The Calvinist InternationalEric Parker (PhD McGill University) is the editor of the Library of Early English Protestantism (LEEP) at the Davenant Institute. He lives in the deep South with his wife and two children, where he is currently preparing for ordination to the diaconate in the Reformed Episcopal Church.
It has been a while since my last post on Alsted, so those of you who may be unfamiliar with this series can find the earlier posts here. In this series, I have been translating and offering brief commentary on Johann Heinrich Alsted and his book Theologia naturalis, the full title of which (when translated) […]
It may be news to many of you that Origen, the church father, and Plotinus, the great Neoplatonist philosopher, at one time or another, both sat under the teaching of Ammonius Saccas, who was perhaps the founding teacher of Neoplatonism. Joseph Trigg, in his book on Origen, briefly explains the similarities and differences between Origen […]
Since Eric Hutchinson has shared his delightful translations of certain prayers contained in Liturgia Sacra, a 16th century French Reformed prayer book, I thought it pertinent to give some background to this particular liturgy and its author. The book gives us the details of its origin. It was published in 1555 in Frankfort am Main by […]
In his Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis implies that modern Christians often miss a crucial aspect of the nativity. In celebrating the peace and joy that the infant Jesus embodies for Israel and for the world it is easy to lose sight of his combined priest-kingly activity of “binding the strong man” and destroying […]
Paul paints a marvelous picture of Christ’s “kenosis” or humility in his Epistle to the Philippians, where we are told that Christ “emptied himself [ekenosin], taking on the form of a servant…” In Wesley’s words, he “emptied himself of all but love.” In his Epistle to the Thessalonians Paul reveals that he too has become like […]
The eminent English divine Henry More (1618-1647), like many of his Protestant forebears, believed that piety is an essential part of moral philosophy, that is to say, that moral philosophy is not a secular discipline. The individual who seeks true virtue, More believed, would not be satisfied until he discovers the ultimate source of virtue […]
The Puritan Nathaniel Culverwell (1619-1651), like many of those who graced the walls of the various colleges at Cambridge in the mid-17th century, elegantly defends the rationality of faith. He expounds upon the relationship between faith and reason in his An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (1652), in which he affirms […]
Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) is perhaps the most famous and influential of the group of Anglican divines that scholars since the 19th century have dubbed the Cambridge Platonists. These divines were some of the first, if not the first, English philosophers to discuss and critically engage with the new philosophy of René Descartes. They were certainly attracted to […]
John Smith (1616-1652), the Christian Platonist and Anglican theologian who scholars today recognize as one of the members of the Cambridge Platonists, beautifully answers the perennial question of why an infinite and perfect God would create a finite universe. Smith affirms that the traditional answer, “for his own Glory,” requires some explanation. When God seeks […]
In the 1520s and 30s Protestants were embroiled in polemics against Roman Catholic theologians. One of the many debated issues regards the nature of faith and the controversial Protestant claim that God justifies sinners by faith alone. As Martin Bucer points out in 1532 in his commentary on the Psalms (Sacrorum Psalmorum libri quinque) Catholic […]