A Book Review from Books At A Glance
by Matthew B. Tabke
We tend to experience a degree of infighting in the modern Evangelical world concerning the definition of the word “reformed.” Some take this to refer to a Calvinistic soteriology. Others are convinced that reformed theology is equivalent to Covenant Theology. Some within the Covenant Theology group suggest that a person is not truly reformed unless they practice paedo-baptism. Still others have a far more blanket definition and consider a person reformed if they abide by the five solas of the Reformation. In a technical sense, all Protestants are theological children of the Reformation and thus might be considered reformed merely because they are not Catholic or Orthodox. All this creates some degree of division when considering what it means to be reformed.
Among the broad array of Baptists, many churches and pastors would fit under one or more of the perspectives mentioned above. Personally, I view one as “reformed” if they adhere to Covenant Theology. I do not make this definition absolute in any sense, but it will prove helpful when discussing John Gill and his monumental Baptist systematic theology, A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity. John Gill was part of a group known as “Particular Baptists” that developed out of the Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. The phrase “Particular Baptist” appears to have transformed into the phrase “Reformed Baptist” or “confessional Baptist” in the modern era. It seems as well that the modern Reformed Baptist movement is taking the shape of a recovery rather than an actual new movement, though some would disagree with this suggestion. As such, when speaking about reformed, confessional, or particular Baptists, one must generally agree on two aspects of this movement: they are confessional in that they hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and therefore they hold to Covenant Theology. The particularity in question, as indicated by the adjective “particular,” refers to a view of the atonement; Particular Baptists adhere to the TULIP of Calvinism and therefore agree upon a limited atonement. This “particular” perspective does not necessarily imply that one adheres to double predestination, but rather views the atonement as exclusively accomplished for the elect of God. This is what differentiates the Particular Baptist from the other historical category, the “General Baptists.” All this precursory information, I believe, is necessary for understanding the review below, given that one should always make some attempt to be aware of the perspectives an author holds as well as the content they produce. John Gill should be considered a Particular Baptist and the work under review is his systematic theology (A Body of Divinity), coupled with his understanding church order (A Body of Practical Divinity), written from that perspective.
Now before beginning a consideration of the content of Gill’s work, a few words must be said about the physical nature of this volume. This title is available from Baptist Standard Bearer (BSB) in hardcover or paperback. I received the hardcover copy from BSB which is part of their “Baptist Faith Series”; the paperback is not currently available on their website. The work is a clothbound hardcover and appears to be smyth-sewn with good paper. According to the publishers, the work is a reprint of the original with very few alterations to the original text of Gill’s work, though it is not a facsimile. The title runs a steep $74.25 on the BSB website, but some used copies are available on various sites for a cheaper price. While the book is made of high-quality materials, the text of the work leaves something to be desired. The printing occasionally has marks that look like handwritten blots and contains several words where it appears the page did not fully receive the printer’s impression. Particularly difficult for the modern reader is the appearance of Greek words. While the Hebrew is generally legible, a modern reader may struggle with some of the Greek vocabulary for two reasons: the printing is difficult to read at times, and it uses the older form of academic Greek lettering. A modern reader comfortable with the NA28, Tyndale Greek Testament, or USB 5th edition may have difficulty identifying some of the letters given that they were written with slight variations in the past era. This information is all relevant for one basic reason: this printing from BSB is the only physical copy of Gill’s work currently available on the market. Though it appears that Particular Baptist Heritage Books intends to release a printing of the work in volumes four and five of their Works of John Gill series, these volumes have not yet been released. I would caution one from being too skeptical here of the comments I’ve made concerning the printing, for the text is highly legible for the most part and e-book versions are available on monergism.com, and ccel.org for free as well as Logos for purchase, where the text has none of the frailties mentioned above. As such, if one desires to purchase a physical copy of Gill’s work, needing to understand a Greek word for scholarly purposes or otherwise and finds themselves unable to decipher the printed copy, there are electronic copies available which they can check to ensure they are accurate in their interpretation of Gill. Particularly for scholarly purposes, one will want to obtain this volume if they need to make use of the many footnotes which are absent in the free copies of the text.
When considering the content of the work itself, we must start with the author who is given a glowing memoir in the first pages of this volume. John Gill was the successor of Benjamin Keach who personally contributed to the 1689 London Baptist Confession and the predecessor of Charles Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle which was called by different names in the past. The memoir outlines Gill’s conversion at the age of 12 and impressive education noting that by nine years old, he had read a plethora of classic books which serious modern readers are rarely exposed to until later in life such as the Targums, Mishnah, Virgil, Herodotus, and the early church fathers. Gill acquired skills in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew very early in life and has been commended as one of the top Hebrew scholars of his era by Charles Spurgeon. He was selected to pastor what would become the Metropolitan Tabernacle and ordained in 1720. Gill would continue there for the remainder of his career. Throughout the course of his career, he wrote numerous works with some of the most monumental being An Exposition of the Old and New Testament and the present work under review. Given that such is the case, it is right to recognize that Gill was at heart an expositor who attended to every verse in the Bible with considerable thought. While there are many more aspects of this memoir that could be drawn out, it is important for us to step back and offer a singular critique. There are very few if any of Gill’s shortcomings mentioned. One would expect such as a preface to the work that is considered the “crown” of all Gill’s other work (xxiv). Nonetheless, the reader should be aware that this is not an entire history of Gill, but a praise offered to preface with warm affection, one of the most significant Baptist systematic theologies in history. The memoir also appears as anonymous and thus we are left in the dark about who it is offering such high praise to Gill.
The work of Gill contains an introduction written by him before dividing into two major parts: a body of doctrinal divinity, and a body of practical divinity. According to Gill’s introduction, doctrine must be treated first, then practice. He defends the notion that other words must be used to describe the content of the Scriptures and offers a consideration of the words “theology,” “divinity,” and other terms. Gill is extremely comfortable using the myriad ancient Jewish writings such as the Targums and Talmud to inform his understanding of the Scriptures which is a somewhat unique facet of his scholarship. Though I would not consider myself an expert regarding systematic theology, in those that I have encountered I rarely find such comfortable use of ancient Hebrew documents in these works with many appealing to Greek and Western thought far more frequently. There are many other fascinating aspects to this introduction such as Gill’s discussion of the anticipation of Christ in the promises of Abraham, his thoughts on natural theology and the intrinsic knowledge of God Adam had at his creation, his mention of ancient theological schools in the Scriptures and Targums, and his discussion of the concept of revelation and theology among non-believing Jews and pagans. However, there is a final aspect which I think is incredibly pertinent to a particular discussion. Gill offers a short history of revelation in this introduction, stretching from the time of Adam through the whole Old Testament period into the intertestamental period and New Testament era, and finally up through church history to Gill’s day. I mention this because aside from the details pertaining to the intertestamental period and church history, Gill has essentially included a form of evangelical biblical theology before J. P. Gabler’s distinction in 1787 and over 150 years before Vos would become the “father of reformed biblical theology.” In my view, the inclusion of this material is pertinent because modern scholarship is only just warming up to the idea that biblical theology as a practice has existed long before the modern era. While it is true that Gill is an Evangelical theologian in the era just previous to the modern era, he is still practicing a discipline that can be frequently seen through the Reformation, Medieval, Early Church, and Biblical eras if one has eyes to see it. It is true that the distinctions between disciplines break down the further back one reads, but we ought not think there were no distinctions whatsoever in past authors’ minds. Gill clearly understands that the history of revelation is not the same thing as a systematic theological writing, and I believe we ought to take this into account when considering the various disciplines of theology from both a modern and historical standpoint.
Now it is of course next to impossible to give serious consideration to the various perspectives an author holds in a work of this size in a short book review. Therefore, I will discuss a few interesting portions I read after mentioning what the general contents of the doctrinal and practical sections contain. Gill lays out his doctrinal work in a manner like other systematic theologies even of our day with discussions on the following subjects: God, the acts of God, the eternal works of God, the acts of grace, the grace of Christ, the blessings of grace, and the final state. In Gill’s discussion of revelation, he helpfully draws attention to the fact that there are words in the Scriptures that are words from liars (such as satan) that are still inspired and that some of the Word of God does not come from God’s mouth (12). Also, in reference to revelation, he has a distinct understanding that translations such as the Vulgate or the English versions of the Scriptures are not to be considered inspired. I think the second of these ideas is helpful for combating any concept that the Scriptures simply dropped from heaven as well as demonstrating that even the recipients of the King James Bible did not consider the translation as some KJV-onlyists do today. It appears in fact that as much affinity as Gill perhaps had for a certain translation, the scholarship of his day was not so naïve to think that the KJV was perfect in its depiction of the original languages into English. This may seem like a moot point, but Mark Ward has just recently written a chapter for a forthcoming volume titled The Authority of the Septuagint arguing against a few scholars (one of whom is faculty at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary) who hold to a concept of Confessional Bibliology which considers the Textus Receptus to be the pure text of the New Testament. Gill is helpful in demonstrating the concept that Christian scholarship throughout history has not considered any translation to be uniquely inspired, but that inspiration pertains to the original languages. This is not a perfect correction by any means, for Gill does not engage heavily in this section with the discipline of textual criticism, but nonetheless it is clear that he did not believe his English Bible was inspired.
In book II, Gill discusses the special decrees of God and rejection. It does not appear here that he has a position on infra vs. supralapsarianism, instead suggesting the concepts are beyond the finitude of our minds. Gill also appears to understand that the election of God is eternal. To the extent that I understand these concepts, both the decree of the fall and the decree of election are eternal and if such is the case, then a discussion of the timing is relevant only in ensuring God is not guilty of sin. I do not wish to speak too much on these subjects because my current understanding of them is somewhat limited, but I draw this out for a specific purpose. Gill is often concerned throughout his work with the timing of events whether they occur in eternity or in time. Scholars interested in these discussions may find Gill’s thoughts intriguing on this subject.
There are several other fascinating conversations that Gill contributes to in his doctrinal section, but to keep this review from stretching too long, we might now turn to his discussion of practice which discusses the worship of God, external or public worship, public ordinances, and private worship. In this section I wish to draw out one specific concept. Modern Baptists would find alignment with Gill in the idea that a “Christian society” is composed exclusively of a local expression of the universal church who has “a power in this state to admit and reject members,” and “to choose their own officers” (857-859). What I mean by this is that Baptists have a harsh rejection of any magisterial structures with a hard separation between church and state and are often Congregationalists. I do not mention this with animosity, though I find some of the arguments for such concepts to be somewhat underwhelming in the modern conversation. For instance, on the first point, Baptists were opposed to the church and state being tied together because they faced persecution. This has led, in my perspectiv,e to an underdeveloped political theology and an application of principles that do not necessarily apply in the same way in the past as they do today. The concept of religious freedom was advocated for by Baptists because they were being persecuted for being Baptists. When reading Gill, it appears highly unlikely that he would advocate for religious freedom in quite the same way that some Baptists do today for a Muslim or Hindu. Second, the congregational argument is helped by Gill in that congregationalism was advocated for historically by Baptists without necessary reference to the same democratic concepts so tied to American society. Thus, one can suggest that the modern push for congregationalism is not a result of American politics but is rooted historically in Baptist interpretation and understanding of what Scripture teaches. My own reservations must be set aside here, for I am personally more favorable toward an elder-ruled conception of church polity, but Gill demonstrates for us a deep and historically grounded understanding of congregational polity that is not based on what was happening in America in his day and in the centuries to follow.
In sum, I believe Gill’s A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity is an essential purchase for any Baptist who has even remote interest in the historical conversation surrounding Baptist theology. Specifically, those who understand themselves to be Reformed Baptists in today’s world will want to purchase this volume, for aside from Gill, the options for a systematic theology from a Reformed (Covenantal) Baptist position are somewhat limited; the group does not have a long series of systematic theologians who also hold fast to the 1689 London Baptist Confession unlike those of Presbyterian leanings. I find this work to be favorable and an important contribution to the Baptist faith which was (barring suggestion that it stretches formally back to the early church) fairly young in Gill’s day. If you are a Baptist theologian, you should purchase this volume for its usefulness in both the historical theological conversation the modern theologian ought to engage in, and to understand better, the specificities of the perspective which you are inheritor of. I highly recommend this work for the theologically curious Baptist.
Matthew B. Tabke