Counterfeit Repentance (part 3)

The third deceit about repentance is the leaving of many sinful ways It is a great matter, I confess, to leave sin. So dear is sin to a man that he will rather part with a child than with a lust: `Shall I give the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' (Mic. 6.7). Sin may be parted with, yet without repentance.
(1) A man may part with some sins and keep others, as Herod reformed many things that were amiss but could not leave his incest.
(2) An old sin may be left in order to entertain a new, as you put off an old servant to take another. This is to exchange a sin. Sin may be exchanged and the heart remained unchanged. He who was a prodigal in his youth turns usurer in his old age. A slave is sold to a Jew; the Jew sells him to a Turk. Here the master is changed, but he is a slave still. So a man moves from one vice to another but remains a sinner still.
(3) A sin may be left not so much from strength of grace as from reasons of prudence. A man sees that though such a sin be for his pleasure, yet it is not for his interest. It will eclipse his credit, prejudice his health, impair his estate. Therefore, for prudential reasons, he dismisses it. True leaving of sin is when the acts of sin cease from the infusion of a principle of grace, as the air ceases to be dark from the infusion of light.

From The Doctrine of Repentance, by Thomas Watson.
Read part 1 and part 2.

heart-silence

As tongue-service abstracted from heart-service is no service in the account of God (Is. 29:13, Matt. 15:8,9); so tongue-silence abstracted from heart-silence is no silence in the esteem of God.

From A mute Christian under the smarting rod; With Sovereign antidotes for every case. A Christian with an olive leaf in his mouth, when under the greatest afflictions, trials, troubles, and darkest providences; with answers to questions and objections, calculated to promote submission and silence under all the changes that may be experienced in this world, by Thomas Brooks.

Psalm 19:13

“Sin turns all God's grace into wantonness; it is the dare of his justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love.”

From MR. JOHN BUNYAN'S DYING SAYINGS, The Works of John Bunyan, Volume 1

contentment

"A soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God; nothing but God can fill a soul that is capable of God."

From The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, by Jeremiah Burroughs.

know and love God

"Strangeness is the mother and nurse of disaffection for God"
- Stephen Charnock

God's Invincible Purpose

"...the means that God has set apart for the effecting of any thing are included in the purpose that he has to bring that thing to pass."

From The Bruised Reed, by Richard Sibbes.

Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house

"It would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by his hand, that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity"

"I dare say the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the exception of sickness ... If some men, that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God's grace mellow them marvelously"

"I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows, and pains, and griefs, is altogether incalculable ... Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister's library"

Charles Spurgeon

Fighting despondency

"I was lying upon my couch during this last week, and my spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for—"

"Brethren, despondency is not a virtue; I believe it is a vice. I am heartily ashamed of myself for falling into it, but I am sure there is no remedy for it like a holy faith in God."

"...Causeless depression is not to be reasoned with, nor can David's harp charm it away by sweet discoursings. As well fight with the mist as with this shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding hopelessness. One affords himself no pity when in this case, because it seems so unreasonable, and even sinful to be troubled without manifest cause; and yet troubled the man is, even in the very depths of his spirit. If those who laugh at such melancholy did but feel the grief of it for one hour, their laughter would he sobered into compassion. Resolution might, perhaps, shake it off, but where are we to find the resolution when the whole man is unstrung? The physician and the divine may unite their skill in such cases, and both find their hands full, and more than full. The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back..."

From Sermons of Charles Spurgeon.
(technically, not a puritan -- but esteemed by many as one born out of time)

Psalm 39:9

"If God's hand be not seen in the affliction, the heart will do nothing but fret and rage under affliction."

From A mute Christian under the smarting rod; With Sovereign antidotes for every case. A Christian with an olive leaf in his mouth, when under the greatest afflictions, trials, troubles, and darkest providences; with answers to questions and objections, calculated to promote submission and silence under all the changes that may be experienced in this world, by Thomas Brooks.

Support the weak

"Mercy to others should move us to deny ourselves in our liberties oftentimes, in case of offending weak ones. It is the `little ones' that are offended (Matt. 18:6). The weakest are most ready to think themselves despised; therefore we should be most careful to give them satisfaction. It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others."

helpful text : Romans 15:1

From The Bruised Reed, by Richard Sibbes.