Gospel Standard Strict Baptists
William Gadsby was an outstanding pastor and evangelist. But he was clearly hyper-calvinist in his thinking. He founded a magazine called The Gospel Standard magazine in 1835 – it became the chief bastion of hyper-calvinism among Particular Baptists. Strict and Particular Baptists who accepted Gadsby’s outlook rallied around the magazine and came to be known as Gospel Standard Strict Baptists. After 1860, they formed themselves into a distinct denomination. A list was drawn up of churches and men which upheld ‘Gospel Standard’ views. Churches that were on the list were expected to refuse all fellowship with churches not on the list. No preacher approved by the GS could preach in a church not on the GS list. Nor could GS churches invite a man to preach not approved by the GS. Most important of all, GS churches barred from the Lord’s Supper all who were not members of their own denomination. Hence the resolution passed in the Charlesworth church ‘that no persons sit down at the Lord’s table except they be of the same faith and order.’ The church was now on the GS list. Fellowship at the Lord’s Table would now be restricted to believers of ‘same faith and order’ – i.e. members of other GS churches.
The GS influence was to be a shadow over the church for many years to come. Wherever hyper-calvinism has taken root, it has had a deadening influence on spiritual life and evangelistic endeavour. Hyper-calvinism can take many forms. What form did it take among the Gospel Standard Strict Baptists? We have only to look at the GS Articles of Faith to see. They include the following statements:
XXVI We deny duty faith and duty repentance – these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty spiritually and savingly to repent and believe… we reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God….
XXIX While we believe that the gospel is to be preached in or proclaimed to all the world…. we deny offers of grace; that is to say, that the gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all.
XXXII We believe that it would be unsafe, from the brief records we have of the way in which the apostles, under the immediate direction of the Lord, addressed their hearers in certain special cases and circumstances, to derive absolute and universal rules for ministerial addresses in the present day under widely- different circumstances…
XXXIII Therefore, that for ministers in the present day to address unconverted persons, or indiscriminately all in a mixed congregation, calling upon them savingly to repent, believe, and receive Christ, or perform any other acts dependent upon the new creative power of the Holy Ghost, is, on the one hand, to imply creature power, and, on the other, to deny the doctrine of special redemption.
According to the GS leaders, sinful people have no duty to repent and believe in Christ. Gadsby and his followers taught that we must not offer the gospel to sinners indiscriminately. They accepted that the Lord Jesus and his apostles did – but then argued that we cannot follow their example. They said that we must never preach to a congregation calling on everyone to repent, believe and receive Christ. They taught that until a person knows that he has been awakened, convicted of sin, regenerated, he has no right or duty to accept Christ’s invitations, to repent and to believe.
The result of such teaching was disastrous among Strict Baptists. Many people in the congregations concluded that since it was not their duty to do anything, they were not to blame for their unconverted state. Week after week they sat under such preaching, saying to themselves ‘Well, I can’t do anything, I’m not supposed to do anything: it’s up to God and I’m not going to worry about it’. Others reacted differently. They longed to be saved, but instead of going straight to Christ in repentance and faith, they spent their time examining themselves, asking ‘have I been convicted deeply enough of sin? Do I know I’m elect? Am I entitled to believe the gospel promises?’
Many Strict Baptist congregations were full of people who remained loyal chapel-goers for many years but who never came to any assurance of faith. Some were complacent unbelievers, others remained anxious seekers all their lives.
And of course, such doctrines strangled evangelistic zeal. How could people who had no certainty of their own salvation testify to others? And the hyper-calvinist preachers had no message for hardened unbelievers. They could urge ‘awakened sinners’ to repent and believe but they could say nothing to complete outsiders who felt no conviction. They could not even say ‘Turn to God’ or ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found..’
Generally speaking, the strict baptist churches which embraced hyper-calvinism withered during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the course of the last century many have been closed. The Charlesworth cause was to know many barren years. Yet in the mercy of God, hyper-calvinist thinking never quite extinguished the gospel flame. The GS Articles quoted above were added to the trust deeds of many Strict Baptist chapels. Happily, that never happened at Charlesworth. Though the church was thought of as a ‘GS cause’ for many years, those life-killing articles were never written into its constitution. As a result, the church has been free in recent years to shake off the shackles of hyper-calvinism and to return to authentic reformed gospel preaching. The men who preach at Charlesworth today are men who believe wholeheartedly in the sovereignty of God and in election. But they also believe in human responsibility – in the duty of every sinner to turn to God in repentance and faith. Who knows? Under such preaching God may yet revive the work again.
