Quote 4020
First of all, therefore, let no man think that before Moses' time there was no law, and that the law was first published by Moses. For the same special points of the moral law, which Moses sets down in the Ten Commandments, were very well known to the patriarchs, even from the beginning of the world.
Heinrich Bullinger
The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebookOther Quotes from the Author & Topic
The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.
though the moral law be thus far abolished, it remains as a perpetual rule to believers. Though it be not their Saviour, it is their guide. Though it be not foedus, a covenant of life; yet it is norma, a rule of life. Every Christian is bound to conform to it; and to write, as exactly as he can after this copy. 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid.' Rom iii 31. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under its commanding power.The Ten Commandments, 44
the Ten Commandments are the very absolute and everlasting rule of true righteousness and all virtues, set down for all places, men, and ages, to frame themselves by. For the sum of the Ten Commandments is this: to show our love to God, and to love one another. And the Lord requires this at all times, and everywhere, of all kinds of men. The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
The moral teaching of Christ and his apostles is the old law deepened and reapplied to new circumstances--life in the kingdom of God, where the Savior reigns; and in the post-Pentecost era of the Spirit, where God's people are called to live heaven's life among themselves and to be God's counterculture in the world.Concise Theology, Section 34
Christ in fact had not the least intent of making any change or innovation in the precepts of the law. God there appointed once for all a rite of life which he will never repent of... so let us have no more of that error, that here a defect of the law is corrected by Christ; Christ is not to be made into a new law-giver, adding anything to the everlasting righteousness of his Father, but is to be given the attention of a faithful interpreter, teaching us the nature of the law, its object and its scope.
the gospel is the most evident sentence of the eternal God, brought down from heaven, absolving all believers from all their sins, and that is freely too, for Christ's sake, with a promise of eternal life.
all men are the children of one father, of one stock, and of the same progeny. Murder is therefore directly against civil humanity, and it is a plague that reigns among men. Does not the Lord our Redeemer also require charity of all men, which must so abound that we may not hesitate to die for our neighbour? To kill our neighbour, therefore, is flatly repugnant to Christian religion.
The very deed of murder, fights directly and disobediently against the eternal God, who is the life and salvation of the world. For murder destroys the very image of God, because man is created in the similitude and likeness of God. If a man were to purposely deface the image of the king or prince, set up by their commandment, he would be accused of committing treason. How great a danger is he in, then, who destroys a man — who is the reasonable, living, and very picture of God himself!
there is a holy kind of anger, which the scripture does not disallow; so that, unless a man is angry in that way, he will never be a good and godly man. For a good man has a zeal for God, and in that godly zeal he is angry at the iniquity and naughtiness of mankind.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Stripes must not be bestowed except for some great offence, and that too, should not be done in the father's anger, but moderately; not to mar, but to amend them. Let the parents always remember that golden saying of St. Paul, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger." The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
I have to say something, in what is left, touching the correction of those that are included under the name of children. This correction consists partly in words, and partly in stripes. In both there must be a middle-mean and measure, do that nothing is done outrageously. Do not let the admonition that is given in words be more bitter than the fault deserves. Let it nip for the time present; but being past, let it be spoken of no more.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
let the father place his children with expert and cunning 570 workmen, to teach them some handicraft by which to earn their living another day. But first, he must test their wits, to see which each child is most apt for, and in which the child most delights. For "cunning will never be attained, where good will is lacking in the one that must learn it." If you have any children fit for learning, you will do a good and godly deed, to train them up to the ministry of the church, or some other office that stands by learning. But of all others, fault is to be found with those parents who bring up their children in lazy idleness. For, even if huge heaps of treasure were left to them, yet in three or four odd hours all may be wasted and come to nothing. To what, then, will your dainty idle gentleman trust — what will he do — when there is nothing left but his bare carcass, which is a lump of clay and not good for anything? The inhabiters of Massilia would not admit anyone to citizenship, except those who had learned an occupation to live by. 571 For there is no greater plague to a city than an unprofitable citizen.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Let the father instruct his children in manners. From our birth, we are all clownish and rude; and all children have unseemly and uncivil manners. This evil is doubled by evil custom and clownish company. Let the parents, therefore, teach their children manners early, which may adorn them at home, and become them abroad. Let him instruct the child how to behave himself decently in his going and in the posture of his body: how in the church, how in the market, how at the table, how in men's companies, and in all other places of company. The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
let him charge and see that his children go to the holy congregation to be instructed in religion there, by the public preacher. Yet nevertheless, let the father examine his children at home, and know what they have learned by hearing the sermon. Let both the father and mother also at home privately endeavour to teach their children the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's prayer; and let them teach them a brief and ready rule out of the scriptures for understanding the sacraments. Let them often and many times cause them to repeat the catechism, and beat into their heads such sentences as are most necessary to put them in memory of their faith and duty of life. The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Last of all, there is also to be found in the word of God a particular law for honouring old men, which bids us to rise before the hoary and grey-haired head. Lev 19.32 Old men therefore are to be honoured, whom we must worthily magnify, and in whom we must acknowledge the singular grace of God in giving them long life. By long and continual experience of all things, they have attained to much wit or wisdom, whereby they are able to help us with their counsel. Therefore, they ought to be praised, so that all men may understand that grey hairs are a crown of glory. Pro 16.31 Moreover, if aged weak persons are driven into need, then our abundance must supply their necessity.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Monks and hermits praise their profession or solitary life, extolling it above the skies. But I think truly, that there is more true virtue in one political man, who governs the commonweal and does his duty truly, than in many thousands of monks and hermits, who do not have so much as one word expressed in the holy scriptures for the defence of their vocation and vowed order of living.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Now, since our faith is all one, and the very same with theirs, it is lawful for us as well as for them, in a rightful quarrel by war, to defend our country and religion, our virgins and old men, our wives and children, our liberty and possessions. Whoever (under the pretence of religion) forsakes their country afflicted with war, not endeavouring to deliver it from barbarous soldiers and foreign nations, even by offering their lives to the push and prick of present death for the safeguard of it, are flatly unnatural to their country and countrymen, and transgress this fifth commandment. The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Let us not show ourselves unthankful to those to whom we are duty-bound forever, for their good deeds toward us. Let us nourish, cherish, and aid them in all their necessities: yes, let us wholly bestow ourselves and all that we have, to do them good. For all that we possess undoubtedly is theirs; and all that we have, we enjoy by them — for if they were not, then we would not be.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
I have to reckon up the abuses of the sabbath-day, or the sins committed against this commandment. It is transgressed by those who do not cease from evil works, but abuse the sabbath's rest to provoke fleshly pleasures. For they keep the sabbath to God, but they work to the devil, in gambling, 505 drinking, dancing, and feeding their inclinations 506 with the vanities of this world, whereby we are not only drawn from the company of the holy congregation, but we also defile our bodies, which we should rather sanctify and keep holy. Those sin against this precept, who either exercise any handy occupation on the sabbath-day, or else lie wrapped in bed and fast asleep till the day is almost spent, not once thinking to make one of God's congregationThe Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
We know that the sabbath is ceremonial, so far as it is joined to sacrifices and other Jewish ceremonies, and so far as it is tied to a certain time. But considering that on the sabbath-day, religion and true godliness are exercised and published, and that a just and seemly order is kept in the church, and that the love of our neighbour is thereby preserved in it, I say that it is perpetual, and not ceremonial. Even today, truly, we must ease and bear with our family; and even today we must instruct our family in the true religion and fear of God. Christ our Lord nowhere scattered abroad the holy congregations, but as much as he could, he gathered them together. Now, as there ought to be an appointed place, so likewise must there be a prescribed time, for the outward exercise of religion, and consequently, for a holy rest.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
On the seventh day we must think of the works that God did in six days: the children of God must call to remembrance what and how great are the benefits they have received the whole week — for which they must thank God, for which they must praise God, and by which they must learn God.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
He will not suffer nor allow among them the example of those dull-heads who say: "Let faith and religion be free to all; let no man be compelled to any religion." For he commands us to bind the stranger within the gates of God's people — that is, the stranger who dwells in their jurisdiction — to the holy observing of the sabbath-dayThe Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Let the law of God be holy to us, let his gospel be reverend in our eyes; and let the doctrine of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles be esteemed by us as that which came from God himself. Let us not take the name of the Lord our God into our mouths, unless it is in a matter of weight.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
First of all, we have to think of God as the chief felicity and infinite treasure of all good things, who loves us exceedingly with a fatherly affection, always wishing and by all means desiring to have us saved, and to come to the perfect knowledge of the very truth; whose judgments are true and just, whose works for their excellence are wonderful, and whose words are most true, and truth itself.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
This ark in turn was laid up in the holy of holiest. All of these circumstances tend toward nothing else, than to commend to us the excellence of the Ten Commandments, and to warn us to reverence that God who published this moral law, as the Lord of heaven and earth, and who at his own will and pleasure, orders the disposition of all the elements against disobedient rebels. These circumstances also admonish us, that even now, in our time also, we have to esteem the Ten Commandments as among the dearest jewels to be found in the whole world. For the holy relics that remain in the church of Christ, are the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's prayer, and lastly, the whole contents of the sacred bible.The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
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