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
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
Be thankful to God for the scriptures. What a mercy is it that God has not only acquainted us what his will is, but that he has made it known by writing!A Body of Divinity, p37
There is a circularity here I do not doubt. I am defending the Bible by the Bible. Circularity of a kind is unavoidable when one seeks to defend an ultimate standard of truth, for one's defense must itself be accountable to that standard.The Doctrine of the Word of God
either no human writings at all must be considered as true, or everyone must acknowledge that the sacred accounts are true and reliable -and hence, also divine.Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Disputation 2
Firstly, our brothers have an aversion to the name "Mass" and prefer to call it the "Lord's Supper," which has long been called "Mass" in the Roman church. Although we do not wish to quarrel with anyone over words, we are inclined to reconcile ourselves with those who agree with us that such words cause offense, hatred, and discord, through which Christian faith and love are damaged, as stated in 1 Timothy 6. Nevertheless, we must confess that it is more Christian and certain to use the name given by Christ our Lord Himself, as the Scripture provides it, with which such things can have no inherent association. Specifically, I mean the term "Missa," which we call "Mass" in German; it is said to be derived from the Hebrew word "mas," meaning a required offering or tribute, hence an offering. This is also found in the fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy 16:10), and therefore, the Mass is considered an abomination to godliness when the Lord's Supper is held to be an offering.https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bucer-Grounds-and-Reasons-from-Scripture-for-the-Changes-about-the-Lords-Supper-called-the-Mass-Baptism-Feast-Days-and-Images.pdf
Citizens are not governed for their good and for the true glory of the supreme King when the secular authorities do not rule according to the divine Law and are not set to observe it themselves. For where God is not recognized and obedience to Him is not required before all things, there peace is not peace, justice is not justice, and that which should be profitable brings injury instead.
If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be an enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.
What makes the Scriptures holy is not their historical accuracy or even their content, but the presence of God in them.God Is Love: A Biblical and Systematic Theology (p. 43). Crossway
Other books may belong to a people, an age, a stage of human development; this book belongs to all peoples, all ages and all stages of growth, whether of the individual or of the race - unifying them all and wielding them into one vitalized and vitalizing whole. The Bible is, by way of eminence, the book of humanity.
When we say that the Scriptures are the judge of controversies, we mean it in no other sense than that they are the source of divine right, and the most absolute rule of faith by which all controversies of faith can and
should be certainly and perspicuously settled—even as in a republic, the foundations of decisions and of judgments are drawn from the law. So a judge may be taken widely and by metonomy of the adjunct for a normal
and not a personal judge. Hence he must not be confounded with the subordinate judge who decides controversies according to the rule of the law and applies the authority of the law to things taken singly. This accords with the Philosopher's rule, 'The law must govern all, but the magistrates and the state must decide as to individuals' (Aristotle, Politics 4.4.33–34).
The ignorance and blindness of man are not to be compounded with the obscurity of the Scriptures. The former is often pressed upon the Scriptures, but it is not so, nor can the latter be legitimately inferred from the former no more than that the sun is obscure because it cannot be seen by a blind man. Hence if David and other believers desire their eyes to be opened that they may see wonderful things out of the law, it does not therefore prove the obscurity of the Scriptures, but only the ignorance of men. The question here is not Do men need the light of the Holy Spirit in order to understand the Scriptures? (which we willingly grant); but Are the Scriptures obscure to a believing and illuminated man? Again, illumination may be either theoretical or practical, in its first stage or in its increase. David does not properly seek the former, but the latter
The question is not whether things essential to salvation are everywhere in the Scriptures perspicuously revealed. We acknowledge that there are some things hard to be understood and intended by God to exercise our attention and mental powers. The question is whether things essential to salvation are anywhere revealed, at least so that the believer can by close meditation ascertain their truth (because nothing can be drawn out of the more obscure passages which may not be found elsewhere in the plainest terms). As Augustine remarks: 'Admirable and healthily the Spirit has so arranged the Scriptures that by the plainer passages he might meet our desires and by the obscurer remove our contempt' (CI 2.6); and, 'We feed in the open places, we are exercised by the obscure; there hunger is driven away, here contempt' (Sermon 71, 'De Verbis Domini,' 7.11.)"