Clergy

"I learn the depth to which I have sunk from the length of the chain let down to up-draw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery for restoration."

"And is not this a great salvation, great in its simplicity, great in its comprehensiveness, which thus meets the every necessity of the guilty and helpless; and which, arranged for creatures whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leaves them not till elevated to the very summit of dignity?"

"Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, "How shall man be just with God?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself."

"The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation."

"The mysteries of the Bible should teach us, at one and the same time, our nothingness and our greatness; producing humility, and animating hope. I bow before these mysteries. I knew that I should find them, and I pretend not to remove them. But whilst I thus prostrate myself, it is with deep gladness and exultation of spirit. God would not have hinted the mystery, had He not hereafter designed to explain it. And, therefore, are my thoughts on a far-off home, and rich things are around me, and the voices of many harpers, and the shinings of bright constellations, and the clusters of the cherub and the seraph; and a whisper, which seems not of this earth, is circulating through the soul, " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.""

"Glorious transformation! glorious translation! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene. The sea and the land have given up their dead! the quickened myriads have been judged according to their works. And now, an innumerable company, out of all nations and tribes and tongues, ascend with the Mediator towards the kingdom of His Father. Can it be that these, who were born children of earth, who were long enemies to God by wicked works, are to enter the bright scenes of paradise? Yes, He who leads them has washed them in His blood; He who leads them has sanctified them by His Spirit."

"The Bible tells me explicitly that Christ was God; and it tells me, as explicitly that Christ was man. It does not go on to state the modus or manner of the union. I stop, therefore, where the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my Mediator, but I own as inscrutable the mysteries of His person."

"We know, and we feel, that the vast business of our redemption, arranged in the councils of the far-back eternity, and acted out amid the wonderings and throbbings of the universe, could not have been that stupendous transaction which gave God glory by giving sinners safety, if the inspired account brought its dimensions within the compass of a human arithmetic, or denned its issues by the lines of a human demarcation."

"God is summoning you. Angels are summoning you. The myriads who have gone before are summoning you. We are surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." The battlements of the sky seem thronged with those who have fought the good fight of faith. They bend down from the eminence, and bid us ascend, through the one Mediator, to the same lofty dwelling."

"Indifference, if let alone, will produce obduracy; and obduracy, if let alone, will produce torment."

"Ye will not pray; ye will not shun temptation; ye will not renounce known sin; ye will not fight against evil habits! Are ye stronger than God? Can ye contend with the Eternal One? Have ye the nerve which shall not tremble, and the flesh which shall not quiver, and the soul which shall not quail, when the sheet of fire is round the globe, and thousand times ten thousand angels line the sky, and call to judgment?"

"In proportion as we " grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ," we shall grow in the desire that the Redeemer's sovereignty may be more widely and visibly extended."

"Able to save to the uttermost, "Lord to whom shall we go; Thou hast the words of eternal life?" Thou who hast abolished death, upon whom else shall we suspend our immortality?"

"Then re-united to the friends with whom vve took sweet counsel upon earth, we shall recount our toil, only to heighten our ecstasy; and call to mind the toil and the din of war, oniy that, with a more bounding throb and a richer song, we may fee! and celebrate the wonders of redemption."

"O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, " We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise."

"Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above."

"If it be heaven toward which we journey, it will be holiness in which we delight; for if we cannot now rejoice in having God for our portion, where is our meetness for a world in which God is to be all in all forever and forever?"

"Faith — saving faith — whatever other definition may be framed — is best described as that act of the soul by which the whole man is given over to the guardianship of the Mediator. He who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two things: first, his belief that he needs a protector; secondly, his belief that Christ is just that protector which his necessities require."

"Remember, you are not a tree, that can live or stand alone. You are only a branch. And it is only while you abide in Christ, as the branch in the vine, that you will flourish or even live."

"[N]o novels or worldly books come up to the Sermons of McCheyne or the Commentaries of Scott."

"When this passing world is done, When has sunk yon, glowing sun, When we stand with Christ in glory, Looking o'er life's f1nished story, Then, Lord, shall I fully know — Not till then — how much I owe."

"Break my hard heart, Jesus my Lord; In the inmost part Hide Thy sweet word."

"When a man goes thirsty to the well, his thirst is not allayed by merely going there. On the contrary, it is increased by every step he goes. It is by what he draws out of the well that his thirst is satisfied. And just so it is not by the mere bodily exercise of waiting upon ordinances that you will ever come to peace, but by tasting of Jesus in the ordinances, whose flesh is meat indeed, and His blood drink indeed."

"When I stand before the throne, Dressed in beauty not my own, When I see Thee as Thou art, Love Thee with unsinning heart, Then, Lord, shall I fully know — Not till then — how much I owe."

"The sea ebbs and flows, but the rock remains unmoved."

"We must not close with Christ because we feel Him, but because God lias said it, and we must take God's word even in the dark."

"The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer passages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dews in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hailstorm of half an hour, so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection."

"Bring the little ones to Christ. Lord Jesus, we bring them to-day, the children of our Sunday-schools, of our churches, of the streets. Here they are; they wait Thy benediction. The prayer of Jacob for his sons shall be my prayer while I live, and when I die: " The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.""

"I like the Bible folded between lids of cloth, or calfskin, or morocco, but I like it better when, in the shape of a man, it goes out into the world—a Bible illustrated."

"If your path had been smooth, you would have depended upon your own surefootedness; but God roughened the path, so you have to take hold of His hand. If the weather had been mild, you would have loitered along the watercourses, but at the first howl of the storm you quickened your pace heavenward and wrapped around you the warm robe of Saviour’s righteousness."

"If the statistics of any of our cities could be taken on this subject you would find that a vast multitude of women not only support themselves, but masculines also. A great legion of men amount to nothing, and a woman by marriage manacled to one of these nonentities needs condolence. A woman standing outside the marriage relation is several hundred thousand times better off than a woman badly married."

"One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles from earthly streams."

"At the beginning God said: “Let there be light,” and light was, and light is, and light shall be. So Christianity is rolling on, and it is going to warm all nations, and all nations are to bask in its light. Men may shut the window-blinds so they cannot see it, or they may smoke the pipe of speculation until they are shadowed under their own vaporing; but the Lord God is a sun!"

"When you are reading a book in a dark room, and come to a difficult part, you take it to a window to get more light. So take your Bibles to Christ."

"There cannot be a secret Christian. Grace is like ointment hid in the hand; it betrayeth itself. If you truly feel the sweetness of the cross of Christ, you will be constrained to confess Christ before men."

"You have a valuable house or farm. It is suggested that the title is not good. You employ counsel. You have the deeds examined. You search the records for mortgages, judgments and liens. You are not satisfied until you have a certificate, signed by the great seal of the State, assuring you that the title is good. Yet how many leave their title to heaven an undecided matter! Why do you not go to the records and find it? Give yourself no rest day or night until you can read your title clear to mansions in the skies.""

"The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves."

"Sin, without strong restraints, would pull God from His throne, make the world the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship."

"Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities — who has not been put into fire — who has been taught to say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.""

"If you are seeking the comforts of religion rather than the glory of our Lord, you are on the wrong track. The Comforter meets us unsought in the path of duty. There is something in religion, when rightly comprehended, that is masculine and grand. It removes those little desires which are the constant hectic of a fool."

"A friend called on me when I was ill, to settle some business. My head was too much confused by my indisposition to understand fully what he said, but I had such unlimited confidence in him, that I did whatever he bid me, in the fullest assurance that it was right. How simply I can trust in man, and how little in God! How unreasonable is a pure act of faith in one like ourselves, if we cannot repose the same faith in God."

"I have often had occasion to observe, that a warm blundering man does more for the world than a frigid wise man."

"In viewing the scheme of redemption, I seem like one viewing a vast and complicated machine of exquisite contrivance; what I comprehend of it is wonderful, what I do not, is, perhaps, more so still."

"Providence is a greater mystery than revelation."

"The nurse of infidelity is sensuality. Youth are sensual. The Bible stands in their way. It prohibits the indulgence of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life."

"The spirit and tone of your home will have great influence on your children. If it is what it ought to be, it will fasten conviction on their minds, however wicked they may become."

"Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God: "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust."

"The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence: — they acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced in His will in all things."

"An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim — that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet."

"The Christian's fellowship with God is rather a habit than a rapture."