Ligonier Academy (January 2012)

"Christ never fails of success. Christ never undertakes to heal any but he makes a certain cure, 'Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost,' (John 17:12). Other physicians can only cure them that are sick, but Christ ...cures them that are dead, 'And you hath he quickened who were dead' (Eph 2:1). Christ is a physician for the dead, of every one whom Christ cures, it may be said, 'He was dead, and is alive again' (Luke 15:32)." - Thomas Watson

 

“Among all the realities of the invisible world, mediated to us by the disclosures and promises of God, and to which our faith responds, there is none that more strongly calls into action this faculty for grasping the unseen than the divine... pronouncement through the Gospel, that, though sinners, we are righteous in the judgment of God. That is not only the invisible, it seems the impossible; it is the paradox of all paradoxes; it requires a unique energy of believing; it is the supreme victory of faith over the apparent reality of things; it credits God with calling the things that are not as though they were; it penetrates more deeply into the deity of God than any other act of faith.” - Geerhardus Vos
 

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” ― D.A. Carson

"It is the duty of the theologian to subordinate his theories to the Bible, and teach not what seems to him to be true or reasonable, but simply what the Bible teaches." - Charles Hodge
 

"In November 1950 Pope Pius XII declared officially that the Corporeal Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven was a defined dogma, part of the Catholic faith, as much part of it as the doctrine of our Lord’s divinity or as his atonement for our sins. He did not take the trouble to call a General Council beforehand, though he consulted all the bishops of his church before he made his declaration. His definition of this dogma was made in such a manner that all Roman Catholic theologians must recognize it as infallible, at any rate until another Pope appears who declares (infallibly) that this decision was not, after all, infallible, for, as we have seen, the latest fashion in doctrine is always, according to the Roman theory, the most trustworthy. Pius XII required all Roman Catholics to believe this on pain of losing their salvation. This they have not found very difficult because most of them believed it already, being well schooled in the art (to use Lewis Carroll’s words) of ‘believing six impossible things before breakfast’; but he also expected the faithful to believe, and the church historians to show, that this dogma always was, in some form or other, believed in the Church from the very earliest times, and was known all along to be an original part of the Christian faith. This has proved a far more difficult task, and though the mass of the faithful may believe this fantastic theory, the church historians have found it a hopeless business to produce any reputable evidence at all for it. They have had to fall back on the lamest of lame explanations, that as this doctrine is found in the church about A.D. 450, and as the Roman Catholic Church now believes it to be de fide, therefore it must have been believed from the very beginning.’" - R.H. Fuller & R.P.C. Hanson, The Church of Rome: A Dissuasive.

“For it is not we who call God by these names. We do not invent them. On the contrary, if it depended on us, we would be silent about him, try to forget him, and disown all his names. We take no delight in the knowledge of his ways. We tend continually to oppose his names: his independence, sovereignty, righteousness, and love, and resist him in all his perfections. But it is God himself who reveals all his perfections and puts his names on our lips. It is he who gives himself these names and who, despite our opposition, maintains them. It is of little use to us to deny his righteousness: every day he demonstrates this quality in history. And so it is with all his attributes. He brings them out despite us. The final goal of all his ways is that his name will shine out in all his works and be written on everyone’s forehead (Rev. 22:4). For that reason we have no choice but to name him with the many names his revelation furnishes us.” ― Herman Bavinck

"Hold this as a fixed verity, that that is best which God wills. All that have come to God believe this, else they would have not come; for what could draw the heart from all its good but that which is greater than all? But though this is habitually in them, yet they do not always actually believe it; for what should be the cause of their excursions and deviations but because at present they think it better to walk in another way than the way of God." - Joseph Symonds

"God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him." - John Owen
 

"I say, who can hear Jesus Christ speaking thus, and his heart not fall in love and league with Christ, and his soul not unite to Christ and resign to Christ, and cleave to Christ, and for ever be one with Christ, except it be such that are for ever left by Christ? Well, remember this, the more vile Christ made himself for us, the more dear he ought to be unto us." - Thomas Brooks
 

"Question: How shall we know that we love the reproofs of the Word?
Answer 1: When we desire to sit under a heart-searching ministry. Who cares for medicines that will not work? A godly man does not choose to sit under a ministry that will... not work upon his conscience.
Answer 2: When we pray that the Word may meet with our sins. If there is any traitorous lust in our heart, we would have it found out and executed. We do not want sin covered, but cured. We can open our breast to the bullet of the Word and say, 'Lord, smite this sin.'" - Thomas Watson

"Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet." - John Flavel
 
"Let us, then, cultivate an attitude of courage as over against the investigations of the day. None should be more zealous in them than we. None should be more quick to discern truth in every field, more hospitable to receive it, more loyal to follow it wherever it leads." - Benjamin B. Warfield
 
"The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God." - Martin Lloyd-Jones
 
“We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.” ― John Calvin
 
“I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.” ― Martin Luther
 

“The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament than have many theologians.” - F.F. Bruce

"When any generation is itself content to rely on its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation. ...The powers of darkness are never idle and in combating error each generation must fight its own battle in exposing and correcting the same. It is light that dispels darkness and in this sphere light consists in the enrichment which each generation contributes to the stores of theological knowledge." - John Murray