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“There is a strangely softening power in the blood of Christ. The fabled Medusa's head was said to turn every one who looked upon it into stone ; but the Cross and the Holy Sufferer upon it is a sight that converts the beholder from stone into flesh. (270)”
― Sermons to the Spiritual Man
― Sermons to the Spiritual Man
“It is a heavy and indelible sin that I brought into the world with me; it is a heavy and innumerable multitude of sins which I have heaped up since; I have sinned behind thy back (if that can be done), by wilful abstaining from thy congregations and omitting thy service, and I have sinned before thy face, in my hypocrisies in prayer, in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect of myself in preaching thy word; I have sinned in my fasting, by repining when a penurious fortune hath kept me low; and I have sinned even in that fulness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination, by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and physic. But as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committed since, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose when thou wrotest my name in the book of life in mine election; so into what deviations soever I stray and wander by occasion of this sickness, O God, return thou to that minute wherein thou wast pleased with me, and consider me in that condition.”
― The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons
― The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons
“If there be any feeding of Christ, any drop of heavenly dew, or any spark of God's good Spirit within you, stir it up; be careful to build and edify, first yourselves, and then your flocks in this most holy faith. I say, first yourselves; for he who will set the hearts of other men on fire with the love of Christ, must himself burn with love. It is want of faith in ourselves, my brethren, which makes us retchless (careless) in building others. We forsake the Lord's inheritance, and feed it not. What is the reason of this? Our own desires are settled where they should not be. We ourselves are like those women who have a longing to eat coals, and lime, and filth: we are fed, some with honour, some with ease, some with wealth: the gospel waxeth loathsome and unpleasant in our taste: how should we then have a care to feed others with that which we cannot fancy ourselves? If faith wax cold and slender in the heart of the prophet, it will soon perish from the ears of the people. (Sermon on part of St Jude's Epistle, p. 552)”
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“Madam, when you are come to the other side of the water, and set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back to the water and to your wearisome journey, and shall see in that clear glass of endless glory nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, you shall then be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoying of this crown of glory.”
― Letters of Samuel Rutherford
― Letters of Samuel Rutherford
“Eternal Jesus! it is Thyself Who hast thus bidden us either despise Thee or worship Thee. Thou wouldest have us despise Thee as our fellow-man, if we will not worship Thee as our God. Gazing on Thy Human beauty, and listening to Thy words, we cannot deny that Thou art the Only Son of God Most High; disputing Thy Divinity, we could no longer clearly recognise Thy Human perfections. But if our ears hearken to Thy revelations of Thy greatness, our souls have already been won to Thee by Thy truthfulness, by Thy lowliness, and by Thy love. Convinced by these Thy moral glories, and by Thy majestic exercise of creative and healing power, we believe and are sure that Thou hast the words of eternal life. Although in unveiling Thyself before Thy creatures, Thou dost stand from age to age at the bar of hostile and sceptical opinion; yet assuredly from age to age, by the assaults of Thine enemies no less than in the faith of Thy believing Church, Thou art justified in Thy sayings and art clear when Thou art judged. Of a truth, Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ; Thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father.”
― The divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
― The divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
J. J.’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at J. J.’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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