PEARSON.
Pearson’s Exposition of the Creed (1659) is a well-known theological treatise. He implicitly pursues an Anglican course, citing the Fathers in support of his positions; but he nowhere distinctly defines what authority he attaches to them, or, indeed, formally lays down as a principle that they are his guides at all. Pearson must have been moderate in his ecclesiastical views, or he could not have pursued the course he did during the Commonwealth; and his position as Lecturer at St. Clement’s, Eastcheap, and the association into which he would necessarily be brought with his Puritan brethren, might have the effect of widening his sympathies, and of preventing, in his case, those controversial asperities which embitter the writings of extreme Anglicans. In his article on the Church, he refers to its unity, its perpetuity, its holiness, and its Catholicity, meaning apparently by the Church the aggregate of Christian professors, whether they be good or bad.[427] Under the last head, he touches upon the authority of the Church in the following brief remark:—“They call the Church of Christ the Catholic Church, because it teacheth all things which are necessary for a Christian to know, whether they be things in heaven or things in earth, whether they concern the condition of man in this life, or in the life to come. As the Holy Ghost did lead the Apostles into all truth, so did the Apostles leave all truth unto the Church, which teaching all the same, may be well called Catholic from the universality of necessary and saving truths retained in it.” Even this scarcely amounts to an assertion of Church authority in the Anglican sense; it might be explained consistently with Puritan principles, it never would have satisfied Thorndike or Heylyn, or even Bull. To baptism, however, Pearson attributes great efficacy, coupling it, as Heylyn and others do, with the article on Forgiveness of Sins, according to the teaching of the Nicene and other Creeds. Unlike Thorndike, he does not propound any theory of justification in connection with baptism; nor does he, any more than Heylyn, dwell on the subject of justification in any way: he confines himself to the idea of remitting sins, which perhaps, in his opinion, is equivalent to justification. He uses strong expressions in speaking of the Atonement,—referring to “the punishment which Christ, who was our surety, endured,” as “a full satisfaction to the will and justice of God.” “It was a price given to redeem”—something “laid down by way of compensation.” “Although God be said to remit our sins by which we were captivated, yet He is never said to remit the price, without which we had never been redeemed, neither can He be said to have remitted it, because He did require it and receive it.” A Calvinist could scarcely have marked the point more strongly. Pearson also says “that Christ did render God propitious unto us by His blood—that is, His sufferings unto death—who before was offended with us for our sins; and this propitiation amounted to reconciliation, that is, a kindness after wrath. We must conceive that God was angry with mankind before He determined to give our Saviour; we cannot imagine that God, who is essentially just, should not abominate iniquity.” Pearson’s definition of faith is very different from Thorndike’s. It is a habit of the intellectual part of man, and therefore of itself invisible; and to believe is a spiritual act, and consequently “immanent and internal, and known to no man but him that believeth.” We find in Pearson’s exposition none of those peculiarly High Church views in which Thorndike and Heylyn so much delighted; and, what is very remarkable, as far as I can find, he only in a cursory way mentions the Lord’s Supper. Certainly he does not dwell upon it in any part of his treatise.[428]
Pearson’s common sense, mastery of learning, clearness of thought, perspicuity of style, and directness of reasoning, have secured and will retain for him a high place amongst English theological teachers. His orderly arrangement of topics, and his compact and forcible method of expression, render him popular with all students of his school of theology; and there are few points on which they can consult him without finding what they want in a shape convenient for use. Those who differ from him may read him with advantage; and they will discover that, for the most part, his faults are only defects which may be supplied by repairing to other sources of information.
BARROW.
Isaac Barrow devoted long years to the study of mathematics, for which he has acquired high renown; and he travelled in Turkey, and resided twelve months in Constantinople, where he read the whole of Chrysostom’s works near the spot upon which many of his sermons were delivered—a course of reading which must have been of immense service to him as an expounder of Christian morality. His favourite scientific studies left upon his mind a stamp of precision and order, apparent in his writings; and his familiarity with Greek patristic eloquence may be traced in the stately flow of his copious diction. His theology lies close to the boundary line between Anglicanism and the Divinity of the Cambridge school. After holding a mathematical professorship at Cambridge, he devoted the remainder of his life to theology, in which he achieved a reputation equal to that which he had won in the pursuit of science.
In his sermons on the Creed, instead of confining himself, as Pearson and Heylyn have done, to the exposition of Christian truth, he carefully employs himself in constructing defences of the faith. He begins his task with an exposure of the unreasonableness of infidelity, and with an assertion of the perfectly rational nature of belief in the Gospel. He afterwards dwells, at length, upon proofs of the existence of God; upon the Divinity and excellence of the Christian religion, as compared with the impiety and imposture of Paganism and Mahometanism, and the imperfection of Judaism; and upon the evidence that Jesus is the true Messias. Thus Barrow appears as a Christian advocate. He habitually bases his arguments upon Scripture texts, but he also habitually weaves into these arguments threads of reason, so as to commend what he advances to the understanding of his readers, ever avoiding what is mystical, or merely imaginative. Yet he does not neglect the dogmas of revelation, but brings many of them out with a clearness and precision which has been overlooked by some critics. His disquisition upon the nature of faith is as exhaustive as that of any Puritan, and will be found a wearisome piece of reading by some modern students. He dwells much upon the difficulties of faith, and upon the moral virtue involved in overcoming them; and when we compare his opinions with those of Thorndike and Bull, we discover in him a general similarity to them, in connection with shades of difference. In common with Thorndike, he resolutely opposes the idea that faith consists in any belief of our being pardoned, or in any assurance of salvation, or in any persuasion that a true Christian cannot fall from grace. His representations of the virtuousness of evangelical belief are obviously in harmony with that writer’s statements; and he also, in accordance with them, associates faith and the baptismal covenant, saying, “Faith is nothing else but a hearty embracing Christianity, which first exerteth itself by open declaration and avowal in baptism.”[429] Barrow, however, of all men, requires to be judged, not by isolated expressions, but by a comparison of one part of his teaching with another. Turning, then, to the following passage, which is complete in itself, and which I quote as an example of his diffuse and affluent style, we meet with an account of Christian faith, such as would scarcely have satisfied the demands of Thorndike’s baptismal theology:—“By this faith (as to the first and primary sense thereof) is understood the being truly and firmly persuaded in our minds that Jesus was what He professed Himself to be, and what the Apostles testified Him to be, the Messias, by God designed, foretold, and promised to be sent into the world, to redeem, govern, instruct, and save mankind, our Redeemer and Saviour, our Lord and Master, our King and Judge, the great High Priest, and Prophet of God—the being assured of these and all other propositions connexed with these; or, in short, the being thoroughly persuaded of the truth of that Gospel which was revealed and taught by Jesus and His Apostles. That this notion is true, those descriptions of this faith, and phrases expressing it, do sufficiently show; the nature and reason of the thing doth confirm the same, for that such a faith is, in its kind and order, apt and sufficient to promote God’s design of saving us, to render us capable of God’s favour, to purge our hearts, and work that change of mind which is necessary in order to the obtaining God’s favour, and enjoying happiness; to produce that obedience which God requires of us, and without which we cannot be saved: these things are the natural results of such a persuasion concerning those truths; as natural as the desire and pursuit of any good doth arise from the clear apprehension thereof, or as the shunning of any mischief doth follow from the like apprehension; as a persuasion that wealth is to be got thereby makes the merchant to undergo the dangers and pains of a long voyage (verifying that, Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos, Per mare pauperiem fugiens, per saxa, per ignes); as the persuasion that health may thereby be recovered, engages a man not only to take down the most unsavoury potions, but to endure cuttings and burnings (ut valeas, ferrum patieris et ignes); as a persuasion that refreshment is to be found in a place, doth effectually carry the hungry person thither; so a strong persuasion that the Christian religion is true, and the way of obtaining happiness, and of escaping misery, doth naturally produce a subjection of heart and an obedience thereto; and accordingly we see the highest of those effects, which the Gospel offers or requires, are assigned to this faith, as results from it, or adjuncts thereof.”[430]
BARROW.
The strong moral power attributed to faith places Barrow’s description of it in nearly strict coincidence with the teaching of Bishop Bull upon the same subject. Yet from Thorndike, and from other Anglo-Catholic Divines, with exceptions already pointed out, Barrow differs in his definite and sharp distinction between holiness and justification. No Puritan could more precisely mark off the latter from the former. Admitting, he says, that whoever is justified is also endued with some measure of intrinsic righteousness—“avowing willingly that such a righteousness doth ever accompany the justification St. Paul speaketh of—yet that sort of righteousness doth not seem implied by the word justification, according to St. Paul’s intent, in those places where he discourseth about justification by faith, for that such a sense of the word doth not well consist with the drift and efficacy of his reasoning, nor with divers passages in his discourse.”[431] But to the distinction he so clearly makes he attributes less importance than many theologians are wont to do.
BARROW.
Although Barrow does not copiously discuss the doctrine of the Atonement—although he dwells chiefly on the moral effects of Christ’s death—yet he uses very strong expressions as to the effect of our Lord’s sacrifice upon the Divine government, speaking of it as “appeasing that wrath of God which He naturally beareth toward iniquity, and reconciling God to men, who by sin were alienated from Him, by procuring a favourable disposition and intentions of grace toward us.” “Christ died, removing thereby that just hatred and displeasure.” “The non-imputation of our sins is expressed as a singular effect, an instance, an argument of His being in mind reconciled and favourably disposed towards us.”[432]