254 quotes
Richard Sibbes Quotes
The sharpest, most searching lines from Richard Sibbes, drawn straight from the Puritan Paperbacks. Filter by theme, or browse the whole collection.
“In pursuing his calling, Christ will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, in which more is meant than spoken, for he will not only not break nor quench, but he will cherish those with whom he so deals.”
“The purest actions of the purest men need Christ to perfume them; and this is his office. When we pray, we need to pray again for Christ to pardon the defects of our prayers.”
“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.”
“The depths of our misery can never fall below the depths of mercy.”
“There can be no victory where there is no combat.”
“The winter prepares the earth for the spring, so do afflictions sanctified prepare the soul for glory.”
“Poverty and affliction take away the fuel that feeds pride.”
“God's truth always agrees with itself.”
“Self-emptiness prepares us for spiritual fullness.”
“Confession is verbal humiliation.”
“Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy.”
“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.”
“It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ.”
“It is atheism to pray and not wait on hope.”
“Satan gives Adam an apple, and takes away Paradise. Therefore in all temptations let us consider not what he offers, but what we shall lose.”
“It is evident that our conversion is sound when we loathe and hate sin from the heart.”
“Christ chiefly manifests Himself in times of affliction, because then the soul unites itself most closely by faith to Christ.”
“Times are bad, God is good.”
“God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.”
“It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.”
“What coward would not fight when he is sure of victory?”
“Gospel repentance is not a little hanging down of the head. It's a working of the heart until your sin becomes more odious to you than any punishment for it.”
“Heaven is not heaven without Christ. It is better to be in any place with Christ than to be in heaven itself without him.”
“See a flame in a spark, a tree in a seed. See great things in little beginnings.”
“The whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God; we should neither eat nor sleep, but eat to God and sleep to God and work to God and talk to God, do all to His glory and praise.”
“It is Christ's manner to trouble our souls first, and then to come with healing in his wings.”
“What the heart liketh best, the mind studieth most.”
“It is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, that as sin bred grief, so grief may consume sin.”
“Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.”
“The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.”
“Sin is not so sweet in the committing as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning.”
“Christ came down from heaven, and emptied himself of majesty in tender love to souls; shall we not come down from our high conceits to do any poor soul good? Shall man be proud after God hath been humble?”
“A man knows no more in religion than he loves and embraceth with the affections of his soul.”
“Providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation.”
“If Christ has once possessed the affections, there is no dispossessing of him again. A fire in the heart overcomes all fires without.”
“A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl, and a sweet balm. The wounds of secure sinners will not be healed with sweet words.”
“The wronged side is always the safest.”
“Christ does not choose you because you are good, but to make you good.”
“In the godly, holy truths are conveyed by way of a taste; gracious men have a spiritual palate as well as a spiritual eye. Grace alters the spiritual taste.”
“Let weak Christians know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, yet it will consume all at last.”
“No sin is so great but the satisfaction of Christ and His mercies are greater; it is beyond comparison.”
“When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.”
“God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requires no more than he gives, but gives what he requires, and accepts what he gives.”
“A curse lies upon those that, when the truth suffers, have not a word to defend it.”
“When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him, and therefore he opposes us all he can.”
“Christ quickens none but the dead.”
“Whatsoever is good for God's children they shall have it, for all is theirs to further them to heaven.”
“Faith, whereby especially Christ rules, sets the soul so high that it looks down on all other things as far below.”
“As the strongest faith may be shaken, so the weakest, where truth is, is so far rooted that it will prevail. Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails.”
“When we are foiled, let us believe we shall overcome; when we have fallen, let us believe we shall rise again.”
“There are no men more careful of the use of means than those that are surest of a good issue and conclusion, for the one stirs up diligence in the other. Assurance of the end stirs up diligence in the means.”
“In trouble we are prone to forget all that we have heard and read that makes for our comfort.”
“When the Word dwells as a familiar friend in the heart to direct, counsel and comfort us, then it is a sign it abides there.”
“The life of a Christian is wondrously ruled in this world, by the consideration and meditation of the life of another world.”
“God takes a safe course with His children, that they may not be condemned with the world.”
“What is the gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon him.”
“Our redemption is founded upon the joint agreement of all three persons of the Trinity.”
“It would be a good contest amongst Christians, one to labor to give no offense, and the other labor to take none. The best of men are severe to themselves, tender over others.”
“Who has despised the day of small things? Christ would not have us despise little things.”
“There is not a minute of time in all of our life but we must either be near to God or we will be undone.”
“God's children improve all advantages to advance their grand end; they labour to grow better by blessings and crosses, and to make sanctified use of all things.”
“We are only safe when we wisely make use of all good advantages that we have access to. By going out of God's ways we go out of His government.”
“After conversion we need bruising so that reeds may know themselves to be reeds, and not oaks.”
“Weakness with watchfulness will stand, when strength with too much confidence fails.”
“Nothing is so certain as that which is certain after doubts. Shaking settles and roots.”
“Though an host of men should encompass me, 'my heart shall not fear; though war rise against me, in this I will be confident.' Here is great courage for the time to come.”
“He is a gracious Father, and he hath taken this sweet relation on him for this purpose, that we may have comfort in all conditions.”
“A true Christian will not hide his sins, but lay them open, the more to abase himself before God.”
“We see in Christ a marvelous temper of absolute holiness, with great moderation.”
“We see that God did not only pardon David but, after much bruising, gave him wise Solomon to succeed him in the kingdom.”
“He loves all, and gives outward benefits to all, but to me he hath given himself, so love I him.”
“What an excellent thing is this, that we may keep sessions in our own souls, and so need not be called to God’s assizes!”
“Again, a man may know his faith to be true by his willingness to search himself, and to be searched by others.”
“For a Christian hath the reality of things: he hath a husband for ever, he hath matter of joy for ever, he hath a possession for ever; and then there will be a new world.”
“Therefore we should be in love with the beauty of God's temple and sanctuary.”
“By the very contemplation of the mercies of God in Christ, and his inviting them to receive them, the Spirit of God will be wrought in the soul, whereby they may have confidence to come to God as a Father.”
“But Christ and the Father, both the persons are in one substance, in one essence.”
“So hypocrites care not for judgments afar off; as now when the church of God is in misery abroad we bless ourselves, and think all is well.”
“Therefore let us be under the means that may preserve tenderness, and hear what God's word says of our estate by nature, of the wrath and justice of God, and of the judgment that will shortly come upon all the world.”
“This is the death in the pot of the Roman religion, that they confound the two covenants, and it deadens the comfort of drooping ones that they cannot distinguish them.”
“Nature, simply considered, cannot raise itself above itself to actions which are spiritual and of a higher order and nature.”
“If you are not so much as smoking flax, then why do you not renounce your interest in Christ, and disclaim the covenant of grace?”
“The case in perseverance is not how faithful we are, but how faithful God is, who ‘guides us here with his counsel in all things, and afterwards receiveth us into glory,’ Ps.”
“Now they are the sons of God; but it appeareth not in this world what they shall be; and if they be now such, whilst black, what when in heaven, when Christ is made glorious in them?”
“But Christ, after he was 'manifest in the flesh,' and had done the work here that he had to do, he was 'received up to glory;' that is, all baseness was laid aside.”
“Not that he means fathers and mothers use to do so, but though they should, or even when they forsake us by death, yet God doth wonderfully save and protect their posterity.”
“What desperate folly is it to venture the loss of eternity for the enjoying of these things!”
“Let us labour to maintain this assurance of salvation from God's love.”
“The first Adam is the father of all that perish; the second Adam is the father of all that shall be saved.”
“I will add this farther, that wheresoever on good title we can say, ‘I am God’s,’ there is a reflect act of the soul to say, ‘God is mine’.”
“For a tender heart is sensible of the miseries of the church, as being members of the same body, whereof Christ is the head.”
“We are all a part of one mystical body, whereof Christ is the head.”
“In the days of his flesh he dictated a form of prayer unto his disciples, and put petitions unto God into their mouths, and his Spirit to intercede in their hearts.”
“The same Spirit that convinces us of the necessity of his righteousness to cover us convinces us also of the necessity of his government to rule us.”
“This is the reason why Christians that have light that is little for quantity, but heavenly for quality, persevere, when men of larger apprehensions sink.”
“It is his Spirit who actuates and enlivens, and applies that knowledge and strength we have, or else it fails and lies useless in us.”
“By justification we are made kings and priests, are lifted above all sins and lusts, world and devil; have a right and title to heaven.”
“Why? 'He hath loved me, and given himself for me;' and I feel so much to my soul's comfort, therefore I will wholly depend upon him, in life, in death, and for ever.”
“It is not the greatness of the part, but the well acting of it.”
“It is a matter of consequence: as we desire heaven, we must desire this holy fire to be kindled in us.”
“The disciples were very weak now; and yet, notwithstanding all their infirmities, they loved Christ; they cast themselves upon him, and had not chosen another Saviour.”
“He answereth not always according to our wills, but always according to our good.”
“Well, to this fearful end, before it be long, must every one that hath a hard heart come, unless they repent.”
“So every Christian is dearly bought, with the blood of Christ.”
“But if we have this for a foundation truth, that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us, there can be no danger in thorough dealing.”
“Obstinate spirits show that they are not so much as smoking flax.”
“But Christ will be no underling to any base affection, and therefore, where there is allowance of ourselves in any sinful lust, it is a sign the keys were never given up to Christ to rule us.”
“Some God gives up to a profane spirit in the midst of the means, a fearful brand.”
“God will not always strive with us, but will give us up to our own courses, to live and die under the dominion of the devil, and so will glorify himself in our confusion.”
“He rose again for me, he is now in heaven for me, as carrying me in his breast.”
“If we go to buy anything in this world, we first pull off the trappings; we pull off the mask, or else we may be cozened in the thing.”
“He should be the dearer to us, the more vile and base he was made for us, and he should be most lovely in our eyes, when he was least lovely in his own, and when he was deformed, when our sins were upon him.”
“God therefore hath reserved the best excellencies for the time to come, in promises and in his word, if we have grace to depend upon his word, and in the mean time go on and cross our corruptions.”
“They that be in heaven love to see the face of God, they joy in it.”
“He can see hidden love, and hidden faith and grace, that we cannot see in temptations; and he will manifest all at length, and show his love when we stand most in need of it.”
“We cannot have a better guide than God; and therefore never think of God but as ‘our God and our Father’, and labour to answer all Satan’s temptations in that kind from hence.”
“There are many atheists, whose whole care is to preserve life.”
“We are to encounter accursed and damned enemies; therefore, if they begin to fall before the Spirit in us, they shall fall.”
“And if there were no devil to suggest, yet sinful thoughts would arise from within us, though none were cast in from without.”
“If the Spirit of God in any measure and degree be in our breasts, we will sympathize with the state of the church.”
“Faith will do all that Christ commands, depending upon him for strength; and who so depends upon Christ for strength in one duty, will depend upon him for strength in another.”
“If all obedience in doing and suffering, that is pleasing, comes from faith and assurance, then what shall we think of such works as proceed not from it?”
“It was short then, it is shorter now. 'The time is short.' We are fallen into the latter end of the world.”
“So the things of this world; they pass away, but they never come again.”
“The ministers of God are stewards, as it were, to distribute comfort and reproof to whom it belongs.”
“Shall a man think by a penny to merit a thousand pounds; by a little performance to merit things that are above the conceit of men and angels?”
“Where the judge appoints a counsel, it is a sign he favoureth the cause.”
“Now I have quitted myself of death, and sin imputed to me as a surety, and I am going to heaven to make an end of all there: ‘I ascend to God, to my God and to your God.’ We have all one common Father, and one common God.”
“We are both idols and idol-worshippers, when we think highly of ourselves, for we make ourselves idols.”
“Some must be `pulled out of the fire' (Jude 23) with violence, and they will bless God for us in the day of their visitation.”
“In the morning, we often see clouds gather about the sun, as if they would hide it, but the sun overcomes them little by little, till it comes to its full strength.”
“There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost.”
“We are bound to love one another, and to show all the offices of love.”
“We must deny our own understandings, and be content to have no more understanding in divine things than we can carry out of God’s book, than we can be taught by God’s word and ordinances.”
“The preaching of the word takes away the veil from the things, and the Spirit takes away the veil from our souls.”
“In all things let us, with confession of our wants, have an eye unto his fulness, and then we shall find the more of his abundance, when we set not upon these duties in our own strength only.”
“So much the more dearer he should be unto us, the more base he was for us.”
“In this little time we do that, that in a long time we cannot undo again.”
“And therefore we must every day live upon this branch of his priestly office, his mediation.”
“In him are the fulness of all riches, the treasures of all wisdom and knowledge.”
“The rich in themselves are sent 'empty away;' the humble soul is a rich soul, rich in God; and therefore God regards the lowly and resists the proud.”
“None will claim mercy more of others than those who deserve due severity.”
“We are only safe when we wisely make use of all good advantages that we have access to.”
“When we have this done, then we have discharged our duty in mourning, and may turn to other occasions as God doth require of us; for when we have mourned and wept, then we must look upon causes of rejoicing and thanksgiving.”
“Indeed, he was the Son of God, but he appeared in abased flesh, in the form of a 'servant.' He was crucified.”
“What made Abraham forget his father's house, going he knew not whither, but that he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God, and therefore he was a stranger at home?”
“It is enough for him that must leave all, I know not how soon; have I little or much, I must leave all.”
“Take a good Christian at the worst, he is better than another at the best.”
“Come to him boldly therefore, under the name of a father, that he may move his bowels, and surely will hear us.”
“Where no light comes, there is an influence, though not discerned; and much more can there be influence of strength and power and hidden comfort, though there be no sight.”
“Therefore it is not a slight humiliation that will serve the turn, but our hearts must be wrought unto a perfect hatred and leaving of all sins; for if this be not, we are not sufficiently humbled as yet.”
“There is nothing in the world more uneasy than the heart of a wicked man made to listen to spiritual instruction, until, like a thief, he puts out the candle so that he may sin with less restraint.”
“Christ's government brings the very thoughts and desires, which are the most immediate and free issue of the soul, into obedience.”
“Now he that hath the Spirit of God knows the love of God in Christ to him; it reveals the love of God, the height, and breadth, and depth of it to our spirits.”
“Now, God can create a new spiritual eye to discern of spiritual things, which a natural eye cannot.”
“Therefore, because in love he would die, and be a sacrifice, he would take upon him such a nature wherein he might be a sacrifice.”
“Now grief is as it were a cloud from whence the shower of tears comes, and weeping is but a distillation of that vapour.”
“All things here in this world are subordinate to a further end.”
“There is nothing that characteriseth and sets a stamp upon a Christian so much as desires.”
“If his hope of life make him not lively, he hath no hope of life at all.”
“Surely if there be the life of God and Christ in us, there will be a kind of connaturalness and suitableness of taste to the sweetness that is in holy things.”
“In a word, to be a God is to be allsufficient to any; to be sole sufficient, and to be self-sufficient.”
“Christ was the Son of God when he rose again, because he was discovered by his glorious resurrection to be so indeed.”
“We must rend our hearts and not our clothes, when we come into the presence of God.”
“A good object, if it lights upon a bad soul, hardens the heart; for they that are not bettered by religion, under the means, are so much the worse by their use.”
“In weakness of body some think grace dies, because their performances are feeble, their spirits, which are the instruments of their souls' actions, being weakened.”
“Hence we learn that we must not pass too harsh judgment upon ourselves or others when God exercises us with bruising upon bruising.”
“There is something due on a penny as well as on a pound, therefore we must be faithful in the least truth, when the season calls for it.”
“Think of God born of a virgin, of God lying in the cradle, sucking the breast!”
“If we be in Christ, all that we suffer in this world, they are sufferings of conformity to make us suitable to our Head, and to fit us for glory.”
“All that we have now is a taste of the good things to come, and but a taste.”
“Will not this therefore make us seek the main—the food that endures to everlasting life; and labour to be in Christ more and more, labour to cherish communion with Christ, that everlasting bond?”
“Again, as they spring from the love of God, so they tend to the honour of God; for what comes from heaven, goes to heaven back again.”
“If we do anything to God, and do it not in love, he regards it not.”
“We would not yield to all the passages of salvation; but when he was beforehand with us, and offered many sweet motions, yet we loved our sins better than our souls, and so repelled all.”
“In a word, to be a God is to be all-sufficient to any; to be sole sufficient, and to be self-sufficient.”
“For from this, that God is our God, cometh all that we have that is good in nature and grace.”
“Be thy guilt never so great, if thou wilt come into covenant with God, here is mercy for thee, and therefore make this use of it.”
“The work of God’s Spirit in his children is like fire, which hath two properties: to sever all heterogeneal and strange stuff, and dross, and the like, and gather all the homogeneal stuff of one nature.”
“All expression of devotion is little enough, so it be without hypocrisy.”
“In the course of our life, after we are in a state of grace, if we are overtaken with any sin, we must remember to have recourse first to Christ's mercy to pardon us, and then to the promise of his Spirit to govern us. 3.”
“We should do more good with our prayers at home than they shall do by fighting abroad; as Moses did more good in the mount by prayer than they did in the valley by fighting.”
“The Father works from himself; the Son works from the Father; the Holy Spirit from them both.”
“The Pharisees would never have persecuted him and hated him, if they had seen him to have been such a person as he was; but he veiled his glory that he might suffer.”
“It is so free and so rich love, that I am not able to declare it.”
“The things must go, and both must go. 'And the fashion of this world passeth away.' All the frame of things pass away; marriage passeth away; callings and friends pass away; and all pass away.”
“If God be ours, then the soul resteth in it; for God filleth the soul, and quiets the soul, and hath always fresh comforts for the soul, infinite still to all eternity.”
“Our first state in the first Adam was not firm, but now our nature is taken into the unity of the second person, it is firm.”
“The third penal affection is, fear and trembling before God's judgments and his threatenings, a fear of the majesty of God, whom we have offended, which is able to send us to hell if his mercies were not beyond our deserts.”
“Man, the most perfect creature, comes to perfection by little and little; worthless things, as mushrooms and the like, like Jonah's gourd, soon spring up, and soon vanish.”
“The same Spirit who enlightens the mind inspires gracious inclinations into the will and affections and infuses strength into the whole man.”
“Some again pass their days in a golden dream, and drop into hell before they think of it.”
“Faith works by love in all duties; and it works by hope in this duty.”
“We ought therefore to bewail our unbelief, and labour for this grace, which is so active and useful, so much the rather, because it is most miserable to be in a storm without a shelter.”
“It is an argument of a good conscience to come oft into the presence of God.”
“For the things of the life to come there are few of them but God's children have some experimental taste of them in this world.”
“Whatsoever is comfortable cometh from this spring, that God in Christ is our God, our reconciled God; that God's nature and ours now are in good terms.”
“Thus we should grow in assurance, exercising the increase and knowledge of our interest.”
“That sin which I so often cherish, this pride, this envy, unbelief, and hypocrisy, this covetousness of mind was that which put Christ into such torment.”
“Many, so far as in us lies, are lost for want of encouragement.”
“Death is but a departing (a), which word is taken from loosing from the shore, or removing of a ship to another coast.”
“We justify our profession when we do somewhat more than nature, or when we do common ordinary things in a spiritual holy manner.”
“We are members of this world, and we are heirs of a better; we have relation to two worlds.”
“Do not we see daily under the ordinance of God by weak men, the blind see, the spiritually deaf hear, the spiritually dumb be able to speak, to pray to God; the dead, those that are dead in sin, they receive life.”
“The law is written in men's hearts; but we must trust divine authority in the gospel above all other portions of Scripture, and not to the wit of any man whatsoever.”
“He is our head, husband, friend, father, brother, and whatsoever can convey comfort to us.* And the truth of it is, he is these things more truly than any relation is made true on earth.”
“I answer briefly, that God doth always begin to us, and is beforehand with us in all dealings with ourselves.”
“Oh how do men value the favours of a man, and the promises of a man; the seal of a man for such and such a benefice; and how doth it grieve them to have the frowns of flesh and blood, the frowns of greatness!”
“And therefore Christ addeth comfort to comfort: ‘Go, tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father, and their Father; to my God, and their God.’ The message itself is Christ’s ascension.”
“This aggravating of our sins will make them more vile unto us, and us more humble in the sight of them.”
“Faith pulls off the mask from his face and sees a loving heart under contrary appearances.”
“After we are gained to Christ ourselves, we should labour to gain others to Christ.”
“We must be content ‘to become fools, that we may be wise,’ 1 Cor. iv. 10.”
“We receive attendance of angels, for the attendance they yielded to Christ first; they attend upon us, by his direction and commission and charge from him.”
“So the church is a voluntary company of people that is orderly, some to teach, and some to be instructed; and thereupon it is called a house.”
“Beloved, the bitterest things in the ordinance of God are better than any worldly thing.”
“When the father is father of a child, the father will not cast away the child for breaking out with deformity or lameness.”
“And what an encouragement is this to answer again, to open our hearts to receive him, together with the elements! to embrace Christ, join with Christ, and then to keep him when we have him!”
“A hard heart is neither melted with promises nor broken with threatenings.”
“As a father to hear the language of his child, though it be none of the best; so it is sweet music in God's ears to hear the prayers of his children.”
“And when we find ourselves to hate and leave sin in some measure, then fasten our souls by faith, as much as may be, upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.”
“Though he will graciously tend and maintain the least spark of true grace, yet where he finds not the spark of grace but opposition to his Spirit striving with them, his wrath, once kindled, shall burn to hell.”
“For God hath given his children a spirit of discretion, that will teach them when to joy and when to weep most.”
“There is nothing will stand out but the new creature, that we find a change wrought by the Spirit of God.”
“Look we therefore to our sins, the curse and wrath due unto them, and all as laid on him.”
“Are not we ambassadors from God to men, to unfold Christ's love in particular unto them: if they believe, then to tell them, that they may be assured of salvation?”
“The act here is, that I 'may dwell in house of the Lord.' He did not desire to be in it for a day or a little time, to salute it, and so leave to it; but to 'dwell in the house of the Lord,' and to dwell there for ever.”
“Learn on earth that that will abide in heaven, saith St Austin.”
“The first degree of his glory was his resurrection, after his lowest abasement in the grave.”
“When the lions roar, [when] the great lions of the world roar in extremity, he hath inward peace and joy, and comforts of the Holy Ghost.”
“When a man comes to a king to put up a petition unto him, and comes with a dagger in his hand to stab him, will the king accept of this man's petition?”
“Their religion is all an outside, consisting merely of outward performances.”
“It is like a lock: if its workings are faulty, it will be troublesome to open.”
“It should rather humble us the more than puff us up in pride, in regard that there was nothing in us which might deserve anything at God’s hand, 1 Cor. iv. 7; Eph. ii. 9.”
“It is not only a Spirit of illumination, but of sanctification.”
“Thus though sin may be pardoned, yet the more we sin, the more hardly we shall repent, the longer we shall want joy; or, it may be, go all our lifetime mourning without comfort in such a case.”
“But all this is but a pageant as it were, as a man that acts in a pageant, or in a play; he is in some sort a king, or a beggar for the time.”
“The law is a dead letter; yea, and so is the gospel too without Christ. He is 'that Spirit' which gives life unto all the Scriptures.”
“His fulness of the Spirit is as the fulness of the fountain; ours is but as the fulness of the cistern. He hath grace in the spring; we have it but in the conduit.”
“What is the scope of the whole Scriptures but Christ?”
“A tender heart is always a sensible heart. It hath life and therefore sense.”
“A melting and tender heart is sensible, yielding, and fit for any service both to God and man.”
“It is a supernatural disposition of a true child of God to have a tender, soft, and a melting heart.”
“A hammer will do no good to a stone. It may break it in pieces, but not draw it to any form.”
“We are now come to the banquet, and Christ is the founder of it; nay, he is the Feast itself. He is the Author of it, and he it is that we feed upon.”
“There is in Christ enough to satisfy all the hungry souls in the world, he himself being present at this heavenly banquet.”
“If he bring us to heaven through a valley of tears, it is no matter, for in heaven all tears shall be wiped from our eyes.”
“There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us. It is better to go bruised to heaven than sound to hell.”
“Grace is little at the first; things of greatest perfection are longest in coming to their growth.”
“The strongest are readiest to bear with the infirmities of the weak.”
“Seeking of Christ is the soul's duty; but Christ manifesting himself is the soul's comfort.”
“Many times Christ hath his face towards us, when we have our backs upon him; and therefore if thou wouldst find Christ, turn thyself to him.”
“The knowledge of the love of Christ to his church is above all knowledge.”
“Christ vouchsafes his gracious presence to his children, upon their desire of it.”