Monergism

Anne Dutton (1692-1765)

While there were a number of first-class poetesses in the 18th century, female theological writers from that era are a distinct rarity. This makes the literary legacy of the Calvinistic Baptist, Anne Dutton (1692-1765), extremely significant. Anne Dutton, née Williams, was born in Northampton to godly Congregationalist parents. In her late teens she began attending an open-membership Baptist church in the town, pastored at the time by John Moore (d.1726). There, in her words, she found ‘fat, green pastures, for Mr. Moore was a great doctrinal preacher’. As she went on to explain: ‘the special advantage I received under his ministry was the establishment of my judgement in the doctrines of the gospel’. It was in this congregation that she was baptised as a believer.

When she was twenty-two she married a Mr Cattell (his first name does not appear to be known) and moved to London. While there, she worshipped with the Calvinistic Baptist church that met at premises on Wood Street, Cripplegate. Founded by Hanserd Knollys (1599-1691), this work had known some rough times in the days immediately before Anne came to the church. David Crosley (1669-1744), pastor of the work from 1705 to 1709, had been disfellowshipped for drunkenness, unchaste conduct, and lying to the church about these matters when accused. It was not until 1714 that the church succeeded in finding a new pastor. John Skepp (d.1721), a member of the Cambridge Congregationalist Church of Joseph Hussey (1659-1726), was called that year to be the pastor. Now Hussey is often seen as the father of Hyper-Calvinism. In his book God’s Operations of Grace but no Offers of Grace (1707), he asserted that offering Christ indiscriminately to sinners is something that smacks of ‘creature-co-operation and creature-concurrence’ in the work of salvation.

It is sometimes argued that Anne Dutton’s exposure to Hyper-Calvinism at a young age shaped her thinking for the rest of her life. If so, it is curious to find her rejoicing in the ministry of preachers like George Whitefield (1714-1770) in later years. If Anne did have Hyper-Calvinist leanings, they were not such as to prevent her from appreciating deeply what God was doing through men like Whitefield.

But she wrestled with whether it was biblical for her to be an authoress. In a tract entitled A Letter to Such of the Servants of Christ, who May have any Scruple about the Lawfulness of PRINTING any Thing written by a Woman (1743), she maintained that she wrote not for fame, but for ‘only the glory of God, and the good of souls’. To those who might accuse her of violating 1 Timothy 2:12, she answered that her books were not intended to be read in a public setting of worship, which the text was designed to address.

Rather, the instruction that her books gave was private, for they were read by believers in ‘their own private houses’. She asked those who opposed women writers to ‘Imagine then…when my books come to your house, that I am come to give you a visit’ and the opportunity to ‘patiently attend’ to her ‘infant lispings’. What if some other women authors had used the press for ‘trifles’? Well, she answered, ‘Shall none of that sex be suffer’d to appear on Christ’s side, to tell of the wonders of his love, to seek the good of souls, and the advancement of the Redeemer’s interest?’ She was not slow to critique theological positions she felt erroneous. For instance, she was a critic of John Wesley and his brand of Evangelical Arminianism, though her criticism was never abusive. In addition to a number of letters to Wesley, she wrote a booklet entitled Letters to the Reverend Mr. John Wesley against Perfection as Not Attainable in this Life (1743).