Baptist History Lesson 11

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Baptist HistoryLesson 11

• Decline and Dr. Gill

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1689 Glorious Revolution
Act of Toleration
Challenges to Religion Overall
A. Deism
Deism The view that God created the universe but
has not been involved with it after finishing
creation
B. Latitudinarian Theology
Reason coupled with the Holy Spirit is sufficient
for all religious activity
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Decline of General Baptists
Unpaid and untrained ministry
Introverted and petty concerns
Socinianism
Socinianism The view of Faustus Socinus
(1539-1604) that denied the divinity of Christ
and the penal-substitution view of the atonement
Socinianism/Unitarianism/Arianism
Salters Hall Debate (1719)
DISSENT WAS FACING A CRISES
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Decline of Particular Baptists
Had matters gone on but for a few more years,
the Baptists would have become a perfect dunghill
in society Andrew Fuller
220 churches in 1700-1710
150 churches in 1750!
Undue inward focus
Churches excessively focused on the maintenance
of their congregational life M A G Haykin
a garden enclosed Song of Solomon 412
Controversies over more or less Minor Issues
1. Singing!
2. Closed verses open membership communion
Weare not in full accord among ourselves.
Negative attitudes toward the Evangelical Revival
Opposition to Enthusiasm
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Three Prominent Particular Baptists of the 18th
Century
John Gill (1697-1771)
Andrew Fuller (1754-1815)
William Carey (1761-1834)
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b. Nov. 23,1697 Kettering/Midlands
Converted age 12
Baptized Nov 1, 1716
1718 married Elizabeth Negus (d. 1764)
1719 Horselydowns, Southwark, London
My eminent predecessor, Dr. Gill, was told, by a
certain member of his congregation who ought to
have known better, that, if he published his
book, The Cause of God and Truth, he would lose
some of his best friends, and that his income
would fall off. The doctor said, I can afford
to be poor, but I cannot afford to injure my
conscience and he has left his mantle as well
as his chair in our vestry.
MANTLE
Controversy
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The Cause of God and Truth (1735-38)
Part One answers to Whitbys misuse of 60
scriptures
Part Two positive presentations of 62
scriptures affirming the doctrines of grace
Part Three Defense of doctrines in respect to
Whitbys arguments
Part Four review Patristic writers
(pre-Augustinian)
Wednesday evening lectures at Great Eastcheap
Hall (1729-1756)
A Treatise on the Doctrine of the Trinity (1731)
Emphasis on confession
CHAIR
Wrote exposition of every verse in the bible!
He was always at work it is difficult to know
when he slept, for he wrote 10,000 folio pages of
theology CHS
1647 DD from University of Aberdeen
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PULPIT
Gill was a Baptist but not a sectarian
Contributions of Gill
Active confrontation of doctrinal infidelity
Exposed anti-supernaturalism of the
latitudinarian party
Maintained issues of sin and its condemnation and
corruption and the necessity and efficacy of
grace in an age of relativism
Was Gill a Hyper Calvinists?
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Hyper-Calvinism is that school of
supralapsarian 'five-point' Calvinism which so
stresses the sovereignty of God by
over-emphasizing the secret over the revealed
will of God and eternity over time, that it
minimizes the responsibility of sinners, notably
with respect to the denial of the use of the word
"offer" in relation to the preaching of the
gospel thus it undermines the universal duty of
sinners to believe savingly in the Lord Jesus
with the assurance that Christ actually died for
them and it encourages introspection in
the search to know whether or not one is elect.
1) Eternal justification because God has
already chosen who will be saved, then logically
they are already justified from before the
foundation of the world.
2) Rejection of moral responsibility because
sinners are totally depraved, they have no real
moral freedom and are thus not responsible to
repent and believe in the gospel.
3) Denial of the free offer of the gospel
because the non-elect cannot believe in Christ,
there is no obligation to call upon all people to
repent of their sins and trust Christ for their
salvation
4) Requirement of a warrant because only the
elect will believe, they must have a warrant or
conviction that they are indeed among the elect
before they have a right to trust Christ.
5) Denial of the universal love of God because
God hates sin, and the non-elect are hopelessly
and permanently lost in sin, God hates the
non-elect and only shows love to his elect.
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