The Smithy: A New Discovery

The Smithy: A New Discovery

How cool is that! Publish it dude!

New Blog - Meet The Puritans

Just to let you know about a new blog has been been created dedicated to the Puritans. It's entitled "Meet The Puritans" and will contain blogging from Danny Hyde, Mark Jones, Rowland Ward, and me. The desire is to have an international cast of characters getting Christians interested in reading the Puritans. Moreover, it's pretty groovy that two Aussies are involved especially for those wondering if anything good can come from down under

Calvinfest at Trinity!

Trinity Theological College (Perth, Australia) where I teach recently had it's own celebrations of Calvin's 500th birthday. Peter Adam (Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne) gave a fascinating lecture on Calvin's preaching and I gave a lecture on Calvin's understanding of the gospel. For those interested you can find the MP3s of both talks here. Pictured from right to left is Don West (principal of TTC), Peter Adam, and me.

Durandus of St Pourçain's Sentences Commentary Online

Durandus of St Pourçain (c. 1275-1334) was a Dominican theologian, who steered a doctrinal course away from his order's great magister Thomas Aquinas. He was deployed by a variety of Protestant Scholastics, not least John Owen. For those who are interested the Thomas Institut of Cologne University has a project to put online all of Durandus's Sentences commentary. Thus far, all of Book I is available in a searchable format here. The online edition is a corrected version of the 1571 Venetian edition (reprinted by The Gregg Press). Enjoy!

The Covenant of Works Pre Reformation

The covenant of works, whether we agree with it or not, has a long pedigree in the Christian tradition. It wasn't as if it appeared on the scene with Ursinus, Fenner, and Cartright. Recently, whilst reading the Moralia on Job of Gregory the Great (540-604) I found something akin to the covenant of works taught there. And, today whilst reading Boethius' (480-524/5) De Fide Catholica I found something like it here:

He [God] formed man out of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life ; He endowed him with reason, He adorned him with freedom of choice and established him in the joys of Paradise, making covenant aforehand (praefixa lege) that if he would remain without sin He would add him and his offspring to the angelic hosts. (Boethius, De Fide Catholica, in The Theological Tractates, Loeb Classical Library, trans. H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand, Cambridge: Harvard Univerity Press, 1968, pp. 56-59)

The actual Latin word for covenant (foedus or pactum) isn't used in the original, the English translators of the Loeb addition added it. The original is praefixa lege ("with a prefigured law"), which introduces the idea of a "law" being given to Adam And, moreover, if Adam obeyed the law then he would have made it ultimately to heaven. In other words, eschatology is there in the garden.

The same basic idea (with different frills) is found in Greg Beale's book The Temple and the Church's Mission. He contends that combining the command for humanity "to fill the earth" in Gen. 1 and Adam to "till the garden" in Genesis 2, Adam and Eve's original mission was to Edenise the entire creation--spread Eden (God's presence, a temple-like idea) over all the earth. Adam, of course, failed. But this same mission has been proleptically achieved by the second Adam in his death and resurrection. The final outcome is protrayed in Rev. 21 where the new creation is depicted as a cube (i.e. the holy of holies): the temple / Eden is co-extentive with the new creation. God's intention for his world has been fulfilled through Christ.

Polanus' Syntagma Online

I happened to be surfing the web recently and stumbled across a great site that has all sorts of medieval, reformation, and post-reformation texts. Most importantly one can get access to Amandus Polanus' great work Syntagma Theologiae Christianae. It's all here.

Bunhill Fields Pilgrimage

Yesterday, it was my great privilege to visit the tombs of many great non-conformists in London at Bunhill (bone hill) Fields. Moreover, I was joined by two eminent Northern Irishmen who are colleagues in 17th century research: Richard Snoddy (researching James Ussher) and Martyn Cowan (researching John Owen). Richard and Martyn also, like all good 17th century specialists, have impeccable taste in music: J. S. Bach.

Here are Richard (left) and Martyn (right) at the tomb of Daniel Defoe (hardly an inspirational Puritan, but an interesting monument nontheless):

Here's me (left) and Richard (right) at the tomb of John Bunyan, tinker, thinker, and allegorist extraordinaire:

Then of course, here's me at the tomb of the great one himself, John Owen:

Finally, this one's for Mark Jones, Thomas Goodwin aficionado and fellow hunter of gems from the high Puritans. It's the grave of Thomas Goodwin: