I'm now into my 3rd year as a Reformed Baptist minister here in London, UK, a location for many influential Reformed Baptists over the centuries. It is fair to say I have never liked the title Reformed Baptist, because I've met so many people who are downcast in their temperament that hold the name. London seems different to that with many defrosted Calvinists among them.  What a delight it was then to read this book, in the last couple of weeks, where Ryan shows that many Particular Baptists were not the Frozen Chosen, were not legalistic and seeking to ensure others lived like them. Ins ..read more

  I may say that for 40 years, as at the University of Oxford I carried out my duties as professor of Sanskrit, I devoted as much time to the study of the holy books of the East as any other human being in the world. And I ventured to tell this gathering what I have found to be the basic note, the one single chord, or all these holy books- be it the Veda of the Brahmans, the Putans of Siwa and Vishnu, the Qu’ran of the Muslims, the Sendavesta of the Paris etc-the one basic note or chord that runs through all of them is salvation by works. They all teach that salvation must be bought and t ..read more

Woops, found this in drafts: At the Scottish Reformed Conference on the 12th of May Steven Lawson took us through Holiness in the Old Testament in the morning and in the New Testament in the afternoon.  He started with a quote from Thomas Watson's A Body of Divinity 'The holiness of God is the brightest jewel in the crown of God'. God's holiness is as the centre of all His attributes, His righteousness is Holy righteousness, His wrath is holy wrath, His mercy is Holy mercy, everything about Him is holy. His word is holy.  In the sermon on the Mount Jesus says we are called to be p ..read more

I read recently the biography of William Carey, Missionary to India, written by his great grandson, S. Pearce Carey. In it he tells a story of how William Ward, Carey's fellow missionary and printer of the Bengali Bible. Ward left one of the copies behind in a village some distance from Serampore, completely by mistake. It was found by a high caste Hindu, he read it and then he re read it, then he read it to others. Over time he made his way to Serampore, a converted man seeking baptism. He was not alone he came with other converts seeking to be baptised and they kept coming. I found this stor ..read more