#puritans

Thus Milton refines the question down to a matter of faith," said Coleridge, bringing the lecture to a close, "and a kind of faith more independent, autonomous - more truly strong, as a matter of fact - than the Puritans really sought. Faith, he tells us, is not an exotic bloom to be laboriously maintained by the exclusion of most aspects of the day to day world, nor a useful delusion to be supported by sophistries and half-truths like a child's belief in Father Christmas - not, in short, a prudently unregarded adherence to a constructed creed; but rather must be, if anything, a clear-eyed recognition of the patterns and tendencies, to be found in every piece of the world's fabric, which are the lineaments of God. This is why religion can only be advice and clarification, and cannot carry any spurs of enforcement - for only belief and behavior that is independently arrived at, and then chosen, can be praised or blamed. This being the case, it can be seen as a criminal abridgement of a person's rights willfully to keep him in ignorance of any facts - no piece can be judged inadmissible, for the more stones, both bright and dark, that are added to the mosaic, the clearer is our picture of God. ↗

— Tim Powers

#clarification #faith #father-christmas #god #john-milton

A saving, though an immethodical knowledge of Christ, will bring us to heaven, John 17: 2, but a regular and methodical, as well as a saving knowledge of him, will bring heaven into us, Col. 2: 2, 3. ↗

— John Flavel

#heaven #knowledge #puritans #salvation #life

Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul. ↗

— Jonathan Edwards

#jesus-christ #preachers #puritans #revivalist #nature

Personally I'm not a feminist, as I can't stand puritans. ↗

— Vivienne Westwood

#i #personally #puritans #stand

The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#artists #puritans #art

The Puritan ethic of marriage was first to look not for a partner whom you do love passionately at this moment but rather for one whom you can love steadily as your best friend for life, then to proceed with God’s help to do just that. ↗

— J.I. Packer

#puritans #life

We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them. ↗

— Carlisle Floyd

#black #black and white #bright #colors #differences

Historically the Puritans left England to escape religious persecution, and they promptly turned around and started persecuting the people they didn't agree with - the scarlet letter A, and the stocks and the dunking board came from that. That puritanism is still there. ↗

— Hugh Hefner

#around #board #came #england #escape

What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action. ↗

— Wendell Phillips

#gave #puritans #thought #world

We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done. ↗

— Barbara Jordan

#become #belief #common #community #done