Category Archives: People

Four maxims about justification

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The Puritan Thomas Watson lays down ‘four maxims or positions about justification.

1 That justification confers a real benefit upon the person justified. The acquitting and discharging of the debtor, by virtue of the satisfaction made by the surety, is a real benefit to the debtor. A robe of righteousness, and a crown of righteousness, are real benefits.

2 All believers are alike justified: justificatio non recipit magis et minus. Justification does not apply to some more than to others.!…

Inducements to sanctification

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It is the will of God that we should be holy, as saith the text, ‘This is the will of God, your sanctification’ (1 Thess 4:3).  As God’s word must be the rule, so his will, the reason of our actions. This is the will of God, our sanctification. Perhaps it is not the will of God we should be rich, but it is his will that we should be holy. God’s will is our warrant.…

Scripture and tradition

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John Stott (Christ the Controversialist) outlines the following points, arising from Mark 7:1-13:-

1.  Scripture is divine, tradition is human.  What the Pharisees referred to as ‘the tradition of the elders’, vv3,5, Jesus calls, ‘the precepts of men’, v7, and ‘the tradition of men’, v8.  ‘Thus we have our Lord’s own authority for distinguishing between Scripture and tradition as between God’s Word written and all human interpretations and accretions…Therefore as Jesus distinguished between Moses and the elders, so we must distinguish between apostolic tradition (which is Scripture) and ecclesiastical tradition (which is the teaching of the church). …

From what are we called?

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‘From what does God call men?

(1.) From sin. He calls them from their ignorance and unbelief. 1 Pet 1:14. By nature the understanding is enveloped with darkness. God calls men ‘from darkness to light,’ as if one should be called out of a dungeon to behold the light of the sun. Eph 5:8.

(2.) From danger. As the angels called Lot out of Sodom, when it was ready to rain fire; so God calls his people from the fire and brimstone of hell, and from all those curses to which they were exposed.…

Passive graces

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‘When I speak of passive graces (writes J.C. Ryle in his celebrated book, Holiness), I mean those graces which are especially shown in submission to the will of God and in bearing and forbearing towards one another. Few people, perhaps, unless they have examined the point, have an idea how much is said about these graces in the New Testament and how important a place they seem to fill. This is the special point which St.…

The new covenant

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‘The differences between the church and Israel are rooted in the newness of the covenant by which God and his people are bound to each other. The new covenant under which the church lives (1 Cor 11:25 Heb 8:7-13) is a new form of the relationship whereby God says to a chosen community, “I will be your God; you shall be my people.” (Ex 6:7 Jer 31:33) Both the continuity and the discontinuity between Israel and the church reflect this change in the form of the covenant, which took place at Christ’s coming.…

Growing in grace

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See 2 Pet 3:18

‘The saints are not only compared to stars for their light, but to trees for their growth’ (Watson), Isa 61:3, ‘They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.’ Hos 14:5f. ‘Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.’

Christian growth is organic, and needs therefore to be both nourished and exercised.…

Evil and God’s providence

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Of the evils that infect God’s world (moral and spiritual perversity, waste of good, and the physical disorders and disruptions of a spoiled cosmos), it can summarily be said:

1. God permits evil; (Acts 14:16)

2. he punishes evil with evil; (Ps 81:11-12 Rom 1:26-32)

3. he brings good out of evil; (Ge 50:20 Acts 2:23 4:27-28 13:27 1 Cor 2:7-8)

4. he uses evil to test and discipline those he loves; (Mt 4:1-11 Heb 12:4-14)

5.…

The mutual love of husband and wife

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Richard Baxter spells out the mutual love that a husband and wife must have for one another:-

I pray you, next tell me my duty to my wife and hers to me.

The common duty of husband and wife is,

1. Entirely to love each other; and therefore choose one that is truly lovely.… ;and avoid all things that tend to quench your love.

2. To dwell together, and enjoy each other, and faithfully join as helpers in the education of their children, the government of the family, and the management of their worldly business.…

Puritans on male leadership

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According to J.I Packer, the Puritans advanced four arguments confirming the rightness of male leadership as adumbrated in Milton’s ‘he for God only, she for God in him’:-

  1. The argument from creation: the man was made first, then the woman, and the woman was made to benefit the man as a suitable helper for him.
  2. The argument from the story of the Fall: the woman was first in the transgression, and God decreed in judgement that henceforth her husband should rule over her.
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