Cordial Meditations

Thomas Wilcox, 1622-1687

Labor to live up to every relation wherein you stand to God: As our Father, by trusting in His care. As our Teacher, by following His direction. As our Creator, by depending on Him. As our Husband, by inseparable affectionate love to Him. As our Lord, by obedience to Him.

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What unthankfulness is this, to think so much upon two or three trials--and to forget a hundred blessings?

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It's a vain pretense to think that God will give us Heaven, and yet leave us to shift for ourselves along the way.

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The oil of grace will bring forth the oil of gladness.

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Are not our good days more than our evil days? But we would go to Heaven upon beds of roses!

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We must mingle sin with our sufferings, for that will trouble the soul more than the trouble itself. We are not hurt, until our souls are hurt.

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What we are afraid to do before men, we should be afraid to think before God!

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The imaginary trials of life, are more hurtful than the real trials.

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A man naturally is either weaving spider webs, or hatching cockatrice eggs. He is either exercised in vanity, or mischief.

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Many will be content to embrace . . . truth, without hatred of the world; Christ, without a Cross; and a godly life, without persecution. They will have their roses without thorns.

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Tis a never failing rule of discerning a man to be in the state of Grace, when he finds that every condition draws him nearer to God.

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We may safely expect God in his ways of Mercy, when we walk in his ways of Obedience.

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By trusting anything more than God, we make it an idol and a curse. It will prove a lying vanity and vexation to us!

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The way to have anything taken away from us, is to set our hearts too much upon it.

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The time of sickness is the time of purging from the defilements of sin which we have gathered in our health. Blessed is that sickness that proves the health of the soul.

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We are more sure to rise out of our graves, than out of our beds!

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Our life is but a web, woven with interminglings of . . . needs and gains, crosses and blessings, risings and fallings, combats and victories.

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Unkindness of others to us, is but a correction of our unkindness to God.

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Many men set too high a value upon themselves. When they do not receive what they imagine they deserve, they are discontented.

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The only way to have our will, is to be content with God's will.

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Labor to fit a promise to every condition you are in. There is no condition but has a gospel promise suitable to it.

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There is a gospel art of bearing troubles.

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He who loses himself in self-denials, finds himself in the bosom of God.

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In prosperity fear God, in adversity love God.

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Praying will make you leave off sinning, or sinning will make you leave off praying.