Protestant Nonconformist Texts

Volume 3: The Nineteenth Century

David Bebbington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780815391227
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351151146
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This is a series of four substantial volumes designed to demonstrate the range of interests of the several Protestant Nonconformist traditions from the time of their Separatist harbingers in the sixteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It represents a major project of the Association of Denominational Historical Societies and Cognate Libraries. Each volume comprises a General Introduction followed by texts illustrative of such topics as theology, philosophy, worship and socio-political concerns. This work has never before been drawn together for publication in this way. Prepared by a team of twelve editors, all of whom are expert in their areas and drawn from a number of the relevant traditions, it will provide a much needed comprehensive view of Nonconformity told largely in the words of those whose story it is. The works will prove to be an invaluable resource to scholars, students, academics and specialist and public libraries, as well as to a wider range of church, intellectual and general historians. This volume gathers and introduces texts relating to English and Welsh Nonconformity. Through contemporary writings it provides a vivid insight into the life and thought of the Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Unitarians and other groups that formed pieces in the diverse mosaic of the nineteenth-century chapels. Each aspect of Nonconformity has an introductory discussion, which includes a guide to the secondary literature on the subject, and each passage from a primary source is put in context.

Part I
Sermons

Introduction

Preaching, like the pulpit in most chapels, was central in Nonconformity. The most popular form of publication in the early nineteenth century was the sermon. It was at once advice for living, a guidepost to heaven and a species of popular entertainment. The content varied enormously, for there were exposition and exhortation, speculation and instruction, warning and consolation - and very much else too. During the century the content altered with the decline of Calvinism in the Reformed communities and a general broadening of theology in almost all the denominations. Yet there was constancy in most Nonconformist bodies outside Unitarianism in proclaiming the common Evangelical faith. Sin and salvation were the staple themes of the pulpit.

There was also continuity in presentation. When, in 1869-70, the prominent metropolitan Congregational minister Alexander Raleigh lectured to trainees for the ministry on 'The Plan and Growth of a Sermon', he listed the standard sections as the exordium, introducing the discourse; the proposition, clearly stating its thrust; the proof, vindicating the case; and the conclusion, which was to be both 'personal and practical'.¹ There would have been little variation in the principles commended to students either before or afterwards. Yet style changed greatly during the century, and not in a single direction. In the early part of the century the driving imperative of the Evangelical Revival to save souls, reinforced by the preference of the Enlightenment for clarity, produced greater simplicity in diction and structure than had often been the case in the past. In the middle years of the century there was a tendency, especially in the more fashionable pulpits, to adopt a more elaborate form of rhetoric in keeping with the expectations raised in the wake of the romantic movement. This form of 'Pretty-ism',² however, came to be despised in the last years of the century. A crisper, more recognisably modern form of language was used in the pulpit instead. In the sample given below, the early phase is represented by Clarke (I.2), under Enlightenment influences, and Gadsby (I.3), who, though standing apart from much of the legacy of the Evangelical Revival, nevertheless showed a burning zeal for souls. The mid-century floridity is illustrated in Punshon (I.5) and Thom (I.7), and the later reaction to plainness in Hughes (I.9) and Horton (I.10).

The sample of ten preachers is confined to the abler occupants of the pulpit. The vast numbers of untrained lay preachers would have spoken in a very different manner, sometimes uncouthly but often powerfully. The denominational range includes one Strict Baptist (I.3), three mainstream Baptists (I.1, 4, 8), three Wesleyans (I.2,5,9), two Congregationalists (I.6,10) and a Unitarian (I.7). The theological range includes two men who tried to resist the doctrinal developments of the time (Gadsby, Spurgeon) and four who welcomed them in varying degree (Parker, Thom, Hughes and Horton). The others were more or less content with the form of the faith prevailing in their day, neither wanting to repudiate contemporary thought nor to accelerate its change.

Nineteenth-century Nonconformist sermons have been woefully under-studied. There is but one useful secondary work: H. Davies, Worship and Theology in England, vols 3 and 4, Princeton, New Jersey, 1961 and 1962; republished Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1996. For preaching in worship, see the first section of Part IV.

Notes

1. M. Raleigh, ed., Alexander Raleigh, Edinburgh, 1881, p. 203.

2. E. M. Champness, The Life-Story of Thomas Champness, London, 1907, p. 103.

Document I.1 Robert Hall on the Substitution of the Innocent for the Guilty, 1822

Robert Hall (1764-1831), Baptist minister successively at Bristol, Cambridge, Leicester and again at Bristol, was generally thought to be the ablest preacher of his day. Trained at Bristol Academy and Aberdeen University, he turned against the rational Dissent that initially attracted him and became an outspoken assertor of evangelical faith, especially in Modern Infidelity Considered (1800). Yet he also remained a convinced champion of religious liberty. See G. W. Hughes, Robert Hall, London, 1943; and DNB.

This extract is taken from his most celebrated sermon, On the Substitution of the Innocent for the Guilty' (1822), preached on Isaiah 53: 8. It offers, in copious and elegant language, a reasoned defence of a central evangelical tenet. The source is The Works of Robert Hall, A.M., ed. O. Gregory, London, 1839, vol. 5, pp. 91-3. For Hall's pulpit style, see IV.2.

That the voluntary substitution of an innocent person, in the stead of the guilty, may be capable of answering the ends of justice, nothing seems more necessary than that the substitute should be of equal consideration, at least, to the party in whose behalf he interposes. The interests sacrificed by the suffering party, should not be of less cost and value than those which are secured by such a procedure. ...

In this view the redemption of the human race seemed to be hopeless; and their escape from merited destruction, on any principles connected with law and justice, absolutely impossible. For where could an adequate substitute be found? Where, among the descendants of Adam, partakers of flesh and blood, could one be selected of such preeminent dignity and worth, that his oblation of himself should be deemed a fit and proper equivalent to the whole race of man? to say nothing of the impossibility of finding there a spotless victim (and no other could be accepted). Who is there that ever possessed that prodigious superiority in all the qualities which aggrandize their possessor to every other member of the human family, which shall entitle him to be the representative, either in action or in suffering, of the whole human race? In order to be capable of becoming a victim, he must be invested with a frail and mortal nature; but the possession of such a nature reduces him to that equality with his brethren, that joint participation of meanness and infirmity, which totally disqualifies him for becoming a substitute. Here a dilemma presents itself, from which there seems no possibility of escape. If man is left to encounter the judicial effects of his sentence, his ruin is sealed and certain. If he is to be redeemed by a substitute, that substitute must possess contradictory attributes, a combination of qualities not to be found within the compass of human nature. He must be frail and mortal, or he cannot die a sacrifice; he must possess ineffable dignity, or he cannot merit as a substitute.

Such were the apparently insurmountable difficulties which obstructed the salvation of man by any methods worthy of the divine character; such the darkness and perplexity which involved his prospects, that it is more than probable the highest created intelligence would not have been equal to the solution of the question, How shall man be just with God?

The mystery hid from ages and generations, the mystery of Christ crucified, dispels the obscurity, and presents, in the person of the Redeemer, all the qualifications which human conception can embody as contributing to the perfect character of a substitute. By his participation of flesh and blood, he becomes susceptible of suffering, and possesses within himself the materials of a sacrifice. By its personal union with the eternal Word, the sufferings sustained in a nature thus assumed, acquired an infinite value, so as to be justly deemed more than equivalent to the penalty originally denounced.

His assumption of the human nature made his oblation of himself possible;, his possession of the divine rendered it efficient; and thus weakness and power, the imperfections incident to a frail and mortal creature, and the exemption from these, the attributes of time and those of eternity, the elements of being the most opposite, and deduced from opposite worlds, equally combined to give efficacy to his character as the Redeemer, and validity to his sacrifice. They constitute a person who has no counterpart in heaven or on earth, who may be most justly denominated 'Wonderful;' composed of parts and features of which, (however they may subsist elsewhere in a state of separation,) the combination and union, nothing short of infinite wisdom could have conceived, or infinite power effected. The mysterious constitution of the person of Christ, the stupendous link which unites God and man, and heaven and earth; that mystic ladder, on which the angels of God ascended and descended, whose foot is on a level with the dust, and whose summit penetrates the inmost recesses of an unapproachable splendour, will be, we have reason to believe, through eternity, the object of profound contemplation and adoring wonder.

Document I.2 Adam Clarke on Happiness the Privilege of Every Real Christian, 1828

Adam Clarke (c. 1760-1832) was the leading Wesleyan intellectual of the early nineteenth century. Coming from Ireland, he became a Methodist preacher in 1782 and for most of the rest of his career after 1795 was assigned to London so that he could take advantage of the scholarly facilities of the capital. Mastery of a wide range of ancient languages enabled him to compose an authoritative eight-volume commentary on the Bible (1810-25), though his rejection of the doctrine of the eternal Sonship of Christ caused controversy. Nevertheless he was elected president of the Methodist Conference in 1806, 1814 and 1822. See An Account of the Infancy, Religious and Literary Life of Adam Clarke, LL.D., F.A.S., &c., London, 1833; I. Sellers, Adam Clarke, Controversialist, St Columb Major, Cornwall, 1976; and DNB.

The extract is taken from a sermon on Philippians 4: 4 entitled 'Genuine Happiness the Privilege of Every Real Christian in This Life' published in A. Clarke, Discourses on Various Subjects, vol. 1, London, 1828, pp. 233-7. The pervasive values of the Enlightenment (reason and religion, happiness itself) are striking, but, against some of its leading exponents, Clarke insists that true happiness depends on the spiritual state. For Clarke as preacher, see IV.3.

When the Apostle exhorts the Philippians to rejoice, I conceive that the term implies the same as be happy: and, as he exhorts them to rejoice always, then he must mean, be constantly happy, and, to be constantly happy, is to have happiness - or, to be in the state of happiness ...

If the present state be only the threshold of being, - if it be a state of probation, - if man, in the estimate of reason and religion, should be guided by wisdom; and true wisdom is that, which directs to the best end, by the use of the most proper means: then, that must be the best end of man, that has in view his true blessedness in this life, and his eternal glorification in the world to come. 'What shall we eat, what shall we drink, and with what shall we be clothed?' - in a word, how shall we acquire animal gratification? are enquiries with which the Gentiles may be endlessly exercised; but he who has the revelation of God should have higher objects of pursuit, and such as become an immortal spirit.

This is the subject on which St. Paul addresses the Christians at Philippi, and, through them, all, in every place, who profess the Christian name. He speaks to them of spiritual happiness, exhorts to its acquisition, and shews in what it consists.

I shall, therefore, give a definition of what I conceive true happiness to be ... It is that state of mind in which the desires are all satisfied, by the full possession of that, which, for its own sake, is to be desired above all things, as containing in itself every thing that is suited to the nature, capacity, and wishes of an immortal spirit, with the rational conviction that this state may be permanent; - and this, without circumlocution, I state to be, the approbation of God in the conscience; and the image of God in the heart. Where these are, there must be happiness: where these are permanent, there must be permanent happiness. The actual existence of these things, or the possibility of their attainment, I consider to be directly implied in the exhortation of the Apostle, Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, rejoice. He who can rejoice is so far happy: but no man can rejoice, even in the slightest degree, but from a consciousness of happiness at the time; and happiness implies perfect satisfaction or contentment of mind, from a gratification of its wishes and desires. And this necessarily implies these two things: - 1. Actual possession of that which gratifies or contents; and, 2. Comfortable persuasion that the possession shall be continued. For, 1. If a man possess not that which his soul has earnestly desired, and without which he could not be comfortable, he cannot have rejoicing in himself, and, 2. If he have not a well grounded hope, and full persuasion that this possession, and his consequent happiness, may be continued, - that none can deprive him of it, and that it cannot be lost but through his own fault, - he cannot rejoice. Hence, therefore, it is evident, that the thing that constitutes happiness must be so far in possession, as to leave no craving desire ungratified; and must be so sure in prospect, in reference to its future continuance, as to leave no anxious apprehension of unavoidable privation.

Document I.3 William Gadsby on the Acceptable Year and Day of Vengeance, 1842

William Gadsby (1773-1844) was a prominent Particular Baptist minister in Manchester from 1806 to 1844. He rejected the moral law as the believer's rule of life, the teaching of Fuller (see II. 11), and open communionism (see 11.23). He emphasised conversion as a deep conviction of sin followed by a Spirit-given illumination, in which the individual is entirely passive. With John Gadsby (his son) he commenced The Gospel Standard in 1835, to act as an organ for the more conservative Strict and Particular Baptists. See J. H. Philpot, ed., The Seceders, Vol. 2, London, 1932: B. A. Ramsbottom, William Gadsby, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, 2003; and DNB.

This extract is from Sermons of William Gadsby with a Short Biography by B. A. Ramsbottom, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, 1991, pp. 119-20, and is based on Isaiah 66: 2. It is conservative in content, showing a strong debt to seventeenth-century Calvinism, but displays great rhetorical vigour. The doctrines of particular election and substitution are in evidence.

'To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God.' I shall endeavour, as God shall assist, to make a few remarks upon these two things:

1. 'The day of vengeance of our God and the acceptable year of the Lord.'
2. The proclamation of them by the blessed Lord of life and glory.

I. Now we read in the Word of God of some solemn displays of God's vengeance and wrath; and yet our text speaks as if there were but one 'day of vengeance.' Why, was it not 'the day of vengeance' when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? Was it not 'the day of vengeance' when he swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their company, and when they went down into the pit alive? Was it not a 'day of vengeance' when he hurled Satan and his adherents from their high-towering thrones, and sank them into 'blackness of darkness?' Was it not a 'day of vengeance' when he drowned the Egyptians in the Red Sea? And are not the damned in hell, devils and damned spirits feeling 'the day of vengeance' now? And yet, put it all together, it were as nothing compared to 'the day of vengeance' in our text. Therefore the Holy Ghost fixes upon this important subject as 'the day of vengeance' that outstretches all the rest.

And what was it? The 'day,' when Divine Justice unsheathed its sword, and the wrath of that incensed Justice was poured with all it inflexible fury upon the Godman Mediator; when all the sins of the church, - heart sins, lip sins, sins however circumstanced, were gathered together, and put upon the Surety, and when the whole of the wrath due to the millions of God's elect was poured into the heart of their covenant Head, - the Lord Jesus Christ. That was 'the day of vengeance' with a witness. Here Justice exacted its utmost mite, and made no abatement; and his solemn Majesty paid the debt to the full.

Sin may appear a trifling matter to you or me; we may be sufficiently hardened to laugh at it, to trifle with it; but it did not trifle with the Son of God. It broke his heart, it tortured his soul, and harrowed up his mind; and with all the majesty and glory of his infinite Godhead, he had but...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor's Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Sermons
• Part II: Theology
• Part III: Writings
• Part IV: Worship
• Part V: Spirituality
• Part VI: Chapel
• Part VII: Women
• Part VIII: Mission
• Part IX: Public Issues
• Part X: Denominations
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Persons