Charles Simeon's - Don't Be A System Christian

The great Cambridge theologian and preacher, Charles Simeon, told his students not to be system to

"Be a Bible Christian and not a system Christian."

How needed this counsel is today, a day in which a Christian's orthodoxy is assessed by whether or not he adheres to a theological system, however revered.

Not only this, but it depends upon which system a man prefers.  If he adheres to the Westminster system of theology (with its theological children and siblings), then he is truly orthodox.  However, if he subscribes the Three Forms of Unity (Canons of Dort, Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession), all thoroughly reformed confessional standards, then he is regarded as sub-orthodox.  How strange.

For many 'reformed' men, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion do not even appear on the Richter scale of confessional correctness, but nevertheless teach reformed and biblical doctrine.  This gets rid of people like Jim Packer, Alec Moyter, Dick Lucas, etc.

These doctrinal standards are all slightly different in their theological emphasis but they all are reformed in emphasis.

DMLJ was not sold on Westminster theology, so he ought to be written off as a reformed man, but he is not.  What some reformed men do is that because his major publisher is the Banner of Truth, the unthinking assumption is that he holds strictly to its doctrinal standards.  This is manifestly untrue. 

There is a great tendency within the reformed constituency to assess a man's theology with the man-made confessions of history and not with the Scriptures themselves.  The irony is that a man can be totally faithful to Scripture in his theology but not in total compliance with a confessional standard, yet it is the man-made standard that is the canon for assessing the situation.

Despite the 'rule of faith' for many churches and denominations which claim that the supreme standard of this church is the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and that confessions are subordinate standards.  In reality and in practice, however, the reverse is rather the case.  There is urgent learning required by ministers as to how they might maintain the supremacy of the Scriptures while having their confessional standards.  Confessions are good and helpful but only in so far as they reflect the clear teaching of Scripture, which is accept as perspicuous.  When scholastic philosophy is used to reinterpret clear Scriptural statements, such as , Jn.1:29; 3:16; 1 Jn.2:2; Heb.2:9; 2 Pet.3:9; etc, there is a serious problem afoot.  Where a man in convinced in his heart that the confessional standards of his church are wrong in some respect or another, then he is obliged by his ordination vows to submit conscience to no other authority than that of Christ speaking in the Scriptures.

I appeal to all evangelical ministers not to be system Christians but Bible Christians. 

I think Simeon has got it just right - "Be a Bible Christian and not a system Christian."