Quotes 1 Apr

We cannot navigate without something to aim and, while we are in this world we must always navigate.-Jordan B Peterson, 12 Rules for Life,p92

The doctrine of the planetary verbal inspiration of the Word of God is one of vital significance, and it constitutes the very basis of sound theological study. It does, indeed, seem to involve an express contradiction, to assert that what is professedly regarded as the Word of God can be otherwise than fully and verbally inspired. -Alexander Black, Inauguration of New College quoted in
Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland,p.24

"There is nothing like humility:  This is the parent, root, guardian, groundwork, and unifying force of all good things.  Without humility, we are detestable, disgusting and defiled.  If there were someone raising the dead, healing the lame, cleansing lepers but doing it with boastful self-satisfaction, there could be nothing more disgusting, nothing more ungodly, nothing more odious.  Reckon nothing to be of yourself"  Chrysostom

Quotes 30 Mar

It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so. -Mark Twain quoted in Jordan B Peterson, 12 Rules for Life,p12

23 August 1807 William Richie of St Andrews in Glasgow had a small organ played in his church...... The Lord Provost and magistrates appealed to the Presbytery, which, by a majority, decided 'that the use of organs in the public worship of God is contrary to the law and constitution of our Established Church, and therefore prohibit in all churches and chapels within their bounds. - Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland, p187

Quotes 29 Mar

I don’t think we can be more useful to the Lord than when we’re most dependent on him. So we pray, we search the Scriptures, and we lean on his grace.
We *should* depend on him because he is worthy, and we *can* depend on him because he is able.- Sam Allberry@SamAllberry

If your spouse is not your primary ministry, you are not walking in the will of God - no matter what other good things you are doing.- Gavin Peacock@GPeacock8

The livelier  singing that had become common in England (hymns while Scotland only had Psalms) was introduced to Scotland by soldiers of General Wolfe's regiment quartered in Aberdeen. - - Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland, p.179

Quotes 28 Mar

The heavenly inhabitants . . . remain in eternal youth.
     --Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
      (Quarterly lecture, November 1747)

Grant saw hope for India only in westernisation through education. He considered that Britain's obligation to India could only be fulfilled by "introduction of light ... for  the Hindoos err because they are ignorant; and their errors have never been fairly laid before them.' - Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland, p.169

... violent opposition from the directors (of the East India Company) who had 'a vehement determinations against the principle of introducing Christianity among our subjects'.- Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Church in Victorian Scotland, p.170

Quotes 27 Mar'

 'We are not merely faced with disobedience today, we are faced with denial of all moral principles and even the very concept of law itself.'- D M Lloyd-Jones, BEC address, 'The State of the Nation', 1971.

Nellie Connally:You sure can't say Dallas doesn't love you, Mr. President.
John F. Kennedy: (smiling) No, you can't.
Apparently Kennedy's last words, spoken moments before being assassinated on November 22, 1963, as recorded in William Manchester's _The Death of a President_ [1967], Chapter 2

To Christ, who won for sinners grace
By bitter grief and anguish sore,
Be praise from all the ransom'd race
For ever and for evermore.
Isaac Watts, When I survey the wondrous cross

In prosperity our friends know us;
in adversity we know our friends.
     --John Churton Collins (1848-1908)
      _The English Review_ [April 1914],
      "Some Maxims And Reflections"

Quotes 26 Mar

To preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching morality in all its branches; and out of your humble cottages I have gathered a lesson, which I pray God I may be enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring with all the power of its subduing efficiency upon the vices of a more crowded population. - Thomas Chalmers after induction to the Tron Kirk Glasgow 21 July 18510

John Henry Newman and his brother, Francis, the one to enter the Roman Church, and the other, first to be one of the founders of the Christian Brethren, and later had to abandon the Christian faith. - Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Scottish Church 1688-1843, P.ß 193 (John Henry was evangelical Anglican before going RC)

,“That no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm: So help me God.- The Bill of Rights, Parliament of Great Britain, 1689

Quotes 25 Mar

The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content
to travel up hill, though it be hard and tiresome,
and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.
     --Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
      _The Christian Pilgrim_ [1733]

"Hard as I try, I cannot get my head around the colossal sense of entitlement it must require to agitate for the overthrow of a democratic vote simply because you didn’t like the outcome."-Brendan O’Neill on the people marching to revoke Article 50

“I think that it is deeply unfortunate that the authorities at the Divinity school in Cambridge decided that kowtowing to an ill-informed, ignorant and ideologically-addled mob trumped participating in an extensive online experiment in mass Christian and psychological education...I think that it is no bloody wonder that the faith is declining (and with it, the values of the West, as it fragments) with cowards and mountebanks of the sort who manifested themselves today at the helm."- Jordan Peterson on being banned by Cambridge Uni.

“If there is to be any respect whatsoever for our system of representative democracy, it has to deliver Brexit. To go back on all those promises to respect the referendum result would make a mockery of democracy.” - David Starkey on Brexit

The dark moments of our lives will last only so long as is
necessary for God to accomplish His purpose in us.
     --Dr. Charles F. Stanley (1932-    )
      _Walking With God: Quotations From The Sermons
       Of Dr. Charles F. Stanley_ [2012],
      "Life Principle No. 7"

Quotes 23 Mar

The purpose of elections is to choose those who will represent us to the Queen, and who will exercise her delegated authority in our interests. Note, exercise her authority, not ours. That is the critical difference between a constitutional monarchy and a republic. The difference might seem trivial to many, but the implications are in fact vast. What is the task of MPs? Are they there to execute the will of the people, or to frame laws according to the revealed will of God, for the good of the people? - The real Brexit issue: Where does authority come from?, MATTHEW ROBERTS

You will philosophise men into hell, but never into heaven.
     --C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
      _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 62 [1916]
       http://www.spurgeon.us/mind_and_heart/quotes/p2.htm#philosophy

The so-called "Age of Reason" was really an Age
of Unbelief, for its strongest protagonists were
corrosive men like Hume, Kant, Voltaire, who
measured the growth of reason by its alienation
from God. . . . The sovereignty of reasonable
people replaced the sovereignty of God.
     --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979)
      _Philosophies At War_ [1943]

Quotes 22 Mar

“... the point of the Christian life is to sit docile before the Word and thus to know God rather than to become well-known.”- David Gibson@davidngibbo

The question of authority was in many ways the central question in the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. The Christian view that authority comes down from God was unquestioned throughout the medieval period and remained untouched through the Reformation. Indeed, the biblical concept of sin is all about the defiance by human beings of God’s authority; whether that is encountered in the direct form of his moral law, or in the delegated form of human authorities instituted by him. The two, of course, coincide in the fifth commandment, to honour your father and mother. The human authority is to be obeyed for God’s sake.
   The Enlightenment can neatly be summarised as an exercise in the rebranding of sin. What was previously called God’s authority, the Enlightenment called human immaturity; what was previously called sin, the Enlightenment called liberty. To believe God is in charge is to remain in infancy. To believe that we are our own masters is the mark of maturity. This rebranding is the point of Immanuel Kant’s famous essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’. The effects of this rebranding on politics were most clearly proclaimed by Rousseau in ‘The Social Contract’. Rousseau argued that the authority of governments is not derived from above, by God’s delegation, but upwards from below, by the consent of the people. Man is the measure of all things; true authority derives from the individual man. God is not the original authority, but a usurping one, who threatens the authority of the individual. The individual henceforth must be the only deity. The Christian God will only be tolerated if he is reduced to nothing more than a personal choice of individual people. He has no business being involved in government.- The real Brexit issue: Where does authority come from?, MATTHEW ROBERTS

Both quotes from my fellow IPC elders in different churches.

Quotes 21 May

The cup kills more than the cannon.—Thomas Watson

“Electronic bugging in [the USSR] is such a simple thing that it's a matter of everyday life.... Almost every apartment, every institution has got its bug and it doesn't surprise us in the least - we are used to it.” #Solzhenitsyn

Tone of voice, look, and manner can prove no less
eloquent than choice of words.
     --Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
      _Maxims_ [1678], Maxim 249

Quotes 20 Mar

Learn in confession to be honest with God.  Do not
give fair names to foul sins; call them what you
will, they will smell no sweeter.
--C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892)
_Morning And Evening_ [2003]; "April 7, Evening

“If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. So it’s not that you are anti-gun. You’ll need the police’s guns to take away other people’s guns. So you are very pro-gun, you just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral and virtuous) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralising gun ownership in the hands of a small, political elite and their minions.” -– Stefan Molyneux, Facebook

Freedom of religion is after all a fundamental value of the Christian West.   But in order to protect that freedom we cannot ignore the fact that Islam is a political system and that where it prevails there is either a greatly reduced or no freedom of religion.  Can our commentators name one country where Islam prevails where there is real freedom of religion? - Christchurch Commentaries by theweeflea

The Christian’s motto should not be “Let go and let God” but “Trust God and get going.”
— J. I. Packer

If we want to be "strong in the Lord, and in the
power of his might", one of the first things we
have to do is to read and to take in and to
masticate thoroughly this Book [Bible].
     --Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)
      _The Christian Soldier_ [1977]

Quotes 19 Mar

Euphemisms blind us to reality.  Death becomes
merely "passing away."  Killing unborn babies
becomes "terminating a pregnancy."  Copulation
becomes "going to bed with."  Genocide becomes
"population control."  Sin becomes "antisocial
behavior."  Change the language, and you change
people's perception of reality.

This could not be so if words were only convenient
artificial labels.  Changing the label does not
change the contents of the jar.  But language
is more than labels; language is a choice of a
way of thinking and therefore of living, of
existing.  Our very mode of being is
determined by our language.
--Peter Kreeft (1937-    )
_Making Choices: Practical Wisdom For Everyday
Moral Decisions_ [1990], Chapter 9

The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more
clever than others.
--Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
_Maxims_ [1678], Number 127

Quotes 18 Mar

If Easter is not true, death is Lord.
If Easter is true, Jesus is Lord.
It's one or the other.
Glen Scrivener @glenscrivener

"The way to do a great deal is to keep on doing a little." -Charles Spurgeon.

The security of our salvation does not reside in the strength of our faith, but in the indestructibility of our Saviour. - Dustin Benge@DustinBenge

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard
to protect liberty when the Government's purposes
are beneficent.  Men born to freedom are naturally
alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-
minded rulers.  The greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding.
     --Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)
      _Olmstead vs. United States_ [1928]

Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true Socialist.—Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, 1931

Quotes 16 Mar - Robertson on Brexit

I am in despair for my country – because I believe we are possibly witnessing the death of democracy in this country.  This is not just BINO (Brexit In Name Only) but DINO (Democracy In Name Only).  - David Robertson, TheWeeFlea.com

Corbyn has not only sold out his own principles, he is prepared to sell out his country – for power.-- David Robertson, TheWeeFlea.com

John Bercow –   One of the major factors of this Parliamentary mess is the smug, pompous, bullying speaker – Mr Bercow, who was quite happy to have a  “Bollocks to Brexit” sticker on his car.  He has done his utmost to undermine Brexit and to facilitate it being stopped and in so doing has compromised the neutrality of the role of Speaker of the House of Commons.  The latest example is today when Bercow did not permit an amendment on preventing a second referendum – despite it being signed by 127 MPs from three different parties.  He is using his position to further his own politics.  And he is only able to stay in that position, because despite his bullying (especially to women) he is considered to be too valuable to ‘the cause’.- David Robertson, TheWeeFlea.com

The bottom line in this is that some 500 MPs out of 650 are Remainers whereas 2/3 of their constituencies voted Leave.   They gave us a vote not expecting that we would vote ‘the wrong way’.  Since then, egged on by almost the whole of the political, media, educational and arts establishments, they have been desperately hunting for a way to reverse our vote.
- David Robertson, TheWeeFlea.com

I was reading Chrysostom this morning on the importance of leaders having good characters.  He argues that if they don’t know how to govern their own souls, how can they govern cities and nations?  It’s the character of our leaders that is the major problem.  A system is only as good as those who run it.   Where are the men and women of integrity, courage, intelligence and humility who will lead our nations?- David Robertson, TheWeeFlea.com

Quotes Mar 15

Euphemisms blind us to reality.  Death becomes
merely "passing away."  Killing unborn babies
becomes "terminating a pregnancy."  Copulation
becomes "going to bed with."  Genocide becomes
"population control."  Sin becomes "antisocial
behaviour."  Change the language, and you change
people's perception of reality.

This could not be so if words were only convenient
artificial labels.  Changing the label does not
change the contents of the jar.  But language
is more than labels; language is a choice of a
way of thinking and therefore of living, of
existing.  Our very mode of being is
determined by our language.
--Peter Kreeft (1937-    )
_Making Choices: Practical Wisdom For Everyday
Moral Decisions_ [1990], Chapter 9

The true way to be deceived is to think oneself more
clever than others.
--Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
_Maxims_ [1678], Number 127

Quotes Mar 14

Prayer is not the flare gun of the desperate or room service for the indulgent. It is the confidence of the adopted.—@SamAllberry

D.L. Moody once visited Spurgeon at London's Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Upon his return to America, he was asked, “Did you hear Spurgeon preach?”
Moody replied, “Yes, but even better, I got to hear him pray.”
Lord, teach us to pray and to delight in hearing Your people pray.

By nature we all desire imperious power, so that no one is willing to submit himself to another. - John Calvin, Commentary on Titus 3:1

God gives us garments, and there are some who use
their very garments for nothing else but pride, and who
go through the world with no motive but display.
     --C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892),
      _Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit_, Volume 38 [1892]
       http://www.spurgeon.us/mind_and_heart/quotes/m2.htm#modesty

As common as this sin of ingratitude is, there is nothing we ought more earnestly to pray against. For what is more absolutely condemned in holy scripture than ingratitude?- George Whitefield@WhitefieldG

Quotes May 13

Since you have been in this world--He has loved you most patiently. You have often provoked Him; you have rebelled against Him times without number, yet He has never stayed the outflow of His heart towards you. God's love to you is without boundary. He could not love you more--for He loves you like a God; and He never will love you less. "As the Father has loved Me--so have I loved you!" John 15:9 (C.H. Spurgeon)

A christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none: a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone. - Martin Luther

Billy Bray had an deep sympathy with people singing or shouting or leaping for joy. He used to tell people 'I can say Glory Glory,  I can sing Glory Glory, I can dance Glory Glory,' then he usually acted out the word. - Chris Wright, Billy Bray in his own words Page 180

Mar 12 Quotes

... our consciences, should rise above and advance beyond the law, forgetting all law righteousness. For there question is not how we may become righteous but how being unrighteous and unworthy, we may be reckoned righteous. If consciences wish to attain any certainty in this matter they, ought to give no place to the law - John Calvin

The Governance of our Country has been heavily compromised. “I have come to realise that ministers are often mere puppets with civil servants pulling ferociously at their strings...The power & competence of our ministers is, I’m afraid, a facade.” @thesundaytimes, @patel4witham  Priti Patel MP Retweeted The Sunday Times

“The first swallow from the cup of the natural sciences makes atheists - but at the bottom of the cup God is waiting.” Werner Heisenberg, Nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate.

Mar 11 quotes

"Grant me to rest on your power and faithfulness,
and to know that there are two things worth living for;
to further your cause in the world,
and to do good to the souls and bodies of men;
This is my ministry, my life, my prayer, my end.
Grant me grace that I shall not fail."
David Robertson@theweeflea

The public passes from fascination and amusement with what it previously would have considered disgusting to a satiation, boredom, and finally indifference, while the artists of the age make wilder and more frenzied efforts to regain attention by more degrading spectacles and exhibition." Harold O. J. Brown, THE SENSATE CULTURE

Is there a better sentence in the world than, “Dad, can I cuddle you for a little?”- Chris Hayes@chrislhayes

Quotes Mar 9

‘Governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.’- UN experts on climate change in 1989
UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

I always thought LENT was what you found in your belly button?- Unk
Don’t be silly. It’s what I’ve done with books I rarely see again. - Digby L. James

The Bible never speaks about white, black or coloured skin (the closest is the Beloved in the Song of Songs who is "dark"). Interestingly, when it mentions Ethiopians it calls them "smooth skinned" (Isaiah 18:7). Their smoothness is far more remarkable than their pigmentation.- Glen Scrivener @glenscrivener

Quotes Mar 8

We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.- John Calvin@JohnCalvinDaily

“This morning when I arose, I found my heart go after God in longing desires of conformity to him, and in secret prayer found myself sweetly quickened and drawn out in praises to God for all he had done to and for me, and for my inward trials and distresses of late.  My heart ascribed glory, glory, glory to the blessed God and bid welcome to all inward distress again, if God saw meet to exercise me with it.  Time appeared but an inch long, and eternity at hand; and I thought I could in patience and cheerfulness bear anything for the cause of God, for I saw that a moment would bring me to a world of peace and blessedness.  My soul by the strength of the Lord, rose far above this lower world, and all the vain amusements and frightful disappointments of it.”- David Brainerd, Diary, March 7, 1743

Sympathy is a debt we owe to sufferers. —William Secker

“Christ is concerned not merely to undo the damage done by Adam and restore the original, but to do something incomparably more wonderful. It is really a new order which he inaugurates, in which man attains a destiny not hitherto possible for him. The prodigal son is immeasurably better off on his return to his father’s house than he was before he left home.”- James Philip's 'The Power of God on Romans 5 v 12 to 21:

When someone inserts the adjective “social” before the noun “justice” it’s a sign they are talking about something else entirely.- David Haslam

Quotes 7 Mar

Billy Bray and a friend were is coming to the house of a wealthy man. Billy was making for the front door, and his friend said it would be better and his friend said it would be better if they went round the back. 'No' send Billy, I am the son of a King and I shall go frontways.' - Chris Wright, Billy Bray in his own words Page 10 S

Our doctrine and biblical knowledge cannot leave the affections behind. If we believe with our minds that God is holy we must also come to find his holiness enjoyable and satisfying just to praise it. If we believe the great God of the universe really loves us, it should make us emotionally unshakable in the face of criticism, suffering and death. In short we must be able to existentially access r.final convictions. If.our doctrinal soundness is not accompanied by heart experience, it will lead eventually to to nominal Christianity -  that is in name only and eventually to unbelief.-Timothy Keller, Prayer, Page 180

National churches work foreign to the nature and Constitution of the Christian church. - Patrick Hutchison of the Relief church quoted  by Andrew L Drummond and James Bulloch, The Scottish church 1688 to 1843 Page 150

Quotes 6 Mar

“You have need to abhor it as deadly Poison, and to renounce it from this very Hour.” - John Wesley “Letter to a Friend, Concerning Tea,” Aug 1749

Though John Wesley totally opposed the drinking tea hence the term teetotaller he was something of an authority on the taste of ale. - Arnold Dallimore, Spurgeon Page 182

There is a twofold hedge that god makes about his people: there is the hedge of protection, to keep evil from them; and the hedge of affliction, to keep them from evil.
—John Bunyan

Quotes 5 Mar

"The last day will discover I have nothing but a heart to lead you in the ways of God and into the enjoyment of God"- John Owen,, Sermons, vol 9

I've got so much work to do today, I'd better spend two hours in prayer instead of one. —Luther

The lowest and worst have a claim to our courtesy. --John Wesley (1703-1791 _On Pleasing All Men_ (sermon)

When he was hiding in the desert, God sent ravens to bring Elijah meat & bread.
When multitudes were hungry, Jesus fed them fish & bread.
God doesn’t seem to have a very high view of vegetables.- Joshua D Jones

We should teach children to conjugate before we teach them to copulate. - Jules Gomes

Quotes 4 Mar

"Faith will give us such an experience of the power, efficacy, sweetness and benefit of gospel ordinances and gospel worship, as shall cause us to despise all that the world can do in opposition unto us." - John Owen,, Sermons, vol 9

The life of an honest man is an oath.—Richard Sibbes

Gospel proclamation is a Christian’s task but gospel transformation is the evidence it’s true in a Christian’s  life. - Gavin Peacock@GPeacock8

"During this last year I had come to believe that it was not possible for a man to love his wife more than I loved you... I pity those lovers who are not married." - In 1939, Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote to his wife Bethan

Secularists have not succeeded in wrecking divine things; but Secularists have succeeded in wrecking secular things...For the enemies of religion cannot leave it alone. They laboriously attempt to smash religion. They cannot smash religion; but they do smash everything else.- G. K. Chesterton@GKCdaily

Quotes 2 Mar

Our life meant his death, his death means our life. - Mark Jones, Knowing Christ Page 105

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million of enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; he is praying for me. -Robert Murray M'Cheyne in Andrew Bonar  Murray M'Cheyne  Page 236

That preacher that have good gift for preaching and no grace is like one that have knives, for And spoons and plates and know meat. But knives and forks and plates and meet is best and gifts is great blessing. When preachers have  grace then you need not to say anything about gifts.- Billy Bray in Chris Wright, Billy Bray in his  own words Page 136