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Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, part 6 of 7
The text of this post started from the sentence: “Is looking into this conspiracy redeeming the time?”
and ended with: “We should follow God’s example in Genesis 18, not Satan’s pattern in Genesis 3.”
The complete 7 part series is now available at the link below. Please view the series there. Feel free to comment below on this sixth part, however. Thank you.
–TDR
Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, part 5 of 7
Does the conspiracy require me to think more highly of myself than I ought to think?
The Bible’s “love chapter” indicates that “charity vaunteth not itself” and “is not puffed up.” Scripture warns a man must “not … think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly” (Romans 12:3), a principle applicable to all areas of life. If a conspiracy requires us to believe something that the overwhelming majority of scientists or experts in the relevant field say is impossible, we need to have very strong evidence before we adopt this conclusion. If we think that a conspiracy-backed mechanism for causing disease is correct, although mainstream science strongly affirms the opposite, we need to remember that, unless we are experts, we know far less about biology and medicine than those do with whom we disagree. If we are going to adopt assertions about biology when we would fail an introductory biology course unless we spent lots of time reviewing, we need to be humble enough to recognize that biologists, medical doctors, and others with vast expertise are much more likely than us to avoid mistakes and make correct evaluations in their fields of knowledge. It is not logically impossible for the vast majority of airplane engineers to be wrong about something while we are right about it, even though we know next to nothing about how to design airplanes, but it is highly unlikely, and it would be a much better idea to fly in a plane designed by the airplane engineers rather than one that we designed based on videos we watched on YouTube. It is not logically impossible for the vast majority of cell biologists, professors in medical schools, and infectious disease researchers to be wrong about something pertaining to medicine, while we are right about it as non-experts, but it is likewise highly unlikely, and it is probably very wise and health-promoting to humbly recognize that fact as we evaluate conspiratorial claims about disease or the body, and place what a medical association or a health department advises on a higher level than what a body builder or a rapper on YouTube says is good for us.
–TDR
Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, part 4 of 7
Part four of this series is now at the link below. This post originally covered from the sentence: “Does the conspiracy theory produce extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims?” to the sentence: “We cannot disprove the possibility that tiny green elephants float and dance waltzes on Jupiter’s moons, while using advanced technology to avoid detection by humans, but the person who asserts that the green elephants are doing this needs to positively prove his assertion before we can rationally believe it.”
–TDR
Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, part 3 of 7
Part three of this series is now at the link below. This post originally covered from the sentence: “If the conspiracy involves logical contradictions, it cannot be true” to the sentence: “If any and all real or even potential conflicts of interest are not openly and plainly disclosed by the person promoting the conspiracy, a significantly higher level of skepticism is required in evaluating what the proponent of the conspiracy is arguing for.”
–TDR
Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, 2 of 7
Part two of this series is now at the link below. This post originally covered from the sentence: “If we have adopted and are going to share a conspiratorial belief with someone else, we need to have answered these questions ourselves and be ready to explain our answers to the person whom we seek to convince” to the sentence: “They are people who are created in God’s image, and we don’t get to slander them, even if their political persuasions, cultural practices, and other ways of living are different—or objectively far more worse and far more sinful—than ours are, thanks to God’s unmerited grace to us.” Feel free to continue to comment below on this post, if you wish, after reading it at the link below.
–TDR
The Regular History of Clever New Interpretations, Teachings, or Takes on and from Scripture: Socinianism
One way to get a Nobel prize in something, you’ve got to break some new ground or discover something no one has ever seen. In the world, the making of a printing press or light bulb changes everything. People still try to invent a better mousetrap. It happens. The phone replaced the telegraph and now our mobile devices, the phone.
Everyone can learn something new from scripture. You might even change or tweak a doctrine you’ve always believed. On the whole, you don’t want to teach from the Bible what no one has ever heard before. The goal is the original intent and understanding of the Author.
From the left comes progressivism. The U. S. Constitution, just over two hundred years old, means something different than when it was written. Loosely constructed, it has a flexible interpretation into which new meanings arise. Hegelian dialectics say a new thesis comes from synthesis of antithesis and a former thesis. Everything can be improved.
Early after the inspiration and then propagation of the Bible, men found new things no one ever saw in scripture. Many of these “finds” started a new movement. People have their fathers, the father of this or that teaching, contradictory to the other, causing division and new factions and denominations. Some of these changes become quite significant, a majority supplanting the constituents of the original teaching.
At the time of the Reformation, it was as if the world first found sole fide and sole scriptura. Men often call justification the Reformation doctrine of justification. This opened a large, proverbial can of worms. Many could read their own Bible in their own language. Others now dug into their own copy of the original languages of scripture. Skepticism grew. “If we didn’t know this before, what else did they not tell us?” It became a time ripe for religious shysters and this practice hasn’t stopped since then.
Socinus
The Italian, Laelius Socinus, was born in 1525 into a distinguished family of lawyers. Early his attention turned from law to scripture research. He doubted the teachings of Roman Catholicism. Socinus moved in 1548 to Zurich to study Greek and Hebrew. He still questioned established doctrine and challenged the Reformers. Laelius wrote his own confession of faith, which introduced different, conflicting beliefs. They took hold of his nephew, Faustus Socinus, born in 1539.
Faustus rejected orthodox Roman Catholic doctrines. The Inquisition denounced him in 1559, so he fled to Zurich in 1562. There he acquired his uncle’s writings. His doubt of Catholicism turned anti-Trinitarian. The Reformation did not go far enough for Socinus. His first published work in 1562 on the prologue of John rejected the essential deity of Jesus Christ.
Socinus’s journeys ended in Poland, where he became leader of the Minor Reformed Church, the Polish Brethren. His writings in the form of the Racovian Catechism survived through the press of the Racovian Academy of Rakow, Poland. His beliefs took the name, Socinianism, now also a catch-all for any type of dissenting doctrine.
Socinianism held that Jesus did not exist until his physical conception. God adopted Him as Son at His conception and became Son of God when the Holy Spirit conceived Him in Mary, a Gnostic view called “adoptionism.” It rejected the doctrine of original sin.
Socianism denied the omniscience of God. It introduced the first well developed concept of “open theism,” which said that man couldn’t have free will under a traditional (and scriptural) understanding of omniscience.
Socinianism also taught the moral example theory of atonement, teaching that Jesus sacrificed himself to motivate people to repent and believe. His death gave men the ability to be saved by their own works, who weren’t sinners by nature anyway.
Unitarians
The work of Socinus lived on in the belief of early English Unitarians, Henry Hedworth and John Biddle. Socinian belief was helped along also by its position of conscientious objection, a practice of refusing to perform military service. This principle was very popular with many and made Socinianism much more attractive to potential adherents. The First Unitarian Church, which followed Socianism as passed down through its leaders in England, was started in 1774 on Essex Street in London, where British Unitarian headquarters are still today.
As the Puritans of colonial America apostatized through various means, Unitarianism, a modern iteration of Socinianism took hold in the Congregational Church in America. After 1820, Congregationalists took Unitarianism as their established doctrine. The doctrine of Christ diminished to Jesus a good man and perhaps a prophet of God and in a sense the Son of God, but not God Himself.
Spirit of Skepticism
I write as an example of the diversity in the history of Christian doctrine and why it takes place. When you read the beliefs of Socinians, you easily see them in modern liberal Christianity. They influence on religious cults that deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
A limited amount of skepticism wards away the acceptance of false doctrine. Better is a Berean attitude (Acts 17:11), searching the scripture to see if these things are so, and what Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, proving all things, holding fast to that which is good.
As I grew up among fundamentalists and independent Baptists, I witnessed regular desire to find something new in the Bible. Many sermons espoused interpretations I had never heard and didn’t see in the text. A preacher often said, “God gave it to me.” You should know God used the man because no one had seen such insights into scripture.
The same spirit of doctrinal novelty continues today in many evangelical churches. The same practice led Joseph Smith in his founding of Mormonism. Many cults arose in 19th century America under the same spirit of skepticism of established historical doctrines.
The Temptation of Novel Teaching
The temptation of novel teaching preys on anyone. Faustus Socinus accepted many orthodox doctrines of his day. He rejected Christ as fully God and fully human because it was contrary to sound reason (ratio sana). This steered Socinians toward Enlightenment thinking, where human reason took the highest role as arbiter of truth.
Warren Wiersbe wrote that H.A. Ironside, longtime pastor of Chicago’s Moody Church, said, “If it’s new, it’s not true, and if it’s true, it’s not new.” Elsewhere I read that Spurgeon first said that. I don’t know. Clever new interpretations, teachings, and takes on and from scripture corrupt and overturn scriptural, saving doctrines in the hearts of men. They condemn them through all eternity.
Conspiracy Theory: Biblical Methods of Evaluation, 1 of 7
Part one of this series is now at the link below. This post originally covered from the beginning of the article to the sentence: “If we have adopted and are going to share a conspiratorial belief with someone else, we need to have answered these questions ourselves and be ready to explain our answers to the person whom we seek to convince.”
–TDR
Reality and Truth: Celebrity Conservatives Versus True Bible Believers
Perhaps you, like me, as a Christian, pay attention to certain celebrity conservatives, who take many of the same or similar viewpoints as you. You know there are differences. Where is the overlap?
LDS Visions or Revelations a Consideration for Their Danger as a Source of Authority for Everyone Else, Including Baptists
The visions or revelations of Joseph Smith came about in America at a time in this country when many others were receiving their own visions or revelations, paving the way for Smith’s and the acceptance of his by others. The United States was a land of equality, equal opportunity, and populism. It despised a king and state religion. It liked, loved really, democratic society, where everyone’s voice was heard, and it was, therefore, acceptable to get your own personal revelation from God as a part of your personal relationship with God. That spirit is still very alive in America. Americans distrust their own institutions and this is woven into the fabric of being an American. That includes the institution of the church.
In early nineteenth century, especially on the frontier, people operated in many unconventional ways, depending on superstitions in medicine, farming, and predicting the weather. It was not unusual to use dowsing to find water with a special, forked stick. People could see signs everywhere, giving them guidance from above or within. Snake oil salesman got their name in this era, literally selling snake oil, promising cures to almost anything, circumventing the conventional manner of tending to one’s health.
Joseph Smith was 14 years of age when he had his first vision or revelation from God, and the Smiths, Joseph Smith Sr. and mom, Lucy, weren’t members of a church. Joseph Jr. didn’t come up with the idea of getting visions. It was a thing to have. Only special people had them.
The Smiths couldn’t find a church they liked or agreed with, were still looking, and then Joseph ‘heard from God’ that there was no true church to join. Convenient. Churches have set beliefs and if you are a rank and file non-clergy, you might disagree, your opinion probably doesn’t count for much, and you don’t have a means of having your own in those situations. You might not want the church doctrines and practices imposed on you and also their financial obligations. You want a church where perhaps everyone could share, like is seen in the first church in Jerusalem in Acts chapters 2 and 5. That’s what churches should do, accept your way and then take care of you with little expectation.
On top of everything above, even though there was freedom, it was tough to navigate the new world, especially if you were not born into wealth, grinding it out to earn a living. Many made it through subsistence farming, sometimes succeeding, perhaps enough to invest in a cockamamie get-rich-quick scheme, lose everything and start over again. People still are very allured by the suggestion of some easier path to success, willing to subject themselves to whatever comes along that promises to work better, reinventing the wheel.
Joseph Smith lived in an environment, a culture, that someone could believe that God was talking to him directly. All of the new, astounding doctrines and practices of LDS came by this manner, contradicting doctrines and practices hitherto already established in the history of Christianity: the preexistence of human souls or spirits, God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood, celestial marriage, polygamy, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not the same being, God organized the world but did not create it from nothing, and proxy baptism for dead people. It was also revealed to him through a story that all of these beliefs were the original truth that had been lost and buried for 1400 years. On many occasions, Joseph Smith and then other Mormon leaders received revelations at a time that fit whatever it was they needed to hear from God to make a pronouncement to deal with that situation.
Matthew Bowman writes in The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (pp. 10-12):
The Smiths had unwittingly moved into an ideal location for a family with unresolved spiritual yearnings, the center of what one historian has called “the antebellum spiritual hothouse” and another “the burned-over district.” . . . . The optimism, instability, and freedom of the New York frontier were life’s blood to the eclecticism and experimentation always to be found at the margins of mainstream Christianity. The Shakers, for instance, so named for their physical worship services, had fled to America from a disapproving Britain under the leadership of Ann Lee, whom they believe to be Christ reincarnated. In the United States, they found fertile ground for both converts and settlement, and in 1826 they established a colony less than thirty miles from Palmyra. . . . North of Albany, the farmer William Miller sat by the fire in his home in Low Hampton, New York, feverishly working out the precise date of the Second Coming from the book of Daniel for his thousands of followers, who were convinced that they needed no trained pastors to interpret scripture for them.
But the Smiths had always been drawn — particularly Lucy — not to such visionaries but to the more mainstream ecstasies of evangelical revivalism. The force behind revivalism was the Methodists, who . . . urged potential converts to embrace Christ in a personal divine encounter. At Methodist camp meetings, itinerant preachers, though frequently uneducated and even unlettered, learned how to muse the Holy Spirit among their listeners. Between rousing and sometimes raucous gospel hymns, they offered not prepared sermon on doctrinal topics but emotional appeals, promising forgiveness, warning of hell, reaching their hands to the heavens, and pleading with the crowd to leave sin behind and walk forward to be saved in the arms of Christ. . . . “Men are so spiritually sluggish,” declared Charles Grandison Finney, the great revivalist of the age, “that they must be so excited that they will break over their countervailing influences before they will obey God.” Finney’s talents shone in a month-long revival in 1830-31 in Rochester, a few miles from Palmyra, in which he converted hundreds. . . .
The sort of spiritual manifestations the Smith family had already experienced were not new to most revivalists. Portentous dreams were common particularly among itinerant Methodist preachers, as were the type of healings and providential manifestations Lucy had experienced. . . .
It was in this atmosphere that Joseph Jr., then a young teenager, began thinking about religion.
The ecstasies and visions of revivalism were the seedbed or hothouse for Joseph Smith and the new religion. What makes this acceptable? Some might say, because what they revealed was not false. I don’t know that they can say, that what they’re saying is in fact true. How do you know it’s true, if it is? Someone could say, it’s scriptural. Well, then you don’t need a vision or a revelation from God. It’s already in the Bible. If cannot be proven to be false, then it is an acceptable vision or revelation.
If someone can hear revelations from God, how do those differentiate from scripture? If they are from God, that is equal to scripture. One cannot accept visions and revelations as from God. That opens up Pandora’s box. It’s not acceptable. And yet it is today. You really can’t question it. You’ve got to accept whatever version of it. How does a LDS today distinguish evangelical visions from their LDS ones? It really just buttresses the point of Mormon visions and revelations, that God is still talking to men. He’s still talking to Mormons.
LDS do not have a kind of closed canon of scripture. They have their continued visions, their continued revelations, even if they don’t like the LDS teachings, which many LDS has a problem with, and with their prophets. What has pushed LDS along is their continued revelations. I had a long talk last Saturday to an LDS man, coming out of the garage of his big house, a CEO of a small software company, and he disconnects from LDS doctrine, but he’s got his own testimony, his own experience, his own way of connecting with God, so he can pick and choose. LDS is fine with that. They encourage it. They might call it “the burning in the bosom.” Before Joseph Smith got his first vision, he prayed James 1:5, and that’s become the pattern of LDS since then.
I estimate that a majority of Baptists still get direct messages from God. They call it different things, but these impressions are authoritative, nonetheless, very often for some of the major decisions of their lives. When they give testimony to the important decisions, they don’t say, it was scriptural, my church was fine with it, so I had the liberty to do it, so I did. They say, I knew, God told me. Sometimes God also told the spouse, as a validation. Both knew. Both heard.
The one who questions the experience is the one who says he’s in authority, he’s a king, taking away from the egalitarian nature of receiving visions. Some kind of exegesis of an authoritative book is not sufficient for a genuine Christian experience. Obviously there are contradictions, because many have been excommunicated for contradicting the vision of someone in authority, Smith or Brigham Young. The acceptance of a democratic community fine with your receiving your vision or revelation is the level playing field. Revelations aren’t just for the elite few, but for anyone. This is the “antebellum spiritual hothouse” that we still live in.
Are Christian Ministers “Reverend”?
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox religious organizations call their priests “reverend,” or “reverend Fathers.” So do the large majority of Protestants, and a surprising number of Baptists, even fundamental, independent Baptists. Are Catholic priests “reverend”? How about Christian ministers–are they the “Reverend John Doe” and the like?
There is only one verse in the King James Bible where the word “reverend” appears:
Psa. 111:9 He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.
In this passage Jehovah’s name is “holy and reverend,” because He is the Almighty Redeemer, who in faithfulness to His holy covenant promises, redeems His people by His power, chooses and sets them apart to Himself, and makes them like Himself, until He brings them to eternally be with Him in His holy presence. Truly, Jehovah’s name is holy and reverend!
But “Rev. Mr. Jones” does not do any of that. Mr. Jones does not have an infinitely holy name or character; Mr. Jones does not redeem God’s people by an almighty arm and by the blood of Jesus Christ. Simply looking at the English word, one would conclude that a minister calling himself “Rev.” is a form of blasphemy, taking the honor due to Jehovah’s name alone.
What about the Hebrew translated “reverend” in Psalm 111:9? The form is the Niphal (generally passive) participle of the verb “to fear,” nôrāʾ, hence, “to be feared.” Jehovah’s name is “to be feared” and it is holy.
The Niphal participle appears in 34 verses in the Old Testament. Significant examples include:
Ex. 15:11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Deut. 7:21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible.
Deut. 28:58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD;
Mal. 1:14 But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.
Psa. 47:2 For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.
Psa. 66:3 Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee.
Psa. 66:5 Come and see the works of God: he is terrible in his doing toward the children of men.
Psa. 68:35 O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.
Psa. 76:7 Thou, even thou, art to be feared: and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?
Psa. 76:12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth.
Psa. 89:7 God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.
Psa. 96:4 For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods.
Psa. 99:3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name; for it is holy.
Job 37:22 Fair weather cometh out of the north: with God is terrible majesty.
Dan. 9:4 And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;
Neh. 1:5 And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments:
Neh. 4:14 And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
Neh. 9:32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria unto this day.
1Chr. 16:25 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods.
The strong majority of uses refers to Jehovah as the One who is to be feared / reverenced. An examination of the complete list of texts (Gen. 28:17; Ex. 15:11; 34:10; Deut. 1:19; 7:21; 8:15; 10:17; 28:58; Judg. 13:6; Is. 18:2, 7; Ezek. 1:22; Joel 2:11; 3:4; Hab. 1:7; Zeph. 2:11; Mal. 1:14; 3:23; Psa. 47:3; 66:3, 5; 68:36; 76:8, 13; 89:8; 96:4; 99:3; 111:9; Job 37:22; Dan. 9:4; Neh. 1:5; 4:8; 9:32; 1 Chr. 16:25; note that the Hebrew versification is sometime slightly different than the English) reveals not a solitary text where a godly person, or a priest, or a minister, or anyone of the sort is called “reverend.”
Jehovah is reverend. If you are a Christian minister, you are not reverend.
What about a Catholic priest? There are a small number of texts where “to be feared” or “terrible” has the sense of desolate judgment. Thus, in Habakkuk 1:7 the evil, pagan Babylonians, who come to lay waste, kill, and destroy the Lord’s people, are called “terrible” (Hab 1:7). Likewise, a desolate, life-destroying desert is called a “terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water” (Deut 8:15). So Catholic priests, as representatives of their pagan and Satanic false religion, in the sense that they are pagan, evil, destroyers of God’s people, are “reverend” in the sense that they are actually terrible, are life-destroying like a desolate desert full of serpents and scorpions, and are soul-murderers the way that the pagan Babylonians were “terrible.” After all, the pagan Baylonians are their ancestors as they are part of that great harlot sitting on many waters, the future one-world religion centered in Rome, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth (Revelation 17).
So let Catholic priests call themselves “reverend” or “terrible” if they wish–it is true, albeit not in the way that they intend, but in the same sort of way as when the Pope calls himself “vicar of Christ” he employs a title equivalent in Greek to “anti-Christ” (Latin vicarius = Greek anti).
So if you are a Baptist or a Protestant who claims to fear the true God, don’t call yourself reverend. In the good sense, it is true for the one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, alone–He alone is holy and reverend. In the bad sense, of something genuinely terrible and destructive, it is true of pagan murderers of God’s people, and so, in that sense, an appropriate title for a Roman Catholic priest or of other servants of religions that are drunk “with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Revelation 17:6). You are unworthy of “reverend” in the good sense, and I rather think you don’t want to be called “reverend” or “terrible” in the bad sense.
So Jehovah is “reverend”–Hallelujah–and Catholic priests are “terrible/reverend”–to their everlasting shame. If you preach the true gospel and are a servant of Christ, you are emphatically not “reverend.” So stop calling yourself or others “Rev.” The title is either blasphemy, if intended as a compliment, or a statement that they are pagan enemies of God, in the bad sense.
Spurgeon well commented on Psalm 111:9:
“He sent redemption unto his people.” When they were in Egypt he sent not only a deliverer, but an actual deliverance; not only a redeemer, but complete redemption. He has done the like spiritually for all his people, having first by blood purchased them out of the hand of the enemy, and then by power rescued them from the bondage of their sins. Redemption we can sing of as an accomplished act: it has been wrought for us, sent to us, and enjoyed by us, and we are in very deed the Lord’s redeemed. “He hath commanded his covenant for ever.” His divine decree has made the covenant of his grace a settled and eternal institution: redemption by blood proves that the covenant cannot be altered, for it ratifies and establishes it beyond all recall. This, too, is reason for the loudest praise. Redemption is a fit theme for the heartiest music, and when it is seen to be connected with gracious engagements from which the Lord’s truth cannot swerve, it becomes a subject fitted to arouse the soul to an ecstacy of gratitude. Redemption and the covenant are enough to make the tongue of the dumb sing. “Holy and reverend is his name.” Well may he say this. The whole name or character of God is worthy of profoundest awe, for it is perfect and complete, whole or holy. It ought not to be spoken without solemn thought, and never heard without profound homage. His name is to be trembled at, it is something terrible; even those who know him best rejoice with trembling before him. How good men can endure to be called “reverend” we know not. Being unable to discover any reason why our fellow-men should reverence us, we half suspect that in other men there is not very much which can entitle them to be called reverend, very reverend, right reverend, and so on … we would urge that the foolish custom should be allowed to fall into disuse.
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 111-119, vol. 5 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 4.
–TDR
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