Spiritual Declension: Lessons from Early 18th Century Particular Baptists, Part 3-The Chilling Effect of Hyper-Calvinism

Posted by jsmitheasley on January 17, 2009
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Let me begin with a definition. What is Hyper-Calvinism. The hallmark of Hyper-Calvinism is the rejection of the free offer of the gospel to all men. It is the belief that preachers should not give indiscriminate invitations and exhortations to sinners to believe the gospel and come to Christ and to come to Christ immediately. The Hyper-Calvinist sees the doctrines of sovereign grace (unconditional election, particular redemption and human inability) in the scriptures and on the basis of that he rejects, or minimizes, human responsibility and the free offer of Christ to all. On the other hand, Biblical Calvinism, or what is sometimes called Evangelical Calvinism, embraces both of those truths because it believes they are both taught in the Bible. The Evangelical Calvinist recognizes that there is a tension in the bible that our puny minds are not able to fully reconcile. There is mystery here because we are dealing with God. As you can imagine, Hyper-Calvinism tends to squelch evangelistic and missionary zeal in the church.

The early 18th century Particular Baptists began to be heavily influenced by Hyper-Calvinism. In 1707, Joseph Hussey, a congregational pastor, published the book, God’s Operations of Grace but No Offers of Grace, in which he advocated Hyper-Calvinist views. These views were embraced by a member of his church, John Skepp. Skepp later became a Baptist and then a pastor of a Particular Baptist church. Skepp, together with another Particular Baptist who came to Hyper-Calvinistic views, John Brine, had a major influence in bringing those views into Particular Baptist churches. Also they became close friends with perhaps the most influential Particular Baptist pastor of that time, John Gill.[1] Gill was a very gifted scholar and preacher who pastored in London. There is considerable debate among scholars as to whether Gill himself should be classified as a Hyper-Calvinist. However there is little doubt that he was at least tinged with Hyper-Calvinism and many of those who identified with Gill were Hyper-Calvinists. Spurgeon later said, “The system of theology with which many identify his name has chilled many churches to their very soul, for it has led them to omit the free invitations of the gospel, and to deny the duty of sinners to believe in Jesus”[2]

Andrew Fuller gives a typical description when he describes the preaching of a Particular Baptist pastor named John Eve. In 1752 Eve was ordained pastor of the Baptist church in Soham, a small village north-east of Cambridge. He ministered there until 1771. Fuller grew up under his ministry. Later Fuller had this to say about that ministry. “Eve”, he says, was “tinged with a false Calvinism” and “had little or nothing to say to the unconverted.”[3] Generally there was no pleading and no exhortations to sinners come to Christ. The most the average Hyper-Calvinist might say to the unconverted was something like this, “Attend to the means of grace, and may the Lord call you in due time.” It shouldn’t surprise us that churches coming under this influence tended to be marked by a lack a passion for evangelism and missions that brought an appalling deadness to the churches.[4]

What should we learn from this as Reformed Baptists at the beginning of the 21st century? You might say, obviously the lesson is that we need to stay away from Hyper-Calvinism. True, and I don’t think any of us want to be a Hyper-Calvinist. We need to be careful, however, because a man may reject Hyper-Calvinism in name and still be tinged with Hyper-Calvinism in his practice or in his preaching. John Murray gave this warning shortly before his death,

The passion for missions is quenched when we lose sight of the grandeur of the gospel…. It is a fact that many, persuaded as they rightly are of the particularism of the plan of salvation and of it’s various corollaries, have found it difficult to proclaim the full, free, and unreserved overture of gospel grace. They have labored under inhibitions arising from fear that in doing so they would impinge upon the sovereignty of God in his saving purposes and operations. The result is that, though formally assenting to the free offer, they lack freedom in the presentation of its appeal and demand.[5]

So here is the question for us: Are we really preaching the free offer of the gospel? This raises the question, what is the free offer of the gospel? It has been well defined as,

that gracious and authoritative offer of salvation, in which God freely and indiscriminately commands and entreats lost men to come to Christ in repentance and faith; because He sincerely desires and delights in their salvation; so that any who are willing to have Christ on his terms may have him.[6]

This definition highlights three very important elements of the free offer of the gospel.[7] There is the essence of the free offer. “It is that gracious and authoritative offer of salvation, in which God freely and indiscriminately commands and entreats lost men to come to Christ in repentance and faith.” There is the motive of the free offer, “because He sincerely desires and delights in their salvation.” And there is the consequence or result of the free offer, “so that any who are willing to have Christ on his terms may have him.”

The element in this definition that we especially need to be careful about and clear about is that of the motive of the free offer. Is it true that God commands and entreats lost sinners freely and indiscriminately to come to Christ, because he sincerely desires and delights in their salvation? John Calvin himself certainly believed that. Commenting on John 3:16, he said, “Although there is nothing in the world deserving of God’s favor, he nevertheless shows he is favorable to the whole lost world when he calls all without exception to faith in Christ.”[8] As mysterious and difficult as it might be for our finite minds to comprehend and to reconcile with the doctrines of particular grace, the Bible does teach that in the general call of the gospel to all God is sincere and that the invitations of the gospel are an expression of His compassion and common love for men. In Ezekiel 33:11 God swears by his own self-existence that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but sincerely desires that they would repent. It is God who says, “O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me and keep all my commandments, which it might be well with them, and with their children forever” (Deut. 5:29). See Him in the person of His Son weeping over Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to you; how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not” (Lk. 13:34). I was willing, but you were not willing. Remember the story of the Rich Young Ruler. This young man was beginning to feel something of the emptiness of his possessions. He came to Jesus but sadly he rejected our Lord’s message to him. Yet the text says, “And Jesus looking upon him loved him.” We shouldn’t get twisted up with the question as to whether that was the eternal love of divine election or what it was. We can take the scriptures at their face value, and leave the unsolvable mysteries to God. The Bible says that Christ looked upon that man with a heart of genuine love for him. In Luke 19 we read that, “When He was come nigh unto Jerusalem, Jesus beheld the city and He wept over it,” and He said, “If you had known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace! But now they are hid from your eyes.” He wept, and He wailed over the city and I John 2:6 tells us that, “He that says he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked”

It is a distortion of historical Calvinism that cannot tell sinners that the offer of Christ to them in the gospel is an expression of God’s sincere and common love for their souls. John Owen said, “Love towards all mankind in general is enforced upon us by the example of Christ’s own love and goodness which are extended unto all.”[9] At one point He encourages his hearers, to dwell on “the love of Christ in his invitations of sinners to come unto him that they may be saved.”[10] We must warn them of God’s wrath to awaken them but we must also tell them of God’s love in Christ to woo them. As Bunyan said, “It is not the over-heavy load of sin but the discovery of mercy…that makes a man come to Jesus Christ.”[11] Owen says that this love is to be proclaimed as ‘good news’ not to men as elect but to men as sinners.[12] The great reformer John Knox once said this, “By what means Satan first drew mankind from the obedience of God, the Scripture doth witness: To wit, by pouring into their hearts that poison, that God did not love them.”[13] Part of the business of gospel preaching is to extract that “poison” from the hearts of men and we will never do that with passion and urgency unless we really believe that God is sincere in his offers of mercy to sinners.

We will consider in blogs to follow the reaction of early 18th century Particular Baptists to the early stages of the Evangelical Awakening; how some reacted, why they reacted as they did, and what we can learn from it.

Jeffery Smith
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church
Easley, South Carolina

[1] Merck, 263.
[2] Iain Murray, Spurgeon and Hyper-Calvinism, 127, as quoted by Merck, 264.
[3] Haykin, Sutcliff, 19.
[4] I’m aware that there were some Hyper-Calvinist ministries that were well attended. See Oliver, History of the English Calvinistic Baptists: 1771-1892.
[5] John Murray, “The Atonement and the Free Offer of the Gospel,” in Collected Writings (Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth Trust,1989), 1:59,81
[6] Adapted from Greg Nichols, “The Doctrine of Christ” (manuscript for course taught for Trinity Ministerial Academy and Reformed Baptist Seminary: Lecture 32)
[7] Ibid.
[8] John Calvin, The Gospel According to John, 1-10, trans. T.H.L. Parker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 74, quoted by Iain Murray, The Old Evangelicalism: Old Truths For A New Awakening (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2005), 1112.
[9] John Owen, The Works of John Owen, Vol.15 (1850-53 reprint, Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 70.
[10] Owen, Works, Vol.1, 422.
[11] John Bunyan, The Works of John Bunyan, vol. 1 (1850 reprint, Carlisle PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 286.
[12] Murray, Old Evangelicalism, 121. Owen, Works, Vol. 6, 523.
[13] John Knox, Works of John Knox, ed. David Lang, Vol. 5 (Edinburgh: James Thin, 1895), 24, quoted by Murray, Old Evangelicalism, 157.

Spiritual Declension: Lessons from Early 18th Century Particular Baptists, Intro

Posted by jsmitheasley on January 7, 2009
9 Comments

Particular Baptist churches[1] began to pop up in England in the early part of the 17th century as an outgrowth of the Puritan movement. The first Particular Baptist church in England was formed in 1633. For the next several decades, the Particular Baptists enjoyed tremendous growth. By the mid-1640’s there were seven churches in London. By the late 1650’s, there were approximately 131 Particular Baptist churches throughout England, Wales, and Ireland.[2] It was a time of great blessing and spiritual harvest. When Charles II took the throne in 1660, after the relatively peaceful days of the Cromwell era, the Baptists went through a period of intense persecution. Apparently, however, Particular Baptists continued to grow even in the midst of persecution. According to one historian, new churches were planted and some older ones flourished so that Baptists increased by about another third between 1660 and 1699.[3]

The Act of Toleration under William and Mary brought religious liberty. We might conclude that these new freedoms would result in even greater spiritual vitality and growth for Particular Baptists. But this is not what happened. Baptist historian Michael Haykin notes,

After 1689 Calvinistic Baptists, as well as other Protestants outside the Church of England, were now legally free to have their own distinct forms of worship, to expand their congregations, to build their chapels. One would expect that given such opportunities, the Calvinistic Baptists would flourish. Many Baptists who witnessed the dawn of toleration certainly thought so. These hopeful promises of future blessing were not to be realized; however … the Calvinistic Baptist cause began to decline.[4]

This brings us to the period of spiritual decline among the Particular Baptists in the early 18th century. Evidences of this period of decline abound. It has been estimated that that there were roughly 220 Particular Baptist congregations in England and Wales around the years 1715 to 1719. By the early 1750’s, however, the number of congregations dropped to around 150. That’s a decrease of approximately one third.[5] An influential Baptist pastor could state in 1750,

The harvest is great, and faithful and painful ministers are few…and what adds to the sorrow is, that there are so few rising to fill the places of those that are removed; few that come forth with the same spirit, and are zealously attached to the truths of the everlasting gospel.[6]

Andrew Fuller summed up the situation in these words, “Had matters gone but for a few years, the Baptists would have become a perfect dunghill in society.”[7]

In God’s mercy, things eventually began to turn around toward the end of the century. The final three decades of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century were a time of spiritual prosperity and expansion for Calvinistic Baptists, which included the great missionary movement among Particular Baptists that sent William Cary to India. But for most of the 18th century, Particular Baptists were in decline. There were exceptions. Some Baptist churches actually prospered, and a few men were active and successful in evangelistic work. On the whole, however, the state of Baptists in the first two-thirds or three-quarters of the eighteenth century was one of spiritual declension. Of course, other denominations in England during the late 17th and first third of the 18th centuries also experienced declension. But as we’ll see, this problem continued among the Baptists even during the early decades of the Evangelical Awakening that began to occur in England in the late 1730’s.

We who are Reformed Baptist ought to be concerned to understand this period of our history. After small beginnings, the Calvinistic Baptists in England enjoyed tremendous blessing and steady growth. In some ways, the same has been the case with Reformed Baptists in our lifetime. But for the Particular Baptists of England things began to deteriorate as they entered the 18th century. Our concern should be that the same thing doesn’t happen to us, as we have entered the 21st century. Therefore, we should examine what factors may have contributed to the decline of early 18th century Particular Baptists. Michael Haykin identifies some of these factors in his book, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliffe of Olney, his Friends and his Times. There are other historians and students of Baptist history that provide input as well. So what were some of the factors that lead to the spiritual decline of our Baptist forefathers? And what lessons can we learn and apply today? Stay tuned until our next post.

Jeffery Smith, Pastor
Covenant Reformed Baptist Church
Easley, South Carolina

[1] Particular Baptists were Calvinistic/Reformed Baptists who grew out of the English reformation. They were called Particular Baptists because they embraced of the doctrines of grace, including the doctrine of particular redemption. A prominent segment of Particular Baptists in England what has come to be known as The London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. The confession was first published in 1677 and then again in 1688 and 1689. This is the confession generally affirmed by those who go by the title “Reformed Baptist” today.
[2] Dave Merck, Modern Church History; manuscript of lectures given for Reformed Baptist Seminary, 247.
[3] David Englizian, as quoted by Merck, 259.
[4] Michael Haykin, One Heart and One Soul: John Sutcliffe of Olney, His Friends and His Times (Darlington, Co. Durham, England: Evangelical Press, 1994), 15.
[5] Ibid. 25.
[6] Ibid. 24. Haykin is quoting John Gill.
[7] Ibid. 25.