Christ Alone   “Ah! friends, it is a diminution of Christ’s dignity, sufficiency, and glory, in the business of your salvation, to join anything with the Lord Jesus; and it is the greatest disparagement in the world to your own judgments, knowledge, prudence, and wisdom, to yoke any with Christ in the work of redemption, in the business of salvation... Many there are who join Christ and their works together, Christ and their prayers together, Christ and their teachers together, Christ and their mournings together, Christ and their hearings together, Christ and their alms together...  He that shall mix his righteousness with Christ’s, he that shall mix his puddle with Christ’s purple blood, his rags with Christ’s royal robes, his copper with Christ’s gold, his water with Christ’s wine, is in the ready way to perish forever... There is no other name, no other nature, no other blood, no other merits, no other person to be justified and saved by, but Jesus Christ. You may run from creature to creature, and from duty to duty, and from ordinance to ordinance, and when you have wearied and tired out yourselves in seeking ease and rest, satisfaction and remission, justification and salvation, in one way and another, you will be forced after all to come to Christ, and to cry out:  ‘Ah!  None but Christ, none but Christ!... Ah!  None to Christ, none to Christ; no works to Christ, no righteousness, no holiness to Christ.’”     -- Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)   Christian Affliction   “The flowers smell sweetest after a shower; vines bear the better for bleeding; the walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; saints spring and thrive most internally, when they are most externally afflicted.  Afflictions are the mother of virtue...  All the stones that came about Stephen's ears did but knock him closer to Christ, the corner-stone.”     -- Thomas Brooks (1608-1680)