“Once converted, everything that used to be “law” is now gift, it is now grace. This includes the grace of dying. The privilege of participating in the cross of Jesus is a privilege, it is a gift. Mortification is grace, it is gift, it is goodness. Mortification is a great kindness (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 144).

“But the natural man, the unconverted man, the unregenerate man, is the same kind of man whether he is inside the covenant or outside it, with the difference that reprobates inside the covenant have greater condemnation” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 143).

“Let us learn from our tradition, let us prize our heritage, let us enter into other men’s labours; but let us also know that it is not the tradition of the past, not a precious heritage, and not the labours of the fathers, that are to serve this generation and this hour, but the Word of the living and abiding God deposited for us in Holy Scripture, and this Word as ministered by the church” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 22).

“But the world is only stable because there is no foundation for stability within it. But once you introduce the Words of God, how gloriously stable it becomes! (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 139)

“…to reconstruct the gospel so that it will be relevant. This is the capital sin of our generation. . . . But the question for us is: how are we, holding to the sufficiency and finality of Scripture, going to meet the secularism, or whatever else the attitude may be, of this modern man? Here, I believe, we have too often made the mistake of not taking seriously the doctrine we profess. If Scripture is the inscripturated revelation of the gospel and of God’s mind and will, if it is the only revelation of this character that we possess, then it is this revelation in all its fulness, richness, wisdom, and power that must be applied to man in whatever religious, moral, mental situation he is to be found” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 21).

“There can only be one fixed point in the created world, and that is the Word of God” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 137).

“Our dependence upon Scripture is total. . . . Thus when the church or any of its spokesmen fails to accord to Scripture this eminence, and fails to make it the only rule of faith and life, then the kind of affront offered to Father, Son and Holy Spirit is that of substituting the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God, and human invention for divine institution” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 20).

“It is not possible for us to read hearts (Luke 8:17), and we ought not to act as though we can. . . . But from these important truths many have concluded (erroneously) that it is not possible for us to read the story we are in. But that is a different thing entirely. . . . We must evaluate the spiritual conditions of those around us, and it is essential for pastors to know how to do this properly” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 125).

“But let us never preach the doctrine of total depravity without also declaring there has been a great earthquake, and that an angel of the Lord has rolled away the stone in front of that imposing doctrine. ‘Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’ (2 Cor. 5:16). This is crazy talk, I know. but it is also biblical talk. This whole world, since the sin of Adam, has been nothing but one, vast, pole-to-pole boneyard. Whatever would Jesus do in a world like that? What could He possible do that could transform a world like that? The gospel reply is that He could come back from the dead in it. . . . The sacramental history of the church has consisted of large numbers of people making the same mistake that the Jews here made [see John 8]. Something is given that is wild and heavenly, and we expend all our energies to make it domesticated and earthly. We take the lion of the tribe of Judah–from the upland savannahs of Heaven–and turn it into a tabby cat to keep the bishop’s chair warm for him” (Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 110, 113).

“This is what the finality of Scripture means for us; it is the only extant revelatory Word of God” (John Murray, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 19).