18 Ralph Erskine Quotes

It is possible for you to do all things through Christ strengthening you, even to overleap the highest walls, to break bows of steel in pieces, and wade through the deepest fords in your way.

Faith, without trouble or fighting, is a suspicious faith; for true faith is a fighting, wrestling faith.

If you look at God with the eye of the lawyer, the least sin makes you ineligible for mercy; but if you look at him in Christ, or with an evangelical eye, the greatest sinner may receive mercy; yes, the sense of unworthiness makes a man the more receptive.

God's justice indeed must be satisfied; and there is no way in the world to give satisfaction to God, but by believing in Christ.

I suppose many do not understand themselves, when they say they want assurance; for what better assurance would you have than the word of God? If you have his word, and take his word, you need no better assurance.

And though the assurance of sense be the sweetest, yet the assurance of faith is the surest assurance; for what you get in hand from God you may soon lose the benefit and comfort of it; but what you have upon bond in the promise, is still secure.

The least sin is unpardonable without this obedience and righteousness of Christ; and the greatest is pardonable by it.

Legal obedience hath the evil of blasphemy in it. It reproaches the righteousness of Christ, as if it were not sufficient, as if his atonement were not perfect, as if his satisfaction were not full, as if his obedience were not perfect, unless it be patched up with the rags of man's own righteousness.

His purpose of grace in saving some does not say that he is willing to destroy any; it only says that, as he is not willing that any should perish, so he is resolved that all shall not get leave to destroy themselves; as all would do, if he did not catch hold of some, and pluck them as brands out of the burning fire, and his doing so says that none are destroyed by him, unless they destroy themselves.

The law breaks the hard heart, but the gospel melts it. A stone duly broken may be still a hard stone; but the gospel melts.

The hypocrite's joy destroys his sorrow; his faith and false confidence destroys and excludes his repentance; his fear destroys his love; and his pretended love to God destroys his fear of him.

Faith in a hearer relates to faithfulness in a speaker, and credits the word spoken.

It is a great sin to think any sin little; but it is a greater sin to think the righteousness of Christ is not above all sin.

Our disobedience is the disobedience of man; but Christ's obedience is the obedience of God: therefore, our believing in Christ doth please God better than if we had continued in innocency, and never sinned.

It is a proud spirit that will not let grace be exalted, but puts self, in the throne of Christ, and his righteousness. It is a filthy and abominable spirit, and pollutes the man more and more: and God abhors it, as that which contradicts his most glorious plot.

If your former refusals of Christ have not yet been malicious and deceitful, but rather temerarious and inadvertent, which though a grievous sin, yet not unpardonable: and now, since Christ does not yet exclude you from the gospel offer, why will you exclude yourselves?

Here is a cord of love let down, and the upper end of it is fastened to Christ's heart, and the lower end of it hanging down the length of your hearts. And, O! shall not Christ's heart and yours be knit together this day? Here is a cord to bind His heart to your heart, and your heart to His heart.

Faith acts upon Christ for justification, as he is a Jesus, or by receiving him as a Jesus; faith acts upon Christ for sanctification, as he is a Lord, or by receiving him as Lord.