Part I. Brine’s Life First, a few words of explanation. You might think there is more George Ella and our present contemporaries in this lecture than John Brine and his. This is because there is a good deal of John Brine in George Ella and most of our contemporaries positively hate John Brine so we must deal with them firmly but fairly or Brine has taught us in vain. So I am very blunt and particular in my evaluation of Brine’s reception today amongst our self-styled ‘Moderate Calvinists’. Nowadays, these moderately Reformed ministers who strive immoderately to muzzle us are rejecting every single doctrine of the Reformation, ridiculing and condemning those who do not share their errors. Whether I speak in Germany, Britain, the USA…

One of the most successful Baptist contenders for the truth in the 18th century was John Gill (1697-1771) , a London pastor who was second to none in the kingdom for scholarly learning and prowess as a preacher. Sadly Gill has faded from the reading of most evangelicals, owing to the fact that his successors held to a radically different view of the gospel. Now he is being rediscovered as the number of publications dealing with him over the last few years show . Something, however, is going seriously wrong. Though contemporary American works such as Thomas J. Nettle’s By His Grace and for His Glory and Timothy George’s essay on Gill in Baptist Theologians show clearly that Gill was no Hyper-Calvinist but a great…

The witness and teaching of Dr John Gill (1697-1771) so impressed his friends Augustus Toplady and James Hervey that they maintained his work would still be of great importance to future generations. This also became the conviction of John Rippon (1750-1836) and Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892), Gill’s more well-known successors to his pastorate, but it was also the testimony of those who served for shorter periods at Carter Lane such as John Martin, Benjamin Francis and John Fawcett. The witness of these faithful men of God has helped point generations to Gill’s works which have subsequently enriched their lives. The present evangelical establishment is apparently striving to unite Calvinism with Arminianism, Baxterism and worse in an effort to promotean ecumenical doctrinal mish-mash which will suit…

So often when speaking about the work of the Holy Spirit which infused the churches with new life in the 18th century, mention is made of Anglican stalwarts such as Whitefield, Hervey, Toplady and Romaine. The works of these men through God’s sovereign grace cannot be praised enough but the fact that recent biographers have highlighted their activities has tended to give the impression that other denominations, such as the Baptists, were quite inactive during this period. This is by no means the case as the testimony of John Gill shows. John Gill was born in 1697 in the town of Kettering and became a member of the Particular Baptist church there before being called to the pastorate at Goat Yard Chapel, Horselydown, London. This…