# Was John Gill a Hypercalvinist?



## Marrow Man (Aug 23, 2010)

I noticed on a recent Facebook discussion some disagreement about whether John Gill was, in fact, a hypercalvinist. If I recall correctly, this point is made in Ian Murray's Spurgeon v. Hypercalvinism. The following was posted on the FB site:



> Hyper-Calvinism formally took shape in 1707 at the time of John Hussey and his disciple, John Skepp. Skepp in turn... prompted the young, and soon to be well-known Dr. John Gill, down a road that would spawn one of Hyper-Calvinism’s “greater” works, The Cause of God and Truth. Though Hyper-Calvinism had appeared in the writing of Hussey and the preaching of Skepp, Gill’s work far surpassed them both in notoriety and volume. Gill’s Hyper-Calvinist work focused on dismantling the heresy of Arminianism, the opposite extreme on the theological spectrum. However, in doing so, Gill’s result was an unbridled Hyper-Calvinism.



So, what's the verdict on Gill, PBers?


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## P.F. (Aug 23, 2010)

a) That's not Spurgeon, that's McMahon. Tony's source is below the block quotation, not above it. (May I request that you make some note clarifying this in your opening post?)

b) Spurgeon did not call Gill a hyper-Calvinist, to my recollection, based on reading the book. 

c) Tony's quotation from Spurgeon, "Gill is the Coryphaeus of hyper-Calvinism, but if his followers never went beyond their master, they would not go very far astray," is about as close as you can get - though clearly Spurgeon is affirming Gill's general orthodoxy in contrast to those whom he identified as hyper-calvinists, who went beyond Gill.

d) And ultimately, as Joshua has already pointed out - it depends on how you define hyper-Calvinism.


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## Marrow Man (Aug 23, 2010)

Thanks for the clarification and correction -- it's now fixed.


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## rbcbob (Aug 23, 2010)

I do not wish to weigh in on the quintessential definition of Hyper-Calvinist. But for those who have that one nailed down the following info on Gill might help you decide which side of the ledger to put him on.

Gill believed and preached the doctrine of Eternal Justification, hence finding it pointless to preach evangelistically to the lost. The Elect were already justified in eternity; they would get around to believing.

Gill said



> “That there are universal offers of grace and salvation made to all men, I utterly deny; nay I deny that they are made to any; no not to God’s elect: grace and salvation are promised for them in the everlasting covenant, procured for them by Christ, published and revealed in the gospel, and applied by the Spirit.”



Regarding the many biblical exhortations to sinners to repent Gill said:



> “… these passages have no respect to spiritual and internal conversion, but to an external reformation of life and manners.”



Whether Gill was a Hyper-Calvinist or not, he was not my kind of Calvinist!


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## yeutter (Aug 23, 2010)

*Toon says he was a hyper-Calvinist*

The late Dr. Peter Toon found a number of quotations of Gill that indicated he did not believe in the promiscuous preaching of the Gospel. He thus classified him as a hyper-Calvinist. Thomas Nettles and Timothy George think that on balance Gill believed in the Churches need to evangelize and thus think otherwise.


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## Particular Baptist (Aug 23, 2010)

Gill was not a hyper-Calvinist. One proof of this is that one of his closest friends was Augustus Toplady, the evanglistic Calvinistic Methodist, and he supported the evanglistic preaching of George Whitfield. I think that the charge of Hyper-Calvinism is unfairly laid at the feet of William Gadsby as well.


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## Rich Koster (Aug 23, 2010)

rbcbob said:


> I do not wish to weigh in on the quintessential definition of Hyper-Calvinist. But for those who have that one nailed down the following info on Gill might help you decide which side of the ledger to put him on.
> 
> Gill believed and preached the doctrine of Eternal Justification, hence finding it pointless to preach evangelistically to the lost. The Elect were already justified in eternity; they would get around to believing.
> 
> ...


 
I'm not a Gill expert. However, I bring up this question: Is his stance consistent through all of his writings or did his viewpoints shift at any point?


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