We are now entering our fifth sermon concerning the doctrine of Providence from the Confession of Faith. And this morning we are going to be looking at simply one section, Westminster Confession of Faith 5-6. Let me read it for you. We'll derive a doctrine and then we'll break that doctrine up into several points. As for those wicked and ungodly men, whom God as a righteous judge for former sins doth blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understanding and wrought upon in their hearts, but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin. and with all gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world and the power of Satan. Whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves even under those means which God useth for the softening of others. This morning we are going to look at just one doctrine. God blinds and hardens the reprobate, those that he has not elected, to eternal life. Just so you can understand the coherence of the Confession of Faith, last week we looked at Confession of Faith 5.5, and it deals with God's providence, sin, and the believer. Really dealing with that great pastoral concern. God is sovereign over all things. Providence is unfolding according to His decree. In Providence He is working all things according to His own will. And that includes human sinfulness. It is part of His decree, something that He ordained would happen from the foundation of the world. And so we have a pastoral problem. If all things are under God's control, Why does God permit his children to stumble and fall and sin? He could stop it if he was pleased to stop it. He could take our lives away or he could give us sufficient sanctifying grace to overcome our sins we know on the last day he will instantly fully sanctify us and glorify us so we know it's well within his power and his ability but why does he yet permit us to sin? well the confession of faith says that God has various wise holy and just ends in suffering his own children to sin. And we looked at them, four of them, just briefly. First, by allowing us to stumble in sin, he chastens us for former sins. You can see this in Hebrews chapter 12. God disciplines his children for some sins by permitting others. Just an example, When we neglect the means of grace, the reading and preaching of God's word and prayer, which is one sin, He will frequently chasten us by not giving us strength to overcome other sins. So now we find ourselves later on looking for strength to overcome sins, but we don't have it. Why? Because we neglected the means of grace and God is chastening us for that. A second reason that he allows us to stumble in sins is to show us the corruption that yet remains in our own hearts, to humble us and give us some insight into who we are. Pride is an interesting sin. It's one of the few sins that actually becomes more dangerous the further along you go in sanctification. as God is sanctifying you and making you better than what you were, there's always the danger that you'll then look at yourself and say, whoa, I've really become something here. I really am something special. Forgetting that you don't have a single thing that you didn't receive from the hand of God. And so frequently as pride is arising in our heart, God will leave us open to certain other sins to reveal that corruption that yet remains in our hearts and to humble us. So we looked at Hezekiah last week. God had given him such graces. There was never a king strong in faith the way that Hezekiah was strong in faith. God had blessed him with great deliverance from the Assyrians and from a fatal illness. God blessed all the works of his hands. He prospered on every side and he was lifted up in his heart. And so in the affair of the visit from the emissaries from Babylon God left him the text actually says in 2nd Chronicles to try him to reveal what was yet in Hezekiah's heart Hezekiah came to know himself a little bit better at that occasion A third use, what is God getting at when he allows us to stumble in sin? Well, all of this moves us to a closer dependence upon him. We recognize our weakness and we cling fast to him, recognizing that if we are going to go forward in this business of sanctification, we are going to need him in order to do it. When we stumble and we fall and sin, God is teaching us to be more watchful concerning those sins in the future. We're going to have this text actually in our scripture reading this morning. You remember we've been reading through the book of Job. And Job sins with his mouth. At first, he's not willing to bring any charge against God, but as the speech goes on, And as he becomes more and more aggravated with his friends, we find that in order to justify himself, and he wasn't guilty of anything, that's not why these afflictions came upon him. So as he's justifying or defending himself in a good way, he's willing to reflect poorly on God in order to do that. As we're going to see, God is going to challenge him in our text this morning, chapter 40. Are you going to condemn me so that you can be right? So Job did enter into a sin with his mouth. But he learns from that and becomes more watchful against that sin. What does he say? I spoke once and I'll speak no more. I lay my hand upon my mouth. I entered into sin by that. Just recently I'm going to become more watchful about doing that in the future. God has challenged me but I will offer no answer to Him. I will not speak to Him again in this way. So I gave you a practical example of how I've been using this. This is just one way to do it. Everybody's daily schedule is set up in a different way. My day is basically broken up into task blocks. They usually take a certain amount of time, but I basically have to work on it until the task is completed. And I already know from past experiences what sins are likely to beset me during that time. And so as I get ready for that task, I pray to God and I identify in my mind again what sins have beset me while I'm engaged in that task. And then I purpose to be watchful against them and not to stumble and fall in them. I found this very useful in overcoming sins that had easily beset me before. So that was last week. That was Confession of Faith 5.5. God's Providence, Sin, and the Believer. here in 5.6 we're looking at God's providence sin and the reprobate why is it that God allows the reprobate to continue on in his sins and what we find here in the confession of faith is that God is judicially punishing sinners with more sin by hardening them a very interesting thing so we come to that famous question in what way Does God harden sinners? And the divines actually give us something of a sketch of an answer here. First of all, when we say that God hardens a sinner's heart, we are not saying that God is creating fresh evil in people's hearts. It's simply not necessary. The sinfulness of man's heart is always going to have a great tendency to run on to its worst form all by itself. He doesn't have to create evil in anybody's heart. Neither are we saying that God is tempting anyone to sin. He's not trying to coax anybody into sin. Of course, what do we find when we go to the Word of God? He commands us not to sin, and then gives us great encouragements to continue in righteousness, eternal life, and discouragements, things to keep us away from sins, threatens us with punishment if we go in those ways. So He's not tempting people to sin. But we can talk in three ways in which God is hardening people's hearts judicially and righteously. First of all, God hardens the heart of man by withholding his grace. So you see here's a certain negative action. God is not actively hardening the sinner's heart by creating evil, but he is passively hardening it by withholding his grace, something which he doesn't owe. The great example of this is Pharaoh, and it's actually said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. And this is such a good example because we see in the text, God didn't need to create any evil in Pharaoh's heart. There was already plenty of evil there. Pharaoh was already totally depraved. But God hardens his heart by withholding his grace to Pharaoh. You see, the external means that God was applying with Pharaoh would have a great tendency to convince Pharaoh that he ought to let the people go and to soften Pharaoh. The plagues would make most men's knees buckle, quake, and break before they got to the tenth plague. You see, these are a great means to convince a sinner that he ought to give over and that he ought to be softened. But what we find is that those external means are insufficient to soften Pharaoh in and of themselves. The internal operation of the Holy Spirit is necessary to make those external means effectual or effective in actually softening the sinner's hearts. So what's interesting in this, those external means which were useful for convincing and converting some, all of Israel is praising the Lord and being convinced that Jehovah has indeed descended to deliver him those same external means which are softening some are evoking hatred out of Pharaoh God is giving his internal grace to some and not to others and that's why they're responding to those same external means in very very different ways polar opposite ways now some have looked at this and said but The verb seems stronger than that. God is hardening his heart and yet you softened it by saying withholding grace. Is that justifiable? Well, I think it is in this sense that when God withholds his grace, a necessary effect is going to be the hardening of the sinner's heart. So it is a necessary effect of that. And so we can rightly say that God is hardening the heart because his action the withholding of grace is going to bring about a certain necessary effect and that reliably the sinner is going to be hardened and so we find the confession of faith saying here that these sinners will harden themselves even under those means which God useth for the softening of others very different responses because God is giving internal saving grace to some and not to others So this is one way in which God is said to harden the sinner's heart. He hardens the sinner's heart by withholding grace from them. Grace that he does not owe to any man. So in this we see that he is altogether righteous and good in his manner of proceeding. God also hardens the sinner's heart by withdrawing gifts that he had previously given to them. also a punishment you remember the parable of the talents turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 25 you've heard of mixed metaphors I'm going to mix a parable here to make something plain but you have two servants that are talked about first one is given five talents and one that's given two talents and if I can mix this with the parable of the wheat and the tares there's a five talent wheat man And a two-talent wheat man and a one-talent tare. So you have two that are receiving saving grace from God and one that isn't. Two that are wheat and one that is a tare. Now you remember the Five and two talent grains of wheat are rewarded. They take the gifts that God has given and they apply them. They bring forth fruit in proportion to what God has given. And so he rewards them with the fruit of their labor. But then we have the case of the one talent tare. This begins in verse 24. So let's read this together. Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed. And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth. Lo, there thou hast that is thine. His Lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant! Thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed? Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. for unto everyone that hath shall be given and he shall have abundance but for him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth so we find that this tare is given a talent certain gifts and abilities natural abilities to do things perhaps he's very intelligent or very skillful with his hands God has given him gifts and maybe he even has a form of external righteousness a certain gift that God has given him but he sinned in the misuse of these gifts and so one of the ways that God punishes that sin the misuse of the gifts or the disuse of the gifts is by taking them away That talent that he had, even that I'm going to take away from him and punish him in that way. This is really a very frightening thing. And I've seen it on some occasions in my own experience. During the time of my undergraduate studies, I had a friend that looked every bit the good and enthusiastic Christian. He really was probably my closest of friends during that time of study. And if you had asked me during that time, you know, do you think that he's a Christian? I would have told you I'm well assured that he is. All of the fruit looks like it in his life. He had certain gifts and graces. God had given him a talent. And he looked every bit the part of a Christian. But after college, a certain sin entered into his life. And then God withdrew that talent, that external form of Christianity and righteousness was withdrawn from him. God took away what he had. And that's a frightening thing. In considering this, we ought to consider ourselves well. Paul says, do any of you think that you stand? Take heed, lest ye fall. These parables are meant to instruct us. And you see, I don't think we profit from the parables as we ought if we always see ourselves as the five-talent man and the two-talent man, which is our great tendency. Oh, that's me. That one-talent guy, that's somebody else over there. Jesus is telling us this whole parable for our instruction, and there's lessons to be learned from these three types of men. And we need to be constantly examining ourselves, as Peter says, lest we find in ourselves a heart of unbelief. this was Paul's constant practice here's a man that had Christian fruit like no other man that you can think of and he said but I'm constantly examining myself less after having preached the gospel for the salvation of others I find myself disqualified this is heart business that we always need to be about looking into ourselves and asking ourselves the question Am I yet in the faith? Or will there come a time, if I'm not diligent in the use of the means of grace, that I'll find that I had a talent, and I looked every bit the part of the Christian sitting in the assembly, but then even what I had was taken away from me by God's judgment. So God hardens a sinner's heart and punishes by withdrawing gifts. And then a third aspect, God hardens by exposing sinners to objects and situations that their sinfulness makes an occasion of sin. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 8. We have entered into the ministry of Elisha by this time. the king of Syria is sick and he sends one of his servants, Hazael, to Elisha to learn what the outcome of this illness is going to be. And so this is the encounter between Elisha and Hazael. 2 Kings chapter 8 beginning in verse 10. And Elisha said unto him, Go, say unto him, Thou mayest certainly recover, albeit the Lord hath shown me that he shall surely die. That almost sounds like a contradiction. It appears as if the king is going to recover from this illness, but still not live a great long time. His days are quickly catching up with him. And we know that from what follows, verse 11. And he settled his countenance steadfastly until he was ashamed and the man of God wept. So here Elisha is staring at Hazael, staring at him. And Hazael said, why weepeth my lord? And he answered, because I know that the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel their strongholds wilt thou set on fire and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword and wilt dash their children and rip up their women with children and Hazael said but what? is thy servant a dog? that he should do this great thing? and Elisha answered the Lord has shown me that thou shalt be king over Syria So here, Hazael is a reprobate. God has not chosen to save his soul. And as part of punishing this reprobate in his sinfulness, God is going to give him the kingship of Syria. Now you think, hey, this is a great thing. It doesn't sound like much of a punishment, but this is going to be an occasion for him to work great evil. And it's interesting, it's an evil so great that currently Hazael cannot imagine it. Am I a dog that I would do a thing like that? You see, the kingship is going to be an occasion by which he runs into great evil, evil at this point that he can't even imagine. Well, this raises the question, is God tempting Hazael? And what we have to notice here is that there's nothing in the situation itself of kingship that would necessitate sin. You see, this is what the divines are saying. It's not the situation that necessitates sin. It's the sinfulness of the man that takes occasion by the situation that works the great evil. Our Lord Jesus Christ, our mediator, is made king and enthroned as such. But it doesn't lead him into sin. You see that there's nothing in the situation of kingship that would necessitate sin. Others, even sinful people, were given kingship and did well with it. We already talked about Hezekiah, whose general course of his kingship was good. A different sort of man than Hazael could do good things with the situation as it's given. But his corruption makes it an occasion for further sin. So, in summary, as the Divine summarized what they're doing in 5.6, it said all of this is a way by which God gives the reprobate over to sin, to temptation and to the power of the devil. So, sinners are already sinful, but in general what they're saying here, if we look at all of this in general, God is giving men over to their sins as a punishment. So they've sinned, they are sinners, and he punishes them with more sin. He gives them over to the sins that they love and restrains them no longer. This is the dynamic we see in Romans chapter 1, we've already been over it, but these men are wicked in denying the God that they know from nature. So God gives them up to deny other obvious truths of nature. They become homosexuals and deny natural affection you know nature teaches us that we ought to love our parents and parents ought to love their children but they're going to be given up to continue to deny other obvious teachings of nature so God punishes the person their denial of his existence and his attributes for nature by giving them over to that well you can now run along to deny other obvious teachings of nature destroy yourselves in this life and in the life to come he gives them up it's a way that he punishes certainly a hard teaching of scripture and one that is suited to make us tremble because it's a terrifying thing and this is really my first use to that point of self-examination how are things with the state of your own soul? do you find yourself being hardened by the same means that are softening others. You find yourself being hardened by the means of grace rather than softened by them. It's not surprising to us, I don't think, when we bring an unbeliever to church and they don't like what they hear and they're resistant to it and they're hardened by what they've heard and that doesn't surprise us very much. But it is surprising and very frightening when those that have professed the faith or their children are hardened by these means of grace rather than softened. This can happen by degrees, so subtly and so slowly in the life of a person that a lot of times it can escape detection, but we need to do the heart work. These are things that other people can't necessarily see. But children, do you find that as you come for worship, Sabbath day by Sabbath day, that you are impatient with the means of grace? You're looking forward to that time between services. Can he hurry up and get finished so I can play a little bit with my friends and have something to eat. Impatient with the means of grace. To such a point where you don't even want to come sometimes. This is not a good sign. And it's not a good thing. It's a sin that you need to repent of. As we talked about it a few weeks ago, our hearts ought to be glad. when that summons comes, let us go up to the house of the Lord, we ought to rejoice in it, as we sang this morning in the 100th Psalm, we ought to come up with rejoicing and singing, entering his courts with thanksgiving in our hearts, hearts filled with praise and joy. That's what's fitting and suitable if we understand what we're doing here. But frequently we can find ourselves impatient. I really wish that I was playing right now, and not listening to this preaching. and that's sinful. And if we let that sin sit there and fester, it will grow up to a full-orbed hardness towards the means of grace. You'll come in and you'll look awake, but you will check out and go someplace else until it's over mentally. And it ought not to be so. It's a very serious sin. And this can happen to us as adults as well. Turn in your Bibles to Amos chapter 8. This text came to my mind because it so illustrates the dynamic of what happens. We've been talking about the means of grace, but we can do a similar thing with the Sabbath day, as Amos reproves Israel here. You are so anxious for the Sabbath day to be over so you can be back to your normal business, which you prefer to the worship of God. You're being hardened by those very things that God has given for the softening of your heart. It's a bad spiritual sign. Amos chapter 8 beginning in verse 4 is not addressing just the children here. Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? You see, there's a general complaint concerning these oppressors. They're taking advantage of the poor. And there's false dealings in their business. It's an 8th commandment issue. They're stealing. But he said, but you've become so addicted to your life of business that you can hardly stand for the Sabbath day to come. And when it comes, you just want it to be over. Because what you really love What your heart is really directed towards is your everyday business. You like your business life, children. You like your life of play. But that's a bad sign, because we ought to think of the Sabbath day as the best of all possible days. And coming into the assembly for public worship, we ought to think of it as the sweetest time, the closest thing that we get to heaven in this life. And if you don't like this, you're not going to like heaven. Because this is the foretaste of heaven for us. A lot of times we won't deal with ourselves honestly in these kinds of heart issues. We might say, why am I really impatient with the ordinances? Well, look at yourself. I've mentioned this before. I've known very different people in my life with very different attitudes towards worship. Some people you can't hardly keep them away from the worship with a stick. They're sick. The whole family is wiped out by illness and they're so anxious to get to church and have the ordinances that they'll infect the whole community. You have to keep them back and say, don't come, love the brethren, don't make us all sick, stay home, rest, recuperate, we'll see you next week. You have to hold them back. But then there's a different sort of person than most anything. will get in their way. They're always walking around, as Solomon says, saying there's a lion in the street that's keeping me from going about my business. Everything is an obstacle, everything is a hindrance. Nothing can ever get done and we can never get to worship. It reveals, that kind of behavior reveals what's in our hearts. Have we become impatient with the ordinances? Are we becoming hard towards them? Pardoned by them? There's other ways in which we become hardened by the ordinances and life in the midst of the people of God. We can come to dislike the pinch on our sinfulness. You know, what that preacher said really bothers me. I don't like it. And there can be a certain kind of recoiling. I don't like going into the public assembly because those people are so stuffy about the Sabbath day and it bothers me. You see, people can start to be hardened by the very things that are meant to soften their hearts and improve them. Or, and this is also a very frightening thing, I've seen it happen from time to time that people actually take a disliking to the God that is preached. They have a certain idol in their mind, a certain view of God. And they don't like the God that is preached from scripture. I've seen this most frequently in the preaching of sovereign grace, the doctrine of predestination. And it's a frightening thing to hear somebody that professes the faith of Jesus Christ say, that God that you preached, I don't like that God. That seems twisted and perverse. The only thing we can reply is there is no other God. That's the God of heaven. Any other God is an idol. And it reveals that they're still at war with God. They're being hardened by preaching that ought to soften their hearts and humble them and draw them in dependence toward God. But they're being repelled because they don't like this God. There's been no internal grace to soften their hearts. And so We ask the question, how are you responding to the ordinances? Do you find yourself softening or hardening? And it will tell you a lot about the true condition of your soul. That's not something that anybody else can do for you. That's an internal investigation that we must always be doing in ourselves. But let me handle one more situation before we move on. Because I suspect most of us, having heard this, think something like this. Well, I believe But sometimes I have struggles in coming to the ordinances. Sometimes I'd rather be doing other things. Some mornings I don't want to get up and do it. You see, it's kind of a sometimes affair. Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 103. There's only one remedy for this. We must stir ourselves up for the worship of God. Stir ourselves up. to desire God in the ordinances. We're song singers, but this happens so much in the Psalms that we can miss it or become inoculated to it. But we find David always stirring it. He'll talk to his soul. I mean, how many times do you find in the Psalms him saying, Oh my soul, do such and such. He's stirring himself up and moving himself. So here at the very beginning of Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. So what do we find here? David is stirring himself up. to prepare for worship. He talks to his own soul. I'm going to go and I'm going to speak and to sing good things concerning God. And one of the principal ways that he stirs himself up here practically is by reviewing the benefits that he's received from God. Forget not his many benefits. Because when you spend a lot of serious time meditating on what God has done for you in Christ Jesus, you'll find that worship will come very naturally from your converted heart and soul. And look at the review of what he does. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities? Here Jesus Christ or God through Jesus Christ has dealt with the guilt of my sins. Taken away the guilt of my sins so that I might have forgiveness. He heals my diseases. Breaking the power of that sin in my life. Sanctified me. Great and precious benefits. He saved my life from destruction. Both temporally and eternally. He's crowned me with loving kindness and tender mercies. I deserve destruction. But then he crowned me with loving kindness, with tender mercies, the most remarkable thing. See his grace here, how we are treated so much better than what we deserve. And he satisfied my mouth with good things all the days of my life. So I'm being constantly renewed. This is the way that David deals with his own heart. Here's a man who knew something about worship and prayer, knew how to prepare himself to sing unto God. and he does it by stirring himself in this way so you wake up on a on a Lord's Day morning a little sleepy and a little sluggish and not quite feeling like it come to the hundred and third psalm and remind yourself of what your God has done for you and then come into his courts with thanksgiving and praise in your hearts because he's done great and marvelous things a second use and then we'll conclude We must make use of the gifts that God has given or he may very well take them away from us. We must make use of the ordinances or God may take them away. That seems like a thing that's hard to imagine. We think in America we'll always have a church and there'll always be a place to go. But it is not so, and it has not always been so. My first preaching assignment, way back when, was through the book of Joel. And what we find in the book of Joel is that God had become so angry with His people concerning their sins, that that gift He had given, their worship, He took away from them. He arrested their normal manner of worship. Because normally, for the morning and evening sacrifice, you needed grain and you needed wine. But he cuts it off, there is no grain, there's no wine, there's hardly a lively bit of cattle for a sacrifice. Their normal form of worship grinds to a halt. He took it away from them so that they couldn't do it. And then the prophet comes to call them to an unusual service of worship. It's time for us to keep a vigil and adorn ourselves in sackcloth and ash and come to a service of fasting and repentance. so that God might lift this blight from our land and restore to us the joy of our normal worship. So God in his anger can take away from us the ordinance when we despise them and neglected them. God can take away from us more specifically the sermons and this in a lot of ways we must as I said, make use of the sermons or as we normally say, apply the sermons and that in several ways. We have to learn to meditate upon the truths that are delivered or they can be taken away from us. You remember the parable of the sower and the seed where it said that some went out upon this pathway and the bird, which is Satan, comes down and simply snatches it away from the people. That can happen to us. That's not just instructive about those other people over there that are in the kingdom of sin and death. That can be about us. We can be so anxious to get about our conversations with one another that that word that was just preached gets snatched away from us. And we don't think about it again until we hear it preached again. And it ought not to be so. This is one of the reasons why the Puritans were always anxious to be continually reviewing the sermon. You know, all of the week with the children so that that word that was sown wouldn't be snatched away. Because if we don't make use of it, God can judicially take it away and remove it from us. Say, you don't want it? Fine, I'll take it away from you and you won't have it. And you'll have to find your strength someplace else. and of course there's no strength in the place of us except in the ordinances when we hear the word of God preached and sins are dealt with we need to repent or make other application take up certain virtues or we will be hardened by it this is a very common dynamic you hear a sin preached against but you don't want to give up that sin does it make you mad? that's hardening under the ordinances I don't want to give that up That's a bad reaction and a scary thing. Paul talks about a certain kind of conscience that can become seared and insensitive to the Word and its preaching. Again, this is another way in which God can take that Word that was preached and given to us, a talent that was given to us, and take it back and give it to somebody that will make better use of it. God's given us all life, health, strength, and breath. For serving God and your brethren, you ought to be busy about doing so or that talent that's been given to you will be taken away. Your hearts will grow cold to one another if you're not applying those things and serving one another in love, diligently serving God in love. But we have this assurance so that I don't end on such a negative note. That if we make use of the talents that God has given, and we apply these things, what's the promise of the parable? He'll give you more than what you had. He will crown those talents that he gave you with more talents. And that's a wonderful and a precious promise. Let us pray. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096, or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton, that's E-D-M-O-N-T-O-N, Alberta, abbreviated capital A, capital B, Canada, T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Calvin, in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since He condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.