Caring for the Anglicans: the past and the present
Why should Baptists care about the vile mess of US Episcopalianism? Because our forebears came out of that denomination and our arguments for Baptist polity were shaped in fighting Episcopalians (like the Quakers and Methodists and Congregationalists). And as Baptists we have a tradition: a tradition that involves in part arguments within and without. And some of the arguments in the 17th c were with the Anglicans outside of our forebears’ communities.
Nor can we stand back and gloat about the Episcopalian loss of gospel witness: it should make us WEEP! Think of the worthies in that Body: Cranmer, Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, Richard Greenham (that fount of Puritan pastoral theology), Perkins, holy Sibbes, Gurnall, the Wesleys, Romaine, the Venns, Newton (the mentor of one of my favourite Baptists, John Ryland Jr.), Whitefield, the holy John Fletcher, Grimshaw (my hero who was such a help to my Baptist forebear John Fawcett), Samuel Walker, George Thomson, William Cowper, Octavius Winslow (he became an Anglican after years as a Baptist! This is an historical mystery that needs unravelling), Simeon, Ryle. What we owe the Anglicans!
God have mercy on the denomination now! And God keep us from travelling the same path: much of their episcopal leadership has degraded the Lord Jesus and he has degraded them!
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm and is filed under 21st Century, Baptist Life & Thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Contemporary Anglicanism is reaping what it sowed!
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:04 pm
John, Charles, and George would weep at what has come of their spiritual descendants. A timely word.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:38 am
And how much of our theology we owe to Anglicanism! The Prayer Book is so clear on the gospel and no more so than in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper:
“We do not presume to come to this your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”
July 30th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I think we need to be careful here. Have we not let our brothers in Christ down by standing by and watching the North American Anglican church in both Canada and the USA become apostate? 1 Cor 10:12 comes to mind. “Therefore let he who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” I think we can apply that denominationally (is that a word?) as well as indivually. I have friends who are now part of the “Anglican Network” in the Ottawa area that could show us what true Christianity is all about. Let’s pray for and help our brothers as they too are part of the body.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Since they are the stock from which our forebears came, the very best thing we can do and most gracious thing to ask for is to pray that God grants them another revival like the earlier one that brought us the Great Awakening. Will will then have served them well if God stirs the whole denom to seek Christ!
Bob Buchanan
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Amen, Bob.