On False Teaching

PGT 107

The evolution of error
There is difference betwixt error, schism, and heresy. Error is when one holds a strong opinion alone; schism, when many consent in their opinion; heresy runs further, and contends to root out the truth. Error offends, but separates not; schism offends and separates; heresy offends, separates, and rageth ... Error is weak, schism strong, heresy obstinate. Error goes out, and often comes in again; schism comes not in, but makes a new church; heresy makes not a new church, but no church. ... Error is reproved and pitied, schism is reproved and punished, heresy is reproved and excommunicated. Schism is in the same faith, heresy makes another faith. Though they be thus distinguished, yet without God’s preventing grace, one will run into another.

St Paul's Cross

St Paul's Cross. See here and here.

On evil thoughts

See PGT page 94

We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but we need not give them entertainment with open doors. "Wash thy heart from iniquity, that thou mayest be saved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?" They may be passengers, but they must not be sojourners.

Set thy thoughts, examine thy thoughts: thy conscience must not only extend to deeds and words, but even to secret thoughts. They that are accustomed to evil thoughts can seldom bring forth good words, never good deeds. As the corn is, so will the flour be: if the meal be bad, the fault is not in the millstones that ground it, but in the miller that put in such base corn. All thy senses and members are but the millstones; the heart is the miller: if thy words and works be ill meal, thank the miller, thy heart, for such corrupt thoughts. As the wood is, so will the fire be: if it be wet and stinking wood, look for an unsavoury and unwholesome fire: if the wood be sweet and dry, it will perfume the room with a sweet and pleasant air. Such fuel as you lay on your thoughts; such fire shall you have in your actions. (Expanded version)

On election

Paradise had four rivers that watered the earth ... and howsoever neglected by many, they make glad the city of God. So Bernard sweetly: Eternal life is granted to us in election, promised in our vocation, sealed in our justification, possessed in our glorification. Conclude then, faithfully to thy own soul. I believe, therefore I am justified; I am justified, therefore I am sanctified; I am sanctified, therefore I am called, I am called, therefore I am elected; I am elected, therefore I shall be saved. Oh! settled comfort of joy, which ten thousand devils shall never make void. (PGT 85)

Predestination is pleaded. If I be written to life, I may do this; for many are saved that have done worse. If not, were my life never so strict, hell appointed is not to be avoided. These men look to the top of the ladder, but not to the foot. God ordains not men to jump to heaven, but to climb thither by prescribed degrees. He that decreed the end, decreed also the means that conduce to it. If thou take liberty to sin, this is none of the way. Peter describes the rounds of this ladder: "Faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, charity." Thou runnest a contrary course, in the wild paths of unbelief, profaneness, ignorance, riot, impatience, impiety, malice; this is none of the way. These are the rounds of a ladder that goes downward to hell. God’s predestination helps many to stand, pusheth none down, Look thou to the way, let God alone with the end. (PGT 86)

On Satan

Let us watch Satan, for he watcheth us. There is no corporeal enemy, but a man naturally fears; the spiritual foe appears less terrible, because we are less sensible of him. Great conquerors have been chronicled for victories and extension of their kingdoms; Satan is beyond them all. Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands; but Satan his millions. He that fights with an enemy, whom nothing but blood can pacify, will give him no advantage. (PGT 75)

Adams Quotes 09

(Again as found in A Puritan Golden Treasury)

Be thou a follower of God in grace, that thou mayest ascend to his glory. 237

It was well done of Paul to reprove Peter to his face, and it was well done of Peter to praise Paul in his absence. 242

Iniquity can plead antiquity. 261

RepentanceThere is no other fortification against the judgments of God but repentance. His forces be invisible, invincible; not repelled with sword and target; neither portcullis nor fortress can keep them out; there is nothing in the world that can encounter them but repentance. 237

RichesLet us not make the poor our friends by our alms, not our enemies by our scorns. We had better have the ears of God full of their prayers, than heaps of money in our own coffers with their curses. 251

ServiceGod has many servants but little service in the world. 258

SinMany being reproved, answer, Alas! You must bear with me in this my fault; as if every man were allowed his own fault. There is a private Sodom within us; we are loath to part with that. Men say of their sins as Jacob said of sons, "Go, all but Benjamin." Other vices we will not so much stick for, but, "Oh, that Ishmael might live!" There is still some worm in the root of the tree that will spoil the fruit. We extenuate it; is it not a little one? But a little hair makes a great blot in the paper. 264

Complaining

The frog and the murmurer, both of them are bred of the mud. 278

Sorrow

Sorrow commonly comes on horseback but goes away on foot. 284

 

SuicideNo man must let the tenant out of the tenement, till God the landlord call for it. 289

As we cannot live without a permittis, so we must not die without a dimittis. 289

 

Temptation

When Satan assaults any poor soul, he suffers nothing to appear to the eye but pleasure, profit, a sweet satisfaction of our desires, and an illusion of happiness. There is also wrath, and judgment, and torment, and sting of conscience belonging to it! These must be, but these shall not be seen. All the way is white snow that hides the pit. Green grass tempts us to walk; the serpent is unseen. If temptations, like praises, might be turned on both sides, the kingdom of darkness would not be so populous. If David could have foreseen the grief of his broken bones ere he fell upon Bathsheba, those aspersions of blood and lust had not befallen him. If Achan could have foreseen the stones about his ears before he filched those accursed things, he would never have fingered them. But as it is said of Adam and Eve after their fall, ‘Then their eyes were opened’; then, not before. Judas was blind till he had done the deed, then his eyes were opened, and he saw it in its true horror. 290

Truth

Such is the immutability of truth, the patrons of it make it not greater, the opposers make it not less; as the splendour of the sun is not enlarged by them that bless it, nor eclipsed by them that hate it. 299

WorldOutward things happen alike to good and bad. "There is one event to the clean and to the unclean". They are both travellers in the thoroughfare of this world, both lodge in one inn, both have the same provision: perhaps the wicked have the better cheer - but in the morning their ways part! 312

2 Peter 3:9 Link

See here for another extract from Adams on 2 Peter - this time on 3:9. Thanks again David.