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:

What is an Evangelical?

The word "evangelical" borders on meaningless these days. This is because all sorts of people call themselves "evangelical" that defy what once defined the term. Moreover, there is also the idea, spearheaded by David Bebbington, that evangelicalism began in the 18th century due to certain Enlightenment influences on the Christian tradition. However, from a historical perspective, I've always believed that "evangelical" was a word that Martin Luther originated and began to be used as a reference to "bible alone" and "faith alone" Christians (over and against Roman Catholicism). A fascinating definition upon which I stumbled today is that of the English Elizabethan Puritan, Dudley Fenner (c. 1558 – 1587). A rough translation is something like this:

What is evangelical is that which the gospel obtained. Heb. 2:1-6; Heb. 12:16-17; 25-26. Wherefore it is called the Kingdom of God and Heaven. Matt. 3:1; Mark 9:1; Matt. 11:4. 11-12; Acts 1:3.

The Gospel is all that part of the word of God concerning Christ in the scriptural promises of the old [testament], which having been fulfilled are joyfully announced to all people. Rom. 1:1-2; 10:15-16; 16:26; Eph. 3:5-11.

This is a fascinating definition. It reveals that an evangelical doesn't just believe the gospel but makes it central. Whether we should use the term on not, I guess, depends on the cultural context in which we find ourselves. But it's critical that we know what the word historically meant and what it looked like in practice, so as to inform the present. The word is not important, the concept behind it is. Let's not lose the latter just because the former has become muddled.

Bullinger on Faith Alone

Luther believed that "faith alone" was the "principle article of Christian teaching"; Calvin spoke of it as the "main hinge on which religion turns", Bullinger spoke of it as a "hook":

[...] it is the hook whereupon the hinge of the evangelical doctrine (which is the door to Christ) doth hang ; and that this doctrine (to wit, that Christ is received by faith, and not by works) is of many men very greatly resisted [...]

(Decades Parker Society 4:37)