John Flavel (1627 - 1691) was another Nonconformist minister who suffered persecution for his faith in Jesus Christ, and who preached on the run, as it were, after his preaching became unauthorized by the state. If Flavel's works could be reduced to a single description, I would categorize his writings as showing a sweet and profound love for Jesus Christ and an intense desire to communicate that love to his congregation. In other words, Flavel had a true pastor's heart. Yet, his discourses on the love of God in Christ Jesus should not be taken to imply that he was soft on sin, for nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the hotter Flavel's love burns, the hotter burns his wrath against sin. John Flavel's writings appear to have been fairly popular in the Great Awakening, as they are mentioned by Whitefield and others. The Works Of John Flavel are available in six volumes from The Banner Of Truth Trust. |
"If thou art a stranger to regeneration and faith, making a powerless profession of Christ; if thou hast a name to live, but art dead; here it is possible thou mayest meet with something to convince thee how dangerous it is to be an old creature in the new creature’s dress and habit; and what it is that blinds thy judgment, and is likely to prove thy ruin; a seasonable and full conviction of which will be the greatest mercy that can befall thee in this world, if thereby at last God may help thee to put on Christ, as well as the name of Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"For as the condemnation of the first Adam passes not to us, except as by generation we are his; so grace and remission pass not from the second Adam to us, except as by regeneration we are his. Adam’s sin hurts none but those that are in him; and Christ’s blood profits none but those that are in him." The Method Of Grace |
"Regeneration expresses those supernatural, divine, new qualities imparted by the Spirit to the soul, which are the principle of all holy action." The Method Of Grace |
"The application of Christ, by the work of regeneration, yields to men all the refreshment and joy they have in Christ, and in all that he has done for sinners." The Method Of Grace |
"As the sin of Adam could never hurt us unless he had been our head by way of generation; so the righteousness of Christ can never benefit us unless he be our head by way of regeneration. In teaching this lesson, the Lord in mercy unteaches and blots out that dangerous principle by which the greatest part of the christianized world do perish, namely, that the death of Christ is in itself effectual to salvation." The Method Of Grace |
"Gifts are attainable by study; and prayer and preaching may be reduced to an art; but regeneration is wholly supernatural." The Method Of Grace |
"That resemblance of Christ which shall be complete and perfect after the resurrection, must be begun in its first draught here by the work of regeneration." The Method Of Grace |
"That soul is dead to which the Spirit of Christ is not given in the work of regeneration; and all its works are dead works." The Method Of Grace |
"Regeneration is life from the dead." The Method Of Grace |
"Learned men are often ignorant of the things which babes in Christ understand. They are prudent in the management of earthly affairs; but to save their souls they have no knowledge. They may be able to dispute of every thing investigable by the light of nature; yea, to defend the doctrines of Christ against his adversaries successfully, and yet be blind in the great mystery of regeneration." The Method Of Grace |
"Think on it, reader, and lay it to thy heart: better thou hadst died from the womb, better the knees had prevented thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked, than that thou shouldst live and die a stranger to the new birth." The Method Of Grace |
"Among the multitude of rational creatures inhabiting this world, how very few are new creatures; how few are for Jesus Christ. Look over our cities, towns, and villages around you, and how few will you find that speak the language or do the works of new creatures. How few have ever had any awakening convictions; and how many of those that have been convinced have never come to the new birth. The more cause have they whom God has indeed regenerated, to admire the riches of his distinguishing mercy to them." The Method Of Grace |
"When the Word comes accompanied with the Spirit, it is mighty, through God, to cast down all imaginations." The Method Of Grace |
"The being of God is invisible, but the operations of his Spirit in believers, are sensible and discernable. The soul's union with Christ is a supernatural mystery, yet it is discoverable by the effects thereof, which are very perceptible in and by believers." The Method Of Grace |
"You expect happiness whilst God is in heaven, and God expects holiness from you whilst you are on earth." The Method Of Grace |
"All the motions and operations of the Spirit are always harmonious, and suitable to the written Word." The Method Of Grace |
"Whatsoever rises from self, always aims at, and terminates in self." The Method Of Grace |
"Creation is out of nothing; it requires no pre-existent matter; it doth not bring one thing out of another, but something out of nothing; it gives a being to that which before had no being. So it is also in the new birth... The work of grace is not educed out of the power and principles of nature, but it is a pure work of creation." The Method Of Grace |
"Men do not resemble God as they are noble, and as they are rich, but as they are holy." The Method Of Grace |
"Thou must either be a new creature, or a miserable and damned creature for ever." The Method Of Grace |
"No repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformation or ordinances, without the new creation, avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul. The very blood of Christ himself, without the new creation, never did, and never will save any man. Oh how necessary a work is the new creation." The Method Of Grace |
"Search the scriptures, and you shall find God hath laid the whole stress and weight of your eternal happiness, by Jesus Christ, upon this work of the Spirit in your souls." The Method Of Grace |
"Christ and heaven are the gifts of God, and he is at liberty to bestow them, upon what terms and conditions he pleaseth: and this is the way - the only way - and stated method in which he will bring men, by Christ, unto glory. Men may raze out the impressions of these things from their own hearts, but they can never alter the settled course and method of salvation. Either we must be new creatures, as the precept of the Word command us, or lost, and damned creatures, as the threatenings of the Word plainly tell us." The Method Of Grace |
"In the work of grace, God is said to 'begin that good work,' which is to be finished, or consummated, in the day of Christ. Now nothing can be more irrational, than to imagine that ever that design, or work should be finished or perfected, which never had a beginning... So that either we must have a new Bible, or a new heart, for if these scriptures be the true and faithful words of God, no unrenewed creature can see his face." The Method Of Grace |
"Better thou hadst died from the womb, better the knees had prevented thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked, than that thou shouldst live and die a stranger to the new birth, or that thy mother should bring forth only to increase, and fill up the number of the damned." The Method Of Grace |
"No power but that which gave being to the world, can give a being to a new creature. Almighty Power goes forth to give being to the new creature. The creature is not born of flesh, or of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God. The nature of this new creature speaks its original to be above the power of nature; the very notion of a new creation spoils the proud boasts of the great asserters of the power and ability of the will of man." The Method Of Grace |
"Difficulties are for men, but not for God. He works in conversion by a power which is able to subdue all things unto himself." The Method Of Grace |
"Among the multitudes of rational creatures inhabiting this world, how few, how very few, are new creatures." The Method Of Grace |
"The Father, Son, and Spirit, (betwixt whom was the council of peace) work out their design in a perfect harmony and consent: as there was no jar in their council, so there can be none in the execution of it: those whom the Father, before all time, did chuse; they, and they only, are the persons, whom the Son, when the fulness of time for the execution of that decree was come, died for... And those for whom Christ died, are the persons to whom the Spirit effectually applies the benefits and purchases of his blood: he comes in the name of the Father and Son." The Method Of Grace |
"Christ hath indeed a fulness of saving power, but the dispensation thereof is limited by the Father's will... And thus also are the dispensations of grace by the Spirit, in like manner, limited, both by the counsel and will of the Father and Son. For as he proceeds from them, so he acts in the administration proper to him, by commission from both." The Method Of Grace |
"The application of Christ, and benefits by the Spirit, are commensurable with the Father's secret counsel, and the Son's design in dying, which are the rule, model, and pattern of the Spirit's working." The Method Of Grace |
"The Gospel hath not the least favour for licentiousness." The Method Of Grace |
"Unbelievers are loth to burn, yet willing to sin; though sin kindle those everlasting flames. So that in two things the unbeliever shews himself worse than brutish: he cannot think of damnation, the effect of sin, without horror; and cannot yet think of sin, the cause of damnation, without pleasure; he is loth to perish to all eternity without a remedy, and yet refuses and declines Christ as if he were an enemy, who only can and would deliver him from that eternal perdition." The Method Of Grace |
"What is a little money, health or liberty, to wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption?" The Method Of Grace |
"The Spirit must therefore first take hold of us before we can live in Christ, and when he doth so, then we are enabled to exert that vital act of faith, whereby we receive Christ. [Ephesians 2:8]" The Method Of Grace |
"We can no more unite ourselves to Christ, than a branch can incorporate itself into another stock; it is of him, of God, his proper and alone work." The Method Of Grace |
"All the fruit we bear before our ingrafture into Christ is worse than none; till the person be in Christ, the work cannot be evangelically good and acceptable to God." The Method Of Grace |
"Be willing to give glory to Christ, though his glory should rise out of your shame." The Method Of Grace |
"Alas! if a few poor, cold, heartless, ineffectual confessions of sin may pass for a due conviction and serious repentance, then have we been convinced, then have we repented; but you will find, if ever the Lord intend to reconcile you to himself, your conviction and humiliations for sin will be other manner of things, and will cost you more than a few cheap words agains sin." The Method Of Grace |
"Both Christ and faith are strangers to many souls who yet persuade themselves they are at peace with God." The Method Of Grace |
"All the preaching in the world can never effect this union with Christ in itself, and in its own virtue, except a supernatural and mighty power go forth with it for that end and purpose. Let Boanerges and Barnabas try their strength, let the angels of heaven be the preachers: till God draw, the soul cannot come to Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"No act that is saving can be done without the concurrence of special grace... so men may come to the Word, and attend to what is spoken, remember and consider what the Word tells them; but as to believing or coming to Christ, that no man can do of himself." The Method Of Grace |
"It is utterly impossible for any man to come to Jesus Christ unless he be drawn unto him by the special and mighty power of God." The Method Of Grace |
"The world cannot justify and save, but Christ can." The Method Of Grace |
"It was a powerful word indeed that made the light at first shine out of darkness, and no less power is required to make it shine into our hearts. That day in which the soul is made willing to come to Christ is called the day of his power. Psalm 110:3." The Method Of Grace |
"To send forth cold and ineffectual wishes to Christ we may, but to bring Christ and the soul together requires the almighty power of God. The grace of faith by which we come to Christ is as much the free gift of God as Christ himself, who is the object of faith." The Method Of Grace |
"How wonderful and supernatural an adventure is that which the soul makes in the day that it comes to Jesus Christ... If the Lord draw not the soul, and that omnipotently, it can never come from itself to Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"As the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit, so the Spirit of Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life; and until he quicken us and infuse the principle of the divine life into our souls, we can put forth no hand, or vital act of faith, to lay hold upon Jesus Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"The infusion of spiritual life is done instantaneously... when the Spirit comes once to quicken the soul, it is done in a moment... but O what a blessed moment this is! Upon which the whole weight of our eternal happiness depends... And our Lord expressly tells us in John 3:3, that except we be regenerate and born again, we cannot see the kingdom of God." The Method Of Grace |
"Woe to the unregenerate; good had it been for them had they never been born!" The Method Of Grace |
"It is very common for men to presume upon their union with, and interest in Christ. This privilege is, by common mistake, extended generally to all that profess the Christian religion, and practise the external duties of it, when, in truth, no more are or can be united to Christ than are quickened by the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus. O try your interest in Christ by this rule: if I am quickened by Christ, I have union with Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"Receiving Christ... People are generally very ignorant and unacquainted with the importance of this expression; they have very slight thoughts of faith who never passed under the illuminating, convincing, and humbling work of the Spirit, but we shall find that saving faith is quite another thing, and differs in its whole kind and nature from that traditional faith and common assent, which is so fatally mistaken for it in the world." The Method Of Grace |
"Heaven is no doubt very desirable, but Christ is more." The Method Of Grace |
"Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith." The Method Of Grace |
"We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith; his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God." The Method Of Grace |
"Faith is a work of greater difficulty than most men understand it to be, and there are but few sound believers in the world." The Method Of Grace |
"All believing motions towards Christ are the effects of the Father's drawing. A glorious and irresistible power goes forth from God to produce it, whence it is called the faith of the operaion of God. Colossians 2:12." The Method Of Grace |
"O when a man shall see his misery and danger, and no way to escape but Christ, and that he hath no ability himself to come to Christ, or to open his heart thus to receive Christ, but that this work of faith is wholly supernatural, the operation of God; how will the sould return again and again upon God with such cries as, Lord help my unbelief... Where are the bed-sides or the secret corners where thou hast besieged heaven with such cries?" The Method Of Grace |
"Morality may hide corruption, but faith only purifies the heart from it." The Method Of Grace |
"Christ is the door of salvation, and faith is the key that opens that door to men." The Method Of Grace |
"Beware you do not mistake the means for the end. Many do so, but see you do not. Prayer, sermons, reformations, are means to bring you to Christ, but they are not Christ. To close with those duties is one thing, but to close with Christ is another thing." The Method Of Grace |
"The opening of your hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ is not a work done by any power of your own, but the arm of the Lord is revealed therein. It is therefore your duty and interest to be daily at the feet of God, pouring out your souls to him in secret for abilities to believe." The Method Of Grace |
"Is is as possible for the ponderous mountains to start from their bases and centres, mount themselves aloft into the air, and there fly like wandering atoms hither and thither, as it is for any man of himself, by a pure natural power of his own, to come to Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"Conviction discovers the universal pollution of heart and life so that a man loathes and abhors himself by reason thereof. If he do not look into his own corruptions, he cannot be safe; and if he do, he cannot bear the sight of them; he hath no quiet; nothing can give rest but what gives relief against this evil, and this is only done by faith uniting the soul with Jesus Christ." The Method Of Grace |
"Lay this down as a sure conclusion, and hold it fast: that whatever it be that discourages and hinders you from coming to Christ is directly against the interest of your souls, and the hand of the devil is certainly in it." The Method Of Grace |
"There is a twofold end of mercies: one perfective, another destructive - the death of the saints perfects and completes their mercies; the death of the wicked destroys and cuts off their mercies." The Method Of Grace |
Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul: He is the very sabbath of the soul." The Method Of Grace |
"Jesus Christ is the only consolation of believers, and of none besides them." The Method Of Grace |
"None but the Spirit of God can clear and confirm our title to Christ, for he only searcheth the deep things of God, and it is his office to witness with our spirits... He is the Spirit of truth, and therefore cannot deceive us, so that his testimony is more infallible and satisfactory than a voice from heaven... The witness of our own heart may amount to a strong probability, but the witness of the Spirit is demonstration." Sacramental Meditations - The Fourth |
"The right knowledge of Jesus Christ, like a clue, leads you through the whole labyrinth of the scriptures." The Fountain Of Life |
"A holy calling never saved any man without a holy heart; if our tongues only be sanctified, our whole man must be damned." The Fountain Of Life |
"Christ is the great favourite in heaven: his image upon your souls, and his name in your prayers, makes both accepted with God." The Fountain Of Life |
"Many learned philosophers are now in hell, and many illiterate Christians in heaven." The Fountain Of Life |
"Judge of the antiquity of the love of God to believers! what an ancient friend he hath been to us; who loved us, provided for us, and contrived all our happiness, before we were, yea, before the world was. We reap the fruits of this covenant now, the seed whereof was sown from eternity; yea, it is not only ancient, but also most free: no excellencies of ours could engage the love God; for as yet we were not." The Fountain Of Life |
"Have you imagined a tolerable hell?" The Fountain Of Life |
"He that undertakes to satisfy God, by obedience for man's sin, must himself be God; and he that performs such a perfect obedience, by doing, and suffering all that the law required, in our room, must be man." The Fountain Of Life |
"It is as needless and impious to make more mediators than one, as to make more Gods than one." The Fountain Of Life |
"One truth sucked by faith and prayer from the breast of Christ is better than ten thousand dry notions beaten out by racking the understanding." The Fountain Of Life |
"Truth must be spoken, though the greatest on earth be offended." The Fountain Of Life |
"Those that deny the satisfaction of Christ, and talk of his dying to confirm the truth, and give us an example of meekness, patience, and self-denial, affirming these to be the sole ends of his death, do not only therein root up the foundations of their own comfort, peace, and pardon, but most boldly impeach and tax the infinite wisdom. God could have done all this at a cheaper rate: the sufferings of a mere creature are able to attain these ends: the deaths of the martyrs did it." The Fountain Of Life |
"God will be true in his threatenings, though thousands and millions perish." The Fountain Of Life |
"When Christ became our sacrifice, he both bare, and bare away our sins." The Fountain Of Life |
"Our Advocate, Christ, wants no wisdom to manage his work; he is the wisdom of God, yea, only wise. There is much folly in the best of our duties, we know not how to press an argument home with God; but Christ hath the art of it." The Fountain Of Life |
"All the affairs of the kingdom of providence are ordered and determined by Jesus Christ, for the special advantage, and everlasting good of his redeemed people." The Fountain Of Life |
"Take it for a clear truth - that which is not prefaced with prayer will be followed with trouble." The Fountain Of Life |
"Hadst thou more of the world, it would be like a large sail to a little boat, which would quickly pull thee under water." The Fountain Of Life |
"The highest honour that ever the law of God received, was to have such a person as the man Christ Jesus is, to stand before its bar, and make reparation to it. This is more than if it had poured out all our blood, and built up its honour upon the ruin of the whole creation." The Fountain Of Life |
"The state of Christ, from his conception to his resurrection, was a state of deep debasement and humiliation." The Fountain Of Life |
"Out of this death of Christ the life of our soul springs up; and in this blood of the cross our mercies swim to us. The blood of Christ runs deep to some eyes; the judicious believer sees multitudes, multitudes of inestimable blessings in it. By this crimson fountain I resolve to sit down." The Fountain Of Life |
"God knows how to serve his own ends by the very sins of men, and yet have no communion at all in the sin he so overrules." The Fountain Of Life |
"In heaven we shall meet many that we never thought to meet there, and miss many we were confident we should see there." The Fountain Of Life |
"In respect of God, Christ's death was justice and mercy. In respect of men, it was murder and cruelty. In respect of himself, it was obedience and humility." The Fountain Of Life |
"What was now become of the fear of Caesar that Pilate dares to be Christ's herald and publicly to proclaim him, The King of the Jews?" The Fountain Of Life |
"He that hath one foot in heaven need not fear to put the other into the grave." The Fountain Of Life |
"Sin is a bad bed-fellow, and worse grave-fellow... Better be cast alive into a pit among dragons and serpents, than dead in your graves among your sins." The Fountain Of Life |
"A grave with Christ is a comfortable place." The Fountain Of Life |
"Christ's resurrection is the ground-work of our hope. And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it." The Fountain Of Life |
"None seek God in vain except those who seek him vainly." The Fountain Of Life |
"The finger of God in providence appears in the secret influences of God upon the spirits of men, infusing courage into the hearts of some, and sending faintness into the spirits of others; so that the feeble become as David, while the men of might cannot find their hands." Mount Pisgah |
"He that doth all in us and for us, expects justly the praise and glory of all from us." Mount Pisgah |
"Methinks joy should not be under a Christian's command, when he sees what God is creating for Jerusalem. As the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy at the creation of the world; so should all his sons and daughters sing, and shout at this new creation of the new heaven, and the new earth." Mount Pisgah |
"Take heed of slighting and despising the mercies of God which are fresh and new before your eyes this day... A due observation of mercies will beget a due valuation of them; and a due valuation of mercies is fundamental to all your praises of God for them." Mount Pisgah |
"If ever men will strive with God to purpose in prayer, it is when they perceive the greatest mercies are at the birth, and prayer is the midwife to bring it forth." Mount Pisgah |
"Nothing is more dear and precious to a Christian, than the glory and interest of Christ... Whilst the church groans under Antichrist, the glory of Jesus Christ is darkened and much eclipsed in the world. It hath been the chief part of the saints' sufferings to see his ordinances polluted, and the rights of heaven invaded by the usurpations of men; this is it that hath cost them more sorrow of heart than their personal sufferings have done." Mount Pisgah |
"All Christ's ordinances are instituted, and his officers ordained, for no other use or end but the salvation of souls. Books are valuable according to their conducibility to this end." Pneumatologia |
"It is with most souls as it is with the eye, which sees not itself, though it sees all other objects." Pneumatologia |
"What serious heart doth not melt into compassion over the deluded multitude, who are mocked with dreams, and perpetually busied about trifles? Who are, (after so many frustrated attempts, both of their own, and all past ages) eagerly pursuing the fleeting shadows, who torture and rack their brains to find out the natures and qualities of birds, beasts, and plants; indeed any thing rather than their own souls, which are certainly the most excellent creatures that inhabit this world... They herd themselves with beasts, who are capable of an equality with angels. O what compassionate tears must such a consideration as this draw from the eyes of all that understand the worth of souls!" Pneumatologia |
"How have the schools of Epicurus, and Aristotle, the Cartesians, and other sects of philosophers abused and troubled the world with a kind of philosophical enthusiasm, and a great many ridiculous fancies about the original of the soul of man!... The account Moses gives us in this context, of the origin of the world, and of man the epitome of it, is full of sense, reason, congruity, and clearness; and such as renders all the essays of all the Heathen philosophers to be vain, inevident, self-repugnant, and inexplicable theories." Pneumatologia |
"The soul is the most wonderful and astonishing piece of divine workmanship; it is no hyperbole to call it the breath of God, the beauty of men, the wonder of angels, and the envy of devils. One soul is of more value than all the bodies in the world." Pneumatologia |
"Let me tell thee, that if ever God send forth these two grim sergeants, his law, and thine own conscience, to arrest thee for thy sins, if thou find thyself dragged away by them towards that prison from whence none return, that are once clapt up therein, and that in this unspeakable distress Jesus Christ manifest himself to thy soul, and open thy heart to receive him, and become thy surety with God, pay all thy debts, and cancel all thy obligations, thou wilt love him at another rate than others do; his blood will run deeper in thine eyes than it doth in the shallow apprehensions of the world; he will be altogether lovely, and thou wilt account all things but dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of Jesus Christ thy Lord." The Method Of Grace |
"The liberty of the will [in the unregenerate man] must be understood to be in things natural, which are within its own proper sphere, not in things supernatural. It can move, or not move the body, as it pleases, but it cannot move towards Christ, in the way of faith, as it pleaseth; it can open or shut the hand or eye at its pleasure, but not the heart." Pneumatologia |
"If thou be never so mean, base, and despicable a creature in other respects, yet thou hast a soul, which hath the same alliance to the Father of spirits, the same capacity to enjoy him in glory, that the most excellent and renowned saints ever had." Pneumatologia |
"Other sins, like single bullets, kill particular persons: but Adam's sin, like a chain-shot, mowed down all mankind at once." Pneumatologia |
"No ambassadors of peace are sent to the dead: no more calls or strivings of the spirit: no more space for repentance. O! what an inconceivable weight hath God hanged on a puff of breath!" Pneumatologia |
"It will be comfortable to resign that breath to God at death, which hath been instrumental to his glory in this life." Pneumatologia |
"The scriptures tell us that from all eternity God hath chosen a certain number in Christ Jesus to eternal life, and to the means by which they shall attain it, out of his mere good pleasure, and for the praise of his grace... This choice was of a certain number of persons who are all known to God, and all given to Christ in the covenant of redemption. So that no elect person can be a reprobate, no reprobate an elect person." Pneumatologia |
"The same persons that are appointed to salvation as the end, are also appointed to sanctification as the way and means by which they shall attain that end." Pneumatologia |
"There was a federal transaction betwixt the Father and the Son from eternity, about our salvation. In that covenant Christ engaged to redeem the elect by his blood; and the Father promised him a reward of those his sufferings. Accordingly he hath poured out his soul to death for them, finished the work, and is now in heaven, expecting the full reward and fruits of his sufferings, which consist not in his own personal glory, which he there enjoys, but in the completeness and fulness of his mystical body." Pneumatologia |
"A God incarnate is the world's wonder; no condescension like this." Pneumatologia |
"The DEATH of Christ hath the nature and respect of a ransom, or equivalent price laid down to the justice of God for our redemption. It brought our souls from under the curse, and purchased for them everlasting blessedness. The RESURRECTION of Christ from the dead hath the nature both of a testimony of his finishing the work of our redemption, and the Father's full satisfaction therein, and of a principle of our resurrection to eternal life. The ASCENSION of Christ into heaven was in the capacity and relation of a forerunner; it was to prepare places for the redeemed, who were to come after him to glory in their several generations. The INTERCESSION of Christ in heaven is for the security of our purchased inheritance to us, and to prevent any new breaches which might be made by our sins, whereby it might be forfeited, and we divested of it again. All these jointly make up the foundation of our faith and hope of glory." Pneumatologia |
"The actions which men perform in this life are not transient, but are filed to their account in the world to come: here we sow, and there we reap... A word is spoken, or an act done in a moment, but though it be past and gone, and perhaps by us quite forgotten, God registers it in his book, in order to the day of account." Pneumatologia |
"See that you prize the Gospel above all earthly treasures... It can open your hearts, as well as your eyes, and is therefore to be entertained as that which is in the first rank of blessings, a peerless and inestimable blessing." Pneumatologia |
"Though there be no fears of annihilation in heaven, yet there be many wishes for it in hell, but to no purpose; there never will be an end put, either to their being, or their torments." Pneumatologia |
"You need faith to die by, as well as live by." Pneumatologia |
"He that cannot deny himself, will deny Jesus Christ." Pneumatologia |
"Your bodies must and will wear out, and it is better to wear them with working than with rusting: we are generally more solicitous to live long than to live usefully and serviceably; and it may be our health had been more precious in the eyes of God if it had been less precious in our own eyes." Pneumatologia |
"Most of those souls that are now in hell, are there upon the account of their indulgence to the flesh; they could not deny the flesh, and now are denied by God." Pneumatologia |
"Except you have gracious souls, you shall never have glorified bodies: except your souls be united to Christ, the happiness of your bodies, as well as your souls, is lost to all eternity." Pneumatologia |
"You expect to have them glorious bodies one day; O then let them be serviceable bodies now!" Pneumatologia |
"There is iniquity in our most holy things, which needs pardon. Our best duties have enough in them to damn us, as well as our worst sins." Pneumatologia |
"Christ, among the saints and angels in heaven, is as a mighty load-stone cast in among many needles, which leap to him, and fix themselves inseparably upon him. They all act in glory as the fire doth here, to the utmost of their power and ability. There is no note lower than GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST." Pneumatologia |