Puritan And Reformed Christian Quotes
Puritan At Heart Archives
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It was said of Richard Baxter that he preached as a dying man to dying men. I found it somewhat ironic, when, in that light, reading his final words to a fellow minister who had called in to visit him on his death bed.
His last sentence was:
“The Lord teach you to die.”
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Whatever one thinks of Richard Baxter’s somewhat strange views of Justification, there is not a shred of doubt that this holy man of God, who was known as holy Baxter, has left us a wonderful legacy in his voluminous writings that are still readily available to us. There are a few I would put on the “Must Read” list of his if I was making one. The Christian Directory, The Saint’s Everlasting Rest, Dying thoughts and perhaps one or two others. As a hard core Calvinist, despite Baxter’s erronous views on justification, I am not ashamed to say he is one of the puritans whom I Have and continue to read above many others. Baxter in my opinion, is the quintisential example, of grace being the great equalizer when doctrine is somewhat poor, and is surely an excellent example of why we must not consider Arminians as all going to destruction, because Baxter himself in many ways, was little more than confused Arminian.
I want to quote Baxter here from two different works, on how we are our own worst enemies very often. It’s a lesson we all need to continue to learn and fight the demon of self:
First from The Reformed Pastor, and again I add that the things in this little book do not only apply to ministers of the Gospel because all true Christians belong to the preisthood, and we should all be taking part in the great commision that Jesus left us to do:
1. Let me notice the difficulties in ourselves.
(1) In ourselves there is much dullness and laziness, so that it will not be easy to get us to be faithful in so hard a work. Like a sluggard in bed, that knows he should rise, and yet delayeth and would lie as long as he can, so do we by duties to which our corrupt natures are averse. This will put us to the use of all our powers. Mere sloth will tie the hands of many.
(2) We have a base man–pleasing disposition, which will make us let men perish lest we lose their love, and let them go quietly to hell lest we should make them angry with us for seeking their salvation. We are ready to venture on the displeasure of God, and risk the everlasting misery of our people, rather than draw on ourselves their ill–will. This distemper must be diligently resisted.
(3) Many of us have also a foolish bashfulness, which makes us backward to begin with them, and to speak plainly to them. We are so modest, forsooth, that we blush to speak for Christ, or to contradict the devil, or to save a soul, while, at the same time, we are less ashamed of shameful works.
(4) We are so carnal that we are drawn by our fleshly interests to be unfaithful in the work of Christ, lest we should lessen our income, or bring trouble upon ourselves, or set people against us, or such like. All these things require diligence in order to resist them.
And Baxter again, from The Saint’s Everlasting Rest. This is quite one of my most favourite puritan quotes of all time. And how true it is!
oh the hourly dangers that we here walk in! Every sense and member is a snare; every creature, every mercy, and every duty, is a snare to us. We can scarcely open our eyes, but we are in danger of envying those above us; or despising those below us; of coveting the honours and riches of some, or beholding the rags and beggary of others with pride and unmercifulness. If we see beauty, it is a bit to lust; if deformity, to loathing and disdain. How soon do slanderous reports, vain jests, wanton speeches, creep into the heart! How constant and stirring a watch does our appetite require! Have we comeliness and beauty? What fuel for pride! Are we deformed? What an occasion of repining! Have we strength of reason, and gifts of learning? O how prone to be puffed up, to hunt after applause, and despise our brethren! Are we unlearned? How apt then to despise what we have not! Are we in places of authority? How strong is the temptation to abuse our trust, make our will our law, and cut out all the enjoyments of others, but rules and model of our own interest and policy! Are we inferiors? How prone to grudge at others pre-eminence, and bring their actions to the bar of our judgment? Are we rich, and not too much exalted? Are we poor, and not discontented? Are we not lazy in our duties, or make a Christ of them? Not that God hath made all these things our snares, but through our own corruption they become so to us. Ourselves are the greatest snare to ourselves Richard Baxter’s “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest.”
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These words of Baxter’s from The Reformed Pastor struck a chord with me, not just to and for ministers of the gospel, but to all private protestant Christians and particuarly those who are under the label of Reformed; as what was true in Baxter’s day, in these words he wrote, is surely even truer in our own days:
How long have we talked of reformation, how much have we said and done for it in general, and how deeply and devoutly have we vowed it for our own parts. And, after all this, how shamefully have we neglected it, and neglect it to this day! We carry ourselves as if we had not known or considered what that reformation was which we vowed. Carnal men will take on them to be Christians, and profess with confidence that they believe in Christ, and accept of his salvation. They may contend for Christ and fight for him, and yet, for all this, will have none of him. They perish for refusing him, who little dreamed that ever they had been refusers of him; and all because they understood not what his salvation is, and how it is carried on. Instead they dream of a salvation without flesh–displeasing, and without self–denial and renouncing the world, and parting with their sins, and without any holiness, or any great pains and labor of their own in subserviency to Christ and the Spirit. In the same way did too many ministers and private men talk and write and pray and fight and long for reformation, and would little have believed that man who should have presumed to tell them, that, notwithstanding all this, their very hearts were against reformation—that they who were praying for it, and fasting for it, and wading through blood for it, would never accept it, but would themselves be the rejectors and destroyers of it. And yet so it is, and so it hath too plainly proved. And whence is all this strange deceit of heart, that good men should no better know themselves? Why, the case is plain; they thought of a reformation to be given by God, but not of a reformation to be wrought on and by themselves. They considered the blessing, but never thought of the means of accomplishing it—as if they had expected that all things besides themselves should be mended without them. Perhaps the Holy Ghost should again descend miraculously, or every sermon should convert its thousands, or some angel from heaven or some Elias should be sent to restore all things, or the law of the parliament, and the sword of the magistrate, would have converted or constrained all, and have done the deed. Little did they think of a reformation that must be wrought by their own diligence and unwearied labors, by earnest preaching and catechizing, and personal instructions, and taking heed to all the flock, whatever pains or reproaches it should cost them. They thought not that a thorough reformation would multiply their own work. But we had all of us too carnal thoughts, that when we had ungodly men at our mercy, all would be done, and conquering them was converting them, or such a means as would have frightened them to heaven. But the business is far otherwise, and had we then known how a reformation must be attained, perhaps some would have been colder in the prosecution of it. And yet I know that even foreseen labors seem small matters at a distance, while we do but hear and talk of them. But when we come nearer them, and must lay our hands to the work, and put on our armor, and charge through the thickest of opposing difficulties, then is the sincerity and the strength of men’s hearts brought to trial, and it will appear how they purposed and promised before.
Reformation is to many of us as the Messiah was to the Jews. Before he came, they looked and longed for him, and boasted of him, and rejoiced in hope of him. But when he came they could not abide him, but hated him, and would not believe that he was indeed the person, and therefore persecuted and put him to death, to the curse and confusion of the main body of their nation. ‘The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth (Mal. 3:1-3)? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.’ And the reason was, because it was another manner of Christ that the Jews expected. It was one who would bring them riches and liberty, and to this day they profess that they will never believe in any but such. So it is with too many about reformation. They hoped for a reformation that would bring them more wealth and honor with the people, and power to force men to do what they would have them. And now they see a reformation that must put them to more condescension and pains than they were ever at before. They thought of having the opposers of godliness under their feet, but now they see they must go to them with humble entreaties, and put their hands under their feet, if they would do them good. They must meekly beseech even those that sometime sought their lives, and make it now their daily business to overcome them by kindness, and win them with love. O how many carnal expectations are here crossed!
–Richard Baxter “the Reformed Pastor.”
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Discipline is a vital part of a true church. According to the learned divines it is one of the marks of a true church that it faithfully administers church displine. If it doesn’t, then it is not a Biblically constituted church or a true part of the Church of Jesus Christ. I know a pastor personally, who even on a personal level, would never admonish or correct any of his flock, because to quote his words, “It would be not be a nice thing to do, being a Christian.” The flames of hell await such false teachers as that, who are willing to let his flock go to hell, than be poorly thought of. But the church he pastors has not the 3 marks of a true church. There was one pastor, no elders, no deacons, an independant church with no one to answer to, or anyone for his congregation to appeal to.
As i have said before, in by-gone ages, when the life of faith for the majority was the whole of life and not just while sat in a church pew on Sunday morning, people met on the hills of Scotland, at risk of their lives, to hold their conventicles, which were highly illegal, but the risk of life and limb, or that of their dearest loves ones could not stop them gathering on the hill-sides of Scotland, to worship the God they loved, and gave their all too, in life and often in death as many were martyred. Nowadays, I have known several cases just personally, where going or attending the public assembly of the saints is burdensome and if a reasonable excuse can be found, even though it would not be reasonable in God’s eyes, people will find their excuse to have a get out clause and be in irregular attendance.
In the sixth council of Trull of 680 whose work was completed in 692 at Constantinople to complete the disciplinary work started at the original doomed synod meeting of 680 they stated: “Whosoever was 3 days together from church, without urgent necessity was to be excommunicated.” If that kind of discipline, which I’m sure sounds quite austere to some was in place today, the churches would have much fewer members because of the any old excuse to not attend that is so often rife among professing Christians. Now before this austerity is condemned, please note the words, “without urgent necessity” which of course the logical conclusion to that is providential hindrances, things beyond our control, which should make it a reasonable assertion for churches today.
Richard Baxter in his “Reformed Pastor” has a lot to say on the subject of church discipline or lack of it, and how it could be costing souls, as well as turning the world further away from having anything to do with us, or be willing to hear us, because we do not practice as we preach by church discipline being wanting.
I desire not to spur on any one to an unseasonable performance of this great duty. But will it never be a fit season? Would you forbear sermons and sacraments so many years on presence of unreasonableness? Will you have a better season for it when you are dead? How many are dead already, before they ever did anything in this important work, though they were long preparing for it! I know some have more discouragements and hindrances than others; but what discouragements and hindrances can excuse us from such a duty? Besides the reasons which we have already stated, let these few be seriously considered:
(1) How sad a sign do we make it to be in preaching to our people, to live in the willful and continued omission of any known duty! And shall we do so year after year, nay, all our days? If excuses will take off the danger of this sign, what man will not find them as well as you?
(2) We plainly manifest laziness and sloth, if not unfaithfulness in the work of Christ. I speak from experience. It was laziness that kept me so long from this duty, and pleaded hard against it. It is indeed a troublesome and painful work, and such as calls for some self–denial, because it will bring upon us the displeasure of the wicked. But dare we prefer our carnal ease and quietness, or the love and peace of wicked men, before our service to Christ our Master? Can slothful servants expect a good reward? Remember, brethren, that we of this county have thus promised before God, in the second article of our agreement: ‘We agree and resolve, by God’s help, that so far as God doth make known our duty to US, we will faithfully endeavour to discharge it, and will not desist through any fears or losses in our estates, or the frowns and displeasure of men, or any the like carnal inducements whatsoever.’ I pray you study this promise, and compare your performance with it. And do not think that you were ensnared by thus engaging; for God’s law hath laid an obligation on you to the very same duty, before your engagement did it. Here is nothing but what others are bound to, as well as you.
(3) The neglect of discipline hath a strong tendency to delude immortal souls, by making those think they are Christians that are not, while they are permitted to live with the character of such, and are not separated from the rest by God’s ordinance. Also, it may make the scandalous think their sin a tolerable thing, which is so tolerated by the pastors of the church.
(4) We corrupt Christianity itself in the eyes of the world, and do our part to make them believe that Christ is no more for holiness than Satan, or that the Christian religion exacteth holiness no more than the false religions of the world. For if the holy and unholy are all permitted to be sheep of the same fold, without any means being used to separate them, we defame the Redeemer, as if he were guilty of it, and as if this were the nature of his precepts.
(5) We keep up separation by permitting the worst to be uncensured in our churches, so that many honest Christians think they are obliged to withdraw from us. I have spoken with some members of the separated churches, who were moderate men, and have argued with them against separation. They have assured me that they were of the Presbyterian judgment, or had nothing to say against it, but they joined themselves to other churches from pure necessity, thinking that discipline, being an ordinance of Christ, must be used by all that can. Therefore, they durst no longer live without it when they might have it; and they could find no Presbyterian churches that executed discipline, as they wrote for it. And they told me that they separated only pro tempore, till the Presbyterians will use discipline, and then they will willingly return to them again. I confess I was sorry that such persons had any such occasion to withdraw from us. It is not keeping offenders from the sacrament that will excuse us from the further exercise of discipline, while they are members of our churches.
(6) We do much to bring the wrath of God upon ourselves and our congregations, and so to blast the fruit of our labours. If the angel of the church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering seducers in the church (Rev. 2:20), we may be reproved, on the same ground, for suffering open, scandalous, impenitent sinners.
And what are the hindrances that now keep the ministers of England from the execution of that discipline, for which they have so much contended? The great reason, as far as I can learn, is, ‘The difficulty of the work, and the trouble or suffering that we are like to incur by it. We cannot publicly reprehend one sinner, but he will storm at it, and bear us a deadly malice. We can prevail with very few to make a public profession of true repentance. If we proceed to excommunicate them, they will be raging mad against us. If we should deal as God requireth us, with all the obstinate sinners in the parish, there would be no living among them. We should be so hated of all, that, as our lives would be uncomfortable, so our labours would become unprofitable; for men would not hear us when they are possessed with a hatred of us. Therefore duty ceaseth to be duty to us, because the hurt that would follow would be greater than the good.’
Earlier in the same chapter, Baxter wrote:
All Christians value God’s ordinances, and think them not vain things; and, therefore, are unwilling to live without them. Discipline is not a needless thing to the Church: if you will not make a difference between the precious and the vile, by discipline, people will do it by separation. If you will keep many scores or hundreds in your churches that are notoriously ignorant and utterly destitute of religion, and never publicly (nor, perhaps, privately) reprove them, nor call them to repentance, nor cast them out, you need not marvel if some timorous souls should run out of your churches, as from a ruinous edifice, which they fear is ready to fall upon their heads. Consider, I pray you, if you should act in the same manner with them as to the sacrament as you do as to discipline, and should only show them the bread and wine, and never let them taste of these memorials of their Redeemer’s love. Could you expect that the name of a sacrament would satisfy them, or that they would like your communion? Why should you then think that they will be satisfied with the empty sound of the word church–government?
Sadly the lack of this God-given institution and one of the marks of a true church, is in part most likely why we have many ignorant people who have been in church membership and sat in the pews a very long time; a church that has as much of a foot in the world or perhaps more firmly rooted in the world, than it does in heaven, an unsanctified church, and part of the decay and lamentable state of the church today, can in my honest opinion be traced back directly to large parts of the church, neglecting and doing away with this vital part of the life and practice of the true church of Christ. The faithful ministers of Christ, are still administering church discipline as it was given to by God, but the ones that do not, should return to the ways of old and start to implement it.
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The congregation was usually full, so that we were fain to build five galleries after my coming thither…The Church would have held about a thousand without the galleries. Our private meetings were also full. On the Lord’s Day, there was no disorder to be seen on the streets, but you might hear an hundred families singing Psalms and repeating sermons, as you passed through the streets. In a word, when I came thither, first there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on His Name, and when I came away there were some streets where there was not past one family in the side of a street that did not do so; and that did not by professing serious godliness, give us hope of their sincerity. And those families that were the worst, being inns and Alehouses, [sic] usually some persons in each House did seem to be religious…When I first set upon personal conference and catechising them, there were very few families in all the Town that refused to come… And few families went from me without some tears, or seemingly serious promises of a Godly Life. [Richard Baxter]
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Does anyone recall that government health campaign run a few years ago, where, “You are what you eat” was the slogan? This was in Britain of course, And we are always looking for ways to make sure we are healthier, slimmer, have more energy, in other words we often eat what we know will suit our likes as far as bodies, whether its our vanity in appearances, or us wanting to increase our strength and staimina or maybe life expectantcy. And what does Scripture teach about the body versus the soul? Luke 12:4. Yet how do we compare when we are on a new fad or diet or getting ourselves fit routine, to how we guard and watch, how we feed our soul? On the whole, very poorly I would think. The bodily is often put ahead of the spiritual, which is a little like putting the cart before the horse.
What drivel do we watch on TV, even subsconsciously at times, that may have inapprorpiate material that we would not watch with our gran, but will sit there almost immune to the shocking content that now appears on TV even in the commercials at times!! Do we think this has no effect upon our spiritual well-being? If we watch sexually explicit material, or things where making wealth is the main aim, or lots of other things. If we are always buying magazines to covet what we would like materially, even if we put ourselves into debt to acquire it, is this spiritually healthy?
The puritans believed to a certain extent, we are even responsible for sin as we sleep in what we dream. I doubt not one person reading this blog post has never not had a dream that they would never tell their gran about, or perhaps not another living soul, because of the shame they would feel. And yet the movies, TV, magazines, interent, a whole host of entertainments that defile us today if partake of the wrong types of it, have an affect upon what we dream. We dream about things close to our hearts most often. The troubled mind will often have troubled or tormented dreams. The Bible in Phil. 4:8 tells us to do the things instructed in that verse for a very good reason. What goes into a man, has an effect upon any of us.
Richard Baxter has this to day about dreams:
Dreams are neither good nor sinful simply in themselves because they are not rational and voluntary, nor in our power: but they are often made sinful by participation and consequently. And the acts that make them sinful, are either such as go before or such as follow after.
1. The antecedent causes are any sinful act which distempereth the body, or any sin which inclineth the fantasy and mind thereto; or the omission of what was necessary to prevent them. 2. The causes which afterwards make them objectively sinful, are the ill uses that men make of them: as when they take their dreams to be divine revelations, and trust to them, or are affrighted by them as ominous, or as prophetical; and make them ground of their actions. and seduce themselves by the phantasms of their own brains.Direct 1. Avoid those bodily distempers as much as you can which cause sinful dreams, especially fullness of diet; a full stomach causeth troublesome drams, and lustful dreams: and hath its ill effects by night and day.
Direct. 2. Endeavour the cure of those sinful distempers of the mind which cause sinful dreams. The cure of a worldly mind, is the best way to cure worldly, covetous dreams: and the cure of a lustful heart, is the best way to cure lustful dreams: and so of the rest: cleanse the fountain, and the waters will be the sweeter day and night.
Direct. 3. Suffer not your thoughts, or tongue or actions to run sinfully upoin that in the day, which yuo would not dream of sinfully in the night. Common experiences telleth us, that our dreams will be apt to fllow our forgoing thoughts and words, and deeds. If you think most frequently and affectionately of that which is good, you will dream of them: and so of coveteous and ambitious drams. And they that make no conscinece to win waking, are not like much to scruple sinning in their sleep.
Direct. 4. Commend yourself to God by prayer before you take your rest, and beseech him to set a guard upon your fantasy when you cannot guard it. Cast the cure upon him, and fly to him for help elp by faith and prayer in the sense of your insufficiency.
Direct 5.Let your last thoughts still before your sleep, be holy, and yet quieting and consolatory thoughts. The dreams are apt to follow our last thoughts. If you betake yourselves to sleep with worldliness or vanity in your minds, you cannot expect to be wiser or better when you are asleep, than when you are awake. But if you shut up your day’s thoughts with God, and sleep and find them upon any subject, it is like to use them as it finds them. Yet if it be distrustful, unbelieving, fearful thoughts which you conclude with, your dreams may savour of the same distemper. Frightful and often sinful dreams do follow sinful doubts and fears. But if you sweeten your last thoughts with the love of Christ, and the remembrance of your former mercies, or the foresight of eternal joys, or can confidently cast them and yourselves upon some promise, it will tend to the quietness of your sleep, and to the savouriness of your dreams: and if you should die before morning, will it not be most desirable that your last thoughts be holy?
Direct. 6 when you have found any corruption appearing in your dreams, make use of them for the renewing of your repentance, and exercising your endeavours to mortify that corruption. A corruption may be perceived in dreams,. 1. When such dreams as discover it are frequent. 2. When they are earnest and violent. 3. When they are pleasing and delightful to your fantasies: not that any certain knowledge can be fetched from them, but some conjecture as added to other signs. as if you should frequently earnestly and delightfully dream of preferment and honours, or the favour of great men, suspect ambition, and do the more discover and mortify it: if it be of riches, and gain and money, suspect a covetous mind. If it be of revenge, or hurt to any man that you distaste, suspect some malice, and quickly mortify it: so if it be of lust, or feasting, or drinking, or vain recreations, sports and games, do the like.
Direct 7. Lay no great stress upon your dreams than there is just cause. As 1. when you have searched and find no such sin prevailing in you as your dreams seem to intimate, do not conclude that you have more than your waking evidence discovers. Prefer not your sleeping signs before your waking signs and search. 2. When you are conscious hat you indulge no corruption to occasion such a dream, suppose it not be faulty of itself, and lay not the blame of your bodily temperament, or unknown causes upon your soul, with too heavy and unjust a charge. 3. Abhor the presumptuous folly of those that use to prognosticate by their dreams, and measure their expectations by them, and case themselves into hopes or fears by them. saith Diogenes, “What folly is it to be careless of your waking thoughts and actions, and inquisitive about your dreams? A man’s happiness or misery lieth upon what he doth when he is awake, and not upon what he suffereth in his sleep.” [Richard Baxter--The Christian Directory]
Any one who has read John Bunyans allegory, “The pilgrims Progress” wil know the kinds of thoughs and conversations that his pilgrims had on their journey. And doesn’t the example he uses below, where they lived day by day, practicing Phil. 4:8 on their journey show, how to think on good and pure things, makes our dreams be also innocent, and yet godly.
“I was dreaming I sat all alone in a solitary place and was lamenting over the hardness of my heart,” explained Mercy. “I hadn’t sat there long before I thought that many were gathered around me to see me and hear what I was saying. So they listened and I went on lamenting the hardness of my heart. At this, some of them began to laugh at me. Some called me a fool, and some started to push me around. With that, I thought I looked up and saw one with wings coming towards me. So he came directly to me, and said, “Mercy, what ails you?”
“Now when he’d heard my complaint,” Mercy went on, “he said peace be to you.” He also wiped my eyes with his handkerchief and dressed me in silver and gold. He put a chain about my neck, earrings in my ears, and a beautiful crown on my head. Then he took me by the hand and said, ‘Mercy, come after me.’ So he went up, and I followed until we came to a God len Gate. Then he knocked, and when those inside had opened it, the man went in, and I followed him up to a throne upon which One sat. And to me, He said, ‘Welcome daughter.’ The place looked bright and twinkling like the stars, or rather like the sun; and I thought I saw your husband there. Then I awoke from my dream. But did I laugh?
“Laugh!” exclaimed Christiania “Yes, and well you might to see yourself doing so well. For you must allow me to tell you it was a good dream and that as you’ve begun to find the first part true, so you’ll also find the second part at least. ‘For God does speak–now one way, now another–though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds..’.When in bed we need not lie awake to talk with God, He can visit us while we sleep and cause us then to hear HIs voice. OUr heart often wakes when we sleep, and God can speak to it either by words and proverbs or by signs and similitude, as well as if one were awake.”
–John Bunyan
We may not be altogether responsible for what we dream. But we can watch what we eat, so that if we refuse to pour all kinds of filth and ungodliness in our senses all day long, or for good parts of the day, our souls do not become what they eat.
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As some folks maybe aware, Antinomians have bothered me for a while now, because the belief is so unbiblical, and I believe it even maybe damnable heresy. Normally the antinomian will have the standard phrase that makes mine and some other like-minded beleivers, blood chill when they turn out the well-worn phrase, of “We are no longer under the law, but under grace.” It sounds a very Biblical statement doesn’t it, take at face value? That is almost how alll error creeps into the church. By sayings, phrases, that sound credible, even Biblical, and yet at heart, are anything but either. But because they sound credible, and Biblical, it will often be passed off for “old teachings using new teminology” and the Christian not soaked or learned enough about what Scripture teaches on the subject in hand, is likely to feel persuaded, that they are speaking Biblical truth. Knowledge is power in many spheres of life. The Christian life is no exception. As with Biblical knowledge and understanding of what Scripture teaches about this or that, we cannot be so easily decieved, because we will already have formed strong convictions on these subjects from our studying the Bible and getting a Biblical world view. Those who most often say, and seem to think as they say it they are sounding very Biblical and learned, “we are not under law but under grace,” I have found most often do not have a Biblical worldview. They think about almost everything differntly to the believer who does have a Biblical worldview.
Of course we all have to start somewhere. The babes in Christ cannot be reborn with godly knowledge in advance, nor with a Biblical worldview. One of the best ways I know of, to get a Biblical world view is to study, with an open Bible on one’s lap, so you can read the texts of Scripture proofs that go along with it, but to study the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Bible is the map almost of the life of faith. And the much shorter, WCF, acts as the signposts, to point us the right way.
Antinomianism so bugs me, because I Have come across it so often, and it seems rife among today’s church. Even the Reformed church.
Richard Baxter taught that Antinomianism was rooted in gross ignorance and led to gross wickednes, and I don’t think I would argue with that over-all.
J.I. Packer writes of Baxter’s view of Antinomians,
Baxter had no doubt that the impulse and the ttheology behind the Antinomian quest for ‘comfort’ at all costs came from the pit, for its outcome in practice was this; men went to the Antinomians troubled about their sins and all the advice they recieved was to be troubled about them no longer for Christ had taken them away. Where the puritans had said, Put sin out of your life, the Antinomian said, Put it out of youro mind. Look at the law, consider your guilt, learn to hate sin and fear it and let it go, said the puritan. Look away from the Law, and forget your sins and guilt, look away from yourself and stop worrying, said the Antinomian. [J.I. Packer]
How familiar that viewpoint sounds today and how widespread it is among the church. It is of course a recoverable error, a repentable sin, but I still believe if not repented of, that it will lead those who hold to it to the end to the pit of hell.
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This was a childish speech of one of Benjamin Palmer’s children when not very old. She later died in young adulthood, at 18 years of age, another child lost. But he said that when she grew old enough to talk, her baby accents lisped continually of another world:
When I went to Heaven.” she used
to say, ‘
‘ I saw a big white gate with a
man standing just inside. Before it was a
pool of water with a board across it ; and
the man said, ‘ Come in, Sissy, but don’t
fall in.’ But I fell in ; and he took me out
into a room where there were a great many
glory-children, and dressed me in white
with wings like theirs. Then he took me
to see God. I saw a big red pillow, with
five black dots, that God rests on. And,
mother, there were two gold rocking chairs
for you and father, and five little ones for
us children. And, Mauma (her nurse),
there was a beautiful white satin dress for
you ; it felt so smooth ; just put your hand
on your hair, it felt just like that. I
wanted to bring it to you ; but when 1
went to take it, it just slipped away. And
now 1 spend every Sunday in Heaven,
with God. He puts a ladder down for me
every Saturday evening, and I go up and
come home on Monday.”
Those words of his precious child echoed in his mind and came back as clear as day after he lost her at 18 years old to death. What comfort such a memory must have given him when he knew he would never see her face or hear her voice again, this side of heaven.
If only more professing Christians in full maturity of adulthood, and perhaps spiritual maturity at least age wise, would have that heart and outlook for the Lord’s Day. To ascend to heaven for the whole day, and not to come home until Monday to continue ones earthly life.
Instead, the scenario we are often faced with by the majority of the visible church, even among some of the Reformed church, is to go to Church for public worship, because that is what Christians do. It’s almost like a formality, and they leave the service as unchanged as before they went in and heard the sermon and God speak to them.
Then once home from church, they spend the rest of the day in idle and selfish pursuits, (when I say selfish I mean self pleasing and what they desire to do to find fulfillment from, ignoring the command of God at what he requires us to do; watching the football match; going out to eat at a restaurant where people are being paid to work and serve and wait upon them, on a day that no one should work, but for the ungodly laws our countries have made in recent years, that Sunday’s is no different as far as shops, stores, restaurants or any business opening than any other day of the week; they may attend a concert, or go and take part in some sporting activity. For some, this may also including going to work for paid employment where clearly mammon is put before God.
Yet what does Scripture teach? I think its pretty clear. Exodus 20:8 says it succindtly and well, yet there are far more in depth examples. Isa 58:13; Ex 31:14; Neh 13:8; Matt 12:8; Mark 15:42;
The Lord’s day should be a day of holy rest. Not idleness but holy rst. Leaving aside the acitivities and pursuits and recreations we partake of in the week, to spend the day in holy purusits. It is a day of holy rest, but a day of spiritual business.
Thomas Watson wrote:
Many come to the Word only to feast their ears; they like the melody of the voice, the mellifluous sweetness of the express sign, the newness of the notion (Acts 17:21). This is to love the garnishing of the dish more than the food, this is to desire to be pleased rather than edified. Like a woman that paints her face, but neglects her health.
And Richard Baxter Wrote:
You think you serve God by coming to church; but if you refuse to let the Word convert you, how should God be pleased with such a service as this?…. Every time you hear, or pray, or praise God, or receive the sacrament, while you deny God in your heart and remain unconverted, you do out despise Him, and show more of your rebellion than your obedience…. God biddeth you come to church and hear the Word, and so far you do well; but withal, He chargeth you to suffer the Word to work upon your hearts, and to take it home and consider it, and obey it.
Now one could bear with new converts and young believers who may not know any different or any better. Who have not had time to get well acquainted with God’s work, or have much sanctification of their souls wrought as yet, and who havn’t sat under the mnistry of the Word for that long as yet. But for those who are old Christians, spiritualy old, and have done the opposite of all those things one may say about the young convert, then I don’t understand how they do so, and it not even seem to give a pang of conscience, because they have no shame in announcing the idle and worldly purusits they partook of on a Lord’s Day with no sense of wrong doing or sinning against the God of Heaven. Rather than practicing the holy pursuits of Lord’s Day they seem to be born advocates for endorsing and living out the King James book of Sports of which the puritans took such a defiant stance against.
It is commonly believed that the Plague of London, shortly thereafter followed by the Great Fire of London, were judgments upon the city of London for the profaning of the Lord’s Day. Most of the Lord’s judgments, wherever in the world, but on a scale of disaster can be traced back to happening more on a Sunday than any other day. People are aghst at such tragedies and disasters and loss of life, yet why should they be when even the Lord’s people, at least by profession and outwardly, flout his laws as much as anyone else. The fear of the Lord is beginning of the wisdom. A holy, reverntial fear of the Lord, knowing he could blow any or all of our cities to dust in an instant, and there are example after example where disaster has struck at huge loss of life all over the world, should make us think very carefully, before we think we know better than God and can do what we like with the day he told us to give unto him. When affliction strikes us personally, in our own lives, does it occur that tho it needn’t be, it could be God’s punishment for our own personal sin, including how we may have have dfeiled his day with worldly pursuits and did what we wanted rather than as He required.
The grace of the New Testament and the blood of Christ is of course to cleanse us of sin, and not one of us doesn’t sin every second that we are alive. However, the blood of Christ is for the sins of infirmity, that we try to be pleasing to him, but we can never reach the holy standard no matter how hard we try. There is only one who ever has, the Son of God, which is why he was the sacrifical lamb without blemish. But the grace of God should not be turned into lasciviousness, as there is a world of difference between sins of infirmity, than those of wilful rebellion and disregard for what God wants of us. Christ died on the cross for the payment of the one kind, but certainly not for the other. Or else everyone in the entire world would go to heaven, because the latter kind of sin is the same kind that the unbelieving world commits.
If only more Christians who have professed to be so for many a long year, could have the wisdom and discernment, shown in the childish chatter of Benjamin Palmer’s little girl as uttered above.
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I wondered for a long time, what Preparing for the Lord’s Day meant. I have friends online who would refer to this, and yet I never knew anyone in actual life who did so it remained a mystery to me. And then of course, the puritan voice spoke, as the Puritans considered the Lord’s Day, to be “Market place for the soul.” In many English towns and villages throughout history and sometimes even now continuing, there is one day a week, set aside for a market in the street in the town or village. People come and get bargains, they may barter a little, and yet normally manage to go home with a prized posession, though it may well have taken the day, of getting to, attending, and bartering for the prized object of desire. And this was how the Puritans viewed the Lord’s Day. That it was a day set apart in it’s entirety to devote to the Worship of God. Public Worship of course would be part of that for many people. Yet I saw this in my own (even though somewhat limited) experience of attending church here in the UK, and though brief it was only three years or so ago I stopped doing so, as illness made it impossible to anyway. People came to the Church service, soemtimes in the morning, sometimes evening, occassionally, if a special notable event maybe both. But it was more like a teddy bears picnic than a place of Worship. People were chattering, and had no idea that the minister was ready to start the service, and yes, of course this may be natural to some extent, except there would always be one or two, who even when the service had started and they could not not be aware would continue chattering, thinking in a hushed voice it would be unobserved or not really matter. The sad thing is, I’m not referring to “seekers” either, but people who have professed faith for many years. But after the service, folks normally leave church and spend the rest of the day to themselves and God and His Worship is put firmly back into place. It’s what I tend to refer to as the One hour sunday Christians syndrome, though many of these people are no doubt sincere Christians.
I am a Sabbatarian, I make no bones about that. I won’t spend money at any outlet on the Lord’s Day; I don’t think there is any excuse to ever do so, unless an absolute emergency that cannot be avoided. I won’t do recreational things that would be perfectly okay to do on any other day. And yes, I try to prepare for the Lord’s Day, though it took me a long time to catch on what this meant. Preparing all possible food that will be consumed on Lord’s Day on the Saturday. Making the house tidy and respectable on the Saturday so that come Lord’s Day you don’t have to lift a finger in domestic servitude apart from essentially. But I think the biggest job of the Lord’s Day is to prepare our hearts. To be in a right frame to give the day to God in devotion and worship and to come away with a blessing; the richest type of blessing–SPIRITUAL. To fill oneself up, so that if you have a difficult week ahead, you will be sustained by having had your fill on this day and it will hold you rather than you perhaps floundering because you have been spiritually bankrupt as far as spiritual food, and are running on empty. In those circumstances, a knock, a hardship, suffering, the week can become abysmal and you kind of go through the motions, trying to hold on until the crises passes, but you have no real heart for it, as your heart is not enriched by God’s Word and His promises and assurances, so you are somewhat in a wilderness, a dry land.
“Legalist” often comes the cry of sanctifying and giving the whole day to God. (Even given none of us keep it perfectly.). And legalistic is often the way the Puritans are viewed, in many many issues. Of going too far, which can only mean further than Scripture disctates, so if that is the case before crying “legalists” please show from Scripture how these men whose sole aim in life was given to not doing anything other than was actually contained within the pages of Scripture and nothing outside of God’s Word or will, and prove to me that they are doing as you say and “going too far.”
The neccessity of Sabbath keeping has not diminished. Luke 23:55-56; John 19:31 to name just a few New Testament references. And out of all the preparations which we must do, preparing the heart is the one that should take up our attention. Going before God with a wrong heart, stops you praying with any depth of soul, it makes communing with God on any real level impossible, and is just downright disrespectable to the Great God of Heaven. And the puritans knew the value and importance of this:
“Go seasonably to bed, that you may not be sleepy on the Lord’s Day.” [Richard Baxter]
And John Flavel from his exposition on the Westminster Assembly’s shorter Catechism.
Quest. 60. HOW is the Sabbath to be sanctified?
A. The Sabbath is to be sanctified by an holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days, and spending the whole time in the public and private excercises of God’s worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.
Q. 61. What are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?
A. The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission or careless performance of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works, about our worldly employments or recreations.
Q. 62. What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment?
A. The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment are, God’s allowing us six days of the week for our own employment, his challenging a special propriety in the seventh, his own example, and his blessing the Sabbath-day.
Q. 1. What is the rest which God requires on the Sabbath?
A. It is not a mere natural or civil, but an holy rest, resembling the rest in heaven, wherein the mind is most active and busy in the work of God, though the body be at rest, and the spirit not wearied with its work; Rev. iv. 8. and the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
Q. 2. May not any works of our civil calling be ordinarily done on that day?
A. No; it is sinful to put our hands ordinarily to our callings on that day, and God usually punishes it. Neh. xiii. 15, 16, 17, 18. In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing up sheaves, and lading asses, as also wine-grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath, unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? Yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath.
Q. 3. May we not refresh our bodies by recreations, or our minds by thoughts of earthly business, or discourses, on that day?
A. Recreations of the body, which are lawful on other days, are sinful on this day; and all the recreations of the mind allowed on this day, are spiritual and heavenly; Isa. lviii. 13, 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
Q. 4. What works may lawfully be done on that day?
A. Christ’s example warrants works of necessity, and works of mercy, but no other; Mat. xii. 3, 4. But he said unto them, have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him, How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests. And ver. 7. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, &c.
Q. 5. What are the holy duties of the Sabbath?
A. The public worship of God; in reading, and hearing the word preached. Isa. lxvi. 23. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord, Luke iv. 16. – And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and stood for to read. And prayer; Acts xvi. 13, 14. And on the Sabbath-day we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made, &c. And receiving the Sacrament; Acts xx. 7. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached, &c.
Q. 6. Are private duties in our families required, as well as public, on the Sabbath?
A. Yes; it is not enough to sanctify the Sabbath in public ordinances, but God requires it to be sanctified in family and private duties; Lev. xxiii. 3. – But the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.
Q. 7. With what frame of spirit are all Sabbath duties, both public and private, to be performed?
A. They are to be performed with spiritual delight; Isa. lviii. 13. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, &c. And all grudging at, and weariness of spiritual exercises, is a sin forbidden; Mal. i. 13. Ye said also, behold what a weariness is it, and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts, and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord. Amos viii. 5. When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, &c.
Q. 8. What is the first reason annexed to this command?
A. The first reason is the sufficient, and large allowance of time God hath given us for our civil callings, and earthly business. Six days in the week is a large allowance.
Q. 9. What is the second reason annexed to this fourth command?
A. The second reason is God’s sanctifying and separating this day by a special command and institution for his service; so that to profane this time, is to sin against an express divine command.
Q. 10. What is the third reason annexed to this command?
A. The third reason is God’s own example, who rested the seventh day from all his works, and blessed this day, by virtue of which blessing we are encouraged to sanctify it.
Q. 11. Is it not enough to sanctify this day in our own persons?
A. No; if God hath put any under our authority, their profaning the Sabbath will become our sin, though we be never so strict in the observation of it ourselves.
Q. 12. May we continue our civil employment to the last moment of our common time?
A. Except necessity or mercy urge us, we ought to break off before, and allow some time to prepare for the Sabbath, Luke xxiii. 54. And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on.
Q. 13. What is the first inference from hence?
A. That we have all great cause to be humbled for our Sabbath transgressions, either in our unpreparedness for it, our want [lack] of delight and spirituality in it, or the due government of our families as God requires.
Q. 14. What is the second inference from hence?
A. That Christians on the Sabbath-day have a fair occasion and help to realize to themselves the heavenly state, in which they are to live abstract from the world, and God is to be all in all to them.
And Matthew Henry, (tho this is only a tiny fraction of representation of the Puritan belief and practice as regards the Christian Sabbath)
The Sabath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery. First, God never designed it to be an imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves.… Secondly, God did design it to be an advantage to us, and so we must make and improve it.… He had much more regard for our souls. The sabbath was made a day of rest, only in order to its being a day of holy work, a day of communion with God, a day of praise and thanksgiving; and the rest from worldly business is therefore necessary, that we may closely apply ourselves to this work, and spend the whole time in it, in public and private.… See here what a good master we serve, all whose institutions are for our own benefit. [Matthew Henry]
I struggle with this day, unutterably so at times, given my illness and aloneness in that illness and the hardness and affliction this day above any other entails. Samuel Rutherford seems to have felt a very similar struggle each Lord’s Day when he was imprisoned at Anwoth. But I am hoping and praying to go to market tomorrow, and barter and work at getting the blessing Spiritually to come from that. Are you too going to the Market tomorrow? Are you going to market to barter for your soul?
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The congregation was usually full, so that we were fain to build five galleries after my coming thither…The Church would have held about a thousand without the galleries. Our private meetings were also full. On the Lord’s Day, there was no disorder to be seen on the streets, but you might hear an hundred families singing Psalms and repeating sermons, as you passed through the streets. In a word, when I came thither, first there was about one family in a street that worshipped God and called on His Name, and when I came away there were some streets where there was not past one family in the side of a street that did not do so; and that did not by professing serious godliness, give us hope of their sincerity. And those families that were the worst, being inns and Alehouses, [sic] usually some persons in each House did seem to be religious…When I first set upon personal conference and catechising them, there were very few families in all the Town that refused to come… And few families went from me without some tears, or seemingly serious promises of a Godly Life. [Richard Baxter]
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