11 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the first chapter of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, "Relation of Sacred Eloquence to Biblical Exegesis," W.G.T. Shedd discusses what "originality" might mean for the "sacred orator," for he has just said that the study of sacred revelation does indeed grant an originality to "religious thinking...
Read more → 09 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Continuing an exercise begun the other day... Calvin refers to the Roman poets Vergil and Lucretius exactly once in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in the same passage of 1.5.5, "The Knowledge of God Conspicuous in the Creation, and Continual Government of the World." The passage begins...
Read more → 08 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In Part 6 of the Discourse on Method, Descartes objects to the way in which the inquiry for truth was, in his experience, conducted in the schools. He writes: But though I recognize my extreme liability to error, and scarce ever trust to the first thoughts which occur to me, yet-the experience I have...
Read more → 04 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In Politics 1259a-b, Aristotle distinguishes between the type of authority fathers have over children and that possessed by husbands over wives as follows: "Of household management we have seen that there are three parts—one is the rule of a master over slaves, which has been discussed already,...
Read more → 02 Aug 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Stephen Wolfe has an excellent article up today at Mere Orthodoxy in defense of what is called (usually derisively) "cultural Christianity." The article's principles should be examined and thought through before unleashing a series of BUT WHAT ABOUTs. The piece has the additional salutary benefit of honoring...
Read more → 31 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
One more update on the topic Pastor Wedgeworth and I have recently posted on, the end of Christ's priestly mediation between the Father and the faithful in the eschaton. The annotator of Augustine's On the Trinity, which I discussed in the first post, in the NPNF series was the Presbyterian theologian...
Read more → 28 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
A bit later in the sermon to which I've referred a couple of times previously, John Cotton details what he thinks the phrase "help meet" in Genesis 2 means. I suspect that the simple act of copying and pasting this is enough to make most contemporary Christians, including not a few who classify themselves...
Read more → 27 Jul 2017
Posted by Mark Jones 
A few days ago, Pastor Tim Keller posted the following devotional line to facebook: Now, we can assume that this was meant as a sort of "pastoral" exhortation, something intended to encourage and inspire rather than to serve as truly provocative or revisionist theology. It is also possible that someone...
Read more → 26 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Yesterday's post on John Cotton's wedding sermon tells us something else worth remarking on, which I did not include yesterday. If one wished to come up with a taxonomy for different ways of looking at marriage, one might call the view expressed in the Cotton excerpt the "social solidarity" view of marriage....
Read more → 25 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
It's 2017, and so we should remember that there were several, not just one or two, important facets of the project of Reformation undertaken in the sixteenth century. One of these was to exalt the estate of marriage as a high and holy one, and not simply an option for second-class Christians who can't...
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