For John of Salisbury, virtue is necessary for man, but knowledge is necessary for virtue, but grammar is necessary for knowledge, but grace is necessary for grammar. Quite acatena causarum, but it’s his, and he’s sticking with it.

More expansively:

InMetalogicon1.23, a chapter...

Earlier this year, an article at TGC Australia started a controversy over the question of the temptations and impeccability of Christ. In the article, Ed Shaw wrote, “I’m wanting the young people who come to this event to know that Jesus is the one person that they can fully trust with...

Ever since the Protestant Reformation, the role of good works in salvation has been a topic the Reformed were keen to address in detail in order to guard against attacks from those outside of the tradition who accused them of abandoning the necessity of good works in the life of believers. As such,...

InQ/A 25 of theGeneva Catechism, commenting on the Apostles’ Creed, John Calvin strikes the note (for the children!) of the majority of the Christian tradition, given great emphasis by, e.g., Gregory of Nazianzus: God’s essence is unknowable to us and incomprehensible. We therefore...

After a little delay, we’re back with the next section of the First Catechism in Latin. These questions treat the definition of sin and the Fall. As always, please feel free to do with these as you like.

Quaestiones XXX-XXXV

xxxi. Quid significat illud “transgressio”?

Facere...

Many of us have come to see the reality of something called“Big Eva” and the way in which it seems to shape much of our modern church culture. You might think this is mostly a problem for Baptist and broader Evangelical churches, but something very much like it can be present in...

Justification at its most basic is straightforward. A man recognizes that he is a sinner. He judges himself to be guilty for his sin before God. He looks for a source whence he can obtain the righteousness he does not possess. He finds it offered to him in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He trusts in...

Next five questions below, about the Covenant of Life and sin.

Quaestiones XXVI-XXX

xxvi. Quid promisit Deus in foedere vitae?

Se Adam vita donaturum esse, si Deo perfecte pareret.

xxvii. Quid minatus est Deus in foedere vitae?

Se Adam morte puniturum esse, si Deo non pareret.

xxviii. Tenuitne Adam...

The next five in our ongoing series, on creation and the covenant of life…

Quaestiones XXI-XXV

xxi. Quomodo cognoscis animum vitam in aeternum esse acturum?

Quod Scripturae sanctae mihi hoc docent.

xxii. In quo statu Adam Hevamque constituit Deus?

Deus eos in sanctitatis et beatitudinis statu...

Today we continue on with the next five questions of the First Catechism translated into Latin, which concern the creation of Adam and Eve.

Quaestiones XVI-XX

xvi. Qui erant primi nostri parentes?

Adam et Heva.

xvii. Qualem hominem creavit Deus?

Deus hominem creavit masculum et feminam, iuxta...

Yesterday I posted the first 10 questions of the First Catechism in Latin. Today we’re back with the next five.

xi. Potesne Deum videre?

Deum videre non possum, sed Deus me videt semper.

xii. Scitne Deus omnia?

Deus omnia scit, et nihil ei latet.

xiii. Potestne facere omnia Deus?

Deus totam...

It used to be standard practice in Protestant academies to catechize in Latin. That is obviously much less the case now, perhaps a cause of nostalgia for those of us who are (a) Christians and who also (b) teach Latin to small children.

But nostalgia is dumb, and always has been.

In an effort,...

Originally published in 1908, Herman Bavinck’s book The Christian Family was only just translated into English in 2012. Throughout the book, Bavinck lays out a Christian theology of the family, and he gives practical advice on how families can withstand modern challenges and...

With the recent publication of Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Ethics and the forthcoming first English translation of his Christian Worldview ¹, more and more readers are discovering the genius of the Dutch neo-Calvinist afresh. Picking up Bavinck’s Ethicsor Dogmatics, however, can be...

At long last, below you will find the final prayer included at the end of Andreas Hyperius’s Elementa Christianae Religionis. This one is to be used before reading or hearing the Bible. Once again, the attempt (doubtless insufficient) was made to put it in Cranmerian Plain Style. The...

The next of Hyperius’s prayers, this onefor the evening, is translated below. It is a good bit longer than his morning prayer; but it is also quite good. After this, only one more remains to be done. 

An evening prayer.

Lord God, most generous Father, for thy kindnesses both internal and...

A couple of years ago I translatedtwoprayers by Andreas Hyperius from hisElementa Christianae Religionis (Elements of the Christian Religion). There are a few more from that final section of the work, so I figured, well, why not. They’re good. All of them, including those I translated back...

Plato, in thePhaedo, had Socrates claim that philosophy was “practice for dying and death.” It was a sentiment that was to exercise great influence down through the centuries, all the way to Heidegger’s “Being-toward-death” and beyond. (That last part works better if...

The 200th anniversary of the birth of America’s greatest writer of fiction just passed.

I mean Herman Melville,...

InInstitutes3.3.19, John Calvin gives a “summary of the gospel” (cf. 3.3.1), in which he makes the important point that “the gospel,” the good news that Scripture and the church proclaim, includes not only the forgiveness or remission of sins (justification), but also...

On August 1, 1537, Philip Melanchthon wrote a letter to the Lutheran poet Eobanus Hessus intended to serve as prefatory material for his versification of the Psalter, thePsalterium Davidis carmine redditum (David’s Psalter Rendered in Verse), in which Hessus put all 150 Psalms into Latin...

InSermon 162C (Dolbeau 10), on Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2 (on the history of the exegesis of this passage, cf. my essayhere), ¹ Augustine gives a helpful sketch of the various “levels” on which one can speak of the genesis and authorship or “voice” of...

George Buchanan was perhaps the finest Latin poet to write after the close of antiquity. I’ve discussed him previouslyhere,here, andhere. 

One of his most-loved works in verse is hisPoetic paraphrase of the Psalms of David (Psalmorum Davidis paraphrasis poetica), the first complete...

We’ve treated the Protestant educational legacy at various times here in the past: see, for example,this; orthis; orthis.

One aspect we haven’t touched on is the premium that Presbyterians in particular placed on the education of women. This is arguably a legacy of the Ulster...

Those who honor Christ only as their Mediator are easily tempted to call in his help as the physician for one’s sin-sick soul, but then, once that soul is conscious of its salvation and healing, to treat the Savior as we often do our earthly physicians — once healed, we let them go and...