laudable Practice

Having considered the account given by Nelson, in his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , of the controversy following the 1669 publication of Bull's Harmonia Apostolica , we now turn to one particular aspect of that controversy, the involvement of a leading Dissenting divine: Some time after this, Mr. Daniel Williams, now a Doctor in Divinity, and an eminent Preacher and Writer in this City, among the Presbyterians, made himself famous for managing the Controversy against the Anti-Antinomian Principles, when they were breaking in with great impetuosity among those of his Persuasion. Williams (b.1643, d.1716), who refused to conform in 1662, was described by Nelson as standing in the line of Baxter's thought - in his  Aphorisms of Justification (1655) - regarding the necessity of works for our salvation, as against those whom Bull critiqued as 'Antinomians':  Dr. Williams may be said to have succeeded Mr. Baxter, in the Management of these Disputes, as he also incurred ther...

Last week, in our readings from Robert Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , we reached a crucial, defining moment - the publication, in 1669, of Bull's Harmonia Apostolica . The heated controversy surrounding this work on justification is addressed at some length by Nelson. In the edition we have been reading, Nelson's account of the controversy and the various debates surrounding the work extends from page 89 to page 276, one-third of the entire book. This itself provides some idea of the significance of the work and the debate it provoked.  Despite this, Nelson presents the opposition to Bull's work as unnecessary. He notes at the outset, for example, that, from the perspective of 1713, Bull's understanding of the relationship between faith and works had become the settled view of the Church of England: The best of it is, this Contention was of no long Continuance: For not long after this Treatise was Printed and received with much Applause on one side, and Con...

In this second Lenten sermon from Cornelius Duffie - rector of Saint Thomas, New York City 1824-27 - we see an excellent example of the Old High understanding that a popular Calvinism undermined the call to serious repentance as a characteristic of the Christian life. This, of course, had roots in Taylor's 'holy living' vision but also reflected the anti-Calvinist concerns of the 'Latitudinarians', as Spellman indicates in his superb study of the 'Latitude-men': Believing that the fundamental demand made by Christ who those who sought to participate in God's glory was that they should repent, the Latitudinarians could not in good conscience divorce their piety from simple moral obligations. This points to how the Old High tradition was also heir to an earlier Latitudinarian piety and its rejection of a Calvinism which, in Spellman's words, obscured the scriptural truth that "the point of Christ's redemption was that men might become good ...

One year after Bishop Gibson issued his pastoral letter, Archibald Cummings - Gibson's commissary in the colony of Pennsylvania and rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia - took to his pulpit to challenge the teachings of George Whitefield, then preaching revivalism in the American colonies. Cummings had initially, in 1739, opened his pulpit to Whitefield as a fellow cleric of the Church of England.  Whitefield's teaching, however, appalled him : His doctrine turns mostly on the antinomian scheme and railing against the regular clergy ... I really think he is enthusiastically mad. On Whitefield's return to Philadelphia a year later, while the revivalist was attending Christ Church, Cumming's preached two sermons directly challenging Whitefield's teaching. They were published under the title ' Faith absolutely necssary but not sufficient to Salvation without good Works. In two Sermons ... Publish'd in their own Vindication, from the false and rash Reflections...

The 1739 pastoral letter - Against Lukewarmness on one hand, and Enthusiasm on the other -  issued by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, was a response to the revivalism of George Whitefield. Gibson quoted from Whitefield's journals to demonstrate the character of revivalism, showing how Whitefield words testified to his "boast of sudden and surprizing Effects as wrought by the Holy Ghost, in Consequence of [his] Preaching"; to claims of his Preaching and Expounding, and the Effects of them, as the sole Work of a divine Power"; and justifying his "own extraordinary Methods of teaching, by casting unworthy Reflections upon the Parochial Clergy" and the regular ministrations of the church. Against this, Gibson's pastoral letter provided an account of a characteristically Anglican theology and piety, contrasting revivalist claims that experience of 'new birth' was the evidence of the Spirit's workings, with the "gradual progress and improve...