4 Types of Pride: first is when someone attributes to himself the good which he has; the second, when he believes that the good is given by God, and yet for his own merits; the third, when he boasts that he has what he does not have; the fourth, when he has contempt for all others and wishes to seem unique.Moralia, bk 2, c6, n13
Oh, suffer me not to be wise in mine own eyes, and thereby to turn away mine ears from the words of them that are indued with spiritual wisdom; but cause me to hear counsel, and receive instruction, that I may be wise for my latter end.
God will have nothing to do with proud persons, he will never dwell with them, he will never keep house with them.
He that dwells in the highest heavens, will never dwell in a haughty heart.
If God then withdraws Himself, if in the soul of men He bear no more witness to the truth of His Word, men can no longer believe, and no apologetics, however brilliant, will ever be able to restore the blessing of faith in the ScripturePrinciples of Sacred Theology, 366
A regeneration that a man can have, and yet live carelessly in sin or worldliness, is a regeneration invented by uninspired theologians, but never mentioned in scripture. Holiness (Chapter 2)
What wise man will despise or deny a mine to be gold, because it hath some dross or bad earth with it? or will throw away a beast, and say it is not good meat, because it hath guts and garbage in it? The vermin of sin may sometimes crawl in a cleanly, holy person, though they be not allowed there. One act will not prove a habit, nor a few bad actions a bad person.
A liberal Protestant, a liberal Catholic, and a liberal Jew can agree on almost everything, because they believe almost nothing! Proclaiming A Cross-Centered Theology (24)
A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. The Kingdom of God in America (1937), New York: Harper and Row, 1959, p. 193
And there may be also many others of good and pious inclinations, that have never yet applied themselves to consider the principal and most fundamental grounds of religion, so as to be able to give, or discern, any tolerable reason of them.Works, Vol 1
this is an unaccountable vanity under the sun, that men too generally form such projects, that they are disappointed both when they do not compass them, and when they do. If they do not, they have lost their labour; if they do, they are not worth it.Works, Vol 1
Redeemed from loving God! What a monstrous thought! Redeemed from what is the great active and fruitive principle; the source of obedience and blessedness; the eternal spring, even in the heavenly state, of adoration and fruition!Works, Vol 1
Were we to have been set free from the preceptive obligation of God's holy law, then most of all from that most fundamental precept, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, soul, might, and mind had this been redemption, which supposes only what is evil and hurtful, as that we are to be redeemed from? This were a strange sort of self-repugnant redemption, not from sin and misery, but from our duty and felicity.Works, Vol 1
When therefore he was to do for us the part of a Redeemer, he was to redeem us from the curse of the law, not from the command of it; to save us from the wrath of God, not from his government, Gal. S. 13, 14. Rom. 8. 3, 4.Works, Vol 1
Our life on earth is under the constant strict observation of our Lord Christ. He waits when to turn the key, and shut it up. Through the whole of that time, which, by deferring, he measures out to us, we are under his eye as in a state of probation.Works, Vol 1
That men do not die at random, or by some uncertain, accidental bye stroke, which, as by a slip of the hand, cuts off the thread of life; but by an act of divine determination, and judgment which passes in reference to each one's death.Works, Vol 1
There is an evangelical repentance which lies.—1. In a true sight and sense of sin; in a sight of it, as in itself considered as exceeding sinful in its own nature, and not merely as in its effects and consequences ruinous and destructive; not only in a sight of it in the glass of the divine law, but as that is held in the hand, and seen in the light of the blessed Spirit: and in a sight of it as contrary to the pure and holy nature of God, as well as repugnant to his will, and a breach of his law; and in a view of it as it appears in the glass of pardoning love and grace.—2. In a hearty and unfeigned sorrow for it; this sorrow for it is the rather because it is against God, and that not only as a holy and righteous Being, but as good, and gracious, and merciful, of whose goodness, both in providence and grace, the sinner is sensible; the consideration of which increases his sorrow, and makes it the more intense and hearty.
There is a legal and there is an evangelical repentance.—A legal one, which is a mere work of the law, and the effect of convictions of sin by it, which in time wear off and come to nothing; for,—1. There may be a sense of sin and an acknowledgment of it, and yet no true repentance for it, as in the cases of Pharaoh and of Judas, who both said, I have sinned; yet they had no true sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, nor godly sorrow for it.
There is a hypocritical repentance, such as was in the people of Israel in the wilderness, who when the wrath of God broke out against them for their sins, returned unto him, or repented, but their heart was not right with him, Psalm 78:34–37; so it is said of Judah, she hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord; and of Ephraim, or the ten tribes, they return, but not to the Most High, they are like a deceitful bow, Hos. 7:16, who turned aside and dealt unfaithfully.
There is an external repentance, or an outward humiliation for sin, such as was in Ahab, which, though nothing more, it was taken notice of by the Lord, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? and though it lay only in rending his clothes, and putting on sackcloth, and in fasting, and in a mournful way, yet the Lord was pleased to promise that the evil threatened should not come in his days, 1 Kings 21:29. And such is the repentance Tyre and Sidon would have exercised, had they had the advantages and privileges that some cities had, where Christ taught his doctrines, and wrought miracles; and of this kind was the repentance of the Ninevites, which was also regarded of God, Matt. 11:21.