One of the goals of Office Hours is to let the listener know about the work of the faculty in the classroom and in the study. For more than a decade I have had the privilege of editing a series of English . . . Continue reading →
The Marrow of Modern Divinity was regarded by the orthodox Reformed, in the 17th century, as a good summary of the orthodox view of law and gospel, justification, sanctification, and the third (normative) use of the law in the life of the Christian. . . . Continue reading →
John Calvin (1509-64) was one of the most significant figures in the history of the West. He was among the major Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century. He contributed significantly to the Reformed wing of the Reformation. He was an industrious Bible . . . Continue reading →
There have always been three main types of Christian eschatology: chiliasm (historic premillennialism), postmillennialism, and amillennialism. From about the middle of the 19th century there developed subsets of chiliasm (e.g., pre-tribulational premillennialism etc). The same cannot be said of the nomenclature used to describe the views. Continue reading
While it is from the Law (about which we disputed above) that we come to know the contagion and defect of our spiritual illness, that is, of sin, it is from the Gospel that we learn the remedy for it. …In the . . . Continue reading →
B. B. Warfield died of an apparent heart attack on February 16, 1921. I thought it might a fitting tribute to talk about Warfield bibliography. One hundred years after his death, Warfield’s collected works are still readily available: The ten-volume “Oxford” set . . . Continue reading →
“Faith therefore justifies because it is an instrument to apprehend and apply that which justifies, namely, Christ and His obedience. As the Israelites stung of fiery serpents were cured, so are we saved (John 3:14). The Israelites did nothing at all, but . . . Continue reading →
On sale now at Reformation Heritage Books. Beza is one of our most important and yet most under appreciated writers.
…Such a picture of God’s relation to the creation is undoubtedly striking, combining as it does aspects of classical theism, theological aesthetics, panentheism, and the doctrines of continuous creation and occasionalism (about which, more presently). Far from being the product of some . . . Continue reading →
If there is a prevailing commonplace about the Romantics it is to associate them with a close and tender regard for nature. And it is true that the relating of human being to being generally considered was so central in their minds, . . . Continue reading →
Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) is America’s most famous theologian and perhaps its most famous philosopher too. He is an important and influential figure and worth seeking to understand for those reasons alone. We should think about Edwards for other reasons, however, He is . . . Continue reading →
Amyraut, and all who follow him, maintain to have found a middle position whereby the offense of the true doctrine can be removed. They hold to the existence of two decrees. One is a universal decree whereby God, being graciously disposed towards . . . Continue reading →
11. What is the view of this subject entertained by the French Protestant theologians, Camero, Amyraut, and others? These theological professors at Saumur, during the second quarter of the seventeenth century, taught that God, 1st. Decreed to create man. 2d. To permit . . . Continue reading →
One of the more important debates that rocked the French Reformed Church in the 17th century was that concerning the doctrine of Moises Amyraut (1596–1664). He was part of a broader movement to revise Reformed theology among the French in a variety . . . Continue reading →
In the Summer of 1570 the Reformed Reformation in Heidelberg faced a crisis. Several of the Zwinglians, who had sided with Erastus against the Calvinist order in the Palatinate, were perceived by their Calvinist opponents to be arguing for something that looked . . . Continue reading →
I stumbled upon this passage whilst looking for something else. It is an excellent summary of what was widely held and taught from the first half of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th century. There are more than a few Reformed, evangelical, and Lutheran folk who continue to repeat this narrative and it is one which I have been trying to overturn. Why? Because it is simply untrue. Continue reading →
The Synod of Dort is one of the most important events in the history of the Reformed Churches. From 1618–16 delegates from the Reformed Churches the Netherlands, the British Isles, and Europe attended (or, in the case of France, were prevented by . . . Continue reading →
Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75) was Hulrych Zwingli’s successor as the Antistes (Chief Preacher) in Zürich and an influential figure in the transition between the first- and second-generation Reformers. He wrote the Second Helvetic Confession in 1561 as a private document but at the request . . . Continue reading →
Few Bible interpreters in the history of the church have been as prolific and influential as John Calvin (1509–64). Love or hate him, one cannot ignore him. He wrote commentaries upon much of Scripture. As a humanist, he was a careful, sensitive, . . . Continue reading →
“Pagan philosophy knows something of God as creator from the order of nature but, ultimately, because of sin, fails to move from that knowledge to true religion and idolatrously confuses creature and Creator. Scriptural revelation, therefore, is necessary for us to have . . . Continue reading →