I was considering the past year, considering my faults, considering improvements, considering torrential downpours and moments of self willed resistance, seeing the mirror half cracked, seeing myself only vaguely, seeing endless footpaths; most seemed dim and synthetic.
I saw half hearted grins and anxiously darted glances. I saw arrogance and articulated bias to comfort constituents. Vanity espoused and emotionally charged silence; prepared to pounce upon the one who speaks first. I only realized it when I saw it in myself; knowing well the bitter yet sweet taste of ignorance and self deception.
Having bitten off the meat of self congratulation and the juice of fear running down the lips; I was disgusted by the unkempt performance. I realized cowardice has many forms and it's not always quiet. Fear is the mind killer; once said by a Sci-Fi man to the applause of the Machiavellian elite.
You become what you loathe if you act out of anything but faith; yes, the right faith, and grace nonetheless. Bestowed though you've taken, mercy though you've stolen; merit while you were still yet thieves.
Thus I considered this: a different path. One, wind swept and lonely, yet a path of a backroad with deep ditches and grass frayed on the edges of it. Something well worn yet abandoned. Unknown and uncertain of its depth is choice. An illusion? Perhaps. Motives flawed and intentions imperfect.
Principle is often seen as offensive, uncomfortable, extreme, and entirely subjective. Yet we all have it. The real difference is who or what defines such a thing. Others around us? Our cultural surroundings? Our media that we consume?
''The fear of man bringeth a snare:
but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe''
- Proverbs 29:25
''For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was''
- James 1:23-24
2 Chronicles 32:31
"Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart"
"Saturday, May 22d - It is now Saturday night, and I must prepare for the holy Sabbath. My Bible and Confession of Faith are my traveling companions, and precious friends have they been to me. I bless God for that glorious summary of Christian doctrine contained in our noble standards. It has cheered my soul in many a dark hour, and sustained me in many a desponding moment. I love to read it, and ponder carefully each proof text as I pass along"
- Benjamin M. Palmer, The Life and Letters of James Henley Thornwell (1875)
Psalm 21:1-7
"The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.
For thou preventest him with the blessings of goodness: thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked life of thee, and thou gavest it him, even length of days for ever and ever.
His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him.
For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.
For the king trusteth in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved"
"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear....One day I was talking to Cora. She prayed for me because she believed I was blind to sin, wanting me to kneel and pray too, because people to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too"
- William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930)
"Great men are not born great, they grow great"
- Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969)
"Q 102. What do we pray for in the second petition?
A. In the second petition (which is, Thy kingdom come) we pray, That Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened.
(Psalm 68:1,18; Matthew 6:10; John 17:9,20; Romans 10:1; 2 Thessalonians 3:1; Revelation 12:10,11; Revelation 22:20)"
- The Westminster Assembly, The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647)
"God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love...
My wife and I were present at this congress. Sabina told me, "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting in His face." I said to her, "If I do so, you lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband"
- Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ (1967)
"Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life"
- Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)
"The period which this Chapter covers witnessed the dawn of a revolution in Western worship – the introduction of musical instruments. As we saw in Volume One, the early Church did not use instruments in its worship, regarding them as Jewish or Pagan, but not part of the apostolic tradition of Christian worship"
- Nicholas R. Needham, 2,000 Years of Christ's Power Vol. 2: The Middle Ages (1998)
"Many Antifederalists additionally favored prohibiting Congress from disarming the people, warning that once the national government monopolized military force, it would rule supreme and the states would be destroyed"
- Michael J. Klarman, The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution (2016)
- Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Vol. 6: Strange Places (2006)
"It is easy for us to multiply Ministers of the Gospel, but it is impossible for us to multiply such as are called of God"
- James Henley Thornwell, The Collected Writings (1873)
"Middle age has inevitable disappointments. A time of reckoning"
- Lindsey Hilsum, In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin (2018)
- Julius Melton, Presbyterian Worship in America (1967)
"Because of man’s sinful nature, God’s covenant people often stray from the truth. Men often pervert true religion by eliminating elements in it they find unpleasant. They also pervert it by adding their own ideas to it. This very tendency to corrupt true religion, by addition or subtraction, is why God warned Israel not to add to or subtract from His Word (Deut. 4:1-2).
This passage of Scripture, and others like it, forms the basis for the Protestant reformers’ doctrine of sola Scriptura. That is to say, THE BIBLE ALONE is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice"
- Brian M. Schwertley, Sola Scriptura and the Regulative Principle of Worship (2000)
"If then the Westminster Confession is a part of our constitution, we are bound to abide by it, or rightfully to get it altered. Ever since the solemn enactment under consideration, every new member or candidate for the ministry had been required to give his assent to this confession, as containing the system of doctrines taught in the word of God. He assents not merely to absolutely essential and necessary articles of the gospel, but to the whole concatenated statement of doctrines contained in the Confession. This, whether right or wrong, liberal or illiberal, is the constitutional and fundamental principle of our ecclesiastical compact"
- Charles Hodge, Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1851)
"Our age is so impressed with its own greatness, it is so intoxicated by its brilliant achievements in amassing material wealth and making physical discoveries that it esteems itself too highly. It tends to despise all that it has not itself discovered. It is too ready to receive the new because it is the new, and to throw away the old because it is old. Every age runs towards godlessness. Much of the new in our age is godless. Hence we are in danger of repudiating the best of our inheritance from the past. Hence, also our need of some good man with penetration and insight to discern between good and evil, with heroic boldness to warn us against an evil course"
~Thomas Cary Johnson, The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney (1903)
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