Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose themselves to reformation (Canons of Dordt, III/IV, 3)
(I)
Prof. Homer
C. Hoeksema
[Source: The Voice of Our Fathers: An Exposition of the Canons
of Dordrecht (RFPA,
2013), pp. 267–268]
This [part of the Canons] is similar language to
that of the Heidelberg
Catechism and the Belgic Confession. Some [who
believe in common grace] draw the conclusion from the expression “saving good”
that the Canons teach that the natural man is capable
of some other good, namely, good before God in the sphere of things natural and
civil. This inference is false, as is plain from the rest of the article. This
is not the language of the fathers. (The original has “every” saving good). How
is it possible for one who is prone to evil, dead in sins, and a slave of sin
to be capable of any good? There is in these expressions absolutely no room for
any good on the part of the natural man.
--------------------------------------------
(II)
More to
come! (DV)
No comments:
Post a Comment