Dear Brethren and Friends, May I attract your attention to the Annual Conference of the Protestant Reformation Society to be held at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford from August 26th to 28th this year? Our subject is the 18th Century Awakening which was a period ablaze with the revival of true religion throughout Britain and the European Continent, besides especially North American. After the reaction against Reformed principles in the so-called Century of Crisis leading up to this period, the Good News flourished once more and we remember the heroes of this Great Awakening with the same admiration as we show the fathers of the Reformation. May God grant us more of their kind in the years to come! George M…. Full Article
John Brine (1703-1765) and his Contemporaries as Seen by Modern Revisionists Part I. Brine’s Life
May 1
John Brine (1703-1765) and his Contemporaries as Seen by Modern Revisionists Part I. Brine’s Life First, a few words of explanation. You might think there is more George Ella and our present contemporaries in this lecture than John Brine and his. This is because there is a good deal of John Brine in George Ella and most of our contemporaries positively hate John Brine so we must deal with them firmly but fairly or Brine has taught us in vain. So I am very blunt and particular in my evaluation of Brine’s reception today amongst our self-styled ‘Moderate Calvinists’. Nowadays, these moderately Reformed ministers who strive immoderately to muzzle us are rejecting every single doctrine of the Reformation, ridiculing and… Full Article
John Brine (1703-1765), and his Contemporaries as Seen by Modern Revisionists Part II: Brine’s Theology In his Treatise on Various Subjects Brine says his calling is to defend the doctrines and principles of our religion, and to vindicate the sacred Word of God. As time is less than our subject craves, I shall select a few of his defences and vindications relevant to today’s debate and deal with justification, duty-faith, redemption, regeneration and sanctification. Justification Biblical justification involves the full salvation of sinners, including election, union with Christ, adoption, forgiveness of sins, imputation, redemption, regeneration and sanctification. Today’s Pseudo- Reformed claim that… Full Article
Debates on government and discipline have often caused controversy and dissent in church-life. Our present fragmented Church is largely due to disagreement over church order with the added quarrels over the ordinances and eschatology. Doctrines rarely come into these debates unless it is argued that church orders are savingly relevant. Rather controversy often arises from arbitrary principles of organisation and administration. The first efforts to split the Reformed Church in England centred around whether one should kneel, stand, sit or walk by in procession at the communion service, or whether the minister should pray before or after the sermon, or whether one regarded baptism as a symbolic pointer to God’s mercies in Christ… Full Article
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
The so-called Banner of Truth’s witch-hunt against alleged Hyper-Calvinists continues with Maurice Roberts quite deceptive apology for their new, radical theology hidden behind the mask of ‘The Free Offer of the Gospel’ (Issue 503-4). Pastor Roberts has picked out all the raisins and nuts he could find in the new BOT cake, seeking to lure traditional BOT readers away from the old paths by these tempting morsels. He has, however, offered us nothing of the seasoning of gall and bitter herbs which makes his cake the most stomach-turning culinary event since the counter-reformation opened their evil-smelling kitchen as purveyors of false food. A little of this comes through in Roberts’ accusing all those who disagree with him… Full Article
The reasons for translating the Authorised Version The English Bible of 1611 was called the Authorised Version because it was translated by the authority of both King and National Church. Objectors to the AV have challenged this truth but the facts speak for themselves. This was undertaken by three major teams of great scholars and churchmen who had worked on it interactively for over five years at England’s three major think- tanks at Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge. The translators’ aim was for accuracy and clarity conveyed in a high literary style. This new style was nevertheless thought by the godly scholars to be attainable by all English-speaking people through good teaching and preaching. It was a style highly… Full Article
Francis Lambert and the Pan-European Reformation The Reformation in Europe around 1510-1530 was built on that of the preceding two centuries. In England Grosseteste, Bradwardine, Wycliffe and the Lollards had done great reforming work as also the Hussites, the Bohemian Brethren and the Waldensians on the Continent. There never was a century without Reformation somewhere in Europe and her influence on other countries. Such early reforms were prior to the denominational counter-Reformation which broke up the inter-Protestant and pan-European international revivals of true religion in those times. The break-up resulted in much Reformed knowledge being lost and inter-church renewal was forgotten where denominations replaced… Full Article
Part One: How things began The gospel of transforming grace versus the gospel of unchanging law There is much confusion concerning the alleged ‘puritanism’ of the 16th century non-Roman Catholic opposition to the Reformed Church of England and the Puritan Movement of the post-1640s and much has been written in recent years which has totally redefined, modified and radicalised what Puritanism is. Instead of describing those who campaigned for the Biblical doctrine of free grace, the term is now used of those who would curb true Puritanism and replace it by denominational legalism and external orders and disciplines set up as equally saving doctrines. Indeed, the term was widely used in the 17 century to… Full Article
Substituting Fable for Historical Truth A marked negative feature of common-grace gospellers is the scorn which they pour on men of God who emphasise that the whole gospel must be preached to the whole man as the Spirit leads. Thus they condemn such Christians of the past as Tobias Crisp, John Ryland Senior, William Romaine, William Huntington, John Gill, Augustus Toplady and Robert Hawker who would not dilute their gospel to suit what the common-grace gospellers call ‘man’s agency’. These men were called to preach Christ’s victorious crucifixion accomplishments, including great Bible truths such as the eternal union of Christ with His Bride; Christ’s faith and righteousness imputed to His people, election,… Full Article
