Hyper-Calvanists

Our beloved Spurgeon battled the Hyper-Calvinists and gave four characteristics (the following is an excerpt written about Spurgeon, not from Spurgeon himself, and the source is linked below):

1. The Hyper-Calvinist denies that gospel invitations are to be delivered to all people without exception. He limits the purpose of gospel preaching to bringing in the elect, and so only the elect is to be addressed with the commands, invitations, and offers of the Word. There is to be no pleading with, exhorting and beseeching of an entire congregation of sinners. That attitude was totally rejected by Spurgeon, who on many occasions addressed every single hearer thus: “‘These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.” Look to him, blind eyes; look to him, dead souls; look to him. Say not that you cannot; he in whose power I speak will work a miracle while yet you hear the command, and blind eyes shall see, and dead hearts shall spring into eternal life by his Spirit’s effectual working’ (MTP, 40, 1894, p.502).

2. The Hyper-Calvinist declares that the warrant a sinner has to come to Jesus Christ is found in his own experience of conviction and assurance. That warrant, the hyper says, cannot be obtained until we are inwardly spiritually exercised. But, Spurgeon preached that all mankind has a warrant to believe extended to them, giving them the right to place their trust in the Lord Jesus. That warrant is the universal command found in the Word of God that all men should repent of their sins and should believe in the Lord Jesus. ‘Do not wait for your feelings to convince you that you can venture on Christ,’ urged Spurgeon, ‘you have the right to come just as you are today because God is sincerely beseeching you to come to his Son for pardon.’ In his 1863 sermon on the, “Warrant of Faith,” Spurgeon tells people that if the warrant were not in the Word of God but in the sinner’s own condition, the result has to be that people would be driven to look within themselves and ask, ‘Have I sufficiently broken my heart?’ rather than looking to a welcoming Saviour (MTP, Vol.9, p.529ff). And what exactly is the case today?. Spurgeon pointed out pertinently that those whose hearts are most broken feel most the obdurate hardness of their hearts.

3. The Hyper-Calvinist declares that human inability means man cannot be urged to come at that moment to Christ. A universal command must presuppose a modicum of ability, he says. Spurgeon replied that he would not tone down man’s depravity and helplessness one whit. The gospel is one of grace and therefore rests upon despair of human resources and potency. It is only on the presupposition of total depravity and complete human impotence that the full glory and power of the gospel can be declared. Spurgeon then would exalt God’s power to save. There are two lines found in Scripture, one that declares man’s helplessness through being dead in sin and yet that he is responsible to turn to God, and the other, that the Lord is sovereign to save. As John Duncan said, ‘the idea that God did half and man did half is utterly false. God doing all and man also doing all is the teaching of the Bible.’

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. – From Spurgeon's Battles with the Hyper-Calvinists (source link) [Emboldened type is my addition].