"There are two principle parts of the light which still remains in corrupt nature: first, the seed of religion is planted in all men; next, the distinction between good and evil is engraved on their consciences" (J. Calvin).
'Nothing in history has been able to halt the grim shadow of ‘the prophet’ across the face of human history except for the Risen Christ, who brings trust in the place of terror, forgiveness in the face of fanaticism, and culture and experience of life in the face of a culture and experience of death.' -Gavin Ashenden
Salman Abedi was not some unknown apparently integrated second-generation Muslim who suddenly decided to commit an atrocity. He was known to his community and the security forces as an Islamic radical. Until we make clear that, sorry, but no free speech for Islamists, we will remain vulnerable. And why not internment? If Abedi had been stuck in an internment camp on Dartmoor he would not be blowing people up in Manchester. Internment without trial is not a sign of a destabilised society but one defending its values.
From the Times
The most tremendous judgment of God in this world is the hardening of the hearts of men. John Owen
Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. John Owen
Wednesday 31 May 2017
Tuesday 30 May 2017
Quotes 31 May 17
“Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think. Use no constraint in matters of religion. Even those who are farthest out of the way never compel to come in by any other means than reason, truth, and love.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
“Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergyman or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon the earth.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
"The colonies planted by England in America have immeasurably out-grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet we have no reason to believe that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the effect of the Protestant Reformation, and that the decay of the southern countries of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great Catholic revival" - Lord Macaulay, 1840
"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are." - Augustine
“Give me one hundred men who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergyman or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon the earth.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
"The colonies planted by England in America have immeasurably out-grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet we have no reason to believe that, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the effect of the Protestant Reformation, and that the decay of the southern countries of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great Catholic revival" - Lord Macaulay, 1840
"Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are." - Augustine
Monday 29 May 2017
Quotes 30 May 17
It is absurd that we must all pussyfoot around the name of Mohammed, as though his prophethood were beyond question and his example unassailable. It is offensive that we must all revere the Qur’an and set it on the highest shelf in our public schools and libraries, as though its lofty precepts were inviolable and its theology immutable. It is deplorable that we must bow and scrape to self-appointed ‘community leaders’ who dispense their infallible notions of sharia justice and pontificate to the media about how ‘Islamophobia’ must be stamped out – by which they mean any historical inquiry into Mohammed; any criticism of the Sunnah or his claims to prophethood; and any unauthorised theological exposition of the Qur’an or Hadith.- http://archbishopcranmer.com/england-defeated-religious-fanatics-in-the-past-and-will-do-so-again/
“When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then give all you can.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
“Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
“When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“Having, First, gained all you can, and, Secondly saved all you can, Then give all you can.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
“Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. It is our part, by religion and reason joined, to counteract them all we can.” —from a letter in the Works of John Wesley
“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.” —from a sermon in the Works of John Wesley
Sunday 28 May 2017
Quotes 29 May 17
Next time someone says that J. Edwards was America's greatest philosophical theologian, remind them he was a British citizen his whole life.- James Anderson @proginosko
I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.-
John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
"One thing qualifies me for Christ, my abominable vileness.”-John Newton @john__newton
My soul is very sick, but my Physician is infallible. - Samuel Rutherford
Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge
I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.-
John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
"One thing qualifies me for Christ, my abominable vileness.”-John Newton @john__newton
My soul is very sick, but my Physician is infallible. - Samuel Rutherford
Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge
Friday 26 May 2017
Quotes 27 May 17
...actor Sir Michael Caine caused a furor a few weeks ago. Caine’s crime? Admitting that he had voted for Brexit. “For me,” Caine said, “it was about freedom. I’d rather be a poor master than a rich servant.” -quoted by Peter Robinson, "Michael Caine Says
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education
is the ability to make yourself do the thing you
have to do, when it ought to be done, whether
you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and
however early a man's training begins, it is probably
the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.-T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) _Technical Education_ [1877]
Calmly to rejoice is the lot of no man but of him who has learned to place his confidence in God alone.- John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
“We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty towards one's neighbour... But we have to love our neighbour because he is there—a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given to us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.” - G K Chesterton:Heretics, "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family"
"Do not think, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it." -Spurgeon
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education
is the ability to make yourself do the thing you
have to do, when it ought to be done, whether
you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and
however early a man's training begins, it is probably
the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.-T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) _Technical Education_ [1877]
Calmly to rejoice is the lot of no man but of him who has learned to place his confidence in God alone.- John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
“We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty towards one's neighbour... But we have to love our neighbour because he is there—a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given to us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.” - G K Chesterton:Heretics, "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family"
"Do not think, believer, that your sorrows are out of God's plan; they are necessary parts of it." -Spurgeon
Thursday 25 May 2017
Quotes 26 May 17
Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.The highest form of blessedness comes from a certain sort of knowledge — namely, the knowledge of God’s providence.If this is true, why wouldn’t we seek to understand it more? Calvin
“In times of adversity, believers comfort themselves with the solace that they suffer nothing except by God’s ordinance and command, for they are under his hand.” Calvin
Adversity is something all Christians will face. And it’s something that Calvin knew well.
"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie - the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on." - Hank Rearden, character in Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_, Part 3, chapter 3: Anti-greed
"The people who give me the impression of being most miserable in their spiritual life are those who are always thinking of themselves and their blessings, their moods and states and conditions. The way to be blessed is to look to God." -- David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE
The Lord blesses us more by punishing us, than he would have done by sparing us. — John Calvin
“In times of adversity, believers comfort themselves with the solace that they suffer nothing except by God’s ordinance and command, for they are under his hand.” Calvin
Adversity is something all Christians will face. And it’s something that Calvin knew well.
"People think that a liar gains a victory over his victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one's master, condemning oneself from then on to faking the sort of reality that person's view requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate purpose of the lie - the price one pays is the destruction of what the gain was intended to serve. The man who lies to the world is the world's slave from then on." - Hank Rearden, character in Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_, Part 3, chapter 3: Anti-greed
"The people who give me the impression of being most miserable in their spiritual life are those who are always thinking of themselves and their blessings, their moods and states and conditions. The way to be blessed is to look to God." -- David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, GOD'S ETERNAL PURPOSE
The Lord blesses us more by punishing us, than he would have done by sparing us. — John Calvin
Wednesday 24 May 2017
Quotes 25 May 17
The devil visits idle men with his temptations. God visits industrious men with His favors.~Matthew Henry
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment. -Jim Rohn (1930-2009, entrepreneur, author, and speaker)
http://www.learnfromthegiants.com/jim-rohn.html
“He sustains, nourishes, and cares for everything he has made, even to the least sparrow.”Jesus says that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without the Father’s permission (Matthew 10:29).If God takes care of seemingly insignificant creatures, won’t he also take care of you?Maybe you’re anxious about money or grades. Or maybe it’s your kids or issues in your church. Whatever it is — you can trust God to sustain, nourish, and care for you during this time.- Anon
“God’s providence, as it is taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous happenings.There is no such thing as fortune or chance. . . ’fortune’ and ‘chance’ are pagan terms, with whose significance the minds of the godly ought not to be occupied.All events are governed by God’s secret plan. Not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command.He so regulates all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation.God is not the author of evil, but he does govern all things that come to pass— including hardships and suffering. But he is not just sovereign; he is also good. And because God is both sovereign and good, you can trust his wise disposition to your current circumstances, even if you don’t like them. Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God.” - Calvin
“No creature has a force more wondrous or glorious than that of the sun . . . the sun does not daily rise and set by blind instinct of nature but that he himself, to renew our remembrance of his fatherly favors toward us, governs its course,Everyday when the sun rises you know that trouble awaits you (Matthew 6:34). But you also know that his new mercies will sustain you (Lamentations 3:23). Providence tells you that you can be at peace because the one who has the power to control the sun also has the power to govern your life.- Calvin
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment. -Jim Rohn (1930-2009, entrepreneur, author, and speaker)
http://www.learnfromthegiants.com/jim-rohn.html
“He sustains, nourishes, and cares for everything he has made, even to the least sparrow.”Jesus says that a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without the Father’s permission (Matthew 10:29).If God takes care of seemingly insignificant creatures, won’t he also take care of you?Maybe you’re anxious about money or grades. Or maybe it’s your kids or issues in your church. Whatever it is — you can trust God to sustain, nourish, and care for you during this time.- Anon
“God’s providence, as it is taught in Scripture, is opposed to fortune and fortuitous happenings.There is no such thing as fortune or chance. . . ’fortune’ and ‘chance’ are pagan terms, with whose significance the minds of the godly ought not to be occupied.All events are governed by God’s secret plan. Not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command.He so regulates all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation.God is not the author of evil, but he does govern all things that come to pass— including hardships and suffering. But he is not just sovereign; he is also good. And because God is both sovereign and good, you can trust his wise disposition to your current circumstances, even if you don’t like them. Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God.” - Calvin
“No creature has a force more wondrous or glorious than that of the sun . . . the sun does not daily rise and set by blind instinct of nature but that he himself, to renew our remembrance of his fatherly favors toward us, governs its course,Everyday when the sun rises you know that trouble awaits you (Matthew 6:34). But you also know that his new mercies will sustain you (Lamentations 3:23). Providence tells you that you can be at peace because the one who has the power to control the sun also has the power to govern your life.- Calvin
Tuesday 23 May 2017
Quotes 24 May 17
“If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.”Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
"When you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags." - dialog from Bojack Horseman
Everything is necessary that God sends our way; nothing can be necessary that he withholds.-John Newton @john__newton 4h4 hours ago
"It is the duty of the theologian to subordinate his theories to the Bible, and teach not what seems to be true or reasonable, but simply what the Bible teaches." ~ Charles Hodge
People are messy; therefore, relationships will be messy. Don't be surprised by messiness.Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
"When you look at someone through rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags just look like flags." - dialog from Bojack Horseman
Everything is necessary that God sends our way; nothing can be necessary that he withholds.-John Newton @john__newton 4h4 hours ago
"It is the duty of the theologian to subordinate his theories to the Bible, and teach not what seems to be true or reasonable, but simply what the Bible teaches." ~ Charles Hodge
Monday 22 May 2017
Quotes 23 May 17
"The life of the whole body is in the head, and therefore when the head rose, the body rose." —Charles Hodge #OldPrinceton
We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, and raise it up when it is overthrown ~ Calvin
The whole world is not a theatre large enough to display the glory of Christ upon: or unfold the one half of the unsearchable riches that lie hidden in him. - John Flavel
"No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind is made up for him by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind. No sceptic who believes that truth is subjective has any hesitation about treating it as objective”- G.K. Chesterton:
"All things would instantly come to nothing, were they not sustained by God's power." (John Calvin)
We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, and raise it up when it is overthrown ~ Calvin
The whole world is not a theatre large enough to display the glory of Christ upon: or unfold the one half of the unsearchable riches that lie hidden in him. - John Flavel
"No sceptics work sceptically; no fatalists work fatalistically; all without exception work on the principle that it is possible to assume what it is not possible to believe. No materialist who thinks his mind is made up for him by mud and blood and heredity, has any hesitation in making up his mind. No sceptic who believes that truth is subjective has any hesitation about treating it as objective”- G.K. Chesterton:
"All things would instantly come to nothing, were they not sustained by God's power." (John Calvin)
Sunday 21 May 2017
Quotes 22 May 17
Faith takes God's promise to itself and so finds relief.— John Owen
“The gospel destroys fearfulness because it tells us that nothing we can do will exhaust his love for us.” - Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money. — Johnny Carson
"Herein is the goodness, power, and providence of God wondrously displayed. At one time he raises up manifest avengers from among his own servants, and gives them his command to punish accursed tyranny, and deliver his people from calamity when they are unjustly oppressed; at another time he employs, for this purpose, the fury of men who have other thoughts and other aims."-John Calvin(Institutes of the Christian Religion)
He who has God as his portion is destitute of nothing which is requisite to constitute a happy life.- John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
“The gospel destroys fearfulness because it tells us that nothing we can do will exhaust his love for us.” - Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money. — Johnny Carson
"Herein is the goodness, power, and providence of God wondrously displayed. At one time he raises up manifest avengers from among his own servants, and gives them his command to punish accursed tyranny, and deliver his people from calamity when they are unjustly oppressed; at another time he employs, for this purpose, the fury of men who have other thoughts and other aims."-John Calvin(Institutes of the Christian Religion)
He who has God as his portion is destitute of nothing which is requisite to constitute a happy life.- John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
Friday 19 May 2017
20 May 17
The blood of Christ washes and reconciles to God, not the righteous and those who are fulfilling the law, but sinners and the transgressors of the law.-John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Such is the efficacy of the promises of the Gospel, that, as soon as anyone receives them by a living faith, and applies them to himself, he straightway derives from thence firm and solid consolation. But how can the promise of the forgiveness of sins yield to the believer solid comfort, while he remains uncertain whether he has faith or not? . . . Faith wrought by the Spirit apprehends the forgiveness of sins, and the paternal love of God towards us. This faith, in laying hold of the free love of God towards us, does not make men reckless and easy; but the want of this assurance is the cause why men wallow in earthly lusts. ‘Men do not’ (says Bernard) ‘repay the love of God with a return of love, unless as the Spirit reveals to them, through faith, the eternal purpose of God respecting their future salvation.’-John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
"That students should flock for instruction to a place so devoid of human attractions is indicative of the terrible earnestness which then existed in the hearts of many for the advancement of Christ's Kingdom. Conscious of the deadly struggle which was being fought out with error all over Europe, young men considered no hardship too great provided they might be instructed in the oracles of God and trained to carry the word of reconciliation to dying men. Geneva thus became the great missionary centre of the 16th century."
Hugh Y. Reyburn, John Calvin, His Life, Letters, and Work. p. 284. Quoted by Iain Murray, Ministerial Training: Sketch of Theological Education n the 16th and 17th centuries, 1959.
If you have no wish to bring others to heaven, you are not going there yourself. -C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 35 [1889]
Such is the efficacy of the promises of the Gospel, that, as soon as anyone receives them by a living faith, and applies them to himself, he straightway derives from thence firm and solid consolation. But how can the promise of the forgiveness of sins yield to the believer solid comfort, while he remains uncertain whether he has faith or not? . . . Faith wrought by the Spirit apprehends the forgiveness of sins, and the paternal love of God towards us. This faith, in laying hold of the free love of God towards us, does not make men reckless and easy; but the want of this assurance is the cause why men wallow in earthly lusts. ‘Men do not’ (says Bernard) ‘repay the love of God with a return of love, unless as the Spirit reveals to them, through faith, the eternal purpose of God respecting their future salvation.’-John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
"That students should flock for instruction to a place so devoid of human attractions is indicative of the terrible earnestness which then existed in the hearts of many for the advancement of Christ's Kingdom. Conscious of the deadly struggle which was being fought out with error all over Europe, young men considered no hardship too great provided they might be instructed in the oracles of God and trained to carry the word of reconciliation to dying men. Geneva thus became the great missionary centre of the 16th century."
Hugh Y. Reyburn, John Calvin, His Life, Letters, and Work. p. 284. Quoted by Iain Murray, Ministerial Training: Sketch of Theological Education n the 16th and 17th centuries, 1959.
If you have no wish to bring others to heaven, you are not going there yourself. -C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 35 [1889]
Thursday 18 May 2017
Quotes 19 May 17
The perfect obedience of Christ, the Mediator, is the formal cause of our justification.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
The justification of believers does not rest on this, that they have in themselves a quality of new righteousness, which they would venture to subject to a legal examination of the strict judgment of God; but that, by and through the merits of the Redeemer, in whom they believe, they are not to undergo such judgments, but are dealt with as if they had in themselves exact legal righteousness.-John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
The obedience of Christ, whereby He fulfilled the law, is so imputed to His mystical members, that, in consideration of it, they stand guiltless before God, justified and accepted to everlasting life- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
God, by His decree, transferred the fulfilling of the law to Christ, the God-man, and willed that that obedience and righteousness which Christ performed, in our flesh, should become ours by imputation. The Apostle most clearly teaches that Christ was made subject to the law, not for Himself, but for us; whence it will follow, that the fruit of His obedience redounds to us; which is the same as that the righteousness of Christ, or His perfect fulfilling of the law, is imputed to us.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Christ not only made satisfaction for us by undergoing the penalty of the cross, but also by taking upon Himself the burden of the law.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
The justification of believers does not rest on this, that they have in themselves a quality of new righteousness, which they would venture to subject to a legal examination of the strict judgment of God; but that, by and through the merits of the Redeemer, in whom they believe, they are not to undergo such judgments, but are dealt with as if they had in themselves exact legal righteousness.-John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
The obedience of Christ, whereby He fulfilled the law, is so imputed to His mystical members, that, in consideration of it, they stand guiltless before God, justified and accepted to everlasting life- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
God, by His decree, transferred the fulfilling of the law to Christ, the God-man, and willed that that obedience and righteousness which Christ performed, in our flesh, should become ours by imputation. The Apostle most clearly teaches that Christ was made subject to the law, not for Himself, but for us; whence it will follow, that the fruit of His obedience redounds to us; which is the same as that the righteousness of Christ, or His perfect fulfilling of the law, is imputed to us.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Christ not only made satisfaction for us by undergoing the penalty of the cross, but also by taking upon Himself the burden of the law.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Wednesday 17 May 2017
Quotes 18 May 17
“One of the first things taught in introductory statistics textbooks is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten.” -Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook. The well-meaning person who, by merely studying the logical side of things, has decided that “faith is nonsense,” does not know how truly he speaks; later it may come back to him in the form that nonsense is faith. --GK Chesterton, _The Defendant_ (1901)
In justification we are liberated from the chains of our sins, so far as they bound us for condemnation, yea, even so far as they held us under the dominion of Satan; and this suffices for its being truly said that the chains of our sins are broken asunder by the grace of God; for the remains thereof, abiding in us, have not the nature of a chain, but are themselves enchained by the grace now predominant over them, and treading them, as it were, under foot. - John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
As original righteousness comprehended the spiritual light of the mind, so original sin implies the densest mental darkness.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
We acknowledge that God infuses a righteousness, in the very act of justifying; but we deny that the sentence of God, in justifying, has respect to this as the cause by which man is constituted justified.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Nonsense and faith (strange as the conjunction may seem) are the two supreme symbolic assertions of the truth that to draw out the soul of things with a syllogism is as impossible as to draw out Leviathan with a hook. The well-meaning person who, by merely studying the logical side of things, has decided that “faith is nonsense,” does not know how truly he speaks; later it may come back to him in the form that nonsense is faith. --GK Chesterton, _The Defendant_ (1901)
In justification we are liberated from the chains of our sins, so far as they bound us for condemnation, yea, even so far as they held us under the dominion of Satan; and this suffices for its being truly said that the chains of our sins are broken asunder by the grace of God; for the remains thereof, abiding in us, have not the nature of a chain, but are themselves enchained by the grace now predominant over them, and treading them, as it were, under foot. - John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
As original righteousness comprehended the spiritual light of the mind, so original sin implies the densest mental darkness.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
We acknowledge that God infuses a righteousness, in the very act of justifying; but we deny that the sentence of God, in justifying, has respect to this as the cause by which man is constituted justified.- John Davenant (1576 – 1641),Words Old and New: Gems from the Christian Authorship of all Ages (pp. 137-139)
Tuesday 16 May 2017
Quotes 17 May 17
Does God perform all things for his people? Do not distrust Him then when new or great difficulties arise. John Flavel
I can, if you will let me, lay claim to one little modest negative virtue. I have always been free from envy. In the year 1900 I had been considered a rather clever and amusing young man, but I felt no pang whatsoever at finding myself cut out at my own game by a sudden new-comer, named G. K. Chesterton, who was obviously far more amusing than I, and obviously a man of genius into the bargain. ~ Max Beerbohm, Lytton Strachey, 1943
O the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! It will be growing upon us through time, yea, I believe through eternity.- John Newton @john__newton
The most dangerous leap is the leap to conclusions.~ Woodrow Kroll
The ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change in the French social system but nothing short of a regeneration of the whole human race. It created an atmosphere of missionary fervor and, indeed, assumed all the aspects of a religious revival—much to the consternation of contemporary observers. It would perhaps be truer to say that it developed into a species of religion. - Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1856
I can, if you will let me, lay claim to one little modest negative virtue. I have always been free from envy. In the year 1900 I had been considered a rather clever and amusing young man, but I felt no pang whatsoever at finding myself cut out at my own game by a sudden new-comer, named G. K. Chesterton, who was obviously far more amusing than I, and obviously a man of genius into the bargain. ~ Max Beerbohm, Lytton Strachey, 1943
O the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! It will be growing upon us through time, yea, I believe through eternity.- John Newton @john__newton
The most dangerous leap is the leap to conclusions.~ Woodrow Kroll
The ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change in the French social system but nothing short of a regeneration of the whole human race. It created an atmosphere of missionary fervor and, indeed, assumed all the aspects of a religious revival—much to the consternation of contemporary observers. It would perhaps be truer to say that it developed into a species of religion. - Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the Revolution, 1856
Monday 15 May 2017
Quotes 16 May 17
How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts?It depraves and corrupts me. - Malcolm Muggeridge (@malmuggeridge)
Islam is conquering via the cradle.- John Jefferson
But, if the dark hour does not vanish, as sometimes it doesn't, if the black cloud will not lift, as sometimes it will not, let me tell you again for your comfort that there are many liars in the world, but there are no liars like our own sensations. The despair and the horror mean nothing, because there is for you nothing irremediable, nothing ineffaceable, nothing irrecoverable in anything you may have said or thought or done. If, for any reason, you cannot believe or have not been taught to believe in the infinite mercy of Heaven, which has made us all, and will take care we do not go far astray, at least believe that you are not yet sufficiently important to be taken too
seriously by the Powers above us or beneath us. In other words, take everything you like seriously, except yourself. -Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "Values in Life", _A Book of Words_ (1928), a volume of Kipling's collected speeches. Speech originally delivered in the fall of 1907 to the students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Yesterday we fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone. Although under a heavy fire for several continuous hours I received only one wound, the breaking of the longest finger of my left hand; but the doctor says the finger may be saved. . . . Your coat got an ugly wound near the hip, but my
servant, who is very handy, has so far repaired it that it doesn't show very much. My preservation was entirely due, as was the glorious victory, to our God, to whom be all
the honor, praise, and glory. -Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863) (In a letter to his wife after the First Battle of Bull Run; July 22, 1861)
Islam is conquering via the cradle.- John Jefferson
But, if the dark hour does not vanish, as sometimes it doesn't, if the black cloud will not lift, as sometimes it will not, let me tell you again for your comfort that there are many liars in the world, but there are no liars like our own sensations. The despair and the horror mean nothing, because there is for you nothing irremediable, nothing ineffaceable, nothing irrecoverable in anything you may have said or thought or done. If, for any reason, you cannot believe or have not been taught to believe in the infinite mercy of Heaven, which has made us all, and will take care we do not go far astray, at least believe that you are not yet sufficiently important to be taken too
seriously by the Powers above us or beneath us. In other words, take everything you like seriously, except yourself. -Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), "Values in Life", _A Book of Words_ (1928), a volume of Kipling's collected speeches. Speech originally delivered in the fall of 1907 to the students at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Yesterday we fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for which all the glory is due to God alone. Although under a heavy fire for several continuous hours I received only one wound, the breaking of the longest finger of my left hand; but the doctor says the finger may be saved. . . . Your coat got an ugly wound near the hip, but my
servant, who is very handy, has so far repaired it that it doesn't show very much. My preservation was entirely due, as was the glorious victory, to our God, to whom be all
the honor, praise, and glory. -Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863) (In a letter to his wife after the First Battle of Bull Run; July 22, 1861)
Sunday 14 May 2017
Quotes 15 May 17
Do not mock the Gospels and say there is no Satan.
Evil is too real in the world to say that. Do not say
the idea of Satan is dead and gone. Satan never
gains so many cohorts, as when, in his shrewdness,
he spreads the rumor that he is long since dead.
Do not reject the Gospel because it says the Savior
was tempted. Satan always tempts the pure--the
others are already his. Satan stations more devils
on monastery walls than in dens of iniquity, for
the latter offer no resistance.
Do not say it was absurd that Satan should appear to
Our Lord, for Satan must always come close to the
godly and the strong--the others succumb from
a distance. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_The Eternal Galilean_ [1936]
"When I preach, I sink myself deep down. I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom are here in this church above forty; but I have an eye to the multitude of young people, children, and servants, of whom are more than two thousand. I preach to those, directing myself to them that have need thereof. Will not the rest hear me? The door stands open unto them; they may be gone."Luther
·
What God needs to do in you always matters more than what you think he needs to do through you.-Sam Allberry
4 truths on suffering:
1. This world’s not right
2. We’re not innocent
3. God’s not indifferent
4. This life’s not ultimate-Matt Smethurst
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis famously wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” This fallen world is fundamentally dissatisfying. As Lewis explains, “Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy [our desire], but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
Evil is too real in the world to say that. Do not say
the idea of Satan is dead and gone. Satan never
gains so many cohorts, as when, in his shrewdness,
he spreads the rumor that he is long since dead.
Do not reject the Gospel because it says the Savior
was tempted. Satan always tempts the pure--the
others are already his. Satan stations more devils
on monastery walls than in dens of iniquity, for
the latter offer no resistance.
Do not say it was absurd that Satan should appear to
Our Lord, for Satan must always come close to the
godly and the strong--the others succumb from
a distance. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_The Eternal Galilean_ [1936]
"When I preach, I sink myself deep down. I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom are here in this church above forty; but I have an eye to the multitude of young people, children, and servants, of whom are more than two thousand. I preach to those, directing myself to them that have need thereof. Will not the rest hear me? The door stands open unto them; they may be gone."Luther
·
What God needs to do in you always matters more than what you think he needs to do through you.-Sam Allberry
4 truths on suffering:
1. This world’s not right
2. We’re not innocent
3. God’s not indifferent
4. This life’s not ultimate-Matt Smethurst
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis famously wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” This fallen world is fundamentally dissatisfying. As Lewis explains, “Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy [our desire], but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
Friday 12 May 2017
Quotes 13 May 17
God will always answer our prayers; but he will
answer them in his way, and his way will be the way
of perfect love. Often if he answered our prayer,
as we at the moment desire, it would be the worst
thing possible for us, for in our ignorance we often
ask for gifts which would be our ruin.
--William Barclay (1907-1978)
(In Martin H. Manser's _The Westminster Collection
of Christian Quotations_ [2001], "Prayer")
If you walked out of bed today and had a job to go to and a home to come back to and someone there who cares about you, folks, the game is over and you’ve won. -Larry Miller, comedian, close of every show, quoted at
https://ricochet.com/427964/group-writing-may-7-2017-winning-forty-years-of-marriage/
In journalism, the modern man wants controversy, not truth. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_Thinking Life Through_ [1955]
How wrong George Bernard Shaw was when he said that
it is a pity that youth has been wasted on the young. . . .
The good Lord knew it was better to put the illusions
of life at the beginning in order that we might better
discover the purpose of living as we grow closer to
eternity. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _On Being Human_ [1982]
One of the penalties of being religious is to be mocked
and ridiculed. If our Lord submitted himself to the
ribald humor of a degenerate Tetrarch, we may be
sure that we, his followers, will not escape.
The more divine a religion is, the more the world
will ridicule you, for the spirit of the world is
the enemy of Christ.
-Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_Characters Of The Passion_ [1946]
answer them in his way, and his way will be the way
of perfect love. Often if he answered our prayer,
as we at the moment desire, it would be the worst
thing possible for us, for in our ignorance we often
ask for gifts which would be our ruin.
--William Barclay (1907-1978)
(In Martin H. Manser's _The Westminster Collection
of Christian Quotations_ [2001], "Prayer")
If you walked out of bed today and had a job to go to and a home to come back to and someone there who cares about you, folks, the game is over and you’ve won. -Larry Miller, comedian, close of every show, quoted at
https://ricochet.com/427964/group-writing-may-7-2017-winning-forty-years-of-marriage/
In journalism, the modern man wants controversy, not truth. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_Thinking Life Through_ [1955]
How wrong George Bernard Shaw was when he said that
it is a pity that youth has been wasted on the young. . . .
The good Lord knew it was better to put the illusions
of life at the beginning in order that we might better
discover the purpose of living as we grow closer to
eternity. -Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _On Being Human_ [1982]
One of the penalties of being religious is to be mocked
and ridiculed. If our Lord submitted himself to the
ribald humor of a degenerate Tetrarch, we may be
sure that we, his followers, will not escape.
The more divine a religion is, the more the world
will ridicule you, for the spirit of the world is
the enemy of Christ.
-Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
_Characters Of The Passion_ [1946]
Thursday 11 May 2017
Quotes 12 May 17
A people that deems the possession of riches its highest source of distinction, admits one of the most degrading of all influences to preside over its opinions. At no time, should money be ever ranked as more than a means, and he who lives as if the acquisition of property were the sole end of his existence, betrays the dominion of the most sordid, base, and grovelling motive, that offers. Property is desirable as the groundwork of moral independence, as a means of improving the faculties, and of doing good to others, and as the agent in all that distinguishes the civilized man from the savage. -James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), _The American Democrat_ (1838)
Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people
say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that
even less can one trust what people say about themselves.
--Dame Rebecca West [Cecily Isabel Fairfiield] (1892—1983)
"Sunday Telegraph" (London) [1975]
Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God’s elect, that they should believe ~ John Owen
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means. -President Calvin Coolidge, _Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge_ p. 159
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom. -Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), _Human Action_
Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people
say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that
even less can one trust what people say about themselves.
--Dame Rebecca West [Cecily Isabel Fairfiield] (1892—1983)
"Sunday Telegraph" (London) [1975]
Christ did not die for any upon condition, if they do believe; but He died for all God’s elect, that they should believe ~ John Owen
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no one independence quite so important, as living within your means. -President Calvin Coolidge, _Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge_ p. 159
The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom. -Ludwig Von Mises (1881-1973), _Human Action_
Wednesday 10 May 2017
Quotes 11 May 17
Every addition to His Word is a lie.- John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
People and relationships never stop being a work in progress. --"Mackensie 'Mac' Elliot"
(A character in Nora Roberts' _Vision In White_ [2009], Chapter 17)
Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. -Horace Mann (1796-1859)
If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world. -attributed to Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
People and relationships never stop being a work in progress. --"Mackensie 'Mac' Elliot"
(A character in Nora Roberts' _Vision In White_ [2009], Chapter 17)
Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. He cheats them! Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. -Horace Mann (1796-1859)
If you wish to prosper, let your customer prosper. When people have learned this lesson, everyone will seek his individual welfare in the general welfare. Then jealousies between man and man, city and city, province and province, nation and nation, will no longer trouble the world. -attributed to Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
Tuesday 9 May 2017
Quotes 10 May 17
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him? -Stephen Hawking, _A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes_ (1988)
“Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.” - Augustus Toplady
True freedom is not a license to do as you please, but a liberty to do as we ought. Alistair Begg
·
Providence may be hard but it is never unkind for the child of God.- Chris Larson
Sin never comes in honestly. "Oh, no! Sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss, and...with an outstretched hand and flattering words" (Ryle)
“Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.” - Augustus Toplady
True freedom is not a license to do as you please, but a liberty to do as we ought. Alistair Begg
·
Providence may be hard but it is never unkind for the child of God.- Chris Larson
Sin never comes in honestly. "Oh, no! Sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss, and...with an outstretched hand and flattering words" (Ryle)
Monday 8 May 2017
Quotes 9 May 17
Turgenev saw human beings as individuals always endowed with consciousness, character, feelings, and moral strengths and weaknesses; Marx saw them always as snowflakes in an avalanche, as instances of general forces, as not yet fully human because utterly conditioned by their circumstances. Where Turgenev saw men, Marx saw classes of men; where Turgenev saw people, Marx saw ‘the People’. These two ways of looking at the world persist into our own time and profoundly affect, for better or for worse, the solutions we propose to our social problems. -Theodore Dalrymple (1949-), _City Journal_ Summer 2001
“And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility.” - A World Split Apart -Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), addressed the 1978 graduating class of Harvard University
"I love the West, despite its vices and crimes. I love the vision of the prophets and the grace of the Parthenon, Roman order and the cathedrals, reason and the passionate longing for freedom. I love the perfection of western rural landscapes, the measure inherent in all it has produced, the great goals it has set itself. I love the West.
There is no need to remind me of the mines at Laurium and the crucifixion of slaves, the massacres of the Aztecs and the stake of the Inquisition. I know all about them, but I also know that, despite all those things, the history of the West is not a history of unrelieved criminality, and that what the West has given to the world weighs infinitely more in the scales than what it has done to societies and individuals." - Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West
“And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility.” - A World Split Apart -Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), addressed the 1978 graduating class of Harvard University
"I love the West, despite its vices and crimes. I love the vision of the prophets and the grace of the Parthenon, Roman order and the cathedrals, reason and the passionate longing for freedom. I love the perfection of western rural landscapes, the measure inherent in all it has produced, the great goals it has set itself. I love the West.
There is no need to remind me of the mines at Laurium and the crucifixion of slaves, the massacres of the Aztecs and the stake of the Inquisition. I know all about them, but I also know that, despite all those things, the history of the West is not a history of unrelieved criminality, and that what the West has given to the world weighs infinitely more in the scales than what it has done to societies and individuals." - Jacques Ellul, The Betrayal of the West
Sunday 7 May 2017
Quotes 8 May 17
It is true that the virtues which are less esteemed and practiced now--independence, self-reliance, and the willingness to bear risks, the readiness to back one’s own conviction against a majority, and the willingness to voluntary cooperation with one’s neighbors–are essentially those on which an individualist society rests. Collectivism has nothing to put in their place, and in so far as it already has destroyed them it has left a void filled by nothing but the demand for obedience and the compulsion of the individual to what is collectively decided to be good. -Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), The Road to Serfdom
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute. -Thomas Paine (1736-1809), _Rights of Man_
"Do not forget that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and do not act surprised about it, as if you had never known of it before. Decide to be patient with one another; remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect persons, and not as angels, or as blameless and perfect."-Richard Baxter, The Mutual Duties Between Husbands and Wives
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth,
this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who
will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: "I." - Ayn Rand, Anthem
If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping at the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised to furnish new pretenses for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without a tribute. -Thomas Paine (1736-1809), _Rights of Man_
"Do not forget that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and do not act surprised about it, as if you had never known of it before. Decide to be patient with one another; remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect persons, and not as angels, or as blameless and perfect."-Richard Baxter, The Mutual Duties Between Husbands and Wives
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth,
this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who
will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: "I." - Ayn Rand, Anthem
Friday 5 May 2017
Quotes 6 May 17
"No man can be thoroughly humbled until he knows that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone.”- Martin Luther Luther's Works Vol. 33
Nothing is so humbling to the human heart as a true recognition of the absolute sovereignty of God. ~ A W Pink
Never look back; never waste your time in the present; never waste your energy; forget the past and rejoice in the fact that you are what you are by the grace of God, and that in the Divine alchemy of His marvelous grace you may yet have the greatest surprise of your life and existence and find that even in your case it will come to pass that the last shall be first. Praise God for the fact that you are what you are, and that you are in the Kingdom. --Martyn Lloyd-Jones
'Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right.’- William E. Gladstone
Nothing is in vain towards believers. Infinite wisdom is in all, and infinite glory will arise out of all. ~ John Owen
Nothing is so humbling to the human heart as a true recognition of the absolute sovereignty of God. ~ A W Pink
Never look back; never waste your time in the present; never waste your energy; forget the past and rejoice in the fact that you are what you are by the grace of God, and that in the Divine alchemy of His marvelous grace you may yet have the greatest surprise of your life and existence and find that even in your case it will come to pass that the last shall be first. Praise God for the fact that you are what you are, and that you are in the Kingdom. --Martyn Lloyd-Jones
'Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right.’- William E. Gladstone
Nothing is in vain towards believers. Infinite wisdom is in all, and infinite glory will arise out of all. ~ John Owen
Thursday 4 May 2017
Quotes 5 May 17
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”- Theodore Roosevelt, Man in the Arena Speech.1910
"no legitimate historian has ever said that Calvin "presided" over any executions—or any other law enforcement or judicial activity, for that matter. Calvin was not even a citizen of Geneva. He couldn't even vote. All he could do was give his opinion and after he did, the city council did whatever it wanted, which was frequently something other than what Calvin wanted just so they could show who was boss. People who blame Calvin for the decisions of the Geneva council are either deliberately ignoring the political and legal realities of 16th century Geneva or are quoting from someone who has deliberately decided to ignore them. ……….But most people today have no clue as to how the independent cantons of Switzerland were governed at the end of the Middle Ages, and so deceivers today get away with saying whatever they want about Calvin. If the government of Geneva executed someone, they say it must have been Calvin's fault. No matter how "scholarly" these people pretend to be, those who plant these libels online are not historians and they have no concern for the truth.
In actual fact, Calvin was not even allowed to run the Genevan church without the city council constantly looking over his shoulder and often overruling him. For example: Calvin wanted to observe communion weekly, but the council only allowed it quarterly. The council basically treated Calvin as a kind of manager, someone who was there primarily to do their bidding. He was their foreign-born (French) employee whom they could fire whenever they pleased—and they actually did fire him and run him out of town early in his career only to invite him back a while later when things got out of hand.If the council of Geneva didn't trust Calvin enough to give him complete charge of the church, what makes anyone think they would put him in charge of deciding who lives and who dies? I'll tell you who: people who are bent on smearing the man because they hate his doctrine." - Ron Henzel
Wednesday 3 May 2017
Quotes 4 May 17
God does not forsake the work which his own hands have begun.-John Calvin @JohnCalvinDaily
“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.”-Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”- Charles Darwin [To William Graham 3 July 1881]
“When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.”- G. K. Chesterton
"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”- Chesterton.
“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you.”-Tim Keller Wisdom @DailyKeller
“But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?”- Charles Darwin [To William Graham 3 July 1881]
“When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.”- G. K. Chesterton
"Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”- Chesterton.
Tuesday 2 May 2017
QUOTES 3 MAY 17
Happiness is impossible, and even inconceivable, to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, or fear. To be happy, you must be reasonable, or you must be tamed. You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy, you must be wise. -George Santayana (1863-1952), (this quote appears around the inner perimeter of Ondaatje Hall in Massey Hall, University of Toronto) http://www.anielski.com/economics-of-happiness/new-ideas-stories/
It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. -Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), _The Law_ (1850)
We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. -President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), News Conference May 13, 1959 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11382
You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life nor do you own the lives of others. You exist in time: future, present, and past. This is manifest in life, liberty, and the product of your life and liberty [property]. The exercise of choices over life and liberty is your prosperity. To lose your life is to lose your future. To lose your liberty is to lose your present. And to lose the product of your life and liberty is to lose the portion of your past that produced it.
A product of your life and liberty is your property. Property is the fruit of your labour, the product of your time, energy, and talents. It is that part of nature that you turn to valuable use. And it is the property of others that is given to you by voluntary exchange and mutual consent. Two people who exchange property voluntarily are both better off or they wouldn't do it. Only they may rightfully make that decision for themselves.
At times some people use force or fraud to take from others without wilful, voluntary consent. Normally, the initiation of force to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, by the many acting against a few, or even by officials with fine hats and fancy titles. --Ken Schoolland, professor of economics (1950-), Prologue to _The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible_ (1989) http://jonathangullible.com/philosophy-of-liberty-text
It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. -Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), _The Law_ (1850)
We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. -President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), News Conference May 13, 1959 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11382
You own your life. To deny this is to imply that another person has a higher claim on your life than you do. No other person, or group of persons, owns your life nor do you own the lives of others. You exist in time: future, present, and past. This is manifest in life, liberty, and the product of your life and liberty [property]. The exercise of choices over life and liberty is your prosperity. To lose your life is to lose your future. To lose your liberty is to lose your present. And to lose the product of your life and liberty is to lose the portion of your past that produced it.
A product of your life and liberty is your property. Property is the fruit of your labour, the product of your time, energy, and talents. It is that part of nature that you turn to valuable use. And it is the property of others that is given to you by voluntary exchange and mutual consent. Two people who exchange property voluntarily are both better off or they wouldn't do it. Only they may rightfully make that decision for themselves.
At times some people use force or fraud to take from others without wilful, voluntary consent. Normally, the initiation of force to take life is murder, to take liberty is slavery, and to take property is theft. It is the same whether these actions are done by one person acting alone, by the many acting against a few, or even by officials with fine hats and fancy titles. --Ken Schoolland, professor of economics (1950-), Prologue to _The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible_ (1989) http://jonathangullible.com/philosophy-of-liberty-text
Monday 1 May 2017
Quotes 2 May 17
'God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.' Spurgeon
"The Englishman looks upon the Welshman as a rebel, an awkward individualist, as a man who always wants his own way and is perpetually creating totally uncalled for difficulties" (D.M.Lloyd-Jones).
'There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.'-C.S.L.
Some are so bowed down that only Jesus can loose them from their infirmity, but He can, and He will, do it. He can raise us up to health, to hope, to happiness. He has often done so under former trials, and He is the same Savior and will repeat His deeds of lovingkindness. We who are today bowed down and sorrowful shalt yet be set on high, and those who now mock at us shall be greatly ashamed. What an honor to be raised up by the Lord! It is worthwhile to be bowed down that we may experience His upraising power. Charles Spurgeon
"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats" Spurgeon.
"The Englishman looks upon the Welshman as a rebel, an awkward individualist, as a man who always wants his own way and is perpetually creating totally uncalled for difficulties" (D.M.Lloyd-Jones).
'There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.'-C.S.L.
Some are so bowed down that only Jesus can loose them from their infirmity, but He can, and He will, do it. He can raise us up to health, to hope, to happiness. He has often done so under former trials, and He is the same Savior and will repeat His deeds of lovingkindness. We who are today bowed down and sorrowful shalt yet be set on high, and those who now mock at us shall be greatly ashamed. What an honor to be raised up by the Lord! It is worthwhile to be bowed down that we may experience His upraising power. Charles Spurgeon
"A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats" Spurgeon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)