The perseverance of the believers in grace is wrought by the Holy Ghost, not irrespective of, but through, the free will of the man himself. Therefore it is a duty as a well as a grace. The grace of it should be preached for the encouragement of the diligent. The duty, and absolute necessity of it to salvation, should be preached to quicken the slothful and to increase the sense of obligation felt by all.

A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith, 237.

Like brilliant lights the churches were now illuminating the world, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ was flourishing everywhere when the Devil, who hates what is good, true, and saving, turned all his weapons against the church. Previously he had attacked her from the outside through persecutions, but now that he was prevented, he resorted to internal tactics, using wicked impostors as corrupt agents of destruction, assuming the name of our religion to destroy every believer they could ensnare while deflecting unbelievers from the path that leads to salvation.

Eusebius, The Church History, 4.7.

Thus the saving word started to brighten the whole world like rays of the sun. In every city and village, churches mushroomed, crowded with myriads of members. Those chained by superstition and idolatry found release through the power of Christ as well as the teaching and wonderful deeds of his followers. Rejecting demonic polytheism, they confessed the one God and Creator of the universe whom they honored with the rational worship implanted by our Savior.

Eusebius, The Church History, 2.3.

God the Holy Spirit was sent to call sinners from every nation to renounce their idolatrous ways and to worship God the Father through his Son.

Reformation Worship, edited by Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey, 19.

The “Church” which Christ promises to guide into all truth and to preserve from fatal error is not a hierarchy or a body of officers, but the body of the “called” or “elect” — the body of believers as such. 1 John 2:20, 27; 1 Tim. 3:15; Matt. 16:18; Eph. 5:27; 1 Pet. 2:5; Col. 1:18, 24.

A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith, 267.

All Christians promiscuously are commanded to search the Scriptures (John 5:39; Acts 17:11; 2 Tim. 3:15-17), and to give a reason for their faith (1 Peter 3:15), and to resists the authority even of legitimate church rulers when it is opposed to that of the Lord of conscience. Acts 4:19, 20.

A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith, 267.

The act of justification has consecrated the believer to God. The work of sanctification breaks the power of temptation, God in every case either graciously enabling us to resist and come off conquerors, or providentially opening a way of escape for us. 1 Cor. 10:13.

A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith, 262.

Despite their individual differences, all the Christian humanists were motivated by an optimistic belief that they could reform society and restore the unity of Christendom by means of the New Learning, for they were convinced that a proper understanding of Christian and classical antiquity would lead to true piety and piety to reform. It is for this reason that they established and supported schools, disseminated the classics in printed form, and prepared new editions of the Bible and the writings of the church fathers.

The Christian humanists were not, however, revolutionaries. They exposed corruption and other evils in existing institutions, but they did not advocate their abolition. They were more concerned with proper conduct that with theology, with learning than with faith and love, and with nature than with grace. Yet they questioned no fundamental doctrines of the church. To preserve the solidarity of the medieval Christian community, most of them refused to follow the Protestant leaders in their separation from Catholicism.

Harold J. Grimm, The Reformation Era 1500-1650, 64.

The redemption of Christ, if it is to be worthily viewed, must be looked at not merely individualistically, but also in its social, or better in its cosmical relations . . . We have only partially understood the redemption in Christ, therefore, when we have thought of it only in its modes of operation and effects on the individual. We must ask also how and what it works in the organism of the human race, and what its effects are in the greater organism of the universe.

Benjamin B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, 100.

Let it be understood once for all that the completest recognition of the sovereignty of God does not suffice to make a good Calvinist . . . There can be no Calvinism without a hearty confession of the sovereignty of God; but the acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God of itself goes only a very little way toward real Calvinism.

Benjamin B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, 96.