“O spend your time as you would hear of it in the Judgment!”

“Spend your time in nothing which you know must be repented of; in nothing on which you might not pray for the blessing of God; in nothing which you could not review with a quiet conscience on your dying bed; in nothing which you might not safely and properly be found doing if death should surprise you in the act.”

“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?”

“Parents! It is in your hands to do your children the greatest kindness, or cruelty, in all the world! Help them to know God and to be saved, and you do more for them than if you helped them to be lords or princes. If you neglect their souls, and breed them in ignorance, worldliness, ungodliness, and sin; you betray them to the devil, the enemy of souls, even as truly as if you sold them to him! You sell them to be slaves to Satan! You betray them to him that will deceive them and abuse them in this life, and torment them in the next!”

“Lay siege to your sins, and starve them out by keeping away the food and fuel which is their maintenance and life.”

“Measure the time of your sleep appropriately so that you do not waste your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be matched to your health and labor, and not to slothful pleasure.”

“Take heed to yourselves, because the tempter will more ply you with his temptations than other men. If you will be the leaders against the prince of darkness, he will spare you no further than God restraints him. He bears the greatest malice to those that are engaged to do him the greatest mischief.”

“Till you can rest in God’s will you will never have rest.”

“Be sure that you live not idly, but in some constant business of a lawful calling, so far as you have bodily strength. Idleness is a constant sin, and labour is a duty. Idleness is but the devil’s home for temptation, and for unprofitable, distracting musings. Labour profiteth others and ourselves; both soul and body need it. Six days must thou labour, and must not eat “The bread of idleness.” (Prov. 31:13-27.) God hath made it our duty, and will bless us in His appointed way.”

“Is it but right that our hearts should be on God, when the heart of God is so much on us.”

“O that Christians would learn to live with one eye on Christ crucified and the other on his coming in glory! If everlasting joys were more in your thoughts, spiritual joys would abound more in your hearts. No wonder you are comfortless when heaven is forgotten. When Christians let fall their heavenly expectations but heighten their earthly desires, they are preparing themselves for fear and trouble. Who has met with a distressed, complaining soul where either a low expectation of heavenly blessings, or too high a hope for joy on earth is not present? What keeps us under trouble is either we do not expect what God has promised, or we expect what he did not promise.”

“The vigor and power and comfort of our spiritual life depends on our mortification of deeds of the flesh.”

“How little difference is there between the pleasure of a long and of a short life, when they are both at an end! What comfort will it be to you at death, that you lengthened your life by shortening your work? He that worketh much, liveth much. Our life is to be esteemed according to the ends and works of it, and not according to the mere duration… Will it not comfort us more at death, to review a short time faithfully spent, than a long life spent unfaithfully?”

“The most dangerous mistake that our souls are capable of, is, to take the creature for God, and earth for heaven.”

“Is it a small thing in your eyes to be loved by God – to be the son, the spouse, the love, the delight of the King of glory? Christian, believe this, and think about it: you will be eternally embraced in the arms of the love which was from everlasting, and will extend to everlasting – of the love which brought the Son of God’s love from heaven to earth, from earth to the cross, from the cross to the grave, from the grave to glory – that love which was weary, hungry, tempted, scorned, scourged, buffeted, spat upon, crucified, pierced – which fasted, prayed, taught, healed, wept, sweated, bled, died. That love will eternally embrace you.”

“Of two duties we must choose the greater, though of two sins we must choose neither.”

“You are likely to see no general reformation till you procure family reformation. Some little obscure religion there may be in here and there one; but while it sticks in single persons, and is not promoted by these societies, it doth not prosper, nor promise much for future increase.”

“The way of painful duty is the way of fullest comfort. Christ carrieth all our comforts in his hand: if we are out of that way where Christ is to be met, we are out of the way where comfort is to be had.”

“We are members of the world and of the church, and must labour to do good to many; and therefore we have greater work to do on earth, than merely securing our own salvation. We are intrusted with our Master’s talents for his service, to do our best in our places, to propagate his truth and grace, to edify his church, honour his cause, and promote the salvation of as many souls as we can. All this is to be done on earth, if we would secure the end of all in heaven.”

“The door of the visible church is incomparably wider than the door of heaven.”

“How will it fill our souls with perpetual joy, to think that in the streams of this blood we have swum through the violence of the world, the snares of Satan, the seductions of flesh, the curse of the law, the wrath of an offended God, the accusations of a guilty conscience, and the vexing doubts and fears of an unbelieving heart, and are arrived safely at the presence of God!”

“A foolish physician he is, and a most unfaithful friend, that will let a sick man die for fear of troubling him; and cruel wretches are we to our friends, that will rather suffer them to go quietly to hell, then we will anger them, or hazard our reputation with them.”

“Thou I cannot so freely say, My heart is with thee, my soul longeth after thee; yet can I say, I long for such a longing heart.”

“Every time we look upon our congregations, let us believingly remember that they are the purchase of Christ’s blood, and therefore should be regarded by us with the deepest interest and the most tender affection.”

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

“Remember still that you are both diseased persons, full of infirmities; and therefore expect the fruit of those infirmities in each other; and make not a strange matter of it, as if you had never known of it before. If you had married one that is lame, would you be angry at her for [limping]? Or if you had married one that had a putrid ulcer, would you fall out with her because it stinketh? Did you not know beforehand, that you married a person of such weakness, as would yield you some manner of daily trial and offense? If you could not bear this, you should not have married her; if you resolved that you could bear it then, you are obliged to bear it now. Resolve therefore to bear with one another; as remembering that you took one another as sinful, frail, imperfect, persons, not as angels, or as blameless and perfect.”

“Prayer is the breath of the new creature.”

“Convince them what a contradiction it is to be a Christian, and yet to refuse to learn; for what is a Christian but a disciple of Christ? And how can he be a disciple of Christ, that refuses to be taught by Him. And he that refuses to be taught by his ministers, refuses to be taught by Him; for Christ will not come down from heaven again to teach them by His own mouth, but has appointed His ministers to keep school and teach them under Him. To say, therefore, that they will not be taught by His ministers, is to say, they will not be taught by Christ; and that is to say, they will not be His disciples, or no Christians.”