No outward practices will stand in the place of the new birth. Nothing under heaven will stand in its place.
One great reason why the rich in general have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is that one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know, because they do not care to know: they keep out of the way of knowing it – and then plead their voluntary ignorance as an excuse for their hardness of heart.
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
No man that ever lived, not John Calvin himself, ever asserted either original sin, or justification by faith, in more strong, more clear and express terms, than Arminius has done.
It was a common saying among the Christians in the primitive Church, “The soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian;” implying, that none could be real Christians, without the help of Christian discipline. But if this be so, is it any wonder that we find so few Christians; for where is Christian discipline.
I pity those who can find no good at church. But how should they if prejudice come between, an effectual bar to the grace of God?
Good people avoid sin because they love goodness, Wicked people avoid sin because they fear punishment.
Get on fire for God, and people will come to watch you burn!”-John Wesley.
May we all thus experience what it is to be not almost only, but altogether Christians! Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Jesus, knowing we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God, and having the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the l holy Ghost given unto us!
As one instance of this, be always ready to own any fault you have been in. If you have at any time thought, spoken, or acted wrong, be not backward to acknowledge it. Never dream that this will hurt the cause of God; no, it will further it. Be therefore open and frank when you are taxed with anything; do not seek either to evade or disguise it; but let it appear just as it is, and you will thereby not hinder but adorn the Gospel.
Absolute perfection belongs not to man, nor to angels, but to God alone.
I had a sort of faith during my early life. But devils also have a sort of faith. Still, neither they nor I received the faith of the covenant of promise. Even the apostles had a sort of faith when they were first with Jesus in Cana. Then and there, they “believed on him” in a way. But they did not yet have the faith which overcomes the world.
Let me daily grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Is it sinless? It is not worth while tocontend for a term It is “salvation from sin.
But this doctrine has been much abused.” So has that of justification by faith. But that is no reason for giving up either this or any other scriptural doctrine. “When you wash your child,” as one speaks, “throw away the water; but do not throw away the child.
Do not impute to money the faults of human nature.
Those without enough love experience rage, but love drives rage away.
Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
And I am the rather induced to do what little I can in this way, because I can do nothing else: being prevented, by my present weakness, from either travelling or preaching. But, blessed be God, I can still read, and write, and think. O that it may be to his glory!
Thus it is unquestionably true that he who has been born of God, by “keeping himself,” does not, cannot sin; and yet, if he does not keep himself, he may commit all manner of sin with greediness.
The Grand Canyon is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, upon which the clouds of the heavens play with mighty tempests or with gentle showers.