I saw the other day in an Italian grotto a little fern, which grew where its leaves continually glistened and danced in the spray of a fountain. It was always green, and neither summer's drought nor winter's cold affected it. So let us for ever abide under the sweet influence of Jesus' love.
Lectures to my Students
The biblical tradition rediscovered during the Reformation viewed theocracy and democracy as necessary compliments: human rule flowed from God's rule.The Mission of God, 121
Upon their king's death, it was the Persians' custom (I am not saying it was laudable) to grant everyone liberty for five days to do whatever they wanted. The unbridled lust was so great that it made the people long and pray for the installment of their next king. In this way it endeared government to them. Blessed be God for law and government, for using them to curb people's raging lusts, and thereby procuring rest and comfort for us in the world!Triumphing over Sinful Fear, 22-23
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they're not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure. I find that they're not true without looking further than myself. I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.
If you do not love God, you will love something else, either the world or sin; and are those worthy of your love? Is it not better to love God than these?https://www.ccel.org/ccel/watson/cordial.ix.html
Love facilitates religion. It oils the wheels of the affections, and makes them more lively and cheerful in God's service. Love takes off the tediousness of duty. Jacob thought seven years but little, for the love he bore to Rachel. Love makes duty a pleasure.https://www.ccel.org/ccel/watson/cordial.ix.html
Young men, I beseech you earnestly, beware of pride. Two things are said to be very rare sights in the world— one is a young man that is humble, and the other is an old man that is content. I fear that this is only too true.
If God be our God, let us learn to be contented, though we have the less of other things. Contentment is a rare jewel, it is the cure of care. If we have God to be our God, well may we be contented.The Ten Commandments, 21
But where contentment of heart springs from grace, the heart is very quick and lively in the service of God. Yea, the more any gracious heart can bring itself to be in a contented disposition, the more fit it is for any service of God. And just as a contented heart is very active and busy in the work of God, so he is very active and busy in sanctifying God's name in the affliction that befalls himThe Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
Contentment is not merely one act, just a flash in a good mood. You find many men and women who, if they are in a good mood, will be very quiet. But this will not hold. It is not a constant course. It is not the constant tenor of their spirits to be holy and gracious under affliction. Now I say that contentment is a quiet frame of spirit and by that I mean that you should find men and women in a good mood not only at this or that time, but as the constant tenor and temper of their hearts. A Christian who, in the constant tenor and temper of his heart, can carry himself quietly with constancy has learned this lesson of contentment. Otherwise his Christianity is worth nothing, for no one, however furious in his discontent, will not be quiet when he is in a good mood.The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
The Christian is not to pray for an immunity from all temporal sufferings. There is no foundation
for such a prayer in the promise, and what God thinks not fit to promise, we must not be bold to ask.
God had one Son without sin, but none in this life without suffering.
In a word, suffering time is the time wherein God makes His attributes visible—"The Lord will be a refuge to His people, a refuge in time of trouble." And what follows? "And they that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee." In the school of affliction God reads lectures upon His attributes and expounds Himself unto His people so that many times they come to know more of God or more experimentally by half a year's sufferings than by many years' sermons.
It is not every suffering that makes a martyr, but suffering for the word of God after a right manner: that is, not only for righteousness, but for righteousness' sake; not only for truth, but out of love to truth; not only for God's word, but according to it; to wit, in that holy, humble, meek manner as the word of God requires. It is a rare thing to suffer aright and to have thy spirit in suffering bent only against God's enemy, sin: sin in doctrine, sin in worship, sin in life, and sin in conversation.
A man must not run into a suffering without a call, and he must not rush out of it without a call. And therefore you shall find Christ and the apostles, and all the martyrs, that thus they acted. They would hide, and go aside, and avoid their sufferings; but when they were in hold they would not go out though the doors were open. So that that is the next thing: be sure of this, that you do not run into sufferings without a call nor rush out of sufferings without the same call from God.
Whenever you have several ways before you for the laying out of your money or your time, let the question be seriously put to your heart: Which of these ways shall I wish at death and judgment that I had expended it? And let that be chosen as the way.
First or last God will call for an account how His goods have been improved. He has given you a stock to trade up on for Him: light, grace, parts, capacities, gospel privileges and opportunities, liberty, peace, experiences, with many mercies and afflictions, which are all your Lord's goods and must be accounted for, upon the passing of which depends your eternal state or much of your soul's peace. The Lord Jesus has a double audit, or accounting, with His servants: in this life in the court of conscience and in the judgment day at the bar of God.
Pray to God to bless you in your work. "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong" (Eccl. 9:11); nothing prospers without a blessing. And what way to obtain it but by prayer? It is a saying of one of the ancients, "The saints carry the keys of heaven at their girdle." Prayer beats the weapon out of the enemy's hand and gets the blessing out of God's hand.
It is not so easy a matter to pray as men think. In regard of the unspiritualness of our nature compared with the duty itself in which we draw near to a holy God, we cannot endure to be separated from our lusts; and there is great rebellion in our hearts against everything that is good; and Satan also is our special enemy…. When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can. But though some may mumble over a few prayers, yet (indeed) no man can pray as he ought, or in faith, that is not within the covenant of grace, nor without the Holy Ghost.
The Christian's armor will rust, except it be furbished with the oil of prayer. What the key is to the watch, prayer is to our graces; it winds them up and sets them going.
When the sword is in the scabbard, the traveler is easily surprised; and when the guard is asleep, the city is quickly conquered. The strongest creature, the lion, and the wisest creature, the serpent, if they be dormant, are as easily surprised as the weakest worms. So the strongest and wisest saints, if their graces be asleep, if they be only in the habit and not in the exercise, may be as easily surprised and vanquished as the weakest Christians in all the world, as you may see in David, Solomon, Samson, Peter. Every enemy insults over him that has lost the use of his weapons.
A humble soul being once in a great conflict with Satan said thus to him: "Satan, reason not with me—I am but weak. If thou hast anything to say, say it to Christ; He is my advocate, my strength, and my Redeemer, and He shall plead for me." A humble soul is good at turning Satan over to the Lord Jesus, and this increases Satan's hell.
that principle of a greedy desire to be uncontrolled in their lusts -which induces men to a denial of providenceExistence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1
a fool is one who has lost his wisdom and right notion of God and divine things, which were communicated to man by creationExistence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1
The psalmist lays all the evil, tyranny, lust, and persecutions of men (as if the world were only for their sake) upon their neglect of God and the atheism cherished in the hearts.Existence and Attributes of God, Discourse 1