Some of the best British
theology is Baptist.
Among John Bunyan's works we
may mention his “Gospel Truths Opened,” though his “Pilgrim's Progress” and
“Holy War” are theological treatises in allegorical form.
Macaulay calls Milton and
Bunyan the two great creative minds of England during the latter part of the
17th century.
John Gill's “Body of
Practical Divinity” shows much ability, although the Rabbinical learning of the
author occasionally displays itself in a curious exegesis, as when on the word
“Abba” he remarks:
“You see that this word
which means 'Father' reads the same whether we read forward or backward; which
suggests that God is the same whichever way we look at him.”
Andrew Fuller's “Letters on
Systematic Divinity” is a brief compend of theology.
His treatises upon special
doctrines are marked by sound judgment and clear insight.
They were the most
influential factor in rescuing the evangelical churches of England from
antinomianism.
They justify the epithets which Robert Hall, one of the greatest of Baptist preachers, gives him: “sagacious,” “luminous,” “powerful.”
On the double sense of Prophecy.
Prophecy is like the German
sentence,—it can be understood only when we have read its last word.
A. J. Gordon, Ministry of
the Spirit, 48—“God's providence is like the Hebrew Bible; we must begin at the
end and read backward, in order to understand it.”
Yet Dr. Gordon seems to
assert that such understanding is possible even before fulfilment:
“Christ did not know the day
of the end when here in his state of humiliation; but he does know now.
He has shown his knowledge
in the Apocalypse, and we have received ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which
God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come
to pass’ (Rev. 1:1).”
A study however of the
multitudinous and conflicting views of the so-called interpreters of prophecy
leads us to prefer to Dr. Gordon's view that of Briggs, Messianic Prophecies,
49—“The first advent is the resolver of all Old Testament prophecy; ... the
second advent will give the key to New Testament prophecy.
It is ‘the Lamb that hath been slain’ (Rev. 5:12) ... who alone opens the sealed book, solves the riddles of time, and resolves the symbols of prophecy.”
Qualified sense of these titles.
...Passages representing
Christ as the Image of God are Col. 1:15—“who is the image of the invisible
God”; 2 Cor. 4:4—“Christ, who is the image of God” (εἰκών); Heb. 1:3—“the very
image of his substance”(χαρακτὴρ τῆς ὑποστάσεως αὐτοῦ); here χαρακτήρ means
“impress,” “counterpart.”
Christ is the perfect image
of God, as men are not.
He therefore has
consciousness and will.
He possesses all the
attributes and powers of God.
The word “Image” suggests
the perfect equality with God which the title “Son” might at first seem to
deny.
The living Image of God
which is equal to himself and is the object of his infinite love can be nothing
less than personal.
As the bachelor can never
satisfy his longing for companionship by lining his room with mirrors which
furnish only a lifeless reflection of himself, so God requires for his love a
personal as well as an infinite object.
The Image is not precisely
the repetition of the original.
The stamp from the seal is
not precisely the reproduction of the seal.
The letters on the seal run
backwards and can be easily read only when the impression is before us.
So Christ is the only
interpretation and revelation of the hidden Godhead.
As only in love do we come
to know the depths of our own being, so it is only in the Son that “God is
love” (1 John 4:8).
Augustus Hopkins Strong, SystematicTheology (Volume 1), The Judson Press (Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, St.
Louis, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Seattle, Toronto), 1907
Photo: Pixabay/GDJ
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