Ride Us Like a Nightmare

“Some seem to think that we poor souls, who are the Puritanic school, are ‘cabin’d, cribb’d, confined’ by harsh dogmas, from which we would gladly escape. They imagine that we have to check every rising aspiration of our nobler selves, so as to preserve the tyranny of a certain iron system. John Calvin is supposed to ride us like a nightmare, and we lead dogs’ lives under his lash. Brethren, it is far otherwise” (Charles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry, pp. 368-369).