Tradition must give way to the clear statements of the Scripture

  “A concept which takes over where our comprehension ceases,” C. v. Orelli, D. hebr. Synonyma d. Zeit u Ewigkeit (1871), 70. I know there is nothing in the word or in the works of God that is repugnant to sound reason, but there are some things in both that are opposite to carnal reason as well as above right reason; and therefore our reason never shows itself more unreasonable than in summoning those things to its bar that transcend its sphere and capacity.  John Flavel (Elliot Ritzema and Elizabeth Vince, eds., 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Puritans, Pastorum Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).)  “The natural knowledge of God is imperfect mainly in two respects: (1) as regards its object, this being either altogether unknown (and here belongs the gospel, which is a mystery hidden from the ages), or not fully known (and here belongs the doctrine of the law, which man knows from natural sources only in part); (2) As regards its subject, either not recog...

  The church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it. Jerome Elliot Ritzema, 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Early Church, Pastorum Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013). Jesus is the witness, the faithful and true one (cf. Rev.1:5). μάρτυς-witness again edges toward its later meaning of “someone who dies for his faith.” Jesus has been faithful to death, and proven that the Father raises the faithful dead. He is the model for martyrs like Antipas (“in place of the Father”), who died in a Christlike way, and he is also the model for the two witnesses (Rev.11:3) and the witnesses  whose blood the harlot drinks .  Jesus’s blood, like Abel’s and like that of later martyrs’, witnesses against those who kill the saints, crying out for vindication and justice. Peter J. Leithart, Revelation, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, vol. ...