Warts and all Cromwell is said to have told his portrait painters that they must be exact in picturing him ‘warts and all’. After viewing the many pretty portraits of Andrew Fuller painted by Michael Haykin over the last decades, I have realised that the artist has not followed Cromwell’s advice and the ‘warts and all’ have been painted over in meticulous iconolatry, making a fictive Fatima or Mary out of Fuller. This artistic repainting is Haykin’s way of spending his time and there is no harm in that but for the fact that Haykin demands academic status for his portrayals and will have us believe they are the real thing. This reminds me of the Ugaritic portraits of the Old Testament heroes as gods whereas… Full Article
Posts Tagged New Divinity
Portrait of a Fullerite
Apr 17
My reason for publishing this account of William Carey and his Indian mission on my website. On 18-21 February, 2010 a conference will be held at Muscle Shoals, Alabama under the theme ‘The Quagmire of Hyper-Calvinism’. The key speaker will be Dr. Michael Haykin who will lecture on Andrew Fuller as a missionary pioneer. The myth that Andrew Fuller pioneered a missionary movement is superstitiously believed by Dr. Haykin and his circle but the Baptist Missionary Society Fuller helped to found came at the rear end of a long line of Christian missionary organisations whether church based or, like the BMS, a para-church movement. Andrew Fuller was not the instigator of this missionary society but William Carey who urged the Baptists to… Full Article
Part II: The Mission Prospers The mission at Serampore prospered and spread. Carey was given the most prominent building in the city for the church in which he preached for the next thirty-four years. The town of Serampore, too, prospered as it proved an asylum of peace for fugitives from the Americo-Franco-British wars and it persuaded many wealthy investors to settle there. More missionaries were urgently needed as Brunsdon soon died of a liver complaint. Fountain, who was doing pioneer work at Dinapoor, also died after a short illness. Thomas rejoined the mission but became insane and soon died. The missionaries were able to purchase a very large house in the middle of the town with two acres of garden from the Governor’s… Full Article
Come and Welcome Letter
Nov 11
The Banner of Truth Trust perverts Bunyan’s gospel A letter to the English Churchman Sir: Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ based on John 6:37 is beset with the finest jewels of Christian preaching, infusing hope and joy into the hearts of sorrowing sinners. The BOT’s 1991 reprint of Bunyan’s original version was a most welcome evangelistic venture as Bunyan’s elegant, pithy language speaks as clearly today as it did in the 17th century. So why has the BOT now published a new, badly edited and altered version with an introduction and blurb containing irrelevant and misleading New Divinity propaganda? Paul Austen (Nr. 7652) rightly challenges the suitability of a publisher’s preface which presents… Full Article
Harmon on Fuller
Nov 7
I have forgotten for which publication I wrote this letter. Sir: Prof. Harmon’s recent critique of my Law and Gospel in the Theology of Andrew Fuller (Fall, 2001.) is inaccurate, lacking the objectivity of a scholar. I do not argue that Fuller sought to modify extreme Calvinism but point out that Fuller was often more High Calvinist than a number of his friends and foes, including Gill and Huntington. Prof. Harmon ranks the latter two with High Calvinists although they were both Sublapsarians. Fuller grew up in an extreme High-Calvinist, Antinomian and Johnsonian church and pastored it for some time. His Hyper-Calvinistic teaching that the full gospel was for believers only never left him and would have… Full Article
Part One: The scriptures conclude all under sin Sin refers to God’s law alone The word ‘sin’ is a rarity nowadays and like the gospel words ‘holiness’ and ‘righteousness’, might soon disappear from our vocabulary. The reasons is two-fold: ‘sin’ in its traditional meaning is the opposite of holiness and righteousness, theological terms which relate to the Person of God. Thus, there can be no awareness of sin where there is no awareness of our sovereign, absolute and holy God. Where there is no sense of sin, there can be no sense of righteousness. The second reason follows from the first. Our holy God has given us a clear definition of sin in His Word. God’s eternal nature is revealed to us in His… Full Article
Banner of Truth Trust, £11:50 A long hoped-for sign from the Banner of Truth New Divinity, alias New England theology, modified Calvinism radically. Its adherents, termed Edwardeans, took the go-ahead from Jonathan Edwards, hence their nick-name. However, they drew conclusions from Edward’s highly philosophical view of man, that were wildly speculative. This was particularly the case regarding man’s supposed ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ attributes. Joseph Bellamy (1719-90), Samuel Hopkins (1721-1803), Jonathan Edwards Jr. (1745-1801), Nathaniel Emmons (1745-1801) and Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) popularised themselves with such catch-phrases as ‘true religion delineated’; ‘God… Full Article
Writing a hundred years ago, Benjamin Warfield looked on the New Divinity teaching of Jonathan Edwards Jun., Samuel Hopkins and Joseph Bellamy as a lost cause. He felt it had forsaken all traces of Calvinism for Pelagianism, becoming the staple fare of Arminians. He looked upon it as an evangelistic, revivalist movement quite void of a Christian gospel with its rejection of the satisfaction of Christ and the doctrine of imputation and perversion of Edwards Sen.’s philosophical distinction between man’s natural and moral inability. He thought it could only result in creating havoc in the churches. Today, there is a renewed fascination with this school, initially because of its historical association with Jonathan… Full Article
Christ’s Sinless Nature
Oct 5
Posted by George Ella in Letters | No Comments
Sir: Notes & Comments in the Sept.-Oct. issue contained a serious error inconsistent with orthodox teaching on the Incarnation and the human descent of Christ. Christ the man did not withstand sin as God but because He became a man among men and suffered under the law as a man but yet without sin. Christ redeemed us as man, dying vicariously for men. The idea that Christ did not place himself under the law but was always above it as God is an intrinsic part of the Moral Government theory of New Divinity. However, such a mock Incarnation on the part of Christ leaves us with a Christ who failed in His efforts both as God and man to die vicariously for sinners. In God’s faultless plan of salvation, we read ‘as in Adam all… Full Article
Tags: Christ, Incarnation, Mary, New Divinity, Notes & Comments, Sinless