GOD, by the seasonable weeping of the heaven, hath caused the plentiful laughter of the earth.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Not a drop of rain falls in vain.

—JOHN TRAPP

Much rain is a burden to clouds, and much riches are a burden to men.

—HENRY SMITH

OUR motion is from God, but not the disorder of that motion.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

He formed this crooked serpent [Satan] though not the crooked­ness of this serpent.

—RICHARD BAXTER

God sent corn and the devil sent garners.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS

The sun and earth are not the cause of that poison which is in the nature of the plant.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK

Man’s fault cannot prejudice God’s right.

—WILLIAM GURNALL

God made the face, and the devil paints it.

—THOMAS ADAMS

We owe our creation to God, our corruption to ourselves.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK

THE judge of the earth keepeth his petty-sessions now, letting the law pass upon some few, reserving the rest till the great assizes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

His will is the rule of righteousness, and righteousness is the rule of his will.

—ELISHA COLES.

Pride cannot sit so high but Justice will sit above her.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Justice would not be justice if it used not them with the greatest severity that abuse grace with the greatest indignity.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Without justice, great commonwealths are but great troops of robbers.

—JOHN OWEN.

Justice in rigour is oft extreme injustice.

—RICHARD STOCK.

A judge must not sit to hear persons but causes; therefore justice is drawn blindfold.

—JOHN TRAPP.

IF Abraham’s faith be not in your hearts, it will be no advantage that Abraham’s blood runs in your veins.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Our father was Adam, our grandfather dust, our great-grand­father nothing.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The son is the father in a later and newer edition.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Solomon had but one son, and he was none of the wisest.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Piety is the best parentage.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

It is true nobility where God is the chief and top of the kin.

—JOSEPH CHURCH.

Iniquity can plead antiquity.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As water, the nearer the spring the purer the stream, so in ­antiquity in customs.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

THE larger faith we bring, the larger measure we carry from Christ.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Let faith have the hindmost word.

—DAVID DICKSON.

Here it is no matter how much milk or holy broth there is; but how big is thy bowl, thy faith. Our mess[3] must be according to our measure.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Thou canst not see Christ with another’s eyes, nor walk to heaven with another’s feet.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

It is the taking a gift makes it the man’s that takes it, and not the offer of it.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Assure thyself thou hast a good measure of faith if thou feel want of faith.

—JOHN BOYS.

Faith is the only receiving grace.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

THE honourable garter cannot cure the gout, nor the chair of state ease the colic, nor a crown remove the headache.

—JOHN TRAPP.

All the honour and applause in the world is no better than an inheritance of wind, which the pilot is not sure of.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

High seats are never but uneasy, and crowns themselves oft stuffed with thorns.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Outward things will do no more good than a fair shoe to a gouty foot.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Glory fled from Saul who followed it, but followed David who fled from it.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It is both meat and drink for a formalist to fast if others do but see it.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

WOOD is not more ready to be set on fire than we are to follow superstition.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Let us not superstitiously feign that the ghosts of those cere­monies may still walk, which long since were buried in Christ’s grave.

—THOMAS FULLER.

That blind goddess Fortune holds her deity only by the tenure of man’s ignorance.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Fortune is but the devil’s blasphemous spit upon divine providence.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

The best gamester hath commonly the worst luck.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Superstition is nothing else but an unscriptural and unrevealed dread of God.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Superstition is more tolerable than that gross impiety which obliterates every thought of a God.

—JOHN CALVIN.

ONE small drop of an evil conscience troubleth a whole sea of outward comforts.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A par-boiled conscience is not right, soft in one part and hard in another.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

God doth not usually bless with peace of conscience such as make no conscience of peace.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Some serve their consciences as David did Uriah; make it drunk that they may be rid of it.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

While conscience holds the whip over them many will pray.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

That man can never have good days that keeps an evil conscience.

—BENJAMIN KEACH.

There is more hope of a sore than of a seared conscience.

—JOHN TRAPP.

TRUE goodness is public-spirited, though to private dis­advantage.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He was never good that mends not.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

If I cease becoming better I shall soon cease to be good.

—OLIVER CROMWELL.

No man can love a saint as a saint but a saint.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

True piety hath true plenty.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Let the Pope’s calendar only saint the dead, the Scripture requires sanctity in the living.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Sanctity is no enemy to courtesy.

—JOHN TRAPP.

THE prayer that wants a good aim wants a good issue.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Where God hath not a mouth to speak, men must not have a tongue to ask.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Nature’s praying is a pool that will dry up in a long drought.

—THOMAS BOSTON.

Cold prayers, like cold suitors, never speed.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Cold prayers always freeze before they reach heaven.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The prayer that is faithless is fruitless.

—THOMAS WATSON.

THE gospel was of an eternal resolution, though of a ­temporary revelation.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The gospel is an anvil that has broken many a hammer, and will break many hammers yet.

—JOHN CALVIN.

The gospel is called grace because it publisheth, offers, and applies grace.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

The waters of the sanctuary run only through the channels of the gospel.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

No softening like gospel-softening, no hardening like gospel-hardening.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The thunder of the gospel made Satan fall like lightning.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Spirituality is the genius of the gospel.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

AMBITION, like the crocodile, groweth while it liveth.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Ambition, like the grave, is never full.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

‘Who am I?’ saith Moses. ‘Who am I not?’ saith our upstart.

—JOHN BOYS.

Some climb so high that they break their necks.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Ambition is so great a planet that it must have a whole orbit to move in.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Ambition rideth without reins.

—JOHN TRAPP.

There is no scab or itch more dangerous than the ambition of sects and new opinions.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

Empty spirits affect swelling titles.

—JOHN TRAPP.

IF the best man’s faults were written in his forehead, it would make him pull his hat over his eyes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

As long as there are spots in the moon, it is vain to expect anything spotless under it.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Sin in a Christian is like a diver’s dress on land, awkward and harassing.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Spots are sooner seen in scarlet than in sackcloth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

As the moon hath her specks, so the best have their blemishes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The best saints in this world are like the tribe of Manasses: half on this side Jordan, and half on that.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The finest garment is soonest stained.

—HENRY SMITH.

As in a fish, so in a church and state, corruption begins at the head.

—JOHN TRAPP.

IT is more easy to exclude sin than to expel it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

To keep an enemy from rising is much easier than to quell him when he is up.

—ELISHA COLES.

It is better to be innocent than penitent.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

It is easier carrying provision to sea than getting it there.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It is easier for a bird to go by the net than to break the net.

—HENRY SMITH.

In God’s temple have more of Sabbath thoughts on week-day, then week-day thoughts will less trouble you on Sabbath-day.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

WITHOUT faith we are not fit to desire mercy, without humility we are not fit to receive it, without affection we are not fit to value it, without sincerity we are not fit to improve it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There is no reason to be given for mercy, but mercy.

—RALPH VENNING.

Thou standest in a centre, the circumference is mercy.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

Shall there be more mercy in the stream than in the spring?

—RICHARD SIBBES.

He that hath enough mercy can want nothing.

—JOHN BOYS.

One ray of mercy is better than a sun of pleasure.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Mercy’s clock does not strike at the sinner’s beck.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The bow smites not all it threatens.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

God is not merciful as a flint yields fire, by force, but as a spring whence water naturally issues.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

PRIDE is the root of passion; a lofty will be a surly spirit.

Pride is a sin that will put the soul upon the worst of sins.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Pride is the shirt of the soul, put on first and put off last.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Pride is the very image of the devil.

—THOMAS BOSTON.

The wind of pride is the life and soul of error; it is the element in which it moves and breathes.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The worm of pride breeds soonest in rotten wood.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Spiritual pride is a white devil.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Arrogancy is a weed that ever groweth in dung-hills.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

HE that will be angry and not sin, must not be angry but for sin.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Anger should not be destroyed but sanctified.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

‘Be angry and sin not’, is, saith one, the easiest charge under the hardest condition.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Be soonest angry with thyself.

—THOMAS FULLER.

It is not a sin to be angry, but hard not to sin when we are angry.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Plato said to his servant, ‘I would have killed thee, but that I am angry.’

—JOHN KING.

Anger may rush into a wise man’s bosom, but should not rest there.

—JOHN TRAPP.

OUR understandings are so bad that they understand not their own business.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The mind of man is much wider than his mouth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Our greatest sins are those of the mind.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Our minds are as ill-set as our eyes; neither of them look inwards.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The mind, like the ark, should be the chest of the law.

—THOMAS MANTON.

How often are poor Christians in danger of losing the eyes of their mind by those of their body.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Our minds are a beam from God.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

GREAT men are the looking-glasses of their country; according to which most men dress themselves.

—JOHN TRAPP.

If both horse and mare trot, the colt will not amble.

—JOHN BOYS.

Old Testament examples are New Testament instructions.

—JOHN OWEN.

Example is the most powerful rhetoric.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

No marvel the imps do follow when the devil goeth before.

—HENRY SMITH.

However ridiculous soever a garb appears, fashion can persuade men to it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

When princes are fiddlers, the people turn dancers.

—JOHN BOYS.

THE love of God is like a sea, into which when a man is cast, he neither seeth bank, nor feeleth bottom.

—JOHN BOYS.

Love was a god among the heathen; God is love, saith the Christian.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

God doth not know creatures because they are, but they are because he knows them.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God is not wasted by bestowing.

—THOMAS MANTON.

It is visible that God is, it is invisible what he is.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God hath the wisdom of a father, but he hath the bowels[4] of a mother.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

The sense of our Father’s love is like honey at the end of every rod.

—TIMOTHY CRUSO.

FAITH looks to the word promising, hope to the things promised in the word.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Hope is never ill when faith is well.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Faith regards the word of the substance, and hope the substance of the word.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Trust is nothing else but the strength of hope.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

If faith did not feed the lamp of hope with oil it would soon die.

—THOMAS WATSON.

What trust believes by faith, it waits for by hope.

—ROBERT MOSSOM.

Faith comes by hearing, hope by experience. Faith fights for doctrine, hope for a reward.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

The nature of hope is to expect that which faith believes.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

NO poison so deadly as that which is extracted out of grace.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He that sins because of mercy is like one that wounds his head because he hath a plaster.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Gather not wild gourds a second time (2 Kings 4:39), lest your prophet be absent or meal denied you.

—ELISHA COLES.

Whom oil and balsam kill, what salve can cure?

—GEORGE HERBERT.

A man may be so bold of his predestination that he forget his conversation.[5]

—THOMAS ADAMS.

It is not for every private soldier on every danger to make judgment of the battle.

—JOHN OWEN.

EVERY faithful man’s bosom is a Rebecca’s womb wherein there are twins; a rough Esau and the seed of promise, the old man and the new.

—JOSEPH HALL.

Satan hath a spite against the new creature.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Beware of those enchanting sirens, flesh and blood.

—JOHN RAINOLDS.

The flesh is a wily servant, and will lie, like Gehazi, to his master.

—HENRY SMITH.

The flesh is least contented when it is most satisfied.

—JOHN BOYS.

The mortification of the flesh is the quickening of the spirit.

—JOHN CALVIN.

A mite of spirit is of more worth than a mountain of flesh.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

MERCY is ‘Alpha’, justice is ‘Omega’.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Justice requires that there should be desert,[6] but mercy looks upon them that are miserable.

—RICHARD STOCK.

Justice will take up the quarrel of abused mercy.

—THOMAS MANTON.

God hath two hands, a right hand of mercy and a left hand of justice.

—JOHN BOYS.

Justice always makes mercy dumb, when sin has made the sinner deaf.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Necessity should have the most law, because she hath the least money.

—HENRY SMITH.

All the rejoicing we have against God’s justice is in the victory of his mercy.

—THOMAS MANTON.

THE nature of God is the foundation of worship, the will of God is the rule of worship.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Posture in worship is too often imposture.

—THOMAS WATSON.

With the Spirit it is better, like Jonah, to be praying in a whale’s belly, than without the Spirit to be devout in a gilded chapel.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

It is a poor worship to move our hats, not our hearts.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The first foundation of righteousness undoubtedly is the worship of God.

—JOHN CALVIN.

God is glorified only by being made known.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

God is most exalted with fewest words.

—ALEXANDER CARMICHAEL.

The more exalted pomp there be of men’s devising, there will be the less spiritual truth.

—GEORGE HUTCHESON.

APOSTASY is a perversion to evil after a seeming conversion from it.

—TIMOTHY CRUSO.

Whatsoever doth begin in hypocrisy will end in apostasy.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

No vinegar so tart as that which is made from the sweetest wine.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Infidelity is the mother of apostasy.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He that staggers is next door to apostasy.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It had better not to have known the way of truth, than not to persist in it.

—JOHN KING.

Indifference in religion is the first step to apostasy from religion.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

A stop in knowledge is the first inlet to apostasy.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

AFFLICTION is a badge of adoption.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The Lord uses his flail of tribulation to separate the chaff from the wheat.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

A Christian’s life can no more be sine luctibus, than the sea sine fluctibus.[7]

—THOMAS ADAMS.

One son God hath without sin, but none without sorrow.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It is chaff that flieth in the face of him that fanneth.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Job was a non-such[8] for sanctity, yet full of sores.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Better ragged saint than robed sinner.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

He that escapes affliction may well suspect his adoption.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Where Satan hath dwelt long, he will hardly be removed.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The devil is the merchant, and the sinner the broker to trade for him.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

He that saith Yea to the devil in a little, shall not say Nay when he pleases.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The proud man is Satan’s throne and the idle man his pillow.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Some men’s heads are the devil’s mint-house, they are a mint of mischief.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Those that want legs to go in goodness, can find wings to fly in wickedness.

—THOMAS FULLER.

THERE may be a trust in God where there is a walk in darkness.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There may be gaudy signs at the door where there is not a drop of good wine in the cellar.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

There may be joy in God when there is little joy from God.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There may be a time when God will not be found, but no time wherein he must not be trusted.

—THOMAS LYE.

There may be a joy in a title as well as in possession.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There may be a clear head without a clean heart

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

There may be gold in the mine when no flowers on the surface.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There may be a ruffling the fringe in circumstantials where there is no rending the garment in substantials.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

THE best that can come of rashness is repentance.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Rush is destructive of rest, and pace of peace.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Devotion without discretion is like a hasty servant that runs away without his errand.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Herod, by reason of a rash oath, cast himself into a worse prison than that wherein he had put the Baptist.

—THOMAS FULLER.

It is no pain to tarry for that which shall not fail us.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

The emptiest men are the most rash.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Hasty births do not fill the house but the grave.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Hasty men, we say, never want woe.

—JOHN TRAPP.

THAT which a promise is to men, that a vow is to God.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

One vow made and kept after the tempest is worth a thousand promised in the same.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The most inviolable of our vows is that which binds us to the obedience of God.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Swear not in jest, lest you go to hell in earnest.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Peter forgot his Master and then forgot himself.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The life of an honest man is an oath.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Better to bear than to swear, and to die than to lie.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Cursing men are cursed men.

—JOHN TRAPP.

HE that keeps earth by wrong cannot expect heaven by right.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

They who are not made saints in a state of grace shall never be saints in glory.

—ROBERT LEIGHTON.

Heaven begins where sin ends.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

In heaven they may find the want of evil, but never feel the evil of want.

—EDWARD WILLAN.

If Christ be not the foundation of our perfection on earth, he will not be the topstone of our salvation in heaven.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

No one shall be kept out of heaven but such as love the world better than heaven.

—HENRY SMITH.

Some would have heaven, but if God save them, he must save their sins also, for they do not mean to part with them.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

HE doth preach most that doth live best.

—JOHN BOYS.

A sleepy preacher cannot expect a waking auditory.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Make not that wearisome that should ever be welcome.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Three things make a preacher: reading, prayer, and temptation.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The doctrine of a minister must credit his life, and his life adorn his doctrine.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

If I were to choose my calling, I would dig with my hands rather than be a minister.

—MARTIN LUTHER.

A pastor must thunder in his doctrine and lighten in his life.

—George SWINNOCK.

God had but one Son in the world, and he made him a minister.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

THERE is a twofold hedge that God makes about his people: there is the hedge of protection, to keep evil from them; and the hedge of affliction, to keep them from evil.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

If the command of God be not a hedge to keep thee from being a straying sheep, his care shall be no hedge to keep thee from being a devoured sheep.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Faith, the guide to keep us from desperation; love, the rule to keep us from presumption.

—JOHN KING.

If you abstract fear from joy, joy will become light and wanton; and if you abstract joy from fear, fear then will become slavish.

—WILLIAM BATES.

The Christian, like a net, must have both the lead of a godly fear, and the cork of a lively faith.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A HYPOCRITE ever leaves the devil some nest-egg to sit upon, though he take many away.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Herod would have a gap for his incest.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The sparing of our sin is a sure argument thou art not truly humbled for any sin.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

A sin is two sins when it is defended.

—HENRY SMITH.

He may come to suffer for the treason, who harbours and abetteth the traitor.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Only to refrain evil is to be evil still.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Sin is never complete until it is excused.

—HENRY SMITH.

IT is good manners to be an unbidden guest at a house of mourning.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

He that pincheth the little toe paineth the whole body.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Charcoal quickly kindles because it hath been in the fire.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Sympathy is a debt we owe to sufferers.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Love to ourselves is the pattern that we ought to walk by in loving others.

—JAMES DURHAM.

He [a Christian] is not as a wooden leg, senseless of the other members’ sufferings.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

It should be between a strong saint and a weak as it is between two lute-strings that are tuned to another; no sooner one is struck but the other trembles.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

LOQUACITY hath ever been a note of folly.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The least wit yields the most words.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The spaniel loses the prey by barking at the game.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Thou mayest esteem a man of many words and many lies much alike.

—THOMAS FULLER.

In a thousand talents of worldly words a man shall hardly find an hundred pence of spiritual and heavenly wisdom, scarcely ten half-pence.

—JOHN RING.

This conceit, that people have divinity when they can talk of it, is a very destructive conceit.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Error hath always most words.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Better to be like such heretics as do nothing else but pray, than to be such schismatics as do nothing else but prate.

—JOHN BOYS.

ST PETER was an apostle, but not an evangelist; St Luke was an evangelist, but not an apostle; St Matthew was both an evangelist and an apostle, but not a prophet; but our St John was all these; in his epistles an apostle, in his apocalypse a prophet, in compiling his gospel an evangelist.

—JOHN BOYS.

The prophets were legal apostles, the apostles were evangelical prophets.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As religion hath its gospel and evangelists, so hath irreligion too.

—JOHN HOWE.

Fathers must not be preferred before apostles.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

All are not apostles, yet all are ambassadors.

—JAMES DURHAM.

PERSEVERANCE is the sister of patience, the daughter of constancy, the mother of peace, the mistress of concord.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

He who gives over never truly began.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

It is the constant pace that goes furthest and freest from being tired.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Waiting is a permanent continuance in the performance of duties against all difficulties and discouragements.

—JOHN OWEN.

One clapper will wear out divers bells.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

All virtues run in the race; one only receiveth the garland – the image of most happy eternity – happy continuance.

—JOHN KING.

IF faith be a certain knowledge, then an uncertain opinion is unbelief.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Faith doth the same against the devil that unbelief doth to God.

—John BUNYAN.

What the Jews believed in the Old Testament they rejected in the New.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

‘If so be’ is not a phrase fit to proceed from the mouth of faith.

—JOHN KING.

Doubting doth not imply a want of faith, but a weakness of faith.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

As our faith is never perfect, it follows that we are partly un­believers.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Waverings where faith is, are like the tossings of a ship fast at anchor.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

AS the man is more noble than the house he dwells in, so is the soul more noble than the body.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

The body hath many garments, but the soul hath one.

—HENRY SMITH.

The soul pays a dear rent for the tenement it now lives in.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

By fasting the body learns to obey the soul; by praying the soul learns to command the body.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Some have their souls, as swine, for no other use than, as salt, to keep their bodies from putrefaction.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The soul being a spirit conveys more to the body than the body can to it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The body is the prison of the soul.

—JOHN CALVIN.

No suit of apparel is by God thought good enough for the soul, but that which is made by God himself, and that is that curious thing, the body.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

NATURE is content with little; grace with less.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Grace grows not upon the old stock.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Nature without grace is as Samson without his guide, when his eyes were out.

—JOHN KING.

The grace that hangs on by tacks like a mantle, soon drops off.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The love of grace in another requires more than nature in ourselves.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Nurture may somewhat amend nature, yet it is grace alone that can keep us within the bounds of obedience.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Whatsoever is not above the top of nature is below the bottom of grace.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Hypocrisy is as like piety as hemlock to parsley, and many a one hath been deceived therein.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Hypocrisy is a lie with a fair cover over it.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Feigned equity is double iniquity.

—GEORGE DOWNAME.

What greater falseness than to be in the skin a Christian and in the core a heathen.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Silver looketh white and yet draweth black lines.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

It is a sad thing to be Christians at a supper, heathens in our shops, and devils in our closets.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

FAITH is armour upon armour, a grace that preserves all the other graces.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Faith hath an influence upon all other graces: it is like a silver thread that runs through a chain of pearls.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Faith is the queen of the graces.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Faith is the captain grace.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Other graces make us like Christ, faith makes us members of Christ.

—THOMAS WATSON.

All other graces, like birds in the nest, depend upon what faith brings in to them.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Faith is a file-leading grace.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

WHERE tears move not, nothing will move.

—HENRY SMITH.

Prayers and tears are the church’s armour.

—JOHN BOYS.

Sin brought in tears, and tears shall go away with sin.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

No water so sweet as the saints’ tears, when they do not overflow the banks of moderation.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Never did any man read his pardon with dry eyes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

If the white tears of God’s servants be bottled up, surely the red tears are not cast away.

—THOMAS FULLER.

You that have filled the book of God with your sins, should fill the bottle of God with your tears.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Mary’s tears were more precious to Christ than her ointment.

—THOMAS WATSON.

LET all your senses have their seat in your head.

—ELISHA COLES.

Our heavenly head hath no staggering members.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

There is the same life in thy fingers and toes that there is in the head.

—JOSEPH HALL.

Where should the tongue be but in the head?

—JOHN TRAPP.

A finger divorced from the hand receives no influence from the head.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Though Christ’s coat was once divided, yet he will never suffer his crown to be divided.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

It is a destructive addition to add anything to Christ.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

WHILE the wine is in thy hand, thou art a man; when it is in thine head, thou art become a beast.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The drunkard is a walking quagmire.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He that will never drink less than he may, sometimes will drink more than he should.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Drunkenness is the metropolis of mischief.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It is worse to live like a beast than to be a beast.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The drunkard is as dry as the sweating traveller.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A drunkard’s beastliness is his punishment as well as his sin.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The cup kills more than the cannon.

—THOMAS WATSON.

THESE vain-glorious preachers may be like Rachel, fair, but their ministry is like to be barren.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Once we had golden ministers and wooden vessels, now we have wooden ministers and golden vessels.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The preaching that standeth not in relation to Christ is beside the text and mark.

—JAMES DURHAM.

Those who sweat in worldly employments are commonly but cold in the pulpit.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He that is more frequently in his pulpit to his people, than he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman.

—JOHN OWEN.

MUSIC and mourning agree like harp and harrow, like thin clothing and cold weather.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Believers build their tombs where others build their tabernacles.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

He who is an enemy to a man’s person will never be a friend to his precept.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

God’s wounds cure, sin’s kisses kill.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Contraries do expel one the other.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

Though good ends make not bad actions lawful, yet bad ends make good actions sinful.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Contraries set near one another appear more visible.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

Sin is never at a higher flood than when grace is at a low ebb.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

THE law was a light, lex est lux.[9]

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The law is the light and the commandment the lantern.

—WILLIAM AUSTIN.

The law may express sin but it cannot suppress sin.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The Christian creed doth not vacate the ten commandments.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

There is no death of sin without the death of Christ.

—JOHN OWEN.

The law, though it have no power to condemn us, hath power to command us.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

God’s fence is too low to keep a graceless heart in bounds when the game is before him.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

GOD will not pardon for repentance, nor yet without it.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Upon the two hinges of faith and repentance do all the saving promises of the Bible hang.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The Lord hath made a promise to late repentance, but where hath he made a promise of late repentance?

—THOMAS BROOKS.

That sin which is not too great to be forsaken, is not too great to be forgiven.

—THOMAS HORTON.

Though God promise forgiveness to repenting sinners, yet God promiseth not tomorrow to repent in.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

All gospel mourning flows from believing.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

TAKE away union and there can be no communion.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Union is the ground of communion.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Union with Christ entitles to all that is his.

—ELISHA COLES.

Adam’s sin hurts none but those that are in him, and Christ’s blood profits none but those that are in him.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Every Christian quartereth arms with Christ.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The nearer the union, the more dangerous the breach of it.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The head in heaven cries out, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ when the toe was trod upon on earth.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

SAMSON was blind before he was blind.

—THOMAS FULLER.

If the blind lead the blind, you know where to find them both.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

Sin always had deformity, but we had not always eyes to see it.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He that will be blind when he sins, shall be made wise when he suffers.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The blind leading the blind draws him not out of the puddle, but rather hurleth him in the ditch.

—JOHN BOYS.

A blind eye is worse than a lame foot.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Many make those eyes which God hath given them, as it were two lighted candles to let them see to go to hell.

—ARCHIBALD SYMSON.

DRAW up the ears of your mind to the ears of your bodies that one sound may pierce both.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Doers of the word are the best hearers.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Attention of body, intention of mind, and retention of memory, are indispensably desired of all Wisdom’s scholars.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The object cannot apply itself to the mind, but the mind must bring itself to the object.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

We can never hear that too often that we can never learn too well.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

All in the church may hear the word of Christ, but few hear Christ in the word.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Unless God come in by the ear, you shall not find him in the heart.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

SIN was begotten in secret betwixt Satan and Eve.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Every sin is an election of the devil to be our Lord.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Sin hath the devil for its father, shame for its companion, and death for its wages.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The honour thou gettest by sin makes thee pensioner to the devil.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

If gluttony be the founder, Satan is the confounder.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Have the devil for your taskmaster and you have him also for your paymaster.

—JOHN TRAPP.

’Tis the crooked serpent brought men to crooked ways.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

AS the prodigal erreth in excess, so the niggard erreth in defect.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Cold diseases must have hot remedies.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

There is sure a mean to be found betwixt defying men and ­deifying them.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A Boanerges is as necessary as a Barnabas.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

True love, like fire, burns hottest when the weather is coldest.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Against every hill there is a dale.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Gold in a dung-hill is more excellent than lead in a cabinet.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The devil is always in extremes.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

A mean scaffold may serve to rear up a goodly building.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A LAWYER dying bequeathed all his goods to Bedlam; saying, Among madmen I got it, and let madmen spend it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

If the lots were cast to see who troubles the ship, it would fall upon the lawyers.

—HENRY SMITH.

It is said of the surgeon that he must have a lady’s hand and a lion’s heart.

—JOHN BOYS.

The physician saith, Nothing better for the body than abstin­ence; the divine saith, Nothing better for the soul than abstinence; the lawyer saith, Nothing better for the wits than abstinence.

—HENRY SMITH.

In the lawyer’s hands we lose but our goods; in the physician’s hands but our life; but in the hands of a bad divine we may lose that which surpasseth all, our soul.

—JOHN BOYS.

HE that will not bear the clapper must not pull the rope.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

To plead for sin is to be the devil’s attorney.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Sin and shifting came into the world together; never yet any came to hell, but had some pretence for coming hither.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Oh! that when a man saith, ‘How can I forbear the bait?’ he would ask himself, ‘How can I endure the hook?’

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Sin seldom wants a seeming reason.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

He that hath promised and not performed is in worse case than he that never promised.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As the ostrich hath wings and flieth not, so some men have a calling but they answer it not.

—ROBERT CAWDRAY.

NAKED faith is no faith.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A naked profession of faith is no better than a verbal charity.

—THOMAS MANTON.

The want of good works makes faith sick; evil works kill her outright.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

’Tis no wrong to good works to give faith the upper hand.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The eye alone sees, but not the eye that is alone, apart from the body.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Faith is a great queen; it is base to let her go without a court and a train.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Faith believes as if it did not work, and it works as if it did not believe.

—THOMAS WATSON.

AS Christ hath his saints in Nero’s court, so the devil his servants in the outer court of the visible church.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Doeg may set his foot as far within the tabernacle as David.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Everyone that hangs about the court does not speak with the king.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Lot was the world’s miracle, who kept himself fresh in Sodom’s salt waters.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The wheat and the chaff, they may both grow together but they shall not both lie together.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Ishmael was an unbeliever in the house of faith.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A MIND forestalled with levity is like a vessel without ballast, soon overset.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Wealth makes wit waver.

—DAVID DICKSON.

Profane jests will come without calling.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Be but wicked, and the devil will help thee to be witty.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

That man pays too dear for a jest who sells his honesty for it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Wit unsanctified is a fit tool for the devil to work withal.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirit.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Pride commands the wit to justify anger.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

ENVY is its own punishment.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Cain’s envy hatched Abel’s murder.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Envy doth nothing with reason.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Envy does ever ascend; it never descends.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

As the dust cometh with the wind, so the devil cometh with envy.

—HENRY SMITH.

Envy is a self-murder, a fretting canker.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Other men’s welfare is the envious man’s wound.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Envy is a denial of providence.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

PLACES of Scripture are not to be taken by the tale but by the weight.

—THOMAS FULLER.

In Scripture, every little daisy is a meadow.

—MARTIN LUTHER.

Scripture is the spiritual glass to dress our souls by.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The same Testator made both Testaments.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

I would not live in paradise without the word, but with it I could make a shift to live in hell itself.

—MARTIN LUTHER.

The two Testaments are the two lips by which God hath spoken to us.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Till we are above sin, we are not above Scripture.

—THOMAS WATSON.

There is far more royal power in the thunder of the word, than in the word of thunder.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

God’s truth always agrees with itself.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

EVERY public person had need to carry a spare handkerchief to wipe off the dirt and disgrace and obloquy cast upon him for doing his duty.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Evil tongues are the devil’s bellows.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He that willingly takes from my good name, unwillingly adds to my reward.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

He that cannot patiently bear reproaches and injuries may make up his pack, and get him out of the world; for here is no being for him.

—JOHN TRAPP.

John Baptist’s head in a charger is a usual dish at our meals.

—THOMAS MANTON.

If a wise man speak evil of thee, endure him; if a fool, pardon him.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Those that have a mind to kill another man’s dog make the world believe he was mad first.

—JOHN TRAPP.

IT is part of our worthiness to see our unworthiness.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The best qualification is to find yourself ill-qualified.

—ELISHA COLES.

No man begins to be good till he sees himself to be bad.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Those are the best prepared for the greatest mercies that see themselves unworthy of the least.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Self-emptiness prepares for spiritual fullness.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Christ dwells in that heart most eminently that hath emptied itself of itself.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

God pours the golden oil of mercy into empty vessels.

—THOMAS WATSON.

A RUNNING sore may lie under a purple robe.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Heralds account the plainest coats the most ancient, better than those of a later edition, which are so full of filling that they are empty of honour.

—THOMAS WATSON.

A man may wear Christ’s livery and do the devil’s drudgery.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A wrinkled and deformed soul may dwell at the sign of a fair face.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Guests may be in the house when they look not out of the windows.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Sometimes a coward may dwell at the sign of a roaring voice and of a stern countenance.

—SIMEON ASH.

ENOCH changed his place but not his company.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Likeness is the ground of communion.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The true Christian is a closet man, he drives on a home-trade, a heart-trade.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Keep good neighbourhood to borrow and lend with Him.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

Next to communion with God is the communion of saints.

—JOHN TRAPP.

If there be two, he will be the third.

—ALEXANDER PEDEN.

God breaks not with us till we break with him.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

He is not a saint that seeketh not communion of saints.

—EDMUND CALAMY.

THE church is like a copse wherein the underwood grows much thicker and faster than the oaks.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Great men’s vices are more imitated than poor men’s graces.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

All Christ’s scholars are not of the same form.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

All the house of Kish are not kings because Saul is one.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

There may be a greater distance between poor and poor than there is between poor and rich.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

Shrubs may be grubbed to the ground and none miss them, but everyone marks the felling of a cedar.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Every branch of the tree is not a top branch.

—MATTHEW HENRY.

ZEAL without knowledge is like wild fire in a fool’s hand.

—JOHN TRAPP.

As thy policy should not eat up thy zeal, so thy zeal must not eat up thy wisdom.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The heat of the fire cannot be made more intense without a supply of fuel.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

As wine is tempered with water, so let discretion temper zeal.

—HENRY SMITH.

Zeal to a Christian is like a high wind filling the sails of a ship, which, unless it be ballasted with discretion, doth but the sooner overturn it.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Zeal without discretion is like fire on the chimney-top; or like mettle in a blind horse; or the devil in the demoniac, that cast him sometimes into the fire and sometimes into the water.

—JOHN TRAPP.

OUR enemies are on every side, so must our armour be.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A little might serve to defend a man if he might choose where his enemy should strike him.

—JOHN OWEN.

Satan never beats us but with our own weapons.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

We must not confide in the armour of God, but in the God of the armour.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Every enemy insults over him that has lost the use of his weapons.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

He makes a good market of bad commodities who, with kindnesses, overcomes injuries.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Our armour and our garments of flesh go off together.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

THE broken heart is the only sound heart.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The Lord has two heavens to dwell in, and the holy heart is one of them.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Other things may be the worse for breaking, yet a heart is never at the best till it be broken.

—SIR RICHARD BAKER.

God can stop not only hands from spoiling, but hearts from desiring.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

The seat of comfort is the seat of grief.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

They that make their eyes a fountain to wash Christ’s feet in shall have his side for a fountain to wash their souls in.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Concerning the heart God seems to say, as Joseph of Benjamin, if you bring not Benjamin with you, ye shall not see my face.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

BY grace we are what we are in justification, and work what we work in sanctification.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Justification is blessedness begun; glorification blessedness ­perfected.

—JOHN BOYS.

In proof of sanctification, good works cannot be sufficiently magnified; but in point of justification, good works cannot be sufficiently nullified.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

God does not justify us because we are worthy, but by justifying us makes us worthy.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Regeneration is the birth, sanctification is the growth of the babe in grace.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

There is nothing destroyed by sanctification but that which would destroy us.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

MALICE careth not how true the charge is, but how cutting.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Charity begins with itself, malice with another.

—JOHN BOYS.

Malice runs in the blood and, as we say of rennet,[10] the older it is the stronger.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Malice is mental murder.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Anger and malice differ but in age.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Dislike soon spies a fault.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Malice is an insatiable monster; it will minister words, as rage ministers weapons.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Malice cares not what it saith, so it may kill.

—JOHN TRAPP.

THE virgin Mary, was more blessed in being the daughter, than in being the mother of Christ.

—JOHN BOYS.

Mere neuters are no friends.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

He who refuses to be a son of the church in vain desires to have God as his Father.

—JOHN CALVIN.

I have seen the twine-thread of a cordial friend hold, when the cable-rope of a rich kinsman hath broken.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Friendship with God makes enmity against Satan.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

Christ and faith are relatives which must not be severed.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The wicked are whelps of the same litter.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

A servant may use greater industry and pains than a son and yet please less.

—THOMAS MANTON.

FAITH is the soul’s ear.

—JOHN BOYS.

Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Faith is a stooping grace.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Faith is the truest quench-coal to the fire of hell.

—ELISHA COLES.

Faith is the spear that killeth our last enemy.

—JOHN BOYS.

Faith is your spiritual optic.

—ELISHA COLES.

No such midwife as faith; it hath delivered even graves of their dead.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Faith is a right pilgrim-grace; it travels with us to heaven, and when it sees us safe got within our Father’s doors, it takes leave of us.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It is the office of faith to believe what we do not see, and it shall be the reward of faith to see what we do believe.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

’TIS a Jewish proverb, When the tale of bricks was doubled, then came Moses.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

God reserveth his holy hand for a dead lift usually, and loveth to help those that are forsaken of their hopes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Water is at the lowest ebb before there is a spring-tide.

—THOMAS WATSON.

It mattered not though the ship be scanted of victuals when it is hard by the harbour.

—THOMAS FULLER.

If there are no candles in the house, yet it is a comfort to think that it is almost day.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

That was a dark night, when men went about to put out the sun which brought them light.

—HENRY SMITH.

IT is not for every fool to handle snuffers at or about the candles, lest perhaps, instead of mending the light, they put the candle out.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

There is a difference to be put between an iron vessel and a Venice glass in the cleansing of them.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Some warmth must be in a reproof but it must not be scalding hot.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Some men’s hearts are like nettles: touch them but gently and they will sting, when rough handling is without pre­judice.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

Some men would receive blows with more patience if they were given them with more prudence.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A Venice glass is not to be rubbed so hard as a brazen kettle.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

THOUGH sin and grace were never born together, and though they shall not die together, yet while the believer lives, these two must live together.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Grace sets up its ensigns in all parts of the soul, surveys every corner, and triumphs over every lurking enemy.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

An interest in grace cannot consist with a known sin.

—THOMAS MANTON.

God’s mercy can drown great sins, as the sea covers great rocks.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Grace found the richest saint but a beggarly sinner.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Grace is as large in renewing as sin was in defacing.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Sin and grace are like two buckets at a well: when one is up, the other is down.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

A GARDEN once digged, and then let alone, becomes more weedy.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

He falls deepest into hell who falls backward.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Weariness maketh way for wandering.

—THOMAS MANTON.

None will have such a sad parting from Christ as those who went half-way with him and then left him.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Our committing sin will not speak us unsanctified, but our submitting to it will.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Miserable is that man who is beholden to the devil for his cordials.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

The fidifragous[11] Christian speeds worse than the barbarous infidel.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

CHARITY is the best way to plenty; he gets most that gives most.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Liberality is a fire which is maintained by thrift.

—THOMAS FULLER.

No man gives more than he that keepeth nothing back.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Spare nothing that God may spare all.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

He that lays up his gold may be a good jailer, but he that puts it out is a good steward.

—FRANCIS RAWORTH.

Mercy is not miserly, charity is no churl.

—JOHN TRAPP.

There is a good deal of copper faith in the world.

—THOMAS HOOKER.

I think you keep the rule of the gospel that the right hand knoweth not what the left doth, because neither right nor left doth anything.

—JOHN KING.

OPPORTUNITY is the spirits of time extracted, or the quintessence of time at large distilled.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Opportunities are for eternity, but not to eternity.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Opportunity is headlong bald behind, having never a lock to catch hold of.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Opportunity calleth us out to do many things we never intended.

—THOMAS GRANGER.

Time is all the while a man liveth on the earth; but opportunity is only when the Spirit moveth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

He that neglects the occasion, the occasion will neglect him.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

God does not keep our time, because it is not the due time.

—THOMAS BOSTON.

HELL is the emphasis of misery.

—THOMAS WATSON.

There is many a learned head in hell.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Ever is the hell of hell, so it is, the heaven of heaven.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Hell is an abiding place, but no resting place.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Men might go to heaven with less trouble than they go to hell.

—HENRY SMITH.

Hell is full of purposes, heaven of performances.

—JOHN ROGERS.

Many a man goes to hell in the sweat of his brow.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Hell is to be escaped by hearing.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

An idle person cannot find, either in heaven or hell, a pattern.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

AFFLICTIONS relish sour and bitter even to the palates of the best saints.

—THOMAS FULLER.

We may feel God’s hand as a Father upon us when he strikes us as well as when he strokes us.

—ABRAHAM WRIGHT.

Correction may befall the saints but not destruction.

—THOMAS WATSON.

A righteous man may be corrected, albeit he is accepted of God.

—DAVID DICKSON.

Affliction is the whetstone of prayer and obedience.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

I had rather have God’s vinegar than man’s oil, God’s wormwood than man’s manna.

—JOHN DONNE.

Bitter pills will down when made up in love.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

LIFE is an excellency added to being.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

There is no going where there is no living.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

The life of our mortal life is the hope of an immortal.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

A small tree is better than a great shadow.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The infant heir preferreth his milk before his largest manors.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

There never was one new-born who was still-born.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Everything that generates, generates its like.

—THOMAS BOSTON.

No divinity can be without life.

—JOHN CALVIN.

THE beginnings of sin are modest, the progress adventurous, the conclusion may be impudent in open apostasy.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Sin is like the Jerusalem artichoke: plant it were you will, it overruns the ground, and chokes the heart.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A sin of infirmity may admit apology; a sin of ignorance may find out excuse; but a sin of defiance can find no defence.

—SIR RICHARD BAKER.

Looking begat lusting. Intemperance begins at the eye.

—THOMAS WATSON.

One sin liked and loved will make way for every other.

—JOHN OWEN.

No place can be so pleasant but sin will lay it waste.

—JOHN TRAPP.

MAN is a creature in love with company.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Many, although they cannot live asunder, yet they cannot live together.

—HENRY SMITH.

For a commonwealth to want a chief, is the chief of all wants.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Some men, like Mercury, the good-fellow planet, are according to their company.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

He that hath rich friends must not look upon himself as poor.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

Every variation from unity, is but a progression towards nullity.

It is ill being an inhabitant in any place where God is an exile.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

THOUGH there be many atheists in practice, yet there be no atheists in principle.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Every atheist is a grand fool.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The devil himself, though he be no atheist, yet he doth all he can to make men atheists.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Men may have atheistical hearts without atheistical heads.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Atheism is the main disease of the soul.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As beggars have learned to cant,[12] so atheists to pray.

—JOHN TRAPP.

If there be not a God, it is impossible there can be one.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

A LITTLE boat may land a man at a large continent.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The tallest oak was once an acorn.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The serpent of heart-apostasy is best killed in the egg of a small remission.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

A small lackey may call us to a costly banquet.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The pin in the temple serves for use as well the pinnacle.

—JOHN BOYS.

Small beginnings usher large proceedings.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

There must be an unit at least before any multiplication.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The flies and lice of Egypt were little creatures, but great plagues.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

KNOWLEDGE searcheth the nature of a thing, and wisdom employs that thing to its proper use.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Knowledge without wisdom is like mettle in a blind horse.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Christ will have a serpent and a dove coupled together – wisdom and simplicity; and he bids, what God hath joined, that man should not sever.

—RICHARD CLERKE.

Wisdom is the flower of knowledge, and knowledge is the root of wisdom.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The serpent’s eye (as one saith) does well only in the dove’s head.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

THE ordinances of God are the marts and fairs whereat Christians must trade for grace.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The body of a man can as soon labour incessantly without food, as the soul of a Christian can live continuously without ordinances.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The manna of the Spirit doth usually fall down in the dews of ordinances.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A man may go to hell with baptismal water upon his face.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The ordinances of God are the golden pipes through which he conveyeth the oil of grace from Christ, the olive tree.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

That man must famish at last who always feeds upon the dish instead of the meat.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

To live above ordinances is to live below a saint.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

NETTLES have often been heirs to stately palaces.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

There be many Labans; hot at first, cold at last; friendly in the beginning, froward in the end.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Posting[13] passengers cannot be serious observers of any place.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

We change purposes oftener than fashions.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Nature is relieved with changes, but clogged with ­continuance.

—THOMAS MANTON.

As it is not always fair weather with us in this life, so not always foul.

—JOHN BOYS.

Many things fall out betwixt the chin and the chalice.

—JOHN TRAPP.

WE must not be busy bishops in other men’s dioceses.

—JOHN BOYS.

Some have much science, little conscience.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

It were better to be unknown than noted for misbehaviour.

—JOSEPH HALL.

An envious heart and a plotting head are inseparable companions.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Idleness is a kind of business.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The curious and over-active spirit is unprofitable, for he will have one foot in the church, another in the court, and if God had made him a tripos,[14] he would have had a third in the camp.

—JOHN BOYS.

Idle spirits will be ranging.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

SIN and punishment go linked together with chains of adamant.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Sin is no shrouder but a stripper.

—HENRY SMITH.

Sin doth as naturally draw judgment to it as the loadstone doth iron.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The farther from sin the more distant from danger.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Pollution is the forerunner of perdition.

—JOHN TRAPP.

What is greatest in the rank of sins deserves the greatest misery in the rank of penalties.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The face of the old world was grown so foul that God was fain to wash it with a flood.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Take heed an hour produce not that which may shame us for ever.

—GEORGE HUTCHESON.

FEASTING days are soul-starving days, and fasting days are soul-fatting days.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

It is over-much feasting of Dives which of necessity maketh the fasting of Lazarus.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Gluttony is the sepulchre of the living, and a kind of spiritual drowning of a man.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Fasting which tames the body, without humility, makes proud the mind.

—JOHN BOYS.

Surfeiting is the bird-lime of the soul’s wings.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Dives fared deliciously every day; there was no Friday in his week, nor fasting in his almanac, nor Lent in his year.

—THOMAS FULLER.

CHRIST keeps no servants only to wear a livery.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

God hath many servants, but little service in the world.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

An idle servant is in God’s esteem an evil servant.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

They who will not wear Christ’s yoke will much less bear his burden.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

No true Christian is his own man.

—JOHN CALVIN.

It is an unanswerable dilemma: If the service of Christ were bad, why did you enter into it? If good, why did you depart from it?

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He serveth his greatest enemy who serveth the devil; his fellow, who serveth the lust of his flesh; his servant, who serveth the world.

—JOHN BOYS.

A HARVEST may as well be looked for in a hedge as true grace in a gold-thirsty heart.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The miser deprives himself of this world and God will deprive him of the next.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

They are fools that fear to lose their wealth by giving, but fear not to lose themselves by keeping it.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A poor man doth want many things, a rich miser wants everything.

—JOHN BOYS.

It may well be said of money-lenders, they have no quicksilver, no current money.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The miser and the rioter are opposites.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Many are, the richer the harder.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A WOODEN key that opens the door is better than a golden one that cannot.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

What wise man would fish for gudgeons with golden hooks?

—THOMAS WATSON.

A garment which fits us is better for us, though it be plain, than one which is gaudy and three or four handfuls too big.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

A hammer for the smith, a Homer for the school.

—JOHN BOYS.

He [God] expects not a chapman[15] to truck with him, but an humble suppliant to be suitor to him.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It is not fit we should deny God the cream and flower, and give him the slotten[16] parts and the stalks.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Heavenly manna must be laid up in a golden pot.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

THE blood of Christ is the seal of the testament.

—HENRY SMITH.

His being slain from the foundation of the world was the foundation of the world’s standing.

—ELISHA COLES.

In the creation the Lord made man like himself; but in the redemption he made himself like man.

—JOHN BOYS.

The enmity between God and us began on our part; the peace which he hath made begins and ends with himself.

—JOHN OWEN.

The wrong that man had done to the divine majesty should be expiated by none but man, and could be by none but God.

—JOHN HOWE.

Foregoing sins cannot be expiated by subsequent duties. Paying of new debts doth not quit the old score.

—THOMAS MANTON.

SATAN’S diocese, that odd dirty corner of the universe.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Satan is a king given in God’s wrath.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The devil is a busy bishop in his diocese.

—THOMAS WATSON.

We are sure of his [the devil’s] company, though uncertain how we came by it.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The devil’s circuit is greater than the Pope’s.

—HENRY SMITH.

Satan paints God with his own colours.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The devil shall never lift his head higher than the saint’s heel.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Better starve than go to the devil for provender.

—THOMAS WATSON.

A SPLENDID action without faith is but moral; whereas one of a less glittering is spiritual with it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Till men have faith in Christ, their best services are but glorious sins.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

It is a sad sign that our ways please not God, when his ways please not us at all.

—JOHN OWEN.

Moral virtue may wash the outside, but faith washes the inside.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Neither is faith without a godly life, neither can a godly life proceed but from faith.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Without faith the devil can show as good a coat of arms as we can.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Whatever your wants are, want not faith, and you cannot want supplies.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

THE wheels of death’s chariot may rattle and make a noise, but they are to carry a believer to Christ.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The body’s death to this world is the soul’s birth into another world.

—MATTHEW HENRY.

The worst of a saint is past when he dieth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The good man’s best, and the bad man’s worst, lie in shall be’s, in reversion.

—RALPH VENNING.

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Death breaks the union between the body and the soul but perfects the union between Christ and the soul.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Death is never sudden to a saint; no guest comes unawares to him who keeps a constant table.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

THE unstable man is a live weathercock.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

How many by the wind of popular breath have been blown to hell.

—THOMAS WATSON.

God likes not qualmy Christians, good by fits.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He that is multivolus, i.e., many-willed, will surely be malevolus, i.e., evil-willed.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As feathers will be blown every way, so will feathery Christians.

—THOMAS WATSON.

A hireling will be a changeling.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

No seal can be set on running water.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A smooth, if a false way should not delight us; nor should a rugged, if a right way, dishearten us.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

AMONG men reputation is measured by the acre.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A man is better known by the features of his face than by the prints of his feet.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

A man’s honest fame is like the merchant’s wealth, got in many years and lost in an hour.

—JOHN BOYS.

Wounds of reputation no physician can cure.

—THOMAS WATSON.

It is a great mercy when our names outlive us; it is a great punish­ment when we outlive our names.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

When a man is in favour with a prince, all the courtiers will be observant of him.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Rose water is not the less sweet because one writes wormwood on the glass.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

‘THE meek shall inherit the earth’, and have heaven to boot.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A meek man is a good neighbour.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

You must see, and not see, if you will be of a meek spirit.

—JEREMIAH BURROUGHS.

The purest gold is the most pliable.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Hard to soft doth no hurt, as a bullet against a woolsack.

—JOHN TRAPP.

That which will break a passionate man’s heart will not break a meek man’s sleep.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Speech endeth anger, silence nourisheth it.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It were good strife amongst Christians, one to labour to give no offence, and the other to labour to take none.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

NONE can be termed apostates, but such as have previously made a profession of Christ.

—JOHN CALVIN.

None sink so far into hell as those that come nearest heaven, because they fall from the greatest height.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It were far easier to write a book of apostates in this age than a book of martyrs.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Every apostate is in the highway to become a persecutor.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The apostate drops as a windfall into the devil’s mouth.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Apostates have martial law, they run away but into hell-mouth.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Judas arose from his Master’s table, to sit at the devil’s.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

WORDS are wind; ay, but they are that wind that blows up this fire [anger] to a mighty heat.

—JEREMIAH BURROUGHS.

Soft words do best with strong arguments. The iron of ­Naphtali’s foot was dipped in oil.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Five words cost Zachariah forty weeks’ silence.

—THOMAS FULLER.

He is an ill wooer that wanteth words.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

He that will not speak idly must think what he speaks; and he that will not speak falsely must speak what he thinks.

—JOHN BOYS.

The belly is not filled with words, or the back clothed with wishes.

—THOMAS MANTON.

A man cannot come to his journey’s end with wishing.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

THE devil, that great peripatetic.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The devil pieceth the fox’s skin of seducers with the lion’s skin of persecutors.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The devil hunts more as a fox than as a lion; his snares are worse than his darts.

—THOMAS WATSON.

When Satan roars they have given him a full blow.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Satan watcheth for those vessels that sail without a convoy.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

It is not safe parleying with the devil.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Satan is an archer who can shoot to a nicety.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

He that sings syren-like now, will devour lion-like at last.

—JOHN DURANT.

THE error of the master is the temptation of the scholar.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Where all govern there is no government.

—THOMAS HALL.

Unless man were his own maker, he cannot have any title to become his own master.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

That man is not worthy to be served who cannot afford that his servant should serve God as well as himself.

—HENRY SMITH.

They who most oppose government in others, most desire the government over others.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Know by the servants what master dwells in a house.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A ruler that is a bribe-taker is a thief in robes.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Government without governors is but a notion.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

SIN is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet.

—JOHN OWEN.

We cannot seek God till we have found him.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Strange things agree in a Christian.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

A man cannot have faith without asking, neither can he ask it without faith.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

God is never more angry than when he is not angry.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Heaven must be in thee before thou canst be in heaven.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

While the pilot keeps his ship, his ship keeps him.

—THOMAS WATSON.

It is the greatest bondage in the world to have most freedom in ill.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

UNCHASTE eyes are the heralds of an unchaste heart.

—JOHN CALVIN.

God hath made the same organ for seeing and weeping.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The eye is the principal Cinque Port[18] of the soul.

—THOMAS FULLER.

If the eye be once inflamed, it will be hard to stand out long against sin.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

There is affection as well as vision in the eye.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

Princes see by their servants’ eyes more than by their own.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

In love the eyes are the leader.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A pure eye only can see a pure God.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

SIN is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, and the contempt of his love.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

The only dreadful thing is sin.

—ELISHA COLES.

Sin is the strength of death and the death of strength.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The greatest violation of conscience is the greatest of sins.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Put sin into its best dress, it is but gilded damnation.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Sin is an ill inmate that will not out till the house fall on the head of it.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

No sin against God can be little, because it is against the great God.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

To see sin as sin is hell.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

THOSE who lie down on beds of ivory must lie down in beds of earth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

We are more sure to arise out of our graves than out of our beds.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Toothache hath raised many from their beds, it hath sent few to their graves.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The sick-bed is the passage to the grave.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

He that carries passions to bed with him will find the devil creep between the sheets.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

He who hath laid up his heart in heaven will comfortably think of laying down his head in the earth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The sepulchres of ministers are not the graves of the ministry.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

THE temperate may die, the riotous cannot live.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

I had rather be a sober heathen than a drunken Christian.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Knowledge seeks virtue, temperance finds it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

You should starve lust when you feed nature.

—THOMAS MANTON.

As the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, so is Christian temperance the keeper of that temple.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

It is good to leave something that we may take, for fear of taking that we should leave.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

He is a rare Rechabite[19] that never drank but when he was thirsty.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

HUMILITY is both a grace and a vessel to receive grace.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

If the work be good, though it be never so low, humility will put a hand to it.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

It is one of the hardest matters under the sun to become nothing in ourselves.

—ELISHA COLES.

Moses had more glory by his veil than by his face.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Where humility is the corner-stone, there glory will be the top-stone.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Humility is the knees of the soul.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

GOD blots out not only the cloud but the thick cloud, enormities as well as infirmities.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Sins are so remitted as if they never had been committed.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Forgiveness is a pure gospel truth that hath neither shadow, footstep, nor intimation elsewhere.

—JOHN OWEN.

Forgiveness is a golden thread spun out of the bowels of free grace.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The gospel refuses to pardon no sin for which the soul can be humbled.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Pope’s pardons are insignificant, like blanks in a lottery.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

THE statute of death is above the prerogative royal.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Death is that mistress of the world that will not be courted nor yet cast off by any.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The oak outliveth the ash, and the ash the willow, yet all die.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

We can see death in other men’s brows, but not in our own bosoms.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Against this arrest there is no bail.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Death takes not men in seniority, but sometimes sends them first to the burial that came last from the birth.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Death takes away difference between king and beggar, and tumbles both the knight and the pawn into one bag.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

FAITH in temporary believers is as a guest comes for a night, and is gone.

—THOMAS FULLER.

A temporary faith is like Jonah’s gourd, which came up in a night and withered.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Nothing can be more inconsistent with the nature of faith than a feeble, wavering assent.

—JOHN CALVIN.

A presumptuous faith is an easy faith.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

He that maketh a bridge of his own shadow cannot but fall into the brook.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A man trieth his horse which must bear him, and shall he not try his faith?

—HENRY SMITH.

Faith is not an idle grace.

—THOMAS MANTON.

GOD made meat before mouths.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Providence is crowned by the end of it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God’s works are never above right, though often above reason.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Providence is the perpetuity and continuance of creation.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

If Joseph had not been Egypt’s prisoner, he had not been Egypt’s governor.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

God has more remote ends than short-sighted souls are able to espy.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God’s providence leaves room for the use of our prudence.

—MATTHEW HENRY.

Grace makes the promise, and providence the payment.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

JEALOUSY never thinks itself strong enough.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Perfection is the boundary of the strongest expectation.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Opinion cannot err in matters of opinion.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The best drugs have their adulterates.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

A long coat will soon be draggled.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Sin never ruins but where it reigns.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The Lord’s pleasure is the Lord’s leisure.

—THOMAS FULLER.

God looks most where man looks least.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Negative holiness requires no great pains.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Sodom was burned, but the sins escaped.

—HENRY SMITH.

MORE have gone away speeders than have gone away thankers.

—HENRY SMITH.

It is ten-to-one that any leper returns to give praise to God.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Our unthankfulness is the cause of the earth’s unfruitfulness.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

It is impossible we can be cruel to others, except we forget how kind Christ hath been to us.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Thankless men are like swine feeding on acorns, which, though they fall upon their heads, never make them look up to the tree from which they come.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Unthankfulness is the devil’s text.

—JOHN BOYS.

A drop of praise is an unsuitable acknowledgment for an ocean of mercy.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

There is no creature made worse by kindness, but man.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

WHERE the Scripture hath no tongue we must have no ears.

—JOHN TRAPP.

I like those expositions that take the wings of a dove, and fly to the uttermost parts of the text.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

The Scripture is the sun; the church is the clock.

—JOSEPH HALL.

Paul’s epistles are ours, though not in their inscriptions yet in their benefits.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The Lord does not shine upon us, except when we take his word as our light.

—JOHN CALVIN.

As a friend that is acquainted with his friend will get out the meaning of a letter or phrase which another could not that is a stranger, so it is in Scripture.

—JOHN TRAPP.

OUTWARD decency in the church is a harbinger to provide a lodging for inward devotion to follow after.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Outward expressions are but the badges and liveries of service, not the service itself.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Outward ornaments make no inward alteration.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

‘Glorious within’ and ‘clothing of wrought gold’ decipher the same person, and may not be separated.

—ELISHA COLES.

It is safer eating with unwashed hands than unwashed hearts.

—HENRY SMITH.

God is not taken with the cabinet but the jewel.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Never content yourself with Elijah’s mantle, without the Lord God of that mantle.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

JUDAS’ despair was worse than his treason.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Reason says, the bigger the sinner, the less grounds of hope.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Desperation is the ground of all sin.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Bankrupts care not to look into their books of accounts.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The devil would make us wade so far in the waters of repentance, that we should get beyond our depth, and be drowned in the gulf of despair.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Despair is Satan’s masterpiece.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Despair cuts the sinews of endeavour.

—THOMAS WATSON.

IF thou wilt fly from God, the devil will lend thee both spurs and a horse.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

If thou wouldst die comfortably, live conscientiously.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

If there were no God, consciences were useless.

—JOHN CALVIN.

If I speak what is false, I must answer for it; if truth, it will answer for me.

—THOMAS FULLER.

If the serpents were not in their kind wiser than we, we should not have been advised to be wiser than serpents.

—JOSEPH HALL.

If all things were done by chance, there could be no predictions.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

If adultery walk in our streets, the plague will bear it company.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

THERE can be but one Infinite.

—ELISHA COLES.

God’s centre is everywhere, his circumference nowhere.

—THOMAS WATSON.

God is neither shut up in, nor shut out of, any place.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The word Father is personal, the word God essential.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God cannot look above himself, because he hath no superior.

—JOHN BOYS.

It is a great vacuity that he, who fills heaven and earth, cannot fill.

—JOSEPH CHURCH.

The being of a God is the guard of the world.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

He that fills all, must needs see and know all.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

IF there were judges ordained for flattery, they would have no doings, there being so very few that will complain that they are flattered.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Spiritual flatterers are commonly more respected than spiritual fathers.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Flatterers are the worst of tame beasts.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Let a flatterer be in your Paternoster, but not in your Creed; pray for him, but trust him no more than a thief.

—JOHN BOYS.

Depressing irons can smooth the greatest wrinkles in cloth, so can flattering tongues do as to the most deformed actions.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

As long as there is a false heart there will be a fawning devil.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Whilst an ass is stroked under the belly, you may lay on his back what burden you please.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

HE who is but a visible Christian, may, in a short time, cease to be so much as visible.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

If the lamp of profession would have served the turn, the foolish virgins had never been shut out.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

The course of thy life will speak more for thee than the discourse of thy lips.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Profane professors are but wens[20] upon the face of religion, which God will one day cut off.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Many will take the press-money,[21] and wear the livery of Christ, and yet never stand to their colours, nor follow their leader.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

To see a ship sink in the harbour of profession is more grievous than if it perished in the open sea of profaneness.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

There are many who are lip-servants but not life-servants.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

MARRIAGE is both honourable and onerable.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

It is not evil to marry but good to be wary.

—THOMAS GATAKER.

A feast! never more seasonable, surely, than at the recovery of the lost rib.

—JOHN TRAPP.

First, he must choose his love, and then he must love his choice.

—HENRY SMITH.

He that grafts into a crab-stock is never likely to want verjuice.[22]

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

As God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage he made one of two.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As it is said of Egypt, that as no country hath more venomous creatures, none more antidotes; so marriage hath many troubles, but withal many helps against trouble.

—JOHN TRAPP.

WAR is the slaughter-house of mankind, and the hell of this present world.

—JOHN TRAPP.

War makes both less meat and fewer mouths.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The noise of wars drowns the voice of laws.

—JOHN TRAPP.

War is pleasant to those who never tried it.

—JOHN CALVIN.

In war none are permitted to err twice.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Woes may come from peace, but they must come from war.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Sin, Satan, and war have all one name; evil is the best of them. The best of sin is deformity, of Satan enmity, of war misery.

—JOHN TRAPP.

SATAN never sets a dish before men that they do not love.

—THOMAS WATSON.

It is easier for a weak seducer to carry souls away, than for a strong Christian to keep them back.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Ourselves are the greatest snares to ourselves.

—RICHARD BAXTER.

The world put on her holy-day apparel, when she was presented by the devil to our Saviour.

—THOMAS FULLER.

To want temptations is the greatest temptation of all.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

Satan hath only a persuading sleight, not an enforcing might.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

It is not safe being at Satan’s mess,[23] though our spoon be never so long.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Everyone loves that most without him which is most suitable to somewhat within him.

—THOMAS HORTON.

A RULE must be open, or else it is no rule.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

A peculiar gift may not be made a general rule.

—HENRY SMITH.

Gospel duties are to be performed with a gospel temper.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

We are not saved for believing but by believing.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

The love of sin must be out, ere the love of God be shown.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Peace is never bought too dear but by sin.

—JEREMIAH BURROUGHS.

That which is begun in self-confidence will end in shame.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

He that walks by rule walks most safely.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

God hath set it down for an eternal rule, that vexation and sin shall be inseparable.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

THE pearl of price cannot be a dear bargain.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Where Christ reveals himself there is satisfaction in the slenderest portion, and without Christ there is emptiness in the greatest fullness.

—ALEXANDER GROSSE.

They lose nothing who gain Christ.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

The excellencies of Christ are perfectly exclusive of all their opposites.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Grace is a ring of gold, and Christ is the sparkling diamond in that ring.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

To forsake Christ for the world, is to leave a treasure for a trifle; … eternity for a moment, reality for a shadow; all things for nothing.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Sins of omission are aggravated by knowledge.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Some sins of omission are like great men, that never go without many followers.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Make it your business to avoid known omissions, and God will keep you from feared commissions.

—SAMUEL ANNESLEY.

He that leaves a duty may soon be left to commit a crime.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Not doing good, fits the heart for doing evil.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Never was any wound healed by a prepared but unapplied plaster.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

What good to have the shadow, though of a mighty rock, when we sit in the open sun?

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

BACCHUS and Venus are near neighbours; only voluptuousness hath a house between them.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

If Christ would set up a pulpit at the alehouse door, some would hear him oftener.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Wine tempers the heart like wax for the devil’s impression.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Drunken porters keep open gates.

—HENRY SMITH.

Judgment is often at the threshold, while drunkenness and surfeit are at the table.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Such as wake much in taverns and alehouses, will be sure to sleep much in the ordinances.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

That is no medicinal cup to the body, that is poisonous to the conscience.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

THE nearer to heaven in hopes, the further from earth in desires.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The watches of our desires go too fast, they must be set back according to the sun-dial of God’s pleasure.

—THOMAS FULLER.

A child, if it have not strong desires, it will be stilled with an apple; but if the desires be strong, nothing will still it but the dug.[24]

—RICHARD SIBBES.

It is not the real excellence of a thing itself, but its known excellence that excites desire.

—RICHARD BAXTER.

Desire will be a continual spring to diligence.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Desire is smoke and zeal is flame.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Strong desires are like David’s worthies, never satisfied till they come to the water of life.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

WHATEVER God’s purposes be (which are secret), I am sure his precepts are plain.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

God frames his language to our dullness, not to his own state.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Thomas acknowledged the divinity he did not see, by the wounds he did see.

—JOHN BOYS.

How should finite comprehend infinite? We shall apprehend him, but not comprehend him.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Proud men are ashamed of Christ’s humiliation, and, therefore, they fly to God’s incomprehensible divinity.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Mysteries are plain when the Lord opens, and plainest things are mysteries when he shuts.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

GRACE hath dominion though lusts are mutinous and seditious during the infancy thereof.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Weak grace may do for God, but it must be strong grace that will die for God.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Let those who are admitted into the college of grace disdain any longer to go to the school of the ceremonial law, which truly may be called the school of Tyrannus.

—THOMAS FULLER.

True grace is operative and will not lie dormant.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Grace is light and discovers itself.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

We discern the growth of grace, as the growth of plants, which we perceive, rather to have grown, than to grow.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

THAT worker which needeth the fewest helps is the most perfect worker.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

The end of feeding is to fall to our calling.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The master’s mind is often more toiled than the servant’s body.

—ROBERT LEIGHTON.

Greatest boasters are the smallest workers.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

It is a more worthy thing to abound in work than to abound in wealth.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The labourer, not the loiterer, is worthy of his hire.

—HENRY WILKINSON.

Though you cannot do what you ought, yet you ought to do what you can.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

ASSURANCE hath a narrow throat and may be choked with a small sin.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Confidence of salvation doth not contradict wariness of conversation.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The jewel of assurance is best kept in the cabinet of a humble heart.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Like a leaky ship with a rich lading, the fear of sinking before she gets the port, takes away the owner’s joy.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Fear to fall and assurance to stand are two sisters.

—THOMAS FULLER.

A well-grounded assurance is always attended by three fair handmaids: love, humility, and holy joy.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Assurance to persevere is a spark of heavenly fire, fed with the daily tinder of fear to offend God.

—THOMAS FULLER.

REPORTS relish of their relators.

—THOMAS FULLER.

The first tale is good till the second be heard.

—JOHN TRAPP.

One eye-witness is better than ten ear-witnesses.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

An ill report is soon raised, but not so soon laid.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Evil news rides post, while good news baits.[25]

—JOHN MILTON.

Fame often creates something of nothing.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Rumour is a loud liar, like a snowball that gathereth as it goeth.

—JOHN TRAPP.

GOD wrestled with Jacob with desire to be conquered.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Continued importunity is undeniable oratory.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

It was a sweet saying of one, ‘O Lord, I have come to thee; but by thee, I will, never go from thee, without thee.’

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Breath is the first effort of life.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Bernard never went from God without God.

—JOHN TRAPP.

All the prayers in the Scripture you will find to be reasoning with God, not a multitude of words heaped together.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

IF Christ had not died, sin had never died in any sinner unto eternity.

—JOHN OWEN.

Sin could not die, unless Christ died; Christ could not die, without being made sin; nor could he die, but sin must die with him.

—ELISHA COLES.

All are not saved by Christ’s death, but all which are saved, are saved by Christ’s death.

—HENRY SMITH.

Aqua fortis[26] is laid on letters of ink to eat them out, and so is the blood of Christ laid on the handwriting that is against us.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

The physician did die that the patient might live.

—JOHN BOYS.

The wound of sin is not so broad as the plaster of Christ’s blood.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The first Adam runs away from God’s presence; the second Adam runs after him to seek and recall him.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

HONOUR is as fit for a fool as a gold ring for a swine’s snout.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A fool hath always a knave attending on him.

—THOMAS GRANGER.

Fools are ever futuring.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Evil is Hebrew for a fool.

—JOHN TRAPP.

What wisdom itself counts foolishness, is folly to purpose.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Caligula, that threatened the air, if it durst rain when he was at his pastimes, durst not himself so much as look into the air when it thundered.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Every natural man is a fool.

—THOMAS GRANGER.

A FAITHFUL minister must see before he say.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

As long as the messenger is loved, the message is not like to be loathed.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

His doctrine is best accepted whose person is most honoured.

—JOHN BOYS.

A minister without boldness is like a smooth file.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

There is a form of doctrine delivered to us, and there is a form of words; we must not only say this, but thus saith the Lord.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

The hearer’s life is the preacher’s best commendation.

—THOMAS MANTON.

The Christian’s life should put his minister’s sermon in print.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

GOD’S foreknowledge of what he will do doth not necessitate him to do.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God is the cause of causes.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

As God did not at first choose you because you were high, so he will not forsake you because you are low.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Never look on the great attribute of sovereignty without your Mediator.

—ELISHA COLES.

Salvation is no termer;[27] grace ties not itself to times.

—RICHARD CLERKE.

To be God and sovereign are inseparable.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

We may not reprehend what we cannot comprehend.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

In the wounds of Christ alone is predestination found and understood.

—MARTIN LUTHER.

CHRIST is the king of his church, and the church is the greatest queen in the world.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

The king’s daughter-elect, to make her a suitable match for his son, must be ‘all-glorious within’.

—ELISHA COLES.

The church comes out of Christ’s side in the sleep of his death.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The excellence of the church does not consist in multitude but in purity.

—JOHN CALVIN.

If the church be holy, be holy if you will be of the church.

—RICHARD BAXTER.

The church is taken out of dying Jesus’ side, as Eve out of sleeping Adam’s.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

It is between Christ and his church, as between two lute-strings – no sooner is one struck but the other trembles.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

ALL things (but lying, dying, and denying himself) are possible to God.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

He that is not cannot be the cause that he is.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Sin must die or thy soul cannot live.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A man may hide God from himself, and yet he cannot hide himself from God.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

As no place can be without God, so no place can compass and contain him.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Sinners may oppose God’s ways, but not his wrath.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Man can ruin but not renew himself.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

They cannot escape God’s iron rod who refuse to subject themselves to his golden sceptre.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

MANY have yielded to go a mile with Satan that never intended to go two; but when once on the way have been allured further.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

First men break the tenth commandment by coveting, and then the eighth commandment by stealing.

—THOMAS WATSON.

To begin a sin is to lay the foundation for a continuance; this continuance is the mother of custom, and impudence at last the issue.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

First we practise sin, then defend it, then boast of it.

—THOMAS MANTON.

One sin is a step to another more heinous.

—DAVID DICKSON.

A young sinner will be an old devil.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Some think themselves improved in piety because they have left prodigality and reel into covetousness.

—THOMAS FULLER.

WHEN the heart is full of God … few words run then at the waste-spout.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

A wise man will let down the bucket of his tongue into the well of his reason before he pour forth words.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

He that weighs his words before he utters them shall prevent an after-reckoning for them.

—JOHN TRAPP.

First be a seer and then a speaker.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

It is impossible that a disordered heart should ever produce a well-ordered conversation.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

It is as impossible for a shaking hand to write a straight line, as an unfixed judgment to have an even conversation.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

THE Spirit of God rides most triumphantly in his own chariot.

—THOMAS MANTON.

The Christian is bred by the word, and he must be fed by it.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The word is the chariot of the Spirit, the Spirit the guider of the word.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The word generates faith and regenerates us.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

There are no still-born children in the family of grace.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

This word cannot beget without him, yet it is by this word that he begets.

—ROBERT LEIGHTON.

The jewel of the word should not hang in our ears, but be locked up in a believing heart.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

MEN have their name and denomination in the Scripture by that which they are ruled by.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

The world is a tender mother to her children but a stepmother to strangers.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

An owl’s egg, though hatched by a dove or eagle, will prove but a night-bird.

—ELISHA COLES.

The worldling’s wisdom serves him (as the ostrich’s wings) to make him outrun others upon earth, and in earthly things; but helps him never a whit toward heaven.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He that loves the world is a worldling.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Those recusant guests in the gospel that pretended they therefore came not, because they had bought farms and oxen; but indeed it was because their farms and oxen had bought them.

—JOHN TRAPP.

LET none but the servants of sin be the slave of fear.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

To conceal known adversaries is an argument of fear.

—THOMAS MANTON.

He is a fool, we say, that would be laughed out of his coat; but he is a double fool that would be laughed out of his skin, that would hazard his soul because loth to be laughed at.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Many lose heaven because they are ashamed to go in a fool’s coat thither.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The heart is not in case to receive promises till freed of false fears.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God can secure us from fear, either by removing the thing feared, or by subduing the fear of the thing.

—WILLIAM BEVERIDGE.

IF sinners have their ‘Come’ should not saints much more?

—JOHN TRAPP.

Whenever God blows with his wind, he looks that we should spread our sails.

—TIMOTHY CRUSO.

Canst thou run the way without the Way?

—JOHN KING.

Christ sends for us friendly, freely, frequently.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The Way seeing his disciples out of the way, showed them the way.

—JOHN BOYS.

God invites many with his golden sceptre whom he never bruises with his rod of iron.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Nicodemus cometh haltingly to Christ, as a night-bird.

—JOHN TRAPP.

WHEN man lost free will, the woman found it, and still keeps it.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Woman takes her being from man, man takes his well-being from woman.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Women’s wits are best at a pinch.

—JOHN TRAPP.

When Adam was away, Eve was made a prey.

—HENRY SMITH.

The weaker vessel may be a chosen vessel.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

The weaker sex is the stronger in temptation.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Before man had any other calling, he was called to be a husband.

—HENRY SMITH.

THE holiness of God is his glory, as his grace is his riches.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

One Almighty is more than all mighties.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Glory is the sparkling of the Deity.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Grace is the attribute God delights to honour.

—ELISHA COLES.

The silver springs of grace and the golden springs of glory are in him.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Clemency is one of the brightest diamonds in the crown of majesty.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The happiness of our souls depends upon God’s other attributes, but the perpetuity of it upon his eternity.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

He who is self-sufficient, all-sufficient, must needs be soul-sufficient.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

YOU will find it as hard to get a composed spirit under great afflictions, as it is to fix quicksilver.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Inward peace is too precious a liquor poured into a filthy vessel.

—ROBERT LEIGHTON.

When the wind is still the great rain falleth.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Inward peace can only be espoused to inward purity.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Peace is never bought too dear but by sin.

—JEREMIAH BURROUGHS.

Though the wind be laid and the storm over, thy heart must have some time to settle.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The quarter-day never comes amiss to him that hath always his rent ready.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

AS hills, the higher the barrener; so men commonly the wealthier the worse; the more honour the less holiness.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Power is seldom a friend to humility.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is at the full, and that by the interposition of the earth.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Prosperity has its honey and also its sting; like the full of the moon, it makes many lunatic.

—THOMAS WATSON.

What good is there in having a fine suit with the plague in it?

—JOHN TRAPP.

The getting of new wealth and honour makes some to lose their old eyes, so that they cannot see and discern their old kindred afterwards.

—THOMAS FULLER.

WHEN God is not believed we must needs give credit to the devil.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Unbelief, like Joab, strikes under the fifth rib, and kills outright.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Infidelity is always blind.

—JOHN CALVIN.

It is common for men to make doubts when they have a mind to desert the truth.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

Unbelief was the first sin, and pride was the first-born of it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Unbelief was the crack in the glass, through which this inestim­able water of life did leak out.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Unbelief is the shield of every sin.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

THE devil labours to put out the right eye of faith, and to leave us only the left eye of reason.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Sense and reason are the crutches which weak faith leans on too much.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Reason must neither be the rule to measure faith by, nor the judge thereof.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Faith can rest in what it cannot comprehend.

—JOHN OWEN.

Where reason cannot wade there faith may swim.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Abraham went, indeed, he knew not whither, but he did not go with he knew not who.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

What a short mete-wand[28] is natural reason to measure divine things by.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

THE Jews’ seventh day was buried in Christ’s grave.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The translation of God’s holy day … from the Saturday to the Sunday, is not by patent in the Bible but only by pattern.

—JOHN BOYS.

A weekly Sabbath walls in our wild nature.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Better not do our own work any day, than not God’s work on his day.

—JOHN TRAPP.

On the week-days, every man riseth early to his trade; on the Lord’s day, when the business of their souls is specially in hand, men usually sleep their fill.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The day of the Lord is likely to be a dreadful day to them that despise the Lord’s day.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Make the Lord’s day the market for thy soul.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

WRITING is an invention to deceive absence.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Reading maketh a full man, prayer a holy man, temptation an experienced man.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The pen is an artificial tongue, the relief of the dumb and distant; by it the former speaks plain, and the latter aloud.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

To read much and practise nothing is to hunt much and catch nothing.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The pen has the greatest auditories.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

In reading books, regard not so much the science[29] as the savour.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Satan hath prevailed more with his pen than his sword against the church.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

REFUSE not gold from a dirty hand.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Despise no sanctuary and no auditory.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Like foolish, frampole[30] children, we care not for the meat except we choose the spoon.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

It is far worse to despise a Saviour in his robes than to crucify him in his rags.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

God takes more unkindly the despising of his love than he doth the slighting of his wisdom.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Despise not any man’s meanness; you know not his destiny.

—JOHN TRAPP.

WORLDLINGS in serving God, serve themselves of God; they follow him for loaves more than for love.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Follow not religion, as some hounds do the game, only for company.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

You may perish by false devotions as much as by real scandal.

—THOMAS WATSON.

There is not a more dangerous creature than a parasitical prophet.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Truly that good was never worth seeking, that is not worth keeping.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Many follow God as Samson did his parents, till he light upon a honeycomb.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Thou art never in the way of cure, till thou art sent out of thyself.

—THOMAS TAYLOR.

THEY have no need of our mocks, which I am afraid have too much of their own miseries.

—THOMAS FULLER.

It is a scandal to religion to be over much dejected.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

O be not too quick to bury the church before she is dead.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Despair acknowledgeth the truth in regard of the object, but doubteth in regard of the subject.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

He wanteth no other misery that is plagued with a fainting soul.

—JOHN KING.

When God would put a soul in tune for himself, he most commonly begins upon the lowest note.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

The act may be perverted, though the faith cannot be subverted.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

THAT city cannot be far from ruin, where the laws are not above the magistrate, but the magistrate above the laws.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Laws are better unmade than unkept.

—HENRY SMITH.

An ignorant ruler is like a blind pilot.

—THOMAS HALL.

A judge must have two kinds of salt in him; the salt of science to know the law, and the salt of conscience to determine according to the same.

—JOHN BOYS.

Never did those magistrates long preserve their own names, who suffered God’s to be profaned.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

A magistrate couchant[31] makes offenders rampant.

—THOMAS HALL.

THEY that side with the saints shall thrive with the saints.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God is a better paymaster than the earth.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

He that hath greatest layings out for God, shall have greatest comings in from God.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The nurse looks not for her wages from the child, but from the parent.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God will not be served for, but he will not be served without, wages.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Meditation of the reward is a good place for our souls to bait at,[32] but a bad place for our souls to lodge in.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Piety shall have riches without rust, wealth without want, store without sore, beauty without blemish, mirth without mixture.

—JOHN TRAPP.

TWO negatives make an affirmative in grammar, but ten thousand will not make one in divinity.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

If the end of one mercy were not the beginning of another, we were undone.

—PHILIP HENRY.

Take notice not only of the mercies of God, but of God in the mercies.

—RALPH VENNING.

God will preserve thee in thy ways not in thy wanderings.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Whatever God can do, he unquestionably will do, if he has promised it.

—JOHN CALVIN.

As God numbers the hairs of his people, he must needs preserve their heads.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

God doth not do many things that he can, but he doeth all things that he will.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

THOUGHTS are the most closeted acts of man.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Thy thoughts are vocal to God.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Esteem carries our thoughts.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Thoughts are the spies and messengers of the soul.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Thoughts are the immediate spawn of the original corruption.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Thoughts are the seeds of actions.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Thoughts are the purest offspring of the soul.

—THOMAS MANTON.

When thy fancy[33] is more mortified, thy thoughts will be more orderly and fixed.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

WHERE the effect is good the cause is better, so where the effect is bad the cause is worse.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Anything that is imperfect cannot exist of itself.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

A straw in the hand of a giant will make no deeper impression than if in the hand of a stripling.

—ELISHA COLES.

It is the presence of the king that makes the court.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

The spider never builds but where there are flies.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Fly the cause and thou fliest the effect.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Order being the effect cannot be the cause of itself.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

A good stream hath a good spring.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

PLEASURE, profit, preferment are the worldling’s trinity, to the which he performeth inward and outward worship.

—JOHN TRAPP.

There is no greater danger in the world than to live in the danger of the world.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

It is dangerous dressing for another world by the looking-glass of this world.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Let us use the world, but enjoy the Lord.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The world may afford a felicity for our dust, the body, but not for the inhabitant in it.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The world fashion is the worst fashion of all.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

BETTER lack all the rest than lack charity.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Charity offereth honey to a bee without wings.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Some men there be whose charitable deeds are as rare as an eclipse; these men deserve to be pardoned for their pious deeds, they are so seldom guilty of them.

—THOMAS FULLER.

God’s sons are known by their coat, that is, charity.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Burn heretics with the fire of charity.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A man that is charitable and not pure, is better to others than to himself.

—THOMAS MANTON.

The river of charity springs from the fountain of piety.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

THE word of life may be so distorted from the life of the word, till it becomes the food of death.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

It is just (as one well said) that they who will not feed on the plain food of the word should be choked with the bones.

—JOSEPH ALLEINE.

Whom God intends to destroy, he gives them leave to play with Scripture.

—MARTIN LUTHER.

They that will give God a new tongue shall feel his old hand.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The word of God is adversary to none, but such as are their own greatest adversaries.

—JOHN TRAPP.

How sad it is to carry these letters of heaven about us only as Uriah carried David’s, for his own destruction.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Take the word from the Author not from the usurper.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

DILIGENCE may be a companion and comfort, where success is a stranger.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

One asking, what was the best compost to manure land, it was answered, The dust of the master’s feet.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Health cometh not from the clouds without seeking, nor wealth from the clods without digging.

—JOHN KING.

It is better to be worn with using than with rusting.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Though sin brought in the husbandman’s sweat, yet now, not to sweat would increase his sin.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The fen-man mends his banks in summer, lest his ground be drowned in winter.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The master’s eye maketh a fat horse.

—THOMAS FULLER.

FAITH baptizes prayer and gives it a name; it is called ‘the prayer of faith’.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow.

—THOMAS WATSON.

When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words without a heart.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Patience in prayer is nothing but faith spun out.

—THOMAS WATSON.

As Joseph said, ‘You shall not see my face unless you bring your brother Benjamin with you’, so prayer cannot see God’s face unless it brings its brother Faith with it.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Prayer is the key of heaven, faith is the hand that turns it.

—THOMAS WATSON.

FREE-GRACE hath provided us a plank after shipwreck.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Abolish free-will and there is nothing to be saved; abolish free-grace and there is nothing wherewithal to save.

—BERNARD

Free-grace will fix those whom free-will shook down into a gulf of misery.

—THOMAS BOSTON.

If there were no will, there would be no hell.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Efficacious grace does not at all destroy natural liberty.

—THOMAS JACOMB.

The friends of free-will are the enemies of free-grace.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God could love nothing in Jacob above Esau but his own grace.

—THOMAS MANTON.

SOME talk that the devil hath a cloven foot; but whatever the devil’s foot be, to be sure his sons have a cloven heart.

—RICHARD ALLEINE.

No man perfectly knows his own heart; you think all well; this may not be assurance but secureness.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A vain heart out of prayer will be little better in prayer.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A stone in the heart is worse than in the kidneys.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Outward sins are sins of great infamy, but heart sins are sins of deeper guilt.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

A hard knot must have an answerable wedge.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

A little hope may melt that heart which despair would harden.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

REGENERATION is a spiritual change, conversion is a spiritual motion.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Seeing we are born God’s enemies, we must be new-born his sons.

—RICHARD BAXTER.

Regeneration is, as it were, the minister which marrieth Christ and the soul together.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Adoption gives us the privilege of sons, regeneration the nature of sons.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Repentance is a change of the mind, and regeneration is a change of the man.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Regeneration is the motion of God in the creature; conversion is the motion of the creature to God, by virtue of that first principle.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

As in generation, so in regeneration, we must be growing up to a full stature.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

HE that knows nothing will believe anything.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Ignorance is the beaten path to hell.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Ignorance is the mother of mischief.

—THOMAS HALL.

It is a common fault, that ignorance is closely followed by ­obstinacy.

—JOHN CALVIN.

Ignorance is not the mother of devotion but the grandmother of irreligion.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

None but an ignoramus is an enemy to knowledge.

—HENRY WILKINSON.

An ignorant ruler is like a blind pilot.

—THOMAS HALL.

An ignorant minister is none of God’s making, for God gives gifts where he gives calling.

—HENRY WILKINSON.

WE may as well judge of colours by moonlight, as of ­spiritual things by reason.

—ELISHA COLES.

In spiritual things there is no envy.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Temporals are the bones; spirituals are the marrow.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

We cannot be spiritual priests till we be spiritual kings.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Spiritual things are against the stream, heaven is up the hill.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Spiritual rest maketh no man idle, spiritual walking maketh no man weary.

—NATHANIEL HARDY.

Our natural motions should be ordered for the God of nature, and spiritual ordered for the God of grace.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

OF all fools the conceited fool is the worst.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

He is two fools that is wise in his own eyes.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He who does not account himself nothing will soon esteem Christ so.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

A conceited scholar is no good learner.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Self-opinion is the bane of all virtue.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

You never knew a man full of self-confidence and self-abasement together.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Ignorance and confidence are often twins.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

THE Christian must trust in a withdrawing God.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

There is no place for faith, if we expect God to fulfil immediately what he promises.

—JOHN CALVIN.

That poor woman of Canaan took up the bullets Christ shot at her, and with a humble boldness of faith sends them back again in her prayer.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Faith should be above all that befalleth us.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Faith may be shaken in, not out of the soul.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Faith is safe when in danger, and in danger when secure.

—ROBERT LEIGHTON.

When Satan borrows sense to speak one thing, let faith borrow Scripture to speak the contrary.

—DAVID DICKSON.

THE law gives menaces, the gospel gives promises.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The law was for the old man to mortify him, and the gospel for the new man to comfort him.

—HENRY SMITH.

The law is a gospel prefigured, and the gospel is a law consummated.

—BISHOP HALL.

As a lively faith is the best gloss upon the gospel, so dutiful obedience is the best commentary upon the law.

—JOHN BOYS.

The law is a court of justice, but the gospel a throne of grace.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

The law by which God rules us, is as dear to him as the gospel by which he saves us.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The law is a hammer to break us, the gospel God’s oil to cure us.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

IF God’s today be too soon for thy repentance, thy tomorrow may be too late for his acceptance.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

He that saith he will be good tomorrow, he saith he will be wicked today.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

There be not many Lots, but many linger like Lot.

—HENRY SMITH.

Delay is a kind of denial.

—TIMOTHY CRUSO.

Many think not of living any holier, till they can live no longer.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Let us not have our oil to buy when we should have it to burn.

—THOMAS FULLER.

That which keeps us from living today, the thought of living tomorrow.

—JAMES JANEWAY.

THE usurer loveth the borrower as the ivy loveth the oak.

—HENRY SMITH.

The usurer, like the ostrich, can digest any metal; but especially money.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It were a blessed ship that could quite transport usury.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Restitution is the repentance of usury.

—HENRY SMITH.

Usurers may well be compared to the timber worm, which to touch is as soft as silk, but hath teeth so hard as that it eats the oak.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

I read of a woman whom Satan had bound (Luke 13:16) and truly he is almost in as bad a condition whom the usurer hath bound.

—THOMAS WATSON.

If he be a fool that lays up his own goods, find out a name for him that extorts other men’s.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Usurers make beggars, even as lawyers make quarrellers.

—HENRY SMITH.

REPROOFS should be as oils or ointments, gently rubbed in by the warm fire of love.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

An open reproof of our betters is little better than a libel.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Private reproof is the best grave to bury private faults in.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

If Noah be drunk, who shall reprove Ham?

—HENRY SMITH.

Admonition is like physic,[34] rather profitable than pleasant.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Next to the not deserving a reproof, is the well taking of it.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Reproof is an edged tool, and must not be jested with.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

It was well done of Paul to reprove Peter to his face, and it was well done of Peter to praise Paul in his absence.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

GILDED potsherd may shine till it cometh to scouring.

—THOMAS MANTON.

When grapes come to the press they come to the proof.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

A rotten apple discovers itself in a windy day.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The Lord uses his flail of tribulation to separate the chaff from the wheat.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

No hypocrite can bear the cross.

—HENRY SMITH.

We must not spread our sails of profession in a calm, and furl them up when the wind riseth.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A little chaff may abide in the floor if the wind does not blow.

—JEAN DAILLÉ.

Hereafter all paint must fall off which is not laid in the oil of sincerity.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

IDLENESS tempts the devil to tempt.

—THOMAS WATSON.

An idle man is the devil’s tennis ball, tossed by him at pleasure.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Idleness is the very source of sin.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The sitting bird is the fowler’s mark.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The idle man may call the prodigal brother.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

He that wants employment never wants temptation.

—THOMAS WATSON.

While we work not ourselves, Satan works on us.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Let us deal with idleness and wantonness as Philip of Macedon did with two such persons, cause the one to drive the other out of our coasts.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

GRACE is the freeness of love.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

True grace when weakest is stronger than false when strongest.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Grace is of a noble offspring; it neither turns man into stocks[35] nor Stoics.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Grace is of that nature that it cannot possibly have any by-end.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Grace is not native but donative.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Faith is the champion of grace, and love the nurse, but humility the beauty of grace.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

There is a greater, gulf between grace and no grace than between weak grace and strong.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

MORE business than thou canst well manage is like more meat than thou canst well digest, which will quickly make a sickly soul.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Stars which have least circuit are nearest the pole; and men who are least perplexed with business are commonly nearest to God.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

He that will not spare time from his present business for his future blessedness is like to lose both.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

That man who is a labouring bee for earthly prosperity will be but an idle drone for heavenly felicity.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Religion must be your business, all other things but your by-business.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Religion never goes in more danger than when in a crowd of worldly business.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

HE who fears God can never find a place dark enough to offend.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

The fear of God is both a virtue and a keeper of other virtues.

—JOHN TRAPP.

As the embankment keeps out the water, so the fear of the Lord keeps out uncleanness.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The best way never to fall is ever to fear.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

As the sunshine puts out the fire, so does the fear of God the fire of lust.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The height of God must lay man low.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

As faith is a grace that feeds all the rest, so fear is a grace that guards all the rest.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

PRIDE loves to climb up, not as Zacchaeus to see Christ, but to be seen.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

A foolish king in a throne is an ape upon the house-top, highly perched, but absurdly conditioned.

—JOHN KING.

Haman will never leave lifting up his head, till it be lifted a story higher than he would have had it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

The cackling hen loseth her egg; so doth the vain-glorious giver his reward.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Vain glory is the worm that breeds in the best fruit of the wicked.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

As death is the last enemy, so pride the last sin that shall be destroyed in us.

—JOHN BOYS.

SELF-EXAMINATION is the beaten path to perfection.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Self-examination is a spiritual inquisition set up in the soul.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Examination is the eye of the soul.

—HENRY SMITH.

The reason why there is so little self-condemnation is because there is so little self-examination.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

You must come to the knowledge of, before you can amend, yourself.

—LANCELOT ANDREWS.

Contemplation is a perspective glass to see our Saviour in; but examination is a looking-glass to view ourselves in.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

See that thou show thyself the judge, not the patron of thy sins.

—LANCELOT ANDREWS.

THE flame of Jehu’s zeal was but kitchen fire.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

It is weakness to be hot in a cold matter, but worse to be cold in a hot matter.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Blazing comets soon evaporate.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Feigned zeal is just like a waterman, that looks one way and rows another way; pretends one thing and intends another.

—GRIFFITH WILLIAMS.

Nothing violent is long permanent.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Nebuchadnezzar destroyed idols that he might be worshipped.

—HENRY SMITH.

Hot at hand seldom holds out.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Some have a true zeal for a false religion, and others have a false zeal of a true religion.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

A GODLY man is free from the sting, but not from the stroke, from the curse, but not from the cross of death.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Death will cut us down, but he shall not eternally keep us down.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

To die well is a long art, but we have no long time to learn it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

To die is a business no man doth but once, and it is a business of the greatest moment of any we ever performed; and therefore to be directed and assisted in it, is answerably a great blessedness.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Death, at the most, can get but a clay-pawn till your Lord take the King’s keys and open your graves.

—SAMUEL RUTHERFORD.

IT is better to be low as hell with a promise than in paradise without one.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Christ’s performances outstrip his promises.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

A great part of a Christian’s estate lies in bonds and bills of God’s hand.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The very possession of the world is not half so sure as God’s promises.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Grace and truth are the two ingredients of an evangelical promise.

—JOHN OWEN.

Wherever the command of believing comes, it is always with a promise.

—JAMES DURHAM.

The promises are good freehold, and yet little looked after.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Refused promises multiply woes.

—DAVID DICKSON.

RICHES may leave us while we live, we must leave them when we die.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Riches, as glass, are bright but brittle.

—JOHN TRAPP.

That which was forty years in gathering, comes often to be spent in forty days revelling.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Riches are long in getting with much pains, hard in keeping with much care, quick in losing with more sorrow.

—THOMAS FULLER.

While riches are, they are not.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

The world’s golden sands are quicksands.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Whom the sun-rising seeth in wealth, him the sun-setting may see in want.

—THOMAS FULLER.

BOTH authors, actors, and abettors of evil shall rue it together.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Where iniquity breakfasts, calamity will be sure to dine; to sup where it dines and to lodge where it sups.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Sin is the womb of our sorrows and the grave of our comforts.

—THOMAS WATSON.

As every body hath its shadow, so hath every sin its fear.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Strayers are evermore sufferers for it.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Jews say there is no punishment befalleth them in which there is not still an ounce of that golden calf.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Haman was exalted high, but not in safety.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

ALL the king’s subjects are not his champions.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

Weak Christians are very apt to three things: to choose their mercies, to choose their crosses, to choose their employments.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

There is no place for any loose stone in God’s edifice.

—JOSEPH HALL.

It was a charge long ago laid upon Christianity, that it was better known in leaves of books than in the lives of Christians.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Such Christians as are like Pharaoh’s lean kine,[36] reproach three at once: God, the gospel and their teachers.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

The weak Christian is willing to live and patient to die; but the strong, patient to live and willing to die.

—JOHN BOYS.

GOD is as faithful in his menaces as in his promises.

—JOHN TRAPP.

He that hath God’s heart cannot want[37] his grace.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

God is the sweetest friend, but the worst enemy.

—THOMAS WATSON.

It is not safe to be at odds with the Ancient of Days.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God hath strength enough to give, but he hath no strength to deny.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

I had rather been in hell with God than in heaven without him, and it were far safer for me.

—JOHN TRAPP.

God abhors them worst who adore themselves most.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

TO commend a man with a ‘but’ is a wound instead of a commendation.

—JOHN TRAPP.

To commend that which is good is the ready way to mend the rest.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Only a Christian of strong grace can bear the strong wine of commendation without the spiritual intoxication of pride.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

To be praised of a praiseless person is no praise.

—JOHN TRAPP.

The giver of alms may not, but the receiver of them may, blow a trumpet.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Christ could discern gold in ore.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Admiration is the overplus[38] of expectation.

—JOHN TRAPP.

POOR persons, even under rags, may be very like God.

—JOHN OWEN.

They which are poor of wealth, may be rich in faith, and a master’s servant may be the Lord’s freeman.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

The poor widow never was better off than when the prophet kept house for her.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The world’s poor are miserable, because dejected in their poverty; the devil’s poor cursed, because proud in their poverty; God’s poor only blessed, as having nothing yet possessing all things.

—JOHN BOYS.

Poverty is a friend to prayer.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

In that fire in which the chaff is burnt, gold sparkleth.

—THOMAS MANTON.

A poor soul may be a rich Christian.

—JOHN TRAPP.

TRUTH must be spoken however it be taken.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Truth reforms as well as informs.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Truth is like our first parents, most beautiful when naked.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Truth finds few that love her gratis.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Truth seldom goes without a scratched face.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Truth, in what appearance soever, doth never contradict itself.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Truth is a good mistress; but he that follows her too close at heels, may hap to have his teeth struck out.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Truth in the head without holy courage makes a man like the sword fish, he hath a sword in his head but no heart to use it.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

CONFESSION is verbal humiliation.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

Judas confessed himself to a priest, and yet went and hanged himself.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Many blush to confess their faults who never blush to commit them.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Confession is, as it were, the vomit of the soul.

—THOMAS MANTON.

Thou hast filled God’s bag with thy sins, and hast thou no tears for his bottle?

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Many decline sin through all the cases, yet they will not acknowledge their sin in any case.

—JOHN BOYS.

The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

GIFTS are the gold that beautifies the temple; grace is as the temple that sanctifies the gold.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

A drop of grace is worth a sea of gifts.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Those who want grace and true sanctity may notwithstanding have manners and good civility.

—THOMAS FULLER.

One dram of grace is worth more than a world of gifts.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

When gifts are in their eminency, sin may be in its prevalency.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Gifts are but as dead graces; but graces are living gifts.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

Gifts are (as it were) God’s shipping, to convey his treasures of grace upon the shore of his people’s souls.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

THERE are some things good but not pleasant, as afflictions; some things are pleasant but not good, as sin; and some things may be both good and pleasant.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

The peppercorn of praise is all the rent God looks for.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Praise is a soul in flower.

—THOMAS WATSON.

The servants of the Lord are to sing his praises in this life to the world’s end; and in the next life, world without end.

—JOHN BOYS.

Praise should conclude that work which prayer began.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

If the heart be glad the tongue is glib.

—JOHN HUME.

Praise is the quit-rent[39] we pay to God; while God renews our lease, we must renew our rent.

—THOMAS WATSON.

TIME is fluid, but eternity is stable.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The longest life reached not to a thousand years, and that is not a day unto God.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

As time is but a slip of eternity, so it will end in eternity.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The sand of our life runneth as fast, though the hour-glass be set in the sunshine of prosperity, as in the gloomy shade of affliction.

—THOMAS FULLER.

Time cannot be infinite.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The world began with time and time with it.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Of all other possessions, two may be had together; but two moments of time cannot be possessed together.

—JOHN TRAPP.

HEART-WORK is weighty and difficult work; an error there may cost you your souls.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The spring and wheels of the clock must be mended before the hand of the dial will stand right.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

A rule of three, (1) our affections, (2) our words, (3) our actions.

—NEHEMIAH ROGERS.

Look we well to our affections, for by these maids Satan still wooeth the mistress.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Our hearts are slippery commodities.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

A careless eye is an index to a graceless heart.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

CONSCIENCE is God’s spy and man’s overseer.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Conscience is God’s vicar.

—RICHARD SIBBES.

It’s hard to be in office and not put conscience out of office.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Conscience is a castle that no batteries but what God raiseth against it can shake.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Conscience is to the soul as the stomach is to the body.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Conscience, the domestic chaplain.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Conscience is the deputy-deity in the little world, man.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

No flattery can heal a bad conscience, so no slander can hurt a good one.

—THOMAS WATSON.

HE commands the heart, that is master of its love.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

The devil’s stamp is none of God’s badge.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

One heaven holdeth not Michael and the dragon in peace; nor one house the Ark and Dagon.

—JOHN KING.

The body has two eyes, but the soul must have but one.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

God must be served truly, that there be no halting; and totally, that there be no halving.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior, and therefore hold in with both you cannot.

—WILLIAM GURNALL.

Diversity of religion is against the essence of God, which is but one.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

HE that will be old long, must be old while he is young.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Youth seasoned with the fear of God is not easily despised.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Green wood and old logs meet in one fire.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

If youth be sick of the will-nots, old age is in danger of dying of the shall-nots.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

None can be too young to amend, that is old enough to die.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

’Tis a thousand pities, that those who have one foot in the grave would live as if the other were in hell.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The old cannot live long, the young may die very quickly.

—JOHN RAINOLDS.

’Twixt the dotage of old men and the prejudice of young men the Commonwealth faileth.

—CHRISTOPHER NESSE.

GODLINESS is nothing but God-likeness.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

True saints are the world’s rarities.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

The saints are the walking pictures of God.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Godliness is the constitution of a real Christian.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Every true Christian is a Theophilus.

—JOHN BOYS.

Saints are princes in all lands.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Love and likeness to God are inseparable.

—JOHN OWEN.

Enoch walked so little like the world, that his stay was little in the world.

—JOSEPH CARYL.

JONAH was asleep in the ship, but at prayer in the whale’s belly.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Better be preserved in brine than rot in honey.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Israel was safer in the brick-kilns of Egypt than in the plains of Moab.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Manasseh’s chain was more profitable to him than his crown.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Thou art beaten that thou mayest be better.

—JOHN BUNYAN.

While the wicked are kept in sugar, the godly are often kept in brine.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Better be pruned to grow than cut up to burn.

—JOHN TRAPP.

THE covetousness of heretics is the companion, fuel, mother, nurse of their heresies.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

If yellow angels make up the match, the evil angels will be at the marriage.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

To be poor in purse is his fear, to be poor in spirit is none of his desire.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Silver is in the sack’s mouth of every popish error. Covetousness swallows down any lie.

—WILLIAM JENKYN.

Hugo Cardinalis said the devil had two daughters, Avarice and Luxury: the former whereof he had married to the Jews, the latter to the Gentiles; but now, saith he, the priests have taken away both of them from their right husband, and made use of them for their own.

—JOHN TRAPP.

GUILT is shy of God’s presence.

—THOMAS MANTON.

The terrors of God are the effects of guilt.

—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The burden of sin is the wrath of God.

—EDWARD MARBURY.

Better thy house be haunted with devils than thy soul with guilt.

—THOMAS WATSON.

Guilt is to danger what fire is to gunpowder.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Guiltiness is ever clamourous, and the most lewd are the most loud.

—JOHN TRAPP.

It is guilt which makes us shy of God.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

Shame is fear of a just reproof.

—THOMAS MANTON.

THOUGH the sun of charity rise at home, yet it should always set abroad.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Hospitality is threefold: for one’s family, this of necessity; for strangers, this is courtesy; for the poor, this is charity.

—THOMAS FULLER.

I know no better way to preserve your meal than by parting with your cake.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Lot’s guests were his best friends.

—THOMAS ADAMS.

Mercy is so good a servant that it will never suffer its master to die a beggar.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

Great boast and small roast makes unsavoury mouths.

—HENRY SMITH.

ELISHA could do more with a kiss than his man with a staff.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Christians should be like musk among linen.

—THOMAS BROOKS.

Charity, like musk, will discover itself.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

No wool so coarse but will take some colour.

—JOHN TRAPP.

A man that keepeth ill company is like him that walketh in the sun, tanned insensibly.

—THOMAS MANTON.

There is little we touch, but we leave the print of our fingers behind.

—RICHARD BAXTER.

Opinion sets the price.

—JOHN TRAPP.

Man is a creature that is led more by patterns than by precepts.

—GEORGE SWINNOCK.

THE Bible is bespangled with promises made to prayer.

—THOMAS WATSON.

God never denied that soul anything that went as far as heaven to ask it.

—JOHN TRAPP.

That soul shall have his will of God, who desires nothing but what God will.

—WILLIAM SECKER.

God may deny your wantonness, but not your wants.

—JOHN FLAVEL.

Pure prayers have pure blessings.

—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Prayer is a putting the promises into suit.[40]

—JOHN TRAPP.

If you would believe you must crucify the question ‘How?’

—MARTIN LUTHER.