The composite character of the Christian community at Rome - the Jewish origin of many of its members on the one hand, and contact with heathenism on the other - had doubtless given rise to differences of opinion. Some there were who still retained their Jewish prejudices and ideas. They abstained from meats. They observed special days. They were inclined to judge harshly and even to look down upon those who did not think and act as they did (ver. 3). And, on the other hand, those who partook of all meats, and regarded all days as alike, were disposed to find fault with those who attached a religious significance to the partaking of food and the observing of days. The apostle here lays down some general principles which are of use in all such cases where differences of opinion arise about non-essentials.

I. THE CHRISTIAN'S DEPENDENCE. "None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living" (vers. 7-9). There is no such thing as absolute independence. The relation of each individual to Christ, dependence on him and responsibility to him, is here asserted.

1. We depend upon the Lord's death. In the cross is our hope of forgiveness, pardon, cleansing.

2. We depend upon the Lord's resurrection. In his resurrection is our hope and assurance of the life and immortality beyond. "Because I live, ye shall live also."

3. We depend upon the Lord's continual intercession. In his intercession is our hope and assurance of answered prayer.

4. We depend upon the Lord's continued gifts to us. The Lord's day; the Word of the Lord; the Lord's house; the Lord's Supper; - how much our spiritual life is dependent upon these precious blessings provided for us by our Lord and Master! "Whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."

5. This dependence upon Christ brings with it corresponding obligations. "Ye are not your own, for ye are bedight with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:20).

II. THE CHRISTIAN'S INDEPENDENCE. The independence of the Christian is the correlative of his dependence. He is dependent upon Christ, and therefore he is:

1. Independent of external circumstances. "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content." And again, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." Even death can bring no alarm to those who can say, "We are the Lord's;" for Christ is the Conqueror of death.

2. Independent of human criticism. "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him" (ver. 3); "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or faileth" (ver. 4); "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind" (ver. 5). Here the apostle asserts the great principle of liberty of conscience, and inculcates the great duty of charity and toleration. Alas! how often the principle and the duty have been forgotten in the Christian Church! Christian men have excommunicated one another and treated one another as enemies because they differed on some minor detail of doctrine, of government, or of worship.. Even the Protestant Churches, and Protestant Christians, one of whose distinctive principles is liberty of conscience, have sometimes failed to extend to others that toleration which they claim for themselves. "God alone is Lord of the conscience," says the Westminster Confession of Faith, "and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men." - C.H.I.

I. THE STRONG SHOULD NOT DESPISE THE WEAK BRETHREN.

1. Tenderness and sensitiveness of conscience is a quality as precious as it is rare.

2. The clearer light of the strong is due to God's special mercy and their superior advantages.

3. He who is good enough for Christ should not be rejected by man.

4. Possibly, for aught one could tell, their brother's prejudices might decrease, and he ultimately outshine the strongest of the strong in Christian usefulness.

II. THE WEAK SHOULD AVOID CENSORIOUSNESS.

1. Difference of opinion will ever exist upon minor questions. No two minds regard the same subject exactly alike. Two artists, looking at the same landscape under like circumstances, will behold it with different eyes, and will represent it, though truthfully, yet according to their own previous education and peculiar stamp of mind.

2. It is the office of God alone to judge, and we should be charitable to others, but severe on ourselves. A weak brother, in regarding his strong brother's conduct, was like a man beholding an object through a mist.

3. Supposing our brother to be somewhat mistaken in trivial points, yet God is willing to receive him; and shall we venture to excommunicate and unchurch him, or withdraw from his fellowship? Might not such conduct irritate his mind, stamp deeper his prejudices, and lead him to magnify the importance of these really subordinate and less essential questions on account of which he is despised, and thus neglect or depreciate fundamental truths? "Errors," writes John Scott, "like paper kites, are many times raised and kept up in men's minds by the incessant bluster of over-fierce opposition." Conclusion: The weak and the strong have their representatives in all ages of the Church. The former are the conservative, and the latter are the liberal elements. Both parties are necessary in the present order of things. They may be compared to the centripetal and centrifugal forces which keep the Church in its due orbit of practice.

(C. Nell, M.A.)

God hath received him. — Accepted him in Christ, adopted him into His family, approved of that which the weak brother condemned. Their conduct was pleasing to God because according to gospel truth and liberty, not from laxity or flesh pleasing, but from religious principle. Man often condemns when God receives, and vice versa. Believers therefore are to be temperate in judging as well as in living. God's views and conduct are to guide us —

1. In our judgment of things.

2. In our treatment of persons. The question in regard to a brother is, Does God receive him? The great question for ourselves is, Does God receive me?

(J. Robinson, D.D.)

I. THE PRACTICAL CONDEMNED.

1. Not all judgment.

2. But measuring and condemning others by our own standard.

3. This is exceedingly common.

II. THE EVIL OF IT.

1. It is impertinent, because beyond our province.

2. Presumptuous because it is to invade the prerogative of God.

3. Perilous, because God may justify whom we condemn, and the condemnation falls back on ourselves.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

He —

1. Challenges the offender.

2. Asserts His own prerogative.

3. Defends the right.

(J. Lyth, D.D.)

(text and ver. 15): —

1. A certain divine has said that "since Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter, English Protestantism has had no great casuists." Nor is this to be regretted. "It is safer to leave men to the guidance of those great and obvious moral laws, whose authority every pure and honest heart acknowledges." But as to what are those laws, the world has never been entirely agreed. On the one hand is the denial of all such moral laws. The nihilist and socialist agree in repudiating all moral restrictions. The utilitarian has his selfish statute of limitations to personal liberty. The Christian disciple finds the sum of obligation in one word — love.

2. We are now to consider Christian liberty, as Paul unfolds it. In doing so we are not to forget that "the great and obvious moral laws" of the Christian system are, like their Author, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," but that the scene and the conditions of their manifestation, in human conduct, are ever shifting, The open questions at Corinth and Rome in the first century touch us not at all, except as illustrations of a principle; while they may be the living questions of the hour in India and China.

I. LIBERTY IS NOT FREEDOM TO DO AS ONE PLEASES.

1. Nobody on earth enjoys such liberty. Liberty is limited by conscience, by the views of others, by our health, by lack of means, by lack of courage, by hereditary traits and disabilities. We cannot believe what we please, for we are limited by the laws of thought and evidence. We are limited in our conduct by society. No man lives to himself in the trades, the schools, or the professions. We cannot divorce liberty from law. This would be to bring in anarchy.

2. Strictly speaking, personal and Christian liberty are the same. What is morally binding upon a Christian man is, in a sense, binding upon everybody. What any man may rightly do as accountable to God, a Christian may do. It will always be the duty of every man to love God and his neighbour, and to put his liberty under the limitations of that reigning principle of love.

3. Christ bound this as a yoke upon the necks of His disciples, to draw this world out of the sloughs of selfishness up on to the table lands of righteousness, and brotherhood, and consequent peace. Some things are for a Christian man innocent and harmless. If he abstain in things indifferent, it is not because it is morally wrong to indulge, but out of deference to the conscience or scruples of others, or the possible peril to which his example might expose those not so strong. His Lord and Master "pleased not Himself." And "it is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master."

II. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY IS THE LIBERTY TO BE CHRISTLIKE. When a man becomes the disciple of Christ he advances into a higher realm of liberty than that of the merely ethical right; into the liberty, the self-sacrifice, and self-forgetfulness of love. To the man who has put on Christ this is the grandest liberty in earth or heaven. The one absolutely free man who ever walked the earth was Jesus. The truth makes other men free. He was the Truth, and so was Freedom itself. Saul of Tarsus becomes the slave of Christ and the child of liberty at the same moment. This slave of Christ was the freest man in Greece or Rome. To his great, strong nature, his skilled, dialectic mind, meats and drinks and special days were indifferent matters; every creature of God was good and to be received with thanksgiving. But all were not able to make their way through this tangled mass so easily. All could not so easily shako off the influence of the past.

III. THE LIBERTY TO BE CHRISTLIKE IS ALL THE LIBERTY WE HAVE. In this light —

1. If Christian brethren are disposed to stand upon their rights and do what they think themselves honestly entitled to do, Christian liberty gives to their brethren who differ from them no right of censorious judgment. So long as he is true to his convictions in his bolder, freer course, "he shall be holder up; for God is able to make him stand," and in condemning him, we may be violating the royal law of charity.

2. Christian liberty gives no warrant to any to follow the example of such at the expense of conscience. Though it be not immoral to enjoy it in and by itself, it is sinful in the man who thus, against his conscience, imitates the freer Christian.

3. The rights of Christian conscience are above the rights of Christian liberty. And so far is this from being a burdensome yoke, worn from love to Christ and men, it is a yoke easy and light and joyous.

4. The question arises, Are the weak always to give law to the strong? There are limits to self-abnegation. Weakness is a bad thing; and if a constant homage be paid to it, it tends to make others weak. I may think it right, for the sake of my own moral vigour and for that of those who are in danger of becoming morbidly scrupulous, to live the bolder freer life which my own conscience approves. We, then, that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves;... for even Christ pleased not Himself. It is not the weak giving law to the strong; it is the strong giving law to himself in accordance with eternal principles of heavenly love. Yea, it is Christ, the mighty, leading the way in self-abnegation, and we, who have the mind of Christ, following on as best we can. The infant in the cradle: Is that weak, puny thing always to give law to mother-love? Does infantile weakness give law to mother-love, or does mother-love, obedient to its own instinct, tie itself down to the cradle — the freest thing this side the love of Christ on this earth? But the mother ties herself down to infantile weakness only so long as she must, and for the sake of leading weakness up on to the heights of strength. And so let us do toward the weak everywhere.

(H. C. Haydn, D.D.)

I. THE CHRISTIAN IS THE SERVANT OF GOD. The highest designation he can wear. Worn by Christ, angels, the best of men. He is the servant of God.

1. By creation. He was made to serve — to glorify God.

2. By purchase, and at what a cost — the precious blood of Christ.

3. By willing consecration.

II. THE SERVANT OF GOD IS RESPONSIBLE TO HIS MASTER.

1. To Him supremely in indisputable duties. Christians are under obligations to their fellow-men in innumerable matters, but largely because their fellow-men in certain relationships are the representatives of God. We cannot pay our debts to God directly, but we conform to the Divine law of honesty by paying our creditors. The servant discharges her duties to God through diligent domestic service.

2. To Him only in doubtful matters. Upon matters about which there is no clear Divine pronouncement, and in conforming or nonconforming to which our only guide is conscience, our only referee is God. This is obvious from the very fact that men differ so widely about them, and from the fact, too, that so often variant opinions are right. The man who ate only herbs was right — they agreed with his constitution, and were not forbidden by Divine law. The man who ate meat was right — it nourished his body, and was allowed by the law of Christ. Circumstances, however, might make either harmful or wrong. Who was to be the judge here? Not another, for no man has a perfect knowledge of the whole of another man's circumstances. The obvious appeal therefore is to the omniscient God.(1) To God he stands. He must learn from God what is right in given circumstances. If he obeys he stands before God upright. And no man must impugn his moral rectitude.(2). If he disobeys, acts contrary to the promptings of conscience and the indications of providence, he falls. He has fallen from his moral rectitude. But this being a matter between a man and his Maker, it is criminal for his fellow-creature to interfere.

III. THIS MASTER WILL UPHOLD HIS SERVANT (Romans 16:25; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:24).

1. He has promised to do so.(1) To guide him by His counsel, so that he shall safely thread his way through stumbling-blocks over which he might fall.(2) To uphold him with His right hand when in slippery places where he might fall. The promise of God's supporting grace covers the whole of life.

2. This promise is very —(1) Needful. Were the Christian left to the instincts of an unenlightened conscience, or to the judgment of his fellow-mortals, he would be most unsafe. Hence the need of that infallible wisdom and almighty strength he has in God.(2) Encouraging. If the Lord is on our side we may be independent of man's censures, and have the comfort of His witness that we are in the right.(3) Admonitory. Beware, then, of uncharitable estimates. If the brother you condemn is approved of God, you impugn God's judgment. Hence the indignant, "Who art thou?" etc.Conclusion. In disputable matters.

1. Let each mind his own business.

2. Let each see that his business is pleasing to God.

(J. W. Burn.)

I knew man, in my youth, an elderly man, who was a great observer of human nature. I will not say of him, as it was said of Oliver Cromwell, that he could look through a man's skin right to his backbone — but he had a most shrewd knowledge of mankind. A young man used to converse with him, occasionally, on this very theme of human character; and, one day, after a long conversation upon it, the young man said, "Ah! well; there are all sorts of people in the world." "Nay." said the elder man, "there is one sort wanting." "What sort is that?" asked the young man eagerly. "The people," replied the elder man, "who mind their own business, and let other people's business alone."

(Thomas Cooper.)

A lady made a complaint to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia: "Your Majesty," said she, "my husband treats me badly." "That's none of my business," said the king. "But he speaks ill of you," said the lady. "That," said he, "is none of your business."

Paul, RomansRomeAbstains, Accepted, Approval, Condemn, Contempt, Despise, Doesn't, Eat, Eateth, Eating, Eats, Fault, God's, Judge, Judgment, Low, Nought, Opinion, Pass, Receive, Received, Regard, Takes, Welcomed1. Men may not condemn one another for disputable matters;
13. but must take heed that they give no offense in them;
15. which the apostle proves unlawful by many reasons.

Romans 14:3

     5961   superiority
     6603   acceptance, divine
     8106   assurance, nature of
     8800   prejudice

Romans 14:1-3

     4438   eating
     5946   sensitivity
     7025   church, unity
     8164   spirituality

Romans 14:1-4

     4532   vegetables
     5821   criticism, among believers
     6115   blame
     8724   doubt, dealing with

Romans 14:1-6

     8353   tolerance

Romans 14:1-10

     5010   conscience, matters of

Romans 14:1-13

     5897   judging others

Romans 14:1-18

     6662   freedom, abuse

Romans 14:1-23

     4478   meat

Romans 14:2-3

     8770   idolatry, in NT

July 25. "He that in These Things Serveth Christ is Acceptable to God" (Rom. xiv. 18).
"He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God" (Rom. xiv. 18). God can only use us while we are right. Satan cared far less for Peter's denial of his Master than for the use he made of it afterwards to destroy his faith. So Jesus said to him: "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." It was Peter's faith he attacked, and so it is our faith that Satan contests. "The trial of our faith is much more precious than gold that perisheth." Whatever else we let go let us hold steadfastly …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty-First Day. Holiness and Happiness.
The kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Ghost.'--Rom. xiv. 17. 'The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost.'--Acts xiii. 52. 'Then Nehemiah said, This day is holy unto the Lord: neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled the people, saying, Hold your peace; for the day is holy; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their way to make great mirth, because they had understood the words.'--Neh. viii. 10-12. The deep significance of …
Andrew Murray—Holy in Christ

December the Fifteenth what is My Tendency?
"Whether we live, we live unto...." --ROMANS xiv. 7-21. Unto what? In what direction are we living? Whither are we going? How do we complete the sentence? "We live unto money!" That is how many would be compelled to finish the record. Money is their goal, and their goal determines their tendency. "We live unto pleasure!" Such would be another popular company. "We live unto fame!" That would be the banner of another regiment. "We live unto ease!" Thus would men and women describe their …
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

The Limits of Liberty
'So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. 13. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way. 14. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. 15. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom …
Alexander Maclaren—Romans, Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V)

The Necessity of Actual Grace
In treating of the necessity of actual grace we must avoid two extremes. The first is that mere nature is absolutely incapable of doing any thing good. This error was held by the early Protestants and the followers of Baius and Jansenius. The second is that nature is able to perform supernatural acts by its own power. This was taught by the Pelagians and Semipelagians. Between these two extremes Catholic theology keeps the golden mean. It defends the capacity of human nature against Protestants and …
Joseph Pohle—Grace, Actual and Habitual

Joy in the Holy Ghost.
Romans 14:17.--For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. In this text we have the earthly revelation of the work of the Trinity. The Kingdom of God is righteousness; that represents the work of the Father. The foundations of His throne are justice and judgment. Then comes the work of the Son: He is our peace, our Shiloh, our rest. The Kingdom of God is peace; not only the peace of pardon for the past, but the peace of perfect assurance …
Andrew Murray—The Master's Indwelling

Of the Three Woe Trumpets.
There still remain three trumpets, the greatest and most grievous of all, and therefore discriminated from the former by the appellation of Woes. For after the conclusion of the fourth trumpet, "I saw and heard," says he, "an angel flying in the midst of heaven, and saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels, which are yet to sound." Also, c. ix. v. 12, and c. xi. v. 14. Doubtless, since the Christian …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse

Thus Much Will Suffice to have Treated on Behalf of True Continence against The...
26. Thus much will suffice to have treated on behalf of true Continence against the Manichees deceitfully continent, lest the fruitful and glorious labor of Continence, when it restrains and curbs the lowest part of us, that is, the body, from immoderate and unlawful pleasures, be believed not healthfully to chasten, but hostilely to persecute. Forsooth the body is indeed different from the nature of the soul, yet is it not alien from the nature of man: for the soul is not made up of body, but yet …
St. Augustine—On Continence

Letter xxxi (A. D. 1132) to the Abbot of a Certain Monastery at York, from which the Prior had Departed, Taking Several Religious with Him.
To the Abbot of a Certain Monastery at York, from Which the Prior Had Departed, Taking Several Religious with Him. [50] 1. You write to me from beyond the sea to ask of me advice which I should have preferred that you had sought from some other. I am held between two difficulties, for if I do not reply to you, you may take my silence for a sign of contempt; but if I do reply I cannot avoid danger, since whatever I reply I must of necessity either give scandal to some one or give to some other a security …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

September 29. "Call not Thou Common" (Acts x. 15).
"Call not thou common" (Acts x. 15). "There is nothing common of itself" (Rom. xiv. 14). We can bring Christ into common things as fully as into what we call religious services. Indeed, it is the highest and hardest application of Divine grace, to bring it down to the ordinary matters of life, and therefore God is far more honored in this than even in things that are more specially sacred. Therefore, in the twelfth chapter of Romans, which is the manual of practical consecration, just after the passage …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Treasure Christians have in the Gospel.
Text: 1 Corinthians 1, 4-9. 4 I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus; 5 that in everything ye were enriched in him, in all utterance and all knowledge; 6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: 7 so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; 8 who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye be unreprovable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, through whom ye were called …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

A Summary of the Christian Life. Of Self-Denial.
The divisions of the chapter are,--I. The rule which permits us not to go astray in the study of righteousness, requires two things, viz., that man, abandoning his own will, devote himself entirely to the service of God; whence it follows, that we must seek not our own things, but the things of God, sec. 1, 2. II. A description of this renovation or Christian life taken from the Epistle to Titus, and accurately explained under certain special heads, sec. 3 to end. 1. ALTHOUGH the Law of God contains …
Archpriest John Iliytch Sergieff—On the Christian Life

Further Journeying About Galilee.
^C Luke VIII. 1-3. ^c 1 And it came to pass soon afterwards [ i. e.,. soon after his visit to the Pharisee], that he went about through cities and villages [thus making a thorough circuit of the region of Galilee], preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God [John had preached repentance as a preparation for the kingdom; but Jesus now appears to have preached the kingdom itself, which was indeed to bring good tidings--Rom. xiv. 17 ], and with him the twelve [We here get a glimpse …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Perseverance Proved.
2. I REMARK, that God is able to preserve and keep the true saints from apostacy, in consistency with their liberty: 2 Tim. i. 12: "For the which cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless, I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Here the apostle expresses the fullest confidence in the ability of Christ to keep him: and indeed, as has been said, it is most manifest that the apostles expected …
Charles Grandison Finney—Systematic Theology

The Holy City; Or, the New Jerusalem:
WHEREIN ITS GOODLY LIGHT, WALLS, GATES, ANGELS, AND THE MANNER OF THEIR STANDING, ARE EXPOUNDED: ALSO HER LENGTH AND BREADTH, TOGETHER WITH THE GOLDEN MEASURING-REED EXPLAINED: AND THE GLORY OF ALL UNFOLDED. AS ALSO THE NUMEROUSNESS OF ITS INHABITANTS; AND WHAT THE TREE AND WATER OF LIFE ARE, BY WHICH THEY ARE SUSTAINED. 'Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.'-Psalm 87:3 'And the name of the city from that day shall be, THE LORD IS THERE.'-Ezekiel 48:35 London: Printed in the year 1665 …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Peaceable Principles and True: Or, a Brief Answer to Mr. D'Anver's and Mr. Paul's Books against My Confession of Faith, and Differences in Judgment About Baptism no Bar to Communion.
WHEREIN THEIR SCRIPTURELESS NOTIONS ARE OVERTHROWN, AND MY PEACEABLE PRINCIPLES STILL MAINTAINED. 'Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?'--Psalm 58:1 SIR, I have received and considered your short reply to my differences in judgment about water baptism no bar to communion; and observe, that you touch not the argument at all: but rather labour what you can, and beyond what you ought, to throw odiums upon your brother for reproving you for your error, …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Journey to Jerusalem. Ten Lepers. Concerning the Kingdom.
(Borders of Samaria and Galilee.) ^C Luke XVII. 11-37. ^c 11 And it came to pass, as they were on their way to Jerusalem, that he was passing along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. [If our chronology is correct, Jesus passed northward from Ephraim about forty miles, crossing Samaria (here mentioned first), and coming to the border of Galilee. He then turned eastward along that border down the wady Bethshean which separates the two provinces, and crossed the Jordan into Peræa, where we soon …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Of a Private Fast.
That we may rightly perform a private fast, four things are to be observed:--First, The author; Secondly, The time and occasion; Thirdly, The manner; Fourthly, The ends of private fasting. 1. Of the Author. The first that ordained fasting was God himself in paradise; and it was the first law that God made, in commanding Adam to abstain from eating the forbidden fruit. God would not pronounce nor write his law without fasting (Lev. xxiii), and in his law commands all his people to fast. So does our …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

The Torments of Giant Bad Feelings
THE TORMENTS OF GIANT BAD FEELINGS I am just a bundle of feelings. I never imagined one could have such a variety of them as I am now experiencing. Most of them are bad ones and I am greatly disturbed by them. Really, I doubt whether I am sanctified, on account of the feelings I have. Do sanctified people always feel joyful? I have heard that they do, and if it is true that they do, then I am not sanctified. Big doubts take up company with me every morning, and so long as I feel as I do I do not …
Robert Lee Berry—Adventures in the Land of Canaan

Letter xxi (Circa A. D. 1128) to the Abbot of S. John at Chartres
To the Abbot of S. John at Chartres Bernard dissuades him from resigning his charge, and undertaking a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem. 1. As regards the matters about which you were so good as to consult so humble a person as myself, I had at first determined not to reply. Not because I had any doubt what to say, but because it seemed to me unnecessary or even presumptuous to give counsel to a man of sense and wisdom. But considering that it usually happens that the greater number of persons of sense--or …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Epistle Lii. To Natalis, Bishop .
To Natalis, Bishop [1463] . Gregory to Natalis, Bishop of Salona. As though forgetting the tenour of former letters, I had determined to say nothing to your Blessedness but what should savour of sweetness: but, now that in your epistle you have recurred in the way of argumentation to preceding letters, I am once more compelled to say perhaps some things that I had rather not have said. For in defence of feasts your Fraternity mentions the feast of Abraham, in which by the testimony of Holy Scripture …
Saint Gregory the Great—the Epistles of Saint Gregory the Great

Li. Dining with a Pharisee, Jesus Denounces that Sect.
^C Luke XI. 37-54. ^c 37 Now as he spake, a Pharisee asketh him to dine with him: and he went in, and sat down to meat. [The repast to which Jesus was invited was a morning meal, usually eaten between ten and eleven o'clock. The principal meal of the day was eaten in the evening. Jesus dined with all classes, with publicans and Pharisees, with friends and enemies.] 38 And when the Pharisee saw it, he marvelled that he had not first bathed himself before dinner. [The Pharisee marveled at this because …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Death of the Righteous
'For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' Phil 1:1I. Paul was a great admirer of Christ. He desired to know nothing but Christ, and him crucified. I Cor 2:2. No medicine like the blood of Christ; and in the text, For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' I. For to me to live is Christ. We must understand Paul of a spiritual life. For to me to live is Christ, i.e.' Christ is my life; so Gregory of Nyssa; or thus, my life is made up of Christ. As a wicked man's life is made up of sin, …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

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