The duty of heavenly meditation

There is a duty, which, if it were exercised, would dispel all cause of melancholy: I mean heavenly meditation and contemplation of the things to which the true Christian religion tends. If we did but walk closely with God one hour in a day in this duty, O what influence would it have upon the whole day besides, and, duly performed, upon the whole of life! [John Janeway]

Mercy and love of God

 

Redeeming love deserves our highest admiration and most humble acknowledgments.   

The love of God discovered in our redemption, is the most powerful persuasive to repentance.   

The transcendent love that God hath expressed in our redemption by Christ should kindle in us a reciprocal affection to him. 

What an high provocation is it to despise redeeming mercy, and to defeat that infinite goodness which hath been at such expense for our recovery.  [William Bates]

 

Death is a great business

 Some will have hearty desires to die, and yet when death cometh, they will be as unwilling to die as any. It hath been observed, that some who have much desire to die, when death came, have cried out, O spare a little, that I may recover strength, etc.

There is a great difference between a desire to die, and death itself. It is an easy thing to desire to die, but it is a very great business to meet with death, and to look it in the face when it cometh. We think death (ere it come near us) to be but children’s play, but when we meet with it, it maketh us change our thoughts, for it is a great business to die. [Andrew Gray]

The Swaddling bands of Jesus

Christ is the sum of the whole Bible, prophesied, typified, prefigured, exhibited, demonstrated, to be found in every leaf, almost in every line, the Scriptures being as it were the swaddling  bands of the child Jesus. [Thomas Adams]

Good words should match a good life

Good words are vain where there is no good life. Let not Ministers think that their golden words shall do so much good as their leaden lives shall do hurt.… As no man is more honourable than a learned and holy minister, so none is more contemptible in this world, none more miserable for that to come than he who by his loose and lewd life doth scandalize his doctrine. [William Perkins]

God's call to all to re-TURN

It is the unchangeable law of God, that the wicked shall live, if they will but turn; God takes pleasure in men’s conversion and salvation, but not in their death or damnation…; This is a most certain truth, which…God…hath confirmed… solemnly by His oath; The Lord doth redouble His commands and persuasions to the wicked to turn; The Lord condescendth to reason the case with them, and asketh the wicked, why they die? If after all this, the wicked will not return, it is not long of God that they perish, but of themselves.. they die because they will die.[Richard Baxter]

A Call to the Unconverted

God's call to all to re-TURN

It is the unchangeable law of God, that the wicked shall live, if they will but turn; God takes pleasure in men’s conversion and salvation, but not in their death or damnation…; This is a most certain truth, which…God…hath confirmed… solemnly by His oath; The Lord doth redouble His commands and persuasions to the wicked to turn; The Lord condescendth to reason the case with them, and asketh the wicked, why they die? If after all this, the wicked will not return, it is not long of God that they perish, but of themselves.. they die because they will die.[Richard Baxter]

A Call to the Unconverted

Conscience is not the standard to judge by

Make not your own judgments or consciences your law, or the maker of your duty; which is but the discerner of the law of God, and of the duty which he maketh you, and of your own obedience or disobedience to him.
There is a dangerous error grown too common in the world [it is commoner still today] that a man is bound to do every thing which his conscience telleth him is the will of God; and that every man must obey his conscience, as if it were the lawgiver of the world; whereas, indeed, it is not ourselves, but God, that is our lawgiver. And conscience is … appointed … only to discern the law of God, and call upon us to observe it: and an erring conscience is not to be obeyed, but to be better informed.… [Richard Baxter]

Practicing as we preach

Unto him that would treat of it in a due manner, it is required that he weigh every thing he asserts in his own mind and experience, and not dare to propose that unto others which he doth not abide by himself, in the most intimate recesses of his mind, under his nearest approaches unto God, in his surprisals with dangers, in deep afflictions, in his preparations for death, and in his most humble contemplations of the infinite distance between God and him  [John Owen]

God's court within us

To clear this further concerning the nature of conscience know that God hath set up in a man a court, and there is in man all that are in a court.

• 1. There is a register to take notice of what we have done.… The conscience keeps diaries. It sets down everything. It is not forgotten, though we think it is … there is a register that writes it down. Conscience is the register.

• 2. And then there are witnesses. ‘The testimony of conscience.’ Conscience doth witness, this have I done, this I have not done.

• 3. There is an accuser with the witnesses. The conscience, it accuseth, or excuseth.

• 4. And then there is the judge. Conscience is the judge. There it doth judge, this is well done, this is ill done.

• 5. Then there is an executioner, and conscience is that too. Upon accusation and judgment, there is punishment. The first punishment is within a man alway before he come to hell. The punishment of conscience, it is a prejudice [i.e., a pre-judgement] of future judgment. There is a flash of hell presently [i.e., in the present] after an ill act.… If the understanding apprehend dolorous things, then the heart smites, as David’s ‘heart smote him.’ (2 Sam 24:5).… The heart smites with grief for the present, and fear for the time to come.

God hath set and planted in man this court of conscience, and it is God’s hall, as it were, where he keeps his first judgment … his assizes. And conscience doth all the parts. It registereth, it witnesseth, it accuseth, it judgeth, it executes, it doth all. [Richard Sibbes]

God's court within us

To clear this further concerning the nature of conscience know that God hath set up in a man a court, and there is in man all that are in a court.

• 1. There is a register to take notice of what we have done.… The conscience keeps diaries. It sets down everything. It is not forgotten, though we think it is … there is a register that writes it down. Conscience is the register.

• 2. And then there are witnesses. ‘The testimony of conscience.’ Conscience doth witness, this have I done, this I have not done.

• 3. There is an accuser with the witnesses. The conscience, it accuseth, or excuseth.

• 4. And then there is the judge. Conscience is the judge. There it doth judge, this is well done, this is ill done.

• 5. Then there is an executioner, and conscience is that too. Upon accusation and judgment, there is punishment. The first punishment is within a man alway before he come to hell. The punishment of conscience, it is a prejudice [i.e., a pre-judgement] of future judgment. There is a flash of hell presently [i.e., in the present] after an ill act.… If the understanding apprehend dolorous things, then the heart smites, as David’s ‘heart smote him.’ (2 Sam 24:5).… The heart smites with grief for the present, and fear for the time to come.

God hath set and planted in man this court of conscience, and it is God’s hall, as it were, where he keeps his first judgment … his assizes. And conscience doth all the parts. It registereth, it witnesseth, it accuseth, it judgeth, it executes, it doth all. [Richard Sibbes]

The only ground of Hope

That God’s people, when they are in any distress, must fly to God by prayer, and seek comfort that way; That pardon of sin is more to be desired than deliverance from the greatest judgments that can befall us; That the best of God’s servants have no other ground of hope to find favour with God, for the pardon of their sins, but only in the mercy of the Lord. [ Arthur Hildersam]

Affliction

Affliction is the diamond dust that heaven polishes its jewels with. [Roberth Leighton]

The end of the Scriptures

The principal end of the Scriptures is of another nature. It is, to beget in the minds of men faith, fear, obedience, and reverence of God—to make them holy and righteous.… Unto this end every truth is disposed of in the Scripture as it ought to be. If any expect that the Scripture should be written with respect unto opinions, notions, and speculations, to render men skillful and cunning in them, able to talk and dispute … they are mistaken. It is given to make us humble, holy, wise in spiritual things; to direct us in our duties, to relieve us in our temptations, to comfort us under troubles, to make us to love God and to live unto him.… Unto this end there is a more glorious power and efficacy in one epistle, one psalm, one chapter, than in all the writings of men.… He that hath not experience hereof is a stranger unto the power of God in the Scripture … sometimes an occasional passage in a story, a word or expressions, shall contribute more to excite faith and love in our souls than a volume of learned disputations.… [John Owen]

All of Christ

All of Christ is accepted by the sincere convert. He loves not only the wages but the work of Christ, not only the benefits but the burden of Christ. He is willing not only to tread out the corn, but to draw under the yoke. He takes up the commands of Christ, yea the cross of Christ. The unsound convert takes Christ by halves. He is all for the salvation of Christ, but he is not for sanctification. He is for the privileges, but does not appropriate the person of Christ. He divides the offices and benefits of Christ. This is an error in the foundation. Whosoever loves life, let him beware here. It is an undoing mistake, of which you have often been warned, and yet none is more common. [Joseph Alleine]

Worldliness

God would have the world hang as a loose tooth which, being easily twitched away, doth not much trouble us. [Thomas Watson]

Unthankfulness

Another cause of the Lord’s seeming slackness to deliver us for the present is our slackness to praise him for deliverances past. Unthankfulness, this is the witch, the sorceress, whose drowsy enchantments have made us even forget God himself If we forget him, can he be blamed for slackness to remember us? [Thomas Adams]

Contemplating the Deity

There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can comprehend and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go on our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the … solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday and know nothing.”… But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it.… Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continuing investigation of the great subject of the Deity. [C.H.Spurgeon]

The Law and the Promises

Seek therefore in the Scripture as thou readest it, first the law, what God commandeth us to do; and secondarily the promises … in Christ Jesus our Lord. Then seek ensamples, first of comfort, how God purgeth all them that submit themselves to walk in his ways, in the purgatory of tribulation … never suffering any of them to perish that cleave fast to his promises. And finally note the ensamples which are written to fear the flesh, that we sin not; that is, how God suffereth the ungodly and wicked sinners … to continue in their wickedness … they harden their hearts against the truth, and God destroyeth them utterly [William Tyndale]

Mortifying the flesh

The choicest believers, who are assuredly free from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin; The Holy Ghost…only is sufficient for this work…The vigour and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of the deeds of the flesh. [John Owen]

Preaching as men having authority

Ministers never write or preach so well as when under the cross; the Spirit of Christ and of glory then rests upon them. It was this, no doubt, that made the puritans…such burning and shining lights. When cast out by the black Bartholomew-act [the 1662 Act of Uniformity] and driven from their respective charges to preach in barns and fields, in the highways and hedges, they in an especial manner wrote and preached as men having authority. Though dead, by their writings, they yet speak; a peculiar uncition attends them to this very hour. [George Whitfield]

Providing for Heaven

If heaven be too high for you to think on, and to provide for, it will be too high for you to ever possess. [Richard Baxter]

The ends of afflictions

Affliction serves several ends: it is ‘the true schoolmistresse to bring men to repentance’; it weans us from dependence on the things of this world; it provokes us to prayer. Significantly, afflictions are the voice of God and a sign of his providence. They are by God’s appointment; they are God’s ‘archers,’ his artillery. Afflictions are a part of God’s ‘double means’ whereby he humbles us (the other being his Word). Yet, at the same time, they are ’stirred up’ by Satan. … afflictions show us our sins and cause us to flee in repentance. … Afflictions also drive us to desire more of God’s help, provoking us to return to him, by drawing us to him, taming us, and teaching us to pray. [John Calvin]

Sermons on Job

Standing guard over our faith

Would anyone fight the fight of a Christian soldier successfully and prosperously? Let him pray for a continual increase of faith. Let him abide in Christ, get closer to Christ, tighten his hold on Christ, every day that he lives. Let his daily prayer be that of the disciples—"Lord, increase my faith" (Luke 17:5). Watch jealously over your faith, if you have any. It is the citadel of the Christian character, on which the safety of the whole fortress depends. It is the point which Satan loves to assail. All lies at his mercy if faith is overthrown. Here, if we love life, we must especially stand on our guard. [J.C. Ryle]

All having the same Father should unite us

If we would live in peace, let us remember our relations to God — as children to a father, and to each other as brethren. Will not the thoughts that we have one Father quiet us, and the thoughts that we are brethren unite us? It was this that made Abraham propose terms of peace to Lot (Genesis 13): ‘Let there be no strife,’ saith he, ‘between us, for we are brethren.’ And we read of Moses, in Act. 7:26, using this argument to reconcile those that strove together, and to set them at one again: ‘Sirs,’ saith he, ‘ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?’ A deep sense of this relation, that we are brethren, would keep us from dividing. [John Bunyan]