THE PURITAN SERIES #4

WORTHY QUOTES FROM THREE PURITANS NAMED THOMAS

If you have read any of my recent articles, you know I have great respect for the Puritans. It is hard to say which are my very favorites, but the following three are certainly near the top. For pithiness, readability, spiritual insight, Thomas Manton, Thomas Brooks, and Thomas Watson are very worthy. Most of these men’s writings are still in print. You may ask “Which one should I start with?” If you are new to Puritan writing, and desire a blessing, I would say purchase Thomas Watson’s All Things for Good, which was formerly titled A Divine Cordial. It is published in paperback by Banner of Truth and you can obtain it for about $8 from Amazon.com, or just read it online by clicking here: http://fivesolas.com/watson/cordal_i.htm . Five Solas also has a lot of other Puritan writings you may wish to read. So much of their work is in print now, and online, and ought to be read for our spiritual edification. Since they have long left this world, their work is not copyrighted. They would smile on your drawing from their wells. (cw)

GOD’S MIND, OUR PRAYERS, PEACE WITH GOD- Thomas Manton, 1620-1677

"God’s mind is revealed in scripture, but we can see nothing without the spectacles of the Holy Spirit.”
“When we make self the end of prayer, it is not worship, but self-seeking.”
”We have peace with God by the righteousness of Christ, and peace of conscience by the fruits of righteousness in ourselves.”
“Continued meditation brings great profit to the soul. Passant and transient thoughts are more pleasant, but not so profitable. Deliberate meditation is of most use because it secures the return of the thoughts.”
“What is the reason there is so much preaching and so little practice? For want of meditation.... Constant thoughts are operative, and musing makes the fire burn. Green wood is not kindled by a flash or spark, but by constant blowing.”
“If you yield to Satan in the least, he will carry you further and further, till he has left you under a stupefied or terrified conscience: stupefied, till thou hast lost all thy tenderness. A stone at the top of a hill, when it begins to roll down, ceases not till it comes to the bottom. Thou thinkest it is but yielding a little, and so by degrees are carried on, till thou hast sinned away all thy profession, and all principles of conscience, by the secret witchery of his temptations.”

OUR ACTIONS- Thomas Brooks, 1608-1680
“A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins, if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions.”
“Truth is mighty and will prevail.”
“ The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; the best way to gather is to scatter.”
"There are three things that earthly riches can never do; they can never satisfy divine justice, they can never pacify divine wrath, nor can they ever quiet a guilty conscience. And till these things are done man is undone.”
"Reader, remember this: if thy knowledge do not now affect thy heart, it will at last, with a witness, afflict thy heart; if it do not now endear Christ to thee, it will at last provoke Christ the more against thee; if it do not make all the things of Christ to be very precious in thy eyes, it will at last make thee the more vile in Christ's eyes."
"There is no such way to attain to better measures of grace, as for a man to live up to that little grace he has."
"Bring your graces to the touchstone, to try their truth, rather than to the balance to weigh their measure."

FOR HIS CHILDREN- Thomas Watson, 1620-1686
“A regenerate person abhors sin not only for the curse but for the contagion. He hates this serpent not only for its sting but for its poison. He hates sin not only for hell but as hell.”
“Tomorrow may be our dying day; let this be our repenting day.”
“We are never more precious in God's eyes when we are lepers in our own.”
"The Scripture is to be its own interpreter, or rather the Spirit speaking in it; nothing can cut the diamond but the diamond; nothing can interpret Scripture but Scripture."
"The Scripture is both the breeder and feeder of grace. How is the convert born, but by the word of truth?" (James 1:18). How doth he grow, but by `the sincere milk of the Word?"
(1 Peter 2:2)
“Why does God woo and beseech you by his ambassadors, if he is not willing to be in covenant?”
“The torments of hell abide for ever.... If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.”

MORE THOUGHTS FROM THE PURITAN, THOMAS WATSON

“Tomorrow may be our dying day; let this be our repenting day.”

“Civility does but wash a man, grace changes him…Civility is but strewing flowers on a dead corpse. A man may be wonderfully moralized, yet but a tame devil.”

(Thomas Watson in The Beatitudes)

“A regenerate person abhors sin not only for the curse but for the contagion. He hates this serpent not only for its sting but for its poison. He hates sin not only for hell but as hell.”

(These were all random quotes by these good men. You can find more by many more Puritans in A Puritan Golden Treasury by I.D.E Thomas published by Banner of Truth and it is in print).