"It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail." -- Peter Marshall
""Without the interpretation of the universe by man to the glory of God the whole world would be meaningless" - Cornelius Van Til, "The Defense of The Faith" pg 43
And also by Van Til, especially for Brit Hume...
"Christians are in themselves no wiser than are other men. What they have they have by grace. They must be 'all things to all men.' But it is not kindness to tell patients that need strong medicine that nothing serious is wrong with them. Christians are bound to tell men the truth about themselves; that is the only way of bringing them to recognize the mercy, the compassion, of Christ. For if men are told the truth about themselves, and if they are warned against the false remedies that establish men in their wickedness, then, by the power of the Spirit of God, they will flee to the Christ through whom alone they must be saved."
Meant to bump you guys, too.
Here we go:
One of my favorite quotes from N.S. McFetridge:
The two great springs by which men are moved are, on the one hand, conviction and idea, on the other, emotion and sentiment; as these control, so the moral character will be shaped.The man who is ruled by convictions and ideas is the man of stability; he cannot be changed until his conscience is changed; the man who is ruled by emotion and sentiment is the man of instability.
Kuyper is a requirement:
No man has the right to rule over another man, otherwise such a right necessarily, and immediately becomes the right of the strongest. As the tiger in the jungle rules over the defenceless antelope, so on the banks of the Nile a Pharaoh ruled over the progenitors of the fellaheen of Egypt.Nor can a group of men, by contract, from their own right, compel you to obey a fellow-man. What binding force is there for me in the allegation that ages ago one of my progenitors made a “Contrat Social,” with other men of that time? As man I stand free and bold, over against the most powerful of my fellow-men.
And finally from the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism;
Q & A: 60
Q. How are you right with God?
A. Only by true faith in Jesus Christ.^1
Even though my conscience accuses me
of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments
and of never having kept any of them,^2
and even though I am still inclined toward all evil,^3
nevertheless,
without my deserving it at all,^4
out of sheer grace,^5
God grants and credits to me
the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ,^6
as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner,
as if I had been as perfectly obedient
as Christ was obedient for me.^7
All I need to do
is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.^8
^1 Rom. 3:21-28; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8-9; Phil 3:8-11
^2 Rom. 3:9-10
^3 Rom. 7:23
^4 Tit. 3:4-5
^5 Rom. 3:24; Eph. 2:8
^6 Rom. 4:3-5 (Gen. 15:6); 2 Cor. 5:17-19; 1 John 2:1-2
^7 Rom. 4:24-25; 2 Cor. 5:21
^8 John 3:18; Acts 16:30-31