Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda - "The church reformed, always reforming."
Reformation - "Change by removal of faults or abuses, and a restoration to a former good estate."
J.C. Ryle Old Paths
Jeremiah 6:16 - "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it..."
The longer I live the more I am convinced that the world needs no new gospel, as some profess to think. I am thoroughly persuaded that the world needs nothing but bold, full, unflinching teaching of the "old paths".
Stephen Marshall, Westminster Divine, in a sermon March 26, 1645 to the House of Lords on Psalm 102:16-17, “When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory, he will regard the Prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer.”
(Give yourselves to the work of)...purgation and reformation (and remove) all the rubbish, all the dross, the Antichristian … garbidge that the House of God is defiled with.
John Owen, The Glory of Christ
Let us live in the constant contemplation of the glory of Christ, and virtue will proceed from him to repair all our decays, to renew a right spirit within us, and to cause us to abound in all duties of obedience.
Josiah Pratt (1768–1844) curate of St John, Bedford Row in The Church Historians of England. Reformation Period. Acts and Monuments of John Foxe
Reform thy church with perfect doctrine and faithful teachers, that we, seeing our own weakness, may put off ourselves, and put on Him, without whom we can do nothing. So shall we stand strong, when nothing standeth in us, but thy Son alone, in whom thou art only pleased.
Renew in this thy church again the decayed faith of thy Son Jesus, which may plentifully bring forth in us, not leaves alone, but fruit of Christian life; and forgive our wretched idolatry, and blind fantasies past wherewith we have provoked in manifold ways they deserved indignation against us. For our hearts have been full of idols (and) our ways full of hypocrisy; thy sacraments profaned, and thy religion turned to superstition because the lantern of thy word went not before us, and we stumbled. We walk, and have walked along, after the precepts and doctrines of men having a show of wisdom, but not as holding the head (Colossians 1:19) wherein lieth all of our strength.
John Nevin The Anxious Bench
https://books.google.com/books?id=33IWAAAAYAAJ
If God would but reform the ministry, and set them on their duties zealously and faithfully, the people would certainly be reformed: all churches either rise or fall, as the ministry doth rise or fall; not in riches and worldly grandeur, but in knowledge, zeal, and ability for the work.
C.H. Spurgeon
“A Dirge for the Downgrade”, April 18, 1889
https://www.chspurgeon.com/a-dirge-for-the-down-grade-a-song-for-faith/
The Treasury of David on Psalm 80 "Turn us, and cause Thy face to shine."
(Restore us) to Thyself, convert us from the earthly to the heavenly; convert our rebellious wills to Thee, and when we are converted, show Thy countenance that we may know Thee; show Thy power that we man fear Thee; show thy wisdom that we may reverence Thee; show Thy goodness that we may love Thee...
Horatius Bonar
Our Ministry: How It Touches the Questions of the Age, 1883
Man is now thinking out a Bible for himself; framing a religion in harmony with the development of liberal thought; constructing a worship on the principles of taste and culture; shaping a god to suit the expanding aspirations of the age…
Life of John Milne of Perth
I suspect that much of the religion you will meet with has more of the flesh than of the Spirit; more of self than of Christ; more of the world than of the closet; more of working than what is more humbling—meek, patient, waiting on the Lord.
John Miley Systematic Theology
A religious movement with power to lift up souls into a true spiritual life must have its inception and progress in a clear and earnest presentation of the vital doctrines of religion. The order of facts in every such movement in the history of Christianity has been, first, a reformation of doctrine, and then, through the truer doctrine, a higher and better moral and spiritual life.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Remembering The Reformation” in an address in 1960 at Edinburgh's Usher Hall upon the 400th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland.
Published in Knowing the Times https://www.monergism.com/discerning-times
Perhaps the greatest of all the lessons of the Protestant Reformation is that the way of recovery is to go back; back to the (original) pattern, to the norm and the standard which are to be found alone in the New Testament.
Is this not the greatest need at the present time, to come back to the Word of God? Is this authoritative or is it not? There can be no health, there can be no authority in the church, until she comes back to this authority.
(The Reformers believed)…that a man is justified by faith alone without works (Romans 3:28), that a man is saved not by what he does but by the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8, 2 Timothy 1:9), that God justifies the ungodly (Romans 3:26), that God reconciles sinners unto himself (2 Corinthians 5:18). It is all of God and none of man…
The conclusion is that righteousness, and righteousness alone, exalts a nation, and there is no righteousness without preceding godliness. The times are cruel; the world is in a desperate plight; there is an appalling moral breakdown before our eyes.
How can we receive the power that we need? We must go back to the confessions (Hebrews 10:23), go back to the faith, go back to the Word, believe its truths, and in the light of it go with boldness, confidence, assurance, to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), to obtain mercy and find grace to help in (our) time of need.
A.W. Tozer
Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them.
After we have discovered what holy men believed, what great reformers and saints taught, what the purest souls and mightiest workers held to be important for holy living and dying - then we are in a fair position to appraise our own teaching. Humility is the only state of mind in which to approach the Scriptures. The Spirit will teach the humble soul those things that make for his salvation and for a holy walk and fruitful service here below. And little else matters.
The Size of the Soul, a collection of editorials written while editor of Alliance Life Magazine in the 1950s
"A Needed Reformation"
We must have a new reformation. There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement-mad, paganized pseudo-religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends.When the Roman church apostatized, God brought about the Reformation. When the Reformation declined, God raised up the Moravians and the Wesleys. When these movements began to die, God raised up fundamentalism and the "deeper life" groups.
Now that these have almost without exception sold out to the world - what next?
"The Gift of Prophetic Insight Imperative Today"
If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be by other means than any now being used. If the Church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.
Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many), he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.
Today the religious situation cries out for the skilled moral physician who can diagnose our ills and prescribe wisely for our cure. It is not enough simply to repeat correct doctrinal cliches. It is imperative right now that we have the benefit of the piercing discernment of the Spirit. We must not only know what God has said; we must hear what God is now saying.
The critical need in this hour of the church’s history is not what it is so often said to be: soul-winning, foreign missions, miracles. These are effects, not causes. The most pressing need just now is that we who call ourselves Christians should frankly acknowledge to each other and to God that we are astray; that we should confess that we are worldly, that our moral standards are low and we are spiritually cold. We need to cease our multitude of unscriptural activities, stop running when and where we have not been sent, and cease trying to sanctify carnal projects by professing that we are promoting them “in the name of the Lord” and “for the glory of God.” We need to return to the message, methods and objectives of the New Testament. We need boldly and indignantly to cleanse the temple of all that sell cattle in the holy place, and overthrow the tables of the money-changers. And this must be done in our own lives first and then in the churches of which we are a part.
The Warfare of the Spirit "Needed: A Reformation within the Church"
Evangelical Christianity, at least in the United States, is now tragically below the New Testament standard. Worldliness is an accepted part of our way of life. Our religious mood is social instead of spiritual. We have lost the art of worship. We are not producing saints. Our models are successful businessmen, celebrated athletes and theatrical personalities. We carry on our religious activities after the methods of the modern advertiser. Our homes have been turned into theaters. Our literature is shallow and our hymnody borders on sacrilege. And scarcely anyone appears to care.
We must have a better kind of Christian soon or within another half century we may have no true Christianity at all. Increased numbers of demi-Christians is not enough. We must have a reformation.
The Knowledge of the Holy
The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate its concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him—and of it. In all its prayers and labors, this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God that we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.
The Divine Conquest
Why do we build our churches upon human flesh? Why do we set such store by that which the Lord has long ago repudiated, and despise those things that God holds in such high esteem? For we teach men not to die with Christ but to live in the strength of their dying manhood. We boast not in our weakness but in our strength. Values that Christ has declared to be false are brought back into evangelical favor and promoted as the very life and substance of the Christian way. How eagerly do we seek the approval of this or that man of worldly reputation. How shamefully do we exploit the converted celebrity. Anyone will do to take away the reproach of obscurity from our publicity-hungry leaders: famous athletes, congressmen, world travelers, rich industrialists; before such we bow with obsequious smiles and honor them in our public meetings and in the religious press. Thus we glorify men to enhance the standing of the Church of God, and the glory of the Prince of Life is made to hang upon the transient fame of a man who shall die.
The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross; before that cross it bows and toward that cross it points with carefully staged histrionics—but upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear.
I should like to suggest that we Bible-believing Christians announce a moratorium on religious activity and set our house in order preparatory to the coming of an afflatus from above. So carnal is the body of Christians that composes the conservative wing of the Church, so shockingly irreverent are our public services in some quarters, so degraded are our religious tastes in still others, that the need for power could scarcely have been greater at any time in history. I believe we should profit immensely were we to declare a period of silence and self-examination during which each one of us searched his own heart and sought to meet every condition for a real baptism of power from on high.
We may be sure of one thing, that for our deep trouble there is no cure apart from a visitation, yes, an invasion of power from above. Only the Spirit Himself can show us what is wrong with us and only the Spirit can prescribe the cure. Only the Spirit can save us from the numbing unreality of Spiritless Christianity. Only the Spirit can show us the Father and the Son. Only the inworking of the Spirit's power can discover to us the solemn majesty and the heart ravishing mystery of the Triune God.
I think there can be no doubt that the need above all other needs in the Church of God at this moment is the power of the Holy Spirit. More education, better organization, finer equipment, more advanced methods—all are unavailing. These things can never give life. "The Spirit gives life..." (John 6:63) They can never bring power. "Power belongeth unto God." (Psalm 62:11 KJV)
It is not organizational unity we need most; the great need is (Holy Spirit) power. The headstones in the cemetery present a united front, but they stand mute and helpless while the world passes by.
Rut, Rot or Revival, sermons preached at Avenue Road Alliance Church, Toronto c. 1960
This describes most evangelicals today: carnal, immature, without miracles, without wonders, lacking a wonderful sense of the presence of the Lord, held together by social activities and nothing else.
Whatever the people are who make up the church, that is the kind of church it is--no worse and no better, no wiser, no holier, no more ardent and no more worshipful. To improve or change the church you must begin with individuals. When people in the church only point to others for improvement and not to themselves, it is sure evidence that the church has come to dry rot. It is proof of three sins: the sin of self-righteousness, the sin of judgment and the sin of complacency.
The Holy Spirit is grieved by (sin in the church). So the people move around their circular grave not hearing the voice much any more. They used to hear it, "Get up, get up. You've been in this place long enough. Get up! Move! There's the land before you—I've given it to you. It's all in the covenant; it is all in the purchase of the blood. It is all yours. Get up and move toward me. Move toward the holy place and the holy land and your possessions. Victory and deliverance and power in prayer—it is all yours. Rise up and take it." They once heard that signal coming strongly to them, but it is not coming so strongly any more. The Holy Spirit is grieved and does not talk so much. And the people move around in their circular grave.
We have God. We have Christ. We have truth. We have a world needing help. We have the saints, and we have the power of prayer. We have the joy of obedience and we have the sweet wonder of His presence. We have the joy of Christian song. We have all this and we do not need garbage. All we have to do is trust in His Son Jesus Christ and obey the truth, and the Lord will manifest Himself.
The church should be a healthy, fruitful vineyard that will bring honor to Christ, a church after Christ's own heart where He can look at the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Among the people should be a beautiful simplicity and a radiant Christian love so it would impossible to find gossips and talebearers. There should be a feeling of humble reverence and an air of joyous informality, where each one esteems others better than himself or herself, where everyone is willing to serve but no one jockeys to serve. Childlike candor without duplicity or dishonesty should mark the church, and the presence of Christ should be felt. Prayers should be answered so regularly that we think nothing of it. It would be common because God is God, and we are His people. When necessary, miracles would not be uncommon. Is that, in the light of Scripture, unreasonable and undesirable to expect of a church?
“Problems and Pressures”
Have we taken God’s grace seriously enough that we have sought forgiveness for spiritual carelessness, indifference and apathy.
D.A. Carson A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers
http://books.google.com/books?id=E1eAh34JWm4C
We ask you for your blessing, for the power of the Spirit, that we may know you better and grow in our grasp of your incalculable love for us. Bless us, Lord God, not with ease or endless triumph, but with faithfulness. Bless us with the right number of tears, and with minds and hearts that hunger to know and do your Word. Bless us with a profound hunger and thirst for righteousness, a zeal for truth, a love of people. Bless us with the perspective that weighs all things from the vantage point of eternity. Bless us with a transparent love of holiness.
Grant to us strength in weakness, joy in sorrow, calmness in conflict, patience when opposed or attacked, trustworthiness under temptation, love when we are hated, firmness and farsightedness when the climate prefers faddishness and drift.
We beg of you, holy and merciful God, that we may be used by you to extend your kingdom widely, to bring many to know and love you truly.
Grant above all that our lives will increasingly bring glory to your dear Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
William Cowper "Expostulation"
When nations perish in their sins,
‘Tis in the church the leprosy begins:
The priest whose office is, with zeal sincere
To watch the fountain, and preserve it clear,
Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink,
While others poison what the flock must drink;
Or waking at the call of lust alone,
Infuses lies and errors of his own:
His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure,
And tainted by the very means of cure,
Catch from each other a contagious spot,
The foul forerunner of a general rot.
Then truth is hush’d that heresy may preach,
And all is trash that reason cannot reach;
Then God’s own image on the soul impress’d,
Becomes a mock’ry and a standing jest,
And faith, the root whence only can arise,
The graces of a life that wins the skies,
Loses at once all value and esteem,
Pronounc’d by grey beards a pernicious dream.
Then ceremony leads her bigots forth,
Prepar’d to fight for shadows of no worth,
While truths on which eternal things depend,
As soldiers watch the signal of command,
They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand,
Happy to fill religion’s vacant place,
With hollow form and gesture and grimace.
John Calvin, Tracts and Letters Vol. 1, “The Necessity of Reforming the Church”
While God, then, was thundering from heaven, were we to sit quiet?
J. H. Merle d’Aubigné The Reformation in England
The only true Reformation is that which emanates from the Word of God.
William Booth, on the coming 20th century
I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, 1966
The greatest need of the hour is an … outpouring of the Holy Spirit in … revival. Nothing else throughout the centuries has ever given the Church true authority and made her, and her message, mighty. But what right have we to pray for this, or to expect that he will honour or bless anything but the truth that he himself enabled the authors of the Old Testament and the New Testament to write? To ask him to do so is not only near blasphemy but also the height of folly. Reformation and revival go together and cannot be separated. He is the Spirit of truth, and he will honour nothing but the truth.
A.W. Tozer "The Knowledge of the Holy"
O Lord, forsake us not. Raise up prophets and seers in Thy Church who shall magnify Thy glory and through Thine almighty Spirit restore to Thy people the knowledge of the holy. Amen.