The Sung Theology of the English Particular Baptist Revival

The Sung Theology of the English Particular Baptist Revival
Author: Joseph V. Carmichael
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2020-12-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725270846

Anne Steele (1717–1778) originally wrote her hymns to be sung in the Baptist congregation pastored by her father. The foremost female contemporary of hymn-writing giants Charles Wesley, John Newton, and William Cowper, her hymns are infused with spiritual sensitivity, theological depth, and raw emotion. She eventually published her hymns under the pseudonym, Theodosia, which means “God’s Gift.” She believed God had given her a gift to share. Steele’s work was warmly received in her own day. Pastor and publishing pioneer of the modern English hymnal, John Rippon, included more than fifty of her hymns in the various topical sections of his wildly successful Selection of Hymns. Rippon’s hymnal was popular on both sides of the Atlantic, but was especially influential during the nineteenth-century revival and renewal of English Particular Baptists. This book introduces Steele’s hymns in the context of her life and times and of Rippon’s hymnal. It illustrates that Steele’s approach to hymn-writing is a model of biblical spirituality. Each hymn as printed in Rippon’s hymnal, and thus sung by congregations and used as devotional literature, is considered. The sung theology of these congregations is a gift to the church universal and worth rediscovering in the twenty-first century.

Baptist Theology

Baptist Theology
Author: James Leo Garrett
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 776
Release: 2009
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780881461299

This title offers a comprehensive analysis of Baptist theology. Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history. Acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots (patristic, medieval, and Reformational) of Baptist theology, it examines the Arminian versus Calvinist issues that were first expressed by the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists; that dominated English and American Baptist theology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Helwys and Smyth and from Bunyan and Kiffin to Gill, Fuller, Backus, and Boyce; and, that were quickened by the 'awakenings' and the missionary movement. Concurrently there were the Baptist defense of the Baptist distinctives vis-a-vis the pedobaptist world and the unfolding of a strong Baptist confessional tradition. Then during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the liberal versus evangelical issues became dominant with Hovey, Strong, Rauschenbusch, and Henry in the North and Mullins, Conner, Hobbs, and Criswell in the South even as a distinctive Baptist Landmarkism developed, the discipline of biblical theology was practiced and a structured ecumenism was pursued. Missiology both impacted Baptist theology and took it to all the continents, where it became increasingly indigenous. Conscious that Baptists belong to the free churches and to the believers' churches, a new generation of Baptist theologians at the advent of the twenty-first century appears somewhat more Calvinist than Arminian and decidedly more evangelical than liberal.

"Redeeming Love Proclaim"

Author: Ken R. Manley
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597527742

A leading exponent of the new moderate Calvinism that brought new life to many Baptists, John Rippon (1751-1836) helped unite Baptists during his lifetime. Reared in the West Country and trained at Bristol Academy, Rippon served for over sixty years at the London church where John Gill had been minister. Through his 'A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors', Rippon exerted a powerful influence on Baptist worship and devotional life. Through his Baptist Annual Register (1790-1802), the denomination's first periodical, Rippon recorded the denomination's growing maturity, encouraged a strong missionary commitment, and promoted links between Baptists in Britain and America. With a keen sense of English Protestant history, which he helped preserve, and an active leadership in many Baptist organizations, Rippon helped conserve the heritage of Old Dissent and stimulated the evangelicalism of the New Dissent.

Andrew Fuller's Theology of Revival

Andrew Fuller's Theology of Revival
Author: Ryan Rindels
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725282860

Revival is the arguable heartbeat of evangelical Christianity. Though a theologically diverse and globally diffused phenomenon, evangelicalism originated in a distinctly Calvinistic milieu. Many Puritans in the seventeenth century, “evangelicals before the revivals,” emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit, including the importance of personal conversion. Unlike theologically Arminian proponents of revival such as Charles G. Finney, many Puritans and early evangelicals believed and taught that the absolute sovereignty of God was compatible with human responsibility. Calvinistic Baptists in the early eighteenth century who rejected this tension declined numerically, yet a new generation of pastors led their denomination through this impasse. Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) defended Reformed doctrine in the Particular Baptist tradition while emphasizing the importance of human response in his preaching, writing, and fundraising for the Baptist Missionary Society. The fruit of Fuller’s ministry included growth of churches in England, conversions among people groups in the Global South, and the preservation of Reformed theology in a challenging Enlightenment context.

T&T Clark Companion to Nonconformity

T&T Clark Companion to Nonconformity
Author: Robert Pope
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 760
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1472558308

Protestant Nonconformity, the umbrella term for Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists and Unitarians, belongs specifically to the religious history of England and Wales. Initially the result of both unwillingness to submit to the State's interference in Christian life and a dissatisfaction with the progress of reform in the English Church, Nonconformity has been primarily motivated by theological concern, ecclesial polity, devotion and the nurture of godliness among the members of the church. Alongside such churchly interests, Nonconformity has also made a profound contribution to debates about the role of the State, to family life and education, culture in general, trade and industry, the development of philanthropy and charity, and the development of pacifism. In this volume, for the first time, Nonconformity and the breadth of its activity come under the expert scrutiny of a host of recognised scholars. The result is a detailed and fascinating account of a movement in church history that, while currently in decline, has made an indelible mark on social, political, economic and religious life of the two nations.

Constructing a Theology of Prayer

Constructing a Theology of Prayer
Author: Matthew C. Bryant
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725276402

Constructing a Theology of Prayer: Andrew Fuller's (1754-1815) Belief and Practice of Prayer fills a lacuna in Fuller studies. Bryant's work is the first full treatment of Fuller's theology of prayer, demonstrating the vitality of prayer for Fuller's ministry and theological reflection. Bryant constructs Fuller's theology of prayer through a systematic analysis of six major doctrines: the doctrine of God, the Son, the Spirit, Humanity, the Church, and Last Things. Each chapter explores both how Fuller's doctrine influences his belief and practice of prayer, and how belief and practice of prayer influence doctrine. The study convincingly demonstrates how each major doctrine finds prayer as its corollary. As Fuller states, "Holy practice has a necessary dependence on sacred principle."

Apologetic Works 5

Apologetic Works 5
Author: Nathan A. Finn
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2016-05-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3110418460

Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was the leading Baptist theologian of his era, though his works are just now being made available in a critical edition. Strictures on Sandemanianism is the fourth volume in The Works of Andrew Fuller. In this treatise, Fuller critiqued Sandemanianism, a form of Restorationism that first emerged in Scotland in the eighteenth century and was influencing the Scotch Baptists of Fuller's day. Fuller's biggest concern was the Sandemanian belief that saving faith is merely intellectual assent to the gospel. Fuller believed this "intellectualist" view of faith undermined evangelical spirituality. Strictures on Sandemanianism became a leading evangelical critique of Sandemanian views. This critical edition will introduce scholars to this important work and shed light on evangelical debates about the faith, justification, and sanctification during the latter half of the "long" eighteenth century (ca. 1750 to 1815).

Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845

Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845
Author: Timothy D. Whelan
Publisher: Mercer University Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780881461442

This book offers the student of English Baptist history (1741-1845) access to a remarkable archive of Baptist letters found in the collections of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, of which only a handful have ever been seen before. Not only do these letters add greatly to our understanding of Baptist history during these years, but the biographical footnotes and glossary of names included in the book provide an invaluable resource tool for students who do not have the opportunity to conduct archival research. The most striking aspect of the Baptist correspondence in the Raffles Collection are the seventy-five letters addressed to John Sutcliff (1752-1814), Baptist minister at Olney (1775-1814). This book also provides identifications of more than 850 individuals, including 480 Baptist ministers, missionaries, and laypersons, of which nearly 300 can be found in the biographical glossary at the end of the volume. The remaining individuals are primarily ministers of other denominations, political figures, merchants, and writers, of which approximately ninety can be found in the glossary. No other volume in print provides students of Baptist history with such a resource for biographical information on Baptist ministers, missionaries, and laypersons from this period. The publication of this book also establishes the John Rylands University Library as one of the more significant depositories of Baptist archival materials, especially as related to the workings of the Baptist Missionary Society, within the United Kingdom.

Glory to the Three Eternal

Glory to the Three Eternal
Author: Michael A. G. Haykin
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2019-08-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532666128

This is the first critical study of the writings of the English Particular Baptist Benjamin Beddome (1718–1795), whose evangelical ministry stretched over the last half of the eighteenth century. Best known in the years following his death as a capable hymn writer, he was also a significant doctrinal preacher. John Newton, who had heard such preachers as John Wesley and George Whitefield, considered Beddome one of the finest preachers of his day. The articles in this critical study examine his sermons to delineate Beddome’s view of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, as well as his position on the free offer of the gospel, a central issue among the Particular Baptists of his day. His important contribution to Christian hymnody is also detailed. A must-read for those interested in eighteenth-century evangelical thought.