Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/P
PARDON.
God forgives; forgives not capriciously, but with wise, definite, Divine prëarrangement; forgives universally, on the ground of an atonement, and on the condition of repentance and faith.
God pardons like a mother that kisses the offense into everlasting forgetfulness.
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed against Thy Divine Majesty, provoking most justly Thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings. The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for Thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please Thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of Thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
—Book of Common Prayer.
PARENTS.
You that are parents, discharge your duty; though you cannot impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowledge. Let your children know the commandments of God. "Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children.
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
The first essential, then, if we would train up our children to be pure and kind and spiritual, is to be careful that our daily lives are a model for them to copy. Not that we can be absolutely holy, but we can be Christlike.
I suppose that every parent loves his child; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares.
PASSIONS.
We should employ our passions in the service of life, not spend life in the service of our passions.
Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God.
PATIENCE.
The disciples of a patient Saviour should be patient themselves.
Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness.
Patience is enduring love; experience is perfecting love; and hope is exulting love.
Patience is the ballast of the soul that will keep it from rolling and tumbling in the greatest storms.
A true Christian man is distinguished from other men, not so much by his beneficent works, as by his patience.
Christ commands you to take up His cross and follow Him, not that He may humble you, or lay some penance upon you, but that you may surrender the low self-will and the feeble pride of your sin, and ascend into the sublime patience of heavenly charity.
It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.
Therefore, let us be patient, patient; and let God our Father teach His own lesson, His own way. Let us try to learn it well and quickly; but do not let us fancy that He will ring the school-bell, and send us to play before our lesson is learnt.
Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget "there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson!
Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues it is nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men that ever wore earth about Him was a Sufferer,—a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.
It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.
When I am about my work, sometimes called unexpectedly and suddenly from one thing to another, I whisper in my heart, "Lord, help me to be patient, help me to remember, and help me to be faithful. Lord, enable me to do all for Christ's sake, and to go forward, leaning on the bosom of His infinite grace."
The holier one is, the more forbearing and loving he is; the more tender and patient and anxious to help others in every way. Think how forbearing and loving Christ is when we do wrong; and there we are to be like Him.
—A. H. K..
Help us, O Lord! with patient love to bear
Each other's faults, to suffer with true meekness.
Help us each other's joys and griefs to share,
But let us turn to Thee alone in weakness.
Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul—they lose nothing who gain Christ.
In your patience ye are strong.
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on! hold fast! hold out! Patience is genius.
Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear;
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
PATRIOTISM.
To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them.
It should be the work of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life of the nation to the level of its privileges; to harmonize its general practice with its abstract principles; to reduce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions; to elevate instruction into knowledge; to deepen knowledge into wisdom; to render knowledge and wisdom complete in righteousness; and to make the love of country perfect in the love of man.
That is a true sentiment which makes us feel that we do not love our country less, but more, because we have laid up in our minds the knowledge of other lands and other institutions and other races, and have had enkindled afresh within us the instinct of a common humanity, and of the universal beneficence of the Creator.
PEACE.
When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to His father; His body He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred; His clothes fell to the soldiers; His mother He left to the care of John; but what should He leave to His poor disciples that had left all for Him? Silver and gold He had none; but He left them that which was infinitely better, His peace.
In moderating, not in satisfying desires, lies peace.
You may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required,—and content that He should indeed require no more of you,—than to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.
After love comes peace. A great many people are trying to make peace. But that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do; all that we have to do is to enter into it.
If there is any thing that can render the soul calm, dissipate its scruples, and dispel its fears, sweeten its sufferings by the anointing of love, impart strength to it in all its actions, and spread abroad the joy of the Holy Spirit in its countenance and words, it is a simple, free, and child-like repose in the arms of God.
—Fenelon.
How different the peace of God from that of the world! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strengthens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God.
—Fenelon.
Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee.
There have been keen agonies, sore heart-aches, but they have been short, and a sweet peace abides. Can it be His peace? Is it possible that to such a weak, sinful creature as I, the Comforter has indeed come? I must believe this, and that it is His presence that cheers me.
—A. H. K..
Patience and resignation are the pillars
Of human peace on earth.
—Young.
The promise is: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." Now, as long as our minds are stayed on our dear selves, we shall never have peace.
The mistake we make is to look for a source of comfort in ourselves: self-contemplation, instead of gazing upon God. In other words, we look for comfort precisely where comfort never can be.
We shall never be at peace with ourselves until we yield with glad supremacy to our higher faculties.
What produced this divine serenity, subject to no moods, clouded by no depression, this perpetual Sunday of the heart? It was not merely good nature, not the accident of a happy organization. It was deeper than that. It was the perfect poise resulting from a Christian experience. It was the habit of looking to God in love and to man in love.
It is not that I feel less weak, but Thou
Wilt be my strength. It is not that I see
Less sin, but more of pardoning love in Thee,
And all-sufficient grace. Enough! And now
All fluttering thought is stilled; I only rest,
And feel that Thou art near, and know that I am blest.
I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.
And so, in calm expectation of a blessed future and a finished work which will explain the past, in honest submission of our way to God, in supreme delight in Him who is the gladness of our joy, the secret of tranquillity will be ours.
Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men; for whether they judge well of thee or ill, thou art not on that account other than thyself. Where are true peace and true glory? Are they not in God?
Two sorts of peace are more to be dreaded than all the troubles in the world—peace with sin, and peace in sin.
PENITENCE.
The law can never save us; and he is nearest to the forgiveness of the gospel who, with a contrite heart, discerns most clearly and feels most profoundly that perfection of the Divine statute which impeaches and condemns him.
Prostrate, dear Jesus, at Thy feet,
A guilty rebel lies;
And upwards, to Thy mercy-seat,
Presumes to lift his eyes.
Christian penitence is something more than a thought or an emotion or a tear; it is action.
Know what your sin is and confess it; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract.
Break my hard heart,
Jesus my Lord;
In the inmost part
Hide Thy sweet word.
PERFECTION.
There is but one true good for a spiritual being, and this is found in its perfection. Men are slow to see this truth; and yet it is the key to God's providence, and to the mysteries of life.
Those who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny the sun because it is not always noon.
—Guesses at Truth.
It is a union with a Higher Good by love, that alone is endless perfection. The only sufficient object for man must be something that adds to and perfects his nature, to which he must be united in love; somewhat higher than himself, yea, the highest of all, the Father of spirits. That alone completes a spirit and blesses it,—to love Him, the spring of spirits.
That is the true perfection of man to find out his imperfections.
PERSECUTION.
It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."
Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant.
PERSEVERANCE.
Perseverance is the master impulse of the firmest souls, the discipline of the noblest virtues, and the guaranty of acquisitions the most invigorating in their use and inestimable in their worth.
The practice of perseverance is the discipline of the noblest virtues. To run well, we must run to the end. It is not the fighting but the conquering that gives a hero his title to renown.
Invariably will you find perseverance exemplified as the radical principle in every truly great character. It facilitates, perfects, and consolidates the execution of the plan conceived, and renders profitable its results when attained. By continuing to advance steadily in the same way, light constantly increases, obstacles disappear, efficient habits are confirmed, experience is acquired, the use of the best means is reduced to easy action, and success becomes more sure.
The imperial heroes who rule over the opinions of their fellow men for good or ill, are victory-organized; they march towards the execution of their purpose, as if they were intent on the conquest of a world. With a bold front and piercing eye, they are repelled by no obstacles, and entertain not the slightest doubt as to a final triumph; days and nights, like their fortune, health, and every thing dear in existence, they consecrate to the success of their particular enterprise. As with hooks of steel, they grapple the most stubborn difficulties, and relax neither hand nor foot so long as there remains one vital energy in their will.
The character and conquest of the invincible champion are ever the same. A Lacedæmonian died while writing with his own blood on a rock—"Sparta has conquered!" But, O, there is an illustration higher and better than any derived from mere earthly annals. Jesus veiled His glory in the skies; shrouded divinity in mortality, and with godhead and humanity coalesced in His person, entered the lists with more than mortal strife against the powers of hell. He drank the bitter cup with sublimer resignation than the sages of earth ever knew; contended victoriously where finite champions must inevitably have been destroyed; fell, like the strongman, destroying His foes by His death; persevered on our behalf in all the fearful descent from the august throne of the Eternal to the stony floor of the cold and gloomy sepulchre; that Hope's sweet fountain might gush up for mankind in Golgotha, and Salvation plant her banner with immortal triumph at the portal of the conquered tomb.
PIETY.
Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.
In theory, piety is reverence and love for God; and in practice, it is the exercise of all our powers in obedience to the Divine will. Combining the theory and practice, we have the richest treasure known on earth—love for God shown in obedience to God.
In periods that are wanting in inspiration piety always assumes the character of caution. It degenerates from a free and joyful devotion to a melancholy and anxious slavery.
What you cannot lift before His pure eyes and think of Him while you enjoy, is not for you. Friendship, schemes, plans, ambitions, amusements, speculations, studies, loves, businesses—can you call on the name of the Lord while you put these cups to your lips? If not, fling them behind you,
Christian piety annihilates the egotism of the heart; worldly politeness vails and represses it.
—Pascal.
There is no piety in the world which is not the result of cultivation, and which cannot be increased by the degree of care and attention bestowed upon it.
Young men, you who have any piety at all, what sort is it? Is it a hot-house plant, which must be framed and glassed, lest March, that bold young fellow, should shake the life out of it in his rough play among the flowers? or is it a hardy shrub, which rejoices when the wild winds course along the heather or howl above the crest of Lebanon? We need, believe me, the bravery of godliness to bear true witness for our Master now.
Young men, terminate, I beseech you, in your own experience, the sad divorce which has too often existed between intellect and piety. Take your stand, unswerving, heroic, by the altar of truth; and from that altar let neither sophistry nor ridicule expel you. Let your faith rest with a child's trust, with a martyr's grip, upon the truth as it is in Jesus.
The great moral lesson which Saul's history leaves for the instruction of mankind is this: That without true piety the finest qualities of character and the highest position in society will utterly fail to make a true and noble man. If Saul's heart had been true to God, he would have been one of the grandest specimens of humanity; but, lacking this true obedience to God, he made his life an utter failure, and his character a moral wreck.
The piety that keeps the Sabbath with a great zeal of devotion, yet fails to keep its possessor honest on Monday, is not the kind that is stamped in the mint of heaven.
What smoky prayers!—one earnest petition, and then a thousand wandering thoughts! What smoky faith!—a joyful sight of the Saviour's sufficiency, and then a long season of inward complacency occasioned by that sight! Self-righteous efforts to extirpate self- righteousness, and most legal endeavors to elaborate faith! What smoky affections!—gleams of love to God, followed by long intervals of estrangement!—spurts of self-sacrifice, followed by systematic worldliness! Fits of fury against some besetting sin, followed by abject surrender to its power! Ah, brethren, if the Saviour were human, He would set His foot on this fuming profession; He would extinguish this smoking flax.
We must watch over pious impressions, and cultivate them, or they will never become vigorous and enduring.
Think of a woman by the side of a dying sister, or a sick child, or a sorrowing friend, or a broken-hearted and broken-spirited man, without a word of heaven in her mouth—without so much as the ability to whisper "Our Father," or even to point her finger hopefully towards the stars.
PITY.
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
POVERTY.
The world's proverb is, "God help the poor, for the rich can help themselves;" but to our mind, it is just the rich who have most need of Heaven's help. Dives in scarlet is worse off than Lazarus in rags, unless Divine love shall uphold him.
There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion, there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life. They enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich.
It was Lazarus faith, not his poverty, which brought him into Abraham's bosom.
—Trench.
It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man.
As no one can adventure nearer the throne of God by virtue of his rank, his wealth, or his talent, so no one is kept farther from that throne by his low condition, or by his poverty of wealth, of learning, or of intellect. The prince and the sage are not more welcome to heaven than the poor and ignorant.
Aspirations pure and high—
Strength to do and to endure—
Heir of all the Ages, I—
Lo! I am no longer poor!
POWER.
It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.
What elements of power we wield! Truth unmixed with error, flashing as God's own lightning in its brightness, resistless if properly wielded, as that living flame! O what agencies! The Holy Ghost standing and pleading with us to so work that He may help us, the very earth coming to the help of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet I am painfully impressed that we are not wielding the elements of Christian achievement nearly up to their maximum.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force.
There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence. To souls baptized in Christian nobleness the largest sphere of command is but a wider empire of obedience, calling them, not to escape from holy rule, but to its full impersonation.
PRAISE.
Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most emboldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above.
Do not fancy, as too many do, that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to Him in church once a week, and disobeying Him all the week long. He asks of thee works as well as words; and more, He asks of thee works first and words after.
Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us; so as to see our whole life in the light of God; and seeing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him.
—Manning.
PRAYER.
True prayer is an earnest soul's direct converse with its God.
A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward.
Prayer is the breath of a new-born soul, and there can be no Christian life without it.
True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then, is to desire—but to desire what God would have us desire.
—Fenelon.
A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love.
Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.
—Westminster Catechism.
Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality; men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints, and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God.
Prayer is not conquering God's reluctance, but taking hold upon God's willingness.
Prayer is the act by which man, detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny.
Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thoroughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness.
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul.
Prayer, then, does not consist in sweet feelings, nor in the charms of an excited imagination, nor in that illumination of the intellect that traces with ease the sublimest truths of God; nor even in a certain consolation in the view of God; all these things are external gifts from His hand, in the absence of which love may exist even more purely, as the soul may then attach itself immediately and solely to God, instead of to His mercies.
—Fenelon.
Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul; and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life.
The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven.
We lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often and long alone with God. No otherwise can the great central idea of God enter into a man's life, and dwell there supreme.
Any heart turned Godward feels more joy
In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised
By all the feasts of earth since its foundation.
Cease not to pray;
On Jesus as your all rely.
Would you live happy—happy die;
Take time to pray.
A good man's prayers
Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven's height,
And bring a blessing down.
Prayer moves the hand which moves the world.
Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around, when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven's dread Sovereign! O, what honor was ever conferred like this?
Our prayers are ships. We send them to no uncertain port. They are destined for the throne of grace; and while they take a cargo of supplications from us, they come back argosies laden with the riches of Divine grace.
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.
O Thou by whom we come to God—
The Life, the Truth, the Way;
The path of prayer Thyself hast trod;
Lord, teach us how to pray.
When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer.
In presenting the Divine promises at the throne of grace, we present the best of names at a bank that is solvent. Let us, when we would pray, consider well whether we have a promise for our plea.
Let faith each meek petition fill,
And waft it to the skies;
And teach our heart 'tis goodness still
That grants it or denies.
A certain joyful, though humble, confidence becomes us when we pray in the Mediator's name. It is due to Him; when we pray in His name it should be without wavering. Remember His merits, and how prevalent they must be. "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace."
Good prayers never come creeping home. I am sure I shall receive what I ask for or what I should ask.
For spiritual blessings, let our prayers be importunate, perpetual, and persevering; for temporal blessings, let them be general, short, conditional, and modest.
The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness and triumph and praise.
Be not afraid to pray—to pray is right.
Pray if thou canst with hope; but ever pray,
Though hope be weak or sick with long delay;
Pray in the darkness, if there be no light.
Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace?
Patience and perseverance are never more thoroughly Christian graces than when features of prayer.
Are we to suppose that the only being in the universe who cannot answer prayer is that One who alone has all power at His command? The weak theology that professes to believe that prayer has merely a subjective benefit is infinitely less scientific than the action of the child who confidently appeals to a Father in heaven.
Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers. God will suit His returns to our requests. Lifeless services shall have lifeless answers. When men are dull, God will be dumb.
Ah! well it is for us that God is a loving Father, who takes our very prayers and thanksgivings rather for what we mean than for what they are; just as parents smile on the trailing weeds that their ignorant little ones bring them for flowers.
Then let us earnest be,
And never faint in prayer;
He loves our importunity,
And makes our cause His care.
Expect an answer. If no answer is desired, why pray? True prayer has in it a strong element of expectancy.
How can He grant you what you do not desire to receive?
Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea or the treasures of Indian hills.
The reason why we obtain no more in prayer, is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Every prayer is a wish, but wishes are not prayers. In the heart of every prayer is a sense of need, but a sense of need is not prayer. Prayer is asking for a felt need; not asking the Universe, but God. No one can intelligently ask who does not believe that he can and may be heard. No one can perseveringly ask, who thinks that asking will bring nothing. Persons who believe that the whole influence of prayer is simply the effect of their own thoughts upon themselves, never pray. They cannot pray. The mouth may utter right words; the heart is not in them. Some prayers are not prayers, for those who say them do not really wish for the things they mention. But the difficulty with most prayers is that there is no grasp of the idea of God—there is no asking. "Ask, and ye shall receive."
—The Christian Advocate.
There is much seeking for God that does not amount to searching for Him with all the heart. There is much praying, and too little prayer. There are many petitions, but too little expectation. There is too reckless a rushing into the presence of God, and too little patient waiting to hear what He will speak. True prayer has to do directly with the infinitely high and holy God; and true prayer ever finds Him, and in finding Him gets all that Divine wisdom and love can bestow upon the seeker, consistently with God's glory and the creature's highest good
—The Christian Intelligencer.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
He that loveth little prayeth little; he that loveth much prayeth much.
O Lord, we rejoice that we are Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in pain? Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind of His wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the clay to Thy beautiful will.
Like an echo from a ruined castle, prayer is an echo from the ruined human soul of the sweet promise of God.
He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart.
—La Combe.
As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be allowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings; while our understandings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop.
"Continuing instant in prayer." The Greek is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs that never give over the game till they have got their prey.
Have you never observed how free the Lord's Prayer is of any material that can tempt to subtle self-inspection in the art of devotion? It is full of an outflowing of thought and of emotion toward great objects of desire, great necessities, and great perils.
For "we know not what we should pray for as we ought;" but love leads us on, abandons us to all the operations of grace, puts us entirely at the disposal of God's will, and thus prepares us for all His designs.
—Fenelon.
Not what we wish, but what we want,
O let Thy grace supply:
The good, unasked, in mercy grant,
The ill, though asked, deny.
There is something in every act of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and purifies the affections.
When Christ went up into a mountain apart to pray, He dismissed the multitude, to teach us that when we address ourselves to God, we must first dismiss the multitude. We must send away the multitude of worldly cares, worldly thoughts, worldly concerns and business, when we would call upon God in duty.
—Burkitt.
Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us.
I think that if we would, every evening, come to our Master's feet, and tell Him where we have been, what we have done, what we have said, and what were the motives by which we have been actuated, it would have a salutary effect upon our whole conduct.
Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.
—Fenelon.
Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.
There is no burden of the spirit but is lightened by kneeling under it. Little by little, the bitterest feelings are sweetened by the mention of them in prayer. And agony itself stops swelling, if we can only cry sincerely, "My God, my God!"
Lord! Thou art with Thy people still; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee; open their eyes that they may see Thee—see Thee weeping over them, and saying, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life"—see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"—see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen.
Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.
Prayer, with our Lord, was a refuge from the storm; almost every word He uttered during that last tremendous scene was prayer; prayer the most earnest, the most urgent, repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul, private, solitary; prayer for deliverance, prayer for strength; above every thing prayer for resignation.
By Thine agony and bloody sweat; by Thy cross and passion; by Thy precious death and burial; by Thy glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, good Lord, deliver us.
—Book of Common Prayer.
From coldness to Thy merits and death, from error and misunderstanding, from the loss of our glory in Thee, from the unhappy desire of becoming great, from self-complacency, from untimely projects, from needless perplexity, from the murmuring spirit and devices of Satan, from the influence of the spirit of this world, from hypocrisy and fanaticism, from the deceitfulness of sin—preserve us, gracious Lord!
—Moravian Litany.
We kneel, how weak; we rise, how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others—that we are not always strong,
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,
And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?
—Trench.
We shall all find, by and by, that the most natural thing in the world for all wisdom to do is to sit at the feet of Christ, and ask for that which nothing else than prayer can compass.
I have been driven many times to my knees, by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it.
Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer.
The church converteth the whole world by blood and prayer.
Happy are they who freely mingle prayer and toil till God responds to the one and rewards the other.
From the violence and rule of passion, from a servile will, and a commanding lust, from pride and vanity, from false opinion and ignorant confidence; from improvidence and prodigality, from envy and the spirit of slander; from sensuality, from presumption and from despair; from a state of temptation and a hardened spirit; from delaying of repentance and persevering in sin; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seducing others; from all infatuation of soul, folly, and madness; from willfulness, self-love, and vain ambition; from a vicious life and an unprovided death, good Lord, deliver us.
Faithful prayer always implies correlative exertion; and no man can ask honestly and hopefully to be delivered from temptation, unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.
Whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for; we are not permitted to mock Jehovah, asking that of Him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire.
Prayer was never meant to be a substitute for labor—an easy way of throwing our responsibilities upon God. The old classic story of the teamster whose cart stuck in the mud, and who fell to crying to Hercules for help instead of using effort himself, and was told by the god he invoked to put his own shoulder to the wheel, shows that even a heathen mind could see that faith was never meant to exclude works.
When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man.
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.
Every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel.
—Binney.
Not every hour, nor every day, perhaps, can generous wishes ripen into kind actions; but there is not a moment that cannot be freighted with prayer.
Ejaculations are short prayers darted up to God on emergent occasions. They are the artillery of devotion, and their principal use is against the fiery darts of the devil.
I like ejaculatory prayer; it reaches heaven before the devil can get a shot at it.
When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer.
There is nothing about which a young Christian should be more anxious than maintaining the spirit, the love, the practice of private prayer; and nothing which should more seriously alarm him than any disposition to neglect it.
There it is—in such patient silence—that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piece-meal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding.
Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man's business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon it.
If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must be superlatively so, for it prepares and fits the soul for all other supplication.
A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.
Wise is that Christian parent who begins every morning with the word of God and fervent prayer.
Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly.
Ask in simplicity. True need forgets to be formal. Its utterances fly from the heart as sparks from a blacksmith's anvil. Set phrases, long sentences, polysyllabic words, find little favor with the soul that is athirst for God and His grace. How brief are the sentences of the immortal and immutable prayer, which Christ taught His disciples! Not a long word is there. Temptation is the longest, and the majority of the words are of one syllable. Do you essay to lead others in prayer? Utter no word that any that hear you cannot understand. Express their need as well as your own. Do not go to the mercy-seat on stilts.
Lord, teach us to pray.
Blessed Jesus, I am but a lamb, and often fear I shall never be any thing better, but perish as I am. Lord, take me in the arms of Thy power and lay me on the bosom of Thy love; though I am so poor and inconsiderable a creature I will hope in Thy pastoral power and love, that I shall not only continue, but grow, and that Thou wilt one day rejoice in me as one of the flock which Thou hast purchased with Thy own blood.
Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of passages of Scripture—not always judiciously chosen or well arranged—and common-place phrases, which have been transmitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray.
Let your prayers be composed of thanksgiving, praise, confession, and petition, without any argument or exhortation addressed to those who are supposed to be praying with you. Adopt no fixed forms of expression, except such as you obtain from Scripture. Express your desire in the briefest, simplest form, without circumlocution. Hallow God's name by avoiding its unnecessary repetition. Adopt the simple devotional phrases of Scripture; but avoid the free use of its figures, and all quaint and doubtful application of its terms to foreign subjects. Pray to God and not to man.
If you are in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to keep pace with you in such unusual spirituality, and if you are not in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will be sure to weary the listeners.
In the primitive church were not prayers simple, unpremeditated, united; prayers of the well-taught apostle; prayers of the accomplished scholar; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant; prayers of the new and zealous convert; prayers which importuned and wrestled with an instant and irrepressible urgency;—were they not an essential part of that religion, which holy fire had kindled, and which daily supplications alone could fan?
God's hearing of our prayers does not depend upon sanctification, but upon Christ's intercession; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus; both our persons and our prayers are accepted in the Beloved.
Your child is falling from a window. By the action of a natural law he will be killed. But he cries out for help, "Father! father!" Hearing his call, in this his day of trouble, you rush forth and catch him in your arms. Your child is saved. Natural law would have killed him, but you interposed, and, without a miracle, saved him. And cannot the great Father of all do what an earthly parent does?
They tell us of the fixed laws of nature! but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws cannot use them for the purpose of answering His people's prayers?
There is no such thing in the long history of God's kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a child's heart finds some true answer in the heart of God.
Unanswered yet? Faith cannot be unanswered.
Her feet were firmly planted on the Rock;
Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted,
Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock.
She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer,
And cries, "It shall be done," sometime, somewhere.
Unanswered yet? Nay, do not say ungranted;
Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done.
The work began when first your prayer was uttered,
And God will finish what He has begun.
If you will keep the incense burning there,
His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere.
Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies.
I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.
Are we silent to Jesus? Think! Have you nothing to ask Him? Nothing to thank Him for? Nothing to praise Him for? Nothing to confess? Oh, poor soul, go back to Bethlehem—to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and remember at what a cost the vail before the Holies was rent in twain that thou mightest enter it.
God commands you to pray. That is your duty. Nothing can excuse you from it. Wicked heart, as you may have, God commands you to pray. God connects His promise with this command. You have no right to separate them. The promise and the command stand together.
Saviour, breathe an evening blessing
Ere repose our spirits seal;
Sin and want we come confessing;
Thou canst save, and Thou canst heal.
If I were an impenitent child of godly parents, and should die so, I would rather go into eternity facing a legion of devils than my mother's prayers.
In eternity it will be a terrible thing for many a man to meet his own prayers. Their very language will condemn him; for he knew his duty, but he did it not.
PRAYER-MEETINGS.
I look upon prayer-meetings as the most profitable exercises (excepting the public preaching) in which Christians can engage. They have a direct tendency to kill a worldly, trifling spirit, and to draw down a Divine blessing upon all our concerns, compose differences, and enkindle (at least maintain) the flames of Divine love amongst brethren.
"How do you make your prayer-meetings interesting?" The whole subject is mixed up. "Interesting" to whom? The Lord? The suppliants? The spectators? The only way is to teach men to pray; to eliminate those who preach or rhapsodize or scold or "lament" interminably, to promote general fervor among the people, and apply to the meeting the ordinary principles of common sense.
And it came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near.
A short speech with a man behind it, and with truth in it—truth that you back up by your life, that is what is needed in the prayer-meeting.
—The National Baptist.
PREACHING.
Jesus chose this method of extending the knowledge of Himself throughout the world; He taught His truth to a few men, and then He said, "Now go and tell that truth to other men."
Remember, there are only a few model preachers. We have read of only one perfect Model, and He was crucified many centuries ago.
The object of preaching is, constantly to remind mankind of what mankind are constantly forgetting; not to supply the defects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions; to recall mankind from the by-paths where they turn, into that broad path of salvation which all know, but few tread.
It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves; to be more industrious in our pulpits than in our closets; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts.
Language the most forcible proceeds from the man who is most sincere. The way to speak with power, or to write words that pierce mankind to the quick, is to speak and write honestly.
I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teachings.
His words had power because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth because they harmonized with the life he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into the precious draught.
Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself.
Always carry with you into the pulpit a sense of the immense consequences which may depend on your full and faithful presentation of the truth.
The orator is thereby an orator that he keeps his feet ever on a fact.
Settle in your mind, that no sermon is worth much in which the Lord is not the principal speaker. There may be poetry, refinement, historic truth, moral truth, pathos, and all the charms of rhetoric; but all will be lost, for the purposes of preaching, if the word of the Lord is not the staple of the discourse.
Every sermon ought to have the doctrine of Christ in it in form or in solution.
To get, then, the mind of Christ, and to declare it, is the primary end of the teaching offices of the church. The living body of sympathetic men, saturated with the truth and feeling of the Book, must bring it into contact with other men, through that marvelous organ the human voice, and with such aid as comes from the subtle sympathy that pervades assemblies of human beings.
Every sermon must have a solid rest in Scripture, and the pointedness which comes of a clear subject, and the conviction which belongs to well-thought argument, and the warmth that proceeds from earnest appeal.
Let us never forget that, to be profited, that is, to be spiritually improved in knowledge, faith, holiness, joy, and love, is the end of hearing sermons, and not merely to have our taste gratified by genius, eloquence, and oratory.
The most intelligent hearers are those who enjoy most heartily the simplest preaching. It is not they who clamor for superlatively intellectual or æsthetic sermons. Daniel Webster used to complain of some of the preaching to which he listened. "In the house of God" he wanted to meditate "upon the simple varieties, and the undoubted facts of religion;" not upon mysteries and abstractions.
Tell men that God is love; that right is right, and wrong, wrong; let them cease to admire philanthropy, and begin to love men; cease to pant for heaven, and begin to love God; then the spirit of liberty begins.
But even genuine argument for the truth is not preaching the gospel, neither is he whose unbelief is thus assailed likely to be brought thereby into any mood but one unfit for receiving it. Argument should be kept to books; preachers ought to have nothing to do with it,—at all events in the pulpit. There let them hold forth light, and let him, who will, receive it, and him who will not, forbear. God only can convince.
I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother.
—Fenelon.
The accent of conviction is made up of a mixture of faith, power, and love combined, forming a characteristic which is at once simple, pious, and grand, redolent of inspiration and sanctity.
Here are no fabulous joys and woes; no hollow, fantastic sentimentalities; no wire-drawn refinings, either in thought or feeling; the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been a light to his own steps.
Direct your arrows at objects without being personal; come near your hearers. Letters dropped into the post-office without address go to the dead-letter office, and are of no use to any body.
I preached right to their consciences, and the result was a great revival of religion came up there; and after that I never heard any thing about infidelity.
I like to go and hear Rowland Hill, because his ideas come red-hot from the heart.
The truth is, no preaching ever had any strong power that was not the preaching of doctrine. The preachers that have moved and held men have always preached doctrine. No exhortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience. Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn forever more and more; but preach it always, not that men may believe it, but that they may be saved by believing it.
To preach practical sermons as they are called, that is, sermons upon virtues and vices, without inculcating those great Scripture truths of redemption, grace, etc., which alone can incite and enable us to forsake sin and follow after righteousness, what is it but to put together the wheels, and set the hands of a watch, forgetting the spring, which is to make them all go?
Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, or writing; preach nothing down but the devil, and nothing up but Jesus Christ.
—Berridge.
The old fable tells us of a boy who mounted a scavenger's cart with base intent to throw dirt at the moon; whereat another boy, with better intentions, but scarcely less folly, came running with a basin of water to wash the moon, and make its face clean again. Certain skeptics are forever inventing new infidelities with which they endeavor to defile the fair face of the gospel, and many ministers forsake the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, to answer their endless quibbles; to both of these the ancient fable may be instructive.
If the truth were known, many sermons are prepared and preached with more regard for the sermon than the souls of the hearers.
His admired discourses remind me of the colored shavings with which we fill empty grates in the summer time.
—Lynch.
Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine.
Embellish truth only with a view to gain it the more full and free admission into your hearer's minds; and your ornaments will, in that case, be simple, masculine, natural.
—Blair.
Style should be like window-glass, perfectly transparent, and with very little sash.
—Emmons.
Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world.
The greatest thoughts are wronged, if not linked to beauty; and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arranged in this their natural and fit attire.
You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.
John Bunyan, while he had a surpassing genius, would not condescend to cull his language from the garden of flowers; but he went into the hayfield and the meadow, and plucked up his language by the roots, and spoke out in the words that the people used in their cottages.
The great bell of Moscow is too large to be hung, the question arises, what was the use of making it? Some preachers are so learned that they cannot make themselves understood, or else cannot bring their minds to preach plain, gospel sermons; here, too, the same question might be asked.
It is a great mistake to think any thing too profound or rich for a popular audience. No train of thought is too deep, or subtle, or grand—but the manner of presenting it to their untutored minds should be peculiar. It should be presented in anecdote, or sparkling truism, or telling illustration, or stinging epithet; always in some concrete form, never in a logical, abstract, syllogistic shape.
In general, rely mainly on Scriptural arguments, and prefer those that are plain and unquestionable.
—Broadus.
The text should sustain, suggest, and give tone to the sermon. The main thought of the text should usually be the main thought of the sermon. A text must not be a pretext.
Never confine yourself to the contemplation of themes. Make themes your means for reaching persons; and give the mind force by giving it concentration.
When a preacher was censured by his brethren for the bad habit of exaggeration, he assured them he had "often bitterly repented of it; it had cost him barrels of tears." For such a case there is no cure.
—The New York Observer.
Whether you do your work with notes or without them, do it courageously, earnestly, with devotion; with a glad sense of the greatness of it, and a full consecration of every force and faculty to it.
We doubt whether a man ever brings his faculties to bear with their whole force on a subject, until he writes upon it.
A leading Welsh minister—and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers—was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." "But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."
If any of you ever go into the pulpit "simply upon the cold legs of custom," be very careful to take a manuscript with you. But if you go to speak to the assembly because your mind is full of the truth, and you long to impart that truth to them, for their sake and for God's sake,—then charge your mind with it, and speak with all the force you can give it, without any notes.
I verily believe that the kingdom of God advances more on spoken words than it does on essays written and read; on words, that is, in which the present feeling and thought of the teaching mind break into natural and forceful expression.
Let the sermon thou hast heard be converted into prayer.
Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing. No conversions after the first half hour.
—Emmons.
PREJUDICE.
When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.
PRIDE.
Pride is the master sin of the devil.
Pride is not the heritage of man; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection.
There is no passion that steals into the heart more imperceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride.
—Addison.
It is with men as with wheat; the light heads are erect even in the presence of Omnipotence, but the full heads bow in reverence before Him.
We rise in glory as we sink in pride.
—Young.
Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.
—Franklin.
Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest; whereas humility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Having gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven.
Pride is the growth of blindness and darkness; humility, the product of light and knowledge; and whilst pride has its origin in a mistaken or delusive estimate of things, humility is as much the offspring of truth as the parent of virtue.
Spiritual pride is the worst of all pride, if it is not the worst snare of the devil. The heart is peculiarly deceitful on just this one thing.
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud heart as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but itself. The voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason.
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.
Sinners, remember this: It is not so much the sense of your unworthiness as your pride that keeps you from a blessed closing with the Saviour.
Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such astonishment as a proud man.
By ignorance is pride increased;
They most assume who know the least.
—John Gay.
He who thinks his place below him will certainly be below his place.
PROCRASTINATION.
God has promised forgiveness to your repentance; but He has not promised to-morrow to your procrastination.
Faith in to-morrow instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse for man's perdition.
Do you want to learn holiness with terrible struggles and sore affliction and the plague of much remaining evil? Then wait before you turn to God.
PROFANITY.
Nothing is a greater sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulance of an idle tongue.
The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.
One cause of atheism is, a custom of scoffing in holy matters, which doth by little and little deface the reverence of religion.