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Copyright © 2015 Jason Edwin Dees All Rights Reserved. the Southern Copyright © 2015 Jason Edwin Dees All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation or instruction. THE WAY TO TRUE TO EXCELLENCE: THE SPIRITUALITY OF SAMUEL PEARCE __________________ A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary __________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy __________________ by Jason Edwin Dees December 2015 APPROVAL SHEET THE WAY TO TRUE EXCELLENCE: THE SPIRITUALITY OF SAMUEL PEARCE Jason Edwin Dees Read and Approved by: __________________________________________ Michael A. G. Haykin (Chair) __________________________________________ David L. Puckett __________________________________________ Gregory A. Wills Date______________________________ With gratitude for those who came before, with hope for those who will come after. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE …………………………………………………………………………….. vii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 Status Quaestionis ...............................................................................................4 General Outline and Procedure .........................................................................11 Conclusion ........................................................................................................13 2. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ................................................................................14 Early Years, 1766–1786 ................................................................................... 14 Years at Bristol Baptist Academy, 1786–1789 .................................................20 Cannon Street Baptist Church, 1789–1799 .......................................................26 3. LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EVANGELICAL SPIRITUALITY ............42 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 42 Evangelical Spirituality .................................................................................... 45 Biblicism ...........................................................................................................47 Crucicentricism .................................................................................................51 Conversion ........................................................................................................54 Activism ........................................................................................................... 58 4. BAPTIST SPIRITUALITY OF THE LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY .........66 Roots in Puritan Piety ...................................................................................... 66 Late Eighteenth-Century Baptist Spirituality ................................................... 68 iv Chapter Page Spirituality of the Word ................................................................................... 68 Spirituality of Relationships ............................................................................. 79 Sprituality of Mission ....................................................................................... 88 5. SAMUEL PEARCE’S SPIRITUALITY OF THE WORD .................................94 Introduction .......................................................................................................94 Political Sermons ........................................................................................... 102 Funeral Sermon ...............................................................................................114 Doctrinal Sermons ...........................................................................................120 6. SAMUEL PEARCE’S SPIRITUALITY OF LOVE .........................................138 Introduction .....................................................................................................138 Holy Love: For His Friends ........................................................................... 138 Holy Love: For His Church ............................................................................155 Holy Love: For His Wife ................................................................................159 Holy Love: For God ........................................................................................165 A Concluding Word ........................................................................................181 7. SAMUEL PEARCE’S SPIRITUALITY OF MISSION ...................................182 Pearce's Love for Missions .............................................................................182 Pearce's Involvement in Missions .................................................................. 186 Pearce's Missionary Journey to Ireland ...........................................................210 Pearce's Theology of Mission .........................................................................213 8. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................222 Introduction .....................................................................................................222 Spirituality of the Word ................................................................................. 223 v Page Spirituality of Love .........................................................................................225 Spirituality of Mission ....................................................................................227 Conclusion ......................................................................................................228 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………...230 vi PREFACE This project would have not been possible without the support and help of my amazing wife, Paige. She "held my arms up" when I was tired and discouraged. Samuel Pearce called his wife Sarah "invaluable," and I must say the same for my Paige. I would also like to thank Russell Moore for teaching me, encouraging me, and exhorting me to pursue a Ph.D. so many years ago. Lastly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Michael Haykin. It has truly been one of the great joys and honors of my life to be able to work with him on this project. He never ceases to amaze me with his understanding of history, his vast knowledge, and most of all his deep love for God. Jason Dees Birmingham, Alabama December 2015 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION “In him we see that the way to true excellence is not to affect eccentricity, nor to aspire after the performance of a few splendid actions; but to fill up our lives with a sober, modest, sincere, affectionate, assiduous, and uniform conduct.”1 Andrew Fuller Introduction By the end of the eighteenth century, evangelical Christianity had spread no further than Western Europe and the Atlantic seaboard. As Michael Haykin observes, however, “suddenly in the last decade of the eighteenth century evangelicals launched out from these two geographical regions and began to establish the presence of their faith throughout Asia, Africa, and Australia.”2 When John Thomas (1757–1801) and William Carey (1761–1834) stepped off the Kron Princessa Maria near Calcutta, India, on November 7, 1793, they were helping initiate the modern missionary movement that changed the evangelical world forever.3 They Baptist Missionary Society, formed a year earlier in Kettering, England, sent them.4 The twelve original members of the Baptist 1Andrew Gunton Fuller, The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous, ed. Joseph Belcher (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 3:446. 2Andrew Fuller, A Heart for Missions: The Classic Memoir of Samuel Pearce (Birmingham, AL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2006), i. 3Brian Stanley, The History of the Baptist Missionary Society, 1792–1992 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 1. 4The original name for the society was the “Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen,” and it was formed in Kettering on October 2, 1792. Those in attendance 1 Missionary Society included William Carey, Andrew Fuller (1754–1815), and John Ryland (1753–1825). A less-known member was Samuel Pearce (1766–1799), the pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England. He would die in 1799 at the very young age of 33, but he was an integral part of the Baptist missionary movement that helped bring about a sea-change in evangelicalism. For decades after his death, John Ryland and other Baptist leaders referred to Pearce as the “seraphic Pearce.”5 Francis Augustus Cox (1783–1853) wrote that “his ardour . gave him a kind of ubiquity; as a man and a preacher, he was known, he was felt everywhere.”6 He was born on July 20, 1766, in Plymouth, Devon, to devout Baptist parents. Converted in the summer of 1782 through the preaching of Isaiah Birt, he was taken from “a state of trespasses and sins” to a “life in a dear dying Redeemer,” as he put it.7 In February of 1789, after three years of studies at the Bristol Baptist Academy, Pearce accepted a call to serve on probation as the pastor of Cannon Street Baptist Church, an office to which he was formally called the following year. Michael Haykin notes that “no less than 335 individuals were converted under
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