7Conviction.doc

Studies in Puritanism and Piety Journal, 2021

Most readers are familiar with the Calvinist-Arminian controversy of the 18th century in which free-grace, championed by Whitefield, Toplady and Romaine was set against free-will, maintained by Fletcher, Sellon and Wesley. The controversy dealt with whether salvation was made possible by Christ, depending on man's acceptance of it, or whether Christ secured His Church's salvation by His atoning death. At the same time, a similar controversy was raging on a closely related topic. 'Is the Mosaic Law God's eternal standard or has it become irrelevant to unbeliever and believer alike as a Covenant of Works and as a yardstick of sanctification?' The leading contestants in the Calvinistic-Arminian controversy were mainly Oxford and Cambridge dons and men of a first-class education. The opposite was the case in the bitter debate concerning the Law which came to be referred to as the Antinomian Controversy. William Huntington (1745-1813), who took the side of the Law as God's eternal standard, had a mere few months' schooling and before becoming a pastor, was a coalman's labourer. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) who took up the cudgels for an abolition of a revealed Law which he sought to empty of its condemning and commanding power, was raised on a farm, received very little education and became a well-known pugilist before his days as a controversialist. Unlike in the Calvinistic-Arminian debate, both sides in the Antinomian Controversy professed to be Calvinists. Huntington held four-square to the doctrines of the Reformation regarding the Gospel and the Law whereas Fuller called himself an 'evangelical Calvinist' and reacted strongly against what he called 'Hyper-Calvinism.' His understanding of the latter term was that he was turning from the old, well-trodden gospel paths into new areas of religious speculation. Fuller thus could say of the Church before he left traditional Calvinism to proclaim new ideas of faith, sanctification and justification: 'When I first published my treatise on the nature of faith, and the duty of all men who hear the gospel to believe it, the Christian profession had sunk into contempt amongst us; insomuch that had matters gone on but a few years longer, the Baptists would have

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2019

aesthetics, headed respectively by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough, held conflicting views on painting. The divergence of Whitefield and Wesley within Evangelicalism is presented as an analogue, though by no means crudely. The two evangelists are not identified with the two artists, but Hindmarsh suggests that the Calvinists aligned with Whitefield admired the sublime while the followers of the Arminian Wesley made the motif of struggle central in their outlook. This observation is by no means implausible, for it coincides with the view of B. L. Manning in his brilliant study of The hymns of Wesley and Watts (), where the cosmic range of Watts's Calvinist verse is contrasted with the personal quest for salvation in the hymns of Charles Wesley. Contemporary art, as well as science and law, is shown to have affinities with Evangelical preoccupations. Despite the vast range of themes covered in Hindmarsh's book, there is little to criticise. One portion that is a little doubtful is the treatment of natural law. It is said that natural law became more prominent during the eighteenth century (p. ), whereas its decay at that time is a standard theme in histories of political thought. By the phrase, however, the author is referring to his organising theme of the rise of the 'non-supernatural', not the tradition of classical/Christian thought running down to the eighteenth century from the Stoics through Aquinas and the continuing scholastics of the post-Reformation period. That is a pity because a great desideratum is a study of the relationship of the thinking of the early Evangelicals to natural law in this sense. How far did they suppose that the light of nature, independent of the Bible, was a sanction for institutions and behaviour? That we do not find in this volume. Otherwise the only discernible flaw is a tendency to misspell British place names-'Sterling' (p. ), 'Litchfield' (p. ), 'Guilford' (p. ). What we possess in this book is therefore an extraordinarily rich account of the heartbeat of the Evangelical movement in its infancy. The engagement with recent scholarship in many fields of eighteenth-century studies is exemplary, but equally welcome is the concentration on spirituality, which enables the author to capture the movement's essence. In the conclusion Hindmarsh gently protests against the reductionism of E. P. Thompson's account of Methodist devotion. If readers want to understand what really motivated Evangelicals in the eighteenth century and even the early nineteenth century, they should turn to this book. DAVID BEBBINGTON UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING Jansenism and England. Moral rigorism across the confessions. By Thomas Palmer. (Oxford Theology and Religion Monographs.) Pp. x + . Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, . £.      JEH () ; doi:./S Jansenism has a complex history, and one which is dominated by perspective. From that of the Catholic Church it was the teaching of a troubling heretical sect which contained a political dimension that dangerously challenged the authority of the papacy. From the perspective of Protestants, the Jansenist challenge to the Catholic Counter-Reformation seemed to establish an interpretation of the doctrine of grace with which it was in sympathy. It elevated grace as a mean of salvation for a depraved humanity and endorsed Calvinist ideas of predestination. However

Church History, 2020

Theology, 2019

Lutheran Quarterly, 2016

Tell someone today how much you love Jesus Christ. 1 CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION NO. 216 A SERMON DELIVERED ON SABBATH MORNING, OCTOBER 3, 1858, BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE MUSIC HALL, ROYAL SURREY GARDENS. "And the publican, standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." Luke 18:13. Confession and Absolution Sermon #216 Tell someone today how much you love Jesus Christ. Volume 4

New Blackfriars, 1989