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.
Now the great thing is this: we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory. For a sacred thing may not be applied to profane uses without marked injury to him.
Again I ask whence it happened that the fall of Adam involved, without remedy, in eternal death so many nations, together with their infant children, except because it so seemed good to God? A decree horrible, I confess, and yet true.
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.
There is also an old proverb, that they who pay much attention to the body generally neglect the soul.
There are babies a span long in hell.
Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to recieve.
In truth we know by experience that song has great force and vigour to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.
We have been adopted as sons by the Lord with this one condition; that our life expresses Christ, the bond of our adoption. Accordingly, unless we give and devote ourselves to righteousness, we not only revolt from our Creator with wicked perfidy, but we also abjure our Savior Himself.
How can it be said that the weakness of the human will is aided so as to enable it to aspire effectually to the choice of good, when the fact is, that it must be wholly transformed and renewed?
We ought always to beware of making the smallest claim for ourselves.
Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.
It is only the goodness of God sensibly experienced by us which opens our mouth to celebrate His praise.
The very word baptize, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient church.
To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground.
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.
A soul, therefore, when deprived of the Word of God, is given up unarmed to the devil for destruction.
There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love.
I have not so great a struggle with my vices, great and numerous as they are, as I have with my impatience. My efforts are not absolutely useless; yet I have never been able to conquer this ferocious wild beast.