2 Hyper Calvinist Quotes
Below are twenty-five more statements made by Hyper Calvinists:
J. Bloomfield: “It affords me no small gratification to meet with so many kind brethren in the ministry, as surround me this evening. I pray that they may be preserved in this dark and cloudy day of error and superstition, when Fullerism and Baxterianism are rapidly extending their baneful influence. I pray we may all take a decided stand again these sentiments; for while we love all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and in truth, it becomes us, as ambassadors, to stand faithful to the truth.”
C. Banks: “The Baptist churches in Tring are not in a very flourishing condition. Akeman Street wants a good, full-weight, upright, first-rate pastor; brethren from the different churches are supplying them; but the seeds of Woodism, and Fullerism, are secretly waiting for an opportunity to arise, and break forth; the speedy settlement of a fruitful and faithful father in Christ over the people at Akeman Street, would, under God, be a very great blessing.”
J. Wells: “What were the doctrines by which these three thousand (Acts 2) were pricked in their heart? The answer to this question is plan and clear. Just ask yourself what are the truth, the doctrines, contained in the 16th Psalm? For these are the truths as carried out and established by the Savior; those are the truths by which three thousand at once were brought to know the Lord! But men have very little faith in these truths; they preach them up to a certain point, simply because they find them in the Bible; but their real confidence is in their duty-faith department. Here their zeal rises to the boiling point; here, they tell us, they could cry their eyes out of their sockets for the conversion of souls. These are great words, with great poverty of meaning, while the truths of the gospel are put quietly back, with, “Never, mind, dear friends! Do not trouble yourselves about elect!” And so they wrap it up. Indeed, so far from their having any God-honoring confidence in God’s truth, they have the blindness, the effrontery, the daring, the arrogance, to say that the doctrine of electing grace too much preached is dangerous!! As though any of the blessed truths of the gospel could be too clearly, and too prominently set forth. Well, for me they are welcome to all their duty-faith trash; for trash it is, clothe it with what gravity or awfulness they may. My soul can never more be awed by it. Of God’s blessed Word of grace, my soul would ever stand in aw, and sin not; but the doctrine of duty-faith, or, which is the same thing, the doctrine that men are ultimately condemned for not having—saving faith—this doctrine I throw to Paul’s dung heap, and do count it but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him.”
J. Foreman: “Every natural man is under the law of works, and is bound thereby exclusively to it, as a woman is bound by the law of her husband to him exclusively, so long as he lives. And while we receive this apostolic argument in the force of infallible truth, it must fairly amount to this, that it can no more be the natural man’s duty under the law of works, by the law of faith to believe unto salvation, than it is a woman’s duty to think of, yield her person and affections to, and secure to herself, a second husband before her first be dead; she having no liberty whatever from her first obligations, nor another husband any demand whatever, till she be freed from her first husband; and then by marriage only to another, does she come under the new obligations to a second husband. But no natural man is dead to the law of works by the body of Christ, and consequently is not married to Christ: and so neither Christian duties nor privileges are his province or his property; but to keep the whole law of works, and be as naturally pure as Adam was at the first, or death eternal is all that belongs to him as a sinful natural man.”
D. Wilson: “When I went to Partney, I went there a Fullerite; I found the people there almost too many for me. Thinking I should be the more fully armed, I read Fuller’s ‘Gospel Worthy Of All Acceptation,’ most attentively. In that work, I found this sentence—‘None ever did, or ever will believe, but the elect of God.’ I involuntarily exclaimed, ‘Then what is all this nonsense about?’ I left Andrew Fuller, and went to the pulpit—having no text—they sang the hymns, and still I had no text. But I had these words in my mind—‘For he hath not appointed us to wrath,’ &c. This did not suit me, but I could not find anything else; so I began, and hobbled on; and I had not gone on long, before the blessed Spirit sealed home those blessed sentiments, which have been my meat and drink ever since.”
J. Wells: “But you may say, ‘What, then, are we not sinners to be spoken to at all? Are not ministers to speak to sinners?’ I answer—Yes; only let them preach the truth to them: the gospel is truth, and the gospel is to be preached to every creature, only let it be the gospel; that is, let it be the truth: “His Word is truth.” But men have but very little faith in the truth; they are more of the sentiment of the rich man in hell. Send one from the dead, and frighten them, and then they will repent. And so, having no faith in God’s truth, they at the end, especially of their sermons, try to be very eloquently awful, telling men all sorts of old wives fables, in order to convert them, and they are always more outrageously zealous in this, than in any other part of their sermons; feeling, I suppose, that as the iron is blunt, they must put to more strength. Now the reality of this duty-faith part of their sermons amounts to thus, that it is one of the most feasible, and, to the flesh, one of the most powerful apologies the enemy could devise, for having in the previous part of the sermon said so much in favor of eternal truth, and they do hereby nicely, and neatly, avoid the offense of the cross, for when this under current of universalism breaks out, it does away with all danger of their being called Antinomians, and thus it is “the lines have fallen to them in pleasant places, and they have a goodly heritage”—such lines as they are, and such an heritage as it is! But the poor and the needy have waters of a full cup wrung out to them. Their name is cast out as evil; and thus—“Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leaders to life, and few there be that find it;” while, wide is this duty-faith gate, and broad is this false-charity way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. And many, very many, follow these pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth is evil spoken of; for their feasible system would deceive, if it were possible, even God’s own elect.”
W. Drake: “Since the Lord in his matchless mercy has quickened my soul and brought me to a saving knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, I never could see that duty-faith in reference to spiritual things, was a scripture doctrine, or that man was in any way responsible for his own salvation, and never preached it. My aim has always been to abase the creature, and exalt free grace; to show the sinner what he is as a fallen creature, his responsibility to do the whole Law, and his guilt, condemnation, and death as a transgressor of it—salvation of God, in Christ, and by the Holy Ghost—and its fruits and effects as manifested in the experience and conduct of the regenerate.”
W. Bidder: “Beloved, this adorable scheme of Almighty mercy, originating in the will, purpose, counsel, and covenant of the sacred Three, that bear record in heaven, being brought to pass by Jehovah the Son, in our nature, according to ancient settlements and divine enactments, comprises the whole of our salvation. He, our most blessed Lord Jesus, finished the transgression (of his mystic members), and made an end of their sin, and reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness, thus accomplishing the work which was given Him to do, and which He said was to Him meat and drink; and by which (from the dignity of his Person) Jehovah is more honored, (by his amazing humiliation, obedience, blood and death), than He was ever dishonored by all the sins of the whole body of his elect. Now shall He see (unquestionably) of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. His redeemed shall come forth to life and light, to vital union with Himself, to a knowledge experimental, accompanied with deep feelings of remorse and godly sorrow for sin individually, and to a revelation of salvation by an application of the blood of the covenant to the conscience, producing pardon, peace, and glorious deliverance; being made free indeed, and all this, not by free-willism, not by duty-faith, nor under the preaching of the yea and nay no-scheme, but by the invincible power, operation, and grace of God, the Holy Ghost, being thus made willing in the day of his power, and when thus made willing, kept so, and sealed to the day of redemption.”
J. Foreman: “If faith unto salvation be the natural man’s duty, then it must be the natural man’s duty to be all that the actual believer, through grace unto salvation, really and properly is. And then it must be the natural man’s duty to be of God’s chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world – to be of the predestinated unto the adoption of sons – to be of the foreknown predestinated to be conformed to the image of the Son, to be called, to be justified, and to be glorified – to be a vessel of mercy afore prepared unto glory – to be redeemed by the blood of Christ – to be born of the Spirit – to be quickened together with Christ – to be God’s own workmanship of new creation in Christ Jesus to be of God’s will begotten with the word of truth – to be a kind of first fruit of his creatures – to be a saint in Christ Jesus – to be an heir of God, and joint-heir with Christ – to be loved of God with an everlasting love – to be ordained, not unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ – to be made meet by God the Father, to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light – to be loved of Christ and washed from sin in his own blood to be by Christ made a king and a priest unto God to reign with him for ever, and to be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation. All this, the real believer, through grace unto salvation is, and by the riches of grace is most mercifully made to be; so that a man cannot be a believer unto salvation without being all this by grace; and so all this must be the natural man’s duty to be, if faith unto salvation be his duty.”
W. Drake: “The children’s bread is neither given nor offered unto bond-servants in the Word. God does not, I believe, therein exhort the dead in trespasses and sins to perform spiritual acts, nor invite them as such to receive spiritual blessings. The servants of the Most High show unto men the way of salvation, but they have no authority from their Divine Master to offer salvation to any.”
B. Davies: “You are doubtless well aware that this is the place (Kettering) where the celebrated Andrew Fuller labored and died. On account of his being from home so much, he had an assistant named John Keen Hall, the nephew of Robert Hall, who, after the death of Mr. Fuller, became the sole pastor; now, having it all to himself, he came out in his true colors, deserting even what Fullerites call free grace, and espousing the cause of free will; thus proving, that after all Fullerism and Arminianism are but as twin sisters…It is remarkable that in this very town, that champion for truth, Dr. Gill, was born and preached, being pastor of the present Mr. Mursell’s church, but now his doctrines are considered too old-fashioned, and people fancying that they have so much more light than their forefathers, set aside the glorious doctrines of free grace, and have set up in their room the contemptible system of free will and human merit, which is as dangerous to man as it is dishonoring to God.”
W. Bidder: “And, O ye redeemed of the Lord, and called by his grace, listen to none save those who, like our Apostle, are determined not to know anything among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified who preach not the creature, but the Creator; not the puny doing of mortals, but the glorious, perfect work and finished salvation of the Christ of God; not man’s free-willism and duty-faith, but the invincible work, operation, and power, teaching and anointings of God the Holy Ghost.”
J. Parker: “Duty-Faith is surely one of the most God-dishonouring dogmas to be found in the midst of professing Zion. It charges a holy God with Injustice, and points the sinner to himself for a remedy against ruin. We know it is fashionable; we know it is flesh-pleasing; but the minister of Christ has to declare the truth at the expense, peradventure of friends, reputation, and worldly advantage. And he dare not and would not, willingly deceive his hearers.”
J. West: “All the sins that I have ever done, sins of thought, word or deed; sins under the law, sins under the gospel, sins at school, sins at college, have all absolute pardon in Christ —”for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.” This is faith, not a duty faith, but “the faith of God’s elect.” This is faith! this is hope! this is repentance! A faith which is the gift of God, a hope which hovers round the Saviour, aud anticipates in and thro’ and by Him a blessed immortality; a hope that hangs all her dependance on the blood of Jesus.”
J. Parker: “Duty-faith dishonours God. To preach that it is man’s duty to believe savingly in Christ is absurd. A babe in grace knows better. What! can that be a duty which is out of the power of a natural man? Does God expect to gather figs of thistles? There must be a new nature given before saving faith can be exercised. To preach otherwise is, indeed, to represent God as a hard Master: the language of the servant in the parable might then be justly applied to the Lord—namely, “Lord, I knew thee, that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed.” But we learn from the Scriptures that faith is the gift of God.”
J. Parker: “Duty-faith points the sinner to himself for a remedy against sin. It virtually says, salvation is within the reach of every man. It is free-will under a gospelized mask. It virtually says, it is thine own fault man if thou art not saved: there is a full salvation, tossing to and fro for any one to catch and it is thy duty to believe. Jesus has done much, but the first upon which thy salvation turns is this, Wilt thou believe? Why, brethren, how basely unscriptural is all this: we know, who are taught of God, that it is a part of salvation, in its individual bearing, for the Holy Ghost to work faith in the heart, and make a poor sinner first to apprehend, and then to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of the soul.”
J. West: “But there may be some before me, who may probably flinch from these glorious TRUTHS. There may be some that may be conscientiously afraid that they may tend to Antinomianism. I hate Antinomianism! And I tell you that the people of God are a people desirous to serve Him. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,” and the Church of England in her ordinance service of the Lord’s Supper has the very echo of that scripture, “all such good works as Thou hast prepared for us to walk in.” “We are His workmanship.” O! what a blessed piece of machinery! “a vessel of mercy! afore prepared unto glory!” Saved by the blessing of God! “We are His workmanship!” I speak as a Christian! “Shall we continue in sin then?” Rather let right hands be chopped off, right eyes plucked out, right feet cast from us. The desire of our soul is, that our conversation may be in heaven, as “it becometh the gospel of Christ.” There is no Antinomianism in that, is there? How was it with the apostle Paul? He was a preacher of FREE unconditional grace! and would have been called in England, in these times, a high Calvinist. But what was his statement? “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all.” (There was practical conformity to God’s will, and all under the influence of grace.) “Yet not I,” Paul had a tender conscience, (he checks himself, he would not exalt self in any way). “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” Thus you see, there is no danger of Antinomian errors from the gospel faithfully preached! though there be the charge of preaching high Calvinism! I am sure the church of God does not desire to make John Calvin a Pope; John Calvin, like all other men, had his errors, but the gospel which I would preach is Jesus Christ’s!”
J. Parker: “Duty-faith is calculated to mislead and deceive. An honest preacher is very anxious not to deceive souls. His work is to unfold whatever appears dark in the word of God. But he who preaches duty-faith virtually denies the absolute necessity of the new birth. Surely it is the work of a minister to show how the Word of God beautifully harmonizes when rightly understood. He ought to be an interpreter. The contradictory statements of some men are insulting to the common sense of their hearers, if they did but use it. Their yea and nay preachments amount to nothing. Now a God-sent minister seeks the soul profit of the people. The fear of God preserves him from seeking to amuse or to excite the natural passions of his hearers. These he leaves for the playhouse. He reads, “He that sows to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” He dare not thus trifle with solemn realities and the never-dying souls of men. He finds the word of God to be a burden. And this feeling solemnly influences his ministry. “Knowing, therefore, the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men.”
J. Battersby: “The pharisaical people murmured when they saw that Jesus went to be guest with a man that was a sinner. Zacchaeus was immediately filled with gratitude and charity. Jesus spake kindly to him:—“This day is Salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” This was one of the happiest days Zacchaeus ever spent in his life. The Saviour is his guest, and Salvation is the theme of discourse. Jesus comes not to make an offer of Salvation, or to give a person a chance of being saved, but He comes to seek and to save the lost. He knows where to find all his Zacchaeuses. If they get into a tree, or under a tree like Nathaniel, yet they cannot get out of His sight, His eye is upon them.”
J. Parker: “He who knows the plague of the heart, and mourns daily over its wretched depravity will never plead for duty-faith. The knowledge of an evil heart of unbelief is a certain cure for that. Arminianism, in its thousand-fold shapes, cannot exist in that school. The teachings of God the Spirit in the heart will be sure to correct the errors of the head. We may gather much rubbish in a speculative way, which the furnace work in the heart will have to burn up. Thus the Lord’s ministers and people become rooted and grounded in the faith. And a God sent minister will never contradict the teachings of the Spirit of God in the heart. This marks a man to be a minister of the Spirit and not of the letter. Letter-ministers, who are very speculative, may make strange mistakes; their speculations, like all other speculat1ons, may prove failures, but he who is taught of the Spirit of God, while he abides by what he has tasted, and handled, and felt, will never err; he preaches and opens the word as it has been taught him from above, feelingly and experimentally; and, unless he be indeed a novice, running before he has properly learnt his message, he will never preach Duty-Faith.”
C. Merrett: “Five believers in Jesus were baptised by immersion in the name of the Holy Trinity upon a profession of their faith in the Lord Jesus, and one person received since from another church, making in number, through the year, twenty-four received into the church. Dear brother, the Lord is still blessing his word here to many precious souls. I am here surrounded by Puseyites, Fullerites, and Arminians; suffering persecution from the enemies of truth. There are very many dark parts in Suffolk; darkness indeed hath covered the people. I have introduced the gospel into some of this dark places—Such, Debbenham, Brockford, and Cotton; where the gospel is not preached, as well as others, where wickedness and infidelity abound; yet numbers of professors who possess a name to live, are dead. Some ministers here are opposed to me for entering those places to preach the gospel; but God works by such a feeble instrument to liberate some sheep from legal bondage; and some who profess the truth would rather unite with the enemies against the truth, than enter those places where the gospel is preached, stating the gospel to be of a dangerous tendency. But those souls that have been taught by the Spirit of God their sweetness and richness find them to be holy and consoling truths they know what blessed effects they produce. Such souls love the ways of righteousness, they love to unite Paul’s statements and James’s practical evidence together, for faith without works is dead.”
W. Mott: “Not having been absent from New York (United States) on a Lord’s-day since I have been in this country…I shall endeavor to give you a faint idea of this metropolis. It abounds with churches of all denominations; consequently one might imagine it to be a most religious city; but, low, it is far, very far from it; no city can be more profane. Although the churches fill well it is more for a fashionable appearance, than a gracious desire after truth. This is not to be wondered at; for Arminianism, Universalism, Fullerism, Wesleyanism, and every other ism, are the tenets advocated both from the pulpits and the press. There are a few who love the truth as it is in Jesus, some of whom attend either at the Baptist Church meeting in a hall in Woorster-street, being the only two churches professing the truth that I know of in this populous city.”
C. Banks: “It is not deemed necessary to insert the confession of faith adopted by the church, and emphatically declared by Mr. Scandrett (the newly ordained pastor) as his own; but it may not be amiss to say, that it was in close keeping with the creed of Keach, of Gill, of Brine. Calvinistic, and no mistake; that which is called hyper-calvinism now-a-days, to distinguish it from the trimming, truckling, yea and nay divinity (falsely so called,) which starts with the foundations of the apostles and prophets, and builds up an Arminian superstructure of wood, hay, straw, and stubble, combustible rubbish, which one flash of Sinai’s lightning will utterly consume. William Scandrett and his brethren were Calvinistic Baptists; they made no secret of their belief, they were not ashamed of their calling, they gloried in the cross; they said, “By the grace of God we are what we are.” This was as it should be, and as we hope it ever will be [with the church meeting] at Sible Hedingham. The trumpet gave a certain sound, its proclamation was, “Salvation is of the Lord:” he purposed it; he planned it; he, in the person of his Son, fulfilled its legal conditions; he by his Spirit and word, makes it known; he tenderly and mightily secures its objects; and to him resounds the praise.”
S. Seely: “I belonged to a moderate Calvinist church; and God knows what I endured in trying to find out what it was I was expected to do. James Wells explained that it was their wish that I should make bricks without straw.”
J. Palmer: “I have heard Mr. Philpot and others say, that bastard Calvinists are the greatest enemies to and haters of God’s truth and his ministers, like Haman of old, they hate every honest Mordecai.”
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
