In critiquing a man for saying something about a “causal” role of good works in soteriology, and you want to paint him as not Reformed, when you quote his troubling statements, at least admit that he was defending and meditating on a passage from Calvin’s Institutes:

The fact that Scripture shows that the good works of believers are reasons why the Lord benefits them is to be so understood as to allow what we have set forth before to stand unshaken: that the efficient cause of our salvation consists in God the Father’s love; the material cause in God the Son’s obedience; the instrumental cause in the Spirit’s illumination, that is, faith; the final cause, in the glory of God’s great generosity. These do not prevent the Lord from embracing works as inferior causes. But how does this come about? Those whom the Lord has destined by his mercy for the inheritance of eternal life he leads into possession of it, according to his ordinary dispensation, by means of good works (III.14.21).

Come on, be a man. Are you afraid of letting your audience know what Calvin said? This is what I mean regarding substantive interaction over against that which is not. If you want to show us that you should be taken seriously as a critic, show some honesty about what is going on with those you criticize. Making a declaration about how all quotes from the Reformers, Puritans, Westminster documents, and Protestant scholastics are out of context is embarrassing and question begging under the best of circumstances. To do this while criticizing men when they are doing nothing but learning and quoting the Reformers, without letting one’s audience know that is what they are doing, is pretty much dishonest.

Doug keeps asking for a debate. The reason why there cannot be an open debate between a Federal Vision proponent and a an anti-Federal Vision proponent, is that no FV proponent would agree at the outset never to quote the Bible, the Reformers, the Westminster Standards, or the Protestant Scholastics during the debate. It would be like the Witch of the West handing Dorothy a bucket of water. It is obvious from these show trials that controlling the evidence is a necessity for getting the proper conclusions.

Addendum: that is one reason there can be no debate.  They would also be able to read their own works in full context against the selective quotations of their critics.