Christian Leaders

"I could heartily wish that you and all others concerned in this sad loss, were more taken up in minding the happy exchange that she hath made, than with your present loss. She hath exchanged earth for heaven, a wilderness for a paradise, a prison for a palace, a house made with hands for one eternal in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1-2). She hath exchanged imperfection for perfection, sighing for singing, mourning for rejoicing, prayers for praises, the society of sinful mortals for the company of God, Christ, angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, Heb 12:22-24; an imperfect transient enjoyment of God for a more clear, full, perfect, and permanent enjoyment of God. She hath exchanged pain for ease, sickness for health, a bed of weakness for a bed of spices, a complete blessedness. She hath exchanged her brass for silver, her counters for gold, and her earthly contentments for heavenly enjoyments."

"Oh that you would arise in Christ's strength, and do what possibly you can for God, though you cannot do what you would and what you should!"

"It is certain that great prosperity and worldly glory are no sure tokens of God's love."

"Christ doth not love believers with a low, flat, dull, common love, with such a love as most men love one another with, but with a love that is like himself. Now, men will give as they love: 1 Sam. 1:4, 5, ‘And Elkanah gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all his sons and daughters, portions, but unto Hannah he gave a worthy portion, for he loved her.’ In the Hebrew it is, ‘he gave her a gift of the face;’ that is, a great, an honourable gift. Men look upon great and honourable gifts with a sweet and cheerful countenance; so the gifts that Jesus Christ gives to believers are the gifts of the face, that is, they are the greatest gifts, the honourablest gifts, the choicest gifts, gifts fit for none but a king to give."

"There is no soul under heaven that commonly lies under the commanding power of the Word, but that soul that has an interest in the Word of Promise."

"So many read good books and get nothing, because they read them over cursorily, slightly, superficially."

"In Christ are riches of Justification; in Christ are riches of sanctification, riches of consolation, and riches of glorification...Christ's riches are like the eternal springs of the earth, that cannot dry up, but are and shall be diffused by his Spirit and gospel, until his whole house be filled with them."

"Such as diligently search the Scripture shall find that true blessedness, happiness, and salvation is attributed to several signs: sometimes to the fear of God, sometimes to faith, sometimes to repentance, sometimes to love, sometimes to meekness, sometimes to humility, sometimes to patience, sometimes to poverty of spirit, sometimes to holy mourning, sometimes to hungering and thirsting after righteousness; so that if a godly man can find any one of those in himself, he may safely and groundedly conclude of his salvation and justification, though he cannot see all those signs in him."

"The first great work that men are to attend in this world is the eternal safety and security of their souls; the next great work is to know, to be assured, that it shall go well with their souls forever."

"The lives of such are most desirable, and the deaths of such will be most lamented, who make it their business to serve their generation."

"Godly lives convince more than miracles themselves."

"Assurance makes most for your comfort, but holiness makes most for God's honor...Assurance is the daughter of holiness...The surest and shortest way to assurance is to wrestle and contend with God for holiness..."

"In private prayer we have a far greater advantage as so the exercise of our own gifts and graces and parts that we have in public...in public duties we are more passive, but in private duties we are more active. Now, the more our gifts and parts and graces are exercised, the more they are strengthened and increased. All acts strengthen habits. The more sin is acted, the more it is strengthened. And so it is with our gifts and graces; the more they are acted, the more they are strengthened."

"There are many fair professors that are foul sinners, and that have much of God, and Christ, and heaven, and holiness in their lips, when they have nothing but sin and hell in their hearts and lives. These men’s conversations shame their profession, and therefore they cry against sanctification as a sure and blessed evidence of a man’s justification."

"An excellent master is always better than an excellent law. Let your laws be ever so good, if the lawmakers are bad, all will come to nothing."

"Books may preach when the author cannot, when the author may not, when the author dares not, yes, and which is more, when the author is not."

"Precepts may instruct, but examples persuade."

"Certainly, those persons that shall deny sanctification to be a most sure, sweet, and comfortable evidence of man's justification, they must not only blot out, and abolish the epistles of James and John, but must also raze out and abolish all those evangelical promises of grace and mercy, and of happiness and blessedness, that are made to such persons as are invested, enriched, and bespangled with the several graces of the Holy Spirit."

"The more any man is in the contemplation of truth, the more fairer and firmer impression is made upon his heart by truth."

"Assurance is a jewel of that worth, a pearl of that price, that he who will have it must work, and sweat, and weep, and wait to obtain it."

"Many are now dropped into hell that have formerly presumed of their going to heaven."

"There are five things that God will never sell at a cheap rate -- Christ, truth, his honour, heaven, and assurance."

"You are wise, and know how to apply it."

"So as you may see in Daniel and his companions, that would rather choose to burn, and be cast to the lions—than they would bow to the idol which Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When this 'slight offense', in the world's account, and a hot fiery furnace stood in competition, that they must either fall into sin, or be cast into the fiery furnace—such was their tenderness of the honor and glory of God, and their hatred and indignation against sin, that they would rather burn than sin!"

"Say to thy soul, O my soul! If thou wilt sin with the multitude, thou must be shut out of heaven with the multitude, thou must be cast down to hell with the multitude."

"Assurance is a jewel worth waiting for."

"There is nothing in the world that renders a man more unlike to a saint, and more like to Satan - than to argue from God's mercy to sinful liberty; from divine goodness to licentiousness."

"Afflictions, they are but as a dark entry into your Father's house; they are but as a dirty lane to a royal palace. Now, tell me, souls, whether it be not very great madness to shun the ways of holiness, and to walk in the ways of wickedness, because of those afflictions which attend the ways of holiness."

"When Satan attempts to draw you to sin by presenting God as a God all made up of mercy, oh then reply, that though God's general mercy extend to all the works of his hand, yet his special mercy is confined to those who are divinely qualified, to those who love him and keep his commandments, to those who trust in him, that by hope hang upon him, and who fear him; and that you must be such a one here, or else you can never be happy hereafter; you must partake of his special mercy, or else eternally perish in everlasting misery, notwithstanding God's general mercy. (page 44)"

"Those who live as the many, must die with the many, and go to hell with the many. The way to hell is broad and well beaten. The way to be undone forever is to do as the most do."

"He who would to the purpose do a good action, must not neglect his season."

"Sins against God's mercy will bring the greatest and sorest judgments upon men's heads and hearts. Mercy is God's Alpha, justice is His Omega."

"God will call evil men to a strict account for all the outward good that they have enjoyed."

"Ah! How many Judases have we in these days, that kiss Christ, and yet betray Christ; that in their words profess him, but in their works deny him; that bow their knee to him, and yet in their hearts despise him; that call him Jesus, and yet will not obey him for their Lord (from: A Word To The Reader)"

"The snow covers many a dunghill, so doth prosperity many a rotten heart. (page 87)"

"Ah, souls, you can easily sin as the saints—but can you repent with the saints? Many can sin with David and Peter, that cannot repent with David and Peter—and so must perish forever! (page 27)"

"Take no truths upon trust, but all upon trial."

"Surely it is more honourable to do great things, than to speak or read great things!...When a Christian has one eye upon his book, the other should be looking up to heaven for a blessing upon what he reads."

"Women of America! You can give and serve and pray. You can give self-denyingly. You can serve lovingly. You can pray conqueringly. The best example of self-denying liberality in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of loving service in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of conquering prayer in the Bible is recorded of woman. It was no great gift, no great service, no great prayer. The gift was a widow's mite. The service was the anointing of Jesus with a box of ointment. The prayer was a mother's prayer for a daughter possessed with a devil. But the gift and service and prayer were in self-denial and love and faith. And so in the sight of God they were of great price."

"Christ has lifted woman to a new place in the world. And just in proportion as Christianity has sway, will she rise to a higher dignity in human life. What she has now, and what she shall have, of privilege and true honor, she owes to that gospel which took those qualities peculiarly and which had been counted weak and unworthy, and gave them a Divine glory in Christ."

"Life everywhere is in vast and endless variety. So it is with life eternal, that gift of God, constituting, in its length and breadth and height and depth, the reward of the righteous. The penitent, dying thief is not going into heaven like the triumphant, dying Paul."

"Here is Christianity. Whence came it? What is it? It is a force in the world, a prodigious force. It has revolutionized society. It has lifted man out of himself. It has changed the face of the world. There it lies, imbedded in more than eighteen centuries of human history; and history of no mean sort, the best record of the race."

"Christianity, Christ, heaven, hell, the judgment, sin, holiness. God, — these, and whether they be true or false, and our personal relations to them, whether they be right or wrong, are things to know about, not to be doubting or guessing about."

"He who tears down the cross, what is there left to lift him to heaven? The church claiming to be a Christian church is false to the title, if she make the cross of Christ of none effect."

"Christ was either the grandest, guiltiest of impostors, by a marvelous and most subtle refinement of wickedness, or He was God manifest in the flesh."

"Other men have said, "If I could only live, I would establish and perpetuate an empire." This Christ of Galilee says, "My death shall do it." Other martyrs have died in simple fidelity to truth. This martyr dies that He may make His truth mighty over all hearts. He was a man; but was He only a man?"

"O, let us understand that the power of Christianity lies not in a hazy indefiniteness, not in shadowy forms, not so much even in definite truths and doctrines, but in the truth and the doctrine. There is but one Christ crucified. All the gathered might of the infinite God is in that word."

"If Christianity were only a development, then Christ was not needed. If Christianity were only a scheme of morals, then the Divine incarnation was a thing superfluous."

"It is not simply a theological treatise, a code of laws, a religious homily, but the Bible — the book — while the only book for the soul, the best book for the mind."

"The Bible is the most thought-suggesting book in the world. No other deals with such grand themes. —"