In Writing 143 Now Out

The latest copy of the Evangelical Library Magazinw is out today.

Calvin's Sermons on Titus

Up at the Pastors Academy on Monday for the reading group. The book this time was the recent translation of Calvin's sermons on Titus, published by Banner (by Robert White). About ten of us met to discuss the book, led by Phil Heaps. We agreed that these were excellent and apposite sermons for their time though not without their flaws and idiosyncracies. Next time (January) we plan to look at Matthew Robertson's book Pride.

10 Books of the Bible Calvin never got to preach on

Calvin never preached on these. In some cases he did produce commentaries but he never preached these books as far as I am aware. I have asterisked where there are no sermons or commentary either.

1. Joshua
2. Ruth
3. Esther*
4. Proverbs*
5. Ecclesiastes*
6. Song of Songs*
7. Hebrews
8. James
9. I & II Peter
10. Revelation*

10 Longest Sermon Series Calvin preached

1. Isaiah (343)
2. Deuteronomy (201)
3. Acts (189)
4. Ezekiel (175)
5. Job (159)
6. Genesis (123)
7. I Corinthians (110)
8. I Samuel (107)
9. Psalms (94)
10. Jeremiah (91)

Day Off Week 18 2020

This week I read a lovely little book by Derek Thomas on heaven called Heaven on earth. I also carried on with the book on Calvin mentioned recently John Calvin: for a new reformation. There was a bit of TV later in the day too and in the morning I more or less finished a painting I have been working on called The boys are back in town.

Day off Week 15 2020

These strange days continue and I tried to keep yesterday as a day off which meant reading another chunk of Hilary Mantel. I am now beyond the first 500 pages. Spoiler alert Jane Seymour is dead and the search for a new wife is on. I have enjoyed the Tyndale thread and much else. It is interesting to note how in recent pages the whole idea of social distancing is there (because of fear of plague).  I also read a little more of the Calvin book and the newspaper, of course. There were one or two other things that needed to be done and I did a bit more tidying and clean, which we are doing a lot of in this lockdown. Then in the evening we watched the film Vice about Dick Cheney. The film comes with heavy bias but didn't seem overly unfair. US policy in the middle east has been a mess for aeons I fear.

10 Non-Welsh Welsh Names

Here are 10 common and less common names that I think of as Welsh but that are not Welsh in origin (Aled, Gareth, Hywel, etc). After each one I have given a rough figure of how many were born in Wales with that name between 1880 and 1990. The names tend to start off in England then spread to Wales where they dominate.

1. Haydn, Hayden or Haydon (thousands)
2. Byron (890 and more)
3. Mansel (810)
4. Denzil (474)
5. Luther (384)
6. Handel (267)
7. John Elias (166)
8. Calvin (71)
9. Omri (22)
10. Mozart (6)

Calvin's Company of Pastors

On Monday I was at the Pastors Academy once again. Rather busy there as the Lloyd-Jones Library is being refurbished following a flood and the ThM  students were there for a module so the reading group ended up in the chapel. Seven of us, led by Brad Franklin, discussed Scott Manetsch's Calvin and the company of pastors. The book is absolutely brilliant and well worth getting hold of. See here. It is well written and yet scholarly with a large chunk of endnotes. It teaches you more about Calvin, which we need to know but going from 1536-1609 it partly fills in that haziness that takes us from Calvin to the Puritans. It scotches the Calvin and the Calvinist idea and is also full of nice anecdotes, which always helps. (eg Claude Griffat suspended for calling his dog Calvin; Calvin seizing a man who had pocketed communion bread during the Lord's supper, Jean Saddo who gave his minister his cow;s eyeball for soem reason, etc). It is very useful for thinking through pastoral work too. Geneva was sadly wedded to the church state ideas of the past but if you can see beyond that there is a lot to learn. Next time we plan to look at Archibald Alexander's Thoughts on religious experience, January 21, 2019.

Day Off Week 42

My day off this week fell on a Friday as I was busy all day Tuesday at a committee and began with me putting on my old blue jeans, which helps set the mood. My main thing was to read a large chunk of Scott Manesch's Calvin's company of pastors for the Pastors' Academy reading group. I could do this any day but I was happy to do it on my day off as it is such an enjoyable book, full of brilliant anecdotes and so very well written. I also had to fit in a pastoral visit and complete my editorial work on the next In Writing magazine - again not ideal but you have to work around things sometimes. here was also dog walking, some lounging in front of the TV with Eleri and a nice chicken tikka masala take away style from Sainsbury's.

15 examples of how to look to Christ from Calvin's Institutes

I think this is a well known quotation but not previously known to me.

(We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ [Acts 4:12]. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is “of him” [I Cor. 1:30].)

1. If we seek strength, it lies in his dominion;

2. if purity, in his conception;

3. if gentleness, it appears in his birth. (For by his birth he was made like us in all respects [Heb. 2:17] that he might learn to feel our pain [cf. Heb. 5:2].)

4. If we seek redemption, it lies in his passion;

5. if acquittal, in his condemnation;

6. if remission of the curse, in his cross [Gal. 3:13];

7. if satisfaction, in his sacrifice;

8. if purification, in his blood;

9. if reconciliation, in his descent into hell;

10. if mortification of the flesh, in his tomb;

11. if newness of life, in his resurrection;

12. if immortality, in the same;

13. if inheritance of the Heavenly Kingdom, in his entrance into heaven;

14. if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings, in his Kingdom;

15. if untroubled expectation of judgement, in the power given to him to judge.

(In short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him, let us drink our fill from this fountain, and from no other.)

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559), 2.16.19.

Westminster Conference 2017 Day One

About 120 of us gathered once again at the Regent Hall in Oxford Street for the Westminster Conference. Stephen Clark kicked us off with a fairly comprehensive and persuasive exposition of Word and Spirit touching on regeneration, assurance, guidance an other matters seeking to demonstrate the independence of the Spirit with regard to God's Word. With supporting quotations from Edwards, Murray et al I was more convinced than ever that this is a biblical approach. Some found the long paper hard work and certainly anyone unfamiliar with the arguments might have struggled. Robert Striven chaired and we had a worthwhile discussion on assurance.

Dovetailing neatly with the first session we had a paper in the afternoon from Guy Davies on the felt presence of God, majoring on Thomas Goodwin but including references to Owen. I chaired. I did fear there wold be nothing more to discuss after the morning session but we were able to discuss quite profitably God's felt presence and whether it should be sought. There is some divergence among us but a general unity.

The final paper was slightly different as we went back to Calvin and Reformed liturgy with Andy Young. This was again a useful paper and a good discussion under the strict chairmanship of Jeremy Walker. Inevitably one or two exclusive psalm singers felt obliged to make their points but otherwise we seemed to be able to help one another at the end of what had been a very good day.

Here's a quote from Thomas Goodwin I enjoyed

conscience itself, which is ordained, as the urine of the body, to shew the estate of the whole, and therefore is accordingly called good or evil as the man’s state is, this is apt in such distempers to change and turn colour, and look to a man’s own view as foul as the state of a very hypocrite.” (Goodwin Works III, p. 254.)

Looking forward to day two.

Calvin available online

You may be interested to know that Calvin's commentary on the pastoral letters and Philemon is now available here.

10 Lawyers turned theologians

1. Tertullian 160-225 (Church father and Montanist)
2. John Calvin 1509-1564 (Calvinist)
3. Pierre Charron 1541-1603 (Catholic theologian)
4. Nathaniel Ward 1578-1652 (Puritan minister in New England)
5. Moses Amyraut 1596-1664 (Amyraldian)
6. Thomas Erskine of Linlathen 1788-1870 (Liberal lay theologian)
7. Charles G Finney 1792-1875 (Semi-Pelagian theologian)
8. C I Scofield 1843-1921 (American dispensationalist theologian)
9. Tokutaro Takakura 1885-1934 (Japanese theologian)
10. Bishop James Pike 1913-1969 (American Liberal TV theologian)

Proto-Calvinism

People often think of predestination as something John Calvin (1509-1564) invented but in 1545 a primer or manual of prayers known as King Henry's Primer was published in English. It was apparently partly translated from the Latin of 1498. It contained this prayer (my italics).

 

O Jesu, King most worthy to be loved, and friend most to be desired, have mind of the sorrow that thou hadst when thou beheldest in thy mirror of thy most clear majesty the predestination of all thy chosen souls, that should be saved by the merits of thy passion; for mind of the deepness of thy great mercy which thou hadst upon us, lost and desperate sinners, and namely for the great mercy that thou shewedst to the thief that hung on the cross, saying this, This day thou shalt be with me in paradise, I pray thee, benign Jesu, to shew thy mercy on me in the hour of my death. So be it.

 

(See R Bainton, Women of the Reformation in France and England, p 168)

Calvin for Kids 03

In the course of preparation I came across this site here. What it has to say about Calvin is a little disturbing and misleading but no surprise.

In the mid A.D. 1500s another religious leader by the name of John Calvin began working to bring about reform in the Catholic Church. Like Huldrych Zwingli, Calvin lived in Switzerland, and wanted to set up a theocracy.

By A.D. 1541 (1) John Calvin had managed to set up his theocracy in Geneva. The city government forced all citizens to attend church several times a week, and had very strict rules about what people could and could not do.

John Calvin wrote a book, which he called The Institutes of The Christian Religion. This book became quite popular in his day, and would become very influential among future reformers. (2)

Calvin’s most important teaching was that mankind could not control or change anything (3) in this earth  (sic) life. Calvin believed that everything was controlled by god (sic), the past, the present, and the future. He called this doctrine predestination. (4) According to this doctrine, certain people were predestined to heaven, while others were predestined to hell. They believed that an individual could do nothing to change their predestination.

As they worked to insure that their people practiced the religious teachings that were required by law, they put many people to death for various crimes against the church, such as witchcraft, or being too Catholic.

1 That was the year they let him back in after kicking him out. On this see Michael Horton here.

2 First published in 1536, Calvin’s Institutes became an instant best-seller, and has been republished and translated nearly 100 times in dozens of languages.

3 Not how Calvin would have put it

4 Hardly a belief peculiar to Calvin

If you want a good children's book on Calvin try this one - After darkness light by Catherine MacKenzie

Calvin for Kids 02

I had some pics for them to look at too and some books (I discover I have about 70 books by or about Calvin in my study) and some souvenir soap from 2009! I carried on after this fashion

He worked very hard mainly at preaching and teaching the people but also rearranging things so that it was more like what we find in the Bible. Preaching was his main work but he also gave some time to writing.

As we have said, not everyone liked this and some people hated Calvin and called him names in the street and spoke against him. After a few years they managed to work it so that Calvin and Farel were kicked out of Geneva. They had to leave.

First they went to Basle nearby but then Calvin went to be a minister in Strasbourg, where he began to do the same sorts of things as he'd done in Geneva. Calvin would happily have spent the rest of his life in Strasbourg. He was very happy there. In the end, however, it was only 3 years before the people in Geneva were begging him to come back. A Roman Catholic cardinal called Sadoleto wrote a long letter to Geneva saying they really ought to give up on the Reformation and go back to the old ways. The people knew this was all wrong but they didn't know how to answer him so they looked for someone to help them. The only person they could find who could do it well was Calvin. So they asked him to write and even though they had thrown him out he did. He wrote a very good answer. The people in Geneva really wanted Calvin back but he wasn't keen. Eventually, however, in 1541 he came back.

You can imagine how it must have been that first Sunday when he came to preach. Everybody was wondering what he was going to say after they'd treated him so badly. But no, he simply carried on preaching from the place where he'd left off three years before!

And so for the rest of his life Calvin preached and taught there in Geneva. Calvin would preach not just on Sundays but in the week too. They also started a university where he taught. People from all over Europe came to Geneva, especially from France where you were not allowed to be a Protestant.

Calvin's books have all been translated into English and are still read today. His main writings are his Institutes - two books that try to explain bit by bit all that the Bible teaches. There are also commentaries on most books of the Bible. Many of the sermons he preached were written down and lots of these have also been published a books.

Of course, these days we have computers and so Calvin's writings have all been put on CD-Rom or you can read them online.

One thing I haven't told you is that Calvin was married. While he was in Strasbourg he married a woman called Idelette. She'd been married before (to a Baptist) and had two children but he had died. Sadly, she and Calvin weren't able to have children and after they had been married about 9 years she died giving birth. Calvin was very sad, of course, but he put his trust in God and found the strength to go on.

Calvin eventually died when he was 54 (a little older than me). He had been unwell all his life with different things but had worked every minute for the glory of God. He asked to be buried in an unmarked grave as he didn't want any fuss. Already his ideas had begun to go out all over Europe and even today his ideas are still remembered not just in Europe but in many parts of the world. The year before last was the 500th anniversary of his death and there were lots of celebrations. I was actually in Manila in the Philippines giving a lecture about Calvin.

Calvin for Kids 01

I'm just back from an afternoon in the local school. I took three different classes of year 6 pupils. They are doing a series on Heroes of the Faith and so I talked to them about Calvin. After introducing myself as a preacher I said something of this sort:

I want to introduce you today to one of my heroes. His name is John Calvin (or Jean Calvin as he would have said) and he too was a preacher.

What I want you to get from this talk is at least 3 things:

1. Calvin is an important man in history and it's good for you to know about him. He has had great influence especially in countries like Wales, Scotland, Holland, USA and even in South Korea.

2. I want to get you thinking about who your heroes might be. I want you to be willing to think a bit differently. My hero is not a likely one in some ways. Born 500 years ago, he didn't live in London. He was a rather thin, weak man who was often ill. He wasn't a Baptist. But he's still one of my heroes. May be your heroes won't be obvious ones.

3. Calvin's motto was coram deo which means “in the presence of God” and I want you to think about God and about the idea of living every moment aware of him.

Calvin was born in Noyon in France a little way north of Paris (it was the same year as Henry VIII became King of England). Calvin's father's name was Gerard and his mother name was Jeanne. When Calvin was only 4 his mother died and his father remarried so he and his two brothers grew up with only a memory of their real mother.

From the beginning Calvin was a bright boy and at first his father wanted him to do something in the church but then decided he wanted him to be a lawyer. Calvin went away to study in Paris when he was 14 then went on when he was a bit older to study elsewhere. He began to train as a lawyer as his father wanted but when he was about 22 his father died and he was free to do what he wanted. First he published a book and seemed to be heading for a career as a university professor but then something happened to change all that.

At this time a great movement was taking place called the Reformation. This movement was concerned with getting back to the Bible and rediscovering what it really said. They didn't just want to follow what the Pope and other religious leaders said but what the Bible said. These people were called Protestants (protesters against the old ways). Calvin was one of the people caught up in this movement.

He had a friend in Paris called Nicolas Cop. Cop made a speech in the university about getting back to the Bible. People didn't like it and Calvin and Cop had to run away. Calvin decided he wanted to spend his life writing books to help people study the Bible. In 1536 he brought out a little book designed to help people understand the Bible better. He wanted to spend all his time quietly somewhere out of the way writing books but God had other plans.

In 1536 he was travelling through what we now call Switzerland and had to stay overnight in a place called Geneva. In Geneva the people had decided that they wanted to follow the Reformation but not everyone was happy with this and so it was a difficult time. When one of the ministers, a man called William Farel heard that Calvin was staying there he immediately went to see him and told him that he had to come to Geneva and help them. Calvin explained that he just wanted to study quietly and write books but Farel told him that if he didn't come to Geneva he was really being selfish and disobeying God. So Calvin decided to become one of the ministers there.

So that's what happened Calvin, even though still only quite a young man (27), became one of the ministers there in Geneva.

(to be continued)

Currid on Calvin

Somehow I missed this volume last year - Hebrew teacher John Currid's Calvin and the Biblical Languages. A straightforward book of only about a hundred pages it neatly sets out the facts concerning Calvin and the biblical languages. The thesis is that though Calvin was not an outstanding scholar in Greek or Hebrew he did use the languages and encouraged others to use them. Indeed he did more than many to encourage the use of the bibklical languages. Currid's argument is that use of the original languages is really a Reformation principle and one that we neglect at our peril. He has a compelling case and I for one felt a little ashamed of my laziness in this area. Details here.

Calvin on humility

This quote from is Calvin and is from the close of his sermon on Luke 1:49-51 in Songs of the Nativity which contains sermons translated by Robert White and was published by Banner of Truth in 2008.

For the rest, let us all beware of the thoughts of our heart and of whatever far exceeds our powers. Such things are thoroughly deceitful. On the contrary, whenever we are tempted to think inflated thoughts – for the devil loves to dazzle us with our own conceits – we must quickly head them off, and in all modesty to declare: “To serve my God is work enough. Supposing I had a much greater store of holiness, I could never fulfil a hundredth part of my duty. So I will aim no higher than God permits: he knows my capacity and my strength. From now on I'll strive to walk in the fear of my God better than before. My life is short and I am still far from the goal he has set. Though I try hard to reach it, the road is long and difficult.”

AHOCIA 100 Objects 18