Bored Protestant

 "DECREES. Acts ii: 23. What does St. Peter say was done by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God? Did they take him, and by wicked hands crucify and slay him by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God? This is not said: but he was delivered, that is, put into their power, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God? and then they took him and with wicked hands slew him: And then we must observe, that here are two distinct acts of God relating to this event; the determinate counsel, and the foreknowledge of God. The will or counsel of God, which he had fore-ordained, and predetermined, the Boule Proorismene was, that Christ should die an Expiatory Sacrifice for the sins of the world, which was a work of such stupendous wisdom, goodness, holiness, and justice, that nothing could more become God, than such counsels and decrees. But then by his Infinite prescience and foreknowledge he saw by what means this would be done, if he thought fit to p

In this blog post I'm will argue that Adam Clarke one of the chief Methodist commentators within the tradition held to baptismal regeneration. Now the definition is very important when it comes to this topic and how I'm defining baptismal regeneration is a follows that through the water if baptism the Holy Spirit gives newness of life, forgiveness of sins and makes the recipient a new creation. Of course I'm gonna be looking at the most important passages that are commonly cited when it comes to baptismal regeneration and those are John 3:5, Acts 2:38, Titus 3:5 and 1st Peter 3:21  I would say the main verses that Clarke comments that sets forward his baptismal theology will be in John 3, Acts 2:38, Titus 3:5 and 1st Peter 3:21. From these verses we see that Clarke is precise on what baptism does and the relationship between the water and Holy Spirit. So in John 3:5 Clarke says "But the water which was used on the occasion was only an emblem of the Holy Spi

John 1:13 and 15:16 are proof texts that Calvinists use to try to establish their doctrines on scripture but it’s not surprising that those verses don’t prove reformed doctrine in any way. Let’s look at John 1 first “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” We see here that this verse is dealing with the new birth of man which no arminian denies as can be seen from theologians like Wesley “Who were born - Who became the sons of God, not of blood - Not by descent from Abraham, nor by the will of the flesh - By natural generation, nor by the will of man - Adopting them, but of God - By his Spirit.” We also see this in Thomas Coke he says “They who thus believed on him, became possessed of this privilege; not in consequence of their being born of blood, or of their being descended from the loins of the holy patriarchs, or sharing in circumcision and the blood of the sacrifices; nor could they ascribe it to the will of the flesh, or

"For Arminius, because of the gracious estimation of God, he credits our faith as our righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is not imputed to believers, according to at least the later Arminius. He did not believe Christ’s righteousness could be imputed. In discussing justification, Arminius made use of the Latin term acceptilatio, which means a “formal release from an obligation.” Imperfect faith, then, is accepted by God’s gracious estimation as righteousness. Or to put it another way, the human act of faith is by grace counted as evangelical righteousness, as if it were the complete fulfillment of the whole law, even though it is not."   This interesting quote comes from Mark Jones book Faith. Hope. Love.: The Christ-Centered Way to Grow in Grace. But the surprising thing here is that he does not cite Arminius which is surprising since he is making the claim that this is the view of Arminius. But I will prove this has no validity at all by looking at Armin

Philip Van Limborch, an important Remonstrant theologian in his Body of Divinity has some interesting things to say about God’s decree. So the goal of this post is to just summarize what Limborch says in his Body of Divinity concerning the decrees of God.   Limborch starts with the divisions of the decree he first starts off with saying that the decrees of God are divided with respect to the objects and he gives some examples of this like the creation of the world,the sending of Christ in the world and things that God commands or forbids. When it comes to things that commands, Limborch says God “promotes by the Assistance of his Grace, whilst he would permit the latter for very wise and just Reasons.” Limborch makes sure to say that “this Assistance of God's Grace does not lay any constraint upon a Man to do what is good, but only bestows upon him a Power of Working, and is the very Principle of all Operation, without destroying Man's Free-will: Much lest does the

The reason why I’m writing this blog post is that I was reading through some of Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, mainly the 2nd volume and he makes some bad critiques when it comes to the Remonstrants and a massive blunder. So I just want to go through the areas where Bavinck talks about the Remonstrants on the attributes of God. The first section will deal with immutability which Bavnick says the Remonstrants attacked then I will look at simplicity since those are the main areas where he talks about the Remonstrants and I’m not gonna talk about middle knowledge since Bavnick doesn’t make a mistake in attributing to them middle knowledge.  Bavinck on page 155 says “On the one hand, Pelagianism, Socinianism, Remonstantism and rationalism, which especially opposes the immutability of God knowing and willing and makes the will of God dependent on and hence change in accordance with the conducts of humans.”  But when we go to the Remostant confession we don’t see an attack on God’s