Great Throughts Treasury

"Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory that are due to his name, and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. Usually, the most praying souls are the most assured souls."

"Prayer is nothing but the breathing that out before the Lord, that was first breathed into us by the Spirit of the Lord."

"Precepts may instruct, but examples persuade."

"Repentance is a grace, and must have its daily operation, as well as other graces. A true penitent must go on from faith to faith, from strength to strength; he must never stand still or turn back. True repentance is a continued spring, where the waters of godly sorrow are always flowing. 'My sin is ever before me'."

"Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart."

"Self is the only oil that makes the chariot-wheels of the hypocrite move in all religious concerns."

"Sin is a viper that does always kill where it is not killed."

"Sin which men account small brings God's great wrath on men."

"Sins against God's mercy will bring the greatest and sorest judgments upon men's heads and hearts. Mercy is God's Alpha, justice is His Omega."

"So many read good books and get nothing, because they read them over cursorily, slightly, superficially."

"Such as diligently search the Scripture shall find that true blessedness, happiness, and salvation is attributed to several signs: sometimes to the fear of God, sometimes to faith, sometimes to repentance, sometimes to love, sometimes to meekness, sometimes to humility, sometimes to patience, sometimes to poverty of spirit, sometimes to holy mourning, sometimes to hungering and thirsting after righteousness; so that if a godly man can find any one of those in himself, he may safely and groundedly conclude of his salvation and justification, though he cannot see all those signs in him."

"Such as have made a considerable improvement of their gifts and graces, have hearts as large as their heads; whereas most men's heads have outgrown their hearts."

"Suffering times are sealing times. The primitive Christians found them so, and the suffering saints in Mary's days found them so. When the furnace is seven times hotter than ordinary, the Spirit of the Lord comes and seals up a man's pardon in his bosom, his peace with God, and his title to heaven. Blessed Bradford looked upon his sufferings as an evidence to him that he was on the right way to heaven."

"Surely it is more honourable to do great things, than to speak or read great things!"

"Take no truths upon trust, but all upon trial."

"The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven."

"The best way to do ourselves good is to be doing good to others; the best way to gather is to scatter."

"The first great work that men are to attend in this world is the eternal safety and security of their souls; the next great work is to know, to be assured, that it shall go well with their souls forever."

"The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater."

"The lives of ministers oftentimes convince more strongly than their words; their tongues may persuade, but their lives command."

"The lives of such are most desirable, and the deaths of such will be most lamented, who make it their business to serve their generation."

"The more any man is in the contemplation of truth, the more fairer and firmer impression is made upon his heart by truth."

"The nearer any soul draws to God, the more humble will that soul lie before God...the most holy men have always been the most humble men...If the work be good, though never so low, humility will put a hand to it; so will not pride."

"The only way to avoid cannon-shot is to fall down. No such way to be freed from temptation as to keep low."

"The snow covers many a dunghill, so doth prosperity many a rotten heart."

"There is no soul under heaven that commonly lies under the commanding power of the Word, but that soul that has an interest in the Word of Promise."

"There is no such way to attain to greater measures of grace, as for a man to live up to that little grace he has."

"There is nothing in the world that renders a man more unlike to a saint, and more like to Satan - than to argue from God's mercy to sinful liberty; from divine goodness to licentiousness."

"There is the seed of all sins—of the vilest and worst of sins—in the best of men."

"Those who live as the many, must die with the many, and go to hell with the many. The way to hell is broad and well beaten. The way to be undone forever is to do as the most do."

"Though there is nothing more dangerous, yet there is nothing more ordinary, than for weak saints to make their sense and feeling the judge of their condition. We must strive to walk by faith."

"Though true repentance be never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true."

"Time is a jewel more worth than a world. Time is not yours to dispose of as you please; it is a glorious talent that men must be accountable for as well as any other talent."

"When Satan attempts to draw you to sin by presenting God as a God all made up of mercy, oh then reply, that though God's general mercy extend to all the works of his hand, yet his special mercy is confined to those who are divinely qualified, to those who love him and keep his commandments, to those who trust in him, that by hope hang upon him, and who fear him; and that you must be such a one here, or else you can never be happy hereafter; you must partake of his special mercy, or else eternally perish in everlasting misery, notwithstanding God's general mercy."

"You are wise, and know how to apply it."

"You have no lease of your lives, and death is not bound to give you warning before it gives you that deadly blow that will send you to everlasting misery or everlasting felicity."

"Your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure; therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing, and heaven shall make amends for all."