#john spilsbery

[reformedontheweb]

Free Ebook - A Treatise Concerning the Lawful Subject of Baptism

John Spilsbury, A Treatise Concerning the Lawful Subject of Baptism. London, Printed: Unknown, Sold by Henry Hills in Fleet-yard over against the Prison, 1652. Pages 87. 5 out of 5 Free download. Here is an excellent book written by the father of the Particular Baptist movement. He first published this book in 1643, but revised it in 1652. ¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾¾ SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN…

[confessingbaptist]

Outside the Camp: John Spilsbury, the Pioneer of English Particular Baptists by Michael A. Thompson [ $0.99 | £0.99 ]

Description:

Michael A. Thompson is an elder at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Kingwood, TX., a retired US Army officer from Texas, a veteran of the business world, and now a full-time educator, teaching philosophy, systematic theology, and the New Testament. He has a PhD in theology and church history. He and his wife, Cindy, are the proud parents of three children and eight grandchildren.

John Spilsbury was one of the prominent leaders of the newly emerging Particular Baptist churches in early 17th century England. Despite having no real formal education, he became the doctrinal heart and soul and the pastoral guide for a movement that would eventually comprise the largest evangelical body of believers in the world. This Baptist founding father is an enigma to most church historians, but to those who know of his commitment to biblical authority and truth, of his rejection of popes and ecclesiastical hierarchy, of his commitment to clear confessions of faith, of his staunch reformed theology, and his belief in credo-baptism—for those who know the historic John Spilsbury, they know him not only as the Pioneer of the Particular English Baptists, but as a Protestant evangelical willing to surrender his life for the sake of Jesus Christ, His word, and His church. John Spilsbury was a bright shining star in a world of darkness and persecution.

Details:

Print Length: 130 pages Publisher: Charis Publications (January 7, 2011) Text-to-Speech: Enabled

[HT: Jonathan Bennett]

   Related:

400-Year-Old Lessons from English Baptists & Persecution [Michael Haykin]

DEAL: Baptist Biographies $2.99 Each (Andrew Fuller, Adoniram Judson & John A. Broadus) [Kindle]

The Rise and Development of the English Baptists [Graham Beynon]

[confessingbaptist]

Another preview of the upcoming book from RBAP “Recovering a Covenantal Heritage: Essays in Baptist Covenant Theology”. This one is Steve Weaver’s conclusion from “The Puritan Argument for the Immersion of Believers: How Seventeenth-Century Baptists Utilized the Regulative Principle of Worship”:

In his An Orthodox Catechism published in 1680, Hercules Collins’ response to the question, “Doth the Scripture any where expressly forbid the baptizing of infants?” reveals the commitment which he would later argue for in his book on baptism. Collins replied:

  It is sufficient that the Divine Oracle commands the baptizing of believers, unless we will make ourselves wiser than what is written. Nadab and Abihu were not forbidden to offer strange fire, yet for so doing they incurred God’s wrath, because they were commanded to take fire from the altar.

  This logic by Collins mirrors that of Calvin, who said, “It ought to be sufficient for the rejection of any mode of worship, that it is not sanctioned by the command of God.” This same commitment was shared by all the early Baptists. The earliest Particular Baptists writing on the subject shared Collins’ commitment to worship ordered by Scripture. Of infant baptism, John Spilsbury would write:

  For sure I am, there is neither command, or Example in all the New Testament for such practise, as I know, and whatsoever is done in the worship of God, in obedience to Christ, without his command, or apparent example approved of by Christ, is of man, as a voluntary will-worship, after the commandments and doctrines of man; the which Christ testifies as against a vain thing.

  Likewise, John Norcott would argue that sprinkling could not serve as a substitute for dipping because “God is a jealous God, and stands upon small things in matters of Worship”:

  tis likely Nadab and Abihu thought, if they put fire in the Censer, it might serve, though it were not fire from the Altar; but God calls it strange fire, and therefore he burns them with strange fire, Leviticus 10:2-3.

  For these Baptists, baptism was vitally important. Their defense of the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion was driven by their commitment to the regulative principle of worship. In their view, infant baptism simply could not be found in Scripture, and therefore had to be rejected at any cost. Believer’s baptism by immersion, they believed, was the plain testimony of Scripture and was therefore to be defended at all costs.