Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 38

Grace

For what is grace but the beams of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness. (Richard Sibbs)

"Grace" is more than mercy and love, it super adds to them. It denotes, not simply love, but the love of a sovereign, transcendly superior, one that may do what he will, that may wholly choose whether he will love or no. There may be love between equals, and an inferior may love a superior; but love in a superior, and so superior as he may do what he will, in such a one love is called grace: and therefore grace is attributed to princes; they are said to be gracious to their subjects, whereas subjects cannot be gracious to princes. Now God, who is an infinite Sovereign, who might have chosen whether ever He would love us or no, for Him to love is, this is grace. (Thomas Goodwin)

It argues more grace to grieve for the sins of others than for our own. We may grieve for our own sins out of fear of hell, but to grieve for the sins of others is from a principle of love to God. (Thomas Watson)

Grace does not pluck up by the roots and wholly destroy the natural passions of the mind, because they are distempered by sin. That were an extreme remedy, to cure by killing, and to heal by cutting off. No; but it corrects the distemper in them. It dries not up the main stream of love, bu purifies it from the mud it is full of in its wrong course, or calls it to its right channel, by which it may run into happiness, and empty itself in the ocean of goodness. (Robert Leighton)

It is a rule of divinity, that grace takes not away nature; that is, grace comes not to take away a man's affections, but to take them up. (William Fenner)

Grace is young glory. (Alexander Peden)

The Kingdom of grace is nothing but the beginning of the Kingdom of glory; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the flower; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian; the Kingdom of grace is glory militant, and the Kingdom of glory is grace triumphant. The Kingdom of grace leads to the Kingdom of glory. (Thomas Watson)

Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant. (Thomas Brooks)

It is a greater work of God to bring men to grace, than being in the state of grace, to bring them to glory; because sin is far more distant from grace than grace is from glory. (John Trapp)

The friends of free-will are the enemies of free-grace. (John Trapp)

There is no reason to be given for grace but grace. (Ralph Venning)

Growth in grace doth not always consist in doing of other works for the kind, but in doing the same works over and over again better than before. (Thomas Bridge)

Young Christians perform more duties, and withal spoil more duties; young carpenters make many chips. (But the more spiritual your performances grow, the more fruit there is to be esteemed.) It is not the bigness of the fruit, or juiciness of them, for then crabs were better than apples, but the relish it is that gives the commendation. (Thomas Goodwin)

The growth of grace is the best evidence of the truth of it; things that have no life will not grow. (Thomas Watson)

All grace grows as Love to the Word of God grows. (Philip Henry)

The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes. (Thomas Watson)

Weak grace may do for God, but it must be strong grace that will die for God. (William Secker)