Book Review: Godly Conference

Recently, my friend Russ Gaippe at The Reformed Book Cellar asked me to write a book review. I chose a book that has been a great encouragement to me since it was written in 2011. Dr. Joanne J. Jung is the author of Godly Conference: Rediscovering the Puritan Practice of Conference. One of the private means of grace that also augments the public means of grace, godly conference is indeed a practice worth rediscovering, one that the Puritan wrote often about. For my book review, please visit The Reformed Book Cellar here. 

Living Well

John Winthrop, Experiencia:

When a man leads a life secluded from the common delights of the world, and gives himself to walk wholly with God, he shall hear many saying, He will shorten his days, he will pine himself, he will be overrun with melancholy etc: But surely a man so living, shall do more honor to God, and service to his Church in a very short life, then another (although a true Christian, also) living at more liberty shall do in a much longer time: for the more differing that a mans conversation is from the common course of the world, the more occasion and matter there is of the observation of God's work in him: And since there are so many that in an overmuch respect to their own outward felicity take more liberty in these outward things then standeth with God's will, who shall forbid others (there being so few such) to tender God more fruits of their love and thankfulness, by abridging themselves in the number and measure of such outward comforts as they might lawfully enjoy. But yet I see no ground for such opinions, for besides that God hath numbered our days etc, there are many places in scripture which may make us look that holiness should lengthen our life, and sweeten it, but none to make us fear that it should discomfort or shorten it. O Lord, enable me to live righteously and holy, and I shall not be much careful of living long or happily.

While I Was Musing the Fire Burned

Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments (extracted from A Body of Divinity), p. 105:

Meditating on a Lord's-day morning on Christ's love, would kindle love in our hearts to him. How can we look on his bleeding and dying for us and our hearts not be warmed with love to him? Love is the soul of religion, the purest affection. It is not rivers of oil, but sparks of love that Christ values. And sure, as David said, 'While I was musing the fire burned' (Psa 39:3), so, while we are musing of Christ's love in redeeming us, the fire of our love will burn towards him; and then the Christian is in a blessed Sabbath-frame, when, like a seraphim, he is burning in love to Christ.

To See Things As They Really Are

Jonathan Mitchell, "A Letter...to His Friend" (1649), quoted in Charles E. Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England, p. 91:

And truly when I am most near God,
I have no greater request than this
for my self and you, that God would use
any means to make us see things really as they are,
and pound our hearts all to pieces,
and make indeed sin most bitter,
and Christ most sweet, that we might be
both humbled and Comforted to purpose!

Robert Burns, To a Louse (1786):

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

[O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!]

The Good Inquisition

Thomas Watson, The Art of Divine Contentment, p. 13:

Self-examination; for a man to take his heart, as a watch, all in pieces, to set up a spiritual inquisition, or court of conscience, and traverse things in his own soul; to take David's candle and lantern (Ps. 119.105) and search for sin; nay, as judge, to pass the sentence upon himself (2 Sam. 34.17) this is against nature, and will not easily be attained to without learning.

Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity, p. 371:

Quest. 2. What is self-examination?

Ans. It is a setting up a court of conscience and keeping a register there, that by a strict scrutiny a man may see how matters stand between God and his soul. Self-examination is a spiritual inquisition, a heart-anatomy, whereby a man takes his heart, as a watch, all in pieces, and sees what is defective there. It is a dialogue with one's self, Ps. lxxvii.6, "I commune with my own heart." David called himself to account, and put interrogatories to his own heart. Self-examining is a critical descant or search; as the woman in the parable did light a candle, and search for her lost groat, Luke xv.8, so conscience is the candle of the Lord; search with this candle what thou canst find wrought by the Spirit in thee.

Thomas Watson, The Christian Soldier; or, Heaven Taken By Storm, p. 55-56:

5. The fifth duty wherein we are to offer violence to ourselves, self-examination; a duty of great importance: it is a parleying with one's own heart, Psalm lxxxvii. 7. 'I commune with my own heart.' David did put interrogatories to himself. Self-examination is the setting up a court in conscience and keeping a register there, that by strict scrutiny a man may know how things stand between God and his own soul. Self-examination is a spiritual inquisition; a bringing one's self to trial. A good Christian doth as it were begin the day of Judgment here in his own soul. Self-searching is a heart-anatomy. As a Chirurgeon, when he makes a dissection in the body, discovers the intestina, the inward parts, the heart, liver, and arteries, so a Christian anatomizeth himself; he searcheth what is flesh and what is spirit; what is sin, and what is grace, Psalm lxxvii. 7. 'My spirit made diligent search:' As the woman in the Gospel did light a candle, and search for her lost groat, Luke xv. 8. so conscience 'is the candle of the Lord,' Prov. xx. 27. A Christian by the light of this candle must search his soul to see if he can find any grace there. The rule by which a Christian must try himself, is the Word of God. Fancy and opinion are false rules to go by. We must judge of our spiritual condition by the canon of Scripture. This David calls a 'lamp unto his feet,' Psalm cxix. 105. Let the word be the umpire to decide the controversy, whether we have grace or no. We judge of colours by the sun. So we must judge of the state of souls by the light of Scripture.

Self-examination is a great, incumbent duty; it requires self­-excitation; it cannot possibly be done without offering violence to ourselves. 1. Because the duty of self-examination in itself is difficult: 1. It is actus reflexivus, a work of self-reflection; it lies most with the heart. 'Tis hard to look inward. External acts of religion are facile; to lift up the eye to Heaven, to bow the knee, to read a prayer; this requires no more labor than for a Catholic to tell over his beads; but to examine a man's self, to turn in upon his own soul, to take the heart as a watch all in pieces, and see what is defective; this is not easy. -- Reflective acts are hardest. The eye can see everything but itself. It is easy to spy the faults of others, but hard to find out our own.

Perfection of Holiness

William Bates, "The Great Duty of Resignation," in Works, Vol. 2, p. 147:

It is the perfection of holiness to do what God loves, and to love what God does.