“When the terms ‘Particular’ and ‘General Baptist’ are imposed onto mid-seventeenth-century baptistic separatists, the impression is conveyed, whether intentionally or not, that arguments over soteriology were actively dividing what would have otherwise been a natural union of likeminded Baptists. The ubiquitous application of the ‘General’ and ‘Particular’ labels quite naturally conveys the impression that... Continue Reading →

  "The Reformed Christian faith is a wealth of wisdom. It is impossible to cram the richness of Reformed doctrine into a five-point outline, however helpful outlines may be for introducing basic ideas. Merely surveying the headings of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) reveals the confluence of many streams of truth: Holy Scripture, God and... Continue Reading →

"The difference between them is not primarily one of emphasis, but of content. One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself. One view [Calvinism] presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind---election by the Father, redemption by the... Continue Reading →

"Again, it is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face and then descends from contemplating Him to scrutinize himself. For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy--this pride is innate in all of us--unless by clear proofs we stand... Continue Reading →

For the Particular Baptists, all of the Old Testament saints were concurrently members of both the Old and the New Covenant. As members of the Covenant of Circumcision, Old Testament Saints (like Abraham) were heirs to the physical land promises that God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As members of the New Covenant, these... Continue Reading →

"We would rather be considered not Reformed and insist that men ought not to kill heretics, than that we are left with the Reformed name as the prize for assisting in the shedding of the blood of heretics." ~ Abraham Kuyper "If the Reformed confessions are the normative interpretation of the Scriptures, it would seem... Continue Reading →

"9 As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and... Continue Reading →

    "As we have argued, this attempt to recover 'the Reformed confession' stumbles over the fact that few of those who believe themselves to be it's modern-day adherents would be prepared to sign the first editions of any of its theological symbols. Neither the 'new Calvinists' nor the 'truly Reformed' who interrogate them could... Continue Reading →

  “The second lesson we must learn from this Biblical coupling together of proclamation and appeal is the complementary one: we must never make the proclamation without then issuing an appeal. If one had to choose between the two, I would rather have the proclamation than the appeal, but fortunately we are not faced with... Continue Reading →