As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.
John FlavelThe law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.
John FlavelGuilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.
John FlavelWhen 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
John FlavelI think it is not very difficult to discern by the duties and converses of Christians, what frames their spirits are under. Take a Christian in a good frame, and how serious, heavenly, and profitable, will his converses and duties be! what a lovely companion is he during the continuance of it!
John FlavelWhat a mercy was it to us to have parents that prayed for us before they had us, as well as in our infancy when we could not pray for ourselves!
John FlavelIt 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.
John FlavelSuppose that by revenge you might destroy one enemy; yet, by exercising the Christian's temper you might conquer three–your own lust, Satan's temptation, and your enemy's heart.
John FlavelThe 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.
John FlavelChrist [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. . . .
John FlavelNo doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
John FlavelO my soul, I am now addressing myself to the greatest work that ever a creature was employed about - I am going into the solemn presence of God about business of everlasting importance!
John FlavelIt is the duty of the saints, especially in times of straights, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives.
John FlavelIf 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.
John FlavelProvidence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.
John FlavelAfflictions 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.
John FlavelThe carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.
John FlavelChrist's resurrection is the ground-work of our hope. And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it.
John FlavelLord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little.care and thought about it.
John FlavelIt would much conduce to the settlement of your hearts, to consider, That by fretting and discontent, you do yourselves more injury thart till the afsltilions you lie under could do; your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting; it is you that make your burden heavy, by struggling under it. Could you but lie quiet under the hand of God, your condition would be much easier and sweeter than it is.
John FlavelWe must not think that faith itself is the soul's rest; it is only the means of it. We cannot find rest in any work or duty of our own, but we may find it in Christ, whom faith apprehends for justification and salvation.
John FlavelLook to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Christless at your appearance before him. Those that continue Christless now, will be left speechless then. God forbid that you that have heard so much of Christ, and you that have professed so much of Christ, should at last fall into a worse condition than those that never heard the name of Christ.
John FlavelWhen 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.
John FlavelWhat is a child, but a piece of the parent enrapt up in another skin? And yet our dearest children are but as strangers to us, in comparison of the unspeakable dearness that was between the Father and Christ. Now, that he should ever be content to part with a Son, and such an only One, is such a manifestation of love, as will be admired to all eternity.
John FlavelThe 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.
John FlavelFor the infinite glorious Creator of all things, to become a creature, is a mystery exceeding all human understanding.
John FlavelNo repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformation or ordinances, without the new creation, avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul.
John FlavelChrist is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.
John FlavelThe 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.
John FlavelBrethren, it is easier to declaim against a thousand sins of others, than to mortify one sin in ourselves.
John FlavelThe knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.
John FlavelHow 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!
John FlavelThe 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.
John FlavelProvidence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.
John FlavelLet us see that our knowledge of Christ be not a powerless, barren, unpractical knowledge: O that, in its passage from our understanding to our lips, it might powerfully melt, sweeten, and ravish our hearts! Remember, brethren, a holy calling never saved any man, without a holy heart; if our tongues only be sanctified, our whole man must be damned. We must be judged by the same gospel, and stand at the same bar, and be sentenced to the same terms, and dealt with as severely as any other men.
John FlavelHe 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.
John FlavelThere is no grace more excellent than faith; no sin more execrable and abominable then unbelief. Faith is the saving grace and unbelief the damning sin. (Mark 16:16) ... Before Christ can be received, the heart must be emptied and opened: but men's heart's are full of self-righteousn ess and vain confidence (Rom 10:3).
John Flavel