A Few Special Quotes

'The flowers smell sweetest after a shower; vines bear the better for bleeding; the walnut-tree is most fruitful when most beaten; saints spring and thrive most internally, when they are most externally afflicted. Afflictions are the mother of virtue. Manasseh's chain was more profitable to him than his crown...All the stones that came about Stephen's ears did but knock him closer to Christ, the corner-stone.' - Thomas Brooks

'Opinions will not pass for true religion on the day of judgement.' - Ralph Venning


'It is very observable that the eagle and the lion, those brave creatures, were not offered in sacrifice unto God, but the poor lamb and dove, to denote that God regards not high and lofty spirits; but meek, poor, contemptible spirits God will accept.' - Thomas Brooks


'The Spirit can take a sailor drenched in worldliness and sin, - a profligate captain of a slave ship, - and make that man a most successful minister of the gospel, - a writer of letters, which are known and sung wherever English is spoken. He has done it already. - He did it with John Newton.' - J.C. Ryle

'Others think that because they have given up their riotous ways, and are broken off from evil company or some particular lust, and are reduced to sobriety and civility, they are now real converts. They forget that there is a vast difference between being sanctified and civilized.' - Joseph Alleine

'If our hearts be established by the word of God, we may set God and his truth against all troubles that can arise from Satan, and hell, and the instruments of Satan, or our own hearts.' - Richard Sibbes

'If you have good hope, keep it always ready. Have it at your right hand, prepared for immediate use.' - J.C. Ryle

'He is not drowning His sheep when He washeth them, nor killing them when He is shearing them. But by this He showeth that they are His own; and the newborn sheep do most visibly bear His name or mark, when it is almost worn out and scarce discernible on them that have the longest fleece.' - Richard Baxter

'Set the grace of faith on work, keep it on the wing, preserve it on exercise; and faith exercised will be able to comfort the most dejected soul in the world, and to raise it above all the troubles that can be imagined or befall us.' - Richard Sibbes

'Fear not,' Joshua; 'fear not,' Moses. What was the ground of their comfort? 'I will be with thee.' He was with St Paul in all conditions, therefore he bids him, 'fear not,'. (Acts 27:24).' - Richard Sibbes

'It is only when we are utterly desperate, and feel quite hopeless, that we look to Him and realize our need of the strengthening of the Spirit in the inner man, and pray for it as we have never prayed before.' D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones