Puritan and Westminster Divine, Herbert Palmer (1670): “I wish I could lose myself in a holy trance of meditation every time I think of God and Christ — as the author, fountain, life, and substance of all my happiness; all-sufficient, alone sufficient, and only sufficient for my soul and all comfort and good. Nothing is lacking in God and Christ for eternity. There is no need for any creature, no addition from any creature, and no creature — not one or all of them — can compare to him or anything apart from him. Time is lost, and happiness is lost when engaging with any creature beyond his ordinance, as his instruments and servants.”

@between2worlds See also the heading title issues, per Muller’s new one, Understanding the Divine, p42.

@davidngibbo Love me some @RoyPeterClark !!

@TonyManning

Preston (1638): “It is a common fault that men look to the comfort and privileges by Christ, but not to him — he is forgotten. When we come to be humbled for sin, men first look upon a promise of forgiveness and say, ‘If I can but believe my sin is forgiven and lay hold on that promise, I have enough.’ But Christ is forgotten by them. This is not the method we should take, but rather we should ask, ‘How shall I have forgiveness? Who gives it? Who brings it?’ It is a dowry that comes with my husband. When I have Christ, at once I shall have his righteousness to clothe me. ‘Of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption’ (1 Corinthians 1:30).”

@Cad_lib

@mrmedders As you know well brother, the book is always better than the movie.

@TorgesonJake No, you’re right, that ended years ago. I really miss those days too. I just got busy writing books and lost the time I needed to do the list well.

Hear me out. A Christian novel about human response leading up to what could be the very end of life on earth by a 99-percent chance direct hit from a massive meteor, scheduled down to the day and hour and minute, but eight years off. Conclusion open.

@brandy_rho9394 A simple survey of audience gullibility -- or humor. I'm not sure which.

C.S. Lewis on Thomas More’s *De IV Novissimis* [*Four Last Things*] (1522), a book centered on the seven deadly sins: “Of its value as a devotional work who dares consider himself a judge? If most of it now seems helpless either to encourage or to alarm, the fault may be ours: but not, I think, all ours. … The colors are too dark. In the true late medieval manner More forgets that to paint all black is much the same as not to paint at all. What was intended to be a rebuke of sin degenerates almost into a libel upon life and we are forced into incredulity.”

Jumping back into Reformation-era sources is a wild ride! Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer (1532): “Let not, therefore, Tyndale (good reader) with his gay glorious words carry you so fast and so far away, but that ye remember to pull him back by the sleeve a little, and ask him whether his own high spiritual doctor, Master Martin Luther himself, being specially born again and newly created of the Spirit, whom God in many places of Holy Scripture hath commanded to keep his vow made of chastity — when he then so far contrary thereunto took out of religion a spouse of Christ, wedded her, disgracing marriage, called her his wife, and made her his harlot, and liveth with her openly and lieth with her nightly, in shameful incest and abominable bitchery: doth he the while, after Tyndale’s high words, search the deep secrets, and never leave searching till he come to the bottom, the pith, the quick, the life, the spirit, the marrow, and the very cause of that commandment why, and so judgeth all things? Thus, good readers, examine him, and then shall ye perceive how fondly such a high, pure, spiritual process accordeth with such a base, foul, fleshly living. But Tyndale hath a hope that while he painteth his prologue [to his NT translation] with such gay colors of spiritual virtue, there can no man in the meantime remember and consider what ungracious fruit their deceitful doctrine and false faith bringeth forth. And therefore, to carry the reader farther off from the remembrance thereof, he letteth go by their filthy lechery and holily speaketh of love.”

A friend recently assured me the kids are on to *Competing Spectacles* (2019) and my inbox trend suggests we’re reprinting the book every week now! LOL. I don’t know what’s happening, but may the Lord use that tiny little book to give a new digital generation a gigantic analogue view of the Savior! % of print copies sold all time — 2019 — 38% 2020 — 16% 2021 — 11% 2022 — 12% 2023 — 14% 2024 — 4% January 2025 CROSS Con — 6%

Want to be inspired to be generous? Look to the poorest churches. Isn’t that how it’s always been done? “… their abundance of joy and extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity …” (2 Corinthians 8:2) Likewise, a moving story from my friend, @cdaukas, in his sermon on Sunday: “Two Sundays ago, I was preaching at a church in Soacha, Colombia, before a week of training pastors. After I finished the sermon and sat down, the church took up the offering. Two little girls held baskets as people came forward, placing coins and bills into them. And as the pastor spoke, I heard my name mentioned, but I don’t speak Spanish well, so I didn’t know exactly what he said, but I recognized my name. I didn’t think much of it at the time. After the service, we went to lunch, and after lunch the pastor pulled me aside and handed me an envelope stuffed with bills. It was a gift from the church. They had taken an offering for me. This poor church — the one I had come to serve — had given *to me*. You better believe I tried everything in me to refuse it, but it became clear this was an issue of honor. I simply couldn’t say *no*. Reluctantly, I put it in my pocket and said, ‘Thank you.’ I forgot about the envelope until I came home and opened it just a few nights ago. Inside was 115,000 Colombian pesos — the equivalent of $27.37. Friends, when I opened that envelope, my eyes filled with tears. They had thought of me. They gave — not out of their abundance, but out of their poverty. It wasn’t about the money. It was about their example. God is real. That’s what I came away with. God is real. He’s working in that small little church in Colombia. He’s real. … Here’s the big idea: Generous grace makes generous givers in the economy of God. Not taxed. Not mandated. So in light of how generous God has been with us, what does it look like for us to live generously?”

Augustine (1655 trans.): “Let it be a tedious thing to me to rejoice without thee. And let it delight me to be grieved for thee.”