Quote 4540
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A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant.
All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together.
What a wonder that two natures infinitely distant should be more intimately united than anything in the world... That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity; that a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man;
A God of unmixed blessedness is linked personally with a man of...sorrows: life incapable to die, joined to a body in that economy incapable to live without dying first; infinite purity, and a reputed sinner; eternal blessedness with a cursed nature, Almightiness and weakness, omniscience and ignorance, immutability and changeableness, incomprehensibleness and comprehensibility; that which cannot be comprehended, and that which can be comprehended; that which is entirely independent, and that which is totally dependent; the Creator forming all things, and the creature made, met together to a personal union; "The word made flesh
Power is God's hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty
The best man is more unworthy to receive anything from God than the worst can be to receive from us.
The greatest punishment inflicted upon Christ, when he stood as a sacrifice for sin, was not the act of men, but the act of God
The great objection of a penitent is, I have sinned, and I know not whether God will receive me: consider, God knows your sin better than you do, yet he kindly calls to you, and promises you as good a reception as if you had never sinned.
that principle of a greedy desire to be uncontrolled in their lusts -which induces men to a denial of providenceExistence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1
a fool is one who has lost his wisdom and right notion of God and divine things, which were communicated to man by creationExistence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1
The psalmist lays all the evil, tyranny, lust, and persecutions of men (as if the world were only for their sake) upon their neglect of God and the atheism cherished in the hearts.Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1
Love is a commanding affection, a uniting grace; it draws all the faculties of the soul to one center. The soul that loves God, when it hath to do with Him, is bound to the beloved object; it can mind nothing else during such impressions. When the affection is set to the worship of God, everything the soul hath will be bestowed upon it.
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.
Holiness can no more approve of sin than it can commit it. To be delighted with the evil in another's act contracts a guilt, as well as the commission of it; for approbation of a thing is a consent to it.
He could not be Lord of any man as a happy creature if He did not, by His power, make them happy; and He could not make them happy unless, by His grace, He made them holy.
When God seems to be turning a man into a desolate and ruinous heap, yet even then is He building and preparing him to be a more excellent structure. The gardener digs up his garden, pulls up his fences, takes up his plants, and, to the eye, seems to make a pleasant place as a waste. But we know he is about to mend it, not to mar; to plant it better and not to destroy it. So God is present even in desertions, and though He seem to annihilate or to reduce His new creation into a confused chaos, yet it is to repair its ruins and to make it more beautiful and more strong.
How sad and strange soever thy condition may seem to be, thou art not the first nor art like to be the last of the friends and saints of God whose condition this hath been or may be. Read but over the book of the Psalms. How often do you find there the saints complaining of God's hiding His face from them; casting them out, casting them off, forsaking, forgetting them; shutting out their prayers, and the like? Now this may be some comfort to thee, as it is to a man that is in a wilderness, to find the tract and footsteps of men that have gone that way before.
There may be a time when God will not be found, but no time wherein He must not be trusted.
My Lord and Savior, whom I do love unfeignedly and above all other things, having in my sense and feeling withdrawn Himself from me, I fought earnestly and labored to recover my comfort in by serious meditations and trial of mine own heart and crying unto Him upon my bed in the night, when I was most free from all other distractions.
By divine withdrawings, the soul is put upon hanging upon a naked God, a naked Christ, a naked promise. Now the soul is put upon the highest and the purest acts of faith (Isa. 63:15–16)—namely, to cleave to God, to hang upon God, and to carry it sweetly and obediently toward God—though He frowns, though He chides, though He strikes, yea, though He kills (Job 13:15).
How comfortable is it to think that our distresses, as well as our deliverances, are the fruits of infinite wisdom! Nothing is done by Him too soon or too slow, but in the true point of time, with all its due circumstances, most conveniently for His glory and our good. How wise is God to bring the glory of our salvation out of the depths of a seeming ruin and make the evils of affliction subservient to the good of the afflicted!
Envy is a denial of providence.
The hell of devils belongs to [God's] authority. They have cast themselves out of the arms of His grace into the furnace of His justice. They have by their revolt forfeited the treasure of His goodness but cannot exempt themselves from the scepter of His dominion. When they would not own Him as a Lord Father, they are under Him as a Lord Judge. They are cast out of His affection but not freed from His yoke. He rules over the good angels as His subjects, over the evil ones as His rebels. Selections
If once pardoned, thou will be always pardoned. For the first pardon Christ paid His blood; for the continuance He does but plead His blood, and we cannot be without a pardon till Christ be without a plea.
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. Thomas Brooks (113)
5. John Calvin (107)
6. John Flavel (96)
7. J.I. Packer (95)
8. William Gurnall (93)
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11. John Owen (74)
12. Thomas Manton (70)
13. A.W. Pink (68)
14. Louis Berkhof (63)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Richard Baxter (54)
20. Matthew Henry (54)
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