DKQ – Jonathan Edwards

“The Law of nature and the law of divine revelation teach us to be united with those that we dwell with in the same country, to have a special affection for them, and makes us in many respects one body with them.”

Jonathan Edwards
Miscellanies, no. 928, Works Vol 20 – pg. 171

“Before I dismiss this head of the degenerating of experiences, I would mention one thing more that tends to it; and that is, persons aiming in their experience to go beyond the rule of God’s word, i.e. aiming at that which is indeed in some respect, beyond the rule. Thus, some persons have endeavored utterly to root out and abolish all-natural affection, or any special affection or respect to their near relations, under a notion that no other love ought to be allowed but spiritual love, and all that other love is to be abolished as carnal, and that it becomes Christians to love none upon the account of anything else but the image of God; and that therefore love should go out to one and another only in their proportion in which the image of God is seen in them. They might as well argue that a man ought to utterly to disallow of, and endeavor to abolish, all love or appetite to his daily food under a notion that it is a carnal appetite, and that no other appetite should be tolerated but spiritual appetites. Why should the saints strive after that, as a high attainment in holiness, which the Apostle in Romans 1:31 mentions as one instance wherein the heathen had got to the most horrid pass in wickedness, vis. being without natural affections?… The Creator of the world has put them in us, for the good of mankind, and because He saw they would be needful for them in us, for the good of mankind, and because He saw they would be needful for them, as they must be united in society in the present state, and are of great use when kept in their proper place; and to endeavor to totally root them out, would be to reproach the wisdom of the Creator. Nor is the being of these natural inclinations, if well regulated, inconsistent with any part of our duty to God, or any argument of a sinful selfishness, any more than our natural abhorrence of pain, and the natural inclination to ease that was in the man Christ Jesus Himself.

It is the duty of parents to be more concerned and to pray more for the salvation of their children, than for the children of their neighbors as it is the duty of a minister to be more concerned for the salvation of the souls of his own flock, and to pray more for them, than those that live at a great distance; and the people of our land and nation are more, in some sense, committed to our care than the people of China, and we ought to pray more for them and more concerned that the kingdom of Christ should flourish among them, than in another country, where it would be as much, and no more, for the glory of God.”

Jonathan Edwards
A Narrative of Many Surprising Conversions, – p. 292

Clearly, if Edwards is correct above about having a natural affection for those closer to us than those farther from us then it is correct for someone like Chocolate Knox to be more burdened for Black people than white people to come to know Christ. The same would work in the contrary direction.

Continuing Chit Chat Between Spurgeon & McAtee

Rev. Jospeh Spurgeon (Hereinafter JS) writes,

Where we fundamentally part ways is that you collapse categories that Scripture keeps distinct.

The Bible teaches that sin is universal in Adam. It does not locate the primary engine of evil in one people group. It does not teach that one ethnos functions as a kind of ongoing, central delivery mechanism of satanic opposition.

BLMc responds,

1.) I categorically deny that I am collapsing categories that Scripture keeps distinct.

2.) I admit that in Adam’s fall, we fell all. Indeed, I subscribe to it.

3.) I also affirm that some people groups can excel in wickedness over other people groups. To put it another way, I do affirm that there can be such a thing as people groups who are senior Devil agents compared to other people groups who can be junior Devil agents. The Bagels have a long and storied history of opposing Christ and therefore, I follow the Holy Spirit who said that,

Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—

And again,

II Thess. 2:14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.

We see here, Joe, that just as Cretans per Paul, had dispositional sins that meant that they excelled at certain sins over other people groups, so the Bagels have a disposition of excelling at rejecting Christ. Now, this does not mean that individual Bagels can’t be redeemed by a graciousness that is beyond their treachery but it does mean that they are to be considered Senior rebels who excell at rebelling against the Lord and His Messiah.

JS writes,

On the question of neighbor, you have repeatedly avoided the clear teaching of our own tradition. John Calvin explicitly states that the Good Samaritan teaches that every man is our neighbor, precisely because all men are made in the image of God. He says this plainly and repeatedly. The Reformed tradition does not restrict the definition of neighbor to tribe or kin. It affirms ordered love, yes, but not restricted love.

Bret responds,

Joe, if there are differing degrees of neighborliness, which our Reformed Fathers taught, then all men are not our neighbors in the same way and in the same sense. As such to say “All men are our neighbors” apart from any of the kind clear qualifications that we find in the quote below from the Puritans Willard and Winthrop is a significant confusion that will lead people astray in their thinking in an area that has become overwhelmingly important in the ongoing replacement enterprise that WASPs are experiencing,

“There are diverse degrees of Neighborhood. The word ‘neighbor’ is very (comprehensive); it comprehends in it all with whom we may have any civil (Communion) and so the greatest and strangest, and (all) of men. And it involves all the several (nations) and religions. So, in this respect, some may be our nearer neighbors than others. A brother is nearer than a stranger, etc. Hence, there are necessary degrees of the Law. That we are to love all equally alike is asserted, and from (variance) of the relations with God hath (created) among men unto which are to be discharged by a special love one to another. Hence Psalm 16:3, ‘But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.’ There are some who we ought to be more concerned for than others.”

Samuel Willard
Puritan
Body of Divinity – pgs. 584-585

“We are not bound to exercise mercy to others to the ruin of ourselves.”

John Winthrop

Life and Letters of John Winthrop – p. 183

So, we see at times ordered love is restricted love in the sense that the word “love” has come to be used in our modern lexicon.

JS writes,

I believe in ordo amoris. I also believe the Scriptures call us to love those whom God places in our path, including those outside our immediate circle.

Bret responds,

But here everything hinges on what the word “love” means. Everything also hinges on understanding that one cannot love others to the ruin of ourselves or our kith and kin as Winthrop states above. So, I believe I am to love those God places in our path and my wife and I have lived that out. Several years ago we took in a homeless 21 year old professing Christian. It’s a long story but out of a sense of the requirement to “love” the least of these we took him in and gave him a home. I mention this only to distance myself from any accusation that I’m a cold hearted-bastard.

JS writes,

I have read Luther and Chrysostom on the Jews. I agree with much of what they said, especially in their historical contexts. Chrysostom, for example, was addressing a version of Hebrew roots movement in his day. But neither Chrysostom nor Luther made the Jews the central explanatory category for evil in the world. They spoke strongly, at times sharply, but they did not replace the biblical doctrine of sin with an ethnically centered framework.

Bret responds,

I strongly recommend that you read Calvin’s booklet “Response to questions and objections of a certain Bagel.” You can find it online.

Again, I say unto you, I am NOT denying that in Adam’s fall we fell all. I am affirming that some people groups excel at rebellion against the magnificent Lord Christ. Bagels are the Senior Rebels among all the people groups. Keep in mind that our Master said of the Bagels, “you are of your Father, the Devil, he was a murderer from the beginning. When he lies he speaks his native tongue.” As bad as the Cretans were as we see in Titus 1, this is pointed and direct ethnic language.

JS writes,

The issue is not whether Jews can be enemies of Christ. Of course they can and often are. So can Gentiles. So can anyone in rebellion against God. The issue is whether you elevate one group into a kind of ongoing, defining category for understanding evil itself.

BLMc responds,

I don’t think I can make my position any clearer than I have above.

JS writes,

The enemy is not flesh and blood in that sense. The enemy is sin, the world, and the devil. And those realities cut across every tribe, tongue, and nation.

BLMc responds,

I quite agree … and in some people group more than others. Also, in some people groups with different expressive dynamics than others. (Hence the Cretans.)

JS writes,

So no, I am not denying that evil works itself out concretely. Nor am I in support of Judaism, dispensationalism, or egalitarianism.

BLMc

Hmmm…. I’m pretty sure we still disagree on these fronts.

JS writes,

Let’s narrow this to the question of neighbor, because that’s where you continue to avoid a clear answer.

BLMc responds,

You keep on using that phrase “you have avoided giving a clear answer.” I do not think that means what you think that means.

I have been consistently clear. It is only your cognitive dissonance that accounts for your inability to read my clarity.

JS,

Do you agree with Calvin that every man is our neighbor because every man is made in the image of God?

That is the question.

BLMc responds,

One cannot consistently say “every man is my neighbor,” and then turn around and suggest that there are different degrees of neighborliness. Every man can’t be my neighbor in the same sense if it is true that there are different degrees of neighborliness.

One must find other words for “neighbor” if one is going to insist that there are vastly differing degrees of neighbor that differing “neighbors” correspond to. This is like saying all people are hockey players but some people don’t skate.

So, if you allow me to define the different degrees of neighbor — the different neighborly ways that some neighbor people can be treated than other neighbor people than fine … “all people are neighbors.” BUT, you and I are importing different meaning into that word and so we are not really agreed, are we?

JS writes,

You keep appealing to degrees of love and responsibility. I have already affirmed that. Of course there are degrees. A man has greater obligations to his wife than to a stranger. We are limited in our time, resources, and responsibilities. No one is denying that.

BLMc responds,

Great… so we agree that not all neighbors are treated the same therefore the appeal to “treating everyone like a neighbor” tells no one anything of any concrete value.

JS writes,

But that is not the issue.

BLMc

Ummm… yeah, that kind of is the issue.

JS writes,

The issue is whether the category “neighbor” is universal or restricted.

BLMc

Joe … if everyone is fast, then no one is fast. If everyone is my friend then no one is my friend.

If everyone is my neighbor then no one is my neighbor.

Do you understand this concept?

JS writes,

Calvin says it is universal. Every man is our neighbor. The degrees come in how we discharge our duties, not in who qualifies as neighbor.

BLMc responds,

Sigh

Right … every man is my neighbor therefore no one is my neighbor.

We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So, let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

JS writes,

You continue to blur that distinction.

BLMc

LOL … and you continue to not get it.

JS writes,

Now, to be clear, I do agree with you in part. Scripture itself recognizes that different peoples can have characteristic sins. Paul says as much about the Cretans. History shows that different nations can, at times, excel in particular forms of wickedness. That is not controversial.

And yes, there are times when certain individuals or groups act as more immediate or intense enemies of Christ and His people. That also is not controversial.

BLMc

There’s nothing I like more than the smell of a lack of controversy in the morning.

JS writes,

But none of that justifies redefining the category of neighbor or treating some people as though they fall outside of it.

BLMc responds,

Let’s see if we can reach some kind of accord here that will satisfy your insistence for one catch all word.

There are neighbors

Some neighbors receive natural affections
Some neighbors receive human affections
Some neighbors receive Christian affections
Some neighbors receive opposition affections

So, we have all these different people wherein we have different affections but they are all neighbors.

Admission – I got this idea from the Puritan Thomas Wilson on the subject

JS writes,

When a man is in front of me, I am not permitted to ask first about his ethnicity before determining whether I owe him love. Love is not mere sentiment. It is obligation. It is responsibility. And that responsibility is grounded in the image of God, not in tribal proximity.

BLMc writes,

When I have a man in front of me and my Son next to me and both of them need a dollar who am I to show neighborliness to first and foremost Joe? Well, of course, the one in tribal proximity to me.

Silly boy.

JS writes,

So again, the question remains:

Do you agree with Calvin that every man is our neighbor?

Bret responds,

So, again the question remains, do you agree with Thomas Wilson above about the different type of affections neighbors are to receive?

JS (thinking he has me pinned … LOL)

Until you answer that directly, all of your appeals to degrees of love and historical examples are beside the point.

BLMC responds,

I have answered it directly. Until you can understand the nuances of the conversation your DEMANDS serve to embarrass you.

JS writes,

That is the issue.

Bret

Rev. Spurgeon, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Vehemently Disagreeing with Rev. Joseph Spurgeon on the Jews

I’ve never met Rev. Joseph Spurgeon but I sure do think he is wrong a great deal. The curious thing is, I would bet the farm that the two of us agree on soteriology and perhaps even theology proper. We might even agree on eschatology. (Are you postmillennial Joe? Yet, despite all our agreements we each think the other would be better off being out of work. Now, I’m confident that Joe is a really nice guy. I’m confident that he provides superior pastoral care for the flock he serves. But katy-bar-the door is he ever wrong on any number of social issues such as what constitutes a neighbor and on the issue of the Jews. Below see some interaction between Joe and I. Keep in mind that Joe is much more popular than I am, as Joe recently pointed out. Doubtless the fact that he is more popular than I am proves that he is right.

Joe’s words are italicized. My responses are not italicized.

“When I was in the military, we had a term for someone who did stupid and boneheaded things that harmed their battle buddies: Blue Falcon. There are a whole lot of Blue Falcons in the Christian nationalist movement. Men who are trying to fight for godly civil leaders who promote the true faith are constantly dealing with flak because of Blue Falcons saying stupid stuff like, “We need a Protestant Hitler.” These foolish men have ruined any kind of movement among normal Christian people with their obsession with Jews and Nazis.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

1.) I should’ve figured this clown was in the Military and still wants to admit it to the world. The US military has been the muscle for the New World Order at least since Woodrow Wilson.

2.) Honestly … what’s wrong with wanting a Protestant Hitler? A Protestant Hitler wouldn’t make the mistakes of a pagan Hitler. A Protestant Hitler would be the best of both worlds. A Protestant Hitler would get rid of the Jewish influence without putting Jews on trains and sending them to summer work camps that turned bad because supply lines were cut from bombing.

3.) As an aside did you know that it was Jewish money that accounts for the rise of the non-Protestant Hitler? Read Antony Sutton’s “Wall Street & The Rise of Hitler.”

4.) What we see here is we need to get rid of clergy like Spurgeon. (Their name is legion.) Call them “Pink turkeys.” We need to get rid of these Pink Turkeys who are completely clueless about both church history and world history.

5.) These pink Turkeys are getting in the way of Reformation in the Church. I pray imprecation every Sunday, by name, against the horde of pink Turkeys in our pulpits because they are obsessed about putting back to sleep a Church that is slowly waking up.

6.) Spurgeon serves as a classic example of “normal Christian people.” Like “normal Chrisitan people” he has been successfully propagandized into believing that Jewish influence has been the bane of Christianity for centuries. He apparently is unaware of the century long contest between Jews and Christians. He apparently is ignorant of the many Church councils over the centuries that proclaimed on this issue. It is not irrational animosity that finds people not enlisting to be “normal Christian people,” but rather it is just that some people have decided that the sin of noticing and knowing history is, in point of fact, not sinful.

“Yet subtly, the message is changing into something else. It begins to sound like one must repent of being an ethnic Jew, rather than repent of sin.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

1.) I would love to see the receipts that Joe has of those in the Reformed community who are guilty of this. I, personally, have not come across it. Of course, if Joe is raising a warning about this, he needs more than a few examples. Where are the receipts Joe of this subtle change you’re noticing?

2.) Of course, it is past ridiculous for anyone to suggest that in order for an ethnic Bagel to become Christian they must repent of their ethnicity.

3.) I suspect that Spurgeon saying “it begins to sound like” is a figment of Joe’s imagination. Joe seems to think that all because he disagrees with Spangler, or McAtee, or whomever, therefore it means that those he disagrees with are guilty of wanting to read Jews out of any possibility of being redeemed by Christ.

“Of course, real Christianity does recognize Judaism as false and acknowledges that Bagels, like all people, have a sinful nature. Their rejection of the Messiah brings serious consequences. But the problem is not their ethnicity. The problem is their rejection of Christ and their sin, which is the same problem every man faces.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

1.) I would suggest that Scripture may well qualify Spurgeon somewhat. Has Joe forgotten the self-Malediction oath found in Mt. 27:25?

Then answered all the people and said, “His blood be on us, and on our children!”

This was a cry that was asking that the responsibility of Christ’s crucifixion be upon every generation. Generations are traced lineally. Maybe Joe doesn’t believe self-malediction oaths make any difference? However, when we read Exodus, we see that God visits the iniquity of the Fathers to the third and fourth generation of those that hate Him.

So, while we don’t deny that all men everywhere must repent (including Jews) we recognize that sin does run generationally, per Scripture. The good news is that God has His elect among every tribe, tongue, and nation.

2.) This ethnicity thing is interesting because I viewed an interview between Todd Friel and Al Mohler yesterday where Mohler says that it is ethnicity as well as religion that will account for the fact that the Bagels are going to someday inherit all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates. Now admittedly Joe is not Al Mohler but maybe the two of them should have a conversation about the role of Jewish ethnicity as it relates to God’s dealings?

3.) It is true that rejecting Christ is the problem that every fallen man and every fallen people group faces.

“As Christianity spread, this becomes even clearer. With the passing of the old covenant system, the relative importance of Jewish opposition diminished. At one time they were a major source of persecution, but as the church expanded, new threats arose. The danger increasingly came from within the church itself, as 1 John warns. In the centuries that followed, the primary enemies were not Jews but heresies and powers such as Arianism, Gnosticism, the Roman authorities, later barbarian groups, and eventually Islam.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

Allow me to submit here that Joe doesn’t know of what he speaks.

See E. Michael Jones’ “The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.”

See Maurice Pinay’s “The Plot Against the Church.”

Even the Gnosticism in the NT was often a Judeo-Gnosticism.

Now, it is true that the Church has had many enemies throughout Church history, but a leading enemy has always been the Jews. Before WW II this was common knowledge and books were frequently written on the subject by prominent people. For example, see, Hillaire Belloc’s, “The Jews.”

“It is true that Jews were, at times, enemies of the early church. They persecuted Christians, and the Apostle Paul speaks about this. But even there, Paul also describes Gentiles acting in the same way toward believers. His point is not to single out one ethnicity, but to show that all unbelievers who reject Christ stand opposed to Him and to His people.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

I Thessalonians 2:14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

This sure reads like the Bagels are being singled out. Peter likewise singles Bagels out when he says to the Jews … “You, by the hands of wicked men crucified the Lord of Glory.”


A fair reading of the NT does allow Spurgeon to rightly note that pagan Gentiles persecuted Christians from their own community. However, any proper reading of the NT finds it is the Jews, over and over again, indicted for their opposition to Christians. Indeed, this is why more than a few Jews want to censor the New Testament for being “anti-Semitic.”

“In recent years, there has been a new religion wearing the skin suit of Christianity. It is subtly changing some important aspects of the faith. It presents itself as conservative and faithful, yet its primary shift is in what it identifies as the central problem that must be addressed.

Historically, true Christians have understood the problem to be sin, our sinful nature found in all mankind. Because of that, the enemies of the church are the devil, the flesh, and the world. But this new movement shifts the focus. It moves from sin as the problem to making Bagels the central problem for humanity.”

Rev. Joseph Spurgeon

1.) When the Jews crucified Jesus was it not the case that the devil, the flesh, and the world, crucified Christ? Spurgeon has set up a false dichotomy where he abstracts the world, the flesh, and the devil from the concrete instantiation of the world, the flesh, and the devil animating the Bagels in their crucifixion of Jesus, the Christ.

2.) So, theoretically at least, the central problem can remain the world, the flesh, and the devil, as those animate themselves in a particular people group. Now, it is true that believers must say “no” to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and inasmuch as they don’t say “no” they are certainly responsible for giving into temptation. But that temptation, theoretically at least, could come to Christians through the delivery mechanism system called the Jews.

3.) So, Spurgeon may well be creating a false dichotomy here by separating the flesh, the world, and the devil, from the delivery mechanism by which flesh, the world, and the devil presents itself to Christians. For example, when the devil entered into Judas to deliver Christ to the Jewish Sanhedrin was not all of this a case where Jews, flesh, the world, and the devil are all mixed together in one stew?

4.) Now, obviously, many delivery systems may be used by which we fall into sin because of the world, the flesh, and the devil, but one major one as throughout church history has always been considered the Jews. I think Christians are re-awakening to this reality and this re-awakening frightens clergy like Spurgeon.

5.) So, while it is possible in some cases that there are those who are wearing the skin suit of Christianity it is also possible that Spurgeon doesn’t know his church history and fails to understand that this is no skin suit at all but a return to Tertullian, Augustine, Ignatius, and Chrysostom, etc. Would Spurgeon tell us about chaps like Luther and Calvin who were wearing skin suits when they inveighed against the Jews.

So, Spurgeon’s warning is worth hearing lest we don’t examine ourselves but our warning to Spurgeon should also be heeded by Spurgeon that he himself may well be the one wearing the skin suit of a Egalitarian Christianity that fails in identifying the enemy that previous centuries of Christians never failed identifying.

Now, lest anyone conclude that I am relying uncritically only on Roman Catholic sources I listed above (E. Michael Jones, Hillaire Belloc, Pinay) below find a book list from Non-Catholic sources. One doesn’t have to be Roman Catholic in order to commit the sin of noticing on this subject.

1) Ivor Benson, The Zionist Factor — the best starting point to get a quick, but an accurate overall view.

2) Douglas Reed, The Controversy of Zion — lengthy, but thorough.

3) Stan Rittenhouse, “For Fear of the Jews” — excellent!

4) Henry Ford, The International Jew — a much-ridiculed book, but very accurate and good!|

5) L. Fry (a pen name), Waters Flowing Eastward, The War Against the Kingship of Christ — provides an accurate account and listing of the Protocols of the learned elders of Zion; a must-read!

6) Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, The Synagogue of Satan, The Secret History of Jewish World Domination — a very important, year, by year outline of key events of the Rothschild dynasty. Quite enlightening!

7) Joseph M. Canfield, The Incredible Scofield — a must-read if you want to understand the important role of Zionism in American “Christianity!”

8) Alfred M. Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II, What Price Peace? — Frank comments by a Jewish scholar.

9.) Devvy Kidd’s website: http://www.sweetliberty.org, an article entitled “Jewish Persecution.”

10.) The Sword of Christ – Corey Giles

11.) The Jews & Their Lies – Luther

12.) Response to questions and objections of a certain Jew – Calvin

Then there is Tertullian, Chrysostom, Augustine, etc.

DKQ – Watson, Willard & Winthrop

Q.) “What do we call natural affections?”

A.) “Such as be among them of one blood and kindred as between parents and children husbands and wives, kindred, country, heathens, yea Christians also void these.”

Q.) (How) “does it differ from human and Christian affections?

A.) “Human affection is that whereby we embrace all men as men; natural affection is that whereby we embrace them which are nearer to us by blood; Christian affection is that whereby we love good men because they belong to Christ.”

Thomas Wilson
Puritan
A Commentary on the Most Divine Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans – p. 54

“There are diverse degrees of Neighborhood. The word ‘neighbor’ is very (comprehensive); it comprehends in it all with whom we may have any civil (Communion) and so the greatest and strangest, and (all) of men. And it involves all the several (nations) and religions. So, in this respect, some may be our nearer neighbors than others. A brother is nearer than a stranger, etc. Hence, there are necessary degrees of the Law. That we are to love all equally alike is asserted, and from (variance) of the relations with God hath (created) among men unto which are to be discharged by a special love one to another. Hence Psalm 16:3, ‘But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.’ There are some who we ought to be more concerned for than others.”

Samuel Willard
Puritan
Body of Divinity – pgs. 584-585

“We are not bound to exercise mercy to others to the ruin of ourselves.”

John Winthrop
Life and Letters of John Winthrop – p. 183

Clearly the above quotes teach that we don’t treat all men the same though we do treat all men with charity and treating them with charity does not mean disadvantaging our own people.

Anybody who teaches you that we must treat all men as neighbors who doesn’t also teach that the Ordo Amors, by definition, means that there are different degrees of neighborliness is a false teacher. We are not required to welcome the stranger and the alien and that rejection would be neighborliness if it is in pursuit of not ruining our neighbors (Kith and Kin).

DKQ – Richard Sibbes

“God ‘knows our souls in adversity,’ Ps. 31:7; so, should we know the souls of others, IF they be knit to us in any bond of KINDRED, or NATURE, or neighborhood or the like. That bond should provoke us; for bonds are the veins and arteries to derive comfort. All bonds are to derive good, whether bonds of neighborhood, or acquaintance, &c. A man should think with himself, I have this bond to do my neighbor good. It is God’s providence that I should be acquainted with him and do that to that him that I cannot do to a stranger. Let us consider all bonds and let this work upon us: let us consider their grievance is a bond to tie us.”

Richard Sibbes
Complete Works – Vol. III, p. 69

1.) Kindred bonds are the veins and arteries to derive comfort. Hence kin stand uniquely close to us and those not kin are not our veins and arteries wherein we derive comfort. Clearly, Sibbes is communicating that kindred bonds are ordinarily to be prioritized over non-kindred bonds.

2.) Note the category of neighbor and stranger. Sibbes concurs with the idea of the Ordo Amoris and teaches that we have more responsibility to our neighbor (the closer the neighbor the greater the responsibility) than we do to a stranger. This does not mean we hate the stranger. It merely means that God has ordained concentric circles of greater to lesser responsibility for men. The closer someone is to me in vital relationship and/or a shared doctrinally confessed faith the more I am obligated to look out for them. The further someone is to me in vital relationship and/or a shared doctrinally confessed faith the less obligated I am to look out for them. So, for example, I have a greater obligation to look out for the Reformed Christian over and above the Roman Catholic or the Arminian. So, for example, I have a greater obligation to look out for my children than I do for my cousins but a greater obligation for my cousins than for the stranger I bump into at the smoke shop.

“We see in the current of Scripture ordinarily that when God converted any one man, He converted his whole family. ‘Salvation this day come to thy house’ saith Christ to Zaccheus, Luke 19:9. When salvation came into his heart, it came to his house; all was the better for it. So the jailer, when he believed he and his whole house were baptized, Acts 16:33. When God blesseth the governor once, then it is supposed all the house comes under the covenant of grace. Abraham and his house were blessed Gen. 22:17.”

Richard Sibbes

Complete Works – Vol II, p. 354

1.) OT or NT, God deals with people in their familial covenantal structures. To leave the children outside of the covenant of grace, by not giving them the sign of the covenant is to particularize and atomize man, seeing him only as a sovereign individual. It is the error of the Enlightenment liberal worldview.

2.) Covenantal unity establishes Kinism. If the head of the house is drawn by irresistible grace than all in the household family covenant (Kin) are placed within the circle of the covenant of grace. This establishes again the idea that God Himself is a Kinist. People are not saved by blood relation but salvation tends to run in familial lines.