Purity

Guard Against All Worldly Distractions – William Wilberforce

To so please God, it is also essential to guard against all the distractions of worldly cares. It needs the cultivation of heavenly-mindedness and a spirit of continual prayer. It requires you to watch incessantly over the workings of your own deceitful heart.

– William Wilberforce –
from Real Christianity, 1797

We Must be a Fiery Church – EM Bounds

God requires to be represented by a fiery Church. He can and does tolerate many things in the way of infirmity and error in His children. He can and will pardon sin when the penitent prays, but two things are intolerable to Him–insincerity and lukewarmness. Lack of heart, and lack of heat are two things that He loathes, and to the Laodiceans He said, in terms of unmistakable severity and condemnation: “I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of My mouth” (Revelation 3:15-16). Nothing short of being red hot for God can keep the glow of heaven in our hearts these chilly days.

– EM Bounds –

Bring Lust to the Gospel – John Owen

Bring thy lust to the gospel, not for relief, but for further conviction of its guilt: look on him whom thou hast pierced, and be in bitterness. Say to thy soul, What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace, have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the Son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, which the blesses Spirit hath chosen to dwell in? And can I keep myself out of the dust? What can I say to the dear Lord Jesus? How shall I hold up my head with any boldness before him? Do I account communion with him of so little value that for this vile lust’s sake I have scarce left him any room in my heart? How shall I escape, if I neglect so great salvation? In the mean time, what shall I say to the Lord? Love, mercy, grace, goodness, peace, joy, consolation; I have despised them all, and esteemed them as a thing of naught, that I might harbour a lust in my heart.

– John Owen –
from The Mortification of Sin

Self-Love is Self-Hatred – Thomas Watson

Exercise great self-denial: “Let him deny himself” (Matthew 16:24). Self-ease, self-ends, whatever comes in competition with (or stand in opposition to) Christ’s glory and interest must be denied. Self is the great snare; self-love undermines the power of godliness. The young man in the Gospel might have followed Christ, but something of self-hindered (Matthew 19:20-22). Self-love is self-hatred. The man who cannot get beyond himself will never get to heaven.

– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666