June 14, 2024

The Library of Christian Classics (26-Volumes) at the Internet Archive

I. Early Christian Fathers. Editor: Cyril C. Richardson, Washburn Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

II. Alexandrian Christianity. Editors: Henry Chadwick, Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford; J. E. L. Oulton, late Professor of Divinity, Trinity College, Dublin. (1, 2, 3)

III. Christology of the Later Fathers. Editor: Edward Rochie Hardy, Professor of Church History, Berkeley Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

IV. Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa. Editor: William Telfer, formerly Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge. (1)

V. Early Latin Theology. Editor: S. L. Greenslade, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, University of Oxford. (1, 2)

VI. Augustine: Earlier Writings. Editor: J. H. S. Burleigh, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh, and Principal of New College, Edinburgh. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

VII. Augustine: Confessions and Enchiridion. Editor: Albert Cook Outler, Professor of Theology, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. (1, 2)

VIII. Augustine: Later Works. Editor: John Burnaby, Fellow of Trinity College and formerly Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge. (1, 2, 3)

IX. Early Medieval Theology. Editor: George E. McCracken, Professor of Classical Languages, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. (1, 2)

X. A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham. Editor: Eugene R. Fairweather, Associate Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Ethics, Trinity College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. (1, 2, 3)

XI. Nature and Grace: Selections from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Editor: A. M. Fairweather, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh. (1, 2, 3)

XII. Western Asceticism. Editor: Owen Chadwick, Master of Selwyn College and Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Cambridge. (1, 2, 3)

XIII. Late Medieval Mysticism. Editor: Ray C. Petry, Professor of Church History, The Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. (1, 2)

XIV. Advocates of Reform: From Wyclif to Erasmus. Editor: Matthew Spinka, Waldo Professor Emeritus of Church History, Hartford Theological Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

XV. Luther: Lectures on Romans. Editor: Wilhelm Pauck, Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (1, 2, 3)

XVI. Luther: Early Theological Works. Editor: James Atkinson, Canon Theologian of Leicester. (1, 2, 3, 4)

XVII. Luther and Erasmus on Free Will. Editor: E. Gordon Rupp, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Manchester. (1, 2, 3)

XVIII. Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. Editor: Theodore G. Tappert, Schieren Professor of the Synod of New York and New England, Church History, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (1, 2, 3)

XIX. Melanchthon and Bucer. Editor: Wilhelm Pauck, Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (1, 2)

XX. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion—Volume 1. Editor: John T. McNeil, Auburn Professor Emeritus of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (1, 2)

XXI. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion—Volume 2. Editor: John T. McNeill, Auburn Professor Emeritus of Church History, Union Theological Seminary, New York. (1, 2)

XXII. Calvin: Theological Treatises. Editor: J. K. S. Reid, Professor of Church Dogmatics, University of Aberdeen. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

XXIII. Calvin: Commentaries. Editor: Joseph Haroutunian, Professor of Systematic Theology, The Divinity School, University of Chicago. (1, 2, 3)

XXIV. Zwingli and Bullinger. Editor: G. W. Bromiley, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

XXV. Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Editors: George Huntston Williams, Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History, The Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; ANGEL M. MERGAL, Professor of Theology, Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

XXVI. English Reformers. Editor: T. H. L. Parker, Vicar of Oakington, Cambridge, England. (1)

June 13, 2024

John Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: The 12-Volume Torrance Edition at the Internet Archive

1. Calvin, John. A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. Volume 1. Trans. A. W. Morrison. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980. (12, 3)

2. Calvin, John. A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. Volume 2. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975. (12)

3. Calvin, John. A Harmony of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke. Volume 3. And the Epistles of James and Jude. Trans. A. W. Morrison. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995. (1, 2)

4. Calvin, John. The Gospel According to St John 1–10. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries 20. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959. (1, 2)

5. Calvin, John. The Gospel According to St John 11–21. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961. (1)

6. Calvin, John. The Acts of the Apostles 1–13. Trans. John W. Fraser and W. J. G. McDonald. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1965. (1)

7. Calvin, John. The Acts of the Apostles 14–28. Trans. John W. Fraser. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995. (1, 2)

8. Calvin, John. The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and to the Thessalonians. Trans. Ross MacKenzie. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Edinburgh : Saint Andrew Press, 1961. (1)

9. Calvin, John. The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Trans. John W. Fraser. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1960. (1, 2)

10. Calvin, John. The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon. Trans. T. A. Smail. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Calvin’s Commentaries. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964. (1)

11. Calvin, John. The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1965. (1)

12. Calvin, John. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St Peter. Trans. William B. Johnston. Eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963. (1, 2)

May 27, 2024

Thomas Lye (1621–1684) on the Amiable Christ Begging Sinners to Come to Him

(2.) If the wind do not, let us see whether the sun cannot, prevail. Poor, self-destroying caitiff, look yonder on that amiable Jesus Christ, for a marriage between whom and thy precious soul I am now wooing. Do but observe his condescending willingness to be united to thee.—That great Ahasuerus courts his own captive Esther. The Potter makes suit to his own clay; woos thee, though he wants thee not; is infinitely happy without thee, yet is not, cannot be, satisfied but with thee. Hark how he commands, entreats, begs thee to be reconciled; (2 Cor. 5:20;) swears, and pawns his life upon it, that he desires not thy death; (Ezek. 33:11;) seals this his oath with his blood. And if, after all this, thou art fond of thine own damnation, and hadst rather be at an agreement with hell than with him; see how the brinish tears trickle down his cheeks: (Luke 19:41, 42:) he weeps for thee, that dost not, wilt not, weep for thyself. Nay, after all this obdurate obstinacy, [he] is resolved still to “wait, that he may be gracious;” (Isai. 30:18;) stands yet, and knocks, though his head be wet with rain, and his locks with the dew of the night. (Canticles 5:2.) Fain he would have thee “open the door,” that he may come in and sup with thee, and thou with him. (Rev. 3:20.)
Thomas Lye, “Sermon XVIII: The True Believer’s Union with Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 6:17),” in Puritan Sermons (1659–1689): Being the Morning Exercises at Cripplegate, 6 vols., ed. Samuel Annesley, 5th ed. (London: Printed for Thomas Tegg, 1844–1845; repr., Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1981), 5:299–300.

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All of the men within the broadly Augustinian tradition who use the metaphor of God begging that I have documented so far are the following:

Augustine (Early Church Father), Hugh Latimer (Early English Reformer), Isaac Ambrose (Puritan), Thomas Brooks (Puritan), Daniel Burgess (Puritan), Jeremiah Burroughs (Westminster divine), Richard Baxter (Puritan), Joseph Caryl (Westminster divine), Thomas Case (Puritan), Stephen Charnock (Puritan), John Collinges (Puritan), John Flavel (Puritan), Theophilus Gale (Puritan), William Gearing (Puritan), Andrew Gray (Puritan), William Gurnall (Puritan), Robert Harris (Westminster divine), Nathaniel Heywoood (Puritan), Thomas Larkham (Puritan), Thomas Lye (Puritan), Thomas Manton (Puritan), John Murcot (Puritan), George Newton (Puritan), John Oldfield (Puritan), Anthony Palmer (Puritan), Edward Reynolds (Westminster divine), John Richardson (Puritan), Samuel Rutherford (Westminster divine), John Shower (Puritan), Richard Sibbes (Puritan), Sydrach Simpson (Westminster divine), William Strong (Westminster divine), George Swinnock (Puritan), John Trapp (Puritan), Ralph Venning (Puritan), Nathaniel Vincent (Puritan), Thomas Watson (Puritan), Daniel Williams (Puritan), Samuel Willard, Benjamin Wadsworth, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Samuel Davies, Ralph Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Walter Chantry, Erroll Hulse, John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Paul Washer, and Fred Zaspel.

Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) on Jesus’s Wish and Love for Reprobate Jerusalem

According to a delicate and beautiful observation of [Herman] Witsius, in his “doctrine of the covenants,” we can be quite confident that even Jesus, before he entered the way to Gethsemane, according to his human inclination, had cherished the very same wish in his soul. He loved his neighbor as himself without distinction. His weeping over the lost and reprobate Jerusalem shows it. According to what scripture reveals to us, God does not weep over the lost that perish for eternity, and thus we know that Jesus’ weeping was according to his human inclination.1

Add to this that also the holy apostles and prophets, as men acting on human feelings, certainly wept those tears with their Jesus, as we have, over reprobate Jerusalem.
_______________
1. [Kuyper’s assertion here is most unfortunate. The reference is undoubtedly to Luke 19:41. Was Jesus’ human nature at odds with his divine nature? Besides, did not Jesus in holy anger with the Jews declare God’s judgments upon the city of Jerusalem for their hindering of the progress of the gospel? (Matt. 23:37ff.). In addition, Jesus’ tears were for God’s honor and goodness, which had been so wickedly rejected and despised by Jerusalem. They were tears of righteous indignation. That is why he immediately expresses judgments upon the city and its inhabitants (Luke 19:42ff.).]
Abraham Kuyper, Particular Grace: A Defense of God’s Sovereignty in Salvation, ed. and trans. Marvin Kamps (Grandville, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2001), 236–37.

Note:  It is interesting to note that Kuyper, following Witsius (see below), could not help but see Jesus wishing the salvation of Jerusalem out of love for them. But the Protestant Reformed Church hyper-Calvinist editor, Kamps, in a footnote, understandably faults him for his strong dichotomy between Jesus’s human nature and divine nature. It is, however, bizarre that Kamps refers to Jesus’s tears as “tears of righteous indignation,” as if they were not also indicative of his benevolent sorrow over perishing sinners.

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Witsius wrote:
III. 2dly, That Christ, as man, subject to the law of love, did in a holy manner love all men without distinction, as his neighbours, heartily wished them well, seriously lamented the ruin of those that perished, whom yet, as God, he knew were reprobates, and for whom, as Mediator, he had not engaged. Yet he submitted this human affection, commanded by the law, common to us and to Christ, to the divine appointment, and restricted it to the purpose of the decreeing will of God; in this manner proving the holiness of his will, in the glorifying of the divine counsel, and in due subjection thereunto. This appears from the tears which Christ, as man, shed over the calamities that were coming upon that abandoned city, which had partly slain and partly loaded with contempt and ignominy the Prophets;—nay, had been the only butchery in the whole world for them; and was at length, by a most horrid parricide, to devote itself, with its unhappy posterity, to the lasting curse of God, Luke 19:41.
Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending a Complete Body of Divinity, 2 vols., trans. William Crookshank (London: T. Tegg & Son, 1837), 1:226; De œconomia fœderum Dei cum hominibus libri quatuor, 2.9.3.

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Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920) on the Indiscriminate Gospel Proclamation and Christ’s Ransom as “Sufficient for You”

It [the gopsel] is to be preached with a ‘sufficient for you,’ not only with respect to the elect of the congregation, but in regard to every human individual insofar as he also would be saved through that ransom if he could only find it in his sinful heart to accept it.
Abraham Kuyper, Particular Grace: A Defense of God’s Sovereignty in Salvation, trans. Marvin Kamps (Grandville, MI: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 2001), 236; italics original.

Note: Even though Kuyper was a high Calvinist, he knew from the scriptures that preachers are to tell lost audiences that Christ’s ransom is sufficient for them all. When preachers tell all in a lost audience that “Christ died for you,” they are really just saying “Christ’s death is God’s intended sufficient provision for you to be saved.” It follows, then, that if that sense is the intended meaning, it is quite appropriate to tell all “Christ died for you [all].” Whoever says otherwise is, by implication, whether intentionally or unintentionally, denying that Christ’s death was intended by God to be sufficient for all mankind.

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