PACKER IN PERSPECTIVE
Dr Alan C. Clifford: A review first published in the Evangelical Quarterly (EQ 65.3, 1993).
AMONG GOD'S GIANTS, J. I. Packer; Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications, 447pp., £9.99
This fine volume is a distillation of the author's life-long pursuit of Puritanism. The bulk of the material consists of papers originally given between 1956 and 1969 at the Puritan and Reformed Studies Conference (held at Westminster Chapel in London under the chairmanship of Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones). The present reviewer had the great privilege of hearing most of them. Indeed, together with the chairman's concluding addresses (see D. M. Lloyd-Jones, Banner of Truth, 1987), Dr Packer's papers were always an annual highlight. Apart from the introduction, the other items are also republished pieces, the most recent dating from 1986. Among God's Giants must represent a pinnacle of popular scholarly publishing on practical puritan themes. It will surely establish itself as an indispensable starting point for all would-be researchers in the subject. The Puritans are presented as those 'Englishmen (some of whom eventually went to America) who embraced whole-heartedly a version of Christianity that paraded a particular blend of biblicist, pietist, churchly and worldly concerns' (p. 433). For all his scholarship, Dr Packer's concerns are far from being merely academic and antiquarian. This book has a timely, compelling and prophetic ring about it. In a scintillating and now famous typically graphic Packerian fashion, and inspired by the vivid picture of the giant Redwood trees of California, we are told that 'the mature holiness and seasoned fortitude of the great Puritans' tower over 'the stature of the majority of Christians in most eras, and certainly so in this age of crushing urban collectivism, when Western Christians sometimes feel and often look like ants in an anthill and puppets on a string' (p.11). The author demonstrates this thesis with consummate ease from puritan to puritan. Thus we are introduced to John Owen, Richard Baxter, Jonathan Edwards (yes, the American colossus was essentially 'puritan') and a host of other giants in the puritan brotherhood from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
For all his obvious relish for the Puritans, the author's treatment is far from being merely hagiographical. We see their feats and failures, excellences and excesses, intensities and idiosyncrasies in the context of the times. The variety and range of puritan thought cannot be missed either. Indeed, while Puritanism was virtually synonymous with biblicism, so there are as many differing perspectives in puritan studies as there are schools of biblical interpretation. Thus, within certain broad biblical parameters, one can almost make Puritanism say what you like! Dr Packer does not hide his preferences: for doctrinal orthodoxy he opts for Owen rather than Baxter on that 17th century hot-potato, the nature and extent of the atonement; for pastoral practice and evangelistic zeal, Baxter is his hero; for churchmanship, Greenham rather than Cartwright is his model. For all his general enthusiasm for the book's spiritual, pastoral and practical emphases, the reviewer remains unconvinced at certain key points of scholarly doctrinal interpretation.
First, Owen and limited atonement. Packer's introductory essay to the first Banner of Truth edition of Owen's Death of Death appeared in 1958. It now reappears as 'Saved by His precious blood' (pp. 163-95). In view of the later scholarly contributions of Basil Hall, Brian Armstrong, R. T. Kendall, Tony Lane, Curt Daniel and others, one might have expected an author's 'update' in response to the well-argued thesis that later Calvinists went beyond Calvin on the extent of the atonement, especially in the Bezan and post-Dort eras. Perhaps Dr Packer's simple reissue of his original essay indicates his continuing belief that Calvin and Owen said essentially the same thing (p. 175) and that Owen's case remains impeccably sound (p. 190). However, on a historical note arising from the author's churchmanship (p. 15), Bishop J. C. Ryle - rightly styled by Packer as 'the nineteenth-century colossus' (ibid.) - opposed exaggerated Owenite Calvinism in line with Calvin's teaching and the formularies of the Church of England. The same goes for earlier Anglican Calvinists like John Newton and Charles Simeon. While shunning Arminianism, they would surely judge Packer's passion for particular redemption as somewhat anomalous. On these and other points, the present reviewer takes issue with both Owen and the author in Atonement and Justification, English evangelical theology 1640-1790 - an evaluation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). He leaves it to the reader to judge the validity of his contention that Packer's unmodified 1958 claim for Owen (p. 178) is simply dated. In short, Owen has now been answered.
Second, Baxter and justification. In 'The Doctrine of Justification in Development and Decline among the Puritans' (pp. 196-232), there are a number of misleading observations. Indeed, several of Packer's detailed criticisms of Baxter's views are simply wide of the mark (pp. 208-10). Again, I refer the reader to my Atonement and Justification, pp. 191-4, 199, for details. One may add here that to blame Baxter for having 'sowed the seeds' of several subsequent doctrinal errors (p. 210) when he vigorously opposed them during his lifetime, is like blaming Calvin for hypercalvinism, and William Wilberforce for the American civil war! Surely, Baxter was somewhat over-reactionary, his theological grasp was not infallible; it could also be said, with equal justice, that Owen's doctrines of limited atonement and imputation had a formative influence on the growth of antinomian hypercalvinism. It is my belief that had the contending parties studied Calvin's precise statements on justification more carefully (a biblical via media between the embattled alternatives, in fact), English puritan theology would not have resembled the disarray of a civil war battlefield. Compared with the clarity of Calvin, Owen was, in some respects, as muddled as Baxter was in others.
One also questions Dr Packer's dichotomy between Baxter's 'disastrous' theological utterances and his 'praiseworthy' practical works (pp. 208-9). For Baxter, his work was all of a piece; hence the theological features lamented by Packer are clearly visible in the practical works. In view of this, one must ask just how disastrous Baxter's theology was? After all, his preaching of universal gospel grace turned Kidderminster upside down, and his stress on a loving, working godliness produced a sanctified society. Indeed, Baxter's ministry was unique, as Dr Packer readily admits with justified enthusiasm (pp. 53ff). So, could it be that the marginalising of Baxter's theology in favour of Owen's in the 'reformed camp' partly explains the general lack of popular impact of neo-puritanism today? A much desired Baxterian revival probably demands a far greater rehabilitation of Baxterian theology than Dr Packer is prepared to accept.
Third, Greenham and churchmanship. Dr Packer's book is something of a personal manifesto. For all its inspirational virtues, it inevitably raises the question of how he could ever be party to such an anti-puritan treatise as Growing into Union (1970). Indeed, the book precipitated a crisis and the cancellation of the Puritan Conference of that year. If this anomaly remains a mystery, the present work surely explains the author's continuing allegiance to 'conservative Anglicanism' (p. 15) and why secession was never an option, despite his obvious admiration for nonconformists like Baxter.
Here the model is evidently Richard Greenham rather than Richard Baxter (pp. 72-4). Greenham was a peace-loving parochial pietist of moderate puritan convictions, little interested in the more thorough reforming zeal of Thomas Cartwright and his fellow presbyterians. In fact he was sharply critical of them (p. 72). In his view, the primary need was a sound parochial ministry rather than a more reformed church order.
Doubtless Greenham's priorities were correct, but arguably, 'this ought he to have done and not to leave the other undone' (Mt.23:23). Indeed, a consistent Puritan would ask, had he not yielded on the essential puritan point of scriptural authority in the typical English spirit of Cranmerian compromise and procrastination? Likewise, Packer dismisses these 'presbyterian agitators' as 'doctrinaire' (p. 70), despite the scriptural soundness of their case (ibid.) and a willingness to suffer for it. The simple fact remains that men like Greenham helped consolidate a largely unreformed diocesan and parochial system by default. They simply 'did their own thing' like independents, oblivious to the wider demands of unfinished reformation business.
Besides, had Greenham done his duty, some of the more hot-headed 'Marprelate' Presbyterians might have been restrained. So, according to evidence supplied by Dr Packer himself, a rising torrent of frustrated puritan preachers had to resort to lectureships, there being no biblically constituted churches to call them (p. 75). Had Greenham and his friends shared Cartwright's conviction that 'the ministry of the Church of England was out of square' and acted accordingly, the progress of the gospel and the history of the next century and beyond - with its tragic sectarian proliferation - might have been different. Admittedly Queen Elizabeth was the chief obstacle, before whom Grindal and even Cartwright himself had to bow. Alas, England never had a reforming leader with the energy of Knox and the statesmanship of Calvin, and too few were ready to risk all for the glory of God like the Huguenots in France who, always faced by more formidable foes, were blessed from the start with a better churchmanship and a more balanced Calvinism.
My response to Dr Packer's book therefore parallels his own ambivalence about Baxter. As a presentation of practical puritanism, no praise for it can be too high.
While the style is brilliant, on certain detailed theological and ecclesiological themes, I beg to differ.
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