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
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
Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.
– William Law –
[Amy Carmichael’s] great longing was to have a “single eye” for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had give her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt other to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate.
– Elisabeth Elliot –
The reason you don’t like the Bible, you old sinner, is because it knows all about you.
– Billy Sunday –
The law may chain up the wolf, but it is the Gospel that changes the wolfish nature.
– Samuel Bolton –
from The True Bounds of Christian Freedom, 1645
How true it is that the holiest saint is in himself a “miserable sinner,” and a debtor to mercy and grace to the last moment of his existence!
– JC Ryle –
from Holiness, 1879
Beware of no man more than of yourself, for we often carry our worst enemies within us.
– Charles Spurgeon –
from The Complete John Ploughman
A proud heart never praises God, for it hoards up praise for itself.
– Charles Spurgeon –
from the sermon “Praise Your God. O Zion” (February 25, 1866)