Indeed, in dealing with the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of sinners, and in dealing with the means or instruments that the Spirit employs in order to accomplish His sovereign work, Reformed theologians have had to chart their way through a thicket of errors. On the one side is the error of undervaluing the use of means—of any kind—with the result that, in protecting God’s sovereignty in performing the work of salvation, Word and sacrament, and the church’s role in administering Word and sacrament, are denigrated and “the means of grace” becomes an empty phrase. On the other side is the
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