His Due and Deserved Praise   “He who doth but exercise his reason in considering the infinite cost which the glorious God hath bestowed in erecting the stately fabric of heaven and earth, and the wonders discovered in the several creatures which are the inhabitants of the higher and lower house,... will easily grant me this assertion:  That this great landlord of the world must needs deserve and expect a considerable rent of honour and service, somewhat suitable to the vast charge He hath been at.  That man is the person designed to give Him His due and deserved praise, is the next unquestionable concession, no other of God's visible works being capable of His worship.”     -- George Swinnock (1627-1673)   Christian Devotion   “We are to be governed as the point in the compass, not by the various winds, (the practices of former ages, or the fashions of the present generation, which are mutable and uncertain,) but by the constant heavens.  Our devotion must be regulated exactly according to the standard of the word.  It is idolatry to worship a false god, or the true God in a false manner.”   -- George Swinnock (1627-1673)     The Universality of the Christian Religion   “Other religions, as the pagan are more popular, for they consist in externals. But they are not for educated people. A purely intellectual religion would be more suited to the learned, but it would be of no use to the common people.  The Christian religion alone is adapted to all, being composed of externals and internals. It raises the common people to the internal, and humbles the proud to the external; it is not perfect without the two, for the people must understand the spirit of the letter, and the learned must submit their spirit to the letter.”   -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)