Sunday Post for Shepherds - Be Certain

"Be certain all the hairs of your 

head are numbered. 

Be certain your good Father 

hath appointed bounds, 

over which the devil dare not look." 

John Bradford, Bradford's Works, Vol 2, page 79

Sunday Post for Shepherds - Remember

"Remember that all you have is at Christ's commandment. Remember He lost more for you than you can lose for Him. Remember you lose not that which is lost for His sake, for you shall find much more here and elsewhere. . .Remember you shall die; and when and where and how you cannot tell." John Bradford, quoted in Five English Reformers by JC Ryle, page 137

Latimeric Philosophy

"If you will not die eternally, live not worldly." 

Hugh Latimer, English Reformer (1487-1555)

Sunday Post for Shepherds - While You Are In This World. . .

"Feed you tenderly, with all diligence, the flock of Christ. Preach truly the Word of God. Love the light, walk in the light, and so be you the children of light while you are in this world, that you may shine in the world to come, bright as the sun, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 

From Works, Vol 1 pp 50-57, by Hugh Latimer (1487-1555), 

English Reformer, Bishop, Chaplain, and Martyr

Be Loving God

"The love of God is required no less than our conversion and the keeping of all the commandments; for the love of God is our true conversion." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, Revell edition, page 164

Take the Trouble

"Pray tell me, what can a man do in the realm of theology and the sacred writings, if he has not even reached the point of knowing what the law and the gospel are, or, if he does know, scorns to observe the distinction? He is bound to mix up everything, heaven with hell and life with death, and will not take the slightest trouble to know about Christ." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, Revell edition, pages 163-164

Get Ready for Grace

"The Diatribe constantly imagines a man who either can do what he is commanded, or at any rate knows that he cannot. But such a man is nowhere to be found. If there were such, then, in truth, either the commanding of impossibilities would be absurd, or the Spirit of Christ would be in vain. But the Scripture sets before us a man who is not only bound, wretched, captive, sick and dead, but who, through the operation of Satan his lord, adds to his other miseries that of blindness, so that he believes himself to be free, happy, possessed of liberty and ability, whole and alive. Satan knows that if men knew their own misery he could keep no man in his kingdom; God could not fail at once to pity and succour wretchedness that knew itself and cried to Him, for God is proclaimed with mighty praise throughout the Scripture as being near the broken-hearted. Thus Isaiah 61 bears witness that Christ was sent 'to preach the gospel to the poor, and to heal the broken-hearted'. Hence, the work of Satan is to hold men so that they do not recognize their wretchedness, but presume that they can do everything that is stated. But the work of Moses the lawgiver is the opposite of this--namely, through the law to lay open to man his own wretchedness so that, by thus breaking him down, and confounding him in his self-knowledge, he may make him ready for grace, and send him to Christ to be saved. Therefore, the function performed by the law is nothing to laugh at, but is most emphatically serious and necessary." - Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, the Revell editon, pages 161-162