God alone is the light that enlightens everyone

 "God is the sun and the light of souls, the light that lights every man that comes into this world, and this is not an opinion new to our times. After Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers, who have always preferred Plato to Aristotle, I remember having previously noted that from the time of the Scholastics, several believed that God is the light of the soul and, in their way of speaking, the active intellect of the rational soul." - G.W. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays, Page 30

The Bible says Christ is the light of every man in John 1. This is Epistemological, along with Hebrews 6.

Philosophy makes man human

"A man is a 'philosopher' by virtue of being more THOROUGHLY human: he is a 'philosopher' precisely because he possesses and cherishes above the rest of mankind that 'love of wisdom' which is a part of all human nature and because he more reflectively and critically brings to the light and examines the largest and widest implications of the life of all men." - Martin, Clark, Clarke, and Ruddick, A History of Philosophy, pg. 5

To have Facts is one thing, But one needs to Interpret them correctly

"One can show from the psychological data alone how to get on the track of the real man. 'We have facts,' they say. But facts are not everything - at least half the business lies in how you interpret them!" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, pg. 70

What is wrong with history apart from divine written Revelation?

"The history of philosophy began with naturalism, and so far as this volume is concerned it ends with naturalism. The Presocratic naturualism dissolved into Sophism, from which a metaphysics arose; and the metaphysics lost itself in a mystic trance. Then under the influence of an alien source, Western Europe appealed to a divine revelation. In the sixteenth century one group put their complete trust in revelation, while another development turned to unaided human reason. This latter movement has now abandoned its metaphysics, its rationalism, and even the fixed truths of naturalistic science. It has dissolved into Sophism. Does this mean that philosophers and cultural epochs are nothing but children who pay their fare to take another ride on the merry-go-round? Is this Nietzsche's eternal recurrence? Or, could it be that a choice must be made between skeptical futility and a word from God? To answer this question for himself, the student, since he cannot ride very fast into the future and discover what a new age will do, might begin by turning back to the first page and pondering the whole thing over again. This will at least stave off suicide for a few days more." - Gordon H. Clark, Thales to Dewey, Pg. 533 - 534

The whole point of Clark's work comes down to this that Philosophy unaided by Divine Revelation knows nothing. We see the fact that philosophy without the Bible alone (The word of God alone) conjures up several different ideas and views as time goes on. These ideas, to say the least, are wrong. This does not mean that no human being apart from Scripture alone cannot know some things that are helpful; however, it does mean that man apart from Scripture alone cannot know the truth. Truth is the reality of the world, truth is eternal, truth is God. It is God who is truth, who is eternal. We know God by Scripture alone.

What is wrong with man is the measure of all things?

In the attack against Heracleitus and Protagoras, Plato says that they ultimately make man the measure of all things. For what appears to me to be cold may appear to you to be warm. Or what appears to me to be big may appear small to you. No one person may or can have the same perception. Perhaps this is the fault with those who trust that we know thinga by our senses. But, if one percieves a different quality in an object than another one does should we say that truth is therefore subjective? Perhaps the fault lies in our senses. How do we know what is truth? Of course the Bible alone is the word of God. God has revealed the Bible to us. God is truth, logic, and eternal. Therefore, the Bible alone is truth. God alone reveals it.

George Berkeley to be sure was an empiricist. If we are only limited to what our eyes are capable of seeing then we would not truly be able to understand or know anything at all. We couldn't make any judgment as to the truth of one religion or philosophy from another. How do we know truth? We know it based on Scripture alone anything else simply reduces itself to skepticism. The Bible alone is the word of God.

Importance of Education

I'm reading Plato's Republic. Plato to be sure was a heathen philosopher. However, he speaks of education and upbringing as things to be protected and guarded against corruption in book 4. Plato speaks of music, poetry, and physical training that easily corrupts these two things.
Today, we have even more things that corrupt the minds of men and women every where. You might be able to think of some things but I know that today music, movies, medicine, the foods we eat, the drinks we drink are all things that are used by the system to distort the minds of the masses. Even the News channels all give out bias ideas.
The Christian, however, depends not on these things for truth for living but lives by every word from God alone. So what does this mean? It means that if one is married, or is unmarried, how we are to live is not by experience. But we are to live according to the word of God. The Bible alone is the word of God and tells us how we are to live not the media.
If it is one thing that is honorable about Martin Luther, other than parts, if not all of his theology,  then it's the fact that he stressed education: we need to learn the languages, we need to teach our children, and we need to keep the libraries and books. After all uneducated men and women will allow anything to happen to them even to the point that they let other people tell them what truth is or is not.
For many Christians, or those who profess to be so, knowledge is well despised. Of course this is nothing new people have despised knowledge since the beginning of the first sin. However, the Bible encourages understanding and knowledge of the truth. Philippians 2:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 5:1-3; Colossians 1:9; Ephesians 1:9, 17-18, 4:23-24. In fact this seems to be the purpose of the Exodus that the Egyptians might know God (and also the Jewish people no doubt) - Exodus 14:4, Deuteronomy 4:35-36. Of course God's people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. 1 Thessalonians 4 seems to make the effect of our sanctification in knowledge.

The Bible also says,

25At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. 26Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. 27All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 - Matthew 11

"Light" here is taken to mean knowledge and not some sort of weight. Christ is the radiance and glory of God and has revealed his truth to man. He is therefore said to be the light of the world. He is not dark but light and in him does the fullness of deity dwell. Of course in context 28 comes after 27.

Gordon H. Clark says, "But now we have fallen into an 'ocean of arguments' no less deep and wide than Plato's Parmenides. Suppose the child, the human being, is an evolutionary product, simply a more complicated animal, without a soul, especially without an immortal soul. The late Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, said, 'I can see no reason for attributing to man a significant difference in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or to a grain of sand. . . . I wonder if cosmically an idea is any more important than the bowels.' Bertrand Russell's famous passage, quoted in chapter three, builds life and therefore education 'only on the firm foundation and unyielding despair.' The end of man is a doom, pitiless and dark. All the labor of the ages is destined to extinction and must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. Suppose on the other hand that God created man in His own image and breathed into him the breath of life, with the result that those redeemed by Christ shall glorify God and enjoy him forever.
Teachers teach pupils. But whereas a teacher with the first view of what a pupil is teaches despair along with arithmetic or social consciousness; the teacher with the second view teaches hope.
In these two views, naturalism and theism, are interwined all the strands of philosophy. Even the question whether the government should control education for its own ends and ban God from the schools, or whether the church, home, or private corporations should do the educating, depends on what man is. Once admit that the teacher teaches pupils, it is impossible to rule out any part of philosophy as irrelevant.
Among the considerations that have come under review, some mention has been made of the effect of government on education. Mention should also be made of the effect, or alleged effect, of education on government. Americans often speak of public education as if it were the main support of democracy. Without an educated populace all sorts of evils would proliferate, and the professional educators claim that unless legislatures appropriate almost unlimited amounts of tax money for the schools, the nation will shortly collapse. The fact of the matter is that with hundreds of billions already appropriated for public education, all sorts of evils have proliferated and the nation is already collapsing. A Justice of the United States Supreme Court was forced to resign in the 1960's because of suspicious financial arrangements. The 1970's and 1980's have seen a series of national scandals in all three branches of the government. No wonder America raises its crime rate faster than it inflates its money." -Gordon H. Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education, Pg. 8-9

Also Theodore Beza says,

"The Kingdom of God is not a Kingdom of ignorance, but of faith and, consequently, of knowledge; for it is beyond the ability of anyone to believe that which he is ignorant of." - Theodore Beza, Preface of Theodore Beza in The Christian Faith, pg. iv

Cannot believe the Gospel without believing that God is sovereign over all things

Grace in its whole progress must appear divine or sovereign; for when we lose sight of Sovereignty, we lose sight of Deity. It is of God that one man comes to the light, while another remains in darkness. It is of God that the love of one professor warms upon the trial and is accordingly crowned with consolation, while that of another waxes cold. - Robert Sandeman, An Epistolary Correspondence, pg. 89-90

Has anyone seen God face to face?

Read Exodus 33 today, lets face it the skeptic/atheist, who does not wish for God to come near in truth, hates the word of God with such blatant passion that they are equally set against it and wants to destroy the consistent nature of Verbal Revelation. They use attacks such as Paradoxes, which Van Til so uses in his false presuppositions, to deny and cause doubt of the word of God. But, what is the meaning of these verses and how does one iron out the details to eliminate the charley horse?


11. And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face Moses will hereafter be dignified by this distinction, where God would declare the difference between him and other Prophets. (Numbers 12:8.) Familiar intercourse is therefore described in this phrase, as if it were said that God appeared to Moses by an extraordinary mode of revelation. If any object that there is a contradiction between this statement and what we shall presently see, "Thou canst not see my face," the solution is easy, viz., that although God revealed Himself to Moses in a peculiar manner, still He never appeared in the fullness of His glory, but only so far as man's infirmity could endure. For this expression contains an implied comparison, i.e., that no man was ever equal to Moses, or arrived at such a pitch of dignity. And this tends to magnify the Law, that Moses its minister reported what he had familiafly learnt, so that no ambiguity might be suspected. When it is said that Joshua departed not from the tabernacle, we gather that the dwelling-place of Moses was in the camp; and perhaps the fact of his being a young man is mentioned, [365] in order more highly to illustrate God's grace, in choosing that he should have the charge of the sanctuary. It is true that Joshua at this time was of mature age; but God's special blessing was manifested in him, in that God passed over many old men, and set him who was younger to be the keeper of His tabernacle. - John Calvin, Commentary on Exodus

Christ's burden is knowledge of the truth

25At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. 26Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight. 27All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

 - Matthew 11

"Light" here is taken to mean knowledge and not some sort of weight. Christ is the radiance and glory of God and has revealed his truth to man. He is therefore said to be the light of the world. He is not dark but light and in him does the fullness of deity dwell. Of course in context 28 comes after 27.

Definition of faith

We must then seek for some other method of distinguishing a false faith from a true, otherwise we shall be misled, as this to be feared many are, upon this way of stating it. What if after all these laboured complicated definitions of faith, it should appear, that the difference between one sort of faith and another, does not lie in any circumstances or consequences of it, but only in this, that what one believes is the truth, while what another believes is a falsehood, or some lie connected with the truth. - Samuel Pike, Free Grace Indeed!, pg. 41

God is good to those who LOVE Him and is a punisher of the wicked

"I do not yet allude to the peculiar covenant which distinguished the descendants of Abraham from the rest of the nations. For in receiving, by gratuitous adoption, those who were his enemies into the number of his children, God even then manifested himself as a Redeemer, but we are still treating of that knowledge which relates to creation of the world, without ascending to Christ the Mediator. But though it will be useful to cite some passages from the New Testament, (since that also demonstrates the power of God in the creation, and his providence in the conservation of the world,) yet I wish the reader to be apprized of the point now intended to be discussed, that he may not pass the limits which the subject prescribes. At present, then, let it suffice to understand how God, the former of heaven and earth, governs the world which he hath made. Both his parental goodness, and the beneficent inclinations of his will, are every where celebrated; and examples are given of his severity, which discover him to be the righteous punisher of iniquities, especially where his forbearance produces no salutary effects upon the obstinate." - John Calvin, I. X. I.


In one sense I read this and it seems to speak against the conclusion of common grace in Calvin. Especially when in Book 1 he is speaking about the general knowledge of God and how we derive such knowledge.

The Spirit uses the word of God alone to speak to his people.

"How diabolical, then, is that madness which pretends that the use of the Scripture is only transient and temporary, which guides the sons of God to the highest point of perfection! I would also ask them another question - whether they have imbibed a different spirit from that which the Lord promised to his disciples? Great as their infatuation is, I do not think them fanatical enough to hazard such an avowal. But what kind of Spirit did he promise? One, truly, who should 'not speak of himself,' but suggest and instil into their minds those things which he had orally delivered. The office of the Spirit, then, which is promised to us, is not to feign new and unheard of revelations, or to coin a new system of doctrine, which would seduce us from the received doctrine of the Gospel, but to seal to our minds the same doctrine which the Gospel delivers." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I. IX. I.

"But in the same place the Apostle also calls his preaching 'the ministration of the Spirit;' doubtless intending, that the Holy Spirit so adheres to his own truth, which he hath expressed in the Scriptures, that he only displaces and exerts his power where the word is received with due reverence and honour. Nor is this repugnant to what I before asserted, that the word itself has not much certainty with us, unless when confirmed by the testimony of the Spirit. For the Lord hath established a kind of mutual connection between the certainty of his word and of his Spirit; so that our minds are filled with a solid reverence for the word, when by the light of the Spirit we are enabled therein to behold the Divine countenance; and on the other hand, without the least fear of mistake, we gladly receive the Spirit, when we recognize him in his image, that is, in the word. This is the true state of the case." - Ibid. I. IX. III.

There is no separating the agency of the Holy Spirit from the knowledge of the truth. To know the truth is life eternal; and this life is begun and supported by the Spirit of Christ. On the other hand, all who resist the truth, and do not admit its evidence, are expressly said to resist the Holy Ghost. We ought not, then, to imagine, with the popular preachers that the gospel can in any respect be considered as a dead letter, or destitute of Divine power. For being the voice of God, it is unchangeably powerful to save all who believe it, and to destroy all who oppose it. Believers are said to grieve the Holy Spirit, when they neglect to hearken to the words of the gospel, and their consciences are answerably grieved, when they are brought to repentance. - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio

The Church is built on the foundation of the Scripture alone and not the other way around

The Apostle ". . . testifies that the church is 'built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets'. If the doctrine of the prophets and apostles be the foundation of the Church, it must have been certain, antecedently to the existence of the Church. Nor is there any foundation for this cavil, yet it remains doubtful what writings are to be ascribed to the prophets and apostles, unless it be determined by the Church. for if the Christian Church has been from the beginning founded on the writings of the prophets and the preaching of the apostles, wherever that doctrine is found, the approbation of it has certainly preceded the formation of the Church; since without it the Church itself had never existed. It is a very false notion, therefore, that the power of judging of the Scripture belongs to the Church, so as to make the certainty of it dependent on the Church's will. Wherefore, when the Church receives it, and seals it with her suffrage, she does not authenticate a thing otherwise dubious or controvertible, but, knowing it to be the truth of her God, performs a duty of piety, by treating it with immediate veneration." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I. VII. II.

Nature does not give us knowledge of what God is

"The mystical theology of the Egyptians also shows that they all sedulously endeavoured to preserve the appearance of reason in the midst of their folly. And any thing apparently probable might at first sight, perhaps, deceive the simple and incautious; but there never was any human invention by which religion was not basely corrupted. And this confused diversity emboldened the Epicureans, and other gross despisers of piety, to reject all idea of God. For, seeing the wisest of men contending with each other for contrary opinions, they hesitated not, from their discussions, and from the frivolous and absurd doctrines maintained by the different parties, to infer, that it was vain and foolish for men to torment themselves with investigations concerning God, who does not exist. And this they thought they might do with impunity, supposing that a compendious denial of any God at all would be better than feigning uncertain gods, and thereby occasioning endless controversies. they reason very ignorantly, or rather endeavor to conceal their own impiety behind the ignorance of men, which not at all justifies any encroachment on God. But from the general confession, that there is no subject productive of so many dissensions among the learned as well as the unlearned, it is inferred, that the minds of men, which err so much in investigations concerning God, are extremely blind and stupid in celestial mysteries. Others commend the answers of Simonides, who, being asked by Hiero the Tyrant what God was, requested a day to consider it. When the tyrant, the next day, repeated the inquiry, he begged to be allowed two days longer; and, having often doubled the number of days, at length answered, 'The longer I consider the subject, the more obscure it appears to me.' He prudently suspended his opinion on a subject so obscure to him; yet this shows that men, who are taught only by nature, have no certain, sound, or distinct knowledge, but are confined to confused principles, so that they worship an unknown God." - John Calvin, The Institues, I. V. XII.

We are stupid apart and derive no advantage of the testimony of God in nature

"But, notwithstanding the clear representations given by God in the mirror of his works, both of himself and of his everlasting dominion, such is our stupidity, that, always inattentive to these obvious testimonies, we derive no advantage from them. For, with regard to the structure and very beautiful organization of the world, how few of us are there, who, when lifting up their eyes to heaven, or looking round on the various regions of the earth, direct their minds to the remembrance of the Creator, and do not rather content themselves with a view of his works, to the total neglect of their Author! And with respect to those things that daily happen out of the ordinary course of nature, is it not the general opinion, that men are rolled and whirled about by the blind temerity of fortune, rather than governed by the providence of God? Or if, by the guidance and direction of these things, we are ever driven (as all men must sometimes be) to the consideration of a God, yet, when we have rashly conceived an idea of some deity, we soon slide into our own carnal dreams, or depraved inventions, corrupting by our vanity the purity of divine truth. We differ from one another, in that each individual imbibes some peculiarity of error; but we perfectly agree in a universal departure from the one true God, to preposterous trifles. This disease affects, not only the vulgar and ignorant, but the most eminent, and those who, in other things, discover peculiar sagacity." - John Calvin, The Institutes, I.V.XI

What does the Scripture mean?

"Now, though heretics rail at the word person, or some morose and obstinate men clamorously refuse to admit a name of human invention; since they cannot make us assert that there are three, each of whom is entirely God, nor yet that there are more gods than one, how very unreasonable is it to reprobate words which express nothing but what is testified and recorded in the Scriptures! It were better, say they, to restrain not only our thoughts, but our expressions also, within the limits of the Scripture, than to introduce exotic words, which may generate future dissensions and disputes, for thus we weary ourselves with verbal controversies; thus the truth is lost in altercation; thus charity expires in odious contention. If they call every word exotic, which cannot be found in the Scriptures in so many syllables, they impose on us a law which is very unreasonable, and which condemns all interpretation, but what is composed of detached texts of Scripture connected together. But if by exotic they mean that which is curiously contrived, and superstitiously defended, which tends to contention more than to edification, the use of which is either unseasonable or unprofitable, which offends pious ears with its harshness, and seduces person from the simplicity of the Divine word, I most cordially embrace their modest opinion. For I think that we ought to speak of God with the same religious caution, which should govern our thoughts of him, since all thoughts that we entertain concerning him merely from ourselves, are foolish, and all our expressions absurd. But there is a proper medium to be observed we should seek in the Scriptures a certain rule, both for thinking and for speaking by which we may regulate all the thoughts of our minds, and all the words of our mouths. But what forbids our expressing in plainer words, those things which, in the Scriptures, are, to our understanding, intricate and obscure, provided our expressions religiously and faithfully convey the true sense of the Scripture, and are used with modest caution, and not without sufficient occasion? Of this, examples sufficiently numerous are not wanting. But, when it shall have been proved, that the Church was absolutely necessitated to use the terms Trinity and Persons, if any one then censures the novelty of the words may he not be justly considered as offended at the light of the truth? As having no other cause of censure, but that the truth is explained and elucidated?" -John Calvin, The Institutes, I. XIII. III. (Emphasis is mine)




"It does not appear that those men who are so strenuous for the use of Scripture phrases only in articles of religion, have a greater value for the Scriptures than others; nay, not so much; for if we are to form a judgment of them by their sermons and writings, one would think they never read the Scriptures at all, or very little, since they make such an infrequent use of them; you shall scarcely hear a passage of Scripture quoted by them in a sermon, or produced by them in their writings; more frequently Seneca, Cicero, and others; and it looks as if they thought it very unpolite, and what might serve to disgrace their more refined writings, to fill their performances and the Socinians more lately, carry on their cause, and endeavor to support it by making use of unscriptural words and phrases; and therefore it is not with a very good grace that such men, or those of the same cast with them, object to the use of words and phrases not syllabically expressed in Scripture; and the rather since the Arians were the first that began to make use of unscriptural phrases, as Athanasius affirms." - John Gill, Introduction to Divinity of God, Pg. xxix

The hearers are to judge what is taught

"Christ says in Matthew 7[:15], 'beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.' Observing that he here assigns the judgment not to the prophets and teachers but to the pupils or to the sheep. For how could one beware of false prophets unless one examined judged, and gave a decision on their teaching? There can be no false prophets among the hearers but only among the teachers. Consequently all teachers and their teaching should and must be subject to the judgment of the hearers." - Martin Luther, Right and Power of a Christian Church, Pg. 327

Either you believe the truth or you do not

"Many popular preachers have considered themselves as a kind of factors, or rather ambassadors for God, commissioned and empowered by him to make offers of Christ and all his benefits unto men, upon certain terms, and to assure them of the benefits on their complying with the terms. Accordingly, they have not been negligent in setting forth the dignity of their character in this view, and they have plumed themselves not a little upon the offer they had to make, making frequent repetition of this their offer with great parade. But any one who reads the New Testament with tolerable attention, may see that there is as little foundation for any such offer, as there is for bestowing the title of God's ambassador on any man since the days of the apostles. The apostles were witnesses for God concerning Jesus of Nazareth; they land before men the infallible proofs, arising from their own knowledge, and from the prophecies of the Old Testament, showing that Jesus is the Christ. The effect of this was, that some believed and comforted with the apostles; and some disbelieved, and opposed them. The apostles then proclaimed a truth openly in the hearing of all men. And if it be still pled that they made offers we shall very willingly say, that they offered evidence for all that they testified; yea, that they not only offered, but freely produced it, let men make what use of it they would. They were witnesses for God to men, but they never bargained for God with men, however much some scriptural metaphors have been strained to that purpose. They never taught men to put forth any act, or to make one step of advance towards God, on the prospect that God would condescend and come down the rest of the infinite distance to meet them. This was neither suitable to their office, nor to the honour of that God whose character they drew. As to ordinary teachers, or ministers of the gospel, it is well if they be able to declare the simple truth, as contained in the writings of the apostles, and maintain it in opposition to every lie that men would endeavor to mix with it, in order to undermine it. This will procure honour enough to them in the minds of those who love that truth; and such teachers will be far from assuming an air of importance over others, as if they had anything to offer to them more than the meanest lover of the truth has, who will be ready, as occasion requires, to offer any man an account of the evidence by which he himself is convinced of the truth." - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio

Popular Preachers itch the ears of those who do not love the truth

"If I should say, that our modern demagogues have done more hurt to the souls of men, than all those stigmatized with the name of infidel writers have done together, the reflection would be thought odious. I would be referred to many passages in their treatises, asserting almost every branch of the Christian doctrine, in words not easily to be contradicted; and though I might fairly show a complete system of self-dependence to be contained in these same treatises, yea, to be the leading scope and design of them, yet it is easy to see that such a discovery, or any attempt toward it, behooved to meet with the greatest opposition from all who feed on this compound doctrine, especially from those have the largest share of religious pride. For men do not choose to be scared away by arguments from the food which they love best.
If you should throw some handfuls of barley among ever so great a quantity of pearls, the poultry will indeed resort to the pearls; but it is their natural food that draws them: they sometimes do gravel, for the better digestion of their food; for it is the barley that fattens them. And well do the pastors, I speak of, know how to season and mix up the Christian truth with proper ingredients to suit the taste of the people, or, to express myself in more obsolete style, 'They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.' That I may not seem to have disjointed this ancient saying from its context, I would have it noticed, that the chief thing aimed at there is, to make us cautious of hearkening to every spirit or doctrine, by which men pretend to assure themselves of the favour of God, or that Christ abideth in them. The sacred writer, after showing us by what spirit he and his fellows were assured of this, adds, 'Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God.' Then giving us several rules to judge by, he sums them up in these words,'We (the apostles) are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us: he that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.' Keeping then this rule in our view, let us return to the examining of Aspasio." - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio