John Flavel Quotes

#1. It is better to be as low as hell with a promise, than in Paradise without one.

John Flavel

#2. Christ's resurrection is the ground-work of our hope. And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it.

John Flavel

#3. That soul is dead to which the Spirit of Christ is not given in the work of regeneration; and all its works are dead works.

John Flavel

#4. 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.

John Flavel

#5. We are not distinguished from brutes by our senses, but by our understanding.

John Flavel

#6. The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.

John Flavel

#7. The soul of the poorest child is of equal dignity with the soul of Adam.

John Flavel

#8. Whatever be the ground of one's distress, it should drive him to, not from God.

John Flavel

#9. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him.

John Flavel

#10. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me (Jer. 32:40b). That is a different kind of fear from the one that startles you. God promises to put it in you - not to shake and undermine your assurance, but to guard and maintain it.

John Flavel

#11. 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.

John Flavel

#12. The soul of man, like the bird in the shell, is still growing or ripening in sin or grace, till at last the shell breaks by death, and the soul flies away to the piece it is prepared for, and where it must abide forever.

John Flavel

#13. Consider your spiritual mercies and privileges with which the Lord Jesus has invested you, and complain at your providential lot if you can. One of these mercies alone has enough in it to sweeten all your troubles in this world.

John Flavel

#14. 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

#15. most men rather need the spur, than the reins

John Flavel

#16. The Lord shall do all for thee, and thou shalt do nothing, but be the Sabbath of Christ.

John Flavel

#17. The knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.

John Flavel

#18. Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards.

John Flavel

#19. 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

#20. 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

#21. 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

#22. What a mercy was it to us to have parents that prayed for us before they had us, as well as in our infancy when we could not pray for ourselves!

John Flavel

#23. Jesus Christ is in every way sufficient to the vast desires of the soul.

John Flavel

#24. If we were to understand how dear we are to God, our relation to Him, our value in His eyes, and how He protects us by His faithful promises and gracious presence, we would not tremble at every appearance of danger.

John Flavel

#25. 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

#26. The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#28. No repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformation or ordinances, without the new creation, avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul.

John Flavel

#29. There is not a greater discovery of pride in the world than in the contests of our wills with the will of God.

John Flavel

#30. Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.

John Flavel

#31. Christ [is] the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is congregation or meeting-place of all waters in the world: so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet ...

John Flavel

#32. Whatsoever we have over-loved, idolized, and leaned upon, God has from time to time broken it, and made us to see the vanity of it; so that we find the readiest course to be rid of our comforts is to set our hearts inordinately upon them.

John Flavel

#33. Look around in the world, and you may see some in every place who are objects of pity, bereaved by sad accidents of all the comforts of life, while in the meantime Providence has tenderly preserved you.

John Flavel

#34. The state of the whole body depends upon the soundness and vigour of the heart, and the everlasting state of the whole man upon the good or ill condition of the soul.

John Flavel

#35. 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

#36. Outward things are promiscuously dispensed, and no man's spiritual estate is discernible by the view of his temporal. When God draws the sword, it may cut off the righteous as well as the wicked,

John Flavel

#37. Two things destroy the peace and tranquility of our lives; our bewailing past disappointments, or fearing future ones.

John Flavel

#38. We must not think that faith itself is the soul's rest; it is only the means of it. We cannot find rest in any work or duty of our own, but we may find it in Christ, whom faith apprehends for justification and salvation.

John Flavel

#39. Oh, study your hearts, watch your hearts, keep your hearts

John Flavel

#40. Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.

John Flavel

#41. Every man loves the mercies of God, but a saint loves the God of his mercies. The mercies of God, as they are the fuel of a wicked man's lusts, so they are fuel to maintain a good man's love to God; not that their love to God is grounded upon these external benefits.

John Flavel

#42. 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

#43. In short, forbidden fear is merely concerned with self-preservation. It does not take God's glory into account. On the contrary, it actually desires the removal of what it perceives as dangerous, meaning it desires the removal of God.

John Flavel

#44. Oh sirs, deal with sin as sin, and speak of heaven and hell as they are, and not as if you were in jest.

John Flavel

#45. If I yield to thy temptation, I must either feel the pangs of conscience, or the flames of hell.

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#47. The more afflictions you have been under, the more assistance you have had for this life of holiness.

John Flavel

#48. 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

#49. Brethren, it is easier to declaim against a thousand sins of others, than to mortify one sin in ourselves.

John Flavel

#50. A bad heart and a slippery memory deprive men of the comfort of many mercies, and defraud God of the glory due for them.

John Flavel

#51. Thus, we may observe, it is usual with God to smite us in those very comforts which stole away too much of the love and delight of our souls from God; to cross us in those things from which we raised up too great expectations of comfort.

John Flavel

#52. 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

#53. It is a good sign that our troubles are sanctified to us when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God.

John Flavel

#54. 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

#55. 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

#56. 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

#57. If you neglect to instruct children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; if you will not teach them to pray, he will to curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.

John Flavel

#58. 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

#59. Where there is no want, there is usually much wantonness.

John Flavel

#60. There is more in one of their mercies to comfort them, than in all their troubles to deject them. All your losses are but as the loss of a farthing to a prince,

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#62. 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

#63. Sin had so shut up mercy from us, that had not Christ made an atonement by his death, we should never have obtained it to all eternity.

John Flavel

#64. My soul is of more value than ten thousand worlds.

John Flavel

#65. He has either strengthened your back to bear, or lightened your burden, or else opened an unexpected door of escape, according to promise (1 Corinthians 10:13), so that the evil which you feared did not come upon you.

John Flavel

#66. The less fear a person has, the more happiness he has - unless, of course, it is that fear which is his happiness and excellence.

John Flavel

#67. One morsel of God's provision, especially when it comes in unexpectedly, and upon prayer, when wants are most, will be more sweet

John Flavel

#68. They that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud.

John Flavel

#69. When our needs are permitted to grow to an extremity, and all visible hopes fail, then to have relief given wonderfully enhances the price of such a mercy

John Flavel

#70. 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!

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#72. Regrettably, many modern readers grow perplexed at the mere mention of the fear of God. They reject any notion that fear is to characterize the Christian's approach to God.

John Flavel

#73. Lord, here is my body; I am very grateful for it; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and welfare; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it.

John Flavel

#74. Observed duties maintain our credit; but secret duties maintain our life.

John Flavel

#75. To keep the heart then, is carefully to preserve it from sin which disorders it; and maintain that spiritual and gracious frame, which fits it for a life of communion with God.

John Flavel

#76. Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#78. The opening of your hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ is not a work done by any power of your own, but the arm of the Lord is revealed therein.

John Flavel

#79. Christ comes with kingly power, to rescue sinners, as a prey from the mouth of the terrible one.

John Flavel

#80. Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us.

John Flavel

#81. No doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

John Flavel

#82. He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.

John Flavel

#83. A hot iron, though blunt, will pierce sooner than a cold one, though sharper.

John Flavel

#84. That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#86. How often has providence convinced its observers, upon a sober recollection of the events of their lives, that if the Lord had left them to their own counsels they had as often been their own tormentors, if not executioners!

John Flavel

#87. Providences in themselves are not a perfect guide. They often puzzle and entangle our thoughts; but bring them to the Word, and your duty will be quickly manifested.

John Flavel

#88. Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul; He is the very Sabbath of the soul.

John Flavel

#89. It is my ignorance of God's design that makes me quarrel with him.

John Flavel

#90. As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.

John Flavel

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

John Flavel

#92. A cross without a Christ never did any man good.

John Flavel

#93. There is no sin in complaining to God, but much wickedness in complaining of him.

John Flavel

#94. It is a common thing for men to benumb their own arms, and make them as dead and useless by leaning too much upon them: so it is in a moral as well as a natural way: all the prudence and pains in the world avail nothing without God. So saith the Psalmist, in Psalm cxxvii. 2.

John Flavel

#95. 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

#96. O happy providences, however smart, that make the soul for ever afraid of sin!

John Flavel

#97. When God gives you comforts, it is your great evil not to observe His hand in them.

John Flavel

#98. Regeneration expresses those supernatural, divine, new qualities imparted by the Spirit to the soul, which are the principle of all holy action.

John Flavel

#99. Afflictions have the same use and end to our souls, that frosty weather hath upon those clothes that are laid and bleaching, they alter the hue and make them white.

John Flavel

#100. 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