What They Said

“Wisdom buys what gold cannot procure.”

“This is the way of contentment. There are these circumstances that I am in, with many wants: I want this and the other comfort - well, how shall I come to be satisfied and content? A carnal heart thinks, I must have my wants made up or else it is impossible that I should be content. But a gracious heart says, ‘What is the duty of the circumstances God has put me into?”

"He (God) is unchangeable in the midst of the changeable effects of providence."

“The demand of the day is for a higher standard and style of Christian life. Every follower of Christ must represent His religion purely, loftily, impressively, before that multitude of "Bible-readers" whose only Bible is the Christian.”

“Let us beware of an unsanctified knowledge of Christianity. It is a dangerous possession, but a fearfully common one in these latter days. We may know the Bible intellectually, and have no doubt about the truth of its contents. We may have our memories well stored with its leading texts, and be able to talk glibly about its leading doctrines. And all this time the Bible may have no influence over our hearts, and wills, and consciences.”

“A Christian is the greatest freeman in the world; he is free from the wrath of God, free from hell and damnation, from the curse of the law; but then, though he be free in these respects, yet, in regard of love, he is the greatest servant.  Love abaseth him to do all the good he can; and the more the Spirit of Christ is in us, the more it will abase us to anything wherein we can be serviceable.”

“If I were to go to heaven, and find that Christ was not there, I would leave immediately; for heaven without Christ would be hell to me.”

“The soul that has once known something of the Lord is never satisfies but by obtaining clearer, deeper, more spiritual and abiding views of is beauty and blessedness.”

“We tolerate a worldly-minded, and diluted, and weakened piety in others, because we expect a similar toleration for ourselves. We make excuses for them, because we expect the like excuses for our own conduct in return.”

“One day of good preaching is no match for six days of inconsistent practice.  God will never honor His church with complete success until it completely honors Him.”

“The Word written is a sovereign elixir, or comfort in an hour of distress.”

“The world gains the victory over the unregenerate by captivating their affections and capturing their wills; but the saint overcomes the world, because his affections are set upon Christ and his will yielded to Him.”

“We do not sail to glory in the salt sea of our own tears, but in the red sea of a Redeemer's blood. Crux Christi est clavis paradisi. “The cross of Christ is the key of paradise.” We owe the life of our souls to the death of our Saviour. It was His going into the furnace which keeps us from the flames.”

“The earth itself still praises its Maker; the exhalations, as they arise with the morning, are still a pure offering, acceptable to their Maker.”

“Never mistake the dead robes for the living body of religion. Never forget that “to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly before God,” is what the Lord requires of thee; that faith without works is dead; that form without spirit is dead; and that, the highest piety being ever associated with the deepest humility, true religion is like the sweetest of all singing-birds, the skylark, which with the lowest nest but highest wing dwells in the ground, and yet soars to the skies”

“The sea is not so full of water, as the heart of a glorified saint is of joy; there can be no more sorrow in heaven than there is joy in hell.”

“Divine Truth is an instrument in the hand of the Spirit, for  the accomplishment of His work of consolation. If we would  be comforted, we must seek it by the truth. The Comforter is the Spirit of truth. The consoling process is carried on by the application of Scriptural truth.”

“”Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness." It is not attainment only that heaven approves, but the longing to attain. Saintliness is beautiful, but it takes a long while to reach it. No doubt one of the best things is to be perfect, to wear the image of Christ, but the lofty reach seems almost impossible. This is the goal, but it shines far off, and it seems to us that we cannot come up to it till we gain heaven. It is a comfort to us to know that one of the best things is longing for the best, hunger for righteousness.”

“This portion (The Lord) is a satisfying portion. At least it ought to be. And indeed it is, in proportion as it is enjoyed. As a grown-up person no longer cares for toys, so a spiritually-minded person does not care as he used to care for the things of the world. The world's pleasures are but toys to him; he has found something better. The Lord is his portion. That is enough. He wants no more. And all that comes to him he takes as part of his portion, because it is from the hand of God.”

“O how little do many of us know of Christ, and therefore it is that we make so little use of Christ, receive so little from Christ, and do so little for Christ!  Our sense of our need of Christ, it it be deep and increasing, will lead us to seek to know more of Christ; and knowing more of Christ, we shall daily come to Christ for all our supplies.”

“Moreover, because man is created in the image of God, we may say that he has the revelation of God’s presence built into his constitution. His knowledge of God is innate, in the sense that his own constitution reflects to himself the presence of God. And this innate knowledge as revelation of God is correlative to the revelation of God in man’s environment. Thus man’s knowledge of God never operates independently of the knowledge he acquires from observation of his environment. Still further, man’s knowledge of God through observation of his own constitution and his knowledge of God through his study of his environment do not function independently of God’s direct person-to-person covenantal communication. Thus the whole of man’s relation to God, and indirectly the whole of man’s relation to his created environment, is a person-to-person, a covenantal affair. Man is he who as God’s image bearer answers to God. He answers to God. He answers to God always and everywhere.”

“The only real food of the soul must be of God's own appointing, preparing, and communicating.”

“It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die. Scores of excited disputants would discover that they do not really differ, and that their disputes have arisen from their own neglect of the great duty of explaining the meaning of words.”

“Being brought by his Spirit through faith into vital union with him, as a branch in the true vine, we receive a spiritual vitality into our soul, previously dead in trespasses and sins. Christ’s example is the model of our life ; the inward principle of life in the soul, developes itself into a likeness to him. The mind of Christ must be in us: the image of Christ must be upon us."

“What are the properties of God’s mercy?"

"It is free and spontaneous. To set up merit is to destroy mercy. Nothing can deserve mercy or force it; we cannot deserve it nor force it, because of our enmity. We may force God to punish us, but not to love us. ‘I will love them freely.’ Hos 14: 4. Every link in the golden chain of salvation is wrought and interwoven with free grace. Election is free. ‘He has chosen us in him according to the good pleasure of his will.’ Eph 1: 4. Justification is free. ‘Being justified freely by his grace.’ Rom 3: 24. Say not I am unworthy; for mercy is free. If God should show mercy only to such as deserve it, he must show mercy to none.”

"What is the earnest, and beginning of glory, but grace itself, especially in the more lively and clear exercises of it? It is not prophecy, nor tongues, nor knowledge, but that more excellent divine thing, "charity that never faileth," which is a prelibation and beginning of the light, sweetness and blessedness of heaven, that world of love or charity. It is grace that is the seed of glory and dawning of glory in the heart, and therefore it is grace that is the earnest of the future inheritance.”

“Diligence in the duties of our secular calling, with a view to the glory of God, is an evidence not to be despised.”

“Second, I honor God by trusting Him. As there is not a more God-dishonoring principle than unbelief, so there is not a more God-glorifying grace than the faith that reposes in Him, with a childlike and unquestioning confidence - a faith that trusts His veracity to fulfill, and His power to perform all that He is pledged in His covenant and Word to do.”

“Then dream not of offering Him anything that does not accord with His nature and with His essence. "Render unto God the things that are God's." If He were a material deity, I might bring Him fruits, and flowers, and music, and so on. If He were a God of ritual, I might deck myself with crosses, burn candles to Him, and waft incense in His honor. But our God is a Spirit who rejoices more in the falling tear, the upheaved sigh, the heart prayer and the heart praise which "the common people" render unto Him, than in all the decorations and symphonies and temples of a man-made ritual.”