The Heidelberg Catechism and God's sovereignty in salvation (Theodorus VanderGroe)

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Reformed Covenanter

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My only desire is to say that the [Heidelberg] Catechism presents to us a religion in which all of its doctrines culminate in attributing nothing to man and everything to God. Consequently, it causes man completely to look away from the creature so that he seeks and finds his comfort, peace, and salvation exclusively in the triune God.

Theodorus VanderGroe, The Christian's Only Comfort in Life and Death: An Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. Bartel Elshout, ed. Joel R. Beeke (2 vols, Grand Rapids MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), 1: 2.
 
On the same subject:

[T]here is but one object in which this true comfort can be sought and found: the all-sufficient God and His blessed communion. This is the only and highest good, and apart from this good there is none other in which a wretched sinner could find this true and essential comfort for his poor soul. The soul has miseries, needs, and desires that are infinite in dimension, and everything apart from God is finite and deficient.

Theodorus VanderGroe, The Christian's Only Comfort in Life and Death: An Exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. Bartel Elshout, ed. Joel R. Beeke (2 vols, Grand Rapids MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), 1: 5.
 
@Reformed Bookworm - have you any idea when this exposition of the catechism was originally written? I could find nothing in the biographical introduction to the book or elsewhere online to give an exact date. I do not think it was published in his lifetime.
 
A little interesting tidbit. VanderGroe appears to have been fond of Scottish theologians. He translated Ebenezer Erskine and George Hutcheson into Dutch.
 
A little interesting tidbit. VanderGroe appears to have been fond of Scottish theologians. He translated Ebenezer Erskine and George Hutcheson into Dutch.

It is somewhat odd that so many English speaking writers were translated into Dutch, but so few Dutch speaking writers were translated into English.
 
It is somewhat odd that so many English speaking writers were translated into Dutch, but so few Dutch speaking writers were translated into English.
Agreed. Voetius was quite active in collecting and translating Puritan works into Dutch. One title he translated that had a significant influence on the Nadere Reformatie was Lewis Bayly's Practice of Piety.
One of my favorite ventures of RHB is translating these gems that have been tucked away in Dutch for so long.
 
That appears to be a separate title that was published in his lifetime. According to Google translate, a rough translation of the title would be "Touchstone of True and False Grace, Discovering in the Heroic Light the Pure Reformed Truth Contained in the Heidelberg Catechism."
Almost! Heroic is wrong. The word is “helderschynende”, which is no longer in modern use. Helder is clear, schydnende is an old Dutch spelling of shining. “a clear and shining light of Pure Reformed Truth
 
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