Thomas Adams Quotes

       Thomas Adams
       1583-1652
      
       Thomas Adams was an English clergyman and reputed preacher. He was called "The Shakespeare of the Puritans" by Robert Southey; a Calvinist in theology, he is not accurately described as a Puritan.
      
       Early sermons were Heaven and Earth Reconciled, and The Devil's Banquet. To Montagu he dedicated a work in 1618. In 1629 he collected into a massive folio his occasional sermons, a collection he dedicated to the parishioners of St Benet Paul's Wharf, and to the Lords Pembroke and Manchester. In 1638 appeared a long Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Peter, dedicated to "Sir Henrie Marten, Knt."
      
       His works have been republished in Nichol's Series of Standard Divines (3 vols, 1862), edited by Thomas Smith, and with a life by Joseph Angus, and his Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Peter (1839) by James Sherman.

The ambitious climbs up high and perilous stairs, and never cares how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up his fear of a fall.     Topics: Achievement Contention is like fire, for both burn so long as there is any exhaustible matter to contend within. Only herein it transcends fire, for fire begets not matter, but consumes it; debates beget matter, but consume it not.     Topics: Adversity A man may be so bold of his predestination, that he forget his conversation.     Topics: Apathy     Source: A Puritan Golden Treasury "Baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: there are three distinct persons: in the Name, not names; there is one essence.     Topics: Baptism, The Trinity     Source: A Puritan Golden Treasury Passion costs me too much to bestow it on every trifle.     Topics: Character, Passion Conscience is God's deputy in the soul.     Topics: Conscience Death is as near to the young as to the old; here is all the difference: death stands behind the young man's back, before the old man's face.     Topics: Death, Youth We spend our years with sighing; it is a valley of tears; but death is the funeral of all our sorrows.     Topics: Death     Source: A Puritan Golden Treasury Alas! that the farthest and of all our thoughts should be the thought of our ends.     Topics: Death Both in thy private sessions, and the universal assizes, thou shalt be sure of the same Judge, the same jury, the same witnesses, the same verdict. How certain thou art to die, thou knowest; how soon to die, thou knowest not. Measure not thy life with the longest; that were to piece it out with flattery. Thou canst name no living man, not the sickest, which thou art sure shall die before thee.     Topics: Death A drunkard is the annoyance of modesty; the trouble of civility; the spoil of wealth; the distraction of reason. He is the brewer's agent; the tavern and ale house benefactor; the beggar's companion; the constable's trouble; his wife's woe; his children's sorrow; his neighbor's scoff; his own shame. In short he is a tub of swill, a spirit of unrest, a thing below a beast, and a monster of a man.     Topics: Drunkenness, Modesty It was well done of Paul to reprove Peter to his face, and it was well done of Peter, to praise Paul in his absence.     Topics: Encouragement     Source: A Puritan Golden Treasury