Online Articles
Our Name and Its Significance
Sovereign describes God's exercise of absolute dominion and power over His creation. God alone is the Sovereign. God alone is the Almighty. He rules and reigns supreme over everything and everyone. He accomplishes all His secret will and all His purposes are realized. Nothing can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will of decree. The children of God find comfort, encouragement, assurance, and blessing in knowing and living the reality that in all things, including spiritual and physical, none but God is sovereign.
The Necessity of the Atonement
by Francis Turretin (1623-1687)
The following essay was part of a larger volume of Turretin's work (in an English translation) on the atonement published in Philadelphia in 1817. It was originally titled "A Historical Sketch of Opinions on the Atonement..." and was translated by James R. Wilson (1780-1846). This article is now in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.
Should Predestination Be Publicly Taught and Preached?
by Francis Turretin (1623-1687)
The following article has been extracted from Turrettin's Institutio Theologiae Elencticae (Question 6). This e-text makes use of the unedited translation of George Musgrave Giger (professor of Latin at Princeton University, 1854-1865); it is now in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.
Man's Utter Inability to Rescue Himself
by Thomas Boston (1676-1732)
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.[Romans 5:6]
No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. [John 6.44]
The following article has been extracted from Boston's classic work Human Nature In Its Fourfold State (Chapter 3, pp. 183-197). This text, which was first published in 1720, is now in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.
A Practical View of Regeneration
by Archibald Alexander (1772-1851)
The following essay was originally published in the Princeton Theological Review, 1836. It is in the public domain and may be freely copied and distributed.
That human nature has lost that moral purity and perfection with which it was originally endued, is a truth which lies at the heart of the Christian religion. Indeed, we see not how it can be denied by the deist, without casting a gross reflection on the character of God. It is only from the Scriptures, however, that we learn the origin of evil. Here we read, that God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions. Man being in honor continued not. When God created man he formed him in his own image and after his own likeness; and what that image consisted in, the apostle Paul informs us, when he speaks of the new creation. "And that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The phrase "after God," means after the image of God. This is expressed in the parallel passage, "Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."