'"You are My witnesses," says the Lord, "And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there
was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.'
— Isaiah 43:10 NKJV
'Labour for the truest Knowledge of the God whom you worship. Let it not be said
of you as Christ said to the Samaritan woman, John iv, 22, "Ye worship ye know not what;"
nor as it is said of the Ahtenians, whose altar was inscribed, "To the unknown God," Acts xvii, 23.
You must know whom you worship; or else you cannot worship him with the heart, nor worship him sincerely
and acceptably, though you were at never so great labour and cost; God hath no
"pleasure in the sacrifice of fools," Eccles. v, 1, 4. Though no man know him perfectly,
you must know him truly. And though God taketh not every man for a blasphemer, and denier
of his attributes, whome contentious, peevish wranglers call so, because they
consequentially cross some espoused opinions of theirs; yet real misunderstanding
of God's nature and attributes is dangerous, and tendeth to corrupt his worship
by corrupting of the worshippers. For such as you take God to be, such worship you
will offer him; for your worship is but the honourable acknowledgement of his perfections,
so to dishonour him and dispraise him. If to know God be your eternal life, it must
needs be the life of all your worship. Take heed therefore of ignorance and error
about God.'
— Richard Baxter, from A Christian Directory
'[T]he modest and teachable reader will find a sufficient reason in the promise
contained in Isaiah, that all the children of the renovated Church "shall be taught
of the Lord" (Isaiah liv, 13). This singular privilege God bestows on his elect
only, whom he separates from the rest of mankind. For what is the beginning of
true doctrine but prompt alacrity to hear the word of God?'
— John Calvin, from Institutes of the Christian Religion
'I deny not but a man may have much knowledge and want grace, but on the
other side, ... you cannot have more grace than you have knowledge.'
— John Preston
'[E]ducation is God's ordinary way for the conveyance of his grace...'
— Richard Baxter
'The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by
regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him,
to imitate him, to be like him.'
— John Milton