Folks, you will just have to indulge me here as it is only recently that I have become aware of what so many have long known. What a wonderful Christian heritage we have in the Puritan tradition! The more I read, the more I am challenged and encouraged by the many men of God who have defended and stood for gospel purity and truth against the traditions of man, and those whom Jesus said would “lord it over them.” (Matthew 20:25)

Here are two quotes from true Gospel defenders:

John Calvin (1509-1564), French Protestant and Reformer, wrote:

“Let them now go and clamour against us as heretics for having withdrawn from their Church, since the only cause of our estrangement is, that they cannot tolerate a pure profession of the truth. I say nothing of their having expelled us by anathemas and curses. The fact is more than sufficient to excuse us, unless they would also make schismatics of the apostles, with whom we have our common cause. Christ, I say, forewarned his apostles, ‘they shall put you out of the synagogues’ (John 16: 2). … it is certain that we were cast out, and we are prepared to show that this was done for the name of Christ … to me it is enough that we behoved to withdraw from them in order to draw near to Christ.”

John Newton (1725-1807), an English Preacher, former slave trader, and author of “Amazing Grace” wrote:

“The Bible is the grand repository … It is the complete system of divine truth, to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be taken, with impunity. Every attempt to disguise or soften any branch of this truth, in order to accommodate it to the prevailing taste around us, either to avoid the displeasure, or to court the favour, of our fellow mortals, must be an affront to the majesty of God, and an act of treachery to men.”

These men are dead but like Abel, through their faith, they still they speak. (Hebrews 11:4)