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