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The Significance of the Word of God for Calvin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John T. McNeill
John T. McNeill
Affiliation:
East Middlebury, Vermont
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Extract

In the Reformation the phrase “The Word of God” was mighty and prevailed. It was pronounced with assurance and heard with acceptance. To use it was to invoke in one's behalf a divine utterance of incontestible authority, that was documented of old in the canonical scriptures but now freshly reverenced and understood after long centuries of disregard. The Reformation was, or at any rate aimed to be, a reform of the visible church by applying to it the superior authority of the Word of God, so that the Word may be said to be the panoply of the Reformation, its all-sufficient armor and resource. This appears from Luther's early writings through Calvin's whole work, and that of Protestant writers to a much later era, and is a familiar note in our day.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 131 - 146
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1959

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References

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