“Meanwhile let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theater. For, as I have elsewhere said, although it is not the chief evidence for faith, yet it is the first evidence in the order of nature, to be mindful that wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time to ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them. Therefore, that we may apprehend with true faith what it profits us to know of God, it is important for us to grasp first the history of the creation of the universe, as it has been set forth briefly by Moses [Gen., chs. 1 and 2], and then has been more fully illustrated by saintly men, especially by Basil and Ambrose. From this history we shall learn that God by the power of his Word and Spirit created heaven and earth out of nothing; that thereupon he brought forth living beings and inanimate things of every kind, that in a wonderful series he distinguished an innumerable variety of things, that he endowed each kind with its own nature, assigned functions, appointed places and stations; and that, although all were subject to corruption, he nevertheless provided for the preservation of each species until the Last Day. We shall likewise learn that he nourishes some in secret ways, and, as it were, from time to time instills new vigor into them; on others he has conferred the power of propagating, lest by their death the entire species perish; that he has so wonderfully adorned heaven and earth with as unlimited abundance, variety, and beauty of all things as could possibly be, quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and at the same time the most abundant furnishings. Finally, we shall learn that in forming man and in adorning him with such goodly beauty, and with such great and numerous gifts, he put him forth as the most excellent example of his works. But since it is not my purpose to recount the creation of the universe, let it be enough for me to have touched upon these few matters again in passing. For it is better, as I have already warned my readers, to seek a fuller understanding of this passage from Moses and from others who have faithfully and diligently recorded the narrative of Creation [Gen., chs. 1 adn 2]” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Translated by Ford Lewis Battles, 179-180).

“And as himself the true and only Christ of God, he has filled the whole earth with the truly august and sacred name of Christians, committing to his followers no longer types and images, but the uncovered virtues themselves, and a heavenly life in the very doctrines of truth” (Eusebius, The Church History, Translated by Arthur McGiffert, I.III.12.).

“The artist has his hands full and does his duty if he attends to his art” (Flannery O’Connor).

“Eusebius made the direct quotation of documents, literary and archival, a central feature of his history of the church. This became a lasting characteristic, one that sharply distinguished ecclesiastical from civil history, which usually took the form of a narrative uninterrupted by direct quotations” (Grafton & Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea, 200).

“American Protestantism entered a new phase during Nevin’s lifetime. It is not an overstatement or caricature to say that, no longer regulated by the state and no longer administered by ordained officers, Protestant Christianity in the United States became a religion of the people, by the people, for the people”  (D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 26).

“[John Williamson] Nevin recognized that, without the nurture of the institutional church through its worship and pastoral care, Calvinist theology would not survive as a vibrant expression of the Christian religion. For that reason, Nevin deserves the nickname “high-church Calvinist”” (D.G. Hart, John Williamson Nevin, 13).

“[Dabney] urged young Southerners to remember certain unchangeable principles that formed his theological response to the economic realities of the new South — in particular, the principle that God was the true owner of all property and wealth; humans simply used property as stewards. Dabney taught that God’s Word outlined three appropriate purposes for wealth: personal sustenance, family need, and insurance against the future. Wealth was certainly not to be used in “superfluities” or on luxuries, which only produced a worldly conformity, led others to covet, and ruined one’s own character. Such unproductive consumption was a “waste and perversion of a trust that should have been sacred to noble and blessed ends.” Instead, excess wealth was to be used for evangelism and other ministries, for “every ignorant, degraded man who is enlightened and sanctified becomes at once a useful producer of material wealth, for he is rendered an industrious citizen. And every heathen community that is evangelized becomes a recipient and a producer of the wealth of peaceful commerce.”” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 189).

“On the atonement, Dabney claimed that the Westminster Confession did not take a position on the order of decrees — the long-standing debate among Calvinists over infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism. Indeed, he held that “if we impute our sequences to God, we plunge into error. The most we can comprehend is that God, in entertaining from eternity one part of this contemporaneous purpose, has regard to a state of facts as to that part destined by him to result from his same purpose as to other parts of his moral government”” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 141-142).

“While Dabney was able to hold the line against any form of racial reconciliation, he was not as successful in his battle against fraternal relations with the Northern church — in 1882, New South Presbyterians within the PCUS repudiated his position. This battle against the Northern church did more to damage his reputation than any other action, and would ultimately be the impetus that relegated Dabney to the margins, both ecclesiastically in his loss of influence within his church and geographically in his “exile” to Texas” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 135-136),