"The Church's testimony is to a rejected as well as to a crucified Lord. His death is to be guarded and witnessed as under man's hand, as well as under God's - under God's for the relief of the sinner or the conscience - under man's for the separation of the saints from the world that really accredits that act of man's hand?"
"It is the general deepening of spiritual affection we need in the midst of us, more chastened hearts to give place and liberty, in the absence of nature, to the things of the kingdom of God. The lip watched, the thought watched, the pen watched, and all the instruments and agencies of nature watched, that the Spirit may find in each of us a freer vessel for Himself. But we may be sure we must wait for perfection. Had Lot walked separately, his daughters might have been wives of Abraham's seed, instead of mothers of Ammonites and Moabites."
"Glory in a crucified Christ will not, if alone, be the perfect thing of this age, there must be companionship with a rejected Christ also. I am thinking that Babylon may be brought to glory in a crucified Christ; that is, there may be much evangelic truth confessed in systems which will be judged at Babylon. For what is Babylon? Is it not a thing faulty or worldly in conduct, as well as idolatrous in doctrine? The seventeenth and eighteenth of Revelation gives me a sight of Babylon in its worldly iniquity, much more than in its idolatries. She may preach Christ crucified, but she is not in fellowship with Christ. Rejected - she does not continue with Him in His temptations. Is not the rejection of Christ the great practical thought for this moment?" J. G. Bellett.
In times of difficulty faith does not show itself in the magnificence of the result, but in love for God's work, however little it may be, and in the perseverance with which it is carried on through all the difficulties belonging to this state of weakness.