What They Said

“So there is nothing in Christ, but what is precious. His name is precious, His virtues are precious, His blood  is precious—more precious than the world.”

“The Bible is a book which calls not so much for the exertion of our intellect as it does for the exercise of our affections, conscience and will. God has given it to us not for our entertainment, but for our education, to make known what He requires from us. It is to the the traveler’s guide as he journeys through the maze of tis world, the mariner’s chart as he sails the sea of life”

“O Lord! deepen my reverence for Thy word! Confirm my faith in its divinity, increase my experience of its power, and deepen my sense of its preciousness. May I stand in awe of its solemn revelations, walk in the holiness of its precepts, live more simply upon its promises, and increasingly find it sweeter than honey, yea, than the honeycomb, to my taste.”

“By trials our graces are proved, exercised, and strengthened, and the power and goodness of the Lord towards us are more manifested and glorified.”

"Nay, we have a Saviour who has known our sorrows, and by His tears can heal every wound that sin hath made. "In all their affliction He was afflicted." He has wept with those that wept, as He rejoiced with those that did rejoice. And He is still the same. We can think of the tears He shed more than eighteen centuries ago, and know that at this hour He is the same loving and sympathizing Friend."

“The bliss of heaven will be largely in being with Christ, in seeing His face, in enjoying His companionship.”

“In the beginning of his way before his works of old, eternal wisdom brought forth from its own mind the perfect plan of future creations, and every line and mark therein must clearly have been of the Lord alone. He ordained the pathway of every planet, and the abode of every fixed star. He poured forth the sweet influences of the Pleiades, and girt Orion with his bands. He appointed the bounds of the sea, and settled the course of the winds.”

"Christ commands us, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God. Perhaps some will ask, How is this possible? We cannot be always thinking of God: we must attend to our business, provide for our own wants and those of our families. True: but look at a man about to send a ship to a foreign port. As he purchases his cargo, and makes the requisite preparations, he considers what articles are most suited to the market; what provisions most necessary for the voyage; how the ship is to be rigged and manned; in short, all his plans are laid with reference to the end of the voyage. So the Christian, though not always thinking of heaven, should take care that all his business and all his pleasures may forward his journey thither, and promote his great object of preparation for that abode of blessedness."

“Let the fear of God always be before your eyes. This will hold you back from a thousand evils. To feel that you are in the presence of your Maker, that an omniscient eye is upon you, -is the best preservative against sin. It is the only preservative. Philosophy has tried her power to reform. the world. Plato and Seneca have reasoned. But philosophy, unbaptised, has proved as powerless as it is blind. The fear of the world has been tried ; but this has only made men-pleasers. It has merely washed “the outside of the cup and the platter,” and left men to do any thing in secret which their hearts desired, and any thing in public which the corrupt taste of the times approved. Nothing can secure a thorough morality which does not mould the heart.”

“It is the Character of Christ that is the magnet that attracts sinners to Himself—and upon this blessed theme one might go on speaking forever.”

"Then there is need of a higher standard of character in this regard than many people seem to set for themselves. We never rise higher than our ideals; the perfect beauty of Christ should ever be visioned in our hearts as that which we would attain for ourselves. The honor of our Master's name should impel us to strive ever toward Christlikeness in spirit and in disposition. We represent Christ in this world ; people cannot see him, and they must look at us to see a little of what he is like. Whatever great work we may do for Christ, if we fail to live out his life of patience and forbearance, we fail in an essential part of our duty as Christians.”

“Remember, reader, that a little heart-knowledge, a little experimental knowledge, is of greater efficacy and worth than the highest notions of the most astute scholars.  He does well, who discourses of Christ - but he does infinitely better who, by experimental knowledge, feeds and lives on Christ.”

“Let me walk through the world, so various, so beautiful, so new, with an open eye. It is strange that there are many who have no discernment of its wondrousness. They are dwellers in a palace, which has a variety and a magnificence that Nero’s Golden House on the Palatine and Boabdil’s Alhambra in Granada never possessed; and they are blind to its marvels.”

"The old heart is taken away and a new one put in its place. The substitution of one heart for another implies an entire change in the character and current of our affections. Now a change may be simply a reform, or extending farther, it may pass into a revolution. The spiritual change, which we call conversion, is not a mere reform. It is a revolution. It changes the heart, the habits, the eternal destiny of an immortal being. For the old mischievous laws which it repeals, it introduces a new code of statutes; it changes the reigning dynasty, wrenches the sceptre from a usurper's hand, and banishing him forth of the kingdom, in restoring the throne to God, restores it to its rightful monarch."

“The fact is, God wants not our power, but our weakness; not our greatness, but our nothingness.”

“Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show.”

“The righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down, or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could demand.”

“Fly to the Word of God, then, in every sorrow. You will know more of the mind and heart of God than you, perhaps, ever learned in all the schools before. We must be experimental Christians, if Christians at all. A bare notionalist, a mere theorist, an empty professor of religion, is a fearful deception. Study to know God's Word from a heartfelt experience of its quickening, sanctifying, comforting power.”

“But not only is the Word of God precious as a revelation of His being and perfections, but to the child of God it is peculiarly so as revealing the mind and will of God.”

“Christ is not only supremely, but He is increasingly precious to the believer. It must be so, since a closer intimacy with a perfect being increases our knowledge of His perfection, and, in the same ratio, our admiration and love.”

“A good Christian is like the sun, which not only sends forth heat, but goes its circuit round the world. Thus, he who glorifies God, has not only his affections heated with love to God, but he goes his circuit too; he moves vigorously in the sphere of obedience.”

“Though nothing can add to God’s essential glory, yet praise exalts him in the eyes of others. When we praise God, we spread his fame and renown, we display the trophies of his excellency. In this manner the angels glorify him; they are the choristers of heaven, and do trumpet forth his praise. Praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion.”

“We glorify God, by standing up for his truths. Much of God’s glory lies in his truth. God has intrusted us with his truth, as a master intrusts his servant with his purse to keep. We have not a richer jewel to trust God with than our souls, nor has God a richer jewel to trust us with than his truth. Truth is a beam that shines from God. Much of his glory lies in his truth. When we are advocates for truth we glorify God.”

“We glorify God by walking cheerfully. It brings glory to God, when the world sees a Christian has that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times; that can enable him, with the nightingale, to sing with a thorn at his breast. The people of God have ground for cheerfulness. They are justified and adopted, and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever storms are without.”

“We glorify God, by being contented in that state in which Providence has placed us. We give God the glory of his wisdom, when we rest satisfied with what he carves out to us.”

“By our exact Bible-conversation we glorify God. Though the main work of religion lies in the heart, yet our light must so shine that others may behold it. The safety of a building is the foundation, but the glory of it is in the frontispiece; so the beauty of faith is in the conversation. When the saints, who are called jewels, cast a sparkling lustre of holiness in the eyes of the world, then they ‘walk as Christ walked.’”

“Just as all Christian affections flow from true divine love, so in the same way, other false affections flow naturally from a counterfeit love. In both cases, love is the fountain, and the other affections are the streams. The various faculties, principles, and affections of human nature are, as it were, many channels from one fountain. If there is sweet water in the fountain, then sweet water will flow from there out into those various channels; but if the water in the fountain is poisonous, then poisonous streams will also flow out into all those channels.”

“The duty of singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned for why we should express ourselves to God in verse, rather than in prose, and do it with music – except that such is our nature and frame, that these things have a tendency to move our affections.”

“God sent the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to be the light of the world, the head of the whole church, and the perfect example of true religion and virtue for imitation by all. He is the Shepherd whom the whole flock should follow wherever he goes. And he was a person of a remarkably tender and affectionate heart. His virtue was expressed very much in the exercise of holy affections.”

“For love is not only one of the affections, but it is the first and chief of the affections; and it is the fountain of all the affections. From love arises hatred of those things which are contrary to what we love, or which oppose and thwart us in those things that we delight in.”