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Quotes by Alexander Maclaren
Ability involves responsibility. Power to its last particie is duty.— filed under Ability
The cup which my Saviour giveth me, can it be any thing but a cup of salvation?— filed under Affliction
Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as "in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.— filed under Affliction
If you would have clear and irrefragable for a perpetual joy, a glory and a defense, the unwavering confidence, "I am Thy child," go to God's throne, and lie down at the foot of it, and let the first thought be, "My Father in heaven;" and that will brighten, that will establish, that will make omnipotent in your life, the witness of the Spirit that you are the child of God.— filed under Assurance
Anxious care rests upon a basis of heathen worldly-mindedness and of heathen misunderstanding of the character of God.— filed under Cares
God gives us power to bear all the sorrows of His making; but He does not give us power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is.— filed under Cares
Christ was placed midmost in the world's history; and in that central position, He towers like some vast mountain to heaven - the farther slope stretching backward toward the creation, the hither slope toward the consummation of all things. The ages before look to Him with prophetic gaze; the ages since behold Him by historic faith; by both He is seen in common as the brightness of the Father's glory, and the unspeakable gift of God to the race. We believe that to Christ belongs creative power - that "without Him was not any thing made which was made." We believe that from Him came all life at first. In Him life was as in its deep source. He is the fountain of life. We believe that as no being comes into existence without His creative power, so none continues to exist without His sustaining energy. We believe that the history of the world is but the history of His influence, and that the centre of the whole universe is the cross of Calvary.— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
The tears of Christ are the pity of God. The gentleness of Jesus is the long-suffering of God. The tenderness of Jesus is the love of God. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
Remember that vision on the Mount of Transfiguration; and let it be ours, even in the glare of earthly joys and brightnesses, to lift up our eyes, like those wondering three, and see no man any more, save Jesus only.— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
As Christ's ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gentleness both increased; its severity to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side through all His manifestations of Himself, there were the two aspects: "He showed Himself froward" (if I may quote the word) to the self-righteous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman's tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a Divine deliverer. -— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation, and by suffering.— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
And I think, dear friends, if we carried with us more distinctly than we do that one simple thought that in all human joys, in all the apparently self-forgetting tenderness, of that Lord, who had a heart for every sorrow, and an ear for every complaint, and a hand open as day and full of melting charity for every need - that in every moment of that life in the boyhood, in the dawning manhood, in the maturity of His growing power - there was always present one black shadow, toward which He ever went straight with the consent of His will and the clearest eye, we should understand something more of how the life as well as the death was a sacrifice for us sinful men.— filed under Christ's Life and Ministry
As we look upon that agony and those tearful prayers, let us not only look with thankfulness; but let that kneeling Saviour teach us that in prayer alone can we be forearmed against our lesser sorrows; that strength to bear flows into the heart that is opened in supplication; and that a sorrow which we are made able to endure is more truly conquered than a sorrow which we avoid. cross.— filed under Christ's Sufferings and Death
Brethren, it is not the thinker who is the true king of men, as we sometimes hear it proudly said. We need one who will not only show, but be the Truth; who will not only point, but open and be the Way; who will not only communicate thought, but give, because He is the Life. Not the rabbi's pulpit, nor the teacher's desk, still less the gilded chairs of earthly monarchs, least of all the tents of conquerors, are the throne of the true king. He rules from the cross.— filed under Christ the King
Christ puts Himself at the head of the mystic march of the generations; and, like the mysterious angel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim, "Nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host am I come up."— filed under Christ the Leader
Grieve not the Christ of God, who redeems us; and remember that we grieve Him most when we will not let Him pour His love upon us, but turn a sullen, unresponsive unbelief towards His pleading grace, as some glacier shuts out the sunshine from the mountain-side with its thick-ribbed ice.— filed under Christ the Saviour
Christ's voice sounds now for each of us in loving invitation; and dead in sin and hardness of heart though we be, we can listen and live. Christ Himself, my brother, sows the seed now. Do you take care that it falls not on, but in, your souls.— filed under Christ the Saviour
Christ by His intercession is able to save thee beyond the horizon and largest compass of thy thoughts, even to the utmost. In danger Christ lashes us to Himself, as Alpine guides do when there is perilous ice to get over.— filed under Christ the Advocate
I come to Thee, O Christ. Faint and perishing, defenceless and needy, with many a sin and many a fear, to Thee I turn, for Thou hast died for me, and for me Thou dost live. Be Thou my shelter and strong tower. Give me to drink of living water. Let me rest in Thee while in this weary land; and let Thy sweet love, my Brother and my Lord, be mine all on earth and the heaven of my heaven.— filed under Christ the Refuge
It was a deep true thought which the old painters had, when they drew John as likest to his Lord. Love makes us like.— filed under Christians
Ordinary human motives will appeal in vain to the ears which have heard the tones of the heavenly music; and all the pomp of life will show poor and tawdry to the sight that has gazed on the vision of the great white throne and the crystal sea.— filed under Christians
'The sum of the whole matter is this - He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God, That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Christianity in its starting-point and foundation.— filed under Christians
Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past; it is possible to be sure of the future; it is possible to be diligent in the present.— filed under Christians
It is easy to say "resist; " but the command is bitter irony, unless we go on to say with the New Testament, - "Whom resist steadfast in the faith." No man, my dear brother, can stand in the slippery places where we have to go, unless he have the grasp of a higher and stronger hand to keep him up.— filed under Christian Conflict
Conflict, not progress, is the word that defines man's path from darkness into light. No holiness is won by any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by day, and hour by hour.— filed under Christian Conflict
Dear brethren, make your choice. Fight you must. Are you going to win or be beaten? Make your choice of the image you must bear. Whose ?— filed under Christian Conflict
Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is a far higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.— filed under Christian Conflict
The disciples seem alone; but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of the hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and lifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope least, He comes across the waves, making their surges His pavement, and using all opposition as the means of His approach; and His presence brings calmness; and immediately they are at the land.— filed under Christian Conflict
There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." 66 -— filed under Christian Service
Let us imitate Him who sought the mountain-tops as His refreshment after toil, but never left duties undone or sufferers unrelieved in pain. Let us imitate Him who turned from the joys of contemplation to the joys of service without a murmur when His disciples broke in on His solitude with, "All men seek Thee;" but never suffered the outward work to blunt His desire for, nor to encroach on, the hour of still communion with His Father. Lord, teach us to work; Lord, teach us to pray.— filed under Christian Service
"Work out your own salvation." Work, as well as believe; and in the daily practice of faithful obedience, in the daily subjugation of your own spirits to His Divine power, in the daily crucifixion of your flesh with its affections and lusts, in the daily straining after loftier heights of godliness and purer atmospheres of devotion and love,- make more thoroughly your own what you possess. Work into the substance of your souls that which you have. "Apprehend that for which you are apprehended of Christ; " and remember that not a past act of faith, but a present and continuous life of loving, faithful work in Christ, which is His and yet yours, is the holding fast the beginning of your confidence firm unto the end.— filed under Christian Service
If we truly feel that the Lord liveth, before whom we stand, we shall want nothing else for our work but His smile; and we shall feel that the light of His face is all we need. That thought should deaden our love for outward things. How the things that we fever our souls by pursuing, and fret our hearts when we lose, will cease to attract! How small and vulgar the "prizes" of life, as people call them, will appear!— filed under Christian Service
Our work, abiding, shall bring to us the endless glory with which God at last overpays the toils, even as now He overanswers the poor prayers of His laboring servants.— filed under Christian Service
If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether.— filed under Coming To Christ
An old historian says about the Roman armies that marched through a country, burning and destroying every living thing, "They make a solitude, and they call it peace." And so men do with their consciences. They stifle them, sear them, forcibly silence them, somehow or other; and then, when there is a dead stillness in the heart, broken by no voice of either approbation or blame, but doleful, like the unnatural quiet of a deserted city, then they say, "It is peace;" and the man's uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit! You may almost attain to that.— filed under Conscience
If you want to live in this world, doing the duty of life, knowing the blessings of it, doing your work heartily, and yet not absorbed by it, remember that the one power whereby you can so act is, that all shall be consecrated to Christ, and done for His sake.— filed under Consecration
Ah, there is nothing more beautiful than the difference between the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a Noly being, and the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a self-righteous being. The one is all contempt; the otner, ali pity.— filed under Contempt
The cross is the centre of the world's history; the incarnation of Christ and the crucifixion of our Lord are the pivot round which all the events of the ages revolve. The testimony of Christ was the spirit of prophecy, and the growing power of Jesus is the spirit of history.— filed under Cross Of Christ
"God giveth His beloved sleep; " and in that peaceful sleep, realities, not dreams, come round their quiet rest, and fill their conscious spirits and their happy hearts with blessedness and fellowship. In His own time He will make the eternal morning dawn, and the hand that kept them in their slumbers shall touch them into waking, and shall clothe them when they arise according to the body of His own glory; and they, looking into His face, and flashing back its love, its light, its beauty, shall each break forth into singing as the rising light of that unsetting day touches their transfigured and immortal heads, in the triumphant thanksgiving, "I am satisfied, for I awake in— filed under Death
If life has not made you by God's grace, through faith, holythink you, will death without faith do it? The cold waters of that narrow stream are no purifying bath in which you may wash and be clean. No! no! as you go down into them, you will come up from them.— filed under Death
I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this "bank and shoal of time" upon which he stands, even though the tide has all but reached his feet - if he knows that God's strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the monient when the sand dissolves from under him, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him high above the floods on the stable land where there is " no more sea." دو— filed under Death
A man an who has not learned to say "no" - who is not resolved that he will take God's way in spite of every dog that can bark at him, in spite of every silvery voice that can woo him aside - will be a weak and wretched man till he dies. -— filed under Decision
In such a world as this, with such hearts as ours, weakness is wickedness in the long run. Whoever lets himself be shaped and guided by any thing lower than an inflexible will, fixed in obedience to God, will in the end be shaped into a deformity, and guided to wreck and ruin.— filed under Decision
Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?— filed under Earth
Given a man full of faith, you will have a man tenacious in purpose, absorbed in one grand object, simple in his motives, in whom selfishness has been driven out by the power of a mightier love, and indolence stirred into unwearied energy.— filed under Faith
The true confidence which is faith in Christ, and the true diffidence which is utter distrust of myself - are identical. -— filed under Faith In Christ
Faith refers to Christ. Holiness depends on faith. Heaven depends on holiness. -— filed under Faith In Christ
If faith, then new birth; if new birth, then sonship; if sonship, then "an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ." But if you have not got your foot upon the lowest round of the ladder, you will never come within sight of the blessed face of Him who stands at the top of it, and who looks down to you at this moment, saying to you, "My child, wilt thou not at this time cry unto me, 'Abba, Father?'"— filed under Faith In Christ
That is faith, cleaving to Christ, twining round Him with all the tendrils of our heart, as the vine does round its support.— filed under Faith In Christ
True faith, by a mighty effort of the will, fixes its gaze on our Divine Helper, and there finds it possible and wise to lose its fears. It is madness to say, "I will not be afraid; " it is wisdom and peace to say, "I will trust and not be afraid."— filed under Faith In Christ
Faith has in it the recognition of the certainty and the justice of a judgment that is coming down crashing on every human head; and then from the midst of these fears and sorrows and the tempest of that great darkness there rises up in the night of terrors the shining of one perhaps pale, quivering, distant, but divinely given hope, "My Saviour! My Saviour! He is righteous; He has died; He lives! I will stay no longer; I will cast myself upon Him!"— filed under Faith In Christ
There can be no faith so feeble that Christ does not respond to it.— filed under Faith In Christ
Nothing but Christian faith gives to the furthest future the solidity and definiteness which it must have if it is to be a breakwater for us against the fluctuating sea of present cares and thoughts.— filed under Faith In Christ
The act of faith, which separates us from all men, unites us for the first time in real brotherhood; and they who, one by one, come to Jesus and meet Him alone, next find that they are come to the city of God "and to an innumerable company."— filed under Faith In Christ
It avails nothing that the ocean stretches shoreless to the horizon; a jar can hold only a jarful. The receiver's capacity determines the amount received, and the receiver's desire determines his capacity. The law has ever been, "According to your faith be it unto you." Logically, faith comes first, and love next; but in life they will spring up together in the soul; the interval which separates them is impalpable, and in every act of trust, love is present; and fundamental to every emotion of love to Christ is trust in Christ.— filed under Faith In Christ
So for us, the condition and preparation on and by which we are sheltered by that great hand, is the faith that asks, and the asking of faith. We must forsake the earthly props, but we must also believingly desire to be upheld by the heavenly arms, We make God responsible for our safety when we abandon other defense, and commit ourselves to Him.— filed under Faith In God
If our faith in God is not the veriest sham, it demands, and will produce, the abandonment sometimes, the subordination always, of external helps and material good.— filed under Faith In God
A certain sober judgment ought to mark Christians. They should be like the needle in the mariner's compass, not like the pendulum which within its limited range is always going from one extreme to another, Oh! it irradiates all our days with lofty beauty, and it makes them all hallowed and divine, when we feel that not the apparent greatness, not the prominence nor noise with which it is done, nor the external consequences which flow from it, but the motive from which it flowed, determines the worth of our deed in God's eyes. Faithfulness is faithfulness, on whatsoever scale it be set forth.— filed under Fidelity
The root of all steadfastness is in consecration to God.— filed under Fidelity
The mystery of the universe, and the meaning of God's world, are shrouded in hopeless obscurity, until we learn to feel that all laws suppose a lawgiver, and that all working involves a Divine energy.— filed under God's Eternity
It Fatherhood what does that word itself teach us? It speaks of the communication of a life, and the reciprocity of love It rests upon a Divine act, and it involves a human emotion. involves that the Father and the child shall have kindred life the Father bestowing, and the child possessing a life which is derived; and because derived, kindred; and because kindred, unfolding itself in likeness to the Father that gave it. And it requires that between the Father's heart and the child's heart there shall pass, in blessed interchange and quick correspondence, answering love, flashing backwards and forwards, like the lightning that touches the earth, and rises from it again.— filed under God's Fatherhood
"I will guide thee with mine eye "- a glance, not a blow a look of directing love that at once heartens to duty, and tells duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in sympathy with Him to understand it; but when we do, we must be swift to obey.— filed under God's Guidance
Life should be a constant vision of God's presence. Here is our defense against being led away by the gauds and shows of earth's vulgar attractions.— filed under God's Presence
The never-ceasing boom of the great ocean as it breaks on the beach, drowns all smaller sounds.— filed under God's Presence
The vision of the Divine presence ever takes the form which our circumstances most require.— filed under God's Presence
Do not let the empty cup be your first teacher of the blessings you had when it was full. Do not let a hard place here and there in the bed destroy your rest. Seek, as a plain duty, to cultivate a buoyant, joyous sense of the crowded kindnesses of God in your daily life.— filed under Gratitude
The grave has a door on its inner side.— filed under Grave
It is not my strength that grows, so much as God's strength in me, which is given more abundantly as the days roll. It is so given on one condition. If my faith has laid hold of the infinite, the exhaustless, the immortal energy of God, unless there is something fearfully wrong about me, I shall be getting purer, nobler, wiser, more observant of His will; gentler, like Christ; every way fitter for His service, and for larger service, as the days increase.— filed under Growth In Grace
No aching hearts are there, No tear-dimmed eye, no form by sickness wasted, No cheek grown pale through penury or care, No spirits crushed beneath the woes they bear, No sighs for bliss untasted. And then, the quiet of the green, inland valleys of our Father's land, where no tempest comes any more, nor the loud winds are ever heard, nor the salt sea is ever seen; but perpetual calm and blessedness; all mystery gone, and all rebellion hushed and silenced, and all unrest at an end forever! "No more sea;" but, instead of that wild and yeasty chaos of turbulent waters, there shall be the river that makes glad the city of God, the river of water of life, that proceeds "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."— filed under Heaven
And looking back upon "the sea that brought us thither," we shall behold its waters flashing in the light of that everlasting morning, and hear them breaking into music upon the eternal shore. And then, brethren, when all the weary night-watchers on the stormy ocean of life are gathered together around Him who watched with them from His throne on the bordering mountains of eternity, where the day shines forever - then He will seat them at His table in His kingdom, and none will need to ask, "Who art Thou?" or, "Where am I?" "for all shall know it is the Lord," and the full, perfect, unchangeable vision of His blessed face will be heaven.— filed under Heaven
The joys of heaven are not the joys of passive contemplation, of dreamy remembrance, of perfect repose; but they are described thus: "They rest not day nor night." "His servants serve Him, and see His face."— filed under Heaven
Will not this be the description of our future being - "reaching forth unto those things which are before?" I believe that we shall thus live through all the eternities that are before us, growing wiser, nobler, stronger, greater; plunging deeper into God, and being more and more filled with more and more of Him. So we shall move forever as in ascending spirals that rise ever higher, and draw ever closer to the throne we compass and to Him that dwells alone; ever perfect, yet ever growing, for we have an inexhaustible Saviour to absorb into our hearts, and we have hearts that never reach the ultimate bound and term of their indefinite possibility of receiving.— filed under Heaven
Heaven is endless longing, accompanied with an endless a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is fruition life.— filed under Heaven
All that is divine in man comes from God. All that tends toward God in man is God's voice in the human heart.— filed under Holy Spirit
Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.— filed under Humility
He that has no present Christ has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever - black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future.— filed under Impenitent
"The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Nothing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sinfulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy— filed under Joy
Joy in God is the strength of work for God; but work for God is the preparation of joy in God. Nobody can commit his way unto the Lord who has not begun by delighting in the Lord; and nobody can rest in the Lord who has not committed his way to the Lord.— filed under Joy
Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact, - He died on Calvary; so certain is the prophetic fact, He shall reign, and you and I will stand there. I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts, and think about it, - a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe; separation, decision, execution of the sentence.— filed under Judgment-Day
Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character.— filed under Knowledge
The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much work.— filed under Labor
Christ has given us, not only the ritual of an ordinance, but the pattern for our lives, when He took the cup, and gave thanks. So common joys become sacraments, enjoyment becomes worship, and the cup which holds the bitter or the sweet skillfully mingled for our lives becomes the cup of blessing and salvation drank in remembrance of Him.— filed under Last Supper
A man may call himself a Christian - but the measure of his Christianity is the occupation of his mind and heart with the truth as it is in Jesus.— filed under Learning Of Christ
A picture without sky has no glory. This present, unless we see gleaming beyond it the eternal calm of the heavens, above the tossing tree tops with withering leaves, and the smoky chimneys, is a poor thing for our eyes to gaze at, or our hearts to love, or our hands to toil on.— filed under Life
Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be filled and calmed by one master-passion which unites and stills the soul. -— filed under Life
Duty is duty, conscience is conscience, right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatever sized type they may be printed in. 66 Large" or "small" are not words for the vocabulary of conscience.— filed under Little Things
There is no long interval between the sense of thirst and the trickling of the stream over the parched lip; but ever it is flowing, flowing past us, and the desire is but the opening of the lips to receive the limpid, and life-giving waters. No one ever desired the grace of God, really and truly desired it, but just in proportion as he desired it, he got it; just in proportion as he thirsted, he was satisfied.— filed under Longing For God
A living man must have a living God, or his soul will perish in the midst of earthly plenty, and will thirst and die whilst the water of earthly delights is running all around him. We are made to need persons not things.— filed under Longing For God
All true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things - a sense of sin, and an assurance of pardon. There is no love possible - real, deep, genuine, worthy of being called love of God - which does not start with the belief of my own transgression, and with the thankful reception of forgiveness in Christ.— filed under Love To Christ And God
Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is.— filed under Love To Christ And God
Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the depths of transgression and the very gates of hell, raises men to God.— filed under Love To Christ And God
No man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him.— filed under Love To Christ And God
Love is the foundation of all obedience. Without it. morality degenerates into mere casuistry. Love is the foundation of all knowledge. Without it religion degenerates into a chattering about Moses and doctrines and theories; a thing that will neither kill nor make alive, that never gave life to a single soul or blessing to a single heart, and never put strength into any hand in the conflict and strife of daily life.— filed under Love To Christ And God
The manliness of Christian love, and the putting away from ourselves of all fear, because we are "perfected in love," is one of the highest lessons that the gospel teaches us, and one of the greatest things which the gospel gives us.— filed under Manliness
'Tis the plague of devils to think on what they are. Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about "the faith that is in Christ Jesus," that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain - that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, my brother, you cannot forget your sins; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss forever.— filed under Memory
My friend, picture to yourself this - a human spirit shut up with the companionship of its forgotten and dead transgressions ! There is a resurrection of acts as well as of bodies. Think what it will be for a man to sit surrounded by that ghastly company, the ghosts of his own sins! and as each forgotten fault and buried badness comes, silent and sheeted, into that awful society, and sits itself down there, think of him greeting each with the question, "Thou too? What! are ye all here? Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" and from each bloodless, spectral lip there tolls out the answer, the knell of his life, “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord."— filed under Memory
Learn in Christ how possible it is to be strong and mild, to blend in fullest harmony the perfection of all that is noble, lofty, generous in the soldier's ardor of heroic devotion; and of all that is calm, still, compassionate, tender in the priest's waiting before God and mediation among men.— filed under Ministers
At some turning point of your life, when some great joy flashed, or some great shadow darkened upon you all at once; when some crisis that wanted an instantaneous decision appeared, - why, what regions of thought, purpose, plan, resolution, what wildernesses of desolate sorrow, and what paradises of blooming gladness, your soul has gone through in a moment.— filed under Mystery
All things and all acts and this whole wonderful universe proclaim to us the Lord our Father, Christ our love, Christ our hope, our portion, and our joy. Oh, brethren, if you would know the meaning of the world, read Christ in it. If you would see the beauty of earth, take it for a prophet of something higher than itself.— filed under Nature
Seekest thou a place at my right hand? Nay, I give thee a more wondrous dignity. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne."— filed under Nearness To God And Christ
And so, in calm expectation of a blessed future and a finished work which will explain the past, in honest submission of our way to God, in supreme delight in Him who is the gladness of our joy, the secret of tranquillity will be ours.— filed under Peace
What you cannot lift before His pure eyes and think of Him while you enjoy, is not for you. Friendship, schemes, plans, ambitions, amusements, speculations, studies, loves, businesses - can you call on the name of the Lord while you put these cups to your lips? If not, fling them behind you.— filed under Piety
The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness and triumph and praise.— filed under Prayer
Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it.— filed under Reason
Embrace in one act the two truths-thine own sin, and God's infinite mercy in Jesus Christ.— filed under Regeneration
While the agent of renovation is the Divine Spirit, and the condition of renovation is our cleaving to Christ, the medium of renovation and the weapon which the transforming grace employs is "the word of the truth of the gospel," whereby we are sanctified.— filed under Regeneration
The message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. -— filed under Rejection Of Christ
Religion is no dry morality; no slavish, punctilious conforming of actions to a hard law. Religion is not right thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Religion is still less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or apparent rectitude. Religion is not nominal connection with the Christian community, nor participation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be godly is to be godlike.— filed under Religion
Brethren, understand that the gospel is a gospel which brings a present salvation; and try to feel that it is not presumption, but simply out of the very fundamental principle of it, when you are not afraid to say, "I know that my Redeemer is yonder, and I know that He loves me."— filed under Salvation
Self-denial must reach beyond gross and undoubted sins.— filed under Self-Denial
The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and Divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and outward, vehement transgression; but it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency.— filed under Self-Righteousness
Yes, every sin is a mistake, and the epitaph for the sinner is, "Thou fool."— filed under Sin
As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling voices, His voice is little likely to be heard.— filed under Soul
No man can live out a life of sin without also living out all the Godward talent of his soul. The man that wrapped up his talent in the napkin and said, "Lo, there thou hast that is thine," was too sanguine. There was never an unused talent rolled up in a handkerchief yet, but when it was taken out and put into the scales, it was lighter than when it was committed to the keeping of the earth.— filed under Talents
How awful that silent, unceasing footfall of receding days is when once we begin to watch it! Inexorable, passionlessthough hope and fear may pray, "Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," - the tramp of the hours goes on. The poets paint them as a linked chorus of rosy forms, garlanded and clasping hands as they dance onwards. So they may be to some of us at some moments. So they may seem as they approach; but those who come hold the hands of those that go, and that troop have no rosy light upon their limbs, their garlands are faded, the sunshine falls not upon the gray and shrouded shapes, as they steal ghostlike through the gloom.— filed under Time
"Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope." That is the order. You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation.— filed under Trials
What disturbs us in this world is not "trouble," but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things.— filed under Trials
Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing, tiny musquitoes; if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will help you bear it. He will do more, He will bear it with you; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us.— filed under Trials
Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart.— filed under Trust In Christ
Trust yourselves, my brethren, to the immortal love and perfect work of the Divine Saviour, and by His dear might your days will advance by peaceful stages, whereof each gathers up and carries forward the blessings of all that went before, to a death which shall be a birth.— filed under Trust In Christ
Thou knowest all - I lean my head; My weary eyelids close; Content and glad awhile to tread This path, since Jesus knows ! We are only asking you to give to Christ that which you give to others, to transfer the old emotions, the blessed emotions, the exercise of which makes gladness in the life here below, to transfer them to Him, and to rest safe in the Lord. Faith is trust.— filed under Trust In Christ
You must cast yourself on God's gospel with all your weight, without any hanging back, without any doubt, without even the shadow of a suspicion that it will give.— filed under Trust In God
Turn your confidence and your fears alike into prayer.— filed under Trust In God
Surely Scripture is right when it makes the sin of sins that unbelief, which is at bottom nothing else than a refusal to take the cup of salvation. Surely no sharper grief can be inflicted upon the Spirit of God than when we leave His gifts neglected and unappropriated.— filed under Unbelief
Why does a man refuse to believe? Because he has confidence in himself; because he has not a sense of his own sins; because he has not love in his heart to his Lord and Saviour. Unbelief men are responsible for. Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act - an act of the whole nature. Belief or unbelief is a test of a man's whole spiritual condition, just because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, and all, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it.— filed under Unbelief
Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us.— filed under Union To Christ
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. As in mysterious and transcendent union the Divine takes into itself the human in the person of Jesus, and eternity is blended with time; we, trusting Him, and yielding our hearts to Him, receive into our poor lives an incorruptible seed, and for us the soul-satisfying realities that abide forever mingle with and are reached through the shadows that pass away.— filed under Union To Christ
Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God's hand gives the impulse and direction.— filed under Will
It is the hardest thing in the world not to think our good works better than they are, and to make the very best keep their distance in the office of justification. Though we must be judged by and according to our actions, yet we shall not be saved by them. Many shall seek; do you strive. For wishing is one thing, and willing is another, and doing is yet another. And in regard to entrance into Christ's kingdom, our "doing" is trusting Him who has done all for us. "This is the work of God, that ye should believe on Him whom He hath sent." Does your wish lead to the acceptance of the condition Then it will be fulfilled.— filed under Works