Calvin: the proper defense of righteousness

Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Meditation:
    Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.
    —2 John 9 (NIV)
Quotation:
    To pious and peaceable persons [Augustine] gives this advice: that they should correct in mercy whatever they can; that what they cannot, they should patiently bear, and affectionately lament, till God either reform and correct it, or, at the harvest, root up the tares and sift out the chaff. All pious persons should study to fortify themselves with these counsels, lest, while they consider themselves as valiant and strenuous defenders of righteousness, they depart from the kingdom of heaven, which is the only kingdom of righteousness. For since it is the will of God that the communion of his Church should be maintained in this external society, those who, from an aversion to wicked men, destroy the token of that society, enter on a course in which they are in great danger of falling from the communion of saints.
    ... John Calvin (1509-1564), The Institutes of the Christian Religion, v. II, tr. John Allen, Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, 1921, IV.i.16, p. 238 (see the book)
    See also 2 John 1:9; Matt. 13:24-30; 25:32; Rom. 12:18; 1 Cor. 4:5; 12:18-20,25; Phil. 2:1-2
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, drive schism from my heart, so that I know only Christ. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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