Theopedia

Peter Toon

Overview

Peter Toon (1939-2009) was an Anglican theologian and church historian. Two of his books, a 1967 history of hyper-Calvinism and a 1971 biography of John Owen, are still cited by Reformed scholars as standard references.1 He spent the last decade of his career as president of the Prayer Book Society of the USA, defending the historic Anglican liturgy against modern revision.1

Life and Ministry

Toon was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1939 and educated at Hemsworth Grammar School and Cliff College before earning a Bachelor of Divinity from King’s College, London, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Christ Church, Oxford.1 He was ordained deacon in 1973 and priest in 1974 in the Diocese of Liverpool, serving a curacy at Skelmersdale before working as librarian at Latimer House, Oxford, and curate at St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford.1 From 1976 he taught at Oak Hill Theological College in London, later directing post-ordination training for the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich and serving parishes at Staindrop, County Durham, and Biddulph Moor and Brown Edge, Staffordshire.1 He wrote more than twenty-five books and closed his career as president and CEO of the Prayer Book Society of the USA, arguing for the continued use of Anglicanism’s historic liturgical formularies against contemporary revision.1 He died on 25 April 2009 in San Diego, California.1

Theological Contribution

Toon’s The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, 1689-1765 (1967) was, according to J. I. Packer’s preface, the first scholarly study of its subject. Jonathan Swan’s dissertation on John Gill’s doctrine of Christ’s eternal sonship describes it as a work “which has been viewed as an authoritative work on the historical and theological development of hyper-Calvinism,” adding that “to this day there does not appear to be another work so authoritatively cited on these issues.”2 Toon identified John Gill as one of three eighteenth-century case studies of hyper-Calvinism, a classification later scholarship on Gill has continued to debate.3 He later wrote the entries on hyper-Calvinism for both the New Dictionary of Theology (1988) and the Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (1992).2

In Born Again: A Biblical and Theological Study of Regeneration (1987), Toon took up the Canons of Dort’s teaching on the order of regeneration and faith. Matthew Barrett’s dissertation on monergistic regeneration cites Toon’s reading of Dort’s third and fourth heads, article 14, as correct: “Peter Toon correctly concludes that, on the basis of article 14, Dort taught ‘that regeneration precedes faith and is the cause of faith.’”4

Toon’s God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian (1971) is cited as a standard biography of Owen. Carl Trueman cites it in his own study of Owen’s Trinitarian theology, and J. V. Fesko’s essay on Owen’s doctrine of union with Christ and justification notes Trueman’s use of it as an established secondary source on Owen’s life.5

Historical Significance

Toon wrote from within Anglicanism, not Reformed Baptist confessionalism, and his major scholarly works address questions (the historiography of English hyper-Calvinism, the biography of a Puritan divine) rather than constructive Reformed dogmatics. Reformed writers nonetheless draw on his conclusions: Swan’s dissertation on Gill works from Toon’s classification of hyper-Calvinism, Barrett’s dissertation on regeneration adopts Toon’s reading of Dort, and Owen scholarship continues to cite his biography of Owen.245

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Wikipedia, s.v. “Peter Toon,” accessed September 15, 2026. No library-held source treats Toon’s own biography as its subject; this article’s theological-content claims are sourced independently of Wikipedia throughout. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  2. Jonathan Elliot Swan, “Introduction,” in “‘The Fountain of Life’: John Gill’s Doctrine of Christ’s Eternal Sonship” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2021), 4-5, discussing Peter Toon, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, 1689-1765 (1967; repr., Weston Rhyn, UK: Quinta Press, 2003). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Swan, “Introduction,” 4-5, citing Toon, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism, 7-8, 93-103. ↩

  4. Matthew Michael Barrett, “Monergism in the Calvinist Tradition,” in “Reclaiming Monergism: The Case for Sovereign Grace in Effectual Calling and Regeneration” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 21-87, at 79-80, quoting Peter Toon, Born Again: A Biblical and Theological Study of Regeneration (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987), 123. ↩ ↩2

  5. J. V. Fesko, “Owen on Union and Justification,” n. 3, citing Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 1n1, which in turn cites Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: The Life and Work of John Owen (Exeter: Paternoster, 1971). ↩ ↩2