Calvinist Flyswatter

John Spilsbury, Not "Reformed"

EARLIEST LEADER OF THE ENGLISH
PARTICULAR BAPTISTS NOT "REFORMED"

STEPHEN GARRETT, at the BaptistGadfly, has posted the following about John Spilsbury, recognized by Baptist historians as one of the primary earliest leaders among the English Particular Baptists:

John Spilsbury and His Confession

John Spilsbury (1593-1668) was a major leader of the English Particular Baptists and signer of the first London Baptist Confession of Faith:

"I believe that God of his grace, in his own time, effectually calls such as shall be saved to the knowledge of the truth, who is said, of his own will to beget us by the word of truth: in which work of grace, nature is as passive, as a child in the parents begetting of it; and so God by His Spirit works faith in the hearts of all such to believe in Christ, and his righteousness, only for justification. And thus they are made righteous before God in Christ, and so conformable to the will of God the Father through the Son; and also made holy through the work of regeneration, and the holy Spirit of grace dwelling in them; yet all such have still, as long as they live here in the flesh, remaining in them, an old man, that original corruption, the flesh that wars against the spirit, which hinders them in their obedience both to God and to man, and many times draws them to that which is evil, and contrary to their intentions; yet all of them shall through Christ overcome, and safely be brought to glory at last." (emphasis mine)

See here

Clearly Spilsbury put faith before justification and regeneration in his "ordo salutis."

Bob's Note: Stephen Garrett has a veritable storehouse of materials on his BaptistGadfly from Baptists which demonstrates that the modern "born again before believing" of the Hybrid Calvinist Reformed camp is a post-17th century Pedobaptist invention, not held by Baptists and their Confessions of Faith.

Most of the advocates of this aberration in our time are Pedobaptists who teach "regeneration" apart from the necessary instrumentality of the Word and that infants born to believers get "born again" either before they are physically born or shortly after their births.

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posted by Bob L. Ross @ 4:24 PM