“Christ is the greatest good, the choicest good, the chiefest good, the most suitable good, the most necessary good.
He is a pure good, a real good, a total good, an eternal good, and a soul-satisfying good.”
-Thomas Brooks, (“Precious Remedies,” in Works, 1: 143)
Father,
in Your mercy
dispel the darkness
of this night,
and let Your servant
sleep in peace,
that at the dawn
of a new day
I may wake
with joy in Your Name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
“Christ’s heart, Christ’s arms, are wide open to embrace the returning prodigal.”
-Thomas Brooks, “Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices,“ The Works of Thomas Brooks, Volume 1 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1666/2001), 1: 140.
“When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them
like the morning light,
like the sun
shining forth
on a cloudless morning,
like rain
that makes grass to sprout
from the earth.”
-2 Samuel 23:3-4
“When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,
he dawns on them
like the morning light,
like the sun
shining forth
on a cloudless morning,
like rain
that makes grass to sprout
from the earth.”
-2 Samuel 23:3-4
Father,
in Your mercy
dispel the darkness
of this night,
and let Your servant
sleep in peace,
that at the dawn
of a new day
I may wake
with joy in Your Name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
“We are raised in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, to be like Christ.”
–Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit: Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 251.
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.
–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: Houghton, 1954), 1028.
“Arise, arise;
And with His burial-linen dry thine eyes:
Christ left His grave-clothes, that we might, when grief
Draws tears, or blood, not want an handkerchief.”
–George Herbert, from ‘The Dawning” in Herbert: Poems (Everyman Library) (New York: Knopf, 2004), 131.
‘Mors post crucem minor est.’
‘After the cross, death is less.’
–Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics: Created, Fallen, and Converted Humanity, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019), 1: 493, fn. #168.
“The resurrection of Christ is a fountain of good for His church and for the whole world.
It is the ‘Amen’ of the Father upon the ‘Finished’ of the Son.”
–Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (Glenside, PA: @wtspress, 1909/2019), 351.
O God, Creator of heaven and earth:
Grant that,
as the crucified body of Your dear Son
was laid in the tomb
and rested on this holy Sabbath,
so we may await with Him
the coming of the third day,
and rise with Him to newness of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
“In Christ, justice and mercy embrace, suffering is the road to glory, the cross points to a crown, and the timber of the cross becomes the tree of life.”
–Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 2: 618.
“We do not understand the substitutionary suffering of Christ because we cannot come anywhere near calculating what love enables one to do, and what eternal, infinite, Divine love can achieve.”
-Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God (Glenside, PA: @wtspress, 2019), 337.
“The LORD is my portion;
I promise to keep Your words.”
—Psalm 119:57
—
“One thing is necessary.
Mary has chosen the good portion,
which will not be taken away from her.”
—Luke 10:42
“When we are subject to God, in whom there is ‘no variation or shadow due to change’ (James 1:17), we are happy.”
—Christopher R. J. Holmes, A Theology of the Christian Life: Imitating and Participating in God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 93.
“It cannot be too strongly emphasized that everyone is a legalist at heart.
Indeed, if anything, that is the more evident in antinomians.”
-Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 86.
“No one in this fallen world, a world which we find more and more barren every year we live,— no one ever need be friendless while the Lord Jesus Christ lives to intercede at the right hand of God.”
–J.C. Ryle, Old Paths (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2013), 414-415.
“When we see salvation whole— its every single part
is found in Christ,
we must beware lest we derive the smallest drop
from somewhere else.”
–John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, (2.16.19).
“Christ, the incarnate Word, is the central fact of the entire history of the world.”
-Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Sin and Salvation in Christ, vol. 3, Ed. John Bolt, and Trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 3: 235.
“The world would be a happier world if there was more practical Christianity.”
-J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1858/2012), 1: 289. Ryle is commenting on Luke 10:29-37.
“The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.”
-C.S. Lewis, “On the Reading of Old Books,” God in the Dock, Ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harper, 1970), 202.
“I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstair indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.”
-C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (NYC: Harvest, 1955), 10.
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing— to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from.”
-C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (New York: Harcourt, 1956). 75.
“In times of loneliness, it is something even to have a dog with you, to lick your hand, and show you such kindness as is possible from him.”
-Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Weakened Christ Strengthened,” (MTPS, 48: 115).