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Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace, because He takes away sin; and you and I are workers for peace when we preach His Gospel, which is the Gospel of peace just because it is the Gospel of deliverance from sin. Sin means war, and where sin is, there will war be. Righteousness means peace, and
there can never be peace where righteousness has not first been
realized.Faith and Life
I must preach the Gospel of Christ, and this I cannot now do without speaking of election. Dallimore, Whitefield, II, p. 41
And here we have already exposed the reason why no Christian Church can take up the position recommended to it on the strength of a declaration attributed to Abraham Lincoln. This declaration is to the effect that a simple requirement of love to God and our neighbor constitutes a sufficient foundation for a church, and the churches would profit by making the profession of such love, or of the wish or purpose to cherish such love, their sole qualification for membership. The moment a church took up such a position, however, it would cease to be a Christian Church: the core of Christianity is its provision for salvation from sin.
For the Reformation is nothing other than Augustianianism come to its rights: the turning away from all that is human to rest on God alone for salvation.
The glory of the incarnation is that it presents to our adoring gaze not a humanized God or a deified man, but a true God-man.
A glass window stands before us. We raise our eyes and see the glass; we note its quality, and observe its defects; we speculate on its composition. Or we look straight through it on the great prospect of land and sea and sky beyond. So there are two ways of looking at the world. We may see the world and absorb ourselves in the wonder of nature. That is the scientific way. Or we may look right through the world and see God behind it . That is the religious way.Selected Shorter Writings - I
A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly problems. It is almost equally true that a clear and full apprehension of the universal providence of God is the solution of most theological problems.
if Jacob had been elected because of his future merits, then his election would no longer be from grace: and so he was not elected by God because of what he was going to become, but he became such because of his election.The Sentences, Book 1, Dist 41
For my part I cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of [the doctrine of election]; and though I will not say, that every one who denies election is a bad man, yet I will say, with that sweet singer, Mr. Trail, it is a very bad sign: such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself; for, if we deny election, we must, partly at least, glory in ourselves; but our redemption is so ordered, that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence; and hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine, because, according to this doctrine, and no other, "he that glories must glory only in the Lord. Haykin, ed., Revived Puritan, pp. 97-98
God's breath is the irresistible outflow of His power. When Paul declares, then, that "every scripture," or "all scripture" is the product of the Divine breath, "is God-breathed," he asserts with as much energy as he could employ that Scripture is the product of a specifically Divine operation.Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Section 2
"concursive operation."... It has been common to speak of the Spirit's action in this form of revelation, therefore, as an assistance, a superintendence, a direction, a control, the meaning being that the effect aimed at --the discovery and enunciation of Divine truth --is attained through the action of the human powers --historical research, logical reasoning, ethical thought, religious aspiration --acting not by themselves, however, but under the prevailing assistance, superintendence, direction, control of the Divine Spirit.Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Ch 1
The whole nomenclature of prophecy presupposed, indeed, its vision-form. Prophecy is distinctively a word, and what is delivered by the prophets is proclaimed as the "word of Jehovah."Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Ch 1
If we are to hold to nothing that is questioned, we shall hold to nothing at all: we shall be as beasts which are beyond good and evil.
A beginning was made already in the eighth century of translating the Bible into the vernacular languages, and by the end of the Middle Ages it was accessible to Frenchmen and Germans, Englishmen and Bohemians, Spaniards and Italians and Poles in their own tongues.The Bible the Book of Mankind
It was no accident that the Christian Bible was a Greek Bible. Greek was at the time the lingua franca of the civilized world, and the universal gospel naturally clothed itself in this world-tongue.The Bible the Book of Mankind
A firm faith in the universal providence of God is the solution of all earthly troubles.
Where the Spirit is, there is the church; outside the body of the saints there is no salvation.
[General and Special Revelation] The one is addressed generally to all intelligent creatures, and is therefore accessible to all men; the other is addressed to a special class of sinners, to whom God would make known His salvation. The one has in view to meet and supply the natural need of creatures for knowledge of their God; the other to rescue broken and deformed sinners from their sin and its consequencesRevelation and Inspiration p.6
It is its conviction that there is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only 'when we believe.' It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in Christian behavior may be. It is always on His blood and righteousness alone that we can rest.Miserable-Sinner Christianity in the Hands of the Rationalists, chapter III in Perfectionism, Part One, vol. 7 of The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield (New York: Oxford University Press, repr., 2000), 113-114
We make our election sure by making our calling sure: "God hath chosen you to salvation through sanctification." By the streams we come at last to the fountain. If we find the stream of sanctification running in our souls, we may by this come to the springhead of election. I do not look up into the secret of God's purpose, yet I may know I am elected by the shining of sanctifying grace in my soul. Whosoever he be that can find the word of God transcribed and copied out into his heart may undeniably conclude he is elected of God.
It is true that God, before the foundation of the world, fully determined with Himself whom to choose to salvation by grace, to which also He ordained them, and whom to pass by and leave in their sins, for which He determined in His just wrath to condemn them. But who these be is a secret which even the elect themselves cannot know until they be effectually called—nay, nor being called, until by some experience and proofs of their faith and holiness, they do understand the witness of the Spirit, which testifies to their spirits that they are the children of God and do make their calling and election, which was always sure in God, sure to themselves.
God did choose some rather than others out of His mere good pleasure. There was no cause, motive, or condition in the party chosen moving the Lord to choose Him and pass by others. But whereas God might have utterly rejected all, of His free grace and mercy He had compassion on some. Thus, the apostle teacheth that he did predestinate us according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph. 1:5). If He had chosen some (as Peter, for example) because He foresaw they would be good and die in the faith and had refused others (as Judas) because He foresaw they would be wicked and obstinate despisers of His gospel, this had not been an act of grace; it had not set forth the glory of that attribute but rather of His distributive justice.
Election indeed is first in order of divine acting—God chooses before we believe, yet faith is first in our acting—we must believe before we can know we be elected; yea, by believing we know it. The husbandman knows it is spring by the sprouting of the grass, though he hath no [astronomy] to know the position of the heavens; thou mayest know thou art elect as surely by a work of grace in thee as if thou hadst stood by God's elbow when He writ thy name in the Book of Life. It had been presumption for David to have thought he should have been king till Samuel anointed him, but then none at all.
Election, I say, is expressed to us by all that God means to bestow upon us actually to eternity, forever and ever, which He "hath prepared for them that love him"; so the phrase is (1 Cor. 2:9). And verse 12: "We have received…the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God"—that is, given us when He first set His heart upon us. My brethren, when God first began to love you, He gave you all that He ever meant to give you in the lump, and eternity of time is that in which He is retailing of it out.
The counsel of God concerning election is secret. The minister knows not who are the objects of it and therefore must preach to all, according to his commission. The Lord deals in this as in the matter of lots. Saul was foreappointed to be king, yet all Israel must come together and lots must be cast on the whole nation, as if the person were yet undesigned (1 Sam. 9:16; 10:20–21). The falling of the lot was wholly contingent as to men; another might have been taken as well as he it fell upon. But the Lord disposed it and casts it on the right person (Prov. 16:33). So, touching the gospel: it is sent to a place where, perhaps, but one or very few elect persons are, and those only shall be taken by it; and yet it must be published to the whole city promiscuously.Practical Discourses
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