From Reformation to Reformation

[A fundraising update: We are 25% of the way to our fundraising goal 25 new $100/month subscribers! Thanks be to God. If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.   Click here to watch a brief video on the project.] 1.  Solemn pronouncement of prayer .  2.  The origin of the word  Theology.  3.  The use of the same brought into the Church .  4.  Synonyms ἔγγραφα, found in writing.  5.  The definition of th

To the pious, learned, and benevolent Reader, Greetings from Johann Heinrich Schweizer, Professor at the School in Zurich. [1]  What is found in the frontispiece of the Hymns of DAVID , Psalm 1:2, 3, That Man is blessed, whose delight is in the law of Jehovah, with the result that he doth meditate in that Law day and night.  He is like a Tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, the leaves of which fade not ; that is certainly worthy al

Johann Heinrich Heidegger’s     Corpus of Christian Theology     Exhibiting   The Doctrine of the Truth, which is according to godliness, and that against all Adversaries , Ancient and Modern, erring either in the Foundation of the faith, or around it, in such a way that the same time it contains a διατύπωσιν/ system  of Old and New Testament Church History .   And so it is an altogether Full System of Theology, Didactic, Elenctic, Moral, and Historical.   Volume 1     Transl

Johann Heinrich Heidegger was born to Johann Hartmann, dean of the chapter, and Magdalena Wagner, a pastor’s daughter, on July 1, 1633, at Bäretswil in the Canton of Zürich.  Johann Heinrich began his theological studies at the Collegium Carolinum in Zürich, and proceeded to Marburg, where he lived with, and studied under, the celebrated Ludwig Crocius, one of the most prominent theologians of the German Reformed Church. [1]   He finished his studies at the Heidelberg Univers

[We could use your help: If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.   Click here to watch a brief video on the project. ] On this controversy consult CALVIN’S Institutes of the Christian Religion , book  I, chapter  XIV, § 7; SPANHEIM’S Dubia Euangelica , part  III, Doubts LXI, LXII, pages  273-279; VOETIUS’ de Angelis Tutelaribus , Disputationum theologicarum , part  I, pages 897-905; and ODÉ, who most

[We could use your help: If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.   Click here to watch a brief video on the project. ] The Office of the Good Angels is the Ministry of God , the same that belonged of old to all Angels, concerning which above in § 12; but which the Good Angels alone willingly furnish. However, to this is incorrectly referred , 1.  The perpetual Prefecture of certain Regions or Men, to ea

[We could use your help: If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.   Click here to watch a brief video on the project. ] They were not confirmed through the Grace of the Mediator :  α.  Because Scripture never speaks in this fashion, which assigns Christ as Mediator  to Men alone, and never says that He was constituted as Mediator between God and the Angels, 1 Timothy 2:5; Luke 2:10, 11.  β.  Indeed, Scr

[ If you are being blessed by the translation work, please consider supporting the work and speeding it on its way.   Click here to watch a brief video on the project. ] THESIS VIII:  Hitherto the words of the commandment .  They are the words of promise, which make known and disclose the thing signified in sacramental expression, even concerning the external symbols:  as concerning the bread, this is my body ; concerning the cup, or [the wine] in the cup, this is my blood of

Finally, it remains to respond in a few words to the seventh  Question mentioned in § 1, How does the Apostle, in citing this prophecy, reach the goal that he intends? tying verse  14 with what precedes by the logical conjunction διό/ wherefore .  In context, Paul addresses believing Ephesians, who were sometimes darkness, but now were made Light in the Lord , verse  8.  He had instruct these, in verse  11, καὶ μὴ συγκοινωνεῖτε τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς ἀκάρποις τοῦ σκότους, μᾶλλον δ

But now, when the text applies this promise to those awaking from sleep and rising from the dead , from this it is not gathered that supernatural Grace is only going to follow upon the right use of natural gifts and strength; as if by virtue of these the natural man could be awakened from spiritual torpor and arise from the death of sin.  The contrary is taught by the whole Scripture; our National Synod of Dort, closely following the Scripture in this matter, is to be revered

We proceed to the sixth Question moved in § 1, What is the meaning of the promise subjoined to the admonition,  and Christ shall dawn upon thee ?   And whether supernatural grace is only going to follow upon the right use of natural gifts?   With respect to the first member of the Question, we do not entertain here one and another variant reading, less suitable, or even inept, which already of old CHRYSOSTOM rejected and JEROME exploded, and concerning which Interpreters eve

Thus briefly we consider this forth difficulty to have been loosed.  But from the response to the same just now given a fifth  Question spontaneously arises, which I enumerated in § 1 as worthy of careful consideration, namely, In what manner the spiritually dead are able to be made mindful to awake and arise?   I respond , 1.  the divine commandments and admonitions are not the measure of our strength, but they show us our appropriate duty, even if we have lost the strength

The fourth  ζήτημα/ question  that I proposed in § 1 is, Whether the speech here is directed to the regenerate and believing alone; or to the unregenerate, who, in a natural state after the fall, yet lie insensible in their errors and sins in the sleep of spiritual death?   An answer to this question is almost able to be returned from those things that have already been set forth in § 11 for the illustration of the oracle of Isaiah , Isaiah 60:1-3.  That the twofold or repeat

I advised in § 1 that it is able to be asked in the third place , Whether  in our text by the words  ὁ καθεύδων, thou that sleepest , and νεκρῶν, the dead , two different sorts of men are set forth to us ?  NICHOLAS DE LYRA does not appear to think so, giving this paraphrase of the text:  “ Awake thou that sleepest , in the languor brought on by sin.  And arise from the dead , in separating thyself from unbelievers, who are called dead men, Matthew 8, Send ye the dead to bury

c.  Finally, with respect to the promise occurring in Isaiah 59:20, וּבָ֤א לְצִיּוֹן֙ גּוֹאֵ֔ל וּלְשָׁבֵ֥י פֶ֖שַׁע בְּיַֽעֲקֹ֑ב נְאֻ֖ם יְהוָֽה׃, and the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith Jehovah , to which the Apostle appeals in Romans 11:26, καὶ οὕτω πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ σωθήσεται, καθὼς γέγραπται· Ἥξει ἐκ Σιὼν ὁ ῥυόμενος, καὶ ἀποστρέψει ἀσεβείας ἀπὸ Ἰακώβ, and so all Israel shall be saved:  as it is written, There shall come out

So that I might respond to the proposed difficulties in order: a.  With respect to the first , I observe that Isaiah in that sublimer, but especially well-known, prophetic style thus depicts that blessed state of the Church, to be gathered under the New Testament, in this chapter  60, so that from the very beginnings of that Economy the fulfillment of this Prophecy in great part was looked for; a fuller exhibition of which we expect day-by-day, but the perfect fulfillment of

Moreover, I did not will to set before the eyes of the Reader this consensus of the most excellent Interpreters of divers ages and professions, so that by the prejudice of authority I might compel him, as it were, to embrace the opinion that pleases me more than the other:  but so that I might show that the reading in Paul occurring in the place that we are treating did not appear to so many most weighty Men so different from the manner received by the Writers of the New Test

And since, with the precautions applied that I advised in § 8 are to be observed time and again in the citation of the Old Testament made by the Writers of the New Testament, all things are plain and clear, if we establish that the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:14 were borrowed from the beginning of chapter of Isaiah 60; it is not at all strange that Interpreters, many and eminent, turned to this opinion, which affirms that the words of the Apostle in our text were fetched eit

And so remains, as to which Prophetic text properly deserves to be said to be cited by the Apostle, that third one that the DUTCH INTERPRETERS in their Notis  commend, namely, Isaiah 60:1, to which verses  2 and 3 deserve to be added:ק֥וּמִי א֖וֹרִי כִּ֣י בָ֣א אוֹרֵ֑ךְ וּכְב֥וֹד יְהוָ֖ה עָלַ֥יִךְ זָרָֽח׃  כִּֽי־הִנֵּ֤ה הַחֹ֙שֶׁךְ֙ יְכַסֶּה־אֶ֔רֶץ וַעֲרָפֶ֖ל לְאֻמִּ֑ים וְעָלַ֙יִךְ֙ יִזְרַ֣ח יְהוָ֔ה וּכְבוֹד֖וֹ עָלַ֥יִךְ יֵרָאֶֽה׃  וְהָלְכ֥וּ גוֹיִ֖ם לְאוֹרֵ֑ךְ וּמְלָכִ֖ים לְנֹ

The other passage collated by the DUTCH TRANSLATORS is that in Isaiah 9:2, which verse immediately coheres with Isaiah 9:1, for the gloom shall not be thick to him to whom it was a vexation:  in the former time He made the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali vile:  but in the latter time He honored it, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Nations.  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon the inhabitants of the land of the shadow o