"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the WORD of God" (Romans 10:17).

It is related of a clever infidel that he sought an acquaintance with the truths of the Bible, and began to read at the books of Moses. He had been in the habit of sneering at the Bible, and in order to be able to refute arguments brought by Christian men, he made up his mind, as he knew nothing about it, to read the Bible and get some idea of its contents. After he had reached the Ten Commandments, he said to a friend:

"I will tell you what I used to think. I supposed that Moses was the leader of a horde of bandits; that, having a strong mind, he acquired great influence over a superstitious people; and that on Mount Sinai he played off some sort of fireworks to the amazement of his ignorant followers, who imagined in their fear and superstition that the exhibition was supernatural. I have been looking into the nature of that law. I have been trying to see whether I could add anything to it, or take anything from it, so as to make it better. Sir, I cannot! It is perfect!

"The first commandment directs us to make the Creator the object of our supreme love and reverence. That is right. If He be our Creator, Preserver, and Supreme Benefactor, we ought to treat Him, and none other, as such. The second forbids idolatry. That certainly is right. The third forbids profanity. The fourth fixes a time for religious worship. If there be a God, He ought surely to be worshiped. It is suitable that there should be an outward homage significant of our inward regard. If God be worshiped, it is proper that some time should be set apart for that purpose, when all may worship Him harmoniously, and without interruption. One day in seven is certainly not too much, and I do not know that it is too little.

"The fifth commandment defines the peculiar duties arising from family relations. Injuries to our neighbor are then classified by the moral law. They are divided into offenses against life, chastity, property, and character; and I notice that the greatest offense in each class is expressly forbidden. Thus the greatest injury to life is murder; to chastity, adultery; to property, theft; to character, perjury. Now the greatest offense must include the least of the same kind. Murder must include the least of the same kind. Murder must include every injury to life; adultery every injury to purity, and so of the rest. And the moral code is closed and perfected by a command forbidding every improper desire in regard to our neighbors.

"I have been thinking. Where did Moses get that law? I have read history. The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolaters; so were the Greeks and Romans; and the wisest or best Greeks or Romans never gave a code of morals like this. Where did Moses obtain that law, which surpasses the wisdom and philosophy of the most enlightened ages? He lived at a period comparatively barbarous; but he has given a law in which the learning and sagacity of all subsequent time can detect no flaw. Where did he obtain it? He could not have soared so far above his age as to have devised it himself. I am satisfied where he obtained it. It came down from heaven. It has convinced me of the truth of the religion of the Bible."

The former infidel remained to his death a firm believer in the truth of Christianity.

We call it the "Mosaic" law, but it has been well said that the commandments did not originate with Moses, nor were they done away with when the Mosaic law was fulfilled in Christ, and many of its ceremonies and regulations abolished. We can find no trace of the existence of any lawmaking body in those early times, no parliament, or congress that built up a system of laws. It has come down to us complete and finished, and the only satisfactory account is that which tells us that God Himself wrote the commandments on tables of stone.

.
Read this classic: Dwight L. Moody on "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS" ---New Window
(located in the "Voices From Philadelphia" ---New Window section")






Excerpt from:
Charles Chiniquy
FIFTY YEARS in the CHURCH OF ROME

THE BLESSED DAWN
Our Great and Merciful God, who, many times, has made the very sins and errors of His people to work for good, caused that public iniquity of the priest to remove the scales from many eyes, and prepare them to receive the light, which was already dawning at the horizon. A voice from heaven was as if heard by many of us. "Do you not see that in your Church of Rome, you do not follow the Word of God, but the lying traditions of men? Is it not evident that your priests' celibacy is a snare and an institution of Satan?"

Many asked me to show them in the Gospel where Christ had established the law of celibacy. "I will do better," I added, "I will put the Gospel in your hands, and you will look for yourselves in that holy book, what is said on that matter." The very same day I ordered a merchant, from Montreal, to send me a large box filled with New Testaments, printed by the order of the Archbishop of Quebec; and on the 25th as many from New York. Very soon it was known by every one of my immigrants that not only had Jesus never forbidden His apostles and priests to marry, but he had left them free to have their wives, and live with them, according to the very testimony of Paul. "Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? (1 Cor. ix. 5); they saw, by their Gospel, that the doctrine of celibacy of the priests was not brought from heaven by Christ, but had been forged in darkness, to add to the miseries of man. They read and read over again these words of Christ: "If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.... If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John viii. 31, 32, 36).

And those promises of liberty, which Christ gave to those who read and followed His Word, made their hearts leap with joy. They fell upon their minds as music from heaven. They also soon found, by themselves, that every time the disciples of Christ had asked Him who would be the first ruler, or the Pope, in His church, He had always solemnly and positively said that, in His church, no body would ever become the first, the ruler or the Pope. And they began, seriously, to suspect that the great powers of the Pope and his bishops were nothing but a sacrilegious usurpation. I was not long without seeing that the reading of the Holy Scriptures by my dear countrymen was changing them into other men. Their minds were evidently enlarged and raised to higher spheres of thought. They were beginning to suspect that the heavy chains which were wounding their shoulders were preventing them from making progress in wealth, intelligence, and liberty, as their more fortunate fellow-men, called Protestants.

This was not yet the bright light of the day, but it was the blessed dawn.

--from "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome" ---New Window, Chapter 51
(located in the "Voices From Philadelphia" ---New Window section")






Excerpt from:
J. A. Wylie
THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM
LIBRARY COMPLETE

A desire had now been awakened
in the nation at large for the Word of God, and that desire could be gratified not otherwise than by having the Scriptures in its own tongue... The fullness of the time for the Bible being given to England in her own tongue, and through England to the world in all the tongues of earth, had now come. He who brings forth the sun from the chambers Of the sky at his appointed hour, now gave commandment that this greater light should come forth from the darkness in which it had been so long hidden. William Tyndale, the man chosen of God for this labor, had, as we have seen, finished his task... The Word of God in the mother tongue of the people was at last in England... The English New Testament soon found its way to Cambridge; and from the two universities it was in no long time diffused over the whole kingdom. This was in the end of 1525, and the beginning of 1526. The day had broken in England with the Greek and Latin New Testament of Erasmus; now it was approaching noontide splendor with Tyndale's English New Testament.

We in this age find it impossible to realize the transition that was now accomplished by the people of England. To them the publication of the Word of God in their own tongue was the lifting up of a veil from a world of which before they had heard tell, but which now they saw. The wonder and ravishment with which they gazed for the first time on objects so pure, so beautiful, and so transcendently majestic, and the delight with which they were filled, we cannot at all conceive. There were narratives and doctrines; there were sermons and epistles; there were incidents and prayers; there were miracles and apocalyptic visions; and in the center of all these glories, a majestic Personage, so human and yet so Divine; not the terrible Judge which Rome had painted him; but the Brother: very accessible to men, "receiving sinners and eating with them." And what a burden was taken from the conscience by the announcement that the forgiveness of the Cross was altogether free! How different was the Gospel of the New Testament from the Gospel of Rome! In the latter all was mystery, in the former all was plain; the one addressed men only in the language of the schools, the other spoke to them in the terms of every day. In the one there was a work to be done, painful, laborious; and he that came short, though but in one iota, exposed himself to all the curses of the law; in the other there was simply a gift to be received, for the work had been done for the poor sinner by Another, and he found himself at the open gates of Paradise. It needed no one but his own heart, now unburdened of a mighty load, and filled with a joy never tasted before, to tell the man that this was not the Gospel of the priest, but the Gospel of God; and that it had come, not from Rome, but from Heaven.

Since "The History of Protestantism" is out of print, it is now-- to our knowledge-- available only in digital format. We have converted it to HTML. Each of the 24 books are available separately, which makes them easy to browse online, with footnotes completely accessible.

A composite Table of Contents is also provided to give you an overview of the subjects covered in the 24 books; thus, enabling you to access individual chapters.

--from "THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANTISM" ---New Window
(located in the "Voices From Philadelphia" ---New Window section")

Also-

RESEARCH INDEX ---New Window

A feature of our version of "The History of Protestantism" is an index to the entire 24 books of J. A. Wylie's prodigious account of Christianity's remonstrance against the errors of the Church of Rome. The index will assist you in finding the location of KEY words in the text, so that you may research Wylie's library without the time and difficulty of reading every single book. "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11).

(located in the "Voices From Philadelphia" ---New Window section")






Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Faith's Checkbook

Holy Fear
"He that feareth the Commandment shall be rewarded"
(Proverbs 13:13).

Holy awe of God's Word is at a great discount. Men think themselves wiser than the Word of the LORD and sit in judgment upon it. "So did not I, because of the fear of God." We accept the inspired Book as infallible and prove our esteem by our obedience. We have no terror of the Word, but we have a filial awe of it. We are not in fear of its penalties because we have a fear of its commands.

This holy fear of the commandment produces the restfulness of humility, which is far sweeter than the recklessness of pride. It becomes a guide to us in our movements: a drag when we are going downhill and a stimulus when we are climbing it. Preserved from evil and led into righteousness by our reverence of the command, we gain a quiet conscience, which is a well of wine; a sense of freedom from responsibility, which is as life from the dead; and a confidence of pleasing God, which is heaven below. The ungodly may ridicule our deep reverence for the Word of the LORD; but what of that? The prize of our high calling is a sufficient consolation for us. The rewards of obedience make us scorn the scorning of the scorner.

The Bible's Supreme Place
"Great peace have they which love Thy Law: and nothing shall offend them"
(Psalm 119:165).

Yes, a true love for the great Book will bring us great peace from the great God and be a great protection to us. Let us live constantly in the society of the law of the LORD, and it will breed in our hearts a restfulness such as nothing else can. The Holy Spirit acts as a Comforter through the Word and sheds abroad those benign influences which calm the tempests of the soul.

Nothing is a stumbling block to the man who has the Word of God dwelling in him richly. He takes up his daily cross, and it becomes a delight. For the fiery trial he is prepared and counts it not strange, so as to be utterly cast down by it. He is neither stumbled by prosperity -- as so many are -- nor crushed by adversity -- as others have been -- for he lives beyond the changing circumstances of external life. When his LORD puts before him some great mystery of the faith which makes others cry, "This is an hard saying; who can hear it?" the believer accepts it without question; for his intellectual difficulties are overcome by his reverent awe of the law of the LORD, which is to him the supreme authority to which he joyfully bows. LORD, work in us this love, this peace, this rest, this day.

Excerpts taken from "Faith's Checkbook" ---New Window
A Daily Devotional
See Today's Entry ---New Window

"FAITH, PRAYER, AND THE WORD OF GOD. Prayer and faith, the universal remedies against every want and every difficulty; and the nourishment of prayer and faith, God's holy word, helped me over all the difficulties.--

I never remember, in all my Christian course, a period now (in March 1895) of sixty-nine years and four months, that I ever SINCERELY and PATIENTLY sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the word of God, but I have been ALWAYS directed rightly. But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait upon God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow men to the declarations of the word of the living God, I made great mistakes."

--from "George Mueller of Bristol" --- by A. T. Pierson, Appendix N: "The Wise Sayings of George Mueller"

"Faith is taking God at His word;
and those people who want some token are always getting into trouble.
We want to come to this: GOD SAYS IT- LET US BELIEVE IT."

Excerpts taken from "THE WAY TO GOD And How to Find It" ---New Window
by D. L. Moody (1837-1899)





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Pop up the menu with a right mouse click and listen to the verse in the Scripture window or listen to any passage starting where you are... Yes with this CD you can listen to the entire Bible without flipping a record or tape. It works in conjunction with your Online Bible version 8.11 or greater. It only works in computers, it will not work in your stereo equipment. You may ask yourself, why you need Audio Bible? One of my friends made the point clear to me. He asked me, 'tell me of one thing your father ever wrote to you?' My mind went blank. After a few seconds he said, 'now tell me things your father told you?' My mind began to fill with memories and his point was made. We remember better if we hear it and best if we read along with what we hear. This is what Audio Bible is all about. For centuries the Bible was read aloud, even when in private. Remember the story of Philip and the Eunuch?"

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