A case could be made that some of the derisive criticisms leveled at the Puritans were due to a smoldering resentment at their God-fearing and Christ-honoring lives. This trait in the Puritan makeup seems to disturb and agitate a society given over to pleasing “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
– I.D.E. Thomas
For one, I care little for the government which presides at Washington, in comparison with the government which rules the millions of American homes. No administration can seriously harm us if our home life is pure, frugal, and godly. No statesmanship or legislation can save us, if once our homes become the abode of profligacy. The home rules the nation. If the home is demoralized, it will ruin it. The real seed corn whence our Republic sprang was the Christian households represented in the Mayflower, or the family alter of the Hollander and the Huguenot. All the best characters, best legislation, best institutions, and best church life were cradled in those early homes. They were the taproot of the Republic, and of the American churches.
– Theodore L. Cuyler
1822 – 1909
If you go out of time unfitted for eternity, better you had never been in time.
– Thomas Doolittle
1630 – 1707
The millstone which turns about all day, grinding corn for others and not for itself, at night it stands in the same place where it was in the morning. After a great volume of grain has passed by, it is now emptied of all, having received nothing in the bargain but wearing itself out for the profit of others. In the same way, worldly men engrossed in the pursuit of earthly vanities toil throughout the day, and when the night of death comes they are in the same position as they were when they began. All they have is the labor for their pains; they retain nothing of the things which passed through their hands . . . . If we would have our thirst slaked and abated, it must not be by larger drinking of these unsatisfying drinks, which will only increase our appetite, but by purging away worldly lust and concupiscence, which are the true cause of our insatiableness.
– George Downame
1560 – 1634
Till men are weary and heavy laden, and pricked at the heart, and quite sick of sin, they will not come to Christ for cure, nor sincerely enquire, “What shall we do?” They must see themselves as dead men, before they will come to Christ that they may live.
– Joseph Alleine
1634 – 1668
It is not one or two good actions, but a consistent conduct, that tells whether a man is a true Christian. . . . Sheep may fall into the mire, but swine love day and night to wallow in it. A Christian may stumble, he may even fall, but he gets up and walks on in the way of God’s commandments; the bent of his heart is right, and the scope of his life is straight, and thus he is considered sincere.
– George Swinnock
1627 – 1673
Under 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
The worst of the heathen, who never had Christ preached to them, and salvation offered Him, shall fare better in the day of judgment, than those that continue impenitent under the Gospel.
– Matthew Barker
1619 – 1698
Love for sin makes men impatient under reproof. When a person’s sin is to him as “the apple of his eye,” no wonder he is offended at any that touches it.
– George Swinnock
1627 – 1673
“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
It 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
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
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
A sword in a madman’s hand, and the Word of God in some wicked man’s mouth, are used much alike.
– William Gurnall
1617 – 1679
Will you put God to this, that either He must work constant miracles in every age, and before every man, or else He must not be believed?
– Richard Baxter
1615 – 1691
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
He that seems righteous toward men, and is irreligious toward God, is but an honest heathen; and he that seems religious toward God, and is unrighteous toward men, is but a fake Christian.
– George Swinnock
1627 – 1673
You know there are two great plagues that have distressed the church of Christ and it will never be quite free from them; a multitude of hypocrites on a fair day, and a multitude of apostates on a foul day.
– Robert Traill
1642 – 1716
A Christian, if he has not a care, may be proud of his very humility. It is hard starving this sin, because it can live on almost nothing. . . . Be much in meditation on death and judgment. A serious and frequent meditation on death will be a means to kill pride. Ask yourself: “What is man, but a little living lump of clay? And what is his life, but “a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away?”
– Richard Mayo
1631 – 1695
You may as well see without light, and be supported without earth, or live without food, as to be saved without holiness . . . the one thing necessary (Heb. 12:14). And when this has been determined by God, and established as His standing law, and He has told it so often and plainly, for any man then to say, “I will yet hope for better, I hope to be saved on easier terms, without all this ado,” is no better for that man than to set his face against the God of heaven. Instead of believing God, he believes the contradiction of his own ungodly heart; and hopes to be saved whether God wills it or not. He gives the lie to his Creator, under the pretense of trust and hope. This is indeed to hope for impossibilities. . . . Who is so foolish as to hope for this? Few of you are so unreasonable as to hope for a crop at harvest, without ploughing or sowing: or for a house without building; or for strength without eating and drinking. . . . And yet this would be a far wiser kind of hope, than to be saved without the one thing necessary for salvation.
– Richard Baxter
1615 – 1691
Christ Alone Wyoming 