The True Bounds of Christian Freedom
Bolton, a member of the Westminster Assembly, addresses the perennial tension between grace and obedience by asking in what senses believers are, and are not, freed from the law. Answering antinomian errors of his day, he defends the moral law as a rule of life for the justified while guarding the liberty Christ has purchased from the law's curse and condemnation.
Based on The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (1645), by Samuel Bolton
Puritan quotes
Quotes by Samuel Bolton
“The law as it is considered as a rule can be no more abolished or changed than the nature of good and evil can be abolished or changed.”
“We cannot wait until we feel the Spirit moving us... We must obey God even when our heart is not in it, often to discover that our hearts come alive to our duty even while we do it.”
“If Christ has freed us from the penalties, how ought we to subject ourselves to the precepts! If He has delivered us from the curses, how ought we to study the commands! If He paid our debt of sin, certainly we owe a debt of service.”
“We are not under its curses, but we are under its commands. We are not under the law for judgement, but we are under the law for conduct.”
“We preach obedience to the law, but not as the Papists do. They preach obedience as a means to justification; we preach justification as a means to obedience.”
“When you see that men have been wounded by the law, then it is time to pour in the gospel oil.”
“But now in the Gospel we are freed from impossibilities.”
“If there was anything of man's bringing, which was not of God's bestowing, though it were never so small, it would overturn the nature of grace, and make that of works which is of grace.”
“Many appeal to Christ for salvation who do not appeal to him for sanctification.”
“That which the believer suffers for sin is not penal, arising from vindictive justice, but medicinal, arising from a fatherly love.”