     VOLUA'IE   xxx                             FEBRUARY   15, 1954  - GRAND  RAPIDS,   MICHIGAN                              NU~~IIBER  10


                                                                            revelation has nothing to do with righteousness or unright-
           M E D I T A T I O N                                              eousness, holiness or corruption. Nor dare we say that  He
                                                                            looks in kindness upon all the children of men, even in time,
                                                                            even for a moment.
    Jehovah's  Meainess to the Broken Hearted                                   ,God  -is God ! He is the living God  !. He is the God of
                "The Lord is nigh unto  them that are of a broken           infinite perfections ! The Holy One is He, and the absolutely
             heart  ; and saveth such  -is be of a contrite spirit."
                                                              Ps.  34:18    Righteous Judge ! And all  H.is perfections are one in `Him-
     How blessed it is to be of a broken heart!                             self. And as He is, so He makes Himself'known. Right-
     How salutary is contrition of spirit!                                  eous He is, and always that righteousness He reveals. Holy
   For Jehovah's nearness is, the experience of the heart-                  He' is from all eternity, as the I AM, the Unchangeable One  ;
 broken and the contrite in spirit. And Jehovah's nearness is               and never does He reveal Himself as anything but holy. And
 an unspeakable blessing  I                                                 thus it is that with regard to the children of men He reveals
     Of such blessedness the sweet psalmist of Israel speaks                Himself in all the works of His hands not  .as an abstract
 when he instructs                                                          power of providence, not as an ethically neutral being, but
                       us  that the Lord is nigh  &to them that
 are of a broken heart, and that He saveth such as be of a                  as the God of all infinite perfections that He is.
 contrite spirit. And such blessedness do all they  expel-ience                 Eternally, therefore, He loves or He hates. Constantly
 who are heart-broken and of a spirit contrite. Never is there              He blesses, or He curses. Always He makes Himself known
 an exception to this Word.  tilways is it true. Never does a               as the God Who saves, or destroys. For "the eyes of the
 heart-broken  .sinner  experience that the Lord is far from                Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto
 him. Always does the contrite in spirit taste the salvation of             their cry. But the face of the Lord is against them that do
 Jehovah! Jehovah's nearness it is that is celebrated in this               evil, to cut off the  ,remembrance of them from the earth."
 psal&. And a very distinctive, nearness it is.                             Always is  -Ht: near men either in His favor or in His wrath.
    0, to be sure, the Scriptures testify that He, Jehovah, is                  Nay, bdt the  psalmist  celebrates the wonder of grace!
 not far from any one of  us,  andtthat in Him we live and  m&e               For Jehovah is near the broken hearted, and He saves
 and have  our   being. True  it is,, that from a certain point of          .the contrite in spirit. That is, His nearness is a saving near-
 view this same Jehovah was as near to Abimelech-Achish,                    ness. It is a nearness in love, a `nearness to redeem, to de-
 the king of  th6 Philistines, as He was to David, His.anointed.            liver, to defend, to protect. The nearness of the Rock of
 Undeniable it is that also  Abimelech,   as well as David, had             our salvation is the theme of David's song.
 no life,  nd breath, no being, apart from the living God.. In                 Make no mistake. That saving nearness of Jehovah does
`that same sense, no more true is it of the broken hearted than             not mean that we are never in trouble. As a general rule,
 of the hard hearted that God is near to  them1                             the more it becomes evident that the God of our salvation
    But such is not the nearness of which the poet sings.                   is near  us,  the more bitter becomes the hatred of-those who
    Nor is it true that men ever meet the God of this prov-                 hate us for God's sake. The  clearer  the light of the grace of
 idential power and  governme&  in such an abstract way.                    God's saving nearness shines in, and through them, the more
While it is true that He, the living God, the  Immanent-                    numerous become the afflictions of the righteous. Such had
 Transcendent One, is near everyone in His power to uphold,                 been the experience of  .the Lord's anointed, David. And it
 to preserve, to govern, so that men cannot possibly escape                 was  His. experience just because he was the anointed of Je-
the testimony of His eternal `power and Godhead  ; and while                hovah. He was in trouble on every hand. Relentlessly his
 it is true that He reveals Himself as the God that is to be                own countrymen had pursued him, until there was no safe
glorified and thanked; it is not true that He makes Himself                 place  founcl for him in Canaan. Also in Gath he was not
 known merely as an abstract, impersonal providence, Whose                  safe.  .Now very likely he was hiding in the cave of Adullum,


215 .                                         T H E S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

-.in fear for his life, surrounded not by a mighty  host- and a         `hard hearted  2nd  the-haughty in spirit. He is near them, to
 strong army, but by a small band of  men.~ Fugitives they              be  $ure,   btit He is near to destroy and to consume them in
 were from the wrath of Saul. And so you hear him even in               His. hot displeasure. And just as eternally He loves the
 this same psalm, crying out that the  afflidtions of the right-        Proken  hearted and the contrite in spirit. Always is He near
 eous are many.                                                         them. Always He embraces them in His undying love. And
     Pet he is victorious. He sings of Jehovah's nearness, of           except you be broken hearted and contrite of disposition,
 His saving nearness. He  has victory even in apparent de-              you will never experience His favor.
 feat, joy in the midst of sorrow, life  iti the  ,midst  of death !       Jehovah is near the broken hearted.. . . He saves the
 He has reason to sing !                                                contrite in spirit.
     0, that saving nearness does not mean that accordirig to               That you are broken hearted implies that your heart is
 this world's standards we are saved out of trduble.  Nay, it           by nature hard. It implies that your heart was hard over
 inevitably implies that according to this world's standards,           against God, that is, over against His will as expressed in
 in this present time, life's way is dark and filled with afflic-.      His-law. It implies that your heart is not receptive for His
 tions.                                                                 Word. It means that your heart  is naturally stony, that it
     But that Jehovah is near to  save means  .that He saves            is by nature the heart of the proud, self-centered, self-loving
 us,  delivers us, from the power of darkness; from sin and             sinner, who knows no repentance, who donfesses  no guilt,
 death. Undoubtedly this  `;s also typified in David's deliver-         who loves the darkness,  -who hates the light. It is a cold,
 ance out of the hands of Abimelech-Achish. And remem-                  dead heart. It lacks any feeling of  love  over against the liv-
 ber : it was not David's insanity, but the angel of the Lord           ing God, the Fountain of all good.  .'
 that had saved David.  Renlember  too that the greater part                But that heart is broken. That stony, proud, rebellious,
 of  David's deliverance was not his temporal deliverance               .non-receptive,  self-loving, impenitent, stubborn spiritual cen-
 from death at the hand of Achish, but the spiritual deliver-           ter of your being has  .been crushed and broken down. All
 ance from his own folly of having  feigned insanity and hav-           the stony hatred and enmity against God has been' pulverized.
 ing trusted in his own devices. The angel of Jehovah en-                   And the result is that you are become contrite in spirit.
 camped round -about him, protected him, so that wicked                 You experience consciously, you know before your own
 Achish  co,btld not destroy the Lord's anointed. That Jeho-            mind,  .before the face of God, that you are crushed. You
 vah is near in His saving power  impli&  that He is always             realize that the heights to which your self-love and pride
 near us in His favor, and that He is always, continually,              have raised  $LI  are false. and you confess it. In place  of.
 saving us; always blessing us,  never cursing us. It means             stony pride and stiffnecked haughtiness, the pride of rebel-
 that He saves us even through the means and  the, way of               lion and the haughtiness of sin, comes a deep sense of hu-
 our afflictions. And'in the third place, that saving nearness          mility, and an inner abhorrence  bf your rebellion and sin.
 of Jehovah certainly means that  thet broken hearted and con-          And you cry out, "0 God, be merciful to me a sinner  !"
 trite in spirit never come into ultimate trouble, into final des-          To such Jehovah is near. . He is near to those who are
 olation, but that Jehovah saves them  out of all their  afflic-        imbued with a deep and heartfelt sense of His greatness and
 tions, in order to bring them into glory.                              power,. His righteousness and holiness. He is near to those
     In the midst of all our afflictions,  surrounded by  dangers,      who in humiliation confess  .their sin. Near He is to those
 in the midst of death itself,-because death is the essence of          who acknowledge that even apart from sin they are depen-
 any affliction,-He causes us to experience His grace, His              d&t upon Him always, owe their all to Him,, and can never
 righteousness, His holiness, His love, His mercy, His  lov-            merit  F nything from Him. He is near to those .who humbly
 ingkindness that is better than life. He receives us into  His         confess that on account of their transgressions they are guilty
 everlasting covenant. He dwells with us. The angel of the              of  FT;s  .ust wrath, and have lost all right to His favor and
 Lord encamps around us ! Jehovah saves the contrite in                 can only continually increase their guilt. Near He is to
 spirit ! God is for us ! Who can be against us  ?                      thdse who in utter  desp-r cry out to Him for deliverance,%
     You ask : who are the objects of that blessed nearness  ?          and cast themselves upon His everlasting mercy.
     `The answer is: the broken hearted, the contrite in spirit,            To all such Jehovah is near. To only such is He-near.
 and they only.                                                             Nay, it is not thus, that our brokenheartedness merits
     For He is Jehovah,  the I AM, the eternally Unchange-              Jehovah's near-ness.
 able One. Never does He change in all His virtues..  And as                Be we ever so contrite, in ourselves we can never be re-
 the Unchangeable  One?  He is the perfectly righteous and              stored. to the favor of God. And all the remorse of endless
 Holy One. Righteous He is, so that His will-is always in               aeons could never  suffice to wipe out the guilt of a single
 harmony with His own good being. And holy He is, tha                   sin, the debt of one act of rebellion. The penance of an
 Holy One of Israel, so that  He is totally consecrated to the          eternity would not suffice to invoke upon us the favor of the
 good, to Himself, and so that He burns with unquenchable               living  .God, Righteous Judge.' Necessarily would we spend
 wrath against all evil. And because He is the U&hang&able              eternity under the outpouring of His fierce wrath.
 One, unchangeable in all His virtues, He eternally hates the               Nor is such a thought in harmony with a truly broken


                                                 T H E   ST.ANDARD   B E A R E R                                                                                                          219

     heart. Not out of a contrite spirit will arise the proud theory
     that there are prerequisites for us to meet and to fulfill be-                                T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R
     fore we can enjoy the favor of the living God. Such a                            Semi-niontkly,   except monthly  dzrripg July  aitd August
     theory is foolishness. And foolishness is always pride.                          Published by  $he  R&C&ED   FREE  PUBLISHING   ASSOCIATION
        But the broken hearted find their all in Christ Jesus. He              P. 0. Box 881, Madison Square Station, Grand Rapids 7,  Mich.
     is the Righteous One  pal-  excellence.  He represents us be-                                    Editor  -  REV.  HERMAN   HOEKSEMA
     fore the bar of God's justice. And He is perfectly righteous.             Communications relative to contents should be addressed to. Rev.
     And He was  afIlicted  even unto death in our behalf and in               H. Hoeksema, 1139 Franklin St., S. E., Grand Rapids 7,  Mich.
     our stead. Assuming the burden of our guilt and of the                    All matters relative ,to subscriptions  should be addressed to Mr.
                                                                               G. Pipe, 1463 Ardmore St., S. E., Grand Rapids 7, Michigan.
     wrath of God which  `was due  us,  He remained perfectly con-             Am~ouncements  and Obituaries must be mailed  to, the above
     trite in spirit all the way, so contrite that He humbled Him-             address and will be published at a fee of $1.00 for each notice.
     self even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. He it was,             RENEWALS   : Unless a definite request for discontinuance is re-
                                                                               ceived, it is assumed that the subscri'ber  wishes the subscription
     Whom the Lord delivered out of all His afflictions. His                   to continue without the formality of a renewal osder.
     bones Jehovah kept; not one of them was broken: And He                                              Subscription price : $4.00 per year
     raised our Lord Jesus Christ for our justification.
        In Him and with Him we are righteous before God, we,                          Entered as Second Clam matter at Grwsd  Rapids, lMicltigart
     the broken hearted and the contrite `in spirit.
        And: the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous . . . But
     the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. . . .                                                       C O N T E N T S
        But even so the end of that wonderful gospel of grace              MIIIJLTATION  -
     has not been heard. If nothing more takes place than the                          Jeho,valh's  Nearness to the Broken Hearted.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217
     death of Christ, we will never experience. Jehovah's saving                             Rev. H. C. Hoeksema
     nearness. For in His favor He is nigh only to the contrite.           t<IU'J.OXIALS  -
     His saving nearness is only for the broken hearted.                               Answer to Kok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                .......                 . . ..Z?O
        Our hearts must be broken  ; our spirits must be crushed.                      Bulletin No. 5:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .             .......                 . ...221
                                                                                             Rev. H. Hoeksema
     Not by our own act, not by the persuasion of a host of
     preachers does that haughty spirit become contrite. There                  What Rev. Hofman Did Not Write!.                                              .......                 . ...221
                                                                                       R e v .   G .   L u b b e r s
     is only one who can change a hard heart : Jehovah Himself.
     He must draw near to us first, always first, before we will           A s   T o   BOOKS-
                                                                                       Dogmatic Theology by Wm. Shedd. . .                                    .......                 . ...224
     ever draw near to Him. And He does so. Through His                                      Rev. H. Hoeksema
     Spirit and by His Word He irresistibly causes  us  to draw            O(II(  
     nigh unto Him. He causes us to behold ourselves in all the                               DOCTRINE-
                                                                                       T-he Triple Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . .                         .......                 . ...224
     filth of our corruption. He opens the spiritual eyes of our                             Rev. H. Hoeksema
     understanding to the vision of Christ crucified. He hum-              L;IU)M  HOLY  WRIT-
     bles  LE.  He crushes us. He breaks our hearts. And He                            Exposition of I Peter  1:22-25.. . . . . .                             .......                 . ...228
     causes us to flee for refuge  to'the shadow of, the cross.                  `.  R e v :   G .   L u b b e r s
        But even then the story is not told. The gospel is this,
     that Jehovah from all eternity, freely, sovereignly, according                    Afraid of *he Gospel.. . .`. . . . . . . . . . .                                              . . ...230
     to His own good pleasure,-for He is the I AM, the  Self-                                Rev. J. A.  Heys
     sufficient One, Who has no need of any creature,-He be-               C'ONTILNIIING  FOR  TRE   FAITH  -
     held                                                                              The Church and t,he Sacraments. . . . .                                                       . . ...232
              us  in Christ Jesus as broken hearted and contrite in                          Rev. H. Veldman
     spirit. And that sovereign counsel He fulfilled, and continues
     to fulfill. He breaks the hard heart. And He crushes the              `1.11   I,:  VOICE   017  OUR  FATHERS   -
                                                                                       The Canons of Dordrecht..  . . . . . . . . . .                                                . . ...234
     proud spirit.                                                                           Rev. H. C. Hoeksema
        And if you ask then why it is. ultimately, that Jehovah            I)I+UNCY   AKD  ORDEK-
     is nigh the broken hearted, the answer is,-the answer of the                      Called  aby Another Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                               . . ...236
     everlasting and blessed gospel of salvation,-that Jehovah is                            Rev. G.  Vanden  Berg
     near to the  ,work of His own hands, that He loves the fruit          AI.I.   AI+~UND   Us-
     of His own almighty and irresistible grace. Surely, only to                       Getting Personal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                   ......               . ...237
     the broken hearted is He ever nigh, and only the contrite in                      Not  Hoeksema But Kok Changed.. .                                        ......                . ...238
     spirit does He ever save. For they are His own, and Je-                           A Challenge  ,to Rev. J. D. De Jong. .                                                         . ...238
                                                                                _ A Symposium on Television.. . . . . . . .                                                           . ...239
     hovah loves what is His own. For He is the I AM. He                                     Rev. M.  Schipper
     loves Himself.                                                        CONTRIBUTIONS                 -
        0, for a thousand tongues to magnify His name. . . .                           All Is Well.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .                         .'          . . ...240
_                                                                                                                                                    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
                                                                 H.C.H.                      H. A. Van  Putten


220                                             THE.   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

II                                                                       Hence, I maintain that I simply wrote the truth :  Kok
               E D I T O R I A L S                                 I is guilty of lying and slander.
                                                                               Moreover, he is repeatedly guilty of the same sin.
                                                                               To a certain brother, and who knows to how many more,
       From B. Kok I received a letter for The  Stnnda.rd   Bewe?       he wrote, behind my back, that I am an old man, broken in
which, because of its insulting language, I will not publish in         mind and body. He knows that he is lying and slandering. I
its entirety, but from  -which  I quote the following essential         am sure that I never gave any evidence of this to  Kok.
paragraphs :                                                                   To another brother, and who knows to how many more,
       "I grant you that I did not quote the entire articles from       1~01~ rides his favorite hobby of conditional theology, claims
which these quotations were taken. This was neither pos-                that this has always been Protestant Reformed and, to  sup-
sible, nor necessary in an article written for the Reformed             port this contention, quotes me as follows:
Guardian. But the statements I did quote were literally                        "It is, of course, the Reformed view that all `conditions'
exact, together with the references, so that everyone could             of the covenant, all `conditions' unto salvation, are fulfilled
verify them. Neither did I `string together a few quotations'           by  .God Himself. If, therefore, we say that -our actually re-
from your articles, but clearly indicated that they were  sep-          ceiving the blessings of the covenant is conditioned by faith
arate paragraphs and sentences by using dots and dashes be-             on our part, we must hasten to add that God Himself gives
tween them, something which you failed to do when quoting               us the faith." This quotation is taken from The Standard
from the `Cross Bill' in `Bulletin  -No.  1' (Standard Bearer,          Bearer vol. 22, p. 175.
January  1, 1954)                                                              Here Kok is guilty of the same evil practice of lying and
                                                                        creating a wrong impression as he usually is when-he quotes
       "To my mind the added sentences which you placed in              me.
italics in your article (Standard Bearer, January 15, 1954)                    What is the case  ?
merely served to prove my contention that your writings on                     The above quotation was made from a discussion with
`Promise and Prediction' are contradictory. I will gladly               the liberated. In it I present their view of conditions and the
leave this, however, `to the judgment of the discriminating             covenant. This is very evident from the context as well as
reader. How anyone in their (must be  I&, H.H.) mind can                from the fact that I put the term condition  and conditions  in
maintain on the one hand `it is a distortion of the term to             quotation marks which means, of course, that the term is not
say: a promise is a prediction' and on the other hand main-             mine and does not represent my view.
tain that `the promise is a prediction and the prediction is a                 Kok knew this. He  delibemtely   left a wrong impression.
promise is a conundrum to me. It is a bit confusing, to say                    In plain language: he  l,ied.
the least."                                                                    Can I prove this  7 I surely can. He, of course, read the
       And then  Kok asks me to apologize for having slandered          entire article from which the above quotation is taken. But
his good name and accusing him of being guilty of lying and             in that same article I wrote as follows:
`slander and the very works of the devil.
       This I cannot do, because what I wrote is the simple                    "This view (of the liberated, H.H.) is in conflict with
truth.                                                                  the plain language of our Baptism Form.
       In my article of Jan. 15 I challenged  Kok to  prove  that              "The truth of this statement is already evident from what
it is not true  ; I did not ask him simply to talk.                     we quoted of that Form above. That expository part of the
       What he must prove is :                                          Form establishes the  whole of God's covenant and all of its
                                                                        benefits as absolutely sure unto `the children of the promise.'
       1. That it is not ethically corrupt to quote the first sen-      God's part of the covenant is that He realizes it completely,
tence of an entire paragraph from my writing while the rest             objectively and subjectively, both as to its objective estab-
of the paragraph is essential to understand the meaning.                lishment and as to its subjective application. God assures
       2. That it is-not ethically corrupt to do this  intentionally    `the children of the promise' that He establishes His cove-
in order to leave the impression with his readers that I was            nant with them, that He adopts them, that He forgives their
guilty of a flat contradiction.                                         sins and justifies them, that He delivers them and sanctifies
      3. That it is not, ethically corrupt so to string together        them, and He preserves them and glorifies them. This is
a few sentences from rather long articles of mine (even                 absolutely  mcond~itional   (italics in the original article, H.
though with dots and dashes) that the reader of Kok's quo-              H.). No condition  whatever~is  mentioned in this part. Fact
tations receives an entirely wrong impression, altogether               is, that if there were a condition attached to this, the cove-
different from what I actually wrote.                                   nant could never be realized, and that entire expository part
       What I wrote actually is no contradiction at all, for I          of the Baptism Form would be made vain.  But God's work
simply wrote that, although a promise is also a prediction, it          is never- conditional  (italics put in now, H.H.). And the
is much more and that, therefore, Schilder's contention that            language of the Baptism Form is as positive and uncondi-
a promise is nothing more than a prediction is a distortion of          tional as it possibly could be . . . .
the term.                                                                      "To be sure, the Baptism Form makes mention of our


                                                      T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                      221

`part' in the covenant that `we by God through baptism (are)                       CONGREGATION OVER WHICH HE COULD HAVE
admonished of and obliged unto a new obedience, namely                             CONTROL. . . .
that we cleave to this one God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost  ;                                         Hubert De Wolf
that we trust in Him, and love Him with all our hearts, and                                         F R E D E R I C K   S Y T S M A
with all our souls, and with all our mind, and with all our                                         H E N R Y   K N O T T
strength, that we forsake the world, crucify our old nature,                                        W I L L I A M   S T U U R S M A
and walk in a new and holy life.' But this part is not pre-                                         LAMBERT   M U L D E R
sented as a condition for the part of  Go'd, which we must                                          A N D R E W   D Y K S T R A
fulfill.before, and in order that God fulfill His part, but as                                      HENRY   B A S T I A N S E
the new obligation of love, which follows upon and from                                             S I D N E Y   D E   Y O U N G
God's part. And only when and after God has fulfilled His                                           A D O L P H   V E R M E E R
`part' of the covenant can we begin to fulfill ours." Stan-                                         G E R R I T   S I K K E M A
dard Bearer, Vol. 22, p. 177.                                                                       J O H N   B O U W M A N   .
    This is plain language.                                                                        A N D R E W   V O S S
    This language  Kok read when he made the former quo-                                                 By Hubert De Wolf
tation from the same article.                                                         Again I say, what must one think of men that have the
    Hence, I claim  he Lied  in that quotation.                                    evil courage to lie so slanderously and that, too, under oath?
    The worst of the whole matter is, not that he lied about                          They lie and slander when they swear that I ever tried
me, but that he misrepresented and lied about the Protestant                       to control  Classis West:
Reformed truth.                                                                       They lie and slander when they swear that I ever formed
    This  Kok does quite constantly.                                               a conspiracy to get. control of the various properties of the
    Perhaps, in some future time, I will, the Lord willing,                        congregations in  Classis West.
issue a pamphlet in which I inform the reading public what                            They lie and slander when they swear that I ever went
I, since the beginning of my ministry taught about conditions,                     to the churches in  Classis West to create schism there. They
                                                                                   (Edgerton, Hull, Redlands) were split before I ever went
    For the time, being, however, this must suffice.                               there. Besides, I went there only on their own invitation.
    But  Kok surely.has no right to ask me to apologize. What                         They lie and slander when they swear that I organized
I wrote about him is one hundred percent true.                                     congregations over which I could have control.
                                                                        H.H.          In short, it is all one awful lie, and that`under oath!
                                                                                      Do these men, that always have their mouth full of "re-
                                                                                   sponsibility" have no sense of responsibility before God
                           Bulletin No.. 5                                         themselves ?
                                                                                                                                              H.H.
    The undersigned hereby solemnly swear before God and                                                    -u&e=-
men :
    " T H A T   C R O S S   D E F E N D A N T   .HERMAN   HOEK-                           -What Rev. Hofman did not Write!
S E M A   I S   U N A B L E   T O   C O N T R O L   T H E   A C T I O N S             The truth of the heading of this article flashed into my
O F   CLASSIS  W E S T   A N D   T H A T   S U B S T A N T I A L L Y               mind when I read the latest editorial from the hand of Rev.
A L L   O F   T H E   C O N G R E G A T I O N S   O F   CLASSIS                    Hofman in the Jan. 28, 1954 issue of Concordia. I looked
W E S T   A R E   N O T   I N   H A R M O N Y   W I T H   H I M   A N D            at my good wife and said: the trouble with this writing of
T H A T   H E   H A S   L O S T   C O N T R O L   O V E R   CLASSIS                brother Hofman is in  what  Ite does  not write.  And the thing
W E S T .                                                                          that saddens me is that brother Hofman errs so grievously
    " T H A T   F O R   T H E   P U R P O S E   O F   C A R R Y I N G              in the sin not only of omission, but also of commission.
O U T   T H E   C O N S P I R A C Y   T O   G E T   C O N T R O L   O F            There is method in this madness.
T H E   V A R I O U S   P R O P E R T I E S   O F   T H E   V A R I O U S             Rev.  WTalter  Hofman pursues a certain method which
C H U R C H   C O N G R E G A T I O N S   A N D   T O   D I C T A T E              makes it impossible to do justice and to speak the truth of
T H E   P O L I C I E S   O F   T H E S E   C H U R C H E S ,   T H E   S A I D    the matters he is discussing. For he tells his readers that he
H E R M A N   HOEKSEMA   H A S   R E C E N T L Y   M A D E                         "will begin with a review of some of the  decisians taken by
V I S I T S   T O   L O C A T I O N S   W H E R E   T H E   C H U R C H E S        Classis East in its meeting of last October. (October 21,
O F   CLASSIS  W E S T   A R E   L O C A T E D   A N D   T H E R E                 1953 meeting held in Hope. G.L.) From commenting on
HAS ATTEMPTED TO CREATE AND IN SOME IN-                                            that meeting we hope to work back and touch upon various
S T A N C E S   H A S   C R E A T E D   S C H I S M S   I N   S A I D              things to the very beginning of the split as it first occurred in
C H U R C H E S   A N D   H A S   A T T E M P T E D   .TO  S P L I T               the First Church in Grand Rapids, now already over a half
T H E   C O N G R E G A T I O N S   A N D   O R G A N I Z E   A   N E W            year ago."


 222                                           T.HE   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

        Rev. Hofman's method  ?                                         Hanko and their office-bearers. Grounds : Articles 30, 31,
        It is to lift an event out of its historical setting, out of    36 of.the Church Order.
 the continuity of events as they transpired chronologically,              B. That,  therefore,V   Classis  East  canvtot  receive  and seat
 and to place upon them a construction of fiction rather than           the Deputies  for  ~Exav&atio~n   of  Classis  West."  Motion
 that of fact. It is a fiction invented by his own mind that is         carries. Art. 31 of Minutes of  Classis East, October 21,
 placed on the action of the  Classis and upon the motives of           1953.
 the Stated Clerk and others. Had Rev. Walter Hofman in-                    I believe that this is good plain English. I am quite cer-
 tended to do more than "review" some decisions and to                  tain that Rev. Walter Hofman has this decision of  Classis
 "touch upon various things" and  .given  an accurate and a             East in his possession. Why did he not bear this in mind
 historical sketch of events, his method would be different, he         when he set himself up as a judge of  Classis East's doings
 would attempt to give the entire picture, would give it in             in regard to their not accepting the Deputies ad Examina of
 its proper historical focus and perspective.                           Classis West? I do not know the heart. But I do know that
        It is sheer folly and madness to work as  .does the brother,    Rev.  Ho&an did not take this decision together with the
 who has an alleged high esteem of me. I pray that he may               grounds of  Classis East into consideration. And I also know
 see the folly and the madness of his method. For then he               that had he squarely faced this matter it would have called
 would heartily agree with me that what he did not say, and             for a little soul-searching by Walter Hofman of himself  con-
 evidently refuses to say, is the grave evil of his editorial.          tcerning  the action of  Classis West in session August 14,
                                                                        1953 ! He might be disillusioned to the fact that not the
        I call attention to the following matters that Rev. Walter      Stated Clerk of  Classis East became the prey and victim of
 Hofman omitted in this writing  ; matters which he should              a fierce black spider of Rev. Hofman's literary creation, but
 have kept clearly in his mind when he set himself up as a              that  Classis West became the victim of the sin of their own
 judge of  Glassis East and of the undersigned; matters which           flesh. For the Scripture saith, that he that doeth sin is a
 are indispensable in a righteous judgment before the face of           slave of sin !
 God, Who trieth the hearts and knows the secrets of men ;                 It is a grievous matter to sin against the fifth Command-
 factors which an editor must keep in mind shall he be able to          ment. But it is worse still to perpetrate this very evil while
 have the conviction in his heart : thus saith the Lord !               accusing others of it. That is often the tragic irony of men
        It is a striking fact, that Rev. Walter Hofman is silent in     who do not really perform righteousness. They get caught
 every syllable of his editorial  of, the fact that  Classis West       in their own net and devices; the spider then outdoes him-
 met on August 14, 1953 to deliberate upon matters which                self. Now a spider would not easily do this. But I am not
 were the rightful domain only of  Classis East. He is silent           so certain about the editor of Concordia in this instance ! !
 ,on this score, even when he speaks of matters which should            For there is madness in his method. It does not edify the
 have reminded him of this meeting of  Classis, and of the              saints, nor protect them from the wiles of Satan, neither is
 rather prominent part that he played in this meeting. He               it indicative of a mentality that will have the grace to admit
 sets himself up to judge of  Classis East and ignores the fact         that  Classis West erred in their ruling in matters that per-
 that  Classis East simply took the stand they did, and that            tained to the difficulty of a Church resorting in  Classis East.
 "consistently", according to the decisions of  Classis West.              But to show me that I am wholly mistaken in assuming
Will Rev. Hofman come to this too in his "touching upon"                that Rev. Hofman deliberately refuses to give the entire
 the happenings leading up to the decisions of  Classis East,           picture, will Rev. Hofman show two things:
 October 21,  1953? We' shall see! But then Rev. Hofman                     1. Wherein  Classis West did not reach out into matters
 will have to do considerable reconstruction on the editorial           pertaining to the life of a Church outside of its resort.
 we are here referring to.                                                 2. That  Classis West did not transgress the Church Or-
        What was the cause for the refusal of  Classis East to          der by deciding upon matters (that were none of their af-
 acknowledge the Deputies Ad Examina of  Classis West?                  fairs) even a month before  Classis East met to deliberate up-
        Is Rev. Walter Hofman so ill-informed that he does not          on these matters  ; a month before the proper ecclesiastical
 know?  Classis East stated the reason in good, plain English.          body took a decision!
 It is as follows: "A. That  Classis West has broken the                    Please, brother Walter, show to your reading public the
 Church Order and become schismatic by arbitrarily reaching             justice and equity of this deed  ; maybe  "Classis West" will
 out and ruling in the internal affairs of a church which does          undo the wrong they have done us and make a "just settle-
 not belong to its resort to the extent of declaring that one           ment"! Then they will say: All things are  settled  and  bind-
 ,group of office-bearers in the First Protestant Reformed              ing "unless" they conflict with the Word of God and the
 Church of Grand Rapids, namely, the suspended Rev. H.                  Confessions. And in their practical application of this "un-
 De Wolf and a number of deposed elders are the legal  Con-             less" they will have to say : "until, until . . . .  " this matter
 sistory of the First Protestant Reformed Church of Grand               comes in the proper way before us. But we have, by our
 Rapids,  Mich.; and by the same action ousting a group of              decision, made this "until, until" impossible and cannot,
 lawful office-bearers, namely, the Rev. H. Hoeksema and C.             therefore, come to the "unless, unless . . . .  " We are  be-


                                         '  T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                    223

tween the  horns of the dilemma of our sinful act. But,            have been willing to say to the Rev. De Wolf,  Kok and
brother Walter, that all may be assured that your article was      Blankespoor, sitting in the back-seat of the church auditor-
more than an editorial splurge, show once the error of             ium, we acknowledge this  Classis as not being schismatic,
Classis East's decision in the light of the action and decision    even though it remains true that our  Classis has declared
                                                   `.
of  Classis West! That will make interesting  reading, we are      that you Rev. De Wolf are the legal Consistory, and by im-
sure. It will be a different method too; a bit more sane and       plication declared this too of you Revs.  Kok and  Blankes-
r i g h t e o u s .                                                poor. However we will surely help this group of schismatic
    When I read brother  Hofman's  editorial concerning the        churches, gathered here in  Classis East, examine Candidate
matter that he calls an episode that is enlightening and in-       Lanting and bid him God's speed in a  Classis that does not
formative,. I felt very much aggrieved. I searched my con-         acknowledge you, brethren De Wolf, Kok and Blankespoor,
science whether matters were actually as Rev. Hofman               and which our  Classis cannot recognize ?
states them. He suggests that I gave Rev. James Howerzyl              And is that the reason why Rev. Walter Hofman lets
the "run-around". Now I don't know whether Rev.  How-              this matter of what the Stated Clerk. of  Classis East did,
erzyl, with whom  I  hacl the reported telephone conversation,     pass before his readers ? Rev. Hofman feels that it was
told brother Walter that  I  hacl done this. I really cannot       deep intrigue that caused  Classis East to be puppets ? Let's
believe that he would say such a thing of me, or that he           not be silly. It was the action of  Classis West that  layed  the
could truthfully characterize my dealings with him as such.        ground-work for the logic of events. And  Classis East was
Fact is, that Rev. Howerzyl alleged not to understand the          consistent in their stand, not with the consistency of a help-
import of the night-letter telegram. I thought that he did         less fly in the web of a cruel spider. Here we do not speak
not understand its implication in that I had not sent the for-     of consistency.  It  was the consistency of men, who feared
mer letter to him but to Rev John D. de Jong in Hull, Iowa.        God with a good conscience, and who had the grace to live
And therefore. I asked him what is not clear. I thought that       honestly as in the day,' and did the only possible thing in the
only for such a reason the telegram letter was not clear           circumstances created by  Classis West. Rev. Hofman should
to him. This telegram letter reads as follows: "Kindly be          be able to see this. Then there is hope that  "Classis West"
advised that the `letter in regard to the Deputies of Synod        too will see the light, and take away the  offence  in Israel.
was sent by the undersigned merely on the strength of the              Classis East said: here we stand! We cannot do ought
former Status  QUO.  Be further advised that  Classis East         else, so help  us God!  Classis East has extended the brother
will, no doubt, not recognize you should  you  appear. Kindly      hand and said :  "Classis  West" we point to the more  .excel-
inform all whom it may concern."                                   lent way !  It  is this  i "Motion is made that  Classis would
    This telegram  -Rev. Howerzyl alleged not to understand.       hereby plead with  Classis West to repent from their evil
He wanted to know whether they were invited or  snot,              way of schism in our churches, and gladden our hearts with
whether he -should come or not. I repeatedly told- him that        the news that they return to us once more so that  haply we
Classis had taken no decision; and that should he come I           may continue our journey as Protestant Reformed Churches
was certain  Classis would not acknowledge him. And that           together."
it would hardly do for me to say come, and then when he               Classis  -  Fast made a "splendid opportunity" for  Classis
came to say : well, you are not welcome, we cannot acknow-         West.
ledge you. I told him then and there, because he wanted to            Come, brother Hofman, buy out this opportunity editor-
know : Must  I  come or not? I then said : you are not invited.    ially, and convince the brethren of the error of their way.
That I would submit my answer to  Classis and take the con-           Then there is hope!
sequences. Remember that Rev. Howerzyl could still yet                                                                            G.L.
have appeared. and he too could have taken the consequences.
I  did not give him the word of  Classis. I did not give him
the "run-around". He could take my word for what it was
worth. But none of the  Bxaminers  had the courage of their                                IN MEMORIAM
convictions, that the former Status quo stood, to appear at           The Mary Martha Circle of the Fourth Protestant Reformed
that meeting on the strength of the earlier communication.         Church of Grand Rapids expresses its heartfelt sympathy to its
Had  Classis taken the stand that I had done wrong I would         Pastor, Rev. R.  Veldman,  in the loss of his Mother,
have submitted to their judgment. The trouble was: the                               MRS. EVELYN  VELDMAN
dye was cast, the  -Rubicon  had been crossed. And this had        who passed away January  17,  19%.
not been done by  Classis East, but by  Classis West.                 May the God of  all grace and comfort console their hearts in
   About this letter Rev. Walter Hofman is silent in every         the glorious thought that "Blessed are the  dead-  that die in the
language. I ask : what madness is this  ?                          Lord."
                                                                                                     Mrs. H.  Haan, Vice President
  W'ill brother Hofman please inform me and all his read-                                            Mrs. J. Hager, Secretary.
ers how conceivably even these Deputies Synocli Ad  Exam-
ina could  possi.bly.  function in  Classis East? Would they


  2     2    4                                   T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R


 I/                    AS TO BOOKS                              :;  .I                 O U R   DOC'TRINE

       Dogmatic  Theology   by William G. T. Shedd. Zondervan Pub-                       THE TRIPLE KNOWLEDGE
  lishing House, Grand Rapids,  Mich. Three  volumes. Price, for
  the set, $14.85; per volume, $4.95.                                           AN  EXPOSITION  OF  THE  HEIDELBERG  CATECHISM
                                                                                          PART  III  -  OF  THANKFULNESS
        Zondervan is to be congratulated for reprinting several
  classic works on theology, especially of the preceding cen-                                     LORD'S  DAY  40
 tury. This work of Shedd on Dogmatic Theology is one of                                             Chapter 1
 .these.  It belongs to the nineteenth century. Dr. Shedd's                            The Meaning of the Sixth Commandment
 work is, of course, well known among theologians, his work                    The person of my neighbor is the other man in my life.
  on the History of Doctrine as well as that whose reprint is              It is the man that has the same talents and powers and gifts
  hereby offered to the reading public. Under the title "Dog-              as I have, and whose talents and gifts limit mine, and there-
  matic Theology" (which, by the way. I like much better                   fore limit my person. He is the man `that stands next to me.
 than "Systematic Theology" for the simple reason that all                 He occupies the same position as I do in shop or office, in
  theology is systematic or ought to be) Dr. Shedd treats five             school or church, in state or society, and whose position in
  loci, evidently considering that the doctrine of the church is           life therefore limits my position. The neighbor is the man
 not a separate locus of dogmatics. His style is remarkably                whose interests are closely linked up with my interests, even
clear? so clear, in fact I do not hesitate to recommend this               so that the latter are limited and circumscribed by the former.
 work, not  oniy  to theologians, but also to the general read-            The neighbor is the man who crosses my path in life, and
 ing public that are interested in the study of Reformed  doc-             whose interests often conflict with mine. He probably is the
 trine. This remark, of course, does not mean that the work                better man, the man with more talents and gifts than I have,
 is not thoroughly scholarly, for it is indeed.                            and who strives for the better position in life. He is the man
        A book review is hardly the place for a thorough and               that in church demands that I move up in the pew, so that
 elaborate criticism. A few remarks must suffice. Dr. Shedd                he may have the end seat; the man that honks his horn
 is a traducianist and devotes several pages in defense of this            behind me on the road when I drive my automobile, so that
 view. He also defends the theory of common grace in com-                  he may pass me. He is, moreover, the man  whose person
 mon with other English and American -theologians of the                   demands of me that I sacrifice myself for his sake, that I
 Calvinistic type.  ,Thirdly,  and in connection with the fore-            deny myself, that for his sake I endanger my own life. The
 going, he even speaks of prevenient grace preceding regen-                neighbor is the man who lies on the roadside between Jeru-
 eration. It would be interesting to offer a thorough criticism            salem and Jericho, attacked by highway robbers, who stripped
 on all these points, but, as I said, there is no room for this            him and wounded him and left him half dead. He was a
 in a simple book review.                                                  neighbor to the Levite, the priest, and the good Samaritan,
                                                                           although only the last named recognized him as his neighbor.
       In the meantime, I once more congratulate Zondervan                 And finally,' the neighbor is  *even  my enemy, who hates me,
 on this reprint and recommend the work to the discerning                  persecutes me, and accuses me of all kinds of evil, speaking
 reader.                                                                   falsely. In one word, the neighbor is the man whom God
                                                            H . H .        places on my path, whose name limits my name, and whose
                                                                           position circumscribes my position. He is the other man in
                                                                           my life.
                                                                              That this is true is already evident from the sixth com-
                            IN  MEMORIAM                                   mandment, "Thou shalt not kill." In a sense it is, of course,
       The Ladies' Aid of First Prot. Ref. Church, in Grand Rapids,        true that everybody is my neighbor.` The Hottentot and the
 Michigan mourns the loss of one of its faithful members,                  Iiafir, the Chinese and the Indian,-all men are my neigh-
                       MRS. SIMON DEVRIES                                  bors, although I have never seen them, met them.face to face,
                                                                           although I have no contact with them and they do not limit
 whom the Lord took unto Himself January 19, 1954.                         my name and position. But it is also evident from the sixth
       "He that  dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall       commandment that strictly speaking this is not the meaning
 abide under the shadow of the Almighty."         '                        of the term  neigghbor.  For- it is not likely that I will ever
       "I will say of the  Lo,rd,  He is my refuge and my fortress: my
 God; in Him will I trust."                               - Ps. 91 :1-z    kill a person that lives in distant lands, or even a man with
                                                                           whom I have no dealings  .whatsoever. In fact, it is very
                                  Mrs. H. Hoeksema, President.             easy for me to deceive myself into believing that I am a very
                                  Mrs. J. Van Winsheym, Secretary          good neighbor when, in church or at a mission conference,
                                                                           I am so moved with compassion for the soul of the poor


                                             T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                               225

 heathen that I put five dollars in the collection plate-al-         ing the wicked king Ahab in his -battle against the Syrians,
 though, if that same poor heathen in the body ever crossed          the prophet of the Lord came to him, and said to him:
 my path, I would probably hate him, and thus murder him.            "Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate
 And therefore, it is well to understand that  the. sixth com-       the Lord  7 Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the
 mandment has no reference to the distant neighbor, but to           Lord." And in Ps. 139: 21, 22 the psalmist, inspired by
 the one that lives very close to me and whose person in every       the Spirit of God, exclaims : "Do not I hate them, 0 Lord,
 way limits mine.                                                    that hate thee  ? And  ati I not grieved with those that rise up
     Now, the one spiritual root of murder is hatred of the          against thee ?  1, hate them with perfect hatred : I count them
 neighbor. This is literally expressed in Scripture, I John          mine enemies." Although, therefore,  in Scripture we are ad-
 3  :15 : "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer : and ye       monished to love  otir enemies, it is a spiritual impossibility
 know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."            to love the enemies of God. Such hatred, that'is principally
 This is also implied in I John 3  :ll, 12: "For this is the         rooted in the love of God, is holy. God Himself hates evil,
 message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should            and hates all the workers of iniquity. In that sense hatred
 love one another.  Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one,         is merely the antithesis of love in the heart and life of the
 and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him  ? Because          Christian; and therefore is perfectly holy.
 his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." And             However, this is not the hatred that is the root of murder.
the same is implied in the teachings of Jesus concerning             Holy  hatred is always an expression of  the love of God, is
 murder in Natt. 5  :21, 22 : "Ye have heard that it was said        hatred for God's sake. But hatred that kills the neighbor is
 by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever             rooted in enmity against God. Its object is not the evildoer
 shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say            as such, but is the neighbor in his position as neighbor next
 unto you, That whosoever is  angry with his brother with-           to me. To hate the neighbor is not to will him in his posi-
 out a cause shall be in  ,danger  of the judgment: and who-         tion, in his God-given and God-appointed position as a per-
 soever shall say to his brother,  Rata  (dumb-b&l,  empty-          son that limits my position in the world. Hatred of the
 head), shall be in danger of the council : but whosoever shall      neighbor, therefore, is principally rooted in hatred of God.
 say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." To hate the       One that hates the neighbor exactly in his position as neigh-
 neighbor, therefore, is murder before God.                          bor, in which he is placed next to the one that hates him,
    Hatred is not mere feeling or sentiment or emotion. It           rebels against God, Who placed him there, and  says  in his
 is much more than that. Of course, it is also a feeling, a          heart, and presently `openly to the neighbor himself : "I do
 feeling of strong dislike  and`aversion,  a feeling of loathing,    not want you there." 1.t is this hatred that naturally leads
of abomination and abhorrence. But this feeling is never-            the one that hates to the act of removing him from his  posi-
 theless rooted in the intellect and will of man, and ultimately     ion, and therefore, to the act of destroying him. Such is
 in the heart. The intellect judges that something or some-          murder. Murder is every attack upon the neighbor that is
 one is evil, whether that judgment is objective and based           motiv&ted  by enmity against God and by hatred of the neigh-
 on the truth, or whether it is merely subjective and false.         bor, that removes the neighbor from his rightful and  God-
 And when the object is  thus presented to the will, it de-          ordained position as neighbor next to you.
 tests it, inflicts evil upon it, and seeks to destroy it. Hat-       ' That'  one root of hatred reveals itself in various forms,
 red, therefore, is fundamentally an ethical attitude or force,      bears various fruits in human consciousness and life. The
 and is rooted in the heart of man. Hatred as such is,  oE           Heidelberg Catechism enumerates some of these when it
 course, not sinful. It all depends upon the question: what          says that "In forbidding murder, God teaches us, that he
 is the object of our hatred? It is possible to speak of a holy      abhors the causes thereof, such as envy, hatred, anger, and
 hatred, so that hatred becomes a spiritual, ethical virtue.         desire of revenge." Hatred may merely manifest itself as
 The saints are admonished to hate evil. Ps.  97:lO. The             unholy anger, that is, as anger without a cause, or as anger
 psalmist declares in Psalm 119 : 104 : "Through thy precepts        for your own sake. It is, of course, possible to be angry with.
 I get understanding: therefore I  hates  every false way." Cf.      a  mai1 in a holy sense. In that sense the Christian must be
 also vs. 128. In the same psalm, vs. 163, we read: "I hate          angry and filled with indignation  when_ever  the cause or
 and abhor lying : but thy law do I love." In Amos 5  :15 the        name of God is attacked. But unholy anger is anger with-
 people of God are admonished: "Hate the evil, and love the          out a cause,  or for a wrong cause,-the cause is in you. And
 good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the        in that unholy  anger you hurt, wound, dishonor, or kill your
 Lord God of Hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of              neighbor, remove him from his position. Or that same
 Joseph." And in the well-known chapter of Romans 7 we               hatred may blossom forth in the corrupt fruit of envy. En-
 read in vs. 15 : "For that which I do  I. allow not : for what      vy, one of the most despicable expressions of a corrupt and
 I would, that I do not; but what  I hate, that do I." Nor is        sinful heart, `is that attitude over against the neighbor that
 this hatred of the people of God directed only to sin and evil      reveals itself in a disposition of jealousy  and  malice because
 in the abstract, but also to evildoers and those that are en-       the neighbor prospers, and prospers more than you; or he
 emies of  God.. When Jehoshaphat returned home from  aicl-          prospers in a position or way in which you want to prosper,


2 2 6                                        T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

and cannot because the position  df the neighbor is such that          by his own fault and  .sinful life, or by the hand of God over
he limits yours. Envy and jealousy are the cause of much               him, his position has become unbearable. He is led in a way
 dissension and corruption not only in the world,  butt also in        of. hopeless suffering, from which there is no way out in this
the church of Jesus Christ. They are rdots of bitterness, that         life; and he removes himself from his God-ordained position
cause strife and contention, and often disrupt the church.             in the world. Or he has ruined his  life&by living in corruption
Then also this  root'of  hatred  rkveals  itself in a desire of re-    and lasciviousness, until his very bones are rotted by disease;      .
venge. We have been insulted, or in other ways injured by              and he imagines that he can find a way out of his misery by
the neighbor. And now we contemplate revenge. We seek                  killing himself. Or again, a man is ruined financially  ;  and.
an opportunity, that may perhaps never come and never be               being hopelessly in debt, he seeks the easiest way out by
-realized, but upon  iYhich  we contemplate nevertheless, to           committing suicide. The suicide is not a brave man, but a
inflict upon the neighbor injury for injury and insult for in-         wicked coward, who has not the moral courage to stand and
sult. Even if our revenge only expresses itself in saying to           function in the position in which God has placed him. This,
the neighbor,  "Rata,"  or, "Thou fool," we are, according to          of course, does not. apply to cases of insanity. Nor does it
the Lord's teachings, guilty of murder and in danger of hell           apply to Samson, who in the epistle to the Hebrews is classi-
fire. All these, and other corruptions of the sinful heart,            fied with the heroes of faith. It was no doubt by faith that
are the  causes of murder. And these causes are counted for            Samson called upon the name of Jehovah and said: "0 Lord
the deed by the Lord our God.                                          Jehovah, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I
    In Question and  Answer  105 the Catechism also teaches            pray thee, only, this once, 0 God, that I may be at once
us that this deed of murder can be committed  .in various              avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes." And the Lord
degrees.. It'can be done in thought, or by words or gestures,          heard Samson's prayer, so that he took hold of the two
as well as by the actual deed of killing the neighbor. More-           middle pillars upon which the whole house rested, leaned
over,, the deed of murder can be committed by myself or by             upon them with his right hand and with his left, and said,
another, and consists not only in the final act whereby I  de-         "Let me die  with the Philistines." Samson  was a Nazarite.
.prive the neighbor of his life, but also in any evil  ,I may in-      And although in his entire career he plainly revealed the
flict upon him, as, for instance, by dishonoring him or by             corruption of his sinful heart, yet he fought the battles of the
wounding him. You niay therefore inflict evil upon the per-            Lord. And as a Nazarite he died, and by dying slew the
son of your neighbor only in thought, and that thought be-             enemies of the Lord and of His people. But the real suicide
fore God is murder. Or again,. you may hurt your neighbor              is a man that is motivated by hatred against God and hatred
by your sharp tongue and your dagger-like words. The                   of his God-given position in life, and who simply removes
reference here is, of course, not to false testimony: this must        himself from that  posit+ to open his eyes in hell.
be discussed under the ninth commandment. The Catechism                                         * * * *
when it speaks of words by which you commit the sin against
the sixth commandment, does not refer to slander  and.back-                                      Chapter 2
biting or to false testimony against the neighbor, but is                    The Sword-power and the Sixth Commandment
thinking of all such words of reproach and contempt, of all               How, in the light of the sixth commandment, must we
words which you address directly to the neighbor. with                 judge about capital punishment and the waging of war by
murder in your eyes. By such speech you mean to murder                 the government? What is the Christian's individual respon-                ,
your neighbor just as well as the highway man murders                  sibility when he executes the sentence of the judge by taking
him when he, takes his revolver and shoots him. Thus, you              a criminals life, or, when he is called by the government to
can murder your neighbor with mere gestures. You do not                military service.
even have to speak to kill your. neighbor. There are many-                The first question is not so difficult to answer.
gestures of contempt and  scbrn and utter disdain,  such as a             First of all, it ought to be evident  -from all Scripture that
contemptuous smile, the pulling up of your nose; the raising           captial punishment is demanded by God.
of your eyebrows, not to speak of  .other gestures by which               This is evident already from Ronians 13  :4, according to
you may literally kill the neighbor. All this, according to the        which the magistrates are invested with the power of the
Heidelberg Catechism, is' murder before God, rises from a              sword : "For he is the  mini'ster-  of God to thee for good. But
.heart that is filled with hatred against the neighbor, and            if thou do that which is evil, be afraid  ; for he beareth' not
therefore is motivated in  its deepest root in enmity against          the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger
the Most High.                                                         to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." The sword
    Just a word may  ,be said here about the suicide. The              certainly is the instrument whereby the evildoer, that  is? the
Catechism refers to this when it says: "also, that I hurt not          murderer, is  beheaded.  This is also clearly the meaning of
myself, nor wilfully expose myself to any danger." Also the            Gen.  9  :5, 6: "And surely your blood of your lives will I re-
act of committing suicide falls under the sixth commandment,           quire; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the
because it is principally rooted in enmity against God and             hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I
hatred of the position in which God has placed a man. Either           require the life of man. Whoso  sheddeth  m&n's  blood, by


                                             T H E   S T A N D A R D   ~BEARER                                                       227

man shall his blood. be shed : for in the image of God made           namely, when he shall, after the example of the most holy
he man." Also in Lev.  34:17:  "And he that killeth any man           kings and princes of the people of the Lord, advance the
shall surely be put to death." And again? in Numbers 35  :31  :       preaching of the truth and the pure and sincere faith, and
"Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for  thi: life of a           shall root out lies and all superstition, with all impiety and
murderer, which is  guilty of death : but he shall surely be          idolatry, and shall defend the church of God. For indeed we
put to death." Hence, when the magistrate punishes the                teach that the care of religion does chiefly appertain to the
murderer with death, this is not the same as if a private             holy magistrate.
person kills his neighbor. But rather, through that magistrate            "Let him, therefore, hold the Word of God in his hands,
it is God Who executes the deed of  -capital punishment.  To          and look that nothing be taught contrary thereunto. In like
punish the murderer with death, therefore, is  certainli  not         manner, let him govern the people committed to him of God,
a violation of the sixth  comandment, but  is. directly demanded      with good laws, made according to the Word of God in his
by God. And no sentimental reasons, or false humanitarian             hands, and look that nothing be taught contrary thereunto.
motives, can ever be an excuse for disobeying the command             Let him hold them in discipline and in duty and in obedience.
of God.  Nor is the hangman, who executes the deed, respon-           Let him exercise judgment by judging uprightly : let him not
sible to God for it. Even when he personally should judge             respect any man's person, or  i-eceive  bribes. Let him protect
that in a certain case justice miscarried, and that the person        widows, fatherless children, and those that be afflicted,
whom he is called to deprive of his life was not guilty of            against wrong  : let him repress, yea, and cut off, such as are
murder. not he, but the judge, the magistrate, is responsible         unjust whether in'deceit or by violence. `For he hath not
before God for  fhe execution of capital punishment.                  received the sword of  `God in vain.' (Rom. 13  :4). Therefore
   But what about war ? May the Christian participate in              let him draw forth this sword of God against all malefactors,
the wars of this world, or must he refuse military service ?          seditious persons, thieves, murderers, oppressors, blas-
   Accopding to the strict pacifist, wars as such must be             phemers, perjured persons, and all those whom God has
condemned. Therefore, it follows that a Christian must be a           commanded him to punish or even to execute: Let him  sup-
conscientious objector, and refuse to  partici`pate  in any war.      press stubborn heretics (who are heretics indeed), who cease
                                                                      not to blaspheme the majesty of God, and to trouble the
   This, howevkr, has never been the stand of the Reformed
churches. That war may be waged by the government is not church, yea, and finally to destroy it.
clearly and definitely expressed in our own  Confessio  Bel-              "And if it be necessary to preserve the safety of the
gicn,  or Netherland Confession, Article 36  ; nor is it literally    people by war,  .let him do it in the name of God ; provided
expressed in Articles 39 and 40 of the French Confession of           he hath first sought peace by all means possible, and can
Faith, although it is certainly implied in these confessions.         save his subjects in no way but by war. And while the
But it is clearly maintained in some of the later Reformed            magistrate does these things in faith, he serves God with
confessions. Thus, already in the Thirty-nine Articles of the         those works which are good, and shall receive a blessing
Church of England, 1571, it' is stated: "The laws of the              from the Lord.
reahn may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and                "We condemn the Anabaptists, who, as they deny that
grievqus offences. It is lawful for Christian men, at the             a Christian man should bear the office of a magistrate, deny
commandment of the magistrate  td wear weapons, arid serve            also that  any  man can justly be put to death by the mag-
in the wars." This is literally repeated in the Irish Articles        istrate, or that the magistrate may make war, or that oaths
of Religion, 1615. In Chapter 23 of  th,e Westminster Con-            should be administered by the magistrate, and such like
fession of Faith, 1647, we read : "God, the supreme Lord and          things.
King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be            "For as God will work the safety of his people by the
under him, over the people, for his own glory and the public          magistrate,  whom it is given to be, as it were, a father of the
good, and to this end hath armed  theni with the power of             world, so all subjects are commanded to acknowledge this
the sword, for the defense and encouragement of them that             benefit of God in the magistrate. Therefore let them honor
are good, and for the punishment of evildoers. It is lawful           and reverence the magistrate as the minister of God  ; let
for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate       them love him, favor him, and pray for him as their father;
when called thereunto  ; in the managing whereof, as they             and let them  dbey  all his just and equal commandments.
ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace, ac-           Finally, let them pay all customs  and  tributes, and all other
cording to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth, so,               duties of the like sort, faithfully and willingly. And if the
for that end, they may lawfully, now under the New Testa-             common safety of the country and justice require it, and the
ment, wage war upon just and necessary occasion." The                 magistiate do of necessity make war, let them even lay down
Second  Helvetic  Confession, Chapter 30, speaks of the mag-          their life, and spend their blood for the common safety and
istrates as follows : "The chief duty of the civil magistrate is      defense of the magistrate  ; and  .that  in the name of God,  will
to procure and maintain peace and public tranquillity : which,        lingly, valiantly, and cheerfully. For he  that,opposes  himself
douktless, he shall never do more happily- than when he shall         against the magistrate does provoke the wrath of God against
be truly seasoned with the fear of God and true  religion-            him."                                                   - H .   H .


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 II                                                                         "reborn ones" is "out of incorruptible seed through the liv-
             F R O M   H O L Y   W R I T ,                                  ing- and abiding Word of God". And to prove this Peter
                                                                            quotes  IsaiBh  406,   7, where we read: "Therefore that all
                                                                            flesh is as grass, and all the glory of it (man) as the flower
                 Exposition of  I[  Peter  1:22-25                          of grass; the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth
                                                                            away: but the Word of the Lord  end&eth forever." And
                                    I V                                     to this Peter adds the explanatory note: "and this is the
        This  .beautiful, passage of Scripture calls  .attention  to the    Word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
 living hope that is ours through the resurrection of Jesus                    Concerning these elements  `lye would like to make a few
 Christ. More particularly it admonishes us  con:retely  to live            remarks :          -
 in this hope as this is manifested in a walk of conversion,                   In the first place, we call attention to the element in the
 the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new               tekt that speaks concerning the truth that our being con-
 man. The central manifestation of such a walk of hope and                  cretely reborn ones is ours of incorruptible seed. We should
 conversion is in the  fel,vefac_v  of the. brotherly love that we          bear in mind that the apostle here contrasts two kinds of
 have for one another. In this fervency of love we see love                 seeds, to wit, corruptible and incorruptible seed. The former
 perfected. Sanctification will thus be finished and completed              is, no doubt, in the light of the context which speaks of all
 in the fear of God.                                                        "flesh" the seed from which  6ur natural birth springs forth
        Shall this conversion be a reality in our life then our             in the womb of our mother. This is corruptible seed com-
 souls must be purified in the obedience to the glad truth of               ing forth from corruptible man.- It is the seed of flesh from
 the Gospel, namely, that we have received doubly from the                  which flesh is born. `It is the birth of which Nicodemus at
 hand of the Lord for all of our sins. God has constituted us               first thought that Jesus was speaking. The seed that is cor-
 His people.  1& are His `<regenerated ones". And to us,                    ruptible is, therefore, the seed of man. From this our earthly
 who are thus reborn, and who greatly see the  need  of the                 human nature  cdmes   forth as we eat and drink, bring forth
 forgiveness of sins, `this great and solid comfort of God is               children, and die. It is corruptible seed. Not so is the seed
 directed. This comfort is the incentive to walk in thankful-               from which we are constituted the concrete reborn ones,
 ness and in all good works of hope and the joy of  everlast`ing            so that we are constituted incorruptible, and undefiled and
 immortality.                                                               such that never fade away. That is incorruptible seed.
        Thus the admonition to  w&lk in all love and hope, man-                What is this incorruptible seed  ?
 ifesting itself in- conversion, is well-founded. The admoni-.                 We know that this seed is  not  corruptible. It will never
 tion does not tell us to become what we are not, but it en-                die or fade away. Such is the case with all other seeds. Such
 joins us to live out to the full what we are, We are to hope               is the lot of the grass and flowers. Their inward power  aid
 perfectly for the  grace  which is brought us in the revelation            strength is such, that it  f?des  away and is corrupted. It does
 of Jesus Christ in the last day.                                           not have the  po.wer to estenuate life and existence. And the
        This is a great mystery of godliness. It shall always               reason for this is that "the Spirit of the Lord blows upon
supercede our comprehension just how the Holy Spirit con-                   it." God's breath destroys it. But this "Seed" is  -such  that
 stitutes us what we are. But we rest assured  th%this  great               it is caused by the breath  .of  @d.  He puts such a principle
 reality is ours, and such, that because of it, we love and                 in us through. the Holy Spirit that it never fades away. It
 serve our Saviour.                                                         is a  "seed" because it is  ti life's principle that must develop,
       .This does not mean that we cannot form some concep-                 grow. and unfold! It is perpetual growth that shall endure
 tion of this work of God whereby He constitutes us con-                    in immortality and life and glory.
 cretely His "regenerated ones". On the contrary, we are                       Out of this seed we are regenerated ones !
 told by Peter rather accurately how God works this grace                      Of this implication of seed all are agreed that study the
 of being regenerated ones.  He. does `this not simply to sat-              Bible. But not all agree on the relationship of the phrases
 isfy our curiosity but rather that he may  incite us to the                "out of incorruptible seed" and "through the living and
 w&-king  out of our  salqatlon,  knowing that it is God, Who               abidjng Word of God."
 works in us both to will and to -do of His good pleasure.                     Calvin interprets "seed)' to be the same as the "Word of
.Are we not constituted conscious regenerated ones exactly                  God", or at least it is the "Word of God" from the view-
 by means of the Word of God as it is proclaimed by Proph-                  point that the-Word  of God is fruitful in our life. Writes
 ets and Apostles ? Does not God work the grace of con-                     he "for the Gospel is not preached that it may only be heard
 version in us through the exhortation of the glad-tidings ?                by  us,  but that it may as the seed of immortal life altogether
 While Peter is teaching concerning this work of God, he is                 reform our hearts." On the other hand Culbertson inter-
 at once also bringing this Word of God as the glad-tidings.                prets the relation of "incorruptible seed" and the "Word
 He  .is writing the very Word of God that is living and `abid-             of God" as being such that "the seed" denotes evidently the
 ing. Let  us  put off the shoes from our feet, and draw near.              vital principle of  giace, the new nature, the restored image.
        The apostle tells us that our being concretely, consciously         It'is the same with what John means when he says "his seed


                                                 T H E   S T A N D A R D . .   B E A R E R             . .                              229

 remaineth in him" I John 3  :9. The Word is set forth as                   matchless greatness of the infinite glory of His grace and
 the instrument by which the seed is implanted."                            truth. And concerning this great work the preaching re-
     ke rather agree with the interpretation which  .takes                  sounded. And the Lord wrought with the preachers, per-
 "seed" in the- sense of newly implanted life of Christ. In                 forming signs and wonders, working mightily in the hearts
 the first place because, as is evident from I John 3  :9, this             of all His own. And so by means of this preaching God the
 presentation is very Scriptural. In that passage too our being             Father wrought great faith and hope, in the hearts of those
 concretely born again ones is ours of seed. It is a new prin-              who are the elect strangers. He, called them mightily by
 ciple of life. In the second place because this follows from the           means of the preaching out of darkness into God's marvelous
 contrast of corruptible and incorruptible seed. If the one is              light.
 a principle of life so is the other. In the third place because                Thus He very concretely brought them forth by the
 it hardly seems that we  have here the "seed" in the sense of              Word as the reborn ones, to be some first fruits of His
 the parable in Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. Where-                creation.
 fore we do not interpret "seed" to be  identicsl  with the                     And, 0, what He has begun He will surely finish by
 Word of God.                                                               the same Word of His power in the  .Gospel. For the Gos-
     Nor do we believe that this  "seedf'  is implanted by the              pel is not a passing thing that loses its potency in the hearts
 the Word of God,  as the preached Word. Rather the Word,                   of the redeemed through the Spirit, but it is living and  abid-
 that is preached, causes the principle of the love of God shed             ing. It is a living Word and not a dead powerless Word. It
 abroad in our hearts to' reveal itself in the reborn life of faith         is a Word that gives light and joy to the soul.  It is a power
 and hope in  God:  Hence it is out of the incorruptible seed               of God unto salvation in the heart  Qf every believing one.
 and through, by means of the Word of God, as this is                       It causes  the one in whom the seed is placed by God to be-
brought to us in the `preaching of the Gospel tidings and its               come a believing one. It is that power that breaks down all
 practical implications.                                                    our prejudices in the knowledge that the love of God was
     Peter says that the Word, which by the Gospel is                       so great to us in forgiveness that we ought to love one
 preached unto us, is a Word that emphatically came to us as                another.
 glad tidings.  Literally this is a  gosfielized  zvol-d.   It-is a word        And it is a Word too that "remains" forever and ever.
 that is therefore brought as good tidings in the Cross of                  It remains not simply in the static sense. But it remains in
 Christ. Thus it is spoken of in  the most glowing terms in                 all its living power to work faith in our hearts. Such is the
 Isaiah  40:9 "0 Zion, that bringest good tidings, get  t'hee up            idea of the term employed in the original Hebrew in Isaiah
 into the  moutain:  o Jerusalem that bringeth good tidings,                40  5% The term means to arise, and is associated with verbs
 life up thy voice with strength : lift it up be nbt afraid  ; say          of going, going forward. Hence, it means to increase, or to
 unto the cities of Judah  ; Behold, your  God  !" And again in             flourish. Prov.  28:12. And so it is, applied to the Word of
 Isaiah  40-:28-30  wk read  `(H&t thou not known? hast thou                God, indicative of an abiding, a staying power, that goes
 not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the  cr`eator               forth conquering and to conquer. It brings us from one con-
 of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is  .weary   ? there       quest over  sin and the devil to another. By this living and
 is no  seaiching of His understanding. He giveth power to                  life-giving and joy-affording Word God makes us love each
 the faint; and to them that hath no might he increaseth                    other fervently. He so enjoins us- in the text  before  us. For
 strength. Even the youths shall be faint and weary, and the                the admonitions and eshortations and threatenings of the
 young men shall utterly fall : But they that wait upon the                 Gospel are  .living  and powerful, sharper than any two-edged
LORD shall renew their strength  ; they shall mount up with                 sword, passing in to the dividing asunder of the marrow and
 wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they                 bones, and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of
 shall walk and not faint."                                                 the heart.
     Such is `the glad-tidings to "my people", the elect pil-                   Well may the admonition be sounded by the Apostle
 grim saints in the midst of this world, looking  f6r the heav-             in Chapter 2, that we lay aside all malice and all guile, hy-
 enly fatherland.                                                           pocrisies and envies, and all evil speakings ! For these. are
     This  is the glad-tidings that was preached to the  Gala-              not the manifestations of our being regenerated ones out of
 tians by the Apostle Paul on his Missionary  .Journeys.  He                incorruptible seed, by the living and abiding Word of God.
 preached to them the glad-tidings of the Cross and Resur-                  Such is not a walk of gratitude in obedience to the Gospel
 rection of Jesus Christ. This Word came to them as the                     of glad tidings.
 Word announcing the fulfillment of the great promise of                        Let  us  walk in the obedience to the truth of the  glad-
 God.  -He has brought our salvation making Himself known                   tidings of good things.
 in the working of the power of His  might in the resurrec-                     Such is the walk of conversion springing forth from the
 tion- of Jesus Christ. He exalted every valley and made                    living hope of the reborn saints.`
 every mountain and hill low; He made the crooked straight
 and the rough places  pliin. And in this all He revealed the                                                                         G.L.


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                                                                    tion in Christ and with sovereign election from the founda-
                I N   H I S   F E A R                          11 tion of the world :-never come to  `man first with election
                                                                    unto faith and with an unconditional promise of faith to the
                                                                    elect, the "pedagogical approach" says. That -would tend to
                    Afraid of the Gospel                            make man careless and profane. That is  a passive doctrine!
                                (12)                                You can come with these later on, the "pedagogical ap-
                                                                    proach" says, when a man has become stronger in his faith,
       "The pedagogical approach".                                  but even then you have to be careful with such a doctrine.
       It also is an insult to God!                                 Oh, indeed  !, they say that they believe such things too  ; but
       An insult it must be, for it was invented and is set         it must not have the emphasis. Christ and God must not
forth to defend the God-insulting conditional theology that         have the emphasis. It is nice to have them and to believe
ipeaks  of prerequisites which man must fulfill before God          in them. But you must approach man with man's works
will bestow salvation upon  h&n.                                    which he must do. That is the way to keep him in the fear
                                                                    of the Lord.
       Indeed, we have been assured repeatedly by the defenders
of conditional theology that man fulfills these conditions by           All this would be sensible and even correct were it not
God's grace, that they. too believe that man is by nature dead      for one extremely important element that the "pedagogical
in sin and can do nothing before God gives him the grace  to:       approach" either ignores or does not even believe. And that
do so. But if they are sincere, why do they insist on defend-       ifact  i s   t h a t   G O D   P R E A C H E S   I R R E S I S T I B L Y   H I S
ing the word condition as a prerequisite Why do they, by            OWN GOSPEL, and the conversion and activity of faith
conflicting arguments, try to defend those heretical state-         in man is not wrought by  the human preacher-though it
ments of Rev. De Wolf? Why clo they-though it is plainly            is through him that God works it-but by the irresistible
a lie-continue to defend the contention that  when  God's           power of the Spirit of God.
Word speaks concerning the elect, it speaks of the promise              The "pedagogical. approach" !
as being unconditional, but that when God speaks  to  tha
`elect, He tells them that the promise is -conditional ? Why            Is God afraid of the Gospel too? Must He approach man
do they invent and defend such a God-insulting thing as "the        very gently and cautiously lest the very man He wants to
pedagogical approach"  ? As long as they, do these things we        save is by the Gospel driven away from salvation ? And does
may not and cannot accept their conflicting claim to be  Pr&-       He therefore tell His human messengers to make  tise of this
estant Reformed, to- believe in total depravity and to be free      "pedagogical approach"-? lest His work of salvation be re-
from the  arminianism and  pelagianism against which the Re-        jected and overthrown? Is HE afraid that little man, who
formed churches have always waged a holy warfare,                   is utterly dependant upon God for every breath of life? will
                                                                    make God's work of salvation more difficult  .unless he is
   One who loves the Protestant Reformed truth is amazed            approached with what man must do instead of with- the Gos-
pt the expressions and statements produced in the defense of        pel which tells us of what God HAS done ? Is a regener-
conditional theology. One wonders whether. the authors of           ated child of God going to be influenced to evil works by
these phrases and terminology really thought the thing              being told that God is the God of ALL his salvation and that
through before putting it down as the thing they intend to          our works are the fruit of salvation, rather than the condi-
defend, or whether they  cleliberately invented these things. tion unto salvation? No Protestant Reformed man can be-
to deceive the unskilled. This phrase, "the pedagogical ap-         lieve that! No Protestant Reformed man subscribes to the
proach", for example, sounds so innocent and even seems             "pedagogical approach" !
to be so beautiful and  Script&al a solution of the problem.
Yet look at it again. Analyze it and consider what it really            The school teacher needs a pedagogical approach. The
says  ancl denies, and you will see that it insults the Almighty    politician and salesman need their special approach. These
and All-wise God.                                                   ihave  to be careful lest they antagonize. These must approach
                                                                    man when he is in the right frame of mind, or else by their
   According to the "pedagogical approach" we must come             words they must first put man in the right frame of mind.
to man with the promise of God as being conditional, lest           before driving home the point for which they contacted that
man become careless and profane. The  "pedagdgical ap-              man. Men have to try to exert influence on other men. For
proach" would come to man with a long list of  .things which        that you need a pedagogical approach. You have to try to
he must do, chief of which is that he must believe in Christ.       make them see things your way. You have to try to mold
Then you will not make him careless and profane. You will           and bend their hearts and  minds-  to conform to your heart
be presenting to him something that will keep him active in         and mind. But that is not a fair presentation of what God
things spiritual. Come to man first with what man must do,          does through the preaching of the gospel.
and then, the "pedagogical. approach" claims  you  can tell
him about the grace of God which enables him to do all                  God does that which no man can do' to his fellowman.
these.things.  Never come to man first with a finished salva-       God puts a new life in us. He gives us a new heart and a


                                            T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                              231

new mind. He makes us to be new creatures in Christ, II                And then, too, that expression that gives content to the
Cor.  5:17. Before a man can even see the kingdom, God              "pedagogical approach", namely, that when God's word
causes him to be bnrn again. To that born again man who             speaks about the elect it presents the promise as being un-
has a new heart and a new mind God preaches the Gospel.             conditional, but when God speaks to His elect people He
`And that new life, which is from above cannot become  dare-        presents the promise as being conditional! Analyze it once!
less and profane when the. gospel is preached unto it, and          Think it through. Test it out! Everytime God speaks con-
when it hears of the wonderful, finished work of salvation          cerning the elect, He presents the promise as unconditional.
which comes unconditionally to the elect of God. John, by           We ask,  to. whom does He speak concerning the elect? To
the power of the Spirit, is bold to say that "Whosoever is          the devil  ? To the reprobate  ? To the holy angels  ? Or to
born of God doth not commit sin  ; for His seed remaineth           other elect? And for whom were these passages of Holy
in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God", I            Writ recorded and preserved all these years ? For the rep-
John 3  :9.. That truth stands in direct opposition to the          robate  ? For the devil ? For the holy angels  ? Or again for
"pedagogical approach": John knew nothing of it. And he             other elect? Is it not so very plain that whenever He speaks
dared to tell the elect that they do not, and cannot sin accord-    concerning the elect and presents the promise as uncondi-
ing to that new principle of fife which God has given them.         tional that He is speaking  to  other elect? And is it not very
And the  %hosoever"  in the text is not a condition. John           dangerous for God to tell some elect that the promise to other
,does not tell us what we must do in order to obtain that           elect is unconditional ? Should we not come to the only
glorious state of being sinless and of being incapable of sin-      possible conclusion, then, that God always must speak of the:
ning.                                                               promise as being unconditional? No one we now know has
                                                                    yet dared to say that. But let them be honest and either ad-
   To be sure, -that born again man will need instruction.          mit that the "pedagogical approach" is an insult to God and
God saves him as a rational, moral creature  ; and so he will       that they do not want it anymore,  or'else  let them be con-
be told by God, in HIS preaching of the gospel.. what God           sistent and dare  to. tell, their people that the Almighty God
has done for him and in him. He will be told what the way           is afraid of man, whom He has made, and therefore must
of the Lord is. And he will be told by God what the fruits          approach him with care and with due respect for  his. feel-
of the Spirit and of salvation are, so that  -as he finds them      ings and powers to frustrate the Almighty God!
in his life, he may have comfort and assurance in a life here
below where his "sins rise up against him, prevailing day              Those who are so afraid of the gospel that they have de-
by day." But let us never forget, that God preaches the             ceived themselves into thinking that God is also afraid of
gospel to that reborn man. He tells Him what HE has done.           His own gospel are not -Protestant Reformed men. The
                                                                    truth makes us free. It gives peace and joy.
   In the hearing of fallen man who had chosen the friend-
ship of the devil and who was still placing the blame upon                                                                 J.A.H.
his wife-and that in such a way that he complains that God
gave him an unfit wife-God preaches the gospel of a sal-
vation that stipulates no conditions for man to fulfill. With-
out the "pedagogical approach" He dares to tell man at the                                 --
very outset of his journey in' the fields  of- sin that  HE in-
tends to deliver him fully from that power of sin that holds
him. To a very rebellious nation God says, without any
"pedagogical approach", these words of salvation, "I the
Lord change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not  con-
sumed",.Mal.  3  :6. To sinners who, because they were aware                   When for the truth I suffer shame
of their sins were filled with terror when an angel of the                     `When foes pour scandal on my name
Lord appeared to them, God had the gospel preached with-                       When cruel taunts and jeers abound
out the "pedagogical approach" when the shepherds were told                   When bulls of  .Bashan  gird me round
"Fear not for behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy.                    Secure within Thy tower I'll dwell
For unto you is born in the city of David a  Saviour", Luke                   That tower  Tlzy  Grace  Immmuel
2  :lO> 11. Let  us  not insult God by declaring that He must,
through His human messengers approach man with the need
of his works in order to prepare him for instruction in God's
wonderful work of salvation. No Protestant Reformed man
will do that! And if through ignorance and failure to think
it through, he has declared such a thing, he will surely ad-
mit that he was wrong, and see to it that those whom he
taught this error know of his condemnation of it.


  232                                          T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

                                                                          he writes : "Let them `come', then, while they are growing
  I/ Contending For The Faith                                       11 LIP;  let them `come' while they are learning, while they are
  II                                                                `I    learning whither to come: let them become Christians when
                                                                          they have become able to know Christ.  iMore caution will
              The Church and the Sacraments                               be exercised in worldly matters : so that -one who is  not
                                                                          trusted with earthly substance is trusted with divine! Let
         EARLY  VIEWS  OF  `)I'HE  SACRAMENT  OF  BAPTISM                 them know how to `ask' for salvation. that you may seem
   The question of infant ba.+sm  (continued).                            (at least,) to have given `to him that asketh'.  " This fifth
                                                                          and final ground which is advanced by the eminent Church
         In `our previous article we were discussing the grounds          Father concerns the great responsibility involved in baptism
   which Tertullian advanced in support of his opposition to              for the recipient of the sacrament. In fact, for this last-men-
the baptism of infants. And we concluded the article by                   tioned reason he recommends even to grown-up persons
   calling attention to the second ground for his rejection of            (single persons, widows, etc.) to delay baptism until they
   this  ,practice, namely that an innocent child needed no cleans-       are either married or have formed the firm resolution to
   ing from sin, A third ground advanced by Tertullian con-               lead a single life. This last  obsei-vation of Tertullian, apart
   cerns the consequent responsibility to the sponsors. "For,"            from its reference to, infant baptism, is indeed worthy of
   we hear him say, "why is it necessary-if (baptism itself)              note also for our present day. He advocates that baptism
   is not so necessary-that the sponsors likewise should be               be deferred in connection with the unwedded. This contains
   thrust into danger ? Who both themselves by reason of mor-             surely for  us  the timely suggestion that young people defer
   tality may fail to  rulfill  their promises and may be disap-          their marriage until they have made confession of faith. It
   pointed by the development of an evil disposition  *irt  those         lies in the nature of the case that young people should marry
   j'or  zwjzo~t!.  they stood?'  We have no difficulty understanding     in the  cord  and be spiritually able to assume all the spiritual
   the thrust of this argument. At the time of the administra-            obligations connected with married life. Tertullian, how-
   tion of the sacrament of Baptism we certainly take it upon             ever, advises such to defer their baptism. And this advice is
   ourselves, do we not, to instruct the child in all the know-           surely based upon the tremendous responsibility involved for
   ledge of the Lord. Besides, do we not administer to the child          the recipient of baptism. The sacrament certainly lays upon
   the water of baptism which is a sign and seal of the right-            its recipient the calling to walk as having died and risen
   eousness which is by faith ? But, does not this sacrament im-          again in and' with Christ Jesus. However, to receive this
   pose upon us a tremendous responsibility, yea a responsibility         sacrament one must be able to fulfill these spiritual obliga-
   whose fulfilment we cannot  guaiantee  ? The parents them-             tions.
   selves are mortal, subject to death. They may die and there-
   fore not be able to fulfill their' baptismal pledge. Besides,              This analysis and criticism of infant baptism by  Ter-
   the possibility also exists of the development of an evil dis-         tullian is worthy of our attention. The similarity between
   position in  thdse "for whom they had  stood.",  In other words,       his objections to the baptism of infants and the arguments
   the children  thems&ves may resent the instruction given               of the Baptists today is indeed striking. In the first place,
   them and thereby render vain all our efforts to bring them             Tertullian's appeal to Holy Writ is surely weak. His com-
                                                                          ments- on the text : "Forbid them not to come unto Me," are
   up  in the fear of the Lord. Of course, there is one fundamen-
   tal element which Tertullian fails to see in this- connection.         surely far-fetched. The Saviour does not  say that these little,
   When the sacrament of Baptism is administered, the sac-                ones must not be forbidden to come unto Him after they
   rament is not administered to the child merely by the parent           have  grown  up  and have learned to know the Christ, but
   but also by the Church, and it is indeed the Church which              that they, as  little  ones, must not be forbidden to come unto
   answers the baptismal questions and assumes responsibility             Him. Moreover, his comments on Luke 6  :30  (:"Give to
   as well as the actual parents of the child. This means, of             every man that asketh of them; and of-him that  taketh  away
   course, that if the parent or pare&s should die, the Church            thy goods ask them not again") are surely vague and in-
   would? of course, assume full responsibility for the instruc-          decisive. Does this mean, for example.  thgt my asking of
   tion  nE the baptized child. For the rest, however, this ar-           the Lord is a condition or prerequisite for the Lord's bless-
   gument of Tertullian is clear. Of course, this does not mean           ing of me? If so, I would never be blessed and no infant
   that we endorse this reasoning of the learned Church Father.           co~~lcl  possibly be saved. Besides, what about the prayers of
   We will return to this in due time.                                    the Church which are addressed to the living God in behalf
                                                                          of our children (according to election) upon the basis of
         The fifth ground which Tertullian advances for  .his op-         that Scripture which assures us that the promise belongs- to
   position to the administration of baptism of infants consists          us  aud to our children  ? Is it possible that these prayers of
   of the necessity of previous  ,instruction. He calls attention,        the Church must be included in Luke  6:30  and Matt. 7  :7?
   in the passage we quoted from his writings, to the text : "For-        This same vagueness  and indecisiveness also applies to the
   bid them not to come unto Me, for of such is the Kingdom               writer's  comllients on Matt. 7  :6: "Give not that which is
   of God." However, when commenting upon this Scripture                  holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine,


                                             T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                  233

 lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and          caution is exercised with respect to worldly affairs, why
 rend you." It must be quite evident that the Saviour, speak-         should it not also be exercised in connection with Divine
ing here of dogs and swine, refers to those who actually              and spiritual matters? Hence, let them, we read, "know
trample the things of God's Word  &d covenant under foot.             how to ask for salvation, that you  m?y seem (at least) to
This text hardly refers to little infants. Besides, if the learned    have given to him that asketh." .In other words, Tertullian
Church Father would conclude from this passage that Bap-              advocates that the sacrament of Baptism be administered only
tism must not be administered to the infants, why did the             to those who express their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
Lord command in the Old Dispensation that circumcision                in order that the parents may not fall into the danger of
be administered to all the male infants who were born in              being unable to fulfill their baptismal vdw or be disappointed
the sphere of the covenant?                                           because of the development of an evil disposition on the part
                                                                      of those who have been baptized. Then the administration
    However, the striking feature of Tertullian's objection           of the sacrament will have been true and it will not have been
. to infant baptism is its strikin,u resemblance to the rejection     administered in vain.
of the baptism- of infants by the Baptists of today. `I am sure
th& we are all familiar with a fundamental objection of the              This reasoning of Tertullian is, we understand, an error.
Baptists against the administration of the sacrament to the           Apart from his weak attempt to engage the support of Holy
seed of the Church. This fundamental objection can be                 Writ, this eminent writer should have realized that his ar-
briefly summarized as follows : the Baptist does not want the         gumentation suffers shipwreck upon the rock of God's  com-
sacrament to lie. He will remind you of the Scripture that            liTand in the Old Dispensation. It is simply a fact that the
`Baptism  is a sign and seal of the righteousness which  is, by       Lord commanded that all the male children  chould be cir-
faith, and that whosoever believeth and is baptized (hence,           cumcised the eighth day, And we know that the rite of cir-
baptism must follow upon the act of believing) shall be saved.        cumcision had the same meaning as the sacrament of bap-
This accounts for his refusal to baptize infants. Baptizing           tism. Hence,  Tertullian  argues, therefore, against the Old
infants,  t'he inevitable result will be that we will also baptize    Testament institution. Secondly, however, Tertullian over-
children who,  .when  they come to years of discretion, will          looks and completely fails to reckon with a very important
reveal themselves as profane and as haters of the Lord and            truth: Reprobation. This failure, by the way, characterizes
of His covenant. It is not our purpose at this time to enter -also the Synodicals and the Liberated of the present day.
into a refutation of this argument of the Baptists, except            The Synodicals, although they would limit the covenant to
to remark that his argument against infant baptism must               the elect and declare that the promise is only for  them,.never-
be charged against the Lord when, in the Old Dispensation,            theless would declare something for all the children of be-
He commanded all the male sons born within the sphere  pf             lievers and therefore declare that the sacrament of Baptism
the covenant to be circumcised. Circumcision was surely also          must be administered upon the ground of presumptive. re-
a sign and  seai of the righteousness which is by faith. Is           generation.  The. Liberated, on the other hand, declare that
this not principally the same objection which?  is lodged by          all the children are  equalli  in the covenant, seek the essence
Tertullian against the baptism of infants ? He writes, does           of the covenant in the promise, and advocate that all the
he not, that the children must come to Jesus while they are           children  +re recipients of the promise in an equal sense-of
growing up and learning.. that `they must become Christians,          the word. Baptism is the sign and seal of the promise of
having become able to know the Christ. Moreover, he speaks            God to and for every baptized child. And the Baptist would
of the danger in which  the.sponsors may involve  +hemselves          limit the administration of the sacrament only to believers.
when they will find themselves unable to fulfill their bap-           But, in all these conceptions, the truth is overlooked and
tismal pledge, either because of their own mortality or be-           ignored that what is true of the preaching of the Word ap-
cause of the children who will refuse to submit to their in-          plies equally to the administration of the  sacramenf  of Bap-
struction. This is principally the same objection as that which       tism. The sacrament of Baptism never lies and this for the
is voiced by the- Baptist. Tertullian declares that, baptizing        simple reason that the promise is intended for and given only
infants, the danger may  develop  that parents will fall short        to the elect.. The purpose of this sacrament is two-fold, even
of their baptismal pledge, either because of their own  mor-          as the purpose of the preaching of the Word is two-fold: it
.tality or the refusal of the baptized to submit to their instruc-    is a savour of life unto life but also of death unto death. If,
tion. The implication is, of course, that the sacrament of            then, the result of our instruction is the hardening of some,
Baptism, as administered to these erring children, will fall          we must remember that,  m that case, our instruction did not
short of its objective. Hence, to prevent  ,his misfortune. it        fall short of its objective, but served the  .sovereign  will and
is the wiser and safer policy to wait with the administration         gcjod pleasure of the Lord Whose purposes never fail.
of the sacrament until the person has revealed himself. This                                                                     H . V .
is also the thrust of what the learned writer records con-
cerning Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The chamberlain
had been prepared by the Spirit and  tias baptized only when
he revealed his faith. Moreover, he writes that whereas



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     234                                                T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

     I/                                                                            -tention of the present article to define and to describe the
                 The Voice of Our Fathers *  II decree of predestination. Sovereign election is not defined
                                                                                   by the Canons until we read Article 7, while sovereign rep-
                                                                                   robation is not described until we reach the fifteenth article
                       The Canons of Dordrecht                                     of the First Head of Doctrine. Article 6 still leads up to the
                                                                                   subject of predestination. And it gives us the answer to the
                                    PART TWO                                       question that was raised by the previous article. There we
                         EXPOSITION OF  TIXE  CANONS                               learned that God Himself made a distinction: to some  He
                                                                                   imparts the gift of faith, while to others He does not. The
           FIRST  HEAD  OE  DOCTRINE OF  &VINE  PREDESTINATION                     question remained, therefore: how is it determined who shall
                    Article 6. That some receive the gift of faith from            -receive the gift of faith, and  w&o shall not?  HYow  does God
                    God, and others do ndt receive it proceeds from God's          determine this? To whom does He impart that gift of faith
                    eternal decree, "For known unto God are all  his               in Jesus Christ, and salvation through Him  7 And to whom
                    works. from the beginning of the world," Acts  15:lS.
                    "Who worketh all things after the counsel of his               does He not impart it? To that question this sixth article
                    will," Eph. 1  :ll. According to which decree,, he graci-      supplies the answer. It enters into the deepest cause and
                    ously softens the hearts of the elect, however ob-             source of the fact that some are gifted with faith by God,
                    stinate, and inclines them to believe, while he leaves         and &hers  &-e not.
                    the  nonelect  in his judgment to their own wickedness
                    and obduracy. And herein is especially displayed the               In general, the  atiticle.  teaches us that this phenomenon
                    profound, the merciful, and at the same time the               of some receiving the gift of faith and others not receiving
                    righteous discrimination between  men,.  equally in-           it proceeds from God's eternal decree. The eternal decree
                    volved in ruin; or that decree of election and reproba-
                    tion, revealed in the Word of Gdd, which though men            of God, therefore, is the source from which in time it comes
                    of perverse, impure and unstable minds wrest to their          to pass that some receive faith while others do not receive
                    own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords           it. We may notice immediately, therefore, that this article
                    unspeakable consolation.                                       establishes a certain  definitti  relation between the work of
            The  accepted English translation of this article is a little          God in time and His eternal decree. Already here you find,
     weak and inaccurate on three counts. The first inaccuracy                     by implication at least, a denial of the Arminian view of
     appears in the very first sentence of Article 6, in the ex-                   election on the basis of foreseen faith. For it is plain from
     pression "receive the gift of faith."  This, is'supposed to be a              the very first sentence of Article 6 that the relationship be-
     translation of the Latin  "fi& . .  do~~~ntzt~~."  It is more  ac-            tween God's work in time and His decree in eternity is not
     curatqly  rendei-ed  by the Dutch, "Dat God  .sommigen in de                  such that the eternal decree receives its contents from the
     tijd met het  geioof  begiftigt  . . . .  " The second error is also          history of time as God foresaw it. But rather is the relation
     found in the opening sentence in which our English simply                     thus, that history receives its contents from the eternal de-
     omits altogether the original Latin phrase,  "in  tew+ore,"                   cree of God. The decree is first. It is eternal. It is the
     . that is, "in time." Correctly rendered, therefore, this sen-                source. History is the revelation, the unfolding, of the con-
     tence should read  as. follows : "Moreover, that some are                     tents of God's eternal decree. History, -also the history of
     gifted with faith by God in time, and some not  &o gifted,                    salvation and damnation, the history of receiving faith or
     proceeds from His own eternal decree." And finally, our                       not receiving this gift,-proceeds from, comes forth out of,
     English does not properly render the contrast of the last                     God's eternal decree. This counsel of God is eternal, as God
     sentence. The Latin, "  Qtt od  ,ttst  ~erversi,   impatri,   et  jwawa       is eternal. Never was the Lord God without His counsel.
     stabiles in.  SZLZ~IIZ  detorqztcnt  exitw~,  ita  sanctis  et  religiosis    This does not mean that the decree of God is something out-
     akmbus  ineffa.bile   pl-aestat  Isolatium,"  is rendered in the              side of Himself by which He is bound. For indeed, God's
     English : "which though men of perverse, impure and un-                       counsel is free and sovereign. His decree is the act of His
     stable minds wrest to their own destruction, yet to holy and                  own  will. And while theoretically it might possibly be said
     pious souls affords unspeakable consolation." The original                    that bef  ,re the infinite God there existed also an infinite
     presents a slightly different emphasis with its  "`wt.  . .  ita."            number of possibilities in regard to the world that was to be
      This is also more correctly rendered by the Dutch,  "even-                   created, and the history of the world that was to take place,
     als . . . alzoo." A corrected reading would then be: "Which                   and that God sovereignly and with a free act of His will
     as perverse, impure, and unstable men distort unto their                      determined all things as they actually exist and develop,
     own destruction, thus to holy and pious souls it affords con-                 nevertheless we may not so conceive of things that we
     solation."                                                                    imagine that there was ever a period in God in which He
                                                                                   was without His decree. For known unto God are all His
           Strictly speaking, this sixth article does not yet treat the            works from the beginning of the world. Acts 15  :18. In
     subject of predestination proper, although it mentions the                    Tclose connection herewith, and especially if  ywe remember
     decree of election and reprobation, and although it has a                     that eternity must not simply be conceived of  as  tilne in--
     good deal to say on the subject. It is, however, not the  in-                 finitely extended, is the fact that this  decreei  of God may not





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                                               T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                            235

  be compared with a dead plan, a mere blue-print, such as an           counsel. That some are not gifted with faith in time proceeds
  architect might make of a house. In the case of-such a blue-.         from God's eternal decree of reprobation.
  print the realization of the plan is always better and more                  Such is the instruction of our  Canons  here. This does in
  glorious than the original conception. But God's decree- is           no wise alter the fact that, as Article 5 teaches us, the cause,
  the counsel of the living and eternal `Lord Himself. It is His        in the sense of the guilt, of unbelief, as well as of all other
  eternal good pleasure, according to which He willed and               sins, is no wise in God, but in man himself. But neither does
  conceived all things that are ever realized or take place in          the fact that the guilt, or blame, of the sin of unbelief is
  time. In that decree God has eternally all things with Him-           man's alter the truth that the failure to be gifted by faith
  self. And He rejoices perfectly in all the works of His hands.        proceeds from God's eternal decree. But the question that
  The counsel of God is the eternal reality of all things in God's      was left by  .4rticle  5 is now answered. If you ask: how is it
  conception. And the creatures and events of history are but           determined who are gifted with  .faith, and who are not so
  .the revelation in time and space of that eternal decree. And         gifted  ? the answer is : God Himself determines this in His
  what is true of all things is true also of the phenomenon that        eternal decree. And this decree He carries out in time.
  some are gifted with faith  ancl others are not.
                                                                                                                                    - H .   C .   H .
     Thus we can understand  .more clearly, in the second
  place, that the  Cafzons teach us that the counsel of God's
  will is the standard, the criterion, of God's works in time.
  In this connection, it is evident that the  Cnnons  distinguish
  this standard of God's counsel in a two-fold manner.' In
  the first place, there is the decree of election. It is the decree
  of God to save and to glorify some through the means of
  faith. And because God works all things after the counsel
  of His will, Eph. 1  :ll, therefore in time He also bestows
  faith upon the elect. He does so by graciously softening the
  hearts of the elect, -hearts that are equally as hard as. the                    0   G O D ,   R E G A R D   M Y   H U M B L E   P L E A
  hearts of the non-elect,  - and thus inclining them to believe.
  It is evident too, theretore, that the  Captons  maintain that it                    0 God, regard my humble plea  ;
  is not the proclamation of the gospel that softens men's                             I cannot be so far from Thee
  hearts and causes men to believe. This is the work of God.                             But Thou wilt hear my cry  ;
  And He accomplishes that work according to the standard,                            When I by  .trouble am distressed,
  the criterion, of election. The fact that some are gifted with                       Then lead me on the rock to rest
  faith by God in time is simply the unfolding of what from                              That higher is than I.
  all eternity is true and real according to God's counsel. That
  some receive the gift of faith from God proceeds from His                            In Thee my  soul  has shelter found,
  eternal decree. of election.                                                        And Thou hast been from foes around
                                  /                                                      The tower to which I flee.
     On the other hand, there is the decree of reprobation. To                         Within  Thy.house  will I abide  ;
  employ the obviously infralapsarian language of the Cartons,                         My refuge sure, what-e'er betide,
  this decree of reprobation is the eternal determination of God                         Thy sheltering wings shall be.
  to leave the non-elect in His just judgment to their own
  wickedness and obduracy. To them, therefore, He does not                             For Thou, 0 God, my vows hast heard,
  impart the gift of faith. He leaves them in their own wicked-                      -On me the heritage conferred
ness and hardness. Also they may-hear the good  t?dings  of                              Of those that fear Thy Name  ;
  the gospel proclaimed. And certainly, it cannot be said that                        A blest anointing Thou dost give,
  preaching of the Word is the cause of  `their hardness. Nor,                        And Thou wilt make me ever live
  however, can it be said. that that preaching of  the'  gospel                          Thy praises to proclaim.
  is  gpace  to the reprobate, but that some men reject God's
  proffered grace. For the simple fact is. that God never in-                          Before Thy face shall I abide;
tended to be  merciful.to the reprobate. He decreed to leave              *            0 God, Thy truth and grace provide
  the non-elect in His judgment to their own wickedness and                              To guard me in the way  ;
  obduracy. And accordin,m to the standard of that decree God                          So I will make Thy praises known,
  works in time. And when He thus works, He does not im-                              And, humbly bending at Thy throne,
  part the gift of faith to  -them.  The fact that some do not                           My vows will daily pay.
  receive the gift of faith in time is simply the unfolding of
  what from all eternity is true and real according to  God's                                                                           Psalm 61


236'                                         T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

                                                                      whether the consistory has the prerogative to decide upon a
              DECENCY and ORDER                                       `call that is addressed to her minister is a question which is
                                                                      open to debate. There is no doubt that the consistory must
I'                                                              `,
                                                               9_     have a voice in the matter but that voice need not be  en-&c-
                Called by another Church                              sive nor  decisizre. Its limitations and power must be clearly
                                                                      marked in order that its abuse may be prevented.
       The tenth article of our Church. Order reads as follows :
"A minister once lawfully called, may not leave the con-                  Considering Article 10 we fail to see that it gives cre-
gregation-with which he is connected, to accept a call else-          dence to the thought that consistories are empowered to
where, without the consent of the consistory,  togethei-  with        decide in the matter of ministerial calls. More than one
the deacons, and knowledge on the part of the  classis  ; like-       factor brings us to this conclusion. In the first place, the
wise no other church may receive him until he has presented           article itself speaks of the consistory giving consent which
a proper certificate of dismission from the church and the            in the  d&h  is  bswilliging. This is not the same as  to de-
classis where he served."                                             cide. One can give consent or agree with a matter that has.
                                                                      already been decided upon but then the action of decision
       "Let all things be done decently and in good order."           proceeds the expression of consent. If, then, it is the prerog-
       These Scriptural words, as Calvin observes, express "a         ative of the consistory to  consent,  it is implied that the de-
rule by which we must regulate everything that has to do              cision is made by another. It would be foolish to state that
with external piety." In this connection, however, we would           a  consistorjr  must give consent to its own decision.
apply them particularly to the minister who receives and is
called upon to consider a call from another congregation than             It might, perhaps, be pointed out that the minister is
the one he serves. Either an acceptalice or a decline of the          really deprived of the power of decision if his decision is
call may have far reaching effects upon the churches con-             ineffective until he obtains consistorial consent. Without
cerned  ai well as the future course  6f one's ministry. Good         her consent he cannot accept a call. It appears. then that the
order is fundamentally abiding in the will of the Lord and            ultimate power of decision in the matter still reposes in the
without this all labor in the ministry of the word is made            consistory. This would be quite true if  consent  meant only
ineffective. It is then especially imperative that the min-           npp+olmtion   of  the  deciskn   ,Ilzade. Then the consistory would
ister considering a call  d0 the right and orderly thing in           in effect make the decision real or have it annulled by her
order that the Lord's blessing  upon his labor and the church         final action. For this we find no justification but rather
he serves may not be impaired.                                        interpret  cement  to also imply  the  gm~hng of the  Tight  0~
                                                                      per*l~l~issibn  to the  wh&er  to consider-  and decide ztport  a call
       Tliat the churches are also aware of the importance of         I-eccived.  The thought then is that a minister cannot  can-
this matter is evident from the tenth article of the church           sider a call until his consistory has given its consent. It
order which sets forth an orderly procedure to be  followed-          stands to reason then that the consistory that grants this
and which safeguards, in as far as possible, against all abuse.       prior consent will also acquiesce in whatever decision is
It provides the minister with the liberty to consider and de-         reached. In this way the consistory exercises her rightful
cide upon calls received while also requiring the consistory          authority in the matter at the proper juncture and the free-
to acquiesce in the decision made. This implies that the              dom of the minister to consider and decide upon the call
minister does not consider and decide wholly on his own               is not infringed upon. And, this does not exclude mutual
but takes his consistory into consultation in the matter in           consultation in arriving at the'decision. Likewise in justice
order that the ultimate decision may be mutually agreeable.           to the matter should the minister consult with the consistory
Following this procedure each consistory  member must                 of the calling church.
avoid imposing his own selfish wishes upon the situation
and remember it  to. be his duty to be resigned to  -the Lord's           In the second place it must be considered that the first
way which is for the best interest of the church. One can-            part of this article cannot be separated from the last part.
not be moved by carnal and ulterior motives in' deciding              Giving  consent  is. connected with  yl-a&ng   a. proper certi-
spiritual things.                                                     ficate of disnzissio~~. This does not mean that when a  con-
                                                                      sistory* grants her minister permission to consider a call
      It can be shown that  histprically  this article has been       she gives him a dismissal certificate but it does imply that
interpreted so that the function  oi the consistory consisted         should he feel inclined to accept the call the proper certifi-
in much more than giving  coptsent.  This body would make             cate would not be withheld. If there are reasons or circum-
the  dedision  and to this the minister would acquiesce or;, if       stances for which a consistory cannot give  .proper dismissal
he could not agree, appeal the matter to the  Classis. This.          to her minister, she should not even allow him to consider a
is based upon the position that the bond of union between             call to another church. Such situations could and frequently
a pastor and his congregation is of such a nature that it             do exist. Suppose that the minister's teachings are called
cannot be broken by any single individual. The minister               in question or that the uprightness of his walk is  disputecl
alone cannot sever this tie. With this we can agree but               and the consistory is investigating. Suppose there is trouble


                                                        T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                                  237

      in the church in which the ininister is  personally  involved                    It seems to us, therefore, that it belongs to the work of
      so that his leaving might be detrimental to the entire con-                  the  consiStory  to see to it that all things are in such good
     gregation if he left with&t clearing the matter. No  con-                     or-del* that her minister can consider another call should it
      sistory may before God subscribe to the certificate of  clis-                be received. Not the minister is to determine whether all
.    missal of ministers under those circumstances and to do so                    is in that order but this is left to the judgment of the  con-
     is to be dishonest with God and the sister church to whom                     sistory. Upon her consent the minister is then free to decide
     they commend their minister. To avoid the more  ,difficult                    upon a call according to the dictates of his conscience.
     situation where the minister accepts the call and then must                       Let us suppose, however, that all things are in good order
     be  defused   Jhe proper dismissal credentials, it is better that             so that there is no reason for a consistory to refuse per-
     the  consistory withhold the right to even consider. Perhaps                  mission to consider a call. The minister decides that he must
     it is not the easiest course to follow but then it is not a ques-             accept a call. The consistory,. however, wishing to retain
     tion of utility. It is a matter of good order! Often  consis-                 the services of a faithful minister expresses that it is its
     tories in difficult situations have followed the course of least              judgment that the Lord wills him to  remair!  with her. Whose
     resistance  a`nd to avoid further trouble or to get rid of the                decision is in such an instance to stand  ? It would seem that
     undesirable have granted their minister dismissal when they                   both the consistory and the minister should weigh carefully
     should never have done so. The consequence of such action                     each others reasons and attempt to come to an agreement.
     can only be the perpetuation of misery. Consistories must                     If this is impossible, which is very unlikely, the matter might
     be honest before God and consider then the testimonial to                     be referred to the  Classis for disposal. In no case, however,
     which they must subscribe when `they send their minister                      ought a consistory to attempt to bind the conscience of her
     to another church, We quote it here in full with the italics                  minister who feels the Lord calls him to another place of
     our own:                                                                                               *
                                                                                   labor.
           "The consistory of the Protestant Reformed Church of                                                                         G.V.D.B.
                 decl&s  by these presents that the Rev. . . . . . . . . . .
     in this church from  _,_.____._._____    1    9 to _........_...... 1    9
     has ministered in the office of minister of the Divine Word
     faithf&y  and diligently, adhering in doctj*ine  and life. to the                        ALL.AROUND  U S
     word of God, as  inte@,eted  by O~W  fovv~  of unity a,nd the                                                                               1
     cl~~clz  order.
                                                                                   Getthg Personal.
           And considering that sufficient reasons have. been ad-                     A certain brother wrote to me last week calling my at-
     duced for the consistory to acquiesce in his acceptance of                    tention to an article appearing in  the.  Reader's Digest (Feb-
     the call of the church of  .._.__.  :.  I we  ztvrhesitativzgly  v'ec-        ruary, 1954, page 63) which he thought pretty well describes
     ommend him to the classis  .____.._.__.__..,..,.,_  avtd to the chuxh of      what is going on lately with those who are in the consistory
     .,          with the prayer that the great King  of the church,               of the Rev. De Wolf.  PLfter  reading the article, I agree with
     who says to this of His servants `go', and he goeth, and to                   him.
     that one `come and he  cometh, may make him  th&-e also a
     rich blessing.                                                                  For obvious reasons we cannot quote the article, but we!
                                                                                   can say a few words about it. The writer informs his readers
           Resolved to give him this -testimonial of dismission at                 that it is a time worn trick in the lawyer's bag to use the
     our meeting of _, . . 19 .  .."                                               get personal policy when he has no case; no argument to
           Now the part of this credential which we have italicized                bring against a defendant. The author quotes cases where
     is especially important. The consistory in giving consent                     this trick was used. The purpose of this method of attack
     to the acceptance of a call by her minister does more. than                   is -evidently to make the accused look ridiculous and be
     sever the tie that  once bound then;. She also testifies that                 laughed out of court. But read the article for yourself. It is
     her pastor has been "faithful and diligent to the Word of                     worth while if  you  really  want to know what is going on
     God in doctrine and in life." She "recommends him with-                       with those who used to be with us  &d who are now trying
     out hesitation to the  Classis and the church that has called                 through the courts to confiscate properties that do not right-
     him." Unless she can do so in good conscience before  -God                    fully belong to them.
     she may not consent to release him nor should she permit                         When one  reads the Cross Bill entered by the De Wolf
     him even to consider a call elsewhere. Her task  and  duty,                   faction in the courts, which I am informed not even all his
     as consistory, is to- "take heed that the minister faithfully                 elders knew about but to which their names were neverthe-
     discharge his office" (Art. 23  D.K.O.)  and if that is-not                   less  afhxed, which was written evidently by a lawyer who
     done she may not simply get rid of him by releasing him                       could not  find a reasonable argument for his case and there-
     to another church but she must faithfully administer dis-                     fore went to the  bag to pull out this trick, one wonders how
     cipline over him.                                                             it is possible that they will stoop so low to get their end. No


 238                                         T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R

 one in his right mind is fooled. by this trick except those  who'    deptstcd  from   the  genius  of  Pi-otestant   Refoumcd  theology.
 are blind enough to use it. No judge who is worthy of the            (I underscore.  - M. S.)
 name will allow this trick to sway him, least of all THE               "Hoeksema has not always expressed himself consistently on
 JUDGE of all the earth, If only De. Wolf and. his group              the matter of conditions. This has provided those who differ
 could understand this, and repent in bitter tears. But we            from him with quotations and fuel for debate. But a few
 hear of no repentance. How sad!                                      quotations and a bit of inconsistency ought not to becloud
                             *  * *  +                                the real issue. And Hoeksema's purification of his theology
 Not Hoeksewm,  But Kok Changed                                       by a removal of some of the old leaven that clung to it, ought
        In the January issue of the Reformed Journal (Vol. 4,         not to be presented as  ,though it were a theological departure.
No. 1) Rev. Daane writes on the subject: "Can the Gospel              Hoeksema sees clearly what Rev.  Kok does not see: if the
 Be Preached to Every Man?" It is not our purpose to  comr            conditional is used to interpret  the. general preaching of the
 ment on what he has to say about this subject as such, for           gospel address, then there is no reason for continuing to
 he evidently has more to say in future articles. We will             reject the Christian Reformed definition of offer as an actual
 wait, therefore, until he has concluded.                             offer of salvation to any man. who hears the gospel.  Rev.
                                                                      Kok should either  repudiate conditions  and make  CO~WWO~~
        Incidentally, however, he also answers the Rev. B.  Kok,      ca.use with Hoeksema, or he  ought to allow the leaven of:
-who had written a letter in criticism of Dr. Daane in a pre-         conditions to lead him to accept the Clzristian  Reformed  con-
 vious issue of the Journal. Our readers will recall that in          cepion of the gospel as fin o-fey to any `who heavr  tlze gospel,
 the Nov. 1, 1953, issue of the Standard Bearer we quoted             and  return to  the  Chris&m Reformed  Clzatrclz.       (I under-
 Rev. Daane as saying "Although they do not admit it, those           score.  -  M. S.) His present position is a half-way house.
 of the Protestant Reformed Churches who now disagree                 He denies common grace, but he holds to a conception  of
 with the Rev. H. Hoeksema have taken at least one  thedlogi-         conditional gospel-address which bespeaks an offer of the
 cal step back toward the Christian  Reframed  Church." Rev.          gospel to all who hear, and therefore of a grace which is
 Iiok also read this article and this statement and sent a let-       common.  His present theology  ,is a theology of inconsis-
 ter to the Reformed Journal registering his objections. It is        tency: it is neitlzev Protestant Reformed nor Christian Re-
 to this that Dr. Daane replies. I am quoting only that part          fos-IpLed."  (I underscore.  - M. S.).
 of the article`that has to do with  Kok.                                So far the quotation relative to the Rev.  Kok. It is
        Dr. Daane entitles this part with the question:  "Has         crystal clear that not only the Rev. Hoeksema has seen
 Hoeksema Changed His Position  ?" He answers as follows :            clearly what Rev.  Kok does  .not see, but also Rev. Daane.
 "Hoeksema's willingness to recognize the validity of the fac-        The prediction which Rev. Hoeksema made at a public
tual conditional (If a man believes, God will save him),              meeting in First Church sometime ago is coming true. At a
 does not mean that he `subscribes to a conditional theology.         mass meeting in which he answered questions relative to
 For it must not be overlooked that there is nothing condi-           our  controversy,`he answered this one: "What do you think
tional about, `If a man believes, God will save  him'  as  i&g        those on the outside of our churches will say about us  ?"
 as this ca.nnot  be addressed to any pahcular  man. It is an         His answer in part was : "I am sure that those of the Chris-
abstract truth that cannot be applied to any particular man.          tian Reformed Churches and the Reformed Churches in the
Hence, acceptance of the factual condition does not commit            Netherlands will sustain me," or words to that effect. Even
Hoeksema to a conditional' theology.                                  though Rev. Daane will not agree with Hoeksema's doctrine,
        "Rev.  Kok believes that Hoeksema's rejection of condi-       he knows as well as all the rest  .who  know anything about
tions is a departure from Protestant Reformed theology as             1924 that Hoeksema has not changed, that'he never believed
Hoeksema himself taught it formerly. Consequently Rev.                in conditional theology and he never will. But Rev.  Kok
Kok thinks I am mistaken when I declare that those in the             does not see this, and it appears that he never will. The
Protestant Reformed Churches who now believe in condi-                more  Kok writes in defense of his conditional theology the
tional theology have taken a step toward the Christian Re-            more I am convinced  that he never understood our Protestant
formed. Church.                                                       Reformed conceptions. If this is not true, then there is only
        "In both instances I think Rev.  Iiok mistaken.  Hoek-        one other possibility and that is that  Iiok repudiates the
sema has not changed his theology, except in the sense that           Protestant Reformed theology and desires to be Christian
he has  pz&fied it. Consistency demands that Protestant Re-           Reformed. Rev. Daane has hit the nail squarely on the head.
formed theology repudiate conditions. This theology can                                           *  * *  4:
,.&t&n conditions in the abstract, but it cannot retain the           A. Challenge to tlac Rev. J. D. De Jong.
conditional as a means of interpreting and determining                   When the Concordia of January  ,28, 1954, arrived, we
gospel-address. Protestant Reformed theology has always               noticed an article  "Miscellanea"  with its sub-title  :. "Rev.
 denied that the gospel preaching is of the nature of an              Schipper  And The News Items Of Hull," written by the
 `offer.' It must therefore deny that gospel preaching is of a        Rev. De Jong. He was commenting on an article I wrote in
 conditional nature.  It is not Hoeksema but  Kok who has             the December 15th issue of the Standard Bearer relative to


                                                       T H E   S T A N D A R D   B E A R E R                                             239

        a news item he had previously placed in Concordia regard-             -more than 500 out of Chicago stations alone in a single
        ing the split in Hull and about my  iabors   in that  place.after     week-that because of sheer'mass provide a fair number `of
        the  splrt.                                                           worthwhile shows. Percentage-wise, the number of con-
               I just want to leave this challenge with him. Rev. De          structive programs has become deplorably low. But in
        Jong will you please do me the favor of publishing  in Con-           quantity, there are enough to suit any taste.
       cordia my entire article published in the Standard Bearer                  How are moral standards  ? Improving, largely because
        above referred to relative to your news item? I dare you to           of public indignation at excesses of horror, brutality, and
        put it in Concordia in  toto. After you have done this, you           vulgarity . i . . Is the  pltinging neckline  &ll plunging? No.
        can make all the comments  you  feel necessary and 1'11 try to        The new gimmick is to have buxom young  ladies overflow
        answer them.                                                          in strapless gowns. The technique is different, but the moral
               I  -know  you don't like to have your people read the          intent is still on a guinea pig level.
        Standard Bearer, but I'm sure it won't hurt them to read                  Are programs good for children ? Of 500 programs
        just my little article. If you refuse to heed  this challenge,        available to youngsters in a seven week period, perhaps 10
        I shall have to conclude that there is "a moral issue in-             are dedent enough that a conscientious parent would en-
        volved."                                                              courage his children to watch them. The remainder of
                                       * * *  *                               the 490 range from amusing, harmless and indifferent all
        /I!  .!?y~~~~~osiat~n   On Television.                                the way to nightmare-producing monstrosities that will teach
                                                                              children everything that has led to the moral de&y of this
               The January 15th issue of the Banner brought `to its           age.
        readers three  .articles written by as many ministers in the             Whether a TV set will be a constructive force with
        Christian Reformed Churches on their evaluation of tele-              children is completely in the hands of `the parents, and their
        vision. At the conclusion of these short articles the editor          regulation of TV is going to play a huge part in  determin-
        briefly summarizes and compares the arguments these min-              itig the moral caliber of the next adult generation."
        isters presented.                                                         The writer closes his article with this question and an-
               After reading the articles,  .we too have made some ob-        swer : "What has TV done for society in four years  ? Not
        servations as to what they say : 1. All three proceed from            much for, plenty to.
        the assumption that television is here to stay, and therefore
        the Christian cannot avoid making some kind of a judgment              The positive contributors of the  Kefauver hearings, the
        concerning it.                                                        good dramatic shows and the spasmodic opera and sym-
               2. All three are not ready to say that a Christian home        phony telecasts have been offset by 30 minute commercials,
        may not have a TV set.                                                the coarseness of Berle and other loud comedians, Howdy
               3. All three can conceive of a Christian home using the        Doody, Murder at Midnight, and the 95 percent of all TV
        instrument, but with great discretion.                                that is' dedicated to only one thing-to make as much money
               4. All three are aware of  the evil influences this instru-    as possible as fast as possible for the sponsor, the broad-
        ment may have in the home, and warn against these  influen-           caster and the  .talent."
       xes.                                                                       What shall we say about television  ? It seems to me that
               5. All  three are afraid  thit most television viewers do      if a man of the world is afraid of the instrument and holds
      not use the instrument with discretion.                                 it in serious question, it would be preposterous for a  chris-
               6. All three make mention of perhaps the most out-             tian to try to talk it good. No one in his right mind would
        standing evil of TV, namely, that it is a  time-wasting.de%e.         say that the instrument in itself is evil. We -Protestant Re-
          This is a summary of what Christian leaders have  tb say            formed people have learned long ago that sin is not in things,
        about TV. Would you  alsol like to read a summary of what `no more than grace is in things. But we hasten to add that
        a man of the world has to say about television ? The follow-          the instrument thus far has been almost entirely under the
        ing are quotations taken from a clipping of the Chicago               control of the sinful and corrupt world. And until the in-
        News, Saturday, November 17, 1951.  The writer of the                 strument can be brought into the service of the Kingdom
~*      article is  Jack  Mabley, and the heading of the article is :         of God, no Christian family should play With fire.
        "One Million Sets Here-TV Has Traveled A Long Way-                     Our observation has been that those who stand weakest
      - But Where's It Going? After 4 Years, It Still Caters  TO              in the church are the first to get the instrument in their
        The Sponsor's Fast Buck."                                             homes. This speaks volumes. The one who has a strong
               "The millionth television set was installed in a Chicago       sense of moral and spiritual values is the one who refuses
        area home this month. Commercial television is four years             to be caught with the TV craze. In connection with this we
        old. It is time to ask some questions about this machine that         also observed that those  who  have a set are those who al-
        is rearranging the lives of two-thirds of the population.             most never attend your society meetings in the church, who
               Have programs  inlljroved in four years  ? No, they are        are not subscribers to worthwhile religious periodicals, who
        getting worse. However, there are many on  the air today              cannot carry on a constructive discussion relative to matters


                                                                                                               ,


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   240

    of  soud  `doctrine:  Thejr are the  odes  who are susceptible. to       have succeeded to deceive so many. . THEY THEM-
    every wind of doctrine.                                                  S E L V E S   N O W   W R I T E   I N T O   T H E   P I C T U R E   T O
           I agree with what one of the ministers in the Symposium           E X P O S E   T H E   FACTS   S O   UXDENIABLY   C L E A R ,
    writes in closing his article: "But for the present I believe            A N D   UNDERSTANDAtiLE,   B Y  ,THESE  T H E I R
   .that  TV is potentially dangerous'. We intensify. rather than            O W N   A D M I S S I O N   I N   WkITING   A N D   O P E N   C O N -
    ease the problem of fulfilling the solemn vow  lllade  at the            F E S S I O N S ,   T H A T   T H E I R   B E I N G   E V I C T E D   F R O M
    baptism of our children when in the presence  ,of. the people            T H E   C O M M U N I O N   O F   T H E   P R O .   R E F ' D   C H U R -
    of. the  Loid we replied in the affirmative to the following             C H E S   I S   H O N O R A B L Y   J U ' S T I F I A B L E   N O T   O N L Y ,
   -question, `Do  you  pronxse  and intend to instruct these chil-          BU'T  D E F I N I T E L Y   W A S   A   N E C E S S I T Y .   H o w
    dren,  when  come to the years of understanding in  the afore-           strange  ! They now say,, just  z&at the protestants  hazle   ,ma.in-
    said doctrine, and cause them to be instructed therein, to               taineal,  and the  Classis has vindicated to be true.
    the utmost of your power?  `.'                                               Can you imagine, even for one moment, that all this
           I cannot believe parents are sincere when they take this          corruption which B.  Kok has recently brought to light by
    vow,  and then place their children before a TV set and allow            his own pen  (NOW  FOR ALL TO READ) is the  self-
    then? to drink in all the trash that comes from Hollywood.               same corruption which he in preaching and teaching, bulle-
                                                                   M.S.      tin and in housevisitation, was carrying on here in Hol-
                                                                             land'? congregation ? And that  we were just compelled to
                                                                             swallow  this hook, line and sinker, and not to take recourse
                                                                             to it? And that if some dared to take issue with him, he
                                                                             would fly into a frenzy, or with threats of various kinds even
-  II              -- CONTRIBUTIONS
   II                                                                   II dared to damn them to hell if they dared to continue to
    Dear Editor of the Standard Bearer  :-                                   oppose him? Brother Hoeksema, these onslaughts are noth-
                              I T   I S   W E L L !                          ing new here in Holland! I must honestly confess for the
           As bitter as the onslaughts we aga,inst  you in person, the       TRUTH'S SAKE, that  my. SOUL has often been chilled
~ above title nevertheless can retain its rightful and honorable             while I was forced to listen to all such, and then to be com-
   place. SUFFERING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE ! Factually,                           pelled to hear  gbove  this all, that such preaching and teach-
    then it couldn't be better ! At least, I find so much cause              ing  ;  Kok had the brazen effrontery to classify his preaching
fo; rejoicing  !, Because you  my  brot!ler must  suffer? God                with that venerable title of "Preaching the Lord Jesus Christ
  `forbid ! This devilish bitter gall of iniquity ? Nay, we sorrow           and him crucified." (  ` ? ? ? ? ? P R E P O S T E R O U S   !)
    with you, while on the other hand we also rejoice. Not that                  Factually, tlwn, B. Kok has only bcgm to put into writ-
    we are being so unrighteously treated  ; nay, but that  by this          ing, that~ which we were compelled to listen to, as being. the
    VERY UNRIGHTEOUSNESS, you, and  we as protes-                            preaching  o f   the  gospd. Interwoven through his preaching,
   tants are being justified before ALL in our protesting against            teaching and other efforts, ran this line of his maneuvering,
    such corruptions, which here-to-fore were  sol glosscoatedly             of backbiting,' slander, etc, as you now can read from his
    blanketed with a pious veneer; BUT WHICH-- NOW                           own pen. Is there still a man alive who wonders why we
    STAND   O U T   I N   S U C H   B O L D   R E L I E F   S O   T H A T    felt seriously obligated  fo protest against such `corruptions  ?
    HE THAT RUNNETH CAN READ : That the protes-                              n/Ioreover,  if I were to relate all of it as I know it, then I
    tants' undying efforts and determinations, `to root out this             w.ould  need the entire Standard Bearer, at least for one
   corruption', must undeniably (now  !) be justified by all !               issue. BUT JUST THAT CORRUPTION which we as
           To anyone who can  iead and understand the common                 protestants could not possibly hope to describe in its proper
   grammar, and who still has a  &all  sense of truth and right-             character (in and through our protests)  Kok now  kindly(   ?)
   eousness, it certainly must have become more than crystal                 publishes himself, so that all can read and judge properly!
   clear  by  nozv, `That the De Wolfs'  cowuptions'   lie much                  My soul exclaims in praise to God "Oh how righteous
    deeper then just a few `slips of the lips, which he didn't mean          God IS"! To me, then it is God, Who is uncovering this
  that way' . . . and as also, that B.  Iiok's `striving. to protect         SIN ! SIN breeds SIN! Feed on  it! and stupidity, idiocy,
    the purity of the doctrines of the Pro. Ref'd Churches' is               and TRUTH, all seem to be synonyms to the heart and
    such an untenable corruption of self-coticeived underhanded              mind which dares to flirt with this gruesome monster, who
    political maneuvering, that no human being, and surely no                traps his adherant and slays  him.  with his own conceits,
    Christian, can afford to be a party of such outlandish iniquity.         ThaFks be to God Who has heard our pleas and cries. De
    The beauty of this (sin?), nay, BUT in the REVELA-                       Wolf,  Mok,  et alii, have justified our protests and the ac-
    TIONS OF THESE HIDDEN SINS, which we have so                             tions of  Classis East. Brother Hoeksema, and all, cheer up!
    righteously opposed ; . . . but, which THEY so ardently ?  ?  ?,         We now have the answer. Thanks be to God for His love.
   and seriously ?  ? ? defended and maintained (throwing every                                                       Yours In Christ;
    conceivable effort into  the fray) and by which efforts they                                                                    H.A. Van  Putten


