Quote 4193
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The Gospel is temporary, but the law is eternal and is restored precisely through the Gospel. Freedom from the law consists, then, not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.
though the moral law be thus far abolished, it remains as a perpetual rule to believers. Though it be not their Saviour, it is their guide. Though it be not foedus, a covenant of life; yet it is norma, a rule of life. Every Christian is bound to conform to it; and to write, as exactly as he can after this copy. 'Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid.' Rom iii 31. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under its commanding power.The Ten Commandments, 44
Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.
Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect his strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to him in whom our strength lies.
The Bruised Reed
The moral teaching of Christ and his apostles is the old law deepened and reapplied to new circumstances--life in the kingdom of God, where the Savior reigns; and in the post-Pentecost era of the Spirit, where God's people are called to live heaven's life among themselves and to be God's counterculture in the world.Concise Theology, Section 34
Christ in fact had not the least intent of making any change or innovation in the precepts of the law. God there appointed once for all a rite of life which he will never repent of... so let us have no more of that error, that here a defect of the law is corrected by Christ; Christ is not to be made into a new law-giver, adding anything to the everlasting righteousness of his Father, but is to be given the attention of a faithful interpreter, teaching us the nature of the law, its object and its scope.
God is forced to mortify sins by afflictions, because we mortify them not by the Spirit.
usually he empties such of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services.The Bruised Reed (3)
It is an office of love here to take away the stones and to smooth the way to heaven. Therefore, we must take heed that under pretense of avoidance of disputes we do not suffer an adverse party to get ground upon the truth, for thus may we easily betray both the truth of God and souls of men.
It were good strife among Christians, one to labor to give no offense and the other to labor to take none.
The law is tempered by the gospel but not nulled and cast out of doors by it. It enacts that none but those that are sanctified shall be glorified; that there must be grace here if we expect glory hereafter; that we must not presume to expect an admittance to the vision of God's face unless our souls be clothed with a robe of holiness (Heb. 12:14). It requires an obedience to the whole law in our intention and purpose and an endeavor to observe it in our actions; it promotes the honor of God and ordains a universal charity among men; it reveals the whole counsel of God and furnishes men with the holiest laws.
The commands of the gospel require the obedience of the creature. There is not one precept in the gospel which interferes with any rule in the law, but strengthens it and represents it in its true exactness; the heat to scorch us is allayed, but the light to direct us is not extinguished. Not the least allowance to any sin is granted; not the least affection to any sin is indulged.
Ingratitude is the grave of all God's blessings.
If we desire the Spirit, we must wait in the way of duty, as the apostles waited many days before the Comforter came. We must also empty our souls of self-love and the love of the world and willingly entertain those crosses that bring our souls out of love with it. The children of Israel in the wilderness had not the manna till they had spent their onions and garlic; so this world must be out of request with us before we can be truly spiritual. Through grace, labor to see the excellency of spiritual things. How despicable then must all the glory of the world appear! These things, duly considered, will raise our desires more and more toward spiritual and heavenly objects.
Knowledge and affection mutually help one another; it is good to keep up our affections of love and delight by all sweet inducements and divine encouragements, for what the heart likes best the mind studies most. Those that can bring their hearts to delight in Christ know most of His ways.
The heart of a Christian is Christ's garden, and His graces are as so many sweet spices and flowers, which His Spirit blowing upon makes them to send forth a sweet savor. Therefore, keep the soul open for entertainment of the Holy Ghost, for He will bring in continually fresh forces to subdue corruption, and this most of all on the Lord's Day.
Dead stones in an arch uphold one another, and shall not living? It is the work of an angel to comfort—nay, it is the office of the Holy Ghost to be a comforter not only immediately but by breathing comfort into our hearts together with the comfortable words of others. Thus, one friend becomes an angel—nay, a God to another, and there is a sweet sight of God in the face of a friend.
There is gold in ore which God and His Spirit in us can distinguish. A carnal man's heart is like a dungeon wherein is nothing to be seen but horror and confusion. This light makes us judicious and humble upon clearer sight of God's purity and our own uncleanness and makes us able to discern the work of the Spirit in another.
In melancholy distempers, especially when there is guilt on the soul, we can find no comfort in wife, children, friends, estate, etc. It is a pitiful state when body, soul, and conscience all are distempered, but even now let a Christian look to God's nature and promises. Though he cannot live by sight, yet let him live much by faith.
If men can find no comfort and yet set themselves to teach and encourage weaker Christians, by way of reflection they receive frequently great comfort themselves. So doth God reward this duty of mutual discourse; that those things we did not so fully understand before by discourse we come to know and relish far better. This should teach us to love and often engage in holy conference, for besides the good we do to others, we shall be profited ourselves. Divine Meditations
Certainly when we undervalue mercy, especially so great a one as the communion of saints is, commonly the Lord takes it away from us till we learn to prize it to the full value. Consider well therefore the heinousness of this sin, which that you may the better conceive. First, consider it is against God's express precept, charging us not to forsake the assemblies of the saints (Heb. 10:20, 25). Again, it is against our own greatest good and spiritual solace, for by discommunicating and excommunicating ourselves from that blessed society, we deprive ourselves of the benefit of their holy conference, their godly instructions, their divine consolations, brotherly admonitions, and charitable reprehensions, and what an inestimable loss is this? Neither can we partake such profit by their prayers as otherwise we might, for as the soul in the natural body conveys life and strength to every member, as they are compacted and joined together and not as dissevered, so Christ conveys spiritual life and vigor to Christians, not as they are disjoined from but as they are united to the mystical body, the church.
The church of Christ is a common hospital wherein all are in some measure sick of some spiritual disease or other, that we should all have ground of exercising mutually the spirit of wisdom and meekness.
Let us not look so much who are our enemies as who is our Judge and Captain, nor what they threaten but what He promises; we have more for us than against us. What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory? None are here overcome but those that will not fight. Therefore, when any base fainting seizes upon us, let us lay the blame where it is to be laid.
We are weak, but we are His; we are deformed, but yet carry His image upon us. A father looks not so much at the blemishes of his child as at his own nature in him; so Christ finds matter of love from that which is His own in us. He sees His own nature in us. We are diseased, but yet His members. Whoever neglected his own members because they were sick or weak? None ever hated his own flesh. Can the head forget the members? Can Christ forget Himself? We are His fullness, as He is ours. Bruised Reed, 107
It is the greatest bondage in the world to have most freedom in ill.
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