HerculesCollins.com

In the middle of the eighteenth century the eminent British Particular Baptist theologian John Gill (1697-1771) was visited by Samuel Davies (1723-1761) of the American Colonies. The purpose of the visit was to raise funds for the recently instituted College of New Jersey, which would later become Princeton University. Gill warned Davies not to expect much from the English Calvinistic Baptists as a whole: “in general,” he said, they “were unhappily ignorant of the Importance of learning.” This response by John Gill reveals much about the attitude of eighteenth-century British Particular Baptists on the subject of the education of ministers. What is largely unknown, however, are the factors in the seventeenth century which produced this attitude of apathy.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the views of seventeenth-century British Particular Baptists on the subject of the education of ministers. This purpose will be accomplished by a historical survey of the discussion in print during the seventeenth century beginning with Samuel How’s The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching Without Human Learning first published in 1640 and culminating with The Temple Repair’d written by Hercules Collins in 1702. The thesis will consist of two parts. In the first part, I will attempt to survey in approximately ten thousand words the historical background to the controversy on the subject of the education of ministers among the English dissenters of the seventeenth century, specifically among the Particular Baptists. The second part of the thesis will be a critical edition of the work which concludes the period under consideration for this project, The Temple Repair’d by Hercules Collins.

The first part of the thesis will explore the attitude among seventeenth-century Baptists in regard to the education of ministers. This is an area which has not yet been adequately explored. An exploration of this topic is needed to answer the following questions: Was there only one attitude towards the education of ministers among seventeenth-century Particular Baptists or were there a diversity of opinions? What contemporary circumstances shaped these views? Were the views of Hercules Collins expressed in The Temple Repair’d at odds with the earlier stated position of Samuel How in The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, Without Human Learning?

On a practical level, it is important to note that the debate over the education of ministers still exists on a couple of fronts. I grew up in a tradition that did not value education for ministers. In fact, those ministers which were formally educated in seminaries were looked upon with suspicion. In addition, there is a discussion today upon whether the education of ministers is best done in an academic or ecclesiastical context. It is hoped that by examining an early form of this debate greater clarity will be gained upon the current discussion.

The second part of the thesis will provide an accessible edition of The Temple Repair’d to a new generation for the first time in three hundred years. The Temple Repair’d is a classic manual on preaching which includes practical instructions for both hermeneutics and homiletics. The work filled a void in seventeenth-century Particular Baptist life in relation to the training of a new generation of ministers within the local church. Historically, this work provides rich insights into the state of the ministry among British Particular Baptists at the turn of the eighteenth century. Practically, much of the advice contained in this work is still the content of hermeneutic and homiletic classes today. This is a work that deserves to receive a fresh reading today.

In this section I will outline the methodology that will be used in this thesis to accomplish the stated purpose. As stated above, this purpose will be accomplished in two parts. These two parts will require a separate methodology. Therefore, the methodology outlined below is divided into two parts as well.

Part One
Part one of the thesis will be a historical survey of the controversy regarding the education of ministers among seventeenth century British Particular Baptists. This focus will begin with an examination of the circumstances surrounding the controversy which produced The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning by Samuel How. The publication of this work was the result of a challenge issued to Samuel How by John Goodwin, minister of the church at Coleman street. Goodwin had previously emphasized the necessity of “human learning”for all those who would be preachers. An objection was raised that human learning was not necessary and that Samuel How, who was by trade a cobbler, was an example of the unnecessariness of such learning. Goodwin was then challenged to send a text to Mr. How upon which he would preach to demonstrate his abilities apart from human learning. This was done and the text which was sent was 2 Peter 3:16, “As one that in all his Epistles speakes of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood: which they that are Unlearned and Unstable, wrest, as they doe also the other Scriptures unto their own destruction.” How took the challenge and preached the sermon on the chosen text which, according to a recommendatory epistle of the fifth edition of the published version of this sermon, “John Goodwin heard, and finding it confounded his former thoughts, was therefore greatly offended, and said, ‘Ye have made a calf and danced about it.’” This response from Goodwin caused the friends of How to urge him to preach the sermon again with a view to having it published. Although How consented and preached the sermon again, no one in London would print the sermon because of pressure exerted by Goodwin upon the printers. Consequently, a copy of How’s sermon was sent to Holland where it was printed and the books were then brought to London for distribution. This work went through four other editions with the last edition being published in 1702, ironically the same year in which The Temple Repair’d was published. It was also published by the same printer, William and Joseph Marshall.

In this thesis I will analyze the views of How evidenced in his sermon on the lack of necessity of human learning for the minister. I will also ask (and attempt to answer) the question of whether his views represent the views of other Particular Baptists of his day. Another related question will be raised regarding Samuel How’s association with William Kiffin (1616-1701) who wrote a postscript commending How and his book which appeared in the third, fourth, and fifth editions of The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching. Kiffin was an influential Particular Baptist leader in London who was a signatory of both the 1644 and 1689 London Baptist Confessions of Faith. The connection between Samuel How and William Kiffin will go a long ways toward explaining how widespread the anti-education view was among Baptists in the seventeenth century.

The next area of analysis in part one of the thesis will be the continuation of the above debate in the 1650s through the writings of the Baptist Thomas Collier (d. 1691) and the Presbyerian Thomas Hall (1610-1665). Thomas Hall published The Pulpit Guarded in 1651 as a polemic against lay preaching. This work apparently struck a chord as it resulted in three editions within the first three months of it being published in 1651 and twenty thousand copies were sold during the first two years of its publication. Baptist minister Thomas Collier responded the same year with his The Pulpit Guard Routed in which he responded to Hall’s assertion that minister’s lacking formal education are “defective and lame” like a man who is missing a leg or an arm. In a manner reminiscent of Samuel How’s The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, Without Human Learning, Thomas Collier responded that ministers “should stick to that which is of absolute necessity, the Spirit of Christ.” This debate involves a detailed discussion of ordination, the identity of a true church, and the relation of the church to the civil magistrate. There is a need on my part to study these issues more thoroughly and outline their significance to this debate, which I will do in the thesis to follow. Collier’s response to Hall was followed up with two separate responses in 1652 by John Ferriby and Richard Saunders. The contribution of these works to the debate will also be noted in the thesis.

A final area of analysis will be the role of The Temple Repair’d in the century long debate on the education of ministers. In one sense, the historical survey provided in part one of the thesis provides the background which will underscore the importance of The Temple Repair’d. There seems to have been two extreme positions on the issue of the education of ministers in the seventeenth century. Those supporting one position (like John Goodwin and Thomas Hall) declared formal education “human learning” as absolutely necessary for one to be a minister. Others (like Samuel How and Thomas Collier) stated that no education was necessary, only the enabling of the Holy Spirit. Which side did Hercules Collins take in his work? This is not an easy question to answer. At first glance Samuel How’s The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching appears to be “the grand apology for ignorance,” while Hercules Collins’ The Temple Repair’d “set the tone of Baptist emphasis upon education.” Upon closer inspection these works have much more in common than one might suspect. For example, How does not “hold all Learned Men to be excluded from the Spiritual Meaning of the Word, God forbid”. Instead How argues that the unlearned can know the Word of God, apart from human learning. His position is not as extreme as those who would forbid the unlearned from preaching. In fact, when Hercules Collins writes, “Peter did not mean by unlearned Men, Men who wanted human Learning; for then, as one saith, he must of necessity condemn himself,” he is referring favorably to Samuel How’s own comments on 2 Peter 3:16! Clearly, there are more similarities in Collins and How than is often thought. This topic deserves more study. Perhaps Collins is not refuting How, but certain of his own contemporaries who were using How as an excuse not to study when he wrote: “This doctrine refutes the opinion of those that think it is unlawful to study to declare God’s mind, and will contemptuously speak against it, as if we were to preach by inspiration, as the prophets and apostles of old did.” Collins is clearly responding to some “apology for ignorance”, but, based on the above evidence, it is probably not How’s work itself. Instead Collins seems to be in line with How in decrying the necessity of human learning, but he sees the need for the training of ministers in the Scriptures in the context of the local church. Again, this requires more research which will be explored more fully in the thesis.

A number of other areas will be explored in regard to the development of the thesis. As I am in the early stages of research in these areas I will simply list them here.

1. The stigma associated with Baptist ministers as seen in the anonymous pamphlet Tub-Preachers Overturned.

2. The rise of dissenting academies, such as the academy at Bristol. Were they in the same mindset of How and/or Collins?

3. The discussion by the General Assembly of Particular Baptists in the 1690s in London on the subject of the education of ministers. Where does the Assembly fit in the debate?

Part Two
Part two of the thesis will consist of producing a critical edition of The Temple Repair’d by Hercules Collins. This will involved editing the text to modern standards in spelling and capitalization. This will include but not be limited to the following:

1. The replacing of the ending in words that end in “ck” with “c”, e.g., “publick”.

2. The addition of “e” to the end of words which now have it, e.g., “knowledg”.

3. The addition of missing letters in words indicated by an apostrophe, e.g., “repair’d”.

4. The removal of capitalization on words not normally capitalized today, e.g., “Nature.”

5. Removing the extended us of italics found in works of the era.

The critical edition will also feature explanatory footnotes to explain archaic words. Another feature will be annotations containing historical background information in regard to events and individuals referenced in the work. In addition, bibliographical information regarding references to primary sources used by Collins and secondary literature on topics addressed will be included in the footnotes. It is hoped that this edition will be of use to both the pastor and the historian. The former for the practical and godly advice contained in its pages, the latter for the glimpse that it allows us to see of seventeenth-century British Baptist life.

The monograph that is most specifically related to the topic of this thesis is Henry Foreman’s Ph.D. thesis completed at the University of Leeds titled, “The early Separatists, the Baptists, and Education, 1580-1780 (with special reference of the clergy)” which was completed in 1976. I have yet to secure a copy of this work, but I’m continuing to attempt to do so. Richard Land’s D.Phil. thesis “Doctrinal Controversies of English Particular Baptists (1644-1691) as Illustrated by the Career and Writings of Thomas Collier” which was completed at Oxford in 1979 includes an analysis of the debate on the education of ministers between Thomas Collier and Thomas Hall. Another thesis which is more generally related to the topic is James Renihan’s Ph.D. thesis on “The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675-1705: The Doctrine of the Church in the Second London Baptist Confession as Implemented in the Subscribing Churches” which was completed at Trinity Divinity School in 1997.

Even more general works on seventeenth-century British Baptists include B. R. White’s The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century and Murdina MacDonald’s D.Phil. thesis completed at Oxford in 1982 titled “London Calvinistic Baptists, 1689-1727: Tensions Within a Dissenting Community Under Toleration”. A still more general work which is a survey of four hundred years of Baptist history, yet deals with the issue of the education of ministers in a way that interacts with the primary sources of both How and Collins is Leon McBeth’s Baptist History: Four Centuries of Witness. Other works which are currently deemed to be ancillary to the development of this thesis are listed in the bibliography.

The seventeenth century was a time of rapid development for British Particular Baptists. One of their “growing pains” was in the matter of the education of ministers. Most Baptists in the seventeenth century (there are notable exceptions like Hanserd Knollys) grew up without the opportunity to pursue education in the great universities of England. Those who were educated looked down upon those who were not. In defending themselves against the attacks of the learned, perhaps some Baptists went too far. But most simply asserted that “human learning” was not absolutely necessary for a ministry of the Word. The qualification of absolute necessity applied only to the aid of the Holy Spirit. Some apparently used this emphasis as an excuse to not study. But by the turn of the eighteenth century, Baptist views seem to have moderated as is seen in the writings of Hercules Collins. Collins’ call for a ministry well-equipped in the study of the Word was the result of a lifetime of seeing Baptist churches failing to produce capable leaders. The Temple Repair’d set the trajectory for the next three centuries of Baptist ministers of the gospels. Thus, an analysis of the debate on the issue of the education of ministers in the seventeenth century has continuing relevance today.

Primary Sources

Anonymous. Tub-Preachers Overturned or Independency to be Abandon’d and Abhor’d as Destructive to the Majestracy and Ministery, of the Church and Common-Wealth of England. London: George Lindsay, 1647.

Collier, Thomas. The Pulpit Guard Routed, In Its Twenty Strong-Holds. London: Giles Calvert, 1651.

________. The Font Guard Routed: Or, A brief Answer to a Book written by Thomas Hall, superscribed with this Title, The Font Guarded with 20 Arguments. London: Giles Calvert, 1652.

Collins, Hercules. The Temple Repair’d: or, An Essay to revive the long-neglected Ordinances, of exercising the spiritual Gift of Prophecy for the Edification of the Churches; and of ordaining Ministers duly qualified. London: William and Joseph Marshal, 1702.

Ferriby, John. The Lawful Preacher: Or, a short Discourse: shewing that they only ought to preach who are ordained Ministers. London: William Roybould, 1652.

Hall, Thomas. The Pulpit Guarded with XVII Arguments. London: J. Cottrel, 1651.

________. The Pulpit Guarded with XX Arguments. London: J. Cottrel, 1652.

Hartley, William. The Prerogative Priests Passing Bell. Or Amen to the Rigid Clergy. London: J.M., 1651.

Hayden Roger, ed., The Records of a Church of Christ in Bristol, 1640–1687. Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 1974.

How, Samuel. The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning. Or, A Treatise tending to prove Human Learning, to be no Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God. n.p., 1640.

________. The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning. Or, A Treatise tending to prove Human Learning, to be no Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God. 2nd ed. London, 1644.

________. The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning. Or, A Treatise tending to prove Human Learning, to be no Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God. 3rd ed. London: William Larnar, 1655.

________. The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning. Or, A Treatise tending to prove Human Learning, to be no Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God. 4th ed. London: Thomas Malthus, 1683.

________. The Sufficiency of the Spirit’s Teaching, without Human Learning. Or, A Treatise tending to prove Human Learning, to be no Help to the Spiritual Understanding of the Word of God. 5th ed. London: William and Joseph Marshall, 1702.

Secondary Sources

Boran, Elizabethanne. “Education and Dissemination of the Word: A Baptist Library in the Eighteenth Century” in Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent 1650-1800. ed. by Kevin Herlihy. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998, 114-132.

Cragg, Gerald R. Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957.

Cramp, J. M. Baptist History: From the Foundation of the Christian Church to the Close of the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1869.

Dowley, T. E. “A London Congregation During the Great Persecution: Petty France Particular Baptist Church, 1641-1688.” The Baptist Quarterly XXVII, no. 5 (January 1978): 233-239.

Foreman, Henry. “Baptist Provision for Ministerial Education in the 18th Century.” The Baptist Quarterly XXVII, no. 8 (October 1978): 358-369.

* ________. “The Early Separatists, the Baptists, and Education, 1580-1780 (with special reference of the clergy)”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1976.

Haykin, Michael A. G. Kiffin, Knollys and Keach – Rediscovering Our English Baptist Heritage. Leeds: Reformation Today Trust, 1996.

Howson, Barry H. Erroneous and Schismatical Opinions: the Question of Orthodoxy Regarding the Theology of Hanserd Knollys ( c. 1599-1691). Boston: Brill, 2001.

Ivimey, Joseph. A History of the English Baptists. Vol. II. IV vols. London, 1814.

________. A History of the English Baptists. Vol. III. IV vols. London: B. J. Holdsworth, 1823.

Kevan, Ernest F. London’s Oldest Baptist Church: Wapping 1633—Walthamstow 1933. London: Kingsgate Press, 1933.

Land, Richard D. “Doctrinal Controversies of English Particular Baptists (1644-1691) as Illustrated by the Career and Writings of Thomas Collier”. D. Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1979.

McBeth, H. Leon. The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987.

MacDonald, Murdina D. “London Calvinistic Baptists, 1689-1727: Tensions Within a Dissenting Community Under Toleration”. D. Phil. thesis, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, 1982.

Moon, Norman S. Education for Ministry: Bristol Baptist College, 1679-1979. Bristol: Bristol Baptist College, 1979.

Nuttall, Geoffrey F. “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): The Case of John Norcott,” in Pilgrim Pathways: Essays in Baptist History in Honour of B.R. White. eds. William H. Brackney and Paul S. Fiddes with John H. Y. Briggs. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999.

Parker, Irene. Dissenting Academies in England; Their Rise and Progress and Their Place Among the Educational Systems of the Country. New York: Octagon Books, 1969.

Payne, Ernest A. and Norman S. Moon. Baptists and 1662. London: The Carey Kingsgate Press Limited, 1962.

Renihan, James M. “The Practical Ecclesiology of the English Particular Baptists, 1675-1705: The Doctrine of the Church in the Second London Baptist Confession as Implemented in the Subscribing Churches”. Ph.D. thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1997.

Vandever, Jr., William T. “An Educational History of the English and American Baptists in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”. Ph.D. thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1974.

Watts, Michael R. The Dissenters. Volume 1: From the Reformation to the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.

White, B. R. The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century. London: The Baptist Historical Society, 1983.

Whiting, C. E. Studies in English Puritanism From the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660-1688. New York and Toronto: The MacMillan Company, 1931.

Whitley, W. T. The Baptists of London 1612-1928. London: Kingsgate Press, [1928].

Wilkinson, John T. 1662 – And After. London: The Epworth Press, 1962.

Wilson, Walter. The History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark; including the Lives of their Ministers, From the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time. Vol. II. IV vols. London, 1808.

_______. The History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark; including the Lives of their Ministers, From the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time. Vol. I. IV vols. London, 1808.

_______. The History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark; including the Lives of their Ministers, From the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time. Vol. IV. IV vols. London, 1808.

* denotes the works to which I do not yet have access.