The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music.
He that has doctrinal knowledge and speculation only, without affection, never is engaged in the business of religion.
Love is no ingredient in a merely speculative faith, but it is the life and soul of a practical faith.
All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind.
Resolved, never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.
Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature; which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.
To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.
Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.
Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions.
Nature is God’s greatest evangelist.
There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ as by prayer.
Those who are in a state of salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to Him who maketh them to differ from others.
Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it.
A true love for God must begin with a delight in His holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute; for no other attribute is truly lovely without this.
The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.
Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life.
I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.
By Christ’s purchasing redemption, two things are intended: his satisfaction and his merit; the one pays our debt, and so satisfies; the other procures our title, and so merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery; the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us.
Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith; its action, works; its temper, holiness; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men.
Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church.