Six Epistles on the Spiritual Manifestation of the Son of God Pastoral and Familiar Epistles. the letters of Paul; after devoting the latter part of his life to the study of the Bible.
FLETCHER
Those who consider the different nature of the words three and one used by St. The words of Phlegon are as follows:- “In the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad there was the greatest eclipse of the sun that had ever been seen.
A DREADFUL PHENOMENON,
DREADFUL PHENOMENON
The bed of the river was filled up for two hundred and ninety meters. From the stony bed of the river to the highest ravine the soil (a few feet below the surface) is exactly of the same stony nature. The natural condition of the earth throws no light on the spiritual condition of its inhabitants.
This country would have been submerged and the destruction could have affected the entire western part of the kingdom. How quickly the Lord of the harvest could plow the whole earth with the same instrument of destruction. Will you be troubled by nothing but the decline of the market, and changes in the ministry, or in fashion.
May we not learn from them “how transgressors will be cut off from the earth?” But as you leave the newly formed mountains you pass through heaps of ruins to the old bank of the Severn. Flee from the deceitfulness of the world, the flesh and the devil, and from your own evil hearts.
THE NEW BIRTH
A DISCOURSE,
THE REV. JOHN FLETCHER
That he who is the friend of the world, is the enemy of God; or with St. He tastes the good word of God and the powers of the world to come." He feels the "peace that passes all understanding, the joy of the Holy Spirit and the love of God that has been poured into his heart".
And was I not born again of water and of the Holy Spirit in my baptism?”. Whether, like Samuel, you have walked in the way of the Lord from your childhood, or like the saint, he declares that your righteousness, which does not surpass that of the Pharisees, will never lead you into the kingdom of God.
It is the abode of the mighty God!” Do you inwardly feed on the bread of angels.
State of the natural man
You see the great importance of the subject and that it requires your full attention. Paul says in the text: "He does not accept what is from the Spirit of God, for it is foolishness to him." Such is the power of afflictions that they make fallen man know himself and make him know that he lacks affection and love for God.
Is he like one of the sons of men, that he would break the most solemn declarations of his word. Will you become true Christians, the members of the Lord Jesus, the temples of the Holy Spirit. PAUL says in his letter to the Romans that "he is not a Jew outwardly, but he who is inwardly," by the circumcision of the heart.
In this regard, Christ says that true Christians are born of the Spirit; and St.
These and many other passages of the Old Testament should make us think that no sincere Jew can be alien to the doctrine of the new birth. But to enter his kingdom, which is spiritual, he must be born of water and the Holy Spirit, he must have a spiritual birth, be born of imperishable seed, and become an adopted son of God. Hear the word of the Lord: All flesh has corrupted its way on earth. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "I was born in sin," says David, "and in iniquity my mother conceived me." St.
And didn't our stubbornness and unbelief in God's word cause some of us to grumble about the seriousness of the Lord's teaching; while others may still flatter themselves with the hope of salvation without experiencing the new birth. Whether the great change was made at your baptism or at any other time, it matters not; you are a living member of Christ and an heir of the kingdom of heaven. Then you must be born again, just like any other person, because the word of God testifies to you that your insides are very evil, that your heart is full of love for the world and a thousand foolish things. and harmful desires; in short, you are alive to things on earth; and sleepy, stupid, and dead to the things of God.
Peter says, that the "baptism that saves us is not the outward washing of the body, but the answer of a good conscience, sprinkled with the blood of Jesus in regeneration?" And not St.
Examine the records of your own conscience, for God searches them, and ask earnestly whether you have not sinned against God. Does not your conscience condemn you for at least one violation of the law? And tell me, my fellow creatures, is it a trifle that you have assumed to expose the authority of the God of heaven and to transgress His law, even if through mere carelessness and inattention?
Why did you not, so to speak, spread all the sails of your soul to catch that heavenly spirit. Will you fly in the face of God and your conscience, so openly as to deny one of the charges of rebellion, yea, of aggravated rebellion, I have advanced against you. He that is often reproved," says he again, "stiffens his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without remedy;" and shall the God of truth break his word, and begin a liar, not drawing out your soul to lukewarm from his mouth, not cutting off such a useless servant, such a rebellious subject as you are to him, if quick conversion does not make him sheathe the sword of his vengeance.
Yea, because I cried, (says God himself), "and ye refused, and desired none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity, I will laugh at your fear when it comes." And will you not yet receive the warning, will you utterly reject the first exhortation of our Church, will you continue to wear and disfigure your sins before the face of almighty God.
SERMON VIII.-Value of wisdom in spiritual things
Therefore, overcome with holy sorrow, he raised his eyes to heaven and expressed, in the words of the text, the thoughts of his bleeding heart: “Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they thought of their last end ! ". Let us unite, then, to pray over them in the words of the text: "Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they thought of their last end!". Whoever you are, sinner, whether young or old, rich or poor, in the name of God I call you to wake up to knowledge.
Thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” John, in the chapter from which the text is taken, gives us a singular account of the sermon which led our Lord's disciples to murmur and depart from it. Shall we go to the writings of the dead, to books of piety and devotion, or to the Scriptures themselves?
Paul from the Holy Bible, we can disagree with Peter in the text and instead of saying with him: “Lord, to whom shall we go.
But oh, do not follow a crowd on the broad road; choose rather with Moses to endure tribulation and reproach with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures and smiles of the world for a time. Instead of wondering about the love of the Lord, in making it to them, they do not consider it. These people who keep in mind Christ, and hope that they already have him, exclude him from the future, and therefore reject him in reality.
Whence that Christian axiom which sounds like blasphemy in the ears of every discontented sinner, but which will stand as long as the Gospel stands: one sin will forever curse the best liver, unless it comes to Jesus Christ that you may have life and be born again of the Spirit. Capernaum was a city where our blessed Lord often invited the people to come to him for life, both by his preaching and his miracles: but it was then as it is now, they rejected the invitation. The inhabitants of Sodom, he says, "sinned against their nature and blood; while unbelievers sin against the grace and blood of the Son of God."
He who believes, he who comes to the Son to have life, will be saved; he who does not believe, he who does not come to the Son for spiritual life, for a new birth of the Spirit, will be cursed", Mark XVI.
Will the Lord's indignation fall upon prayerless families among the heathen, and will it pass over the nominally Christian but prayerless family to which you belong? O repent and be converted; turn and live; For why should you fall into the hands of the living God, and know Him as a consuming fire to the uninitiated? The only temptation to do so is the devilish spirit of the wicked man, and the hideous pride he cherishes in cutting a figure among the children of Belial.
Well, but the threat of the text does not light on you on another account. Did they ever vow, as you did, to renounce the devil and all the sinful lusts of the flesh? Then he said to me: This is the curse that goes out over the whole earth; for each.
If at any time he speaks of the evil he has in his neighbor, it is out of love and compassion, not out of malice or envy.
