How will your church celebrate the Reformation?

[Yeshua1]

Are you saying that God is not working in the lives and teachings of Mac and Sproul? Are you saying that Mac and Sproul are teaching another gospel?

No, rather that the Church is built upon the foundation of Jesus, and the teachings of His Apostles!

 

[Yeshua1]

There were two miracles in the early 16th century'

One was the reformation when the bible was set free from Rome
The second was the miracle of printing which distributed it.

Can anyone tell me who the Baptists were immediately before the reformation?

The Apostles themselves?

 

[David Kent]

The Apostles themselves?

By before the reformation I should have said immediately before the reformatioin, say a couple of hundred years before. Or to be more exact, Immediately before.

 

[David Kent]

Wesley said he thought the Montanists were misrepresented.

Wesley in his Journal. As you probably Know,Wesley probably all know, Wesley travelled thousands of miles on horseback. He said in his journal that in his time it was said that you should ride with a tight rein, but he found it best to ride with a loose rein, so he could read as he rode. His reading of Montanus was on one of those journeys if I remember correctly.

I did read Mosheim, but most of my reading of Montanus was from E. de Pressence, Heresy and Christian Doctrine. who said he put Montanus amongst the Judaising heresies, He also said that when it was said the Montanus said he was the Paraclete, not him claiming to be the spirit, but that it was the spirit speaking in him. My other main study was from Wm Goode in Modern Claims To The Possession Of The Extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, Stated and Examined and Compared with the Most Remarkable Cases Of A Similar Kind That Have Occurred In The Christian Church, Second Edition 1834. That is the short title, the Library copy I first read shortened it even more to Goode's Modern Claims, It was reprinted some years ago with some notes on more modern claims, under the title of Charismatic Confusion.

Tertullian became a Montanist and his teaching changed. Originally, he said that 2nd marriage was wrong but later that all marriage was wrong as it consisted of the same act as adultery.

 

[David Kent]

Catabaptists are those who deny any baptism at all. Today most of them are Ultradispensationalists.

The Montanists were called The Phrygian Heresy, also the Cataphygian Heresy. What does "Cata" as a prefix mean.

 

[David Kent]

The problem with the Reformation was that it succeeded because it was supported politically. Gospel Christians had no freedom under Rome & were suffered accordingly. Hoped for freedom through the Reformation did not occur because the Reformed churches allied with the new "powers that be."

That situation continues throughout the world, under atheism, communism, Islam, Hinduism & all other religions, including modern Christianity increasingly.

The religion-state links continue to oppress, as seen in Acts 4, & under Catholicism with the "conversion" of Constantine & suppression of the Donatists who refused to conform. Baptism of anyone "baptised" by the Catholic church became a capital offence.

Gospel Christians should be free under any & every secular power. The problem occurs when state & religion act together, so that non-conformists & supposed heretics are seen as rebels.

The Westminster Confession declares:

23:III. (The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide, that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.
​

The Congregational/Independent Savoy Declaration reads:

24:3 Although the magistrate is bound to encourage, promote, and protect the professors and profession of the gospel, and to manage and order civil administrations in a due subserviency to the interest of Christ in the world, and to that end to take care that men of corrupt minds and conversations do not licentiously publish and divulge blasphemy and errors, in their own nature subverting the faith and inevitably destroying the souls of them that receive them: yet in such differences about the doctrines of the gospel, or ways of the worship of God, as may befall men exercising a good conscience, manifesting it in their conversation, and holding the foundation, not disturbing others in their ways or worship that differ from them; there is no warrant for the magistrate under the gospel to abridge them of their liberty.​

The 1689 Baptist confession has no corresponding clause, simply expecting:

24:3. Civil magistrates being set up by God for the ends aforesaid; subjection, in all lawful things commanded by them, ought to be yielded by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake; and we ought to make supplications and prayers for kings and all that are in authority, that under them we may live a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty​

I think the Baptist is correct.

The Anabaptists, (most of them) taught that they should not take up the sword as the sword is given to the magistrate who wields it as God wills. (Quoted from memory a long time ago)

 

[TCassidy]

What does "Cata" as a prefix mean.

Down (with) or opposed to.

 

[David Kent]

Down (with) or opposed to.

Thanks