Quotes 30 Sep 17

All Governments rest mainly on public opinion, and to that of his own subjects every wise Sovereign will look. The opinion of his subjects will force a Sovereign to do his duty, and by that opinion will he be exalted or depressed in the politics of the world.-Lord Kenyon, Trial of John Vint and others (1799), 27 How. St. Tr. 640.

We do not identify the will of any sovereign with the will of God, . . . "All power is ordained of God." I realize that when Paul wrote this, Nero was in power . . .  Nevertheless, I will not subscribe to any interpretation that would oblige us to be obedient to the villain who holds a dagger under our nose, or to hail today as a power ordained of God the crowned robber who yesterday banished our legitimate prince. --Groen van Prinsterer, 1845

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved init as he who helps to perpetrate it.  He who acceptsevil without protesting against it is reallycooperating with it. --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)  _Stride Toward Freedom_ [1958]

The Koran was written by at least thirty, probably fifty, and at most one hundred authors.
The Koran was written over a Span of more than two hundred years.
The designation of verses as either Mecca or Medina has no meaning.
Muhammad was enthroned as founder of Islam sixty years after his death.
Early Islam stemmed from a sect which was present in the Middle East at that time: the Nazarenes.- Jean-Jacyues Wulfer, APPLYING CODE THEORY T0 THE KORAN

Whatever subject I preach, I do not stop until I reach the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, for in Him are all things.- Charles Spurgeon‏ @Spurgeon

Quotes 29 Sep 17

The first king was a successful soldier; He who serves well his country has no need of ancestors.-Voltaire, Mérope. I. 3.

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.--Elie Wiesel

Let kings be as David was, men after God's own heart, yet they will not want a Shimei to rail on them.-Finch, L.C.J., Hampden's Case (1637), 3 How. St. Tr. 1232.

God is love...and Christ is love covered over with flesh - Thomas Goodwin

I long for the death of Hefner's hedonistic, misogynistic, philosophy. It was from the pit of hell; that is where it belongs and that, ultimately, is where it will return. It was a fragmented, broken and perverted anti-human (and especially anti-woman) way of thinking. May God grant the Church the ability to proclaim and live a view of humanity which is the antithesis of Hefner's - holistic, healthy and beautifully holy. For Christ's sake. And ours.- David Robertson

Quotes 28 Sep 17

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.- Dennis Whol

Are all men in disguise except those crying? -Dannie Abse (1923-    ) _Encounter At A Greyhound Bus Station_ [1986]

"We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is
real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes,
of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are
ashamed of our naked skins." -George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Man and Superman Act 1

“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” ― Epictetus

God does not send us despair in order to kill us, he sends it in order to awaken us to new life. -Hermann Hesse (1877-1962)  _Reflections_ [1974], #192

Quotes 27 Sep 17

In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of physical equations,

whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace

we are able to decipher a small fragment.-Arthur Koestler (1905-1983) _Bricks to Babel: Selected Writings With Author's Comments_ [1980], "Epilogue"

The mental facility to detect conspiracies and betrayal are same qualities most likely to corrode 

natural judgment.  Everything that seems clear--is bent, and everything that seems bent--is clear. -"Dr. Fredericks" (Michael Gambon)(In the film _The Good Shepherd_ [2006], written by Eric Roth and directed by Robert De Niro) 

Narrated Ikrima: Ali burnt some people and this news reached Ibn 'Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burnt them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with Allah's Punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "- Sahih Bukhari 4:52:260

Most of the greatest gifts and deepest joys that God gives us come wrapped in painful packages.- Desiring God‏

Of 8,096 people registered homeless in London in 2015/16 – only 3,271 were British. Nearly 3,000 were from Eastern Europe or Central – 1,546 were Romanian.- https://theweeflea.com/2017/09/25/led-10-far-right-in-germany-the-eu-world-running-out-of-sand-transgender-study-banned-australian-ssm-intolerance-catalonia-and-kurdistan-reality-is-a-social-constuct-britons-on-the-toi/

Quotes 26 Sep 17

Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they're finished. The person you are right now is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary as all the people you've ever been. The one constant in our lives is change. - Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, 2006

A king is a great benefit be he never so evil. - W Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christen Man in  Brian Moynahan, Book of Fire, p152

Christ is never fully valued--until sin is clearly seen.- J.C. Ryle

 “And here we see why the so-called ‘democratic deficit’ in the European institutions is a built-in feature of them. The institutions were set up in such a way that they could be influenced from below, but controlled only from above. Accountability, however, means influence from above, but control from below – control by those whose interest is served, and who retain the ultimate remedy of ejection.” - Roger Scruton, “The Uses of Pessimism”

“One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere on this planet to burst into the northern one. But not as friends. Because they will burst into conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.” Algerian President Houari Boumedienne in 1974 speaking to the Gen assembly of the United Nations Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212
(Page 310). https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

Quotes 25 Sep 17

Any biography of the prophet of Islam has no more value than a novel which is hoped to be historical. -Alfred Louis de Premare in Jean-Jacyues Wulfer, APPLYING CODE THEORY T0 THE KORAN

Christian! Your trials, crosses, and conflicts are all temporary.-J.C. Ryle

"Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking." - J.M. Keynes

“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.” Epictetus  c. AD 50 – 135) Greek Stoic philosopher.

“Why do these young men and women (very often women) not reach out and find Christianity? Partly it is because most branches of European Christianity have lost the confidence to proselytise or even believe in their own message. For the Church of Sweden, the Church of England, the German Lutheran Church and many other branches of European Christianity, the message of the religion has become a form of left-wing politics, diversity action and social welfare projects. Such churches argue for ‘open borders’ yet are circumspect about quoting the texts they once preached as revealed.”Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (p264).

Quotes 23 Sep 17

The main difference between youth and age will always be that youth looks forward to life, and old age to death: and that while the one has a short past and a long future before it, the case is just the opposite with the other. --Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) _Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer_ [1851], "Counsels And Maxims"

Kings are like stars—they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.-Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, Ma

In the past few days my spirits have soared and sank as I pursue the Lord’s will and consider what the future might look like, but never once have I doubted this: that Jesus is Lord, His blood has paid my ransom, and by His wounds I am healed. I have firm faith that my soul is saved by the grace and mercy of the Triune God, and not by any accomplishment or merit of my own. I am so thankful that I am a child of the Father, redeemed by the Son, and sealed in the Spirit. No, in the midst of the storm, I do not have to worry about my salvation, and for that I praise you, God. .- Nabeel Qureshi on learning he had advanced cancer

Christian! Your trials, crosses, and conflicts are all temporary.-J.C. Ryle

“For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212”https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

Quotes 22 Sep 17

"It's striking to think that, in Christianity, the great act isn't martyrdom, but loving your neighbour." ~ @andymason73

The world has no room for cowards.  We must all be
ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die.  And yours
is not the less noble because no drum beats before
you when you go out into your daily battlefields,
and no crowds shout about(In William Safire and Leonard Safir's _Words of Wisdom_ [1989], "Courage")

Not a day passes over the earth, but men and women
of no note do great deeds, speak great words and
suffer noble sorrows. -Charles Reade (1814-1884) _The Cloister and the Hearth_ [1861]

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” ― Epictetus  c. AD 50 – 135) Greek Stoic philosopher.

Islam is not a religion founded by an inspired prophet; it is a political ideology fabricated by a crushing power over the Course of two centuries. The fabricators gave it the apparent form of a religion to harness the power religions possess over the human mind.- - Jean-Jacyues Wulfer, APPLYING CODE THEORY T0 THE KORAN

Quotes 21 Sep17

Here lies our sovereign lord, the king,
Whose word no man relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one.-Rochester. To Charles II.

"That is very true, for my words are my own. My actions are my minister's." Answer of Charles II, according to the account in Hume's History of England, VIII, p. 312.

Here lies our mutton-looking king,
Whose word no man relied on,
Who never said a foolish thing,
Nor ever did a wise one.-Another version of Rochester's Epitaph on Charles II, included in works of Quarles.

Nature cares nothing for logic, our human logic: she has her own, which we do not recognize and do not acknowledge until we are crushed under its wheel. -Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) _Smoke_ [1867]

“True love for God comes from being stunned by being loved by God.” - @desiringGod - John Piper

Quotes 20 Sep 17

Every monarch is subject to a mightier one.-Seneca the Younger, Hercules Furens, DCXIV.

Lloyd-Jones spent a lifetime teaching there are only two classes of people until he.came to Eph, 1 and found a third.- Dick Lucas

". . . Now in the Muslim religion, which is all-inclusive in its appeal and seeks to convert all, by persuasion or by force, the Jihad against infidels is obligatory. Hence, in Islam, Caliphate and Kingship are conjoined, in order to unite all effort towards a common end. The appeal of religions other than Islam, on the contrary, is not all-inclusive, nor is Holy War permissible for their adherents except in self-defense. Hence their religious leaders do not concern themselves with political affairs, but leave the temporal power in the hands of men who have seized it by chance or for some reason with which religion has nothing to do. Sovereignty exists among such peoples owing to social solidarity, as we said before; their religion as such, however, does not impose any sovereignty on them seeing that it does not demand of them dominion over other peoples, as is the case with Islam, but merely the establishing of their faith among themselves . . . - Ibn Khaldun, 1332-1406 A.D.(An Arab Philosopher of History, translated by Charles Issawi)

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.” ― Epictetus  c. AD 50 – 135) Greek Stoic philosopher.

Snake-handlers aside, most of Western Christianity is an utter bore compared with the wild eccentricities of the Eastern church. Orthodox monks and nuns have lived up trees, in barrels, in bricked-up chapels or out in the fields grazing like sheep. St Simeon the Stylite started a craze among Syrian monks by balancing on top of a 50-foot pillar, drawing huge crowds and practising a kind of divine vertigo. He was so revered that even his blessed number twos, as they plopped off the pillar, were piously collected and turned into medallions for the faithful. Which only goes to show that you can polish a turd.- Simon Jenkins, Jumble Sales of the Apocalypse.

Quotes 19 Sep 17

Some live for God, die to self, and live forever. Others live for self, enjoy the world for a time, and die forever.- Desiring God‏Verified account @desiringGod

" God never works needless miracles; if his purposes can be accomplished by ordinary means, he will not use miraculous agency. - Spurgeon

The first art to be learned by a ruler is to endure envy.-Seneca the Younger, Hercules Furens, CCCLIII

The writer most widely read in England while Shakespeare wrote was the French theologian John Calvin. This is a fact of such obvious significance that its eclipse amounts effectively to another proscription. It is no accident, after all, that the revolutionary side in the cvil war were and are called Calvinists.- The Givenness Of Things,p59, by Marilynne Robinson

“For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe

Quotes 18 Sep 17

What is a king? a man condemn'd to bear
The public burthen of the nation's care.-Matthew Prior, Solomon, Book III, line 275.

North Korea's continued nuclear testing calls for a much stronger response. . . .I'll be adding extra exclamation points to all of my tweets! -"U.S. President Donald Trump" (1946-    ) (In Bob Gorrell's comic strip; September 4, 2017) 

[Peter Piper's parents reviewing his report card filled with "F" grades:] 

Father: You didn't pass pepper picking?  Probably preoccupied with partying! 

Mother: Or perhaps pot-puffing peer pressure put you in this predicament? 

Narration: Peter Piper's poor pupillary performance predictably put his preferred pastimes in peril. -Scott Hilburn _Argyle Sweater_ [September 4, 2017] (comic strip)

“I feel that we in the EU are now committing ritual suicide and were just looking on” – the Left Wing Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe. (Page 228

“A time of trouble is a time of the special exercise of faith in Christ.”John Owen, The Glory of Christ (P114)

Quotes 16 Sep 17

We must be clear about this: it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history. - Hugh Gaitskell on the Common Market, 2 Oct 1962 quoted in Peter Hitchens, The Broken Compass, p 122

"The Sun will burn your eyes out from 92 million miles, and you expected to casually stroll into the presence of its creator" - Jolene Valeu.

“ It were easy also to demonstrate that Mohammedanism, which has been so sore a stroke unto the Christian profession, is nothing but a concurrence and combination of these two ways, of force and fraud, in opposition to the person of Christ.” John Owen, The Glory of Christ (On Islam( (p.41)

A crown! what is it?
It is to bear the miseries of a people!
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care!- Hannah More, Daniel, Part VI

For the time being most politicians will continue to find the short-term benefits of taking the ‘compassionate’, ‘generous’ and ‘open’ course of action to be personally preferable even if it leads to long-term national problems. They will continue to believe, as they have done for decades, that it is better to put these difficult matters of so that their successors have to deal with the consequences instead. So they will continue to ensure that Europe is the only place in the world that belongs to the world. It is already clear what type of society will result. By the middle of this century, while China will properly still look like China, India will probably still look like India, Russia like Russia, and Eastern Europe like Eastern Europe, Western Europe will at best resemble a large scale version of the United Nations. Many people will welcome this, and it will have its pleasures of course. Certainly not everything about it would be a catastrophe. Many people enjoy living in such Europe. It will continue to enjoy cheap services, at least for a time, as incomers compete with those already here to do work for less and less money. There will be an endless influx of new neighbours and staff, and there will be many interesting conversations to be had. This place were international cities develop into something resembling international countries will be many things. But it will not be Europe any more.Perhaps the European lifestyle, culture and outlook will survive in small pockets. A pattern that is already underway will mean that there will be some rural areas where immigrant communities choose not to live and towards which non-immigrants retreat. Those who have the resources will – as is already the case – be able to sustain a recognisably similar lifestyle for a while longer. The less well off will have to accept they do not live in a place that is their home but in one that is a home for the world. And whilst incomers will be encouraged to pursue their traditions and lifestyles, Europeans whose families have been here for generations will most likely continue to be told that there is an oppressive, outdated tradition, even as they constitute a smaller and smaller minority of the population. This is not science fiction. It is simply what the current situation looks like in much of Western Europe and what the demographic projections show the conscience future to be.Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212”https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

Quotes 15 Sep 17

“And this is the principal design of the gospel. It is the declaration, as of the grace of God the Father, so of the love, grace, goodness, and compassion of the Son, in undertaking from everlasting the accomplishment of God’s counsels, in the salvation of the church.”John Owen, The Glory of Christ (P 56)

“The idea that she might subordinate her feelings for the good of some higher purpose did not sit easily with Diana. Because according to this new mantra, there is no higher purpose than simply what one feels”- Rod Liddle 

He who knows not how to dissimulate, cannot reign.

Louis XI. See Roche et Chasles, Hist. de France, Volume II, p. 3

He who knows how to dissimulate knows how to reign.- Vicentius Lupanus,De Magistrat. Franc. Lib. I. See Lipsius, Politica sive Civilis Doctrina. Lib. IV. Cap. 14. Conrad Lycosthenes—Apopothegmata. De Simulatione & Dissimulatione. Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy, Part I. Sect. II. Mem. III. Subsec. 15. Palingenius—Zodiacus Vitæ. Lib. IV. 684. Also given as a saying of Emperor Frederick I., (Barbarossa), Louis XI, and Philip II. of Spain. Tacitus—Annales. IV. 71.

To know how to dissemble is the knowledge of kings.-Richelieu, Miranne.

Quotes 14 Sep 17

"Man is a history-making creature who can neither repeat the past nor leave it behind." - W.H.Auden; "The Dyer's Hand".

"Ultimately it is only the man who feels quite hopeless about himself who really trusts God." ~Martyn Lloyd-Jones

While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.- John Calvin‏ @JohnCalvinDaily

They say Princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a Prince as soon as his groom.-Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Illiteratus, Princep

“Moreover, Europe remains the world leader in not only allowing people to stay but in assisting them to fight the state even when they are there illegally. By 2016 Britain had still not even managed to deport a man wanted in India for two bombings in 1993. The Bolton greengrocer Tiger Hanif arrived in Britain illegally in 1996 and had managed to receive more than £200,000 in legal aid from British taxpayers to avoid repatriation. And nor does the continent’s madness stop there. When Belgian investigators looked at the perpetrators of the numerous terrorist plots carried out by Belgian nationals, they discovered that a great many of them had plotted their attacks whilst being supported by the state. Indeed, Salah Abdeslam, lead surviving suspect of the November 2015 Paris attacks, had collected unemployment benefit to the tune of €19,000 in the period preceding the attacks. He had collected his last benefits only weeks before, making European societies among the first in history to pay people to attack them.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (Page 204)

Quotes 13 Sep 17

“God made Eve of the rib of Adam; and his church he frames out of the very flesh, the very wounded and bleeding side, of the Son of man” John Owen, The Glory of Christ(Page 282)

“All these reasonings are built upon this supposition, that that which is finite can perfectly comprehend that which is infinite,- an assertion absurd, foolish and contradictory unto itself.”John Owen, The Glory of Christ(Page 412)

If you follow Jesus, this life is as bad as it gets. Ahead is better.If you don't, this life is as good as it gets. Ahead is worse.-  Joshua D Jones@BlueCheezWhisky

Whenever monarchs err, the people are punished.-Horace, Epistles, I. 2. 14.

“The first arrivals benefited Europe by bringing a different culture, their vibrancy and their cuisine. But what did the 10 millionth bring that was different from all those before? The European public was far ahead of the politicians in recognising that the benefits were not endless. Long before the politicians notice, the public already knew that a continent which imports the world’s people also import the world’s problems. And contrary to the race relations industry, it turned out that the immigrants into Europe often exhibited far more differences than similarities to the resident populations and towards each other, and that the larger the numbers the greater the dissimilarities.” -Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (Page 302)

Quotes 12 Sep 17

The cotton economy of the South was altogether the creation of British industrial capitalism. - The Givenness Of Things, p169, by Marilynne Robinson

God gives not kings the stile of Gods in vaine,
For on his throne his sceptre do they sway;
And as their subjects ought them to obey,
So kings should feare and serve their God againe.-King James, Sonnet Addressed to his son, Prince Henry.

"The Institutes are, I think, the greatest, deepest, and most extensive treatment of the grace of God I have ever read." - Timothy Keller

 “it is you see, all the flock, or every individual member of our charge. To this end it is necessary, we should know every person that belongs to our charge; for how can we take heed to them, if we do not know them? Does not a careful Shepherd look after every individual sheep? A good schoolmaster after every individual student? A good physician after every particular patient? Paul taught his hearers not only publicly but from house to house and in another place he tells us that he warned everyone, and taught everyone, in all wisdom, that he might present everyone perfect in Christ Jesus. - Richard Baxter – The Reformed Pastor

"The mentality of the English left-wing intelligentsia can be studied in half a dozen weekly and monthly papers. The immediately striking thing about all these papers is their generally negative, querulous attitude, their complete lack at all times of any constructive suggestion. There is little in them except the irresponsible carping of people who have never been and never expect to be in a position of power. Another marked characteristic is the emotional shallowness of people who live in a world of ideas and have little contact with physical reality. Many intellectuals of the Left were flabbily pacifist up to 1935, shrieked for war against Germany in the years 1935-9, and then promptly cooled off when the war started. It is broadly though not precisely true that the people who were most ‘anti-Fascist’ during the Spanish Civil War are most defeatist now. And underlying this is the really important fact about so many of the English intelligentsia – their severance from the common culture of the country." - George Orwell

Quotes 11 Sep 17

Jesus: The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.-Tim Keller Wisdom‏ @DailyKeller

"...according to the teaching of the Bible there is no true and real knowledge of God except in and through Christ." - Martyn Lloyd-Jones‏ @D_M_LloydJones

I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute,
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.-William Cowper, verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk.

If it be objected, How is it consistent with Christ giving ‘Himself a ransom for all’, that so many perish in their sins? the answer is clear: We must distinguish between the sufficiency of His ransom and the efficacy of it; He paid a ransom worthy to obtain the salvation of all men, and has done whatever was requisite to reconcile to God, and make men capable of salvation; but only those who by a lively faith depend on Him, and obey Him, are actual partakers of salvation: that is, no person but may be saved in believing; and if men perish, it is not from a defect of righteousness in the Mediator, but from the love of their lusts, and their obstinate rejecting their own mercies. And it is unjust that the glory of His Divine compassion and love should be obscured or lessened for their ungrateful neglect of it.- Matthew Poole's Commentary (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1963), 777-778.

“When the 2015 crisis was at its height many individuals in Britain from the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party to the Labour Party Shadow Home Secretary, with numerous actors and rock stars in between, had said they would take in a refugee family. More than a year later not one of these people had actually done so. As with the generosity and benevolence throughout the crisis, it was easy to expect others to be benevolent on your own behalf once you had signaled that you are on the side of the Earth’s poor and oppressed. The consequences of your benevolence could be left to others.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe (Page 285)

Quotes 9 Sep 17

At Stratford-on-Bow, in the days of Queen Mary, there was once a stake erected for the burning of two martyrs, one of them a lame man and the other a blind man. Just when the fire was lit, the lame man hurled away his staff and said to the blind man,
"Courage, brother, this fire will cure us both!" So can the righteous say of the grave, "Courage, the grave will cure us all; we shall leave our infirmities behind us."
What patience this should give us to endure all our trials, for they are not of long duration. -C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) _Resurgam_ [April 1, 1860] (sermon) http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0306.htm

Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life.  What a privilege! -Joseph Campbell (1904-1987)(In R. Daniel Watkins'_An Encyclopedia of Compelling Quotations_ [2001 "Disaster")

In his eighty-seventh year Justice Holmes was out walking with another elderly friend when a pretty girl passed them. The judge turned to watch her and then sighed, "Oh, to be seventy again!" -_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and André Bernard [2000 ed.]

The Royal Crown cures not the headache.-George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651)

The six Gulf cooperation countries comprising Kuwait, Iran, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Oman had granted asylum to a grand total of zero Syrian refugees by 2016.“Not only has Saudi Arabia not made one Syrian into a Saudi citizen, it has also refused to allow the use of 100,000 air-conditioned tents there are erected for only five days a year by pilgrims and the Hajj. At the height of the 2015 crisis the single offer the Saudis did make as to build 200 new mosques in Germany for the benefit of the country’s new arrivals”Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

Quotes 8 Sep 17

The world sees shallow and temporary happiness every day, but joy that endures suffering will be utterly foreign.- Desiring God‏ @desiringGod

Dr. D. James Kennedy warned against any weeping at his funeral.  Instead, he said “I want you to begin with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus, because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead.  I will be more alive than I have ever been in my life.  I will be alive forever, in greater health and vitality and joy than ever, ever, I or anyone has known before.”

Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.-Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book III, Chapter VIII

I put off giving time to the quest for wisdom.  For "it is not the discovery but the mere search for wisdom which should be preferred even to the discovery of treasures and to ruling over nations and to the physical delights available to me at a nod." But I was an unhappy young man, wretched as at the beginning of my adolescence when I prayed you for chastity and said: "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." I was afraid you might hear my prayer quickly, and that you might too rapidly heal me of the disease of lust which I preferred to satisfy rather than suppress. - Augustine (354-430) _Confessions_ [397-401]; Book VIII, Number 7

“What is the effect of people coming into Europe in very large numbers who have not inherited the doubts and intuitions of Europeans? Nobody knows now, and nobody ever did. All we can be certain of is that it will have an effect. Putting tens of millions of people with their own sets of ideas and contradictions into a continent with its own set of ideas and contradictions is bound to have consequences. The presumption of those who believed in integration is that in time everybody who arrives will become like Europeans, a presumption made less likely by the fact that so many Europeans are unsure whether they want to be Europeans. A culture of self-doubt and self-distrust is uniquely unlikely to persuade others to adopt its stance. Meantime it is possible that many – at least – of the incomers will either hold fast to their own certainties or even, quite plausibly, attract Europeans in the generations to come with these certainties. It is also plausible that many of those who come will enjoy the lifestyle, will take part in the aspirations and the fruits of the economic uplift so long as it continues, and yet despise or disdain the culture into which they have come. They may use it – as President Erdogan memorably said of democracy – like a bus, and get off whenever it has taken them to their desired destination. “Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

Quotes 7 Sep 17

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.--BenjaminFranklin (1706-1790) _Poor Richard's Almanac_ [May 1734]

The mistake of the West was to put the Saudis on the throne of Saudi Arabia and give them control of the world's oil fortune, which they then used to propagate Wahhabi Islam. -  Salman Rushdie

The king never dies.- William Blackstone, Commentaries, IV. 249

In August 2015 Angela Merkel announced that Europe was open to refugees and she declared, “We can do this”. Much of the media, like the Economist, backed her and said that her move was brave, decisive and right. And yet in 2010 in Potsdam she had made a speech in which she admitted that “the approach to build a multicultural society and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other has failed, utterly failed”. Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212 (Page 96)https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration/

The first thing to say about Mr. Trump—against whom the women voluntarily (and children
involuntarily) were demonstrating—is that he seems to be doing what is unforgivable in a democratic politician, for it will make life difficult for all the others who come after him: He is keeping, or trying to keep, his election promises. Could anything better prove his complete lack of probity? - Theodore Dalrymple, Humble Pie in Short Supply
http://takimag.com/article/humble_pie_in_short_supply_theodore_dalrymple#axzz4XC2mEO8o

Quotes 6 Sep 17

Death is like a fisherman, who, having caught a fish in his net, leaves it in the water for a time; the
fish continues to swim about, but all the while the net is round it, and the fisherman will snatch it
out in his own good time. -Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) _On The Eve_ [1860], Chapter 35

What man has written, man may read
But God fills every root and seed
With cryptic words, to strangely set
For mortal to decipher yet.
     --Charles Dalmon (1872-    ) _Documents_

That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.- William Blackstone, Book III, Chapter XVII.

“I feel that we in the EU are now committing ritual suicide and were just looking on” – the Left Wing Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico. (Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, p 212

If our censorious students are going to import America’s campus insanity, they need to know that means they will also import its consequences. And those consequences are dire. No one can imagine that it’s a good thing to create a generation unable to stomach things it dislikes or disagrees with. How are they to survive in a pluralistic democracy? It’s vital to be able to hear people out, to have civilised disagreement, to engage in debate, to change your mind. The ‘safe space’, by guarding students from the disagreeable, is churning out an army of hypersensitive dogmatists. We can see this in the US with the current outburst of statue-smashing. And we can see it in Europe with the alarming revelation that fewer and fewer young people believe in freedom of speech and democracy.- Brendan O’Neill, Spectator, https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/students-have-become-the-new-masters-and-the-result-is-campus-tyranny/

Quotes 5 Sep 17

 “Every grace, every blessing, every good thing you ever dreamed about comes to you through suffering.” - @desiringGod John Piper

The king reigns but does not govern.-Otto von Bismarck, in a debate in the Reichstag (Jan. 24, 1882). He denied the application of this maxim to Germany.

The Prussian Sovereigns are in possession of a crown not by the grace of the people, but by God's grace.-Otto von Bismarck, speech in the Prussian Parliament (1847).

"Dear Lord," the preacher began with arms extended and a rapturous
look on his upturned face, "without you we are but dust..."
He would have continued, but at that moment one very obedient little
girl (who was listening carefully) leaned over to her mother and
asked quite audibly in her little girl voice, "Mommy, WHAT is butt
dust?" -- http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/05/Nov/dust.html

“Moreover, Europe remains the world leader in not only allowing people to stay but in assisting them to fight the state even when they are there illegally. By 2016 Britain had still not even managed to deport a man wanted in India for two bombings in 1993. The Bolton greengrocer Tiger Hanif arrived in Britain illegally in 1996 and had managed to receive more than £200,000 in legal aid from British taxpayers to avoid repatriation. And nor does the continent’s madness stop there. When Belgian investigators looked at the perpetrators of the numerous terrorist plots carried out by Belgian nationals, they discovered that a great many of them had plotted their attacks whilst being supported by the state. Indeed, Salah Abdeslam, lead surviving suspect of the November 2015 Paris attacks, had collected unemployment benefit to the tune of €19,000 in the period preceding the attacks. He had collected his last benefits only weeks before, making European societies among the first in history to pay people to attack them.” Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe,(Page 204)https://theweeflea.com/2017/08/11/the-strange-death-of-europe-part-2-immigration

Quotes 4 Sep 17

The material universe is . . . a message in code from God.-Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1900)
_Jesus Rediscovered_ [1969

The whole fun of living is trying to make something better. -Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) (In W. Clements Zinck's _Dynamic Work Simplification_ [1971])

“Borders, proclaimed the European commission president, Jean Claude-Juncker, in August 2016, are the worst invention ever made by politicians”  Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(page 178)

I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly. - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in a Civil List debate, in the House of Commons (24 July 1990

It’s the stuff of myths, fairy-tales and castles in the air.She has become the symbol of shared public grief; of corporate emoting; of cumulative and protracted obsession with feelings and intuition. Her bulimia was ours; her borderline personality disorder was the essence of all of us; her feelings of betrayal, anger and thirst for revenge belong to everyone. We knew her because somehow she was in us. We never met her, but we still feel her. We all seem to have lost someone close to us, though she could scarcely have been more distant. She became, in her dying, the whole nation’s near-death experience. Don’t try to analyse any of this madness: it defies logic. Diana has become a spiritual essence, a religious object of profound devotion, and so empathy trumps all reason. You can’t dish out harsh facts or even give people a bit of pointed common sense when all they want is puppies, kittens and teddy bears. Forget what works: if it feels right, it must be right. And so our public life becomes a mood, and if you dare to you break the charm you will trample on people’s dreams and kill their hopes. And Diana, Queen of People’s Hearts, will hate you for it.- http://archbishopcranmer.com/diana-queen-peoples-hearts-near-death-experience/

Quotes 2 Sep 17

“Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who, from his own infinite love, was made what we are, that he might make us what he is;”- Irenaeus  – in John Owen, The Glory of Christ (p.26)

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.-William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act III, scene 1, line 31.

Liz Lochhead said, "just tell the story, stick to the text".   What a great motto for the new preacher! Tell the story of Jesus – stick to the text of the Bible. Secondly Liz told us, "The message is there is no message”.- theweeflea.com

The next event on God's calendar is that He will return for His church.  What has to take place before Jesus comes again?  The answer is nothing. His return is imminent. -Charles F. Stanley (1932-    )  _Everyday Inspiration_ [2015], "December 27"

“At the same time the only culture that couldn’t be celebrated was the culture that had allowed all these other cultures to be celebrated in the first place. In order to become multicultural, countries found that they had to do themselves down, particularly focusing on the negatives. Thus the states that had been so open and liberal that they had allowed and encouraged large-scale migration were portrayed as countries which were uniquely racist. And while any and all other cultures in the world could be celebrated within Europe, to celebrate even the good things about Europe within Europe became suspect.” Douglas Murray – The Strange Death of Europe(Page 101)