The end of the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom was a period when the authority and the sufficiency of Scripture were under vigorous attack. The doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement faced ridicule, not from outsiders but from ministers of the church. During what became known as the Down-Grade Controversy, Charles Spurgeon recognized that God was being robbed of His glory and that men and women were being robbed of their hope. He wrote, “Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith.”1
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