The Calvinist is counter-cultural in the modern world. There is much to discuss. There is much to ignore. When matters relate to music, the arts and worship, they come very close to home for composer Abigail J. Fox. These are her occasional essays, not to court controversy but to take a stand.
He who hitches his chariot to a star is not thereby sinking to a lower status. True as this is in worldly matters it is superlatively true in spiritual affairs. The man led by the Spirit of God - the Christ led man - is the man of highest, and not of lowest, dignity. As it is the mark of a Christian man that he is ‘under orders,’ so it is the source of all his dignity that he is ‘under orders’.
~ B. B. Warfield
Humility ... is less an act than a disposition of mind. It is not so much a single performance of some detached humble deed, as an incessant watchfulness against every propensity to pride.
~ Hannah More
When the Spirit would glorify Jesus, he humbles you. When he would glorify his fulness, he makes you feel your emptiness. When he would bring you to rely on his strength, he convinces you of your weakness. When he would magnify the comforts of Jesus, he makes you sensible of your misery. When he would fix your heart on his heaven, he makes you feel your deserved hell. When he would exalt his righteousness, you find you are a poor miserable sinner.
~ William Romaine
I would walk close with Him in His way, not to buy His love, it is inestimable; not to merit it, free grace and merit cannot stand together; not that I may deserve it for my walk, but may freely receive it of Him in my walk; not that He may give it me for walking with Him, but that in walking with Him, I may enjoy what He has already given me. His love is a free gift. I would be faith enjoy it in time, as I hope by sense to enjoy it in eternity.
~ William Romaine
Above all things then you should beware that your pupils do not take up with a vague, general, and undefined religion, but look to it that their Christianity be really the religion of Christ. Instead of slurring over the doctrines of the Cross, as disreputable appendages to our religion, which are to be disguised or got over as well as we can, but which are never to be dwelt upon, taken care to make these your grand fundamental articles. Do not dilute or explain away these doctrines, and by some elegant periphrasis hint at a Saviour, instead of making him the foundation-stone of your system. Do not convey primary, and plain, and awful, and indispensable truths elliptically, I mean as something that is to be understood without being expressed; nor study fashionable circumlocutions to avoid names and things on which our salvation hangs in order to prevent your discourse from being offensive.
~ Hannah More
Man gropes about as though walking in darkness. His way is beset on all sides with problems that press in upon him and clamour for a solution. To these problems man can often turn but an uncomprehending glance, for he has no knowledge to apply to their solution. Professing to know and also to be wise, nevertheless he does not know, and hence his decisions and judgments are not those of wisdom and knowledge. With God, however, knowledge is to be found, as well as the ability to apply this knowledge. God is all-knowing and God is all-wise. To be able to address such a God is a blessing indeed.
~ E. J. Young, on Psalm 139 v.2
