allows the mental equivalent of a seventh-inning
stretch in a sermon. People’s minds need a break now and then,
and humor can supply it in a way that enhances the sermon.
After momentary laughter, people are ready for more content. Or
when something disturbs the sermon — such as a loud sneeze — a
good-humored retort can bring attention back to the preacher.8
If this were a secular speech we were talking about, I would have no
problems with these arguments, because I agree with them. Humor
is a powerful tool in the hands of the public speaker. But just because
something works in secular speech does not mean that we should
adopt it in “sacred speech.” Paul deliberately turned his back on the
rhetorical devices of his own day to ensure that people’s faith stood
in the power of God and not in the wisdom of men’s words. Brown
and Northcote write:
Because rhetoricians, statesmen, politicians, salesmen, and
preachers have known for centuries that humour can be, and is, a
devastatingly effective speech weapon, some men have wrongly
and tragically elevated humor to the first place of importance
among homiletical devices. It is important that preachers refrain
from playing the role of court clown and that they live the role
for which they have been divinely commissioned — the role of
prophet for the King of Kings.9
8. Briscoe, “Interesting Preaching,” 388.

9. H. C. H. Gordon Linard Brown, and Jesse Northcote, Steps to the Sermon
(Nashville: Broadman, 1963), 10.
If humor was really so effective in driving God’s truth into

the heart, why are there no commands or examples in the Bible?
And do we really want to match our decadent culture’s dominant
speech form? Is this not an area where the church should be coun-
ter-cultural? Moreover, what does comedy work? It certainly works
popularity. But does it work conversions and holy lives? Is laugh-
ter the best medicine? Or should we do better to follow Solomon’s
advice: “By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better”?
“I’m following biblical examples”

The third argument I’ve heard in favor of comedy in preaching is, “I
am following biblical examples.” Yes, you heard that right. I’ve even
heard a well-known preacher go through the Bible picking out all
the “funny bits” to prove that we should use comedy in preaching.
However, there is a world of difference between a preacher with a gift
of stand-up comedy making the Bible funny, and the Bible actually
being funny.
Some point to the prophets “making fun” of the idols (1 Kings
18:27; Isa. 44:15). However, this was scathing, biting, denunciatory
satire. I can’t see many people laughing on Mount Carmel. Ecclesias-
tes is similar. It presents life’s painful ironies, vanities, and absurdities,
but not in a way that would provoke hilarity. God’s “laugh” of Psalm 2
is a laugh of angry derision, not amusing comedy. Did Jesus use puns
and word-plays? Yes. Did they make people laugh? I somehow doubt
it. Perhaps a wry smile at most.
“I can draw the line”

Fourth, even those who use humor recognize that there are limits that
should be observed. And so, they argue, “I can draw the line in the
right place.” Spurgeon, as we have seen, defended his use of humor,
but he later distinguished between holy cheerfulness, which is a vir-
tue, and general levity, which is a vice.10 Spurgeon himself strove to
control his natural propensity to humor on the pulpit. Others have
also tried to walk the tightrope or draw the line. Ilion Jones writes:
10. Charles H. Spurgeon. Lectures to my Students (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth,

2008), 212.
If humor has little or no relevance to what is being said; if, so

to speak, it is dragged in by the feet merely to provoke laugh-
ter — it is an interruption, a diversion, and an impertinence.11
And John Piper says:
Earnestness is the demeanor that corresponds to the weight of
the subject matter of preaching. The opposite of earnest is not
joyful, but trivial, flippant, frivolous, chipper. It is possible to be
earnest and have elements of humor, though not levity.12
Elsewhere, John Piper rejected any notion of humor in the pulpit con-
tending that laughter promotes an atmosphere that hinders revival.13
Conclusion
This has been a plea to my fellow-preachers of the glorious gospel of
Jesus Christ. I have learned much from you, and continue to do so. I
hope that you are also willing to learn a little from these reflections.
I know that I too have absorbed some of the spirit of the age in my
own character and preaching, and hope that you will lovingly help
me to better reflect our Lord and Master.
But I also make a plea to listeners. Encourage your pastor to
preach more seriously. Tell him that you don’t need the jokes — that
they often spoil the effect of what he’s said. Tell him that your chil-
dren tend to go home talking about his jokes rather than about Christ.
Support your pastor if he is being pressured to “lighten up a bit.”
Let me conclude with this appeal of Archibald Brown, a greatly
blessed minister of the gospel who studied under Charles Spurgeon:
The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting
to the Church that part of their mission is to provide enter-
tainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From
speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down
her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of
the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has
adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses!...
11. Ilion Jones. Principles and Practice of Preaching (New York: Abingdon Press,
1956), 141.
12. John Piper, “Thoughts on Earnestness in Preaching,” (unpublished lecture
given at The Bethlehem Institute, Minneapolis, 1999).
13. John Piper. The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 56.
In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of the

‘gospel of amusement.’ Their message is, “Therefore, come out
from them and separate yourselves from them.... Don’t touch
their filthy things....” Anything approaching amusement is con-
spicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the
gospel and employed no other weapon....
The need of the hour for today’s ministry is earnest spiritu-
ality joined with Biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that
it sets men on fire.14
14. Archibald Brown, The Devil’s Mission of Amusement. http://www.gracegems.

org/BLG/Amusement.htm Accessed 04-12-10.
PRJ 3, 1 (2011): 339 – 362
Van Til and Singer:

A Theological Interpretation of History
William van doodewaard
q
How should history be written? The history of history writing

shows a wide range of answers to the question. Every age, whether
Old Testament and ancient paganism, New Testament and Greco-
Roman, patristic, medieval, Reformation, post-Reformation, or
secular modern to post-modern, presents a multitude of attempts.
Some historians feel they are simply tracing the record of the past,
yet undoubtedly the record presented by each bears witness to their
conviction and belief. Most Christian philosophers, or theologians,
of history have argued there ought to be something distinctively
Christian about the best of history writing. Two notable, twentieth-
century Reformed thinkers who pursued this conviction were
Cornelius Van Til and C. Gregg Singer.
Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987)

Among varied attempts towards a Christian historiography, an
intriguing effort is found in an approach rooted in Cornelius Van Til’s
thought. Perhaps best known as a Christian apologist and theologian,
he was instrumental in developing and promoting presuppositional,
or covenant, apologetics and worldview thinking.1 These areas of
1. K. Scott Oliphint, Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at

Westminster Theological Seminary, argues that “[t]he label ‘presuppositionalism’ as
an approach to apologetics needs, once and for all, to be laid to rest. It has served its
purpose well, but it is no longer descriptively useful and it offers, now, more confu-
sion than clarity when the subject of apologetics arises.... For one, there are a variety
of ways to understand the notion of presupposition, as well as a variety of ‘presup-
positionalists’ whose approaches differ radically — Schaefferians, Carnellians, and
Clarkians, just to mention three. Moreover, there is also the post-Kuhnian pre-
dicament in which we find ourselves such that paradigms and presuppositions have
his thought continue to exert substantial influence in North Amer-

ica among confessional evangelicals, particularly of Presbyterian,
Reformed, and Baptist backgrounds. Van Til’s theological roots lay in
the American (Christian Reformed Church) Dutch Reformed pietism
of the Dutch Secession Churches. His theological training started
at Calvin Theological Seminary, blended with continued study at
Princeton Theological Seminary, and matured in his association with
Westminster Theological Seminary. Though his main calling in life
was not developing a philosophy of history, his apologetic, especially
his view of revelation and “concept of analogy,” created the founda-
tion for what became a theological approach to history, dealing with
“most if not all of the issues which are generally included within the
scope of the usual work on the philosophy of history.”2
The Doctrine of Revelation

In order to understand Van Til’s stance on apologetics, philosophy,
and history, it is crucial to understand his view of the doctrine of rev-
elation. Van Til saw that the basic, underlying, universal truth is that
the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. “Man...is working
on God’s estate. He is not himself the owner of anything, least of all
himself.”3 “Those who still think of themselves as owners of them-
selves and think of the world as a grab-bag cannot properly evaluate
the situation as it really is. Unbeknown to them they too are working
on God’s estate. As they construct their temples to themselves God
looks down from heaven and watches them.”4 Everything and every-
one belongs to God.
come to be equated, and have come into their own, in a way that is destructive of
Christianity in general, and of Christian apologetics in particular. [The term] pre-
suppositionalism has...died the death of a thousand qualifications. It is time, there-
fore, to change the terminology, at least for those who consider the approach of
Cornelius Van Til to be consistent with Reformed theology and its creeds. I propose,
in light of the above, that the word ‘covenant,’ properly understood, is a better, more
accurate, term to use for a biblical, Reformed apologetic.” K. Scott Oliphint, “Pre-
suppositionalism,” in Writings, http://mysite.verizon.net/oliphint/Writings/A%20
Covenantal%20Apologetic.htm (accessed 10-14-10).
2. C. Gregg Singer, Papers, Folder 36: “Cornelius Van Til: His Theology of
History” (St. Louis, Mo.: PCA Historical Center, 2004), 2.
3. Cornelius Van Til, The Doctrine of Scripture (Ripon, Calif.: den Dulk Chris-
tian Foundation, 1967), 1–2.
4. Ibid., 2.
Van Til and Singer 341
Moving from the doctrine of God’s ownership of and sover-

eignty over His creation, Van Til sought to describe the connection
of this to God’s self-revelation:
...the same God reveals himself both in nature and in Scripture.
It is this God and only he who is “infinite in being, glory, bless-
edness, and perfection, all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable,
incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all
things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gra-
cious, longsuffering and abundant in goodness and truth.” It
is to be sure, from Scripture rather than from nature that this
description is drawn. Yet it is this same God, to the extent he
is revealed at all, that is revealed in nature.... God is “eternal,
incomprehensible, most free, most absolute.” Any revelation
God gives of himself is therefore absolutely voluntary...here
lies the union of the various forms of God’s revelation with
one another. God’s revelation in nature, together with God’s
revelation in Scripture, form God’s one grand scheme of cove-
nant-revelation of himself to man.5
Man’s knowledge of God’s creation and God Himself is only
possible because man is created and sustained by the Creator and His
“covenant-revelation of himself.”6 Van Til believed that both of these
realities bring man a clear, covenantal obligation: his living, thinking,
and communicating must be rooted in and in harmony with the Tri-
une Creator and His covenant-revelation. In his rebellion, however,
man violated and rejected this, plunging himself into a condition of
sin and misery, losing the coherent thought that can only exist in
harmony with the reality of God’s covenant-revelation. A return to
“thinking God’s thoughts after Him” requires spiritual regeneration,
which is worked by the Word and Spirit. Due to man’s rebellion,
including his sinful obscuring and ignoring God’s covenant-revela-
tion, part of the “Christian’s task [is] to point out to the scientist that
science needs to stand on Christ and his redeeming work if it is not
to fall to pieces....”7 Van Til argues that there is an essential relation
between Scripture and the pursuit of knowledge in any field. As all of
creation is part of God’s covenant-revelation, which man is called to
5. Ibid., 4.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 2.
know by thinking God’s thoughts after Him, the only way to carry
out this mandate is to use the great interpretation of the facts which
God has revealed in His Word. Only in this way is man graciously
enabled to take up the “knowing” aspect of his covenant calling
to gather up in his consciousness all the meaning that God had
deposited in the universe and be the reflector of it all. The rev-
elation of God was deposited in the whole creation, but it was in
the mind of man alone that this revelation was to come to self-
conscious re-interpretation. Man was to be God’s reinterpreter,
that is, God’s prophet on earth....8
How does this apply to Van Til’s understanding of the relationship
of the doctrine of revelation to understanding history? A student
in any field must realize that truth and meaning can only stand on
the foundation of the truth of God’s Word. As accurate historical
understanding can only exist in correspondence with the reality of a
God-created, sustained, and governed universe, it requires a philoso-
phy of history founded on and directed by divine revelation, Christ,
and His redeeming work.
The Concept of Analogy

God’s sovereignty and self-revelation in nature and Scripture lead
to the necessity of what Van Til called “analogical thinking”— the
Christian thinking God’s thoughts after Him, through the redemp-
tive work of Christ, proclaimed in the Word. Scripture is the great
interpreter, necessary for the correct interpretation of every fact of
God’s covenant-revelation. Van Til says,
Since the Redeemer speaks to him, not through individual
mystical insight but by the word that his Saviour has given to
his church in the form of Scripture, the believer will go to that
record of redemptive work which Christ has accomplished for
the world. That record will shed light on every fact in every
relation in the world. The record of the redemptive work of
Christ is the record given by the Holy Spirit through the min-
istry of the prophets and apostles. God has not left man alone
with the event of the redemption, leaving it to man’s own sinful
8. Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, N.J.:

Presbyterian and Reformed, 1974), 69.
heart to interpret it. On the contrary, God has with the facts
given the interpretation of the facts.... The one without the
other is meaningless.... The final aspect of this redemption is
that, by the regenerating power of the Spirit, sinful man learns
to submit his own interpretation...to the interpretation which
the God of grace has provided for him in the Word through the
inspiration of Scripture. This is a truly biblical and therefore a
truly analogical methodology.9
Van Til often speaks of “analogical thinking” or “analogical meth-
odology.” In doing so, he refers to “the relation of God to man” in
the area of knowledge.10 Greg Bahnsen helpfully clarifies Van Til’s
description of human knowledge as being “analogical” to God’s
knowledge. He posits that Van Til’s use of the term “analogical”
stresses the “agreement, correspondence, resemblance, or similarity”
(the analogous relation) between God’s knowledge and man’s knowl-
edge, while simultaneously recognizing the elements of discontinuity
or difference between God’s knowing and man’s knowing. Van Til,
Bahnsen argues, called the relationship between God’s and man’s
9. Van Til, Introduction to Systematic Theology, 15.

10. Greg Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis (Phillipsburg, N.J.:
Presbyterian and Reformed, 1998), 250. Bahnsen provides helpful clarification on
this often misunderstood area of Van Til’s approach to epistemology, which pro-
vides the foundation for his theology of history: “Because we are created as the
image (reflection) of God, we not only come into this world cognitively “con-
ditioned” or prepared to recognize the indications of our Creator in nature and
Scripture, but all of our knowing, whether about God, ourselves, or the world, is a
matter of “imaging” (reflecting) God’s thinking about the same things. God knows
Himself, of course, perfectly and comprehensively, He knows His holy character.
He knows all propositional truths and possibilities, as well as their conceptual or
logical relations. He knows His plan for every detail of creation and history, as
well as the relation between all events and objects. His understanding is infinite
and without flaw. Moreover, it is in terms of His creative and providential activity
that all things and events are what they are. God’s thinking is what gives unity,
meaning, coherence, and intelligibility to nature, history, reasoning and moral-
ity. In terms of this picture of the knowing process, man can search for causal
relationships and laws (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about His providential
plan). He can think in terms of shared properties, similarities or classes (thinking
God’s thoughts after Him about patterns, classifications, or kinds of things he cre-
ates and providentially controls). He can draw logical inferences (thinking God’s
thoughts after Him about conceptual and truth-functional relations). He can make
meaningful normative judgements (thinking God’s thoughts after Him about the
demands of His righteousness)....” Ibid., 250–51.
knowledge “analogical” to express and guard the truthfulness and

reliability of what man knows. Bahnsen states:
...in knowing anything man thinks what God Himself thinks:
there is a continuity between God’s knowledge and man’s
knowledge, and thus a theoretical basis for the certainty of
human knowledge.... [At the same time there is] a disconti-
nuity between the two acts of knowing [God’s and man’s] that
is greater and more profound than the discontinuity between
one person’s act of knowing and another person’s act of know-
ing...(Isa. 55:9).... Not only is there a difference between God’s
manner of knowing and man’s manner of knowing, but God’s
knowledge and man’s knowledge coincide at no point in the
sense that in the awareness of the meaning of anything, in his
mental grasp or understanding of anything, man is at each point
dependent upon a prior act of unchangeable understanding and
revelation on the part of God.... Man could not have the same
thinking activity in his mind that God has...unless he himself
were divine.... Man cannot do what God does, except by way of
finite imitation or reflection.11
Van Til argues that God calls man to think His thoughts after Him
when man receives the information that God reveals in creation and
Scripture. By creation and Scripture, God calls man to rightly pur-
sue and steward knowledge. Man is created with an innate desire to
grow in knowledge using “the rational and empirical abilities with
which God has equipped him.”12 What man learns through empiri-
cal research and logical reasoning must stand in harmony with what
he receives as “preinterpreted information” through the Scriptures in
order to be true, accurate, and understood in its God-ordained rela-
tions. Due to this, pursuit of “analogical thinking” can only occur
where God by grace works spiritual transformation. When this hap-
pens, man begins “to think thoughts on a creaturely level which God
originally thought (or thinks) as Creator and providential Governor
11. Ibid., 223–24. In his work, Bahnsen provides helpful clarification of Van
Til’s often rambling and scattered thoughts, providing both a concise formulation
of Van Til’s argument of analogy, and response to various critics. Bahnsen further
notes that “knowing is an activity relating a mind to truths known by it...in Van
Til’s perspective, all cases of knowledge are concrete acts of knowing, either by God
or man.” Ibid., 227.
12. Ibid.
of the world,” reaching them by use of the mind God has given to
him as His image-bearer.13
The Theology of History

The fact that all of creation is a part of God’s covenant-revelation,
combined with the call to think analogically, makes Van Til’s
approach to history theological. Starting in exegetical theology, it
develops within the parameters of the confessional statements of the
church, propelled by the desire to have a fully biblical world and life
view.14 Historian C. Gregg Singer notes that “Van Til rejects every
attempt to formulate an explanation of human history derived from
a philosophical approach and methodology.”15
This theological approach did not mean that Van Til ignored
writings on history. He had a keen interest in Augustine’s work, see-
ing him as a role model who “seeks for a Christian view of himself
and of history.”16 Van Til saw a distinct transition from a reliance on
philosophy to reliance on biblical revelation in Augustine’s thought:
As Augustine gradually began to fathom the depth of the grace
of God in his heart he saw that his freedom did not consist in
metaphysical slenderness of being but in ethical restoration to
his Creator God through Jesus Christ his Redeemer God.
Augustine learned that he must take his principle of conti-
nuity and his principle of discontinuity from Scripture, rather
than from Plato or Plotinus.... Augustine now knows that he
is not a compound between abstract impersonal being and
equally abstract non-being. He is part of God’s created world.
He believes what Moses says about the creation of the world.
Time is no longer a moving image of eternity. It is created by
God. Time is no longer an aspect of pure, self-existent con-
tingency. When he seeks to understand the nature of time he
no longer tries to do so by a timeless principle of rationality.
He merely seeks better to understand himself and his world in
terms of God’s revelation in Christ in Scripture. He has been
13. Ibid.
14. In Van Til’s case, this would have meant the Westminster Confession of
Faith and the Three Forms of Unity.
15. Singer, “Cornelius Van Til: His Theology of History,” 4.
16. Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Pres-
byterian and Reformed, 1969), 136.
rescued by Christ his Savior.... There are now clearly two dis-
tinct classes of people for Augustine, those who are redeemed
by Christ and those who are not redeemed. The two kinds of
people now have mutually exclusive principles for the interpre-
tation of God’s relation to man and his world.17
Like Augustine, Van Til believed that Scripture “exhibit[s] to us
the development of the struggle between the two cities, the city of
God and the city of the world.”18 In Scripture, this struggle speaks “of
things done, yet done prophetically; on the earth, yet celestially; by
men, yet divinely!”19 Received by grace, through faith, God’s Word
lays out the template for understanding history:
The history of the patriarchs, the history of Israel, it all exhib-
its the conflict between the two cities. “The enemies of the
city of God, who prefer their gods to Christ its founder, and
fiercely hate Christians with the most deadly malice,” have been
operative throughout the whole of the Old Testament period.
It is in this way that Augustine interprets the Old Testament
Christologically....
Only those who by grace have received true faith...in their
hearts will enter eternal blessedness. “But on the other hand,
they who do not belong to this city of God shall inherit eternal
misery, which is also called the second death, because the soul
shall be separated from God its life, and therefore cannot be
said to live, and the body shall be subjected to eternal pains.”
Here then is Augustine’s total philosophy of history. By faith
alone can we accept the existence of the triune God. By faith
alone do we and can we accept the redemptive work of Christ
and his Spirit in history. By faith alone can we accept the fact that
we are creatures and sinners before God. By faith alone can we
understand the progress of history to be that of the conflict of
Christ against Satan. By faith alone can we accept the fact that the
issue of each man’s life and of history as a whole is that of eter-
nal life and eternal woe with victory for Christ over his foes....
[Augustine has] set forth this truly biblical philosophy of history,
and [has] challenged the skeptics to produce something intelligi-
ble in its place. [He] now sees that there are no abstract principles
17. Ibid., 135 –36.

18. Ibid., 136.
19. Ibid.
of truth, goodness and beauty above God but that God, as self-
sufficient, and as revealed through Christ in Scripture, is for him
the source and criterion of truth, goodness, and beauty.20
For Van Til, as Augustine, history must be interpreted on the basis of
the presuppositions and framework of the Word of God. It is Christ-
centered, God-ordained, and God-moved. It is the struggle of the
seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent, the city of God
versus the city of man. This view of history is one part of the coher-
ent unity of the Christian worldview.
The record of Van Til’s thought on understanding history ends
with his commentary on Augustine. He gave the basic contours of
a distinctively covenantal, neo-Augustinian approach to theology of
history, but did not give the philosophy of history consistent attention.
His only other direct references to the subject were passing critiques
of other philosophers of history.21 Nonetheless, Van Til’s thought con-
tributes to Christian understanding of history by relating philosophy
of history to divine revelation: formulating a scripturally grounded
approach to human knowledge connected with Augustine’s theology
of history. His approach, however, did not end with this theologi-
cal beginning; an academic historian would continue to develop and
refine the historical application of Van Til’s first principles.
C. Gregg Singer (1910–1999)

C. Gregg Singer was a Christian historian with a teaching career
spanning more than half of the twentieth century. A graduate of
Haverford College and the University of Pennsylvania, he served
as chair of history at Wheaton College (1944 –1948), Salem College
(1948 –1954), Belhaven College (1954 –1958), and Catawba College
(1958 –1977), prior to becoming professor of church history and
theology at Atlanta School of Biblical Studies (1977–1987). He fin-
ished his career at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
(1987–1995). Despite spending the early part of his life in Pennsyl-
20. Ibid., 137.

21. A prime example is his scathing critique of R.G. Collingwood in Christian-
ity in Conflict, arguing compellingly that when man is ultimately his own interpreter
the possibility of meaning in history is destroyed. Cornelius Van Til, Christianity in
Conflict (Philadelphia: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1962), 10.
vania, Singer’s life work led him to become theologically rooted in

Southern Presbyterianism, serving many years as a ruling elder in
the Southern Presbyterian Church. In the mid-1970s, he joined the
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, a decade later joining the
Presbyterian Church of America by ordination as a minister.22
Singer’s writings reveal a dedication to systematizing and
advancing Van Til’s thought in application to the theology of history,
much in the way that Bahnsen systematized and clarified Van Til’s
apologetic approach. Singer’s first work on the topic of theology of
history is his essay “Cornelius Van Til: His Theology of History.”23
As a summary and analysis, the essay provides an initial construc-
tive advancement of Van Tillian thought on the theology of history.
Another early Singer contribution relating a covenantal approach to
the philosophy of history is the book Arnold Toynbee: A Critical Study
(1965).24 Singer’s other published works, including A Theological Inter-
pretation of American History (1964), The Unholy Alliance: A History of the
National Council of Churches (1975), and From Rationalism to Irrational-
ity (1979),25 were limited and indirect in their commentary on the
theology of history. They stood as applications, not descriptions, of
Van Til’s historical approach. From Rationalism to Irrationality applied a
Van Tillian approach to the history of ideas, arguing that the irratio-
nalism of the twentieth century was a necessary consequence of the
influence of classical Greek and Roman thought via the humanism
of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Rational thought in the West,
Singer argued, was rooted in Christian theism.
22. “C. Gregg Singer, 1910–1999,” in Presbyterian and Reformed News 5 (1999),
2. http://www.presbyteriannews.org/volumes/v5/2/Singer.html (accessed 1-18-07).
23. C. Gregg Singer, Papers, Folder 36: “Cornelius Van Til: His Theology of
History” (St. Louis, Mo.: PCA Historical Center, 2004), 1–19. Singer published an
abbreviated form of this essay with a revised ending as “A Philosophy of History”
in E.R. Geehan, ed., Jerusalem and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and
Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971),
328–38.
24. C. Gregg Singer, Arnold Toynbee: A Critical Study (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Pres-
byterian and Reformed, 1980), 1–76.
25. C. Gregg Singer, A Theological Interpretation of American History. 3rd ed.
(Greenville, S.C.: A Press, 1994), 1–354; The Unholy Alliance: A History of the National
Council of Churches (New York: Arlington House, 1975), 1–384; From Rationalism to
Irrationality (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1979), 1–479.
While his early writings laid the foundation for a theology of

history and his published works pursued a theological approach to
history, it is Singer’s unpublished book, The Relationship of Philosophy
and History to the Historic Christian Faith (1973), that fully describes and
develops a Van Tillian approach to history.26 It appears that Singer
initially used his notes on this topic as a series of lectures at the open-
ing of the Christian Studies Center at Warren-Wilson College.27 His
dedication states appreciation for the formative influences of William
Childs Robinson, Cornelius Jaarsma, and Cornelius Van Til.28 The
manuscript first deals with philosophy; the second part, entitled “The
Relationship of History to the Historic Christian Faith,” is devoted
to the Christian understanding of history.
Singer introduces the second part of the manuscript by tracing
the general move among academic historians from the liberal opti-
mism of Condorcet and other nineteenth-century thinkers, through
the crucible of the twentieth century into an increasing, pessimistic
relativism. His frank observation that “many historians have...given
up the quest for the meaning of their own discipline...coming to this
conclusion without too much of a struggle because they are already
convinced that their own lives are devoid of any real significance,”
clears the stage for his promotion of a distinctly Christian approach
to the study and writing of history.29
Theology and History

In order to understand Singer’s theological approach to history, we
need to begin by examining his understanding of and commitment
to theology. Singer is candid about his theological commitments. He
approvingly notes of Van Til:
For the answer to all the questions which must inevitably arise
as we survey the human past and present, Van Til turns to the-
ology and even more specifically does he look to Calvinism as
that one theology which provides the necessary ingredients for
26. C. Gregg Singer, Papers, Folder 26: “The Relationship of Philosophy and
History to the Historic Christian Faith” (St. Louis, Mo.: PCA Historical Center,
2004), 1–114.
27. Given in June 1973.
28. Singer, dedication in “The Relationship of Philosophy and History.”
29. Singer, “The Relationship of Philosophy and History,” 55–56.
a world and life view capable of supplying answers to the most

profound questions of human existence. 30
To Singer, the honest approach of a distinctly Reformed theology
was necessary and commendable, not narrow and sectarian. He
appreciated Van Til for bringing “his solid foundation in Reformed
theology” to “bear upon the great problems of history.31 Singer fol-
lowed the same line, unabashedly stating that “basic to a biblical view
of history is the doctrine of revelation...the doctrine found in scrip-
ture concerning itself, and the statement of this doctrine found in the
Westminster Confession of Faith.”32 Like Van Til, Singer was con-
cerned not only with a general Christian foundation, but also with
interpretation according to the guiding parameters of the creeds and
confessions of the historic Presbyterian church. He believed that the
church and its members in the academy could and should operate
harmoniously. This was not rooted in a narrow perspective of the
historic and global church, but rather in the conviction that these
creeds and confessions are faithful, exegetically founded summaries
of Scriptural truths.33 For Singer, Reformed theology was not simply
a perspective, but the best, most biblical perspective.
Not surprisingly, like Van Til, Singer also found kinship in what
he saw as “the approach developed by Augustine...and brought to
its fruition in the works of John Calvin.”34 Augustine “provided the
church with a theology which could be used as the firm basis for the
biblical approach to the problem of classical culture and at the same
time would enable Christians to fulfill their cultural mandate in their
covenantal relationship with the sovereign God.... [T]his approach...
we may call subjugation or reinterpretation.”35 Singer continues:
Augustine began to draw the very important distinction
between redemptive and common grace and very properly
placed the achievements of the classical scholars in the area of
the operations of common grace. He therefore saw the classi-
cal mind as being guilty of covenant-breaking and of holding

31. Ibid., 15.
32. Singer, “The Relationship of Philosophy and History,” 57.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., 5.
35. Ibid.
the truth which it had achieved in error, because it failed to

recognize the sovereign God of creation and redemption as the
source of that truth.
Augustine brought it forcefully to the attention of the Chris-
tian church that the Christian approach to the understanding of
philosophy must emerge from a sound biblical theology rather
than from the presuppositions of unregenerate thought. It is for
this reason that only reformed theology which looks to Augus-
tine for its beginnings and to Calvin for its fulfillment has been
able to provide the church with a Weltanschauung sufficient to
meet the demands of pagan scholarship in any age.36
Working from and with these Augustinian and Reformed presup-
positions, Singer began the task of seeking to elucidate the elements
forming a Christian approach to history. In describing his approach,
Singer stated that his intention was not to reteach systematic theology,
but to apply specific, interconnected areas of theology to fundamental
issues in the philosophy of history. The specificity and intercon-
nectedness of Singer’s approach to history reflects a holistic theology
which is comprehensively applicable to historical study.
Scripture and Epistemology

Singer, agreeing with Van Til and Gordon Clark, points out that a
crucial aspect to understanding history is “the basic issue in modern
thought...the epistemological question.”37 “How does man know?
How does man know God? How does he know himself? How does
he know anything?”38 Singer asserts “nothing less than [the] view
of scripture as the infallible rule of faith and practice provides the
necessary epistemological foundation for a biblical view of history”;39
Scripture functions at a presuppositional level, undergirding the the-
ology of history. Scripture does more than lay a foundation, however,
as “[the] necessary knowledge of the will of God lies at the very heart
of the Christian or biblical view of history.”40 Not only does Scripture
undergird, but it is also essential to development and formulation of
a theology of history.
36. Ibid., 6.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
Singer believes the necessary preconditions for intelligibility are

found in God and His Word; this, he argues, means that “unless man
has a sure and certain knowledge of the God of scripture and hence
of himself, he most assuredly cannot know anything about history...
this knowledge is found in the scriptures alone.”41 The statement that
“man cannot know anything about history” apart from having a sure
and certain knowledge of the God of the Scriptures is a point of
Van Tillian thought which has drawn criticism. Of this Singer was
undoubtedly aware, but he makes no clarification.42
Having Scripture function as it should in human knowing
requires spiritual transformation. Singer states that it is only in Christ
“the believer is again restored to newness of life and regains potentially
the ability which was lost in the fall.”43 Quoting James Orr, Singer
states that believing with one’s whole heart in Jesus Christ as the Son
of God entails much more than a personal, experiential piety — it
entails the biblical worldview, committing the heart and mind to a
biblical approach to all areas of life.44 No area of man’s activity can
be withdrawn from the message of the Scriptures. Singer notes that
this “does not mean that the Bible is to be regarded as a textbook of
philosophy any more than it should be for any other science...but seri-
ous attention must be paid as the Word of God contains those basic
principles which must guide all sound scientific activity.”45
While Scripture acts as the authoritative foundation and guide
to philosophy, “we are not to infer that any system of Christian
philosophy is infallible...as by its very nature philosophy must not
41. Ibid.
42. This has been one of the weaknesses of Van Til and some followers who
seek to be consistently Van Tillian. Forthright statements are declared, while nu-
ances and implications are not addressed clearly. What Singer likely intends here
is that the unregenerate scholar (or the Christian scholar who does not work from
biblical presuppositions) who seeks to “know history” is living in rebellion against
the only coherent and accurate foundation for knowledge. As such he is in denial of
the necessary pre-conditions for intelligibility, lacking both foundation and the nec-
essary interpretive schema. Where the unregenerate mind does grasp certain aspects
of truth and reality, it is because and to the degree that his thought coheres to Chris-
tian theism — God’s covenant-revelation; yet even these aspects of truth and reality
that may be grasped will be contextually distorted and held in rebellion against God.
44. Ibid., 7–8.
45. Ibid., 9.
confine itself to Scripture alone...it must build on the foundations...

but then move...to the totality of created reality.”46 Singer argues
that the philosopher and historian are to consciously and humbly
act as reinterpreters, being directed and transformed by the infallible
Spirit-illuminated Word, working to think God’s thoughts after Him
for His glory. “The task of Christian philosophy is nothing less than
to interpret the whole of created reality in the light of God’s revela-
tion to man in the Bible.”47 The simple reality, Singer argues, is that
one can only achieve such an interpretation of created reality if he
proceeds in the light of the Word of God.
Having said this, it is natural that Singer next moves to set out
the theological foundations of a biblical approach to history. Follow-
ing traditional loci of systematic theology in forming his theological
foundation, Singer plainly accepts the challenges that this approach
brings: “not only are we as Christians called upon to carry out our
mandate in a world which bears the marks of sin, but we are also
called to carry it out in the midst of an unbelieving and frequently
hostile secular scholarship which consciously rejects the biblical Welt-
anschauung at every point.”48 Singer’s approach is one which applies
the Word of God openly and directly in scholarship — to every heart
and mind, whether Christian or non-Christian.
God’s Sovereignty and Creation

Singer viewed both the doctrine of God and the doctrine of creation
as crucial to the Christian understanding of history. Creation is an
act of the sovereign God who reveals Himself in the Scriptures. This
God, who is God alone, is sovereign; “[He] did not abandon His
creation to the whims of chance nor the dictates of fate, but He con-
tinues to exercise over it that sovereign power for His own glorious
purposes....”49 “It is the sovereign God who makes history meaning-
ful and reveals its meaning to man.”50 It is also this sovereign God
who has entered “into covenant relationship with man whom He
made in His own image.”51
46. Ibid., 10.

47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., 24.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 5.
Both Van Til and Singer believed the denial of either doctrine
would ultimately lead to philosophical irrationality. This is because
“God gave to both the physical world and man their meaning at cre-
ation. The subsequent history of man on earth derives its meaning
and purpose from this creation.”52 Closely related to this is the fact
that “God created man and bestowed on him a knowing mind and
placed him in a world that was made to be known by him.”53
Singer argued that creation, and the ensuing created purpose of
man to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, protect the individuality
of men and give their collective experiences historical meaning and
purpose. The fact of God’s creation gives the historical process its
reason for being and prohibits man from placing his own interpreta-
tion on his life and history.54 For this reason,
...no theory of evolution, no matter how theistic in character
its backers may claim to be, can possibly provide a satisfactory
foundation for a biblical interpretation of history. Not only are
all theories of evolution inherently false because they deny the
Genesis account of the beginnings of the world and man...they
utterly fail to offer any basis or key to the meaning of history
because they replace the biblical doctrine with a theory which
must rely on either chance or fate...concepts [which] by their
very nature deny that there is either meaning or purpose in
history. 55
Man, Sin, and God’s Covenant

Singer follows his exposition of the doctrine of God and creation with
the application of the doctrine of man and sin to the study of history.
Properly understood, man’s story begins before the fall into sin, at
the point of his creation in God’s image. Here man was “endowed
with the ability to discover the meaning which God has conferred
upon human life.”56 For the historian, this divine endowment of abil-
ity brings responsibility to seek to understand the patterns and events
of history. For humanity in general, and for Singer’s application to the
historian specifically, God has revealed, in creation and through His
52. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., 60.
Word the necessary parameters of personal and historical meaning —

origin and destiny. “The whole doctrine of the covenant presupposes
that God has revealed Himself to man sufficiently clearly for man to
know of his position within the relationship...[without] such revela-
tion man would know nothing of his origin or destiny...the history of
the race would be unknowable to him.”57 The acceptance of the doc-
trine of God’s covenant and revelation to man “is integral to the proper
understanding of history” and in Singer’s eyes is what “separates Van
Til from most of the contemporary philosophers of history.”58 The
implications of this, Singer states, are profound:
[T]he fall of man in no way destroyed or lessened [the] cov-
enantal responsibility which man owes to his sovereign creator
even though it rendered [him] incapable of fulfilling the condi-
tions of his stewardship.... Man is therefore a steward under
God, a vice-regent...fully responsible for his understanding and
use of the world in which he lives...equally responsible for his
understanding of his own role in that world.... An essential part
of the mandate placed upon man at creation is thinking God’s
thoughts after Him...[in order to rationally do His will].”59
The effects of the fall into sin are such, Singer notes, that “for fallen
man a special or Biblical revelation is necessary.”60 For those who
refuse to turn to the gracious and necessary illumination of God’s
special revelation, the study of history will ultimately be an exer-
cise in futility: “History must forever remain a closed book and an
impenetrable mystery to the unregenerate human mind.”61
God’s Sovereignty and Common Grace

Having discussed Van Til’s and his own approach to the doctrines
of man and sin in conjunction with the doctrines of covenant and
revelation, Singer turns to develop and clarify Van Til’s statements
on common grace in relation to the theology of history:
57. Ibid., 7.
58. Ibid., 6.
59. Ibid., 8–9.
60. Ibid., 8.
61. Ibid. It would be better stated that history will remain a closed book to the
continued unregenerate mind not forever, but until the return of Christ in glory and
judgment (cf. Rom. 14:10 –11; Phil. 2:9–11).
Common grace for Van Til is the sovereign power of God

made manifest in the whole stream of human events and not
merely as these events relate to the life and work of the church
on earth.... [T]he unbelieving world is subject to this grace of
God, even though its leaders are sublimely unconscious that
they are fulfilling the plans of a sovereign God.... [T]he real-
ity of common grace in world history makes life livable for
both the elect and unregenerate on this earth.... [C]ommon
grace surrounds the ungodly with the restraining force of
God’s sovereignty.... If common grace does not bring the sin-
ner to redemption, neither does it allow them to make a hell
out of this world. But for Van Til common grace is not merely
a restraining force; it is the fulfilling of the will of God in his-
tory...and undergirds the whole of the human process from
creation until the Second Coming of Christ.62
After commenting on the relation between common grace and
history, Singer notes that Van Til “strongly insists that history is not
only the result of the operations of God’s common grace in human
affairs, but is at the same time a revelation of God Himself.”63 His-
tory is the outworking of God’s will in and through His creation,
by His acts of common and special grace. Singer avers “the process
in history is the product of the exercise of divine sovereignty.”64 He
reaffirms and expands on this thought elsewhere, stating that “his-
tory is not a static process and does not stand still.”65 It is constantly
moving forward toward the final culmination, the second coming
of Christ and the last judgment. History is a dynamic, moving pro-
cess — a complex stream of human events, ultimately developed,
controlled, shaped and sustained by the almighty power of God,
according to His thoughts. As such, history is a revelation of God.
However, as Singer has pointed out, sinful humanity cannot and
will not see these truths about history but rather “constantly calls for
itself and its glorifications the accomplishments and achievements.”66
62. Ibid., 9.
63. Ibid., 10.
64. Ibid., 16.
65. C. Gregg Singer, “A Philosophy of History,” in E.R. Geehan, ed., Jerusalem
and Athens: Critical Discussions on the Philosophy and Apologetics of Cornelius Van Til
(Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1971), 337.
This leads Singer to discuss the importance of the doctrine of Christ

and salvation.
Christ and Salvation

The person and work of Christ, understood and applied in Spirit-
worked transformation, are essential to Christian understanding of
history. Singer states that “the unbeliever is as unaware of the benev-
olent and beneficial results of the operation of common grace...as he
is of the necessity of special grace in redemption.”67 Because of this
“the revelation of God in nature and history must remain a closed
book to the unbeliever until he reads them right through the Scrip-
tures. Only when the sinner receives the new birth does he come to
understand the meaning of nature and history.”68 When transformed
by grace, the believer comes to see that history is Christ-centered:
[T]he birth of Jesus Christ is the pivotal point in the whole flow
of history...the coming of Christ is literally the fullness of time...
the whole of ancient history looked forward to the incarnation
even as the whole of history since the birth of Christ derives its
meaning from that great event. It lies at the very heart of the his-
torical process and becomes its focal point. Not only was Christ
the Redeemer made manifest in the flesh but Christ as Lord of
history was also clearly revealed. Christ as Lord is now in sover-
eign control of His church...the movements of history obey His
commands even as did the winds and the waves become still at
His command two thousand years ago.69
The importance of the redemptive and regenerating work of
Christ and the Holy Spirit, confirms for Singer a profound quali-
tative difference between the ability of the Christian versus the
unregenerate historian.70 In light of his earlier comments on man’s
covenant obligations to God, Singer places a particular onus on the
Christian historian to write history in a manner illuminated by, and
in harmony with, God’s special revelation to him. The implications
of God’s covenant-revelation, and the renewed God-given awareness
67. Ibid.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid., 11.
70. Singer refers to this directly in his work “The Relationship of Philosophy
and History to the Historic Christian Faith.”
of it, and its perfect fullness in Jesus Christ, should be inescapable

for the believer:
I include all Christians as heirs of the cultural mandate. No
Christian is exempt from the implications of his belief in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God and of the trusteeship which he holds
over the world as God’s vice-regent on this earth. True enough,
not all Christians are called to the ministry or to those disci-
plines which place a great emphasis on such knowledge, but
both ministers and teachers of all kinds have it a very real part
of their divine calling to challenge all Christians to an earnest
investigation of this part of their commitment to Christ.71
The Church and the Last Things

Singer, in applying the doctrine of Christ and redemption to the
theology of history, also examined its relationship to understanding
the position and role of the church in history. He states that “the
Incarnation must be regarded as the fullness of time,” and must be
taken seriously as such by the Christian historian whose concept of
the meaning of time must be directed by God’s interpretation of
the meaning of time.72 Since the incarnation of Jesus Christ marks
the fullness of time, this means that the church is the focal point of
human events.73 According to Singer, this means that the events and
life of the church in history are to be central to rather than isolated
from the grand sweep of “God’s revelation of himself in the histori-
cal process through common grace.”74 Singer states, “[T]he church
is in the world and affects the world, even though it is not of the
world.”75 The world must not affect the church, yet often it does.
In line with Philip Schaff ’s axiom that “secular history, far from
controlling sacred history, is controlled by it, [and] must directly or
indirectly subserve its ends,”76 Singer argues that “many Christians...
have failed to grasp the profound meaning of the role of the church
71. Singer, “The Relationship of Philosophy and History to the Historic Chris-
tian Faith,” 58.
72. Ibid., 61.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid., 62.
75. Ibid.
76. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
1996), 3.
in the historical process.”77 Later in his work he returns to this theme

stating that “because the covenant of grace still lies at the very heart
of the flow of historical events...all events are in some way related to
the church.”78 While providing an intriguing beginning on the cen-
tral theme of the church in history, Singer fails to elucidate further
on how the historian is to discern the role of the church in the his-
torical process.79
Singer also briefly notes the impact of eschatology “as one of
the most vexing and divisive, of the doctrines of evangelical Chris-
tianity” in the study of history. He avoids further discussion of the
topic aside from two pithy insights: (1) “that we can at no time allow
the eschatological tail to wag the theological dog” and (2) “we must
hold to a cataclysmic second coming of Jesus Christ.... The Scrip-
tures clearly teach that history has a beginning and they are equally
emphatic it has a cataclysmic ending.”80
The Historian’s Task

Singer’s work, while substantially concerned with the application
of theology to the understanding of history, also sought to interact
with contemporary discussions and examination of the philosophy
of history. To Singer, this was an important part of the task of the
Christian historian. His critical comments are insightful and span
historical thought from Augustine to Carl Becker and R.G. Colling
wood.81 Singer gave three applications of his approach in seeking to
deal with the thorny issues that vex historians, particularly those
seeking Christian understanding: historical interpretation and truth,
causation, and the tracing of God’s judgments.
According to Singer, in interpreting history the historian is
endeavoring “to find God’s preinterpretation of those real facts of
tian Faith,” 62. Singer also argues here that “severing the church of the Old Cove-
nant from the church of the New Covenant [i.e., Dispensational theology] fractures
history and ultimately makes it virtually unintelligible.”
78. Ibid, 110 –11.
79. Singer does however provide a thorough example of seeking to practically
apply these principles in his published works A Theological Interpretation of American
History and From Rationalism to Irrationality.
tian Faith,” 63.
81. Ibid., 66 –100.
history which he finds through a strict observance of the demands of

the discipline.”82 “He does not handle the dead facts of the past, but
rather those living facts which a sovereign God has brought to pass.”83
Thus the historian is “in the pursuit of historical truth.”84 This means
a “zeal for the evaluation of the trustworthiness of the documents he
is using” and “the covenantal duty of interpreting history in terms of
that meaning which God has already given to the whole stream of
human history with its myriads of facts and movements.”85
While cautioning that “in this life we always look through the
historical glass darkly,”86 Singer goes on to argue that the Christian
historian has a greater ability of insight due to the theology of history.
This is true not only in grasping the large picture of history, but is
also particularly evidenced in dealing with the problem of causation,
which is to be seen not only in terms of past and present but also
of the future — and all of this within the doctrine of Christ and the
sovereignty of God. Singer argues that a Christian historian should
not assume that precursors to an event are the only cause of an event:
Most textbooks give five or six reasons for the fall of Rome...all
great movements in history are treated this way. May the Chris-
tian scholar who seeks God’s interpretation of history, even if
he sees through a glass darkly, simply assume that because one
event or a group of events which take place in history before
another important event are actually the cause of that event?...
When we give serious consideration to this question and com-
pare the causes and the results of the fall of Rome...or any
other great movement in history, we see that they do not really
add up. The results...almost always seem far more important
than their causes. The answer to this vexing question can only
be found in the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God.
Historical causation is eschatological in nature: God guides his-
torical events to their final conclusion. Thus the future is as
82. Ibid., 101–102.

83. Ibid., 102.
84. Ibid.
85. Ibid., 103.
86. Ibid. Singer further states, “The Christian historian must always be mind-
ful of these ever present limitations” for “often the partially sanctified vision of
Christian scholarship can only faintly trace the sovereign hand of God as he is deal-
ing with his people” (ibid., 103, 112).
much a causal factor in the historical process as is the past. Pre-

vious events do...play an important role in...those which follow
them...[but] they bring about only those events which God has
foreordained. This doctrine of causation...gives to history its
ultimate meaning and purpose, for all events look forward to
the final revelation of the majesty and glory of Jesus Christ.87
Another occasion where Singer argues that the Christian histo-
rian has greater ability of particular insight is in the realization that
God uses history to bring judgment upon nations and peoples.88
This is also part of the calling of the Christian historian — to seek to
humbly and carefully trace the judgments and mercies of God, with
particular reference to the life of the church. Singer states,
The momentous events of history, the revolutions, the destruc-
tive wars, the fall of nations and civilizations, the frightening
dictatorships past and present which have arisen to haunt both
the church and society at large, have all in some way had refer-
ence to the church for its temporal judgment and its correction,
as well as for purification and vindication. The forces of evil do
not operate apart from the will of God.... Throughout history
God has made and continues to make the wrath of sinful men
to praise him.... He shows unbelieving nations and men that
disobedience to his will will bring disaster.... God used Napo-
leon to bring partial judgment on Europe, even as he used the
barbarians to bring judgment upon a debauched Rome. He used
Hitler to bring judgment on the Germany of that era, even as
he has used the communists to bring judgment on the church
in Russia. And we can be equally sure that the events which are
stirring the world today are manifestations of God’s judgments
upon the nations to recall them to himself before it is too late....
All events in some way or other have reference to the church.
God deals with his people in mercy, but also in judgment.89
For Singer, the fact that the Christian historian sees all of this through
the glass darkly at the present time, with a partially sanctified vision,
is not reason to abandon striving after a distinctively scriptural theol-
ogy of history. Nor is it reason to abandon or ignore the application
87. Ibid., 104 –11.

88. Ibid., 113.
89. Ibid., 113–14.
of theology of history, with all its implications, to the writing and

teaching of history.
Conclusion
It is clear that Singer, building on Van Til’s work, offers further
contributions towards the development of a theological approach to
history. These include: (1) relating key aspects (God, creation, man
and sin, covenant, common grace, Christ and salvation, etc.) of the
traditional loci of Reformed theology to the philosophy of history,
thus further developing a Reformed theology of history; (2) grap-
pling with select issues (causation, judgment, etc.) in the writing
and teaching of history; (3) providing an example of a theology of
history applied in his Theological Interpretation of American History; and
(4) challenging Christian historians to take a boldy biblical approach
to their discipline. Despite the undeveloped areas in Singer’s work,
his effort and insight towards a Christian understanding of history
yield enduring, valuable considerations for the Christian historian
and the thoughtful student of history.
Book Reviews
q
PRJ 3-1 (2011): 365–396
Book Reviews
q
Mark J. Boda. A Severe Mercy: Sin and Its Remedy in the Old Testament.
Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2009. 622 pp., $59.50, hardcover.
The title and subtitle of this significant work by Mark J. Boda are
suggestive and promising. The book aims to give a detailed analysis
of the theme of sin and its remedy throughout the Hebrew canonical
Scriptures. Despite the many valuable things this volume has to offer,
it ultimately requires a careful and discerning eye. In what follows we
will briefly survey Boda’s methodology before highlighting several of
his good contributions to this field of study and then cite some areas
where readers should be cautious.
While mapping out, briefly, the contours of contemporary biblical
theological study, Boda simply states that “the present work is canon-
ical-thematic, tracing the presentation of the theology of sin and its
remedy in the canonical form and shape of the Old Testament” (4).
He is clear that his “Christian theological convictions” have perhaps
influenced his reading, and at least in words, gives credence to the
Scripture as Scripture (4, 10).
Notwithstanding this, Boda attempts to enter into the “imaginative
world” of the Old Testament canon to let it speak on its own terms re-
garding sin and its remedy. This, for Boda, requires the canonical form
as opposed to precanonical levels developed by criticism. In entering
this imaginative world, Boda borrows from Kevin Vanhoozer the idea
of “word views” and “literary shapes” (6). All he intends on convey-
ing with these two concepts is that his approach is to understand the
words’ meanings as they are dependent on specific contexts — namely,
their arrangement in the literary units of the Hebrew canonical Scrip-
tures. Boda is examining this motif through a synchronic approach:
understanding of specific contexts give rise to different emphases (sur-
face structure to deep structure); paying close attention to the “variety

of lexical, imagistic, and conceptual frameworks” (7, emphasis mine).
Boda’s aim is to get at the discrete and perhaps unfiltered understand-
ing of sin and its remedy without being synthesized through a New
Testament lens, however useful he deems the New Testament to be.
Boda’s treatment of sin and the remedy throughout the Hebrew
canonical Scriptures serves to show readers the variety of linguis-
tic frameworks that the biblical authors use to describe sin and the
remedy. Sin is seen in a variety of ways, whether breaking moral pro-
hibitions, ritual observances, conscious sins, unintentional sins, or
the sins of fathers being passed onto their children.
Likewise, he sees the remedy carrying numerous emphases.
Divine retribution, discipline, judgment, substitution, penitence, re-
pentance, and other means of addressing God’s justice, for Boda, are
brought to light throughout the Hebrew canonical Scriptures. Boda
closes his work by saying, “This character has been consistent through-
out the Old Testament. Yahweh is a God who takes sin very seriously
and does not leave the guilty unpunished, and yet he is a God filled
with grace and mercy expressed through his patience and forgiveness
[….] [T]his severe mercy, however, cannot be controlled even by the
character creed, which is carefully qualified by Yahweh himself as be-
ing always under the control of his sovereign will” (522–23).
Boda has done a thorough examination of the Hebrew canoni-
cal Scriptures and has brought some major issues to the fore. Most
helpful is the complexity that Boda argues for in the variety of lexical
frameworks that define sin and the remedy. Often, we are prone to
reduce God’s dealing with His people as mechanistic, formulaic, or
predictive. Boda adds a rich definition and approach to our under-
standing of sin.
Boda has also done a fine job illuminating for us the remedy of
sin. Often when we consider the work of the Suffering Servant, we
are prone to see His work as mere law-keeping. Though this was cer-
tainly present in Christ’s work, Christ also brings to the head the
final and consummate remedy. The remedies that Boda highlights
throughout his book find their fulfillment and substance in Jesus
Christ. Not only was Christ our sacrificial Lamb, but He was also
our divine mediator. Not only was Christ our covenant keeper, but
He was also the one who bore sins. Christ not only poured out mercy
and grace at the cross, but He also bore the righteous indignation of a
Book Reviews 367
God whose justice demanded that sin be propitiated. Christ’s work in

the New Testament is forged in the theology of the Old Testament;
we can thank Boda for adding to the rich theology of the Old as it in-
forms the work of Christ in His incarnation, death, and resurrection.
While not neglecting the many positive aspects of Boda’s book,
a few words of caution are in place. The first is with the sometimes
misunderstood or unqualified statements that Boda makes. A clear
example is his treatment of Isaiah 6. Boda uses the incident of the
angel’s cleansing Isaiah’s lips with a hot coal to say, “it does show that
atonement and removal of sin can be accomplished by means other
than sacrifice, here a glowing coal from the altar” (195). Instead, this
coal should be understood as symbolizing the personal application of
the benefits of the sacrifice to Isaiah, thus signifying and sealing the
forgiveness and cleansing that Isaiah had on the basis of the offering
on the altar.
A most disappointing drawback of the book is Boda’s failure to
bring the creation of the world into view as the backdrop for un-
derstanding the nature and severity of sin. Sin cannot be viewed or
understood lexically or theologically if we divorce Genesis 3 from the
context of Genesis 1–2. Genesis 1–2 and the account of the heavens
and the earth establish for us the severity of sin and the necessity of a
wrath-bearer. God’s stipulation in the covenant of works is that His
spoken Word must be obeyed. The sanction for breaking this cov-
enant is death. In my estimation, this omission is the Achilles heel of
the book and a real puzzle to the reviewer.
Finally, Boda stops short of showing God’s final resolution to
sin. Though this should be somewhat expected, given that Boda is
dealing with Old Testament types and shadows, it is unacceptable for
two reasons. The Old Testament shows forth proleptically the ba-
sis of salvation as being in God’s appointed Mediator, as the apostles
frequently establish (Heb. 10:12; 1 Pet. 2:24, etc.). Moreover, the Old
Testament also is at pains to show the application of this salvation
in terms that have the work of God’s Spirit in view on the basis of
Christ’s sacrifice. Isaiah calls Israel to come and reason with the Lord
concerning their scarlet sins (Isa. 1:18). He proclaims a day when their
sins shall be taken care of by God (Isa. 1:27). Jeremiah proclaims the
day when the Lord will raise up a faithful Shepherd whose name
will be: The LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jer. 23:6). Ezekiel
prophesies how God will take the heart of stone and give a heart of
flesh (Ezek. 36:22–36). Zechariah sees the vision of Joshua the priest
receiving the garments of the Lord (Zech. 3:1–10). Micah foresees a
day when the sins of the people will be trodden underfoot and cast
into the seas (Micah 7:18–20).
In all, A Severe Mercy is helpful on many points. If one is seeking
to understand the development of sin and its remedy structured ac-
cording to the Hebrew canonical Scriptures, and is looking merely to
expand his horizons on the variety of images and lexical nuances of
sin and its remedy, then this book is worth reading. If, however, one
is attempting to understand God’s progressive revelation and unfold-
ing of grace in redeeming a people to Himself against the backdrop
of creation and the covenant of works in a way that ultimately culmi-
nates in Jesus Christ and is applied by the Holy Spirit, such a reader
will be disappointed.
— Gerald M. Bilkes
q
Martin Bucer. Concerning the True Care of Souls. Edinburgh: Banner of

Truth Trust, 2009. 258 pp., $24.00, hardcover.
Martin Bucer is one of those lesser-known Reformers who is
undeservedly overlooked in the contemporary Reformed world. Yet,
from his center of labor in Strasbourg, Germany, he profoundly in-
fluenced the direction of the Reformation. One has only to weigh his
heavy influence on John Calvin, who lived for a time in Strasbourg
and imported its ideals to Geneva. Further, at the invitation of Arch-
bishop Thomas Cranmer, he moved to England in 1548, where he
spent the last few years of his life as Regius Professor of Divinity at
Cambridge. In England, he advised the powers that be in how refor-
mation ought to be advanced on the island kingdom, and he planted
the seeds of a pastoral model that was later to emerge in Richard Bax-
ter’s Reformed Pastor.
Thanks to Peter Beale and the Banner of Truth, we now have
Bucer’s great contribution to Pastoral Theology, Concerning the True
Care of Souls. This book is a must-read for all men in and aspiring to
the ministry. Permit me to highlight several features I found helpful
and challenging.
First, and not surprising, given the source, Bucer put a very high
Book Reviews 369
premium on the visible church and its ordinances. The pastoral minis-
try is a major component of that grand institution which Jesus founded
on the rock. The Word, the sacraments, and discipline are the staples of
the true Christian life, and, consequently, the pastoral ministry is the
sine qua non of the rise and progress of our spirituality. Bucer writes,
God sent an angel to Cornelius to declare his grace to him, but
he still had to be properly taught and given new birth through
St Peter [Acts 10]. Christ himself converted Paul from heaven,
but he still had to be taught more fully through Ananias and
washed and purified from his sins through baptism [Acts 9:1–19;
22:3 –16]. So the Lord simply wants to maintain this order
whereby he performs the work of conversion, redemption and
the whole of salvation in us through his ministers....
This is why all pious Christians should use the texts we have
set out to guard themselves against the wholly pernicious error
which despises the church’s ministry of word and sacrament as
a superficial and unnecessary thing, and would have everything
given and received from Christ in heaven without using the
means which the Lord himself desires to employ (23).
We as men of God must ever remind ourselves and our people of
these great realities in a day when so many are pro-Jesus but anti-
“institutional religion.”
Second, Martin Bucer makes several points worth noting about
ministerial prerequisites. Not just anyone can serve in this office. A
holy office is for holy men. This theme recurs over and over, and we
should have this drummed into our ears. The following quote reveals
how deeply concerned he was about this principle. In referring to the
moral qualities required of elders in 1 Timothy 3, he writes,
By saying this we do not mean that these qualities are not called
for in all Christians, and these failings should not be abhorred
by all; but it should be known that these qualities should char-
acterize and be seen in ministers more than in others, and there
should be absolutely no hint of these failings in them. For the
rest, we have to put up with there still in part being these fail-
ings in the church, although it is a sad thing and something to
be fought against. (53 – 54).
This also serves as a preventative against an overbearing and disci-
pline-happy ministry. If we make a distinction between those lesser
faults which are to be tolerated in the faithful but not in the leaders,
we go a long way keeping the church a welcoming hospital and not an
elitist club for those who have “already attained.”
Bucer also introduces prerequisites that we may not typically think
of, but are necessary for the efficiency of the ministry and the good of
the people. For example, he firmly argued that only those men who
had spent time gaining the confidence of the flock should be consid-
ered for office. Precisely because “people are weak and discipline and
punishment are unpleasant, it is necessary that these ministers should
as much as possible be trusted and respected by the believers among
whom they are to serve the Lord” (41). “They must have the greatest
respect and confidence of the whole congregation, be most thoroughly
known for their godly activity” (55). It is necessary “to have the consen-
sus of the whole church, because ministers are not only to be blameless
in the eyes of the Lord’s people, but also well trusted and loved by
them” (63). Interestingly, Bucer asserts that one should never ascend
to a higher office without having proved himself in a lower (62). The
thrust is obvious: win the hearts, not by politics, but by sustained and
consistent godliness, and the people should gladly submit to you (197).
Next, it is noteworthy that Bucer majors on discipline. Yet far
from treating it as draconian, discipline is rather a pastoral business,
an affair of nothing less than pure Christian love. If pastors are truly
“carers of souls,” then they will not withhold medicine when medi-
cine is due (98ff).
Consequently, Bucer bemoans how the church by neglecting
discipline forfeits that authority which the Lord has given it for the ed-
ification — and reclamation — of men. For Bucer, its neglect is a kind
of self-emasculation. One wonders whether the modern church’s loss
in social status is largely due to its laxity in discipline.
Fourth, Bucer holds out a holistic view of the church and its
ministry. Though much of what he writes is for those in the pastoral
office, yet he is quick to point out that the brotherhood has a duty to
care for souls as well. “Wounded sheep are to be given treatment by all
Christians, but particularly by the carers of souls” (98).
Finally, Bucer ascribes a conspicuous place to the Holy Spirit
throughout. The Third Person of the Godhead was obviously front
and center in Bucer’s mind, leaving one to speculate on another aspect
of influence on Calvin.
— Michael Ives
Book Reviews 371
S.D. Dyer. A Preparatory Grammar for New Testament Greek. Greenville,

S.C.: Ambassador Intl., 2008. 257 pp., $24.99, hardcover.
In Hebrew Abstracts, 15 (1974):108–19, William Sanford LaSor
wrote an overview and defense of the inductive method for teaching
the original languages. LaSor argued that a major disadvantage of the
deductive model of language instruction was its tendency to postpone
the study of syntax until the very end of the course. On the other
hand, one of the advantages of the inductive method is that syntax
is studied right from the start. His Greek professors used to tell him,
“Syntax is the most important part of learning Greek. Unfortunately,
we won’t have much time for studying it.” LaSor notes that when he
was taught Hebrew, they never got around to studying syntax at all.
Then he writes, “But there is no phrase, no prepositional expression,
no construct state that does not involve a point of syntax.”
That last sentence is key. Every phrase and every clause has its
function, and knowing this function is essential to doing exegesis. A
student can have hundreds of paradigms committed to memory, but
without knowing syntax, his learning will prove relatively useless in
the hermeneutical and homiletical task before him. It is essential that
seminarians be taught to recognize syntax; briefly addressing this at
the close of a Greek course is not sufficient.
Prof. Sid Dyer of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
has remedied this problem by resurrecting the practice of sentence
diagramming. His first-year Greek grammar has all the things one
would normally expect but with the addition of many lessons on di-
agramming Greek sentences. His grammar is still not an inductive
approach, but LaSor’s objection doesn’t apply because students are
taught to diagram sentences early in the course. As a student builds
these diagrams, he is forced to make all sorts of syntactical decisions
in order to complete the diagram successfully. The result is that the
student is trained to think more in terms of syntax and less in terms
of words and lexicons.
Sentence diagramming used to be a staple of public school gram-
mar training but fell out of favor as the new romanticist philosophy
took over the education departments. The practice was pioneered by
Alonzo Reed who used this method for teaching students English
grammar. In the late 1800s, he wrote:
The simple map, or diagram, found in the following lessons,
will enable the pupil to present directly and vividly to the eye the
exact function of every clause in the sentence, of every phrase
in the clause, and of every word in the phrase—to picture the
complete analysis of the sentence, with principal and subordi-
nate parts in their proper relations. It is only by the aid of such
a map, or picture, that the pupil can, at a single view, see the
sentence as an organic whole made up of many parts perform-
ing various functions and standing in various relations.... The
diagram drives the pupil to a most searching examination of the
sentence, brings him face to face with every difficulty, and com-
pels a decision on every point.
That such a skill would be of immense use to the exegete is obvious;
to the best of my knowledge, Prof. Dyer’s grammar is still the only
print grammar that makes use of this forgotten skill. For this reason,
I would place this grammar in the first rank of introductory Greek
grammars.
The book is complete in itself with all the exercises, parsings,
translations, etc. that one would need to teach the language effec-
tively. There are also some English-to-Greek translations. There is
one chapter devoted to μ verbs. The last two chapters of the book
introduce the student to the different uses of the noun cases and verb
tenses, topics not typically covered in first-year Greek. A teacher’s edi-
tion is available. This grammar is quite ambitious in what it hopes to
teach first-year students. Because of this, it might be a bit overwhelm-
ing for the student doing a self-study; but in a classroom situation, it
could be an effective text.
— Christopher Engelsma
q
J. Cameron Fraser. Thandabantu: The Man Who Loved the People. Belle
ville, Ont.: Guardian Books, 2010. 80 pp., $7.25, paperback.
This small book’s theme could be encapsulated in one word:
“love.” The biography of missionary James Fraser (1913 –1959), it was
written by his son Cameron as a labor of love — a tribute to the father
who died when he was just a boy not quite five years of age. But the
motif of love finds expression particularly in its unique title, Than
Book Reviews 373
dabantu, the African nickname given to Mr. Fraser by those among

whom he labored: it means “the man who loves the people.”
James Fraser came from Strathpeffer, a village in Scottish High-
lands. Raised in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, he
professed faith at the age of twenty-two. Three years later, in 1938, he
sailed for Africa in order to use his considerable academic talents as a
teacher in Southern Rhodesia (later called Rhodesia and now Zimba-
bwe). His first stint there lasted longer than what he expected: seven
years. World War II prevented him from returning to Scotland, and a
letter from the office of the Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister, Sir
Godfrey Huggins, also encouraged him “to stay at his post, as it was
‘of the greatest national importance.’”
In 1945, he did return, and that year married Christine (Chris)
Finlayson, who had served as a nurse during the War. In September
1947, the couple sailed for Africa, where they ministered for the next
dozen years.
In March 1959, James Fraser died from hospital staphylococcal
bacterial endocarditis, which damages heart valves and leads to heart
failure. However, given the fact that there were numerous major
events in his terminal illness, his son Cameron has referred to his
death as being due to “a mysterious illness.” It is possible that he might
have contracted a very early case of AIDS as a result of a monkey bite.
This little book contains the type of exciting accounts one expects
from missionary stories: traversing roads turned into virtual rivers;
killing a leopard that was leaping out of a tree; treating Cameron with
anti-venom after he was bitten by a poisonous snake. It also contains
lessons, such as these: (1) the call of sacrificial labor; (2) sending to
the mission field those who are the best in their field, such as in aca-
demic studies; (3) using education and medicine as “handmaids” to
the gospel. We are also informed of how, in 1963, a small, conserva-
tive group — the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland — elected an
African as moderator of its synod, which was a first for the highest
judicatory of any denomination in the United Kingdom.
The book is graced with a commendation by Sinclair B. Ferguson
on the cover (including his statement, “Here is a book whose value is
out of all proportion to its size”), and by a foreword penned by Lord
MacKay (a former Lord Advocate of Scotland and former Lord Chan-
cellor of the United Kingdom), who knew James Fraser as a young
man. The author, who while a student at Westminster Theological
Seminary was editor of the Presbyterian Guardian magazine, was or-

dained in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He presently
pastors the First Christian Reformed Church (CRCNA) in Lethbridge,
Alberta, Canada.
— Frank J. Smith
q
Wilson H. Kimnach, et al., eds. Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands

of an Angry God: a Casebook Including the Authoritative Edition of the Fa-
mous Sermon. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010. 224
pp., $14.00, paperback.
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God (hereafter Sinners), has received much attention in theological-
historical studies and personal reflection. This is aptly demonstrated
in the casebook written and compiled by Wilson H. Kimnach, Ca-
leb J.D. Maskell, and Kenneth P. Minkema on the famous sermon
preached at Enfield, Massachusetts on July 8, 1741. This casebook
places Jonathan Edwards and his sermon within their religious and
intellectual roots through an introductory essay by Wilson H. Kimn-
ach. This introductory essay is followed with an essay by Caleb J. D.
Maskell placing the sermon, Sinners, within the theological under-
standing of Edwards. The authoritative edition of the sermon itself
follows. Another important aspect of this casebook is the fact that at-
tempts have been made to redress the issue of the negative press that
this sermon has received throughout history. The editors include sev-
eral excerpts of Edwards’s works to show that he was not consumed
only with themes of judgment and hell, but also with gentler themes
of Christ’s supremacy and sweetness. These excerpts are an attempt
at re-balancing the view of Edwards’s theology and life. The next sec-
tion of this work includes documents from Edwards’s contemporaries
and how they perceived this seminal sermon. The final section of the
book includes the analyses of various religious, political, and literary
figures throughout the succeeding centuries after Edwards, showing
the prevailing influence of this sermon, whether positive or negative.
The introduction to this casebook sets up the issue surrounding
Sinners. It is a highly controversial sermon that continues to have a wide
readership in America and abroad for a variety of reasons. This case-
Book Reviews 375
book seeks to set the sermon within its cultural and religious context,
its purpose in Edwards’s mind, and its reception throughout history.
The casebook is also intended for the reader to identify key themes
throughout Edwards’s works that run throughout the sermon also (xv).
In the introductory essay, Kimnach seeks to set Edwards and his
sermon in his religious and intellectual roots in an objective manner.
Kimnach helpfully traces Edwards’s religious roots to the Puritans
and their emphases as they settled the New World. Kimnach does
give a slight caricature of the Puritans as he recounts their view of the
natives that the Puritans encountered as “satanic savages” and their
emphasis on a “pure” church to the exclusion of fellow countrymen
in England (3). Even as he traces the Puritan influence upon Edwards,
he notes that Puritan emphases were waning as colonial life became
more secularized and morals became lax. There was, however, spo-
radic interest and revivals of religion, which Kimnach attributes to
colonial life on the frontier or hard work in the pulpit (4). While this
is not the sole cause for revived interest in religion, Kimnach does
have a point that the hardships endured and the constant threat of at-
tack from the natives contributed to people’s renewed interest in the
things of religion. It is these “awakenings” and “harvests” that defined
the preachers in the colony as either good or bad. Edwards falls into
the former category. Edwards was also influenced by Ramist logic,
which is seen in his structuring of sermons with the introduction of
the doctrine, the explanation of the doctrine, and finally the applica-
tion of the doctrine. Overall, Kimnach provides a fair assessment of
the intellectual and religious world in which Edwards produced and
preached Sinners.
The theological primer written by Caleb J. D. Maskell is a helpful
tool to understanding aspects of Edwards’s theology and how Sin-
ners fits into the broader scope of his theology. Maskell rightly argues
that “when we read Sinners today, we are reading a document that for
its original hearers was located within a highly developed theological
context” (17). Within Sinners, there is a highly developed theologi-
cal vocabulary which Edwards’s audience would have understood but
which is lost to the majority of readers today. Maskell seeks to address
this very important issue. It is precisely because the theological termi-
nology has been lost that Sinners has received negative reviews among
its readers. The sermon must be understood in its theological con-
text and the meaning of key theological terms must be understood
in order to fully appreciate what Edwards is doing in this important

sermon. Philosophically, intellectually, and experientially, the starting
point of Edwards’s theology is God. For Edwards, his theology is the
driving force behind the sermon.
The punishment of sinners that Edwards describes so vividly in
Sinners is because of God’s attribute of justice. He requires that sin be
punished because His justice and holiness cannot tolerate sin. Accord-
ing to Maskell’s interpretation of Edwards, “God is infinitely just and
thus it is fitting that he should punish sin with an infinite punishment”
(27). The punishment of sin is hell in all its horrors, and “hell for Ed-
wards is an eternal monument to the infinite justice of God, and as
such it is the ultimate vehicle for the expression of God’s glory in the
damnation of sinners” (27). Maskell masterfully treats the attributes
of God and their relationship to the punishment of sinners in hell as
the backdrop to Sinners. This chapter is crucial to understanding the
sermon which Edwards preached and which God used for so many.
The casebook also includes the authoritative edition of Sinners,
which is based on Deuteronomy 32:35: “Their foot shall slide in due
time.” Throughout the sermon, Edwards uses vivid imagery to evoke
the tenuousness of life because of sin and the facts that sinners are
destined for hell. Hell is described in its tortuous condition and strikes
fear in the heart. The sermon is divided into the introduction, the
main doctrine, and then the application. The doctrinal aspect is writ-
ten entirely in the third person which to some extent allows the reader
or the listener to distance himself from what Edwards is saying, yet the
vivid imagery is no less real or striking. In the application, Edwards
becomes more direct towards his audience, speaking in the second
person and alerting the audience that the sermon is about them.
In the next section of the casebook, the editors have attempted to
extract key themes from the sermon and locate them in other works
of Edwards, such as the justice of God, the sweetness of Christ, and
Edwards’s intense concern for the souls of his people. The purpose
of these excerpts is also to show readers of Sinners that Edwards was
not only a preacher focused on preaching hell; he was also a pastor,
scientist, and philosopher. Edwards’s view of preaching also necessi-
tated the language and imagery of Sinners. He argues that preaching is
not only rational (light), but preaching must also touch the affections
(heat). A sermon then must have both light and heat. Just light would
produce only a speculative knowledge or bare intellectual knowledge;
Book Reviews 377
just heat would produce excessive emotion. Both were needed for a
life of true piety towards God. Edwards sounds a contemporary note
for preachers today on this point.
In the excerpt of the sermon, The Justice of God in the Damnation
of Sinners (1735), the punishment of sin was not arbitrary for Edwards
but echoes the same themes as Sinners. Infinite punishment is rooted
in the infinity of God’s being, man’s sinfulness, and God’s sovereignty
(63–66). Edwards clearly believed in double predestination. This is
shown in his Personal Narrative (1740), in which he first relates the dif-
ficulties he had in coming to grips with God’s sovereignty and then
shows how he came to rest in this doctrine in respect to salvation and
damnation that God in His sovereignty shows mercy to whom He
will show mercy and He will harden and condemn whom He will.
This doctrine of God’s sovereignty, says Edwards, “often appeared, an
exceeding pleasant, bright and sweet doctrine to me” (78).
Edwards had not only a high view of God’s sovereignty but also
a high view of Christ. In his Personal Narrative, Edwards recounts his
conversion experience and the sweet thoughts he began to have of
Christ even as he had infinite low views of himself and his sinfulness.
In Some Thoughts on the Revival in New England, Edwards speaks to the
role of evoking terror in his listeners: it was so that the gospel might
be preached to them. He does this in a balanced way, showing that
he is a physician of the soul (99–102). It is this view of a gentle and
sweet Christ that Edwards counsels Mary Pepperell, whose soul has
been awakened. This letter is used to show what Edwards might have
spoken to those who were awakened upon hearing Edwards preach
Sinners (102–104). Edwards was by no means unique in his presenta-
tion of hell and the condition of sinners outside of Christ. This is a
view shared by his contemporaries as noted by men such as Gilbert
Tennent. Edwards was the epitome of what a minister should be: a
man who is faithful in alerting his hearers about the reality of their
awful condition. He had detractors in his own day, however. The Old
Lights downplayed the revivals and strongly rejected the excesses.
One of the most intriguing sections of this casebook was the sec-
tion on how others interpreted and received Sinners in subsequent
centuries. Many responses were very unfavorable among the literary
and intellectual elite. The language of hell and punishment is a base
form of reasoning, keeping people in unnecessary bondage. Harriet
Beecher Stowe describes the sermon and such like preaching as a
“slow poison” (141). Oliver Wendell Holmes states it this way: “It is
impossible that people of ordinary sensibilities should have listened
to his torturing discourses without becoming at last sick of hearing of
infinite horrors and endless agonies” (144). Mark Twain describes Ed-
wards as “a resplendent intellect gone mad” (148). Parrington speaks
of Edwards as devoting “his noble gifts to the thankless task of re-
imprisoning the mind of New England” (155). Edwards did receive
positive press that counterbalances the misunderstanding and the
caricatures of the misinformed and those who were astray. One sup-
porter describes the sermon as “tear-stained” because of Edwards’s
concern for the souls of his listeners. Theodore Roosevelt speaks
highly of Edwards as “a great preacher and a strong and good man”
(151). Perry Miller has done much to revive the image of Edwards in
a largely positive light. Billy Graham used Sinners in his evangelistic
campaign in Los Angeles in 1949 as a tool for preaching.
This casebook is very valuable in discussing and critiquing Ed-
wards’s Sinners. The editors have done teachers, scholars, and the lay
person a great service in writing, compiling, and editing this book.
This book encourages preachers and listeners alike to consider the
horrible realities that await the unconverted in respect to hell and the
justice of God. It is a helpful summary of Sinners in the context and
environment of Edwards’s day and attempts to accurately portray this
sermon. It is a book that is helpful for those who seek to defend a high
view of the sovereignty, justice, and excellency of God, a high view
of sin, and a high view of Christ. While intended primarily for class-
room use and discussion, this book can also be used by the interested
reader as an introduction to Edwards’s most controversial sermon and
a transition to Edwards’s other works.
— Maarten Kuivenhoven
q
Robert Letham. The Westminster Assembly: Reading its Theology in Histor-

ical Context. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 2009. 400 pp., $24.99, paperback.
Robert Letham’s new volume on the Westminster Assembly is a
thorough exercise in historical theology which seeks to recover the
Assembly as a uniquely English body and rescue its documents from
the anachronisms of subsequent Reformed interpreters. The author is
Book Reviews 379
one of the first scholars to make extensive use of the recent labors of
Chad Van Dixhoorn, whose forthcoming multivolume critical edi-
tion of the Assembly minutes, we are assured from almost the first
page, “will bring about a sea change in the understanding of the As-
sembly, from both theological and historical perspectives” (2). This
opening statement may be read as both exciting and perhaps a little
disconcerting, and if Letham’s new work is any gauge of this “changed
understanding” of future Westminster studies, then both adjectives
are perhaps à propos.
The book is divided into three sections: the first examines the his-
torical context from the Reformation to the Restoration; the second
considers the theological context, stressing especially the English but
also continental influences; and finally, the bulk of the book engages
in a rigorous study on the theology of the Assembly, focusing particu-
larly on the content of the Confession of Faith and Larger Catechism.
The Historical Context. Letham ably outlines the Assembly’s his-
torical background in the English Reformation, drawing on an
impressive array of sources and taking great pains to show the As-
sembly as a uniquely English body, assigned with the theological task of
redrafting the Thirty-Nine Articles and nothing more, a task hijacked
by the intrusion of the Scottish Presbyterian Commissioners with
“an entirely new agenda” (40) — that of creating a novel ecclesiastical
landscape. Multiple salvoes are thus fired at Warfield and others in the
Scottish and American Presbyterian tradition, who have emphasized
the important contributions of the Scots’ Commissioners; in contrast,
Letham depicts them as “intransigent,” “lack[ing] imagination” and
“the necessary gumption” to establish ecclesiastical unity in the Brit-
ish Isles, and thus indirectly responsible for the Assembly’s failure “to
achieve in its own land the purpose for which it has been established”
(44). If Presbyterian commentators have indeed historically over-
emphasized the contributions of Rutherford, Gillespie, Henderson,
et al, then the impartial reader may find Letham guilty of the opposite
throughout the volume.
The Theological Context. The second section on the Assem-
bly’s Theological Context continues the theme of recovering the
Assembly’s lost “Englishness” from an allegedly marred Scottish and
American Presbyterian historiography and “anti-English prejudice”
(50, 69), expressed by the classic historical and theological assessments
of Warfield and Hetherington as well as practical commentaries like
those of J. G. Vos and Robert Shaw. However uncomfortable such

reading may be for those in the Presbyterian tradition, one must ask
whether Letham’s concerns are justified. A fascinating foray into the
pre-Restoration Anglican Church makes a strong case that it was by
and large in better theological shape than has often been perceived
and in need of a revision of its Thirty-Nine Articles, not the root-
and-branch reformation proposed by the Assembly documents, which
in any case was never successfully implemented south of the border
(again, thanks to “a failure of political and theological imagination”
by the Presbyterians, 299, fn. 16). This is why the writer can say, “in
terms of the purpose for which it was created, the work of the West-
minster Assembly was a total failure” (47), and yet north of the border
(and across the Atlantic), it proved a towering success as a confessional
standard, a victory Letham seems less than eager to celebrate.
Included in this section is Letham’s helpful and characteristi-
cally exhaustive study of the sources of the Assembly’s theology in
several preceding Reformed Confessions, notably the Irish Articles
and, of course, the Thirty-Nine Articles. While a comparison of the
two confessional documents shows the Westminster Confession to
be clearly in the theological line of the British Reformed Tradition
in general, the writer’s eagerness to connect the Confession with the
Thirty-Nine Articles and thus rescue its distinctly English (and to
some extent Anglican) character, arguably reveals a more substantive
than direct verbal link. Unfortunately, his case is not helped by a con-
tinued tendency to be dismissive of the very tradition which for four
centuries has embraced and lived out these standards, and a pointed
defense of a church which en masse rejected them (along with her
Thirty-Nine Articles)!
In a useful chapter on the Reformed and Catholic Contexts of the
Assembly, Letham takes aim at several schools of interpretation which
he deems to have ignored the contemporary theological context to
pursue their own ideological agendas. He rejects the tired and once-
popular Calvin-versus-the-Calvinists agenda and T. F. Torrance’s
“programmatic ideological opposition to federal theology,” but then
with equal rigor denounces “many right-wing Presbyterians,” par-
ticularly “the militant adherents of the hypothesis that the days of
creation were of twenty-fours duration [sic]” (85). It seems unusual
that this latter example should be highlighted as “a prime example”
of “interpret[ing] the Westminster Confession in detachment from
Book Reviews 381
the history of the Reformed Church” (85), since in his discussion

of the Confession’s doctrine of Creation, Letham later concedes that
“all the Assembly divines who wrote on this topic held to this [6/24]
view” (189). Of greater benefit is his charting in detail the divines’
interaction with the Continental Reformed tradition, showing from
the Assembly debates and correspondence “the divines’ readiness to
bring other Reformed authorities to their aid” (92). Of equal value
is Letham’s discussion of how the Westminster Confession fits in
continuity with the catholic creeds and confessions, witnessed by a
propensity to cite the Fathers during the Assembly debates.
The Theology of the Assembly. The bulk of Letham’s volume is ded-
icated to a thorough examination of the theological content of the
Assembly’s documents. It is a wealth of careful study of the Confes-
sion and Larger Catechism, chapter by chapter, “line upon line.” The
content is grouped into nine broad thematic chapters (Holy Scripture,
Humanity and Sin, Christ and Covenant, etc.) which follow the or-
der of the Confession, and which are interspersed by a half-dozen
historical-theological excurses of varying usefulness, most of which
delve into specific Assembly debates in exhaustive detail. Letham has
a keen eye for detail and, for the most part, a religious commitment to
understanding the documents in their historic context. A concluding
index of the Westminster Standards provides a useful tool for pastors
and teachers preparing classes on the Standards, making the volume
much more user-friendly.
This storehouse of helpful comment begins with a fine survey of
the field of theological perspectives on Westminster. Letham leaves no
stone unturned, again dismissing those who would pit Calvin against
his theological heirs, along with the criticisms of the Torrances and
Barth. However, what many readers will find less convincing is his case
(evident throughout the rest of the book) that “the Assembly docu-
ments need to be understood as compromise documents” (111, emphasis
mine), and the rarely explicit but nonetheless obvious implications that
may be drawn from this premise for today’s confessional churches.
That there were areas of disagreement in the Assembly has always been
acknowledged. But we get more than a hint that what Letham seeks to
draw from the newly uncovered (and as yet largely inaccessible) min-
utes is a stretching of the Confession to accommodate positions which,
while admittedly held by a handful of divines who wrote the Con-
fession, would for the last four hundred years have been considered
censurable in many a confessional church. If this is the “sea change” in

Westminster Studies that awaits the publication of the Van Dixhoorn
research, then confessional churches may well be apprehensive.
One of the most concerning examples is what Letham calls a
“compromise on justification” in the language of the Confession and
especially Larger Catechism Q. 70 (114), by which he means the ter-
minology chosen to express the imputation of the active obedience
of Christ. Even if one appreciates the Assembly’s place in the histori-
cal development of articulating this doctrine and its desire to retain
unity within its members, the reader is left with the distinct impres-
sion that even at the present a confessional church may ordain officers
that reject imputed righteousness: “The Assembly clearly committed
itself to regard the active obedience as imputed in justification, but
the minority who disagreed were not run out of the assembly. They
continued to participate actively and productively” (113), because this
doctrine was “not...made a litmus test of a man’s ministry” (264).
Letham rightly emphasizes that the Westminster Assembly was
emphatically “not a court of the Church” but “an advisory body of the
Houses of Parliament” (34), charged with establishing a new confes-
sional standard to be subscribed to by a new confessional church.
But it is one thing for a handful of members of this non-ecclesiastical
Assembly to dissent from key doctrines; it is quite another to as-
sume that they would then be welcomed as office-bearers within
the confessional church whose standards the Westminster docu-
ments became. Yet, Letham wants to have it both ways. To argue,
for example, that because Thomas Gataker was not “run out of the
assembly” over his erroneous views on justification, a pastor holding
similar views today need not be run out of a confessional church is
surely a non sequitur.
While Letham attempts to temper this point by disclaiming its
connection with present-day advocates of the Federal Vision or New
Perspective on Paul (113, fn. 49; 264, fn. 97) — many of whom are
praising Letham’s book on their blogs — there is more than a hint
here of opening the door to a much broader confessional subscrip-
tion. This uncomfortable sense is not helped by his comment on the
“Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification” of
the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (2006), which takes the opposite
and obvious reading of Larger Catechism Q. 70 on imputation, and of
which he comments, “the tenor of the report suggests that the com-
Book Reviews 383
mittee had its mind made up already” (264, fn. 92). The reader may
be forgiven for seeing in such unnecessary remarks that our study is
not merely an academic exercise in historical theology, but has mo-
mentarily trespassed into contemporary confessional church courts.
The same logic is followed in a number of other key areas, where
the writer gives considerable space to other dissenting divines. For ex-
ample, the “English hypothetical universalists” like Edward Calamy
“were not blackballed for their views. The Assembly was not a parti-
san body within the boundaries of its generic Calvinism, but allowed
differing views to co-exist” (182). Granted; though again, the ques-
tion of how this translates into confessional subscription in today’s
church is left a tantalizingly open question. Oddly enough, the same
analysis seems to be dropped in other areas of contemporary debate.
For example, he concedes that “all the Assembly divines who wrote
on the topic [of the days of creation] held to this [six literal 24-hour
days] view” (189), but then virtually dismisses them as geocentric flat-
earthers who disregarded Copernicus due to a “sad disconnection
with the drift of current thought” (192). One could argue a double
standard is at play when we can incorporate the minority’s rejected
views in a confessional church, but candidly dismiss those that were
manifestly accepted and taught by the majority.
Letham invests much time in critiquing other important
doctrines. He strives to distance “the Princeton doctrine of the im-
putation of Adam’s sin on the ground of a federal relationship” (199,
italics his) from the Westminster documents, though, in fairness, he
acknowledges it may be deduced from them. Although not explicitly
named in the Westminster Standards, the Covenant of Redemption
is roundly condemned as “tending towards tritheism,” “open[ing] the
door to heresy” and “a departure from classic Trinitarian orthodoxy”
(235–36). On the several chapters of the Confession addressing the
ordo salutis, Letham is on surer ground (with the exception of the mat-
ter of imputed righteousness already mentioned). He convincingly
illustrates Westminster’s continuity with the catholic creeds and Re-
formed confessions, and highlights its unique contributions (notably
Chapter XII on Adoption), though he is critical of its chapter on as-
surance as “one of those occasions where the Assembly was not at its
best” (288), and is keen to defend the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of
deification (as he understands it) in connection with the Confession’s
treatment of glorification (288–92; 367, fn. 8).
On the vital subject of Religious Worship (Ch. XXI), an attempt is

made to connect the content of worship with the “good and necessary
inference” hermeneutic in Chapter I on Holy Scripture to discount a
strict understanding of the Regulative Principle of Worship, in part
because (we are told) “there is no explicit statement in the Bible to the
effect that only that can be done in the worship of the church that the
Bible specifically commands” (303, fn. 23). Then, taking aim at the
practice of exclusive psalmody, he concedes that “when the Confes-
sion refers to the singing of psalms, it is unquestioned that the divines
had in mind the Psalms of David,” but in the very next breath puzzl
ingly asks, “However, did they believe that only the Psalms should be
sung in the worship of the Church?” (307). Readers may decide for
themselves the merits of Letham’s case, which predictably answers the
question in the negative. Another of the more curious cases Letham
makes is found in a somewhat weakly argued excursus to persuade
us that when WCF XXIV.3 forbids marrying “papists,” it is purely
on contemporary political grounds and not at all for religious reasons
(314 –17), presumably leaving it a viable option today (otherwise why
make the point?). In a similar vein, the Confession’s identification of
the papacy with the Antichrist is quickly dismissed as a quaint artifact
of Puritan eschatology (322, fn. 9; 365–66).
Despite all these areas that will raise eyebrows, this work offers a
particularly solid analysis on the matters of the Holy Scriptures (espe-
cially the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture), theology proper, the
sovereignty of God, the Law and Christian liberty, the sacraments,
and eschatology. One is rarely left in any doubt about what the author
wants to say. The scope of his work is grand, and no reader can doubt
his firm grasp of the vast materials that are now becoming available
nor of his doing his homework in rigorously applying them to the
relevant passages of the Confession and Catechisms. He writes in a
confident and readable style that reflects an indisputable mastery of
his subject and a vast knowledge of the era and its theological spec-
trum, and for this he earns a hearing as a clear authority in the field.
Letham’s volume will take its place as the new standard historical-
theological commentary on the Confession. As such, pastors, teach-
ers, and students of the Westminster Standards will in many ways
find the work a valuable and up-to-date new tool on their shelf. Yet,
despite its obvious merits, careful readers (especially those in subscrib-
Book Reviews 385
ing confessional churches) will find a great deal here that is troubling,
and will be well advised to read Letham alongside their time-honored
guides to Westminster.
— David Whitla
q
Understanding Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to America’s Theolo-

gian, edited by Gerald R. McDermott. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009. 248 pp., $99.00, cloth; $24.95, paper.
Jonathan Edwards (1703 –1758) is probably America’s most influ-
ential colonial philosopher-theologian, though recent work on Cotton
Mather, one of Edwards’s contemporaries, may challenge this title.
Regardless, Edwards is widely recognized as one of the greatest think-
ers America has ever produced, and it doesn’t take any stretch of the
imagination to see why: the sheer size of his literary work is stagger-
ing: the recent Yale Series of Jonathan Edwards has now reached 26
massive volumes. For those further interested in his work, Yale has
made critical editions of Edwards’s work available online (see http://
edwards.yale.edu).
That said, Edwards has been viewed differently since his first rise
to prominence in the mid-eighteenth century. McDermott’s finely ed-
ited volume presents various depictions of the many faces of Jonathan
Edwards. While this book is scholarly, it is pitched at the level of the
educated general reader. It consists of a major chapter outlining one
aspect of Edwards’s thought and life and a second, briefer one that
counterpoints or provides a quick synopsis of an alternative viewpoint.
Personally, I found the two chapters on Edwards and philosophy
the most illuminating, though I had hoped that at least one of the
authors would have raised the question of panentheism in Edwards.
Instead, this question is not raised but asserted, without qualification,
in McDermott’s excellent Introduction: “He [Edwards] taught a kind
of ‘panentheism’ in which no part of the creation is ever independent
of God, but all is sustained by God, moment by throbbing moment,
as an emanation of his being” (8). I agree: Edwards did teach a kind of
panentheism (or, at the very minimum used panentheistic language),
but exactly what kind is debatable. Further, questions linger as to the
extent to which this was a conscious, deliberate attempt or simply an
effect of his system. Miklos Veto, the author of the chapter “Edwards
and Philosophy,” does mention that Edwards has been accused of be-
ing pantheistic, but he does not elaborate on what Edwards might
have meant. He seems content simply to raise the charge and then
move on in his discussion. While Edwards did blur the lines at times
between creature and Creator, he never (to my knowledge) collapsed
them wholly into the divine. In other words, he maintained the dis-
tinction between Creator and creature. Regardless of what Edwards
might have (or might not have) believed, one thing is fairly certain:
Edwards never published his more controversial philosophical mus-
ings in his lifetime. Thus, how much import should one place upon
them when they may have been merely conjectural musings and
never intended as dogmatic assertions? I will leave this question for
other scholars to answer.
Each chapter in Understanding Jonathan Edwards serves as a general
introduction to several themes in Edwards’s prose: revival, the Bible,
beauty, literature, philosophy, typology, and world religions. McDer-
mott writes this last chapter, on world religions, and asserts that, for
Edwards, God was active in the world, outside of the church, reveal-
ing Himself. Edwards’s stance here mirrors the position later held by
Herman Bavinck. McDermott argues that Edwards had a lifelong fas-
cination with heathen religions, a fascination of the Eastern European
context that grew with age. While Edwards’s passion for understand-
ing how Christ related to the other gods of the world was intense
at times, it was never a dominant theme in his work; regardless of
the importance that McDermott sees here, there is one undeniable
fact: the sheer size of Edwards’s corpus is taken up with other topics.
While McDermott sees a valid place for further exploration, my ini-
tial sense is that he sees too much in too little.
Overall, I am pleased with this collection and would recommend
it to anyone interested in the life, thought, ministry, and relevance
of Jonathan Edwards. It is a fine contribution that will foster further
academic and popular discussion, and one that will please scholars
and general readers alike.
— Randall Pederson
q
Book Reviews 387
Jeff Pollard, Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing of America. San
Antonio: The Vision Forum, Inc., 2005. 74 pp., $8.00, paperback.
This book is one of those rare volumes that threatens to turn your
thinking upside-down on the subject of modesty. It is my hope and
prayer that it does, since Pollard challenges practices that have become
ordinary, not only in the world, but in the church.
What makes this little book so powerful is that it takes most of
the subjective element away from defining standards of dress that are
pleasing to God. This does not mean that the author argues for one
style of clothing for every time and every place. It also does not mean
that he provides a list of modern attire that is acceptable and another
that is not. He has not idealized any age in the history of the world
as a standard. Rather than taking the practical effects or temptations
presented by various styles of clothing as his point of departure, he
begins by demonstrating from Scripture that from the day that cloth-
ing was invented by God, He designed it to conceal human bodies
rather than reveal them. The terms used in Scripture demonstrate that
God has always clothed His people from the neck to the knees. Not
every great book that deals with biblical ethics provides an exhaustive
list of applications, but it gives us clearly established principles that
provide the criteria that are necessary for critical thinking. In the first
chapter, the author has noted the fact that some will consider his work
“legalistic,” while others will consider it to be too vague. Both of these
accusations reflect a shallow perspective on Christian ethics. One op-
tion requires no thinking at all, and the other requires someone else
to do all of your thinking for you.
In addition to his strong biblical arguments, Pollard provides in-
valuable historical evidence (particularly in chapter 5) to the effect
that clothing manufacturers, along with the entertainment industry,
have intentionally eroded the remnants of a once biblical standard of
modest dress. He does not rest his arguments upon the historical evi-
dence, but upon the Scriptures. Nevertheless, it is eye-opening to see
the philosophy that lies behind these changes. It should not surprise
us that the philosophy that has shaped the modern fashion and enter-
tainment industries is anti-Christian; we live in a world that is under
the sway of the evil one (1 John 5:19). If anything is widely accepted in
a sinful society, we can almost always assume that there is something
wrong with it. In this case, something is dreadfully wrong.
The primary issue that Pollard has placed a discomforting finger
upon is the issue of swimwear. The conclusions of his book are not
limited to the issue of swimwear, but the author has used this single
issue in order to illustrate what is at root a basically unbiblical at-
titude towards clothing in general. By the end of the book, he has
addressed matters related to style, clothing that excessively accentu-
ates the form, and, most importantly, proper motives for selecting
clothing that honors God.
I must warn that, although the position presented in this book has
always been associated with biblical Christianity, it is about as com-
mon in the modern church as the great doctrine of justification by
faith alone was when Martin Luther was born. My challenge to you is
to read this book, to pray over its contents, and to digest it. It is easy to
dismiss arguments simply because they are used to criticize practices
that no one questions. It is easy to dismiss a position with terms such
as “strict,” “legalistic,” “old fashioned,” or “impractical.” It is one thing
to vilify someone or something with labels (which our society loves
to do); it is another thing entirely to demonstrate that the Scriptures
have been misunderstood in the attempt to establish a position.
Pollard’s biblical evidence is a force to be reckoned with. The sub-
ject matter in this book is too important to dismiss, ignore, or left to
collect dust upon a shelf. We should neither be afraid nor surprised by
the fact that the Scriptures often require us to adopt radically different
beliefs and practices than those that have been integrated into every
level of our society. After all, we are Christians — we have no right to
submit to any other Master than the Lord Jesus Christ.
— Ryan M. McGraw
q
Eckhard J. Schnabel. Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies, and Methods.

Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 2008. 518 pp., $32.00, paperback.
The professing church is at a crossroads today in many respects.
Many of her methods, strategies, and programs have been shaped in
the last century by an influx of consumer sensitivity and pragmatism.
The struggles of the church have inevitably trickled down, affecting
Christian ministry as a whole and the world of missions. Eckhard
Schnabel’s book, Paul the Missionary, is a breath of fresh air in our
Book Reviews 389
consumer driven culture. His subtitle, Realities, Strategies, and Methods,

profoundly details the content of this book.
Schnabel begins by introducing the aim and design of his book.
His method is relatively simple. Aware of the many resources avail-
able in the world of literature today regarding missiology, Schnabel
seeks to get at the heart of the matter by examining Paul’s view of
missions. Giving a broadly accepted definition, Schnabel notes that
missions is the activity of a community of faith, distinguished both
theologically and ethically from surrounding communities, with an
aim to draw people from other communities into their own. Speaking
more narrowly, he highlights three essential components: intentional
movement, the nature of missions work in the early church, and a
three-fold reality of missionary work (Jesus is the Messiah, the need
to lead a new life, the participation in a new community).
The first three chapters discuss Paul’s missionary experience from
a descriptive approach. These chapters deal with a close examination of
Paul’s life from the account of Luke in Acts, through his own mission-
ary perspective in his letters, and ending with the theological content
of his missionary message. Schnabel, throughout, gives a learned and
engaging narrative of the cultural, social, religious, and ethical life of
the New Testament. He brings us along from Paul’s own conversion
and his early missionary years in Arabia to his introduction with the
other apostles, and then leads us through fifteen different stages of
Paul’s missionary endeavors shortly before his death.
Proceeding from there, Schnabel walks through Paul’s letters
succinctly. He notes the flexibility that Paul worked with among his
hearers. Depending on the situation within the specific churches,
Paul would address them and stress different theological concerns or
remedies. Schnabel deals extensively with the missionary message of
Paul. Far from a friendly message that is often paraded today, Schna-
bel shows us how Paul unflinchingly stressed a biblical Christology
including penal substitution. Whereas Paul strove for peace and unity,
it is clear through a study of his life that, like Luther, he would not
compromise truth.
This book adds a much needed realignment to missiology in
twenty-first-century thinking. In a day when cultural relativism
has infiltrated the church and missionaries are producing pragmatic
methods and strategies by the handfuls, Schnabel offers a great oppor-
tunity for us to re-examine our commitment to a biblical missiology.
Among the many things this book challenges us with, there are three
prime emphases in which I believe Schnabel excels.
First is the straightforward approach to the missionary’s message.
In a world where the message of the gospel has been fractured into the
many messages of the gospel, Schnabel shows the biblical alternative
to conforming to a secular culture.
We often hear St. Francis of Assisi’s famous adage, “Preach the
gospel at all times, and if necessary use words.” The use of words is not
a contingent reality; it is a necessary reality. Paul demonstrated this for
us, and Schnabel draws this out of the text; without words, the gospel
cannot be understood rightly and it cannot be proclaimed. But Schna-
bel also gives us the clear warning that such a spoken message will not
be received adoringly; the message of the cross is an offense.
Schnabel looks very unfavorably on the seeker-sensitive, “pur-
pose-driven,” and consumeristic methodologies. With confrontational
grace, Schnabel shows the destructiveness of these movements and
how they deplete the centrality of the message by focusing on people’s
“needs” or emotions. But he also shows how they have subtly denied
the necessity of the Holy Spirit in bringing about a successful minis-
try. Schnabel often comments on how Paul was always relying on the
Spirit’s work.
Very profitable is Schnabel’s attention to suffering in the teaching
of Paul. He points out how Paul was not attempting to win the ap-
proval of men. His message was not aimed to tickle the ears of those
who listened to him. This brought much suffering his way. Schnabel
says, “For pagan audiences the message of a crucified Jewish savior
is ‘non-sense’..., sheer absurdity, positively silly, ridiculously crazy”
(350). Because of this offbeat message, Paul knew that it could not
conform to the societal, religious, or rhetorical traditions around him;
thus he (and all missionaries) can expect to endure a fair amount of
suffering and persecution. Suffering is modeled by Paul for all those
who would desire to preach the same gospel to the same hostile world.
Preaching Christ can easily lead to the death of earthly comforts and
pleasures, and often brings with it physical (not to mention mental,
emotional, or spiritual) suffering.
In reading this book, Christians in all vocations will be pre-
sented with a challenging read. Schnabel confronts our ideological
tendencies of man-pleasing. He puts before us Paul the missionary
par excellence. He unfolds the apostle’s message clearly and accurately.
Book Reviews 391
He reveals to us, even if passively, the tendencies of our own hearts to

seek a different way that often results in preaching a different message.
The reality of the world of missions is that Christians bear a message
of great news. But this message is one that we should not expect to
be well received. It is a message that often comes with suffering and
persecution. Paul was a missionary who understood these things. He
was a man whose method and strategy was shaped by the context of
the message. Never did he rely on his methodology or strategy; his
reliance was on the Holy Spirit. Schnabel has helpfully contributed to
the ongoing effort of helping the church be mission-minded, and in
its mission-mindedness to be Christ-minded.
Missionaries and scholars are not the only ones who can benefit
from this treatment. Laypeople who either have an interest in mis-
sions or are ambivalent concerning this topic would benefit greatly
from Schnabel’s book. I only caution that Schnabel’s style, though en-
gaging, is highly detailed, and some sections are especially academic.
— Gerald M. Bilkes
q
Michael Sudduth. The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology. Farn-

ham, England: Ashgate, 2009. 238 pp., $99.95, hardcover.
In The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology, Michael Sudduth aims
to guide the reader through the complex question of the Reformed
relationship to natural theology. In the main, the Reformed tradition
has endorsed at least some positive use of natural theology, though
significant objections have been leveled against it over the past century.
Throughout the book’s four parts, Sudduth unfolds his thesis that the
recent Reformed objections do not undermine natural theology as
such, but are focused primarily upon the autonomous pre-dogmatic
use (“the pre-dogmatic foundations model”) of natural theology.
Before he dives into the body of his study, Sudduth introduces
two important senses in which natural theology is understood: first,
there is an innate or implanted natural knowledge of God that is not
the result of any rational reflection (“natural theology a”); second,
there is a knowledge of God engendered by philosophical argument
and rational contemplation (“natural theology b”). Sudduth explains
that “natural theology b involves the conceptual clarification and re-
flective development of natural theology a, a kind of formalization of

an innate or spontaneously acquired knowledge of God” (4). While
there is almost universal affirmation of natural theology a in the Re-
formed tradition, there are numerous objections to natural theology
b that have emerged in the past century or so. Sudduth carefully dis-
tinguishes between objections to the project of natural theology b and
objections to certain models of natural theology b.
In Part I (chs. 1 and 2), Sudduth demonstrates that the Reformed
tradition “exhibits a deeply entrenched and historically continuous en-
dorsement of natural theology” (9) from the time of the Reformation
to the end of the nineteenth century. But he is careful not to conclude
too much. While there seems to be broad consensus on the propriety
of developing theistic arguments, there is “an interesting pluralism
with respect to the function of theistic arguments” (40). For example,
some are happy to employ natural theology as a preamble to faith
while others want to restrict it to the rational reflections of faith itself.
Indeed, much of the recent Reformed opposition to natural theology
is directed at its pre-dogmatic use and not at its proper function within
Christian dogmatics. But this distinction has not been adequately ob-
served by many recent philosophers of religion who seem to assume
that Reformed theology is systemically inimical to the entire project
of natural theology. Sudduth’s historical survey puts the lie to this
popular idea. He proceeds in the next three parts to evaluate three
kinds of recent Reformed objections.
In Part II (chs. 3 –5), Sudduth considers Reformed objections to
natural theology based on the immediate and innate character of the
natural knowledge of God. Does the Reformed belief that God im-
plants a true and non-propositional knowledge of Himself in every
human being (the sensus divinitatis) make superfluous or impossible
the addition of formal propositional knowledge of God drawn from
the rational reflection on the witness of conscience and the created
order? Against those who would argue that the immediacy of the
natural knowledge of God precludes natural theology b from either
being significant or possible, Sudduth maintains that true theistic be-
liefs are not restricted to one source. One’s belief that God exists or
that He is omnipotent, wise, and good, for instance, may be drawn
from a variety of sources such the immediate implanted knowledge of
God, the acquired knowledge of God from creation or conscience, or
Book Reviews 393
from the witness of Scripture itself. No single source is exclusive for

all genuine knowledge of God though some theistic beliefs (e.g., that
God is triune) may derive solely from a single source. In proposing
multiple sources of theistic knowledge, Sudduth aims to soften the
expectations for natural theology; it need not convey a high degree of
warrant, but may simply add weight to, confirm, or fill out what we
already know from other sources.
In Part III (chs. 6 – 8), the author considers the objections to natu-
ral theology based on the Reformed commitment to the doctrine of
total depravity. Does noetic depravity eradicate all true knowledge
of God in the unbeliever? Though some Reformed writers seem to
suggest this, Sudduth concludes that their denial that the unbeliever
knows God is restricted to the true religious and filial knowledge and
not to every sense of propositional theistic knowledge whatsoever (e.g.,
Calvin affirms that in different senses the unbeliever does not know
God and yet does truly know Him; see 115). Furthermore, even if one
were to conclude that the unbeliever has lost all natural knowledge of
God there may still be a valid use of natural theology by those with
regenerated reason seeking to do the work of dogmatic Christian theol-
ogy (ch. 8). In this dogmatic model, “theistic arguments represent the
reconstruction and systematic development by the Christian, under
the guidance of special revelation, of the truths that can in principle be
known from general revelation” (226). Many Reformed theologians
who are skeptical of the reliability of the unbeliever’s attempts at natu-
ral theology are nevertheless willing to allow the believer to articulate
propositional knowledge of God based on rational reflection in the
project of dogmatic theology (e.g., Herman Bavinck).
In Part IV (chs. 9–11), Sudduth evaluates the Reformed objections
based on the alleged deficiencies of the natural theistic arguments.
These objections essentially maintain that the classical theistic ar-
guments (or traditional proofs for God’s existence) “fail to prove,
demonstrate, or provide sufficient rational support for the existence
of God and the claims about the nature of God” (167). Sudduth ar-
gues that many of these critics expect too much from the theistic
arguments. Some, such as Robert Reymond and Greg Bahnsen, are
misguided in their assumption that the point of the theistic proofs is
to form a basis for Christian belief (181). Natural theistic arguments
can contribute to one’s positive knowledge of God without constitut-
ing the foundation for belief in God; they can strengthen one’s reason
for belief in God without being the reason why one believes. Sudduth’s
most striking critique is of the reliance of some Reformed critics
upon the arguments of Hume and Kant against the traditional proofs
(ch. 11). The author handily subverts the philosophical credibility of
Hume and Kant’s objections to natural theology and convincingly
demonstrates the inconsistency of using Hume and Kant against the
classical proofs while attempting to retain a valid “dogmatic model”
of natural theology b (203–209).
In the final analysis, Sudduth discovers no Reformed arguments
that decidedly undermine the entire project of natural theology, but
only arguments that reject certain autonomous and pre-dogmatic uses
or models of natural theology. “On the Reformed view,” he concludes,
“the project of developing theistic arguments is best understood as a
multi-tiered rational exploration and reflective elaboration of God’s
general revelation of Himself in both the universe and the intellec-
tual and moral constitution of the human person.” He adds, “Such
a project is driven by the same goals as dogmatic theology: clarity,
systematicity, and completeness” (227). It is highly improbable that
most readers will find themselves in agreement with every point of
Sudduth’s defense of natural theology. He is certain to offend both
presuppositionalists and classical empiricists. Even so, he offers a use-
ful and highly nuanced description of the relevant issues surrounding
the questions of how to relate natural theology to a traditional Re-
formed perspective.
— James E. Dolezal
q
William Still. The Work of the Pastor. Geanies House, Scotland: Chris-
tian Focus Publications, 2010. 152 pp., $9.99, paperback.
This little book is one of the most powerful and vital studies
available, not only with respect to the work of the pastor, but to the
relation of the pastor to the church and of the church as a whole to
the world. Ministers must not only remind their congregations of
the great truths of Scripture, but they must ensure that the flock has
a continual reminder of these things after their departure from this
world (2 Pet. 1). William Still is not for pastors only. This book teaches
Book Reviews 395
us what kind of ministry both pastors and people should pray would
continue until the return of Christ.
The contents of this book are almost entirely unique; it easily
stands out from dozens of other books on the ministry. It is not as
though the duties Still presents are unique, but it is the Jeremiah-like
spirit and fervor with which he refocuses the task and mission of the
church in relation to an unbelieving world that makes this study “a
rare find.” In addition, you will not understand exactly why this book
is so gripping until you actually begin reading it.
This short book is neither a technical nor detailed work on pastoral
theology. Rather, it is the product of a pastor speaking from the depths
of his soul in order to describe the driving force behind a long-stand-
ing ministry of over fifty years. Still presents the task of the minister
(and of the church) in simple terms: to preach the whole gospel of
God, from the whole counsel of God, from the whole Word of God.
His other major emphases are fervent and persistent congregational
prayer, as well as equipping the saints for service in every sphere of life.
Many of you have already benefited tremendously from the work
of William Still without realizing it. Still (and his congregation) was
involved in the training and discipleship of future ministers for sev-
eral decades. It may interest you to know that he personally mentored
men such as Sinclair Ferguson, Eric Alexander, and a host of others
who have been used tremendously in building the kingdom of God.
On the cover of the book, Dr. Ferguson is quoted as saying that every
minister should read this book at least once per year. This relatively
unknown pastor has had, and continues to have, an international im-
portance, through the blessing of God upon his ministry.
It does not take long to read this book. If you do not yet have an
appetite for it, let me conclude by quoting one section from the book
that may pique your interest. After beginning his ministry with an
aggressive “evangelistic” campaign, which Still claims inherently de-
taches the basic truths of the gospel from the teaching of Scripture as
a whole, Still reversed his policy and sought to convert and disciple
people by teaching the whole Word of God. Commenting on the ef-
fects of the change, he wrote:
After a year and a half of eye and ear-catching ministry that hit
the headlines, at divine behest I turned to minister the Word
to Christians and the work began to dwindle, as far as num-
bers were concerned. It has been dwindling ever since, until for
many years now we have seemed to be on our last legs, and all
and sundry have been prophesying our end. We have worked
with increasingly small numbers. While we have a congregation
of active and fruitful servants of God scattered about the whole
earth who would fill our ample church several times over if they
were all in one place at one time (they never will be, on earth),
the handful of people we are working with at one time is so
small that people who come into our midst from afar say, ‘Is this
all?’ A couple from Canada once almost left our church before
the service when they saw how few were present. This couldn’t
be the place they had heard about! After the service went on a
little, they thought perhaps it was! You can see what a death this
is to die to those who think you are nothing if not popular. If
we are not prepared to suffer (and suffering is not fun, nor is
meant to be fun), we shall not reign. The two belong together, as
Peter says over and over again in his first epistle. Hurt and fruit,
death and life, sorrow and joy. They belong together as manure
belongs to a fruitful garden (118 – 20).
I believe that there are few things that speak as prophetically to
the desperate needs of the contemporary church as this little book.
The members of our congregation have said that this was one of the
most profound books they have ever read. May you read it for the
profit of your souls and for that of your churches.
— Ryan M. McGraw
Contributors
q
Matthew Barrett is a Ph.D. candidate in systematic theology at The

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Joel R. Beeke is president and professor of Systematic Theology and
Homiletics at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, and a pastor of
the Heritage Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids,
Michigan.
Michael G. Brown is pastor of Christ United Reformed Church in
Santee, California. He holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts
in Historical Theology, both from Westminster Seminary in California.
Brian H. Cosby is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in
America and Associate Pastor at Carriage Lane Presbyterian Church in
Peachtree City, Georgia.
Pieter DeVries is the pastor of the Reformed Church of Waarder, the
Netherlands, and a lecturer of Biblical Theology and Hermeneutics at the
Seminary of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands.
Bartel Elshout is pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation, Chil
liwack, British Columbia, and lecturer at Puritan Reformed Theological
Seminary.
Micah Everett is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of
Louisiana at Monroe, and recently completed a Graduate Certificate in
Systematic Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
Crawford Gribben is Long Room Hub Senior Lecturer in Early Modern
Print Culture in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Lydia Kim-van Daalen is a Ph.D. student in Pastoral Theology and
Christian Psychology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Adam McClendon is a Ph.D. student in Biblical Spirituality at South-
ern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Ryan M. McGraw is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Con-
way, South Carolina.
David Murray is professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
Paul Smalley is pursuing a Th.M. degree at Puritan Reformed Theo-
logical Seminary and is a Teacher’s Assistant for Joel Beeke.
William VanDoodewaard is associate professor of Church History at
Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.
Matthew Westerholm is Associate Dean of the Chapel and Director of
Worship Arts at Cornerstone University, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Timothy L. Wood is an associate professor of History at Southwest
Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri.
REFORMATION HERITAGE BOOKS
2965 Leonard Street, NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49525
Christians
Get Depressed Too
Help and Hope
for Depressed People
David P. Murray
ISBN 978-1-60178-100-0
Many Christians mistakenly believe that true Christians don’t get de-
pressed, and this misconception heaps additional pain and guilt onto
Christians who are suffering from mental and emotional distress.
Author David P. Murray comes to the defense of depressed Chris-
tians, asserting that Christians do get depressed! He explains why and
how Christians should study depression, what depression is, and the
approaches caregivers, pastors, and churches can take to help those
who are suffering from it. With clarity and wise biblical insight, Dr.
Murray offers help and hope to those suffering from depression, the
family members and friends who care for them, and pastors minister-
ing to these wounded members of their flock.
I heartily commend this new and helpful book on depression and

psychiatric illness. It is the condensed result of much reading and
pastoral wisdom, digested into a few non-technical chapters. It is
full of Christian love for those who suffer in this way and who need
our utmost compassion and tactful sympathy. I wish I had known
the things written in these pages when I was a much younger
minister.
— Maurice Roberts, Minister of the Iverness congregation
of the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)
Paperback, 128 pages Retail Price: $10.00

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A Portrait of Paul
Identifying a True Minister
of Christ
Rob Ventura and Jeremy Walker
Foreword by Joel R. Beeke
ISBN 978-1-60178-090-4
What does a true pastor look like, and what constitutes a faithful ministry?
How can we identify the life and labors of one called by God to serve in
the church of Jesus Christ? To address these questions, Rob Ventura and
Jeremy Walker examine how the apostle Paul describes his pastoral rela-
tion to the people of God in Colossians 1:24 –2:5. By discussing these
essential attitudes, qualities, and characteristics of a faithful minister of
Christ, A Portrait of Paul provides gospel ministers an example of what they
should be and demonstrates for churches the kind of pastors they will seek
if they desire men after God’s own heart.
This deceptively easy to read book consists of a series of reflections
on Colossians 1:24 to 2:5 by two experienced pastors. In an age
where there is much focus on technical aspects of ministry, Ventura
and Walker analyze the topic in terms, first, of call and character,
and then of the existential urgency with which the great doctrines
of the faith are grasped by those called to the pastorate. Intended
not just to be read but to be a practical guide in helping churches
think through the role of the pastor, each chapter ends with a series
of pointed questions, to Christians in general and to pastors in par-
ticular, which are designed to focus the minds of all concerned on
what the priorities of the pastorate, and of candidates for the pas-
torate should be. This book is a biblical rebuke to modern trends,
a challenge to those who think they may be called to the ministry,
and a reality check for all believers everywhere.
— Carl R. Trueman, Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

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J. V. Fesko
ISBN 978-1-60178-101-7
On a wide-ranging canvas and with bold strokes, J. V. Fesko gives

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of the meanings of baptism and provides a positive and construc-
tive statement of its theological truth. This is a valuable work for
its mastery of primary sources as well as its clear articulation of the
covenantal dimensions which give a Reformed theology of baptism
such power and purpose for Christian believers.
— Donald K. McKim, Editor,
Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith
This book represents a substantial accomplishment, one that

provides a useful resource for those wanting to deepen their un-
derstanding of the sacraments, particularly baptism. Reflecting a
massive amount of research against the background of an in-depth
survey of various views of baptism in church history, Fesko pro-
vides an extensive exegetical and biblical-theological study of the
covenantal and eschatological significance of baptism followed by
systematic theological reflections on key issues like baptism as a
means of grace, the efficacy of baptism, the biblical warrant for in-
fant baptism (and against paedocommunion), and the importance
of baptism for the church. One need not agree with Dr. Fesko’s
reflections at every point to benefit from his considerable labors.
— Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Emeritus Professor of Biblical and
Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary
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Christ and discover some of its most valuable gems on the subject of
Christian prayer. The writings of the Reformers and Puritans shine with
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day that can make our own prayer lives more informed, more extensive,
more fervent, and more effectual. Six contemporary scholars explore the
writings and prayer lives of several Reformers and Puritans — among
them Martin Luther, John Calvin, William Perkins, Matthew Henry,
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Here is a master stroke indeed! — a book on the prayer-filled lives
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— Sinclair B. Ferguson, senior minister of First Presbyterian Church
of Columbia, South Carolina, and professor of Systematic Theology
at Redeemer Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas

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Puritan Reformed Journal

Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

Joel R. Beeke, Editor

Puritan Reformed Journal is published semi-annually. The subscription price per

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SYSTEMATIC AND Historical Theology

Pastoral theology and missions

CONTEMPORARY AND CULTURAL ISSUES

Principles of Sabbath-Keeping: Jesus and Westminster

We live in challenging days, buffeted theologically from without and

The Importance of the Historicity of

Perhaps no portion of Scripture is more frequently misunderstood

of the available evidence, has a historical reading of these chapters

7. Douglas Kelly, foreword to Refuting Compromise, by Jonathan Sarfati.

created all things ex nihilo, requiring no assistance and no preexisting

12. Ibid., 47–53.

no better grounds upon which to exercise sovereignty than a human

of years of violent upheaval, destruction, and death to plague the

18. Morris, The Genesis Record, 79 – 80.

example” or a “moral teacher,” if He existed at all. Such a construc-

Genesis 3 and was spoken by God Himself. Addressing the serpent

37. Machen, The Christian View of Man, 162–63.

The Glory of the Cross (1)

The British philosopher A. J. Ayer once summarized his objections to

Atonement in the Pentateuch

words to designate sin (e.g., transgression, unrighteousness, unclean-

The Atonement in the Synoptic Gospels

Jerusalem, which was in anticipation of His approaching suffering,

The Atonement in the Gospel of John

ficed daily in the temple as well as to the paschal lamb. As atonement

The Atonement in the Letters of Paul

Trust in the Incarnate Word

Jesus Christ the God-Man

2. Robert L. Reymond, John, Beloved Disciple: A Survey of His Theology (Ross-

3. Ray R. Rothenbergarand and Christopher J. Starbuck, “Grafting,” http://ex-

Jesus Christ, the Word of God

who became flesh that illuminate what it means to trust in Christ.

5. Luke 16:22–23; John 13:23–25.

Jesus Christ, the Word Become Man

1. Christ Took on a Human Body. Jesus spoke of His body as “flesh,”

body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all

3. Christ Took on Human Death. In the Bible, flesh implies mortality, or

15. Ps. 73:26, 78:39; Isa. 31:3, 40:6; 1 Cor. 15:50.

No wonder John writes, “Behold, what manner of love the

God Offers You the God-Man

He also comes to you as God. He knows you completely. He

The Unique Relationship between the Father

Headings under which the Passages are Organized

21. The Son represents the Father

1. The Son is the Word (Logos) of the Father

2. The Son is equal to the Father

3. The Son engages in face‑to‑face communion with the Father

4. The Son’s personality is distinct from the Father’s personality

5. The Son is eternally begotten by the Father

6. The Son is the revelation of the Father

7. The Son declares who His Father is (He is the exegesis of

8. The Son is the Father’s gift to man

9. It is the Father’s will to give eternal life to those who believe

10. The Son has been sent by the Father

11. The Father loves the Son

John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love;

14. It is the Son’s delight to do His Father’s will

15. The Son does His Father’s work