J. I. Packer is a significant figure in a variety of circles. He is one of the last voices representing that generation of British evangelicalism that had roots in the Reformation, that was articulate, warm, and evangelical in the best sense of . . . Continue reading →
France. As may be gathered from the above account, the influence of Amyraut was constantly on the increase between 1637 and 1659. At first, only a few provinces and the Church of Paris supported him, and there was resolute opposition in many . . . Continue reading →
In 1655 two works appeared in print in Amsterdam from the pen of Parisian pastors who had supported Amyraut from the start: David Blondel (1590–1655) produced a very partisan account of the course of events in the controversy, with supporting documents subjoined, . . . Continue reading →
In 1641, Amyraut took the pen to defend Calvin’s view of reprobation, which had been severely criticized in an anonymous work. In this volume, titled Doctrinae J. Calvini de Absoluto Reprobationis Decreto Defensio, Amyraut took occasion to reassert covertly his main positions . . . Continue reading →
1. Naturally enough, in the explanations they gave, Amyraut and Testard sought to conform their presentation and language as closely as they could to the traditional Reformed views without making an outright disavowal of their previously printed sentiments. It would be difficult . . . Continue reading →
There is a phrase in journalism called “burying the lead” (or, since about 1979, the cloying variant lede). The lead (lede) is the paragraph in which the most important, salient facts are contained. In the old days (c. 1975), the writer was . . . Continue reading →
In Calvin, these two perspectives are still connected with each other, but in Reformed theology they soon split apart, and both developed in a one-sided direction. Under the influence of Socinianism and Remonstrantism, Cartesianism and Amyraldism, there sprang up the neonomian view . . . Continue reading →
The interest of the debate to us lies in the revelation which it gives us of the presence in the Assembly of an influential and able, but apparently small, body of men whose convictions lay in the direction of the modified Calvinism . . . Continue reading →
According to the common doctrine of Augustinians, as expressed in the Westminster Catechism, “God, having … elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring . . . Continue reading →
The Death of Death is a solid book, made up of detailed exposition and close argument, and requires hard study, as Owen fully realised; a cursory glance will not yield much. (“READER…. If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a . . . Continue reading →
A learned man of late, out of hatred unto the Spirit of prayer, or prayer as his gift, hath endeavoured to deprive the church of God of the whole benefit and comfort of this promise (Amyrald. Præfat. in Psal.) for he contends . . . Continue reading →
If Mr. Baxter go on with his intentions about a tract concerning universal redemption, perhaps we may have these things cleared; and yet, we must tell him beforehand, that if he draw forth nothing on that subject but what is done by . . . Continue reading →
VI. Those of our ministers who defend universal grace yield to this opinion, if not entirely yet in a great measure. For as they hold a universal philanthropy (philanthrōpian) and love of God towards the human race, so they think Christ was . . . Continue reading →
XXVII. The grace of God and the merit of Christ are not opposed, but subordinated because they are viewed here in different respects (kat’ allo kai allo): grace in respect of us, both in the giving of the surety and in the . . . Continue reading →
It is possible if the effects of predestination are considered together with one another, that one may be the cause of another. But they cannot be the causes of the divine purpose. For calling, which is the effect of predestination, is the . . . Continue reading →
In the well-researched and written volume, Calvin Meets Voltaire: The Clergy of Geneva during the Age of Enlightenment, 1685-1798, Eighteenth-Century Studies Series (Ashgate: 2014), Jennifer Powell McNutt argued that there was more continuity, than has sometimes been thought, between 18th-century Genevan theology, piety, . . . Continue reading →
William Perkins (1558–1602) is one of the most important of the English Reformed writers of the late 16th and early 17th centuries and yet he is among the least read in the modern era. One reason for this is because his works . . . Continue reading →
Before I come to the consideration of these words, a doubt must be resolved. For some men may say that this is epistle is corrupted because these words are wanting in sundry translations and editions of the Bible. And Jerome says that . . . Continue reading →
But the chief thing is, that Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, has so irradiated your mind with the light of his Gospel, that you understand that the true way of governing the Church is no other than what is to be derived . . . Continue reading →
Over against the magisterial Reformers and the Roman Catholic theologians of the day, theologians like Michael Servetus, Giovanni Blandrata, Valentine Gentile, and Laelius and Faustus Socinus examined the text of Scripture in a strictly linguistic and non-traditionary exegesis and found no doctrine . . . Continue reading →