My reading has drastically slowed down, but I did get a chance to finally finish another chapter in J. I. Packer’s dissertation on Richard Baxter. I don’t have the time to fill in all the quotations that would be of interest to [my imaginary ideal] readers, so I will just state an observation.

More than a decade ago J. I . Packer was one of the people who signed a document entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together. For what it matters, I would not have signed it, and would have told Packer to refrain from signing if he had cared about my opinion. But sign it he did.

In some quarters there was an outcry against the document for reasons I don’t want to spend time evaluating. But there was also an outcry against Packer himself, not only due to the merits (or lack thereof) of the document, but also that it displayed something wrong with Packer’s integrity. One received the distinct impression that this represented a departure from everything Packer had ever stood for.

Having completed chapter four of Packer’s study of Baxter, I can assure you that is complete nonsense. Anyone reading Packer’s glowing portrayal of Baxter’s catholic desires and actions, his attempts to find common ground with all manner of Christians, whether Jesuits, Arminians, or Calvinists, will see that there is nothing shocking about Packer’s signature. Packer signing ECT was as surprising as water running down hill, as amazing as paint drying. On the contrary, what would have been shocking is if he had chosen not to sign the document.

It is obvious reading this, Packer’s earliest work, that it was not just a description of history, but a description of his own passionate convictions (though he, of course, disagreed with Baxter’s neo-nomian conceptions). This is the young man who would later grow to write Knowing God. It shows what course he had set for himself. And he has not deviated from it! It was not incongruous that he signed ECT; he was built for it.