False faith makes lies her refuge; but true faith makes God’s Word her shield and buckler. — Huntington.
Go on in the strength of the Lord, and put Christ’s love to the trial, and put upon it burdens, and then it will appear love indeed. We employ not His love, and therefore we know it not. — Rutherford.
Some years ago, a friend of a clergyman still living, said to him, “You have a very large family, Sir; you have just as many children as the patriarch Jacob had.” “True,” answered the good old divine, “and I have Jacob’s God to provide for them.”
A man should never be ashamed of owning he has been wrong, for it is but saying in other words, he is so much wiser today than he was yesterday.
The growth of a believer is not like a mushroom, but like an oak, which increases slowly indeed, but surely. Many suns, showers, and frosts pass upon it before it comes to perfection; and in winter, when it seems dead, it is gathering strength at the root. — Newton.
And shall we not be willing to bear reproach for Him who made Himself of no reputation for us? Shall we not readily part with our reputation, and follow Him without the camp, bearing His reproach? Fear it not; it should rather be esteemed a jewel that adorns us. The cross of Jesus is our best ornament: God forbid we should glory in anything except in that cross.
You would have us abstain from the mention of these grand doctrines (election and predestination), and leave our people in the dark as to their election of God: the consequence of which would be that every man would bolster himself with a delusive hope of a share in that salvation which is supposed to lie open to all. Thus genuine humility, and the practical fear of God would be kicked out of doors. — Luther.
The same Spirit which endueth the elect with the knowledge of the truth, and sanctifieth them, giveth them therewith all the gift of perseverance to continue to the end. — Old Bible, 1610.
As in a family, where there is much business to be done, even the little children bear a part, according to their strength: “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, the women knead the dough”; so in the family of Christ, the weakest Christian is serviceable to the strong. — Flavel.
Noah was warned. This warning he believed, and saw the destruction coming on. It was attended with fear, which moved him to prepare an ark. Without faith and fears we never begin in truth to look out for escape from the wrath to come. The ark as a place of safety or security, may be a type of Christ, though in other respects a type of the church. And faith, which is God’s gift, and fear, of His own implanting, both act and move by God’s Word, and will never suffer the soul that is possessed of them to be at rest, till it find security from wrath and ruin in Christ Jesus. — Beeman.
I am weary of the instability of the streams. O let me go to the Fountain. When I am saying, I shall die in my nest, my nest is soon fired about my ears, and turned to ashes. — D.
As winds and thunders clear the air; so doth afflictions the soul of a Christian.