Great Throughts Treasury

"A minister, without boldness, is like a smooth file, a knife without an edge, a sentinel that is afraid to let off his gun. If men will be bold in sin, ministers must be bold to reprove."

"No man prays in faith who thinks he knows better than God; or who, not knowing, wishes that his ignorance may overrule God's wisdom."

"All the plots of hell and commotions on earth have not so much as shaken God's hand to spoil one letter or line he has been drawing."

"And while God had work for Paul, he found him friends both in court and prison. Let persecutors send saints to prison, God can provide a keeper for their turn."

"Compare not thyself with those that have less than thyself, but look on those that have far exceeded thee."

"Compare Scripture with Scripture. False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among themselves."

"Cowards never won heaven. Do not claim that you are begotten of God and you have His royal blood running in your veins unless you can prove your lineage by His heroic spirit: to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils."

"God hath made it a debt which one saint owes to another to carry their names to a throne of grace."

"God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: 'Who hath required this at your hands?' This is truly to be 'righteous over-much,' as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God's law, and add supplements of our own to his rule."

"God's wounds cure, sin's kisses kill"

"If thou beest ever so exact in thy morals, and not a worshiper of God, then thou art an atheist."

"Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces"

"Godliness, as well as the doctrine of our faith, is a mystery."

"Humble souls are fearful of their own strength."

"Great comforts do, indeed, bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree of it; the weak child is oftener in the lap than the strong one."

"In heaven we shall appear, not in armor, but in robes of glory. But here these are to be worn night and day; we must walk, work, and sleep in them, or else we are not true soldiers."

"Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool's coat thither."

"Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin."

"It is not only our duty to pray for others, but also to desire the prayers of others for ourselves."

"Least doers are the greatest boasters."

"Let your hope of heaven master your fear of death."

"Justifying faith is not a naked assent to the truths of the gospel."

"Of all creatures in this visible world, light is the most glorious; of all light, the light of the sun without compare excels the rest."

"The grace thou hast will soon be less, if thou addest not more to it."

"Never was a faithful prayer lost. Some prayers have a longer voyage than others, but then they return with their richer lading at last, so that the praying soul is a gainer by waiting for an answer."

"Take heed thou makest not the least child thine enemy by offering wrong to him; God will right the wicked even upon the saint."

"We fear men so much, because we fear God so little."

"We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves. The pardon may be past the prince's hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner's hand."

"The sins of teachers are the teachers of sin."

"And therefore you who think so basely of the Gospel and the professors of it, because at present their peace and comfort are not come, should know that it is on the way to them, and comesto stay everlastingly with them; whreas your peace is going is going from you every moment, and is sure to leave you without any hope of returning to you again. Look not how the Christian begins, but ends."

"As the eye of the body once put out, can never be restored by the creature's art, so neither can the spiritual eye lost by Adam's sin be restored by the teaching of men or angels. It is one of the diseases which Christ came to cure."

"Bid faith look through the key-hole of the promise, and tell thee what it sees there laid up for him that overcomes; bid it listen and tell thee whether it cannot hear the shout of those crowned saints, as of those that are dividing the spoil, and receiving the reward of all their services and sufferings here on earth."

"Blind zeal is soon put to a shameful retreat, while holy resolution, built on fast principles, lifts up its head like a rock in the midst of the waves."

"Cease to pray and thou will begin to sin."

"Cease to pray and thou will begin to sin. Prayer is not only a means to prevail for mercy but also to prevent sin."

"Few are made better by prosperity, whom afflictions make worse."

"God is almighty to pardon, but He will not use His power for a shameless sinner. He is able to save and help in time of need, but if you have not repented, how can you expect His aid? The same power God expends on the believer's salvation will be spent on your damnation, for He has bound Himself under oath to destroy every impenitent soul."

"God loves the saints as the purchase of his Son's blood. They cost him dear, and that which is so hardly got shall not be easily lost. He that was willing to expend his Son's blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them."

"God would not rub so hard if it were not to fetch out the dirt that is ingrained in our natures. God loves purity so well He had rather see a hole than a spot in His child's garments."

"God, to prevent all escape, hath sown the seeds of death in our very constitution and nature, so that we can as soon run from ourselves, as run from death. We need no feller to come with a hand of violence and hew us down; there is in the tree a worm, which grows out of its own substance, that will destroy it; so in us, those infirmities of nature that will bring us down to the dust."

"He that is impatient, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to Him in a denial."

"He that loves the Word and the purity of its precepts cannot turn traitor."

"Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye, sigh and sing all in a breath; it is called "the rejoicing of hope" (Hebrews 3:6)."

"Indeed all the saints are taught the same lesson - to renounce their own strength, and rely on the power of God; their own policy, and cast themselves on the wisdom of God; their own righteousness, and expect all from the pure mercy of God in Christ, which act of faith is so pleasing to God, that such a soul shall never be ashamed."

"For a beggar to live at court is not so much as the King to dwell with him in his cottage."

"Furnish thyself with arguments from the promises to enforce thy prayers, and make them prevalent with God. The promises are the ground of faith, and faith, when strengthened, will make thee fervent, and such fervency ever speeds and returns with victory out of the field of prayer. The mightier any is in the Word, the more mighty he will be in prayer."

"It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction."

"It is the image of God reflected in you that so enrages hell; it is this at which the demons hurl their mightiest weapons."

"It is the saint's duty, and should be their care, not only to believe that God is Almighty, but also to strongly believe that His almighty power is engaged for our defense and help in all of our straits and temptations."

"It is no policy to let thy lusts have arms, which are sure to rise and declare against thee when thine enemy comes."