by CBR Staff
Over the past several years, we here at the Center for Baptist Renewal have issued reading challenges for the coming year. In 2021, we worked our way through a list of classic theological works from a variety of traditions. In 2022, we read through several Baptist works of theology. In 2023, we read classics of Christian spirituality. This year and next, we are going to do something a bit different. We are going to be reading through one (albeit massive) work: The Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity by the eighteenth-century Baptist divine, John Gill. In addition to the reading challenge, we will also be hosting several Zoom meetings throughout the year as a kind of virtual book club for those who register to attend. The meetings will be led by the CBR team, and we also plan to invite key experts in Baptist history and theology.
Gill (1697-1771) is a worthy subject for such a sustained study for a number of reasons. He was the pastor of the famous Horselydown chuch in London, where he was preceded by Benjamin Keach and succeeded in the following century by Charles Spurgeon. As a Baptist dissenter, Gill was kept out of the English university system, but he was a voracious reader and an autodidact, having read through the entire Greek New Testament by the age of ten. After his passing, the famous hymn-writer Augustus Toplady wrote of him, “While true religion and sound learning have a single friend remaining in the British Empire, the works and name of GILL will be precious and revered.”
Gill has been dubbed “Dr. Voluminous” because of his incredible literary output. He wrote a commentary on every verse of Scripture, which is still a go-to reference for many. He was the first Baptist to write a complete systematic treatment of Christian doctrine and practice (the work we will be reading). His commentary on the Song of Solomon and his defense of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity were standards in every pastor’s library for a century after his death. Gill’s work was also controversial. He is often associated with the “high Calvinism” of the later “Gillites,” and the precise relationship of Gill’s theology to hyper-Calvinism is still a matter of dispute among Baptist historians and theologians. Spurgeon was an admirer of Gill’s theology, though he did not follow him on every point. Regardless of one’s assessment of his theological particulars, there is no question that Gill’s visage belongs on the Mount Rushmore of the most influential theologians in Baptist history.
Gill’s works are sometimes difficult to find in print. Our friends at the London Lyceum are working on an abridged version of the Body of Divinity, which we eagerly anticipate. The Baptist Standard Bearer still issues the work via print-on-demand. You can find some attractive used copies in bookstores and online. But the entire work is available online at CCEL here and here. We will be splitting the work over two years. In 2024 we will read Books I to V in the Body of Doctrinal Divinity. In 2025, we plan to read books VI and VII and the four books of the Body of Practical Divinity. You can find the plan for 2024 by downloading it below. We have worked in some breaks and weeks to catch up.
Please sign up here for more information on the Zoom meetings.