"Justification is the criminal pardoned; sanctification, the patient healed. The union of both constitutes present salvation." - Joel Beeke
"As the growth or decay of vegetable nature is often so gradual as to be insensible; so in the moral world, verbal alterations, which are counted as nothing, do often introduce real changes, which are firmly established before their approach is so much as suspected." -- John Witherspoon
"You ask whether you must abandon all the amusements of the world? I answer -- Abandon all upon which you dare not ask the blessing of God; -- all which crowd out of your thoughts the realities of eternity; all which you are unwilling to think of in connection with dying -- all for which you would dread that God should bring you into judgment.
Do you ask again, what those amusements are in which you may safely indulge, while you are yet unreconciled to God? I reply, by asking what amusement you would choose if you were just ready to be enveloped in the flames of a burning house; or if you were under sentence of death, and had but one hour more, before you should ascend the scaffold?" - W. B. Sprague
"The church is more accustomed to receiving blows than to giving them. But I tell you, it is an anvil that has worn out many a hammer." -- Theodore Beza (1519-1605)
"Our property is purely a trust fund, and the whole of it is to be used for the benefit of the owner. There is to be no division at all. There is to be no line drawn between God's portion and our portion. All is God's, and all is to be employed for him. Here is the only true and safe starting point for deducing our practical rules of Christian expenditure." - R.L. Dabney
Q. 38. Is it lawful to explain this mystery (the Trinity) by natural similitudes?
A. No; for there is no similitude amongst all the creatures, that has the remotest resemblance to this adorable mystery of the three one God. By making similes or comparisons of this kind, men have become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish minds have been darkened, Rom. 1:21-26; and therefore, as this doctrine is entirely a matter of faith, it becomes us to adore it, without prying curiously into what is not revealed. - Fisher's Catechism
"Certainly, they that deny it do not so much reason against this article of our Christian faith as scoff at it; and it is to be imputed to the malignity of their tempers, rather than the acuteness or sharpness of their reason that they do not believe it." - Thomas Manton, on the return of Christ
"We put it as our most sober judgment that the great need of the church in this and all ages is men of such commanding faith, of such unsullied holiness, of such marked spiritual vigor and consuming zeal that their ministry will be of such radical and aggressive form as to work spiritual revolutions which will form eras in individual and church life.
Natural ability and educational advantages do not figure as factors in this matter; but a capacity for faith, the ability to pray, the power of a thorough consecration, the ability of self-littleness, an absolute losing of one's self in God's glory and an ever present and insatiable yearning and seeking after all the fullness of God. Men who can set the church ablaze for God, not in a noisy, showy, way, but with an intense and quiet heat that melts and moves every thing for God." - E.M. Bounds (1835 - 1913)
"Once we allow the premise that some scientific theories can be taken as divine truth then we are in essence permitting 'the book of science' to modify Scripture. In the absence of valid criteria by which we can devise and detect correct theories, our reading of the Bible will be forever subjected to the latest favored scientific theory." -- John Byl, 'On Scientific and Theological Method'
"As you have made a pretty considerable progress in the mysteries of electricity, I would now honestly recommend to your diligent unprejudiced pursuit and study the mysteries of the new birth."
-- George Whitfield, in a letter to Benjamin Franklin
Archbishop William Temple defined worship as "the submission of all our nature to God, the quickening of the conscience by His holiness, the nourishment of the mind with His truth, the purifying of the imagination by His beauty, the opening of the heart to His love, and the surrender of will to His purpose. And all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable."
"Being a powerful witness for Christ is not knowing how to offer a commodity persuasively to a potential consumer. It is a matter of living in Christ so that people are drawn to Him by the power of His Spirit. When such a holy witness adds verbal testimony, he or she is speaking in love and sincerity of the certain and glorious hope, the peace that passes understanding, and the joy unspeakable and full of glory that are in Jesus. Such witnesses cannot fail both to attract His sheep, and to arouse the malice of the goats."
"The attendance to the morning service reveals the popularity of a church. The attendance to the evening service reveals the popularity of her minister. The attendance to the mid-week prayer meeting reveals the 'popularity' of her Master." -- paraphrased, source unknown
"…as death came upon the human race by the disobedience of man, it was fitting that by Man's obedience life should be restored. And, as sin, the cause of our condemnation, had its origin from a woman, so ought the Author of our righteousness and salvation to be born of a woman.
And so also was it proper that the devil, who, being man's tempter, had conquered him in eating of the tree, should be vanquished by Man in the suffering of the tree which Man bore. Many other things also, if we carefully examine them, give a certain indescribable beauty to our redemption as thus procured." - Anselm, 11th century theologian and churchman
"Many spend the other six days of the week sowing wild oats, then go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure." -- Fred Allen (paraphrased)
"If the guilt of sin is so great that nothing can satisfy it but the blood of Jesus; and the filth of sin is so great that nothing can fetch out the stain thereof but the blood of Jesus, how great, how heinous, how sinful must the evil of sin be." -- William Bridge
Remember what we reformed from: an elite priesthood who assumed they were the only ones who were able to understand truth, and dispensed it to the "children" who were the non-elite.
- Kate Scot-Bryson
"God takes a safe course with His children, that they may not be condemned with the world. He permits the world to condemn them, that they may not love the world. The world hates them, that they may not love the world; that they may be crucified to it, the world is to be crucified to them. Therefore they meet with such crosses and abuses and wrongs in the world. Because He will not suffer them to perish with the world, He sends them afflictions in and by the world." - Richard Sibbes
"The foundation of true holiness and true Christian worship is the doctrine of the gospel, what we are to believe. So when Christian doctrine is neglected, forsaken, or corrupted, true holiness and worship will also be neglected, forsaken, and corrupted" - John Owen
"But it is doubtless true, and evident from these Scriptures, that the essence of all true religion lies in holy love; and that in this divine affection, and an habitual disposition to it, and that light which is the foundation of it, and those things which are the fruits of it, consists the whole of religion." -- Jonathan Edwards
"…Nor is the Son's generation like a man's from his parent, involving His coming into existence after the Father. Rather He is God's offspring, and since God is eternal and He belongs to God as Son, He exists from all eternity. It is characteristic of men, because of the imperfections of their nature, to beget in time; but God's offspring is eternal, His nature being always perfect." - Athanasius, circa 325 Anno Domini
"I believe it to be a grave mistake to present Christianity as something charming and popular with no offense in it. Seeing that Christ went about the world giving the most violent offense to all kinds of people it would seem absurd to expect that the doctrine of His Person can be so presented as to offend nobody. We cannot blink at the fact that gentle Jesus meek and mild was so stiff in His opinions and so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of church, stoned, hunted from place to place, and finally gibbeted as a firebrand and public danger. Whatever His peace was, it was not the peace of an amiable indifference. -- Dorothy Sayers
"Whatever means you use to get people into the church is precisely what you must use to keep them. If you get them with a 'religious circus', then you must keep the circus going - keep up the entertainment. If you get them with Biblical preaching and teaching, then that will keep them and you will not need the entertainment." -- Ernest Reisinger
"Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set." -- Rev. Denny Brake
"Eternally progressing in the knowledge of God must be one of heaven's most glorious aspects. After billions of ages, and then again after billions times billions more, the saint in heaven is only beginning to wade into an ocean of love, wisdom, and goodness that is infinitely deep."
"Believe in God, in His providence, in a future life, in the recompense of the good; in the punishment of the wicked; in the sublimity and truth of the doctrines of Christ, in a revelation of this doctrine by a special Divine inspiration for the salvation of the human race." - Andre Marie Ampere (1775-1836)
Ampere was a French scientist who discovered the relationship between magnetism and electricity, and defined the electrical measurement that bears his name: the ampere, or "amp" for short. -ed.
"The Assembly doth further require and appoint ministers and ruling elders to make diligent search and enquiry, in the congregations committed to their charge respectively, whether there be among them any family or families which use to neglect this necessary duty; and if such family be found, the head of the family is to be first admonished privately to amend his fault; and in case of his continuing therein, he is to be gravely and sadly reproved by the session; after which reproof, if he be found still to neglect Family-worship, let him be, for his obstinacy in such an offense, suspended and debarred from the Lord's supper...." -- The Directory of Family Worship, General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1647 A.D.
"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 every quiet a guilty conscience. And till these things are done man is undone." -- Thomas Brooks
Rev. Warren J. Keating, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Yuma AZ, said that the best prayer he ever heard was: "Lord, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am."
"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out." - Bishop Hugh Latimer, to Nicholas Ridley, as he was about to be burned at the stake for heresy, 1555 Anno Domini
"We should not pray only for those whom we like. It is easy to pray for the leader whom we respect or with whom we agree. It is much harder to pray for the leader whose personality is offensive, whose ethics are questionable, who takes the 'wrong' position on every issue, or who is in the 'wrong' party. Yet these leaders are also ministers of God. They don't necessarily deserve our vote, but they do deserve our respect and our prayers." -- John Eidsmoe
Lord with glowing heart I'd praise Thee
For the bliss Thy love bestows;
For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows.
Help, O God, my weak endeavor,
This dull soul to rapture raise;
Thou must light the flame, or never
Can my love be warmed to praise.
- Francis Scott Key (1779-1843), author of "The Star Spangled Banner"
"The Congress of the United States of America October 3, 1863, passed an Act designating an annual national day of Thanksgiving, as proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln: 'I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States...to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father Who dwelleth in the heavens...it is announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.' -- America's God and Country, William J. Federer, editor
"As the duties of piety ought to be preached up, that he who hath ears to hear may be instructed how to worship God aright; and as chastity should be publically recommended and enforced, that he who hath ears to hear may know how to possess himself in sanctification; and as charity, moreover, should be inculcated from the pulpit, that he who hath ears to hear may be excited to the ardent love of God and his neighbor, in like manner should God's predestination of His favours be openly preached, that he who hath ears to hear may learn to glory not in himself, but in the Lord." -- Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 Anno Domini
"He therefore, and he only, knows what saved means, who knows what hell, and death, and damnation means. 'What shall I do to be saved?' is the language of the trembling sinner. 'Lord save me' is the language of the sinking sinner; and none admire the glory that is in that word saved, but such as see, without being saved, all things in heaven and earth are emptiness to them. -- John Bunyan
"If a savior leaves you as you are and where you are, from what has he saved you?" -- Rev. Denny Brake
"Assurance of salvation is not of the essence of a Christian. It is required to the well being, to the comfortable and joyful being of a Christian, but it is not required to the essence of being a Christian. A man may be a true believer, and yet would give all the world, if it were in his power, to know that he is a believer. To have grace, and to be sure that we have grace, is glory upon the throne, it is heaven on this side of heaven." -- Thomas Brooks (paraphrased)
"We wish you a Winter Solstice,
We wish you a Winter Solstice,
We wish you a Winter Solstice and a Happy New Year.
Don't my new secularized lyrics for this holiday classic just bless your heart? But then again, can anything secular actually 'bless'? Makes you wonder. But now I am going to have to figure out what do with the 'happy new year' part because -- as you know -- the year A.D. 2005 is 2005 because it has been 2005 years since You Know Who was born. A.D. is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase (in) anno Domini which translates, 'in the year of our Lord.' As in the year of our Lord You Know Who." --Tim Wildmon
Unattributed quotes are the words of the web site editor.
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