The doctrine of perseverance may also be proved in an inferential way. a. From the doctrine of election. Election does not merely mean that some will be favored with certain external privileges and may be saved, if they do their duty, but . . . Continue reading →
HeidelQuotes
Godfrey: Salvation Sola Fide Vs Salvation By Faith Formed By Love
The medieval church consistently taught that faith, in its essence, was simply or implicitly a mental category or habit to which the believer must assent, fides informis. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Hence if anyone wishes to reduce these words to the form of . . . Continue reading →
Machen: Salvation Is By Grace Alone Through Faith Alone
If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the . . . Continue reading →
Hodge On The Sufficiency Of Scripture And The Development Of Christian Theology
The anti-protestant principles of Dr. Schaff, as it appears to us, are either included in his theory of development, or are its legitimate consequences. That theory he and Dr. Nevin for a time held in common. But it contains antagonistic principles. When . . . Continue reading →
Calvin: Assurance Fills Our Sails
The seducers that had infiltrated the Galatians and corrupted the purity of the gospel…Paul stops here, and says that if we are being forced and obliged to perform this task for God and to enter into this covenant with him, Jesus Christ . . . Continue reading →
Bay Psalm Book On Uninspired Versus Inspired Songs
…must the ordinary gifts of an private man quench the Spirit still speaking to us by the extraordinary gifts of his servant David? —Preface of The Bay Psalm Book (1640) (HT: Bob Godfrey)
The Decline Of Psalmody In The Netherlands: Anabaptists, Remonstrants, And The State Church
In the Roman Catholic church the choir sings and the congregation was silent. Calvin also introduced singing by the congregation, and collected for it a bundle of Psalms of Clement Marot and Beza. He had the tunes composed by Louis Bourgois and . . . Continue reading →
In Depth Of Spirituality The Psalms Excel The Hymns
The Christian Reformed Church holds it as one of its distinctive principles that the psalms are to be used in public worship as the chief manual of praise. There is divine authority for this use of the psalms, as shown by 1 . . . Continue reading →
But Deliver Us From The Evil One
Whoever has God for his friend will find Satan to be his enemy. He receives the name of Satan, first, because he is the adversary of God himself; and next, because he is the adversary of those whom God honors with his . . . Continue reading →
For Statists The Government Is The Hero Of The Narrative
Ever since Hegel or maybe Plato, statists have been telling a story about government in which government itself is the hero in an epic struggle. —Jonah Goldberg
Calvin’s Response To Being Forced To Observe Christmas
Now, I see here today more people that I am accustomed to having at the sermon. Why is that? It is Christmas day. And who told you this? You poor beasts. That is a fitting euphemism for all of you who have . . . Continue reading →
Grace And Consequences
I consider myself a “grace boy.” That is, all the debates that have been on-going in Presbyterian and Reformed circles over sanctification over the past few years, I side with those who emphasize the indicative (who we are by virtue of our . . . Continue reading →
Perkins On Churches And Sects
As for the assemblies of Anabaptists, Libertines, Antinomies, Tritheists, Arians, Samosatenians, they are no Churches of God, but conspiracies of monstrous heretics judicially condemned in the primitive Church, and again by the malice of Satan renewed and revived in this age. The . . . Continue reading →
Tertullian: We Share Everything Except Our Wives
One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods with one another. All things are common among us but our wives. —Tertullian, “The Apology,” cap. 39 in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, . . . Continue reading →
Calvin On Deuteronomy 29:29: God’s Word Is Enough
To me there appears no doubt that, by antithesis, there is a comparison here made between the doctrine openly set forth in the Law, and the hidden and incomprehensible counsel of God, concerning which it is not lawful to inquire…. It is . . . Continue reading →
Peter Martyr On Law And Gospel (Revised)
There be some which divide the holy Scriptures into four parts, and describe some books as well of the Old Testament as of the New to laws, some to histories, some to prophecies, and other some again to wisdom. But it is . . . Continue reading →
In The Middle Of The Slippery Slope
…But lay all that aside for now. I introduce the case because it forces us to focus on the logical implications of abolishing the conjugal understanding of marriage in our law and replacing it with the revisionist idea of marriage as sexual-romantic . . . Continue reading →
The Lord’s Day In Eclipse
The earliest reason given for celebrating Sunday is that it is the day of the resurrection (Ep. of Barnabas, 15.9), but in the Jewish understanding of the week the first day commemorated creation and this idea was taken over even by Gentile . . . Continue reading →
Overturning The Reformation In 1617–18
The government of the Scottish Church was thus completely subverted in its external aspect. The crown was now determined to see whether with equal ease it was possible to introduce the ceremonies of the English Church. James ordered repairs to be made . . . Continue reading →
The Difference Between What We Know And What We Think We Know
…much of what is commonly written on the history and development of the western liturgy is dependent upon reconstructions…. —D. M. Hope, “Liturgical Books” in Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold, ed. The Study of Liturgy (NY: OUP, 1978), 66.