“Above all the studies in the world, study your own hearts; waste not a minute more of your precious time about frivolous & unsubstantial controversies. My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you, to feed you with the heart strengthening bread of practical doctrine, and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths, feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts, than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination, or a dry syllogistical inference. Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands and know not how to employ it. Remember you are at the door of eternity, and have other work to do. Those hours you spend upon heart-work in your closets, are the golden spots of all your time and will have the sweetest influence up to your last hour.”
“Oh, it is no common mercy to descend from pious parents; some of us do not only owe our natural life to them, as instruments of our being, but our spiritual and eternal life also”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30”
“Incluso algunos, al ver la estructura exacta del cuerpo de un hombre, la figura, la posición y las conexiones mutuas de los diversos miembros y venas, se han convencido (y es suficiente para convencer a todos) de que es obra de la sabiduría y el poder divino.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“The delight and pleasure resulting from the observation of providence are exceedingly great, and it will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven to view, with transporting delight, how the designs and methods were laid to bring us thither. And what will be a part of our blessedness in heaven may be well allowed to be a prime ingredient in our heaven upon earth. To search for pleasure among the due observations of providence is to search for water in the ocean, for providence does not only ultimately design to bring you to heaven but as intermediate thereunto to bring, by this means, much of heaven into your souls in the way thither. How great a pleasure is it to discern how the most wise God is providentially steering all to the port of His own praise and His people’s happiness while the whole world is busily employed in managing the sails and tugging at the oars, with quite an opposite design and purpose!”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“A hot iron, though blunt, will pierce sooner than a cold one, though sharper.”
Source: The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ...
“The opening of your hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ is not a work done by any power of your own, but the arm of the Lord is revealed therein.”
Source: The Method of Grace: How the Holy Spirit Works
“No repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformation or ordinances, without the new creation, avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul.”
Source: The Method of Grace, in the Holy Spirits Applying to the Souls of Men the Eternal Redemption Contrived by the Father, and Accomplished by the Son (etc.)
“As the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit, so the Spirit of Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life; and until he quicken us and infuse the principle of the divine life into our souls, we can put forth no hand, or vital act of faith, to lay hold upon Jesus Christ.”
Source: The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel: ... to which are added alphabetical tables of the texts of scripture explained, and indexes of the principal matters contained in both volumes
“The Spirit must therefore first take hold of us before we can live in Christ, and when he doth so, then we are enabled to exert that vital act of faith, whereby we receive Christ.”
Source: The Method of Grace in Bringing Home the Eternal Redemption ... Being the Second Part of Gospel Redemption: Wherein the Great Mystery of Our Union and Communion with Christ is Opened and Applied ...
“That soul is dead to which the Spirit of Christ is not given in the work of regeneration; and all its works are dead works.”
“Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.”
“Regeneration expresses those supernatural, divine, new qualities imparted by the Spirit to the soul, which are the principle of all holy action.”
Source: The Method of Grace, in the Holy Spirits Applying to the Souls of Men the Eternal Redemption Contrived by the Father, and Accomplished by the Son (etc.)
“We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith; his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God.”
Source: The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ... To which are added, alphabetical tables of the texts of Scripture explained; and indexes of principal matters contained in the whole
“Christ's resurrection is the ground-work of our hope. And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it.”
Source: The Fountain of Life Opened; Or, A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory. 1671
“Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.”
“The Lord's supper is memorative, and so it has the nature and use of a pledge or token of love, left by a dying to a dear surviving friend.”
“Christ and his benefits go inseparably and undividedly... Many would willingly receive his privileges, who will not receive his person; but it cannot be; if we will have one, we must take the other too: Yea, we must accept his person first, and then his benefits: as it is in the marriage covenant, so it is here.”
Source: The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ... To which are added, alphabetical tables of the texts of Scripture explained; and indexes of principal matters contained in the whole
“Christ comes with kingly power, to rescue sinners, as a prey from the mouth of the terrible one.”
Source: The Method of Grace: How the Holy Spirit Works
“Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ; the nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyhment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes.”
“He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.”
“He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him.”
Source: The Whole Works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ...
“My soul is of more value than ten thousand worlds.”
Source: Pneumatologia: A Treatise of the Soul of Man: Wherein the Divine Original, Excellent and Immortal Nature of the Soul are Opened ...
“The soul of man, like the bird in the shell, is still growing or ripening in sin or grace, till at last the shell breaks by death, and the soul flies away to the piece it is prepared for, and where it must abide forever.”
“The soul of the poorest child is of equal dignity with the soul of Adam.”
Source: A treatise of the soul of man: wherein the divine original, excellent and immortal nature of the soul are opened; its love and inclination to the body, with the necessity of its separation from it, considered and improved; the existence, operations, and states of separated souls, both in heaven and hell, immediately after death, asserted, discussed, and variously applied; divers knotty and difficult questions about departed souls both philosophical, and theological, stated and determined; the invaluable preciousness of human souls, and the various artifices of Satan (their professed enemy) to destroy them, discovered; and the great duty and interest of all men, seasonably and heartily to comply with the most great and gracious design of the Father, Son, and Spirit, for the salvation of their souls, argued and pressed
“We are not distinguished from brutes by our senses, but by our understanding.”
Source: The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel: ... to which are added alphabetical tables of the texts of scripture explained, and indexes of the principal matters contained in both volumes
“The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is at the full, and that by the interposition of the earth.”
Source: Husbandry Spiritualized, Or, The Heavenly Use of Earthly Things: Consisting of Many Pleasant Observations, Pertinent Applications, and Serious Reflections : and Each Chapter Concluded with a Divine and Suitable Poem, Directing Husbandmen to the Most Excellent Improvements of Their Common Employments : Whereunto are Added, by Way of Appendix, Several Choice Occasional Meditations Upon Birds, Beasts, Trees, Flowers, Rivers, and Several Other Objects : Fitted for the Help of Such as Desire to Walk with God in All Their Solitudes, and Recesses from the World
“Where there is no want, there is usually much wantonness.”
Source: Whole Works of the Rev. Mr. John Flavel
“That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.”
Source: Whole Works of the Rev. Mr. John Flavel
“Afflictions have the same use and end to our souls, that frosty weather hath upon those clothes that are laid and bleaching, they alter the hue and make them white.”
Source: Whole Works of the Rev. Mr. John Flavel
“The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness.”
Source: Whole Works of the Rev. Mr. John Flavel
“It is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them here, that there is a wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most pernicious designs to blessed and happy issues.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“Whatsoever we have over-loved, idolized, and leaned upon, God has from time to time broken it, and made us to see the vanity of it; so that we find the readiest course to be rid of our comforts is to set our hearts inordinately upon them.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“Wrath to come implies both the futurity and perpetuity of this wrath.... Yea, it is not only certainly future, but when it comes it will be abiding wrath, or wrath still coming. When millions of years and ages are past and gone, this will still be wrath to come. Ever coming as a river ever flowing.”
Source: THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE OPENED UP
“Oh sirs, deal with sin as sin, and speak of heaven and hell as they are, and not as if you were in jest.”
“Tell me, you vain professor, when did you shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief, or earthliness of your heart? Do you think that such an easy religion can save you? If so, we may invert Christ's words and say, 'Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to life, and may there be that go in there.'”
“Turn in upon yourselves, get into your closets, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept other vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long. Will you now resolve to look better to your hearts? Will you hate and come out of the crowds of business and clamors of the world and retire yourselves more than you have done? Oh, that this day you would resolve upon it!”
“If time be a ring of gold, opportunity is the rich diamond that gives it both its value and glory.”
Source: The whole works of the Reverend Mr. John Flavel ... To which are added, alphabetical tables of the texts of Scripture explained; and indexes of principal matters contained in the whole
“If you neglect to instruct children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; if you will not teach them to pray, he will to curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.”
Source: Divine Conduct: Or, The Mystery of Providence, Wherein the Being and Efficacy of Providence are Asserted and Vindicated ... and the Proper Course of Improving All Providences Pointed Out
“How often has providence convinced its observers, upon a sober recollection of the events of their lives, that if the Lord had left them to their own counsels they had as often been their own tormentors, if not executioners!”
Source: Divine Conduct: Or, The Mystery of Providence, Wherein the Being and Efficacy of Providence are Asserted and Vindicated ... and the Proper Course of Improving All Providences Pointed Out
“If God has given you but a small portion of the world, yet if you are godly He has promised never to forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Providence has ordered that condition for you which is really best for your eternal good. If you had more of the world than you have, your heads and hearts might not be able to manage it to your advantage.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences at which we were sometimes so offended...we shall [one day] see to be to us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was to Israel, "the right way to the city of habitation".”
“Providence so orders the case, that faith and prayer come between our wants and supplies, and the goodness of God may be the more magnified in our eyes thereby.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“Ah, did we but rightly understand what the demerit of sin is, we would rather admire the bounty of God than complain of the straithandedness of Providence. And if we did but consider that there lies upon God no obligation of justice or gratitud to reward any of our duties, it would cure our murmurs (Gen. 32:10).”
Source: The whole works of John Flavel: late minister of the gospel at Dartmouth, Devon
“Look around in the world, and you may see some in every place who are objects of pity, bereaved by sad accidents of all the comforts of life, while in the meantime Providence has tenderly preserved you.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“When the world smiles upon us, and we have got a warm nest, how do we prophesy of rest and peace in those acquisitions, thinking with good Baruch, great things for ourselves, but Providence by a particular or general calamity overturns our plans (Jer. 45:4,5), and all this to turn our hearts from the creature to God.”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“And now let us consider and marvel that ever this great and blessed God should be so much concerned, as you have heard He is in all His providences, about such vile, despicable worms as we are! He does not need us, but is perfectly blessed and happy in Himself without us. We can add nothing to Him.”
“You may look upon some providences once and again, and see little or nothing in them, but look "seven times," that is, meditate often upon them, and you will see their increasing glory, like that increasing cloud (1 Kings 18:44).”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“When our needs are permitted to grow to an extremity, and all visible hopes fail, then to have relief given wonderfully enhances the price of such a mercy”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
“Sometimes God makes use of instruments for good to His people, who designed nothing but evil and mischief to them. Thus Joseph's brethren were instrumental to his advancement in that very thing in which they designed his ruin (Gen. 50:20).”
Source: The Mystery of Providence
