So here’s an unusual story. About 20 years ago I wrote a short chapter on Andrew A. Bonar, the nineteenth-century Scottish presbyterian minister and theologian who is now best-known for his edition of the letters of Samuel Rutherford and of the memoirs and remains of Robert Murray McCheyne. The chapter appeared in a book called Prisoners of hope? (2004). In the chapter, I tried to show why Bonar adopted premillennial views, how important these premillennial views became to his ministry, and the implications of these views for his attitude to the Westminster Confession. For, however we might debate the rights or wrongs of premillennialism, we surely must agree that its denial of a single resurrection of the dead is not consistent with the doctrinal standards of the Free Church of Scotland. I thought that argument would be pretty much unremarkable.
However, a few years after this chapter was published, its claims about Bonar’s commitment to premillennialism, and the importance of those views for the development of his ministry, were the subject of some complaint. Ironically, these complaints were made in a volume published by the very same organisation that had published Bonar’s diary – a text in which his developing interest in and commitment to premillennialism was evident. Some of the debate turned upon the question of whether the Andrew Bonar who wrote a book entitled The development of antichrist (1853) could possibly be the well-known Free Church theologian. When I came to revise my work on Bonar, in a book entitled Evangelical millennialism in the trans-Atlantic world, 1500-2000 (2011), I accepted the challenge to my argument and there the matter rested. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that Andrew A. Bonar’s Wikipedia page list the work as his, and that this attribution was confirmed by Worldcat.
Until today! Because earlier today someone wrote to ask me about my current thinking on the identity of the Andrew Bonar who wrote The development of antichrist. And the question was very quickly resolved – thanks to online resources that simply didn’t exist twenty years ago. All the job took was ten minutes on Google Books.
On the face of it, there might be every reason to identify the two Andrew Bonars who were both defending premillennialism in books published by the same publisher, James Nisbet, in the 1840s and 1850s. But, as the earliest critic of my argument noted, there was also some circumstantial evidence that suggested that we might need to consider whether in fact these might be two different men.
Take a look at the title pages of their books. The development of antichrist was written by “Andrew Bonar, Esq,” who signed his preface from Leamington. (It was the second edition of this book that was published by James Nisbet, in 1863.)
The books that are clearly identifiable as belonging to Andrew A. Bonar, the Free Church theologian, make much of his clerical position, and advertise his situation in Scotland. See, for example, the title page of Redemption drawing nigh: A defence of the premillennial advent (1847):
But the possibility that we are dealing with two men, with the same name, the same theology, and the same publisher can now be confirmed. James Nisbet, the firm that published both titles listed above, published a catalogue, with titles of books handily arranged according to their authors. And this catalogue indicates quite clearly that there were in fact two men, with the same name, the same theology, and the same publisher, publishing works in defence of premillennialism at the same time.
So the critics were right. But two men, with the same name, the same theology, the same publisher, writing on the same topics at the same time – what were the odds?
Now, I should add that removing The development of antichrist from my chapter in Prisoners of hope? doesn’t change its argument. Andrew A. Bonar – yes, the Free Church one, stay with me! – was obviously committed to defending premillennialism, as even the uncontroversial screen grab above will show. That premillennial commitment did contravene the teachings of the Westminster Confession to which he had subscribed as a minister in the kirk. This was an evangelical move that hit against the demands of the confessional tradition.
So, if there’s any lesson here, it’s about not uncritically depending on material that has been reprinted by modern publishers. In this case, the publisher of the reprinted edition of The development of antichrist, which appeared in 1998, has very graciously acknowledged its initial misattribution of this work. That’s a good example for the rest of us to follow.
Crawford Gribben 