The first half of the 1700s in England was a tumultuous time.
In the wake of the religious toleration proclaimed in 1689, many once strong churches drifted from their doctrinal moorings and began to question the deity of Christ, aspects of his atoning work, and the veracity of his Word. This was true, for example, of the General Baptists, and of the Presbyterian Church. This happened against a wider backdrop of national disdain towards the Christian faith, especially under the rule of George I. Many were addicted to gin. Of the higher classes in England the French Enlightenment man, Montesquieu, observed, "Whenever anyone refers to religion, everybody starts laughing."
It was into this dark decline that the light of the gospel shone through the ministry of a cohort of fine men in the Church of England, including Howell Harris (in Wales), George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, Ingham, and others. The Evangelical Revival began around 1735, and continued until about 1750.
The revival was not, however, so warmly embraced by those in Independency who held to the Calvinist doctrines, and who viewed many of the leaders of the Revival as Anglicans and Arminians. Instead, the Independent Churches, Congregational and Baptist, for the most part, had moved in the direction of a more extreme Calvinism, termed "High Calvinism" or "Hypercalvinism". This expressed itself in a disproportionate focus on doctrines such as the divine decrees and election, and which mitigated against proactive and winsome evangelism. Specifically, it meant that Christ was not offered to all, since the one offering Christ might not be sure whether their hearer was chosen or not. So they were left to experience the condemnation of the law before seeing in Christ their only hope - but without human intervention. The monergistic "doctrines of grace" were misused to facilitate fatalism .
Enter Jonathan Edwards, the famous American preacher and theologian. While not to be faulted for theological acumen, Jonathan Edwards was also a passionate evangelist, and his theological insight was to combine a high view of God's sovereignty with a clear affirmation that the sovereign God works through "means". Edwards' insight was taken up by English Baptist pastor Andrew Fuller. In his landmark work, "The Gospel worthy of all acceptation" (1784), Fuller argued for what is called the "free offer" of the gospel. This meant that Christians have a warrant to offer Christ to every person. This change in perspective - often referred to as "Evangelical Calvinism" - opened the way for the second phase of the Evangelical Revival in Britain from about 1791 and until something like 1822, this time including the Calvinistic Independents and Baptists.
A related issue was that of organised missions. It is a well-known fact that, initially, Protestant Christians were far less active that the Roman Catholic church in spreading the Christian faith to those or other religions or none. Having said that, by the late 1700s, there were a number of worthy works in far-flung places, and Andrew Fuller's colleague, William Carey, catalogued these in his "Enquiry" (1792). Nevertheless, as far as England was concerned, very little or almost nothing was being done to reach the "heathen". The full title of the "Enquiry" demonstrates the truth which galvanised the Calvinist Baptists of the late 1700s to become pioneers in world mission: "An enquiry into the obligations of. Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the heathen." In this case, the means included the organisation of a missionary society to reach the unreached of places such as India, China and the Americas. The Baptist Missionary Society was created in 1792, followed by the London Missionary Society (Congregationalist) in 1795, and the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) in 1799. The nineteenth century became the "Great Century" for Evangelical Christianity and Evangelical missions.
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