C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Gospel
It is the grand endeavor of the gospel to communicate God to men.
The true disciple should aim to live for the gospel, rather than to die for it.
Lincoln did but pour the soul of the nation into the monumental act of universal liberty; and that soul was inspired by the gospel.
The gospel breathes the spirit of love. Love is the fulfilling of its precepts, the pledge of its joys, and the evidence of its power.
Take Christ out of the gospel, and you take its very heart out. He has not only originated a system, but He has put Himself into it, as its very life and soul and power.
The main object of the gospel is to establish two principles—the corruption of nature, and the redemption by Jesus Christ.
God writes the gospel, not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.
The gospel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all philosophy, the interpretation of all revelation, the key to all the seeming contradictions of the physical and moral world.
No one who has not examined patiently and honestly the other religions of the world can know what Christianity really is, or can join with such truth and sincerity in the words of St. Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.”
O, marvelous power of the Divine seed, which overpowers the strong man armed, softens obdurate hearts, and changes into divine men those who were brutalized in sin, and removed to an infinite distance from God.
I thank God that the gospel is to be preached to every creature. There is no man so far gone, but the grace of God can reach him; no man so desperate or black, but He can forgive him.
The sweetness of the gospel lies mostly in pronouns, as me, my, thy. “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” “Christ Jesus my Lord.” “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee.”
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Assertion of truths known and felt, promulgation of truth from the high platform of truth itself, declaration of faith by the mouth of moral conviction—this is the New Testament method, and the true one.
The gospel comes to the sinner at once, with nothing short of complete forgiveness as the starting-point of all his efforts to be holy. It does not say, “Go and sin no more, and I will not condemn thee”; it says at once, “Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.”
Just as in the Father’s house there are many mansions, so to suit the various moods and divers cases of anxious souls, there are many chambers and compartments in the gospel citadel; but the very lowest and simplest, if you can only reach it, is salvation. The nearest to the level, but still cleft in the Rock, is called “The Faithful Saying;” and above its doorway you read, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.”
The idea of preaching the gospel to all nations alike, regardless of nationality, of internal divisions as to rank and color, complexion and religion, constituted the beginning of a new era in history. You cannot preach the gospel in its purity over the world, without proclaiming the doctrine of civil and religious liberty,—without overthrowing the barriers reared between nations and clans and classes of men,—without ultimately undermining the thrones of despots, and breaking off the shackles of slavery,—without making men everywhere free.