Puritan Nuggets of Gold # 53

The Lord's Supper

The Lord's supper is memorative, and so it has the nature and use of a pledge or token of live, left by a dying to a dear surviving friend. It is like a ring plucked off from Christ's finger, or a bracelet from His arm, or rather His picture from His breast, delivered to us with such words as these: "As oft as you look on this, remember Me; let this help to keep Me alive in your remembrance when I am gone, and out of sight. (John Flavel)

Nowhere is God so near to man as in Jesus Christ: and nowhere is Christ so familiarly represented to us as in this holy sacrament. (Richard Baxter)

He has left us this dark glass, wherein we may see His face till He return with a full glory, and is it an affection to Him never to look upon His picture, the medal of Himself, wherein He has engraven the tracks of His dying love; all that He did, all that He purchased, all His fullness, all His treasures ...? Well, but we may remember Christ other ways without this ceremony? We may, but do we? (Stephen Charnock)

If it be a token of Divine goodness to appoint it, it is no sign of our estimation of Divine goodness to neglect it. (Stephen Charnock)

Love

Love is the queen of graces; it outshines all the others, as the sun the lesser planets. (Thomas Watson)

Love is the jewel of human nature which commands a valuation wherever it is found. (John Owen)

Love is not only full of benevolence, but beneficence. Love which enlarges the heart, never straitens the hand. (Thomas Watson)

Love to God is armor of proof against error. For want of hearts full of love, men have heads full of error; unholy opinions are for want of holy affections. (Thomas Watson)

Christ came not to possess our brains with some cold opinions, that send down a freezing and benumbing influence into our hearts. Christ was a master of the life, not of the school; and he is the best Christian whose heart beats with the purest pulse towards heaven, not he whose head spins the finest cobwebs. (Ralph Cudworth)

If my respects to my Saviour be for the loaves and fishes, my heart is carried away with those baskets of fragments; but, if I can love God for His goodness' sake, this love shall out-last time, and over-match death. (Joseph Hall)

Love is the only thing in which we can retaliate with God. If God be angry with us, we must not be angry again; if He chide us, we must not chide Him again; but if God loves us, we must love Him again. There is nothing in which we can answer God again, but love. We must not give Him word for word, but we must give Him love for love. (Thomas Watson)

"We love Him because He first loved us." Love is like an echo, it returneth what it receiveth. (Thomas Manton)

We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at His unspeakable love. (John Owen)