God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
The only [true] church…is truly apostolic. It is built on the foundation laid by the Apostles, and holds the doctrines which they preached. The two grand objects at which its members aim are apostolic faith and apostolic practice; and they consider the man who talks of following the Apostles without possessing these two things to be no better than sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
That we should say, that God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful…and yet that God does not decree the actions that are sinful, as sin, but decrees them as good, is really consistent… By decreeing an action as sinful, I mean decreeing it for the sake of the sinfulness of the action. God decrees that they shall be sinful, for the sake of the good that He causes to arise from the sinfulness thereof; whereas man decrees them for the sake of the evil that is in them.
