Quote 4369
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Besides public ordinances, we should give ourselves to spiritual exercises in secret.
All the time we can spare from our necessary, civil, and natural actions should be employed in calling to mind what we have seen, heard, or felt of God.
We are continually thinking of whatsoever we love.
Love causes the soul to be more where it loves than where it lives.Works 7:479
A child of God findeth a greater treasure in one chapter of the Bible than worldly men in all their lands and honours and large revenues.
You can never part with sin soon enough; it is a cursed inmate, that will surely bring mischief upon the soul that harbours it. It will set its own dwelling on fire.Works 7:147
God gave the Spirit to the rest of the apostles, but he gave the purse to the son of perdition.
The church is live a river. If it gets wider instead of deeper it will lose its power.
What a man delights in he will be talking of.Works 7:476
The whole work of sanctification, from its first step to its last period, is all of grace, all must be ascribed to God's free goodness.
To own and stand up for a hated and despised truth will bring more comfort to our souls than all the pleasure the wicked have in their sensual delights.
The devil seeks to weaken our opinion of God's goodness.
To humble us in our converses with God. He is good, but we are evil; he is heaven, but we are hell; he is perfect, but we are poor defective creatures. Therefore in all our approaches to him we should come the more humbly to him, and go the more holy from him; for it is sad when we come to the good God, and are never the better. If we go to the fire, we expect to be warm. Oh! when you come to the fountain of goodness, we should come away better.https://www.monergism.com/rich-young-ruler-exposition-mark-1017-27-ebook
As the excellency of his nature giveth him a fitness and a sufficiency for the government of mankind, his creation, preservation, and other benefits give him a full right to make what laws he pleaseth, and to call man to an account whether he hath kept them, yea or no.Works, Volume 10
Men are ready to anger, slow to mercy, quickly enflamed, and hardly appeased; but it is quite contrary with God.
The kingdom of grace yields "joy unspeakable" (1 Peter 1:8), though not glory unspeakable. We have "songs in the house of [our] pilgrimage" (Ps. 119:54). God will have us to enter upon our possession by degrees: joy enters into us before we enter into our Master's joy. We have first the daystar, then the sun. What a good Master do we serve that gives us a part of our wages ere we have done our work! While we are sowing we have peace, the conscience and contentment of a good action.
Works are an evidence of true faith. Graces are not dead, useless habits; they will have some effects and operations when they are weakest and in their infancy. It is said of Paul as soon as he was regenerate, "Behold, he prayeth" (Acts 9:11). Newborn children will cry, at least before they are able to go. This is the evidence by which we must judge, and this is the evidence by which Christ will judge. Riches
The divine jealousy will not brook a rival. God delights in this honor of being the sole author of all our good and therefore cannot endure that we should give it to another. When God was about to work miracles by Moses's hand, He first made it leprous (Ex. 4:6).
There is no wrinkle on the brow of eternity.
a sin that breaks both tables at once. It begins in discontent with God and ends in injury to man. It is the root of hatred against godliness. They that are at the bottom of the hill fret at those that are at the top, and men malign what they will not imitate. Wicked men would have all upon the same level.
Some commands of God, as those which are inward, are contrary to our affections; others, as those which enforce duties external, are contrary to our interests. But we must take Christ's yoke (Matt. 11:29). A main thing to be looked at in our first applications to God is this: Are we willing to give up ourselves to the will of God without reservation? Can I subject all without any hesitancy and reluctance of thought to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)?
There are times of desertion when graces are not visible. In darkness we can neither see black nor white. In times of great dejection and discouragement, the work of a Christian is not to try, but believe: "Let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God" (Isa. 50:10). It is most seasonable to encourage the soul to acts of faith and to reflect upon the absolute promises rather than conditional. The absolute promises were intended by God as attractives and encouragements to such distressed souls. There is a time when the soul is apt to slumber and to be surprised with a careless security; then it is good to awake it by a serious trial. To a close carnal spirit an absolute promise is as poison; to a dejected spirit, as cheering wine. When the soul lies under fear and sense of guilt, it is unable to judge; therefore, examination only increases the trouble. But again, when the heart is drowsy and careless, trial is most seasonable, and it is best to reflect upon the conditional promises, that we may look after the qualifications expressed in them ere we take comfort.
To preach the law, in order to Christ; to labor to make men that lie in their spiritual lethargies to know and feel their disease, that they may see the need of and embrace the blessed Physician— is not this rational? I think all men naturally stand under a covenant of works, and to make men know what that state is, I think, is very requisite if ever we would make them feel the necessity and know the worth of a covenant of grace; yet I know not how it comes about. Of late years this kind of preaching is laid by. When I consider the people, then I can see their reasons why they love it not; but when I think of the ministry, I know not why ministers should so gratify the corruptions of people. So the law were rightly preached, I never knew it offend any godly and judicious Christian. Real Christian
Conscience must be satisfied with something; therefore men usually please themselves with so much of obedience as is least contrary to their interests and inclinations and have not an entire uniform respect to the whole law. As if a servant should think himself dutiful when he goes to a feast or a fair when his master bids him, when in the meantime he declines errands of less trouble but of more service; whereas in such matters he does not obey his master's will, but his own inclination. So in commands easy and compliant with our own humors and designs, we do not so much serve God as our own interests, and there is more of design than of duty and religion in such actions; and therefore they lose their reward with God.
Confession is an act of mortification; it is, as it were, the vomit of the soul. It breeds a dislike of the sweetest morsels when they are cast up in loathsome ejections. Sin is sweet in commission, but bitter in the remembrance. God's children find that their hatred is never more keen and exasperated against sin than in confessing. Exposition James
A man is known by his custom and the course of his endeavors what is his business. If a man be constantly, easily, and frequently carried away to sin, it discovers a habit of soul and the temper of his heart. Meadows may be overflowed, but marsh ground is drowned with the return of every tide. A child of God may be carried away and act contrary to the bent and inclination of the new nature, but when men are drowned and overcome with the return of every temptation and carried away, it argues a habit of sin.
Weariness makes way for wandering.
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