Quote on looking onto Jesus

[Thomas_Goodwin]

"It is the sight of the mind that looks into the worth, use, and propriety of anything presented. The eye can see a thing, but not the worth of it; a beast look, on gold as well as a man, but the sight and knowledge of the worth of it is by the internal light of the mind; so the eye can see a thing but not the use of it; a child looks on a tool in the hand of a workman, but the sight and knowledge of the use of it, is only by a man of reason that hath internal light to judge of it: and so the eye can see a thing, but not the propriety of it; a beast looks on his pasture, but he likes it not because it is his, but because it is a pasture and well furnished. Now, we know that the worth, and use, and propriety of a thing, are the very cream of the things themselves, and this the eye of the mind conveys, and not the eye of the body."


-Isaac Ambrose


Misc Spurgeon Quotes


"

• We are not accepted anyhow else but “in the beloved.” Let me show you that this is the best way in the world to be accepted. Each of us know it is the only way; but even if there were another, it is the best way. Suppose we could be accepted in ourselves. Adam was while he was obedient — he was accepted in his own works. Ay; but how soon he fell! and then his acceptance fell too. He stood on his own feet, and therefore he soon fell to the ground. Suppose you and I had kept the law up till now. I think I hear you say, “Oh, I wish I had! I wish I could come before God as a perfectly righteous man.” O soul! thou wouldst not be half so safe as thou art now in Christ. But if I had no sin, yet I would ask that I might be in Christ, for I might have sin some day, and then down would go the goodly structure. For that which is built upon a fallible creature is built upon the sand; and if the structure had hitherto been without one rotten timber, yet, since the basis is the will of man— and that might change— damnation might shortly overtake us. After all, we had done better, surely, to stand in Christ, who cannot fall. Now, 1 know some professors, who seem to me to stand in their own experience, to be accepted in their own experience. At least, that is their apprehension. Just now they had such visits from Christ’s faith, such gleams of his love; and now they think God accepts them, for they feel so high, so heavenly-minded, so drawn above the earth! I have seen these same persons next day feel their souls cleave to the earth, and they have said, “Now, I am not accepted.” O that these beloved ones would but know that God never did accept them in their experience he accepted them in Christ; and he never can reject them till he rejects them in Christ, which cannot be, since he cannot reject Christ. I would that they would see that their “ups” make them no higher before God, and their “downs” make them no lower— that all their high joys do not exalt them, and all their low despondencies do not really depress them in their Father’s sight; but that they stand accepted in one who never alters, in one who is always the beloved of God, always perfect, always complete, always without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Blessed faith, that walks above experience! Joyous trust, that in the darkest nights still sings of heaven’s unclouded noon, and in the midst of blackness and vileness consciously felt, still boasts of pardon bought with blood, of righteousness complete and without flaw!"
  -Spurgeon

"I hope you all know that there can be no mixing of the two. If we are saved by grace, it cannot be by our own merits, but if we depend upon our own merits, then we cannot appeal to the grace of God, since the two things can never be mingled together. It must be all works or else all grace. Now, God's plan of salvation excludes all our works. "Not of works, lest any man should boast." It comes to us upon the footing of grace, pure grace alone. And this is God's plan, namely, that, inasmuch as we cannot be saved by our own obedience, we should be saved by Christ's obedience. Jesus, the Son of God, has appeared in the flesh, has lived a life of obedience to God's law, and in consequence of that obedience, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and our Saviour's life and death make up a complete keeping and honouring of that law which we have broken and dishonoured, and God's plan is this: "I cannot bless you for your own sakes, but I will bless you for his sake; and now, looking at you through him, I can bless you though you deserve it not; I can pass by your undeserving; I can blot out your sins like a cloud, and cast your iniquities into the depths of the sea through what he has done; you have no merits, but he has boundless merits; you are full of sin and must be punished, but he has been punished instead of you, and now I can deal with you." This is the language of God, put into human words, "I can deal with you upon terms of mercy through the merits of my dear Son.""
-Spurgeon