Quotes

Wholly incurable: David Lipscomb prefers to discuss questions than traffic in personalities: a quote from 1880

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We will be glad to publish anything that Bro. H. will write, but think there would be more profit to ourselves and our readers in investigating the question than in telling whether each other is hyper-critical or hypocritical ; or self-righteous or over-righteous; or whether we are better than A. Campbell or anybody else. Nor do we care a particle more about what Lexington or Cincinnati or Bethany or all combined think, than we do about what Madisonville or Earlington thinks. We certainly are greatly lacking in reverence for men and their opinions, whether great or small. If this be a defect it is a great one- and it was born into our very blood and bones-and we fear wholly incurable. So pity us, but bear with us in our weakness.
D. L.


J. W. Higbee, “Concerning the Earlington Articles, ” Gospel Advocate 22:35 (August 26, 1880): 552

Why this book?: Robert Picirilli tells us his purpose

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My purpose for this volume is twofold. First, as a historian of our movement, I like to research and tell the stories that are little known or not known at all.  There are many of those in Free Will Baptist history. Second, I have attempted to clear up some matters that are not correctly understood and so to make sure we see ourselves more accurately. There are some misconceptions, out there, about who we are and what has made us that.

From the Preface. Robert E. Picirilli, Little Known Chapters in Free Will Baptist History (Nashville: Randall House, 2015)

So he begins, and does just that in several discrete chapters.  The chapter that caught my eye is the second one, “Robert Heaton and Separate Baptist Origins of Middle Tennessee Free Will Baptist, 1808-1842.”  I have not read it yet.  It will have to wait until current projects are under better control, but I suspect it will be useful in my work on the very beginnings of the Stone-Campbell Movement in Nashville and Middle Tennessee.  I am also enjoying chapter one, “‘Free Will Baptist’: What’s In a Name?”

His purpose is neither elaborate nor technical; rather it is a straightforward approach to the task at hand.  He perceives deficiencies and sets about to fill the void or nuance the historiography.

The historians task? Surface the unknown or untold stories; clarify interpretations and understandings.  Seems about right to me.

 

The great question

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“The great question with every man’s conscience, is, or should be, “what is truth?”  Not, have any of the scribes or rulers of the peoples believed it?  Every man’s eternal all, as well as his present comfort, depends upon what answer he is able to give to the question Pilate of old [John xviii. 38] proposed to Christ, without waiting for a reply. Such a question can only be satisfactorily answered, by an impartial appeal to the Oracles of truth–the alone standard of Divine truth. To these we appeal.–Whatever in this discourse is contrary to them, let it be expunged; what corresponds with them, may the God of truth bless, to those to whom he has given an ear to discern, and a heart to receive it.”

–Alexander Campbell, Preface to The Substance of a Sermon… (Steubenville: Printed by James Wilson, 1816, [4].

This is the closing paragraph to his Preface.

Campbell’s ‘Sermon on the Law’ is available here to read or download.

The present popular exhibition of christianity

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“We have to regret that so much appears necessary to be said, in an argumentative way, to the professed Christians of this age, on such a topic.*  But this is easily accounted for on certain principles. For, in truth, the present popular exhibition of christianity is a compound of Judaism, Heathen Philosophy, and Christianity; which, like the materials in Nebuchadnezzar’s, image, do not well cement together.”

–Alexander Campbell, Preface to The Substance of a Sermon… (Steubenville: Printed by James Wilson, 1816, [3].

*The topic under consideration is the phrase “the law” as used by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8.3 and in “similar portions of the sacred scriptures” (ibid, 5).

Campbell’s ‘Sermon on the Law’ is available here to read or download.

The world of books, on a flyaway, by Clarence Day

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I found this recently, in typescript, on a fly-away.  It has this attribution: “Clarence Day, one of the founders of the Yale University Press, in his the Story of the Yale University Press Told by a Friend.”

and

this at the bottom of the page: “Some years ago I was assigned to write a paper on university presses for a social history class and ran across this. I think it’s great and have it framed on my desk, an incentive to stick to the job when there are times I’d rather go water the hedge.”

Those preliminaries aside, here is Clarence Day:

—–

“The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish, civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts of the heart of men centuries dead.”

—–

Spectator sport…voyeurism…armchair psychology

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On a pleasant spring afternoon, this guest browsed in my study while I looked for something to give him to read on the plane. His browsing soon became perusing, and he looked at the books on my bookshelves with an intensity of purpose that was not unfamiliar. It is a spectator sort to look at someone else’s books, if not an act of voyeurism or armchair psychology.

–Henry Petroski, The Book on the Bookshelf. New York: Vintage, 1999, p. 6.

Yes, indeed.

Avoid foppery and gaudiness

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James DeForest Murch, in his Christian Minister’s Manual (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 1937) has this instruction, among others, p. 13:

—–

Neatness and plainness of dress do much to proclaim the man. Avoid foppery and gaudiness, trinkets and jewelry, and anything else which would attract undue attention to the wearer.

—–

McKenzie observes–for the Christian–a consequence of historical analysis

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“The serious study of history is always teaching us either humility or pride. We can’t study the past for long without encountering individuals who did or said or believed things that we now hold to be immoral, even evil. And when that happens, our hearts and minds will lead us down one of two paths: towards self-exaltation–“God, I thank you that I am not like other people”–or toward a deeper awareness of our need for grace–“God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Robert Tracy McKenzie, A Little Book for New Historians: Why and How to Study History. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019, p. 99.

Another from St. Hereticus

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In the chapter bearing the title Poetic Potpourri of a Priestly Peripatetic, he has this under the heading ‘A Theological Mother Goose’:

The Augustinian Blues

Ba, ba, black sheep,

Have you any will?

Yes, sir, no sir,

I can’t tell.

 

Won by my Master,

I’m in the church.

While the massa damnata

Is left in the lurch.

Robert McAfee Brown, ed. The Collect’d Writings of St. Hereticus. Including manuscripts that have not previously appear’d in print to which are annex’d two appendices on theological gamesmanship & one on researchmanship. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964), 113.