Puritanism Today

This page is to be regularly updated with new quotes that we come across by the Puritans and others on the above subjects – this will include the whole subject of the ‘Marks’ of grace. There will be some overlap, and you will probably wonder why quotes on other pages were not placed on this one, but there it is. Please note that the newest quotes will be added at the top of this page so you can easily tell if it has been updated since your last visit.

N.B. Not all the Authors quoted below are endorsed

A Tender Conscience

“A tender conscience is not a troubling or tormenting ourselves with frivolous or groundless scruples, and so living in melancholy bondage all our days. This may be indeed be an indication of grace, but yet it is an infirmity.”

Timothy Cruso {Puritan}, The Duty and Blessing of a Tender Conscience: Plainly Stated and Earnestly Recomended to All that Regard Acceptance with God,he Proserity of Their Souls, p.23

Pin-Pointing the Time is Not Important (Nor Often Possible)

“The precise time of begun regeneration, is not always observed nor known, either by the regnerate man himself, or by beholders of his way, as experience maketh evident in many, who from their infancy are brought up in the exercises of true religion, in whose conversion no notable change can be observed. In those words of Christ in part are verified, the Kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation. Such persons when they begin to examine themselves, whether they be regenerate, whether they be in Christ, and at what time they were converted, they can neither determinately speak of their conversion, till after sundry trials and experiences can gather proof of their sincerity from such signs, effects and marks of the work of saving grace in them, as may prove that Christ hath dwelt in them before.”

David Dickson {Covenanter}, Unknown

‘An Honest Heart’

“This trusting of God must be with an honest heart, that is, with a heart in which there is a distinct and settled purpose not to sin, but in all things to do the will of God.”

William Perkins {Puritan}, How to Live, and that in All Estates and Times, Especially When Helps and Comforts Fail, p.15

Seldom Right

“Do not easily take for granted that you are converted, beg some faithful minister to search you quick, and remember a godly jealousy doth always become you, and that the most confident are seldom right. Acts iii. 19. ii. 37. Psal. cxix. 80. Matt. vii. 24, 25.”

James Janeway {Puritan}, The Saint’s Encouragement to Diligence in Christ’s Service, pp.102-3

Our Sense of Sin

“Sense of sin may be often great, and more felt than grace; yet not be more than grace. A man feels the ache of his finger more sensibly than the health of his whole body; yet he knows that the ache of a finger is nothing so much as the health of the whole body.”

Thomas Adams {Puritan}, Unknown

Assurance Through Reading the Spirit’s Work in Us

“[The Spirit] writes first all graces in us, and then teaches our consciences to read his handwriting.”

Thomas Goodwin {Puritan}, Works Vol.6, p.27

Lively Faith

“A true faith in Jesus Christ will not suffer us to be idle. No, it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart, so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ.”

George Whitefield {An Honorary Puritan}, The Essential Whitefield, p.?

What Truly Matters

“[Some] authors have asserted that men cannot be sincere converts unless they have been under great legal terrors for some considerable time…[thus they] have caused groundless fears and perplexity in the minds of many gracious souls… Very often the children of godly parents, who have had a religious education and have been kept from all sandalous sins that wound and waste the conscience, have been favoured with an easy, as well as an early, conversion. The seed of grace has sprung up in their hearts, they know not how, Matthew 24:27. So as that although they can say, as the blind man restored to his sight did, ‘now I see,’ yet the particular time they cannot account for.”

Increase Mather {Puritan}, From his Prefixed Epistle to Solomon Stoddard’s Guide to Christ, p.x

I Am My Beloved’s

Consider, although the words be the same, yet the order is changed; it was, chap.2:16, “my Beloved is mine” etc. So there she begins at asserting her interest in him, but here she begins at asserting his interest in her, or her betaking of herself to him, and adhering to the bargain, she concludes he also is hers: which shows, 1. That they, who are clear of their adhering to Christ, and of their fleeing to him, as their choice, may warrantably conclude that Christ is theirs, even though sense would say the contrary. 2. When there is nothing in Christ’s dispensation to us, that looks convincing-like of his love to us, it is good to reflect on our acting on him, and if it be found that we have fled to him, and closed with him, then there is ground to conclude our union with him, and interest in him: and there cannot be a sounder reasoning than that. For, if we on our part be answerable to the call, we are not to question his part (namely his bestowing of himself on us, according to the tenor of his offers) but to believe it according to his word: believers may sometimes be put to this way of arguing, and it is sure.”

James Durham {Covenanter}, Commentary on the Song of Songs 6:3, p.?

No Graces

“Where there is but any one sin nourished and fostered, all our other graces are not only blemished, but abolished; they are no graces.”

Robert Bolton {Puritan}, General Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God, p.35

Good Evidence

“If you would have a clear evidence that that little love, that little faith, that little zeal, you have is true, then live up to that love, live up to that faith, live up to that zeal that you have; and this will evidence beyond all contradiction.”

Thomas Brooks {Puritan}, Unknown

Wrestling Faith

“Faith, without trouble or fighting, is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith.”

Ralph Erskine {18th Century Scottish Presbyterian}, Unknown

The Way the Spirit Takes

“The way the Spirit of God takes, is like that we take in preparing the ground: do you think any farmer would have a crop of corn next year unless they plow now; and you may as well expect a crop of corn on unplowed ground, as a crop of grace, until the soul is convinced of its being undone without a Savior. That is the reason we have so many mushroom converts, so many persons that are always happy! happy! happy! and never were miserable; why? Because their stony ground is not plowed up; they have not got a conviction of the law; they are stony ground hearers; they hear the word with joy, and in a time of temptation, which will soon come after a seeming or real conversion, they fall away.”

George Whitefield {Virtually a Puritan}, Unknown

Act!

“There are multitudes in our congregations, who are just waiting, while they ought to be acting; who have a sort of indefinite hope about the aids of the Holy Spirit yet to be experienced, while they are pursuing the very course to fail of attaining any such aids. They think they must wait. They think wrong. . . (T)here is not likely to be, with any sinner, a just sense of his dependence, till he earnestly attend and attempts to obey the gospel. . . ‘If we will do the works, ye shall know the doctrine whether it be of God.’”

Ichabod Spencer, A Pastor’s Sketches, p.?

The Duty to Rejoice

“Let them look upon it to be as much their duty to rejoice in Christ Jesus, as to mourn for sin; nay, and more, for this in in order to that…”

Matthew Henry {Puritan}, The Pleasantness of a Religious Life, p.38

Little Faith

“Little faith is true faith, as well as great. A little man is a man as well as a great man; a little water is as tru;y water as the ocean sea… But weak faith may prove strong in time: the most learned clerk was in his grammar book, the greatest giant was in swaddling clothes, the tallest oak was a twig, and faith grows from a grain of mustard seed to a tall tree.”

John Rogers {Puritan}, The Doctrine of Faith, p.198-200

Sitting Down Half-way

“Many, by a fair profession, a false conviction, and a bastard conversion, seem half way to heaven, who yet will lodge for ever in hell. He who sits down at halfway, and rests there, will never come to the end of his journey, but is still afar off. O sirs, it is to be feared that the most part of you, that even come so near to Christ, in approaching to his house and ordinances; yet you are as far from him as light is from darkness, or darkness from light; and we need not go far to prove the charge; for, if you be not washed, you are far from God and Christ; yea, you have no part in him; “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me,” [John 13:8] said our blessed Lord to Peter. If you be not washed from the guilt of sin in justification, and from the filth of sin in sanctification, you have no part in Christ, and so are far enough from him; and this is the state, not of a few, but of a multitude; “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.” [Prov 30:12]

Ralph Erskine {Scottish Presbyterian of the 18th Century}, Unknown

Feelings Are Not Reliable Guides

“A man is still as near the sun in a cloudy day as in a clear day; so, too, a man is as near God, that once is truly near him, even when he hides himself under a cloud of trial…”

Richard Vines {Puritan}, The Saint’s Nearness to God, pp.63-64

‘Minding’ Aright

“If you would Christians, attain unto assurance, then you must mind your work more than your wages; you must be better at obeying than disputing; at doing, at walking than at talking and wrangling.”

Thomas Brooks {Puritan}, Unknown

No Qualification

“The rapturous joys of sinners, who are blind to the beauty of the divine character as exhibited in the law, arising merely from a belief that God loves them and will save them, have nothing of the nature of holiness or love to God in them; nor will this kind of religion, although raised to the highest perfection, in the least qualify a man to live in heaven.”

Joseph Bellamy {A Pupil of Edward’s}, Sin, the Law, and the Glory of the Gospel, p.?

Only Half-Way

“Many, by a fair profession, a false conviction, and a bastard conversion, seem half way to heaven, who yet will lodge for ever in hell. He who sits down at halfway, and rests there, will never come to the end of his journey, but is still afar off. O sirs, it is to be feared that the most part of you, that even come so near to Christ, in approaching to his house and ordinances; yet you are as far from him as light is from darkness, or darkness from light; and we need not go far to prove the charge; for, if you be not washed, you are far from God and Christ; yea, you have no part in him; ‘If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me,’ (John 13 v. 8.) said our blessed Lord to Peter. If you be not washed from the guilt of sin in justification, and from the filth of sin in sanctification, you have no part in Christ, and so are far enough from him; and this is the state, not of a few, but of a multitude; ‘There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.’ (Prov 30:12)”

Ralph Erskine {18th Century Scottish Presbyterian}, Unknown

True and False Love

“Many a carnal man is ravished to think that God loves him, and will save him; but in this case, it is not the true character of God which charms the heart; it is not God that is loved. Strictly speaking, he only loves himself; and self-love is the source of all his affections. Or, if we call it love to God, it is of no other kind than sinners feel to one another, ‘for sinners love those that love them.’”

Joseph Bellamy {A Pupil of Edward’s}, Sin, the Law, and the Glory of the Gospel, p.?

The Soul Must be Engaged for God

“God requireth truth in the inward parts; the understanding must admire him, as well as the tongue speak of him; the will must be for him, and chose him as the ultimate happiness of the soul, as well as the knee bow to him; the heart must love him, as well as the lips praise him, or else he looks upon the man as one that mocks; prayer is hypocrisy without the heart. In a word, all religion is but a compliment, a cheat, a lie, except the soul be engaged for God.”

James Janeway {Puritan}, The Saint’s Encouragement to Diligence in Christ’s Service

To the Unduly Introspective Christian

“Spend more time in doing your duty than in trying your estate.”

Unknown Puritan

The Truly Upright Man

“The truly upright man, while he sincerely desires to know what his duty is, as sincerely desires to do it. And in the performance of the external act, he is governed not merely by a regard to his own conscience, but by a respect to God’s authority – by a cordial approbation and love of moral rectitude.”

W.B. Sprague, Letters to Young Men

Perkins’ Five Characteristics of Faith

“To feel his extreme need of Christ and His merits: to hunger and thirst after Him as after meat and drink: to be nothing in himself: to be able to say that he liveth not, but Christ liveth in him by faith: to loath his own sins with a vehement hatred, and to prize and value Christ and the least drop of His blood above a thousand worlds.”

William Perkins {Puritan}, Unknown

Fear and Faith

“Fear is the lead of the net to keep a Christian from floating in presumption, and faith is the cork to the net to keep him from sinking.”

Thomas Watson {Puritan}, Religion Our True Interest

Faith and Feeling

“We hold Christ by faith, and not by feeling…feeling is but an effect and fruit of faith.”

Richard Greenham {Puritan}, Unknown

True Christians have Knowledge and Zeal

“Let knowledge and affection grow up together in thee, and mutually transfuse spiritual vigour into each other. Presume not upon any knowledge, without a humble inflamed affection; neither build too much upon the heat of zeal, without the light of knowledge: either of these may be single and superior in some, who afterwards may shamefully fall away.”

Robert Bolton {Puritan}, General Directions for a Comfortable Walking with God

Dead Fish or Living Fish?

“Dead fish swim down stream, living fish swim against it”

Thomas Watson {Puritan}, Religion Our True Interest

Sin

“He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.”

John Owen {Puritan}, Unknown

Saving Faith

“Never did any man take Jesus Christ savingly, who took him not for a husband and a Lord, to serve, love and obey him for ever after, as well as a saviour to disburden him of his sins; as a King to govern him by his Word and Spirit, as well as a Priest to wash him in his blood.”

Robert Bolton {Puritan}, Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences

The Worst Possible Advice You Could Receive!

“It is the worst advice possible to tell a man to stop worrying about his sins and trust Christ at once if he does not yet know his sins and does not yet desire to leave them. That is the way to encourage false peace and false hopes, and to produce ‘gospel-hypocrites’.”

J. I. Packer, Puritan Evangelism, Also Found as a Chapter in A Quest for Godliness, p.?

Self-Examination: A Vital but Difficult Duty

“Go down into the secrets of your hearts, try and fear, fear and try.”

Unknown Puritan

Baptised Men in Hell

“A man may go to hell with baptismal water on his face.”

John Trapp {Puritan}, Unknown

Civility or Grace

“Civility does but wash a man, grace changes him…Civility is but strewing flowers on a dead corpse. A man may be wonderfully moralised, yet but a tame devil.”

Thomas Watson {Puritan}, The Beatitudes