reformed blogging.

The acceptance or rejection of a degree of reprobation, therefore, should not be explained in terms of a person’s capacity for love and compassion. The difference between Augustine and Pelagius, Calvin or Castellio, Gomarus and Arminius is not that the latter were that much more gentle, loving, and tenderhearted than the former. On the contrary, it arises from the fact that the former accepted Scripture in its entirety, also including this doctrine; that they were and always wanted to be theistic and recognize the will and hand of the Lord also in these disturbing facts of life; that they were not afraid to look reality in the eye even when it was appalling. Pelagianism scatters flowers over graves, turns death into an angel, regards sin as mere weakness, lectures on the uses of adversity, and considers this the best possible world. Calvinism has no use for such drivel. It refuses to be hoodwinked. It tolerates no such delusion, takes full account of the seriousness of life, champions the rights of the Lord of lords, and humbly bows in adoration before the inexplicable sovereign will of God Almighty. As a result it proves to be fundamentally more merciful than Pelagianism. How deeply Calvin felt the gravity of what he said is evident from his use of the expression “dreadful decree.” Totally without warrant, this expression has been held against him. in fact, it is to his credit, not to his discredit. The decree, as Calvin’s teaching, is not dreadful, but dreadful indeed is the reality that is the revelation of that decree of God, a reality that comes through both in Scripture and in history. To all thinking humans, whether they are followers of Pelagius or Augustine, that reality remains completely the same. It is not something that can in any way be undone by illusory notions of it
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, 394-5.

“It is in the nature of faith to mortify, not only corrupt and sinful lusts, but our natural affections, and their most vehement inclinations, though in themselves innocent, if they are any way uncompliant with duties of trial of the sincerity and power of faith. Our lives, parents, wives, lawful objects of our natural affections. But when they, or any of them, stand in the way of God’s commands, if they are hindrances to the doing or suffering any thing according to His will, faith doth not only mortify, weaken and take off that love, but gives us a comparative hatred of them” - John Owen

“David professeth himself to be a stranger and a pilgrim, not only when he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, but when he was in his palace, and in his best estate. We are not to renounce our comforts, and throw away God’s blessings; but we are to renounce our carnal affections. We cannot get out of the world when we please, but we must get the world out of us. It is a great trial of grace to refuse the opportunity; it is the most difficult lesson to learn how to abound, more difficult than to learn how to want, and to be abased; to have comforts, and yet to have the heart weaned from comforts; not to be necessarily mortified, but to be voluntarily mortified.” - Thomas Manton

“It is easy to be good when we cannot be otherwise, or when all temptations to the contrary are out of the way. All the seeming goodness there is in so many, they owe it to the want of a temptation and to the want of an opporuntiy of doing otherwise.” - Thomas Manton

“It is not the absence of temptation, but the resisting of and prevailing over them which evidences the efficacy of indwelling grace. ” - Arthur W. Pink

“We are hence to conclude that there is no place for us among God’s children except we renounce the world, and that there will be for us no inheritance in Heaven except we become pilgrims on earth.” - John Calvin

In recent conversation with a Roman Catholic, I have repeatedly heard the accusation that Reformation theology, is not, in fact, biblical, that the doctrines of the reformation are false and misconstrued ideas that came from a guilt-ridden monk who, dissatisfied with the way of the Roman Catholic Church, thought to invent his own way to Christ. My Roman Catholic friend seemed to favor the argument that the phrase “justification by faith alone” is found only once in the Bible and this in a passage showing the necessity of works for justification (James 2). Having spent some time reading up more thoroughly on justification by faith alone, I am assured of its biblical foundation.

The doctrines of the Reformation are Biblical and the gospel of the Reformation is the only true gospel. Such theology was not found upon man made tradition, or received by human or papal authority, but the Reformation doctrines are from the very Word of God. Hear from Calvin how the doctrines of the Reformation were brought forth:

But as for us, we study with no less obedience than care to obtain a sound understanding of this passage, as we do in the whole of Scripture. And we do not with perverted ardor and without discrimination rashly seize upon what first springs to our minds. Rather, after diligently meditating upon it, we embrace the meaning which the Spirit of God offers. Relying upon it, we look down from a height at whatever of earthly wisdom is set against it. Indeed, we hold our minds captive, that they dare not raise even one little word of protest; and humble them, that they dare not rebel against it. - p. 1392, Institutes of the Christian Religion

The Roman Church is, at the roots, the same as it was five centuries ago and Reformation is far from over. Reformada sed semper reformanda.
Soli Deo Gloria!

It may not be IX Marks, but Calvin seems to say the same thing:

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists. - p.1023, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin

Started reading Calvin’s “Sermons on the Beatitudes.” The first sermon, based on Christ’s choosing of the twelve disciples, deals directly with sovereign election. Immediately, the message seems to delve deep into the doctrines of grace. Calvin, preaching on God’s election out of Mark 3:13-19:

How, indeed, can we explain our soul’s salvation except in terms of God’s good pleasure and his free gift of mercy? For if we think that we are better than others whom he has passed over or abandoned, we simply demean God’s unconditional kindness through which we obtain salvation. And this we do every time we seek to gain a measure of importance or esteem in men’s eyes. Every mouth must of necessity be shut. We must learn that God has chosen us, not because he saw something good in us, or found us more amenable than those whom he rejects, but simply that he might reveal the full splendour of his generosity.

Calvin’s ability to exposit scripture is well known and highly regarded even by those who may not hold his view of predestination. Yet it is an odd thing that such exegesis would constantly provide evidence of God’s sovereign choice despite man’s radical corruption. Calvinism is just a name for a doctrine already in scripture and it’s unfortunate that we must use a name other than Biblical for what is so apparent.