FREE EBOOKS IN .PDF

The Three Forms of Unity (.pdf)
The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Council of Dordrecht along with the Ecumenical Creeds

The Westminster Confession of Faith (.pdf)
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. Although drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly, largely of the Church of England, it became and remains the 'subordinate standard' of doctrine in the Church of Scotland, and has been influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide.

Shorter Catechism with Scripture Proofs (pdf)
From the Westminster Assembly. What is the chief end of man? A. Man's chief end is to glorify God,a and to enjoy him forever

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith - 1689 (.pdf)
The main body of the Westminster Confession was preserved in the London Confession of Faith of 1689

The Cambridge Declaration (1996)
Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals - Embraces the "essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church" and the "solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation. 

De Servo Arbitrio:
On the Bondage of the Will (.pdf)
by Martin Luther

Table-Talk (.pdf)
Martin Luther

Commentary on Galatians (.pdf)
Martin Luther

Institutes of Christian Religion (.pdf)
John Calvin   Continue at Monergism

The Need for a Creed

Everyone has a creed. Even those who say they don’t believe in creeds have a creed. Their creed is: “I don’t believe in creeds!” What exactly is a creed? It’s simply a statement of belief. Creed is derived from the Latin word credo, “believe.” Therefore, if you have the capacity to believe in something, then you have a creed – even if it’s an unspoken one.

Throughout history, individuals and groups have written down their creeds. These have variously been called Declarations, Resolutions, Statements, Statements of Belief, Mission Statements, Doctrinal Statements, Confessions (from Latin confessus “ to acknowledge”), or Manifestos (from Latin manifestus “ clear, evident, manifest”). All are essentially creeds. Written creeds have played a vital and undeniable role in history —  in philosophy, politics, and culture, as well as in the church.

The Historical Importance of Creeds

The United States of America was founded on a creed called The Declaration of Independence:  ”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

The French Aristocracy was overthrown as a result of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a creed published during the French Revolution. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated on a creed that changed the political landscape for generations: The Communist Manifesto.

The Humanist Manifesto I, a fifteen point creed written in 1933 was published with thirty-four signatories. It led to the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II, whose oft-quoted lines include, “No deity will save us; we must save ourselves,” and “We are responsible for what we are and for what we will be.” The second Humanist Manifesto was initially published with a small number of signatories, but then procured thousands more.  Over the course of time, its tenets have been assimilated en-mass to become the dominant world-view of our time.

Christian Creeds, Theses, and Statements

Just as political and philosophical creeds have profoundly influenced the course of secular history, so have Christian creeds profoundly affected the history of the church. It’s important to note that contrary to secular creeds, the creeds produced by the Christian Church are statements of faith that are meant to accurately reflect and summarize what Scripture teaches. They are not regarded as additions or replacements for Scripture. Instead, these documents are carefully considered and thoughtfully worded responses to various issues, heresies and historical situations that have challenged the Church and sound doctrine over the centuries.  In general, they highlight and oppose those errors that the compilers of the creed believe are most dangerous to sound doctrine at that particular time in history.    Continue at Mary Kassian

FREE EBOOKS IN .PDF FORMAT

The Three Forms of Unity (.pdf)
The Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Council of Dordrecht along with the Ecumenical Creeds

Shorter Catechism with Scripture Proofs (pdf)
From the Westminster Assembly. What is the chief end of man? A. Man's chief end is to glorify God,a and to enjoy him forever

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith - 1689 (.pdf)
The main body of the Westminster Confession was preserved in the London Confession of Faith of 1689

The Cambridge Declaration (1996)
Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals - Embraces the "essential truths of Christianity as those were defined by the great ecumenical councils of the church" and the "solas" of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation.

De Servo Arbitrio: On the Bondage of the Will (.pdf)
by Martin Luther 

Table-Talk (.pdf)
Martin Luther

Institutes of Christian Religion (.pdf )
John Calvin 

On Prayer (.pdf)
John Calvin

Commentary on Genesis - Volume 1 (.pdf)

John Calvin

Many More HERE

Small Children at Worship Services – Why Are They Present?

There certainly is no Bible verse which tells us when children should begin attending worship services. The customary age at which parents begin to take their children into meetings varies from church to church. It may properly vary among members of the same church, though it tends to follow a pattern because of church decisions touching the nursery, etc. The practice of local churches in this matter comes under the statement made in our Confession of Faith: Chapter I, section 6, paragraph 2:

“We acknowledge that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of churches, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the Word, which are always to be observed..”

In our church, parents usually begin to bring their children into our services at the age of two. Our nursery offers to keep children only under two years of age. That policy is not without reasons; though again, it must be emphasized that it is a matter of judgment on the basis of general prudence and general rules of God’s Word.

It is our judgment that children who are two-years-old are usually mature enough to understand when their parents tell them to be quiet and to sit reasonably still for one hour. Furthermore, by the time a child is two, his parents should have progressed far enough in their training of children to be able to enforce such basic orders, which their child can understand. Though teaching this behavior to children may not be easy, it is not unreasonable. It has been done by parents of children with many different character make-ups. Your child is not that unique!  Continue at Walter Chantry

The Nameless One

Over the last few months, I have been asked in numerous contexts what I think about the young, restless and reformed (YRR) movement(s) described in Collin Hansen's book of the same name.  I did do a quasi -review of this book some time ago, in which I argued that the existence of the movement seemed to indicate that all the hype surrounding the emergent business was probably overwrought and that there was no need for complete panic in Reformed circles.
 
In retrospect, however, there are a number of things which should give some cause for critical reflection on this new interest in Reformed theology.  Let me preface this by saying that the more people reading the Bible, the better, as far as I am concerned; the more people going to church and hearing the gospel preached, the more we should all be rejoicing; and the more people studying the writings of  Calvin, Owen and company, the happier we should all be.  Only the modern day equivalents of the Scottish Moderates of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would grumble and complain that more people are spending more time hearing more sermons, reading more scripture and studying more classic Christian literature.  But just because a movement has good effects does not mean that we should be blind to its shortcomings and potential pitfalls.

One striking and worrying aspect of the movement is how personality oriented it is.  It is identified with certain big names, rather than creeds, confessions, denominations, or even local congregations.    Such has always been the way with Christianity to some extent.  Luther was a hero, both in his own time and for subsequent generations, and he is hardly alone.  The names of Owen, Edwards, and Spurgeon, to list but three, also have great cachet; and, if we are honest, there are things which we all find in their writing which are scarcely unique to them but which we are inclined to take more seriously because it is these men who wrote the words on the page.  Continue at Carl Trueman

The Doctrine of the Trinity: No Christianity Without It

If any doctrine makes Christianity Christian, then surely it is the doctrine of the Trinity. The three great ecumenical creeds—the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed—are all structured around our three in one God, underlying the essential importance of Trinitarian theology. Augustine once commented about the Trinity that “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.” More recently, Sinclair Ferguson has reflected on “the rather obvious thought that when his disciples were about to have the world collapse in on them, our Lord spent so much time in the Upper Room speaking to them about the mystery of the Trinity. If anything could underline the necessity of Trinitarianism for practical Christianity, that must surely be it!”

Yet, when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, most Christians are poor in their understanding, poorer in their articulation, and poorest of all in seeing any way in which the doctrine matters in real life. One theologian said, tongue in cheek, “The trinity is a matter of five notions or properties, four relations, three persons, two processions, one substance or nature, and no understanding.” All the talk of essence and persons and co-this and co-that seem like theological gobbledy-gook reserved for philosophers and scholars-maybe for thinky bookish types, but certainly not for moms and mechanics and middle-class college students.    Keep Reading...

The Athanasian Creed

The origin of the Athanasian Creed is unknown. As the name suggests, the Creed was originally ascribed to Athanasius—the great “father of Nicene orthodoxy”—as early as the ninth century. However, since the seventeenth century, the document has been regarded as conclusively non- Athanasian for several reasons:

1. Athanasius never mentioned the Creed anywhere in his writings.
2. The councils of Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) do not refer to the document. 
3. Athanasius died in 373, so it is very likely that it would have been written before then.

Because it was original attributed to Athanasius, the Athanasian Creed had considerable influence. The Creed was used by the Lutheran Churches and and many of the Reformed Churches, and was mentioned in the Augsburg Confession, the Formula of Concord, the Thirty- nine Articles, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Belgic Confession, and the Bohemian Confession (Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom). Keep Reading...

Carried Away by Loose, General, Sentimental Talk

Never was there a time when it was more necessary that we should consider carefully what the Apostle has to teach us, and what all parts of the Bible teach us, concerning ‘the wiles of the devil’. 

Men wanted to be happy and to enjoy themselves, and dismissed the man who kept on warning us as a ‘warmonger’, a ‘difficult person’ with whom nobody could work, an ‘individualist’. Precisely the same, it seems to me, is happening in the realm of the spiritual today. People say, ‘Do not be negative; let us be positive; let us just preach the simple gospel’. But the Bible is full of negatives, full of warnings, ever showing us these terrible possibilities. If you find in yourself a dislike of the warnings of the Scripture and of this negative teaching, it is obvious that you have been duped by the wiles of the devil. You have not realized the situation in which you are placed.

Incipient heresy can be detected from the very earliest days. There is an enemy who comes and sows tares. Continue Reading>>>

Syncretism, Kingdom Confusion, and Evangelical Niceness

Proto-Fundamentalism

Believing About the Holy Catholic Church

Unashamedly Confessional