Providence

“For as the sun darts its beams upon a dunghill, and yet is no way defiled by it; so God decrees the permission of sin, yet is not the author of sin.”

“As the light depends on the sun, or the shadow on the body that casts it, so we also depend on God; without Him, we can do nothing.”

“So do men oftentimes find their greatest cross where they expected their greatest comfort.”

“The truth is, the crook in the lot is the great engine of Providence for making men appear in their true colours, discovering both their ill and their good.”

“God hath decreed the end, so He hath decreed the means that are proper for attaining that end; so that these two must not be separated.”

“Be not anxious about thy provision for old age, for by all appearance thou wilt never see it.”

“If anything seem imperfect in itself, yet it is perfect in relation to his glorious ends he directs it unto.”

“God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties is to cast off His authority.”

“Every time you draw your breath, you suck in mercy!”

“True faith will trust God's heart where it cannot trace His hand!”

“You can never depend too much upon God, nor too little upon the creature.”

“You shall find this to be God's usual course; not to give His children the taste of His delights till they begin to perspire in seeking after them.”

“Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator.”

“Till you can rest in God's will you will never have rest.”

“Set no time to the Lord the creator of time, for His time is always best.”

“I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways.”

“Let us be faithful and care for our own part, which is to do and suffer for Him, and lay Christ's part on Himself, and leave it there; duties are ours, events are the Lord's.”

“I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may so speak) of Christ's spinning.”

“It is impossible to be submissive and religiously patient, if ye stay your thoughts down among the confused rollings and wheels of second causes.”

“I do not say that sin works for good to an impenitent person. No, it works for his damnation, but it works for good to them that love God.”

“The creation is the heathen man's Bible, the ploughman's primer, and the traveler's perspective glass, through which he receives a representation of the infinite excellencies which are in God.”

“The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer that fetched the angel.”

“God takes away the world, that the heart may cleave more to Him in sincerity.”

“It is our work to cast care, and it is God's work to take care.”

“If God be our God, He will give us peace in trouble. When there is a storm without, He will make peace within.”

“God often goes by contrary means, and makes the enemy do his work. He can make a straight stroke with a crooked stick.”

“The worst that God does to His children is to whip them to heaven.”

“When promises are verified, God's truth is magnified.”

“Every time we draw our breath we suck in mercy.”

“God can turn stones into bread, and a sinner can turn bread into stones; the bread of life into the stone of stumbling.”

“The world can create trouble in peace, but God can create peace in trouble.”

“No man did ever come off a loser by his acquaintance with God.”

“The tree of the promise will not drop its fruit unless shaken by the hand of prayer.”

“Trust him where you cannot trace him.”

“Be like Noah's dove. She made use of her wings to fly, but trusted in the ark for safety.”

“A godly man puts a kind interpretation upon providence.”

“God has put not only an emptiness, but a bitterness into the creature, and it is good for us that there is no perfection here.”

“Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.”

“If you can't see His way past the tears, trust His heart.”

“I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.”

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”

“The Christian should work as if all depended upon him, and pray as if it all depended upon God.”

“Wherever Jesus may lead us, He goes before us. If we don't know where we are going, we know with whom we go.”

“You may break the clods, you may sow your seeds, but what can you do without the rain? As absolutely needful is the divine blessing.”

“Our motto is, 'With God, anywhere; without God, nowhere.”

“God never loses sight of the treasure which He has placed in our earthen vessels.”

“The iron bolt which so mysteriously fastens the door of hope and holds our spirits in gloomy prison, needs a heavenly hand to push it back.”

“When we cannot trace God's hand, we must simply trust His heart.”

“I had rather have God for my banker than all the Rothschilds.”

“Say not my soul, 'From whence can God relieve my care?' Remember that Omnipotence has servants everywhere.”

“It is true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of them.”

“Whether our Master shall say, 'Go' or 'Stay,' let us be equally well pleased as long as He indulges us with His presence.”

“Be wise and attend to obeying. Let Christ manage the providing.”

“God has made all things that are in the world to be our teachers.”

“Wherever the Lord makes a provision, we are quite sure that there was a need for it.”

“To give to others is but sowing seed for ourselves.”

“We ought to prepare the sermon as if all depended on us, and then trust the Spirit of God, knowing that all depends on Him.”

“Happy is he who believes the promise and feels assured of its fulfillment, leaving all else in the hands of infinite wisdom and love.”

“If some talents were withheld, the Withholder knows why. He has done all things well.”

“Infinite wisdom never attempts that which is unnecessary.”

“He that goes before the cloud of God's providence goes on a fool's errand.”

“God had one Son without sin, but not a single child without the rod.”

“Noah was so shut in that no evil could reach him. Floods did but lift him heavenward, and winds did but waft him on his way.”

“To trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust him in the dark, that is faith.”

“I bear my witness that the worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days.”

“Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes.”

“The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy.”

“God hath in Himself all power to defend you, all wisdom to direct you, all mercy to pardon you, all grace to enrich you, all righteousness to clothe you, all goodness to supply you, and all happiness to crown you.”

“If God were not my friend, Satan would not be so much my enemy.”

“When afflictions arrest us, we shall murmur and grumble and struggle until we see that it is God that strikes.”

“Be sure of your call to every business you go about. Though it is the least business, be sure of your call to it; then, whatever you meet with, you may quiet your heart with this: I know I am where God would have me.”

“In active obedience, we worship God by doing what pleases God; but by passive obedience, we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.”

“Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them.”

“When God has given you your heart's desire, what have you done with your heart's desire?”

“Did God give you more prosperity before? It was to prepare you for affliction.”

“Not one hair falls from your head, not a sparrow to the ground, without the providence of God.”

“This is how you honour God, that you can turn this way or that way, as God calls you to it.”

“If the children of God have their little taken from them, they can make up all their wants in God Himself.”

“When God will have any great matters done, he sets his people's hearts to work at prayer by a kind of gracious instinct. He stirs them up and moves their hearts by the influence of his Holy Spirit.”

“All the plots of Hell and commotions on earth, have not so much as shaken God's hand to spoil one letter or line He has been drawing.”

“He that is impatient, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to Him in a denial.”

“God doth never more graciously appear to his people, than when there is the greatest matter for their discouragement.”

“God hath provided promises of comfort, succour and relief, suitable to all conditions: I dare boldly challenge all men, to shew me any one condition, which God hath not provided a promise of comfort, mercy and succour suitable unto it.”

“A strong Christian will use that for his edification which seems to be against him; but the weak Christian will use that against himself which is in truth for him.”

“Why should I tremble at the plow of my Lord that makes deep furrows on my soul? For He is no idle husbandman, He purposes a crop.”

“God's manner of creating, and also of governing, is such that by his word alone he produced all sorts of things without any instruments, means, assistance, or motion.”

“For the most part we live upon successes, not promises; unless we see and feel the print of victories, we will not believe.”

“He is a gracious Father, and he hath taken this sweet relation on him for this purpose, that we may have comfort in all conditions.”

“So God has his file in heaven where all faithful prayers are kept on record.”

“You will say, “When we come to heaven, we shall be above the malice of all the wicked men in the world.” No, there is a time when the saints shall be above the malice of wicked men upon this earth.”

“I would only observe that place in Ezek. 9, God sends out his judgments, and destroys the city; but before, he sets a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh for all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof.”

“They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: and all of them shall wax old like a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed.”

“We see that God did not only pardon David but, after much bruising, gave him wise Solomon to succeed him in the kingdom.”

“And man must acknowledge the wisdom and goodness of his Creator, and act in subserviency to his glory, as other creatures act in subserviency to his good.”

“Thus are we to submit to the disposal of God in every condition.”

“You may open the treasuries in heaven; and it shall never be in vain.”

“Would not Joseph, too, in exhorting his brethren not quarrel along the way, remind them that they were journeying towards one home and to one father?”

“Doth any man or landlord build or repair an house, and then let it lie empty, when he hath a tenant fit for it?”

“In the Word of God there be two kind of promises: some of everlasting life and salvation by Christ; others of inferior gifts and blessings concerning this life.”

“The Lord cuts off the spirit of Princes: the word is, he slips off, as one should slip off a flower between ones fingers, or as one should slip off a bunch of grapes from a vine, so soon is it done.”

“As God is ever near to us, "for in him we live, and move, and have our being," we are permitted to hold intercourse with him at all times, and in all places.”

“All your pains and trials, all that befalls you in your own person, or that affects you upon the account of others—shall in the end prove to your advantage.”

“Not that he means fathers and mothers use to do so, but though they should, or even when they forsake us by death, yet God doth wonderfully save and protect their posterity.”

“They may go about their business in peace, and God provides for them.”

“He has followed us with mercies, reproofs, and expostulations, and yet we persist in iniquity.”

“And now, when thou hast considered all, bethink thyself withal a little of thy dealings towards him; what have been the effects and fruits of all this goodness?”

“Have good thoughts of God and make good interpretations of His dealings toward you.”

“He is teaching you, also, by trial as you could learn in no other school.”

“O, it is a blessed thing to give all to God, to let God choose our inheritance.”

“I have cause now to trust Christ's promise more than His gloom.”

“I am unable to overtake what the Lord hath laid upon me here; and, therefore, I desire to submit to sovereignty, and must be silent.”

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," how much more does God!”

“What is our duty with respect to dark and difficult dispensations of God's providence in the world?”

“Abundant gifts in ages past still leave abundant gifts for present and for future days.”

“He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.”

“You must make God's providential will and his operative will, your will as well as God's will, and in this way you must come to contentment.”

“And, thus to lay out, is to lay up, to lay up uncertain riches in a safe repository: God's promises shall be thy security, and every star in heaven a seal set upon the treasury-door, which none can break or violate.”

“Government is the second part of God’s providence, whereby He orders all things and directs them to good ends.”

“He answereth not always according to our wills, but always according to our good.”

“Why, you shall find likewise in Psalm 60 that David has as much of the blessing of God in his prosperous state as in his afflicted estate.”

“Because God created man, he must be the author of his reasonable soul.”

“As in nature, clouds screen the sun—and storms descend—and tempests rage—and hurricanes sweep fearfully—and rapid changes come—so is it in the life of grace.”

“Noah, being moved by fear, "prepared an ark," wherein he saved himself and his family.”

“However, I know that you are in safe and merciful hands, and that the Lord loves you better than we can do.”

“The great design God has in afflicting you is to break and humble your heart.”

“Truly, all the riches and glories of this world cannot keep off the least calamity, neither can they make up the lack of the least mercy.”

“And now, if God will give all spiritual and all eternal good things to his people, how can he then but sooner or later give a clear and satisfactory evidence into his people's bosoms that he is their portion?”

“And of all trees God hath most care of his vines, and regards them more than all the rest in the world.”

“When we seek spiritual things much, in the height of our spirits, then doth God answer us also in temporal things.”

“If kept from uniting with his people in public worship, God himself can be to us—a little sanctuary.”

“As an expert Craftsman, he never needs to destroy or discard an imperfect work of spiritual artisanship.”

“He can see hidden love, and hidden faith and grace, that we cannot see in temptations; and he will manifest all at length, and show his love when we stand most in need of it.”

“We cannot have a better guide than God; and therefore never think of God but as ‘our God and our Father’, and labour to answer all Satan’s temptations in that kind from hence.”

“Ministers may, and must die, ordinances may be removed, but this blessed effect of them upon thy soul shall never die: God will perfect what he hath begun.”

“The promises are made to encourage faith, not to nourish sloth.”

“Who would be afraid to pass through an army, though all the soldiers should turn their swords and guns toward him, if the commander of that army were his friend or father?”

“Is afflicting and forsaking all one with you? must God needs hate, because he scourgeth you?”

“The church shall in the end prove victorious against all its adversaries, or providence must miss of its aim.”

“If the government of the world be in the hands of Christ, Then our engaging and entitling of Christ to all our affairs and business, is the true and ready way to their success and prosperity.”

“So when the feathered mother spreads her sheltering wings, the hawk may soar above—the gathering clouds may menace—but the downy refuge covers.”

“Here you have no rainbow without a cloud and without a storm.”

“If a man were going to poison or drown himself, would he not be his friend who should hinder hint from doing it?”

“They take great pains in the World, and meet with great disappointments: for both are signified by labouring in the fire; where what they produce cannot be enjoyed, but is consumed between their hands.”

“They desire flesh, and receive quails; they beg bread, and have manna.”

“To circumscribe God to our time, and to make ourselves lords of time; what is this, but to divest God of his royalty and sovereignty of appointing times?”

“Now wherever God dwells, he hath taken up his seat to dwell for ever; he will never be put out of possession.”

“The desire of the heart may be satisfied when God gives some other thing, but the counsel of the heart is then fulfilled when a man is answered in that particular which his own judgment pitched upon as best for him.”

“And all the prayers that ever we put up for the church will be answered, and the blessing of all will come upon the churches.”

“But do you ever find it to be the case that those who did not seek God before were drawn to God by a full condition?”

“If God takes away my life, then God will rather have his honor from my soul to join with angels and saints, he would rather honor himself that way than in employing me any further in this world.”

“The snares they lay for others catch themselves. ‘In the net which they hid is their own foot taken.’ Psa 9: I5.”

“I think that in these days God punishes many men's former wickednesses, by giving them up to soul-ruining errors .”

“And as wicked men, whom he always hates, may out of his patience have a truce; so, on the contrary, with his own, God may take up a quarrel; yet he loves them, and remembers them with everlasting kindness.”

“Remember David’s troubles, and foresee what may be our troubles.”

“Ignorance of God: Either we know not, or at least do not duly consider his Almighty Power, vigilant care, unspotted faithfulness, and how they are all engaged, by covenant, for his people.”

“Learn that man is born to hard work, and even the greatest on the earth are not exempted.”

“Reproach works for good to God's children; it increases their grace and their glory.”

“We are only safe when we wisely make use of all good advantages that we have access to.”

“Mark how God brings the deliverance of his people from the fear of his wrath, as an argument to strengthen them against all other fears.”

“We should look at all our outward prosperity as a preparation for afflictions .”

“Therefore think thus with yourself: Lord, why may not this affliction work as great a good upon me as afflictions have done before?”

“But the riches of Christ do both keep off calamities, and make up the lack of all mercies that the soul craves or needs.”

“They teach us plainly that our world’s history is a history of events, preordained by God from eternity, yet at the same time coming to pass by the free agency of man.”

“What promise has our Savior given concerning the protection and permanence of his church?”

“Where no light comes, there is an influence, though not discerned; and much more can there be influence of strength and power and hidden comfort, though there be no sight.”

“He may now seem to be taking you down, but it is only to build you up and put you together again--a fairer, lovelier, and more symmetrical temple.”

“How would earthly things be overvalued and idolized, if besides their conveniency to our bodies, they should be the marks and evidences of God's love to our souls!”

“But no precautionary care can always keep men from the dying scene.”

“Children are owned in the house, are missed if they are out of the way, and have their daily provision constantly made for them.”

“Happy is the state of a believer; to such, all things are for good.”

“But the right understanding of the particular way of God in His providence towards His people and saints is a notable lesson to help us in the art of contentment.”

“All things here in this world are subordinate to a further end.”

“Who is fitter to steer a ship than an old, experienced pilot?”

“When God made our first parent Adam, he gave this whole earth to him, for his inheritance: he set him in a paradise of pleasure, and made him lord of all the works of his hand, so that he wanted for nothing to make him happy.”

“Again, if the Lord does thus carefully provide for His children all kinds of benefits, what a wonderful wickedness is this for men to get their living by ungodly means, as usury, carding, dicing, and such like exercises?”

“To this end special revelations were made to them, and God entered into a covenant with them, promising that He would be their God, and that they should be his people.”

“Likewise, God highly esteems those who constantly render to Him the rent of praise and honor for the many enjoyments they have in this world.”

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”

“You may say, “But while I wait for the riches of Heaven and the promises, in the meantime I don’t have very much riches at all.” If you are under age, God is your guardian, and God will be accountable to you for everything.”

“He hath watered with His sweet comforts an oppressed prisoner.”

“When He hath led you through this water that was in your way to glory, there are fewer behind: and His order in dismissing us, and sending us out of the market, one before another, is to be reverenced.”

“My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Every thing is as its foundation is.”

“There are others beside you who will observe how God deals with you. (1) It is to you and them that God wants to show His sovereignty and freeness in manifesting His mercy to whomever and whenever He wills.”

“My soul, if you are poor, it is not because God's blessings fail.”

“Each sigh which rends the bosom; each frown which ploughs the brow; each pain which racks the limbs—are cradled in its arms.”

“God's bounteous hand must be revered, before man's taking hand may work.”

“If no restraining barriers had interposed, all people of God would long since have been swept from earth.”

“There is no attribute of God that is but continually working good to every saint of God.”

“The raging waves beat sorely against Noah's ark—but they touched not him.”

“To see a poor candle in the face of the boisterous winds, and liable to the frequent dashes of quenching waves, yet not blown out!”

“To this end, consider it is not simply having saints, and multitudes of saints, ‘called, faithful, and chosen,’ but it is the using them kindly, and dealing well with them, that is the interest of a nation.”

“But since the first endeavour in paradise succeeded ill, there hath nothing gone well since.”

“I can find in Scripture that an afflicted condition has been blessed by God, so that it has been an occasion to turn some to God.”

“When His people cannot have a providence of silk and roses, they must be content with such an one as He carveth for them.”

“We may account for some links in the chain, but the chain itself terminates at the cross.”

“Satan's outward malignity may fall innocuous, like Balaam's stifled curse.”

“And does he not still invite me to cast my care upon him, and assure me that he cares for me?”

“As God will deliver his people from temporal danger , so from spiritual danger , as from sin , and from hell .”

“Thus, many will say that you must be content: “This is the hand of God and you cannot help it.” Oh, but this is too low an expression for Christians.”

“Therefore having faithfully done our duty, we must leave the matter of our reputation to God, who, if our ways please him, can make our enemies to be at peace with us, or be harmless to us as if they were no enemies.”

“God loves to show his wisdom when human help and wisdom fail.”

“It is impossible, as we have remarked, to study the character and trace the history of God's Church, and not know more of the wisdom, power, and love of God.”

“If a man should enjoy many mercies and does not understand them, he has not learned how to be full.”

“The Fifth Note is this, That the beginnings of things of high concernment, do meet sometimes with great difficulties and interruptions.”

“Other judgments often issue in men's seeking of the Lord, and in men's returning to the Lord.”

“When God has clipped his children's wings by poverty—they fly swiftest to the throne of grace.”

“Man, the most perfect creature, comes to perfection by little and little; worthless things, as mushrooms and the like, like Jonah's gourd, soon spring up, and soon vanish.”

“The moon and the stars are seen best when the sun is absent.”

“Thus, we do not always have summer, but winter succeeds summer; we do not always have day, but day and night; we do not always have fair weather, but fair and foul.”

“Patience and longsuffering mark all his doings: he loves to spare; he lingers over his handiwork, loath to destroy it even when vile.”

“God had been with him in Eden, and he was still with him when expelled from it.”

“God has greatly honored virtuous poverty in every age —as the history of science, of literature, of philosophy, of poetry, and of piety in every country shows.”

“There are three divine institutions in this world: the church, the state, and the family.”

“John Huss and others were under greater danger than we; and if it be great, he is great that orders it.”

“Be not too hasty to bury the church before she is dead; stay until Christ has tried his skill, before you give her up for lost.”

“What was the cordial God prepared to revive the hearts of his poor captives groaning under hard and grievous bondage, both in Egypt and in Babylon?”

“Here on earth, the saints of God are in the valley of tears, they are at the bottom of the hill, and cannot tell what God is a doing.”

“We are directed to pray for one another in this view, that, if it is the Lord's pleasure to prolong life and to restore health, our sense of the mercy may be heightened by the consideration that it is bestowed in answer to prayer.”

“It cannot be denied but the devil did God service in trying Job, winnowing Peter, buffeting Paul, executing Judas; yet shall not all this ease the least torment of his damnation.”

“But certainly God cannot long abide to see that people prosper who cannot abide to see his church prosper.”

“There is not a headache, not a toothache, not a fever, not a grief, not a fall, not a wrench, not a plague-sore—but is a divine warning to man to prepare to die.”

“Haman was an agent for the devil, who paid him his wages at last, if you will, with a halter.”

“The severer the sickness in such cases, the richer the blessings following.”

“It is sufficiently proved that God, by his providence, governs and disposes of all things created by him.”

“I answer briefly, that God doth always begin to us, and is beforehand with us in all dealings with ourselves.”

“Noah being moved with fear, prepared an ark." In which he provided as much for the rest and quiet of his mind, as he did for the safety of his person and family.”

“Many of you have at one time or another solemnly promised this to God: that if He would preserve your wealth or perhaps restore you to the enjoyment of it, you would render it back up to Him to honor Him with it.”

“I have called you from the chief men of the earth, I left them, and called you, and said to you, you are my servant.”

“Employ him in your every case, put all your cases in his hand, lay your help where the Father hath laid it.”

“Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and leave not unto thine own understanding.”

“We receive attendance of angels, for the attendance they yielded to Christ first; they attend upon us, by his direction and commission and charge from him.”

“But be not discouraged; the Lord only afflicts for our good .”

“The outward wheel, which turns all, is providence; the wheel within this wheel is God's decree; this believed, would rock the heart quiet.”

“The raging waves beat sorely against Noah's ark —but they touched not him.”

“If this liberty is still so in the hand of the Lord, that he always turns the king’s heart to what he pleases in particular – then certainly other men are not excepted from being ruled by the same providence.”

“Beloved, the bitterest things in the ordinance of God are better than any worldly thing.”

“The scaffolding is useful in the erection of the building, but, constituting no essential part of the structure, is removed when the edifice is complete.”

“He can employ an earthquake, a flash of lightning, a thunder-clap, a sudden bereavement, to rouse the soul to the all-important concerns of eternity.”

“No, you are the helper of the fatherless: that is, you are the helper of the destitute one, who has none to go to but God.”

“The third remedy against this device of Satan, is, to consider, That all the cross providences which befall the saints are for some noble good that God intends to confer upon them.”

“And so the Scripture holds forth this idea - that some men the Lord has taken advantage against for some smaller sin, and other men the Lord has spared when they have been guilty of some greater sin.”

“For God hath given his children a spirit of discretion, that will teach them when to joy and when to weep most.”

“He will not suffer his people to be tempted above their strength.”

“The blessing adds, "They benefit from the riches of the sea and the hidden treasures of the sand." God will enrich them.”

“The best-equipped army cannot save a king, nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.”

“For though the springs of actions and events are concealed from us for the most part, and vain men carry on their schemes with confidence, as though the Lord had forsaken the earth; yet they are under his eye and control.”

“Indeed, the denying of a petition, it is a dishonor and a confounding of the face; but God will not confound the faces of his people.”

“Woe to us if the wicked could execute all their malicious censures!”

“He hath respect to the whole creation; he will have some of all sorts in it.”

“God’s glory appears by this, viz. how glorious he can make creatures.”

“Yet behold, I that am thus your maker, give you leave to dispose by your prayers the great works of my hands, which concern my children, my sons, the affairs of kingdoms, even so far as they relate to their good.”

“He takes the poor from the ash-heap, and sets him among princes.”

“To trust God in part, and the creature in part, is to set one foot upon a rock, and the other upon a quicksand.”

“He lets wicked men go on a great while and does not come to judgment for sin, but stays until all come together, until a great sum of wrath and judgment come together.”

“But His ways are not like my ways, neither can I find Him out.”

“Know for a certainty that the Lord records all the mercies that ever he gave you, from the beginning to the end of your life. 'Remember, O my people, from Acacia unto Gilgal,' etc.”

“Possibly we cannot discern this at present, but rather prejudge the works of God, and say all these things are against us; but hereafter we shall see, and with joy acknowledge them to be the happy instruments of our salvation.”

“It is true, God does chequer his work in this life—white and black.”

“Therefore God knows all other things, whether they be possible, past, present, or future. * Magnlaneiu.”

“Smoke, the sooner it ascends the sooner it vanisheth: so the greater men are in their power, the sooner they perish. 4.”

“You, too, may experience a stormy voyage through many billows.”

“This longsuffering, or tender pity to the lost, is not forgetfulness, or slackness in promise, or indifference to sin, or weakness, or relaxation of law, or good-natured connivance at evil.”

“Health is a blessing, a great mercy, enabling us to relish the comforts of life, and to be useful in our generation.”

“This is as if one should be thankful to the servant, and never take notice of the master of the family who provides all.”

“Your Maker has the absolute disposal of you: will you strive against Him?”

“For though I am crossed in some one particular thing, God attains His end—at least, His end may be furthered in a thousand things by this one thing that I am crossed in.”

“God loves that his people should plead his promises; and he who does shall find God near him, though friends should leave him, and the world be in arms against him, etc.”

“All the comforts of it are but like fading flowers, that, while we are looking on them and smelling to them, die and wither in our hands.”

“Kings usually owe more to their births, in which they were mere passives, than to all their after achievements.”

“Every good gift, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

“All creatures in heaven and earth do the will of the Creator, except man and the devil and his angels; for the sun, the moon, and the stars, they keep that course which God has appointed them.”

“Nature, in her gayest hues and dress, seems covered with a pall of sadness.”

“General revelation, sometimes called natural revelation , refers to God’s revelation of himself in nature.”

“Whatsoever crook there is in one's lot, it is of God's making.”

“It is He that has posted every one in their relations by His providence.”

“It is the duty of the saints, especially in times of straits, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives.”

“Providence neither does nor can do any thing that is really against the true interest and good of the saints.”

“A wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most pernicious designs to blessed and happy issues.”

“God enriches by impoverishing; He causes the augmentation of grace by the diminution of an estate.”

“Affliction is a bitter root, but it bears sweet fruit.”

“A Christian comes to contentment not so much by way of addition, as by way of subtraction.”