Gill believed all have a duty to believe, faith is required from all, as Nettles points out in his book and as I quoted from Gill. So you agree then? Gill requires faith from all but different kinds of faith?

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J. M. - Baptist - Ontario, Canada - Feileadh Mor

"Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater cause of suffering."
The Brothers Karamazov

I have never denied that Gill taugh all have a duty to have faith, the issue was what type of faith. However, what Gill plainly denies is that it is the duty of all who hear the gospel to believe savingly. Now duty-faith is the teaching that all who hear the gospel have the duty to believe savingly. Gill would therefore have disagreed with Pink who said, "It is the bounden duty of all who hear the Gospel to savingly trust in Christ" (Duty-Faith).

Therefore Gill denied duty-faith.

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Richard
CofE
UK

Good, we agree. Gill taught all have a duty to have faith.




Sorry Neo for getting off topic.

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J. M. - Baptist - Ontario, Canada - Feileadh Mor

"Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater cause of suffering."
The Brothers Karamazov

Whilst Gill taught all have a duty to have faith he did not teach all have a duty to have saving faith and that is where Gill become unorthodox and that is why we can say he denied duty-faith.

As for Gill being the best defence of Calvinism one needs to determine if what Gill taught was Calvinism. Did Gill defend the theology of the Canons of Dordt?

Head I, Article 3 - The Preaching of the Gospel
So that men may be brought to faith, God mercifully sends heralds of this most joyful message to whom He will and when He wills. By their ministry men are called to repentance and to faith in Christ crucified. For how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? (Rom 10:14, 15)

Head II, Article 5 - The Universal Proclamation of the Gospel
The promise of the gospel is that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise ought to be announced and proclaimed universally and without discrimination to all peoples and to all men to whom God in His good pleasure sends the gospel, together with the command to repent and believe.

Gill could not subscribe to these statements, hence his 'Calvinism' is un-Confessional.

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Richard
CofE
UK

I agree that Gill did deny that it is the duty of all who hear the gospel to believe in Christ to the saving of their soul. But that this is the definition of duty-faith, I am not sure. Take a look at the following:

"A Hyper-Calvinist, Gill`s major critics say, does not believe that God calls indiscriminately all who hear about Christ to believe in Him. They say this, holding that man is obliged as a matter of duty to trust in Christ as a condition of salvation. It is odd that this opinion is often closely associated with Gill for several reasons. First, this view applied to Gill is an anachronism as the idea of saving faith being the known duty and within the natural ability of all men reached its fullest expression amongst the Baptists in 1785 with the publication of Andrew Fuller`s controversial book The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. Gill, however, died in 1771 thus obviously having nothing to do with the debate that tore the Baptist churches apart after the book was published. The second reason is that during the earlier part of the 18th century the view of what came to be called ´duty-faith`, formerly propagated by Anglican Latitudinarians such as Tillotson , was gaining ground amongst the Independents but Gill, a staunch Baptist, maintained he did not take part in this debate . Even Andrew Fuller believed that Gill did not enter into the controversy and John Ryland Jnr, quoting Gill`s The Cause of God and Truth, argued that Gill never wrote on the subject of ´the Modern Question ` and exonerates him from taking the usual Hyper-Calvinist stand . John Rippon assumes that Gill did enter the debate in later life because of certain ´corrections` he made to his book The Cause of God and Truth. Rippon, however, does not state what these ´corrections`, are and how they might have applied to the debate in question."
John_Gill_and_Hyper-Calvinism

Gill was an extremely precise theologian, and most puritans who came before him did not use terminology as fined-tuned as he did, so it is easy to misinterpret Gill on certain points. I think it is best to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I was actually reading Jonathan Edwards in "A Treatise on Religious Affections," where he actually points out that it is possible for an "evangelical hypocrite" to have assurance of salvation under the instigation of the devil, and yet remain totally unsaved. According to Edwards, it is a sin for the people to have faith in Christ when they are not in a "gracious estate." Consequently, I agree with Gill that the reprobate must not believe in Christ as their Saviour, since that would be hypocrisy. Unfortunately, there are many evangelicals (especially dispensationalist) today who believe that Christ is their Savior, simply because they have been told that Jesus died for them, and that God simply requires them to "accept" what Jesus did on the cross for them. What God requires from men is that they feel sorrow because of their sins for having broken His law, believe in Christ and repent. However, if they believe in Christ without having experienced sorrow over their sins, their faith is false and sinful.

Gill taught that faith precedes repentance, while some other Reformed theologians argue that repentance precedes faith. Consequently, I think Gill simply distinguished between two types of faith and two types of repentance to highlight which is given by God, and which is required from man. Later, however, this dichotomy was denied by theologians, and that all it was argued that all the types of faith and repentance are required by God. Consequently, they made Gill into a hyper-Calvinist when he never got the chance to defend himself.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta

The Institutes by Calvin are the best defense of Reformed theology against Popery, but not against Arminianism. However, by Calvinism I meant the five points of Calvinism, as opposed to the Arminian position. Arminians will agree with a lot of the content in the Institutes, except for the five points, and perhaps a few other things here and there.

Another defense of Calvinism I know is Lorraine Buettner's "The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination," but his is not an exegetical treatise, and leaves a lot of paradoxes and questions unanswered before the Arminian attacks.

Spurgeon also wrote a defense of Calvinism, but I think it is only 32 pages, and is not a scholarly work. Like I said, John Owen's "Death of Death" is an excellent defense of definite atonement, and his "A Display of Arminianism" is a good critique against early Remonstrance, but not to the same exegetical level as his "Death of Death," and Gill's "The Cause of God and Truth." Interestingly, Gill's exegesis is often very much in line with that of Owen and Calvin.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta

[quote=AV1611;408098]Whilst Gill taught all have a duty to have faith he did not teach all have a duty to have Could you please explain why you think Gill could not? This whole issue seems to me to be saying that the gospel (my meaning is the whole scripture) is not to be preached to the forever-unconverted i.e. the reprobate. Hence a pointless argument - none of us know who they are (thankfully!). It seems to me those that tag Gill hyper-C or high-C are claiming that he would disagree with This promise ought to be announced and proclaimed universally and without discrimination to all peoples and to all men to whom God in His good pleasure sends the gospel, together with the command to repent and believe. If all that is preached is the gospel of the gospel sans the law of the gospel then I agree that Gill could not, would not, subscribe.

What in the world is the use of using the word faith if the meaning is not saving faith when used in the context of the gospel?

Dalhseide, Gill would not have had trouble subscribing to the Canons of Dort. In fact, in his "Cause of God and Truth," he actually defends certain arguments that John Davenant had made in another book. Davenant was a low calvinist who served as one of the delegates to the Synod of Dort. Gill had nothing to argue against the rulings of the synod. Moreover, the concept of duty-faith was defined after Gill's death, and Gill never really had a chance to clarify his semantics in what he meant by denying that any man must believe "to the saving of his soul." It seems to me that Gill was denying that faith effects regeneration, which was one of the predominant tenets of Wesley and other Arminians of his day. Gill simply attempts to drive away the notion that God commands man to save himself through believing in Jesus; which is essentially what Arminianism teaches. There is no corporeal difference between saving faith and mental faith, other than one is accompanied by a true love for Christ, and good works, while the other is conceited. Gill did teach that all men must have a true love for Christ, but that this love should not be directed at the benefits that they may draw from the cross. (This is exactly what Jonathan Edwards proves in his "Treatise on Religious Affections"). Edwards was actually a contemporary of Gill, and in fact thought highly of Gill. Gill defined those different kinds of faith and repentance because the Scriptures speak of various kinds of faith. See John 2:23, where the believing "in his name" clearly suggests (within the context) that those people did believe or made mental assent to Christ, but did not have saving faith. Later, in John 3:15-16, however John speaks of people "believing in Him," which itself refers to saving faith, again based on the context. Finally in John 3:18, you see again "have not believed in the name of God's one and only son...", which ultimately refers to denying that Christ is the messiah, and thus refers to a mental assent, apart from personal trust. Those men who persistently resist God's common grace so as to deny (all their life) that Jesus is the Christ (messiah), and God's Son, are condemned already, because they make God to be a liar. They have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit. James also speaks of a faith that is "dead", and consequently not saving.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta

The Canons speak of the gospel including "the command to repent and believe" but Gill would have to say that this means legal or historical repentance and faith. i.e. they are not to be commanded to repent and believe savingly.

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Richard
CofE
UK

I purchased The Cause of God and Truth. Reading it now. I'm sure I will be reading it for a long time. The only thing I don't like about it so far is the "Font." It's horribly small....

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~ Steven Bradford ~
Member Covenant Presbyterian, Chattanooga, TN

Yea, the font is really small, but I'm sure you will really like it. I actually read the whole thing in 10 days just after finishing school.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta