A Puritan Theology Quotes

“The conferring and comparing of Scriptures is an excellent means of coming to an acquaintance with the mind and will of God in them. —JOHN OWEN”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, once completed, became for the church the “only external means of divine supernatural illumination.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Many forget that most of the greatest theologians God has given to the church were also pastors and teachers in the local church.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Preaching was uniquely honored by God “in that it serveth to collect the church and to accomplish the number of the elect” and also “it driveth away the wolves from the folds of the Lord.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“As Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) said, “A family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Now I know not anything that will contribute more to the furtherance of this good work than the bringing of family religion more into practice and reputation. Here the reformation must begin.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Given the infinite value of Christ’s atoning blood, no sin should stand in the way of the sinner’s reception of mercy by faith. Charnock put this quaintly: “The nature of the sins, and the blackness of them, is not regarded, when this blood is set in opposition to them. God only looks what the sinners are, whether they repent and believe.” He went on to say that justification by faith through Christ’s blood is sufficient for all sin, “the sins of all believing persons in all parts, in all ages of the world, from the first moment of man’s sinning, to the last sin committed on the earth.”24”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Again Charnock noted, He received our evils to bestow his good, and submitted to our curse to impart to us his blessings; sustained the extremity of that wrath we had deserved, to confer upon us the grace he had purchased. The sin in us, which he was free from, was by divine estimation transferred upon him, as if he were guilty, that the righteousness he has, which we were destitute of, might be transferred upon us, as if we were innocent. He was made sin, as if he had sinned all the sins of men, and we are made righteousness, as if we had not sinned at all.10”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“William Perkins (1558–1602) likewise aims several polemical shots at the Church of Rome for using the quadriga. He looks at how those using this device interpret Melchizedek offering bread and wine to Abraham (Gen. 14:18): “The literal sense is, that the King of Salem with meat which he brought, refreshed the soldiers of Abraham being tired with travel. The allegorical is, that the Priest doth offer up Christ in ye Mass. The tropological is, therefore something is to be given to the poor. The anagogical is, that Christ in like manner being in heaven, shall be the bread of life to the faithful.”32 However, Perkins strongly asserts that such a method of interpretation “must be exploded and rejected [because] there is one only sense, and the same is the literal.”33 A text may demand an allegorical interpretation because it literally is an allegory, but theologians are not to go to the text with the fourfold method in mind as a basic presupposition for interpreting the Bible. The Scriptures themselves must dictate how they are to be interpreted.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life

“Thus the covenant of grace forms the heart of salvation itself. Perkins wrote, “We are to know God, not as he is in himself, but as he hath revealed himself unto us in the covenant of grace; and therefore we must acknowledge the Father to be our Father, the Son to be our Redeemer, the holy Ghost to be our comforter, and seek to grow in the knowledge and experience of this.”
― Joel R. Beeke, A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life