Continuity and Change.

Continuity and Change. By Roger Hayden. Oxford, UK: Nigel Lynn Publishing, 2006, 273 pp.

The dissertation of Roger Hayden, archivist of Bristol Baptist College, Bristol, England, has finally been published in a popularized format. Evident in the book's subtitle, Continuity and Change is a study of "Evangelical Calvinism among eighteenth-century Baptist ministers trained at Bristol Academy, 1690-1791." Hayden has sought to demonstrate the influence and history of the Western Baptist Association, the Bristol Academy, and its founders on the inauguration of the modern missions movement, which began in 1792.

In Continuity and Change, Hayden introduced the Western Baptist Association and its leaders from 1690 to 1791 as evangelical Calvinists who retained a rigid Calvinism while attempting to spread the gospel. This association, due to the creation of the Bristol Academy, exhibited a greater form of connectionalism than did London Baptists. As one of the oldest Baptist theological schools, Bristol Academy began in 1720 when Bernard Foskett accepted the pastorate of Broadmead Church in Bristol. Although financed with money from London pastors, this academy supplied numerous pastors to other districts in the United Kingdom. In fact, the creation and prosperity of several Baptist associations such as the Welsh, Midland, Northern, and Irish resulted from the work of the Bristol Academy. After Foskett's tenure, Hugh Evans and later his son, Caleb, both pastors of the Broadmead Church, provided decades of leadership and made this institution a center of evangelical Calvinism.

In this work, Hadyen created a wall of distinction between Western Baptists and London Baptists. Stating that those in London were exclusive in their actions and excessive in their theology, he depicted Baptists in outlying western districts as connectional, evangelistic, and more balanced. Hayden did not view those in Bristol as suffering from hyper-Calvinism-a form of Reformed theology that overly preoccupies itself with the eternal decrees of God and the total inability of mankind to seek saving faith in Christ. Rather, the author identified the leaders and students of Bristol Academy as early proponents of Edwardsian Calvinism--the Reformed explanation of Calvinism that emerged from the writings of American Jonathan Edwards and gained attention during the First Great Awakening. Hayden asserted that both Caleb Evans and John Sutcliff of Bristol Academy influenced Andrew Fuller with the thought of Edwards, thereby creating the early theological impetus of the modern missions movement under William Carey.

This book possesses both strengths and weaknesses as a pivotal work in Baptist history. Hayden successfully traced a remarkable and often forgotten line from Bristol to William Carey and Andrew Fuller. He also demonstrated the valid concept that an evangelical faith can be seen in the creation of its confessions, catechisms, and hymns. However, his distinctions between evangelical and hyper-Calvinism seem rather forced. Until the 1790s, the entire Particular Baptist denomination in Britain extolled the views of John Gill and cherished the acceptance of the Second London Confession. Under these circumstances, it is difficult to find distinctions, except in the practice of wanting to exhort sinners openly toward repentance. The Baptist ministers of the Western Association surely fit this model of eighteenth-century Baptist evangelicalism.-Reviewed by Jarrett Burch, editor of Viewpoints: Georgia Baptist History, Georgia Baptist Historical Society, Macon, Georgia.