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"I don't agree with all of the Puritan writers' doctrine, but I love their emphasis on holiness."

Sorry, but you really can't have one without the other. One can only engage in "holy living" when one is born of the supernatural sovereign grace of God that the Puritans held as the core of their doctrine. Only when there is a total focus on the work of God in salvation (driving men to their knees in repentance) is there true holiness.

Men will repent before the face of Almighty God. The problem is that they worship a god of their own imagination rather than the sovereign ruler of the universe.

Men will repent before the face of Almighty God. The problem is that they worship a god of their own imagination rather than the sovereign ruler of the universe.

Beav, there can be no such thing as repentence in a deterministic world, either the materialist world of B.F. Skinner, or the theological one of John Calvin. And you can't appeal to such similes as "Free will and determinism are like railroad tracks: they don't cross here, but looking off into the distance of eternity, they come together" as used by a speaker from Bob Jones University to illustrate how mutually exclusive concepts could be reconciled. The solution of Jonathan Edwards to just smile and be happy and believe in spite of the intractable problems posed by Calvinist schemes of predestination, is one of the earliest examples of the modern leap of faith that is the antithesis of Biblical faith.

Only when there is a total focus on the work of God in salvation (driving men to their knees in repentance) is there true holiness.

Major Bump

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.

There is a wonderful power to those who are on their knees. If we don't think we have need to repent of sin, then we should pray that He will reveal our wicked ways and prepare to be brought low. Out of this will He build a thirsty soul:

I stretch forth my hands unto Thee; my soul thirsteth after Thee, as a thirsty land. Selah Hear me speedily, O LORD; my spirit faileth. Hide not Thy face from me, lest I be like them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness in the morning, for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee.