John Flavel Quotes

He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him.

Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us.

The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.

As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.

No doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

If you neglect to instruct 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.

Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet. . . .

They that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud.

One word of God can do more than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul.

The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.

The Providence of God is like Hebrew words-it can be read only backwards.

He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.

Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.

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

As the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit, so the Spirit of Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life; and until he quicken us and infuse the principle of the divine life into our souls, we can put forth no hand, or vital act of faith, to lay hold upon Jesus Christ.

Sometimes God makes use of instruments for good to His people, who designed nothing but evil and mischief to them. Thus Joseph's brethren were instrumental to his advancement in that very thing in which they designed his ruin (Gen. 50:20).

If God has given you but a small portion of the world, yet if you are godly He has promised never to forsake you (Heb. 13:5). Providence has ordered that condition for you which is really best for your eternal good. If you had more of the world than you have, your heads and hearts might not be able to manage it to your advantage.

Suppose that by revenge you might destroy one enemy; yet, by exercising the Christian's temper you might conquer three‌–‌your own lust, Satan's temptation, and your enemy's heart.

The knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.

Brethren, it is easier to declaim against a thousand sins of others, than to mortify one sin in ourselves.

Whatever be the ground of one's distress, it should drive him to, not from God.

Look to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Christless at your appearance before him. Those that continue Christless now, will be left speechless then. God forbid that you that have heard so much of Christ, and you that have professed so much of Christ, should at last fall into a worse condition than those that never heard the name of Christ.

To see a man humble under prosperity is one of the greatest rarities in the world.

Jesus, our head, is already in heaven; and if the head be above water, the body cannot drown.

Grace makes the promise and providence the payment.