Proofs in continuation, extracted from St. John's Gospel. The Gospels are four in number, neither more nor less. Mystic reasons for this. 1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an …

God the Father and His Word have formed all created things (which They use) by Their own power and wisdom, not out of defect or ignorance. The Son of God, who received all power from the Father, would otherwise never have taken flesh upon Him. 1. And such or so important a dispensation He did not bring about by means of the creations of others, but by His own; neither by those …

1. Moses in the beginning of the history and writings of the Old Testament speaks to us of the objects of sense, and enumerates them to us at length. For, In the beginning, he says, God made the heaven and the earth, and then he adds, that light was created, and a second heaven and the stars, the various kinds of living creatures, and, that we may not delay by going through par…

1. If you remember our former reflections, we shall the more zealously proceed with the building up of what remains, as doing so for great gain. For so will our discourse be more intelligible to you who remember what has been already said, and we shall not need much labor, because you are able through your great love of learning to see more clearly into what remains. The man wh…

1. Our Lord Jesus Christ calls His coming in the flesh an exodus [or going out]: as when He says, The sower went out to sow. Matthew 13:3 And again, I went out from the Father, and have come. John 16:28 And in many places one may see this. But Paul calls it an [eisodus or] coming in, saying, And when again He brings in the First-Begotten into the world, meaning by this Bringing…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Calvin expounds the eternal divinity of the Word with great care. The Word was not created in time but existed from all eternity with the Father. "The Word was God" — here is a clear declaration of the deity of Christ. The Word was made flesh — this is the mystery of the incarnation, the union of th…

1 And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the preceding section, my revered brother Ambrosius, brother formed according to the Gospel, we have discussed, as far as is at present in our power, what the Gospel is, and what is the beginning in which the Word was, and what the Word is which was in the beginning. We now come to consider the next point in the work before …

1. Relation of the Baptist to Elijah. The Theory of Transmigration Considered. The disciples asked Him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elijah must first come? Matthew 17:10 The disciples indeed who went up with Jesus remembered the traditions of the scribes concerning Elijah, that before the advent of Christ, Elijah would come and prepare for Him the souls of those who w…

Then follows a period of nine years from the nineteenth year of his age, during which having lost a friend, he followed the Manichæans — and wrote books on the fair and fit, and published a work on the liberal arts, and the categories of Aristotle. Chapter 1. Concerning that Most Unhappy Time in Which He, Being Deceived, Deceived Others; And Concerning the Mockers of His Confes…

Containing a general view of the subjects treated in Holy Scripture Chapter 1.— The Interpretation of Scripture Depends on the Discovery and Enunciation of the Meaning, and is to Be Undertaken in Dependence on God's Aid. 1. There are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning, and the mode of making known the meaning…

The Synod rejects the errors of those who teach that corrupt and natural human beings can make such good use of common grace (by which they mean the light of nature) or of the gifts remaining after the fall that they are able thereby gradually to obtain a greater grace — evangelical or saving grace — as well as salvation itself. And that in this way God, for his part, shows him…