William Gurnall Quotes - Page 3

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death.

CEASE to PRAY and thou will BEGIN to SIN.

Praying is the same to the new creature as crying is to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but instructed by nature; it comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself.

He that loves the Word and the purity of its precepts cannot turn traitor.

He that is impatient, and cannot wait on God for a mercy, will not easily submit to Him in a denial.

As you love your peace, Christian, be plain-hearted with God and man, and keep the king's highway.

All the plots of hell and commotions on earth have not so much as shaken God's hand to spoil one letter or line he has been drawing.

Paul was Nero's prisoner, but Nero was much more God's... But how does the great apostle spend his time in prison?... We read of no dispatches sent to court to procure his liberty; but many to the churches, to help them to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free... The devil had as good have let Paul alone, for he no sooner comes into prison but he falls a preaching, at which the gates of Satan's prison fly open, and poor sinners come forth.

Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God's Word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again.

Indeed all the saints are taught the same lesson - to renounce their own strength, and rely on the power of God; their own policy, and cast themselves on the wisdom of God; their own righteousness, and expect all from the pure mercy of God in Christ, which act of faith is so pleasing to God, that such a soul shall never be ashamed.

No torment in the world is comparable to an accusing conscience.

The Christian's life should put his minister's sermon in print.

Cease to pray and thou will begin to sin. Prayer is not only a means to prevail for mercy but also to prevent sin.

Pride of gifts robs us of God's blessing in the use of them.

God is very precise in this point; he will say to such as invent ways to worship him of their own, coin means to mortify corruption, obtain comfort in their own mint: 'Who hath required this at your hands?' This is truly to be 'righteous over-much,' as Solomon speaks, when we will pretend to correct God's law, and add supplements of our own to his rule.

Humility is a necessary veil to all other graces.

The Christian must stand fixed to his principles, and not change his habit; but freely show what countryman he is by his holy constancy in the truth.

The regenerating Spirit is compared to the wind. His first attempts on the soul may be so secret that the creature knows not whence they come, or whither they tend; but, before he hath done, the sound will be heard throughout the soul.

Pray often rather than very long at a time. It is hard to be very long in prayer, and not slacken in our affections.

Therefore tremble, O man, at any power thou hast, except thou usest it for God. Art thou strong in body; who hath thy strength? God, or thy lusts?

Satan will be ready to help forward such thoughts as a fit medium to lift thee up , and slacken thy care in duty for the future. Such discoveries do indeed bear witness to the truth of thy grace, but not to the degree and measure of it. The weak child may be, yea, is, oftener in the lap than the strong.

Bid faith look through the key-hole of the promise, and tell thee what it sees there laid up for him that overcomes; bid it listen and tell thee whether it cannot hear the shout of those crowned saints, as of those that are dividing the spoil, and receiving the reward of all their services and sufferings here on earth.

Mercy should make us ashamed, wrath afraid to sin.

We need not borrow and take up sorrows upon use of the morrow, to make up our present load; as we read of daily bread, so of a daily cross, Luke ix. M, which we are bid to take, not to make.

Let thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldst thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying!