No doubt there are severe limitations to text searches. Research methods (like the one I’m showing you today) can be too mechanical and overly simplistic and therefore lacking in accuracy. However, I have found them to sometimes illuminate interesting themes and their prominence in literature.
Recently I ran a text search on Richard Baxter’s massive book, Christian Directory to try and discover which terms he employs (and thereby create a wordle of sorts). Here is a sampling of words and phrases I searched for and the number of individual references within the book itself:
7,687 > “sin”
1,111 > “grace” [updated]
714 > “repent”
496 > “sanctif*”
479 > “wicked*”
366 > “hypocrit*”
123 > “forgive*”
58 > “wash*”
43 > “cleanse”
40 > “blood of Christ”
38 > “his blood”
18 > “the blood”
13 > “cross of Christ”
6 > “death of Christ”
1 > “atone*”
[It should be noted that since the word “cross” can be used simultaneously for the work of Christ and the hardship endured by the Christian I did not run a search on this term.]
I’m interested to hear from the TSS gallery.
What, if anything, does this chart tell us? Are there other more accurate terms to search? Even more broadly–and more importantly–what constitutes cross-centered preaching and writing? Merely the saturation of the terms? What other factors must be considered?
Thanks for the input!
Tony
Tony Reinke 
I’ve always felt, when reading the Puritans, that their Cross-Centeredness was a given. Not as in taken for granted, but an assumption that many of them have as their foundation and starting point, their sine qua non. Even if it doesn’t always recieve much attention in the writing itself, I think many of them new that their writing and preaching stood or fell on the cross.
Walter Marshall wrote his superb Gospel Mystery of Sanctification partly in reaction to the legalism he perceived in Baxter.
Sadly, Baxter and most of the Puritans spent far more time on the work of the Spirit within us than the work of Christ for us. (Some have suggested their introspective bent was one of the roots of the modern theurapeutic movement.)
It would be interesting to categorize all the Banner of Truth’s Puritan titles to see which look inward and which look outward. Owen’s Glory of Christ, Rutherford’s Letters and Flavel’s Fountain of Life are some notable exceptions.
Hello Brother,
Personally, I don’t think such a word search is overly helpful. I think it misses and misrepresents the spirit of a man like Baxter (having said that, I’m encouraged that you’re willing to critique your favored tradition).
Try and do the same kind of search with a book of the Bible, say, 2 Corinthians (If I’m not mistaken, Paul never uses the word “cross” in this epistle). Is 1 Corinthians more “cross-centered” than 2 Corinthians because Paul speaks more of the cross?
Or what about 3 John? Is 3 John less “cross-centered” than the epistle to the Galatians?
Are we to say that parts of the New Testament are more “cross-centered” than other parts? If so, what does that imply?
Also, given that Baxter wrote more than 200 works, I think it’s fair to want to judge his “cross-centeredness” on the basis of his entire corpus. The context of casuistical divinity also needs to be taken into account.
Cheers,
TB
Dear Bart,
I beg to differ. The Puritans could and did wax as eloquently as Calvin on the extra nos/pro nobis work of Christ.
It is an old, old (American) historiographical error to suggest that the English Puritans were weak on Christology.
Tony – As Sinclair Ferguson has said, it’s much easier to preach about people’s sin than to convince them of God’s grace. How true that is…
Context, Context, Context…
The Gospel never looks better then when it’s put up against the horrific truth of mans rebellion against God.
Two things:
1) Richard Baxter was his own brand of Puritan. He was not primarily what we think of when we use the term today (at least not within this circle). Performing this test on another Puritan such as John Owen I believe would yield much different results. When writing a paper about him a couple of months ago I searched and discovered he uses the word “Gospel” over 500 times in Works VIII alone.
2)Some of the Puritans do not immediately come across as utterly “Cross-centered,” however most of them are jaw-droppingly God-centered. Is this different? better? worse? Any thoughts? An example here might be Scougal.
Tony, you could also paste Baxter’s text to Wordle.net to see the “word cloud” picture.
However, I think it’s difficult to talk always about the cross in a believer’s life where there is still so much sin. And even the Bible has only a small part on the cross of Jesus. Since the text of Baxter seems to be addressing practical issues (I haven’t read it yet, sorry) so “sin” and “grace” are more popular words for addressing them, which your chart does show.
And grace, of course, is directly related to the cross of Jesus Christ.
“However, I think it’s difficult to talk always about the cross in a believer’s life where there is still so much sin.”
This has to be formulated better… Of course, I don’t mean talking about the cross is impossible or unnecessary because of sin. But “grace” IS the word to oppose “sin”. So we can talk about sin and grace.
How true this is, Stephen. The cross is so easy to neglect and especially when it comes to “self-improvement” where we are tempted to attempt sanctification on our own strength and not rooted in the hope, promise, and purchase of the gospel.
So let me turn the discussion to the positive. Who would be considered the most cross-centered of the Puritans? How can we tell?
Tony
Well, Reynolds on the exaltation of Christ is a given, I suppose. By the way, readers, has anyone else noticed that the lettering down the spine of the dustjacket on volume 2 of the Reynolds set is slightly thinner than the lettering on 1 through 6?
TB
Hi Tom,
My remark about the Puritans came from my own reading of them, not American historiography.
I love and admire the Puritans, but an unmoderated diet of them can lead to spiritual despair. Luther or Spurgeon could never be accused of that.
Bart
Some have remarked (it was my initial reaction too) that it isn’t quite fair to evaluate an author’s cross-centredness by examining only their practical theology.
But isn’t that the point? The real test of Owen’s cross-centredness isn’t the Glory of Christ but the Mortification of Sin.
Baxter’s Christian Directory is a good example because it was the most exhaustive Puritan manual on the Christian life. And there isn’t much of Christ in that massive tome.
(The high numbers for ‘grace’ might be misleading—most of them are probably synonyms for ‘holiness’ or ‘character’, not the objective favour of God in Christ.)