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David Clarkson on Original Sin

The end of the ministry of the gospel is to bring sinners unto Christ. Their way to this end lies through the sense of their misery without Christ. The ingredients of this misery are our sinfulness, original and actual; the wrath of God, whereto sin has exposed us; and our impotency to free ourselves either from sin or wrath.

Man’s soul is left like a ruined castle; the bare ragged walls, the remaining faculties, may help you guess what it has been; but all the ornaments and precious furniture is gone. Is not this ground of humiliation? Thy ruined soul can never be repaired, but by Him who brought heaven and earth out of nothing.

The Democratic Party vs. the Church Fathers on abortion

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right. – 2008 Democratic Party Platform

You shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one who has been born. – the Didache

We say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder. And we also say that they will have to give an account to God for the abortion. – Athenagoras

In our case, murder is once for all forbidden. Therefore, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier way to kill a human. It does not matter whether you take away a life that has been born, or destroy one that is not yet born. – Tertullian

Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument that is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for first of all opening the uterus and then keeping it open. It also has a circular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected with careful, but unflinching care. Its last appendage is a blunted or covered hook, by which the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery. There is also a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is brought about in this treacherous robbery of life. From its infanticide function, they give it the name, “killer of the infant” – which infant, of course, had once been alive. – Tertullian

There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels. So they commit murder before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teachings of your gods. – Marcus Minucius Felix

And, because we want to be fair, we’ll include this:

Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. – 2008 Republican Party Platform

John Calvin on John 8:58

Before Abraham was. As unbelievers judge only from the appearance of the flesh, Christ reminds them that he has something greater and higher than human appearance, which is hidden from the senses of the flesh, and is perceived only by the eyes of faith; and that, in this respect, he might be seen by the holy fathers, before he was manifested in the flesh. But he uses different verbs. Before Abraham WAS, or, Before Abraham WAS BORN, I AM. But by these words he excludes himself from the ordinary rank of men, and claims for himself a power more than human, a power heavenly and divine, the perception of which reached from the beginning of the world through all ages.

Yet these words may be explained in two ways. Some think that this applies simply to the eternal Divinity of Christ, and compare it with that passage in the writings of Moses, I am what I am, (Exodus 3:14.) But I extend it much farther, because the power and grace of Christ, so far as he is the Redeemer of the world, was common to all ages. It agrees therefore with that saying of the apostle, Christ yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, (Hebrews 13:8.) For the context appears to demand this interpretation. He had formerly said that Abraham longed for his day with vehement desire; and as this seemed incredible to the Jews, he adds, that he himself also existed at that time. The reason assigned will not appear sufficiently strong, if we do not understand that he was even then acknowledged to be the Mediator, by whom God was to be appeased. And yet the efficacy which belonged, in all ages, to the grace of the Mediator depended on his eternal Divinity; so that this saying of Christ contains a remarkable testimony of his Divine essence.

We ought also to observe the solemn form of an oath, Verily, verily. Nor do I disapprove of the opinion of Chrysostom, that the present tense of the verb is emphatic; for he does not say, I was, but I am; by which he denotes a condition uniformly the same from the beginning to the end. And he does not say, Before Abraham WAS, but, Before Abraham WAS MADE; which implies that Abraham had a beginning.

What is success?

schaeffer…God willing, I will push and politick no more…. The mountains are too high, history is too long, and eternity is longer. God is too great, man is too small, there are many of God’s dear children, and all around there are men going to Hell. And if one man and a small group of men do not approve of where I am and what I do, does it prove I’ve missed success? No; only one thing will determine that – whether this day I’m where the Lord of lords and King of kings wants me to be. To win as many as I can, to help strengthen the hands of those who fight unbelief in the historical setting in which there are placed, to know the reality of “the Lord is my song,” and to be committed to the Holy Spirit – that is what I wish I could know to be the reality of each day as it closes.

- Francis Schaeffer

J. Gresham Machen on the Fatherhood of God

machenJesus does indeed speak much of the Fatherhood of God, and His words are full of comfort for those who are God’s children. But never does He speak of God being the Father of all men; in the Sermon on the Mount those who can say, ‘Our father which art in heaven,’ are distinguished in the sharpest possible way from the world outside. Our Lord came not to teach men that they were already sons of God, but to make them sons of God by His redeeming work. The Fatherhood of God as it is taught in the New Testament designates not a relationship in which God stands to all men, but a relationship in which He stands to those who have been redeemed.

S. H. Kellogg on Leviticus

I like to buy old, used books, especially if they’re about theology and/or cheaply priced. I don’t remember when I got S. H. Kellogg’s Commentary on Leviticus, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t pay over a dollar. The volume is part of the The Expositor’s Bible Commentary series, edited by Robertson Nicoll and was printed sometime around 1900.

There’s not much information to be found about Dr. Kellogg. A quick search of the internet reveals that he taught Didactic Theology at Western Theological Seminary until 1885, when he was forced to resign for health reasons. He then became pastor of St James Square Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Canada, in 1886. There is an article about him in a book that can be accessed on Google Books. Other than this, not much is readily known.

The commentary itself is helpful and comes from a conservative point-of-view. In fact, Dr. Kellogg seems to have outright disdain for the theories of the liberals of his day. Here’s a quote that I like:

A certain school of critics, comprising many of the greatest learning, and of undoubted honesty of intention, assures the Church and the world that a strictly scientific criticism compels one to the conclusion that this claim [Moses’ authorship], even as thus sharply limited and defined, is, to use plain words, not true; that an enlightened scholarship must acknowledge that Moses had little or nothing to do with what we find in this book; that, in fact, it did not originate till nearly a thousand years later, when, after the Babylonian captivity, certain Jewish priests, desirous of magnifying their authority with the people, fell on the happy expedient of writing this book of Leviticus, together with certain other parts of the Pentateuch, and then, to give the work a prestige and authority which on its own merits or over their own names it could not have had, delivered it to their countrymen as nearly a thousand years old, the work of their great lawgiver. And, strangest of all, they not only did this, but were so successful in imposing this forgery upon the whole nation that history records not even an expressed suspicion of a single person, until modern times, of its non-Mosaic origin; that is, they succeeded in persuading the whole people of Israel that a law which they had themselves just promulgated had been in existence among them for nearly ten centuries, the very work of Moses, when, in reality, it was quite a new thing.

Astonishing and even incredible as all this may seem to the uninitiated, substantially this theory is held by many of the Biblical scholars of our day as presenting the essential facts of the case; and the discovery of these supposed facts we are called upon to admire as one of the chief literary triumphs of modern critical scholarship!

Book Review: Just Do Something

justdo

I just came across Kevin DeYoung’s blog and added to my list. He’s the author of Why We’re Not Emergent and a newer book entitled Just Do Something: How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. It’s a catchy title.

I haven’t read the book, but I thought I would post links to couple of people who have.

Pyromaniacs

Tim Challies