When love of friends turns to hatred

None prove worse enemies than those who have received the greatest kindnesses, when once they turn unkind. As the sharpest vinegar is made of the purest wine…so the highest love bestowed upon friends, being ill-digested or corrupt, turns to the most unfriendly hatred. [Abraham Wright]

Wounds of a friend are faithful

A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, than we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them. [Richard Baxter]

Let it be done in patience

Patience to the soul is as bread to the body…we eat bread with all our meats, both for health and relish; bread with flesh, bread with fish, bread with broths and fruits. Such is pateince to every virtue; we must hope with patience, and pray in pateince, and love with patience, and whatsoever good thing we do, let it be done in patience. [Thomas Adams]

On Eternity

Eternity to the godly is a day that has no sunset; eternity to the wicked is a night that has no sunrise. [Thomas Watson]

A Future hope

O! what acclamations of joy will there be, when all the children of God shall meet together, without fear of being disturbed by the antichristian and Cainish brood! [John Bunyan]

Receiving our reward

We are to receive our reward not according to our sucess, but according to our sincerity. [John Oldfield]

Peace

The godly man, when he dies, "enters into peace" (Isaiah 57:2); but while he lives, peace must enter into him. [Thomas Watson]

Earthly Riches

Earthly riches are an evil master, a treacherous servant, fathers of flattery, sons of grief, a cause of fear to those that have them, and a cause of sorrow to those that want them; and therefore, what rest is there to be found in the enjoyment of them? [Augustine]

On prayer

That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort. [John Flavel]

Spiritual renovations of the inner man

Besides those natural distemper and infirmities which accompany the decays of life, troubles of life, and in their affairs, do usually grow upon them, when they look for nothing less, but were ready to say with Job, “We shall die in our nest,” Job 29:18. So was it with Jacob, after all his hard labor and travail to provide for his family, such things fell out in it in his old age as had almost broken his heart. And oft times both persecutions and public dangers do befall them at the same season. Whilst the outward man is thus perishing, we need great supportment, that we faint not. And this is only to be had in an experience of daily spiritual renovations in the inner man. [John Owen]

Four reasons for humility

Four reasons written in the heart of an humble saint:

(1) when he looks upon another that is a sinner, he considereth that he has been worse than he.

(2) A humble saint thinks himself to be worse still.

(3) It is God that hath made it and not anything in himself.

(4) He considereth that the vilest sinner may be, in God’s good time, better than he.       [Walter Cradock]                            

Thorny Riches

Riches are compared to thorns; and indeed all the comforts the wicked enjoy, they have m or or less of the thorn in them. And indeed riches may well be called thorns; because they pierce both head and heart–the one with care of getting, and the other with grief in parting with them. The world and all the glory thereof is like a beautiful harlot: a paradise to the eye, but a purgatory to the soul. [Thomas Brooks]

He daily loads us with benefits

We are constantly exposed to peril. “Plagues and death around us fly.” God preserves us from perils to the body. Our thoughts — whither might they go? They might in a moment lead us into heresies and foul blasphemies. It is no little thing to be preserved from that spiritual pestilence that walketh both in darkness and the noonday. Glory be to God, who sends us temporal and spiritual benefits so numerous, and each one so weighty, that eye cannot say less than this, “That he daily loadeth us with his benefits, until we seem bowed down to the earth under a joyful sense of obligation to his mercy.” “He loadeth us with benefits.” [Charles Spurgeon]

A Sure Foundation

If God were to justify and save only those who are pure and upright, heaven would be empty of inhabitants. I say not this to encourage sin; but to encourage those who are grieved for their sins; who fly to the blood of the Cross for pardon, and whose prayer is that they may henceforward be renewed in the spirit of their mind and bring forth acceptable fruit unto God. Let not such be afraid to meet Him: let not such say, "How shall I stand when He appears?" For such have a Foundation to stand upon, a Foundation that cannot fail, even Jesus, the Mediator and Surety of the covenant, Christ, the Rock of Ages. He died for such. Their sins which lay like an unsurmountable impediment, or stood like a vast partition wall, and blocked up the passage to eternal life; I say He took the sins of His penitent people out of the way, nailing them to His Cross. [Augustus Toplady]

The Blessed Hope of Heaven

  O! who is able to conceive the inexpressible, inconceivable joys that are there? None but they who have tasted of them. Lord, help us to put such a value upon them here, that in order to prepare ourselves for them, we may be willing to forego the loss of all those deluding pleasures here. [John Bunyan]

The Christian Faith

The evidence for Christian truth is not exhaustive, but it is sufficient. Too often, Christianity has not been tried and found wanting — it has been found demanding, and not tried…. [John Baillie ]

Protecting ones Christian armour

The Christian’s armour decays two ways: either by violent battery, when the Christian is overcome by temptation to sin; or else by neglecting to furbish and scour with the use of those means which are as oil to keep it clean and bright. [William Gurnall]

Strivings and expectations

Strive greatly to have and to exercise a good conscience towards God and men; to commit thy soul, life and cause to the Lord; and then expect the  worst of men, and the best of Christ. [Vavasor Powell]

Enduring till the End

Mercy hath a heaven, and justice a hell, to display itself to eternity, but long-suffering hath only a short-lived earth. [Henry Smith]

Pride-The enemy of faith

The more godly a man is, and the more graces and blessings of God are upon him, the more need he hath to pray, because Satan is busiest against him, and because he is readiest to be puffed up with a conceited holiness. [Richard Greenham]

Secret sins

Secret sins are more dangerous to the person in some respects than open sins. For a man doth, by his art of sinning, deprive himself of the help of his sinfulness. Like him who will carry his wound covered, or who bleeds inwardly, help comes not in because the danger is not descried or known. If  a man’s sin breaks out there is a minister at hand, a friend near, and others to reprove, to warn or direct; but when he is the artificer of his lusts, he bars himself of all public remedy.  [Obadiah Sedgwick]

Setting the Word of God before us

He doth not bid us take a taste of all sins and vanities, as Solomon did, to try them: for they are tried already; but that we should set the Word of God always before us like a rule, and believe nothing but that which it teacheth, love nothing but that which it prescribeth, hate nothing but that which it forbideth, do nothing but that which it commandeth, and then we try all things by the Word. [Henry Smith]

The Truth no matter the cost

Solomon bids us (Prov 23:23) to buy the truth, but doth not tell us what it must cost, because we must get it though it be never so dear. We must love it both shining and scorching. Every parcel of truth is precious as the filings of gold; we must either live with it, or die for it.  [Thomas Brooks ]

Feasting aright on the Word

Many come to the Word only to feast their ears; they like the melody of the voice, the mellifluous sweetness of the expression, the newness of the notion (Acts 17:21). This is to love the garnishing of the dish more than the food; this is to desire to be pleased rather than edified. Like a woman that paints her face, but neglects her health. [Thomas Watson]

Being humble in doing good

Let us take care to be and to do as we should, and then for noise and report, let it be good or ill as God will send it… if we seek to be in the mouths of men, to dwell in the tank and speech of men, God will abhor us…Therefore let us labour to be good in secret. Christians should be as minerals, rich in the depth of the earth. [Richard Sibbes]