EXCELLENT PASSAGES

FROM EMINENT PERSONS*.

ACCEPTANCE.

Ir is a fallacy of satan's, to argue, from the sinfulness of our duties, to the non-acceptance of them. "Will God," says he, "take such broken groats at thy hand? Is he not a holy God?"-Learn here, to distinguish. There is a twofold acceptance. 1. A thing may be accepted as a payment of a debt; or, 2. As a proof of love.-God, who will not accept of broken money in a way of payment; will nevertheless kindly accept of it from his friends, as a testimony of gratitude.

It is true, O Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money: but here, for thy comfort, Christ, and Christ only, is thy paySend satan to him; bid him bring his charge against Christ, who is ready at God's right

master.

*In the course of various readings, these judicious extracts are professedly transcribed by our author, from the writings of several protestant divines of the last (and a few of the present) age; they will be perused with pleasure and peculiar advantage by those who have a prevailing regard for dignity of sense and plain truth, delivered in honest and open language, unlike the delicate race of our refined preachers, who "scorn to mention hell to ears polite." These selections are a specimen of the subjects that employed the tongues and pens of those intrepid champions in the cause of God, who, having fought the good fight, and exemplarily executed the commission received from their Lord and master, are now set down in the kingdom of heaven, crowned with glory and immortality. Editor.

hand to produce a clear account, and show his receipt in full for the whole debt.-As to thy performances and obedience, they fall under a quite contrary class; as mere tokens of thy love and thankfulness to God. And, so gracious is thy heavenly Father, that he accepts thy bent sixpence, and will not throw away thy crooked, broken mite. Love refuses nothing that love sends. Gurnall.

ACTIVITY.

Industry on our parts is not superseded by the greatness and freeness of God's grace. As when a schoolmaster teaches a boy gratis, the youth cannot attain to learning, without some application of his own; and yet it doth not therefore cease to be free, on the teacher's part, because attention is required from the learner; so it is here. Arrowsmith.

AFFLICTIONS.

Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.

Dr. Dodd of the last cent.

There is no affliction so small, but we should sink under it, if God upheld us not: and there is no sin so great, but we should commit it, if God restrained us not.

ibid.

A good old Scotch minister used to say, to any of his flock, when they were labouring under affliction, "Time is short: and, if your cross is heavy, you have not far to carry it."

When the grace of an afflicted saint is in exercise, his heart is like a garden of roses, or a well of rosewater, which, the more moved and agitated they are, the sweeter is the fragrance they exhale. Anon.

As no temporal blessing is good enough to be a sign of eternal election; so no temporal affliction is bad enough to be an evidence of reprobation: for the dearest Son of God's love was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Dr. Arrowsmith.

Afflictions scour us of our rust. Adversity, like winter weather, is of use to kill those vermin, which the summer of prosperity is apt to produce and nourish. Dr. Arrowsmith. Every vessel of mercy must be scoured in order to brightness. And however trees in the wilderness may grow without culture; trees in the garden must be pruned, to be made fruitful: and corn-fields must be broken up, when barren heaths are left untouched. ibid.

The church below is often in a suffering state. Christ himself was a man of sorrows; nor should his bride be a wife of pleasures. ibid. God may cast thee down, but he will not cast thee off. Mr. Case. Afflictions are blessings to us, when we can bless God for afflictions.

Dyer. God had one Son without sin, but none without sorrow he had one Son without corruption, but no Son without correction.

ibid.

Christian, hath not God taught thee by his word and Spirit, how to read the short hand of his providence? Dost thou not know that the saint's afflictions stand for blessings?

Gurnall. Those whom God loves, he takes to pieces; and then puts them together again.

Anon.

Through Christ's satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is changed, with regard to believers. As death, which was at first the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (they shall rest upon their beds, saith the prophet); so afflictions are not the rod of God's anger, but the gentle physic of a tender Father. Dr. Crisp.

All the afflictions that a saint is exercised with, are neither too numerous, nor too sharp. A great deal of rust requires a rough file.

Mr. Moses Browne, in conversation, Oct. 24, 1769. If we have the kingdom at last, it is no great matter what we suffer by the way. Dr. Manton.

Nothing can reconcile the soul to afflictive allotments, but looking on them as covenant dispensations. Mr. William Mason. David's pen never wrote more sweetly, than when dipt in the ink of affliction.

ibid.

When you see the refiner cast his gold into the furnace, do you think he is angry with the gold, and means to cast it away? No. He sits as a refiner. He stands warily over the fire, and over the gold, and looks to it, that not one grain be lost. And, when the dross is severed, he will out with it presently; it shall be no longer there. Crisp. Crosses and afflictions are God's call to examine our hearts and our lives. Richardson.

No affliction would trouble a child of God, if he but knew God's reason for sending it.

ibid.

Afflictions are as needful for our souls, as food is for our bodies.

ibid.

The Lord's wise love feeds us with hunger, and makes us fat with wants and desertions. Rutherford. It is a good sign when the Lord blows off the blossoms of our forward hopes in this life, and lops the branches of our worldly joys to the very root, on purpose that they should not thrive. Lord, spoil my fool's heaven in this life, that I may be saved for ever! ibid.

ALL-MIGHTY.

"Esto diabolus magnipotens; nunquam erit omnipotens," saith Luther: I confess the devil is allmighty, but he will never be all-mighty, as my God and Saviour is. Arrowsmith.

ARMINIANS.

Arminians represent the universe as the governess of God, instead of representing God as the governor of the universe. Mr. R. Hill, in con. March 6, 1770.

The Pelagians and Arminians are for making nature find its legs. They persuade man that he can go alone to Christ; or at least, with a little ex

ternal help, of a hand to lead, or an argument to excite, without any creating work in the soul. Alas, for the blindness of nature! How false is all this stuff, and yet how glibly it goes down! Gurnall.

ASSURANCE.

Assurance of pardon is a free gift of God, as much as faith or pardon itself. Arrowsmith.

Nothing more enflames a Christian's love to God, than a firm belief of his personal election from eternity; after he hath been enabled to evidence the writing of his name in heaven, by the experience of a heavenly calling and of a heavenly conversation. When the Spirit of God (whose proper work it is to assure, as it was the Father's to elect, and the Son's to redeem) hath written the law of life in a Christian's heart, and caused him to know assuredly that his name is in the book of life; he cannot but melt in sweet flames of holy affection.

ATTRACTION.

ibid.

The loadstone draws all the iron and steel that comes near it, and also communicates of its own virtue to the iron it draws. Such a loadstone is Christ. He draws many after him, and, when he has drawn them, communicates his own virtue to them; so that they become useful to others: as a magnetic needle attracts other needles, by virtue of the power itself has received.

AVENGE.

When true grace is under the foot of a temptation, it will even then stir up a vehement desire of revenge, like a prisoner in the enemy's hand, who is thinking and plotting how to get out; waiting and longing every moment, for an opportunity of deliverance, that he may again take up arms. "O God, remember me," saith Samson, "this once, I pray thee; and strengthen me, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes," Judges

VOL. IV.

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