From God's Way of Peace, by Horatius Bonar
Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ will do everything for us; believing in our own faith, or trusting in our own trust, will do nothing.
He is too loving to say anything needlessly severe; too true to say anything untrue; nor can he have any motive to misrepresent us; for he loves to tell of the good, not of the evil, that may be found in any of the works of his hands.
Election has helped many a soul to heaven; but never yet hindered one.
The conscience is satisfied. It feels that God’s grace is righteous grace, that his love is holy love. There it rests.
Faith does not spring out of feeling, but feeling out of faith.
The gospel is not a list of duties to be performed, or feelings to be produced, or frames which we are to pray ourselves into, in order to make God think well of us, and in order to fit us for receiving pardon.
For Christ is not a helper, but a Saviour.
We might as well extract water from the desert sands as peace from our own act of faith.
That which makes it safe for you to draw near to God, and right for God to receive you, must be something altogether away from and independent of yourself; for, yourself and everything pertaining to yourself God has already condemned; and no condemned thing can give you any warrant for going to him, or hoping for acceptance.
If Christ be not the Substitute, he is nothing to the sinner.
No confidence in the flesh must be our motto, as it is the foundation of God’s gospel.
The sinner’s peace with God is not to come from his own character. No grounds of peace or elements of reconciliation can be extracted from himself, either directly or indirectly.
Love led him down to the cradle; love led him up to the cross!
You must go to your knees, believing that God is willing, or that he is not willing, to bless you. In the latter case, you cannot expect any answer or blessing.
Unbelief, then, is the belief of a lie and the rejection of the truth.
In all unbelief there are these two things, - a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God. So long as these two things exist, it is impossible for an inquirer to find rest.
Each of these words of grace is like a star sparkling in the round, blue sky above us; or like a well of water pouring out its freshness amid desert rocks and sands.
Your strength, as well as your righteousness, is in another; yet, while you admit the former, you deny the latter.
Believing is not a work, but a ceasing from work.
God’s testimony concerning man is, that he is a sinner.
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