David H J Gay

No Safety Before Saving Faith: Septimus Sears, John Gadsby and the Gospel Standard Added Articles David H J Gay

Publisher Marketing: Septimus Sears: 'I have great hope that the neglected doctrine of justification by faith will have come into greater prominence by means of the attack upon my sermon; and if such should be the case, it will be a clear gain to the church'. In September 1875, in his magazine the Sower, Septimus Sears published the second half of a sermon he had preached on Psalm 31:5. Its title reverberates to this day: 'A Safe Hand for a Sinful Soul'. Sears argued that when a sinner commits his soul to Christ, trusting him for salvation, that soul is immediately and forever safe, but until a sinner does so trust Christ, he is under the wrath of God, he is anything but 'safe'. As a consequence of this sermon, Sears came under fierce and sustained attack from the 'Gospel Standard' - those who believed in the hyper-Calvinistic doctrine of eternal justification. This was no storm in a teacup. The consequences are with us still. David Gay has written this book to examine the events of the 1870s as they unfolded, and to draw lessons for us today in preaching the gospel to sinners. He is most decidedly of the view that Sears was fundamentally right in his assertion that until a sinner trusts Christ he is anything but 'safe'. Since conversion is under heavy attack in our day - on more fronts than one - we must make it clear that without conversion the sinner will be eternally lost. Hence the title: 'No Safety Before Saving Faith'.