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Quote #:1
Added by: Semper Fidelis
11-30-2007
 “  This is really what is meant by the essence of the covenant -- an unconditional election to enjoy blessed communion with God. It can only be considered, in this internal aspect, as a particular and unconditional covenant. What we call the external aspect of the covenant, or its outward administration, is simply the historical process whereby God manifests this electing grace. It is necessarily general and conditional, so as to take up the elect in their historical situation as sinners. The outward administration therefore does not discriminate between sinners, and allows for the possibility that some sinners, who are not true beneficiaries of the covenant, may be attached to it for a time, until the historical process reveals their true status before God. Any blessing they receive from this attachment to the covenant is therefore by definition conditional, general, outward, and temporal; whereas the true beneficiaries of the covenant, the elect, enjoy the blessings of the covenant unconditionally, particularly, spiritually, and eternally.
- Matthew Winzer
(The PuritanBoard, 30 Nov 07)
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   Total rating: 47 - Votes: 10 - Average: 4.70 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:2
Added by: NaphtaliPress
11-30-2007
 “  Dr. Girardeau's opponents stubbornly forget that the burden of proof rests on them; he is not bound to prove that these [musical] instruments are per se criminal or that they are mischievous or dangerous, although he is abundantly able to prove the latter. It is they who must prove affirmatively that God has appointed and required their use in his New Testament worship, or they are transgressors. Doubtless the objection in every opponent's mind is this: That, after all, Dr. Girardeau is making a conscientious point on too trivial and non-essential a matter. I am not surprised to meet this impression in the popular mind, aware as I am that this age of universal education is really a very ignorant one. But it is a matter of grief to find ministers so oblivious of the first lessons of their church history. They seem totally blind to the historical fact that it was just thus every damnable corruption which has cursed the church took its beginning; in the addition to the modes of worship ordained by Christ for the New dispensation, of human devices, which seemed ever so pretty and appropriate, made by the best of men and women and ministers with the very best of motives, and borrowed mostly from the temple cultus of the Jews. Thus came vestments, pictures in churches, incense, the observances of the martyrs' anniversary days, in a word, that whole apparatus of will-worship and superstition which bloomed into popery and idolatry. "Why, all these pretty inventions were innocent. The very best of people used them. They were so appropriate, so ζsthetic! Where could the harm be?" History answers the question: They disobeyed God and introduced popery, a result quite unforeseen by the good souls who began the mischief! Yes, but those who have begun the parallel mischief in our Presbyterian Church cannot plead the same excuse, for they are forewarned by a tremendous history, and prefer Mrs. Grundy's taste to the convincing light of experience. [Mrs. Grundy, The surname of an imaginary personage who is proverbially referred to as a personification of the tyranny of social opinion in matters of conventional propriety. OED]
- R. L. Dabney
(Dr. Girardeau's "Instrumental Music in Public Worship." The Blue Banner, v. 3. #1-2, January/February 1994 (www.thebluebanner.com))
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   Total rating: 27 - Votes: 9 - Average: 3.00 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:3
Added by: py3ak
11-30-2007
 “  Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the too-great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility and the graces of a polished manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself. Thus a circumstance occurred while the sisters were together in their own room after breakfast which sank the heart of Mrs. Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though Mrs. Jennings were governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.
- Jane Austen
(From "Sense & Sensibility": Marianne Dashwood has been disappointed in love and is wallowing in grief.)
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   Total rating: 22 - Votes: 6 - Average: 3.67 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:4
Added by: py3ak
11-30-2007
 “  The Lord Jesus does, indeed, say to His disciples, as was read in the Gospel lection, “if ye loved Me, ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I;” but those ears, which have often heard the words, “I and the Father are One,” and “He that sees Me, sees the Father also,” accept the saying without supposing a difference of Godhead or understanding it of that Essence which they know to be co-eternal and of the same nature with the Father. Man’s uplifting, therefore, in the Incarnation of the Word, is commended to the holy Apostles also, and they, who were distressed at the announcement of the Lord’s departure from them, are incited to eternal joy over the increase in their dignity; “If ye loved Me,” He says, “ye would assuredly rejoice, because I go to the Father:” that is, if, with complete knowledge ye saw what glory is bestowed on you by the fact that, being begotten of GOD the Father, I have been born of a human mother also, that being invisible I have made Myself visible, that being eternal “in the form of God” I accepted the “form of a slave,” “ye would rejoice because I go to the Father.” For to you is offered this ascension, and your humility is in Me raised to a place above all heavens at the Father’s right hand. But I, Who am with the Father that which the Father is, abide undivided with My Father, and in coming from Him to you I do not leave Him, even as in returning to Him from you I do not forsake you. Rejoice, therefore, “because I go to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.” For I have united you with Myself, and am become Son of Man that you might have power to be sons of God. And hence, though I am One in both forms, yet in that whereby I am conformed to you I am less than the Father, whereas in that whereby I am not divided from the Father I am greater even than Myself. And so let the Nature, which is less than the Father, go to the Father, that the Flesh may be where the Word always is, and that the one Faith of the catholic Church may believe that He Whom as Man it does not deny to be less, is equal as God with the Father.
- Leo the Great
(Sermon 77, "On Whitsuntide")
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   Total rating: 14 - Votes: 4 - Average: 3.50 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:5
Added by: NaphtaliPress
11-30-2007
 “  Church Power and Worship.---
I direct my course straight to the dissecting of the true limits, within which the church's power of enacting laws about things pertaining to the worship of God is bounded and confined, and which it may not overleap nor transgress. Three conditions I find necessarily requisite in such a thing as the church has power to prescribe by her laws: 1st It must be only a circumstance of divine worship; no substantial part of it; no sacred significant and efficacious ceremony. For the order and decency left to the definition of the church, as concerning the particulars of it, comprehends no more but mere circumstances.... 2nd That which the church may lawfully prescribe by her laws and ordinances, as a thing left to her determination, must be one of such things as were not determinable by Scripture because individua are infinita .... 3rd If the church prescribe anything lawfully, so that she prescribe no more than she has power given her to prescribe, her ordinances must be accompanied with some good reason and warrant given for the satisfaction of tender consciences.
- George Gillespie
(A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies, ed. Christopher Coldwell (Dallas: Naphtali Press, 1993. 281 - 284)
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   Total rating: 9 - Votes: 2 - Average: 4.50 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:6
Added by: Ivanhoe
11-30-2007
 “  The godly judge is warned against bribes, perjury, and miscarriages of justice (Ex. 23:6-8; Lev. 19:15; 24:22; Deut. 1:12-18; 16:18-20; 25:1; 27:25). He is only secondarily an officer of state; he is primarily an officer of God. If the judge does not represent God's law order, he is ultimately a political hack and hatchet man whose job it is to keep the people in line, protect the establishment, and, in the process, to feather his own nest. Ungodly judges are to be feared and hated: they represent a particularly fearful and ugly form of evil, and their abuse of office is a deadly cancer to any society.
- R. J. Rushdoony
(Expositing the 9th Commandment)
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   Total rating: 13 - Votes: 3 - Average: 4.33 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:7
Added by: wsw201
11-30-2007
 “  When heresy rises in an evangelical body, it is never frank and open. It always begins by skulking, and assuming a disguise. Its advocates, when together, boast of great improvements, and congratulate one another on having gone greatly beyond the old dead orthodoxy, and on having left behind many of its antiquated errors: but when taxed with deviations from the received faith, they complain of the unreasonableness of their accusers, as they differ from it only in words. This has been the standing course of errorists ever since the apostolic age. They are almost never honest and candid as a party, until they gain strength enough to be sure of some degree of popularity. Thus it was with Arius in the fourth century, with Pelagius in the fifth, with Arminius and his companions in the seventeenth, with Amyraut and his associates in France soon afterwards, and with the Unitarians in Massachusetts, toward the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. They denied their real tenets, evaded examination or inquiry, declaimed against their accusers as merciless bigots and heresy-hunters, and strove as long as they could to appear to agree with the most orthodox of their neighbours; until the time came when, partly from inability any longer to cover up their sentiments, and partly because they felt strong enough to come out, they at length avowed their real opinions.
- Samuel Miller
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   Total rating: 33 - Votes: 7 - Average: 4.71 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:8
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
- Martin Luther
(Luther’s Works. Weimar Edition. Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol. 3, pp. 81f)
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   Total rating: 54 - Votes: 11 - Average: 4.91 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:9
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  1. Christians must be Precisians.

2.. Precisians are no fools:, or Christians of an exact, and circumspect life are, whatever the world accounts them, truly wise men. This latter observation it is which I intend to insist upon.

Beloved, I am, entering upon a discourse on a sort of people, of whom we may say, with those Jews,” Concerning this sect, we know that it is every where spoken against; (Acts 28: 22; ) and who, with the Apostle,” are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and -to men;” (1 Cor. 4: 9; ) concerning whom, heaven and earth are divided, and the world is divided within itself; of whom God says,” the world is not worthy;” of whom the world say, they are not worthy to live; of whom GOD says, they are the “apple of mine eye;” of whom the world say, “they are a sore in our eye;” whom GOD accounts his jewels; whom men account” the filth of the world,” and” the offscouring of all things;” of whom GOD says, they are the “sons of wisdom,” but men say they are fools. And as God and men are thus divided, so are men no less divided among themselves. Some few say concerning these, as they of old concerning CHRIST,” They are good men;”_ others say,” No, but they are deceivers of the people.” A Precisian, with the most, is grown into a proverb of reproach, a mark of infamy. To be a drunkard, a fornicator, a swearer, is no reproach, in comparison of being noted for a Puritan.

Well, but let us inquire a little more narrowly into this sort of people, about whom the world is thus moved, and has been in all ages. In order hereunto, I shall show you,

First, What a Precisian is; and Secondly, prove to you, against all the world, that he is no fool, but a truly wise, yea, the only wise man.

Touching the former, What a Precisian is, a Scripture Precisian, let me first tell you, to prevent mistakes, who he is not.

1. Not a Pharisee, a painted sepulcher, whose religion is a mere show; who has the form of godliness without the power; who is pure in his own eyes, and yet not cleansed from his filthiness; who is exact about the punc*tilios of religion, and hath a great zeal about the lower and more circumstantial matters, and neglects the weightier things of the law. This is not be.

2. Not an Enthusiast, properly so called; (though that be a vizard put upon him by some, as the hides of beasts were put upon the Christians of old; ) not an Enthusiast, I say, whose religion is all fancy, imagination, enthusiasm, the dreams and visions of his own heart. Neither is this he. Christianity is not a castle in the air, but is a building that has foundation.

3. Not a Phrenetick, no son of violence or contention, who, not knowing what spirit he is of, calls for fire from heaven, to set all in a combustion, if every thing be not exactly fashioned according to his own mind. Neither is this he.” The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable. The servant of the Lo RD must not strive, but be gentle.”

By a Precisian, I mean, a sincere, circumspect Christian; one whose care and endeavor it is” to walk uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel;” who, withdrawing himself from the fellowship, fashions, and lusts of the world, and denying himself the sinful liberties thereof, does exercise himself to keep a good conscience towards GOD and men.
- Richard Alleine
(on Eph. 5.15, in Vindiciae Pietatis; or, a Vindication of Godliness, in the Greatest Strictness and Spirituality of it, from the Imputations of Folly and Fancy, together with Several Directions for Attaining and Maintaining of a Godly Life)
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   Total rating: 17 - Votes: 5 - Average: 3.40 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:10
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  Wherever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure vanishes from the Christian church. With its recovery will come unexpected power.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(Psalms, The Prayer Book of the Bible, p. 26)
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   Total rating: 47 - Votes: 10 - Average: 4.70 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:11
Added by: historyb
11-30-2007
 “  Thus they (seraphim) have four wings for adoration and two for active energy; four to
conceal themselves, and two with which to occupy themselves in service; and we may
learn from them that we shall serve God best when we are most deeply reverent and
humbled in his presence. Veneration must be in larger proportion than vigour,
adoration must exceed activity.
- CH Spurgeon
(http://www.spurgeon.us/mind_and_heart/quotes/w.htm#true)
“ 
   Total rating: 37 - Votes: 9 - Average: 4.11 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:12
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  All our Discontents about what we want, appeared to me, to spring from the Want of Thankfulness for what we have.
- Daniel Defoe
(Robinson Crusoe)
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   Total rating: 24 - Votes: 5 - Average: 4.80 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:13
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  If it be inquired, then, by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence amongst us, and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts, and consequently the whole substance of Christianity, viz., a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.
- John Calvin
(The Necessity of Reforming the Church)
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   Total rating: 16 - Votes: 4 - Average: 4.00 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:14
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  There but for the grace of God go I.
- John Bradford
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   Total rating: 57 - Votes: 12 - Average: 4.75 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:15
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
- Jim Elliott
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   Total rating: 37 - Votes: 8 - Average: 4.62 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:16
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  Scrutamini scripturas (let us search the scriptures). These two words have undone the world.
- John Selden
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   Total rating: 27 - Votes: 6 - Average: 4.50 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:17
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.
- C.S. Lewis
(Introduction to On the Incarnation by Anthanasius)
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   Total rating: 45 - Votes: 9 - Average: 5.00 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:18
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  I am merely striving to think God's thoughts after Him.
- Johann Kepler
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   Total rating: 28 - Votes: 6 - Average: 4.67 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:19
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  Those do well that pray morning and evening in their families, those do better that pray and read the scriptures, but those do best that pray and read and sing the psalms.
- Philip Henry
(Matthew Henry, The Life of Philip Henry, p. 75)
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   Total rating: 35 - Votes: 8 - Average: 4.38 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:20
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  General" I remarked, "How is it that you can keep so cool and appear so utterly insensible to danger in such a storm of shell and bullets as rained about you when your hand was hit?" He instantly became grave and reverential in his manner, and answered, in a low tone of great earnestness: "Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me." He added, after a pause, looking me full in the face: "That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave".
- Stonewall Jackson
(Lt. General Thomas Jackson speaking to then Captain John D. Imboden, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War, G.F.R Henderson, Vol. 1, p. 163)
“ 
   Total rating: 24 - Votes: 6 - Average: 4.00 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:21
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'
- Abraham Kuyper
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   Total rating: 54 - Votes: 11 - Average: 4.91 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:22
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
- Desiderius Erasmus
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   Total rating: 29 - Votes: 6 - Average: 4.83 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:23
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity.
- Matthew Poole
(The Last Sayings of Matthew Poole)
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   Total rating: 36 - Votes: 8 - Average: 4.50 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:24
Added by: Semper Fidelis
11-30-2007
 “  I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cow bell!
- Christopher Walken
(Saturday Night Live, 8 Apr 2000)
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   Total rating: 47 - Votes: 12 - Average: 3.92 Unapproved Quote
Quote #:25
Added by: VirginiaHuguenot
11-30-2007
 “  At dinner one night, a student who was himself to be a professor of Old Testament, once asked [John Murray] why he had not written more, earlier in his career. For several minutes Murray continued with his meal and then said quite abruptly, 'Because I did not want to have to withdraw what I wrote!
- John Murray
(Iain Murray, The Life of John Murray, p. 100)
“ 
   Total rating: 35 - Votes: 8 - Average: 4.38 Unapproved Quote
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