All Things Expounded

“Contrary to popular impression, the Puritan was no ascetic…he never praised hair shirts or dry crust. He liked good food, good drink and homely comforts; and while he laughed at mosquitoes, he found it a real hardship to drink water when the beer ran out.” — Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family

“worldly things are good in themselves and given to sweeten our passage to heaven” — Richard Sibbes

“[In] the writings of the Puritans, marriage and the sex act within it are affirmed as gifts from God. This was a progressive view, for it contradicted the prevalent medieval teaching that religious celibacy was more virtuous” — Betsy Hart

“We must picture these Puritans as the very opposite of those who bear that name today: as young, fierce, progressive intellectuals, very fashionable and up-to-date. They were not teetotallers; bishops, not beer, were their special aversion.” — C.S. Lewis

“the typical Puritans were not wild men, fierce and freaky, religious fanatics and social extremists, but sober, conscientious, and cultured citizens, persons of principle, determined and disciplined excelling in the domestic virtues” –  J.I. Packer

“These are things to be gloried in. If we find our sins pardoned, our persons accepted, and our nature renewed; we may comfort ourselves in health, in wealth, in wife, in children, in anything, because all come from the favor of God.” — Richard Sibbes

“It is an honest and a lawful, though it may not be a very desirable employment, that you have undertaken: you may glorify God in your employment, if you will, and benefit the town considerably.”

– Cotton Mather to an Ale House owner