Quotes by Clergymen - Page 18

When God intends a mercy for his people, he stirs up the spirit of prayer in them. Fervency unites the soul and directs the thoughts to the work at hand. It will not allow diversions and denies all foreign thoughts seeking to intrude. Pray fervently or you do nothing. Cold praying is no more prayer than a painting of fire is fire. How can prayers that do not even warm your own heart move God’s? A fervent prayer will never find a cold reception with God. Elijah’s prayer called fire down from heaven because it carried fire up to heaven.
William Gurnall
Now the soul says, ‘Lord, where shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.’ [John 6: 68] Here he centers, here he settles. It is the entrance of heaven to him; he sees his interest in God.
Joseph Alleine
When the world is worth nothing, then heaven is worth something. I leave every Christian to judge by his own experience, whether we do not overlove the world more in prosperity than in adversity (374) [.]
Richard Baxter
Either paganish unbelief of the truth of that eternal blessedness, and of the truth of the Scripture which doth promise it to us; or, at least, a doubting of our own interest; or most usually most sensible of the latter, and therefore complain most against it, yet I am apt to suspect the former to be the main, radical master-sin, and of greatest force in this business. Oh! If we did but verily believe that the promise of the glory is the word of God, and that God doth truly mean as he speaks, and is fully resolved to make it good; if we did verily believe that there is, indeed, such blessedness prepared for believers as the scripture mentioneth ; sure we should be as impatient of living as we are now fearful of dying, and should think every day a year till our last day should come. We should as hardly refrain from laying violent hands on ourselves, or from the neglecting of the means of our health and life, as we do now from over-much carefulness and seeking of life by unlawful means. . . . Is it possible that we can truly believe that death will remove us fro misery to such glory, and yet be loth to die(465-6)?It appears we are little weary of sinning, when we are so unwilling to be freed by dying(467).
Richard Baxter
Seriousness is the very thing wherein consisteth our sincerity. If thou art not serious, thou art not a Christian (279).
Richard Baxter
The strongest Christian is unsafe among occasions to sin (519).
Richard Baxter
Why dost thou not see that on earth they desires fly from thee? Art thou a not as a child that thinketh to travel to the sun, when he seeth it rising or setting, as it were close to the heart ; but as he traveleth toward it, it seems to go from him ; and when he hath long wearied himself, it is as far off as ever, for the thing he seeketh is in another world? Even such hath been thy labour in seeking for so holy, so pure, so peaceable as society, as might afford thee a contented settlement here. Those that have gone as far as America for satisfaction, have confessed themselves unsatisfied still (643).
Richard Baxter
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage, 946 R
Oswald Chambers
Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are.
Oswald Chambers
I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.
Richard Baxter
The "show business," which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from Our Lord's conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; we have not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes.
Oswald Chambers
O what a blessed day that will be when I shall . . . stand on the shore and look back on the raging seas I have safely passed; when I shall review my pains and sorrows, my fears and tears, and possess the glory which was the end of all!
Richard Baxter
Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune.
Thomas Fuller
Not just one way to describe ourselves, but two ways, at least.Not just one way to hunt for a job, but two ways, at least.Not just one kind of job to hunt for, but two kinds of jobs, at least.Not just one size company to go after, but two sizes, at least.Not just one place we really would like to work at, but two places, at least.
Richard N. Bolles
A forced kindness deserves no thanks
Thomas Fuller
Indeed," Fowler answered. He turned and looked at Tony critically. "I say, old man, but you're not much older than that German kid."Yeah," Tony grinned. "But I'm from Texas and meaner than a junkyard bulldog. Makes a difference, you know.
Robert L. Wise
I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva’s tower...I live still a collegiate student...and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum [sufficient entertainment to myself], sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world...aulae vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo [I laugh to myself at the vanities of the court, the intrigues of public life], I laugh at all.
Robert Burton
Different men view the same things in different ways. And the same men in the course of a few years alter their whole view of life. They have simply changed their companions on the road. Indeed the breaking with one set of people and the forming ties of friendship with others of a different type is often but the outward evidence and result of a hidden and inward change of the more intimate friendships of the mind.
Basil W. Maturin
True friendhip is like sound health: the value of it is seldom know until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton
Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.
Thomas Fuller
Friendship is like a glass ornament, once it is broken it can rarely be put back together exactly the same way.
Charles Kingsley
A hug is worth a thousand words. A friend is worth more."True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
Charles Caleb Colton
Men are not generally sufficiently aware of the distinction between the law of God and his purpose; they are apt to suppose, that as the temper of the sinner is contrary to the one, so the outrages of the sinner are able to defeat the other; than which nothing can be more false.
John Witherspoon
Call it anything else if you will—fear, anxiety, nervousness, sweating—but “shyness” is the historic word for it.
Richard N. Bolles
We fear men so much, because we fear God so little.
William Gurnall
There is no error more absurd, and yet more rooted in the heart of man, than the belief that his sufferings will promote his spiritual safety.
Charles Robert Maturin
[A]ll who are smitten with the love of books think cheaply of the world and wealth; as Jerome says to Vigilantius: The same man cannot love both gold and books... The hideousness of vice is greatly reprobated in books, so that he who loves to commune with books is lead to detest all manner of vice. The demon, who derives his name from knowledge, is most effectually defeated by the knowledge of books, and through books his multitudinous deceits and the endless labyrinths of his guile are laid bare to those who read...
Richard de Bury
In books I meet the dead as if they were alive,in books I see what is yet to come...All things decay and pass with time...all fame would fall victim to oblivionif God had not given mortal men the book to aid them.
Richard de Bury
In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace.All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.
Richard de Bury
Except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book! A message from the dead - from human souls we never saw, who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away. And yet these, in those little sheets of paper, speak to us, arouse us, terrify us, comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers.
Charles Kingsley
To live among such excellent helps as our libraries afford, to have so many silent wise companions whenever we please.
Richard Baxter
A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity. It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.
Henry Ward Beecher
Books appear to be the most immediate instruments of speculative delight.
Richard de Bury
Make careful choice of the books which you read: let the holy Scriptures ever have the preeminence. Let Scripture be first and most in your hearts and hands and other books be used as subservient to it. While reading ask yourself: 1. Could I spend this time no better? 2. Are there better books that would edify me more? 3. Are the lovers of such a book as this the greatest lovers of the Book of God and of a holy life? 4. Does this book increase my love to the Word of God, kill my sin, and prepare me for the life to come? "The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails—given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:11-12
Richard Baxter
What a glut of books! Who can read them?
Robert Burton
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
Charles Caleb Colton
Men's best successes come after their disappointments.
Henry Ward Beecher
The Sun-Dial at Wells CollegeThe shadow by my finger castDivides the future from the past:Before it, sleeps the unborn hourIn darkness, and beyond thy power:Behind its unreturning line,The vanished hour, no longer thine:One hour alone is in thy hands,--The NOW on which the shadow stands.
Henry Van Dyke
most men know what they hate few what they love
Charles Caleb Colton
Nothing can be rightly known, if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, nor to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature, till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense. He who overlooketh him who is the 'Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending,' and seeth not him in all who is the All of all, doth see nothing at all. All creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God. Were they separated actually, they would cease to be, and the separation would be annhiliation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them to ourselves. It is one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle, and another thing to know them as a Christian. None but a Christian can read one line of his Physics so as to understand it rightly. It is a high and excellent study, and of greater use than many apprehend; but it is the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us.
Richard Baxter
That which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing.
Robert Burton
Danger past, God is forgotten.
Thomas Fuller
It is as if a Mohammedan, while recognizing the divine mission of the Arab prophet, were to write for his son a treatise on the ethics of the New Testament as better adapted than the moral system of the Koran for the training and confirming of a young man in the practice of virtue.
Andrew P. Peabody
Christ came to take away our sins, not our minds.
William Sloane Coffin Jr.
The imported discovery, that human nature is too good to be made better by discipline, that children are enticed from the right way by religious instruction, and driven from it by the rod, and kept in thraldom by the conspiracy of priests and legislators, has united not a few in the noble experiment of emancipating the world by the help of an irreligious, ungoverned progeny. The indolent have rejoiced in the discovery that our fathers were fools and bigots, and have cheerfully let loose their children to help on the glorious work; while thousands of families, having heard from their teachers, or believing, in spite of them, that morality will suffice both for earth and heaven, and not doubting that morality will flourish without religion, have either not reared the family altar, or have put out the sacred fire, and laid aside together the rod and the Bible, as superfluous auxiliaries in the education of children. From the school, too, with pious regard for its sacred honors, the Bible, by some, has been withdrawn, lest, by a too familiar knowledge of its contents, children should learn to despise it; as if ignorance were the mother of devotion, and the efficacy of laws depended upon their not being understood.
Lyman Beecher
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame
Charles Caleb Colton
‎Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else.
Henry Ward Beecher
To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
Charles Caleb Colton
All Poets are mad.
Robert Burton
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
Charles Caleb Colton
All words are pegs to hang ideas on.
Henry Ward Beecher
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Oswald Chambers
... God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so.
Oswald Chambers
We act like pagans in a crisis--only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
Oswald Chambers
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
Henry Ward Beecher
There is nothing anti-intellectual in the leap of faith, for faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.
William Sloane Coffin Jr.
The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.
Oswald Chambers
God’s revelation does not need the light of human genius, the polish and strength of human culture, the brilliancy of human thought, the force of human brains to adorn or enforce it; but it does demand the simplicity, the docility, humility, and faith of a child’s heart.
E.M.Bounds
I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin Jr.
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,Old Time is still a-flying;And this same flower that smiles today,tTomorrow will be dying.
Robert Herrick