I enjoy reading Spurgeon’s sermons from the past and about him and his family. The history hog that I am leads me to study so many great people of our past and even a few in the present. I ran across a wonderful quote by Spurgin the other day as I was reading and wanted to share it with anyone that might read it.
‘It is no novelty, then, that I am preaching; no new doctrine. I love to proclaim these strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. By this truth I make a pilgrimage into the past, and as I go, I see father after father, confessor after confessor, martyr after martyr, standing up to shake hands with me….taking these things to be the standard of my faith, I see the land of the ancients peopled with my brethern; I behold multitudes who confess the same as I do and acknowledge that htis is the religion of God’s own church.”
A factual update is that this doctrine or theology has been around far longer than John Calvin was alive. It was formed on paper and in pulpits around St. Augustine’s time frame 300 A.D. The Five Points of Calvinism did not come about until after John Calvin’s death. The Arminian’s tried to change the course of the Protestant Reformed movement by sending Five Points of their own to the Synod of Dort….which was a council of the churches at that time. The Synod of Dort rejected the Five Points of Arminianism after 180 days of comparing the scripture to what those points were and could find no truth in it. So, they in turn came out with the Five Points of Calvinism to put in print the theology or doctrine of the church. The actual Five Points of Calvinism are in the Theoogy section of my blog if you would like to read them for yourself.
Hope you enjoyed that. I will share from time to time other great quotes from past and present men and women of God.
-Scott Bailey (c) 2007
En Gedi: Finding rest in the wilderness! 
