Quotes from Edward Payson

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since updating the blog. Frankly, I think I OB'd (overblogged) and needed to back away from the table. It's amazing how unnecessary we really are!

My wife has enjoyed reading about and from Elizabeth Prentiss this summer. This has caused me to take interest in Prentiss' father, Edward Payson (1783-1827). After Harvard, Payson was a pastor in Portland, Maine for 20 years until his death. In a recent collection of his devotional thoughts I was impressed by the following:

Men honor and glorify God, when they show by their conduct that they consider him the most perfect and best of beings, and love, reverence and confide in him as such; for these things naturally tend to excite a high estimation of God, in the minds of their fellow creatures. (Edward Payson, Legacy of a Legend, SGCB: 2001, p5).

While were at it, try this one on for size as well:

We may judge the state of our hearts by the earnestness of our prayers. You cannot make a rich man beg like a poor man; you cannot make a man that is full cry for food like one that is hungry: no more will a man who has a good opinion of himself, cry for mercy like one who feels that he is poor and needy (p86).

And, finally for the pastors:

Oh, if ministers only saw the inconceivable glory that is before them, and the preciousness of Christ, they would not be able to refrain from going about, leaping and clapping their hands for joy, and exclaiming, "I'm a minister of Christ! I'm a minister of Christ!" (p101)