Sundays with Jean

Dave and i are almost caught up with our reading after our travels! Here are a few favorite quotes from our recent reading.

Some of my favorite Augustine quotes:

"O man! Learn by precept what you ought to do; learn by rebuke that it is by your own fault that you have it not; learn by prayer whence you may receive what you have to desire."

To will is of nature, but to will aright is of grace.
(1.5.14)

Unless God helps, we shall be able neither to conquer nor to fight.
(1.5.14)

And some clear Calvin:

If anyone wants a clearer answer, here it is: God works in his elect in two ways: within, through his Spirit; without, through his Word.

...God's majesty is too lofty to be attained by mortal men, who are like grubs crowling upon the earth.
(1.6.4)

For the Lord then freely bestows all things upon us so as to add to the full measure of his kindness this gift also: that not rejecting our imperfect obedience, but rather supplying what is lacking to complete it, he causes us to receive the benefit of the promises of the law as if we had fulfilled their condition.
(1.7.4)

For if by the law coventousness is not dragged from its lair, it destroys wretched man so secretly that he does not even feel its fatal stab.
(2.7.6)

This means that, dismissing the stupid opinion of their own strength, they come to realize that they stand and are upheld by God's hand alone; that, naked and empty-handed, they flee to his mercy, repose entirely in it, hide deep within it, and seize upon it alone for righteousness and merit.
(1.7.8)

Now, the law has the power to exhort believers. This is not a power to bind their consciences with a curse, but one to shake off their sluggishness, by repeatedly urging them, and to pinch them awake to their imperfections.
(1.7.14)