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Archive for the ‘Vox Patrum’ Category

Robert Trail on 1 Cor. 15:45, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” The First Adam, however generative he was in the procreation of all mankind by the longsuffering of God, nevertheless only imparted temporal life, blighted by the curse. He gave life that was as good as dead. But the Second Adam was not so. While he took no wife and bore no physical seed before being “cut off out of the land of the living” (Isa. 53:8), He generated a world teeming with spiritual, indeed, eternal life! Let us circumcise the flesh, cutting off all confidence in man’s powers, relying wholly on Christ, the Second Adam.

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Now, O men, if ye will not be allured with the beauty and excellency of the princess, wisdom herself [Prov. 3:13-19], then, I pray you, look what follows her. That which now ye are pursuing after with much labour and pains, and all in vain too, is here in her train. Look how the comparison is stated. Christ Jesus would catch us with a holy guile, and, if it had success, O! it would be a blessed guile to us. Ye have large and airy apprehensions of temporal things, which ye call needful, and ye cannot behold eternal things. Ye know not the worth of this kingdom. Ye conceive that godliness is prejudicial unto you in this life, that the kingdom of grace will make you miserable here; and that ye cannot endure. Ah, be not mistaken, come and look again. If godliness itself will not allure you, if the kingdom itself will not weigh with you, then, I pray you, consider what an appendix, what a consectary these have. Consider that the sum is added to the principal, which ye so much seek after. But ye refuse the principal, the kingdom. Ye have not right thoughts of godliness, “for godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and that which is to come,” 1 Tim. iv. 8. Now, is not this “a faithful saying?” If ye believe it so to be, is it not “worthy of all acceptation?”

Hugh Binning

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You who are unconverted, if you do not give heed, know that He will not always speak to you. He will remove either His Word, His Spirit, or you, and then it will be too late. “To-day if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart” (Ps 95:7-8). You who are converted, know also that if you are not diligent in listening to Him, in continually beseeching Him, in expecting His answer, nor in following His counsel, He will remain silent, hide Himself more and more, and leave you in darkness. The more attentively and persistently you hear His instruction, however, the more He will reveal His secrets to you, and grant deeper insight into that which you may know already. His voice of instruction will be more enduring and efficacious within you. Therefore, “Hear attentively the noise of His voice, and the sound that goeth out of His mouth” (Job 37:2). The Lord Jesus says, “Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness” (Isa 55:2); “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors. For whoso findeth Me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord” (Prov 8:34-35). All of you who are conscious of your blindness and are desirous for spiritual light, come to this Prophet who can and will instruct you, in order that by His instruction you may make progress.

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“Therefore all the true Members [of the Church] should study Unity; This Truth of the Oneness of the Catholick Visible Church, being the Ground of all the Union and Communion in the Ordinances thereof. Cant. 6.9. My Dove, my Undefiled is but One, She is the only One of Her Mother. If the Church be One, Divisions and divided Communions in her must either inferr that this one Church is many, made up of Heterogeneous parts, or that the Church divided from is not apart of that one Church, and hath broken off from that which compacts the Body together.”

Alexander Shields (1661-1700)

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Whole doctrine catholicity | “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (Song 6:10)?

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“For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree” (Romans 11:24). This poem of Herbert beautifully and tenderly expresses the right attitude of the believing Gentiles toward the disinherited Jews, with Pauline longings for their final restoration by repentance and faith in their own, rejected Messiah.

1. scion: a young shoot or twig of a plant, especially one cut for grafting or rooting. 2. purloin: to steal. 3. sluice: a sliding gate or other device for controlling the flow of water, especially one in a lock gate.

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