Saviour calls me to him to receive mercy. Wherefore, let all the angels make a lane, and all men make room, that the Jerusalem sinners may come to Christ for mercy." Passages, though not equal in beauty to this, yet the same in sentiment and spirit, might be taken from the writings of many other ministers who filled and adorned the pulpits of the baptist denomination at the close of the seventeenth century; but time and space forbid. One specimen, however, of the preaching with which our churches were favoured at the commencement of the eighteenth century may not be out of place in a rapid sketch of this controversy. It is from a funeral sermon preached and published in the year 1702 by Mr. Piggott of London, "Let me entreat you," are his words to sinners, "by all that is sacred, by the joys of heaven and the torments of hell, by the interest of your never dying souls, by Christ's bloody sweat in the garden, and his agony on the cross, that you immediately close with Christ, and receive him as offered in the gospel; submitting to his sceptre, as well as depending on his sacrifice, that you may be eternally lodged in the bosom of his love."*

These are samples of the preaching heard in our chapels before the Commonwealth and after the Restoration, when hardly anything was taught in the pulpits of the establishment but the divine right of kings, the efficacy of sacraments, and passive obedience to the civil magistrate even in religion. The stern Calvinists of that age felt no scruples in exhorting unconverted men to flee from the wrath to come, by trusting in the merits of the Redeemer; for, though they held, and gloried in what are called the doctrines of grace, they followed the example of Paul, who warned every

* Piggott's Funeral Sermon for Mr. Harrison.

man and taught every man in all wisdom, that he might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. The fathers and founders of our churches were as sound Calvinists as Calvin himself, but happily their Calvinism did not hinder them from making the fullest and most free offer of salvation even to the chief of sinners. It was reserved for a later and darker period in the history of our denomination to witness the introduction of the non-invitation scheme.

The origin of this evil has been laid to the charge of Skepp and Hussey, two baptist ministers of some distinction in the last century; the former settled in London, the latter at Cambridge. “I believe," says Andrew Fuller, "no writer of eminence can be named before the present century, who denied it to be the duty of men in general to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of their souls. I think Mr. Hussey was the first person, who by the general tenor of his writings laid the foundation for this sentiment."+ Hussey was a man of learning and piety, a popular preacher, and much esteemed by a large circle of friends. He was a disciple and admirer of Dr. Crisp. In condemnation of ministers who enjoined the duties of repentance and 'faith on the ungodly, he said, "where doctrines of Christ have been spied out, they have been presently murdered, or knocked down by shooting from the stalking horse of use and application. Ah! vile doings among soul murderers! and text murderers! who go and let out the life of a text, and kill it upon the spot." Justice to the memory of those good men demands the acknowledgment, that their design was to secure to the Spirit of God the sole glory of renewing and sanctifying the souls of men; but it has been well said, that if one class of

Fuller's Works, vol. ii. p. 138, note. Claude's Essay, by Robinson, vol. ii. pp. 327, 328.

ministers must not use application lest they should rub God of the glory of sanctifying the heart, the other class ought not to use explication, lest they should rob him of the glory of enlightening the mind.

Dr. Gill was the senior of Brine and the spiritual guide of his youth. Both of them were born at Kettering, and both spent the greatest part of their ministry in London, surrounded with a large circle of devoted friends. The learning, talents, position, and piety of Gill rendered him for many years the most influential minister in the baptist denomination. Many consulted him as an oracle, and in some instances, his

It was about this time that the controversy began to be known as The Modern Question" In the year 1735. Mr. Maurice of Rowell. in Northamptonshire, published a pamphlet called "A Modern Question modestly Asked,” and Body of Divinity" was placed in four years afterwards he published "A vestries for the edification and comfort Defence of the Modern Question Af- of poor members, who had no means of firmed and Proved" In the year 1740, purchasing the book. It is not more Mr. Gutteridge, a baptist minister in than facts would justify to say, that no the same county, wrote a piece advo- man did so much during the last cencating the same opinions as Maurice tury to fix the standard of theology had done in both his publications. Mr. among the baptists, as Dr. Gill, and Brine, pastor of the baptist church at unhappily many of the disciples went Curriers' Hall, London, now put on his much further than their teacher wished armour to meet the two champions that on the road to hyper-Calvinism. In the had sprung up in his native county, controversy itself he took no part, but * wielding as his weapon a book entitled, an appeal to his voluminous writings, → The Modern Question concerning and tradition with regard to his preachRepentance and Faith examined with, ing, place it beyond all doubt that he candour: a Refutation of Arminian adopted the negative side of the quesPrinciples." He denied that the unre- tion. It is matter of notoriety that generate were under any obligation to he pleaded for justification before faith, believe the gospel. although believing or for what has been called eternal jusin Christ for salvation is necessary to tification, whereby he confounded the the enjoyment of eternal life," and he purpose of God to justify his people with regarded the preaching of those who their actual justification. Thus he was held the opposite opinion, as an attempt at issue with the members of the General to build up Arminianism at the expense Assembly, in 1689, who passed a resoluof divine truth. His ministry con- tion declaratory of their belief that men sisted in the bare exposition of doctrinal cannot be looked upon as reconciled, truths and Christian experience, without justified, and adopted, until they are any effort to save the souls of his uncon- implanted into Jesus Christ by faith, verted hearers. In the pulpit and from and so by virtue of their union with the press he defended his sentiments with him, have these fundamental benefits conconsiderable ability and learning, and veyed unto them. There is no injustice even in sermons, founded on such texts then done to the memories of Hussey, as 1 Timothy i. 13, and 2 Timothy i. 12, Brine, and Gill, in ascribing to their entitled The Chief of Sinners" and writings and preaching the bad theology "The glory of the Gospel;" he could of more modern times. Unintentionally, shut up his bowels of compassion against perhaps, they were the occasion of inthe ungodly, and cautiously avoid any appeals to their consciences.

Ivimey, vol. i. p. 495.

troducing among our churches a system | passion for souls was censured as of false Calvinism, which spread with though it took the work of salvation amazing rapidity through the denomi- out the hands of God. Wherever nation, and covered it with the shadow of death.*

While the leading men amongst the baptists were thus preaching the hidden decrees of God to the neglect of practical truths, eloquently descanting upon the privileges of saints but dumb with regard to the threatenings and invitations of the bible to sinners, zealous against every thing which savoured of Arminianism but losing sight of the commission to preach the gospel unto every creature, vital godliness was in a state of rapid declension among the people, and infidelity was marching through the land with the strides of a giant. Hyper-Calvinism had cast such a blight upon our churches, that their number diminished between the revolution and the middle of the last century, after enjoying rest from persecution more than fifty years. In many quarters, strong prejudices existed against an educated ministry, and men were invited to the pastoral office whose ministry was confined almost exclusively to the decrees of God, predestination, eternal justification, effectual calling, and the final perseverance of the saints. Mystical and allegorical preaching opened the way to popularity, hidden truths were discovered in every part of Solomon's temple, and in all the incidents of Paul's voyage and shipwreck, while the plainest facts in the bible were spiritualized into absurdity and error. As the fruit of this, our churches were troubled and defiled with spiritual pride, strife, censoriousness, the dry rot of nominalism, and the antinominian pestilence. Doctrines were severed from corresponding duties, and privileges from obligations. Preaching to sinners was called legalism. Com

* See Morris's Life of Fuller, pp. 213, 214; and Memoirs of Dr. Carey, pp. 48, 49.

this perverted gospel gained the ascendency, churches were struck with paralysis. If peace reigned, it was the stillness of the churchyard and the quiet of death. Sabbath schools were unknown; home missions had no existence; bible and tract societies had not been formed. At home the wicked, and abroad the heathen, were left to perish for lack of knowledge by the degenerate sons of Calvin, and by the vaunted champions of orthodoxy.

The darkest hour of night precedes the dawn of day. Whitefield and Wesley were now raised up as witnesses for God, and as messengers of mercy to the neglected masses of our countrymen. With an eloquence seldom equalled, with a zeal almost apostolic, with a compassion worthy of Christian ministers, and with the spirit of martyrs, they preached the necessity of the new birth, repentance, faith, obedience, and holiness to admiring multitudes, and amid the demonstrations of the Holy Spirit. Within the establishment and among dissenters, pure and undefiled religion was revived. In our own denomination, some ministers combined the invitations of mercy to the unregenerate with the doctrines of grace to believers. Honourable mention must be made here of Robert Hall, senior, once the able and venerated pastor of the baptist church at Arnsby, Leicestershire. He was chosen to preach before the associated churches at Northampton, in the year 1779, and when the time came he delivered the substance of what he afterwards enlarged and published as a "Help to Zion's Travellers." In this valuable treatise he defended the fundamental doctrines of Christianity against the most plausible objections of unbelievers, and with the hand of a master he disengaged the Calvinistic