If You Only Had One Book Beside the Bible...
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
“Scripture alone is absolute truth, essential truth, decisive truth, authoritative truth, undiluted truth, eternal, everlasting truth.” – C.H. Spurgeon
Yesterday, we featured a quote by a little remembered 17th century English author and Anglican clergyman by the name of William Gurnall. He is best known for his Christian in Complete Armour, a work published in three volumes in 1655, 1658 and 1662, and based on Ephesians 6:10-20. Considered a classic on spiritual warfare, the book describes in detail the spiritual armor available to a Christian and the purpose of each piece.
Ministers, clerics, and theologians at the time – including Richard Baxter, John Flavel, and Augustus Montague Toplady – widely praised Gurnall’s treatise as did John Newton, the converted slave trader who wrote Amazing Grace. In fact, Newton once said that if he were limited to just one book other than the Bible, it would be Christian in Complete Armour.
Richard Cecil, a leading Evangelical Anglican priest of the 18th and 19th centuries, also held Gurnall’s literary masterpiece in extremely high regard and spent many of the last days of his life reading it. And none other than Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the “Prince of Preachers”, said that Gurnall’s work was "peerless and priceless; every line full of wisdom. The book has been preached over scores of times and is, in our judgment, the best thought-breeder in all our library.”
Now that’s really saying something, considering that Spurgeon maintained an exhaustive library of Christian literature including countless commentaries.
Why did so many great men of God consider Christian in Complete Armour to be so valuable in their private life and public ministry? Simply put, because it was 100% biblical… and because it was 100% biblical, it was also 100% true!
“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” John 17:17 (NKJV)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
Editor’s Note: If I were only allowed one book besides the Bible, it would be Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening, a compilation of 730 daily devotional readings that have ministered to me immensely since I first began reading it in 1990.
