Puritanism Today

This page is to be regularly updated with new quotes that we come across by the Puritans and others on the subject stated. 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

N.B. A few of the following quotations will overlap with those on marriage and courtship, as well as the family, but generally they will be different.

Chivalry

“Chivalry is, in fact, both steel and velvet which is why it’s so appealing to women.”

Dr. Andelin {Non-Christian}, Man of Steel and Velvet, p.73

The Feminine Beauty of a Pregnant Woman

“Feminine beauty takes many forms, but in modern times the most overlooked form of this blessed beauty is that of pregnancy.”

Douglas Wilson, Federal Husband

Low Expectations

“[These lower expectations have really only existed for] one hundred years. To give you a brief historical overview, prior to the beginning of the twentieth century there were only two categories of age: childhood and adulthood. But the reforms of the early 1900s, outlawing child labour and mandating education through high school, created an unnatural and new category of age that we know today as “adolescence.” Even though young people still had all the desires and capabilities of adults, the opportunities and responsibilities of adulthood were delayed for four years or longer. These opportunities and responsibilities have been replaced with relative idleness, and really, indulgence. Instead of serving as the launching pad of life, the teen years are seen as a vacation from responsibility. It’s crippling our generation. We call it the “myth of adolescence.”

From the website Rebelution

Three Interesting and Useful Dictionary Definitions

“SHAMEFACED – Bashful; easily confused or put out of countenance. Shamefast; held or restrained by shame. Bashfulness, excess of modesty.”

“MODEST – Properly, restrained by a sense of propriety; hence, not forward or bold; not presumptuous or arrogant; not boastful; as a modest youth; a modest man. Not bold or forward; as a modest maid. Not loose; not lewd. Mrs. Ford, the honest woman, the modest wife. Moderate; not excessive or extreme; not extravagant; as a modest request; modest joy; a modest computation.”

“MODESTLY – That lowly temper which accompanies a moderate estimate of one’s own worth and importance. This temper when natural, springs in some measure from timidity, and in young and inexperienced persons, is allied to bashfulness and diffidence. In persons who have seen the world, and lost their natural timidity, modesty springs no less from a principle than from feeling, and is manifested by retiring, unobtrusive manners, assuming less to itself than others are willing to yield, and conceding to others all due honour and respect, or even more than they expect or require. Modesty, as an act or series of acts, consists in humble, unobtrusive deportment, as opposed to extreme boldness, forwardness, arrogance, presumption, audacity or impudence. In females, modesty has the like character as in males; but the word is used also as synonymous with chastity, or purity of manners. In this sense, modesty results from purity of mind, or from the fear of disgrace and ignominy fortified by education and principles. Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of their honour.”

From theThe American Dictionary of The English Language by Noah Webster {1828}

Be A Man

“To be a man, you must care about women. And you must care about them in the right way. You must care about them as creatures worthy of protection, honor, and love. This means genuinely appreciating them for their uniqueness as women. It means recognizing the preciousness of femininity over glamour, of homemaking over careerism, and of mature motherhood over perpetual youth. But when women are reduced to soldiers, sexual objects, and social competitors, it is not merely the women who lose the identity given to them by the Creator, but the men as well. This is why the attack on motherhood has produced a nation of eunuchs—socially and spiritually impotent men who have little capacity to lead, let alone love women as God intended man to love woman—as mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters.”

Unknown

How to Mature

“Maturity doesn’t come with age; it comes with acceptance of responsibility.”

Ed Cole, Unknown Author and Source

Stonewall’s Example

“There is not sin so gross as that of unchastity, which is so nearly tolerated in males, by public opinion, partly because so seldom discussed, teachers being deterred by a theory of delicacy. Hence the necessity that all the sins be rebuked. But it is also common to speak of the animal impulse to these sins as one so strong that it is scarcely reasonable to expect its control; and, indeed, to regard their uncontrollable strength as rather an element of praiseworthy manhood. The shameless impudence of this is sufficiently rebuked by naming such men as Lee and Jackson, men as chaste as Dian, at whose mess-tables, though surrounded only by rough, battle-stained men, no word was ever heard or tolerated that would have tinged the cheeks of their pure and venerated wives and daughters. Had these heroes full manhood? Were they less men, because scrupulously chaste, than the creatures whose chosen trait of manhood most assimilates them to the ass and the goat? He is most the man who can always govern himself. He who cannot is, to that extent, an imbecile.”

R. L. Dabney, Unknown

Stand Tall

“A man rarely stands taller than when he stands for a lady.”

Douglas Wilson, Federal Husband

Boys Must Learn to Take Responsibility

“Boys must learn to say, regularly – to God, to others, and to themselves – that they were wrong when they were wrong, and that they were responsible when they were responsible. When they do this, they will discover that authority naturally flows to those who take responsibility. That same authority naturally flees from those who seek to shift the responsibility or the blame. When boys learn to do this, they are learning what it means to be a young man. When young men learn to do this, they are learning what it means to be a grown man.

Douglas Wilson, Future Men

Glory in Being Boys

“There are two basic directions a boy can take in departing from biblical masculinity. One is the option of effeminacy, and the other is macho-like counterfeit masculinity… For those boys who gravitate toward playing house, and dolls, and dress-ups, wise parental control, oversight, and redirection is necessary… Boys should learn to glory in being boys, and they should learn to relate all their activities to this… One additional caution. Many times fathers who are domineering (as opposed to fathers who exercise godly leadership) will browbeat their sons into a pattern of cowering submission which is effeminate. They then wonder why their sons do not follow their example, but the reason is that the father would not permit it. He was not training his son; he was sitting on him.”

Douglas Wilson, Future Men

Masculine Responsibility

“True masculinity accepts responsibility, period, while false masculinity will try to accept responsibility only for success… A refusal to make excuses is right at the heart of a scriptural masculinity.”

Douglas Wilson, Future Men