Tom
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 4,516
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#46815
Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:10 PM
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Joined: Sep 2003
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Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Thomas Watson (1620–1686, England), A Body of Divinity, 226:
“Justification is the very hinge and pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Leiden Synopsis (written by four professors of theology from Leiden, 1625):
“The topic of justification in theology is easily foremost and most saving. If it be obscured, adulterated, or overturned, it is impossible for purity of doctrine to be retained in other loci or for the true Church to exist.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Francis Turretin (1623–1687, Switzerland), Institutes of Elenctic Theology:
“This must be handled with the greater care and accuracy as this saving doctrine is of the greatest importance in religion. It is called by Luther ‘the article of a standing and a falling church.’ By other Christians, it is termed the characteristic and basis of Christianity — not without reason — the principal rampart of the Christian religion. This being adulterated or subverted, it is impossible to retain purity of doctrine in other places. Hence Satan in every way has endeavored to corrupt this doctrine in all ages, as has been done especially by the papacy.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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OP
Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711, Holland), The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 2.341:
“Justification . . . is the soul of Christianity and the fountainhead of all true comfort and sanctification. He who errs in this doctrine errs to his eternal destruction. The devil is therefore continually engaged in denying, perverting, and obscuring the truth expressed in this chapter and, if he does not accomplish this, to prevent exercise concerning this truth. . . One must therefore be all the more earnest to properly understand, defend, and meditate upon this doctrine.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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OP
Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Zacharias Ursinus (1534–1583, Germany), Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, 324–325:
“The doctrine of justification, which now follows, is one of the chief articles of our faith, not only because it treats of those things which are fundamental, but also because it is most frequently called in question by heretics. . . And such is the importance of these doctrines that if either one of them be overthrown, the other parts of our faith easily fall to pieces. Hence it becomes necessary for us to fortify and establish ourselves, especially in these doctrines, against all the assaults of heretics.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
John Calvin (1509–1564, Switzerland), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.11.1:
“The method of justification has been but slightly touched, because it was necessary, first to understand that the faith, by which alone we attain gratuitous justification through the Divine mercy, is not unattended with good works, and what if the nature of the good works of the saints, in which part of this question consists. The subject of justification, therefore, must now be fully discussed, and discussed with the recollection that it is the principal hinge by which religion is supported, in order that we may apply to it with the greater attention and care. For unless we first of all apprehend in what situation we stand with respect to God, and what his judgment is concerning us, we have no foundation either for a certainty of salvation, or for the exercise of piety towards God. But the necessity of knowing this subject will be more evident from the knowledge itself.”
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
Herman Witsius (1636–1708, Holland), The Economy of the Covenants, 2.8.1:
“The pious Picardians, as they were called in Bohemia and Moravia, valued this article at its true price when in their confession of faith, Art. vi. speaking of justification, they thus write: ‘this sixth article is accounted with us the most principal of all, as being the sum of all Christianity and piety. Wherefore our divines teach and handle it with all diligence and application, and endeavor to instill it into all.’”
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 14,450 Likes: 57
Head Honcho
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Head Honcho
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 14,450 Likes: 57 |
Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), Lutheran Theologian, Loci Theologici II, p. 443
ON JUSTIFICATION
"This unique doctrine in a special way distinguishes the church from all other nations and religions....[Justification] is the pinnacle and chief bulwark of all teaching and of the Christian religion itself; if this is obscured, adulterated, or subverted, it is impossible to retain purity of doctrine in other loci. On the other hand, if this locus is securely retained, all idolatrous ravings, superstitions and other corruptions are thereby destroyed."
simul iustus et peccator
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 14,450 Likes: 57
Head Honcho
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Head Honcho
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 14,450 Likes: 57 |
John Calvin (1509–1564, Switzerland), "The Necessity of Reforming the Church" p. 42
Justification: "If the purity of this doctrine is in any degree impaired the Church has received a deadly wound and brought to the very brink of destruction. Whenever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown."
simul iustus et peccator
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
"An acceptance, by which God receives us into His favour, and esteems us as righteous persons; …it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ." Inst. III:xi.2
"Our justification [consists] in a voluntary act of God, by which He condescends to forget all our iniquities." PS II:296
"To be loved by God and to be justified in His sight are synonymous terms." Syn. Gospels II:399
"The efficient cause is the mercy of God, Christ is the substance of our justification, and the Word, with faith, the instrument." Romans
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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OP
Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
The just…brings nothing before God except faith. ~ John Calvin Hab.-Hagg. 75
Faith does not justify us for any other reason, than that it reconciles us to God…not by its own merit, but because we receive the grace offered to us in the promises. ~ John Calvin Genesis I:407
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37
Annie Oakley
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OP
Annie Oakley
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,320 Likes: 37 |
…it hence appears, that in all ages, Satan has laboured at nothing more assiduously than to extinguish, or to smother, the gratuitous justification of faith, which is here expressly asserted. The words of Moses are, "He believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness." ~ John Calvin Genesis XV p405
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