Jonathan Edwards was the father of postmillennialism, which gave rise to the missionary movement. In a commentary of Revelation, which he titled, An Humble Attempt To Promote Explicit Agreement And Visible Union of God's People, In Extraordinary Prayer For The Revival of Religion And The Advancement Of Christ's Kingdom On Earth, he states: "Though there never be in this world, an entire purity...it is evident there will come a time of much greater purity in the church." To quote Gore:
This time would come through the use of means. When I use the term means, I mean that it will come by the ordinary labors, efforts of human beings working with the gifts and skills, that they have at their disposal, and yet doing so for purposes of serving Christ. This millennial period, this golden age, would not come by some sort of external cataclysm, some sort of great breaking in from outside. It will be normal product of Christian people laboring using the means that at their disposal, things like prayer, things like missionary endeavor, training, funding and sending human beings to go be involved in the mission labors and related activities.FOR THE LOVE OF MEANS
This love of means reveals that no matter what calvinistic frosting is thickly laid on top, the cake still tastes Arminian. And of course this kind of thinking likes to hide their Arminianism by quoting scriptures about actions that believers are to do, especially the great commission. But if you listen carefully to Gore, you will notice that in the list of means he inserts "sending of missionaries" (by organizations) and "funding". And here is where the all this teaching is unmasked for what it is - a dependence on money the efforts, wills and thoughts of men for the accomplishment of God's work. Where in the Bible does anyone send any missionary out besides God? Where is money listed as a requirement for "missions"? The seventy were specifically instructed to take no purse or bag (Luke 10:4).
Gore also speaks of no "external cataclysm". What does this mean? The meaning originates in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Savoy Congregational creed. These "means of grace" as the reformers liked to speak is explained:
The ‘means of grace’ refers to the concept that God uses particular means (methods or modes of communication) to communicate or give His grace to His people. When we speak of the ordinary means of grace, we are speaking specifically of ‘the word, sacraments, and prayer.’ This idea and the language used to express it comes from the Reformed confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries.This of course comes from the Westminster Confession 14:1:
The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word: by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened. [italics are ours]It is very subtle, but it is very easy to turn a "through" into a "because". Notice that the "ministry of the word" produces (wrought) in a man the enabling of faith. This is a subtle perversion of Romans 10:17 "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." If the ministry of the word "enables" faith, then it would be expected that the simple process of preaching the Gospel would produce faith. But apparently, this is not so from the previous verse in this passage. Rom 10:16, But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord who hath believed our report? Paul starts was not saying that the preaching of the gospel produced faith. He was saying (when all of his statements are taken into account and when one lets scripture interpret scripture) that a person who has undergone the new birth hears the gospel he responds in faith, a faith he would not have had if he had not first been quickened by the Spirit of God. For those, like Gore, who believe that the gospel has yet to be preached in parts of the world, they should explain the scripture, that states that the sound of the gospel had gone through all the world - all Israel knew through the words of Moses - Had Israel heard the word of God preached? Yes (Rom. 10:18). Of course, this preaching needs to be renewed every generation. We are not asserting that the commands of our Lord to preach to every living creature is not applicable today, merely that if has happened in the past as well. In the book of Acts it states that, "...there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven." (Acts 2:5) . The gospel would no doubt have been spread by these Jews visiting Jerusalem for their Jewish Festival of Weeks, upon their return to their home countries.
But, is not the new birth a completely external miraculous event impossible for any man to do and that happens without any means? Where does Gore mention the Holy Spirit in all of his means? All that seems essential to him is what man has - "gifts and skills". He does not even involve the Holy Spirit in any of these gifts in the conversation! Who is glorified in this description? Jesus? Hardly.
"EVANGELICAL CALVINISM" WILL OVER TIME LEAD TO...
What we see clearly here is that "Calvinism" even going back to Calvin (who Gore assures us would have approved of these endeavors), was already corrupted and had in it the Arminian seeds of its own destruction. Yes, these reformers and calvinists speak like predestinarians, but behave like Arminians. No surprise then, that within a century of all these endeavors, the denominations involved, the seminaries founded, the missionary societies formed consistently, logically and inexorably returned to their roots - the Arminian emphasis on the works of men. In Baptist circles the New School Baptists, separated in 1845 to form the Northern and Southern Baptist Conventions. By the 1890s the Northern Baptist Convention began to question basic doctrines of the bible like the virgin birth, the inerrancy of the bible, the deity of Christ, etc. The Southern Baptist Convention turned decidedly Arminian. Up until the 1980s there were professors teaching in their main seminaries that did not believe the bible as authoritative and inspired word of God. Like some institutions, there was a reversal of the Arminianism and a return to the Fullerite foundations they had at their foundations. This, no doubt, will degenerate again to the infidelity it reached in the 20th century, with no guarantee that they would return to their roots, which were not biblical to begin with.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GREAT LEARNING INSTITUTIONS FOUNDED BY THE PURITANS?
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| "Truth" |
After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provide necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.What did this effort result in within a short time? In Edwin Oviatt's book titled, The Beginnings of Yale (1701-1726) explains in a letter written from James Pierpont when speaking of degrees from Harvard:
...were esteemed no sufficient evidence of men's piety, knowledge of theology, or ministerial gifts and qualifications.Within a short time, Harvard had drifted towards latitudinarianism:
As a positive position, the latitudinarian view held that human reason, when combined with the Holy Spirit, is a sufficient guide for the determination of truth in doctrinal contests; therefore, legal and doctrinal rulings that constrain reason and the freedom of the believer were neither necessary nor beneficial.In this essentially Arminian elevation of human reasoning and in the thinking that an "educated" or literate ministry was essential; that the things of God could be learned in a natural way by the natural mind, they erred. This followed the logical course of thought from Arminianism (a reliance of man's works in spiritual things) to complete secular unbelief.
What of Yale?
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| "Light & Truth" |
...Arminian books are cried up in Yale College for eloquence and learning, and Calvinism despised for the contrary; and none have the courage to see it redressed.But this was just the beginning. We read more in Oviatt's book:
The collegiate School had been founded to be a bulwark against Satan, "wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for public employment both in church and civil state." It had been, in Cotton Mather's phrases to Elihu Yale, "the seminary from whence they expect the supply of all their synagogues." It had been founded to bring up the oncoming generations of Connecticut youths in the traditional Calvinistic orthodoxy of the settlers. And now, its Rector and chief Tutor had been found to be Episcopalians, and undoubtedly to have been teaching the principles of that ancient heresy to the Colony youth, abetted by a group of its most distinguished recent graduates in the neighboring pulpits. Connecticut orthodoxy had escaped the Scylla of Harvard Latitudinarianism only to crash upon the Charybdis of Episcopacy.This story could be repeated again and again. One need to simply look at many of the Seals of major universities, and see the Christian foundations of their views (Brown University, Princeton University, Columbia University, etc.). Now, none of them teach anything resembling biblical doctrines. The seeds for their own theological destruction were present at their birth.
WRONG VIEW OF THE FUTURE LEADS TO A WRONG VIEW OF THE PRESENT
According to Gore, who quotes Christopher Holdsworth in an article titled, The Eschatology of Jonathan Edwards that: Edwards "...stands as the link between the earlier Puritan missionary endeavors and the new Protestant world vision which saw the beginning of the modern missionary movement in the person of William Carey." Speaking of William Carey Gore states:
He had cobbled together on his wall of his shoe shop pieces of leather which became a world map that depicted the major population centers of the world. How many people live in India, how many people live in Africa and so on and every time you walked in to get your shoes fixed, he would march you over to that map and show you all of this that filled his heart with anticipation.This description makes perfect sense with Carey's views about the way God works. After all it becomes a matter of odds (he would not have admitted to that but it was that nevertheless). India has so many millions, China so many millions, Africa so many millions, etc. So, using "means" no doubt Carey will be able to make some converts when the population is so large. In the methods he used and espoused, based in man's efforts he will make man-converts. The Spirit, although mentioned is not really needed, but money, well that is needed! Again, they would deny all of is said here, but the old adage still applies, "your actions are so loud, I can't hear what you're saying." This is not to say that God did not use Carey and others to bring his elect to himself. But if he did, he did despite Carey's teaching not through them. God can at anytime use anyone or anything to accomplish his purposes. Indeed, he has used Satan for the redemption of his elect!
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| David Livingstone |
...this commission was restricted to the apostles. Most certainly we do; nor is there one particle of authority in that commission for any but the apostles to whom it was given. But as all the power of both worlds was and still is retained in the hands of Jesus, as the Head over all things to his church, and as he has instructed his children to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest, we are persuaded that from time to time he has, does and will continue to call whom he pleases, and give them the same imperative order, Go ye, or Go thou.But Beebe also included ministers who were truly called of God to preach (commissioned):
...we will now enquire unto whom the ministers of Christ are commissioned to preach his gospel. Old School Baptists have no objections to ministers of the gospel going everywhere and preaching the gospel of Christ. The commission to preach the gospel, not only authorizes the commissioned ministers, but commands them to baptize believers, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.Gore states of Carey, "...that he was a Calvinistic as Calvin, believe me...". Which we do not doubt. We do not hold Calvin or any other man as our standard, but apparently Gore does. Since we view Calvin as weak on the doctrines of Grace, we do not doubt what Gore says about Carey.
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| David Brainerd (1718-1747) |
As for the "obligation" to use means, we quote Gilbert Beebe:
...if it be the duty of the disciples of Christ to promote, or aid Jehovah in the eternal salvation of men, we ask, On what page in the Bible is the obligation recorded? Or in what respect, or respects is God deficient that we should need the aid of His saints in the promotion of eternal salvation of men? Will the diviners of the Ministerial Conference inform us what proportion of eternal salvation is of works, and what of grace? How much depends on the saints, and how much the Lord intends to do Himself? Should those learned sages condescend to answer our enquiries, they will please to recollect that we have been in the habit of believing that the eternal salvation of me, i.e., all that God ever designed to save, was beyond the reach of being promoted by our temporal sacrifices.According to Gore, the two books mentioned earlier, (Edwards and Brainerd) were the two single most formative books in Carey's thinking. Carey is called the "father of the modern missions movement". Following Carey, David Livingstone went to Africa and Hudson Taylor went to China. Gore states,
"...hundreds and thousands followed in their wake and the entire missionary idea that we take for granted today really really began in the early 1800s as a result of William Carey being moved by the postmillennial eschatology of Jonathan Edwards."If this is true, and we have no reason to doubt it, Jonathan Edwards the "champion" of "evangelical calvinism" was at root an Arminian. Not by name of course, but by genus, covering different species of Arminians, some more obvious, some not.
THE FALSE HOPE OF POSTMILLENNIALISM
Again we ask what did these thousands or myriads of missionaries accomplish? Is Christianity, the majority religion of India, China or Africa? Let's see: In India it 2.3% call themselves Christians (all kinds including Catholics); In China 2.3% (all kinds); Africa anywhere form 40-45% (all kinds). Figures are hard to comeby but by one poll in 2010, 34% of those African christians are Roman Catholic. Hardly a majority. It is hardly the knowledge of God covering the earth. And, if one then realizes that just because someone affiliates themselves with a religion it means little as to whether they have been born again, then the figure is even less impressive. None of them consider themselves "christian" countries or continents. Whether they saw this truth or not, despite the sincerity and true heartfelt dedication to a task among some of the missionaries, believers in these methods put their trust in a theological interpretation of prophecy which proved to be false.
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| Hudson Taylor |
Gore goes on to say that,
"...this puritan view was written into our DNA as Americans...part of the very heart of what it means to be distinctively American was a sort of deep spirit of optimism, when John Winthrop preached that sermon a city on a hill, he was preaching an eschatological sermon, America had been brought into being by the sovereign God in order to help open a chapter of a new day and this is a city on a hill which is going to be a beacon of light to the world, it was part of that scheme that the puritans had developed...we thought things were going to get better through good hard work and sort of Puritan ethic of labor and so on and Yankee ingenuity...part of that was theological conviction."This "shining city on a hill", did not sparkle for all. Since Gore is reformed, he admires the anabaptist killers like Zwingli, Luther and of course Calvin. It constantly amazes us that when speaking of the presbyterians and other reformed churches, he just glosses over their persecution of those who disagreed with them. These men are not among the rosters of great Christians in the eyes of Old School Baptists. We will list three men who did not enjoy their stay in this shining city upon a hill.
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| Roger Williams |
We also think of that Obadiah Holmes would not have been able to see this shining city on a hill. He resided in Rhode Island. Wikipedia tells us:
In 1651 William Witter, an elderly member of their congregation living in Lynn, Massachusetts, was too infirm to come to Newport, so the three men visited him on 21 July. While Mr. Clarke was preaching to Witter and a small group assembled at his house, two constables arrived, arrested the three men for their religious beliefs and activity, and had them imprisoned in Boston the following day. One week later their trial began, with the members of the court being Governor John Endecott, Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley, Richard Bellingham, William Hibbins, and Increase Nowell. The guilt of the defendants was assumed, and any defense on their part was stifled. Even the Reverend John Cotton weighed in with denunciation for the prisoners, and the Reverend John Wilson struck a blow to Holmes while he was supposedly in the protection of the court.We will also cite the third and last in our list. A Baptist pastor named Thomas Gould. We read:
On May 28, 1665, a Baptist church was founded in Boston, by Thomas Gould, who refused to accept infant baptism. There were nine original members of the church, which included two women. A storm of persecution broke out because these Baptists preached what the Puritans called "damnable errors." The “damnable errors” was preaching the Gospel, and refuting pedobaptism, soul liberty, and a state church. Most of the members of this Baptist church, at one time or another, were fined or imprisoned or both. Thomas Gould died in 1675 an untimely death, partly because of his having his health broken by Puritans persecutions which included several long imprisonments.We think we have spoken enough on the nature of the "shining light" of this hill city.
EDWARDS'S FALSE PREDICTIONS
Edwards thought there was going to be "...a future glorious advancement of the church." Using Zechariah 8:20ff Gore tell us that Edwards believed that:
"...an extended period of dominance of the gospel...a future glorious advancement of the church...every nation would embrace the christian faith...every nation in the world would be dominated by and really committed to generally a christian outlook and there'd be many christian believers in each one of them...'Today we know of no nation that is dominated by and embraces Christianity. In fact, we do not know how a nation-state can embrace a religion which requires the new birth. Nations of course cannot be born again. The passage here is looking forward to Christ ruling among ethnic groups which could be called nations in Old Testament parlance.
...a time will come when there will not be one nation remaining in the world which shall not embrace the true religion, Isaiah 60:12 no doubt demonstrates that the nation that will not serve God will perish, heathen idolatry will be destroyed as appears in Jeremiah 10:11, while this earth and these heavens remain'Has this happened yet? As we look around our present environment, do we see this coming to pass? Hardly, if anything, infidelity among nation- states is getting worse.
...this would take place in the normal progress of history...and it would especially include Jewish people, 'nothing is more certainly told (Rom. 11) than the national conversion of the Jews with respect to the time since Christ, their preservation as a distinct nation has been remarkable'...'as the calamity brought on the Jewish nation by Rome continues all this time so is the Christian church throughout this time kept in state of tribulation and oppression that is not ended till the reign of antichrist is ended'Until Christ returns, or a believer dies, christians will always be under some kind of persecution. All true believers must suffer persecution with Christ. (II Tim. 3:12)
...believed that the church had been taken over by malevolent forces...engaging in all kinds of horrific abuses with thousands being put to death in the name of Christ...this would continue until such time as God now just opened the doors for the potency of the gospel to be realized and he was hoping he was very close to that timeHow can the church of God, which is ruled by Christ as its Lord, be taken over by malevolent forces? Where is this statement found in the scriptures? We are led to believe that the church can stand against the gates of hell (Mark 16:18) and at the same time be taken over by malevolent forces? How does any of this make sense?
...there would be a culminating conflict right before this era began...'prior to the dawning of this great age, the kings of the earth and the whole world are representatives gathered together'...this is Revelation 19 at the battle of Armageddon...'then when the seventh angel pours out his vial and the kingdom and the kingdom of Satan is overthrown, Christ rides forth with the Word living powerful sharper than a two-edged sword rides...Christ and his church will achieve a complete and entire victory over their enemies by His word and Spirit'We think Edward's took liberties with the passage in Revelation. Nowhere does it say that the "church" rides with Christ (Rev. 19:11-14). Those who follow him are called "armies" dressed in white and clean linen.
...this victory is not accomplished with bazookas, with bombs ...'heresies, infidelities, superstitions shall be abolished...the veil that blinds the Jews shall be withdrawn and the ends of the earth shall look to Christ'True, but, that it is not accomplished with man-made weapons, but that it will not be violent and result in the deaths the kings of the earth is not true.
...he actually thought that there would be a united church throughout the world ...all divisions set aside...broad agreement on these great matters of Christian teaching...'a time of great light and knowledge, of the unraveling of the difficulties in the doctrines of religion'...the leadership of the church would come from third world sources...'it may be hoped that then many negroes and Indians will be Divines and that excellent books published in Africa'There are some who predict that the majority of "christians" will be found in Asia and Africa. If our demographics and polls can be trusted, this would seem to be the trend. But we do not know who the elect are, where they will be found or what changes will occur in these trends in the future. This is speculation on the part of Edwards and like all human speculations is subject to error.
Gore relates a meeting where an African pastor speaking where according to Gore, "...he was thanking us that years ago we sent missionaries to Africa..." No doubt he thanked MEN for this belief in Christ, since I am sure that he would think that without these missionaries, Christ would have been unable or helpless to save sinners in Africa. This reminds us of the story "Arminian Heaven". We are also reminded of a similar effect another Arminian, Hudson Taylor had. In England where Hudson was from, there was a group of 30 Chinese tourists who came to visit his hometown and stated:
Only last month there was a group of 30 Chinese tourists...They were awe inspired that they could stand in the place of their founding father.Apparently, the religion of these Chinese had a HUMAN founding father.
They were awe inspired that they could stand in the place of their founding father.According to Gore, who quotes Christopher B. Holdsworth in an article titled, The Eschatology of Jonathan Edwards, Edwards believed the organization of this world wide church would be Presbyterian:
There shall then be only one denomination ... and as there is but one church there is but one creed, and we believe that the creed shall be that which is contained in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and we are sure that the church shall be presbyterian in her government, doctrine and discipline.This time that Edwards saw would be a great time of human achievement and prosperity where health and long life would be achieved. This would be due to the "moralizing" effect of Christian religion. This is an effect we cannot find in the Bible, indeed quite the opposite! When the natural man is exposed to the gospel, he invariably rejects it. It does not improve him, or make him a better person in the eyes of God.
CONCLUSION
Edwards believed that at the end of this period there would be a general apostasy. This would happen at then of this "millennium". We agree. Except we do not define this period of man-made inventions as the millennium. But, that there was a general apostasy, we do not doubt, looking at the twentieth century and the beginning of the 21st century, where there is a decreasing number of Christians in America, at least according to the polls.
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