January 2010

 from George Swinnock

George Swinnock (1627-1673) was one of the Puritan ministers ejected from the Church of England in 1662. He was born in Maidstone, Kent. In the course of his ministry he served the Lord in Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, returning in 1672 to minister in his home town. His collected works (five volumes) have been republished.

He that is ever trading and thriving in godliness, need not fear that he shall prove a bankrupt.

A proud man is like a little man with a high-heeled shoe, raised thereby, in his own conceit, above others of the same rank, but it fits him with many a fall. The proud person gives not glory to God, and therefore must not expect that God should give grace to him; but the humble man honours God and sanctifies his name, and sets the crown on his head, and so may expect, because God has promised, that God should honour him, and sanctify his soul.

The Holy Scriptures are famous above all other writings for their verity [truth]. The works and books of men are like their bodies, liable to many weaknesses. After their most correct edition, there may be found more errata in the copy than in the press. But the word of God is like himself, full, without all imperfection; and faithful, without all falsehood or corruption. Its author is the God of truth, for whom it is impossible to lie, and therefore its matter must needs be the word of truth.

The dust and graves of others cry aloud to you …. If you rise up, and walk abroad in the streets, you see this house and that seat, where such a woman, such a man dwelt, and lo, the place which knew them shall know them no more; they are gone, and have carried nothing with them but their godliness or ungodliness.

Christ is the principle of my life. All living creatures have an inward principle by which they live, and according to which they act. Plants have a principle of vegetation, and beasts have a principle of sense; men have a principle of reason, and their lives are different, answerable to their different principles. But a Christian has a higher principle – that is, Christ dwelling in his heart by faith, Ephesians 3:17  - and thence it is that he lives a higher life.