Calvinism Defined

IMARC ^ | 1833 | Richard Watson

[xzins]

Calvin himself, in 1535, wrote the following truly Melancthonian paragraphs as part of his preface to the New Testament in French: "This Mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, was the only, true, and eternal Son of God, whom the Father was about to send into the world, that he might collect all men together from this horrid dispersion and devastation. When, at length, that fulness of time arrived, that day preordained by the Lord, he openly showed himself as that Messiah who had for so many ages been the desire of all nations, and hath most abundantly performed all those things which were necessary for the redemption of all men. But this great blessing was not confined solely within the boundaries of the land of Israel, since, on the contrary, it was intended [porrigendum] to be held out for the acceptance of the whole human race; because through Christ alone the entire family of man was to be reconciled to God, as will be seen, and most amply demonstrated, in these pages of the New Testament." "To this inheritance of our heavenly Father's kingdom we are all called without respect of persons,-whether we be men or women, high or low, masters or servants, teachers or disciples, [doctores,] divines or laics, Jews or Greeks, Frenchmen or [Romani] Italians. From this inheritance no one is excluded, if he only so receive Christ as he is offered by the Father for the salvation of all men, and embrace him when received."

[unspun]

...to be held out for the acceptance of the whole human race; because through Christ alone the entire family of man was to be reconciled to God, as will be seen, and most amply demonstrated, in these pages of the New Testament." "To this inheritance of our heavenly Father's kingdom we are all called without respect of persons....

Good grab, xz.

And, Johnny might have added, we have no excuse who lay back and do not put our lives upon the line, for the fulfillment of our Lord's Great Commission.

[xzins]

Ping to #1 and to article

[scripter]

Thanks. I'll read this later tonight. Dinner is calling...

[xzins]

Eat your dinner slowly. This is in 1830's English and is a bit slow. I did one paragraph at a time spaced by lunch, dog-walking, day-dreaming, napping, coffee-roasting, etc.

(You get the point)

[blue-duncan]

I didn't see either Bob Gibson or Pete Rose mentioned in the article. Was this written by a Boston sports writer?

[xzins]

Actually BG and PR appear under pseudonyms adopted at an earlier time.

BG = Melancthon

PR = Luther

He steps back into the batter's box and assumes his usual Luther stance. Melancthon looks, gets the sign, and throws. It's a strike over the outside corner. Fastball.

Luther looks back at the umpire and steps out of the box. He's complaining about something. That Melancthon fastball was a bit outside, but Luther knows better than to challenge a ball & strike call.

What's this. He's pulling a list out of his pocket. He's tacking it onto the umpire's protective vest.

He's outa here folks. 95 complaints. 95...count 'em.

Gibson is laughing, ladies and gentlemen.


(BTW, is this what's commonly called "thread jumping?")

[blue-duncan]

I get it now, you are spiritualizing the text. Now I get it. Luther (PR) practiced throwing out runners by imagining Satan in the room and throwing ink wells at him. I knew that!

[xzins]

Forest Keeper should definitely get in on these last few posts.

On the other hand, Luther is probably really boring to FK. (The spiritual Luther maybe not. Which raises the question of whether the real Luther was spiritual.....sigh...:>)

[Quix]

Thanks.

[P-Marlowe]

Eat your dinner slowly. This is in 1830's English and is a bit slow. I did one paragraph at a time spaced by lunch, dog-walking, day-dreaming, napping, coffee-roasting, etc.

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes--gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time--as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.

The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

[xzins]

Is Dickens thread-jumping again? :>)

He can jump over here anytime. I'll even consider him relevant.

[P-Marlowe]

Is Dickens thread-jumping again? :>) He can jump over here anytime. I'll even consider him relevant.

Dickens is a good warm up for 19th Century English. If you can get through Dickens, then try a little Melville:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

.

.

OK now this Watson guy should be an easy read.

BTW your discs are in the mail.

[television is just wrong]

hmmm, aren't we all changing to the religion of peace, Muslim?

[xzins]

Saint Marlowe

Thanks

Read the Calvin quote at #1

Sort of stunning.

The Watson article suggests that the younger Calvin of the Institutes was mellowed by the time the older Calvin wrote the commentaries.

Whaddayahtink?

[xzins]

Not this week.

The moooselimbs would have a hard time dislodging the fightin' fundies at this point in time.

[Forest Keeper]

Thanks for the ping. :)

What's this. He's pulling a list out of his pocket. He's tacking it onto the umpire's protective vest. He's outa here folks. 95 complaints. 95...count 'em.

What could be boring about Luther? :) It makes me think that Lou Piniella is a Lutheran. I can't wait to see what happens in Chicago next year. I wonder if he'll ever have cause to lose his temper. :)

[P-Marlowe]

The Watson article suggests that the younger Calvin of the Institutes was mellowed by the time the older Calvin wrote the commentaries.

I've always thought that.

[xzins]

I wonder if he'll ever have cause to lose his temper. :)

Not in Chicago. It's just a lovely town.

In fact, it's Lou's kind of town.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Dickens is a good warm up for 19th Century English. If you can get through Dickens, then try a little Melville:***

I have found Melville an easy read and have read several of his books. Try THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII by Edward Bulwer Lytton (it was a dark and stormy night).