11.26.07
Help from Dabney on the Free Offer of the Gospel (3)
This is the third post of R. L. Dabney’s comments dealing with many of the issues surrounding the free offer of the Gospel and the disposition of God in it. This can be found in Lecture 43 of his lectures on Systematic Theology
“The great advantage of this view is, that it enables us to receive, in their obvious sense, those precious declarations of Scripture, which declare the pity of God towards even lost sinners. The glory of these representations is, that they show us God’s benevolence as an infinite attribute, like all His other perfections. Even where it is rationally restrained, it exists. The fact that there is a lost order of angels, and that there are persons in our guilty race, who are objects of God’s decree of preterition, does not arise from any stint or failure of this infinite benevolence. It is as infinite, viewed as it qualifies God’s nature only, as though He had given expression to it in the salvation of all the devils and lost men. We can now receive, without any abatement, such blessed declarations as Ps. 1xxxi: 13; Ezek. xviii: 32; Luke xix: 41, 42. We have no occasion for such questionable, and even perilous exegesis, as even Calvin and Turrettin feel themselves constrained to apply to the last. Afraid lest God’s principle of compassion (not purpose of rescue), towards sinners non-elect, should find any expression, and thus mar the symmetry of their logic, they say that it was not Messiah the God-man and Mediator, who wept over reprobate Jerusalem; but only the humanity of Jesus, our pattern. I ask: Is it competent to a mere humanity to say: ” How often would I have gathered your children?” And to pronounce a final doom, “Your house is left unto you desolate?” The Calvinist should have paused, when he found himself wresting these Scriptures from the same point of view adopted by the ultra-Arminian. But this is not the first time we have seen “extremes meet.” Thus argues the Arminian: ” Since God is sovereign and omnipotent, if He has a propension, He indulges it, of course, in volition and action. Therefore, as He declares He had a propension of pity towards contumacious Israel, I conclude that He also had a volition to redeem them, and that He did whatever omnipotence could do, against the obstinate contingency of their wills. Here then, I find the bulwark of my doctrine, that even omnipotence cannot certainly determine a free will.” And thus argues the ultra-Calvinist: “Since God is sovereign and omnipotent, if He has any propension, He indulges it, of course, in volition and action. But if He had willed to convert reprobate Israel, He would infallibly have succeeded. Therefore He never had any propension of pity at all towards them.” And so this reasoner sets himself to explain away, by unscrupulous exegesis, the most precious revelations of God’s nature! Should not this fact, that two opposite conclusions are thus drawn from the same premises, have suggested error in the premises? And the error of both extremists is just here. It is not true that if God has an active principle looking towards a given object, He will always express it in volition and action. This, as I have shown, is no more true of God, than of a righteous and wise man. And as the good man, who was touched with a case of destitution, and yet determined that it was his duty not to use the money he had in giving alms, might consistently express what he truly felt of pity, by a kind word; so God consistently reveals the principle of compassion as to those whom, for wise reasons, He is determined not to save. We know that God’s omnipotence surely accomplishes every purpose of His grace. Hence, we know that He did not purposely design Christ’s sacrifice to effect the redemption of any others than the elect. But we hold it perfectly consistent with this truth, that the expiation of Christ for sin — expiation of infinite value and universal fitness — should be held forth to the whole world, elect and non-elect, as a manifestation of the benevolence of God’s nature. God here exhibits a provision, which is so related to the sin of the race, that by it, all those obstacles to every sinner’s return to his love, which his guilt and the law presents, are ready to be taken out of the way. But in every sinner, another class of obstacles exists; those, namely, arising out of the sinner’s own depraved will. As to the elect, God takes these obstacles also out of the way, by His omnipotent calling, in pursuance of the covenant of redemption made with, and fulfilled for them by, their Mediator. As to the non-elect, God has judged it best not to take this class of obstacles out of the way; the men therefore go on to indulge their own will in neglecting or rejecting Christ.”
G.B.
11.23.07
Why not learn Hebrew for free?
At seminary, I always inclined more to Hebrew than Greek. First I studied Davidson’s Hebrew Grammar and when I moved to Scotland Dr. David Murray used an entirely different approach. His course is free to download at the Free Church Seminary Website where you will find each lecture presented in Powerpoint format, Exercises (and Hebrew Font) for download, Vocabulary and Grammar presentations and flashcards, together with reading notes for various chapters of the Hebrew Old Testament.
The method used is inductive and there is very little memorisation of tables. As you work through the course and repeatedly use the different forms and endings of words you simply learn to recognise them. This course introduces you to Hebrew Scripture very early and enables you to competently read and understand Hebrew by the end.
I would encourage anyone who can speak English to attempt this course; it should not overwhelm you. It would be especially useful for homeschoolers or to incorporate into the curriculum of a Christian Dayschool.
Click here for the course
Click here for an introductory video
G.B
11.19.07
Puritan and Reformed Opposition to Christmas
When I say to people that I do not celebrate Christmas and they ask “Why?”, they are usually confused to be told “Because I’m a Christian!” This is because today’s Protestant Churches have almost totally succumbed to this pseudo-Christian festival. Originally the 25th of December was an old pagan festival day for worshiping the sun god. The method for converting heathens in the Roman Catholic Church has always been the assimilation of heathen customs, idols and rituals. Accordingly, sometime in the fourth century the old pagan rituals surrounding the celebration of the birth of the sun god were changed into a celebration for the birth of the Son of God by the Papacy. A special mass was to be celebrated on this day and hence the name we have today: Christ-mass or Christmas. Below are a few quotations from the Reformers and Puritans against this idolatrous observance that may surprise some who thought that Christmas was always a thing practiced among Christians.
The First Book of Discipline (1560) – The First Creed of the Reformed Church of Scotland drew up by John Knox and several others.
“In which Books of the Old and New Testaments we affirm that all things necessary for the instruction of the Kirk, and to make the man of God perfect, are contained and sufficiently expressed.
By contrary Doctrine, we understand whatsoever men, by laws, Councils, or Constitutions have imposed upon the consciences of men, without the expressed commandment of God’s Word: such as be vows of chastity, foreswearing of marriage…prayer for the dead; and the keeping of holy days of certain Saints commanded by men, such as be all those that the Papists have invented, as the Feasts (as they term them) of Apostles, Martyrs, Virgins, of Christmas, Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, and other fond feasts of our Lady. Which things, because in God’s scriptures they neither have commandment nor assurance, we judge them utterly to be abolished from this Realm; affirming further, that the obstinate maintainers and teachers of such abominations ought not to escape the punishment of the Civil Magistrate.”
[Christmas was also a criminal offence in Calvin’s Geneva, Scotland for considerable periods, England under the Puritans and parts of American while under Puritan control. We are not able to say for certain whether other areas of Europe or elsewhere ever had similar laws, though I suspect some did.]
David Calderwood (1575-1651) – An early Scottish Covenanter
“If it had been the will of God that several acts of Christ should have been celebrated with several solemnities, the Holy Ghost would have made known to us the day of his nativity, circumcision, presentation at the temple, baptism, transfiguration, and the like.”
“This opinion of Christ’s nativity on the 25th of December was bred at Rome.”
“…not Christ’s action, but Christ’s institution makes a day holy.”
“Nay, let us utter the truth, December-Christmas is a just imitation of the December-Saturnal of the ethnic Romans, and so used as if Bacchus, and not Christ, were the God of Christians.”
“It is commonly objected, that we may as well keep a day for the nativity, as for the resurrection of Christ. We have answered already, that Christ’s Day, or the Lord’s Day, is the day appointed for remembrance of his nativity, and all his actions and benefits, as well as for the resurrection.”
George Gillespie (1613-49) – One of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly
“The keeping of some festival days is set up instead of the thankful commemoration of God’s inestimable benefits: howbeit the festivity of Christmas has hitherto served more to Bacchanalian lasciviousness than to the remembrance of the birth of Christ.”
Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603) – A second generation English Reformer
“If Paul condemns the Galatians for observing the feasts which God himself instituted [but were now abrogated], and that for his own honour only, and not for the honour of any creature: the Papists are much more laid open to condemnation, which press observations of feasts of men’s devising…”
William Ames (1576-1633) – An English Puritan
“I would to God that every holy day whatsoever besides the Lord’s day were abolished. That zeal which brought them first in, was without all warrant of the Word, and merely followed corrupt reason, forsooth to drive out the holy days of the pagans, as one nail drives out another. Those holy days have been so tainted with superstitions that I wonder we tremble not at their very names.”
The Directory for the Public Worship of God Agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster – Part of the body of documents produced by the Westminster Assembly for the uniformity of religion in Scotland, England and Ireland
“There is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s Day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued.”
Kevin Reed offers this summary of the Puritan opposition to Christmas
“(1) No time of worship is sanctified, unless God has ordained it; (2) unscriptural holy days are a threat to the proper observance of the Lord’s day because these holy days tend to eclipse the sanctity which belongs only to the Lord’s Day; (3) the observance of unscriptural holy days tends toward the superstition and innovation in worship which is characteristic of Roman Catholicism.” (Christmas – An Historical Survey Regarding Its Origins And Opposition To It)
What would our godly forefathers think of the nonsense that goes on at this time of the year, in and out of public worship? We can only imagine what they would have thought of Santa Clause – ‘who sees and knows all about little children’. That some Christians even lie to their children, telling them that there is a Santa is almost incredible – their children may well ask when older, ‘Is God fictional too, just like Santa and the Tooth fairy?’ We plead with you not to try to put Christ ‘back into Christmas’ for he was never there, nor does he belong there. We ask you instead to stand apart – though admittedly this is very difficult, and you will be vilified for it – and emphasise God’s weekly Holy Day all the more.
G.M.
11.13.07
Puritan Summaries (5) – Puritan Preaching
This is the fifth summary taken from Worldly Saints by Leland Ryken.
Puritan Preaching
“To summerise the Puritan theory of preaching I can do no better than to let some Puritan preachers speak for themselves:
[John Bunyan] ‘I preached what I felt, what I smartingly did feel… Indeed I have been as one sent unto them from the dead. I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains; and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of.
[Richard Baxter] ‘I preached, as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men.
[Thomas Watson] ‘The word preached is a means of health, a chariot of salvation… The preaching of the word is that lattice where Christ looks forth and shows himself to his saints.’…
[William Ames] ‘Preaching, therefore, ought not to be dead, but alive and effective so that an unbeliever coming into the congregation of believers should be affected and, as it were, transfixed by the very hearing of the word so that he might give glory to God.’
[Richard Sibbes] ‘Indeed, preaching is the ordinance of God, sanctified for the begetting of faith, for the opening of the understanding, for the drawing of the will and affections to Christ.’”
Part Five
G.M.
11.02.07
Young Sober Christians by Matthew Henry (2)
This is the second part in this short series from Matthew Henry. For an explanation of the series read here.
4. Self-denying. “You must be temperate and self-denying, and not indulgent of your appetites… Let me therefore warn young men to dread the sin of drunkenness; keep at a distance from it; avoid all appearances of it, and approaches towards it… Take heed of the beginnings of this sin, for the way of it is downhill; and many, under pretence of innocent entertainment, and passing the evening in a pleasant conversation, are drawn to drink to excess, and make beasts of themselves; and you should tremble to think how fatal the consequences of it are – how unfit it renders you for the service of God at night, yea, and for your own business the next morning…and it will be the sinners eternal ruin, if it be not repented of, and forsaken in time,…’drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’
The body is made to be a servant to the soul, and it must be treated accordingly; we must give it, as we must to our servants, that which is just and equal; let it have what is fitting, but let it not be suffered to domineer, for nothing is so insufferable as ‘a servant when he reigneth’ (Prov. 30. v.22); nor let it be pampered… Be dead therefore to the delights of sense; mortify the love of ease and pleasure – learn betimes to endure hardness…”
5. Gentle. “You must be mild and gentle, and not indulgent of your passions. The word here signifies moderation, such a soundness of mind as is opposed to frenzy and violence… Young people are especially apt to be hot and furious, to resent injuries, and study revenge, like Simeon and Levi… They are fond of liberty, and therefore cannot bear control; and wedded to their own opinion, and therefore cannot bear contradiction…”
“The moral philosophers valued themselves very much upon the power which their instructions had upon young people, to soften and sweeten their temper… And shall Christianity, which, to all the arguments which reason suggests for meekness, adds the authority of the God that made us, forbidding rash anger, as heart-murder – the example of Jesus Christ that bought us, and bids us to learn of him to be meek and lowly in heart – the consolations of the Spirit, which have a direct tendency to make us pleasant to ourselves and others – and our experiences of God’s mercy and grace in forbearing and forgiving us – shall this divine and heavenly instruction come short of their instructions…?”
“Your age is made for love; let holy love therefore be a law to you.”
Part Two
G.M.
Part One
