Posted on 02/05/2011 11:07:42 AM PST by Gamecock
In the book of Judges we read about another generation which arose, which knew neither the Lord nor what He had done (Judges 2:10). Today, it appears that a generation has arisen, which like Israel under the Judges, knows little of either the Lord nor of what He did during the time of the Protestant exodus and the struggles in the wilderness, which followed in the 16th and 17th century. Sometimes this is from a cowardly dislike of controversy and confrontation. But few people seem to understand either the evils from which the Reformation delivered us or the blessings which the Reformation won for us.
The Reformation delivered the Church from gross ignorance and spiritual darkness The church, before the Reformation, was a church without the Bible. And a church without a Bible is as useless as a lighthouse without light, a candlestick without a candle, or a motor vehicle without an engine. The priests and people knew scarcely anything about God’s Word or the way of salvation in Christ.
Bishop J.C. Ryle described the situation: “The immense majority of the clergy did little more than say masses and offer up pretended sacrifices, repeat Latin prayers and chant Latin hymns (which of course most of the people could not understand), hear confessions, grant absolutions, give extreme unction, and take money to get dead people out of purgatory.”
Bishop Latimer observed: “When the devil gets influence in a church, up go candles and down goes preaching.”
Quarterly sermons (that is, once every three months) were prescribed to the clergy, but not insisted upon. Latimer noted that while the mass was never left unsaid for a single Sunday, sermons might be omitted for 20 Sundays in succession. Indeed, to preach much was to incur the suspicion of being a heretic.
Bishop Hooper, who along with Bishop Latimer was burned alive at the stake under Queen Mary, did a survey in 1551 and found that out of 311 clergy in his Diocese, 168 were unable to repeat the Ten Commandments, 31 of those 168 could not even say in which part of the Scripture the Ten Commandments were to be found, 40 could not tell where the Lord’s Prayer was written, and 31 of the 40 did not even know who the author of the Lord’s Prayer was!
Bishop Ryle summarized the situation: “Before the Reformation was a religion without knowledge, without faith and without lively hope – a religion without justification, regeneration and sanctification – a religion without any clear views of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Except in rare instances, it was little better than an organized system of Mary worship, saint worship, image worship, relic worship, pilgrimages, alms giving, formalism, ceremonialism, processions, penances, absolutions, masses and blind obedience to the priests. It was a huge higgledy-piggledy of ignorance and idolatry, and serving an unknown God by deputy. The only practical result was that the priests took the people’s money and undertook to secure their salvation. And the people flattered themselves that the more they gave to the priests, the more sure they were to go to Heaven!”
The Reformation delivered the church from childish superstitions The Roman Catholic church, before the Reformation, taught its members to seek spiritual benefit from so-called relics of dead saints and to treat them with divine honor. Calvin’s “Inventory of Relics” and Hobart Seymour’s “Pilgrimage to Rome” catalog some of the ludicrous swindles which were perpetrated by the church of Rome. This included pieces of wood “of the true cross” enough to load a large ship, thorns professing to be part of the Saviour’s crown of thorns, enough to make a huge faggot, at least 14 nails said to have been used at the Crucifixion, four spearheads – each purporting to be the one which pierced our Lord’s side, at least three seamless coats of Christ, for which the soldiers cast lots, Saint James’s hand, bones of Mary Magdalene, toenails from Saint Edmund, some bread, purported to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper, a girdle of the Virgin Mary and milk from the Virgin Mary! The Royal Commissioners of Henry VIII examined a vial at the Abbey in Gloucestershire, which was said to contain the blood of Christ! The Commissioners found that it contained the blood of a duck.
There were literally thousands of profane and vile inventions, fabrications and deceptions, which Roman priests imposed on the people before the Reformation. They must have known that they were deceiving the people, yet they persisted in presenting these lies and requiring that the ignorant laity believe them. Sometimes the priests induced dying sinners to give vast tracts of lands to abbeys and monasteries, in order to atone for their bad lives. In one way or another, they were continually separating sinners from their money and accumulating property and wealth in the hands of the Roman church.
The power of the priests was practically despotic and was used for every purpose except the advancement of the Christian faith. It seemed that their primary object was power. To them confession had to be made. Without their absolution and extreme unction no professing Christian could be saved. Without their masses no soul could be redeemed from purgatory. In short, they were, to all intents and purposes, the mediators between Christ and man. To please and honor the Roman church was a devout Christian’s first duty. To injure them was the greatest of sins. One of the indulgences issued in 1498, with the authority of the Pope, claimed: “To absolve people from usury, theft, manslaughter, fornication and all crime whatsoever, except smiting the clergy and conspiring against the Pope!”
A starving man in a famine may be reduced to eating rats and rubbish, rather than die of hunger. Similarly, a conscience-stricken soul, deprived of God’s Word, should not be judged too harshly by us, if they struggled to find comfort in the most debasing superstition. However, we must never forget that it was from such superstitions which the Reformation delivered us.
The Reformation delivered the church from blatant immorality Before the Reformation, the lives of the clergy were simply scandalous. There were brothels in the Vatican. The Popes, Cardinals and Bishops openly consorted with prostitutes and engaged in the most debauched orgies. The local priests became notorious for gluttony, drunkenness and gambling. As Bishop Ryle pointed out: “To expect the huge roots of ignorance and superstition, which filled our land, to bear any but corrupt fruit, would be unreasonable and absurd.”
Contemporary art depicted friars as foxes preaching with the neck of a stolen goose peeping out of the hood behind; as wolves giving absolution, with the sheep partly concealed under their cloaks; or as apes sitting on a sick man’s bed with a crucifix in one hand and with the other hand in the suffering person’s pocket! Such public contempt in art reflects the scorn with which the clergy were held at the time.
Bishop Ryle pointed out: “But the blackest spot on the character of our pre-Reformation clergy in England is one of which it is painful to speak … their horrible contempt of the 7th Commandment … the consequences of shutting up herds of men and women in the prime of life, in monasteries and nunneries, were such that I will not defile my paper by dwelling upon them … if ever there was a plausible theory weighed in the balance and found utterly wanting, it is the favorite theory that celibacy and monasticism promote holiness … monasteries and nunneries were frequently sinks of iniquity.”
The report of the Royal Commissioners, under Henry VIII, declared: “That manifest sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living, is daily used and committed in abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, cannons and nuns, and that albeit many continual visitations have been had, by the space of 200 years or more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal and abominable living, yet that nevertheless, little or none amendment was hitherto had, but that their vicious living shamefully increased and augmented.”
It was observed that: “There is no surer recipe for promoting immorality than fullness of bread and abundance of idleness.” (Ezekiel 16:49) It is from such superstition, corruption, immorality, ignorance and idolatry that the Reformation freed the church.
The Reformation gave the church back the Bible In 1519, six men and a woman were burned at Coventry for teaching their children the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed in English. Nothing seems to have alarmed and enraged the Roman priesthood as much as the spread of Bibles in the local language. It was for the crime of translating the Bible into English that the Reformer, William Tyndale, was burned at the stake. Of all the aspects which combined to make up the Reformation, no other aspect received such bitter opposition as the translation and circulation of the Scriptures. The translation of the Bible struck a blow at the root of the whole Roman Catholic system. The Bible, as the only rule of faith and conduct, freely available in the local languages, was a threat to all the superstitions and abuses of the medieval Roman popery. With the Bible in every parish church, every thoughtful man soon saw that the religion of the priests had no basis in Holy Scripture.
The Reformation opened the road to the throne of Grace The way of salvation had become blocked up and made impassible by heaps of superstitious rubble. “He who desired to obtain forgiveness had to seek it through a jungle of priests, saints, Mary worship, masses, penances, confession, absolution and the like, so that there might as well have been no throne of Grace at all.” J.C. Ryle
The Reformers hacked their way through this huge jungle of papal obstruction and cleared the way for every heavy-laden sinner to go straight to the Lord Jesus Christ for remission of sins.
The Reformation restored Biblical simplicity to worship Before the Reformation, the laity were only present at church services as passive, ignorant spectators. The elaborate, theatrical presentations of the sacraments were a solemn farce because the ceremonies and prayers were in Latin. The laity could bring their bodies to the services, but their minds, understanding, reason and spirit could take no part at all. For this reason, the 24th Article of the Church of England declared: “It is a thing totally repugnant to the Word of God and the custom of the primitive church to have public prayer in the church or to minister the sacraments in a tongue not understood of the people.”
The Reformation gave a Biblical understanding of the office of a minister Before the Reformation, the concept of the Christian ministry was sacerdotal. That is – it was understood that every clergyman was a sacrificing priest. The clergy were understood to hold the keys of Heaven and to be practically the mediators between God and man.
The Reformers brought the office of the clergy down to its Scriptural level. They stripped it entirely of any sacerdotal character. They cast out the words “sacrifice” and “altar”. They taught that the clergy were pastors, ambassadors, messengers, witnesses, evangelists, teachers and ministers of the Word and sacraments. The Reformers taught that the chief business of every Christian minister is to preach the Word and to be diligent in prayer and the reading of the Scriptures. The Reformers taught the immense superiority of the pulpit to the confessional. For this reason, where the altar used to be, the Lord’s table was placed with an open Bible, or a pulpit, showing the centrality of God’s Word in the worship of Protestant churches.
The Reformation restored a Biblical understanding of holiness Before the Reformation, it was believed that a monastic life and vows of celibacy were the only ways to escape sin and to attain sanctification. Multitudes of men and women poured into the monasteries and convents under the vain idea that this would please God and ensure their eternal salvation.
The Reformers struck at the root of this fallacy by establishing the great Scriptural principle that true religion was not to be found in retiring into convents and monasteries and fleeing from the difficulties of daily life, but in manfully facing up to our difficulties and doing our duty diligently - in every position to which God calls us. It is not by running away from the world, that we fulfill God’s call, but by courageously resisting the devil, the flesh and the world and overcoming them in daily life. That is how true holiness is to be exhibited. For this reason, the Reformers dissolved the monasteries and convents in their areas and freed the inmates to be reintegrated into normal life.
The Reformers also ordered that the Ten Commandments be set up in every parish church and taught to every child, and that our duty towards God and our neighbor be set forth in the Catechism. They insisted that you cannot become saints by shirking your duties in society.
A Heritage of Faith and Freedom We must continually thank God for the Reformation. It lit the flames of knowledge and freedom which we must ensure are never allowed to be extinguished or to grow dim. We need to continually remember that the Reformation was won for us by the blood of many tens of thousands of martyrs. It was not only by their preaching and praying, and writing and legislation, but by their sacrifices that our religious liberty, freedom of conscience and Christian heritage was won.
The Reformation found church members steeped in ignorance and left them in possession of knowledge. It found them without Bibles and left them with the Bible in every parish. It found them in darkness and left them in light. It found them bound in fear and left them enjoying the liberty and peace which only Christ can give. It found them strangers to the blood of Christ’s atonement, to faith, grace and holiness and left them with the key of all those blessings in their hands. It found them blind and left them with spiritual eyes to see. It found them slaves to superstition and set them free to serve Christ.
As Bishop Ryle declared: “Are we to return to a church which boasts that she is infallible and never changes – to a church which has never repented her pre-Reformation superstitions and abominations – to a church which has never confessed and abjured her countless corruptions? Are we to go back to gross ignorance of true religion? Shame on us, I say, if we entertain the idea for a moment! Let the Israelite return to Egypt, if he will. Let the prodigal go back to his husks among the swine. Let the dog return to his vomit. But let no Englishman with brains in his head, ever listen to the idea of exchanging Protestantism for Popery, or returning to the bondage of the church of Rome. No, indeed! … God forbid! The man who counsels such base apostasy and suicidal folly, must be judicially blind. The iron collar has been broken; let us not put it on again. The prison has been thrown open; let us not resume the yoke and return to our chains … Let us not go back to ignorance, superstition, priestcraft and immorality.”
If you have a Bible in your own language, and enjoy to read and study God’s Word, never forget that you owe that Bible to the Reformation. Brave men and women died that you could have the freedom to delight in God’s Word.
If you know the joy of sins forgiven and new life in Christ, if you are walking by faith and enjoying peace with God, never forget that you owe this priceless privilege to the Reformation.
If you enjoy Church services, Scripture choruses, Hymns, prayers and sermons in your own language, remember that for this you are also indebted to the Reformation.
If you appreciate the Biblical and practical sermons of your pastor, and his counsel, never forget that for this you are indebted to the Reformation. The Reformation is the source of many blessings. We need to ask if we are on the side of the Reformers, or of those who burned them and the Bible. “… Contend earnestly for the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude 3
Unless the Holy Spirit removes the blindness from their eyes, they will continue to be deceived. All we can do is shine the light of the truth of God’s word on them.
1 Corinthians 2:12-16
12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
I’ll give you the first person who believed this ‘novel doctrine’. Paul.
And yet no children are mentioned.
The assurance of salvation is made to believers. Was Esau saved? Was Cain saved? They both were part of a family that had members who were deemed righteous because of their faith.
Baptism is always after Belief.
Acts 8:36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, "See here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?
Acts 8:37 Then Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may."
I don't believe your skepticism over this fact precludes your children from being members of His covenant family. They will come to faith because they've been raised by a God-glorifying father and mother who may very well attribute their children's faith to their own good and righteous choice made after they are baptized.
Why didn't Esau come to Faith? Why didn't Cain come to Faith?
Rome baptizes children.
All the state churches did and they are wrong.
Which brings the discussion back to what roamer_1 and I started with. The Reformation Churches may be a transitional group with the Christian Churches that follow returning to the Pre-Nicea model, or more appropriately the Apostolic Era model. The Reformation Churches are declining just as the Roman Church is and the Christian Churches that are growing are Non-Denominational and Pentecostal. I don't believe infant baptism is a common practice in these Christian Churches.
the gospel of grace was the same for all the apostles, there is no biblical support for your statement. the Holy Spirit is the author for both and God is not the author of confusion.
I guess that's why the "Church" had to come up with another reason for it. Hence the idea of "original sin" being what is taken away with infant baptism. Of course, nowhere in Scripture is this concept ever taught (outside of the Adamic sin nature we all get), but, as we see, that doesn't seem to stop them.
Do they believe in the hierarchy of Scripture and place the actual words, works, and examples given by Christ an exaulted position within the revealed word or do they simply relegate Christ to the one who prepared the way for St. Paul's new Good News?
The former.
Do they believe in the Real Presence during the Eucharist or do they believe that the following of Christ's actual words is an abomination?
They believe in the Biblical instruction that Christ is really present spiritually, not materialistically. To believe otherwise is madness.
DO they solidly believe in the Trinity with the co-equal beings of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
Of course. Calvinists believe 100% in the orthodox, historic understanding of the Trinity, as stated in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds.
Sadly, Rome seems to be morphing the Trinity into a Quadrinity to include Mary since, according to Rome's popes, magisterium and catechism, Mary co-redeems Christ's sheep.
Do they believe that Mary was preserved pure from Birth or do they believe that Jesus was produced from a filthy vessel?
Mary was a sinner, just like you and me, in need of a Savior. To deny this is blasphemy, giving the creature characteristics that belong to the Triune God alone.
Hope this helps your pathetic understanding of Calvinism. It's really a nice little systematic method of viewing theology because it gives all glory to God alone and affirms His sovereignty in all things.
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." -- Colossians 1:16-17 "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
The world and everything in it belong to the Lord.
Thank God.
clever. seriously, if Paul taught what you think he did, the Church he left behind would have believed what you do. history says they didn’t, read the Fathers.
you also never answered whether you are infallible in your understanding or is it possible you are not understanding these verses correctly?
Except that the adult entered into the covenant knowingly... A covenant, in modern terms, is called a contract - who believes that a contract made with an infant is binding?
This is one area where to me the reformed perspective answers these questions most satisfactorily.
God, from before the foundation of the world, ordained the names of His family, all believing Jews and Gentiles. At a time of His choosing, God will send the Holy Spirit to each of His children who will regenerate their life, give them new ears and new eyes, a heart of flesh and a renewed mind, all to know the things of God and believe to the saving of their soul.
Accepted, and that gratefully, with the exception that predestination is inclusive rather than exclusive - Christ is seen blotting names out, not writing them in. It seems to be a small exception, but it has major ramifications. The Father would that all of Adam's sons be saved. Every one.
Infant baptism acknowledges this fact.
Only if it is exclusive (which I do not believe).
The covenant of salvation began at the same moment God ordained the life and death and resurrection of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, first made known to us according to the Law of Moses (to show us that none of us can keep the Law perfectly) and then mercifully revealed to us by Christ on the cross, according to the covenant of grace.
And from my reading of Scripture, children in both the OT and NT testaments were included in the covenant, the "promise" having been made to all believers and their children, "as many as the Lord our God shall call."
"as many as YHWH will call" being the operative phrase... Are all entered into the covenant then, or only those who are truly saved? Constantine baptized his entire army into Christ, as they were ordered to march through the waters. Have they in fact entered into the covenant or not?
How then is an infant any different than one of Constantine's soldiers? There is no repentance... How can there be grace?
Where once believers were of one nation and their children were circumcised in the flesh, believers now come from all nations and they and their children are circumcised of the heart.
Ahhh.. there, then, is the problem: What is the circumcision of the heart? The "circumcision made without hands"?
It's a wonderful blessing to know that God has given us our children and that He will guide them throughout their lives. Do some stumble and fall away? Probably. Who knows for certain?
If they fall away, then they never belonged to Him at all, for none can take us from His hand.
But knowing that our children belong to Him makes the Christian family stronger and each of us more determined to raise our children to kneel to none but Christ.
I pray for my children every day, that they will come to find the Father, as I did, and I remind Him of His promises. Do I raise them up in His ways? To the best of my abilities, sure I do... But I have no control over their personal decisions - That is between them and the Father. I have done/am doing all that I can.
"Whoever shall maintain that wrong is done to heretics and blasphemers in punishing them makes himself an accomplice in their crime and guilty as they are. There is no question here of man's authority; it is God who speaks, and clear it is what law he will have kept in the church, even to the end of the world. Wherefore does he demand of us a so extreme severity, if not to show us that due honor is not paid him, so long as we set not his service above every human consideration, so that we spare not kin, nor blood of any, and forget all humanity when the matter is to combat for His glory." as quoted in History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century, J.W. Allen, London, 1951, p. 87.The truly funny thing, in all but the humorous sense, is that if Calvin was correct in what he was saying, the "heretics" and "blasphemers" are following God's will as completely in each and everything they say and do as Calvin is, claiming that it's God's will for him and the elect to kill other people who are as helpless as they are at doing anything but the express will of God.
"The devil and wicked men are so held in on every side with the hand of God, that they cannot conceive, or contrive, or execute any mischief, any farther than God himself doth not permit only, but command. Nor are they only held in fetters, but compelled also, as with a bridle, to perform obedience to those commands." (Calv. Inst., b. 1, c. 17, s. 11.)
How about reading the Word of God? Which fathers are you referring to? THe RCC fathers? Of course they don’t believe Paul’s teachings. Their house of doctrines and traditions of men would collapse under so much truth. Read what Peter wrote regarding Paul’s writings. He said that some things Paul wrote were hard to understand. Guess he didn’t have a magisterium to answer his questions.
can you answer the questions in #137?
i meant #1037.
Target bullseye!
Metmom has repeatedly made her beliefs known through the YEARS on this forum and I know beyond any doubt that she is straighter on the Gospel and the deity of Jesus Christ than either of you. So, like I told one of your other cohorts, put up or shut up. Either produce the posts where you claim she has said the things you accuse her of, or cut it out. My finger hovers over the abuse button every time I see one of your inane accusations. The wicked practice of divide and conquer ain't gonna work for you. Give it a rest!
You are on a roll. Yes I would disagree with that.
It’s becoming very obvious that you think that it’s baptism that saves not Jesus sacrifice on the cross. Your obsession with baptism is the least of your problems.
name the accusation you are referring to, as you say “put up or shut up”
Well, since Catholics practice water baptism, I guess Spirit baptism is out for them. After all, the Spirit baptism would be a violation of Eph 4, right?
I don't know how this claim gets made when the argument has always been Belief first then Baptism.
Your obsession with baptism is the least of your problems.
Actually, I believe it was DR.E. that brought up infant baptism. It is a carry over in the Reformation Churches from the Roman Church.
It is a Roman sensibility that House means immediate family - The Hebrew sense can mean that, or extended family, or all progeny, even throughout time, or even whole nations.
Why stop at the immediate? Does your faith cover ONLY your children? What of your grandchildren? How does that work?
Often whole families lived in one house (compound)... Aunts, Uncles, all their children, and grand children... If the promise is as you say, why not just baptize the Patriarch of the House, as his participation "covers" all of his family, rendering the baptism of each of them a moot point...
I think that the Word says that a person and his whole house were baptized simply to display the amazing power of the Gospel message.
And I think the promise to you and your house is direct to you, and indirect to your house - Raising them up in the ways of YHWH does not guarantee their salvation - but it opens the door to them, that they might find YHWH by honoring their father and mother...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.