John Flavel Providence Quotes

Providence is wiser than you, and you may be confident it has suited all things better to your eternal good than you could do had you been left to your own option.

There is not a greater discovery of pride in the world than in the contests of our wills with the will of God.

Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.

The Providence of God is like Hebrew words - it can be read only backwards.

One word of God can do more than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul.

Two things destroy the peace and tranquility of our lives; our bewailing past disappointments, or fearing future ones.

Every man loves the mercies of God, but a saint loves the God of his mercies. The mercies of God, as they are the fuel of a wicked man's lusts, so they are fuel to maintain a good man's love to God; not that their love to God is grounded upon these external benefits.

A bad heart and a slippery memory deprive men of the comfort of many mercies, and defraud God of the glory due for them.

That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.

It is a good sign that our troubles are sanctified to us when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God.

There is more in one of their mercies to comfort them, than in all their troubles to deject them. All your losses are but as the loss of a farthing to a prince,

The providences of God may be observed to conduce to our holiness, not only by preventing sin, that we may not fall into it; but also by purging our sins when we are fallen into them. ‘By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin’ (Isaiah 27:9).

The strength of our unmortified corruption shows itself in our pride and the swelling vanity of our hearts when we have a name and esteem among men. When we are applauded and honoured, when we are admired for any gift or excellence that is in us, this draws forth the pride of the heart and shows the vanity that is in it.

It was John Flavel who said to his congregation in England, some three hundred years ago, “Some providences of God, like Hebrew letters, are best understood backwards.

A scrap of paper, accidentally coming to view, has been used as an occasion of conversion. This was the case of a minister in Wales, who had two livings, but took little care of either. Being at a fair he bought something at a pedlar's stall, and tore off a leaf of Mr Perkins' Catechism to wrap it in, and reading a line or two in it, God sent it home so as it did the work.

Do not worry your hearts with sinful cares. 'Behold the fowls of the air' (Matthew 6:26), says Christ; not the fowls at the door that are daily fed by hand, but those of the air, that do not know where the next meal is coming from; and yet God provides for them. Remember your relation to Christ, and His engagements by promise to you, and by these things work your hearts to satisfaction and contentment with all the allotments of Providence.

is a greater mercy to descend from praying parents, than from nobles. See Job’s pious practice, Job i. 5.

Be not so intent upon your particular callings as to make them interfere with your general calling. Beware you lose not your God in the crowd and hurry of earthly business. Mind that solemn warning, “But they that will be rich, fall into temptation, and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition,

One morsel of God’s provision, especially when it comes in unexpectedly, and upon prayer, when wants are most, will be more sweet

O what a difference we have seen between our afflictions at our first meeting with them, and our parting from them! We have entertained them with sighs and tears but parted from them with joy, blessing God for them, as the happy instruments of our good. Thus our fears and sorrows are turned into praises and songs of thanksgiving.

3. Improve relations to the end Providence designed them. Walk together as coheirs of the grace of life; study to be mutual blessings to each other; so walk in your relations, that the parting day may be sweet. Death will shortly break up the family; and then, nothing but the sense of duty discharged, or the neglects pardoned, will give comfort.

Some poor creatures are engaged in callings that eat up their time and strength, and make their lives very uncomfortable to them: they have not only spending and wasting employments in the world, but such as allow little or no time for their general calling; and yet all this doth but keep them and theirs alive.

in what manner we are to reflect upon the performances of Providence for us. And certainly, it is not every slight and transient glance, nor every cold, historical, unaffecting rehearsal or recognition of His providences towards you that will pass with God for a discharge of this great duty.

Providences in themselves are not a perfect guide. They often puzzle and entangle our thoughts; but bring them to the Word, and your duty will be quickly manifested.

That Providence has a special hand in our marriage is evident both from Scripture assertions and the acknowledgments of holy men, who in that great event of their lives have still owned and acknowledged the directing hand of Providence. Take an instance of both. The Scripture plainly asserts the dominion of Providence over this affair: 'A prudent wife is from the LORD' (Proverbs 19:14). 'Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD' (Proverbs 18:22). So for children: 'Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD; and the fruit of the womb is his reward' (Psalm 127:3).

Outward things are promiscuously dispensed, and no man’s spiritual estate is discernible by the view of his temporal. When God draws the sword, it may “cut off the righteous as well as the wicked,

Thus, we may observe, it is usual with God to smite us in those very comforts which stole away too much of the love and delight of our souls from God; to cross us in those things from which we raised up too great expectations of comfort.

O, what quietness will this breed! I see my God will not lose my heart, if a rod can prevent it; he had rather hear me groan here, than howl hereafter; his love is judicious, not fond; he consults my good, rather than my ease.

It is true, there have been some plunges and difficulties you have met with, wherein you could see no way of escape, but concluded you must perish in them; difficulties that have staggered your faith in the promises, and made you doubt whether the Fountain of all-sufficiency would let out itself for your relief; yea, such difficulties as have tempted you to murmuring and impatience, and thereby provoked the Lord to forsake you in your straits; but yet you see he did not. He hath either strengthened your back to bear, or lightened your burden, or opened an unexpected door of escape, according to that promise, 1 Cor. 10.13, so that the evil which you feared came not upon you.

O happy providences, however smart, that make the soul for ever afraid of sin!

Such was the mighty power and deep policy used by Pharaoh to destroy God’s Israel, that to the eye of reason it was as impossible to survive it as for crackling thorns to abide unconsumed amidst devouring flames. By this emblem their miraculous preservation is expressed;

Incluso algunos, al ver la estructura exacta del cuerpo de un hombre, la figura, la posición y las conexiones mutuas de los diversos miembros y venas, se han convencido (y es suficiente para convencer a todos) de que es obra de la sabiduría y el poder divino.

The greatness of God is a glorious and unsearchable mystery. ‘For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great king over all the earth’ (Psalm 47:2). The condescension of the most high God to men is also a profound mystery. ‘Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly’ (Psalm 138:6). But when both these meet together, as they do in this Scripture, they make up a matchless mystery. Here we find the most high God performing all things for a poor distressed creature.

And certainly it is of great importance to the world to understand the judgments and hear of the experiences of dying men. They of all men are presumed to be most wise and most serious. Besides, this is the last opportunity that ever we shall have in this world to speak for God. O then what a sweet thing would it be to close our lives with an honourable account of the ways of God! to go out of the world blessing Him for all the mercies and truth which He has here performed to us! How this would encourage weak Christians and convince the atheistical world that verily there is a reality and an excellence in the ways and people of God!

As to the will of God, it falls under a twofold consideration of His secret and revealed will. This distinction is found in that Scripture: ‘The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us’ (Deuteronomy 29:29). The first is the rule of His own actions; the latter of ours, and this only is concerned in the query. This revealed will of God is either manifested to us in His Word or in His works.

Oh, it is no common mercy to descend from pious parents; some of us do not only owe our natural life to them, as instruments of our being, but our spiritual and eternal life also

The delight and pleasure resulting from the observation of providence are exceedingly great, and it will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven to view, with transporting delight, how the designs and methods were laid to bring us thither. And what will be a part of our blessedness in heaven may be well allowed to be a prime ingredient in our heaven upon earth. To search for pleasure among the due observations of providence is to search for water in the ocean, for providence does not only ultimately design to bring you to heaven but as intermediate thereunto to bring, by this means, much of heaven into your souls in the way thither. How great a pleasure is it to discern how the most wise God is providentially steering all to the port of His own praise and His people’s happiness while the whole world is busily employed in managing the sails and tugging at the oars, with quite an opposite design and purpose!

Has He taken some? He might have taken all. Are we afflicted? It is a mercy we are not destroyed. O if we consider what temporal mercies are yet spared, and what spiritual mercies are bestowed and still continued to us, we shall find cause to admire mercy rather than complain of severity.

(God) would never give you so much of the world to lose your heart in the love of it, or so little to distract you with the care of it.

To start with, let us consider how well Providence has performed the first work that ever it did for us: in our formation and protection in the womb.

There is a twofold consideration of Providence, according to its twofold object and manner of dispensation; the one in general, exercised about all creatures, rational and irrational, animate and inanimate; the other special and peculiar. Christ has a universal empire over all things (Ephesians 1:22); He is the head of the whole world by way of dominion, but a head to the Church by way of union and special influence (John 17:2).

How is it, if the saints’ affairs are not ordered by a special divine Providence, that natural causes unite and associate themselves for their relief and benefit in so strange a manner as they are found to do?

If the concerns of God’s people are not governed by a special Providence, how is it that the most apt and powerful means employed to destroy them are rendered ineffectual, while weak, contemptible means employed for their defence and comfort are crowned with success?

Another great performance of Providence for the people of God respects the place and time of their birth.

It was no small mercy to Timothy to be descended from such progenitors (2 Timothy 1:5), nor to Augustine that he had such a mother as Monica, who planted in his mind the precepts of life with her words, watered them with her tears, and nourished them with her example.

If you neglect to instruct them in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No, no, if you will not teach them to pray, he will teach them to curse, swear and lie. If ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring up.

The respect and relation Providence bears to our prayers is of singular consideration, and a most taking and sweet meditation. Prayer honours Providence, and Providence honours prayer.

There is many a bodily ailment inflicted on this very score, to be a clog to prevent sin. O bear them patiently upon this consideration. Basil was sorely grieved with an inveterate headache; he earnestly prayed it might be removed; God removed it. No sooner was he freed of this clog, but he felt the inordinate motions of lust, which made him pray for his headache again. So it might be with many of us, if our clogs were off.

Aristotle, the prince of heathen philosophers, could not, by the utmost search of reason, find out the world’s origin, and therefore concludes, it was from eternity.

Sin had so shut up mercy from us, that had not Christ made an atonement by his death, we should never have obtained it to all eternity.

His providences, if duly observed, promote holiness by stopping up our way to sin. O, if men would but note the designs of God in his preventive providences, how useful would it be to keep them upright and holy in their ways! For why is it that the Lord so often hedges up our way with thorns, as it is in Hosea ii. 6, but that we should not find our paths to sin?

A cross without a Christ never did any man good.

But now all are tied up to the ordinary, standing rule of the written word, and must not expect any such extraordinary revelations from God. The way we now have to know the will of God concerning us in difficult cases, is to search and study the Scriptures; and where we find no particular rule to guide us in this or that particular case, there we are to apply general rules, and govern ourselves according to the analogy and proportion they bear towards each other.

The Lord shall do all for thee, and thou shalt do nothing, but be the Sabbath of Christ.

When providence frowns upon you, and blasts your outward comforts, then look to your hearts, keep them with all diligence from repining against God, or fainting under his hand; for troubles, though sanctified, are troubles still; even sweet-briar, and holy thistle, have their prickles.

Enjoyment of your desires is the thing that will please you, but resignation of your wills is that which is pleasing to God.

But now, all are tied up to the ordinary standing rule of the written word and must not expect any such extraordinary revelations from God. The way we now have to know the will of God concerning us in difficult cases is to search and study the Scriptures, and where we find no particular rule to guide us in this or that particular case, there we are to apply general rules and govern ourselves according to the analogy and proportion they bear towards each other.

The most wise God orders the dispensations of Providence in a blessed subordination to the work of His Spirit. There is a sweet harmony between them in their distinct workings. They all meet in that one blessed issue to which God has by the counsel of His will directed them (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 1:11).

He has either strengthened your back to bear, or lightened your burden, or else opened an unexpected door of escape, according to promise (1 Corinthians 10:13), so that the evil which you feared did not come upon you.

Labour to get as full and thorough recognitions of the providences of God about you, from first to last, as you are able. O fill your hearts with the thought of him and his ways!

Consider your spiritual mercies and privileges with which the Lord Jesus has invested you, and complain at your providential lot if you can. One of these mercies alone has enough in it to sweeten all your troubles in this world.