Nothing within man, and nothing that man can do, either in nature, or by grace, concurreth to the act of justification before God, as any cause thereof, either efficient, material, formal, or final, but faith alone; all other gifts and graces, as . . . Continue reading →
Blog Archives
Goodwin: Faith Is The Alone Condition Of The Covenant Of Grace
When we are in the state of salvation, faith doth all; for whenas all graces else would soon be overcome and cast out again by lusts, and would soon be tripped up from off their standing, faith is able to keep its . . . Continue reading →
Goodwin: Faith Does It All
Faith doth all in us, till it hath brought us to salvation. It carries along this great venture of a man’s soul safe to heaven, and leaves it not till it hath put it into Christ’s hands in heaven, till itself ends . . . Continue reading →
Witsius: Works Are Necessary Effects And Evidences Of Salvation
For because Paul had taught, that a man is justified by faith without works, hence some inferred, that in whatever manner a man live, it, equally suffices, that he persuade himself that Christ is his Saviour. Which they could have inferred with . . . Continue reading →
Berkhof: Perseverance Is By Grace Alone Through Faith Alone
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 →
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 →
Tradionalism Was Never Going To Hold
Many years before Obergefell, same-sex marriage activists accurately identified the underbelly of their opponents’ political and cultural position: Most support for “traditional marriage” was not based on a sophisticated and principled conviction, but rather the social intuition that supporting marriage-as-it-has-always-been was the . . . 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 →