Tobias Crisp served the Lord during a time of civil war and ecclesiastical unrest. There were threats of a papal take-over in the Established Church and Amyraldianism, Arminianism, Grotianism and Socinianism were flooding into the country to water down the faith inherited from the Reformers and defended by the Puritans. Crisp found these new religions false as they did not exalt Christ. Entering the ministry as an unconverted man This ‘holy and judicious’ person, as Augustus Toplady describes Crisp, was born into a family of London sheriffs and aldermen and was educated at Eton, Cambridge and Oxford, finishing his studies by gaining a D.D.. He married Mary Wilson, an Alderman’s daughter, and the couple were blessed with thirteen children. He was ordained Rector of Brinkworth…

Part II: Brine’s Theology In his Treatise on Various Subjects Brine says his calling is to defend the doctrines and principles of our religion, and to vindicate the sacred Word of God. As time is less than our subject craves, I shall select a few of his defences and vindications relevant to today’s debate and deal with justification, duty-faith, redemption, regeneration and sanctification. Justification Biblical justification involves the full salvation of sinners, including election, union with Christ, adoption, forgiveness of sins, imputation, redemption, regeneration and sanctification. Today’s Pseudo- Reformed claim that justification is a mere legal formality from God’s side pronounced when sinners exercise duty-faith. Sanctification then fills justification’s empty vessel by adherence to a cut-down moral law. Brine, arguing in his Defence of Justification…

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…