17.1 (2015) 1–22.
S. Mark Hamilton, “Jonathan Edwards on the Atonement.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 15.4 (2013) 394–415.
SMH, JRF, & RLB
January 2019
Soli Deo Gloria
New England Dogmatics
A Systematic Collection of Questions and Answers in Divinity by Maltby Gelston (1766–1865)
Copyright © 2019 Robert L. Boss, Joshua R. Farris, and S. Mark Hamilton. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Pickwick Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
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paperback isbn: 978-1-61097-931-3
hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-8603-9
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-3776-6
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Names: Gelston, Maltby, 1766–1865, author. | Boss, Robert L., editor. | Farris, Joshua R., editor. | Hamilton, S. Mark, editor. | Minkema, Kenneth P., foreword.
Title: New England dogmatics : a systematic collection of questions and answers in divinity by Maltby Gelston (1766–1865) / edited by Robert L. Boss, Joshua R. Farris, and S. Mark Hamilton.
Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: isbn 978-1-61097-931-3 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-8603-9 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-5326-3776-6 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Gelston, Maltby, 1766–1865 | New England theology | Calvinism | Edwards, Jonathan, 1703–1758—Influence | New England—Church history | Reformed Church—Doctrines | Theology—United States—History | Theology, Doctrinal
Classification: bx7260.e3 g25 2019 (print) | bx7260.e3 (ebook)
Manufactured in the U.S.A. 03/19/19
Editor’s Introduction
Jonathan Edwards’ New England theology represents “the single most brilliant and most continuous indigenous theological tradition that America has produced.”1 Despite its brilliance, the collected works of Joseph Bellamy, Samuel Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards Jr, Nathaniel Emmons, amongst others, rank as perhaps the most ignored body of theological literature in the history of theology.2 In the most recent decade, however, interest in Edwards and his successors, particularly with respect to the reception of Edwards’ ideas, has accelerated.3 Amongst those of the New England theological tradition to excite such interest is Jonathan Edwards Jr and in particular, his doctrine of the atonement.4 And while this otherwise limited interest has traditionally come more from historical theologians and church historians than any other source, there has emerged something of a sustained, and uniquely systematic theological interest in the recent literature, primarily in the form of theologically constructive projects and so-called retrieval theologies. What has revived this interest, particularly amongst systematic theologians, is equal-parts patient research and a new sense that the New Englanders after Jonathan Edwards Sr had more to say that was theological substantive than has been previously believed. We say patient research because while the New England theologians offer researchers a trove of literature—much of it yet to be explored—it mainly consists in sermons and smaller treatises of either a practical or ethical variety, next to nothing systematic. With the publication of Maltby Gelston’s (1766–1856), A Systematic Collection of Questions and Answers in Divinity, contemporary systematic theologians have access for the first time to a concise, organized summary of the theological peculiarities distinctive to the second generation of the tradition that owes its origin to the so-called Northampton Sage. This singular resource, with its 313 specific doctrinal questions and answers, provides insight into the intellectual development(s) of New England theology that compare with such early seminal works as Joseph Bellamy’s True Religion Delineated (1750) and Samuel Hopkins’ System of Doctrines Contained in Divine Revelation (1793).
That Gelston’s Systematic Collection has unique value for systematic theologians, over and above (or at least complimentary to) the works of Bellamy and Hopkins, is the chief interest of this editor’s introduction and proceeds in two stages to a conclusion. In the first stage, we lay out a biographical sketch of Gelston’s life. As a means of showing the value of Gelston’s work for contemporary systematic-theological scholarship, in stage two, we offer up a case study of the doctrine of atonement in New England theology, comparing Gelston’s set of atonement-specific questions and answers with those works on the atonement of his mentor, Jonathan Edwards Jr. Our comparative case study develops in the context of the larger developing New England Theological tradition from the perspective of one recent and compelling argument for Jonathan Edwards Jr’s “Penal Non-Substitution” model of atonement, put forward by the British philosophical theologian Oliver Crisp. We conclude with several suggestions for how a resource such as Gelston’s Systematic Collection might best serve the ever-growing research into this rich and controversial theological period of history. Let us turn our attention first to a brief biographical sketch of Gelston.
I. Biographical Sketch
Reverend Maltby Gelston was born, the only child of Hugh and Phoebe Gelston, on July 17, 1766 in Southampton, Long Island, New York.5 His father was a farmer of no mean significance, being a son of what appears to be a well-known and well-respected merchant and long-time magistrate, Judge Hugh Gelston of Belfast, Ireland. His mother was the daughter of David and Phoebe Howell of Southampton, New York. As a child Maltby Gelston worked on his father’s farm, presumably turning his hand at all-things agrarian. At the age of nineteen, after what he later recalled as “prayerful deliberation” and admittedly against his father’s wishes—having had desired “to retain his son on the paternal farm, to be the prop and solace of his declining years”—Gelston enrolled at what was then, Yale College. He graduated from Yale with honors in 1791, during the presidential tenure of the famous Edwardsian-antagonist, Ezra Stiles (1727–95).
Immediately following graduation, Gelston began a three-year period of study in practical theology, under the private tutelage of Dr Jonathan Edwards Jr (1745–1801), as was something of a common practice of the period for men seeking the pastorate.6 It was during this three-year period that Gelston composed his Systematic Collection.7 According to Harrison—Gelston’s longtime friend and eulogizer—during the course of his study with Edwards Jr, Gelston “made a public profession of religion” before the Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, Long Island, where he remained an active member until 1794—the same year he apparently completed his Systematic Collection. On August 1, 1792, he became the first tutor of Union Hall Academy, not far from his church.
Just
