Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 41

Holiness (continued)

O Christians! you must look as well to your spiritual wants as to your spiritual enjoyments; you must look as well to your layings out as to your layings up; you must look as well forward to what you should be, as backward to what you are. Certainly that Christian will never be eminent in holiness that hath many eyes to behold a little holiness, and never an eye to see his further want of holiness. (Thomas Brooks)

It is no small advantage to the holy life to "begin the day with God." The saints are wont to leave their hearts with Him over night, that they may find them with Him in the morning. Before earthly things break in upon us, and we receive impressions from abroad, it is good to season the heart with thoughts of God, and to consecrate the  the earthly and virgin operations of the mind before they are prostituted to baser objects. When the world gets the start of religion in the morning, it can hardly overtake it all the day. (Thomas Case)

Say not that thou hast royal blood in thy veins, and act born of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by daring to be holy. (William Gurnall)

He leads none to heaven but whom He sanctifies on the earth. This living Head will not admit of dead members. (John Owen)

Perfect holiness is the aim of the saints on earth, and it is the reward of the saints in Heaven. (Joseph Caryl)

For every sanctified man being a self-denying and a God-advancing man, his God is his center. (Simeon Ash)

What greater crime than holiness, if the devil may be one of the grand jury! (Thomas Watson)

Holy Spirit

We preach and pray, and you hear; but there is no motion Christ-ward until the Spirit of God blows upon them. (John Flavel)

O such a one doth great things, he prays, and hears, and reads, and disputes much; Aye but hath he the Spirit, or no? The greatest difference (that I know) in all the Book of God, between saints and sinners is, that the one hath the Spirit, and the other hath not. (Walter Craddock)

To plead Christ' merits in prayer, and not by the Spirit, is to bring right incense but strange fire, and so our prayers are but smoke, offensive to His pure eyes, not incense, a sweet savor to His nostrils. (William Gurnall)