What They Said

"An ignorant people will easily receive idolatry for their religion, and must bow their necks to the tyrant's yoke, because they are incapable of using rational liberty.  Will you then consign over your posterity to foolish and abominable superstitions instead of religion, and to be the slaves of despotism, when a small proportion of the produce of your labours will make them wise, free, and happy?"

Samuel Langdon

“Take a look at your own heart, and you will soon find out what has stuck to it and where your treasure is. It is easy to determine whether hearing the Word of God, living according to it, and achieving such a life gives you as much enjoyment and calls forth as much diligence from you as does accumulating and saving money and property.”

Martin Luther

"The soul is wider than creation, broader than space; give it all, it would be still unsatisfied, and man would not find rest. You say, "That is strange: if I had a little more I should be very well satisfied." You make a mistake: if you are not content with what you have you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. "Nay," says one, "I should be." You do not know yourself. If you have fixed your affection on the things of this world, that affection is like a horse-leech; it cries, "Give! give!" It will suck, suck, suck to all eternity, and still cry, "Give, give!" and though you give it all, it has not gotten enough."

Charles Spurgeon

"A sermon is not made with an eye upon the sermon, but with both eyes upon the people and all the heart upon God."

John Owen

"Take every opportunity which your nearness provides to be speaking seriously to each other about the matters of God, and your salvation.  Discussing those things of this world no more than required. And then talk together of the state and duty of your souls towards God, and of your hopes of heaven, as those that take these for their greatest business. And don’t speak lightly, or unreverently, or in a rude and disputing manner; but with gravity and sobriety, as those that are discussing the most important things in the whole world. [Mark 8:36]"

Richard Baxter

‎”What is the cause of all God’s purposes towards us? Himself. There is no other cause.”

Thomas Goodwin

"We must labor to do good to our children even from their earliest years. If Satan begins so early to do them harm, we must not be behind him in diligence to lead them to God. How soon in life a child becomes responsible and accountable, is a difficult question to solve. Perhaps far sooner than many of us suppose. One thing, at all events, is very clear–it is never too soon to strive and pray for the salvation of the souls of children–never too soon to speak to them as moral beings, and tell them of God, Christ, right and wrong. The devil, we may be quite sure, loses no time in endeavoring to influence the minds of young people. He begins with them even from childhood. Let us work hard to counteract him."

J.C. Ryle

“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”

Richard Sibbes

"Contentment is freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God's disposal."

Jeremiah Burroughs

""When a religion," says McCosh, "waxes old in a country—when the circumstances which at first favored its formation or introduction have changed—when in an age of reason it is tried and found unreasonable—when in an age of learning it is discovered to be the product of the grossest ignorance—when in an age of levity it is felt to be too stern—then the infidel spirit takes courage, and, with a zeal in which there is a strange mixture of scowling revenge and light-hearted wantonness, of deep-set hatred and laughing levity, it proceeds to level all existing temples and altars, and erects no others in their room."  The void which is created is soon filled with wantonness and violence. The State cannot be restored to order until it settles down upon some form of religion again. As the subjects of a State must have a religion in order to be truly obedient, and as it is the true religion alone which converts obedience into a living principle, it is obvious that a Commonwealth can no more be organized, which shall recognize all religions, than one which shall recognize none. The sanctions of its laws must have a centre of unity somewhere. To combine in the same government contradictory systems of faith, is as hopelessly impossible as to constitute into one State men of different races and languages. The Christian, the Pagan, Mohammedan, Jews, Infidels, and Turks, cannot coalesce as organic elements in one body politic. The State must take its religious typo from the doctrines, the precepts, and the institutions of one or the other of these parties."

James H. Thornwell

"Be earnest to procure ministers, who preach the uncorrupted doctrines of the gospel, in all your towns: let none of your parishes continue vacant thro’ indifference, negligence, or covetousness; and never withhold from faithful ministers a comfortable support. When we look round and see so many churches destitute of teachers, contenting themselves in the total neglect of all divine institutions, have we not reason to fear that God is departing from us? And if our religion is given up, all the liberty we boast of will soon be gone; a profane and wicked people cannot hope for divine blessings, but it may be easily foretold that “evil will befall them in the latter days.”

Samuel Langdon

(1723 –  1797)

"That Christianity should be twisted in with national constitutions, that the kingdoms of the world should become Christ's kingdoms, and their kings the church's nursing fathers."

Matthew Henry

“Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so come to receive contentment.”

Jeremiah Burroughs

"It is our duty, as far as lies in our power, immediately to organize human society and all its institutions and organs upon a distinctively Christian basis. Indifference or impartiality here between the law of the kingdom and the law of the world, or of its prince, the devil, is utter treason to the King of Righteousness. The Bible, the great statute-book of the Kingdom, explicitly lays down principles which, when candidly applied, will regulate the action of every human being in all relations. There can be no compromise. The King said, with regard to all descriptions of moral agents in all spheres of activity, "He that is not with me is against me."  If the national life in general is organized upon non-Christian principles, the churches which are embraced within the universal assimilating power of that nation will not long be able to preserve their integrity."

A. A. Hodge

"Resolved, never to do anything which I would be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life."

Jonathan Edwards

"Do not leave your children to wander out without the guardianship of holy knowledge, for there are seducers abroad who will mislead them if they can."

Charles Spurgeon

“The satisfying labors of a gardener are among the most profound and paradoxical evidences of grace in all of life.”

John Calvin

"We need winds and tempests to exercise our faith, to tear off the rotten bough of self-dependence, and to root us more firmly in Christ. The day of evil reveals to us the value of our glorious hope"

Chalres Spurgeon

"Let us not please ourselves that we have deep understandings, but let us shew our understandings by our practice." 

Richard Sibbes

"There is no surer standard of spiritual growth than a habit of aiming at the glory of God in everything."

Archibald Alexander