Promise Not Providence

Judge not Christ's love by providences, but by promises.  (Puritan Thomas Wilcox, Honey Out of the Rock)

Although There Were No Hell

Loving and revering God as his father, honouring and obeying him as his master, although there were no hell, he would revolt at the very idea of offending him. (John Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter II)

Better Than My Earthly Dearest

To love you as I should, I must worship God as Creator.

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.(C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis)

Peculiar Feeling

And he commands us to assist especially the saints: for though our love ought to extend itself to the whole race of man, yet it ought with peculiar feeling to embrace the household of faith, who are by a closer bond united to us. (John Calvin on Romans 12:13, Romans commentary)