Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, October 14, 2013

Tractarians & Syncretism: 15 October (c.) 930 B.C., King Jeroboam 1 (1 King 12.25-33)

15 October (c.) 930 B.C. 1 King 12.25-33.

King Jeroboam 1 (930-909 B.C) set up his false, invented and distracting worship at Bethel and Dan to void and vitiate ordained and prescriptive worship in Jerusalem. He didn’t want northern Israelites heading south and, perhaps, retaining their Biblico-theological heritage, remembrances, strengths, and allegiances with the Covenanting-God of Israel. He needed ignorance as his co-ally. As such, he, Jeroboam, joins the long and lamentable list of those in the service of Anti-Christ. He may have coordinated his own false worship to the same time, or roughly the same time, as the Feast of Tabernacles, the 15th of Sept-Oct (12.32-33). It was a crafty move. He mixed in some religious elements, e.g. sacrifices, priest and the calendar. He copied the time. This he devised “in his own heart” (12.33). He, as a king, not only trespassed his lines of authority, but he invented his own sacrificial system with shrines, two calves of gold, and the creation of a priestly class “from every class of people” with burned incense offerings. It was entirely disorderly. Jeroboam feared that Israelites might go up to Jerusalem and he intended to obstruct the ordained worship of Jehovah. Jeroboam was wicked and acted freely according to his own corruptions. This also signaled the judgment upon Israel for Solomon’s manifested and perpetual corruptions.

Sounds like these damnable and abominable issues like invoking departed saints. Like Tractarians and toleraters of them. We can have no part with "it" or "them."  Men who mix and syncretize things, catching the weak-minded and weak-willed (leaders too).

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