John Flavel Quotes

65 Sourced Quotes

For the infinite glorious Creator of all things, to become a creature, is a mystery exceeding all human understanding.

John Flavel
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.

John Flavel
O my soul, I am now addressing myself to the greatest work that ever a creature was employed about - I am going into the solemn presence of God about business of everlasting importance!

John Flavel
Ah, did we but rightly understand what the demerit of sin is, we would rather admire the bounty of God than complain of the straithandedness of Providence. And if we did but consider that there lies upon God no obligation of justice or gratitud to reward any of our duties, it would cure our murmurs (Gen. 32:10).

John Flavel
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
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
They foresaw that the concession of a Providence would impose an eternal yoke upon their necks, by making them accountable for all they did to a higher tribunal, so that they must necessarily 'pass the time of their sojourning here in fear', while all their thoughts, words and ways were strictly noted and recorded, for the purpose of an account by an all-seeing and righteous God. They therefore laboured to persuade themselves that what they had no mind for did not exist.

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

John Flavel
Let us consider and marvel that ever this great and blessed God should be so much concerned, as you have heard He is in all His providences, about such vile, despicable worms as we are! He does not need us, but is perfectly blessed and happy in Himself without us. We can add nothing to Him.

John Flavel
Providence so orders the case, that faith and prayer come between our wants and supplies, and the goodness of God may be the more magnified in our eyes thereby.

John Flavel
It would much conduce to the settlement of your heart, to consider that by fretting and discontent you do yourself more injury than all your afflictions could do. Your own discontent is that which arms your troubles with a sting; you make your burden heavy by struggling under it. Did you but lie quietly under the hand of God, your condition would be much more easy than it is.

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

John Flavel
If time be a ring of gold, opportunity is the rich diamond that gives it both its value and glory.

John Flavel
Turn in upon yourselves, get into your closets, and now resolve to dwell there. You have been strangers to this work too long; you have kept other vineyards too long; you have trifled about the borders of religion too long. Will you now resolve to look better to your hearts? Will you hate and come out of the crowds of business and clamors of the world and retire yourselves more than you have done? Oh, that this day you would resolve upon it!

John Flavel
All the tears of a penitent sinner, should he shed as many as there have been fallen drops of rain since the creation, cannot wash away one sin. The everlasting burnings in hell cannot purify the flaming conscience from the least sin.

John Flavel
Guilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.

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

John Flavel
Wrath to come implies both the futurity and perpetuity of this wrath.... Yea, it is not only certainly future, but when it comes it will be abiding wrath, or wrath still coming. When millions of years and ages are past and gone, this will still be wrath to come. Ever coming as a river ever flowing.

John Flavel
The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is at the full, and that by the interposition of the earth.

John Flavel
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
Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards.

John Flavel
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.

John Flavel
"It is the duty of the saints, especially in times of straights, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives".

John Flavel
The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God and after conversion to keep it with Him.

John Flavel
What, at Peace with the Father, and at War with the (His) Children! It cannot be.

John Flavel
You may look upon some providences once and again, and see little or nothing in them, but look "seven times," that is, meditate often upon them, and you will see their increasing glory, like that increasing cloud (1 Kings 18:44).

John Flavel
What is a child, but a piece of the parent enrapt up in another skin? And yet our dearest children are but as strangers to us, in comparison of the unspeakable dearness that was between the Father and Christ. Now, that he should ever be content to part with a Son, and such an only One, is such a manifestation of love, as will be admired to all eternity.

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

John Flavel
Scripture knows no other way to glory, but Christ put on and applied by faith.

John Flavel