George Swinnock – Confessing the Christian Faith

[I]t must be some grievous crime, and somewhat which is very offensive to him, that provokes him to sentence them to an eternal banishment from him. Oh how horrid a thing is sin! it brings all evil, Rom. 2:7, 8, and deprives of all good, Isa. 59:2. Its formal nature is a voluntary departure from God’s precepts, Heb. 3:12; Jer. 2:5; and its woeful effect is an eternal total departure from his gracious presence. His partial temporary departure from his own people, who are the objects of his eternal choice and infinite love, ‘which makes them go mourning all the day, and lie roaring all the night, because of their sins,’ speaks much of the evil of sin; but his full everlasting departure from others, which leaves them naked, and stripped of all comfort, and exposed to all misery and mischief, doth more abundantly proclaim its filthiness and loathsomeness. It can be no ordinary cloud or vapour that can obscure the sun at noonday, in all his beauty and brightness, and turn the clear day into a black night; and it can be no little or small thing which provokes the Father of mercy, and God of all grace, to deal so severely with the works of his own hands. The Rev. George Swinnock (Works, vol. 5, p. 285)

Christ Brooks No Competitor

February 17, 2022February 17, 2022

by Westminster

“Wilt thou presently give a bill of divorce to all other lovers, and keep the bed of thy heart wholly for [Christ]? Shall the evil of sin never more have a good look from thee; but, as Amnon served Tamar, shall the hatred wherewith thou hatest those filthy strumpets—with whom thou hast had cursed dalliances, and committed spiritual fornication—be greater than the love wherewith thou hast loved them? Canst thou pack away the bondwoman and her son, and these things not at all be grievous in thy sight; that thy whole joy and delight may be in, and all that thou art worth preserved for, the true Isaac? Shall this Sun reign alone in the heavens of thy heart without any competitor? As when a dictator was created at Rome, there was a supersedeas to all other authority; so if Christ be exalted in thy soul, there must be a cessation of all other rule and power. Christ will not be a king merely in derision, as the Jews made him; nor as the stump of wood was to the frogs in the fable, whom every lust may securely dance about and provoke.” George Swinnock (Works, vol. 3, p. 464)

George Swinnock Pilgrim's Progress

Death is to Thee Only a Servant

February 11, 2022

by Westminster

“When thou liest on thy dying bed, and physicians had given over thy body, Christ would visit and give thy soul such a cordial that thou mightst walk in the valley of the shadow of death and fear none ill. How willingly mayest thou part with the militant members of Christ for the triumphant saints! How cheerfully mayest thou leave thy nearest relations for thy dearest Father and elder brother! How comfortably mayest thou take thy leave of all the riches, honours, and pleasures of this life, knowing that though death cometh to others with a voider to take away all their fleshly comforts and carnal contentments, nay, all their hopes, and happiness, and heaven, and hereby, when they break at death, they are quite bankrupts for ever; yet it is to thee only a servant, to remove the first course of more gross fare, of which thou hast had thy fill, and to make way for the second, which consisteth of all sorts of dainties and delicates.” George Swinnock (Works, vol. 3, p. 452)

George Swinnock Pilgrim's Progress

Swinnock: Death a Poor Trade Amongst Saints

January 10, 2022January 16, 2022

by Westminster

Death among saints drives but a poor trade; it may destroy the body, and when that is done, it hath done all its feats; like a fierce mastiff whose teeth are broken out, it may bark and tear thy tattered coat, but cannot bite to the bone. This bee fastened her sting in Christ’s blessed body, and is ever since a drone to his members. George Swinnock, Works, vol. 3, p. 451