Ain't that title a GREAT phrase?!!I’ve been reading some Puritan books as a result of reading a guy’s blog site who is trying to get folks to read 12 classics in 12 months. (I managed 3 of them in 4 days, since these guys write exactly what I think in slightly more wordy ways.)
I don’t know the legal ins and outs about quoting stuff that people put on their blog sites, so just plug into http://timmybrister.com/2008/01/07/join-the-2008-puritan-reading-challenge/ and scroll down about a foot or so to the list if you’re interested.
The one book, The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel has the sentence in it, “What a special mercy was it to us to have the excrescences of corruption nipped in the bud by their pious and careful discipline!” (He's talking about "abnormal outgrowths of moral perversion" godly parents squelched in their evil offspring...probably Terrible Twos!) I particularly liked the phrase and thought that what I’ve been saying about young folks who get saved early on in life has some Puritan backup, so to speak.
The way I look at it, when youngsters get saved, God knows just how bad they would be if they didn’t have the restraint of the Holy Spirit early on. He's protecting them from themselves and giving their parents hope in the teenage years that, having been "trained up in the way they should go," they will return to it sometime earlier than the "old age" predicted by Proverbs.
Others of us who get saved later on get to wallow in our depravity so we can then help others out of the same messes we got in on various and multiple occasions...all in that Mysterious Providence Flavel is describing so loquaciously.
Maybe the next time you want to call somebody a nasty name you could use “excrescence of corruption” as the epithet...even if the full meaning is missed it surely SOUNDS insulting!!
Of course, Galatians 6:1 says, "Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted."
Well, follow Option #2 if your spiritual maturity is advanced. Follow Option #1 if your OWN excrescences of corruption raise their ugly multiple heads...then repent heartily like Martin Luther used to prescribe, using 1 John 1:9 as your assurance of instant forgiveness; assuming you REALLY mean it!
Got Sanctification?
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