For Christmas my brother and sister-in-law gave me Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were, by Leland Ryken. I finished reading that earlier this summer and today took a few notes from it. Here are some quotes I found helpful:
Cotton Mather: “Is your business here clogged with any difficulties and inconveniences? Contentment under those difficulties is no little part of your homage to that God who hath placed you where you are” (p. 28).
Samuel Williard: “It is a rare thing to see men that have the greatest visible advantages…to be very zealous for God” (p. 62).
William Ames: “In form of expression, Scripture does not explain the will of God by universal and scientific rules, but rather by stories, examples, precepts, exhortations, admonitions, and promises. This style best fits the common usage of all sorts of men and also greatly affects the will by stirring up pious motives, which is the chief end of theology” (p. 149).
And that great old Puritan, Albert Einstein: “We live in a day of perfect means and confused goals” (p. 161).