Westminster Conference Papers 2025 Now in print

 

Westminster Conference 2025

So I have spent the last two days at the annual Westminster Conference and thoroughly enjoyed it. We are now well settled inSt Giles Christian Mission, strange as it seemd to be there away from centrl London the first time we did it. We tried something new this year. Normally most of the papers are followed by discussion time but this year on day one we had most of the diiscussion at the end of the day after the three papers had been given. This was only a partial success, among the problems being that speakers tended to produce over long papers, despite their best efforts. We kicked off with Mark Thomas on the Puritans and original sin - a solid and useful paper, quite demanding to listen to. Then Paul Levy took us through Machen's magisterial Virgin Birth of Christ. The third paper was from Donald J MacLean on the temptation of Christ from Thomas Manton but ending with Hodge and Shedd. Jeremy Walker led the discussion but it was hard to focus anywhere.

Day 2 was more traditional with Andy Young on the active obedience of Christ, covering pretty uncharted territory regarding Karh, Piscator et al. We then had a marathon from Sinclair Ferguson on Samuel Rutherford. We closed, in contrast, with a fresh, very lively and brief life of Athansius given by Gavin Kinnaird. Great numbers resnet. We meet again next year, God willing, around the same time.

Westminster Conference 2025

The programme for next year has been announced (the order may change)

1. The Puritans on the temptation of Christ - Donald John McLean

2. The Puritans and the orgin of sin - Mark Thomas

3. The development of the doctrine of active obedience - Andy Young

4. How to delight in Christ with Samuel Rutherford - Sinclair Ferguson

5. Machen and the virgin birth of Christ - Paul Levy

6. Athanasius - Gavin Kinnaird

Do plan to come!

Blog of the Week 6

J Gresham Machen

John Gresham Machen

Nicknamed Das (as in Madchen)

Thought that the liberals were sin'ster

And so started Westminster

There once was a teacher called Machen

He must have been blessed with quite thick skin

When his name they'd abuse

For anti-modernist views

He carried on preaching salvation

This blog seeks to round up material on J Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Theological Seminary. I began it in 2008 after a week studying Machen at the London Seminary. It can be found here. There are about 150 posts there at the moments and getting on for 6000 hits. I probably need to give it a little more attention than I do.

Most popular post on the blog (getting on for 3000 hits) is the one on how to say the man's name. You can find it here.

Machen lecture now available

The lecture I gave on J Gresham Machen on Monday is now available as a pdf here and, for a small cost, from the Library in audio format.

Lecture on Machen at the Evangelical Library

This is to say that on Monday (September 24) I will be giving a lunch time lecture at The Evangelical Library here in London called
Machen’s Wars: aspects of the life of J Gresham Machen

The lecture starts at 1 pm and will be for about 40 minutes with time for questions. Do join us if you can.

The Evangelical Library
5/6 Gateway Mews, Ringway
Bounds Green, London
N11 2UT
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 8362 0868

Machen Stand up comedian etc

Here's a link to my J Gresham Machen blog that you might find worth checking out.

JOC Lectures on Scripture 1

It was my privilege once again today to be among the privileged few at the John Owen Centre in nearby Finchley for lectures this time from fellow blogger Iain D Campbell on the doctrine of Scripture. We began with brief biblical introduction (taking in Psalm 19, John 10:35, 2 Timothy 3:16, etc). We then went on to look at Westminster Theological Seminary and Scripture. We began with Machen (see this Daryl Hart essay via here) moved on to Murray (in the Infallible Word symposium, outline here) and E J Young (Thy Word is Truth). We also looked at Sinclair Ferguson in Harvie Conn's symposium (outline here).

We then turned to Old Princeton beginning with Turretin (whose tome Hodge would have used), passing over Hodge himself and focusing on Warfield, especially his inaugural address at Western in 1881 and his essay with A A Hodge on Inspiration (see here). I notice that several Warfield articles are here. In the afternoon we looked at the opening chapter of the Westminster Confession which, though familiar, was worth going through together its finely balanced statements.

Catch the vision 2

Study questions part 2
4. D Martyn Lloyd-Jones: the recovery of the vision II: The multiplying of his influence (59-74)
IVF: The theologian of the IVF How do the statements at the bottom of p 61 about IVF fit in with earlier statements about it being one way the Reformed vision was being recaptured? Was Lloyd-Jones right to spend so much time on para-church student work? Would we encourage it today?
EMW: The people of the magazine Are campaigns typically Reformed? Why did Lloyd-Jones write on “Evangelical faith” not “Reformed faith”? (p 67) Was all this para church activity an entirely healthy thing? In what sense was there unparallelled liveliness in the witness in Aberystwyth in the sixties? (p 70) Is the significance of Packer's Knowing God underplayed here?
Westminster Fellowship: The pastor's pastor Why is the Westminster Fellowship so poorly attended today? Is there in the Lloyd-Jones story an argument for bishops?

5. Geoffrey Williams: 'the storehouse' (77-89)
Encouraged to read good books/Meeting Lloyd-Jones/The Library moves to London/Library Expansion Does the Library deserve a separate chapter? Again why 'Evangelical' and not Reformed? Is the story told in a rather romantic manner?

6. James I Packer: 'among God's giants' (93-105)
Early life/Student at Oxford What if Packer had come from Lincolnshire not Gloucestershire?
Discovering John Owen Why were the pages of the Owen set uncut?
Puritan Conference Do preachers today teach the greatness of God and the greatness of the soul? Why 'Puritan and Reformed' and not 'Evangelical'?

7. Iain Murray: 'the new dress' (109-125)
Discovering the true Gospel Why have we never heard of William Blatchley and F J Hobbs?
Preparing for the ministry/Discovering the English Reformers/Making history live Why would Lloyd-Jones have had reservations about starting the Banner? Was he right?
Launching the books Why start with Burrowes on Song of Solomon??

8. John Murray: 'the old school piety' (129-146)
Was Scotland different to England and Wales in the fifties because Reformed truths were more often kept alive?
Highland heritage How important is Murray's interesting statement about his father? (p 133)
Studying for the ministry And what do we make of his impression regarding his son? (p 133)
Call to Princeton and Westminster How important is the Machen link?
Reformed resurgence in England/Banner work and the Leicester Conference Wales was not represented at the first Banner Conference – any significance in that? Why did the conference not meet more regularly in the earlier years? Did Lloyd-Jones come more than once, if not then why not?
His contribution What do we make of the list of events here? And does the statement 'before a Puritan reprint had appeared!' make any sense? Does JJM contradict Iain Murray's statement? (p 150) Were the late fifties under Lloyd-Jones really anything like the days of John Knox?

9. Maintaining the vision (149-167)
Is there spontaneity in the events listed? (p 149)
Expecting revival Is revival related to a rediscovery of Calvinistic truths? Has God kept a remnant or raised an army of ambassadors? Have things 'gone wrong'?
A vision fulfilled

1 A leader How does this section square with the warning against man-centredness at the end of it?

2 Abiding armoury What can be done to mine the gold today?

3 Worldwide spread
A vision unfulfilled Is the impression is given that the Carey conference was a bad thing?

1 Full-orbed witness Would Lloyd-Jones have taken this line?

2 Maintaining zeal Was there an expectation of new church life and order?

3 Family Is this last point valid?
Why no mention or hardly any in the book for Francis Schaeffer, John Stott, Dick Lucas, Al Martin and maybe others? What about LTS or WEST and its predecessors? Are there other omissions?
Is a book aiming to do what this one does really possible to do?

This day in history too

Got this here

On September 25, 1929, Westminster Theological Seminary opened in the Witherspoon building in Philadelphia, with an enrollment of fifty students.
In his opening address, "Westminster Theological Seminary: Its Purpose and Plan," J. Gresham Machen set forth the school as the successor to Princeton Seminary, which had been recently reorganized to include modernists on its Board:
[T]hough Princeton is dead, the noble tradition of Princeton is alive. Westminster Seminary will endeavor by God's grace to continue that tradition unimpaired; it will endeavor, not on a foundation of equivocation and compromise, but on an honest foundation of devotion to God's Word, to maintain the same principles that the old Princeton maintained. We believe, first, that the Christian religion, as set forth in the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church, is true; we believe, second, that the Christian religion welcomes and is capable of scholarly defense; and we believe, third, that the Christian religion should be proclaimed without fear or favor, and in clear opposition to whatever opposes it, whether from within or without the church, as the only way of salvation for lost mankind. On that platform, brethren, we stand. Pray that we may be enabled by God's grace to stand firm. Pray that the students who go forth from Westminster Seminary may know Christ as their own Savior and may proclaim to others the gospel of his love.
Though an independent school, Westminster Seminary proved crucial to the founding and development of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Most of the church's ministers have graduated from Westminster, and its founding faculty, all of whom were ministerial members in the OPC, were active and prominent churchmen. In the words of Charles Dennison, the two institutions developed "one of the most amazing relationships in Presbyterian history.”

Heavenly Worldliness

Found this great Machen quote here

In reading through J. Gresham Machen’s Notes on Galatians (p 33), I found this interesting quote. It first appeared in Christianity Today in January 1931. Machen died in 1937. I assume this comment is a product of Machen’s more mature thought:

“In the second place, Christians should by no means adopt a negative attitude toward art, government, science, literature and other achievements of mankind, but should consecrate these things to the service of God. The separateness of the Christian man from the world is not to be manifested, as so many seem to think that it should be manifested, by the presentation to God of only an impoverished man; but it is to be manifested by the presentation to God of all man’s God-given powers developed to the full. That is the higher Christian humanism, a humanism based not upon human pride but upon the solid foundation of the grace of God.”

Also see here

Machen on culture

Came across this nice quotation here

Christianity may be subordinated to culture. That solution really, though to some extent unconsciously, is being favored by a very large and influential portion of the Church today. For the elimination of the supernatural in Christianity—so tremendously common today—really makes Christianity merely natural. Christianity becomes a human product, a mere part of human culture. But as such it is something entirely different from the old Christianity that was based upon a direct revelation from God. Deprived thus of its note of authority, the gospel is no gospel any longer; it is a check for untold millions—but without the signature at the bottom. So in subordinating Christianity to culture we have really destroyed Christianity, and what continues to bear the old name is a counterfeit.

Summer Reading 04

A large chunk of reading time this summer went on J Gresham Machen.

Dr Nichols had us read his own introductory book which I already had and started to re-read but lost somewhere in Wales (had to borrow my father-in-law's copy). From Machen's own works he selected for us to read Christianity and liberalism (online here), some sermons from God Transcendent and some essays from the Selected Shorter Writings edited by Daryl Hart.

The supplementary works were The Modernist Impulse in American Protestantism by William R Hutchison, which I found quite hard going as I was unfamiliar with most of the names in it - and there are lots. It is basically a history of liberalism from the 1880s-1930s and so although a relatively small part deals with Machen it gives important background which I found useful. Much easier to read and more obviously relevant was The Presbyterian Controversy by Bradley J Longfield which looks not only at machen but Bryan, Coffin, McCartney, Erdman and Speer too.

There is quite a lot of Machen online and I have tried to collate what is available here.

I am standing upon the foreshore

I came across this again recently. I was first aware of it when Vernon Higham read it at Dr Lloyd-Jones's funeral in 1981 (see here). He read it from Lorraine Boettner's book Immortality. I can't remember how Boettner introduces it but it appears to be (not by Victor Hugo a some say) but by the Dutch American educator and preacher Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933). Ironically he was one of Machen's early opponents. He refused to listen to Machen in 1923 as he felt his preaching was "bitter, schismatic and unscriptural". That fact puts me off a bit as well as the sentimentality but it is biblical.

I am standing upon the foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to meet each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone.' Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side, and just as able to bear her load of living weights to its place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone,' on that distant shore there are other eyes watching for her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes'.

Machen on Walking

Back in harness after a week of lectures on Machen and I find someone has posted this by Gresham Machen.

“Having the great joy of three weeks of climbing in the Canadian Rockies, I am writing this little article to see whether I cannot help even those readers who cannot climb and cannot go to the Canadian Rockies to get some of the benefits which I am getting here.

Climbing mountains is good, in the first place for the body, and in the second place for the soul.

It is good for the body because of the wholesome buffeting of the body which it brings. To get such buffeting, the “tired American businessman” is wont, I believe, to place himself under the despotic control of some ex-prizefighter until he comes out of the ex-prizefighter’s (very expensive) establishment feeling fit. There are, I suppose, cruel and unusual punchings of the bag and pulling of the chest weights most severe. I shudder when I think of it. Such drudgery will people submit to in order to harden their bodies and make them a little better able to undertake the duties of life. I admire people who thus recognize the fact that a soft body will not do hard work.

But there are even better ways of hardening the body, and one of these is to learn to climb. Let that tired businessman get a good Swiss guide, like the one that I have here; let him be initiated into the mysteries of rock climbing, and he will find that his softness of body will soon disappear. What a thoroughgoing twisting and pulling and bumping the body gets, at every conceivable angle and in every conceivable way, on a rock climb even of moderate difficulty! It is glorious exercise indeed.

Now I know that it is only a few people who can climb. Climbing without expert guides, unless one is oneself a real expert, is highly dangerous; and there are now, I believe, only four mountaineering guides in all of Canada. Since the Canadian Pacific Railway speaks of western Canada as “fifty Switzerlands in one,” that makes just about one guide for every dozen Switzerlands - hardly enough to go around!But the point that I am making is that many of the same benefits as those that are obtained in climbing may be obtained also without climbing and without the expense of guides. They may be secured through that cheapest and simplest of all forms of exercise - the exercise of walking.

I can testify to that from personal experience, for I have been a walker all my life. I do not, indeed, underestimate those comparatively rare occasions when I have been able to climb. They would hardly have justified the expense involved in them if they had brought to me merely the pleasure of the moment, but as a matter of fact when the climbs have been over, the benefit of them has just begun. During a period of nineteen years, when I did no climbing at all, how I used to live over again in memory those glorious days in the Eastern Alps in 1913! How eagerly did I read countless descriptions, in books and Alpine journals, of precipitous mountains of South Tirol! Then in 1932 and 1935 came the crowning joy of standing on the great Zermatt peaks. When I get discouraged I love to think of that unbelievable half hour when, after having climbed the Matterhorn by the Zmutt Ridge, we sat on the Italian summit, with our feet over Italy and our backs to a little wall of summit snow, and let our eyes drink in the marvelous beauty of the scene. What a wonderful help it is in all discouragements, what a blessed gift of God, to be able to bring before the mind’s eye such a vision as that.

But do you know, my friends, a man can have very much that same joy in much simpler ways.

The more I see of the high mountains, the more I love the simple beauty of the woods and hills, and the more I love to walk.

What a very simple amusement walking is! You do not need any elaborate equipment; you just “up and do it” any time you like.

But perhaps you say that as a matter of fact you do not like it. All right, I say; but will you not learn to like it?There are many things that man does not like at first, and yet that he comes to like. A man says, for example, that he cannot see anything at all in golf. It seems to him a very silly game. But then a friend persuades him one day to go out and have a try. He has “beginner’s luck.” He manages just once to hit the ball instead of the earth. To his amazement he watches that ball go. How amazingly far that little pellet will sail when you happen to hit it right! Well, the man understands the fascination at last. He plays golf and talks golf and the rest of his life. He is a hopeless victim of the well-known “hoof and mouth disease.”

So when you say you do not love to walk, I do wish I could just get you to try. I do wish I could persuade you to use the old Ford this summer just to get to the edge of the woods. If you did choose that kind of a holiday, it would not cost you much, shoe-leather being much cheaper than gasoline and rubber tires. And the wholesome exercise you would get, and the close contact with the beauties of nature, would be a wonderful thing “as well for the body as the soul.”
PS I've just set up a Machen blog if you're interested. It's a mainly a list of links. See here.

Machen Week

This week began with Dewi's birthday, which went off well. It's been back to school week for the boys adn for me the week has been dominated by attendance at four and a half days of lectures in the John Owen Centre. Steve Nichols gave us an excellent introduction to J Machen Gresham the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, who run the course with the JOC. Six of us attended (Miguel, San Heung, Mark, Gary and Findlay - all from different nations) - two of us just auditing. It was a real privilege to investigate the background to Machen's life and his writings. Steve is the author of a fine introduction to Machen as well as other books. It was good to benefit fom his wisdom both in and out of the classroom. I had attended his previous lectues on Jonathan Edwards and greatly enjoyed them too. I'd met the others attending before and it was good to renew fellowship with them and, as ever, with the Evesons.

Everything else had to be squeezed into the hours outside the lectures, which included keeping up with e-mails, a pastoral visit, completing the newsletter, making a poster, our Wednesday night meeting (I'd prepared the message beforehand), a meeting about our children's work which needed to be minuted and preparation for and involvement in our Friday night work with children and young people which started yesterday with around 25 coming along (we looked at John 14:6). Preparation for Sunday has been difficult but we're making good progress so far.

Mencken on Machen

I have been looking at J Gresham Machen in connection with some lectures I intend to be at next week. People often refer to H L Mencken's obituary. Originally published in The Baltimore Evening Sun (January 18, 1937), 2nd Section, p 15, it can be found here.

H. L. MENCKEN'S OBITUARY OF MACHEN "Dr. Fundamentalis"

The Rev. J. Gresham Machen, D. D., who died out in North Dakota on New Year's Day, got, on the whole, a bad press while he lived, and even his obituaries did much less than justice to him. To newspaper reporters, as to other antinomians, a combat between Christians over a matter of dogma is essentially a comic affair, and in consequence Dr. Machen's heroic struggles to save Calvinism in the Republic were usually depicted in ribald, or, at all events, in somewhat skeptical terms. The generality of readers, I suppose, gathered thereby the notion that he was simply another Fundamentalist on the order of William Jennings Bryan and the simian faithful of Appalachia. But he was actually a man of great learning, and, what is more, of sharp intelligence.

What caused him to quit the Princeton Theological Seminary and found a seminary of his own was his complete inability, as a theologian, to square the disingenuous evasions of Modernism with the fundamentals of Christian doctrine. He saw clearly that the only effects that could follow diluting and polluting Christianity in the Modernist manner would be its complete abandonment and ruin. Either it was true or it was not true. If, as he believed, it was true, then there could be no compromise with persons who sought to whittle away its essential postulates, however respectable their motives.

Thus he fell out with the reformers who have been trying, in late years, to convert the Presbyterian Church into a kind of literary and social club, devoted vaguely to good works. Most of the other Protestant churches have gone the same way, but Dr. Machen's attention, as a Presbyterian, was naturally concentrated upon his own connection. His one and only purpose was to hold it [the Church] resolutely to what he conceived to be the true faith. When that enterprise met with opposition he fought vigorously, and though he lost in the end and was forced out of Princeton it must be manifest that he marched off to Philadelphia with all the honors of war.

II

My interest in Dr. Machen while he lived, though it was large, was not personal, for I never had the honor of meeting him. Moreover, the doctrine that he preached seemed to me, and still seems to me, to be excessively dubious. I stand much more chance of being converted to spiritualism, to Christian Science or even to the New Deal than to Calvinism, which occupies a place, in my cabinet of private horrors, but little removed from that of cannibalism. But Dr. Machen had the same clear right to believe in it that I have to disbelieve in it, and though I could not yield to his reasoning I could at least admire, and did greatly admire, his remarkable clarity and cogency as an apologist, allowing him his primary assumptions.

These assumptions were also made, at least in theory, by his opponents, and thereby he had them by the ear. Claiming to be Christians as he was, and of the Calvinish persuasion, they endeavored fatuously to get rid of all the inescapable implications of their position. On the one hand they sought to retain membership in the fellowship of the faithful, but on the other hand they presumed to repeal and reenact with amendments the body of doctrine on which that fellowship rested. In particular, they essayed to overhaul the scriptural authority which lay at the bottom of the whole matter, retaining what coincided with their private notions and rejecting whatever upset them.

Upon this contumacy Dr. Machen fell with loud shouts of alarm. He denied absolutely that anyone had a right to revise and sophisticate Holy Writ. Either it was the Word of God or it was not the Word of God, and if it was, then it was equally authoritative in all its details, and had to be accepted or rejected as a whole. Anyone was free to reject it, but no one was free to mutilate it or to read things into it that were not there. Thus the issue with the Modernists was clearly joined, and Dr. Machen argued them quite out of court, and sent them scurrying back to their literary and sociological Kaffeeklatsche. His operations, to be sure, did not prove that Holy Writ was infallible either as history or as theology, but they at least disposed of those who proposed to read it as they might read a newspaper, believing what they chose and rejecting what they chose.

III

In his own position there was never the least shadow of inconsistency. When the Prohibition imbecility fell upon the country, and a multitude of theological quacks, including not a few eminent Presbyterians, sought to read support for it into the New Testament, he attacked them with great vigor, and routed them easily. He not only proved that there was nothing in the teachings of Jesus to support so monstrous a folly; he proved abundantly that the known teachings of Jesus were unalterably against it. And having set forth that proof, he refused, as a convinced and honest Christian, to have anything to do with the dry jehad.

This rebellion against a craze that now seems so incredible and so far away was not the chief cause of his break with his ecclesiastical superiors, but it was probably responsible for a large part of their extraordinary dudgeon against him. The Presbyterian Church, like the other evangelical churches, was taken for a dizzy ride by Prohibition. Led into the heresy by fanatics of low mental visibility, it presently found itself cheek by jowl with all sorts of criminals, and fast losing the respect of sensible people. Its bigwigs thus became extremely jumpy on the subject, and resented bitterly every exposure of their lamentable folly.

The fantastic William Jennings Bryan, in his day the country's most distinguished Presbyterian layman, was against Dr. Machen on the issue of Prohibition but with him on the issue of Modernism. But Bryan's support, of course, was of little value or consolation to so intelligent a man. Bryan was a Fundamentalist of the Tennessee or barnyard school. His theological ideas were those of a somewhat backward child of 8, and his defense of Holy Writ at Dayton during the Scopes trial was so ignorant and stupid that it must have given Dr. Machen a great deal of pain. Dr. Machen himself was to Bryan as the Matterhorn is to a wart. His Biblical studies had been wide and deep, and he was familiar with the almost interminable literature of the subject. Moreover, he was an adept theologian, and had a wealth of professional knowledge to support his ideas. Bryan could only bawl.

IV

It is my belief, as a friendly neutral in all such high and ghostly matters, that the body of doctrine known as Modernism is completely incompatible, not only with anything rationally describable as Christianity, but also with anything deserving to pass as religion in general. Religion, if it is to retain any genuine significance, can never be reduced to a series of sweet attitudes, possible to anyone not actually in jail for felony. It is, on the contrary, a corpus of powerful and profound convictions, many of them not open to logical analysis. Its inherent improbabilities are not sources of weakness to it, but of strength. It is potent in a man in proportion as he is willing to reject all overt evidences, and accept its fundamental postulates, however unprovable they may be by secular means, as massive and incontrovertible facts.

These postulates, at least in the Western world, have been challenged in recent years on many grounds, and in consequence there has been a considerable decline in religious belief. There was a time, two or three centuries ago, when the overwhelming majority of educated men were believers, but that is apparently true no longer. Indeed, it is my impression that at least two-thirds of them are now frank skeptics. But it is one thing to reject religion altogether, and quite another thing to try to save it by pumping out of it all its essential substance, leaving it in the equivocal position of a sort of pseudo-science, comparable to graphology, "education," or osteopathy.

That, it seems to me, is what the Modernists have done, no doubt with the best intentions in the world. They have tried to get rid of all the logical difficulties of religion, and yet preserve a generally pious cast of mind. It is a vain enterprise. What they have left, once they have achieved their imprudent scavenging, is hardly more than a row of hollow platitudes, as empty as [of] psychological force and effect as so many nursery rhymes. They may be good people and they may even be contented and happy, but they are no more religious than Dr. Einstein. Religion is something else again - in Henrik Ibsen's phrase, something far more deep-down-diving and mudupbringing, Dr. Machen tried to impress that obvious fact upon his fellow adherents of the Geneva Mohammed. He failed - but he was undoubtedly right.

Archive 3 Desert Island Books

Some while ago I sent my very good friend Darby Gray to a desert island to see what books he might like to read there. The Bible, Calvin's works, Matthew Henry's commentary and Pilgrim's Progress were already provided he just had to add five more. He wrote

Narrowing down to just five books is no easy task. One is thankful to have the Bunyan, Henry, and Calvin available. In thinking about this, a number of great favourites have had to be by-passed, such as Spiritual Disciplines by Don Whitney, a book I have very much enjoyed more than once.
1. Like many other castaways I am keen to take a biography with me. Reading the lives of others is both pleasant and instructive. The two volumes by Iain Murray on Dr. Lloyd-Jones instantly spring to mind as does Roland Bainton's volume on Martin Luther. Dallimore's two volumes on Whitefield or even his single one on Spurgeon are attractive possibilities too. Dallimore and Murray are superb biographers. The latter's large work on Edwards and his smaller one on John Murray are also contenders. However, I think I will plump for Ned B. Stonehouse's wonderful Biographical Memoir of J. Gresham Machen. There is a slight degree of hagiography involved here no doubt and much of the attraction is the atmosphere the book breathes - leisurely, verbose, refined, from a bygone age. Machen's life was no easy one, however, as he struggled with the attractions of German liberalism, served in France in the Great War and defended the faith in face of a vicious onslaught from modernism, being instrumental in founding Westminster Theological Seminary. His attitude to fundamentalism, temperance, Billy Sunday, church relations, the Sabbath, etc, are interestingly revealed. It is hard to think of a more moving or a more challenging 20th century biography.
2. The 'Princeton' atmosphere is so fine that I really would like more than just one smattering for my desert island reading. I did think of trying the trick that others have used and ask for a set of works, namely 10 volumes of B B Warfield. However, some of that would involve hard work on my part and so I will instead take the easy option and go for the next best thing to biography, Church history, and order the two volumes by David B. Calhoun on old Princeton Seminary, Faith and Learning 1812-1868 and The Majestic Testimony 1869-1929. Partly it is the writing but chiefly it is the subject matter of these lovely descriptions of experiential Calvinism that hooks me. From log college to premier university, the story is a fascinating one on many fronts. The glimpses of the Alexanders, the Hodges, Machen, Warfield, as well as a host of lesser known men, is fascinating. The persistent re-emergence of vital godliness amid thoroughgoing and painstaking theology is no small part of the attraction that the books hold.
The one snag with such a book would be the references to other books just out of reach. There is an interesting description, for instance, of J A Alexander beavering away in a New York hotel during the summer months on his commentaries on Psalms, Acts, and Mark, lost deep in thought or getting frustrated and breaking for a half an hour of Dickens or a walk in the streets. 'Well, this is the most delightful and exciting occupation I can conceive of,' he said, 'it is better than any novel that I ever read.'
3. At the risk of wallowing and basking even more in the glory of old Princeton and Westminister let me add a third less obvious choice. If I wanted another obvious one I would have gone for J W Alexander's Thoughts on Preaching. However, I want something doctrinal. I know little of the late Edwin H Palmer except that he was a Christian Reformed pastor, a lecturer at Westminister Seminary and executive secretary of the committee that produced the NIV Bible. The same clarity he brought to that project is found in the two books he authored, one a study guide on The Five points of Calvinism and the other (my choice) on The Holy Spirit, His Person and Ministry. Here are 16 clear, well set-out, warm-hearted, simple studies that it would be a joy to re-read and to study again.
4. My final two choices would both be by Puritans. I notice too that like two out of my last three choices these have both been published or republished (these two as Puritan paperbacks) by the Banner of Truth Trust. How thankful we ought to be to God for the Trust's continued commitment to the Reformed faith.
First, I mention John Flavel's Mystery of Providence (as it is known). I will never forget reading it for the first time and being introduced to the whole idea of providence. It led to my seeing things and discovering things about God's goodness that I never would have seen otherwise. Originally published in 1678 there is not a book like it for opening up the subject of God's providence. What a joy it would be to contemplate, even if banished to a desert island, the goodness of God revealed in providence. The book is in three parts. Firstly it deals with the evidence for Providence; then the duty, method, and advantages of meditating on it; and finally the practical implications and problems and the advantages of keeping records.
5. My final choice was written just over 25 years earlier. Another Puritan work, Thomas Brook's Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices was first published in 1652. The very title teaches a lesson and the contents pages themselves contain more lessons than many books produced since, for all their boasts. I believe he lists some 41 devices and over 200 remedies. Obviously time has moved on and written today such a book would no doubt have different things to say, but as a manual for the daily fight with Satan (from which a desert island would offer no rest) nothing can beat it. Perhaps the section warning against the false inferences from the cross actings of Providence would begin to come alive on a lone desert island. Brooks would help me to see that many things contrary to our desires are not contrary to our good and that God's hand against me does not mean his love and heart are not set on me. He would help me to see that such a cross providence would do me good (no doubt through reading these books) and help me on my way to heaven.

This article originally appeared in The Evangelical Library Bulletin, Banner of Truth Magazine and elsewhere.

Jaywalking

Jaywalking has been in the news. I must admit that when I first came across the word many years back I didn't know what it meant.

An American somewhere on the net gives a definition: For those of you from across the pond, "jaywalking" is crossing a street outside the lines of a crosswalk or when the light in the direction you are heading is red. (I know, what's a crosswalk? A place where you cross I guess). A British historian at a conference in Atlanta has got himself in the news by jaywalking. See story eg here. See pictures here.

I first heard the word when reading about the great J Gresham Machen, theologian and founder of Westminster Seminary who opposed the imposition of laws against it in Philadelphia. This paragraph from an article by D G Hart here tells you all you need to know:

Machen also expressed libertarian convictions when he spoke out­writing letters to local newspapers and testifying before the city council­ against Philadelphia's jaywalking laws. While he hated to see people taking foolish chances on the street and believed that outrageous and unreasonable behavior by pedestrians which obstructed traffic should result in fines, Machen was "dead opposed to subjecting a whole city, because of these comparatively few incautious people to a treadmill regime like that which prevails in Western cities." Such laws prevented people from the "best and simplest pleasure a man can have," namely, walking, and encouraged drivers to think of city streets as highways which should remain free and clear of pedestrians.

Machen was also against prohibition. For more on him see this wikipedia article. Also see here.