The legacy of Charles Simeon.

Bennett, John C.

As the vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge for fifty-four years and a fellow of King's College, Charles Simeon (1759-1836) was arguably the foremost evangelical clergyman in the Church of England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Well known for pressing evangelicals to observe the discipline and order of the established church, he also contributed significantly to the development of the nineteenth-century British missionary movement, a markedly voluntary phenomenon. Reconciling the tension between his regular Anglican churchmanship and the voluntarism of evangelical missionary efforts is key to understanding Simeon's mission legacy.[1]

Seeds of 1759

In the birth records of England in 1759 are the names of four men who were to have significant effect on the evangelical Anglican share of the British missionary movement.[2] Most prominent of the four was the younger William Pitt, made prime minister at the age of twenty-five in 1783. Pitt was no evangelical, but he created a political and economic climate that was conducive to the developing British Empire and the missionary movement that would be connected with it.[3] Only slightly less noticeable, and of far more direct influence, was William Wilberforce. His vision for a Christian nation and his evangelical agenda in Parliament - supported by Pitt at key points - cleared the way for missionary activity in British India and beyond.[4] John Venn, later rector of Clapham, was also born in 1759. Venn was the leading clerical light of Wilberforce's "Clapham Saints" and a prime architect of the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, soon after renamed the Church Missionary Society. The fourth person was Charles Simeon.

The future vicar of Holy Trinity Church was born at Reading on September 24, 1759, into the family of Richard Simeon, a wealthy landowner and businessman. His mother, Elizabeth Hutton, descended from a clan that boasted two archbishops of York. Simeon's elder brother, Richard John, was a master in Chancery until his untimely death in 1782. His younger sibling, Edward, became a successful London merchant and a director of the Bank of England.[5]

Simeon entered Eton at the age of seven. Later in life he characterized the school as "so profligate ... [that he] should be tempted even to murder his own son" rather than submit him to the same experience.[6] Simeon found the spiritual climate of Cambridge, when he entered as a King's Scholar in 1779, to be little better than what he had left behind at Eton.[7] Like many first-and second-generation evangelicals, Simeon's faith was not shaped by the institutional process; rather he was mentored in the faith. The autobiographical account of his spiritual pilgrimage begins with an encounter with the Scriptures and continues through a series of relationships with a number of the leading lights of the evangelical movement, including John Newton and the elder Henry Venn.[8] The efficacy and value of the evangelical mentoring process was etched into Simeon's worldview and played an important role in shaping his missionary agenda.

Following his evangelical conversion on Easter 1779, Simeon decided to pursue the Christian ministry. He took his degree in May of 1782 and was made a fellow of King's and ordained deacon in the same month. Simeon spent the summer as honorary curate to Christopher Atkinson at St. Edward's Church in Cambridge. When the parish minister of Holy Trinity Church died unexpectedly that autumn, Simeon's father sought the post for his son. After a squabble between the bishop and the congregation, which favored another candidate, Simeon was made vicar and preached his first sermon in the pulpit of Holy Trinity Church in November. It was, however, not a happy beginning:

The disappointment which the parish felt [because of my appointment proved very unfavourable to my ministry. The people almost universally put locks on their pews, and would neither come to church, nor suffer others to do so .... I put in there a number of forms, and erected in vacant places, at my own expense, some open seats; but the churchwardens pulled them down, and cast them out of the church. To visit the parishioners in their own houses was impracticable; for they were so imbittered against me, that there was scarcely one that would admit me into his house.[9]

With Simeon's Sunday morning service under boycott, and pastoral ministry largely impossible, Simeon decided to establish a Sunday evening lecture. This, too, the churchwardens prevented by locking the church doors. Nevertheless, Simeon persevered. He took priest's orders the following September (1783), eventually made peace with his parishioners, and became an evangelical fixture in the parish, his college, and the university for the next half-century.

White Knight of Evangelicalism?

In the one and a half centuries since his death in 1836, Charles Simeon has been the focus of a host of funeral sermons, one memoir, two full biographies, more than ten "remembrances," and at least a half dozen thematic assessments.[10] Throughout these treatments Simeon is regularly characterized as an evangelical and a committed churchman. Indeed, the most common impression associated with Simeon's name has always been his twin loyalty to the evangelical cause and the established church.

Smyth's Simeon and Church Order (1940), the definitive work to date on his churchmanship, speaks of Simeon's "steadying influence" on evangelicalism in the established church. According to Smyth, Simeon addressed the two most significant internal problems confronting evangelical Anglicans at the outset of the nineteenth century: the need for adherence to church order, and the means for continuity in parish leadership.[11] Simeon applied himself to the former issue by tutoring his Cambridge students in conformity to church discipline. He attended to the latter concern through innovations in clerical patronage. Elliott-Binns, in The Early Evangelicals (1953), seconds Smyth in noting the "parochial terms" in which Simeon expressed his evangelicalism.[12] Even Ford K. Brown, in Fathers of the Victorians (1961), acknowledges the quality of Simeon's churchmanship despite his disaffection with Simeon's evangelical agenda.[13]

With the weight of a century of uniform historical opinion pressing upon them, Pollard and Hennell concluded that Charles Simeon, more than any other, was instrumental in retaining the commitment of second- and third-generation evangelicals to the Church of England.[14] Thus, Charles Simeon, "the complete Anglican," emerges from British ecclesiastical history as the white knight of second-generation evangelical churchmen.

In Search of Charles Simeon

To label Charles Simeon of Cambridge as an evangelical and churchman cannot be incorrect. It is, however, an incomplete description of the man, his worldview, and his work. His complexity becomes especially apparent when his involvement in the British missionary movement is considered.

First, although we have in Simeon an Anglican clergyman with a fundamental concern for ecclesiastical order, he nevertheless championed the formation of a voluntary missionary society - the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Moreover, Simeon knew that the CMS would be governed exclusively by evangelical churchmen, that it would operate independently of the hierarchy of the established church, and that it would compete with the church's existing missionary societies.[16] This was Simeon the voluntarist.

Second, in Simeon we have an evangelical clergyman and founder of a evangelical missionary society who insisted on the submission of that society and its missionaries to the hierarchy of the established church. Simeon urged the CMS to subject itself to the Church of England, although its power structure had become known for its ambivalence, if not opposition, to the missionary agenda. This was Simeon the churchman.

Third, in Simeon we have a university figure who, although endeavoring to impart missionary vision to the established church, and aiding the creation of voluntary missionary societies for churchmen, failed to direct a sizable number of students toward missionary service through either channel. Instead, Simeon encouraged large numbers of "his" missionary candidates to seek employment as chaplains with the British East India Company and then used his influence with the company's Court of Directors to secure the appointments.[17] This was Simeon the mentor and patron.

These interconnected and contradictory developments were not the product of ordinary evangelicalism and Anglican churchmanship. Such conflicting outcomes were made possible by a certain toleration for paradox.[18] Indeed, the closer one looks at Charles Simeon and his missionary agenda, the less predictable he appears.

Simeon's Missionary Agenda

The roots of Charles Simeon's evangelicalism, his commitment to Anglican order, and his penchant for the exercise of patronage merged in their effect on the British missionary movement. The net result was an agenda for promoting Christian mission with three interacting centers of gravity: churchmanship, voluntarism, and personal patronage. The churchman in Simeon, the activist in Simeon, and the mentor-patron in Simeon found appropriate roles in the missionary movement. True to paradoxical form, Simeon also argued for the supremacy of each aspect of his work. The interplay between the three facets of Simeon's missionary agenda is apparent in a brief chronology of his chief mission-related efforts.

1787. From the outset of his ministry Charles Simeon championed Christian mission as the appointed means for the global proclamation of the universal grace of God in Christ. An opportunity to apply his support for missionary work arose in 1787. In that year Simeon undertook the promotion of a "missionary establishment" in Bengal under East India Company patronage.[19] However, he was surprised and disappointed by the opposition of the company and Parliament to the plan.

1797. By 1797 Simeon was openly encouraging voluntary effort for Christian mission. However, he had discovered that he could not expect Anglicans to support the "undenominational" (London) Missionary Society (LMS), and he would not ask his evangelical colleagues to limit their backing to the SPCK and the SPG. An alternative society for evangelical churchmen had become necessary.

1799. For two years Simeon had crisscrossed England from the Midlands to Cornwall in support of an evangelical missionary society for the established church. During his travels to numerous clerical meetings Simeon had become impatient with the reluctance of his evangelical colleagues to take definitive action. Consider Simeon's plea to the Eclectic Society at its meeting on March 18: "What can we do? - When shall we do it? - How shall we do it? ... We cannot join the [London] Missionary Society; yet I bless God that they have stood forth. We must now stand forth. We require something more than resolutions - something ostensible something held up to the public. Many draw back because we do not stand forth. - When shall we do it? Directly: not a moment to be lost. We have been dreaming these four years, while all England, all Europe has been awake."[20] Simeon's spirits were greatly lifted by the creation of the CMS the following month.

1800. With the founding of the CMS, Simeon's concerns turned to recruiting candidates for missionary service. Simeon discouraged volunteers per se, that is, those who stepped forward from personal enthusiasm or vocational despair: "When a man asks me about a call to be a Missionary, I answer very differently from many others. I tell him that if he feels his mind to be strongly bent on it, he ought to take that as a reason for suspecting and carefully examining whether it is not self rather than God which is leading him to the work. The man that does good as a Missionary is he who . . . says, |Here am I; do what seemeth good unto thee: send me.'"[21] Simeon advocated a sending strategy in which God, via a mentor, discovers missionary potential, shapes it, and channels the candidate toward a sphere of activity, perhaps through an appointment arranged by the mentor.

1804. By the end of the CMS's first half-decade, Simeon had become concerned over the unwillingness of most university students to consider missionary service.[22] Owing to the pioneering work of the Dissenting societies (e.g., the Baptists and the LMS), missionaries had developed a reputation as artisans and schoolteachers. University graduates found little to recommend these vocations.[23] Moreover, Simeon had become frustrated with the establishment's restrictions on missionary work in India. His relationship with the CMS also became strained by his unsuccessful efforts to recruit missionaries for the society. Simeon began to search for alternatives to missionary service with a voluntary society. His connection with David Brown and Charles Grant, dating back to 1787, proved to be formative.

1805. Simeon gave serious thought to an alternative channel for missionary activity. East India Company chaplaincies - a respectable vocation for university graduates - would allow Simeon to send his best students to India while avoiding the establishment's restrictions on missionaries per se. From 1805 to 1820, Simeon encouraged more than three dozen of his students to apply for India Company chaplaincies. With the support of Grant, twenty-one of Simeon's disciples made successful applications. It is significant that more than half of this activity occurred after the 1813 renewal of the India Company's charter lifted most of the restrictions on missionary access to India. Simeon's indirect influence in India, through "his" chaplains, extended far beyond his death in 1836.

1809. The alternatives to the CMS continued to emerge for Simeon. He began to give serious attention to a moderate form of millenarianism and, as a result, developed an enthusiasm for the conversion of the Jewish people. Simeon came to believe that Jewish converts would become a strategic means to evangelize traditionally non-Christian societies. This conviction, combined with continued difficulties in recruiting and placing missionaries, motivated Simeon to participate in the work of the London Society for Propagating Christianity Amongst the Jews (LSPCJ).[24] Simeon's most significant contribution to the LSPCJ was its reorganization in 1814 as a society governed by churchmen.

1814. With the creation of the Calcutta episcopate in 1813, Charles Simeon had anticipated a close and profitable relationship between the CMS and the bishop of Calcutta. However, Simeon became concerned for the CMS's commitment to church order when the society balked at the submission of its missionaries in India to the new bishop. The General Committee of the Society had become suspicious of T. F. Middleton from the first notice of his appointment in 1814. Middleton was no evangelical. The society would not instruct its missionaries to submit to the bishop until he licensed them. In turn, Middleton refused to license the missionaries because he was unsure of their loyalty.[25] Problems of this sort plagued the CMS's work in India until the 1840s. In contrast, Simeon consistently urged proper cooperation between the CMS and the bishop of Calcutta. Simeon's influence in the matter was also indirectly exerted through his former students who were then chaplains in India.

1818. Although the CMS's ecclesiastical policies and practices troubled Simeon and strained his relationship with the society, he did not abandon the CMS. He regularly encouraged his Cambridge congregation to support the society.[26] Moreover, Simeon supported the development of auxiliary Church Missionary Associations (CMAs) from the inception of the plan in 1813. However, Simeon delayed his backing for the Cambridge association until 1818. He had deferred his support for a local CMS auxiliary because of continued trouble between the society and Middleton and the residual tensions in the town from the founding of the Bible Society's auxiliary in 1812.

The 1820s. During the closing decade and a half of his life, Simeon did not fail to continue to mentor and influence second-and third-generation leaders for the evangelical Anglican missionary movement. Consider, for example, his relationship with Henry Venn (junior), the distinguished honorary secretary of the CMS, and Daniel Wilson, the evangelical bishop of Calcutta. By means of his influence on the two men, Simeon indirectly helped the CMS to strike a balance between its ecclesiastical and missionary priorities. Venn and Wilson made peace between the society and the Calcutta episcopate in 1838.[27] Charles Simeon is, perhaps, owed some of the credit for the achievement of this "Concordat." Although it was an indirect product of his efforts, it serves as a fitting reminder of the evangelical Anglican who strove for balance between churchmanship, voluntarism, and individualism in the first decades of the British missionary movement.

Legacy of Charles Simeon

As has been suggested, Charles Simeon approached his missionary agenda as a voluntarist and a mentor-patron. His intense efforts on behalf of the formation of the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, later renamed the Church Missionary Society, highlight his willingness to rely on voluntary means in order to forward the missionary agenda. Simeon's role in the creation of the CMS establishes him as a voluntarist to no lesser extent than Wilberforce and the Clapham Saints. When the CMS became a less fruitful channel for his missionary patronage, Simeon turned to the East India Company as an alternative, demonstrating the independent spirit of his patronage. It is certainly true that Simeon's work in support of the CMS and his partnership with Grant in appointing EIC chaplains were consistent with his evangelical commitment, but this fact does nothing to lessen the tension between his missionary activities and his churchmanship.

The standard secondary sources on Charles Simeon, such as those by Smyth, Pollard and Hennell, and Hopkins, do not attempt to resolve this tension. Simeon's missionary agenda is not the major consideration in these accounts of his life and work. The fact that Simeon's involvement with the CMS had greatly diminished by 1804 may have caused these authors to connect his embrace of the CMS's voluntary principles with the other irregularities of his early years. Moreover, the limited emphasis on Simeon's missionary efforts in these studies is consistent with their ecclesiastical (versus missionary) focus. However, it would be a mistake to relegate Simeon's missionary concerns to the periphery of his agenda. The frequency with which missionary affairs were addressed in Simeon's correspondence, sermons, autobiography, and Carus's Memoirs suggests that the global progress of the Gospel was a central concern to Charles Simeon.

The voluntarism and independence of action that is inherent in Simeon's missionary agenda stands in contrast with his churchmanship. Nevertheless, the Cambridge minister's reputation as a regular churchman was well deserved. The reality is that Simeon's pragmatism and tolerance of paradox made room for these divergent agendas. Recognizing this tension is the key to understanding Charles Simeon's legacy for the British missionary movement in the early nineteenth century.

Notes

[1.]Portions of this article are based on the author's "Charles Simeon and the Evangelical Anglican Missionary Movement: A Study of Voluntaryism and Church-Mission Tensions" (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1992) and also appear in "Voluntary initiative and Church Order: Competing Values in the Missionary Agenda of Charles Simeon," Bulletin of the Scottish Institute of Missionary Studies N.S. 6-7 (1990-91), pp. 1-15. [2.]The term "evangelical(s)" is used in this article to refer to evangelicals in the Church of England. This was common usage at the time. Evangelical Nonconformists were no less "evangelical,- but they were unable to escape the label "Dissenters.' [3.]For a discussion of the connection between the British Empire and the missionary movement, see Max Warren's Social History and Christian Missions (London: SCM Press, 1967). [4.]William Wilberforce's notion of a Christian nation and its impact on his worldview may be seen in his Practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country contrasted with real Christianity (London, 1797). This work may be the clearest example of evangelical thought at the time. For a good account of the life of Wilberforce, see John Pollock's Wilberforce (Tring, Herts: Lion Press, 1977). [5.]See J. Williamson's Brief memoir of the Rev. C. Simeon ... (London, 1848), pp. 6-7, for a concise summary of the Simeon family vitals. [6.]Henry Venn quoting Simeon in a letter to a friend, September 18, 1782, in W. Carus, Memoirs of the life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A., Late Senior Fellow of King's College and Minister of Trinity Church, Cambridge, 3d ed. (London, 1848), p. 28. Simeon never had opportunity to carry out his threat: he remained a bachelor. [7.]See Bennett, "Simeon," p. 150, for Simeon's views on the spirituality he found at Cambridge. [8.]Carus, Memoirs, pp. 15ff. A thorough summary from many sources is provided in Bennett, "Simeon," pp. 44ff. and 122ff. [9.]Carus, Memoirs, p. 39. [10.]A summary of these works may be found in Bennett, "Simeon," pp. 406ff. [11.]C. H. E. Smyth, Simeon and Church Order. A Study of the Origins of the Evangelical Revival in Cambridge in the Eighteenth Century Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1940), pp. 250, 255. [12.]L. Elliott-Binns, The Early Evangelicals: A Religious and Social Study (London: Lutterworth Press, 1953) p. 284. [13.]Ford K. Brown, Fathers of the Victorians: The Age of Wilberforce (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1961), p. 289. Brown is highly critical of what he perceived as subversive efforts by "evangelical missionaries to the Gentile world in England," namely, the "proselyting" of orthodox Anglican laity into the evangelical camp (p. 271). [14.]A. Pollard and M. Hennell, eds., Charles Simeon (1759-1836): Essays Written in Commemoration of His Bicentenary by Members of the Evangelical Fellowship for Theological Literature (London: SPCK, 1964), p. 26. [15.]H. E. Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1977), p. 181. [16.]A chief complaint against the CMS was its inherent competition with the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). [17.]Simeon's missionary expectations for India Company chaplains are considered in depth in Bennett, "Simeon," chapter 6, "The Missionary Agenda by Other Means," pp. 291ff. Simeon saw "his" chaplains as hardly less missionary than those he might send to India with the CMS. This is readily apparent in his correspondence with Charles Grant (senior), a member of the company's Court of Directors from 1794 to 1816 and Simeon's chief ally in securing chaplaincy appointments for more than two dozen men. In one sequence of letters Simeon discussed the expected impact of the "native schools" proposed by chaplain Thomas Thomason - one of Simeon's men - on the progress of the missionary task in India. See Simeon to Grant, March 15 and December 17, 1814; and July 1 and August 5, 1815 (Simeon MSS, Ridley Hall, Cambridge). [18.]D. M. Rosman has observed that a tolerance of paradox was a mark of nineteenth-century evangelical expediency ("Evangelicals and Culture in England, 1790-l833" [Ph.D). diss., Keele University, 1979], p. 19). The argument is valid, but it is an incomplete explanation for Simeon's ability to embrace contrasting values. Simeon genuinely believed that the Scriptures affirm principles that appear to be contradictory. For this reason he did not fear to do the same. One paradox in particular stands out in connection with Simeon's name: On biblical grounds Simeon spoke of himself as a Calvinist, as an Arminian, and as neither of these. See Bennett, "Simeon," pp. 19ff . [19.]I.e., the September 1787 "Plan for a missionary establishment in Bengal and Behar," as proposed from Calcutta by David Brown, William Chambers, Charles Grant, and George Udny (Simeon MSS). [20.]Carus, Memoirs, pp. 125-26; see also J. H. Pratt, ed., Eclectic Notes... 2d ed. (London, 1865) p. 99. [21.]A. W. Brown, Recollections of the conversation parties of the Rev. Charles Simeon ... (London, 1863), p. 208. [22.]"Not one of them says, |Here I am, send me'" (Simeon to Thomas Scott, August 22, 1800, CMS Archives, University of Birmingham G/AC 3; also cited in C. Hole, The Early History Missionary Society [London, 1896], p. 62). [23.]This problem had become apparent to Melville Horne a decade earlier. See Horne's Letters on missions addressed to the Protestant ministers of the British churches (London, 1794; reprint, Andover, 1815), p. 32 and throughout. [24.]For a complete summary of Simeon's efforts in aid of Jewish evangelism, see J. B. Cartwright, Love to the Jewish nation: A sermon preached at the Episcopal Jews' Chapel, Bethnal Green, London, on Sunday morning, November 27th, 1836, on the occasion of the death of the Rev. Charles Simeon (London, 1836), pp. 3143. [25.]There is evidence to suggest that Middleton refrained from licensing any missionaries, whether CMS or SPCK, until he could license all of them, and that more than a legal technicality hindered him vis-a-vis the CMS. See Bennett, "Simeon," chapters 4 and 5, where this important example of church-mission tension is considered in some detail. [26.]For example, the first parochial collection on behalf of the CMS was taken at Holy Trinity Church in 1804. See Hole, Early History, p. 96. [27.]In 1836, Daniel Wilson proposed four "rules" to guide the bishop of Calcutta in his relationship with the CMS's clerical missionaries in India: (1) determine the missionary's fitness for licensing, (2) approve the stationing of the missionary, (3) superintend his ecclesiastical work (versus his missionary work), but (4) receive regular reports from the society on the missionary work of the clergyman (Wilson to the CMS General Committee, June 9,1836, CMS Archives, University of Birmingham, C 11/08/4). "Appendix II" to the thirty-ninth Report of the CMS, drafted by Henry Venn in 1838, reflected the acceptance of Wilson's proposal. These principles were formalized in Venn's "Concordat" of July 1841, incorporating them into "Law 32" society. With the publication of the new regulations, the archbishops of Canterbury and York and the bishop of London finally consented to serve the CMS as vice-patrons. (See W. Shenk, "Henry Venn as Missionary Theorist and Administrator" [Ph.D. diss., University of Aberdeen, 19781, pp. 242-53.)

Bibliography

Material by Simeon

1802 A sermon preached at the parish church of St. Andrew by the

Wardrobe and St. Anne, Blackfriars . . . June 8, 1802, before the

Society for Missions to Africa and the East . . . being their second

anniversary .... London.

1816 (ed.) Memorial sketches the Rev. David Brown: With a

selection of his sermon preached at Calcutta. London.

1821 The conversion of the Jews, or, Our duty and encouragement to

promote it: Two discourses preached before the University of

Cambridge, on February 18th, and 20th, 1821. London.

1837 Substance of an address . . . in behalf of the London Society for

Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, on . . . October the

27th, 1834: Communicated as a letter to the Rev. J. B. Cartwright,

M.A., Secretary of the Society. London.

1845 Horae homileticae, or, Discourses digested into one continued

series, and forming a commentary upon every book of the Old and

New Testament .... 7th ed. 21 vols., with indexes by T. H.

Horne. London.

1959 Let Wisdom Judge: University Addresses and Sermon Outlines

by Charles Simeon. Edited with an introduction by A. Pollard.

London: SPCK.

Material about Simeon

Balda, W. D. "Spheres of Influence: Simeon's Trust and Its implications

for Evangelical Patronage." Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University,

1981. Bennett, J. C. "Charles, Simeon and the Evangelical Anglican Missionary

Movement: A Study of Voluntaryism and Church-Mission Tensions."

Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1992. Brown, A. W. Recollections of the conversation parties of the Rev. Charles

Simeon, M.A., Senior Fellow of King's College, and Perpetual Curate of

Trinity Church, Cambridge. London, 1863. Carus, W. Memoirs of the life of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A., Late Senior

Fellow of King's College and Minister of Trinity Church, Cambridge.3d

ed. London, 1848. Hopkins, H. E. Charles Simeon of Cambridge. London: Hodder & Stoughton,

1977. Moule, H. C. G. Charles Simeon. London, 1892. Pollard, A., and M. Hennell, eds. Charles Simeon (1759-1836): Essays

Written in Commemoration of His Bicentenary by Members of the

Evangelical Fellowship for Theological Literature. London: SPCK, 1964. Smyth, C. H. E. Simeon and Church Order: A Study of the origins of the

Evangelical Revival in Cambridge in the Eighteenth Century. The Birkbeck

Lectures for 1937-38. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1940.

John C. Bennett serves as Director of the Theological Resource Center of Overseas Council for Theological Education and Missions, of Greenwood, Indiana. Overseas Council facilitates international partnerships in support of non-Western theological education and ministry training.