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God is never, never, never obligated to be merciful to sinners. That is the point we must stress if we are to grasp the full measure of God's grace.Chosen by God (26)
Marriage is called a yoke, too heavy for one alone to bear; therefore, each had a mutual help, a wife. In the participation of good, compassion of evil, in health the best delight, in sickness the best comfort; the sole companion to whom we may communicate our joys and into whose bosom we unload our sorrows. Thus are our griefs lessened, our joys enlarged, our hearts solaced.
Mercies come from God as returns of prayer, when they make you more to rejoice in the God that hears your prayers and gives you the mercy than in the mercy you receive from God.
It was a great mercy that Hannah had after her many prayers and long waiting, a son; but a greater that she had a heart to give up her son again to God, who gave him to her. To have estate, health, or any other enjoyment upon waiting on God for the same is mercy, but not to be compared with that blessing which sanctifies the heart to use them for God's glory.
There is a threefold mercy in God: preventing mercy, which steps between us and trouble; delivering mercy, which takes us out of the hand of trouble; and sparing mercy, which though it do not prevent nor deliver, yet it mitigates, allays, and graciously moderates our troubles. And though sparing mercy be desirable and sweet, yet it is the least and lowest sort of mercy that God exercises toward any.
Compare thy mercies and afflictions together. Have not mercies flowed in upon thee like a flood, whereas afflictions have fallen upon thee but like drops? For one affliction, thou hast had an hundred mercies.
This is certainly greater than any affliction, that you have the day of grace and salvation, that you are not now in hell. This is a greater mercy, that you have the sound of the gospel yet in your ears, that you have the use of your reason. This is a greater mercy than your afflictions, that you have the use of your limbs, your senses; that you have the health of your bodies. Health of body is a greater mercy than poverty is an affliction; there is no man that is rich but if he be wise, if he hath a sickly body, he would part with all his riches that he might have his health. Therefore thy mercies are more than thy afflictions.
Mercies make a humble soul glad but not proud. A humble soul is lowest when his mercies are highest. He is least when he is greatest. He is lowest when he is highest. He is most poor when he is most rich. Nothing melts like mercy; nothing draws like mercy; nothing humbles like mercy
But we are freed by Christ from the law? I answer, there is a double obligation of the law: the obligation of penalty and the obligation of duty. We are freed from the obligation of penalty but not from the obligation of duty. "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. 2:19). He has taken from the law all power to condemn us but not all power to rule us. We must still serve God according to His law or He will not save us according to His gospel. Our faith in the Lord Jesus and our obedience to the law must be joined together, as Moses and Christ met upon the mountain. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
The good man is weary of doing nothing, for nothing is so laborious as idleness.
Hope is a virgin of a fair and clear countenance; her proper seat is upon earth, her proper object is in heaven; of a quick and piercing eye that can see the glory of God, the mercy of Christ, the society of saints and angels, the joys of paradise through all the clouds and orbs, as Stephen saw heaven opened and Jesus standing in the holy place. Her eye is so fixed on the blessedness above that nothing in the world can remove it. Faith is her attorney general, prayer her solicitor, patience her physician, charity her almoner, thankfulness her treasurer, confidence her vice admiral, the promise of God her anchor, peace her chair of state, and eternal glory her crown.
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.
God is an essence spiritual, simple, infinite, most holy. (1) An essence subsisting in Himself and by Himself, not receiving it from any other; all other things subsist in Him and by Him: "in him we live, move, and have our being." (2) Spiritual: He hath not a body nor any parts of a body, but is a spirit invisible, indivisible. (3) Simple: we are all compounded; God is without composition of matter, form, or parts. (4) Infinite: and that in respect [1] of time, without beginning or ending; [2] of place, excluded nowhere, included nowhere; within all places, without all places. (5) Most holy; His wisdom, goodness, mercy, love are infinite.
Faith is generally an acknowledgment and assent to the truth (James 2:19). It is either common to all: such is an historical faith which is in the devils themselves, and temporary faith that will always keep the warm side of the hedge, never windward. Christ is little beholden to that faith, and that faith shall be little beholden to Christ.Meditations upon the Creed
While the wine is in thy hand, thou art a man; when it is in thy head, thou art become a beast. The drunkard cries to his fellow, "Do me reason," but the drink answers, "I will leave thee no reason; scarce so much as a beast, for they will drink no more than they need." Diogenes being urged to drink immoderately cast the drink on the ground. Being reproved for that loss, he answered, "If I had drunk it, I had lost both the drink and myself."
Death takes away difference between king and beggar and tumbles both the knight and the pawn into one bag.
We walk in this world as a man in a field of snow; all the way appears smooth, yet cannot we be sure of any step. All are like actors on a stage; some have one part, and some another. Death is still busy among us. Here drops one of the players. We bury him with sorrow, and to our scene again. Then falls another—yea all, one after another—till death be left alone upon the stage. Death is that damp which puts out all the dim lights of vanity. Yet man is easier to believe that all the world shall die than to suspect himself.
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8. George Swinnock (83)
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11. A.W. Pink (68)
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16. B.B. Warfield (59)
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
3. J.C. Ryle (117)
4. John Calvin (107)
5. J.I. Packer (93)
6. Thomas Brooks (91)
7. John Piper (87)
8. George Swinnock (83)
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11. A.W. Pink (68)
12. William Gurnall (63)
13. Louis Berkhof (63)
14. Thomas Manton (60)
15. C.S. Lewis (59)
16. B.B. Warfield (59)
17. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
18. R.C. Sproul (55)
19. Heinrich Bullinger (53)
20. Matthew Henry (51)
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