The Place of the Westminster Assembly in Modern History (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Place of the Westminster Assembly in Modern History In the modern world, this great idea began its mission in the Pro testant Reformation. But the Protestant Reformation at the begin ning did not give to it the place it soon afterwards assumed. The sovereignty of God in the history and destiny of every soul was the belief of Luther, as centuries before it had been the belief of St. Augustine. It was not, however, until the Institutes of the Chris tian Religion were written by John Calvin, that the great truth of the sovereignty of God was formulated and correlated to the other doctrines of Christianity in precisely the mode in which it became the great historical force it afterward proved to be in the spheres of religion and politics. For Luther followed St. Augustine, and there 1s an important dis tinction to be made between the place which predestination holds in the doc'trinal system of Augustine, and the place which the eter nal purpose holds in the doctrinal system of Calvin. The profound experience of sin and grace of the North African father brought him to the conviction that God alone is the author of man's salva tion, for man is unable not only to effect it, but to begin the new creation, from death to life. And therefore the one ultimate explanation of the fact that regeneration is not universal is for him to be found in the sovereign and absolute predestination of God. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.