Featured Good Old Baptist Quotes

"Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think... It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving... Where there is grafting there will always be a cutting, the graft must be let in with a wound; to stick it onto the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back or there will be no sap from root to branch. And this, I say, must be done by a wound, by a cut." --John Bunyan (1628-1688)

 

"Labour to know God, and to be affected with His attributes, and always to live as in His sight. No man can know sin perfectly, because no man can know God perfectly. You can no further know what sin is than you know what God is, whom you sin against; for the formal malignity of sin is relative, as it is against the will and attributes of God. The godly have some knowledge of the malignity of sin, because they have some knowledge of God that is wronged by it. The wicked have no practical, prevalent knowledge of the malignity of sin, because they have no such knowledge of God. They that fear God will fear sinning; they that in their hearts are bold irreverently with God, will, in heart and life, be bold with sin: the atheist, who thinks there is no God thinks there is no sin against Him. Nothing in world will tell us so plainly and powerfully of the evil of sin, as the knowledge of the greatness, wisdom goodness, holiness, authority, justice, truth, etc. of God. The sense of His presence, therefore, will revive our sense of sin's malignity." --Richard Baxter (1615-1691)

 

"In too many cases skeptical daring seems to have taken the place of evangelical zeal, and the husks of theological speculations are preferred to the wholesome bread of gospel truth. With some the endeavour seems to be not how steadily and faithfully they can walk in the truth, but how far they can get from it. To them divine truth is like a lion or a tiger, and they give it 'a wide berth.' Our counsel is: Do not go too near the precipice; you may slip or fall over. Keep where the ground is firm; do not venture on the rotten ice." --Charles Spurgeon (1887)

 

"Have you ever owned before God 'Behold, I am vile'? Do you bear witness to the humbling fact before your brethren and sisters in Christ? It is comparatively easy to utter such words, but do you feel them? Does the realization of this truth make you 'blush' (Ezra 9:6) and groan in secret? Have you such a person and painful sense of your vileness that often, you feel thoroughly unfit to draw nigh unto a holy God? If so: You have abundant cause to be thankful to God that his Holy Spirit has shown you something of your wretched self, that He has not kept you in ignorance of your woeful state, that He has not left you in that gross spiritual darkness that enshrouds millions of professing Christians. Ah my stricken brother, if you are groaning over the ocean of corruption within, an feel utterly unworthy to take the sacred name of Christ upon your polluted lips, then you should be unfeignedly thankful that you belong not to that great multitude of self-complacent and self-righteous religionists of whom it is written, 'They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down' (Jeremiah 8:12)." --Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

 

"Take heed of driving so hard after this world, as to hinder thyself and family from those duties towards God, which thou art by grace obliged to; as private prayer, reading the scriptures, and Christian conference. It is a base thing for men so to spend themselves and families after this world, as that they disengage their heart to God's worship." --John Bunyan (1628-1688)

 

How sweet and aweful is the place
with Christ within the doors,
while everlasting love
displays the choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
join to admire the feast,
each of us cries, with thankful tongue,
“Lord, why was I a guest?”

“Why was I made to hear Your voice,
and enter while there’s room,
when thousands make a wretched choice,
and rather starve than come?”

‘Twas the same love that spread the feast
that sweetly drew us in;
else we had still refused to taste,
and perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God,
constrain the earth to come;
send your victorious Word abroad,
and bring the strangers home.

We long to see your churches full,
that all the chosen race
may, with one voice and heart and soul,
sing Your redeeming grace.

--Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

 

"That God as He is in Himself, cannot be comprehended of any but Himself, (1 Timothy 6:16) dwelling in that inaccessible light, that no eye can attain unto, whom never man saw, nor can see; that there is but (1 Timothy 2:5; Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 12: 4-6, 13; John 14) one God, one Christ, one Spirit, one Faith, one Baptism; (1 Timothy 6:3,13,14; Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Timothy 3:15) one rule of holiness and obedience for all Saints, at all times, in all places to be observed." --1644 First London Baptist Confession of Faith

 

"We have need to be on our watch against the powerful influence of spiritual mentors, lest, fascinated by the fame of some popular leader, we become the willing dupes of a childish superstition, or the blind followers of a fatal error...

"We must not set the sun by our watch; but our watch by the sun. In other words, we must not attempt to make God's Word dovetail with our creed, but must test every doctrine we hold, every opinion we receive, every principle we maintain, the hope we cherish, by the unerring standard of revealed truth. This will give a Divine and proper complexion to our views.

"If we receive the light of the sun through a tinted lens, the light will necessarily reflect the hue of the medium through which it passes. So, if we receive the light of God's Word through any theological system whatever, it will necessarily reflect the error and imperfection, if such there be, of that system. And thus we shall fail to receive the teaching of God as it flows pure and simple from His Word, as light flows from the sun, and as streams from the fountain.

"The Bible is our rule of faith and our only and ultimate appeal. By the law and the testimony let every doctrine, and system, and hope for eternity be tried.

"Do not be, then, carried away by the learning, the influence, or even the piety attaching to a popular name. Allow no human leader the mastery of your mind and conscience.

"Yield yourself meekly and obediently to the authority and teaching of Christ, accepting human guidance only so far as it comes with a 'thus says the Lord' as its divine endorsement.

"Our only safeguard in a matter of such infinite moment as our future well being, is God's pure Word; our only secure place, the feet of the Savior. Sitting there as His lowly disciple, the Holy Spirit will lead our minds into the truth, even 'the truth as it is in Jesus,' as it emanates from Jesus, as it speaks of Jesus, as it strengthens our faith in, and inspires our love to, Jesus, and as it prepares us to go and be with Jesus forever." --Octavius Winslow (1877)

 

"He [Hugh Latimer] had greatly displeased his majesty by his boldness in a sermon preached before the king, and was ordered to preach again on the following Sabbath, and to make an apology for the offense he had given. After reading his text, the bishop thus began his sermon:

"'Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty monarch, the king’s most excellent majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest; therefore, take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease… Therefore, take care that thou deliverest thy message faithfully.'

"Latimer then proceeded with the same sermon he had preached the preceding Sabbath, but with considerably more energy.

"Such courage should all God’s children show when they have to do, with man. Thou art thyself nothing but a worm; but if God puts His truth into thee, do not play the coward, or stammer out His message, but stand up manfully for God and for His truth." --Charles H. Spurgeon

 

"The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. His government is exercised over inanimate matter, over the brute beasts, over the children of men, over angels good and evil, and over Satan Himself. No revolving of a world, no shining of a star, no storm, no movement of a creature, no actions of men, no errands of angels, no deeds of the Devil -- nothing in all the vast universe can come to pass otherwise than God has eternally purposed. Here is a foundation for faith. Here is a resting place for the intellect. Here is an anchor for the soul, both sure and steadfast. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or Devil, but the Lord Almighty who is ruling the world, ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory." --Arthur W. Pink (1886-1952)

 

"Our divines [liberal theologians] have joined hands with our philosophers [naturalist scientists], and the two orders of traitors seem determined to get rid of God's Word: the divines set up an eveolution of opinions to get rid of God's revelation, and the philosophers imagine an eveolution of animals so as to depose the Creator. The Lord God is wiser than all those wiseacres, and will bring them to nought [nothing]. We are in no fear. As well might a cloud of midgets hope to put out the sun as for these boasters to quench the light of the eternal gospel. He that lives longest will see most of God, and think least of these men." --Charles H. Spurgeon

 

"As for the absence of original sin, and power in the will to receive and refuse grace and salvation being generally offered by the Gospel, and Christ dying for all persons universally... ...and for such to fall so as to be damned eternally, and all of the like nature, I do believe is a doctrine from beneath, and not from above, and the teachers of it from Satan, and not from God, and to be rejected as such that oppose Christ and His Gospel." --John Spilsbury (1593-1668)

 

"If the Spirit of God is in us we are all agreed upon great points. Let me say that among true saints the points of union, even in matters of judgment, are ninety-nine, and the points of difference are only as one. In experimental points, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man. Only get upon experimental topics concerning soul-dealings with God -- leave the letter and get to the spirit, crack the shells and eat the kernel of spiritual truth -- and you will find that the points of agreement between genuine Christians are something marvelous!

"But this union is to be seen most plainly in union of heart. I am told that Christians do not love each other. I am very sorry if that is true, but I rather doubt it, for I suspect that those who do not love each other are not Christians. Where the Spirit of God is there must be love, and if I have once known and recognized any man to be my Brother in Christ Jesus, the love of Christ constrains me no more to think of him as a stranger or foreigner, but a fellow citizen with the saints.

"Now I hate High Churchism as my soul hates Satan. But I love George Herbert, although George Herbert is a desperately High Churchman. I hate his High Churchism, but I love George Herbert from my very soul and I have a warm corner in my heart for every man who is like he is. Let me find a man who loves my Lord Jesus Christ as George Herbert did and I do not ask myself whether I shall love him or not! There is no room for question, for I cannot help myself -- unless I can leave off loving Jesus Christ, I cannot cease loving those who love Him!

"Here is George Fox, the Quaker -- a strange sort of body it is true -- going about the world making much noise and stir. But I love the man with all my soul because he had an awful respect for the Presence of God and an intense love for everything spiritual. How is it that I cannot help loving George Herbert and George Fox who are, in some things, complete opposites? Because they both loved the Master! I will defy you, if you have any love to Jesus Christ, to pick or choose among His people. You may hate as much as you will the shells in which the pearls lie, and the dross with which the gold is mixed, but the true, the precious blood-bought gold, the true pearl, Heaven-dyed, you must esteem! You must love a spiritual man wherever you may find him." --Charles H. Spurgeon (1866)

 

"In social life, in the family government, in the Church, and in the State this is an acknowledged and invariable law. The debtor would be incapable of appreciating the clemency which cancelled the debt, so long as he denied either the existence or the justice of the claim. Unconscious of the obligation, he would be insensible to the grace that remitted it." --Octavius Winslow (1808-1878)

 

"Faith is fed by knowledge and works by love. Therefore, the fuller and deeper is the soul’s experimental acquaintance with God and the more his affections are drawn out to and centered on Him, the more will faith and love produce that obedience which is honoring to Him. As spiritual knowledge of the Lord, as He is revealed to the heart, causes us to put our trust in Him (Psalm 9:10), as believing sight in Him as our suffering Surety opens the floodgates of evangelical repentance (Zechariah 12:10), so a sense of our deep indebtedness to Him, a spirit of gratitude, issues in acceptable obedience. The more we apprehend God’s infinite worthiness, the more we shall strive to walk worthily before Him. The more we behold His excellence, the more our hearts will be warmed toward Him. The more intimate and constant is our communion with Him, the more shall we delight ourselves in Him, and the more tender shall we be of those things which grieve Him. So too the more we perceive of the high sovereignty and majesty of God, the more we shall be awed by and be amenable to His authority, and the more diligent we shall be in cleaving to the only path in which fellowship with Him can be enjoyed -- the path of obedience to His blessed will." --A. W. Pink (1886-1952)

 

"There is a divine will which governs all things. Nothing happens apart from divine determination and decree. Even the little things in life are not overlooked by the all-seeing eye. 'The very hairs of your head are numbered.' The station of a reed by the river is as fixed and foreknown as the station of a king! The chaff from the hand of the winnower is as much steered as the stars in their courses! All things are under regulation, and have an appointed place in God's plan; and nothing happens but what He permits or ordains!" --Charles H. Spurgeon