John Flavel Quotes

The soul that rightly receives Christ is in a longing condition; never did the hart pant for the water brooks, never did the hireling desire the shadow, never did a condemned person long for a pardon more than the soul longs for Christ.

Faith is the bond of union, the instrument of justification, the spring of spiritual peace and joy, the means of spiritual peace and subsistence.

The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God and after conversion to keep it with Him.

Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul; He is the very Sabbath of the soul.

How much better it is to see men live exactly than to hear them argue with subtlety!

Christ is not sweet till sin be made bitter to us.

Consult the honor of religion more, and your personal safety less. Is it for the honor of religion (think you) that Christians should be as timorous as hares to start at every sound?

When a man begins to apprehend the first approach of grace, pardon, and mercy by Jesus Christ to his soul; when he is convinced of his utter unworthiness and desert of hell, and can never expect any thing from a just and holy God but damnation, how do the first dawnings of mercy melt and humble him!

Unbelief makes a man guilty of the vilest contempt of Christ, and the whole design of redemption by Him.

They foresaw that the concession of a Providence would impose an eternal yoke upon their necks, by making them accountable for all they did to a higher tribunal, so that they must necessarily 'pass the time of their sojourning here in fear', while all their thoughts, words and ways were strictly noted and recorded, for the purpose of an account by an all-seeing and righteous God. They therefore laboured to persuade themselves that what they had no mind for did not exist.

No friend sympathizes so tenderly with his friend in affliction as does Jesus. "In all our afflictions, He is afflicted." He feels all our sorrows, wants, and burdens as His own. Whence it is that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.

After regeneration the Spirit works upon a complying and willing mind — we work, and He assists. It is therefore an error that sanctified persons are not bound to strive in the way of duty without a sensible impulse of the Spirit.

The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.

There are three acts of faith, assent, acceptance, and assurance.