I have been hunting around for some time for a gift which I could give to a dear preacher friend and stumbled across a book of sermons from the very first years of the 19^th Century. They were by a man called William Mandell – of whom I knew nothing. I’m a bit wary of such collections – they could be liberal drivel. But when I googled his name, it turned out he was an alumnus of Queens’ College in Cambridge and – according to them – a “notable evangelical.”  That was it. Not much more.

Andrew Atherstone – king of all things historical – kindly helped out. It seems that Mandell was born in Bolton in 1780 and spent the whole of his adult life in Cambridge, matriculating at Queens’ in 1799, with his MA in 1806 and BD in 1815. He was a fellow there between 1803 and 1843. He was also Senior Proctor in 1811-12 and (and this interested me most) was instrumental in getting Simeon appointed as a University Preacher. He died in 1843. In fact, Simeon dedicated one of his books to him. Well, I bought the book and read the sermons before giving it away. It thrilled me.

For Mandell was a biblical theological light shining in the darkness, long before people were really talking about this stuff in the mainstream. He could get a job here if he wanted! Here’s a snippet – all familiar stuff to us, of course, but radical for 1804. And thrilling nonetheless.

Its [the Scriptures] grand design is to testify of Christ; to direct our thoughts to Him as the glorious centre of the whole spiritual system, as the only Author of eternal life. ‘Search the Scriptures’, says our Lord for ‘they are they which testify of me.’ After his resurrection also, when he appeared to the two disciples as they went to Emmaus, ‘he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself’ and again, as is related in the same chapter, when he met the whole company of the disciples, he said unto them, ‘these are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me.’ In a word, as is declared by St Peter, ‘to Him all the prophets give witness.’ Hence it is evident, that unless from the Scriptures we attain a practical acquaintance with Jesus Christ, as the Saviour of sinners, unless, in this respect, we find Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, however, correct or extensive may be our information as to matters of a merely critical, historical, chronological or geographical nature, we do in fact, overlook the great end of their promulgation, we lamentably fail to derive from them that most important instruction which principally they were intended to convey.

We truly stand on the shoulders of unnamed and unnoticed giants who don’t even warrant a Wikipedia page.