But when we speak of the dominion of the Mediator as spiritual, it is necessary to guard against supposing that it can have no sort of connection with the world, or with things that are secular. Such an idea it is not at all our intention to convey . . . Because the dominion of Christ is spiritual in its nature, to conclude that everything connected with his kingdom must be spiritual also, and that nothing earthly or secular can have any relation to it, is an inference alike illogical in reasoning and unsupported by fact.

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, 42.

No government, however good in itself, can be expected to be successful, which is administered by a known profligate. It is wisely required that he that ruleth over men must be “just, ruling in the fear of the Lord.” It were unreasonable to expect principles to be acted upon, and laws to be obeyed, which are inculcated by persons who are themselves violating them every day.

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, 26.

The Savior of his people, and the conqueror of their foes, are not incompatible features.

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, 10.

God’s law is best understood in the context of love. “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

Dennis J. Prutow, Public Worship 101, 228.

For the Christian, therefore, endeavoring to keep the law was not to be construed as evidence of being under the law as a covenant of works. But a man under the covenant of grace should equally endeavor to keep God’s law. There is no contradiction between the grace of the gospel and the usage of the law in the life of the believer. Grace and law are complementary to each other, because it is the Spirit of Christ, given in grace, who subdues and enables man’s otherwise stubborn and rebellious will “to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God revealed in the law requireth to be done.” (WCF 19.6, 7)

Andrew A. Woolsey, Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly, 89.

Historians have tended to define “covenant theology” with respect to the number of covenants employed, or whether or not the covenant can be viewed as the organizing principle in the theological system of a given writer. But it would be much more satisfactory to keep the discussion within the parameters legitimated by the scriptural usage of the concept, that is, as a divinely ordained means of portraying the nature of God’s relationship with man, particularly “the organic unity and progressiveness” of God’s saving purpose for his people throughout the history of mankind.

Andrew A. Woolsey, Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly, 21.

Ask the universe, the adornment of the heavens, the brilliance and arrangement of the stars, the sun, the sufficiency of the day, the moon, the solace of the night. Ask the earth, bearing fruit in herbs and trees, filled with animals, adorned with men. Ask the sea, full of such great and varied aquatic creatures! Ask the air, flourishing with such great flying creatures! Ask all things if they do not, in their own sense, as it were respond to you, ‘God made us!’

Augustine, Sermon 141 on John 14:6.

At this point remains the fourth practice, concerning care for the knowledge of God (Hos. 6:3). And this care, if first you consider persons, applies to the following: (1) magistrates, that they may not be content to have provided a knowledge of God for themselves, but that they may in every way take care, by their example, by their calling of qualified teachers, and even as circumstances arise, by their own instruction, to confer and augment the knowledge of God in their subjects, according to the example of Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, and others. (2) Ministers, upon whom it is preeminently incumbent by their office to instill in their hearers the knowledge of God, and namely that knowledge which is the basis of all faith, religion, and godliness, according to the judgment of the text, that God exists (John 14:8; 2 Peter 1:1–2; Phil. 1:9). (3) Every believer (see the same passages).

PETRUS VAN MASTRICHT, THEORETICAL-PRACTICAL THEOLOGY, VOLUME 2: FAITH IN THE TRIUNE GOD, 122.

Without meditation on the Word, our prayers will become vague and dull and directed by the world rather than God’s spirit.

Joel R. Beeke and Terry D. Slachter, Encouragement for Today’s Pastors, 32.

I wrote to your bishop, the saintly Ambrose, to tell him of my past errors and the purpose I now had in mind. I asked him to advise me which books of Scripture it would be best for me to study, so that I might be better prepared and more fitted to receive so great a grace. He told me to read the prophet Isaiah, presumably because the Gospel and the calling of the gentiles are foretold more clearly in that book than in any other.

Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book IX.5.