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A Very Strange Sound In Our Ears
Strange things I've heard Reformed Baptists say: "We must believe like John Calvin, but evangelize like James Arminius!" "If it were not for Paedobaptism, I would be a Presbyterian!" "A church is at high risk of pastoral dictatorship unless more than one pastor is appointed." "Christians need the church like babies need milk...it is their nourishment for life." "Hyper-calvinists have no urgency to preach the gospel to dying sinners," said one while spending a day visiting with me in the sitting room, instead of urgently preaching the gospel to my neigbors. "It is the unbeliever's duty to believe on Christ, and the believer's duty to obey the [moral] law!" "God wants you to come to Christ; the only thing keeping you from salvation is your…
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Article 12 – Spirital Faith A Grace, Not A Natural And Legal Duty
Articles Of The Faith And Order Of A Primitive Or Strict And Particular Baptist Church Of The Lord Jesus Christ, Based On The Declaration Of Faith And Practice Of John Gill, D. D., 1720 XII. Spiritual Faith not a Natural and Legal Duty. We believe that the “precious faith” of “God’s elect,” with which salvation is conjoined,[1] is “the gift of God, “obtained" by the elect “through the righteousness of God our Saviour,” wrought in the heart by “the operation of God,” and manifested by acts of spiritual belief or trust which are performed through gracious ability communicated by the Holy Ghost,[2] and that it is not a duty incumbent on men as men, which they can perform at their pleasure, but is obligatory only…
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Article 11 – The Gospel: Its Nature And Invitations
Articles Of The Faith And Order Of A Primitive Or Strict And Particular Baptist Church Of The Lord Jesus Christ, Based On The Declaration Of Faith And Practice Of John Gill, D. D., 1720 XI. The Gospel—Its Nature and Invitations. We believe that the Gospel, or the glad tidings of the sovereign, free, and enriching grace of God to lost sinners, through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Ghost[1] is of the nature of a declaration or proclamation, and that to proffer mercy, or tender salvation, or offer Christ to the unregenerate, (as is often done, as if men had it in their own power to accept or reject the grace of God, and will augment their damnation if they refuse it,) is unscriptural, and wholly…
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My Review Of Monergism.com’s Earmarks Of “Hyper-Calvinism”
According to the “About Us” page, Monergism.com is: “A subsidiary of the Christian Publication Resource Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Portland, OR, which exists to aid in the growth and maturation of the worldwide Church by making available a wide array of free resources that support the historic, Reformed Christian faith, combat doctrinal error, and stir the flame of devotion which a right knowledge of the Savior must produce. It serves as a clearinghouse of electronic media addressing all aspects of the Christian faith from a historic, Reformed perspective; it is also a community weblog providing regular devotional and expositional thoughts which highlights various resources and ministries, with contributors from a variety of backgrounds who all share a solidarity in the Reformed faith.”…
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Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020
Review Article Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020 I have been recently sent an online copy of Stephen Paynter’s new book, or rather a new version of a work done in 2014, by Academia.edu free of charge. This academic consortium has kindly provided me for several years with many gems both small and large from writers on theology, missiology and church history. It is rarely, however, that I receive works from them dealing solely with evangelical, Reformed issues. This is also the more surprising because Dr Paynter is a software engineer and neither a theologian nor a pastor. The aims of the book Paynter’s aim is to define…
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Is Grace Common?
Do you believe in common grace? To answer this question one needs to be able to define what common grace is. Unfortunately, the term means different things to different people. For some common grace describes God’s good gifts or common provisions in nature such as sunshine and rain. Some see it in terms of talents or gifts that lead to human distinction in art, sport or music. Others discern the restraining hand of God holding back human wickedness by conscience and the structures of law, order and civil government; keeping society from deteriorating into anarchy. All things to all men If this was the extent of common grace teaching we could be content, but it does not stop there. Recently, common grace has taken on…
