The Puritans on True Discipleship
The Puritans, men of God who were acquainted with Scripture and in love with its God, were well-equipped to speak to the need to keep watch over the tongue. These men strictly adhered to the authority of Scripture, focused on true piety or holiness, and gave great weight to precise morality. The Puritans had an experiential Biblical theology that bound both the head and the heart. They preached good truths applied aggressively.
“You have heard much of Christ. Have you learned Christ? The Jews, as one saith, carried Christ in their Bibles but not in their hearts. Their sound went into all the earth. The prophets and apostles were as trumpets whose sound went abroad into all the world, yet many thousands who heard the noise of these trumpets had not learned Christ. They have not all obeyed. A man may know much of Christ and yet not learn Christ. There are many professors in the world that Christ will profess against. What is it then to learn Christ? To learn Christ is to be made like Christ when the divine characters of his holiness are engraved upon our hearts.” — Simeon Ashe
“Whosoever will take Christ truly must take as well his yoke as his crown; as well his sufferings as his salvation; as well his grace as his mercy; as well his Spirit to lead as his blood to redeem.” — Samuel Clark
“A main thing to be looked at in our first applications to God is this: Are we willing to give up ourselves to the will of God without reservation? Can I subject all without any hesitancy and reluctance of thought to the obedience of Christ?” — Thomas Manton
“Christians are to take up a double yoke—the yoke of evangelical command and the yoke of the cross that accompanies them. In both, subjection is requisite—in the one, subsection to Christ’s authority commanding; in the other, subjection to his providence ordering. And that Christians may be subject to both, they must look to the great pattern and learn meekness and humility from him.” — Edward Polhill
“Christ requires nothing but for your good. And ask but your own souls why you are not in love with the ways of Christ and with the counsels and commands of Jesus Christ, and you are notable to give an answer, for ‘tis only Satan’s suggestions to make you think the yoke of Christ to be uneasy. He accuses Christ to you that he may never want thereof to accuse you before God night and day, and will you hearken to his delusions? Will you willingly bear the yoke of the world, the yoke of your lusts, the yoke of Satan and only refuse the yoke of Christ? What hath the Lord Jesus Christ deserved at your hands that you should be under anyone’s command and only refuse to be under the command of Jesus Christ?” — Jeremiah Whitaker