Vol 21 Issue 07

Negative. It will be understood that in undertaking the negative arguments in this debate it is only with great reluctance that I contribute my side. The work that we shall discuss has so endeared itself to the hearts of thousands upon thousands of God’s people; the throb of life resounding in it is so correspondent to the life that throbs in the life of the Christian; the true church of God, in what we hold to be its purest historical manifestation has, so consistently used it and so strongly defended it against the inpugnments of the enemies; and we as...

Affirmative. Three hundred years ago our Reformed fathers, in synodical session at Dordrecht, ordained that once each Sunday the sermon material should be based on a Lord’s Day of our Heidelberg Catechism instead of on the Word of God directly. Did they err in so decreeing? Was it wisdom on their part, to lead the church of many ages in this direction? Does the preaching of the Catechism provide the church of Christ with what she needs to have light on her way and to grow in the grace and knowledge of her Lord and Savior? Or does it deprive...

It is especially this subject that is the concern of every Christian who has first awakened to the glorious liberty that we have in Christ Jesus and who at the same time reads the perfect law of God. And it is this subject that was the main reason for establishing first of all, in a former article, the meaning of the term “law” as the apostle Paul used it in his epistle to the Galatians. In that article I sought to explain that in that epistle Paul did not use the term “law” in any instance with a reference to...

Divine Providence When speaking of “divine providence”, we do so in the accepted sense of the term. The word itself, as far as its literal meaning is concerned, is not applicable to God. “Pro-video” the Latin verb from which the word is derived, means “to see in advance”. It must be evident that we cannot say of God that He sees things in advance, since to do so would immediately suggest a dualism and would mean that there were a power that worked of itself, apart from God, and over against which God, seeing in advance what would be done...

As we saw, in the first three centuries of our Christian era, the Christians were intermittently persecuted. But in 323 Constantine the great, the first Christian occupant of the throne of the ceasars, became the sole ruler of the Roman world, and the church was everywhere free from its enemies. The church again had survived another baptism of fire. Thus was confirmed anew the speech that rose from the burning bush in whose flame of fire the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses—this speech, namely, that the church is indestructible, because of the indwelling Christ, increating in her by...

The last of the three judges raised up after Jephthah had died. Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord and was delivered into the hands of the Philistines forty years. Judging from the silence of the narrative, the people repented not during all this time. It means that the deliverance that the Lord now prepared in the person of Samson was unasked and, judging from the reactions to this judge’s deeds of valor in after years, also unwanted. But the perversity of Israel did not deter God. In Zorah, of the family of the Danites, dwelt Manoah...

To the exposition of the name Christ and the offices of the Savior, the Catechism appends a discussion of the name Christian, and that, too, with personal application to the confessing believer who throughout the Heidelberger is the respondent to the questions. “But why are thou called a Christian? Because I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus am partaker of his anointing; that so I may confess his name, and present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him: and also that with a free and good conscience I may fight against sin and Satan in this...

Dear Friends:— I cannot refrain from addressing a few lines to you personally. I am well aware, of course, that the Beacon Lights reaches you all, and is largely devoted to your interests. It is doing a good work, and it is doing it well. Nor do I mean to encroach upon its field of activity, compete with its work, or try to improve upon it. But I want you to feel that also the Standard Bearer has your interests at heart, and is constantly mindful of you. And I hope that the reading material it offers you may be...

I hope that the importance of the fact which I am trying to accentuate and bring to the foreground, namely, that not a single voice of protest was heard at the General Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States against the merger as proposed in the Plan of Union, is clearly understood. For this point is, indeed, of cardinal significance. Unless those brethren in the Evangelical and Reformed Church, formerly of the Reformed Church in the United States, that are dissatisfied with the doctrinal principles and church political setup of the united church, do not go back to...

Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. Psalm 75:1b Excelsior! Out of the depths of trouble and fear to the heights of praise and glorying in the God of our salvation. And that, too, on the wings of prayer! This ascent characterizes; the contents of many of the Old Testament Psalms. Many of them are occasioned by trouble and distress, are pressed from the heart of the poet by fear and anguish of soul because of the enemy that oppresses him, that surrounds him on every side, that makes it humanly...