Basil Manly, Sr. was another of the major architects of Southern Baptist life. Educator, preacher, administrator, and denominationalist, Manly played a strategic role in the development of the major concepts contributing to the uniqueness of Southern Baptists. Having an older brother, Charles, who became governor of North Carolina, and a younger brother, Matthew, who became Justice of the Supreme Court of that state, and himself manifesting no small gifts in several endeavors, both educational and ecclesiastical, no man of his age possessed greater contextual insights or sympathetic gifts to discern the needs of the Baptists of the South in the mid-nineteenth century.

Born in 1798 in Chatham County, North Carolina, Manly graduated from the College of South Carolina in 1821. After approximately four years at Edgefield, South Carolina, he accepted the pastorate of First Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina. While there, in addition to satisfying the remarkable demands of such a church field, Manly aided in the establishing of a Baptist newspaper for the South and led with others in the founding of Furman University.

(abbreviated from a biographical sketch of Basil Manly, Sr. by Dr. Tom Nettles, www.founders.org)

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A Biographical Sketch of Basil Manly, Sr.

Fire From Light - Part 1

When the excellence and majesty of God's revealed glory, the truth of His revealed word, the beauty of holiness, and the perfection of Christ as Savior capture and purify the mind and heart of a preacher, the result will be a fire in his bones and fire in the pulpit. Concentrated light makes fire.

Fire From Light - Part 2

I have been asked more than once--What is the greatest problem of Sunday Morning Christianity? My answer is this: "A host of people who gather at the 11 o'clock hour are trying to worship an unrevealed Christ." Christ must be revealed to the heart by the Word and the Spirit.

Basil Manly and the Bible Doctrine of Inspiration

(Founders Review by Timothy George) Significantly, Manly did not call his book the "Baptist Doctrine of Inspiration." It was the "Bible Doctrine" he sought to expound. Manly was loyal to his denomination, but on this issue he realized that Baptists stood shoulder to shoulder with all evangelical, Bible-believing Christians as champions of the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura, "Scripture alone." For this reason his book appealed not only to Baptist believers in America but to earnest seekers throughout the Christian world.

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Sermon notes on Justification