Quote 3353
28.3K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
There is a very evident tendency to stress the fact that the Church is a great missionary agency, and to forget that it is first of all the assembly of the saints, in which those who publicly live in sin cannot be tolerated. It is said that sinners must be gathered into the church, and not excluded from it. But it should be remembered that they must be gathered in as saints and have no legitimate place in the Church as long as they do not confess their sin and strive for holiness of life.Systematic Theology, 601
Justification takes place by works and by faith—by the works of Christ and by our faith.
The church is live a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power.
If hatred of sin is necessary to God, then penal justice is equally necessary because the hatred of sin is the constant will of punishing it.
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Unknown
When the apostle says that 'faith is by hearing' (Rom. 10:17), he does indeed give us to understand that the ministry of the church ought to come in as the ordinary means of producing faith in adults. He does not teach, however, that the church is clearer and better known than the Scriptures.
Good works are required as the means and way for possessing salvation. Even though they don't contribute anything to the acquisition of our salvation, they are necessary to the obtainment of it. No one can be saved without them.
The reading and contemplation of the Scriptures is enjoined upon men of all languages, therefore the translation of it into the native tongues is necessary. Since men speak different languages and are not all familiar with those two in which it was first written, it cannot be understood by them unless translated; it comes as the same thing to say nothing at all and to say what nobody can understand. But here it happens by the wonderful grace of God that the division of tongues (which formerly was the sign of a curse) becomes now the proof of a heavenly blessing. What was introduced to destroy Babel is now used to build up the mystical Zion.
It was not necessary for the apostles to write a catechism so as to deliver their doctrines professedly. It was enough for them to hand down to us those doctrines in accordance with which all symbolical books and catechisms might be constructed. If they did not formally write a catechism, they did materially leave us either in the gospels or in the epistles those things by which we can be clearly taught the principles of religion (katécheisthai).
If theology takes some things from other systems, it is not as an inferior from superiors, but as an superior from inferiors (as a mistress freely using her handmaids). Theology does not so much take from others, as presupposes certain previously known things upon which it builds revelation.
Institutes of Elenctic Theology
That God is the object of theology is evident both from the very name (theologias and theosebeias), and from Scripture which recognizes no other principal object.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
Thus that all things are discussed in theology either because they deal with God himself or have a relation (schesin) to him as the first principle and ultimate end.Institutes of Elenctic Theology
But the divine dayspring from on high is adored, Christ the Lord, who is our sun and shield; the sun of every blessing, asserting the glory of religion; the shield of the most safe protection, affording an invincible and inexpugnable guard to liberty.
The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.
When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.
Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, or membership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian.
Be like Christ in the church. How many there are of you... seeking pre-eminence? How many are trying to have some dignity and power over their fellow Christians, instead of remembering that it is the fundamental rule of all our churches, that there all men are equal—alike brethren, alike to be received as such. Carry out the spirit of Christ, then, in your churches, wherever ye are; let your fellow members say of you, "He has been with Jesus."
Christians disobey God and impoverish themselves by refusing to join with other believers when there is a local congregation that they can belong to.Concise Theology
Certainly when we undervalue mercy, especially so great a one as the communion of saints is, commonly the Lord takes it away from us till we learn to prize it to the full value. Consider well therefore the heinousness of this sin, which that you may the better conceive. First, consider it is against God's express precept, charging us not to forsake the assemblies of the saints (Heb. 10:20, 25). Again, it is against our own greatest good and spiritual solace, for by discommunicating and excommunicating ourselves from that blessed society, we deprive ourselves of the benefit of their holy conference, their godly instructions, their divine consolations, brotherly admonitions, and charitable reprehensions, and what an inestimable loss is this? Neither can we partake such profit by their prayers as otherwise we might, for as the soul in the natural body conveys life and strength to every member, as they are compacted and joined together and not as dissevered, so Christ conveys spiritual life and vigor to Christians, not as they are disjoined from but as they are united to the mystical body, the church.
The church of Christ is a common hospital wherein all are in some measure sick of some spiritual disease or other, that we should all have ground of exercising mutually the spirit of wisdom and meekness.
There are two great ends why Christ did institute a particular church, and they were to express the two great graces and duties that He requires of us. The first end was that his saints together might jointly profess their faith in Him and obedience to Him. And we have no other way of doing it: He hath tied us up to this... The next great end was that we might have a direct exercise of His other great command and of that other great duty, of love to believers.
The church is the garden of God, the doctrine is the flowers of this garden, discipline is the hedge.
A church is a company of those who are called (and this call must be answered or else it is nothing) to the visible profession of faith in Christ and obedience unto Christ, according to the gospel.
For the church is a company of men that are called (1 Cor. 1:24; 10:32), both Jews and Greeks, to the Jews, to the Greeks, and to the church of God. But because the end of calling is faith, and the work of faith is engrafting into Christ, and this union with Christ does bring with it communion with Christ. Hence it is defined, in the very same sense, a company of believers, a company of those who are in Christ, a company of those that have communion with Christ.
Special OfferTop Authors
1. Thomas Watson (146)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. John Piper (87)
7. George Swinnock (78)
8. John Flavel (70)
9. A.W. Pink (68)
10. Louis Berkhof (63)
11. John Owen (61)
12. C.S. Lewis (59)
13. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
14. B.B. Warfield (58)
15. R.C. Sproul (55)
16. Thomas Brooks (53)
17. Thomas Manton (53)
18. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
19. Matthew Henry (51)
20. Gerald Bray (50)
2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. John Piper (87)
7. George Swinnock (78)
8. John Flavel (70)
9. A.W. Pink (68)
10. Louis Berkhof (63)
11. John Owen (61)
12. C.S. Lewis (59)
13. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
14. B.B. Warfield (58)
15. R.C. Sproul (55)
16. Thomas Brooks (53)
17. Thomas Manton (53)
18. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
19. Matthew Henry (51)
20. Gerald Bray (50)
Top Topics
1. Sin (213)2. Scripture (152)
3. Prayer (141)
4. Faith (120)
5. Preaching (119)
6. The Law (108)
7. Gospel (104)
8. Suffering (99)
9. Salvation (91)
10. Sabbath (88)
11. Church (85)
12. Christ (82)
13. Law (61)
14. Grace (59)
15. Justification (55)
16. Truth (53)
17. Death (50)
18. Love (46)
19. Children (43)
20. Creation (43)
21. Theology (43)
22. Ten Commandments (42)
23. Heaven (39)
24. Obedience (39)
25. Sanctification (39)
26. Worship (39)