Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Are Baptists historically “Calvinist”? – Testimony of William Carey. PART FIVE of SIX

Thomas E Kresal Admin · 6 hrs April 11, 2020

Baptist History, Heritage and Distinctives – Are Baptists historically “Calvinist”? – Testimony of William Carey. PART FIVE of SIX

William Carey is universally recognized as the “father of modern foreign missions. He was saved and baptized by immersion in 1783. Carey was a shoe maker by trade, but soon surrendered to the call of God to preach the gospel. He forged a friendship with a young preacher from Kettering whose name was Andrew Fuller. Together, these two young men would awaken the Calvinists from their “Particular” sleep and raise the consciousness of an entire generation of English Baptists.

Carey’s biographer relates the state of the Baptist churches of England in the late-1700’s:

The Baptists, who had stood alone as the advocates of toleration, religious and civil, in an age of intolerance which made them the victims, had subsided like Puritan and Covenanter when the Revolution of 1688 brought persecution to an end. The section who held the doctrine of “general” redemption, and are now honourably known as General Baptists, preached ordinary Arminianism, and even Socinianism. The more earnest and educated among them clung to Calvinism, but, by adopting the unhappy term of “particular” Baptists, gradually fell under a fatalistic and antinomian spell.

This false Calvinism, which the French theologian of Geneva would have been the first to denounce, proved all the more hostile to the preaching of the Gospel of salvation to the heathen abroad, as well as the sinner at home, that it professed to be an orthodox evangel while either emasculating the Gospel or turning the grace of God into licentiousness.

From such “particular” preachers as young Fuller and Carey listened to, at first with bewilderment, then impatience, and then denunciation, missions of no kind could come. Fuller exposed and pursued the delusion with a native shrewdness, a masculine sagacity, and a fine English style, which have won for him the apt name of the Franklin of Theology. For more than twenty years Fullerism, as it was called, raised a controversy like that of the Marrow of Divinity in Scotland, and cleared the ground sufficiently at least to allow of the foundation of foreign missions in both countries.

It now seems incredible that the only class who a century ago represented evangelicalism should have opposed missions to the heathen on the ground that the Gospel is meant only for the elect, whether at home or abroad; that nothing spiritually good is the duty of the unregenerate, therefore “nothing must be addressed to them in a way of exhortation excepting what relates to external obedience.” –Life of William Carey, Shoemaker & Missionary By George Smith C.I.E., LL.D. 1909.Chapter 2.

Carey’s vision of taking the gospel to a lost heathen world seemed at first to be a wild fantasy, unnecessary and dangerous. He and Andrew Fuller prayed, preached and wrote for nine years for the eyes of the hyper-Calvinists (whose writings carried influence over the Baptists at that time) to be opened. Three things broke the backs of the “Particulars”:

1. Andrew Fuller’s The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation (1784)

2.Carey’s work– An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which the Religious State of the Different Nations of the World, the Success of Former Undertakings, and the Practicability of Further Undertakings (1786); and

3. Carey’s sermon, Expect Great Things from God, Attempt Great Things for God, delivered on May 31, 1792, in Nottingham. Smith relates the story of the sermon to us:

“The text was Isaiah’s (liv. 2, 3) vision of the widowed churches tent stretching forth till her children inherited the nations and peopled the desolate cities, and the application to the reluctant brethren was couched in these two great maxims written ever since on the banners of the missionary host of the kingdom–

EXPECT GREAT THINGS FROM GOD.

ATTEMPT GREAT THINGS FOR GOD.

“The service was over; even Fuller was afraid, even Ryland made no sign, and the ministers were leaving the meeting. Seizing Fullers arm with an imploring look, the preacher, whom despair emboldened to act alone for his Master, exclaimed: ‘And are you, after all, going again to do nothing?’

What Fuller describes as the ‘much fear and trembling’ of these inexperienced, poor, and ignorant village preachers gave way to the appeal of one who had gained both knowledge and courage, and who, as to funds and men, was ready to give himself. They entered on their minutes this much:–‘That a plan be prepared against the next ministers meeting at Kettering for forming a Baptist Society for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.’” ibid, Chapter 2.

To Be Continued: Authors Conclusion

Presented by Thomas E. Kresal from: Published article in now defunct “Garbage Truck Forum” July, 2000