The life of the church has always been connected to its past.
The truth we confess today has flowed down to us through the centuries as a living stream of doctrine. From the early church, where foundational truths were defined, through to the medieval period, where doctrine was carefully consolidated, into the Reformation, where the gospel was freshly clarified, and onward into the confessional era – this stream has carried with it the theological inheritance of the people of God.
But a stream alone is not enough. What flows through it must be collected; what is valuable must be brought to shore.
That is why Broken Wharfe is launching HARBOUR: a place for the stream of Reformed theology to be safely received, preserved, and presented to the church again for use.
What is Harbour?
Harbour is Broken Wharfe’s historical republication imprint. It exists to recover the theological inheritance of the church, from the first centuries AD all the way through to the Particular Baptist and Nonconformist eras. Not driven by nostalgia or mere antiquarian interest, Harbour seeks to republish historical works of enduring value to the church today, due to their doctrinal significance or historical influence.
As an imprint of Broken Wharfe, Harbour orbits around the theological centre of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. Within a long and continuous stream of Christian doctrine, this confession stands not as an isolated statement, but as the fruit of a faithful reception of truth, representing a mature expression of the Bible’s teaching and the theological inheritance of the church.
Harbour's Philosophy
Harbour is engaged in the work of judicious retrieval, not just reprinting. It does not exist simply to reissue old books. Each work that Harbour republishes is selected on the basis of its doctrinal significance, historical influence, confessional alignment, and ongoing usefulness to the church. Nothing is published merely because it is old, rare, Baptist, or Puritan.
Moreover, Harbour’s particular interest is in republishing works that contribute meaningfully to the Reformed Baptist tradition or help to illuminate confessional truths. The aim is not to develop a random catalogue of old Christian books, but a coherent theological library for the church today. For this reason, Harbour is characterized by editorial selectiveness, not volume-driven publishing.
In sum, Harbour operates as:
- A place of theological reception, not innovation;
- An exercise in discernment, not accumulation;
- With the purpose of serving the church, not just reproducing its past.
Harbour's Commitments
Broken Wharfe’s republication imprint does not just have a philosophy for selecting what works to publish. It also has a framework for how to publish those works. When it comes to editorial work and the reproduction of texts, Harbour is governed by three overarching commitments: recovery, scholarship, and craftsmanship.
Recovery:
- Returning to the original sources and recovering texts that have been forgotten, altered, or obscured.
- Preserving authorial argumentation and structure wherever possible.
- Carefully restoring and editing texts so that can be understood by readers today, with necessary grammatical changes bringing renewed clarity without altering meaning.
Scholarship:
- Combining careful editorial work with historical research to illuminate the text and its context.
- Including substantial introductions that situate the work historically and theologically, as well as demonstrate its enduring importance for the church today.
- Providing explanatory notes and clarifications where needed.
Craftsmanship:
- Producing books that justify themselves physically and are worthy of the works they contain.
- Crafting editions that are designed to be read, used, and passed on.
- Using typography that reflects the style of the original work, whilst presenting it in a clear and accessible format.
Harbour's Future
To mark this exciting launch, Harbour will be announcing its inaugural publication in November.
This first republication is a devotional classic with a remarkable history and perhaps an even more remarkable story of recovery. Involving a seventeenth-century author, a historic Oxford library, and a text that has circulated for centuries, it will be a compelling example of Harbour’s unique and valuable contribution to the recovery, illumination, and preservation of the riches of historic Christian literature for a new generation of believers.
