‘Baptist Life & Thought’ Category

“Praying will make thee leave sinning or sinning will make leave praying.” [1] This well-known saying may well have originated with Thomas Wilcox (1622-1687), the author of the minor spiritual classic A Choice Drop of Honey from the Rock Christ, which was published before the Great Fire of London in 1666. When I first wrote my Kiffin, Knollys, and Keach in the early 1990s, I included this spiritual classic as an appendix. It was excluded by the publisher, which was providential, for although I knew Wilcox wrote a number of tracts, I thought the above book was the only one extant.

Today, my assistant Steve Weaver kindly got for me a PDF of a 1699 edition of Wilcox’s classic work (published then under the title of A Guide to Eternal Glory). It was attached to nine other tracts (the whole being published by Nathanael Crouch, who was a printer near Cheapside, London) and in the preface “To the Christian Reader” that preceded all of the tracts, Wilcox noted that he had “subjoined some other brief tracts” (p.6), which definitely seems to indicate he is the author, especially since no other names appear with the various tracts. [2] This is a fabulous discovery because it gives us some other material by the author of a remarkable tract that by the 1840s had gone through at least sixty printings and had been translated into numerous languages, including Welsh, Irish Gaelic, French, German, and Finnish. In light of such a printing record, it is no exaggeration to describe it as a minor classic from the late Puritan era. [3] It is currently available from Chapel Library. The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies hopes to include a fresh edition and textual commentary on it by Dr Stephen Yuille in its Occasional Monographs series, which is to be launched in the near future.

Of the numerous Calvinistic Baptist authors of the seventeenth century, there were really only three who were being read extensively a century or two later. John Bunyan was, of course, one. Another was Benjamin Keach. And the third was Thomas Wilcox, about whom we really know very little. [4] We know that he was born in 1622 at Lyndon, then in Rutland. His early career, though, is shrouded in obscurity. By the 1660s he was living in London on Cannon Street, where a congregation of believers that he pastored met regularly in his home to worship the Lord. During the following decade Wilcox preached to this congregation at the Three Cranes, a wooden building on Tooley Street in Southwark.

Though a convinced Baptist, Wilcox was catholic enough in his sentiments to be invited frequently to preach among the Presbyterians and Congregationalists. He also courageously endured imprisonment a number of times rather than sacrifice his convictions as a Dissenter. He hoped, we are told, that his death might be a sudden one, a hope that was apparently realized when he died in May, 1687. The epitaph on his tomb in Bunhill Fields, the Nonconformist burial ground in London, was a remark that he often made in this regard, “Sudden death sudden glory.” After his death the members of his congregation appear to have joined other Calvinistic Baptist causes in the city.

Do look for Stephen Yuille’s edition of A Choice Drop of Honey from the Rock Christ in our monograph series. The work is based on a phrase from Psalm 81:16 [“He should have fed them also with the finest of wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee” (KJV)], and it well captures the Christ-centred piety of the early Calvinistic Baptists and the way in which their piety was nourished by those central themes of the Reformation, solus Christus and sola fide.

[1] The Serephick [sic] Soul’s Triumph in the Love of God in Thomas Wilcox, A Guide to Eternal Glory. Or, Brief Directions to all Christians how to attain Everlasting Salvation. To which are added, Several other excellent Divine Tracts (London: Nath. Crouch, 1699), 124.

[2] In a 1676 edition of this classic, there is an appended work, Spiritual Hymns Used by Some Christians at the Receiving the Sacrament of the Lords Supper, with some others (London: Nath. Crouch, 1676). The use of the term “sacrament” by this Calvinistic Baptist is noteworthy, it being a term commonly used by Baptist at this time.

[3] In this regard, see Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, “The Spirit of the Old Writers: The Great Awakening and the Persistence of Puritan Piety” in Francis J. Bremer, ed., Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993), 281.

[4] Our principal source of information about Wilcox is Thomas Crosby, The History of the English Baptists (London: 1740), III, 101. See also Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists (London: 1814), II, 465; W. T. Whitley, The Baptists of London 1612-1928 (London: The Kingsgate Press, 1928), 120.

I have spent most of this week working on the critical edition of Andrew Fuller’s life of his dear friend Samuel Pearce (1766-1799). There is so much instruction in the life of that dear man. Like this one line when he was dying, from a letter to Fuller: “how can I be a Christian, and not submit to God?” (April 18, 1799)

Think: a seemingly random line written by a dying man over two hundred years ago has such profound meaning for us today. In one line he captures a key aspect of the heart of our faith.

I was personally delighted to get news of a new blog devoted to the writings of John Ryland Jr (1753-1825), the close friend and confidant of Andrew Fuller, and his first biographer. It can be found at http://www.johnryland.co.uk.  Good stuff!

In a recent book, Tom Paulin—The Secret Life of Poems: A Poetry Primer (London: Faber and Faber, 2008)—discusses John Bunyan’s “He who would valiant be” (pages 31-35) in terms of its poetic merit, its thought and its historical context.

Paulin judges it to be “one of the finest English hymns” (p.31-32), a “simple and austere puritan lyric,” that is deeply indebted to Shakespeare in spots (p.32). The phrase “come hither,” for example, Paulin reckons to be taken from the Stratford bard’s As You Like It (p.32-33).

Paulin relates portions of the hymn to Bunyan’s own writings, especially The Pilgrim’s Progress and the vicious historical context of the persecution by the Stuart regime. He notes that 8,000 Dissenters died as a result of goal fever in this time. I do not recall having seen such a figure. Nor does Paulin give his source for it. But it drives home the difficulties of that day.

In sum, Paulin writes that “this short, beautiful lyric is packed with great historical and personal suffering—and with unyielding courage and conviction” (p.35)—high praise indeed.

P.S. Incidentally, at the 2nd annual Andrew Fuller Center conference, held this past week at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a number of papers dealt with this theme of persecution: the plenary session by Austin Walker on Benjamin Keach, and two parallel sessions on Abraham Cheare and Thomas Hardcastle by Jeff Robinson and Peter Beck respectively.

For the audio of these, see The English Baptists of the 17th Century, August 25-26, 2008.

It is simply wrong to think that we as Evangelicals are great on how to enter into the Christian life but when it comes to sanctification we have no spiritual heritage to speak of and that we have to go to Roman Catholic writings to find wisdom. Here is a good example of a perennial Baptist concern for humility.

In a letter that Samuel Pearce wrote to John Ryland, Jr. on October 8, 1798, he told his close friend of a sermon that he had just heard:

Cooper from London is here. I heard part of a sermon last night from him, after our service was over, which I should have very much liked if the fly of Egotism had not spoiled the ointment, e.g. “I have found that my preaching has been blessed when I etc.”

Pearce then added, “O what a lovely garment is humility! May the Lord clothe [us] with it from head to foot.”

When Samuel Pearce was dying in 1799, momentous things were afoot with the Baptist Missionary Society, to which he had given so much energy. They were preparing to send a number of missionaries, among them William Ward and Joshua Marshman, to India. Once Ward and Marshman arrived they would link up with Carey and form the Serampore Trio, that fruitful band of brothers in the Church of that era.

Pearce wrote a deeply-moving letter to Andrew Fuller, the Secretary of the Society, from Tamerton, Devon, on May 2, 1799.[1] The following are his three recommendations regarding missionary policy. They are still wise advice today.

First, as this Society is dependent for its support on the pious public, whose least compensation should be an acquaintance with the success of those for whom their benevolence is exerted, it is highly proper that each missionary under the patronage of this Society should communicate direct and personal information concerning his own efforts, and their various fruits, at least twice in every year; to which end the Society do request that each of their missionaries would keep a regular journal of his proceedings and send it, or a copy of it, to the secretary by the spring and fall ships.

Secondly, since that kingdom which we as the disciples of Jesus wish to establish is not of this world, we affectionately and seriously enjoin on each missionary under our patronage that he do cautiously and constantly abstain from every interference with the political concerns of the country were he may be called to labour, whether by words or deeds; that he be obedient to the laws in all civil affairs; that he respect magistrates, supreme and subordinates; and teach the same things to others. In fine, that he apply himself wholly to the all-important concerns of that evangelical service to which he has so solemnly dedicated himself.

Thirdly, however gross may be the idolatries and heathenish superstitions that may fall beneath a missionary’s notice, the Society are nevertheless persuaded that both the mutual respect due from man to man, together with the interests of the true religion, demand that every missionary should sedulously avoid all rudeness, insult, or interruption during the observance of the said superstitions; recommending no methods but those adopted by Christ and his apostles, namely, the persevering use of Scripture, reason, prayer, meekness, and love.

[1] From Periodical Accounts relative to the Baptist Missionary Society I (Clipstone: J.W. Morris, 1800), 516-519.

A recent collection of essays on the various details of Baptist polity deserves a wide reading. It is Thomas White, Jason B. Duesing, and Malcolm Yarnell, III, eds., Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches (Kregel, 2008). I have found it a gold-mine of informed reflection on such things as the meaning and mode of baptism, the nature of the Lord’s Table, the necessity of a regenerate church membership, and the vital importance of church discipline. And believe it or not, what I found as important as the content of the articles were the riches in the footnotes.

My hearty commendation of this work does not mean that I concur with all of the sentiments and convictions expressed. I was surprised that Thomas White, for instance, affirmed that the Calvin’s view of the spiritual presence of Christ at the table “has not found favour among Baptists” (p.148). Actually, during the 18^th century—those halcyon days of Baptist advance—the spiritual presence of Christ dominated Baptist convictions about the Table. See, for instance, this blogger’s “ ‘His soul-refreshing presence’: The Lord’s Supper in Calvinistic Baptist Thought and Experience in the ‘Long’ Eighteenth Century” in Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson, eds., Baptist Sacramentalism (Studies in Baptist History and Thought, vol.5; Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K./Waynesboro, Georgia: Paternoster Press, 2003), p.177-93. But this is a minor blemish in an otherwise excellent essay.

On the other hand, I was thrilled to see the point—for some, minor—made by Malcolm Yarnell that Nicene Christology went hand in hand with the affirmation of the church’s independence of the state and his drawing upon some articles of George Hunston Williams to make his point (p.235-36 and n.44). I have never forgotten reading those articles in the late 1970s and being convinced of the same.

All in all, it would be very difficult to single out an essay or essays in the book that was or were better than the others. This is rare. Usually, a collection of essays like this suffers from an uneven quality of content and argument. Not so here, I felt. White, Duesing, and Yarnell have produced an excellent compendium of contemporary—yet fully biblical—reflection on Baptist polity that every Baptist pastor would do well to read, study, and ponder, and that every Baptist seminary should use as required reading in their courses in Baptist history and polity.