Quote 4554
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A sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it.
He who is his own teacher, is sure to have a fool for his master!
The Christian must always be at war. If he has peace with sin, he is at war with God.
If you allow your love of creature comforts — or even your pleasure in family and loved ones — to outrun your love for the Lord, you cannot be a victorious soldier for Christ.The Christian in Complete Armour, 1:72
The layman has a large field in which he may minister to his fellow man, even if he is not called to full time ministry.Christian in Complete Armour 1:300
God is wise to conceal the succors He intends in the several changes of thy life, that so He may draw thy heart into an entire dependence on His faithful promise. Thus, to try the metal of Abraham's faith, He let him go on till his hand was stretched forth, and then He comes to his rescue. Christ sends His disciples to sea but stays behind Himself on a design to try their faith and show His love. Comfort thyself, therefore, with this: though thou cannot see thy God in the way, yet thou shalt find Him in the end.
The wisdom of God: there was great and infinite wisdom showed in creating the world and ruling it by His wise providence, but what is that to the wisdom that is showed in Christ? The wisdom that reconciled justice and mercy, the wisdom that punished sin and pardoned the sinner? How wonderful and unsearchable is that wisdom that by the fall of man raised him to a greater height of happiness than ever he had before?
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!
By wisdom, I mean that attribute in God whereby He orders and manages whatsoever He takes in hand by the best means, in the best manner, and to the best end that possibly can be imagined, so that it is impossible for us or, I may say, for Himself too to find out better means to make use of, a better way to go in, or a better end to aim at than Himself makes use of, goes in, and aims at in everything that ever did or ever shall come from Him.
One great part of justice consists in a faithful and punctual performance of promises. He is a just man that keeps his word. And can God be a just God if He doth not? The word is gone out of His mouth that He will forgive such. Yea, He is willing to be accounted just or unjust by us as He makes performance thereof. See where He pledges His attribute upon this very account: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). He doth not say "merciful" but "just," as the attribute which we fear most should vote against us; this, He would have us know, is bound for the performance of the promise. It was mercy in God to make the promise, but justice to perform what mercy hath promised.
The highest created throne that God can sit in is the soul of a believer.
How can God stoop lower than to come and dwell with a poor, humble soul, which is more than if He had said such a one should dwell with Him? For a beggar to live at court is not so much as the king to dwell with him in his cottage. Yet this promise is ushered in with the most magnificent titles: "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit" (Isa. 57:15).
We fear man so much because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. Complete Armour
True faith on the promise works obedience to the commmand.Christian in Complete Armour
Election indeed is first in order of divine acting—God chooses before we believe, yet faith is first in our acting—we must believe before we can know we be elected; yea, by believing we know it. The husbandman knows it is spring by the sprouting of the grass, though he hath no [astronomy] to know the position of the heavens; thou mayest know thou art elect as surely by a work of grace in thee as if thou hadst stood by God's elbow when He writ thy name in the Book of Life. It had been presumption for David to have thought he should have been king till Samuel anointed him, but then none at all.
Beware of curiosity. He is half gone into error that vainly covets novelties and listens after every newfangled opinion.
The devil's empire is confined to place as well as time: he is the ruler of this lower world, not of the heavenly. The highest the devil can go is the air, called the prince thereof, as being the utmost marches of his empire; he hath nothing to do with the upper world. Heaven fears no devil, and therefore its gates stand always open.
Thou art young; thou canst not therefore say thou shalt not die as yet. Alas! Measure the coffins in the churchyard and thou wilt find some of thy length. Young and old are within the reach of death's scythe. Old men, indeed, go to death; their age calls for it. But young men cannot hinder death's coming unto them.
You must know conscience is a faculty that is corrupted as much as any other by nature and is very often made use of by Satan to deceive both good and bad, godly and ungodly. Many that know their consciences, they say, speak peace to them will be found merely cheated and gulled when the books shall be opened; no such discharge will then be found entered in the book of the word as conscience hath put into their hand. And many gracious souls who passed their days in a continual fear of their spiritual state and were kept chained in the dark dungeon of a troublesome conscience shall then be acquitted and have their action against Satan for false imprisonment and accusing their consciences to the disturbing their peace.
Converse with the saints that have the Spirit of God in them. They that would learn a foreign language associate with men of the country whose natural tongue it is. Wouldst thou have God and learn to speak heaven's language? Associate with those who by reason of their heavenly nature will be speaking of the things of God. It is true, they cannot propagate their spiritual nature; but it is as true that the Spirit of God may take the gracious discourses which they breathe forth the means of quickening thee. While thou art with such, thou walkest in the Spirit's company.https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2025/09/the-grace-of-christian-fellowship/
Liberty is the Diana of our times. O what apologies are made for some suspicious practices: long hair; gaudy, garish apparel; spotted faces; naked breasts! These have been called to the bar in former times and censured by sober and solid Christians as things at least suspicious and of no good report, but now they have hit on a more favorable jury that find them not guilty; yea, many are so fond of them that they think Christian liberty is wronged in their censure. Professors are so far from a holy jealousy that should make them watch their hearts, lest they go too far, that they stretch their consciences to come up to the full length of their tether, as if he were the brave Christian that could come nearest the pit of sin and not fall in.Christian in Complete Armour, 306
Suppose a king's son should get out of a besieged city where he had left his wife and children, whom he loves as his own soul, and these all ready to die by sword or famine if supply came not the sooner. Could this prince, when he arrived at his father's house, please himself with the delights of the court and forget the distress of his family? Or rather would he not come post to his father, having their cries and groans always in his ears, and before he eat or drink do his errand to his father and entreat him, if ever he loved him, that he would send all the force of his kingdom to raise the siege rather than any of his dear relations should perish?
why do you let your souls from their work, make them idle and rest from their burdens, by telling them of long life while death chops in upon you unawares?Christian in Complete Armour, 179
Least doers are great boasters.
Thou a Christian and carry hellfire about thee! How can it be? When we see a child furious and revengeful who comes of merciful parents, we…say we wonder of whom he got his currish, churlish disposition; his father and mother were not so. Who learns thee, O Christian, to be so revengeful and unmerciful? Thou hast it not of thy heavenly Father, I am sure.Gems, 19
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