Richard Sibbes' quotes

Measure not God's love and favour by your own feeling. The sun shines as clearly in the darkest day as it does in the brightest. The difference is not in the sun, but in some clouds which hinder the manifestation of the light thereof.

He, the Spirit, sanctifieth and purifieth, and doth all from the Father and the Son, and knits us to the Father and the Son--to the Son first, and then to the Father, because all the communion we have with God is by the Holy Ghost; all the communion that Christ as man had with God was by the Holy Ghost; and all the communion that God hath with us, and we with God is by the Holy Ghost. For the Spirit is the bond of union between Christ and us, and between God and us.

Let us give up the government of our souls to the Spirit. It is for our safety so to do, as being wiser than ourselves who are unable to direct our own way; it is our liberty to be under a wisdom and goodness larger than our own. Let the Spirit think in us, desire in us, pray in us, live in us, do all in us; labor ever to be in such a frame as we may be fit for the Spirit to work upon.

By living and moving, by actions vital, even so may a man know he hath the Spirit of God by its blessed effects in operations; it is not idle in us; but as the soul quickens the body, so doth the Spirit the soul. Every saving grace is a sign that the Spirit is within us.

Is it not the greatest comfort to a Christian soul when God, in want of means, comes immediately Himself unto us and comforts us by His Spirit?

The Holy Spirit being in us, after he that prepared us for a house for himself to dwell in and to take up his rest and delight in, he doth also become unto us a counselor in all our doubts, a comforter in all our distresses, a solicitor to all duty, a guide in the whole course of life, until we dwell with him forever in heaven, unto which his dwelling here in us doth tend.

To preach is to open the mystery of Christ: to break open the box that the savour may be perceived of all.

Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.

God's truth always agrees with itself.

Confession is verbal humiliation.

How should finite comprehend infinite? We shall apprehend Him, but not comprehend Him.

For what is grace but the beams of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness.

Whatsoever is good for God's children they shall have it, for all is theirs to further them to heaven; therefore, if poverty be good, they shall have it; if disgrace be good,they shall have it; if crosses be good, they shall have them; if misery be good, they shall have it; for all is ours, to serve our greatest good.

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.

It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ.

Satan gives Adam (a fruit), and takes away Paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider what not he offers, but what we shall lose.

Richard Baxter's quotes

He is not drowning His sheep when He washeth them, nor killing them when He is shearing them. But by this He showeth that they are His own; and the newborn sheep do most visibly bear His name or mark, when it is almost worn out and scarce discernible on them that have the longest fleece.

All Christians are Disciples or Scholars of Christ, the church is his School; we are his Ushers, the Bible is his Grammar.

I preached as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.

The differences among Christians are nothing in comparison of the differences among heathens.

And the longer you delay, the more your sin gets strength and rooting. If you cannot bend a twig, how will you be able to bend it when it is a tree?

Rebirth brings us into the Kingdom of grace, and death into the Kingdom of glory.

Serve God with gladness and cheerfulness of heart, as one that hath found the way of life, and never had cause of gladness until now. If you see your servant do all his work with groans, and tears, and lamentations, you will not think that he is well pleased with his master and his work.

You may know God, but not comprehend Him.

O spend your time as you would hear of it in the Judgement!

What fitter day to ascend to heaven, than that on which He arose from earth, and fully triumphed over death and hell. Use your Sabbaths as steps to glory, till you have passed them all, and are there arrived.

This life was not intended to be the place of our perfection, but the preparation for it."

Overvalue not therefore the manner of your own worship, and overvilify not other men's of a different mode.

In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.

Ralph Venning's quotes

Worldly riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them.

Now the Law not only forbids the doing of evil, whether by thought, word, or deed, but also commands the doing of good.

Consider that no sin against a great God can be strictly a little sin, though compared with a greater one it may be. But however little it is, to account it so makes it greater.

Seek that your last days may be your best days, and so you may die in a good old age, which may be best done when you die good in old age.

There is no reason to be given for grace but grace.

Take notice not only of the mercies of God, but of God in the mercies. Mercies are never so savoury as when they savour of a Saviour.

All the beauty of the world, 'tis but skin deep.

Philip Henry's quotes

Tis no easy matter to be saved. Twas difficult work to Jesus Christ to work redemption for us. Tis difficult work to the Spirit to work grace in us, and to carry it on against corruptions, temptations, distractions.

All grace grows as Love to the Word of God grows.

The time of God's grace to sinners doth many time expire before death.

Our journey is up-hill, with a dead body upon our backs, the devil doing what he can to pull us down.

Sins are like circles in the water when a stone is thrown into it; one produces another. When anger was in Cain's heart, murder was not far off.

Obadiah Sedgwick's quotes

Beloved, it is a great thing to stand in near relations to God; and then it is a good thing to plead by them with God, for so much as nearer relations have strongest force with all. The servant can do more than a stranger, and the child than a servant, and the wife than a child.

Secret sins are more dangerous to the person in some respects than open sins. For a man doth, by his art of sinning, deprive himself of the help of his sinfulness. Like him who will carry his wound covered, or who bleeds inwardly, help comes not in because the danger is not descried or known. If a man’s sin breaks out there is a minister at hand, a friend near, and others to reprove, to warn or direct; but when he is the artificer of his lusts, he bars himself of all public remedy.

A renewed heart is a very Heaven in our little world, and faith is the only Sun in that Heaven. The sinner never comes to be precious, till he comes to be pious, and the value of that piety still advanceth according to the quanity of true faith, as the ring is the more considerable with the diamond. I cannot concieve of a more compendious way for any Christians full and constant revenues, than this, to get faith, and still to use it; the sum or product of which would be this: Grace and glory, Heaven and earth are ours.

Beloved, the main battle of a Christian is not in the open field. His quarrels are mostly within and his enemies are in his own breast. When he has re-formed an ill life, yet it shall cost him infinitely much more to reform an ill heart. He may receive so much power from grace at the beginning, as in a short time, to draw off from most of the former gross acts of sinning, but it will be a work all of his days to get a thorough conquest of secret corruptions.

Matthew Mead's quotes

O take heed that thou art not found over-valuing other things, and under-valuing thy soul.

There are three things must be done for us, if ever we would avoid perishing. We must be thoroughly convinced of sin. We must be really united to Christ. We must be instated in the covenant of grace.

Restraining grace holds in the sinner, but it is renewing grace that changes his nature.

A man may hope for heaven, and yet not cleanse his heart, nor depart from his secret sins: that hope of salvation that is not accompanied with heart-purification, is a vain hope.

A man's prayer may be a lie. As a profession without sanctity, is a lie to the world, so prayer without sincerity, is a lie to God.

The faith of most is but a temporary faith, endures for a while, and then dies and perishes; true and saving faith, such as is the faith of God's elect, cannot die: it may fail in the act, but not in the habit; the sap may not be in the branch, but it is always in the root. That faith that perisheth, a man may have and perish.

O my brethren, it is not a believing head, but a believing heart, that makes a Christian.

True union makes a true Christian: many close with Christ, but it is upon their own terms; they take and own him, but not as God offers him. The terms upon which God in the gospel offers Christ, are, that we shall accept of a broken Christ with a broken heart, and yet a whole Christ with the whole heart. A broken Christ with a broken heart, as a witness of our humility; a whole Christ with a whole heart, as a witness of our sincerity. A broken Christ respects his suffering for sin; a broken heart respects our sense of sin; a whole Christ includes all his offices; a whole heart includes all our faculties. Christ as King, Priest, and Prophet, and as a Mediator. Without any one of these offices, the work of salvation could not have been completed.

For as he that doth not love God above all, doth not love God at all.

A believer may fall, but he cannot fall away: he may fall foully, but he cannot fall finally; for, underneath are the everlasting arms.

Till the sinner be convinced of sin, he can never be converted from sin.

Some take common faith for saving; whereas, a man may believe all the truths of the gospel, all the promises, all the threatenings, all the articles of the creed to be true, and yet perish for want of saving grace.

Now then, examine thyself by these characters, put the question to thy own soul--Dost thou close with Christ upon gospel terms? Is grace in the heart the principle of thy performances? Dost thou look to the manner, as well as the matter of thy duties? Dost thou all in sincerity? Is there an answerableness within to the law without? Art thou much above duty, when much in duty? Is thy obedience universal? Lastly, is God's glory the end of all? If so, then thou art not only almost, but altogether a Christian.

Nothing maketh a death-bed so uneasy and hard, as a life spent in the service of sin and lust; nothing maketh a death-bed so soft and sweet, as a life spent in the service of God and Christ.

Alas! it is an infinite righteousness that must satisfy for us, for it is an infinite God that is offended by us. If ever thy sin be pardoned, it is infinite mercy that must pardon it; if ever thou be reconciled to God, it is infinite merit must do it; if ever thy heart be changed, and thy state renewed, it is infinite power must effect it; and if ever thy soul escape hell, and be saved at last, it is infinite grace must save it.

Matthew Henry's quotes

Sinners should be afraid. They have an angry God above them, a guilty conscience in them, and a yawning hell below them.

By the light of nature we see God as a God above us, by the light of the law we see Him as a God against us, but by the light of the gospel we see Him as Emmanuel, God with us.

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.

No attribute of God is more dreadful to sinners than His holiness.

Spiritual growth consists most in the growth of the root, which is out of sight.

None can know their election but by their conformity to Christ; for all who are chosen are chosen to sanctification.

Whatever we have of this world in our hands, our care must be to keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.

Knowledge is vain and fruitless which is not reduced to practice.

Those that go bold into the furnace will come out no worse.