tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-148738912024-02-20T08:37:06.917-05:00Genuine Historical CalvinismDo you think you know what Genuine Historical Calvinism is? You might be surprised.
Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-27040248944211612162020-09-23T21:23:00.005-04:002020-10-04T13:50:15.301-04:00Axe of Magnanimity<span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">"This fall permitted commeth not to pass but God willing it, neither doth it come to pass contrariwise or otherwise than God permitteth, neither can it any further be then he doth permit. Yet the will of God is not the cause of the fall, but the will of man left unto itself by God, and moved by the suggestion of Satan; which will appear by this similitude:"<span><a name='more'></a></span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Here (yet again) is <a href="http://www.calvinism.us/2015/07/perkins-on-working-permission.html#more" target="_blank">an influential Puritan Reformed man</a>, asserting that the Woodsman does not actually swing the axe, but that the axe swings by itself.</span><hr /><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">"I build a house subject to change and falling, which notwithstanding would continue many years, if it might be free from the annoyance of winds: yea, if I would but underprop it when the storm cometh, it would continue stable. But as soon as the winds begin to rage I do not underprop it, and it is my </span><span style="color: #2b00fe;">will not to underprop it, because it is my pleasure so to do; thereupon the house being weather beaten, falleth down. I see the fall, and in part I will it, because now when I could very easily have hindered the fall, yet I would not. And although thus far I do will the fall, in so much as it is my will not to hinder it, yet the cause of the fall is not to be imputed unto me, that did not underprop it, but to the winds which cast it down."</span></span></div><div><div><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Thus, the cumulative wear and tear on the self-swinging and oft-used axe.</span><hr /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times;">
"So God leaving Adam unto himself that he might be proved by temptation, and that it might appear what the creature is able to do, the Creator ceasing for a time to help and guide, is not to be accounted the the cause of this fall. For he did not incline the mind to sin, he did not infuse any corruption, neither did he withdraw any gift which he did bestow in the creation: only it pleased him to deny or not to confer confirming grace. The proper cause of the fall was the devil attempting our overthrow, and Adam's will, which when it began to be proved by temptations, did not desire God's assistance, but voluntarily bent itself to fall away" (William Perkins, <i>Predestination</i>).</span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
So, it appears that the axe is able to lift and swing itself as if it were not a created axe, but the Creator Woodsman. Or, if the axe insists on maintaining that it remains an axe, then apparently it is the axe who determines when and where it will swing. Of course, so long as the axe is able to boast against Him that heweth therewith, it may grudgingly concede some form of restraint to the woodsman. What a display of humility and generosity.</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? [or] shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake [itself] against them that lift it up, [or] as if the staff should lift up [itself, as if it were] no wood” (Isaiah 10:15).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
And just in case anybody was wondering, Perkins answers in the affirmative.
</span></div></div>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-88230740033051239082020-09-23T16:39:00.002-04:002020-09-23T16:39:45.234-04:00Charnock on faith as a condition<span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">"The covenant of grace doth NOT run, 'I will be your God, IF you will be my people; 'BUT 'I will be their God, and they SHALL be my people;' 'I will betroth thee to me forever; I will betroth thee to me forever; I will say, Thou art my people, and they shall say, Thou art my God.' His everlasting purpose is to write his laws in the hearts of the elect. He puts a CONDITION to his covenant of grace, the CONDITION OF FAITH, and he resolves to work that CONDITION in the hearts of the elect; and, therefore, believers have two immutable pillars for their support...these are election, or the standing counsel of God, and the covenant of grace. He will not revoke the covenant, and blot the names of his elect out of the book of life" (Stephen Charnock, <i>Existence and Attributes of God</i>). [Capital letter emphasis mine--CD.]</span><hr/><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a name='more'></a></span></span><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Here is Charnock demonstrating his ignorance of the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel, and his ignorance of Christ as the end of the law for righteousness (cf. Romans 10:1-4). The SOLE CONDITION for salvation (Charnock's phrase is 'covenant of grace') is Christ's propitiating blood and imputed righteousness; His fulfillment of the PENAL and PRECEPTIVE demands of God's law and justice. God regenerates (saves) His people unconditionally, and an immediate and inevitable FRUIT (or RESULT) of that is FAITH. To CONFOUND or CONFUSE FRUITS with CONDITIONS of salvation is to CONFUSE salvation conditioned on Christ ALONE, with salvation CONDITIONED on the sinner (whether "graciously" enabled or not). Romans 11:6 is written PRECISELY against the type of doctrine that Charnock articulates in this quote. </span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-52128978863632230642020-09-13T03:23:00.000-04:002020-09-13T03:23:07.244-04:00Charles Simeon (1759-1836)<span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">In 1989 at the “Bethlehem Conference for Pastors,” John Piper presented a biography entitled, “Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering: Meditations on the Life of Charles Simeon.” Charles Simeon was an Anglican Calvinist of sorts (though he did not refer to himself as a “Calvinist”). In Curt Daniel’s, <i>The History and Theology of Calvinism</i> Simeon is not listed among the 18th century Anglican Calvinists (those listed are Toplady, Newton, and Whitefield). [This is not an endorsement of Daniel, Piper, and Clifford as true Christians, but they are useful for presenting theological history.]<span><a name='more'></a></span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Piper:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“But he had little sympathy for uncharitable Calvinists … An example of how he lived out this counsel is seen in the way he conversed with the elderly John Wesley.”</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Alan C. Clifford writes:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“Other Calvinists like Rowland Hill and Augustus Toplady were thoroughly hostile to Wesley, but a notable exception was the moderately Calvinist Charles Simeon of Cambridge, whom Wesley met in 1784” 31 (<i>Atonement and Justification</i>: English Evangelical Theology 1640-1790 -- An Evaluation, p. 56).</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
31 For Simeon (1759-1836) see DNB [Dictionary of National Biography –CD]. Wesley recorded the meeting on 20 Dec. (Journal, vii. 39), but Simeon gave a full account of the conversation in <i>Horae homileticae</i> (1832), i. xvii f. See also Tyerman, <i>Life of Wesley</i>, iii. 510-11; H.C.G. Moule, <i>Charles Simeon</i>, (1892), 100-1; J.I. Packer, <i>Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God</i> (London, 1961), 13-14.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Clifford, from the same book, quoting Charles Simeon (p. 81):</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">“To say that he died for the elect only, is neither scriptural nor true. He died for all: according as it is elsewhere said: ‘we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all …’ (2 Corinthians 5:14,15) If all be not ultimately saved by his death, it is not owing to any want of sufficiency in his sacrifice to procure acceptance for them, but to their own impenitence and unbelief … Here … we see the propriety of interesting ourselves with God in behalf of all, since for all without exception did Jesus die.88"</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">88 <i>Horae homileticae </i>(London, 1833), xviii. 501-2.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span>Of course it IS by a want of sufficiency since in Simeon's view the SOLE ground of acceptance with God is NOT the</span><span> sacrifice of Christ, but the sacrifice of the self-righteous wicked (contrast Proverbs 15:8 with Ephesians 5:2). Simeon speaks here by the deleterious spirit of antichrist (cf. 1 John 4:1-6) who has blinded him from seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:3-6). Ironically, Simeon exhibits unbelief by his self-righteous rejection of the cross-work of Jesus Christ as the SOLE ground of acceptance before God. He is not submitted to the righteousness of Christ as the SOLE ground of acceptance; he is ignorant of Christ as the end [Greek: <i>telos</i>] of the law for righteousness (Romans 10:1-4).</span>Charles Simeon believes that Jesus Christ died for those who will perish under God’s wrath. He has the temerity and unmitigated gall to say this would not be “owing to any want of sufficiency in his sacrifice to procure acceptance for them.” Simeon’s blasphemous words carry a multitude of necessary implications. Here are a few of those implications:</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? [Let it not be]: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged" (Romans 3:3-4).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Simeon steps up to this text and says, YES -- their unbelief WILL nullify the faith of God and make it of none effect. He would say no, of course. But he can only say that because he believes that acceptance with God is NOT procured by the sacrifice of Christ ALONE, but requires the sinner to establish his own righteousness to make it efficacious (Romans 10:3). Let God be true, and Charles Simeon a liar.</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
What does it mean to confess the Lord Jesus? One thing this confession includes is that Jesus is God (John 8:58; Revelation 19:11-16). If Jesus was not God He could not have furnished a sacrifice of sufficient value to meet the demands of God’s law and justice. And this is EXACTLY what Charles Simeon denies. He does NOT believe that the God-Man Mediator’s death on the cross was sufficient in and of itself to SATISFY God’s law and justice. Simeon believes that the sinner’s impenitence and unbelief cannot be overcome by the Almighty God who is the DESTROYER of the devil’s works and the DELIVERER of those children whom the Father gave to Him (Hebrews 2:13-15). Charles Simeon believes that Jesus Christ died for those who will perish under God’s wrath. And he dares to say this was not “owing to any want of sufficiency in his sacrifice to procure acceptance for them.”</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Presumably Simeon would call Jesus “The Mighty God” by name. Yet this great name is denounced and denied when he affirms that for those in hell He was crucified.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">What does it mean to “believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead,” and how does Charles Simeon deny this confession?</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
God raised Christ from the dead. Why? What did this raising from the dead signify? It was proof that God the Father was TOTALLY SATISFIED with the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He was totally satisfied because Jesus Christ accomplished exactly what He set out to accomplish, which was the full salvation and deliverance of everyone for whom He died. Jesus Christ fully satisfied the demands of God’s law and justice. Had Jesus Christ NOT fully accomplished salvation and procured acceptance for everyone for whom He died, He would NOT have conquered death, and He would have remained in the grave. Charles Simeon affirms the antecedent. He does NOT believe Christ’s death fully accomplished salvation and procured acceptance for everyone for whom He died. Thus Simeon’s confession denies that Jesus destroyed and conquered death and affirms that He remained in the grave. And to remain in the grave is to undergo corruption and remain accursed (cf. Acts 2:27; Galatians 3:10-13). To believe like Calvinist Charles Simeon that Jesus Christ died for those in hell (in whatever "sense") is to affirm that Jesus is a curse. It is to be woefully and abysmally ignorant of the ONLY righteousness God accepts (Romans 10:1-4).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">“Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and [that] no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).</span><hr /></span><div><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">"And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, [now] no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another [psalm], Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: But he, whom God raised again, saw no corruption" (Acts 13:32-37).</span></span></div><div><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
The reason Jesus Christ could NOT be held by death and not see corruption is that He had totally, absolutely defeated death in fully atoning for the sins of EVERYONE FOR WHOM HE DIED. The real confession of Charles Simeon is that the so-called “elect” are enabled and animated by the spirit of antichrist to ADD TO and ASSIST the work of Christ to give it a supposed “efficacy.”</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
If there is or will be even ONE PERSON for whom Christ died who is suffering or will suffer the second death, then death was NOT defeated, and Jesus Christ was NOT raised as the victor over death. To truly believe resurrection is to believe the full, accomplished atonement of Jesus Christ with which God the Father was fully satisfied that was effectual to save everyone whom Christ represented. God the Father exalted Jesus Christ at His right hand as the Savior of His people who made full purification of their sins. There would have been no resurrection and no exaltation had there been even one person for whom Christ died who would end up in hell. And this wonderful truth is what Charles Simeon and all who believe like him deny.</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where [is] thy sting? O grave, where [is] thy victory? The sting of death [is] sin; and the strength of sin [is] the law. But thanks [be] to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
"Grace [be] to you and peace [from] God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father: To whom [be] glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Galatians 1:3-5).</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, [it is] evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed [is] every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:10-14).</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span>Simeon’s is the type of insidious Calvinism that affirms that Jesus died for the reprobate in a “different sense” than He died for the elect. In this particular Calvinistic view, the death of Christ is NOT the SOLE grounds of procured acceptance with God. </span><br /></span><hr /><br /></div>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-64156558865395212242020-09-10T00:29:00.004-04:002020-09-10T00:32:55.204-04:00Influence of John Knox<span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">This is not a promotion of John Knox as a true Christian. This post is simply an addition to the archive of the "history of theology" (though I may make comments or applications on this history).<hr /> James Walker writes concerning Knox's influence:</span><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">
"Far from being the mere iconoclast, he was also the great teacher of his countrymen. The first Confession of Faith, the First Book of Discipline (in its magnificent comprehensiveness, one of the most remarkable compositions of a great time); both of them chiefly the work of Knox. [His] long and elaborate treatise on Predestination, in which the doctrines of grace and of the divine sovereignty are so vigorously...[and] so wisely asserted and maintained. [This gives] Knox a high place among theologians; and at any rate, they have been greatly influential in giving direction to the theological thinking of our country" (James Walker, 1821-1891; <i>The theology and theologians of Scotland</i>: chiefly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries).</span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Regarding Knox, Dr. Curt Daniel writes:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
[On the 1560 Scots Confession] "…mainly the work of John Knox. The popular story is that he wrote it in only 4 days. It is a lovely and powerful confession, full of beauty and strength. It is second only to the Westminster Standards in influence in Scottish theology" (Curt Daniel, <i>History and Theology of Calvinism</i>, p. 34).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Daniel further notes:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“John Knox (1514-1572). Scotland. Former [Roman Catholic] priest, became the leader of the Scottish Reformation. A fiery preacher and courageous opponent of Romanist apostacy and tyranny. Spent [1.5] years as galley slave. Studied under Calvin (1553-1559). Main author of the Scots Confession (1560). Wrote History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland and A Treatise on Predestination” (Curt Daniel, <i>History and theology of Calvinism</i> in the appendices section titled: Heroes of the reformation).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">In the first quote of this post, James Walker noted the remarkable nature of John Knox's First Book of Discipline. Gordon J. Wenham and William E. Heth's <i>Jesus And Divorce</i> contains a massive bibliography that lists David L. Smith’s "Divorce and Remarriage: From the Early Church To John Wesley." Smith writes concerning Knox:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“John Knox, the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism, was very much like his mentor, John Calvin, in his stance on divorce. In his First Book of Discipline (1560), he noted that marriage, once lawfully contracted, could not be terminated unless adultery had occurred. Like Calvin, he deplored the failure of civil authorities to execute adulterers. The church was to excommunicate such people and set the innocent party free to marry again. Upon the repentance of the guilty party, however, forgiveness was to be granted and, ‘if they cannot remain continent, … we cannot forbid them to use the remedy ordained by God (i.e. marriage).'[56] Knox realized that such a position was far from perfect but, with his colleagues, he offered it ‘as the best counsel God giveth unto us in so doubtsome a case.'[57]”</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
[56] John Knox’s <i>History of the Reformation in Scotland</i> (ed. William Croft Dickinson; London: Thos. Nelson, 1949) 2:318.</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
[57] <i>Ibid</i>., 2:319.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Apparently the failure of the civil authorities to put adulterers to death justifies a fanciful, creative, cavalier, and contemptuous treatment of Romans 7:1-3.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Evidently the members of this Reformed brotherhood are the servants of corruption, strengthening the hands of adulterers, inventing facinorous fictions in order to retain their serpentine hold (2 Peter 2:18-19; cf. see <i><a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/wickedwestminarticle.pdf" target="_blank">The Wicked Westminster Confession</a></i>, Of Marriage and Divorce, 24.5).</span><hr /><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
"I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah" (Jeremiah 23:14).</span><hr />
</div>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-8664018592936404382020-09-09T22:13:00.001-04:002020-09-09T22:13:20.986-04:00Invincible Ignorance of Infants<span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;">“being regenerated, not by corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the living Word of God, and remaining forever. Because all flesh [is] as grass, and all [the] glory of men as [the] flower of grass; the grass was dried, and its flower fell out, but [the] Word of [the] Lord remains forever. And this is the Word announced as gospel to you” (1 Peter 1:23-25).</span><div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span style="color: red; font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Peter, being borne along by God the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), writes of those who have been regenerated through the incorruptible Word of God -- this incorruptible Word being announced as gospel to them.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Here is Herman Witsius asserting by force that infants are regenerated by something OTHER THAN the incorruptible Word of God’s gospel:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“The seed of regeneration is the word of God. For thus: 1 Pet, 1:23, ‘born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,’ διὰ λόγου ζῶντος Θεοῦ, καὶ μένοντος εἱς τον αἰῶνα which may be translated, ‘by the word of God, who liveth and abideth for ever;’ or, ‘by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.’ <u>But this seed does not operate always in the same manner: for adult persons are born again by the word of God </u>laying before them the deformity, horror, and misery of their natural life, or rather of their living death; and at the same time, the excellence of that spiritual life, of which Christ is the author, fountain, and pattern; pressing them also, by the most powerful exhortations, that, denying all carnal lusts and appetites, they may give themselves up to be new moulded and formed by the Spirit of God…<u>But the case is otherwise with elect infants, being incapable of teaching and persuasion. If they also be thought to be regenerated by the seed of the word, it is to be understood, not of the word externally propounded, which they understand not, but of the truths contained in the word, the efficacy of which is imprinted by the Holy Spirit upon their minds, which they will come to the actual knowledge of when they grow up</u>, but the word operates effectually in none unless when impregnated by the efficacy of the Spirit. To the external world must be added the internal, <u>which is no less effectual than that word of God whereby he commanded light to shine out of darkness</u>” (Herman Witsius, <i>The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man</i>; underlining mine).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Evidently to Witsius, little John the Baptist “leaped in exultation” over that which he understood not.</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">
“And why [is] this to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For behold, as the sound of your greeting came to my ears, <u>the babe in my womb leaped in exultation.</u> And blessed [is] she believing, because there will be a completion to the things spoken to her from [the] Lord. And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit exulted in God My Savior” (Luke 1:43-47; underlining mine).</span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Given Witsius’ contempt for the Word announced as gospel, it’s clear he believes that it is possible for regenerate persons to remain ignorant of God’s righteousness revealed in the gospel (Romans 10:1-4) until they “come to the actual knowledge of when they grow up.”</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">
“Because [it is] God who said, Out of darkness Light shall shine, who shone in our hearts to [give the] brightness of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).</span></span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Note Witsius’ ironic use of this phrase:</span><hr /><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">
“which is no less effectual </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">than that word of God whereby he commanded light to shine out of darkness</span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: x-large;">” (Witsius).</span><hr /><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">
Really? No less effectual, huh? By his blackened lights Witsius sees visions of certain regenerate persons whose incapacity proves SO INVINCIBLE, that NOT EVEN the omnipotent God’s regenerating and creating power is able to overcome it -- well, at least not until they “come to the actual knowledge of when they grow up” (Witsius).</span><hr /></div>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-50522780114275622302020-09-09T19:42:00.003-04:002020-09-09T20:08:41.578-04:00Hopkins' Haughty Hypothetical <p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">The following is from Ezekiel Hopkins on the possibility of God saving another way than through the blood of Christ.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><hr /><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">"Had it been possible for men to have quitted scores with Divine justice by what they could do or suffer, Heaven would not have been so needlessly lavish as to send Christ into the world to lead an afflicted life and to die an accursed death only for our redemption and salvation.</span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times; font-size: large;">Again: The pardoning grace of God is not free in respect of Christ, but it cost Him the price of blood. It is the blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world that crosseth off the debt-book: 'without shedding of blood is no remission,' says the apostle (Heb. ix. 22). And 'this is My blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins' (Matt, xxvi. 28). </span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times;">And although possibly God might according to His absolute sovereignty have freely remitted all the sins of the world without any kind </span><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: times;">of satisfaction (only by a free and gracious act of mercy). Yet considering that He had otherwise declared in His unalterable word of truth that there must be a recompense made Him for all our offences, it had been a wrong to His veracity, if not to His justice, to have granted the pardon of any one sin without the intervention of a full price and satisfaction; no satisfaction could be made correspondent to the wrong done to an infinite God but by an infinite person who was God Himself" (Ezekiel Hopkins, <i>A Practical Exposition on the Lord's Prayer</i>).</span></span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Ezekiel Hopkins is not the first damnable heretic to engage in this kind of vain speculation on whether the necessity of the satisfaction of Christ was "relative" or "absolute." John Owen in his <i>The Death of Death</i> <a href="https://agrammatos.org/2017/07/03/other-ways-of-saving/" target="_blank">speculated in a similar manner</a>:</span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: times; font-size: large;">“It is true indeed [that] supposing the decree, purpose, and constitution of God that so it should be, that so he would manifest his glory by the way of vindicative justice it was impossible that it should otherwise be; for with the Lord there is ‘no variableness, neither shadow of turning' (James i. 17; 1 Sam. xv. 29). <u>But to assert positively that absolutely and antecedently to his constitution he could not have done it, is to me an unwritten tradition, the Scripture affirming no such thing, neither can it be gathered from thence in any good consequence</u>” (John Owen, <i>Death of Death</i>, p. 93; underlining mine).</span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">According to Owen, God's constitution (i.e., His essential nature) that is revealed in His decree is justice and immutability (Owen citing James 1:17). But despite God's essential constitution being immutable (James 1:17) and </span><span style="font-family: times;">"a just God and a Savior" (Isaiah 45:21)</span><span style="font-family: times;">, Owen asserts that this essential nature ("constitution") does NOT preclude Him from alternative ways of making satisfaction by Christ. Thus for Owen, God's essential justice could be revealed as injustice. Owen concludes with an exhortation to rest contented in this quote from Augustine: </span></span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: times; font-size: large;">"Though other ways of saving us were not wanting to his infinite wisdom, yet certainly the way which he did proceed in was the most convenient, because we find he proceeded therein" (Owen's quotation of Augustine; <i>The Death of Death</i>, p. 93).</span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">To return to Hopkins. Hopkins asserts with speculative and <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/eisegesis#:~:text=noun%2C%20plural%20eis%C2%B7e%C2%B7ge%C2%B7ses%20%5Bahy-si-jee-seez%5D.%20an%20interpretation%2C%20especially%20of,like%2C%20rather%20than%20the%20meaning%20of%20the%20text." target="_blank"><i>eisegetical</i> </a>force that God could, according to His absolute sovereignty, "freely [remit]" sins "without any kind of satisfaction (only by a free and gracious act of mercy)." A question for Hopkins: To quote your own words back to you: Is it not "</span><span style="font-family: times;">needlessly lavish...to send Christ into the world to lead an afflicted life and to die an accursed death" when free remission might be accomplished "without any kind of satisfaction"? According to Hopkins, Christ's satisfaction is NOT the only way to manifest "a free and gracious act of mercy." </span></span></p><hr /><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;">Hopkins stated that God could freely remit sins "without any kind of satisfaction." But the concept of "satisfaction" is inescapable. It is NOT a question of WHETHER there will be "any kind of satisfaction," but WHAT kind of "satisfaction" will it be? Hopkins' hypothetical sets forth God's essential and absolute sovereignty as a "satisfaction" (sacrifice) for sin. Though this is "merely" Hopkins' </span><span style="font-family: times;">hypothesis, it clearly reveals what kind of "god" Hopkins worships. He worships a "god" whose essential and absolutely sovereign nature implies his equal freedom and ability to reveal himself as "a just God and a Savior" (Isaiah 45:21) or as an unjust "god" and a "savior;" whose essential and absolutely sovereign nature implies his equal freedom and ability to manifest "</span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">no variableness, neither shadow of turning" or to manifest variableness, and shadow of turning. Hopkins' "god" is a "god" in whom resides the freedom and ability to sovereignly eclipse his own glory. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></span></p><hr /><p></p>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-727558393245722982019-04-06T15:18:00.000-04:002019-04-06T15:19:40.517-04:00Thomas Scott on his Dort translation philosophy<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Some info on translating the Dort documents from the original latin into English:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"In translating this history, and the other documents which I now lay before the public, I make no pretensions to any thing beyond fairness and exactness in giving the meaning of the original. Had I been disposed to aim at it I do not think myself competent to the office of translating in such a manner as to invest the Latin fairly and fully, with the entire idiom of the English language; but I have, even by design, confined myself more closely to literal translation than I should have done, in an attempt less connected with controversy; and have often declined giving a more approved English word or expression, when I feared it might be suspected of not exactly conveying the sense of the original. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Indeed, as far as it could be made consistent with perspicuity, I have rather preserved than shunned the Latin idiom, where any doubt could remain as to the idea which the writers intended to convey. And when, after all, I had any apprehension that I had not fully accomplished this, I have given in a parenthesis the Latin word, that the reader may judge for himself. In other places, a parenthesis often contains a word not found in the Latin, but useful in elucidating the meaning. My sole desire has been, to render the whole clearly understood by the English reader; and to call the attention of pious and reflecting persons to a part of ecclesiastical history, which I am confident has been generally less known, and more grossly misrepresented by some and mistaken by others, than any other part whatever has been; but which, I am also persuaded, is peculiarly replete with important useful instruction, especially to zealous Calvinists who may here learn in what a guarded and holy, and practical manner these generally reprobated theologians stated and defended their tenets; and on what grounds, exclusively scriptural, they rested them" (Thomas Scott).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-37368657496320288852019-03-31T20:12:00.003-04:002019-03-31T20:15:12.029-04:00Perkins' version of Hypothetical Universalism<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"The exhibiting of the Mediatour is that, whereby the Son of God being borne man in the fulness of time, doth pay the price of redemption to God for the sins of men. The virtue and efficacy of this price being paid, in respect of merit and operation is infinite; but yet it must be distinguished, for it is either potential or actual. <u>The potential efficacy is, whereby the price is in itselfe sufficient to redeeme every one without exception from his sins, albeit there were a thousand worlds of men</u>. But if we consider that actual efficacy, the price is paid in the counsel of God, and as touching the event, only for those which are elected and predestinated. For the Son doth not sacrifice for those, for whom he doth not pray </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">because to make intercession and to sacrifice are conjoined. But he prayeth only for the elect and for believers, Joh: 17. 9. and by praying he offereth himselfe to his Father, vers. 19. For (as Illyricus hath well observed) this whole prayer in the [17th] chapter is indeede (as he speaketh (an oblatory expiatory prayer, or (as the Papists call that blasphemous forme) a Canon or rule of sacrifice, by which Christ hath offered himselfe a sacrifice to the Father for the sins of the world. </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Therefore the price is appointed and limited to the elect alone by the Fathers decree, and the Sons intercession and oblation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> Secondly, Christ bare their person, and stood in their roome upon the cross, for whom he is a Mediatour. And consequently, whatsoever Christ did as a Redeemer, the same did all those in him, and with him which are redeemed: Christ dying, rising againe, ascending, sitting at the right hand of the Father, they also die with him, rise againe, ascend, and sit at the right hand of God. Now that all these things can be truly said of the elect only, and of such as believe, I prove it thus. To say that any one of the wicked, which are to perish for ever, is raised up in Christ rising again, is flat against the truth; because the raising up of Christ is (that I may so speake) his actual absolution from their sins, for whom he died; for even as the Father by delivering Christ to death, did in very deede condemne their sins imputed unto Christ, for whom he died; so by raising him up from death, even <i>ipso facto</i> he did absolve Christ from their sins, and did withal absolve them in Christ; but being absolved from their sins, they shall not perish, but be saved. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Therefore that wicked man which perisheth for his sin cannot be said to have risen againe with Christ; and therefore Christ did not beare his person upon the cross. Thirdly, the expiatory sacrifice sanctifieth those, for whom it is a sacrifice, as the holy Ghost plainly and absolutely avoucheth, Hebr. 9.13, 14. The sacrifice and sanctification appertaine to the same persons: and Christ is their perfect Saviour, whom he saveth, not only by meriting their salvation, but also by working it effectually. But Christ doth sanctify only the elect and such as believe, therefore he was a sacrifice only for them" (William Perkins, <i>Predestination</i>; underlining and paragraphing mine).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The take away here is to consider how convoluted and deceptive Perkins is with his hypothetical universalism (that I have underlined above) and his less-than-forthright preaching documented <a href="http://www.calvinism.us/2015/08/william-perkins-damnable-gospel.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-4593662617833251922019-03-31T19:30:00.001-04:002019-03-31T19:30:58.355-04:00William Perkins on "an holy dissention."<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"God commanded Isaiah to declare unto Hezekiah his death; and he did also denounce destruction unto the Ninevites within forty days: and yet he had decreed to put neither of them both in execution. <u>The human will of Christ did with an holy dissention [<i>sic</i>] in some sort will deliverance from the agony of death, which notwithstanding the divine willed not</u>" (William Perkins, <i>Predestination</i>; underlining mine).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">I resolved to put quotes like this here because although blaspheming Jesus Christ by attributing a "holy" dissension or disobedience to His will may not be a Reformed distinctive, it does have some big names attached to it (for example, Herman Witsius articulates a similar euphemistic blasphemy <a href="https://agrammatos.org/2018/06/24/he-was-heard/" target="_blank">HERE</a> as William Perkins does above; also, in spite of Hebrews 5:7-10, <a href="https://agrammatos.org/2016/01/16/john-newton-1725-1807-on-christs-prayer-that-the-cup-pass-from-him/" target="_blank">John Newton</a> implies that Christ's prayer to the Father was not heard).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Certainly, Christ DID WILL deliverance and Hebrews 5:7-10 says that Christ's prayer that the cup would pass WAS answered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-20844328282939820972018-07-28T19:05:00.003-04:002018-07-28T19:37:02.095-04:00Resurrection of the Head and inextricable relation to its Mystical Members<a name='more'></a><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"For it is necessary that the satisfaction of one be as it were the satisfaction of all, and that the Spirit, who fits for a holy and happy life, <u>should flow from him, as the head, to us, as his members; and so, that he become 'the Saviour of the body,' Eph. 5:23.</u> The Scriptures frequently call this mystical union a marriage. But it is the inviolable law of marriage, that the persons married be of the same nature: 'And they two shall be one flesh,' Gen. 2:24. Paul hath taught us that the mystery of the spiritual marriage of the church with Christ lies concealed in these words, Eph. 5:31, 32" (Herman Witsius, <i>The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man</i>; underlining mine). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The demonic doctrine or teaching that Jesus Christ died for everyone without exception <b>[1]</b> DENIES that everyone for whom Christ made satisfaction will be the recipients of freely-flowing, Spirit-wrought, regenerating grace; it is a denial that Christ is the Savior of the body (Ephesians 5:23). To deny the regeneration (or resurrection) of ANY PART of the BODY is to necessarily deny the resurrection of the HEAD, who is Christ.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>[1]</b> Commonly called or referred to as "universal atonement."</span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"But if Christ is proclaimed, that He was raised from [the] dead, how do some among you say that there is not a resurrection of the dead? But if there is not a resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ been raised. But if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation [is] worthless, and your faith is also worthless...</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>For if [the] dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised</u>" </span><span style="color: red; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(1 Corinthians 15:12-14, 16; underlining mine).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If "there is not a resurrection of the dead" of the mystical members of Christ's body -- which members are unconditionally chosen in Christ by God from eternity (Ephesians 1:3-4) -- then it necessarily follows that "Christ has not been raised." Jesus said that because He lives His people shall live also (John 14:19). He also said:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">"Even as the living Father sent Me, and I live through the Father; also the [one] partaking Me, even that one will live through Me" (John 6:57).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you believe that Jesus Christ died for everyone without exception then you are dead in your sins; you do not live through Him; "and your faith is also worthless" (1 Corinthians 15:14). If you think such deniers of Christ's resurrection are simply "muddled true believers" then you know not the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10), and you have yet to receive the Spirit of God so that [you] might know the things that are freely given to God's people (1 Corinthians 2:12). Repent and believe the true gospel wherein the only righteousness God accepts is revealed (Romans 10:1-4).</span></div>
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<u>Recommended</u></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.org/category/true-gospel-sermons/" target="_blank">True Gospel Sermons</a></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gospel-atonement.pdf" target="_blank">Gospel Atonement</a></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gospel-resurrection.pdf" target="_blank">Gospel Resurrection</a></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.org/2017/07/31/gospel-repentance/" target="_blank">Gospel Repentance</a></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gospelseries.pdf" target="_blank">True Gospel Series</a></div>
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<a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/ccf.pdf" target="_blank">Christian Confession of Faith (CCF)</a></div>
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Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-16789947574637854252018-07-28T17:02:00.001-04:002019-04-07T11:14:12.232-04:00Bucer's Broadly Irenic Style<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Excerpts from </span></span></span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://davenantinstitute.org/beyond-calvin/" target="_blank"><b>Beyond Calvin</b></a>: Essays on the Diversity of the Reformed Tradition (underlining mine):</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"<u>Bucer is one of the central figures in the oft-rehearsed debate amongst Protestants about the true marks of the church</u> [....]</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The debate happened around a proposed third mark of the church: the practice of church discipline."</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"This synthesis of Erasmian humanism and Lutheran soteriology would become a hallmark of the Strasbourg reformer’s thought."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"<u>This reputation for tolerance, or to use Erasmus’s term, harmony</u>, is, in fact, part of what drew Bucer himself to the city [of </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">Strasbourg].</span><span style="background-color: white;">"</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;">"Bucer would strongly defend this understanding of the church. In the letter he wrote, <u>'We are often too lenient towards those who agree with us and accept our teaching and too severe toward those who dissent and do not yet accept our teaching</u>.'"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Such was the severity of Zwingli and Luther. Zwingli drowning those who disagreed, and Luther gave his nefarious nod to Fritz Erbe being lowered down into a "terror hole" till he recanted of his errors. But in what sense (e.g., directly or indirectly) did Luther and Zwingli give their respective nods to religious violence? One scholar writes:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“Luther did not resort to violence against [heretics] directly. By 1525 he had driven Karlstadt[and] Munzer…out of Wittenberg and he had refrained from calling for their deaths. Yet when it came to rebellion rather than heresy, Luther was willing to contemplate violence…and to call for the slaughter of the peasant rebels whom he compared to rabid dogs. <u>Zwingli took a harsher approach</u>. By 1525, under his leadership, the city of Zurich was aggressively harassing those who refused to accept infant baptism. And in 1527, when adult re-baptism was declared a capital crime, the execution of anabaptist heretics became routine. The first of these martyrs, Felix [Munz or Munst?–CD] was drowned in Lake Zurich — a fitting punishment, according to the Zwinglians, for someone who abused the waters of baptism…ironically, but logically, martyrdom confirmed for them their identity as the true Church of Christ…a most painful self-fulfilling prophecy" (Carlos M. N. Eire, Reformations: <i>The Early Modern World</i>, 1450-1650; my transcription of the audiobook version of this work--CD).</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>"Bucer was ready to admit that this broad definition included Catholics</u>: 'there are many who belong much more to Christ among <u>those who are considered papists</u> than among those who seem to be evangelical.'"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Bucer's "broad definition" of <a href="https://agrammatos.org/2017/09/26/essential-gospel-doctrine/" target="_blank"><b>essential gospel doctrine</b></a> being the following: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>‘Christ is the unique savior of mankind, true God, true man, from whom we await all things.’</u> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thus, Bucer did not know or believe <b><a href="https://agrammatos.org/tag/true-gospel/" target="_blank">the true gospel of Christ</a></b> who is actually a Just God and a Savior; not the "try-and-fail savior" of Roman Catholics and moderate and "'well-meant' offer" Calvinists.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>"the church has a great deal it is expected to do in helping people to truly follow Christ by embracing Christian discipline</u>. This has the effect of making the church both far more important in individual spiritual formation and far less pervasive within the public square since Bucer expects Christian magistrates, rather than Christian ministers, to do much of the large-scale cultural work needed to produce and protect a broader Christian society." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><u>"The centerpiece of Bucer’s approach is patient, irenic discussion done with the goal of preserving Christendom by helping more nominal or confused Christians take up the yoke of Christian discipline.</u> Understanding this point helps to explain Bucer’s approach to Marpeck."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know who Marpeck is (presumably an Anabaptist), but one wonders who the "confused Christians" are. How about Nestorians or Arians? Or is that "too irenic," even for Bucer? </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">[The God-hating Roman Catholics hold to an "orthodox shell" of the Trinity and the Incarnation and Deity of Jesus Christ, but when the Hammer of God's Word cracks open this husk, the damnable kernel inside is revealed. The "damnable kernel" includes such doctrines as Universal Atonement, Purgatory, the Mass, etc.]</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>"Bucer sees church discipline and unity as being closely related—the goal of discipline is love.</u> When the body is splintered such that discipline cannot be practiced coherently within the church, that goal is compromised."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Would it be loving to discipline those who carved or hammered out all those years at Westminster Abbey, the facinorous fiction of <a href="https://agrammatos.org/?s=%22as+if+the+offending+party+were+dead%22" target="_blank"><b>"as if the offending party were dead"?</b></a> Would it be an instance of splintering to discipline the framers of the <a href="https://agrammatos.org/2010/01/11/the-wicked-westminster-confession/" target="_blank"><b>Westminster Confession </b></a>for strengthening the hands of adulterers with such a fanciful phrase?</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>"It is here, then, that we see Bucer’s sharpest departure from the later proponents of the third mark of the church. Whereas the radicals and later the Presbyterians of England would be marked by a sort of precisionist spirit that demanded full doctrinal purity before union could be assumed and joint work done, Bucer embraced a broadly irenic style of faith that sought common cause not only with radicals, but also with Roman Christians.</u> Bucer’s ecumenism, if we can use that term, was never unprincipled or lacking in theological roots. The goal was the promotion of Christian love within local churches and Christendom more broadly. Discipline served that goal. For Bucer the work of Christian reconciliation and Christian discipline are not only not at odds, they are one and the same."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Therefore, Bucer is a principled and promiscuous whore who commits spiritual fornication with just about every passer-by, under (nearly) every green tree.</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-92177093118376294172018-07-28T11:18:00.002-04:002018-07-28T11:18:41.877-04:00Zwingli's Famed Murderous Third Baptism<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"Zwingli’s famed response to the radicals, which was to give the re-baptizers a third baptism—death by drowning. Second, however, is the fact that Bucer, still in some ways a Dominican, genuinely believed in the possibility of persuasion via argumentation and believed that he had nothing to fear from giving the radicals a public hearing. Not only was Bucer a capable and somewhat intimidating scholar given his background with the Dominicans, he was also a masterful negotiator of whom one man, in something which could be read as compliment or insult, said, 'among all the theologians now living, [Bucer is] truly an excellent man for negotiating in theological affairs after the manner of the world.'...He was, in other words, a consummate diplomat" (</span></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Beyond Calvin: Essays on the Diversity of the Reformed Tradition).</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-32848886020628381772018-07-27T18:43:00.000-04:002018-07-27T18:43:03.475-04:00Unity and Diversity among wicked Reformed<a name='more'></a><div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"The Reformed brotherhood of churches of course also included in its ranks the German Reformed, many of them Melanchthonian Lutherans more than Calvinists in their origins and emphases, not to mention the great forgotten Reformed church of Hungary. Indeed, the Reformed can lay some fair claim to being not the narrowest, but the broadest of the Reformation traditions. But how does such breadth square with a commitment to confessions? Reformed churches are and always have been confessional churches, with the French Reformed drafting the Gallican Confession in 1559, the Scots the Scots Confession in 1560, the Dutch the Belgic Confession in 1562 and the Canons of Dort in 1619, the German Reformed the Heidelberg Catechism in 1563, the English the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1563, the Swiss the Second Helvetic Confession of 1566, and finally the British Presbyterians the Westminster Confession in 1647. Nowadays, many are prone to think of confessionalism as a straitjacket, but few who make such complaints have bothered to familiarize themselves with many of these confessions. Most of them are far more capacious than we expect to find them, never even touching on many of the arcane doctrinal minutia that card-carrying contemporary confessionalists spill much of their ink upon. Even where they do pronounce decidedly on matters debated within the broader tradition, early modern Reformed theologians often emphasized that such points of difference were secondary and no bar to communion" (Beyond Calvin: Essays on the Diversity of the Reformed Tradition).</span></div>
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Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-8035695529988911522018-07-27T16:26:00.000-04:002018-07-27T16:26:38.829-04:00Wycliffe's Distinctive Political Theory<a name='more'></a><div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"[John Wycliffe] also developed a distinctive political theory according to which godly civil magistrates had the right to expropriate the material resources of a corrupt church and put them to better use, leaving the church impoverished but better able to focus on its central task of preaching the Word of God" (Reformation Theology: A Reader of Primary Sources with Introductions).</span></div>
Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-85461086675375435562018-07-27T09:11:00.000-04:002018-07-27T09:11:39.572-04:00Some information on Peter Martyr Vermilgi<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Historical-Theology from the internet:</span><div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The decision of Peter Martyr to identify openly with the Reformed cause was remarkable. He was already 43 and most who courageously joined the Reformed church did so at a younger age. He had a very promising career in the Roman church and left great opportunities behind. But the Lord was to open for him remarkable positions of service and influence for the Reformed faith in the last twenty years of his life.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">He served in Strassburg from 1542 to 1547 sharing in the work that Martin Bucer had done there to reform the church. In 1547 he received an invitation from Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, to teach as a Regis professor at Oxford. There he taught powerfully on the Reformed view of the Lord's Supper, helped Cranmer and others with the 1552 revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and aided Bishop Hooper in the discussion of the use of vestments in the church. When King Edward VI was succeeded on the throne by his half-sister Mary (known to history as "bloody Mary"), Vermigli again had to move to escape Roman Catholic persecution. He returned to Strassburg (1553- 1556) and then settled finally in Zurich where he taught and worked with the distinguished Reformer Heinrich Bullinger. He was widely regarded as one of the greatest Reformed authorities on the Lord's Supper and so was invited to the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 where he and Theodore Beza defended the Reformed cause before the king and queen mother of France. He also seems to have had a significant influence on Zacharius Ursinus as he was moving from a Lutheran to a Reformed theology. When Vermigli was invited to teach in Heidelberg, he recommended Ursinus in his place. Perhaps Peter Martyr deserves to be called a grandfather of the Heidelberg Catechism.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the age of 63 his body began to weaken and death approached. He had lived a most remarkable life that had led him to live in many parts of Europe and to know and influence many of the most important figures of his day. His great talents and learning he dedicated to Christ in teaching, preaching and writing (especially on the Lord's Supper and commentaries on the Pentateuch, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and2 Kings, Romans and 1 Corinthians). Excerpts from his writings circulated widely as Loci Communes published in Latin in 1576 and in English in 1583. Josiah Simler who preached a funeral oration for him aptly named him "an ambassador of Jesus Christ, to divers cities and nations.” [1]</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Simler recorded the final hours of Vermigli 's life and his own last words: “And on the day before he died, some of us his friends being present with him, and specially Bullinger among the rest, he lay a certain space meditating with himself; then turning unto us he testified with speech plain enough that he acknowledged life and salvation in Christ alone, who was given by the Father an only favour unto mankind; and this opinion of his he declared and confirmed with reasons and words of scriptures; adding at the last, This is my faith, in this will I die; but they which teach otherwise and draw men any other way. God will destroy them.” These words show the seriousness of his faith and his intense sense of the spiritual conflict of his times. His remarkable life and testimony deserve to be remembered on the 500th anniversary of his birth.</span></div>
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Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-13854859255511256632018-07-27T08:18:00.000-04:002019-04-07T11:09:49.387-04:00Neglected Sources of the Reformation Doctrine of Predestination <br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Neglected Sources of the Reformation Doctrine of Predestination Ulrich Zwingli and Peter Martyr Vermigli (by Frank A. James III)</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Although its reception has been varied, the doctrine of predestination--and particularly double predestination--has nevertheless had a significant impact throughout church history. Augustine, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Isodore of Seville, Gottschalk of Orbais, Thomas Aquinas, the sixteenth-century Reformers, and, more recently, Karl Barth all devoted careful attention to this question, even if the church did not always appreciate their efforts. But of all the religious movements in history, few have been more closely associated with the doctrine than the early Reformed theologians.[1]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At this point a caveat ought to be issued against overgeneralizations. Not all of the major Protestant Reformers agreed with Calvin's doctrine of double predestination. Some Protestants (both Lutheran and Reformed), such as Bullinger, Bibliander and later Melanchthon, found double predestination objectionable.[2] Furthermore, not every Roman Catholic rejected this doctrine out of hand. Although the vast majority of Roman Catholic theologians strongly refuted a rigorous doctrine of double predestination, nevertheless a few early sixteenth-century Roman Catholics, such as Konrad Treger, considered it a legitimate part of their Augustinian heritage.[3]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Despite the common historical misconception, John Calvin was not the exclusive source of the Reformed branch of Protestantism. From a distance, he may appear to tower over other Reformed theologians, but the intervening centuries have distorted the historical reality. In recent years, it has been increasingly recognized that the origins of Reformed theology do not derive exclusively from Calvin, but rather from a coterie of theologians who were associated with Swiss reform, including Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Wolfgang Musculus.[4]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">This study concentrates on two of the leading lights from this constellation of theologians who gave formative shape to early Reformed theology: Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562). These men represent two important but different strains within the Reformed tradition. Zwingli was a first-generation magisterial reformer and inaugurator of Swiss reform. He did not give much attention to the topic of predestination until his meeting with Luther at the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529. While there, Zwingli preached a sermon on providence and predestination to an audience which included Luther himself. This sermon was later expanded and published as <i>De providentia</i> (On Providence).</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Peter Martyr Vermigli belonged to the second-generation of Reformed theologians who, along with Calvin, gave definitive shape to the Reformed branch of Protestantism. Vermigli is somewhat unusual in that he had been a prominent Roman Catholic theologian before embracing Protestantism. During his first forty-three years in Italy, he was an active reformer within the Roman Catholic Church, but fled the Roman inquisition in 1542 and sought refuge among the Protestants. Almost immediately after his flight from Italy, he rose to prominence as a Protestant theologian. In his new Protestant capacity, his sphere of influence extended to the major centers of the reformation movement -- Bucer's Strasbourg, Archbishop Cranmer's Oxford, and Bullinger's Zurich. His prominence in the Reformed community was such that one contemporary could say: "the two most excellent theologians of our times are John Calvin and Peter Martyr."[5]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Vermigli does not make predestination the signature doctrine of his theological system. But like Calvin, his name became associated with it because he was repeatedly called on to defend it and thus he became one of the principal apologists for a reformed doctrine of predestination.[6] He championed it against Johann Marbach in Strasbourg and Theodore Bibliander in Zurich.[7]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Like most of the early Protestants, both Zwingli and Vermigli held strong views on predestination. Although there was diversity, this doctrine came to be inextricably linked to Reformed theology. But how did the Reformed doctrine of predestination develop?</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Historically, as noted above, predestination is not a doctrine that distinguishes Protestants from Roman Catholics. The Reformed doctrine of predestination was essentially a recovery of Augustine's view, yet it was not just theological mimicry, for the reformers sought above all to return to the teaching of the Apostle Paul. Paul was, however, interpreted through an Augustinian theological grid.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It is well-known that the apostle employed the term "predestination" as well as its near equivalent "election," on a number of occasions in his epistles.[8] Furthermore, Paul derived the essence of his conception of predestination from the Old Testament; broadly from the idea of Israel as God's chosen people, and narrowly from the divine choice of Jacob and the divine rejection of Esau.[9] The language and the idea of God choosing some to the exclusion of others is an important substrata throughout the biblical writings.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Like every predestinarian before the sixteenth century, Reformed theologians drew particular inspiration from Paul. The ninth chapter of Romans served as the biblical epicenter of their doctrine of predestination. This passage contains the powerful language of the divine hardening of Pharaoh's heart, God's election of Jacob and rejection of Esau before their birth, as well as the imagery of vessels of wrath prepared for destruction and vessels of mercy prepared for glory. Whatever criticism may be leveled against Reformed theologians, they were determined to forge their theology from Scripture, and Paul especially served as the chief source of their doctrine of predestination.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">History also reveals that, beginning with Augustine, a distinctive hermeneutical tradition emerged which drew from Paul's words an unequivocal doctrine of predestination. Reformed theologians knew the writings of all of the major fathers, both Greek and Latin, but it was Augustine who occupied first place in the pantheon of fathers. Although not infallible, he was viewed as the preeminently judicious and wise mentor on most theological questions, not the least of which was the doctrine of predestination.[10]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Just as these Reformed theologians interpreted Paul under the guidance of Augustine, they also encountered Augustine under the shaping influence of late medieval theology. As such, one cannot understand the development of the Reformed doctrine of predestination without some acquaintance with the late medieval theological influences that shaped their thought.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Gottfried Locher judges that of all the major Protestant reformers, Zwingli articulated the most extreme doctrine of predestination.[11] Calvin himself expressed concern about the "immoderate" and "paradoxical" formulation of Zwingli's view of providence and predestination. It was not until the publication of his work <i>De providentia</i> that Zwingli expressed his mature understanding of predestination. He was deeply indebted to Erasmian humanism and its penchant for seeing the classical pagan authors as rhetorical mentors. The important catchphrase of the humanists was <i>ad fontes</i> (back to the fount or original sources). Humanists such as Zwingli took this to mean a return not only to classical authors but also to the church fathers and the Bible in its original languages. It was Zwingli's humanism that made him highly amenable to appropriating insights from pagan philosophers for his theology.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Zwingli's <i>De providentia</i> reveals his strongly philosophical cast of mind. Indeed, because of the philosophical strains in this treatise, many scholars have concluded that Zwingli is more philosopher than theologian.[12] Most obviously, his philosophical orientation is signaled by the constant parade of ancient philosophers across the pages of this work. While Calvin and Vermigli also alluded to classical authors, there is a fundamental difference between Zwingli's use of ancient philosophers and that of Vermigli and Calvin. These two looked to the classical philosophers as illustrations of Christian truth, where Zwingli sees them as guides to it.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of all the ancients, Zwingli's greatest praise is reserved for the last great representative of Roman Stoicism, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, "that unparalleled cultivator of the soul among pagans." For Zwingli, Seneca was a "theologian," and his writings were "divine oracles."[13] So prevalent is the spirit of Seneca throughout the <i>De providentia</i> that François Wendel concludes that it "reads almost like a commentary on chosen passages from Seneca."[14] The most significant impact from Seneca is found in Zwingli's all encompassing doctrine of providence, of which predestination is a subcategory. Following Seneca, he insists there is no secondary causality: "it is established therefore that secondary causes are not properly called causes." He adds: "Nothing is done or achieved which is not done and achieved by the immediate care and power of the Deity." Providence in fact looms so large that there appears to be no room for human will or human responsibility. Thus Zwingli's understanding of predestination as indistinguishable from providence, logically inclines him to the conclusion that God is the cause of human sin. If, as Zwingli affirms, absolutely everything is under divine providence, then is not human sin also under the direct control of divine providence? To be sure, God is absolved of any personal culpability, yet Zwingli can assert that God is the "author, mover and instigator" of human sin.[15]</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">When this all-pervasive divine providence is applied to the matter of reprobation and to eternal condemnation, it necessarily follows that God is the direct and exclusive cause, since God is the cause of everything. Eternal condemnation is explicitly traced back to the pretemporal rejection by the will of God. Temporal sins may be the occasion for eternal condemnation, but they are not the ultimate and direct cause. For him, reprobation, as well as election, is conceived teleologically.[16] The divine will does not simply reject, it rejects with a specific purpose in view. To Zwingli's mind, reprobation includes eternal consequences. Just as election is unto eternal life, so reprobation is unto eternal punishment.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At the core of Zwingli's predestinarian thought about election and reprobation is the notion that both issue directly from the divine will. Zwingli attributes both to the divine will in the same way, constructing an absolutely symmetrical doctrine of double predestination. The cause and means of both election and reprobation are precisely the same. For Zwingli, God is the exclusive and immediate cause of all things.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Late Medieval Augustinianism and Peter Martyr Vermigli</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As a Roman Catholic theologian, Vermigli actually read Zwingli but did not embrace a Stoical-flavored view of predestination. Although Vermigli's primary inspiration came from Augustine, he went beyond his mentor in his interpretation of Paul's predestinarianism.[17] The explanation for this intensified Augustinianism is found at the University of Padua, where as a student Vermigli first read and appreciated the robust Augustinian theology of Gregory of Rimini. What is significant for our purposes is that Gregory was "the first Augustinian of Augustine."[18] Reading Gregory at the formative stage of his theological training, Vermigli had encountered one of the most vigorous double predestinarians of the late medieval period. The modern editor of Gregory's works offers this caveat to unwary readers: "Leafing through Gregory's pages one may be shocked by the predestinarianism, and ask oneself whether Gregory's God was the Mexican War God."[19] Gregory was probably unfamiliar with Mexican deities, but there was indeed a militancy in his defense of Augustine's doctrine of predestination.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Gregory is credited with having given birth to a late medieval "academic Augustinianism" committed to the pursuit of -- and obedience to -- the genuine theology of Augustine. This intensive form of late medieval Augustinianism began a concerted effort in the fourteenth century to recover the whole corpus of Augustine's works and to develop a systematic acquaintance with his entire thought. Gregory of Rimini not only knew the writings and followed the doctrines of Augustine more closely than any other late medieval theologian, he also restored long neglected works to circulation and evidenced a highly developed critical sense to distinguish genuine from apocryphal works.[20] In the fourteenth century, one can speak of an "Augustinian renaissance" which some have designated the <i>schola Augustiniana moderna</i>.[21] This new intensified Augustinianism developed a ferociously anti-Pelagian theology of grace, including a vigorous doctrine of double predestination.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Although more than a century separates these two theologians, there are remarkable parallels between the predestinarianism of Gregory and that of Vermigli. Time and time again, the same issues are isolated and resolved with the same theological conclusions, often employing the same terms, and always based upon the same twin sources, Scripture and Augustine. Vermigli's most mature exposition of this doctrine occurs in an extended locus from his commentary on Romans, where he, much like Gregory, develops the doctrine of predestination within a causal nexus.[22] On the matter of election (which he technically equated with predestination), God's will in eternity was the exclusive cause. Vermigli follows Augustine's line, thinking of all humanity as a <i>massa perditionis</i> (mass of perdition), doomed to eternal condemnation unless God intervenes. Divine election is construed as the rescue of doomed sinners, who can do nothing to aid in their own rescue. After being elected from the mass of fallen sinners in eternity past and granted the gift of faith, the elect exercise that gift of faith in time and thus will inherit eternal life.[23] In sum, Vermigli, like Gregory before him, taught an unconditional election.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Vermigli did not shy away from the difficult matter of reprobation. There are two important features in his understanding of reprobation that underscore this. First, he understood reprobation as a passive expression of the sovereign will of God. Although the will of God is absolutely free and sovereign, God wields it passively in reprobation. By passive willing, Vermigli meant something more than mere permission but less than an active willing. For Vermigli, God is not to be pictured as sitting back and simply permitting matters to take their course. Rather, God engineers and orchestrates men and events without coercion in order to produce his predetermined salvation result. To reprobate is characteristically described as "not to have mercy" or "passing over."[24] Yet, it does not conjure up visions of a dispassionate deity arbitrarily hurling helpless victims into a lake of fire. Vermigli's vision of election and reprobation is more complicated; it portrays God as actively rescuing some sinners, but deliberately and mysteriously bypassing others.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A second major feature of Vermigli's view of reprobation is the adoption of the distinction between reprobation and condemnation. Reprobation has reference to the decision not to have mercy in eternity past, and its cause lies in the inscrutable sovereign will of God. Condemnation, on the other hand, has a temporal orientation, where causality lies within the matrix of original and actual sins. For Vermigli, "sins are the cause of damnation but not the cause of reprobation."[25] God's role in condemnation is confined to the institution and execution of the general principle that sins are to be punished. Condemnation is the expression of divine justice. So then, the true cause of condemnation is sinful man, but the true cause of reprobation is the unfathomable purpose of God (<i>propositum Dei</i>). Vermigli's version of double predestination differs from that of Zwingli in that the latter has a symmetrical double predestination while the former has an asymmetrical version of double predestination. For Vermigli, God does not deal with the elect in precisely the same way as he does with the non-elect. For the elect, God not only is the ultimate eternal cause, but by granting the gift of faith, he is also the temporal cause of the elect attaining eternal life. That parallel is not sustained when it comes to reprobation. Although the ultimate eternal cause of election and rejection is precisely the same, the cause for condemnation does not correspond to the cause for eternal blessing. For the condemned, it is their sins that cause their eternal destruction.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Conclusion</u></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The development of the Reformed doctrine of predestination reminds us first and foremost that the primary source for Reformed theology is and must continue to be the Scriptures. Second, a good knowledge of church history can be a useful guide to the interpretation of Scripture, and on most issues, there is no better guide than Augustine. Third, we must exercise caution about the subtle cultural and intellectual influences that infiltrate our theological system. Doctrine is never formed in a theological vacuum and so we must examine and refine our presuppositions to conform to historic Christianity. Finally, predestination, although alien to most twentieth-century minds, is a vital, indeed necessary truth which stops us in our tracks, destroys our pride, and relieves us of the arrogance of thinking we did it our way.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Notes</u></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1. Paul K. Jewett, Election and Predestination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 10.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">2. For Heinrich Bullinger's views, see J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition (Athens, Ohio, 1980), 27-54. For Theodore Bibliander's view, see J. Staedke, "Der Zuricher Prädestinationstreit von 1560," Zwingliana 9 (1953), 536-546. For Melanchthon's views, see Clyde L. Manschreck, ed., Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine: Loci Communes 1555 (Oxford, 1965; reprinted, Grand Rapids, 1982), xii-xiv, xl-xlii, 187-191.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">3. Adolar Zumkeller, "The Augustinian Theologian Konrad Treger (ca. 1480-1542) and his Disputation Thesis of May 5, 1521," in Via Augustini: Augustine in the Later Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, edited by H. A. Oberman and F. A. James III (Leiden, 1991): 130-142.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">4. Richard Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), 39.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">5. Gordon Huelin, "Peter Martyr and the English Reformation," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1954), 178.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">6. Charles Schmidt, Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften nach handschriftlichen und gleichzeitigen Quellen (Elberfeld: R. L. Friderichs, 1858), 106.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">7. Frank A. James III, Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The Augustinian Heritage of an Italian Theologian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 31-36.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">8. Paul employs the term repeatedly -- Romans 8:33; 8:29; Ephesians 1:5. Jesus also made comments concerning the elect: Luke 18:7; Matt. 24:22; and Mark 13:27. For a more complete summary of the biblical data, see Paul K. Jewett, Election and Predestination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 24-29.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">9. Paul's discussion of predestination in Romans 9:10-24 is self-consciously derived from the Old Testament. Much of Romans 9 is a recitation of Old Testament passages, including Malachi 1:2-3; Exodus 33:19 and 9:16.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">10. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 94-95.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">11. G. Locher, Zwingli's Thought: New Perspectives (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 54.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">12. W. P. Stephens, The Theology of Huldrych Zwingli (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 81.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">13. Huldreich Zwinglis Werke, ed. M. Schuler and J. Schulthess (Zurich, 1828-1842), IV, 95.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">14. F. Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (London: Collins, 1963), 29.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">15. Werke, IV, 96, 134, 112.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">16. Werke, IV, 126, 139.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">17. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 104-105.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">18. Damasus Trapp, "Augustinian Theology in the Fourteenth Century: Notes on Editionis, Marginalia, Opinions and Book Lore," Augustiniana 6 (1956), 181. 19. Damasus Trapp, "Notes on the Tubingen Edition of Gregory of Rimini," Augustiniana 29 (1979), 238.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">20. Trapp, "Augustinian Theology," 181-213.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">21. Heiko A. Oberman, Masters of the Reformation: The Emergence of a New Intellectual Climate in Europe (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1981), 70-71.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">22. James, Peter Martyr Vermigli, 133.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">23. Peter Martyr Vermigli, In Epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanos </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">commentarii doctissimi, (Basel, 1558), 410, 413-14.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">24. Romanos, 37, 381, 480, 430.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">25. Romanos, 414.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Frank A. James III (D.Phil., Oxford) is associate professor of church history at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) and the author of Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The Augustinian Heritage of an Italian Theologian (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-69301280257451185222018-06-24T20:12:00.003-04:002018-07-02T22:14:43.521-04:00J.I. Packer on "Covenant theology" featuring Witsius<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Not a promotion or an endorsement of Packer, Witsius, or any others mentioned in this article (this is posted for historical reference or interest; culled somewhere off the internet).</span><br />
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<u><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Introduction: On Covenant Theology (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">by J. I. Packer)</span></span></u><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The name of Herman Wits (Witsius, 1636-1 708) has been unjustly forgotten. He was a masterful Dutch Reformed theologian, learned, wise, mighty in the Scriptures, practical and "experimental" (to use the Puritan label for that which furthers heart-religion). On paper he was calm, judicious, systematic, clear and free from personal oddities and animosities. He was a man whose work stands comparison for substance and thrust with that of his younger British contemporary John Owen, and this writer, for one, knows no praise higher than that! To Witsius it was given, in the treatise here reprinted, to integrate and adjudicate explorations of covenant theology carried out by a long line of theological giants stretching back over more than century and a half to the earliest days of the Reformation. On this major matter Witsius's work has landmark status as summing up a whole era, which is why it is appropriate to reprint it today. However, in modern Christendom covenant theology has been unjustly forgotten, just as Witsius himself has, and it will not therefore be amiss to spend a little time reintroducing it, in order to prepare readers' minds for what is to come.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">II. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">What is covenant theology? The straightforward, if provocative answer to that question is that it is what is nowadays called a hermeneutic -- that is, a way of reading the whole Bible that is itself part of the overall interpretation of the Bible that it undergirds. A successful hermeneutic is a consistent interpretative procedure yielding a consistent understanding of Scripture in turn confirms the propriety of the procedure itself. Covenant theology is a case in point. It is a hermeneutic that forces itself upon every thoughtful Bible-reader who gets to the place, first, of reading, hearing, and digesting Holy Scripture as didactic instruction given through human agents by God himself, in person; second, of recognizing that what the God who speaks the Scriptures tells us about in their pages is his own sustained sovereign action in creation, providence, and grace; third, of discerning that in our salvation by grace God stands revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, executing in tripersonal unity a single cooperative enterprise of raising sinners from the gutter of spiritual destitution to share Christ's glory for ever; and, fourth, of seeing that God-centered thought and life, springing responsively from a God-wrought change of heart that expresses itself spontaneously in grateful praise, is the essence of true knowledge of God. Once Christians have got this far, the covenant theology of the Scriptures is something that they can hardly miss.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yet in one sense they can miss it: that is, by failing to focus on it, even when in general terms they are aware of its reality. God's covenant of grace in Scripture is one of those things that are too big to be easily seen, particularly when one's mind is programmed to look at something smaller. If you are hunting on a map of the Pacific for a particular Polynesian island, your eye will catch dozens of island names, however small they are printed, but the chances are you will never notice the large letters spelling PACIFIC OCEAN that straddle the map completely. Similarly, we may, and I think often do, study such realities as God's promises; faith: the plan of salvation; Jesus Christ the God-man, our prophet, priest and king; the church in both testaments, along with circumcision, passover, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the intricacies of Old Testament worship and the simplicities of its New Testament counterpart; the work of the Holy Spirit in believers; the nature and standards of Christian obedience in holiness and neighbour-love; prayer and communion with God: and many more such themes, without noticing that these relational realities are all covenantal in their very essence. As each Polynesian island is anchored in the Pacific, so each of the matters just mentioned is anchored in God's resolve to relate to his human creatures, and have us relate to him, in covenant -- which means, in the final analysis, a way for man to relate to God that reflects facets of the fellowship of the Son and the Spirit with the Father in the unity of the Godhead. From this, perhaps, we can begin to see how big and significant a thing the covenantal category is both in biblical teaching and in real life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"The distance between God and the creature is so great," says the Westminster Confession (VII.I), "that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant." Exactly! So biblical doctrine, first to last, has to do with covenantal relationships between God and man; biblical ethics has to do with expressing God's covenantal relationship to us in covenantal relationships between ourselves and others; and Christian religion has the nature of covenant life, in which God is the direct object of our faith, hope, love, worship, and service, all animated by gratitude for grace.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Our theme is the life-embracing bedrock reality of the covenant relationship between the Creator and Christians, and it is high time we defined exactly what we are talking about. A covenant relationship is a voluntary mutual commitment that binds each party to the other. Whether it is negotiated, like a modern business deal or a marriage contract, or unilaterally imposed, as all God's covenants are, is irrelevant to the commitment itself; the reality of the relationship depends simply on the fact that mutual obligations have been accepted and pledged on both sides. Luther is held to have said that Christianity is a matter of personal pronouns, in the sense that everything depends on knowing that Jesus died for me, to be my Savior, and that his Father is my God and Father, personally committed to love, nurture, uphold, and glorify me. This already is covenant thinking, for this is the essential substance of the covenant relationship: God's covenant is precisely a matter of these personal pronouns, used in this way, as a basis for a life with God of friendship, peace and communicated love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thus, when God tells Abraham, "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you . . . to be your God . . . I will be their God" (Gen. 17:6-8), the personal pronouns are the key words: God is committing himself to Abraham and Abraham's seed in a way in which he does not commit himself to others. God's covenant commitment expresses eternal election; his covenant love to individuals sinners flows from his choice of them to be his for ever in the peace of justification and the joy of glorification. The verbal commitment in which electing sovereignty thus shows itself has the nature of a promise, the fulfillment of which is guaranteed by God's absolute fidelity and trustworthiness -- the quality that David Livingstone the explorer celebrated by describing God as "an honorable gentleman who never breaks his word." The covenant promise itself, "I will be your God," is an unconditional undertaking on God's part to be "for us" (Rom. 8:31), "on our side" (Ps. 124:1-5), using all his resources for the furthering of the ultimate good of those ("us") to whom he thus pledges himself. "I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God" (Ex. 6:7), the covenant promise constantly repeated throughout both testaments (Gen. 17:6-8; Ex. 20:2, 29:45 f.;Lev. 11:45; Jer. 32:38; Ezk. 11:20, 34:30 f., 36:28; 2 Cor. 6:16-18; Rev. 21:2 f.; etc.), may fairly be called the pantechnicon promise, inasmuch as every particular promise that God makes is packed into it -- fellowship and communion first ("I will be with you," "I will dwell among them," "I will live among you," etc.), and then the supply of every real need, here and hereafter. Sovereignty and salvation, love and largesse, election and enjoyment, affirmation and assurance, fidelity and fulness thus appear as the spectrum of themes (the second of each pair being the fruit of the first as its root) that combine to form the white light, glowing and glorious, of the gracious self-giving of God to sinners that covenant theology proclaims.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The God-given covenant carries, of course, obligations. The life of faith and repentance, and the obedience to which faith leads, constitute the covenant-keeping through which God's people receive the fulness of God's covenant blessing. "I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession" (Ex. 19:4 f.). Covenant faithfulness is the condition and means of receiving covenant benefits, and there is nothing arbitrary in that; for the blessings flow from the relationship, and human rebelliousness and unfaithfulness stop the flow by disrupting the relationship. Israel's infidelity was constantly doing this throughout the Old Testament story, and the New Testament makes it plain that churches and Christians will lose blessings that would otherwise be theirs, should covenant fidelity be lacking in their lives. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">III. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">From what has been said so far, three things become apparent. First, the gospel of God is not properly understood till it is viewed within a covenantal frame.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jesus Christ, whose saving ministry is the sum and substance of the gospel, is announced in Hebrews the mediator and guarantor of the covenant relationship (Heb. 7:22, 8:6). The gospel promises, offering Christ and his benefits to sinner, are therefore invitations to enter and enjoy a covenant relationship with God. Faith in Jesus Christ is accordingly the embracing of the covenant, and the Christian life of glorifying God by one's words and works for the greatness of his goodness and grace has at its heart covenant communion between the Savior and the sinner. The church, the fellowship of believers that the gospel creates, is the community of the covenant, and the preaching of the Word, the practice of pastoral care and discipline, the manifold exercises of worship together, and the administration of baptism and the Lord's supper (corresponding to circumcision and Passover in former days) are all signs, tokens, expressions, and instruments of the covenant, through which covenantal enrichments from God constantly flow to those who believe. The hope of glory, as promised in the gospel, is the goal of the covenant relationship (Rev. 21:2 f.), and Christian assurance is the knowledge of the content and stability of that relationship as it applies to oneself (Rom. 5:1-11,8:1-39). The whole Bible is, as it were, presented by Jesus Christ to the whole church and to each Christian as the book of the covenant, and the whole record of the wars of the Word with the church as well as the world in the post-biblical Christian centuries, the record that is ordinarily called church history, is precisely the story of the covenant going on in space and time. As artists and decorators know, the frame is important for setting off the picture, and you do in fact see the picture better when it is appropriately framed. So with the riches of the gospel; the covenant is their proper frame, and you only see them in their full glory when this frame surrounds them, as in Scripture it actually does, and as in theology it always should.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Second, the Word of God is not properly understood till it is viewed within a covenantal frame.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Covenant theology, as was said above, is a biblical hermeneutic as well as a formulation of biblical teaching. Not only does it spring from reading the Scriptures as a unity, it includes in itself specific claims as to how this should be done. Covenant theology offers a total view, which it is ready to validate from Scripture itself if challenged, as to how the various parts of the Bible stand related to each other. The essence of the view is as follows. The biblical revelation, which is the written Word of God, centers upon a God-given narrative of how successive and cumulative revelations of God's covenant purpose and provision were given and responded to at key points in history. The backbone of the Bible, to which all the expository, homiletical, moral, liturgical, and devotional material relates, is the unfolding in space and time of God's unchanging intention of having a people on earth to whom he would relate covenantally for his and their joy. The contents of Scripture cohere into a single consistent body of truth about God and mankind, by which every Christian -- indeed, every human being -- in every generation is called to live. The Bible in one sense, like Jesus Christ in another, is God's word to the world.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The story that forms this backbone of the Bible has to do with man's covenant relationship with God first ruined and then restored. The original covenantal arrangement, usually called the Covenant of Works, was one whereby God undertook to prolong and augment for all subsequent humanity the happy state in which he had made the first human pair -- provided that the man observed, as part of the humble obedience that was then natural to him, one prohibition, specified in the narrative as not eating a forbidden fruit. The devil, presented as a serpent, seduced Adam and Eve into disobeying, so that they fell under the penal sanctions of the Covenant of Works (loss of good, and corruption of nature). But God at once revealed to them in embryo a redemptive economy that had in it both the covering of sin, and a prospective victory for the woman's seed (a human Savior) over the serpent and his malice. The redemptive purpose of this new arrangement became clearer as God called Abraham, made a nation from his descendants, saved them from slavery, named himself not only their God but also their King and Father, taught them his law (the family code), drilled them in sacrificial liturgies, disciplined their disobedience, and sent messengers to hold up before them his holiness and his promise of a SaviorKing and a saving kingdom; which in due course became reality. The Westminster Confession summarizes what was going on in and through all this.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by (the first) covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace: wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. . .</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel; under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come, which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old Testament.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper . . . in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the new Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations" (VII.iii. v. vi).</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So the unifying strands that bind together the books of the Bible are, first, the one covenant promise, sloganized as "I will be your God, and you shall be my people," which God was fulfilling to his elect all through his successive orderings of covenant faith and life; second, the one messenger and mediator of the covenant, Jesus Christ the God-man, prophet and king, priest and sacrifice, the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament proclamation; third, the one people of God, the covenant community, the company of the elect, whom God brings to faith and keeps in faith, from Abel, Noah and Abraham through the remnant of Israel to the worldwide New Testament church of believing Jews and Gentiles; and fourth, the one pattern of covenant piety, consisting of faith, repentance, love, joy, praise, hope, hatred of sin, desire for sanctity, a spirit of prayer, and readiness to battle the world, the flesh, and the devil in order to glorify God . . . a pattern displayed most fully, perhaps, in Luther's "little Bible," the Psalter, but seen also in the lives of God's servants in both Testaments and reflected more or less fully in each single one of the Old and New Testament books. Covenant theologians insist that every book of the Bible in effect asks to be read in terms of these unities, and as contributing to the exposition of them, and is actually misunderstood if it is not so read.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Third, the reality of God is not properly understood till it is viewed within a covenantal frame.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Who is God? God is the triune Creator, who purposes to have a covenant people whom in love he will exalt for his glory. ("Glory" there means both God's demonstration of his praiseworthiness and the actual praising that results.) Why does God so purpose? -- why, that is, does he desire covenantal fellowship with rational beings? The most we can say (for the question is not one to which God has given us a direct answer) is that the nature of such fellowship observably corresponds to the relationships of mutual honor and love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit within the unity of the divine being, so that the divine purpose appears to be, so to speak, an enlarging of this circle of eternal love and joy. In highlighting the thought that covenantal communion is the inner life of God, covenant theology makes the truth of the Trinity more meaningful than it can otherwise be.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nor is this all. Scripture is explicit on the fact that from eternity, in light of human sin foreseen, a specific agreement existed between the Father and the Son that they would exalt each other in the following way: the Father would honor the Son by sending him to save lost sinners through a penal self-sacrifice leading to a cosmic reign in which the central activity would be the imparting to sinners through the Holy Spirit of the redemption he won for them; and the Son would honor the Father by becoming the Father's love-gift to sinners and by leading them through the Spirit to trust, love and glorify the Father on the model of his own obedience to the Father's will. This covenant of Redemption, as it is commonly called, which underlies the Covenant of Grace, clarifies these three truths at least:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(1) The love of the Father and the Son, with the Holy Spirit, to lost sinners is shared, unanimous love. The tritheistic fantasy of a loving Son placating an unloving Father and commandeering an apathetic Holy Spirit in or save us is a distressing nonsense.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(2) As our salvation derives from God's free and gracious initiative and is carried through, first to last, according to God's eternal plan by God's own sovereign power, so its ultimate purpose is to exalt and glorify the Father and the Son together. The man-centered distortion that pictures God as saving us more for our sake than for his is also a distressing nonsense.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">(3) Jesus Christ is the focal figure, the proper center of our faith-full attention, throughout the redemptive economy. He, as Mediator of the Covenant of Grace and of the grace of that covenant, is as truly an object of divine predestination as are we whom he saves. With him as our sponsor and representative, the last Adam, the second "public person" through whom the Father deals with our race, the Covenant of Grace is archetypally and fundamentally made, in order that it may now be established and ratified with us in him. ("With whom was the covenant of grace made?" asks question 31 of the Westminster Larger Catechism, and the prescribed answer is: "The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.") From the vital union that we have with Christ through the Holy Spirit's action flows all the aliveness to God, all the faith, hope and love God-ward, all the desire for him and urges to worship him and willingness to work for him, of which we ever were, are, or will be conscious; apart from Christ we should still be spiritually dead (objectively, lifeless; subjectively, unresponsive) in our trespasses and sins. Christ is therefore to be acknowledged, now and for ever, as our all in all, our Alpha and Omega, so far as our salvation is concerned -- and that goes for salvation subjectively brought home to us, no less than for salvation objectively obtained for us. The legalistic, sub-spiritual Roman Catholic theology of Mass and merit, whereby Christians are required by the Father, and enabled by the Son, to take part in the achieving of their own salvation, is a further distressing nonsense.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">These three truths together shape the authentic biblical and Reformed mentality, whereby God the Father through Christ, and Christ himself in his saving ministry, are given all the glory and all the praise for having quickened us the dead, helped us the helpless, and saved us the lost. Writes Geehardus Vos: "Only when the believer understands how he has to receive and has received everything from the Mediator and how God in no way whatever deals with him except through Christ, only then does a picture of the glorious work that God wrought through Christ emerge in his consciousness and the magnificent idea of grace begin to dominate and form in his life. For the Reformed, therefore, the entire ordo salutis [order of salvation], beginning with regeneration as its first stage, is bound to the mystical union with Christ. There is no gift that has not been earned by him. Neither is there a gift that is not bestowed by him and that does not elevate God's glory through his bestowal. Now the basis for this order lies in none other than in the covenant of salvation with Christ. In this covenant those chosen by the Father are given to Christ. In it he became the guarantor so that they would be planted into his body in the thought-world of grace through faith. As the application of salvation by Christ and by Christ's initiative is a fundamental principle of Reformed theology, this theology has correctly viewed this application as a covenantal requirement which fell to the Mediator and for the fulfilling of which he became the guarantor" (Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Richard B. Gaffin, Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980, p. 248). The full reality of God and God's work are not adequately grasped till the Covenant of Redemption -- the specific covenantal agreement between Father and Son on which the Covenant of Grace rests -- occupies its proper place in our minds.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thus it appears that, confessionally and doxologically, convenant theology brings needed enrichment of insight to our hearts; and devotionally the same is true. Older evangelicals wrote hymns celebrating the covenant of grace in which they voiced fortissimos of the triumphant assurance of a kind that we rarely hear today -- so it will be worth our while to quote some of them. They merit memorizing, and meditating on, and making one's own; ceaseless strength flows to those saints who allow these sentiments to take root in their souls. Here, first, is the eighteenth-century leader, Philip Doddridge:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">'Tis mine, the covenant of his grace,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And every promise mine;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All sprung from everlasting love,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And sealed by blood divine. On my unworthy favored head</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Its blessings all unite;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Blessings more numerous than the stars, More lasting, and more bright.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And again:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My God! the covenant of thy love</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Abides for ever sure;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And in its matchless grace I feel</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My happiness secure.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Since thou, the everlasting God,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My Father art become</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jesus, my Guardian and my Friend,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And heaven my final home;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I welcome all thy sovereign will,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">For all that will is love;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And, when I know not what thou dost, I wait the light above.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Also in the eighteenth century, Augustus Toplady wrote this:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A debtor to mercy alone,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of covenant mercy I sing;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nor fear, with thy righteousness on,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My person and offering to bring.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The terrors of law, and of God,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">With me can have nothing to do:</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My Savior's obedience and blood</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hide all my transgressions from view.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The work which his goodness began</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The arm of his strength will complete; His promise is Yea and Amen,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">And never was forfeited yet.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Things future, nor things that are now Not all things below or above,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Can make him his purpose forego,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Or sever my soul from his love.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Then, a hundred years later, Frances Ridley Havergal gave us the following:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jehovah's covenant shall endure,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All ordered, everlasting, sure!</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O child of God, rejoice to trace</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Thy portion in its glorious grace.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">'Tis thine, for Christ is given to be</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The covenant of God to thee;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In him, God's golden scroll of light,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The darkest truths are clear and bright.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O sorrowing sinner, well he knew,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Ere time began, what he would do!</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Then rest thy hope within the veil;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His covenant mercies shall not fail.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O doubting one, Eternal Three</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Are pledged in faithfulness for thee</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Claim every promise sweet and sure</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By covenant oath of God secure.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O feeble one, look up and see</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Strong consolation sworn for thee:</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Jehovah's glorious arm is shown</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His covenant strength is all thine own.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O mourning one, each stroke of love</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A covenant blessing yet shall prove;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His covenant love shall be thy stay;</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His covenant grace be as thy day.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O Love that chose, O Love that died,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O Love that sealed and sanctified,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All glory, glory, glory be,</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">O covenant Triune God, to thee!</span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One way of judging the quality of theologies is to see what sort of devotion they produce. The devotional perspective that covenant theology generates is accurately reflected in these lyrics. Readers will make up their own minds as to whether such devotion could significantly enrich the church today, and form their judgment on covenant theology accordingly.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">IV. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Earlier it was said that the Bible "forces" covenant theology on all who receive it as what, in effect, it claims to be -- God's witness to God's work of saving sinners for God's glory. "Forces" is a strong work; how does Scripture "force" covenant theology upon us? By the following four r features, at least.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">First, by the story that it tells. The books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, are, as was said earlier, God's own record of the progressive unfolding of his purpose to have a people in covenant with himself here on earth. The covenantal character of God's relationships with human beings, first to last, has already been underlined, and is in fact reflected one way and another on just about every page of the Bible. The transition in Eden from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace, and the further transition from all that was involved in the preliminary (old) form of that covenant to its final (new) form, brought in through the death of Jesus Christ and now administered by him from his throne, are the key events in the covenant story. The significance of the fact that God caused his book of instruction to mankind to be put together with the history of his covenant as its backbone can hardly be overestimated. Covenant relationships between God and men, established by God's initiative, bringing temporal and eternal blessings to individuals and creating community among them, so that they have a corporate identity as God's people, are in fact the pervasive themes of the whole Bible; and it compels thoughtful readers to take note of the covenant as being central to God's concern.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Second, Scripture forces covenant theology upon us by the place it gives to Jesus Christ in the covenant story. That all Scripture, one way and another, is pointing its readers to Christ, teaching us truths and showing us patterns of divine action that help us understand him properly, is a principle that no reverent and enlightened Bible student will doubt. This being so, it is momentously significant that when Jesus explained the memorial rite for himself that he instituted as his people's regular form of worship, he spoke of the wine that they were to drink as symbolizing his blood, shed to ratify the new covenant -- a clear announcement of the fulfilling of the pattern of Exodus 24 (Jesus echoes directly the words of verse 8) and the promise of Jeremiah 31:31-34. It is also momentously significant that when the writer to the Hebrews explains the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ as the only source of salvation for sinners he does so by focusing on Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant and depicts him as establishing this prophesied relationship between God and his people by superseding (transcending and thereby cancelling) the inadequate old covenant institutions for dealing with sins and giving access to God. It is also momentously significant that when in Galatians Paul tells Gentiles that their faith in Christ, as such, has already made them inheritors of all that was promised to Abraham, he makes the point by declaring that in union with Christ, as those who by baptism have "put on" the Christ in whom they have trusted so as to become his own people, they are now the seed of Abraham with whom God has made his covenant for all time (Gal. 3) . . . the covenant that brings liberty from law as a supposed system of salvation and full fellowship for ever with God above (Gal. 4:24-3 1). Such Scriptures require us to interpret Christ in terms of God's covenant, just as they require us to interpret God's covenant in terms of Christ, and this fact also alerts thoughtful readers to the centrality of the covenant theme.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The third way in which Scripture directs us to covenantal thinking is by the specific parallel between Christ and Adam that Paul draws in Rom. 5:12-18; 1 Cor. 15: 21 f., 45-49). The solidarity of one person standing for a group, involving the whole group in the consequences of his action and receiving promises that apply to the whole group as well as to himself, is a familiar facet of biblical covenant thought, usually instanced in the case of family and national groups (Noah, Gen. 6:18, 9:9; Abraham, Gen. 17:7; the Israelites, Ex. 20:4-6, 8-12, 31:12-17 (16); Aaron, Lev. 24:8 f.;Phinehas, Num. 25:13; David, 2 Chr. 13:5, 21:7; Jer. 33:19-22). In Rom. 5:12-1 8 Paul proclaims a solidarity between Christ and his people (believers, Rom 3:22-5:2; the elect, God's chosen ones, 8:33) whereby the law-keeping, sin-bearing obedience of "the one man" brings righteousness with God, justification, and life to "the many," "all;" and he sets this within the frame of a prior solidarity, namely that between Adam and his descendants, whereby our entire race was involved in the penal consequences of Adam's transgression. The 1 Corinthians passages confirm that these are indeed covenantal solidarities; God deals with mankind through two representative men, Adam and Christ; all that are in Adam die; all that are in Christ are made alive. This far-reaching parallel is clearly foundational to Paul's understanding of God's ways with our race, and it is a covenantal way of thinking, showing from a third angle that covenant theology is indeed biblically basic.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The fourth way in which Scripture forces covenant theology upon us is by the explicit declaring of the covenant of redemption, most notably (though by no means exclusively) in the words of Jesus recorded in the gospel of John. All Jesus's references to his purpose in the world as the doing of his Father's will, and to his actual words and works as obedience to his Father's command (Jn. 4:32-34, 5:30, 6:38-40, 7:16-18, 8:28 f., 12:49 f., 14:31, 15:10, 17:4, I9:30); all his further references to his being sent by the Father into the world to perform a specific task (3:17, 34, 5:23, 30, 36, 38, 6:29, 57, 7:28, 29, 33, 8:16, 18, 26, 9:4, 10:36, 11:42, 12:44, 13:20, 14:24, 15:21, 16:5, 17:3, 8,18, 21, 23, 25, 20:21, cf. 18:37); and all his references to the Father "giving" him particular persons to save, and to his acceptance of the task of rescuing them from perishing both by dying for them and by calling and shepherding them to glory (6:37-44, 10:14-16, 27-30, 17:2, 6, 9,19, 22, 24); are so many testimonies to the reality of the covenant of redemption. The emphasis is pervasive, arresting, and inescapable: Jesus' own words force on thoughtful readers recognition of the covenant economy as foundational to all thought about the reality of God's saving grace.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">V. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Historically, covenant theology is a Reformed development: Huldreich Zwingli, Henry Bullinger, John Calvin, Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus, Robert Rollock, John Preston, and John Ball, were among the contributors to its growth, and the Westminster Confession and Catechisms gave it confessional status. Johann Koch (Cocceius) was a Dutch stormy petrel who in a Latin work, The Doctrine of the Covenant and Testament of God (Summa doctrinae de foedere et testamento dei, 1648) not only worked out in detail what we would call a biblical-theological, redemptive-historical perspective for presenting covenant theology (three periods -- the covenant of works, made with Adam; the covenant of grace, made with and through Moses; the new covenant, made through Christ), but muddied his exegesis by allegorical fancies and marginalized himself by needless attacks on the analytical doctrine-by-doctrine approach to theological exposition that was practised by his leading contemporaries in Holland, Maccovius, Maresius, and Voetius. It seems clear with hindsight that his method and theirs were complementary to each other, and that both were necessary then, as they are now. (Today we name the Cocceian procedure "biblical theology" and that which he opposed "systematic theology," and in well-ordered teaching institutions students are required to study both.) But for more than half a century following the appearance of Cocceius' book clouds of controversy hung over Holland as Cocceians and Voetians grappled with each other, each side trying to prove the illegitimacy and wrong-headedness of what the other was attempting.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Within this embattled situation, Witsius tries to have the best of both worlds -- and largely succeeds. His full title (The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: comprehending a complete Body of Divinity) might seem to claim too much; but it is clearly a friendly wave to the Cocceians, who were insisting that the only way to organize theology and set out Christian truths was in terms of the historical unfolding of God's covenant dealings. His four books, the first on the Covenant of Works, the second on the Covenant of Redemption, the third on the Covenant of Grace, and the fourth on covenant ordinances at different times, and on the knowledge and experience of God's grace that these conveyed, are a journey over Cocceian ground, in the course of which Witsius, excellent exegete that he is, manages to Correct some inadequacies and errors that poor exegesis in the Cocceian camp had fathered. But he treats each topic analytically, and draws with evident happiness on the expository resources produced by systematicians during the previous 150 years including, be it said, much deep wisdom from the Puritan-Pietist tradition, which is particularly evident in Book Three. This is a head-clearing, mind-forming, heart-warming treatise of very great value; we possess nothing like it today, and to have it available once more is a real boon. I thank the publishers most warmly for taking a risk on it, and I commend it enthusiastically to God's people everywhere.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Introduction by J. I. Packer to "The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity". HermanWitsius. REPRENTED [<i>sic</i>] 1990. Escondido. California: The den dulk Christian Foundation. DISTRIBUTED by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey.</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-18479858126073279592018-06-16T18:55:00.002-04:002018-06-16T19:22:47.706-04:00Accurately Defining "Puritan" (and was Jonathan Edwards one?)<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mark Jones wrote this post some years back (not promoting Jones as a true Christian; this post is primarily to convey accurate theological-historical information). This is an excerpt (underlining mine).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Around 1564 the term 'Puritan' emerged, primarily as a pejorative term aimed at clergymen in the Elizabethan church who wanted further reformation to take place. They objected to wearing those things that look like dog collars, and wanted to cleanse the church of other 'Romish' elements. This movement was peculiar to the Church of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These so-called 'Puritans' experienced various successes and setbacks, with the major setback - probably a defeat - taking place in the early 1660s. Their glory years were the 1640s (Westminster Confession) and 1650s (Savoy). </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">By the eighteenth century Puritanism was effectively dead. In fact, I think the movement died - though (thankfully) not the Puritans themselves - with the Act of Uniformity on St. Bartholomew's Day (1662). John Bunyan even reminisces about 'the Puritans': 'the man was a godly old Puritan, for so the godly were called in times past.'</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Puritanism moves to Dissent in 1660. But even if we allow for Puritanism to remain as a historical phenomenon after 1660, then surely the end date comes in 1689 with the Act of Toleration. After 1689 we have what has been called 'Protestant Nonconformity.'</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In New England the context is obviously a little different, and the so-called Puritans were becoming 'Yankees' by the early eighteenth century. 'Puritanism' was displaced by 'Evangelicalism.' A state-supported church in New England was possible in the early eighteenth century, but even by the 1670s the church leaders could see the writing on the wall: that is, they could not depend on the civil leaders to take their concerns seriously (certainly not by the 1720s). </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Theologically, Puritanism was not quite as monolithic as we might think or as some might like to think. Sure, most were 'Calvinists'; but there were Puritans who were Antinomians; others, such as John Goodwin, were Arminians, though John Goodwin enjoyed the great affection of his Calvinist friend, Thomas Goodwin. There were ecclesiological disagreements between the Puritans (even the Presbyterians disagreed with one another), but also some intense soteriological debates among them, too. </u></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Puritan national church during the Cromwellian era (1650s) incorporated Baptists. In fact, as far as I am able to tell, paedobaptist attitudes towards the antipaedobaptists softened as the century wore on, especially after the Great Ejection! </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Thus [employing or using--CD] the term 'Puritan' to describe one's theology can pose all sorts of problems. Put together in a room a bunch of Johns, such as John Owen, John Bunyan, John Howe, John Milton, John Goodwin, John Cotton, and John Eaton (all 'Puritans'), and you've got an almighty amount of disagreement between them. </u> </span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Add Baxter, who might just have 'won' by poisoning them all with his medical home remedies -- unless he decided to swallow another bullet for its good medicinal effects -- and you don't just have disagreement, but theological carnage.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>Politically speaking they are also at odds with each other. Oliver Cromwell and John Milton had much stronger radical sympathies than other Puritans. </u></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>There are also major eschatological (remember: don't use that word in the pulpit) issues among the Puritans that require us to limit the term 'Puritanism' to a specific historical context. </u></span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The millennial glory that many of them hope would take place around 1660 proved to be a source of great embarrassment for those (Thomas Goodwin) who lived long enough to experience the 1660s-1670s.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><u>So, was Jonathan Edwards a Puritan? No, he was not a Puritan. That may be a disappointment for some and a relief for others. But my admiration for the man doesn't depend on whether he was a Puritan or not. Edwards may have had the 'spirit' of Puritanism in him, for he read them with profit. But he can't be described as a Puritan if the term is to have any historical meaning.</u> There is also the fact that Edwards had a theology that was in some ways 'innovative.' But I don't think I want to get into that right now...</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">[...] All of this is to say, I love most of the Puritans, but not all of them. Some of their theology disgusts me; some of their theology delights me. But if there is one label that ought to stand the test of the centuries it is 'Confessional.'" (Mark Jones)</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-83432145851950882002018-06-11T22:04:00.002-04:002018-06-11T22:04:13.158-04:00Shedd on covenant of works<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">“The object of this probation was that Adam, by resisting Satan’s temptation and persevering in holiness, might secure by his own work indefectibility or immutable perfection. This was to be an infinite reward for standing the trial of his faith and obedience. God did not place Adam in a state of probation from mere curiosity to see if he would fall or from malevolence to cause him to fall, <u>but from the benevolent desire that Adam, in the exercise of the ample power with which he was endowed, might merit and obtain as the recompense of his fidelity a final and everlasting deliverance from the possibility of sinning</u>” (W.G.T. Shedd, <i>Dogmatic Theology</i>, p. 536; underlining mine).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If I say that God DID cause Adam to fall — not out of “malevolence,” but out of a desire to demonstrate His power, wrath, justice, mercy, love, and grace (cf. Romans 9:18-23; Ephesians 1:3-4) — what will be the response of those who love to hate the sovereign God of Scripture? Will it not be, Why does God find fault with Adam, for how could he resist His will? Of course that will be the mutinous reply. Shedd’s extreme blindness is clearly manifest in his assertion that God out of a “benevolent desire” desired that Adam might possibly rob Jesus Christ of His redemptive glory in saving His people from their sins, and might possibly thwart His own eternal decree to glorify Himself (cf. Matthew 1:21; Ephesians 3:11).</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-8015536857795733952018-06-10T20:37:00.001-04:002018-06-10T20:37:41.290-04:00"Attainment of heavenly life and everlasting felicity." (Calvin)<br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">"I feel pleased with the well-known saying which has been borrowed from the writings of Augustine, that man's natural gifts were corrupted by sin, <u>and his supernatural gifts withdrawn; meaning by supernatural gifts the light of faith and righteousness, which would have been sufficient for the attainment of heavenly life and everlasting felicity. Man, when he withdrew his allegiance to God, was deprived of the spiritual gifts by which he had been raised to the hope of eternal salvation</u>. Hence it follows, that he is now an exile from the kingdom of God, so that all things which pertain to the blessed life of the soul are extinguished in him until he recover them by the grace of regeneration" (John Calvin, <i>Institutes</i>, 2.2.12; underlining mine).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Here's the insidious "covenant of works" in an "inchoate (just begun)" or "incipient (about to begin)" form <b>[1]</b>. In this Christ-less covenant the creature possesses the sufficient and supernaturally-gifted potential TO ATTAIN "heavenly life and everlasting felicity," and thus TO DEPRIVE Jesus Christ of receiving power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing (Revelation 5:12). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">This particular form of works-salvation whereby man forfeits his "opportunity" to deliver himself from a (presumably) "hypothetical fall," is a grand and god-like scheme to erase Jesus Christ from history. This hypothetical<b> [2]</b> scheme "gifts" the creature with sufficient potential to crown himself king. It attributes to creature-man qualities of character that belong to Jesus Christ ALONE. It exchanges the redemptive glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ for the self-righteous glory of man.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>[1]</b> <span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">"While covenant theology in the Reformed tradition emerged with Zwingli and Bullinger in the 1520s, the term</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"> </span><i style="color: #38761d;">foedus operum</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">(covenant of works) was not used until 1585, by the Puritan Dudley Fenner.6 Earlier, in 1562, in his</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"> </span><i style="color: #38761d;">Summa theologiae</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">, the German Reformed theologian Zacharias Ursinus had written of a covenant of creation,7 so the idea had already been proposed. In the five years after Fenner's work, a spate of theologians adopted the pre-fall covenant --- including Caspar Olevian, Franciscus, Junius, Lambert Danaeu, and Amandus Polanus.8 By 1590, it was common. However, it was by no means universally taught at this time. Bucanus's</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"> </span><i style="color: #38761d;">Institutiones theologiae</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">(1602) does not mention it. Some at the Assembly were hesitant about it and even opposed it.9 No confessional document prior to the Assembly had adopted it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">Neither in his Genesis commentary nor in the <i>Institutes </i>does Calvin describe the condition of Adam before the fall as covenantal, still less as a covenant of works. Peter Lillback argues that all the ingredients for such a view are present in Calvin, and that he has an<i>inchoate </i>(just begun) covenant of works, but I prefer the word<i>incipient </i>(about to begin), since, while the elements for such a covenant are present, the formulation itself is not.10" (Robert Letham, <i>The Westminster Assembly</i>, p. 227).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><b><u>Notes</u></b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">6. Fenner, <i>Sacra theologia</i>.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">7. A. Lang, ed., <i>Der Heidelberger Katechismus und vier verwandte Katechismen </i>(Leipzig: Deichert, 1967), 153, 156.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">8. Caspar Olevian, <i>De substantia foederis gratuiti inter Deum et electos </i>(Geneva, 1585), 12-13, 48, 62-63, 90, 251-55, 270; Amandas Polanus, <i>Partitiones theologiae </i>(Basel, 1607), 152-53; Junius,<i>Opera theologica, </i>1:1659-62.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">9. In chapter 12, we shall see that Thomas Gataker and Richard Vines indicated their opposition to it.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #666666;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #38761d;">10. P.A. Lillback, <i>The Binding of God: Calvin's Role in the Development of Covenant Theology </i>(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 276-304.</span></span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>[2]</b> A possible objection to the hypothetical nature of this Christ-denying covenant of works might be: "<i>et suppositio nil ponit in esse</i>" (i.e., a supposition puts nothing in being). The objector here implying that since this supposition puts nothing into being it cannot legitimately bring Paul's Galatians 1:8-9 <i>anathema </i>into being. This so-called "covenant of works" is salvation by works; it is salvation by the work of creature-man; it is of antichrist. It supposes "salvation" by the works and efforts of man from a "hypothetical fall." What IS "put in being" in this hypothetical attempt to erase Jesus Christ from Redemptive History, is mans' "god-like" potential. A bit more:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">While God-hater Charles Hodge's supposition that it was possible for Jesus Christ to sin did not put His actual peccability into being, it did put into being what kind of Being Hodge believed Christ to be (a peccable being; an idol of Hodge's Christ-hating imagination). Similarly, to put forth the "covenant of works" supposition DOES "put in being" what kind of Being one thinks the Triune God to be and also what kind of being one thinks man to be.</span><div>
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Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-47140393898189177942018-05-27T18:48:00.000-04:002018-07-28T17:05:23.775-04:00The Major English Puritans<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Some historical information:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">THE MAJOR ENGLISH PURITANS (by Curt Daniel)</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1. Thomas Adams (1612-1653). Anglican. Writer of very popular devotional theology, including a massive commentary on 2 Peter. Praised for mastery of English language.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">2. Joseph Alleine (1634-1668). Presbyterian. Wrote the enormously best-selling An Alarm to the Unconverted, a good example of Puritan evangelism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">3. Isaac Ambrose (1604-1662). Anglican, then Presbyterian. Renown for an exceptionally holy life such as spending one month a year in solitary meditation and prayer. Wrote numerous devotional books, such as the popular Looking Unto Jesus.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">4. William Ames (1576-1633). Anglican, then Presbyterian. Ministered in England as Cambridge Calvinist and in Holland as pastor and professor and advisor at the Synod of Dort. Closest disciple of William Perkins. Greatly influenced American Puritans. Wrote The Marrow of Theolgy , the standard Puritan systematic theology; and Cases of Conscience, important work on Biblical ethics; many others. Supralapsarian,</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">5. John Ball (1585-1640). Presbyterian. Wrote A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace, an early and important work on Covenant Theology. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">6. Richard Baxter (1615-1691). Presbyterian. By far and away the most prolific Puritan writer, wrote on a host of subjects (systematic theology, ethics, politics, pastoral theology, ecclesiology, devotionals, evangelism, history, etc.), such as The Saints Everlastinq Rest; A Call to the Unconverted; The Reformed Pastor; Aphorisms of Justification; The Christian Directory; and over 100 other books, plus sermons, an autobiography, etc. One of Cromwell's Chaplains. Considered a model pastor. Irenic and conciliatory for true ecumenism, though he was a leading opponent of Antinomianism. Founder of Neonomianism error. Helped in the recall of King Charles II.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">7. Paul Baynes (c.1560-1617). Anglican. An early Cambridge Calvinist and seminal Experimentalist. Succeeded Perkins at Cambridge. Wrote Commentary on Ephesians. Converted and taught Richard Sibbes, who became the next torchbearer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">8. Samuel Bolton (1606-1654). Became Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. His brother Robert also a major Puritan. Wrote The True Bounds of Christian Liberty against Antinomians.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">9. Thomas Brooks (1608-1680). Independent. Studied at Cambridge, developed a devotional Experimentalism in a sweet and pithy style. Wrote Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices; The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod; Apples of Gold, etc. One of the most quoted Puritans because of his masterful, proverbial English style.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">10. Robert Browne (1550-1633). Independent. Studied at Cambridge. Originally Calvinist, but decreasingly so. The first major Separatist, leader of the Brownists and early Independents. Somewhat eccentric. More known as a preacher than a writer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">11. John Bunyan (1628-1688). Baptist. Soldier in the Civil War, became a tinker (metal-worker) by trade. Four-point Calvinist. While imprisoned for 12 years for refusing to conform to the re-established Church of England, Bunyan wrote Pilqrim's Proqress - not only hailed as one of the greatest masterpieces of English literature, but was destined to become the second best-selling Christian book of all time. He also wrote another allegory, The Holy War, plus many other books, some of which are systematic theology or devotional, including his autobiography entitled Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">12. Jeremiah Burroughes (1599-1646). Independent. Studied at Cambridge. One of the Westminster divines. Wrote a massive Exposition of Hosea and the Experimentalist classic, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">13. Edmund Calamy (1600-1666). Presbyterian. A Cambridge Calvinist and Westminster divine. Helped recall Charles II to the throne. His grandson of the same name wrote an important history of the Great Ejection.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">14. Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603). Presbyterian. Expelled from teaching at Cambridge for advocating Presbyterianism. Imprisoned several times for his beliefs. The first major English Presbyterian. Studied under Beza at Geneva.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">15. Joseph Caryl (1602-1673). Independent. One of the Westminster divines. Succeeded John Owen as pastor in London. Wrote a famous 12 volume exposition of Job.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">16. Stephen Charnock (1628-1680). Presbyterian. Studied at Cambridge. One of Cromwell's chaplains. Wrote The Existence and Attributes of God, the fullest Calvinist theology of God ever written, considered the definitive work in the field. Also wrote Discources on Regeneration and other theological and Experimental works.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">17. Isaac Chauncy (1632-1712). Independent. The leading opponent of Neonomianism. Supralapsarian. Opened the door from semi-Antinomianism to Hyper-Calvinism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">18. David Clarkson (1622-1686). Independent. Studied at Cambridge. Assistant and immediate successor to John Owen as pastor. Wrote on Experimental theology.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">19. Tobias Crisp (1600-1643). Independent. Originally an Arminian, later became a Supralapsarian Calvinist and the leading Calvinistic 'Antinomian'. Exaggerated subjects like Christ was made sin, believers not under the Law, eternal justification before faith, immediate witness of the Spirit, etc. Much influenced the rise of Hyper-Calvinism. Wrote Christ Alone Exalted. Other Antinomians: John Eaton, John Saltmarsh., William Dell.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> 20.Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). Independent. Represented Cambridge in Parliament. Organized the New Model Army, which won the English Civil War. Powerful leader but tolerant of other churches. Close friend of John Owen. Commissioned many leading Puritans to be his chaplains. Reluctantly approved the execution of Charles II, but refused the crown offered him by Parliament; instead became Lord Protector (1653). Buried in Westminster Abbey, but at the Restoration his corpse was exhumed and publicly hanged. Strong Puritan religious principles.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">21. John Davenant (1576-1641). Anglican. Bishop of Salisbury. Delegate to Synod of Dort. Taught Christ died for all, especially the elect. Very low doctrine of reprobation. Wrote The Death of Christ and a much hailed commentary on Colossians.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">22. Edward Fisher (1627-1656). Little known about him; some reports say he was a barber or surgeon. Famous for writing The Marrow of Modern Divinity, a dialogue on the leading theological issues of the day with extensive quotes from leading Puritans. The Marrow would cause a major controversy in the early 18th-century Scotland.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">23. John Flavel (1630-1691). Presbyterian. Pastored in Dartmouth. Wrote Experimental and systematic theology, such as The Method of Grace and The Fountain of Life.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">24. Thomas Gataker (1574-1654). Anglican. Cambridge Calvinist and Westminster divine. A leading anti-Antinomian and major contributor to the Westminster Annotations . </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">25. Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680). Independent. London pastor and President of Magdalen College, Cambridge University. A leading Westminster divine and organizer of the Savoy Declaration. One of the most important and precise Puritan theologians. Wrote The Holy Spirit; Justifying Faith; Christ the Mediator; other works mainly in systematic theology. Supralapsarian. Taught the sealing of the Spirit was a second work of grace bringing assurance of salvation.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">26. William Gouge (1578-1653). Presbyterian. Studied at Cambridge. Very influential Westminster divine, he alternated as successor of Twisse as Prolocutor. Wrote a large Exposition of Hebrews and contributed to the Westminster Annotations.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">27. William Gurnall (1617-1679). Anglican. Studied at Cambridge. Wrote the classic The Christian in Complete Armour based on Ephesians 6.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">28. Joseph Hall (1574-1656). Anglican. Bishop. Delegate to Synod of Dort. Moderate Calvinist like Davenant and Ussher. Famous devotional writer, such as his Contemplations Upon the Principal Passages of the Old and New Testaments.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">29. Matthew Henry (1662-1714). Presbyterian. Author of the best-selling commentary on the Bible ever written, a standard devotional and experimental work. Also wrote several other devotional pieces. His father Phillip Henry was also a noted Puritan.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">30. John Howe (1630-1705). Anglican, then Presbyterian. Briefly one of Cromwell's chaplains. Irenical and non-controversial. Wrote many popular devotional works.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">31. Benjamin Keach (1640-1704). Baptist. Adapted the Westminster Confession and Shorter Catechism for Baptists. The major organizer of Baptists after the Act of Toleration. Wrote Tropologia (reprinted as Preaching from the Types and Metaphors of the Bible), the largest work on Bible typology ever written. Later succeeded by John Gill and C.H. Spurgeon. Promoted congregational hymn singing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">32. Hanserd Knollys (1599-1691). Baptist. One of the major early 'Particular' (i.e., Calvinist) Baptists in England. Studied at Cambdridge. One of Cromwell's chaplains.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">33. John Lightfoot (1602-1675). Anglican, then Presbyterian. Cambridge Calvinist. One of the most important Westminster divines, he never missed a session. Famous as a scholar of ancient Jewish customs, language and literature.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">34. Thomas Manton (1620-1677). Presbyterian. One of the three scribes at Westminster Assembly. One of the most famous Puritan preachers. Published an enormous number of sermons, and popular expositions of James and Jude.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">35. Joseph Mede (1586-1638). Anglican. Professor at Cambridge. Moderate Calvinist. A leading scholar on many subjects. Especially noted for a large commentary on Revelation, one of the few espousing Pre-Millenialism. Somewhat mystical.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">36. John Milton (1608-1674). Anglican, then Presbyterian, then Independent. Moderate Calvinist, then Arminian, then Arian. Wrote a systematic theology, but famous as a major English poet: Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; Samson Agonistones; etc. Went blind in 1651.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">37. John Owen (1616-1683). Independent. Chaplain to Cromwell, London pastor, leader of the Independents, vice-chancellor (President) of Oxford University. Entered Oxford at 12, earned Master's degree at 19. Important in drawing up the Savoy Declaration. Often preached before the Long Parliament. Second only to Perkins in influence, second to none in scholarship. Prolific writer on systematic, Experimental and Biblical theology: Commentary on Hebrews (7 vols.); The Death of Death (the standard on limited atonement); The Holy Spirit; A Display of Arminianism; The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, others. Of Welsh ancestry. Often in controversy with Baxter. Detailed, prolix writing style.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">38. William Perkins (1558-1602). Anglican. The most influential of all Puritan theologians and the leading Cambridge Calvinist. A close follower of Beza; Ames was his closest disciple. Opposed by Arminius. Prolific writer on systematic and experimental theology. His The Golden Chain was the standard work on 'High' Calvinism. A major Supralapsarian. His famous chart on the order of the decrees and of historical salvation was the classic. Fervent opponent of Romanizing tendencies in the Church of England. Very logical and ordered, somewhat Scholastic. Wrote Cases of Conscience on ethics, Experimentalism.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">39. Matthew Poole (1624-1679). Presbyterian, sympathetic to Anglicanism. Studied at Cambridge. Wrote a very popular Commentary on the Bible, often reprinted, which sums up Puritan exegesis. Also compiled the Latin Synopsis Bible Commentary.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">40. John Preston (1587-1628). Anglican. A leading Cambridge Calvinist and theological Experimentalist. Wrote the important The Breastplate of Faith and Love.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">41. John Rainolds (1549-1607). Anglican. President of Christ Church College, Oxford University. An important early Puritan. One of the leading Bible scholars of the day and major translators of the King James Version, died before its completion.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">42. Edward Reynolds (1599-1676). Anglican. Bishop. Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford University. Important Westminster divine.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">43. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635). Anglican. A leading Cambridge Calvinist. Influenced by Paul Baynes, in turn influenced Richard Baxter. Noted as preacher and theologian and especially as Experimentalist. Wrote The Bruised Reed, others.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">44. John Smyth (1554-1612). Baptist. Originally an Anglican, then Separatist and 'Se-Baptist' (he baptized himself). Started the first Baptist church in England. Originally a Cambridge Calvinist, then turned Arminian.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">45. Robert Traill (1642-1716). Presbyterian. Originally Scottish, ordained and preached in England. Supralapsarian. A close associate of Chauncy against Neonomianism. Wrote The Throne of Grace, others.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">46. John Trapp (1601-1669). Anglican with Presbyterian sympathies. Wrote a large and very popular commentary on the Bible, famous for its pithy, quotable style.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">47. William Twisse (1578-1646). Moderate Anglican. Prolocutor (president) of the Westminster Assembly and influential divine. Wrote the definitive work on Supralapsarianism, The Riches of God's Love Unto the Vessels of Mercy. Tolerated Crisp against assaults. Of German ancestry.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">48. James Ussher (1581-1656). Anglican. Archbishop. Irish. Invited to be divine at Westminster Assembly, but did not attend. His Irish Articles were the basis for the Westminster Confession. One of the leading scholars of the century. Aprolific writer: A Body of Divinity; a work on Gottschalk and predestination; Bible chronology (his date for Creation at 4004 BC is still popular); others. A moderate Calvinist similar to Davenant, '4 ½ Point Calvinist'.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">49. Thomas Watson (c. 1620-1686). Presbyterian. Studied at Cambridge. One of the most famous Puritan preachers. Popular writer: A Body of Divinity (a systematic theology based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism); The Lord's Prayer; The Ten Commandments; The Beatitudes; A Divine Cordial; Repentance; others.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">50. Daniel Williams (1643-1716). Presbyterian. The leading Neonomian. Influenced by Baxter, taught '4-point Calvinism' with serious modifications. Taught that the Gospel is a 'new law', obedience to which is justifying righteousness. Wrote The Gospel Truth. Wealthy, left his library as the permanent Dr.Williams Library, London. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Other notable English Puritans:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Samuel Ward, Christopher Ness, Sir Richard Baker, William Bridge, Robert Bolton, John Arrowsmith, John Downame, Richard Rogers, George Swinnock, Richard Greenham, Walter Marshal, William Pemble, Ezekiel Hopkins, Vavasor Powell, Francis Roberts, John Eaton, John Saltmarsh, Robert Towne, Obadiah Sedgewick, John Sedgewick, Thomas Taylor, Andrew Willet, William Greenhill, Henry Scudder, Phillip Nye, William Jenkyn, Matthew Mead, Elisha Coles, George Downame. Time fails us to list such heroes (cf. Hebrews 11:32). As Spurgeon said, "There were giants in the land in those days."</span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-71227309817287441792018-05-26T18:56:00.003-04:002018-07-27T08:03:41.685-04:00Not "atonement," but "satisfaction" <br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Historical info from a Reformed scholar:</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">“There has been some scholarly disagreement on this issue -- and sometimes a doctrinal wedge is driven between ‘Calvin’ and the ‘Calvinists,’ as if Calvin taught a ‘universal atonement’ and later Reformed writers taught a ‘limited atonement.’ Yet, when the terms and definitions are rightly sorted out, there is significant continuity in the Reformed tradition on this point.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The terms ‘universal’ and ‘limited atonement’ do not represent the sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Reformed view -- or, for that matter, the view of its opponents. The issue was not over ‘atonement,’ broadly understood, but over ‘satisfaction’ made by Christ for sin -- and the debate was never over whether or not Christ’s satisfaction was limited: all held it to be utterly sufficient to pay the price for all sin and all held it to be effective or efficient only for those who were saved. The question concerned the identity of those who were saved and, therefore, the ground of the limitation -- God’s will or human choice. Thus, both Calvin and Bullinger taught that Christ’s work made full and perfect satisfaction for all, both commended the universal preaching of the Gospel, both taught the efficacy of Christ’s work for the faithful alone -- and both taught that faith is the gift of God, made available to the elect only. In other words, the inference of a limitation of the efficacy of Christ’s satisfaction to the elect alone is found both in Bullinger and in Calvin, despite differences between their formulations of the doctrine of predestination. The Reformed orthodox did teach the doctrine more precisely. In response to Arminius, they brought the traditional formula of sufficiency for all sin and efficiency for the elect alone to the forefront of their definition, where Calvin and Bullinger hardly mention it at all. The orthodox also more clearly connected the doctrine of election to the language of the limitation of the efficacy of Christ’s death, arguing that the divine intention in decreeing the death of Christ was to save only the elect. This solution is presented in the Canons of Dort in concise formula" (</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Richard A. Muller, <i>After Calvin</i>: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition, 14). [<a href="https://deovivendiperchristum.wordpress.com/tag/richard-a-muller/" target="_blank">SOURCE</a>]</span></span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-1824330595543923262018-05-19T22:56:00.002-04:002018-07-27T08:01:52.489-04:00Was Calvin a Calvinist? (By Richard A. Muller)<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Was Calvin a Calvinist? By Richard A. Muller:</span><br />
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<a href="https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/was-calvin-a-calvinist-12-26-09.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">https://agrammatos.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/was-calvin-a-calvinist-12-26-09.pdf</span></a>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-80192092415170776802018-05-12T20:35:00.001-04:002018-05-20T15:38:20.324-04:00The French Confession of Faith<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The French Confession of Faith</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />Prefatory letter to the King<br /><br />Sire, we thank God that hitherto having had no access to your Majesty to make known the rigor of the persecutions that we have suffered, and suffer daily, for wishing to live in the purity of the Gospel and in peace with our own consciences, he now permits us to see that you wish to know the worthiness of our cause, as is shown by the last Edict given at Amboise in the month of March of this present year, 1559, which it has pleased your Majesty to cause to be publshed. This emboldens us to speak, which we have been prevented from doing hitherto through the injustice and violence of some of your officers, incited rather by hatred of us than by love of your service. And to the end, Sire, that we may fully inform your Majesty of what concerns this cause, we humbly beseech you that you will see and hear our Confession of Faith, which we present to you, hoping that it will prove a sufficient answer to the blame and opprobrium unjustly laid upon us by those who have always made a point of condemning us without having any knowledge of our cause. In the which, Sire, we can affirm that there is nothing contrary to the Word of God, or to the homage which we owe you.<br /><br />For the articles of our faith, which are all declared at some length in our Confession, all come to this: that since God has sufficiently declared his will to us through his Prophets and Apostles, and even by the mouth of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, we owe such respect and reverence to the Word of God as shall prevent us from adding to it any thing of our own, but shallmake us conform entirely to the rules it prescribes. And inasmuch as the Roman Church, forsaking the use and customs of the primitive Church, has introduced new commandments and a new form of worship of God, we esteem it but reasonable to prefer the commandments of God, who is himself truth, to the commandments of men, who by their nature are inclined to deceit and vanity. And whatever our enemies may say against us, we can declare this before God and men, that we suffer for no other reason than for maintaining our Lord Jesus Christ to be our only Saviour and Redeemer, and his doctrine to be the only doctrine of life and salvation.<br /><br />And this is the only reason, Sire, why the executioners' hands have been stained so often with the blood of your poor subjects, who, sparing not their lives to maintain this same Confession of Faith, have shown to all that they were moved by some other spirit than that of men, who naturally care for their own peace and comfort than for the honor and glory of God.<br /><br />And therefore, Sire, in accordance with your promises of goodness and mercy toward your poor subjects, we humbly beseech your Majesty graciously to examine the cause for which, being threatened at all times with death or exile, we thus lose the power of rendering the humble service that we owe you. May it please your Majesty, then, instead of the fire and sword which we have been used hitherto, to have our Confession of Faith decided by the Word of God: giving permission and security for this. And we hope that you yourself will be the judge of our innocence, knowing that there is no rebellion or heresy whatsoever, but that our only endeavour is to live in peace of conscience, serving God according to his commandments, and honoring your Majesty by all obedience and submission.<br /><br />And because we have great need, by the preaching of the Word of God, to be kept in our duty to him, as well as to yourself, we humbly beg, Sire, that we may sometimes be permitted to gather together, to be exhorted to the fear of God by his Word, as well as to be confirmed by the administration of the Sacraments which the Lord Jesus Christ instituted in his Church. And if it should please your Majesty to give us a place where any one may see what passes in our assemblies, we shall thereby be absolved from the charge of the enormouse crimes with which these same assemblies have been defamed. For nothing will be seen but what is decent and well-ordered, and nothing will be heard but the praise of God, exhortations to his service, and prayers for the preservation of your Majesty and of your kingdom. And if it do not please you to grant us this favor, at least let it be permitted us to follow the established order in private among ourselves.<br /><br />We beseech you humbly, Sire, to believe that in listening to this supplication which is now presented to you, you listen to the cries and groans of an infinite number of your poor subjects, who implore of your mercy that you extinguish the fires which the cruelty of your judges has lighted in your kingdom. And that we may thus be permitted, in serving your Majesty, to serve him who has raised you to your power and dignity.<br /><br />And if it should not please you, Sire, to listen to our voice, may it please you to listen to that of the Son of God, who, having given you power over our property, our bodies, and even our lives, demands that the control and dominion of our souls and consciences, which he has purchased with his own blood, be reserved to him.<br /><br />We beseech him, Sire, that he may lead you always by his Spirit, increasing with your age, your greatness and power, giving you victory over all your enemies, and establishing forever, in all equity and justice, the throne of your Majesty: before whom, may it please him that we find grace, and some fruit of this our present supplication, so that having exchanged our pains and afflictions for some peace and liberty, we may also change our tears and lamentations into a perpetual thanksgiving to God, and to your Majesty for having done that which is most agreeable to him, most worthy of your goodness and mercy, and most necessary for the preservation of your most humble and obedient subjects and servants.<br /><br />Confession of Faith,<br /><br />made in one accord by the French people, who desire to live according to the purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. A. D. 1559. <br /><br />I.<br /><br />We believe and confess that there is but one God, who is one sole and simple essence, spiritual, eternal, invisible, immutable, infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable, omnipotent; who is all-wise all-good, all-just, and all-merciful.<br /><br />II.<br /><br />As such this God reveals himself to men; firstly, in his works, in their creation, as well as in their preservation and control. Secondly, and more clearly, in his Word, which was in the beginning revealed through oracles, and which was afterward committed to writing in the books which we call the Holy Scriptures.<br /><br />III.<br /><br />These Holy Scriptures are comprised in the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments, as follows: the five books of Moses, namely: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; thenJoshua, Judges, Ruth, the first and second books of Samuel, the first and second books of the Kings, the first and second books of the Chronicles, otherwise called Paralipomenon, the first book of Ezra; then Nehemiah, the book of Esther, Job, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs or Maxims of Solomon; the book of Ecclesiastes, called the Preacher, the Song of Solomon; then the book of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zecharaiah, Malachi; then the Holy Gospel according to St. Mathew, according to St. Mark, according to St. Luke, according to St. John; then the second book of St. Luke, otherwise called the Acts of the Apostles; then the Epistles of St. Paul: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon; then the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James, the first and second Epistles of St. Peter, the first, second, and third Epistles of St. John, the Epistle of St. Jude; and then the Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John.<br /><br />IV.<br /><br />We know these books to be canonical, and the sure rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the Church, as by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, which enables us to distinguish them from other ecclesiastical books upon which, however useful, we can not found any articles of faith.<br /><br />V.<br /><br />We believe that the Word contained in these books has proceeded from God, and receives its authority from him alone, and not from men. And inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth, containing all, that is necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for men, nor even for angels, to add to it, to take away from it, or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity, or custom, or numbers, or human wisdom, or judgments, or proclamations, or edicts, or decrees, or councils, or visions, or miracles, should be opposed to these Holy Scriptures, but, on the contrary, all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them. And therefore we confess the three creeds, to with: the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian, because they are in accordance with the Word of God.<br /><br />VI.<br /><br /> These Holy Scriptures teach us that in this one sole and simple divine essence, whom we have confessed, there are three Persons: the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father, first cause, principle, and origin of all things. The Son, his Word and eternal wisdom. The Holy Spirit, his virtue, power, and efficacy. The Son begotten from eternity by the Father. The Holy Spirit proceeding eternally from them both; the three persons not confused, but distinct, and yet not separate, but of the same essence, equal in eternity and power. And in this we confess that which has been established by the ancient councils, and we detest all sects and heresies which were rejected by the holy doctors, such as St. Hilary, St. Athanasius, St. Ambrose, and St. Cyril.<br /><br />VII. <br /><br />We believe that God, in three co-working persons, by his power, wisdom, and incomprehensible goodness, created all things, not only the heavens and the earth and all that in them is, but also invisible spirits, some of whom have fallen away and gone into perdition, while others have continued in obedience. That the first, being corrupted by evil, are enemies of all good, consequently of the whole Church. The second, having been preserved by the grace of God, are ministers to glorify God's name, and to promote the salvation of his elect.<br /><br />VIII.<br /><br />We believe that he not only created all things, but that he governs and directs them, disposing and ordaining by his sovereign will all that happens in the world; not that he is the author of evil, or that the guilt of it can imputed to him, as his will is the sovereign and infallible rule of all right and justice; but he has wonderful means of so making use of devils and sinners that he can turn to good the evil which they do, and of which they are guilty. And thus, confessing that the providence of God orders all things, we humbly bow before the secrets which are hidden to us, without questioning what is above our understanding; but rather making use of what is revealed to us in Holy Scripture for our peace and safety, inasmuch as God, who has all things in subjection to him, watches over us with a Father's care, so that not a hair of our heads shall fall without his will. And Yet he restrains the devils and all our enemies, so that they can not harm us without his leave.<br /><br />IX.<br /><br />We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature is totally corrupt. And being blinded in mind, and depraved in heart, he has lost all integrity, and there is no good in him. And although he can still discern good and evil, we say, notwithstanding, that the light he has becomes darkness <br />when he seeks for God, so that he can in nowise approach him by his intelligence and reason. And although he has a will that incites him to do this or that, yet it is altogether captive to sin, so that he has no other liberty to do right than that which God gives him.<br /><br />X.<br /><br />We believe that all the posterity of Adam is in bondage to original sin, which is an hereditary evil, and not an imitation merely, as was declared by the Pelagians, whom we detest in their errors. And we consider that it is not necessary to inquire how sin was conveyed from one man to another, for what God had given Adam was not for him alone, but for all his posterity; and thus in his person we have been deprived of all good things, and have fallen with him into a state of sin and misery.<br /><br />XI.<br /><br />We believe, also, that this evil is truly sin, sufficient for the condemnation of the whole human race, even of little children in the mother's womb, and that God considers it as such; even after baptism it is still of the nature of sin, but the condemnation of it is abolished for the children of God, out of his mere free grace and love. And further, that it is a perversity always producing fruits of malice and of rebellion, so that the most holy men, although they resist it, are still stained with many weaknesses and imperfections while they are in this life.<br /><br />XII.<br /><br />We believe that from this corruption and general condemnation in which all men are plunged, God, according to his eternal and immutable counsel, calls those whom he has chosen by his goodness and mercy alone in our Lord Jesus Christ, without consideration of their works, to display in them the riches of his mercy; leaving the rest in this same corruption and condemnation to show in them his justice. For the ones are no better than the others, until God discerns them according to his immutable purpose which he has determined in Jesus Christ before the creation of the world. Neither can any man gain such a reward by his own virtue, as by nature we can not have a single good feeling, affection, or though, except God has first put it into our hearts.<br /><br />XIII.<br /><br /> We believe that all that is necessary for our salvation was offered and communicated to us in Jesus Christ. He is given to us for our salvation, and 'is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:' so that if we refuse him, we renounce the mercy of the Father, in which alone we can find a refuge.<br /><br />XIV.<br /><br /> We believe that Jesus Christ, being the wisdom of God and his eternal Son, has put on our flesh, so as to be God and man in one person; man, like unto us, capable of suffering in body and soul, yet free from all stain of sin. And as to his humanity, he was the true seed of Abraham and of David, although he was conceived by the secret power of the Holy Spirit. In this we detest all the heresies that have of old troubled the Church, and especially the diabolical conceits of Servetus, which attribute a fantastical divinity to the Lord Jesus, calling him the idea and pattern of all things, and the personal or figurative Son of God, and, finally, attribute to him a body of three uncreated elements, thus confusing and destroying the two natures.<br /><br />XV.<br /><br /> We believe that in one person, that is, Jesus Christ, the two natures are actually and inseparably joined and united, and yet each remains in its proper character; so that in this union the divine nature, retaining its attributes, remained uncreated, infinite, and all-pervading; and the human nature remained finite, having its form, measure, and attributes; and although Jesus Christ, in rising from the dead, bestowed immortality upon his body, yet he did not take from it the truth of its nature, and wee so consider him in his divinity that we do not despoil him of his humanity.<br /><br />XVI.<br /><br /> We believe that God, in sending his Son, intended to show his love and inestimable goodness towards us, giving him up to die to accomplish all righteousness, and raising him from the dead to secure for us the heavenly life.<br /><br />XVII.<br /><br />We believe that by the perfect sacrifice that the Lord Jesus offered on the cross, we are reconciled to God, and justified before; for we can not be acceptable to him, nor become partakers of the grace of adoption, except as he pardons [all] our sins, and blots them out. Thus we declare that through Jesus Christ we are cleansed and made perfect; by his death we are fully justified, and through him only can we be delivered from our iniquities and transgressions.<br /><br />XVIII.<br /><br /> We believe that all our justification rests upon the remission of our sins, in which also is our only blessedness, as says the Psalmist (Psa. 32:2). We therefore reject all other means of justification before God, and without claiming any virtue or merit, we rest simply in the obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us as much to blot out all our sins as to make us find grace and favor in the sight of God. And, in fact, we believe that in falling away from this foundation, however slightly, we could not find rest elsewhere, but should always be troubled. Forasmuch as we are never at peace with God till we resolve to be loved in Jesus Christ, for of ourselves we are worthy of hatred.<br /><br />XIX.<br /><br /> We believe that by this means we have the liberty and privilege of calling upon God, in full confidence that he will show himself a Father to us. For we should have no access to the Father except through this Mediator. And to be heard in his name, we must hold our life from him as from our chief.<br /><br />XX.<br /><br /> We believe that we are made partakers of this justification by faith alone, as it is written: 'He suffered for our salvation, that whosoever believes on him should not perish.' And this is done inasmuch as we appropriate to our use the promises of life which are given to us through him, and feel their effect when we accept them, being assured that we are established by the Word of God and shall not be deceived. Thus our justification through faith depends upon the free promises by which God declares and testifies his love to us.<br /><br />XXI.<br /><br />We believe that we are enlightened in faith by the secret power of the Holy Spirit, that it is a gratuitous and special gift which God grants to whom he will, so that the elect have no cause to glory, but are bound to be doubly thankful that they have been preferred to others. We believe also that faith is not given to the elect only to introduce them into the right way, but also to make them continue in it to the end. For as it is God who has begun the work, he will also perfect it.<br /><br />XXII.<br /><br /> We believe that by this faith we are regenerated in newness of life, being by nature subject to sin. Now we receive by faith grace to live holily and in the fear of God, in accepting the promise which is given to us by the Gospel, namely: that God will give us his Holy Spirit. This faith not only does not hinder us from holy living, or turn us from the love of righteousness, but of necessity begets in us all good works. Moreover, although God works in us for our salvation, and renews our hearts, determining us to that which is good, yet we confess that the good works which we do proceed from his Spirit, and can not be accounted to us for justification, neither do they entitle us to the adoption of sons, for we should always be doubting and restless in our hearts, if we did not rest upon the atonement by which Jesus <br />Christ has acquitted us.<br /><br />XXIII.<br /><br /> We believe that the ordinances of the law came to an end at the advent of Jesus Christ; but although the ceremonies are no more in use, yet their substance and truth remain in the person of him in whom they are fulfilled. And, moreover, we must seek aid from the law and the prophets for the ruling of our lives, as well as for our confirmation in the promises of the gospel.<br /><br />XXIV.<br /><br /> We believe, as Jesus Christ is our only advocate, and as he commands us to ask of the Father in his name, and as it is not lawful for us to pray except in accordance with the model God has taught us by his Word, that all imaginations of men concerning the intercession of dead saints are an abuse and a device of Satan to lead men from the right way of worship. We reject, also, all other means by which men hope to redeem themselves before God, as derogating from the sacrifice and passion of Jesus Christ. <br /> Finally, we consider purgatory as an illusion proceeding from the same shop, from which have also sprung monastic vows, pilgrimages, the prohibition of marriage, and of eating meat, the ceremonial observance of days, auricular confession, indulgences, and all such things by which they hope to merit forgiveness and salvation. These things we reject, not only for the false idea of merit which is attached to them, but also because they are human inventions imposing a yoke upon the conscience.<br /><br />XXV.<br /><br /> Now as we enjoy Christ only through the gospel, we believe that the order of the Church, established by his authority, ought to be sacred and inviolable, and that, therefore, the Church can not exist without pastors for instruction, whom we should respect and reverently listen to, when they are properly called and exercise their office faithfully. Not that God is bound to such aid and subordinate means, but because it pleases him to govern us by such restraints. In this we detest all visionaries who would like, so far as lies in their power, to destroy the ministry and preaching of the Word and sacraments.<br /><br />XXVI.<br /><br /> We believe that no one ought to seclude himself and be contented to be alone; but that all jointly should keep and maintain the union of the Church, and submit to the public teaching, and to the yoke of Jesus Christ, wherever God shall have established a true order of the Church, even if the magistrates and their edicts are contrary to it. For if they do not take part in it, or if they separate themselves from it, they do contrary to the Word of God.<br /><br />XXVII.<br /><br /> Nevertheless we believe that it is important to discern with care and prudence which is the true Church, for this title has been much abused. We say, then, according to the Word of God, that it is the company of the faithful who agree to follow his Word, and the pure religion which it teaches; who advance in it all their lives, growing and becoming more confirmed in the fear of God according as they feel the want of growing and pressing onward. Even although they strive continually, they can have no hope save in the remission of their sins. Nevertheless we do not deny that among the faithful there may be hypocrites and reprobates, but their wickedness can not destroy the title of the Church.<br /><br />XXVIII. <br /><br />In this belief we declare that, properly speaking, there can be no Church where the Word of God is not received, nor profession made of subjection to it, nor use of the sacraments. Therefore we condemn the papal assemblies, as the pure Word of God is banished from them, their sacraments are corrupted, or falsified, or destroyed, and all superstitions and idolatries are in them. We hold, then, that all who take part in those acts, and commune in that Church, separate and cut themselves off from the body of Christ. Nevertheless, as some trace of the Church is left in the papacy, and the virtue and substance of baptism remain, and as the efficacy of baptism does not depend upon the person who administers it, we confess that those baptized in it do not need a second baptism. But, on account of its corruptions, we can not present children to be baptized in it without incurring pollution.<br /><br />XXIX.<br /><br /> As to the true Church, we believe that it should be governed according to the order established by our Lord Jesus Christ. That there should be pastors, overseers, and deacons, so that true doctrine may have its course, that errors may be corrected and suppressed, and the poor who are in affliction may be helped in their necessities; and that assemblies may be held in the name of God, so that great and small may edified.<br /><br />XXX.<br /><br /> We believe that all true pastors, wherever they may be, have the same authority and equal power under one head, one only sovereign and universal bishop, Jesus Christ; and that consequently no Church shall claim any authority or dominion over any other.<br /><br />XXXI.<br /><br /> We believe that no person should undertake to govern the Church upon his own authority, but that this should be derived from election, as far as it is possible, and as God will permit. And we make this exception especially, because sometimes, and even in our own days, when the state of the Church has been interrupted, it has been necessary for God to raise men in an extraordinary manner to restore the Church which was in ruin and desolation. But, notwithstanding, we believe that this rule must always be binding: that all pastors, overseers, and deacons should have evidence of being called to their office.<br /><br />XXXII.<br /><br /> We believe, also, that it is desirable and useful that those elected to be superintendents devise among themselves what means should be adopted for the government of the whole body, and yet that they should never depart from that which was ordained by our Lord Jesus Christ. Which does not prevent there being some special ordinances in each place, as convenience may require.<br /><br />XXXIII.<br /><br /> However, we reject all human inventions, and all laws which men may introduce under the pretense of serving God, by which they wish to bind consciences; and we receive only that which conduces to concord and holds all in obedience, from the greatest to the least. In this we must follow that which the Lord Jesus Christ declared as to excommunication, which we approve and confess to be necessary with all its antecedents and consequences.<br /><br />XXXIV.<br /><br /> We believe that the sacraments are added to the Word for more ample confirmation, that they may be to us pledges and seals of the grace of God, and by this means aid and comfort our faith, because of the infirmity which is in us, and that they are outward signs through which God operates by his Spirit, so that he may not signify any thing to us in vain. Yet we hold that their substance and truth is in Jesus Christ, and that of themselves they are only smoke and shadow.<br /><br />XXXV.<br /><br /> We confess only two sacraments common to the whole Church, of which the first, baptism, is given as a pledge of our adoption; for by it we are grafted into the body of Christ, so as to be washed and cleansed by his blood, and then renewed in purity of life by his Holy Spirit. We hold, also, that although we are baptized only once, yet the gain that it symbolizes to us reaches over our whole lives and to our death, so that we have a lasting witness that Jesus Christ will always be our justification and sanctification. Nevertheless, although it is a sacrament of faith and penitence, yet as God receives little children into the Church with their fathers, we say, upon the authority of Jesus Christ, that the children of believing parents should be baptized.<br /><br />XXXVI.<br /><br /> We confess that the Lord's Supper, which is the second sacraments, is a witness of the union which we have with Christ, inasmuch as he not only died and rose again for us once, but also feeds and nourishes us truly with his flesh and blood, so that we may be one in him, and that our life may be in common. Although he be in heaven until he come to judge all the earth, still we believe that by the secret and incomprehensible power of his Spirit he feeds and strengthens us with the substance of his body and of his blood. We hold that this is done spiritually, not because we put imagination and fancy in the place of fact and truth, but because the greatness of this mystery exceeds the measure of our senses and the laws of nature. In short, because it is heavenly, it can only be apprehended by faith.<br /><br />XXXVII.<br /><br /> We believe, as has been said, that in the Lord's Supper, as well in baptism, God gives us really and in fact that which he there sets forth to us; and that consequently with these signs is given the true possession and enjoyment of that which they present to us. And thus all who bring a pure faith, like a vessel, to the sacred table of Christ, receive truly that of which it is a sign; for the body and the blood of Jesus Christ give food and drink to the soul, no less than bread and wine nourish the body.<br /><br />XXXVIII.<br /><br /> Thus we hold water, being a feeble element, still testifies to us in truth the inward cleansing of our souls in the blood of Jesus Christ by the efficacy of his Spirit, and that the bread and wine given to us in the sacrament serve to our spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as they show, as to our sight, that the body of Christ is our meat, and his blood our drink. And we reject the Enthusiasts and Sacramentarians who will not receive such signs and marks, although our Savior said: 'This is my body, and this cup is my blood.'<br /><br />XXXIX.<br /><br />We believe that God wishes to have the world governed by laws and magistrates, so that some restraint may be put upon its disordered appetites. And as he has established kingdoms, republics, and all sorts of principalities, either hereditary or otherwise, and all that belongs to a just government, and wishes to be considered as their Author, so he has put the sword into the hands of magistrates to suppress crimes against the first as well as against the second table of the Commandments of God. We must therefore, on his account, not only submit to them as superiors, but honor and hold them in all reverence as his lieutenants and officers, whom he has commissioned to exercise a legitimate and holy authority. <br /><br />XL.<br /><br /> We hold, then, that we must obey their laws and statutes, pay customs, taxes, and other dues, and bear the yoke of subjection with a good and free will, even if they are unbelievers, provided that the sovereign empire of God remain intact. Therefore we detest all those who would like to reject authority, to establish community and confusion of property, and overthrow the order of justice.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />[A note from the website I took this text from: The above text is transcribed from Philip Schaff's The Creeds of Christendom, with a history and critical notes; Sixth Edition, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI reprinted from the 1931 edition. by arrangement with Harper and Row. pp. 356-382.]</span></span>Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14873891.post-83685495544623693252018-05-12T19:43:00.001-04:002020-09-21T12:40:47.544-04:00Canons of Dordt<a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><span><span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">Simply for historical interest and reference (this is an important historical document, NOT for what constitutes true Biblical Christianity, but for an informative example of the diversity of the Reformed Tradition). This website is labeled as "Genuine Historical Calvinism" because custom has made "Calvinism" or "the 5-points of Calvinism" familiar and easier to recognize. According to some, however, a more precise title or description would be "Reformed catholic" or "Reformed catholicity" (which, by this descriptor, its genuineness would be assumed).</span></span></span></span><br />
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<pre style="overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"> Title: Synod of Dort
Creator(s): Anonymous
Rights: Public Domain
CCEL Subjects: All; Creeds
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SYNOD OF DORT
Synod of Dordrecht
November 13, 1618 - May 9, 1619
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FIRST HEAD OF DOCTRINE.
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DIVINE ELECTION AND REPROBATION
ARTICLE 1. As all men have sinned in Adam, lie under the curse, and are
deserving of eternal death, God would have done no injustice by leaving
them all to perish and delivering them over to condemnation on account
of sin, according to the words of the apostle: "that every mouth may be
silenced and the whole world held accountable to God." (Rom 3:19). And:
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom 3:23).
And: "For the wages of sin is death." (Rom 6:23).<hr/>
ARTICLE 2. but in this the love of God was manifested, that He "sent
his one and only Son into the world, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life." (1 John 4:9, John 3:16).<hr/>
ARTICLE 3. And that men may be brought to believe, God mercifully sends
the messengers of these most joyful tiding to whom He will and at what
time He pleases; by whose ministry men are called to repentance and
faith in Christ crucified. "How, then, can they call on the one they
have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they
have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to
them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?" (Rom 10:14-15)<hr/>.
ARTICLE 4. The wrath of God abides upon those who believe not this
gospel. But such as receive it and embrace Jesus the Savior by a true
and living faith are by Him delivered from the wrath of God and from
destruction, and have the gift of eternal life conferred upon them.<hr/>
ARTICLE 5. The cause or guilt of this unbelief as well as of all other
sins is no wise in God, but in man himself; whereas faith in Jesus
Christ and salvation through Him is the free gift of God, as it is
written: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and
this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8). Likewise:
"For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe
on him, but also to suffer for him" (Phil 1:29)<hr/>
ARTICLE 6. That some receive the gift of faith from God, and others do
not receive it, proceeds from God's eternal decree. "For now unto God
are all his works from the beginning of the world" (Acts 15:18 A.V.).
"who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will"
(Eph 1:11). According to which decree He graciously softens the hearts
of the elect, however obstinate, and inclines them to believe; while He
leaves the non-elect in His just judgment to their own wickedness and
obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the profound, the
merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men
equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation,
revealed in the Word of God, which, though men of perverse, impure, and
unstable minds wrest it to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious
souls affords unspeakable consolation.<hr/>
ARTICLE 7. Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, whereby, before
the foundation of the world, He has out of mere grace, according to the
sovereign good pleasure of His own will, chosen from the whole human
race, which had fallen through their own fault from the primitive state
of rectitude into sin and destruction, a certain number of persons to
redemption in Christ, whom He from eternity appointed the Mediator and
Head of the elect and the foundation of salvation. This elect number,
though by nature neither better nor more deserving than others, but
with them involved in one common misery, God has decreed to give to
Christ to be saved by Him, and effectually to call an draw them to His
communion by His Word and Spirit; to bestow upon them true faith,
justification, and sanctification; and having powerfully preserved them
in the fellowship of His son, finally to glorify them for the
demonstration of His mercy, and for the praise of the riches of His
glorious grace; as it is written "For he chose us in him before the
creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he
predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in
accordance with his pleasure and will-- to the praise of his glorious
grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." (Eph 1:4-6).
And elsewhere: "And those he predestined, he also called; those he
called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified." (Rom
8:30).<hr/>
ARTICLE 8. There are not various decrees of election, but one and the
same decree respecting all those who shall be saved, both under the Old
and New Testament; since the Scripture declares the good pleasure,
purpose, and counsel of the divine will to be one, according to which
He has chosen us from eternity, both to grace and to glory, to
salvation and to the way of salvation, which He has ordained that we
should walk therein (Eph 1:4, 5; 2:10).<hr/>
ARTICLE 9. This election was not founded upon foreseen faith and the
obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition
in man, as the prerequisite, cause, or condition of which it depended;
but men are chosen to faith and to the obedience of faith, holiness,
etc. Therefore election is the fountain of every saving good, from
which proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation, and
finally eternal life itself, as its fruits and effects, according to
the testimony of the apostle: "For he chose us (not because we were,
but) in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless
in his sight." (Eph 1:4).<hr/>
ARTICLE 10. The good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious
election; which does not consist herein that out of all possible
qualities and actions of men God has chosen some as a condition of
salvation, but that He was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to
adopt some certain persons as a peculiar people to Himself, as it is
written: "Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or
bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works
but by him who calls--she (Rebekah) was told, 'The older will serve the
younger.'Just as it is written: 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'"
(Rom 9:11-13). "When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and
honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal
life believed." (Acts 13:48).<hr/>
ARTICLE 11. And as God Himself is most wise, unchangeable, omniscient,
and omnipotent, so the election made by Him can neither be interrupted
nor changed, recalled, or annulled; neither can the elect be cast away,
nor their number diminished.<hr/>
ARTICLE 12. The elect in due time, though in various degrees and in
different measures, attain the assurance of this their eternal and
unchangeable election, not by inquisitively prying into the secret and
deep things of God, but by observing in themselves with a spiritual joy
and holy pleasure the infallible fruits of election pointed out in the
Word of God - such as, a true faith in Christ, filial fear, a godly
sorrow for sin, a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, etc.<hr/>
ARTICLE 13. The sense and certainty of this election afford to the
children of God additional matter for daily humiliation before Him, for
adoring the depth of His mercies, for cleansing themselves, and
rendering grateful returns of ardent love to Him who first manifested
so great love towards them. The consideration of this doctrine of
election is so far from encouraging remissness in the observance of the
divine commands or from sinking men in carnal security, that these, in
the just judgment of God, are the usual effects of rash presumption or
of idle and wanton trifling with the grace of election, in those who
refuse to walk in the ways of the elect.<hr/>
ARTICLE 14. As the doctrine of election by the most wise counsel of God
was declared by the prophets, by Christ Himself, and by the apostles,
and is clearly revealed in the Scriptures both of the Old and the New
Testament, so it is still to be published in due time and place in the
Church of God, for which it was peculiarly designed, provided it be
done with reverence, in the spirit of discretion and piety, for the
glory of God's most holy Name, and for enlivening and comforting His
people, without vainly attempting to investigate the secret ways of the
Most High (Acts 20:27; Rom 11:33f; 12:3; Heb 6:17f).<hr/>
ARTICLE 15. What peculiarly tends to illustrate and recommend to us the
eternal and unmerited grace of election is the express testimony of
sacred Scripture that not all, but some only, are elected, while others
are passed by in the eternal decree; whom God, out of His sovereign,
most just, irreprehensible, and unchangeable good pleasure, has decreed
to leave in the common misery into which they have willfully plunged
themselves, and not to bestow upon them saving faith and the grace of
conversion; but, permitting them in His just judgment to follow their
own ways, at last, for the declaration of His justice, to condemn and
punish them forever, not only on account of their unbelief, but also
for all their other sins. And this is the decree of reprobation, which
by no means makes God the Author of sin (the very though of which is
blasphemy), but declares Him to be an awful, irreprehensible, and
righteous Judge and Avenger thereof.<hr/>
ARTICLE 16. Those in whom a living faith in Christ, and assured
confidence of soul, peace of conscience, an earnest endeavor after
filial obedience, a glorying in God through Christ, is not as yet
strongly felt, and who nevertheless make use of the means which God has
appointed for working these graces in us, ought not to be alarmed at
the mention of reprobation, nor to rank themselves among the reprobate,
but diligently to persevere in the use of means, and with ardent
desires devoutly and humble to wait for a season of richer grace. Much
less cause to be terrified by the doctrine of reprobation have they
who, though they seriously desire to be turned to God, to please Him
only, and to be delivered from the body of death, cannot yet reach that
measure of holiness and faith to which they aspire; since a merciful
God has promised that He will not quench the smoking flax, nor break
the bruised reed. But this doctrine is justly terrible to those who,
regardless of God and of the Savior Jesus Christ, have wholly given
themselves up to the cares of the world and the pleasures of the flesh,
so long as they are not seriously converted to God.<hr/>
ARTICLE 17. Since we are to judge of the will of God from His Word,
which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature,
but in virtue of the covenant of grace, in which they together with the
parents are comprehended, godly parents ought not to doubt the election
and salvation of their children whom it pleases God to call out of this
life in their infancy (Gen 17:7; Acts 2:39; 1 Cor 7:14).<hr/>
ARTICLE 18. To those who murmur at the free grace of election and the
just severity of reprobation we answer with the apostle "But who are
you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Rom 9:20), and quote the language of
our Savior: "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own?"
(Matt 20:15). And therefore, with holy adoration of these mysteries, we
exclaim in the words of the apostle: "Oh, the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and
his paths beyond tracing out! 'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or
who has been his counselor?''Who has ever given to God, that God should
repay him?'For from him and through him and to him are all things. To
him be the glory forever! Amen." (Rom 11:33-36).<hr/>
REJECTION OF ERRORS<hr/>
The true doctrine concerning election and reprobation having been
explained, the Synod rejects the errors of those:<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 1. Who teach: That the will of God to save those who would
believe and would persevere in faith and in the obedience of faith is
the whole and entire decree of election, and that nothing else
concerning this decree has been revealed in God's Word.<hr/>
For these deceive the simple and plainly contradict the Scriptures,
which declare that God will not only save those who will believe, but
that He has also from eternity chosen certain particular persons to
whom, above others, He will grant in time, both faith in Christ and
perseverance; as it is written "I have revealed you to those whom you
gave me out of the world. (John 17:6). "and all who were appointed for
eternal life believed. (Acts 13:48)". And "For he chose us in him
before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
(Eph 1:4)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 2. Who teach: That there are various kinds of election of God
unto eternal life: the one general and indefinite, the other particular
and definite; and that the latter in turn is either incomplete,
revocable, non-decisive, and conditional, or complete, irrevocable,
decisive, and absolute. Likewise: That there is one election unto faith
and another unto salvation, so that election can be unto justifying
faith, without being a decisive election unto salvation.<hr/>
For this is a fancy of men's minds, invented regardless of the
Scriptures, whereby the doctrine of election is corrupted, and this
golden chain of our salvation is broken: "And those he predestined, he
also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he
also glorified. (Rom 8:30)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 3. Who teach: That the good pleasure and purpose of God, of
which Scripture makes mention in the doctrine of election, does not
consist in this, that God chose certain persons rather than others, but
in this, that He chose out of all possible conditions (among which are
also the works of the law), or out of the whole order of things, that
act of faith which from its very nature is undeserving, as well as it
incomplete obedience, as a condition of salvation, and that He would
graciously consider this in itself as a complete obedience and count it
worthy of the reward of eternal life.<hr/>
For by this injurious error the pleasure of God and the merits of
Christ are made of none effect, and men are drawn away by useless
questions from the truth of gracious justification and from the
simplicity of Scripture, and this declaration of the apostle is charged
as untrue: "who has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because
of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This
grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time (2 Tim
1:9)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 4. Who teach: That in the election unto faith this condition
is beforehand demanded that man should use the light of nature aright,
be pious, humble, meek, and fit for eternal life, as if on these things
election were in any way dependent.<hr/>
For this savors of the teaching of Pelagius, and is opposed to the
doctrine of the apostle when he writes: "All of us also lived among
them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and
following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature
objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is
rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us
up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ
Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable
riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not
from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one
can boast (Eph 2:3-9)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 5. Who teach: That the incomplete and non-decisive election
of particular persons to salvation occurred because of a foreseen
faith, conversion, holiness, godliness, which either began or continued
for some time; but that the complete and decisive election occurred
because of foreseen perseverance unto the end in faith, conversion,
holiness, and godliness; and that this is the gracious and evangelical
worthiness, for the sake of which he who is chosen is more worthy than
he who is not chosen; and that therefore faith, the obedience of faith,
holiness, godliness, and perseverance are not fruits of the
unchangeable election unto glory, but are conditions which, being
required beforehand, were foreseen as being met by those who will be
fully elected, and are causes without which the unchangeable election
to glory does not occur.<hr/>
This is repugnant to the entire Scripture, which constantly inculcates
this and similar declarations: Election is "not by works but by him who
calls (Rom 9:12)." "And all who were appointed for eternal life
believed (Acts 13:48)." "For he chose us in him before the creation of
the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (Eph 1:4)." "You did
not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit
that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my
name (John 15:16)." "And if by grace, then it is no longer by works
(Rom 11:6)." "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son (1 John 4:10)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 6. Who teach: That not every election unto salvation is
unchangeable, but that some of the elect, any decree of God
notwithstanding, can yet perish and do indeed perish.<hr/>
By this gross error they make God be changeable, and destroy the
comfort which the godly obtain out of the firmness of their election,
and contradict the Holy Scripture, which teaches that the elect can not
be led astray (Matt 24:24), that Christ does not lose those whom the
Father gave him (John 6:39), and that God also glorified those whom he
foreordained, called, and justified (Rom 8:30).<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 7. Who teach: That there is in this life no fruit and no
consciousness of the unchangeable elect to glory, nor any certainty,
except that which depends on a changeable and uncertain condition.<hr/>
For not only is it absurd to speak of an uncertain certainty, but also
contrary to the experience of the saints, who by virtue of the
consciousness of their election rejoice with the apostle and praise
this favor of God (Eph 1); who according to Christ's admonition rejoice
with his disciples that their names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20);
who also place the consciousness of their election over against the
fiery darts of the devil, asking: "Who will bring any charge against
those whom God has chosen? (Rom 8:33)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 8. Who teach: That God, simply by virtue of His righteous
will, did not decide either to leave anyone in the fall of Adam and in
the common state sin and condemnation, or to pass anyone by in the
communication of grace which is necessary for faith and conversion.<hr/>
For this is firmly decreed: "God has mercy on whom he wants to have
mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden (Rom 9:18)." And also
this: "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been
given to you, but not to them (Mat 13:11)." Likewise: "I praise you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things
from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes ,
Father, for this was your good pleasure (Mat 11:25-26)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 9. Who teach: That the reason why God sends the gospel to one
people rather than to another is not merely and solely the good
pleasure of God, but rather the fact that one people is better and
worthier than another to which the gospel is not communicated.<hr/>
For this Moses denies , addressing the people of Israel as follows: "To
the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the
earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your
forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above
all the nations, as it is today (Deu 10:14-15)." And Christ said: "Woe
to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were
performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes (Mat 11:21)."<hr/>
SECOND HEAD OF DOCTRINE.<hr/>
THE DEATH OF CHRIST, AND THE REDEMPTION OF MEN THEREBY<hr/>
ARTICLE 1. God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just.
And His justice requires (as He has revealed Himself in His Word) that
our sins committed against His infinite majesty should be punished, not
only with temporal but with eternal punishments, both in body and soul;
which we cannot escape, unless satisfaction be made to the justice of
God.<hr/>
ARTICLE 2. Since, therefore, we are unable to make that satisfaction in
our own persons, or to deliver ourselves from the wrath of God, He has
been pleased of His infinite mercy to give His only begotten Son for
our Surety, who was made sin, and became a curse for us and in our
stead, that He might make satisfaction to divine justice on our behalf.<hr/>
ARTICLE 3. The death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect
sacrifice and satisfaction for sin, and is of infinite worth and value,
abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world.<hr/>
ARTICLE 4. This death is of such infinite value and dignity because the
person who submitted to it was not only begotten Son of God, of the
same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
which qualifications were necessary to constitute Him a Savior for us;
and, moreover, because it was attended with a sense of the wrath and
curse of God due to us for sin.<hr/>
ARTICLE 5. Moreover, the promise of the gospel is that whosoever
believes in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have eternal life.
This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to
be declared and published to all nations, and to all persons
promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of His good
pleasure sends the gospel.<hr/>
ARTICLE 6. And, whereas many who are called by the gospel do not repent
nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief, this is not owing to any
defect or insufficiency in the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the
cross, but is wholly to be imputed to themselves.<hr/>
ARTICLE 7. But as many as truly believe, and are delivered and saved
from sin and destruction through the death of Christ, are indebted for
this benefit solely to the grace of God given them in Christ from
everlasting, and not to any merit of their own.<hr/>
ARTICLE 8. For this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will
and purpose of God the Father that the quickening and saving efficacy
of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect,
for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to
bring them infallibly to salvation; that is, it was the will of God
that Christ by the blood of the cross, whereby He confirmed the new
covenant, should effectually redeem out of every people, tribe, nation,
and language, all those, and those only, who were from eternity chosen
to salvation and given to Him by the Father; that He should confer upon
them faith, which, together with all the other saving gifts of the Holy
Spirit, He purchased for them by His death; should purge them from all
sin, both original and actual, whether committed before or after
believing; and having faithfully preserved them even to the end, should
at last bring them, free from every spot and blemish, to the enjoyment
of glory in His own presence forever.<hr/>
ARTICLE 9. This purpose, proceeding from everlasting love towards the
elect, has from the beginning of the world to this day been powerfully
accomplished, and will henceforeward still continue to be accomplished,
notwithstanding all the ineffectual opposition of the gates of hell; so
that the elect in due time may be gathered together into one, and that
there never may be wanting a Church composed of believers, the
foundation of which is laid in the blood of christ; which may
stedfastly love and faithfully serve Him as its Savior (who, as a
bridegroom for his bride, laid down His life for them upon the cross);
and which may celebrate His praises here and through all eternity.<hr/>
REJECTION OF ERRORS<hr/>
The true doctrine having been explained, the Synod rejects the errors
of those:<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 1. Who teach: That God the Father has ordained His Son to the
death of the cross without a certain and definite decree to save any,
so that the necessity, profitableness, and worth of what christ merited
by His death might have existed, and might remain in all its parts
complete, perfect, and intact, even if the merited redemption had never
in fact been applied to any person.<hr/>
For this doctrine tends to the despising of the wisdom of the Father
and of the merits of Jesus Christ, and is contrary to Scripture. For
thus says our Savior: "I lay down my life for the sheep . . . and I
know them. (John 10:15, 27)." And the prophet Isaiah says concerning
the Savior: "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to
suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will
see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will
prosper in his hand (Isa 53:10)." Finally, this contradicts the article
of faith according to which we believe the catholic Christian Church.<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 2. Who teach: That it was not the purpose of the death of
Christ that He should confirm the new covenant of grace through His
blood, but only that He should acquire for the Father the mere right to
establish with man such a covenant as He might please, whether of grace
or of works.<hr/>
For this is repugnant to Scripture which teaches that "Jesus has become
the guarantee of a better covenant that is a new covenant . . ." and
that "it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. (Heb
7:22; 9:15, 17)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 3. Who teach: That Christ by His satisfaction merited neither
salvation itself for any one, nor faith, whereby this satisfaction of
Christ unto salvation is effectually appropriated; but that He merited
for the Father only the authority or the perfect will to deal again
with man, and to prescribe new conditions as He might desire, obedience
to which, however, depended on the free will of man, so that it
therefore might have come to pass that either none or all should
fulfill these conditions.<hr/>
For these adjudge too contemptuously of the death of Christ, in no wise
acknowledge that most important fruit or benefit thereby gained and
bring again out of the hell the Pelagian error.<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 4. Who teach: That the new covenant of grace, which God the
Father, through the mediation of the death of Christ, made with man,
does not herein consist that we by faith, in as much as it accepts the
merits of Christ, are justified before God and saved, but in the fact
that God, having revoked the demand of perfect obedience of faith,
regards faith itself and the obedience of faith, although imperfect, as
the perfect obedience of the law, and does esteem it worthy of the
reward of eternal life through grace.<hr/>
For these contradict the Scriptures, being: "justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented
him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood (Rom
3:24-25)." And these proclaim, as did the wicked Socinus, a new and
strange justification of man before God, against the consensus of the
whole Church.<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 5. Who teach: That all men have been accepted unto the state
of reconciliation and unto the grace of the covenant, so that no one is
worthy of condemnation on account of original sin, and that no one
shall be condemned because of it, but that all are free from the guilt
of original sin.<hr/>
For this opinion is repugnant to Scripture which teaches that we are by
nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3)<hr/>.
PARAGRAPH 6. Who use the difference between meriting and appropriating,
to the end that they may instil into the minds of the imprudent and
inexperienced this teaching that God, as far as He is concerned, has
been minded to apply to all equally the benefits gained by the death of
Christ; but that, while some obtain the pardon of sin and eternal life,
and others do not, this difference depends on their own free will,
which joins itself to the grace that is offered without exception, and
that it is not dependent on the special gift of mercy, which powerfully
works in them, that they rather than others should appropriate unto
themselves this grace.<hr/>
For these, while they feign that they present this distinction in a
sound sense, seek to instil into the people the destructive poison of
the Pelagian errors.<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 7. Who teach: That Christ neither could die, nor needed to
die, and also did not die, for those whom God loved in the highest
degree and elected to eternal life, since these do not need the death
of Christ.<hr/>
For the contradict the apostle, who declares, Christ: "loved me and
gave himself for me (Gal 2:20)." Likewise: "Who will bring any charge
against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he
that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died (Rom 8:33-34)", namely, for them;
and the Savior who says: "I lay down my life for the sheep (John
10:15)." And: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends (John 15:12-13)."<hr/>
THIRD AND FOURTH HEADS OF DOCTRINE.<hr/>
THE CORRUPTION OF MAN, HIS CONVERSION TO GOD, AND THE MANNER THEREOF<hr/>
ARTICLE 1. Man was originally formed after the image of God. His
understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his
Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright, all
his affections pure, and the whole man was holy. But, revolting from
God by the instigation of the devil and by his own free will, he
forfeited these excellent gifts; and an in the place thereof became
involved in blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and
perverseness of judgment; became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in
heart and will, and impure in his affections.<hr/>
ARTICLE 2. Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A
corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. Hence all the posterity of
Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original
parent, not by limitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the
propagation of a vicious nature, in consequence of the just judgment of
God.<hr/>
ARTICLE 3. Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and are by nature
children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in
sin, and in bondage thereto; and without the regenerating grace of the
Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to
reform the depravity of their nature, or to dispose themselves to
reformation.<hr/>
ARTICLE 4. There remain, however, in man since the fall, the
glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God,
or natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and
shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far
is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving
knowledge of God and to true conversion that he is incapable of using
it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay further, this light,
such as it is , man in various ways renders wholly polluted, and
hinders in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable
before God.<hr/>
ARTICLE 5. In the same light are we to consider the law of the
decalogue, delivered by God to His peculiar people, the Jews, by the
hands of Moses. For though it reveals the greatness of sin, and more
and more convinces man thereof, yet, as it neither points out a remedy
nor imparts strength to extricate him from his misery, but, being weak
through the flesh, leaves the transgressor under the curse, man cannot
by this law obtain saving grace.<hr/>
ARTICLE 6. What, therefore, neither the light of nature nor the law
could do, that God performs by the operation of the Holy Spirit through
the word or ministry of reconciliation; which is the glad tidings
concerning the Messiah, by means whereof it has pleased God to save
such as believe, as well under the Old as under the New Testament.<hr/>
ARTICLE 7. This mystery of His will God reveals to but a small number
under the Old Testament; under the New Testament (the distinction
between various peoples having been removed) He reveals it to many. The
cause of this dispensation is not to be ascribed to the superior worth
of one nation above another, nor to their better use of the light of
nature, but results wholly from the sovereign good pleasure and
unmerited love of God. Hence they to whom so great and so gracious a
blessing is communicated, above their desert, or rather notwithstanding
their demerits, are bound to acknowledge it with humble and grateful
hearts, and with the apostle to adore, but in no wise curiously to pry
into, the severity and justice of God's judgments displayed in others
to whom this grace is not given.<hr/>
ARTICLE 8. As many as are called by the gospel are unfeignedly called.
For God has most earnestly and truly declared in His Word what is
acceptable to Him, namely, that those who are called should come unto
Him. He also seriously promises rest of soul and eternal life to all
who come to Him and believe.<hr/>
ARTICLE 9. It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered
therein, nor of God, who calls men by the gospel and confers upon them
various gifts, that those who are called by the ministry of the Word
refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves; some of
whom when called, regardless of their danger, reject the Word of life;
other, though they receive it, suffer it not to make a lasting
impression on their heart; therefore, their joy, arising only from a
temporary faith, soon vanishes, and they fall away; while others choke
the seed of the Word by perplexing cares and the pleasures of this
world, and produce no fruit. This our Savior teaches in the parable of
the sower (Matt 13).<hr/>
ARTICLE 10. But that others who are called by the gospel obey the call
and are converted is not to be ascribed to the proper exercise of free
will, whereby one distinguishes himself above others equally furnished
with grace sufficient for faith and conversion (as the proud heresy of
Pelagius maintains); but it must be wholly ascribed to God, who, as He
has chosen His own from eternity in Christ, so He calls them
effectually in time, confers upon them faith and repentance, rescues
them from the power of darkness, and translates them into the kingdom
of His own Son; that they may show forth the praises of Him who has
called them out of darkness into His marvelous light, and may glory not
in themselves but in the Lord, according to the testimony of the
apostles in various places.<hr/>
ARTICLE 11. But when God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect,
or works in them true conversion, He not only cause the gospel to be
externally preached to them, and powerfully illuminates their minds by
His Holy Spirit, that they may rightly under and discern the things of
the Spirit of God; but by the efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit
He pervades the inmost recesses of man; He opens the closed and softens
the hardened heart, and circumcises that which was uncircumcised;
infuses new qualities into the will, which, though heretofore dead, He
quickens; from being evil, disobedient, and refractory, He renders it
good, obedient, and pliable; actuates and strengthens it, that like a
good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions.<hr/>
ARTICLE 12. And this is that regeneration so highly extolled in
Scripture, that renewal, new creation, resurrection from the dead,
making alive, which God works in us without out aid. But this is in no
wise effected merely by the external preaching of the gospel, by moral
suasion, or such a mode of operation that, after God has performed His
part, it still remains in the power of man to be regenerated or not, to
be converted or to continue unconverted; but it is evidently a
supernatural work, most powerful, and at the same time most delightful,
astonishing, mysterious, and ineffable; not inferior in efficacy to
creation or the resurrection from the dead, as the Scripture inspired
by the Author of this work declares; so that all in whose heart God
works in this marvelous manner are certainly, infallibly, and
effectually regenerated, and do actually believe. Whereupon the will
thus renewed is not only actuated and influenced by God, but in
consequence of this influence becomes itself active. Wherefore also man
himself is rightly said to believe and repent by virtue of that grace
received.<hr/>
ARTICLE 13. The manner of this operation cannot be fully comprehended
by believers in this life. Nevertheless, they are satisfied to know and
experience that by this grace of God they are enabled to believe with
the heart and to love their Savior.<hr/>
ARTICLE 14. Faith is therefore to be considered as the gift of God, not
on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or
rejected at his pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred upon
him, breathed and infused into him; nor even because God bestows the
power or ability to believe, and then expects that man should by the
exercise of his own free will consent to the terms of salvation and
actually believe in Christ, but because He who works in man both to
will and to work, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will
to believe and the act of believing also.<hr/>
ARTICLE 15. God is under no obligation to confer this grace upon any;
for how can He be indebted to one who had no previous gifts to bestow
as a foundation for such recompense? Nay, how can He be indebted to one
who has nothing of his own but sin and falsehood? He, therefore, who
becomes the subject of this grace owes eternal gratitude to God, and
gives Him thanks forever. Whoever is not made partaker thereof is
either altogether regardless of these spiritual gifts and satisfied
with his own condition, or is in no apprehension of danger, and vainly
boasts the possession of that which he has not. Further, with respect
to those who outwardly profess their faith and amend their lives, we
are bound, after the example of the apostle, to judge and speak of them
in the most favorable manner; for the secret recesses of the heart are
unknown to us. And as to others who have not yet been called, it is our
duty to pray for them to God, who calls the things that are not as if
they were. But we are in no wise to conduct ourselves towards them with
haughtiness, as if we had made ourselves to differ.<hr/>
ARTICLE 16. But as man by the fall did not cease to be a creature
endowed with understanding and will, nor did sin which pervaded the
whole race of mankind deprive him of the human nature, but brought upon
him depravity and spiritual death; so also this grace of regeneration
does not treat men as senseless stocks and blocks, nor take away their
will and it properties, or do violence thereto; but is spiritually
quickens, heals, corrects, and at the same time sweetly and powerfully
bends it, that where carnal rebellion and resistance formerly
prevailed, a ready and sincere spiritual obedience begins to reign; in
which the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will
consist. Wherefore, unless the admirable Author of every good work so
deal with us, man can have no hope of being able to rise from his fall
by his own free will, by which, in a state of innocence, he plunged
himself into ruin.<hr/>
ARTICLE 17. As the almighty operation of God whereby He brings forth
and supports this our natural life does not exclude but require the use
of means by which God, of His infinite mercy and goodness, has chosen
to exert His influence, so also the aforementioned supernatural
operation of God by which we are regenerated in no wise excludes or
subverts the use of the gospel, which the most wise God has ordained to
be the seed of regeneration and food of the soul. Wherefore, as the
apostles and the teachers who succeeded them piously instructed the
people concerning this grace of God, to His glory and to the abasement
of all pride, and in the meantime, however, neglected not to keep them,
by the holy admonitions of the gospel, under the influence of the Word,
the sacraments, and ecclesiastical discipline; so even now it should be
far from those who give or receive instruction in the Church to presume
to tempt God by separating what He of His good pleasure has most
intimately joined together. For grace is conferred by means of
admonitions; and the more readily we perform our duty, the more clearly
this favor of God, working in us, usually manifest itself, and the more
directly His work is advanced; to whom alone all the glory, both for
the means and for their saving fruit and efficacy, is forever due.
Amen.<hr/>
REJECTION OF ERRORS<hr/>
The true doctrine having been explained, the Synod rejects the errors
of those:<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 1. Who teach: That it cannot properly be said that original
sin in itself suffices to condemn the whole human race or to deserve
temporal and eternal punishment.<hr/>
For these contradict the apostle, who declares: "Therefore, just as sin
entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this
way death came to all men, because all sinned (Rom 5:12)." And: "The
judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation (Rom 5:16)." And
"the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23)."<hr/>
PARAGRAPH 2. Who teach: That the spiritual gifts or the good qualities
and virtues, such as goodness, holiness, righteousness, could not
belong to the will of man when he was first created, and that these,
therefore, cannot have been separated therefrom in the fall.<hr/>
For such is contrary to the description of the image of God which the
apostle gives in Eph. 4:24, where he declares that it consists in
righteousness and holiness, which undoubtedly belong to the will.
PARAGRAPH 3. Who teach: That in spiritual death the spiritual gifts are
not separate from the will of man, since the will in itself has never
been corrupted, but only hindered through the darkness of the
understanding and the irregularity of the affection; and that, these
hindrances having been removed, the will can then bring into operation
its nature powers, that is, that the will of itself is able to will and
to choose, or not to will and not to choose, all manner of good which
may be presented to it.
This is an innovation and an error, and tends to elevate the powers of
the free will, contrary to the declaration of the prophet: "The heart
is deceitful above all things and beyond cure (Jer 17:9)" and of the
apostle: "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the
cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts
(Eph 2:3)."
PARAGRAPH 4. Who teach: That the unregenerate man is not really nor
utterly dead in sin, nor destitute of all powers unto spiritual good,
but that he can yet hunger and thirst after righteousness and life, and
offer the sacrifice of a contrite and broken spirit, which is pleasing
to God.
For these things are contrary to the express testimony of Scripture:
"you were dead in your transgressions and sins (Eph 2:1, 5)." And:
"every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the
time. (Gen 6:5, 8:21)." Moreover, to hunger and thirst after
deliverance from misery and after life, and to offer unto God the
sacrifice of a broken spirit, is peculiar to the regenerate and those
that are called blessed (Ps 51:17; Matt 5:6).
PARAGRAPH 5. Who teach: That the corrupt and natural man can so well
use the common grace (by which they understand the light of nature), or
the gifts still left him after the fall, that he can gradually gain by
their good use a greater, that is, the evangelical or saving grace, and
salvation itself; and that in this way God on His part shows Himself
ready to reveal Christ unto all men, since He applies to all
sufficiently and efficiently the means necessary to conversion.
For both the experience of all ages and the Scriptures testify that
this is untrue. "He has revealed his word to Jacob, his laws and
decrees to Israel. He has done this for no other nation; they do not
know his laws (Psa 147:19-20)." "In the past, he let all nations go
their own way (Acts 14:16)." And: "Paul and his companions traveled
throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the
Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they
came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the
Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to (Acts 16:6-7)."
PARAGRAPH 6. Who teach: That in the true conversion of man no new
qualities, powers, or gifts can be infused by God into the will, and
that therefore faith, through which we are first converted and because
of which we are called believers, is not a quality or gift infused by
God but only an act of man, and that it cannot be said to be a gift,
except in respect of the power to attain to this faith.
For thereby they contradict the Holy Scriptures, which declare that God
infuses new qualities of faith, of obedience, and of the consciousness
of His love into our hearts: ""This is the covenant I will make with
the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my
law in their minds and write it on their hearts (Jer 31:33)." And: "For
I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I
will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your
descendants (Isa 44:3)." And: "God has poured out his love into our
hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (Rom 5:5)." This is
also repugnant to the constant practice of the Church, which prays by
the mouth of the prophet thus: "Restore me, and I will return (Jer
31:18)."
PARAGRAPH 7. Who teach: That the grace whereby we are converted to God
is only a gentle advising, or (as others explain it) that this is the
noblest manner of working in the conversion of man, and that this
manner of working, which consists in advising, is most in harmony with
man's nature; and that there is no reason why this advising grace alone
should not be sufficient to make the natural man spiritual; indeed,
that God does not produce the consent of the will except through this
manner of advising; and that the power of the divine working, whereby
it surpasses the working of Satan, consists in this that God promises
eternal, while Satan promise only temporal good.
But this is altogether Pelagian and contrary to the whole Scripture,
which, besides this, teaches yet another and far more powerful and
divine manner of the Holy Spirit's working in the conversion of man, as
in Ezekiel: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I
will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh
(Ezek 36:26)."
PARAGRAPH 8. Who teach: That God in the regeneration of man does not
use such powers of His omnipotence as potently and infallibly bend
man's will to faith and conversion; but that all the works of grace
having been accomplished, which God employs to convert man, man may yet
so resist God and the Holy Spirit, when God intends man's regeneration
and wills to regenerate him, and indeed that man often does so resist
that he prevents entirely his regeneration, and that it therefore
remains in man's power to be regenerated or not.
For this is nothing less than the denial of all that efficiency of
God's grace in our conversion, and the subjecting of the working of
Almighty God to the will of man, which is contrary to the apostles, who
teach that we believe accord to the working of the strength of his
might (Eph 1:19); and that God fulfills every desire of goodness and
every work of faith with power (2 Th 1:11); and that "His divine power
has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3)."
PARAGRAPH 9. Who teach: That grace and free will are partial causes
which together work the beginning of conversion, and that grace, in
order of working, does not precede the working of the will; that is,
that God does not efficiently help the will of man unto conversion
until the will of man moves and determines to do this.
For the ancient Church has long ago condemned this doctrine of the
Pelagians according to the words of the apostle: "It does not,
therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy (Rom
9:16)." Likewise: "For who makes you different from anyone else? What
do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it (1 Cor
4:7)?" And: "for it is God who works in you to will and to act
according to his good purpose (Phil 2:13)."
__________________________________________________________________
FIFTH HEAD OF DOCTRINE.
__________________________________________________________________
THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS
ARTICLE 1. Those whom God, according to His purpose, calls to the
communion of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and regenerates by the
Holy Spirit, He also delivers from the dominion and slavery of sin,
though in this life He does not deliver them altogether form the body
of sin and from the infirmities of the flesh.
ARTICLE 2. Hence spring forth the daily sins of infirmity, and
blemishes cleave even to the best works of the saints. These are to
them a perpetual reason to humiliate themselves before God and to flee
for refuge to Christ crucified; to mortify the flesh more and more by
the spirit of prayer and by holy exercises of piety; and to press
forward to the goal of perfection, until at length, delivered from this
body of death, they shall reign with the Lamb of God in heaven.
ARTICLE 3. By reason of these remains of indwelling sin, and also
because the temptations of the world and of Satan, those who are
converted could not persevere in that grace if left to their own
strength. But God is faithful, who, having conferred grace, mercifully
confirms and powerfully preserves them therein, even to the end.
ARTICLE 4. Although the weakness of the flesh cannot prevail against
the power of God, who confirms and preserves true believers in a state
of grace, yet converts are not always so influenced and actuated by the
Spirit of God as not in some particular instances sinfully to deviate
from the guidance of divine grace, so as to be seduced by and to comply
with the lusts of the flesh; they must, therefore, be constant in
watching and prayer, that they may not be led into temptation. When
these are great and heinous sins by the flesh, the world, and Satan,
but sometimes by the righteous permission of God actually are drawn
into these evils. This, the lamentable fall of David, Peter, and other
saints described in Holy Scripture, demonstrates.
ARTICLE 5. By such enormous sins, however, they very highly offend God,
incur a deadly guilt, grieve the Holy Spirit, interrupt the exercise of
faith, very grievously wound their consciences, and sometimes for a
while lose the sense of God's favor, until, when they change their
course by serious repentance, the light of God's fatherly countenance
again shines upon them.
ARTICLE 6. But God, who is rich in mercy, according to His unchangeable
purpose of election, does not wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from His
own people even in their grievous falls; nor suffers them to proceed so
far as t lose the grace of adoption and forfeit the state of
justification, or to commit the sin unto death or against the Holy
Spirt; nor does He permit them to be totally deserted, and to plunge
themselves into everlasting destruction.
ARTICLE 7. For in the first place, in these falls He preserves in them
the incorruptible seed of regeneration from perishing or being totally
lost; and again, by His Word and Spirit He certainly and effectually
renews them to repentance, to a sincere and godly sorrow for their
sins, that they may seek and obtain remission in the blood of the
Mediator, may again experience the favor of a reconciled God, through
faith adore His mercies, and henceforward more diligently work out
their own salvation with fear and trembling.
ARTICLE 8. Thus it is not in consequence of their own merits or
strength, but of God's free mercy, that they neither totally fall from
faith and grace nor continue and perish finally in their backslidings;
which, with respect to themselves is not only possible, but would
undoubtedly happen; but with respect to God, it is utterly impossible,
since His counsel cannot be changed nor His promise fail; neither can
the call according to His purpose be revoked, nor the merit,
intercession, and preservation of Christ be rendered ineffectual, nor
the sealing of the Holy Spirit be frustrated or obliterated.
ARTICLE 9. Of this preservation of the elect to salvation and of their
perseverance in the faith, true believers themselves may and do obtain
assurance according to the measure of their faith, whereby they surely
believe that they are and ever will continue true and living members of
the Church, and that they have the forgiveness of sins and life
eternal.
ARTICLE 10. This assurance, however, is not produced by any peculiar
revelation contrary to or independent of the Word of God, but springs
from faith in God's promises, which He has most abundantly revealed in
His Word for our comfort; from the testimony of the Holy Spirit,
witnessing with our spirit that we are children and heirs of God (Rom
8:16); and lastly, from a serious and holy desire to preserve a good
conscience and to perform good works. And if the elect of God were
deprived of this solid comfort that they shall finally obtain the
victory, and of this infallible pledge of eternal glory, they would be
of all men the most miserable.
ARTICLE 11. The Scripture moreover testifies that believers in this
life have to struggle with various carnal doubts, and that under
grievous temptations they do not always feel this full assurance of
faith and certainty of persevering. But God, who is the Father of all
consolation, does not suffer them to be tempted above that they are
able, but will with the temptation make also the way of escape, that
they may be able to endure it (1 Cor 10:13), and by the Holy Spirit
again inspires them with the comfortable assurance of persevering.
ARTICLE 12. This certainty of perseverance, however, is so far from
exciting in believers a spirit of pride, or of rendering them carnally
secure, that on the contrary it is the real source of humility, filial
reverence, true piety, patience in every tribulation, fervent prayers,
constancy in suffering and in confessing the truth, and of solid
rejoicing in God; so that the consideration of this benefit should
serve as an incentive to the serious and constant practice of gratitude
and good works, as appears from the testimonies of Scripture and the
examples of the saints.
ARTICLE 13. Neither does renewed confidence of persevering produce
licentiousness or a disregard of piety in those who are recovered from
backsliding; but it renders them much more careful and solicitous to
continue in the ways of the Lord, which He has ordained, that they who
walk therein may keep the assurance of persevering; lest, on account of
their abuse of His fatherly kindness, God should turn away His gracious
countenance from them (to behold which is to the godly dearer than
life, and the withdrawal of which is more bitter than death) and they
in consequence thereof should fall into more grievous torments of
conscience.
ARTICLE 14. And as it has pleased God, by the preaching of the gospel,
to begin this work of grace in us, so He preserves, continues, and
perfects it by the hearing and reading of His Word, by meditation
thereon, and by the exhortations, threatenings, and promises thereof,
and by the use of the sacraments.
ARTICLE 15. The carnal mind is unable to comprehend this doctrine of
the perseverance of the saints and the certainty thereof, which God has
most abundantly revealed in His Word, for the glory of His Name and the
consolation of pious souls, and which He impresses upon the hearts of
the believers. Satan abhors it, the world ridicules it, the ignorant
and hypocritical abuse it, and the heretics oppose it. But the bride of
Christ has always most tenderly loved and constantly defended it as an
inestimable treasure; and God, against whom neither counsel nor
strength can prevail, will dispose her so to continue to the end. Now
to this one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be honor and glory
forever. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________
REJECTION OF ERRORS
The true doctrine having been explained, the Synod rejects the errors
of those:
PARAGRAPH 1. Who teach: That the perseverance of the true believers is
not a fruit of election, or a gift of God gained by the death of
Christ, but a condition of the new covenant which (as they declare) man
before his decisive election and justification must fulfil through his
free will.
For the Holy Scripture testifies that this follows out of election, and
is given the elect in virtue of the death, the resurrection, and the
intercession of Christ: "What Israel sought so earnestly it did not
obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened (Rom 11:7)."
Likewise: "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us
all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all
things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It
is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who
died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of
God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love
of Christ (Rom 8:32-35)?"
PARAGRAPH 2. Who teach: That God does indeed provide the believer with
sufficient powers to persevere, and is ever ready to preserve these in
him if he will do his duty; but that, though all though which are
necessary to persevere in faith and which God will use to preserve
faith are made us of, even then it ever depends on the pleasure of the
will whether it will persevere or not.
For this idea contains outspoken Pelagianism, and while it would make
men free, it make them robbers of God's honor, contrary to the
prevailing agreement of the evangelical doctrine, which takes from man
all cause of boasting, and ascribes all the praise for this favor to
the grace of God alone; and contrary to the apostle, who declares that
it is God, "He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be
blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1:8)."
PARAGRAPH 3. Who teach: That the true believers and regenerate not only
can fall from justifying faith and likewise from grace and salvation
wholly and to the end, but indeed often do fall from this and are lost
forever.
For this conception makes powerless the grace, justification,
regeneration, and continued preservation by Christ, contrary to the
expressed words of the apostle Paul: "While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how
much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him (Rom 5:8-9)."
And contrary to the apostle John: "No one who is born of God will
continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on
sinning, because he has been born of God (1 John 3:9)." And also
contrary to the words of Jesus Christ: "I give them eternal life, and
they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My
Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all ; no one can
snatch them out of my Father's hand (John 10:28-29)."
PARAGRAPH 4. Who teach: That true believers and regenerate can sin the
sin unto death or against the Holy Spirit.
Since the same apostle John, after having spoken in the fifth chapter
of his first epistle, vs. 16 and 17, of those who sin unto death and
having forbidden to pray for them, immediately adds to this in vs. 18:
"We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin (meaning a
sin of that character); the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and
the evil one cannot harm him (1 John 5:18)."
PARAGRAPH 5. Who teach: That without a special revelation we can have
no certainty of future perseverance in this life.
For by this doctrine the sure comfort of the true believers is taken
away in this life, and the doubts of the papist are again introduced
into the Church, while the Holy Scriptures constantly deduce this
assurance, not from a special and extraordinary revelation, but from
the marks proper to the children of God and from the very constant
promises of God. So especially the apostle Paul: "neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:39)." And
John declares: "Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in
them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the
Spirit he gave us (1 John 3:24)."
PARAGRAPH 6. Who teach: That the doctrine of the certainty of
perseverance and of salvation from its own character and nature is a
cause of indolence and is injurious to godliness, good morals, prayers,
and other holy exercises, but that on the contrary it is praiseworthy
to doubt.
For these show that they do not know the power of divine grace and the
working of the indwelling Holy Spirit. And they contradict the apostle
John, who teaches that opposite with express words in his first
epistle: "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be
has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope
in him purifies himself, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2-3)."
Furthermore, these are contradicted by the example of the saints, both
of the Old and the New Testament, who though they were assured of their
perseverance and salvation, were nevertheless constant in prayers and
other exercises of godliness.
PARAGRAPH 7. Who teach: That the faith of those who believe for a time
does not differ from justifying and saving faith except only in
duration.
For Christ Himself, in Matt 13:20, Luke 8:13, and in other places,
evidently notes, beside this duration, a threefold difference between
those who believe only for a time and true believers, when He declares
that the former receive the seed on stony ground, but the latter in the
good ground or heart; that the former are without root, but the latter
have a firm root; that the former are without fruit, but that the
latter bring forth their fruit in various measure, with constancy and
steadfastness.
PARAGRAPH 8. Who teach: That it is not absurd that one having lost his
first regeneration is again and even often born anew.
For these deny by this doctrine the incorruptibleness of the seed of
God, whereby we are born again; contrary to the testimony of the
apostle Peter: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable (1 Pet 1:23)."
PARAGRAPH 9. Who teach: That Christ has in no place prayed that
believers should infallibly continue in faith.
For the contradict Christ Himself, who says: "I have prayed for you,
Simon, that your faith may not fail (Luke 22:32)", and the evangelist
John, who declares that Christ has not prayed for the apostles only,
but also for those who through their word would believe: "Holy Father,
protect them by the power of your name," and "My prayer is not that you
take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one
(John 17:11, 15, 20)."
__________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
And this is the perspicuous, simple, an ingenuous declaration of the
orthodox doctrine respecting the five articles which have been
controverted in the Belgic Churches; and the rejection of the errors,
with which they have for some time been troubled. This doctrine the
Synod judges to be drawn from the Word of God, and to be agreeable to
the confession of the Reformed Churches. Whence it clearly appears that
some, whom such conduct by no means became, have violated all truth,
equity, and charity, in wishing to persuade the public:
"That the doctrine of the Reformed Churches concerning predestination,
and the points annexed to it, by its own genius and necessary tendency,
leads off the minds of men from all piety and religion; that it is a
opiate administered by the flesh and the devil; and the stronghold of
Satan, where he lies in wait for all, and from which he wounds
multitudes, and mortally strikes through many with the darts both of
despair and security; that it makes God the author of sin, unjust,
tyrannical, hypocritical; that it is noting more than interpolated
Stoicism, Manicheism, Libertinism, Turcism; that it renders men
carnally secure, since they are persuaded by it that noting can hinder
the salvation of the elect, let them live as they please; and,
therefore, that they may safely perpetrate every species of the most
atrocious crimes; and that, if the reprobate should even perform truly
all the works of the saints, their obedience would not in the least
contribute tot their salvation; that the same doctrine teaches that
God, by a mere arbitrary act of his will, without the least respect or
view to any sin, has predestinated the greatest part of the world to
eternal damnation, and has created them for this very purpose; that in
the same manner in which the election is the fountain and cause of
faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety;
that many children of the faithful are torn, guiltless, from their
mothers'breasts, and tyrannically plunged into hell: so that neither
baptism nor the prayers of the Church at their baptism can at all
profit them;" and many other things of the same kind which the Reformed
Churches not only do not acknowledge, but even detest with their whole
soul.
Wherefore, this Synod of Dort, in the name of the Lord, conjures as
many as piously call upon the name of our Savior Jesus Christ to judge
of the faith of the Reformed Churches, not from the calumnies which on
every side are heaped upon it, nor from the private expressions of a
few among ancient and modern teachers, often dishonestly quoted, or
corrupted and wrested to a meaning quite foreign to their intention;
but from the public confessions of the Churches themselves, and from
this declaration of the orthodox doctrine, confirmed by the unanimous
consent of all and each of the members of the whole Synod. Moreover,
the Synod warns calumniators themselves to consider the terrible
judgment of God which awaits them, for bearing false witness against
the confessions of so many Churches; for distressing the consciences of
the weak; and for laboring to render suspected the society of the truly
faithful.
Finally, this Synod exhorts all their brethren in the gospel of Christ
to conduct themselves piously and religiously in handling this
doctrine, both in the universities and churches; to direct it, as well
in discourse as in writing, to the glory of the Divine name, to
holiness of life, and to the consolation of afflicted souls; to
regulate, by the Scripture, according to the analogy of faith, not only
their sentiments, but also their language, and to abstain from all
those phrases which exceed the limits necessary to be observed in
ascertaining the genuine sense of the Holy Scriptures, and may furnish
insolent sophists with a just pretext for violently assailing, or even
vilifying, the doctrine of the Reformed Churches.
May Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who, seated at the Father's right
hand, gives gifts to men, sanctify us in the truth; bring to the truth
those who err; shut the mouths of the calumniators of sound doctrine,
and endue the faithful ministers of his Word with the spirit of wisdom
and discretion, that all their discourses may tend to the glory of God,
and the edification of those who hear them. Amen.
__________________________________________________________________
Indexes
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Scripture References
Genesis
[1]6:5 [2]8:21 [3]17:7
Deuteronomy
[4]10:14-15
Psalms
[5]51:17 [6]147:19-20
Isaiah
[7]44:3 [8]53:10
Jeremiah
[9]17:9 [10]31:18 [11]31:33
Ezekiel
[12]36:26
Matthew
[13]5:6 [14]11:21 [15]11:25-26 [16]13 [17]13:11 [18]13:20
[19]20:15 [20]24:24
Luke
[21]8:13 [22]10:20 [23]22:32
John
[24]3:16 [25]6:39 [26]10:15 [27]10:15 [28]10:27
[29]10:28-29 [30]15:12-13 [31]15:16 [32]17:6 [33]17:11
[34]17:15 [35]17:20
Acts
[36]2:39 [37]13:48 [38]13:48 [39]13:48 [40]14:16 [41]15:18
[42]16:6-7 [43]20:27
Romans
[44]3:19 [45]3:23 [46]3:24-25 [47]5:5 [48]5:8-9 [49]5:12
[50]5:16 [51]6:23 [52]6:23 [53]8:16 [54]8:30 [55]8:30
[56]8:30 [57]8:32-35 [58]8:33 [59]8:33-34 [60]8:39
[61]9:11-13 [62]9:12 [63]9:16 [64]9:18 [65]9:20
[66]10:14-15 [67]11:6 [68]11:7 [69]11:33 [70]11:33-36
[71]12:3
1 Corinthians
[72]1:8 [73]4:7 [74]7:14 [75]10:13
Galatians
[76]2:20
Ephesians
[77]1 [78]1:4 [79]1:4 [80]1:4 [81]1:4 [82]1:4-6 [83]1:5
[84]1:11 [85]1:19 [86]2:1 [87]2:3 [88]2:3 [89]2:3-9
[90]2:5 [91]2:8 [92]2:10 [93]4:24
Philippians
[94]1:29 [95]2:13
2 Thessalonians
[96]1:11
2 Timothy
[97]1:9
Hebrews
[98]6:17 [99]7:22 [100]9:15 [101]9:17
1 Peter
[102]1:23
2 Peter
[103]1:3
1 John
[104]3:2-3 [105]3:9 [106]3:24 [107]4:9 [108]4:10 [109]5:18</span></pre>
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Chris Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09383568013904429756noreply@blogger.com