Zeal of justice in the cause of God is a means to procure God’s mercy to man.

English Annotations (1645) on Numbers 25:11

Reformed soteriology succeeds in remaining Christocentric precisely because it insists on a theocentric causality. Arminian soteriology fails to be Christocentric because it insists upon an anthropocentric causality.

Richard Muller, “Predestination and Christology in Sixteenth-Century Reformed Theology,” (438) quoted in Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, 106.

From Calvin’s perspective, his treatment of reprobation is fully consistent with his principles. Following his pricniple that we should ignore nothing that God has revealed for our use, Calvin discusses and teaches reprobation through metaphysical categories (in distinction from structures) and theocentric concerns precisely because he believes he finds such categories and concerns in Scripture.

Joel R. Beeke, Debated Issues in Sovereign Predestination: Early Lutheran Predestination, Calvinian Reprobation, and Variations in Genevan Lapsarianism, 104.

The difficulty with claiming the authority of the Received Text as that of the majority of witnesses is that it often does not follow the majority.

D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts, 199.

The first edition to contain manuscript variations, Stephanus’ of 1550, displayed them in the margin. That is to say, he took the same option as that found in members of Family 1 [i.e., presents alternative readings as marginalia]. The reading in the text and marginal reading are linked by arabic numerals, and the witnesses are distinguished by each receiving a Greek number. . . . Stephanus did not invent the system, which is already found in editions by the Italian humanist Politian at the end of the fifteenth century.

D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts, 193.

It is only since the end of the nineteenth century that the most commonly used editions of the Greek New Testament have had an apparatus. But now that one is customary, the problem cannot be ignored.

D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts, 192.

The main problem confronting the editor of the New Testament is demonstrably as old as the oldest surviving New Testament documents. The problem is, quite simply, to find the best way of displaying known differences. . . . What is important to recognize is that the modern reader, puzzled by the details of a critical apparatus, is in the same position as the ancient reader of P66 [2nd/3rd century Gospels on papyrus]: one is confronted by variant forms of the text.

D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts, 191.

The pastoral (or ministerial) office is an office instituted by God, executed in the Old Testament under the title of “priest” and in the New Testament under the title of “pastor.” Although commission and calling are executed by human agency, they are nevertheless executed in the name of God. Each pastor must therefore conduct himself as an ambassador of God. “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20).

WILHELMUS À BRAKEL, THE CHRISTIAN’S REASONABLE SERVICE, VOL. 2,131.