Against Heresy

Shortly after, if not before, the publication of his great work, in March, 1536, Calvin, in company with Louis du Tillet, crossed the Alps to Italy, the classical soil of the literary and artistic Renaissance. He hoped to aid the cause of the religious Renaissance. He went to Italy as an evangelist, not as a monk, like Luther, who learned at Rome a practical lesson of the working of the papacy.

He spent a few months in Ferrara at the brilliant court of the Duchess Renée or Renata (1511–1575), the second daughter of Louis XII., of France, and made a deep and permanent impression on her. She had probably heard of him through Queen Marguerite and invited him to a visit. She was a small and deformed, but noble, pious, and highly accomplished lady, like her friends, Queen Marguerite and Vittoria Colonna. She gathered around her the brightest wits of the Renaissance, from Italy and France, but she sympathized still more with the spirit of the Reformation, and was fairly captivated by Calvin. She chose him as the guide of her conscience, and consulted him hereafter as a spiritual father as long as he lived.462462 Beza (xxi. 123): “Illam [Ferrariensem Ducissam]in vero pietatis studio confirmavit, ut eum postea vivum semper dilexerit, ac nunc quoque superstes gratae in defunctum memoriae specimen edat luculentum.” Colladon (53) speaks likewise of the high esteem in which the Duchess, then still living, held Calvin before and after his death. Bolsec in his libel (Ch. v. 30), mentions the visit to Ferrara, but suggests a mercenary, motive. “Calvin,” he says, “s’en alla vers Allemaigne et Itallie: cherchant son adventure, et passa par la ville de Ferrare, ou il receut quelque aumone de Madame la Duchesse.” He discharged this duty with the frankness and fidelity of a Christian pastor. Nothing can be more manly and honorable than his letters to her. Guizot affirms, from competent knowledge, that “the great Catholic bishops, who in the seventeenth century directed the consciences of the mightiest men in France, did not fulfil the difficult task with more Christian firmness, intelligent justice and knowledge of the world than Calvin displayed in his intercourse with the Duchess of Ferrara.”463463 St. Louis and Calvin, p. 207. He adds: “And the duchess was not the only, person towards whom he fulfilled this duty of a Christian pastor. His correspondence shows that he exercised a similar influence, in a spirit equally lofty and judicious, over the consciences of many Protestants.”

Renan wonders that such a stern moralist should have exercised a lasting influence over such a lady, and attributes it to the force of conviction. But the bond of union was deeper. She recognized in Calvin the man who could satisfy her spiritual nature and give her strength and comfort to fight the battle of life, to face the danger of the Inquisition, to suffer imprisonment, and after the death of her husband and her return to France (1559) openly to confess and to maintain the evangelical faith under most trying circumstances when her own son-in-law, the Duke of Guise, carried on a war of extermination against the Reformation. She continued to correspond with Calvin very freely, and his last letter in French, twenty-three days before his death, was directed to her. She was in Paris during the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew, and succeeded in saving the lives of some prominent Huguenots.464464 See the correspondence in the Letters by Bonnet, and in the Strassburg-Braunschweig edition. On Renée and her relation to Calvin see Henry, I. 159, 450-454; III. Beilage 142-153; in his smaller work, 62-69; 478-483; Stähelin, I. 94-108; Sophia W. Weitzel, Renée of France, Duchess of Ferrara, New York, 1883; and Theod. Schott, in Herzog2, XII. 693-701.

Threatened by the Inquisition which then began its work of crushing out both the Renaissance and the Reformation, as two kindred serpents, Calvin bent his way, probably through Aosta (the birthplace of Anselm of Canterbury) and over the Great St. Bernard, to Switzerland.

An uncertain tradition connects with this journey a persecution and flight of Calvin in the valley of Aosta, which was commemorated five years later (1541) by a memorial cross with the inscription “Calvini Fuga.”465465 In the city of Aosta, near the Croix-de-Ville, stands a column eight feet high, surmounted by a cross of stone, with the following inscription:
Hanc
Calvini Fuga
erexit
Anno MDXLI
Religionis Constantia
Reparavit
Anno MDCCXLI.
The inscription was renewed again in 1841, with the following addition (according to Merle d’Aubigné, who saw it himself, vol. V. 531):
Civium Munificentia
Renovavit Et Adornavit.
Anno MDCCCXLI.
“Religionis constantia” must refer to the Roman faith which drove Calvin and his heresy away. Dr. Merle d’Aubigné accepts Calvin’s flight on the ground of this monumental testimony as a historical fact, but the silence of Calvin, Beza, and Colladon throws doubt on it. See J. Bonnet, Calvin au Val d’Aosta, 1861; A. Rilliet, Lettre àMr. Merle d’Aubignésur deux points obscure de la vie de Calvin, 1864; Stähelin, I. 110; Kampschulte, I. 280 (note); La France Prof., III. 520; Thomas M’Crie, The Early Years of Calvin pp. 95 and 104.
Fontana: Documenti del archivio vaticano e dell’ Estenso circa soggiorno di Calvino a Ferrara, 1885. Comba in “Rivista christiana,” 1885; Sandovini in Rivista stor. italiana,” 1887.

At Basel he parted from Du Tillet and paid a last visit to his native town to make a final settlement of family affairs.466466 This visit to Noyon is mentioned by Beza in the Latin Vita, who adds that he then brought his only surviving brother Antoine, with him to Geneva (XXI. 125). Colladon (58) agrees, and informs us that Calvin left Du Tillet at Basel, who from there went to Neuchâtel. In his French Life of C., Beza omits the journey to France: “A son retour d’Italie … il passa àla bonne heure par ceste ville de Genève.”

Then he left France, with his younger brother Antoine and his sister Marie, forever, hoping to settle down in Basel or Strassburg and to lead there the quiet life of a scholar and author. Owing to the disturbances of war between Charles V. and Francis I., which closed the direct route through Lorraine, he had to take a circuitous journey through Geneva.

The above is from Phillip Schaff’s history of the Christian Church. But there are some additions I want to make about this great French Hugeonot heroine. Calvin’s friendship had sowed such strength in her, that when she returned to France, after all her friends had been exiled out of Italy, and she was given an ultimatum to either convert to Rome or leave the country, she went back to her homeland for the first time in 30 years. Her castle became a refuge for French Hugeonot refugees. The castle was often rioted against by the Duke of Guise, a bigotted roman catholic and her son-in-law. The castle became known as the “Hotel of the Lord.” At one time at the castle she had 300 refugees at her table.
The Roman Church was of course incensed by her favour and mercy to the protestants. Her Son in law, the Duke of guise threatened that if she did not leave, that he would send his army to destroy the castle and all the preachers within it. When the Army general sent by the Duke of Guise to carry out his threat, accompanied by six company of soldiers, made the ultimatum to leave or else. This frail, prematurely aged woman, replied: “Malacorn, consider well what you do, for no man in the kingdom has a right to command me but the King. If you advance, I will put myself into the breach, and see whether you will have the audacity to kill a King’s daughter, whose death, heaven and earth will avenge on you, and your seed even to the children of the cradle.”

The General and his six company of soldiers, faced by this frail, woman, played the coward, and stepped down. God was with her. Another great heroine of the REformation.  Calvin’s last three French letters by the way, were addressed to this woman.

There is a famous quote by puritan Richard Rogers, that goes: “I am so precise, because I serve a precise God.” I have often heard it argued, by both professing Calvinists and non-calvinists alike, that the puritans, the westminster divines, if taken as literally as the neo-puritans take their works today, is too strict, too rigid, it doesn’t tie in with their idea of a gracious and merciful God to have such high standards for holiness, and such high requirements for the Christian life, for them to have the mark, stamp and seal of being true Christians, the seal given by having the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, who enables us to perform with delight and a cheerful heart, what we would otherwise find a burden, and still feel like those of the Old Testament under the yoke or burden of the law, because without the Spirit of God to enable us to meet those high standards and holy requirements of the Christian life, we are left in exactly the same position as those of the Old Testament, never being justified before God, so never given the grace to perform what God requires of us.
God does not leave His elect people, unable to fulfil his requirements and having to do it in their own strength. That falls back to exactly the Old Testament way, because on our own strength we never will live up to the Christian calling or have a hope of entering heaven; only on the strength of Christ’s imputed righteousness, and the work of a thorough conversion by the Spirit of God, working in us, and enabling and wiling us to do God’s will, to obey his moral law to live up to His standard, in our own strength or power we are left hopeless, so the only reserve left to us in that situation is to lower God’s standard to meet our abilities of our own strength, rather than striving after seeking God with all our heart and not giving up knocking at the door till He gives us the grace we need to not have to lower his standard because it is too precise, too strict, for us to ever have a hope of every living a holy life, and the righteous standard, we need to lower God’s standard so our consciences can sleep, because if we lower the standard we may at least pass some semblance of living a holy or righteous life and the Biblical standard.
God is a God of grace and mercy, but the gait is narrow and few will enter in, because his standard is much higher than many professing believers ever believe or will adhere to or even try to seek out the truth for themselves. Those who think that God has lowered his standard on the account of the love of Christ from the Old Covenant to the new, do not know the character of God at all well. He is a God who stands on the small things as well as the big. As Richard Rogers so aptly put it, I am so precise because I serve a precise God.
Now don’t mistake this for perfectionism, as even the best of Christians fall far short of ever being anywhere near perfect, or keeping the law perfectly. But it is for those who strive after doing so, and recognize the standard and just how high God’s standard is, but in our human frailty still mess up and get it wrong, and are disobedient at times, those are the sins that Christ’s blood was shed, for His elect people, because God knew that no mater how hard the most earnest of Christians strive to do HIs will and be obedient children, we will never be perfect in this life, but they do recognize the standard nonetheless and seek and strive after it, but imperfectly. We need Christ’s blood, to cover our imperfections.

Again, like a post last week, this is not a blog post about the fourth commandment, but again I will use it as an example. If setting the whole day aside for religious duties and sanctifying the day completely to God, denying ourselves our livings, (paid labour), our recreations, or doing the things we do on the other six days for our own pleasure and delight, is burdensome, wearisome, and something you say is not a requirement of God, that it is too strict, too precise, we are back again to lowering the standard so that our consciences may sleep, and we may make some semblance of respectability among like-minded Christians. Yet if that is the case, since Heaven is an everlasting Sabbath, how do you think anyone who finds setting one day aside per week for the performance of devotions and praise and religious duties, aside from the works of necessity or mercy, will belong or fit in or enjoy an everlasting Sabbath in heaven, when one has so defiled and despised the Sabbath day in this world?
If God lowers his standard to the standard that would suit many people, then God would be a sinner, his word would be a lie, and there would be no standard of righteousness to meet. But there is.
If you find keeping the whole of the Lord’s Day set aside for religious dutie burdensome, then why would you want to even go to Heaven for the everlasting Sabbath when it is so distasteful to you here? It makes no sense.
And yes, people plead ignorance on the fourth commandment because it is not a clear, thou shalt not do this or that, or thou shalt do this or that command, but then that reflects sloth and lack of diligence on their part; we need to know the mind of God, as much as we can by being diligent in the Word of God. Ignorance will never be an excuse that justifies oneself before God that he gives leave to be “Okay” for the Christian to remain ignorant about the fourth commandment or any other aspect of import in the Christian life.

Joseph Alleine wrote on ignorance:

(Hos. 4:6). O how many poor souls does this sin kill in the dark, while they think verily they have good hearts, and are all set for heaven. This is the murderer that dispatches thousands in a silent manner, when they suspect nothing, and do not see the hand that destroys them. You shall find, whatever excuses you make for ignorance, that it is a soul ruining evil (Isa. 27:11; 2 Thess 1:8; 2 Cor 4:3). Ah, would it not have grieved a man’s heart to see that dreadful spectacle when the poor Protestants were shut up in a barn, and a butcher came, with his hands warmed in human blood, and led them one by one, blindfold, to a block where he slew them one after another by scores, in cold blood? But how much more should your hearts bleed to think of the hundreds that ignorance destroys in secret and leads blindfold to the block. Beware that this is not your case. Make no plea for ignorance; if you spare that sin, know that it will not spare you; and would a man keep a murderer in his bosom?

You see if you have been a Christian many a year, and are still pleading ignorance over the fourth commandment or any other important matters of Scripture, then you have real cause to doubt your conversion, because there is no excuse; ignorance really is a choice; but when ignorance reigns in the heart about what God has left us to tell us how he wants us to live, His standard for the Christian, His Holy Word, it can only be because we chose to spend our time on other things, of much less importance, to spend our time on trvials because they were more pleasing to our flesh than spending the time it takes to seek out what God says, about this subject or that subject, until we are sure in our mind, and have been taught by the Holy Ghost Himself straight out of the pages of Scripture, and have been like the Bereans and searched the Scriptures, not taken what Calvin said, as the last word, or our pastor or learned friends, only what God teaches us Himself by our diligent study of the Bible is living real faith, anything else is the same thing as the implicit faith of the papists, because this man or that man or woman says so we believe it, without knowing what God says about it HImself. Unless our beliefs be firm and sure, and we are convicted that this is what GOD HIMSELF teaches, then we will remain a loose canon who can easily be talked out of such and such a belief by someone else as equally learned as the first person who talked us into the belief in the first place. The patristic fathers, our learned friends are all good helps and aids for our study, but they should never be the final authority, the only final authority should be an appeal to Scripture and what does God say.
Every soul is heaven born, though we all enter this world at enmity with God, we are God’s prized creation for we alone bear his image in us; Yet we live so often in ignorance of what God says and of lowering His standard, to our level, rather than us upping our game to Biblical Christianity and seeking him with all our hearts souls and minds; and what a travesty and tragedy to see the lords of this lower world preferring the husks in the sty like the prodigal, rather than feeding on manna from heaven.
Does anyone believe God left us His written word, and preserved it through all the persecutions of the past, and brought the greatest event since the Apostolic age about in the Protestant Reformation to set it free again, for us to remain ignorant of what He says in it?
Yes, I agree, the Westminster divines, and Calvin’s brand of Calvinism, which is often not the same Calvinism we frequently see today, and the puritans did have strict, precise standards, and it was exactly as Richard Rogers says, that he was so precise, because he served a precise God. Like the true neo-puritans of today, they recognized just what the standard of righteousness and holiness is for us required by God, and did not try to lower it, to meet their humanity, but upped their game as they matured in their faith, to rise higher and higher though still imperfectly, but knowing it was the only rule for righteousness and the only standard acceptable to God.
I shall close this blog post with another quote by Joseph Alleine, on something that he heads as: “A secret Enmity against the strictness of religion.”

Many moral persons, punctilious in their formal devotions, have yet a bitter enmity against strictness and zeal and hate the life and power of religion. They do not like this forwardness, nor that men should make such a stir in religion. They condemn the strictness of religion as singularity, indiscretion, and intemperate zeal, and with them a zealous preacher or fervent Christian is but a wild enthusiast. These men do not love holiness as holiness (for then they would love the height of holiness) and are therefore undoubtedly rotten at heart, whatever good opinion they have of themselves.
—Joseph Alleine

Normain Geisler wrote:

God would save all men if he could. He will actually save the greatest number achievable, without violating their free-will.

If the god that Geisler speaks of, was the God of Heaven and Earth, what an impotent god he would be. And man would be his own god, by having the casting vote on if God can do as He wills or not
Sadly, Geisler is respected often in Calvinistic circles. James White had a well-known debate with him a few years ago, over his book, Chosen but free–The Potter’s Freedom.

Sometimes  Apostolic creeds and confessions and Standards such as those developed at Westminster are given a whole barage of  reasons as to why they are not Biblical or warranted.  Here’s a few short refutations against some of those objections,  and a few reasons why  Creeds and Confessions are  warranted by the Word of God:
1 Tim 3:14-15;  2 Tim 1:12

The Mission of the church:

A creed  should be  adhered to out of the God given commandment to guard  the word which has been entrusted to the church.

Deut 26:17  (jesus will be ashamed of us if we don’t confess Him)

Matt 16:15  Jesus asked: “But who do you say that I am?”

Thou shalt confess with thy mouth and  in your heart know that  Jesus is Lord.

The standards or creeds of the church  are Subordinate to the Scriptures, and  not binding on us,  only in so far as,  and no further than, they are  a faithful  summary of the word of God.  They help us  understand and apply the Scriptures they derive from,  but are subordinate to,  and are dependant on the Bible.
1st Objection:

“We have no creed but life, and no law but love.”
2nd Objection:

“Its nothing but a paper pope.” (Wrong!)

The standards are always open to interpretation  of if they agree with the word of God.
3rd Objection:

“Human creeds add to the Word of God.”  (wrong!)

They are simple declarations of  Biblical truths.  And not adding to anything  in the Word of God.  No more than a sermon or commentary would be.
4th Objection:

“When you impose  creeds on a church you restrict the  liberty of the church to believe what they believe.”  (wrong!)

We are not at liberty to believe what we want to believe.   Otherwise we  are at liberty to  take in and believe every new heresy that gets churned out.

If the creeds are a faithful representation of the Word of God,  then they are not  restricting  liberty,  they are protecting that liberty.
Question:

What doctrine does it teach?

Answer:

Calvinism,  Reformed Faith,  covenant Theology.
Calvinism =  Biblical Doctrine.   He didn’t invent the doctrines of Calvinism,  but he unearthed the true Biblical  truths and true theology of the Bible,  which was buried for a 1,000 years,  under the tryranny and apostasy  of  Catholicism.     It was given his name, because of his writings,  but anyone who calls themselves a Calvinist is not declaring they are following John Calvin,  they are declaring they are following the Biblical truths of the Bible,  which was bought to the forefront and  unearthed  for the first time since the early church  by John Calvin.  If you accept Calvinism,  you accept the Word of God.

Question:

What do we  mean by Calvinism or Reformed Faith.

Answer:

Either terms is Christianity in its purest expression.   A Calvinist is someone who is God intoxicated. Calvinism is pure, True Religion,  and Religion in its purest form,  It means utter dependance on God. Its not an icy cold intellectualism.  It affects the mind and the heart and  every aspect of man’s being.

“In proportion as our own religious life flows in a deep and broad stream,  in that proportion will we find spiritual delight  in the Westminster Confession of Fath.”  (J.A. Wylie)

And again:

Was the Confession of Augsburg to come in the room of the Bible to the Protestants? Far from it. Let us not mistake the end for which it was framed, and the place it was intended to occupy. The Confession did not create the faith; it simply confessed it. The doctrines it contained were in the Confession because they were first of all in the Bible. A terrestrial chart has authority and is to be followed only when for ever island and continent marked on it there is a corresponding island and continent on the surface of the globe; a manual of botany has authority only when for every term on its page there is a living flower or tree in the actual landscape; and a map of the heavens is true only for ever star named in it there is an actual star shining in the sky. So of the Augsburg Confession, and all Confessions, they are true, and of authority, and safe guides only when every statement they contain has its corresponding doctrine in the Scriptures. Their authority is not in themselves, but in the Word of God. Therefore they do not fetter the conscience, or tyrranize over it, except when perverted; they but guard its liberty, by shielding the understanding from the usurpation of error, and leaving the conscience free [J.A. Wylie]

And as Benajamin B. Warfield, very ably put it:

The Calvinist is the man who has seen God, and who, having seen God in His glory, is filled on the one hand with a sense of his own unworthiness to stand in God’s sight as a creature, and much more as a sinner, and on the other hand, with adoring wonder that nevertheless this God is a God who receives sinners. He who believes in God without reserve and is determined that God shall be God to him in all his thinking, feeling and willing – in the entire compass of his life activities, intellectual, moral and spiritual – throughout all his individual social and religious relations, is, by force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist.The Calvinist is the man who sees God behind all phenomena,and in all that occurs recognizes the hand of God, working out His will; who makes the attitude of the soul to God in prayer the permanent attitude in all its life activities; and who casts himself on the grace of God alone, excluding every trace of dependence on self from the whole work of his salvation.

Do you see God?

As some folks maybe aware, Antinomians have bothered me for a while now, because the belief is so unbiblical, and I believe it even maybe damnable heresy. Normally the antinomian will have the standard phrase that makes mine and some other like-minded beleivers, blood chill when they turn out the well-worn phrase, of “We are no longer under the law, but under grace.” It sounds a very Biblical statement doesn’t it, take at face value? That is almost how alll error creeps into the church. By sayings, phrases, that sound credible, even Biblical, and yet at heart, are anything but either. But because they sound credible, and Biblical, it will often be passed off for “old teachings using new teminology” and the Christian not soaked or learned enough about what Scripture teaches on the subject in hand, is likely to feel persuaded, that they are speaking Biblical truth. Knowledge is power in many spheres of life. The Christian life is no exception. As with Biblical knowledge and understanding of what Scripture teaches about this or that, we cannot be so easily decieved, because we will already have formed strong convictions on these subjects from our studying the Bible and getting a Biblical world view. Those who most often say, and seem to think as they say it they are sounding very Biblical and learned, “we are not under law but under grace,” I have found most often do not have a Biblical worldview. They think about almost everything differntly to the believer who does have a Biblical worldview.
Of course we all have to start somewhere. The babes in Christ cannot be reborn with godly knowledge in advance, nor with a Biblical worldview. One of the best ways I know of, to get a Biblical world view is to study, with an open Bible on one’s lap, so you can read the texts of Scripture proofs that go along with it, but to study the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Bible is the map almost of the life of faith. And the much shorter, WCF, acts as the signposts, to point us the right way.
Antinomianism so bugs me, because I Have come across it so often, and it seems rife among today’s church. Even the Reformed church.
Richard Baxter taught that Antinomianism was rooted in gross ignorance and led to gross wickednes, and I don’t think I would argue with that over-all.
J.I. Packer writes of Baxter’s view of Antinomians,

Baxter had no doubt that the impulse and the ttheology behind the Antinomian quest for ‘comfort’ at all costs came from the pit, for its outcome in practice was this; men went to the Antinomians troubled about their sins and all the advice they recieved was to be troubled about them no longer for Christ had taken them away. Where the puritans had said, Put sin out of your life, the Antinomian said, Put it out of youro mind. Look at the law, consider your guilt, learn to hate sin and fear it and let it go, said the puritan. Look away from the Law, and forget your sins and guilt, look away from yourself and stop worrying, said the Antinomian. [J.I. Packer]

How familiar that viewpoint sounds today and how widespread it is among the church. It is of course a recoverable error, a repentable sin, but I still believe if not repented of, that it will lead those who hold to it to the end to the pit of hell.

Andrew Fuller lived in the 18th century, yet how relative this short piece of his below is to us in our day. How many of the visible church, believe that to be under grace and not under law, (in the NT dispensation) means one can disregard the law whenever we choose, and grace covers it all, much like the speaker spoke of below, only in other words. How  many people when giving a testimony, it is all about them, and little about God? How many put the creature above the Creator in many spheres of life and squeeze the Saviour in when we have time now and then, or when it is convenient. It is also well-related to the blog post previous to this one, that before people answer the call of the ministry, they better make sure they are listening to the voice of God and not his enemy, calling you to do much damage to the church and peoples souls.

Yet the congregation were awed by this fellow. Just like many are today, by teachers of bad theology, or in some cases just plain heresy. And I also agree with Fuller, when he says that anyone who has sat under the ministry of the Word for any number of years, should be able to discern better. Ignorance is a choice in many instances. If we remain ignorant, after many years as a Christian, something is amiss. We cannot blame bad teachers because we all have the holy spirit. And those who led the battle cry of the Reformation, had without exception almost, all been deeply indoctrinated and immersed in the popish religion prior to the true conversion. Those men show and prove, that sometimes we make excuses for people, when we shouldn’t.

Understanding that a certain preacher, who was reported to be more than ordinary evangelical, was to deliver a sermon in the town where I reside, and hearing some of my neighbours talk of going to hear “the gospel,” I resolved to go too. I thought that I loved the gospel, and felt a concern for my neighbours’ welfare: I wished therefore to observe, and form the best judgment I could of what it was to which they applied with an an emphasis that revered name.

I arrived, I believe unobserved, just after the naming of the text; and staid, though with some difficulty till the discourse was ended. I pass over what relates to manner and also much whimsical interpretation of Scripture; and shall now confine my remarks to the substance and drift of the discourse.

There were a few good things delivered, which, as they are stated in the Bible, are the support and joy of pious minds. I thought I could see how these things might please the real Christian though, on account of the confused manner of their being introduced, not the judicious christian. Pious people enjoy the good things they hear, and thus, being thus employed, they attend not to what is erroneous; or if they hear the words, let them go as points which they do not understand, but which they think the wider preacher and hearers do.

I cannot give you the plan of the sermon, for the preacher appeared not have had one. I recollect, however, in the course of his harangue, the following things.- -”Some men will tell you,” said he, “that it is the duty of men to believe in Christ. These men say that you must get Christ, get grace, and that of yourselves; convert yourselves, make yourselves new creatures, get the Holy Spirit yourselves.”&c. Here he went on with an a abundance of misrepresentation and slander, too foul to be repeated.

He asserted with the highest tone of confidence I ever heard in any place, much less in a pulpit, his own saint-ship; loudly and repeatedly declaiming to this effect.–”I must go to glory–I cannot be lost–I am safe as Christ—all the devils, all sins cannot hurt me!” In short, he preached himself, not Christ Jesus the Lord. He was his own theme. I believe, throughout one half at least of his sermon. He went over what he called his experience, but seemed to shun the dark part of it; and the whole tended to proclaim what a wonderful man he was. Little of Christ could be seen: he himself stood before him: and when his name did occur, I was shocked at the dishonour which appeared to be cast upon him.

All accurate distinction of character, such as is constantly maintained in the Scriptures, vanished before his vociferation. The audience was harangued in a way which left each one to suppose himself included among the blessed. This confusion of character was the ground on which he stood exclaiming, “I am saved–I am in Christ–I cannot be lost–sins and devils may surround me, but though I fall and sin, I am safe–Christ cannot let me go–lusts and corruptions may overwhelm me in filth and pollution, as a sea rolling over my head; but all this does not, cannot affect the new man–the new nature is not touched or sullied by this: it cannot sin, because it is born of God–I stand amidst this overwhelming sea unhurt.” All this the hearers were told in substance, and persuaded to adopt; and it was sin and unbelief not to do so!

The whole was interspersed with levity, low wit, and great irreverence. On the most solemn subjects of “hell, devils and damnation,” he raved like a Billingsgate or blasphemer. On the adorable and amazing names of the ever-blessed God, he rallied and sported with lightness and rant as was truly shocking. This was especially the case in his repeating of the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Who among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light; let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.” The manner in which the sacred name was here used was highly profane and impious.

On returning from the place, I was affected with the delusion by which some of my neighbours were borne away, crying up the preacher as an oracle, “a bold defender of the gospel.” To me his words appear to answer with great exactness to what is called by the apostle to Timothy, “profane and vain babbling;” and which, from an accurate observation, Paul declared, “Would increaser unto more ungodliness; and would eat as doth a canker,” or gangrene. Need I ask, Can this be true religion The effects which it produces, both on individuals and on societies, sufficiently ascertain its nature. It was and is affecting to me to think what a state the world is in; so few making any profession of serious religion, and so few of those who do have their senses exercised to discern between good and evil. To think of Christian congregations who have heard the word of truth for a number of years being carried away with such preaching as this is humiliating and distressing to a reflecting mind. Alas, how easily men are imposed upon in their eternal concerns! It is not so with them in other things; but here the grossest imposture will go down with applause. Yet why do I thus speak? “There must needs be heresies, that they who are approved may be made manifest.” [The Works of Andrew Fuller, B.O.T. pp. 1003]

Works of Andrew Fuller

Anabaptists in there day, have much in common with in our day, the “Oneness” groups, and ~some~ of the more extreme Word faith, Charismatic’s.  Though they also generally, deny the Deity of the Godhead.

Those of us who study church history, (as all Christians should–one cannot be a good Christian unless one does, IMO) often see this bunch mentioned, and some of their gross  debaucheries they committed, and often times violence. They have absolutely no relation at all to what we know as “Baptists.”

“Upon Luther’s first teachings in Germany, there arose many, who building on some of his principles, carried things much further than he did. The chief foundation he laid down, was that ‘Scripture was to be the only rule of Christians.’ Upon this many argued that the mystery of the Trinity and Christ’s incarnation and sufferings, of the fall of man, and the aids of grace, were indeed philosophical subtleties, and only pretended to be deduced from Scripture, as almost all opinions of religion were, and therefore they rejected them. Amongst these, the baptism of infants was one. They held that to be no baptism, and so were re baptized. But from this, which was taken most notice of, as being a visible thing they carried all the general name of Anabaptists. [Bishop Burnet's History, Volume 2, p. 112.]

The thing I, Personally find sad when reading the above is that this little bit, Scripture was to be the only rule of Christians”  is now practiced as a minority even among the so-called Reformed churches.  We go so far, but only as far as it doesn’t inconvenience us or go against our will. We pick and choose which Scriptures we embrace, and all the while we do it, we speak against the papists, as if they are the only enemies of religion, yet, by in my experience, far more harm is done to Christ, his church and His Cause, by those who are taught the Truth, Biblical Truth, and have it, yet don’t embrace it, or only half-heartedly or luke-warm.  And we know what Scripture says about that. [Rev 3:16]  The reformation of Religion,  was never more again needed than today, but we shouldn’t start with the outside in, of thinking we can correct the papists or anabaptists or any other false religions,  until we have cleansed from the inside out, and got our own house in order first.  The Reformed church today, though it has its solid faithful believers and teachers within it,  is the very essence of the cup, [Matt 23:25; Mark 7:4]

The false religions, as harmful and despicable as they are, are much easier to live with, than those who sit under  a faithful ministry, perhaps for many a long year, and are taught faithful doctrine, and  yet still reject the truth, because it is unpalatable, though they may accept the bits that are palatable to them. Which is why the Reformed church at large, has wandered far from the old paths, and far wide of the narrow or strait gate.  [Matt 7:13]