What They Said

"Better be pruned to grow than cut up to burn."

"Say not, you have no time. How many hours in a week do you find for amusement, while you have none for devotion in your family?"

“It is impossible, that a Minister, who, it may be, hath many hundred children under his charge, should well instruct them all: It is therefore requisite, that each parent look to his own children.”

“For the present: A family is the seminary of Church and State; and if children be not well principled there, all miscarrieth: a fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second; if youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in Church and Commonwealth; there is the first making or marring, and the presage of their future lives to be thence taken, Prov. 20:11. By family discipline, officers are trained up for the Church, 1 Tim. 3:4, One that ruleth well his own house, etc.; and there are men bred up in subjection and obedience.”

"The Scripture is a rule outside of us—to show us where we must go; the Spirit is a guide inside of us—to enable us to walk according to the direction of that Word."

"It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ"

"Let us use worldly things as wise pilgrims do their staves and other necessaries convenient for their journey. So long as they help us forward in our way, let us make use of them, and accordingly esteem them. But if they become troublesome hindrances and cumbersome burdens, let us leave them behind us, or cast them away."

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness."

"No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God."

"The people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches."

"Not only the worst of my sins, but the best of my duties speak me a child of Adam."

"If a wicked man seems to have peace at death, it is not from the knowledge of his happiness, but from the ignorance of his danger."

"Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by his rules. And family education and order are some of the chief means of grace. If these fail, all other means are likely to prove ineffectual. If these are duly maintained, all the means of grace will be likely to prosper and be successful."

"To pretend to preach the truth without offending carnal men, is to pretend to be able to do what Jesus Christ could not do."

"It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world; these two together must needs be mysterious."

"Those, who are charged with the important duties of administering justice, should, if possible, depend only on God."

"Don't presume upon the mercy of God and so encourage yourself in sin."

“Brethren, you are ordained of God to rule your own houses in his true fear, and according to his word. Within your houses, I say, in some cases, you are bishops and kings; your wife, children, servants, and family are your bishopric and charge. Of you it shall be required how carefully and diligently you have instructed them in God’s true knowledge, how you have studied to plant virtue in them, and [to] repress vice. And therefore I say, you must make them partakers in reading, exhorting, and in making common prayers, which I would in every house were used once a day at least.”