Pirates do not use to set upon poor empty vessels; and beggars need not fear the thief. Those that have most of God, and are most rich in grace— shall be most assaulted by Satan, who is the greatest and craftiest pirate in the world.
God will have nothing to do with proud persons, he will never dwell with them, he will never keep house with them.
He that dwells in the highest heavens, will never dwell in a haughty heart.
For a close, remember this, that your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all!Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Hell will be filled with people who didn't drink, didn't cuss, and may have even been baptized. Why? Because not one of those things make someone a Christian.
The main reason why men dote upon the world, and damn their souls to get the world, is, because they are not acquainted with a greater glory!Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Afflictions are God's furnace, by which he cleanses his people from their dross. Affliction is a fire to purge out our dross, and to make virtue shine. Afflictions are medicines which heal soul diseases, better than all the remedies of physicians.Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices
Holiness is the very picture of God, and certainly no hand can carve that excellent picture but the Spirit of God. Holiness is the divine nature, and none can impart that to man but the Spirit; the Spirit is the great principle of holiness.
The damned in hell are under easeless and endless sufferings because they would have sinned always if they could have lived always. Wicked men would have no end of their lives here; they would live forever that they might sin forever. Therefore the Lord giveth them a life, not such a one as they would have but such a one as they deserve to have, which is indeed a death forever; wicked men shall die eternally for sin because they would have lived eternally in sin.
They say smelling of the earth is healthful for the body and taking in the scent of this sulphurous pit, by frequent meditation, cannot but be as wholesome for the soul. O Christian, be sometimes walking in the company of those scriptures which set out the state of the damned in hell and their exquisite torments. This is the true house of mourning, and the going into it by serious meditation is a sovereign means to make the living lay it to heart; and laying it to heart, there is the less fear that thou wilt throw thyself by thy impenitency into this uncomfortable place who art offered so fair a mansion in heaven through faith and repentance.
Many among us, I think, would be content if there were such a law that might tie up ministers' mouths from scaring them with their sins and the miseries that attend their unreconciled state. The most are more careful to run from the discourse of their misery than to get out of the danger of it, are more offended with the talk of hell than troubled for that sinful state that shall bring them thither.
Satan labors to put off the sinner with delays. Floating, flitting thoughts of repenting he fears not; he can give sinners leave to talk what they will do so he can beg time and by his art keep such thoughts from coming to a head and ripening into a perfect resolution. Few are in hell but thought of repenting.
Could the damned forget the way they went into hell, how oft the Spirit of God was wooing, and how far they were overcome by the conviction of it—in a word, how many turns and returns there were in their journey forward and backward, what possibilities—yea, probabilities—they had for heaven when on earth. Were but some hand so kind as to blot these tormenting passages out of their memories, it would ease them wonderfully.
Many have declared that all the torments in the world are nothing to the wrath of God upon the conscience. What is the worm that never dies but the efficacy of a guilty conscience? This worm feeds upon and gnaws the very inwards, the tender and most sensible part of man, and is the principal part of hell's horror.
O sinners, consider when you are sinning, you are dancing about the mouth of hell. If the Lord should but snap in sunder the slender thread of your lives, you would presently fall into hell. Men think the pleasures of sin very sweet; the Lord knows they are bitterness in the latter end.
God never yet sent any man to hell for sin to whom sin has commonly been the greatest hell in this world. God has but one hell, and that is for those to whom sin has been commonly a heaven in this world. That man that hates sin and that daily enters his protest against sin—that man shall never be made miserable by sin hereafter.