The Calvinist is counter-cultural in the modern world. There is much to discuss. There is much to ignore. When matters relate to music, the arts and worship, they come very close to home for composer Abigail J. Fox. These are her occasional essays, not to court controversy but to take a stand.
If you are doing right, you will certainly be censured; and if you resolve to do right, you must learn to neglect censure. ...
The ministerial clergy are welcome to call me what they please. I honour their reproach: for I find myself in the best of company by leaving theirs.
~ Rev. William Romaine
Boasting is for ever excluded, because all is of grace. Wisdom is to teach the sinner saving knowledge, righteousness to justify him, strength to keep him, comforts to bless him, heaven to receive him, these are the free gifts of covenant love.
~ William Romaine
Look to no motive to do good to men below the glory of God. And remember, thy doing it may be the means of His visiting them, as He visited thee, with His great salvation. O blessed fruit of brotherly love! may it be the happy effect of thy light shining before men.
~ William Romaine
When the Spirit would glorify Jesus, he humbles you. When he would glorify his fulness, he makes you feel your emptiness. When he would bring you to rely on his strength, he convinces you of your weakness. When he would magnify the comforts of Jesus, he makes you sensible of your misery. When he would fix your heart on his heaven, he makes you feel your deserved hell. When he would exalt his righteousness, you find you are a poor miserable sinner.
~ William Romaine
I would walk close with Him in His way, not to buy His love, it is inestimable; not to merit it, free grace and merit cannot stand together; not that I may deserve it for my walk, but may freely receive it of Him in my walk; not that He may give it me for walking with Him, but that in walking with Him, I may enjoy what He has already given me. His love is a free gift. I would be faith enjoy it in time, as I hope by sense to enjoy it in eternity.
~ William Romaine
It is the proper work of the grace of Jesus, to humble the proud sinner, to make him and to keep him sensible of his wants, convinced always that he has not any good of his own, and cannot possibly of himself obtain any, either in earth or heaven, but what he must be receiving every moment out of the fullness of Jesus. The devil fell by pride, and he drew man into the same crime. He promised him independence, and he still persuades deceived man to set up for himself. That’s the scheme of all unawakened men - they are resolved to be happy in spite of God. The Spirit of Jesus is sent to humble this proud sinner, which he does, by giving him a view of God’s holy nature, and God’s holy law. This makes sin, and consequently the sinner, hateful; discovers his guilt and his danger: if he attempts to do anything to make God love him, the Holy Spirit humbles him for that very thing, by showing him the sinfulness of his motive, and the imperfection of the action. Whatever he seeks to rest in, the Spirit of Jesus detects the false foundation, till he leaves him not resource but to believe in the only begotten Son of God.
~ William Romaine
You are as safe in the hand of God, at the lowest ebb, as at the highest springtide of sensible comfort, because your safeguard is almighty, and He is equally concerned about your peace, whether you feel it or not. Your sense of it may vary, but He varies not.
~ William Romaine
This is a beggar’s life; here’s nothing but alms. We don’t like it. We want some stock; if we could get it, we should like an independent fortune. But it cannot be. The Spirit of Jesus will witness of nothing, and glorify nothing but the Saviour’s all sufficient grace; and therefore he sets himself against all our greatness and goodness - that he who glorieth may glory only in the Lord Christ.
~ William Romaine
