Geoff Thomas on Spurgeon's Battle with Hyper-Calvinism

Geoff Thomas gives an overview of Iain Murray's May 19th, 1995 address to the annual Grace Baptist Assembly (a "group of 1689 Confessionalists") on the subject of "C. H. Spurgeon and His Battle with Hyper-Calvinism." Thomas says that, "It is not that this group of 1689 Confessionalists are drifting in that direction, indeed a better grasp of experiential Calvinism would lift us all-pulpits and churches. But, as lain Murray pointed out, whenever Calvinism is revived, hyper-Calvinism appears. Conversely, when Calvinism is eclipsed then hyper-Calvinism is a spent force." A brief survey of Spurgeon's battle with James Wells is given, along with 4 errors of hyper-Calvinism. Here's the fourth error:

4. The hyper-Calvinist denies the universal love of God. He has a fearful caricature of the real nature of God which would present him as fierce, and not easily induced to love. If we fellowshipped more with Christ, said Iain Murray, we would know and love him more. Then there would be no uncertainty that God desired the salvation of sinners. 'How oft would I have gathered you,' says the Saviour to recalcitrant Jerusalem.

Geoff Thomas, "Spurgeon's Battle with Hyper-Calvinism," Evangelical Times 29.7 (July 1995).

Thomas Watson (c.1620–1686) on the Possibility of Salvation

2. A second aggravation of the loss of this Kingdom will be, that Sinners shall be upbraided by their own Conscience: This is the worm that never dies, Mark 9:44. viz. a self-accusing Mind. When Sinners shall consider they were in a fair way to the Kingdom; they had a possibility of Salvation; though the door of Heaven were strait, yet it was open; they had the means of Grace; the jubilee of the Gospel was proclaimed in their ears; God called but they refused; Jesus Christ offered them a plaister of his own Blood to heal them, but they trampled it under foot; the Holy Spirit stood at the door of their heart knocking and crying to them to receive Christ and Heaven, but they repulsed the Spirit, and sent away this Dove, and now they have, through their own folly and willfulness, lost the Kingdom of Heaven: This self-accusing Conscience will be terrible, like a venomous Worm gnawing at the Heart.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity (London: Printed for Thomas Parkhurst, at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside, near Mercers-Chappel, 1692), 488. Also in Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989), 110–111.

17. It is Mercy that there is a possibility of Happiness, and that upon our pains taking, we may have a Kingdom; by our Fall in Adam we forfeited Heaven; why might not God have dealt with us as with the lapsed Angels? they had no sooner sinned but were expelled Heaven never to come thither more; we may say as the Apostle, Rom. 11.22. Behold the Goodness and severity of God. To the Apostate Angels behold the severity of God that he should thrown them down to Hell forever; to us behold the goodness of God, that he hath put us into a possibility of Mercy, and if we do but take pains, there is a Kingdom stands ready for us; how may this whet and sharpen our industry, that we are in a Capacity of Salvation; and if we do but what we are able, we shall receive an eternal weight of Glory.

Ibid., 507.

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Richard Muller on the Amor Dei

amor Dei: the love of God; i.e., both the love of creatures for God and the divine attribute of love. Considered in the former sense, amor Dei is twofold, either immediatus or mediatus, immediate or mediate. The amor Dei immediatus is that love according to which God is love in and for himself and is the sole object of the love; whereas the amor Dei mediatus is that love according to which God is loved in and through the proximate objects of the created order insofar as they ultimately refer to God himself. The distinction between immediate and mediate love thus draws directly on the Augustinian distinction between enjoyment (frui, q.v.) and use (uti).

Considered as a divine attribute, the amor Dei can be defined as the propensity of the divine essence or nature for the good, both in the sense of God's inward, intrinsic, benevolentia, or willing of the good, and in the sense of God's external, extrinsic, beneficentia, or kindness, toward his creatures. The amor Dei, then, is directed inwardly and intrinsically toward God himself as the summum bonum, or highest good, and, among the persons of the Trinity, toward one another. Externally, or extrinsically, the amor Dei is directed toward all things, but according to a threefold distinction. The amor Dei universalis encompasses all things and is manifest in the creation itself, in the conservation and governance of the world; the amor Dei communis is directed toward all human beings, both elect and reprobate, and is manifest in all blessings, or benefits (beneficia) of God; and the amor Dei proprius, or specialis, is directed toward the elect or believers only and is manifest in the gift of salvation. The amor Dei universalis is frequently called by the scholastics complacentia, or general good-pleasure; the amor Dei communis is understood to be benevolentia in the strict sense of goodwill toward human beings; and amor Dei specialis, is termed amicitia, i.e. friendship or sympathy toward believers. In the discussion of the divine attributes, the amor Dei is considered both as the ultimate essential characteristic of God determinative of the other attributes and as one of the affections of the divine will. In the former sense, resting on the scriptural predication, "God is love" (1 John 4:8), the scholastics can subsume the grace (gratia), mercy (misericordia), long-suffering (long-animitas), patience (patientia), and clemency or mildness (clementia) of God under the amor Dei. In the latter sense, the amor Dei together with these related attributes is viewed as an aspect of the divine willing and is juxtaposed with the wrath (ira) and hate (odium) of God against sin.

Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 31–32. The entry appears to be identical in the 2nd edition (2017), and is on page 23.

Nathanael Hardy (1618–1670) on Love and Hate

More particularly in this ingeminated opposition, be pleased to observe,

The sin specified, in these words, 'He that hateth his brother.' [1 John 2:9–11]

The state of the sinner described in the rest of the words: and that

Imaginary, wherein he supposeth himself to be, 'He saith he is in the light.'

Real, in which indeed he is; set forth in several characters, in the end of the 9th, and the greatest part of the 11th. 'He is in darkness even until now;' and again, 'He is darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.'

1. The first of these is the hinge upon which the antithesis turneth, and therefore I shall be the more large in unfolding it. To which end I shall discuss it two ways, by way of restriction and by way of enlargement; and accordingly discover exclusively what hatred is not within the compass of this sin, and then extensively how far this hatred reacheth, which is here declaimed against.

The exclusive restriction of this hatred will appear in these ensuing propositions.

1. There is a positive and there is a comparative, there is an absolute and there is a relative, hatred. It is very observable, that Jacob's loving Rachel more than Leah is called in the very next verse hating Leah, Gen. xxix. 30, 31. That which we less love than another, we are said to hate in comparison of that love we bear to the other; and thus it is not sin but a duty to hate our brother, to wit, in comparison of Christ. It is our Saviour's own assertion, Luke xiv. 26, 'If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple:' an expression seemingly very harsh, but easily understood. If compared with the other evangelist, St. Matthew, chap. x. 37, where he brings in Christ, saith, 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' We ought then to hate our nearest relations, that is, not love them more, nay, which is the meaning of the phrase, love them less than Christ. Hence it is, that when Christ's glory and truth cometh in competition with the dearest of our relations, we must neglect children, cast off parents, reject the wife of our bosom, rather than deny Christ; yea, w must be averse to them if they go about to direct us from Christ. Thus that devout Paula, as St Jerome [Hier. Ep. xxvii. c. 8.] saith, Nesciebat se matrem, ut Christi probaret ancillam, that she might approve herself Christ's handmaid, forgot that she was a mother. And that same father elsewhere asserteth it [Hier. Ep. i. ad Hetrod.], Pietatis genus est impium esse pro domino, it is a part of piety to be in some sense impious, and, out of love towards God, to hate our brother, and therefore this is not here to be understood.

2. It is one thing to hate our brother, and another thing to hate the sins of our brother; it is solidly determined by Aquinas [Aquin. 2da 2dæ Quest. 34. Art. iii.], love is due to my brother secundum id quod a Deo habet, in respect of that which is communicated to him by God, whether nature, or grace, or both; but it is not due to him secundum id quod habet a seipeo et diabolo, according to that which he hath from himself and the devil, to wit, sin and wickedness; and therefore it is lawful to hate my brother's sin, but not his nature, much less his grace. Laudabile odium odisse vitia, saith Origen [Orig. in Rom.], to hate evil is a commendable hatred, and that wherever we find it, not only in the bad but the good, the enormities of the one, but the infirmities in the other; not only in strangers and enemies, but kindred and friends, spying beams, nay, motes, in these as well as those, and abhoring them; we must hate this serpent wherever we find it, though in a garden, nay, though in our own habitations. Indeed, as Aquinas excellently, Hoc ipsum, quod in fratris amorem, this hatred of the vice in an effect of love to the person; so much is intimated when it is said, Lev. xix. 17, 'Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, thou shalt in anywise rebuke him, and not suffer sin upon him.' By shewing hatred to his sin in rebuking, we shew our love to him; and if we wish good to him, we cannot but hate what we see evil in him. This hatred is so far from being sinful, that it is not only lawful and laudable, but excellent, not a wicked but a pious, yea, a perfect hatred. According to that of St. Austin [Aug. in Ps. cxxxix.], Perfectio odii est in charitate cum nec propter vitia homines oderimus, nec vitia propter homines amemus, it is at once the perfection of hatred and an argument of love, when we neither hate the man for the sin's sake, not yet love the sin for the man's sake, but fix our love on the man, and our hatred on the sin.

3. There is odium abominationis, and odium inimicitiæ, an hatred of aversion, and an hatred of enmity; by the one we fly from, by the other we pursue after. Look as in love there is a benevolence whereby we will good to, and a complacence whereby we take delight in, another; so in hatred there is a strangeness whereby we avoid the society, and an enmity whereby we seek the mischief, of another. The former of these is not forbidden, but required and practised. Godly David saith of himself, Ps. xxvi. 5, 'I hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked;' and that of his practice was justifiable and imitable, since we must not only fly from the sin, but the sinner; yea, that we may shun the one, we must avoid the other. Timon was called μισάνθρωπος, a man-hater, because he kept not company with any man save Alcibiades [Cic. de Amicit], and we should all of us be haters of wicked men, shunning all needless converse and much more familiar acquaintance with them. It is St Paul's counsel to the Ephesians, chap. v. 11, 'Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works' (he meaneth workers [Operibus, i.e. operatoribus]) 'of darkness;' yea, it is the strict charge he layeth upon the Thessalonians, 2 Thes. iii. 6, 'Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly.' We ought as much to hate familiarity with the wicked, as to tread upon burning coals, or go into an infected house; and therefore this kind of hatred is not here intended.

4. Once more, all hatred of [or?--Ed.] enmity, in respect of others, is not to be condemned, if they be enemies, not so much to us, as to the church, yea, God himself; and this not out of ignorance but malice, and so implacable. We may, we ought, to be enemies to them. Holy David hath set us a pattern hereof. When speaking to God he saith, Ps. cxxxix. 21, 'Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies.' Hence, no doubt, are those imprecations and curses with we meet with in the Psalms, Ps. Iix. 12, 13, lxviii. 1, 2, wherein we find that holy man wishing, not only disappointment to the hopes, infatuation to the counsels, but destruction to the persons of Zion's adversaries. And surely thus far we may and ought to imitate him, as in general to pray against, and wish the ruin of all the church's irreconcilable adversaries; though as to particulars we must take heed of going too far in this way, it being difficult if not impossible for us determinately to assert concerning any one that he is an implacable enemy of God and religion; and yet when we see one who with Julian hath professed himself to be a Christian brother, and so far apostatising as openly to prosecute Christianity with utmost fury, notwithstanding manifold convictions; or who still, pretending to be a brother, oppungneth (with no less virulency though more subtilty) the Christian religion in its orthodox profession, swallowing up her revenues, forbidding her public services, stopping the mouths of her preachers, suffering blasphemies and heresies to obscure her, plucking up the pillars which should uphold her, and persecuting all that embrace her; and all this against clear convictions, which he either hath, or might have, did he not shut his eyes; together with frequent and multiplied admonitions. Since we can have very little or no hopes of such a man's conversion, we may and ought to desire of God (if he will not please to convert him) to confound not only his devices but his person, and to cut him off from the land of the living; only we must take heed to the frame and temper of our spirit, that this our hatred of, and wishing ill to him, purely proceed from a love to God's church, and a zeal for his glory, not out of any personal or private respect to our own revenge.

Nathanael Hardy, The First General Epistle of St. John the Apostle, Unfolded and Applied (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 194–195.

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Augustine (354–430) on “Perfect Hatred”

“With a perfect hatred did I hate them” (ver. 22). What is, “with a perfect hatred”? I hated in them their iniquities, I loved Thy creation. This it is to hate with a perfect hatred, that neither on account of the vices thou hate the men, nor on account of the men love the vices. For see what he addeth, “They became mine enemies.” Not only as God’s enemies, but as his own too doth he now describe them. How then will he fulfill in them both his own saying, “Have not I hated those that hated Thee, Lord,” and the Lord’s command, “Love your enemies”? How will he fulfill this, save with that “perfect hatred,” that he hate in them that they are wicked, and love that they are men? For in the time even of the Old Testament, when the carnal people was restrained by visible punishments, how did Moses, the servant of God, who by understanding belonged to the New Testament, how did he hate sinners when he prayed for them, or how did he not hate them when he slew them, save that he “hated them with a perfect hatred”? For with such perfection did he hate the iniquity which he punished, as to love the manhood for which he prayed.

Augustine, “Expositions on the Book of Psalms,” NPNF¹, ed. by Philip Schaff (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 8:640. C. H. Spurgeon cites this in his Treasury of David. Nathaniel Hardy (1618–1670) also cites it in The First General Epistle of St. John the Apostle, Unfolded and Applied (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 195; or see here.

28. With a perfect hatred I have hated them. What is perfect hatred? It means, I hated the sins in them but I always loved your creation. To hate with perfect hatred implies that you neither hate the persons because of their vices nor love the vices because of the persons. This interpretation is confirmed by the next words, They have become foes to me; the psalmist shows that they are not only God’s enemies but his own as well. How, then, is he to do justice both to his own declaration, Do I not hate those who hate you? and to the Lord’s command, Love your enemies? How is he to do justice to both, except through a perfect hatred, whereby he hates everything in them that makes them sinful and at the same time loves them because they are human beings? Even in the period covered by the Old Covenant, when a carnal people was customarily kept in line by visible punishments, there was a man whose insight gave him kinship with the New Covenant. This was God’s servant, Moses. How could he have hated sinners when he prayed for them? [See Ex. 32:11–13] But, equally, how could he not have hated them when he killed them? [See Ex. 32:26–28] The answer must be that he hated them with a perfect hatred. In the perfection of this hatred he hated the iniquity he was punishing, but in such a way that he loved the human beings for whom he habitually prayed.

Saint Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms 121–150, ed. Boniface Ramsey, trans. Maria Boulding, vol. 20, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2000), 321; Enarrationes in Psalmos, 139.28.