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It has been said that "Edward Stennett . . . was a Calvinistic Baptist."116 Immediately, we face the datum that John Calvin held church services on Sunday and rejected the very concept of the Sabbath.117 Yet in one place Stennett writes of Christ as King, Prophet and Mediator, much like Calvin's Prophet, King and Priest.118 On the other hand, Stennett writes, "God's gracious acceptance is held forth to every one of the sons of the strangers that takes hold of his Covenant, Isaiah 56:6."119 This is far different than Calvin's doctrine of election. Stennett believed
Thus he avoids, in part, an error of Protestant scholasticism.
As to his method for dealing with the Scripture, Stennett is usually literalistic. Twice he uses types: the ark of the covenant was a type of Christ.123 and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. is a type of the great trouble before the second coming of Christ.124 As always, he puts God first. He would love peace, but insists on truth with it;125 truth he believes is stronger than error.126 Literalism is modified for "we must compare Scripture with Scripture, adopt such a sense as may bring them into harmony, and sometimes explain general terms by restrictive Scriptures."127 Probably by this attitude he rejected Tillam's teaching that polygamy was lawful by pleading the example of the "Saints of old." Stennett replied: "God made but one woman for one man, when there was but one man in all the world"!128 Yet Stennett's friendships with the clergyman of Wallingford and the Presbyterian Comyns show that his literalism did not go as far as exclusiveness. It is not easy to get right conclusions from Scripture study. There must be a rigid attempt to exclude worldly interests.
On at least two occasions in his writings, Stennett uses the phrase, "Scripture and reason."130 Use of reasoning religion is in harmony with the times. Use of reason in an extreme form will flower into eighteenth century Deism which denied validity to anything above reason.131 Edward's son Joseph, in serving his generation, is willing to think in terms of natural religion and revealed religion. We have spoken of Stennett's desire to follow the lord as a controlling motive in his life. A second universal motive is that of humility or consideration. For the Church in Newport , Rhode Island he urges what seems to be closed communion, but tells them to remain humble,132 The Sabbath truth is carried to the brethren who "differ from us" "with all meekness and tenderness."133 He has to defend the Sabbath against the Sunday Morning saving up the money mentioned in I Corinthians 16:2. Stennett explains this was done, not at the corporate Sabbath worship, but privately on Sunday in order not to be like the showy Pharisees!134 Perhaps his classic statement of humility is this:
Truly here is a great Seventh Day Baptist pioneer. Although he is away from London, the Capital he plays his part in the Dissenter movement and in the Seventh Day Baptist cause in England and America. To our twentieth century view, his greatest contribution to the stream of life is within his own family, which is to be represented by Dissenting ministers in London during most of the eighteenth century. "The home has always been the sanctum sanctorum of truth, the inspiration of deep convictions."137 His life and thought, though lived three centuries ago, have many admirable qualities even for today. |
