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For So Great Is The Difference Between Just And Unjust, That It Is Visible Even In The Lifeless Image Of It. For What Order Will Be Left In The World, If These Opposites Be Confounded Together? Such A Distinction As This, Therefore, Between Virtuous And Vicious Actions, Has Not Only Been Engraven By The Lord In The Heart Of Every Man, But Has Also Been Frequently Confirmed By His Providential Dispensations.

-John Calvin

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For So Great Is

John Calvin

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For So Great Is The Difference Between Just And Unjust, That It Is Visible Even In The Lifeless Image Of It. For What Order Will Be Left In The World, If These Opposites Be Confounded Together? Such A Distinction As This, Therefore, Between Virtuous And Vicious Actions, Has Not Only Been Engraven By The Lord In The Heart Of Every Man, But Has Also Been Frequently Confirmed By His Providential Dispensations.

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But A Faithful Believer Will In All Circumstances Mediate On The Mercy And Fatherly Goodness Of God.

The Holy Spirit Is The Bond By Which Christ Efficaciously Unites Us To Himself.

The One Condition For Spiritual Progress Is That We Remain Sincere And Humble.

Only Those Who Have Learned Well To Be Earnestly Dissatisfied With Themselves, And To Be Confounded With Shame At Their Wretchedness Truly Understand The Christian Gospel.

We Must Always Speak Of The Efficacy Of The Ministry In Such A Manner That The Entire Praise Of The Work May Be Reserved For God Alone.

If We Believe Heaven To Be Our Country, It Is Better For Us To Transmit Our Wealth Thither, Than To Retain It Here, Where We May Lose It By A Sudden Removal.

Yet Consider Now, Whether Women Are Not Quite Past Sense And Reason, When They Want To Rule Over Men.

It Is Only The Goodness Of God Sensibly Experienced By Us Which Opens Our Mouth To Celebrate His Praise.

Their [the Jews] Rotten And Unbending Stiffneckedness Deserves That They Be Oppressed Unendingly And Without Measure Or End And That They Die In Their Misery Without The Pity Of Anyone.

The Principle Exercise Which The Children Of God Have Is To Pray. For In This Way They Give True Proof Of Their Faith.

It Is A Promise Which Eminently Deserves Our Observation That All Who Are United To Christ And Acknowledge Him To Be Christ And Mediator Will Remain To The End Safe From All Danger, For What Is Said Of The Body Of The Church Belongs To Each Of Its Members Since They Are One In Christ.

Acknowledge Him

The Creation Is Quite Like A Spacious And Splendid House, Provided And Filled With The Most Exquisite, And At The Same Time, The Most Abundant Furnishings. Everything In It Tells Of God.

Peace And Friendship Are An Amiable Thing Among Men. They Be So Indeed, And We Ought To Seek Them To The Uttermost Of Our Power. But Yet For All That, We Must Set Such Store By God's Truth, That If All The World Should Be Set On Fire For The Maintenance Thereof, We Should Not Stick At It.

Unless We Endeavor To Do Good To Our Neighbor, Through Our Cruelty We Transgress This Law

We Are Promised Abundance Of All Good Things--yet We Are Rich Only In Hunger And Thirst. What Would Become Of Us If We Did Not Take Our Stand On Hope, And If Our Heart Did Not Hasten Beyond This World!

That Man Is Truly Humble Who Neither Claims Any Personal Merit In The Sight Of God, Nor Proudly Despises Brethren, Or Aims At Being Thought Superior To Them, But Reckons It Enough That He Is One Of The Members Of Christ, And Desires Nothing More Than That The Head Alone Should Be Exalted.

Man Is Never Sufficiently Touched And Affected By The Awareness Of His Lowly State Until He Has Compared Himself With God's Majesty.

Prayers Will Never Reach God Unless They Are Founded On Free Mercy.

However Many Blessings We Expect From God, His Infinite Liberality Will Always Exceed All Our Wishes And Our Thoughts.

Human Will Does Not By Liberty Obtain Grace, But By Grace Obtains Liberty.

When We Know God To Be Our Father, Should We Not Desire That He Be Known As Such By All? And If We Do Not Have This Passion, That All Creatures Do Him Homage, Is It Not A Sign That His Glory Means Little To Us?

But Prosperity, And The Happy Issue Of Events, Ought Also To Be Attributed To His Grace, In Order That He May Always Receive The Praise Which He Deserves, That Of Being A Merciful Father, And An Impartial Judge. About The Close Of The Psalm, He Inveighs Against Those Ungodly Men Who Will Not Acknowledge God's Hand, Amid Such Palpable Demonstrations Of His Providence.

If The Gospel Be Not Preached, Jesus Christ Is, As It Were, Buried.

A Man Will Be Justified By Faith When, Excluded From Righteousness Of Works, He By Faith Lays Hold Of The Righteousness Of Christ, And Clothed In It, Appears In The Sight Of God Not As A Sinner, But As Righteous.

God Does Not Bestow His Spirit On His People In Order To Set Aside The Use Of His Word, But Rather To Render It Fruitful.

No Task Will Be So Sordid And Base, Provided You Obey Your Calling In It, That It Will Not Shine And Be Reckoned Very Precious In God's Sight.

There Are People Who Are Known To Be Very Liberal, Yet They Never Give Without Scolding Or Pride Or Even Insolence.

Satan Is An Astute Theologian.

There Is No Place For Faith If We Expect God To Fulfill Immediately What He Promises.

Our True And Genuine Wisdom Can Be Summed Up As The Knowledge Of God And The Knowledge Of Ourselves.

Knowledge Of God

While Sin Is Overflowing, [grace] Pours Itself Forth So Exuberantly, That It Not Only Overcomes The Flood Of Sin, But Wholly Absorbs It.

Though Satan Instils His Poison, And Fans The Flames Of Our Corrupt Desires Within Us,we Are Yet Not Carried By Any External Force To The Commission Of Sin, But Our Own Flesh Entices Us, And We Willingly Yield To Its Allurements.

Faith Is Not A Distant View, But A Warm Embrace Of Christ.

Faith Is Tossed About By Various Doubts, So That The Minds Of The Godly Are Rarely At Peace.

It Is Permissible To Use Wine Not Only For Necessity, But Also To Make Us Merry...... [it Must Be Moderate] Lest Men Forget Themselves, Drown Their Senses,.....in Making Merry [those Who Enjoy Wine] Feel A Livelier Gratitude To God.

On The Contrary, Therefore, Christ Declares That The Doctrine Of The Gospel, Though It Is Preached To All Without Exception, Cannot Be Embraced By All, But That A New Understanding And A New Perception Are Requisite; And, Therefore, That Faith Does Not Depend On The Will Of Men, But That It Is God Who Gives It.

On The One Hand, Undeserved Success Gives No Satisfaction... But, On The Other Hand, Well-deserved Failure Gives No Satisfaction Either.

Satan, Who Is A Wonderful Contriver Of Delusions, Is Constantly Laying Snares To Entrap Ignorant And Heedless People.

The Lord Has Given Us A Table At Which To Feast, Not An Altar On Which A Victim Is To Be Offered; He Has Not Consecrated Priests To Make Sacrifice, But Servants To Distribute The Sacred Feast.

The Effect Of Our Knowledge Rather Ought To Be, First, To Teach Us Reverence And Fear; And, Secondly, To Induce Us, Under Its Guidance And Teaching, To Ask Every Good Thing From [god], And, When It Is Received, Ascribe It To Him. For How Can The Idea Of God Enter Your Mind Without Instantly Giving Rise To The Thought, That Since You Are His Workmanship, You Are Bound, By The Very Law Of Creation, To Submit To His Authority?-- Hat Your Life Is Due To Him?-- Hat Whatever You Do Ought To Have Reference To Him.

For Scripture Is The School Of The Holy Spirit, In Which, As Nothing Is Omitted That Is Both Necessary And Useful To Know, So Nothing Is Taught But What Is Expedient To Know. Therefore We Must Guard Against Depriving Believers Of Anything Disclosed About Predestination In Scripture, Lest We Seem Either Wickedly To Defraud Them Of The Blessing Of Their God Or To Accuse And Scoff At The Holy Spirit For Having Published What It Is In Any Way Profitable To Suppress.

Nor, In Truth, Is It Of Little Importance To Prevent The Suspicion Of Any Difference Having Arisen Between Us From Being Handed Down In Any Way To Our Posterity; For It Is Worse Than Absurd That Parties Should Be Found Disagreeing On The Very Principles, After We Have Been Compelled To Make Our Departure From The World.

I Don't Need To Compromise My Principles, Because They Don't Have The Slightest Bearing On What Happens To Me Anyway.

When A Certain Shameless Fellow Mockingly Asked A Pious Old Man What God Had Done Before The Creation Of The World The Latter Aptly Countered That He Had Been Building Hell For The Curious.

All Things Being At God's Disposal, And The Decision Of Salvation Or Death Belonging To Him, He Orders All Things By His Counsel And Decree In Such A Manner, That Some Men Are Born Devoted From The Womb To Certain Death, That His Name May Be Glorified In Their Destruction.

Unless We Ardently And Prayerfully Devote Ourselves To Christ's Righteousness We Do Not Only Faithlessly Revolt From Our Creator, But We Also Abjure Him As Our Savior.

In Our Good Works Nothing Is Our Own.

When We See That The Whole Sum Of Our Salvation, And Every Single Part Of It, Are Comprehended In Christ, We Must Beware Of Deriving Even The Minutest Portion Of It From Any Other Quarter.

Creatures Are So Governed By The Secret Counsel Of God, That Nothing Happens But What He Has Knowingly And Willingly Decreed.

If Grace Acts In Us, Grace, And Not We Who Do The Work, Will Be Crowned.

Wherefore All Theology, When Separated From Christ, Is Not Only Vain And Confused, But Is Also Mad, Deceitful, And Spurious; For, Though The Philosophers Sometimes Utter Excellent Sayings, Yet They Have Nothing But What Is Short-lived, And Even Mixed Up With Wicked And Erroneous Sentiments.

God Is Not Limited To Any Person, But Calls Freely Whomsoever He Pleases, And Bestows On Those Who Are Called Whatever Rewards He Thinks Fit.

It Cannot Be Denied That God In Choosing And Destining Mary To Be The Mother Of His Son, Granted Her The Highest Honor.

Lawful Worship Consists In Obedience Alone.

I Exhort All, Who Reverence The Word Of The Lord, To Read It, And Diligently Imprint It On Their Memory.

Everyone Flatters Himself And Carries A Kingdom In His Breast.

Repentance Is The True Turning Of Our Life To God, A Turning That Arises From A Pure And Earnest Fear Of Him; And It Consists In The Mortification Of The Flesh And The Renewing Of The Spirit.

Whenever Our Sins Press Hard Against Us, Whenever Satan Would Drive Us To Despair, We Must Hold Up This Shield, That God Does Not Want Us To Be Overwhelmed In Everlasting Destruction, For He Has Ordained His Son To Be The Salvation Of The World.

God Is Undoubtedly Ready To Pardon Whenever The Sinner Turns. Therefore, He Does Not Will His Death, In So Far As He Wills Repentance. But Experience Shows That This Will, For The Repentance Of Those Whom He Invites To Himself, Is Not Such As To Make Him Touch All Their Hearts. Still, It Cannot Be Said That He Acts Deceitfully; For Though The External Word Only Renders, Those Who Hear It, And Do Not Obey It, Inexcusable, It Is Still Truly Regarded As An Evidence Of The Grace By Which He Reconciles Men To Himself.

It Would Be The Height Of Absurdity To Label Ignorance Tempered By Humility "faith"! (institutio Iii.2.3)

The Denial Of Ourselves Which Christ Has So Diligently Commanded His Disciples From The Beginning Will At Last Dominate All The Desires Of Our Heart.

The Name Of Christ Excludes All Merit Of Our Own.

In The Maxims Of The Law, God Is Seen As The Rewarder Of Perfect Righteousness And The Avenger Of Sin. But In Christ, His Face Shines Out, Full Of Grace And Gentleness To Poor, Unworthy Sinners.

The Evil In Our Desires Typically Does Not Lie In What We Want, But That We Want It Too Much.

Since We Are All Naturally Prone To Hypocrisy, Any Empty Semblance Of Righteousness Is Quite Enough To Satisfy Us Instead Of Righteousness Itself.

Let Our Chief Goal, O God, Be Your Glory, And To Enjoy You Forever.

God Preordained, For His Own Glory And The Display Of His Attributes Of Mercy And Justice, A Part Of The Human Race, Without Any Merit Of Their Own, To Eternal Salvation, And Another Part, In Just Punishment Of Their Sin, To Eternal Damnation.

We Must Not Think That [god] Takes No Notice Of Us, When He Does Not Answer Our Wishes: For He Has A Right To Distinguish What We Actually Need.

No One In This Earthly Prison Of The Body Has Sufficient Strength Of His Own To Press Forward With A Due Degree Of Watchfulness, And The Great Majority [of Christians] Are Kept Down With Such Great Weakness That They Stagger And Halt And Even Creep On The Ground, And So Make Very Slight Advances.

In A Way, The Futile Excuses Many People Use To Cover Their Superstitions Are Demolished. They Think It Is Enough To Have Some Sort Of Religious Fervor, However Ridiculous, Not Realizing That True Religion Must Be According To God's Will As The Perfect Measure; That He Can Never Deny Himself And Is No Mere Spirit Form To Be Changed Around According To Individual Preference.

It Is Evident That Man Never Attains To A True Self-knowledge Until He Has Previously Contemplated The Face Of God, And Come Down After Such Contemplation To Look Into Himself.

Those Little Children Have Not Yet Any Understanding To Desire His Blessing; But When They Are Presented To Him, He Gently And Kindly Receives Them, And Dedicates Them To The Father By A Solemn Act Of Blessing.

For Until Men Recognize That They Owe Everything To God, That They Are Nourished By His Fatherly Care, That He Is The Author Of Their Every Good, That They Should Seek Nothing Beyond Him - They Will Never Yield Him Willing Service. Nay, Unless They Establish Their Complete Happiness In Him, They Will Never Give Themselves Truly And Sincerely To Him.

To Make Intercession For Men Is The Most Powerful And Practical Way In Which We Can Express Our Love For Them.

He Who Has Learned To Look To God In Everything He Does Is At The Same Time Diverted From All Vain Thoughts.

Without Christ, Sciences In Every Department Are Vain....the Man Who Knows Not God Is Vain, Though He Should Be Conversant With Every Branch Of Learning. Nay More, We May Affirm This Too With Truth, That These Choice Gifts Of God -- Expertness Of Mind, Acuteness Of Judgment, Liberal Sciences, And Acquaintance With Languages, Are In A Manner Profaned In Every Instance In Which They Fall To The Lot Of Wicked Men.

There Is No Inconsistency In Saying That God Rewards Good Works, Provided We Understand That Nevertheless Men Obtain Eternal Life Gratuitously.

True Faith Is Ever Connected With Hope.

We Explain Justification Simply As The Acceptance With Which God Receives Us Into His Favor As Righteous Men. And We Say That It Consists In The Remission Of Sins And The Imputation Of Christ’s Righteousness.

Christ Is Much More Powerful To Save, Than Adam Was To Destroy.

When God Wants To Judge A Nation, He Gives Them Wicked Rulers.

All The Arts Come From God And Are To Be Respected As Divine Inventions

Tears That Are Shed In Time Of Affliction Are Rarely Tears Of Penitence, But More Likely They Are Shed Out Of Self Pity And Pain Or Sorrow.

But A Most Pernicious Error Widely Prevails That Scripture Has Only So Much Weight As Is Conceded To It By The Consent Of The Church. As If The Eternal And Inviolable Truth Of God Depended Upon The Decision Of Men!

The Gospel Is Not A Doctrine Of The Tongue, But Of Life.

Let It Stand, Therefore, As An Indubitable Truth, Which No Engines Can Shake, That The Mind Of Man Is So Entirely Alienated From The Righteousness Of God That He Cannot Conceive, Desire, Or Design Any Thing But What Is Wicked, Distorted, Foul, Impure, And Iniquitous; That His Heart Is So Thoroughly Envenomed By Sin That It Can Breathe Out Nothing But Corruption And Rottenness; That If Some Men Occasionally Make A Show Of Goodness, Their Mind Is Ever Interwoven With Hypocrisy And Deceit, Their Soul Inwardly Bound With The Fetters Of Wickedness.

All Truth Is God's Truth.

To Have A Proper Understanding Of The Gospel, We Must Recognise That We Need To Lean Entirely Upon The Lord Jesus Christ And His Mercy Alone As Our Only Hope Of Salvation. ... No One Can Be Justified By The Law; Justification Is Through Faith Alone.

The More Closely We See Ourselves Being Watched By Our Enemies, The More Time Intent We Should Be To Avoid Their Slanders.

We Should Ask God To Increase Our Hope When It Is Small, Awaken It When It Is Dormant, Confirm It When It Is Wavering, Strengthen It When It Is Weak, And Raise It Up When It Is Overthrown.

You Cannot Imagine A More Certain Rule Or A More Powerful Suggestion Than This, That All The Blessings We Enjoy Are Divine Deposits Which We Have Received On This Condition That We Distribute Them To Others.

Unless Men Establish Their Complete Happiness In God, They Will Never Give Themselves Truly And Sincerely To Him.

When Pain And Suffering Strike, Our Faith Is Well Founded If It Is Standing On The Promises Of God. For All Of God's Promises Have Strong Confirmation In Christ.

We Can Experience Joy In Adverse Circumstances By Holding God's Benefits In Such Esteem That The Recognition Of Them And Meditation Upon Them Shall Overcome All Sorrow.

Prayer Is The Chief Exercise Of Faith.

Then Let Every One Of Us, Being Warned By This Sentence Of The Angel, Acknowledge That He As Yet Cleaves To First Principles, Or, At Least, Does Not Comprehend All Those Things Which Are Necessary To Be Known; And That Therefore Progress Is To Be Made To The Very End Of Life: For This Is Our Wisdom, To Be Learners To The End.

The Sum Is, That The Worship Of God Must Be Spiritual, In Order That It May Correspond With His Nature. For Although Moses Only Speaks Of Idolatry, Yet There Is No Doubt But That By Synecdoche, As In All The Rest Of The Law, He Condemns All Fictitious Services Which Men In Their Ingenuity Have Invented.

Let Us Be Peaceable As Near As We Can: Let Us Relent Of Our Own Right: Let Us Not Strive For These Worldly Goods, Honour And Reputation: Let Us Bear All Wrongs And Outrages, Rather Than Be Moved To Any Debate Through Our Own Fault. But In The Meanwhile, Let Us Fight For God's Truth With Tooth And Nail.

Nevertheless, Our Constant Efforts To Lower Our Estimate Of The Present World Should Not Lead Us To Hate Life Or To Be Ungrateful Toward God. For This Life, Though It Is Full Of Countless Miseries, Deserves To Be Reckoned Among The Divine Blessings Which Should Not Be Despised. Therefore, If We Discover Nothing Of God's Goodness In It, We Are Already Guilty Of No Small Ingratitude Toward Him.

Integrity Is The Best Of All Protectors...we Cannot Be More Secure Than When Fortified By A Good Conscience.

There Is No Group Or Type Of People Anywhere In The World That Is Excluded From Salvation, Because God Desires That The Gospel Be Proclaimed To All Without Exception.

Because The Will Renewed Is The Lord's Work, It Is Wrongly Attributed To Man That He Obeys Prevenient Grace With His Will As Attendant.

Let Us Not Cease To Do The Utmost, That We May Incessantly Go Forward In The Way Of The Lord; And Let Us Not Despair Of The Smallness Of Our Accomplishments.

Those Who Fall Away Have Never Been Thoroughly Imbued With The Knowledge Of Christ But Only Had A Slight And Passing Taste Of It.

The Most Accomplished In The Scripture Are Fools, Unless They Acknowledge That They Have Need Of God For Their Schoolmaster All The Days Of Their Life.

Man With All His Shrewdness Is As Stupid About Understanding By Himself The Mysteries Of God, As An Ass Is Incapable Of Understanding Musical Harmony.

Free Will Does Not Enable Any Man To Perform Good Works, Unless He Is Assisted By Grace; Indeed, The Special Grace Which The Elect Alone Receive Through Regeneration. For I Stay Not To Consider The Extravagance Of Those Who Say That Grace Is Offered Equally And Promiscuously To All

We May Rest Assured That God Would Never Have Suffered Any Infants To Be Slain Except Those Who Were Already Damned And Predestined For Eternal Death.

But Those Who Wish To Prove To Unbelievers That Scripture Is The Word Of God Are Acting Foolishly, For Only By Faith Can This Be Known.

It Is Certain That Man Never Achieves A Clear Knowledge Of Himself Unless He Has First Looked Upon God's Face, And Then Descends From Contemplating Him To Scrutinize Himself.

If God Contains The Fullness Of All Good Things In Himself Like An Inexhaustible Fountain, Nothing Beyond Him Is To Be Sought By Those Who Strike After The Highest Good And All The Elements Of Happiness.

The Excellence Of The Church Does Not Consist In Multitude But In Purity.

Peace Is Not To Be Purchased By The Sacrifice Of Truth.

The Pastor Ought To Have Two Voices: One, For Gathering The Sheep; And Another, For Warding Off And Driving Away Wolves And Thieves. The Scripture Supplies Him With The Means Of Doing Both.

The Church Is The Gathering Of God's Children, Where They Can Be Helped And Fed Like Babies And Then Guided By Her Motherly Care, Grow Up To Manhood In Maturity Of Faith.

Hypocrisy Can Plunge The Mind Of A Man Into A Dark Abyss, When He Believes His Own Self-flattery Instead Of God's Verdict.

There Is No Wisdom But That Which Is Founded On The Fear Of God, Which Solomon Also Declares To Be The Chief Part Of Wisdom.

Christian Inspirational

Where Riches Hold The Dominion Of The Heart, God Has Lost His Authority.

The Vices Of Which We Are Full We Carefully Hide From Others, And We Flatter Ourselves With The Notion That They Are Small And Trivial; We Sometimes Even Embrace Them As Virtues.

Man's Mind Is Like A Store Of Idolatry And Superstition; So Much So That If A Man Believes His Own Mind It Is Certain That He Will Forsake God And Forge Some Idol In His Own Brain.

The World Was No Doubt Made, That It Might Be A Theatre Of The Divine Glory.

This Is Plainly To Ascribe Divinity To 'free Will.'

I Consider Looseness With Words No Less Of A Defect Than Looseness Of The Bowels.

It Is A Most Blessed Thing To Be Subject To The Sovereignty Of God.

Sovereignty Of God

We Are Not To Reflect On The Wickedness Of Men But To Look To The Image Of God In Them, An Image Which, Covering And Obliterating Their Faults, An Image Which, By Its Beauty And Dignity, Should Allure Us To Love And Embrace Them.

Faith And Hope...are The Wings By Which Our Souls, Rising Above The World, Are Lifted Up To God.

The Bible Is The Sceptre By Which The Heavenly King Rules His Church.

For As The Aged, Or Those Whose Sight Is Defective, When Any Book, However Fair, Is Set Before Them, Though They Perceive That There Is Something Written, Are Scarcely Able To Make Out Two Consecutive Words, But, When Aided By Glasses, Begin To Read Distinctly, So Scripture, Gathering Together The Impressions Of Deity, Which, Till Then, Lay Confused In Our Minds, Dissipates The Darkness, And Shows Us The True God Clearly.

For, To My Mind, This Is A Certain Principle, That Nothing Is Here Treated Of But The Visible Form Of The World. He Who Would Learn Astronomy, And Other Recondite Arts, Let Him Go Elsewhere. (on Commenting The Text Of Genesis 1:6)

Prosperity Inebriates Men, So That They Take Delights In Their Own Merits.

For The Fetus, Though Enclosed In The Womb Of Its Mother, Is Already A Human Being, And It Is A Monstrous Crime To Rob It Of The Life Which It Has Not Yet Begun To Enjoy. If It Seems More Horrible To Kill A Man In His Own House Than In A Field, Because A Man's House Is His Place Of Most Secure Refuge, It Ought Surely To Be Deemed More Atrocious To Destroy A Fetus In The Womb Before It Has Come To Light.

Without Knowledge Of Self There Is No Knowledge Of God.

Knowledge Of God

We Shall Never Be Clothed With The Righteousness Of Christ Except We First Know Assuredly That We Have No Righteousness Of Our Own.

It Is Not Lawful For You To Make A Compromise With God: To Try To Fulfill Part Of Your Duties And To Omit Others At Your Own Pleasure.

True It Is, That He Who Has Taken Off His Affection From The Goods Of This World Has Already Sold All, And Has Made Himself Poor, So Far As Depends Upon Himself; But The Fruit And The Proof Of This Spiritual Poverty Are, Patiently To Endure The Loss Of Worldly Goods, And Without Any Regret, When It Pleases Our Heavenly Father That We Should Be Despoiled Of Them.

The Whole Gospel Is Contained In Christ.

In Vain People Busy Themselves With Finding Any Good Of Man's Own In His Will. For Any Mixture Of The Power Of Freewill That Men Strive To Mingle With God's Grace Is Nothing But A Corruption Of Grace. It Is Just As If One Were To Dilute Wine With Muddy, Bitter Water.

At This Day . . . The Earth Sustains On Her Bosom Many Monster Minds, Minds Which Are Not Afraid To Employ The Seed Of Deity Deposited In Human Nature As A Means Of Suppressing The Name Of God. Can Anything Be More Detestable Than This Madness In Man, Who, Finding God A Hundred Times Both In His Body And His Soul, Makes His Excellence In This Respect A Pretext For Denying That There Is A God? He Will Not Say That Chance Has Made Him Different From The Brutes; . . . But, Substituting Nature As The Architect Of The Universe, He Suppresses The Name Of God.

There Is Also An Old Proverb, That They Who Pay Much Attention To The Body Generally Neglect The Soul.

We Are Nowhere Forbidden To Laugh, Or Be Satisfied With Food...or To Be Delighted With Music Or To Drink Wine.

When Our Faith Is Tested By Suffering "as Gold Is Tried In A Furnace" And We Depend With Confidence On God And Rely Entirely On His Help, We Will Be Granted The Most Excellent Gift Of Patience And Through Faith We May Victoriously Persevere To The End.

Humility Is The Beginning Of True Intelligence.

They Babble And Talk Absurdly Who, In The Place Of God's Providence, Substitute Bare Permission - As If God Sat In A Watchtower Awaiting Chance Events , And His Judgments Thus Depended Upon Human Will.

Many People Have Accused Me Of Such Ferocious Cruelty That (they Allege) I Would Like To Kill Again The Man I Have Destroyed. Not Only Am I Indifferent To Their Comments, But I Rejoice In The Fact That They Spit In My Face.

A Soul, Therefore, When Deprived Of The Word Of God, Is Given Up Unarmed To The Devil For Destruction

To Will Is Human, To Will The Bad Is Of Fallen Nature, But To Will The Good Is Of Grace.

Now Among The Other Things Proper To Recreate Man And Give Him Pleasure, Music Is Either The First Or One Of The Principal;and We Must Think That It Is A Gift Of God Deputed For That Purpose'.

Where God's Spirit Does Not Reign, There Is No Humility, And Men Ever Swell With Inward Pride.

To Crave Wealth And Honor, To Demand Power, To Pile Up Riches, To Gather All Those Vanities Which Seem To Make For Pomp And Empty Display, That Is Our Furious Passion And Our Unbounded Desire.on The Other Hand, We Fear And Abhor Poverty, Obscurity, And Humility, And We Seek To Avoid Them By All Possible Means.

In Forming An Estimate Of Sins, We Are Often Imposed Upon By Imagining That The More Hidden The Less Heinous They Are.

Without The Gospel Everything Is Useless And Vain.

Every Person, On Coming To The Knowledge Of Himself, Is Not Only Urged To Seek God, But Is Also Led As By The Hand To Find Him.

Knowledge Of The Sciences Is So Much Smoke Apart From The Heavenly Science Of Christ.

We Say, Then, That Scripture Clearly Proves This Much, That God By His Eternal And Immutable Counsel Determined Once For All Those Whom It Was His Pleasure One Day To Admit To Salvation, And Those Whom, On The Other Hand, It Was His Pleasure To Doom To Destruction. We Maintain That This Counsel, As Regards The Elect, Is Founded On His Free Mercy, Without Any Respect To Human Worth, While Those Whom He Dooms To Destruction Are Excluded From Access To Life By A Just And Blameless, But At The Same Time Incomprehensible Judgment

True Wisdom Consists In Two Things: Knowledge Of God And Knowledge Of Self.

Knowledge Of God

The Grace Of God Has No Charms For Men Till The Holy Spirit Gives Them A Taste For It.

Whomever The Lord Has Adopted And Deemed Worthy Of His Fellowship Ought To Prepare Themselves For A Hard, Toilsome, And Unquiet Life, Crammed With Very Many And Various Kinds Of Evil.

The Scriptures Should Be Read With The Aim Of Finding Christ In Them. Whoever Turns Aside From This Object, Even Though He Wears Himself Out All His Life In Learning, He Will Never Reach The Knowledge Of The Truth.

The Only Right Stewardship Is That Which Is Tested By The Rule Of Love.

Faith Is Like An Empty, Open Hand Stretched Out Towards God, With Nothing To Offer And Everything To Recieve

There Cannot Be A Surer Rule, Nor A Stronger Exhortation To The Observance Of It, Than When We Are Taught That All The Endowments Which We Possess Are Divine Deposits Entrusted To Us For The Very Purpose Of Being Distributed For The Good Of Our Neighbour.

We Must Make The Invisible Kingdom Visible In Our Midst.

Let That Ethical Philosophy Therefore Of Free-will Be Far From A Christian Mind.

Men Are Idol Factories.

Faith Alone Saves, But The Faith That Saves Is Not Alone.

No One Will Calmly And Quietly Submit To Bear The Cross Except Those Who Have Learned To Seek Their Happiness Beyond This World.

We Are Not To Look To What Men In Themselves Deserve But To Attend To The Image Of God Which Exists In All And To Which We Owe All Honor And Love.

All Our Words Ought To Be Filled With True Sweetness And Grace; And This Will Be So If We Mingle The Useful With The Sweet.

Where Is Our Acknowledgement Of God If Our Thoughts Are Fixed On The Glamour Of Our Garments?

Joy And Patience Are Far Above Our Strength... We Must Persevere In Prayer That He May Not Permit Our Hearts To Faint... Prayer And Perseverance Are Necessary In Our Daily Conflicts. The Best Remedy To The Weariness Is Diligence In Prayer.

Nothing Is More Dangerous Than To Be Blinded By Prosperity.

Whatever A Person May Be Like, We Must Still Love Them Because We Love God.

Faith Consists Not In Ignorance, But In Knowledge - Knowledge Not Of God Merely...but When We Recognize God As A Propitious Father Through The Reconciliation Made By Christ, And Christ As Given To Us For Righteousness, Sanctification, And Life.

Since No Daily Responses Are Given From Heaven, And The Scriptures Are The Only Record In Which God Has Been Pleased To Consign His Truth To Perpetual Remembrance, The Full Authority Which They Ought To Possess With The Faithful Is Not Recognized Unless They Are Believed To Have Come From Heaven As Directly As If God Had Been Heard Giving Utterance To Them.

The Happiness Promised Us In Christ Does Not Consist In Outward Advantages-such As Leading A Joyous And Peaceful Life, Having Rich Possessions, Being Safe From All Harm, And Abounding With Delights Such As The Flesh Commonly Longs After. No, Our Happiness Belongs To The Heavenly Life!

This Is What Entertainment Is All About- Idiots, Explosives And Falling Anvils.

After 50 Years, Is It Not Clear That God Has Raised Up New Illnesses Connected With Fornication? From Where Do These Things Come If Not From The Hand Of God? [in Response To These Diseases] The World Was Astounded, And People Were Terrified For A Time, But They Have Not, To This Day, Observed The Hand Of God.

It Having Been Said Above That God Bends All The Reprobate, And Even Satan Himself, At His Will, Three Objections Are Started. First, That This Happens By The Permission, Not By The Will Of God. To This Objection There Is A Twofold Reply, The One, That Angels And Men, Good And Bad, Do Nothing But What Is Appointed By God; The Second, That All Movements Are Secretly Directed To Their End By The Hidden Inspiration Of God.

Surely In Judas' Betrayal It Will Be No More Right, Because God Both Willed That His Son Be Delivered Up, And Delivered Him Up To Death, To Ascribe The Guilt Of The Crime To God Than To Transfer The Credit For Redemption To Judas.

Justification By Faith Is The Hinge On Which All True Religion Turns.

Life Is Not Found In Commandments Or Declarations Of Penalties, But In The Promise Of Mercy And Only In A Gratuitous Promise.

We Must Observe That The Knowledge Of God Which We Are Invited To Cultivate Is Not That Which, Resting Satisfied With Empty Speculation, Only Flutters In The Brain, But A Knowledge Which Will Prove Substantial And Fruitful Whenever It Is Duly Perceived And Rooted In The Heart.

Knowledge Of God

Let Us Fall Before The Majesty Of Our Great God, Acknowledging Our Faults, And Praying That He Will Make Us Ever More Conscious Of Them.

But, As Sculpture And Painting Are Gifts Of God, What I Insist On Is, That Both Shall Be Used Purely And Lawfully, That Gifts Which The Lord Has Bestowed Upon Us, For His Glory And Our Good, Shall Not Be Preposterously Abused, Nay, Shall Not Be Perverted To Our Destruction.

All The Blessings We Enjoy Are Divine Deposits, Committed To Our Trust On This Condition, That They Should Be Dispensed For The Benefit Of Our Neighbors.

The Very Word Baptizé, However, Signifies To Immerse; And It Is Certain That Immersion Was The Practice Of The Ancient Church.

We Must Resist Wandering Thoughts In Prayer. Raising Our Hands Reminds Us That We Need To Raise Up Our Minds To God, Setting Aside All Irrelevant Thoughts.

We Should Never Insult Others On Account Of Their Faults, For It Is Our Duty To Show Charity And Respect To Everyone.

How Do We Know That God Has Elected Us Before The Creation Of The World? By Believing In Jesus Christ.

A Dog Barks When His Master Is Attacked. I Would Be A Coward If I Saw That God's Truth Is Attacked And Yet Would Remain Silent.

We Ought Always To Beware Of Making The Smallest Claim For Ourselves.

Let This Be Our Rule For Goodwill And Helpfulness, That Whenever We Are Able To Assist Others We Should Behave As Stewards Who Must Someday Give An Account Of Ourselves.

I Have Never Seen Either A Drop Of Piety Or A Grain Of Truth Or Ingenuousness - Nay, I Have Never Found Common Sense In Any Jew.

Let This Point Therefore Stand: That Those Whom The Holy Spirit Has Inwardly Taught Truly Rest Upon Scripture, And That Scripture Itself Is Self-authenticated. . . . Therefore, Illumined By His Power, We Believe Neither By Our Own Nor By Any One Else's Judgment That Scripture Is From God; But Above Human Judgment We Affirm With Utter Certainty (just As If We Were Gazing Upon The Majesty Of God Himself) That It Has Flowed To Us From The Very Mouth Of God By The Ministry Of Men.

No Man Can Survey Himself Without Forthwith Turning His Thoughts Towards The God In Whom He Lives And Moves; Because It Is Perfectly Obvious, That The Endowments Which We Possess Cannot Possibly Be From Ourselves; Nay, That Our Very Being Is Nothing Else Than Subsistence In God Alone.

Moreover, A True Christian Will Not Ascribe Any Prosperity To His Own Diligence, Industry, Or Good Fortune, But He Will Acknowledge That God Is The Author Of It.

The Only Skills I Have The Patience To Learn Are Those That Have No Real Application In Life.

The Glory Of God Shines, Indeed, In All Creatures On High And Below, But Never More Brightly Than In The Cross.

To Be Christians Under The Law Of Grace Does Not Mean To Wander Unbridled Outside The Law, But To Be Engrafted In Christ, By Whose Grace We Are Free From The Curse Of The Law, And By Whose Spirit We Have The Law Engraved Upon Our Hearts.

The Whole Comes To This, That Christ, When He Produces Faith In Us By The Agency Of His Spirit, At The Same Time Ingrafts Us Into His Body, That We May Become Partakers Of All Spiritual Blessings.

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