Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Quotes: Francis Fuller

I was looking for something new to put up and ran across a brief treatise (Francis Fuller, A Treatise of Grace And Duty. London, 1688.), from which I took these quotes. Be warned: I have significantly altered the sentence structure. Fuller apparently had a fascination with the words "this" and "that", as well as the use (misuse, to my mind) of commas. It took me a while to figure out his paragraph on Wisdom, what for all the thises and thats (which I have diligently replaced, hopefully for a better understanding of the subject!)


Handwritten on the back of the title page:

Remember thou poor mortal, thy time is drawing nigh.


Grace, Duty, and Friendship with God

“There are two things that keep up friendship between God and us: the receipt of Grace from him and the return of duty to him. Both are an honor of ours, as well as an interest of ours; sin is a degradation, it proved so to the angels and to us (for we both lost our dignity as well as our purity by it), and to serve is a kind of diminution in its self, but Grace is an honor (the honor that comes from God only) and so is his service, too. -Francis Fuller


Fuller on Wisdom:

“Solomon says Wisdom is the principle thing, that is, not humane Wisdom but divine. Wisdom excels among all virtues, and this kind of wisdom among all other kinds. Divine wisdom, when sanctified, beautifies. Divine wisdom sanctifies human wisdom, and exalts a saint above a man, just as human wisdom exalts a man above a beast. Human wisdom will wither, but divine wisdom will grow up to glory. Of other things we may have too much, of divine wisdom never enough. If we desire no more, we have none, and if we do not seek after it, we never desired it; if we have none, we shall lose our crown, and if we seek not after more, we shall lessen it. In having it consists our safety, in increasing in it, our comfort: the former in the truth of it, and the latter in the degree.

Happy are they who prize it enough to seek it, and so seek as to find it, and when found, endeavor after a perfection in it.”

-F. Fuller