I acknowledge and bewail before thee, O thou living and all-seeing God, my sinful dullness, and backwardness to the duties of thy holy service. When I should delight in the law or God, and serve thee with gladness, and make it my meat and drink to do the will of my heavenly Father, O how cold and listless am I in the performance or that which is best for me, and which most nearly and eternally concerns me! I am alive to the world, and very apt to be transported with the objects of sense: but O how heavy and dead in those offices or attendance on my Lord, which are the joy and glory of all the hosts of heaven: my soul cleaveth to the dust; quicken me, O Lord, according to thy word: according to thy precept, which commands us to be spiritually-minded, and to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. And quicken me, O my God, according to the word or thy promise, that sin shall not have dominion over thy servants, and that thou wilt perfect that which concerneth them. Dear Lord! be thou pleased to perfect that which concerns my soul, and engage the love of my heart to thy service. Let it be my delight to do thy will, O God, and with an enlarged heart to run the way of thy commands. O help me to put forth myself with vigour and activity in thy holy ways: and to apply myself to the performance of thy blessed will, not only because I must, but because it is the desire of my soul, and the joy of my heart, to be so engaged: let nothing in the world give me so much pleasure and satisfaction as to approve my heart unto thee, my God, and to have all my works acceptable in thy sight, through Jesus Christ, my only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

Benjamin Jenks, Prayers and Offices for Devotion, altered and improved by Charles Simeon (New York: Stanford and Sword, 1850), 162.

Our era imagines social policy to be determinative for a people’s future: if disaster strikes, policy is how we address it. However, the social act that leads any policy in Israel to succeed is obeying YHWH’s voice. No other change—political reform, economic development, social revolution, not even the many policies in Duet. 12-26—can counter the covenant’s curses on rebels; only repentance and restoration to fruitful obedience can accomplish it.

Telford Work, Deuteronomy, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible, ed. R. R. Reno (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2009), 246.

I just figured out this useful script for AutoHotKey.

;Windows key+a will toggle a window to always on top or not.
#a::WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, toggle, A

It is therefore in vain that so many burning lamps shine for us in the workmanship of the universe to show forth the glory of its Author. Although they bathe us wholly in their radiance, yet they can of themselves in no way lead us into the right path. Surely they strike some sparks, but before their fuller light shines forth these are smothered. For this reason, the apostle, in that very passage where he calls the worlds images of things invisible, adds that through faith we understand that they have been fashioned by God’s word [Heb. 11:3]. He means by this that the invisible divinity is made manifest in such spectacles but that we have not the eyes to see this unless hey be illumined by the inner revelation of God through faith.

Institutes, 1.5.14

That brightness which is borne in upon the eyes of all men both in heaven and on earth is more than enough to withdraw all support from men’s ingratitude—just as God, to involve the human race in the same guilt, sets forth to all without exception his presence portrayed in his creatures. Despite this, it is needful that another better help be added to direct us aright to the very Creator of the universe. It was not in vain, then, that he added the light of his Word by which to become known unto salvation . . . . Just as old or bleary-eyed men and those with weak vision, if you thrust before them a most beautiful volume, even if they recognize it to be some sort of writing, yet can scarcely construe two words, but with the aid of spectacles will begin to read distinctly; so Scripture, gathering up the otherwise confused knowledge of God in our minds, having dispensed with our dullness, clearly shows us the true God.

Institutes, 1.6.1

Although Holy Scripture contains a perfect doctrine, to which one can add nothing, since in it our Lord has meant to display the infinite treasures of his wisdom, yet a person who has not much practice in it has good reason for some guidance and direction, to know what he ought to look for in it, in order not to wander hither and thither, but to hold to a sure path, that he may always be pressing toward the end to which the Holy Spirit calls him.

John Calvin, “Subject Matter of the Present Work: From the French Edition of 1560,” in The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 6.

The quotation cited in a previous post is interesting because

1. It addresses a objection that the Romanists launched against Protestantism: the diversity of opinion that results from the lack of an infallible interpreter.
2. Calvin doesn’t try to resolve the problem of subjectivity on hermeneutical grounds as the critics who followed did (i.e., follow this interpretive method, turn the crank, and out comes an objective interpretation). He, instead, located a great part of the problem in the moral realm.

Were Jewish commentators embarrassed by the prayers for punishment? Certainly modern Christian commentators are thus embarrassed . . . . There is some irony in the fact that the point where the NT concentrates most of its use of the psalm is where commentators see it as unworthy of the NT.

John Goldingay, Pslams 42-89, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms, ed. Tremper Longman III (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 355f.

But we ever find, that even those who have not been deficient in their zeal for piety, nor in reverence and sobriety in handling the mysteries of God, have by no means agreed among themselves on every point; for God hath never favoured his servants with so great a benefit, that they were all endued with a full and perfect knowledge in every thing; and no doubt, for this end—that he might first keep them humble; and secondly, render them disposed to cultivate brotherly intercourse. Since then what would otherwise be very desirable cannot be expected in this life, that is, universal consent among us in the in the interpretation of all parts of Scripture, we must endeavour, that, when we depart from the sentiments of our predecessors, we may not be stimulated by any humour for novelty, nor impelled by any lust for defaming others, not instigated by hatred, nor tickled by any ambition, but constrained by necessity alone, and by the motive of seeking to do good: and then, when this is done in interpreting Scripture, less liberty will be taken in the principles of religion, in which God would have the minds of his people to be especially unanimous.

From the Epistle Dedicatory to Calvin’s commentary on Romans