Quote 4319
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Do not lose lying in Abraham's bosom for now lying in Delilah's lap.
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
The reason why the reformation succeeded so well in Germany was because the peoples catechizing went along with Luther's preaching. It was laid as a charge upon masters of families, that they should catechize their children
The church is live a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power.
The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. Unknown
We do not deny that the church has many functions in relation to the Scriptures. She is: (1) the keeper of the oracles of God to whom they are committed and who preserves the authentic tables of the covenant of grace with the greatest fidelity, like a notary (Rom. 3:2); (2) the guide, to point out the Scriptures and lead us to them (Is. 30:21); (3) the defender, to vindicate and defend them by separating the genuine books from the spurious, in which sense she may be called the ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15*); (4) the herald who sets forth and promulgates them (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 10:16); (5) the interpreter inquiring into the unfolding of the true sense. But all these imply a ministerial only and not a magisterial power.
Look rather at God's end in afflicting, than to the measure and degree of your affliction.
Sermons of hell may keep many out of hell.
The church is not a theological classroom. It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness and sanctification center, where flawed people place their faith in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he designed.
When the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.
Christians do not stand isolated, each holding his own creed. They constitute one body, having one common creed. Rejecting that creed, or any of its parts, is the rejection of the fellowship of Christians, incompatible with the communion of saints, or membership in the body of Christ. In other words, Protestants admit that there is a common faith of the Church, which no man is at liberty to reject, and which no man can reject and be a Christian.
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.
There are two great ends why Christ did institute a particular church, and they were to express the two great graces and duties that He requires of us. The first end was that his saints together might jointly profess their faith in Him and obedience to Him. And we have no other way of doing it: He hath tied us up to this... The next great end was that we might have a direct exercise of His other great command and of that other great duty, of love to believers.
A church is a company of those who are called (and this call must be answered or else it is nothing) to the visible profession of faith in Christ and obedience unto Christ, according to the gospel.
For the church is a company of men that are called (1 Cor. 1:24; 10:32), both Jews and Greeks, to the Jews, to the Greeks, and to the church of God. But because the end of calling is faith, and the work of faith is engrafting into Christ, and this union with Christ does bring with it communion with Christ. Hence it is defined, in the very same sense, a company of believers, a company of those who are in Christ, a company of those that have communion with Christ.
The word ekklesia simply means "assembly" -a group of people gathered for secular or religious purposes.Expository Exultation, 40
Sin is against an infinite God, and the offense being infinite, the punishment must be infinite also.Treatise on Hell
An ecclesiology of total withdrawal cannot be sustained by 1-2 Kings. Elijah and Elisha do not entertain the comforting illusion that they can carry on happily as the true Israel while the Omrides take the nation further into the cesspool of idolatry.1 & 2 Kings, 148
If the church is central to God's purpose, as seen in both history and the gospel, it must surely also be central to our lives. How can we take lightly what God takes so seriously? How dare we push to the circumference what God has placed at the centre?The Message of the Ephesians (129)
How can we claim to know and love Jesus and yet be indifferent toward his bride, his temple, his family, his own body? Can I say that I love Jesus but hate the wife he cherishes? Can I say I enjoy spending time with him but refuse to enter his house? Can I claim friendship with Jesus but think his body is repulsive? It's not possible.Dug Down Deep (198)
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2. Charles Spurgeon (134)
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20. Thomas Manton (50)
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