Why Packer is an Anglican

My ongoing bicycle problems have meant that I have had a little extra time as I walk to and from the hospital and church to listen to talks on my MP3 player, including one entitled Why I am an Anglican, by the octogenerian Dr. Packer (available for download HERE for $3 – HT Justin Moffatt via Michael Jensen). There is much common material HERE. Here are the main points of the talk as I recall it:

Packer is first and foremost a Christian, then a Protestant, then a Calvinist, then a Paedobaptist, then an Anglican. That’s the context in which we need consider the form of church order, and he considers Anglicanism as a tradition which all Christians should feel at home in without shame. He acknowledges that Anglicanism isn’t the only right way of going about things. However, he adopts the principle that the good must never be the enemy of the best, which is why he is an Anglican. Anglicanism can be defined in a number of ways – constitutionally, as it is in the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, what the church actually does, and how the church considers its heritage and where it is going. With all that in mind, he presents seven characteristics of authentic Anglicanism as it is practised in the majority of Anglican churches (the Anglican churches in the old west are very much a minority).

1. It is Biblical

The supreme authority for Anglicans is the Bible. The Articles and the Prayer Book reflect this. Packer doesn’t actually give any quotations, but it’s in the very fabric of the Prayer Book. Article VI., Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation., begins, ‘HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man. Moreover, Article XX., Of the Authority of the Church., states that ‘it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.’ Anglicans interpret the Bible canonically, i.e. using Scripture to interpret Scripture. Packer doesn’t take us here, but Article XX continues, ‘neither may it [the church] so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another.’

2. It is Liturgical

All Anglicans use forms of set prayers. They do not view extempore prayer as inferior (although they did a few generations ago), but the forms in the Prayer Book do serve to make our gatherings glorifying to God and edifying to his people. Cranmer was a liturgical genius. You can’t just say the prayers once and expect to get everything out of it. Every time you come to them, you get something fresh. People fear that repetition makes the liturgy meaningless. Is this so for the Lord’s Prayer? Is this so for the Psalms?

3. It is Pastoral

In terms of the content of the Prayer Book, Anglicanism is Evangelical, that is to say it is gospel-centred. The gospel isn’t just the ABC of salvation, but has implications for the whole of life. See Paul’s letters. But Anglicanism is also evangelistic – Anglicans view themselves placed in the providence of God in their communities to reach out for the gospel.

4. It is Rational

In Anglicanism, whatever problems you have, whatever suggestions or modifications to teaching that come from your reading of Scripture, you will not be beaten with a big censorious stick and drummed out for heresy. What you think is not analysed to make sure you say exactly what the Thirty-Nine Articles say. There will be dialogue and debate. This is wholesome, particularly in the light of the Federal Vision controversy in Presbyterian circles in America, where godly pastor-teachers who are seeking to submit to Scripture, even if that means talking a different language to the language of the Westminster Standards, are being opposed and tried for false teaching.

Moreover, Anglicans consider it their duty to encounter and engage with the culture around them.

5. It is Episcopal

Anglicans have bishops, who not only pastor the pastors in a given area, but are the final port of call when things turn sour between congregations and their ministers. In my own conversation with non-conformist ministers, they find that the members of their church can so often sit in judgment on what the preacher is saying because he in in their direct employ, in a way that doesn’t happen in Anglican circles. Bishops emerged in the second century (or possibly at the end of the first century).

Anglicans, at least if they are in line with the Ordinal, do not adopt the view, which started to creep in during the third century, that bishops guarantee an apostolic succession which is required for valid ministry and without which one’s standing before God, however zealous one is for Biblical truth, is in question. God gives individuals gifts in his church which are then recognized in the congregation and for which the individuals in question are to be formally set apart in some way. Anglicans believe that it is proper for the bishop to discharge that duty.

Despite all the hot air I have blown out over the past couple of years about presbyterian church government on this ‘blog, I think I at last have to concede that there are a number of models of church order presented to us in the Scriptures, with suggestions of an episcopal pattern seen in, for example, the ministry of Titus – ‘This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you’ – Titus 1.5

6. It is Ecumenical

…but not in the bad sense. It it ecumenical in the sense that it is willing to engage with whatever the professing church throughout the world says and receive whatever truth it finds as God’s truth. It does not think of itself as stand-alone, with nothing to learn from anyone else. So the English Reformers learned from Luther in Germany and Calvin in Geneva. I don’t agree with Packer’s approbation of the reception of charismatic insight from the Pentecostal movement among Anglicans, but the principle is there.

7. It is National

Anglican churches don’t see themselves as called out of the communities and countries in which they are located. They see their role as being involved in the communities around them, not just evangelising individuals, but Christianizing (and so humanizing) politics and medicine and literature &c.

No denomination, Packer says, has all these features blended together. Packer concludes with taking questions from the floor. The first is quite a long one, about the state of Anglicanism as it currently is and ministry within it. He argues that Christians are not required to exist as if they are in empty refrigerators – with no warmth and no food – but that it is all right to be an Anglican ‘on loan’ if there are no appropriate Anglican churches within attending distance. However, when one finds Anglicanism with the characteristics noted above, then it can be heartily embraced. There are two un-Anglican streams at the moment – liberalism and formalism. He thinks that the influence of liberal leaders will wane. Authentic Anglicans have the majority and have moral and political clout, and Packer notes that the current liberalism hasn’t stopped increasing numbers of evangelicals going into full-time ministry in the old west. There will be a return to basics. As for ministry within Anglicanism, the question is whether it is possible to continue preaching the gospel in the Anglican church where one finds oneself. In the Church of England, at least, I think one can.

Richard Sibbes on Conformity

A CONSOLATORY LETTER To an afflicted Conscience: full of pious admonitions and Divine Instructions. Written by that famous Divine, Doctor SIBBS: and now published for the common good and edification of the Church. Ecclesiastes vi. 18, Be not thou just overmuch, neither make thyselfe overwise; wherefore shouldest thou be desolate...

But you will say England is not a true Church, and therefore you separate; adhere to the true Church.

I answer, our Church is easily proved to be a true Church of Christ: First, because it hath all the essentialls, necessary to the constitution of a true Church; as sound preaching of the Gospell, right dispensation of the Sacraments, Prayer religiously performed, and evill persons justly punisht (though not in that measure as some criminals and malefactors deserve:) and therefore a true Church.

2. Because it hath begot many spirituall children to the Lord, which for soundnesse of judgement, and holiness of life, are not inferiour to any in other Reformed Churches. Yea, many of the Separation, if ever they were converted, it was here with us: (which a false and adulterous Church communicated.)

But I heare you reply, our Church is corrupted with Ceremonies, and pestered with prophane persons. What then? must we therefore separate for Ceremonies, which many think may be lawfully used. But admit they be evils, must we make a rent in the Church for Ceremonious Rites, for circumstantiall evils? That were a remedy worse than the disease. Besides, had not all the true Churches of Christ their blemishes and deformities, as you may see in seaven Asian Churches? Rev. ii. and iii. And though you may finde some Churches beyond Sea free from Ceremonies, yet notwithstanding they are more corrupt in Preachers, (which is the maine) as in prophanation of the Lord’s day, &c.

As for wicked and prophane Persons amongst us, though we are to labour by all good meanes to purge them out, yet are we not to separate because of this residence with us: for, there will bee a miscellany and mixture in the visible Church, as long as the world endures, as our Saviour shewes by many parables: Matth. xiii. If therefore we should be so overjust as to abandon all Churches for the intermixture of wicked Persons, we must saile to the Antipodes, or rather goe out of the world, as the Apostle speaks… let me admonish you to returne your selfe from these extravagant courses, and submissively to render your self to the sacred communion of this truly Evangelicall Church of England.

- Works (I:cxv-cxvii), Grosart ed. (1862)

This was probably written to Thomas Goodwin D.D. (whose shrine was included in the pilgrimage two brothers and I made this Saturday to the cemetery at Bunhill Fields) who, as a result of the harrassment of Francis White, the Laudian Bishop of Ely, resigned his vicarage (at Holy Trinity, where he was installed after having the cure of souls at St. Andrew’s), lectureship of the same, and fellowship of Catharine Hall, and moved to London where he became the ‘patriarch of Independency’.

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)

Walk on by

Another recent fiery article from the Evangelicals Now is about going to small churches rather than larger ones. It comes as a stinging rebuke to many of us, I think. I can’t help but call to mind a couple whom I heard have moved to Abingdon, which has churches of its own, and yet still come all the way to St. Ebbe’s in Oxford.

The Editor recalls a Christian married couple of whom he knows who had to move out of London and leave their church to go north with the husband’s job. He writes:

Much to the surprise of some of their long-term Christian pals they began attending the little and very local Anglican church in the village to which they had moved. The friends of the couple had concerns. The church was small, the teaching was not heretical but not great, and there was nothing there for their four children.

The husband, however, felt before God that he simply could not drive past one church to go to another, and so instead, in time, approached the vicar, started a Sunday school for their children and hte children of one other family. The church grew a little, and when they had to move three years later they left behind much encouragement.

The Editor continues:

While not a comfortable or ‘prudent’ thing to do, getting involved in a struggling church may be a real mission from the Lord. It can be significant in shaping that church’s future and encouraging others to join. Just a few extra young single people or just one or two families, can make all the difference.

To join a big and thriving church is not always wrong, but it is frequently the easy option. To join a little congregation is not a decision to be taken lightly. It will probably require far more guts, love, resilience and spiritual exertion. But how the devil would love to herd Christians into a few big city centre churches, getting them to travel miles from their communities, and leaving vast tracts of our country with no viable witness for the gospel.

He goes on to give seven reasons to join a little church. The big churches can spare you. The great Bible expositors who attract big congregations are not empire-building but building people to maturity in Christ so that they can have ministries of their own, and there are many works of service to be done in small churches. The numbers of people going along to the big church are so great that they can spare you. I would personally say the same advice applies to people considering apprenticeships and Christian summer work (camps or otherwise). The small churches need you. Many are on the brink of closure and need reinforcing. Just two or three extra servant-hearted Christians may be all that’s needed for things to turn around. Small churches give opportunities to serve. In larger churches, often all the key jobs are filled and one might have a gift that is not really used, perhaps listening and giving advice, or preaching, or being involved with the music. Where one would not get a look in at a big church, one might be precious to a smaller congregation. Small churches can enjoy closer fellowship. The fact the whole church shares its joys and troubles, and understands and prays for one another means that there is a richness of a shared life that is not possible in a large church, even with small groups. Smaller churches will stretch you more as a Christian. It’s easy to feel encouraged standing in a large congregation but it’s more difficult to have faith that God can work when there are so few of you. Love, too, is tested. It is easy in a large church for problems to ester and never be resolved. It is possible simply to avoid one another. This can’t happen in a small church. Things have to be resolved. Small churches offer you a life’s work of real significance. We should as Christians have a deep desire to achieve something for God of value. The writer of the article encourages us to ask, ‘What have I done with my life?’ He writes, “Perhaps you will be able to answer humbly but honestly, ‘I have, under God, been instrumental in keeping the light of Christ shining in an area where otherwise it would have gone out.’” People are saved and the Lord is glorified in large churches as well as small, but one’s contribution means so much more in the smaller church. Small churches offer you the chance to confound the world. There are so many who believe that the church is going to die in the West and every time a small church closes, they are confirmed in that belief. It’s what my family thinks. But if churches didn’t close but instead started growing, perhaps it would get non-Christians thinking again about Christ.

The Editor criticises the worldly criteria he has heard Christians use in selecting a church – a good music group, an impressive and smart building, attractive boys and girls who are suitable marriage material, the appearance of the pastor, the fame of the minister, whether the number of people means one won’t have to do anything too hard. He suggests instead the following:

‘Is the love of Christ shown in the friendliness of the people?’ ‘Is the teaching biblical?’ ‘Is the church seeking to reach out with the gospel?’ Those are much better standards by which to judge a church. But let’s be honest, many small churches do meet those criteria. So why not join?

There’s another recent article which goes hand-in-hand with this and is provocatively entitled Against Church Plants. Again, the editor throws up his hands in frustration at the fact that so often various Christian groups are setting up churches in towns which already have strong gospel churches. Is church-planting in such places as high a priority as seeking to plant where at present there are none? He then considers the situation where new groups come to an area where there is a gospel church in decline, and yet no attempt is made to get alongside that struggling church. It undermines witness and the unity of the church. It gives the message not that Christ is the answer but one’s particular brand of church is the answer. It discourages those in the existing church as the implication is made that the existing church is not worth bothering with. It makes little financial sense – if the small church closes, its building is sold off and often the money is lost in the central finances of the denomination and is never seen again while the new church plant is spending a fortune hiring a school or buying a building. There is also the problem of ’sheep-stealing’, intentional or not.

So if you’re moving to Poole or South Yorkshire, I have a couple of ideas where you might like to go to church…

Dynamite

This is what Vijay Menon apparently said when he was asked what was in his briefcase when stopped by the security guards at some offices in London during the height of the terrorism scare. What was actually in his briefcase was a Bible. The security guards did not think this was funny and he had to spend a couple of hours giving an explanation.

This is not, however, my proper topic in this post. ‘Dynamite’ is also how the wife of the minister of Bethany Evangelical Church described a recent article in the Evangelicals Now entitled “The Road from Sydney to South Yorkshire”. The writer, Julian Mann, affirms his Reformed evangelical stance and he also acknowledges there is much value in what has come out of Sydney, and he has benefitted from it. He does, however, have a number of criticisms. I think he is right, and I give you them here.

Australia

The sort of thing Sydney has said that it feels needs correcting is the excessive emphasis on psychological counselling, too much sick-visiting (‘when I’m sick I don’t want a Bible teacher’), not enough time on growing leaders (‘guard your diary! Spend your time with young Timothys’). Mann realises that he must cherish old ladies, who are as much part of the body of Christ as the young Timothys are and therefore as worthy of the ministers time. Indeed, they can pray more than the young Timothys and they do have relationship networks which offer gospel opportunities. He also notes that he must do funerals well, for funerals ‘are full of non-Christians who need to hear of the love of Christ in the gospel and experience that love in the care taken over funeral ministry to the family they love’. He has learned that he must visit the sick. This actually raises what I think are two important issues. First, in his experience, however sick someone is, they appreciate being read the Bible. Indeed, he recognizes that ‘our job is surely to read the Bible, as well as to expound it’ (cf 1 Timothy 4.13). Secondly, Mann also notes that visiting the sick by a minister sends a clear message that a person is valued when weak and vulnerable as much as when strong and useful. This reflects the grace of the gospel, and to neglect it is, I feel, to degenerate into the kind of behaviour so vigorously condemned by the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11.17-34. Mann has also been warned that he must beware of the dangers of homogenous churchplants. He record the example of a couple in their 20s who were converted through their parish church – having the banns of marriage read and doing a nurture course – but then left for a churchplant in the city. Mann is concerned that ‘these homogenous churchplants can provide a consumer-motivated get-out option for those who will not commit to the diverse people God has called by his grace, warts and all, in the communities in which they live’. Finally Mann has learned that he must beware of presumption in seeing some people as more ’strategic’ than others and this is where his article is most powerful. He declares that his calling is to scatter the seed of the Word and realises that he cannot judge people as to their future influence for the gospel. ‘An old lady who gets fired up for Christ could have much more long-lasting spiritual influence than the university-educated articulate and witty 20-something whom I might find more intellectually stimulating to spend time with. Am I not usurping God’s prerogative if I think I can predict who will have more influence for him?’ He recognises that such judgments ‘can border on idolatry’ (cf 1 Corinthians 1.26-29). Amen.

South Yorkshire

Isaiah 49

Below are the links to the two sermons I preached at Bethany Evangelical Church in Swinton on Sunday 30th December 2007:

Isaiah 49.1-13 (33:36, 7.69MB)
Isaiah 49.14-26 (30:58, 7.09MB)

The Puritans and Music

 

The Puritans were not opposed to music, even in church meetings, when they thought that it had a perfectly proper place in conveying and not obscuring Biblical truths. Psalm-singing quickly developed in Puritan circles. Puritans, like Wycliffe, the Greek church (apparently), Erasmus and some Romanists, did not like music which obscured the sense of the worship. Where there is no meaning, there is no edification, said Calvin (cf. 1 Corinthians 14). What prevented the congregation from understanding the words of their songs or distracted attention from a reverent appreciation of them was to be abolished.

John Northbrooke summarises the Puritan attitude on this point. There is instruction to be gained here generally for contemporary Christian public worship, but also particularly I think amongst students in an evangelical context. There are striking parallels between the attitudes of the Church of Rome and extreme charismatics on this point, to which the following extract is a helpful corrective. I am reminded of Vaughan Roberts’ account in his book True Worship of a Christian Union meeting at which he was engaged to speak, but at which either the singing went on for so long that he had very little time to expound the Scriptures, or at which the leader told him to keep his talk short in order that they could have more singing.

First we must take heed that in music be not put the whole sum and effect of godliness and of the worshipping of God, which among the papists they do almost everywhere think, that they have fully worshipped God when they have long and much sung and piped. Further, we must take heed that in it be not put merit or remission of sins. Thirdly, that singing be not so much used and occupied in the church that there be no time, in a manner, left to preach the Word of God and holy doctrine; whereby it cometh to pass that the people depart out of the church full of music and harmony, but yet hunger-baned and fasting as touching heavenly food on doctrine. Fourthly, that rich and large stipends be not so appointed for musicians that either very little or, in a manner, nothing is provided for the ministers which labor in the word of God. Fifthly, neither may that broken and quavering music be used wherewith the standers-by are so letted that they cannot understand the words, not though they would never so fain. Lastly, we must take heed that in the church nothing be sung without choice, but only those things which are contained in the holy scriptures, or which are by just reason gathered out of them, and do exactly agree with the word of God. John Norbrooke, A Treatise Wherein Dicing, Dancing, etc. Are Reproved, quoted in Knappen, Tudor Puritanism, p. 432

It is worth nothing that this position does not exclude the singing of hymns in addition to Psalms, although the latter was to become the exclusive musical diet of the Puritans.

There was a dislike of singing in parts, and antiphonally, turning religion into gaming, although I happen to think that these are not excluded by criteria along the lines of Northbrooke’s. Moreover, there are examples of part-singing and even anthem-singing in Puritan circles.

Puritans and Asceticism

The Puritans have largely been written off, even amongst evangelicals, not in a small part due to the perception of them as killjoys, a view that despite decades of extant scholarship to the contrary, still prevails widely, as revealed in past conversations with individuals reading for a BA in History here in Oxford (the same individuals who make pronouncements on the Church of England and Thirty-Nine Articles without having ever read them, and who have not read primary Puritan literature – grr!).

Knappen writes:

Part of the modern antipathy to Puritanism results merely from ignorance of its background and internal history. There is a common supposition that, after mankind had enjoyed itself reasonably well for centuries, a misanthropist French-Swiss got the idea of making everybody as miserable as possible and that English Puritanism was one of the results. Happily the progress of scholarship is making this view untenable and substituting a more balanced judgment, which in the natural order of things should eventually correct this misconception. For in a generation or two it should filter into the textbooks, and so into the popular consciousness, in spite of the dramatic talents of Maxwell Anderson, Hollywood, and Denham, against which hares the tortoise historian must now compete. Tudor Puritanism, p. 424-425

Sadly his prophecy has not yet come true.

Knappen demonstrates that an ascetic tradition comes down right through the early Church Fathers and monastacism, as well as in the universities, forcing upon the student the grave conduct befitting his position. While the Reformation swept away monastacism, the latter situation was unaffected. The Swiss asceticism stemmed from Zwingli and Geneva had already been swayed by the influence before Calvin ever arrived.

Knappen continues with a delightful description of the Puritan’s experience:

So much for the one gloomy Frenchman part of the legend. The theory that the average Puritan was opposed to pleasure as such is equally open to correction. As we have seen, he thoroughly enjoyed his religious experience, his “comfortable” Bible reading, his “sweet conferences”, his “pathetic” prayers, his “pleasant” meditations, his zealous and successful activity in his calling, at times even his “cheerful” almsgiving. There was a joie de vivre all through his life, the perfect satisfaction of serving God to the utmost of his ability. In the enthusiastic pursuit of this kind of pleasure the Puritan often interfered with other varieties, just as his worldly contemporaries often wrought havoc with the standing corn in the hunting fields. But it was not from any antipathy to lesser pleasures as such, but only to interference with the attainment of the major objective… Calvin taught that it was lawful to enjoy the good gifts of Providence – prosperity, children, food, and drink. English Puritans joined in the refrain. Christians were not to be Stoics any more than Epicureans, for Paul disputed with them both. They might make use of things indifferent not only for necessity’s sake, but also for “honest delight,” as wine to make the heart glad and oil to make the face shine. The variety of God’s creatures was for man’s enjoyment. Recreation and lawful sport served to refresh both body and mind and were thus not only permitted but enjoined. Tudor Puritanism, pp. 427-428

When the Puritans did teach what might be regarded as asceticism, it was not happiness itself that was under fire, but only such aspects that intefered with the attainment of the greater kind. So Perkins, for example, attacked the fashion of the women of the day because of the way they forced women to be bolt upright, and so could not easily or conveniently do anything but sit or stand. It was the excessive indulgence in lawful pleasures which distracted one’s mind from more important things. Excessive expenditure on food or money dispropotionate to one’s station in life diverted funds from more deserving causes.

One must also recognize the context in which Puritans taught. England, as Geneva before it, was beset with potential enemies of considerable strength. Knappen writes, “It is not altogether surprising that the Puritan of the Armada period also thought it was time to put the toys away.” Tudor Puritanism, p. 429.

“Remember your leaders”

As one of his examples of moderate Puritans who were not at the forefront of the movement’s political campaigns, but who got on with the business of day-to-day ministry, Knappen writes of Richard Greenham. His is a lifetime of ministry to inspire and to imitate, and has much wisdom for us.

Greenham became Rector of Dry Drayton in 1570, close to the university town of Cambridge. He supported Cartwright and he was involved in the classis (proto-presbytery) movement. He was not, however, a controversialist, thinking instead that personal religion was more important. His advice to an audience of Cambridge students is a rebuke to me and I suspect to a number of my peers, that to spend time in controversy at their age was to put the roof on a building before the foundations were laid.

Greenham’s reply to his bishop, Cox, when asked whether it was the conformist or nonconformist who was to blame for the Protestant schism, is worthy of note, and offers some light for the present time. Again there is perhaps a rebuke in Greenham’s words for more conservative evangelicals such as myself on the issue of division:

[It] might be either or neither. For if they loved one another as they ought and would do all good offices each for the other,thereby maintaining love and concord. It lay on neither side; otherwise which party soever makes the rent, the schism it lies upon their score. Tudor Puritanism, p. 382

His humility before the bishop when threatened with losing his living for nonconformity is commendable. He acknowledges himself as a poor countryman and a young scholar, not worthy to dispute with his older superior. He did not wish to reason about the matter because, from his experience, it caused “alienation of affections”. He judged neither the bishop, whose conscience allowed him to use many ceremonies, or other Puritans whose consciences allowed them to subscribe, though they disapproved of certain rites. He simply trusted that his record of having occupied himself in daily proclaiming Christ crucified to himself and parishioners would entitle him to some consideration. If not, he would giveplace to the peace of the church, mourn his sins until it pleased the Lord to use him again or remove him from this vale of tears. He appears not to have been suspended.

Consider his routine. He rose at four, spoke to his people at dawn, each weekday mourning except Saturday. The Thursday service was catechetical, while the rest of his talks were short topical addresses on themes like friendship and affliction. He preached twice on Sundays and catechized before the evening service. He preached vigorously, often left dripping with perspiration. He visited and conferred with his people at their daily work and gained a widespread reputation as a peacemaker, judging in disputes amongst the people of the countryside.

His lifestyle mirrored his doctrine. He lived moderately and gave the rest of the sum of his very good living. He established a fund for poor students at Cambridge. He gave money to the poor whom he saw, as well as the prisoners. During a year of scarcity, he worked out a successful system of co-operative charity. He campaigned when the official size of the bushel was made less.

Greenham is a model of perseverence in spite of no fruit except in perhaps one family. Knappen writes:

Though Greenham lived sermons and though he watered Dry Drayton with his tears and oftener with his prayers and preaching, neither produced a proportionate fruitfulness, and the generality of his parish remained so ignorant and obstinate that it was a matter of general comment. “Greenham had pastures green but sheep full lean,” was the saying. Tudor Puritanism p. 386

Greenham saw fruit elsewhere. Theological students came to him. Others came to him for consolation – he had a gift for comforting wounded consciences. There was no regard to the social status of those who visited him. He was friendly and familiar with them. Twice a day they would gather for devotions. After the Scripture reading, anyone might share some thoughts on the subject although Greenham’s personality dominated it. Servants would also be present at these informal gatherings.

It is also interesting to note that I have a more wholesome namesake in the history of the Christian church. After describing Greenham, Knappen writes:

Space would fail to tell of Chapman and of Parker, and of Culverwel and of Newman, of Evans also and Burton and of the rest who through faith subdued so much of the kingdom. Tudor Puritanism p. 387