The Mystery of 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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“There is not a greater discovery of pride in the world than in the contests of our wills with the will of God.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“One word of God can do more than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“Two things destroy the peace and tranquility of our lives; our bewailing past disappointments, or fearing future ones.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“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,”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“A bad heart and a slippery memory deprive men of the comfort of many mercies, and defraud God of the glory due for them.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“It is a good sign that our troubles are sanctified to us when they turn our hearts against sin, and not against God.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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).”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“...we find the evils done to God's people have been repaid by just retribution to their enemies. Pharaoh and the Egyptians were cruel enemies to God's Israel, and designed the ruin of their poor innocent babes; and God repaid it in smiting all the first-born of Egypt in one night.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“Sometimes great blessings are brought to us by very unlikely means, while the means we expected are set aside.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“Friends, let me tell you, there is no history in all the world that will be as pleasant for you to read as the history of your own lives, if you would only sit down and write down from beginning to end what kind of a God he has been for you and all he has done for you.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“Es mucho mejor experimentar la gracia de Dios obrando en su vida que disfrutar las comodidades. El Señor le está dando una lección en la fe y la paciencia y logrando que usted esté más interesado en su voluntad. Así, cuando las bendiciones deseadas nos llegan, serán de mucho más gozo por causa del ejercicio de la fe y de la oración.”
― John Flavel, El misterio de la Providencia

“Lo que le agrada a usted es el disfrutar de sus deseos, pero Dios se agrada cuando usted solo desea hacer su voluntad.”
― John Flavel, El misterio de la Providencia

“(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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“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!”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“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”
― John Flavel, The Mystery of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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!”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“Another great performance of Providence for the people of God respects the place and time of their birth.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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.”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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?”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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?”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence

“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).”
― John Flavel, The Mystery Of Providence