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Subsections
Repentance
Faith
Union with Christ
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Order of Contents
Elect before Conversion 2
Handicapped 2
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Articles
1500’s
Ursinus, Zachary
The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587)
1. What Conversion is
2. In what the conversion of the godly differs from the repentance of the wicked
3. What are the parts of Conversion
4. What are the causes of conversion
5. What are the effects of conversion
14. Of Man’s Conversion in Rules & Axions of Certain Chief Points of Christianity in A Collection of Certain Learned Discourses… (Oxford, 1600)
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1600’s
Perkins, William – A Dialogue of the State of a Christian Man, gathered out of the writings of Masters Tyndale & Bradford an appendix to A Golden Chain (Cambridge: Legat, 1600)
Rogers, Richard
Two Sermons on Conversion from Isa. 55:1-2 (1612; RBO, 2014) 29 pp.
Rogers’ (1551-1618) famed reply to the scoffer, ‘I serve a precise God’, gave the occasion for the puritans to be called ‘precisionists’. These two very experientially rich sermons on conversion lay the entrance to God’s kingdom sweetly low: to any that thirst for it. Rogers, with a discerning and soft hand, reproves worldly minded persons who do not desire the best things (even their own salvation), shows that the way to be saved is to thirst for it (for those that desire what God offers), and assures those that do thirst that God will surely make good his end of the deal. It is in thirsting that the Christian continues in this life to receive the best spiritual graces from God for everything that he or she needs.
Two Sermons on Conversion from Dt. 5:28-29 (1612; RBO, 2014) 21 pp.
Alsted, Johann H. – 3-4. ‘On the Grace of God & the Conversion of Man’ in Polemical Theology, exhibiting the Principal Eternal Things of Religion in Navigating Controversies, pt. 2, 4-6 (Partial) tr. by AI by Onku (Hanau, 1620; 1627), pt. 6, sect. 1, Of the Dogmas of Jacob Arminius & his Disciples, pp. 115-18 Latin
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 11, ‘On the Mode of Conversion’ in Examination of Arminianism tr. by AI by Monergism (1639-1642; Utrecht, 1668; 2024), pp. 427-68
1. Whether grace irresistibly brings about conversion? We affirm against the Remonstrants and Jesuits.
2. Whether every act of God in conversion is simply moral, not real and physical? We deny against the Remonstrants.
3. Whether God indeed internally calls all whom He externally calls, so that there is therefore a strength to obey in them if they so will? We deny against the Remonstrants.
4. Whether absolutely no grace, not even common grace, accompanies the word of the gospel? We respond with a distinction.
5. Whether the essence of conversion lies in a sole, free act of assenting to and believing the Word, or rather in the giving of a new heart? We deny the former; we affirm the latter against the Remonstrants.
6. Whether only the power of believing is from God and the free act of believing from man, and yet the particular work of conversion is from God? We deny against the Remonstrants.
7. Whether, because God converts with irresistible force, the will is therefore coerced and freedom overturned? We deny against the Remonstrants.
Whether because God infallibly determines the will to one thing, He overturns liberty?
8. Whether only the elect are internally called? We affirm against the Remonstrants.
9. Whether the efficacy of grace and of conversion (rather than non-conversion) depends upon actual, determining grace? We affirm against the Remonstrants.
10. Whether non-conversion should be attributed to God denying efficacious grace, rather than to man refusing to believe? We deny against the Remonstrants.
11. Whether it is from free will that supernatural acts of believing and repentance be stronger or weaker, not from the nature of grace? We deny against the Remonstrants.
12. Whether God joins with active grace in supernatural works for this reason, because the created will joins in? We deny against the Remonstrants.
13. Whether the irresistibility of grace conflicts with precepts, promises, and threatenings? We deny against the Remonstrants.
14. Whether the efficacy of grace depends upon a congruent calling? We deny against the Jesuits and Remonstrants.
Ward, Samuel – ‘The Grace of Conversion Determines the Will’ in Theological Determinations in Works of Samuel Ward… ed. Seth Ward (d. 1643; Gallibrand, 1658), pp. 169-74
Ward (1572–1643) was an English academic and a master at the University of Cambridge. He served as one of the delegates from the Church of England to the Synod of Dort.
“But our [Reformed] theologians and very many of the Pontificists, both Jesuits and Dominicans, follow a different opinion, and deservedly; for it is certain that the human will is so efficaciously moved and prevented by divine grace that it is infallibly determined to the act of conversion. But whether this determination of the will by grace happens through moral but efficacious persuasions alone [on the intellect, with the will necessarily following], or also through a physical and immediate inclination of the will (which I deem more probable), is not something we should now discuss.” – p. 171
Leigh, Edward – ch. 3. Of Conversion & Free-Will in A System or Body of Divinity… (London, A.M., 1654), bk. 7, pp. 491-99
Grebenitz, Elias – Disputation 2, ‘On Regeneration in General’ in ‘Theological Treatise on Regeneration in Three Disputations [& on Conversion & Preparation]’ trans. AI (Becman, 1671), pp. 27-60
Grebenitz (1627-1689) was a German reformed professor of logic, metaphysics and theology at Frankfurt.
Rijssen, Leonard – ch. 13, ‘Conversion & Faith’ in A Complete Summary of Elenctic Theology & of as Much Didactic Theology as is Necessary tr. J. Wesley White MTh thesis (Bern, 1676; GPTS, 2009), pp. 144-59
Rijssen (1636?-1700?) was a prominent Dutch reformed minister and theologian, active in theological controversies.
van Mastricht, Peter – ch. 4, ‘The Conversion of those to be Redeemed’ in Theoretical Practical Theology (2nd ed. 1698; RHB), vol. 5, pt. 1, bk. 6
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1800’s
Vos, Geerhardus – ch. 3, ‘Conversion’ in Reformed Dogmatics tr: Richard Gaffin 1 vol. ed. Buy (1896; Lexham Press, 2020), vol. 4, ‘Soteriology’, pp. 668-82
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Quotes
Order of
Pareus
Pemble
Rutherford
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1600’s
David Pareus
A Commentary upon the Divine Revelation of the Apostle and Evangelist John (d. 1622; Amsterdam, 1644), ch. 3, pp. 82-83 on Rev. 3:20, “If any man… open the door…”
“And lastly the Scripture speaks in a twofold manner of our conversion:
[1] Sometimes the Lord attributes to us, and requires of us the whole work thereof, as if it depended altogether on our will; ‘If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good things of the land.’ (Isa. 1:19) ‘Turn ye unto Me, and I will turn unto you:’ (Zech. 1:3) ‘Make you a new heart, and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel:’ (Eze. 18:31) ‘Repent ye and believe the Gospel’ (Mk. 1:15; Why God requires and attributes conversion to man: On Grace & Free Will, ch. 6; Of Corruption & Grace, ch. 3) not, as if it were [Greek] or in our power to do these things. For how can they spiritually move who are dead in sins? But the Scripture thus speaks:
1. To teach us that we neither will, nor can do anything of ourselves: but are bound to ask it of God. And
2. Because God by such exhortations, threatenings, promises and conditions does please effectually to raise up our desire and by his Spirit enables us to perform his will.
Augustine says well:
‘God commands us those things which we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask of Him.’
And in another place:
‘O man observe from the commandment what thou shouldst have: by reproofs, what thou art deprived of by thy own default, and in prayer acknowledge whence to receive what thou desirest to have.’
[2] And again other [passages] where the Lord ascribes the whole work of our conversion unto Himself alone and commands us so to acknowledge it. As: ‘I will make you to walk in my ways, and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.’ (Eze. 36:26) ‘Turn thou me, and I shall be turned.’ (Jer. 31:18) ‘No man can come unto me, except the Father draw him.’ (Jn. 6:44) ‘Without Me ye can do nothing.’ (Jn. 15:6) See the like: Eph. 2:1; 1 Cor. 2:13-14; Rom. 8:7; 2 Cor. 3:5; Lk. 24:45; Acts 16:14; 11:18. All which testimonies do plainly evince that the grace of conversion is not indifferent or universal: but as our sufficient [help], so also our effectual help does wholly depend upon the general and particular pleasure and motion of God.
Which difference of the Scriptures, and the cause thereof, because the Pelagians and their adherents have not observed: But ••ther abused the former places, as if they were absolutely spoken: and corrupted the latter by their equivocations about grace, calling it (as they also do to this day) a suasory, indifferent and resistible grace, limited by the will of man either to that which is good or evil: they have most falsely wrested the same, for to establish their idol of free-will. Now herewithal they must of necessity embrace all other Pelagian heresies and impieties also, as namely:
1. That faith and good works foreseen, do go before God’s predestination: and so are not from God’s predestinating of them: whereupon it will follow that predestination, being an effect of causes and conditions foreseen, is not to be called a predestination, but rather a post-destination.
2. That faith going before predestination must also be before vocation: seeing we are elected before we are called: And by this ground not God, but man should be the author of faith: contrary to that of Rom. 9:16, ‘It is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.’
3. That the will either co-working, or not co-working with foregoing grace does make men to differ, which is contrary to 1 Cor. 4:7, ‘Who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?’ And so the increase of faith and grace should be given according to the merit of congruity.
4. That man’s will is not corrupted or made worse by the Fall of Adam: and so either there should be no original sin at all, or else but in name only: whereas, ‘The heart of man is deceitful above all things.’
5. That the Law is not above man’s strength, but that he may absolutely fulfill the same: and be altogether free from sin in this life, if he would: wheras the Scriptures on the contrary teach that there is not any one just man in the earth which does good and sins not.
All which errors establish merits of condignity, overthrow the grace and merits of Christ, and so consequently the truth of Christian religion, being nothing indeed, but in name only: and in a word confirms pagan divinity and philosophy. For in all these positions, the names only excepted, there is nothing but what philosophy itself teaches, both concerning the beginnings and reward of virtue: which to philosophers is faith, righteousness and works.”
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William Pemble
Vindiciæ gratiæ. = A Plea for Grace, More especially the Grace of Faith… (London: 1627), p. 135
“[Arminian Error:] 7. That man’s conversion is properly nothing but the act of believing the promise of grace.
This restraint of our conversion unto so narrow a compass as first to bring it from the habit [inward power] of faith to the act of believing, and then to appropriate it to that act without so much as once mentioning any other graces: this narrow conceit touching our conversion is that which has filled the writings of many learned about this point with much darkness and confusion.
They so speak and write of conversion as if it began in that one and only action of man’s will consenting to the promise of mercy in Christ. But this is without all ground. To convert is not only to believe, but to repent, to love God and our neighbor, to abstain from every evil way, to practice all duties of piety and goodness: these acts are as proper and immediate parts of true conversion, as faith.
Nor does the Scripture so much as intimate any such limitation, as to appropriate our conversion to the act of faith: nay, tis manifest that the Scriptures when they speak of man’s turning unto God, do join repentance and other godly acts together with faith: as appears by that solemn invitation of men unto God, ‘Repent and believe the Gospel,’ so often used in the New Testament.”
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Samuel Rutherford
Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself… (London, 1647), p. 464
“Assertion 2. The soul or its faculties are not destroyed in conversion: Peter’s will which he had when he was young, was the same when converted, but renewed, Jn. 21:18; the saints that Peter writes to are not to run to the same excess of riot as of old they wrought the will of the gentiles, 1 Pet. 4:3-4. Paul and Titus were the same men, when disobedient and serving diverse lusts, and when converted, and now washen, regenerated and justified heirs, Tit. 3:1-4. Paul: the same man, a persecuter and an apostle, but grace made a change, 1 Cor. 15:9-10, the same mind and spirit remains in nature, but they are renewed in the spirit of the mind, Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23. It is the same heart, but turned to the Lord, 2 Cor. 3:15-16. Christ but removes the scum and the dross, and the false metal, and frames the man a new vessel of mercy.”
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Latin
1600’s
Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 11, ‘On the Manner of Conversion’ in The Examination of Arminianism ed. Matthew Nethenus (1639-1643; Utrecht, 1668), pp. 453-98
Voet, Gisbert – 31. Appendix, ‘On the Second Moment of Conversion’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1655), vol. 2, pp. 465-68
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On the State of the Elect before Conversion
Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – ‘On the State of Elect before Conversion’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1655), vol. 2 trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
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Latin
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 3 Abbr.
2. The Subject & Antecedents of the Application, that is, of the State of the Elect before Conversion
. Some Problems More Hypothetical
27. ‘Of the State of the Elect Before Conversion’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1655), vol. 2, pp. 402-24
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On those Handicapped such that they cannot receive the Gospel by Rational Faculty
See also ‘On the Salvation of Infants’ and on the Lord’s Supper, ‘What about the Mentally Handicapped?’.
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Article
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – ‘Some Questions on the Deaf & Mentally Incapacitated’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberge, 1655), vol. 2 trans. AI at Confessionally Reformed Theology
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert
Appendix: Of Retards, the Insane & the Deaf in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 3 Abbr.
28. ‘Appendix of Questions on the Deaf & Lunatics’ in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht: Waesberg, 1655), vol. 2, pp. 424-32
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