Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 10

The Bible (continued)

Read the Scripture, not only as a history, but as a love-letter sent to you from God. (Thomas Watson)

When you hear the Word, say, "There God spoke to my soul." Men forget truths because they are apt to put them off to others, and not to look on themselves as concerned in them. (John Whitlock)

He doth not bid us take a taste of all sins and vanities, as Solomon did, to try them: for they are tried already; but that we should set the Word of God always before us like a rule, and believe nothing but that which it teacheth, love nothing but that which it prescribeth, hate nothing but that which it forbidden, do nothing but that which it commandeth, and then we try all things by the Word. (Henry Smith)

Leave not off reading the Bible till you find your hearts warmed ... Let it not only inform you, but inflame you. (Thomas Watson)

When satan borrows sense to speak one thing, let faith borrow Scripture to speak the contrary. (David Dickson)

The Word of life may be so distorted from the life of the Word, till it becomes the food of death. (Thomas Adams)

Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves. (William Gurnall)

The Scripture is to be its own interpreter, or rather the Spirit speaking in it; nothing can cut the diamond but the diamond; nothing can interpret Scripture but Scripture. (Thomas Watson)

God's truths always agrees with itself. (Richard Sibbes)

In the waters of life, the Divine Scriptures, there are shallows, and there are deeps; shallows where the lamb may wade; and deeps where the elephant may swim. If we be not wise to distinguish, we may easily miscarry; he that can wade over the ford, cannot swim through the deep. What infinite mischief hath arisen to the church of God from the presumption of ignorant and unlettered men, that have taken upon them to interpret the most obscure Scriptures, and pertinaciously defend their own sense! (Joseph Hall)

As there is a foolish wisdom, so there is a wise ignorance; in not prying into God's ark, not inquiring into things not revealed. I would fain know all that I need, and all that I may: I leave God's secrets to Himself. It is happy for me that God makes me of His court though not of His council. (Joseph Hall)

Remember that greatest misery to an honest heart is this, a misdrawing of rules out of the Word of God: you take a word and do not compare it with other Scriptures, and see whether it be temporary and doth absolutely bind. (Walter Craddock)