Vol 29 Issue 02

REPORT OF CLASSIS EAST IN SESSION AT GRAND RAPIDS—OCTOBER 1, 1952 This meeting of Classis East was held at the First Church of Grand Rapids, Oct. 1, 1952.

I hesitate to publicly enter the arguments that have been carried on for some time in our Church papers, however, since we owe everything that we as Protestant Reformed Churches have received by God’s grace to our esteemed leaders, Rev. H. Hoeksema and Rev. G. M. Ophoff, it hurts me to see their writ­ings quoted time and again in support of the condi­tional theology coming out of the Netherlands from the Liberated Churches.

Dear Editor of The Standard Bearer: If room permits, then please publish the following in The Standard Bearer, thanking you in advance. BIASED AND SIDETRACKED

“The sword shall not depart from thy house”, the prophet had said in announcing to David how the Lord was to afflict him for his sins. But the prophecy would have to clarify itself—and that it would— in the process of its fulfillment. For it does not enter into details. The questions that it raises it leaves un­answered. But its essential idea is plain. Whereas David had availed himself of war to kill Uriah, war would not cease from his own house.

In our former article we directed the reader’s at­tention to two important factors as these we explicit­ly stated in the verses 1 and 2 of I Peter 1. These two factors were very briefly as follows:

The reader will remember that in the last issue we began to list and classify the courses which must be taught in a teacher training school. We began with the classification of strictly educational subjects, and had listed three, namely, the principles of education, the philosophy of education, and the psychology of education (or, at least, general psychology). We con­tinue at this point.

We are now discussing the Scriptural truth of God’s Providence. In our preceding article we called attention to the Confessional and Scriptural basis for this truth. We also noted that, although the term, providence, does not appear in holy writ with ref­erence to the Lord, the truth which is denoted by this term is everywhere taught in holy writ.

The Catechism, in Lord’s Day 33, Question and Answer 88, informs us that conversion consists of two parts, the mortification of the old, and the quick­ening of the new man. The question arises, therefore, first of all: what is meant by the terms the old man and the new man? And secondly, what is the morti­fication of the old man, and what is meant by the quickening of the new man?

We now come to the third part of that second para­graph in our Baptism Form.