"Paul saith, 'Not of works, lest any man should boast.' Now, faith excludes all boasting. The hand which receives charity does not say, 'I am to be thanked for accepting the gift'; that would be absurd. When the hand conveys bread to the mouth it does not say to the body, 'Thank me; for I feed you.' It is a very simple thing that the hand does though a very necessary thing; and it never arrogates glory to itself for what it does. So God has selected faith to receive the unspeakable gift of His grace, because it cannot take to itself any credit, but must adore the gracious God who is the giver of all good."

"His mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time and then gives great favors and great privileges and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God!"

"Desire is insatiable as death, but He who fills all in all can fill it. The capacity of our wishes who can measure? But the immeasurable wealth of God can more than overflow it."

"A dash of humor will only add intense gravity to the proceedings, even as a flash of lightning only makes midnight dreariness all the more impressive."

"Bread is a second cause; the LORD Himself is the first source of our sustenance. He can work without the second cause as well as with it; and we must not tie Him down to one mode of operation. Let us not be too eager after the visible, but let us look to the invisible God."

"The author concedes that the body of Christ may often judge wrongly , but he says that the judgment of the body as a whole is more sound that is one's ability to judge self objectively."

"It is well for us when prayers about our sorrows are linked with pleas concerning our sins-when, being under God's hand, we are not wholly taken up with our pain, but remember our offences against God."

"Worldlings pray to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to Him in trouble, but forsake Him in prosperity."

"There will be no fear of your becoming lethargic if you are continually familiar with internal realities."

"When you cannot use your sword you may take to the weapon of all-prayer. Your powder may be damp, your bow-string may be relaxed, but the weapon of all-prayer need never be out of order."

"As the sun rises first on mountain-tops and gilds them with his light, and presents one of the most charming sights to the eye of the traveller; so is it one of the most delightful contemplations in the world to mark the glow of the Spirit's light on the head of some saint, who has risen up in spiritual stature."

"Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the machinery which grace employs. We are saved 'through faith,' but salvation is 'by grace'."

"Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties."

"Purify our minds that we may be "first pure, then peaceable," and fortify our souls, that our peaceableness may not lead us into cowardice and despair, when for Thy sake we are persecuted."

"Meditation puts the telescope to the eye, and enables us to see Jesus after a better sort than we could have seen Him if we had lived in the days of His flesh."

"He who has two grounds of trust is lost! He who relies upon twosalvations, and cannot say of Christ, "He is all my salvation and all my desire, that man is not only in danger of beinglost, but he is already condemned; because, in fact, he believes not on the Son of God! He is not alive to God at all, but rests partly on the Cross, and then in some measure on something else."

"We must do business in great waters; we must be really on the deck in a storm, if we would see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. We must have stood side by side with King David; we must have gone down into the pit to slay the lion or have lifted up the spear against the eight hundred, if we would know the saving strength of God's right hand. Conflicts bring experience, and experience brings that growth in grace which is not to be attained by any other means."

"Is not the gospel its own sign and wonder? Is not this a miracle of miracles, that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish'? Surely that precious word, 'Whosoever will, let him come and take the water of life freely' and that solemn promise, 'Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out,' are better than signs and wonders! A truthful Saviour ought to be believed. He is truth itself. Why will you ask proof of the veracity of One who cannot lie?"

"All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful."

"The age can be impressed. Anything will be accepted by men if you will but preach it with tremendous enthusiasm, emotion, persuasionnergy and living earnestness."

"Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines."

"Carve your name on hearts and not on marble."

"A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble."

"The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails; happy is he who dwells at the well."

"A Bible that's falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't."

"I love a minister whose faces invite me to make him my friend."

"Our silence might be better than our voices if our solitude was spent with God."

"Hope itself is like a star- not to be seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only to be discovered in the night of adversity."

"Prayer is the forerunner of mercy."

"Blessed be His name that He has arranged that one Person of the Sacred Trinity should undertake this office of Comforter, for no man could ever perform its duties. We might as well hope to be the Savior as to be the Comforter of the heartbroken!"

"Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite."

"We do not need them. They would hinder rather than help our praise. Sing unto him. This is the sweetest and best music. No instrument like the human voice. What a degradation to supplant the intelligent song of the whole congregation by the theatrical prettiness of a quartet, bellows, and pipes! We might as well pray by machinery as praise by it."

"If Christ has died for me, I cannot trifle with the evil that killed my best Friend."

"Luck ... taps once in a lifetime at everybody's door but if industry does not open it luck goes away."

"The usual tenor of a man's life, the dwelling of his soul, is the true test of his state."

"You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect."

"If I had to sum up the gospel I should have to tell you certain facts: Jesus, the Son of God, became man; he was born of the virgin Mary; lived a perfect life; was falsely accused of men; was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God; from whence he shall also come to judge the quick and the dead. This is one of the elementary truths of our gospel; we believe in the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the life everlasting."

"If we do not touch the heart, we will soon weary the ear."

"I love the quaint saying of a dying man, who exclaimed, "I have no fear of going home; I have sent all before me; God's finger is on the latch of my door, and I am ready for Him to enter."

"The wide awake man seizes opportunities or makes them, and thus those who are widest awake usually come to the front."

"You will find it a stronghold in the day of trial to plead your adoption. You have no rights as a subject, you have forfeited them by your treason; but nothing can forfeit a child's right to a father's protection."

"If I can bring Him nothing but my tears, He will put them with His own tears in His own bottle for He once wept; if I can bring Christ nothing but my groans and sighs, He will accept these as an acceptable sacrifice, for He once was broken in heart, and sighed heavily in spirit."

"Thy faith never looks so grand in summer weather as it does in winter?"

"Prayer is never out of season: in summer and in winter its merchandize is precious. Prayer gains audience with heaven in the dead of night, in the midst of business, in the heat of noonday, in the shades of evening. In every condition, whether of poverty, or sickness, or obscurity, or slander, or doubt, your covenant God will welcome your prayer and answer it from His holy place."

"The more loftily we see Christ enthroned, and the more lowly we are when bowing before the foot of the throne, the more truly shall we be prepared to act our part towards Him."

"One night alone in prayer might make us new men changed from poverty of soul to spiritual wealth from trembling to triumphing."

"The suppliant, whose fears prevent his words, will be well understood by the Most High."

"Carnal love is the love of table, not of the host."

"Prayer bends the omnipotence of heaven to your desire. Prayer moves the hand that moves the world."

"A child's cry touches a father's heart, and our King is the Father of his people. If we can do no more than cry it will bring omnipotence to our aid. A cry is the native language of a spiritually needy soul; it has done with fine phrases and long orations, and it takes to sobs and moans; and so, indeed, it grasps the most potent of all weapons, for heaven always yields to such artillery."