The old bishop of Galloway was highly commended by Spurgeon for his striking clarity and evangelical warmth. Cowper wasn’t exactly a ‘Puritan’ – he took an Episcopal bishopric after years of serving the Scottish Presbyterians. Nevertheless he maintained scripture priority over the sacrament and (expository) preaching as the means by which the Spirit normally conveys faith to believers. For Cowper, the Word, Promises, Sacraments, and Seals can make us no better in this life or the life to come except by receiving the earnest of the Spirit “into our hearts.”

A fine example of Cowper’s talent for doctrinal/practical exposition comes from his treatise: A Defiance to Death (4th ed. 1629). Defiance to death is for the most part a running commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:1-9, stopping at key words and phrases to illustrate the text with biblical and extra-biblical examples. The outset of Cowper’s argument is to address the fear of death and even find comfort in the conclusion that the life of faith finds death to be no more than “translation” and an exchange for the better (dissolution). The certainty of this is grounded in the Word, “And … we know it by the persuasion of faith, which is proper onely to Gods elect children effectually called.” This already sounds like a recipe for tensions and butting heads, so what’s the solution?

Writing on vs. 5, Who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit , Cowper finds the substance of the Apostle’s certainty. No matter how little grace we receive, says Cowper, God shall increase it through the giving of the Spirit. From Eph. 1:13, Acts 8:27 and 10:1, the Sprit leads and directs the Church and her ministers by the grace of the Word:

“Thus we see, how God, who gives the grace, gives it by the ministry of the Word. God hath linked in one chaine all the meanes of salvation, and man should not presse to sunder them: they who call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved: but how shall thy call on him, who on whom they beleeve not? How shat they beleeve but by hearing? How shall they heare, but by preaching? & how shall men preach, except they be sent? I will not so be content with preaching, that I neglect praier, that I despise preaching: for he can never reciece grace from God, who despises the meanes by which it pleases God to give it.” (Cowper, 1629, p. 565)

Walter Brueggemann once said, “When we pray we participate in the ultimate act of humanness as we yield to a power greater than ourselves.” There is a faint echo of Brueggemann’s statement in William Fenner’s (1600 – 1640) treatise on prayer: The Sacrifice of the Faithful … shewing the nature property, and efficacy of Zealous Prayer: Together with … some helps against discouragements in Prayer (1657). Fenner has wowed us with poignant homilies and exegetical acumen on difficult passages while paying close attention to textual variants, grammar and syntax and so on.  But here we have an example of what some might criticize as mere proof-texting: a text at the head of a sermon used to support the minister’s agenda. But as Fenner would say, To err is human but to pray in a season of loss, devastation, and humility requires divine assistance.

Perhaps there is no better place to discuss prevailing prayer than from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Fenner’s treatment of Lam. 3:57 does not gloss a ho-hum exhortation to prayer. If anything, Fenner strips the varnish off his message with a brief historical introduction of the text followed by three key points leading to the doctrine. “This book of Lamentations,” writes Fenner, “doeth plainely shew what miseries and distresses sin is the cause of” within the context of the Babylonian captivity. Fenner suggests that years of national prayer were counted as one (in the day that I called) and that God heard all their prayers (Thou drewest neare in the day). Delitzsch notes this verse, found in Ps. 145:18, is uttered as the experience of all believers. Reyburn and Fry confirm the reading as the verb (qariba) demonstrates a movement closing in the space from the speaker’s perspective. All of which lends itself the doctrine Fenner is handling: that an effectual prayer is an insatiable prayer:

“This is the first and prime thing that the soule looks after, it being the very end of prayer to be heard; it is not with prayer as with Oratory; for in Oratory; a man may use all the perswasive arguments that the wit of man can invent, and speak as cuttingly, and as perswasively as may be, and yet the heart may be so intractable as not to be perswaded; it is not so with prayer … The end of prayer is to prevaile with God … A man that never gotten the end of his prayers, till he hath gotten that he prayed for.” (Fenner, 1657, 266)

No sin so devlish, no sin so rooted, no country, writes Fenner, so devastated that the godly soul does not press God for a reply.

Rudolph Bultmann famously asked, “Is exegesis without presuppositions possible?” Many Biblical scholars since have made clean distinctions between exegesis and eisegesis, sometimes for good reason. Aichele and Phillips (Semenia vols. 69-70) contrast Bultmann’s statement with the discipline of intertextuality: they maintain that the distinction between exegesis/eisegesis is too sharp, incapacitating scholars and ministers who rely on religious texts to express meaning and identify with their authors.

In a sermon on Hebrews 11:5 Thomas Manton (1620-1677) makes a one-to-one correspondence with Enoch’s translation and Christ’s ascension. “In Adam God would give the world a pledge of the fruit of sin, which is death; and in Enoch God would give a pledge of the fruit of holiness; and that is immortality and eternal life.” The proof is Christ’s taking human nature to heaven in the ascension, and leaving us with His Spirit in pledge of the promise (John 8:51). The interpretive question here is: can Manton read  his NT doctrine of the ascension onto the OT texts, Gen. 5:24 and Dan. 7:13?

To prove that heaven will perfect human nature and communion with God Manton cites Dan. 7:13: “One like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him.” Aben Ezra and many rabbinic interpreters take ‘son of man’ to be Israel. But others, both Jewish and Christian alike, take the phrase to represent the Messiah based on extensive OT and NT references, and R. Ezra’s supporting text (vs. 27 cf. 24) is not compelling.  On the other hand it can refer to a ‘congregation’ of human-like figures opposed to the animal-like figures used elsewhere in the apocalyptic text.

Manton’s reading of Dan. 7:13 is striking and unique. With the reference to the Messiah on one hand and the congregation of the faithful on the other, Manton organizes a cluster of NT texts around Dan. 7:13 to cement the ascension of Christ as fact and promise to the believer’s transmission to heaven.

“As soon as the soul departs out of the body you shall be carried by the angels in triumph to Christ. Believer’s have the same entertainment which Christ had. Christ was welcomed to heaven with acclamations (Dan. 7:13). He was ‘brought’ that is, by a train of angels, and there conducted and welcomed [him] to heaven with a Well done, and well suffered for the souls of men! So shall your souls be carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom, Luke 16:22. Why into Abraham’s bosom? Christ himself was not yet ascended … but you shall be carried into Christ’s bosom. Look, as God did as it were take Christ by the hand when he ascended, therefore it is said, Acts 2:33, ‘Being by the right hand of God exalted.’ It principally notes the power of the divine majesty: but it is an allusion to the entertainment we give to a friend or guest we would welcome … so will Christ entertain you.”

Handing out resumes and shuffling investments have two things in common: uncertainty and Ecclesiastes 11:6. John Trapp (1601 – 1669) noted that the only works guaranteed to succeed in this life are pure acts of mercy and kindness. He’s right. But it can be such a frustrating answer to those who have lost 1/3 of retirement or can’t get even one interview. For those of us asking, “What is God doing?” Trapp’s exposition needs attention. Trapp’s concern here is the contrast between the wonder of uncertainty and the comfort of faith against the anxiety and despair of unbelief.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 contrasts two kinds of knowledge: natural phenomena and the knowledge of God. Ancient Israel did not have pediatric science or the technology to predict the weather forecast for a whole week as enjoyed today. The point is not the difference between scientific progress and religious faith. The point Ecclesiastes 11:5 is making is something like, “the more we learn the less we know.” This is especially true when it comes to knowing God. Writing in a post-Hamlet climate Trapp places the progress of his age on par with Qoheleth’s: what a work is man! The microcosm of life in the body is, “and abridgment of the visible world, as the soul is of the invisible.”

Like most Puritans, Trapp was not caught in the headlights of uncertainty. The mystery of life presented in the text does not stop at unknowing but acknowledges trust in God as the antithesis to the works of God’s providence:

“Do thou that which God commandeth, and let things fall out as they will, there is an overruling hand in all for the good of those that love God (Prov. 3:5; Isa. 58:7). The Apostle (2 Cor. 8:2) useth a word for liberality, which properly signifieth simplicity; and this he doth in opposition to that crafty and witty wiliness of the covetous, to defend themselves from the danger, as they take it, of liberality (generously*).”

* Sincerely is likely the meaning of aplotes. See Kittel’s TDNT for a defense of generously.

John Trapp’s (1601 – 1669) commentaries were Spurgeon’s personal treasure. As biblical scholarship progresses the minister and serious student continue to benefit greatly from consulting Trapp’s thought, suggestions and devotional contributions.  For years I waited patiently for a set of Trapp. After finally obtaining one, my dad–equally thrilled at my find–asked to borrow it. Now, having waited so long, I’ve finally re-obtained the set and hope to add Trapp to our project on Puritan exegesis.

Ecclesiastes 11:6 has a peculiar phrase not found elsewhere in the OT: “This or that” (hazeh ʾow-zeh). The labor of sowing seed as a literal representation of agricultural life or figurative of procreation does not contain certainty. We can’t know, says Qoheleth, the intimate details of the work of God, (i.e. we can’t predict the success or failure of our work.) The knowing or not knowing the outcome of one’s industry  in ‘this or that’ is here compared to God’s knowledge. The human perspective is drastically limited: one act or another may succeed, or perhaps both will. There’s reason to diversify.

For Trapp the solution to life’s uncertainty is simple. “At all times be prepared for every good work (Tit. 3:1) … sow mercy in the morning, so it likewise in the evening, as those bountiful Macedonians did, to the shame of those richer but harder Corinthians (2 Co. 8:3; Phil. 4:16).” Nothing is more certain, says Trapp, than the fruits of love’s labor. The advance of blessedness is accompanied by God’s superintendence (Heb. 6:10) even if only one leper in ten returns the favor.

There are two possible meanings to Prov. 29:1. Fenner has explored the “reproving man” (e.g. minister, judge) as one who does not walk a strict course “will be destroyed (judged by God) and that without remedy.” While there are as many good reasons as there are proof-texts to support this reading Fenner takes the passive sense: “a man often reproved…”

Fenner explains, first, the passive and active sense of the Hebrew. His examples include Isa. 53:3, Dan. 9:23, Jer. 15:10, and 1 Kgs 2:26. In these examples the person is not the source of sorrow, desire, strife, or death, but is the one affected by them. Fenner’s exposition moves on, secondly, to prove that the passive sense does not gloat over the human condition or lord over absolute justice. Fenner instead weaves the problem of sin and the mercy of God together in a magnificent way that places all the weight and emphasis on God’s love and mercy:

He saith not, A man shall be destroyed without remedy; but a men when he hath sinned against God, when he hath sinned against God, when he had committed sinne, and not only so, but when he is reproved for his sin, and goeth on. The Lord doth not destroy a man nakedly, but upon consideration of sin (Lam. 3) …

I find Scripture is to be brought as an aggravation of sin, when they sinned against reproof, Hosea 5:1 … As if [God] should say, Though I have been so mercifull, as to shew them the danger of sin, to tell them what would become of their wretched courses; though I have called them to repentance, and have given them warning what would be the issue of these things; yet for all this, for all my mercy, they have gone on in their sinnes, though I have reproved them.

The reasons are, First, because when God reproves a man of sinne, the reproof primarily comes out of love; therefore when he reproved Laodicea, and told her she was luke-warm, he tells her … because I love, I reprove: As many as I love, I rebuke, Rev. 3:19. … Indeed a man should not be too sharp, but first tell his brother in private that he is in an error: for, reproof is a means of grace … it is an argument of love. (Fenner, 1657, 127 – 129)

We have been looking at the exegesis of Puritan William Fenner (1600 – 1640). His method is remarkably straight forward. Fenner takes key passages and develops his message according to the immediate context with occasional support from similar texts. Scripture interprets scripture. We have been comparing his use of the Textus Receptus with the NA27, arguably the standard academic text today (also the LXX & SBH). As our study progresses one thing is clear: Fenner knows his stuff. He is doing more than simply giving doctrinal expositions based on a proof text. He is not making assertions from simple concordance studies. This is not enough to overthrow conventional wisdom that deems pre-modern exegesis quaint and unscientific. But we’re getting there.

The Dutie of Reprovers, and Persons Reproved is a sermon based on Prov. 29:1. This verse can be read two ways, He that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. The other reading is He that reproveth another, and hardeneth… Most everyone including Fenner takes the first reading to be correct. But Fenner presents each reading to his audience as an opportunity to derail hypocrites and Pharisees and defend the Lord who doth not destroy man willingly.

If a minister says Fenner, or any Christian, cannot exhort others in grace, wisdom, compassion, it risks judgment (Rom. 2:1). Admonishing someone else for sin and faults incurs the same guilt and both will face judgment. On the other hand the “wicked” hate reproof and the reprover, Isa. 29:21. Fenner’s diatribe cuts through the hard-hearted tension too common in interpersonal-relationships:

“A man cannot reprove his brother for his sinne, but it is a thousand to one if he cannot: all mens eyes are upon him, and they look strictly and straightly, as if anything in the world would be amisse, they will be sure to mark it, and to make more of it, to make mountains of Mole-hills. When the blind man did but find fault with the Pharisees, and reprove them a little for persecuting of Christ, what say they? Art thou altogether conceived and born in sin, and wilt thou teach us? John 9:34. […] If we mean to reprove another, let us labour to be unblameable, to be Godly and holy, to reform our own wayes … lest God be dishonoured.” (Fenner, 1657, 126)

Luther once said, “There is much divinity in pronouns.” William Fenner might say, “There is distinction in adverbs, there is blessing in adjectives.” This is not exactly the stuff that thunders from the pulpit to the awe of millions. But as they used to say, God still resides in the details.

In The Dutie of Communicants, Fenner asks his congregation to examine the state of their hearts before taking the Lord’s Supper. Fenner has made much of the need for meditation and self-reflection on scripture already. Here at the table it is more serious: examine so. The adverb (houtos) (1 Cor. 11:28) commends the one who has searched his heart to receive the supper. The manner of receiving is as important as the matter received as each are commanded. “We are all racers,” says Fenner, “we run, we must so run that we may obtain, 2 Cor. 9. 29. So pray that we may speed, so hear that we may be converted, so reprove that we may be edified; so behave ourselves in our places and callings, that we may glorifie God.” The Christian’s calling is certain, decided, and assured.

Why is the right manner so important? Only the right manner of doing duties gets the blessing. The blessed of Matt. 24:46 does not say, Whom when his master cometh, he shall find doing, but he shall find so doing. The Textus Receptus (1550 & 1624 eds.) reverse the word order of vs. 46, poiounta houtos whereas the NA27 places houtos first following the traditions of A B C D L … and several minuscules. What is the difference since the adjectival particle poiounta is translated the same either way? With little textual fuss the weight of the problem rests on the attitude and the application:

“Christ when he cometh to judgement, shall find many doing; it may be he will come in prayer time, it may be he will come in the moring, when many thousands shall be at their prayers in their families; it may be he’l come at night when all are at prayers in their houses; it may be he will come on the Sabath, when all the country is at Church, hearing of sermons, he shall finde many thousands doing and praying. But blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he comes, shall find so-praying, so-hearing, so-receiving the sacrament: He shall find many believing, but so believing gets the blessing.”

The great blessing and curse in our time is technology which enables us to work round the clock. Negatively this tends to marginalize time for self-reflection which can tend to depression or create problems in decision making. For Puritans like William Fenner the lack of self-reflection is a deeply rooted spiritual problem that even hinders salvation: it stunts growth in sanctification and loses sight of God’s favor and promises. Last week we saw Peter’s self-reflection melt into repentance and forgiveness. Here we face another difficult passage with grave results.

In The Use and Benefit of Divine Meditation, a sermon on Hag. 1:5, addresses what it means to meditate on life and scripture. Life is full of busyness even for pre-moderns. So it is an essential part of repentance, says Fenner to meditate on sin in light of scripture (e.g. Psalm 119:59; Ex. 38:33; 1 Jh. 2:14). Conversely unbelievers consider their actions materially ; their attention is spent meditating on daily business or pleasure which actually suppresses the conscience, forcing disobedience to God. At length Fenner arrives at Saul’s example in 1 Samuel 13; Saul willfully disobeyed the Word of God and made sacrifice himself rather than wait for Samuel.

Saul forced himself to disobey and perform the sacrifice. The Hebrew verb ’apeq is uncertain. It may be translated I took the risk, I compelled, I restrained (or (2) refrained) myself. The ambiguity in the text is fairly self-evident: Saul felt compelled to disobey, or he had no choice given the uncertainty of the moment.  Fenner cites the Dominican scholar Paginus’ (1471-1541) rendering he confirmed himself to say, “He thrust himself upon doing it” i.e. he went ahead anyway despite God’s command. Having finished the hard part of exegesis all that is left to do is take the passage and apply it to his audience:

God urged [Saul] in his conscience not to do it, yet he would do it: God again whispered to him not to do it, yet he forced himself to do it; as if he should say, I hope I may do it, I have stayed seven days … and a little piece breaks no square: No? God rejected Saul for that venture; God would have forced him by meditation, O no! do it not by no means: [God] made him think, Oh, it is against God’s commandments, I may not do it. Thus God deals with thousands and millions in the world. Be not a drunkard, God flings the meditation into the conscience, yet a drunkard thou wilt be. Be not a drunkard again, a drunkard notwithstanding thou wilt be. Be not again; they force themselves, they will go to the Ale-house. And so of all other sins … Thus they will not meditate, or if they do, they break it off before it comes to any strength or perfection.

Meditation is the first step toward conversion. The depraved heart, says Fenner, does not reflect on original sin or evaluate the true nature of God’s grace. This is the only difference: everyone complains of their guilt and depression but not all go to God for forgiveness. Fenner’s solution for removing guilt and its spiritual paralysis is to aggravate sin by reflecting on its circumstances. It is possible, says Fenner, to realize the full extent and character of sin in ourselves when we examine the circumstances of any given sin. Fenner takes his biblical example from a notoriously sticky passage.

The AV renders Mark 14:72, When he thought thereon, he wept. A brief glance at Metzger’s TC and the NA27s apparatus demonstrates that rendering kai epibalon eklaien is fairly difficult; some manuscripts trade the aorist epiobalon with hezato to harmonize ‘bitter weeping’ with the other Gospels. In short, Mark’s idiomatic phrase does not express ‘burst into tears’ as Luke and Matthew render it plainly. Fenner’s paraphrase he cast all these things one upon another agrees with one very good possibility: when he set his mind to think on the matter, he wept (ALGNT. cf. BDAG). Fenner takes the idiom and works from the immediate paragraph to cast Peter’s uncontrollable weeping into a moving soliloquy:

Wretch that I was, [says Peter,] Christ was my master, and yet I denyed him; such a good master, that he called me before any of my fellow-Apostles, and yet I denyed him; I was ready to sink once, he denyed not me: I was to be damned once, he denyed not my soul, and yet I denyed him; he told me of this sin before hand, that I might take heed of it, and yet I denyed him. I said, I will not commit, nor forsake him, and yet I denyed him: yea, this very night, no longer ago, did I say and say again, I would not deny him, and yet I denyed him; yea, I said, though all others denyed him, yet would not I; and yet worse than all others, I denyed him with a witness before a maid, before a damsel … nay more, all this evill did I, not above five or six strides from my Lord and Saviour: nay more, even then, when if ever I should have stood for him, I should have done it then, when all the world did forsake him. O wretch that I was, I denyed him! [Peter] cast up all these circumstances together, and meditating on them, he went out and wept bitterly. (Fenner, 1657, 21)

David Steinmitz’s article “The Superiority of Pre-modern Exegesis” has me and Nick Batzig thinking. Was there any valid exegesis prior to 1990? We hope so. We are beginning a series of posts dedicated to a consideration of several members of the Westminster Assembly, with regard to their exegesis of various portions of Scripture. The first Puritan we consider is William Fenner.

In A Sermon for Spirituall Mortification, William Fenner (1600 – 1640) urges his listeners, those interested in participating in Christ’s resurrected life, to sever the inner-motives of sin (Col. 3:5). Sin should not be ‘civilized’ or taken as a mere formality. This assumes that sin is something either the human race gradually evolves out of, or youthful defects that die out naturally with age and life experience, contrary to the biblical view of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Formality in religion never applies Christ’s forgiveness of sins to the heart, and never fully appreciates the worship of God either in heaven or on earth.

To illustrate the potentially devastating effects of natural indifference to worship Fenner appeals to the fallen angels in Jude 6. He paraphrases the KJV, They left their first habitation with they flung it [i.e. position/dominion] from them meaning,

As soone as they had sinned against God, and changed their natures, away they went, heaven was no place for them, they thrust themselves out … for having changed their natures, they changed their delights, and therefore to praise and yeeld glory unto God, was death unto them, they being now corrupted through sinne. (XXIX Sermons, 1657: p. 399)

Pride corrupted these heavenly beings so that service and worship to God was something they considered deplorable. Taking his queue from the marginal notes of the Geneva Bible, Augustine as well as Aquinas,[1] Fenner turns the moral onto formal worship: if one truly despises worship, prayer, and fellowship, they will really hate it in the immediate presence of God. Is Fenner’s exegesis correct?

The NA27 says yes. Apolipontas means, ‘to desert, abandon, lose, or, fail to hold onto.’ The angels aspired to higher status than servants of God in heaven, and since the verb is active it means they were not banished but left as deserters (UBS Translators handbook). Fenner’s vivid illustration of the aorist active is right on the money.

Is anyone weary of service to God? asks Fenner, Let him know that he can never endure the Kingdom of Heaven; for if he be weary of little, what will he do when he shall come into a place where there shall be nothing but continual praising of God?

James Grant, over at In Light of the Gospel , has pointed out that 16 years of audio from the National Founder’s Conference are now online. As I looked at the various conference themes this one specifically caught my eye. Beeke has three lectures on the Puritans. Errol Hulse also has several. All you Puritan lovers should enjoy these. I have heard two of these lectures by Beeke at different venues and have found them to be very profitable. Enjoy.

We had the distinct privilege to talk with Rev. Jim O’Brien, pastor of Reedy River PCA and contributor to Feeding on Christ, about the Puritans, their theology and their writings. You can listen to the episode here.

A nice addition to this interview is the Sinclair Ferguson lecture he gave at the dedication of the Puritan Resource Center. You can listen to this lecture here.

David Powlison explores the Puritans and how they can inform our understanding of biblical counseling and the Christian life.

In addition to the Bavinck posts I’ve recently been posting short quotes from William Cowper’s (Bishop of Galloway) commentary Patmos (1623) over at my blog. Cowper’s exposition is very devotional, pastoral, and great for sound bites. Check it out.

Rev. 6:9 “The Altar”

[Christ] must be the altar, because the altar sanctifies the sacrifice. Heb. 9:14, “For he offered himself by his eternal Spirit.”

Here is the link to Timmy Brister’s interveiw with Mark Dever on Richard Sibbes. Dever did his doctoral dissertaion on Sibbes (specifically titled, Richard Sibbes: Puritanism and Calvinism in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England). Its interesting that so many of the best theologians in the church today (Mark Dever, Sinclair Ferguson, Derek Thomas, Carl Trueman, Joseph Pipa, etc.) all did their doctoral studies in Puritan history or theology. We have much to learn from the writings of the 17th century Puritans today that the church has not wanted to learn due to the idea that the Puritans are not culturally relavent. In all my reading of the Puritans there is only a miniscule amount of their writings that are not relavent today. These were men who had fervent love to Christ and because of that they labored to expound and apply His word.

The current edition of Reformation 21′s online magazine is out with two very good articles on the preaching of several Puritans and Luther. Derek Thomas has written a fine article on the preaching of the Puritans that can be found here. And Phil Ryken has written a brief article on Martin Luther’s preaching of the birth narratives that can be found here. Both articles are helpful and both encourage us to go read and reread the works mentioned.