J. Church

“ I have seen the day,
When with a single word,
God helping me to say
My trust is in the Lord;
My soul has slain a thousand foes,
Fearless of all that could oppose.
For so the promise runs, and so the victorious believer has found it. One of you shall chase a thousand (by the word,) and two of you (by faith and prayer) , shall put ten thousand to flight.
Blessed be God for the gospel, and for its power and influence upon our hearts. This is the sweet evidence of our eternal election of God, for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power ”

“ Christ by delegation, hath universal dominion over all things, visible and invisible, nature, providence, grace, glory, earth, and hell; and this will ever form a subject for the admiration of God’s people. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! for as thou hast formed thy people for thy praise, thou hast ordained the wonders of thy grace shall be celebrated by them in time and eternity. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. ”

“ Thus the sacred Messiah is represented, as filled with holy and admiring thoughts of the subject, and in extacy asks, What is man? the human nature made a little lower than God, but next unto him, and in personal union with the Son of God; a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, but crowned with glory and honor, as the whole election of grace, and as the mediator of reconciliation. ”

“ A man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, a refuge from the storm. The eternal God is thy refuge. Christ, God-man, mediator, is the refuge. Here the righteous flee, and are safe from the avenger of blood. God, revealed in a broken law, is an enemy to sinners as such, just as a judge is to a guilty criminal ”

“ I acknowledge the salvation of all infants has been a subject of dispute, amongst many, and Satan has taken the advantage to distress many a parent upon the subject. But secret things belong to the Lord, our God, the things that are revealed belong to us. Here we want grace to rest, yet I am bold to affirm, that we have no one solid proof of the everlasting destruction of an infant. It is no where positively asserted nor yet implied. I am now speaking of babes. Millions have been destroyed in public calamities, and died a corporeal death, but not punished with an everlasting death ”

“ Such souls, may be long under the terror of the law, the bondage of their spirit, the fears of death, the dread of judgment, eternity and hell, yet the Lord hears their groans, sees their oppressions, tears, and fears, and will in due time, bring them out of prison. Some, indeed, are led on more smoothly, but none are left ignorant of their lost state by nature, their condemnation by the law, and the value of Christ, as the atonement and righteousness of his people. Such babes are humble, simple, sincere, and teachable; they desire the breast of consolation, from heart-felt misery ”

“ Toplady strikingly remarks, on David’s composing this beautiful pastoral psalm: We must form to ourselves an idea of David, the stripling, and think we see him watching his flocks on a summer’s night, under the expanded canopy of the skies. The air is still, the heavens are serene, the moon arrived at her full, is pursuing her majestic silent course, the stars, like peeresses, on a coronation solemnity, assume their brightest robes, to attend the beauteous sovereign of the night, while both moon and stars concur to shed a soft undazzling lustre on all the subjacent landscape. ”

“ The salvation of one poor sinner is a more marvellous display of God, than the creation, with all its wonders. This salvation we are to speak of to others, both ministers and people; and in proportion as we see our interest in it, so are we to declare its greatness, because it is the highest act of God, as the God of all grace, and
Why should the wonders he has wrought
Be lost in silence and forgot?
But babes, men, and children, let them praise the name of the Lord. ”

“ The wolf has been brought to lay down at the feet of the Lamb of God, the cow and the bear. The ministers of Christ, and a raging tyrant by nature, have walked together! yea, a little child has led those fierce characters into all truth! (Isaiah xi.) Instrumentally, such enemies have been subdued, changed, and become distinguished monuments of sovereign, converting grace. The New Testament is full of those instances, and millions in heaven, and thousands upon earth, have felt the power of a gospel ministry. ”

“ His prayers and intercessions for his dear people were ever prevalent with God, while every tear he shed, every sigh p. 10he heaved, every groan he uttered, every stripe, and every pain, with every drop of blood which he shed, were as so many mouths pleading for all who believe in him; and now he lives in glory, he appears before the throne in the full virtue and dignity of his sacrifice and obedience, pleading for all that come to God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession with God for them. ”

“ It is in this way, even a babe in Christ has stilled the enemy and the avenger. The people of the Most High are called babes; and little children, being born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God—created anew in Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them. This new birth is produced by the almighty power of God, the holy making Spirit. It is an evidence of everlasting love, and of the soul’s interest in the blood and righteousness of Christ ”

“ These babes are at times, also enabled to silence Satan himself, with all the accusations of a distressed and burdened conscience, when the atonement, obedience, love, person, offices and promises, invitations and faithfulness of the dear Redeemer is powerfully brought into the mind, by the holy Spirit, and strength given to baffle the enemy, with his satanic suggestions, as a young man did lately, upon his death bed, depending upon, and pleading the great work of Christ, for his acceptance with God, just going into eternity. ”

“ But if all prophecy, or preach, and there came in one that believeth not, or unlearned, he is convinced of all, judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship, and report that God is in you of a truth, because the same Almighty power is put forth in the word, that called light out of darkness at the creation, and that called Lazarus from the tomb. ”

“ There can be neither seeing nor entering the kingdom; there may be a superficial knowledge, and plenty of talk about truth; but it is a cordial reception of it in the heart, and digesting it in the mind, that will ever produce any good effect, either in the soul, or in the conversation. ”

“ This is his glory, the joy of the redeemed, the wonder of elect angels, and the envy of devils.
p. 6The Psalmist, having been led to adore Jehovah Jesus, as God in covenant, and as God-man, the brightness of the Father’s glory, is sweetly brought on to view him in his humiliation, final victory, and exaltation; and while considering the heavenly bodies, their glory and greatness, with his own insufficiency to celebrate his power, he yet adores him for that knowledge with which his mind was favored, and exclaims, What is man that thou art mindful of him? ”

“ One day, he said, I have longed when I have seen people go down into the water to be baptized, to go too. p. 25He was answered, That there was no salvation in water. He replied, Oh! I know that, but you know it is so sweet to follow the Lord! At another time, he said, Aunt, I have a secret hope, that if I was to recover, the Lord would never let me forget his goodness to me; these afflictions would be useful to me through life. Once, when in great pain, he said, Its only weaning—I want a great deal of weaning. Oh what a mercy to be reconciled to the will of the Lord. The Lord is very good. ”

“ Such conduct clearly demonstrates that such persons are in nature’s thickest gloom, nor can those characters give the church or the world any scriptural account of the holy Spirit’s work upon their hearts. We, therefore, can never allow such unconverted persons to be proper judges of any one truth in divine revelation. ”

“ David, at this happy period, a blameless youth, unpoisoned with ambition, and unfacinated by the witchcraft of court corruption, and his hands undipped in blood, is seated on a rising hillock, or on the protuberant root of some stately tree. All is hushed, not a bough rustles, not a leaf p. ”