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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 church is live a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power.
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 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.
God is forced to mortify sins by afflictions, because we mortify them not by the Spirit.
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.
usually he empties such of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services.The Bruised Reed (3)
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.
Be like Christ in the church. How many there are of you... seeking pre-eminence? How many are trying to have some dignity and power over their fellow Christians, instead of remembering that it is the fundamental rule of all our churches, that there all men are equal—alike brethren, alike to be received as such. Carry out the spirit of Christ, then, in your churches, wherever ye are; let your fellow members say of you, "He has been with Jesus."
Christians disobey God and impoverish themselves by refusing to join with other believers when there is a local congregation that they can belong to.Concise Theology
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.
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.
The church is the garden of God, the doctrine is the flowers of this garden, discipline is the hedge.
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
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