R.B.C. Howell's Good Counsel

Wrote R.B.C. Howell, second president of the Southern Baptist Convention:

"When shall we have wisdom and piety enough to resist successfully these endless innovations? For ourselves, we protest that we are not Antinomian Baptist, nor Free Will Baptist, nor Old School Baptist, nor Campbellite Baptist, nor Landmark Baptist, but what we have ever been Baptists of the old apostolic stamp, taking the Bible as our exclusive guide, loving all who love Christ and ready always to do what we can to reclaim the erring and to save the lost. The treatment proper for Pedo-baptist preachers, may, as we believe, be safely left to the churches, where it of right belongs, and when, after all, it must be left under the guidance of the word and spirit of God. These churches may err on the side of a mistaken charity; they may precipitate themselves into a proscriptive bigotry, but a praying Christian hear will by the grace of God, eventually lead them safely out of all extremes [quoted in Joe Burton, The Road to Augusta (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1976), p. 163]." (As cited by historian Tom Nettles here)

 Amen brother! My thinking exactly. 

For other entries on Dr. Howell see these:

"R.B.C. Howell on Hardshellism" (here)

"Howell on being "Old School"" (here)

"Dr. R. B. C. Howell on Watson and the Hardshells" (here)

I will be posting some additional citations from Dr. Howell in the future, such as when I write about how many of the first Separate Baptists were five point Calvinists, and if they were not, being perhaps 1,2,3, or 4 pointers, they nevertheless did not openly declare Calvinism heresy and tolerated them. 

Let us be Bible Baptists.