Blog

  • Announcing Acquisition of Peter Martyr Library

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    Announcing Acquisition of Peter Martyr Library

      We are pleased to announce that The Davenant Institute has just concluded a contract with Truman State University Press to take full possession of the Peter Martyr Library. Effective Jan. 1, 2018, TSUP will transfer all rights, electronic files, and hard copies of the ten volumes of the Peter Martyr Library (including its accompanying…

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  • Vermigli and the Descent Clause

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    Vermigli and the Descent Clause

    If you are like me and many other Christians throughout ecclesiastical history, you, no doubt, have questioned the meaning of the famous (or infamous) descent clause in the Apostles’ Creed: “He [that is, Jesus Christ] descended into hell.”

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  • How the Reformation Vanquished Death

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    How the Reformation Vanquished Death

    For the Christian, the threat of death, in whatever form it comes, does not have the final word. Jesus said it this way: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

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  • “Nursing Fathers”: The Magistrate and the Moral Law

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    “Nursing Fathers”: The Magistrate and the Moral Law

    Not many passages in the New Testament speak directly to political order. The first part of the thirteenth chapter of Romans is perhaps the most famous. I would like to focus in this essay on vv. 3-4, which may appear prima facie to be something of an interpretive crux. Are these verses descriptive or prescriptive?…

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  • Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ

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    Dialogue on the Two Natures in Christ

    The doctrine of the person of Christ—fully God and fully man—sits at the center of Christian theology, and also at the center of the long rift between the Reformed and Lutheran branches of the Protestant Reformation. Triggered by growing disputes over Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, leading Protestant theologians sought to parse more carefully the…

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  • Philosophical Works: On the Relation of Philosophy to Theology

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    Philosophical Works: On the Relation of Philosophy to Theology

    Throughout the history of Christianity, the relationship of philosophy and theology has been fraught with conflict and tension, but it is a conflict that no faithful Christian can ignore. At every period of church history, leading scholars and teachers of Scripture have also sought to compare and reconcile the Word of God with what can…

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  • The Oxford Treatise and Disputation On the Eucharist

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    The Oxford Treatise and Disputation On the Eucharist

    Few issues in the Reformation provoked so much controversy—or spilled so much blood—as debates over the Eucharist. For the Roman Catholic Church, the doctrine of transubstantiation was not merely based in Scripture and rooted in tradition and official church teaching; it was the keystone of the whole sacramental system through which the Church claimed spiritual…

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  • Predestination and Justification: Two Theological Loci

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    Predestination and Justification: Two Theological Loci

    How does a gracious God save stubborn sinners? We cannot answer this question without delving into two of the most challenging and hard-fought doctrines in Christian theology: predestination and justification. Both doctrines played a crucial role in the Protestant Reformation, provoking conflicts not merely between the Reformers and Rome but also within the ranks of…

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