William Gurnall (1617 - 1679) was an English divine and the author of the famous, The Christian In Complete Armour. He was a thorough Puritan in doctrine and ministered to his congregation at Lavenham for thirty-five years. Little is known about Gurnall other than through his book, which is unquestionably one of the greatest mines of spiritual treasure in all of Christendom.In that vein, The Christian In Complete Armour is similar in scope and nature to John Bunyan's Holy War, except this masterpiece is expository rather than fiction. However, it is perhaps William Gurnall's own description of his book in his Epistles Dedicatory that is most apropos, and that cuts most closely to the heart of his message - "The subject of the treatise is solemn, a war between the saint and Satan, and that so bloody a one, that the cruellest which ever was fought by men, will be found but sport and child's play to this. Alas, what is the killing of bodies to the destroying of souls? It is a sad meditation indeed, to think how many thousands have been sent to the grave in a few late years among us by the sword of man, but far more astonishing, to consider how many of those may be sent to hell by the sword of God's wrath. It is a spiritual war you shall read of, and that not a history of what was fought many ages past and is now over; but of what now is doing, the tragedy is at present acting, and that not at the furthest end of the world, but what concerns thee and every one that reads it. The stage whereon this war is fought, is every man's soul. Here is no neuter in this war. The whole world is engaged in the quarrel, either for God against Satan, or for Satan against God."Charles Spurgeon made this striking remark about Gurnall's great magnum opus - "The Christian In Complete Armour is beyond all others a preacher's book: I should think that more discourses have been suggested by it than by any other uninspired volume. I have often resorted to it when my own fire has been burning low, and I have seldom failed to find a glowing coal upon Gurnall's hearth. John Newton said that if he might read only one book beside the Bible, he would choose The Christian in Complete Armour, and Cecil was of much the same opinion. J. C. Ryle has said of it, you will often find in a line and a half some great truth, put so concisely, and yet so fully, that you really marvel how so much thought could be got into so few words."Quoted by a host of preachers and expositors since its publication in the mid 17th century, The Christian In Complete Armour is truly a classic. It is published in both hardcover and softcover by The Banner Of Truth Trust. |
"The drum beats in the gospel for volunteers. O the Lord make you willing in the day of his power." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"It is an incomparable mercy that you are yet where you may choose your side: it will not be ever so... The piece is charged, and aim taken at thy breast, which will be eternal death if thou persistest. God's threatenings will go off at the last, and then where art thou? The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"Send faith oft up the hill of promise, to see and bring you the certain news of Christ's coming to you, yea, and assured victory with him... yet rejoice with trembling as those who are still in your enemy's country, and must keep by the sword what you get by the sword." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"Get but once your hearts mortified to the world, and care rolled upon God, for name, estate, and relations here, and then you are fit to march wherever Christ will lead you... And now, my Christian friends, march on, not in the confidence of your armour, but in the power of his might, who hath promised shortly to subdue Satan under your feet." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"Borrow as much time as you can for communion with God, and communing with your own hearts in secret." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"Value yourselves by your inheritance in the other world, and not by your honour and riches in this." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"You will find, honoured friends, that religion is a serious business, and will require your wisest thoughts and best care to manage it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"No sooner does any dare to own religion in the power of it, but fanatic is writ on his back, and a fool's-cap is set upon his head; which makes many turn Nicodemites in this scornful age." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Epistles Dedicatory |
"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." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Introduction |
"It requires more prowess and greatness of spirit to obey God faithfully, than to command any army of men; to be a Christian than a captain." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Indeed if you call that prayer, which a carnal person performs, nothing is more poor and dastard-like." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The Christian in prayer comes up close to God, with a humble boldness of faith, and takes hold of him, wrestles with him; yea, will not let him go without a blessing... They are only a few noble-spirited souls, who dare take heaven by force, that are fit for this calling." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The Christian is to proclaim and prosecute an irreconcilable war against his bosom sins; those sins which have lain nearest his heart, must now be trampled under his feet." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Reprieved lusts but at last obtain their full pardon; yea, recover their favour with the soul." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"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 Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The Christian that hath so great opposition had need be well locked into the saddle of his profession, or else he will be soon dismounted." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The believer is to persevere in his Christian course to the end of his life: his work and his life must go off the stage together." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The sweet bait of religion hath drawn many to nibble at it, who are offended with the hard service it calls to." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Say not thou hast royal blood running in thy veins, and art begotten of God, except thou canst prove thy pedigree by this heroic spirit, to dare to be holy in spite of men and devils." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"In a word, Christians, God and angels are spectators, observing how you quit yourselves like children of the Most High; every exploit your faith doth against sin and Satan causeth a shout in heaven; while you valiantly prostrate this temptation, scale that difficulty, regain the other ground you even now lost out of your enemies' hands. Your dear Saviour, who stands by with a reserve for your relief at a pinch, his very heart leaps within him for joy to see the proof of your love to him and zeal for him in all your combats; and will not forget all the faithful service you have done in his wars on earth; but when thou comest out of the field, will receive thee with the like joy as he was entertained himself at his return to heaven of his Father." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"In the army of saints, the strength of every saint, yea, of the whole host of saints, lies in the Lord of hosts. God can overcome his enemies without their hands, but they cannot so much as defend themselves without his arm." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Some propound a question, whether there be a sin committed in the world in which Satan hath a part? But if the question were, whether there be any holy action performed without the special assistance of God concurring, that is resolved - Without me ye can do nothing - God is at the bottom of the ladder, and at the top also, the Author and Finisher, yea, helping and lifting the soul at every round, in his ascent to any holy action." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The Christian, when fullest of divine communications, is but a glass without a foot, he cannot stand, or hold what he hath received, any longer than God holds him in his strong hand." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The soul's strength to hear the Word is from God. He opens the heart to attend, yea, he opens the understanding of the saint to receive the Word... He sits in heaven that teacheth hearts. When God's Spirit, who is the headmaster, shall call a soul from his usher to himself - presently the eyes of his understanding open, and his heart burns within him while he speaks to him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God brings his grace into the heart by conquest... The Christian hath an unregenerate part, that is discontented at this new change in the heart, and disdains as much to come under the sweet government of Christ's sceptre, as the Sodomites that Lot should judge them... And Satan heads this mutinous rout against the Christian, so that if God should not continually reinforce this his new planted colony in the heart, the very natives (I mean corruptions) that are left, would come out of their dens and holes where they lie lurking, and eat up the little grace the holiest on earth hath; it would be as bread to these devourers." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God knows we are but leaking vessels, when fullest we could not hold it long... Thus we have our leakage supplied continually. This was the provision God made for Israel in the wilderness. He clave the rock, and the rock followed them. They had not only a draught at present, but it ran in a stream after them, so that you hear no more of their complaints for water. This rock was Christ." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Had God given his saints a stock of grace to have set up with and left them to the improvement of it, he had been magnified indeed, because it was more than God did owe the creature; but he had not been omnified as now, when not only the Christian's first strength to close with Christ is from God, but he is beholden still to God, for the exercise of that strength, in every action of his Christian course." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The glory of the work shall not be crumbled and piece-mealed out, some to God and some to the creature, but all entirely paid in to God, and He acknowledged all in all." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"The state of unregeneracy is a state of impotency... The Spirit finds sinners in as helpless a condition, as unable to repent, or believe on Christ for salvation, as they were of themselves to purchase it. Confounded therefore for ever be the language of those sons of pride, who cry up the power of nature, as if man with his own brick and slime of natural abilities were able to rear up such a building, whose top may reach heaven itself... God himself hath scattered such Babel-builders in the imagination of their hearts, who raiseth this spiritual temple in the souls of men... And therefore, if any yet in their natural estate would become wise to salvation, let them first become fools in their own eyes, and renounce their carnal wisdom, which perceives not the things of God, and beg wisdom of God, who giveth and upbraideth not. If any man would have strength to believe, let them become weak, and die to their own." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Creator is a name of almighty power." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"Now man may be called wise, merciful, mighty: God only, ALL-wise, ALL-merciful, ALL-mighty; so that when we leave out this syllable ALL, we nickname God, and call him by his creature's name, which he will not answer to." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God loves his children should believe his word, not dispute his power." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"It is the saints' duty, and should be their care, not only to believe God Almighty, but also strongly to believe that this almighty power of God is theirs, that is, engaged for their defence and help, so as to make use of it in all straits and temptations." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"He that hath God's heart cannot want his arm... Now the believing soul is an object of God's choicest love, even the same with which he loves his Son. God loves the believer as the birth of his everlasting counsel." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"And how must God needs love that creature whom he carried so long in the womb of his eternal purpose? This goodly fabric of heaven and earth had not been built, but as a stage whereon he would in time act what he decreed in heaven of old, concerning the saving of thee, and a few more of his elect. And therefore according to the same rate of delight, with which God pleased and entertained himself in the thoughts of this before the world was, must he needs rejoice over the soul now believing, with love and complacency inconceivable; and God having brought his counsel thus far towards its issue, surely will raise all the power he hath, rather than be disappointed of his glory within a few steps of home; I mean, his whole design in the believer's salvation." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God loves his saints as the purchase of his Son's blood... He that was willing to expend his Son's blood to gain them, will not deny his power to keep them." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God doth not parcel himself out by retail, but gives his saints leave to challenge whatever a God hath, as theirs; and let him, whoever he is, sit in God's throne and take away his crown, that can fasten any untruth on the Holy One; as his name is, so is his nature - a God keeping covenant for ever." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"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." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God hath his set number which he provides for. He knows how many he hath in his family: these and no more shall sit down." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"What greater tie than an oath? God himself is under an oath to be the destruction of every impenitent soul. That oath which God sware in his wrath against the unbelieving Israelites, that they should not enter into his rest, concerns every unbeliever to the end of the world... What then are their pillows stuffed with, who can sleep so soundly without any horror or amazement, though they be told that the Almighty God is under an oath of damning them, body and soul, without timely repentance?" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"One ALMIGHTY is more than many MIGHTIES." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"In a word, Christian, rely upon thy God, and make thy daily applications to the throne of grace for continual supplies of strength; you little think how kindly he takes it, that you will make use of him, the oftener the better, and the more you come for, the more welcome... Such a bountiful heart thy God hath, while thou art asking a little peace and joy, he bids thee open thy mouth wide and he will fill it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part First |
"God hath his hedge of special providence about his saints, and the devil, though his spite be most at them, dares not come upon God's ground to touch any of them, without particular leave." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"As the eye of the body once put out, can never be restored by the creature's art, so neither can the spiritual eye lost by Adam's sin be restored by the teaching of men or angels. It is one of the diseases which Christ came to cure." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"There is a light of reason, which is imparted to every man by nature, but this light is darkness compared with the saint's... This night-light of reason may save a person from some ditch or pond - great and broad sins - but it will never help him to escape the more secret corruptions, which the saint sees like atoms in the beams of spiritual knowledge." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"The Christless state is a state of [spiritual] impotency." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Satan's victories are of poor and ignorant graceless souls, who have neither arms, nor hands, nor hearts to oppose. But when he assaults a saint, then he sits down before a city with gates and bars, and ever riseth with shame, unable to take the weakest hold, to pluck the weakest saint out of Christ's hands; but Christ brings souls out of Satan's dominion with a high hand, in spite of all the force and fury of hell, which like Pharaoh and his host pursue them." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Consider your deplored estate, who are wholly naked and unarmed. Can you pity the beggar at your door when you see such in a winter day, shivering with naked backs, exposed to the fury of the cold, and not pity your own far more dismal soul-nakedness, by which thou liest open to heaven's wrath and hell's malice?... Do not lightly believe your own flattering hearts... I am afraid many a gaudy professor will be found as naked in regard of Christ, and truth of grace, as drunkards and swearers themselves. Such there are, who content themselves with a Christ in profession, in gifts, and in duties, but seek not a Christ in solid grace, and so perish." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"We must not confide in the armour of God, but in the God of this armour, because all our weapons are only mighty through God." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Many souls, we may safely say, do not only perish praying, repenting, and believing after a sort, but they perish by their praying and repenting, while they carnally trust in these." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Didst thou remember who commands, thou wouldst not question what the command is." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"None will have such a sad parting from Christ as those who went half-way with him and then left him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Be exhorted then to look narrowly whether the armour ye wear be the workmanship of God or no... David would not fight in armour he had not tried, though it was a king's... Bring thy heart to the Word, as the only touch-stone of thy grace and furniture; the Word, I sold you, is the tower of David, from whence thy armour must be fetched; if thou canst find this tower-stamp on it, then it is of God, else, not." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"Art thou going to give an alms? It if be not oculata charitas, if charity hath not this eye of knowledge to direct when, how, what, and to whom thou art to give, thou mayest at once wrong God, the person thou relievest, and thyself." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"If thou dost worship God, and that devoutly, but not by Scripture rule, thou art but an idolater. If according to the rule, but not in spirit and truth, then thou art an hypocrite, and so fallest into the devil's mouth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"It is greater mercy to give the first grace of conversion, than to crown that with glory. It is more grace and condescension in a prince to marry a poor damsel, than having married her, to clothe her like a princess; he was free to do the first or not, but his relation to her pleads strongly for the other. God might have chosen whether he would have given thee grace or no, but having done this, thy relation to him, and his covenant also, do oblige him to add more and more, till he hath fitted thee as a bride for himself in glory." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"In heaven we shall appear, not in armour, but in robes of glory. But here these are to be worn night and day; we must walk, work, and sleep in them, or else we are not true soldiers of Christ." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"We should walk in the constant exercise of our duties and graces. Where the soldier is placed, there he stands, and must neither stir nor sleep till he be brought off. When Christ comes, that soul only shall have his blessing whom he finds so doing." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"He that commended the preacher for making a learned discourse of zeal, will rail on a saint expressing an act of zeal in his place and calling; now grace comes too near him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"The world is near its port, and therefore God hath contracted the souls of man's life; but a while, and there will not be a point to choose whether we had wives or not, riches or not; but there will be a vast difference between those that had grace and those that had not; yea, between those that did drive a quick trade in the exercise thereof, and those that were more remiss. The one shall have an abundant entrance into glory, while the other shall suffer loss in much of his lading, which shall be cast overboard, as merchandise that will bear no price in that heavenly country." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - First General Part |
"As Christ hath the tongue of the learned, to speak a word in season of counsel and comfort, to a doubting and dropping soul, so Satan shows his black art, and hellish skill, in speaking words of seduction and temptation in season; and a word in season is a word on its wheels." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Parley not with that in thy thoughts, which thou meanest not to let into thy heart." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"O what need have we to study the Scriptures, our hearts, and Satan's wiles, that we may not bid this enemy welcome, and all the while think it is Christ that is our guest!" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Many have yielded to go a mile with Satan, that never intended to go two; but when once on the way, they have been allured farther and farther, till at last they know not how to leave his company... O Christians, give not place to Satan, no, not an inch, in his first motions. He that is a beggar and a modest one without doors, will command the house if let in. Yield at first, and thou givest away thy strength to resist him in the rest; when the hem is worn, the whole garment will ravel out, if it be not mended by timely repentance." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Satan considers who can do his work to his greatest advantage. And in this he is unlike God, who is not at all choice in his instruments, because he needs none, and is able to do as well with one as another; but Satan's power being finite, he must patch up the defect of the lion's skin with the fox's." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Arius himself, and other dangerous instruments of Satan, were too wise to stuff their discourses with nothing but heterodox matter. Precious truths dropped from them, with which they sprinkled their corrupt principles, yet with such art as should not easily be discerned... You do not make your bread all of leaven, for none would then eat it, but crumble a little into a whole batch, which sours all... Leaven is very like the dough, of the same grain with it, only differing in age and sourness. Thus Christ intimates the resemblance of the Pharisees' errors to the truth, scraped, as it were, out of the Scriptures, but soured with their own false glosses. This indeed makes it easy for Christ's sheep to be infected with the scab of error, because that weed which breeds the rot is so like the grass that nourisheth them." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"The heart of man loves a life to shape a religion according to his own humour, and is easy to believe that to be a truth which favours its own inclination." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Another lust that Satan cockers is pride... and this hath spawned another fry of dangerous errors - the Pelagian and Semi-pelagian, which set nature upon its legs, and persuade man he got alone to Christ, or at least with a little external help, of a hand to lead, or argument to excite, without any creating work in the soul... The faithful servants of Christ tell sinners from the Word, that man in his natural state is corrupt and rotten, that nothing of the old frame will serve, and there must needs be all new; but in comes an Arminian, and blows up the sinner's pride, and tells him he is not so weak or wicked as the other represents him, that if thou WILT, thou mayest repent and believe; or, at least, by exerting thy natural abilities, oblige God to superadd what thou hast not. This is the workman that Satan uses to please proud man best." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"God taught man to make coats to cover his naked body, but the devil learnt him to weave these coverings to hide the nakedness of his soul... Thy covering is too short to hide thee from God's eye, and what God sees, if thou dost not put thyself to shame, he will tell all the world hereafter, however thou escapest in this life." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Heaven overlooks hell. God at any time can tell thee what plots are hatching there against thee... Improve thy interest in Christ, who knows what his Father knows, and is ready to reveal all that concerns thee to thee... Through Christ's hands passes all that is transacted in heaven and hell." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"As a general walks about the city, and views it well, and then raiseth his batteries where he hath the greatest advantage, so doth Satan compass and consider the Christian in every part before he tempts." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Be careful to read the Word of God with observation. In it thou hast the history of the most remarkable battles that have been fought by the most eminent worthies in Christ's army of saints with this great warrior Satan. Here thou mayest see how Satan hath foiled them, and how they have recovered their lost ground. Here you have his cabinet counsels opened. There is not a lust which you are in danger of, but you have it descried; not a temptation which the Word doth not arm you against." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Satan hath, as the serpent, a way by himself." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Well, soul, for thy comfort know, if ever the Spirit of God hath begun a sanctifying or comforting work, causing thee to hope in his mercy, he never is, will, or can be the messenger to bring contrary news to thy soul; his language is not yea and nay, but yea and amen for ever." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"When you hear one commend another for a wise or good man, and at last come in with a BUT that dasheth all, you will easily think he is no friend to the man, but some sly enemy that by seeming to commend, desires to disgrace the more. Thus when you find God represented to you as merciful and gracious, but not to such a great sinner as you; to have power and strength, but not able to save thee, you may say - Avaunt, Satan, thy speech bewrayeth thee." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"It is true, Christian, the debt thou owest to God must be paid in good and lawful money, but, for thy comfort, here Christ is thy paymaster. Send Satan to him, bid him bring his charge against Christ, who is ready at God's right hand to clear his accounts, and show his discharge for the whole debt." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Thou mayest know thou art elect as surely by a work of grace in thee as if thou hadst stood by God's elbow when he writ they name in the book of life." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Every event is the product of God's providence; not a sparrow, much less a saint, falls to the ground by poverty, sickness, persecution, but the hand of God is in it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"When Satan tempts a saint, he is but God's messenger." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"The devil and his whole council are but fools to God." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"What weaker than a sermon? Who sillier than the saints in the account of the wise world?... And truly God chooseth on purpose to defeat the policies of hell and earth by these, that he may put such to greater shame." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"God sits laughing while hell and earth sit plotting." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"But how doth God defeat Satan, and outwit his wiles in tempting his saints? This God doth by accomplishing his own gracious ends for the good and comfort of his people out of those temptations from which Satan designs their ruin. This is the noblest kind of conquest, to beat back the devil's weapon to the wounding of his own head, yea, to cut it off with the devil's own sword. Thus God sets the devil to catch the devil, and lays, as it were, his own counsels under Satan's wings, and makes him hatch them." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"God, who is the saint's true friend, sits in the devil's council, and overrules proceedings there to the saint's advantage. He suffers the devil to annoy the Christian with temptations... God useth these temptations for the advancing of the whole work of grace in the heart. One spot occasions the whole garment to be washed. David overcome with one sin, renews his repentance for all... This indeed differenceth a sincere heart from a hypocrite, whose repentance is partial, soft in one plot, and hard in another. Judas cries out of his treason, but not a word of his thievery and hypocrisy. The hole was no wider in his conscience than where the bullet went in; whereas true sorrow for one, breaks the heart into shivers for others also." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"Next to Christ's dying love, none greater than his succouring love in temptation... This affords a reason why God suffers his dear children to fall into temptation, because he is able to outshoot Satan in his own bow... God will not only be admired by his saints in glory for his love in their salvation, but for his wisdom in the way to it... On purpose therefore doth God suffer such temptations to intervene, that his wisdom may be the more admired in leading his saints that way to glory, by which Satan thought to have brought them to hell... The history of these wars, Christian, will be pleasant to read in heaven, though bloody to fight on earth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"I confess Satan seems to get ground daily; he hath strangely wriggled into the bosoms and principles of many, who, by the fame of their profession and zeal, had obtained, in the opinion of others, to be reckoned among the chief of Christ's worthies in their generation. He hath sadly corrupted the truths of Christ... but be still, poor heart, and know that the contest is not between the church and Satan, but between Christ and Satan." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction I - Second General Part |
"The Christian's life is a continual wrestling... No duty can be performed without wrestling. The Christian needs his sword as much as his trowel." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"When the Word, which God's ministers bring in his name, is rejected, the faithful counsels they give are thrown at sinner's heels and made light of; then do they strive with the Spirit, and wrestle against Christ as really as if he visibly in his own person had been in the pulpit and preached the same sermon to them. When God comes to reckon with sinners, it will prove so... then they shall know they had a prophet among them... they shall know what he was, and what he said, though a thousand years past, as fresh as if it were done but last night... Every threatening which your faithful ministers have denounced against you out of the Word, God is bound to make good." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Take heed therefore, sinners, how you use the Spirit when he comes knocking at the door of your hearts. Open at his knock, and he will be your guest; you shall have his sweet company. Repulse him, and you have not a promise he will knock again. And if once he leave striving with thee, unhappy man, thou art lost for ever." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Love cannot think any evil of God, nor endure to hear any speak evil of him... When afflicted, love can allow thee to groan, but not to grumble." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part` |
"Providence has a voice, if we had an ear. Mercies should draw, afflictions drive. Now when neither fair means nor foul do us good, but we are impenitent under both; this is to wrestle against God with both hands." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Sometimes mercy, especially these outward mercies, which have a pleasing relish to the carnal part in a Christian, hath proved a snare to the best of men, but then affliction useth to recover them... If God say he will afflict thee no more, it is even the worst he can say... if he means thee mercy, thou shalt hear from him in some sharper affliction than ever." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Seeing your life is a continual wrestling here on earth... look thou goest not into the field without thy second. My meaning is, engage God by prayer to stand at thy back. God is in a league offensive and defensive with thee, but he looks to be called... Engage God and the back-door is shut, no enemy can come behind thee, yea, thine enemy shall fall before thee. God turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness, saith David. Heaven saith amen to his prayer, and the wretch hangs himself." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Bathe thy soul with the frequent meditation of Christ's love." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"When one is made a Christian, he is not presently called to triumph over slain enemies, but carried into the field to meet and fight them. The state of grace is the commencing of a war against sin, not the ending of it... This struggling within thee, if upon the right ground, and to the right end, doth evidence there are two nations within thee, two contrary natures, the one from the earth, earthly, and the other from heaven, heavenly; yea, for thy further comfort, know though thy corrupt nature be the elder, yet it shall serve the younger." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - First General Part |
"Whoever thou art, thou art base-born till born again; the same blood runs in thy veins with the beggar in the street... we come in and go out of the world alike; as one is not made of finer earth, so not resolved into purer dust." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"If man's wrath finds thee in God's way, and his fury take fire at thy holiness, thou needest not fear, though thy life be the prey he hunts for. Flesh can only wound flesh; he may kill thee, but not hurt thee." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Flesh only fears flesh; when the soul degenerates into carnal desires and delights, no wonder he falls into carnal fears... God counts himself reproached when his children fear a sorry man." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Men and devils are but God's apothecaries, they make not our physic, but give what God prescribes... In a saint's cup the poison of the affliction is corrected, not so in the wicked's; and therefore what is medicine to the one is ruin to the other." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The saint's nature and life are antipodes to the world; fire and water, heaven and hell, may as soon be reconciled as they with it. The heretic is his enemy for truth's sake; the profane for holiness'; to both the Christian is an abomination, as the Israelite to the Egyptian." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"O ye saints, when reproached and persecuted, look farther than man, spend not your wrath upon him. Alas! they are but instruments in the devil's hand. Save your displeasure for Satan, who is thy chief enemy. These may be won to Christ's side, and so become thy friends at last." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Few kings are enthroned in the hearts of their subjects... but Satan hath the heart of all his subjects... Satan gives law to the poor sinner, who is bound and must obey, though the law be writ with his own blood, and the creature hath nothing but damnation for fulfilling the devil's lust... indeed, he doth not so much share with the sinner in all, but is owner of all he hath; so that the devil is the merchant, and the sinner but the broker to trade for him, who at last puts all his gains into the devil's purse. Time, strength, parts, yea, conscience and all, is spent to keep Satan in his throne." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan may lay claim to his principality by election. It is true he came in by a wile, but now he is a prince elect, by the unanimous voice of corrupt nature." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan is a king given in God's wrath... why doth God permit this apostate creature to exercise such a principality over the world? As a righteous act of vengeance on man, for revolting from the sweet government of his rightful Lord and Maker... The devil is God's slave, and man the devil's." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Had not Satan taken God's elect prisoners, they would not have gone to heaven with such exclamations of triumph... Had Christ come and entered into affinity with our nature, and returned peaceably to heaven with his spouse, finding no resistance, though that would have been admirable love, and would have afforded the joy of marriage, yet this way of carrying his saints to heaven will greaten the joy, as it adds to the nuptial song the triumph of a conqueror, who hath rescued his bride out of the hands of Satan, even as he was leading her to the chambers of hell." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"There are only a few privileged who are translated into the kingdom of God's dear son." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"His subject thou art whom thou crownest with they heart, and not whom thou flatterest with thy lips." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Know that thou belongest to one of these, and but to one -- Christ and Satan divide the whole world. Christ will bear no equal, and Satan no superior; and therefore, hold in with both thou canst not." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Now if thou sayest that Christ is thy prince, answer to these interrogatories... Satan had once the quiet possession of thy heart; thou was by birth, as the rest of thy neighbors, Satan's vassal; yea, hast oft vouched him in the course of thy life to be thy liege lord -- how then comes this great change? Satan surely would not of his own accord resign his crown and sceptre to Christ; and for thyself, thou wert neither willing to renounce, nor able to resist, his power... Speak therefore: hath Christ come to thee, as once Abraham to Lot, when prisoner to Chederlaomer, rescuing thee out of Satan's hands, as he was leading thee in chains of lust to hell?... Did ever Christ come to thee, as the angel to Peter in prison, rousing thee up, and not only causing the chains of darkness and stupidity to fall off thy mind and conscience, but make thee obedient also, that the iron gate of thy will hath opened to Christ before he left thee?... If in all this I be a barbarian, and the language I speak be strange, thou knowest no such work to have passed upon thy spirit, and thou art yet in the old prison." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"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." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"He is not a good subject, that is all for what he can get of his prince, but never thinks what service he may do for him; nor he a true Christian, whose thoughts dwell more on his own happiness than on the honour of his God." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Thou has thy prince's sword put into thy hand. Be sure thou use it, and take heed how thou usest it, that when called to deliver it up, and thy account also, it may not be found rusty in the sheath through sloth and cowardice." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The devil lost, indeed, by his fall, much of his power in relation to that holy and happy estate in which he was created, but not his natural abilities; he is an angel still, and hath an angel's power." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan, for all this his power, is a cursed spirit, the most miserable of all God's creatures, and the more because he hath so much power to do mischief. Had the devil lost all his angelical abilities when he fell, he had gained by his loss. Therefore tremble, O man, at any power thou hast, except thou usest it for God." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"No greater plague can befall a man than power without grace." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Close with Christ, and thou art delivered from one of thy enemies, and him the most formidable -- God, I mean; yea, he is become thy friend, who will stick close to thee in thy conflict against the others." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"It may be Satan buffeting, or man persecuting, but it is God who gives them both power... O Christian, look not on the jailor that whips thee; may be he is cruel, but read the warrant, see who wrote that, and at the bottom thou shalt find thy Father's hand." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan's power is limited, and that two ways -- he cannot do what he will, and he shall not do what he can." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan's power is so limited that he shall not do what he can. God lets out so much of his wrath as shall praise him, and be as a stream to set his purpose of love to his saints on work, and then lets down the flood-gate by restraining the residue thereof. God ever takes him off before he can finish his work on a saint." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"When Satan finds the good man asleep, then he finds our good God awake; therefore thou art not consumed, because he changeth not." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"All things are yours who are Christ's. He that hath given life to be yours, hath given death also. He that hath given heaven for your inheritance -- Paul and Cephas, his ministers and ordinances to help you thither -- hath given the world with all the afflictions of it, yea, the prince of it too, with all his wrath and power, in order to the same end. This, indeed, is love and wisdom in a riddle, but you who have the Spirit of Christ can unfold it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Heaven fears no devil, and therefore its gates stand always open." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"God's laws are writ, not with his subject's blood, as Satan's are, but with his own." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Let sinners know: it is not the grave can hold them, when the day of assize comes, and the Judge calls for the prisoners to the bar. The grave was never intended to be a sanctuary to defend sinners from the hand of justice, but a close prison to secure them against the day of trial, that they may be forthcoming. Then sinners shall be digged out of their burrows, and dragged out of their holes, to answer their contempt of Christ and his grace. O how will you be astonished to see him become your judge, whom you now refuse to be your king? to hear that gospel witness against you for your damnation, which at the same time shall acquit others for their salvation! What think you to do, sinners, in that day? Wilt thou cry and scream for mercy at Christ's hands? Alas, when the sentence is passed, thy face will immediately be covered; condemned prisoners are not allowed to speak: tears then are unprofitable, when no place left for repentance, either in Christ's heart or thine own." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan hath his daubing preachers, still like Job's messengers, the last the worst, who, with their soul-flattering, or rather murdering doctrine, shall go about to heal his wound SLIGHTLY." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Resolve that if thy children should hang about thy knees to keep thee from Christ, thou wilt throw them away; if thy father and mother should lie prostrate at thy foot, rather than not go to Christ, to go over their very backs to him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Christ will be king or no king. Not a hoof must be left behind, or anything which may make an errand for thee afterwards to return. Take therefore thy everlasting farewell of every sin, as to the sincere and fixed purpose of thy heart, or thou dost nothing." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Consider, you who are parents, that by not instructing your children, you entitle yourselves to all the sins they shall commit to their death. We may sin by a proxy, and make another's fact our own." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"If thou die in thy sins, thou shalt rise in thy sins... O sinners, you shall see at last, God can better be without your company in heaven, than you could be without his knowledge on earth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Aches and diseases of old age are grievous, but damned souls would thank God if he would bless them with such a heaven as to lie in these pains, to escape the torments of hell." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Why so few saved? Because so few have saving knowledge... The Master himself is so humble and lowly that he will not teach a proud scholar. Therefore first become a fool in thine own eye." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"He is the best student in divinity that studies most upon his knees." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The Word of God is called a light unto our feet, not to our tongues, merely to talk of, but to our feet to walk by." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Too many are, as Tertullian saith in another case, more tender of their reputation than their salvation: who are more ashamed to be thought ignorant, than careful to have it cured." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Were the truths of God precious to thee, thou wouldst with David think of them day and night." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Meditation to the sermon is what the harrow is to the seed: it covers those truths which else might have been picked or washed away." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The heavens are not lift higher from the earth, than angels, by knowledge, from man while on earth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"These apostate angels are the inventors of sin... and this is a dreadful aggravation, because they sinned without a tempter." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"To the end of the world every age will exceed other in the degrees of sinning. Ishmael and the mockers of the world were but children and bunglers to the scoffers and cruel mockers of the last time." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"To tempt another is worse than to sin thyself... when thou art asleep in thy grave, he whom thou seducedst may have drawn in others, and thy name may be quoted to commend the opinion and practice to others; by which, as it is said, though in another sense, Abel being dead yet speaketh. Thou mayest, though dead, sin in those that are alive, generation after generation." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Seest thou the monstrous pitch and height of wickedness that is in the devil? All this there is in the heart of every man. There is no less wickedness potentially in the tamest sinner on earth, than in the devils themselves." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"None but Christ can give thee a new heart, till which, thou wilt every day grow worse and worse. Sin is an hereditary disease that increaseth with age. A young sinner will be an old devil." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"That thou didst not act such outrageous sins, thou art beholden to God's gracious surprise, and not to the goodness of thy nature, which hath the devil's stamp on it, for which God might have crushed thee, as we do the brood of serpents before they sting, knowing what they will do in time." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Christian, heart sins are sins as well as any... Uncleanness, covetousness, murder are such in the heart as well as in the outward act; every point of hell, is hell." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The widow's two mites surpassed all the rest, Christ himself being judge; so in sin, though the internal acts of sin, in thoughts and affections, seem light upon man's balance, if compared with outward acts, yet these may be so circumstantiated that they may exceed the other in God's account." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Inward lusts of the heart have nothing but the conscience of a Deity to quell them. Other sins put the sinner to shame before men... Thus the proud man is staked down oft to a short state, and cannot ruffle it in the world, and appear to others in that pomp he would; but within his own bosom he can set up a stage, and in his own foolish heart present himself as great a prince as he pleaseth. The malicious can kill, in his desires, as many in a few minutes, as the angel smote in a night of Sennacherib's host." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Be earnest with God in prayer to move and order thy heart in its thoughts and desires." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Often reflect upon thyself in a day, and observe what company is with thy heart... Much of the misrule in our bosoms ariseth from the neglect of visiting our hearts." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"The bee will not sit on a flower where no honey can be sucked; neither should the Christian." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"To pray when we should hear, or be musing on the sermon when we should pray, is to rob God one way so as to pay him another." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"There is hardly a fleshly lust but hath some spiritual sin analogous to it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"When God wills, he can make more such worlds as this is, but he cannot make another truth, and therefore he will not lose one iota thereof." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Satan labours to corrupt the mind with erroneous principles... He doth this in despite to God, against whom he cannot vent his malice at a higher rate, than by corrupting God's truth... the Word is the glass in which we see God, and seeing him, are changed into his likeness by his Spirit. If this glass be cracked, then our conceptions we have of God will misrepresent him unto us, whereas the Word in its native clearness sets him out in all his glory unto our eye." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by unction." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Of all devils, none so bad as the professing devil, the preaching, praying devil." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"A gracious heart pursues earthly things with a holy indifferency, saving the violence and zeal of his spirit for the things of heaven." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"What wouldst thou choose, if thou couldst not keep both -- a whole skin or a sound conscience?" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"There is but one heaven; miss that, and where can you take up your lodging but in hell?" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"It is more necessary to be saved, than to be; better not to be, than to have a being in hell." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Some would have heaven, but if God save them, he must save their sins also, for they do not mean to part with them; and how heaven can hold God and such company together, judge you. As they come in at one door, Christ and all those holy spirits with him would run out at the other." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"There is no gospel preached in another world." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Part Second, Direction II - Second General Part |
"Yea, there be some that speak out, and tell us a man may be saved in any religion, so he doth but follow his light. And are not these charitable men? Because they would have the company as few as may be that are damned, [they] make as many roads to heaven as the Scripture tells us there are ways to hell?" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Truths in many professors' minds are not as stars fixed in the heaven, but like meteors that dance in the air. They are not as characters engraven in marble, but writ in the dust, which every wind and idle breath of seducers deface." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"There is a day when they who rob souls of truth shall be found, and condemned as greater felons than they who rob houses of gold and silver." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"O take heed that you, who will now hear anything, come not in the end that you will believe nothing." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"O take heed therefore of pride, which will soon make thee a stranger at the throne of grace. Pride takes little delight in begging." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"What we have from God, we cannot keep without God." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"God is light; thou art going into the dark, as soon as thou turnest thy back upon him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Some things we trust God with, some things God trusts us with. The great thing which we put into God's hand to be kept for us is our soul... That which God trusts us chiefly with is his truth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"He that maintains any error from the Word, bears false witness against God. He that for fear or shame deserts the truth, or dissembles his profession, denies God his testimony; and who can express what a bloody sin this is, and to what a high contempt of God it amounts?" The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Truth is not always to be had at the same price. Buy it we must at any, but sell it upon no terms." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Not every one that now applauds truth, will follow it when once it comes to show them the way to prison. Not every one that preacheth for it, or disputes for it, will suffer for it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Love goes ever armed with zeal; this is the dagger she draws against all the opposers of truth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"He that is not zealous doth not love." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"God is such an infinite perfection, that no hand can draw him forth to life but his own, and this he hath done exactly in his Word; from which all his saints have come to be enamoured with him." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"He that abandons the truth of God, renounceth the God of truth." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Hypocrisy is a lie with a fair cover over it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"An insincere heart is a half heart." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Indeed, had not God left some authority in conscience to awe and keep men, that have no grace, within some bounds of honesty, this world would have been no more habitable for the saints, than the forest of wild beasts is now for man. And such is the uprightness of men void of sanctifying grace. They are rather rid by an overpowering light of conscience that scares them, than sweetly led by an inward principle inclining them to take complacency in that which is good." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"For the good name's sake of Christ -- which cannot but be dearer to you, if saints, than your lives -- look to your walking, and especially your civil converse with the men of the world... They that will not follow the light of thy holiness, will soon spy the thief in thy candle, and point at it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"May be thou art honest and upright in thy course, and scornest to be found false in any of thy dealings. Bless God for it; but take heed of blessing thyself in it." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Truly that is the godly sincere soul, which looks up to heaven and desires to be determined in his thoughts, judgment, affections, and practices, as they can stand before the light which shines from thence through the Word, the great luminary into which God hath gathered all light for guiding souls, as the sun in the firmament is for directing our bodies in their walking to and fro in the world." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"The will of God is standard to all our wills, and he is the sincere man that labours to take the rule and measure of all his affections and actions from that." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"He sure is rich that hath a key to God's treasury." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"It is the pearl of grace that is the pearl of great price." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |
"Of all sinners the hypocirte doth most mischief in this world, and therefore shall have most torment in the other." The Christian In Complete Armour, Vol I, Direction V |