Quote 844
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.
Matthew Henry
Matthew Henry's Commentary7.3K
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:
The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/sustained-by-sovereign-grace-forever
The way to preserve the peace of the church is to preserve its purity.
It is easy to be religious when religion is in fashion; but it is an evidence of strong faith and resolution to swim against a stream to heaven, and to appear for God when no one else appears for Him.Matthew Henry's Commentary
The service of sin is perfect slavery; the service of God is perfect liberty.
The way of family worship is a good old way, no new thing, but the ancient usage of the saints.Commentary Gen 12:6
Human learning is both ornamental and serviceable to a gospel minister, especially for the convincing of those who are outside; for it enables him to beat them at their own weapons, and to cut off Goliath's head with his own sword.
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!
Grace is the pleasure of God to magnify the worth of God by giving sinners the right and power to delight in God without obscuring the glory of God.
The best man is more unworthy to receive anything from God than the worst can be to receive from us.
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
A life spent in the service of God and communion with Him is the most pleasant life that anyone can live in this world.
He whose head is in heaven need not fear to put his feet into the grave.
Behold, and wonder, that the great God should love such a worthless world! That the holy God should love such a wicked world with a love of good will, when he could not look upon it with any complacency.
If God does not give His people what they ask for, it is because He knows they do not need it, and that it is not for their good.
Take Jesus for your king, and by baptism swear allegiance to him; take him for your prophet, and hear him; take him for your priest, to make atonement for you.
No man will say, "There is no God" 'till he is so hardened in sin that it has
become his interest that there should be none to call him to account.
It is common for those that are farthest from God, to boast themselves most of their being near to the Church.
A modest dress is a very good thing, if it be the genuine indication of a humble heart, and is to instruct; but it is a bad thing if it be the hypocritical disguise of a proud ambitious heart, and is to deceive. Let men be really as good as they seem to be, but not seem to be better than really they are.Matthew Henry's Commentary
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)
God's children have various degrees of grace: some are little children who only feed upon the milk of the gospel; others are young men grown to maturity; others are fathers who are ready to take their degree in glory. Each has the vitality of godliness. The Scriptures speak both of the cedar and of the bruised reed: each is a plant of God's creation -each of His care; so the weakest plant in God's garden of the church is equally regarded by Him with the strongest. God can read the work of His Spirit on the soul which has received the dimmest impression.
The meditation of the excellency of grace would make us earnest in the pursuit after it. We dig for gold in the mine, we sweat for it in the furnace. Did we meditate on the worth of grace, we would dig in the mine of ordinances for it. What sweating and wrestling in prayer? We would put on a modest boldness and not take a denial.
Grace not only makes a man more a man, but it also makes him more than a man. The primitive Christians were the best of men. None were more lowly in their dispositions or more lovely in their conversation. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation. He was not a sinner among saints, but he was a saint among sinners. Who would have looked for so fair a bird in so foul a nest? Though he once acted as the sons of men do, yet he was numbered with the sons of God. A field of wheat may be good and yet have a weed in it. A saint is not free from sin—that is his burden; a saint is not free to sin—that is his blessing.
Many men are changed in a moral sense, and one may say they are become new men, but they are in heart and nature the same men still. They are not changed in a spiritual and supernatural sense, and therefore it cannot be said of them they are become new creatures. Restraining grace may cause a moral change, but it is renewing grace that must cause a saving change. Now many are under restraining grace, and so changed morally, that are not under the power of renewing grace, and so changed savingly.
The kingdom of grace yields "joy unspeakable" (1 Peter 1:8), though not glory unspeakable. We have "songs in the house of [our] pilgrimage" (Ps. 119:54). God will have us to enter upon our possession by degrees: joy enters into us before we enter into our Master's joy. We have first the daystar, then the sun. What a good Master do we serve that gives us a part of our wages ere we have done our work! While we are sowing we have peace, the conscience and contentment of a good action.
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2. Charles Spurgeon (135)
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15. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (58)
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