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Early Sydney Baptist History By Julian Bull

 Some of you may not be aware what an important day this is.
Should be a very important day for Baptists across the world.
Our own New South Wales Baptist Union of course has said nothing about it,
published nothing about it, probably will say nothing about it.
It's the 100th anniversary today, this day 100 years ago,
C. H. Spurgeon resigned from the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
And he did it because he could see some very serious divergences from the Word of God
creeping into the Baptist Union.
And so to in some way observe such an important anniversary,
I want to speak to you tonight not about Spurgeon,
because we've studied it at length all about his resignation
in the Forgotten Spurgeon Meetings.
But I want to talk to you about Baptist history in the beginning of Australia,
and particularly in Sydney, in New South Wales.
If you're interested in Spurgeon and his resignation from the Union,
I recommend to you that book.
It's a very simple book, but a very helpful book,
and Basil can order it for you.
This was only $3.75, I don't think it'll be much more than that now.
It's called C. H. Spurgeon and the Modern Church.
It's a very helpful, easy to read introduction to why he resigned
and what the issues were about his resignation.
It's a very good book.
Would you turn to Ezekiel chapter 37 for a scripture reading?
Before we look at this Baptist history,
early Baptist history in Sydney anyway.
Ezekiel chapter 37, it's a very well-known passage, verses 1 to 14.
Ezekiel 37.
Everybody with us?
The hand of the Lord was upon me,
and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord
and set me down in the middle of the valley,
and it was full of bones.
And he caused me to pass among them round about,
and behold, there were very, very many on the surface of the valley,
and lo, they were very dry.
And he said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?
And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.
Again, he said to me, prophesy over these bones,
and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord God to these bones,
behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.
I will put sinews on you, make the flesh grow back on you,
cover you with skin, and put breath in you that you may come alive,
and you will know that I am the Lord.
So I prophesied as I was commanded,
and as I prophesied, there was a noise,
and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them,
and flesh grew, and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
And then he said to me, prophesy to the breath,
prophesy, Son of man, and say to the breath,
thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe on these slain that they may come to life.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they came to life and stood on their feet,
in an exceedingly great army.
And then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
Behold, they say, our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished.
We are completely cut off.
Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God,
behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people,
and I will bring you into the land of Israel.
Then you will know that I am the Lord,
I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people,
and I will put my spirit within you, and you will come to life,
and I will place you on your own land.
Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.
Now that is a very wonderful passage of scripture.
And probably if you've ever heard that passage dealt with,
apart from its immediate historical fulfilment with relation to the nation of Israel,
it's a passage about revival, about how God can make dry bones live,
how God can revive a nation that was apparently dead and even in the graves,
and how God can send life to the most desperately dead situation.
So it's about revival.
But as we come to the history of Christianity in Australia,
and especially of the history of Baptists in Australia,
I'm afraid we can't talk or study or learn about any great revivals.
There have been none.
Ian Murray referred to the Methodists on Sunday morning or Sunday night.
The Methodists did see some pockets of revival and some wonderful things happened.
But this nation has never known revival like, for example, England knew in the 18th century,
or New England knew in Jonathan Edwards' time in North America, or other places have known.
This nation on the whole has never known a great revival.
So don't think when you come to study the early history or the history of early Baptists,
you're going to get some great encouraging picture about how powerful and wonderful
and what great revivals there were.
However, having said that, there were individual men who were faithful Baptist pastors
in Sydney and in other places whom God blessed,
whose ministry God blessed in very wonderful ways.
I want to tell you about one of those men tonight.
Before I do that, I want to just try and give you some overview of the history of Baptists in Sydney,
how they began, when they began, what happened.
Now we're not glorying in the fact that we're Baptists, not at all,
but we're interested in our historical heritage.
We're interested in our historical roots.
They can teach us a great deal about the situation today.
We often find that with history.
If you know something about the history, it often explains why what's happening today is happening,
and that's very true in church history, and it's true with the history of Baptists.
So let me begin by just trying to give you a general sort of outline.
For example, the first ever recorded Baptist worship service in Sydney
was held on the Lord's Day, 24th of April, 1831.
Now that is some good number of years after the first fleet arrived.
That's the first recorded Baptist service, and it was held, of all places,
in the long room of the Rosen Crown Inn in Castle Ray Street.
Three days later, the newspaper, which was then called the Sydney Monitor,
gave a little space to report the event very briefly, and it simply stated this,
a few persons of the Baptist persuasion attended.
The preacher at that service was a Scotsman, a man from the Highlands of Scott,
Scotland, and his name was John McCaig.
He's a very colourful and a very sad character in many, many ways.
He was the first Baptist minister, at least that we know of in Australia.
Probably there were others.
He came here after conducting what was described as a stormy pastorate in Yorkshire, in England,
and appeared as an evangelist with the Baptist Irish Society.
There is little known about the first Sydney congregation of Baptists,
but on August the 12th, 1832, the first baptism was conducted at Woolamaloo Bay.
Know where that is? Bottom of the bottom of Bourke Street,
down I suppose where Garden Island is these days, down there somewhere.
And the Sydney Gazette, which was the other Sydney newspaper, reported the occasion.
It said this, Mr. McCaig, the leader of the class of Christians called Baptists in Sydney,
administered the rite of baptism according to the peculiar views of that sect on Sunday last
to two females at Woolamaloo Bay.
A considerable concourse of persons assembled to witness the ceremony,
some of whom displayed much levity till the nature was explained,
after which suitable decorum was established.
In 1832, this Scots Baptist minister, John McCaig, along with two other men,
received a crown grant of land to erect a Baptist chapel.
He never saw it built in his own lifetime,
but it did eventually become the site of the Bathurst Street Baptist Church, which is no longer standing.
The first Baptist, the first chapter of recorded Baptist history ended in tragedy when
McCaig, for reasons unknown, separated from his followers,
ventured into business as a tobacconist. Can you believe it?
Mustn't laugh because it's quite sad, isn't it?
The tobacco business that he ventured into failed.
Addiction to drink followed, and eventually imprisonment.
So were the Baptist beginnings in this colony.
They were unplanned, they were unaided, and they were not like some other denominations in their history,
they were not the result of organised, planned, missionary strategy from the church back home in England.
It just happened.
Following McCaig, there was a man called John Saunders.
He arrived in 1834, he opened the first Baptist church in Bathurst Street, 1836,
and he had an outstanding effect on the progress of Baptist work in New South Wales.
He was gifted, diligent, spiritually minded, very charismatic, personable man.
He drew people to him, and he was able, in Sydney, to draw together
not just Baptists, but many, many people from the different non-conformist traditions
who were out here, for example, Congregationalists and Baptists and all sorts of other people.
And when he founded the Bathurst Street Church, he was discerning enough
to realise that a church must be founded upon the Word of God.
And so, with the forming of the Bathurst Street Church, Saunders presided at several meetings
which hammered out a comprehensive statement of belief.
Now listen to this, very interesting.
That statement, the statement of belief of the first Baptist church in Australia,
it was very light on Baptist distinctives, what we would call Baptist distinctives.
In other words, Baptism by immersion and some of those other things.
But it was very insistent on, for example, their minister being of particular Baptist persuasion.
In other words, he had to be a Calvinist. Very insistent on that.
It stated that it adhered to, and I quote from it, from that confession,
the tenets expressed in the shorter catechism of the assembly of the divines held at Westminster,
accept so much of the said catechism as respects Baptism.
So in other words, the Westminster Confession of Faith, accept what that Confession of Faith says about Baptism.
Now if you know anything about the Westminster Confession of Faith,
you'll know that it is thoroughly Calvinistic.
So in other words, Bathurst Street Church, the first Baptist church in Australia,
was a thoroughly Calvinistic church.
But Saunders was also very Catholic spirited, and it was this that got him into trouble.
So much so that, for example, pedobaptists, people who baptised infants,
were admitted to church membership.
In fact, he adopted a policy of open membership, and he had some Foundation members
who were Congregationalists and pedobaptists. Now that didn't worry him.
He thought that was a sensible strategy. Here he was.
How many Baptists would there be in Sydney? Very few at that time.
So he was content to draw together any, all, who were concerned for the truth.
But what happened was, the number of migrants continued to grow,
and of course, more and more Baptists came onto the scene
and came and joined the church.
And the more they got to know about the church, the more they began to question
some of Saunders's principles and ideas.
And the more they began to be disgruntled with the fact that they were part of a church
which wasn't really Baptist at all, at least not Baptist like they'd known back home,
where there were only people who believed in Believers Baptism,
who were admitted to membership, etc.
And so there was controversy, and eventually Saunders fell out with a congregation,
and there was a split.
He was followed by a man called James Voller, and he was a good man.
Some of these men preached, not in this church, but in, to this, to the group of people
that were known as Newtown Baptist Church before we had this building.
Many of these men preached to the Newtown Baptist congregation.
And there was a man called Voller, and he too carried on.
He adopted the same principles as Saunders.
He began to realize, too, that if you were going to assist on only Baptists,
you were going to have such a small congregation that it really wasn't worth it.
So he had this broader view.
And again, he went up and founded a church near Newcastle at Hinton.
And while they were there at Hinton, he was at a church meeting.
And in that meeting, he wanted to admit people to the Lord's Supper
who were not Baptists, who were not church members.
And there was a great outcry and a great controversy over that.
And again, he was ostracized, and the church at Hinton had nothing more to do with him.
And so it goes on.
So it's not a very wonderful history.
There's a book out called Australian Baptists, A Religious Minority.
And listen to what the author says here about Newtown, okay?
Bathurst Street was thoroughly Calvinistic, the first Baptist church.
And here he says this.
He says, a reliable witness attributed both the 1861 losses from Bathurst Street, the
split, and the commencement of a church at Newtown the year before to the dissatisfaction
of those of decidedly Calvinistic opinion.
So what he's saying is what happened was when the Bathurst Street church split, those of
decidedly Calvinistic opinion came up here and formed the Newtown Baptist Church.
And that's the point he's making.
And that's very significant.
I won't bore you with all this detail.
Let me talk to you about the first Baptist union because that's very interesting.
Yes, a visiting Baptist preacher came to Sydney in 1867.
He was preaching around the Baptist churches.
Newtown, there was a Masonic Hall church, there was a Harris Street church.
By that time there was the Bathurst Street church.
And he was preaching around and he raised the subject of an association of Baptist churches.
And so eventually in 1868 an association was constituted but it only had two members.
The first Baptist union had two member churches, Harris Street and Newtown.
Very interesting.
Castle Ray Street would have joined but withheld its decision because their pastor was overseas.
So the beginning of what is now known as the Baptist Union of New South Wales was formed
and inaugurated by two churches which held clearly and strongly to the whole council
of God.
A thoroughly Calvinistic understanding of the Scriptures.
Now in 1867 the pastor of the Harris Street church resigned and he was succeeded by Alan Webb.
Now Alan Webb became a prominent man amongst Baptists in Sydney.
And under his guidance and under his direction, the whole constitution of that first union,
that first Baptist union, was gradually widened.
He saw that there were churches, Baptist churches, that were not in the union.
Right?
There was Harris Street and there was Newtown.
But what about all these other churches?
So his answer to that was to want to widen that association.
Now to do that, what he had to do was to water down and rewrite the original constitution.
And so this is what he did.
And soon it included Newtown, Harris Street, but then West Maitland, Hinton, Newcastle,
Wall's End, Araluen and Cayama, and eventually Bathurst Street.
Now obviously for such an association to be achieved between so many churches who previously
were so independent and didn't want to join, then something had to be sacrificed.
And you know what it was.
It was the stand on various aspects of God's word.
And so that constitution was watered down, it was widened, and more churches were brought
in.
And under Webb's leadership, this First Baptist Union flourished, I suppose, humanly speaking.
If they looked at the numbers they would have said it was flourishing.
But listen to what this historian says.
And he's got a very good insight into it.
He says this, he says,
Webb's address at the first annual meeting in February 1868 was a plea for evangelical
tolerance and Baptist unity.
Just as the association's objects were listed more explicitly than its beliefs, so Webb's
address subordinated theological questions to the work of evangelism.
The glory of the particular Baptist, Calvinism, went unmentioned and undefended.
Very interesting.
Baptism itself was lightly stressed.
The broader association, Webb believed, would enhance the Baptist's name.
It would clear up the misapprehension that they made baptism essential to salvation.
It would be a means of showing that Baptists, far from being fanatics, were pioneers of
religious and civil liberty.
So Webb, in effect, drew a line under the differences of the past, and he made comprehension,
including everybody, in other words, an evangelical virtue, and he offered denominational status
as the reward for unity.
Now you see what he's doing, don't you?
And you see how many parallels you can draw between that position and the present day
position in the Baptist union.
What does the Baptist union today do when we raise ecumenism?
They cry, evangelism is the great work.
Forget about ecumenism.
Evangelism.
Subordinate theological controversies to the work of evangelism.
Now unless you get the gospel straight, unless you know what the gospel is, you waste your
time evangelizing.
Well, just to sum up, illustrate exactly what I mean.
At that time, this first Baptist union with this new widened association, they wanted
to publish a paper, some sort of program, some sort of magazine, to mark the event.
They thought that was a good idea.
Someone suggested that the centerpiece of that magazine be a sermon of C.H.
Spurgeon's.
And that idea was rejected.
Because to have C.H.
Spurgeon in your magazine would identify you as being Calvinistic, or sympathetic to Calvinism.
And so they refused.
And gradually things deteriorated and the denomination grew to what it is today.
Now we could say much more on that, but that gives you some understanding.
Please remember those important facts if you're ever talking to people about the Baptist history
of Sydney.
That the first Baptists were Calvinistic.
And if the Baptists today want to get back to real, their real heritage, they must get
back to their Calvinistic roots.
And the Baptist union today are the people who have moved and who are moving, not us.
We stand in the same tradition as the very first Baptists who ever met and worshipped
in this land.
They don't.
And it's very important that you and I never ever forget that.
They will try and make out that, you know, Calvinism is some heresy, something that's
not Baptist.
It's always been in the mainstream of Baptist belief.
All right, let me tell you something more edifying.
This is the second thing I want to tell you tonight.
Something biographical, something that will encourage you.
I just want to tell you about one Baptist minister.
And he was a Baptist minister, he was minister of the Castle-Ray Street Baptist Church in
the 1860s.
And in my opinion he is the outstanding man among the Baptists.
His name, he had a good name, his name was John Bunyan Mecure, John Bunyan Mecure.
He was born in London in 1822, he was converted as a young man.
He became a minister of a particular Baptist church in Kent and Sussex.
And then with his wife and six children, actually had nine by the time he came to Sydney, he
eventually asked the churches of Kent and Sussex for assistance to emigrate to Australia.
So he came to Australia, he settled in Geelong.
He worked there as a groom and a carriage driver.
He was instrumental in the establishment of a church called the Zion Chapel in Geelong.
In 1861 he came to Sydney.
He came first of all on a preaching trip.
And the record of his labours in Sydney, which I'm going to mention now, are taken directly
from his autobiography.
You can go and see it in the Mitchell Library and read it.
And it's a book with one of those very long fancy titles, Life in England and Australia,
reminiscences of travels and voyages over 100,000 miles, or 40 years in the wilderness,
a memorial to the loving kindness of God.
Now in the front of the copy of this old and battered and dusty book, which is in the Mitchell
Library, there's a photograph of the man.
And he's there seated in that very typical stern 19th century posture that they adopted
for portraits.
His high forehead, receding hairline, long thick beard reaching halfway down his chest.
He's got his black top coat and his white shirt, big collar, very stern figure.
A man of obviously great physical stature.
But to be a Baptist minister in the 1860s in Sydney, he needed a lot more than just
physical strength.
The man who was going to come and preach the truth of God needed to know what he believed
and why.
Mcewer once described himself as one of Dr. Gill's humble followers.
Now if you know anything about Dr. Gill, he was the man who preceded Spurgeon at New Park
Street in London.
He said he was one of Dr. Gill's humble followers.
He was to say, after ministering here for a while, he said, I think that if a minister
can preach acceptably in Australia to the same people for seven years, he can preach
anyway.
He came to Sydney from Geelong and he arrived on the first of January 1861 on the Lord's
Day.
And he wrote in his diary about that first visit, and he remarks on the beauty of entering
Sydney Harbour at dawn on a clear summer morning.
And he says in his diary, he says, I never in my life witnessed a scene more glorious
than on the occasion of my first visit to Port Jackson.
He preached in most of the Baptist churches, he preached in Bathurst Street, he preached
in Newtown, and he comments in his diary, on each occasion the different places were
full of attentive hearers.
The word of God had free course.
God was glorified, because the word preached was in power, and in the Holy Ghost and in
much assurance.
The result of the visit was that he got a call to come and settle in Sydney and be a
pastor of a Baptist church here in Castle Ray Street.
On May, in May 1861, he resigned his pastorate in Geelong and travelled to Sydney.
That time it was a stormy sea passage, and they arrived and they started to look for
somewhere to worship and to hold services.
The only place he could rent was a place in Sussex Street, an odd fellow's hall in Sussex
Street.
And for 12 months, at a cost of 25 shillings a week, they rented that hall.
He says that that was the only building he could rent in Sydney.
On May 26, the first service was held there, and it's recorded that they held a prayer
meeting at 10 a.m. and a service at 11 a.m., and there were 350 people who were present.
And that morning he preached on I Am Not Ashamed is the Gospel.
Monday night he called another prayer meeting, and he said that there were a good number
present.
Quite encouraging, he says, that brethren prayed like men of God.
He preached on Wednesday evening to 70 people.
This is just the first week.
A month later, June the 24th, he remarks that he had 500 present at a public tea meeting.
On Lord's Day, July the 7th, the Castle Ray Street Church was formed.
Now, you'll never read anything about this in the Baptist Union history.
Baptist Union have got a book called Some Fell on Good Ground.
They don't even mention this man, don't even mention his ministry.
That's because he was a Calvinist.
And there he is, he's no longer, no sooner been in the city.
Maybe a little more than a month and 500 people, imagine if you got 500 people at a
men's dinner today, that would be noteworthy.
But imagine what it was like in those days.
Well, there was some opposition to the work, but he was encouraged, and he said he always
had a quote on his desk that he wrote out, a quote from one of the Puritans, Thomas Manton.
And it said this, it's always better to have the praise of evil men's hatred than the scandal
of their love and approbation.
It's better to have the praise of evil men's hatred than the scandal of their love and
approbation.
Now, it was at this time that an amazing incident occurred, one which really shows you how much
the blessing and power of God were on his ministry.
At this time, one of the largest ships in the world docked in Circular Quay was a great
liner called the White Star.
And Mercure would go about his business in Sydney every day and he would pass it, he
would see it moored there at Circular Quay, in Port Jackson.
And he gradually felt constrained of God to go on board that ship and to preach.
He tried to put off the feeling, but it wouldn't go away.
And he prayed about it and the conviction grew, and he truly believed that it was of
God.
So one day he was delighted with the idea.
So it was announced that Mercure would preach that next Sunday afternoon on the White Star
liner.
He records in his diary that that afternoon he preached to 1200 people, 1200 people.
And he says their attention was remarkable.
Now you read his autobiography, he never once mentions the word revival.
He never once claims any unusual power or blessing for his own ministry.
But it's obvious that God is working.
Preaching to 1200.
And so he continued preaching each Sunday on board the White Star.
Some Sunday afternoons he would also go and preach in the Lyceum.
And one record says that there were more than 700 people present in the Lyceum.
Many of them the lowest of the low.
Now in the course of these weeks, one Monday morning a sailor called upon him, came and
knocked at the man's door.
He opened the man's door, as soon as the sailor saw him, the sailor burst into tears.
And he said to him, he said, oh, that sermon you preached on board ship yesterday.
The sermon had been on the text in Matthew 27, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?
The sailor said, that sermon got to me.
If Christ was thus forsaken, so must I be.
I am lost, I am lost.
There's no hope for me.
He was in great distress.
Now Mercure thought it was the sorrow of a broken-hearted sinner.
So he spoke to him about the ability of Christ to save.
And he gave him a Bible, and he asked him to call again.
He says, remarking on the incident in his book, his autobiography, he says, I do trust
that he is a brand plucked from the burning fire, a seal for my ministry, and a soul for
my hire.
The next Sunday he was preaching in the Lyceum to another great crowd, 700 plus.
As he walked into that building to preach that Sunday, he met a sailor from the White
Star.
He recognized him as being a mate of the man who he'd counseled the Monday before.
And he said to the man, he's your mate here.
But there was no answer.
He's your mate here, he said.
He promised he would be here.
Then Mercure saw the tears start to well in the man's eyes, but he couldn't speak.
Mercure went on.
Where is he?
What's the matter?
At length the sailor sobbed out, he hung himself this morning.
Well Mercure says, I felt overwhelmed.
And with all these dreadful feelings I had to walk onto that stage and preach to this
great crowd.
During that sermon he was speaking of the difference between natural and spiritual conviction.
And he related the whole incident about this sailor to the congregation.
And he ended by saying to the congregation, he said, and I'm just informed that the sailor
hung himself this morning.
Well he says the excitement produced when I made that statement I will never forget.
Two persons rushed out of the theatre, exclaiming, I cannot stand this, I cannot stand this.
He says I do believe there will be some fruit to the glory of God from these services.
Now can you imagine, can you imagine seven hundred people in the Lyceum and a faithful
Baptist preacher preaching the word of God.
That's encouraging, that's our heritage.
That wasn't the end of the incident.
The very next day Mercure was called to a coroner's inquest.
He walked into the courtroom.
The captain of the White Star was under examination.
Are you the captain of the White Star?
The examiner asked.
I am, he said.
Was a service held on your ship?
Yes.
Who is the preacher?
Reverend Mercure.
Did you hear the sermon?
Yes.
What kind of sermon was it?
The coroner asked.
I declined to answer that, the captain said.
Well he said, what were the doctrines advanced in that sermon?
Were they Calvinistic or Arminian?
Calvinistic, the captain said.
Do you think the sermon was calculated to induce a person to commit suicide?
Said the coroner.
Most certainly not.
The sermon was most encouraging to those who feel their need of Christ.
During that sermon the gospel was faithfully preached.
Then they called Mercure, the man who preached the sermon, to the stand.
They said to him.
Do you know the deceased?
No.
Did you know he was present?
No.
Did you see him afterwards?
Yes, he said.
He related the incident at the manse on the Monday.
Then the coroner said, it is not true that you drove him from your door, telling him
he was not one of God's elect.
Most certainly I did not.
The reason why I ask you that question, the coroner says, is in consequence of the report
throughout this city that you expelled him from your door saying there was no hope for
him, that he was not one of the elect, therefore could not be saved.
It is further reported the sermon you preached was of a fearful and exciting character, so
much so that it drove the man out of his mind.
Sir Mercure said, would you like me to give an outline of the sermon?
Yes, gladly.
I seized the opportunity, he said, the room was crowded and for more than half an hour
the crowd listened breathlessly.
Many appeared to be moved.
The coroner responded.
He said, I am informed you preached yesterday and you publicly made some remarks in the
course of that sermon in reference to the deceased.
Yes.
What did you say?
Sir Mercure answered, in order to understand that remark it will be necessary for me to
give you the outline of that sermon.
So he did, and he recorded later in his diary, he said, isn't God wonderful?
During my examination I preached two sermons.
passion further, zeal for souls, earnest love for the lost, yet doctrinal preaching, Calvinistic,
practical, applied, full of evangelistic concern.
And you see the kind of attacks, the kind of silly comments, the kind of ideas that
were being put around then, putting the idea around that the man drove him from his door
saying you are not one of the elect, you can't be saved.
Well the affair ended when the ship's doctor gave evidence that the deceased some weeks
before his death had fallen onto the deck of the ship and sustained brain injury and
was therefore already of unsound mind before hearing the sermon.
The next Sunday at the Lyceum there was 900.
And so 1861 proved to be a year of great spiritual awakening under this man's ministry.
Reports in the Sydney Morning Empire, that was another newspaper, they report how 900
to 1000 regularly attended special services at the Lyceum.
And this continued right through August, September and October.
He says there were many baptisms, many hopeful conversions.
Just let me comment on a couple of other aspects of this man's ministry.
First of all is preaching.
Let me give you one example of his preaching, the kind of things he preached on.
In one of his sermons he had this heading, how to break a church down, that was his sermon.
How to break a church down.
Now there were three subheadings.
He said to break a church down you must discourage your pastor, discourage your fellow members,
destroy the confidence of the community.
Now he said to discourage the pastor, absent yourself from one service every Sabbath or
a minimum of at least one in three.
Two, you want to discourage your pastor, two, neglect the prayer meeting, three, criticise
your minister freely and pray for him little, four, give yourself no concern whether his
stipend is paid or not, five, never allow him to think that his comfort or the comfort
of his family is a matter of importance to you.
We would have been right at home with that kind of preaching.
See the view the man had of the Church of Christ to preach like that.
Faithful but searching and very relevant practical preaching.
There's another example of a sermon he preached during a great storm on board ship.
And in the course of that preaching without sermon, without giving you all of it, he takes
the opportunity to draw the attention of the people who are on the ship to the fact that
now they're in the midst of a storm, they've got such a different attitude and view on
life as to when they were safe on land and now they're in a ship.
And he applies that by saying, you know, what will you do when the storm of God's wrath
comes?
This is just a physical storm on a sea in a boat, but what will you do when the storm
of God's wrath comes on the day of judgment?
It's a very wonderful sermon, you could read it, we haven't got time, but it's there, you
can read it if you want to make the time to go into the library and look.
One other thing, one final aspect of his ministry.
From 1862 onward, he laboured, he says, in exposing the evils of potpourri in Sydney.
Those are his words, not mine.
Laboured in exposing the evils of potpourri.
At one point he makes this remark, he says, for 13 months I have been engaged in exposing
the abominations of potpourri and the proselytising of the priests and sisters of the Roman Church
which has been carried on in Sydney for a very long time.
Two specific instances are recorded.
First of all, there was a young serving girl who was tricked into joining a convent and
later escaped and told Mercure of the conditions and the immoralities that went on within that
convent's walls.
It was called the Subiaco Convent, it was up the Parramatta River.
And so he published her testimony in a Christian newspaper and he was immediately threatened
with libel action by the local Roman Catholic hierarchy and so to prepare himself for that
libel action he decided to find out for himself.
And so he and a friend took boat up the Parramatta River to the Subiaco Convent and disguised
themselves, they moored near the vegetable garden of the convent.
Disguised as priests, they climbed over the back gate, they entered the vegetable garden,
they toured the convent, they collected any information they could and they escaped without
being detected and they got back in their boat and started to go back down the river.
As they did that, they watched a large vessel cut across their path, go up next to the convent
and dock and then out of the convent came one of the Roman dignitaries, clothed in all
his wonderful apparel and he got on board that ferry and headed off and it turned out
that they'd been touring the convent at the same time as he'd been touring the convent
but by the grace of God, the providence of God, they didn't meet, they weren't found
out.
They returned home with all their evidence and they waited eagerly but to their disappointment
the libel action was dropped when it was discovered that somehow they breached the security of
the convent.
Then there was the controversy over a priest who was given access to a convicted murderer
in Darlinghurst jail and he was given access to this murderer just prior to him going to
the gallows and spent some time with him and then came back and said he had become a Christian
because he'd blessed him and taken him through the confession and everything else and this
was published in the Catholic press and they announced that this great murderer, Henry
Manns, had been converted on the brink of eternity.
Well Mercure took the issue up by writing letters in the Christian press and the controversy
raged for four weeks and you can read about it, the papers are all there in the library
and Mercure was constantly vilified in the Roman Catholic press.
So much so that he is this, he says this, he says,
My expose of the iniquities of auricular confession which have been published in the Christian
Pleader for thirteen months has exposed me to great persecution and danger.
My life has been threatened on the right hand and the left.
No wonder Satan made the stir he did, for the Lord blessed my humble endeavours to open
the eyes of those who were in bondage to popery.
Many have been delivered from the snares of the Roman priests and the delusions of that
soul-enslaving system.
Now that is one of the first and greatest and noblest Sydney Baptists, one of our forefathers,
what would he think of the SCD? How can you square those two things? The present day Baptist
union setting up the Sydney College of Divinity or entering into it and discovering that about
our heritage and our original stand as Baptist. It just goes to show, doesn't it? How far
we have moved from our original stand.
In 1862 he preached a special sermon about popery and he says the title was Popery Always
the Same. Dominant popery always the same whether Rome papal or Rome Protestant. And
he goes through and he recalls all the various historical events. He recalls how Protestants
were massacred and how the Puritans were put out of the national church in England in 1632.
And then he brings it all down to the present scene in Sydney in his own day. And he begins
to exhort the congregation with great power that none of them entertain any vain notions
that Rome has changed. That she has not changed either her charter or her designs. And he
ends his sermon with these words. And I say these are words that are very relevant to
us in light of these recent developments in our own union. He ends his sermon with these
words. Oh Australia, he says, oh my country dear, drink no more of the death cup of the
scarlet whore. Do you not see that all the plagues of God descend on those who bend at
the impious altar? Come out of her my people. Come out of her sorceries. Touch not, taste
not, lest you also die. Preaching the Castle Ray Street Baptist Church in 1862. The minister.
Now let me quote to you, compare the two. Let me quote to you from this year's assembly
from the Wednesday evening meeting. The leader of the Baptist World Alliance. Let me quote
to you what he said. A present day Baptist. This is just a couple of quotes. Now the context
of these remarks were that he stood up and he told us that in 2 Corinthians we have a
ministry of reconciliation and we as Baptists can't have that ministry of reconciliation
unless we are reconciled. And the first place we need to be reconciled is in the church
and so we should be reconciled to Rome. He told us that. And then he read to us part
of a paragraph of a statement by Corazon Aquino at a prayer breakfast in the Philippines.
And he said that the opening paragraph, this is a direct quote to you, that's the opening
paragraph of a magnificent statement at a prayer breakfast. Cori Aquino, Cori Aquino,
the Roman Catholic, he says. Don't you think it's worth reaching out a hand in some attempt?
Not to take on Roman Catholicism, but to reach out to people who think differently to ourselves,
come from different traditions in an act and hope of some degree of understanding which
is the beginning of reconciliation. How can you have reconciliation if you completely
misunderstand one another? If you don't sit down and talk, if you don't learn from one
another, that's why for me our credibility as a Baptist people is enormously strengthened
by this kind of statement by Corazon Aquino. And that's what we need to see in our own
country in Australia. That's what we need to see here. That's what we need to see in
New South Wales Baptists. Oh my brothers and sisters, as Paul turned with a sob in his
voice to a divided church, so Christ I believe turns to us in a loving and compassionate
judgment. Are we ready, we Australian Baptists, to look outward and to carry in our lives
and living the message of reconciliation? Now you couldn't have two things more poles
apart. There is Mercure standing up in 1862, exhorting people to have nothing to do with
the Roman system. If you know anything about the man he loved and was responsible for many
Catholics finding faith in Christ and being delivered, as he says, from the soul enslaving
system, there he is in 1862. Here we are in 1987. The leader of the Baptist World Alliance
tells us we should be reconciled to run. My brothers and sisters, I don't need to say
any more to you. Time is well and truly gone. But just be aware of what your heritage is
as a New South Wales Baptist or as an Australian Baptist. You remember that the first Baptists
loved the word of God. They loved sinners, they loved Catholics. This is always the criticism
that's leveled against people who are against the ecumenical movement. You're bigots and
you hate Catholics. And it's rubbish. If you really love people who are misguided and enslaved
in that system, you will reach out to them with the gospel of Christ. But you won't go
and hally up with their system and pretend there's no difference. And our forefathers
didn't do it and God bless them. Have we ever seen 900 people in a Baptist meeting under
conviction of sin? Have we ever seen 700 of the lowest of the low fill the Lyceum to hear
a Calvinistic Baptist preacher? We never have. Why not? Well, notice the kind of ministry
and the kind of preaching and the kind of doctrine God blessed. Doctrine and preaching,
ministry that was faithful to his word and did not compromise. And that's the history
we must get back to. We won't bother to put our seats in a circle because I've taken too
much of your time but I think it's very important. Maybe tonight we could pray for our own denomination,
our own Baptist union. We could pray for our own ministry, for our own witness. And if
you've come here tonight with a particular burden that you would like to share or have
prayed for, then perhaps you'd like to mention it quickly now or if not...