This often quoted text is so plain. Salvation is all of God and all of grace. It is so straightforward that we have to ask, “What can be clearer in the Bible than the doctrines of grace?” Even the philosopher and politician Lord Francis Bacon had to confess it.

One day a liberal Anglican Minister called with Lord Bacon. Bacon was in his study reading John Calvin’s Christian Institutes. When the minister entered Bacon said, "You have caught me reading John Calvin. He was indeed a man of great parts, profound sense, and vast learning. He handles the doctrines of grace in a very mastery manner." Shocked the man replied, "Doctrines of grace! It is those doctrines that have set all mankind together by the ears." "I am surprised to hear you say so," answered Lord Bacon, "you profess to believe and to preach Christianity. Those doctrines are certainly the doctrines of the Bible, and if I believe the Bible, I must believe them; and let me seriously tell you, that the greatest miracle in the world is, the subsistence of Christianity, and its continued preservation as a religion when the preaching of it is committed to the care of such unchristian wretches as you."

Spurgeon said the following in his sermons.

“Calvinism is the Gospel.”

“Calvinism did not spring from Calvin. We believe that it sprang from the great Founder of all truth.”