(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? (John 18:38)

Besides the famous Log College of William Tennent and its daughter schools in Pennsylvania — as well as the Log College of David Caldwell in North Carolina, and others — there was the Shepherd’s Tent of New London, Connecticut. of which Timothy Allen (1715-1806) served as President in the 1740s. Shepherd’s Tent was a brief but important contribution to the revivalism of the Great Awakening; see Richard Warch, “The Shepherd's Tent: Education and Enthusiasm in the Great Awakening,” American Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, 1978, pp. 177–198, for more about this contribution. John Brainerd and Elihu Spencer were among the students of Shepherd’s Tent.

Meanwhile, today’s post is extracted from a fascinating essay by Allen written as a response to an age-old question. The full treatise is very much worth the read. In conclusion, he gives an eight-part answer as follows.

Lastly. We see the sum of the answer to Pilate’s question, in these particulars.

GOD, his nature, and all his attributes and perfections, are truth, in its first and most important sense. His proper distinctions is, GOD of truth, Deut. xxxii.4.
JESUS CHRIST as a divine person, and as perfectly expressing GOD to men, is in equal sense, the truth. John xiv.6.
The Holy Ghost, as the great efficient of all divine purposes, and as represented in the genuine influence of all the words, and all the works of GOD, on the consciences of men, is truth. 1 John v.6. And for this reason styled, the Spirit of the truth. John xiv.17.
The work which JESUS CHRIST came to do, and which is the only obedience of merit, in which therefore all the hope of sinners lies, itself being the only perfect practical righteousness, is truth, in fact, through which only we are saved. 2 Thess. ii.13.
The Scriptures, as the only perfect literal description of the Godhead, and the only history of his kingdom, and its righteousness, is in the same sense, truth itself. John xvii.17.
The saving work of the Spirit of GOD, through belief of the word of GOD, and by which sinners are made partakers of the divine nature, and have fellowship with God, is truth. 1 John ii.27.
The whole kingdom of God, as including the creation and government of all things, is original truth, exemplified in facts. All his works are done in truth. Ps. xxxiii.4.
NATURAL self-consisting truth, in the last and most finished representation of it to men, is the distinguishing character of that kingdom, of which JESUS CHRIST was born lord and king. It was represented in types, in the Jewish state of the church; and the whole of that state of the church was type, or typical. But now the truth is come, which was all along meant by those types.

In this summation, Allen explores the manifold sense in which Pilate may receive a full answer to a profound question. Pilate may not have sought such an answer, but lovers of the truth, which is timeless, will appreciate what Allen had to say over 250 years ago. Our God is indeed a God of truth.

(Receive our blog posts in your email by clicking here. If the author links in this post are broken, please visit our Free PDF Library and click on the author’s page directly.)

Ebenezer Pemberton, Jr. (1705-1777) was a leading American Puritan of the colonial era. His father preached at the Old South Church (Congregational) in Boston, Massachusetts. Our Ebenezer was affiliated with the Presbyterian Church for the first half of his ministerial career and then returned to his father’s church in 1753. He served as chair of the New York Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, preached the ordination sermons for both David and John Brainerd. Recently, we have added over 90 autograph manuscript sermons by him to Log College Press. Many of these, but not all, were written in shorthand. They cover the time period between the 1740s and 1770s. With remarkable penmanship, we can get a glimpse of the ministerial labors of a remarkable preacher.

From another source (not found on Log College Press at present) we take note of a passage from a sermon he preached from Philippians 2:5 titled “The Duty of Imitating the Example of Christ” (The Puritan Pulpit: Ebenezer Pemberton, Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2006, pp. 103-105). In the tradition of Thomas à Kempis and The Imitation of Christ, and John Calvin, who sought to guide Christians in the right manner of imitating our Saviour while avoiding superstitious abuses of the principle, Pemberton’s sermon covers various aspects of how Christians ought to follow Christ’s example. One of these consists in how we ought to imitate Christ in regards to his relationship to all men.

We must imitate the example of Christ in His universal charity and kindness to men. This is indeed beyond a parallel, and what can never be fully imitated by any of the children of men. His whole life upon earth was one continued act of the most generous and disinterested love to the most base and unworthy objects. The gospel history everywhere abounds with astonishing instances of His grace and benignity to mankind.
It was love that brought him down from the bright realms of eternal day and fixed His abode for a time in this miserable and benighted world. This animated Him continually to go about doing good to the souls and bodies of men, instructing the ignorant, comforting the sorrowful, healing the sick, and supplying the wants of the poor and needy. This carried Him through a scene of the most distressing sorrows and afflictions in His life, and at last humbled Him to the dust of death and nailed Him to the cursed tree as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world. This is such an instance of love as exceeds the power of love to describe, and the utmost stretch of our imagination to conceive of the height and depth, the length and breadth. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “But herein God commended His love toward us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It is the manner of men to place their affections upon those they apprehend to be the most agreeable and deserving objects; and it is the highest instance of human love to die for a friend. But this is the transcendent excellency of the love of Christ, that it was placed upon the most base and unlovely part of the creation. He laid down His life for His very enemies, who had renounced His sacred authority and were in open rebellion against His laws.
This is certainly a most surprising and unusual pattern of love, and should powerfully dispose us to the most extensive charity and benevolence to our fellow creatures. This is the inference made by St. John, the beloved disciple: “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” For this end the example of Christ is frequently proposed for our imitation, and we are solemnly enjoined to copy it. “This is My commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Nay, He makes it the distinguishing badge of His followers, and the necessary character of His genuine disciples: “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another.” And what stronger obligations can we be under to this excellent duty, what more powerful motives can be set before us to engage us to the practice of it, than the positive command of our Master and Lord, and the noble example of Him who has given us so many expensive evidences of His wonderful kindness and love.

Blog