Kersten on Common Grace

G.H. Kersten, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1, pp. 72-73:

Common Grace

Although, as we stated, special grace receives the prime emphasis, nevertheless we can speak of grace in a broader sense, hence of common grace. The Word of God gives us liberty to do so, when it speaks of grace being bestowed upon the ungodly, which does not lead to salvation. "Let favor (Dutch: genade, which is grace) be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness". (Isa. 26:10) "Turning the grace of God into lasciviousness." (Jude: 4) 

The confessions also speak of common grace, although they do not use that name. Thus in Article 14 of the Belgic Confession of Faith, the innate knowledge of God is called a few remains of the image of God in which man was created. These few remains are left in all men after the fall. Common grace is also indicated in Article 35, where we read, "Now those, who are regenerated, have in them a twofold life, the one corporal and temporal, which they have from their first birth and is common to all men." Also the Canons of Dort speak of common grace under the Third and Fourth Heads of Doctrine, Art. 4. Calvin was the first in this, and was followed by a long line of orthodox theologians, with which God has richly blessed the Church of the Netherlands. Also the Walcheren Articles deal with common grace in the first chapter. There is therefore no objection to speaking of common grace, provided that we insist against all those that hold the universal doctrine of redemption, that the blood of Christ was shed only for the elect, and the application of it was given only to the elect.

Selah

The word 'Selah' occurs some 71 times total in 39 Psalms and three times in Habakkuk 3. Although its meaning is not fully understood, here are some devotional thoughts on the word for the reader to pause and consider.

G.H. Kersten, In the Footsteps of our Fathers, p. 52:

Bear in mind that Selah emphasizes that which is said and simply tells us to stop and consider, to pay attention to what was said.

Matthew Henry on Ps. 3.2:

Some refer it to the music with which, in David's time, the psalms were sung; others to the sense, and that it is a note commanding a solemn pause. Selah—Mark that, or, "Stop there, and consider a little." As here, they say, There is no help for him in God, Selah. "Take time for such a thought as this.

Cotton Mather, Psalterium Americanum (1718), pp. xvi-xvii:

The Word, SELAH, Ever[y] now and then occurs in the PSALMS. And now allow me to propose, every SELAH, as an Invitation for thee to make a pause, upon the Magnificence of thy SAVIOUR. I will not here make a long Recital, of the various, and very many Interpretations, which the Critics have left that Word in the dark withal. It shall be enough to say, That in the large, Thesaurus Philologico-Theologicus lately Publlished, there is a Dissertation upon that Word, which would perswade us, That SELAH is a proper Name of the Blessed GOD our SAVIOUR, and that it signifies, The Magnificent One, or, One that is exalted on high. The Word must not be too much feparated from the rest of the Discourse, but it is to be look'd upon as a part of it. It belongs to the Period, and is to be rendred, sometimes in the Nominative, sometimes in the Genitive Case, and sometimes in other Cafes; but most commonly in the Vocative. Christian, In the PSALMS every where think on thy SAVIOUR. And if a SELAH stop thee, think, before thou go on, O my SAVIOUR, How Magnificent art thou! -- Indeed, such is the Fellowship ever between our SAVIOUR and His People, that the condition of the One in the PSALMS will not forbid, but invite us to consider the condition of the Other. And therefore, what is now propounded, about a Contemplation of our SAVIOUR, to be a principal stroke of our Devotions in Singing of the PSALMS, will not supersede the Entertainments which are to be joined with it.
...
Reader, Make a Pause upon every Verse, and see what Lessons of Piety are to be learnt from every Clause. Turn the Lessons into Prayers; and send the Prayers up unto the Heavens: As Arrows from the hand of a mighty man, send them with lively Ejaculations up unto the Heavens.

Remove Not Old Landmarks

Historically and spiritually speaking, many of the old landmarks (Prov. 22.28; 23.10) have been removed from us. Or so it may seem in our modern age which is so often characterized by -- in the words of C.S. Lewis -- "chronological snobbery" (Surprised By Joy, pp. 206-208). But God is faithful to his people to not remove them completely. Wisdom is not confined to the golden ages of the first or second Reformations, yet what Charles Spurgeon said (Preface, Illustrations and Meditations, or, Flowers From a Puritan's Garden, Distilled and Dispensed) of the writings of Thomas Manton is true for us as well with respect to divines of old:

Ministers who do not know Manton need not wonder if they are themselves unknown.

Gerrit Hendrik Kersten was a 20th-century Dutch divine who delighted in the old paths. One biographer described his appreciation for the giants upon whose shoulders he stood thus.

M. Golverdingen, Rev. G.H. Kersten: Facets of His Life and Work, pp. 252-253:

It was the great attention given to the work of the Holy Spirit which knit Rev. Kersten to Calvin, and particularly to the men of the Dutch Second Reformation and their English and Scottish contemporaries. Calvin's Institutes unfolded the doctrine of the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, who seals the Word of God in the hearts of men. There was no other work of Calvin which Kersten read with "more acquiescence and greater blessing."[275] He was very much of one mind with men such as Boston, the Erskines, Watson, Justus Vermeer, and Van der Kemp, who so eminently described the work of the Spirit in the spiritual life of the regenerate, as well as with Comrie, who was one of the few orthodox theologians of stature from the eighteenth century. Numerous times in his sermons and writings he refers to Comrie, a kindred spirit. He also took the initiative to reprint his works, which were frequently advertised in De Saambinder and De Banier during the 1930s. The old writers are the spokesmen of the "old, proven truth"; the views of the neo-Reformed contradicted these truths.

[275] De Saambinder, 25 February 1932.