2LCF Chapter 20 - Of the Gospel and of the Extent of the Grace Thereof

Cameron Porter

The 1689 London Baptist Confession's twentieth chapter, 'Of the Gospel, and the Extent of the Grace Thereof,' argues that two things are absolutely necessary for the salvation of sinners: the special revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the effectual, insuperable work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul. This chapter arose in both the Savoy Declaration and the Particular Baptist Confession to counter four specific errors: incipient deism, Quaker inner-light theology, General Baptist salvific subsystems for the unevangelized, and Socinian rationalism. The sermon traces the sole dominion of Christ as the promised seed of the woman across all of redemptive history, demonstrates from Scripture that no saving knowledge of Christ is available through general revelation, natural ability, or any religious sincerity outside the gospel, and closes with the confession's insistence that the Spirit's invisible and invincible work upon the soul is the indispensable accompaniment to gospel proclamation.