Something...

I wordled the entire text of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

To all elect of God who are still in bondage to the system of the Beast

To all elect of God who are still in bondage to the system of the Beast beware clerics who make concessions to the language of church leaders being 'servants' rather than tyrants. It's very easy for the ministers of the Beast to talk of being servants. Pol Pot called himself the angel of the people. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, all could portray themselves as sacrificial servants of their people. They give up absolutely nothing in conceding to this rhetoric. In fact they use it to further the demands of the system of the Beast.

You're a Christian born again by the Word and the Spirit? Yes? Then you are a king. A prophet, a priest, and a king. By the grace of God you are made a prophet, a priest, and a king. Ministers of the Beast are a joke to you. You certainly don't find yourselves in their environments. The system of the Beast is abomination to you, and you are very well able to discern it.

See if your cleric-leader has ever used the Beast term "layperson" or any variation on it. This is a giveaway of where your cleric stands regarding being a 'servant.' They can't help but use Beast language. God marks the sons of Cain.

An email to **** of England

Now that I'm in the - finally in the - third part of Tom Jones, where the action is in 18th century London, it's suddenly much more interesting just because of the environment. Fielding made it seem like Jones and Partridge entered London like rats through the rat gate, then had to find the part of town with the mansions. It read like a cartoon depiction. It will go much faster now.

I forwarded your last response to the others because it was interesting, and I usually do that. I wouldn't forward anything if somebody were confessing to killing somebody or something like that.

Just stay big. Big, big, big. Big being. This is why the Homeric epics continually draw even after you know of the Bible. It depicts individuals with big being. Big spirit. I'm not sure if you see this as explicitly in the Bible. Certainly there are depictions of big spirit and being. More subtle though in that they are mixed with descriptions of their fallenness too. Plus, more subtle because, for instance, God didn't pick David from all his other brothers because he was the tallest or most impressive looking. So it's big being, big spirit, but as that manifests internally. The aura and presence will be big though in the world. - C.

The unity of God's kingdom exists in the new heart of one believer

The unity of God's kingdom exists in the new heart of one believer.

A heart regenerated by the Word and the Spirit is a new heart, and within it is the unity of God's kingdom.

This is always resisted by the world and those who would spurn the Word and the Spirit to seek a worldly unity.

There are a thousand worldly - man-fearing - justifications for doing this; and among those with such justifications there is even anger when regeneration or new heart is mentioned.

Some basics notes on a subject that confuses most Christians

I'll just talk to whoever's reading here... When I write about influences other than the Bible I am writing in the context of pedagogy. Many people who read Christian sites have yet to even connect with the Bible in a real way. They talk about BattleStar Galactica more than anything else, for instance. So I let them know there are influences they can find that will potentially develop them, and in so doing will lead them to the summit influences and even the above-summit-level influence that is the Word of God.

(By 'summit' what is implied is that influences reside in a hierarchy. Not all influences are created equal. Believe it or not it is a big development for a human being to get to where they can discern this fact. There are many professors of literature at old universities who can't see this and who take, for instance, the Iliad and a comic book to be basically at the same level, and will even write books based on this. The higher the influence the more rare it will be - many genre novels, few epic poems - and the more effort of attention will be required to engage it. And higher influences often have more and more mysterious authorship. Homer, Shakespeare are famous examples. They will also usually contain very refined language within them. I don't mean the language they were written in, I mean language of inner development, for instance. Even works of history such as the classical historians will have this. When you take in these languages you are given ability, through having the language - visual language often, but also language delivered in other subtle ways - to see things you otherwise wouldn't be able to see simply because you didn't have the 'vocabulary' to see them. Things in yourself, in the world, in the less visible realms. I.e. you get things from these higher influences that you don't realize at the time you are engaging them. It's the same with the Bible. And if you are worried about getting something 'bad' all I can say is Christians aren't cowards and we aren't dumb*****. We don't shy away from God's creation. But even having said that lower influences are pretty easy to identify. If you have the Spirit. Westcott and Hort for instance are easy to identify as abomination regarding being an influence. Dumb, evil crap is easy to discern. Great, higher influences are rare and they come rather massively vetted by Time as well. But if you're scared, then so be it. Some Christians are lions, some are mice; some are somewhere in-between.)

We need a balanced development physical, emotional, intellectual. Everybody has a center-of-gravity in one area and is weak in the others. When you develop areas that you are weak in you begin to develop - or give yourself the potential to develop - real understanding.

A person for instance with zero experience with literature (maybe they are strong on athletics or music or working with their hands but are not known for being seen reading great literature) is going to have a difficult time engaging the Word of God let alone valuing it. Of course the Holy Spirit plays a role here, but engaging the written word is engaging the written word. It doesn't happen by itself.

The act and effort to get a complete understanding of a work of literature develops understanding and develops skills.

This should all go without saying.

Take James White. He is ignorant of any literature that isn't secondary Christian material and the mutilated abomination he 'discerns' to be a Bible. This hamstrings him. This makes him shallow. This also makes him vain and prideful (not to mention an eternal juvenile delinquent) because he doesn't even know what he is missing or that there could be a possibility that he is missing something. He's a shallow boy, and it shows.

If you've never provoked your limits you've never made efforts to extend your limits.

This is why basic training in the military is so practically valuable at a foundational level even though it can be seen as a run of activities that are rather simple. It provokes the limits of young people who have never had their limits provokes and it teaches them things about themselves.

So when I speak of non-biblical influences I am speaking in a context of pedagogy. Not in a context of salvation.

The Bible can be understood by the simple ploughboy when the Spirit is present, but that also usually means the Spirit has inspired that ploughboy to go outside himself and his surroundings and find things like, for instance, BOOKS. To learn about language. Things he doesn't meet up with behind the plough. Maybe prior to that the Spirit inspired him to learn a musical instrument, and this too gives the ploughboy needed understading - in ways that defy easy description - to understand the Word of God.

This is how it works.

As for the Bible itself: just read it. Complete. Dedicated, complete readings. This is the foundational effort. All other kinds of Bible reading and studying are made profitable in the wake, or on the foundation, of this foundational effort. And put a number on it to make it a real goal so that you actually are doing it and not just 'thinking' you are doing it while never doing it. Once, three times, seven times. How about seven times doubled? That's a number for a king...

lamblion, how about Grail stories then, eh?

Grail romance, such as Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival is as Christian as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. In fact, Grail stories like it played a foundational role in cultivating the Reformation. But here is a refined language as well, awakening, internal development, spiritual warfare, just as in the Homeric epics. One that is more explicitly Christian in context. But it's not Scripture? Who said it was? So then it's worthless? How? Maybe if something informs Scripture, just as a practice increases your ability to understand something, then it's not so worthless? You didn't come to Scripture in a vacuum, and you don't study Scripture in a vacuum after you've connected with it (the Word of God gives warrant to the fact that teachers have that gift from the Holy Spirit and you surely use teachers, with discernment, like if just really well-vetted dead ones, to help you understand Scripture); nothing exists or happens in a vacuum devoid of God's influence.

The Way is narrow, stumblingblocks and detours on either side are numerous

Look at this back and forth in the comments thread. What I've written should be read. It contains wisdom. But look what I have to go through. I have to make the argument that it's worthwhile to read Homer and Shakespeare for crying out loud. On my left I've got shallow, liberal, default-Romanist academics calling themselves Reformed Calvinists, and on my right I've got Christians on-fire for God and defending His Word but who are equally shallow in their development.

Switching gears, look at these two quotes:

"If someone is so strong that his assurance and certainty are independent of time, place, person and such like, then he has no need for sprinkling with water; but if he is a little stupid or thick-headed he needs some demonstration, so then that kind of believer is baptized because he is cleansed inwardly by faith in the same way as he is outwardly by water." - Zwingli, Early Writings, ed. Samuel Macauley Jackson, (Durham: Labyrinth Press, reprint 1987), p. 95

"We have also to note that we do not communicate with Jesus Christ except by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless let us not despise the helps that our Lord has ordained for us, knowing that they are needful on account of our infirmities. Why are we not taught simply that in having recourse to our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall find in him our washing and cleansing? It seems that that ought indeed to suffice us and that the water of baptism is only a veil to hinder us from coming to Jesus Christ. Yes, but let us pay some little regard to our ignorance. If we had the mind of angels, we should no more need this outward baptism than the angels do. But since we are earthly and it is hard for us to approach to God and the secrets of his heavenly kingdom, it is necessary for us to be helped in this way. It is God's wonderful grace that moves him to stoop to our infirmity and supply fitting and convenient remedies." - John Calvin, 40th Sermon on Ephesians

They're both saying the same thing. Calvin is saying it in a more gentle and diplomatic way, but both quotes are saying the exact same thing.

More from the 'Rev.' Bruce G. Buchanan, SJ

Update below...

Awhile back I said the JesuitBoard (excuse me, the PuritanBoard) was going to have a mass 'conversion' to Roman Catholicism within five years. It's happening much sooner.

One of their high priest's latest comments will serve as an example.

Contra_Mundum "da wabbit"


>>Quote:
>>What is the "Constantinian conspiracy theory" for young people like me who don't know it?

To quote the final sentence of the article:
"At the very least, we should ponder why the original Greek Renewed-Covenant texts universally employed this place-holder code, and contemplate why the code was replaced by the pagan-compromised Church of Rome under Constantine and his successors."

The EEEEVIL Constantine realized he could not defeat the church by persecution, SO! he sneakily decided to take over the church by making it the official religion!

This is the same sort of rant that the Seventh-Day-Adventists write. That the "Trail of Blood" Baptists teach. Oneness Pentacosals. That all purity was lost when Constantine faked his conversion, and made the church official, and Roman. They accept the Roman claims (on the one hand) to have changed the day of worship on her own authority, to have instituted infant baptism and sprinkling on her own authority, to have created hierarchy over against pure congregationalism on her own authority, created the doctrine of the Trinity on her own authority, rewritten the Bible using corrupted manuscripts and making the Vulgate official and off limits to laymen on her own authority, ... and, changed the real name of Yehoshua to Jesus! O MY GOODNESS, WILL THEY STOP AT NOTHING!!!!!

On the other hand, anyone at all whom Rome persecuted must have, de facto, been good Christians. This would include proto-Jehovah's Witnesses (Arians) proto-Mormons, and all kinds of others with aberrant doctrines. BUT, because they weren't ROME, must have really been OK. Those must be lies told about those good people and their doctrine, why? Because Rome was pure evil, and they only persecuted the righteous! So logical...

"Just listen to us, WE will set you straight; WE have them figured out; WE have unscrambled your Bible; trust us..."

Christian Gnosticism, nothing less.

Basically he's defending the genocide committed by the Roman Catholic Beast Church against bible-believing Christians throughout the history of the Beast's tyranny prior to and during the Reformation (and he would probably defend the Beast's acts of murder committed after the Reformation as well one would have to assume). And notice the mocking language he uses. He is mocking true believers who are able to discern the Beast and the actions of the Beast and who can discern abomination. Notice also the dishonest language he throws in. This is always what you see with these devils. Notice he includes abborhent groups in with Baptists and so on. Notice also he believes everything the Roman Beast's wicked propagandists have said about and against all the Christians they committed atrocities and genocide against. This default Jesuit believes every bit of it. Whatever comes out of the mouth and other orifices of the devil this boy eats, while mocking any Christian who can see the truth.

And they're all cowards too. Followers of the devil all have that trait. Cowards. Even the more asinine ones who affect a 'dark visage'. Confront them and they are bent over showing their women's underwear.

Jesuits by any other name. Wylie called them the Pope's dark army. They will infiltrate any church and any branch or denomination. Any environment where they can snatch the devil's own and attempt to snatch God's own, but this is not possible for them. They and the devil only have one tactic: playing for time. Yet still they are subject to God's time.

Update: Notice there is no one over at the PuritanBoard with at least enough fear of God to ask the right 'Rev.' Buchanan just what he thinks his confession calling the Pope of Rome the antichrist actually implies? When it comes down to it these 'confessionalists' mock their own confessions. Their allegiance is to the Beast.

The above paragraph is interesting to contemplate is it not? Just what *does* the Reverend Buchanan and all like him think that the Westminster Confession of Faith calling the Pope the antichrist actually *implies*? And does he not know the history of the Reformation where the Beast Church murdered Bible-believers and told the world they were 'heretics'? When does dumb dupe bleed into willful follower of the Beast?

System of the Beast by any other name

Update below...

Authoritarianism is an expression of the sinful nature of fallen man. It finds expression in families and businesses, but most cruelly in churches and governments. It is lording it over one’s fellow men – hence the English House of Lords, for example – but it is explicitly forbidden by Christ to his disciples. It is the “Gentiles,” not the Christians, who exercise dominion over their fellow men. “Dominion Theology,” influential in some Reformed and Charismatic churches, fails to understand Genesis 1:28, which does not even mention dominion over men.

Today, authoritarianism pervades the professing churches, from the absolute monarchy of the Roman Catholic Church-State, with its nobility of bishops, to the local Charismatic church that teaches submission and the local Baptist church that has only one pastor and no elders – all are in disobedience to Christ.

This sinful authoritarianism has also entered the “conservative” Presbyterian churches, and it is based on the same doctrinal errors that led to the formation of the Roman Church-State 1500 years ago. In this essay, Kevin Reed traces the historical and doctrinal roots of Imperious Presbyterianism, and calls Bible-believing Presbyterians to correct the errors of their authoritarian elders.

This is the intro to a new Trinity Foundation article. The author of the article doesn't say it, but he is describing how unregenerate self-identified Christians default to inane and wicked worldly behaviour in their 'churches'.

How many times have I read: "You need to be under authority of elders." They can't see or smell themselves (because they are as unregenerate as any bloodstained pope), so they are ignorantly unaware (the non-self-conscious-Jesuits among them) but they look and sound like the Beast itself when they are speaking such asinine words to God's elect.

Update: Well, the post with the article languished for a day and a half or so then picked up some interest with three comments until one of the authoritarian pastor-moderators came on and scolded the little toddlers and put a lock on the thread. No discussing this subject here. Hilarious. Such shamelessness in not caring if the world can see them protecting their devil-given privileges. As Roman Catholic as it gets.

An email I sent to people I annoy with emails...

Don't ever ask me if I've finished Tom Jones (not that anyone asks me anything anymore) because I *will* finish it at some point, but it so strikes me as a shallow work (I can see why it got deleted from the roster of the Great Books of the Western World) that it is a strange feeling to *have* to finish it. The characters are cardboard and shallow, and the events of the novel are simply empty and repetitive and dull. There *is* understanding of human nature, but the novel itself as a work of art is severely lacking. Really, all the story is is something for Fielding to hang his comments on human nature on. You can *really* see that as a storyteller he is routinely going nowhere and ending up at empty dead ends, then starts in another direction for the same result. Thackeray wrote truly funny scenes to accompany his understanding of human nature. I can remember Vanity Fair almost complete right now, but I can barely remember what I've just slogged through in Tom Jones. Paul McCartney's song *The Fool on the Hill* has more meaning that the extensive story-within-a-story of the fool on the hill in Tom Jones. Seriously, you think he is going off on that tangent to portray an interesting character, but his story is as banal as you can imagine (and that is not the point Fielding is making, by the way, he just doesn't know what he's doing as a storyteller). I suppose it was unique for its time - the novel as a literary form, etc. - but I seem to recall that more commentators on it of his day kind of said, "Eh, there ain't much there..."

I know you can't say a classic work of literature is nothing without overstating the matter. Here, though, is a passage from a critic that I found to express my own take thus far:

***David Goldknopf has recently claimed that the digressive elements of the novel and the author's intervening role as a commentator "as a systematic procedure for upgrading the applicability and stature of his work, … signalize his failure to integrate intelligence and imagination." Similarly, Irvin Ehrenpreis suggests that such repeated appearances as those of Sophia's pocketbook and muff, or the attorney Dowling "imply that the main line of action has insufficient energy of its own to contain the numerous episodes of the story." Because of the symmetrical structure of the book, Ehrenpreis suggests, "one stops expecting development and tries to feel satisfied with a line of action that does not, in a cause and effect sense, lead anywhere."***

I'll finish it, and I'll get something from the effort, if only just a refreshed sense that not all classics hit the mark. Kind of like a famous symphony that nevertheless doesn't really have 'it'... It will highlight by contrast those that *do* have 'it'... - C.

High priests of academia have smeared historic Calvinism with the dung of their unregenerate souls

"The only proper way to interpret the Bible, says Calvinism, is by the Bible itself. What do you do if you come across something you can't understand? You don't go to the church. You don't go to the encyclopaedia. You don't go to the expert or the scholar. You go to the Bible itself, and you lay Scripture beside Scripture, so that by a knowledge of the whole of the Bible one passage will throw light on another passage. The Bible is the Christian's university. The Bible is the Christian's encyclopaedia. The Bible is the Christian's ladder to lead him to the knowledge of God."

From here.

Can you hear the complaints of the experts and the scholars who would lead you first to drink from the deathly foul waters of the Alexandrian manuscripts and the modern versions based on them, then who would tempt you into their chorus of mocking of the Holy Spirit and the fact of regeneration effected by the Word and the Spirit? It's the cacophony issuing from the deep pits of hell.

And see their blood rise and their juvenile pride boil over when you imply their academic attainments are but dung compared to the fear of God and the gift of regeneration.

R. Scott Clark grapples with the existence of Puritans

R. Scott Clark, professor of Westminster Seminary California (of historic theology or some such title I believe) has been known as being typical of establishment Reformed Christians in denigrating the Puritans in various ways, and basically disallowing any connection between them and the continental (really establishment) Reformed tradition. Over the years though Mr. Clark has taken some criticism on that score, even being accused of being unregenerate by his students (as he has stated on his blog, using that word). Now, knowing it is really an untenable position for a Reformed professor to have such a view of the Puritans in this day when the Puritans are such an inspiring influence among Christians Mr. Clark has stated this today:

We’re All Puritans

June 18, 2008 in Uncategorized | No comments

I’m more and more convinced that we should stop talking about “Puritans” as if they were some distinct species of Reformed theology. They were English and Scots Reformed theologians and pastors. Shane Lems has more good stuff that illustrates that confessional Reformed theology is just that whether written in England or in the Netherlands.

In other words, instead of mocking the notion of Puritans (notice though he still puts the name in scare quotes) he is now willing to appropriate them into his realm of high church ritualist, clericalist, formalist, moralist Reformed Christianity. Establishment Reformed Christianity.

Allow me to explain how the Puritans are different from Mr. Clark and establishment Reformed Christianity: the Puritans experienced and understood regeneration effected by the Word and the Spirit. This is why they picked up the mocking name Puritan (an old name, by the way, very similar in meaning to the Greek cathar). Mainstream, establishment Christians always give mocking names to Christians who have been regenerated by the Word and the Spirit and who understood what that is and demonstrated it in their conversation in the world despite themselves. And Puritans knew the battle with the flesh, the world, and the devil that commences once a believer is regenerated by the Word and the Spirit hence their voluminous works on spiritual warfare, a subject that embarrasses establishment Reformed Christians.

So all Reformed Christians are no more the same as Puritans any more than the Anglican judges who kept putting John Bunyan in confinement were Puritans.

Acts 10:34

"ct" ,

Thanks for your comment. I assume that you are the same c.t. that posts at Plain Path Puritan. My comments above shouldn't be taken as a whole-hearted endorsement of Dr. White's view of the text of Scripture, or even of every single comment that he makes the video series above.

That said, I cannot believe you would be so naive as to believe that on each and every point Dr. White was wrong and Hovind was right.

Unlike Dr. White, I happen to be a person who prefers the KJV to the modern translations ... at least in regards to many of the instances where they differ.

I'm also a critic of some of the core assumptions of modern textual criticism, as I've noted at other places in my blog.

-Turretinfan

Turretinfan is apparently too clean and respectible to post my comment (these Reformed churchians are respecters of persons to a very refined degree), so I suppose I'll have to supply what he is responding to:

To speak of a critical text sophist and propagandist like White in anything approaching a positive manner regarding the Word of God shows you to be more than merely lukewarm on this foundational subject. You have a fear and reverence of man that exceeds your fear and reverence of God, if indeed your desire to be seen as acceptable to liberal academics leaves any room for any degree of fear of God within you at all.

See, that wasn't so painful.

More demonic activity from the critical text scholars

Edward F. Hills' book The King James Version Defended is a book critical text scholars despise more than any book in existence. They demand that it be taken out of circulation and until then they do things like this:

The King James version defended!: A space-age defense of the historic Christian faith (The new space age Christian library) by Edward F Hills (Unknown Binding - 1979)
Currently unavailable
Other Editions: Unknown Binding

5.
The King James version defended!: A Christian view of the New Testament manuscripts by Edward F Hills (Unknown Binding - 1956)
Currently unavailable

These are two listings on Amazon.com. A follower (or more) of the satanic corrupt versions of the Bible have put up these fake pages for Hills' book so that whenever a person innocent of the devil's activity with regard to the manuscripts issue will see them immediately and write the book off as ridiculous. Notice the exclamation mark? That is the same way James White's resident critical text scholar-teacher writes the title on White's blog. And 'space-age defense' speaks for itself.

Here is the title of the book:

The King James Version Defended: A Christian View of the New Testament Manuscripts (1956)

Read it here.

Why do the Westcott and Hort-critical text devils attack this book? Because it exposes them at a level they can't mock or wave off as not being 'correctly scholarly', to use one of their asinine phrases.

If you follow these critical text devils you will burn along with them. You've been taught by God's people the truth. If you continue to reject the truth you will burn with the devils you have chosen to follow.

I glanced at another establishment Christianity post...

Oh, boy, I try to get out of this muck and then I read some dumb Roman Catholic apologist, or some shallow churchian Protestant and I'm pulled back into reacting to their idiocy and death. But I don't have to be. I have to remember there are levels of Christianity. Yes, the churchians teach against this, but God's own know it by experience. I can't expect mainstream establishment Christianity to be anything other than what it is. That is where they are at currently. The Holy Spirit has given me to be where I am at. When I write of the level I am at of course the churchians mock and attack and run and so on. It's death to them. Death to all they hold dear. Just as their level is death to me. A different kind of death; the death of falling back as opposed to the death that leads to new birth.

How do we differ? I value and engage the Word of God directly. The pure and whole Word of God that God has preserved for me. The churchians mock that, read secondary literature, and accept watered-down 'bibles' given them by scholars they deem to be final authority. I fear God only and not man. The churchians fear and revere man while giving lip service to fearing god, though they don't even know what fearing God means. I know the faith is not about 'being good' but about making contact. The churchians have no concept of making contact, with God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit or pretty much anything, and they consider the faith to be about their family and being good.

So be it. People have to get born and taken care of. This is not the faith though. The faith is something much more hardcore. It's not for everybody...

Oh, God's own just won't leave you alone; I know, you're going to "tell the Beast!"

The more you know the Bible and biblical doctrine the more difficult it is to join a church. Churches are groups and groups default to man-fearing and the demand to fear man. Groups default to the system of the Beast. To greater or lesser degree, granted, yet the system of the Beast nonetheless. (And listen to 'man' rage and mock and accuse at the born again Christian who doesn't want to join in their Beast allegiance.) The Bible is intentionally not clear on the subject of church and so-called 'sacraments' (not even a biblical word). This is because different approaches are necessary in the different eras of the history of redemption. In our time when every church is taken over and controlled by the devil God's elect are on the Way, in the Church of which Christ is King. In the 'churches' man leaders and man mediators rule over congregations of biblically and doctrinally ignorant, infantilized, passive, 'Christians'. It is everything the Beast wants. The Beast can't have Christians who actually engage the Word of God directly (rather than sit passively listening to unregenerate fools with the full dose of intellectual and academic vanity repeating everything their dumb, unregenerate professors filled their empty heads with), and Christians who actually fear and revere God alone and not man. Those reading this who question me know that you are questioning a prophet, a priest, and a king, made so by the grace of God and the sacrifice of my King Jesus Christ. Who are you, man? Would you like to debate? Of course you wouldn't. You run when a real Christian appears in your environment. The worse thing you can allow is to have your followers see how easily a real Christian can make you run when you are confronted by a follower of Jesus Christ. You are pushing your satanic, putrid devil bibles on your followers and you know if you allow me in your environment they will see the truth on that as well. You filthy, cowardly losers. You'll have to deal with us - God's own - sooner or later. If it is to be later, fine with me. Look forward to seeing you...

silly blind wretches groping in the dark

"St. Paul shows us here that if we have been taught in the gospel, we must differ from the ignorant and unbelievers. For God's separating of us and setting us in a rank apart in that way, and his enlightening of us, is in order that we should no longer be like random wanderers, nor like silly blind wretches groping in the dark, but that we should know the right way of salvation." Sermons on Ephesians - John Calvin, pg. 425, Banner of Truth (the Arthur Golding translation! if you Elizabethan literature types, if there are any left, know what I mean)

I got another blog comment from James Blanco!

Sir, upon perusing my RSS feeder on my Treo while bicycling up Mt. Chilusoo, monitoring my pulse, my wattage, digitally recording the ascent and descent, then filming the young thief who stole my bike outside a donut shop (if anybody has any information please contact me) I was alerted by a channel regular that you have referenced my name. May I inform you, sir, that lying is manifestly ungodly behaviour, sir. Sir, I don't know you, I have never read your 'blog' nor do I plan on reading your blog as I have a very full and busy schedule. Any context my name has been referenced in is manifestly deceptive and - sadly - not uncommon in this age when anybody can write anything on the internet and have it instantly published as if they were ordained intellectuals. Sadly I find myself having to write these messages to protect my good name, sadly as it takes away from my valuable time I could be using to debate people and spreading God-given logic to masses of humanity who have yet to hear such God-given rhetoric. I bid you, sir, good day and pray that you will find the grace to amend your behaviour in the future. Sadly, I lament that will not be the case. In his name, >>>James Blanco

Open Forum - SUBJECT: BEING A KING

Insults and bad language welcome. False accusations will be tolerated seven times seventy times. Man fearing will be mocked, but not banned. Mocked relentlessly though.

A document from the 21st century

12 Christian Practices

Minister of the Beast: N. T. Wright

Paul Helm (and J. I. Packer) show how Beast religion and its followers pushing the system of the Beast continually tries to infiltrate the last vestiges of Protestantism that hold to pure biblical doctrine. Today it's N. T. Wright and other agents of hell.

Bunyan and the Mosaic Covenant and Covenant Theology in general

There is an on-the-mark understanding of biblical doctrine. It exists. Reformed theologians come closest, but it is a joke that they demand to insert their Romanist fetishes into the mix - infant baptism being their biggest Romanist fetish - at the expense of having the whole of God's plan in understanding and teaching that plan pure and whole. They convict themselves as valuing their own demands more than the truth.

Meanwhile their followers merely mouth what these teachers feed them. Look at this quote by one of them speaking of John Bunyan:

"But especially in his view of conversion, he reflected Puritan views, and without a solid doctrine of the covenant he had no room for the salvation of elect children in the line of the covenant..."

A more ignorant statement could not be uttered on the subject of John Bunyan and covenant theology in general.

Biblical doctrine is simple and elegant and can be understood by a child. Theologians make it complicated because they don't understand it, or, they understand it but the spirit of disobedience in them dictates that they must muck it up for the devil's cause.

The subject of the Mosaic Covenant is central regarding this for Reformed theologians. To maintain their Beast system (Romanist) infant baptism Reformed theologians refuse to acknowledge the republication of the Covenant of Works at Sinai. Yes, most of them are incapable of understanding Federal Theology at this level (clear evidence that if one has not the Spirit the most simple things will elude their understanding), but the fact is, many of them can understand it but refuse to accept it because it cuts their sacerdotalism - which gives power to man - off at the legs.

Read this to see whether or not Bunyan was "without a solid doctrine of the covenant", and note well how the on-the-mark biblical truth has no marriage with Romanist fetishes such as infant baptism. How surprising.


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E F Kevan, Samuel Petto and Covenant Theology

by Don Strickland

Ernest Kevan in his highly influential work, The Grace of Law, delineated two schools of thought on the nature of the Mosaic Covenant. Kevan identified this difference, whether the covenant at Sinai was either one of works or grace, as the point of contention between the orthodox and the antinomian Puritans. If one interpreted the Mosaic Covenant as a Covenant of Works, a danger of antinomianism was present, although certainly not all who held to this view were in fact Antinomian (for example, John Preston and Richard Sibbes). Far more of the orthodox Puritans held to the Mosaic Covenant as being an administration of the Covenant of Grace.

Kevan overlooked a third position. This view was held by John Owen, but was more clearly championed by Samuel Petto. This third option breaks the tight continuity of the second view, and yet protects one's theology from the moral anarchy of antinomianism. The Covenant of Works was originally made with Adam prior to sin entering the world. Being based on the concept of 'Do this, and live', life was promised for obedience and death for disobedience. Justification came by way of man's works. The Covenant of Grace was necessitated by Adam's disobedience. Necessitated, because God decided to choose some of Adam's race for life, but life for any under Adam's federal headship could now only be achieved through grace. The Puritans had various ways to describe this Covenant of Grace, one being 'Believe this, and live'. Any discussion of the status of the Mosaic Covenant from the Puritan standpoint must keep this distinction in mind.

These two basic covenants cannot be mixed. Grace and works are not compatible. Works are destructive of grace. Therefore it is argued that a covenant must either be works or grace. The covenant with Adam was clearly one of works. Grace as the basis for the Abrahamic, Davidic and New Covenants is also clearly evident. However, because the Mosaic Covenant has both ideas interwoven within its contents, one tends either to say that it is a Covenant of Works which looks toward grace with types and shadows, or an administration of the Covenant of Grace which emphasised the idea of obedience (Law). In both cases, the Mosaic Covenant was to be used to drive man to Christ as it set up the conditions under which he would appear. 'The rigour of the Law [its place in the covenantal structure] can easily be accounted for when the Law is thought of as the Covenant of Works, but it is less easy to do so when it is not so regarded.' The reason, Kevan writes, is that the Mosaic Covenant 'looked much like a Covenant of Works', and Christ did keep it as such. Those who argued for the Covenant of Works underscore the passages that speak of a 'Do this, and live' concept within the covenant made at Sinai with Leviticus 18:5 being a prominent verse.

John Ball spoke for those who held Sinai to be an administration of the Covenant of Grace when he argued that whenever God entered into a covenant with fallen man it must be a Covenant of Grace, therefore the Mosaic Covenant is a Covenant of Grace. The proponents for this position, beside pointing out the Ceremonial Law and its promise of mercy to those who kept it, point to the preface of the Decalogue as containing the heart of the Covenant of Grace formula. The Passover, the sacrament of the Mosaic Covenant, was kept by faith (Heb 11 :28). And the other Old Testament shadows and types all pointed to Christ, thus arguing for the presence of the Covenant of Grace.

Additionally, man cannot both be under a Works and a Grace Covenant at the same time. Samuel Petto points out that Moses and Israel were already under the Covenant of Grace through Abraham. Promise, not law, had been established as the way of salvation. Therefore, the Mosaic Covenant was not a Covenant of Works for man else it would not have been consistent with God's working through Abraham (Gal 3:16-18). And yet, even the most stringent authors recognised the Mosaic Covenant's use by the biblical writers as a Covenant of Works. What is the solution?

According to Petto the interpretative key is found in the New Testament passages referring to the Old and New Covenants. If one reads the pertinent passages, Hebrews 8,Galatians 3-4, or 2 Corinthians 3 for instance, the contrast between the grace exhibited in the New Covenant comes not from the Covenant of Works made with Adam, but from the covenant made with Israel at Sinai. This covenant is the one which is placed in opposition to the New Covenant. Some of the authors, however, who argue strongly for the Mosaic Covenant being one of grace, are the same ones who also argue for the identification of the Old Covenant with the Covenant of Works with Adam; or else they see no contradiction when the Old Covenant passages from Hebrews are used in connection with the Covenant of Works. However, the Old Covenant, treated as a Covenant of Works, appears inconsistent with the view of the Mosaic Covenant as an administration of the Covenant of Grace.

Petto agreed with these same writers by arguing that because of the major differences between the Mosaic Covenant and the Covenant of Works, the former could not be a Covenant of Works to Israel for their salvation. And yet, neither was the Old Covenant, strictly speaking, an administration of the Covenant of Grace. For, as Petto points out, when Israel sinned by making the golden calf, Moses pleaded for mercy not according to the covenant just made, but on the basis of God's covenant with Abraham (Ex 32:10-14).

Instead, Petto contended for a third option. He maintained that the Old Covenant was a distinct covenant from the New. They were not merely different administrations of the Covenant of Grace, but that they were actually two separate covenants. God repeated the Covenant of Works at Sinai in substance (Gal 3: 10,12) 'not that Israel should have eternal life, by their own doing; but that Jesus Christ should be born under the very law that we were obliged by, Galatians 4:4', in order to take on the curse and fulfil its righteousness. Israel was the guardian, or administrator, of this covenant until the Messiah should come, but the covenant itself, as to the expression of its eternal nature, was made with him, not with Israel. 'The Mount Sinai Covenant (with reference to the matter of it) may be said to express the legal condition of the Covenant of Grace, as to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ.' In order to fulfil the Covenant of Works and win the promised blessings, the Mediator had to be born under the stipulations of that covenant. And since the Covenant of Works had been broken in Eden, it had to be restored or reinstated. Thus the Old Covenant 'was a Covenant of Works to be fulfilled by Jesus Christ,' but it represented 'an imperfect administration of the Covenant of Grace to Israel' . It promised eternal life to the elect upon the obedience of Jesus Christ, and 'temporal mercies' to Israel upon their 'due obedience' to its commands.

Petto lists five reasons why the Old Covenant was a Covenant of Works to Jesus Christ. First, the Old Covenant excels all other covenants in describing what is required for legal righteousness. Only the Messiah could give the perfect obedience required of man (Lev 18:5; Gal 3: 10,12; Deut 6:25; Rom 10:3-5). Second, the Old Covenant pronounces a curse which none can undergo but Christ.

Third, no one but the Messiah could have purchased redemption for the elect in the Old Covenant (Gal 4:4-5). As is mentioned above, with Adam having broken the Covenant of Works, its promissory part was at an end. Only its curse remained. Therefore, the legal conditions needed to be given in a different covenant so that the Messiah could be born under the law. No one without sin could enter into the original Covenant of Works 'either to perform the righteousness of it, or to answer the penalty; it had nothing to do with an innocent person after it was broken [for it] was never renewed with man again as before'. Therefore, allowing an innocent man into it 'must be by some kind of repetition or renewing of it' to be fulfilled by a sinless person, thus it could not have been given to Israel in that sense. Israel voluntarily agreed (Ex 19:8 and 20: 19) to place themselves and their seed under the Old Covenant for its perfect obedience by the Messiah to come. Christ, being born a Jew, was born under the law. Merely to have been born of Adam (outside of Judaism) would not have been enough. The Old Covenant, then, 'was a necessary medium or means for the execution' of the New Covenant. Fourth, Christ underwent the very curse of the Old Covenant, so the elect would be delivered from it. Fifth, the ceremonies in the Old Covenant typically signify the Messiah's sufferings in order to enact the New Covenant. The typical ceremonial commands, just like the moral commands, were 'wrapped up' in Christ's perfect obedience for the elect's righteousness 'as the principle aim and intendment' of the Old Covenant.

The sacrifices for sin provided a way for Israel to obtain temporal blessings without perfect obedience to moral law, thus there was grace in the Old Covenant to Israel. These sacrifices did not, however, provide forgiveness 'to the Conscience'. The Old Covenant only committed God to Israel externally (Hosea I :9). The New Covenant internalised the Covenant of Grace (Jer 31). The ceremonial law appeared to confer spiritual blessing, but it was only a type and shadow of heaven intimating what would be purchased by the Messiah. Spiritual blessings were dispensed by the 'Covenant to Abraham, and though Israel's obedience to Moral Law was on another account a fruit of holiness and sanctification, yet as the same obedience had relation to the Mount Sinai Covenant, so it ushered in only temporals to them' . Being the legal aspect for the Covenant of Grace the Old Covenant carried conditions that required obedience which only the Messiah could fulfil. Every covenant supposes conditions to its fulfilment. Once those conditions have been met, however, that covenant becomes an absolute covenant - that which was promised is given. What of the conditionality of the Covenant of Grace?

The Westminster Confession gives faith as the requirement for the Covenant of Grace. Thomas Blake, possibly showing Neonomian tendencies, argued strongly for repentance (obedience) as an additional condition of the Covenant of Grace. He feared (and claimed) that even to seem to make the Covenant of Grace unconditional would disengage man from the process and invite Antinomianism. However, Petto rightly argued that the Law held forth obedience as righteousness unto justification which makes obedience different in the Old Covenant than in the New Covenant. In other words, the Law was for different ends depending on the covenant in force at the time. The Law in the Mosaic Covenant offered justification to whoever perfectly obeyed it, but the Law under the New Covenant was for man's sanctification. Blake believes the parties to the Covenant of Grace to be God and man. Petto reasons that both the Covenant of Works and Grace are not made with man immediately, but in and through a federal head. He understands the Covenant of Grace as being made with Christ and ties this position to his distinctive view of the nature of the covenants. Because the Old Covenant was the legal condition of the Covenant of Grace, the fulfilment of its conditions as a conditional covenant triggered the inception of the New Covenant as an absolute covenant. Petto is not suggesting that the New Covenant was an unconditional covenant. Rather, he was saying with other Puritans that Christ, by fulfilling the condition of the Old Covenant (the Law), had therefore made it into a new absolute covenant - the New Covenant, and thus, obtained its promised blessings which have been passed on to the elect. Therefore nothing a person can do can be a condition of the Covenant of Grace. Even faith with its concomitant obedience is all of grace.

Contrary to Blake, however, this position is not Antinomianism. Petto argues that works testify to our faith in God, and as such 'are required, not as conditions, but as effects and declarations of our justification'. With a man's regeneration, the Moral Law is written upon his heart. 'The Law written in the heart is the foundation of all obedience unto the Law, and the perfect writing of the Law in the heart is the highest reward of all the Promises, and all the obedience of the Gospel.' Christ's obedience to the law was for the elect's justification and life. The regenerate man's obligation to the moral aspect of the law is for sanctification 'that [he] may glorifie God by those fruits of [his] being spiritually alive'. Samuel Petto's book could have been written by a Baptist, except for the teaching of Baptism itself. This conclusion is exactly what was reached by Richard Greaves in his work on John Bunyan. Greaves, a noted Bunyan scholar, describes and documents Bunyan's position on the covenants, and in the process, Bunyan becomes a virtual mirror of Petto. Thus, Bunyan saw a resting place for the Baptist in this position. With the paedobaptistic continuity broken and the antinomian error avoided, this view appears to be a consistent Baptist view of God's covenants with man. Don Strickland is pursuing doctoral studies through Westminster Seminary and is a member of People's Bible Church, Greenville, SC where Stuart Latimer is pastor.

This article was published in Reformation Today, Issue 137, January 1994.

More Beast basics from the JesuitBoard, excuse me, the 'Puritan'Board

One of the resident sacerdotalists of the PuritanBoard who insanely calls himself a Puritan has made this statement:

"A person is not a Christian unless they are baptized and taught the Christian faith. A Church is required to be a Christian. [...] You're a Christian when you're baptized and in a Church."

No, anti-pilgrim, these are the requirements of the Beast system. Congratulations: you've missed everything.