Collect for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost

O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running to obtain thy promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Luther's Smaller Catechism on Confession:

What is Confession?

Confession embraces two parts: the one is, that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution, or forgiveness, from the confessor, as from God Himself, and in no wise doubt, but firmly believe, that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven.

What sins should we confess?

Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even of those which we do not know, as we do in the Lord's Prayer. But before the confessor we should confess those sins alone which we know and feel in our hearts.

Since the infant children of Christians are also included in the church into which Christ will have all those who belong to him to be received and enrolled by baptism; and as baptism has been substituted in the place of circumcision, by which (as well to the infants as to the adults belonging to the seed of Abraham,) justification, regeneration and reception into the church were sealed by and for the sake of Christ ...

-- Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism

What are the longest books of the Bible?

It depends on how you count. For instance, do we count words or chapters? What about books like 1 & 2 Samuel, which were only broken up due to scroll length limits? Or the minor prophets, who were bound together?

But counting by words our usual divisions:

1. Jeremiah (33,002 words)
2. Genesis (32,046 words)
3. Psalms (30,147 words)
4. Ezekiel (29,918 words)
5. Exodus (25, 957 words)
6. Isaiah (25,608 words)
7. Numbers (25,048 words)
8. Deuteronomy (23,008 words)
9. 2 Chronicles (21,349 words)
10. 1 Samuel (20,361 words)

Charles Hodge: On Christian Nurture:

[It is] a scriptural truth that the children of believers are the children of God; as being within his covenant with their parents, he promises to them his Spirit; he has established a connection between faithful parental training and the salvation of children, as he has between seed-time and harvest, diligence and riches, education and knowledge. In no one case is absolute certainty secured or the sovereignty of God excluded. But in all, the divinely appointed connection between means and end, is obvious.

That this connection is not more apparent, in the case of parents and children, is due in great measure, to the sad deficiency in parental fidelity. If we look over the Christian world, how few  nominally Christian parents even pretend to bring up their children for God. In a great majority of cases the attainment of some worldly object is avowedly made the end of education; and all the influences to which a child is exposed are designed and adapted to make him a man of the world. And even within the pale of evangelical churches, it must be confessed, there is a great neglect as to this duty ... We of course recognize the native depravity of children, the absolute necessity of their regeneration by the Holy Spirit, the inefficiency of all means of grace without the blessing of God. But what we think is plainly taught in Scripture, what is reasonable in itself, and confirmed by the experience of the church, is, that early, assiduous, and faithful religious culture of the young, especially by believing parents, is the great means of their salvation.

Which books of the OT are quoted the most and least in the NT?

It depends on how you count references, paraphrases, and direct quotations, but the following is a rough list:

1. Psalms - 68
2. Isaiah - 55
3. Deuteronomy - 44
4. Genesis - 35
5. Exodus - 31
6. Leviticus - 13
7. Proverbs - 8
8. Zechariah - 7
9. Hosea - 6
10. Jeremiah - 5

Habakkuk and Malachi are quoted 4x each, Numbers 3x, and the remaining books are quoted only once or twice. The following are not quoted at all:

- Judges
- Ruth
- Ezra
- Esther
- Ecclesiastes
- Song of Solomon
- Lamentations
- Obadiah
- Jonah
- Zephaniah

Scripture never once commands us to attempt to divine the contents of another man's mind or heart.

The pietistic practice of looking for "evidence" of salvation, and especially of conditioning baptism, the eucharist, and church membership on it is deadly and deeply anti-biblical. Rather Deut. 29:29,

The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Collect for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost

Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Only a Living Faith Justifies: WCF 11.2:

II. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love.


Bare assent is no better than the papists' "implicit faith." Cf. WCF 14.2.

Best Protestant YouTube Channels (that you might not know):

1. Reformation Red Pill
2. Take Hold Studios
3. Got a Minute?
4. Reformed Forum
5. The Aaron Renn Show
6. Jordan B. Cooper
7. James B. Jordan Archive
8. Bryan Wolfmeuller
9. Theopolis Institute
10. Rushdoony Radio

Why We Worship on the First (or Eighth) Day
 
When the first Adam arose out of the ground on the sixth day of creation, his first full day was the day of worship. When the second Adam arose out of the ground, his first full day is now our day of worship.
 
Nor is it coincidental that this should be the eighth day. God already told us to expect that when circumcision, the sign of regeneration was commanded to be administered on the eighth day, and that Noah’s baptism saved specifically eight persons, which St. Peter links to our regeneration. This motif plays out in more subtle ways, such as the eight frames of the tabernacle (Ex. 26:25) and Jesus worshipping on the eighth day (Lk. 9:28).

Reformed Catholicity: Big-Tent Calvinism
 
Up until the 20th century, the Reformed world was a big tent with many differences. Calvin compromised with the Genevan council on many points, affirmed the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, and wrote the Consensus Tigurinus to forge unity with the Zwinglians.
 
This big-tent tradition continued in the English Reformation, where Cranmer drew on both Calvinist and Lutheran theologians, where the Westminster Assembly drew up a reasonable compromise document allowing a broad range of Reformed views.
 
Where England failed to allow a range of views, the adherents came to America and the church broadly but especially the Reformed church enjoyed centuries of relative peace and tranquility.
 
In the 20th century, no doubt driven to extremes by the pressures of liberalism, the Reformed church began fighting internecine battles over issues where truces had long ago been called. John Frame’s excellent essay “Machen’s Warrior Children” ably documents these areas of disagreement, and calls for greater peace. And while I don’t agree with all of Frame’s analyses, in large part, his point is well taken.