John Owen (1616 - 1683), one of the great Puritans of the seventeenth century, is perhaps the most remarkable theologian in the history of Christianity. He was one of those rare men who possessed not only a gigantic mind, but a spirit to match. He was at once full of humility and boldness, just like his master, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he glorified in his writings to a degree and in a manner never equaled. 

John Owen had an extraordinary grasp of both biblical and secular history, as his works demonstrate, and he displayed an astonishing familiarity with all of the ancient historians, philosophers, poets, and so forth. In addition to this amazing quality, Owen was also a master in the ancient languages, such as Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and some of the cognate languages as well. It is truly an adventure to observe Owen's formidable knowledge and skill as you wade through his works, which are prolific. 

Owen frequently fell in and out of favour with the political heralds of England, as he - unlike so many in our day - never once sacrificed his conscience, even on the very smallest of matters. 

John Owen could have had all of England at his beck and call, for he was Cromwell's most trusted advisor, yet Owen refused to support Cromwell in his bid to become King and thereby dissolve Parliamentary government. 

After Cromwell's death, when Charles II finally ascended to the throne and re-established the Monarchy, he immediately set about to persecute the Puritans and others, but not before trying to make a pact through emissaries with John Owen, in which he attempted to get Owen to soften his views and comply with a few mere technical matters regarding worship. Since Owen was so well known and respected throughout the land, the King obviously thought that if he could be compromised, then many of the other Puritans and Nonconformists might follow. 

Owen refused outright. The eyes of the nation were upon him, but he didn't care about that. The only eyes John Owen were concerned about  were the eyes of Jesus Christ, his master whom he faithfully served. 

Owen became a hunted man and was often in peril as he moved from location to location to avoid capture. He refused to stop preaching and writing, and his output in both disciplines was prolific. Finally, the winds of persecution began to soften as Charles sought to consolidate power. At this point, Owen - who still had many admirers in high places - came back into partial favour among the politicians of the hour. 

This was, of course, the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes, for John Owen, instead of using his newfound liberty for himself, immediately set about to relieve the suffering of his fellow Puritans and Nonconformists, once again standing in the gap and placing himself in harm's way. 

In this regard, nowhere did Owen intervene more strenuously and ardently than in obtaining the release of John Bunyan, tinker turned preacher, and jailed for twelve years as result of it. Owen - though a powerful preacher in his own right, as all who knew him attested - nevertheless was frequently in attendance at Bunyan's sermons, standing among the thousands of others who came to hear Bunyan preach, which was one of the reasons Bunyan was jailed in the first place, namely, because he drew such large crowds, all of whom hungered and thirsted after righteousness. 

King Charles, knowing that Owen hastened to hear Bunyan as often as he was able, asked the great theologian how a learned man like himself could "go to hear a tinker prate," to which Owen replied, "May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker's abilities for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning." 

When one considers the turbulent times Owen lived in, and yet the hectic and undeniably brutal pace he maintained throughout his life, it is remarkable that he ever had any time for writing at all, much less the heights of heavenly meditation that flowed from his regenerate mind. Yet, he produced a massive compendium of works which give glory to Jesus Christ in a very singular way. No writer has ever exhibited so much knowledge of the glory of God in Christ Jesus. 

We can offer no fitter a closing than that which is presented in his biography - 

"John Owen belonged to a class of men who have risen from age to age in the church, to represent great principles, and to revive in the church the life of God. The supreme authority of the Scriptures in all matters of religion, the headship of Christ, the rights of conscience, religion as a thing of spirit, and not of form, resulting from the personal belief of certain revealed truths, and infallibly manifesting itself in a holy life, the church as a society distinct from the world - these principles, often contended for in flames and blood, were the essence of that Puritanism which found one of its noblest examples in Owen." 

Few men throughout Christian history have truly stood in the gap. Few indeed. Far fewer than the Lord Jesus requires. Nevertheless, of those few, of those men, who over time have of purpose placed themselves in harm's way, without any regard to their own comforts or welfare, yea, of those few, John Owen was a principal one, and he stood stedfast and immovable his entire life, nothing doubting, just like the Rock upon whom he was founded. 

Owen's Complete Works (16 Volumes, plus 7 Volumes on Hebrews) are available in print from The Banner Of Truth Trust, as well as in software format from Ages Software. 

Finally, as a footnote to what has just been said, I must include this prescient statement made by J. C. Ryle in the late nineteenth century - "I am quite aware that Owen's writings are not fashionable in the present day, and that many think fit to neglect and sneer at him as a Puritan. Yet the great divine who in Commonwealth times was Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, does not deserve to be treated in this way. He had more learning and sound knowledge of Scripture in his little finger than many who depreciate him have in their whole bodies. I assert unhesitatingly that the man who wants to study experimental theology will find no books equal to those of Owen and some of his contemporaries." 

"Believers have their unction immediately from Christ... It is therefore manifest that the anointing of believers consisteth in the communication of the Holy Spirit unto them from and by Jesus Christ... And hereby may we know whether we have ourselves received of this anointing. Some would fain put it off unto what was peculiar unto the times of the apostles, and would suppose another kind of believers in those days than any that are now in the world, or need to be, though what our Saviour prayed for for them, even for the apostles themselves, as to the Spirit of grace and consolation, he prayed also for all them who should believe on him through their word unto the end of the world. But take away the promise of the Spirit, and the privileges thereon depending, from Christians, and in truth they cease so to be... On such pretences are all the mysteries of the gospel by many despised, and a religion is formed wherein the Spirit of Christ hath no concernment. But these things are otherwise stated in the minds of the TRUE disciples of Christ. They know and own of how great importance it is to have a share in this unction; how much their conformity unto Christ, their participation of him, and the evidence of their union with him, how much their stability in profession, their joy in believing, their love and delight in obedience, with their dignity in the sight of God and all his holy angels, do depend thereon." The Holy Spirit And His Work, Works, Vol IV

"Adam being in the form--that is, the state and condition--of a servant, did by robbery attempt to take upon him the form of God, or to make himself equal unto him. The Lord Christ being in the form of God--that is, his essential form, of the same nature with him--accounted it no robbery to be in the state and condition of God, to be equal to him; but being made in the fashion of a man, taking on him our nature, he also submitted unto the form or the state and condition of a servant therein. He had dominion over all, owed service and obedience unto none, being in the form of God, and equal unto him--the condition which Adam aspired unto; but he [Jesus] condescended unto a state of absolute subjection and service for our recovery. This did no more belong unto him on his own account, than it belonged unto Adam to be like unto God, or equal to him. Wherefore it is said that he [Jesus] humbled himself unto it, as Adam would have exalted himself unto a state of dignity which was not his due." Christologia 

"It is a foolish thing in any man to trust God to be preserved in sin." Treasury of David, Vol I Psalm XIV

"As among all the doctrines of the gospel, there is none opposed with more violence and subtlety than that concerning our regeneration by the immediate, powerful, effectual operation of the Holy Spirit of grace; so there is not scarce anything more despised or scorned by many in the world than that any should profess that there hath been such a work of God upon themselves, or on any occasion declare aught of the way and manner whereby it was wrought... yea, the enmity of Cain against Abel was but a branch of this proud and perverse inclination." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"The instance of Ishmael in the Scripture is representative of all such as, under an outward profession of the true religion, did or do scoff at those who, being, as Isaac, children of the promise, do profess and evidence an interest in the internal power of it, which they are unacquainted withal." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"The holy work of God's Spirit is to be owned." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Where any work of grace is not effectual, God never intended it should be so, nor did put forth that power of grace which was necessary to make it so. Wherefore, in or towards whomsoever the Holy Spirit puts forth his power, or acts his grace for their regeneration, he removes all obstacles, overcomes all oppositions, and infallibly produceth the effect intended." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"There is not only a moral but a physical immediate operation of the Spirit, by his power and grace, or his powerful grace, upon the minds or souls of men in their regeneration. This is that which we must cleave to, or all the glory of God's grace is lost, and the grace administered by Christ neglected." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"The Scripture abounds in commands and cautions for our utmost diligence in our search and inquiry, whether we are made partakers of Christ or not, or whether His Spirit dwell in us or not; which argue both the difficulty of attaining an assured confidence herein, as also the danger of our being mistaken, and yet the certainty of a good issue upon the diligent and regular use of means to that purpose." Hebrews 3:14

"Faith is placed absolutely and ultimately on the person of Christ, even as on the person of the Father. He counts it no robbery herein to be equal with the Father." Christologia

"The Lord Christ is not the absolute and ultimate object of our faith, any otherwise but under this consideration - of his being partaker of the nature of God, of his being in the form of God, and equal unto him. Without this, to place our faith in him would be robbery and sacrilege; as is all the pretended faith of them who believe not his divine person." Christologia

"Christ being the image of God, the face of God, in him is God represented unto us, and through him are all saving benefits communicated unto them that believe." Christologia

"The divine personality of Christ consists in this, that the whole divine nature being communicated unto him by eternal generation, he is the image of God, even the Father, who by him is represented unto us." Christologia

"It is not the person of Peter who confessed Christ, but the person of Christ whom Peter confessed, that is the rock on which the church is built." Christologia

"If the divine and human nature of Christ do not constitute one individual person, all that he did for us was only as a man - which would have been altogether insufficient for the salvation of the church, nor had God redeemed it with his own blood." Christologia

"Hence have we so many discourses published about religion, the practical holiness and duties of obedience, written with great elegancy of style, and seriousness in argument, wherein we can meet with little or nothing wherein Jesus Christ, his office, or his grace, are concerned... We may say what a learned person did of one of old: There were in it many things laudable and delectable, sed nomen Jesu non erat ibi. [but the name of Jesus was not there]." Christologia

"Of all the effects of the divine excellencies, the constitution of the person of Christ as the foundation of the new creation, as the Mystery of Godliness, was the most ineffable and glorious... This assumption of our nature into hypostatical union with the Son of God, this constitution of one and the same individual person in two natures so infinitely distinct as those of God and man - whereby the Eternal was made in time, the Infinite became finite, the Immortal mortal, yet continuing eternal, infinite, immortal - is that singular expression of divine wisdom, goodness, and power, wherein God will be admired and glorified unto all eternity. Herein was that change introduced into the whole first creation, whereby the blessed angels were exalted, Satan and his works ruined, mankind recovered from a dismal apostasy, all things made new, all things in heaven and earth reconciled and gathered into one Head, and a revenue of eternal glory raised unto God, incomparably above what the first constitution of all things in the order of nature could yield unto him." Christologia

"This Word was made flesh, not by any change of his own nature or essence, not by a transubstantiation of the divine nature into the human, not by ceasing to be what he was, but by becoming what he was not, in taking our nature to his own, to be his own, whereby he dwelt among us. This glorious Word, which is God, and described by his eternity and omnipotency in works of creation and providence, was made flesh - which expresseth the lowest state and condition of human nature. Without controversy, great is this mystery of godliness!" Christologia

"That the mighty God should be a child born, and the everlasting Father a son given unto us, may well entitle him unto the name Wonderful." Christologia

"Let all vain imaginations cease: there is nothing left unto the sons of men, but either to reject the divine person of Christ - as many do unto their own destruction - or humbly to adore the mystery of infinite wisdom and grace therein." Christologia

"That he purged our sins by his death, and the oblation of himself therein unto God, is acknowledged. That this should be done by him by whom the worlds were made, who is the essential brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of the person of the Father therein, who upholds, rules, sustains all things by the word of his power, whereby God purchased his church with his own blood, is that wherein he will be admired unto eternity." Christologia

"There were two things, before, in religion [Old Testament] - the promise, which was the life of it; and the institutions of worship under the Law, which were the outward glory and beauty of it. And both these were nothing, or had nothing in them, but only what they before proposed and represented of Christ, God manifested in the flesh. The promise was concerning HIM, and the institution of worship did only represent HIM." Christologia

"The greatest exercise and emanation of divine goodness, was in these holy counsels of God for the salvation of the church by Jesus Christ. For whereas in all other effects of his goodness he gives of his own, herein he gave HIMSELF, in taking our nature upon him... So was it in the counsels of God, concerning the incarnation of his Son and the salvation of the church thereby. No heart can conceive, no tongue can express, the least portion of that ineffable delight of the holy, blessed God, in these counsels, wherein he acted and expressed unto the utmost his own essential goodness." Christologia

"The incarnation of Christ, and his mediation thereon, were not the procuring cause of these eternal counsels of God, but the effects of them, as the Scripture constantly declares. But the design of their accomplishment was laid in the person of the Son alone. As he was the essential wisdom of God, all things were at first created by him. But upon a prospect of the ruin of all by sin, God would in and by him - as he was fore-ordained to be incarnate - restore all things. The whole counsel of God unto this end centred in him alone." Christologia

"To know God, so as thereby to be made like unto him, is the chief end of man. This is done perfectly only in the person of Christ, all other means of it being subordinate thereunto, and none of them of the same nature therewithal. The end of the Word itself is to instruct us in the knowledge of God in Christ." Christologia

"A mere external doctrinal revelation of the divine nature and properties, without any exemplification or real representation of them, was not sufficient unto the end of God in the manifestation of himself. This is done in the Scripture. But the whole Scripture is built on this foundation, or proceeds on this supposition - that there is a real representation of the divine nature unto us, which Scripture declares and describes... All this is done in the person of Christ. He is the complete image and perfect representation of the Divine Being and excellencies." Christologia

"In his incarnation, the Son was made the representative image of God unto us - as he [already] was, in his person, the essential image of the Father, by eternal generation." Christologia

"Such an impression of all the glorious properties of God is on Christ, as that thereby they become legible unto all them that believe." Christologia

"In the Son incarnate, that eternal life which was originally in and with the Father was manifest unto us... The true end of proposing these things is to draw men unto the diligent study of the Scripture, wherein alone they are revealed and declared." Christologia

"Christ is the image of the invisible God, the express image of the person of the Father; and the principal end of the whole Scripture, especially of the Gospel, is to declare him so to be, and how he is so." Christologia

"Reason alone - especially as it is corrupted and depraved - can discern no glory in the representation of God by Christ... Hence many live in a profession of the faith of the letter of the Gospel, yet - having no light, guide, nor conduct, but that of reason - they do not, they cannot, really behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; nor hath the revelation of it any efficacy upon their souls." Christologia

"Faith in Christ is the only means of the true knowledge of God; and the discoveries which are made of him and his excellencies thereby are those alone which are effectual to conform us unto his image and likeness." Christologia

"It is the knowledge of God in Christ alone that is effectually powerful to work the souls of men into conformity unto him. Those alone who behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ are changed into the same image, from glory to glory." Christologia

"These precious, unsearchable treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God - that is, all divine supernatural truths - are hid, or safely deposited, in Christ - in and from whom alone they are to be learned and received." Christologia

"Whatever notional knowledge men may have of divine truths, as they are doctrinally proposed in the Scripture, yet - if they know them not in their respect unto the person of Christ as the foundation of the counsels of God - if they discern not how they proceed from him, and centre in him - they will bring no spiritual, saving light unto their understanding. For all spiritual life and light is in him, and from him alone." Christologia

"Wherefore, as professors of the truth, if separated from Christ as unto real union, are withering branches - so truths professed, if doctrinally separated from him, or their respect unto him, have no living power or efficacy in the souls of men." Christologia

"Those who reject the DIVINE PERSON OF CHRIST - who believe it not, who discern not the wisdom, grace, love, and power of God therein - do constantly reject or corrupt all other spiritual truths of divine revelation. Nor can it otherwise be. For they have a consistency ONLY in their relation unto the mystery of godliness - GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH - and from thence derive their sense and meaning. This being removed - the truth, in all other articles of religion, immediately falls to the ground." Christologia

"Whereas Christ is our life, and in our living unto God we do not so much live as he liveth in us, and the life which we lead in the flesh is by the faith of him - so that we have neither principle nor power of spiritual life, but in, by, and from him - whatever knowledge we have of the truth, if it do not effect a union between him and our souls, it will be lifeless in us, and unprofitable unto us." Christologia

"Christ descended from heaven in his incarnation, whereby he became the Son of man; and he is and was then in heaven in the essence and glory of his divine nature. This is the full of what we assert. In the knowledge and revelation of heavenly mysteries, unto the calling, sanctification, and salvation of the church, doth the prophetical office of Christ consist. This he positively affirms could not otherwise be, but that he who came down from heaven was also at the same instant in heaven." Christologia

"Those who deny Christ's divine person, though they pretend to attend unto him as the teacher of the church, do yet learn no truth from him, but embrace pernicious errors in the stead thereof." Christologia

"All power, all judgment, all rule is committed unto the Son, and the Father doth nothing towards the church but in and by him, and if he have not the same divine power and properties with him, the foundation of the church's faith is cast down, and the spring of its consolation utterly stopped up." Christologia

"The glory, life, and power of Christian religion, as Christian religion, and as seated in the souls of men, with all the acts and duties which properly belong thereunto, and are, therefore, peculiarly Christian, and all the benefits and privileges we receive by it, or by virtue of it, with the whole of the honour and glory that arise unto God thereby, have all of them their formal nature and reason from their respect and relation unto the person of Christ; nor is he a Christian who is otherwise minded." Christologia

"The person of Christ is primarily the object of divine honour and worship upon account of his divine nature and excellencies... His infinite condescension, in the assumption of our nature, did no way divest him of his divine essential excellencies... This, then, in the first place, is to be confirmed; namely, that all divine honour is due unto the Son of God incarnate - that is, the person of Christ." Christologia

"To honour the Son as we ought to honour the Father, is that which makes us Christians, and which nothing else will so do." Christologia

"The first promise, Genesis iii.15 - truly called Prwteuaggelion - was revealed, proposed, and given, as containing and expressing the only means of delivery from that apostasy from God, with all the effects of it, under which our first parents and all their posterity were cast by sin... All the promises that God gave afterward unto the church under the Old Testament, before and after giving the law - all the covenants that he entered into with particular persons, or the whole congregation of believers - were all of them declarations and confirmations of this first promise, or the way of salvation by the mediation of his Son, becoming the seed of the woman, to break the head of the serpent, and to work out the deliverance of mankind." Christologia

"Of all that poison which at this day is diffused in the minds of men, corrupting them from the mystery of the Gospel, there is no part that is more pernicious than this one perverse imagination, that to believe in Christ is nothing at all but to believe the doctrine of the Gospel; which yet, we grant, is included therein. For as it allows the consideration of no office in him but that of a prophet, and that not as vested and exercised in his divine person, so it utterly overthrows the whole foundation of the relation of the church unto him, and salvation by him." Christologia

"The Lord Christ is not the absolute and ultimate object of our faith, any otherwise but under this consideration - of his being partaker of the nature of God - of his being in the form of God, and equal unto him. Without this, to place our faith in him would be robbery and sacrilege; as is all the pretended faith of them who believe not his divine person." Christologia

"No comfortable, refreshing thoughts of God, no warrantable or acceptable boldness in an approach and access unto him, can any one entertain or receive, but in this exercise of faith on Christ as the mediator between God and man. And if, in the practice of religion, this regard of faith unto him - this acting of faith on God through him - be not the principle whereby the whole is animated and guided, Christianity is renounced, and the vain cloud of natural religion embraced in the room of it... So is it with the minds of men who were never affected with supernatural revelations, with the mystery of the gospel, beyond the owning of some notions of truth - who never had experience of its power in the life of God." Christologia

"Christ accepts of no obedience unto his commands that doth not proceed from love unto his person. That is no love which is not fruitful in obedience; and that is no obedience which proceeds not from love." Christologia

"There is, and ought to be, in all believers, a divine, gracious love unto the person of Christ, immediately fixed on him, whereby they are excited unto, and acted in, all their obedience unto his authority." Christologia

"All that are called Christians in the world, do, by owning that denomination, profess a love unto Jesus Christ; but greater enemies, greater haters of him, he hath not among the children of men, than many of them are." Christologia

"God hath endowed our nature with a faculty and ability of fixing our love upon himself... But since the passing of sin, misery, and death upon us, our love can find no amiableness in any goodness - no rest, complacency, and satisfaction in any - but what is effected in that grace and mercy by Christ, which we stand in need of for our present recovery and future reward... Before this, without this, we do not, we cannot love God." Christologia

"Those whose hearts are duly exercised in and unto the love of God have experience of the refreshing approaches both of the Father and of the Son unto their souls." Christologia

"The faith and love of believers is not to be regulated by the ignorance and boldness of them who have neither the one nor the other." Christologia

"Many there are who, not comprehending, not being affected with that divine, spiritual description of the person of Christ which is given us by the Holy Ghost in the Scripture, do feign unto themselves false representations of him by images and pictures, so as to excite carnal and corrupt affections of their minds... But all these idols are teachers of lies. The true beauty and amiableness of the person of Christ, which is the formal object and cause of divine love, is so far from being represented herein, as that the mind is thereby wholly diverted from the contemplation of it... The beauty of the person of Christ, as represented in the Scripture, consists in things invisible unto the eyes of flesh. They are such as no hand of man can represent or shadow. It is the eye of faith alone that can see the King in his beauty." Christologia

"He is no Christian who lives not MUCH in the meditation of the mediation of Christ, and the especial acts of it... What, then, will be the condition of them whose hearts are not so affected with the mediation of Christ and the fruits of it, as to engage the best, the choicest of their affections unto him? The gospel itself will be a savour of death unto such ungrateful wretches." Christologia

"The highest aggravation of the sin of angels was their ingratitude unto their Maker... But yet the sin of men, in their ingratitude towards Christ on the account of what he hath done for them, is attended with an aggravation above that of the angels." Christologia

"They make a pageant of religion - a fable for the theatre of the world - a business of fancy and opinion - whose hearts are not really affected with the love of Christ, in the susception and discharge of the work of mediation, so as to have real and spiritually sensible affections for him. Men may babble things which they have learned by rote; but they have no real acquaintance with Christianity, who imagine that the placing of the most intense affections of our souls on the person of Christ - the loving him will all our hearts because of his love - our being overcome thereby until we are sick of love - the constant motions of our souls towards him with delight and adherence - are but fancies and imaginations. I renounce that religion, be it whose it will, that teacheth, insinuateth, or giveth countenance unto, such abominations." Christologia

"Whatever men may boast of their affectionate endearments unto the divine goodness, if it be not founded in a sense of this love of Christ, and the love of God in him, they are but empty notions they flourish withal, and their deceived hearts feed upon ashes. It is in Christ alone that God is declared to be love." Christologia

"Nor is it enough that we seem to discern the glory of Christ's person, unless we see a beauty and excellency in every grace that is in him." Christologia

"He that would learn the divine nature from the representation that is made of it in the present actings of the nature of man will be gradually led unto the devil instead of God." Christologia

"Those who pretend a great difficulty at present, in reconciling the ETERNAL PERISHING OF THE GREATEST PART OF MANKIND with those notions we have of the divine goodness, seem not to have sufficiently considered what was contained in our original apostasy from God, nor the righteousness of God in dealing with the angels that sinned... Wherefore, as we ought always to admire sovereign grace in the FEW that shall be saved, so we have no ground to reflect on divine goodness in the MULTITUDE that perish, especially considering that they all voluntarily continue in their sin and apostasy." Christologia

"It hath been the design of Satan, in all ages, to contrive presumptuous notions of men's spiritual abilities - to divert their minds from the contemplation of the glory of divine wisdom and grace, as alone exalted in our recovery." Christologia

"Had it been the recovery of angels which Christ designed, he would have taken their nature on him. But this would have been no relief at all unto us, no more than the assuming of our nature is of advantage unto the fallen angels." Christologia

"Such is final unbelief against the proposal of the Gospel. It hath more malignity in it than all other sins whatever." Christologia

"To live in a constant prospect and view of the glory of obedience in the person of Christ, with a sedulous endeavour for conformity thereunto, is the highest attainment of our wisdom in this world; and whosoever is otherwise minded, is so at his own utmost peril." Christologia

"Alas! the light of divine wisdom in the greatest works of nature holds not the proportion of the meanest star unto the sun in its full strength, unto that glory of it which shines in this mystery of GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH, and the work accomplished thereby!" Christologia

"God will not take us into heaven, into the vision and possession of heavenly glory, with our heads and hearts reeking with the thoughts and affections of earthly things." Christologia

"The great design of the wisdom and grace of God, from eternity, was to declare and manifest all the holy, glorious properties of his nature, in and by Jesus Christ." Christologia

"This is the state of them who live in the due exercise of faith - this they pant and breathe after - namely, that they may be delivered from all darkness, unstable thoughts, and imperfect apprehensions of the glory of God in Christ. After these things do those who have received the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves." Christologia

"Our glory shall principally consist in beholding Christ's glory, because the whole glory of God is manifested in him." Christologia

"The glory of heaven consists in the full manifestation of divine wisdom, goodness, grace, holiness - of all the properties of the nature of God in Christ. In the clear perception and constant contemplation hereof consists no small part of eternal blessedness." Christologia

"The temporary sufferings of him who was eternal were a full compensation for the eternal sufferings of them who were temporary." Christologia

"Christ died not for believers as believers, though he died for all believers; but for all the elect as elect, who, by the benefit of his death, do become believers and so obtain assurance that he died for them." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ"

"Should it pass for true what the Scripture affirms, namely, that we are by nature dead in trespasses and sins, there would not be left of the notion of a general ransom a shred to take fire from the hearth. Like the wood of the vine, it would not yield a pin to hang a garment upon." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"If we maintain, then, the glory of God, let us speak in his own language, or be for ever silent. That is glorious in him which he ascribes unto himself. Our inventions, though never so splendid in our own eyes, are unto him an abomination, a striving to pull him down from his eternal excellency, to make him altogether like unto us." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"God would never allow that the will of the creature should be the measure of his honour." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"To me nothing is more certain than that to whom Christ is in any sense a Saviour in the work of redemption, he saves them to the uttermost from all their sins of infidelity and disobedience, with the saving of grace here and glory hereafter." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"God, out of his infinite love to his elect, sent his dear Son in the fullness of time, whom he had promised in the beginning of the world, and made effectual by that promise, to die, pay a ransom of infinite value and dignity, for the purchasing of eternal redemption, and bringing unto himself all and every one of those whom he had before ordained to eternal life, for the praise of his own glory." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"Is it not as easy for a man by his own strength to fulfill the whole law, as to repent and savingly believe the promise of the gospel?" The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"Doth it become the wisdom of God to send Christ to die for men that they might be saved, and never cause these men to hear of any such thing; and yet to purpose and declare that unless they do hear of it and believe it, they shall never be saved?" The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"Commands do not signify what is God's intention should be done, but what is our duty to do; which may be made known to us whether we be able to perform it or not: it signifieth no intention or purpose of God." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"Great as he was, he was not big enough to contend with truth." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"From our duty to God's purpose is no good conclusion, though from his command to our duty be most certain." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

"In a word, to bring reprobates to be objects of free grace, you deny the free grace of God to the elect; and to make it universal, you deny it to be effectual." The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ

God in our conversion, by the exceeding greatness of his power, as he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, actually worketh faith and repentance to us, gives them unto us, bestows them on us; so that they are mere effects of his grace in us. And his working in us infallibly produceth the effect intended, because it is actual faith that he works, and not only a power to believe." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"He who hath not an immediate and especial work of the Spirit of God upon him and towards him did never receive any especial love, grace, or mercy, from God." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"To say that we have a sufficiency in ourselves so much as to think a good thought, or to do anything as we ought, any power, any ability that is our own, or in us by nature, however externally excited and guided by motives, directions, reasons, encouragements, of what sort soever, to believe or obey the gospel savingly in any one instance, is to overthrow the gospel and the faith of the catholic church in all ages." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"No man comes to a useful, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in the gospel, but by virtue of an effectual heavenly calling." Works, Vol XVIII, p 467

"That which hath raised all the false religion which is in the world is nothing but a contrivance for the satisfaction of men's consciences under convictions... What is the meaning of the sacrifice of the mass, of purgatory, of pardons, penances, indulgences, abstinences, and the like things innumerable, but only to satisfy conscience by them, perplexed with a sense of sin?... The life and soul of superstition consists in endeavours to quiet and charm the consciences of men convinced of sin." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"There neither is, nor ever was, in the world, nor ever shall be, the least dram of holiness, but what, flowing from Jesus Christ, is communicated by the Spirit, according to the truth and promise of the gospel." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"It is the design of corrupted reason to debase all the glorious mysteries of the gospel, and all the concernments of them. There is nothing in the whole mystery of godliness, from the highest crown of it, which is the person of Christ - GOD MANIFESTED IN THE FLESH - unto the lowest and nearest effect of this grace, but it labors to deprave, dishonor, and debase. The Lord Christ, it would have in his whole person to be but a mere man, in his obedience and suffering to be but an example, in his doctrine to be confined unto the capacity and comprehension of carnal reason, and the holiness which he communicates by the sanctification of his Spirit to be but that moral virtue which is common among men as the fruit of their own endeavors." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"To suppose that moral virtue, whatever it be really in its own nature, or however advanced in the imaginations of men, is that HOLINESS OF TRUTH which believers receive by the Spirit of Christ, is to debase it, to overthrow it, and to drive the souls of men from seeking an interest in it." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"No man, I say, by his mere sight and conduct, can know and understand aright the true nature of evangelical holiness; and it is, therefore, no wonder if the doctrine of it be despised by many as an enthusiastical fancy." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God's great and first design in and by the gospel is eternally to glorify himself, his wisdom, goodness, love, grace, righteousness, and holiness, by Jesus Christ." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Mankind generally thought that the principal thing which was required of them in religion was to atone and pacify the wrath of the divine Power, and to make a compensation for what had been done against him. Hence were their sacrifices of hecatombs of beasts, of mankind, of their children, and of themselves... and many an abbey, monastery, college, and almshouse hath it founded; for in the fruits of this superstition, the priests, which set it on work, always shared deeply." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"All attempts or endeavors after works or duties of obedience in any respect satisfactory to God for sin or meritorious of pardon do subvert and overthrow the whole gospel." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"One of the greatest privileges and advancements of believers, both IN THIS WORLD and unto eternity, consists in their BEHOLDING THE GLORY OF CHRIST." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Never was there an age since the name of Christians was known upon the earth, wherein there was such a direct opposition made unto the Person and glory of Christ, as there is in that wherein we live... We now have great numbers who oppose the Person and glory of Christ, under a pretence of sobriety of reason, as they vainly plead." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The beholding of the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges and advancements that believers are capable of in this world, or that which is to come... If a man pretend himself to be enamoured on, or greatly to desire, what he never saw, nor was ever represented unto him, he does but dote on his own imaginations. And the pretended desires of many to behold the glory of Christ in heaven, who have no view of it by faith whilst they are here in this world, are nothing but self-deceiving imaginations... Let no man deceive himself: he that hath no sight of the glory of Christ here, shall never have any of it hereafter unto his advantage." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The sight of the glory of Christ is the spring and cause of our everlasting blessedness... Yet is there in true believers a foresight and foretaste of this glorious condition. There enters sometimes, by the Word and Spirit, into their hearts such a sense of the UNCREATED GLORY of God, SHINING FORTH IN CHRIST, as affects and satiates their souls with ineffable joy." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"No man ought to look for anything in heaven, but what one way or other he hath some experience of in this life." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"No man comes to a useful, saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in the gospel, but by virtue of an effectual heavenly calling." Works, Vol XVIII, p 467

"A diligent, attentive consideration of the person, offices, and work of Jesus Christ, is the most effectual means to free the souls of men from all entanglements of errors and darkness, and to keep them constant in the profession of the truth." Works, Vol XVIII, p 468

 "The great end of all Mosaic institutions, was to present, or prefigure, and give testimony unto the grace of the gospel by Jesus Christ." Works, Vol XVIII, p 468

"God is pleased ofttimes to grant great outward means to those in whom he will not work effectually by his grace." Works, Vol XVIII, p 470

"When men have provoked God by their impenitency to decree their punishment irrevocably, they will find severity in the execution." Works, Vol XVIII, p 470

"It is better to have an example than to be made an example of divine displeasure." Works, Vol XVIII, p 475

"The glory of God comprehends both the holy properties of his nature and the counsels of his will; and the light of the knowledge of these things we have only in the face or person of Jesus Christ... Herein is he glorious, in that he is the great representative of the nature of God and his will unto us; which without him would have been eternally hid from us, or been invisible unto us;  we should never have seen God at any time, here nor hereafter... He, and he alone, declares, represents, and makes known, unto angels and men, the essential glory of the invisible God, his attributes and his will; without which, a perpetual comparative darkness would have been on the whole creation, especially that part of it here below." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This is the foundation of our religion, the Rock whereon the church is built, the ground of all our hopes of salvation, of life and immortality: all is resolved into this - namely, the representation that is made of the nature and will of God in the person and office of Christ. If this fail us, we are lost for ever; if this Rock stand firm, the church is safe here, and shall be triumphant hereafter." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Not to see the wisdom of God, and the power of God, and consequently all the other holy properties of his nature, in Christ, is to be an unbeliever." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"But, alas! the horrible ingratitude of men for the glorious light of the gospel, and the abuse of it, will issue in a sore revenge." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"It is in Christ alone that we may have a clear, distinct view of the glory of God and his excellencies." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"To behold the glory of God is both our privilege and our duty. The duties of the Law were a burden and a yoke; but those of the gospel are privileges and advantages... In the contemplation of this glory consists the principal exercise of faith. And who can declare the glory of this privilege, that we who are born in darkness, and deserved to be cast out into utter darkness, should be translated into this marvellous light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"To behold the glory of God is both our privilege and our duty... But the most of those who at this day are called Christians are strangers unto this duty... notwithstanding the general profession that is of the knowledge of Christ, they are but few who thus behold his glory; and therefore few who are transformed into his image and likeness." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The angels themselves desire to look into the things of the glory of Christ... And shall we neglect that which is the object of angelical diligence to inquire into; especially considering that we are more than they concerned in it?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Nothing is more fully and clearly revealed in the gospel, than that unto us Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God; that he is the character of the person of the Father, so as that in seeing him we see the Father also; that we have the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in his face alone, as has been proved. This is the principal fundamental mystery and truth of the Gospel; and which if it be not received, believed, owned, all other truths are useless unto our souls." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The light of faith is given unto us principally to enable us to behold the glory of God in Christ." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"He is no Christian who believes not that faith in the person of Christ is the spring of all evangelical obedience; or who knows not that faith respects the revelation of the glory of God in him." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Beholding of the glory of Christ by beholding the glory of God, and all his holy properties in him, is the greatest privilege whereof in this life we can be made partakers. The dawning of heaven is in it, and the first-fruits of glory; for this is life eternal, to know the Father, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"God himself, in the infinite perfections of his divine nature, is the ultimate object of our faith. But he is not here the immediate object of it... Through Christ we believe in God. By our belief in him we come to place our faith ultimately in God himself; and this we can no otherwise do but by beholding the glory of God in him, as has been declared." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Multitudes begin openly to deny this incarnation of the Son of God, - this personal union of God and man in their distinct natures. They deny that there is either glory or truth in it; and it will ere long appear (it begins already to evidence itself) what greater multitudes there are, who yet do not, who yet dare not, OPENLY reject the doctrine of it, but who in truth believe it not, nor see any glory in it. Howbeit, this glory is the glory of our religion, - the glory of the church, - the sole Rock whereon it is built, - the only spring of present grace and future glory." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Let us get it fixed on our souls and in our minds, that this glory of Christ in the divine constitution of his person is the best, the most noble, useful, beneficial object that we can be conversant about in our thoughts, or cleave unto in our affections." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The light of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus is that satisfactory good alone which I desire and seek after." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Some keep their thoughts in continual exercise about the things of this world, as unto the advantages and emoluments which they expect from them. Hereby are they transformed into the image of the world, becoming earthly, carnal, and vain." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"There is no glory in comparison of what is proposed to us in the mysterious constitution of the person of Christ... He who has had a real view of this glory, though he know himself to be a poor, sinful, dying worm of the earth, yet would he not be an angel in heaven, if thereby he should lose the sight of it; for this is the center wherein all the lines of the manifestation of the divine glory do meet and rest." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This principle is always to be retained in our minds in reading of the Scripture, - namely, that the revelation and doctrine of the person of Christ and his office, is the foundation whereon all other instructions of the prophets and apostles for the edification of the church are built, and whereinto they are resolved." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This is the glory of the Scripture, that it is the great, yea, the only, outward means of representing unto us the glory of Christ; and he is the sun in the firmament of it, which only hath light in itself, and communicates it unto all other things besides." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"It is impossible that he who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ here in this world, who labors not to behold it by faith as it is revealed in the Scripture, should ever have any real gracious desire to behold it in heaven." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"It is to no purpose to boast of Christ, if we have not an evidence of his graces in our hearts and lives." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"A great rebuke it ought to be unto us, when Christ has at any time in a day been long out of our minds." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The infinite, essential greatness of the nature of God, with his infinite distance from the nature of all creatures thereby, causeth all his dealings with them to be in the way of condescension or humbling himself... He is so the high and lofty one, and so inhabiteth eternity, or existeth in his own eternal being, that it is an act of mere grace in him to take notice of things below; and therefore he doth it in an especial manner of those whom the world doth most despise." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The whole creation, in all its excellency, cannot contribute one mite unto the satisfaction or blessedness of God. He hath it all in infinite perfection from himself and in his own nature. Our goodness extends not unto him... How glorious, then, is the condescension of the Son of God in his susception of the office of mediation! For if such be the perfection of the divine nature, and its distance so absolutely infinite from the whole creation - and if such be his self-sufficiency unto his own eternal blessedness, as that nothing can be taken from him, nothing added unto him, so that every regard in him unto any of the creatures is an act of self humiliation and condescension from the prerogative of his being and state - what heart can conceive, what tongue can express, the glory of that condescension in the Son of God, whereby he took our nature upon him, took it to be his own, in order unto a discharge of the office of mediation on our behalf?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This condescension of the Son of God did not consist in a laying aside, or parting with, or separation from, the divine nature, so as that he should cease to be God by being man." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This is his condescension. It is not said that he ceased to be in the form of God; but continuing so to be, he took upon him the form of a servant in our nature: he became what he was not, but he ceased not to be what he was. So he testifieth of himself - No man has ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven. Although he was then on earth as the Son of man, yet he ceased not to be God thereby - in his divine nature he was then also in heaven." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"This, then, is the foundation of the glory of Christ in this condescension, the life and soul of all heavenly truth and mysteries - namely, that the Son of God becoming in time to be what he was not, the Son of man, ceased not thereby to be what he was, even the eternal Son of God." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"What will he not do for us? He who thus emptied and humbled himself, who so infinitely condescended from the prerogative of his glory in his being and self sufficiency, in the susception of our nature for the discharge of the office of a mediator on our behalf - will he not relieve us in all our distresses? will he not do all for us we stand in need of, that we may be eternally saved? will he not be a sanctuary unto us? Nor have we hereon any ground to fear his power; for, by this infinite condescension to be a suffering man, he lost nothing of his power as God omnipotent - nothing of his infinite wisdom or glorious grace. He could still do all that he could do as God from eternity. If there be any thing, therefore, in a coalescence of infinite power with infinite condescension, to constitute a sanctuary for distressed sinners, it is all in Christ Jesus." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Of all the evils which I have seen in the days of my pilgrimage, now drawing to their close, there is none so grievous as the public contempt of the principal mysteries of the Gospel among them that are called Christians." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The principal act of faith respects the DIVINE PERSON of Christ, as all Christians must acknowledge. This we can never secure (as has been declared) if we see not his glory in this condescension: and whoever reduceth his notions unto experience, will find that herein his faith stands or falls. And the principal duty of our obedience is self-denial, with readiness for the cross... And no man doth deny himself in a due manner, who doth it not on the consideration of the self-denial of the Son of God." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The eternal disposing cause of the whole work wherein the Lord Christ was engaged by the susception of this office [of Mediator], for the redemption and salvation of the church, is the love of the Father... And this love of the Father acted itself in his eternal decrees, before the foundation of the world, and afterward in the sending of his Son to render it effectual. Originally, it is his eternal election of a portion of mankind to be brought unto the enjoyment of himself, through the mystery of the blood of Christ, and the sanctification of the Spirit." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"A great part of the blessedness of the saints in heaven, and their triumph therein, consists in their beholding of this glory of Christ." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"He who was in heaven, above all, Lord of all, at the same time lived in the world in a condition of no reputation, and a course of the strictest obedience unto the whole law of God. He unto whom prayer was made, prayed himself night and day. He whom all the angels of heaven and all creatures worshipped, was continually conversant in all the duties of the worship of God. He who was over the house, diligently observed the meanest office of the house. He that made all men, in whose hand they are all as clay in the hand of the potter, observed amongst them the strictest rules of justice, in giving unto every one his due; and of charity, in giving good things that were not so due. This is that which renders the obedience of Christ in the discharge of his office both mysterious and glorious." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Some would reign here in this world... but the members of the mystical body must be conformed unto the Head. In him sufferings went before glory; and so they must in them. The order in the kingdom of Satan and the world is contrary hereunto. First the good things of this life, and then eternal misery, is the method of that kingdom." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Vain and foolish men, having general notions of this glory of Christ, knowing nothing of the real nature of it, have endeavored to represent it in pictures and images, with all that lustre and beauty which the art of painting, with the ornaments of gold and jewels, can give unto them. This is that representation of the present glory of Christ, which, being made and proposed unto the imagination and carnal affections of superstitious persons, carrieth such a show of devotion and veneration in the Papal Church. But they err, not knowing the Scripture, nor the eternal glory of the Son of God." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Hereon our duty it is to call ourselves to an account as unto our endeavor after a gracious view of this glory of Christ: - When did we steadily behold it?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"So it is with many. They care neither where Christ is nor what he is, so that one way or other they may be saved by him. They hope, as they pretend, that they shall see him and his glory in heaven, and that they suppose to be time enough; but in vain do they pretend a desire thereof, in vain are their expectations of any such thing. They who endeavor not to behold the glory of Christ in this world, as hath been often said, shall never behold him in glory hereafter." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"All that Moses did in the erection of the tabernacle, and the institution of all its services, was but to give an antecedent testimony by way of representation, unto the things of Christ that were afterward to be revealed." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"After the fall there is nothing spoken of God in the Old Testament, nothing of his institutions, nothing of the way and manner of dealing with the church, but what hath respect unto the future incarnation of Christ." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Nor can we read, study, or meditate on the writings of the Old Testament unto any advantage, unless we design to find out and behold the glory of Christ, declared and represented in them. For want hereof they are a sealed book to many unto this day." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"There was a necessity, upon a supposition of God's decree to save his church, of a translation of punishment, namely, from them who had deserved it, and could not bear it, unto one who had not deserved it, but could bear it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Antecedently unto all that the Lord Christ did and suffered for the church, there was a supreme act of the will of God the Father, giving all the elect unto him, intrusting them with him, to be redeemed, sanctified, and saved." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Now, where Christ is received by us, he must be tendered, given, granted, or communicated unto us. And this he is by some divine acts of the Father, and some of his own. The foundation of the whole is laid in a sovereign act of the will, the pleasure, the grace of the Father. And this is the order and method of all divine operations in the way and work of grace. They originally proceed all from him; and having effected their ends, do return, rest, and centre in him again." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"God alone has all being in him... In this state of infinite, eternal being and goodness, antecedent unto any act of wisdom or power without himself to give existence unto other things, God was, and is, eternally in himself all that he will be, all that he can be, unto eternity." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The blessedness of God consists in the ineffable mutual in-being of the three holy persons in the same nature, with the immanent reciprocal acting of the Father and the Son in the eternal love and complacency of the Spirit." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"To suppose any other race of intellectual creatures, besides angels in heaven and men on earth, is not only without all countenance from any divine testimony, but it disturbs and disorders the whole representation of the glory of God made unto us in the Scripture, and the whole design of his wisdom and grace, as declared therein. Intellectual creatures not comprehended in that government of God and mystery of his wisdom in Christ which the Scripture reveals, are a chimera framed in the imaginations of some men, scarce duly sensible of what it is to be wise unto sobriety." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"In particular, the Lord Christ is glorious herein, in that the whole breach made on the glory of God in the creation, by the entrance of sin, is hereby repaired and made up... yea, the whole curious frame of the divine creation is rendered more beautiful than it was before." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"God doth not, God cannot, act with more wisdom in one thing than in another; as in the creation of man, than in that of any inanimate creatures... But when the effects of this divine wisdom, in their principal beauty and glory, were defaced, greater treasures of wisdom were required unto their reparation. And in this re-collection of all things in Christ, did God lay them forth unto the utmost of whatever he will do in dealing with his creatures... Herein namely, in the re-collection of all things in Christ, divine wisdom hath made known and represented itself in all its stores and treasures unto angels and men." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"That woeful, cursed invention of framing images of Christ out of stocks and stones, however adorned, or representations of him by the art of painting, are so far from presenting unto the minds of men any thing of his real glory, that nothing can be more effectual to divert their thoughts and apprehensions from it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Vision, or the sight which we shall have of the glory of Christ in heaven, is immediate, direct, intuitive; and therefore steady, even, and constant... Christ himself, in his own person, with all his glory, shall be continually with us, before us, proposed unto us... There will be use herein of our bodily eyes... Unto whom is it not a matter of rejoicing, that with the same eyes wherewith they see the tokens and signs of him in the sacrament of the supper, they shall behold himself immediately in his own person?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The immediate sight of Christ is that which all the saints of God in this life do breathe and pant after. Hence are they willing to be dissolved... that they may enjoy the inexpressibly longed-for sight of Christ in his glory. Those who do not so long for it, whose souls and minds are not frequently visited with earnest desires after it, unto whom the thoughts of it are not their relief in trouble, and their chiefest joy, are carnal, blind, and cannot see afar off. He that is truly spiritual entertains and refresheth himself with thoughts hereof continually." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"God gives a superior, a supernatural light, the light of faith and grace, unto them whom he effectually calls unto the knowledge of himself by Jesus Christ. He shines into their hearts, to give them the knowledge of his glory in the face of his dear Son... But he who has only the former light [of nature] can understand nothing of it, because he has no taste or experience of its power and operations. He may talk of it, and make inquiries about it, but he knows it not." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"The more we grow in faith and spiritual light, the more sensible are we of our present burdens, and the more vehemently do we groan for deliverance into the perfect liberty of the sons of God... The nearer any one is to heaven, the more earnestly he desires to be there, because Christ is there." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Christ is, and shall be to eternity, the only means of communication between God and the church." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Whatever can be manifest of Christ on this side heaven, it is granted unto us for this end, that we may the more fervently desire to be present with him." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"And may we not a little examine ourselves by these things? Do we esteem this pressing towards the perfect view of the glory of Christ to be our duty? and do we abide in the performance of it? If it be otherwise with any of us, it is a signal evidence that our profession is hypocritical." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"I cannot understand how any man can walk with God as he ought, or has that love for Jesus Christ which true faith will produce, or doth place his refreshments and joy in spiritual things, in things above, that doth not on all just occasions so meditate on the glory of Christ in heaven as to long for an admittance into the immediate sight of it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Although no man can do any thing of himself for the receiving of Christ and the beholding of his glory, without the especial aid of the grace of God, yet some may make more opposition unto believing, and lay more hindrances in their own way, than others; which is done by their lusts and corruptions." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"In the view of the glory of Christ which we have by faith, it will fill the mind with thoughts and meditations about him, whereon the affections will cleave unto him with delight... It is not possible, I say, that we should behold the glory of his person, office, and grace, with a due conviction of our concernment and interest therein, but that our minds will be greatly affected with it, and be filled with contemplations about it. Where it is not so with any, it is to be feared that they have not heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape, whatever they profess." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"That is no love which does not beget in us many thoughts of the object beloved. He, therefore, who is partaker of this grace, will think much of what Christ is in himself, of what he hath done for us, of his love and condescension, of the manifestation of all the glorious excellencies of the divine nature in him, exerted in a way of infinite wisdom and goodness for the salvation of the church... And where these things are not in reality, men do but deceive their own souls in hopes of any benefit by Christ or the gospel." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"A mere dissolution of our natures can bring no advantage with it, especially as it is a part of the curse. But it is from the sanctification of it by the death of Christ. Hereby that which was God's ordinance for the infliction of judgment, becomes an effectual means for the communication of mercy. It is by virtue of the death of Christ alone, that the souls of believers are freed by death from all impressions of sin, infirmity, and evils, which they have had from the flesh; which were their burden, under which they groaned all their days. No man knows in any measure the excellency of this privilege, and the dawnings of glory which are in it, who has not been wearied, and even worn out, through long conflicting with the body of death." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"With wicked men it is not so. Death unto them is a curse; and the curse is the means of the conveyance of all evil, and not deliverance from any. Wherein they have been warmed and refreshed by the influences of the flesh, they shall be deprived of it. But their souls in their separate state, are perpetually harassed with all the disquieting passions which have been impressed on their minds by their corrupt fleshly lusts. In vain do such persons look for relief by death. If there be any thing remaining of present good and usefulness to them, they shall be deprived of it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"No man can have the least ground of assurance that he has seen Christ and his glory by faith, without some effects of it in changing him into his likeness." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part I

"Who can dwell on the consideration of the glory of Christ, being called therewith to the declaration of it, but his own mind will engage him to invite lost sinners unto a participation of him?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Even among those unto whom the word is preached, they are but few that shall be saved." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Most do perish in a senseless stupidity - they will not consider how it is with them, what is required of them, nor how it will be in the latter end - they doubt not but that either they do believe already, or can do so when they please." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"This, therefore, we also give testimony unto in our exhortation to come unto Christ - namely, that Christ's power to save those that shall comply with his call is sovereign, uncontrollable, almighty, that nothing can stand in the way of. All things in heaven and earth are committed unto him - all power is his - and he will use it unto this end - namely, the assured salvation of all that come unto him." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Whoever, therefore, comes unto Christ by faith on this representation of the glory of God in him, he ascribes and gives unto God all that glory and honor which he aimeth at from his creatures; and we can do nothing wherewith he is pleased equal unto it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"There is therefore no man who, under gospel invitations, refuseth to come unto and close with Christ by believing, but secretly, through the power of darkness, blindness, and unbelief, he hates God, dislikes all his ways, would not have his glory exalted or manifested, choosing rather to die in enmity against him than to give glory to him. Do not deceive yourselves; it is not an indifferent thing, whether you will come in unto Christ upon his invitations or no, or a thing that you may put off from one season unto another: your present refusal of it is as high an act of enmity against God as your nature is capable of." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Impenitent unbelievers under the preaching of the gospel, are the vilest and most ungrateful of all God's creation. The devils themselves, as wicked as they are, are not guilty of this sin; for Christ is never tendered unto them - they never had an offer of salvation on faith and repentance. This is their peculiar sin, and will be the peculiar aggravation of their misery unto eternity." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"The sin of the devil is in malice and opposition unto knowledge, above what the nature of man is in this world. Men, therefore, must sin in some instance above the devil, or God would not give them their eternal portion with the devil and his angels: this is unbelief." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"This day, even this, is unto you in the tender of grace the acceptable time - this is the day of salvation. Others have had this day as well as you, and have missed their opportunity - take heed lest it should be so with you also." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"This is as good a time and season for a resolution as ever you are like to have whilst in this world. Some things, nay, many things, may fall in between this and the next opportunity, that shall put you backward, and make your entrance into the kingdom of heaven far more difficult than ever it was... Christ has waited long for you, and who knows how soon he may withdraw, never to look after you any more?" Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Although it is unbelief alone, acting in the darkness of men's minds and the obstinacy of their wills, that effectually keeps off sinners from coming unto Christ upon his call, yet it shrouds itself under various pretences, that it may not appear in its own ugly form." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"You come to hear the word, and when you go away, the language of your hearts is, we will abide a little while in our present state, and afterward we will rouse up ourselves... Know assuredly, if your minds are influenced unto delays of coming to Christ by such insinuations, you are under the power of Satan, and he is like enough to hold you fast unto destruction." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"If you have learned to put off God, and Christ, and the word for the present season, and yet relieve yourselves in this, that you do not intend, like others, always to reject them, but will have a time to hearken to their calls, you are secured and fortified against all convictions and persuasions, all fears... It is better dealing with men openly profligate, than with such a trifling promiser." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Cursed be the man that shall encourage you to come to Christ with hopes of indulgence unto any one sin whatever... your choice must be absolute, without reserves, as to love, interest, and design - God or the world - Christ or Belial - holiness or sin; there is no medium, no terms of composition." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Spiritual wisdom will make us to see that the faithfulness and power of God are exerted in the work of preserving believers flourishing and fruitful unto the end." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Let none deceive their own souls: wherever there is a saving principle of grace, it will be thriving and growing unto the end. And if it fall under obstructions, and thereby into decays for a season, it will give no rest or quietness unto the soul wherein it is, but will labour continually for a recovery. Peace in a spiritually-decaying condition is a soul-ruining security; better to be under terror on the account of surprisal into some sin, than be in peace under evident decays of spiritual life." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"The promises of the new covenant, as unto the first communication of grace unto the elect, are absolute and unconditional; they are the executive conveyances of God's immutable purposes and decrees... this is the glory of covenant promises, that, as unto the communication of the grace of conversion and sanctification unto the elect, they are absolutely free and unconditional." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"There is no grace or mercy that doth more affect the hearts of believers, that gives them a greater transport of joy and thankfulness, than of deliverance from backslidings." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Have you any experience of spiritual decays, either in the frame of your spirits or in the manner of your walking before God; or, at least, that you are prone unto them, if not mightily preserved by the power of grace in your own utmost diligence?... If you have not this experience, it is to be feared that you are asleep in security, which is hardly distinguishable from death in sin." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"It is often so, that men are weary of God when they even weary God with their duties and services." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"The loss of a spiritual appetite unto the food of our souls is an evidence of a decay in all graces. Spiritual appetite consists in earnest desires, and a savoury relish... There is required unto this spiritual appetite an earnest desire for the Word of God." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Where grace is in its proper exercise, it will subordinate all things unto religion, and the ends of it, as David twenty times declares in the 119th Psalm. All things, all occasions of life, shall be postponed thereunto. The love and valuation of it will bear sway in our minds, our thoughts, and affections; and the practice of it shall give rule unto all other concernments." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"The work of recovering backsliders or believers from under their spiritual decays is an act of sovereign grace, wrought in us by virtue of divine promises. Out of this eater cometh meat. Because believers are liable to such declensions, backslidings, and decays, God hath provided and given unto us great and precious promises of a recovery, if we duly apply ourselves unto the means of it." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"No season nor circumstances of things shall obstruct sovereign grace when God will exercise it towards his church: it shall work in the midst of desolating judgments." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"When God designs to heal the backsliding of his people by sovereign grace, he gives them effectual calls unto repentance, and the use of means for their healing." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"When the souls of sinners are in good earnest in their return unto God, they will leave out the consideration of no one sin whatever." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"This grace [of repentance from backslidings] will not surprise us in our sloth, negligence, and security, but will make way for itself by stirring us up unto sincere endeavours after it in the perseverance of our duties." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"All our supplies of grace are from Jesus Christ... all grace is from Christ, and shall be in vain expected any other way... He is our head, and all our spiritual influences -- that is, divine communication of grace -- are from him alone. He is our life efficiently, and liveth in us effectively, so as that our ability for vital acts is from him." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"Let us live in the constant contemplation of the glory of Christ, and virtue will proceed from him to repair all our decays, to renew a right spirit within us, and to cause us to abound in all duties of obedience. This way of producing these effects flesh and blood will not reveal -- it looks like washing in Jordan to cure a leprosy; but the life of faith is a mystery known only unto them in whom it is." Meditations And Discourses On The Glory Of Christ - Part II

"The authority of the Scripture dependeth not on the authority of the church, as the Papists blaspheme." The Greater Catechism

"To deny the Deity of any one person, is in effect to deny the whole Godhead; for whosoever hath not the Son, hath not the Father... This only doctrine remained undefiled in the Papacy" The Greater Catechism

"The decree of election is the fountain of all spiritual graces, for they are bestowed only on the elect." The Greater Catechism

"Fortune, chance, and the like, are names without things, scarce fit to be used among Christians, seeing Providence certainly ruleth all to appointed ends." The Greater Catechism

"It is of free grace that God giveth power to yield any obedience, and accepteth of any obedience that is not perfect." The Greater Catechism

"Jesus Christ is God and man in one -- not a God and a man; God incarnate -- not a man deified." The Greater Catechism

"The monstrous figment of transubstantiation, or Christ's corporeal presence in the sacrament, fully overthrows our Saviour's human nature, and makes him a mere shadow." The Greater Catechism

"Christ hath not delegated his kingly power of law-making for his church to any here below." The Greater Catechism

"The death that Christ underwent was eternal in its own nature and tendence, not so to him, because of his holiness, power, and the unity of his person... He suffered not as God, but he suffered who was God." The Greater Catechism

"To make saints our intercessors, is to renounce Jesus Christ from being a sufficient Saviour." The Greater Catechism

"To say that Christ died for every man universally, is to affirm that he did no more for the elect than the reprobates -- for them that are saved than for them that are damned; which is the Arminian blasphemy." The Greater Catechism

"They who so boast of the strength of free-will in the work of our conversion, are themselves an example what it is being given up to so vile an error -- destitute of the grace of God." The Greater Catechism

"Every part of Popish repentance viz., contrition, confession, and satisfaction -- was performed by Judas." The Greater Catechism

"True faith can no more be without true holiness than true fire without heat." The Greater Catechism

"Our liberty is our inheritance here below, which we ought to contend for, against all opposers." The Greater Catechism

"Ministers are the bishops of the Lord -- lord-bishops came from Rome." The Greater Catechism

"Agreement without truth is no peace, but a covenant with death, a league with hell, a conspiracy against the kingdom of Christ, a stout rebellion against the God of heaven." A Display Of Arminianism

"What peace in the church without truth? All conformity to any thing else is but the agreement of Herod and Pilate to destroy Christ and his kingdom." A Display Of Arminianism

"What need of the gospel, what need of Christ himself, if our nature be not guilty, depraved, corrupted?" A Display Of Arminianism

"The sacred bond of peace compasseth only the unity of that Spirit which leadeth into all truth." A Display Of Arminianism

"All the decrees of God, as they are internal, so they are eternal acts of his will, and therefore unchangeable and irrevocable. Mutable decrees and occasional resolutions are most contrary to the pure nature of Almighty God." A Display Of Arminianism

"Now, be this crime of what nature it will, it is no unjust imputation to charge it on the Arminians, because they confess themselves guilty, and glory in the crime... They undermine and overthrow the eternity of God's purposes, by affirming that, in the order of the divine decrees, there are some which precede every act of the creature, and some again that follow them... Now, all the acts of every creature being but of yesterday, and temporary, like themselves, surely, those decrees of God cannot be eternal which follow them in order of time; and yet they press this, especially in respect of human actions, as a certain, unquestionable verity... Surely these men care not what indignities they cast upon the God of heaven, so they may maintain the pretended endowments of their own wills; for such an absolute power do they here ascribe unto themselves, that God himself cannot determine... How do they and their fellows, the Jesuits, exclaim upon poor Calvin, for sometimes using the hard word of COMPULSION, describing the effectual, powerful working of the providence of God in the actions of men; but they can fasten the same term on the will of God, and no harm done! Surely God will one day plead his own cause against them." A Display Of Arminianism

"The decrees of God, being conformable to his nature and essence, do require eternity and immutability as their inseparable properties. God, and he only, never was, nor ever can be, what now he is not. Passive possibility to any thing, which is the fountain of all change, can have no place in him who is actus simplex, and purely free from all composition." A Display Of Arminianism

"Whatsoever God hath determined, according to the counsel of his wisdom and good pleasure of his will, to be accomplished, to the praise of his glory, standeth sure and immutable." A Display Of Arminianism

"The purpose of God and immutability of his counsel have their certainty and firmness from eternity, and do not depend on the variable lubricity of mortal men; which we must needs grant, unless we intend to set up impotency against omnipotency, and arm the clay against the potter." A Display Of Arminianism

"If God's determination concerning any thing should have a temporal original, it must needs be either because he then perceived some goodness in it of which before he was ignorant, or else because some accident did affix a real goodness to some state of things which it had not from him; neither of which, without abominable blasphemy, can be affirmed." A Display Of Arminianism

"The immutability of God's nature, his almighty power, the infallibility of his knowledge, his immunity from error in all his counsels, do show that he never faileth in accomplishing any thing that he proposeth for the manifestation of his glory." A Display Of Arminianism

"Infinite things, whose actual being eternity shall never behold, are thus open and naked unto God; for was there not strength and power in his hand to have created another world? was there not counsel in the storehouse of his wisdom to have created this otherwise, or not to have created it at all?... of this large and boundless territory of things possible, God by his decrees freely determineth what shall come to pass, and makes them future which before were but possible." A Display Of Arminianism

"Things are possible in regard of God's power, future in regard of his decree... with this prescience, then, God foreseeth all, and nothing but what he hath decreed shall come to pass." A Display Of Arminianism

"The Arminians affirm that God is said properly to expect and desire divers things which yet never come to pass... Now, surely, to desire what one is sure will never come to pass is not an act regulated by wisdom or counsel; and, therefore, they must grant that before he did not know but perhaps so it might be... whence one of these two things must needs follow -- either, first, that there is a great deal of imperfection in his nature, to desire and expect what he knows shall never come to pass; or else he did not know but it might, which overthrows his prescience... Now, whether this kind of atheism be tolerable among Christians or no, let all men judge who have their senses exercised in the word of God." A Display Of Arminianism

"Amidst all our afflictions and temptations, under whose pressure we should else faint and despair, it is no small comfort to be assured that we do nor can suffer nothing but what God's hand and counsel guides unto us, what is open and naked before his eyes, and whose end and issue he knoweth long before; which is a strong motive to patience, a sure anchor of hope, a firm ground of consolation." A Display Of Arminianism

"The overruling act of God's providence, as no other decree or act of his, doth not rob things contingent of their proper nature; for cannot he who effectually causeth that they shall come to pass, cause also that they shall come to pass contingently?" A Display Of Arminianism

"The working of God's providence is effectual even in the hearts and wills of men to turn them which way he will, and to determine them to this or that in particular, according as he pleaseth." A Display Of Arminianism

"The certainty of divers promises and threatenings of Almighty God dependeth upon his powerful determining and turning the wills and hearts of men which way he pleaseth." A Display Of Arminianism

"The eternal predestination of Almighty God, that fountain of all spiritual blessings, of all the effects of God's love derived unto us through Christ, the demolishing of this rock of our salvation hath been the chief endeavor of all the patrons of human self-sufficiency; so to vindicate unto themselves a power and independent ability of doing good, of making themselves to differ from others, of attaining everlasting happiness, without going one step from without themselves." A Display Of Arminianism

"Reason, Scripture, God himself, all must give place to any absurdities, if they stand in the Arminian way, bringing in their idol with shouts, and preparing God's throne, by claiming the cause of their predestination to be in themselves." A Display Of Arminianism

"To apprehend an election of men not circumscribed with the circumstance of particular persons is such a conceited, Platonical abstraction, as it seems strange that any one dares profess to understand that there should be a predestination, and none predestinated; an election, and none elected; a choice amongst many, yet none left or taken; a decree to save men, and yet thereby salvation destinated to no one man... Now, such an election, such a predestination, have the Arminians substituted in the place of God's everlasting decree." A Display Of Arminianism

"The free grace of God notwithstanding, in that of choosing Jacob when Esau is rejected, the only antecedent cause of any difference between the elect and reprobates, remaineth firm and unshaken; and surely, unless men were resolved to trust wholly to their own bottoms, to take nothing gratis at the hands of God, they would not endeavor to rob God of his glory, of having mercy on whom he will have mercy." A Display Of Arminianism

"The former [Arminian] assertion that our election, or choosing unto grace and glory, is upon the foresight of our good works; which contains a doctrine so contradictory to the words and meaning of the apostle, Rom. ix. 11, condemned in so many councils, suppressed by so many edicts and decrees of emperors and governors, opposed as a pestilent heresy, ever since it was first hatched, by so many orthodox fathers and learned schoolmen, is so directly contrary to the doctrine of this church, so injurious to the grace and supreme power of Almighty God, that I much wonder any one, in this light of the gospel and flourishing time of learning, should be so boldly ignorant or impudent as to broach it amongst Christians." A Display Of Arminianism

"When God and man stand in competition as to who shall be accounted the cause of an eternal good, we may be sure the Scripture will pass the verdict on the part of the Most High." A Display Of Arminianism

"Holiness, whereof faith is the root and obedience the body, is that whereunto, and not for which, we are elected." A Display Of Arminianism

"Sin imputed, by itself alone, without an inherent guilt, was never punished in any but Christ." A Display Of Arminianism

"Man before his fall, though not in regard of the matter whereof he was made, nor yet merely in respect of his quickening form, yet in regard of God's ordination, was immortal, a keeper of his own everlastingness." A Display Of Arminianism

"Christ's intercession in heaven is nothing but a continued oblation of himself. So that whatsoever Christ impetrated, merited, or obtained by his death and passion, must be infallibly applied unto and bestowed upon them for whom he intended to obtain it; or else his intercession is vain, he is not heard in the prayers of his mediatorship." A Display Of Arminianism

"So that though we confess the poor natural endeavors of the heathen not to have wanted their reward (either positive in this life, by outward prosperity, and inward calmness of mind, in that they were not all perplexed and agitated with furies, like Nero and Caligula; or negative in the life to come, by a diminution of the degrees of their torments -- they shall not be beaten with so many stripes), yet we absolutely deny that there is any saving mercy of God towards them revealed in the Scripture, which should give us the least intimation of their attaining everlasting happiness." A Display Of Arminianism

"It will evidently appear that no salvation can be granted unto them on whom the Lord hath so far poured out his indignation as to deprive them of the knowledge of the sole means thereof, Christ Jesus. And to those that are otherwise minded, I give only this necessary caution -- Let them take heed, lest, whilst they endeavor to invent new ways to heaven for others, by so doing, they lose the true way themselves." A Display Of Arminianism

"All spiritual acts well-pleasing unto God, as faith, repentance, obedience, are supernatural; flesh and blood revealeth not these things." A Display Of Arminianism

"We, being by nature dead in trespasses and sins, have no power to prepare ourselves for the receiving of God’s grace, nor in the least measure to believe and turn ourselves unto him." A Display Of Arminianism

"Our new birth is a resurrection from death, wrought by the greatness of God’s power. And what ability, I pray, hath a dead man to prepare himself for his resurrection?" A Display Of Arminianism

"All the faculties of our souls, by reason of that spiritual death under which we are detained by the corruption of nature, are altogether useless, in respect of any power for the doing of that which is truly good." A Display Of Arminianism

"There is not only an impotency but an enmity in corrupted nature to anything spiritually good." A Display Of Arminianism

"A natural man hath no such thing as free-will at all, if you take it for a power of doing that which is good and well-pleasing unto God in things spiritual." A Display Of Arminianism

"The sole cause why the gospel is sent unto some and not unto others is, not any dignity, worth, or desert of it in them to whom it is sent, more than in the rest that are suffered to remain in the shadow of death, but only the sole good pleasure of God, that it may be a subservient means for the execution of his decree of election." A Display Of Arminianism

"Though the will of man conferreth nothing to the infusion of the first grace [regeneration], but a subjective receiving of it, yet in the very first act that is wrought in and by the will, it most freely cooperateth (by the way of subordination) with the grace of God; and the more effectually it is moved by grace, the more freely it worketh with it. Man being converted, converteth himself." A Display Of Arminianism

"The operation of [effectual] grace is resisted by no hard heart; because it mollifies the heart itself. It doth not so much take away a power of resisting as give a will of obeying, whereby the powerful impotency of resistance is removed." A Display Of Arminianism

"The revelation of God is expressed in the Scripture... Now the sum of this revelation in the matter is, that God is one -- that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- that the Father is the Father of the Son; and the Son, the Son of the Father; and the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Father and the Son; and that, in respect of this their mutual relation, they are distinct from each other." Vindication Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity

"The first intention of the Scripture, in the revelation of God towards us, is, as was said, that we might fear him, believe, worship, obey him, and live unto him, as God. That we may do this in a due manner, and worship the only true God, and not adore the false imaginations of our own minds it declares, as was said, that this God is one, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- that the Father is this one God; and therefore is to be believed in, worshipped, obeyed, lived unto, and in all things considered by us as the first cause, sovereign Lord, and last end of all -- that the Son is the one true God; and therefore is to be believed in, worshipped, obeyed, lived unto, and in all things considered by us as the first cause, sovereign Lord, and last end of all -- and so, also, of the Holy Ghost. This is the whole of faith’s concernment in this matter, as it respects the direct revelation of God made by himself in the Scripture, and the first proper general end thereof." Vindication Of The Doctrine Of The Trinity

"In the old creation, all things were made by the eternal Word, the person of the Son, as the Wisdom of God. There was no immediate emanation of divine power from the person of the Father, for the production of all or any created beings, but in and by the person of the Son, their wisdom and power being one and the same as acted in him. And the supportation of all things in the course of divine providence is his immediate work also, whence the Son is said to uphold all things by the word of his power." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God doth work real, effectual, sanctifying grace, spiritual strength and holiness, in believers, yea, that grace whereby they are enabled to believe and are made holy, and doth really sanctify them more and more, that they may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"In whomsoever the death of Christ is not the death of sin, he shall die in his sins." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"He who resolveth not to be holy had best seek another god to worship and serve; with our God he will never find acceptance." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God neither accepts of any duties from unholy persons nor is he glorified by them, and therefore as unto these ends doth he expressly reject and condemn them." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"There is no imagination wherewith mankind is besotted more foolish, none so pernicious, as this, that persons not purified, not sanctified, not made holy, in this life, should afterward be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God... Holiness, indeed, is perfected in heaven, but the beginning of it is invariably and unalterably confined to this world; and where this fails, no hand shall be put unto that work unto eternity. All unholy persons, therefore, who feed and refresh themselves with hopes of heaven and eternity do it merely on false notions of God and blessedness, whereby they deceive themselves." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God having exalted our natures, by union with himself in the person of his Son, requires of us to preserve its dignity above others." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Where truth is not universally observed, according to the utmost watchfulness of sincerity and love, there all other marks and tokens of the image of God in any persons are not only sullied but defaced, and the representation of Satan is most prevalent." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Notwithstanding the superabounding grace of God in Christ, there is an indispensable necessity that all believers should be holy." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"It is the eternal and immutable purpose of God, that all who are his in a peculiar manner, all whom he designs to bring unto blessedness in the everlasting enjoyment of himself, shall antecedently thereunto be made holy." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"The expectation and hope of any man for life and immortality and glory, without previous holiness, can be built on no other foundation but this: that God will rescind his eternal decrees and change his purposes -- that is, cease to be God -- merely to comply with them in their sins!" A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Chosen we are unto salvation by the free, sovereign grace of God. But how may this salvation be actually obtained? how may we be brought into the actual possession of it? Through the sanctification of the Spirit, and no otherwise. Whom God doth not sanctify and make holy by his Spirit, he never chose unto salvation from the beginning." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Whomsoever God purposeth to save, he purposeth first to sanctify." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"He that doth not understand, who is not sensible, that an apprehension by faith of God's electing love in Christ hath a natural, immediate, powerful influence, upon the souls of believers, unto the love of God and holy obedience, is utterly unacquainted with the nature of faith, and its whole work and actings towards God in the hearts of them that believe." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Because of the immutability of God's eternal purpose in our predestination, and his effectual operations in the pursuit and for the execution thereof, the elect of God shall infallibly be carried through all, even the most dreadful oppositions that are made against them, and be at length safely landed in glory." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Whatever good any man doth in any kind, if the reason why he doth it be not God's command, it belongs neither to holiness nor obedience." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"Be of good courage, all ye that trust in the Lord; you may, you ought, without fear or dauntedness of spirit, to engage into the pursuit of universal holiness. He who hath commanded it, who hath required it of you, will bear you out in it. Nothing that is truly evil or finally disadvantageous shall befall you on that account." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God hath in this matter positively declared his will, interposing his sovereign authority, commanding us to be holy, and that on the penalty of his utmost displeasure; and he hath therewithal given us redoubled assurance (as in a case wherein we are very apt to deceive ourselves) that, be we else what we will or can be, without sincere holiness he will neither own us nor have anything to do with us. Be our gifts, parts, abilities, places, dignities, usefulness in the world, profession, outward duties, what they will, unless we are sincerely holy (which we may not be and yet be eminent in all these things), we are not, we cannot, we shall not be, accepted with God." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"As for those who are never made holy, Christ never died or offered himself for them... And it evacuates the force of the motive unto the necessity of holiness from the consideration of the oblation of Christ, when men are taught that Christ offered himself a sacrifice for them who are never made holy." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"For men to live in covetousness, sensuality, pride, ambition, pleasures, hatred of the power of godliness, and yet to hope for salvation by the gospel, is the most infallible way to hasten and secure their own eternal ruin." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"The priestly office of Christ hath its whole effects towards all on whom it hath any effect. Despisers of its fruits in holiness shall never have the least interest in its fruits in righteousness." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"In our holiness consists the principal part of that revenue of glory and honor which the Lord Christ requireth and expecteth from his disciples in this world." A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God teach us all duly to consider, that all the glory and honor of Jesus Christ in the world, with respect unto us, depends on our holiness, and not on any other thing either that we are, have, or may do!" A Discourse Concerning The Holy Spirit

"God's perpetual care over the Scripture for so many ages, that not a letter of it should be utterly lost, nothing that hath the least tendency towards its end should perish, is evidence sufficient of his regard to it." The Reason Of Faith

"When men do manifest and evince that the declaration of the mind of God in the Scripture hath a sovereign divine authority over their souls and consciences, absolutely and in all things, then is their witness cogent and efficacious." The Reason Of Faith

"Although the Scripture be God's word, and he hath testified it so to be by his power, put forth and exerted in dispensations of it unto men, yet is not that divine power included or shut up in the letter of it, so that it must have the same effect wherever it comes. We plead not that there is absolutely in itself, its doctrine, the preaching or preachers thereof, such a power, as it were naturally and physically, to produce the effects mentioned; but it is an instrument in the hand of God unto that work which is his own, and he puts forth his power in it and by it as it seems good unto him... Wherefore, the times and seasons of the prevalency of the gospel in the world are in the hand and at the sovereign disposal of God." The Reason Of Faith

"But yet I must needs say, that although those external arguments, whereby learned and rational men have proved, or may yet farther prove, the Scripture to be a divine revelation given of God, and the doctrine contained in it to be a heavenly truth, are of singular use for the strengthening of the faith of them that do believe, by relieving the mind against temptations and objections that will arise to the contrary, as also for the conviction of gainsayers; yet to say that they contain the formal reason of that assent which is required of us unto the Scripture as the word of God, that our faith is the effect and product of them, which it rests upon and is resolved into, is both contrary to the Scripture, destructive of the nature of DIVINE FAITH, and exclusive of the work of the Holy Ghost in this whole matter." The Reason Of Faith

"If we believe not with faith divine and supernatural, we believe not at all." The Reason Of Faith

"As for that course which some take, in all places and at all times, to be disputing about the Scriptures and their authority, it is a practice giving countenance unto atheism, and is to be abhorred of all that fear God; and the consequents of it are sufficiently manifest." The Reason Of Faith

"The Father communicates no issue of his love unto us but through Christ; and we make no return of love unto him but through Christ. Christ is the treasury wherein the Father disposeth all the riches of his grace, taken from the bottomless mine of his eternal love; and Christ is the priest into whose hand we put all the offerings that we return unto the Father." Of Communion With God

"Though the love of the Father's purpose and good pleasure have its rise and foundation in his mere grace and will, yet the design of its accomplishment is only in Christ. All the fruits of it are first given to him; and it is in him only that they are dispensed to us. So that though the saints may, nay, do, see an infinite ocean of love unto them in the bosom of the Father, yet they are not to look for one drop from him but what comes through Christ. He is the only means of communications." Of Communion With God

"Christ bears the iniquity of our offerings, and he adds incense unto our prayers. Our love is fixed on the Father; but it is conveyed to him through the Son of his love. Christ is the only way for our graces as well as our persons to go unto God; through him passeth all our desire, our delight, our complacency, our obedience." Of Communion With God

"God's power and will are commensurate -- what he willeth he worketh." Of Communion With God

"The love of the Father is equal; whom he loves, he loves unto the end, and he loves them always alike... On whom he fixes his love, it is immutable; it does not grow to eternity, it is not diminished at any time. It is an eternal love, that had no beginning, that shall have no ending; that cannot be heightened by any act of ours, that cannot be lessened by any thing in us." Of Communion With God

"The Lord open the eyes of men, that they may see and know that walking with God is a matter not of form, but of POWER!" Of Communion With God

"The uniting of the natures of God and man in one person made Christ fit to be a Saviour to the uttermost... Upon this account it was that he had room enough in his breast to receive, and power enough in his spirit to bear, all the wrath that was prepared for us. Sin was infinite only in respect of the object; and punishment was infinite in respect of the subject. This ariseth from his union." Of Communion With God

"As unto the belief of the Scripture itself, so as unto the understanding, knowledge, and faith of the things contained therein, we do not depend on the authoritative interpretation of any church or person whatever." Necessity Of The Spirit For Illumination

"There is nothing that sets men at a greater distance from divine instruction than a proud conceit of their own wisdom, wit, parts, and abilities." Necessity Of The Spirit For Illumination

"The foundation of all the benefits which are received by Christ, — that is, of the spiritual and eternal salvation of the church, — is laid in his condescending to undertake the office of a mediator between God and man. And as this was the greatest effect of divine wisdom and grace, so it is the first cause, the root and spring, of all spiritual blessings unto us. This the whole Scripture beareth testimony unto, Hebrews 10:7; 1 John 3:16. This is the fundamental article of faith evangelical. And the want of laying this foundation aright, as it occasioneth many to apostatize from the gospel unto a natural religion, so it weakeneth and disordereth the faith of many believers. But this is the first ground of all friendship between God and man." Works Of John Owen, Vol XXI

"You have much preaching and discourse about virtue and vice; so it was among the philosophers of old: but Jesus Christ is laid aside, quite as a thing forgotten; as if he was of no use, no consideration in religion; as if men knew not at all how to make any use of him, as to living to God." Works Of John Owen, Vol IX, Several Practical Cases Of Conscience Resolved, Discourse IV

"God grant that we may never preach to you any thing but what we may labour to have an experience of the power of it in our own hearts, and to profit ourselves by the word wherewith we design to profit others!" Works Of John Owen, Vol IX, Several Practical Cases Of Conscience Resolved, Discourse IV

"When all other evidences fail, faith will secretly maintain the soul with a persuasion of its relation unto God... So it is in our head, Jesus Christ, when he cried, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' When all particular evidences fail, he can still say, 'My God, my God'" Works Of John Owen, Vol IX, Sermon XXIV

"Spiritual judgments of God, in hardening the hearts of men judicially and penally to their destruction, are as visible to every considering person as any of God's outward judgments whatsoever." Works Of John Owen, Vol IX, Sermon XXIV

"There is a course of walking that will please the world, satisfy the church, and which professors shall greatly approve of; and yet if a man come to examine his own heart by the rule, he shall find his course of walking judged: for though the world hath nothing to object against us, and though professors do well approve of us; yet when we come to the rule, that will discover our iniquity. We are bound to walk by rule. God will have mercy on them that walk according to this rule. (Gal. vi. 16)." Works Of John Owen, Vol IX, Sermon XXIV

"For although the Lord Christ performed all the acts of his mediatory office in and by the human nature, yet he did them not as man, but as God and man in one person." An Exposition Of The Epistle To The Hebrews, Verses 1,2

"Sin doth so remain, so act and work in the best of believers, whilst they live in this world, that the constant daily mortification of it is all their days incumbent on them... When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Neither is there a greater evidence of a false and rotten heart in the world than to drive such a trade." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"A gift, and procuring cause in him to whom it is given, are inconsistent." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"The mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you. Your being dead with Christ virtually, your being quickened with him, will not excuse you from this work." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Indwelling sin always abides whilst we are in this world; therefore it is always to be mortified. The vain, foolish, and ignorant disputes of men about perfect keeping the commands of God, of perfection in this life, of being wholly and perfectly dead to sin, I meddle not now with. It is more than probable that the men of those abominations never knew what belonged to the keeping of any one of God’s commands, and are so much below perfection of degrees, that they never attained to a perfection of parts in obedience or universal obedience in sincerity." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"If sin be subtle, watchful, strong, and always at work in the business of killing our souls, and we be slothful, negligent, foolish, in proceeding to the ruin thereof, can we expect a comfortable event? There is not a day but sin foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on; and it will be so whilst we live in this world." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Not to be daily mortifying sin, is to sin against the goodness, kindness, wisdom, grace, and love of God, who hath furnished us with a principle of doing it... by the omission of this duty grace withers, lust flourisheth, and the frame of the heart grows worse and worse; and the Lord knows what desperate and fearful issues it hath had with many." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who doth not kill sin in his way takes no steps towards his journey’s end. He who finds not opposition from it, and who sets not himself in every particular to its mortification, is at peace with it, not dying to it." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"To use the blood of Christ, which is given to cleanse us; the exaltation of Christ, which is to give us repentance; the doctrine of grace, which teaches us to deny all ungodliness to countenance sin, is a rebellion that in the issue will break the bones. At this door have gone out from us most of the professors that have apostatized in the days wherein we live." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"The greatest part of popish religion, of that which looks most like religion in their profession, consists in mistaken ways and means of mortification. This is the pretense of their rough garments, whereby they deceive. Their vows, orders, fastings, penances, are all built on this ground; they are all for the mortifying of sin. Their preachings, sermons, and books of devotion, they look all this way... This, I say, is the substance and glory of their religion; but what with their laboring to mortify dead creatures, ignorant of the nature and end of the work, — what with the poison they mixed with it, in their persuasion of its merit, yea, supererogation (as they style their unnecessary merit, with a proud, barbarous title), — their glory is their shame... Because many of the ways and means they use and insist upon for this end were never appointed of God for that purpose. (Now, there is nothing in religion that hath any efficacy for compassing an end, but it hath it from God’s appointment of it to that purpose.) Such as these are their rough garments, their vows, penances, disciplines, their course of monastical life, and the like; concerning all which God will say, Who hath required these things at your hand? and, In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the traditions of men." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"Those things that are appointed of God as means are not used by them [Papists] in their due place and order, — such as are praying, fasting, watching, meditation, and the like. These have their use in the business in hand; but whereas they are all to be looked on as streams, they look on them as the fountain... If they fast so much, and pray so much, and keep their hours and times, the work is done. As the apostle says of some in another case, They are always learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth; so they are always mortifying, but never come to any sound mortification. In a word, they have sundry means to mortify the natural man, as to the natural life here we lead; none to mortify lust or corruption. This is the general mistake of men ignorant of the gospel about this thing; and it lies at the bottom of very much of that superstition and willworship that hath been brought into the world... Search their ways and principles to the bottom, and you will find that it had no other root but this mistake, namely, that attempting rigid mortification, they fell upon the natural man instead of the corrupt old man, — upon the body wherein we live instead of the body of death." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"He [the Holy Ghost] doth not so work our mortification in us as not to keep it still an act of our obedience. The Holy Ghost works in us and upon us, as we are fit to be wrought in and upon; that is, so as to preserve our own liberty and free obedience. He works upon our understandings, wills, consciences, and affections, agreeably to their own natures; he works in us and with us, not against us or without us; so that his assistance is an encouragement as to the facilitating of the work, and no occasion of neglect as to the work itself." Of The Mortification Of Sin

"A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but hath no strength for the combat... The law drives them on, and sin beats them back. And if the case be so sad with them who do labor and strive, and yet enter not into the kingdom, what is their condition who despise all this; who are perpetually under the power and dominion of sin, and love to have it so; and are troubled at nothing, but that they cannot make sufficient provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof?" Of The Mortification Of Sin

"In every regenerate person there are, in a spiritual sense, two principles of all his actings, — two wills. There is the will of the flesh, and there is the will of the Spirit. A regenerate man is spiritually and in Scripture expression two men, — a “new man” and an “old,” an “inward man” and a “body of death,” — and hath two wills, having two natures, not as natural faculties, but as moral principles of operation; and this keeps all his actions, as moral, from being perfect, absolute, or complete in any kind. He doth good with his whole heart upon the account of sincerity, but he doth not good with his whole heart upon the account of perfection; and when he doth evil, there is still a non-submitting, an unconsenting principle... There is an "I" and an "I" [Note: a personality. Scott Jones] at opposition, a willing and not willing, a doing and not doing, a delighting and not delighting, all in the same person. So that there is this difference at the entrance between what sin soever of regenerate persons and others: Though the principle of sinning be the same, for the kind and nature of it, in them and others, — all sin, every man’s sins, be who he will, believer or unbeliever, being tempted by his own lust, — yet that lust possesseth the whole soul, and takes in the virtual consent of the whole man, notwithstanding the control and checks of conscience and the light of the judgment, in him that is unregenerate; but in every regenerate person there is an unconsenting principle, which is as truly the man himself, that doth not concur in sin, that doth expressly dissent from it, as the other is from whence it flows." The Doctrine Of The Saint's Perseverance

"The neglect [of prayer] is a sufficient evidence of practical atheism, for he that prayeth not says in his heart, There is no God." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"I know not any difference about religious things that is managed with greater animosities in the minds of men and worse consequents than this which is about the work of the Spirit of God in prayer; which, indeed, is the hinge on which all other differences about divine worship do turn and depend." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"Because all the promises in a peculiar manner were first to be fulfilled in the person of Christ, so typed by David and his house. On him the Spirit, under the New Testament, was first to be poured out in all fullness; and from him to be communicated unto others." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"The sole cause and reason, in opposition unto our own works or deservings, of the pouring out of the Spirit upon us, is the love and kindness of God in Jesus Christ; whence he may be justly called a Spirit of grace." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"The Spirit is promised to work grace and holiness in all on whom he is bestowed." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"Now, the Holy Ghost cannot be thus a Spirit of supplication, neither for himself nor us. No imagination of any such thing can be admitted with respect unto himself without the highest blasphemy. Nor can he in his own person make supplications for us; for besides that any such interposition in heaven on our behalf is in the Scripture wholly confined unto the priestly office of Christ and his intercession, all prayer, whether oral or interpretative only, is the act of a nature inferior unto that which is prayed unto. This the Spirit of God hath not; he hath no nature inferior unto that which is divine. We cannot, therefore, suppose him to be formally a Spirit of supplication, unless we deny his deity. He is so, therefore, efficiently with respect unto us, and as such he is promised unto us... And there are but two ways conceivable whereby this may be affirmed of him... [1] By working gracious inclinations and dispositions in us unto this duty. [2] By giving a gracious ability for the discharge of it in a due manner." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"To deny the Spirit of God to be a Spirit of supplication in and unto believers is to reject the testimony of God himself." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"Prayer absolutely and formally is not a peculiar grace distinct from all other graces that are exercised in it, but it is the way and manner whereby we are to exercise all other graces of faith, love, delight, fear, reverence, self-abasement, and the like, unto certain especial ends... It is, therefore, a holy commanded way of the exercise of other graces, but not a peculiar grace itself." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"For persons under the New Testament, who are commanded to pray, not to make use constantly in their so doing of the gifts, aids, and assistances of the Spirit, which are peculiarly dispensed and communicated therein, on pretense of what was done under the Old, is to reject the grace of the gospel, and to make themselves guilty of the highest ingratitude." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"Without the Spirit of adoption we have not the least strength or power to behave ourselves as sons in the family of God... There may be many duties performed unto God where there is no true love to him, at least no love unto him as a Father in Christ, which alone is genuine and accepted." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"No man is in pain or distress, or under any wants, whose continuance would be destructive to his being, but he may, yea, he ought to make deliverance from them the matter of his prayer." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"What God hath promised, all that he hath promised, and nothing else, are we to pray for; for secret things belong unto the LORD our God alone, but the declaration of his will and grace belongs unto us, and is our rule. Wherefore, there is nothing that we really do or may stand in need of but God hath promised the supply of it, in such a way and under such limitations as may make it good and useful unto us; and there is nothing that God hath promised but we stand in need of it, or are some way or other concerned in it as members of the mystical body of Christ." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"And indeed in the poverty, or rather misery, of devised aids of prayer, this is not the least pernicious effect or consequent, that they keep men off from searching the promises of God, whereby they might know what to pray for." Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"Give me leave to say, Jesus Christ saw more into the nature of the curse of God for sin than all the damned in hell are able to see; which caused a dreadful conflict in his human soul upon that prospect." Works, Vol IX, Posthumous Sermons

"The great punishment of hell is an everlasting penal desertion from God." Works, Vol IX, Posthumous Sermons

"The Lord Jesus Christ, fitted and prepared, by the accomplishment and furniture of his person as mediator, and the large purchase of grace and glory which he has made, to be a husband to his saints, his church, tenders himself in the promises of the gospel to them in all his desirableness; convinces them of his goodwill towards them, and his all-sufficiency for a supply of their wants; and upon their consent to accept of him, — which is all he requires or expects at their hands, — he engageth himself in a marriage covenant to be theirs for ever." Of Communion With God

"This is the soul's entrance into conjugal communion with Jesus Christ as to personal grace -- the constant preferring him above all pretenders to its affections, counting all loss and dung in comparison of him." Of Communion With God

"Take heed of those who would rob you of the Deity of Christ. If there were no more grace for me than what can be treasured up in a mere man, I should rejoice if my portion might be under rocks and mountains." Of Communion With God

"Jesus Christ is still the same; and so is his love... Whom he loves, he loves unto the end. His love is such as never had beginning, and never shall have ending." Of Communion With God

"We cannot love grace into a child, nor mercy into a friend; we cannot love them into heaven, though it may be the great desire of our soul... But now the love of Christ, being the love of God, is effectual and fruitful in producing all the good things which he willeth unto his beloved. He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven." Of Communion With God

"Had Adam stood in his innocency, Christ had not been incarnate, to have been a mediator for sinners; and therefore the counsel of his incarnation, morally, took not place until after the fall." Of Communion With God

"Had he [Jesus Christ] not been man, he could not have suffered; — had he not been God, his suffering could not have availed either himself or us, — he had not satisfied; the suffering of a mere man could not bear any proportion to that which in any respect was infinite. Had the great and righteous God gathered together all the sins that had been committed by his elect from the foundation of the world, and searched the bosoms of all that were to come to the end of the world, and taken them all, from the sin of their nature to the least deviation from the rectitude of his most holy law, and the highest provocation of their regenerate and unregenerate condition, and laid them on a mere holy, innocent, creature; — O how would they have overwhelmed him, and buried him for ever out of the presence of God’s love!... It was he that purged our sins, who was the Son and heir of all things, by whom the world was made, — the brightness of his Father’s glory, and express image of his person; he did it, he alone was able to do it." Of Communion With God

"The fullness that it pleased the Father to commit to Christ, to be the great treasury and storehouse of the church, did not, does not, lie in the human nature, considered in itself; but in the person of the mediator, God and man." Of Communion With God

"This fullness of grace that is in Christ, from whence we have both our beginning and all our supplies; which makes him, as he is the alpha and Omega of his church, the beginner and finisher of our faith, excellent and desirable to our souls: — Upon the payment of the great price of his blood, and full acquitment on the satisfaction he made, all grace whatever (of which at large afterward) becomes, in a moral sense, his, at his disposal; and he bestows it on, or works it in, the hearts of his by the Holy Ghost, according as, in his infinite wisdom, he sees it needful... All our reliefs are thus in our Beloved. Here is the life of our souls, the joy of our hearts, our relief against sin and deliverance from the wrath to com." Of Communion With God

"If the righteous soul of Lot was vexed with seeing the filthy deeds of wicked men, who yet had eyes of flesh, in which there was a mixture of impurity; how much more do the pure eyes of our dear Lord Jesus abominate all the filthiness of sinners! But herein lies the excellency of his love to us, that he takes care to take away our filth and stains, that he may delight in us; and seeing we are so defiled, that it could no otherwise be done, he will do it by his own blood." Of Communion With God

"Every thing of Christ is beautiful, for he is altogether lovely, but most glorious [is he] in his sight and wisdom: he is the wisdom of God’s eternal wisdom itself; his understanding is infinite." Of Communion With God

"As the smell of aromatical spices and flowers pleases the natural sense, refreshes the spirits, and delights the person; so do the graces of Christ to his saints. They please their spiritual sense, they refresh their drooping spirits, and give delight to their souls. If he be nigh them, they smell his raiment, as Isaac the raiment of Jacob." Of Communion With God

"Let it be evinced that all true and solid knowledge is laid up in, and is only to be attained from and by, the Lord Jesus Christ." Of Communion With God

"If there be neither wisdom nor knowledge (as doubtless there is not), without the knowledge of God, it is all shut up in the Lord Jesus Christ." Of Communion With God

"He [God] is not seen at another time, nor known upon any other account, but only [by] the revelation of the Son." Of Communion With God

"That wisdom which cannot teach me that God is love shall ever pass for folly." Of Communion With God

"To see, indeed, a world, made good and beautiful, wrapped up in wrath and curses, clothed with thorns and briers; to see the whole beautiful creation made subject to vanity, given up to the bondage of corruption; to hear it groan in pain under that burden; to consider legions of angels, most glorious and immortal creatures, cast down into hell, bound with chains of darkness, and reserved for a more dreadful judgment for one sin; to view the ocean of the blood of souls spilt to eternity on this account, — will give some insight into this thing. But what is all this to that view of it which may be had by a spiritual eye in the Lord Christ? All these things are worms, and of no value in comparison of him. To see him who is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, always beloved of the Father; to see him, I say, fear, and tremble, and bow, and sweat, and pray, and die; to see him lifted up upon the cross, the earth trembling under him, as if unable to bear his weight; and the heavens darkened over him, as if shut against his cry; and himself hanging between both, as if refused by both; and all this because our sins did meet upon him; — this of all things does most abundantly manifest the severity of God’s vindictive justice." Of Communion With God

"God in the beginning made all things good, glorious, and beautiful. When all things had an innocence and beauty, the clear impress of his wisdom and goodness upon them, they were very glorious; especially man, who was made for his special glory. Now, all this beauty was defaced by sin, and the wholes creation rolled up in darkness, wrath, curses, confusion, and the great praise of God buried in the heaps of it. Man, especially, was utterly lost, and came short of the glory of God, for which he was created. Here, now, does the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God open itself. A design in Christ shines out from his bosom, that was lodged there from eternity, to recover things to such an estate as shall be exceedingly to the advantage of his glory, infinitely above what at first appeared, and for the putting of sinners into inconceivably a better condition than they were in before the entrance of sin." Of Communion With God

"To save sinners through believing, shall be found to be a far more admirable work than to create the world of nothing." Of Communion With God

"God’s all-sufficiency in himself is his absolute and universal perfection, whereby nothing is wanting in him, nothing to him: No accession can be made to his fullness, no decrease or wasting can happen thereunto. There is also in him an all-sufficiency for others; which is his power to impart and communicate his goodness and himself so to them as to satisfy and fill them, in their utmost capacity, with whatever is good and desirable to them... his giving himself as an all-sufficient God, to be enjoyed by the creatures, to hold out all that is in him for the satiating and making them blessed, — that is alone discovered by and in Christ. In him he is a Father, a God in covenant, wherein he has promised to lay out himself for them; in him has he promised to give himself into their everlasting fruition, as their exceeding great reward." Of Communion With God

"There is no saving knowledge of any property of God, nor such as brings consolation, but what alone is to be had in Christ Jesus, being laid up in him, and manifested by him." Of Communion With God

"All the grace and mercy that are in the heart of God as Father to bestow upon his children, they are all given into the hand of Christ, and are his... He quickeneth whom he pleaseth. He walks among dead souls, and says to whom he will, "Live!"... No man was ever quickened, purified, or strengthened, but by him; nor can any dram of this grace be obtained but out of his treasures. THOSE WHO PRETEND TO STORES OF IT IN THEIR OWN WILLS, ARE SO FAR ANTICHRISTS." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"When men shall by faith perceive and consider that the production of all things owes itself in its first original unto the Son of God, in that by him the world was made, and that unto this end and purpose, that he being afterwards incarnate for our redemption, they might all be put into subjection unto him, they cannot but be ravished with the admiration of the power, wisdom, goodness, and love of God, in this holy wise, beautiful disposition of all his works and ways." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"The Son, as the power and wisdom of the Father, made all things; so that in that work the glory of the Father shines forth in him, and no otherwise. By him was there a communication of being, goodness, and existence unto the creation." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"This is the substance and end of the gospel -- to reveal the Father by and in the Son unto us; to declare that through him alone we can be made partakers of his grace and goodness, and that no other way we can have this acquaintance or communion with him." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"Let us labour to come to an intimate and near acquaintance with his Son Jesus Christ, in whom all these things dwell in their fullness, and by whom they are exhibited, revealed, unfolded unto us; seek the Father in the Son, out of whom not one property of the divine nature can be savingly apprehended or rightly understood, and in whom they are all exposed to our faith and spiritual contemplation. This is our wisdom, to abide in Christ, to abide with him, to learn him; and in him we shall learn, see, and know the Father also." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"The Son being over all things made by himself, as on a throne over the cherubim and wheels, influenceth the whole creation with his power, communicating unto it respectively subsistence, life, and motion, acting, ruling, and disposing of all according to the counsel of his own will." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, hath the weight of the whole creation upon his hand, and disposeth of it by his power and wisdom. Such is the nature and condition of the universe, that it could not subsist a moment, nor could any thing in it act regularly unto its appointed end, without the continual supportment, guidance, influence, and disposal of the Son of God." Works, Vol 19, p 60, Exposition Of Hebrews

"The whole of our concerns in this world is to be committed unto God in prayer, so that we should not retain any dividing cares in our own minds about them." Works, Vol IV, p 294, Work Of The Holy Spirit In Prayer

"The language in which Scripture is written, by the instruction and agreement, phrases were conceived and arranged by the Holy Spirit, nor was it at all left to the judgment of the writers to express the sense as they saw best. They were to record the will and mind of God." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"In all respects the Bible is the word of Him who is the supreme Lawgiver, the highest and only Lord of the conscience, who alone knows and reveals what is needful and useful for men, and to whose eternal purposes the Sacred Scriptures are directed." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"Once the authority, the necessity, the perfection of the Scriptures is set aside or neglected, then substitutes invented by private inspiration may replace it. The result must be false and confused at best, at worst -- as it usually is -- it is simply blasphemous." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"Just as mathematicians and logicians have their own demonstrations and proofs, so also our teaching is based upon demonstrations and proofs, but demonstrations and proofs of the Spirit and of power, things as far above the range of human wisdom as heaven is above earth." Biblical Theology

"God bestows his gifts according to his gracious good pleasure, and so the Spirit of Christ which equips and enables men to be suitable for the edification of others in the knowledge of God is a free grant which assuredly is NOT reserved solely for those who have been solemnly set apart for the ministry in some branch of the Church, after undergoing what is usually termed ordination. Indeed, it is absolutely necessary that a person has experienced these gifts before he come to the laying on of hands, but others assuredly have experienced them who have never come to perform the public ministry of the Church. These gifts are granted by the Spirit, and so each man must interpret according to the degree of light granted him." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"Let a faithful man, for this is a stated duty of the faithful, being furnished with the knowledge of God and the requisite spiritual gifts for the edification of others, graciously bestowed upon him by God, and also having the time and other things necessary for the right performance of this duty granted him by providence, then I certainly would allow him to interpret the Scriptures and to meet with others for their edification, even though he does not intend ever to holy orders, providing only that he makes no interruption of an established ministry. And, indeed, why should he not be allowed?" A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"Holy purposes of soul are of divine origin and, along with all other spiritual gifts, should have free exercise as the providence of God opens the way. Where Christ has provided the gifts there MUST be a vocation." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"No man may escape the duty of doing good to others in whatever way he has been gifted of God, nor may he be responsible for holding others back from doing good, where they can, in obedience to God." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"All of those who believe that faith in Jesus Christ for salvation is an absolute law and necessity for the human race, springing from our situation as inherited from our first parents, will also believe that the spreading of the gospel is nothing less than the moral duty of all believers... Surely those who do so should be commended, if the work be well done, and we should strive to honour them for the work's sake, rather than labouring to make their efforts unlawful. If no reason may be brought forth why I may not instruct one or two in the knowledge of God, why may I not instruct several together in the same way?" A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"The words of the Bible have meanings, and those meanings contain the judgment of God. It is our duty to strive to understand that judgment, and we should allow no impediment to restrict our passing on to others what we have been privileged to see. And so interpretation of Scripture cannot be refused to any man of sound mind." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"To have our faculties trained by practice in the Word of God is the same as learning to discern the mind of God displayed in the Bible." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"The will of the divine mind was once unrevealed and existed only within the very heart of God. Now his will has been revealed in the Scriptures." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"The Word duly and legitimately interpreted is still the Word of God, and so the exposition, if it departs not from the analogy of faith, is also the Word of God, so far as it is founded on and expands upon the written Word. All correct exposition may thus be said to share in infallibility, so far as it expounds the infallible Word. This is not because of the interpreter who, as human, is fallible, but because of the subject matter, which is divine and inerrant." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"We believe and confess that the Bible is a complete and perfect rule, delivered to us by God that we might achieve our salvation and his greater glory, and thus, since the the completion of the canon of Scripture, as scholars call it, there can have been no new revelations concerning the common faith of the saints or the due worship of God, and so none are to be expected or admitted." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"Christ does not bestow spiritual light and grace on any man, or in any way, except through the Word and the Spirit, and no man may be a participant in that light except he be born of the Spirit and be a saved believer in the gospel as revealed in God's Word, the Bible." A Defense Of Sacred Scripture

"The providence of God hath manifested itself no less concerned in the preservation of the writings than of the doctrine contained in them; the writing itself being the product of his own eternal counsel for the preservation of the doctrine, after a sufficient discovery of the insufficiency of all other means for that end and purpose. And hence the malice of Satan hath raged no less against the book than against the truth contained in it." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"It is true, we have not the autograph of Moses and the prophets, of the apostles and evangelists; but the apographa or "copies" which we have contain every iota that was in them." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"We affirm, that the whole Word of God, in every letter and tittle, as given from him by inspiration, is preserved without corruption... Nor is it enough to satisfy us, that the doctrines mentioned are preserved entire; every tittle and iota in the Word of God must come under our care and consideration, as being, as such, from God." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"Every apex of the written Word is equally divine, and as immediately from God as the voice wherewith, or whereby, he spake to or in the prophets; and is, therefore, accompanied with the same authority in itself, and unto us." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"As were the persons speaking of old, so are the writings now. It was the word spoken that was to be believed, yet as spoken by them from God; and it is now the word written that is to be believed, yet as written by the command and appointment of God." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"He that hath the witness of God need not stay for the witness of men, for the witness of God is greater." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"The Scripture, say we, bears testimony to itself that it is the word of God; that testimony is the witness of God himself, which whoso doth not accept and believe, he doth what in him lies to make God a liar." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"And remember how Jerome proved how variously corrupted and interpreted the Septuagint was already in his day... However, despite all this, the point will be made that our Saviour used this version and so commended it to the Church. This is rather like that of the author who solemnly tells us how our Lord used to sing mass and perform as a sacrificing priest! This could be brought out of the New Testament writings with about as great a degree of probability as his endorsement of the Septuagint!" Biblical Theology

"The human race may correctly be considered as being disinherited by God when the image of God in man was abolished by the entry of sin." Biblical Theology

"The voice of all nature is just this -- that all nature exists under laws and, where law is, it is but simple reason that some lawgiver must be acknowledged. And the enforcer of nature's laws cannot be less than nature's Creator. Of necessity, then, men cannot avoid awareness that God exists and must be worshipped, and that his demands on men are obligatory and divinely ordained." Biblical Theology

"So much of natural theology remains, despite our fallen and corrupted state, that no one who would stay human can help being a theologian deep within himself." Biblical Theology

"We have seen that, very often, there are none more prone to atheism than those who claim to use diligent study and all scientific knowledge as tools to probe the hidden secrets of nature. By this misuse of study, for the sole purpose of satisfying a lust of intellect, they most recklessly and thoughtlessly misuse the things of God himself." Biblical Theology

"The Trinity is not the union nor unity of three, but it is a trinity in unity, or the ternary number of persons in the same essence; nor doth the Trinity, in its formal conception, denote the essence, as if the essence were comprehended in the Trinity, which is in each person; but it denotes only the distinction of the persons comprised in that number." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"The eternal fountain of all grace, flowing from love and goodness, lies in God's election, or predestination." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"The incarnation of the eternal Word by the power of the Holy Ghost, is the bottom of our participation of grace. Without it, it was absolutely impossible that man should be made partaker of the favour of God. Now, this inwraps the whole doctrine of the Trinity in its bosom, nor can once be apprehended without its acknowledgment. Deny the Trinity, and ll the means of the communication of grace, with the whole of the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ, fall to the ground. Every tittle of it speaks this truth; and they who deny the one reject the other." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"Although the formal object of divine worship be the nature of God, and the persons are not worshipped as persons distinct, but as they are each of them God; yet, as God, they are every one of them distinctly to be worshipped." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"The Father worketh, the Son worketh, and the Holy Ghost worketh. The Father worketh not but by the Son and his Spirit; the Son and Spirit work not but from the Father. The Father glorifieth the Son, the Son glorifieth the Father, and the Holy Ghost glorifieth them both." The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"The Father is not known nor worshipped, but by and in the Son." The Divine Original Of The Scripture The Divine Original Of The Scripture

"But what, I pray, will it advantage us that God did so once deliver his word, if we are not assured also that that word so delivered hath been, by his special care and providence, preserved entire and uncorrupt unto us, or that it doth not evidence and manifest itself to be his word, being so preserved?" Integrity And Purity Of The Hebrew And Greek Text

"Every one of us must give an account of himself unto God. It will be well for us if we are found holding the foundation." Integrity And Purity Of The Hebrew And Greek Text

"All true and sound wisdom and knowledge is laid up in the Lord Christ, and from him alone to be obtained; because our wisdom, consisting, in a main part of it, in the knowledge of God, his nature, and his properties, this lies wholly hid in Christ, nor can possibly be obtained but by him." On Communion With God

"Some of the popish devotionists tell us that one drop, the least, of the blood of Christ, was abundantly enough to redeem all the world; but they err, not knowing the desert of sin, nor the severity of the justice of God. If one drop less than was shed, one pang less than was laid on, would have done it, those other drops had not been shed, nor those other pangs laid on. God did not cruciate the dearly-beloved of his soul for nought." On Communion With God

"Hell itself is but the filling of wretched creatures with the fruit of their own devices." On Communion With God

"A true saving knowledge of sin is to be had only in the Lord Christ: in him may we see the desert of our iniquities, and their pollution, which could not be born or expiated but by his blood; neither is there any wholesome view of these but in Christ. In him and his cross is discovered our universal impotency, either of atoning God’s justice or living up to his will. The death of sin is procured by, and discovered in, the death of Christ; as also the manifestation of the riches of God’s grace in the pardoning thereof." On Communion With God

"The communication of sacred light from Christ, in the gifts of the Spirit, is absolutely necessary unto the due and acceptable performance of all holy offices and duties of worship in the church. No man, by his utmost endeavors in the use of outward means, can obtain the least beam of saving light, unless it be communicated unto him by Christ, who is the only fountain and cause of it." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"It is Christ alone who in himself is really the Most Holy, the spring and fountain of all holiness unto the church." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"All the counsels of God concerning his worship in this world, and his eternal glory in the salvation of the church, do center in the person and mediation of Christ." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"There is no access into the gracious presence of God but by the sacrifice of Christ alone." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The human nature of Christ, wherein he discharged the duties of his sacerdotal office, in making atonement for sin, is the greatest, the most perfect, and excellent ordinance of God, far excelling those that were most excellent under the old testament." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The efficacy of all the offices of Christ towards the church depends on the dignity of his person. There is nothing more destructive to the whole faith of the gospel than by any means to evacuate the immediate efficacy of the blood of Christ." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"Even the best works of men, antecedently to the purging of their consciences by the blood of Christ, are but dead works." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"Effectual vocation is the only way of entrance into the eternal inheritance. Though God will give grace and glory unto his elect, yet he will do it in such a way as wherein and whereby he may be glorified also himself." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The efficacy of the mediation and death of Christ extending itself to all the called under the old testament, is an evident demonstration of his divine nature, his pre-existence to all these things, and the eternal covenant between the Father and him about them." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The one sacrifice of Christ, with what ensued thereon, was the only means to render effectual all the counsels of God concerning the redemption and salvation of the church. Neither could heavenly things have been made meet for us or our use, nor we have been meet for their enjoyment, had they not been dedicated and we been purged by the sacrifice of Christ. Every eternal mercy, every spiritual privilege, is both purchased for us and sprinkled unto us by the blood of Christ." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"There is such an uncleanness in our natures, our persons, our duties and worship, that unless they and we are all sprinkled with the blood of Christ, neither we nor they can have any acceptance with God. The sacrifice of Christ is the one only everlasting fountain and spring of all sanctification and sacred dedication." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"Christ accepted of God on our behalf, is the spring of all spiritual consolation." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The destruction and dissolution of this law and power of sin was the great end of the coming of Christ for the discharge of his priestly office in the sacrifice of himself. It is the glory of Christ, it is the safety of the church, that by his one offering, by the sacrifice of himself once for all, he hath abolished sin as to the law and condemning power of it." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"All true believers do live in a waiting, longing expectation of the coming of Christ. To such alone as look for him will the Lord Christ appear unto salvation." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"Whatever God designs, appoints, and calls any unto, he will provide for them all that is needful unto the duties of obedience whereunto they are so appointed and called." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"It is the will of God that the church should take especial notice of this sacred truth, that nothing can expiate or take away sin but the blood of Christ alone." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The sovereign will and pleasure of God, acting itself in infinite wisdom and grace, is the sole, supreme, original cause of the salvation of the church." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"The Lord Christ, in his ineffable love and grace, put himself between us and all our enemies." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"It is the foundation of all consolation to the church, that the Lord Christ, even now in heaven, takes all our enemies to be his, in whose destruction he is infinitely more concerned than we are." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"Let us never esteem any thing or any person to be our enemy, but only so far and in what they are the enemies of Christ," Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"It is the authority of the Holy Ghost alone, speaking to us in the Scripture, whereunto all our faith is to be resolved. We are to propose nothing, in the preaching and worship of the gospel, but what is testified unto by the Holy Ghost." Works, Vol XVIII, Summary Of Doctrinal And Practical Observations

"It doth not suffice that the enmity betwixt God and us be taken away; we must also have acquaintance given us with him. Our not knowing of him is a great cause and a great part of our enmity." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"Now, as there is no sin that God will more severely revenge than any boldness that man takes with him out of Christ; so there is no grace more acceptable to him than that boldness which he is pleased to afford us in the blood of Jesus." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"The end of God is the advancement of his own glory; none can aim at this end, but only in the Lord Jesus." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"The whole wisdom of our walking with God is hid in Christ, and from him only to be obtained." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"Who knows not the profound inquiries, the subtle disputations, the acute seasonings, the admirable discoveries of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and others? What, as to the purpose in hand, did they attain by all their studies and endeavors? Emwranqesan, says the apostle, — They became fools." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"After all the learning of men, if they have nothing else, they are still natural men, and perceive not the things of God. Their light is still but darkness; and how great is that darkness!" Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"He that has attained to the greatest height of literature, yet if he has nothing else, -- if he have not Christ, -- is as much under the curse of blindness, ignorance, stupidity, dullness, as the poorest, silliest soul in the world... The more abilities the mind is furnished withal, the more it closes with the curse, and strengthens itself to act its enmity against God. All that it receives does but help it to set up high thoughts and imaginations against the Lord Christ." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"There is a wide difference between understanding the doctrine of the Scripture as in the letter, and true knowing the mind of Christ." Works, Vol II, On Communion With God

"No man can put Jesus Christ to greater shame than by professing the gospel without showing the power of it." Works, Vol IX, The Divine Power Of The Gospel

"Believers will part with all they have to obtain Christ; for they prefer him above all... If he cannot deny his ease, liberty, peace, profit, or pleasure, he is not worthy of Jesus Christ." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"If things do not begin at the heart, whatsoever we do about spiritual things, they are of no value, of no use." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"When a heart is full of love to Christ, it will run over; then men will be speaking of Christ, and of his glory... Alas! look about to the multitudes of them that are called Christians; when do you hear a word of him? when do you meet with a heart overflowing with love to Christ?... There are some that pass for professors; you shall very seldom hear a word of Christ from them." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"If a man would make himself a reproach in the world, he cannot better do it than by owning Christ and his Spirit before men." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"It is the will of God, while he entrusts us with other things, that we should use them to his glory; but is our satisfaction in the good things of Christ so high that we can be satisfied without other things?" Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"I have had more advantage by private thoughts of Christ than by any thing in this world; and I think when a soul hath satisfying and exalting thoughts of Christ himself, his person and his glory, it is the way whereby Christ dwells in such a soul. If I have observed any thing by experience, it is this -- a man may take the measure of his growth and decay in grace according to his thoughts and meditations upon the person of Christ, and the glory of Christ's kingdom, and of his love. A heart that is inclined to converse with Christ as he is represented in the gospel, is a thriving heart; and if estranged from it and backward to it, it is under deadness and decays." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"There is a peculiar glory in the kingly office of Jesus Christ, that we should daily exercise our thoughts about. The comfort, joy, and refreshment of believers, in this world, lie in the kingly power of Christ... There is a peculiar glory in the kingdom of Christ, that we ought much, for our relief, to meditate upon. If we could behold the internal and external workings of Christ; what he hath done, what he will do -- how that certainly he will save every believer, how that certainly he will destroy every enemy -- how infallible in his grace, and never-failing in his vengeance -- we should then see a peculiar glory in his kingdom." Works, Vol IX, The Excellency Of Christ

"It hath been one of the glories of the Protestant Reformation that it hath been accompanied with a very conspicuous and remarkable effusion of the Spirit; and, indeed, thereby there hath from heaven a seal been set and a witness borne unto that great work of God." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit, by Nathaniel Mather in the Preface

"No man ever yet, but Jesus Christ, was able to finish all that was in his heart to do for God." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit, by Nathaniel Mather in the Preface

"Whilst the Word is preached in a formal manner, the world is well enough contented that it should have a quiet passage among them; but wherever the Holy Ghost puts forth a convincing efficacy in the dispensation of it, the world is enraged by it." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"There are many sins whereof men may be convinced by the light of nature, Romans 2:14,15, more that they are reproved for by the letter of the law; and it is the work of the Spirit also in general to make these convictions effectual: but these belong not unto the cause which he hath to plead for the church against the world, nor is that such as any can Be brought unto conviction about by the light of nature or sentence of the law, but it is the work of the Spirit alone by the gospel; and this, in the first place, is unbelief, particularly not believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the promised Messiah and Savior of the world." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"This dispensation of the Spirit is unchangeable. Unto whomsoever he is given as a comforter, he abides with them forever." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Wherefore, God’s sealing of believers with the Holy Spirit is his gracious communication of the Holy Ghost unto them, so to act his divine power in them as to enable them unto all the duties of their holy calling; evidencing them to be accepted with him both unto themselves and others, and asserting their preservation unto eternal salvation. The effects of this sealing are gracious operations of the Holy Spirit in and upon believers; but the sealing itself is the communication of the Spirit unto them. They are sealed with the Spirit." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"When any persons are so effectually called as to become true believers, they are brought into many new relations -- as, to God himself, as his children; unto Jesus Christ, as his members; unto all saints and angels in the families of God above and below, as brethren; and are called to many new works, duties, and uses, which before they knew nothing of.... In this state God owns them, and communicates unto them his Holy Spirit, to fit them for their relations, to enable them unto their duties, to act their new principles, and every way to discharge the work they are called unto, even as their head, the Lord Christ, was unto his... Hereby he gives his testimony unto them that they are his, owned by him, accepted with him, his sons or children, which is his seal; for if they were not so, he would never have given his Holy Spirit unto them. And herein consists the greatest testimony that God doth give, and the only seal that he doth set, unto any in this world." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"This is the great evidence, the great ground of assurance, which we have that God hath taken us into a near and dear relation unto himself, "because he hath given us of his Spirit," that great and heavenly gift which he will impart unto no others. And, indeed, on this one hinge depends the whole case of that assurance which believers are capable of: If the Spirit of God dwell in us, we are his; but "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Hereon alone depends the determination of our especial relation unto God. By this, therefore, doth God seal believers, and therein gives them assurance of his love; and this is to be the sole rule of your self-examination whether you are sealed of God or no." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Where God sets this seal in the communication of his Spirit, it will so operate and produce such effects as shall fall under the observation of the world. As it did in the Lord Christ, so also will it do in believers according unto their measure... Though the world is blinded with prejudices, and under the power of a prevalent enmity against spiritual things, yet it cannot but discover what a change is made in the most of those whom God thus sealeth, and how, by the gifts and graces of the Spirit, which they hate, they are differenced from other men. And this is that which keeps up the difference and enmity that is in the world between the seeds; for God’s sealing of believers with his Spirit evidenceth his especial acceptance of them, which fills the hearts of them who are acted with the spirit of Cain with hatred and revenge." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"This, therefore, is that seal which God grants unto believers, even his Holy Spirit, for the ends mentioned; which, according unto their measure, and for this work and end, answers that great seal of heaven which God gave unto the Son, by the communication of the Spirit unto him in all its divine fullness, authorizing and enabling him unto his whole work, and evidencing him to be called of God thereunto." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"When man had lost his right unto the whole inheritance of heaven and earth, God did not so take the forfeiture as to seize it all into the hands of justice and destroy it; but he invested the whole inheritance in his Son, making him the heir of all. This he was meet for, as being God’s eternal Son by nature; and hereof the donation was free, gratuitous, and absolute. And this grant was confirmed unto him by his unction with the fullness of the Spirit." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"In the giving of his Spirit unto us, God making of us co-heirs with Christ, we have the greatest and most assured earnest and pledge of our future inheritance." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"As the Lord Christ himself was made “heir of all things” by that communication of the Spirit unto him whereby he was anointed unto his office, so the participation of the same Spirit from him and by him makes us co-heirs with him; and so he is an earnest given us of God of the future inheritance... it is the highest participation with Christ in that glory and honor that our natures are capable of." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"All evangelical privileges whereof believers are made partakers in this world do center in the person of the Holy Spirit. He is the great promise that Christ hath made unto his disciples, the great legacy which he hath bequeathed unto them. The grant made unto him by the Father, when he had done all his will, and fulfilled all righteousness, and exalted the glory of his holiness, wisdom, and grace, was this of the Holy Spirit, to be communicated by him unto the church. This he received of the Father as the complement of his reward; wherein he “saw of the travail of his soul, and was satisfied.” This Spirit he now gives unto believers, and no tongue can express the benefits which they receive thereby. Therein are they anointed and sealed; therein do they receive the earnest and first-fruits of immortality and glory; in a word, therein are they taken into a participation with Christ himself in all his honor and glory. Hereby is their condition rendered honorable, safe, comfortable, and the whole inheritance is unchangeably secured unto them. In this one privilege, therefore, of receiving the Spirit, are all others enwrapped." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"No one way, or thing, or similitude, can express or represent the greatness of this privilege. It is anointing, it is sealing, it is an earnest and first-fruit -- every thing whereby the love of God and the blessed security of our condition may be expressed or intimated unto us; for what greater pledge can we have of the love and favor of God, what greater dignities can we be made partakers of, what greater assurance of a future blessed condition, than that God hath given us of his Holy Spirit?" Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"David on his sin feared nothing more than that God would take his holy Spirit from him. And the fear hereof should influence us unto the utmost care and diligence against sin; for although he should not utterly forsake us -- which, as to those who are true believers, is contrary to the tenor, promise, and grace of the new covenant -- yet he may so withdraw his presence from us as that we may spend the remainder of our days in trouble, and our years in darkness and sorrow... And as for them with whom he is, as it were, but in the entrance of his work, producing such effects in their minds as, being followed and attended unto, might have a saving event, he may, upon their provocations, utterly forsake them, in the way and by the degrees before mentioned. It is therefore the duty of all to serve him with fear and trembling on this account." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"When we see a man who hath lived in a plentiful and flourishing condition, brought to extreme penury and want, seeking his bread in rags from door to door, the spectacle is sad, although we know he brought this misery on himself by profuseness or debauchery of life; but how sad is it to think of a man whom, it may be, we knew to have had a great light and conviction, to have made an amiable profession, to have been adorned with sundry useful spiritual gifts, and had in estimation on this account, now to be despoiled of all his ornaments, to have lost light, and life, and gifts, and profession, and to lie as a poor withered branch on the dunghill of the world! And the sadness hereof will be increased when we shall consider, not only that the Spirit of God is departed from him, but also is become his enemy, and fights against him, whereby he is devoted unto irrecoverable ruin." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"The second part of the dispensation of the Spirit in order unto the perfecting of the new creation, or the edification of the church, consists in his communication of spiritual gifts unto the members of it, according as their places and stations therein do require. By his work of saving grace (which in other discourses we have given a large account of), he makes all the elect living stones; and by his communication of spiritual gifts, he fashions and builds those stones into a temple for the living God to dwell in. He spiritually unites them into one mystical body, under the Lord Christ as a head of influence, by faith and love; and he unites them into an organical body, under the Lord Christ as a head of rule, by gifts and spiritual abilities... And hereby is the church-state under the new testament differenced from that under the old... The principal difference lies in the administration of the Spirit for the due performance of gospel worship by virtue of these gifts, bestowed on men for that very end. Hence the whole of evangelical worship is called the "ministration of the Spirit," and thence said to be "glorious." And where they are neglected, I see not the advantage of the outward worship and ordinances of the gospel above those of the law; for although their institutions are accommodated unto that administration of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ, yet they must lose their whole glory, force, and efficacy, if they be not dispensed and the duties of them performed by virtue of these spiritual gifts... for as gospel gifts are useless without attending unto gospel institutions, so gospel institutions are found to be fruitless and unsatisfactory without the attaining and exercising of gospel gifts." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"There is an agreement between saving graces and spiritual gifts with respect unto their immediate efficient cause. They are, both sorts of them, wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost... That these gifts are so wrought by him is expressly declared wherever there is mention of them, in general or particular. Wherefore, when they acknowledge that there were such gifts, all confess him to be their author. By whom he is denied so to be, it is only because they deny the continuance of any such gifts in the church of God. But this is that which we shall disprove." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Grace gives an invisible life to the church, gifts give it a visible profession; for hence doth the church become organical, and disposed into that order which is beautiful and comely. Where any church is organized merely by outward rules, perhaps of their own devising, and makes profession only in an attendance unto outward order, not following the leading of the Spirit in the communication of his gifts, both as to order and discharge of the duties of profession, it is but the image of a church, wanting an animating principle and form. That profession which renders a church visible according to the mind of Christ, is the orderly exercise of the spiritual gifts bestowed on it, in a conversation evidencing the invisible principle of saving grace." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Saving grace proceeds from, or is the effect and fruit of, electing love." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Whom God graciously chooseth and designeth unto eternal life, them he prepares for it by the communication of the means which are necessary unto that end." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"When God chooseth any one to eternal life, he will, in pursuit of that purpose of his, communicate saving grace unto him." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"And where God calleth any, or chooseth any, unto an office, charge, or work in the church, he always furnisheth him with gifts suited unto the end of them. He doth not so, indeed, unto all that will take any office unto themselves; but he doth so unto all whom he calls thereunto. Yea, his call is no otherwise known but by the gifts which he communicates for the discharge of the work or office whereunto any are called." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit

"Most men greatly insist on the necessity of an outward call unto the office of the ministry... but whereas they limit this outward call of theirs unto certain persons, ways, modes, and ceremonies of their own, without which they will not allow that any man is rightly called unto the ministry, they do but contend to oppress the consciences of others by their power and with their inventions... for they continually admit them unto their outward call on whom God hath bestowed no spiritual gifts to fit them for their office; whence it is as evident as if written with the beams of the sun, that he never called them thereunto." Works, Vol IV, The Work Of The Holy Spirit