C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Spurgeon
A child of God should be a visible beatitude, for joy and happiness, and a living doxology, for gratitude and adoration.
A Christian is the gentlest of men; but then he is a man.
A Christian making money fast is just a man in a cloud of dust, it will fill his eyes if he be not careful.
A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother to a beggar. There is wisdom in generosity, as in everything else.
A vile imagination, once indulged, gets the key of our minds, and can get in again very easily, whether we will or no, and can so return as to bring seven other spirits with it more wicked than itself; and what may follow no one knows.
Affliction of itself does not sanctify any body, but the reverse. I believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions.
Ah, sinner, may the Lord quicken thee! But it is a work that makes the Saviour weep. I think when He comes to call some of you from your death in sin, He comes weeping and sighing for you. There is a stone that is to be rolled away—your bad and evil habits—and when that stone is taken away, a still small voice will not do for you; it must be the loud crashing voice, like the voice of the Lord which breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
Anything we do to hinder a child from coming to Jesus greatly displeases our dear Lord. He cries to us, “Stand off. Let them alone. Let them come to Me, and forbid them not.”
As sure as ever God puts His children in the furnace. He will be in the furnace with them.
Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.
But these dear boys and girls—there is something to be made out of them. If now they yield themselves to Christ they may have a long, happy, and holy day before them in which they may serve God with all their hearts. Who knows what glory God may have of them? Heathen lands may call them blessed. Whole nations may be enlightened by them. O brethren and sisters, let us estimate children at their true valuation, and we shall not keep them back, but we shall be eager to lead them to Jesus at once.
Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.
Children will imitate their fathers in their vices, seldom in their repentance.
Conflicts bring experience; and experience brings that growth in grace which is not to be attained by any other means.
Conversion is not, as some suppose, a violent opening of the heart by grace, in which will, reason and judgment are all ignored or crushed. The reason is not blinded, but enlightened; and the whole man is made to act with a glorious liberty which it never knew till it fell under the restraints of grace.
Death is the waiting-room where we robe ourselves for immortality.
Do not others expect from children more perfect conduct than they themselves exhibit? If a gracious child should lose his temper or act wrongly in some trifling thing through forgetfulness, straightway he is condemned as a little hypocrite by those who are a long way from being perfect themselves. Jesus says, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.”
Doubts about the fundamentals of the Gospel exist in certain churches, I am told, to a large extent. My dear friends, where there is a warm-hearted church, you do not hear of them. I never saw a fly light on a red-hot plate.
Earnestness is good; it means business. But fanaticism overdoes, and is consequently reactionary.
Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.
Faith has a saving connection with Christ. Christ is on the shore, so to speak, holding the rope, and as we lay hold of it with the hand of our confidence, He pulls us to shore; but all good works having no connection with Christ are drifted along down the gulf of fell despair.
From mad dogs and grumbling professors may we all be delivered; and may we never take the complaint from either of them!
Giving is true having.
Good thoughts are blessed guests, and should be heartily welcomed, well fed, and much sought after. Like rose leaves, they give out a sweet smell if laid up in the jar of memory.
Great faith must have great trials.
Habits, soft and pliant at first, are like some coral stones, which are easily cut when first quarried, but soon become hard as adamant.
He that buildeth his nest upon a Divine promise shall find it abide and remain until he shall fly away to the land where promises are lost in fulfillments.
He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds; and faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.
He who climbs above the cares of this world and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life.
Holiness is the architectural plan upon which God buildeth up His living temple.
Home is the grandest of all institutions.
Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.
I will say broadly that I have more confidence in the spiritual life of the children that I have received into this church than I have in the spiritual condition of the adults thus received. I will even go further than that, and say that I have usually found a clearer knowledge of the gospel and a warmer love of Christ in the child-converts than in the man-converts. I will even astonish you still more by saying that I have sometimes met with a deeper spiritual experience in children of ten and twelve than I have in certain persons of fifty and sixty.
I would sooner walk in the dark, and hold hard to a promise of my God, than trust in the light of the brightest day that ever dawned.
Idleness is the key of beggary.
If a crooked stick is before you, you need not explain how crooked it is. Lay a straight one down by the side of it, and the work is well done. Preach the truth, and error will stand abashed in its presence.
If you have no share in the living Lord may God have mercy upon you! If you have no share in Christ’s rising from the dead then you will not be raised up in the likeness of His glorified body. If you do not attain to that resurrection from among the dead then you must abide in death.
If you tell your troubles to God, you put them into the grave; they will never rise again when you have committed them to Him. If you roll your burden anywhere else, it will roll back again like the stone of Sisyphus.
In agony unknown He bleeds away His life; in terrible throes He exhausts His soul. “Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani?” And then see! they pierce His side, and forthwith runneth out blood and water! This is the shedding of blood, the terrible pouring out of blood, without which, for you and the whole human race, there is no remission.
Incredulity is not wisdom.
Jesus has redeemed not only our souls, but our bodies. When the Lord shall deliver His captive people out of the land of the enemy He will not leave a bone of one of them in the adversary’s power. The dominion of death shall be utterly broken.
Let no knowledge satisfy but that which lifts above the world, which weans from the world, which makes the world a footstool.
Losses and crosses are heavy to bear; but when our hearts are right with God, it is wonderful how easy the yoke becomes.
Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us by the hot iron of affliction, otherwise we shall not truly receive them.
My trust is not that I am holy, but that, being unholy, Christ died for me. My rest is here, not in what I am or shall be or feel or know, but in what Christ is and must be,—in what Christ did and is still doing as He stands before yonder throne of glory.
Never try to save out of God’s cause; such money will canker the rest. Giving to God is no loss; it is putting your substance in the best bank. Giving is true having, as the old gravestone said of the dead man “What I spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave I have.”
Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.
Our prayers are the shadows of mercy.
Pardon ever follows sincere repentance.
Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give but an occasional pluck at the rope; but he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might.
Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith will get very great mercies, but great faith still greater.
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel’s deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a lookout which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer.
Sympathy is especially a Christian duty.
The best thing is to go from nature’s God down to nature; and if you once get to nature’s God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everywhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience.
The church may go through her dark ages, but Christ is with her in the midnight; she may pass through her fiery furnace, but Christ is in the midst of the flame with her.
The devil never tempted a man whom he found judiciously employed.
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
The fact of resurrection is not extraordinary; it is in accord with what we who believe at all believe to be the uniform law of life—that death does not touch it. The witnesses to the resurrection of Christ were unprejudiced, unexpectant, incredulous, and their honesty is not doubted even by skeptical criticism.
The first thing in faith is knowledge. What we know we must also agree unto. What we agree unto we must rest upon alone for salvation. It will not save me to know that Christ is a Saviour; but it will save me to trust Him to be my Saviour.
The grace of the spirit comes only from heaven, and lights up the whole bodily presence.
The greatest, strongest, mightiest plea for the church of God in the world is the existence of the Spirit of God in its midst, and the works of the Spirit of God are the true evidences of Christianity. They say miracles are withdrawn, but the Holy Spirit is the standing miracle of the church of God to-day.
The higher a man is in grace, the lower he will be in his own esteem.
The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.
The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God.
There are believers who by God’s grace, have climbed the mountains of full assurance and near communion, their place is with the eagle in his eyrie, high aloft; they are like the strong mountaineer, who has trodden the virgin snow, who has breathed the fresh, free air of the Alpine regions, and therefore his sinews are braced, and his limbs are vigorous; there are they who do great exploits, being mighty men, men of renown.
There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.
There is a sweet joy that comes to us through sorrow.
This is faith, receiving the truth of Christ: first knowing it to be true, and then acting upon that belief.
This, then, is the doctrine of the resurrection. We do not believe—at least I do not—that law has been rudely violated in one extraordinary and unparalleled episode. We believe that a universal law of life, overmastering death, and always superior to it, has had once a visible witness.
To-morrow even may bring the final reckoning.
Trials teach us what we are.
Want of will causes paralysis of every faculty. In spiritual things man is utterly unable because resolvedly unwilling.
Was it not most meet that a woman should first see the risen Saviour? She was first in the transgression; let her be first in the justification. In yon garden she was first to work our wo; let her in that other garden be the first to see Him who works our weal. She takes first the apple of that bitter tree which brings us all our sorrow; let her be the first to see the Mighty Gardener, who has planted a tree which brings forth fruit unto everlasting life.
We are in hot haste to set the world right and to order all affairs; the Lord hath the leisure of conscious power and unerring wisdom, and it will be well for us to learn to wait.
We Christians do not believe that Jesus Christ was the only one that ever rose from the dead. We believe that every death-bed is a resurrection; that from every grave the stone is rolled away.
We have often asserted, and we affirm it yet again, that no fact in history is better attested than the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It must not be denied, by any who are willing to pay the slightest respect to the testimony of their fellow-men, that Jesus, who died upon the cross, and was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, did literally rise again from the dead.
When home is ruled according to God’s word, angels might be asked to stay a night with us, and they would not find themselves out of their element.
When our troubles are many we are often by grace made courageous in serving our God; we feel that we have nothing to live for in this world, and we are driven, by hope of the world to come, to exhibit zeal, self-denial, and industry.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.