Gems from John Mason by John Mason

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 19, 1865

Gems from John Mason.

By John Mason

1. It is not talking, but walking with God, that gives a man the denomination of a Christian.

2. The gate which leads to life is a strait gate, therefore we should fear; it is an open gate, therefore we should hope.

3. God repented that he made man, but never repented that he redeemed man.

4. Nothing grieves Christ more than to have his love slighted; nothing pleaseth him more than to have it accepted.

5. If believers are condemned by the world, let them remember that they shall not be condemned with the world. Sin may live in a believer, but a believer cannot live in sin. It may lose its dominion, though not leave its habitation.

6. A child of God had rather ten thousand times suffer for Christ, than that Christ should suffer by him.

7. Reliance is the essence of faith, Christ is the object, the Word is the food, and obedience is the proof; so that the true faith is a depending upon Christ for salvation in a way of obedience as he is offered in the Word.

8. God will either keep his saints from temptation by his preventing mercy, or in temptations by his supporting mercy, or find a way of escape by his delivering mercy.

9. As Christ came out of his Father's bosom, so the promise came out of Christ's side.

10. Prayer doth not consist in gifted expressions and a volubility of speech, but in a brokenness of heart.

11. They are the safest who are most in their closets; who pray not to be seen of men, but to be heard of God.

12. Inherent righteousness is the evidence of our salvation; imputed righteousness the foundation of it.

13. Let no day pass without a review of God's carriage toward you, and of yours toward him; of mercies and afflictions; of duties and your frame of heart in them; of your sins and inclinations to sin. And let God have the glory of what is good.

14. God doth sometimes on purpose show us the creatures' emptiness, that we may go to his fullness. He makes us to see the creatures to be broken cisterns, that we may know him to be the fountain.