1 Hyper Calvinist Quotes
“Hyper Calvinism” has a twofold definition—historic and modern.
1. The historic definition is based on the doctrinal controversies between the Particular Baptist churches of the 18th and 19th centuries.
On the one side were those who rejected the doctrines of Duty-Faith, the Free-Offer and the Moral Law As A Rule Of Conduct For The Believer’s Life, represented by John Gill and William Gadsby. On the other side were those who subscribed to these doctrines, represented by Andrew Fuller and Charles Spurgeon. Those in Gill’s camp were called Gillites, or High and Hyper Calvinists. Those in Fuller’s camp were called Fullerites, or Moderate and Mongrel Calvinists. During the height of the controversy, the majority of Particular Baptist churches belonged to Gill’s camp. Today, those belonging to Gill’s teachings remain within the Particular Baptist circle, whereas those which followed Fuller’s doctrine were absorbed by the Reformed Baptist Denomination.
2. The modern definition is based on the presuppositions of Arminians and Fullerites.
Using as a spring board the Hyper-Calvinists’ rejection of the foregoing doctrines, they launch into wildly speculative and ludicrous charges. They surmise, if the Hyper-Calvinist rejects the doctrine of Duty-Faith, this must mean he/she doesn’t believe faith is necessary for salvation; or, he/she negates the responsibility of unregenerate sinners; or, he/she doesn’t view unbelief as a sin. They further surmise, if the Hyper-Calvinist rejects the doctrine of the Free-Offer, this must mean he/she doesn’t nurture a passion for the unregenerate; or, he/she doesn’t pray for the conversion of the unregenerate; or, he/she doesn’t have a zeal to evangelize; or, he/she doesn’t preach the gospel to the non-elect. They also surmise, if the Hyper-Calvinist rejects the Moral Law As A Rule Of Conduct For The Believer’s Life, this must mean he/she is an Antinomian; or, he/she turns the grace of God into a license for sin; or, he/she lives an unprincipled and ungodly lifestyle. These summations are based on pure speculation and each of their conclusions is wrong!
Below are twenty-five statements made by Hyper Calvinists. You be the judge whether they represent the historic or modern definition.
C. Banks: “Mark you; many of our fine so-called ministers talk about offering salvation: and men refusing: they might as well go to the farthest and of the coal pit, and command the coal to rise up, and walk out of itself. God says, “I will bring them;” and that not part of the way merely; no: but through the fire, and try them; purify them: put a living, crying soul into them: and answer them in the joy of their hearts: so that they shall say, “the Lord is my God; and I will say they are my people.”
J. Mason: “But the faith spoken of in the language of our text is not creature faith, neither is it duty faith: some say, I see the ordinance as a duty. I was talking with one of our friends last night who said I never see it as a duty, I was never brought to see it that way; I see it as a privilege: so do I…when God quickens a sinner, he gives that sinner faith; “faith is the gift of God:” he begins to believe the word of God, and his believing is the effect of the operation of God the Holy Ghost in the soul.”
“Ebenezer”: “Great commotion was at this time caused in a Fullerite church in the neighborhood by my preaching, and many members leaving them.”
R. Jeffery: “I know this place [church] very well, for I was invited to preach in June 1842, for four Lord’s days, but as the most part of the church and congregation liked duty faith and man’s ability, instead of the power of God, my preaching did not suit them; and when my time was up I came back again to London.”
S. Lane: “Another thing that strongly impressed my mind with a necessity of entering into the ministry was, from a view I had of the opposition to the real truth, which I discovered in those persons who professed to know the Lord and believe the gospel; I evidently found that the religion wherein they trusted was only a form without the power. I was truly grieved to hear the Divinity of Christ denied; electing love despised; imputed righteousness scoffed at; eternal justification called eternal nonsense, and represented as a dangerous doctrine; the final perseverance of the saints laughed at; so that instead of the doctrines of the ever blessed gospel, every doctrine repugnant thereto advanced and insisted on, such as universal redemption, free-will (or power in man to turn to God whenever he might think proper), progressive sanctification (or inherent holiness), moral obedience to the law of God, (or justification by works); a possibility of finally falling from grace, and the duty of all men to have faith in Christ. These, with such like erroneous tenets, were continually sounded in my ears, which grieved and vexed my soul, knowing and being inwardly assured that God was against them; his word refuted them; his people, who knew him, hated and detested them; and all who were savingly acquainted with the opposite to them, would openly oppose them, and publicly expose them. I, therefore, again entreated the Lord of the harvest to enable me to say something publicly in defense of those truths so much deposed by the enemies thereto; and so much loved and enjoyed by the believers and lovers thereof who, through the happy influence they have on the minds of such, cannot fail to speak of them to the glory of their author, in the face of men and devils.”
J. Wells: “You do not want a minister who makes one end of his sermon contradict the other end of his sermon. One, who seems not to know how the promise and precept harmonize—who knows not how to contend for the precept on gospel grounds, but sets the Holy Spirit’s power aside, and exalts the creature into a mighty being, whose duty it is to help himself to that which God alone can give. Such a ministry is divided against itself; and, if you are a people (as I believed you are) taught to take good heed how you hear, you will see this to be a matter of great importance.”
C. H. C.: “‘On Christ the solid Rock I stand, And all beside is sinking sand;” so sung the poet, and so saith the word of the living God, ‘For other foundation can no man lay that that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.’ Look to it, ye professors, and free-willers, for your Rock is not our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. Your duty-faith and dead-works will all be consumed together.”
W Skelton: “And what an amazing wonder that in the midst of long waiting for a blessing, through the means of grace, and not finding the blessing to come, you have still been kept walking in his ordinances, going and waiting at the posts of his doors, watching daily at his gates; though ye have gone, and returned again and again, and have been like the door on its hinges; and in your feelings have been like the barren heath, as to real, spiritual enjoyment in the worship or service of God; and so, also, concerning a going to a throne of grace, you have been holpen still to look again towards God’s holy temple, though, like poor Jonah, the weeds have been wrapped about your head, and you have felt as being in the very belly of hell: and your walking thus, though it be in the midst of felt darkness, is vastly different to the walking of the duty-faith, church, or chapel-going pharisee, and dead doctrinal-professor, who is satisfied with a mere filling up his place, in the midst of a round of duties, and what is called ‘attending the means of grace;’ for there is no groping, or feeling after that which they never found with them in their walks and rounds.”
—J. Mason: “It was here [in joining a church] I learned the intricacies of bastard Calvinism and Fullerism—to weigh them in the balances of the sanctuary—to find these systems wanting; and at last to cast them to the moles and to the bats.”
W. Tant: “All the efforts of man—all the strategems of the wicked one cannot hold the heirs of promise a moment after the set time arrives to call them by grace. And after his glorious Majesty has summoned them to the bar of their own conscience, and read the bill of indictment in their hearts, no free-will scheme, no duty-faith religion, can keep them from the realities of salvation.”
J. Stevens: “‘It is finished,’ faith finds the work all done. There is no disgrace in wearing ready made clothes. Nothing can be added to the Saviour’s work. Some say,—‘add repentance, works, faith, prayer.’ Oh! Don’t put these to finish his work. It is well done. It remains the same still! It will be triumphant in spite of all. It will stand upright when his enemies are flat on their faces! There is no doubtful salvation; no offered grace with God. He died for His sheep. I have always held that sentiment as erroneous and dangerous, that has a tendency to lead away the thoughts from Christ to self.”
W. Harris: “This light is from the Lord; and all other doctrines, in opposition to it, is darkness; whether we take those of former days, in the days of Christ’s incarnation, such as that of the Pharisee, Saducee, Nicolaitan, who all judged themselves to have the greatest light; but the light which was in them was ‘darkness.’ And coming down to the present day, taking a glance at the high Church, the Arminian, the Unitarian, the Sabellian, and the greater part of professed Calvinists, they also judge themselves possessed of the greatest light; but, like the former, their great light is but ‘darkness;’ but, our Lord was shewing the dark state of the Pharisee, and acquitting his own people with it, that they might be on their guard, and shun the doctrine of devils.”
W. Garrard: “People say how blind the Papists must be who affirm that Peter holds the keys of heaven? But are not free-willers, and duty-faith men quite as blind, who in effect profess to hold the keys of both heaven and hell in their own hands? But the prophet says, ‘a lie is in their right hand.’ For those who are taught by the Spirit of truth, and are arrested by the divine and holy law, and have felt the damnable nature of sin, and have been locked up in prison to moan their ruined lost condition, well know that they do not hold the keys, if they did, they would soon let themselves out; but the key is laid on the Son of David’s shoulder, and it is he that opens the prison doors to them that are bound; heals the broken hearted, and binds up the wounds they have received in their dungeon, and says to the prisoners go forth, and to them that sat in darkness, shew yourselves.”
A Watchman On The Walls: “It is not the Calvinists that shut infants out of heaven, and send such of a span long to hell, as we are slanderously reported by free-willers. No, no. If there are such ignorant, daring, and presumptuous men on earth, it must be you, ye free-willers and Fullerites, who affirm that salvation is by free-will, duty faith, and good works performed by the creature; and we known that infants are not capable of performing these things, neither faith, nor good works, neither can they be saved by their native purity, being born in sin. Thus you charge us Calvinists with that you are guilty of yourselves, according to your own creed. It is you that would shut them out of heaven! Not us. No! We affirm that both infants and adults are saved by grace, and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The election of grace are all saved by grace—infants included, of such is the kingdom of heaven. All saved by grace, and their works follow after.”
J. Crampin: “If I am right in my views on Christian responsibilities—free will—duty faith and conditional comforts must go to the dogs, they are dog’s meat, not children’s food; for grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. Jesus has the care of the election of grace, and he is well able to take care of them, to keep them from falling, and to present them faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy…he shall do it—he is well able to do it—he is held responsible for its accomplishment, the church triumphant has confidence in him that he will do it, let this responsibility be placed any where else, oh!, I shudder to think how men play with words—let it placed any where else but on the Lamb in the midst of the throne, confidence would be destroyed—happiness would be ended, the saints would be lost, and the enemy of souls would triumphy—this must be the end of free will, duty faith and conditional comforts. But let all responsibility rest on the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and the confidence of Heaven is maintained and its happiness perpetuated for ever and ever.”
S. Lane: “The man thus wrought upon by God the Spirit, and having a clear knowledge of all the essential doctrines of grace, not merely in the head, but in the heart, his aim is to glorify the author of them in every step he takes; and I am bold to say in the presence of God, and a faithful conscience, the above has really been my own experience; and when my divine Master first called me to the work, I can truly say, I met with the most violent opposition, both within and without; fears within and fightings without, the world, legal-mongers, Baxterian spouters, Arminian groaners, Pre-existerian or Arian professors, universal restitutionists, duty-faith priests, rotten hypocrites, and drunken professors like bees, swarmed around and encompassed me about, and I can truly add, that, after the manner of men, I have fought with beasts, at S—h—d, that is, hypocrites of beastly tempers, and brutish dispositions; but having obtained help of God I continue to this day.”
T. Poock: “One of our friends put a tract in my hand called, The Monthly Visitor: it is now before me; it is a dead call to dead sinners; yea, it is a pot full of death. Oh, how impious! Awful! Awful! Little short of blasphemy—only read the deluding, dreadful language of The Monthly Visitor, which declared to a lost sinner, ‘You might have lived in heaven, had you not despised the mercy offered you, and counted yourself unworthy of everlasting life.’ Would to God such foul friends did not visit our earth once in a thousand years, instead of paying our neighbors a monthly visit.”
A Watchman On The Walls: “Now how can the church of Rome be called the mother of harlots if she had not some daughters or error? And do not many professing churches, (professing Protestantism,) look more like the daughters of the harlot than the daughters of Zion? Why, they suck the very milk from the harlot’s breasts—free will, universal redemption, fallen creature righteousness, duty-faith, and uncertain salvation, or, that all are redeemed, only it depends upon the depraved creature to apply it to himself, otherwise he will be lost. But this is not the sincere milk of the word, drawn from Zion’s full breasts of consolation by her children, which is eternal life, free grace, and the everlasting love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, to the glory of God the Father; and, if they speak not according to this testimony of the Spirit it is because there is no true light in them: their light is from the earth, a gaslight vapor, not the true sunlight from heaven. They walk in their own light, and by it they see their own shadow, and think themselves great men, the giants of this age in theology; whereas they are but like stage-players on a stage performing by gaslight the form of godliness, and mock Christianity to a gazing and admiring multitude in the dark shadow of death.”
T. Row: “There is reason to think, with Dr. Gill, the great truth of justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, is here meant [Is 59:4]; false doctrine preaches justification by works which men have done instead of the perfect obedience of Christ; or by duty faith instead of the faith of God’s elect. The leading act of election is made to depend on the will of man instead of the will of God; and the gifts of efficacious grace are changed into a worthless offer to all mankind. While very few plead for the truth, very many plead against it; some who say they believe it, who hold it in their pulpits; they fear it may offend the unconverted, disease the respectable hearer, send away some of their supporters, and leave them with less salary than they like; and thus they are deterred from that faithfulness by which they should be governed while the truth is suffering in the house of its professed friends.”
J. Wells: “Let this general offer, so called preaching-to-sinners-system, let this delusion be tried by the several scriptures containing gospel commissions. First take Matthew 10th, and then ask whether general offers or vitalities accord most with casting out devils, healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, and freely giving because freely received. Alas, the natural man does not known that he is under the government of the Prince of Darkness. The natural man does not know that he is sick, that he is a leper, or that he is dead in sin. Again, Mark 16:15,16, ‘Preach the gospel to every creature.” Now mind it must be the gospel, and the gospel is to be preached to every creature. That is that every creature to whom they preach at all, they must preach to them the gospel. And so the Apostle testifies (Col 1:23) that every creature to whom, under heaven, they preached at all they preached the gospel. Which then looks most like the gospel, the doctrine of general offers, which is nothing but a doctrine of general nothings. Which looks most like the gospel, divine realities or fleshly conceited appeals to fleshly minds?”
Edward Blackstock: “And now he proceeded, in a very solemn manner, to declare the gospel of God, and I judged that I had never before listened to a full gospel sermon; it appeared to me, indeed, to be God’s gospel—sweet and new—so plainly, so boldly, so forcibly preached; and I believe I may add, sent with such power, light, unction, and peace to my soul, that I was quite set free: my prejudices were dispelled and forgotten. During the last hymn my heart clung to the man in the pulpit, and my eyes wept over him. ‘This,’ I mentally ejaculated, ‘this, verily, is the Lord’s clumsy workman! The man is uneducated; yet in one hour has he anatomized Arminianism; arraigned, tried, and passed sentence on an Andrew Fuller’s gospel; he has told me all my heart, and preached the gospel of God in such a way as I never yet heard it.’ Upon this, these words came to me: ‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise,’ and, ‘These is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.’”
J. McCure: “I have just seen the British Banner, with Dr. Campbell’s remarks upon my letter from the ship Hyderabad. I am not surprised that the doctor should give expression to the enmity of his heart against the ‘Hypers,’ as he called them—yea, it is not against them, or myself, but the precious glorious doctrines of free and sovereign grace that we profess and preach, and by God’s help I mean to preach here.”
T. Poock: “Repentance. I mean gospel repentance; not that repentance which is said to be man’s duty; nor that repentance, nor that faith, which are said and looked upon as conditions of the covenant—but that faith and repentance which are blessings in the covenant, and which our exalted Lord gives to the poor, convicted, contrite, bemoaning sinner. (Acts 5:31) As it then was, so it now is; a deal of mistake, I fear, is the result of mixing natural repentance with evangelical repentance. I believe many a child of God that really is blessed with it, fears he has it not; while many a hypocrite concludes he has repented, and that is enough for him.”
J. Wells: “One of the chief things connected with this principle of the moral government of God to be lamented, is, that it is by great numbers of professed Christians substituted for the higher principle of regeneration; not, indeed, exactly in word, but it is in fact; and hence they hold that it is the duty of man savingly to believe in Christ, and that men are condemned for the sin of not having saving faith; as though Ishmael is to be condemned for not believing that he is Isaac; as though Esau is to be condemned for not believing that he is Jacob; as though Satan was to be condemned for not believing that he is an elect angel; and because the names of some men are in the Book of Life, others are to be condemned for not having their names there also. As though it was any fault of theirs that their names are not there; whereas, those whose names are there, were there from and before the foundation of the world. (Rev 17:8; Eph 1:4). And because Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, and laid down his life for the sheep, that others, for whom he did not die, are to be condemned because Christ did not die for them. That while Christ did not procure salvation for them, that he hath, nevertheless, lighted up hell, and procured damnation for them; and that while some are quickened by the Spirit of God, are regenerated and constituted sons and heirs of God, that others are to be punished for not having what is sovereignly bestowed upon others. Just as though the dry bones had any hand in their own resurrection, or could help or hinder. This is making the mercy of God to one the cause of his vengeance to others; and if it be so, the ungodly may well hate the gospel, as, in proportion to the blessing of the one, so is to be the curse of the other. Such is the delusion that, with thousands, passes for gospel truth; and man, being by nature a liar against God, they naturally fall in with this delusion; it suits their taste; it gives a general welcome and popularity to its teachers; for the world will love its own. But he that is of God is not of the world, and the world will not hear them.”
W. Skelton: “Such are the notions [misinterpreting the scriptures] of Wesleyans, Fullerites, Mongrel Calvinists, and Modem Baptists.”
Jared Smith served twenty years as pastor of a Strict and Particular Baptist church in Kensington (London, England). He now serves as an Evangelist in the Philippines, preaching the gospel, organizing churches and training gospel preachers.
Jared Smith on Eldership
Jared Smith on the Biblical Covenants
Jared Smith on the Gospel Law
Jared Smith on the Gospel Message
Jared Smith on Various Issues
Jared Smith, Covenant Baptist Church, Philippines
Jared Smith on Bible Doctrine
Jared Smith on Bible Reading
Jared Smith's Studies in Romans
Jared Smith's Hymn Studies
Jared Smith's Maternal Ancestry (Complete)
Jared Smith's Sermons
