J. Church

“ The glorious Gospel reveals a dear Redeemer, standing in the law place, room, and stead of sinners, with all their guilt, defilement, and rebellion, bearing their sins in his own body on the tree, and dying the just for the unjust! while faith discovers all sin put away, and the law magnified, by the Lord our Righteousness. This brings peace and comfort to the mind, and this alone, nothing else can. We see him whom we have pierced with those instruments of death, and mourn over him. See the real evil of sin, and mourn that we pierced the Lord. ”

“ To make a collection of the good things the Spirit has shewn to us—every token for good, every sermon he has blest with power, every sweet view of Jesus, every precious promise that has been applied, every ray of comfort, every season of access and nearness to God, every good word and kind hint he has given us, every deliverance he has wrought for us, every clear answer to prayer, whether of things temporal or spiritual. ”

“ The light is the most striking emblem of God Jesus; it is the life and beauty of every thing else—it hath a kind of omnipotency in it—a peculiar brightness and purity. He is the light of reason to all—he is the light of grace in the covenant—the light of truth in the word—the light of life in the souls of the elect, and the light of heaven in glory—the Lamb is the light thereof; the Lord is thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory: this is the lamp of salvation, the light of the Gentiles and the glory of his true Israel—such Jesus is, and such his grace. ”

“ I humbly conceive that good man was perpetually buffeted to curse God, but what I feel is different, and yet so horrible I cannot tell anyone on earth. O my grief, how great it is on this subject, and if it is Satan’s influence, what a cruel Devil he must be, to harrass in this present affliction, but I am a sinner, and the Lord will make me feel it. I have too much given way to Satan, and now he is set at me like a bull-dog, or as a gaping lion, ready to devour me—my faith is weak and my fears are strong. ”

“ The Holy Spirit’s principal aim in all his operations is to glorify him; the holy angels admire and adore him, as their elect head; the spirits of just men, made perfect, look on him with holy wonder, with rapture, and joy; while every poor, tried, humble believer, trusts in him, leans upon him, hopes in him, and sincerely desires to love him above all things else. And if I know any thing of experience, I must say in the behalf of the church, it is our principal grief we think on him so little, trust him so little, admire and adore him so little. ”

“ May the blessed spirit quicken faith to rise, and wing its way to eternal love, eternal grace, eternal mercy, and eternal kindness. This is its proper element: here we are at home; here is liberty, peace, joy, and satisfaction. Here we see infinite wisdom, contriving a time when, a place where, and a manner how merciful kindness, and melting pity should be manifested. Here we see every sweet attribute harmonize, and every grace displayed, while the cross of your dear lovely, loving Saviour appears truly glorious. ”

“ Death is represented as a departure—it is going from one house to another—it is a loosing from port, and launching into the ocean.—Death is the ship or boat which wafts us over to the shores of eternity. It is going the way of all the earth—going a journey to man’s long home—to an invisible world—through a dark valley, where we need a guide; and a Covenant God has promised to guide us through.—It is going to sleep in hope of waking again, sweetly refreshed in the morning of the resurrection ”

“ A separation from the house of God, the perplexities of the church, the hypocrisy of some of the preachers, the grief of my family, the loss of liberty, the company around me, the joy of my foes, and fearing the truth should suffer by my supposed and reported faults, with the length of time appointed me—these things, it was natural to suppose, must have created the most poignant distress. The many months before me seemed so many years; but this led me to reflect on an eternity of joy or woe, the final doom of the righteous and the wicked. Eternity! Eternity!—a pleasing and dreadful thought. ”

“ We are sinners, guilty, polluted, undone, and hell-deserving. God, as viewed in the law, is truly awful. He appears, and every truly awakened soul sees him, and dreads him as a sin-avenging God, who will by no means of man’s devising, clear the guilty. The sinner who is under the hand of the law, feels the intolerable burden of his own sins, views the holiness of God, the extent and spirituality of the commandments, and groans under fearful apprehensions of eternal woe, and who finds he can do nothing but sin in thought, word, and deed, notwithstanding all his vows, watchings, and care ”

“ Where there is prayer for our own souls, there is an earnest desire for the increase of the Redeemer’s kingdom, and a hearty welcoming his visits: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. This is the soul’s echo to the pleasing tidings: Behold the king cometh unto thee. May not this group of children, singing the praises of the adorable Messiah, though perhaps unconscious of the meaning, be a beautiful figure of that vast body of children who are saved by his grace, and shout his fame, his love, and his victories, in the temple of heaven for ever. ”

“ If Satan can bring a soul out of Paradise, who departed in the faith, and raise a body out of the grave, who was once a temple of the Holy Ghost, he is not only the God of this world, but a rifler of the next. However, Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life, and he is too jealous of his honour to give it to an enemy. The woman cried out, I see gods ascending, when she saw the Devil come up, as an angel of light—and I do not wonder at it, for I dare say she had never seen her sweet-heart in the rays of an angel, or with the gravity of a Prophet before. ”

“ Thus we are led to the next name,
Enoch, dedicated. Our souls and bodies are his, by the eternal gift of the Father—he purchased the Church with his own blood—and having conquered our hearts with his love, we are his willing subjects—made willing to be, to do, and suffer any thing and every thing he calls us to, and gives us grace for. We wish him to have the whole heart, without a rival—our time and talents we would give to him, who has done such great things for us; not that we must for a moment, think we can do any thing for God, no; he must work all in us, and do all for us ”

“ You have often heard of an eternal glory, and I am sure it will be a heaven worth dying for. Many of the people of the world rush into wars and bloodshed, the ruins of countries and the distress of nations, merely to get a great name, and that it might be said they died honorably in the field of battle. Poor deluded creatures, this was not worth dying for; honour and fame is but a noise, a vapour, a puff, and a breath. But we want to die to obtain a glorious eternity, to see the dear Saviour, to be with him, and to be like him ”

“ I will write my laws on their hearts;—hence the prayer, Lord have mercy upon us and write all these thy laws on our hearts we beseech thee? The first law wrote on the heart is the moral law; this is sent home to shew us our sin and danger, to point out our state, and make us feel our guilt. By the law is the knowledge of sin; I had not known it but for the law; under this tuition we are, till Jesus proclaims liberty from its curse and bondage, then we are at liberty to serve him as sons and not as slaves, in imputed righteousness, in the spirit of holiness and in filial fear. ”

“ Let me beg of you to keep near to the Saviour by secret, humble, and fervent prayer, that your minds may be more divinely opened, to receive Jesus as set forth in the gospel—that God will condescend to raise up a more able, more faithful, and more useful preacher—that you may be fed with the sincere milk of the word, and with strong meat, as the apostle describes the great things of God. Let me intreat you to walk in love and humility together. Let me beg of you all to avoid sin, secret and public ”