Free St. George's

Edmund Jones of Pontypool

2010-07-06T14:27:00.001+01:00

This is the grave of Edmund Jones, Pontypool, a leader in the great Revival of the Eighteenth Century. An Independent, he embraced the spirit of revival. This stone, found in the graveyard of Ebenezer United Reformed Church, Pontypool, replaces the original stone.

How Not to be a Pastor

2010-07-04T14:07:00.003+01:00

In 1909, Crane Street Baptist Church, Pontypool, welcomed Daniel Hughes as pastor. The pulpit was a prestigious one, having been occupied in the past by prominent Welsh Baptist leaders such as Thomas Thomas and William Edwards. Hughes, a native of North Wales, was described as 'outspoken and fearless in his convictions'.

He proved to be all that.

In December 1912 the deacons attempted to sack Daniel Hughes. Among the grounds cited were: 'continuous absence... neglect of visitations... want of interest in the Sunday School... lack of spiritual life in the church... strained relationships... disregard of the deacons' wishes... and no new members being added to the roll'. This was not all, however. Apparently Hughes had decided that the proper place to demand a pay rise was from the pulpit.

So the deacons sacked the man. Or tried to. Hughes refused, point-blank, to pack his bags. So the deacons locked the chapel and refused to let him in. Not to be daunted, Hughes climbed the railings outside the chapel, smashed open the gate with a hammer, and broke into the church, opening the chapel to the general public. He was planning to baptise so many new members that he would have control over the church.

The deacons were forced to go to the High Court for an injunction to ban him from the premises. Hughes refused to recognise the right of the deacons to dismiss him. Mr. Justice Eady decided otherwise, and in May 1913, the High Court ruled that Hughes had been legally dismissed. At the same time, the Baptist Union of Wales removed Hughes' name from their approved list.

Huw Edwards concludes that Hughes, no stranger to controversy, 'was either mentally ill or just an exceptionally unpleasant man'.

with acknowledgments to Huw Edwards, Capeli Llanelli (Carmarthen, 2009), p.393.

Cardiff Churches 2: Roath Park Congregational Church

2010-03-25T10:27:00.002Z

Many of the churches of Cardiff stand witness to the remarkable work of God in Cardiff and District between 1880 and the outbreak of the Great War. The fate which has overtaken a great number of these is a reminder of how the spiritual climate has changed since those heady days.

Roath Park Congregational Church was one such church. The church owed its existence to the efforts of John Gore, a member of Richmond Road Church, who began a work among the children of the Roath Park district in 1896. Following a ten day mission, Roath Park Congregational Church formally came into existence on 16 June 1897. The missioner, John Thomas, was called as the first minister, for a trial period, but left after three months when the church was unable to pay his stipend. The motto of the church at this time was 'thank God and take courage'.

The situation had improved somewhat by 1898, when the Revd Silas Charles, minister of the English Congregational Church at Ferndale, in the Rhondda, was called as minister. A tin church was erected at the end of Mackintosh Place, opposite the present buildings. The service was conducted by the Revd Urijah Thomas of Bristol, and presided over by D. A. Thomas, MP for Merthyr Boroughs, a generous benefactor of English Congregationalism in Wales.

In 1902, Silas Charles left the church for Chepstow, and was succeeded by W. Whittington of Griffithstown, who remained minister until 1912. Under his ministry, the church experienced a period of steady growth, leading to the construction of the church building (on the right of the photograph), which opened in March 1910. The speaker at the opening service was J. D. Jones of Bournemouth, who chose as his theme, 'Christianity and Socialism', an apposite subject, given the industrial unrest which was at that time blighting the mid-Rhondda coal mines (largely owned by D. A. Thomas, by that time MP for Cardiff). The building seated 650, and the tin hall remained in use by the Sunday School.

In 1913, R. E. Salmon of Porth was called to Roath Park, where he would remain until the 1950s. Under his ministry, the church experienced further growth, membership passing the 400 mark by 1920, apparently unaffected by the disruption of the Great War. The church was open every day, its busy programme including Scouts, Girl Guides and a drama group. Early arrival on Sunday was recommended in order to secure a seat. The building of a substantial hall next to the church in 1928 reflected the community-focused ethos of the church.

The Second World War was a challenge for the Church, which suffered some bomb damage. However, the church 'did its bit'. Again, young men from the church marched off to war, while the ladies mended kit for the soldiers from nearby Maindy Barracks.

A thorough refurbishment of the church took place after the war. In 1944the present pulpit, enclosure around the Lord's Table and front to the choir gallery were erected as a memorial to Sir William James Thomas, a liberal benefactor to the church. Renovations in 1950 saw the removal of the pinnacles on the roof of the tower and the rear of the organ loft.

The Revd Glanville Jones replaced Salmon in the mid 1950s. In his turn. he was succeeded by the Revs Bale, Forecast and Ploughman. The church continued to serve its community, focusing particularly on the young people of the district, albeit with declining congregations. In 1972, the church became Roath Park United Reformed Church, following the union between the English Presbyterian Church and the Congregational Church.

The 1990s saw major repairs to the church buildings and halls. With the financial strain this entailed, it was increasingly difficult to support a full time minister. On the retirement of Bob Banner, the Revd Alison Dummer took pastoral oversight of the Roath Park and Minster Road United Reformed churches.

It was only a step from this to the decision to merge the two churches, and in 2008 it was decided to sell the Roath Park buildings and consolidate the work on the Minister Road site, where the church shares space with the Wales Synod offices of the United Reformed Church.

And there the story of the Christian witness on the site could easily have ended, the Grade II listed buildings becoming a community centre or a mosque. However, the buildings were acquired by Tabernacle, a splinter group from Heath Evangelical Church, who have embarked on an ambitious programme of restoration. On 24 March, 2010, the centenary of the building was marked by a special service. Alison Dummer gave a short talk on the history of the building, to which part of this post is devoted, and Alun McNab of Great Bridgford preached on the sin of despising the word of God.

Cardiff Churches: 1 Plasnewydd Presbyterian Church (to 1936)

2010-03-11T21:54:00.004Z

Founded 1885, Plasnewydd Presbyterian Church was the third English Calvinistic Methodist Church to be founded in Cardiff. Meetings were initially held in a house at the top end of Richmond Road, a few hundred yards away. Edwin Reese, later a deacon at the chapel, played a large part in its foundation, encouraged by John Pugh of Clifton Street. In May or June of 1886, the congregation was formally organised as a church, somewhat to the dismay of the denomination, who nevertheless agreed to support the fledgling cause.

The cause was greatly blessed of God, and by 1886 had outgrown the house in which the meetings were held. Interviews with the trustees of the Mackintosh Estate secured a site on Keppoch Street, close to the mansion of the Mackintosh family, Plasnewydd. The chapel was opened by Alfred Thomas, MP for East Glamorgan. A Baptist, Thomas was not unaccustomed to this task, laying the memorial stone at Minny Street Independent church, Cathays. At the same time, the services of W. Francis Jones were secured as minister, albeit on a small salary. He retired a year later, the church securing the services of B. T. Jones, Briton Ferry, in 1888.

Following a mission by Seth Joshua, the Church received twenty-six members in 1891, Joshua himself being received into the denomination a little later. Only a little way from the work of John Pugh as Clifton Street and East Moors, the church was soon caught up in the revival work, the membership rising from 72 in 1888 to 92 in 1894, when B. T. Jones resigned the pastorate.

From 1895 to 1904 the church was Pastored by Pulford Williams. The life of the church continued to flourish, a choir being formed.More of the chapel debt was paid off, and by the end of 1895 there was talk of erecting a new chapel. The gothic edifice depicted was finished in 1901. It was designed to hold 850, a far cry from the large room at the end of Richmond Road.

This was not mere pride. Membership figures indicate that the church was already experiencing something close to reviva. Between 1895 and 1902, the membership of the church grew from 110 to 228. In 1902, a further sixty-one new members were received. By the time Pulford Williams resigned, on grounds of ill health, in 1904, the church was self-supporting.

Under the long ministry of E. P. Jones (1904-32), the church was visited with full revival. By 1906, membership had increased to 388. By 1918, the figure was 487. The Great War, and the spiritual dearth which followed, cut that figure to 339 by 1932. This was offset by the continuing zeal of those who stayed. E. P. Jones' ministry was ended by his death on 5 March 1932. His place was taken by R. M. Roberts of Prestatyn. Membership began to increase once more, rising above 370 by 1935.

Prayer

2009-10-19T14:41:00.002+01:00

One of the great features of Revival is the adding to the Church of people who have not grown up within the bosom of the church visible. The 1904-5 Revival was no exception. In his Reminiscences of My Country and People David Davies gives a few examples of the prayers of older people converted in this revival.

A farmer, aware that someone had been pilfering potatoes, prayed in family worship that God would convince the thief of his sin, saying 'Lord, Thou knowest well who he is! - I suspect, too!'

Another farmer, having lost £5 - then a considerable sum of money, prayed: "O Lord, thou knowest I have mislaid the £5, and Thou, too, knowest where they are - tell me. Lord, tell me, for Thou knowest where they are'. When this did not avail, he added 'If Thou hadst lost them, Lord, and I knew where they were, I would tell Thee'.

If this prayer had been uttered by one brought up in church or chapel, it would have been the very height of irreverence, but the old farmer had never before known God as Father. And, Davies remarks, the Father who knows us so well heard the prayer in the way it was meant, and answered it. "[H]e no sooner opened his eyes, and got up on his feet, than he placed his hand upon his mislaid treasure!"

John Calvin: By J.P. Struthers

2009-10-19T08:29:00.001+01:00

[In commemmoration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, Free St George's is pleased to be able to reproduce the following article and its accompanying illustration from The Morning Watch Vol. 2. The Morning Watch was the children's magazine of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and was published from 1888 to 1915 under the editorship of Rev. J.P. Struthers of Greenock. The illustrations for the magazine were produced by the lady who eventually became Mrs. Struthers.]

You all know the name of John Calvin, but I am not sure that you have ever seen a picture of him before. You are far more likely to have seen one of Luther. Calvin was a very different man, and a great many people do not like him as well. They do not like him often because they do not like what is called ‘Calvinism.’ But Calvin would have been very sorry to hear his doctrines going by his name. He did not think them Calvinism, but Christianity. He found them in the Bible.

He was a Frenchman, and the ablest Frenchman who has ever lived. He was born in 1509, and so was just a little boy when Luther kindled the fire that ended in the Reformation. What Calvin had to do then was not to begin to protest against Popery, but to prove to the world that the religion of the Protestants was the religion of the Bible. Ignorant priests were telling the ignorant people that the New Testament was a wicked book that Luther had discovered, and with the new ideas that the Reformation was bringing into men’s minds there was a danger that they would be loosed from the superstition of the old Church without being won to the faith of the new. Calvin was brought by what he himself calls ‘a sudden conversion’ to the knowledge of Christ. Driven from Paris by persecution he came to Geneva, where, though he little thought it, his life work was to be done. Here he wrote, when he was only twenty-six, his great book, ‘The Institutes of the Christian Religion,’ perhaps the most powerful statement of the faith that has ever been given to the world.

Geneva was in a very corrupt state under Popery, and Calvin tried to reform it. He was so eager about the purity of the Church, kept godless people so strictly from the Lord’s Table, that he was driven from the city. But things there went from bad to worse. They could not get on without him, and so after three years they sent for him and brought him back in triumph. He became practically the ruler of the city for more than twenty years after this, till his death.

Luther pulled down the old fabric of Popery, but it was Calvin who built up and strengthened the new church. He was the master-mind, the statesman of the Reformation. Though he was the ruling influence in Geneva, he could not do everything as he wished it, and he has been held responsible for a great many things he could not hinder.

He studied and worked so hard that he hardly ever had a day’s health. He had many sorrows, he lost all his children young, and he had on him, like Paul, ‘the care of all the churches.’ But, often sad, and always ill, he wrote one of the greatest commentaries on the Bible, and was the guide and adviser of nearly all the Protestant leaders of the time. His great work, The Institutes, is divided into four parts, and yet the ‘heads’ of it all are Christ and His Church. He gathers everything round God and the love of Christ.

Calvin lies buried in Geneva, but we cannot be certain of his grave, for he ordered that no monument should mark it. This was like the man. The motto of his books, and of his life, might very fitly be, ‘To Thy Name be all the glory.”

J.P. Struthers: The Morning Watch Vol. 2 (Greenock, James M’Kelvie and Sons, 1889) Pp. 55-6

'What You Can Remember'

2009-10-18T14:26:00.004+01:00

'History', as readers of 1066 and All That, know, 'is not what you thought. It is what you can remember'. The same may be said of the Bible, at least in connection with Sunday School. Here, courtesy of the Cardiff Times of 4 August, 1900, are a few specimens showing that the fall has affected the human memory.

Q. Why was Jerusalem surrounded by walls?
A. To keep in the milk and honey.

Q. What is manna?
A. Please, Sir, it's taking your hat off to the master and missus.

Q. Where did Cain go after he had slain Abel?
A. To bed. [Cain went to the Land of Nod.]

Q. What is the Fourth Commandment?
A. Six days shalt thy neighbour do all that thou hast to do.

"We know that St. Peter was crucified upside-down because he mentions it in several of his epistles".

"It is cruel to cut off dogs' tails as some wicked men do, for what God has joined together let no man put asunder".

Martyn Lloyd-Jones - The Lord's Supper guards Doctrine

2009-10-15T09:17:00.000+01:00

I am currently preaching on the early chapters of the Book of Acts in the mornings at Bethel Evangelical Church, Hanley. While doing preparation for a sermon on the latter part of Acts 2, I came across this Lloyd-Jones quote in his Authentic Christianity:

“So the Lord’s Supper was not just the idea of the apostles, not something conjured up by the Church, but it was a solemn command of the Lord. Why did He command them to keep it? And here is a most significant thing. I believe he gave this command in order to preserve the doctrine, it is a kind of display of the truth, and our Lord wanted to preserve the truth throughout the centuries until the end of the Christian era.
“What a wonderful thing this has been! This table with its bread and wine has often been a terrible condemnation of the pulpit. Men have entered pulpits and said that Jesus was only a man, that he was nothing more than a moral exemplar and a good teacher. They have said that his death was the death of a pacifist, that it was a great tragedy and that we must imitate his spirit and live in the same way. They have preached like that in pulpits and then they have gone down to the Communion table, and there has been no connection between their preaching and the message of that Communion service. The Communion table, the broken bread and the poured out wine, has been preaching a message.
“And so, because of men and their fallibility – and we are all fallible – the Lord took a step to preserve the truth, the doctrine. And if you want to know how to test modern teaching and modern preaching, here is your test: what relationship does it bear to the bread and the wine? Does it lead to that? Is the Communion service a demonstration of the message that has been preached? If it is not, the message has been false. Here is the Lord’s own command and he has commanded it in order to preserve the teaching.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Authentic Christianity Vol. 1 (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth, 1999) Pp. 159-160

Ticking over

2009-10-14T09:11:00.001+01:00

More about John Calvin at Calvin 500

Just a little bit of fun passed on by James White at Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Book Review: Noel Gibbard: R.B. Jones: Gospel Ministry in Turbulent Times

2009-09-15T20:00:00.003+01:00

R.B. Jones of Porth is probably best known as one of the leaders of the 1904-5 revival in Wales. His life work stretched over the years from 1893 to 1933, and thus he was one of the leaders of Welsh Evangelicalism in the early years of the 20th century. He also had a rather controversial reputation, as a fundamentalist, and a man who could be rather intemperate in his language. Despite this prominence, he has never had a full biography – until now. Noel Gibbard’s latest book is a carefully-researched study of this complex figure, a Welsh Baptist leader who founded a Bible college and was a leader of Keswick-style teaching. This book is not a hagiography, but at the same time it is broadly sympathetic to the subject. R.B. was a staunch defender of the faith, obnoxious to those who denied the fundamentals of that faith. Though he could be fierce in controversy, he was a friendly, pleasant man in company, and sympathetic towards those in need. This book is a well-written portrait of a man of God that seeks to portray him in all his complexities.

Of course the book deals in detail with RB’s part in the revival, but it deals with so much more. It is the portrait of a Gospel minister, and will inspire and encourage ministers. It shows that he was far from the fire-breathing fundamentalist of legend. I close with a quotation from the final assessment of RB, dealing with the question of RB’s fundamentalism. It will be seen at once that if RB was a fundamentalist, far too many fundamentalists today are a mere caricature of fundamentalism as it was. What was a mere canard with RB is sadly an accurate description of some modern fundamentalists. I fact, I dare say that many modern fundamentalists would condemn RB as a liberal! He, in turn, would have condemned them as fanatics!

“Although labelled a fundamentalist, RB was an enlightened fundamentalist.
He was criticised for accepting everything in the Bible literally, and for
believing, because of his literalism, that everything in the Bible was of equal
value. But very often the critics ignored RB’s actual statements and arguments.
One correspondent claimed that RB and other fundamentalists believed not only
that the original writers of the books of the Bible were inspired, but that
later copyists and translators were inspired too. Another correspondent
suggested that RB believed that the authors of Scripture were passive
instruments driven by some external power; that the writers placed themselves in
the path of the Spirit, and God spoke through them.

“RB however was quite clear in his doctrine of Inspiration:

‘The Bible as we have it, in its various translations and revisions, when
freed from all the errors and mistakes of translations, copyists and printers,
is the very Word of God, and consequently without error.’

“He refuted the theories of ‘intuition’, ’illumination’ and ‘dictation’,
and argued for ‘dynamic inspiration’. Commenting on the ‘dictation’ theory, he
stated that it

‘could not account for the peculiar style of each human writer. Also, much
of what they wrote needed not to dictated for they knew it already.'

“He then gave his own definition: ‘Dynamic inspiration denotes the action
of the Holy Spirit upon living men, working according to the natural laws of
their minds, and using them as active and not passive instruments.’”
(Pp.179-180)

In my opinion this is one of the best books of this year.

Relocation

2009-09-04T11:35:00.002+01:00

As of 10th September, God willing, I will be working with Bethel Evangelical Church, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, and thus preaching every Lord's Day for the next three months at least at Bethel, as well as taking other meetings, engaging in outreach, and so on.

Bethel is a relatively small church in a town-centre location. We have a small bookshop attached to the building, and the membership doesn't bite. I thank God for their offer, and ask for the prayers of readers that all will go well, and we shall be a blessing to one another.

Bethel is well-placed for students from Keele University and Staffordshire University's Stoke-on-Trent campus, and we would welcome any students.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-08-18T13:09:00.005+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's day I shall be preaching at Hope Baptist Church, Haslemere. Services are at 10.30 AM and 6.30 PM. The chapel is located on Lower Street, just up from the former Congregational Chapel.

The Life and Ministry of John Calvin

2009-08-10T11:43:00.007+01:00

This coming Thursday evening, God willing, I shall be speaking at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant on The Life and Ministry of John Calvin. The meeting is at 7.30, and there will be tea and coffee.

God willing, a version of this talk will be published in Peace and Truth magazine later this year.

Preaching

2009-08-09T09:12:00.004+01:00

No, not me!! The Highland Host is preaching today at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant. Services are at 11:00am and 6pm. He's preaching at both services. Please pray for travelling mercies, as he's commuting to the service from Cardiff.

And also safety and security, as he's borrowed my bike. I hope he remembered about the really big hill just after Cardiff.

I found a different picture of the Chapel for a change. Hopefully the congregation there will be as hungry for the word of God as the parasitic cat who greeted me in my back garden.

I shall be attending the services at Heath Church, Cardiff, where Joel Beeke is preaching at the 10:45 and 6:30 services.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-08-01T09:50:00.002+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Bethel Chapel, Guildford. Services are at 11 AM and 6 PM. There is a prayer-meeting at 10 AM before the morning service.

Coleg Trefeca

2009-07-24T10:27:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit Coleg Trefeca in Breconshire. Coleg Trefeca, known in English as Trefeca Colleg, was for many years a training college of the Calvinistic Methodists. Today it is the lay training centre of the Presbyterian Church of Wales.Coleg Trefeca is located in the buildings formerly occupied by Howell Harris and his Trefeca 'family', a sort of Christian community who were practically self-sufficient. The 'family' built the structures seen here, although they have been somewhat modified in the course of the 19th century.The building today has two wings flanking the central entrance. Originally the wing in this picture was a tower, but the upper floor has been removed.The further wing is still more or less as it was built, with the original Georgian 'Gothick' windows.The back of the college is built on to Howell Harris' house, in which many of the leaders of the Great Awakening in the 18th century stayed.Now the warden's house, the details on Howell Harris' house are neo-classical, not Gothick. The elegant house speaks of Harris' social standing by the end of his life.More of Harris' house, and the college. It is a beautiful location to study, as well as a pleasant place for a home.There is a small Howell Harris museum in the college buildings. Among other things, it contains Howell Harris' pulpit. Its rather unusual appearance is due to the fact that it was made of re-used 16th or 15th century timber, probably discarded during renovations at a Church. This is a portable pulpit made from iron and wood. George Whitefield preached from it at the opening of the Countess of Huntingdon's College at Trefeca, which was just down the road from Harris' house.

This is the monument for Harris that used to stand in the now-demolished Memorial Chapel on the site. Harris was God's instrument in revival, a preacher of the Gospel. But Harris would point up upwards to his God.

Coleg Trefeca is available for hire to Church and other Christian groups, and also offers bed-and-breakfast at a very reasonable rate for Christians visiting the area.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-07-17T08:16:00.001+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Bethel Evangelical Church, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Bethel is an historic Evangelical Church that stands on the historic Reformed Faith. Services are at 10.30 in the morning and 6.30 in the evening. Further details, including details of other meetings, can be found on the Church website.

Ichabod in Blaengarw

2009-07-15T21:32:00.009+01:00

The South Wales valleys were deeply affected by the revival of 1904, as we have already seen in the chapel photographs from Maesteg. The next valley to the Lynfi valley in which Maesteg sits is the Garw valley. Blaengarw is at the top of the valley. It has a number of impressive chapels - but oh, what a state of desolation they present to the modern visitor!

The first place of worship in Blaengarw was Tabernacle Calvinistic Methodist Church. Not the chapel in the background, but the building now occupied by 'Shear Artistry' hairdressers. Built in 1885, it was later turned into a Sunday school when a larger chapel was needed.

This stone tells us that old Tabernacle was indeed the earliest place of worship in Blaengarw.

The old Tabernacle soon grew too small for the needs of the Church, and it was replaced in 1891 with this elegant chapel. It too has closed.

The language of worship at Tabernacle was Welsh, this was one of the strengths of the old Calvinistic Methodists, they spoke the language of the people. But with an influx of English-speakers, it was necessary in 1904 to build an English chapel in Blaengarw. This was Mount Zion, built in the latest style, Gothic with Art Nouveau undertones.

Mount Zion too is now shockingly derelict, its elegant staircase has collapsed, and the building is now unsafe.

The Baptists too shared in the blessings of the revival, so that in 1912 they built, also in the Gothic style with Art Nouveau undertones, Bethania Welsh Baptist Chapel was undoubtedly the grandest building in Blaengarw when it was opened. In some respects it still is!This amazing piece of Edwardian architecture, that would not look out of place in a city, is now derelict! It has been left to fall into ruin, while it is surely an important part of the Welsh architectural heritage!Even the modest Anglican Church of St James has not been left untouched. With increased mobility and decreasing congregations, it was closed in 2004, having served the village since 1890.

And finally, this is all that remains of Nebo Welsh Independent Church, Blaengarw. And of Trinity English Calvinistic Methodist there remains neither stock nor stone. Truly Ichabod can be written here, the glory has departed.

Some more (out of date) information on Garw Valley churches is here. The URC in Pontycymmerhas closed since this page was last updated, and is sadly derelict. The closed chapels have become even more derelict.

The Cathedral of Maesteg

2009-07-14T22:35:00.004+01:00

That's what the locals call St. Michael's Church, Maesteg. Of course, that only means that it is the most impressive Anglican Church in Maesteg, but there you go. The High Victorian church is built of local stone, and its tower ensures that it is a very real presence in the town. It also shows something of the rivalry between 'Church' and 'Chapel'
This is St. David's, the original Parish Church in Maesteg. Small, quite typical for the area, and not at all exciting. Although located in the centre of town, by the marketplace, it is a low-built structure that is really quite humble. With all these impressive chapels around (though most of the chapels around when St. Michael's was built have since been replaced by larger and even more impressive buildings), it says of the Church of Wales (as it was then), "we're really rather irrelevant." So what's a Church to do? Well, with the town growing, what better time to build a new Church, really large and impressive, to out-do the Nonconformists! And here it is...

The Church of St. Michael and all Angels! It is decidedly an Anglican Church, not a chapel, and it is built in the Early English style, with lancet windows. While the Decorated was more popular, the simplicity of the Early English often makes buildings in this style more impressive. Like most Victorian churches in the Early English style, St. Michael's impresses by its simplicity of form, and its massiveness.

The west front of the Church contains the main entrance, with five lancets of equal size lighting the west end of the building. Above them is a statue of St. Michael. The Early English is also the style of St. David's, so St. Michael's suggests a sense historic continuity.

When I visited the Church was being decorated for a wedding, so I was able to get inside. The internal dimensions are impressive, with a large nave and separate choir and chancel arches (most Anglican churches have just a chancel arch). As the Latin over the chancel arch, and the presence of a high altar indicates, St. Michael's is Anglo-Catholic, it even has a set of modern wood-sculpted stations of the cross around the walls of the nave.

There are some other Maesteg pictures that may come if I feel they are worth while.

Some Chapels in Maesteg

2009-07-10T23:07:00.006+01:00

Today's post is a series of pictures of nonconformist chapels from the town of Maesteg, Bridgend County. This is a small valley town, yet these are not all the Churches in Maesteg (there are also two Anglican Churches and a Roman Catholic Church, plus other chapels). First up is Zion English Baptist Chapel, built in 1884, a very simple stone building with no real decoration on the facade.

This is Central Church, Maesteg, occupied by Baptists, Methodists and URC. It was built in 1847 as Bethel English Baptist Church, and enlarged in 1859. It was renovated in 1947.

Peniel Evangelical Church, Maesteg, has 'Tabernacle' written on the building. An old-fashioned Welsh Baptist Chapel, with the date 1856 on the facade. I have met the pastor of this church, and he seems a good sort.

Maesteg seems to have been a centre of the Welsh Independents. This is Carmel Chapel, one of the few Welsh Independent Chapels in Maesteg still open. It has a rather nice early 20th century facade.

And this is Canaan Independent Chapel, built in 1903. The architecture is still pretty typical.

Tabor Calvinistic Methodist Church has closed and been converted into flats. It was built in 1907, no doubt in part to contain the converts from the Welsh Revival. In the latest style as well.

This is the Victorian Zoar Independent Chapel, now owned by a funeral director. Zoar means 'small', but this chapel is anything but!

This was Bethlehem Calvinstic Methodist Chapel. The Calvinistic Methodists were effectively the alternative Establishment in Wales, yet not one CM Chapel remains open in Masteg! And finally we have the gem of Maesteg, Bethania Independent Chapel, designed by local architect William Beddoe Rees and built in 1908. The last hurrah of the Nonconformists, the building seems today to be far too big.

These chapels are the results of revival. They are mostly closed now, and only revival can re-open them and fill them.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. VIII

2009-07-06T08:45:00.003+01:00

When we last saw MacEwen, he was faced with the choice between a pastorate in London, in Glasgow, or in the rural spa town of Moffat in the Borders. MacEwen took the sensible route and accepted the call from the smaller, rural town, deciding that it would be best to get a start in the ministry in Moffat, where the pace of life was slower, rather than in the bustling idustrial city of Glasgow, or the Imperial capital of London.

Moffat is a beautiful little town even today, located at the foot of the great rampart of hills in which the river Tweed rises. When A.R. MacEwen came to the little United Presbyterian Church in the town, the permanent population of Moffat was about two thousand, although in the summer, then as now, tourists swelled the population! The Spa, which had operated for nearly 200 years, meant that the town was well supplied with hotels and boarding-houses. With the growth of tourism, the various denominations made every effort to supply places of worship that could accommodate the tourists in the summer - often leading to buildings that were half-empty the rest of the year.

The Moffat United Presbyterian Church had an attractive building, and one of the attractions for MacEwen as a young pastor must have been what the history of the United Presbterians calls the "stately manse." Better still, though, was the friendly rural congregation who welcomed their new pastor enthusiastically and pulled wholeheartedly behind him.

The ordination took place on a misty December day, when there were no visitors to the town, and the moors high above seemed particularly bleak and gloomy. A large company of those who knew the young ordinand gathered to ask God's blessing on his ministry. But as we all know, an ordination is only a beginning. The real test was just starting - and MacEwen must have known that when he decided that Moffat was the place where his ministry ought to begin.

Despite the huge difference between the city in which he had been brought up and the town in which he now found himself, MacEwen threw himself into the work of a country pastor with all his thoroughness. He was a devoted visitor of his people, as he sought to understand the people among whom God had placed him. There was nothing stuffy or stand-offish about him. On the other hand his family connections and university reputation attracted visitors in the summer. In those days when Sunday-School and Bible-Class did not take place at the same time as the services, he surprised people by actually taking an active share in these parts of the Church's work! He was an athletic young man, and like the stereotypical 19th century 'varsity man, a good all-rounder, even a good boxer, a skill that had been of great help when he was attacked by a gang of thugs in Berlin and been forced to fight his way out - leaving two of the thugs stunned on the gound.

As the manse was too large for a batchelor living alone, MacEwen invited his youngest sister - who was unmarried at the time - to live with him. They would often be seen riding together among the hills around Moffat. While he kept up interests outside the Church, his main focus was the small country congregation - small in Glasgow terms, anyhow, for there were Church buildings in Glasgow that could have easily accommodated the entire population of Moffat!

God willing, next time we shall continue to see MacEwen in his first pastorate at Moffat.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-06-26T17:00:00.000+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Great Park Street, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. England. The services at the Tabernacle are at 10.45 AM and 6.00 PM.

The drawing shows the chapel, which reached its present appearance (more or less) in about 1900, when a wealthy deacon, a local brewer, completely renovated the old chapel, bought the leasehold land on which it had been built, and gave it to the church along with an impressive manse. The result was an argument as to whether or not the church should accept property bought with beer money. A better question would have been whether or not the church should have appointed a brewer as deacon in the first place. Thankfully common sense finally prevailed.

Preaching this coming Lord's Day

2009-06-20T16:57:00.001+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at the Tabor Baptist Church evening service held in Caerlan Hall, Llantrisant, and not in the building shown above, just to confuse people. Or something like that anyhow. Services at at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM

Another forthcoming Attraction

2009-06-08T11:22:00.002+01:00

Every year sees a number of good books coming out from Christian publishers. In July we have another book coming out that looks worth reading, Revival on the Causeway Coast by Nicholas M. Railton, is a history of the 1859 revival in the district and town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland. As a new contribution to teh study of the 1859 Ulster revival, this will, I hope, be a welcome addition to the literature on revival. On the Christian Focus site, we find this quote from Railton:

“At the centre of the revival message stood Christ, the Eternal Son of God, and His work of redemption on the cross of Calvary. His saving works then, His sanctifying work now, His work of judgement in the future. Jesus is portrayed
not simply as a good teacher or prophet, but as the Lord of history who is coming back soon. He is the One who has conquered death and the devil; His followers are part of a conquering band, marching to a better land.”

This is the message we need today in the Church, of Jesus as who He really is, not what some fashionable preacher thinks we need Him to be!

Revival on the Causeway Coast is priced at £7.99. Full details here, but please buy from a local Christian bookshop if you can.

Preaching next Lord's Day

2009-06-05T06:00:00.002+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Hope Baptist Church, Haslemere, Surrey. Hope is an historic church, the present building dates from 1870, and the church still stands on the historic faith once delivered to the saints, as it did when it was founded. Hope Chapel is located on Lower Street, Haslemere. Services are at 10.30 AM and 6.30 PM.

Forthcoming Attraction from Christian Focus publications

2009-06-03T08:11:00.000+01:00

Christian Focus Publications has announced the long-awaited third volume of the series The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century, edited by Ligon Duncan, will be published in July. The two previous volumes in this series have been extremely intersting and useful to those in a Reformed context. Full details here. With essays on Karl Barth, the New Perspective on Paul, and the nature of the Lord's Supper included among the contents of this book, it looks well worth taking a look at. Unless I am sent a review copy by the magazine that I write book reviews for (which I may well), I shall be buying this book myself, God willing.

The Christian Focus list price is £22.99. Once again my advice to use a local Christian bookshop, and not Amazon or even Christian Focus unless you really have to, stands.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. VII

2009-06-01T09:46:00.004+01:00

Having committed himself to stuy for the ministry, MacEwen took himself off to Germany for some study, as had become the custom among Scottish theological students of the period. He spent a month attending lectures at the University of Gottingen in Hanover. While he enjoyed his time in Germany, there is little evidence that he imbibed deeply the sort of German theology that was to work such devastation in the Evangelical Churches of Britain. Still, this was a period in which Germany was greatly in favour in Scotland, and it is rather amusing reading of the Scottish theologians trying to deny their love of all things German as soon as the Great War broke out!

After the semester ended at Gottingen, MacEwen travelled back to Scotland via Denmark, arriving home in time to begin his time at the United Presbyterian Hall in Edinburgh. He took a full part in all the extra-curricular activities of the Hall, the Missionary Society in particular. Church History was a particular love of his even then, and he did not confine himself to Scotland, or to the more recent past. He was excused for some of the lectures when he was asked to take some of Professor Jebb's Greek classes at Glasgow University when the Professor was unwell. In May he took a holiday in the little Borders town of Moffat - a place that would be more important in his life than he knew at that time. He described it in a letter to a friend as "a mot delightful place".

He was kept busy, and an essay of his on Jerome, translator of the Vulgate, was published in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review. More importantly, in March, 1879 the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Church opened a new mission work in Leith Walk. MacEwen was put in temporary charge of the mission, with Principal Cairns as his supervisor. By the 7th of October his labours had been used to gather a congregation of eighty members, and the Colston Street Mission was constituted. This was his first real ministerial post, though at this point he had not yet been ordained. The United Presbyterians had no assistant pastors at the time, so UP students had to get their ministerial experience while still at college.

It has been asked by some "what use is Church History?" MacEwen's response is "much every way". To him the life of the local church has to be set in the larger context of the universal Church, and that is where Church History comes in. It tells us where we come from, and how we got here.

He finished his training in 1880, and was licenced by the Presbytery of Glasgow. The Colston Street Mission sought to call him as their pastor, but he did not see his way to accept the call. A visit to the English Presbterian Church at Cambridge led to his being called to the pastorate of Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church, London, where he had preached once. The Church at Moffat, where he had been placed by the Church as a probationer, also called him, and finally he received a call from a new Congregation in Pollockshilds, Glasgow. All of which was encouraging, but left him faced with a serious question - which of these places was the one God wanted him to labour in?

God willing, next time we shall see where MacEwen went.

Preaching this coming Lord's Day

2009-05-29T07:57:00.003+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at our church here at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant at both services, at 11 AM and 6 PM.

Minister Behaving Badly: First Catch Your Mormon

2009-05-25T18:54:00.007+01:00

A little-known factor in Welsh religious life was the short-lived rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. There were anti-Mormon riots in Swansea and other places, while a number of men from Wales emigrated to Utah, forming the basis of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Indeed, it was a popular diversion for Welsh travellers to America to go to Salt Lake City and find Welsh polygamists. One episode in the history of Mormonism occurred in the town of Aberaman, towards the latter part of the nineteenth century.

David B. Jones of Rhumney (Bardic name 'Dewi Elfed), newly ordained minister of Gwawr Welsh Baptist Chapel, became a Mormon. Asked to give an account of his behaviour before the Baptist Association, he refused, claiming that that Association had no jurisdiction over him. Unsurpisingly, he was excommunicated in absentia. Howeverm in the meantime, he had altered the trust deeds of the chapel in his favour. Removing the names of a number of people, including Dr. Thomas Price, minister of Calfaria Baptist Chapel, Aberdare. Having altered the chapel deed in order to make the chapel more or less his personal property, the chapel fell into the hands of the Mormons.

The Baptist Association, led by Dr. Thomas Price, were not going to take this lying down. They went to law, and, in 1851, the courts ruled that the chapel was legally the property of the Baptist Association. David Jones declared that he had no intention of vacating the premises.

Dr. Price, together with 2000 supporters and the law officer, marched to the chapel in an attempt to take possession. Seeing their approach, David Jones locked himself inside the Chapel, together with one supporter. The court official declared that he had no authority to break down the door. That being the case, Dr. Price and one of his deacons gained access through a window. After 'a wild and exciting chase around the chapel galleries', the Baptist minister turned Mormon was caught, and forcibly ejected from the Chapel, Dr. Price kicking him out of the front door.

The Chapel was regained for the Welsh Baptists, and although David Jones threatened to bring a charge of assault against Dr. Price, the action was dropped. There are no Mormons at present in Aberaman.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-05-22T15:48:00.000+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at New Life Bible-Presbyterian Church, Salusbury Road, Queen's Park, Kilburn, London (two minutes walk from Queen's Park station). Services are at 11 AM and 4 PM. with a fellowship lunch between. Illustrated above is the sanctuary, dominated by the mighty pulpit, the throne of the Word of God. Behind is the great pipe-organ that is used to help the Lord's people to worship every Sunday morning.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-05-15T23:42:00.002+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at New Life Bible-Presbyterian Church, Salusbury Road, Queen's Park, Kilburn, London. Services are at 11.00 AM and 4.00 PM, with a fellowship lunch between the services. The building illustrated above, now New Life, was built as St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in 1910. So still Presbyterian anyhow.

Book Review - Glory in the Glen

2009-05-14T17:01:00.002+01:00

Revival. The word is one that ought to make every true Christian in this country fall down and plead with God that he would revive us again. The history of revival is one that we ought to study, not as a mere intellectual expercise, but to quicken our desires for God to work again in our day and age.

Glory in the Glen by Tom Lennie (Christian Focus Publications, paperback, 512 pages), is a patiently researched, well-written book. It is cautious in all its claims, and well-documented. The subject is Evangelical revivals in Scotland between 1880 and 1940. In this book Mr. Lennie shows that this period, which has been generally neglected, was in fact a period of great blessing in various parts of Scotland. He shows that the Welsh Revival fires spread to various parts of Scotland, and that the period prior to the First World War was a period of ingathering. Like the Welsh Revival, many converts of these awakenings died in the Trenches, and yet in the Highlands and Islands, and among the fisherfolk, the Revivals continued between the wars.

The book is in five parts. Part one, 'Glory filled the Land', deals with revivals in various parts of Scotland, from Ayrshire to Skye. Part two, 'Fire Among the Fisherfolk', focuses on the revivals among the fishing communities. Part three, ''Oer the Minch' - Hebridean Harvest', deals with revivals in the Outer Hebrides. The fourth part of the book, 'Bairns, Scholars and Holy Rollers', as the title suggests, is a little more mixed, the first chapter dealing with work among children and scholars, the second with the development of Pentecosalism in Scotland. Part five is more analytical, asking questions about revival in the light of the historical sections of the book.

Lennie's well-researched book does not hesitate to criticise such practices as that of giving out figures of converts. As he points out, the number of those 'coming forward' at a meeting is often highly misleading, since many who do so are not actually converted. The reader will no doubt find some of what he reads here difficult. After all, there are events recorded that we Reformed Christians don't find happening in our churches. But after all, we do think that the facts ought to be recorded as they really are, not as we would have liked them to be.

All in all, this is a good read, deeply challenging, and well-written. Readers will also appreciate the maps and illustrations that help to put the revival accounts in historical and gographical context.

Glory in the Glen is available from your local Christian bookshop, or from Christian Focus Publications. It costs £11.99.

Calvin Talk

2009-05-11T11:08:00.003+01:00

God willing, to-morrow evening I shall be speaking on 'The Life and Work of John Calvin' for the Sovereign Grace Union (Surrey Auxilliary), at Providence Baptist Church, Knaphill, near Woking, Surrey.

This lecture will be the fruit of several months of study of the Genevan Reformer, and hopefully will be of some benefit to those who listen.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-05-08T20:33:00.000+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Cheltenham Evangelical Free Church, Whaddon Road, Cheltenham. Services are at 11.00 AM and 6.30 PM.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. VI

2009-05-06T05:30:00.002+01:00

With the death of his father, Alexander MacEwen faced a time of decision. Should he go forward with the Theology course, or accept, at least for a time, the appointment in Glasgow University as an assistant Professor? The question was one of timing more than anything else. He fully intended to go to the Divinity Hall, was conscious of a calling to the ministry, but was faced with a providence that seemed to be pushing him towards academia instead. Was he calld to be a pastor, or to glorify God as a univerity lecturer? He was unsure which way to take. He hesitated, considered the way forward. Providence is not always easy to interpret, and his father's death seemed to suggest that it would be best to get a paying post, which would also give him an opportunity to learn some more.

So he accepted the post at Glasgow, to teach Latin to Scottish Undergraduates. With a secure short-term future, he was able to accept an invitation of some friends to go climbing in the Tyrol. This was his first opportunity to travel outside of the United Kingdom. Apart from a bout of fever caught in Prague, he enjoyed the trip and came home refreshed, ready to begin teaching in November.

The place of an Assistant in an old Scottish University may be described as doing the work that the Professor would rather not do. It was a difficult and demanding job. He had to teach large classes, and classes that were often rowdy, and mark papers, as well as give tutorials. MacEwen determined that he would allow no monkey-business in class. He had a simple method of dealing with disruptive elements - he threw them out of the classroom! He was also a good teacher. One of his pupils was James Denney, a man who would later be closely associated with him. The classes appreciated him, despite (or perhaps in part because of) the strict discipline that he enforced.

At the same time, he was working on preparing a volume of his father's sermons for the press, a memorial to the work of his father. He was also working on an essay on the Roman satirists for the Arnold Prize at Oxford. The essay was successful, but what was more to him was that the volume of his father's sermons was acceptable. He was a popular teacher, he had won another academic prize, and once again he was faced with the question of his future. Should he continue in this academic life, or enter the theological college?

He turned to the learned and godly minister Dr. John Ker (caricatured) for help. Ker wisely refused to tell MacEwen what he ought to do, instead he told him that he could glorify God in either sphere of service. What he did tell MacEwen was that the young man had to stop halting between two positions and fix on a definite aim in life. The words had their effect, and MacEwen gave in to the call to the ministry, presenting himself as a student for the United Presbyterian Hall.

God willing, next time we shall deal with MacEwen the theology student.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. V

2009-05-04T07:56:00.000+01:00

Alexander Robertson MacEwen was a fairly typical undergraduate, with pleasant manners, a keen sense of humour, and an interest in all sorts of things. As such, he made many friends at Oxford. While some were those friendships that pass with the end of university, others were of the more enduring kind. He was a member of the college rowing club, as well as a debating society, and among his friends were men who would become MPs and leading educationalists. He was cheered in 1872 by the arrival of another United Presbyterian, W. Gunion Rutherford, who had also won a scholarship. The news prompted him to write to his mother: "UPs for ever!"

But into this happy world of sports and studies an unexpected tragedy came. The captain of the cricket club was found in his rooms dead, a bullet through his brain and a pistol by his side. He had shot himself during the night. The cause of the suicide was unknown, though it was thought to have been extreme physical pain. The whole college was shocked, and an atmosphere of seriousness descended on everyone, including MacEwen. Face to face with death in the midst of life, he wrote to one of his sisters: "I feel here that all study is a weariness of the flesh, and no better or more elevating than stone-breaking, unless it be pursued with a spiritual aim and a desire to serve and know and thereby glorify God. I believe that you are right in joining our Church, but, my dear girl, I know that there is a danger of deluding ourselves that in so doing we are doing an act that is itself good."

He was also engaged in practical works. John Ruskin (pictured), one of Oxford's celebrities at the time, and considered extremely eccentric, had a scheme to drain the marshes around the village of Hincksey, which he felt were having a bad effect on the health of the villagers. To do this, he enlisted a small army of undergraduates who were christened 'the Diggers'. They came, many of them, as men who did not know how to dig, but under the foremanship of Ruskin's head gardener, they were soon moulded into a reasonably effective workforce, and the marshes were drained.

At the end of it all came the examinations. McEwen was incredibly unwell during an examination. He was seized with some sort of fit, and wrote 'worse than nonsense', before having to be taken to a doctor's, where leeches were applied and he was put on medication. He was glad to find that he had a second-class degree. All of this he later saw as God's providence. A First Class degree might have pushed him into the life of an Oxford scholar, a Second Class kept him for the Church.

But he was still invited to spend some time in academia, as Assistant Professor of Humanity in Glasgow University. While he was considering what to do, a new tragedy struck. On the family holiday to Wales in the summer of 1875, his father Dr. MacEwen was taken ill and died. On his death-bed he testified "I have no fear of death. God in His goodness has kept that away, but I should have liked to work for Him a little longer." He died on 4th June, before he could see his son enter the Divinity Hall, but knowing that he would do so.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. IV

2009-05-01T14:25:00.003+01:00

In the previous post I dealt with the influences in Oxford at the time, many of them hostile to Scottish Calvinism. But of course as well as the influences of the Secularists and the Anglo-Catholics, there was the influence of his Scottish Calvinist upbringing. Arriving in Oxford he was astonished to meet Dr. John Cairns (illustrated) on the street. Dr. Cairns was one of the most important ministers in the United Presbyterian denomination, and he had met MacEwen before. The Presbyterian theologian greeted the young student and asked him to show him Oxford. When MacEwen replied that he too was a stranger, Cairns said "then let us see it together." The Scots theologian cut a strange figure on the Oxford streets, but he was the most welcome man in the world to MacEwen. Cairns knew Oxford, and was able to share all the historical associations of the colleges and the town with the young undergraduate. When they parted Dr. Cairns gave MacEwen a blessing that the student was always to remember.

His first meeting with the Master of Balliol was not auspicious - it followed a food-fight that several freshmen undergraduates were involved in. Thankfully the relationship was not to be defined by the fight! MacEwen always respected Jowett, although the two were, and remained, poles apart theologically, Jowett being firmly in the liberal camp.

Why, then, did MacEwen go to Balliol? First of all, we must remember that he had won a scholarship there. Secondly, he was still a young man of nineteen, anxious to gain understanding. Oxford had a high reputation for scholarship, as it still does, and it was only natural for him to accept the scholarship.

As a Scotsman, MacEwen was rather amused by Dean Stanley's lectures on the Scottish Church. It was obvious to the young Presbyterian that Stanley did not understand Scottish Church history, and overrated the importance of the Episcopal Church. He also had an experience with a 'mesmerist', or hypnotist. He was far from impressed, describing the hypnotist as "a combination of the Paradise Serpent and the Witch of Endor". Membership in a debating society gave him an opportunity to learn how to argue a point. Experiences with ritualism led him to conclude "I shall never be a ritualist." The exaltation of the Virgin Mary from a humble servant of God to the 'Queen of Heaven' disgusted him. He might return from England with a greater understanding of the Church of England, but quite without any temptation to enter it.

God willing, next time we shall deal with MacEwen's friendships at Oxford.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. III

2009-04-23T10:10:00.003+01:00

Today most students go to a university some way from their childhood home. In Victorian Glasgow, however, this was the exception, not the norm. For a Scottish Calvinist, Oxford University would be quite a culture shock!

A.R. MacEwen went up to Oxford in 1870, the first Vatican Council had just met and declared the Pope to be infallible when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith, the French Second Empire had just fallen, Gladstone was Prime Minister, and Rome had fallen to the House of Savoy. These were exciting times in the world, and exciting times in Oxford. The city was still known for the 'Oxford Movement' of Anglican ritualism, again, a shock for a young man from a United Presbyterian Manse!

MacEwen's college was Balliol, famed at that time for Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol. The college was at its height of fame. Among those who entered Balliol with MacEwen were nine future MPs, but he was the only Presbyterian minister who entered that year.

"The dominant tone at the University at this time," MacEwen would later write, "was anti-religious and materialistic." How little has changed! If the Scottish student had not been deeply grounded in the faith by his father, and by a deeper influence by his father, he could well have been carried away by the currents of materialism, or drawn into the circle influenced by E. B. Pusey. Instead he was able to have the best of university lives, one in which he gained in learing and lost nothing in Christianity, coming back to Scotland to train for the ministry of his mother-church.

God willing, next time we shall have a little more to say about MacEwen at Oxford.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. II

2009-04-20T08:26:00.001+01:00

We should not underestimate the influence of a good home to a child. A. R. Macewen was brought up in Claremont United Presbyterian Manse. His father was the much-loved pastor of Claremont United Presbyterian Church (illustrated), a devoted pastor who was known as the friend of all, rich and poor. He was also a cultured man, a lover of Church History, a love that he would transmit to his son. More importantly, he was a man of prayer.

A.R. MacEwen was sent to the Glasgow Academy for his education. In his nine years there he showed a great deal of ability, winning class medals in his final year for Latin and Modern Languages. Thus he laid a foundation of good scholarship. From the Academy, he passed to the University. Glasgow at that time had an excellent faculty, with Sir William Thompson, later Lord Kelvin, Edward Caird, Professor of Moral Philosophy, John Veitch the logician, and others. Those MacEwen gained the most from were Professor G.G. Ramsay, Humanity, and Edward Lushington, Greek. His father, wanting the best education for him, decided that the long vacation would be an opportunity for MacEwen to get some extra study under his belt and sent him to study with a private tutor, Mr. Evelyn Abbott, at Filey in Yorkshire. Mr. Abbott was a good teacher, and MacEwen also had the opportunity to play cricket with his fellow-pupils. He returned the Glasgow for the winter session, and there fell under the spell of Edward Caird. Though devoted to Caird for a season, his later thought showed little permanent influence from the great thinker.

The philosophy classes raised issues in the young student's mind that he had not thought of before. The problem of evil, a common problem, came before his mind, unsettling him a little. His father wrote on his behalf to John Cairns, then the most brilliant of the ministers in the denomination. Cairsn gave no easy answers, but the answers that he did give were apparently satisfactory, as the problem of evil troubled him no more.

1870 saw a more auspicious event. A.R. MacEwen won the Snell Exhibition in the Arts Faculty of the University. This meant a scholarship to Oxford University.

God willing, next time we shall see how MacEwen did at Oxford.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-04-18T10:28:00.000+01:00

Now that Blogger has unblocked this blog, which is not a spamblog, I can post this:

God willing, this coming Lord's Day morning I shall be taking the service at Tabor Baptist Church in Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf (not to be confused with Llantrisant in Monmouthshire, something I'm told a visiting preacher did once). The services are at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM. This week the evening service will be in Caerlan Hall, across the road from the chapel. This is for ease of access, not because we're purpose-driven or anything like that. We'd much rather have the service in the chapel, but some of our members can't make it up the path to the front door.

The History of a Historian - A.R. MacEwen. I

2009-04-14T08:39:00.000+01:00

Historians are usually thought of as people who write history rather than making it. This is really rather unfair, after all, Julius Caesar wrote history! Church historians are usually ministers, and all ministers have a life more or less interesting.

Alexander Roberston MacEwen is not a name that is instantly recognisable to most people. Yet he was a very interesting figure in his own right, a brilliant scholar who was involved in the union of 1900 between his own United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church of Scotland majority, and in the opening scenes of the union between the United Free Church majority and the Church of Scotland to form today's Church of Scotland. He was born at 21 Howard Place, Edinburgh, 14th May 1851, and died on 26th November 1916 less than half a mile from there. His biography is what happened between the two.

The MacEwen story begins with a crofter who lived near Logiealmond at the end of the eighteenth century. He was a member of the Anti-Burgher section of the Secession Church, and when his son became aware of a call to the ministry, that son went to the university in Edinburgh, then the Divinity Hall of his own church. He was ordained to the pastorate of the Anti-Burgher congregation at Howgate, a hamlet some five miles south of Edinburgh, the other side of the Pentland Hills from the capital. It was in the manse of Howgate that the father of Alexander Robertson Macewen was born. in 1823, the youngest of twelve children. He was given the name of Alexander.

His father died in 1827, and the widow moved to Glasgow with her family. Alexander was also called to the ministry, and he was educated at the University of Glasgow, and thence into the Secession Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. His fellows there were such men as John Cairns, John Ker and William Robertson, the future great men of the United Presbyterian church. He went on to study in Germany, as many of his contemporaries did. His closest friendships were with the conservatives Tholuck and Neander. He in turn was called to the congregation of Helensburgh. The following year he married Eliza Robertson of Dunfermline, a well-educated and accomplished young woman who was also quite beautiful, not only in body, but in personality. The MacEwens had a happy marriage, which had a great influence on their children. Helensburgh was thus the scene of A.R. Macewen's earliest memories.

In 1856 Alexander was called to the pastorate of a Glasgow congregation. It was a relatively new church, and Dr. MacEwen (as he now was), worked hard to build up what was practically a church plant. Thus young MacEwen was a son of the manse, and he was to grow up in a congregation that grew as he did.

God willing, next time we shall look at the schooldays of A.R. Macewen

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXIII

2009-04-13T09:06:00.000+01:00

George Matheson had retired from the pastorate, but not from the ministry. He remained deeply interested in literary ministry, and in his retirement he wrote his two-volume work Studies in the Portait of Christ. It was extremely popular, perhaps his most popular book. It combined the devotional tone of his small devotional volumes with the depth of thought of his more scholarly writings.

Nor was his voice silent in the church for, he continued to preach as a visiting preacher in many churches. He spoke to students in the theological colleges of all the major Presbyterian churches of Scotland. He spoke in England at many churches, including Brunwick Chapel, Leeds, where he gave the annual sermon for the Wesleyan Missionary Society. Even though it was a miserable day with driving rain, people came from all parts to hear the sermon. We hope that they also made a good contribution to the missionary funds! For although he was a decided Church of Scotland man, and had no time at all for disestablishment, Dr. Matheson was in no sense a partisan or secatrian spirit. Indeed, there was no church in which he preached more often in his retirement than Free St. George's church in Edinburgh (pictured). He and Alexander Whyte of Free St. George's were close friends, alike in many ways. Whyte never heard Matheson preach - he himself was in too much demand as a preacher, and he asked Matheson to preach in his absence - but he found that his congregation appreciated the ministry of the blind preacher.

In 1902 he published Representative men of the Bible, which was also greeted with acclaim. It ran to three volumes, two on the Old Testament and one on the New. His pen was as productive as ever. But the end was coming. His last sermon was delivered in Morningside Church, Edinburgh, on 14th Febryary 1904. He was obviously infirm, and the sermon cost him a great deal of physical effort. His last public appearance was in November of that year, when he offered a prayer in the annual Life Boat service. He was writing a book on Representative Women on the Bible, but that was destined to see the light only after his death.

George Matheson's death was sudden and unexpected. August 27th 1906 was a normal day, reading, writing, and an afternoon drive. He went to bed at his usual time, bidding his sister goodnight as he normally did. At 1.30 in the morning she was woken by a moan she recognised as from her bother. Rushing downstairs, she found he could not speak. But he was smiling, he knew the end of his earthly life had come, and he was going to his Father's house. He died there, his face illuminated with joy.

George Matheson's death shocked everyone. Appreciations came in almost from every corner of the globe. He was buried in the family vault in the Glasgow Necropolis on Saturday 1st September The funeral service was held in the cathedral. Through his great hymn O Love that Wilt not Let me go, his name will be remembered for as long as hymns are sung in English. He was a man like us, and it is that fact that has ensured the survival of this great hymn.

He is Risen

2009-04-11T22:02:00.002+01:00

Wishing all readers of this blog a very happy and blessed Easter, and that '...you may know Christ and the power of his resurrection.'

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-04-10T11:02:00.003+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's day I shall be preaching at Bethel Chapel, the Bars, Guildford. Services are at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM. The full-colour photograph is Bethel Chapel in January. By no the trees should be starting to obscure the view.

The Church of Peterston Super Montem, Llambad

2009-04-09T08:26:00.000+01:00

Why climb a mountain? Well, there are many reasons. Many of the hills of Wales have ancient trackways on top, and this particular mountain has a rather good one on it. But that was just the way to get me where I wanted to go.

This was the reason, there's a ruined church up there, namely the old Church of Peterston-Super-Montem, vulgarly known as Llambad, a corruption of the Welsh Llanbedr, St. Peter's Church. Originally built in the twelfth century, the ruins visible on the mountain today are of a simple two-cell building with a later porch. The plan of the church and the outline of the churchyard are still clearly visible.There are a number of gravestones on the site, all from the eighteenth century. Only one is still intact, and probably not in situ, as it is leaning against the north wall of the churchyard. Mary Robert, who died at the age of 29 in August 1775. The stones remind us that this was the spiritual centre of the district for centuries. There are probably hundreds buried in in this mountain graveyard.A typical Medieval church in plan, St Peter's is a two-cell structure with three doors, one at the West End of the building, one in the south wall of the nave, and a third, the priest's door, in the sputh wall of the chancel. Below is the view from the West door, looking east. The upright slab at the far wall has been inscribed with a cross by someone, marking where the altar was in the Middle Ages, and the Communion Table after the Reformation. Then we have the view from the east end to the west, looking out through the west doorway.
This is the view over the ruins from south east of the porch. You can't see how far up we are, but we can see that the church is quite isolated. The nearest other building is what appears to be a ruined barn.
Straight in the south porch. This is obviously an addition to the original building, as its walls are not keyed in to the south wall of the church (see above). There are benches of each side, and the porch appears to be a concession to the weather, giving people a place to chat after services out of the rain or snow. The benches have been used to display some of the old grave-slabs, all from the eighteenth century, and all damaged. The earliest appears to be from 1716.

This is the church from the south-east corner of the graveyard, you can see the gravestone of Mary Roberts leaning against the north wall of the graveyard. You can see why it's unlikely to be in its original position. The windfarm beyond tells you that we're on top of a mountain here!
This is just inside the south door. Could it be the remains of a Medieval holy water stoup?I'm pretty sure that this, at the south-east corner of the chancel, in the east wall. It's the remains of a cupboard for the elements for the Mass, and later the Lord's Supper.

This was on the ground beside one of the old windows. It is a piece of dressed stone from the window. Date? I have no idea. The building's probably full of archaeology, and I don't think it's ever been dug.

This is the view from one of the south windows of the church. It's spectacular! But it also explains why this isolated church was abandoned - it's hard getting up here, and as nonconformity spread in the parish, building chapels closer to where people live, people became less willing to trek up to the church on the mountain. On many Sundays the vicar made his way through rain and snow, only to find that there was no congregation.Finally he became fed up, and he petitioned the Bishop of Llandaff for permission to build a new church at Brynna, one of the villages at the foot of the mountain. The bishop gave permission, and in the 1830s the little church below was built. At once you can see that it is a smaller, simpler building than the old church on the mountain, but it had the great advantage of being where people lived. It even had its own graveyard, so the dead of Brynna no longer had to be taken up the mountain to be laid to rest in the old graveyard with Mary Roberts and the others. And the old church of St. Peter was left to fall into ruins, while the new St. Peter's took its place.

And the vicar found that people did come to the new church. But the ruins on the mountain, and Mary Roberts' gravestone, remain to speak of the old way of life.

More pictures of St. Peter's are here, on Tonyrefail.org, a reminder that the old church did not just serve Brynna, but many other settlements as well.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXV

2009-04-08T08:38:00.003+01:00

After eleven years at St. Bernard's, Edinburgh, George Matheson felt that his strength was diminished to the point that he could no longer bear the burden of the ministry. He had been a minister of the Church of Scotland for thirty years, and now he felt the time had come for him to lay down the parish ministry for the ministry of the pen.

All preachers are influenced by others, some are just more conscious of it than others. One of the great influences on Matheson, particularly in his Edinburgh ministry, was Dr. Joseph Parker of the City Temple, London (illustrated). When arker died unexpectedly in 1902, Dr. Matheson wrote a tribute for The British Weekly, which was then the pre-eminent nonconformist newspaper. Surely this is a wonderful example of Christian unity, the Church of Scotland minister writing a tribute to a Congregational pastor who had attacked the Church of Scotland in the past. Parker's preaching showed Matheson that preaching could be less formal, and still effective. Reading Parker today, he seems incredibly Victorian, but of course we have to remember that he was a Victorian, preaching to Victorians! Matheson did not copy Parker, it is perhaps rather that Parker's preaching gave him the confidence to be himself in the pulpit.

Matheson's work at St. Bernard's was extraordinary. Like Spurgeon, he was a pastor and a preacher, and yet he was also a writer. And like Spurgeon, he was worn out by the work. Unlike Spurgeon, he had never had a strang constitution, and so in 1896 he wrote to the Session Clerk of St. Bernard's to resign the pastorate. The result was a surpise to no-one but Matheson - the congregation pleaded with him to stay. In January 1897 he withdrew his resignation and instead applied to the Presbytery for a colleague and successor. The colleague was to take over much of the work, leaving Matheson to devote himself to preaching and writing. The Rev. J. J. Drummond of Jedburgh was elected and appointed. He worked well with Matheson, and the ministry was blessed to both men. But in March 1899 Matheson wrote again to resign with effect from the end of July that year. His body could no longer take the strain, and Mr. Drummond became the full minister at St. Bernard's. Thus Matheson achieved a smooth transition of ministry.

He was sorely missed, but he had made his decision. In November 1899 there was a special farewell meeting for Dr. Matheson. He was loved as a pastor, and that is surely a good sign. The man who had found it hard to get a church because there were fears that his blindness would hamper his work as a pastor had proved to be one of the best pastors of his age.

God willing, next time we shall look at Dr. Matheson's retirement.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXIV

2009-04-07T09:00:00.001+01:00

We have left this series for a while, but we do need to continue with Dr. Matheson. We are now in his later years, and we left him enjoying the freedom of Braille and the typewriter. Today it is almost impossible to imagine how a minister in Britain could be totaly blind and live without the sort of technology that helps blind people today - but that is how Matheson lived for most of his life.

The Victorian age made superstars out of preachers, orthodox and unorthodox. Matheson was no exception, he received invitations to preach all over Scotland and even in England. As a matter of principle, as a parish minister, he refused most of them. Once a month, however, he preached away from home and arranged a supply for the St. Bernard's pulpit. On these occasions he usually preached a sermon that his own people had already heard. He was welcomed wherever he went, but in Glasgow, the city of his birth, crowds beseiged the vestry to see the great preacher. While Matheson was blind, he could recognise people easily by their voices, and was even able to recognise the voice of an old friend he had not met for years.

Although he never married, his home was a place where friends and parishoners could expect warm hospitality from the pastor and his unmarried sister who kept house for him. Like most pastors, he was most often found in his study, and there he met with many who came with their troubles and were able to share them with the great pastor.

And it was there that he made a great confession:

"I wrote a book," he said, "To show that evolution, if true, is quite compatible
with orthodoxy, but I have since come to the conclusion that evolution is not
true. I have no more fear of it than I ever had, but I am convinced that in,
say, twenty years it will be regarded as an exploded heresy. I am an unbeliver
in Drummondism.
Henry Drummond triumphantly waves his hand - you can almost see him do it - over
what he thinks is the strongest point in evolution, namely similar things
that in you and me are not of the slightest use, but in animals are of
great utility; his conclusion being, that we were animals forst and that these
things are survivals. My conclusion is not that at all; I would be driven to it
if no other explanation were reasonable. But if I want to make another staircase
in this house, there are two ways in which I can do it. I can begin afresh from
the ground floor or I can start at the first landing. I say that God Almighty
always adopts the latter method, to economise space and time; He makes the new
life start on the top of the old - not grow out of it; and that accords with the
whole analogy of nature. The first stair cannot itself get beyond the first
landing, but another stair may be built upon it. I believe in the eternity of
species [note that the term 'species' here does not mean exactly what modern
scientists mean, but has a broader meaning]; that all differences existed from
the beginning. I don't belive that first there was a trunk, and that this trunk
broke up into branches. I believe the branches were first."

This, then, was his retractations, where he confessed that evolution was not true.

Matheson was not one of those Victorian preachers who thought all fiction was wrong. He found a great deal in the best fiction of the period to encourage him. Dr. (later sir) Robertson Nicoll wanted Matheson to write a novel, but Matheson knew his own limitations best! He did not, however, like religious fiction. He put it this way:

"I am not in favour of it at all, for the simple reason that the novel with a
purpose always conveys to my mind the impression that it is a sermon from
the very outset., and the whole novel becomes a foregone conclusion. Now, I hold
that the sole aim of the novel should be to amuse, as it should be the sole aim
on the drama."

It is a little odd to read a minister saying that he found religious fiction too preachy!

God willing, next time we shall move on to consider the last years of Dr. Matheson.

Rise and Fall of a Methodist Church

2009-04-06T07:50:00.003+01:00

The Rhondda valleys are full of chapels. At one point in the nineteenth century one chapel was being opened every day on average. In Tonyrefail two buildings tell the story of one church, the Wesleyan Methodist Church. It opened in 1910, following the revival of 1904, in a temporary 'tin tabernacle' structure on Mill Street, illustrated below.

In 1925 the Methodists opened a brand-new stone chapel in the Gothic style. Called St. George's Church, it was built in the best ecclesiastical style. The message of St. George's is that the Methodists were now a force to be reckoned with in Tonyrefail. But the peak of church attendance in the Rhondda had been reached, and as a new theology, quite different from that of the old Methodists, came into the churches, buildings like St George's became symbols of an ecclesiastical pride. After the Second World War, congregations began to decline, and the splendid stone buildings became embarassingly empty.St. George's Methodist Church closed in 1970. The building is now a day centre.

Across the road is another reminder of how the gains of the revival of 1904 were lost. The former Apostolic Church may not be as impressive as the Gothic church, but it too came through the revival. And now the simple brick structure with its iron roof is also closed. I decided not to read the planning notice on the front door, as the hedge is more than a little overgrown.

Tinyrefail has an excellent site that was the source of some of the information here.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-04-03T10:46:00.000+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching in the evening service at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant, Rhondda Cynon Taf. This week our evening service will be in the chapel. Services are at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM.

The Tin Tabernacles of Trebanog

2009-04-02T11:09:00.003+01:00

Trebanog, Rhondda Cynon Taf, is a village on top of a hill, locted between Tonyrefail and Porth. Unlike many of the Rhondda villages, it is not dominated by splendid chapels, but the only places of worship in the village are two 'Tin Tabernacle' structures, prefabricated mission churches built in the late 19th century. Intended as temporary buildings to be replaced when the money was available, both are still in use.

Mount Zion English Baptist Church is the smallest and most unprepossessing of the buildings, with only the single pointed window above the porch with its stained-glass cross showing any ecclesiastical pretensions at all. It has been modified over the years, the original iron roof and walls having been replaced, and the windows also appear to have been replaced. The frame of the building, of course, is original. The Trinitarian Bible Society poster in the window is an interesting sign.Mount Zion is an example of the smaller type of Tin Tabernacle (also referred to as 'Iron Churches'), four walls and a roof, with a small vestry on one side. These smaller buildings were multi-purpose mission halls, and usually equipped with movable chairs rather than pews, so that the space could be used for other activities in the week.

The other chapel in Trebanog is the English Congregational Church. This is a slightly grander version of the Tin Tabernacle, with its round-headed windows and its semi-circular window over the door. It is taller than Mount Zion, and more ecclesiastical in appearance, although in the chapel, rather than the church style - no pointed windows here! Unlike Mount Zion, it still appears to have the original wall-cladding and windows.

Both of these old Tin Tabernacles are still in use and well-loved.

Two Graves

2009-03-30T15:00:00.007+01:00

Most people do not spend a lot of time hanging around graveyards, and probably have a bad opinion of those who do - which is really not fair, as graveyards can be fascinating. The inscriptions on graves tell us something about the religious beliefs of the population, and in Wales the language can tell us when a particular church or chapel moved from using Welsh in its services to using English. This morning, on my bike, I rode out to the small village of Talygarn. Talygarn is really an estate village associated with the mansion of Taylgarn manor. The parish Church of St. Anne started life as a proprietary chapel associated with the manor house, with the present church having replaced the orginal chapel, which now stands in ruins close to the present church building.

In the churchyard I found two gravestones with rather different inscriptions. The first was this one:

The inscription reads:

In Memory of Thomas, son of John and Sarah Evans of this Parish, who died Nov 16 1873, aged 18 years.

"My Jesus Beckons me away,
The glorious signal's given;
My blood bought spirit leaves its clay,
Friends follow me to heaven."

The second grave is this one:

It reads:

Henry Heke, Llanerch Farm, Pontyclun, who died March 25th 1907 aged 79 Years

"A sudden chance I in a moment fell,

I had not time to bid my friends farewell,
Think this not strange - Death happens unto all;
To day we live, tomorrow we may fall."

While both inscriptions follow a similar pattern, even with poetry, the nature of the poems are quite different. One is decidedly Christian, the other is not. I leave the consclusion to the reader.

Every Picture Tells a Story

2009-03-24T09:27:00.000Z

Lisvane Baptist Chapel

2009-03-23T06:40:00.005Z

The Baptist Church at Lisvane, outside Cardiff, dates from the final decades of the nineteenth century. In the 1780s, the church met in the house of Henry Rees, Tai Mawr, purchasing Fairoak farm, on the outskirts of the village, in 1789. The first chapel was built on the site in 1792, being rebuilt in 1818 and 1856. In 2003, the church moved to new premises in the village of Lisvane, and the chapel was sold for conversion to a private house. Sadly, on the Church homepage, there is little attention paid to this beautiful little chapel. The church seems to be charismatic and 'modern' without a thought for those who have gone before: http://www.lisvanebaptistchurch.org.uk/. I'm sure the church is wonderful, but it still feels as though something has been lost.

And those who have gone before have been left behind in a very tangilble way. The burial ground by the chapel is full of monuments to past members and their families. The stone to the Rev. David Edwards and his family gives his bardic name, 'Dewi Isan', indicating a literary, as well as religious interest. The gravestone is part Welsh, part English. With the datestone above the door, this shows that at one time the church worshipped in Welsh, although now they do so in English, the language changing as the language of the people changed. The son died aged only 5, a reminder of the high mortality of those days, as well as the griefs to which no-one in this life is immune.

The other gravestone pictured here represents the ordinary chapel member. Frederick Williams was the innkeeper at the Black Griffin Inn, opposite the church, in the village centre, a significant occupation for a chapel member in 1910, when many Baptists would have been teetotal, or at least professed teetotalism! More poigniant is the the second name, 'Arthur Llewelyn Williams, Gunner RFA/ Dearly Loved and only son of the above/ who fell in action at Poix du Nord France/ Novr 4th 1918, aged 20 years'. To have almost survived the Great War, dying in its last days, is truly tragic.

The last name is that of Jane Williams, the mother of Arthur Llewelyn, and widow of Frederick. She died in 1936, having buried the two men dearest to her.

The glory of the chapel is the most uncompromising statement of Baptist witness. The baptistry is located out door, behind the chapel. As the chapel faces away from the road between Lisvane and Rudry, however, Baptisms must have been visible from the road. The image of hardy Welsh men and women stepping down into the waters of Baptism, visible to any passer-by, is an inspiring one. And, on a beautiful spring day, not unappealing.

Now, however, the chapel is a house, and the visitor cannot linger for long without feeling that they do not belong here, even if the route is a public footpath. The job of the church is not to preserve history, but this building and its grounds are more than just history. They are a public witness to the lives and beliefs of generations of God's people. A few, ordinary members of that 'great cloud of witnesses'. The building is not large, and might have been preserved as a heritage centre, allowing the church to meet nearer to the centre of the village. One cannot help feeling that a chance was lost here.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-03-20T05:36:00.003Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at New Life Bible-Presbyterian Church, Queen's Park, London. The morning service is at 11.00 and the evening service (we have agreed that it is evening) is at 4.00. There is a fellowship meal between the two services, and lots of food for visitors.

The building was originally St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Kilburn. Built to serve the Scots population in the Queen's Park area, the original building was a hall-church set back from the road. It still exists today, having been demoted to the status of a hall when the present sanctuary was constructed on the front of it in 1910. The handsome Gothic chapel is constructed in good Scots Presbyterian style, centred on an impressive pulpit, with a gallery at the rear of the sanctuary, and a rather splendid pipe organ behind the pulpit. It still works, and it sounds good as well.

Book Review: 'Scottish Puritans'

2009-03-18T16:40:00.002Z

The history of the Scottish Church is full of inspiring stories and men and women of faith who have lived for God. Many volumes have been published on the history of the Church in Scotland. The seventeenth century, in particular, was an era of suffering and persecution. These volumes, Scottish Puritans: Select Biographies, edited by W.K. Tweedie, are reprinted from the Victorian edition of the Wodrow Society. They tell the stories of men and women who suffered for Christ, from the famous to the obscure, from John Weslsh, son-in-law to John Knox, to the labourer John Stevenson. These are excellent works, mostly written in their own words. Sadly, as the introduction says, some of those that are second-hand accounts are less than accurate. In particular, the first part of Vol. 1, the life of John Welsh, contains a great deal of apocryphal information, and must be read with caution. The autobiographical material is, of course, much more valuable, and this predominates. One complaint that might be made is that the material is partly in Scots dialect ('whilk' for 'which', for example), and seventeenth century spelling has not been corrected ('tyme' for 'time', for example). Read out loud, the strange spellings often become clear, and in context they are more easily understood. This increases the amount of work a reader has to put in, and to a modern reader the necessity of this is not obvious, except that the volumes were originally published for antiquarians more than for the general public. While appreciating that an entirely new edition would have taken more time and cost than a reprint of the Victorian edition, I think that it might also have increased circulation, though I hasten to add that only a minority of the writings in these volumes are in achaic spelling and Scots dialect.

As a miscellany of biography, the contents are of course of a rather mixed character. Nevertheless, they are valuable works, and works that so often speak of an experimental religion that very few of us can say is our experience. In volume two the spiritual autbiography of Fraser of Brea is reprinted. This work alone is worth the price of these volumes! It seems from these volumes that the persecuted Covenanters of the seventeenth century were given the greatest experiences of Christ's love to bear them up. These two volumes are highly recommended, and worth the work needed in some places.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-03-12T21:31:00.004Z

God willing, I shall be preaching this coming Lord's Day at our evening service at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant. The service will be at 6.00 PM, and it will be held in Caerlan Hall, across the road from the chapel. Obviously the photograph shows the hall back in February, when we had heavy snow here.

Preaching This Coming Lord's Day

2009-03-06T10:57:00.002Z

God willing, this coming Lord's day I shall be preaching once more at New Life Bible Presbyterian Church, Queen's park, London. Services are at 11.00 AM and 4.00 PM. All are welcome at both services, and at the meal between them.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXIII

2009-03-04T09:39:00.003Z

The St. Bernard's years were years of great literary productivity. In addition to the major works that have already been referred to, Matheson published many other books during this time, not to mention numerous articles in magazines and periodicals. Among the books he wrote were The Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions, in which he explored the differences between Christianity and the world religions, and The Lady Ecclesia, an allegory in which he sought to explore the development of Christian experience. Another book of meditations, Words by the Wayside, and Sidelights from Patmos were also published. The latter book, as the titles suggests, was not an exposition of the Revelation, but a series of chapters in which the Revelation was made to speak to the modern world. Matheson stated the aim of the book thus:

"I believe the design of John in Patmos was to state the principles which would
regulate the good time coming. He wishes to indicate what in any world would be
to him the consummation of happiness. He does so sometimes in sober language,
sometimes in allegoric symbols. I have made a few selections both from the sober
language and from the allegoric symbols, with a view of testing the adaptation
of the picture to our modern ideas of optimism. The other question I wish to
consider in these, otherwise disconnected, chapters is, whether St. John's ideal
is still our ideal." (Quoted in Macmillan, George Matheson [New York,
1908] Pp. 285-6)

George Matheson lived, while pastor of St. Bernard's, in a house in St. Bernard's Crescent. As the picture above shows, St. Bernard's Cresent is an elegant example of Georgian architecture, reputedly designed by the painter Sir Henry Raeburn, at the suggestion of Sir David Wilkie. The street looks pretty much the same today, but of course with the ubiquitous parked cars lining the pavements. By the time George Matheson came to live there, the district was looking run-down, and his study looked out onto a slum. The house was, however, in the centre of his parish, and close to his church, and therefore most suitable for him. He shared the house with his sister, who was, in modern language, his 'carer', and who did those things that the blind minister could not. Matheson never married, so that his sister took the role usually played in a congregation by the pastor's wife. The other vital member of Matheson's household was his secretary. He had a succession of young men who worked in this capacity. It was the task of these men to read his letters, and the morning papers to him every morning, and then to assist him in the study by reading to him the books that a minister needs to study.

Four years after coming to St. Bernard's, Dr. Matheson learned to read and to write Braille. Before this, all his reading had been in the form of his secretary or sister reading aloud to him, and all of his books had been dictated. Alone, all he could do was to meditate on what was in his capacious memory. Braille writing was something he found a great deal of delight in, though his secretaries, who had to 'translate' the Braille into English letters, were not so happy, as Matheson did not exactle write genuine Braille, but his own modification of the system. The purpose of his Braille writings were mostly private, but his secretaries had to read the notes that he wrote in the script - and that took time for them to learn. The mechanical typewriter was another aid to writing that he acquired in these later years. Technology is not a bad thing, it too can be a blessing from God. Both Braille and typewriter gave Dr. Matheson a degree of independence in writing that he must have revelled in.

God willing, next time we shall continue with Dr. Matheson.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-02-27T10:51:00.003Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at New Life Bible Presbyterian Church, Queen's Park, London. Services are at 11.00 AM and 4.00 PM. The church is a welcoming multinational congregation, and there is a fellowship meal between the services, to which all are welcome. Past experience warns that it will probably rain on the 1st of March, since it has rained on every other occasion that I have preached at New Life.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXII

2009-02-25T10:36:00.003Z

George Matheson's writings, especially his various volumes of meditations, gave many the impression that the blind minister was something of a recluse. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. He was a standing rebuke to the idea that it is really possible to be 'too heavenly minded to be any earthly use'. He was a man who brought the same devotion that filled those little books into daily life as a pastor, moving among men and women in the slums, sharing their joys and sorrows. It is therefore quite remarkable that his literary output during the years at St. Bernard's was not diminished from what it had been during the Innellan years. Part of the reason for that was that he reduced the range of what he wrote. His contributions to magazines in the St. Bernard's years were more Biblically-based. He remained, at least in the early years of his time in Edinburgh, a theistic evolutionist, working out ways in which a Christian could also go part of the way with Darwin. A book entitled The Psalmist and the Scientist was the tangible result of this. Another significant book was Landmarks of New Testament Morality, in this volume Matheson attempted to set out the morality of the New Testament, dealing with such subjects as 'Motives of Christian Morality' and 'The Christian View of Sin'. In 1890 he published a volume of poetry, Sacred Songs, and about the same time he published what some thought of as his greatest book, The Spiritual Development of St. Paul. The Apostle to the Gentiles has had a great fascination to many of the greatest Christian teachers, from Augustine to Luther to Bunyan to Alexander Whyte - and to George Matheson. The two men had much in common, like Paul, Matheson had a 'thorn in the flesh', and if the speculations of some scholars are correct, in the same part of the flash as well, namely the eyes. They were both men who had been gifted with a great deal of natural ability, and had been brought to consecrate that ability to the service of Christ. Neither man allowed the 'thorn in the flesh' to make him ineffective. In his book Matheson took the opinion that Paul's 'Thorn in the flesh' was a complaint of the eyes. Paul, then, became to him an example of a man who had overcome the very infirmity that he struggled with himself. The fact that Paul 'besought the Lord thrice' to remove the thorn in the flesh seems to have touched something in Matheson. He had himself asked for God to cure his blindness, and the answer had been 'no'. As for the 'Development' of Paul, Matheson did not mean that in an evolutionary way. Quite the reverse, in fact he emphasised what Paul himself does, that the origin of Paul's religious life was from above, not below, and it was supernatural, not natural - the reverse of the position held by naturalistic evolution. It had been by the grace of God that Paul had 'developed', not because of something in Paul. Matheson saw Paul as being made 'perfect through suffering'. Here is the great paradox of Christianity, 'When I am weak, then I am strong':

Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.
Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms when by myself I stand;
Imprison me within Thine arms, and strong shall be my hand.

My heart is weak and poor until it master find;
It has no spring of action sure, it varies with the wind.
It cannot freely move till Thou has wrought its chain;
Enslave it with Thy matchless love, and deathless it shall reign.

My power is faint and low till I have learned to serve;
It lacks the needed fire to glow, it lacks the breeze to nerve.
It cannot drive the world until itself be driven;
Its flag can only be unfurled when Thou shalt breathe from heaven.

My will is not my own till Thou hast made it Thine;
If it would reach a monarch’s throne, it must its crown resign.
It only stands unbent amid the clashing strife,
When on Thy bosom it has leant, and found in Thee its life.

God willing, we shall continue with Matheson next time.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-02-20T10:00:00.001Z

God willing, this coming Lord's day I shall be preaching at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant. While the morning service will be in the chapel itself, the evening service will be held in Caerlan Hall (below) in Llantrisant, since, for ease of access. The morning service is at 11.00, and the evening service is at 6.00.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XXI

2009-02-17T15:36:00.005Z

Every church is different, and a wise minister takes time to understand the church before changing anything. As should be expected with a large 19th century city Church, St. Bernard's had a multitude of organisations associated with it. A single week looked like this:

Sunday: Morning and afternoon services, Children's Church, Sunday Schools, Young Men's Fellowship, and Bible classes.

Monday: Evening Work party, Boys' craft class, Girls' club, and Literary Society.

Tuesday: Mothers' Meeting and sewing class.

Wednesday: Boys' Brigade, morning work party, and Bible class.

Thursday: Choir practice.

Saturday: Savings Bank, Boys' Brigade reading club.

The sort of minister who would really have been best suited, humanly speaking, to St. Bernard's, would have been a business manager - but thankfully the church did not look for a minister, but for a pastor, a man who cared for souls, not just for agencies. Yet Matheson did not leave the various agencies to the elders and deacons. He taught a Bible class and gave addresses to the various agencies, preparing carefully for each engagement. The Bible class was one of the agencies with which Matheson was most concerned. He taught two classes, one of young women and one of young men. Bible classes allow for a more in-depth discussion of theology and the Bible than is possible from the pulpit, and the Scottish tradition of Bible classes is perhaps one that modern Evangelical Churches can and ought to learn from. Here things such as apologetics can be discussed, and books of the Bible treated in a depth that would be inappropriate from the pulpit. In his time at St. Bernard's Matheson worked through the books of Genesis and Acts in the classes. He combined criticism and exposition, giving sidelights from secular history and archaeology where appropriate. The passage was applied and opened. Surely some sort of Bible class would be a helpful agency in our Churches today.

God willing, next time we shall continue with Matheson's time at St. Bernard's.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XX

2009-02-13T09:38:00.003Z

George Matheson's Edinburgh ministry extended beyond those living and studying in the city. The capital of Scotland attracted many overseas visitors, and in particular American tourists made a point of visiting St. Bernard's. The old parish Church looked as quaint within as it did without, with high box pews and a high gallery running about the sides of the church, and the high pulpit was small and topped with a large sounding-board. One American, Rev. Charles Pankhurst, wrote of the pews,

"There must be some unusual attraction to bring people to such seats as these. We should never come but once, unless the pulpit had so much of intellectual and spiritual vitality as to make us forget where we were."

Yet these uncomfortable pews were crowded every Sunday! American visitors were amazed at the ability of the minister to 'read' the Bible from memory, but mot of all, it was his ability as a preacher, his ability to apprehend the life of the people. Pankhurst wrote: "Though his visual sight is entirely eclipsed he does 'see God', and he does see into the hearts of his hearers." What was the 'secret' of this? Simply put, blindness had made Matheson a man of prayer. His long struggles with pain and suffering had drawn him closer to God, and in his darkness he held communion with God. He held the most precious part of his work on the Lord's Day was to lead the congregation in prayer. "Prayer never causes me an effort," he said once. "When I pray I know I am addressing the Deity, but, when I preach, the devil may be among the congregation."

Yet his preaching was also precious to his hearers, as they heard Christ set forth. The power of his vivid imagination brought the Biblical narratives to life, and had the congregation hanging on his every word.

But he was a pastor, not just a preacher. Many would have forgiven the blind minister had he left the work of pastoral visitation to his elders, but no, Matheson, the great writer, the Royal preacher, the poet, insisted on visiting his own congregation - all 1500 members of the church, and many congregants who were not members. In addition to systematic pastoral visitation, he visited the sick, always with a word for Christ. And in addition to this, with the help of his secretary, he kept up with the literature of the day, while writing books and magazine articles! The congregation truly appreciated this pastoral care, all the more so as their pastor's own infirmities might have been used as a reason to excuse him from such work. The parish, in Stockbridge, had areas of deep deprivation, but Matheson gladly visited the poor and needy. This was a work few men in full health would have performed, and by his hard toil in this work, the blind minise on the hearts of his people. In six months he visited the whole membership, and confirmed that he was to be pastor, not just a preacher.

God willing, next time we shall continue with Matheson's adjustments to the pastorate at St. Bernard's.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XIX

2009-02-10T10:00:00.003Z

George Matheson had at first found it difficult to obtain a pastorate in the Church of Scotland because of his blindness. Now, after almost twenty years of ministry at Innellan, that prejudice was counter-acted by his undoubted greatness in the ministry, of which his being asked to preach before the Queen was just a sign. The people at Innellan were not insensible of this fact, and there were fears that their minister, even though he seemed quite happy among them, would leave them, being called away to another church.

So it was to prove. In 1886 a call came for him to St. Bernard's Church in Edinburgh. Not that the parish chose him, but that the Presbytery, into whose hands the responsibility of calling a minister had fallen when the congregation failed to call one within the six months required by the law of the Church, put his name forward. Dr. Currie, a member of the Presbytery, had heard Matheson preach, and felt that the minister of Innellan would be a greater force if he was translated to the capital.

Matheson's name was brought before the St. Bernard's congregation, and the result was a unanimous call. It was almost unheard-of for a minister to refuse such a call, and despite the ties that bound him to his seaside parish, Matheson accepted. It was a difficult decision, but the Chuch had spoken, and Matheson determined to obey. On the13th of April Matheson and his sister were summonned to the Churh at Innellan and presented with parting-gifts. He made his way to Edinburgh, and on 12th May 1886 he was inducted to the charge of St. Bernard's Edinburgh. He was to remain at St. Bernard's for thirteen years, pastor of one of the largest congregations in the city of Edinburgh, the capital of the Kingdom of Scotland.

The new pastor of St. Bernard's was at the height of his powers, physically well, his mental powers at their peak. He had mastered as much ancient and modern thought as he could, and he had met the challenges to Faith and come out still believing. The church was full to overflowing under his ministry, and full of people of all sorts, from university professors to labourers. Students faced by the intellectual challenges of the latter part of the Victorian age came to him to hear that faith and intellect were not opposed, men who had even ceased to believe in God came to him, and through his ministry they were brought to worship that God in whom they had lost faith. The frankness and flashes of humour in his preaching were entirely his, and attracted men for whom frankness was the greatest of virtues. Paradoxically, his ability to paint word-pictures was another of his great skills, although he was blind, he could describe things seen with such vividness as to almost bring them before the eyes of his congregation. His prayers were even more impressive, not artificial, but full of the reality of a Christian life, and a knowledge of God.

And, God willing, next time we shall continue with the Edinburgh Ministry.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XVIII

2009-02-09T10:49:00.003Z

In October 1885, George Matheson received one of the highest honours that a Church of Scotland minister could receive, he was invite to peak at Crathie Kirk (pictured) before Queen Victoria. Crathie is the parish Church for Balmoral, the Highland estate of the monarch of Scotland. It was a favourite residence of Queen Victoria, as it was connected with her beloved Prince Albert. Queen Victoria invited the more noted Church of Scotland clergy to take services at Crathie during her residence there. Victoria took her Christianity seriously, especially after the death of her husband. She had been given copies of Matheson's books of meditations by the Bishop of Ripon, and it was reading these that led to her invitation of the author to preach at her parish Church.

Matheson preached from James 5.2 on 'The Patience of Job'. The theme was Job's patient endurance of repeated and overwhelming calamities and submission to God through faith. He pointed out that Job never asked 'why?', even though his friends came forth with all manner of false explanations. They tried to trace the ways of God's providence, and they blundered terribly. Not so Job, he waited for God. And in all this Job pointed forward to the object of faith, Jesus of Nazareth, who suffered more than Job, and who is our hope and our redeemer. Here was comfort for suffering Christians. Queen Victoria greatly appreciated it and requested that the sermon be printed. The sermon was distributed among the Royal family, and Matheson had the chance to speak to many members of the Royal family. The blind preacher whose sisters had learned Greek and Latin to help him to learn had become one of the most important men in his denomination - and he remained incredibly humble.

His time at Innellan was coming to an end. In 1886 he was called to the pastorate of St. Bernard's Church, Edinburgh. God willing, next time we shall deal with the call to Edinburgh.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XVII

2009-02-06T08:06:00.000Z

One of the two important anniversaries this year is that of Charles Darwin, born in 1809. Darwin's book The Origin of Species, although it can be argued that anyone who had written such a book at the time Darwin did would have had the same effect (and someone else almost pipped Darwin to the post), was incredibly influential in Victorian Britain, initial rejection turning quickly to acceptance in practically every circle. It met a society where 'development' was one of the primary categories of thought, and Matheson was a part of that society. In an incredibly short period of time Britain had gone from an agrarian to an industrial society, and so the idea of Development was seen as a law of society.

Today Darwinists like Richard Dawkins argue that religion is merely a product of evolution as if this were some new and shocking theory. In fact it has been around almost since Darwin, and George Matheson had to grapple with it. Evolution, in its Darwinian form, is naturalistic and atheistic. Charles Hodge of Princeton Theological Seminary answered the question 'What is Darwinism?' with "it is atheism." The evolutionary hypothesis was modified by others so as to allow for God, and even the Christian God, but still the aspect of darwin that most often met the Victorian was Atheistic, a theory that left man the prisoner of inviolable and purely naturalistic laws. Matheson was not one to ignore important questions, and as he read Darwin and Herbert Spencer a terrible thought came into his mind: What if religion was merely the result of some natural instinct, and all religion just an empty dream?

There have been many and varied responses to the Darwinian theory of evolution in the Church over the years. Some have re-shaped the whole of Chritian theology according to the teaching of Darwin, others have rejected it outright. I myself belong to the latter school. As some Victorians correctly observed, evolution acn only work with what is there. The science of genetics teaches us that acquired characteristics, however advantageous, cannot be passed on, and that natural selection, therefore, cannot produce any new forms, but in fact eliminates some of the old forms! This Darwin did not know, and nor did Matheson.

In the five years that followed his Baird Lecture, Matheson made a study of the theory of evolution, especially in its bearings on religion. In 1883 he published an article in the Scottish Review entitled 'Angnoticism'. This, of course, is that form of atheism that argues that, while we cannot say that God does not exist, we also cannot say that He does. The notorious 'atheist bus' advert displays a strong form of agnosticism, while we cannot certainly know that no God exists, we have no good reason to say that one does. The term was coined by certain Darwinists who, in their zeal for naturalism, rejected all supernaturalism. Matheson profoundly disagreed with them. Evolution, he argued, even if it can be shown to be true (let us recall that this was the era of the 'concessive apologetic' as championed by Alexander Balmain Bruce), does not explain Jesus of Nazareth. Here is a man who cannot be explained by mental or physical evolution. Without using the word, he argues that naturalism is a presupposition, not a result of scientific enquiry. Matheson was not completely orthodox. Like most Victorians, he granted too much to the supposed results of impartial science, but he found at this point in his life that evolution could not explain, much less explain away, Jesus of Nazareth.

This would be a question that would engage Matheson for many more years, and the result would be startling.

God willing, next time we shall deal with Matheson's final period at Innellan.

Where I am Right Now

2009-02-05T19:33:00.003Z

As of the 1st of this month, I am a pastoral trainee at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant, South Wales. This was Tabor on Tuesday morning. It was also a really silly idea to walk up there, as the pavements were very icy, and the going tough.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XVI

2009-02-04T06:14:00.000Z

George Matheson said that his hymn 'O Love that Wilt not let me Go' would never have become as popular as it did without the tune 'St. Margaret' that was written for it by Dr, Pearce. But there is more to it than that. The hymn speaks to all of us as Christians. We all suffer, we all have our disappointments, and indeed we all find that we are in the rain and have only the promise of God that 'Morn willl tearless be'. Many a suffering Christian has been comforted, as we have by some of the Psalms, that we are not alone in how we feel in trouble. In life and in death 'O Love that Wilt not Let me Go' has been a minister of God. We who have doubted as Matheson, who have suffered in body, mind and soul, have found in Gorge Matheson a fellow-sufferer, and he has made us rejoice in the God who painted the rainbow as a pledge of His faithfulness. Great hymns belong to the whole Church, and this hymn has been prized the world over. It is not a silly, sentimental ditty, but a hymn of faith in suffering.

George Mathson had been relatively happy at Innellan for fifteen years. The same suffering that gave rise to the hymn made him a sympathetic pastor who was always helpful to his suffering people, and who shared in sorrow and in joy with them. Christ, we read in Hebrews, was 'made perfect though suffering' in His place as our High Priest and the 'Captain of our salvation'. He is the perfect pastor, and if He had to suffer to fit Him for the work, how much more will His servants? This is a huge challenge to us - or it ought to be. After fifteen years there, in the summer of 1883, George Matheson was summoned to his Parish Church to receive a gift of love from his congregation. Under him ministry the church had gone from being a chapel of ease to a Parish Church, and the people had been helped and comforted. A special serice was held in which the congregation expressed their love for their minister, and their gratefulness for all that they had received from his hands. Those who labour in the Word and in doctrine are worthy of honour for the work' sake. Most will never be known as Matheson was, but all should be the subject of heart-felt thanks to God.

Next time, God willing, we shall see Matheson wrestling with the challenge of Scientific Naturalism.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XV

2009-02-03T09:52:00.003Z

It may come as a surprise to those familiar with 'O Love the Wilt Not Let me Go' that George Matheson never took himself seriously as a hymn-writer. At least one of his hymns, namely this most famous, appears in the majority of modern hymnals, and his hymn 'Make me a Captive, Lord' has also found wide acceptance. But Matheson wrote more than these two hymns that have found their place in the worship of the Church. He wrote (or rather dictated, being blind) poetry as a sort of intellectual diversion. A volume of his poems, Sacred Songs, was published in 1904, and quickly ran to a third edition. Of course they are of uneven quality, even the best hymn-writers are not always at their best, and Matheson is not one of that first rank, although his two great hymns are. The over 170 pages of Sacred Songs contain poems on subjects from 'Life in Death' to 'The Nativity'. What is striking, but not really surprising, about the book is how many of the poems in it are suited to the more melancholy moods of the Christian. The impression that the book leaves is that we are reading the thoughts of a man who knew what it was to suffer physically, mentally and spiritually. Few of them are actually suited to public worship, as Matheson did not write them with it in mind, but they are all from the heart.

'Patmos'
There is a spot beside the sea
Where I often long to go,
For there my God first met with me
When the sands of life were low.
I have had since more joy than pain,
And I've basked in fortune's smile;
But I never ceased to love the rain
That fell in Patmos' Isle.

It was indeed a tearful time
For my sun had set too soon;
The winter fell upon my prime
And the snows were thick in June;
And I thought my Father's face to be
Remote by many a mile,
In a place where there was no more sea
Unlike to Patmos Isle.

But in the deepest winter night
In the darkest nightly hour,
There came a gleam of golden light
Unknown to the summer flower.
The paths of God that brighter days
Had not stayed to reconcile
Were blended fast in rainbow blaze
Above lone Patmos isle.

I saw the clouds that earth reveals
Made chariots of the King;
The vials of wrath and judgement seals
Were the shadows of love's wing;
And when I knew by clouds he came,
I was glad to rest awhile
In the dark wherein was wrapt the flame
Of glorious Patmos isle.

And now the very dust of life
To my soul becomes most dear,
For by the path of human strife
Is His way emerging clear;
And when I see His track effaced,
Still my heart shall not resile,
Since the milestones of His march are traced
Through struggling Patmos Isle.

The use of the Apostle's imagery is not of course strictly in accordance with the Revelation, but that is not the point. The point is that God works through our sufferings and our trials. It is the individual and the experimental that predominates in Matheson's poetry. The image of the rainbow is one that recurs often, as in his most famous hymn, and as in the above 'Patmos', which was selected at random. It is the symbol of God's promise to him, and it is also a symbol of diversity in unity, as a description of God and His ways.

God willing, we shall continue our look at Dr. Matheson's poetry next time.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Conclusion

2009-02-02T11:49:00.005Z

We have seen in this review that, while McGowan does have some useful things to say in this book, his central proposal, that we should discard the category of Inerrancy, is seriously flawed. His definition of a 'Biblical Doctrine' appears to be (at least as regards the doctrine of inerrancy), something that is expressly stated in the Bible, not a teaching that is derived by 'good and necessary consequence' from the full scope of Scriptural teaching.

Rather than explicitly answering the question as to whether or not the Bible is inerrant, McGowan hides behind a verbal smokescreen of apparent agnosticism. But in fact he has taken a position. While he says things like this:

"If God can effectively communicate and act savingly through the imperfect human beings who are called to preach his gospel, why is it necessary to argue that the authors of Scripture were supernaturally kept from even the slightest discrepancy? In other words we must not tell God what the Bible ought to be like, based on our views of what God could and could not do." (p. 118-9)

obscuring the issue by referring to preaching as if it were in the same category as the Spiration of the Bible (something that only really makes sense from James Orr's inherited perspective of an inspiration of persons rather than writings), in fact his position is that the originals of the Scriptures are NOT inerrant.

"My argument is that Scripture, having been divinely spirated, is as God intended it to be. Having freely chosen to use human beings, God knew what he was doing. He did not give us an inerrant autographical text, because he did not intend to do so. He gave us a text that reflects the humanity of its authors but that, at the same time, clearly evidences its origin in the divine speaking. Through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, God is perfectly able to use these Scriptures to accomplish his purposes." (p. 124).

Now, if it is presumptuous and rationalistic for the inerrantists to say that God must have produced an inerrant text, is it not presumptuous for McGowan to say that God has not produced one? He cannot have it both ways, either he must be consistently agnostic about the question of inerrancy, or he must abandon the charge of presumption.

By linking Inerrantists to the King James Only and Textus Receptus Only groups, McGowan seems to be trying to bring them into disrepute. This accusation will not work, however, because, as we have seen, these groups locate 'inerrancy' somewhere other than in the autographa. The King James Only group locate it in a 17th century English translation, while the TR-Only group locates it officially in a textual tradition, but in fact in the results of Reformation-era textual criticism. It is simply dishonest to put them in the same category as those who hold to the inerrancy of the original manuscripts because those manuscripts are Divinely Spirated (to use McGowan's language). Indeed, to the King James Only advocate, it is the Authorised Version that was Divinely Spirated!

We saw that McGowan's use of James Orr as an example is seriously flawed, because Orr's conclusion that we cannot a priori affirm the inerrancy of the Bible is based on an unbiblical understanding of Inspiration. To put it plainly, because Orr held to inspiration of persons, not of words, he held to a theory of differing 'levels' of inspiration, depending on the type of book. Therefore, for example, Hosea would be more Inspired than Chronicles. Thus it would have been possible, under this theory, for the author of Chronicles to make a mistake in chronology. Thus, if this view of inspiration is false, it follows that the conclusions are false too. As I like to say, accept the premises, and the conclusions follow. The problem is that the premise is false!

McGowan's language concerning Systematic Theology is harsh and unnecessarily derogatory, as if he would accuse those who tried to 'do' systematic theology of rationalism simply because they try to systematise the teaching of the Bible. His attack on those who hold that the Bible conveys propositional truth sounds to this reviewer as if it springs from a form of 'soft' Postmodernism. It is certainly contrary to centuries of teaching in the Church. Can we all have been wrong until the 20th century, when some smart Evangelical theologians came along to set us right?

The inerrancy claim is founded on the witness of Scripture to the unchanging character of God 'who cannot lie'. Thus, if God speaks, He speaks truth, not error. To say that the use of human writers necessarily introduces error is to limit God by something outside of Himself. This may be consistent (if wrong) for an Arminian, but not for a professed Calvinist like McGowan. If God is not limited in carrying out His will in Salvation, why must He be limited in His Spiration by imperfect man?

But it is here that McGowan's proposal shows its most worrying feature, for McGowan appears to favour the idea that it is God's will that determines His character, so that God's truthfulness is the result of His willing to be truthful, not a result of His being unable to lie. Such a theology belongs rather to Charles Finney and his Ilk than it does to the Bible, and they are quite welcome to a God who cannot be trusted.

In conclusion, then, this book cannot be seen as anything other than a sign of the increasing tendency among modern Evangelicals to compromise the teachings of the Bible in the interests of a sort of Postmodernism.

'the Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 6

2009-01-30T11:26:00.003Z

In order to bolster his case, McGowan refers to two evangelical stalwarts of the past, James Orr and Herman Bavinck. I leave Bavinck to those who know him _ I have read very little of his writings, and therefore I am not in a position to assess McGowan's representation and use of him. Orr is another matter

I am not a James Orr scholar. Those creatures are to be found with multiple higher degrees teaching in theological institutions. I have a Second Class scientific degree and I teach in a local church. I am however a student of Orr's writings, and so I can be said to be informed about him.

James Orr (1844-1913) was a Scottish theologian who taught first at the United Presbyterian College in edinburgh, and then at the United Free Church College, Glasgow. Both institutions have been dealt with in previous series' on this blog, and readers are referred there for further information. Suffice to say that these were both denominational seminaries intended for the training of the ministry. A conservative theologian, Orr is held up as an example of a theologian who held a high view of Scripture without holding to an innerantist position. He was a contemporary of B.B. Warfield (1851-1921), and associated with Warfield in the International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia (ISBE) project, so he is definitely relevant to the point. Unfortunately for McGowan, he is quite beside his point.

First of all, there are definite reasons why Orr rejected an a priori assertion of Biblical inerrancy. He was a colleague of James Denney, and he taught in an atmosphere where the most prominent New Testament and Old Testament scholars (Marcus Dods and George Adam Smith), loudly proclaimed the existence of errors ( and in Dods' case he added "and immoralities") in the Bible. The United Free Church College, Glasgow, was the home of the 'Apologetic School' founded by A.B. Bruce, who taught that the best way to win thinking men and women to the faith was to give up certain 'outworks' to gain a confession of faith from their rationalist perspective (see my series 'When Apologetics Goes Wrong' for details). Not affirming inerrancy meant that, should an error be found, one could still affirm, as James Denney (and Dr. McGowan), that the Bible was 'infallible' in that it infallibly achieved its purpose.

Secondly, Orr's view of inspiration was sub-Biblical. In Orr's view it was the writers, not the writing, that was inspired. But in 2 Timothy 3.16 it is 'all Scripture' (Greek: 'Graphe', that which is written) that is 'God-breathed'. McGowan acknowledges this (P. 135), but fails to see that this makes Orr as an example less than useful for him. Orr is operating with Inspiration strictly so-called as his category, and not the Biblical category of the Divine Spiration of Scripture. As a result, like other Scottish theologians before him, he taught that there were 'degrees of inspiration', which is fine if we are dealing with Inspiration, but quite pointless if we affirm the Biblical doctrine that it is that which is written that is 'Theopneustos'. Indeed, this is quite likely the reason why Orr and Warfield disagreed on the matter of inerrancy, that they were working with radically different theologies of inspiration. We cannot say what James Orr would have said if he had adopted a correct view of the nature of 'inspiration' as in fact Spiration, but it is certain that such a change would have modified considerably his position. Orr affirmed that:

"The Bible, impartially interpreted and judged, is free from demonstrable error (Quoted by McGowan, P. 155)

And the fact that he asked Warfield to write on the subject of Scripture for the ISBE surely demonstrates that the two were closer than is often realised on the subject of the nature of the Bible.

To sum up, McGowan's use of James Orr is compromised by two factors, firstly that Orr was writing out of an environment that was hostile to any affirmation that the Bible was to be regarded as a priori without error, and secondly that Orr was working with the inherited and unbiblical category of inspiration properly so-called, that is of persons, not of the writings.

God willing, next time we shall conclude this review. Those interested in James Orr should consult Glen Scorgie's study A call for Continuity (Regent College Publishing, 2004)

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 5

2009-01-29T10:32:00.001Z

McGowan accuses inerrantists of a form of rationalism. One part of his charge is that he says that, whatever authors such as Warfield may say (and we have already seen that the KinG James Only and Textus Receptus Only crowds are out of this discussion as they place the locus of inerrancy in either one stream of textual transmission or in an English translation), to affirm that the autographa (the original manuscripts) of the Bible are inerrant is to make the human authors mere ciphers (see P. 118). We 'limit God', he says, by affirming what God can and cannot do. But do we? If what we affirm about what God can and cannot do is founded on the Scriptures, then we do not limit God at all, but affirm his righteous character. "He cannot deny Himself", the Scripture says, and He "cannot lie". Now if I affirm what God has explicitly revealed about Himself, am i limiting God? I can see how liberal who believes that the Bible is not God's self-revelation, but is instead the record of human religious experience, could make this accusation, but not a self-described evangelical who taught at a Reformed and Evangelical institution. What is more, it is notorious that one of the main objections to inerrancy used by the liberals of the 19th century was the rationalist assumption that God could not produce an inerrant book by means of human writers.

Again, if we were affirming that God so over-rode the personalities of the authors of Scripture that the words are merely dictated by God, that would be a rationalistic assumption that God must have worked in a particular way, but we do not. Instead we affirm that in a mysterious way, beyond our human understanding, the authors of the Inspired Word were 'carried along by the Holy Spirit', so that what they wrote may properly be called 'the Word of God'. But we affirm that it is inerrant, that is without errors in fact or teaching, because it is the Word of God, who cannot lie.

One possible misconception must be cleared out of the way, and that is the meaning of the word 'error'. I do not mean by that a modern scientific standard of accuracy. That is to say, the standard of accuracy that we apply to the Scriptures must be that of the world in which they were written, and that of the men who wrote it. Now this is NOT to say that in the ancient world things that were in fact false were affirmed to be true, rather it is to say that the standard of accuracy was necessarily less than in a world of digital recorders and laser measuring tools. Distances and other measurements are routinely rounded off, just as we do in everyday life today, and many events are described in a phenomenological, rather than a strictly scientific, way. The sun is said to rise and set - just as we speak today, even though we know that in fact the earth is rotating! The idea of exact quotations, such as we expect today, is also something that was not expected in the ancient world. Rather a historian sought to give a reasonably accurate summary of what was said. Remember that there are no quotation marks in the originals! It would be unreasonable to demand of the Bible a standard of accuracy that would have been unthinkable at the time it was written, and this has on the one hand been the source of some claims of error in the Bible, and on the other hand the source of some of the more farcical attempts to defend inerrancy. It is important to realise that to demand or expect such a standard in Scripture is essentially rationalistic and modernistic - and yes, I do mean to use those two 'boo words'.

Having cleared this out of the way, it is important to affirm that we can speak of God being in some sense 'limited', not by anything outside of Himself, but by His character. God is good, He is holy and He is faithful, and He cannot be anything other than what He is, because he does not change, and he is faithful. 'He cannot deny Himself'. Thus is is perfectly right to affirm that the Bible, if it is the Word of God, must be without error according to its own standards (and not some artificially imposed standard).

God willing, next time we shall consider McGowan's first historical example, James Orr.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 4

2009-01-28T10:00:00.002Z

McGowan argues that the doctrine of inerrancy is rationalistic and presumptuous, as well as unbiblical. He claims that his position retains a high view of Scripture, and is authentically and historically evangelical. But is it?

McGowan says that inerrancy is not a Biblical word, but then neither is 'Trinity'; nor is the doctrine of the Trinity laid out in any one passage, rather it is the legitimate result of a consideration of the Biblical data. So the fact that there is no one passage that says that the Bible is without error does not of itself mean that inerrancy is unbiblical unless one has in fact redefined the category of 'Biblical doctrine' to mean 'doctrine explicitly taught in so many words in Scripture.' As a Presbyterian minister, McGowan ought ot be familiar with the Westminster Confession statement that:

"The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture."

Now we know that he is an advocate of the frequent revision of creeds and confessions, so maybe he would revise this passage out of the Confession? The fact remains that this is part of the way that Christians have always done theology.

But then it seems that McGowan is uncomfortable with this as well, for on P. 116 he writes:

"In the inerrantist argument, truth is largely viewed in presuppositional terms and theological method is conceived of in scientific terms. Thus the impression is often given that the whole Bible can be reduced to a set of propositions that can then be demonstrated to be 'true'... This explanation of theological method is founded on the notion that Scripture can be reduced to a set of 'facts' or 'propositions', which are then collected and arranged into a systematic theology. This rationalist approach, however well-intentioned, actually undermines the authority of the Scriptures. Rather, we must insist that the Scriptures are the Word of the living God who uses them to address us, save us, challenge us, teach us, encourage us, feed us, and much more."

Now it seems to me that we have a false dichotomy being set up here, and a McGowan who seems to be leaning towards postmodernism. The term 'rationalism', particularly in the sort of Evangelical circles where a book published by IVP might reasonably be expected to be read, is what has been termed a 'boo word', that is a word that tells the reader at once that the person or idea described by it is bad, much as the appearance of the pantomime villain is the cue for the audience to boo him. But what we have here is in fact false. No inerrantist that I am aware of holds that the Bible only contains propositional truth. We are all aware that it contains the Psalms, which are expressions of devotion and emotion in many cases, that there are narratives in the Bible, and that it is not a book of systematic theology. But what McGowan here is undermining is the idea that the Bible contains propositional truth! I use the word 'undermine' advisedly. This is a stealth attack, under cover of darkness. What he has done is to spike the guns (so he thinks) of his opponents, for if you cannot extract propositional truth from the bible, then you cannot show, by good and necessary inference, that the Scriptures must be inerrant.

God willing, next time we shall deal further with McGowan's denial of the Inerrancy of Scripture.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-01-23T10:10:00.005Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Bethel Chapel, the Bars, Guildford. Services are at 11.00 in the morning and 6.00 in the evening. Bethel Chapel is an historic Strict Baptist chapel, and one of the open buildings in Guildford's Heritage Week. It retains all its original fittings. The church meeting at Bethel Chapel is committed to historic Reformed doctrine, and worship.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-01-16T12:00:00.003Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Pollard Evangelical Church, London road, Kettering, Northamptonshire. Pollard currently has only one Lord's Day meeting, at 11AM. Pollard is an independent Reformed Baptist Church located close to the town centre.

Kettering ought to be familiar to those of a Reformed Baptist disposition, as it was the birthplace of Dr. John Gill, probably the greatest Baptist scholar of his age, and the scene of much of the ministry of Andrew Fuller. I intend to take my new camera to Kettering, and hopefully I shall have some interesting historic Kettering pictures, such as the Parish Church where Dr Gill did not go. These will be posted on the Strict and Particular blog. Or an apology for their not being there may be, as I shall be traveling there by train, and you never know with the trains. Or maybe this paranoia about delayed trains is the result of my current job dealing with compensation for train delays.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XIV

2009-01-15T10:32:00.002Z

So far we have seen George Matheson as a writer of serious theology, a man appreciated by academics. But that is not how most know him. We know him as the blind poet=preacher who wrote 'O Love that will not Let me go', and other poems. And so he was, for like all men, he was a complex character. About the same time that he delivered his Baird lectures, with their complex theme and academic tinge, he began to write what would become a long series of devotional books that would be far more influential and popular than his Aids to the Study of German Theology, or his Natural Elements of Revealed Religion.

These books had their genesis in Matheson's pulpit-work. Since he had to memorise the Scripture-reading perfectly in order to give it out in the pulpit, George Matheson replaced one of the Scripture readings in his services with a short meditation on a part of Scripture. These meditations were a popular part of Matheson's ministry, and some of his hearers preferred them to his sermons. As a result, since his congregation included many of the great and the good, it was almost inevitable that these meditations should be published. Indeed the first request for this came in 1872. But it was not until 1882 that Matheson finally gave in and issued the first of his devotional books, My Aspirations. It was an immediate success, and what was more, it went on selling for years. It was no flash in the pan popular Christian book. Those interested may find the text here. Not only did My Aspirations sell well in the United Kingdom, but it was translated into German and other languages.

This unexpected success led him to prepare more of these short meditations for the press, and between 1883 and his death in 1906, George Matheson published seven of these small devotional books. They were always secondary to his main work as a minister, but they were probably his most popular books. The meditations are all based on Scripture texts, and they deal with every facet of the Christian life. The opening meditation of My Aspirations is typical in this respect. It deals with the text 'And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." Matheson draws from this the message to the Christian that all the ways of providence are 'very good' even though we cannot understand how at the moment. Again, let us recall that Matheson was blind, a terrible handicap for a scholar and a pastor, as it meant that books had to be read to him. He writes for the Christian who has to live in the real world, where there is suffering and loss, where life is difficult.

This book was published at the same time as Matheson's most enduring monument, his hymn 'O Love that Wilt not let me go'. The words are famous:

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Matheson describes the circumstances of his writing thus:

"My hymn was composed in the manse of Innellan on the evening of 6th June 1882. I was at that time alone. It was the day of my sister's marriage, and the rest of the family were staying over night in Glasgow. Something had happened to me, which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I had the impression rather of having it dictated to me by some inward voice than of working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes, and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. The Hymnal Committee of the Church of Scotland desired the change of one word. I had written originally 'I climbed the rainbow in the rain.' They objected to the word 'climb' and I put 'trace.'"

Next time, God willing, we shall have more to say about Matheson the hymn-writer.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 3

2009-01-14T10:07:00.003Z

We saw in part two of this review that McGowan's book has a number of troubling points. In this article I shall show how McGowan's rejection of the doctrine of inerrancy is unnecessary and deeply troubling.

3. Should we get rid of Inerrancy?

In this book Mcgowan's main challenge to the Evangelical doctrine of Scripture is that we should not only stop using the term 'Inerrancy', but that we should also reject the doctrine that it describes.

"Inerrancy is not a biblical doctrine but rather an implication of 'inspiration', based on an unsubstantiated (and somewhat presumptuous) view of what God could and could not do." (p. 209)

To summarise, McGowan says that the evangelical doctrine of inerrancy is rationalistic, unbiblical and presumptuous. It is putting God in a box, if you like. Inerrancy, in his opinion, “underestimates God and undermines the significance of the human authors of Scripture” (p. 114)

This is not to say that McGowan is arguing for the view of Rogers and McKim, that the Bible definitely contains errors, rather he argues for an agnosticism on this point. His position is that we cannot know a priori that there are no errors in the Bible, all we can say is that we have not found any. He prefers the term 'infallibility' to 'inerrancy', and time and again he echoes James Denney by applying this infallibility to the purposes, rather than the text, of Scripture. For example, on page 20 he writes:

"The Scriptures do not deceive us and infallibly achieve the purpose for which God has given them."

There is precious little exegesis offered in support of this, but that is understandable, as McGowan is aguing for an agnosticism, not a decided position either way. Nor is there any historical survey of exegesis. Instead McGowan gives a survey of what he calls 'Fundamentalism and Inerrancy' (Chapter 4). Now perhaps working in an office dealing with complaints has made me a little cynical, but is there an ulterior motive in using the term 'Fundamentalism'? It has never really been a term that British Christians have been comfortable with, and has American overtones, as such it can very easily give a British or European reader the image of obscurantist American Independent Baptists meeting down South with a pastor who thinks that if the King James Version was good enough for the Apostles, it's good enough for me. On P. 91 McGowan seems to confirm my suspicions by giving as characteristics of Fundamentalism pre-millennial dispensationalism, separatism, and a right-wing political stance. In giving various Inerrancy positions, McGowan spends a lot of time dealing with eccentric positions, namely the King James Only and Textus Receptus only positions. Now why is this? Neither of these are connected to historic inerrancy, and B.B. Warfield, one of the foremost defenders of Inerrancy, often credited as one of the framers of the doctrine, wrote an introduction to textual criticism and supported Westcott and Hort, who are demonised by the TR-only and KJV-only crowd.

This is beside the point. The mainstream position, as articulated by Warfield, is that the autographa of Scripture are inerrant, not the copies. To the followers of Peter Ruckman (not 'Rackman', as given in the text), the autographa are irrelevant, the King James Bible was re-inspired, and that is where they place the seat of inerrancy. To many of the TR-only group 'inerrancy' refers to the transmission of the Textus Receptus, never mind that the TR most of them appeal to is as much an artificial text as the UBS and Nestle-Aland text, or that no ancient Greek manuscript reads exactly like the TR. As both of these groups actually have eccentric and differing definitions of inerrancy, it is unfair to lump them in with those who acknowledge the existence of textual problems in the transmission of the Bible.

McGowan claims that holding to inerrancy undermines the need for textual criticism. I would argue that the exact opposite is the case, provided that inerrancy is located in the right place, i.e. in the autographa, the original manuscripts. If they alone are inerrant, then the textual critic's work to discover as far as possible the original readings is a great service to the Church. On the other hand, McGowan's position does undermine textual criticism. He writes:

"My argument is that Scripture, having been divinely spirated, is as God intended it to be. Having freely chosen to use human beings, God knew what he was doing. He did not [what happened to the agnosticism there?] give us an inerrant autographic text because he did not intend to do so. He gave us a text that reflects the humanity of its authors but that, at the same time, clearly evidences its origin in the divine speaking. Through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit, God is perfectly able to use these scriptures to accomplish his purpose." P. 124

Since what we have is sufficient, why try for a more accurate text? Any answer other than 'we shouldn't' reveals that McGowan's argument against inerrancy on this point is quite beside the point!

More next time, God willing.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 2

2009-01-13T09:36:00.001Z

In part one of this series, I noted that Principal McGowan has some good things to say. Unfortunately he also has some downright worrying things to say. It has been rumored that these led, directly or indirectly, to his departure from the Highland Theological College and his return to parish ministry. I trust that the contact with the common people in pastoral ministry will serve to mitigate the effects of his teaching on Scripture.

Problems

There are two, maybe two and a half, main issues with this book. They have been addressed by others more able than myself, which is why I did not review the book when it first came out, but having been asked to do so, I will address them here.

1. Should we relocate the doctrine of Scripture?

McGowan proposes that Bibliology, the doctrine of Scripture, should be moved in our creeds and systematic theologies from its customary place at the beginning of the system to be a subset of pneumatology. He argues that placing the Bible at the opening of the theological system takes the focus away from God (P.28). This sounds very much to me like an echo of the old and hackneyed charge of 'Bibliolatry' often hurled at evangelicals. When I meet a person who bows down before the bible and worships it, I will take some notice of this accusation, but until that date I regard the charge as a mere straw man argument. No-one worships the Bible, if we have a high view of the Bible it is because it is the Word of God, in other words, it is because of the author. But McGowan, in his discussion of errors that the placing of the doctrine of Scripture first in the confessions may result in, writes:

"The most serious of these errors is to imply that the Scriptures can stand alone as a source of epistemological certainty, quite apart from the work of God the Holy Spirit. This error results in the Scriptures taking on a life of their own, whereby men and women sometimes imagine (even if they would not express it this way) that they hold in their hands the final written revelation of God that can be read, understood and applied, without any further involvement of God." (p. 29).

It is true that some people imagine this. But the error is just as possible among those who claim 'no creed but the Bible', and can be found among Christians of all confessions and none. All doctrines can be abused, and the doctrine of Inspiration is not free from this abuse. I would argue, in fact, that wherever the doctrine of Inspiration is located in a theological system, this error can creep in. For example, it can be found among Lutherans, whose Augsburg Confession begins with the article 'of God', and Anglicans, whose Thirty-Nine Articles (and therefore theological textbooks based on the Articles) begin with the Trinity.

In fact falling into this error is a result of detaching the doctrine of Scripture from the rest of the system, which can be done wherever a doctrine is placed, beginning, middle or end. This may be a result of unbalanced reading, or a reaction against false doctrine.

The confessions and systematicians are not responsible for this error, any more than God is responsible for it. Sinful man is responsible for his abuse of God's truth. We do not need to relocate the doctrine of Scripture, though we are free to do so if we want to.

2. New Confessions?

McGowan suggests that we should be in the business of revising the Confessions regularly (unfortunately I no longer have the book and neglected to take note of a page reference for this point). This is a proposal that has to be rejected. The purpose of a Confession is to reflect the teaching of the Bible. Now I agree that there are times when confessions have to be added to, and new statements written. Thomas Chalmers described confessions as 'Landmarks of old heresies'. By this he meant that they were established to state the truth against the heretics. If heretics had not arisen to attack the truth, creeds and confessions would not be needed. Thus Confessions may need to be added to as new errors, not dealt with by the framers, arise. But for a Confession to be looked at as a thing in flux means that in reality it cannot function as a standard at all. It is also a confession that a church is 'ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth', which is not a good thing!

God willing, next time I shall come to the crux of the matter, the doctrine of inerrancy.

Announcement

2009-01-12T09:56:00.000Z

As of 1st February 2009, I shall, God willing, be taking up a post as a ministry trainee at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant, South Wales. This will be for about six months, after which I shall be available to pastor any Church that is interested in having me, and where the Lord is willing to put me.

Free St George's and Strict and Particular will continue, God willing, but you may well find that the Welsh flavour begins to predominate here once again.

An excellent Christmas gift

2009-01-09T11:26:00.003Z

A new year for many Christians means a new daily devotional. For the last year I have used Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. This year, however, I have taken up a volume that my mother gave me as a Christmas present, namely the Sabbath Scripture Readings of Thomas Chalmers. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I am quite an admirer of Chalmers. From my first encounter with him though the four small volumes of his Lectures on Romans, I have found Thomas Chalmers stimulating, thought-provoking and informative. My greatest complaint was that his books were out of print and difficult to find.

Of late, though, we have seen something of a revival of interest in Thomas Chalmers, beginning with the republication of his Letters by the Banner of Truth Trust in 2007. Sadly the authoritative biography by William Hanna has not seen a new edition, although Kessinger Publishing do offer a reprint of the 4-volume edition of this excellent book. The Michigan historical reprints series covers some of Chalmers' writings, and between them and Kessinger, more of Chalmers is in print than has been the case for many decades.

Which brings me back to the Christmas present. Both volumes of Chalmers' Sabbath Scripture Readings. It is my practice to read two chapters of the Scriptures devotionally, morning and evening (that's two in the morning and two in the evening, or just one if it's Psalm 119). These Sabbath Scripture Readings are short (usually about a page and a bit) meditations on each chapter, in which Chalmers takes up the themes of the chapter and considers them, often in the form of a prayer. The first volume covers the whole of the New Testament, while the second covers the Old Testament through to 2 Kings 11, its completion having been prevented by Chalmers' death. These are two precious volumes that are well worth every Christian's time. Chalmers was a man who had come from the wastes of Moderatism to the fruitful pastures of the Gospel, and the Bible was his guide and comfort. In these pages we can share his devotions. This is one Christmas gift that will still be in use long after Christmas.

The two volumes of Sabbath Scripture Readings are published by Solid Ground Christian Books, Volume 1 and Volume 2.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Part 1

2009-01-08T10:58:00.004Z

A.T.B. Mc Gowan, Apollos, 2007, £14.99
This book by A. T. B. McGowan is not a new book, but one recently brought to my attention, and not in a good way. I was told that McGowan denies inerrancy, and that I ought to review the book. Well, I agreed, and so here is the review.

The subtitle of this book is 'Challenging Evangelical Perspectives', and so the reader is instantly alerted to the probability that this books contains controversial ideas. You don't challenge someone's perspective by agreeing with them. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, in an evangelicalism that has no history, no past, modern 'evangelical perspectives' may be warped by the solipsism of modern evangelicalism. Perhaps we need a challenge!

The subject is the doctrine of Scripture. This is of course utterly vital to the Church, because it is in the Bible that we have our authority. The Church is built on the Bible, and our whole message is derived from Scripture. To properly preach Scripture we need to know what the Bible is, and our doctrine of Scripture will impact everything else. If we are wrong here, it is extremely likely that we will go wrong elsewhere. For example, if the Bible is just a human book, then we cannot trust what it has to say about God because other human books contradict it. A low view of Scripture may lead to preaching from other books, either the classics or Dr. Seuss (I wish I was making that up). So a book by a thoughtful evangelical addressing the doctrine of Scripture is certainly not to be deplored automatically

Unfortunately, despite some excellencies, this book is not the challenge that we need. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking book, and can be read with great profit if it is read with discernment. There is much that I can agree with and a great deal for thoughtful Christians. This is not a book that the 'relevant' crowd who put on roller-skating functions in churches and have 'praise concerts' will be lapping up. But ultimately I find McGowan's central proposals to be inadequate and incorrect.

Good points
It is always best to start with the good points of a book, and this volume has many. The first is the cover. It is an attractive cover, featuring a genuine Old Master painting. How glad we ought to be that the old multi-coloured abstract covers have gone the way of all flesh. There are some really good old Banner of truth titles that I have been repulsed from by the covers alone! But this book has a cover that communicates that this is a thoughtful book with a historic spirit.
Secondly, the title is a good one: 'the Divine Spiration of Scripture'. The unusual word conveys one of McGowan's points in the book, that the traditional term (inherited from the Latin Vulgate) is somewhat misleading, and that the vocabulary of Bibliology (the doctrine of Scripture) needs to be re-cast. The best modern Bible versions, such as the ESV, replace the word 'inspired' in 2 Timothy 3.16v with 'God-breathed', an English translation of the Greek, for this very reason.

The trouble with the term 'inspiration' is that it can be rather misleading. It literally means 'to breath in', and so it can convey the idea (which is often repeated) that it is the writers who are the proper subjects of inspiration, whereas 2 Timothy 3.16 tells us that it is the Scriptures themselves. For this reason McGowan argues that the term 'Divine Spiration' should replace 'Inspiration', as being more accurate (or why not just go with Gaussen and transliterate the Greek Theopneustos).
Another problem with the term 'inspiration' is that we use the word 'inspired' in a loose way of literary works, referring to a merely human height of genius and ability, and this has allowed liberals to claim to believe the Bible to be 'inspired', while they really mean that it is 'inspired' in the same sense as Shakespeare, and that some of it is really far below the Bard of Stratford.

McGowan freely admits that there are some evangelicals (p.23) who have, in an attempt to be accepted by an unbelieving academy, adopted, in effect if not in words, an anti-supernaturalistic position. This is ruinous, it is in effect capitulating and then claiming to have won a victory - and in fact it is a useless strategy.

God willing, nect time we shall continue to look at this interesting, if rather disturbing book.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2009-01-03T10:28:00.002Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Salhouse Baptist Church, Chapel Loke, Salhouse, Norfolk. Services are at 11.00 AM and 2.30 PM.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-12-26T12:08:00.003Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day afternoon (2.30pm), I shall be preaching at Salhouse Baptist Chapel, Chapel Loke, Salhouse, Norfolk. There is a morning service at 11, at which Rev. David G. Farrow, pastor of Hethersett Reformed Baptist church, will be preaching, God willing.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XIII

2008-12-22T12:23:00.000Z

The Baird Trust was established in 1873 for “the mitigation of spiritual destitution among the population of Scotland and secure the upbringing of the young”. One of the main elements of its work was the Baird Lecture, which was often, but not always, apologetic in nature. The Baird Trust website has the text of most of the lectures, except, strangely enough, that given by Matheson. Entitled The Natural Elements of Revealed Religion, the lectures did have an apologetic thrust. The aim of the lectures was to ascertain to what extent the doctrines of revealed religion had a basis in the instincts of the human mind.

Of course, as Christians, we firmly believe that, as one God is the author of human nature and the Bible, true religion will not be something that has no relation to the way that we are made. Though fallen, we retain in some measure the image of God. So Matheson treads the same path as Bishop Butler in his Analogy, showing the the Christian religion meets all the deepest needs of natural religion. Now, the modern Presuppositionalist holds this approach to be mistaken, at worst it misleads, and even at its best it is insufficient.

How does one define 'natural religion'? That question is the first one that presents itself to one doing what Matheson sought to do. For there is not just one 'natural religion', but there are 'gods many and lords many'. 'Natural religion' is therefore, like the text that is used to produce our Bible translations, an artificial construct. Just as you will never find an ancient manuscript that reads just like the UBS 4th edition or the Textus Receptus, so there is no-where a tribe that practices what the philosophers and theologians call 'natural religion'. Matheson's method was to analyse the religions that existed before Christ and to find out what they sought. He found that they tried to answer three main questions, What is God? What is His relation to humanity? and Is His Glory consistent with the existence of moral evil? We may say that Matheson's definition of the instincts of natural religion is summed up in Augustine's words: "Lord, Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.'

Where are the answers to these questions to be found? not in natural religion, but in Scripture. In the doctrine of the Trinity we find the answer to the question as to God's nature. In the Incarnation he finds the final answer to the question of God's relation to man, and in the Atonement the question of God's glory and moral evil is answered. The lectures were delivered in old St. George's Church, Edinburgh (pictured), and instantly hailed as something new. The building was not crowded, but those who were there were deeply impressed by the blind scholar.

We have not been able to obtain a copy of this work, so must go on second-hand reports. It is unlikely that Matheson was completely orthodox in the lectures, as he was not himself that at the time. But it launched him on the Edinburgh public. Other books, of a different kind, would follow. God willing, we shall survey these next time.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-12-19T08:01:00.000Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day Morning I shall be preaching at my home Church, Hethersett Reformed Baptist Church, at 10.45. At 4.00 this evening is our Carol Service, when our pastor, Rev. David G. Farrow, will be preaching. Christmas time is an excellent time for Gospel work, and at Hethersett Reformed Baptist Church, we make the Carol Service very much Gospel-centred.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-12-13T09:58:00.001Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day (14th December) I shall be preaching at Swanton Abbott Wesleyan Reform Church, Swanton Abbott, Norfolk. The service is at 11.00 AM

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-11-28T13:38:00.003Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day Morning I shall be preaching at Tabor Baptist Church, Llantrisant, South Wales.

Services are at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM. Further information is on the website.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XII

2008-11-26T12:40:00.002Z

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London, is the oldest Church of Scotland congregation in the English capital. Its most famous minister was Rev. John Cumming (1832-79), who was famous (perhaps infamous) for his sermons on the Book of Revelation and other prophetic passages of the Bible. His death in 1879 left the church anxious to acquire a similarly noted and gifted pastor. So they approached George Matheson, urging on him the advantages of a pastorate in the capital of the British Empire. It would be quite a change from Innellan. The whole congregation in London made the call, but Matheson declined it. it was said that one of the reasons for this was that Matheson wanted freedom to exchange pulpits with other London ministers of other denominations, and the Church at Crown Court (building pictured) had not agreed to this condition. But there were other reasons as well. Away in his remote seaside parish, Matheson could study in quiet. He was still unsure of exactly what he believed, and on one occasion, after he had given a sermon on misssions, he was urged to go to India, only to answer that he was afraid that he would himself be converted to Hiduism if he went! He would remain in Innellan for another six years before being transferred to another capital city.

So Matheson's name was to be kept before the public in articles in magazines such as The Expositor, rather than in a metropolitan pulpit. His study at Innellan became almost a factory of articles, and his secretaries, necessary since Matheson had to dictate his works, worked hard. Some of his work in the period was the sort of 'apologetics' that was produced by Hegelians, reductionist attempts to make the Bible square with Hegel and other late Victorian philosophers. Practically he put the Philosophers above the Bible, and not the other way around.

Matheson was not an anti-supernaturalist at any time. He clung to the idea of immortality, and looked forward to the day that he would see 'the King in His Glory', and would be blind no longer. It was this that would allow him, as he matured and regained faith, to come back to the Bible in the end.

In 1880 he was chosen to give the Baird Lecture for 1881. God willing, next time we shall deal with this and see how he began to write on other matters.

'I Climb the Rainbow Through the Rain'. George Matheson -XI

2008-11-24T12:17:00.002Z

More than two years ago, we left George Matheson in the grip of German 'Higher Criticism' and Hegelian dialectic. Following a crisis of faith, he fled to Hegel's philosophy as a support. It was to prove a rotten one, in the end. He applied Hegel's dialectic of thesis, antithesis and thesis to the history of the Church in a book entitled The Growth of the Spirit of Christianity. It was well received in a world where Hegel was in vogue, but it missed the true history of Christianity, merging everything in an idea of 'progress' that was also fashionable, but wrong. He presented Christianity as subject the the 'law of evolution'. Again, it was fashionable, but it is simply not Biblical, nor is it indeed historical. For we must remember that the 'law of evolution' imagined by the Victorians was one of ever-continued ascent, as expressed in the title of Henry Drummond's book The Ascent of Man.

The greatest, and the most just, criticism of the book was that Matheson had not tested the theory of Hegel's applicability to Christianity, he had assumed it. He had not tried to adapt the theory to the facts, but the facts to the theory. This is a constant criticism of Hegelians, and indeed of Hegel himself. If the facts do not fit the theory - so much for the facts! The present author, as one with a scientific training, is horrified by such a procedure, and so we all should be! Apologists for Hegel tell us that it is surely better to interpret the facts in light of some principle than to leave them as so many data without interpretation, and we would agree. But we would add that a theory that cannot account for the facts is a bad theory, and should be modified or discarded. Our principle is the Biblical one of the providence of the creator God who has revealed himself in the pages of Scripture. It is perhaps this fact-bending Hegelianism that made this George Matheson's least popular book.

Innellan, Matheson's parish, was, like Broughty Ferry, which was very much the Free Church equivalent parish, a resort of the wealthy. Thus it was never without its intellectuals, and Matheson gathered a band of intelligent men around himself there. They would discuss theological and philosophical topics at the Manse. For their part, the villagers were glad to have a famous and rising minister, and ddid not mind in the least that he was almost completely blind. In 1879 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Edinburgh. He was presented by the brilliant and conservative Professor Charteris (pronounced 'Charters', and no relation to the Saint author, who assumed 'Charteris' as a pen-name).

In 1880 he received a call to the Crown Court Church in London. God willing, next time we shall see how George Matheson responded.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-11-21T13:28:00.002Z

God willing, this coming Lord's Day evening I shall be preaching at my home Church, Hethersett Reformed Baptist Church.

The Church at Hethersett was founded as a plant from Silver Road Baptist Church in Norwich, an old General Baptist Church. By the grace of God a church founded on Arminian lines is now committed to the Biblical theology of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.

Services are at 10.45 in the morning and 6.30 in the evening.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - Conclusion.

2008-11-20T10:54:00.002Z

The United Presbyterian Synod considered carefully the question of altering the way theological education was carried out in the Church. While the old system had produced some of the greatest theological minds of the nineteenth century, and the professors had more than proved the possibility of combining deep theological learning with a pastoral charge, the Synod felt that the Church's reputation would be raised still further by a full-tile theological college and faculty. It was decided to open, for the first time in the history of the body, a theological seminary like that already possessed by the Free Church of Scotland in New College. It was resolved that the old Hall should cease to exist at the end of the 1875 session, and that in November 1876 the new Seminary should open with a full staff of professors.

Of the existing faculty, two would never see the new system begin. In 1874 Dr. M'Michael died suddenly. He would be replaced before the opening of the new College. The other man to die before opening was Dr. John Eadie. The brilliant commentator died on 4th June 1876, again, quite unexpectedly. He was at the time of his death the greatest Biblical scholar in Scotland, a man who had entered into the depths of the Word of God. His Greek Text Commentaries and other writings have recently been reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, and will amply repay the reader. He combined this deep scholarship with a confessional orthodoxy even greater than that of Dr. John Brown of Broughton Place.

The opening of a theological seminary, as opposed to the old-style Hall, meant that three new Professors had to be elected. They were Mr. Paterson, Professor of Hebrew, Dr. Duff, Professor of Church History, and Dr. Ker, Professor of Pastoral Training. Dr. Harper was elected Principal of the new College.

The United Presbyterian College was moved to its permanent home in the Synod Hall (illustrated above in its later guise as a cinema), in 1877, where it remained until it was dissolved by the union of the United Presbyterian Church and the majority of the Free Church of Scotland to form the United Free Church of Scotland. While it was to boast such brilliant professors as Dr. James Orr, it never really attained to its promise. It was as if the separation of the professors from their pastorates, rather than setting them free, bound them to a more speculative scholarship.

We have said several times that there is no one 'right way' to give theological education. Some men -although they are the exception, not the rule - need little guidance, they learn easily, and all they need is a little advice on what to read. Others - and they are probably the majority - need some more formal education. We feel that the method pursued in the Secession Hall is at least as good as any, that learned men are enabled, whilst retaining their pastorates, to pass on their learning in an academic setting to ministerial students. This has method combines all the advantages of the academic seminary with those of the informal study. Let us not despise seminaries because some have become seed-beds of heresy rather than orthodoxy, but let us seek instead a seminary that keeps Professors and students close to the Church. This is the ideal, Scholarship and pastoral ministry combined, not separated. It is this separation of learning and the pastoral ministry that has given us on the one hand seminaries that overflow with heresy, and on the other ministers who have little learning, and who are as a result mere entertainers.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - XIX.

2008-11-19T10:14:00.000Z

Apologetics, or the Defence of the Faith, is a vital subject in any theological curriculum today. Every responsible Christian has a shelf of apologetics works. Unfortunately all too often this vital task is left to mavericks outside the oversight of the Church, and to men with little theological training. No field is more open to abuse by the semi-educated, or by those who substitute philosophy for the Bible.

Today we are blessed with a number of excellent Reformed apologists. In the second half of the nineteenth century, things were rather different. For one thing, apologetics in the English-speaking world was entirely dominated by the study of 'evidences' for the Christian faith, for another, the attacks came from German Rationalism in particular, and were dominated by a reductionist version of Christianity, shorn of its miracles, not by radical atheism. The Synod of the United Presbyterian Church faced this situation as they considered the appointment of a Professor of Apologetical Theology. There was only one man in their sights, the Rev. Dr. John Cairns of Berwick-Upon-Tweed (pictured). A brilliant man, Cairns had himself been through the German University System, but was too thoughtful and too grounded in the faith to be led astray by the novelties of German speculation. In May 1867 Dr. Cairns was elected to the post. He was to fill it admirably, the best monument of his labours being his 1880 Cunningham Lectures on the subject of Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century, published by Adam and Charles Black in 1881. In this work he considered unbelief in England and Scotland, France and Germany, analysing the thought of such men as Toland, Hume, Voltaire, Rousseau, Reimarus and Lessing, closing with an overview of nineteenth century unbelief and how it had built on the eighteenth century writers. He closed with a pointed appeal to the students and ministers who heard and read his lectures to maintain the supernatural character of Christianity.

Dr. Cairns strove manfully to vindicate the old Scottish theology, and to show that Christianity is based on a divine revelation, not on human wisdom. The fact that he was the first Cunningham Lecturer not to belong to the Free Church of Scotland shows the regard with which he was viewed beyond the boundaries of his own church.

The United presbyterian Hall functioned well. Its curriculum was equal to that of the schools of the other Scottish Presbyterian Churches, and it had among its faculty some of the best minds in the Scottish Churches. But the United Presbyterian Church Synod, as it considered its position as the third Presbyterian Church in the country, and the only one without a staff of full-time professors, began to think of change once again.

Speaking this Evening

2008-11-17T09:48:00.003Z

God willing, this evening I shall be speaking at Hethersett Independent Reformed Baptist Church, Henstead Road, on the subject of 'Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy'. The meeting is at 7.30 in the evening.

I am convinced that it is more vital than ever for us to understand what was the basis of this controversy, and what was at stake. The majority of modern churches are either semi-Pelagian (Evangelical), or fully Pelagian (Liberals). Semi-Pelagianism is a compromise that makes God's grace something that is given equally to all, and it is finally unstable. A recent biography of John Taylor of Norwich has stated that Methodists today are more likely to agree with John Taylor's Pelagian view of Original Sin than they are with John Wesley's Augustinian view!

A proper distinction between Law and Gospel is at the heart of the Pelagian controversy. To Pelagius the Bible message was essentially Legal, and indeed the giving of the Law was an act of Grace because we are able to keep it! Augustine, on the other hand, knew that he was a sinner, and clung to the Bible's teaching on Grace. To a Pelagian a saint is someone who does not sin, to an Augustinian he is someone who struggles with sin, but is justified by the grace of God.

That's just a little bit of the substance of the lecture.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - XVIII.

2008-10-27T10:57:00.002Z

The Union of 1847 brought the teaching staff for the newly-formed United Presbyterian Divinity Hall up to five professors. These were Dr. John Eadie, Dr. John Brown of Broughton Place Church, Dr. Harper, Dr. Lindsay and Dr. M'Michael. Before the first session of the United Presbyterian Hall began in August 1847, the speheres of the various professors had to be assigned. As was to be expected, Dr. Brown continued to teach Exegetical Theology, the department in which he excelled. Dr. Eadie taught Apologetics and Hermeneutics, something that his legacy, his commentaries on Paul, show him to have been an expert in. Dr. Harper was restored to his proper place, teaching Pastoral theology, while Dr. M'Michael taught Historical Theology. Finally Dr. Lindsay taught Biblical Languages and Criticism. It should be noted that the Synod did not change its stance that really only four professors were necessary, but that, finding itself with five, it resolved to use all five of them.

Relief students found that there was something new and fresh about the old Secession Professors, and the former Secession students found the same thing about the Relief Professors. It seems that every church develops its own way of doing things, and when anyone departs from that, it seems radical and fresh. But then, who could not be impressed by the ability of Eadie and John Brown? They are names that still today have a halo of scholarship around them!

John Brown did not long remain after the union. His physical strength decayed, and he was laid aside in 1858. Dr. Lindsay filled his place in that session, but a few weeks afterwards Dr. Brown died, after twenty-four years as Professor of Exegetical theology. There was effort to appoint a new professor, since the Synod's desired number was still four, and Dr. Lindsay was transferred to Dr. Brown's old Chair. He taught for six years, but in 1866 he died, necessitating a fresh appointment.

It had been felt by many that the arrangement of subjects had been rather peculiar and not particularly useful. The Synod thus decided to re-arrange the curriculum, the shape of which had hitherto been formed by the subjects that had been taught by the various Professors before the Union of 1847. The field of Apologetics was detached from Systematics and given to a new Professor. In doing this the Synod recognised the challenges of the times. Scotland was passing from an era in which the Reformed Faith was secure to one in which it, and Christianity in general, would be under attack. They had then to find a man who could defend the faith from all the attacks of agnosticism, heterodoxy and atheism.

Next time, God willing, we shall see what the United Presbyterian Synod decided.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - XVII.

2008-10-23T09:31:00.000+01:00

After the death of Dr. Thomson the Relief Church elected two professors to replace him, Rev. William Lindsay of Glasgow and Rev. Neil M'Michael of Dunfermline. It was decided that the hall would remain at Glasgow, which had been the main centre for education for the Relief since its origin. Thus the Relief Church was quicker to come to the conclusion that a single Professor simply cannot be expected to know everything that must be taught to theological students. It must be remembered, however, that the men who came to the Halls had been trained up from youth on the Westminster Confession and Catechism, and had sat under solid doctrinal and expository preaching. They came to the Hall with a grounding in the Scriptures that was far deeper than that of today's students who may have been fed a diet of popular Christian paperbacks! It must also be recalled that this was the period when ministers of the Church of England received no specialist theological training at all!

Lindsay and M'Michael began their work as Relief Professors on 16th August 1842, teaching forty-six students. They were the two foremost ministers of their denomination. M'Michael would have been the foremost of the two if he had not been possessed of a rather unclear utterance, and other bad habits of speaking. One of these was the tendency to sprinkle what he said with the word 'p'raps', even when there was no real uncertainty as to what he was saying, such as the occasion that he said "Ye ken there's but one God, p'raps," implying no doubt on his part as to the truth of monothesism. M'Michael was a good old Scotsman, and that common tough won him what his bad vocal mannerisms could not. Lindsay was a deep scholar of the Scriptures, and, like his colleague, a defender of the old Calvinistic faith. They were two affable, genial and accessible men, who modeled for their students what ministers ought to be. This is another aspect of the theological professor's role, to show the students that a theologian is not some impractical old scholar who spends his time with dusty old books, but that he is a pastor whose theology is practical. Not pragmatic, please note, accepting 'what works, but practical, that is, a theology that has, to use Luther's expression, hands and feet, that sets Christians free to work.

The separation of the Secession and Relief Churches was more of an historical accident than a theological matter. Both Churches held to the Westminster Standards, and they taught that theology. The idea that is still to be found in some older works that the Relief Church was less strict on subscription is a fallacy, based on an idea dreamed up from who-knows-where that Gillespie subscribed the Confession with scruples. No evidence exists for this. As time went on, the two bodies began to communicate with one another, and slowly the path to union was worked out. It took many years, and finally it was the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 that galvanised the two bodies to action. The two synods entered into serious talks, and in 1847 the two bodies united. With the union of the churches came the union of their seminaries. In prospect of this the United Secession Synod had not filled up the vacancy caused by the death of Professor Balmer, expecting it to be filled, and more than filled, by the Relief Professors.

So what had been the Secession Church became, by union with the Relief Church, the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. United because it had been formed by the union of Churches that had been separated, and Presbyterian in government. From henceforth its seminary would be the United Presbyterian Divinity Hall.

Of which more, God willing, next time.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - XVI.

2008-10-13T12:34:00.002+01:00

Instead of replacing Dr. Balmer immediately, the United Secession Synod transferred Dr. Harper to the Chair of Systematic Theology. This was seen by many as a strange step, since Dr. Harper so excelled in the Chair that he had held. The historian of the Hall compared this to asking a Greek Professor to teach Hebrew - the two roles may sound similar, but the actual work in question is quite different. This left three professors in the Hall, rather than the four the plan called for. But there was a good reason for this - the United Secession Church was about to unite with another denomination, the Relief Church, which had its own Hall, and the enlarged denomination would also see an enlargement of the Divinity Hall. As they looked forward to the Union, the Synod decided on yet another complete overhaul of the way theology would be taught in the Church, which from the union would be known as the United Presbyterian Church.

The United Presbyterian Church, formed by the union of the Relief Church and the United Secession Church, would be the third largest denomination in Scotland, after the Church of Scotland and the Free Church of Scotland. The union was the latest in a number that were re-uniting the splinters of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Relief Church, like the Secession, had originated in the ecclesiastical struggles of the eighteenth century. Rev. Thomas Gillespie of Carnock, a correspondent of Jonathan Edwards and a devoted evangelical, had opposed the unconstitutional intrusion of a minister upon the parish of Inverkeithing (located across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh) in 1752, and had refused to take part in the ordination. Since he was a member of the local Presbytery, he had been ordered to take part in the intrusion by the Moderate-dominated General Assembly, and he had been deposed as an example. A beloved pastor, he had been followed from the Church of Scotland by his congregation, and when he was joined by Rev. Thomas Boston of Jedburgh, son of the famous Thomas Boston of Etterick, in 1757, they formed the 'Relief Presbytery'. It relieved those who had unpopular and non-evangelical ministers forced on them by the General Assembly. This denomination slowly grew, and in time it came to be the fourth largest Presbyterian church in Scotland, after the United Secession.

For the first seventy years of its history the Relief Church had no Divinity Hall. Instead it sent its future ministers to the Divinity Halls of the Scottish universities, where they trained alongside the future pastors of the Church of Scotland. Slowly it came to be felt that this was undesirable. Firstly several men sent to train by the Relief Church, and thus supported by the Relief financially, decided to join the Church of Scotland instead, and secondly the teaching in the University Halls, where it was not actually erroneous, was dry and uninteresting, unlikely to fire the hearts and imaginations of men with a zeal for and love of the Truth. Most Relief students attended Glasgow University, and at first all went fairly well. But when a sectarian bias against the Relief students was added to the two issues mentioned above, it was resolved that the Relief should have its own Hall. Thus, in 1823, the Relief Hall was opened, with Rev. James Thomson of Paisley (later awarded the degree of D.D. by Glasgow University) as the first Professor. He used the Westminster Confession as his text-book, and lectured on it with admirable ability. His methods also improved the preaching style of his students, so that the Relief Church for a time had more eloquent preachers than any of the other Churches in Scotland. His death in 1841 was a great blow to many.

God willing, next time we shall continue with our remarks on the history of the Relief Hall, and shall have something to say about the Union of the Relief and the United Secession.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-09-25T07:42:00.000+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day (28th) I shall be preaching at Salhouse Baptist Church, Chapel Loke, Salhouse. A loke, for those of you who don't know (probably most) is one step below a lane in Norfolk. Like a lot of older chapels, Salhouse chapel is located back from the road. This was done to avoid rioting mobs of Anglicans attacking the chapel, something that was not unknown in those days.

Services are at 11.00 in the morning and at 2.30 in the afternoon.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-09-12T08:05:00.002+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Devonshire Drive Baptist Church, Devonshire Drive, Greenwich. Services are at 10.30 in the morning and 6.30 in the evening.

Devonshire Drive Baptist Church is an historic Strict Baptist Church. The modern building is deceptive, as it was built to replace the old chapel next door, which was built in the Victorian age, and therefore was absolutely useless for disabled access, having a large number of steps up to the front door, and more steps down to the schoolrooms in the basement. The first pastor, Mr. Boorne, injured himself falling into the area around the basement.

The old chapel was badly damaged in the Second World War, and at the same time the houses that stood on what is now the church car-park were wrecked. After the War the Church was able to obtain the site on which the present chapel stands for a hall to use while the old chapel was rebuilt. A few years ago the present chapel was built, and the old building sold off for redevelopment. Rather than being demolished, the old chapel was converted into a little terrace of three houses. It looks rather nice too.

Preaching this Coming Lord's Day

2008-09-05T09:50:00.001+01:00

God willing, this coming Lord's Day I shall be preaching at Bethel Chapel, the Bars, Guildford. Located near the centre of Guildford, Bethel Chapel is a pleasant oasis in the midst of a godless modern city.

Services are at 11.00 AM and 6.00 PM.

Guildford is also known in Chhurch history as the birthplace of George Abbot, the last Calvinistic Archbishop of Canterbury before William Laud. Abbot was a powerful preacher, and a moderate man who, while not a Puritan himself, sympathised with many of the concerns of the Puritans, and did not persecute them. His spirit is illustrated by his response to a hunting accident in which he shot a gamekeeper and killed him. While everyone agreed that the gamekeeper had behaved recklessly, Abbot was deeply troubled by the accident, and he paid a pension to the man's widow out of his own resources.

Abbot's greatest legacies are his Hospital (alms-houses) in Guildford, and the library at Lambeth Palace, which is largely his.

Teaching Theology for 140 Years - XV.

2008-09-04T12:59:00.001+01:00

The aim of a theological seminary is not to make academic theologians, but to train pastors and preachers. Its professors are not employed to display their academic skills or to earn acclaim from the universities, they are there to train future pastors, and everything at the seminary has to be directed to that end.

So the United Secession Hall had a staff of professors who were also working pastors. It had a Chair of Exegetical theology to teach students how to interpret the Bible, and taught the original languages so that students were not dependent on an English translation. There was a chair of Pastoral theology to teach pastors about the other responsibilities of their office, and of course there was a chair of Systematic theology. Systematic Theology has fallen on hard times in recent times, with modern seminaries preferring Biblical Theology. Yet both have their place in a theological seminary. The aim of systematic theology is to bring together all that the Bible has to say on the various doctrines of Christianity. The Biblical theologian shows the progress of revelation. We need both.

Owing to the limited time in which he had to teach the subject, Professor Balmer had to leave about half of the field of systematic theology uncovered in his lectures. He made up for this by making sure that students read up on those parts of the system, and he made sure that they did the reading by means of examinations. Although he was Dr. Dick's successor, he did not rely on Dick's lectures, but followed his own direction. In criticising his students' preaching, he paid particular attention to the sort of preaching that relied too much on ornamentation and lacked real Biblical substance.

Dr. Duncan was one of those preachers for whom amplification was developed. Although undoubtedly a very leaned man, and popular with his congregation, he tended to mumble a little. Nevertheless, he was a beloved pastor, and thus his lectures on pastoral theology were delivered with the benefit of years of experience as a pastor. His lectures covered much of systematic theology, and went on to go over the manner of teaching doctrine to the congregation, finally covering the church itself.

Dr. Duncan taught at the Hall until 1843, when he and Dr. Mitchell resigned their chairs. The Synod was thus left to replace them. Dr. Duncan was replaced in the Chair of Pastoral Theology by Dr. James harper of Leith, and Dr. Mitchell by Dr. John Eadie of Glasgow. But no sooner had Drs. Eadie and Harper begun their work, than Dr. Balmer died suddenly in the summer of 1844.

God willing, next time we shall see how the new Faculty developed the work of the Hall.