it’s not so bad after all
128 pages of front matter? Really? 70 of that is biography of Bullinger himself, and the rest is biography/introduction for the Decades. These biographies are important for most of us, because, both Bullinger and his Decades are almost completely unknown. The context – the pastoral context – for this work matters, and it shapes our understanding of these sermons. Still, as John Owen rather curtly warned at the beginning of his Death of Death in the Death of Christ, if you’re looking at Bullinger for entertainment, the lengthy introduction serves as a warning: this is not a book for flightly minds.
What is the Decades then? Simply put, it’s a series of sermons intended to serve as a manual for preaching and theology in local church ministry. Each ‘decade’ is a set of sermons. In broad brush-strokes, the first decade deals with prolegomena, or introductory theology. God’s word, faith, justification, the Apostles’ Creed, and Jesus’ commandments are all addressed in this first set. The second and third decades deal with God’s Law, expounding in pastoral detail the Ten Commandments. This was my introduction to Bullinger, through Matthew Mason and Pastor’s Academy. I’ve read a fair bit of Reformation and post-Reformation treatments of the The Commandments and systematic theology, but I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for just how much Bullinger would humble and challenge me. The fourth decade looks at doctrine of God, and the fifth decade focuses on the church.
If you’re familiar with Reformation and post-Reformation theology and pastoral practice, you’ll notice that this is all pretty standard stuff. The Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer were foundational for local church exposition, not in addition to scripture, but as a summary of scripture. Martin Luther commented that though he was a doctor of theology, he regularly needed to go back to these basic treatments of Christian theology and ethics for his own soul.
One of my goals from this exercise of examining the Decades is to look for application, and already, from the introduction to the work, we have fruitful ground for pastoral application. Why have Reformed Christians and even pastors come to so neglect the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer? Of course we may use the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer in our services, but how many of us have preached or taught through them? How often do the Ten Commandments make an appearance in our public readings of scripture? Have we taught through them? If not, why not? Nearly two millennia of Christians thought these topics absolutely central to Christian understanding and piety. Not long ago I heard Sinclair Ferguson lamenting how few Presbyterian pastors actually use the catechisms in their congregations, and I suspect this lack was not limited only to the circle of pastors he was addressing.
I’m convicted of how little I use these tools in my own devotional life. Imagine the growth that would come from regularly, slowly, and prayerfully reading over God’s law, Jesus’ model for prayer, and our most ancient summary of Christian doctrine. Would that make me more aware of my own sin? Would I be more easily convicted of my sin and more tender to the prickings of conscience? Would I trust my Saviour more quickly, having daily expressed my dependence upon him through the prayer he taught me to use? Would I be less prone to be blown about the winds and waves of fashion (yes, Christians are slaves to the fashion of the times as much as anyone else)? Would my preaching and pastoral care have better content and better direction having steeped my soul in what my betters have for centuries considered foundational?
Apparently the English church thought this was important in the late 16th century. The Archbishop of Canterbury ordered that ministers acquire and weekly read through scripture first, then a sermon in Bullinger’s Decades, to be discussed at a later time with another pastoral brother or even their bishops. Though this plan was intended as part of the training for younger ministerial trainees, it was also encouraged for the rest of the clergy as well.
This point is tremendously encouraging to me. The introduction to the Decades notes that by the early 17th century, half the licensed Church of England clergy (licensed: formally permitted by church law to preach) were educated in a university. Think about that for a moment, a quarter of parish clergy in the Church of England at the beginning of the 1600s had university education, and this was considered a stunning success. Now for context, other church historians have noted that before the Reformation many parish clergy were functionally illiterate. But even a century after the Reformation began, having a state church in which a quarter of the clergy had some sort of formal theological education was considered massive progress. I get discouraged when I look at the state of the church today. Almost like clockwork there’s some pastoral scandal or ministry collapse or defection to Catholicism or Orthodoxy. The issues we’re talking about in our circles today…really? This is what we have to be spending our time on? This is the best way we can talk as ministers about how to care for Christ’s sheep? These are the topics we geek out on or argue about? But then books like Bullinger’s Decades humble my pride and ambition and bring me back to reality. Yes, the church is in a bad way right now. But that’s kind of how it’s always been. At least most of us can read, and we have easy access to decent theological material if we want it.
Look at the books we have in our own personal libraries. Even if we don’t have huge collections, God has been so kind in giving us an embarrassment of riches today. Even a self-taught and not terribly bookish pastor has a library today that would have made a 16th century pastor green with envy, if not in personal possession then available through online tools. And how many pastors really are book nerds who have built up substantial collections of resources, resources, if we’re honest, that we often leave just to look pretty on our shelves and collect dust. The Decades motivates us to get busy catching up where we’re behind and learning what we need to to care well for Christ’s sheep. But it also reminds us that there are peaks and troughs throughout the history of the church. Some of the battles Bullinger fought are over for us, and not really all that likely to come back. Other battles that we fight today would have been mind boggling to Bullinger. Where we’re weak Bullinger calls us to repentance and greater faithfulness, but that’s not all the Decades can do. It can also encourage us where some of what he teaches is commonplace among us.
I should bring this introductory essay to a close, lest I start to resemble the Decades’ introductions. Next time we get into the sermons themselves.
