We shall not adjust our Bible to the age; but before we have done with it, by God's grace, we shall adjust the age to the Bible. An All-Round Ministry: Addresses to Ministers and Students (London: Passmore)
God hath given us three books, which we ought to be studying whilst we are living: the book of conscience, the book of Scripture, and the book of the creature; in the book of conscience we may read ourselves, in the book of the creature we may read God, in the book of Scripture we may read both God and ourselves.
Here is a simple but profound rule: if there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute. Society is left with one man or an elite filling the vacuum left by the loss of the Christian consensus which originally gave us form and freedom in northern Europe and in the West.
There is a very evident tendency to stress the fact that the Church is a great missionary agency, and to forget that it is first of all the assembly of the saints, in which those who publicly live in sin cannot be tolerated. It is said that sinners must be gathered into the church, and not excluded from it. But it should be remembered that they must be gathered in as saints and have no legitimate place in the Church as long as they do not confess their sin and strive for holiness of life.Systematic Theology, 601
We encourage our members to leave us to found other Churches; nay, we seek to persuade them to do it. We ask them to scatter through—out the land to become the goodly seed, which God shall bless. I believe that so long as we do this we shall prosper.
We must not talk to our congregations as if we were half asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring. There must be power, life, energy, vigour. We must throw our whole selves into it, and show that the zeal of God's house has eaten us up.Lectures to my Students
We make our confession to GOD privately, when we disburden our hearts before God, open the secrets of our hearts to him alone, and, in acknowledging the sins that are in us, we earnestly beseech him to have mercy upon us. This confession is necessary to obtain pardon for our sins. The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
repentance is a turning to God which, even though he stirs it up in us by his word and other means, is so wrought in us, notwithstanding, especially by the Holy Ghost, that with fear we love, and with love we fear our just God and merciful Lord, from whom we were turned back, being sorry now with all our hearts that with our sins, we ever offended so gracious a Father.The Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
This is the sum and breviary of the whole gospel: that we are justified — that is to say, we are absolved from sins, from the definitive sentence of death and damnation; and we are sanctified and adopted into the number of the sons of God — by faith, that is, by an assured confidence in the name of Christ, which is given by the Father to be our only Saviour. And here works are excluded, to the end that there should be given to us no occasion to entangle faith with works, or to attribute to works the glory and title due to faith alone — or rather to Christ, upon whom our faith is grounded and upheldThe Decades, https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
eternal salvation is seeing and enjoying the eternal God. Consequently, it is an inseparable joining or knitting to himThe Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
All the glory of God's people is now translated to the Christians. They are the ones who now enjoy being called the sons of faithful Abraham; they enjoy the promises made to the fathers; they talk about and mention the fathers; they judge rightly about the law and covenant of the Lord; they have the holy scriptures, and have great dexterity in expounding them; they have the true temple, the true high priest, the true altar of incense and burnt offerings, even Christ Jesus, the Lord and Saviour; they have the true worship which was only prefigured in those external ceremonies of old — as I have already declared to you in that place where I handled the Jewish ceremonies. The Gentiles are called out of every quarter of the world to Christ Jesus. All the promises touching the calling of the Gentiles have been most abundantly fulfilled up to now, even today.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Christ is both king and high priest, that is, our Saviour; he is the mark, the star, and the very sunlight of the preaching of the gospel.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
The gospel is the heavenly preaching of God's grace toward us, in which it is declared to the whole world, which is set in the wrath and indignation of God, that God the Father of heaven is pleased in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Christ Jesus. He promised him to the holy fathers of old, and has now exhibited him to us in these latter times. And in him God has given us all things belonging to a blessed life and eternal salvation, as he that was made incarnate for us, dead, and raised from the dead again, was taken up into heaven, and is made our only Lord and Saviour, on the condition that, acknowledging our sins, we soundly and surely believe in him.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, He surrendered His body to death instead of all, and offered it to the Father. This He did out of sheer love for us, so that in His death all might die, and the law of death thereby be abolished because, having fulfilled in His body that for which it was appointed, it was thereafter voided of its power for men. This He did that He might turn again to incorruption men who had turned back to corruption, and make them alive through death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of His resurrection. Thus He would make death to disappear from them as utterly as straw from fire.
the gospel is the most evident sentence of the eternal God, brought down from heaven, absolving all believers from all their sins, and that is freely too, for Christ's sake, with a promise of eternal life.
all men are the children of one father, of one stock, and of the same progeny. Murder is therefore directly against civil humanity, and it is a plague that reigns among men. Does not the Lord our Redeemer also require charity of all men, which must so abound that we may not hesitate to die for our neighbour? To kill our neighbour, therefore, is flatly repugnant to Christian religion.
The very deed of murder, fights directly and disobediently against the eternal God, who is the life and salvation of the world. For murder destroys the very image of God, because man is created in the similitude and likeness of God. If a man were to purposely deface the image of the king or prince, set up by their commandment, he would be accused of committing treason. How great a danger is he in, then, who destroys a man — who is the reasonable, living, and very picture of God himself!
there is a holy kind of anger, which the scripture does not disallow; so that, unless a man is angry in that way, he will never be a good and godly man. For a good man has a zeal for God, and in that godly zeal he is angry at the iniquity and naughtiness of mankind.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Stripes must not be bestowed except for some great offence, and that too, should not be done in the father's anger, but moderately; not to mar, but to amend them. Let the parents always remember that golden saying of St. Paul, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger." The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
I have to say something, in what is left, touching the correction of those that are included under the name of children. This correction consists partly in words, and partly in stripes. In both there must be a middle-mean and measure, do that nothing is done outrageously. Do not let the admonition that is given in words be more bitter than the fault deserves. Let it nip for the time present; but being past, let it be spoken of no more.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
let the father place his children with expert and cunning 570 workmen, to teach them some handicraft by which to earn their living another day. But first, he must test their wits, to see which each child is most apt for, and in which the child most delights. For "cunning will never be attained, where good will is lacking in the one that must learn it." If you have any children fit for learning, you will do a good and godly deed, to train them up to the ministry of the church, or some other office that stands by learning. But of all others, fault is to be found with those parents who bring up their children in lazy idleness. For, even if huge heaps of treasure were left to them, yet in three or four odd hours all may be wasted and come to nothing. To what, then, will your dainty idle gentleman trust — what will he do — when there is nothing left but his bare carcass, which is a lump of clay and not good for anything? The inhabiters of Massilia would not admit anyone to citizenship, except those who had learned an occupation to live by. 571 For there is no greater plague to a city than an unprofitable citizen.The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
Let the father instruct his children in manners. From our birth, we are all clownish and rude; and all children have unseemly and uncivil manners. This evil is doubled by evil custom and clownish company. Let the parents, therefore, teach their children manners early, which may adorn them at home, and become them abroad. Let him instruct the child how to behave himself decently in his going and in the posture of his body: how in the church, how in the market, how at the table, how in men's companies, and in all other places of company. The Decades https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook