Poems by Louisa May Alcott

My Kingdom

A little kingdom I possess 

where thoughts and feelings dwell, 

And very hard I find the task 

of governing it well; 

For passion tempts and troubles me, 

A wayward will misleads, 

And selfishness its shadow casts 

On all my words and deeds. 

How can I learn to rule myself, 

to be the child I should, 

Honest and brave, nor ever tire 

Of trying to be good? 

How can I keep a sunny soul 

To shine along life's way? 

How can I tune my little heart 

To sweetly sing all day? 

Dear Father, help me with the love 

that casteth out my fear; 

Teach me to lean on thee, and feel 

That thou art very near, 

That no temptation is unseen 

No childish grief too small, 

Since thou, with patience infinite, 

Doth soothe and comfort all. 

I do not ask for any crown 

But that which all may win 

Nor seek to conquer any world 

Except the one within. 

Be thou my guide until I find, 

Led by a tender hand, 

Thy happy kingdom in myself 

And dare to take command. 

Louisa May Alcott

He That Is Down Need Fear No Fall

He that is down need fear no fall,

He that is low no pride.

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,

Little be it, or much.

And, Lord! Contentment still I crave,

Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to them a burden is,

That go on pilgrimage.

Here little, and hereafter bliss,

Is best from age to age! 

Louisa May Alcott

Poems by Emily Dickinson

Too Much

I should have been too glad, I see,

Too lifted for the scant degree

Of life's penurious round;

My little circuit would have shamed

This new circumference, have blamed

The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved, I see,

Too rescued; fear too dim to me

That I could spell the prayer

I knew so perfect yesterday, --

That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"

Recited fluent here.

Earth would have been too much, I see,

And heaven not enough for me;

I should have had the joy

Without the fear to justify, --

The palm without the Calvary;

So, Saviour, crucify.

Defeat whets victory, they say;

The reefs in old Gethsemane

Endear the shore beyond.

'Tis beggars banquets best define;

'Tis thirsting vitalizes wine, --

Faith faints to understand.

Poems by Arthur Hugh Clough

Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth

SAY not the struggle naught availeth, 

The labour and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, 

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 

And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 

Seem here no painful inch to gain, 

Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 

Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 

When daylight comes, comes in the light; 

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! 

But westward, look, the land is bright! 

Arthur Hugh Clough

The Thread of Truth

Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there 

In small bright specks upon the visible side 

Of our strange being's parti-coloured web. 

How rich the universe! 'Tis a vein of ore 

Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast, 

But flowing full below. Like islands set 

At distant intervals on Ocean's face, 

We see it on our course; but in the depths 

The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps 

Its faithful way, invisible but sure. 

Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men 

Pass by so many marks, so little heeding? 

Arthur Hugh Clough

Blaise Pascal Quotes

Pascal Quotes

Self Love
The nature of self-love and of this human ego is to love self alone and consider only self. But what can a man do? He cannot prevent the object which he loves form being full of faults and misfortunes. He would like to be great, and sees that he is small. He would like to be happy and sees that he is miserable. He would like to be perfect, and sees himself full of imperfections. He would like to be the object of men's love and esteem, and sees that his faults deserve only their hatred and contempt. The dilemma in which he finds himself kindles in him...a mortal hatred for that truth which rebukes him and convicts him of his faults. He would like to annihilate it; and being unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it in so far as he can in his own mind and those of others. I mean that he makes every endeavour to conceal his faults both from others and from himself, and cannot endure having them pointed out to him or even seen.

We ought not be annoyed that they should know our faults and despise us, it being only right that they should recognize us for what we are, and despise us if we are despicable. These are the feelings that would arise in a heart full of equity and justice. What should we say of ours then, when we find it of the opposite disposition? For isn’t it true that we hate the truth and those who point it out to us? We like them to be deceived and want them to value us as other than we are.

In short, self has two qualities; it is intrinsically wicked, in that it makes itself the centre of everything; and it is a nuisance to others, in that it desires to enslave them; for every self is the enemy of all the rest and would like to tyrannize over them.

We never care for the present moment. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming... or we recall the past, to stay its too rapid flight. We are so foolish that we wander in times that are not ours and never think of the only time that belongs to us. We are so frivolous that we dream of the days that are not, and thoughtlessly pass over the only one that exists. ...So we never live, but hope to live; and since we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we shall never be so.

Our imagination so expands the present time for us by reflecting continually upon it, and so contracts eternity by never reflecting upon it, that we make a nothing of eternity and an eternity of nothing; and this habit is so deeply rooted in us that all our reason cannot save us from it...


They believe that only God deserves love and admiration, but have themselves desired the love and admiration of men, and do not recognize their own corruption. If they are filled with the desire to love and adore Him, and find their chief joy in this, let them think well of themselves; they have a right to. But if they find this repugnant and their only inclination is to strive for men's esteem; if moreover their idea of perfection is to make men - without forcing them - take pleasure in loving them, I say their ideal is horrible. What, have they known God, and yet wished men not to love Him alone, but to stop short at them? They have desired to be the object of men's willful delight!

"The God of the Christians is a God of love and consolation," Pascal wrote in his Pensees. "He is a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses: he is a God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and his infinite mercy: who united himself with them in the depths of their soul...who makes them incapable of having any other end but him."(1)

"All that Jesus Christ did was to teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, unhappy, and sinful; that they needed Him to deliver, enlighten, bless, and heal them; that this could be done if they were to hate themselves, and follow Him in His suffering and death on the cross."

"It is pleasant to be in a storm-tossed ship when one is sure that one will not drown. The persecutions that affect the church are of this nature.”

''A mere trifle consoles us for a mere trifle distresses us.''

''The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.''

"We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.''

''We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteousness—the eighth beatitude.''

''If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.''

''Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.''

''People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.''

''Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?''

"They believe that only God deserves love and admiration, but have themselves desired the love and admiration of men, and do not recognize their own corruption. If they are filled with the desire to love and adore God, and find their chief joy in this, let them think well of themselves; they have a right to. But, if they find this repugnant, and their only inclination is to strive for men's esteem; if moreover their idea of perfection is to make men - (without forcing them) - take pleasure in loving them, I say their ideal is horrible. What, have they known God, and yet wished men not to love Him alone, but to stop short at them? They have desired to be the object of men's wilful delight!"


About Jesus Christ:
"What man ever had greater renown? The whole Jewish people foretell that He will come. The Gentiles worship Him after His coming. ...And yet what man ever enjoyed this renown less? For thirty of His thirty-three years He lived in obscurity. For three years He was taken as an impostor; the priests and the chief people rejected Him; His friends and His relatives despised Him. In the end, He died, betrayed by one of His followers, denied by another, and forsaken by all. What benefit had He from His renown? No man ever had so much; yet no man ever suffered greater ignominy. All that renown has served us alone, to make us recognize Him; and He had none of it for Himself."


About himself:
"I love poverty because He loved it. I love wealth because it gives us the means to assist the poor. I keep faith with everybody. I do not return evil to those who have hurt me; but I wish them to be in a state like mine... I try to be just, truthful, sincere, and faithful to all men; and I have a tender heart for those to whom God has most closely united me; whether I am alone, or in the presence of others, I perform all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. These are my feelings, and every day of my life I bless my Redeemer who has implanted them in me, and who out of a man full of weaknesses, miseries, appetites, pride, and ambition, has made one free from all these evils by the strength of His grace, to which all glory for this is due, since in myself there is only misery and error."

The Memorial:

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob

not of the philosophers and of the learned.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.

GOD of Jesus Christ.

My God and your God.

Your GOD will be my God. 

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.

He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.

Grandeur of the human soul.

Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

I have departed from him:

They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.

My God, will you leave me?

Let me not be separated from him forever.

This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.

Let me never be separated from him.

He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:

Renunciation, total and sweet.

Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. 

Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.

May I not forget your words. Amen.

Octavius Winslow Quotes

     “Has He converted us through grace by a way we had thought the most improbable?  Has He torn up all our earthly hopes by the roots?  Has He thwarted our schemes, frustrated our plans, disappointed our expectations?  Has He taught us in schools most trying, by a discipline most severe, and lessons most humbling to our nature?  Has He withered our strength by sickness, reduced us to poverty by loss, crushed our heart by bereavement? 

     And have we been tempted to exclaim, "All these things are against me?"  Ah! no! faith will yet obtain the ascendancy, and sweetly sing:  "I know in all things that befell, My Jesus has done all things well." 

     Beloved, it must be so, for Jesus can do nothing wrong.  Study the way of His providence and grace with the microscopic eye of faith, view them in every light, examine them in their minutest detail, as you would the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect; and, oh, what wonders, what beauty, what marvelous adaptation would you observe in all the varied dealings with you of your glorious Lord!”
(adapted from Octavius Winslow's, "The Sigh of Christ")

Spurgeon Quotes

“Imitate your Lord in His magnanimity. He endured the Cross, despising the shame. Shame is a cruel thing to many hearts. Our Lord shows us how to treat it. See, He puts His shoulder under the Cross but He sets His foot upon the shame. He endures the one but He despises the other.”
~Spurgeon



"My witness is that those who are honored by their Lord in public have usually to endure a secret chastening or to carry a peculiar cross lest by any means they exalt themselves and fall into the snare of the Devil. ….This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry. The cloud is black before it breaks and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy."
~Spurgeon


The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent forth before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn.

~Spurgeon



“You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.”

~Spurgeon

Andrew Murray - "Humility"

"Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down. ... God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless."

"Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all."

Evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from humility.

He counted Himself the Servant of men, that through Him God might do His work of love. He never for a moment thought of seeking His honor, or asserting His power to vindicate Himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God to work in. I

If once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us.  When our own heart is set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place will be too low, and 
no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with Him who spoke, "I am among you as he that serves".

Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what is noble and bold and manlike. O that all would believe that this is the nobility of the kingdom of heaven, that this is the royal spirit that the King of heaven displayed,  that this is Godlike, to humble oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to the gladness and the glory of Christ's presence ever in us, His power ever resting on us.

The lesson is one of deep import: the only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to know how the humble man behaves, you must follow him in the common course of daily life. 

The question is often asked, how we can count others better than ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace received. The question proves at once how little we understand what real lowliness of mind is. True humility comes when, in the light of God, we have seen ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all. The soul that has done this, and can say, So have I lost myself in finding You, no longer compares itself with others. It has given up forever every thought of self in God's presence; it meets its fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself; who is a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful servant may be wiser than the master, and yet retain the true spirit and posture of the servant. The humble man looks upon every, the feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and honors him and prefers him in honor as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the disciples' feet, makes it a joy to us to be indeed the least, to be servants one of another.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.

Francois Fenelon Quotes from "The Royal Way of the Cross"

Francois Fenelon, The Royal Way of the Cross

"Do not fear then, that your past faithlessness need make you unworthy of God's mercy.  Nothing is so worthy of mercy as utter weakness.  He came from heaven to earth to seek sinners, not the righteous...  Oh, how God loves those who come boldly to Him in their foul, ragged garments, and ask, as of a Father, for some garment worthy of Him!"

"You wait to be familiar till God shows a smiling face; but I tell you that if you will open your heart thoroughly to Him, you will cease to trouble about the aspect of His face.  Let Him turn a severe and displeased countenance upon you as much as He will, He never loves you more than when he threatens, for he threatens only to prove, to humble, to detach souls."

"Do you want the consolation God can give, or do you want God Himself?  If it is the first, then you do not love God for His own sake, but for yours; and in that case you deserve nothing from Him.  But if you seek Him alone, you will find Him even more truly when He tests you than when He comforts you." 


"What right have we to complain?  We suffer from an excessive attachment to the world - above all to self.  God orders a series of events which detach us gradually from the world first, and finally from the self also.  The operation is painful, but our corruption makes it needful.  If the flesh were sound, the surgeon would not need to probe it.  He uses the knife only in proportion to the depth of the wound and the extent of proud flesh....
He only afflicts us for our correction.  Even when He seems to overwhelm us, it is for our own good, to spare us the greater evil we would do to ourselves.  The things for which we weep would have caused us eternal woe.  God has stored it up safely, to be returned to us in eternity.   He only deprives us of the things we prize in order to teach us to love them purely, truly, and properly, in order that we may enjoy them forever in His presence..."

"People cannot become perfect by hearing or reading about perfection.  The chief thing is not to listen to yourself, but silently to Give ear to God; to renounce all vanity, and apply yourself to real virtue.  Talk little, and do much without caring to be seen... How people delude themselves, when they expect to advance by means of argument and inquisitiveness!  Be lowly, and never expect to find in people those things which are God's only."

A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God

"The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever."


"We must in our hearts live through Abraham’s harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart."


"A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished to one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, "Here is your human race." For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.
In the world of men, we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing"; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command.
Into a world like this the sound of Jesus' words ("Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth") comes wonderful and strange, a visitation from above. It is well that He spoke, for no one else could have done it as well; and it is good that we listen. ... He is the only one who could say "blessed: with complete authority, for He is the Blessed One come from the world above to confer blessedness upon mankind."



This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets `things' with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns `my' and `mine' look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.


Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.' (Matt. 16:24-25).


Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it `life' and `self,' or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words `gain' and `profit' suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross: `Let him take up his cross and follow me.'


The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. They are `poor in spirit.' They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word `poor' as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. `Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'

Matthew Henry Quotes

"Men need not be drawn from their religion by the temptation of mirth, for we serve a Master that has abundantly provided for the joy of his servants: serious godliness is a continual feast, and joy in God always."

‘The pleasures of sense are puddle-water; spiritual delights are rock water, so pure, so clear, so refreshing — rivers of pleasure." (on Exodus 17:1-7)

“Ask, seek, knock, that is in one word: pray, pray, and pray again. Ask as a beggar asks for alms. Those who would be rich in grace must apply themselves to the poor trade of begging, and they shall find it a thriving trade. ...

Present your needs and burdens to God. Ask as a traveler asks the way; to pray is to plead with God. Seek as for a thing of value that we have lost. Seek in prayer. Knock, as he who desires to enter the house knocks at the door. Sin has shut and barred the door against us; by prayer we knock; "Lord, Lord, open the door to us!" Christ knocks at our door and allows us to knock at his which is a favor we do not allow common beggars. Seeking and knocking imply something more than asking and praying... We must not only ask, but knock; we must come to God's door, must ask importunately, not only pray, but plead and wrestle with God.”

"Let a righteous man strike me - it is a kindness; let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.” David desires to be told of his faults. We are here taught how to receive the reproofs of the righteous and wise. If my own heart does not strike me, as it ought, let my friend do it; let me never fall under that dreadful judgment of being let alone in sin. We must account it a duty of friendship. We must not only bear it patiently, but take it as a kindness. Though reproofs cut, it is to affect a cure, and therefore they are much more desirable than the kisses of an enemy or the song of fools.”

"Were we to think more of our own mistakes and offenses, we should be less apt to judge other people. While we are severe against what we count offensive in others, we do not consider how much there is in us which is justly offensive to them. Self-justifiers are commonly self-deceivers. We are all guilty before God; and those who vaunt it over the frailties and infirmities of others little think how many things they offend in themselves. Nay, perhaps their magisterial deportment, and censorious tongues, may prove worse than any faults they condemn in others. (on James 3:1-2)

Observe,I. How the people fretted themselves: They lifted up their voices and cried (v. 1); giving credit to the report of the spies rather than to the word of God, and imagining their condition desperate, they laid the reins on the neck of their passions, and could keep no manner of temper. Like foolish froward children, they fall a crying, yet know not what they cry for. It would have been time enough to cry out when the enemy had beaten up their quarters, and they had seen the sons of Anak at the gate of their camp; but those that cried when nothing hurt them deserved to have something given them to cry for. And, as if all had been already gone, they sat down and wept that night. Note, Unbelief, or distrust of God, is a sin that is its own punishment. Those that do not trust God are continually vexing themselves. The world’s mourners are more than God’s, and the sorrow of the world worketh death. (on Numbers 14)

Suppose the difficulties of conquering Canaan were as great as they imagined, those of returning to Egypt were much greater. In this let us see, (1.) The folly of discontent and impatience under the crosses of our outward condition. We are uneasy at that which is, complain of our place and lot, and we would shift; but is there any place or condition in this world that has not something in it to make us uneasy if we are disposed to be so? The way to better our condition is to get our spirits into a better frame; and instead of asking, "Were it not better to go to Egypt?’’ ask, "Were it not better to be content, and make the best of that which is?’’ (on Numbers 14)

What will those be pleased with whom manna will not please? (on Numbers 21)

Note, We are more endangered by the charms of a smiling world than by the terrors of a frowning world.  (Numbers 25:1-2)

The rule is general, If a man vow, he must pay. But for a daughter it is express: her vow is nugatory or in suspense till her father knows it, and (it is supposed) knows it from her; for, when it comes to his knowledge, it is in his power either to ratify or nullify it. But in favour of the vow, 1. Even his silence shall suffice to ratify it: If hehold his peace, her vows shall stand, v. 4. Qui tacet, consentire videtur—Silence gives consent.Hereby he allows his daughter the liberty she has assumed, and, as long as he says nothing against her vow, she shall be bound by it.  (On Numbers 30)

I shall do to you as I thought to do unto them, v. 56. It was intended that the Canaanites should be dispossessed; but if the Israelites fell in with them, and learned their way, they should be dispossessed, for God’s displeasure would justly be greater against them than against the Canaanites themselves. Let us hear this, and fear. If we do not drive sin out, sin will drive us out; if we be not the death of our lusts, our lusts will be the death of our souls. (Numbers 33)

God sets bounds to our lot; let us then set bounds to our desires, and bring our mind to our condition. (Numbers 34)


Note, Those know Christ best that know him by experience, that can say of his power, It works in me; of his love, He loved me. And this proves Christ not only to have a divine mission, but to be a divine person, that he is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, therefore the essential, eternal Word,  (on John 16:26-30)

If Christ had indeed sought to save his life, now had been his time to have spoken; but that which he had to do was to lay down his life.(5.) Christ’s pertinent answer to this check, v. 11, where,[1.] He boldly rebukes his arrogance, and rectifies his mistake: "Big as thou lookest and talkest, thou couldest have no power at all against me, no power to scourge, no power to crucify, except it were given thee from above.’’ Though Christ did not think fit to answer him when he was impertinent (then answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like him ), yet he did think fit to answer him when he was imperious; then answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit, Prov. 26:4, Prov. 26:5 .  (on John 19:11)

Observe what it is that he begs of God for them,I. That they might be knowing intelligent Christians: filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Observe, 1. The knowledge of our duty is the best knowledge. A mere empty notion of the greatest truths is insignificant. Our knowledge of the will of God must be always practical: we must know it, in order to do it. 2. Our knowledge is then a blessing indeed when it is in wisdom, when we know how to apply our general knowledge to our particular occasions, and to suit it to all emergencies. 3. Christians should endeavour to be filled with knowledge; not only to know the will of God, but to know more of it, and to increase in the knowledge of God (as it is v. 10), and to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior,  (on Col 1:9)

The sin that rightly troubles us, shall not ruin us. And there may be good hopes through grace, even where there is the sense of great guilt before God. The case is plain; what has been done amiss, must be undone again as far as possible; nothing less than this is true repentance. Sin must be put away, with a resolution never to have any thing more to do with it. What has been unjustly got, must be restored. Arise, be of good courage. Weeping, in this case, is good, but reforming is better. (on Ezra 10)

G. K. Chesterton Quotes from "The Man Who Was Thursday"

Quotes from "The Man Who Was Thursday" by, G. K. Chesterton

"We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness."

 “I am not happy," said the Professor with his head in his hands, "because I do not understand. You let me stray a little too near to hell."

“If you were the man in the dark room, why were you also Sunday, an offense to the sunlight? If you were from the first our father and our friend, why were you also our greatest enemy? We wept, we fled in terror; the iron entered into our souls—and you are the peace of God!  Oh, I can forgive God His anger, though it destroyed nations; but I cannot forgive Him His peace."

“They could not even feebly imagine what the carriages were; it was enough for them to know that they were carriages, and carriages with cushions.  They could not conceive who the old man was who had led them; but it was quite enough that he had certainly led them to the carriages.”

"I heard what you said," said the Professor, with his back turned. "I also am holding hard on to the thing I never saw."

"Well," said the cigarette smoker slowly, "what do you think now?"   "I think," said Dr. Bull with precision, "that I am lying in bed at No. 217 Peabody Buildings, and that I shall soon wake up with a jump; or, if that's not it, I think that I am sitting in a small cushioned cell in Hanwell, and that the doctor can't make much of my case.

“I can only wallow in the exquisite comfort of my own exactitude."

"Four out of the five rich men in this town, he said, are common swindlers. I suppose the proportion is pretty equal all over the world."

"Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy."

"The work of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. The ordinary detective discovers from a ledger or a diary that a crime has been committed. We discover from a book of sonnets that a crime will be committed. We have to trace the origin of those dreadful thoughts that drive men on at last to intellectual fanaticism and intellectual crime."

"It is new to me for a nightmare to lead to a lobster. It is commonly the other way." 

"Well, if I am not drunk, I am mad, but I trust I can behave like a gentleman in either condition."

  

"Suffice it to say that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do you justice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for the pleasure of taking you down a peg."

"When on my first appearing in episcopal gaiters in a drawing-room I cried out in a voice of thunder, 'Down! down! presumptuous human reason!' they found out in some way that I was not a bishop at all. "

Quotes from Jonathan Edwards

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, 17 comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
2 Thes 2:16



"In the soul where Christ savingly is, there He lives. He not only lives without it, so as violently to actuate it, but He lives in it, so that the soul also is alive. Grace in the soul is as much from Christ, as the light in a glass, held out in the sunbeams, is from the sun. But this represents the manner of the communication of grace to the soul only in part; because the glass remains as it was, the nature of it not being at all changed; it is as much without any lightsomeness in its nature as ever. But the soul of a saint receives light from the Sun of Righteousness, in such a manner that its nature is changed, and it becomes properly a luminous thing; not only does the sun shine in the saints, but they also become little suns, partaking of the nature of the Fountain of their light. In this respect, the manner of their derivation of light is like that of the lamps in the tabernacle, rather than that of a reflecting glass; which, though they were lit up by fire from heaven, yet thereby became themselves burning shining things.”
― Jonathan Edwards



“But saints and angels behold that glory of God which consists in the beauty of His holiness; and it is this sight only that will melt and humble the hearts of men, wean them from the world, draw them to God, and effectually change them. A sight of the awful greatness of God may overpower men's strength, and be more than they can endure; but if the moral beauty of God be hid, the enmity of the heart will remain in its full strength. No love will be enkindled; the will, instead of being effectually gained, will remain inflexible. But the first glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God shining into the heart produces all these effects as it were with omnipotent power, which nothing can withstand.”
― Jonathan Edwards


“But that is the nature of true grace and spiritual light, that it opens to a person's view the infinite reason there is that he should be holy in a high degree. And the more grace he has, and the more this is opened to view, the greater sense he has of the infinite excellency and glory of the divine Being, and of the infinite dignity of the person of Christ, and the boundless length and breadth and depth and height of the love of Christ to sinners. And as grace increases, the field opens more and more to a distant view, until the soul is swallowed up with the vastness of the object, and the person is astonished to think how much it becomes him to love this God and this glorious Redeemer that has so loved man, and how little he does love. And so the more he apprehends, the more the smallness of his grace and love appears strange and wonderful: and therefore he is more ready to think that others are beyond him.”

“Seek not to grow in knowledge chiefly for the sake of applause, and to enable you to dispute with others; but seek it for the benefit of your souls.”

"So all the attributes of God reflect glory on one another. The glory of one attribute cannot be manifested, as it is, without the manifestation of another. One attribute is defective without another, and therefore the manifestation will be defective. Hence it was the will of God to manifest all his attributes. The declarative glory of God in Scripture is often called God's name, because it declares his nature. But if his name does not signify his nature as it is, or does not declare any attribute, it is not a true name. The sovereignty of God is one of his attributes, and a part of his glory. The glory of God eminently appears in his absolute sovereignty over all creatures, great and small. If the glory of a prince be his power and dominion, then the glory of God is his absolute sovereignty. Herein appear God's infinite greatness and highness above all creatures. Therefore it is the will of God to manifest his sovereignty. And his sovereignty, like his other attributes, is manifested in the exercises of it. He glorifies his power in the exercise of power. He glorifies his mercy in the exercise of mercy. So he glorifies his sovereignty in the exercise of sovereignty."

"If we do not have everything to our liking in this world, let us learn to value the inestimable benefits of our God better than we have done, that we may say with David (as he speaks in his sixteenth psalm [v. s] )' 'I have my heritage which satisfies me'; seeing that God has given himself to me, I have such an excellent inheritance that I do not worry about going through all the afflictions of the world — poverty, sickness, reproach, fear, and threatenings — all these things shall be sweet to me, so long as I possess my God, and he makes me feel that he has chosen me and reserved me to himself and purposes to make me a partaker of all his good things."