….dangerous season is a time when grace sleeps, when communion with God is neglected, or when duty is only formal. Then one must watch, for certainly, some other temptation will accompany it.
Let a soul in such a state wake up and look around him. His enemy is near, and he is ready to fall into such a condition as may cost him very dear all the days of his life. His present state is bad enough in itself; but it is also a serious indication that something worse is laying at the door. The disciples were were with Christ in the garden had not only a physical drowsiness but also a spiritual drowsiness upon them. What does our Saviour say to them? 'Arise; watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation.' We know how near one of them was to his bitter hour of temptation and, since he was not watching, as he should be, he immediately entered into it.
—John Owen "Temptation"
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, John Owen by on Jul 29th, 2010. Comment. 
And let Christian churches, and our Statesmen who love Christ, remember—that no mere outward change of government or order, however good and defensible in themselves, can heal the miseries of the people, without a change of Religion. Ireland needs the pure and true Gospel proclaimed, taught and received, in the South as it now is in the North; and no other gift, that Britain ever can bestow, will make up for the lack of Christ's Evangel. Jesus holds the key to all problems, in this as in every land.
—John G. Paton
Filed under Covenanted Reformation, Daily Quote, Scots Heroes by on Jul 28th, 2010. Comment.
Answerable to the rebellion and sinfulness of our dispositions, he is a king to subdue whatever ill is in us, and likewise to subdue all opposite power outside us. By little and little, he will trample all enemies under his feet, and under our feet, too, ere long.
Now, as we are cursed by reason of our sinful condition, so he is priest to satisfy the wrath of God for us (Gal. 3:13). He became a servant, that he might die and undergo the death of the cross; not only death, but a cursed death, and so his blood might be an atonement as a priest.
So, answerable to the threefold ill in us, you see here is an three-fold office.
—Richard Sibbes "A Description of Christ"
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, Richard Sibbes by on Jul 28th, 2010. Comment.
After he rose from the dead, Christ gave a commission to preach the gospel to all nations…"beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). As to her descent [Jerusalem] was from Abraham.. a people God singled out from the rest of the nations to set his love upon them… She was the place of God's worship.. but now, decayed, degenerated and apostatized…greatly back-slidden, and become the place where truth and true religion were much defaced.
—John Bunyan "The Jerusalem Sinner Saved"
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, John Bunyan by on Jul 27th, 2010. Comment.
I'll let the reader decide. I took this quiz last night and came out at 76% and relized there was one question I was unsure about, and this morning, that question I changed the answer to the one I felt most fitting. I'm not a genius by any meaning of the word, but for reasons readers can never know, or understand, the profile is actually very fitting, as a genius gone wrong, through illness and suffering and a mind that is often tortured.
You Are 82% Tortured Genius |
 You totally fit the profile of a tortured genius. You're uniquely brilliant – and completely misunderstood. Not like you really want anyone to understand you anyway. You're pretty happy being an island. |
Filed under Blagging for England, Crazy Calvinist by on Jul 27th, 2010. Comment.
No man ever circumcised his own heart. No man can say he began to do it by the power of his own will, and then God only helped him by his grace. As the fact of outward circumcision on the body of a child was the act of another, and not the of the child who was only passive therein [but the effect was in the body of the child only], so it is in the spiritual circumcision—it is the act of God, in which our hearts are the subject. It is the blindness,, obstinacy, and stubbornness in sin that is in us by nature, withe the prejudice's which posses our minds and affections, which hinder us from conversion to God. But by the circumcision hey are taken away.
—John Owen "Discourse on the Holy Spirit"
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, John Howe by on Jul 26th, 2010. Comment.
Such as are most heartily afflicted in spirit, and do flee to God for reconciliation and consolation through Christ, have no reason to suspect themselves, that they are not esteemed of and loved as dear children, because they feel so much of God's wrath: for here is a saint who hath drunken of that cup (as deep as any who shall read this Psalm,)here is one so much loved and honoured of God, as to be a penman of Holy Scripture, and a pattern of faith and patience unto others; even Heman the Ezrahite.
—David Dickson.
Filed under Covenanted Reformation, Daily Quote, David Dickson by on Jul 26th, 2010. Comment.
This tempest of afflictions is all the heavier, because, First, all my acquaintance departed far from me, like swallows in winter time: Pr 14:20. The poor is hated even of his own neighbour, but, but the rich hath many friends. Seneca wisely admonishes: Flies follow honey, wolves corpses, ants food, the mob follows the pay, not the man. Job said, (Job 19:13), He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me. My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. Secondly, not only do they often depart from the afflicted, but they themselves add to his trouble, and precipitate his falling fortune. A rich man beginning to fall is held up by his friends; but a poor man being down, is thrust away by those who once pretended to love him.
—Le Blanc.
Depicting Lazarus outside the gates of the rich man
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, Misc Quotes by on Jul 25th, 2010. Comment.
And now my work is done, I must leave you; and whether I shall ever speak to you, or see you, or write you again while the world stands, I know not. My body is frail, and I am a poor and dying man, and before long, my mouth will be stopped… and yours, too.. I have set life and death before you.. I have stayed a great while for an answer…you must either speedily come in upon the invitation, and close with those gracious invitations that are made to you, or you… must cast yourself away… Seek the Lord while he may be found, and with all possible speed, seriousness and gratitude, accept of his kindness while you may.
—James Janeway
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, James Janeway by on Jul 24th, 2010. Comment.
Flame is soon spent, graces that act most strongly require most influence, as being most subject to abatement. WE sooner lose our affections than anythng else. Love is a grace we can ill spare; it is the spring and rise of all duties to God and man… if we would do anything in the resistance of sin, in keeping the commandments, we cannot spare our love… Well, then, watch more earnestly against the decays and abatement's of love.
Sin confessed without remorse… prayer made for spiritual blessings with the desire of obtaining… hearing without attention.. singing without any delight or melody of the heart—all this is but the just account of a heart declining in the love of God.
—-Thomas Manton
Filed under A Puritan at Heart, Daily Quote, Thomas Manton by on Jul 23rd, 2010. Comment.
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