Coelebs In Search of a Wife

by Hannah More

"It is most true. But we do not meet in any of them with such a presumptuous faith as led them to rush into diseases on purpose to show their confidence in his power of healing them, neither are we to 'continue in sin that grace may abound.' You can not but observe, that the faith of the persons you mention was always accompanied with an earnest desire to get rid of their diseases. And it is worth remarking, that to the words, 'thy faith has made thee whole,' is added, 'sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.'"

"You can not persuade me that any neglect, or even sin of mine, can make void the covenant of God."

"Nothing can set side the covenant of God, which is sure and steadfast. But as for him who lives in the allowed practice of any sin, it is clear that he has no part nor lot in the matter. It is clear that he is not one of those whom God has taken into the covenant. That God will keep his word is most certain, but such a one does not appear to be the person to whom that word is addressed. God as much designed that you should apply the faculties, the power, and the will he has given you, to a life of holiness, as he meant when he gave you legs, hands, and eyes, that you should walk, work, and see. His grace is not intended to exclude the use of his gifts but to perfect, exalt, and ennoble them."

"I can produce a multitude of texts to prove that Christ has done every thing, and of course has left nothing for me to do, but to believe on him."

"Let us take the general tenor and spirit of Scripture, and neither pack single texts together, detached from the connection in which they stand; nor be so unreasonable as to squeeze all the doctrines of Christianity out of every single text, which perhaps, was only meant to inculcate one individual principle. How consistently are the great leading doctrines of faith and holiness balanced and reconciled in every part of the Bible! If ever I have been in danger of resting on a mere dead faith, by one of those texts on which you exclusively build; in the very next sentence, perhaps, I am aroused to active virtue, by some lively example, or absolute command. If again I am ever in danger, as you say, of sinking the ship with my proud duties, the next passage calls me to order, by some powerful injunction to renounce all confidence in my miserable defective virtues, and to put my whole trust in Christ. By thus assimilating the Creed with the Commandment, the Bible becomes its own interpreter, and perfect harmony is the result. Allow me also to remark, that this invariable rule of exhibiting the doctrines of Scripture in their due proportion, order, and relative connection, is one of the leading excellences in the service of our Church. While no doctrine is neglected or undervalued, none is disproportionately magnified, at the expense of the others. There is neither omission, undue prominence, nor exaggeration. There is complete symmetry and correct proportion."

"I assert that we are free by the gospel from the condemnation of the law."

"But where do you find that we are free from the obligation of obeying it? For my own part, I do not combine the doctrine of grace, to which I most cordially assent, with any doctrine which practically denies the voluntary agency of man. Nor, in my adoption of the belief of that voluntary agency, do I, in the remotest degree, presume to abridge the sovereignty of God. I adopt none of the metaphysical subtilties, none of the abstruse niceties of any party, nor do I imitate either in the reprobation of the other, firmly believing that heaven is peopled with the humble and the conscientious out of every class of real Christians."

"Still I insist that if Christ has delivered me from sin, sin can do me no harm."

"My dear Mr. Tyrrel, if the king of your country were a mighty general, and had delivered the land from some powerful enemy, would it show your sense of the obligation, or your allegiance as a subject, if you were to join the enemy he had defeated? By so doing, though the country might be saved, you would ruin yourself. Let us not then live in confederacy with sin, the power of which, indeed, our Redeemer has broken, but both the power and guilt of which the individual is still at liberty to incur."

"Stanley, I remember when you thought the gospel was all in all."