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There is a very evident tendency to stress the fact that the Church is a great missionary agency, and to forget that it is first of all the assembly of the saints, in which those who publicly live in sin cannot be tolerated. It is said that sinners must be gathered into the church, and not excluded from it. But it should be remembered that they must be gathered in as saints and have no legitimate place in the Church as long as they do not confess their sin and strive for holiness of life.Systematic Theology, 601
Justification takes place by works and by faithโby the works of Christ and by our faith.
The church is live a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power.
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.
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Unknown
When the apostle says that 'faith is by hearing' (Rom. 10:17), he does indeed give us to understand that the ministry of the church ought to come in as the ordinary means of producing faith in adults. He does not teach, however, that the church is clearer and better known than the Scriptures.
Good works are required as the means and way for possessing salvation. Even though they don't contribute anything to the acquisition of our salvation, they are necessary to the obtainment of it. No one can be saved without them.
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 (katรฉcheisthai).
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.
The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.
When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.
Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, or membership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian.
For since His will can have for its object nothing but good, it cannot will evil as evil, but as terminated on the permission of that which is good. God, therefore, properly does not will sin to be done, but only wills to permit it.
Effectual calling is an act of the grace of God in Christ by which he calls men dead in sin and lost in Adam through the preaching of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, to union with Christ and to salvation obtained in him.
The liberty of reading the Scriptures does not take away either oral instruction, pastoral direction or other helps necessary to understanding. It only opposes the tyranny of those who do not wish the darkness of their errors to be dissipated by the light of the divine word.
By the beatific vision... God will be seen without end, loved without cloying, praised without weariness.Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 3.612
The right of discipline belongs to the Church; those who despise this discipline are rejecting not just men, but God, who has appointed such ordinances for our edification.
Those who are always contending and disputing, rather than seeking to edify in love, do harm to the church. The truth needs no wrangling, but a firm and humble assertion.
The foundation of all true theology is humility, for when pride takes root in a theologian, the entire system of his doctrine becomes corrupted
A threefold love of God is commonly held; or rather there are three degrees of one and the same love. First, there is the love of ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ by which God willed good to the creature from eternity; second, the love of ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ง๐ช๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ by which he does good to the creature in time according to his good will; third, the love of ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐บ by which he delights himself in the creature on account of the rays of his image seen in them. By the love of ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ, he loved us before we were; by the love of ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ง๐ช๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ, he loves us as we are; and by the love of ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ค๐บ, he loves us when we are (viz., renewed after his image). By the first he elects us; by the second, he redeems and sanctifies us; but by the third he gratuitously rewards us as holy and just. Institutes of Elenctic Theology, III.8,5
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2. Thomas Watson (125)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (104)
5. J.I. Packer (89)
6. John Piper (86)
7. George Swinnock (75)
8. A.W. Pink (68)
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11. B.B. Warfield (58)
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