Holiness

Teach The Old-Fashioned Gospel – Catherine Booth

We teach the old-fashioned Gospel of repentance, faith, and holiness, not daring to separate what God has joined together…We teach that a man cannot be right with God while he is doing wrong to men – in short, that holiness means being saved from sin …and filled with love to God and man.

– Catherine Booth –

The Man God Needs – EM Bounds

It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God – men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.
– EM Bounds –

No Combat, No Victory – Richard Sibbes

There can be no victory where there is no combat. The victory lieth not upon us but upon Christ, who hath taken upon him, as to conquer for us, so to conquer in us. Let us not look so much who are our enemies, as who is our Judge and Captain; not what they threaten, but what He promiseth.

– Richard Sibbes –

A Christian Can Walk in the Midst of … – Jeremiah Burroughs

When a Christian can walk in the midst of fiery trials, without his garments being singed, and has comfort and joy in the midst of everything (when like Paul in the stocks he can sing, which wrought upon the jailor) it will convince men, when they see the power of grace in the midst of afflictions. When they can behave themselves in a gracious and holy manner in such afflictions as would make others roar: Oh, this is the glory of a Christian.

– Jeremiah Burroughs –
from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 1648

Sin in God’s Sight – Robert Candlish

It is not what my sin is in the sight of man that I have to consider; but what it is in thy sight, O thou Holy One! – who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

– Robert Candlish –
from The Prayer of a Broken Heart: Expository Discourses on Psalm 51, 1873

Godly Men Do Not Indulge in Sin – Thomas Watson

A godly man does not indulge sin. Though sin is in him, he is troubled at it and would gladly get rid of it. There is as much difference between sin in the wicked and sin in the godly—as between poison being in a serpent and poison being in a man. Poison in a serpent is in its natural place and is delightful—but poison in a man’s body is harmful and he uses antidotes to expel it. So sin in a wicked man is delightful, being in its natural place—but sin in a child of God is burdensome and he uses all means to expel it.

– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666

The Point the Whole of Christianity Turns – William Wilberforce

This is the cardinal point on which the whole of Christianity turns. “Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). The nature of that holiness which the true Christian seeks to possess is none other than the restoration of the image of God in his soul. Obtaining it depends entirely on the operation of God’s Holy Spirit.

The true Christian knows therefore that this holiness does not precede his reconciliation with God, and then be its cause. But he has to follow, and be its effect. In short, it is by faith in Christ alone, faith marked by repentance of sin.

– William Wilberforce –
from his book Real Christianity, 1797