Jesus had the taste of heaven in everything He did, and the world cannot bear this!
We suffer here because we have a soul risen in a body that is not risen, and that is in a world at enmity with God.
Christianity alone could give great force to individuality and to conscience, and at the same time unite men under the direction of Christ, towards one center, which is Christ. This could only be possible by the Holy Spirit, who takes away selfishness, while it gives power to the conscience; giving by faith an object to the heart outside of itself-an object which acts on the individual conscience, and unites us all, through one predominant affection, to one center of affection, by one life, and one only power of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit acts as the Spirit of union of the children of God; but conscience cannot be in society, and reject its own individual responsibility. It is individual, otherwise God could not be the master of conscience.
The Holy Spirit directs conscience toward Jesus.
If we will avoid the principles of evil, it must be through conscience; there is no other way.
The Christian who acts from conscience will avoid a thousand snares, of which he is not at all aware.
So far as the Christian enters into the ways of the world, it is a complete prostitution.
Whatever makes the world happy in spite of God, is in the spirit and course of Babylon, and for a Christian to be there is to be in Babylon.
Babylon is the spirit of worldliness, cast out far away from God, as guilty of the death of Christ, and which nevertheless gives itself up to embellish the world. All those Babylonish principles, all that your eyes may lust after for your drawing rooms and for your pleasures, all those things separate you from heaven. It is Babylon on a small scale.
What is often important to man is not so to God; for God has Christ in view.
Man glories in a truth that costs him nothing, inasmuch as it is generally received, and takes advantage of it to oppose the admission of more light which would demand faith.
Heaven is familiar with evil as judged, as with that which is good, to enjoy it.
All that happens to us is foreknown and prearranged of God, in order that His child may stand in the midst of difficulties. All I have to do is to say God is perfectly acquainted with the position I am in, and He knows the way He has prepared to extricate me from difficulties, if I remain faithful.
When Jesus was on the earth heaven looked on the earth; now that Jesus is in heaven, the Church on earth looks on high. In a yet fuller revelation, as at the conversion of Paul, it is owned as one with Jesus, who is there.
Prophecy is a revelation of future things, to act on my conscience now.
There are always warnings that we have neglected previous to chastisements.
A soul that is unconverted has no idea of a God, tender, gentle, who "wipes away tears."
It is precious to have always God's true object in view, which cannot stop short of His glory.
If one would get at the bottom of the counsels of God, one must look at His glory.
The sight of the glory sanctifies truly, and gives an object far above all that could be prepared to stop us here on earth.
We shall never walk well here below, even in the smallest details, if the great end is not constantly before our eyes.
If I have any object on this side the glory, even the welfare of the Church in detail, my soul will suffer from it.
We want faith to lose our fortune and to forgive; but if it is coming out of the society of man, it is entering into that of God.
The selfishness of the world understands the grace that is in the Christian which can forgive; but in principle that grace is foolishness to him.
If you are wishing for money, or seeking to make provision for placing your children in the world, or if you have any plans for the future, you cannot wish for the Lord Jesus to come; and if you cannot, then your hearts are not right with Jesus.
It requires more real grace and faith to pray for the Church of God than to labor and to preach; though neither can be done rightly without.
It is comparatively easy to love and feel humble when conscious of making people your debtors by service; but when there is neither energy for service, nor power to communicate, this tries what is in the heart.