Inspirational Quotes by George Burder

“for as gospel gifts are useless without attending unto gospel institutions, so gospel institutions are found to be fruitless and unsatisfactory without the attaining and exercising of gospel gifts.”

“Faith keeps the soul at a holy distance from these infinite depths of the divine wisdom, where it profits more by reverence and holy fear than any can do by their utmost attempt to draw nigh unto that inaccessible light wherein these glories of the divine nature do dwell.”

“Be it so, therefore, that these gifts we intend are not in themselves saving graces, yet are they not to be despised; for they are, as we shall show, the “powers of the world to come,” by means whereof the kingdom of Christ is preserved, carried on, and propagated in the world.”

“It is to be feared that the most of us know not how much of glory may be in present grace, nor how much of heaven may be attained in holiness on the earth.”

“And it will one day appear that there is more glory, more excellency, in giving one poor minister unto a congregation, by furnishing him with spiritual gifts for the discharge of his duty, than in the pompous instalment of a thousand popes, cardinals, or metropolitans.”

“Wherefore, we do not nor ought only to believe the Scripture as highly probable, or with a moral persuasion and assurance, built upon arguments absolutely fallible and human; for if this be the formal reason of faith, namely, the veracity and authority of God, if we believe not with faith divine and supernatural, we believe not at all.”

“The Holy Spirit is said to be the divine, eternal, mutual love of the Father and the Son.”

“He that would be like unto God must be sure to love him, or all other endeavours to that purpose will be in vain; and he that loves God sincerely will be like him.”

“And this gives us a general rule, that the anointing with material oil under the Old Testament did prefigure and represent the effusion of the Spirit under the New, which now answers all the ends of those typical institutions.”

“This is the analogy that is between these two states: In the state of nature, the principle of sin, or the flesh, is predominant and bears rule in the soul; but there is a light remaining in the mind, and a judgment in the conscience, which, being heightened with instructions and convictions, do continually oppose it, and condemn sin both before and after its commission. In them that are regenerate, it is the principle of grace and holiness that is predominant and beareth rule; but there is in them still a principle of lust and sin, which rebels against the rule of grace, much in the proportion that light and convictions rebel against the rule of sin in the unregenerate: for as they hinder men from doing many evils which their ruling principle of sin strongly inclines them unto, and put them on many duties that it likes not, so do these on the other side in them that are regenerate; they hinder them from doing many good things which their ruling principle inclines unto, and carry them into many evils which it doth abhor.”

“And, indeed, whereas (as our Saviour tells us) they are things which arise from and come out of the heart that defile us, there is no greater nor more forcible motive to contend against all the defiling actings of sin, which is our mortification, than this, that by the neglect hereof the temple of the Spirit will be defiled, which we are commanded to watch against, under the severe commination of being destroyed for our neglect therein.”

“Every approach unto God by ardent love and delight is transfiguring. And it acts itself continually by,—(1.) Contemplation; (2.) Admiration; and, (3.) Delight in obedience.”

“Our unction, therefore, is the communication of the Holy Spirit, and nothing else.”

“But where this Spirit of liberty and boldness is, the heart is enlarged with a true, genuine openness and readiness to express all its concerns unto God as a child unto its father.”

“Nothing less than the entire renovation of the image of God in our souls will constitute us evangelically holy. No series of obediential actings, no observance of religious duties, no attendance unto actions amongst men as morally virtuous and useful, how exact soever they may be, or how constant soever we may be unto them, will ever render us lovely or holy in the sight of God, unless they all proceed from the renovation of the image of God in us, or that habitual principle of spiritual life and power which renders us conformable unto him.”

“Wherefore, this contemplative devotion, wherein, as it is pretended, the soul is ecstasied into an advance of the will and affections above all the actings of the mind or understanding, hath no one property of prayer, as the nature of it is manifest in the light of nature and common agreement of mankind. Prayer without an actual acknowledgment of God in all his holy excellencies, and the actings of faith in fear, love, confidence, and gratitude, is a monster in nature, or a by-blow of imagination, which hath no existence in rerum natura.”

“That profession which renders a church visible according to the mind of Christ, is the orderly exercise of the spiritual gifts bestowed on it, in a conversation evidencing the invisible principle of saving grace.”

“that shall be the truth with them, and nothing else. Unto persons whose minds are wholly vitiated with the leaven of this corrupt affection, there is not a line in the Scripture whose sense can be truly and clearly represented; all appears in the colour and figure that their prejudices frame in their minds.”

“The anointing, then, of believers with the Spirit consists in the collation of him upon them to this end, that he may graciously instruct them in the truths of the gospel by the saving illumination of their minds, causing their souls firmly to cleave unto them with joy and delight, and transforming them in the whole inward man into the image and likeness of it.”

“But if men will not forego all pre-imbibed opinions, prejudices, and conceptions of mind, however rivetted into them by traditions, custom, veneration of elders, and secular advantages, to hearken unto and receive whatever he shall speak unto them, and that with a humble, lowly frame of heart, they will never learn the truth, nor attain a “full assurance of understanding” in the mysteries of God.”