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Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ the nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyhment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes.

John Flavel

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John Flavel
Age: 61 †
Born: 1630
Born: January 1
Died: 1691
Died: June 26
Author
Cleric
Theologian
John Flavell
Johan Flavel
Johannes Flavel
Soul
Approach
Fairest
Like
Longer
Sweeter
Becomes
Approaches
Christ
Nearer
Lives
Desirable
Stills
Pictures
Certain
Distance
Still
Creatures

More quotes by John Flavel

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Observed duties maintain our credit but secret duties maintain our life.
John Flavel
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I think it is not very difficult to discern by the duties and converses of Christians, what frames their spirits are under. Take a Christian in a good frame, and how serious, heavenly, and profitable, will his converses and duties be! what a lovely companion is he during the continuance of it!
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Christ and his benefits go inseparably and undividedly... Many would willingly receive his privileges, who will not receive his person but it cannot be if we will have one, we must take the other too: Yea, we must accept his person first, and then his benefits: as it is in the marriage covenant, so it is here.
John Flavel
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Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.
John Flavel
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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).
John Flavel
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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.
John Flavel
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A saving, though an immethodical knowledge of Christ, will bring us to heaven, John 17: 2, but a regular and methodical, as well as a saving knowledge of him, will bring heaven into us, Col. 2: 2, 3.
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We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God.
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The Lord's supper is memorative, and so it has the nature and use of a pledge or token of love, left by a dying to a dear surviving friend.
John Flavel
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Whatever be the ground of one's distress, it should drive him to, not from God.
John Flavel
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No doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
John Flavel
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Tell me, you vain professor, when did you shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief, or earthliness of your heart? Do you think that such an easy religion can save you? If so, we may invert Christ's words and say, 'Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to life, and may there be that go in there.'
John Flavel
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The Spirit must therefore first take hold of us before we can live in Christ, and when he doth so, then we are enabled to exert that vital act of faith, whereby we receive Christ.
John Flavel
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The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.
John Flavel
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All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences at which we were sometimes so offended...we shall [one day] see to be to us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was to Israel, the right way to the city of habitation.
John Flavel
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It is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them here, that there is 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.
John Flavel
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Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.
John Flavel
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To see a man humble under prosperity is one of the greatest rarities in the world.
John Flavel
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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.
John Flavel
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My soul is of more value than ten thousand worlds.
John Flavel