“English Baptists in the 19th CenturyThe nineteenth century in English Baptist history was characterised by the denominational consolidation of Baptists, outstanding Baptist pulpiteers, and internal controversy all of which have left their mark on Queensland Baptists, their step-children.Attempts to bring English Baptists together into some kind of organisational unity was not an easy task.
They were theologically diverse, including the Calvinistic, often Hyper-Calvinistic views of the Particular Baptists, and the Arminian theology and evangelical vitality of the New Connection. They also disagreed about the shape such unity should take and the powers of a central body. Another point of dissension was open versus closed communion (open communion meaning that all believers were welcome at the Lord’s table; closed that only baptised believers should be admitted). The story of the formation of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland is a long and complex one, but as early as 1813, some Particular Baptists began to meet together annually with a view to bringing a “Union” into being.
The Particular Baptists were becoming less Calvinistic owing to the enormous spread of Arminian theology through the Evangelical Revivals and their own increasing interest in missions and thus renunciation of Hyper-Calvinism.By 1831 this “Union” also voted to welcome into its fellowship New Connection churches, although the New Connection as a body remained separate. However, support for the venture of “Union” remained very weak. It was only in 1891 that the New Connection voted by an overwhelming majority to “accept the invitation offered.”
Thus the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland was finally established. Baptists also produced some outstanding preachers during the nineteenth century. Among these was Robert Hall (1764-1831), who became one of the most eloquent and best-known Baptist preachers of his day. Although a moderate Calvinist, he was a vigorous opponent of Hyper-Calvinism.
The famous Welsh preacher Christmas Evans once told Hall how much he wished that the works of John Gill, the Hyper-Calvinist, had been written in the expressive Welsh language, to which Hall replied, “I wish they had, sir; I wish they had, with all my heart, sir, for then I should never have read them! They are a continent of mud, sir! ”On another occasion, an influential member of Hall’s congregation took him to task for not preaching more frequently on predestination.
Looking him steadily in the face and speaking slowly, Hall said, “Sir, I perceive that nature predestined you to be an ass, and what is more, I see that you are determined to make your calling and election sure.”Another famous Baptist preacher of the nineteenth century was Alexander Maclaren (1826-1910). Son of a Glasgow businessman, he was converted at the age of fifteen.
He studied at Stepney College in London (the predecessor of Regent’s Park College, the Baptist College now attached to Oxford University), and excelled at biblical languages. After an initial pastorate in Southampton, he moved to Union Chapel in Manchester in 1858 and remained there until his retirement in 1903.
He gave himself to his pulpit ministry and became a fine expository preacher of the Scriptures. “Sermon-lovers and young ministers made special journeys to Manchester to hear him, hoping to fathom the secret of his pulpit mastery.” Baptists honoured him by electing him as President of the Baptist Union on two occasions and he was also chosen to preside at the first meeting of the Baptist World Alliance which was held in London in 1905.Yet another influential Baptist leader, of a more progressive streak, was John Clifford (1836-1923).
He was well-known not only for his humility and spirituality, but also for his “broad interpretation of evangelicalism, his appreciation of the work of Biblical scholarship, his resolute opposition to blind conservatism, his repudiation of the antagonism between Religion and Science so often proclaimed by some in our own Church, and his steadfast adherence to the New Testament idea of the Church.” He was twice elected as President of the Baptist Union and was elected as the first President of the Baptist World Alliance (1905-1910).
He also served the Free Churches well as a spokesman against the Church of England establishment.A close friend of Clifford, but of considerably more conservative theology, was the “prince of Baptist preachers”, the famous Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892). A remarkable and unusually gifted person, he excelled in pulpit delivery, literary skills and administrative ability. Raised in a Paedobaptist home (advocates of infant baptism), he was converted in a Methodist chapel. After becoming convinced of believers’ baptism by immersion, he became pastor of the Waterbeach Baptist Chapel in 1851 (when only seventeen years of age!).
In 1854 he was called to the New Park Street Baptist Chapel in Southwark, London, which was soon filled to overflowing under Spurgeon’s powerful preaching. This necessitated the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1859 (seating about 5,500 people), where he ministered until a few months before his death. His preaching was filled with anecdotes and illustrations and he possessed a marvellous wit, but he was passionately committed to the faithful exposition of Scripture. He was never ordained he refused it, claiming that it was superfluous for men to repeat what God had already done! Spurgeon was a moderate Calvinist, opposing both Hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism, although he was accused of being an Arminian because of his passion to see souls saved.
Spurgeon was never a lover of controversy. But his fears that heresy was creeping into Baptist pulpits led in 1887 to his writing a series of articles which were published in the Sword and Trowel, complaining that Baptists were going downhill doctrinally. The resulting dispute came to be called the “Down-Grade Controversy”. Spurgeon’s main concerns were the following: an increasing interest among Baptists in Darwin’s ideas about evolution, increasing interest in biblical criticism, the spread of ideas about inspiration which allowed for errors in the Bible, a rejection by some of the penal-substitutionary view of the atonement, and universalist convictions which were to be found in some Baptist churches (the idea that all will ultimately be saved).
The Baptist Union executive asked Spurgeon to document his allegations that the Baptist Union tolerated heresy. This placed Spurgeon in a difficult position, because he had derived some of his information from the President of the Union, who had asked that his name not be revealed. One of the stranger results of the controversy was that, in order to protect doctrinal purity, Spurgeon proposed that a creed be adopted in place of the confession of faith, but his proposal was not accepted. Another result was that Spurgeon and his church withdrew from the Baptist Union in October 1887, prompting the Union to pass a motion of censure upon him; a motion which was never withdrawn.
This grieved him deeply, and probably hastened his death.Australian Baptists (including Queensland Baptists) come predominantly from English Baptist stock and many of the features of Queensland Baptist life in the twentieth and twenty-first century – emphasis on biblical preaching, debates about the place and power of the Union, and doctrinal controversy – can be seen in our English forebears too.
(The quotations in this final article come from A C Underwood,A History of the English Baptists.)
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