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Tag Archives: John Flavel

John Flavel on Providence

Leave a comment Posted by on December 17, 2024

Look around in the world, and you may see some in every place who are objects of pity, bereaved by sad accidents of all the comforts of life, while in the meantime Providence has tenderly preserved you .- John Flavel

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John Flavel: You are indebted to God

Leave a comment Posted by on August 21, 2019

In nothing does Providence shine forth more gloriously in this world than in ordering the occasions, instruments and means of conversion of the people of God. However skillfully its hand had moulded your bodies, however tenderly it had preserved them and however bountifully it had provided for them; if it had not also ordered some means or other for your conversion, all the former favours and benefits it had done for you had meant little. This, O this, is the most excellent benefit you ever received from its hand. You are more indebted to it for this, than for all your other mercies. ~ John Flavel

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Dear Lord, I neglected my soul (and lost it) but as for my body…Look at me, WHOOP WHOOP!!

Leave a comment Posted by on January 25, 2014

20121116-182726.jpgTwo things a master commits to his servant’s care–the child and the child’s clothes. It will be a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master’s return, “Sir, here are all the child’s clothes, neat and clean, but the child is lost.” Much so of the account that many will give to God of their souls and bodies at the great day. “Lord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it.”   ~ John Flavel

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The importance of doctrine for young believers

1 Comment Posted by on January 24, 2014

regrets“A young ungrounded Christian, when he sees all the fundamental truths, and sees good evidence and reasons of them, perhaps may be yet ignorant of the right order and place of every truth. It is a rare thing to have young professors to understand the necessary truths methodically: and this is a very great defect: for a great part of the usefulness and excellency of particular truths consisteth in the respect they have to one another. This therefore will be a very considerable part of your confirmation, and growth in your understandings, to see the body of the Christian doctrine, as it were, at one view, as the several parts of it are united in one perfect frame; and to know what aspect one point has upon another, and which are their due places. …Read More!

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The danger of adding to the finished work of Christ

1 Comment Posted by on November 16, 2013

“How dangerous and dishonourable a thing is it, to pin any thing of our own, to the righteousness of Christ, in point of Justification before God. Jesus Christ will never endure this. It reflects upon his work dishonourably…Not I, and my God. I, and my Christ did this: He will be all, or none in your Justification. If he have finished the work, what need of our additions? And if not, to what purpose are they? Can we finish that which Christ himself could not? But we would fain be sharing with him in this honour, which he will never endure. Did he finish the work by himself, and will he ever divide the glory and praise of it with us? No, no, Christ is no half Saviour. O it’s an hard thing to bring these proud hearts to live upon Christ for righteousness. We would fain add our penny to make up Christ’s sum. But if you will have it so, or have nothing to do with Christ, you and your penny must perish together. God gives us the Righteousness of Christ, as he gave Manna to the Israelites in the Wilderness. It’s said, Deut. 8:16, that he fed them with Manna in the wilderness, that he might humble them. The quality of the Food was not humbling, for it was Angels Food; but the manner of giving it was so. They must live by faith upon God for it, from day to day. This was not like other Food, produced by their own labour. Certainly God takes the right way to humble proud Nature, in calling sinners wholly off from their own Righteousness, to Christ for their Justification.” – John Flavel (1628 -1691)

 

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What would John Flavel say about MTV (and Miley Cyrus)?

1 Comment Posted by on September 3, 2013
“If you neglect to instruct (your children) in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; if you will not teach them to pray, he will to curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.” – John Flavel
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John Flavel: If you neglect to instruct children….

2 Comments Posted by on March 14, 2013

child“For you that are parents, or to whom the education of children is comitted, I beseech you mind the duty which lies on you. … For to what purpose do we desire them before we have them, rejoice in them when we have them, value them so highly, sympathize with them so tenderly, grieve for their death so excessively, if in the meantime no care be taken what shall become of them to eternity? … If you neglect to instruct them in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No, no, if you will not teach them to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear and lie. If ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring up.” ~ John Flavel

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John Flavel on the sweetness of Providence…

Leave a comment Posted by on March 11, 2013

african hipposIn nothing does Providence shine forth more gloriously in this world than in ordering the occasions, instruments and means of conversion of the people of God. However skillfully its hand had moulded your bodies, however tenderly it had preserved them and however bountifully it had provided for them; if it had not also ordered some means or other for your conversion, all the former favours and benefits it had done for you had meant little. This, O this, is the most excellent benefit you ever received from its hand. You are more indebted to it for this, than for all your other mercies. ~ John Flavel

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We glory… in Jesus Christ!

5 Comments Posted by on July 24, 2012

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Of the knowledge of Jesus:

Consider the excellencies of the knowledge of Christ. The comfort of believers are streams from this fountain. Jesus Christ is the object of a believer’s joy. Take away the knowledge of Christ, and Christians would be the most sad and melancholy beings in the world. Let Christ but manifest himself, and dart the beams of his light into their souls, and it will make them kiss the stake, sing in the flames, and shout in the pangs of death, as men that divide the spoil. We can perform no duty, enjoy no comfort, nor can we be saved without it (John 17:3).
If it is life eternal to know Christ, then it is eternal damnation to be ignorant of Christ. Christ is the door that opens heaven, and knowledge is the key that opens Christ. It is profound; all other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean; no creature has a line long enough to fathom its depths, there is height, length, depth, and breadth ascribed to it (Eph. 3:18), yea, it passes knowledge. …Read More!

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