reformed blogging.

In Princeton Seminary David Calhoun lists a dozen devotional books B.B. Warfield recommended as “indispensable” to his students. As one who is constantly on the lookout for book recommendations by doctrinally sound men, I thought others might also benefit from this list, especially as it comes from a theological giant who J. Gresham Machen referred to as “the greatest man I have known.” 

Augustine’s Confessions; The Imitation of Christ; the Theolgia Germnica; Bishop Andrewes’ Private Devotions; Jeremy Taylor’s Life of Christ; Richard Baxter’s The Saints’ Everlasting Rest; Samuel Rutherford’s Letters; John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici; William Law’s Serious Call; John Newton’s Cardiphonia; Bishop Thomas Wilson’s Sacra Privata.

Also: he added “two or three others which have peculiar interest to… Princetonians… and which I am sure are worthy of association with them”: Jonathan Edwards’ Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, Archibald Alexander’s Thoughts on Religious Experience, and Charles Hodge’s Way of life.

And finally, Warfield says, “that the second and third volumes of Dr. Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom have in them more food for your spiritual life–are ‘more directly, richly and evangelically devotional’–than any other book, apart from the Bible, in existence.”
- Princeton Seminary (Volume II): The Majestic Testimony, 324. 

Started going through Berkhof’s Systematic Theology recently and I must say that it is an excellent read. The relation between doxology and theology becomes apparent in Berkhof, not because he explicitly states it, but experientially this seems to be the case. Here’s an excerpt that sounds more like Edwards than anything else:

God did not create first of all to receive glory, but to make His glory extant and manifest. The glorious perfections of God are manifested in His entire creation; and this manifestation is not intended as an empty show, a mere exhibition to be admired by the creatures, but also aims at promoting their welfare and perfect happiness. Moreover, it seeks to attune their hearts to the praises of the Creator, and to elicit from their souls the expression of their gratefulness and love and adoration. The supreme end of God in creation, the manifestation of His glory, therefore, includes, as subordinate ends, the happiness and salvation of His creatures, and the reception of praise from grateful and adoring hearts… The infinite God would hardly choose any but the highest end in creation, and this end could only be found in Himself. If whole nations as compared with Him, are but as a drop in a bucket and as the small dust of the balance, then, surely, His declarative glory is intrinsically of far greater value than the good of His creatures, Isa. 40:15,16… No other end would be sufficiently comprehensive to be the true end of all God’s ways and works in creation… The supreme end which He had in view, was not to receive glory, but to manifest His inherent glory in the works of His hands.- Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 136,7. 

Peter Van Mastricht’s Theoretico-Practica Theologia was considered by Jonathan Edwards to be “much better than Turretin or any other book in the world, excepting the Bible.” Currently, however,  A Treatise on Regeneration is the only section translated into English. Here’s an excerpt from the work of one of Edwards’ favorite divines:

We may hence determine that regeneration is irresistible, and in what sense this is to be understood. For if you consider what the person who is to be regenerated is–a child of wrath who is dead in sin–he certainly has depravity enough to resist (Acts7:51). But if you consider that it is God who regenerates and quickens, the subject of regeneration can no more resist God than Lazarus of old could have resisted Christ when He raised him to a natural life (John 11:43-44). Nor does he have a will to resist, for, by the spiritual life instantaneously produced, all inclinations or desire of resisting are suppressed or taken away (Ezekiel 36:25-27; Jeremiah 32:39-40; cf. Galatians 1:13; Acts 9:2-6; 22:5, 10; 26:9-10, 14, 19).
- Peter Van Mastricht, A Treatise on Regeneration, 29.

Most people today have so little experience of deep, earnest, reverent, powerful encounters with God in preaching that the only associations that come to mind when the notion is mentioned are that the preacher is morose or boring or dismal or sullen or gloomy or surly or unfriendly…
Since they have little or no experience of the deep gladness of momentous moments of gravity, they strive for gladness the only way they know how–by being lighthearted and chipper and talkative.
Pastors have absorbed this narrow view of gladness and friendliness and now cultivate it across the land with pulpit demeanor and verbal casualness that make the blood-earnestness of Chalmers and the pervading solemnity of Edwards’s mind unthinkable. The result is a preaching atmosphere and a preaching style plagued by triviality, levity, carelessness, flippancy and a general spirit that nothing of eternal and infinite proportions is being done or said on Sunday morning.
- John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, 55.

Here is a passage from Marsden’s biography of Edwards regarding new interpretations of Scripture during the Enlightenment. Edwards’ words seem especially important today:

“How wonderful is it, he mocked, that these ‘new writers‘ have discovered in the Apostle Paul meanings so deep that they escaped the view of all previous interpreters for fifteen or sixteen hundred years. ‘No wonder then, if the superficial discerning and observation of vulgar Christians, or indeed of the herd of common divines, such as the Westminster Assembly, etc. falls vastly short of the Apostles reach.’ We have to realize, Edwards continued his irony, that the Reformers and all interpreters before and since ‘dwelt in a cave of bigotry and superstition, too gloomy to allow ‘em to use their own understandings with freedom, in reading the Scripture.’ Now, though, moderns have left the cave and ascended to the light. ‘It must be understood, that there is risen up, now at ength in this happy age of light and liberty, a set of men, of a more free and generous turn of mind, a more inquisitive genius, an better discernment.’” - Jonathan Edwards, quoted from George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life, 457

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

21. Resolved, never to do any thing, which if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think any way the more meanly of him.

53. Resolved, to improve every opportunity, when I am in the best and happiest frame of mind, to cast and venture my soul on the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust and confide in him, and consecrate myself wholly to him; that from this I may have assurance of my safety, knowing that I confide in my Redeemer.

61. Resolved, that I will not give way to that listlessness which I find unbends and relaxes my mind from being fully and fixedly set on religion, whatever excuse I may have for it–that what my listlessness inclines me to do is best to be done, etc.

“Hebrews 11 is a divine mandate to read Christian biography. The unmistakable implication of the chapter is that if we hear about the faith of our forefathers (and mothers), we will “lay aside every weight, and sin” and “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1). If we asked the author, “How shall we stir one another up to love and good works?” (10:24), his answer would be: “Through encouragement from the living (10:25) and the dead (11:1-40).” Christian biography is the means by which the body life of the church cuts across the centuries.” - John Piper, Brothers We Are Not Professionals, 89-90.

Some good Christian Biographies (in no particular order, except for no. 1):

1. The Life and Times of George Whitefield (vol. 1 & 2) - Arnold A. Dallimore — (I think it safe to say that these two volumes changed my life. Dallimore’s pastoral heart comes through his writing so that the two volumes are more than mere biography.)

2. Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography - Iain H. Murray (classic!)

3. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Vol. 1 & 2) - Iain H. Murray (comparable to Whitefield’s biography in richness!)

4. The Life of A.W. Pink - Iain H. Murray (the life of a brilliant man, who is not too well-known. Good read –like all of Murray’s biographies!)

5. The Life and Diary of David Brainerd - Jonathan Edwards (can be dry at times, but it is the realness of the biography, that God would work through an earnest and melancholy man like Brainerd, that makes it so good (an understatement)).

6. Here I Stand: The Life of Martin Luther - Roland H. Bainton (classic!)

7. To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson - Courtney Anderson (Anderson was a screenwriter so some parts of the bio seem really dramatic, especially in describing Judson’s childhood. Yet, the book is well-written and good!)

8. William Tyndale: A Biography - David Daniell (written in a scholarly manner. gain a good history of the english reformation as well as appreciation for our English bible through reading this. Reaading this will make you so thankful for the Reformation!)

9. John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides - John G. Paton (makes for an easy and fun read since Paton writes so well! Like reading an adventure book.)

10. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners - John Bunyan (another classic!)

Here’s some more Edwards for you:

“Hypocrites may, and oftentimes do, make a great show of religion in profession, and in words that cost nothing, and in actions that involve no great difficulty or suffering. But they have not a suffering spirit, or a spirit that inclines them willingly to suffer for Christ’s sake. When they undertook religion, it was not with any view to suffering, or with any design or expectation of being injured by it in their temporal interests.” - Jonathan Edwards, Charity and its Fruit, p. 253

“Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” - 2 Timothy 3:12