About
Coming Soon
Quote 2688
0.9K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
O my soul, is it possible for thee to hear the excellency of Scripture thus opened to thee, and not to burn in love to it? Hast thou been all this while in such a host bath, and still cold and shivering?The Christian Man\'s Calling
Justification takes place by works and by faith—by the works of Christ and by our faith.
How easy it is to read the Scriptures and give a kind of nominal assent to the truth and yet never to appropriate what it tells us!
A Christian without a Bible is a soldier without a weapon.The Christian\'s Reasonable Service 1:76
If hatred of sin is necessary to God, then penal justice is equally necessary because the hatred of sin is the constant will of punishing it.
God will condemn those by his Word, who will not judge themselves by it.
The body of Scripture is a doctrine sufficient to live well. It comprehends many holy sciences of which one is principal, and the others are handmaids or attendants.https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/perkins/A%20Golden%20Chain%20-%20William%20Perkins.pdf
The reading and contemplation of the Scriptures is enjoined upon men of all languages, therefore the translation of it into the native tongues is necessary. Since men speak different languages and are not all familiar with those two in which it was first written, it cannot be understood by them unless translated; it comes as the same thing to say nothing at all and to say what nobody can understand. But here it happens by the wonderful grace of God that the division of tongues (which formerly was the sign of a curse) becomes now the proof of a heavenly blessing. What was introduced to destroy Babel is now used to build up the mystical Zion.
It was not necessary for the apostles to write a catechism so as to deliver their doctrines professedly. It was enough for them to hand down to us those doctrines in accordance with which all symbolical books and catechisms might be constructed. If they did not formally write a catechism, they did materially leave us either in the gospels or in the epistles those things by which we can be clearly taught the principles of religion (katécheisthai).
If theology takes some things from other systems, it is not as an inferior from superiors, but as an superior from inferiors (as a mistress freely using her handmaids). Theology does not so much take from others, as presupposes certain previously known things upon which it builds revelation.
Institutes of Elenctic Theology
That God is the object of theology is evident both from the very name (theologias and theosebeias), and from Scripture which recognizes no other principal object.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
Thus that all things are discussed in theology either because they deal with God himself or have a relation (schesin) to him as the first principle and ultimate end.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
But the divine dayspring from on high is adored, Christ the Lord, who is our sun and shield; the sun of every blessing, asserting the glory of religion; the shield of the most safe protection, affording an invincible and inexpugnable guard to liberty.
Christians need to remember that the sufficiency of Scripture gives us a comprehensive worldview that equips us to wrestle with even the most challenging ethical dilemmas of our time.
We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.
In short, I will preach it [the Word], teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything.
The collapse in evangelical doctrinal consensus is intimately related to the collapse in the understanding of, and role assigned to, Scripture as God's Word spoken within the church.Reformation: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
The Apocryphal books are so called not because the authors are unknown (for there are some canonical books whose authors are unknown and some apocryphal books whose authors are known); not because they could be read only in private and not in public (for some of them may be read even in public), but either because they were removed from the crypt (apo tés kryptés) (that sacred place in which the holy writings were laid up) as Epiphanius and Augustine think; or because their authority was hidden and suspected, and consequently their use also was secret since the church did not apply to them to confirm the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines (as Jerome says, 'Praefatio in libros Salomonis' from "Hieronymi Prologus Galeatus" in Biblia Sacra Vulgata Editionis Sixti V ... et Celementis VIII [1865], p. lii); or, what is more probable, because they are of an uncertain and obscure origin (as Augustine says, CG 15.23* [FC 14:474]).
For a thing to be denied by philosophy is different from not being taught by it. We do not deny that various theological mysteries are not taught in philosophy, but it does not follow that they are denied by it because the limits of the two sciences must be kept distinct. The physician does not meddle with geometry, nor the lawyer with natural science. So philosophy should be kept within its proper bounds and not be allowed to thrust its pruning hook into a different field. Therefore, because it says nothing about the Trinity and the incarnation, we must not suppose that it denies these doctrines.
So God wishes us to apply all the truths of the lower sciences to theology and after rescuing them from the Gentiles (as holders of a bad faith) to take and appropriate them to Christ who is the truth, for the building of the mystic temple; as formerly Moses enriched and adorned the tabernacle with Egyptian gold, and Solomon procured the assistance of the Sidonians and Syrians in building the temple.
Philosophy is used either properly and in the abstract for the knowledge of things human and divine (as far as they can be known by the light of nature), or improperly and in the concrete for a collection of various opinions at variance with each other (which the philosophers of different sects held). In this latter sense, we acknowledge that it contains many errors and that it is of no use but of the greatest harm. Thus Paul condemns it (Col. 2:8). But in the former sense, its uses are many. In passing, we give only the more general.
On this subject men run into two extremes. Those who confound philosophy with theology err on the side of excess. This the false apostles formerly did who incorporated various unsound philosophical opinions with the Christian doctrine and are on this account rebuked by the apostle (Col. 2:8). Some of the fathers, coming out from among the philosophers, still retained some of their erroneous opinions and endeavored to bring the Gentiles over to Christianity by a mixture of philosophical and theological doctrines: as Justin Martyr, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and the Scholastics, whose system is philosophical rather than theological since it depends more upon the reasonings of Aristotle and other philosophers than upon the testimonies of the prophets and apostles.
Theology labors to prove the existence of God not from a primary and proper intention, but, as it were, incidentally from an adventitious necessity (viz., for the purpose of confuting the profane and atheists who without shame and with seared consciences deny it). (2) The axiom —'"science does not prove its subject, but takes it for granted"—is true in human and inferior sciences, but not in theology. Theology is of a higher order for it extends itself to the proof of all things which can be proved by the means peculiar to itself (viz., by divine revelation). It does this, not instrumentally, but authoritatively.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
But when God is set forth as the object of theology, he is not to be regarded simply as God in himself (for thus he is incomprehensible [akataléptos] to us), but as revealed and as he has been pleased to manifest himself to us in his word, so that divine revelation is the formal relation which comes to be considered in this object.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
As man is appointed for a supernatural end, he must necessarily have presented to him supernatural means for reaching that end.
Top Authors
1. Charles Spurgeon (113)
2. J.C. Ryle (108)
3. Thomas Watson (95)
4. John Piper (81)
5. John Calvin (79)
6. J.I. Packer (74)
7. George Swinnock (68)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (47)
12. Gerald Bray (46)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
15. Tim Keller (42)
16. Abraham Kuyper (40)
17. John Owen (39)
18. John Flavel (38)
19. Thomas Brooks (36)
20. Martin Luther (33)
2. J.C. Ryle (108)
3. Thomas Watson (95)
4. John Piper (81)
5. John Calvin (79)
6. J.I. Packer (74)
7. George Swinnock (68)
8. Louis Berkhof (62)
9. A.W. Pink (60)
10. C.S. Lewis (51)
11. Francis Schaeffer (47)
12. Gerald Bray (46)
13. B.B. Warfield (45)
14. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (43)
15. Tim Keller (42)
16. Abraham Kuyper (40)
17. John Owen (39)
18. John Flavel (38)
19. Thomas Brooks (36)
20. Martin Luther (33)
Top Topics
1. Sin (152)2. Prayer (114)
3. Preaching (101)
4. Scripture (98)
5. Faith (92)
6. Gospel (71)
7. Suffering (57)
8. Church (51)
9. Law (47)
10. Truth (45)
11. Justification (43)
12. Salvation (38)
13. Theology (35)
14. Love (33)
15. Grace (32)
16. Sanctification (31)
17. Apologetics (30)
18. Fear (30)
19. Unbelief (28)
20. Creation (27)
21. Pride (27)
22. Worship (27)
23. Holiness (26)
24. Eternity (24)
25. Evolution (24)
26. Heaven (24)