C. H. Spurgeon wrote, ?If I thought it were wrong to be a Baptist, I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right.? C. H. Spurgeon?s Autobiography (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1897). Volume 1, Page 154. Again he said, ?We are Baptists, and we cannot swerve from this matter of discipline. .? Autobiography Volume 2, Page 328. On another occasion he wrote, ?We are Calvinistic Baptists, and have no desire to sail under false colors, neither are we ashamed of our principles; if we were, we would renounce them tomorrow.? The Metropolitan Tabernacle: Its History and Work. (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876). Preface, Page 4.
?We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel under ground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents. Persecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect, yet there has never existed a Government holding Baptist principles which persecuted others; nor, do I believe, any body of Baptists ever held it to be right to put the consciences of others under the control of man. We have ever been ready to suffer, as our martyrologies will prove, but we are not ready to accept any help from the State to prostitute the purity of the Bride of Christ to any alliance with Government, and we will never make the Church, although the Queen, the despot over the consciences of men." Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1861). Volume 7, Page 225.
John Gill said, ?I am a Baptist, and he may call me, if he pleases, a new one, or an old Calvinistic one, or an Antinomian one; it is a very trifle to me.? An Answer to the Birmingham Dialogue-Writer &c. - Part 1. (London: Aaron Ward, 1737). Page 134.
Abraham Booth wrote, ?Our character is fixed. And be it known to all men, we are Strict Baptists. To this character, as before explained, we subscribe with heart and hand.? A Defense of the Baptists &c. (London: E. & C. Dilly, 1778). Page 142.
Arthur W. Pink wrote, ?This is the name which God gave to the first man who He called and commissioned to do any baptizing. He named him ?John the Baptist.? Hence, real Baptists have no reason to be ashamed of or to apologize for the Scriptural name they bear.? ?The Churches of God? Studies in the Scriptures (December, 1927). Page 5.