Remember that secret prayer, reading the word of God, watchfulness, and self-examination are the great means of preserving comfort in religion, and of growing in grace. In proportion as you are exact and faithful in these, such usually will be your inward peace, and the safety of your state. Unite them all together, and never cease to practice them while you live.
– Ashbel Green –
1762 –1848
A man whose right hand was withered came to learn from Christ (see Luke 6:6). Whether he had any expectation to be healed by him does not appear. But those that would be cured by the grace of Christ must be willing to learn the doctrine of Christ.
– Matthew Henry –
The most ordinary way by which many are brought to Christ, is by a clear and discernible work of the law, and humiliation; which we generally call the spirit of bondage. … But there is a conviction of sin, an awakening of conscience, and work of humiliation, which as we shall point out, rarely miscarries, or fails of a gracious issue, but ordinarily doth resolve into the Spirit of adoption, and a gracious work of God’s Spirit.
– William Guthrie –
from The Christians Great Interest, 1658
Let us discern what is good and pleasing and acceptable in the sight of the one who created us. Let us contemplate the blood of Christ and note how precious it is to his Father, because its outpouring for our salvation has brought the grace of repentance to all the world.
– Clement –
from The Wisdom of the Apostolic Fathers
The teaching of this and that opinion may please a man’s fancy, but it is only the preaching of Christ that changes the heart, that conquers the heart, that turns the heart. Peter, by preaching a crucified Christ, converts three thousand souls at once.
– Thomas Brooks –
Keep the soul open to entertain the Holy Ghost, for he will bring in continually fresh forces to subdue corruption.
– Richard Sibbs –
from The Bruised Reed, 1630
True repentance will entirely change you; the bias of your souls will be changed, then you will delight in God, in Christ, in His law, and in His people.
– George Whitefield –
There is no one beyond the reach of the tempter. Keep that in mind. Life may run smoothly for a while, but the testing time is coming.
– DL Moody –
Oh! that the holy life of the blessed Jesus may be always in my thoughts, and before mine eyes, till I receive a deep sense and impression of those excellent graces that shined so eminently in him; and let me never cease my endeavours, till that new and divine nature prevail in my soul, and Christ be formed within me.
– Henry Scougal –
from The Life of God in the Soul of Man