Quote 3740
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Here is a simple but profound rule: if there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute. Society is left with one man or an elite filling the vacuum left by the loss of the Christian consensus which originally gave us form and freedom in northern Europe and in the West.
A regeneration that a man can have, and yet live carelessly in sin or worldliness, is a regeneration invented by uninspired theologians, but never mentioned in scripture. Holiness (Chapter 2)
to Thomas Aquinas the will was fallen after man had revolted against God, but the mind was not. This eventually resulted in people believing they could think out the answers to all the great questions, beginning only from themselves. The Reformation, in contrast to Aquinas had a more biblical concept of the Fall.How Should We Then Live, 85
The distinction between the news columns and the editorial page has, in many of the most influential papers, become much less clear.
It is important to realize what a difference a people's worldview makes in their strength as they are exposed to the pressure of life. That it was the Christians who were able to resist religious mixtures, syncretism, and the effects of the weakness of Roman culture speaks to the strength of the Christian worldview.How Should We Then Live, 19
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end: first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state. It all sounds so familiar. We have come a long road since our first chapter, and we are back in Rome.How Should We Then Live
In almost every place where the Reformation flourished there was not only religious noncompliance; there was civil disobedience as well.A Christian Manifesto
True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion. This is a point that ought never to be forgotten. The vast increase of education and preaching in these latter days makes it absolutely necessary to raise a warning voice. Holiness (Chapter 2)
The Christian must understand what confronts him antagonistically in his own moment of history. Otherwise he simply becomes a useless museum piece and not a living warrior for Jesus Christ.
As the memory of the Christian consensus which gave us freedom within the biblical form increasingly is forgotten, a manipulating authoritarianism will tend to fill the vacuum.
it is not only that we need absolutes in morals and values; we need absolutes if our existence is to have meaning--my existence, your existence, Man's existence. Even more profoundly, we must have absolutes if we are to have a solid epistemology (a theory of knowing--how we know, or how we know we know).How Should We Then Live?, 160-161
Calvin himself in Geneva did not have the authority often attributed to him... Calvin's influence was moral and informal... For example, he preferred to have the Lord's Supper given weekly, but he allowed the will of the majority of the pastors in Geneva to prevail. Thus the Lord's Supper was celebrated only once every three months.How Should We Then Live?, 122
the fall of Constantinople in 1453 resulted in an exodus of Greek scholars who brought manuscripts with them to Florence and other northern Italian cities. It was the humanists of that time who, under the enthusiasm for the classics, spoke of what had immediately preceeded them as a "Dark Age" and talked of a "rebirth" in their own era.How Should We Then Live, 64
Rome did not fall because of external forces such as the invasion by the barbarians. Rome had no sufficient inward base; the barbarians only completed the breakdown-- and Rome gradually became a ruin.How Should We Then Live, 26
Every good deed we do in dependence on God does just the opposite of paying Him back; it puts us ever deeper in debt to His grace. And that is exactly where God wants us to be through all eternity. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (33)
Sanctification, by which our hearts and lives are conformed to the law, is a grace of God communicated to us by means, just like justification; and by means of teaching, and learning something that we cannot see without the Word (Acts 26:17-18)The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification: Growing in Holiness by Living in Union with Christ
This entire sanctification of our whole inner and outer man is absolutely indispensable. As there must be a change of state before there can be of life — "make the tree good, and his fruit (will be) good" (Matthew 12:33) — so there must be sanctification before there can be glorification
Evangelical holiness consists not only in external works of piety and
charity, but in pure thoughts, impulses and affections of the soul, chiefly
in that unselfish love from which all good works must flow if they are to
receive the approbation of Heaven. Not only must there be an abstinence
from the execution of sinful lusts, but there must be a loving and delighting to do the will of God in a cheerful manner, obeying Him without repining or grudging against any duty, as if it were a grievous; yoke to be borne. Evangelical sanctification is that holiness of heart which
causes us to love God supremely, so as to yield ourselves wholly up to His
constant service in all things, and to His disposal of us as our absolute Lord, whether it be for prosperity or adversity, for life or death; and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Each cycle of inflation, attempted control, the threat of economic recession, and finally, released control has increased inflation; yet politically, with most people dominated by the concept of an ever-expanding affluence, it is difficult or impossible to face the danger of economic recession.
To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.How Should We Then Live, 297
History indicates that at a certain point of economic breakdown people cease being concerned with individual liberties and are ready to accept regimentation.How Should We Then Live, 284
In order to justify the early taking of the needed kidneys and other organs, the criterion for death is now generally accepted as a flat brain wave over a twenty-four-hour period.
Politics has largely become not a matter of ideals - increasingly men and women are not stirred by the values of liberty and truth - but of supplying a constituency with a frosting of personal peace and affluence. They know that voices will not be raised as long as people have these things, or at least an illusion of them.How Should We Then Live, 260
I believe the majority of the silent majority, young and old, will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own lifestyles are not threatened. And since personal peace and affluence are so often the only values that count with the majority, politicians know that to be elected they must promise these things.How Should We Then Live, 260
Existentialism and linguistic analysis are both antiphilosophies in that neither gives the basis people need for the answers to the big and fundamental questions. Not only do they not give the answers people need, but each in its own way generates confusion about meaning and values.
Top Authors
1. Charles Spurgeon (130)
2. Thomas Watson (119)
3. J.C. Ryle (116)
4. John Calvin (104)
5. J.I. Packer (89)
6. John Piper (86)
7. George Swinnock (74)
8. A.W. Pink (68)
9. Louis Berkhof (63)
10. John Flavel (58)
11. B.B. Warfield (58)
12. C.S. Lewis (55)
13. John Owen (53)
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15. Gerald Bray (50)
16. Francis Schaeffer (49)
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2. Thomas Watson (119)
3. J.C. Ryle (116)
4. John Calvin (104)
5. J.I. Packer (89)
6. John Piper (86)
7. George Swinnock (74)
8. A.W. Pink (68)
9. Louis Berkhof (63)
10. John Flavel (58)
11. B.B. Warfield (58)
12. C.S. Lewis (55)
13. John Owen (53)
14. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (51)
15. Gerald Bray (50)
16. Francis Schaeffer (49)
17. Thomas Brooks (46)
18. R.C. Sproul (45)
19. Matthew Henry (44)
20. Francis Turretin (43)
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