Fire and water may as well agree in the same vessel, as grace and sin in the same heart.
Interpretation
Goodness and wrongdoing cannot coexist in the same individual.
This quote by Thomas Brooks suggests that grace, representing goodness and virtue, cannot coexist with sin, which represents wrongdoing, within the same heart. It highlights the internal struggle between moral values and immoral actions, emphasizing that one must ultimately choose between the two sides of human nature.
In practice
During a sermon discussing moral integrity.
Remember this-all the sighing, mourning, sobbing, and complaining in the world, does not so undeniably evidence a man to be humble, as his overlooking his own righteousness, and living really and purely upon the righteousness of Christ.
Grace and glory differ very little; the one is the seed, the other is the flower; grace is glory militant, glory is grace triumphant.
He is the best preacher, not that tickles the ear, but that breaks the heart.
Ah! sinner, remember this, there is no way on earth effectually to be rid of the guilt, filth, and power of sin, but by believing in a Saviour. It is not resolving, it is not complaining, it is not mourning, but believing, that will make thee divinely victorious over that body of sin that to this day is too strong for thee, and that will certainly be thy ruin, if it be not ruined by a hand of faith.
Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns.
Humility can weep over other men's weaknesses, and joy and rejoice over their graces.
He who lives as children live - who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance - remains childlike.
When the philosopher's argument becomes tedious, complicated, and opaque, it is usually a sign that he is attempting to prove as true to the intellect what is plainly false to common sense.
When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life.
Lying is the most simple form of self-defence.
On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again
Every island to a child is a treasure island.
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