I desire to cast my crown at the feet of Jesus, and to cry grace! grace! Dear Sir, what a charming word is that? I am sure I can freely own, that all my salvation is of grace, unmerited, distinguishing, electing grace!
Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are moistened, as soon might you expect the lion of the wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any confession, or offer any repentance that shall be accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the heart.
You need grace! But someone says if you throw that much grace around it will be a liscence for sin. Only among the unconverted Church members. Oh they will take it as an excuse for sin. The genuinely converted will say this, if grace be such. If it be so large and so wide... depths I cannot sound. Then oh let me be holy! Unknown
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
Those who suppose that the doctrine of God's grace tends to encourage moral laxity are simply showing that, in the most literal sense, they do not know what they are talking about. For love awakens love in return; Knowing God (The Grace of God, 152)
The Christian is not to pray for an immunity from all temporal sufferings. There is no foundation
for such a prayer in the promise, and what God thinks not fit to promise, we must not be bold to ask.
God had one Son without sin, but none in this life without suffering.
The Christian's armor will rust, except it be furbished with the oil of prayer. What the key is to the watch, prayer is to our graces; it winds them up and sets them going.
Some commands of God cannot be obeyed without much self-denial because they cross us in that which our own wills are carried forth very strongly to desire, so that we must deny our will before we can do the will of God. Now a temptation comes very forcibly when it runs with the tide of our own wills.
The testimony of the church is highly to be reverenced because to it are these oracles of God delivered to be kept as a sacred deposit; yea, it is called "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15) and the candlestick (Rev. 1:12) from whence the light of the Scriptures shines forth into the world. But who will say that the proclamation of a prince hath its authenticity from the pillar it hangs on in the market cross or that the candle hath its light from the candlestick! The office of the church is ministerial, to publish and make known the word of God; but not magisterial and absolute to make it Scripture or unmake it, as she is pleased to allow or deny.
The devil is a great student in divinity and makes no other use of his Scripture knowledge than may serve his turn by sophistry to do the Christian a mischief, either by drawing him into sin or into despair for sinning, like some wrangling barrister who gets what skill he can in the law merely to make him the more able to put honest men to trouble by his vexatious suit.
The Christian wrestles not with his naked corruptions, but with Satan in them. Were there no devil, yet we should have our hands full in resisting the corruptions of our own hearts, but the access of this enemy makes the battle more terrible because he heads them, who is a captain so skillful and experienced. Our sin is the engine, Satan is the engineer; lust the bait, Satan the angler. When a soul is enticed by his own lusts, he is said to be tempted (James 1:14) because both Satan and our own lusts concur to the completing the sin.
Many have yielded to go a mile with Satan that never intended to go two, but when once on the way have been allured further and further, till at last they know not how to leave his company.
In handling this point of Satan's subtlety, we shall consider him in his two main designs and therein show you his wiles and policies. His first main design is to draw into sin. The second is to accuse, vex, and trouble the saint for sin.
Pride makes a man incapable of receiving counsel. Nebuchadnezzar's mind is said to be "hardened in pride" (Dan. 5:20). There is no reasoning with a proud man; he castles himself in his own opinion of himself and there stands upon his defense against all arguments that are brought.
Be humble when thou art most holy. Which way soever pride works (as thou shalt find it like the wind, sometimes at one door and sometimes at another), resist it. Nothing more baneful to thy holiness. It turns righteousness into hemlock, holiness into sin. Never art thou less holy than when puffed up with the conceit of it.
A man may be so very zealous in prayer and painstaking in preaching, and all the while pride is the master whom he serves, though in God's livery. It can take sanctuary in the holiest actions and hide itself under the skirt of virtue itself. Thus, while a man is exercising his charity, pride may be the idol in secret for which he lavished out his gold so freely. It is hard starving this sin; there is nothing almost but it can live on.