Whether the family of the Clarkes were of Norman extraction cannot be easily ascertained.
However, all gifts seem now to be absorbed in one and a man must be either a Preacher or nothing.
If you be faithful, you will have that honor that comes from God: his Spirit will say in your hearts, Well done, good and faithful servants.
All abuse and waste of God’s creatures are spoil and robbery on the property of the Creator.
Prayer is not designed to inform God, but to give man a sight of his misery; to humble man’s heart, to excite his desire, to inflame his faith, to animate his hope, to raise his soul from earth to heaven...
He who is completely sanctified, or cleansed from all sin, and dies in this state, is fit for glory.
Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.
Now an infinite happiness cannot be purchased by any price less than that which is infinite in value; and infinity of merit can only result from a nature that is infinitely divine or perfect.
They who pray not, know nothing of God, and know nothing of the state of their own souls.
It is the grace of God, that shows and condemns the sin that humbles us.
We communicate happiness to others not often by great acts of devotion and self-sacrifice, but by the absence of fault-finding and censure, by being ready to sympathize with their notions and feelings, instead of forcing them to sympathize with ours.
But this Christ or Redeemer took not upon him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham, that is, human nature, that in the nature which sinned he might make the expiation required.
It is to be regretted that few persons who have arrived at any degree of eminence or fame, have written Memorials of themselves, at least such as have embraced their private as well as their public life.
To suppose more than one supreme Source of infinite wisdom, power, and all perfections, is to assert that there is no supreme Being in existence.
Now it would be as absurd to deny the existence of God, because we cannot see him, as it would be to deny the existence of the air or wind, because we cannot see it.
There is no such thing as chance or accident; the words merely signify our ignorance of some real and immediate cause.
Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.
Death to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father’s house into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining.
Remember that the word of God is not sent to particular persons, as if by name; and do not think you have no part in it, because you are not named there.
I have lived to know that the secret of happiness is never to allow your energies to stagnate.
I am an old man, and I here declare that I never knew them to be productive of any good in the worship of God, and have reason to believe that they are productive of much evil. Music as a science I esteem and admire, but instrumental music in the house of God I abominate and abhor. This is the abuse of music, and I here register my protest against all such corruption of the worship of the author of Christianity.