Reviews

Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020

May 24

Posted by George Ella in Reviews | Comments off

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Review Article Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020 I have been recently sent an online copy of Stephen Paynter’s new book, or rather a new version of a work done in 2014, by Academia.edu free of charge. This academic consortium has kindly provided me for several years with many gems both small and large from writers on theology, missiology and church history. It is rarely, however, that I receive works from them dealing solely with evangelical, Reformed issues. This is also the more surprising because Dr Paynter is a software engineer and neither a theologian nor a… Full Article

Tags: Andrew Fuller, Baptism, Calvinism, Covenant, Covenant Theology, Hyper-Calvinism, Infralapsarian, John Calvin, John Gill, Justification, Ordo Salutis, Particular Redemption, Regeneration, Sublapsarian

The Relationship between Justification, Faith and God’s Eternal Existence

Jun 12

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Part One: David Gay’s ‘Principles’ as displayed in his book Eternal Justification (I cannot comment line for line on this scandalous work as I would then have to write double the amount that Gay writes and quote much unedifying waffle. I thus comment in brief on Gay’s ‘Principles’ and shall follow up with further essays.) Eternal justification netted Yesterday, I came across a freebie in the Internet entitled Eternal Justification. As I have long wondered what that phrase could mean and have never been convinced by various expositions of what it signifies, I downloaded the essay and discovered it was by David Gay and dated 2010. Now Brother Gay is to be commended for putting his books and essays online free of… Full Article

Tags: David Gay, Election, Eternal Justification, Hyper-Calvinism, John Gill, Justification, Turretin

Patrick Hamilton: The Stephen of Scotland. The First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation, AD Publications, Dundee, 2009 By Joe Carvalho

Apr 17

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The volume under review is a 200 small paged, large print edition which deals with an over-proportionate number of ‘other defenders of the Reformation’, and speculative ‘historical’ reconstructions apart from Hamilton. Nevertheless, the publisher’s cover blurb presents it as ‘a result of over eight years of research through the Special Collections of Edinburgh University and St Andrew’s University’, and the author writes of the ‘rare books’ he has studied allowing him to present for the first time in almost one hundred years a definitive and complete study of Patrick Hamilton (1504-1528) based on original documents. Carvalho’s work contains some useful background-information on Hamilton’s Scotland and it is… Full Article

Tags: Joe Carvalho, Patrick Hamilton: The Stephen of Scotland. The First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation

Lessons in Humanity from the Life and Work of Jan Amos Comenius

Oct 3

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Lessons in Humanity from the Life and Work of Jan Amos Comenius: A Study in Anthropological Pansophy Jan Hábl A Review Article Preface: The Father of Modern Education by Thomas Johnson Johnson, who appears to be Hábl’s mentor, writes on p. 9 of principles in nature and in human nature that we can recognize and that we should follow in order to reach our earthly and spiritual destinies. He thus wishes to separate the best parts of human nature from those in human nature which stand in conflict to them. This is an artificial dissecting of the human in man which has often been used for totalitarian purposes in order to promote a less-than human society. True Pansophy is not limited to the anthropological and… Full Article

Tags: A Pattern of Universal Knowledge, Jan Amos Comenius, Jan Hábl, Johann Valentin Andreae, John Durie, John Newton, Labyrinth, Pansophism, Pansophy, Thomas Johnson, William Cowper

1662: The Great Ejection By Gary Brady

Nov 6

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Gary Brady’s book of 165 pages purports to give the background of 2,000 ministers who rebelled against the Church of England’s and the King’s authority in 1662 and suffered under a Parliament that had no respect either for the one nor the other. Anti-Dissenting laws formerly enforced against the Church of England by the Commission of Ejectors under Cromwell’s Commonwealth Councils were now applied to a minority who rejected the restored Church. In order to understand the fate of all these 17 century Dissenters from different parties, it is necessary to trace the persecutions back to their roots during Mary’s bloody reign and throughout the reigns of Elizabeth, James, Charles I, Cromwell and Charles II. Brady… Full Article

Tags: 1662: The Great Ejection, Act of Uniformity, Act of Uniformity of 1662, Bartholomew’s Day, Charles I, Church of England, Directory of Public Worship for England Scotland and Ireland, Gary Brady, Great Rebellion, Hartlib Papers, John Durie, Prayer Book, Puritan Dream, Richard Baxter, William Laud, William Prynne

The Real Luther

Dec 16

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The Real Luther A Friar at Erfurt and Wittenberg Exploring Luther’s Life with Melanchthon as Guide By Franz Posset Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, 2011 Having read so many dissatisfactory commentaries and biographies on Martin Luther recently, I determined not to spend any more time on modern ‘revolutionary’ theories regarding him. Personally, I believe that though Luther lagged behind Reformers such as Tyndale, Jewel, Bucer and Bullinger, on such doctrines as Justification, the Work of God’s Word on the Soul, Repentance and Christology, he is preferable to Calvin. However, my decision to ignore unimaginative new perspectives on Luther did not last long. This December, I was introduced to Franz Posset’s… Full Article

Tags: Bernard of Clairvaux, Franz Posset, Melanchthon, Prof. Markus Wried, Protestant, Reformation, Reviews, Roman Catholic, Sitz-im-Leben, Table Talk, The Real Luther

The Ministry of Septimus Sears (1819-1877)

Jan 6

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The Ministry of Septimus Sears (1819-1877) as Seen By his Congregation and Challenged by David Gay Septimus Sears, renowned in England as one of the country’s most outstanding pastors and preachers, started his ministry at the age of 20 before taking over Clifton Strict Baptist Church, Bedfordshire which he shepherded from 1842 to his death in 1877. Sears suffered all his life from severe heart trouble and was burdened by long periods of paralysis and typhus. His neck bones were so deformed that he had to wear an iron collar to support his head. Nevertheless, he preached three times on the Lord’s Day and often during the week. He edited two Christian magazines, The Little Gleaner and The Sower, and published many… Full Article

Tags: David Gay, Gospel Standard Churches, Memoir of the Life and Labours of the Late Septimus Sears, Preacher, Septimus Sears, Septimus Sears: A Victorian Injustice and Its Aftermath

Reformation: Europe’s House Divided By Diarmaid MacCulloch

Oct 25

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Reformation: Europe’s House Divided By Diarmaid MacCulloch Penguin Books, 2004 Penguin adorns the covers of their new 832 paged paper-back on the Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch with 22 eulogistic blurbs announcing it as wonderful, sardonic, monumental, dazzling, breathtaking, magisterial, eloquent, a triumph, astonishing, masterly, blockbusting, superb, a milestone, a masterpiece of learning, and ‘in its field it is the best book ever written’. Who could resist buying such a book to be on top of Reformation research? It has gained the Wolfson Prize for History, for apparently providing everything “from politics to witchcraft, from liturgy to sex”. It has won the British Academy Book Award because ‘Its… Full Article

Tags: Calvin, Catholic, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Geneva, Lord’s Supper, Lutheranism, Martin Bucer, Reformation, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, Reformed

The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed By David Silversides

Jun 3

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The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed By David Silversides Marpet Press, 2005 Yet another former sturdy defender of the faith now endorses a deceitful gospel which outclasses the errors of older Liberalism. David Silversides has joined such modern apostles as John and Iain Murray, Malcolm H. Watts, Phillip R. Johnson, Errol Hulse, David Gay and Ken Stebbins in their campaign to alter radically the Christian’s view of God and His Word. Pastor Silversides traces the roots of opposition to his new divinity in the formation of the Protestant Reformed Churches in the nineteen-twenties under the leadership of Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965), arguing that the PRC presented a caricature of the free-offer position thus fostering… Full Article

Tags: Anti-Trinitarianism, Antinomians, BOT, David Silversides, Engelsma, Hoeksema, Hyper-Calvinists, Presbyterian, Protestant Reformed Churches, Reviews, The Free Offer of the Gospel, Westminster Confession

Baptism in the Early Church

Dec 14

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Prof. Hendrick F. Stander Prof. Johannes P. Louw Carey Publications This Carey Publications reprint deals with baptism in the first four centuries, claiming that ‘the writings of this era are important since they reveal the origins and developments of Christian practices and dogmas.’ Such an examination is unhelpful in tracing origins and developments when isolated from the Biblical sources as in this work. Christian faith is not built on ‘practices and dogmas’ but on a personal relationship with Christ expressed in Christian doctrine. The work claims to adopt no ‘theological point of view’, yet dogmatises that baptism can only mean immersion; it is not for households but for single adults; there is no… Full Article

Tags: A Treatise of Baptism, Adult Baptism, Apostolic Tradition, Baptism, Basil the Great, Colonel Henry D’Anvers, Didache, Hypolytus, Infant Baptism, Justin, Oratio Exhortatoria ad Baptismum, Prof. Hendrick F. Stander, Prof. Johannes P. Louw, Tertullian

Biographia Evangelica

The Writings of George M. Ella

Reviews

Calvinism: An Introduction and Comparison with the Main Historic Christian Alternatives With the Principal Relevant Historical Councils and Creeds Stephen Paynter April 2020

The Relationship between Justification, Faith and God’s Eternal Existence

Patrick Hamilton: The Stephen of Scotland. The First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Reformation, AD Publications, Dundee, 2009 By Joe Carvalho

Lessons in Humanity from the Life and Work of Jan Amos Comenius

1662: The Great Ejection By Gary Brady

The Real Luther

The Ministry of Septimus Sears (1819-1877)

Reformation: Europe’s House Divided By Diarmaid MacCulloch

The Free Offer: Biblical and Reformed By David Silversides

Baptism in the Early Church

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