Believe God's word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.
If we knew the glory of our elder Brother in heaven, we should long to be there to see Him. We children think the earth a fair garden, but compared with the garden of the Lord it is but wild, cold, barren ground. All things are fading that are here; it is our happiness to make sure of Christ.
If you win Christ, though not in the sweet and pleasant way you would have Him, it is enough. For the Well Beloved comes not our way; He must choose His way Himself. He cuts off your love to the creature that you might learn that God only is the right owner of your love, sorrow, loss, sadness, death, or the worst things that are.
O that the heaven, and the heaven of heavens were paper, and the sea ink, and the multitude of mountains pens of brass, and I able to write my dearest, my loveliest, my sweetest, my matchless, and my most unequaled and marvelous Well Beloved! Woe is me, I cannot set Him out to men and angels! I am put to my wit's end how to get His name made great. How sweet is Christ's back! O, what there is in His face! Those that see His face, how are they able to get their eye plucked off Him again!Garden of Spices, 41
Grace is not educed or extracted out of the potency of any created nature. Grace is born in heaven, and came from the inmost of the heart of Christ; it hath neither seed nor parent on earth, therefore the Lord challengeth it as his own
It is an abasement of Christ, that he who gives such a ransom to justice for free-grace, should wait for a penny from sinners; that sinners must bid and buy, and engage him to give, and Christ say, you must give me more, I must sell, not give grace for nothing. Your penny-worths cannot roll about that everlasting wheel of free-grace, the decree of election, or bow or break Christ's free heart to save you, rather than another.https://www.monergism.com/christ-dying-and-drawing-sinners-himself-ebook
The manner of grace's working on saints is gracious, and so essentially free; as is evident in our first drawing to Christ, when many sins are forgiven, and so the soul loves much; and the sweetest burden in heaven, or out of heaven, is a burden of the love of Christhttps://www.monergism.com/christ-dying-and-drawing-sinners-himself-ebook
Men have a sort of satisfaction in their natural condition: a whole man desires no physician. A dead man hath some negative content to lie in grave; he can have no acts of sorrow for want of life. (2.) We do not put forth any stirring of life or desire toward that which is naturally above us: a child in the belly hath no acts toward a crown or a kingdom in this life, because desires are bottomed and founded on nature; as an ape, or a horse, hath no desire to be a man.https://www.monergism.com/christ-dying-and-drawing-sinners-himself-ebook
We believe that repentance and mortification involve a real, personal turning from sin—a weakening of the lusts of the old nature, a dying to the pleasures of sin, and a growing desire for heavenly things. This flows from union with Christ in His death and resurrection, apprehended by faith.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
The Law commands us to love God with all our heart. That law required Abraham to offer his son, and Judah to return from exile— not because those acts were written in specific commandments, but because love for God requires obedience to whatever He commands. In this way, we are bound to obey God the Redeemer as well as God the Lawgiverhttps://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
Grace is not lawless. True grace is: Active and obedient, Thankful and holy, Eager to honor the Lawgiver, Concerned for the glory of the gospel, Joyful and bold in Christ, Yet tender and reverent, as if there were no gospel— And free and fearless, as if there were no curse.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
We strongly reject the Antinomian claim that God sees no adultery, lying, blasphemy, or deceit in believers, even if they commit such sins. It is true that God does not see the sins of believers as a Judge to condemn them, but He most certainly sees them as a Father who disciplines His children.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
Antinomians also err by confusing justification and sanctification. They teach that believers are as inherently sinless as Christ Himself—that original sin, the old man, and the flesh are entirely gone.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
Antinomians claim that the knowledge of actual and eternal forgiveness of sins was not revealed to the Old Testament saints— that it was a mystery hidden until the coming of the gospel. But this is false.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
The gospel does not lower the standard of perfection. It commands all that the law commands, in the same holiness and purity. "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," and "Be holy, for I am holy," remain gospel commands. The difference is in acceptance, not in requirement. The gospel pardons our failures, but it does not dispense with any of God's commands.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
The obedience commanded in the law as a covenant of works is the same obedience now required under the covenant of grace. The difference lies in how it is fulfilled: Under the law, it was to be performed by our own strength, out of love for God and reverence for His authority. Under the gospel, it is enabled by the grace of Christ and motivated not only by God's authority and love, but also by gratitude to a redeeming Savior.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook
Christ clearly said that He did not come to free us from obedience to the least part of the law. The covenant of works is abrogated only in this respect: we are freed from the law as a means of justification and from its curse. That is as far as the Antinomian argument may go—no further.https://www.monergism.com/modest-survey-secrets-antinomianism-ebook