What They Said

“True belief will never make a man idle, or allow him to sit still, contented with his own religion. It will stir him to do acts of love, kindness, and charity, according as he sees opportunity. It will constrain him to walk in the steps of his Master, who "went about doing good." (Acts 10:38)  In one way or another, it will make him work. The works that he does may attract no notice from the world. They may seem trifling and insignificant to many persons. But they are not forgotten by Him who notices a cup of cold water given for His sake. Where there is no working love, there is no faith. A lazy, selfish Christian, has no right to regard himself as a genuine believer!”

“How shall we attempt to vindicate and unfold the love of Christ to His people—the great and costly proof of that affection which He has given? Who can fathom its depth, scale its height, or measure its length and breadth? That which is infinite is measureless; that which is eternal is boundless.”

“People are crying up religion all over the country, and there is not one of a thousand who has yet learnt the first lesson—to be nothing. Some extol faith and some works; some are preaching free-grace and others free-will, but of all this noisy crowd, how few lie at Jesus' feet, helpless and hopeless, and find help and hope in Him!”

“There is something wonderfully inspiring in the thought that God has a plan and a purpose for our lives, for each life. We do not come drifting into this world, and we do not drift through it, like waifs on the ocean. We are sent from God, each one of us with a divine thought for his life—something God wants us to do, some place he wants us to fill. All through our lives we are in the hands of God, who chooses our place and orders our circumstances and is ready to make all things work together for our good. Our part in all this is the acceptance of God's will for our lives, as that will is made known to us day by day. If we thus acquiesce in the divine way for us we shall fulfill the divine purpose.”

“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.”