To Thirst For the Living God

"My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" -- King David

"There is in true grace an infinite circle: a man by thirsting receives, and receiving thirsts for more." -- Thomas Shepard

"O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." -- King David

"I thirst for thirstiness; I weep for tears." -- Thomas Gataker

"I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land." -- King David

"The Samaritan woman at the well found the Lord thirsting, and by him thirsting, she was filled. She first found him thirsting in order that he might drink from her faith. And when he was on the cross, he said, "I thirst," although they did not give him that for which he was thirsting. For he was thirsting for them." -- Augustine

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." -- Isaiah

"We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee stil:
We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill." -- Bernard of Clairvaux

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." -- The Lord Jesus

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still." -- A.W. Tozer

"But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." -- The Lord Jesus

"With meat and drink indeed I'm blest,
Yet feed on hunger, drink on thirst.
My hunger brings a plenteous store,
My plenty makes me hunger more." -- Ralph Erskine

Evening Prayer

"Laurent Drelincourt [(1626-1681)], pastor of the Église Réformée in Niort and author of the Sonnets Chrétiens (first edition 1677) was the last major French Calvinist poet to be published before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 scattered the Huguenots to the four corners of the earth. His collection of 160 sonnets was immediately and lastingly popular." So says, Jane McKee, "A Passion for the Scriptures: The Biblical Sonnets of Laurent Drelincourt," in Graham Gargett, ed., Heroism and Passion in Literature: Studies in Honour of Moya Longstaffe, p. 67. The son of Charles Drelincourt (1595-1669), French Huguenot divine, Laurent's poetry, while well-regarded among men of letters and men of faith, has only slightly been translated into English. At my request, one of his sonnets (as well as Drelincourt's associated footnotes) has been translated for this blog by the Rev. Thomas G. Reid, Jr., Assistant Professor, Librarian and Registrar at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife also kindly assisting in the translation. The source text is derived from Sonnets chrétiens sur divers sujets (1766 ed.), p. 133:

Evening Prayer

Indeed, concerning work, your Fatherly goodnesses
cause the Light to reign over our earthly sojourn.
And, by your holy laws, the night comes, in its turn,
to bring rest, under the shadow of its wings.

But, when black sleep must cover my eyelids, 5
open upon me, my God, the eyes of Your love,
dismiss my sins, be my star and my day,
and let your holy angels be my faithful protectors.

The day, constantly swallowed up by the night,
Incessantly instructs me about the end of my life, 10
and I must, day and night, accept it in holiness.

May death, for me, not be anything but a sweet sleep,
where I, my soul between your arms, and my body in the dust,
await the reviving of the eternal morning.

5. “Sleep is the state between life and death” (Aristotle).
7. “By sin, we are shadows, and sin rings in our souls at night, which keeps us from seeing God,” St. Augustine says.
12. “Pagans call sleep the brother of death. And ancient Christians term death ‘sleep,’ in the peace of God and His Christ."
14. “Death is the night, and the resurrection will be the morning” (St. Augustine).

A Prayer and Half A Prayer For Sanctification

Augustine, Confessions 8.7.17:

But now, the more ardently I loved those whose healthful affections I heard of, that they had resigned themselves wholly to Thee to be cured, the more did I abhor myself, when compared with them. For many of my years (some twelve) had now run out with me since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of Cicero's Hortensius, I was stirred to an earnest love of wisdom; and still I was deferring to reject mere earthly felicity, and give myself to search out that, whereof not the finding only, but the very search, was to be preferred to the treasures and kingdoms of the world, though already found, and to the pleasures of the body, though spread around me at my will. But I wretched, most wretched, in the very commencement of my early youth, had begged chastity of Thee, and said, "Give me chastity and continency, only not yet." For I feared lest Thou shouldest hear me soon, and soon cure me of the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to have satisfied, rather than extinguished. And I had wandered through crooked ways in a sacrilegious superstition, not indeed assured thereof, but as preferring it to the others which I did not seek religiously, but opposed maliciously.

Elizabeth S. Rowe, Devout Exercises of the Heart, in Meditation and Soliloquy, Prayer and Praise XXV:

A Prayer for Speedy Sanctification

O Lord God, great and holy, all-sufficient and full of grace if thou shouldst bid me form a wish, and take whatsoever in heaven or in earth I had to ask it should not be the kingdoms of this world, nor the crowns of princes; no nor should it be the wreaths of martyrs nor the thrones of archangels; my request is to be made holy: this is my highest concern. Rectify the disorder sin has made in my soul, and renew thy image there; let me be satisfied with thy likeness. Thou hast encompassed my path with mercy in all other respects, and I am discontented with nothing but my own heart, because it is so unlike the image of thy holiness, and so unfit for thy immediate presence. 

Permit me to be importunate here, O blessed God, and grant me the importunity of my wishes; let me be favoured with a gracious and speedy answer, for I am dying while I am speaking; the very breath with which I am calling upon thee is carrying away part of my life! this tongue that is now invoking thee, must shortly be silent in the grave; these knees, that are bent to pay thee homage, and these hands that are now lifted to the most high God for mercy, must shortly be mouldering to their original dust: these eyes will soon be closed in death, which are now looking up to thy throne for a blessing. O prevent the flying hours with thy mercy, and let thy favour outstrip the hasty moments.

Thou art unchanged, while rolling ages pass along; but I am decaying with every breath I draw; my whole allotted time to prepare for heaven, is but a point compared with thy infinite duration. The shortness and vanity of my present being, and the importance of my eternal concerns, join together to demand my utmost solicitude, and give wings to my warmest wishes. -- Before I can utter all my present desires, the hasty opportunity perhaps is gone, the golden minute vanished, and the season of mercy has taken its everlasting flight.

O God of ages! hear me speedily and grant my request while I am yet speaking; my frail existence will admit of no delay; answer me according to the shortness of my duration, and the exigence of my circumstances. -- My business, of high importance as it is, yet is limited to the present now, the passing moment; for all the powers on earth cannot promise me the next. 

Let not my pressing importunity, therefore, offend thee; my happiness, my everlasting happiness, my whole being is concerned in my success: as much as the enjoyment of God himself is worth, is at stake.

Thou knowest, O Lord, what qualifications will fit me to behold thee; thou knowest in what I am defective; thou canst prepare my soul in an instant to enter into thy holy habitation. I breathe now, but the next moment may be death, let not that fatal moment come before I am prepared. -- The same creating voice that said, "Let there be light, and there was light," can in the same manner, purify and adorn my soul, and make me fit for thy own presence; and my soul longs to be thus purified and adorned. O Lord, delay not, for every moment's interval is a loss to me, and may be a loss unspeakable and irreparable. -- Thy delay cannot be the least advantage to thee; thy power and thy clemency are as full at this present instant as they will be the next, and my time as fleeting, and my wants as pressing.

Remember, O eternal God, my lost time is forever lost, and my wasted hours will never return, my neglected opportunities can never be recalled; to me they are gone forever, and cannot be improved; but thou canst change my sinful soul into holiness by a word, and set me now in the way to everlasting improvement.

O let not the Spirit of God restrain itself, but bless me according to the fulness of thy own being, according to the riches of thy grace in CHRIST JESUS, according to thy infinite, inconceivable love, manifested in that glorious gift of thy beloved Son, wherein the fulness of thy Godhead was contained; it is through his merit and mediation I humbly wait for all the unbounded blessings I want or ask for.

An Unjust Law is No Law at All

Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio (On the Free Choice of the Will) 1.5.11:

A law which is not just does not seem to me to be a law.

Ibid, 1.6.15:

...nothing in the temporal law is just and legitimate which human beings have not derived from eternal law.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1-2.96.4:

I answer that, Laws framed by man are either just or unjust. If they be just, they have the power of binding in conscience, from the eternal law whence they are derived, according to Proverbs 8:15: "By Me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things." Now laws are said to be just, both from the end, when, to wit, they are ordained to the common good--and from their author, that is to say, when the law that is made does not exceed the power of the lawgiver--and from their form, when, to wit, burdens are laid on the subjects, according to an equality of proportion and with a view to the common good. For, since one man is a part of the community, each man in all that he is and has, belongs to the community; just as a part, in all that it is, belongs to the whole; wherefore nature inflicts a loss on the part, in order to save the whole: so that on this account, such laws as these, which impose proportionate burdens, are just and binding in conscience, and are legal laws.

On the other hand laws may be unjust in two ways: first, by being contrary to human good, through being opposed to the things mentioned above--either in respect of the end, as when an authority imposes on his subjects burdensome laws, conducive, not to the common good, but rather to his own cupidity or vainglory--or in respect of the author, as when a man makes a law that goes beyond the power committed to him--or in respect of the form, as when burdens are imposed unequally on the community, although with a view to the common good. The like are acts of violence rather than laws; because, as Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 5), "a law that is not just, seems to be no law at all." Wherefore such laws do not bind in conscience, except perhaps in order to avoid scandal or disturbance, for which cause a man should even yield his right, according to Matthew 5:40-41: "If a man . . . take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him; and whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two."

Secondly, laws may be unjust through being opposed to the Divine good: such are the laws of tyrants inducing to idolatry, or to anything else contrary to the Divine law: and laws of this kind must nowise be observed, because, as stated in Acts 5:29, "we ought to obey God rather than man."

Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter From a Birmingham Jail":

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

Matthew Henry on Psalm 94.20 ("Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?"):

It is a pity that ever a throne, which should be a terror to evil-doers and a protection and praise to those that do well, should be the seat and shelter of iniquity. That is a throne of iniquity which by the policy of its council frames mischief, and by its sovereignty enacts it and turns it into a law. Iniquity is daring enough even when human laws are against it, which often prove too weak to give an effectual check to it; but how insolent, how mischievous, is it when it is backed by a law! Iniquity is not the better, but much the worse, for being enacted by law; nor will it excuse those that practise it to say that they did but do as they were bidden. These workers of iniquity, having framed mischief by a law, take care to see the law executed; for they gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, who dare not keep the statutes of Omri nor the law of the house of Ahab; and they condemn the innocent blood for violating their decrees. See an instance in Daniel's enemies; they framed mischief by a law when the obtained an impious edict against prayer (Dan. vi. 7), and, when Daniel would not obey it, they assembled together against him (v. 11) and condemned his innocent blood to the lions.

A Prayer for Reformation of Life

Augustine, The Meditations of St. Augustine, pp. 9-11:

A Prayer for Reformation of Life

Inspire my soul, O Lord my God, with a holy desire of thee, my chief, my only good, that I may so earnestly desire as diligently to seek thee, so successfully seek as to be happy in finding thee; make me so sensible of that happiness in finding, as most passionately to love thee; so effectually to express that love, as to make some amends for my past wickedness, by hating and forsaking my former evil courses, and entering upon a conversation exemplarily pious for the time to come.

Give me, dear God, hearty repentance, an humble and contrite spirit; make my eyes a fountain of tears, and my hands liberal dispensers of alms, and unwearied instruments of good works. Thou art my King; reign absolute in my heart, subdue and expel thence all rebellious passions; quench all the impure burnings of fleshly lusts, and kindle in it the bright fire of thy love.

Thou art my Redeemer, beat down and drive out the spirit of pride, and impart to me, in much mercy, the treasure of thy own unexampled humility and wonderful condescension.

Thou art my Saviour, take from me the rage of anger; and arm, I beseech thee, with the shield of patience.

Thou art my Creator, root out from me all that rancour and malice whereby my nature is corrupted; and implant in me all that sweetness and gentleness of temper, which may render me a man made in thy own image, and after the likeness of thy own Divine goodness.

Thou [art] my most merciful and indulgent Father, O grant thy own child those best of gifts; a firm and right faith, a stedfast and well-grounded hope, and a never-failing charity.

O my director and governor, turn away from me, I beseech thee, vanity and filthiness of mind, a wandering heart, a scurrilous tongue, a proud look, a gluttonous belly; preserve me from the venom of slander and detraction, from the itch of curiosity, from the thirst of covetousness, ambition and vain-glory; from the deceits of hypocrisy, the secret poison of flattery; from contempt of the poor, and oppression of the helpless; from the canker of envy, the fever of avarice, and the pestilential disease of blasphemy and prophaneness.

Prune away my superfluity of naughtiness, and purge me from all manner of injustice, rashness, and obstinancy; from impatience, blindness of heart, and cruelty of disposition.

Incline me to obey that which is good, and to comply with wholesome advice; enable me to bridle my tongue, and to contain my hands from wrong and robbery. Suffer me not to insult the poor, to defame the innocent, to despise my inferiors, to treat my servants with severity and scorn, to fail in due affection towards my friends and relations, or in kindness and compassion towards my neighbors and acquaintance.

O my God, thou fountain of mercy, I beg thee, for the sake of the Son of thy love, dispose me to the love and practice of kindness and mercy; that I may have a tender fellow-feeling of my brethren's afflictions; and apply myself cheerfully to rectify their mistakes, to relieve their miseries, to supply their wants, to comfort their sorrows; to assist the oppressed, to right the injured, to sustain the needy, to cherish the dejected, to release them that are indebted to me, to pardon them that have offended me, to love them that hate me, to render good for evil, to despise none, but pay all due respect to every man. Give me grace to imitate those that live well, to avoid and beware of them that do ill; to follow all manner of virtue, and utterly abandon and detect all sort of vice; make me patient in adversity, and moderate in prosperity. Set a watch before my mouth, and keep the door of my lips: (Ps. cxli. 3) Wean my affections from things below, and let them be eager and fixed upon heaven and heavenly things.

Retractions

Augustine, The Retractions, pp. 3-4:

For a long time I have been thinking about and planning to do something which I, with God's assistance, am now undertaking because I do not think it should be postponed: with a kind of judicial severity, I am reviewing my works -- books, letters, and sermons -- and, as it were, with the pen of a censor, I am indicating what dissatisfies me....In this case, however, I had to consider also the pronouncement of the Apostle when he says: "If we judged ourselves, we should not be judged by the Lord" [1 Cor. 11.31]. The following words of Scripture, too, terrify me very much: "In a multitude of words, you shall not avoid sin" [Prov. 10.19], not because I have written a great deal, or even because many things which I did not dictate, but which I said, were put into writing -- for when necessary things are said, God forbid that this be considered wordiness, no matter how prolix or loquacious it may be -- but I fear this pronouncement of Holy Scripture because, indeed, without a doubt, many things can be collected from my numerous disputations which, if not false, yet may certainly seem or even be proved unnecessary. In truth, which one of Christ's own faithful has He not terrified when He says: "Of every idle word men speak, they shall give account on the day of judgment" [Matt. 12.36]? Wherefore His Apostle James also says: "Let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak" [James 1.19]; and in another place: "Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that you will receive a greater judgment. For in many things we all offend. If anyone does not offend in word, he is a perfect man" [James 3.1-2]. I do not claim this perfection for myself even now when I am old, and even less when, in early manhood, I had begun to write or to speak to the people, and so much authority was attributed to me that, whenever it was necessary for someone to speak to the people and I was present, I was seldom allowed to be silent and to listen to others and to be "swift to hear but slow to speak" [James 1.19]. Hence, it remains for me to judge myself before the sole Teacher who judgments of my offenses I desire to avoid.

Iain Murray, The Life of John Murray, p. 100:

At dinner one night, a student who was himself to be a professor of Old Testament, once asked [John Murray] why he had not written more, earlier in his career. For several minutes Murray continued with his meal and then said quite abruptly, 'Because I did not want to have to withdraw what I wrote!'

Walk Worthy of the Name

John Woolton, The Christian Manual: or, Of the Life and Manners of True Christians, p. 7-8:

And as the body endued with a living and reasonable soul receiveth, feeleth, and practiseth the actions thereof; so he that is engraffed in Christ, and is his member, cannot choose but be partaker of his Spirit, virtue, and holiness. Whereupon the apostolic and catholic faith nameth the body or society of the church "the communion of saints:" plainly importing thereby, that those men only appertain to that society, who meditate and study how they may live well, and labour with all their might, that they may be that whereunto the apostle exhorteth the Thessalonians, "altogether sanctified, perfect in spirit, and such as may be blameless against the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." And all those that are otherwise affected, and frame not their life to that end, and yet desire to be named Christians, they dissent from themselves, and with their life argue their tongue of untruth and falsehood.

Moreover, a man's profession is not so much to be weighed by his tongue and talk, as by his deeds and life. The apostle speaketh of such imposters, saying: "They that profess themself to know God, but with their deeds they deny him." and that holy martyr St Cyprian hath a fine saying, that "the testimony of man's life is more effectual than that of his tongue; and that works have after a sort their lively speech and eloquence, albeit the tongue be silent, and move never a deal." And he that professeth with his mouth, and walketh contrary in his life, may right well be compared to an unwise builder, who layeth on mortar with the one hand, and pulleth down stones with the other. Of such kind of builders our Lord and master Christ speaketh after this manner: "Therefore whosoever heareth my sayings and doth them, I will liken him to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, because it was grounded upon a rock. And every one that heareth of me these sayings, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it," &c. St Augustine, speaking against carnal and lip-gospellers, saith thus: "In vain doth he assume the name of Christ, that followeth not Christ. To what purpose is it, if thou be called that which thou art not, and to usurp a strange name? But if thou delight in that name, then do those things which appertain to Christianity, and then thou mayest with good cause challenge the name of a Christian."

Singing Worthily

John Calvin wrote in his 1542 epistle to the reader of the Genevan psalter that:

Now what Saint Augustine says is true, that no one is able to sing things worthy of God unless he has received them from him. Wherefore, when we have looked thoroughly everywhere and searched high and low, we shall find no better songs nor more appropriate for the purpose than the Psalms of David, which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him. And furthermore, when we sing them, we are certain that God puts the words in our mouths, as if he himself were singing in us to exalt his glory.

Now it may be inquired, Where did Augustine say that? Hughes Oliphant Old, The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship, pp. 262-263, points us to Augustine's commentary on Psalm 35, where we find these remarks on the first verse:

The psalm belongs to Him: our heart is His, let our tongue sing appropriate things to Him: if only he shall deign to give that which the tongue should sing. No one sings to Him except he who would receive from Him what he should be able to sing. Finally we are able to sing in this way because He has spoken by his Spirit through the Prophet and in these words we recognize Him also.

Weeping for Joy With David

Augustine, speaking of his first encounter with Ambrosian Psalmody in Milan, writes, Confessions 10.50:

50. On the other hand, when I avoid very earnestly this kind of deception, I err out of too great austerity. Sometimes I go to the point of wishing that all the melodies of the pleasant songs to which David’s Psalter is adapted should be banished both from my ears and from those of the Church itself. In this mood, the safer way seemed to me the one I remember was once related to me concerning Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who required the readers of the psalm to use so slight an inflection of the voice that it was more like speaking than singing.

However, when I call to mind the tears I shed at the songs of thy Church at the outset of my recovered faith, and how even now I am moved, not by the singing but by what is sung (when they are sung with a clear and skillfully modulated voice), I then come to acknowledge the great utility of this custom. Thus I vacillate between dangerous pleasure and healthful exercise. I am inclined--though I pronounce no irrevocable opinion on the subject--to approve of the use of singing in the church, so that by the delights of the ear the weaker minds may be stimulated to a devotional mood. Yet when it happens that I am more moved by the singing than by what is sung, I confess myself to have sinned wickedly, and then I would rather not have heard the singing. See now what a condition I am in! Weep with me, and weep for me, those of you who can so control your inward feelings that good results always come forth. As for you who do not act this way at all, such things do not concern you. But do thou, O Lord, my God, give ear; look and see, and have mercy upon me; and heal me--thou, in whose sight I am become an enigma to myself; this itself is my weakness.

Howard L. Rice & James C. Huffstutler, Reformed Worship, pp. 103-104:

What were the effects or impact of Calvin's psalm singing? A letter from a young man from Antwerp, who had sought refuge in Strasbourg during Easter week of 1545, indicates what it meant for some to hear the Psalms sung in their own language:

On Sundays...we sing a psalm of David or some other prayer taken from the New Testament. The psalm or prayer is sung by everyone together, men as well as women, with a beautiful unanimity, which is something beautiful to behold. For you must understand that each one has music book in his hand; that is why they cannot lose touch with one another. Never did I think that it could be as pleasing and delightful as it is. For five or six days at first, as I looked upon this little company, exiled from countries everywhere for having upheld the honor of God and His gospel, I would begin to weep, not at all from sadness, but from joy at hearing them sing so heartily, and, as they sang, giving thanks to the Lord that he had led them to a place where His name is honored and glorified. No one could believe the joy which one experiences when one is singing the praises and wonders of the Lord in the mother tongue as one sings them here.

MHCC 37: National Providences

Matthew Henry, Preface to his Commentary, Vol. 2:

That great man archbishop Tillotson (Vol. 1. Serm. 3. on Prov. xiv. 34) suggests that though, as to particular persons, the providences of God are promiscuously administered in this world, because there is another world of rewards and punishments for them, yet it is not so with nations as such, but national virtues are ordinarily rewarded with temporal blessings and national sins punished with temporal judgments, because, as he says, public bodies and communities of men, as such, can be rewarded and punished only in this world, for in the next they will all be dissolved.

John Tillotson, The Works of the Most Reverend John Tillotson, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Vol. 1 (Sermon 3 on Prov. 14.34), pp. 96-97:

Indeed as to particular persons, the providences of God are many times promiscuously administered in this world; so that no man can certainly conclude God's love or hatred to any person, by any thing that befals him in this life. But God does not deal thus with nations. Because publick bodies and communities of men, as such, can only be rewarded and punished in this world. For in the next, all those publick societies and combinations wherein men are now linked together under several governments, shall be dissolved. God will not then reward or punish nations, as nations; but every man shall then give an account of himself to God, and receive his own reward, and bear his own burthen. For although God account it no disparagement to his justice to let particular good men suffer in this world, and pass "through many tribulations into the kingdom of God," because there is another day coming which will be a more proper season of reward; yet in the usual course of his providence he recompenseth religious and virtuous nations with temporal blessings and prosperity. For which reason St. Austin tells us, that the mighty success and long prosperity of the Romans was a reward given them by God for their eminent justice and temperance, and other virtues. And on the other hand, God many times suffers the most grievous sins of particular persons to go unpunished in this world, because he knows that his justice will have another and better opportunity to meet and reckon with them. But the general and crying sins of a nation cannot hope to escape publick judgments, unless they be prevented by a general repentance. God may defer his judgments for a time, and give a people a longer space of repentance, he may stay till the iniquities of a nation be full, but sooner or later they have reason to expect his vengeance. And usually the longer punishment is delayed it is the heavier when it comes.

Now all this is very reasonable, because this world is the only season for national punishments. And indeed they are in a great degree necessary for the present vindication of the honour and majesty of the divine laws, and to give some check to the overflowing of wickendess. Publick judgments are the banks and shores upon which God breaks the insolency of sinners, and stays their proud waves. And though among men the multitude of offenders be many times a cause of impunity, because of the weakness of human governments, which are glad to spare where they are not strong enough to punish, yet in the government of God, things are quite otherwise. No combination of sinners is too hard for him, and the greater and more numerous the offenders are, the more his justice is concern'd to vindicate the affront. However God may pass by single sinners in this world, yet when a nation combines against him, "when hand joins in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished."

The Forgotten 97 Theses

W. Robert Godfrey, Insights Into Luther, Calvin, and the Confessions: Reformation Sketches, pp. 35-38:

The year 1992 was the 475th anniversary of Luther's nailing of the 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg. The posting of those theses on October 31, 1517, is usually looked to as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Luther's attack on aspects of the sale of indulgences captured the attention of many people -- common and noble -- who were tired of the greed and corruption in the church of their day. Through the 95 Theses Luther became a public figure and the leader of the Reformation.

The 95 Theses, however, were not the only theses that Luther wrote in 1517. In September of that year Luther wrote 97 theses that are largely forgotten but are known to historians as the Disputations Against Scholastic Theology. These 97 theses are much more interesting and important from a theological point of view than the 95 Theses.

In his 97 theses Luther shows how critical he had become of central aspects of medieval theology and how he had become convinced that the church needed more of Augustine's theology and less of Aristotle's.

Luther's first thesis must have stunned many who heard it: "To say that Augustine exaggerates in speaking against heretics is to say that Augustine tells lies almost everywhere." Augustine's teaching on sin, grace, and predestination was so clear and uncompromising and Augustine's authority as a theologian was so great that the only way that medieval theologians could disagree with him was to declare that he had exaggerated some of his teachings in confronting heretics. This softening of Augustine had been widely accepted in the Middle Ages. For Luther to attack this approach was remarkable.

This attack reflected the extent to which Luther's theology had become Augustinian. As we read on in the theses, we see Luther's specific concerns to maintain the pure Augustinian heritage. His first concern was with the nature of the will in fallen people. Luther stresses that the human will is in bondage to a corrupt nature and can do only evil. "4. It is therefore true that man, being a bad tree, can only will and do evil." The desperate condition of man is summarized: "17. Man is by nature unable to want God to be God. Indeed, he himself wants to be God."

Luther stresses that only grace can rescue humanity from its fallen condition. Man can do nothing to prepare himself for grace. Only God's electing love can prepare man for grace. "29. The best and infallible preparation for grace and the sole disposition toward grace is the eternal election and predestination of God." Luther had recovered from Augustine not only the biblical picture of man's lost-ness but also the biblical truth of predestination as the source of redemption. Man cannot merit grace. All goodness comes from God: "40. We do not become righteous by righteous deeds, but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds."

Luther sees Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, as the prime destructive influence that undermined Augustinian theology in the Middle Ages. "50. Briefly, the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light." Luther attacks the method of Aristotle as relying too much on reason....But even more he attacks the impact of Aristotle on the content of theology. From Aristotle flowed ideas about the goodness of man, the ability of his will to choose the good, about freedom and merit.

Goodness and freedom were key theological concepts in the medieval church. The Reformation began when Christians like Martin Luther came to see the goodness and freedom of man as teaching opposed to biblical religion.

Landmarks in Theology

John M. Brentnall, 'Just a Talker': Sayings of John ('Rabbi') Duncan, p. 264:

A good way of determining the progressive landmarks of theology might be by selecting typical texts to describe the points made emphatic by the principal teachers of the church. Thus, to take only six. I would connect the name of Athanasius with the word, 'Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost'; Augustine, with the words, 'By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God'; 'Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly'; Anselm, with the words, 'Christ suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God'; Remigius: 'I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. My sheep hear my voice'; etc.; Luther: 'Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified'; and Calvin: 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who...hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.'

Good Gifts of God

Augustine, City of God 15.22:

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked. ... And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately, It is this which some one has briefly said in these verses in praise of the Creator: "These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless the sin we commit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee love that which Thou hast made."

Happy 200th Birthday, Andrew Bonar

Andrew Alexander Bonar, Free Church of Scotland minister, was born 200 years ago today on May 29, 1810. The younger brother of Horatius Bonar, they shared convictions regarding premillennial eschatology, the conversion of the Jews, revivalism, and other such matters. Andrew was a close friend of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, and wrote a biography of M'Cheyne a year after his death. Bonar also published an edition of the Letters of Samuel Rutherford, commentaries on Leviticus and the Psalms (which bears witness to that saying of Augustine, quoted by Bonar, that "the voice of Christ and his Church was well-nigh the only voice to be heard in the Psalms"), and other works, as well as a diary which was posthumously edited and published by his daughter Marjory. He was a great man of prayer, who felt that he had not prayed enough. Among the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us, he is worthy to be remembered on this bicentennial birthday.

The Further You Go, The Greater the Temptations

...we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. (Acts 14.22)

C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, p. 209:

The fine flower of unholiness can grow only in the close neighbourhood of the Holy. Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps of the altar.

Johannes Hoornbeeck, Spiritual Desertion, pp. 96-97:

Fourth, God's people have these trials in common. They do not touch you alone, with others being passed by; no, they come to everyone. It is true that they touch the one more and the other less, but since they are not sent to anyone except for the purpose of salvation, they bring greater fruit of salvation to those who are more heavily burdened. Think about the most saintly -- above whom you may not place yourself (and you do not want to). Think about Christ, our Lord. How did he bear these trials and abandonments? How much did the Son of God, who could not be abandoned completely, suffer? Truly, everything. And would you now want to be an exception above all these? Certainly not, for do you not consider yourself blessed in their company?

Augustine says, "The Master of medicine has first drunk from the bitter cup himself, so that the sick would not hesitate to drink from it." We have already spoken about Christ's trials. We know that it was said of him, "In all things he was like we are; he was tempted but without sin" (Heb. 4:15). Hence, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ have to expect such oppressions. "Who of the saints," Jerome asks, "has been crowned without battle?" Thomas à Kempis declares, "I have never known a godly person who did not at times have this removal of grace." And Otto Casmannus says, "No one becomes saved who is not trained in this battle, before or in death." All this was not foreign to the saints of the Bible either. Listen to Job in chapters 6 and 7; to David in Psalms 13, 32, 38, 39, 42; to Asaph in Psalm 77; and to Heman in Psalm 88. The man of God Luther, enabled by God, was used daily for the great work of the reformation of God's church, and he felt the abandonment of spirit. Both he and others testified to this. Casmannus says about Luther, "In 1527, the holy man Luther felt the heat of these trials so strongly that he, ill in body and soul from them, lay in bed, and later he himself testified that he would rather be imprisoned in the darkest dungeon his whole life than endure that pain again for one hour." One can name several martyrs who were similarly attacked, often just before their death. Someone therefore said, not without good reason, "Let this be a sign to you to know that when you are advancing on the road to the city of the King and are coming closer, that you will undergo the greatest temptations; the further you go, the greater the temptations. Because God does not give great gifts without great temptations."

Prayers of the Righteous

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. (James 5.16b)

It is reported that Mary, Queen of Scots, confessed that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than an army of ten thousand men.

Puritan prayer warrior and catechist Thomas Lye (d. 1684) said in his second ejection sermon preached on August 17, 1662 that "I had rather stand against the canons of the wicked, then against the prayers of the righteous."

John Whitecross, The Shorter Catechism Illustrated From Christian History and Biography, p. 157:

Theodorus, speaking of Luther, says, 'Once I overheard him in prayer; but oh! with what life and spirit did he pray! It was with so much reverence as if he were speaking to God; yet with so much confidence as if he had been speaking to a friend.' Perceiving the interest of religion to be low, he be took himself to prayer. Rising off his knees, he came out of his closet triumphantly saying to his friends, 'We have overcome, we have overcome.' At which time it was observed, there came out a proclamation from Charles V that none should be further molested for their profession of the gospel.

Martin Luther, Table Talk CCCXXXIII:

It is impossible that God should not hear the prayers which with faith are made in Christ, though he give not according to the measure, manner, and time we dictate, for He will not be tied. In such sort dealt God with the mother of Saint Augustine; she prayed to God that her son might be converted, but as yet it would not be; then she ran to the learned, entreating them to persuade and advise him thereupon. She propounded unto him a marriage with a Christian virgin, so that thereby he might be drawn and brought to the Christian faith. Nothing worked. But when our Lord God came thereto, He came to purpose and made of him such an Augustine, that he became a great light to the church. Saint James says: "Pray for one another, for the prayer of the righteous availeth much." Prayer is a powerful thing, for God has bound and tied Himself thereunto.

The Sword of William Wallace

When most people think of an object closely associated with Scotland's great patriot, they think of his famous sword. But his greatest treasure was in fact a sword of another kind (Eph. 6.17; Heb. 4.12). When Sir William Wallace was a boy, a Psalter was given to him, perhaps by his mother or uncle. It was his constant companion throughout his life and a solace to him in the midst of great hardships. When he was executed at the Elms at Smithfield on August 23, 1305, he requested that the very same Psalter, which had been taken away from him, be held in front of his face by a priest until he expired. He beheld the Psalter even after being disemboweled. The Psalter, which was among his earliest possessions, was also his very last earthly possession, and the last thing he saw as he left this world and entered the next. Like Augustine, who had the penitential psalms inscribed and posted on the walls around his deathbed, or our Lord Jesus, who quoted the psalms while hanging on the cross, the Psalter brought comfort to Scotland's greatest patriot, not only during his final hour on earth, but throughout his heroic life. An epitome of the Bible, the Psalter was, for William Wallace, the sword upon which he most depended.

In the words of his poetic biographer, Blind Harry the minstrel:

Wallace about him, from his childhood, kept,
Where'er he went, whether he walked or slept,
A psalter book, where he beseech'd a knight,
Lord Clifford, might be brought unto his sight.
Which done, he caus'd a priest upon the place,
To hold it open straight before his face,
On which he look'd, sometimes his eyes up cast,
Religiously unto his very last.

He Who Sings Prays Twice

The famous saying attributed to Augustine, "He who sings, prays twice," or, "He who sings well, prays twice," is referenced in the Catholic Catechism:

1156"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as a combination of sacred music and words, it forms a necessary or integral part of solemn liturgy." The composition and singing of inspired psalms, often accompanied by musical instruments, were already closely linked to the liturgical celebrations of the Old Covenant. The Church continues and develops this tradition: "Address . . . one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart." "He who sings prays twice."21

This saying appears to be an abridgment of what Augustine said in his commentary on Ps. 73.1:

Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affectio...For he that singeth praise, not only praiseth, but only praiseth with gladness: he that singeth praise, not only singeth, but also loveth him of whom he singeth. In praise, there is the speaking forth of one confessing; in singing, the affection of one loving.

And elsewhere:

Cantare Amantis est... Singing belongs to one who loves [sometimes shortened to: "Singing is loving"] (s. 336, 1 – PL 38, 1472).

God's Covenants

Francis Roberts, who wrote many theological works and a version of the metrical Psalms, is the author of the largest single Puritan treatise on covenant theology. In the introduction The Mysteries and Marrow of the Bible: viz. God's Covenants with Man, he wrote that his compendium was the product of "weekly lectures, to treat of God's Covenants, [which he commenced] on Sept. 2, 1651, and have persisted therein till the very publication of this book, in May, 1657." It consists of 1,721 pages in folio.

Charles Pastoor and Galen K. Johnson, Historical Dictionary of the Puritans, pp. 270-271:

ROBERTS, FRANCIS (1609-1675). English Puritan preacher. Roberts was born at Methley, near the town of Leeds. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford, and became a proponent of Presbyterianism, subscribing to the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. In that same year, Roberts became the pastor of the St. Augustine's Church on Watling Street. He served doubly as the chaplain to the Earl of Essex in Dublin, and, in 1649, he became the rector at Wrington, Somerset. His theological legacy lies chiefly in his book The Mystery and Marrow of the Bible, a massive tome that elaborates the history of God's dealings with the human race in terms of six covenants, arranged successively through Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, the Jewish exiles in Babylon, and Jesus Christ. His additional writings include Believers Evidences for Eternal Life, The Key of the Bible, and True Way to the Tree of Life.

Won Taek Lim in The Covenant Theology of Francis Roberts, pp. 3-4, writes:

Among the works of those inappropriately neglected Puritan thinkers, Roberts' immense book on covenant stands out. In 1657 Roberts published The Mysterie and Marrow of the Bible: viz. God's Covenants with Man.... Considering the size of books published at that time, it was extraordinary to write more than 1,700 pages in folio on a single subject. In God's Covenants Roberts' citation of authors ranges widely from the early church to his own days. Roberts cites St. Augustine and John Calvin more often than any individual Puritan thinkers, including the divines of the Westminster Assembly.

Roberts outlines the plan of his work ("a plan devised and partially executed by John Ball," Charles Augustus Briggs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 465, and referenced by Thomas Blake in Vindiciae Foederis; or, a Treatise of the Covenant of God Entered With Man-Kinde in his preface to the reader (1653)):

A Work of vast extent, comprising in it: all the methods of divine dispensations to the Church in all ages; all the conditions of the Church under those dispensations; all the greatest and precious promises, of the life that now is, and of that which is to come; all sorts of blessings promised by God to man; all sorts of duties repromised by man to God; all the gradual discoveries of Jesus Christ, the only Mediator and Saviour of sinners; the whole mystery of all true religion from the beginning to the end of the world; and which as a continued thred of gold runs through the whole series of all the Holy Scriptures,...because I have set my heart exceedingly to the Covenants of my God, which (in my judgment) are an universal basis or foundation of all true religion and happiness, I have shunned no diligence, industry, or endeavor that to me seemed requisite for the profitable unveiling of them.

Ernest F. Kevan, The Grace of Law: A Study of Puritan Theology, p. 116, records the diagram of God's Covenants that Roberts sets forth (p. 16, cf. pp. 177, 739 f.), which I have reformatted here:

God's COVENANT is twofold

1. A Covenant of Works, in the first Adam, before the Fall.

2. A Covenant of faith, in the second Adam, after the Fall; comprehending [1 and 2 below].

1. The Covenants of Promise, under the Old Testament. (1) With Adam. (2) With Noah. (3) With Abraham. (4) With Israel in Mount Sinai. (5) With David. (6) With the Jews about their return from Babylon.

2. The Covenant of Performance, or the New Covenant under the New Testament.

In 2007, I had the privilege to visit the Puritan Resource Center at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which owns a copy of Roberts' tome. A dear friend took a picture of me with that book, along with some others, including another by Roberts, The Key of the Bible (along with the Works of William Perkins and Daniel Rogers' Naaman the Syrian, his Disease and Cure). It is my prayer that one day, massive though it is, someone will take on the project of republishing God's Covenants, for the benefit of the Church, which always stands in need of a deeper understanding of covenant theology.

What Was God Doing Before He Created the World?

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. (Prov. 26.4-5)

Two answers to the question of what God was doing before he created the world.

John Calvin, Institutes 1.14.1:

It was a shrewd saying of a good old man, who when some one pertly asked in derision what God did before the world was created, answered he made a hell for the inquisitive, (August. Confess., lib. 11 c. 12.)

Augustine, Confessions, 11.12:

How, then, shall I respond to him who asks, “What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?” I do not answer, as a certain one is reported to have done facetiously (shrugging off the force of the question). “He was preparing hell,” he said, “for those who pry too deep.” It is one thing to see the answer; it is another to laugh at the questioner--and for myself I do not answer these things thus. More willingly would I have answered, “I do not know what I do not know,” than cause one who asked a deep question to be ridiculed--and by such tactics gain praise for a worthless answer.