God works powerfully, but for the most part gently and gradually.
But that we are so totally depraved, is a truth which no one ever truly learned by being only told it.
It is a great thing to die; and, when flesh and a heart fail, to have God for the strength of our hearts, and our portion forever. I know whom I have believed, and he is able to keep that which I have committed against that great day. Hence forth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the lord, the righteous judge, shall give me that day.
We judge things by their present appearances, but the Lord sees them in their consequences.
How unspeakably wonderful to know that all our concerns are held in hands that bled for us.
From the time we know the Lord, and are bound to him by the cords of love and gratitude – the two chief points we should have in our view, I apprehend, are, to maintain communion with him in our own souls, and to glorify him in the sight of men.
Thus the Lord, by pain, sickness, and disappointments, by breaking our cisterns and withering our gourds – weakens our attachment to this world, and makes the thought of leaving it, more easy and more desirable.
I began to understand the security of the covenant of grace, and to expect to be preserved, not by my own power and holiness, but by the mighty power and promise of God, through faith in an unchangeable Savior.
I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.
A secret dependence upon our prayers, tears, resolutions, repentance and endeavors, prevents us from looking solely and simply to the Savior, so as to ground our whole hope for acceptance upon his obedience unto death, and his whole mediation.
But though my disease is grievous, it is not desperate; I have a gracious and infallible Physician. I shall not die – but live, and declare the works of the Lord.
May the cheering contemplation of the glorious hope set before us – support and animate us to improve our short interval on earth, and fill us with a holy ambition of shining as lights in this evil world, to the praise and glory of His grace – who has called us out of darkness, into His glorious light!
The unchangeableness of the Lord’s love, and the riches of his mercy, are likewise more illustrated by the multiplied pardons He bestows upon his people – than if they needed no forgiveness at all.
Whoever is truly humbled – will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others. He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference – it is grace alone which has made it!
We are engaged in a good cause, fight under a good Captain, the victory is sure beforehand, and the prize is a crown – a crown of eternal life.
We learn to tread more warily, to trust less to our own strength, to have lower thoughts of ourselves, and higher thoughts of Him; in which two last particulars I apprehend what the Scripture means by a growth of grace does properly consist. Both are increasing in the lively Christian: – -every day shows him more of his own heart, and more of the power, sufficiency, compassion, and grace of his adorable Redeemer; but neither will be complete till we get to Heaven. I.
It is indeed natural to us to wish and to plan, and it is merciful in the Lord to disappoint our plans, and to cross our wishes. For we cannot be safe, much less happy, but in proportion as we are weaned from our own wills, and made simply desirous of being directed by his guidance.
However, let us give ourselves to the study of the word, and to prayer; and may the great Teacher make every scriptural truth food to our souls. I desire to grow in knowledge, but I want nothing which bears that name that has not a direct tendency to make sin more hateful, Jesus more precious to my soul; and at the same time to animate me to a diligent use of every appointed means, and an unreserved regard to every branch of duty.
Here is the humble confidence of faith – that what God begins shall not miscarry and those whom He leads shall not be lost.
We have sometimes escaped from grave dangers not by any wisdom or foresight of our own, but by the intervention of unforeseen circumstances. So both the revelation of Scripture and our own individual experiences confirm the wisdom and good providence of God. He watches over His people from the earliest moment of their lives. He overrules and guards them through all their blind wanderings and leads them in a way that they know not.
To be humble, and like a little child, afraid of taking a step alone, and so conscious of snares and dangers around us as to cry to Him continually to hold us up that we may be safe, is the sure, the infallible, the only secret of walking closely with Him.