Mitchell and McBeth

In 1987 Leon McBeth wrote "that Baptist commitment to religious liberty might be weakening. Baptists who bore the scars of religious persecution struggled to attain religious liberty; it remains to be seen whether Baptists who live in comfort can preserve it." -- H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage, Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1987, p. 282

“I can do all thing through Christ, which strengtheneth me.” “without Me ye can do nothing.”
"Ye can neither pray nor sing in the spirit of true worship, preach or do any other Christian duty, only as Christ strengthens you for the work. Salvation is by grace, and grace carries its own conditions and qualifications in itself; it demands nothing of its subjects but what it furnishes. It writes the law of the new covenant in the new heart, and puts it in the mind and gives the poor soul a will and desire to do the very things commanded to be done. And when he has done all that is commanded, he is taught by the Spirit and grace of God, as well as by written word, to feel and say, 'we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do'." -- W. M. Mitchell, The Gospel Messenger, Vol. 19, No. 5, for May, 1897