Baptistic Creeds

[This is also from yesterdays Al Mohler program cited two posts ago:)]

The origin of some contemporary Confessions.

(1) Westminster Confession of Faith 1646
(2) 1689 London Baptist Confession: Strictly Reformed derivitive of the Westminster Confession. [Generally adapted to meet baptistic convictions regarding government and baptism]
(3) Philadelphia Confession 1742[adapted for purposes of language and structure...not content]
(4) The Centennial Confession [basically the Philly confession only the 100 year anniversary of it, also, updates for language and structure...not content]
(5) Charleston Confession 1813[based off of the Centenniel Confession, updates for language and structure...not content]
(6) [Current] Southern Baptist Confession is based on the Charleston confession [updates for language and structure...not content]

same starting point, but an offshoot in that the Philly Confession isn't in this lineage...

(1) Westminster Confession of Faith
(2) 1689 Baptist Confession: Strictly Reformed derivitive of the Westminster Confession.
(3) New Hampshire Confession 1833[less explicitly Reformed and Calvinistic although it is not Arminian.]
(4) Baptist Faith and Message of 1925 & 1963[based off of the New Hampshire Confessions, updates for language and structure...not content...this was the Southern Baptist Convention's first confession. Once again this was less overt and less strictly Calvinistic although it wasn't anti-Calvinistic.]
(5) 1992 Southern Baptist Confession of faith

There might be some problems with this, but once again...I'm just trying to understand all of this:)

Presbyterianism

[The following info was from the radio show I cited on my last post from Al Mohler's radio show w/ Ligon Duncan III.]

Confused by all the divisions in the Presbyterian church?? I know I am (to be fair most denominations have more divisions than most of us can keep up with). Here's some clarification.

(1) Presbyterian Church of America (PCA): Formed in 1982 when North and South conservative denominations of Presbyterianism came together.

(2) Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA): Formed in 1982 with North and South mainline Presbyterian churches.

(3) Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC): Didn't join PCA in 1982, and took advantage of the escape clause from the PCUSA that allowed churches to branch off from the PCUSA in a 7 year period and keep their property. So they took advantage of this and formed their own denomination.

(4) Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC): This was a denomination of Presbyterianism formed by J. Gresham Machen in the 1920's (conservative theologically) that came from Northern Presbyterian churches that were more conservative.

There's more to be said to clarify, and I'm working on it, but this is helpful for now:)

Lig also said that the PCUSA says they have 2.3 million folks in their denomination but this has been decreasing by about 40,000 people every year since 1967 (this is probably not completely accurate...the point is the congregation is dwindling.)

The PCA is the largest of Presbyterian Congregations in the world with 450,000 folks.

If you guys know some stuff I don't let me know...I'm just trying to understand all of this!

Augustine's Confessions: His Doctrine of God...in the first few books.

When you speak do you clearly communicate who God is in His attributes in some way? When you journal or write does the language ooze of God's character to communicate to others who God is? We could take a lesson from Saint Augustine's Confessions. If we spoke this way people would know who God is, and they would understand the humility it takes to show how weak and dependent we are on Him.

“You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? Yet woe betide those who are silent about you! For even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you.” [Pp. 23]

“Why do I mean so much to you, that you should command me to love you?” [Pp. 24]

“It did not come to me from them but, through them, from you, because you, my God, are the source of all good and everywhere you preserve me (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 23:5).” [Pp. 25]

“You have existed from before the very beginning of the ages.” [Pp. 26]

“Time, as well as everything else, exists in you. If it did not, it would have no means of passing.” [Pp. 27]

“No one but you can do these things, because you are the one and only mould in which all things are cast and the perfect form which shapes all things, and everything takes its place according to your law.” [Pp. 28]

“Intelligence which you, my God, gave to me.” [Pp. 29]

“And yet I sinned, O Lord my God, creator and arbiter of all natural things, but arbiter only, not creator, of sin.” [Pp. 31]

“But you, who take every hair of our heads into your reckoning [Matt 10:30], used for my benefit the mistaken ideas of all those who insisted on making me study; and you used the mistake I made myself, in not wishing to study, as a punishment which I deserved to pay, for I was a great sinner for so small a boy. In this way you turned their faults to my advantage and justly punished me for my own. For this is what you have ordained and so it is with us, that every soul that sins brings its own punishment upon itself.” [Pp. 33]

“O Lord, for you teach us by inflicting pain, you smite so that you may heal, and you kill us so that we may not die away from you.” [Pp. 44]

“My God, though you are the only Master, true and good, of its husbandry.” [Pp. 45]

“For such things are attractive and have beauty, although they are paltry trifles in comparison with the worth of God's blessed treasures.” [Pp. 48]

“It is true that the pears which we stole had beauty, because they were created by you, the good God, who are the most beautiful of all beings and the Creator of all things, the supreme Good and my own true Good.” [Pp. 49]

“For you alone are God, supreme over all.” [Pp. 49]

“Yet no one is to be feared but God alone, from whose power nothing can be snatched away or stolen by any man at any time or place or by any means.” [Pp. 49]

“Extravagance masquerades as fullness and abundance: but you are the full, unfailing store of never-dying sweetness.” [Pp. 50]

“No innocence is greater than yours. You are innocent even of the harm which overtakes the wicked, for it is the result of their own actions.” [Pp. 50]

“Yet you have supreme knowledge of all things.” [Pp. 50]

“Safety is assured nowhere but in you.” [Pp. 50]

“There is not place whatever where man may hide away from you.” [Pp. 50]

“My real need was for you, my God, who are the food of the soul, I was not aware of this hunger.” [Pp. 55]

“My God must be the Keeper of my soul, the God of our fathers, who is to be exalted and extolled for ever more.” [Pp. 56]

Pine-Coffin, R.S. [Translator and Introduction] Saint Augustine Confessions. Penguin Books Ltd., London; 1961.

This is one of the more impacting books that I've read. He goes deep!

Augustine's Confessions: Sola Gratias, Depravity, Election...

He sounds like the apostle Paul, Martin Luther, Calvin, and a lot of reformers...sola gratias, and total depravity, unconditional election...

"[Book II.7 Pp. 51] I will love you, Lord, and thank you, and praise your name, because you have forgiven me such great sins and such wicked deeds. I acknowledge that it was by your grace and mercy that you melted away my sins like ice. I acknowledge, too, that by your grace I was preserved from whatever sins I did not commit, for there was no knowing what I might have done, since I loved evil even if it served not purpose. I avow that you have forgiven me all, both the sins which I committed of my own accord and those which by your guidance I was spared from committing.

What man who reflects upon his own weakness can dare to claim that his own efforts have made him chaste and free from sin, as though this entitled him to love you the less, on the ground that he had less need of the mercy by which you forgive the sins of the penitent? There are some who have been called by you and because they have listened to your voice they have avoided the sins which I here record and confess for them to read. But let them not deride me for having been cured by the same Doctor who preserved them from sickness, or at least from such grave sickness as mine. Let them love you just as much, or even more, than I do, for they can see that the same healing hand which rid me of the great fever of my sins protects them from falling sick of the same disease."

You can see why the reformers, outside of the Bible, were so impacted by the writings of Augustine.

Augustine's Confessions: Regarding Pleasure...

Right now I'm reading this for Church History. This book is VERY genuine! I'm having a hard time controlling my underlining...here are some samplings:

He sounds like Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and John Piper in that our desire for true pleasure is too weak because it is satisfied in things less than God Himself...

"[Book II.5 Pp. 48] The eye is attracted by beautiful objects, by gold and silver and all such things. There is great pleasure, too, in feeling something agreeable to the touch, the material things have various qualities to please each of the other senses. Again, it is gratifying to be held in esteem by other men and to have the power of giving them orders and gaining the mastery over them. This is also the reason why revenge is sweet. But our ambition to obtain all these things must not lead us astray from you, O Lord, nor must we depart from what your law allows. The life we live on earth has its own attractions as well, because it has a certain beauty of its own in harmony with all the rest of this world's beauty. Friendship among men, too, is a delightful bond, uniting many souls in one. All these things and their like can be occasions of sin because, good though they are, they are of the lowest order of good, and if we are too much tempted by them we abandon those higher and better things, your truth, your law, and you yourself, O Lord our God. For these earthly things, too, can give joy, though not such joy as my God, who made them all, can give [my emphasis], because honest men will rejoice in the Lord; upright hearts will not boast in vain (Psalm 63:11; 64:10)."