CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  { PT.  10 } - This, in fact, was the main point in almost all their sermons. They never taught the modern doctrine that Christ's death was only a great example of self-sacrifice. They saw in it something far higher, greater, and deeper than this. They saw in it the payment of man's mighty debt of God. They loved Christ's person, they rejoiced in Christ's promises, and they urged people to walk after Christ's example. But the one subject above all others concerning Christ that they delighted to dwell on was the sin-atoning blood that Christ shed for us on the cross.                                                                                  THE REFORMERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONSTANTLY TAUGHT THE GREAT DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. They told people that faith...

  { PT.  10 } - In all their preaching, they were eminently men of one Book. They were content to affix their faith to that Book and to stand or fall by it. This was one great characteristic of their preaching. They honored, loved, and reverenced the Bible.                                    THE REFORMERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONSTANTLY TAUGHT THE TOTAL CORRUPTION OF HUMAN NATURE. - They knew nothing that Christ is in everyone possesses something good within that they only have to stir up and use in order to be saved. They never flattered men and women in this way. They told them plainly that they were dead and must be made alive again, that they were guilty, lost, helpless, hopeless, and in imminent danger of eternal ruin. As strange and paradoxical as it might seem to some, their first step toward making people good was to show them that they were utterly bad. Their main argum...

{ PT.  9 } - The strongholds of the eighteenth century's sins would never have been cast down by mere sincere teaching. The trumpets that blew down the walls of Jericho were trumpets that gave a certain sound. The English evangelists of the eighteenth century were not men of uncertain beliefs. What was it that they proclaimed? A little information on this point might be useful.                                              THE SPIRITUAL REFORMERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CONSTANTLY TAUGHT THE SUFFICIENCY AND SUPREMACY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. - The Bible, whole and complete, was their only standard of faith and practice. They accepted all its statements without question or dispute. They knew nothing of any part of Scripture being uninspired. They never believed that man has any verifying ability within him by which Scripture statements can be weighed, rejected, or received. ...

  CHAPTER  1  -  ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY )  -  { PT.  14 } - The sum it all up and bring this part of my subject to a conclusion, I ask my readers to remember that the good works with which everyone is now familiar, did not exist a hundred years ago. William Wilberforce had not yet attacked the slave trade. John Howard had not yet reformed prisons. Robert Raikes had not yet established Sunday schools. We had no Bible societies, no free schoolds for the poor children, no city missions, no pastoral aid societies, and no missions to the heathen. The Spirit of slumber was over the land. From a religious and moral point of view, England was sound asleep. As I conclude this chapter, I cannot help remarking that we should be more thankful for the times in which we live. I fear we are far too inclined to look at the evils we see around us and to forget how much worse things were a hundred years ago. I boldly admit that I have no faith in those ...

  CHAPTER  1  -  ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY )  -  { PT.  9 } - Dr. Isaac Watts declared that in his day there was a general decay of living Christianity in the hearts and lives of people, and it was a general matter of sorrowful observation among all who lay the cause of God to heart. Dr. John Guyse, another very admirable Nonconformist, said: The religion of nature makes up the favored topic of our age, and the religion of Jesus is valued only for the sake of that, and only as far as it carries on the light of nature and is a bare improvement of that kind of light. All that is distinctively Christian, or that is specific to Christ, everything concerning Him that does not have its apparent foundation in natural light or that goes beyond its principles is dismissed, banished, and despised. Testimony like this could easily be multiplied tenfold, but I will spare you. Enough probably has been shown to prove that when I speak of the moral and ...

  CHAPTER  1  -  ( CHRISTIAN LEADER OF THE 18TH CENTURY )  -  { PT.  8 } - My difficulty is not so much to find witnesses as to select them. This was the period about which Archbishop Secker said, in one of his exhortations: In this we cannot be mistaken, that an open and professed disregard of Christianity is become, through a variety of unhappy causes, the distinguishing character of the age. Such are the corruption and contempt of principle in the higher part of the world, and the excess, lack of moderation, and boldness of committing crimes in the lower part that must, if the torrent of impiety does not stop, become absolutely fatal. Christianity is ridiculed and criticized with very little restraint, and the teaches of it without any at all. This was the period when Bishop Joseph Butler, in his preface to the Analogy of Religion, used the following remarkable words. It has com to be taken for granted that Christianity is no longer a subject to inq...