Quote 4917

We are proud creatures, full of self-confidence, and therefore God, by strange and unexpected providences doth hedge up our way with thorns and wall up our path with hewn stones, brings to despair even of life, bereaves us of counsel, drives us from all our own shifts and policies, brings us under the very sentence of death that we might not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead. He unbottoms us by despair, convinces us of our impotence and folly, shows us what babies and fools we are in ourselves, that in all our future hazards and fears we might know nothing but God. Thomas Case

1.8K

Thomas Case Confidence

Other Quotes from the Author & Topic

Lip praise is good, but life praise is better.

Thomas Case

Praise Worship

Afflictions make heaven appear as heaven indeed. To the weary, it is rest. To the banished, home. To the scorned and reproached, glory. To the captive, liberty. To the soldier, conquest; and to the conqueror, it is a crown of life, of righteousness and of glory. To the hungry, it is hidden manna. To the thirsty, the fountain of life. To the grieved, fullness of joy. And to the mourner, pleasures forevermore. In a word, to them that have lain upon the dunghill and kept their integrity, it is a throne on which they shall sit and reign with Christ forever and ever.

Thomas Case

Heaven

In a word, suffering time is the time wherein God makes His attributes visible—"The Lord will be a refuge to His people, a refuge in time of trouble." And what follows? "And they that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee." In the school of affliction God reads lectures upon His attributes and expounds Himself unto His people so that many times they come to know more of God or more experimentally by half a year's sufferings than by many years' sermons.

Thomas Case

Suffering

Beware of self-confidence. Judas was a very confident man of himself. Last of all Judas said, "Master, is it I?" (Matt. 26:25). But he that was last in the suspicion was first in the transgression. "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool," saith Solomon (Prov. 28:26). It will be your wisdom to keep a jealous eye upon your own hearts and still suspect their fairest pretenses.

John Flavel

Confidence

Prosperity is the nurse of atheism.

Thomas Case

Prosperity Atheism

Faith uses means but trusts God; obediently closes with the providence of means but sweetly leaves the providence of success to God.

Thomas Case

Faith

Make God your choice and not your necessity, and labor to maintain such constant converse with Him that when you die, you may change your place only but not your company.

Thomas Case

Communion with God

By chastisement man is made more attentive unto God. In prosperity the world makes such a noise in a man's ears that God cannot be heard. "He speaks indeed once and twice" again and again very often, "yet man perceives it not." He is so busy in the crowd of worldly affairs that God is not heeded.

Thomas Case

Correction Chastisement

It is the great mistake and folly of men that they make more haste to get their afflictions removed than sanctified.

Thomas Case

Affliction Sanctification

Behold I show you a mystery! Sin brought affliction into the world, and God makes affliction to carry sin out of the world.

Thomas Case

Suffering Affliction Sin

Affliction is God's forge wherein He softens the iron heart.

Thomas Case

Suffering Affliction