Chapter 33

SEED THOUGHTS

         * Who of us believe unwaveringly that for every idle word we speak, we shall have to give an account thereof in the day of judgment?

         * We exercise faith and confidence in frail, dying men who are subject to various contingencies and on every feature of whose existence vanity and uncertainty are written. But when we are called on to believe in and rely on the word of Almighty God who cannot lie, who has all power in heaven and on earth, the immutable Jehovah, who is seated on the throne of heaven and occupies the earth as His footstool, and who will forever sway the scepter of eternity, whose love and tender mercy is as boundless as His power; when He speaks and makes us a promise, when He gives us His bond and endorses it with His oath and seals it with His own Son's blood and delivers it in the presence of a cloud of honorable witnesses – we begin to make excuse. Do we not by such dishonorable conduct and shameful unbelief, write our own condemnation in characters of blood?

         * God's heart is full of love, whilst the face of His providence is full of frowns. We are always to measure Him by the promises of His word and not by the aspect of His providence.

         * Pleasure is a boundless ocean calm and smooth near the shore but at a distance ever agitated with outrageous storms. He that keeps within sight of land may be safe and happy but he that ventures is in danger of being lost.

         * To suppose that persons who are favored with the privileges of Christ's Church and the written Word of God, can enter into heaven without measuring up to the appointed standard, would be to impeach the character of Almighty God and cast a veil of deformity over His attributes.

         * It would afford little comfort to the man of refined feelings who was compelled to suspect that his wife's affection for him was not as pure and ardent as it should be, were she to say, 'I intend to love you fervently just before I die.' Reader, this is what people mean when they say, 'I will get sanctified at death.’

         * Were a man who is worth millions of money to see his steward casting his money or grain into the fire or river, he would instantly discharge him in disgrace. Can we honestly say that we are not spending one cent for anything superfluous or unnecessary? If we can not, then we have thrown our Master's money into the fire or river before His eyes.

         * If thou rememberest that thou are in the body only to be holy, that thou standest upon the brink of Death, Resurrection and Judgment, and that these great things will suddenly come upon thee, like a thief in the night, thou wilt see a vanity in all the gifts of Fortune, greater than any words can express.

         * Humility, meekness, heavenly affection, devotion, charity and a contempt of the world are all internal qualities of personal holiness; they constitute the spirit and temper of religion which is required for its own excellence and is therefore of constant and eternal obligation.

         * Before yielding to sin reflect upon the following thoughts. In yielding, you renounce the eternal love of God, you forfeit your share in heaven and expose your soul to all hell's torments. The sins which seem very small now will appear as great as mountains when you reach the other shore.

         * Honor, rank and dignities are like saffron, which thrive best and grow more plentifully for being trodden underfoot.

         * There is as much difference between pride and decency as there is between light and darkness or vice and virtue. Decency is an exalted virtue essential to the Christian character. Pride is a vice of the blackest hue, a soul damning sin. If we feel mortified or uneasy when we are in the presence of those who are richly dressed, because our apparel is inferior to theirs, it discovers a disease, a wound inflicted by sin, viz., Pride. The spiritual heads and horns of the beast, may refer to the principles and passions of our fallen nature imbibed from the great Dragon, that furious beast, I. e., the Devil. The heads may be thus designated: Pride, Unbelief, Idolatry, Superstition, Dissimulation, Ambition, and Lust.

         The horns may refer to Cruelty, Anger, Malice, Hatred, Envy, Bigotry, Strife, Contention, Sedition and Love of Applause.

         * True resignation consists in a thorough conformity to the whole will of God: who wills and does all, excepting sin, which comes to pass in the world. In order to do this we have only to embrace all events, good and bad, as His will.

         * We are to bear with those we can not amend, and be content with offering them to God. This is true resignation.

         * It is hardly credible of how great consequence before God the smallest things are, and what great inconveniences sometimes follow those which appear to be light faults.

         * To continual watchfulness and prayer ought to be added continual employment. For grace fills a vacuum as well as nature, and the devil fills whatever God does not fill.

         * When we have received any favor from God we ought to retire, if not into our closets, into our hearts and say: 'I come, Lord, to restore to Thee what Thou hast given; and I freely relinquish it, to enter again into my own nothingness.'

         * It were well you should be thoroughly sensible of this, the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else; if you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, 'Have you received this or that blessing?' if you mean anything but more love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way and putting them on a false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing more, but more of that love described in the thirteenth of Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried into Abraham's bosom.

         * Show thyself so lowly, such a little child, that every one may go over thee and tread thee as the dirt of the streets under their feet.

         * Think of nothing but the salvation of thy soul; care for nothing but the things of God. Keep thyself as a stranger and pilgrim upon earth who hath nothing to do with the affairs of this world.