Thought for the Lord's Day - #63

And as a man of holiness prays for more holiness, so a man of holiness believes for more holiness. Psalm 51:7—in the Hebrew the words run in the future thus: "You will purge me from sin with hyssop, and I shall be clean: you will wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." In the sense of all his sinfulness and vileness, he believes that God will give out greater measures of purity and sanctity to him: "You will purge me, and I shall be clean: you will wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Just so, in Psalm 65:3, "Iniquities prevail against me: as for our transgressions, you shall purge them away." Though for the present iniquity did prevail—yet he had faith enough to believe that God would purge him from his transgressions, and that he would mortify prevailing corruptions.

 - Thomas Brooks

The Crown and Glory of Christianity,
or,
HOLINESS, the Only Way to Happiness

Thought for the Lord's Day - #62

Every one seeketh not God, and far fewer find Him, because they seek amiss. He is to be sought far above all things, if men would find what they seek. Let feathers and shadows alone to children, and go seek your Well-Beloved. Your only errand to the world is, to woo Christ; therefore, put other lovers from about the house, and let Christ have all your love, without mincing or dividing it. It is little enough, if there were more of it. The serving of the world and sin hath but a base reward, and smoke instead of pleasures; and but a night-dream, for true ease to the soul. Go where ye will, your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom. Come in to Him, and lie down, and rest you on the slain Son of God, and inquire for Him. I sought Him, and now, a fig for all the worm-eaten pleasures and moth-eaten glory out of heaven, since I have found Him, and in Him all I can want or wish. He hath made me a king over the world. Princes cannot overcome me. Christ hath given me the marriage-kiss, and He hath my marriage-love; we have made up a full bargain, that shall not go back on either side.

- Samuel Rutherford
Letter to John Carsen

Thought for the Lord's Day - #61

It is evident, from the scripture doctrine of divine Providence, that God brings about every man’s lot, and all the parts thereof. He sits at the helm of human affairs, and turns them whithersoever he listeth. “Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places’ (Ps. 135:6). There is not anything whatsoever befalls us, without his overruling hand. The same Providence that brought us out of the womb, brings us to, and fixes us in the condition and place allotted for us, by him who ‘hath determined the times, and the bounds of our habitation’ (Acts 17:26). It overrules the smallest and most causal things about us, such as ‘hairs of our head falling on the ground’ (Matt. 10:29, 30); ‘A lot cast into the lap’ (Prov. 16:33). Yea the free acts of our will, whereby we choose for ourselves, for even ‘the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water’ (Prov. 21:1). And the whole steps we make, and which others make in reference to us; for ‘the way of man is not in himself; it is not man that walketh to direct his steps’ (Jer. 10:23). And this, whether these steps causing the crook [some one or other piece of adversity] be deliberate and sinful ones, such as Joesph’s brethren selling him into Egypt; or whether they be undesigned, such as manslaughter purely casual, as when one hewing wood, kills his neighbour with the ‘head of the axe slipping from the helve’ (Deut. 19:5). For there is a holy and wise Providence that governs the sinful and the heedless actions of men, as a rider doth a lame horse, of whose halting, not he, but the horses’ lameness, is the true and proper cause; wherefore in the former of these cases, God is said to have sent Joesph into Egypt (Gen. 45:7), and in the latter, to deliver one into his neighbour’s hand (Exod. 21:13).

God has, by an eternal decree, immoveable as mountains of brass (Zech. 6:1), appointed the whole of every one’s lot, the crooked parts thereof, as well as the straight. By the same eternal decree, whereby the high and low parts of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, were appointed, are the heights and the depths, the prosperity and adversity, in the lot of the inhabitants thereof determined, and they are brought about, in time, in a perfect agreeableness thereto.

The mystery of Providence, in the government of the world, is, in all the parts thereof, the building reared up of God, in exact conformity to the plan in his decree, ‘who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will’ (Eph. 1:12). So that there is never a crook in one’s lot, but may be run up to this original. Hereof Job piously sets us an example in his own case, “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doth. For he perfometh the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with him’ (Job 18:13, 14).

- Thomas Boston
The Crook in the Lot:
Living with that thorn in your side

Shame Erasmus didn't have any Neuroscientists helping him ...

Defending free will: A fruit fly makes choices

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A tiny fruit fly -- without any input from the outside world -- will spontaneously change directions, researchers said on Monday in a finding that just may rescue the notion that free will not only exists but is a basic function of the brain.

Quote of the Day - March 13, 2007

All that has transpired under the reign of grace and under the administration of Providence, since the world began, is conceived of as simply the gradual manifestation in time of the purpose formed from eternity.* The revelation which God has made of himself in his word is but the record of the execution of his Eternal Decree, and the publication to the world in time of the proceedings had in the counsels of eternity. The revelation of Himself experimentally to the souls of his people is but the manifestation of the love wherewith he loved them before the world began. Every syllable of truth revealed in the Scriptures is conceived of as having its significance and its importance determined by its relation to the purpose previously existing in the Divine Mind; so that the doctrine of the Decree and Predestination of God is not so much a doctrine of Calvinism—one distinct truth in a system of truth—as a mode of conceiving and setting forth all the doctrines which make up revealed theology.

- Stuart Robinson

* Eph. 1:4-12, 3:9-11; Rom. 8:28-33; John 17:2-5.

Peter Jeffery, in Opening Up Ephesians has this wonderful little point while discussing the doctrine of election (1:4):

It is significant to note that the apostle does not argue for this doctrine, but makes it a matter of praise. Thus it should be for every true child of God.

Amen!