Top 80 John Flavel Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The Providence of God is like Hebrew words-it can be read only backwards.”

— John Flavel

2. “They that know God will be humble. They that know themselves cannot be proud.”

— John Flavel

3. “The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.”

— John Flavel

4. “One word of God can do more than ten thousand words of men to relieve a distressed soul.”

— John Flavel

5. “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

6. “No doctrine is more excellent, or necessary to be preached and studied, than Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

— John Flavel

7. “Jesus, our head, is already in heaven; and if the head be above water, the body cannot drown.”

— John Flavel

8. “The carnal person fears man, not God. The strong Christian fears God, not man. The weak Christian fears man too much, and God too little.”

— John Flavel

9. “Christ is so in love with holiness, that at the price of His blood He will buy it for us.”

— John Flavel

10. “Jesus Christ is in every way sufficient to the vast desires of the soul.”

— John Flavel

11. “The knowledge of Christ is profound and large. All other sciences are but shadows; this is a boundless, bottomless ocean. Though something of Christ be unfolded in one age, and something in another, yet eternity itself cannot full unfold him.”

— John Flavel

12. “To see a man humble under prosperity is one of the greatest rarities in the world.”

— John Flavel

13. “For the infinite glorious Creator of all things, to become a creature, is a mystery exceeding all human understanding.”

— John Flavel

14. “The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.”

— John Flavel

15. “As God did not at first choose you because you were high, He will not now forsake you because you are low.”

— John Flavel

16. “Christ’s resurrection is the ground-work of our hope. And the new birth is our title or evidence of our interest in it.”

— John Flavel

17. “Brethren, it is easier to declaim against a thousand sins of others, than to mortify one sin in ourselves.”

— John Flavel

18. “A saving, though an immethodical knowledge of Christ, will bring us to heaven, John 17: 2, but a regular and methodical, as well as a saving knowledge of him, will bring heaven into us, Col. 2: 2, 3.”

— John Flavel

19. “Observed duties maintain our credit; but secret duties maintain our life.”

— John Flavel

20. “No repentance, obedience, self-denial, prayers, tears, reformation or ordinances, without the new creation, avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul.”

— John Flavel

21. “The soul of man, like the bird in the shell, is still growing or ripening in sin or grace, till at last the shell breaks by death, and the soul flies away to the piece it is prepared for, and where it must abide forever.”

— John Flavel

22. “Creatures, like pictures, are fairest at a certain distance, but it is not so with Christ; the nearer the soul approaches Him, and the longer it lives in the enjoyhment of Him, still the sweeter and more desirable He becomes.”

— John Flavel

23. “The soul of the poorest child is of equal dignity with the soul of Adam.”

— John Flavel

24. “The heart of man is his worst part before it be regenerate, and the best afterwards: it is the seat of principles, and fountain of actions. The eye of God is, and the eye of a Christian ought to be, principally fixed upon it. The greatest difficulty in conversion, is, to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is, to keep the heart with God.”

— John Flavel

25. “It is my ignorance of God’s design that makes me quarrel with him.”

— John Flavel

26. “We acknowledge no righteousness but what the obedience and satisfaction of Christ yields us. His blood, not our faith; his satisfaction, not our believing it, is the matter of our justification before God.”

— John Flavel

27. “When God gives you comforts, it is your great evil not to observe His hand in them.”

— John Flavel

28. “Providence is like a curious piece of tapestry made of a thousand shreds, which, single, appear useless, but put together, they represent a beautiful history to the eye.”

— John Flavel

29. “Let us consider and marvel that ever this great and blessed God should be so much concerned, as you have heard He is in all His providences, about such vile, despicable worms as we are! He does not need us, but is perfectly blessed and happy in Himself without us. We can add nothing to Him.”

— John Flavel

30. “The opening of your hearts to receive the Lord Jesus Christ is not a work done by any power of your own, but the arm of the Lord is revealed therein.”

— John Flavel

31. “O my soul, I am now addressing myself to the greatest work that ever a creature was employed about – I am going into the solemn presence of God about business of everlasting importance!”

— John Flavel

32. “If time be a ring of gold, opportunity is the rich diamond that gives it both its value and glory.”

— John Flavel

33. “If you neglect to instruct children in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness? No; if you will not teach them to pray, he will to curse, swear, and lie; if ground be uncultivated, weeds will spring.”

— John Flavel

34. “As the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit, so the Spirit of Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life; and until he quicken us and infuse the principle of the divine life into our souls, we can put forth no hand, or vital act of faith, to lay hold upon Jesus Christ.”

— John Flavel

35. “All the tears of a penitent sinner, should he shed as many as there have been fallen drops of rain since the creation, cannot wash away one sin. The everlasting burnings in hell cannot purify the flaming conscience from the least sin.”

— John Flavel

36. “Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapt up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.”

— John Flavel

37. “To keep the heart then, is carefully to preserve it from sin which disorders it; and maintain that spiritual and gracious frame, which fits it for a life of communion with God.”

— John Flavel

38. “My soul is of more value than ten thousand worlds.”

— John Flavel

39. “Whatsoever we have over-loved, idolized, and leaned upon, God has from time to time broken it, and made us to see the vanity of it; so that we find the readiest course to be rid of our comforts is to set our hearts inordinately upon them.”

— John Flavel

40. “Christian! thou knowest thou carriest gunpowder about thee. Desire them that carry fire to keep at a distance. It is a dangerous crisis when a proud heart meets with flattering lips.”

— John Flavel

41. “Guilt is to danger, what fire is to gunpowder; a man need not fear to walk among many barrels of powder, if he have no fire about him.”

— John Flavel

42. “Did Christ finish His work for us? Then there can be no doubt but He will also finish His work in us.”

— John Flavel

43. “He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in Him.”

— John Flavel

44. “Let all Arminians know: we have as high an esteem for faith as any men in the world, but yet we will not rob Christ to clothe faith.”

— John Flavel

45. “He feels all our sorrows, needs, and burdens as his own. That is why it is said that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ.”

— John Flavel

46. “Whatever be the ground of one’s distress, it should drive him to, not from God.”

— John Flavel

47. “Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul; He is the very Sabbath of the soul.”

— John Flavel

48. “It is a common thing for men to benumb their own arms, and make them as dead and useless by leaning too much upon them: so it is in a moral as well as a natural way: all the prudence and pains in the world avail nothing without God. So saith the Psalmist, in Psalm cxxvii. 2.”

— John Flavel

49. “That which begins not with prayer, seldom winds up with comfort.”

— John Flavel

50. “What a mercy was it to us to have parents that prayed for us before they had us, as well as in our infancy when we could not pray for ourselves!”

— John Flavel