(Isaiah 45:25)In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.
Good Doctrine is God's teaching.
It tells us of our Election.
It reveals Personal Redemption.
It secures Effectual Calling.
It brings Complete Salvation.
It ensures a Perfect Education.
It proclaims Eternal Preservation.
It preserves from final falling.
It leads “from glory to glory.”
Its entrance gives light and understanding.
Its exercise is the delight of faith.
Its embracings are the joy of hope.
Its revelations are the life of love.
Thomas Bradbury
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:11,12)
It is a mercy to be broken off from false religion and Arminian professors, for there is no profit to be had in their free-will scheme; but it often leaves a sting behind. I find the reproach of the cross has not ceased; people will bear with some truths if error be added whereby they are neutralized, but if distinctive truth is put before them, then the enmity is soon seen. O for grace to cling to Jesus, 'sink or swim,' as Hart says." (A. B. Hoblyn)
Every essential truth that we part with is an infinite loss; and we daily see an awful departure from the doctrines of the gospel. Errors gain ground; and champions for the truth are but few in number when compared to the other host. If thou art a child of God by faith, see to the ground-work of it. Hast thou the faith of God's elect? let election be its basis. Hast thou a justifying faith? let imputed righteousness be its basis. Hast thou a victorious faith? thy victory lies in a Saviour's arms. Hast thou a purifying faith? then faith fetches its purifying efficacy from a Saviour's blood. Give up none of these truths; for, if we think truth is not worth contending for, we may expect the Spirit to clap his wings, and take his flight from us. (William Huntington)
I want you, my hearers, first to mark with me the unmistakable way in which the Holy Ghost, in the passage which you have just heard me read as my text, insists upon the SOVEREIGNTY of God, a doctrine which cuts up root and branch the unscriptural and but too common heresy of free will. And while I stand here with an earnest desire to be enabled, (as it is said in Jeremiah), to "take forth the precious from the vile," and to discriminate and distinguish amongst the large mass of people that I see before me, between church and world, between possession and profession, between a mere notional Christianity, (if I may use the term in such a sense)! And the Christianity that is burnt into a broken heart, (J. J. West)
they (elect) shall be brought, by the teaching of God's Spirit, to heartily Confess that of all sinners they are chief; (John Rusk) have you and I been brought to this place of confession?
