A Goodly Heritage

Natural men have no security from the most dismal horrors of mind in this life. They have no security, but their stupidity. A natural man can have no comfort or peace in a natural condition, but that of which blindness and senselessness are the foundation. And from what has been said, that is the very evil. A natural man can have no comfort in anything in this world any further, than thought and consideration of mind are kept down in him. As you make a condemned malefactor senseless of his misery by putting him to sleep with opium, or make him merry just before his execution by giving him something to deprive him of the use of reason, so that he shall not be sensible of his own circumstances. Otherwise, there is no peace or comfort, which a natural man can have in a natural condition. Isa. 57:21, “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” Job 15:20, “The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days. A dreadful sound is in his ears.” The doleful state of a natural man appears e

(A letter by Jonathan Edwards, addressed to a young lady in the year 1741)   My dear young friend, As you desired me to send you, in writing, some  directions how to conduct yourself in your Christian course , I would now answer your request. The sweet remembrance of the great things I have lately seen at your church, inclines me to do anything in my power, to contribute to the spiritual joy and prosperity of God's people there. 1. I would advise you to keep up as great an effort and earnestness in religion, as if you knew yourself to be in a state of nature, and were seeking conversion. We advise people under conviction, to be earnest and violent for the kingdom of heaven; but when they have attained to conversion, they ought not to be the less watchful, laborious, and earnest, in the whole work of religion, but the more so; for they are under infinitely greater obligations. For lack of this, many people, in a few months after their conversion, have begun to lose their

Jesus said unto them,  I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger  ... This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. (John 6:35-50) It is obvious that this miraculous supply of food for the desert was in itself a provision for the bodily, and not for the spiritual nature of the Israelites. Hence it is called by our Lord, ‘not the true bread that cometh down from heaven,’ because the life it was given to support was the fleshly one, which terminates in death: ‘Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.’ And even in this point of view the things connected with it have a use for us, apart altogether from any higher, typical, or prospective reference they might also bear to Gospel things. Lessons may be drawn from the giving and receiving of manna in regard to the interests and transactions of our present temporal life,—properly and justly drawn; only we must not confound these, as is too commonly done, w

There are in the world many of the poor who yet are exceeding proud, but God sanctifies outward poverty to His children so that it promotes true poverty of spirit. As they are poor, so they have a mean esteem of themselves; it makes them inwardly more humble and more tractable to God's government. Therefore when we are under any cross let us observe how it works, see whether we join with God or not. When He afflicts us outwardly, whether inwardly we be more humble. When He humbles us and makes us poor, whether we become also poor in spirit. When God designs to humble us we should labor through grace to abase ourselves and mortify pride.  Richard Sibbes

"He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." Psalm 107:20 What an effect a word from God can produce! Be it in reading; in hearing; on the knees; or in secret meditation; when a word drops from the Lord's mouth with any divine power into the soul, what a change it produces! And nothing but this divine power can ever bring a poor sinner out of his miserable condition. When this comes, it does the work in a moment; it heals all the wounds which sin has made, and repairs all the breaches in the conscience that folly has produced. One word from God heals them all. The Lord does not come as it were with plasters to heal first one sore and then another. He heals now as in the days of his flesh. When he healed then, he healed fully, at once, completely. The earthly doctor heals by degrees; he puts a plaster on one sore, and a liniment on another; and heals one by one. But when the Lord heals, it is all done in a moment. The balm of Gilea

Dearly Beloved, I gladly acknowledge myself a debtor to you, and am concerned, as I would be found a good steward of the household of God, to give to every one his portion. But the physician is most concerned for those patients whose case is most doubtful and hazardous; and the father's pity is especially turned towards his dying child. So unconverted souls call for earnest compassion and prompt diligence to pluck them as brands from the burning ( Jude 23 ). Therefore it is to them I shall first apply myself in these pages. But from where shall I fetch my argument? With what shall I win them? O that I could tell! I would write to them in tears, I would weep out every argument, I would empty my veins for ink, I would petition them on my knees. O how thankful should I be if they would be prevailed with to repent and turn. How long have I laboured for you! How often would I have gathered you! This is what I have prayed for and studied for these many years, that I might bring you

We turn from our own RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Before conversion, man seeks to cover himself with his own fig-leaves, and to make himself acceptable with God, by his own duties. He is apt to trust in himself, and set up his own righteousness, and to reckon his pennies for gold, and not to submit to the righteousness of God. But conversion changes his mind; now he counts his own righteousness as filthy rags. He casts it off, as a man would the verminous tatters of a nasty beggar. Now he is brought to poverty of spirit, complains of and condemns himself; and all his inventory is, 'I am poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked!' [Rev 3:17]. He sees a world of iniquity in his holy things, and calls his once-idolized righteousness but filth and loss; and would not for a thousand worlds be found in it! Now he begins to set a high price upon Christ's righteousness. He sees the need of Christ in every duty, to justify his person and sanctify his performances; he cannot liv

THE VOICE OF THE REDEEMED Amen, hallelujah! Be it to Your servants according to Your Word. But who are we, and what is our Father's house that You have brought us here? And now, O Lord God, what shall Your servants say unto You? For we are silenced with wonder and must sit down in astonishment; for we cannot utter the least note of Your praises. What does the height of this surpassing love mean? And why is this  unto us , that the Lord of heaven and earth should condescend to enter into covenant with His dust, and take into His bosom  the viperous brood , that has so often spit their venom in His face? We are not worthy to be as the handmaids, to wash the feet of the servants of our Lord. How much less worthy are we to be Your  sons and heirs , and to be made partakers of all those blessed liberties and privileges which You have settled upon us? But, for Your goodness' sake, and according to Your own heart, You have done all these great things. Even so, Father, because

"We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us." –1 Corinthians 2:12 What thick clouds of darkness spread themselves at times over our souls; all things out of sight; our signs and tokens buried, as it were, in mist. It is like a sea fog, that comes out of the bosom of the vasty deep, and hides all objects from view. The ships are on the sea, notwithstanding, but this deep fog prevents their being seen. So with our souls at times--all is misty, cloudy, and no signs can be seen of the work of God upon our hearts. And yet we "know" them, by receiving the Spirit of God, for it is the only way whereby they can be known. We can only see light in God's light; only believe by God's faith; only love by God's love; therefore can only know the things freely given to us of God by the revelation of the Spirit. What we know savingly, experimentally, feelingly, we know only by div

"For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."-–2 Corinthians 5:21 Our blessed Lord offered himself for sin; that is, that he might put away sin by the sacrifice of himself--"Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24). It was absolutely necessary either that the sinner should suffer in his own person, or in that of a substitute. Jesus became this substitute; he stood virtually in the sinner's place, and endured in his holy body and soul the punishment due to him; for he "was numbered with the transgressors." He thus, by the shedding of his most precious blood, opened in his sacred body a fountain for all sin and all uncleanness (Zech. 13:1). The cross was the place on which this sacrifice was offered; for as the blood of the slain lamb was poured out at the foot of the altar, sprinkled upon its horns, and burned in its ever-enduring fire, so our blesse

Our Hope is the personal Return of our Redeemer. “Jesus Christ  our hope”  ( 1 Tim. 1:1 ). Jesus Christ is the believer’s “all in all” ( Col. 3:11 ). He is “our peace” ( Eph. 2:14 ). He is “our life” ( Col. 3:14 ). He is “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” ( 1 Cor. 1:30 ). And, we repeat, He is “our Hope.” But hope always looks forward. Hope has to do with the future. “We are saved in hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” ( Rom. 8:24 ,  25 ). This means that what we hope for is that which we do not yet posses.  3  As another has said, “Man was not made for the present, and the present was not intended to satisfy man. ** It is for the future, not the present, that man exists” (W. Trotter). The Hope of the believer is clearly set forth in  Titus 2:13 —“ Looking for that blessed hope  and appearing of the glory of the

2. Our Hope is not the Salvation of the Soul. In the New Testament the word “Salvation” has a threefold scope—past, present and future, which, respectively, has reference to our deliverance from the penalty, the power, and the presence of sin. When we say, above, that our Hope is not the Salvation of the soul, we mean that it is not our deliverance from the wrath to come which is the prospect God sets before His people. To certain of our readers it may appear almost a wearisome waste of time for us to discuss these points, but for the sake of the class for which this work is specially designed we would ask them to bear with us in patience. In these days when the Bible is so grievously neglected both in the pulpit and in the pew, we cannot afford to take anything for granted. Multitudes of those in our churches are ignorant of the most elementary truths of the Christian faith. Experience shows that comparatively few people are clear about even the A, B, C, of the Gospel. Talk to t

We pray that these pages may be read by many who will be  startled  by the above statement. A world which shall eventually be saved by the preaching of the Gospel has been the expectation of almost all Christendom. That the Gospel shall yet triumph over the world, the flesh, and the Devil is the belief of the great majority of those who profess to be the Lord’s people. In the seminaries, in the pulpits, in the Christian literature of the day, and in the great missionary gatherings where placards bearing the words “The world for Christ” are prominently displayed, has this theory been zealously heralded. It is supposed that anything short of a converted “world” is a concept dishonoring and derogatory to the Gospel. We are told the Gospel cannot fail because it is the power of God, and though the Church has failed, yet, a day is surely coming when this captivating ideal shall be realized. To believe other than this, is to be dubbed a “pessimist,” yea, it is to be looked upon as a hind

A man may abhor sin more for the shame which attends it than for the malignity and odiousness which are in it; and he may hate one sin because it is contrary to another which he loves dearly. The sincere penitent, on the contrary, hates all sin as sin, and abhors it chiefly for the evil that is in it. A man may even forsake most of his transgressions without exercising true repentance. If he forsake open, and yet retain secret sins, or if he leave sin and yet continue to love it, or if he let one sin go in order to hold another the faster, or if he forsake sin, but not as sin, he is not a true penitent. He who forsakes any sin as sin, or because it is sin, relinquishes all sin. The sincere penitent forsakes all iniquity from right principles, by right motives, in a right manner, and to a right end. Let every man take heed, then, that he do not impose upon himself by mistaking a false for a true repentance. And if he begin to suspect that his repentance is legal and counterfeit, let hi

[Some people being very moral have] "nothing to do with the business of repentance. They are so good, that they scorn God's offer of mercy. Indeed these are often in the worst condition: these are they who think they need no repentance (Luke 15:7). Their morality undoes them. They make a "saviour" of it, and so on this rock they suffer shipwreck. Morality shoots short of heaven. It is only nature refined. A moral man is but old Adam dressed in fine clothes. The king's image counterfeited and stamped upon brass will not go current. The moral person seems to have the image of God—but he is only brass metal, which will never pass for current. Morality is insufficient for salvation. Though the life is moralized, the lust may be unmortified. The heart may be full of pride and atheism. Under the fair leaves of a tree, there may be a worm. I am not saying, repent that you are moral—but that you are no more than moral. Satan entered into the house that had just been swe

Repent or Perish These were the words of the incarnate Son of God. They have never been cancelled; nor will they be as long as this world lasts. Repentance is absolute and necessary if the sinner is to make peace with God (Isa. 27:5), for repentance is the throwing down the weapons of rebellion against Him. Repentance does not save, yet no sinner ever was or ever will be saved without it. None but Christ saves, but an impenitent heart cannot receive Him. A sinner cannot truly believe until he repents. This is clear from the words of Christ concerning His forerunner, "For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him" (Matthew 21:32). It is also evident from His clarion call in Mark 1:15, "Repent ye, and believe the gospel." This is why the apostle Paul testified "repentance toward God, and faith toward

Repentance is a thorough change of person’s natural heart, upon the subject of sin. We are all born in sin. We naturally love sin. We take to sin, as soon as we can act and think—just as the bird takes to flying, and the fish takes to swimming. There never was a child that required schooling or education in order to learn deceitfulness, selfishness, passion, self-will, gluttony, pride and foolishness. These things are not picked up from bad companions, or gradually learned by a long course of tedious instruction. They spring up of themselves, even when boys and girls are brought up alone. The seeds of them are evidently the natural product of the heart. The aptitude of all children to these evil things is an unanswerable proof of the corruption and fall of man. Now when this heart of ours is changed by the Holy Spirit, when this natural love of sin is cast out, then takes place that change which the Word of God calls “repentance.” The person in whom the change is created i