Some prominent Reformed Baptists of the past
Baptists have no single historical figure like
a Luther or Wesley as founder and leader.
But since its beginnings men and women of faith and courage have been instrumental in
developing its theology and extending its witness.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688)
For many people, John Bunyan is an enigma. A statue of Bunyan as a denominational figure adorns the headquarters of the Baptist Union in Great Britain; yet Bunyan is claimed also by the Congregationalists. During his lifetime, his denominational affiliation, at best, was misunderstood.
A tinker by trade, Bunyan in his early life was a blasphemous, profane individual known for his misdeeds in his native Elstow in Bedfordshire. His stint in the Parliamentary Army (1644–1647) probably did little to improve his behavior, though it did expose him to Baptists and others who took their religious profession seriously. About 1653 he experienced a conversion and sought believer’s baptism from Andrew Gifford, pastor of a Particular Baptist church in Bedford.
In the later 1650s Bunyan began to preach publicly and was well received for his abilities to make gospel truths plain and to put his hearers under the spell of his stories. When King Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, nonconformist preachers came under renewed persecution, and Bunyan was imprisoned. During his twelve-year confinement, he read extensively and wrote some of his most famous works, including Grace Abounding to the Chiefest of Sinners. When he was released in 1672, he became more active in the church and succeeded Gifford as pastor.
For the remainder of Bunyan’s career, though he served as a highly gifted pastor and achieved renown as a writer, he was a problem for many Baptists who desired sharply defined distinctions when it came to the ordinances. Bunyan, while he owned baptism to be God’s ordinance, "would not make an idol of it." This meant that Bunyan would not deny anyone participation in the Lord’s Supper because that person lacked the proper baptism. Early in 1673 Bunyan pressed his viewpoint in a book titled Differences in Judgement About Water Baptism No Bar to Communion, which irritated many of the Particular Baptists. But Bunyan, and his church after him, remained steadfast in the open Communion stance and maintained fellowship with both Baptists and Congregationalists.
His chief literary work, The Pilgrims Progress (1678), is a classic in English literature. An allegory that narrates the difficult path of "Christian" through the Slough of Despond, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and Vanity Fair to the Celestial City, Pilgrims Progress is an account of the Christian experience, perhaps Bunyan’s own. En route, the main character encounters unforgettable folk like Worldly Wiseman, Talkative, and Facing-both-Ways. Many literary critics believe that the places and figures in the epic are but a mirror of Bunyan’s Bedfordshire with an ironic twist of the author’s sense of humor. Whatever the case, within ten years of its publication more than a dozen reprintings were called for, and the book has now been printed in over one hundred languages and is second in sales only to the Bible as the all time best seller.
Source: The Baptists: A People Who Gathered "To Walk in All His Ways.": Christian History, Issue 6, (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, Inc.) 1997.
WILLIAM CAREY (1761–1834)
Carey was a minister within the Northamptonshire Association which became a center of evangelical activity among Particular Baptists. In 1792 Carey publishedAn Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, in which he concluded that Christ’s command to teach all nations remained binding, and considered in detail the religious state of the nations of the world and the best way to tackle missionary work. In that year too. he preached his "Deathless Sermon," with the famous lines, "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." Soon Carey went to India as first missionary of the Baptist Missionary Society. He was himself evangelist, teacher, translator, social reformer and botanist, while his first colleague was a doctor. Carey believed missionary activity should be wide-ranging.
Source: The Baptists: A People Who Gathered "To Walk in All His Ways.": Christian History, Issue 6, (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, Inc.) 1997.
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON (1834-1892)
Spurgeon was the dominant figure in 19th-Century British Christianity and is generally regarded as one of the greatest Christian communicators of all time. The son of an Independent pastor, he was converted at the age of sixteen when he took refuge in a church during a snowstorm. Soon afterwards he preached his first sermon and within a year - he was then barely seventeen - became the pastor of the Waterbeach Baptist Chapel.
Three years later he was called to the ailing New Park Street Baptist Chapel, Southwark, London, which was soon filled to overflowing each Sunday, leading to the building of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where Spurgeon preached to 6 000 eager worshippers at morning and evening services for 32 years.
Spurgeon was an evangelical Calvinist. He had received no formal training in his profession, having entered the ministry straight from school, but had a clear grasp of Scripture and read widely. Accordingly his sermons, which were always firmly based on Scripture and clearly reflected his love for Christ, also contained the best teaching of the Church's leaders from Augustine to Reformers, Methodists and the Seventeenth Century Puritans, for whom he had a special regard.
His eloquence and mastery of plain English, keen sense of humour, combined with a clear voice and compelling personality, made him one of the greatest preachers of all time. However, even in written form his sermons are appreciated as widely today as when they were delivered a century ago.
The speed and efficiency with which Spurgeon's sermons were circulated world-wide in the Victorian era with its unsophisticated communication systems, was nothing short of a miracle. By Thursday every week for almost 38 years the sermons of the previous Sunday were issued and distributed, not only in the British Isles, but to European nobility and Christian settlers in the Americas, South Africa and Australasia.
Approximately 100 million copies were distributed before the end of the century and by 1905 it was estimated that all the pages of his sermons placed end to end, would reach nearly to the moon.
In 1898 Dr. Robertson Nichol wrote: "Our firm belief is that these sermons will continue to be studied with growing interest and wonder; that they will ultimately be accepted as incomparably the greatest contribution to the literature of experimental Christianity that has been made in this century and their message will go on transforming and quickening lives after all the sermons of the period are forgotten."
Ander / Others: John Gill; Adoniram Judson; Knollys, Kiffin & Keach; Andrew Fuller; Vrouens / Women(?) Elizabeth Bunyan; Duitser - vriend van CHS