Vol 30 Issue 19

Held on July 7, 8, 1954 at the Creston Protestant Reformed Church The meeting of the July Classis of Classis East of the Protestant Reformed Church is again a matter of history. What here follows is a brief report of the highlights of this Classical gathering of our Churches.

The Declaration of Principles Discerned.  Concordia reports in its June 17th issue some of the decisions of the schismatic Synod which met in the month of June in Grand Rapids, the Rev. J. Howerzyl being reporter. There are several items in this report on which we could comment, but we single out only one which we consider most revealing. We refer, of course, to this Synod’s rejection of tile Declaration of Principles. 

“If any minister, for the aforesaid or any other reason, is compelled to discontinue his service for a time, which shall not take place without the advice of the consistory, he shall nevertheless at all times be and remain subject to the call of the congregation.” Article 14 D.K.O. 

Article 10. The good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious election; which doth not consist herein, that out of all possible qualities and actions of men God has chosen some as a condition of salvation; but that he was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to adopt some certain persons as a peculiar people to himself, as it is written, “For the children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil,” etc., it was said (namely to Rebecca): “the elder shall serve the younger; as it is written, Jacob have I loved,...

In our preceding article we noted that the early Church Fathers attached a profound significance to the Lord’s Supper. In that article we quoted at length from the renowned Church Father, Cyprian. 

Although we have always been accused of overestimating the evil that those who engineered the Schism of ’53 have perpetrated, the court trial revealed that we underestimated rather than overestimated this evil.  So we wrote last time.  So it actually is. 

The word of God to which we will call your attention in this essay reads as follows: “If ye love me ye shall keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; for He dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” 

Hezekiah’s prayer of thanksgiving. Isaiah 37:9-20  The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick and was recovered from his sickness (vs. 9).  As an expression of his gratitude Hezekiah wrote this: prayer for the instruction and edification of all God’s believing people. The first section leads us into his great anguish of soul that he experienced at receiving the tiding that he must die (vss. 10-15). 

And again, in answer to Question 109, whether in the seventh commandment God forbids only adultery, and such like gross sins, the Catechism teaches: “Since both our body and soul are temples of the Holy Ghost, he commands us to preserve them pure and holy: therefore he forbids all unchaste actions, gestures, words, thoughts, desires, and whatever can entice men thereto.” All the emphasis of this Lord’s Day, therefore, falls on the Christian virtue of chastity, rather than on marriage and adultery. 

The Holy Spirit—His gifts and Powers, by Dr. John Owen. Published by Kregel, Grand Rapids, Mich. Price $3.95.