Untitled Sermon (2)

Love all men, even your enemies, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers; that you may be at all times on fire with brotherly love, whether toward him that has become your brother, or toward your enemy, so that, by being beloved, he may become your brother.

Our religion commands us to love even our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us, aiming at a perfection all its own, and seeking in its disciples something of a higher type than the commonplace goodness of the world. For all love those who love them; it is peculiar to Christians alone to love those who hate them.

Tertullian

In justification we are declared righteous, that in sanctification we may become righteous. Justification is what God does for us, while sanctification is what God does in us. Justification puts us into a right relationship to God, while sanctification exhibits the fruit of that relationship.

Use sin … as it will use you. Spare it not, for it will not spare you. It is your murderer, and the murderer of the world. Use it therefore as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and then, though it kill your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls; and though it bring you to the grave, as it did your head, it shall not be able to keep you there. If the thoughts of death, and the grave, and rottenness, are not pleasant to you, do not let the thoughts of sin be pleasant. Listen to every temptation to sin as you would listen to a temptation to self-murder, and as you would do if the devil brought you a knife and tempted you to cut your throat with it; so do when he offers you the bait of sin.

Richard Baxter

—William Evans

William Evans

Augustine of Hippo