What They Said

"Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse. Where does it come from? It is the work of the Holy Spirit (Phil 2:12-13). This often leads to some of the most remarkable experiences in the life of the minister. So never resist, never postpone it, never push it aside because you are busy. Give yourself to it, yield to it; and you will find not only that you have not been wasting time with respect to the matter with which you are dealing but that actually it has helped you greatly in that respect. You will experience an ease and a facility in understanding what you were reading, in thinking, in ordering matter for a sermon, in writing, in everything which is quite astonishing. Such a call to prayer must never be regarded as a distraction; always respond to it immediately, and thank God if it happens to you frequently."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“The gospel of Christ admits of no compromise. It demands our all. If it required less, it would be unworthy of its great author and finisher. I rejoice that it requires all.  This is its glory.  When we are brought to yield to its claims, and give up all, then, and not till then, will it throw around us its arms of mercy.  And what is our all?  What do we give when we give our all?  A polluted soul,that might justly be cast into hell; a body, the miserable companion of that soul, and groaning under the dire effects of disobedience and guilt.  Our all consists, at last, in nothing more than a polluted and guilty nature. 

What a wonder is it that God will accept such an offering.  What a miracle of mercy,that raises us up from our pollution, bathes us in the laver of regeneration, and clothes us in the white linen of the saints.  And do we talk about self-denial?  Do we say, how hard to give up all? I am ashamed to use such language; ashamed to hear it used.  What did Christ give up for us?  Let that question blot out "self-denial" from the Christian's vocabulary.  When you think the Gospel makes severe requisitions by requiring all, go up to Mount Calvary and weep over such suggestions.  See the blood of your Immanuel so freely gushing from a heart that never exercised towards you any emotion but love; love unspeakable—love unsought—and love for the guilty.  Go hide your head in shame and penitence at such a thought.  It is a glorious privilege, my young friend, to give up all to Christ.  The soul that feels the constraining influence of his love, asks not how little may be given consistently with obtaining the heavenly reward—asks not for the lowest standard of discipleship; it burns with an ardent desire to devote all, and to aim at perfect "conformity to his death." 

It is melancholy to behold so many satisfied with a name in the church,and a seat at the sacramental board.  This appears to make up the sum of their religion.  Others go one step farther, and observe some decent regard to what may be termed the experimental part of religion, but aim not at that elevated standard which it is their privilege to attain.  They live in doubt, and they often die in darkness.  They enjoy neither religious consolations nor the peace which the world giveth. All this is in consequence of that miserable, half-way, compromising spirit, which seeks to perform the service, and enjoy the approbation of two masters.”

Jared Bell Waterbury

“Yet the cost is always high to carve the beauty God shows us—as an ideal for our lives.  It costs self-discipline, oftentimes anguish, as we must deny ourselves, and cut off the things we love. Self must be crucified if the noble manhood in us is ever to be set free to shine in its beauty—if the angel within the marble block is to be unimprisoned.”

J.R. Miller

“It is easier to put on canvas the artist's dreams—than to put upon our human lives the beautiful visions of Christlikeness which we find on the Gospel pages.  Yet that is the real problem of Christian living.  And though hard, it is not impossible.  If we but struggled and tried and worked, in our efforts to get our visions of character translated into reality, as artists do to paint their visions on canvas, or carve them in stone—we would all be very noble.  Never yet has an ideal been too high to be realized at last, through the help of Christ.  The heavenly visions God gives us—are prophecies of what we may become, what we are born to become.”

J.R. Miller

“Christ's character is the model, the ideal, for every Christian life.  In the end, we are to be altogether like Him; therefore all life's aiming and striving should be towards Christ's blessed beauty.  His image we find in the Gospels.  We can look at it every day.  We can study it in its details, as we follow our Lord in His life among men, in all the variations of experience through which He passed.”

J.R. Miller

“The history of the word 'character' is interesting.  Anciently, character was the stamp or make by which a brick-maker, an engraver, or other worker marked the thing he made.  Applied to life, character is that which one's experiences impress or print on his soul.  A baby has no character.  Its life is but a piece of white paper on which something is to be written, some song or story, perhaps a tragedy of sorrow.  Character grows as the baby passes into manhood.  Every day something is written here, some mark made.  The mother writes something; the teacher writes something; every day's experiences write some words; every touch or influence of other lives—leaves some mark; temptation and struggle do their part in filling the page; books, education, sorrow, joy, companions, friends—all of life touches and paints some line of beauty—or scratches some mark of damage.  Final character is the result of all these influences that work and interact upon the life. Character is the page fully written, the picture finished.”

J.R. Miller

“We ought to seek to gather in this world—treasure that we can carry with us through death's gates, and into the eternal world. We should strive to build into our lives—qualities that shall endure.  Men slave and work to get a little money, or to obtain honor, or power, or to win an earthly crown—but when they pass into the great vast forever, they take nothing of all this with them!”

J.R. Miller

"This Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and liberties appertaining to them."

James Madison

"The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation." 

Alexander Hamilton

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."

Thomas Jefferson

“But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." 

Thomas Jefferson

"The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments."

Alexander Hamilton

“The whole structural system of the suburban civilization is based on the case for having bathrooms and the case against having babies.”

G.K Chesterton

"The glory of heaven is ponderous and weighty; it is called 'a weight of glory,' 2 Cor. iv. 17.  God must make us able to bear it.  This weight of glory should make sufferings light: this weight should make us throw away the weights of sin out of our hands, though they be golden weights: who would for the indulging of a lust, forfeit so glorious an inheritance? lay the whole world in scales with it, it is lighter than vanity."

Thomas Watson

“The preaching of Christ crucified gives such a representation of the evil of sin, and the dreadful punishment due to it, as naturally tends to turn sinners from it, and bring them to repentance. In the Cross of Christ—the sinner may see what malignity there is in sin—when it brought such heavy vengeance on the head of the Surety.  There the sinner may see how God hates it—when he punished it so severely in his beloved Son. If the almighty Redeemer sunk under the load—then how shall the feeble sinner bear up under it?  If God spared not his own Son, who was but a surety—then how can the sinner escape, who was the original debtor!”

Samuel Davies

“Brethren, I do not think much of a conversion where it does not touch a man's substance—and those people who pretend to be Christ's people and yet live only for themselves and do nothing for Him or for His Church give sorry evidence of having been born again.  A love to the people of God has always been a distinguishing mark of the true convert.  Look, then, at Lydia, and remember that she is but a specimen of many.  Let her case rest before you and let the prayer go up, "Lord, bring in Lydias this morning, according to Your mighty Grace.””

Charles Spurgeon

“The whole lives of Christians ought to be a kind of aspiration after piety, seeing they are called unto holiness, (Eph. 1: 4; 1 Thess. 4: 5.) The office of the law is to excite them to the study of purity and holiness, by reminding them of their duty. For when the conscience feels anxious as to how it may have the favor of God, as to the answer it could give, and the confidence it would feel, if brought to his judgment-seat, in such a case the requirements of the law are not to be brought forward, but Christ, who surpasses all the perfection of the law, is alone to be held forth for righteousness.”

John Calvin

“The Gospel is the only preventive for war. “

Charles Spurgeon

“Truth is truth, and error, error, and that which is unlawful is unlawful, whether men think so or not. God has put an eternal difference between light and darkness, good and ill, which no creature's conceit can alter; and therefore no man's judgment is the measure of things further than it agrees to truth stamped upon things themselves by God. “

Richard Sibbes

“Every sane man recognises that unlimited liberty is anarchy, or rather is nonentity. The civic idea of liberty is to give the citizen a province of liberty; a limitation within which a citizen is a king.”

G.K. Chesterton

“In the domestic training of children and youth, there has been a gradual but very perceptible change from the system which was in vogue fifty years ago. There is more lenity, more liberty, and more indulgence, on the part of the parent; more insubordination, more self-confidence and more restlessness, on the part of the child.”

Jared Bell Waterbury

(1799 - 1876)

"Our limitations and our ignorance reveal our need.  Man is in darkness concerning God.  Blot the Bible out of existence and what should we know about His character, His moral attributes, His attitude toward us, or His demands upon us?  As we have seen, nature is but an imperfect medium for revealing God.  The ancients had the same nature before them as we have, but what did they discover of His character?  Unto what knowledge of the one true God did they attain?  The seventeenth chapter of the Acts answers that question.  When the Apostle Paul was in the famous city of Athens, famous for its learning and philosophical culture, he discovered an altar, on which were inscribed the words, “To the unknown God”.  The same condition prevails today.  Visit those lands which have not been illumined by the light of the Holy Scriptures and it will be found that their peoples know no more about the character of the living God than did the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians”

A.W. Pink

"To be sanctified is just as requisite as to be justified. He that thinks to come to enjoyment of God without holiness, makes Him an unholy God, and puts the highest indignity imaginable upon Him. There is no other alternative: we must either leave our sins, or our God. We may as easily reconcile Heaven and Hell, as easily take away all difference between light and darkness, good and evil, as procure acceptance for unholy persons with God. While it be true that our interest in God is not built upon our holiness, it is equally true that we have none without it. Many have greatly erred in concluding that, because piety and obedience are not meritorious, they can get to Heaven without them. The free grace of God towards sinners by Jesus Christ by no means renders holiness needless and useless. Christ is not the minister of sin, but the Main-tamer of God’s glory. He has not purchased for His people security in sin, but salvation from sin.

According to our growth in likeness unto God are our approaches unto glory. Each day both writer and reader is drawing nearer the end of his earthly course, and we do greatly deceive ourselves if we imagine that we are drawing nearer to Heaven, while following those courses which lead only to Hell. We are woefully deluded if we suppose that we are journeying towards glory, and yet are not growing in grace. The believer’s glory, subjectively considered, will be his likeness to Christ (1 John 3:2), and it is the very height of folly for any to think that they shall love hereafter what now they hate. There is no other way of growing in the likeness of God but in holiness: thereby alone are we "changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18)—that is, from one degree of glorious grace to another, until by one last great change shall issue all grace and holiness in eternal glory.”

A.W. Pink

“Brethren, Christ is so precious that He cannot be bought. If a man should give all the substance of his house to purchase an interest in Christ, it would be utterly condemned. Rich men might gather together all their goodly things, yes, India might be exhausted of its wealth, Peru drained of its silver, and California of its gold—but no part nor lot in Christ could be bought—even with sapphires and diamonds. He gives Himself away right freely, according to the riches of His Grace! But He cannot be purchased, for He is so precious that He cannot even be priced.

A whole world can never weigh against Him any more than a single grain of dust would weigh against the universe. There is no measuring line with which to form a unit for calculation, with which to measure Him. He is infinite, and finite judgments will never be able to comprehend His unutterable value. He is God's unspeakable gift. Heaven itself is nothing as compared with Him, and if a man had to wade breast-deep through a thousand Hells to come to Christ, it were well worth the venture, if at the last he might but say, "My Beloved is mine, and I am His.””

Charles Spurgeon

“The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them.  From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses!”

Archibald Brown

“Anyone who is not an anarchist agrees with having a policeman at the corner of the street; but the danger at present is that of finding the policeman half-way down the chimney or even under the bed.”

G.K. Chesterton

"If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect his commandments, if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments, and such convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we have the highest hopes for the future of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of Government and political union, exceeding all praise, as much as it exceeds all former examples of political association, we may be sure of one thing, that while our country furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the Historic Art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no decline and fall; it will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution, which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity. “

Daniel Webster

"Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long."—Prov. ixiii. 17.

“The fear of the Lord—it is a grand and significant Old Testament word. It depicts a state of mind and heart which might well be more manifest to-day, and which I must seek to cherish and foster within my own soul.

It is fear felt towards the Lord.  Do I think, as much and as deeply as I should, of His dazzling and worshipful attributes?  His justice cannot be tarnished.  His holiness is without flaw.  Before the splendour and awfulness of His majesty the angels veil their faces with their wings; cherubim who know and seraphim who burn feel themselves unworthy as they stand adoring about His throne. He is a most pure Spirit, the old Confession says.  His is the sevenfold radiance of divinity. Ah, He merits my reverence and my fear.

But it is also fear felt by the Lord.  Many a year after Hebrew psalmists and prophets and sages had finished their course and borne their testimony, God lived and moved, laboured and wept and died, among men—God in the person of my Saviour Jesus Christ.  And, when He was here, He knew well this sober and seemly grace. He was heard, the New Testament tells me, for His eulabeia—His godly fear.  In my culture and habitual exercise of fear, I am in the best company. I hold fellowship with my Redeemer and my King.”

Alexander Smellie

"Holiness is not something we are called upon to do in order that we may become something; it is something we are to do because of what we already are."

Martyn Lloyd-Jones

“There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers. The only true free-thinker is he whose intellect is as much free from the future as from the past.”

G.K. Chesterton