Russell Kirk and the Southern Tradition
The Imaginative Conservative has posted an older essay by Clyde Wilson, where Wilson reflects on Russell Kirk's appreciation and affirmation of the Southern tradition. Kirk's book on John Randolph of Roanoke (his master's thesis!) expressed great appreciation for the Virginian. Similarly, Wilson notes that Kirk had read the agrarian Donald Davidson's The Attack on Leviathan with great appreciation (and Kirk subsequently made sure it was re-published). And Kirk's appreciation for South Carolinian John C. Calhoun was profound (see here for an earller post on Kirk on Calhoun). Wilson's essay is a good introduction to Kirk's appreciation of the Southern tradition.
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- Published: 18 September 2012 18 September 2012
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Constitution Day
Happy Constitution Day. In celebration of the Constitution of the United States, here is a link to a piece I wrote recently on the constitution; here is a link to a post from a while back; here is a link where Joe Sobran recounts his trek to the Constitution.
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- Published: 17 September 2012 17 September 2012
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Russell Kirk on John C. Calhoun
A number of years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Clyde Wilson. Professor Wilson has spent many years editing The Papers of John C. Calhoun. He taught history for many years at the University of South Carolina. I was wanting to look up something on Calhoun the other day, and turned to Wilson's edited volume, The Essential Calhoun: Selections from Writings, Speeches, and Letters (Transaction, 2000). I noticed (and had forgotten) that Russell Kirk had written the foreword to this one volume collection of Calhoun's writings (by the way, the introduction by Wilson himself is an excellent way to get acquainted with Calhoun). Calhoun's own understanding of consitutional government, and of the way in which a constitutional government can slide into tyranny is arguably unmatched. Calhoun wrote in 1842:
"As the Government approaches nearer and nearer to the one absolute and single power, the will of the greater number, its action will become more and more disturbed and irregular; faction, corruption, and anarchy, will more and more abound; patriotism will- Details
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- Published: 03 September 2012 03 September 2012
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Jonathan Edwards on Perseverance
In working on a monograph titled Covenant and Command: Works, Obedience, and Faithfulness in the New Covenant, I am wrestling with a number of things, including the relationship of justification and sanctification (and between justification and perseverance in particular).
Jonathan Edwards wrestled with this at great length. Here are a couple of selections from volume 19 of the Yale edition of his works (pages 202-203).
"So that although the sinner is actually, and finally justified on the first act of faith, yet the perseverance of faith, even then, comes into consideration, as one thing on which the fitness of acceptance to life depends. God the act of justification, which is passed on a sinner's first believing, has respect to perseverance, as being virtually contained in that first act of faith and 'tis looked upon and taken by him that justifies, as being as it were a property in that faith that then is: God has respect to the believer's continuance in faith, and he is justified by that, as though it already were, because by divine establishment it shall follow; and it being by divine constitution connected with that first faith, as much as if it were a property in it, it is then considered as such, and so justification is not suspended; but were it not for this it would be needful that it should be suspended, till the sinner had actually persevered in faith."
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- Published: 01 September 2012 01 September 2012
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