Historia ecclesiastica
The Weblog of Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin

More from Basil Manly, Jr. This time a portion of one of his best sermons, that on what constitutes a call to the ministry:

“Now we need numbers in the Ministry. The plenteous, perishing harvest wails out a despairing cry for more laborers. But we need purity more than numbers; we need intelligence more than numbers; we need zeal more than numbers. Above all, we need consecrated men, men who have stood beneath the Cross, till their very souls are dyed with Jesus’ blood, and a love like his for perishing millions has been kindled within them.”

[A Call to the Ministry (Greenville, South Carolina: G.E. Elford’s Job Press, 1866), 16].

Blogging and doing history: it is obvious that I think the two are complementary to some degree and that those doing history should blog. But there is an ephemeral nature about blogging that is counter-productive to historical writing. We write to be read—and read by future generations and not simply our passing contemporaries. I just looked at some blog entries I posted three years ago this time of year—Jan 2006—and some of the references on the web I referred to no longer exist. As I said, blogging is too ephemeral a medium to make it the basis of lasting, influential history writing.

Exactly one hundred and fifty years ago, Basil Manly, Jr (1825-1892), one of the four founding faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, entered upon what he came to consider his life’s great work, namely his teaching and mentoring students at Southern. Manly’s commitment to theological education can be gauged by words he had written in a letter to a leading Baptist layman in South Carolina, John B. O’Neall, in which he stated that the “cause of theological education is one dearer to me than almost any other and I esteem no sacrifice too great for its promotion.”

[Basil Manly, Letter to John B. O’Neall, September 13, 1856 (Manly Collection of Manuscripts, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Archives)].

“No sacrifice too great”: O that I might share this conviction—yes, with due regard to other responsibilities in my life—but for those of us whom God has called to do theology and be involved in the mentoring of aspiring pastors—O may I have a due sense of the weightiness of this calling and its joy and its cost.

I dare not say it is the calling of callings—I only know that it is the path God has laid out for me. And may I be diligent this year in the duty of my calling.

PS My thanks to Dr Greg Wills for drawing my attention to this text.

The Christian is not his own man or woman.

The Christian cannot say to those in her or his life, “Leave me alone; I just want to live my life as I please.”

The French Reformer John Calvin well expressed the sum of the Christian life in the following prayer, when he prayed this:

“Grant, almighty God, since you have won us by the precious blood of your Son, that we may not be our own masters but devoted to you in steadfast obedience, so that we may set our minds on consecrating ourselves entirely to you and so to offer body and soul in sacrifice that we are prepared to encounter a hundred deaths rather than defect from the true and sincere worship of your Godhead…”

[Daniel I (Chapters 1-6), trans. T. H. L. Parker [Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, vol. 20; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co./Carlisle, Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1993], 252].

I have been reading as many of the primary sources from the hand of Basil Manly, Jr. (1825-1892) in recent days as I can, as well as key secondary sources.

Manly was a keen reader, like the other founders of Southern Seminary. At one point, just before the Civil War, he became concerned that the coming war might produce a shortage of new books. Some might think this sounds petty in such circumstances—but not me! I love new books and can fully sympathize.

Manly, though, was able to poke fun at his fears. “What shall we do without new books?” he wrote to his parents (his father, Basil Manly, Sr., one of the most significant ante-bellum Southern Baptist pastors, was also a lover of books), and then answered his own question: “Read those we have, I suppose”!

[Basil Manly, Jr., Letter to Parents, March 8, 1861, cited James M. Manley, “The Southern Baptist Mind in Transition: A Life of Basil Manly, Jr., 1825-1892” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1999), 170].

This year was an eventful one for the Andrew Fuller Center. As most of you know, this year marked the transition of the Center from Toronto to Louisville since I began serving as Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in January, 2008. I am deeply honored to be serving in this capacity and thrilled to be able to work alongside godly, scholarly colleagues and to teach students passionately committed to the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus.

With this move to Louisville a change in personnel was needed to facilitate the work of the Andrew Fuller Center at the new location. Steve Weaver assumed the position of Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director for the Center, a position previously admirably filled by Mr. Allen Mickle. With Mr. Weaver’s assumption of duties in July, the Center’s full transition to Louisville was finally complete.

In the summer the Center published our ninth issue of Eusebeia. The theme was “Reading Andrew Fuller” and largely featured papers from the 2007 Annual Conference. At two hundred pages, this issue is the largest issue of Eusebeia published by the Center and features several excellent articles on the literary and theological influences on Andrew Fuller by leading evangelical scholars (including Tom Nettles, Carl Trueman, Jeff Jue, and Barry Howson).  If you would like to order a copy, please contact us at andrewfullercenter@sbts.edu.

At the end of August, the Center hosted its second annual conference at SBTS. The theme this year was the “17^th Century British Baptists” and featured presentations by Baptist scholars from both sides of the Atlantic (including R. Albert Mohler, Tom Nettles, Malcolm Yarnell, Austin Walker, Larry Kreitzer, and James Renihan). It is hoped that these papers will be published in a forthcoming volume in Paternoster’s series on Baptist History and Thought. The complete audio from this conference is available online for free MP3 download here.

In mid-November, the Center sponsored yet another event on the campus of SBTS. It was a mini-conference celebrating the life and thought of John Milton on the quatercentenary of his birth. This mini-conference featured a biographical sketch of Milton, followed by presentations on his poems by Timothy Paul Jones and James Orrick, both of whom teach at Southern. The audio for this conference is also available online for free in MP3 format here.

The coming year promises to be a full one, DV. We will have the annual conference in August with the focus this year on Baptist piety. We are looking forward to some splendid lectures at that time by such scholars as Crawford Gribben and Robert Strivens (both from the U.K.), Greg Thornbury and Greg Wills, and Jason Lee and Malcolm Yarnell (both of whom will speak on John Smyth and the General Baptists). Do plan on joining us. In April we also hope to do a mini-celebration of the life of John Calvin (it is the quincentenary of his birth this year) on the campus of Southern. We also hope to publish two issues of Eusebeia, the first of which is to focus on Puritanism.

Hopefully this year will also witness the publication of the first two volumes in the critical edition of the Works of Andrew Fuller, which is being published by Paternoster Press. The first volume should be Fuller’s memoirs of his close friend Samuel Pearce, which I am editing and which will be ready by the August conference, followed in the fall by Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, being edited by Robert Oliver. Other books in the works this year by the Director include a collection of love letters by Christians called The Christian Lover (Reformation Trust), a collection of essays on Abraham Booth (whom Fuller highly esteemed), a book on Calvinistic Baptist Spirituality (Paternoster Press), and hopefully a collection of papers that I have done at various times in the past on Andrew Fuller.

Here is an excellent little piece by Paul Helm: Analysis 22 (Wednesday, December 31, 2008): The Gift of Gill.

In July 2009, Dr. Haykin will be among the featured speakers at the Calvin 500 conference (a complete list of speakers is available here).  This conference is in commemoration of the quincentenary of John Calvin’s birth in 1509.  Registration for the conference is now open.  To register, go here.  You may also visit the Calvin 500 Blog.

Posted by Steve Weaver, Research and Administrative Assistant to the Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, Dr. Michael A.G. Haykin.

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Thanks to God for the life and testimony of James Petigru Boyce (1827-1888), one of the co-founders of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who went home to be with the Lord on Friday, December 28, 1888. His legacy is still bearing rich fruit, God be praised.

In the faculty minutes of January 2, 1889, his colleagues acknowledged Boyce “as the foremost leader in the enterprise of establishing our seminary” and recognized the “many years of thought and exertion” he gave to the school “and for which he made many sacrifices.”

What a privilege for Southern today to have a man of such sterling spiritual calibre as Boyce (not to mention Broadus, Manly and Williams) as a founding father. May the truths he loved be adored by all who teach at and attend the school he co-founded and sacrificially laboured to make a beacon for truth and for the glory of God.

Working currently on the Charleston Association and its use of the Second London Confession of Faith I noticed that in its publication of this confession in 1813, the Association also published a Summary of Church Discipline. One of the distinguishing marks of the latter is its liberal quoting of the Baptist theologian John Gill (1697-1771). Despite some recent studies of Gill—including a collection at the time of the tercentennial of his birth—Gill is still very much, as Paul Helm has recently noted, “the neglected Baptist theologian” (December). Because of this I am very much looking forward to Prof. Helm’s promised postings on Gill in the new year. See his blog: “Helm’s Deep”.