Holy Scriptures

"The supreme judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and by which must be examined all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, and doctrines of men and private spirits can be no other than the Holy Scripture, delivered by the Spirit. And in the sentence of Scripture we are to rest, for it is in Scripture, delivered by the Spirit, that our faith is finally resolved."

1689 London Baptist Confession

"We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried."

The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, 1833


Doug

Bold Sinner, Fearful Saint

“O how uncomely a sight is it to see, a bold sinner and a fearful saint, one resolved to be wicked, and a Christian wavering in his holy course; to see guilt put innocence to flight, and hell keep the field, impudently braving it with displayed banners of open profaneness; [to see] saints hide their colors for shame, or run from them for fear, who should rather wrap themselves in them, and die upon the place, than thus betray the glorious name of God, which is called upon by them to scorn of the uncircumcised. Take heart therefore, O ye saints, and be strong, your cause is good, God himself espouseth your quarrel, who hath appointed you his own Son, General of the field called “the Captain of our salvation’ . He shall lead you on with courage, and bring you off with honor.”

The Christian in Complete Armour - William Gurnall

William Tyndale and Congregation: More than Defensible

William Tyndale in his translation of Matthew 16:18 rendered it this way,  “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my congregation.  And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  David Daniell, author of the introduction to the 1989 Yale University Press edition of the Tyndale Bible said 

“The Bishop of London hunted down and burned many thousands of Tyndale’s successive New Testaments and Pentateuch’s with fanatical thoroughness, a ruthlessness that seems close to hysteria – only a dozen in all survive.  King Hevry VIII’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More, showed himself less than gentile, reasoned, saintly and urbane in his long, and indeed violent polemics against Tyndale.  He calls him in his Confutation, ‘a beast’, as one of the ‘hell-hounds that the devil hath in his kennel’, discharging a ‘filthy foam of blasphemies out of his brutish beastly mouth’.  Elsewhere, More calls him a deceiver, a hypocrite; puffed up with the poison of pride, malice and envy’.  Yet the best that More, in all the great length of his tirades, can summon against Tyndale, when all is boiled down, is the he translated the Greed word for ‘elder’ as elder, not priest and the Greek word for ‘repentance’ as repentance, not do penance, the Greek word for ‘congregation’ as congregation not church…Even Erasmus, More’s friend, had translated the Greek  ekklēsia, as congregation, not church. Every change that Tyndale makes is more than defensible: it is correct.”  

You Can't Please Everyone

Charles Spurgeon from his excellent book The Eccentric Preacher.

"He who hopes to preach so as to please everybody must be newly come into the ministry; and he who aims at such an object would do well speedily to leave its ranks. Men must and will cavil and object: it is their nature to do so. John came neither eating nor drinking; he was at once a Baptist and an abstainer, and nothing could be alleged against his habits, which were far removed from the indulgences of luxury: but this excellence was made his fault, and they said, "He hath a devil." Jesus Christ came eating and drinking, living as a man among men; and this which they pretended to desire in John became an offense in Jesus, and they libeled him as "a drunken man and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners." Neither the herald nor his Master suited the wayward tastes of their contemporaries. Like children playing in the market-place, who would not agree about what the game should be, so were the sons of men in that generation. They rejected the messengers because they loved not the God who sent them, and they only pretended to object to the men because they dared not avow their enmity to their Master. Hence the objections were often inconsistent and contradictory, and always frivolous and vexatious."