Sir: The letters from Messers Spanner and Buzzard concerning common grace reveal problems in defining and understanding the term. Mr Spanner refers to its non-saving scope, quoting John Murray in support. However, Murray disagrees radically with Spanner, seeing common grace as offering “nothing less than salvation in its richness and fullness.” Sir Anthony sets the scene entirely in a saving capacity and rebukes Calvin for not seeing eye to eye with him. Actually Calvin agrees with all Sir Anthony’s texts but accepts their particular context. The current common grace debate goes beyond these views. Murray, Hulse etc., rid the term of its common properties and affirm that saving grace is to be found in it,… Full Article
Letters
Banner on Hypers
Nov 13
Letter to the Banner of Truth (not printed) Dear Christian Friends, I was surprised to find myself labeled a Hyper-Calvinist in your February issue with your corollary that I am not amongst those who “confront their hearers with the immediate responsibility of trusting Christ, directly encouraging them to trust him, and appealing to them to do so now!” Naturally, when one starts with a false premise one draws a faulty conclusion. Actually, I abhor Hyper-Calvinism and have aired my views against it in many publications and lectures. I am particularly suspicious of the Supralapsarian kind as found in Calvin’s Institutes, Book III, Chap. XXIII:7 and his Articles Concerning Predestination. I reject Calvin’s studies… Full Article
Letter to New Focus regarding sin. Dear Sir, Mr Burrows’ important and edifying thought concerning the defeat of Satan, which is an essential feature of Christ’s defeat of sin, was well-stated and I trust, well received. Though your correspondent rightly viewed one part of this dual defeat as happening in time, I placed the entire scene which impinged in time in its origin in eternity, stressing that it was in heaven that sin emerged, not on earth, and it was from heaven that Satan was banned according to God’s Providence which overrules heaven and earth. In other words, Satan’s sin was not an earthly time-event, bringing with it a heavenly judgement as human sin is. Satan’s sin was committed in heaven, the… Full Article
Clifford on Hooker
Nov 12
Letter to the English Churchman on Hooker Sir: Allan Clifford’s ‘objections’ to Dr Beckwith’s evaluation of Hooker are invalid. Beckwith defended Hooker against the London Temple attacks of Travers and Cartwright. Dr. Clifford ignores the entire debate, exchanging Beckwith’s real-life Hooker/Travers/Cartwright history for a Church of England/Calvin fairy-story. Cartwright zigzagged on the Church of England-Separatist border but maintained his Church of England status and ordination. Unlike Hooker, he viewed church reform as material for the courts and Parliament rather than church-centred discussion and Convocation. Cartwright imagined that bishops should merely preach, pray and ordain those chosen… Full Article
Come and Welcome Letter
Nov 11
The Banner of Truth Trust perverts Bunyan’s gospel A letter to the English Churchman Sir: Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ based on John 6:37 is beset with the finest jewels of Christian preaching, infusing hope and joy into the hearts of sorrowing sinners. The BOT’s 1991 reprint of Bunyan’s original version was a most welcome evangelistic venture as Bunyan’s elegant, pithy language speaks as clearly today as it did in the 17th century. So why has the BOT now published a new, badly edited and altered version with an introduction and blurb containing irrelevant and misleading New Divinity propaganda? Paul Austen (Nr. 7652) rightly challenges the suitability of a publisher’s preface which presents… Full Article
Contra Relf
Nov 10
Letter written to the English Churchman on reading several readers’ letters and an article condemning the Church of the English Reformation and supporting Cromwell’s persecutions. Sir: In allaying Mr Relf’s fears regarding my research expressed in his April 5th article, I shall keep to the evidence he provides. Bishop Neill, though no authority on this period, confirms the persecuting nature of the times. The Cromwellian definition of ‘malignants, delinquents and scandalous ministers’ was that they refused to accept the disestablishing and disbanding of the Episcopal Church of England and therefore were ousted. Remarks re the Triers, of whom two were Baptists, are neutral to the debate as the ungodly… Full Article
Sir: I must reject Mr Spanner’s accusations of my alleged inaccuracies concerning a work he has not read. I research each of my letters to the EC carefully, using primary literature. The term ‘shell’ has been used since the 16th cent. for a hollow artillery projectile filled with material intended to explode on landing. Thus Reilly says of Cromwell’s bombardment: “The shells were effectively flung from their barrels to land from above and would explode on impact. The shell itself was a hollow, iron sphere, filled with gunpowder and a slow burning fuse which would detonate as it landed,” p. 60. Reilly also, obviously following Cromwell (Letters CIII-CVII, Carlyle, vol. 2), describes the shelling of Protestant… Full Article
Sir: Ewan Wilson disregards Laud’s documented in casu necessitatis flexibility with Scottish Presbyterians who refused church union eventually enforcing a devastating politico-Separatist state-religion onto the English Church. They demanded absolute compliance with their own intolerant chauvinistic politics as the only way to citizenship and church membership. They punished Dissenters mercilessly and banned church self-rule. I merely claim here that Laud ought to be given an accurate hearing according to contemporary evidence. Yet, Mr Wilson still disregards my plea asking me ambiguously for Laud’s ‘satisfactory views on Sovereign Grace and Arminianism’ instead of consulting Laud himself. That the Presbyterians outdid… Full Article
Dear Sir, 1795-1835 was a time of widespread revival with Anglican Robert Hawker preaching to thousands, Independent William Huntington equalled his efforts and Baptist William Gadsby founding 45-50 churches filled with new converts. The PBs were not inactive in this time but Mr Cook confuses Gill’s orthodoxy with Fuller’s. Gill had one of the largest Particular Baptist congregations in Britain, outnumbering Fullers by far. Contemporary evangelical magazines objecting to Fullerism’s ‘gangerous’ effect on church growth were legion. However, in 1814, Fuller claimed that his churches had shrunk greatly to an average of fifty members and had been steadily on the decline for 25 years. Church increase was due to… Full Article
Demythologising History
Nov 9
One of several letters to the English Churchman concerning Laudianism in the Commonwealth church. Sir: Ewan Wilson’s opinions of Britain’s 16-17th century Church and myself are misconceived. Neither exonerating nor mitigating Laud’s failings and guilt, I criticise Laudian intolerance openly wherever it occurs and protest when Wilson attempts to deny Presbyterianism’s greater Laudianism. Mr Wilson fails to see the ambiguity of his original statement concerning ‘evidence of Laud’s satisfactory views on Sovereign Grace and Arminianism’. The word ‘satisfactory’ was Wilson’s (now withdrawn) and could never be mine. If Wilson did his own homework instead of demanding repeatedly that I do his, he… Full Article
