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.
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
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.
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
The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act.Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 3
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.
The end must be as noble as the means, or else a man may be undone for all his doings. A man's most glorious actions will at last be found to be but glorious sins if he hath made himself, and not the glory of God, the end of those actions.
Divine knowledge makes us understand the gospel, but it is divine grace which makes us live according to the gospel. Therefore, what you want in great learning supply with good living. I love preaching, and I love practicing; and I had rather hear one sermon in a day and do three good works than hear three sermons in a day and do never a good work else.
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).
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.
You will say, "Who are now under the covenant of works?" There is a vulgar prejudice abroad which supposes that the first covenant was repealed and disannulled upon the fall and that God now deals with us upon new terms, as if the covenant of grace wholly shut out the former contract, wherein they think Adam only was concerned. But this is a gross mistake because it was made not only with Adam but with all his seed. And every natural man, whilst natural, whilst merely a son of Adam, is obliged to the tenor of it. The form of the law runs universally: "Cursed is every one that"…(Gal. 3:10), which rule allows no exception but that of free grace and interest in Christ.