◄ Lamentations 3:40 ►














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Repentance
Lamentations 3:40
J.R. Thomson
Sin and suffering are the topic of much thought and inquiry and speculation. But it is of supreme concern to the sinner and the sufferer to act aright. He may or may not be able to explain the mysteries of the human heart, of the Divine government. But it is most important that he should repent and turn unto the Lord.

I. THE CONDITION OF REPENTANCE. The unreflecting and careless will not repent. There are two conditions necessary to such an attitude of mind.

1. Those afflicted because of sin should search themselves. To take a favourable view of self is natural; but truth and justice require that every man should look below the surface, should explore his inmost nature. Thus the springs of action, its hidden motives, will be brought to light.

2. They should consider against whom they have sinned. It was a profoundly just exclamation of David, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned!" We may indeed wrong our fellowmen, but we sin against our Creator and Lord. Conduct must be looked at in this light, in order that it may lead to repentance.

II. THE NATURE OF REPENTANCE. This exercise of the heart is accompanied with sorrow for sin, but it consists mainly

(1) in turning away from sin, and

(2) in turning unto the Lord.

This involves the seeking of pardon and acceptance, and the acceptance by faith of the Divine terms of mercy.

III. THE PROOF OF REPENTANCE. This may be said to consist in:

1. The hatred and loathing of the evil in which the sinner in his impenitence took pleasure,

2. The love and pursuit of holiness as pleasing unto God. - T.

Biblical Illustrator
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
Lamentations 3:40-42
The return
W. F. Adeney, M. A.
Before it is possible to return to God, before the desire to return is even awakened, a much less inviting action must be undertaken. The first and greatest hindrance to reconciliation with our Father is our failure to recognise that any such reconciliation is necessary. If the soul's quarrel with her Lord is ever to be ended it must be discovered. Therefore the first step will be in the direction of self-examination. We are led to look in this direction by the startling thought with which the previous triplet closes. If the calamities bewailed are the chastisements of sin it is necessary for this sin to be sought out. The language of the elegist suggests that we are not aware of the nature of our own conduct, and that it is only by some serious effort that we can make ourselves acquainted with it, for this is what he implies when he represents the distressed people resolving to "search and try" their ways. The externalism in which most of our lives are spent makes the effort to look within a painful contradiction of habit. When it is attempted pride and prejudice face the inquirer, and too often quite hide the true self from view. Even when the effort to acquire self-knowledge is strenuous and persevering, and accompanied by an honest resolution to accept the results, however unwelcome they may be, it often fails for lack of a standard of judgment. We discover our actual characters most effectually when we compare our conduct with the conduct of Jesus Christ. As the light of the world, He leads the world to see itself. He is the great touchstone of character. We may be reminded, on the other hand, that too much introspection is not wholesome, that it begets morbid ways of thought, paralyses the energies, and degenerates into insipid sentimentality. No doubt it is best that the general tendency of the mind should be towards the active duties of life. But to admit this is not to deny that there may be occasions when the most ruthless self-examination becomes a duty of first importance. Then while a certain kind of self-study is always mischievous — the sickly habit of brooding over one's feelings, it is to be observed that the elegist does not recommend this. It is not emotion but action that he is concerned with. The searching is to be into our "ways," the course of our conduct. The word "ways" suggests habit and continuity. These are more characteristic than isolated deeds — short spasms of virtue or sudden falls before temptation. The final judgment will be according to the life, not its exceptional episodes. A man lives his habits. He may be capable of better things, he may be liable to worse; but he is what he does habitually. Our main business in self-examination is to trace the course of the unromantic beaten track, the long road on which we travel from morning to evening through the whole day of life. The result of this search into the character of their ways on the part of the people is that it is found to be necessary to forsake them forth. with; for the next idea is in the form of a resolution to turn out of them, nay, to turn back, retracing the footsteps that have gone astray, in order to come to God again. These ways are discovered, then, to be bad — vicious in themselves, and wrong in their direction. This is a case of ending our old ways, not mending them. No engineering skill will ever transform the path that points straight to perdition into one that conducts us up to the heights of heaven. The only chance of coming to walk in the right way is to forsake the wrong way altogether, and make an entirely new start. Again — a very significant fast — the return is described in positive language. It is a coming back to God, not merely a departure from the old way of sin. The initial impulse towards a better life springs more readily from the attraction of a new hope than from the repulsion of a loathed evil. The hopeful repentance is exhilarating, while that which is only born of the disgust and horror of sin is dismally depressing. Following up his general exhortation to return to God, the elegist adds a particular one, in which the process of the new movement is described. It takes the form of a prayer from the heart. The resolution is to lift up the heart with the hands. Lastly, the poet furnishes the returning penitents with the very language of the hearts prayer, which is primarily confession.

(W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

The saving effect of suffering
J. Parker, D. D.
Suffering only fulfils its mission when it constrains a man to look within himself and search and try his reins and ways that he may know how far he is sincere. Only suffering can get at our hearts with any profound and saving effect. Joy touches the surface, success hovers above us a singing bird: it is when we are in the furnace of affliction that we discover what we really are, and what we really need. The sufferers in this case come to wise decisions. No longer will they murmur against the Lord, as if providence were fickle and arbitrary, as if providence found a wicked pleasure in the torture of human life: the sufferers say, The fault must be in ourselves; we carry the deadly poison within us; our hearts are lacking in the spirit of loyalty and obedience; they are lifted up in the ways of haughtiness, and they submit themselves to the rule of vanity; the time has now come for a different discipline and a different policy; we must lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens: we do not lift up the heart alone, as if we were intending to be religious in one part of our nature, and to reserve the liberty of self-service in another; nor do we lift up our hands alone, as if we were willing to indulge in bodily exercise, in ceremony, in ritual, or as if we were prepared to render in some degree the service of a hireling; but we lift up both our heart and our hands in sign of a complete consecration. Religious exercises cleanse and elevate the worshipper. The very act of lifting up heart and hand unto God in the heavens is an act of purification and ennoblement. All such exercises are valuable as parts of a larger discipline. Herein is the value of public worship: man helps man; voice increases voice; joy and sorrow mingle together, and produce a tender melancholy that is the surest pledge of perfect and enduring delight.

(J. Parker, D. D.)

Self-examination a guard against sin
C. P. Eden, M. A.
I. The work of self-examination has this advantage, that it is A REAL, PERSONAL ACT; and in religion what a man does for himself is of much more avail than what others do or can do for him. Other religious actions may be "gone through," as it were, with little thought and attention; but self-examination, if performed at all, is performed with the mind; with a real application of the faculties to the matter in hand.

II. Self-examination is a PRIVATE WORK. The public ordinances of religion have their place and value. But the religious improvement of the heart is entirely dependent on what passes in private; I mean, is measured by that. What a man is in private, that he is; and it is in the personal interviews with our Maker that the critical transactions of our religious history are performed.

III. Self-examination is A REHEARSING OF THE JUDGMENT DAY, for it is a having the soul up before conscience, and conscience is God's voice in the heart. But in the judgment day, we are instructed to believe that there shall be a bringing forth to the light of each man's every action, in its detail and particular, and (which is much to be observed) in its motive and inward cause. Now these are the things which cannot be discerned without much of careful consideration and thought. The case, in short, is this, — in order to repentance we must know what we have to repent of; for it were a mere trifling with our Maker to use the language of contrition when not really thinking of the things which we have done in disobedience to Him and disregard of His holy will. Keep short accounts with thy soul; the dealers of this world can teach thee thus much. A heathen found out thus much. "Let not sleep," said Pythagoras, "fall upon thy soft eyelids, until thou hast first gone over thrice the actions, all and each of them, of the day; asking thus, Where have I transgressed? what good have I done? and what duty have I left undone?"

IV. The practice of this careful and periodical self-examination will most assuredly SOFTEN AND HUMANISE THE CHARACTER IN REGARD OF THE SOCIAL INTERCOURSES OF LIFE; making him who is diligent in such practice, gentle and merciful and forgiving toward his fellow creatures. The slight, the disrespect, the unthankfulness, and forgetfulness of promises, — just the things which are taken so unkindly between man and man, which constitute the sting of injury, and alienate between heart and heart, — are the very same which we find that we have to ask our Heavenly Father, having experienced at our hands, not to resent, but to forgive; for mercy's and for Christ's sake, to forgive. Therefore the self-examiner is a merciful man.

V. And lastly, he is — what each one of us would desire to be, but what the neglecter of self-examination will hardly be — A PROFITABLE ATTENDANT ON THE SERVICES OF THE CHURCH. And he is so for this reason; that having considered his ways, he knows what he has to confess when he comes into his Maker's presence. The visits to God's house are stages in his life, are steps from earth to heaven, to him whose thoughts have been rightly employed during the interval between his visits there; whose one confession speaks to his former confession, and (may be) rebukes it, but with a sweet rebuke, for it is administered at the footstool of a merciful and forgiving God.

(C. P. Eden, M. A.)

Self-searching
J. H. Evans, M. A.
Prayer, praise, the public ordinances, consistent walking, are obligations, laid though not with equal depth, yet laid on the consciences of all who are taught of God. But the point of deep and thorough consideration of our ways, is I fear, but little reflected upon, as its deep importance demands.

I. THE EXHORTATION. How awfully affecting the description in Lamentations 2:5-17. Yet with all this, the great mass of the people remained hard and impenitent. Ah, how little is it in the power of any judgment to turn the heart. It is under this conviction that the prophet calls them to deep searchings of heart.

1. The prophet includeth himself, "Let us." So Daniel 9:4, 5. Have we not invariably found the most spiritual are the most ready to take the low place?

2. Remark the expression, "Our ways." It is one of the deepest incentives to self-condemnation, humiliation before God, and holiness d heart, to mark diligently, prayerfully, watchfully, all the way by which we have been brought. Let us note down our mercies, pray to have them continually on our hearts, on our lips; this is no small part of the precept. But it refers principally to "search and try the ways" in which we are walking. Am I in the way? What a question! How important the answer. Walking in Jesus, the way of pardon, the only way of salvation, of holiness, of happiness, the only way to God, and heaven, the abode of God. And how am I walking in this way? By faith? in dally repentance? in real, sincere, and honest obedience? happily? If not, why am I not?

3. The expression implies difficulty in the act of obedience to the precept, "Let us search and try our ways." Much is required to its accomplishment.(1) Sincerity is needed (Jeremiah 17:9). Ah, what heavenly sincerity, honesty, integrity, are required to investigate motives, try principles, decide practice.(2) Quiet is needed. A piece of gold cannot be discerned in the unquiet waters of a turbid stream, so the graces of the Spirit cannot be clearly discerned in the defilements of an unquiet spirit.(3) Time is required. The viper sin that coils, and coils, and coils beneath the verdure of the grass, cannot be seen in a moment's glance.(4) Faith, too, is needed, laying the hand on the head of Jesus, or there is no fair review.(5) Filial repentance is required. Legal repentance only extenuates the sin.(6) Above all. there must be much real, fervent, persevering prayer (Psalm 139:23, 24).

II. THE BLESSED CONSEQUENCES OF SEARCHING OUR WAYS AND TURNING TO THE LORD. A man may, without this, be admired, courted, applauded, followed; as a minister he may draw crowds, as a man, be flattered to the skies; but never can he be a spiritually-minded man, a close walker with God, a happy, holy, and consistent Christian. This inestimable good is bound up in it. It is the certain, the necessary consequence. It is the mode of the Divine operation, the order of the Divine Spirit (James 4:8). It is so in the first approach of the sinner to God (Isaiah 55:7). It is so in every after approach (Jeremiah 3:1). The sinner is called to consider his ways (Haggai 1:5). Real consideration leads to repentance (Ezekiel 18:28). It is the breath of spiritual life, it is the germ of the new creation, the spark of heavenly fire.

(J. H. Evans, M. A.)

The importance of self-examination
Archbishop Secker.
I. THE ADVANTAGES THAT BY ARISE FROM IT. There is no possibility, either of viewing a bad action, in a full light, without abhorrence, or of weighing its consequences without terror. Wickedness, therefore, always banishes thought, and piety and virtue encourage it. A good man, far from being driven to hide his inward condition from himself, though he find many things that want still to be amended, yet finds at the same time, so many, which, through the aid of God's Holy Spirit, are already grown, and daily growing better, that he feels no joy equal to that of his heart telling him what he is. Therefore the Psalmist speaks of self-amendment as the immediate fruit of self-inspection (Psalm 119:59, 60). Nor doth it only excite in us good resolutions, but furnishes directions how to put them in practice. Reflection will show us, and nothing else can, by what defect within, or what opportunity without, each of our faults got ground in our breasts: and which is the way to root it out again. Another use of searching frequently into our past ways, is to preserve ourselves from the secret approach of future dangers. All these are general advantages flowing from the practice of self-inspection. But in many cases it hath yet a more especial good influence. A distinct knowledge of ourselves will greatly secure us from the iii effects of flattery, which would persuade us that we are what we feel we are not; and enable us to bear unjust reproach, thinking it a very small thing that we should be judged of man's judgment, when we can reflect with comfort that He who judgeth us is the Lord. Experience of our infirmities will teach us humility, and move us to compassion and forgiveness (Galatians 6:1). Experience where our strength, as well as our weakness lies, will show us how we are best able to serve God and our fellow creatures; what we may attempt, what will be too much for us. And strict observation of our own hearts will qualify us, beyond all things, to give useful cautions to others, and direct their steps in the right way.

II. SOME RULES TO BE OBSERVED FOR CONDUCTING IT PROPERLY. Of these the fundamental one is, that we consider it as a religious duty; perform it as in the presence of God; and earnestly beg Him to show us in a true light to ourselves (Psalm 19:12). Let us therefore neither be too tender, nor too proud, to bear inspecting our hearts and lives: and, that we may bear it well, let us learn to moderate, if we have need, the uneasiness which it may give us. For every passion that we have may be raised so high as to defeat its own end. And though we can dislike nothing so justly as our faults; and very few dislike them near enough; yet if we dislike ourselves for them too much to have patience to think of them, and mend them; that runs into a new fault: and we should check ourselves for it, mildly indeed, but very carefully; considering well both our natural frailty, and our Maker's goodness: but especially the promises of forgiveness and grace, which He hath recorded for our use in His Holy Word; not in order to reconcile us at all to sin, but in a reasonable degree to ourselves. And how mortifying soever a needful examination may still prove, it is surely worth while to support the most painful reflections for the present, when it will secure us a succession of pleasing and happy ones ever after. Nor must we examine only into the weak and suspicious parts of our characters and conduct: but those which procure us the most applause from others and ourselves: for want of which, even vices, a little disguised, may pass upon us for great virtues; and we may be doing, with entire satisfaction, what we should abhor, if we understood it right. Nor are these general grounds of caution the only ones; but every person will find, on inquiry, particular reasons for being watchful and distrustful of himself, in some point or other; arising, perhaps, from unhappy experience of failures, at least from conviction of the dangers, incident to his natural disposition, age, employment, company; and, which is a matter of no small consideration, rank in the world. For they, above all, should be careful m searching their own breasts, whose higher condition subjects them most to flattery, and removes them farthest from hearing censure.

(Archbishop Secker.)

The duty of self-reflection
D. Conant.
I. ITS USEFULNESS.

1. Teaches us to know ourselves.

2. We discover our sins.

3. Provides good company and comfortable employment.

II. ITS NEGLECT MISCHIEVOUS.

1. Hardens the heart.

2. A daily increase of sin.

3. Renders a man the more unwilling to reckon with himself.

III. DEMANDS DILIGENCE.

1. There is a natural reluctance to attend to the duty.

2. Many sins not easily discovered, unless diligent search is made.

3. A convenient time should be set apart for the work.

4. Affliction a time for heart searching.

5. Let not the difficulty of the work discourage you.

6. A work that must be often repeated.

IV. LEADS TO REPENTANCE. "Turn again to the Lord." Sin is an aversion and turning away from God; repentance is a returning to Him.

1. Repentance must be speedy.

2. Thorough.

3. Resolute and steadfast.

(D. Conant.)

Strict self-examination
W. Gurnall.
Set thyself in good earnest to the work; beset thy heart and life around, as men would do a wood where murderers are lodged; hunt back to the several stages of thy life, youth, and riper years, all the capacities and relations thou hast stood in; thy general calling and particular, every place where thou hast lived, and thy behaviour in them. Bid memory bring in its old records, and read over what passages are written there; call conscience in to depose what it knows concerning thee, and encourage it to speak freely without mincing the matter. And take heed thou dost not snib this witness, as some corrupt judges, when they would favour a bad cause or give it secret instructions, as David did Joab, to deal gently with thee. Be willing to have thy conditions opened fully, and all thy coverings turned up.

(W. Gurnall.)

Self-examination much neglected
J. Trapp.
Many either search not at all (they cannot endure these domestic audits: it is death to them to reflect and recognise what they have done), or as though they desired not to find. They search as men do for their bad money; they know they have it, but they would gladly have it to pass for current among the rest. Heathens will rise up in judgment against such, for they prescribed and practised self-examination. Pythagoras, once a day; Phocylides, thrice a day, if Stobaeus may be believed.

(J. Trapp.)

Turn again to the Lord
On repentance
L. H. Irving.
I. THE NATURE OF REPENTANCE. — that repentance which is "unto salvation, and which needeth not to be repented of."

1. Repentance presupposes a knowledge of our previous condition. Before we can sincerely turn to the Lord, we must be sensible of our alienation from Him. They who have never felt the weariness and wretchedness of their natural state; who have never, in any measure, experienced the misery and guiltiness of their sins, are still destitute of that very knowledge which must precede the exercise of scriptural repentance. Nay more, this sense of sin and sinfulness must be no mere general and theoretic opinion — no mere notion; but a heartfelt conviction of entire and aggravated sinfulness, humbling the sinner in the dust, and depriving him of all fancied righteousness in the judgment of his own conscience. Combined with this, there must be also some measure of acquaintance with the character and perfections of that God with whom the sinner has to do.

2. Godly sorrow has its seat in the affections. It is heartfelt grief, a real and poignant sentiment of anguish on account of sin; and whilst the soul of the repentant sinner does mourn over the bitter consequences of sin, yet his mourning is not confined to the evils resulting from his iniquity. There will be in the heart that truly seeks the Lord a commencement, at all events, of hatred to sin, a sense of its hideousness and deformity.

3. Where the soul hath really sought the Lord as He is to be found, there will be manifested the Spirit's presence in efforts at a holy, a spiritual and heartfelt conformity with the whole will of God.

4. Whilst the child of God experiences all this in turning from sin, he is called further to beware of regarding his repentance as in itself worthy of God's acceptance; our very righteousnesses are even as filthy rags in the presence of Him who sitteth on the throne, and our repentance not only flows from the imparted grace of God, but at best can be acceptable in God's sight only through the mediation of the Beloved.

5. The believer is further called on to feel that repentance is not proper, simply to the first stage of his spiritual existence; that it holds not only an elementary place in practical Christianity, but belongs to the whole currency of his life on earth. Alas! when is the believer free from sin?

II. THE ENCOURAGEMENTS TO REPENTANCE HELD OUT TO US BY GOD. This is a wide field; the Lord has not been sparing in the manifestation of such encouragement. Does not the very existence of the Bible proclaim that God waiteth to be gracious? Instead of selecting a series of striking invitations from the fertile pages of the Divine record, I would rather seek to place before you a few of the great truths which are embodied in the numerous and very varied appeals to man's conscience contained in Scripture.

1. The foremost of these truths is the fact of God's mercy. Not only do all the gifts of His hand bespeak a wondrous forbearance, a marvellous compassion, but we owe our very existence, amid our sins, to the compassion of the Eternal: we are all of us living monuments of His mercy; "because His compassions fail not," therefore are we not consumed. God has not, however, limited the manifestation of His mercy to the mere preservation of our guilty race, and the bestowal of multiplied temporal blessings. "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son," etc.

2. The justice of God furnishes under the Gospel dispensation the strongest of all encouragements to the exercise of this grace. Nor is there any paradox in the assertion. In Christ, mercy and truth meet together, God's righteousness and the sinner's peace are made to embrace each other.

3. The disquieted and dispirited sinner may be apt to exclaim, of what service are all the encouragements to repentance, when repentance itself involves in its very exercise feelings which I do not possess, and which I know not how to obtain? There have issued from the mercy seat the promises, the full, clear, and reiterated promises of all needful grace. It is in God Himself that our succour lies.

III. THE PRACTICAL BEARINGS OF THESE CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CONDITION AND CONSCIENCES OF MEN.

1. I would address myself, first, to the followers of Christ, those who have known what it is "to turn unto the Lord"; who have been quickened by His Spirit in the inner man, and "having the Son," "have life," life indeed, life eternal. I would call upon them to recognise not merely the duty, but the precious privilege of repentance. Let him that standeth or that "thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." We are never more in need of grace than just when we think best of ourselves. Self-complacency is the sure token of backsliding from the Lord.

2. With regard to those who have never yet experienced true repentance, who may perhaps regret their sins at times when the evils flowing from sin are felt by them, but whose regrets have been vain and fruitless — the mere sorrow of the world that worketh death — I would beseech them, with all earnestness, to "turn unto the Lord." In resisting the call to repentance, the sinner is not simply putting away from him the only way of peace and happiness, he is resisting, madly resisting, the expressed mind of God — God's holy commands; and whether he be a profligate or a man of decent life; whether an avowed atheist or a professed Christian; whether he defy God or turn away to the things of this world in besotted infatuation, his course, in either case, is in direct opposition to the will of God.

(L. H. Irving.)

Return to God made easy
A minister narrates the following: "While walking along one of the London streets a Paris pastor came forward and accosted me thus, 'Excuse me, but were you not in Paris some time ago?' I said, 'Yes, I was'; and then he inquired, 'Did you not, in one of your addresses there, say that the latch was on our side of the door?' 'Yes, I believe I did say so,' I replied. 'Well,' he answered, 'I always thought it was on the Lord's side, and I kept knocking, and knocking, and knocking, until I heard your words, and what a joy came over me! I lifted the latch. Since then all has been changed, my church, my congregation, my work, and everything about me!'" Remember that the latch is on your side of the door.

The penitent's first effort
J. C. Ryle.
In every building the first stone must be laid and the first blow must be struck. The ark was 120 years in building; yet there was a day when Noah laid his axe at the first tree he cut down to form it. The temple of Solomon was a glorious building; but there was a day when the first huge stone was laid at the foot of Mount Moriah. When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer.

(J. C. Ryle.)

People
Jeremiah
Places
Zion
Topics
Examine, Investigate, Probe, Return, Search, Test, Try, Turn, Turning
Outline
1. The prophet bewails his own calamities
22. By the mercies of God, he nourishes his hope
37. He acknowledges God's justice
55. He prays for deliverance
64. And vengeance on his enemies

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Lamentations 3:40

     5562   suffering, innocent
     6029   sin, forgiveness
     6740   returning to God
     6746   sanctification, means and results
     8151   revival, corporate
     8438   giving, of time
     8832   testing

Lamentations 3:39-40

     5899   lament

Lamentations 3:40-42

     8478   self-examination

Library
February the Twenty-Fourth Moving Towards Daybreak
"He hath brought me into darkness, but not into light." --LAMENTATIONS iii. 1-9. But a man may be in darkness, and yet in motion toward the light. I was in the darkness of the subway, and it was close and oppressive, but I was moving toward the light and fragrance of the open country. I entered into a tunnel in the Black Country in England, but the motion was continued, and we emerged amid fields of loveliness. And therefore the great thing to remember is that God's darknesses are not His goals; …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

February the Twenty-Fifth the Fresh Eye
"His compassions fail not: they are new every morning." --LAMENTATIONS iii. 22-33. We have not to live on yesterday's manna; we can gather it fresh to-day. Compassion becomes stale when it becomes thoughtless. It is new thought that keeps our pity strong. If our perception of need can remain vivid, as vivid as though we had never seen it before, our sympathies will never fail. The fresh eye insures the sensitive heart. And our God's compassions are so new because He never becomes accustomed to …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

Solitude, Silence, Submission
"He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him. He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope."--Lamentations 3:28, 29. THUS the prophet describes the conduct of a person in deep anguish of heart. When he does not know what to do, his soul, as if by instinct, humbles itself. He gets into some secret place, he utters no speech, he gives himself over to moaning and to tears, and then he bows himself lower and yet lower before the Divine Majesty, as if he felt …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 42: 1896

"And we all do Fade as a Leaf, and Our Iniquities, Like the Wind, have Taken us Away. "
Isaiah lxiv. 6.--"And we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." Here they join the punishment with the deserving cause, their uncleanness and their iniquities, and so take it upon them, and subscribe to the righteousness of God's dealing. We would say this much in general--First, Nobody needeth to quarrel God for his dealing. He will always be justified when he is judged. If the Lord deal more sharply with you than with others, you may judge there is a difference …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

To the Reader. Christian Reader
To The Reader. Christian Reader, This holy preacher of the gospel had so many convictions upon his spirit of the necessity of the duties of humiliation and mourning, and of people's securing the eternal interest of their souls for the life to come, by flying into Jesus Christ for remission of sins in his blood, that he made these the very scope of his sermons in many public humiliations, as if it had been the one thing which he conceived the Lord was calling for in his days; a clear evidence whereof …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Lord is My Portion. Lam 3:24
 …
John Newton—Olney Hymns

The Disciple, -- what is the Meaning and Purpose of the Cross...
The Disciple,--What is the meaning and purpose of the cross, and why do pain and suffering exist in the world? The Master,--1. The cross is the key to heaven. At the moment when by My baptism I took the cross upon My shoulders for the sake of sinners, heaven was opened, and by means of My thirty-three years bearing of the cross and by death upon it, heaven, which by reason of sin was closed to believers, was for ever opened to them. Now as soon as believers take up their cross and follow Me they …
Sadhu Sundar Singh—At The Master's Feet

How Christ is to be Made Use of as Our Life, in Case of Heartlessness and Fainting through Discouragements.
There is another evil and distemper which believers are subject to, and that is a case of fainting through manifold discouragements, which make them so heartless that they can do nothing; yea, and to sit up, as if they were dead. The question then is, how such a soul shall make use of Christ as in the end it may be freed from that fit of fainting, and win over those discouragements: for satisfaction to which we shall, 1. Name some of those discouragements which occasion this. 2. Show what Christ …
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Practice of Piety in Glorifying God in the Time of Sickness, and when Thou Art Called to Die in the Lord.
As soon as thou perceivest thyself to be visited with any sickness, meditate with thyself: 1. That "misery cometh not forth of the dust; neither doth affliction spring out of the earth." Sickness comes not by hap or chance (as the Philistines supposed that their mice and emrods came, 1 Sam. vi. 9), but from man's wickedness, which, as sparkles, breaketh out. "Man suffereth," saith Jeremiah, "for his sins." "Fools," saith David, "by reason of their transgressions, and because of their iniquities, …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

How they are to be Admonished who Lament Sins of Deed, and those who Lament Only Sins of Thought.
(Admonition 30.) Differently to be admonished are those who deplore sins of deed, and those who deplore sins of thought. For those who deplore sins of deed are to be admonished that perfected lamentations should wash out consummated evils, lest they be bound by a greater debt of perpetrated deed than they pay in tears of satisfaction for it. For it is written, He hath given us drink in tears by measure (Ps. lxxix. 6): which means that each person's soul should in its penitence drink the tears …
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

From his Entrance on the Ministry in 1815, to his Commission to Reside in Germany in 1820
1815.--After the long season of depression through which John Yeardley passed, as described in the last chapter, the new year of 1815 dawned with brightness upon his mind. He now at length saw his spiritual bonds loosed; and the extracts which follow describe his first offerings in the ministry in a simple and affecting manner. 1 mo. 5.--The subject of the prophet's going down to the potter's house opened so clearly on my mind in meeting this morning that I thought I could almost have publicly …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

Meditations for one that is Like to Die.
If thy sickness be like to increase unto death, then meditate on three things:--First, How graciously God dealeth with thee. Secondly, From what evils death will free thee. Thirdly, What good death will bring unto thee. The first sort of Meditations are, to consider God's favourable dealing with thee. 1. Meditate that God uses this chastisement of thy body but as a medicine to cure thy soul, by drawing thee, who art sick in sin, to come by repentance unto Christ, thy physician, to have thy soul healed …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Letter xxvi. (Circa A. D. 1127) to the Same
To the Same He excuses the brevity of his letter on the ground that Lent is a time of silence; and also that on account of his profession and his ignorance he does not dare to assume the function of teaching. 1. You will, perhaps, be angry, or, to speak more gently, will wonder that in place of a longer letter which you had hoped for from me you receive this brief note. But remember what says the wise man, that there is a time for all things under the heaven; both a time to speak and a time to keep …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Of the Character of the Unregenerate.
Ephes. ii. 1, 2. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. AMONG all the various trusts which men can repose in each other, hardly any appears to be more solemn and tremendous, than the direction of their sacred time, and especially of those hours which they spend in the exercise of public devotion. …
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

Question Lxxxii of Devotion
I. Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Meaning of the Term "Devotion" S. Augustine, Confessions, XIII. viii. 2 II. Is Devotion an Act of the Virtue of Religion? III. Is Contemplation, that is Meditation, the Cause of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On the Causes of Devotion " " On the Devotion of Women IV. Is Joy an Effect of Devotion? Cardinal Cajetan, On Melancholy S. Augustine, Confessions, II. x. I Is Devotion a Special Kind of Act? It is by our acts that we merit. But …
St. Thomas Aquinas—On Prayer and The Contemplative Life

The Mercy of God
The next attribute is God's goodness or mercy. Mercy is the result and effect of God's goodness. Psa 33:5. So then this is the next attribute, God's goodness or mercy. The most learned of the heathens thought they gave their god Jupiter two golden characters when they styled him good and great. Both these meet in God, goodness and greatness, majesty and mercy. God is essentially good in himself and relatively good to us. They are both put together in Psa 119:98. Thou art good, and doest good.' This …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Covenant Duties.
It is here proposed to show, that every incumbent duty ought, in suitable circumstances, to be engaged to in the exercise of Covenanting. The law and covenant of God are co-extensive; and what is enjoined in the one is confirmed in the other. The proposals of that Covenant include its promises and its duties. The former are made and fulfilled by its glorious Originator; the latter are enjoined and obligatory on man. The duties of that Covenant are God's law; and the demands of the law are all made …
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

"Take My Yoke Upon You, and Learn of Me," &C.
Matt. xi. 20.--"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me," &c. Self love is generally esteemed infamous and contemptible among men. It is of a bad report every where, and indeed as it is taken commonly, there is good reason for it, that it should be hissed out of all societies, if reproaching and speaking evil of it would do it. But to speak the truth, the name is not so fit to express the thing, for that which men call self love, may rather be called self hatred. Nothing is more pernicious to a man's …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"Thou Shall Keep Him in Perfect Peace, Whose Mind is Stayed on Thee, Because He Trusteth in Thee. "
Isaiah xxvi. 3.--"Thou shall keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee." Christ hath left us his peace, as the great and comprehensive legacy, "My peace I leave you," John xiv. 27. And this was not peace in the world that he enjoyed; you know what his life was, a continual warfare; but a peace above the world, that passeth understanding. "In the world you shall have trouble, but in me you shall have peace," saith Christ,--a peace that shall make trouble …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

No Sorrow Like Messiah's Sorrow
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold, and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow! A lthough the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the law of Moses, the Psalms, and the Prophecies (Luke 24:44) , bear an harmonious testimony to MESSIAH ; it is not necessary to suppose that every single passage has an immediate and direct relation to Him. A method of exposition has frequently obtained [frequently been in vogue], of a fanciful and allegorical cast [contrivance], under the pretext …
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

The Work of Jesus Christ as an Advocate,
CLEARLY EXPLAINED, AND LARGELY IMPROVED, FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL BELIEVERS. 1 John 2:1--"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." By JOHN BUNYAN, Author of "The Pilgrim's Progress." London: Printed for Dorman Newman, at the King's Arms, in the Poultry, 1689. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This is one of the most interesting of Bunyan's treatises, to edit which required the Bible at my right hand, and a law dictionary on my left. It was very frequently republished; …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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