For the Son, as the Mediator between God and men, and as Head of the Church, calls these people to himself through the Holy Spirit and the Word of truth (Matt 11:28). The Holy Spirit equips the preachers of the Word with gifts that are needed to draw those people — to whom the Father sends them in the name of the Son — into communion with Christ by His summons (1 Cor 12:4; Heb 2:4).

Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Vol. 1, 343.

Human reason has never been able to answer to its own satisfaction, or to the assurance of others, the vital questions, What is God? What is man? What lies beyond the grave? If there be a future state of being, what is it? and How may future blessedness be secured? Without the Bible, we are, on all these subjects, in utter darkness. How endless and unsatisfying have been the answers to the greatest of all questions, What is God? The whole Eastern world answers by saying, “That He is the unconscious ground of being.” The Greeks gave the same answer for philosophers, and made all nature God for the people. The moderns have reached no higher doctrine. Fichte says the subjective Ego is God. According to Schelling. God is the eternal movement of the universe, subject becoming object, object becoming subject, the infinite becoming finite, and the finite infinite. Hegel says, Thought is God. Cousin combines all the German answers to form his own. Coleridge refers us to Schelling for an answer to the question, What is God? Carlyle makes force God. A Christian child says: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” Men and angels veil their faces in the presence of that answer.

Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, 172-173.

Every day the Church experiences the fruits and effects of Christ’s sitting down at the Father’s right hand; and the enemies of Christ, including Satan himself, whether they like it or not, marvel at it, and tremble.

Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Vol. 1, 325.

The covenant first was announced to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15. It was demonstrated with Noah, clarified with Abraham, perpetuated with Moses, refined with David, and most fully disclosed in the new covenant declared by the prophets and realized in Jesus Christ. Through all of these historic covenants, God has been gradually revealing both His redemption and His people’s need of it, even as He has been gathering His covenant people out of every generation until, at the consummation of the age, all of His people will have been gathered to Himself. For that reason, these historic covenants often are called covenantal administrations, because they are the means that God has used in history to administer the redemptive purposes of His covenant of grace. They progressively reveal the presence of God’s redeeming covenantal work in the lives of His people. That is the covenant of grace—the historical accomplishment, through covenantal administrations, of the redemptive glory of the counsel of peace. It is the eternal counsel of peace perforating time and creating the people of God.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 147.

The covenant of grace is God’s eternal, sovereignly effective plan to create a people for Himself. Beginning in the eternal counsel of peace, the covenant of grace stretches forward to the consummation of the age, all the while accomplishing the redemptive ingathering of the people of God. It is the account of this covenant of grace that constitutes the majority of the task of covenant theology.

STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 147.

The language of Scripture is the best language to express God’s mind. But it does not follow from this that it is the best language to express my mind, even although I may mean to express to another man, so that there shall be no misunderstanding between us, the very same truths which God has expressed. With the change in the meaning of language which takes place from age to age,—with the different interpretations actually put upon the terms of Scripture by multitudes,—with the various and even opposite senses which reason, or prejudice, or error has made to be associated with its phraseology; the very words of the Bible may not be the best words to declare my mind and belief to another man, so that betwixt him and me there shall be no equivocation, or reservation, or guile…. The Church may take the Bible into its hand, and hold it up to the view of the world as the one profession of its faith; but in doing so it is merely exhibiting the mind of God, not declaring its own.

James Bannerman, Church of Christ , 1:297–98

You begin at the wrong end if you first dispute about your election. Prove your conversion, and then never doubt your election.

Joseph Alleine, A Sure Guide to Heaven , originally published as An Alarm to the Unconverted, in a Serious Treatise (1671 ; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1989 ), 30.

This glory of Christ as Head is not merely in name only, but it is also accompanied by power and rule over all creatures.

Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 323.

But Christ’s Church has a twofold state, the one of grace and the other of glory in the future, we should distinguish the current government of the Church from the one that is to come. For in this life Christ rules his Church through the intervening agencies of ecclesiastical administration by faithful pastors, and he protects it by the administration of devout political magistrates.

Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 303.

If the New Testament authors cannot serve as a model for our use of the Bible, then what model are we left with?

RYAN M. MCGRAW, BY GOOD AND NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE, 69.