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

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.

Another forthcoming Attraction

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.

Forthcoming Attraction from Christian Focus publications

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.

Book Review - Glory in the Glen

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.

Book Review: 'Scottish Puritans'

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.

'The Divine Spiration of Scripture' - Review. Conclusion

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

An excellent Christmas gift

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

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.

Who was Thomas Nelson? II.

We have seen that young Thomas Nelson, at the age of sixteen, gave up an ambition to go to the Indies to make his fortune when he reflected that there he would be isolated from Christian fellowship and the means of grace. For by this time he was apparently a converted man, and the instrument of that conversion was his own minister, Rev. John McMillan of the Craigs Reformed Presbyterian church, Stirling. McMillan was one of the old Reformed Presbyterian ministers, a deeply learned and evangelical man. He was not only a pastor, he was a professor of theology, for the Reformed Presbyterian church had its own Theological Hall, and that met in Stirling under Professor McMillan.

While no doubt Thomas Nelson's mother was glad that her son had not gone to sea, there was then the pressing question of what his occupation should be. He found a job in a distillery at Craigend, but that work was, for various reasons, distasteful to him. Not only was the product of his labours a liquor that was widely abused, the distillery wanted him to work on the Lord's Day. He resigned and tried to get a job in a pottery, but that was not to be. Once again, then, he planned to leave the family home at Throsk, and the little Kirk in the Craigs, but this time his destination was London. There he hoped to find work, but like many another young man of his age, he found work more difficult to get in lindon than he had imagined. At last he found his resources worn out, and he adopted the desperate measure of approaching likely-looking gentlemen on the street to ask if they knew of a vacancy for a clean-living Scots lad. Finally he heard of a vacancy in a publishers' office at Paternoster Row, then the centre of London's book trade. He applied and was given the post. We assume that it is this, Thomas Nelson's entry into the book trade, that is memorialized by the slogan 'Since 1798' on the website of Thomas Nelson Ltd. today.

Thomas Nelson had always loved books, especially religious books, and the work was one that he enjoyed. He worked hard, and by industry and care, he was able to save some money and decided to lodge it in the Bank of England for safe-keeping. It was this that led to his change of name. Until this point, though pronounced 'Nelson', the young man had spelled his name 'Neilson'. The Bank of England, however, had his name down as it was pronounced, so that when he came to make a withdrawal his cheque was refused because he spelled his name Neilson. Thus he had to change the spelling of his name to obtain his own savings! In later life he would joke that he and Admiral Nelson had one thing in common - they had both lost an 'i' in the service of their country.

Thomas Nelson did not drift away from God in the metropolis of England. He sought out other REformed Presbyterian immigrants and they established a prayer-meeting, unwilling to attend on the Church of England or on any other church that had compromised the principles of the Covenanted Reformation. Nelson kept in touch with Mr. McMillan in Stirling, and he wrote requesting a ministerial supply to what was effectively a Reformed Presbyterian congregation in London. The Reformed Presbyterian Church agreed, and Rev. James Reid was sent to London for five Lord's Days in 1805 to supply ordinances and preaching to the little society.

In 1808 Thomas Nelson, having obtained a licence for a publishing house of his own, returned to Scotland, making his headquarters in Edinburgh. In July of that year he returned to Throsk, and to the simple meeting-house in the Craigs. In that month he was admitted a full communicant member, and sat down with his fellow Cameronians to the Lord's Supper administered in the open air in the Well Green, Stirling. In 1809 he was admitted to membership in the Edinburgh congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. The publisher and bookseller was chosen as an elder of his church in 1811, and until his death in 1861 he was extremely active in the service of his congregation. As Precentor, Treasurer and Elder, he was known in the congregation, and on more than one occasion he was elected as a Representative Elder to the Presbytery and Synod of the denomination.

The house on the modern Thomas Nelson logo is the old house at the West Bow of Edinburgh in which Thomas Nelson set up his second-hand bookshop at first. A true Christian businessman, he was always fair and just in his pricing policy and soon became popular with university students, who knew that the Cameronian bookseller would never cheat them. As business grew, Nelson was able to begin to publish for himself. At first he reprinted books, including such essentials as the Works of Josephus, Paley, Leighton and William Romaine. His pricing policy, however, made booksellers wary of him at first - the books were so cheap that the booksellers refused to touch them! Instead Nelson's publications were sold at auction in fairs around Scotland! Obviously Nelson was more determined to circulate good religious literature cheaply than other booksellers were!

He obtained the venerable old Palace of Mary of Guise as a publishing works, and until 1843 this was the establishment of Thomas Nelson and Son. With the volume of publications growing, he moved the printing side of the business to a purpose-built printing-works in Hope Park, which stood until its destruction by fire in 1878. It was replaced by a new works at Parkside, which is illustrated on the cover of a book about the company from the Flashbacks series.

Thomas Nelson was a godly man who was deeply concerned for the welfare of his workers. He died as he had lived, a Reformed Presbyterian of the old school. When he was told by his doctor that he was dying, he took up his Bible and said, "Now I must finish my chapter."

Such a man was Thomas Nelson, a man of God who laboured to put the best of Christian literature into the hands of the common man. Let all Christian publishers note him and seek to follow his example.

Classic works issued by Thomas Nelson and Son during Thomas Nelson's lifetime include the Works of Thomas Scott of Aston Sandford, William Arnot's Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth, and a series of Works of the Puritan Divines..

[The source of this information is the official history of what was then Craigs Free Church, Stirling, D.D. Ormond, A Kirk and a College in the Craigs of Stirling (Stirling, 1897), Pp.79-89. Ormond was the fourth pastor of the Craigs congregation, which merged with what is now St. Columba's in 1908 owing to declining numbers. All factual errors are therefore Ormond's, not mine.]

Who was Thomas Nelson? I.

No doubt many of our readers have purchased books published by Thomas Nelson publishers. Perhaps some have seen the 'since 1799' on their website. But how many have actually stopped to think who Thomas Nelson was?

Thomas Nelson was born at Throsk, near the Stirling, in 1780. His grandmother had been a member of Ebenezer Erskine's congregation and had followed her minister when he had been compelled to secede from the Church of Scotland. Although the family name was pronounced Nelson, it was spelled Neilson, and that is how Thomas Nelson spelled it at first.

His father, William Neilson, was a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the Craigs of Stirling, and long one of the managers of that congregation. He and his wife had joined the Reformed Presbyterian Church in around 1766, and so their son Thomas was baptized in the old Reformed Presbyterian meeting-house by the Rev. John McMillan, first minister on the Craigs congregation. From then on he was a regular member of the congregation of the old Cameronian church through his childhood. The modern successor to the old Craigs Kirk is St. Columba's, Stirling.

Although the towns of Scotland were well-provided for in educational terms in the eighteenth century, small places like Throsk were not so lucky, and Thomas Nelson's (to avoid confusion we use the spelling of his name that he afterwards adopted) first schoolteacher was an elderly lady called Mrs. Abercrombie, who could not teach much more than the alphabet. His second school taught only reading and writing, the unnamed master being apparently unable to teach the mysteries of arithmetic. Schoolbooks were rare, and when the supply of reading-matter ran dry, the teacher resorted to using the old books to teach Thomas the art of reading a book held upside-down! Yet even in this he was being prepared for the work that lay ahead of him. For a while Thomas Nelson was the sole pupil in that school, and often on hot summers' days teacher and pupil agreed to sleep much of the day rather than spend it in lessons!

Thankfully Thomas Nelson's third teacher, Mr. More, was a better teacher. A patriotic Scot, he often thrilled his scholars with his teaching of Scottish history, enlarging on the valour or William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, for Bannockburn is not far from Stirling, and Wallace's greatest victory against the English had been the Battle of Stirling Bridge, so the scenes of the deeds of these great heroes were familiar to the pupils. More was not, however, blind to the heroes of his own age, and the greatest of those was Admiral Horatio Nelson, who had defeated Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of the Nile. Hearing the accounts of this hero, Thomas Nelson would feel a glow of pride that he shared the name of this great man.

Thomas Nelson did well at More's school, and at the age of 16 he became a teacher himself. While young for the work, he was probably better prepared for it than the nameless second teacher who had ensured a peaceful class-room by the simple expedient of falling asleep and letting his sole pupil do the same. Young Thomas kept an orderly school, though by more conventional means, and we can be sure that his charges were grateful for his instruction in later life.

In this period many a Scot sought to make his fortune by emigrating to the Indies, and Thomas Nelson made plans to do that very thing. A vessel lay at Alloa, and he had arranged to go aboard it to the Indies. His father offered to go with him to the ship, and on the way he said kindly to his son, "Thomas, my boy, have you ever thought that where you are going you will be far away from the means of grace?" The young man reflected and answered, "No, father, I never thought of that, and I won't go." So, for the sake of religion, he gave up a dream of a fortune. That is the sort of man that Thomas Nelson was, an old Cameronian.

God willing, we shall have more to say about Thomas Nelson next time.

'Echoes From Scotland's Heritage of Grace'

The Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) contains some of the most gracious and exercised saints of God in Scotland. It carries on a long and distinguished history, and that history is the subject of this book.

Hugh Ferrier has not attempted to write a history of the Free Church of Scotland. What he has given in this book is a series of sketches of Church history. The first two chapters give an overview of Scottish Church history up to the time of the Disruption of 1843. Chapters 3-5 are more detailed studies of Scots religion in three settings, the Isle of Arran, the Highlands, and Inverness. Chapters six to eleven tell the story of the Free Church of Scotland, from its good beginnings through its decline and to the Union of 1900 and its consequences. With the exception of Chapter six these chapters are records of controversies, reflected in titles like 'The Union Controversy' and 'The Higher Criticism Controversy'. Whilst there are some men who we may regard as 'villains', the real story in these chapters is of good men who dithered and failed to take action when it needed to be taken. Ferrier reminds us that the problem all too often is not that of wicked men in the Church, but of good men standing idly by. Whilst there are some slight references to the recent controversy that rent the Free Church, they are oblique and there is nothing said of a personal nature. This is not a partisan book, it is an evangelical book and might just as well have been written by a man in the Free Church of today.

The moderate size of this book, and its relatively self-contained chapters, make it an excellent book for someone trying to find a 'taster' on Scottish church history, or trying to get an overall idea of the history of the Free Church of Scotland. There is an extensive bibliography for those interested in further study. We highly recommend this volume and thank Mr. Ferrier for writing such a stimulating and lively work on such an important subject.

Echoes from Scotland's Heritage of Grace (Hardcover, 265 pages) is available from Tentmaker Publications

Another Bookseller

We are pleased to announce the addition of Particular Baptist Press of Springfield, Missouri, to our list of good Reformed publishers and bookshops. The work of Pastor Gary Long, Particular Baptist Press specialises in the publication of historic Baptist titles of lasting worth. It falls under our Scottish remit because the Particular Baptist Press publishes the two commentaries of James Haldane, on Galatians and Hebrews. We expect that most of our readers are familiar with the masterly commentary of Robert Haldane on the Epistle to the Romans, but we wonder how many are aware that his brother James wrote two commentaries. These two books are of particular interest to Baptists as having been written by a Baptist from a consciously Baptist standpoint. It is James Haldane's contention that it is the confusion of Old and New Testament worship that is responsible for the corruption of the Church today. Even for those who disagree with him, the books are a good read as exegetical apologia for the Baptist position.

But to our mind the most important volumes that Particular Baptist Press have produced are the Life and Works of Joseph Kinghorn. Kinghorn was a Baptist pastor of Scottish descent, born in Northumberland, trained in Bristol, who spent his whole ministerial career in one place, as the pastor of St. Mary's Baptist Church in Norwich. And for Clarification, the building was called St. Mary's because it was in St. Mary's Plain (sort of like a square), not because of some outbreak of Baptist Mariolatry.
Kinghorn was probably second only to John Gill in his learning and intellect, and after Gill's death he was certainly the greatest mind among the Particular Baptists. Given this, readers amy wonder why he is so little known, and why he ministered all his life in Norwich. The answer is that he chose to remain a pastor in the 'fine City' of Norwich rather than to accept a call to a more public station. Furthermore, the question forgets that such a man as Kinghorn was needed in Norwich, for it was a far more learned and intellectual city than men imagine. Possessed of the first free public library in England, the citizens of Norwich had an unparalleled opportunity to delve into the stores of human learning, good and bad, and the city boasted the finest Unitarian Chapel in England, full of cultured unbelievers. Furthermore, Kinghorn's learning in Hebrew equipped him for the work of evangelism in the city that once boasted the only 'Synagogue Street' in England, and his knowledge of the Scriptures prepared him for the work of reaching out to the Romanist population of Costessy (pronounced 'Cossey' because we Norfolk folk like to catch you foreigners out), a few miles from the city.

Kinghorn was also an evangelist among the ignorant nominally protestant population outside of Norwich, under God founding several Baptist Churches in Norfolk. We have preached at one of them, in the village of Salhouse.

Volume one of this set is biographical, while Volume two contains various writings by Kinghorn, including two sermons addressed to Jews and a printed debate with a Unitarian. They show his heart for perishing sinners and his earnest desire to exalt Christ. Whilst the Presbyterian Churches have produced such luminaries as the Hodges and Alexanders, B.B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Thomas Chalmers, William Cunningham and R.L. Dabney, so long as the Baptist Churches have such men as Dr. Gill and Dr. Kinghorn in our history, we have no cause to be ashamed of the learning of our forefathers.

Particular Baptist Press features reviews of the first volume of Kinghorn by George Ella and Michael Haykin .

Book Review

The Calvinistic Methodist Father of Wales: John Morgan Jones & William Morgan (trans. John Aaron), Banner of Truth Trust, £40 (2 vols.):

Christians throughout the English-speaking world have a great deal to thank the Banner of Truth Trust for, and this two volume set adds to that debt of gratitude. Previously only available in Welsh, these two massive volumes (each almost 800 pages long), describle the history of the Calvinistic Methodists of Wales from the first stirrings of the eighteenth century awakening in Wales to the Methodists' decision to ordain their own ministers, thus separating formally from the Church of England in 1811.

While, as the title implies, these volumes are mostly tken up with short biographies, there is some necessary narrative, setting these people in the context of the start of the revival, the breach between Howell Harris and Daniel Rowland, and so on. The decision to tell this story cheifly through biography, however, is largely successful. Given the scale of the task, this allows readers to learn of otherwise obscure characters, such as Howell Davies, 'the apostle of Pembrokeshire', or Howell Howells of Tre-hill, an Anglican curate who evangelised parts of the Vale of Glamorgan.

The picture is diverse, Oxford-educated clergymen rubbing shoulders with weavers, all bound together by a common experience of grace. And all, sad to say, rejected by the religious authorities of the day. While the covers of the two volumes might suggest a rigid geographical division between North and South Wales, in fact, while the second volume does contain a chapter on'the beginnings of Methodism in Gwynedd', South Wales features heavily, the last chapter being on Ebenezer Richard, Tregaron, perhaps best known today as the father of politician Henry Richard, but, as the book reveals, an important character in his own right.

Those who feel that emotion has no place in religion, will not enjoy the book, which contains frequent references to people being 'lost in wonder, love and praise'. Particularly appealing was the story of Howell Howells, Tre-hill, at the pre-communion gathering at Salem Chapel, Pencoed (present chapel pictured), after sining praises to the Saviour 'he would leap as a hart.' These pages are soked in the Spirit's anointing, which, alone, shows why these men were such giants. They were, for the most part, prepared to lose all in order to glorify Christ.

Much of the first volume is taken up with Howell Harris' diaries, perhaps because so much material from them survives, while Daniel Rowland's papers are lost. There is no such single person's tale running through the second volume, Thomas Charles merits three chapters, John Jones, Denbigh and John Elias two each, the denomination's battles over hyper-Calvinism being covered through the lives of those two men, who found themselves ranged on opposite sides of the fight.

While this is well worth buying, and comes highly recommended, there are a few faults. The first is that the books lack an index, which means that use as reference volumes is hard, although devotional reading is recommended. There are a few typographical errors whoch have not been picked up in proof reading, and John Aaron could have made more use of corrective footnotes, in noting, for example, that the old chestnut about Griffith Jones' parents being nonconformist is a fiction from the pen of a libellous opponent.

Still, with summer approaching, this is certainly a book to take to the beach. Especially if you are going to the West wales coast.

Another interesting book

Recently, whilst browsing in a secondhand bookshop in a seaside town in Norfolk we chanced upon a small brown hardcover volume of early 20th century date. Since we have been accused of liking "old brown books", it was worth a look. It proved to be Modern Substitutes for Christianity by Pearson M'Adam Muir, D.D., the Baird lecture for 1909. The chapters deal with:
I. Popular Impeachments of Christianity

II. Morality Without Religion

III. The Religion of the Universe

IV. The Religion of Humanity

V. Theism Without Christ

VI. The Tribute of Criticism to Christ

Obviously such a work is of great interest, whether quite sound or not, so we purchased the book, in the process missing the bus that we had intended to take home, thus requiring us to spend another hour in the town - no great hardship really.

Only after buying the book did we discover in its pages the card illustrated above. So who was this Dr. Muir who wrote the work and sent this particular volume to its first owner?

Born on 26th January 1846, son of the parish minister (Church of Scotland) of Kirkmabreck, Kirkcudbrightshire, Pearson M'Adam Muir, though a son of the manse, did not have an easy early life. His father died when he was twelve, and his widowed mother moved the Glasgow with her children. He was educated at Glasgow High School and University, and in December 1868 he was licensed to preach the gospel by the Glasgow Presbytery. He was assistant minister in the Parish of Monkton and Prestwick, and then in Stevenson. His first charge was the chapel-of-ease at Catrine, Ayrshire, where he was ordained in 1870. Two years later he was called to Polmont, Stirlingshire, and there he spent eight years before being called to Morningside Parish church, Edinburgh. It was from Morningside that he was called in 1896 to the pulpit of the High Church of Glasgow, commonly called Glasgow Cathedral. In 1910 he served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

He had married in 1871, his bride being Sophia, daughter of Rev. James Chrystal, D.D., LL.D., minister of Auchinleck. Tragically, she predeceased him, dying in February 1907. Dr. Muir was awarded his D.D. by Glasgow University in 1893.

Like many a pastor of a large and important congregation, Muir had many calls upon his time. For example, in 1895-7 and 1902-5 he was the General Assembly's lecturer on Pastoral Theology to the Scottish Universities. He gave a lecture of Samuel Rutherford in the St. Giles' Lectures for 1881-2, and in addition to Modern Substitutes for Christianity, he was the author of a History of the Church of Scotland (1890) and Religious Writers of England (1898). He also contributed a chapter on 'Monuments and Inscriptions in Glasgow Cathedral' to The Book of Glasgow Cathedral (1898).

John Henderson wrote a volume on Dr M'Adam Muir's Ministry and Labours in the High church Parish 1896-1915 , which was published in 1925. We are in the process of obtaining a copy of this book, which seems to be the only biographical work dealing with Dr. Muir ever produced.

Forthcoming Banner of Truth Titles.

The Banner of Truth Trust has been a consistently excellent publisher since the 1950s. They publish books of lasting worth, not just the latest paperback self-help book that will vanish as quickly as it appeared. Two books announced recently, but not yet available in the UK caught our eye as ones that are of particular interest.

First, John Morgan's Calvinistic Methodist Fathers of Wales. Translated into English for the first time, it apparently consists of "two massive volumes", hence the rather steep price of £40. It is apparently full of primary source material, rather like the four volumes of the Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers. Another piece of Church history that was hidden to us English for so long is finally put into English dress. We trust that the translator has done his job as well as he did with The Atonement Controversy. It may take us a while to get together the funds to buy this work, if some kind soul does not send us a review copy.


The second volume is by Iain Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace. This is no mere re-hashing of material from the two-volume biography of Lloyd-Jones that Murray wrote, but a study of three major themes in Lloyd-Jones. These are: the nature of true preaching; the need for full assurance for Christianity to be vibrant and persuasive; and the question of whether or not Lloyd-Jones' understanding of the New Testament Church was overly divisive. It promises to be another of Iain Murray's great contributions to Reformed literature.

We shall be tightening the belts to add these volumes to our library. Unfortunately medical issues prevent us from selling our bed.