“Satan with ease puts fallacies upon us by his golden baits, and then he leads us and leaves us in a fool’s paradise.”

“To present the bait and hide the hook; to present the golden cup, and hide the poison; to present the sweet, the pleasure, and the profit that may flow in upon the soul by yielding to sin, and by hiding from the soul the wrath and the misery that will certainly follow the committing of [...]

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“If you would have God’s law sweet, let not ‘wickedness be sweet in your mouth,’ Job 20.12. When sin is your burden, Christ will be your delight.”

“For the attaining this blessed delight in the law of God, three things are requisite. Direction 1. Set an high estimate upon the word; what the judgment prizeth, the affections embrace; he that values gold, will delight in it; we are apt, through a principle of Atheism, to entertain slight thoughts of religion, therefore our [...]

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October 24 – “The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them.”

“But grace is not only little, but mingled with corruption; therefore a Christian is said to be smoking flax. So we see that grace does not do away with corruption all at once, but some is left for believers to fight with. The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them; and [...]

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October 23 – “Christ values us by what we shall be, and by what we are elected unto.”

“Let us not therefore be discouraged at the small beginnings of grace, but look on ourselves as elected to be `holy and without blame’ (Eph. 1:4). Let us look on our imperfect beginning only to enforce further striving to perfection, and to keep us in a low opinion of ourselves. Otherwise, in case of discouragement, [...]

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October 22 – “…in God’s children, especially in their first (initial) conversion, there is but a little measure of grace, and that little mixed with much corruption, which, as smoke, is offensive; but that Christ will not quench this smoking flax.”

“In pursuing his calling, Christ will not quench the smoking flax, or wick, but will blow it up till it flames. In smoking flax there is but a little light, and that weak, as being unable to flame, and that little mixed with smoke. The observations from this are that, in God’s children, especially in [...]

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October 21 – “…none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off. Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour. A holy despair in ourselves is the ground of true hope.”

“For the concluding of this point, and our encouragement to a thorough work of bruising, and patience under God’s bruising of us, let all know that none are fitter for comfort than those that think themselves furthest off. Men, for the most part, are not lost enough in their own feeling for a Saviour. A [...]

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October 20 – “Therefore desire God that he would bring a clear and a strong light into all the corners of our souls, and accompany it with a spirit of power to lay our hearts low.”

“But how shall we come to this state of mind? Answer: First, we must conceive of bruising either as a state into which God brings us, or as a duty to be performed by us. Both are here meant. We must join with God in bruising ourselves. When he humbles us, let us humble ourselves, [...]

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Self examination

“And if others would take such a solemn review, and make trial of their state, impartially examining themselves before the tribunal of their consciences, they might have a timely discovery of their own sinfulness; but the neglect of self-examination leaves most men under sad delusions as to their state, and deprives many saints of the [...]

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