(4) Let us make conscience not to yield to any base doubts, fears, objections of Satan, and our own hearts. When we find any work of grace, deny not the work of God, lest we grieve the Spirit of God....  Read More

My faith is weak! (1) The office of faith is to knit us to Christ, and the weakest faith will do that, as well as the strongest. Faith is to bring us to Christ; and then to look to him for all perfec...  Read More

(7) And because there can be no more comfort than there is care of duty, therefore, together with innocence, let us be careful of all duties in all our several relations. Let us consider in what rela...  Read More

(4) When we have these promises, let us labour to thoroughly understand them and our comfort in them. Next, to believe the truth of them, which are as true as God, who is truth itself. Then to love t...  Read More

Ways we labour to comfort our hearts. (1) There must be a search into the heart for the grounds of our trouble. Oftentimes Christians are troubled, but they cannot tell from where. They must search t...  Read More

Reasons we should not yield to excessive sorrow in trouble. (1) We wrong our own selves when we give way to grief and sorrow that is immoderate and inordinate. The soul is put out of joint by it. We ...  Read More

'Let not your hearts be troubled.' Hear the dying words of our Saviour to his disciples. Comforts must be founded on strong reasons. He stays our spirits by reasons stronger than the trouble. For wha...  Read More

Christ knew that God is nearest in support when he is furthest off in feeling. Often, where he is nearest the inward man, to strengthen it with his love, he is furthest off in comfort to outward sens...  Read More

Do you wonder why God hates sin so much and that men regard it so little? This is done not only by the lewd sort of the world, but by common dead-hearted persons, who regard not spiritual sins at all...  Read More

How to discern the ugliness of sin. In what way are we to look upon the ugly thing, sin, to make it uglier to us? Beloved, if we would think right about sin, let us see it in the casting of Adam out ...  Read More

(4) If we would have God to shield us and be a hiding-place in the worst times, let us mourn for our own sins and the sins of the times in which we live. Let us keep ourselves unspotted by the sins o...  Read More

What course should we take to prevent the judgment of God, and keep it from us? (1) Labour to meet God by speedy repentance before any decree comes forth against us. There is yet hope; for as we have...  Read More

(Sign 6) Again, decay in our first love is a sign of approaching judgment. God threatened the church of Ephesus to remove his candlestick from among them, for their decay in their first love (Rev. 2:...  Read More

(Sign 4) When sin grows ripe, and abounds in a land or nation, at such time as this a man may know there is some fearful judgment approaching. But when is sin ripe? When it is impudent; when men grow...  Read More

What are the signs that judgment is to fall upon the people of God? (Sign 1) ‘This and that have I done,’ said the Lord, 'and yet you have not returned to me' (Amos 4:6, 7). There are declines before...  Read More

Why does God chiefly afflict his own people more than others? (1) Because they are his own family and are called by his name (Num. 6:27). Now the disorders of the family lead to the disgrace of the l...  Read More

The heart of true Christians is God's private closet. And as in every house or building, there are some open places and some private closets, so is it here. God has his private chamber, and his retir...  Read More

Let us then bring our hearts to holy resolutions, and set ourselves upon that which is good, and against that which is ill, in ourselves or others, according to our callings, with this encouragement,...  Read More

If we look to the present state of the church of Christ, it is as Daniel in the midst of lions, as a lily among thorns, as a ship not only tossed but almost covered with waves. How strong a conspirac...  Read More

It is dangerous to look for that from ourselves which we must have from Christ. We are but subordinate agents, moving as we are moved, and working as we are first wrought upon, free in so far as we a...  Read More

(1) God's children usually, in their troubles, overcome by suffering. Here lambs overcome lions, and doves overcome eagles, by suffering. That they may be conformable to Christ, who conquered most wh...  Read More

Let us think to ourselves: when he is so kind to us, will we be cruel against him in his name, in his truth, and in his children? It cannot but cut the heart of those that have felt this love of Chri...  Read More

Where do discouragements come from? (1) Not from the Father, for he has bound himself by covenant to pity us as a father pities his children (Psa. 103:13) and to accept as a father our weak endeavour...  Read More

(4) Some think, when they become more troubled with the smoke of corruption than they were before, therefore they are worse than they were. It is true that corruptions appear now more than before, bu...  Read More