To know the limitations of a wife’s obedience, and the manner how she ought to yield submission to her husband, two things must be considered, both the position of the husband and the position of the wife.

The husband’s position is noted in this phrase, “as unto the Lord” (Eph. 5:22) . . .

The wife’s position is implied in these words, “as the church is subject unto Christ, so let wives be to their own husbands” (v. 23) . . .

From the position of a husband, I deduce this general principle concerning a wife’s submission, that submission must be yielded to the husband as to Christ. Two conclusions will follow, one negative, which is the wife must yield no submission to her husband than what may stand with her submission to Christ.

The former is a necessary condition required of all subordinates in their submission, and obedience much more in a wife’s submission to her husband, because of all persons of different rank there is the least difference between husbands and wives.

Hence, for our present purpose, I deduce these two other more particular conclusions, the first of which is this, if God plainly commands the wife any duty, and her husband will not by any means give consent, but forbids her, she may and ought to do it without, or against his consent.

The other particular conclusion is this, that if a husband require his wife to do that which God has forbidden she should not do it.

Two cautions are to be observed about this point. First, that she be sure (being truly informed by God’s Word) that that which she refuses to do at her husband’s command is forbidden by God. Secondly, that she first labors with all meekness and by all good means that she can to persuade her husband to stop urging and pressing that upon her which with a good conscience she cannot do.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for a Happy Marriage, 156-157.

Contentment is also a part of obedience. It covers a man’s outward estate and ability, in and with which a wife must rest satisfied and contended, whether it be high or low, great or ordinary, wealthy or needy, and above, equal, or under that estate in which she was before marriage . . .

A wife’s contentment is a great comfort to her husband lying under a cross, and it makes the burden seem much lighter than otherwise it would, if at least he is a kind husband, and affected with his wife’s feelings, as he ought to be. For a loving husband in every distress is more perplexed for his wife than for himself.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for a Happy Marriage, 152-153.

The first is, that a wife ought to be willing to dwell where her husband will have her dwell. The wives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob manifested their wife-like obedience here . . .

These examples further show that if a husband has good reason to move from one country to another, or from place to place, his wife ought to yield to go with him . . .

Against this is the mind and practice of many wives, who being affected and addicted to one place more than another, such as the place where they were brought up, where most of their best friends dwell, refuse to go and dwell where their husband’s calling lies, though he requires and desires them never so much. Thus many husbands are forced to their great damage for the sake of peace to yield to their wives, either to relinquishing their calling or to have two houses . . . Some wives pretend that they cannot endure the smoke of the city, others that they cannot endure the air of the country. Indeed their own wills and conceit stuffs them more than either city smoke or country air.

William Gouge, Building a Godly Home: A Holy Vision for a Happy Marriage, 145-146.

There have been two major ways of interpreting the thousand-year reign of Christ, the literal or realistic way and the spiritual way. The literal interpretation of the thousand-year millennium characterized many of the early fathers of the church (e.g., Justin, Irenaeus, Melito, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Methodius). Since the venue of the vision segment in 20:1–3 and the prophetic segment in 20:7–10 is apparently the earth, the author may be implying that the reign of the resurrected martyrs with Christ also occurs on the earth. This, however, is not made explicit. The verb ζᾶν, “to live,” is used here with the meaning “raised [from the dead], resurrected” (see v 5; 3 Kgdms 17:23; Matt 9:18; Acts 9:41); in 2:8 ζᾶν is used of the resurrection of Christ (see Comment on that passage). According to 2 Macc 7:9, 14 (based on Dan 12:2), those who have died for the laws of the king of the universe will be raised from the dead. Kellermann argues that this reflects the belief that immediately after death the martyr is transferred to the heavenly realm in a transformed mode of existence. A similar conception is found in Pistis Sophia 2.99 (tr. Schmidt-MacDermot), which (because of its late date) may be dependent on Revelation:

“Nevertheless at the dissolution of the All, namely when the number of perfect souls is completed [cf. Rev 6:11], and the mystery, for the sake of which the All came into existence, is quite completed, I will spend 1000 years, according to years of light, as ruler (king) over all the emanations of light, and over the whole number of perfect souls which have received all the mysteries.”

The second line of interpretation may be called the spiritual view, maintained by both Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Augustine popularized the view, now called amillennialism, that the reign of the saints with Christ was not a future expectation but rather the present situation of Christians who had been “raised with Christ” and “enthroned in heavenly places with Christ” (Col 3:1; Eph 2:6; Augustine De civ. dei 20.6–20). According to Wikenhauser (RQ 40 [1932] 21), the millennial reign of Christ is primarily a means of indicating that the martyrs are worthy of a special reward.

Revelation 17-22, Volume 52C (Word Biblical Commentary), Loc. 1089

The Roman legal system knew two forms of the death penalty: the summum supplicium was a more vindictive form involving burning alive, crucifixion, and exposure to wild animals, while the capite puniri involved a simple death by decapitation (Garnsey, Status, 124; A. Berger, Roman Law, 633). Further, two types of decollatio, “decapitation,” or capitis amputatio, “beheading,” were distinguished: that by the sword and that by the axe (Digest 48.19.8.1–2; Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, 916–25). Provincial governors had the right to execute by sword only, not by the axe, javelin, club, or noose (Digest 48.19.8.1). Capital penalties were graded in accordance with degrees of extremity; the most extreme penalty was condemnation to the gallows, then burning alive, then beheading (Digest 48.19.28).

Roman legal practice exhibited a dual penalty system, which meant that punishments were meted out not only in accordance with the nature of the offense but also in accordance with the dignitas, “status,” of the offender (Garnsey, Status, 103–80; Gagé, Les classes, 283; Latte, RESup 7:1612; A. Berger, Roman Law, 633). Harsher punishments, including more violent forms of the death penalty, were inflicted on members of the lower classes (later designated humiliores), while the death penalty was rarely used for members of the upper classes (later called honestiores). For the upper classes various forms of exile or deportation were customarily used (see Comment on Rev 1:9). Decurions, for example, could not be executed (Digest 48.19.15; 48.19.27.1). Thus those who were beheaded with the axe referred to in [Rev. 20] v 4 in all probability belonged to the honestiores (the honestiores/humiliores distinction became more common in the second and third centuries, but the distinction in status that these terms describe did exist in the first century A.D. [Garnsey, Status, 221–76]).

 Revelation 17-22, Volume 52C (Word Biblical Commentary), Loc. 1086.

[God’s] mercy is wider and deeper than the ocean of human misery.

“The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God” by Geerhardus Vos in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (Vol. XIII, 1902), 18.

So long as the intellect retained its legitimate place among the functions of the religious subject, so long as to know God was felt to be an essential part of glorifying God, the natural tendency was to make this knowledge as comprehensive and many-sided as possible — to have it mirror the full content of the divine nature, and not merely a single one of its perfections. Whatever may be charged against the intellectualism of the period when orthodoxy reigned supreme, it can claim credit at least for having been broad-minded and well-balanced in its appreciation of the infinite complexity and richness of the life of God. The music of that theology may not always please modern ears, because it seems lacking in sweetness; but it ranged over a wider scale and made better harmonics than the popular strains of to-day.

“The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God” by Geerhardus Vos in The Presbyterian and Reformed Review (No. 49 – January 1902), 1-2.

Now since God’s majesty in itself far outstrips the capacity of human understanding and cannot even be comprehended by it at all, it is fitting for us to adore rather than to investigate its loftiness, lest we be utterly overwhelmed by such great splendor. Accordingly, we are to search out and trace God in his works, which are called in the Scriptures “the reflection of things invisible,” because they represent to us what otherwise we could not see of the Lord. This is not something that keeps our minds in suspense with vain and empty speculations, but something that is beneficent for us to know and which begets, nourishes, and strengthens perfect godliness in us, that is, faith joined with fear. For in this universe of things we contemplate the immortality of our God, from which flow the beginning and origin of everything; we contemplate his power which both framed this great mass and now sustains it; we contemplate his wisdom which composed in definite order this very great and confused variety and everlastingly governs it; we contemplate his goodness, itself the cause that these things were created and now continue to exist; we contemplate his righteousness marvelously preferring itself to defend the godly but to take vengeance of the ungodly; we contemplate his mercy which, to call us back to repentance, tolerates our iniquities with great gentleness.

From all this we ought abundantly to have been taught — as much as is sufficient for us — what God is like, but for the fact that our sluggishness was blinded by such great light. And not only do we sin out of blindness alone, but such is our perversity that in reckoning God’s works, there is nothing it does not interpret badly and wrongheadedly, and it turns completely upside down the whole heavenly wisdom which clearly shines in them. Therefore, we must come to God’s Word, where God is duly described to us from his works, while the works themselves are reckoned not from the depravity of our judgment but the eternal rule of truth. From this, therefore, we learn that God is for us the sole and eternal source of all life, righteousness, wisdom, power, goodness, and mercy. As all good flows, without any exception, from him, so ought all praise deservedly to return to him. And even if all these things appear most clearly in each part of heaven and earth, yet we at last comprehend their real goal, value, and true meaning for us only when we descend into ourselves and ponder in what ways the Lord reveals his life, wisdom, and power in us, and exercises toward us his righteousness, goodness, and mercy.

“3. What We Must Know of God” in Calvin’s Catechism (1538)

English Protestantism’s attention to Job’s complaints (rather than just his patience, as in patristic and medieval readings) signals a turn from using the Book of Job as hagiography to what early modern Protestants called “history” and what we might call psychological realism.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, ii.

This dissertation explores how post-Reformation literature—ranging from neo-Latin exegesis to religious lyric engages with the Old Testament figure of Job. Far from the patient Christian saint that dominates medieval commentary, Job in the early modern period is a racialized, masculine mortal; a complainer with free will; a mere atom in a heliocentric cosmos; and a discoverer of the sublime. He is a typological figure of Christ, the patron saint of syphilis and music, and an epic poet. His story was conjectured to be the most ancient in the world and his poetry the most difficult in the Bible.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 1.

Calvin’s use of Elihu is only one example of how early modern readers differ from contemporary readers in approaching the dating, authorship, and transmission of the Book of Job. Whereas contemporary scholars describe an anonymous (possibly postexilic) Hebrew author of Job’s prose frame and poetry, many early modern commentators believed Moses to be the author of the Book of Job (perhaps during his time wandering in Midian), or credited Job himself, Solomon, or Elihu with the book’s authorship.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 9.

It took Protestantism’s increased attention to the Book of Job itself (rather than oral legend, patristic commentary, apocryphal texts, and the Septuagint translation) to jumpstart a new way of understanding Job’s character. In his “Preface to Job,” Martin Luther inverts the patient Job tradition, suggesting that Job’s complaints are what make the Book of Job “magnificent and sublime” (chapter 1).61 In contrast to medieval commentators who praised Job for what he was able to endure, Luther highlights Job’s weakness for how it manifests his dependence on God’s grace. In his Sermons Upon Job, John Calvin, too, flips the “patient Job” tradition on its head. Instead of an exemplum of patience, Calvin understands Job as a complainer, who accuses God of injustice because he fails to comprehend God’s absolute power.

Kimberly Susan Hedlin, “The Book of Job in Early Modern England” PhD Diss., University of California, Los Angeles 2018, 17.

I. Of God

We confess and acknowledge one only God, to whom only we must cleave, whom only we must serve (Deut. 6), whom only we must worship (Isa. 44), and in whom only we put our trust (Deut. 4). Who is eternal, infinite, immeasurable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, invisible, one in substance and yet distinct in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (Matt. 28). By whom we confess and believe, all things in heaven and earth (Gen. 1), as well visible as invisible, to have been created, to be retained in their being, and to be ruled and guided by His inscrutable providence, to such end as His eternal wisdom (Prov. 16), goodness, and justice has appointed them to the manifestation of His own glory.