Holy Ghost

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Quotes (711)

thomas-watsonUnder the law, if a man who was unclean by a dead body, carried a piece of holy flesh in his lower garment, the holy flesh could not cleanse him, but he polluted it (Hag, 2:12-13). Till the kingdom of grace is in our hearts, ordinances will not purify us, but we will pollute them. . . . In what a sad condition is a man before God’s kingdom of grace is set up in his heart! Whether he comes or comes not to the ordinance, he sins. If he does not come to the ordinance, he is a condemner of it; if he does come, he a polluter of it. A sinner’s work are opera mortua, dead works which are dead cannot please God. A dead flower has no sweetness.

– Thomas Watson

1620 – 1686

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Quotes (686)

“The next week,” says the sinner, “I will begin to be sober and temperate, serious and devout.” But the true sense of what he says is this, “I am fully bent to spend this present week in riot and excess, in sensuality and profaneness, or whatever vice it is that I indulge myself in.” And if we do this often, and it becomes our common practice to put off our repentance from time to time, this is a shrewd sign that we never intended to repent at all. . . . It is with the wicked men in this case, as it is with a bankrupt. When his creditors are loud and clamorous, speaking big and threatening high, he answers them with many good words and fair promises. He arranges for them to come another day, entreats their patience but a little longer, and then he will satisfy them all, when all the time the man never intends to pay them one farthing. . . . In the same way men endeavor to pacify and calm their consciences, by telling them they will listen to them another time. All this is only to delude and cheat their consciences with good words and specious pretenses, making them believe they will certainly do what they cannot endure to think of, and what they would fully desire to excuse themselves from.

– Edmund Calamy

1671 – 1732

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Quotes (683)

thomas-watsonIt is not enough to hear God’s voice, but we must obey. Obedience is a part of the honor we owe to God. . . . Obedience carries in it the lifeblood of religion. . . . Obedience without knowledge is blind, and knowledge without obedience is lame. . . . Saul thought it was enough for him to offer sacrifices, though he disobeyed God’s command; but “to obey is better than sacrifice.” God disclaims sacrifice, if obedience be wanting.

– Thomas Watson

1620 – 1686

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Quotes (673)

thomas-watson In the creation, man was made in God’s image; in the incarnation God was made in man’s image. . . . He took our flesh that He might take our sins, and so appease God’s wrath. . . . Christ’s taking our flesh was one of the lowest steps of His humiliation. For Christ to be made flesh was more humility than for the angels to be made worms. . . . He stripped Himself of the robes of His glory, and covered Himself with the rags of our humanity.

– Thomas Watson

1620 – 1686

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Quotes (671)

O, the work that sin has done in the world! This is the enemy that has brought in death; that has robbed and enslaved man, that has turned the world upside down, and sown the dissensions between man and the creatures, between man and man, yea, between man and himself, setting the physical part against the rational, the will against the judgment, lust against conscience; yea, worst of all, between God and man, making the sinner both hateful to God and the hater of God. This is the traitor that thirsted for the blood of the Son of God, that sold Him, that mocked Him, that scourged Him, that spat in His face, that mangled His body . . . condemned Him, nailed Him, crucified Him. . . . This is the bloody executioner that has killed the prophets, burned the martyrs, murdered all the apostles, all the patriarchs, all the kings and potentates; that has destroyed cities, swallowed empires, and devoured whole nations. Whatever weapon it was done by, it was sin that caused the execution. Do you still think it is only a small thing? If Adam and all his children could be dug out of their graves, and their bodies piled up to heaven, and an inquest was made as to what matchless murderer was guilty of all this, it would be all found in sin.

– Joseph Alleine

1634 – 1668

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Quotes (666)

Puritans We cannot prescribe how God should be glorified. . . . How have men fooled themselves and dishonored God in the matter of worship! They invent and prescribe forms and modes, when they have no ground to believe that He will accept them. . . . We must not determine these things ourselves, as to how, when, where, whom we please, for this would dishonor rather than credit the cause of God, because this matter wholly depends upon His pleasure. Now anything of our will would . . . subtract from that divine symmetry and concord which encompasses the wisdom, holiness, power, and sovereign grace of God. And we might as well teach Him how He should govern the world, as how He should dispose of us. . . . God is not glorified but in His own way.

– Dr. John Singleton
Died – 1706