Spurgeon vs Hyper-Calvinism

This is the name of a book by Iain Murray (Banner of Truth, 1995). It is subtitled The Battle for Gospel Preaching.

Murray, writing in 1995, tells us that H-C was not a major threat to the churches, but that with the revival of the Doctrines of Grace, it was to be expected that there would be a revival of H-C as well. Judging by some of the threads on this Board, that was a very prescient observation.

Spurgeon began his ministry in London in 1854. His flamboyant preaching style quickly caused him to become well-known, his sermons being taken down and published weekly. He espoused the Calvinism of the 17th Century Puritans, and Baptists like Kiffin, Keach and Bunyan who called upon all to come to Christ in repentance and faith (see Bunyan's Come and Welcome to the Lord Jesus Christ). Indeed, Spurgeon agreed with Andrew Fuller who wrote in 1787 that, "No writer of eminence can be named before the present (18th) Century who denied it to be the duty of men in general to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls. However, at the start of the 18th century, a book was published by a man called Joseph Hussey called, God's Operations of Grace but no offers of His Grace. As a result of this book, many Baptists and Congregationalists made sure that they never called upon any sinner to believe savingly since, according to Hussey, Christ had never done so.
Murray quotes the articles of the Synod of Dort which declare, 'As many as are called by the Gospel are unfeignedly called; for God hath most earnestly and truly declared in His word what will be acceptable to Him, namely that all who are called should comply with the invitation. He moreover seriously promises eternal life and rest to as many as shall come to Christ and believe on Him. It is not the fault of the Gospel, nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God, who calls men by the Gospel, and confers on them various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the word refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves.' [quoted by P. Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom]

Spurgeon had not been at his church in New Park Street, London for more than a year before he was attacked by a fellow minister, James Wells in the pages of a publication called the Earthen Vessel. Wells believed that the idea that all men should be called to faith in Christ was 'Fullerism' and 'mongrel Calvinism.' This attack provoked a lively debate within the pages of the Earthen Vessel but Spurgeon did not involve himself in it, preferring to let his preaching answer for him.

Spurgeon believed that a universal proclamation of good news along with a warrant for every creature was at the heart of Scripture. To the 'rulers of Sodom,' for example, God says, 'Come, let us reason together.....though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow' (Isaiah 1:18). "These were men, " says Spurgeon, "Whose very religion was hateful to God," yet it is such that God invites to receive mercy, just as the crucifiers of Christ were to be invited at the day of Pentecost.
Spurgeon continued, '"Repent and be baptized every one of you," says Peter. As John Bunyan puts it, one man might have stood up in the crowd and said, "But I helped to hound Him to the cross!" "Repent and be baptized every one of you!" But I drove the nails into His hands!" Says another. "Every one of you!" "But I pierced His side!" "Every one of you!"..........I do feel so grieved at many of our Calvinistic brethren; they know nothing about Calvinism, I am sorry to say, for never was a man more caricatured by his professed followers than Calvin. Many of them are afraid to preach from Peter's text..... When I do it they say, "He is unsound." But I do not care for that; I know that the Lord has blessed my appeals to all sorts of sinners and nothing will stop me giving free invitations as long as I find them in this book.' [MTP, vol. 7, pp. 148-9]

Another argument that Spurgeon addressed in his sermons was the 'warrant of Faith.' He addressed this in a sermon on 1 John 3:23.
'In our own day certain preachers assure us that a man must be regenerated before we may bid him believe in Jesus Christ; some degree of a work of grace in the heart being, in their judgement, the only warrant to believe. This also is false. It takes away a Gospel for sinners and offers us a Gospel for saints..... Brethren, the command to believe in Christ must be the sinner's warrant if you consider the nature of our commission. How runs it? "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." It ought to read, according to the other plan, "Preach the Gospel to every regenerate person, to every convinced sinner......." But it is not so; it is to "every creature."
'I believe the tendency of that preaching which puts the warrant for faith anywhere but in the Gospel command, is to vex the true penitent and to console the hypocrite; the tendency of it is to make the poor soul which really repents feel that he must not believe in Christ because he sees so much of his own hardness of heart. The more spiritual a man is, the more unspiritual he sees himself to be.' [MTP, vol.9, p.537]
'If we begin to preach to sinners that they must have a certain sense of sin and a certain measure of conviction, such teaching would turn the sinner away from God in Christ to himself. The man begins at once to say, "Have I a broken heart? Do I feel the burden of sin? This is only another form of looking at self. Man must not look to himself to find reasons for God's grace.' [MTP, vol. 33, pp. 114-6]

If the Mods believe that this thread belongs in the Books section, I have no objection if they move it.

 

Two other points about Spurgeon's Bible-based opposition to Hyper-Calvinism.
The first was his belief in the absolute freedom and universality of the Gospel invitation: 'Sinners, let me address you with the words of life. Jesus wants nothing from you, nothing whatsoever; nothing done, nothing felt; he gives both work and feeling. Ragged, penniless, just as you are; lost, forsaken, desolate, with no good feelings and no good hopes, still Jesus comes to you, and in these words of pity he addresses you: "Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.'[MTP. vol. 30, pp. 54-5]

The second was his belief in human responsibility. Since the Fall, men have not lost their responsibility. but they have lost the ability, the will, to obey God. Spurgeon once declared, "I dread more than anything your being left to your own free will."
In an early sermon on 'Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility' he said, 'The system of truth is not one straight line, but two. No man will ever get a right view of the Gospel until he knows how to look at the two straight lines at once.....Now if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there is no presidence of God over his actions, I should be driven very close to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I declare that God so overrules all things, as that man is not free to be responsible, I am driven at once to Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and self-contradictory; but they are not. It is the fault of our weak judgment.....it is my folly that leads me to suppose that two truths can ever contradict each other.' [NPSP, vol.4, p.343]

All the quotations and much of the comment come from Murray's book.

 

It is indeed a requirement for salvation, but it is not a work; it is a gift of God.

 

He tells them because unless they repent they will all perish and that is as true today as it was when He said it.
But men will not repent of themselves because they have wicked, unbelieving hearts. Therefore repentance, like faith, like salvation itself, is a gift of God (Acts 5:31; 11:18; Romans 2:4; 2 Timothy 2:25).

 

May I ask that people confine themselves to the topic, please? There is no shortage of threads on Calvinism in general on the forum devoted to it.