Puritans

Greetings All!

     This week's "thoughts" come to you from a selection of different Puritans. Yes, Puritans!  I know many are prejudiced against the Puritans from the start (often by exposure to exaggerated and untrue propaganda) but I would ask you (if you are such a person) to let them speak for themselves and not read them through the filter of another person's opinion of them.  Ryken's Book "Worldly Saints" is a wonderful corrective to many of the common myths.
Overall (with a few minor exceptions) they were a very gospel-centered and grace-oriented group of people. Yet you would only know that if you took the time to read the things they actually wrote themselves, instead of things others have written about them (often without ever having taken the time to do what I just suggested)!  After all, wisdom and fairness would say we should never formulate an opinion of someone until we get to know and interact with them personally.
     So, with that said, here are some "Puritan" thoughts! In terms of a time frame, the vast majority lived between the years 1600 - 1690.   Enjoy.

     "The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves... dreams of her in the night, has her in his eye and apprehensions when he awakes, muses on her at he sits at table, and walks with her when she travels... She lies in his bosom, and his heart trusts in her, which forces all to confess that the stream of his affection, like a mighty current, runs with full tide and strength." 

Thomas Hooker

     "There is no relationship more near, more entire, more needful, more kindly, more delightful, more comfortable, more constant, more continual, than the relationship of a man and his wife, the main root, source, and origin of all other relationships." 

Thomas Gataker

     "Creatures, like pictures, are most beautiful from a distance.  But it is not so with Christ. The nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes... He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, and healing to the wounded. Whatever a soul can desire is found in Him."

John Flavel

     "What is the Gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon Him, wherein God, from being a judge, becomes our Father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished."

Richard Sibbes

     "Men would sooner believe that the Gospel is from heaven, if they saw more of its heavenly effects in the hearts and lives of those who profess it."

Richard Baxter

     "One word of seasonable, prudent advice, given by a minister to persons in need, may be of more use than many sermons."

Richard Baxter

     "It is the same impossibility for a thing to be created out of nothing, as to be created by nothing." 

William Law

     "He only that stills the stormy seas, can quiet the distressed and tempestuous soul."

John Flavel

     "A man may easier see without eyes, or speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit."

John Owen

     "Humility is a strange flower -- it grows best in winter weather and under storms of affliction."

Samuel Rutherford

     "There are two aspects to love; the one is to give, the other is to forgive." 

John Boys

     "In marriage a husband must choose his love, and then he must love his choice." 

Henry Smith

     "God commands nothing but what is beneficial...  To obey God is not so much our duty as our privilege." 

Thomas Watson

     "If you neglect instructing your children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No. If you will not teach them to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear, and lie.  If ground remain uncultivated, weeds will spring up on it."

John Flavel

     "Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer."

John Bunyan

     "All married persons must above all things, love, respect and cherish grace in one another."

Thomas Taylor

     In the Bonds of Christian Affection, Pastor Jeff

101 Quotable Christians

Greetings All,

     It has been a while since I sent out a "thought" since I was vacationing ("on holiday" for my British friends!) in my homeland -- New England. During that time I picked up a book (actually a few books). One was entitled "101 Quotable Christians," published by Barbour Publishing Co. and listing no author/editor.
     I went through the book (as always) with a yellow marker in hand and highlighted some that I thought were very good.  I now offer them to you with the hope that they may encourage you or give you some helpful insights. As is printed on the back cover of the book: "A great quotation can provide thought, brighten a day, even change a life..." I pray it is so!  Enjoy.

"Grace is not given because we have done good works, but in order that we may be able to do them." 

St. Augustine  (400 A.D.)

"Men would sooner believe that the Gospel is from heaven if they saw more such effects of it upon the hearts and lives of those who profess it."

Richard Baxter  (1650 A.D.)

"You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much? I answer that the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due Him is immeasurable love... We are to love God for Himself because of a twofold reason: Nothing is more reasonable, and nothing is more profitable. When one asks:  Why should I love God? he may mean, What is lovely in God? or  What shall I gain by loving God?   In either case, the same cause of love exists, namely, God Himself... Ought He not be loved in return, when we think who loved, whom He loved, and how much He loved."

Bernard of Clairvaux (1125 A.D. - author of the hymn "Be Thou My Vision.")

"Will God ever ask you to do something you are not able to do?  The answer is yes -- all the time!  It must be that way, for God's glory and kingdom. If we function according to our ability alone, we get the glory. If we function according to the power of the Spirit within us, God gets the glory. He wants to reveal Himself to a watching world."

Henry Blackaby (2009 A.D.)

"The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men... The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods but through men."

E. M. Bounds (1880 A.D.)

"Let all our employment be to know God; the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him... Do not always scrupulously confine yourself to certain rules, or particular forms of devotion, but act with a general confidence in God, with love and humility... There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God." 

Nicolas Herman or "Brother Lawrence" (1670 A.D.)

"The end to which we ought to purpose ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshipers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity."

Nicolas Herman or "Brother Lawrence"

"Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it's like to live inside somebody else's skin... The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt."

Frederick Buechner  (2004 A.D.)

     "That there exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God Himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of His Godhead, the memory of which He constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man, being aware that there is a God, and that He is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship Him nor consecrate their lives to His service... 

     Until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by His paternal care, and that He is the author of all their blessings, so that nothing is to be looked for apart from Him, they will never submit to Him in voluntary obedience.  No, unless they place their entire happiness in Him, they will never yield up their whole selves to Him in truth and sincerity." 

John Calvin (1646 A.D.)

"The word "comfort" is from two Latin words meaning "with" and "strong" -- He is with us to make us strong. Comfort is not soft, weakening commiseration, it is true, strengthening love... All along, let us remember we are not asked to understand, but simply obey." 

Amy Carmichael  (1920 A.D.)

"Remember -- a cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how hard or suddenly it is jarred."

Amy Carmichael

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become popular." 

G. K. Chesterton  (1900 A.D.)

"Love not the world.  Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul... He who seeks God in tangible form misses the very thing he is seeking, for God is a Spirit." 

Henry Drummond (1880 A. D.) 

Many Christians look with regret to mistakes from their past, thereby feeding an ongoing sense of shame and deadening their joy in the present.  Yet, as Francois Fenelon (1690 A.D.) wisely points out,"The wise and diligent traveler watches all his steps, and keeps his eyes always directed to that part of the path which is immediately before him. He does not incessantly look backwards to count his steps and examine his footprints."

"As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet."

John Flavel   (1650 A.D.)

Blessings on your day.  In Christ's Service, Pastor Jeff