—By Jon Hoglund. A good “Companion” introduces one to classic texts in a field and to areas of current debate in scholarly literature. Apart from Richard Muller’s monumental Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, there is no such volume for Reformed history and theology from . . . Continue reading →
By David Systsma—Scholars now have a new tool for the early modern religious and philosophical history in its academic context. From the beginning of the Reformation at the University of Wittenberg to the establishment of the Academy of Geneva, schools were integral . . . Continue reading →
I also adduced another passage in which Isaiah exclaims: “‘Hear My words, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given Him for a witness to the . . . Continue reading →
4. And therefore does the Scripture say, “These words the Lord spake to all the assembly of the children of Israel in the mount, and He added no more;” for, as I have already observed, He stood in need of nothing from . . . Continue reading →
He [‘Christ’] suffered these things, not for His own sake but for ours. ‘Thou has made Thy wrath to rest upon me’ [Psalm 88:7, 16] . . . He suffered for us, and bore in Himself the wrath that was the penalty . . . Continue reading →
It is utterly unwarranted, moreover, to conclude from the pedagogical arrangement of the Institutes that Calvin “deliberately subverts any chronological” or other ordering of salvation “by not only putting sanctification first, followed by justification, but by placing predestination last” on the ground . . . Continue reading →
I. SUMMARY In a post (HT: Aquila Report) dated Friday 9 August, Bill Evans raises the question whether there is in Reformed theology what he calls “pervasive covenantalism” or an over emphasis or imbalanced emphasis in Reformed theology on covenant. He points to . . . Continue reading →
Born in the small fortified city of Heusden as the son of Paulus Voet and Maria de Jongeling, Gisbertus (or Gijsbert) Voetius’s early years were dominated by the experience of war. Heusden was on the front line in both a military and . . . Continue reading →
For the [Mosiac] covenant was a legal covenant solemnly agreed, by which the people were obligated to present, by their own strength, perfect obedience to the Law (Matthew 22). Since the Law is the eternal rule of righteousness in the divine mind . . . Continue reading →
Too often modern evangelicals, especially since the middle of the 19th century, have tended to view the medieval church not so much as part of the great stream of the history of the church but as an exception. Evangelicals may know the . . . Continue reading →
D. G. Hart’s latest is just out: Calvinism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). It just arrived in the post so I’ve not had time to read it and we have a dinner guest arriving any minute. I hope to . . . Continue reading →
The grace and mercy of our good God and heavenly Father, and the love of His Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, be with you, my dearly beloved. Catherine Ramon, my dear and beloved wife and sister in our Lord Jesus Christ: your . . . Continue reading →
XIII. Third, as to place, the question can be understood in two ways. It may be understood definitely concerning the certain and constant seat of the church (such as Rome is) and in that continued series of bishops or pastors which the . . . Continue reading →
VIII. Fifth, the injustice of the demand appears also clearly in this—that they treacherously corrupt the writings of the fathers and endeavor to destroy whatever of candor remains and extinguish all memory of antiquity as far as they are able (most base . . . Continue reading →
V. This Doctrine Of Predestination Is Not In Harmony With The Confessions Of The Reformed Churches With a minimum of contention or even trivial objection, it may be appropriately doubted whether this doctrine agrees with either the Belgic confession or the Heidelberg . . . Continue reading →
For some time the Federal Visionists have been arguing that no one should criticize the Federal Vision until the church courts ruled on it. This is a strange argument since, on that basis Luther couldn’t have replied to Erasmus (the Augsburg wouldn’t . . . Continue reading →
Willem van Asselt, Irena Backus, John Witte Jr, Carl Trueman and others (including John Fesko and myself) are among those contributing to A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy by Brill. If you’re interested in the academic study of the history of Reformed theology . . . Continue reading →
For a fellow who has been dead since 1564 and for a movement that, socially considered, is little more than a demographic blip (about 500,000 people in North America) Calvin and Calvinism continue to receive a remarkable amount of attention in the . . . Continue reading →
I. Although from what has been said in the preceding question concerning the obscurity of the church, it is easy to answer the proposed question (for if the church can sometimes be so obscured and concealed as to the nowhere conspicuous on . . . Continue reading →
The question is not whether reason is the instrument by which or the medium through which we can be drawn to faith. For we acknowledge that reason can be both: the former indeed always and everywhere; the later with regard to presupposed . . . Continue reading →