Quote 4796
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Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.
Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails. Weakness, with acknowledgement of it, is the fittest seat and subject for God to perfect his strength in; for consciousness of our infirmities drives us out of ourselves to him in whom our strength lies.
The Bruised Reed
God is forced to mortify sins by afflictions, because we mortify them not by the Spirit.
usually he empties such of themselves, and makes them nothing, before he will use them in any great services.The Bruised Reed (3)
The work of the ministry is not to contend with ghosts and opinions antiquated, but the errors and sins of the present time. Look, as it is the duty of Christians to spend the heat of their indignation on the main sin with which they are surprised: "I kept myself from mine iniquity" (Ps. 18:23); so must ministers chiefly bend their zeal and strength against the present guilt.
Indeed, few or none will speak against learning but those that have not so much of it as to make them understand its use. I dare not bid ministers, as some fanatics have done, burn all their books but the Bible. No, but I would exhort them to prefer it above all their other books and to direct all their other studies to furnish them with Scripture knowledge; as the bee that flies over the whole garden and brings all the honey she gets from every flower therein into her hive, so should the minister run over all his other books and reduce their notions for his help in this, as the Israelites offered up the jewels and earrings borrowed of the Egyptians to the service of the tabernacle.
My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you to feed you with the heartstrengthening bread of practical doctrine; and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination or a dry syllogistical inference.
Those ministers that give men no rest nor quietness in their sins must expect but little rest or quietness themselves. What is it for ministers to preach home to the consciences of others but to pull down the rage of the world upon their own heads?
Let us see that our knowledge of Christ is not a powerless, barren, unpractical knowledge. Oh that in its passage from our understanding to our lips it might powerfully melt, sweeten, and delight our hearts! Remember, brethren, a holy calling never saved any man without a holy heart; if our tongues only be sanctified, our whole man must be condemned. Oh, let the keepers of the vineyard look to and keep their own vineyard! We have a heaven to win or lose as well as others.
Vinedressers are rewarded according to their diligence and faithfulness, though some vines never bear nor bring forth fruit at all. As ministers are diligent and faithful, so the reward, the crown shall be given full at last. This is many a faithful minister's grief, that he takes a great deal of pains in rubbing and washing, as it were, to make souls white and clean, pure and holy, and yet they remain, after all, as black as hell; but surely their reward shall never be the less with God. The nurse looks not for her wages from the child, but from the parent.
The worst of men are in a dead sleep, and the best of men are too often in a sinful slumber; and therefore faithful ministers have need to cry aloud, they have need to be courageous and zealous, to awaken both sinners and saints, that none may go sleeping to hell. Cowardice in a minister is cruelty; if he fears the faces of men, he is a murderer of the souls of men. Smooth Stones
It were good strife among Christians, one to labor to give no offense and the other to labor to take none.
Ingratitude is the grave of all God's blessings.
If we desire the Spirit, we must wait in the way of duty, as the apostles waited many days before the Comforter came. We must also empty our souls of self-love and the love of the world and willingly entertain those crosses that bring our souls out of love with it. The children of Israel in the wilderness had not the manna till they had spent their onions and garlic; so this world must be out of request with us before we can be truly spiritual. Through grace, labor to see the excellency of spiritual things. How despicable then must all the glory of the world appear! These things, duly considered, will raise our desires more and more toward spiritual and heavenly objects.
Knowledge and affection mutually help one another; it is good to keep up our affections of love and delight by all sweet inducements and divine encouragements, for what the heart likes best the mind studies most. Those that can bring their hearts to delight in Christ know most of His ways.
The heart of a Christian is Christ's garden, and His graces are as so many sweet spices and flowers, which His Spirit blowing upon makes them to send forth a sweet savor. Therefore, keep the soul open for entertainment of the Holy Ghost, for He will bring in continually fresh forces to subdue corruption, and this most of all on the Lord's Day.
Dead stones in an arch uphold one another, and shall not living? It is the work of an angel to comfort—nay, it is the office of the Holy Ghost to be a comforter not only immediately but by breathing comfort into our hearts together with the comfortable words of others. Thus, one friend becomes an angel—nay, a God to another, and there is a sweet sight of God in the face of a friend.
There is gold in ore which God and His Spirit in us can distinguish. A carnal man's heart is like a dungeon wherein is nothing to be seen but horror and confusion. This light makes us judicious and humble upon clearer sight of God's purity and our own uncleanness and makes us able to discern the work of the Spirit in another.
In melancholy distempers, especially when there is guilt on the soul, we can find no comfort in wife, children, friends, estate, etc. It is a pitiful state when body, soul, and conscience all are distempered, but even now let a Christian look to God's nature and promises. Though he cannot live by sight, yet let him live much by faith.
If men can find no comfort and yet set themselves to teach and encourage weaker Christians, by way of reflection they receive frequently great comfort themselves. So doth God reward this duty of mutual discourse; that those things we did not so fully understand before by discourse we come to know and relish far better. This should teach us to love and often engage in holy conference, for besides the good we do to others, we shall be profited ourselves. Divine Meditations
Certainly when we undervalue mercy, especially so great a one as the communion of saints is, commonly the Lord takes it away from us till we learn to prize it to the full value. Consider well therefore the heinousness of this sin, which that you may the better conceive. First, consider it is against God's express precept, charging us not to forsake the assemblies of the saints (Heb. 10:20, 25). Again, it is against our own greatest good and spiritual solace, for by discommunicating and excommunicating ourselves from that blessed society, we deprive ourselves of the benefit of their holy conference, their godly instructions, their divine consolations, brotherly admonitions, and charitable reprehensions, and what an inestimable loss is this? Neither can we partake such profit by their prayers as otherwise we might, for as the soul in the natural body conveys life and strength to every member, as they are compacted and joined together and not as dissevered, so Christ conveys spiritual life and vigor to Christians, not as they are disjoined from but as they are united to the mystical body, the church.
The church of Christ is a common hospital wherein all are in some measure sick of some spiritual disease or other, that we should all have ground of exercising mutually the spirit of wisdom and meekness.
Let us not look so much who are our enemies as who is our Judge and Captain, nor what they threaten but what He promises; we have more for us than against us. What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory? None are here overcome but those that will not fight. Therefore, when any base fainting seizes upon us, let us lay the blame where it is to be laid.
We are weak, but we are His; we are deformed, but yet carry His image upon us. A father looks not so much at the blemishes of his child as at his own nature in him; so Christ finds matter of love from that which is His own in us. He sees His own nature in us. We are diseased, but yet His members. Whoever neglected his own members because they were sick or weak? None ever hated his own flesh. Can the head forget the members? Can Christ forget Himself? We are His fullness, as He is ours. Bruised Reed, 107
It is the greatest bondage in the world to have most freedom in ill.
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
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