James H. Brookes Quotes on Salvation, Assurance and Christ's Return
James H. Brookes (1830–1897) was a St. Louis Presbyterian pastor, a leader of the Niagara Bible Conference and one of the best-known Bible teachers in nineteenth-century America. He wrote plainly, for ordinary church members, and he had a gift for making the gospel clear in a single sentence.
Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. Brookes quotes many other writers in his books, especially in Maranatha; those lines aren't included here. The books were restored from old scans and keep their original spelling, like "Saviour" and "honour." For his life story, see who was James H. Brookes. For a guide to his books, see James H. Brookes books.
On our need
Brookes started where the gospel starts, with the sinner's need. For him, the worst sin was refusing God's love in Christ.
Unbelief, therefore, is a rejection of love in its highest possible manifestation, and hence it is represented as the root of all other sin and the crowning iniquity.
The Way Made Plain, Man's Need of Salvation
It is true the times have changed, but the word of God has not changed, and man's need has not changed, and human nature has not changed, and the way of salvation has not changed.
The Way Made Plain, Nothing Between the Sinner and the Saviour
He had a neat way of settling the old question about Paul and James on faith and works:
If it be true that faith without works is dead, do not forget that works without faith are also dead.
The Way Made Plain, Man's Righteousness Cannot Save Him
Paul speaks of a faith that justifies us before God; James of a faith that justifies us in the sight of men.
The Way Made Plain, Man's Righteousness Cannot Save Him
On Christ's finished work
This was the center of Brookes's preaching: the work is done, and nothing stands between the sinner and the Saviour.
God met the sin-bearing Jesus at the place of a skull, and there once and for ever settled the question of the believer's salvation, and we had nothing to do with it.
The Way Made Plain, Christ the Saviour of the Believer
Yet all over the New Testament it is written as if with a sunbeam that the sinner wanting to be saved has nothing to do, because all the doing was done when Jesus bowed His head on the cross and rose again for our justification.
Is the Bible True?, The Bible Its Own Witness
True repentance, as described in the Bible, always implies faith in Christ.
The Way Made Plain, Nothing Between the Sinner and the Saviour
The moment he is in Christ by believing on Him he is as certainly and completely saved as he will be a thousand years afterwards.
The Way Made Plain, Nothing Between the Sinner and the Saviour
Belief is necessary before we are saved, and confession is necessary after we are saved.
The Way Made Plain, Belief and Confession
On the believer's safety
Brookes wanted Christians to stop looking inside themselves for their peace and to look at the blood of Christ.
It is the blood, then, not example, nor influence, nor power, but the precious blood of Christ alone, that forms the ground of the believer's safety.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer's Safety
It is not the Spirit's work in us, but Christ's work for us, that delivers us from condemnation and places us on the heavenward side of the cross beyond Judgment … and it is only by looking at Christ's finished work instead of the Spirit's unfinished work that we can find perfect repose of conscience and heart.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer's Safety
After telling the story of an old Scottish woman who said God would lose more than she would if He broke His word, he wrote of the believer's safety:
It is as high as the honour of God; it is as trustworthy as His character; it is as immutable as His promises; it is as broad as the infinite merits of His Son's atoning blood.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer's Safety
If the saints were left to themselves, it is not only probable, but certain, that they would not persevere, but if the Lord perseveres in His purpose of grace, it is not only probable, but certain, that they will be saved.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer's Safety
You know you were a condemned and ruined sinner by believing that word; you know Christ came to die for a lost world by believing that word; and you may know you are saved, if you trust in Jesus Christ, by believing the same word.
The Way Made Plain, Assurance of Faith
On prayer
We are never straitened in God, but only in ourselves; for when temptations assail, or troubles arise, we too often fail to put Christ, by faith, between them … and us, and too often through unbelief put them between Christ and us, so that we lose courage and power.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer Calling on the Lord
Whenever Satan can divert our minds from the Lord to ourselves or to our circumstances, we are sure to lose heart and hope, and our prayers will be wanting in the essential elements of faith and fervour.
The Way Made Plain, The Believer Calling on the Lord
On Jesus Christ
In his addresses answering the skeptic Strauss, Brookes showed from the Gospels that Jesus is both man and God.
He was a man, but he was more. … He wept at the grave of Lazarus, and, therefore, was man … but He called the dead man from the tomb, and, therefore, was God.
Is the Bible True?, The Character of Jesus
Come to Him as One who has the heart of a brother to sympathize, and the arm of a God mighty to save.
Is the Bible True?, The Character of Jesus
Blessed Lord, eternity will be short to tell out what we owe Thine amazing grace!
Is the Bible True?, The Character of Jesus
No attempt is here made to defend what is called Christianity, but only Christ; no effort is put forth to justify the conduct of His professed followers, but only to vindicate the truth of His word.
Is the Bible True?, The Bible Its Own Witness
On the Bible
If we have no earnest and positive faith in the Bible as the very word of God, where shall we look for guidance and comfort and refuge?
Is the Bible Inspired?, Modern Theories of Inspiration
They are called the word of God, because God is their author and revealer. … They are called the word of Christ, because Christ is the subject, the sum, and the substance.
Is the Bible Inspired?, The Inspiration of the New Testament
The only possible answer is that Scripture contains the very words of God, and hence it is clothed with His divine perfections, even in human form.
Is the Bible Inspired?, The Old Testament in the Epistles of the New
As for thoughts being inspired, apart from the words which give them expression, you might as well talk of a tune without notes, or a sum without figures.
Chaff and Wheat
You cannot improve a single verse of Scripture by clothing it in language of your own.
Chaff and Wheat
On the coming of the Lord
All who read the New Testament carefully must perceive that our Lord, and then the Holy Ghost by the apostles, represent His second advent as possible at any time.
Till He Come, His Coming May Be Near
But let the church be separate from the world, according to our Lord’s command and prayer, and it would soon be seen that the offence of the cross has not ceased.
Till He Come, The Present Age
Brookes's favorite subject was the return of Christ. He read the prophecies of the future the same way he read the history of the past: as God's word, to be believed.
In either case we rest upon the authority of God speaking in His blessed word, and upon such authority it is no harder to believe and understand that which shall be, than it is to believe and understand that which has been.
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, Christ's Coming Literal
We know it simply upon the testimony of God's word; and upon the same testimony we may know that He is literally to come again.
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, Christ's Coming Literal
All the promises of God's word that remain to be fulfilled in our personal experience, and in the future of the Church, and in the histoiy of the world, are prophecy and nothing but prophecy.
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, Importance of the Subject
(The "histoiy" is a misprint in the scanned edition for "history.") He believed this hope makes a difference every day:
From that time he lives under the very eye of his coming Lord.
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, Power of the Doctrine
They can not think without terror of Christ's coming, because they are not prepared for it; as persons often speak of trying to be prepared for death, thereby showing their utter ignorance of the gospel.
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, Power of the Doctrine
How thrilling the thought that the first of these startling events, the coming of Christ for the saints, may occur at any hour!
Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh, The Hope of the Church
And he never let the hope become about events instead of a Person:
Just as heaven would be no heaven but for the sight of Jesus, so the millennium would be no millennium unless He presided in manifested glory over the holy and happy scene.
Is the Bible True?, Alleged Contradictions
Read Brookes for yourself
Start with The Way Made Plain, the source of most of the lines on salvation above. For his teaching on the Lord's return, read Till He Come for a short account or Maranatha, or The Lord Cometh for the full one. His defense of Scripture is in Is the Bible True? and Is the Bible Inspired?. All six are on the James H. Brookes author page.