Meet The Puritans

Upcoming Course at Puritan Seminary

Posted on 25. Jun, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

For those of you near the Grand Rapids area, I will be teaching at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary at the end of August on “The Theology of the Patristic Creeds.”

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New Book on Christ’s Descent Into Hell

Posted on 12. Apr, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

The Apostles’ Creed claims that Christ “descended into hell,” but do we really believe that? Should we believe that? In this book, Daniel R. Hyde analyzes this controversial claim, bringing valuable light to this long confessed doctrine. He presents the arguments raised against the descent clause, discusses the various understanding of it throughout church history, explains how the Reformed churches have adopted it, and demonstrates the benefits of retaining it as a point of our Christian confession today. For those who question why Christians would believe in the descent of Christ, In Defense of the Descent is an informative and helpful guide.

Now available for pre-order and will be available as of April 15th from Reformation Heritage Books where you can also read chapter 1 as a .pdf here.

Endorsements:

“For creedal and confessional Christians, the clause in the Apostles’ Creed ‘he descended into hell’ is important, but sometimes puzzling. Even as intelligent lay folk often struggle to articulate a brief, cogent, accurate reply as to its precise meaning, they may not fully appreciate the history of discussion behind the phrase, or the origins and function of its inclusion in what is probably still, liturgically, the most widely used creed in the Reformation churches. Daniel Hyde has come to the rescue with a brief, helpful, historical, biblical, and pastoral treatment of this clause, and the crucial theological truth it is designed to propound and protect. I warmly commend it to the Christian reader.”

— Ligon Duncan, Senior Minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi and Adjunct Professor of Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Every pastor knows that sinking feeling when the congregation recites the ‘descent into hell’ clause of the Creed. What do we say to them? Written for laypeople and pastors alike, this slim volume not only gives us a good answer; it offers a terrific summary of broader Christian reflection. Danny Hyde convincingly argues that, far from an idle question, our Lord’s descent into hell is a precious facet of the gospel.”

—Michael S. Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics, Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, CA)

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Announcing “Welcome to a Reformed Church”

Posted on 05. Mar, 2010 by Danny Hyde.

Available from Reformation Trust here.

Chapter one, “Roots: Our History” available as a .pdf here.

Endorsements:

“In the providence of God through Rev. Daniel Hyde, you have in your hands an excellent instrument to use in developing the life and ministry of new members, church leaders, and all disciples. This book illustrates the blessings of the historical legacy of the Reformed church with confessional integrity to equip believers and churches with evangelical breadth and theological depth. This is sound doctrine for sound lives. The key to the apostolic church is prominently displayed and easily accessible throughout the pages of Welcome to a Reformed Church.”

—Dr. Harry L. Reeder, III, Senior pastor, Briarwood Presbyterian Church (PCA), Birmingham, Alabama

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“As one who has made much the same journey as I did, Rev. Hyde offers a thoughtful and compelling guide to the distinctive emphases of the Reformed churches for those coming to them. He explains how those wonderful doctrines are worked out in the life and worship of Reformed and Presbyterian churches. If only I had had a book like Rev. Hyde’s Welcome to a Reformed Church, my own journey would have been a bit easier, for I would have had someone to ‘connect the dots’ for me.”

—Dr. Kim Riddlebarger, Senior pastor, Christ Reformed Church (URCNA), Anaheim, California

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“Daniel Hyde has written an invaluable road map for pilgrims new and old so they can know what Reformed churches believe and why. With this book, Christians can navigate the often-confusing landscape of different denominations and understand what makes Reformed churches unique and, more important, biblical. Pastor Hyde’s work is clear, succinct, informative, and faithful to the Scriptures. I highly recommend this work to anyone who desires to understand the theological pillars of the Reformed faith.”

—Dr. J. V. Fesko, Academic dean and associate professor of systematic theology, Westminster Seminary California, Escondido, California

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“Daniel Hyde’s popular introduction to the Reformed faith will prove a wonderful tool for busy pastors who are looking for help in welcoming new believers into membership in the local church. Welcome to a Reformed Church will also serve as a kind of road map for those who are new to the Reformed faith—to its history, confessions, doctrinal commitments, and patterns of worship and ministry. In its own way, this book is a great example of the kind of ‘hospitality’ Reformed churches are called to show to those whom the Lord is gathering into their fellowship by His Spirit and Word.”

—Dr. Cornelis Venema, President and professor of doctrinal studies, Mid-America Reformed Seminary, Dyer, Indiana

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“As a minister in a Reformed church, I am delighted to be able to commend this book by Daniel Hyde, as it provides one of the most useful studies of the basics of Reformed belief, worship, and practice that I have come across. I will be commending it not only for people wishing to know more about the basics of the Reformed faith, but also for those who sit in Reformed churches and need to know more deeply their own heritage.”

—Dr. Mark Jones, Pastor, Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA), Vancouver, British Columbia

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“Daniel Hyde has done the church (and church planters) a great service by giving us this well-written, concise, easy-to-understand book explaining what it means to be a ‘Reformed’ church. Yet, at the same time, this is a theologically deep book that will send us back to Scripture and our confessions so that we might understand just what the church really is. In a day of great doctrinal confusion, especially about the church, I know of no better tool to give to those who want to know more about Reformed churches.”

—Rev. Kevin Efflandt, Pastor, Bellingham United Reformed Church (URCNA), Bellingham, Washington

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“As a fellow import to the Reformed faith from the Pentecostal/ charismatic movement, I can say that Daniel Hyde has summarized our Reformed distinctives in a clear and concise manner, answer- ing many of the questions modern evangelicals ask. I heartily commend this book to newcomers in my church and all Reformed churches.”

—Rev. Jerrold Lewis, Pastor, Lacombe Free Reformed Church (FRCNA), Lacombe, Alberta

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The Liturgical Theology of John Owen—A Proposal

Posted on 23. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.

Well, today was a mini-milestone as I sent off my Master of Theology (Th.M.) thesis proposal to my faculty readers, Dr. Joel Beeke and Dr. Derek Thomas. Now, the fun begins!

Below is the proposal (footnotes converted into parenthetical references), which should come to reality by May when I am scheduled to graduate, Deo volente.

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“The Liturgical Theology of John Owen”

by Daniel R. Hyde

John Owen (1616–1683) was called “the Calvin of England” [Memoirs of Ambrose Barnes, ed. W.H.D. Longstaffe (London: Surtees Society, 1867), 16] and the “Atlas and Patriarch of Independency” [Anthony Wood, History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, ed. John Gutch, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1791), 2:650] by his contemporaries while his epitaph depicted him as “worthy to be enrolled among the first Divines of the age” (Et Seculi hujus Insignissimis annumerandus). Over the past decade the secondary literature on this preeminent and voluminous theologian of the high orthodox period has increased. In 1987 Sinclair Ferguson’s PhD thesis on Owen’s doctrine of the Christian life was published [John Owen on the Christian Life (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1987)]. Eleven years later in 1998 Carl Trueman published a significant study of Owen’s Trinitarian theology [The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle, England: Paternoster Press, 1998)]. 2002 marked the publication of Sebastian Rehman’s important study of Owen’s theological method [Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen, Texts & Studies in Reformation & Post-Reformation Thought, gen. ed. Richard A. Muller (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002)]. In 2004 two more popular books were published, one by Richard Daniels on Owen’s Christology [The Christology of John Owen (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004)] and another by Jon Payne on Owen’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper [John Owen on the Lord’s Supper (Edinburgh, Scotland: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2004)]. In 2007 two substantive works came to press. Carl Trueman published another considerable study of Owen’s doctrines of God, covenant theology, and justification that located his thought within the High Orthodox period [John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man, Great Theologians, eds. John Webster, Trevor Hart, and Douglas B. Farrow (Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2007)]. Alan Spence’s PhD thesis was published, dealing with Owen’s Christology [Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2007)].

Yet no study has yet come to press on his liturgical theology despite the prominence of liturgical theology in the Works of John Owen. While he wrote simply on worship early in his ministry, in his second and third published works, The Duty of Pastors and People Distinguished (1643)  and Two Short Catechisms (1645),  especially of note is the prominence of liturgical theology after 1660, when he stepped down as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and 1662, when he was ejected by the Act of Uniformity. For example, he dealt with liturgical theology contra Rome in Animadversions on a Treatise Entitled Fiat Lux (1662) and contra the Anglicans in A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition (1662). In A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God (1667) he gave a positive presentation of the Congregational way. Later, he wrote A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer; with a Brief Inquiry into the Nature and Use of Mental Prayer and Forms (1682).  Sometime towards the end of his life he wrote An Answer unto Two Questions . . . with Twelve Arguments against any Conformity to Worship not of Divine Institution (published posthumously in 1720).

Originality

Despite the important secondary works above, there is scant material devoted to Owen’s liturgical theology. This thesis attempts to fill that lacuna. There are only brief references to Owen’s important 1662 liturgical treatise, A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, and Their Imposition, within several books and essays. As far as journal articles, there is a dearth of material on Owen’s liturgics. In a survey of journals only two articles deal directly with Owen’s liturgical theology. The first is a popular article that draws general applications for today [Douglas Jones, “Liturgy Lessons from Owen,” Reformation & Revival 5:3 (Summer 1996): 111–118] while the other is a journal article that briefly surveys Owen’s doctrine of worship in his massive commentary on Hebrews [A. Craig Troxel, “‘Cleansed Once for All’: John Owen on the Glory of Gospel Worship in ‘Hebrews,’” Calvin Theological Journal 32:2 (November 1997): 468–479]. Owen’s liturgical theology represents an area for further scholarly enquiry. In 2008 I sought to begin making a contribution of Owen liturgical studies [“For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free: John Owen’s A Discourse Concerning Liturgies, And Their Imposition,” The Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 29–42].

Viability

The viability of this thesis is found in two facts. First, despite the lack of secondary material on this specific topic, the growing secondary literature will be invaluable in placing Owen’s liturgical theology in its high orthodox context. Second, there are major primary sources in Owen’s Works mentioned above that have yet to be studied in great detail.

This material shows is that Owen’s liturgical theology was governed by several key factors: first, the sufficiency of Scripture; second, Christian liberty won by Christ; third, the work of the Holy Spirit in equipping ministers; fourth, Christ’s heavenly priesthood; and fifth, Owen’s desire for true catholicity.

Potential

The potential of this Master of Theology (Th.M.) thesis is twofold. First, this thesis will serve the academy by making a significant contribution to the growing field of John Owen studies in an area where no study has yet been done. Second, this thesis will serve the church by providing a study of a Puritan’s practical/pastoral theology. Since all Reformed ministers, consistories/sessions, and believers engage in the worship of God every Lord’s Day and seek to do so in an ever-increasing idolatrous context, this work will equip these for authentic Reformed ministry in the twenty-first century.

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John Owen on Delighting in Worship

Posted on 04. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.

For many of you young reformers like me, I came out of a myriad of non-Reformed but evangelical churches to a Reformed church. Recall the struggle you may have had over the theology and practice of worshipping God in a Reformed church. In former churches we were taught that the effectiveness of any given Sunday’s worship was to be measured by our subjective experience of it in terms of how “uplifted,” “powerful,” and “enlivening” it made us feel. This is why when we walked into a Reformed church for the first time and then walked out of its doors on that Sunday, it seemed as though all emotion was gone and that our subjective experience of worship was a moot point. “How could I have just worshipped God when I don’t feel like it just did?”

So . . . what did the great Puritan, John Owen, say about our level of experiential delight in the weekly worship of God? Do we actually believe that worship should be a delight? Is it okay to feel anything in worship?

I have been making my way through John Owen’s 1667 treatise, A Brief Instruction in the Worship of God and Discipline of the Churches of the New Testament, which came to be known as “The Independents’ Catechism” (Works 15, 447–530). This treatise speaks to us today as we seek a helpful way forward for ourselves and our family, friends, and visitors to our churches who feel like we may be cold.

In one of the more beautiful and practical sections of this treatise, Owen spoke of our delighting in the divine service. Picking up in question and answer seven, we read Owen saying that when we gather for the divine service there are four “chief things that we ought to aim at in our observation” (Works 15, 455–456):

1. To sanctify the name of God.
2. To own and avow our professed subjection to Christ.
3. To build up ourselves in our most holy faith.
4. To testify and confirm our mutual love.

Owen went on to explicate this first aim, or, chief end, of the Christians’ observation of the divine service by further dividing it into five parts (Works 15, 456–459):

1. to reverence God’s sovereign authority in appointing his gospel institutions.
2. to regard God’s special presence in his ordinances.
3. to exercise faith in the promises of God annexed to his ordinances.
4. to delight in his “will, wisdom, love, and grace” manifested in his gospel ordinances.
5. to persevere in our observance of Christ’s ordinances.

For our purposes, here I want to focus in on the fourth point that Owen made, namely, that we sanctify the name of God in worship by our delighting in God’s will, wisdom, love, and grace as they are manifested to us in the gospel ordinances (by which he means, Word, sacraments, prayer, and discipline). So what precisely does it mean to “delight” in worship?

First, Owen says what it does not mean. Our delighting in the service does not mean what he called a “carnal self-pleasing, or satisfaction in the outward modes or manner of the performance of divine worship.” What did Owen mean by this? He was saying that our delight in worship was not to be found in our sinful and experiential delights. In a word, worship is not about you! Further, he was saying this against those in his time who sought for delight in the outward form and beauty of the liturgy itself. Here Owen sought to cut off any idea that worship was for our pleasure, whether in serving our emotions or even serving our eyes, such as in the Mass or the English Prayer Book with its pomp and ceremony in the days of Archbishop Laud’s high church experimentation. So our delighting in the divine service is not about “what we get out of it,” to use an evangelical phrase. For many of us who became Reformed later, we get this. But here is where Owen warns us in a way we need to hear. We are not to find our delight in the divine service in the mere fact that our liturgy might have ancient roots, or in the trappings of candles, banners, crosses, incense, kneeling, coming forward for communion, vestments, the Geneva robe, or the fully printed-out liturgy itself. Owen is saying, be careful of the trappings of high church.

Instead of this, Owen said that our delighting in the divine service was rooted in “contemplation on the will, wisdom, grace, and condescension of God.” Our God has drawn near to us! And he has done so, as Owen wrote, “of his own sovereign mere will and grace.” Why? Owen gave five beautiful reasons:

1. “so to manifest himself unto such poor sinful creatures as we are”
2. “so to condescend unto our weakness”
3. “so to communicate himself unto us”
4. “so to excite and draw forth our souls unto himself”
5. “and to give us such pledges of his gracious intercourse with us by Jesus Christ”

When we gather for the Divine service (meaning, God’s service to us in Word and sacrament and our service to him in prayer), we are to find our delight in our covenant God himself, not in anything else, whether within us or whether external to us that we have contrived. It is our communion with God that brings us delight and the means of grace serve to bring us closer to him that we might glorify him and delight in him.

Christian, God has so stooped down to you that he invites you into his heavenly presence in worship. What a privilege! Believer, delight in worshipping the Lord your God!

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Puritan Reformed Journal

Posted on 04. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.

The Puritan Reformed Journal is a publication edited by the faculty of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary that began in January 2009. Volume 1:2 (June 2009) is now in-print and available for purchase. Below is the Table to Contents to whet your appetite:

BIBLICAL STUDIES

Bright Shadows: Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (2)—David Murray

Heart-Reading: Recovering a Spiritual Approach to the Bible—Gerald Bilkes

Significance of Suffering in the Study of First Peter—Brian Najapfour

Love of the Brethren in 1 John and Church History—Michael A.G. Haykin

SYSTEMATIC AND HISTORICAL THEOLOGY

Cur Deus Homo? A Closer Look at the Atonement Theories of Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux—Jonathon Beeke

Calvin on the Promises of God—Pieter DeVries

Omnipotent Sweetness? Puritanism versus Socinianism—Joel M. Heflin

“To Walk According to the Gospel”: The Origin and History of The Marrow of Modern Divinity—William Van Doodewaard

The Reformed Dogmatics of G.H. Kersten Compared with His Older Contemporaries, Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck—Pieter Rouwendal

EXPERIENTIAL THEOLOGY

Calvin as an Experiential Preacher—Joel R. Beeke

Blessedness in the Piety of William Perkins: Objective Reality or Subjective Experience?—Stephen Yuille

The Biblical-Experimental Foundations of Jonathan Edwards’s Theology of Religious Experience, 1720–1723—Karin Spiecker Stetina [...]

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Audio—John Owen on the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer #1

Posted on 02. Sep, 2009 by Danny Hyde.

The Wednesday Study in Theology of the Oceanside United Reformed Church tonight. I began my series on Owen’s treatise, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer (title page pictured to the left). The audio of class #1, “Who Was John Owen and Why Is He (Still) Important?,” is available on our SermonAudio page.

Here are .pdf downloads of the class handouts:

Handout #1—Basic Resources & Class Outline

Handout #2—Class 1 Handout

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